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.

The Secret Fiend: The Boy Sherlock, His Fourth Case

by Shane Peacock. Tundra Books: 2010, 244 pages. ISBN 978-0887768538

Fourth book in an award-winning series for children and teens, The Secret Fiend finds a young Sherlock Holmes trying to not get involved in a case involving a young female admirer. This case revolves around attacks by a believed-to-be-fictional Spring Heeled Jack while paranoia and disorder begin to envelope the country as the Jewish Benjamin Disraeli becomes Prime Minister.

Full of historical detail and clues leading to wrong turns, this book will excite young and adult readers. Familiarity with the previous books is not necessary to enjoy The Secret Fiend, but many readers will no doubt seek out the others after finishing this tale.

When You Reach Me

by Rebecca Stead. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, c.2009. 199 pages. ISBN 9780385737425

Twelve-year-old New Yorker Miranda is being sent notes that seem to predict the future. Who are they from and does this mean time travel is possible? The mystery unfolds all the while Miranda loses and gains friendships and helps her mother prepare for her appearance on a TV game show.

2010 Newbery Medal Winner, Junior Library Guild Selection

Butterfly

by Sonya Hartnett. Candlewick, c. 2010. 240 pages. ISBN 978-0763647605.

From LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers

Plum is awkward and uncomfortable in her body as she is poised unsteadily between being a child and becoming a woman. Her place in the hierarchy of her friends is precarious and her loneliness apparent to her housewife neighbor, Maureen. Convincing Plum to reinvent herself, Maureen becomes a friend and confidante but with motives Plum cannot readily see.

In the UK this book has been marketed as Hartnett’s first adult novel while in the US, it has been labeled young adult. While some LibraryThing Early Reviewers do not seem to agree that this is a YA book, I feel it is a shame they do not give teens more credit in their reading tastes, capabilities and experiences. Butterfly may be enjoyed by teen readers as well as adults--especially those women who can still remember those sharp pains of fear and loneliness during adolescence. Hartnett’s lyrical style of writing is clever at times but also often distracting. I am disappointed in the US choice in covers as it seems to be an unimaginative choice along with the title. For a writer whose prose is almost poetical, "Butterfly" is a bit of a letdown as title.

Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Ebba Segerberg. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, c. 2007. 472 pages. ISBN 9780312355296

{First published in Sweden under the title Låt den rätte komma in by Ordfront and first published in the United States under the title Let Me In.}

Oskar at twelve years old is overweight and the main target for cruel bullies at school. Lonely, he finds comfort in the sweets he shoplifts and his scrapbook of articles on murderers and serial killers. Soon Oskar has articles to add about a local boy murdered, a murder described as "ritualistic." Around the same time, new neighbors move in, a young girl and her father. Oskar finds himself intrigued by the girl, Eli, and they begin to meet, but only at night.

The story takes place in a Swedish suburb and over several weeks in 1981. This book is violent and disturbing and I highly recommend it. If you want to read about vampires that actually do the things that make vampires scary, read this. It is also a sad and moving mystery. The film adaptation is also worth viewing even if you do not want to read the book.

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.

The Eyeball Collector

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2009. 251 pages.

Hector Fitzbaudly gets his wish to experience the seedier side of Urbs Umida when his father is blackmailed with a secret form his past. Finding himself penniless and homeless, Hector realizes this is not the life he wants and he decides to seek revenge. Unfortunately, the Eyeball Collector is a master of disguise! This book is called a “polyquel” by the author, as it contains elements from both The Black Book of Secrets and The Bone Magician as well as its own mysteries.

The Bone Magician

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2008. 273 pages.

Pin Carpue is orphaned in the in the crime-ridden city of Urbs Umida after his father runs off, accused of being a murderer. Pin finds work as a corpse watcher, ensuring that the dead are truly dead before they are buried. Eventually Pin ends up living in the same boarding house as a bone magician and his assistant—who seem to be able to raise the dead! This book is dubbed as “paraquel” by the author—the story occurs at the same as the tale in The Black Book of Secrets.

The Black Book of Secrets

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2007. 273 pages.

Ludlow Fitch is running away from his past (and some tooth-thieving parents!). He finds himself in a remote village where he becomes the assistant to a mysterious pawnbroker, Joe Zabbidou. This pawnbroker specializes in people’s secrets and Ludlow is charged with transcribing them in the Black Book of Secrets. Lucky for Ludlow and Joe, this village is full of people with dark and dangerous secrets to pawn. For fans of historically-based fiction and notably that of late 1800s in England with its many gruesome details of teeth pulling (and selling) and grave robbing.

end of summer semester...

In the past couple of weeks I have completed the summer semester and moved. I have not been able to get as much reading done as I would like but I have read a couple of books. Below I give some brief intros to two young adult books.

Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson (2009, 224 pages, hardcover)

Diatribe by a teen boy on the wastefulness of American consumer culture mixed with the angst of first love and its loss. This book is a fun and quick read for male readers especially reluctant readers and any teens into environmentalism or with leanings to activism. It is in diary/manifesto-style and interspersed with the protagonist’s AP English essays.

Tags: environmentalism, Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon, books for boys, consumerism, suburbia, first love, first person.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson (2006, 368 pages, hardcover)

Historical fiction of Revolutionary America mainly told from the diary of Octavian, a black youth raised in Boston and given a classical education. Octavian is a research subject studied by the radical philosophers of the The Novanglian College of Lucidity. As he matures and uses the observational skills he has been taught, he begins to decipher his purpose within the College and in America as a man’s property. This book is not for the causal teen reader. The historical nature of the language may take some readers more than a few chapters to acclimate to however, the reader is greatly rewarded with a moving and exciting tale. Winner of the National Book Award and Michael L. Printz Honor Book.

Tags: historical fiction, slavery, American Revolution, diary, African American, survival

Copper Sun

Title: Copper Sun

Author: Sharon Draper
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 302
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Ashanti village in Africa, Cape Coast, Carolinas (America)
Time Period: 1738 (Colonial America)
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Fifteen year old Amari watches as her parents and younger brother are murdered by the men who take her away to her fate to travel the Middle Passage to be auctioned on the American shores. Amari is purchased as a gift for a rice plantation owner’s son on his 16^th birthday. Newly-purchased indentured servant, Polly, becomes an unlikely friend as they both learn to survive their new fates.

Subject Headings: slavery, rape, racism, African American, historical fiction, Middle Passage, murder, Colonial America, plantations

Appeal: narrative switches focus back and forth from Amari to Polly, author did extensive research for this book, Little-known Florida’s Fort Mose sanctuary for runaway slaves is introduced, the incidents of rape, violence and murder may be too graphic and emotional for readers under 12.

If you like Copper Sun, you might enjoy: Octavia Butler's Kindred, Yuval Taylor's Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves Told By Themselves, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh's White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America

Before We Were Free

Title: Before We Were Free
Author: Julia Alvarez
Publication date: 2002
Number of pages: 163
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Dominican Republic & New York City
Time Period: 1960-61
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Twelve year old Anita lives in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Trujillo, El Jefe. The secret police begin terrorizing and interrogating her family as her uncle and father are suspected of planning the assassination of Trujillo. Instead of school work, friends and first love, Anita must learn to survive and escape the only life and country she has ever known.

Subject Headings: dictatorship, military dictatorship, oppression, revolution, assassination, ajustaciemento (“bringing to justice”), secret police, survival

Appeal: author’s first young adult novel, inspired by historical events and author’s own family, story told by twelve year old narrator and includes diary entries, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, portrait of Latin American country under dictatorship and the lives of “ordinary” people and children, taking up of arms in order to be free and the dilemma between murder and ajustaciemento.

If you like Before We Were Free, you might enjoy: John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began, Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, An Na’s A Step from Heaven.

A Northern Light

Title: A Northern Light
Author: Jennifer Donnelly- Narrator: Mattie Gokey
Publication date: 2003
Number of pages: 396
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Adirondack Mountains (New York State), North Woods
Time Period: 1906
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: A talented and budding writer, Mattie Gokey has promised her dying mother that she will always take care of her father and younger siblings on the failing family farm. This entails her missing school often and possibly giving up her dreams of moving to New York City and studying to be a writer. She has the chance to save up money for her enrollment at Barnard College when she gets a summer job at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. Here she enjoys freedoms to live the life of a young woman but feels the pull from her family responsibilities and her new romance with the handsome Royal Loomis. Royal is not interested in her books and words but he has awakened feelings in Mattie which she has never experienced. When the body of hotel guest Grace Brown is found in the lake and her male companion missing, Mattie discovers the truth about Grace’s life and death in the letters she left with her.

Subject Headings: young adult, Adirondack Mountains, abortion, murder, first love, farm life, young motherhood, feminism, poverty, racism, family

Appeal: Named a Printz Honor Book by the ALA, author’s first young adult novel, historical details, struggle/suffering, hopeful

Similar Authors and Works (Fiction): Theodore Dreiser- An American Tragedy, novel was inspired by the Chester Gillette murder case.

Similar Authors and Works (Nonfiction): Grace Brown- Grace Brown’s Love Letters, the victim’s letters to her murderer (currently out of print).