The Wells Bequest

The Wells Bequest  by Polly Shulman

The New York Circulating Materials Repository is back!  This library doesn't just lend out books.  It also lends out significant (and sometimes magical) objects found in books and stories.  In The Grimm Legacy (2010), we learned that the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected more than just fairy tales--they also collected magic carpets, talking mirrors, and many other objects found inside the stories.  

Now, NYCMR head library page Jaya and new-hire Leo explore the contents of the Wells collection: powerful objects straight out of classic science fiction novels.  These include robots, rockets, submarines, a shrink ray and, of course, a time machine.  When another library page threatens to destroy New York with Nicola Tesla's death ray, Leo and Jaya must use the time machine and their own wits (and knowledge of literature) to preserve history.

Delightful, fluffy fiction for book lovers and library geeks.  No sex, cussing, or bloodshed.  A few kisses, a little bit of romance, and a lot of fun.  

Recommended for readers ages 12 to adult.

Gorgeous

Gorgeous  by Paul Rudnick

If Doctor Faust and Eliza Doolittle (portrayed by Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady") wrote a book together, that book might be the first half of Gorgeous.

Sorting through stuff left behind after the death of her beloved, morbidly obese mother, Becky Randle discovers a phone number concealed within a jewelry box.  Calling the number sets off a whirl of events, leading Becky to the hidden enclave of a mysterious-yet-ubiquitous clothing designer.  Tom Kelly proposes to create three dresses for Becky that will transform her into Rebecca, the most beautiful woman in the world.  The catch?  Becky must fall in love and marry within a year.

Somewhere along the way, the story gets a bit muddled, but the strong, sarcastic voices of Becky, her best friend Rocher, and charming Prince Gregory of England rescue the book from the round file.  This book is full of snarky commentary about money, beauty, talent, fame, social class, and social responsibility, wrapped in an over-the-top, unconventional narrative.  

Lots of cussing, lots of glamour, and some sexual situations on page, including the "outing" of a teen heart-throb.  

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult--those who enjoyed Beauty Queens (Bray, 2011) will love this.

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.

Sweet Peril

Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins

Maybe we should just start skipping the middle novel in a series?

Sweet Peril picks up where Sweet Evil ended.  Anna is still pining for Kaiden, who keeps her at arm’s length. 

 The only new piece of information is that Anna is “the one.”  The one nephilim that will end the reign of the dukes and send them to hell, releasing the nephilim to live their own lives.  For this they must have allies, and Anna spends the rest of the book finding and aligning them.  The end. 

Gone is the sexy, steamy interplay between Kaiden and Anna, replaced by the fact that Anna now has to remain a virgin if she is to wield the sword of truth. (which won’t be wielded until the third book!)  With that knowledge, the tension is simply gone.  There are some interesting scenes between the two but Anna’s choice is not real as it was in the first book, and this unspoken necessity makes the scenes more boring. 

That said, there is plenty of action, including further understanding of Kopano, traveling with her to find nephilim who will aid them.  And if you loved the first book, you will still want to read this one.  But do it quickly to get to the real ending!

Keeping the Castle

Keeping the Castle  by Patrice Kindl

17-year-old Althea needs to marry for money. 

She knows that the fate of her noble-but-impoverished family as well as the fate of the family castle depends on her ability to make a successful--i.e. a wealthy--marriage match.  At first, Althea is willing to marry anybody who is rich enough to pay the bills and repair the dilapadated ancestral home, but gradually she realizes that she would prefer to marry someone who is not only rich, but also well-bred, well-educated, well-mannered, good-looking, and smart enough to recognize those virtues in Althea herself.

Fans of Jane Austen's literary world will adore Althea and her eccentric family, and astute readers will immediately identify the character she should marry, even when Althea seems impossibly blind to his fine qualities.  This quick, charming book can also be a stepping stone to the world of Regency romance made so popular by Downton Abbey.

No sex or cussing (heavens forbid!); the sweet and funny romances in this story will mostly appeal to gently reared female readers ages 12 to adult. 

Rotten

Rotten  by Michael Northrop

 

JD returns from a summer "upstate" and discovers that, while he was gone, his mom has adopted a rottweiller from the local animal shelter's death row.  JD has some issues with authority, and the dog--named Johnny Rotten, after the lead singer of the Sex Pistols--has some issues of his own.  Both the guy and the dog could use a break.

 

JD tries so hard to be cool, but his friends (and the reader) will easily discern the truth about his feelings, especially when they find out where JD really spent his summer.

 

This quick-reading compelling contemporary narrative will mostly appeal to guys. Details about re-training a rescue dog are realistic, and the author earns a star for including these details without quoting extensively from Cesar Milan. 

 

Some cussing and "classic boy potty humor," references to off-page fighting, and a bit of yearning for a certain pretty girl who happens to like dogs.

 

Recommended for ages 12 to adult.



Reboot

Reboot  by Amy Tintera

Dystopic action adventure and zombie romance.  What's not to love?

 

5 years ago, 12-year-old Wren Connolly was shot and killed.  178 minutes later, she woke up.  Now, she's a Reboot, a dead soldier working for the government to protect the peace of the living humans who have--so far--survived plagues, starvation, drug addiction, and the violence of the slums.  At least, that's what she's been told.

 

When she agrees to train Callum (who was only dead for 22 minutes, and thus is still "mostly human") Wren begins to look beyond the orders she is given.  She begins to recognize that her own emotions are not gone.  She even begins to fall in love with Callum.

 

But time is running out for Callum.  Wren is going to need all her Reboot strength and all her human cunning to escape...and she's going to need the other Reboots to help her do it.

 

Nonstop action, quite a lot of violence and bloodshed, but minimal cussing and nudity, and a few delightful scenes of romance and tenderness.  Fans of the Hunger Games will eat this up. 

(Ohh, bad zombie pun, sorry!)

Recommended for readers ages 12 to adult. 

The Lucy Variations

 

The Lucy Variations  by Sara Zarr

 

Lucy Beck-Moreau was world-famous as a child prodigy at the piano, but at age 16, minutes before taking the stage at an illustrious competition in Prague, she walked away from the piano.  Her family was furious, but Lucy was adament: she did not want to spend her life competing and performing anymore.

 

Eight months have passed, and the family's attention is now focused  on Lucy's 10-year-old brother Gus, who is preparing for his first major public performance.  Lucy wants to help Gus, but she can't help being intrigued by the new piano teacher: a former prodigy himself, Will is attractive, attentive...and married.

 

Lucy's social development was clearly impaired by her years of grueling practice and performance scheduling, but with the help of a few friends, she's learning to relate to her age-mates.  The characters are well-rounded, the dialogues are terrific, and the relationships (even the inappropriate ones) are compelling.  This is a well-written story of a teen who is beginning to make decisions for herself. 

 

Recommended for ages 13 to adult.  A few kisses, and a bit of underage drinking, but nothing to alarm most readers.

Sex, Lies & Cookies

Sex, Lies & Cookies by  Lisa Glasberg

Tired of Martha Stewart perfection?  Or even Red Green’s sort of “perfection?”  Or maybe Martha Stewart meets Dr. Ruth with a plate of cookies?  Who wouldn’t want a book by this title? 

Radio personality “Lisa G” is lately known as part of Howard Stern’s radio group.  Most people choosing this book would expect to learn more about Stern, I’ll bet.  In fact, there is very little. 

What is here is one woman’s rise to become a radio personality.  From the time she was in junior high, Lisa wanted to be on radio, and this was to be the driving force behind her every thought, career move, and radio preparation.  Her voice on the radio allowed her to accept the love she didn’t feel in childhood and could not accept from her lovers.  Of which there were many:  “The nice thing about having people love you for your voice is that you don’t have to be anywhere near them while they’re listening to you.  You can be far, far, away.  And that’s how I liked it.  Unfortunately, I carried that fear of intimacy into my personal life.  I loved men, and I loved sex with men, but that whole relationship give-and-take thing?  I wasn’t such a fan of that.  My idea of a giving relationship with a man was to bake him cookies and take them over to his apartment while wearing a fur coat and nothing underneath.  And that’s not giving- that’s giving it away.”  However, we really don’t see that she does love sex.  In most of her relationships, she complains about her lack of fun in sex.  Perhaps she wants us to feel sorry for her lack of relationships also?  Perhaps she wants us to feel much more the career focus because of the lack of fun in sex?

This pretty much sums up the book- a swing through her many (poor) relationships and sex life, when what we wanted was the inside scoop on radio stations. The best section relayed her adventures with HOT 97, a hip-hop station in New York.  The idea of photographing her foot next to Shaquille O’Neal’s foot is a hoot.   We get that Lisa is unapologetic about her single-minded career focus:  “Men get rewarded for going after their careers single-mindedly.  And if they get married at age forty-eight . . . no one even raises an eyebrow.  But if a woman spends decades on her career, doesn’t get married, doesn’t have kids. . . well, I don’t need to tell you the kind of reaction that gets.”  Pretty current theme in popular non-fiction literature now.  

But let’s go back to the title:  it wasn’t leading us astray.  Sex, lies (in relationships) and cookies.  The cookie recipes are great.  Especially the lemonade bars and “Losing my cherry cookies.”  In fact, all of the cookies are deliberately placed for emphasis in the story, with little quips within the cookie story.  Cookies are such a focus that the “epilog” is a treatise on how to stage and produce a cookie party, broken down by steps months in advance.
           
This is billed as a memoir, and in light of recent problems with the facts within memoirs, Lisa admits that some of the facts are rearranged chronologically or combined to make more sense.
           
Originally we read this as a possible adult-to-young-adult focus.  We don't recommend it for teen readers.  We would recommend it to adult women for the beach this summer.  It doesn’t go beyond that.  And at $25.99, get it from the library or wait for paperback.  But it is fun.
           
Finally, a new favorite quote came from this book:  “That which does not kill you gives you a story to tell later.”

The Diviners

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Evie McNeill is a thoroughly modern flapper, exiled from her Ohio hometown for revealing the unwholesome secrets of the son of a powerful local man, and sent (happily) to live with her uncle at the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition and the Occult in Prohibition-era New York City. 

Once there, it becomes obvious to Evie and the reader that the "creepy-crawlies" aren't confined to Uncle Will's museum.  There are strange things afoot...and one of them is a serial killer, returned from the dead and determined to finish the grusome rituals that will release the Beast and drop Hell on the waiting world.

With a huge cast of characters, lots of historical context, accurate political, social and musical references, this book is a terrific immersion into 1920's New York.  It's also a ripping good mystery and thrilling horror story with just a touch of romance.

The audiobook read by January LaVoy is outstanding, and successfully created all the suspense, terror, and fun of the book in the front seat of my pickup truck.

Pos-i-tute-ly adorable book trailer available online HERE.
Search for "Diviners Radio" on You Tube to find episodes of the story interpreted as a radio play

With blood and guts on the page, this book may be overwhelming for squeamish or timid readers.  Be bold if you are able.   Highly recommended--I'm can hardly wait for the second book!