Category Archives: Book Review and Content

Review: A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody

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

A Week of Mondays
Jessica Brody
Farrar Straus Giroux
Published August 2, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

After a horrible Monday in which her local rock-star boyfriend dumps her and she makes a fool of herself at a speech in front of the whole student body, Ellison Sparks makes a promise. She vows she’ll make things right if she could only have a chance to do things over. So, when the next morning dawns Monday all over again, she realizes she has exactly that chance. As Ellie scrambles to fix everything that went wrong the first time (and second time and third time…), Ellie begins to wonder if maybe the things she fights for so desperately aren’t the things that really make her happy after all. She finally learns what her heart wants when it suddenly seems the most out of reach, but if she can’t find true happiness, she’ll be stuck in her Monday nightmare forever.

I was a little dubious about picking this book up because it looked like one of those, “she had it all” kinds of stories. You know, the type where the girl has everything she could possibly want and then drama plus tragedy happens. Too often I find the main character in those stories to be shallow and care way too much about her looks and how hot her boyfriend is. Just really not something that speaks to me.

Also, I really liked Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver which has kind of a similar-ish plot in terms of the do-over situation, so I worried that I wouldn’t be able to avoid comparing the two, which wouldn’t really give A Week of Mondays a fair shot.

The truth? While I still really like Before I Fall, I liked that A Week of Mondays is a lighter story. In Before I Fall, Samantha’s friends drove me crazy. I liked the characters in A Week of Mondays better—I don’t mean that they were necessarily written better, but they were more likeable. (And they were supposed to be, so on that count– total success.)

I was a little nervous when Ellie decides that to keep her boyfriend, she needs to go all sexy vixen on him. First, it’s kind of a pet peeve of mine when an inexperienced girl suddenly has all these advanced super-sexy moves. Like, where did that come from? I just find it a little hard to believe and I think it sets the standards really high. But though Ellie seems at first to succeed with her plan, her moves don’t ultimately alter the outcome of her relationship, and her best friend reminds her that being herself, and being loved for who she is, is what’s really important.

I liked the whole banter back and forth between her and her bestie on the legal drama love. It gave their friendship some authenticity and made it unique—it’s a shared interest I’ve never seen in YA literature before.

On the whole, I thought this was a fun, quirky story that had a lot of depth to it, though it took some shallow detours along the way. If you like upbeat contemporary romance, you’ll want to add A Week of Mondays to your reading list.

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white and straight.

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

Romance/Sexual Content
Boy/girl kissing (with a couple mentions of tongue being down throats). Ellie wears a provocative outfit and is pleased by the way it affects her boyfriend.

Spiritual Content
Ellie makes a prayer to a nonspecific entity asking for a chance to make things right. Her fortune cookies seem to speak to what’s happening in her life, and she begins to rely on them for information about how successful she’s being in her life.

Violent Content
 Two girls get into a fist fight.

Drug Content
Ellie goes to a party looking for her friend. The house is filled with drunk teens dancing to loud music, so she leaves.

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

 

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Review: Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

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

Goodbye Days
Jeff Zentner
Crown Books for Young Readers
Published March 7, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

From Goodreads
One day Carver Briggs had it all—three best friends, a supportive family, and a reputation as a talented writer at his high school, Nashville Academy for the Arts.

The next day he lost it all when he sent a simple text to his friend Mars, right before Mars, Eli, and Blake were killed in a car crash.

Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident, and he’s not the only one. Eli’s twin sister is trying to freeze him out of school with her death-ray stare. And Mars’s father, a powerful judge, is pressuring the district attorney to open a criminal investigation into Carver’s actions.

Luckily, Carver has some unexpected allies: Eli’s girlfriend, the only person to stand by him at school; Dr. Mendez, his new therapist; and Blake’s grandmother, who asks Carver to spend a Goodbye Day with her to share their memories and say a proper goodbye to his friend.

Soon the other families are asking for a Goodbye Day with Carver, but he’s unsure of their motives. Will they all be able to make peace with their losses, or will these Goodbye Days bring Carver one step closer to a complete breakdown or—even worse—prison?

My Review
I was super nervous about reading this book for two reasons. One is I’ve seen so many great reviews of this book. Which is awesome! Just a little more pressure as a reviewer. I want to bring something to the table that hasn’t already been said a million times and also it can sometimes feel like pressure to really like a book that everyone else finds so moving.

I was also nervous for a really weird reason. My own manuscript features a guitarist named Eli. Okay, that’s not so weird. He’s also dating an adopted Asian girl. And he gets into a serious car accident. Believe it or not, this has kind of happened before. I read a book about two brothers, one named Eli, who get into a car accident, and just like in Goodbye Days, Eli dies. For some reason, that story hit really deep. I had a really hard time reading it, not because the story was bad, but because it snowballed into something like a crisis of confidence for me. Which was not cool. But anyway. None of that has to do with how I felt reading Goodbye Days other than to give you some background.

Goodbye Days is, more than anything else, an emotional journey. There’s not much in terms of big, intense plot. It’s a lot more subtle, gentle movement through a boy’s incredible grief when he suddenly loses all three of his best friends and faces his fear that their deaths might be his fault.

I think often grief doesn’t get enough appreciation in our instant-gratification culture. Grief is hard. It’s unpleasant, uncomfortable—not only to the person experiencing it, but to the people around them. Goodbye Days paid a worthy homage to the difficult journey of suffering and loss while still showing the value of having loved in the first place and the hope that lights the end of the dark tunnel of grief.

There were a couple of plot elements that I struggled to buy into. At one point, local police open an investigation into the accident, warning Carver that he may face charges for his friends’ deaths. I have no idea whether or not this could actually happen, but I had a really hard time going there in the story. Why wasn’t anyone blaming the kid who responded to a text message while driving? No one ever points a finger at him or talks about how he should have passed the phone to a friend to respond or something. Everyone focuses on Carver’s guilt for sending the text message to begin with.

On the other side, I loved how each of his friends had a really different artistic talent, and that they weren’t all conventional talents. One boy is a comic artist. Another is a YouTube sensation who uses videos to challenge social ideas in a humorous way.

Goodbye Days is a thoughtful, emotional story. If you liked Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski or Me Since You by Laura Weiss, you should add Goodbye Days to your list.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Carver’s best friend Mars is from an affluent black family. His father, a local judge, holds Mars to very high standards, and at one point talks about how difficult it is in our country for young black men. One mistake, he explains, can ruin a man’s life. Carver’s best friend Blake is gay, but hasn’t told anyone else before his death.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used liberally. Also some crude language. Blake’s videos often feature some flatulence, and there’s quite a bit of chat about them.

Romance/Sexual Content
Carver begins to have feelings for a girl and experiences some arousal. It’s brief, and pretty discreet.

Spiritual Content
One of Carver’s friend’s parents are atheists, and after their son’s death, Carver tells them that Eli wondered about the existence of God. There’s some discussion about whether that would make him a theist or agnostic. His parents seem uncomfortable with those ideas.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Blake’s mother, whom he does not live with, is a drug addict. Carver learns some snippets about what his life was like when he did live with her. Carver’s sister mentions that and her friends drank vodka in her bedroom.

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

 

Review: Where Futures End by Parker Peevyhouse

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Where Futures End
Parker Peevyhouse
Kathy Dawson Books
Published February 9, 2016

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Where Futures End follows the interconnected stories of five teens. Dylan finds a way to cross into another world. Years later, Brixney tries to use social media to keep from being imprisoned in a debtor’s colony. Years after that, Epony and her boyfriend craft new identities for themselves as reality stars only to learn the secure future they crave will cost them what matters most: their authenticity and their love for each other. Later still Reef embarks on a dangerous mission via virtual reality game in an attempt to win an escape from a terror-stricken city. At last, Quinn meets a stranger who reveals to her a terrible choice, one that links her story back to all the others before.

Confession: I actually read this book several months ago and have been horribly slow at posting my review on my blog, which is terrible because I loved it so much!

This story is unlike anything I’ve read before. At first, because it’s so different, I worried that I wouldn’t like it. It seems like this really cerebral type of story, and I feel like those kinds of stories often have shallow characters or often let the events overshadow the characters. Where Futures End has great characters, though. I was hooked on Dylan from the very opening pages. As his story ended, I was nervous again about starting Brixney’s story, because I worried I wouldn’t like her as much as I liked Dylan.

But I did. Every time the story switched to a new piece (it’s written like five shorter stories one right after another) of the story, I fell in love with a completely new set of characters and a completely new story world. I loved the way each story reached back to the ones that came before in some way, so you really had the sense of history impacting the future.

I really enjoyed reading this one, and definitely recommend it, especially to sci-fi readers. If you enjoyed the movie Cloud Atlas, you definitely need to read this book. If you like books that are really unusual and unique or have a puzzle or moral dilemma to them, definitely get yourself a copy of Where Futures End.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently. (Fewer than ten times.)

Romance/Sexual Content
Kisses and hints at more between Epony and her boyfriend. Reef takes a wife because it helps him gain better standing in the online game, but he wonders if he’ll be able to consummate the relationship. (He doesn’t.)

Spiritual Content
The human world connects to another alien world, but only those with a strong vorpal, kind of an aura or energy can cross between the human world and the other.

A man catches Brixney eating ice cream nuggets and asks if she paid for them. She comments that he prays to God she has. Later she remembers a game she and Brandon play where they imitate the painting in the Sistine Chapel—one as Adam, the other as God, reaching toward one another.

Violent Content
Reef faces battles in the virtual game he plays.

Drug Content
Epony’s boyfriend tells her that sometimes he gets drunk when he hangs out with older boys.

Reef struggles with an addiction to resin, something he started young, after witnessing his mother do the same. Stopping will damage his organs.

 

Review: Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan

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Amina’s Voice
Hena Khan
Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster
Published March 14, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Now that Amina is in middle school, it seems everything is changing. Her best friend Soojin wants to hang out with Emily. Amina remembers Emily making fun of her and Soojin in elementary school. Soojin wants to celebrate becoming an American citizen by changing her name, and she wants Amina to help her pick something “American.” Amina struggles to find her own place in the shifting world. Soojin encourages her to sing a solo for a chorus concert, but Amina worries she’ll freeze up and be unable to speak. Then she learns she’ll have to speak at a recitation of the Quran. She dreads the idea, especially when her very strict uncle from Pakistan volunteers to coach her the verses she’s selected to speak.

When her mosque is vandalized and the recitation canceled, Amina feels devastated. In the wake of the disaster, the community rallies around her, and she discovers that friendship crosses boundaries and survives changes, sometimes even flourishes because of them.

I heard about this book on Aisha Saeed’s blog where she recommended several books, including this one. I enjoyed reading about a practicing Muslim family and Amina’s struggle to balance her spiritual beliefs with other parts of her life. As a practicing Christian who grew up in public school, I remember facing some of the same kinds of challenges and having some of the same fears and concerns.

I loved that Amina’s best friend is a practicing Christian, too. Actually, during middle school, my best friend was a practicing Jew. I found that having deep spiritual commitment gave us a kind of common ground I wouldn’t have expected, because we both held deep belief that sometimes held us apart from our classmates.

It’s funny… I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to watch that relationship as a parent (my parents loved my friend and clearly valued our friendship.) Now, as a parent of a child in a school district with a significant Muslim presence, I find I feel similarly. I would love for my daughter to have a friend like Amina. I think having someone to share that feeling of otherness that comes from a deep faith and challenging each other to love across religious lines was one of the most valuable experiences I had as a middle school kid.

My own experience aside, I loved this book. It was easy to identify with Amina. She’s a good girl who wants to do right and struggles with fear and shyness. The story really delves into her understanding of friendship and community, issues common to all of us. I enjoyed the way her relationship with her parents, her brother, and her friends at school changed as she grew to see herself differently and began to explore her connection with her community more deeply.

If you’re looking for a story that exemplifies the power of coming together as a family and a community, this is a great pick. Amina’s Voice is also a good read for a shy child trying to find his or her place in the changing landscape of school transition.

Recommended for Ages 8 up.

Cultural Elements
Amina and her family are practicing Muslims. Her parents are from Pakistan, and an uncle from Pakistan comes to visit the family. Amina’s best friend Soojin and her family are Korean.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Amina’s family takes time to pray and attend services. Her uncle has much more strict beliefs than Amina’s family. When he visits, he expresses some of his more conservative views—such as music being sinful. Amina worries that her love and talent for music make her an evil person. Her parents share their own views—that Allah gave her this special talent for a reason—and this comforts her.

When Amina lets a secret slip and embarrasses a friend, she worries that she’ll be condemned for speaking against someone, as her uncle claims. Her parents reassure her that harming someone else wasn’t what was in her heart. Therefore, they tell her, she’s not the evil person the scripture in the Quran meant to identify.

After an attack on the mosque, the community, including a local Christian church, rallies together to help raise funds and find ways to repair the damage and provide places for services in the meantime.

Violent Content
Amina and her family witness the aftermath of a fire and destruction at her mosque.

Drug Content
Amina worries after learning her brother spent time with boys who were smoking. She bursts into tears when confronting him, but feels reassured to learn he didn’t smoke with them.

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

 

Review: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

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Crown of Wishes
Rokshani Chokshi
St. Martin’s Griffin
Available March 28, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

From Goodreads
Gauri, the princess of Bharata, has been taken as a prisoner of war by her kingdom’s enemies. Faced with a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. Hope unexpectedly comes in the form of Vikram, the cunning prince of a neighboring land and her sworn enemy kingdom. Unsatisfied with becoming a mere puppet king, Vikram offers Gauri a chance to win back her kingdom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together, they’ll have to set aside their differences and team up to win the Tournament of Wishes—a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor.

Reaching the tournament is just the beginning. Once they arrive, danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans and mischievous story birds, a feast of fears and twisted fairy revels.

Every which way they turn new trials will test their wit and strength. But what Gauri and Vikram will soon discover is that there’s nothing more dangerous than what they most desire.

My Review
Author Roshani Chokshi described this novel as more a sister or companion novel to her THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN, and it definitely is. You can start with this story and follow every bit of it just fine. If you read THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN, you may remember Vikram as the boy from the tapestry Maya asks about. Gauri, of course, is Maya’s sister.

A CROWN OF WISHES contains the same mythical feel and style as her debut. I forgot how much I loved that until. If you liked BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS by Shannon Hale, you absolutely need to check out this series. I loved the characters and felt like they make a balanced team. Gauri is a warrior—both in her talent for battle and the fierceness of her heart. She will fight for those she loves any way she can. I liked that Vikram doesn’t challenge her head-to-head. He listens, analyzes, and then acts, often outwitting his opponent. As the two face challenges, both those strengths become necessary. I loved the balance they brought to one another.

Also, I can’t forget Aasha, whose courage totally stole the show. At first, I wasn’t sure I really cared enough about her story to follow it with much interest. Soon enough, though, I felt just as much for her as Gauri and Vikram. I loved that she had this dream so far outside what her desires were supposed to be. She became this sort of glaring exception to the rules, and I couldn’t help rooting for someone whose greatest desire was, at its heart, to have her humanity again. Her point-of-view and part of the story were another unexpected gem. I’m starting to think Roshani Chokshi’s superpower is to create characters who seem like they should be unlikeable and make you adore them.

If you’re a fan of fairytales or mythology, you definitely want to add this book to your shelves along with THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN.

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Representation
Features Indian characters and creatures from Indian folklore and mythology.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used fewer than ten times.

Romance/Sexual Content
When Gauri and Vikram agree to partner in the tournament, they do not realize that to partner they must be lovers. They agree to pretend for others, but in their private lives, they maintain distance from one another.

The last night of the tournament is a celebration in which everyone is to pair up with a lover. We understand that Gauri and Vikram see others paired up and, er, celebrating, but no details. We do witness the exchange of some kisses.

Spiritual Content
The story contains magic and mythical creatures. On their journey to the tournament where they hope to win a wish, Gauri and Vikram meet a group of Vishakanya women, who feed on desires and whose touch will poison them to death. They form an agreement with a vetala, a being of incorporeal evil who steals bodies to continue to exist. The vetala promises to help them if they help him find his next body. At one point Gauri and Vikram listen to a story about a river who fell in love with a man.

They eventually learn that the tournament began the moment they accepted the invitation. They recognize the lord of the tournament as someone who they’ve met along the journey as well.

The story challenges Gauri and Vikram’s beliefs about good and evil. More than once, creatures they believed to be evil defy their expectations and turn out to be noble or good. Ultimately, A CROWN OF WISHES explores the meaning of love and how love—both in friendship and as lovers—affects our choices.

Violent Content
Gauri briefly remembers her time spent as a soldier. She carries special knives at all times, ready for a fight. At one point, a group of Vanara, monkey-like creatures capture them and threaten to have them executed. .

Drug Content
Gauri eats a golden apple, a fruit that gives her supernatural strength for a time.

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

Review: Giant Smugglers by Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , , ,

Giant Smugglers
Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls
Feiwel & Friends
Published May 17, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Thirteen-year-old Charlie stands up to a bully and soon finds himself on the run. When he ducks into an abandoned warehouse, he discovers someone else already hiding there: a giant! Charlie soon learns that the giant is on his way to meet his family, but an evil doctor and his team of scientists are close to finding him. If they find the giant, they’ll harvest growth hormones and use them to make a fortune on athletes and soldiers. Charlie vows to help his new friend escape and to keep him from becoming anyone’s science experiment.

The story moves quickly, right from the first page. The bad guys are uncomplicated in their villainy. Charlie and the giant, whom he names Bruce, develop the kind of friendship that can only come of shared adventures. At one point, they visit a drive-in movie theater to watch a movie, and of course, things go horribly but hilariously wrong. Charlie teaches Bruce some moves he learned in Bruce Lee movies, something he used to share with his brother who’s now gone. Opening up to the giant allows Charlie to begin processing his grief over his brother’s absence. It’s clear the friendship has a healing effect on both boys. Giant Smugglers is perfect for fans of urban adventure and friendship.

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Cultural Elements
Mostly white characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity and crude language used rarely. The bad guys drop a few mild swear words.

Romance/Sexual Content
One kiss between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A boy punches another kid. A giant tosses a human around. One man called The Stick attacks a giant and clearly has no remorse for harming others.

At one point Charlie takes his stepdad’s car without his permission. Charlie doesn’t know how to drive, but he’s the champ of a car racing video game called Total Turbo, and he relies on his gaming skills to keep him safe on the road.

Drug Content
A man uses his son to test a steroid-like drug to make him faster and stronger.

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