Payback and Karma

Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook
New York : Simon Pulse, 2010.
261 p. ; 21 cm.

Well written fun! What more can I say about this very readable revenge tale.  The plot seems straight-forward enough: 8th grader gets horribly betrayed and humiliated by her best friend (a popularity-aspiring "mean girl"); moves away for 3 years; and then returns for her senior year with a very different look, and a lusciously detailed plan for payback. 

As you might guess, her campaign for revenge doesn't go in exactly a straight line, but instead leads her to discover a few truths about herself and the costs of deception and revenge.  All of this is woven into a very enjoyable, thoughtful, occasionally humorous and believable story that is hard to put down.

Getting Revenge is not a great novel, but it doesn't aspire to be that - but it is a novel that exceeds its modest aims, and has more depth to it than you might think on just glancing at it's appealing cover (see the graphic above), and the humorous by-line on the cover: "This time, the mean girl is going down."

Next time a student asks for something "good to read" and is looking for something fun, I won't hesitate suggesting this solid work of teen revenge and self-discovery fiction.

Trouble in the Windy City

Divergent by Veronica Roth
New York : Katherine Tegen Books, 2012, c2011.
487 p. ; 21 cm.

Okay, so the Chicago of Divergent is not quite the ruined city of the Great Fire of 1871 (picture above), but it is a run-down, post-war future Chicago where human society is structured around five factions representing five personality types - Erudite, Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Abnegation.  

Veronica Roth has developed a great set-up for her novel, envisioning a society where the factions have developed ways to live in harmony by having each faction contribute to the well-being of society with their unique, but mutually beneficial roles, but since conflict is at the heart of a good novel, some faction leaders are not satisfied with the role of their faction and want to overturn the social order. Furthermore, every citizen must chose their faction and be initiated into it at the age of 16.  Most chose their faction of origin, but not everyone, and there's the rub.

There is a great deal to admire about Divergent.  The plotting is crisp, characters are interesting and usually multidimensional, and the setting is evocative and imaginative.  The narrative is rarely dull, and there are some thoroughly enjoyable imagined scenes of post-war Chicago, and excellent plot developments that keep the reader engaged.  Roth has also created a compelling heroine, Beatrice/Tris, who will definitely put readers in mind of Catniss from the Hunger Games. She is smart, complex, competitive, and develops throughout the novel.  My main frustration with the novel, is the ways in which the demands of leaving the novel open to a trilogy occasionally compromise the plot.  There were a couple of times toward the end of the novel where I thought to myself, "That character would never have done that," but felt like the action was required to keep certain other characters alive for future installments in the trilogy.

Overall, I would highly recommend Divergent, especially to any reader who is looking for a thrilling dystopian adventure.  The fact that the novel is set in our home state of Illinois - and is scheduled to be a feature film in 2014 - doesn't hurt either!

Four Teens and a Funeral

Tangled by Carolyn Mackler
New York : HarperTeen, 2011, c2010.
308 p. ; 21 cm. 

Mackler is the author of the ever popular and frequently challenged book, The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things - and that is probably the book by her I would have read if a student had not recently turned in Tangled and said, "Mr. Murrey, this was great.  You have to read it!"

I read it and enjoyed it quite a lot.  It's the story of four teens and the unlikely ways in which their lives come together and in which each of them grows and matures. The springing off event of the novel is a short week trip to a Caribbean island resort where the four of them end up briefly interacting. The rest of the novel takes place in New York state and  New York City (and so the picture above of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park).

I'd say the thing that pleased me the most about the book was that I didn't really care for it at first, beginning as it does from the point of view of Jena.  She is one of those "teen" characters who is feels just a little too smart, cute (but doesn't think she's cute), and self-aware. But oddly she grows on you and the other characters round out the novel really well - defying the surface stereotypes they seem, and revealing full, evolving human characters in the process.  There are some nice plot turns throughout and lots of low key humor.  Finally, there is a really tender romance in the book, and who can turn that down?

I'd definitely recommend this book for any readers interested in relationship fiction. 

And I'll No Longer Be a Capulet

Perfect Chemistry by Simon Elkeles
New York : Walker, 2009.
360 p. ; 22 cm.

Okay, so it's not actually a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but this young adult romance has fine echoes of the play - a boy and girl whose class and ethnic differences would seem to prohibit closeness find themselves falling deeply in love with each other.

I wouldn't have been likely to read this novel, except that it has circulated a lot since I added it to our collection and I've heard kids recommending it to each other. I found it very readable and - in spite of having some fairly predictable plot outcomes - it has compelling characters who are not just flat stereotypes.  It also works as a way of exploring the masks that young people wear to get by and the ways in which their class backgrounds can define and limit the choices they can make.  Overall, like Romeo and Juliet, it's a homage to the power of love - and the risks that characters are willing to take for love.

The novel is set in a suburb of Chicago where the high school has a divide between the wealthy white kids and the Latino students - some of who are involved in gang activities.  The novel deals with the accurate and distorted views that the two groups have of each other, and what happens when those boundaries are crossed.

The novel also deals with family life, street life and the difficulties of having family with serious disabilities.  
There is a fair bit of mature language and some frank sexual situations - not overly graphic, but definitely not suitable for classroom use, or for recommending to younger readers. 

I'm pleased I read this novel.  The writing is strong and it's good to know that this kind of book is popular with a lot of young adults. Students who like the novel or want to know more about it and the author would do well to visit the official website of the book.

Bitter Sweet

Sugar Changed the World: a Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Boston : Clarion Books, c2010.
ix, 166 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Just as Kurlansky's book on cod makes the case for the often overlooked importance of cod in world affairs and US history, so too Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' wonderful book on sugar brings this common food item to life by telling its bloody & compelling history.  There is a painful irony that such a sweet substance is so inextricably tied into the immense holocaust of the African slave trade in the Americas - especially in South America and the Caribbean.

For example, in Sugar Changed the World we learn that in just over 100 years between 1701 and 1810 years, nearly a million slaves were shipped into just two "sugar" islands in the Caribbean - the British sugar/slave islands of Barbados and Jamaica. The book reveals that sugar slavery was an especially brutal and lethal fate for slaves.  Up to the time of Emancipation in the US, about 500,000 slaves were brought into North America, while more than 2 million were taken to the various "sugar" islands - and yet at Emancipation, the slave population in North American had risen 4 million, while the slave population of the islands was 670,000.  The sugar plantations of the Caribbean were places where most slaves were worked to death.

The book conveys the hell that was the sugar plantations of the Caribbean (and eventually of Louisiana in the US) in ways that are factual without being overwhelming for middle to high school readers. In detailing the workings of the sugar slave plantations the book would make an excellent pairing with The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle.  A strength of Aronson and Budhos' book is that it not only chronicles the horrors of the the sugar slave world, but presents the culture and resilience of the people who lived and died as slaves in the sugar plantations and as workers in the sugar industry after slavery officially ended.

Aronson and and Budhos do an excellent job of giving the global history of sugar (where it came from, and how it became cultivated), explaining how sugar is processed, and revealing that sugar was an economic engine for the emerging imperialist states of Britain, the US, and France.The authors also devote a significant section of their book to the successful slave revolt in Haiti and the contradictions of the US relations with Haiti.

The book has excellent photos, maps and graphics which make the story interesting and very clear.  I would highly recommend this book for any student interested in the fascinating and brutal history of sugar. Lastly, for any teachers considering using the book in their classrooms, there is a great website for the book - including a Teacher's Guide!

Evolution Even a Caveman Could Understand

The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen
London ; New York : Rough Guides, 2009.
vi, 346 p. : ill., maps ; 20 cm. 

This is a wonderful book - interesting, comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and engaging.  It serves as a great introduction to Charles Darwin, to the principles of evolution, and to the many ways in which Darwin's groundbreaking work has shaped modern intellectual and cultural life.

Frankly, the most refreshing thing about this book is that it demolishes the spurious and intellectually bankrupt tenets of creationism and creationism's reemergence under the guise of "Intelligent Design." Pallen meticulously reviews the veritable ocean of scientific evidence supporting evolution - showing clearly that that those who deny evolution have as much scientific standing as someone who believes the sun circles the earth. The book also does an admirable job of detailing how the majority of religious thinkers and leaders accept the factual nature of evolution and do not see it as a threat to theism. Sadly, the book points out that it is in the United States that anti-evolution ignorance has developed it's deepest roots.

The book succeeds in explaining in clear language the current understandings of evolutionary theory, but the explanations are not always simple or easy to follow.  I found myself having to read and reread sections on cladistics and genetics.

The book is really enjoyable in that it is broken into sections that can be read solely for their content, e.g. Human Origins.  I would recommend this book to any student curious about Darwin, evolution, human origins, and creationism - or to any student researching these topics.

A Hard Look at Blue Eye

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
New York : Vintage International, 2007, c1970
xiii, 205 p. ; 21 cm. 

The first thing to say about this novel, by Nobel Prize winning author, Toni Morrison, is that it is an amazing first novel. It richly conveys the texture of the lives of three African American girls in a town in Ohio in the 1940s - focusing on one especially pitiful girl, Pecola, who is treated by all as "ugly" and is obsessed with wanting blue eyes.

It is a gritty novel of childhood cruelties, bonds of sisterhood, the dynamics of race, class and sexism.  Poverty, incest, domestic violence, alcoholism, pedophilia and prostitution all come under scrutiny in Morrison's tale.

For me the most vexing aspect of the novel revolves around a male character who rapes his daughter.  The author ventures to enter into the mind of the perpetrator and - frankly - ends up creating a false and "artistic" artifact out of this act of sexual violence.  I say this with some trepidation, realizing that all artists take risks in trying to enter into scenarios and personalities that are radically distinct from their own. Often such risks produce stunning works of art.  However, my assessment is that Morrison grossly misses the mark on this one, and ends up with a rather fanciful, empathetic, and even sympathetic portrayal of the rapist. 

Considered as part of the body of work of Morrison, Bluest Eye, is definitely worth reading and, as I said is a powerful and very readable book.  I just think it deserves a hard look at it's shortcomings.  As I told a friend, my feeling after reading the book [regarding the character who commits the incest/rape] was, "She doesn't know what she's talking about.  She doesn't have any business going there...."