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Getting out from under the intense weight on my chest after reading Matthew Quick‘s Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock has taken some time.  I felt pulled down into a deep, dark hole, all alone with only my thoughts about the futility of life, the lack of care or concern for myself or others, and a resigned sense of defeat in the face of an untenable future.  The slope down into Leonard’s depression is slippery and quick and getting back out isn’t easy work.  Which is the long way of saying that in Leonard Peacock Quick has expertly captured and painfully portrayed depression, anger, and isolation atRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Early on in James Dashner‘s newest The Eye of the Minds, I jotted down: “Matrix“;  then a little later, “The Maze Runner,” and finally “The Truman Show.”  Dashner combines these and more pop culture influences in an imaginative, if not a wholly original, way to create a world within a world full of shadows, illusions, and shifting realities. VirtNet is an all-immersive virtual reality game.  After physically connecting to the interface, a player climbs into a “coffin,” the gateway into the VirtNet that induces a sleeplike state that keeps the player in suspended animation while inside the game.  Everything about Virtnet is programmed to beRead More →

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Ok, I am so glad to be a vegetarian.  All those terrible things that I could imagine happening at massive feedlots, huge industrial slaughterhouses, and behind the guise of corporate “farming”, happen in Paolo Bacigalupi’s nightmarish comedy Zombie Baseball Beatdown.  Milrow Meat Solutions processes enough beef to feed people in seven states, which means acres and acres of cows packed into feedlots in filth and excrement up to their bellies, a plant the size of a small city that employs vast quantities of undocumented workers who, for 24 hours a day, race to process thousands upon thousands of cuts of beef, and a research andRead More →

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9 year old twins Bick and Beck have lived almost their whole lives at sea.  Along with their older sister Storm and big brother Tailspin Tommy, Bick & Beck and their parents sail around the world hunting for lost treasure, digging up archaeological curiosities, and living a life of adventure.  Homeschooled on the boat to “survive in the real world – without iPods, iPhones, iPads or Papa John’s Pizza” (23) the Kidd kids can cook, man a sixty three foot sailing ship on their own, navigate by the stars and survive marauding pirates, shark attacks, and unscrupulous adults chasing them from one treasure trove toRead More →

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In Rich Wallace‘s Wicked Cruel, three stories take place in a small New England town that’s full of cemeteries from Colonial times,  old roads that wind through the woods and end nowhere, and more than one strange old character.  Urban legends that spring from stories told and retold, always based on a “reliable source”, these stories are a little crazy, a little scary, and just believable enough to grab ahold and drag you in. When sixth grader Jordan is watching a video online he catches a glimpse of a kid in the crowd who used to attend elementary school with him. Crazy thing is, LorneRead More →

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“A long time ago in  galaxy far, far away… there was a boy named Roman Novachez … who was destined to attend Pilot Academy Middle School and become the GREATEST Star pilot in the GALAXY. Until everything went TOTALLY and COMPLETELY WRONG…” (1)  And so begins a funny trip across the galaxy from Tatooine to Corsucant with a kid who feels  unprepared for the adventure that is middle school. Roman has been looking forward to following in his big brother’s footsteps and attending the galaxy’s renowned Pilot Academy Middle School where he can train to be a star fighter pilot.  But instead of being acceptedRead More →

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In: Arizona Authors, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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How do you become a man when you don’t have a man in your life?  What does it mean if your father left you and your mom?  Or worse, was never in your life to begin with?  In Dead Ends, the second book by Arizona author Erin Jade Lange,  the question of fathers and the legacies they leave to their children unites unlikely friends on a journey of discovery, healing, and transformation. In his high school, there are the “haves” and the “have-nots”, and Dane Washington is a “have not”.  What Dane does have, however, is a fierce temper and the power to back itRead More →

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In: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Realistic Fiction
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Being the outsider looking in is painful.  From run-of-the-mill social awkwardness, to being the new kid in school, to being from a culture/background that is misunderstood and feared, the outsider is the lonely one among us.  Funny thing is, at any given point in time, everyone is the outsider yearning for acceptance, friendship, and understanding. Seventh grader Lewis Blake has had it with being an outsider.  But his quest to fit in to his mostly white middle school is an uphill battle:  being an Indian, he will have to do more than just cut off his braid and cut back on his sarcasm to breakRead More →

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Whoa – I was knocked back by David Massey‘s debut, Torn. Based on simply the slightly cheesy tease on the cover (“An American Soldier. A British Medic. Afghanistan. Can their love survive a War?”), I wasn’t sure what to expect from the book, but within the first few pages I was so captivated, horrified, and walloped by this powerful story that I stayed glued in my chair until I finished the book.  At a swiftly-paced 274 pages, the time flew and before I knew it I was breathlessly coming up for air and looking at war in a whole new way. And then the very nextRead More →