So-so Dystopia

The Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington
New York : Greenwillow Books, 2008, c2005.
1st HarperTeen ed.
282 p. ; 19 cm.

Tony V runs a jackhammer on City V - just one of the five major cities on a planet colonized by humans long before his birth.  He is working on clearing the city for reconstruction following a war that devastated it.  While working Tony discovers the diary of a girl his age who was in that war. 

L.J. Adlington's novel is creative and clever - the citizens of this world have gills, water is at a premium, there are hints of corporatist totalitarianism and ethnic cleansing - but somehow I just found it not very compelling.  The author of the diary was a young, rich, shallow "it girl" until the civil war started that destroyed her privileged life.  A lot of the novel is the supposed text of this diary, which for me is just too much of the mundane ramblings of this imagined material girl.  The really compelling content of the unraveling of her life and society doesn't come about until the last part of the novel. 

The novel does offer a good starting point for discussing and thinking about civil conflict based on haves and have-nots and on manufactured ethnic conflict.

I read this book due to the glowing teen review of it in VOYA, but I have to agree with Tasha Saecker, of School Library Journal who writes, "The true horrors of what is happening are muted until the end of the book, taking away much of its power. The concept is interesting and the world of Tony V is well rendered, but in the end, the novel disappoints."  Exactly.

Hard Life, Good Read

Tyrell by Coe Booth
New York : PUSH, c2007.
310 p. ; 18 cm. 

I've been planning to read this book for years.  This year there was an uptick in demand for all of Coe Booth's books - Tyrell, Kendra, and Bronxwood - so it seemed like a good time to take this novel home and read it.  I was not disappointed.

Tyrell is a tough book - there is a lot of profanity, drug use, fights, sexual situations and overall gritty scenes throughout the novel, but it all feels very necessary to the power of this novel. The hero, fifteen year old Tyrell, has to figure out how to make his way in a world where his father is in prison, his mother is completely immature, selfish, and incompetent and many of his role models are sexist, aggressive, law-breaking young men.  He wants to do right by his family (especially his young brother), his friends, his girl friend, and his conscience.  Tyrell is smart, friendly, and great with DJing, something he learned from his father. But with his father in jail, his mother worthless as a parent, he has to figure out how to get himself and his family out of the filthy temporary hotel that they are stuck in after losing their apartment.

The thing I loved about Tyrell, is that all the characters are complex. Characters has their strengths and some serious weaknesses.  The main character, Tryell, can be heroic, but he can also be a liar, a macho hypocrite, and aggressive.  But he wants to make something of himself, and has a strong ethical code of honor that he reflects on even when he falls short.  Booth's skill is creating interesting, vivid characters who reflect the wide range of human strengths and weaknesses as they navigate the distressing and profoundly unfair world of inner city poverty.

It's too bad that a novel like this could not be taught in a classroom curriculum (there's just too much raw language and situations) because there are so many ethical and moral dilemmas that come up throughout the novel - and the novel is popular with young men and women.  It may not be suitable for the classroom, but it is a book that many young people, including reluctant readers are bound to embrace.

Abduction is So Romantic, or Is It?

Stolen by Lucy Christopher
New York : Chicken House, [2013], c2010.
299 p. ; 21 cm. 

This 2011 Printz Honor book started out strong for me - a teenager meets a slightly older, attractive guy in a Bangkok airport, flirts with him, gets drugged, hustled off, and drugged some more, finally waking up his captive in a totally isolated homestead in the barren Australian outback.

I liked the beginning of Stolen, as the victim, Gemma, terrified that her abductor is eventually going to assault and murder her, begins assessing her odds of resisting, escaping, etc., and tries to deal with the extreme loneliness and fear that gnaws at her.  In addition to being young and vulnerable, she is thousands of miles away from family and friends and surroundings of her hometown of London, and in an intensely isolated and unforgiving environment.

For me the weakness of this novel is that it wants to be both a thriller/survival tale and also a love story - as the victim comes to deeply care for and admire her captor.  I just don't think the transition works.  The shift in the main character's attitude toward her kidnapper is fairly abrupt.  Around about 2/3s of the way through the book - right after her keeper saves her from dying of exposure in the desert sun during an attempted escape, she suddenly starts being easy with him.  Waking him from a wildly screaming dream he's having about being taken himself as a child into foster care - Gemma suddenly starts chatting with him about the stars, and is entranced with his glorious painting project that fills one of the outbuildings he has constructed.  The novel then rapidly unwinds and concludes with an ending that has Gemma getting back to her family ( I don't want to give too much away).

I couldn't help thinking how it would have been fascinating if this were actually two novels.  One, a story of survival with an abductor who Gemma has to figure out in order to outwit and outsmart - and maybe doesn't triumph.  I picture the other novel being a romance between a Gemmalike character and a quirky, artistic, iron-willed man who she runs away with - only to find herself increasingly cut off and isolated, yet also coming to admire and love his wild determination... Instead, I felt a bit like I was reading a Harlequinesque seduction fantasy where the handsome, misunderstood, dark stranger really does sweep the heroine off her feet (and into a trunk and into a rustic prison in the outback...oooh, soooo romantic - not.)

Clearly I'm in the minority in not thinking this was an absolutely fantastic novel - after all it was a Printz honor book, and a short glance at reviews on Goodreads will reveal how well-loved Stolen is (including this rave review by YA author, Maggie Stiefvater

Geeky Greatness

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
New York : Broadway Books, c2011.
374 p. ; 21 cm.

This is a great book, one that should appeal to a wide variety of readers.  I'm not a videogamer, but I loved how Cline creates a thrilling, realistic sci-fi adventure story that seamlessly weaves videogaming and videogaming allusions into the text and texture of his novel. Ready Player One is a dystopian adventure, a love story, a paen to geekdom, an homage to 80s pop culture, and frankly a fun and smartly plotted novel.  Not bad!

I found the novel a pleasure to read. It wrestles with the evils of corporatism, the alienation of virtual reality, the pleasures of camaraderie and romance, and the basic human struggle between good and evil.  There is just enough real violence (not much) in the book to keep the reader on edge, and a plot that moves smartly along.  Even for non-geeks, the book has many moments of recognition where the reader thinks, "Ah ha, I know what ______________ he's talking about!" (Fill in the blank with book, movie, videogame, TV show or song depending on the situation.

Cline somehow manages to convey the reality on the online experience, while always the maintaining the more final reality of the actual world - while at times having them almost (almost, but not quite) dreamily/nightmarishly blur closely together.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for an unusual, creative, and thrilling read.  

& Wonderful

Wideness & Wonder: the life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe by Susan Goldman Rubin
San Francisco : Chronicle Books, c2010.
117 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 22 cm.

One of the things I love about biographies for young people is that they are often short, vivid, compelling and not overwrought with insignificant detail.  I found this biography of Georgia O'Keeffe to be a beautiful introduction to the painter.

The book is handsomely designed with many lovely reproductions and photos that bring alive O'Keeffe's long and productive life of painting.  I think the thing that I really enjoyed was how the book conveys just how new and avant garde the work of O'Keeffe was at the time she was creating it.  Her work seems so accessible and mainstream now, but there really was nothing like it when she was painting.  Her mix of stunning color, expressionist vision, realism, and large scale focus on the single simple subject are all really amazing.

I also appreciate how the biography both pays tribute to O'Keeffe as a trailblazing woman artist, but focuses on her mainly as an innovative, interesting and successful American artist.  The biography pulls together a great deal of interesting information - her early farm years in Wisconsin, her teaching experience in rural Texas, her time at the Art Institute of Chicago, and of course her productive years in New York City and New Mexico (where the O'Keeffe Museum is located)

Home at Heart

Feels Like Home by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
New York : Delacorte Press, c2007.
213 p. ; 22 cm.

I wanted to read this novel before the author, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo came to our school for the second time this October. I was glad I picked it.  It's a bit of a throw-back novel, in a sweet way.  There's no aliens, zombies, dystopian overlords, fights to the death, or raunchy sexual situations. What there is, is an homage to S.E. Hinton's 1967 classic, The Outsiders and an homage to the small-town outsider - an outsider with heart and brains and the determination to go on to bigger things.

It's a good old-fashioned drama - with grief for lost parents and family and grief for a past that is no more - all told though the viewpoint of a teen girl who is trying to come to terms with the past and with a brother who has let her down.

It's not a fast novel or a flashy novel, but it's a good, solid read.

Additionally, the author is a wonderful guest to have at a high school. She is passionate about writing, about connecting with young people, and about living a life of art and connection.  She's great with students and I'll be encouraging kids to check out her books and be looking forward to reading her latest novel, the award-winning, Fat Angie.

Solid Gone

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
New York : Broadway Books, [2014]
422 p. ; 21 cm.

Publisher's Weekly describes Flynn's Gone Girl as the "tale of a marriage gone toxically wrong" which "gradually emerge[s] through alternating accounts by Nick and Amy, both unreliable narrators in their own ways."  I couldn't have said it better myself - so I won't!  Booklist calls it a "compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage" which it is, though I'd say it's a pretty twisted and horrible portrait to be sure.  Booklist does note that Flynn "possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor." That is definitely true.

Almost all reviews note that it is compulsively readable and I have to agree.  But it does present a rather sordid and extreme view of human relationships and has some pretty crude generalizations about men, women and their interactions.

I think the strength of the book is the plotting (which is creative and unpredictable) and the use of the unreliable narrators - which keeps the reader guessing and on edge.  

Anyone working with young adults should be aware that though there is not a lot of graphic sex in the novel,  sexual situations are frequently referred to - and occasionally described in very explicit and crude terms.  It's definitely a novel for mature readers, but there will be a lot of requests for the book given its phenomenal success and the successful movie version of it which opened the day I finished the book, Oct. 3, 2014.

The title of this post is a nod to a Carter family song - and it's wonderful performance by the late Doc Watson.