Let’s face it – zombies are awesome

Did you ever notice that zombies are always in packs? Like when was the last time you saw a lone zombie? Also, isn’t it cool to have a coming of age story with zombies?

I bet you never really considered the whole Zombie Question.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan rates very well on the Zomb-o-meter. This book also gets bonus points for being a dystopian novel.

This is the story of Mary, a teenager living in a post-apocalyptic village. The village is a pre-industrial type of society which exists generations after The Return/apocalypse which ended civilization as we know it. Not only is ‘modern’ information forgotten, but there doesn’t even seem to be a memory of the history of the apocalypse or even the memory of knowledge. The one remnant of a technological society is the chain link fence that encloses the town. The fence is the only protection that the villagers have against the ravenous Unconsecrated (zombies) that surround the fence. These Unconsecrated are in a near constant state of frenzy and they are constantly attempting to infect the healthy.

The life of the villagers is a grim one. They are controlled by The Sisterhood, a religious order that determines every aspect of life. Mary’s quest is to know of the outside world and the strange myth called ‘the ocean.’ To navigate the outside world as well as her own identity.

I highly recommend this book.

Football and dairy farms – together finally

Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock is a told in the voice of a girl who doesn’t want to be a cow anymore.

Fifteen-year-old D.J. has problems. She’s the uncool daughter of an uncool family who are dairy farmers in Wisconsin. The silence in her family conceals fissures in the various relationships between them. Her father is dominating and intimidating and her mother is emotionally absent as she pursues dual careers as teacher and temporary principal. Her two football-playing brothers have disappeared from the family landscape after conflict with D.J.’s tough father. Her younger brother Curtis conceals his pain behind his silence.

The summer that D.J. has to assume the farming responsibilities because of her father’s hip-replacement surgery, she also develops an accidental relationship with Brian Nelson, the starting quarterback of the opposing high school.  When D.J. is assigned the task of training Brian, she embarks on her own journey of self-awareness that allows her to stand up and finally take responsibility for her life.

Like the quiet of the Schwenk family, this novel is a quiet book in which the protagonist speaks directly to the reader. Her straightforward narration makes it an intimate book. Its discussion of football will make you look at the sport in a different way.

 

You simply will not look at the moon the same way again…

…or at least for the next little while. I couldn’t put this book down.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is told in diary form by sixteen-year-old Amanda Evans and describes the after-effects of a meteor hitting the moon. The result is catastrophic as the moon is knocked out of its orbit and falls closer to earth. One physical disaster follows another in this frightening scenario.

This book is scary. But also thought provoking. The ability to survive in the face of food and fuel shortages becomes increasingly difficult as circumstances on Earth grow progressively worse. It’s impossible not to contemplate how we as readers would respond to a similar catastrophe.

Amanda is a typical teenage girl living with a single mother and her younger brother, dealing with typical concerns like shifting friendships, competitive skating, and school work. As her situation worsens, Amanda’s diary entries show her and her family responding with ingenuity, courage, frustration, love, and anger.

This book was so absorbing – I read it in one day. Highly recommended.

A Woman’s Best Friend

I love, love, love this cover. I had read the original query that the author had sent to her literary agent and the book sounded irresistible. Here’s the first two lines of her query letter:

What happens when you find love and he finds your best friend instead?

If you’re Savannah Leone, you tear off your orange satin maid-of-honor gown, get drunk on Kool-Aid and vodka, and buy a German Shepherd from Slovakia off of the Internet.

I had to get a hold of this book. Admittedly, “women’s fiction” (yes it’s true – this is not a Young Adult novel, it’s *gasp* for grownups!) as she refers to it in her query letter, sounds a bit like a euphemism for romance. And while romance embedded into a story can be awesome, I don’t care for a romance-focused novel. So I have to say that this isn’t the kind of story that I’d normally read. But I have such a soft spot for dogs and the Slovakian command-obeying dog in this novel – Joe – is a significant character in this novel. I had to read it.

It’s a sweet story – a light read – with the inevitable happy ending. It explores the conflict of friendship, love, loneliness, and healing. It was definitely a fun and pleasant read.

All we are saying – is give MG a chance

MG – as in Middle Grade. Specifically Upper Middle Grade. If you’ve discovered the joy of Young Adult books and you’re not technically a young adult, chances are that it’s because of the strong story lines, emotional power, and clear resolution. So if you’re relatively recent to the world of Young Adult literature than you ought to consider giving Upper Middle Grade a chance. There’s some incredibly strong writing in this age category that will entertain you with its wit and insight.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is a great example of this. You’ll especially appreciate this book if you’ve read the children’s classic book Madeleine d’Engle’s A Winkle in Time. I still haven’t read A Wrinkle in Time which didn’t hamper my enjoyment of When You Reach Me which is an homage to the older book.

The main character Amanda is a sixth grader – yes she’s young but please don’t hold that against her – and negotiating changing friendships in the late ’70’s in Manhattan where she lives in a run-down apartment with her single mother. Her mother is preparing to participate in a game show, her best friend Sal has abandoned her, and she’s receiving strange and anonymous letters from someone who knows way too much about her.

The story line is engrossing, the characters are well-developed, the main character is completely sympathetic, the writing is sharp, and the ending is just fantastic. I highly recommend this one.

Awake – but not really

Wake by Lisa McMann is a short novel with short sentences. It’s told in third person present tense which seems a bit unusual “She wakes up. She looks around her…” but seems to fit with the mood of the book. This is a book about dreams, after all, and the writing style echoes the state of dream-ness. The sparse nature of the prose gives this novel a lean and concise feel. It doesn’t have a whole lot of description and distils the story to its basic essence.

It’s a fantastic premise. The main character Janie Hannigan discovers when she’s eight-years-old that she enters people’s dreams. It occurs against her will and with sometimes disastrous results – like when she’s driving a car. To onlookers she appears to be having seizures, but the reader gets to experience the dream from inside Janie’s head. What’s even more interesting is that once inside the dream Janie’s not just an onlooker. She finds herself actually interacting with the dream people as she becomes part of the narrative of the dream. The effect of being sucked into the dream is even more devastating when Janie enters people’s nightmares.

Janie is a sympathetic main character who copes with the reality of an alcoholic mother, absent father, and poverty with grace and determination. Her desire to live a better life propels her to excel at school and to spend countless hours working at a nursing home, saving for college. It’s her interaction with an older resident as well as a growing relationship with a boy that propels her to begin delving into the power of these dreams and to gain some control over the experience.

Although the writing style is somewhat unusual, the book is relatively brief, and the premise is fascinating. I kept wanting to read on because the ideas in the book captivated me.

This was the first novel by author Lisa McMann and the first of a three-part trilogy including the books Fade, and Gone. Apparently Wake is being made into a movie with Miley Cyrus possibly playing the lead role.

I found this to be an engrossing book and will definitely read the next one in the trilogy.

Before I Fall

I decided to read Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver, because it seemed to be getting some buzz. It’s a first novel and it’s obvious that this is an author to watch. I found her writing consistently sharp and witty which is what kept me reading, even when I found the characters troubling.

It’s not an easy novel. That’s mainly because the protagonist, Sam(antha) Kingston, is an unlikable character. She has few positive attributes – unless you consider being popular an achievement. And because of her close friendship with the dominating and classic teenage-mean-girl-nightmare chick Lindsay, she is clueless to the extent of her own cruelty. Although the book examines the process of emotional maturing and redemption, most of the time that we know the character, she’s oblivious to the suffering that she causes others. I found spending so much time with such a nasty character challenging. When you think about “unflinching view” this book’s got it. It was the narrator’s wit though that kept me reading on though – her insightful comments and observations.

In short, it was smart writing and that’s why I continued reading.

The book opens up with Sam describing her death in a drunken driving accident. She wakes up from the death and finds herself reliving the last day of her life. That happens seven days in a row, a la Groundhog Day. And like Groundhog Day, the process of reliving a day over and over again leads the character to evolve from basic jerk-hood to empathic human with sensitivity and self-respect. As the seven days pass, secrets are revealed to Sam. She gains a deeper understanding of people and learns about herself in the process.

Sam enjoys life as part of a clique of popular girls led by Lindsay after a childhood of loneliness. Even with the group though, the dynamic often has nasty undertones.

The last third of the book is the strongest. The story moves at a fast pace as it gets closer to the climax and resolution.

The book got a relatively high rating on Goodreads and seemed to really resonate with most readers. There’s no question that cruelty exists in humanity and it can be found in undiluted quantities in high school. Especially among girls. This book certainly doesn’t back off from depicting that cruelty. It was challenging at times but I found the writing completely enjoyable. I would definitely read more by this author.

How to ditch your fairy

Yay! I finally figured out how to embed a video on my blog. Of course, now that I’ve done the embedding I see how pathetically simple it was to do it all along. Either way… Here’s a book trailer that I put together for the delightful YA novel,  How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. It’s a short and witty book that tells the story of Charlie, a girl who has the most Useless. Fairy. Ever. Check it out!

A fantasy novel *gasp* to enjoy

I don’t read fantasy. I certainly don’t read high fantasy. But Graceling, by Kristin Cashore grabbed me from the first page.

The main character, Katsa, is a graceling – one of the gifted people in the seven kingdoms that are born with special abilities. Katsa has a grace that is of particular use to her king – she has the ability to kill with her bare hands. She can accomplish this no matter how formidable the skills of her opponent. Katsa’s grace gives her tremendous value to her uncle, the king who exploits her for his evil purposes.

Katsa’s dismay with the king’s designs spurs her to create a council of like-minded souls, whose mission is to secretly fight the evil and corruption in the seven kingdoms. When a mysterious kidnapping occurs, Katsa uses her special skills to free the elderly victim. She then sets out on a quest to solve the mystery of the abduction.

The quest is a combination of travel story, adventure, and love story. Katsa’s courage, bitterness, heroism, anger, and ingenuity make her a fascinating protagonist. If you like fantasy or romance, you’ll love this book. And if you’re like me, (and therefore you share the exact identical taste as me), and fantasy and romance are not your genres – you still might find yourself really enjoying this book. It’s a very well-told story.

Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature, by Robin Brande

This book is an excellent read. It throws us into immediate conflict. Mena Reese is a freshman in high school and is being shunned by her parents, best friend, and entire social circle. The reason for this is not immediately revealed. In fact we don’t really learn why until at least the first third of the book, which was a bit frustrating. But it was worth waiting for because the story itself, as well as the character Mena, is a compelling one. I really did enjoy this book.

The book weaves together Mena’s path of discovery, her changing relationships, her self-discovery, science, and evolution. (Great line when she realizes how much she enjoys her science class and teacher Ms. Sheppard: “I had a crush on science.”) The writing is witty, the characters are vivid, and there’s lots of humour. This book explores the meaning of evolution and the threat it poses to a particular religious community.

This is a book that examines evolution, argues for it, and is dismissive of intelligent design. The basic point of Ms. Sheppard is that intelligent design should not be taught in science class because it’s not science. That’s fine. That’s a mainstream opinion of evolution/ID and comes as no surprise.

The one tiny issue I had with the book concerned the depiction of the Christian community that Mena is exiled from. It is portrayed in wholly negative terms, and lacks the depth of the other characters. One of my writing mentors always says, that even your book enemies shouldn’t be totally bad. Perhaps there are Christian communities out there that resemble the one portrayed in this book, (this is an issue which I obviously know nothing about) but it still would have been somewhat more interesting to me if these people were depicted with a bit more complexity and nuance.

That being said, I still found this to be an entertaining and thought-provoking read. I recommend this. I think Brande is an excellent writer and I look forward to reading more of her work.