Category Archives: Contemporary

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

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

Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah ThomasBecause You’ll Never Meet Me
Leah Thomas
Bloomsbury USA Children’s

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Unusual circumstances lead two remarkably different boys to become pen pals. They’ll never meet, as Ollie is severely allergic to electricity and Moritz relies on his pacemaker to keep his weak heart pumping. Ollie lives in an isolated cabin deep in the woods, longing for people and things he can never have. Moritz lives in a crowded city and longs for nothing more than solitude. As they compose autobiographical letters to one another, each discovers that what he needs most is a true friend.

Don’t be fooled by the mild-mannered premise. This book explodes with sci-fi-esque drama as the boys explore the secret genetic experiments which connect them. Bring your willing-suspension-of-disbelief and be prepared for the reward of a wild ride. What tops the story, though, are its central characters. Thomas has created a distinct voice for each boy. As the letters progress, each boy grows. They challenge one another. They wrestle with the obstacles and losses that life throws at them. They draw us in and move our hearts.

I read somewhere recently that one of the benefits of reading for children (indeed for us all) is that it inspires us to have empathy for those different from ourselves. Thomas succeeds in this venture. Through her words, we share in and sympathize with Ollie’s desperate optimism and Moritz’s fragile first rays of hope. We find ourselves reminded about the power of honesty between friends, about the vital truth that we are all valuable, all human. It’s a powerful, ultimately inspiring story.

Language Content
Profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Brief kissing – boy/girl and once boy/boy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Moritz and another boy suffer at the hands of a bully. Descriptions are short but disturbing. The bully ends up severely injured later.

Drug Content
None.

Soundclip from Audiobook (available at Audible.com)

A Brilliant Novel In Poetry: Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

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

Locomotion
Jacqueline Woodson
Speak, Penguin Group

Lonnie Collins Motion learns to pour out memories and feelings in a poetry journal. He writes about the night his parents died. About his little sister, Lili. About his foster mom. About the teacher he admires who doesn’t understand what his life is really like. His story unfolds, poem by poem, packed with emotion and insight.

One of the most powerful things about a novel-in-poetry is the power of each line. The narrative has been distilled down to just a few words, yet it’s enough to paint a complete picture of what Lonnie sees and experiences. There are simply not enough stories like this one, both in its approach to storytelling and in the story itself. Lonnie is easy to love – his desire to protect and stay in touch with his younger sister is moving, and it’s easy to sense his longing for young men he can look up to. This would make a great addition to classroom study or a great independent read for late elementary-aged children. I highly recommend it.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Lonnie’s little sister asks him if he has “found God yet?” He responds, saying he wasn’t looking for Him. But for her sake, so her foster family will like him more and allow him more time with her, he begins going to some church events and trying to read the Bible.

Violence
Lonnie’s parents were killed in a fire long before his story begins. He remembers their deaths, but no gory details are related.

Drug Content
None.

Review: Sold by Patricia McCormick

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

Sold
Patricia McCormick
Disney-Hyperion

Beneath the oppressive rule of her stepfather, Lakshmi and her mother carve out a meager living in their remote village in the mountains of Nepal. They dream of a life of plenty: a tin roof, a jacket for the baby. Lakshmi dreams of the day she will marry the village boy to whom she is betrothed.

Monsoon rains and her stepfather’s gambling addiction destroy the family’s crops. Lakshmi learns of a job in the city. She can work as a maid and send money home to support her family. A beautiful woman comes to escort her to her new home. But something isn’t right. Money changes hands. More money than Lakshmi can imagine passes from the lovely woman to her stepfather. She is taken over the border and into Happiness House, where life for Lakshmi is anything but. It’s there she learns she’ll not earn money as a maid, but as a prostitute.

Lakshmi fights her slavery and continues to dream of her village and home. To dream of rescue. When the opportunity for rescue comes, she must choose between trusting the words a stranger and the word of the other girls who’ve become her friends.

Lakshmi’s village and her life there are so well-captured. Her experiences in the city at the brothel are appropriately more muted. Her emotional journey remains in crisp focus without overwhelming the reader with the horror of her daily experiences there. There are snippets of horror, to be sure. But it’s more muted.

This story is equal parts beautiful and tragic. McCormick introduces us to an innocent girl with whom we can’t help but fall in love. When the reality of Happiness House shatters Lakshmi’s dreams, the reader can’t help but be wounded with her, which is exactly why this is such an important tale. Thousands of young girls are sold into prostitution every year. McCormick’s novel teaches us to empathize with these innocent, trapped girls without judging them. The writing is powerful, moving and intense.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Because this is the tragic story of a girl sold into prostitution, there is some unavoidable sexual content. In one scene, Lakshmi is handed over to a man who tries to rape her. She describes him forcefully kissing her and attempting to position himself between her legs while she fights back. It’s intense but the narrative is not explicit beyond what I’ve already described here. Lakshmi is later drugged and receives visits from men while in this defenseless state. Again, there’s not a lot of explicit description of what goes on, though a few of the vague descriptions are still intense. Readers are left to fill in the blanks when Lakshmi says a man makes her do “dirty things,” etc. When men begin visiting her, she is left physically damaged, which she briefly describes.

Spiritual Content
Lakshmi and her family pray and make offerings to locally worshipped deities in her remote Nepalese village.

Violence
See above description of rape scene. Lakshmi and the other girls are beaten if they do not comply with Mumtaz. At one point, Mumtaz threatens to take a woman’s children. There are rumors that she would maim the child and sell it to a beggar.

Drug Content
Lakshmi’s step-father appears to have gambling and alcohol addictions.

Review: The Merit Birds by Kelley Powell

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

The Merit Birds
Kelley Powell
Dundurn Press

Furious. That’s how Cameron feels about leaving Canada during his senior year and missing his star spot on the basketball team. That’s how he feels about his dad being gone. And how he feels about living in Laos for a year with his mom.

Then Cam meets Somchai, who turns out to be a better friend than all of his friends at home combined. He meets Nok, the shy massage therapist who teaches him about doing good deeds for others. He begins to fall in love. With her gentle smile. With the slow, peaceful rhythm of life in Laos.

Nok’s brother Seng longs to do something useful. To save his sister from the knife’s edge of poverty. To go to America. But before he can follow through with his dreams, tragedy turns his world upside down.

Tragedy visits Cam, too. He is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. Justice moves slowly in Laos. Terrified, Cam waits in prison for the real perpetrator to come forward. Like so many of us, in the worst of circumstances, Cam finally begins to understand the selfless gift of friendship he’s been offered in Laos. He can only hope it’s not too late to return that gift.

I really enjoyed the setting and culture details. Laos is a country about which I know very little, so it was really cool to not only read about it as a setting, but experience some of the culture and traditions through the intriguing cast of characters. The theme about misled Western characters finding being saved by the superior Eastern ways is perhaps a little overdone. Powell balances it well by showing some of the issues within the government and in revealing the flaws in the Lao characters as well. The ending was a little abrupt. It’s almost a montage of wrap-up scenes, which made it very sharp, but very brief and left me feeling like I missed part of the conclusion. Is Cam really different now that he’s out of prison? What does Cam say to Somchai, now that he’s undergone this in-prison transformation? Does he meet Nok’s other family members? Does his mom rush him back to Canada?

Part of the beauty in a story can be its unanswered questions. I definitely wanted more from this one. Overall I really enjoyed it.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
Cam briefly mentions having had sex with a girl at a party. No details beyond that.

Spiritual Content
Nok teaches Cam about merit birds. One buys caged birds from a vendor and then releases them to build up karma.

Violence
A rival basketball player says some unkind things to Cam and he explodes, punching the boy repeatedly in the face. A massage customer attacks Nok and attempts to rape her. She fights him off, but is shaken up by the experience. Police beat witnesses in attempts to coerce testimony.

Drug Content
Seng drinks alcohol at a party and then causes a fatal accident. Cam references drinking at parties in Canada. He and his mother sip alcohol at a party the neighbors throw for them. Cam gets drunk in a tourist town nearby and later regrets his behavior.

Review: Fix by Force by Jason Warne

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

Fix by Force
Jason Warne
WestBow Press

Seventeen year-old Spencer lives in the shadow of Zack, a powerful bully who will stop at nothing to make his life miserable. Spencer spirals through one coping strategy after another, hoping to find some way to keep Zack off his case. He understands Zack’s rage. After all, Zack’s mom was killed in the same car accident that ended Zack’s dad’s life. Only Spencer’s dad was driving drunk.

When Spencer uncovers clues to a part of his father’s life he never knew about, he tries to fit those pieces together. What he uncovers blows his own life apart and lands him in more trouble than he could have ever imagined. The climb back to normal life may be more than Spencer can manage on his own.

For the most part, Spencer is a really likeable guy. He’s trying to figure out who he is and carve out a story for himself in a town that won’t let him forget his father’s mistakes. Some of the scenes are really sharp and packed with emotion and strong narrative. Others, though, seem more like summaries of events, and keep the reader much more at a distance. The characters are varied and interesting, and there’s some real complexity to the plot. Overall I enjoyed it. I like the cover art, too.

Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
At football practice, Spencer sustains a pretty serious (and bloody) injury. There are some fist-fight type events in the story. The first is more brutal (causes more injuries) than the others. In one scene, a student shoots another student in the chest. Spencer goes from a victim to a perpetrator to someone beyond that who understands the motivation for violence and wants to help others rise above it.

Drug Content
Steroid use is discussed and described in several scenes throughout the book. Many side effects are also described, too, so it definitely shows more of the risks and consequences rather than glorifying the ride, so to speak.

Review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

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

All the Rage
Courtney Summers
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

In this small town, you don’t accuse the sheriff’s son of rape. But that’s just what he did to Romy Grey. No one believes her. Her accusation becomes the stick her former friends use to beat her. There’s only one place Romy can go to find peace. At the restaurant on the edge of town, no one knows Romy’s past. Handsome grill cook Leo likes her. Really likes her.

But when those two parts of her life collide and a girl goes missing, Romy has nowhere to hide anymore. She finds herself cornered and terrified by a town that wishes she were gone instead of the beautiful missing girl. As pieces of a night Romy can’t remember begin to fall into place, she learns another brutal truth. A truth she can’t keep quiet any longer.

To many contemporary YA readers, this isn’t an unfamiliar story: girl gets raped; town crucifies her for telling the truth. It’s been told before. What makes All the Rage so powerful and fresh is Summers’ intense, evocative writing.

Romy’s situation ultimately places a larger burden on the town and forces them to confront their own fears. At the beginning of the story, no one wants to cross the sheriff. Not even Romy’s own mother. But the illusion that this is a sustainable way of life is dismantled brick by brick as the story unfolds and the cost of turning a blind eye rises to terrible heights.

It definitely brings to mind the famous quote by Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Language Content
Extreme profanity and some crude language, infrequent use.

Sexual Content
Romy remembers being raped. It’s pretty raw. There are some descriptions of the physical event but what’s more center-stage and so powerful about Summers’ writing is always the emotional impact on the character.

There are some explicit sexual comments made at Romy or in her presence.

Later, Romy has an opportunity for a relationship with a boy who’s kind to her. We see her trying to process her past through this new relationship. There are some explicit details about her encounters with him. He respects her and is often confused by her mixed signals.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
In the locker room, girls bully Romy. She has a lot of shame about her body, and the girls pick on her pretty relentlessly. A boy trips her while she’s running. Students steal her underwear and use them in a prank. The physical bullying is bad, but it’s the constant emotional bullying that’s truly awful.

Drug Content
Romy gets very drunk at a party and is later raped. High school seniors have a party by the lake, and everyone knows drinking and sex are a huge part of what goes on there. Adults turn a blind eye with the mentality that it’s a rite of passage and shouldn’t be stopped. (They’ll have a reality check on this later.)