Category Archives: By Genre

Review: State of Grace by Hilary Badger

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

State of Grace by Hilary BadgerState of Grace
Hilary Badger
Capstone/Switch Press
Published October 1, 2014

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Wren and her companions live in a beautiful utopian world where pleasure is the highest value. Dot has made all creation good and beautiful, and she’s left instructions for how to live. When strange flashes of another life begin plaguing Wren, she tries to hold on to Dot’s ways and be happy. But as piece after piece of her perfect world begin to crumble, Wren finds it harder and harder to believe.

At first glance, this is definitely a different book. The idea of reading a utopian story really appealed to me, and I think Badger really delivered on that idea. Of course we’re suspicious of the perfect world right from the start, but even that works for the story. In some ways the suspicion which is so well-voiced by Blaze is really what propels the story forward.

The most powerful moment comes when Wren is faced with the knowledge that what she’s believed to be true is based on lies. She must decide if she’s strong enough to pursue the truth or if she can allow herself to be lulled back into ignorance. Can she be happy if she knows it’s all fake? Badger captures the unraveling of the pure dystopian world, juxtaposing Wren’s breakdown against the echoes of bliss still experienced by other characters, revealing the truth in an almost horrifying clarity worthy of big league sci-fi writers.

Readers who enjoy Ursula K. LeGuin (particularly The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas) should absolutely give State of Grace a read.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Characters are encouraged to have sex (referred to as hooking up) as often as they want with whomever they want, as long as it’s not with the same person twice (some couples choose same sex, others choose opposite sex. Anything goes.) In the Books of Dot, pleasure and fun are the highest values.

A boy uses Dot’s principles to manipulate girls into having sex with him. There aren’t a lot of details given. Wren recognizes that there’s something wrong with this, but isn’t immediately able to pinpoint what.

Other hooking up scenes aren’t described either. Wren does refer to the boys’ “willies” and the girls’ “tatas” here and there. Clothing is also optional.

There’s a brief reference to a porn site and a nudist colony.

Spiritual Content
Characters worship Dot as their creator. She is an all-knowing goddess who left instructions within several books. One character claims to hear Dot’s voice. Each character is required to fill a bag with a special fruit as an offering to Dot each day. (See below for more information that includes a spoiler.)

Violence
A boy slits the neck of a deer and guts it. It’s a bit gruesome, which is kind of the point the author is making. A boy’s neck is cut later. There are some flashbacks which include information about a boy beating someone to death.

Drug Content
A boy encourages a girl to take prescription drugs and smoke cigarettes with him.

Spoiler
(Spiritual Content continued) Wren learns that everything she believed about Dot has been made up. She’s frustrated and angry, but also a bit relieved, because it was getting a little Lord of the Flies there for a while. At the end of the book she reflects on the difference between her earlier life and the present. She knows that anyone who has died isn’t out there with Dot. They simply don’t exist anymore. She has zero faith, and that’s implied to be this very superior experience.

Given her earlier time, it’s understandable that faith has left her with this strong aversion and that she’s chosen not to believe anything like that anymore, but some readers may be bothered by the implication that atheism is a superior way to live.

 

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Review: Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt

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

Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt
St. Martin’s Griffin

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Alma can’t wait to shake the dust off her small southern town from her shoes and make something of herself in college at a prestigious school. She has spent the last several years preparing and convincing her family. Now all she needs is a scholarship, and thanks to a dedicated guidance counselor, that goal is within reach. Then a handsome white boy turns Alma’s head the two begin a romance that jeopardizes everything Alma has worked towards.

Evan is the classic American rich boy. Alma isn’t sure he could ever understand her world – her strict father and large, close family. Her family’s dangerous status as undocumented immigrants.

At first I wasn’t sure if the story would strike a good balance between Evan and Alma’s romance and the themes concerning immigration. I was afraid that either the romance would drown out the rest of the plot or the politics would get too preachy.

There are a few moments where the romance really heats up, but Alma’s goal was never to find a boyfriend or to find love, so her motivations keep the story on track. As her family’s ability to remain in the US becomes less and less certain, tension soars, and I found myself turning page after page, desperate to know the outcome.

Without getting into a long monologue about politics, I felt like Marquardt presented a great story and created excellent characters. Dream Things True brings a face to the plight of undocumented immigrants and invites us to reexamine stereotypes and fears. Since reading this novel, I’ve spent more time reading about current laws and issues regarding immigration in the US than I ever had in the past. The fact that the story prompted further education must be something its author would consider a win, I believe.

I liked that the romance between Evan and Alma added to and was transformed by the story. It’s not romance strictly for the sake of romance. It made sense why they liked each other; they felt worthy of one another. Yet those things didn’t mean that love was the perfect solution to all their problems. Love played a role, but it wasn’t the point of the story.

Readers who enjoy romance should definitely give this one a go, especially fans of Jennifer E. Smith.

Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
Alma knows that if she gets pregnant, she will lose the opportunity to go to college. She sets boundaries for herself and is committed not to cross them. At a party, she begins kissing her boyfriend pretty amorously, and the next day can’t remember what happened. He did not take advantage of her. Later he does ask her to have sex with him, but she says no and he respects her answer. There are a few scenes in which they lie down next to one another or she sits in his lap and kisses him. At one point they go swimming together in just their underwear.

There are rumors that one of the boys on the soccer team drugs girls and has sex with them. A boy confesses to Alma that he participated in this once. His confession is plain, and Alma is appalled and won’t let him make light of the situation. The boy receives consequences for his actions.

A fifteen year old girl and a twenty year old boy plan to marry. The girl has a baby.

Spiritual Content
Alma’s family is deeply religious and has a statue of Mary in her home. She and her aunts pray the rosary and light candles before the statue to pray for Alma’s mother, who has died.

Evan attends church with his mom, but it seems to be largely about keeping up appearances. We don’t learn anything about what Evan personally believes.

Violence
See sexual content.

Evan and Raul help break up a fight that started at a party. Evan and another boy get into a fight which the police break up.

Drug Content
Evan’s cousin Whit abuses prescription drugs and alcohol. Evan tries to keep him from engaging in those behaviors, but it’s kind of a lost cause. Whit ends up having to be hospitalized and later goes to rehab.

Teens, including Alma, drink alcohol at a party.

 

Review: Scar Girl by Len Vlahos

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

Scar Girl by Len Vlahos
Egmont USA

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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.

Review: Mercy’s Prince by Katy Huth Jones

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Mercy’s Prince by Katy Huth Jones
Quinlan Creek Press

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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.

Review: Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

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Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
HarperCollins

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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.

Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The School for Good and Evil (School for Good and Evil #1)
Soman Chainani
HarperCollins
Published on May 4, 2013

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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.

Violence
Mild battle situations. No gore.

Drug Content
None.