Submarine

by Joe Dunthorne, c. 2008, Hamish Hamilton, 290 pages.

Fifteen year old Oliver Tate is a boy obsessed. He is equally obsessed with his parent’s failing marriage (and lack of sexual activity) and learning new words from the dictionary. Another obsession is losing his virginity—and soon. Though he finds himself entwined in a relationship with the eczematous and occasionally pyromaniacal Jordana, his precocious awkwardness eventually isolates him from her.

Oliver is at times callous and detached as he takes a clinical view of those around him. This makes him a tough character to like in those moments. Luckily there are more moments throughout the novel Submarine in which Oliver reveals the awkwardness and anxiety of adolescence allowing him to become relatable to readers. This is a very darkly funny novel.

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.

Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008), 384 pages
a book review also available on my LibraryThing profile

From technology activist, Creative Commons proponent and self-proclaimed geeky guy Cory Doctorow is Little Brother. This is a realistic sci-fi novel for young adults that is packed with action, techno-speak and a scary but optimistic look at a possible near future for American citizens.

Marcus Yallow, our narrator, and his friends are able to sneak out of school by tricking the gait-recognition system and other surveillance tools the schools and city officials have implemented-- including a frighteningly invasive public that uses their phones and the Internet to snitch on possible truant students.

Skipping school to participate in an ARG (alternate reality game), they are caught at the site of a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Marcus and his friends are held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at a secret prison. They are interrogated, terrified and treated like they are guilty. After this attack, paranoia, surveillance and distrust are amplified. California has become a police state. Marcus finds himself making choices that may endanger him, his friends and other citizens in his pursuit to take back the civil liberties and freedoms promised by the U.S. Constitution that the DHS has taken away.

This is a dystopian future, but not a future too far from now. It is easy to believe that all of these surveillance technologies are available today to those in power--and maybe they already are. Many of us- as Marcus points out- are guilty of not understanding the technologies all around us. We do not have them working for us.

At first I questioned how realistic this narrator is. Would a 17 year old boy be this advanced in computers, computer code writing and programming? And then I realized how old I am and more importantly, how dated my own experience with technology must be. Marcus is not so far-fetched. There are so many teens and young adults with these capabilities, experience and drive to tweak and hack and crack so many of the tools used on us and by us every day.

This book will be great for high school age and young adult readers and technology-literate and illiterate adults will enjoy it also. The book is jammed full of interesting ideas, questions and history. It could be very useful for discussions about privacy, terrorism and technology and surveillance and the role of a citizen in our democratic society.

The School for Dangerous Girls

Title: The School for Dangerous Girls
Author: Eliot Schrefer
Publication date: 2009
Number of pages: 341
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical setting: Colorado
Time period: 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot summary: Most of her life Angela has been labeled “hyper,” a “troublemaker” and other not very nice things. Her parents don’t like her boyfriend and after her behavior seems to have led to a terrible accident, she is now labeled a “criminal” and “dangerous.” She is shipped off to a last chance school, Hidden Oak where she and the other dangerous girls began to realize the reasons their new school is so isolated—and these secrets just may cost them their lives.

Subject headings: boarding schools, reform schools, troubled teen girls, authority figures, mother/daughter relationships

Appeal: strong-willed teen girls fight back and resist being labeled what society may decide they are; twist on the boarding school genre; suspenseful

If you liked The School for Dangerous Girls, you might enjoy: Alex McAulay’s Bad Girls, Rita Williams-Garcia’s Jumped, Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied

the first part last

Title: the first part last
Author: Angela Johnson
Publication Date: 2003
Number of Pages: 131
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: New York City, Brooklyn
Time Period: early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Bobby is enjoying his teenage life of friends, parties and his girlfriend, Nia. On his sixteenth birthday, Nia tells him that she is pregnant. Now everything is changing and Bobby has to grow up fast. Both their parents and the social worker try to convince the two teens that the only way they will have a normal life again is to give the baby up for adoption.

Subject Headings: teen parents, teen father, teen pregnancy, African-American

Appeal: ALA Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, Coretta Scott King Award Winner, the story unfolds by going back and forth between “then” and “now,” empowering story of young African-American male taking responsibility for his baby daughter, grandparents experience of helping to raise grandchild, teens making decisions about their reproductive options including adoption

If you liked the first part last, you might enjoy: Sharon G. Flake’s Who Am I Without Him? Sharon M. Draper’s November Blues.

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.

Seventeenth Summer

Title: Seventeenth Summer
Author: Maureen Daly
Publication date: 1942
Number of pages: 285
Genre: Young Adult fiction/romance

Geographical Setting: Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
Time Period: early 1940s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: After the summer, Angie Morrow is going off to college in Chicago. Her mother has never really allowed her to go out much but then Angie meets the handsome Jack Duluth. They start dating and the feelings of falling in love begin to stir in Angie for the first time. But she only has three months until college and along with the excitement of romance the tears of the end of her seventeenth summer may also come.

Subject Headings: romance, first love, summer, girl meets boy, the 1940s

Appeal: author credited with launching young adult literature, written when author was 2o and in college, young people’s experience in the 1940s, young woman’s life during the summer before college, Midwest experience in the 1940s, writing is diary-like, coming of age

If you liked Seventeenth Summer, you might enjoy:
Judy Blume’s Forever. Dandi Daly Mackall’s Eva Underground. Sarah Dessen’s Just Listen. Madeleine L’Engle’s And Both Were Young and Camilla.

Gossip Girl

Title: Gossip Girl #1: A Novel

Author: Cecily Von Ziegesar – Narrator: Gossip Girl

Publication date: 2002

Number of pages: 208

Genre: teen fiction
Geographical Setting: New York City
Time Period: 2000s

Series: yes, first in the Gossip Girl series

Plot Summary: The narrator remains anonymous as the reader wonders if she too is part of the privileged world of the NYC teens attending the prestigious private schools, partying and buying expensive designer clothes. Selena is surrounded by controversy as rumors fly about whether or not she is a sex fiend and a drug addict. Blair is bulimic and in love with Nate. But Nate has hooked up with her former best friend Selena. Dan is in love with Serena and his younger sister Jenny idolizes her. Rumors and gossip about boys, sex, parties and clothes fill this book.

Subject Headings: teens, private school, NYC, drinking, partying, drugs, eating disorders, gossip, rich kids, mean girls

Appeal: designer clothes, shopping, privileged lifestyles, website reveals more exploits of the characters, superficial/fluff reading, omnipresent narrator , TV series, sex without consequences

Similar Authors and Works (Fiction): Zoey Dean- The A-List Series. Melissa de la Cruz- The Au Pairs series.