Aftercare Instructions

Aftercare Instructions  by Bonnie Pipkin

17-year-old Genesis Johnson walks out into the waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic and discovers that Peter, her boyfriend and one true love, is gone.  Cramping and bleeding after the abortion she has just endured, Gen can't believe he has abandoned her.  But he isn't waiting for her, and he won't answer her calls or texts.  What else could it mean?

Events are revealed in alternating formats:  the present day episodes are a straightforward narration, but flashbacks to the past are written as a stage play starring Gen, Peter, and a few important supporting characters.  The details revealed build a story that will surprise readers almost as much as it surprises Genesis herself.

The chapters are titled with excerpts from the aftercare instructions booklet provided by the abortion clinic, which serves as an anchor point for the story and also offers insight into events as they unfold. 

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

Into the River

Into the River  by Ted Dawe

Te Arepa Santos lives with his grandfather Ra, surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles, descendants of a Maori woman who married a heroic Spanish pirate.  The day that Te Arepa encounters the giant eel in a haunted stream, his life changes.  Soon Te Arepa, like his piratical ancestor Diego Santos, will leave his family home and his traditions.  Soon, he is on his way to an exclusive boy's boarding school in Auckland.

Into the River was the first book ever to be banned in New Zealand, although that country has much stricter "decency standards" than we have here in America.  The book wasn't even banned when it was first published; actually, it spent two years picking up prestigious awards like the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year first.  Then it got rated "for mature readers ages 14+".  Then it was banned entirely: not available for sale to any reader in New Zealand at all (although sales of the international Kindle edition went up as readers circumvented the ban).

Why all the fuss?  That's what I wondered.  So I read it.

The story contains sexual situations--including naked body parts, masturbation and intercourse--on the page.  There is cussing, and drug use.  There is homosexuality, bullying, underage drinking, suicide, lawless behavior and rampant racism. 

My verdict:  the censors in New Zealand really need to get out more.

In other words, Into the River contains nothing we haven't seen in teen lit before.  Why this particular book bothered the outspoken members of Family First, I cannot say.  

Unfortunately for my feelings of unfettered righteousness, I did not love the book.  

Not because I object to sexual content in teen books (obviously) but rather because I thought that the main character had tremendous potential as a young Maori man entering Western society...and he quickly turned as mainstream as the bullies around him.  

Yawn.  

While the first half of the book raced along with the glory of Maori words footnoted on each page, the last half trudged inexorably towards the main character's expulsion from school.   

Buy this to diversify your collections, or to demonstrate the power of censorship (sales soared!), but if you want to read a great coming-of-age story of Maori New Zealand, you may have to write it yourself.

Swagger

Swagger  by Carl Deuker

Jonas Dolan doesn't have a lot of post-high-school prospects until a canny basketball coach helps him improve his game--and his grades.  For the first time, Jonas considers going to college.  But then the family moves from California to Seattle, and all the friends, coaches and teachers supporting Jonas are too far away to help much.

In Seattle, Jonas finds a new friend.  Levi is also a talented basketball player, but halfway through the season, Jonas discovers why Levi seems so withdrawn and depressed, especially when Coach Hartwell is nearby.  Although Levi begs his friend to keep quiet and pretend that nothing is wrong, Jonas knows that he will need to do something.

But, what?

Excellent characters facing a truly horrible situation.  I even read   made sense of    didn't die during the basketball sequences.  (Basketball lovers will love the basketball parts.  Me, not so much.)  Overall, a strong story, recommended for readers (especially sports fans) ages 14 to adult.

The Last Leaves Falling

The Last Leaves Falling  by Sarah Benwell

18-year-old Abe Sora lives in modern-day Kyoto with his mom...and with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).  He is dying, and he's scared.

Sora derives some comfort from a book of haiku poems written by ancient samurai warriors, but is helped even more by the love of his mom, his grandparents, and new friends Mai and Kaito, whom he met online.  As Sora's body fails him, he must face the knowledge that, as much as he longs to face his future with dignity, soon he will have no control over his life or death.  He makes a plan, and he asks Mai and Kaito to help.

The sparse language of the story is perfectly suited to the character of Sora and his love of both haiku poetry and Hayao Miyazaki's animated movies.  Neither of these forms wastes time or syllables to explain a situation, but rather depends on the intuition of the reader/viewer.  So it is with Last Leaves, in which characters meet online and form a strong friendship (and possibly a romance between Mai and Kaito!) without a bunch of exposition from the author.  

Sora's end-of-life choices may be distressing to some readers and objectionable to others.  However, the grace of the telling is undeniable.  This is an excellent book for discussion.

Invincible

Invincible  by Amy Reed

Katherine Tegen Books, 2015.  978-0-06-22957-4.  $17.99.  325 p.

Evie is a patient in a teen cancer ward.  

She has had Ewing’s Sarcoma for most of her life, and feels more at home in the hospital with her fellow patients.  Like any teen, she wants to act out.  Stella is only too happy to help her.  Stella becomes Evie’s outlandish roll model until they escape the hospital for a day and Stella dies.  Evie falls into despair, as she knows her own death is also imminent.  This is a 3 kleenex box portion of the book.

Suddenly, Evie’s cancer disappears!  She goes home, finds that she is a stranger at home, at school, with the boyfriend who has stuck by her, and in her mind.  She can’t shake the depression, and falls into prescription drug abuse.  Her parents too have spent so much of their lives dealing with imminent death, that they become pretty ineffectual.   Evie also meets Marcus, who is scarred in different ways, and while he tries to help Evie, the descent is horrifying to watch.

Reed creates real characters.  This is not Fault in our Stars.  It is a visceral reaction to finding that you are going to live after years of preparing for death.   Tough themes are tackled with grace and realism, adding to the difficulty in placing this book in a school library.  We can’t read only tearful, sweet stories of death and acceptance.  This is the real world.

Set for a sequel, we will not read how Evie’s story ends until next summer.

Recommended 14 up.

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).  

Eden West

Eden West  by Pete Hautman

Jacob is a member of the Grace living in Nodd, a 12 square mile religious compound located in Montana between a Native reservation and the Rockin' K cattle ranch.  He does not remember life in the World, and thinks himself lucky to be among the few who have rejected all Worldly things so that he will be pure for the coming of the Ark and the archangel Zerachiel.

But Jacob is 17 years old, and inevitably, his body responds to hormonal demands--he is attracted to a young woman in the compound and also to the pretty blond daughter on the neighboring ranch.  The Grace maintain their faith while beset by hardship: a bitterly cold winter, a disease among the chickens, a wolf among the sheep.  But then other tragedies strike, and Jacob finds that he must choose between the life he knows, and the World he does not know.

There are few surprises in the story, but the narrating voice of Jacob is strong, and worthy of consideration.  Often in literature, religious extremists are portrayed as simple (or crazy), and some of that is present here.  But there is a bit more.

For readers 14 to adult.  Some cussing, some kissing, and quite a few lustful thoughts.

Falling From Horses

Falling From Horses  by Molly Gloss

In 1938, 19-year-old Bud Frazer leaves behind his parents and the Oregon ranch life he has always known, climbs on a southbound Greyhound bus headed for Hollywood, and meets Lily Shaw, who will be his friend for life.

Bud is determined to be movie stunt rider, and quickly learns that horses and stunt riders are considered cheap and disposable by movie folks.  There are always more horses that can be chased off a cliff or tripped up by wires, or ridden to exhaustion, and there are always more movie-cowboy-wannabees dumb enough to carry out the deeds for a few bucks and a chance to be seen on the silver screen.

Meanwhile, Lily experiences another side of the Hollywood scene:  the seedy side of screen writing.  Lily is determined to write, and write well...and for many reasons, she doesn't fit in with the mostly-male writers of the time.

Bud's narrative voice is strong, calm, and believable.  His account of his year in Hollywood--and the time before that, back in Oregon--reads like a memoir.  Although the story is fiction, the characters and situations are carefully researched.  The accounts of horrific abuse of horses for the amusement of moviegoers are based on true events, and these abuses continued until 1940.

Bud, however, leaves the action much sooner.

The story is quietly told, despite the hair-raising stunts performed by human and animal actors.  Bud's grief (which precedes the first page, and is revealed in flashback chapters) carries the narrative without dragging it down.  Bud's naive encounters with women add flashes of humor, but it is his fondness for Lily that keeps the sometimes-grim story from becoming overwhelmingly dismal.

Falling From Horses is the 2015 "Everyone READS" choice for Shoreline, Richmond Beach, and Lake Forest Park WA.  The book lends itself to discussion, and is recommended for teen and adult readers.

Erebos : it's a game. It watches you.

Erebos  by Ursula Poznanski
translation from the German by Judith Pattinson

Like most of his friends, Nick Dunsmore enjoys playing video games.  But he's never played anything like Erebos.  The rules are strange:
*  Always play alone.
*  Do not talk to anyone about the game.
*  Don't copy the disk unless instructed by the game.
and strangest of all:
*  You have only one chance to play.  If you break the rules, or if your character in the game dies, the game is over and you can never play again.

Strangest of all, the game itself seems to know when players break the rules.  But how?

As more of Nick's classmates join the game, things get even more bizarre, especially when the game insists that players conduct "missions" in the real world.  Some missions seem quite innocent, like picking up a box hidden in a park and hiding it in a different park.  But soon enough, the missions become sinister.

The story is nearly as compelling as the game itself.  Players quickly become addicted to the adventure, and many are willing to do anything to gain status within the world of Erebos.

Yes, anything....

More dire than Ready Player One (Cline, 2011), with less gore and fewer technology details than REAMDE (Stephenson, 2011), this game-gone-bad novel will appeal mostly to teen gamers.  Sophisticated readers may trip on some of the setting details, some politically incorrect racist and sexist statements which may or may not be a result of translation into English from German, and the distinctly Scooby Doo ending: "foiled by those meddling kids!"

Recommended for ages 13 to adult.

Butter

Butter by Erin Jade Lange

Butter is obese, a boy who expects to be bullied, lonely, and ignored , especially by his father. 

How the “Butter” nickname evolved is a sick story on its own, but at 429 pounds, Butter is now just done. He decides that he is going to eat himself to death- on New Year’s Eve- videoed live on the internet.  

When he posts this idea online, he (and we) are unprepared for the reaction from his classmates:  cheering!  

In an awful twist, Butter becomes the hero of an idea increasingly difficult to stop.  He now has social standing with all the popular kids, invited to parties, sits at their table at lunch, and one step closer to Annie, the girl of his dreams.

Of course, as we understand the real Butter, we become increasingly alarmed and appalled as we watch the train wreck.   Butter began an online relationship with Annie, posing as an anonymous, handsome football player from another school.  What could go wrong there?  

He is an amazing saxophone player, whose sound, according to his teacher, is “smooth as butter.”  He is not alone in the world, either.  He has a great doctor, his mom, and a friend from “fat camp.”  But those are not the kids in his school.

This is a complex look at eating issues, relationships, and high school culture.  There are few two dimensional characters in this book, so the problems are not going to be simple, or even have straightforward solutions. Expect to get involved in Butter’s life.

And if you have read the book- can you remember Butter’s real name?  Did you get sucked into the group that continues/enables/excuses the bullying behavior?  

Or do you remember his name?

100 Questions You'd Never Ask Your Parents

100 Questions You'd Never Ask Your Parents : straight answers to teens' questions about sex, sexuality and health  by Elizabeth Henderson & Nancy Armstrong, MD

When I have sex for the first time, will people be able to tell?
How old do I have to be to buy condoms?
What is the best birth control?
Does alcohol really kill brain cells?

These, and 96 other common questions are answered in simple, straightforward language. The questions are arranged in a random fashion (perhaps from most-frequently to less-frequently asked?), and the answers are succinct and factual--most Q/A entries are dealt with on a single page, with no fancy color formatting, no sidebars and no illustrations of any kind.

Most questions are related to sex and sexuality, but topics also include drug and alcohol use, suicidal thoughts, and friendships.  The "hot" topics of homosexuality, birth control (including abstinence, condom use and pills), and pregnancy are each addressed several times, but the topic of abortion remains untouched by this book.  Not all the responses are complete--it's notable that Planned Parenthood is not mentioned anywhere in the text or index, despite that agency's importance in the field of teen sexual health issues nationwide.

Index and glossary of terms are included. A list of additional resources, books, websites and governmental agencies would have been helpful, but was not included.

The Testing

The Testing  by Joelle Charbonneau
In this futuristic dystopia, the environment has been trashed by careless humans, and only by careful husbandry are people able to survive now.  16-year-old Cia has been chosen for the Testing: if she passes, she will be one of the very few students allowed to attend the University to become world leaders and scientists.  Cia's father is a University graduate, but his memory has been wiped out; the only advice he can offer Cia is to trust no one.

Cia quickly realizes that her father was right to warn her.  But she will need more than caution to survive the Testing. 

This fast-moving story of betrayal and survival will appeal to fans of The Hunger Games.  First in a series.

On-page violence, some kissing. No cussing, no sex.  Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

Impulse

Impulse  by Steven Gould

Cent has lived her whole life in isolation with her parents, hiding their secret:  they can jump, or teleport instantly from one part of the world to any other place they have already seen.  There are governmental agencies that would like to use jumpers...and there are other, more nefarious agencies that want jumpers for their own purposes.

Cent has travelled all over the world with her parents.  She is well-educated,, reads voraciously, and helps her mother with emergency relief efforts in third-world countries.  But Cent wants friends her own age. 

When Cent discovers that she can jump too, her parents agree to let her attend a regular high school in a regular American town.

And then, things go wrong.  And Cent may not be able to jump fast enough to avoid the trouble her family has brought to their new community.

This is the third book in the Jumper series; fans of the 2008 movie starring Hayden Christensen will be confused, as the film story has very little to do with the original novel.  However, both feature good action and adventure, mixed with compassion and romance.

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

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.

The Brides of Rollrock Island

The Brides of Rollrock Island  by Margo Lanagan

Misskaella Prout is ugly and outcast, unloved by her family, mocked by the women and rejected by the men of Rollrock Island. 

Though she has a magical talent to pull selkies from out of their seal-skins and into human shape, she does not stop with merely conjuring a lover for herself.  Instead, Misskaella also creates a deep and complex revenge against the island people by providing--for a price--a beautiful seal-wife for each man on the island.  Enchanted by the fey sea-wives, the men abandon their human families, mortgage their wealth, and deny that their lives are anything but wonderful.  The selkie women are helpless without their seal-skins...but when their sons steal back the coats, life on the island changes dramatically once again.

A complex and beautifully written story of hatred, love, magic, revenge, and eventually, redemption.  No cussing, minimal violence, and some on-page sexual situations between humans and selkies in (mostly) human form.  Highly recommended, ages 14 to adult.

The Wonder Show

 

 

The Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby

The year is 1939.  14-year-old Portia Remini was abandoned by her family at McGreavey's Home for Wayward Girls, but she runs away when her best friend dies tragically.  Through a series of accidents and coincidences, Portia ends up working as a cook in Mosco's Traveling Wonder Show.  There, Portia meets and befriends the Wild Albinos, the Fat Lady, the Bearded Lady, the Strong Man and the other freaks, and tries to find her own place among them while looking for the father who has been missing for many years.

 

Circus and sideshow history and jargon intermingle with the tale of a girl who collects stories and seeks the truth among people whose livelihoods depend on falsehood and misdirection.  Some cussing.  No kissing or sex, but there are tactful descriptions of the "blowoff" part of the show where the conjoined twins dance naked for a crowd of rubes.

 

Ages 12 to 18.

Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You

Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You by  Joyce Carol Oates

Merissa, Hannah, Nadia, Chloe and (Katrina) Tink have been best friends at their very exclusive high school.  Tink is the leader, even to the extent that they call themselves Tink Inc.  Everyone is intimidated by Tink, a former child actress, who says and does outrageous things.  But as seniors, the group needs to carry on without Tink because she committed suicide.  

The story is told in three parts:  first from Merissa- the perfect one, the one who was accepted early by Brown University;  the new lead in the school play; the one whose family is falling apart; the one who cuts herself to have enough pain to forget the rest.  

The middle section features Tink, multi-talented, charming, exasperating, enigmatic; now gone, with some of her secrets.  

Nadia is the last voice, a girl who is now called the school slut because of an incident when her drink was altered. Nadia now fixates on her science teacher as her savior.  To all the girls in her inner circle, Tink is still present- they have dreams about her, wonder how she would handle a situation, even hear whispers from her.  These characters will stay with you long after you finish the novel.

We are left wondering about many peripheral characters who are intriguing but dropped:  Colin, who acts like he has deep problems; Virgil, the science geek from Budapest.  Even Chloe, one of Tink’s inner circle, is poorly fleshed out.

And there are still perhaps two or three things I forgot to put in the review….

For mature 14 up

When You Were Mine

When you were mine  by Rebecca Serle 
Simon Pulse 2012

Rosie (Rosalind) Caplet and her best friends  Olivia and Charlie (Charlotte) are entering their senior year.  They are rich, spoiled, and ready to be on top of the school social strata.  In addition, Rosie knows that she and Rob Monteg will finally become more than just
friends. 

Rob does return from summer camp to tell Rosie that he too feels they were meant to be- that is, until her cousin Juliet arrives and so easily captivates Rob.  This is the part where I ask if the story seems familiar; but it doesn’t.  The story is purported to be a retelling of Romeo (“Monteg”) and Juliet (“Caplet”), told from the point of view of Rosalind Caplet. As we look for the references that link this with the Shakespearian story, we find that we have little in common with these rich, spoiled Southern California kids.  We do look forward to seeing the ever-in-trouble Len, who lends comic relief and a quirky personality (personality being the factor lacking in the other two-dimensional characters).

The idea of using Rosalind as the narrator is a nice plot device, and Rose evolves in the second half as a character we can care about, even though she rambles on and on when she is remembering some incident(s) from childhood (filler for the author?)

The mystery of the family estrangement adds an interesting dimension.   A quick, light, summer read with a little romance thrown in.

Kissing; references to suicide; 12 up.

Before I Fall

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Samantha has always been part of the popular crowd. Freshmen don’t dare speak to her. Sam is looking forward to Valentine’s Day, where she expects to come close to winning the competition- who receives more roses. Later she will have to go to Kent’s party (her childhood friend) because everyone is. And she has promised her popular boyfriend that they will also have sex later. It is obvious that all is not perfect in Camelot, but what else could you want in high school?

This perfect life is thrown upside down when Sam is in a car accident with her friends after the party, and dies. She relives the day over and over, in fact, herself alluding to the movie “Groundhog Day.” And following that same movie plot, she figures she is immune to repercussions, even going so far as to seducing her math teacher- in school. But gradually, of course, she understands that not only does she have a chance to change her behavior and attitudes, but also that she is caught in this endless loop until she does figure it out.

Very predictable, but still entirely enjoyable. The situations are very realistic, nicely paced, and even fun. Because of the sex, this should be placed in high school, but could be given to that 8th grade girl who loves those “edgy” books.

This review was written by Mary Jo. To read Aarene's review of this book, click here.

Before I Fall

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Pretty, popular high school senior Samantha Kingston loves Cupid Day--the day when she will get tons of roses from her friends and admirers, party with her friends, and finally (maybe) have sex with her boyfriend. Instead, she dies in a car wreck after the party.

She is (justifiably) surprised to wake up the next morning...only to discover that she has awakened on the morning of the previous day, before the roses, before the party, and before the accident. In seven "Groundhog Day do-overs" of her last day, Sam learns more about her friends, her boyfriend, her teachers, her family, and herself. What will happen when she learns everything she needs to know?

Sam's gradual transformation from a shallow "popular girl" to a real person worth caring about is gracefully executed, and results in a couldn't-put-it-down book. The story references sexual situations, drug use, and teen drinking.

Highly recommended for ages 14 and up. This is Aarene's review. To read Mary Jo's review of this book, click here.