In the aftermath of Johnny’s accident, the Scar Boys regroup and begin performing as a band again. But too many members carry secrets that become barriers between them.
Cheyenne hides her pregnancy from Johnny. Harry buries his love for Cheyenne in the lyrics of a song. Johnny withdraws into his own vision for the band. Richie walks the fine line between keeping peace and staying out of the conflict.
Through answers to interview questions, the band members relate their experiences as the Scar Boys face bigger problems and more pressure than ever before. What began as Harry’s story now becomes the story of four teens bound together by music bigger than any of them.
The interview format breaks this story into sections in which each member attempts to answer a question. While the varied viewpoints added drama and depth, sometimes the unfiltered honesty in the answers was hard to buy. I found myself asking, is this really what someone would admit to a journalist?
That aside, the story packs some serious emotional punch. The story shows the band, once a cohesive whole, as it breaks down into four desperate, disillusioned teens and propels readers to the very center of each heartache. Make no mistake: it’s dark, it’s raw. It will grab you and refuse to let you look away until the last line of the last page. Vlahos leaves us with hope, though, after the long, dark night. As much as I liked Scar Boys,I think I liked this book better.
Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.
Sexual Content When Cheyenne discovers she’s pregnant, she contemplates having an abortion. She describes going to a clinic where protestors gather. She refers to one protestor as “angry and confused.” Cheyenne does not have an abortion, but for personal, not moral, reasons.
At one point, she is lying down with Johnny, but nothing happens between them.
Spiritual Content Brief mention of Cheyenne’s Catholic background.
Violence Song lyrics describe a scene in which a boy commits suicide by hanging himself.
Drug Content
Cheyenne’s father is an alcoholic. One band member begins drinking alcohol heavily and performing drunk. Other band members are uncomfortable with the behavior, but no one seems able to stop it. Eventually the member agrees to get help.
I had this idea that blogging book reviews would actually reduce my spending on literature. You know, publishers send me books. I read great, current books for free and then recruit people to listen to my opinion on the internet. Heavenly.
And it is, but mostly what it does is educate me better on what’s coming soon. So now I have a list of must-have books that haven’t even hit the shelves yet. I’m not one to order a lot of books ahead of time, but I’m absolutely on pins and needles over these hot new titles. Here are nine books I want to pre-order:
1. Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights? (All the Wrong Questions #4) by Lemony Snicket (9/22/15)
My daughter and I have been giggling our way through this whole series, and I expect this last book to be every bit as good as the first three have been. Apprentice Detective Lemony Snicket and his team of associates are closing in on the villain Hangfire’s evil plot. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
2. Spinning Starlight by R. C. Lewis (10/6/15)
Gah! Another Disney/Hyperion title that looks super cool. Honestly, it kind of seems like Disney is doing what they do and modeling a product line after a big industry success. Here we have a sci-fi fairytale retelling that bears some strong resemblance to The Little Mermaid. Okay, so that was my favorite Disney movie growing up and the idea of setting it in space totally has me intrigued.
3. A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston (10/6/15)
This one just looks too good. It looks like a sort of retelling of the story of Shahrazad, whose nightly stories saved her life.
I keep requesting Disney/Hyperion titles, but so far I’m a no-go on NetGalley. Disney may be looking for more frequent posts or higher blog stats or something. So, alas… I’ll have to buy it off bookstore shelves like everyone else.
4. Dark Tide (Waterfire Saga #3) by Jennifer Donnelly (10/13/15)
I’m a huge fan of Ms. Donnelly. I loved A Northern Light and Deep Blue, the first book in the Waterfire Saga. I love that it’s a whole different spin on a mermaid story. There’s no prince to rescue, no mermaid wishing to be human, just a mermaid princess trying to save her people from a terrible evil. The Waterfire Saga is on my list of books to read with my daughter this year.
5. Ice Like Fire (Snow Like Ashes #2) by Sarah Raasch (10/13/15)
I stumbled onto the first book in this series and immediately loved Raasch’s storytelling style. The plot unfolded in directions I didn’t anticipate. The characters earned my respect. I am definitely interested in what happens next to the sole survivors of the kingdom of Winter.
6. These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly (10/27/15)
These Shallow Graves caught my eye because it bears Donnelly’s name. It looks a bit darker and more suspenseful, and it’s got some mystery to it as the heroine explores the truth behind her father’s death. It’s a little different than my usual picks, but all the more reason to bring it on.
7. Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer (11/10/15)
It’s the LAST book in the Lunar Chronicles. I confess I didn’t start reading the series until after the second book, Scarlet, came out, so I read the first three in pretty close succession. Each time I’m like, how is Meyer going to top that? And then she goes and does it. Winter features themes familiar from the fairytale Snow White. I can’t wait to see how Meyer explores the sci-fi retelling of the classic story and weaves it into the dramatic climax of what has been an incredible series.
8. Inherit the Stars by Tessa Elwood (12/8/15)
I read another book by this same publisher (Running Press) and was so blown away by the craftsmanship of the story that I immediately put them on my list of publishers to watch. While the book I read before (When You Leave by Monica Ropal) was a contemporary novel, Inherit the Stars is a sci-fi tale that looks to be loaded with political intrigue and maybe a bit of star-crossed love. Count. Me. In.
9. The Raven King (The Raven Cycle #4) by Maggie Stiefvater (2/23/16)
This series has been one of those guilty pleasures. It definitely contains some spiritual content that’s pretty far off the path in terms of themes I’m usually comfortable with in literature. I got the first book for free and have been hooked since. Plus, I have to say that Will Patton’s narration of the audiobooks makes it one of my top favorites, ever. The Raven King is the final book in the series, so I’m especially eager to find out what happens to Blue, Gansey, Ronan and all their friends.
Do you pre-order books or prefer to wait until they hit shelves before you buy?
Prince Valerian longs to become a scholar, a dream spurned by his family in his war-torn kingdom. When the crowned prince is cut down in battle, Valerian must step forward to lead his father’s army to war. To wear the crown he never wanted, he will have to prove his worth to a people who value power over philosophy.
Mercy, a healer from a peaceful village, loses everything dear to her in one terrible morning. She joins the prince and his companion to rally the people and defeat the Horde that would destroy them all. The prince will need every ally if he is to stop the lizard-like beasts who seek to annihilate his people.
Right from the beginning I wanted to root for Valerian. There were a couple of quickly passing moments where I hesitated a little bit, but he’s definitely the classic form of one of my favorite heroes – a good guy in a tough place who has to make some really hard choices. I felt much the same way about Mercy.
So often right now YA features stories in which the protagonists whine about how terrible things are and how they just want to do things their own way. These guys are not like that at all. Mercy’s Prince definitely has that more classic feel, where the characters get handed tasks they never wanted and they man up and work to make the best of things. I found that attitude really admirable, and while I enjoy a good rebel, too, this story felt fresh and lovely. My only complaint with regard to characters is that Mercy’s little brother was kind of flat for me. At the beginning he was kind of a trouble-maker and then suddenly, he turned into this constantly helpful cooperative four year-old. I kind of wanted to see more conflict there, more sides of his behavior. He’s not a huge part of the story, though, so that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment much at all.
Though the narrative isn’t perhaps as polished as stories coming from mammoth publishing houses, love for the characters and an intriguing plot kept me turning page after page each time I sat down to read. Mercy’s Prince is easily one of the best indie novels I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy Mary Weber’s Storm Siren Trilogy or Jill Williamson’s Blood of Kings series.
Language Content
No profanity.
Sexual Content Brief references to a couple looking forward to their wedding night, as in looking forward to being “one flesh.” It’s pretty tactful.
Spiritual Content All the members of Mercy’s village have taken an oath of pacifism in response to their faith in the Most High God. Some characters possess Gifts – to See into the thoughts of others, to supernaturally Heal others, etc. (The capital letters are used in the story to indicate the use of the supernatural gift.)
Dragons exist and can speak to humans and one another mind to mind.
Violence Prince Valerian witnesses his brother’s death. He’s cut down by a lizard-like enemy. Several battle scenes depict warfare between men and the lizard-like Horde. A group of soldiers massacre an entire village of civilians. Assassins attempt to kill the prince and his companions. These events are described with some level of detail. The story doesn’t dwell too long on the gory stuff, but there are some descriptions that really sensitive readers might be uncomfortable with.
Drug Content
References to a festival at which men become drunk and rowdy. The major characters see this as a dangerous behavior and withdraw from the event.
Caden Bosch is caught between two worlds. In one, he is an ordinary teen who works on illustrations for a video game he and his friends develop. In the other, he is a passenger on a pirate ship en route to Challenger Deep, the lowest point of the Marianas Trench.
As his hold on reality slips, his friends and family begin to notice that something is wrong, but they are powerless to help him. Sometimes even Caden knows the impossibility of things he believes. But in the next moment, he may be powerless to doubt them.
Shusterman doesn’t disappoint in this complex, heartbreaking story of a boy with mental health issues. The scenes in which Caden interacts with the crew of the pirate ship morph into something entirely different, allowing readers to become engrossed in Caden’s departure from reality while still following a somewhat linear story. It’s brilliantly done.
As a reader, I kept so hoping there would be this magical moment in which Caden’s meds suddenly took effect and he suddenly emerged from the fog happy and whole. I can only imagine that the friends and family of anyone suffering from schizophrenia feel that pull, which just added to the story’s brilliance.
While there’ no quick-fix for Caden in this story, what Shusterman does provide is a profound sense of hope. Many things remain unknown. We end the story with the feeling that we are still very much at the beginning of Caden’s journey. We don’t know how things will go, but we are not without hope.
One criticism I hear about books dealing with mental health issues is that often the therapist is too goofy or has all the answers or just feels absolutely unreal. I think this book struck a good balance between making the therapist a presence in the story without his character overtaking or distracting. Caden’s therapist had his oddities, but they were a bit understated and didn’t seem weird for the sake of weird, if that makes sense. Over all I thought it was a great book, definitely a good read for anyone with friends or family members facing mental illness.
Language Content
No profanity.
Sexual Content Caden befriends a girl who crawls into his bed one night. They remain fully clothed. Caden’s medication reduces or eliminates sex drive, so it’s a pretty innocent situation.
Spiritual Content None.
Violence A man on the street grabs Robie, but she escapes. A violent storm causes her plane to crash. She and an injured man survive on a life raft. The crash doesn’t have a whole lot of scary details. It’s straightforward but pretty brief.
Drug Content
References to a drunk driving accident that killed a teenage girl.
Each year the schoolmaster collects two children from Sophie’s village. She longs to be chosen to attend the School for Good and grow up to be a fairy tale princess. Her best friend Agatha, hopes only to be left alone. When the schoolmaster comes to collect the children, Sophie is chosen, and all her dreams are about to come true.
Except the schoomaster’s servants deposit her in the School of Evil and send Agatha to the School of Good. Clearly there’s been a mistake, one Sophie will do anything to correct. Agatha agrees that something has gone horribly wrong. She is determined to find a way to escape the school with Sophie and return home to her village. But what if there is no escape? What if the schoolmaster hasn’t made a mistake, and in fact, Sophie and Agatha belong exactly where he’s sent them?
My Review
When I saw THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL sitting on the shelf in our local bookstore, my daughter and I were in the middle of the Ever After High series by Shannon Hale. While we both loved the upbeat story and its modern fairy tale feel, I liked that this series looked similar but perhaps more complex.
The story is a bit meatier than the Ever After High series, but it’s also a bit cruder. Agatha, surrounded by curious princes and princesses in the School for Good, passes gas at them to buy her time to escape. Later, she disguises herself as a roach. One of the students in the School for Evil turns rat poop into chocolate.
Over all, the message is a familiar important one. Sophie’s outward beauty isn’t what makes her good. Her shallowness and disdain for others much more heavily define her. Agatha doesn’t see herself as lovely, but her compassion and kindness mark her as a true princess.
I’m not sure that readers of Ever After High would necessarily gravitate toward THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL because the tone is so different, but definitely readers who enjoyed THE THICKETY: A PATH BEGINS by J. A. White should definitely give this one a go.
Content Notes
Profanity or Crude Language No profanity. Brief crude references to bodily functions.
Sexual Content In the tradition of modern fairy tales, it’s not the prince and true love’s kiss that break an evil spell. Instead, a kiss between Agatha and Sophie seals the pivotal moment. It’s less romantic and more symbolic.
Spiritual Content Children who attend the School for Evil will grow up to be villains (including witches) in fairy tale stories. Students learn to use magic spells to bring help or harm to others.
This week’s topic is about which authors I’ve read most. I’m breaking my top authors into two categories: books I read as a child and books I read as an adult/reviewer. Obviously authors with big series that I followed have a huge advantage here, but there were a few that surprised me.
Top Authors I Read as a Child
1. Ann M Martin.
Okay, you guessed it. I was a total baby-sitter’s-clubber. I must have read over thirty of those books in my tween years. Mary Anne was my favorite, but Stacey and Claudia were close seconds. I did some babysitting myself and I think I always wished I’d had friends to share the stories and experiences with.
That beloved series isn’t all I’ve read by Martin. More recently I enjoyed Rain Reign by Martin. You can check out my review here.
2. C. S . Lewis
Well, you knew that was coming. This one really belongs on both lists. I’ve read the Narnia series more than once. The first time as a child, then again while my family was in North Carolina avoiding a fierce hurricane in Florida, and again aloud to my daughter.
I think each time I read the series a different book is my favorite. My current fav is The Horse and His Boy. Beyond the Narnia series, I’ve loved Lewis’s Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed,The Screwtape Letters, and Till We Have Faces. I have not read his sci-fi series, though I’ve heard it’s great.
3. Laura Ingalls Wilder
My sister gets the credit for introducing me to this series. She had a box set that was maybe a Christmas gift? After she’d read the books and talked about how much she liked them, I had to read them, too.
Today, my daughter has her own box set of these books. Though she’s only read the first one, it’s really sweet seeing the series peeking out from her bookshelf. I hope she reads the whole series someday.
Fans of this series might enjoy the Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich. I haven’t read them yet, but friends have recommended them. It’s the story of an Ojibwa girl, which makes a neat comparison to Wilder’s familiar frontier settler stories.
4. Robin McKinley
I discovered my first book by Robin McKinley in a used books stall at a flea market. Beauty, an amazing retelling of Beauty and the Beast captured me right away. It became one of the books my mom gave for Christmas gifts one year.
Since that first taste, I went on to read other great re-imagined fairy tales as well as her fantasy novels The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. You can read my review of The Hero and the Crownhere.
5. James Herriot
I had forgotten all about these charming books until my mom recently gave me one I hadn’t seen before. After losing both our cats this year to old age and health problems, my mom (who is incredible and so very thoughtful) put together a little package that included James Herriot’s Cat Stories. I’m excited to read it.
My journey with Herriot’s books began with the audiobooks, which we listened to as a family on long car trips. The books are basically short stories about his adventures as a vet in the English countryside. Some are laugh-out-loud funny while others are really tender and sweet. Definitely good stuff for any animal lover.
Top YA Authors I’ve Read as an Adult (ahem) Reviewer
1. Anne Elisabeth Stengl
This is another name that probably comes as no surprise to my faithful blog followers! (Because I’ve reviewed much of the series here.) I stumbled onto the first book in the Tales of Goldstone Wood series and have been eagerly awaiting each subsequent book since.
One of my favorite things about this series is that the books aren’t all following the same characters, and the story doesn’t continue chronologically through all the books. It’s more like a collection of stories from within the same awesome story world. I. Love. It. Which is my favorite? Probably this one.
2. Rick Riordan
This one I blame on my cousin. She devoured the Percy Jackson series, which I hadn’t gotten around to reading. She offered to lend me the books and then it was my turn to plow through them. Since then I’ve read the first three books in the Heroes of Olympus series (I liked what he did with bringing Roman mythology into things.)
I think my favorite thing about the series as a whole is that as you read, you learn who’s who in Greek mythology (and Roman mythology, if you read Heroes of Olympus) kind of without even meaning to. Is it something you have to know about in order to graduate or become a functioning adult? No, but I love that the story is so entertaining that you don’t even realize you’re learning stuff. I want more books like this.
I haven’t reviewed any of the books in the series (not sure how this happened) but they’re fairly clean. I don’t think there’s any profanity. There’s some mild violence from battle scenes involving monsters. There is one boy/boy unrequieted crush that’s briefly discussed, but I don’t think it really goes anywhere or is very consequential to the story.
3. J K Rowling
I feel like this is almost a cop-out answer. There are seven books in the Harry Potter series, and I’ve read them all. I didn’t read them until I was an adult. My ten year-old daughter hasn’t read them at this point. We agreed that she could start reading them and do one book per year (I can’t take credit for that idea. Laura L. Smith suggests this in a post on her web site) but she hasn’t started reading them yet.
I LOVE the audiobook versions read by Jim Dale. Like, I could listen to them over and over. So. Good.
Which is my favorite? Maybe the fourth one? I’m not sure.
4. Jill Williamson
I’ve read two series by Williamson – a fantasy series and a dystopian series – and enjoyed both for different reasons. The fantasy series (Blood of Kings series) was a great sort of classic fantasy story – kings and magic and dark powers and stuff like that. It’s a Christian series, so there’s a parallel religion through the story and some great spiritual themes. Great for tween or early teen readers.
The dystopian series (Safe Lands series) is a lot darker and more mature. Williamson stays true to Christian values and principles and incorporates them into her story, but characters wrestle with issues like drug addiction and the emotional consequences of an unexpected pregnancy.
5. Maggie Stiefvater
Okay, so I cheated because I’ve read five books by Stiefvater and five books by several other amazing authors (including Stephanie Morrill and Laura L. Smith.) I chose Stiefvater because I’m anxiously pining for the next book in her Raven Boys series. Though the spiritual content is totally not Christian-themed (there’s a lot of new age-y, psychic stuff happening, so it’s definitely not for everyone) the characters are so captivating. I really need to know what happens next.
Outside this series, I read the first book in the Mercy Falls series and did not care for it at all. There was a lot of repetitive phrasing, and I just really didn’t buy into the story.
However. The Scorpio Races. Wow. Amazing. Seriously, go read it now. It’s SO good. Here’s my review.
So those are my top ten. How about yours? Have you read books by these guys? Did it make you want to check out something new? Who are your top favorite authors?
