Small Town Sinners by Melissa C. Walker

Small Town Sinners by Melissa C. Walker

This book took me completely by surprise.  I had read that it was about the Hell Houses that evangelical Christian groups put on yearly to scare young people into joining their churches.  I was expecting an indictment of these sorts of events, not the well-balanced view Walker portrays in her new YA novel.  High school junior Lacey Anne is the story’s protagonist, with her father being the children’s pastor at her church, the House of Enlightenment.  She’s just about to get her drivers’ license and is  hoping her super strict parents will loosen the reins once she is able to drive herself and her two best friends around their small hometown.  She plans to audition for the Hell House’s most challenging part, that of Abortion Girl, who goes through a mock bloody abortion and dies as part of the production.  but, when she see’s a super hot new guy at the DMV, it takes her awhile to realize that he’s really Tyson Davis who moved out of town ten years ago.  But Ty seems to have secrets of his own, and is full of thoughtful questions about religion, beliefs and morality.  While he and Lacey Anne begin to secretly see each other, she begins to question her certainty about the strict biblical interpretations she’s been taught by her parents and church.

I literally could not stop reading this book until I finished it.  I expected it to be pretty one-sided against the controversial Hell Houses, but it showed the humanity of the people who put them on and their true desire to help other people by “saving them.”  Although I disagreed with many stands taken by Lacey’s church, they were portrayed fairly, with Walker going to pains not to demonize them.  It forced me to look at my own prejudices and make room for other perspectives, even those with which I strongly disagree.  This, I think is one of the strengths of this book.  It reminds us that just because we all have different beliefs, it doesn’t mean the people on the opposite side of the fence are the enemy.

I would recommend this book to all teens, especially those who like books that encourage them to think about the big issues–religion, morality, war, etc.  It’s a short, fast read so it’s perfect for that last minute book project or long car ride with the family.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

When Valerie’s boyfriend brings a gun into the high school Commons, he kills six people and injures a number of others.  In fact, he shoots Val in the leg as she’s trying to get him to stop his rampage.  Although she had no idea what Nick had planned, the students he targeted were people on the hate list Nick and Valerie wrote together, including all the students who had bullied them, and even people (like their parents) who had simply gotten on their nerves.  Valerie saw it as a way to express her frustration with being called Sister Death by her classmates, and her sadness about her parents’ constant bickering.  It never occurred to her that Nick’s talk of death,  wanting to be like Romeo and Juliet and maybe “leaving it all behind” had even an ounce of seriousness behind it.

Even though Valerie helped bring the shooting to an end, saved one girl by standing in front of her in the process and was injured herself, it seemed like the whole town blamed her for what happened.  Even when the police investigation cleared her, her own parents were still afraid of who she was and what she might do next.

Val’s pain and guilt throughout the book are easy for the readers to feel, making this a compelling read.  Even though it’s a little over 400 pages, I found it difficult to put down and finished it in just a few days.  I highly recommend it to all teen readers who like realistic fiction.  I think fans of Ellen Hopkins and Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why will devour this book.

Here’s a book trailer you can see from home:

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I’m predicting that this will be one of our favorite books of 2012, even though the year is less than a month old.  John Green is amazing writer who’s able to capture the smart and sardonic teen attitude and voice with perfection.  Be forewarned that although this sounds like a sad story, most readers will find it totally uplifting because the story of first love counter-balancing the teens’ tragedy of cancer is told with effortless simplicity.  The story is narrated by Hazel, who has stage IV thyroid cancer that is in remission due to some new, miraculous chemotherapy drug. At sixteen, she’s already lived two years longer than her doctors originally predicted, but is finding living with cancer both painful and depressing.  That is until she meets Augustus Waters in a support group her parents coerce her into attending.  He is tall, gorgeous and in remission from his cancer, but comes to support his pal Isaac, who’s lost one eye to the disease already.  It’s the way the characters think and talk that make this book so awesome. Upon first seeing Augustus, Hazel thinks:

“I looked away, suddenly conscious of my myriad insufficiencies.  I was wearing old jeans, which had once been tight but now sagged in weird places, and a yellow T-shirt advertising a band I didn’t even like anymore.  Also my hair:  I had this pageboy haircut, and I hadn’t even bothered to, like, brush it.  Furthermore, I had ridiculously fat chipmunked cheeks, a side effect of treatment.  I looked like a normally proportioned person with a balloon for a head.  This was not even to mention the cankle situation.  And yet–I cut a glance to him, and his eyes were still on me.  It occurred to me why the called it eye contact. “

Hazel and Augustus fall tentatively in love, each one nervous about the other and the repercussions of their feelings.  Their feelings, relationship and sickness give them both have the opportunity to rethink the importance of life, heaven, disease and the mark one leaves on the world.

I adored this book, and felt as if I were living through their trials and triumphs with this young couple.  I would recommend this to all teen readers, especially fans of John Green.  We have multiple copies of his other most popular book, Looking For Alaska, which is reviewed HERE.

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

In this gripping novel in verse, Hopkins tells what happens to three suicidal teenagers who meet in a clinic for “troubled youth” in Nevada.  First there’s Conner, who seems to have the perfect life if you don’t look too closely.  He lives in a mansion in an exclusive part of town and is very popular at school. Along with this, however, he has parents with impossibly high expectations who are always comparing him to his “perfect” twin sister Cara.  Then we meet Tony, a street kid who’s been in the juvenile detention system since he was a young child, but readers won’t learn why until much later in the book.  We just find out that he’s gay and been a prostitute on and off just to survive.  Lastly is Vanessa, the beautiful girl with a secret so dark the only way she believes she can relieve her pain is by cutting herself.  These three patients slowly become friends as they find they have more and more in common with each other.  Sharing their pasts is excruciating, but carefully they reveal their darkest mysteries to each other, learning to trust and love in the process.

This book is full of bleak topics: sexual abuse, self-mutilation, drug abuse, parental neglect, mental illness and suicide. Like all of Hopkins’ books, the author has done her research, and presents her characters in a realistic, if depressing fashion.  I found this book engaging, yet sad.  It didn’t really matter that I read it after I read Perfect, as there was only one character in common.  I would highly recommend this to teen readers who like realistic fiction and fans of Hopkins’ other titles.

Click HERE to see the review of the companion novel Perfect.

 

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

I haven’t read any Ellen Hopkins titles for awhile, and I forgot how emotionally wrenching they can be.  This one was certainly no exception in terms of teenagers trying to make their way in a hostile world.  Like she often does, the writer uses free verse poetry to tell four different yet overlapping stories in alternating chapters .  Cara is coping with the suicide of her twin brother Conner, who finally cracked under their parents’ unreasonable expectations for their perfect off-spring.  For Kendra, being perfect means having the perfect figure and face, even if it requires anorexia and plastic surgery.  Sean want to have the perfect future, which in his mind includes an athletic scholarship to Stanford and Cara as his girlfriend. Andre’s parents are high achievers, a plastic surgeon and an investment banker, and expect him to follow in their footsteps, even though dancing is what makes his heart sing. Here’s how we meet Andre Marcus Kane III:

“Don’t Get Me Wrong

I do understand my parents wanting only

the best for me.

Am one hundred percent tuned to the concept

that life is a hell of a lot more enjoyable

with a fast-flowing

stream of money carrying you along.

I like driving a pricey car, wearing

clothes that feel

like they want to be next to my skin.

I love not having to be a living, breathing

stereotype because

of my color.  Anytime I happen to think

about it, I am grateful to my grandparents

for their vision.  Grateful

to my mom for her smarts, to my dad

for his bald ambition and yes, greed.

Not to mention

his real intuition.  But I’m sick of being

pushed to follow in his footsteps.  Real

estate speculation?

Investment banking?  Neither interests me.

Too much at risk, and when you lose,

you lose major.

I much prefer winning, even if it’s winning

small.  I think more like my grandfather.

Andre Marcus Kane Sr.

Embraced the color of his skin, refused

to let it straightjacket him.  He grew up in

the urban California

nightmare called Oakland, with its rutted

asphalt and crumbling cement and frozen

dreams, all within

sight of sprawling hillside mansions.

I’d look up at those houses, he told

me more than once,

and think to myself, no reason why

that can’t be me, living up there.  No

reason why at all, except

getting sucked into the swamp.”

I loved this book, in fact, it’s one of my favorites from fall 2011.  I think all teens can identify with the issues these four struggle with, even though the characters’ problems are taken to pretty extreme lengths.  I recommend this to all young adult readers, with a  special shout out the the Berkeley High Ellen Hopkins fans!  By the way, this is the companion novel to Hopkins’ earlier title Impulse.

How To Save a Life by Sara Zarr

How To Save a Life by Sara Zarr

Sara Zarr’s newest novel will absolutely delight her fans, both old and new.  She tells this story from two disparate perspectives: high school senior Jill and pregnant nineteen year old Mandy.  Jill’s father died suddenly nearly a year before, and she and her mom are not dealing well with the loss. In fact, Jill has practically disowned her friends and has broken up with her boyfriend Dylan three times because she refuses to let him see her pain and grief, getting mean and snarky instead.  Her mom Robin has decided to adopt a baby, much to Jill’s shock and anger.

“Adding someone to a family, though?  Is major.  Life-changing.  Permanent.  When someone’s been subtracted from a family, you can’t just balance it out with a new acquisition.  In the months after Dad died, a couple people told us we should get a dog.  A dog!  How is this all that different?” she says.

Robin found Mandy on New Year’s Eve through an open adoption website.  Mandy told Robin she is pregnant from true love, but Robin and her daughter Jill slowly find out that sometimes Mandy lies to cover terrible secrets from her past.  In addition,  Mandy has numerous demands for the adoption of her baby, all of which Robin goes along with, making Jill fume even more.  The ending will probably not come as a complete surprise to most readers, but it’s emotionally satisfying and a logical conclusion to everything that’s happened in the story.

This was an amazing story; I found it hard to put the book down. I highly recommend it to all teen readers, especially fans of Sara Zarr, Jodi Piccoult and Sarah Dessen.

Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

At Oregrove High, nobody messes with the football team!  When the gymnastics team wants to use the weight room and humiliates the football players in a strength contest, a war of pranks starts between the two teams that escalates until one of the youngest gymnasts is raped by three steroid-fueled football players.  The horrendous act is witnessed by two boys: Danny, a gymnast stuck behind some mats in the back of the storage room and Kurt, a fullback transfer student who beats up the three sick athletes, but has his own history with abuse.  The book is narrated in alternating chapters by these two characters, who could be more different, but eventually become friends.  The suspense of who to tell about the rape or what to do about it kept me on the edge of my seat until the end of the story.

I think this was a great book and recommend it to all mature high school readers. It is dark and realistic, touching on the current hot topic of bullying in a very realistic way.  It gets quite graphic and also has strong language, but both fit perfectly within the context of the story.  I give it 5 stars out of five!!!

Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

When Susan Tate finds out her seventeen-year-old daughter Lily is pregnant, she is shocked.  When Lily tells her that she got pregnant on purpose, and so did her two best friends, Susan doesn’t know where to turn.  This gripping novel tells the story of a teen pregnancy pact from the perspective of the girls’ mothers, as well as their own.  While Lily, Jessica and Mary Kate thought they were taking their own futures into their hands, they had no thought as to how it would impact their mothers, who are also best friends.  What makes this especially difficult for the small Maine town where the families live is that these are “good girls,” with great grades from good families where were planning to go to college in the fall.  Add to this the fact that Lily’s mom Susan is principal of the local high school the girls all attend, and that she herself was unmarried and pregnant at seventeen.  But wait, there’s also a fourth girl who may be involved, the daughter of one of the town’s founders and owner of the company that supports most of the local economy.

This book keep me up until the wee hours of the morning reading it.  I had to know if Susan kept her job, and if Lily’s baby would be OK.  What I especially liked about this book was that it included the mothers and their feelings in the story.  I think this would be a perfect choice for fans of Jodi Picoult and Sarah Dessen.

This is a repost for those folks who don’t read the blog over the summer.  Since then we’ve also gotten some other books by the author: The Secret Between Us, Twilight Whispers and Looking for Peyton Place.

True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolfe

True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolfe

The narrator of this story, La Vaughn, is someone you just want to be friends with.  Just the way she thinks and talks makes you know she would listen to your problems the way a good friend should.  She tells her own story in such a straightforward and honest way; you feel like you are right there with her.  La Vaughn is determined to go to college, despite the financial obstacles that face her.  Although her father was killed when she was young, her mother has been saving for her college education for what seems like forever.

And on top of all the school pressure she’s been feeling from the advanced science class she got moved to, La Vaughn is also struggling with lots of other big issues: friendship, love, family and religion.  This is the second book in the Make Lemonade series and my favorite of the three.  I recommend it to readers who like books about teenagers making hard decisions, fans of urban drama, and anyone wanting a quick and engaging read.

Harmless by Dana Reinhardt

Harmless by Dana Reinhardt

Afraid of getting caught in a lie about where they really were, Anna, Emma and Mariah concoct a story instead. Treated as heroes for fighting off an attacker they made up, they start to feel guilty. When a homeless man is arrested for the attack, the only way to prove his innocence is to confess themselves. Making this decision presents each of the girls with a difficult moral dilemma.

This book is told in chapters by each of the girls from individual points of view. I felt like I got to know them all and could understand each of their positions. The supporting characters, including families and friends, are realistic and add depth to the story. I kept reading because I really wanted to find out how they dealt with the problem they created themselves. Anyone who likes books that make you think will like this!

Review by Ms. Goldstein-Erickson

Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Comier

Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Comier

Although this is a thin book (less than 200 pages), I promise it will leaving you thinking about if long after you’re done.   Jason, who’s almost thirteen, is shy and has always been bullied at school.  When his seven-year-old neighbor girl is murdered, he’s shocked and horrified.  It’s especially scary because he was the last one known to have seen her alive.  He wants to do whatever he can to help find her killer, so when the police come to his house, he tells them everything he knows.  What Jason doesn’t realize is that Detective Trent has already decided in his mind that the teenager is the murderer.  And Trent is known for getting confessions out of suspects, and in fact, has never failed to get one.  The confrontation between these two at the climax of the book is terrifying, and shows what can happen when police pursue justice at any cost.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all readers.  I could not get the ending out of my mind for day, and it made me wonder about how easy it is to manipulate young minds.  It would be especially perfect for fans of television police procedural, like CSI:Miami and Law & Order.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

When Waino Mellas joined the Marine Reserves, the United States wasn’t involved in Vietnam.  He saw the reserves as a straight-forward way to help pay for his Ivy League education.  But when he graduated from college, he felt compelled to keep his “promise” to Uncle Sam and ends up as a second lieutenant leading a platoon in Bravo Company in the deep jungle of the Quang-Tri Province of Vietnam, near the Laos border.  The book is told through his eyes as his company fights not only the North Vietnamese Army, but also the heat, monsoons, malaria, thirst, hunger, leeches, trench foot, jungle rot,Agent Orange and land mines, and an enemy who sometimes feels like unrelenting apparition.  Bravo Company is charged with taking the hill the army has named Matterhorn, and after a bloody, devastating campaign, they are ordered to build an outpost there, only to be told to abandon it almost immediately after completion for a new mission. Thanks to new technology, the war is being directed by a lt. colonel and his second-in-command, who are stationed safely away from the bloody and horrific battlefields.  Not only Simpson drink too much, his motives are often suspect and he misses reports that leaves the company stranded without food, water or ammunition.

It took Karl Marlantes, a decorated marine who did serve in Vietnam, over thirty years to write this book.  At 600 pages, it’s certainly not a quick read, but for readers who want to know what the war was like for the regular grunts, it feels spot-on real, showing the life-affirming camaraderie between the soldiers,  as well as the violent and unyielding horrors of guerrilla warfare.  Although it’s almost more a character study than a plot-driven novel, readers will find it impossible to put down, once immersed into the lives of Mellas and Bravo company.  To aid the reader, Marlantes has added chart of the main characters and a  map of the fictional area around Matterhorn to the front of the book.  In the back, he has included an invaluable glossary of military terms, slang and jargon.  I especially appreciated this because his characters and plot could be authentic, without making me feel lost as a civilian reader.

This is not a decent book about the Vietnam War, it is a great book!  It has been compared to Tim O’Brien’s classic The Things They Carried, and in my opinion may just be a better book.  This vividly told book dropped me into the middle of the war, right along with Mellas.  The combat sequences were authentic and engaging, even while difficult to endure.  I felt his frustration and pain when he lost soldiers; or was told, no, there won’t be any resupply today because the military can’t take the risk of losing its choppers worth millions of dollars just to bring your troops food and water.  When the racial tension between soldier bubbled over into dangerous territory,  the reader feels as afraid for the men as Mellas does.  This compelling novel may become the Catch 22 for this war.  Especially now as the United States continues its part in the was in the Middle East, this book should be assigned reading for all officers to remind them of the mistakes we’ve made in the recent past so we don’t repeat them again.

I recommend this book to all readers and can’t rate it highly enough.  For fans of Tim O’Brien’s books and anyone interested in what really went on with the foot soldiers in this war, this is a must read.

Rikers High by Paul Volponi

Rikers High by Paul Volponi

Seventeen-year-old Martin Stokes has spent five  long months waiting behind bars for his trial for a petty crime.  He used to think his New York City neighborhood was tough, until he got to the infamous Rikers Island jail.  Here, he’s found it safest not to even talk to anyone at all, even though the isolation is wearing him down.  As a bleak reminder of where he is, Martin has a long, jagged scar on the right side of his face from when he was cut with a razor for not getting out of the way quickly enough during an inmate fight. At least his injury gets him sent to a different section of the jail where he’s actually sent to classes to earn credit towards his high school diploma.  But will the kindness of some of the teachers be enough to save Martin from the dangers at Rikers and his own need for revenge on the kid who cut him?

This realistic title was written by Paul Volponi, who many readers remember from  Black and White and Rucker Park Setup. As one of the teachers on Rikers Island for five years, Volponi incorporates much of the incidents he witnessed into this fictional account.  Reading the book, I felt like I was there along with Martin, experiencing the prison slang, tension and inmates along with him.

I would recommend this to readers of Urban Drama, Paul Volponi fans and anyone who wants to see what it’s like for a teenager inside a prison.

Wayback Wednesday-Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

I decided to include this book again because it’s such a great read.  I’ve never given it to a student who hasn’t liked it; and that’s saying something!

This book grabbed my attention the second I started reading it a couple weeks ago. The book is a “letter” from seventeen-year-old Matt to his baby sis Emmy, telling her how they grew up because he knows she won’t remember a lot of it. That’s probably a good thing because their mom is crazy, sweet as sugar one second, then yelling and abusing them before they know what’s happened. What I loved about this book is that I felt like I was right there with Matt as the story was happening, and felt his pain and frustration when he tried to get his estranged father, aunt and one of his mom’s boyfriends to help them.

I would recommend this book to all teen readers, especially those who like realistic fiction, family drama, and books about child abuse.  We have three copies just waiting to be checked out!

Here’s a pretty good book trailer you can see from home:

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

This third and final novel in Hopkin’s Crank series brings  the meth-addicted Kristina’s story full circle.  It tells the story of her three eldest children as teenagers: Hunter, Summer and Autumn.  Although they all live separate lives, even being raised in different families, these young adults have all been impacted by their mother’s love affair with the Monster (methamphetamine) and the life path it has led her down.  They are all predisposed to addiction, and deal with anger, trust and self-esteem issues with a variety of levels of success.

From Hunter, age 19 and a college freshman at University of Nevada, Reno:

“I’VE GOT A LITTLE PROBLEM

And I’m not really sure

how to fix it.  Not really sure

I need to.  Not really sure I could.

Life is pretty good.  But once

in awhile, uninvited and

uninitiated, anger invades me.

It starts, a tiny gnaw

at te back of my brain.  Like

a  migraine, except without pain.

They say headaches

blossom, but this isn’t so

much a blooming as a bleeding.

Irritation bleeds into

rage, seethes into fury.

An ulcer, emptying hatred

inside me.  And I don’t

know why.  Life is pretty good.

So, what the hell?”

This was a great story, although very sad at times.  Kristina’s three children that are featured have so many obvious and unexpected issues related to their absent mom and various dads.  The two youngest that she was actually raising herself were no better off as she had basically no parenting skills and was more concerned with herself than her kids.  This book made me realize how so much that parents do affects their children in ways that can never be anticipated.  For me, it brought the story back to where it started, when Kristina was a teen having to make hard decisions about drugs, relationships and family.  Now her own children are having to make these same types of choices.

I would recommend this book to fans of Hopkins, fans of realistic fiction, and readers who like stories told in free verse.

Here’s a pretty good book trailer you can see from home:

Smack by Melvin Burgess

Smack by Melvin Burgess

Fourteen-year-old British runaways become heroin addicts in this gripping story.  No one would be surprised to see Tar runs away from his abusive, alcoholic parents, even though he had no idea where to go or how he would take care of himself.  But when Gemma decides to flee from her overly strict parents to join him, it changes everything.  Through a helpful tobacco storeowner, they find an empty building and decide to join some others in “squatting” there.  After they meet the carefree older teenagers Lily and her boyfriend Rob, life becomes one non-stop party, free of responsibilities, full of sex  and drugs and partying.  Slowly, the couple’s occasional heroin use turns into a full blown addiction, pulling them in directions they never imagined possible.

What most readers love about this “impossible to put down” book is that is doesn’t lecture them about the dangers of drug abuse.  It simply grabs you from the first page and plunges you first-hand into a lifestyle you probably wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

I would recommend this to all types of readers, especially those who like gritty, realistic stories about teens living on the dangerous edge of society.

Dreamland

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

When Caitlin was younger, her mother used to tuck her and her sister into bed every night, promising to “See you in Dreamland” before shutting the door quietly behind her.  Now, Dreamland is where the sixteen-year-old is trying to live, practically invisible in a place where no one even notices her.  When her almost perfect sister runs away to New York City instead of entering Yale University, Caitlin wants a life of her own choosing, instead of one where she always compares herself to her stellar sister Cassandra.  The handsome, mysterious, and brooding Rogerson seemed to be her opportunity to create an identity of her own choosing.  Here she won’t have to measure up to the cheerleading squad’s tiresome demands.  Here she won’t have to be transformed into her mother’s “project” to replace the beloved Cassandra.  Here she won’t have to struggle to fit in to the popular crowd at her school, something her best friend Rina has no trouble doing.  The problem is that Rogerson has problems of his own, the kind of problems that soon become Caitlin’s, too.  This devastating journey into the heart and mind of a teenager who can’t seem to ask for the help she needs will keep you the edge of your seat wondering if Caitlin will be able to save herself before it’s too late.

This is one of Sarah Dessen’s older titles, but it still as great as anything she has written recently.  I highly recommend it to all her fans, and fans of realistic teen stories.

Rules of Attraction

Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles

This great title is the second in Elkeles Perfect Chemistry trilogy.  In this book, Alex’s little brother Carlos moves from Mexico to live with him in Colorado, where he’s at college with his sweetheart Brittany. (These were the main characters from the first book Perfect Chemistry.  You don’t have to read that book for this one to make sense, but it is a fabulous story; in fact, I liked it better than the second one.)  Carlos is a smart aleck who enjoyed his life la vida loca with one of the Mexican gangs.  He can’t believe Alex is trying to mold him into a “whipped” college boy like he is, studying and taking long walks with his Gringa girlfriend.  After getting to some serious trouble with the law, Carlos is forced to move in with one of Alex’s professors, and his life goes from bad to worse.  What’s crazy to him is that he can’t get the professor’s straight-laced, hiking boot-wearing, independent daughter named Kiara off his mind, no matter what he does.  Sound familiar? Yes, this book reminded me a lot of the first in the trilogy, but that won’t stop anyone from being totally involved the the on-again, off-again relationship between the two seemingly opposite teens.  To this mix, throw in a drug lord who wants to use Carlos’ Mexican connections to further his business and the plot can’t get more complex.

I really enjoyed this book and recommend to all types of readers.  Even though it might seem like a typical good girl falls for the bad boy romance, it has deeper themes that will keep you engaged to the end –  family, making choices, acting responsibly.  Elkeles writes well from the teen perspective, using lots of current slang sprinkled with Spanish from Carlos.  She alternates chapters from both characters perspectives, really letting the readers get into their minds and see the conflicts first hand.

Here’s the professionally created video book trailer you can see from home.  It’s amazing and even has quotes from the book!

Ellen Hopkins Event!!!!

One of Berkeley High’s favorite authors has her latest book coming out this month.  We can even see her, hear her read and chat at one of our local indie bookstores!

Thursday, September 16, 2010 – 7:00pm

A Great Good Place for Books

6120 LaSalle Avenue

Oakland, California 94611

A Great Good Place for Books proudly welcomes Ellen Hopkins as she reads from her new book FALL OUT,  Thursday September 16th at 7:00 pm.  This is the third and final book in the Crank series.  Here’s a description from Goodreads.com:

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for twenty years.

Hunter is nineteen, angry, getting by in college with a job at a radio station, a girlfriend he loves in the only way he knows how, and the occasional party. He’s struggling to understand why his mother left him, when he unexpectedly meets his rapist father, and things get even more complicated. Autumn lives with her single aunt and alcoholic grandfather. When her aunt gets married, and the only family she’s ever known crumbles, Autumn’s compulsive habits lead her to drink. And the consequences of her decisions suggest that there’s more of Kristina in her than she’d like to believe. Summer doesn’t know about Hunter, Autumn, or their two youngest brothers, Donald and David. To her, family is only abuse at the hands of her father’s girlfriends and a slew of foster parents. Doubt and loneliness overwhelm her, and she, too, teeters on the edge of her mother’s notorious legacy. As each searches for real love and true family, they find themselves pulled toward the one person who links them together—Kristina, Bree, mother, addict. But it is in each other, and in themselves, that they find the trust, the courage, the hope to break the cycle.

Told in three voices and punctuated by news articles chronicling the family’s story, FALLOUT is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy begun by CRANK and GLASS, and a testament to the harsh reality that addiction is never just one person’s problem.

I can’t wait to read this book as I absolutely loved Crank and Glass!  I would recommend this to readers who like realistic fiction and books told in verse.

A Hope in the Unseen

A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

This book is the inspiring  story of Cedric Jennings’s journey from an inner city Washington D.C. school through his first year at Ivy League Brown College. It begins in 1994 when Cedric is a junior at Ballou Senior High.  He is hiding out in his chemistry classroom, avoiding the awards assembly in the gym where he would surely be harassed as a nerd upon getting his prize.  His long-time mentor, Mr. Taylor is gently but firmly encouraging him about his future, as he has done since the student was a ninth grader.  ”You see, Cedric, you’re in a race, a long race…You can’t worry about what people say from the sidelines.  They’re already out of it.  You, however, are still on the track.  You just have to keep on running…”  Behind him for support, Cedric also has has his single mother and his Pentecostal church, both of whom have complete faith that the lanky young man will make it.  One of Cedric’s early successes is making it into a summer science program at MIT.  Even though it’s a program for underrepresented students, Cedric finds himself completely unprepared academically, even though he is the top students at Ballou.  Even after he’s told at the final evaluation that he’s just “not MIT material,” Cedric may be disheartened, but does not give up.  No one ever told him that this would be easy.  His acceptance to Brown is a major triumph, both for him and his family, but there again he finds himself unprepared, both academically and emotionally.  His journey made me realize that it’s only the beginning when our students get into college; the hardest part comes next.

What I especially appreciated is how the writer and Cedric explored the student’s thoughts and feelings as he struggled — first escape from a violent inner city environment where education was not prized by the other students at the school, then to the hyper-competitive private college milieu where he started off behind academically (despite getting straight A’s in high school) and felt isolated and lost.  This is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read, and I recommend to ALL BHS students.