Category Archives: Young Adult/Teen 12-18

Review: Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

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

Don't Even Think About It by Sarah MlynowskiDon’t Even Think About It
Sarah Mlynowski
Delacorte Press
Published March 11, 2014

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It all starts with a simple flu vaccine. One by one, the students in homeroom 10-B discover they have telepathic abilities as their minds become filled with voices of other students, teachers and even their parents.

At first, the students revel in the secrets they learn about one another: who cheated on whom, the identity of a secret crush, the test answers recorded by the smartest kid in class. But they also learn things they didn’t want to know. For one boy, it’s that Dad is having an affair and Mom has a divorce lawyer on retainer. For one girl, it’s that her parents are very much in love and, er, having sex. Would you want to know every time your girlfriend thinks about another guy? Would you want to know your crush is secretly crazy about someone else?

Should others be judged by what they say or what they think? Mlynowski explores this idea with humor and heaviness. As the group of teens struggle to navigate with their newfound ability, they must decide for themselves how to exist in a world in which people often think things far different than they say, and in which their deepest secrets become known to twenty other students. While some characters are a bit shallow and plastic, others really shine as moving, empathetic creations. The lesson that appearances often deceive is well-integrated into the story, and the author delves into possibilities both positive and negative. Ultimately, the kids must decide individually if this ability is a blessing or curse.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme word choice, moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Several discussions about a boy who often “accidentally” has inappropriate physical contact with girls’ boobs. One girl makes plans to have her boyfriend over to her empty home during school lunch break. She also thinks back on summer escapades with a boy. Few details are given, but the reader is told they “didn’t have sex, but they did everything else.”

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
At a birthday party, one boy punches another in the face.

Drug Content
Brief references to teenaged drinking, smoking pot and taking Adderall without a prescription.

Disclaimer
I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: Unwind by Neal Schusterman

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Unwind
Neal Schusterman
Simon & Schuster BFYR
Published November 6, 2007

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When Connor’s parents schedule to have him unwound, meaning all parts of his body would be redistributed to others, he flees. While on the run, he meets Risa, a girl scheduled to undergo the unwinding process and Lev, a young teen whose family raised him to be unwound as a tithe to God. Together the three evade police and government officials only to discover an entire underground network of runaway kids scheduled for unwinding. At first the community seems like a wonderful miracle. Then the stench of rumors, chaos and death threaten to destroy the delicate balance required to protect so many from death and discovery, and Connor, Risa and Lev are forced to take sides in a conflict that could cost their lives.

At first it was difficult to suspend disbelief enough to become immersed in a story-world that devalues its youth so completely as Schusterman’s fictitious society does. However, the detailed backstory about the political move toward the decision to legalize and promote the unwind procedure helped make the premise more believable. The dehumanizing of the youth scheduled for unwinding can easily be a metaphor for a number of other groups who, in real present-day life experience a devaluing of existence. Think of victims of genocide, for example.

Connor and Lev display the highest degrees of character development. At the beginning, Connor is a kid with a short fuse and unfocused, uncontrolled anger. As the story progresses and with Risa’s help, he begins to apply restraint to his emotions and strategy to his decisions. Lev initially believes that he is destined to be a living sacrifice to God, that he has no right to life as a human being. Though he is often led astray by feelings of betrayal and anger toward his family, his choices lead him to become a powerful humanizing force in understanding people often considered evil and inhumane.

Unwind is the first in a series of three novels that make up the Unwind Dystology. Schusterman is also author to the Skinjacker Trilogy.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild word choice, infrequent use.

Sexual Content
Someone comments to Connor that he should get Risa pregnant to keep her from getting unwound. He does not take this advice.

Spiritual Content
Lev comes from a very religious family and upstanding family. His parents believe firmly in giving, and this extends to giving their son Lev as a tithe to be unwound. Lev grew up believing that this was a holy calling, and the church supports this idea. In the course of the story, Lev’s pastor changes his mind about the morality of unwinding teens and leaves the church.

Violence
Connor has a history of getting into fights with other kids. In the story, he fights off a police officer who tries to arrest him. He fights with a boy who has antagonized him and Risa for months. Nothing over-the-top in these scenes. When a boy undergoes the unwind procedure, readers experience it from his point-of-view. Details are not gross or graphic, but it is a powerful scene showing how dehumanized children scheduled to be unwound have become in the eyes of other society members.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen

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

The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1)
Jennifer Nielsen
Scholastic Press
Published April 1, 2012

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About The False Prince

Sage, a clever orphan from a neighboring country, is sold as a servant to a nobleman with a plan that smacks of treason. With the royal family missing and presumed dead, Conner wants to prepare a replacement prince. Sage and two other orphaned boys are faced with a terrible choice: join Conner in his plan or die at the hands of his henchmen. If they accept, one boy will be chosen to wear the crown as prince of Carthya. With Conner as his chief adviser, of course.

The three boys accept and Conner and his men begin a series of lessons and tests to prepare them to impersonate the lost prince. Sage bucks against Conner’s plan at every step, sneaking out at night to explore the castle in hopes of finding an escape and sleeping through the daily history lessons. The other boys see Conner’s plan as a precious opportunity and pursue the training with mind and strength. How far will they go to see that Conner chooses them as prince?

My Review

From the very beginning, Sage’s character is extremely prickly, which may prevent some readers from being able to sympathize with him. I know that was a bit true for me. He is cocky and stubborn, but his softer side emerges as he gets to know a servant girl named Imogen. Once she entered the story, I felt like I began to enjoy it a lot more.

The first in Nielsen’s The Ascendance Trilogy, THE FALSE PRINCE, is a tale cleanly told and packed with action and intrigue. I enjoyed those elements a lot myself. This story of lords and princes will appeal to classic fantasy lovers for its setting and themes of royalty lost and found.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
A boy is beaten severely in hopes that it will make him reveal a secret.

Drug Content
None.

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Cover Reveal: Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Blogger's Favorites, Fantasy, News and Fun, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

As a long-time fan of the Tales of Goldstone Wood series, I’m excited to reveal the cover of the seventh novel in this whimsical series. Golden Daughter will hit shelves in November 2014. Here’s a look at the back cover copy, too:

BEYOND THE REALM OF DREAMS

IS A WORLD SHE NEVER IMAGINED

Masayi Sairu was raised to be dainty, delicate, demure . . . and deadly. She is one of the emperor’s Golden Daughters, as much a legend as she is a commodity. One day, Sairu will be contracted in marriage to a patron, whom she will secretly guard for the rest of her life.

But when she learns that a sacred Dream Walker of the temple seeks the protection of a Golden Daughter, Sairu forgoes marriage in favor of this role. Her skills are stretched to the limit, for assassins hunt in the shadows, and phantoms haunt in dreams. With only a mysterious Faerie cat and a handsome slave—possessed of his own strange abilities—to help her, can Sairu shield her new mistress from evils she can neither see nor touch?

For the Dragon is building an army of fire. And soon the heavens will burn.

BOOK COVER: The cover illustration was done by Julia Popova. Visit her website, http://www.forestgirl.ru/, to learn more about her and her fantastic work!

If you’d like to learn more about Golden Daughter, visit the book page for interesting articles, illustrations, and more!

AUTHOR BIO:

Anne Elisabeth Stengl is the author of the award-winning Tales of Goldstone Wood series, adventure fantasies told in the classic Fairy Tale style. Her books include Christy Award-winning Heartless and Veiled Rose, and Clive Staples Award-winning Starflower. She makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering dog. When she’s not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and practices piano, painting, and pastry baking. She studied illustration and English literature at Grace College and Campbell University.

GIVEAWAY: Enter to win any two of the first six Goldstone Wood novels as a giveaway prize! Winner’s choice of: Heartless, Veiled Rose, Moonblood, Starflower, Dragonwitch, or Shadow Hand.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Cover Reveal: Winter in the Soul by Jennifer Novotney

Fantasy, News and Fun, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

From Anaiah Press author Jennifer Novotney comes an intriguing new fantasy novel with a simple, but intriguing cover.

Winter in the Soul
Jennifer Novotney
Anaiah Press
Available July 15, 2014

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A dangerous journey to stop a powerful darkness…

In a world divided by power and greed, seventeen-year-old Lilika harbors an intense desire to return to Winter in the Soul, the place her family left to escape the darkness that was manifesting from a coldness of the soul.

When she meets Talon, their connection is evident right from the start, and together they travel through the Black Kingdom to recover Lilika’s stolen locket. And in search of an answer to the mystery behind Winter in the Soul.

Lilika holds the key to stopping the darkness from spreading. The fate of their world lies in her hands. Will she stop the Black Kingdom before its darkness overtakes them all, or will they succumb to the darkness that is spreading across the land?

Winter in the Soul will release July 15, 2014 and is Novotney’s debut novel.

About Jennifer Novotney

Jennifer Novotney was born in Burbank, California and lived in Los Angeles for most of her life until settling in North Eastern Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter. She attended California State University, earning a bachelors degree in journalism, and Northern Arizona University, earning a masters degree in English. After college, she spent several years writing and teaching, including at Pennsylvania State University.

 

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Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

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

Across the Universe
Beth Revis
Raborbill / Penguin Group
Published January 11, 2011

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Seventeen year-old Amy and her parents join a team of scientists and military personnel who will endure 300 years of cryogenically induced sleep as they travel across space to form a colony on a new planet. Fifty years before the ship’s scheduled arrival at Centauri-Earth, Amy awakens, trapped and suffocating in her cryo-chamber. She cannot wake her parents without risking sabotage to their mission, so she is left to find a place within the strange society of passengers who make their lives aboard the ship Godspeed.

An unpredictable, manipulative man called Eldest rules the populace, and he immediately threatens to cast Amy off the ship to her death if she disturbs the other passengers in any way. Eldest’s protégé, Elder, finds himself drawn to Amy’s exotic beauty and inner fire. Her stories of life on earth and her insistence that something aboard the Godspeed is very wrong send Elder spinning into doubt and confusion. What if Eldest is wrong? What if the way he governs the people is wrong? When another cryo-chamber is disturbed and the person within dies, the crew aboard the Godspeed must face the possibility that someone is deliberately sabotaging their mission. To stop the killer, they must uncover the truth about Godspeed, its mission, and its leaders.

Amy finds herself trapped in a ship filled with people for whom earth remains only stories and legends. Over hundreds of years, the people of the Godspeed have evolved into a society regulated by artificial hormones and genetic engineering. Does this manipulation reduce the elusive qualities that separate man from animal? Revis expertly explores the morality of such a world in her cleverly constructed sci-fi arena.  I loved the exploration of this idea, and thought the story did a great job of showing some ideas about it without ever getting preachy.

The serial murderer on the loose on board a space ship within a pretty constricting dystopian-like society plus a budding romance makes this an intense read and kind of a genre-bending story, which I loved as well. This is a book that has a lot to offer a lot of different readers.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
No straight up profanity. Instead, characters use faux/made up swear words, like “frexing” and “shite.”

Sexual Content
Passengers aboard the Godspeed are hormonally manipulated into having a mating season, just as animals do. During this “season,” the passengers engage in sex out in the open. Descriptions are brief and spark conversations about the importance of love in relationships and the difference between humans and animals. Several men surround Amy, intending to rape her. The men pin her down and partially expose her, but a friend rescues her before the men fully assault her. The scene is intense.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
One resident aboard the ship removes passengers from cryo-sleep one by one, allowing them to thaw and die by drowning in the cryo-fluid. Amy wakes in her cryo-chamber. Someone rescues her, though the experience traumatizes her.

Drug Content
Hormones and medical supplements/drugs control the ship’s populace. Eldest, the group leader, is drinks liquor in a couple of instances.

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