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In: Multicultural (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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In Skunk Girl, 11th grader Nina Khan feels trapped between 2 cultures: middle America and her Pakistani-Muslim heritage. She’s got all the usual high school troubles: cliques, friends starting to drift apart because of interests in boys, academic pressures, body/self esteem issues, and a crush on a really hot guy; and if that weren’t hard enough, she’s got the expectations left at school from her “supernerd” older sister, restrictions on who she can hang out with, traditional/conservative parents, andof course being the only Asian student in the school.  Nina feels bound and constrained by her parents’ traditional values, unsure about her own feelings, and reluctantRead More →

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A.E. Cannon’s The Loser’s Guide to Life and Love is a light-hearted romantic comedy of errors that is as breezy and easy as a warm summer night. Well-meaning, if somewhat relationship-challenged Ed has a summer job at Reel Life Movies where he works with his best friend, Scout.  Scout’s the kind of girl guys like to hang out with: she plays sports, love cheeseburgers, and has a great sense of humor.  Quark is Ed’s other best friend, a shy, but gorgeous, guy who’s intellectually way ahead of everyone. And Ellie, a beautiful girl from out of town, who breezes into the video store and catches Ed’s eye right away.  Read More →

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In: Arizona Authors, Middle Grade Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews
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Just finished reading, and loving, the advance reading copy of Fat Cat, the second novel by Arizona’s Robin Brande. (due from Random House in Oct ’09) Catherine (Cat) is a smart, wise-cracking, funny high school junior who is trapped in a fat suit. She wishes there was a way to unzip the suit and start living her real life; but instead she’s trapped in a body that keeps her from being the person she longs to be.  Start of junior year and she’s in for a tough year:  lots of AP classes, no real social life to speak of (except her awesome best friend Amanda),Read More →

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Jill Wolfson’s latest novel, Cold Hands, Warm Heart, tells the story of how organ donation affects the donor’s family,the recipients, and the many others involved in this amazing, but too-little-utilized life giving gift. Wolfson creates a compelling and touching story by focusing on the experiences and families of 2 teenage girls: Dani, who was born with a malfunctioning heart and has spent her entire life in and out of hospital, facing surgery after surgery, just wishing for a normal life; and Amanda, a competitive gymnast whose life is unexpectedly cut short and whose  family chooses to donate her organs after she is declared brain-dead.  Amanda’s storyRead More →

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Liam is the popular, charismatic, drop-dead gorgeous son of a former supermodel and high powered CEO.  He’s got great fashion sense, developed over years with his mom on the high fashion circuit; a knack for connecting with people; and an engaging personality.  The trouble is he has no qualities his controlling, reserved, angry father respects.  And to make things worse, Liam continuously makes poor judgment calls that draw his father’s ire.  After the final straw (caught drunk on his father’s desk with a nearly naked party date), Liam is kicked out of the house the week before his senior year. He can’t go live withRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Supernatural & Horror, Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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“Vampires are meant to be glamorous and powerful, but I’m here to inform you that being a vampire is nothing like that. Not one bit. On the contrary, it’s like being stuck indoors with the flu watching daytime television, forever and ever.  If being a vampire were easy, there wouldn’t be a Reformed Vampire Support Group.  …God I’m sick of it.” And so we meet Nina; a fifty-one year old vampire who’s had a chip on her shoulder since she was infected at the age of 15.  Tired of a listless, sickly  life stuck in her mother’s house, Nina writes a vampire adventure series with aRead More →

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In: Random Thoughts and Musings, This is interesting, Young Adult Book Reviews
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I just finished my second read of John Barnes’ hilarious, gritty novel, tales of the MADMAN underground (it was too good to read only once!).  Barnes does a brilliant job of capturing the voices, struggles, insecurities and angst of his teen characters.  He creates a time  and place in life that adults can remember wading through and that teens find themselves in every day. One method by which Barnes authenticates his characters’ reality is through language, and here I mean profanity.  tales of the MADMAN underground is rife with swear words. At some points, Karl “weaves a tapestry of profanity” that brought tears to my eyes (from laughter). Read More →

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In: Historical Fiction (YA), On the Edge, Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Wednesday, September 5, 1973 is the first day of  Karl Shoemaker’s senior year of high school, and the first day of “Operation Be F-ing Normal.”  In John Barnes’ first novel for young readers, tales of the MADMAN underground, we’re on a sometimes painful, often hilarious, uncensored journey through the first six days of Karl’s senior year as he tries to change his life by just being “normal, normal, normal.”  In a small Ohio town, Karl’s been part of a therapy group at school dubbed “the Madmen” for years, and he’s decided that he wants out. He wants a normal life, but the question is, can he achieve it? His dad’sRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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In the first book in the new Frontier Magic trilogy, fantasy writer Patricia C.  Wredeintroduces Eff, the 13th child of a large magical family.  Wrede imagines an alternate history of world, where magic and magical creatures co-exist seemlessly with history as we know it. Eff’s twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son; in their magical world he is a rare, special, gifted and powerful person.  Being the 13th child is as powerful, but in the most negative way possible. Seen as a witch, a purveyor of bad luck and misfortune, Eff is shunned and blamed as much (or more) than LanRead More →