Category: Books for Young Adults

Some books were just meant to be audiobooks.  I never actually read physical books of Feed or Thirteen Reasons Why, so I cannot say for sure, but I can’t imagine that reading them would have been anywhere close to the experience I had listening to them.  I don’t think I would have done “the feed” justice on my own, and I firmly believe that listening to Hannah’s tapes along with Clay helped me to experience his emotional reactions much better than reading the text would have.  I decided to listen to this book because my current audiobook was almost over and this one was sitting on the NEW shelf.  I recalled that it got a good review, but I didn’t remember anything about it.  Well . . .  I am really glad I “accidentally” took out the audiobook instead of reading the book because it definitely reminded me a lot of Feed!

Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown, a small settlement on New World.  His people came to New World to escape religious persecution, but they found plenty of new problems upon arrival.  The two main problems were the Spackle (lifeforms indigenous to the planet) and a germ that causes “Noise” (the projection of one’s thoughts so that other people can hear and/or see them).  In this first book of the Chaos Walking trilogy, we learn two very important details:  all of the women of Prentisstown are dead, and the boys “become men” at 13.  Todd, the last remaining boy, is feeling anxious and confused about his impending 13th birthday because of all the secrets that are kept from the boys — including details about the actual ritual that will complete his transformation from boy to man.  When, all of the sudden, Prentisstown becomes unsafe for Todd, his adoptive parents (Ben and Cillian — pronounced Killian) send him out into the wilderness with his dog (Manchee), a hunting knife, his mother’s diary, and a map that should lead him to another settlement.

There was a lot to set up in this first book, but it was not overly difficult to follow.  Plus, the action and adventure work well to keep readers hooked while bits and pieces of the history of Prentisstown are revealed.  Definitely a book/audiobook I would recommend to fans of dystopian science fiction.

Because Perry wants to get into Columbia, he has pretty much always played by the rules.  He understands that he needs to get good grades and that obtaining a recommendation by doing an internship at his father’s law firm is very important.  He works his butt off most of the time, but he’s still a teenager and, therefore, wants to do fun things once in a while.  That’s why he belongs to a band.  And even though many teenagers look forward to their senior prom, Perry and his friends have other plans for that night — they’ve finally lined up a gig at a club in New York City!  Unfortunately for Perry, his dad doesn’t care.  His dad wants him to bring Gobija [the foreign exchange student who has been staying with their family] to prom.

If Gobija had been the teen movie stereotype — hot and anxious to date a geeky American boy — Perry might have been happy about this arrangement.  Since she was dorky and standoffish, though, Perry was looking forward to the end of her stay and tried his best to weasel his way out of this date.  It was rather obvious that things went a bit differently than expected since the book opened with Perry saying, “You shot me!”  The bad news is that, after the initial teaser, I had to go back to the beginning of the story to find out how the heck he got shot.  The good news is that the story moved so quickly that I got back to the wild ride before too long.

Let me begin this review by stating, for the record, that I do not consider myself  a “football fan.”  I don’t hate football, but I don’t go out of my way to watch football either.  I literally watched the Super Bowl for the commercials and half-time show while ignoring the game to get food and drink refills! I also want to mention that many people will try to compare this book to Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen books, since they also have a female main character who plays football, but this book isn’t just a Dairy Queen redux.

Jordan is much more than a girl who happens to play football — she is the quarterback and captain of one of the best high school football teams in Tennessee, a possible recruit for the University of Alabama [Roll Tide!], and the daughter of an NFL player.  Football is in her blood and it has been her life for nearly all of her life, so she is very upset when a new quarterback moves to her school during the fall of her senior year. This is precisely when she needs to prove herself to college recruiters, and Ty is both a threat to her playing time AND a [really cute] distraction.  Add the fact that Jordan’s dad isn’t really supportive of her playing football, throw in a changing relationship with her best friend [who is a guy], and you get a whole lot of story in one book. Luckily, it’s not too much to keep straight and it’s all very believable.  The best part?  There’s enough about practice and games to keep football fans interested without overdoing it for people who couldn’t care less.  A great coming of age story with a side of teen love!

Mitch True has wanted to be a reporter ever since his dad took him to see All the President’s Men when he was little [in a theater that shows old movies, of course].  He has been on the school paper, The Lincoln Light, since freshman year.  He assumed he would become the editor during senior year because his only competition, Alyssa Hanson, was not a very talented writer.  Alyssa got the editor position based on a popular vote and then moved Mitch from lead reporter to sports.  Although he was initially unhappy, Mitch quickly realized that Alyssa made a great editor and that the sports writer position was likely to give him a lot more exposure before graduation.  But this story is not just about how some kid learned to adapt when his life plan didn’t pan out.  It’s a whole lot juicier than that!

When Mitch and the sports photographer, Kimi Yon, went to interview the quarterback, they noticed something fishy about a new player.  He was throwing amazing passes before practice started but pretended to be only mediocre when people started paying attention to him.  He also looked older than the rest of the guys on the team.  Everyone knew Coach McNulty was unhappy coaching high school football and wantedto get hired on at a college . . . so, could he be cheating by bringing in a guy who was ineligible to play?  Mitch and Kimi decided to dig up the truth and to get this story out.  But there’s just one problem — they’re not even close to guessing this guy’s secret and have no idea how much danger they could be in if they dig too deep.

Zoe Beth Buckman has got more than her fair share of troubles.  Ever since her dad died, her mom has been a wreck.  Her parents were always drinkers, but now it is clear to Zoe that her mom is an alcoholic who is going to drink herself to death if she doesn’t change her ways.  Zoe’s grandmother insists that she needs to stay and take care of her ailing mother, but Zoe is sick and tired of it all — sick of the secrets and tired of being more of a mom than a daughter.  After things at school start to be affected by her home life, Zoe decides that she needs to get out on her own.  She finds a room for rent on Lorelei Street, but she isn’t quite sure how she will be able to make ends meet.  All she knows is that she needs to get out before she is sucked any further into the vortex of her mother’s misery, and she is willing to do almost anything to make it work.

Willa has it pretty good.  Her mom got remarried, but her step-dad [Jack] is a genuinely nice guy who loves her as if she is his own daughter.  She even gets along really well with her step-sisters and their mom.  Unfortunately, Willa’s happy little life is about to fall apart.  When her mom’s best friend calls from Texas, freaking out about a guy named Budge, a missing twin, and an Amber Alert, Willa starts to realize that there is a lot she doesn’t know about the life she left behind.  As it turns out, Budge is her birth father’s nickname.  The twin is one of Budge’s daughters from his second marriage.  And the Amber Alert was put in place because Budge’s wife and two other daughters were found murdered…  Stabbed to death.  If that wasn’t freaky enough, Budge and his daughter were potentially sighted at a gas station along a highway that leads to the town where Willa and her mom now live. How do you even begin to process that information?!?

In a world where the Human Sterility Virus (HSV) causes nearly everyone to become sterile after the age of 18, teenage pregnancy becomes both necessary AND trendy.  It’s pretty disturbing to think of a world in which teenage girls are basically pimped out as incubators, but McCafferty manages to keep the tone light and funny overall.  I especially enjoyed the “FunBumps” (complete with moving “babies” inside) and the t-shirts for tweens that proclaimed they were “Born to Breed.”  Some people have accused this book of glorifying teenage pregnancy, but I think they got it completely wrong.  If anything, this book derides our culture’s current obsession with teen pregnancy.  Shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, while reportedly intending to show the harsh reality of teen pregnancy, have actually resulted in the glamorization of teen pregnancy.  Need proof?  How about news stories about pregnancy pacts, girls trying to get pregnant to get on the show, and the surge in popularity of the names “Maci” and “Bentley” (the names of a featured teen mom and her son).

Beyond the insanity of HSV and teen pregnancy for hire, there is another level of complexity with twin sisters (Melody and Harmony) who were separated at birth and reunited as teens.  Harmony was raised in Goodside, a highly religious, gated community in Pennsylvania, where she was raised with the singular goal of being a good wife and mother.  Melody grew up in a “normal” community in New Jersey, where she was given every advantage toward the end of attending the best college and bringing in a large amount of money as a surrogate.  I cannot even begin to describe how awkward it is when Harmony comes to town to try and “save” Melody from her life of sin, but I can assure you that the questions raised by this book will stick with you long after you put it down.

This story is not for the weak-stomached!  There were quite a few descriptions of the horrifying, headless monsters known as the Anthropophagi and their eviscerated human prey.  Despite the fact that some of those descriptions left me feeling queasy, I felt like I just HAD to keep going and find out how it ended. Told via the journal of Will Henry, who was the 12-year-old assistant of monstrumologist Pellinore Warthrop, the book begins with the death of Will Henry, as an old man.  The actual story behind things, though, begins in the late 1880s when a grave robber brought his gruesome discovery to Warthrop’s home in the middle of the night.  Will Henry, before his death, had insisted that he was over 100 years old and that he had worked for the monstrumologist, but the people who find his journal are sure that it is a work of fiction.  After all, nothing so scary as an Anthropophagi can truly exist.  Can it?

Austin Gray wants to be a “hood ornament” in the No-Jesus Christmas Parade more than anything.  She’s sick and tired of being the butt of Dean Ottmer’s jokes, and she’s sure this plan will turn things around.  She just needs to join the FFA [Future Farmers of America], make some friends, raise an animal to show at the fair, and win a blue ribbon.  THEN, she can be elected the FFA hood ornament.  Simple, right?

This story is about so much more than a girl who is trying to win a popularity contest to defeat a bully, though.  It’s about a mother and daughter who are still trying to work past the loss of a husband and father.  It’s about the dynamics of a small town where everyone knows “everything” about everyone.  And, it’s about how Austin finally gets to the realization that Dean Ottmer’s opinion is “as significant to [her] life as a fart in a tornado.”

If the letters “MMORPG” [Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game] don’t mean anything to you, you might not think you could get a lot out of this story.  I honestly only picked up this book because I am a “gaming widow” and wanted to better understand the MMORPG scene that my husband frequents! This story is about so much more than just gaming, though.  Set in the future, this story explores the world of “gold farmers” who become the next generation of sweatshop workers.  The narration rotates between characters who run the gamut from factory-dwelling gold farmers in China to an über-rich game developer at Coca-Cola Games Headquarters in the US.  Although some reviews complain that Doctorow is heavy-handed in his message, I was simply enthralled by the way that he wove economics and unionization into a story about video games.  I think this book would be an excellent tie-in for English and economics/social studies teachers — because the kids will probably enjoy the story while learning an awful lot.  But maybe I’m just too big of a nerd and I enjoy learning while I read!

This book begins on Earth, with Amy and her parents preparing to be cryogenically frozen.  They are about to be packed onto a spaceship [Godspeed], hoping to travel for 300 years, become reanimated (thawed out), and then terraform a faraway planet (make it livable/like Earth).  Amy overhears the workers saying that the launch has been delayed a year.  One whole year she could have spent with her family and friends on Earth!  As these thoughts send her into despair, she is glad that they won’t last long; she will be unable to think once she’s frozen.  But, then, she is frozen… and she is still capable of thought.  Still conscious of the passing time.  Talk about a torturous existence!  Then someone unplugs her a full 50 years before the estimated landing time, and she will be older than her parents by the time they are reanimated.  Chapters alternate between Amy and a guy named Elder, who will soon be the leader of the people aboard Godspeed.  If you like dystopias and science fiction, you HAVE to read this book!