Category Archives: By Genre

Review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

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

all-the-rageAll 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.)

Review: Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, New Adult 18up, Romance, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Zeroboxer
Fonda Lee
Flux

Seventeen year-old Carr Luka is rocketing his way to the top of a hot new sport. Zeroboxing takes place in an enclosed arena, the Cube. Opponents face off in hand-to-hand combat in zero gravity. Winning fights is the only thing that will save Carr from being sent back to earth to work clubs as a low-rent fighter, scraping through the muck of poverty. When an opportunity to become an elite Zeroboxer, a poster child for the sport complete with endorsements and his own marketing team, Carr seizes the opportunity with both fists. His exotic Martian marketing manager steals his breath and then his heart. Just as his dreams of stardom and a glorious future seem to be within his grasp, a stranger corners Carr with a devastating secret, one that will shatter every one of his dreams and ban him from the only life he’s known. Carr must choose to bury his secret or forsake his dreams.

Honestly, I was a little nervous about reading this book. Its sci-fi elements intrigued me, but I’m not a big fan of boxing as a sport, so I wasn’t sure if the terminology would be confusing or the topic uninteresting. Plus, boxing in space? How does that work?

However – Lee totally delivers. It’s like Ender’s Game style training matches meets boxing. I loved it. Lee’s clear writing paints great visuals of the boxing matches and really drives up the intensity of those scenes.

In addition, there’s a complex story world in which Mars has been colonized and is now occupied by humans who are genetically altered for life on the red planet. Generations after the colonization, deep animosity exists between Martians and Terrans (people from Earth.) Which really seems so true to human fallibility: both groups came from the same people, but now their differences divide them. Really fascinating stuff.

Lee also explores the morality of gene therapy and genetic manipulation. We’ve seen this where it comes to clones and soldiers, but how cool to bring these issues to the sports arena. If someone is genetically enhanced, does that offer an unfair advantage in sports competition, the way that the use of steroids does? Great theme.

All-around, this was a deeply thought-out, well-executed story. Though Carr is seventeen at the start of the novel, to me it reads more like new adult than young adult literature because of the issues Carr faces. He’s a career man, not a student, living independently and making all adult choices. High school aged readers would probably still enjoy the story.

Language Content
Extreme profanity, infrequent use.

Sexual Content
Kissing and brief references to sex – commenting on past experiences and brief description of present sexual situations.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Carr fights several other zeroboxers during the course of the story and KO’s one very rude civilian. Descriptions of the fights are not super gory – you definitely know what’s happening, but there’s not a lot of glorification of the injuries or pain or anything like that.

Drug Content
Carr attends some pretty wild after-parties following victorious fights. Usually he doesn’t drink alcohol and avoids a lot of the crazy stuff, so there’s not much description there. He does lose it and get drunk alone one night, but regrets it later.

Review: When You Leave by Monica Ropal

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

When You Leave
Monica Ropal
Running Press Kids

For Cass, the girl who survived her father’s desertion and best friend’s battle with cancer, love doesn’t come with the possibility of loss but the certainty of it. When the hot boy at her new school seems interested in her, Cass keeps their relationship a secret. At first it’s just flirtation and fun, but Cooper isn’t satisfied with the cool exterior Cass shows everyone else. He wants the real her.

And just when she’s ready to let him into her heart, he’s gone. Dead. Murdered. Worse still, her friend Gavin gets blamed for it. All Cass can do now is try to piece together who Cooper really was and why the real killer wanted him dead. Her search unearths truths she is barely able to face and forces her to confront her own losses again.

It’s rare to find a book in which every character surprises you. When You Leave is about a girl trying to solve a mystery, but instead of looking for the murder weapon and simple motives, she uncovers a host of secrets and discovers that the students she meets are never what they seem. I loved the little things, from the surprising décor in Cooper’s kitchen to the way Cass still hears Mattie’s voice in her head even though he can’t speak aloud. I reached the last page and still wanted the story to continue. Days after closing the book, I still find myself thinking about the characters. Ropal did a fantastic job capturing the identities and conflicting layers of teens.

Language Content
Extreme word choice, moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Brief descriptions of pretty intense kissing. Seems like things don’t really go further, but it’s a bit fuzzy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Three boys attack Cass’s friend Gavin. A boy’s body is found. He’s been beaten to death. Cass doesn’t witness this, and there aren’t any detailed descriptions of what happened to him. A boy attacks Mattie and Cass in the woods. Descriptions are pretty brief but moderately intense.

Drug Content
References to a boy selling pot to kids at Cass’s school.

Review: Between Shadows by Kathleen Cook Waldron

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , ,

Between Shadows
Kathleen Cook Waldron
Coteau Books

When his grandfather dies unexpectedly, Ari and his remaining family gather at the cabin deep in the woods. At the reading of the will, another surprise greets Ari, his dad and his aunt: Grandpa left the cabin and all his land to Ari. Uninterested in the remote property that conjures painful memories, Ari’s dad and aunt make plans to sell everything. Ari is determined to change their minds.

Author Kathleen Cook Waldron brings to the story her own experience living in the bush. The details of the cabin and surrounding land and community are told in vivid detail so that even the most urban readers can perfectly picture the serene woods, playful stream and peaceful lake.

Through Waldron’s clean storytelling, we follow a grieving family as they wrestle with loss. I loved how each member of Ari’s family reconnected with his grandfather through the experience of staying at the cabin. Though he’s no longer present, his love for his family is so clear in the things he left behind. Each character discovers and responds to these unwritten love letters from their father or grandfather. In these moments, Waldron’s writing is moving, subtle and clever.

This is a great story about the opportunity grieving families have to rediscover their lost loved one and renew relationships with one another. The rustic setting gently reminds us to consider what’s really important.

Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
None.

Drug Content
None.

Review: On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

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

On the Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta
Penguin Australia

Taylor Markham has been at the school on the Jellicoe Road since she was six years old. It’s her turn to lead the students in the annual territory wars with the Townies and Cadets from a school in Sydney. But lost memories of her childhood, her mother and a man she hopes is her father distract her from the game. When her caregiver, Hannah, disappears, Taylor studies the stories Hannah left behind, looking for clues to her whereabouts. She forms unlikely alliances with territory rivals, and together they work to solve the mysteries behind many things that happened on the Jellicoe Road.

When I started reading this novel, I felt a bit lost. It seems like two stories are happening simultaneously, and it’s hard to figure out which parts of which stories are significant at first. I love Marchetta’s Lumatere series, so I really wanted to stick with this book. In reading other reviews, I found other readers who’d had similar experiences, so I kept reading. And it definitely paid off.

The stories do intersect, and so many things make sense once it’s clear how they fit together. I loved the elements of history sort of repeating itself among Taylor and her friends – it’s kind of the redeemed version of the other story. The characters are fantastic. The romantic tension is delicious. Really great stuff.

Language Content
Extreme profanity, mild to moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Kissing and references to sex. A couple of scenes briefly describe couples leading up to having sex. A couple times teens see each other in their underwear.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Some kids fist-fighting. A fire destroys a house and two girls go missing. A shooting accident kills a boy (No description of his injuries.)

Drug Content
None.

Review: The Key by Jennifer Anne Davis (Audiobook)

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

The Key
Jennifer Anne Davis
Clean Teen Publishing
Published November 15, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

A bloody coup overthrows the king and wipes out nearly the entire family. Only a baby girl escapes with the help of a palace guard. Rema grows up knowing nothing of her past or who she really is. Her only clue is a necklace with a cryptic message inside.

Though she is raised as the daughter of a horse merchant, she catches the eye of Prince Darmik, commander of the king’s army. His jealous brother, the Crown Prince, sees Darmik’s affection for the girl and blackmails her to marry him instead.

Torn between her attraction for Prince Darmik and the Crown Prince’s threats, Rema does the only thing she can: she pledges herself to Prince Lennek to spare her family from harm.

Rema is a high-spirited girl, one who will not easily be broken. Prince Darmik is an honorable man. Though his father the king makes some terrible choices, Darmik will uphold the law and support his king. Both are complex characters with internal as well as external conflicts.

Prince Lennek and the king were much less complex. The king is evil because he is greedy. He’s greedy because he is evil. Prince Lennek is spoiled and that motivates all sorts of disastrous choices. I felt like there were a lot of unexploited opportunities for tension and complexity in both these characters. I couldn’t understand why Darmik would blindly serve them if they were indeed so vile.

I found the economics of the story world a bit distracting. The farmers grow the food, which the king then collects and sells back to the people, though much of it spoils before it can be distributed. Servants receive only bread and water twice a day. The people are not allowed to travel from one district to another. How does this make any sense for trade? If the king is levying high taxes against the people, how are there barons or lords still wealthy? A nearly bankrupt kingdom – now that would give the king some greater motivation than greed. Seventeen years of this seems like it would leave the kingdom bankrupted with a rebellion mounted long ago.

Also (spoiler alert) at one point Rema is accused of betraying her engagement to Prince Lennek by being caught with another man. She refutes this as a lie. Um… but like two scenes ago she was kissing another guy?! I was confused.

One thing I did enjoy was listening to Michelle Michaels narration of the story. Her voice carried the intensity perfect for the suspenseful or high-action scenes. Her accent fit the story well. Sometimes the intensity of the narration seemed a little high for the scene at hand, but overall she definitely kept the feeling that important things were about to happen throughout the entire audiobook.

A lot of readers have raved about this book on Goodreads. Honestly, I couldn’t really get into it. There were too many things that made me sit back and scratch my head. For readers looking for a fantasy fix, I recommend the series Tales of Goldstone Wood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (very clean, Christian content.) The recently released novel Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is a bit similar in plot but, in my opinion, more well-executed.

Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
Brief kissing. References to Prince Lennek’s promiscuous behavior. A palace servant is discovered to be pregnant. She claims Lennek is the father. Darmik and some of his soldiers visit a tavern at which some girls approach them. Darmik sends them away.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Darmik uses military force to capture rebels spreading rumors that an heir to the former king lives. He plans to torture the rebels to find out more, but descriptions are extremely brief. When Rema is sent to the dungeon, she finds terrible conditions there.

Drug Content
Darmik and his men visit a tavern for ale and information.

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

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