Tag Archives: Poetry

Review: Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick

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

everyexquisitethingEvery Exquisite Thing
Matthew Quick
Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers
Available May 31, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

It starts with a book. A beloved teacher gives Nanette his copy of an out-of-print novel called The Bubblegum Reaper, about a Holden Caulfield-type boy who falls in love with a girl who shares her secrets with a turtle. As Nanette reads and rereads the novel, she becomes impassioned. She reaches out to the author and discovers another boy who loves the book, and in him, a potential soulmate. But when his vigilante attitude takes him too far, Nanette must learn find the courage to be herself despite the expectations of others on her own.

Part The Fault in Our Stars and part The Bell Jar, Nanette’s journey follows two misfits struggling to find a way out of the parts of life they find so smothering, a story sure to resonate with anyone who has ever been bullied or felt out of place. As Nanette slips closer to the edge of her own sanity, it’s easy to feel her fragility and desperation. Though not quite as dark as his earlier novel Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, this tale lacks none of the emotional punch and wry quirkiness that readers have come to expect from Quick.

While I’m kind of a sucker for this kind of story, I find I’m often left kind of wishing there was more of a triumph at the end of the tale. I did feel that way here, but in a way, it’s kind of the point that I think the author was trying to make. In life, we don’t always get those big moments where things snap neatly into place. Every Exquisite Thing isn’t without its victories. But it’s definitely one of those stories whose goal is to force you to think more deeply about situations in your life rather than to scratch the happily-ever-after itch.

Fans of Belzhar should give this one a try.

Recommended Age 17 up.

Cultural Elements
None.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency. Much of the profanity was in the latter half of the book. There’s also some crude language about sex and male genitals. In one instance, Nanette and her friends are talking about boys and her friends ask about the size of Nan’s boy’s parts. She responds with an exaggeration that’s meant to point out the stupidity of the conversation, but the joke goes over the girls’ heads.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. Nan invites a boy to touch her boob. (Afterward, her mom comments on the “nice show”.) At one point, Nan decides to have sex with a boy. It’s briefly described. At one point, Nan visits an adult friend only to discover that he and a lady appear to be in the middle of a romance. She doesn’t see anything wholly inappropriate. (I think one character wears a robe when answering the door.)

Spiritual Content
Nanette and Alex talk at length about God. At one point they list reasons they don’t believe in God (disasters, pain, negative things like that) and reasons they do believe. Nanette comments that it’s clear they both wish the list of reasons to believe would outnumber the reasons not to.

Violent Content
Alex tells Nanette (via his poetry) about being bullied at school. Later, he fights bullies picking on another kid and punches a man in the face.

Drug Content
Nanette goes to parties where her friends get drunk.

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

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Review: Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

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

Flora and Ulysses
Kate DiCamillo
Candlewick Press

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When Flora saves a squirrel from a powerful vacuum cleaner, she discovers that he has super powers. She names him Ulysses and brings him home to teach him what it means to be a hero, and she watches and waits for his true superpowers to emerge. Ulysses’ powers do emerge: a deep love for Flora and the gift of poetry. Her desire to protect him and his power to communicate changes Flora’s life in unexpected ways.

My family and I listened to this as an audiobook on our vacation. I loved the comics that Flora reads and how they were a bond between her and her dad. Ulysses totally had me from the moment he walked onto the page. The tone of the story is playful and fun, but it delves pretty deep into some emotional territory. Flora’s parents have separated, and that really unsettles her. She doubts her mom’s love for her, resenting the household lamp shaped like a shepherdess that her mother keeps in a prized spot in the house. During the separation, Flora’s relationship with her father becomes strained. Having Ulysses in her life is this huge, positive thing, and soon he begins to affect everyone around her.

Throughout the story, we laughed, we teared up. We shouted, “Holy Bagumba!” right there along with Flora and her dad. It was a great read, and a lot of fun.

Cultural Elements
Smalltown America. I don’t recall racial descriptions of characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A few expressions like, “what the heck,” “holy unanticipated occurences,” and “for the love of Pete” pepper the story. Nothing heavier than that.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
A woman briefly discusses Pascal’s Wager with Flora and what it means. (That believing in God on faith means one has less to lose than not believing. She also mentions that her husband, who has died, is “singing with the angels.”

Flora quotes from a comic that says, “Do not hope. Only observe.” She wrestles to follow this advice but realizes that she can’t help hoping, and that hope is what carries her through some hard moments.

Violent Content
Flora’s mom wants her dad to take Ulysses out and bash him on the head with a shovel to kill him.

At one point, a man with a chef’s knife starts toward Ulysses. With her father’s implied permission, Flora trips the man.

Drug Content
Flora’s mom smokes cigarettes.

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Poetry and Friendship: Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

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

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
Disney-Hyperion

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

She might look just like another one of the popular girls, but Samantha has a secret not even her best friends can know: she suffers from OCD. She needs weekly visits to a psychiatrist and prescription meds to keep her anxieties at bay.

As her friendships with the top girls becomes more and more toxic, Samantha desperately wants an outlet. Her search leads her to Caroline, a carefree, fashion-less girl whose frankness and kindness may be just the right rescue. She introduces Sam to Poet’s Corner, a place where students gather to share poems about anything from chicken nuggets to the loss of a parent.

Through the healing experience of writing and sharing her own work, Samantha discovers a whole different side of friendship and love. But just when she feels she’s finally making real progress in leaving her OCD behind, new symptoms emerge that could destroy the new connections she’s made. She has to face the devastating possibility that she could be getting worse, not better.

While I loved that her love interest had his own baggage and even had that past connection with her and her friends, I wasn’t totally sold on the relationship. (Moral soap boxes aside…) The scene in which they have sex was sweet in that it’s obvious he cares so much for her, but it felt like, “and here’s the obligatory scene in which the teen couple has sex because that’s what teen couples do.” It didn’t feel necessary. It kind of struck a nerve with me that really doesn’t have anything to do with the story itself.

I think my favorite thing about this book is Samantha’s journey trying to “fix” herself and her OCD. She wants so badly to leave her anxiety behind and be a carefree, “normal” girl. There’s no quick-fix for her in this story. Poetry doesn’t magically cure her. What it does do, though, is allow her opportunities to better understand herself and the world around her. It provides an opportunity for her to see her current friendships in a different light, and to see friendship itself in a different light. She has a chance to evaluate what kinds of relationships she’d like to have and what qualities make a real friend. Those are such powerful moments in the story. She’s also challenged by the openness and acceptance in the Poet’s Corner group. She’s been hiding her own struggles, and they become a barrier to having real friendships.

The poetry was a great addition to the story, too. Some were funny and clever while others were deeply moving. They added balance and depth to a lot of the more minor characters as well as allowing a larger window into Sam, too.

I felt like all those relationship issues were so relevant and well-described. It was impossible not to root for Sam and to want her to ditch the nasty girls and have those friends who valued her the way she deserved. I wish the boyfriend stuff had been handled differently, but I really enjoyed the other elements of the story.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Sam briefly relates that she’s still a virgin. Her friends have had experience with boys, but no real details are given. She engages in a long, steamy kissing session in a swimming pool alone with a boy. Later, she has sex with her boyfriend. It’s a fairly long scene that focuses more on the togetherness and kissing than the actual sex. Though it’s not described in a graphic way, we know what’s going on, so it’s pretty intense.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
None.

Drug Content
References to teen drinking. Samantha takes medication for anxiety and OCD. She stops taking her sleep aid and has to have words with her therapist about it. I like that her meds or the fact that she’s taking them isn’t really villainized here. It’s not like she discovers a passion for poetry and that somehow cures her, and she has to find balance and face that there’s no easy fix for her. It reads like reality to me.

Review: Crank by Ellen Hopkins

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

Crank
Ellen Hopkins
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published October 1, 2004

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Crank

In CRANK, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the “monster,” the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or “crank.” Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne’er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: “there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree.” Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won’t, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.

My Review

CRANK is the story of Kristina Snow and the summer that changes her life, when she goes to visit her father and meets the “monster”, Crystal Meth. Ellen Hopkins captures the turmoil and grip of addiction in a raw, authentic manner as she tells the story of a girl caught in the same kind of addiction her own daughter has battled.

The entire story is told in verse. Each poem captures the story in vivid detail. They flow from scene to scene very smoothly, capturing the raw emotion of the heroine– her desperation, heartache– and the downward spiral of her addiction to Meth. What a really powerful read.

This is the first novel in verse that I’ve ever read. I think the thing that stands out to me is how starkly each scene is portrayed, even though it’s told in shorter lines of poetry rather than paragraphs of prose. It’s pretty amazing to me how Ellen Hopkins paints such vivid pictures with her words and draws us into the stories of people we might overlook or judge in real life.

Update 12/5/2022: If you liked WRECKED by Heather Henson, add CRANK to your reading list.

Content Notes

Content warning for drug use and rape.

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

Sexual Content
Kristina has some sexual experiences in the story. In one scene, her boyfriend rapes her. Both scenes are short and don’t really give a whole “play by play” account, but leave the reader with no doubt of what has occurred.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
A boyfriend rapes Kristina. She licks blood from her arm in one scene.

Drug Content
Kristina experiments with meth and other drugs and wrestles with addiction throughout the story. Several scenes depict her using drugs.

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