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Readers of Carl Deuker’s sports stories will likely enjoy T. Glen Coughlin’s latest book.  One Shot Away: A Wrestling Story follows the narratives of three wrestlers in Molly Pitcher, New Jersey, during their senior year: Jimmy O’Shea, Diggy Masters, and Trevor Crow. Although not the typical wrestler’s build at 6’2”, Jimmy is ranked best 160 pounder in the county and slated for the Wall of Champions if he can avoid the distraction of his dad’s dastardly deeds.  Mr. O’Shea’s PhD in post hole digging, predilection for thievery, and passion for alcohol threaten to jeopardize Jimmy’s goals. At 152 pounds, Diggy is living in the shadowRead More →

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The Right and the Real by Joëlle Anthony contains the typical adolescent girl themes: romance, friendship, and finding one’s own voice or identity, but it transcends those themes to explore the impact of poverty, addictive personalities, and religious organizations that border on cultish behavior.  Seventeen-year-old, Jamie Lexington-Cross fears being sent back to her drug addicted mom when her alcoholic dad stops attending therapy and trades one addiction for another, the Right and the Real church. Brainwashed by the petite Mira whom he takes as his bride and by the loud and certain preacher who considers himself Jesus, Robert Lexington-Cross evicts his pragmatic daughter from theirRead More →

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Set on an island near both Thailandand Cambodiain 1974 during the Vietnam War, Lost Girls by Ann Kelley is Lord of the Flies on estrogen.  Although Kelley borrows heavily from William Golding’s tale—down to wild boars and broken glasses—she doesn’t perform the rich psychological study of her predecessor.  Still, in fourteen-year-old protagonist Bonnie MacDonald, readers note traits of both Piggy and Ralph, and in Hope, we see a blending of Piggy and Simon.  The twenty-something redhead Layla Campbell and her cohorts, the Glossies, reflect Jack and his minions. Bonnie’s family is from Scotland, transplanted in southeast Asia by the war.  Members of the Amelia EarhartRead More →

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Readers who enjoyed King of the Screwups by K.L. Going (Harcourt, 2009) will find a similar theme and characters in Kody Keplinger’s A Midsummer’s Nightmare, which features a female protagonist.  On her first night in Hamilton, Kentucky, recent Indiana high school graduate Whitley Johnson argues fashion choices with fashionista, Harrison Carlyle, who offers to be her best friend, but Whitley doesn’t “do” friends.  In her experience “friends turn on you, abandon you, and lie about you” (61).  Because Whitley sees friends as a waste of time, selfish and fake, she decides she’s better off being a loner, with tequila as a best friend to makeRead More →

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 Michelle Gagnon’s first novel for young adults, Don’t Turn Around is unquestionably a thriller, certain to resonate with social activist readers and those who know the power of computers to perform invasive functions.  With echoes of the hacktivism but not the dystopian angle from Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Gagnon takes on shady big business, the issue of government cover-ups, and the very real plight of children in the foster care system. Gagnon tells her story primarily through the parallel threads of two adolescent lives whose paths cross and eerily connect.  Sixteen-year-old Noa Torson, who lost her parents when she was just an infant, spent severalRead More →

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New York City resident Sarah Beth (Sethie) Weiss is seventeen years old and obsessed with food and fat.  From Sethie’s perspective, lanky Janey won the genetic lottery and Sethie lost; even her 49 year old mother Rebecca looks better in a bathing suit.  Sethie’s two favorite words, svelte and lithe, are etched on her bedroom mirror, along with the mantras: Don’t Eat and Bones Are Beautiful.  5’4 Sethie weighs 111 pounds but she still sees fat on her boney frame.  Rules and definitions, order and control, rituals and routines govern Sethie’s life, unlike best friend Janey and almost boyfriend Shaw, who stroll through life unhurried.Read More →

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The notion of a “bleached” culture or absence of culture among white people looms large, and young adult authors are working to dispel that belief as they explore the diversity of what it means to be white. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s book Faith, Hope, and Ivy June (Delacorte, 2009) and now Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank are appropriate for performing some myth-busting as well as providing a door for cultural discussions with a focus on diverse lifestyles, especially those conditions imposed by class differences and geographical circumstances. Set in 1954 in the mountains of West Virginia, Shank’s book features eleven-year-old Lydia Hawkins whoRead More →

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Yesterday by author C.K. Kelly Martin is a dystopian book flavored with time travel, Orwellian, and other futuristic Brave New World elements like genetic and mind engineering. Although the novel features detailsreminiscent of Feed by M.T. Anderson and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, it offers neither the plot sophistication nor the thematic richness. In fact, the novel’s lengthy exposition spans several chapters before it escalates into action that holds the reader’s attention. The plot revolves around two sixteen year old designer babies, Freya Kallas and Garren Lowe, who look like Greek statues with classical, sculptured beauty. When a Toxo outbreak threatens humanity’s mass extinction, the two teens—whose parents have powerful jobs inRead More →

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The Temptation by Alisa Valdes doesn’t feature the vampires or werewolves of a Maggie Stiefvater or Stephanie Meyer novel, but the character list does include shape shifters and a ridiculously handsome, courageous, and devoted male protagonist.  The plot also revolves around a paranormal romance with sequels to follow. This first installment of the trilogy—a magical and mystical romance set in Albuquerque, New Mexico—tracks the story of sixteen year old Shane Clark and her love interest, Travis Hartwell, a revenant who alternates between human and ghost forms.  Shane drives a fancy car, attends a fancy school, owns a fancy dog, and listens to fancy music untilRead More →