Teen Tuesday

Skin by Donna Jo Napoli (Skyscape hardcover, 6 August 2013).

Sixteen-year-old Giuseppina (Sep) wakes up on the first day of school and is startled when she looks in the mirror to see that her lips are completely white.  She can't get an appointment with her doctor until Thursday afternoon, so she has to wait three whole days.  

Her mother suggests she wear lipstick until then, which her friends notice, because she never wears makeup.  Still it's better than having them see her lips as they really are.  She manages to forget about it during the interesting classes like biology, but she runs to the bathroom after class to make sure the lipstick hasn't worn off.  In boring English class, all she can think about is her lips. 

Then, at lunch, football jock Joshua Winer says he hopes to see her at the party on Saturday, and she's shocked.  She was good friends with him back in fifth grade, but since then he became one of the popular crowd and she didn't.

Dr. Ratner doesn't know what could be affecting her, but he takes a bunch of blood tests and suggests a number of possibilities.  Although he assures her that whatever it is, it's not fatal, she doesn't like the look in his eyes and begins to imagine all kinds of serious illnesses.She eventually decides to begin a relationship with Joshua before she turns into a freak.

Having gone through something similar when I was sixteen, I empathized with Sep's situation.  Her social reactions, such as withdrawing from her friends and isolating herself are credible, as are her emotional ones like depression and irritability.

Sep's acceptance of her illness, which turns out to be vitiligo, happens rather quickly, but that can be attributed to her supportive and understanding family and friends.

Since Napoli usually writes fantasy, I was expecting the cause of Sep's "condition" to be magical, but it wasn't until I finished the book (in one afternoon!) that I recalled this, so obviously it wasn't an issue once I got into the story. 


FTC Full Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from my local library.

Teen Tuesday

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin's Griffin hardcover, 10 September 2013).

Twins Cather and Wren (their mother didn't want to think of two names) have always been close, but different sides of the coin.  Wren is outgoing and eager for new experiences, while Cath is quieter and dislikes change. 

Leaving the home they've lived in all their lives to go to college is a pretty big change.  Cath is hoping to minimize the change by rooming with her sister (they've done it for eighteen years, why stop now?), but Wren disagrees.  And, as usual, she gets her way. 

Living in different buildings, they don't see each other much once term begins.  Wren and her roommate Courtney dive into college social life, especially the partying aspect.  When Cath isn't in class, she stays in her room, working on the fanfiction she's become known for (as Magicath), and studying.  Afraid to search for the dining hall, she survives on protein bars, worrying that her father isn't eating or sleeping well without his daughters (their mother left when they were very young) to take care of him.

The characters in this story are fantastic.  Even the minor players have substance.  The behavior and dialogue of teens on their own for the first time rings true.  The excerpts from The Simon Snow series (the basis of the fanfic), and Cath's slash fiction provide stories within the story and are well-written enough to make this reader wish they were real.

Whatever I was expecting when I began reading this book, it certainly wasn't to become so completely drawn into the story that I stayed up too late finishing it.  Read it!



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to Edelweiss and St. Martin's Griffin  for the e-galley.

Teen Tuesday

Just Like Fate by Cat Patrick and Suzanne Young (Simon Pulse hardcover, 27 August 2013).


If you've seen the movie Sliding Doors, you know the main concept of this book. 

At the age of twelve, protagonist Caroline Cabot moved in with her grandmother when her parents went through an ugly divorce.  Five years later, she's in math class, when she's summoned to the principal's office, where he informs her that Gram is in the hospital.

Rushing to the hospital, where she meets her mother and sister, she learns that Gram had a stroke, and that the cancer they thought had been driven away with chemotherapy has spread throughout her body.  She's not expected to live much longer, and is being transferred to hospice.

Caroline visits after school every day, begrudging the time she's forced to spend pretending to learn things.  One Friday night, her best friend Simone suggests that they go to a party. Caroline is torn: she loves Gram more than anyone else in the world and needs to be with her, but she also feels the need to get away from the anguish and be a regular high school girl for a while.

We are offered both scenarios:  in one thread, Caroline goes to the party with Simone for a few hours and in the other, she stays at her grandmother's side. 

The two stories are told in alternating chapters, which requires some flexibility on the part of the reader, but  it doesn't take long to get into the rhythm.

Both stories, though completely different, are filled with heartbreak and family drama.  I stayed up very late to find out how the stories developed and which one really happened.  I was surprised.



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to Edelweiss and Simon Pulse  for the e-galley.

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French Kiss

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French KissSli

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French Kiss

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French Kiss

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French Kiss

Sliding Doors meets Anna and the French Kiss

Teen Tuesday

Golden by Jessi Kirby (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover, 14 May 2013.)

Good girl Parker Frost sometimes wishes she could do something improper.  Not something bad, but rather rebellious and unexpected. She's always done everything she could to make her mother proud:  worked hard, excelled in school and made valedictorian.  She's even one of the finalists for a scholarship to the university of her choice.  

But before she graduates from high school, Parker wants to -- just once -- break the rules.  

A perfect opportunity falls in her lap when, as part of her TA assignment for English teacher Mr. Kinney, she stumbles across the journal of Julianna Farnetti.  Ten years earlier, Julianna and her boyfriend Shane Cruz were the "golden couple" of Summit Lakes High, but on the night of their graduation,  Shane's jeep slides off a mountain road.  Neither of their bodies were found, but the water was so icy cold that their deaths were almost a foregone conclusion.

Parker begins to read Julianna's journal, and discovers some major secrets.  Julianna had a relationship with an older guy, an artist who encouraged Julianna's own artistic aspirations.  Learning how Julianna's hesitation to defy expectations was the cause of a real tragedy spurs Parker to push the envelope.  

With the help of Trevor, whom she's had a crush on forever, and her best friend Kat, Parker follows up on some clues in Julianna's journal to find out who the older man might be, and what really happened to Julianna and Shane.

Not just a coming-of-age novel, this unputdownable book is a story about relationships between friends, girls and guys, and teens and parents, as well as a satisfying mystery.



FTC Full Disclosure:  My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for the e-galley.

 

Teen Tuesday

Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols (MTV Books, 16 July 2013).

Bailey Mayfield grew up playing bluegrass music all over the southern States, along with her younger sister Julie.  At sixteen, Julie got a recording contract.  By herself.  Without Bailey.

Because Bailey handled the news badly, her parents sent her to spend the summer with her grandfather, while they toured with Julie.  They even made her use her mother's maiden name:  Wright.  Bailey's not supposed to perform because she might "mess things up" for her sister, but her grandfather got her a job playing the fiddle for a company that provided musical impersonators for various events.

After a few days of playing the fiddle in cheesy costumes with "Elvis" and "Dolly", she's assigned to play with a Johnny Cash impersonator, Darren Hardiman and his son, Sam.  Not only is Sam incredibly gorgeous, he's an amazing guitarist and singer.  After their gig, he asks Bailey if she wants to play a gig with his band at a bar that night,  but when she asks her grandfather, he immediately refuses.

But Sam won't take "no" for an answer, and shows up on the doorstep telling Mr. Wright that he wants to take Bailey out on a date.  Bailey's grandfather is so charmed by Sam that he agrees, and they sneak Bailey's fiddle out with them.

Bailey fits in great with the band, musically, anyway.  Charlotte, the drummer, who went to high school with Sam is jealous of her, and the bass player, Ace, dislikes her because Charlotte does. 

Bailey is terrified that someone will recognize her, or that her family will find out.   And she's embarrassed to tell the band why she shouldn't join them.

Echols is very good at portraying strong young women in difficult circumstances (see last summer's Such a Rush).  We learn about Bailey's family and history organically, as the story unfolds, which makes her situation even more poignant and bleak.  I do, however, have an issue with the title, which makes Bailey's "secret" seem like something dark and sordid, which it really isn't.



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the author for the advanced reading copy.

Teen Tuesday

The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler (Simon Pulse hardcover, 5/21/2013).

Jude is much younger than her three older sisters.  She's been the only Hernandez daughter at home for the last five years, but she's graduated from high school and preparing to go to Denver University in the fall.

Meanwhile, she plans to spend the summer hanging out with her father, who's recently been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.  Wanting her last summer at home to be as "normal" as possible, she decides to hire someone to rebuild  Papi's old motorcycle, Valentina.

At Duchess Custom Cycles, the owner recommends a young mechanic named Emilio, who agrees to come out to the Hernandez place to work on it when he's not at the shop.  Jude thinks Emilio seems like a nice guy, and he's cute.

Then she finds out that his last name is Vargas.  When she was very young, her sisters made her swear a blood oath that she'd never get involved with a Vargas boy because they're heartbreakers.  More than that, Jude doesn't really know.

What she does learn as the summer progresses, is that Emilio is a pretty nice guy.  Even though she hasn't told him about Papi's illness, Emilio is gentle with him, and seems to instinctively know how to deal with him.  But she dreads what will happen if her sisters find out about him.

The Book of Broken Hearts is a love story about Jude's relationship with her family, as well as a tale of romance between two teens.  Sarah Ockler deals with the subject of Alzheimer's sensitively, but with humor in an engrossing story about a young woman growing into confidence and  individuality while  dealing with some issues that are just as difficult for her parents and older siblings as they are for an 18-year-old.


FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing both print and digital galleys. 

Teen Tuesday

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King (Little, Brown Teen hardcover, 23 October 2012).

When Astrid Jones was nine, her family bought the house her grandmother grew up in.  In a small town called Unity Valley, it was originally intended as a vacation home for the family, but a year later, they left New York City, which Astrid and her sister Ellis thought of as home, and moved there.

Ellis seemed to adapt to her new life, but Astrid just couldn't.  Even seven years later as a high school senior, Astrid feels like an outsider.  Sure, she's editor of the school lit magazine, but she has no social life.  Her best friend Kristina is a "townie", and a shoo-in for homecoming queen, with her boyfriend Justin a lock for king.  Astrid had a boyfriend for a short while in her junior year, but it didn't last very long.  Her favorite pastime is lying on top of the picnic table in the back yard and watching the planes go overhead.

Astrid works for a small catering business prepping food.  Her co-worker Dee makes no secret of the fact that she's attracted to Astrid, but Astrid doesn't know what to make of it.  Sure she's flattered that Dee thinks she's gorgeous, but she's not gay.  Is she?  Does it matter?

This is an amazing, touching, heart-wrenching story about a young woman struggling to establish an identity and be true to herself in a society that cares more about appearances than truth. 

Teens should read this book to help them realize that it's okay not to have all the answers. 

If I could, I'd give this book to all parents of teens, in the hopes that they might understand what it means when they tell their kids to be honest with them.  (If I could, I'd go back in time and give it to my own parents...)



FTC Full Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from my local library.

Connections

The Sound of Broken Glass by Deborah Crombie (William Morrow hardcover, 19 February 2013).

 The story begins fifteen years ago, as we meet a 13-year-old boy who lives in a rundown flat with his mother, who works in a local pub.  The boy, Andy, has to keep track of the money his mother earns so she doesn't fritter it away on drink and cigarettes.  He's a loner, until he meets the new next-door neighbor, a young woman who tells him her name is Nadine.

In the present-day, Detective Inspector Gemma  James is called early one Saturday morning to report to a homicide scene, at a hotel in an area of London called Crystal Palace.  A naked man has been found in a seedy hotel, bound and strangled.  Was it a kinky encounter gone wrong, or something more deliberate?
 The body turns out to be that of a well-respected barrister named Vincent Arnott.  As Gemma and her team begin to retrace his path of the previous evening, they discover that his evening had begun at a local pub, which he left after an altercation with one of the band members, though obviously not alone.

Meanwhile, Gemma's husband, Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is taking his turn staying at home with Charlotte, their three-year-old foster daughter.  Although he's trying hard to not interfere with his wife's case, he encounters a friend who knows the same young musician, and discovers that perhaps London isn't such a big city after all.

Deborah Crombie moves skilfully between the 1990s and today, weaving an intricate and compelling web of connections.  It's wonderful to experience the development of Gemma and Duncan's relationship, along with their family and careers.  They're like long-time friends whom we don't see often, but look forward to meeting again soon.




FTC Full Disclosure:  I received an e-galley of the book through Edelweiss.

Meryl the Magnificent

The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March (Gallery Books trade paperback, 19 June 2012).

One perfectly ordinary day, Isabel Nash McNeal finds a note slipped under her front door informing her that her husband of almost 10 years is having an affair.  The note even informs her where and when to find him.   Upon confirming that the note-writer is accurate, Isabel rushes to the place where she grew up after her parents were killed in an accident: The Three Captains' Inn in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. 

Meanwhile, her younger sister June, who works as the manager of Books Brothers Books in Portland, is informed by one of the owners that they are selling the  building where she works and lives is being sold and the bookstore closed.  Luckily, their store in Boothbay Harbor will remain open, and she's offered the job of manager there.  Unfortunately, her hometown does not hold good memories for her, but she doesn't know what else to do.

Their cousin Kat Weller, a few years younger than June, has been living at the Inn with her mother Lolly and helping her keep it going while running a bakery business on the side.  One morning her mother casually informs Kat that her cousins will be arriving that afternoon because Lolly has an announcement to make.  This is shocking to Kat:  the family gathers every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Lolly has never requested this at any other time.

Lolly's reason for calling her nieces home is a complete surprise, even to her daughter.  The three young women are completely different and have different issues and talents.  None of them are particularly close to Lolly, and each has her own reasons for resenting their maternal figure. 

There's been a long-standing tradition of Friday night movies at The Three Captains', and Lolly decides that they will watch the oeuvre of her favorite actress, Meryl Streep over the next few weeks.
The three young women are not thrilled by this, but they go along with it.  Although at first they fall into their old ways of communicating, during the course of the next few months, with Meryl's help, they find themselves reinventing their relationship with each other, and learning more about themselves in the process. 

Unsure what to expect when I first opened the book, I was pleasantly surprised and found myself completely engrossed, and sorry when I turned the final page.  



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book to review.

Just finished reading...

The Body in the Boudoir (Faith Fairchild #20) by Katherine Hall Page.*

On their way to Italy to celebrate a significant anniversary, Faith, unable to fall asleep, loses herself in remembering how she and her husband Tom met, fell in love, and married after a whirlwind engagement.

After this set-up in the prologue, the narrative flashes back to 1990.  Faith has recently begun her catering business, Have Faith, and and she's respectably busy. Carrying a tray of food to a wedding buffet table, she is aided by a handsome male wedding guest, who introduces himself as Tom and tries to start a conversation.  Faith excuses herself because she must get back to work,. but later in the evening, as the caterers are packing up, Tom asks her to dance.  Her bartender offers to drive the van back to work, and suggests that Faith just head home. 

Overhearing, Tom asks Faith to show him around New York as he has to leave soon.  They spend a magical few hours taking a carriage ride around Central Park, and the ferry to Staten Island.  During the course of the evening, Faith finally asks Tom what he does for a living and is surprised to learn that he's a minister.

Faith's own father is a minister, and when they were quite young, Faith and her sister had made a pact that neither would marry a clergyman.  But that fantastic first date with Tom, and then cards, flowers and daily phone calls convince Faith rather quickly that she'll have to break that bargain because she's desperately in love with him.

Of course, since Faith Sibley is involved, there are always conplications.  Her favorite Uncle Schuyler, who owns a mansion on Long Island offers to host the ceremony and reception, but when Faith and her mother go to meet the caterer there,  they find a blood-covered body in his wife's bedroom.  This does put a damper on things, but Schuyler insists the wedding must go on as planned.  Faith agrees, but during the few weeks remaining, she does her best to figure out what happened.

The story will make sense to newbies, but will be much richer for those who've read some or all of the previous titles in the series.  Page's prose is charming and the plot is aborbing.  Prepare to read in one sitting!


FTC full disclosure:  This was a library book.*

Just finished reading...

Trail of the Spellmans (Docment #5) by Lisa Lutz.*

Things are stranger than usual in the Spellman family. Isabel's mother, Olivia, has suddenly signed up for a lot of evening classes. Her father, Albert has some kind of secret.  Her siblings (David, older and Rae, younger) are suddenly not speaking to each other.  And David's toddler daughter calls everything a banana (except bananas).

Isabel is the first to admit that she's not very good at relationships.  Rather than just ask her family members what's going on, she investigates: tailing, eavesdropping and snooping.  (Granted, this is not atypical for the Spellmans, who go on "disappearances" instead of vacations.)   Instead of talking to her boyfriend Henry about their future, she starts going out drinking with Henry's mother.

Still, Izzy is perturbed about her family's apparent unravelling, and resolves to do something about it.  Is Izzy finally growing up?

Lutz has included all the ingredients of her winning Spellman series recipe:  copious footnotes and appendices, plus.this time,  "copies" of  school assignments created by her siblings.  It's not as laugh-out-loud funny as the first book in the series, but you might still find yourself giggling to yourself.


*Many thanks to the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy.

Just finished reading...

Sunrise on Cedar Key by Terri Dulong.*

The human protagonist (the real main character is Cedar Key, Florida) of the third novel in the Cedar Key series is Grace Stone.
We've met her before: she's the owner of the village's coffee shop, Coffee, Tea and Thee. This story begins with Grace at the home of her Aunt Maude in Brunswick, where they are packing up for Maude's move to Cedar Key.

Just before the movers arrive to load up the truck, Grace receives a call from the Cedar Key fire chief, telling her that the building containing her shop and apartment has burnt down.

Grace is, of course, devastated. Cedar Key was where she'd gone to get a fresh start after the heartbreaking end of a long-term relationship. Now, she'll have to start over again, with little more than the clothes on her back.

Luckily, her Aunt Maude is moving to Cedar Key, where she's purchased a home. Maude invites Grace to live in her upstairs apartment while she figures out what she'll do.

This is a charming addition to the tales of Cedar Key. Focussing on a different character in each novel while continuing the stories of the others in the background is not an unusual technique, but Dulong uses it skilfully, especially the concept of coming to terms with one's past in order to move on.

*Many thanks to the author for the Advanced Reading Copy. I've done my best to write an impartial review.

Just finished reading...

The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice.*

The McCarthy girls, Dar, Delia and Rory, spent their summers at their mother's beach house on Martha's Vineyard.  The house and property had been passed down through the family for generations, though Dar was the only one who still lived there.  

But their mother had died after a lengthy illness, and the money that should have gone for the house's upkeep and taxes had gone to her care.  The three sisters had resigned themselves to selling the house, and were meeting pack up the furnishings in preparation.  

Dar still mourned her father, who had sailed to Ireland when she was twelve, searching for Something and promising to return when he found it.  Though her sisters believed he had died, Dar nursed a hope that he was still alive.  While clearing the house, Dar finds some letters from her father to her mother, which convinces her that he had indeed found what he was looking for, and that she and her sisters must visit his birthplace.  

For a tale about families and their roots and ancestral birthrights, this is a fairly compact volume at less than 300 pages.  Publishers are tending not to publish the weighty tomes they did 10 or 15 years ago, but there's something about this book that feels like there should be more.  

But what is here is enjoyable.  Rice has created characters that the reader really cares and wants to know more about, particularly Dar.


I am giving away one copy of THE SILVER BOAT  to a person who comments on this blog post.  Deadline for comments is midnight on Monday, May 23.  

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes and for sponsoring the giveaway.