Screaming Quietly

Screaming Quietly

Evan Jacobs

$9.95, Softcover

Saddleback, 2013

978-1622500031

Genre: Realistic 

Age: 12+

Description: Ian Taylor lives a secret life. His public life at school is a huge success—he is on the varsity football team and his girlfriend just happens to be the hottest girl in school. Everyone wants to be Ian. However, he has a different life at home. At home he lives with his divorced mom and is forced to be her right hand man especially when it comes to his brother, Davey. Davey is a handful because he is severely autistic. To Ian, Davey is a freak and no one must ever know about his existence. He has maintained this shaking balance for years but it is all about to come crashing down when Davey gets the chance to attend a special day class at Ian's school. Ian attempts to continue his charade of denying Davey's existence, even when Davey has massive public meltdowns and it is clear he is looking to Ian for comfort. Ian is screaming quietly on the inside until all of his resentment, anger, and embarrassment is ready to pop. Will his love for Davey and his desire to man up eventually allow him to overcome peer pressure and combine his public and private lives?

Opinion: Another Saddleback title in the Gravel Road series about tough decisions. These books have very quick pacing and are also smaller in size (so while it is 200 pages it is still actually a really short book). Overall, I find most of these stories to usually be average. They are meant to be hi-low books so they aren’t going to be the most gripping tales. Yet Saddleback does a good job of producing a number of books that are pretty entertaining. They could be much, much worse. The thing that struck me the most about this title was Ian’s reaction to Davey. I think the author’s background as a behavioral interventionist for disabled children really helped put Davey’s condition into perspective for those who don’t know much about autism or haven’t spent time around children or teens with autism. The scenes where Davey has meltdowns in the cafeteria were actually uncomfortable to read and I think this really helped put the reader into Ian’s shoes or another bystander who sees this teenage boy acting like a child and screaming, etc. It helps the reader understand autistic people better and that they shouldn’t be made fun of for their behavior.

Thanks to the people at Saddleback for the ARC for the YALSA YA Galley Group!

Love in the Time of Global Warming

Love in the Time of Global Warming

Francesca Lia Block

$16.99, Hardcover

Henry Holt, 2013

978-0805096279

Genre: Fantasy 

Age: 12+

Description: Penelope has just watched her family be swept away into the sea after a huge earthquake devours her Los Angeles neighborhood. Her father had always warned his family of the danger that was coming to the planet but her mother always wrote him off as being plain paranoid. Despite being alone (yet thinking her brother may have survived if she can find him), her father’s end of the world emergency preparations have given Penelope the supplies she needs to stay alive. For a few weeks she remains in her basement until a van full of men arrive. With evil intentions, one of them says that he knew Penelope’s father so he gives her the keys to their van so she can escape. On the run throughout LA she goes on an adventure to find her brother. Along the way she encounters giants, a witch, sirens, a girl with magical powers, and other new friends—Hex, Ex, and Ash—who promise to accompany her on her journey.

Opinion: Unlike a large majority of people, I can’t stand Block’s books. I read the Weetzie Bat series when I was in ninth grade and couldn’t stand it. I have read other books by her throughout the years and still have yet to find one I like. So I was wary to even give this book a try—she just isn’t my type of author and I don’t like her style of magic realism. I think I gave this title a shot because it was short and the premise seemed interesting—a dystopian type world after a climatic event destroys everything and mythological creatures being the cause of it. Unfortunately, the plot synopsis was the most entertaining thing about this story. There were parts here and there that I liked but most of it I didn’t. I still really hate that you don’t really know what the hell is real or fantasy. I want it to be one or the other and I want it spelled out. The fact that Merk magically kept appearing when Pen was in trouble (and then apparently is revealed to be her real father) was a very deus ex machina moment (one of my teens agreed with me and we discussed it at length)—it was all just too convenient. Another thing that we were bugged by (me more so since I have read numerous books by Block) was that half way through the story the budding love between Pen and Hex is revealed to be GLBT in nature as Hex was born a girl. I have absolutely no problem with GLBT people, characters, issues, etc., however, it seems like every single Block book has to have GLBT characters in it. While I believe that books about GLBT characters are important (ones that focus on them in particular) and books with strong and positive GLBT secondary characters are also important with Block’s books it just seems like the story is going along and then WHAM here is this gay/lesbian/transgendered character and then the book’s focus, sadly, seems to become an issue book about “look at these gay characters” and the fact that the characters are GLBT becomes the focal point and not the character as an individual who happens to be GLBT. In this case we go halfway through the book before we find out that Pen had a crush on a girl classmate. She is confused that she is attracted to Hex who we discover (after Hex appears to have sex with the female witch in order to gain some power in the situation and hopefully escape the witch’s house) was actually born a girl and is living life as a boy. All of a sudden Pen has an “oh, that’s why I liked him” attitude and my other teen reader said it just confused the crap out of her (especially because the witch clearly was thinking she was going to sleep with a male and it just made her think what the heck happened in that bedroom when she discovered Hex wasn’t a guy?). The book just rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed like a normal dystopian story and then wham—hey did you know all the characters are GLBT? Well, they are and that’s why they are all misfits! To me it just seemed to devalue the characters as GLBT characters.

Thanks to the people at Henry Holt for the ARC for the YALSA YA Galley Group!

Ashes on the Waves

Ashes on the Waves

Mary Lindsey

$17.99, Hardcover

Philomel, 2013

978-0399159398

Genre: Mystery, Romance 

Age: 14+

Description: Liam lives on an island called Dochas where the villagers still believe deeply in old Celtic myth and lore. Unfortunately for Liam, this means his entire life has been a living hell. The villagers regard him with fear and hatred—they believe that he is harboring a demon inside him since he was born and his mother died with her chest ripped open (they say he clawed his way out of her). It also doesn’t help that the birth was a difficult one which left him with a paralyzed left arm—another reason for the villagers to claim that he is cursed. Raised barely by a drunken father, he has mainly been looked after by a woman named Francine who treats him like a son. Liam surrounds himself with art and books and beautiful things and is actually a very good artist himself despite his disability. He longs for a visitor to come back to the island—a girl from New York City named Anna Leighton. She often visited her family’s ancestral home when she was young and befriended Liam who has loved her ever since. When Anna is banished to the island by her parents because of her bad behavior in public, she and Liam rekindle their feelings and fall in love. However, the villagers and the myths that they believe in don’t approve of their pairing. The Bean Sidhes make a beat against the Na Fir Ghorm—if Liam and Anna stay together the Bean Sidhes win but if their love falters the Na Fir Ghorm win. The losers are banished from the ocean surrounding the island forever (which is a big deal since they creatures rely on the strong beliefs of the villagers). Will Liam and Anna survive?

Opinion: I picked up this title because it said it was a take on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “Annabelle Lee”, and I love Poe! I have to admit that Lindsey did a great job of turning a poem into a 400+ page novel! First of all, the novel might seem slow to some people but I think that slower pace really matches the eerie atmosphere of the plot. I love that it is a paranormal romance that is told from the point of view of Liam and not the girl. I love the incorporation of paranormal creatures that you don’t often see in teen books. The inclusion of the Bean Sidhes (aka banshees) was a super pleasant surprise and I loved that they weren’t really the “bad” guys of the book since most people associate them as bad spirits that wail and predict deaths. They actually were represented as intelligent women spirits and, yes, while they did wail they did it for a reason (they initially wanted Liam and Anna to figure out that an accidental death on the island was not so much an accident). The Na Fir Ghorm seem like sirens in a way but not as pretty—evil creatures who can lure people to their deaths at sea. However, my favorite creature in the book was Muireann—a selkie who falls in love with Liam and is forced to betray him by the Na Fir Ghorm. She is a very innocent creature—naïve to the ways of humans. She is just adorable and loveable. The best part is that even though she loves Liam she realizes that he loves Anna and therefore there is no horrible, awkward love triangle to deal with because she accepts the situation and just wants him to be happy. There were some things I was disappointed with. Anna at first was a very self-centered socialite. I really don’t care how much she and Liam played together when they were kids, it just seems a bit too convenient that she’d be banished to the island and she all of a sudden decides to fall in love with Liam—a boy who is very much different from the New York boys she is used to dating. Also, once they are in love, the love is very melodramatic—and maybe that is because the book is supposed to be a Gothic tale but still, at times, it was very over the top. The other thing that bothered me was that the time period was kind of confusing. It is supposed to be a modernization but Liam’s small island (which is just a short helicopter ride from NYC) seems to be way too isolated. Everyone there is still living like in the 1800s or early 1900s frontier times.  They are deeply superstitious, they jobs are mainly manual labor, there doesn’t seem to be much importance placed on education, they are willing to become vigilantes and attempt to hang Liam at one point, there is a total lack of modern day technology (the only phone—a landline—on the island is in Francine’s store and Liam and Anna actually handwrite letters to each other!). It seemed like the world was totally separated from the modern time except for when Anna’s friends from NYC came to visit and they are pretty much total jerks who make fun of Liam and complain about how boring the island is.

Thanks to the people at Penguin Young Readers Group for the ARC for the YALSA YA Galley Group!

Avenger’s Arena, Volume 1: Kill or Die

Avenger’s Arena, Volume 1: Kill or Die

Dennis Hopeless, Kev Walker, Alessandro Vitti

$15.99, Softcover

Marvel, 2013

978-0785166573

Genre: Action, Graphic Novel 

Age: 12+

Description: Collecting the first six issues of the new series, Avengers Arena tells the story of 16 teens that are kidnapped and trapped on an isolated island. Their captor (who actually appears throughout the story) gives them an ultimatum—fight each other or die.

Opinion: This series seems to be pretty hit or miss with readers. My finance didn’t like it for the main reason that he didn’t like the characters getting killed off “willy-nilly”. I liked it though probably because I don’t have a background with these characters. I am not familiar with any of them so I didn’t have a natural liking for any of them as I began the series. They were all new people to me. Obviously, this series is a take on the comic book world on Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, and I love anything and will read anything like reads like Battle Royale. The twist here is the fact that the teens being pitted against each other are not everyday high schoolers. Instead they are 16 teens with superhero powers and abilities. Therefore, fighting each other isn’t as easy as one might assume and there aren’t really going to be too many people that are easy pickings. Some of the characters include Hazmat, Juston, Reptil, Deathlocket, and more. It will be interesting to see how the series progresses (I am waiting for the collected trade editions) as in the first volume most of the teens form teams and spread out on the island attempting to avoid one another—at least until someone or something appears to be not playing by the rules and the teens wonder who they can trust. Plus, I love the homage to Battle Royale on the cover.