What Goes Up

What Goes Up  by Katie Kennedy

200 teen scientists vie for two positions with NASA's Interworlds Agency.  The tests cover math, science, problem-solving...and a lot more.  Rosa Hayashi is an obvious choice.  Eddie Toivonen is not.

Then gravity flutters, which it definitely should not do.  Immediately after, alternate-dimension aliens show up, and they look human.  In fact, the alternate-dimension aliens look exactly like the astronauts who just left Earth, only these astronauts are carrying a very dangerous cargo.

What could possibly go wrong?

Part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part Ender's Game and part literary roller coaster.  Put it all together for a fast-moving, fun book with an intriguing premise and appealing characters who make nerdy the new cool.  Highly recommended!

Ages 12 to adult.  Some cussing, some kissing and some unbelievably corny knock-knock jokes.

Learning to Swear in America

Learning to Swear in America  by Katie Kennedy

Apparently, it's difficult to calculate how much stuff from space lands on Earth in an average year.  But in Learning to Swear in America, there's only one object that anybody worries about. 

Asteroid BR1019 is a big one.  Not kill-the-dinosaurs big, (probably), but destroy-the-West-Coast-of-America big (possibly).  That's why NASA has borrowed Russian teen physics prodigy Yuri Strelnikov:  in the hope that Yuri can save California with math.

Yuri's research in antimatter will win the next Nobel Prize (presumably), but he is still a seventeen-year-old boy and the NASA scientists are disinclined to listen to him.  That's enough to drive Yuri to use obscenities, if only he knew how.

With help from hippie-girl Dovie (who declines his offer of quick sex before the world goes cold) and her brother Lennon (who sees the world clearly from his seat in a wheelchair), Yuri learns how to swear.  

And then, Yuri (maybe) has a chance to save the world (or at least, California).

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  An excellent pair for The Martian by Andy Weir with (significantly) fewer cuss words.

Orbiting Jupiter

Orbiting Jupiter  by Gary D. Schmidt
Jack is twelve years old when his foster brother comes to live with the family on their little farm in Maine.  Joseph Brook is fourteen years old, recently released from a facility called Stone Mountain.  And he has a daughter named Jupiter, whom he loves deeply although he has never seen her.

The story is slowly revealed, in tiny, agonizing bits.  Jack narrates with clear eyes and a farm boy's practicality:  that you can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.  That leaving a guy to get beat up while you go find a teacher is not okay.  And that being family means you've got somebody's back.

Just when things are looking brighter for Joseph, the end of the book comes crashing down.

What this book is: sweet. compelling. impossible to ignore.
What this book is not: easy.

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

Not If I See You First

Not If I See You First  by Eric Lindstrom

Parker Grant may be blind, but she's not dumb.  She has Rules (Chapter 3 lists them all) that she requires everybody to follow to ensure that she is as independent, smart, and capable of running her own life as possible.  She navigates the physical world pretty well, but her emotional life is a mess.  And, despite being part of a genius team of girls handing out advice to lovelorn teens in the courtyard at school, her love life is pretty pathetic.

Even her friendships with Sarah, Faith and Molly, which Parker considers to be essential to her life, have major flaws...flaws that Parker herself doesn't recognize until halfway through the book.  And what is she going to do about Jason, who is pretty cool, and Scott, whom she blames for betraying her when they were 13 years old?

The book is a compelling read that kept me up long past bedtime.  It's not perfect; there are some flaws (is there a reason  that all the Dad-characters are dead and/or run out of town? Also, the "gay kid" is kinda added-on) but the dialogue is awesome, and the insight into life as a modern blind teen was well-done.  

This review is based on an ARC provided by the publisher.  

Cover art not final (I hope...it's pretty ugly).  

The Martian

The Martian  by Andy Weir

audiobook ready by  R.C. Bray

Everybody figured that Mark Watney was dead.  The Martian astronaut's space suit was pierced by a flying piece of equipment during a sandstorm.  The suit erroneously reported that his vital signs were flat, and nobody could figure out where his body had fallen.  So the crew of Aries III left the Red Planet without him.

But Mark isn't dead.  Not yet.  He might die of starvation, or of carbon dioxide poisoning.  He might get lost on the surface with no way to find his way back to the equipment that will help him survive.  He might even die of loneliness or despair.

But he isn't dead yet.  

Apollo 13 meets MacGyver meets Robinson Crusoe in a fast-paced and believable survival story.  The audiobook read by R.C. Bray skillfully portrays the voices of a widely diverse cast of character--not just Mark Watney on Mars, but also the Aries III crew, the politicians at home in Washington, the team leaders at NASA, the orbital science geeks at JPL, and more.

Be aware that the narrative contains a sh*tload of cussing. If you were stranded alone on Mars, you'd probably cuss too.  

Highly recommended.  This book is not written for teen readers but will have lots of teen appeal, especially when the film starring Matt Damon is released in October 2015.