The Black Witch

The Black Witch  by Laurie Forest

Elloren Gardner is the granddaughter -- and the perfect likeness -- of the original Black Witch, who drove back enemy forces and saved her people during the Realm War.  Because of the power of the Black Witch, Elloren's people are undisputed rulers now.  

Long after the death of her famous grandmother, Elloren was raised by her uncle in a small village, surrounded by people very much like her and her family.  Now it is time for her to travel to the big city, to attend University there, and possibly to meet someone to marry. 

Unlike those in the village, the people in the city are very diverse.  And, because this is a fantasy book, these diverse people don't simply have differently-colored skin and hair; instead, some of them have wings, some turn into wolves, and others have types of magic that Elloren has never seen before.  Elloren has always been told that people who are different are also inferior, or even evil. Why should she question this?

If you have ever read a book before, you will probably be able to predict what happens to Elloren when she actually gets to know a werewolf, a selkie, and some people with wings.  In The Black Witch, as is common in literature, the main character evolves and grows from a state of ignorance to a state of enlightenment (or at least, less ignorance).

However, YA blogger Shauna Sinyard didn't think that the change happened fast enough or convincingly enough.  In a very long and damning book review, she condemned both the book and those who enjoyed reading the book. She calls the book "the most dangerous, offensive book I have ever read.  It's racist, ableist, homophobic, and is written with no marginalized people in mind."

Ms Sinyard is welcome to her opinion, of course.  However, by urging Twitter and Tumblr followers to boost the signal by posting 1-star reviews on Goodreads and elsewhere without actually reading the book, a line is crossed.  

I do not always write glowing reviews.   

(Here's a review of a book that was originally well-received and later banned, which I consider a 3-star ho-hum of a read.  Here's another review of a book that just wasn't very well-written.) 

I do, however, always read an entire book before reviewing it.  

So, what was my verdict?

First off, I read this book in about a day and a half, skipping meals and ignoring bedtime to finish it. 

It's a quick, engaging story with magic, family drama, and several star-crossed romances. There was minimal cussing, some nekkidness, discussions of mating rituals with no sex on the page, and mentions of off-page sexual abuse.  The story did not explore new ground, philosophically speaking.  From Huckleberry Finn to Harry Potter, literature is filled with characters who overcome ignorance by getting to know an individual.  The Black Witch follows absolutely in those footsteps.

Ms Sinyard also seems unaware that "The Black Witch Chronicles" will be a series.  Her complaint that the character changes happen too slowly over hundreds of pages would be valid if the entire tale were told in a single volume.  However, the advertisement for book #2 The Iron Flower (due for release in May 2018) included at the back of my book served as an important clue:  the story is not yet finished.  

And as soon as I finished The Black Witch, I put myself in the library's hold queue for book #2.

Read it, and decide for yourself.  I thought it was a great book, and entirely appropriate and recommended for ages 14 to adult.

The Nightingale

The Nightingale  by Kristin Hannah

WWII is on, the Nazis have invaded, and France is occupied.  Elder sister Vianne is committed to surviving and to keeping her daughter safe.  Younger sister Isabelle is outraged, and determined to join the Résistance and beat the Germans.  The siblings rarely agree and are separated by time and politics for almost the entire duration of the conflict.

The point is made several times during the story that "war stories" are almost always about (and told by) men, and that the Nazis often overlooked the role of women in warfare, sometimes to the tremendous detriment of the Third Reich. 

Not everything goes well, of course.  Some of the wrong people are taken away, some of the characters that readers attach to come to grievous harm.  Very few of the characters would be objectively considered "good people"...and yet, the details of their lives are so compelling that the book is difficult to put down.

Written for adult audiences but with plenty of teen appeal, especially for readers of Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire.  Sexual situations are mostly off-page, but some of the violence (and torture) is not.

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult, and especially for book discussion groups.

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.  

Faking Normal

Faking Normal   by Courtney C. Stevens

When we first meet Alexi, she is at the funeral of her mother’s best friend.  Alexi knows the son because he goes to her school and is known as “the kool-aid kid:” an unkempt, seemingly uncaring student.  Every single morning he colors his hair with kool-aid so it is never normal.  

During the funeral, Alexi thinks, “But this is always what he’ll go back to: No Mom.  That’s a forever change.  I never understood life could be so dramatically sectioned, but it can.  And is.  There is only after.  And before.  My moment was by the pool, Bodee’s is by the casket.”    

Readers slowly get clues about what happened at the pool.  Alexi can’t talk about it, but whatever it is causes her to continually scratch her neck, smell chlorine in lots of places, hide in her closet, and ultimately hurt herself.  When Bodee comes to live with them, he immediately sees through Alexi's "normal" façade.  Slowly they develop a relationship, and Bodee reveals his own secret.  Both are faking being normal.

Of course Alexi was raped, (any reader will intuit that), and most readers will be able to discern who the rapist was.  The crux of the book is really how any teen would handle a rape.  Alexi blames herself, makes excuses for the rapist.  As teens react to Alexi’s choices, adults hope that teens also understand how to react if something like this happens to them or to a friend.  This was a good read, and while the book is perhaps not the most lyrically written, it is an important subject to keep teens talking about. 

As with many recent books, there is a playlist of songs throughout the book.  Music is important to both Alexi and Bodee, and music has power.

Recommended 8^th grade up

bullying, child abuse, cussing, death, drinking,  grieving , kissing, rape

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.

Pretty Girl 13

Pretty Girl-13  by Liz Coley

Angie is introduced to us in a backflash prologue: at thirteen she is at Girl Scout camp.  When she is alone in the woods peeing behind a bush, she is accosted and then kidnapped by a male adult.

Now, flash forward to Angie arriving home, just walking up to the door of her house, not knowing how she escaped.  Homecoming has a few problems however:  she has actually been three years, and although Angie has total amnesia of her time away, she has the telltale marks of manacles on her wrists and feet.  

While she is actually sixteen, Angie still feels like she should be in eighth grade, and wants to learn what she has missed.  After all, she still feels thirteen.

Angie’s parents take her to a therapist, who through hypnosis, discovers multiple personalities who have taken over her psyche in an effort to allow Angie to detach from the trauma of the situation a thirteen-year-old could not handle.  The alternate personality completely takes over, “tucking” Angie into a corner of her mind.  However, inside Angie there are five distinct personalities. 

This is a dark, dangerous path for both Angie and the reader.  It is pieced out slowly since it is not easily read by an adult, and will be even more difficult for a high school student.  And yet, as readers cheer for Angie and just want her to be a “normal” student in school, it's obvious that this will never happen.  

Just what can we hope for?  This book will captivate you and touch you in the way that few books touch on your emotions.  Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl did that in a different, chilling, way.

Coley talks about new ways to treat Dissociative Identity Disorder, some of which are not really used yet.The Afterward is just as interesting as the book, with more information on the disorder and famous people who have suffered - and recovered.  

For mature readers, 14 and up.

Child abuse, cussing, death, grieving, kissing, pregnancy, rape, sexual situations, violence

You Against Me

You against me by Jenny Downham

Mikey and his sister Karyn are trying to hold their life together in a poor section of a sea town in England.  Mikey is the major source of income from his job as a cook and general  clean-up at a pub, while Karyn helps with their alcoholic mother and 10 year old sister.

Things fall apart when fifteen-year-old  Karyn says she has been raped at a party and refuses to leave the house, or even participate in life.  Vowing revenge, Mikey crashes a party at the home of the accused rapist, only to fall for the boy's sister, Ellie.  Life is messy for everyone, especially Ellie’s relationship with her parents, her adored brother, and now Mikey. Is Ellie reacting to her parents?  To Mikey?

She is unsure what she should do.  She gave a statement to the police,but what did she actually see the night of the incident?  This is a complicated, interesting look at what rape is and how we, girls, boys,brothers, sisters, and parents, react. All the characters are very
believable.  

The ending is flawed  by its need to be too positive, and leaves us with many more questions about the upcoming  trial. Some sex scenes, tastefully handled.  --MJH

One Lonely Degree

One lonely degree
c.k. kelly martin

Finn is a ninth grader who is going through multiple serious problems with which she can find no help: her parents are getting a divorce, and she is trying to deal with date rape from the summer. Her friend from childhood, Jersy, moves back into town, and Finn is pleased that he and her best friend are dating. However Audrey’s parents are not pleased, and send Audrey to live with relatives. This leaves Jersy and Finn together, which is natural, but leads to more, creating even more guilt in Finn’s life.

The story is told in flashbacks and in current times, although we are never quite sure when that has changed. As with other Martin novels, the action revolves around a single character, who shows no change from the beginning to the end. It is also difficult to decide who this woman is writing for. Because of the sex and drug use, this should be in high school, although high school teens are more demanding; in addition Finn is only a freshman. The teens who would be interested are in 8th grade. The date rape scene would be difficult for that age.

Not recommended.

After the Moment

After the moment
by Garrett Freymann-Weyr

The story of two 15 year olds in love really begins when they are 21 and have a chance meeting at a dinner party. It is then told in flashbacks, although it will suddenly move into the present while it takes the reader some time to catch up.

Leigh has lived with his mother in a tiny apartment. He has always been a good student, a good son, a great girlfriend, and loves his step-sister, a child from his father’s second marriage. When her father dies, Leigh goes to help her because the family is aware that their father is emotionally withdrawn. There he meets Maia, an anorexic who also is a self-mutilator. And falls in love. As his mother’s boyfriend says, “That’s a beautiful girl screaming trouble. I doubt that there’s a man alive who can resist that at seventeen?”

Leigh, more than anyone we have met, wants to help. For a time, it works well and Maia recovers, but ultimately it does not turn out well. Leigh needs to break up with his girlfriend, and while he is away, Maia goes out with a former boyfriend, gets drunk, is raped, and videotaped. When Leigh eventually finds out who taped the rape, beats the guy senseless and beyond. This complicated plot is hampered by the fact that Maia’s reaction to Leigh’s being gone one weekend is totally out of character. We ultimately do not feel much for Maia. Sure, we feel bad about her problems, but ultimately she is not a strong character. Leigh is the character we care about, who can’t seem to see beyond himself, not matter how he tries to help the people around him, but as the story slogs along at times, I question just who the audience is. This seems to be a more adult-oriented story.

Throughout the story too, runs a theme about Iraq where Leigh questions the concept of violence. This sets the story, but does not add to the story.

Recommended for high school to adult readers

Rampant

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
16-year-old Astrid Llewelyn's mother had always told her daughter that real unicorns are not flying, sparkley, pinkish-purple fairy-tale beasts, but rather murderous, poisonous monsters (now extinct) that could only be killed by virgin girls like Astrid.

Of course, Astrid's mom was a complete kook.

That's what Astrid thought, anyhow, until the night when her boyfriend got himself gored by a murderous, poisonous monster with a single horn growing out of its head.

Sent to Rome against her will to train with other virgin huntresses against the re-emerging threat of bloodthirsty unicorns, Astrid learns about magic, romance, and her family's history...and learns some interesting stuff about her mother, as well.

A strong narrative voice and some excellent butt-kicking battle scenes, interspersed with scenes of sexual questioning, including the role of virginity, the definition of rape, and the power of love.

No cussing, a fair amount of blood spilled in battle, no sex on-page, and lots of kissing and sexual longings. For readers tired of vampires and zombies, this is a natural next choice. Recommended for ages 12 to adult.

The Garden

The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff

In the beginning, God created everything: the earth and sea, the sky, the animals...and Adam and Eve. Eve narrates this story of her childhood in Eden, where Adam is raised by God, and she is tutored by the Serpent, who is possibly the only thing that God did not create.

Eve learns to think, to reason, and to question. She explores the entire Garden, and then, assisted by the Serpent, she explores the world outside the Garden in preparation for the days ahead when she and Adam will go out into the world and away from the direct influence of God.

The bones of the story are familiar: Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit and are expelled from Eden. But the author explores the motivations, the questions, and the possibilities that the old story does not address: if they know the fruit is forbidden by God, why would Eve offer it to Adam, and why would he accept it?

This book invites the readers to ask questions and challenge their own long-held assumptions. There is a disturbing scene mid-way with some sexual and violent content which may upset sensitive readers.

The Garden will certainly be controversial, and is an excellent choice for book groups who like to argue about what they read. For readers ages 14 and up.

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.