Category Archives: News and Fun

Review: The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson

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The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily AndersonThe Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You
Lily Anderson
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Trixie’s rivalry with Ben goes all the way back to first grade. Now in senior year, there’s no undoing those long-standing battle lines. Until Trixie’s best friend starts dating Ben’s and the group forces them to call a truce. But letting go of her dislike is easier said than done, even when it turns out Ben might possibly be hiding surprisingly pleasant qualities beneath his ridiculous mustache. But when a cheating scandal leaves Trixie’s BFF expelled, Trixie’s determined to rally the troops and prove her bestie innocent. The investigation may shatter her newfound alliance with Ben.

Trixie and her friends attend a school for geniuses, so their classes are far more advanced than the usual high school fare, and each month the entire class list is posted according to GPA ranking, fueling some pretty competitive tension. The social world within the school is really well-developed. I wanted to take some of the courses mentioned. I felt like I could picture the hallways and cafeteria and understand the complex relationships between the characters. B. Calistero = super awesome. I loved the way he turned out to be a pretty crucial part of the story and a link between Trixie and Ben.

Trixie and Ben definitely had great chemistry. Even when they hated each other, it was absolutely electric. Even when the hate shifted, the tension never slipped. I loved their geeky banter. Some of the references I followed pretty easily (Firefly Forever!!!) and others were not hard to decipher (Marvel vs. DC… I’ve been on the periphery of enough of those battle lines.) The enthusiasm and rivalry really sucked me into the story.

Trixie’s two best girl friends were a little harder for me to grasp. I liked Harper, but I felt like I never really got Meg. I loved enough of the other characters that it didn’t matter. I worried about the cast size as I’m often overwhelmed and confused by stories with tons of named characters, but I think I was able to keep everyone straight because they each had pretty specific roles or identities.

Other than the use of strong language, the story is pretty clean. The quick banter and geek chat made it a really fun read. The romance is definitely swoon-worthy.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. Meg references some social experimenting with boys, but no details on what precisely her experiments entail.

Spiritual Content
Trixie and her friends celebrate Halloween by attending a Harvest party and Haunted House.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

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

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Review: Traitor’s Masque by Kenley Davidson

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Traitor’s Masque
Kenley Davidson
Page Nine Press

Amazon | Goodreads | Author’s Web Site

When Trystan’s secret horse rides are interrupted by a handsome, intelligent stranger, she has no idea she’s just met the crown prince of Andari. To her, he’s just a lonely nobleman, seeking the same healing solitude as she is. So when her stepmother’s tyranny reaches new heights, Trystan leaps at an offer from a friend of her late father’s. The lady offers Trystan the freedom she desperately craves for one tiny favor: deliver a message. Not until she’s agreed does Trystan realize she’s just committed to betray the friend she met in the woods, the man she may be falling in love with. The Prince of Andari.

This is not a simple retelling of Cinderella. Don’t get me wrong – it’s got all the right fairytale moments. This is like Cinderella plus political intrigue. The story is told from alternating point-of-view with some sections from Trystan’s viewpoint and others from Prince Ramsey’s (as well as a few from various other characters.) I loved that this gave a lot of insight into the characters and really showed their strengths and weaknesses. Both characters were well-balanced and developed, and immediately I cared about what happened to them and wanted them to get together and fall in love.

In this story, there’s not one but two handsome princes. This was another great unexpected element to the plot. The tension between the princes over the crown kept me guessing what was going to happen next.

While I’m always up for a good fairytale retelling, not all those are created equal. Traitor’s Masque will definitely stay in my top favorites. Fans of Melanie Dickerson’s Hagenheim books or fairytale-type stories in general definitely need to add this one to their summer reading lists!

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
A couple of kisses.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Two girls are kidnapped and bound. No description of further violence happening to them.

Drug Content
References to drinking alcoholic beverages.

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

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Review: Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism by Ron Suskind

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A Life Animated: A story of heroes, sidekicks and autism
Ron Suskind
Kingswell

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When the Suskind family moves to a new home, they begin to see startling changes in their youngest son, Owen. He loses the ability to communicate with them and seems to retreat inside himself. The family embarks on a journey to find ways to reconnect with Owen via one of his favorite things: Disney movies.

This is an amazing, truly inspiring story. I’m awed by the courage it must have taken for both Owen and his family to continue pressing forward without giving up, even in moments when field experts were at a loss as to how to help, when specialized programs proved disappointing. Throughout the book, Owen’s father describes his son with love and affection, clearly impressing on readers his value, not just to his family, but as a human being.

For people who don’t personally know someone with an autism diagnosis, I imagine it could be easy to overlook the autistic community. Suskind makes this impossible. Though the book focuses on the family’s experience with their son, there are a lot of references to larger issues faced by families with autistic children or injustices within our system that limit the ability of families to provide much-needed care and assistance. I thought that was a great value, too. Many of those things I simply wasn’t familiar with. For a short time after I graduated, I worked for a behavior analyst extremely well-respected in the field, but that was more than ten years ago now, and I’m grossly under-informed these days.

The Disney references were really fun, and you’ll definitely get a lot more out of the story if you’re familiar with those classic movies, but they’re not the point of the book. The point is that those tales became a vehicle by which a remarkable boy rebuilt a way of communicating with the world around him.

I recommend this book because it’s such a great, triumphant story, and we all need that message, and also because this reminds us that we are all human, all valuable, no matter how we process information.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently. There’s one chapter in which most of the profanity occurs as part of an exposure therapy to help Owen deal with aftermath of a bullying incident.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief references to kissing.

Spiritual Content
The family prepares for and celebrates Owen’s Bar Mitzvah.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Owen’s older brother hosts a high school party which gets a bit out of hand. Lots of alcohol stored in the Suskind’s basement disappears during the party.

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Review: It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas

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

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel
Firoozeh Dumas
Clarion Books

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When Zomorod Yousefzadeh and her family move (again), she decides to take the opportunity to start fresh and try to fit in with her new California schoolmates. The first thing to go? Her name. She adopts the classic Brady Bunch Cindy as her identity. After a rough start, she begins to find true friends. But when unrest in Iran turns into an American hostage crisis, Cindy begins to catch glimpses of an uglier side of the Land of the Free. Cruel bumper stickers and slogans send chilling messages to Cindy and her family. Cindy tries to protect her parents from some of the cruelty, and her friends try to encourage her that not everyone feels so negatively about Iranians. Ultimately, Cindy has to navigate her own way through the crisis and find the balance between devotion to her family, pride in her heritage, and the freedom to pursue her own individual identity.

This is the story of a young Iranian girl in the United States during a time when anti-Iranian sentiments run high. Even though we’re talking about the late 1970s, much of the conflict and hate Cindy and her family faced made me think about the way Muslim families in the US are sometimes treated in the US today. The hate and fear-based unkindness were wrong then and are just as wrong now.

While the exploration of American feeling toward Middle Easterners or Muslims is a heavy topic,  it does not dominate the story. In fact, Cindy is a spitfire girl who’s determined to stay positive and help her family as much as she can. She’s funny and kind—one of my favorite parts of the story was her voice and way of describing things. It absolutely captured, for me, what it was like to be in middle school and the kinds of friendships I had. It made me want to call my own Carolyn and Howie (Cindy’s friends) and retell our own stories from those times.

I loved this story for its own sake. I will always enjoy tales about an awkward middle school girl finding her people, discovering who she is and what really matters. At its core, that’s what Cindy’s story is, and her sense of humor and her compassionate heart make her an incredible heroine.

Beyond that, though, I think we need narratives like this one. A young Middle Eastern girl is a girl like any other girl. This story reminds us to be angry that a girl and her family face prejudice for their nationality. It reminds us of the common bonds we share as human beings, of the value of the freedoms we have as Americans and the responsibility we have to use those freedoms to promote life, liberty and happiness in the lives of those around us.

I definitely recommend this book. My daughter is ten and I really want us to read this book together this summer. The author has some great classroom resources listed on her web site, and information about the Falafel Kindness Project, a project that promotes creating a safe, bully-free environment for kids.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Cindy and her family are non-practicing Muslims. At school, she’s friends with a Christian and a Jewish girl and there’s a brief conversation about how they worship the same God.

Violent Content
While Americans are held hostage in Iran, Cindy’s family encounters hostility from neighbors and strangers. Someone leaves a dead hamster on the family’s doorstep. One man enters their house wearing a shirt that says “Wanted: Iranians for Target Practice.” Cindy briefly discusses the differences between American freedom and life in Iran, where the shah had protestors killed and free speech was a right guaranteed to the people.

Drug Content
None.

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

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Review: The Star-touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Star-touched Queen
Roshani Chokshi
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When Maya’s father the Raja promises her in marriage to end a war over his kingdom, her dreams of living a quiet scholarly life are destroyed. Despite the fact that her horoscope promises only death and destruction to her husband, she finds herself wed to Amar, the ruler of a distant kingdom that stands apart from her world. Amar’s home holds many mysteries, but all are forbidden to explain things to her until the new moon. As Maya’s curiosity builds, she begins to unravel her husband’s secrets. What she learns places worlds in danger. To save them all, she’ll have to journey across kingdoms and beg the help of mythical creatures.

This is one of those books with narrative so good you just want to eat each line. The characters were also rich and intriguing. Every time I thought I had things figured out, there was another layer to the relationships and motives than I’d realized. I particularly liked that Maya’s father doesn’t fit the sort of cliché father-king stereotype. I liked that he respected Maya’s intelligence and wanted her to understand what was happening at a larger political level. He could have been kind of a non-character, and instead I found him to be really fascinating, someone I wanted to study a bit more, especially when he reappeared later in the story. Even Maya’s younger sister turns out to have some hidden depths.

My absolute favorite character in the book was this creepy horse-like character (demon horse?) named Kamala. Seriously, she was creepy (but funny.) Her relationship with Maya totally surprised me. I loved how that developed.

There are definitely some links to fairy tale and myth that make this story feel like it’s in part a retelling. I felt like the landscape and characters were so fresh and new that I kept forgetting to even look for familiar elements. I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good fairytale or who loves stories like Seven Daughters and Seven Sons (one of my favorite books growing up.)

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Maya offers herself to her husband by undressing in front of him. He asks her to wait one more night. They kiss passionately, but nothing more is described.

Spiritual Content
Maya visits the underworld and speaks to the dead. She also befriends a horse-like creature that eats flesh. Other nymph-like creatures appear in the story. A girl poses as a sort of wandering prophetess.

Violent Content
Maya travels through an empty battleground and sees war from afar. A powerful woman wants to sacrifice a boy as a part of a ritual. She uses her power to stir her followers’ bloodlust.

Drug Content
None.

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

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May 2016 Upcoming Reviews

Lists, News and Fun, ,

The Star-Touched Queen Roshani Choksi

Amazon | Goodreads

This novel boasts a rich fantasy world with amazing characters and breathtaking romance. I. Loved. It.

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas

Amazon | Goodreads

From the author of Funny in Farsi comes a 1970s novel about an Iranian girl struggling to find her place in a small American town while anti-Iran sentiments run high.

I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan

 Amazon | Goodreads

A quirky, fun read about a girl who discovers she’s been murdered. (Hilarious, right?) Along with other teen ghosts, Sarah has to make peace with her death and move on. Falling in love wasn’t supposed to be part of her afterlife.

Of Secrets and Sorcery by Chris Solaas

Amazon | Goodreads

The Goodreads description begins, “Middle school is the least of Kyne Goodrum’s problems. That is, it would be if he could take his dragon along.” Need I say more?

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout

Amazon | Goodreads

From Feiwel & Friends (I’ve loved everything I’ve read that they’ve published, so this is usually a sure bet for me) comes a novel about 200 supersmart teens engaged in one online competition where the stakes run as high as life and death. Looks like sort of a cerebral thriller, which I’m super excited about.

The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson

Amazon | Goodreads

This smacks of Geek fandom, which I can’t get enough of, and the possibility of romance blossoming between determined rivals is another story I’m rarely tired of hearing.

Traitor’s Masque (Andari Chronicles #1) by Kenley Davidson

Amazon | Goodreads

A retelling of the story of Cinderella, with espionage, treason and deadly intrigue. Sounds incredible, right?

The Progeny by Tosca Lee

Amazon | Goodreads

I first fell in love with Tosca Lee’s writing when I read her retelling of the story of Eve in her novel Havah. I wasn’t as big a fan of the series she wrote with Ted Dekker, but Lee’s writing is really amazing, and I’m definitely looking forward to more of her rich narrative and powerful characters in this tale.

Also to come…

Watch for my review of the latest book my mom made me read, which was awesome. I’ll post it on her birthday, May 11.

Looking for some new summer reads?

This week, I’m giving away three books. Simply follow me on Twitter and RT this post for a chance to win these books:

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten, Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer, and Feuds by Avery Hastings.

Must have US address to win. Ends at 11:59 pm EDT 5/3/16.