The Wish
Gail Carson Levine
New York: HarperTrophy, 2000
Genre: Young adult fiction, light fantasy
Interest level:  Middle grades
Reading level: 3.5 (wow, that’s low even for a middle grade book)

This book left a scowl on my face.  I so enjoyed Levine’s Ella Enchanted that I was looking forward to reading The Wish.  There is nothing to commend in either the writing or the story.  A couple chapters in, I thought I knew the direction the story would take, but I was very wrong, and quite dissatisfied.   The writing does not stand out from run-of-the-mill young adult novels.  No interesting turn of phrase, no memorable passages, no choice words, nada.  Bland character descriptions.  Bland setting.  I wasn’t able to develop a solid picture of Wilma’s world and its inhabitants.  There was no character development.  Wilma came out at the end unchanged.

The Wish tells the story of Wilma, a decidedly unpopular eighth grader at Claverford Middle School in New York City.  One morning she meets an old lady on the train who offers her one wish.  Wilma asks to become the most popular kid at Claverford.  Wish granted.  Now everyone likes her, but is she happy?

[Spoiler warning]

Yes.  Wilma is shallow.  Aside from a few moments wondering whether her “friends” like her because of who she is, Wilma is ecstatic to be the center of attention.  She’s in with the top clique, and boys are asking her out left and right.  The one she chooses as her boyfriend is a unpopular loner with a unibrow.  She knows little about him, but after one date at the zoo, she’s ready to engage in extended kissing sessions with him.  I had hoped that Wilma would realize that everything was fake and that it would be better to have friends who liked you regardless of popularity, not because they’re under the spell of a fairy.

Save your time.  Pass over The Wish and read one of the many, many great books that are out there.  I wish I had the quarter back I spent on this book at Goodwill.

Twisted
Laurie Halse Anderson
New York: Viking, 2007
Genre: Young Adult Realistic Fiction
Interest level: High School
Reading level: 4.3

One should not read this book in a fragile state of mind.  Twisted is a work of gripping prose.  I can hear the words shouted between father and son; I can feel the pain Tyler feels, the utter despair at his situation.  What struck me most about this book is it’s obvious reality.  Though fiction, the scenarios, characters, fall out, all of it, can and probably does happen.  It’s the probably that scares me.  The older I get, the more I realize what a sheltered and oblivious high school life I led, and how lucky I am to have such an awesome family (something I took for granted in high school, of course).  My high school life was nothing like I read in books, see in movies, or hear about from other people.  I had no idea people were partying and carrying on like that.  So in some ways, when I read about it, it’s all the more shocking.  I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say.  But it breaks my heart to know that there are dysfunctional families out there like Tyler’s, that there are kids getting bullied and scapegoated, and so on.  I weep for the brokenness.

I read this book several weeks ago, before I read Speak.  Twisted is every bit as important as Speak because it is so real.  Not being male I can’t say for sure, but I think Tyler is representative of the minds of white, middle-class, teenage boys.

I do recommend this, with the caveat that Twisted is definitely a book for mature readers who can handle the rather dark content.

Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
New York:  Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999
Genre: Young adult realistic fiction
Interest level: High school
AR Level: 4.5
Winner of the National Book Award

You know, I’m not so sure I like Laurie Halse Anderson’s stories.  I’ve read three of them now.  Oh, they are incredibly compelling works.  But so disturbing, so real and raw.  And they don’t offer hope until the very end, and even then it’s just a tiny spark.

From the front flap:

“From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she’s an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops—a major infraction in high-school society—so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute.  But it’s not so comfortable in her head, either—there’s something banging around in there that she doesn’t want to think about.  Try as she might to avoid it, it won’t go away, until there is a painful confrontation.  Once that happens, she can’t be silent—she must speak the truth.

In this powerful novel, an utterly believable, bitterly ironic heroine speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while learning that, although it’s hard to speak up for yourself, keeping your mouth shut is worse.”

The summary cannot convey the depth of emotion, the seriousness of this book.  Truly, there were parts where I had to put the book down and weep.  It’s a hard book to read, and it will make you want to vomit.  But I think it is one that needed to be written.  The reason behind Melinda’s silence is something that needs to be discussed.  There were things beyond that which made me very angry, particularly the parents.  How could they be so caught up in their own world and not see the suffering of their daughter?  They didn’t even feign interest in her life but only berated her when she failed to meet their expectations.

As with her other books, in Speak Anderson does an excellent job of catching the voice of her character.  I do not think this story could be told so well if the narrator was anyone other than Melinda.  Speak is a great book as far as the writing and story-telling go.  And I liked it as much as one can say that about such a book.  It’s just that Anderson creates such a disturbingly realistic high school setting.

Speak and The Hunger Games in the same week – I need to read something light after this.

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
New York: Scholastic, 2008
Genres: Young adult dystopian fiction
Interest level: 9^th grade and up
AR Level: 5.3

Twelve boys, twelve girls.  Kill, or be killed.  Victory goes to the one who remains alive.  The Hunger Games is set in the nation of Panem in what once was the U.S.A.  As a show of power, each year the government forces a boy and girl between 12 and 18 from each of the twelve Districts to participate in the gruesome Hunger Games.  The whole nation is required to watch this morbid reality TV. show and acknowledge the superiority of the Capitol.  Katniss, a sixteen year old from District 12, volunteers to go in her younger sister’s place and doesn’t expect to return home.  As various turns give her real possibility of survival, she begins to question the nature of those who would turn her death into sport and fights for a better outcome.

I can’t believe I actually liked this book.  Not because I didn’t think it would be good, and not because it wasn’t good.  It was very, very good.  But I never would have thought of myself as a person who would enjoy such a violent story enough to stay up half the night reading it.  I had to know what would happen to Katniss and Peeta.  Collins draws out the characters in a slow but deliberate manner; as Katniss grew in her confidence and self-awareness, a better understanding was gained of some of the minor characters.  There is a good balance between action scenes and more introspective ones, between heart-pounding and heart-breaking.  Unlike Neal Shusterman’s Unwind, the use of present tense fit perfectly with the story, conveyed the immediacy of Katniss’s situations, and did not disrupt the flow of the story at all.

The Hunger Games is written for a young adult audience, and as such you know the likelihood of a tragic ending is about 1%.  In that respect it’s a safe read.  You know Katniss will survive.  I found the switch of the rules midway through the game, as well as some other scenes, a bit too contrived in order to fit the audience.

With The Hunger Games, I’ve realized something about dystopian novels written for a younger audience.  The writing is more focused on the individuals in the story than the corrupts officials or government.  In books like 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, etc, yes, there is a story about individuals, but the authors spend significant time detailing the larger workings of the government.  The young adult counterparts are more about the struggle of the individual and their growth as a person.  I suppose this is one thing that is common in most young adult novels, the struggle to find one’s identity, test the authorities, and move toward adulthood.

I started The Hunger Games knowing it was the first in a series so I expected there to be many unresolved issues at the end.  I was pleasantly surprised.  There is certainly more to be explored in Katniss’s world, but the story does not end in a major cliffhanger.  I would like to know whether Katniss will further challenge the Capitol and whether the second book will address more of the national situation.  We shall see.  Catching Fire comes out in September, but I’m number 59 on the hold list at the library, so it will be a while before I read more about Panem.

River Secrets
Shannon Hale
New York: Bloomsbury, 2006
Genres: Fiction, Fantasy
Interest level: Middle grades
AR Level: 5.7

River Secrets is the third (of four, so far) in the Bayern set.  One of the things I appreciate about this series is that instead of following the same main character in each book, Hale has developed books around Isi’s circle of friends from The Goose Girl.  This provides a much fuller picture of the Bayern world and allows us to see characters from different perspectives.  River Secrets is about Razo, the boy who tended the geese along with Isi in The Goose Girl and helped protect Enna in Enna Burning.  He is now 16, and as a member of Bayern’s Own military unit, is asked to accompany the ambassador on a peace-keeping mission to Tira.  From the front flap:

“When the Bayern arrive in the strange southern country, it’s Razo who discovers the first dead body.  He’s the only Bayern able to befriend both the high and low born, the people who can provide information about the ever-increasing murders.  And he’s the one who must embrace his own talents in order to get the Bayern soldiers home again, alive.”

Once again, Hale does a great job capturing the voice of the main character in her writing.  The tone of River Secrets is different from the first two books, as it should be with a male lead.  Razo’s sense of humor, pride, and brazenness come through effectively.  The story has a bit more mystery to it than the others and will keep you guessing as to the true identities of the various players.  It’s also a lot more plot-driven.  While Razo’s character is well-developed, he didn’t gain the same magnitude of personal growth and development as Isi and Enna.

While I did enjoy River Secrets and will keep reading the Bayern series, it wasn’t as riveting as the first two.  It is an enjoyable, satisfying read.  Good, but not fantastic.  I’m looking forward to the release of the fourth book, Forest Born, this September.

*My review of The Goose Girl is here.

Austenland
By Shannon Hale
New York: Bloomsbury, 2007
Genre: Fiction
Interest: Jane Austen fans, chick lit

Well then.  Austenland is a lovely read.  Fun, funny, romantic, and satisfying; perfect for any Austen aficionado, and any who long for their own Mr. Darcy.  I prefer this leaps and bounds over the other Austen-inspired novel I read a few years ago, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.  I was put off the the latter’s vulgarity and contempt of Regency society.  Hale does a good job of playing to Austen fans’ senses – the opening line of the novel, the Colin Firth/Mr. Darcy references, the obvious parallels between the plots of Austen’s novels and the events and conversations at Pembrook.  I kept thinking to myself, “This is just like a conversation between Lizzy and Darcy, or Anne and Wentworth.”

Overall, I really enjoyed this.  The writing flows well and captures the heart of Regency speak, though it is not spectacularly literary.  It’s a bit predictable, with a surprising twist toward the end.  I’d probably read it again, and will definitely recommend it to friends.

*sidenote:  The house featured on the hardcover is the same used in the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice for Rosings Park.  Yes, I just had to watch it again to confirm.  You know, because I hadn’t seen it enough.

That’s the end of the review, but I did have an observation on Pembrook.  At one point when Jane is musing on the fact that the people at Pembrook are actors seeking to please their clients, to become the men they seek, I couldn’t help but think of the manga Ouran.  My gosh but Pembrook is a glorified host club!  The men cater to the desires of the women, changing their characters as needed, and pretending to be enamored of them.  Ha!  If Ouran aimed at American or British audiences instead of Japanese there is no doubt Kyouya would have a done Regency theme.  They did do a samurai theme, after all.  Who would have thought a connection could be made between such disparate literary mediums (19^th century British literature and Japanese comics)?

Unwind
Neal Shusterman
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007
Genres: Young adult dystopian fiction
Interest level: 8^th grade and up
AR level: 5.0

Unwind is an excellent young adult dystopian novel.  Teenagers in the US are facing the consequences of the resolution of a war between pro-life and pro-choice armies.  Abortion is no longer legal, but parents can retroactively abort children between 13 and 17.  The children are not “killed” but rather unwound by being dismembered and having each body part grafted into people in need of a new heart, new lungs, an new foot, eye, etc.  Unwind tells the story of three teens trying to escape their fate.  Connor’s parents chose to unwind him because of his delinquent behavior.  Risa has no parents and is the victim of budget cuts at the state orphanage.  And Lev has been raised from birth with the knowledge that he will be an offering by his highly religious parents when he turns 13.

This is the kind of book that leaves you speechless when you finish.  Unwind is haunting, chilling, nauseating, heartbreaking, and incredibly thought-provoking.  People are blind.  There is a way that seems right in man’s eye, but the end is death, or something like that.  We all think we’re right, but there are aspects of our arguments to which we are blind.  Shusterman subtly exposes some of the blind spots of both sides of the abortion debate.   Sherry of Semicolon says it well in her review, that Unwind is a bit ambiguous in its pro-life/pro-choice stance, leaving most of the questions it provokes to be answered by the reader and not the story.  Unwind also raises questions on what it means to be alive and what it means to have a soul.  This is not a book about the abortion debate.  Rather, it is a story of consequences and a story of survival.

Shusterman’s writing is a bit unremarkable.  I didn’t really get the purpose of writing in present tense.  If it was supposed to convey some sort of immediacy, well, it didn’t.  It was kind of jolting and I found myself correcting it and putting sentences into past tense.  Unwind is definitely driven by plot and is not a literary masterpiece, but it’s still a good read.  Highly recommended.

I’ll end with a quote.  One of the characters is getting unwound, but I won’t say who.

“ ‘This is it, then,’ [Character] says.  ‘You’re putting me under?’

Although [s/he] can’t see her mouth beneath her surgical mask, [s/he] can see the smile in her eyes.

‘Not at all,’ she says.  ‘By law, we’re required to keep you conscious through the entire procedure.’  The nurse takes [his/her] hand. ‘You have a right to know everything that’s happening to you, every step of the way.’

…

Surgeons leave, new ones arrive.  The new ones take an intense interest in [his/her] abdomen.  [S/he] looks toward [his/her] toes but can’t see them.  Instead [s/he] sees a surgical assistant cleaning the lower half of the table.” (p 288, 290)

The Goose Girl
Shannon Hale
New York: Bloomsbury, 2003.
Genres: Fiction, fairy tales, fantasy
Interest level: Middle grades
AR Level 5.9

In much the same way as Gail Carson Levine did with Ella Enchanted, Hale has brought a fairy tale to modern readers.  The Goose Girl is a retelling of Grimm’s tale of the goose girl who became queen.  Ani is the crown princess of the small kingdom of Kilendree.  At age five, her mother and the court discover her strange ability to communicate with birds, and from then Ani is regarded with suspicion and forbidden from interacting with animals.  She is given rigorous lessens in queenly behavior in anticipation that she will ascend the throne, but she lacks confidence in her ability to rule.  Unbeknownst to Ani, she is secretly bethrothed to the prince of neighboring Bayern as a peace negotiation.  In her 16^th year, Ani is sent with an entourage on the months-long journey to wed her unknown prince.  Along the way, there is mutiny, and Ani finds herself lost and alone in the vast forest.  Eventually she makes her way to the capital of Bayern.  She disguises herself lest she be discovered by those who seek her life and takes a job tending the king’s geese.  Ani falls in love with the man she believes is the prince’s guard, gains a heart and compassion for the peasants in the city, and learns to command the wind.  It is with the help of these that Ani regains her rightful place at the side of the Bayern prince.

The Goose Girl is a delightful read, one that kept me up past midnight to finish.  It’s full of emotional ups and downs, tragedy, dispair, growth of confidence, friendship, love.  The romance, while not the focal point of the story, is well-played.  Ani is a great example of a strong female lead who overcomes adversity.  Hale has crafted an enchanting world that readers will want to enter again and again.  Thankfully, we are able to do this in the continuing stories of Bayern, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born (which comes out later this year).

My only complaint is that the covers for the paperback editions were changed.  Instead of whimsical illustrations there are pictures of real people.  I prefer to using my own imagination to picture the heroines.

With Goose Girl as my introduction, Shannon Hale has become one of my favorite children’s authors.  I’ve now read almost all of her books and encourage everyone to check her out.

* My review of River Secrets is here.

Chains
Laurie Halse Anderson
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008
Genre: Young adult historical fiction
Interest level: Grade 6+
AR level: 5.2

Summary from the front flap:

“As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom.  Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel.  When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder her can provide her with freedom.”

I did not finish this with a feeling of wow, what a great, thought-provoking story, the kind where you have to just sit and ponder a minute what the story meant.  It was just not a book that kept me up until the wee hours to finish it.  The pacing of the Isabel’s experience is a little slow, and at times a little boring.

This is not to say Chains is not a “good” book, because it is.  Anderson has done a fine job capturing the voice of a young slave girl caught in the middle of a revolution.  It is clear much research went into this novel to relate event in the story to real events in history.  The brief quotes from original sources at the beginning of each chapter were interesting and conveyed insight to the story.

As in any well-written story of this nature, the human capacity for true cruelty toward one another is revealed, and it is horrifying.  I cannot fathom that we as a people found it good and acceptable to whip, brand, and sell other humans.  And yet, I can, because look at those who advocate abortion.  Everything is rationalized according to science.  What will our descendents say about our cruelties (abortion and otherwise) some 200 years from now?

Chains would be a good book to use in middle school history or language arts in conjunction with teaching about the Revolution.  It presents a very realistic, unromanticized look at slavery during the American Revolution and opens a discussion on what freedom really meant to our founding fathers.

the dead & the gone
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Orlando: Harcourt, 2008
Genre: Apocalyptic fiction
Interest level: Middle grades
AR level: 4.3

From the front flap:

“When life as Alex Morales had known it changed forever, he was working behind the counter at Joey’s Pizza.  He was worried about getting elected as senior class president and making the grades to land him in a good college.  He never expected that an asteroid would hit the moon, knocking it closer in orbit to the earth and catastrophically altering the earth’s climate.

He never expected to be fighting just to stay alive.”

I requested this book from the library when I learned it was a companion to Life As We Knew It, which I loved (and reviewed here).  Whereas the former explored how a shift in the moon’s orbit affected a family in a small town, the dead & the gone tells the story as Alex experiences it in New York City.  While each story is equally harrowing and heartbreaking, the dead & the gone was not quite as gripping because I knew the flow of catastrophes.  I’m sure had I read it first and then Life, it would be the other way around.

One thing I appreciated was the way Pfeffer wove the family’s Catholic faith into the story.  It seemed fairly realistic.  Alex, Briana, and Julie each expressed their faith differently, and it affected how they dealt with calamity and tragedy.

The dead & the gone has lots of great character development and growth.  It is natural that such a disaster will force children to mature quickly.  Many authors don’t succeed at showing such growth, but Pfeffer excels.  Both Alex and his youngest sister Julie mature a great deal over the book, but it is subtle, incremental.  They learn to control their emotions.  Alex develops a patience and tolerance for Julie which he hadn’t been willing to extend at first.  Toward the end, they are both willing to make huge sacrifices to ensure the survival of their siblings.

I like that Pfeffer doesn’t shy away from real tragedy in these two books.  I don’t remember reading anything so tragic and heartbreaking when I was in middle school, but then again, I didn’t read very widely.  Pfeffer doesn’t package things nicely.  Alex and his friend Kevin go body shopping – taking things from the dead bodies in the streets of New York that can be bartered for food.  Her portrayal of catastrophic events is realistic and not sugar-coated.  True to the reading demographic, both stories end on a (small) hopeful note.

I wish I had children, students, or friends to discuss these books with.  Actually, I feel that way about most of the books that I read.  Books are meant to be digested and discussed.  Maybe that’s why I’m blogging.  Heh.  Anyway, go to the library and get the dead & the gone.  You don’t need to have read Life As We Knew It, but get that too.

Edited to add: I was just googling Susan Beth Pfeffer and discovered that there is a third book in the series due out in 2010 called This World We Live In.  Yay!  Apparently it will weave the stories of Miranda and Alex together.  I hope it sheds light on what continued life is like in the altered world.  The author has a blog which I’ve linked to on the right.