Review: The View from the Top by Hillary Frank

I picked this up for one reason: the Publisher's Weekly review said it was an "intimate exploration of postgraduate ennui," which I'll admit kind of made me giggle, but also interested me because I love YA that explores the upper age limit of the genre. There are lots of stories about 15 and 16 year olds falling in and out of love, but fewer that explore that precarious time when one really begins to transition from "kid" to "adult."

It's Annabelle's last summer in her small coastal hometown before she heads off to Oberlin to study music in the fall, and it's a season of questions and change. She breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, but doesn't choose to pursue his best friend, even though she's had a huge crush on him. Instead she starts hanging out with a tourist girl, in town just for the summer. Other players in Annabelle's story include her boyfriend's little sister, who has long had a crush on the beautiful older girl, and another musician, who is also in love with Annabelle and doesn't know how to show it. The story of their summer is told from their various points of view.

Annabelle is the center of this story. Which is all well and good...if I found her to be at all likable. Ennui is one thing, but I never found Annabelle to be at all sympathetic, as she was rather self-absorbed, and I couldn't understand why she was at the center of so many people's lives. The story has a strong premise, examining how one person's actions or inaction can affect the lives around her like ripples in a lake, and the end of high school is the perfect setting for such a story, but Annabelle was far too shaky of a foundation to build such a story on.

Review: Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

I wasn't a Little House on the Prairie fan as a kid. Admittedly, I don't recall actually giving the books or the TV show a chance, I was just pretty sure I wouldn't like them and went on my way. Luckily, the Little House allusions seem to be primarily confined to the title, so don't think you have to be a fan in some way to enjoy this thoroughly entertaining book.

Gen's family isn't big on "family time," as each family member seems to be going in her or his own direction at any given time. Her dad doesn't even get involved with vacation plans, preferring to leave all that to her mom - which is how the family gets signed up for an entire summer at Camp Frontier - an immersive summer experience where families live, dress and work like they're on the Wyoming frontier in 1890.

To 13 year old Gen, this is the end of the world. She's supposed to be hanging out with her best friends and practicing soccer all summer so she'll be prepared for the high school's team in the fall. So her mom bribes her - come to camp without complaint, and get a fancy cell phone at the end of the summer. Gen agrees, but the allure of the phone is too much - she sneaks it to camp, promising to text her friends for as long as the battery holds out (after all, there was no electricity on the frontier - where will she charge the phone?)

Several families have come together to live the frontier life for the summer - and none of the kids seem terribly fond of the idea, including Nora, the daughter of Camp Frontier's organizers who has to live every day like it's 1890. Almost immediately, Gen bonds with Ka (short for Kate, rhymes with Saw, her favorite movie), the goth chick from a family of perky blondes set adrift without her supply of black  hair dye to keep her own blond roots at bay. And then there's the camp heartthrob, Caleb, who has just about every girl in the camp swooning in his wake, but doesn't seem to realize this.

The complicated interpersonal relationships, as well as the hardships and indignities of life on the prairie (three words: outhouse at night), are faithfully recounted by Gen via text message - which her friends back on the outside are faithfully translating into a blog. And not just any blog, but an overnight blogging sensation that has repercussions all the way back to the 1890s life of Camp Frontier.

This is a lighthearted, feel good book, totally entertaining book that is going to appeal to a variety of middle grade and young adult readers. Gen is only 13, and keeps her thoughts about Caleb on a totally PG level - when she discovers an illicit "electricity shack" on the farm, her first thought is about charging her phone, not about getting Caleb alone. Her sarcastic attitude is just enough to keep readers used to edgier fare interested in her misadventures on the farm, while being tempered with an innate sweetness that keeps her from coming off as a spoiled teenager. Gen isn't happy about being at Camp Frontier, but she does love her family, and is willing to put on a good face at least for their sake for the duration of the adventure.

The book is filled with great supporting characters as well. Even the adults have some personality - I about cheered when the moms threatened a feminist uprising when the camp owner tries to keep the women from speaking (Gen's mom is the first to point out that Wyoming had given women the vote well before 1890, meaning that women would certainly be used to speaking in their communities if nowhere else). Of course, bringing up that women were expected to fulfill 19th century societal roles gets a bit uncomfortable if you follow it to its logical conclusion - if you expect women to keep quiet, what would happen if an African- or Asian-American family signed up? It seems like some aspects of 1890 are best left ignored, like the corsets that aren't required thanks to liability issues. The feminist uprising is extremely brief, just a quick opportunity for some educational humor, and clearly isn't meant to be dwelt on.

Another educational bit is the mini-moral slipped in by the end regarding technology and expectations of privacy. It's not heavy handed, over the top, or totally obvious, but hopefully it will get younger readers thinking about privacy issues regarding e-mails and text messages - namely that once a message leaves your phone or computer, you no longer have much control over who else might see it.

While I know the summer is winding down, there's still a few weeks left for most people, and this would make an excellent last minute addition to your summer reading list!

Review: Every Little Thing in the World by Nina de Gramont

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 3/1

When Blogging for Choice day hit earlier this year, I wanted to write a thematically appropriate blog post, looking at YA books where characters have had or considered abortions.

The list was ridiculously short. Thus, no blog post this year.

Discussing this with a friend at the time, we concluded that a big part of the reason there were fewer books "about" abortion was because it's seen as undramatic - with a story of a young girl going through a pregnancy, you have nine months of drama, while abortions are short and quick.

Every Little Thing in the World has found a brilliant way around this problem: send the girl off into the Canadian wilderness for the first month of her pregnancy!

Sydney's life is a mess. Her parents are divorced and seem bent on making life hell for her - her father lives on a remote farm and eschews as many modern conveniences as is physically possible, while her mother constantly complains about what a burden Sydney is and how Sydney doesn't appreciate any of her sacrifices. So when Sydney discovers she's pregnant after a brief fling, she doesn't know where to turn. And when she and best friend Natalia try to track down said boy, they end up in the middle of a party busted by the police. Before Sydney can gather the guts to tell her parents she's pregnant (and probably wants an abortion), she and Natalia are shipped off for a month long kayaking trip through the Canadian wilderness.

Sydney tries to keep her pregnancy a secret, discussing it only when alone with Natalia, who is dealing with mother-issues of her own. During the month long trip, Sydney goes back and forth on her decision about the pregnancy several times. Thanks to her family issues, Natalia begs Sydney to keep the baby, despite her initial support for Sydney's decision to abort.

Sydney isn't the only camper with secrets, however, and the supporting characters are lively with colorful secrets of their own, including the TV star with a crush on another camper; a "youth at risk" with a shady history; and the flighty, giggly girl who might actually be enjoying this trip more than she's willing to tell anyone. And the counselor who is violently opposed to actually cooking any of the food they brought along, leading to meals of raw bacon and cold baked beans and tuna fish.

Short version of my review: I really, really loved this book. It honestly looks at the realities of having an abortion or become a teen mom. Sydney has a lot of reasons to go either way with her choice, and I really didn't know until the end of the book what she was going to choose. I did know that I would be satisfied with whatever her choice was, because Sydney clearly took the time to weigh the multiple options and would be making an informed decision.

Sydney's relationship with her mother is one of the weak points here - Sydney can get really whiney about how unfair life is and how unreasonable her mother is. And legitimately, her mother sounds pretty unreasonable (is it really a wise choice to tell your child she's a burden to you?), and some amount of whining would be reasonable and expected of a teenager, but she went a little overboard. However, since her mother is only in the first few chapters before Sydney's whisked away to the parent-less camp, we don't have to put up with that for long and can get along with the main story.

There are a lot of supporting characters, some better defined than others, but all interesting and give a great background to the camp experience. Meredith and Brendan, the girl who learns to love camp and the TV star, respectively, were probably my favorites. Mick, who joined the camp as part of a "youth at risk" summer program, has the deepest and most complex back story, but I was never comfortable with him and didn't quite buy how accepting of him Natalia and Sydney grew to be. The counselors are fun, but it's not hard to see how their "hands off" attitude towards a lot of things leads to the dramatic climax of the plot.

I highly recommend this one for anyone who's looking for a book about teen pregnancy that provides a realistic look at the options a young woman has. It's a much needed addition to the teen pregnancy genre!

Review: Going too Far by Jennifer Echols

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominated titles

The annotation for this title reads "Meg is the blue haired girl in a small town, John is the cop who picks her up one night, and the relationship that develops causes all sorts of problems."

I was adding this to my library request list at "blue haired girl," because that was me, from 5th grade through high school. Okay, it was more often green, and only a streak, as opposed to a whole head like Meg does (my hair was waist length - no way Mom was going to help me turn all of that green). And much to my parents' relief, I was never picked up by the cops at night, but I still felt, just from this annotation, that Meg was a girl after my own heart.

And I was right: I loved Meg throughout the book, even when she made it hard to be lovable.

Meg is counting the days until she can get the hell out of her little Alabama town, away from her parents who seem hell bent on shackling her to their little restaurant. She's just days away from spring break of her senior year - a spring break that is going to take her to see the ocean for the first time in her life - when she, her boyfriend, and the class valedictorians are picked up by the cops on the forbidden railroad tracks. Eric, Meg's boyfriend, gets let off easy, thanks to his father's money, but Meg and her friends are sentenced to ride with the various emergency departments for the week of spring break, so they can learn their actions have consequences.

Meg is assigned to ride with the police for the week, specifically with the enigmatic, handsome, and young Officer John Avery. He's the opposite of Meg in every way: serious, clean cut, and with a pathological need to follow and enforce the rules. But despite this, and despite all of her better judgment, Meg feels a connection, and wonders if she might be falling for the police officer, and if he might be falling for her.

Meg and John were both great, well rounded characters. Echols teases out the hints about the darker sides of these two: both Meg and John have demons to contend with, and neither is going to show their hand to the other unless pushed. Echols taunts us with hints about what makes these two tick, but withholds the payoff until it has the greatest impact on the story, the characters, and the reader. It's an extremely rewarding read.

I have just one complaint: who the heck photoshopped the cover? Check it out on Amazon - that is the worst 'shop of an eyebrow ring I've ever seen. Would it have been so hard to find a pierced model? Or give her a clip on hoop ring? Or leave off the ring entirely, since I don't recall Meg ever wearing an eyebrow ring? I usually don't give covers a second look, but this one made me cringe every time I looked at it.

Review: Feathered by Laura Kasischke

Wow, was this book ever a struggle to get through.

Terri, Anne and Michelle are off to Cancun to soak up the sun during spring break. The three are determined to make this week - the last spring break of high school - totally different from the rest of their lives in cold, snowy Illinois. Sun, drinks, and cute boys are the order of the week!

Terri dives headfirst into the fun, drinking and laughing it up with her fellow spring breakers. Anne and Michelle are slightly more hesitant, perhaps spurred on by the numerous speeches about safety their mothers have delivered, and have an additional item on their agenda: explore the ancient Mayan ruins that aren't too far from their hotel.

On the first night at the resort, Anne and Michelle meet Ander, a fatherly-type figure, old enough to be the father of most of the spring breakers, and with a foreign (not Mexican) accent. He's planning on visiting the ruins the next day as well and invites Anne and Michelle to come with him. Both hesitate - accepting a ride from a male stranger is exactly what their mothers warned them not to do - but ultimately agree.

At the ruins, Michelle is drawn into the myths and bloody history of the Mayan culture as Ander weaves stories about the sacrifices of virgins at the top of the pyramid. For the first time in her life, Michelle feels like she's actually having an adventure, actually doing something she could never do back in Illinois. Anne, meanwhile, is getting extremely creeped out by Ander. She refuses to accompany him and Michelle to the top of the pyramid and instead meets of trio of high school guys, also from Illinois, who are willing to drive Michelle and Anne back to the hotel, so long as they don't mind making a detour to a party at the Club Med first. (Insert ominous music - you know what's going to happen next)

Kasischke does do a good job of giving the story a sense of danger and depression throughout. Michelle is constantly reminiscing about some of the more depressing aspects of her childhood and growing up. What stuck out most to me, perhaps, was her constant fixation on things she couldn't do because she was a girl. She couldn't become a doctor or an astronaut because no woman she knew in her hometown had gone on to do those things - that's what men did. She doesn't make eye contact with men because she's terrified that they all think she's going to be coming on to them. I think these feelings will ring true to a lot of young women, and while I appreciate these issues being brought up in fiction, at times they felt heavy handed here. But these ruminations are the sole reason I'm pulling out the feminist label for this book, because they are issues that feminism is trying to tackle, even if they aren't handled in a particularly feminist way in this book.

Also interesting here was the use of alternating first person and third person narrative styles, like Another Kind of Cowboy used. I thought it was interesting that I stumbled across that particular stylistic device two books in a row. Additionally, Anne and Michelle tell their stories in two different tenses - Anne's parts of the book are first person, present tense while Michelle's are third person, past tense. Unlike Another Kind of Cowboy, however, it eventually becomes obvious why the two girls are narrating in totally different styles.

My biggest problems with the novel have to do with the ending - which is clearly a spoiler. If you've read the book and want to know my reaction to the end, or don't care about knowing the end ahead of time, click on "Read More"


Once the story starts following Anne, Michelle and the boys the story becomes rather predictable, at least if you've read the jacket and know that Michelle is supposed to disappear at some point in this story. But that predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing - what got bad about this novel is how nicely everything ended.

I think when I put this book on my to-read list, I was hoping for some sort of examination of Missing White Woman Syndrome in the light of instances like Natalee Holloway's disappearance. Definitely didn't happen. In fact, this read a lot like the after-school special version of a case like Natalee Holloway's - terrible things happen to these girls (but we never know how actually terrible), but everyone ends up back in Illinois by the end. Yes, Michelle is traumatized, until a feather brings her totally back to reality. I Am Not A Doctor, and my knowledge on amnesia is limited to what I just read on Wikipedia, but generally amnesia doesn't seem to work that way. It was an incredibly frustrating ending to what was already turning out to be a disappointing/frustrating book.