Mockingjay

by Suzanne Collins. Scholastic Press (2010), hardcover, 400 pages, ISBN 978-054310604.

The Final Book of The Hunger Games trilogy. Katniss Everdeen is damaged but has survived the Hunger Games. Now she has made a bargain to be the star of the rebel propaganda campaign in exchange for a chance to exact her revenge on the Capitol by assassinating President Snow.

The final book is a heavy and emotional one. Post-traumatic stress disorder and the terrors of war have shaped many of the characters. The action is not always as intense as the previous books but in many ways, I found Mockingjay to be the most believable in the depiction of the characters and choices and actions.

Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro. Knopf (2005), Hardcover, 304 pages.

A quiet yet potent tale about three young people who are fated to brief lives because of their role in a society now free of disease. This story unfolds in an alternate version of the near past and much of it takes place in the remembrances of an idyllic (and disturbing) boarding school in a scenic English countryside. This novel is a heartbreak and the questions it leaves a reader with is why I highly recommended this book.

The Sweet Far Thing

by Libba Bray. Delacorte Press, c. 2007. Pbk. 819 pages. ISBN 978-0-440-23777-8

Final book of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. Gemma struggles with the pressures of preparing for her debut as a young woman in London society while she works to bring order to the growing chaos in the Realms. Alliances are tested and puzzling clues cause Gemma to question who and what to trust--including her own mind.

For those who wish the trilogy wouldn't end, this 800-page plus book may satisfy. Bray leaves it open-ended and it seems possible that she may someday re-visit Gemma Doyle.

WIll Grayson, Will Grayson

by John Green & David Levithan. New York: Dutton, c2010, 310 pages. ISBN 9780525421580


Two teens with the same name meet on a fateful night out in Chicago. One Will is straight and one Will is gay but both are major characters in the life and the autobiographical musical by (the quite large) Tiny Cooper.

The story is told by both Will Graysons in alternating chapters. This is a very touching and accurate portrait of the complexities and anxieties of being a teen. It is also a great, hilarious depiction of male teen friendships and falling in love.

tales of the MADMAN underground: an historical romance 1973

by John Barnes. New York: Viking. c. 2009. 532 pages.
ISBN 978-0-670-06081-8

Karl Shoemaker has decided to turn over a new leaf at the start of his senior year, 1973. He is going to be normal. The first step is to avoid therapy. Not so easy when your dad is dead, your mom is a drunk who steals your money (the money you make from working five jobs!), you're in AA and you and all of your friends are self-proclaimed "madmen."

Set in a small, depressed town in Ohio, Barnes' book spans six days in the life of Karl Shoemaker. Told in the first person, this book is so honest, sad and hilarious that teen readers will tear through these 500 plus pages.

2010 Printz Honor Book, 2010 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Liked it? Try Benjamin Alire Saenz's Last Night I Sang to the Monster: a novel, Julie Anne Peters' Between Mom and Jo, Jaye Murray's Bottled Up: a novel, Blake Nelson's Paranoid Park.

Looking for Alaska

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Publication Date: 2005
Number of Pages: 221
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Geographical Setting: boarding school in Alabama
Time period: mid 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Sixteen year old Miles “Pudge” Halter has left his uneventful life in Florida to attend Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. Immediately there is a promise of adventure as he makes friends with his prank-planning roommate, the Colonel, and the fascinating Alaska Young. Pudge falls for Alaska and is drawn into her world of danger, literature, sadness and self-destruction.

Subject Headings: boarding school, drunk driving, pranks, friendship

Appeal: Awarded the Michael L. Printz Award from the ALA. Death of a parent. Teens without parental supervision. Teen involvement with drinking, smoking, some drug use, sex. Famous last words play a prominent role. Battles between the have and have nots. Loyalty and friendship.

If you liked Looking for Alaska, you might enjoy: Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why. Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. Gregory Galloway’s As Simple as Snow.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants

Title: The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants

Author: Ann Brashares

Publication date: 2001

Number of pages: 376

Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: Washington DC/Maryland, Greece, Baja California, Charleston, SC

Time Period: early 2000s

Series: yes, first of the series

Plot Summary: Four teen girls are all very different from one another. If their mothers had not taken aerobic classes together when they were pregnant, they probably wouldn’t be the best friends they are today. They are about to face their first summer apart from one another. They plan to write letters but most importantly to share the Pants. Carmen didn’t think much about this pair of cheap thrift store jeans she bought until she and each of her friends tried them on. “Magically,” they fit each of their very different body types beautifully. They make their pact to share the jeans equally all summer and to share the experiences they have wearing them. The beautiful Lena travels to Greece to spend the summer with her grandparents. Athletic Bridget is off to an elite soccer camp in Baja California. Hot-headed Carmen, whose parents are divorced, is visiting her dad in South Carolina and rebellious Tibby is staying home to work for minimum wage at Wallman’s and film her documentary.

Subject Headings: friendship, best friends, teen girls, first love, travel, cancer, childhood leukemia, divorce, coming of age, summer

Appeal: best friends coming of age together and through separate experiences, successful film adaptation in 2005, divorced parents, remarriage of parents and new stepfamily, characters display different “types” of teen girls for a wide range of readers to relate to—the misunderstood beauty, the jock, the artsy girl, the bi-racial teen of divorced parents with a Puerto Rican mother and father starting a new “All-American” family, first sexual experiences touched on but are not explicit, death of a young girl from leukemia, death of a parent by suicide

If you liked The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, you might enjoy: Susan McBride’s The Debs. Caroline B. Cooney’s Family Reunion. Rebecca Wells’ The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. More for male readers, Randy Powell’s Three Clams and an Oyster.

The Outsiders

Title: The Outsiders
Author: S.E. Hinton
Publication date: 1967
Number of pages: 192
Genre: teen fiction

Geographical Setting: Oklahoma City

Time Period: late 1960s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Recently orphaned Pony Boy Curtis is 14 years old and growing up on the East Side of town with his brothers and friends. They are in the poor class known as the Greasers and are very different from the other kids from the wealthy West Side who are known as Socs (short for Socials). One terrible night changes Pony Boy and his best friend Johnnys’ lives forever. Now Pony Boy questions everything about his life as a Greaser and his place in a world amongst other people like the Socs.

Subject Headings: friendship, loyalty, cliques, orphans, poverty, outsiders, gangs, 1960s

Appeal: author wrote novel when she was 16, coming of age, gang rivalries, violence and abuse in families, young adult heroes, older brother as head of household, have and havenots, ALA’s top 100 “Frequently Challenged Books,” film version from 1983

If you liked The Outsiders, you might enjoy: other S.E. Hinton novels like Tex, Rumble Fish, That Was Then, This is Now. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Walter Dean Myers’ The Scorpions.