Category Archives: Young Adult/Teen 12-18

Review: Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Before I Let Go by Marieke NijkampBefore I Let Go
Marieke Nijkamp
Sourcebooks Fire
Published on January 2, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Before I Let Go
Best friends Corey and Kyra were inseparable in their snow-covered town of Lost Creek, Alaska. When Corey moves away, she makes Kyra promise to stay strong during the long, dark winter, and wait for her return.

Just days before Corey is to return home to visit, Kyra dies. Corey is devastated―and confused. The entire Lost community speaks in hushed tones about the town’s lost daughter, saying her death was meant to be. And they push Corey away like she’s a stranger.

Corey knows something is wrong. With every hour, her suspicion grows. Lost is keeping secrets―chilling secrets. But piecing together the truth about what happened to her best friend may prove as difficult as lighting the sky in an Alaskan winter…

My Review
I feel like Nijkamp’s true strength in storytelling comes from her way of taking a single situation or moment and crafting a story that shows a 360 degree view of the relationships around that situation. In her debut novel, she did this with a school shooting and the view into all the relationships surrounding the shooter. In Before I Let Go, we circle the unexpected death of a young girl in a small, close-knit community which never accepted her. Events unravel in a way both suspenseful and almost magical.

Because of the elements of magical realism, I often had no idea where the story would go. It felt like anything was possible. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kyra showed up somehow. The way the town which Corey called home until seven months earlier becomes more and more sinister and strange kept me eagerly turning pages. Sometimes a simple, seemingly harmless thing twisted into something sinister and cult-ish. I liked Corey’s character and the way the story juxtaposed her interest in stars with Kyra’s passion for stories.

Before I Let Go is a great pick for readers who liked Bone Gap by Laura Ruby or The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Corey is asexual and her best friend Kyra pansexual. Corey learns that two of the boys in town are gay and a couple. Kyra is bipolar.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Romance/Sexual Content
Two girls share a kiss. Corey sees two boys sleeping in the same bed.

Spiritual Content
Corey finds paintings which seem to predict the future. Others seem to have embraced the idea of the paintings being prophetic and have an almost ritualistic response to them. Some possibly magical things happen. Flowers appear in various places without any explanation, and a garden grows plants out of season.

Violent Content
A sudden fire nearly kills a girl. A man attacks a teen boy and a girl in the woods.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

Review: In the Hall of the Dragon King by Stephen Lawhead

Christian World-View, Clean Fiction, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

In the Hall of the Dragon King (Dragon King #1)
Stephen R. Lawhead
Thomas Nelson
Published on September 11, 2007 (Originally published in 1982)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About In the Hall of the Dragon King
Carrying a sealed message from the war-hero Dragon King to the queen, Quentin and his outlaw companion, Theido, plunge headlong into a fantastic odyssey and mystic quest. Danger lurks everywhere in the brutal terrain, and particularly in the threats from merciless creatures, both human and not-so-human.

While at the castle, the wicked Prince Jaspin schemes to secure the crown for himself, and an evil sorcerer concocts his own monstrous plan. A plan that Quentin and Theido could never imagine.

In the youth’s valiant efforts to save the kingdom and fulfill his unique destiny, he will cross strange and wondrous lands; encounter brave knights, beautiful maidens, and a mysterious hermit; and battle a giant, deadly serpent.

My Review
I first read this book when I was in seventh grade or so and definitely in a high fantasy phase of reading. (I was also a huge fan of the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey.) While I don’t read too much high fantasy these days, I still enjoyed the medieval feel and scope of the story and Quentin’s character. I also liked that though the queen isn’t a major character, she doesn’t stay behind the castle walls waiting for things to be solved—she’s right there with the team on the adventure to rescue her king, and clearly is a strong woman unafraid of battle.

I also liked the way that Toli’s people, described as a gentle, reclusive woodland tribe, end up being powerful allies against a pretty fearsome enemy that Quentin and his team face. There’s something Tolkien-ish about that sort of reversal of power, if that makes sense? Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool.

The storytelling is what I would describe as more gentle. It’s not a book that will have you flipping page after page on the edge of your seat but more tells an interesting story with a focused plot and worthy cast of characters. To today’s teens it might feel a bit dated, but I think that actually works in favor of this genre whereas it might be a problem in others.

While there’s some magic content, the story also contains a strong mapping to Christian theology in its exploration of a god known as Most High who desires relationship with the characters and speaks through visions and signs. See the notes below for other information about content.

Fans of high fantasy or authors like Donita Paul and Bryan Davis will want to give this one a read.

Recommended for Ages 12 up. (True story… I was about 12 the first time I read this book.)

Cultural Elements
Most characters appear to be white, but Quentin befriends the brown-skinned prince of a woodland tribe named Toli. Toli voluntarily becomes Quentin’s servant, and tries to explain to Quentin how among his people, to serve is a great honor.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Quentin first serves a god named Ariel at a temple. But once he leaves the temple, he’s no longer eligible to serve the god anymore. He meets a forest hermit, Durwin, who serves another god, called the Most High, which maps to Christian theology. Quentin experiences a call and vision from his new god and commits his life to serve the Most High.

The villain, a necromancer, performs some dark magic, including controlling what appear to be dead warriors.

Violent Content
Some descriptions of battle scenes get a bit gory—they’re brief but sometimes intense.

Drug Content
References to drinking ale (like you’d expect per a medieval culture).

Review: Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Little & Lion
Brandy Colbert
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published August 8, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Little & Lion

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself–or worse.

My Review

My favorite thing about this book has to be the relationship between Suzette and her stepbrother, Lionel. My household is a blended family, and we spend a lot of time talking about how family isn’t always only people related to you by blood. Sometimes life puts other people into your path and they become part of your family, too. I’ve read lots of young adult and middle grade books about the difficulty of transitioning to a blended family home and how hard it can be to develop those relationships. Those stories are important, too, but it’s nice to see books that present other parts of the family journey. So reading a book in which the family had already forged those complex bonds with step-members was awesome.

I liked and appreciated the diversity in the story. Little & Lion creates a community with members across varied orientations and has characters with physical and mental health issues. It could be said that perhaps some of the handling of Lionel’s illness gets a little stereotypical in that he decides to throw out his medication at one point. (I’m not sure I can think of a story about someone with bipolar disorder which doesn’t involve throwing out meds.) But it’s not the focus of the story, and Lionel never felt defined by his illness, especially not to Suzette, who longs for the kind of close relationship they had before she left for boarding school.

On the whole, I thought the storytelling and the writing were strong. I found it easy to connect with the characters emotionally. I struggled with some of the casual attitudes about teen drinking and some of the sexual content. See the content notes below for more specifics.

Readers who liked Jess, Chunk and the Road Trip to Infinity will enjoy Suzette’s journey toward self-understanding and the diverse cast of characters.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Very diverse cast of characters. Suzette is bisexual. Her best friend is a lesbian. Her brother has bipolar disorder. Her mom is black, her stepdad and brother white. They are also Jewish. Suzette begins dating a boy who’s black and Korean and diagnosed with Meniere’s disease.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some references and brief descriptions of sexual situations—making out and touching. In one scene a boy and girl have sex. Other scenes reference two girls in a sexual exchange.

Spiritual Content
Suzette meets a girl whose mother kicked her out of her home for religious reasons when she got an abortion.

Violent Content
A couple of boys get into a fist fight.

Drug Content
Teens drinking alcohol. Suzette worries about her brother drinking because she feels he doesn’t know his limits. Both are underage.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Simon Pulse
Published on January 2, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone

Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist—and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon.

But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules.

When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive.

These opposite outcomes push them farther apart as they wrestle with guilt, betrayal, and the unexpected thrill of first love. How can they repair their relationship, and is it even worth saving?

My Review

I read this book over my hospital stay in December, and it was a really great distraction from everything else going on before my daughter was born. (Everything’s good—we’re both healthy and doing well now.) I found it super easy to get lost in the story of two sisters waiting for the results of a genetic test and dealing with their anxiety over the results in vastly different ways. Both girls felt real and individual. I could tell whose point-of-view I was in just from reading a single paragraph.

While Adina has some mixed feelings about some casual sexual encounters in her past, she clearly feels empowered by her desirability. She comes across confident and eager for sex, but frustrated that she’s not able to trigger a transfer from lust to love in her partners. I found that complexity moving and believable. For me personally, I wish it had less explicit sexual content, but I liked the writing and the way the author showed a lot more about Adina’s character through her perceptions of herself and the way she related to men.

The tug-of-war between Adina and Tovah to rebuild or sabotage their relationship felt like a train wreck I couldn’t look away from (in a good way). The tension only increases when one sister receives a positive test result for Huntington’s.

I don’t know much about Huntington’s apart from the descriptions in this book, so I’m not a good resource for how accurately it’s represented. But many scenes showed Adina and Tovah’s mom and her changing moods and behavior in stark, raw ways that made it clear how much a positive result would impact each girl’s life plans and made it impossible not to empathize both with the girls and their family.

Readers who enjoyed Dana Reinhardt’s We Are the Goldens will find similar focus on sister relationships and strong writing.

Content

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Adina and Tovah have been raised in a practicing Jewish family. Tovah embraces her faith in part because of her mom’s diagnosis. Adina rejects her faith wholly, even to the extent that she doesn’t believe in God. For her, Mom’s diagnosis is evidence that there is no God.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently. One sister uses much more profanity than the other.

Romance/Sexual Content
An eighteen-year-old girl begins a sexual relationship with her teacher. Some exchanges between them contain explicit details. She also reflects on other casual sex encounters from her past—some of which she has very mixed feelings about now. In one scene, she masturbates, thinking about her new lover.

One girl begins a dating relationship and describes some of the progression of the physical side of it—kissing, cuddling inside a sleeping bag together, and approaching having sex. She learns her best friend has been having sex with a boyfriend.

Spiritual Content
Adina and Tovah celebrate Sabbath with their family and attend weekly services. They speak Hebrew. One sister talks about how frustrated she feels around the winter holidays when people wish her a Merry Christmas because it assumes she’s part of something she isn’t.

Violent Content
One girl wrestles with anxiety and depression, at one point planning to die by suicide.

Drug Content
Some scenes show teens drinking alcohol.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Beauty by Robin McKinley

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Beauty
Robin McKinley
Open Road Media
Published on November 8, 2014 (Originally published October 25, 1978)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When Beauty’s family falls on reduced circumstances, she, her father, and two sisters move to a remote village rumored to be near an enchanted castle. Beauty and her sisters face their new lives bravely, learning to do chores and care for their new home. One night, after a long journey, their father returns home with a magical rose and a chilling story. He has met the Beast and ruler of the castle and now owes a debt: either his own life or the life of one of his daughters. Ever practical Beauty decides she must be the one to take her father’s place. But her new life in the castle turns out to be far different than anything she could have imagined. Invisible servants tend her needs, and the Beast, who seemed terrifying at first, soon becomes dear to her. A family emergency forces Beauty to choose: stay in the castle and let her sister make a terrible mistake, or risk everything to return home and warn her.

Beauty is one of the first young adult novels I ever read, and I happened upon it totally by accident in a used book stall at a flea market in the mountains of western North Carolina. I’ve since read other fairytale retellings by Robin McKinley, and have never been disappointed by any of them. Beauty used to be one of my go-to reads for those awful days when I was too sick to read and absorb something new, but still longed to escape reality in a book. It’s been years since I’ve read it, and still I couldn’t stop reading until I’d reached the end of the tale.

The style isn’t my favorite—it’s a lot more narrative than the kinds of books I usually prefer, but the descriptions are so vivid and Beauty’s character so clearly drawn that I always get sucked straight into the story anyway. This is a definite must-read for anyone who adores fairytale retellings. You’ll recognize a lot of familiar elements in other fairytales retold that authors drew from McKinley’s style and way of reimagining things. (In fact, one of my newer favorite authors who writes reimagined fairytales, Kenley Davidson, draws some inspiration from McKinley’s stories, and I think it’s one of the things that first drew me into her work.)

If you’re looking for clean young adult fiction, this is a great choice. McKinley has other books you might be interested in as well: Spindle’s End, her retelling of Sleeping Beauty; Outlaws of Sherwood, her retelling of Robin Hood; and her fantasy duo, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. I recommend them all.

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white and straight.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
A brief kiss and a few mentions of blushing or attraction.

Spiritual Content
A couple references to prayer. One character exclaims, “Merciful God.” The Beast’s castle is populated with invisible servants which Beauty often describes as a “breeze.” She begins to hear and understand them to be individuals as her time in the castle progresses.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Wine is served with dinner.

 

Review: Life Just Got Real by Sadie Robertson with Cindy Coloma

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

Life Just Got Real
Sadie Robertson with Cindy Coloma
Howard Books / Simon & Schuster
Published on June 7, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Life Just Got Real
Sixteen-year-old A.J. Smith grew up in backwoods Louisiana, repairing cars with her dad and hunting with her brothers. But when her dad dies, her mom drags the whole family to Nashville where everything is different—except A.J. And A.J. knows it will take everything she has to live original.

Kate Kelly grew up in Nashville’s best schools, jetting around the world with glamorous people and wearing clothes from her mom’s trendy boutique. But when A.J. Smith―a new girl from the sticks—shows up, suddenly she’s all the rage: her unusual sense of style, her accent, and especially her dumb converse high tops. Even Kate’s brother, Kaden, seems to be under the new girl’s spell. But Kate has bigger things to think about, including the reality show Real Life. Everyone says the show is her chance to make it big. But then the producers decide to bring A.J. into the show.

Because these girls are so different, the producers of Real Life know that their conflict will be television gold. So the cameras start to roll. Then Kaden asks A.J. to prom, Kate flips out, and things with Kate’s (almost) boyfriend Alex start unraveling fast—all on camera. As the producers try to stir up the drama, Kate’s idea of the perfect prom spins out of control. When Kate’s life goes disastrously wrong, it is A.J. who steps up to help—no questions asked. A friendship between the two girls just might grow—but only if they both live original and stay true to who God made them to be.

My Review
As a girl who also grew up peeking at engines with her dad, I loved that this is a book about a girl with mechanical tendencies! How fun. I loved AJ’s genuine character and her vulnerability. Both those things made it so easy to root for her as the story progressed.

I also identified with Kate’s driven, high-achiever nature. I liked how both girls were juxtaposed against each other not just within the frame of a reality show but also in their alternating points of view in the story.

In a couple of scenes, Kaden gets a bit pushy with AJ. While as a reader I believed in Kaden’s goodness and his good intentions toward AJ, I was uncomfortable with the way the story made his behavior seem like an admirable thing. She resisted or straight up said no she didn’t want to do something a couple of times and he kind of pushed until she caved. I don’t think this is a great model for teen relationships and can actually be a dangerous pattern. So I struggled with that.

The story explores some of AJ’s spiritual beliefs and the comfort she finds in church and Christian faith. So there’s more spiritual content here than in some other books by major Christian publishers that I’ve read lately. I loved seeing these elements grafted into the story but wished they played a role in the story’s resolution as well.

The plot got a little murky toward the three-quarter mark of Life Just Got Real. I’m not sure what the big conflict/final battle is exactly. I felt like the story sort of lost focus and became more event-driven at that point. The ending left me wanting to know more (in a good way), though I don’t see any evidence that there are plans for a sequel.

Readers looking for a clean reality show novel will want to put this one on their lists. If you liked Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos or liked the concept but wanted a clean alternative, Life Just Got Real should be on your reading list.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white. The story takes place in Nashville and focuses on a wealthy white family and a poorer white family.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
AJ reflects on the change in her Christian life since her dad’s death and realizes she hasn’t prayed much lately. She begins attending church again and tries to make her spiritual life a priority. She also introduces Kaden to her church. He develops his own belief and mentions studying the bible. He also talks to his sister Kate briefly about believing in God and how maybe that’s what he’s been missing in his life up to that point. Kate wants to be supportive but doesn’t seem interested in spirituality.

Violent Content
A boy publicly humiliates a girl by saying some unkind things about her.

Drug Content
A boy gets drunk and says some ugly things about a girl publicly. He later apologizes for what he said and did.