Review: Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

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

Don't Even Think About It by Sarah MlynowskiDon’t Even Think About It
Sarah Mlynowski
Delacorte Press
Published March 11, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

It all starts with a simple flu vaccine. One by one, the students in homeroom 10-B discover they have telepathic abilities as their minds become filled with voices of other students, teachers and even their parents.

At first, the students revel in the secrets they learn about one another: who cheated on whom, the identity of a secret crush, the test answers recorded by the smartest kid in class. But they also learn things they didn’t want to know. For one boy, it’s that Dad is having an affair and Mom has a divorce lawyer on retainer. For one girl, it’s that her parents are very much in love and, er, having sex. Would you want to know every time your girlfriend thinks about another guy? Would you want to know your crush is secretly crazy about someone else?

Should others be judged by what they say or what they think? Mlynowski explores this idea with humor and heaviness. As the group of teens struggle to navigate with their newfound ability, they must decide for themselves how to exist in a world in which people often think things far different than they say, and in which their deepest secrets become known to twenty other students. While some characters are a bit shallow and plastic, others really shine as moving, empathetic creations. The lesson that appearances often deceive is well-integrated into the story, and the author delves into possibilities both positive and negative. Ultimately, the kids must decide individually if this ability is a blessing or curse.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme word choice, moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Several discussions about a boy who often “accidentally” has inappropriate physical contact with girls’ boobs. One girl makes plans to have her boyfriend over to her empty home during school lunch break. She also thinks back on summer escapades with a boy. Few details are given, but the reader is told they “didn’t have sex, but they did everything else.”

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
At a birthday party, one boy punches another in the face.

Drug Content
Brief references to teenaged drinking, smoking pot and taking Adderall without a prescription.

Disclaimer
I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, ,

The Mark of the Dragonfly
by Jaleigh Johnson
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Published March 25, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Since her father’s death, Piper has lived by scavenging artifacts that fall from the sky in meteor showers. Nothing she’s found yet promises to be as valuable as Anna, the girl she stumbles upon who bears a tattoo of an intricate mechanical dragonfly. The tattoo indicates the girl is from the Dragonfly Territories and is protected by its king. If Piper can return the girl home, she will collect a reward that will buy her a new life away from the scrap towns forever.

With no memories to guide them, Anna depends on Piper to unearth clues about her past and her home. When a man threatens them, the girls’ only hope for escape is in hiding away on a train bound for the Dragonfly Territories. The train’s security chief isn’t easily fooled, and it’s up to Piper’s quick thinking and Anna’s charm to persuade him to let them stay. The three form an uneasy alliance, each with a secret that may destroy the others or save them.

The Mark of the Dragonfly is whimsical and fun. It is a story about bravery, sacrifice and the value of unexpected friendship. Quirky and inspiring characters populate a memorable story world. Readers who enjoy fantasy stories like Peggy Eddleman’s Sky Jumpers or Jennifer Nielsen’s The False Prince will likely fall in love with this story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
Piper briefly glimpses a boy’s naked body but quickly turns away, embarrassed.

Spiritual Content
In Piper’s homeland, the people worship a goddess whom they believe sends artifacts from other lands to them via meteor showers. The girls visit a prophetess of sorts hoping to gather information about Anna’s past.

Violence
A dangerous man pursues Piper and Anna. He attacks and a band of slave traders attack them, though few graphic details appear in the text.

Drug Content
Slave traders attempt to capture the girls using a powdered substance that temporarily paralyzes those exposed to it. The train’s fire man uses his knowledge of chemistry to formulate a medicine to heal a poisoned passenger.

Disclaimer
I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Why You Should Read Books Your Kids Are Reading

Book Review and Content, , ,

When multi-published YA author Robin McKinley’s novel Deerskin hit shelves in 1994, the story was considered her first foray into adult fiction. Why? The story contained a scene in which a girl is raped and the text contains the F-bomb. At the time, this was not considered appropriate content in the YA market.

Times have changed.

Fast-forward fourteen years to 2008, to Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s novel Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, in which readers encounter graphic sexual content between several characters and, on a single page, the F-bomb is dropped no less than 25 times.

(Side soap box moment: if this had been any other word, the editor would have cut 24 of those occurrences. Seriously. Imagine how boring “very” would be on a page 25 times. Why didn’t it get cut? Two words: Controversy sells.)

So what does this mean for today’s thirteen year-olds? It certainly means that turning them loose in the YA section of the library, which may have been safe the last time you were there, may expose them to more extreme content than you expected.

Reading is as important as ever.

As a Christian parent and an aspiring writer, I believe in the importance of reading and in the value of experiencing stories. We know reading is important academically, and the book industry is happy to provide vast and varied choices for our voracious readers.

While I’m not a proponent of book censorship, as a parent, I’m definitely an advocate for content monitoring. In my house, I read a book first, before turning it over to my daughter. We often read aloud together, too, which provides opportunities for us to discuss the things that happen in the story.

There are books I’ve read that I think, this will be great for her in a few more years. And others which I wouldn’t be comfortable with her reading as a teenager at all. Beyond a certain point, she’ll grow up and those will be her choices. For now, I am the gatekeeper. I want to be sure the content in the books she reads today will both challenge her and support her inner values.

Content matters.

We rate music and movies for content and make judgments about what is appropriate for our children. I believe that as parents, we have a responsibility to do the same with books. Unfortunately, the industry provides little information for us, so we have to be more proactive. And it’s hard. Who has time to keep ahead of the reading interests of multiple teens?

Some parents choose to limit their children to reading only Christian fiction. While there are some amazing authors in the Christian market, there are also some fabulous authors telling clean stories in the mainstream market as well, and those are definitely worth pursuing.

Find like-minded parents and blogs.

Having good resources and being willing to read some YA yourself will go a long way in helping protect and nurture your little and not-so-little ones. My advice? Find blogs that give information about content.

I post reviews here at least once per week and am open to requests for reviews from parents.  You can find a list of reviews for novels I’ve rated as clean or preview my reading list with links to available reviews.

You might try blogs like Compass Book Ratings or reviews by Christian author Jill Williamson’s NovelTeen.

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Have a favorite YA review site or resource I haven’t listed? Share it with us!

Review: Unwind by Neal Schusterman

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Unwind
Neal Schusterman
Simon & Schuster BFYR
Published November 6, 2007

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When Connor’s parents schedule to have him unwound, meaning all parts of his body would be redistributed to others, he flees. While on the run, he meets Risa, a girl scheduled to undergo the unwinding process and Lev, a young teen whose family raised him to be unwound as a tithe to God. Together the three evade police and government officials only to discover an entire underground network of runaway kids scheduled for unwinding. At first the community seems like a wonderful miracle. Then the stench of rumors, chaos and death threaten to destroy the delicate balance required to protect so many from death and discovery, and Connor, Risa and Lev are forced to take sides in a conflict that could cost their lives.

At first it was difficult to suspend disbelief enough to become immersed in a story-world that devalues its youth so completely as Schusterman’s fictitious society does. However, the detailed backstory about the political move toward the decision to legalize and promote the unwind procedure helped make the premise more believable. The dehumanizing of the youth scheduled for unwinding can easily be a metaphor for a number of other groups who, in real present-day life experience a devaluing of existence. Think of victims of genocide, for example.

Connor and Lev display the highest degrees of character development. At the beginning, Connor is a kid with a short fuse and unfocused, uncontrolled anger. As the story progresses and with Risa’s help, he begins to apply restraint to his emotions and strategy to his decisions. Lev initially believes that he is destined to be a living sacrifice to God, that he has no right to life as a human being. Though he is often led astray by feelings of betrayal and anger toward his family, his choices lead him to become a powerful humanizing force in understanding people often considered evil and inhumane.

Unwind is the first in a series of three novels that make up the Unwind Dystology. Schusterman is also author to the Skinjacker Trilogy.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild word choice, infrequent use.

Sexual Content
Someone comments to Connor that he should get Risa pregnant to keep her from getting unwound. He does not take this advice.

Spiritual Content
Lev comes from a very religious family and upstanding family. His parents believe firmly in giving, and this extends to giving their son Lev as a tithe to be unwound. Lev grew up believing that this was a holy calling, and the church supports this idea. In the course of the story, Lev’s pastor changes his mind about the morality of unwinding teens and leaves the church.

Violence
Connor has a history of getting into fights with other kids. In the story, he fights off a police officer who tries to arrest him. He fights with a boy who has antagonized him and Risa for months. Nothing over-the-top in these scenes. When a boy undergoes the unwind procedure, readers experience it from his point-of-view. Details are not gross or graphic, but it is a powerful scene showing how dehumanized children scheduled to be unwound have become in the eyes of other society members.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen

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

The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1)
Jennifer Nielsen
Scholastic Press
Published April 1, 2012

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The False Prince

Sage, a clever orphan from a neighboring country, is sold as a servant to a nobleman with a plan that smacks of treason. With the royal family missing and presumed dead, Conner wants to prepare a replacement prince. Sage and two other orphaned boys are faced with a terrible choice: join Conner in his plan or die at the hands of his henchmen. If they accept, one boy will be chosen to wear the crown as prince of Carthya. With Conner as his chief adviser, of course.

The three boys accept and Conner and his men begin a series of lessons and tests to prepare them to impersonate the lost prince. Sage bucks against Conner’s plan at every step, sneaking out at night to explore the castle in hopes of finding an escape and sleeping through the daily history lessons. The other boys see Conner’s plan as a precious opportunity and pursue the training with mind and strength. How far will they go to see that Conner chooses them as prince?

My Review

From the very beginning, Sage’s character is extremely prickly, which may prevent some readers from being able to sympathize with him. I know that was a bit true for me. He is cocky and stubborn, but his softer side emerges as he gets to know a servant girl named Imogen. Once she entered the story, I felt like I began to enjoy it a lot more.

The first in Nielsen’s The Ascendance Trilogy, THE FALSE PRINCE, is a tale cleanly told and packed with action and intrigue. I enjoyed those elements a lot myself. This story of lords and princes will appeal to classic fantasy lovers for its setting and themes of royalty lost and found.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
A boy is beaten severely in hopes that it will make him reveal a secret.

Drug Content
None.

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Cover Reveal: Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Blogger's Favorites, Fantasy, News and Fun, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

As a long-time fan of the Tales of Goldstone Wood series, I’m excited to reveal the cover of the seventh novel in this whimsical series. Golden Daughter will hit shelves in November 2014. Here’s a look at the back cover copy, too:

BEYOND THE REALM OF DREAMS

IS A WORLD SHE NEVER IMAGINED

Masayi Sairu was raised to be dainty, delicate, demure . . . and deadly. She is one of the emperor’s Golden Daughters, as much a legend as she is a commodity. One day, Sairu will be contracted in marriage to a patron, whom she will secretly guard for the rest of her life.

But when she learns that a sacred Dream Walker of the temple seeks the protection of a Golden Daughter, Sairu forgoes marriage in favor of this role. Her skills are stretched to the limit, for assassins hunt in the shadows, and phantoms haunt in dreams. With only a mysterious Faerie cat and a handsome slave—possessed of his own strange abilities—to help her, can Sairu shield her new mistress from evils she can neither see nor touch?

For the Dragon is building an army of fire. And soon the heavens will burn.

BOOK COVER: The cover illustration was done by Julia Popova. Visit her website, http://www.forestgirl.ru/, to learn more about her and her fantastic work!

If you’d like to learn more about Golden Daughter, visit the book page for interesting articles, illustrations, and more!

AUTHOR BIO:

Anne Elisabeth Stengl is the author of the award-winning Tales of Goldstone Wood series, adventure fantasies told in the classic Fairy Tale style. Her books include Christy Award-winning Heartless and Veiled Rose, and Clive Staples Award-winning Starflower. She makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering dog. When she’s not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and practices piano, painting, and pastry baking. She studied illustration and English literature at Grace College and Campbell University.

GIVEAWAY: Enter to win any two of the first six Goldstone Wood novels as a giveaway prize! Winner’s choice of: Heartless, Veiled Rose, Moonblood, Starflower, Dragonwitch, or Shadow Hand.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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