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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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Will and the other 6 teens who were cured of their debilitating phobias in Patrick Carman’s Dark Eden have been reunited in the sequel, Dark Eden 2: Eve of Destruction.  Will and Marisa convince Ben, Kate, Alex, and Connor, who are all now suffering from “elderly” ailments like arthritis, dementia, and hearing loss, to join them in a trip back to Fort Eden after Will receives a letter from the hated Mrs. Goring.  Ostensibly offering them a new “cure”, this time for the problems ravaging their bodies, Mrs. Goring convinces the teens to descend into an abandoned missile silo below Fort Eden in search ofRead 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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Jake and Lily are twins.  Sure, they are a little different – Lily’s got a temper, Jake’s always calm – but in many ways, they feel like two halves of the same person.  When one of them is in trouble or in pain, the other one just knows it; they can communicate without words; it’s a secret “power” they call the goombla and sharing it means everything. But the summer they turn 11, things change.  Their parents decide it’s time for them to have separate rooms.  Jake starts hanging out with a group of guys from down the street, and Lily, well, Lily feels lostRead More →

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Tackling some of the same powerful questions he did in his stunning debut You, Charles Benoit’s latest for young adults is Fall From Grace. High school senior Sawyer’s life is already neatly planned out for him: finish his above average high school career, packed with all the right extra-curriculars and volunteer work, go to the local liberal arts college and major in accounting for a career as an insurance actuary, and after college marry his beautiful, perfect high school sweetheart.  And until the day at the Mock United Nations assembly when he meets Grace, Sawyer has never bothered to question the plans his parents soRead 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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Everyone has secrets. Some are small and innocuous “I am going to surprise my friend with a special lunch”  but others carry much more weight “I am betraying my best friend in a terrible way.”  We carry these secrets, large and small, light and heavy, around with us every day. But when the burden of these secrets, hopes, and fears becomes to much, we have to find ways to lighten the load.  In the woods behind 10 year old Minty Mortimer’s house, there’s a big old oak tree with a gaping hole in the center, and as she discovers one summer afternoon, it’s the tree where peopleRead More →

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We’ve got some goodies to celebrate the 100th Fan milestone on Facebook – will you be the lucky one to receive this care package in the mail? And who knows, even if you’re not #100, we may have a little something just for #101 or #102… Step 1: Like us on Facebook (Use the Like Button on our right sidebar, or click here) Step 2: Come back to this post and leave us a comment about how you found out about us. Good Luck and Thanks!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 →