Dread Nation

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Y'all need to understand that I am a coward, a complete chicken pants. I can't watch scary movies and I definitely can't read scary books...

...which makes Dread Nation something special.

It's the story of a young woman, Jane McKeene, born just two days before the dead at the Battle of Gettysburg began to rise up and attack the living. Now Jane is at a required school, where black girls are trained to kill the undead... and Jane has serious zombie-slaying skills.

Part suspense, part mystery, part adventure, and a big part social commentary, this book kept me turning pages from beginning to end. It's not too scary...but there are a lot of zombies. And they aren't all, um, dead yet.

Book #1 in a series but this one stands alone while offering a nice setup for book #2. Mild cussing, some kissing and other sexual situations, a bucket ton of racism, plus zombies. 

Highly recommended for ages 12 and up.

Like a River Glorious

Like a River Glorious  by Rae Carson (Gold Seer Trilogy #2)

Lee Westfall and her companions have arrived (mostly) safely, in California.  Soon Lee's "witchy" senses are detecting more gold than all of them will ever need--it's in the water, in the dirt, and in the rock walls above the small encampment they build.  

But the citizens of Glory are not the only gold seekers in California.  Her wicked uncle Hiram still hunts her, and he has plans for Lee that she has never dreamed, even in her worst nightmares.

Solid historical fiction with just a touch of magic.  The issues faced by the Chinese, the local native tribes, and the "confirmed bachelors" are not ignored, which is refreshing.  Of course the problems faced by women--considered akin to property or livestock by US and territorial law at the time--are essential to the story.

This is a fitting companion to Walk on Earth a Stranger, with some (not lots) of cussing, discussions of drug use (laudanum), and some referrals to prostitution (not shown on the page).  

Recommended for readers ages 12 to adult.

If You Could Be Mine

If You Could Be Mine  by Sara Farizan

Seventeen-year-old Sahar has shared kisses and romantic dreams of the future with her best friend Nasrin since they were little girls.  But modern Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love.  The punishment for homosexuality might be a beating, or it might be death by hanging.  So far, their love has stayed secret...but when Nasrin's family arranges a marriage for her, Sahar feels she must act.

Although homosexuality is a crime in Iran, transsexuality is not.  In fact, the government will pay for sexual reassignment.  Sahar knows she isn't really a man in a woman's body.  But, what if this is the only way she can ever be with Nasrin?

This absorbing peek into another culture features a wide cast of well-written characters:  Sahar, who loves Nasrin.  Nasrin, who loves candy, and Bollywood movies, and pretty clothes, and being the center of attention...and probably also loves Sahar.  Sahar's father, who still mourns for his wife and refuses to move forward with his life.  Sahar's cousin Ali, a gay man trying to find his place. Ali's friend Parveen, who tries to help Sahar sort things out.  And Reza, the doctor engaged to marry Nasrin, who is not as simple and two-dimensional as Sahar might wish.

Kissing, mild cussing, sexual decisionmaking and sexual situations.  Recommended for ages 14 to adult.

Dime

Dime  by Frank, E.R.

Atheneum, 2015.  978-1-4814-3160-6.  $17.99.  314p

  

Thirteen-year-old Dime has been in the Foster Care System, and has been abused by it.  

She decides to run away, unfortunately trusting the first "nice" man who offers her help.  As she slowly realizes that she is being groomed as a prostitute, she also believes that this is her “family.”  She has food, a good place to sleep, and “sisters.”  When the world again falls apart, it is so difficult to watch.

Human trafficking is a popular theme currently, and this slight book brings that home once again through human interaction.  Dime is thirteen.  There are many girls in middle school like her.  The sexual situations are not graphic, but still real.  The book is not without hope, but hope is only in the background.  Dime has so much to overcome that the sheer weight threatens to drag both you and her down.

For teens looking for the feelings involved with the “why” of a teen becoming a prostitute.  Difficult to read, but important to discuss and understand.  Frank has long produced gritty, well-written novels. This BBYA selection is no exception.  It is an important book to read and discuss.  Dime’s voice will stay in your mind for a long time.

Recommended 13 up

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go : a novel of Haiti  by Laura Rose Wagner

Cousins Nadine and Magdalie have lived together as sisters their whole lives, raised by Manman in the Haitian city of Port-au-Prince.  But when the big earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, everything changed.  Manman was killed in the quake, crushed by the roof of their home.  Schools are closed.  People are afraid to sleep under a roof at night.  The girls go to live with an uncle in a tent encampment, and everyone tries (often unsuccessfully) to make life seem normal again.

When Nadine's estranged father sends for her to come to Florida, Magdalie clings to the hope that she will soon escape Port-au-Prince as well.  Gradually, however, Magdalie understands that her future must be in Haiti, and that her hope for a better life must mean a hope for a clean, prosperous Haiti.

Honest, grim, and horrible at times, this coming-of-age story is nonetheless infused with points of brightness, and clearly shows the circumstances still facing Haitians today, long after the earthquake.

Highly recommended for discussion.  

The Cellar

The Cellar    by Natash Preston

Sixteen-year-old Summer heads to a club to meet a friend, refusing her boyfriend’s offer to walk with her.  It’s a small town, safe; it’s a short distance.  

She doesn't know that “Clover,” a psychotic abuser, is looking for a replacement for “Lily,” one of the girls who are his "flowers." The flowers are girls he has kidnapped and keeps in his cellar to be his family.  The girls are named as those flowers:  Rose, Violet, Poppy, and now Lily.  He is given breakfast and dinner by the girls; he dresses them alike; occasionally he sexually abuses them.  If they complain, fight back, or try to escape, they are killed: knifed in front of the other girls who must clean up the mess and place the girl in a body bag.  There have been many girls in the past, although only one Rose.

Slowly we learn Clover’s real identity and back story, with insight into the psychological stimuli which lead to his bringing prostitutes home and killing them with his knife, leaving the bodies for the “Flowers” to clean up and place in a body bag.

Summer is missing for a year, and the story unfolds through the eyes of Summer, her boyfriend, and Clover in alternating chapters. It is a slow descent, with plenty of time for readers to be struck with the slow horror.

My biggest pique with the story is that Summer never really deals with the psychological aftermath.  She may in fact have Stockholm Syndrome, but no one is stressing the need for a therapist.  It is impossible to believe that she could even remotely deal with all that happened on her own.

The Cellar is similar to Coley’s Pretty Girl Thirteen, although that story dwelled on Stockholm Syndrome.

Recommended 9^th grade up.

bullying, child abuse, cussing, death, grieving, kissing, prostitution, rape, sexual situations, Star Trek Sex, and violence.

How To Lead a Life of Crime

How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller

"It's like Hogwarts for hustlers," says main character Flick, a pickpocket and runaway recruited as a student to the Mandel Academy. 

At Mandel, students are taught to seize power, money and political control, especially using illegal tactics.  The school offers coursework in human traficking, drug manufacture and sales, exploitation of natural resources, and an intense study of addictions and how to capitalize upon them.  Students are usually orphans and others who will not be missed in the outside world, which is convenient for school administrators when dealing with "drop-outs" who might rat them out to authorities.

 Flick still has a mysteriously alluring girlfriend on the outside...until the day that Joi shows up as a newly-recruited Mandel student.  Suddenly, Flick's success strategy changes: he's determined to rescue Joi at any cost. 

The problem:  Joi doesn't want to cooperate with Flick's plan.  She has a plan of her own.

If you've ever had trouble distinguishing between unpredictable psychopaths and unpredictable sociopaths, this book will cure that.  It's got action, adventure, hand-to-hand violence, industrial sabotage, sexual scheming, computer hacking, and all the other stuff you'd hope to find in a great book of betrayal and suspense.  For some reason, the publisher has chosen to present "f-bombs" written as "f---" but other cuss words aren't blanked out.  This isn't deadly, but it is distracting within the narrative.

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The innkeeper is younger than he appears, and he chooses to be called "Kote."  It's not his real name.  He has reasons not to tell his new neighbors that he is really Kvothe--a man known in legend and song as a magician, a musician, a hero and a few other things.

Now, the Chronicler has tracked him down and Kvothe tells the entire story of his life for the first time.  The story will take three days to tell.  The Name of the Wind is the narrative of the first day.  The second day's narrative is told in Book #2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles: The Wise Man's Fear.  

Epic fantasy with magic, adventures, love and hate, and battles between good and evil.  Nick Podehl narrates the audiobooks beautifully, keeping the narrative line tense and engaging.

Recommended for readers and listeners ages 12 to adult.  Violence is mostly (but not entirely) off-page.  Book #1 has no sex or nudity, but Book #2 has much more (mostly off-page) of both, including Kvothe's account of a several-month's-long-tryst in the land of the Fae. 

Read the series slowly--Book #3, tentatively called The Doors of Stone, is not yet scheduled for release!

Sold

Sold by Patricia McCormick

If I bring a half-dozen men to my room each night, and each man pays Mumtaz 30 rupees, I am 180 rupees closer each day to going back home. If I work for a hundred days more, I should have nearly enough to pay back the 20,000 rupees I owe to Mumtaz.

Then Shahanna teaches me city subtraction.

Half of what the men pay goes to Mumtaz, she says. Then you must take away 80 rupees for what Mumtaz charges for your daily rice and dal. Another 100 a week for renting you a bed and pillow. And 500 for the shot the dirty-hands doctor gives us once a month so that we won't become pregnant.

She also warns me: Mumtaz will bury you alive if she sees your little book of figures.

I do the calculations.

And realize I am already buried alive.

Lakshmi is 13 years old when her stepfather sells her to an "auntie" travelling to the big city. The auntie has promised Lakshmi's mother that the girl will go to work as a maid in the city.

In fact, the fictional Lakshmi--and up to 12,000 real Nepali girls each year--has been sold into a life of sexual slavery in an Indian brothel.

Gradually, Lakshmi forms friendships that help her survive--with the other girls in the "Happiness House", with the boy who sells tea from a street cart, and with the young son of another prostitute. Still, her life is mostly without hope, for Mumtaz cheats the girls outrageously and then abandons them on the street when they become too sick or broken to work. The girls fear Mumtaz. They fear the corrupt police, who take payments from Mumtaz to look the other way. And they fear the Americans who might take them from the brothel only to shame them and abandon them on the streets. How will they ever escape--and if they did, how could they ever return home?

Tha author's research for this novel visits to shelters in Kathmandu, the Himalayas, and Calcutta, where she interviewed women and girls rescued from the sex trade. The sexual situations are tactfully described; they are, nonetheless, appropriately horrible.

Recommended for readers ages 12 and up.