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Read by: Dawn

Title: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Series: none

Pages: 391

Call Number: YA AND

Read: 3/12/16 - 3/19/16

Rating: ★★★☆☆

For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.

Man I've read 3 Laurie Halse Anderson books now and she's always bringing the hard hitting stuff.  I feel like someone needs to buy this lady a hot chocolate and a fuzzy kitten.

Kidding...though maybe she'd like that.  She has just found her niche and kind of reminds me of a Jodi Picoult of YA(minus the inevitable court battles that are always in Picoult books) Anderson's books are about dire things that happen to teens and always feel very relevant as to whats going on in the world today.  This book was teetering on the cusp of being a typical YA and not in a good way. "Different girl"+ family problems + romantic interest= Classic YA.  Sometimes while reading it I thought it teetered one way and then later I'd hit a different section and it would teeter the other way.  In the end I think it nudged itself over to the good side of things.

The Impossible Knife of Memory is about a girl and her dad- who is a suffering PTSD war veteran. Haley is also suffering a bit from all the crap that has gone down in her life and generally having to be the responsible one to take care of everything while her dad tries to pull himself together. I can't really comment on Anderson's portrayal of PTSD because I've never dealt with it personally in my family or anything but it feels real and heartbreaking so I can say that.  Haley's dad flits from manic episodes to fairly violent ones and he continues spiraling further and further downward throughout the book until he eventually brings Haley into it. Even though I spent much of the book wishing someone would call Child Protective Services or a family member or something,  I very much liked the dynamic Anderson presented between them, Haley was so done with everything and everyone but by god she was doing her best to take care of her dad.

I didn't like the obligatory romance with Finn because sometimes I just want to see a girl dealing with life and not have a boy save her from doom and show her how love prevails or whatever but I did like the fact that things weren't perfect between Haley and Finn.  They had fights, awkward periods, misunderstandings and all that stuff that accompanies a relationship.  I also liked that he wasn't a perfect prince charming type, he didn't get cars, was stupid at times, and made bad jokes. However, the dialogue between Haley and Finn was a little too Fault in our Stars-ish.  They were so freaking witty that it drove me crazy a little bit.

Also, main character Haley...she was snarky, she was dark, she thought she was different from everyone and that everyone else was borderline mentally disabled.  Or she calls them "zombies"  so this was her:

And I get this type of narrator because you want someone for the readers to relate to but its kind of a fine line.  You can only make your characters so abusive and snarky and "ooh I'm so different" before the reader starts to not like them.  Haley never went over that line for me but she came close and I'm fairly full of daily rage myself, so I can see how for others Haley might have crossed the line into annoyingly bitter.  Not that I didn't feel like she had reasons to be bitter because she did but there is a line between unsympathetic and sympathetic narrators.

All in all good, very good book but not as great as Speak in my opinion but still very much worth a read. 

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Read by: Kristi

Title: Catalyst

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Series: none

Pages: 231

Call Number: YA AND

Read: 3/1/16 - 3/9/16

Rating: ★★★★☆

Meet Kate Malone - straight-A science and math geek, minister's daughter, ace long-distance runner, girlfriend, unwilling family caretaker, emotional avoidance champion.

Kate manages her life by organizing it, as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all-or so she thinks. Then, like a string of chemical reactions, everything happens: the Malones' neighbors get burned out of their home and move in. Because her father is a Good Man of God (and a Not Very Thoughtful Parent), Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri's adorable, troublemaking little brother. And through it all, she's still waiting to hear from the only college she has applied to: MIT.

Kate's life is less and less under control - and then, something happens that blows it all apart, and forces her to examine her life, self, and heart for the first time. Catalyst is a novel that will make you think, laugh, cry, and rejoice - sometimes at the same time.

What? A YA book that deals with applying to college? This is a first.

For me, anyway.

I want to point out the format of this book was not lost on me. Have you ever read a textbook? Remember how they used to break the chapters up into sections - 10.1, 10.2, etc...? This book is segmented in that way, which I thought was mildly clever. Fear not though, it doesn't read like one.

Kate kinda got on my nerves with the whole "I like science, I am smart" thing, but it fades away the more the plot unfolds.

Kate's main problem is that she wants to go to MIT like her late mother did. But, because she is so set on just this one school, she doesn't choose any back-up schools. Y'know, that thing that every high school guidance counselor tells you to do? She doesn't do it.

She very quickly learns that this was a stupid move (no argument here), and lies to her friends and family about applying to other colleges as a safety net while she crosses her fingers to be accepted into one of the most difficult schools to get into. Seriously, I just Googled it, and their acceptance rate as of 2014 was 7.9%.

For a minute, I thought that maybe this book was ONLY going to be a weird, gender-bent version of this show, like

Kate is super into chemistry and the hard sciences, while her boyfriend/rival Mitch (that is explained, but not in the greatest way - she lost a bet with him, so she has to date him) likes the soft sciences like English and History.

But after their relationship's introduction, and a brief admission from Katie that she only likes him when he kisses her instead of talking and she doesn't actually like him all that much, the relationship falls to the background.

Which is great because he actually turns out to be an insensitive jerk.

Enter Teri Litch and her 2-year-old brother Mikey. Teri was the girl who dumped yellow snow in Kate's hat in elementary school. She was the chubby girl who thinned out and became scary in high school. She picks a fist fight with half the football team for making fun of her. She also likes to steal things for no explainable reason. Basically, don't get on her bad side. Well, Teri's family's house burns down, and Kate's dad, being the Man of God that he is, offers to let Teri and her brother stay with them until the house is habitable.

At first, Teri makes life difficult for Kate - stealing her watch, sleeping in her bed, making her miss work - and the entire time running commentary on her "problems."

Some other stuff happens in Kate's life, and she basically blames Teri for all of those aforementioned "problems."

However, Kate starts to like Mikey and help take care of him. She helps Teri and the church volunteers rebuild the house. Everything is going okay except for Kate's hazy future.

But then something majorly just really bad happens. And a lot of secrets come out, and all of the sudden, Teri's attitude makes sense. And Kate’s problems seem very, very small.

Without giving much away, I would say that by the end, Teri and Kate became real friends.

Life Lessons were learned in this here book.

Catalyst was a pretty solid 3.5 stars for me, but I bumped it up to 4 just because of the college and chemistry stuff. No love triangle was a definite plus. Remember kids, ALWAYS apply for safety schools.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: The Vanishing Season

Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Series: none

Pages: 258

Call Number: YA AND

Read: 2/22/16 - 2/27/16

Rating: ★★★★☆

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell. The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied—it seems—to this house, this street, this town. I'm tied to Maggie and Pauline, though I don't know why. I think it's because death is coming for one of them, or both. The little book that could!!  This one guys...this one finally felt like the hidden gem I'd hoped we'd find when we started this crazy quest.

It did have a pretty cover but probably was something I'd never pick up on my own.  It wasn't perfect at all but it has something special.  The tone, story line, setting all just kind of mesh together to form this nice little story that I really enjoyed reading.   Forget that synopsis because it sounds like horror or thriller or ghostly, this book is not that and perhaps that's why it has a lackluster review on goodreads. This is a haunting coming of age story. It's a character study that is slow moving but beautifully written like almost nothing happens in this book.  Its literally just these kids getting to know each other and becoming entangled in one another. These characters!  Man, the characters were so well drawn with just a few words and I was like "yaaaaaassss that's how you do it!"

Maggie:  Maggie is such a great main character.  She's an adult trapped in a teen body, always looking before she leaps, always mature.  Her smarts and strength and loneliness just reach out of the page. Pauline: She's impulsive, flighty, eccentric, and drop dead gorgeous.  And she is the child trapped in a teen body, never wanting to grow up, wanting things to just stay the same. Pauline is not mean though, she's not vapid.  She's a stalwart friend to Maggie and Liam.  She's just kind of a scared little girl that needs to grow up. Liam: Steady, reliable, quiet, calm, super in love with Pauline since forever.  But also falls a little in love with Maggie too.  This boy is so sweet and good, I felt bad for him for the choices he has to make throughout the book. Also, a love triangle I didn't hate and roll my eyes at!  This is how you do a triangle!  

I didn't hate either of them for wanting to be with Liam.  I didn't hate Liam for kind of wanting both of them at different times.  Anderson fit it all together in such a way that you understood one girl was inevitable but that didn't mean Liam loved the other any less. The author really blurs the lines between Maggie/Liam/Pauline and good and bad so well. You don't really know who to root for so you end up rooting for everyone.  The characters act petty or jealous and I don't hate them.  Each of these characters formed a tiny snowflake in my mind that was precious and good and needed to be protected.  

The setting is also a huge part of this book.  The bleak, snowy landscape really frames this story about loneliness and outsiders so well.  It eventually plays a large part in the plot of the book but even if it hadn't Anderson wrote it almost as another character in the book and cast it just as lovingly as she did the others. It was nothing that made me want to go shove the book in someone else's hands and gasp frantically that they read it right then on the spot while I watched them.  Like the book's pace itself, my liking of it grew slowly and is a quiet lovely feeling.  This is one I would just reread on a whim one day sitting snuggled up and sigh happily. Finally!  I never thought I'd find one of these teen books to write a shining review about or one that I had strong feelings about!

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: Peaches

Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Series: Peaches series

Pages: 313 

Call Number: YA AND

Read: 2/19/16 - 2/21/16

Rating: 

Peaches combines three unforgettable heroines who have nothing in common but the troubles that have gotten them sentenced to a summer of peach picking at a Georgia orchard.

Leeda is a debutante dating wrong-side-of-the-tracks Rex. Murphy, the wildest girl in Bridgewater, likes whichever side Rex is on. Birdie is a dreamer whose passion for Girl Scout cookies is matched only by her love for a boy named Enrico. When their worlds collide, The Breakfast Club meets The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants��in an entirely original and provocative story with a lush, captivating setting.

So we have three main characters. Leeda, the rich girl dating Rex who hates her family and being rich;

Murphy, the wild and crazy one who does insane things just because and uses her feminine wiles to get what she wants;

and Birdie, the chubby yet sweet one who lives on the peach orchard and has a crush on the Mexican worker Enrico.

The premise is the Murphy is caught stealing liquor from Birdie's dad, who just so happens to own Darlington Orchard. As a punishment, it is decided that Murphy will spend her 2 weeks of spring vacation (who gets 2 weeks for spring vacation, anyway?) helping pick peaches on the orchard. Oh yeah, and Leeda is Birdie's cousin, and Leeda's mom decides to send her to the orchard instead of letting her go on a luxurious vacation with her boyfriend, Rex.They are all very awkward around each other because they have very different personality traits. After spring break, when things go back to normal, all three miss the orchard (and each other), so by a convoluted string of events, they end up working there together again all summer. They go through some rough patches, but in the end, they become the best of friends anyway and it's all very touching.

One positive note about this otherwise blah story is that the friendship between the three girls is more important than any of the peripheral guy characters. "The fact is, you're the guy who broke up me and Murphy. And I think that makes me angrier than anything." But at this point, I was kinda tired of these girls and how stupid they were acting, so...

Whenever Birdie and Enrico are in the same scene, I couldn't not picture the parts in Toy Story 3 when Buzz is switched to Spanish mode.

Oh, it's also worth noting that the entire time I read this book, it was in Morgan Freeman's voice. So if anybody wonders who should narrate the audiobook adaptation for Peaches, well...I have the perfect candidate.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: Wait for Me

Author: An Na

Series: none

Pages: 240

Call Number: YA AN

Read: 2/15/16 - 2/18/16

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Caught in the threads of secrets and lies, struggling for love and discovering a voice of her own, Mina finds herself torn between living her mother's dreams and living a life that's true

I wanted to quickly get this review up because I feel this book leaking out of my ears as I type and I know in like a week or two I won't remember any of the plot. This one was utterly forgettable but at least it was quick.  Nothing was terrible but nothing memorable either.

We have alternating chapters between Mina and her younger(deaf) sister Suna. Mina has been lying about her good grades and stealing from the cash drawer at her parents dry cleaners so that she can have a life of her own.  I liked this aspect of the story, how high pressure for grades and expectations can really turn kids against their parents and have the opposite effect than is intended.

Mina's character had great potential I think to be someone I really wanted to hear about.  She's doing all this stuff behind her family's back.  She's also keeping the secret from her sister and father that she knows she has a different father.  In the end though most of this stuff is introduced really quickly but never fleshed out and I felt like it was all just wasted opportunities.  Like oh cool high pressuring mom lets explore that because I'm sure lots of people could relate...no ok?  Sister who is deaf and feels isolated in every way lets explore that??? maybe? no ok. Guy helping Mina lie about grades and stuff basically date raping her and blackmailing her with her secrets? no? just going to say its happening but not much else? alllrighty then.  Maybe its the shortness of the book that made all this stuff seemed brushed aside because theres a lot of meat here with Mina but not much other than "this sucks, I'm lying. wow a cute boy, I like him."

Also, I couldn't really figure out what the purpose of the Suna chapters were?  She obviously felt like an outsider, not just in the community but in her own family because her mother treated her as if she wasn't there.  In the end though not much happened to or with Suna.  She had a fight with Mina because she spilled the beans about Mina thinking about running away with the new guy Ysrael but that got resolved almost immediately...well I guess it did.  The book does a time jump at this point and we find out Mina stayed. You don't know if her parents find out about the lies and her stealing money and not getting into Harvard and all that stuff Mina was stressing about throughout the book.  The only real resolution we get is a small epilogue in which Mina calls Ysrael and asks him to wait for her.

But like...ok about that boy thats fine but what else happened to all the 100 problems this girl had?!  I guess thats fine zero resolution...

An Na should have expanded this book another couple hundred of pages and really gotten into the meat of this story and I feel like it would've been a really great book.  As it is, it ticks the box of "Asian Literature" just barely because their culture is never really discussed.  This could have easily been about a pressuring African American family or Italian family.  

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Read by: Kristi

Title: A Step From Heaven

Author: An Na

Series: none

Pages: 203

Call Number: LPYA AN

Read: 2/3/16 - 2/4/16

Rating: ★★★★☆

 In A Step From Heaven, a Korean Girl named Young-Ju is told by her mother that they are going to Mi Gook, which is heaven. Young-Ju is excited about this until she learns that Mi Gook is America, not heaven, and that they will not be returning to Korea. The book follows Young-Ju as she grows up an immigrant in America, and the difficulties her family faces.

Welcome!

I'll admit, I wasn't thrilled. It could've been the fact that it was a large print copy of the book, and I've developed a deep-seated aversion to the format from working in a public library.

One thing that annoyed me was that for the first third of the book, Young-Ju is a toddler. Which, yes, this is a book about her growing up, but children are difficult to understand on a good day. Try a bad day when the child is from a culture completely different from your own and the author pulls no punches when throwing you right into the culture, nuances and all. It’s interesting but also very tedious at times.

Seriously though, most of this book was read while trying to figure out the Korean terms and broken English that the characters use. Some were obvious because of context, like mother and father, but most times...I found myself using Google more than reading. Still, it was fine because I was learning about a new culture.

A lot - and by a lot, I mean pretty much ALL of the families struggles are caused by the father, who’s personality and appearance is demonstrated below:

I mean, seriously, the guy is such a jerk to Young-Ju & Co. and he is such a stereotype that he ends up being a caricature of himself. He has the whole “boys will be boys” attitude when it comes to Young-Ju’s brother misbehaving, but Young-Ju must “be disciplined and pretty and respectful” which translates into “you should do all the chores because you’re a girl.” Not only this, but it was his idea to move to America. When they get there, and Young-Ju begins adapting and having American friends and basically becoming Americanized, he gets very angry with her and reprimands her for adapting so well.

But it was his idea in the first place...

Not a bad book though. It had me cringing at times, and groaning with the generic feel-good vibe at others. It seems like there’s some literary value here somewhere, but it eludes me.

Ultimately, my takeaway is this:

Foreigners coming to America can face many challenges and still overcome them and become successful, even if the challenges are within their own family and NOT in adapting. Or something like that. I guess. 

Have some America-themed mic droppage.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Calling all book blogs

I would love to follow more book blogs, but because I’m lazy would people mind re-blogging this if they would like me to check out their blogs? It would help me so much <3 

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Read by: Dawn

Title: Guitar Notes

Author: Mary Amato

Series: none

Pages: 273

Call Number: YA ALT

Read: 10/20/15-10/29/15(ah this review is so late!)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Tripp, who plays guitar only for himself, and Lyla, a cellist whose talent has already made her famous but not happy, form an unlikely friendship when they are forced to share a practice room at their high school. Tripp: Every emo boy you’ve ever known in love with his guitar.  Maybe a slight grunge mixed in but definitely in the boy stage of “everything and everyone sucks meehhhh!”

Lyla: Pretty perfect but silently dying on the inside because none of it is what I want to do, girl.

Guitar Notes was not in the realm of great but it wasn't in the realm of terribly awful like I thought it would be either after reading the description.  I did like the relationship between the two main characters a lot.  Tripp and Lyla were a little cliche with their outside mold as characters but the way they interacted and changed throughout the book was nice. Tripp was the moody/weird/bad boy and Lyla was Ms. Perfect/Tryhard which I've seen that trope a million times. But I'm glad they remained friends throughout the book.  They were not pigeonholed into the cheesy, star-struck romance thing which was nice.

They remained friends which is refreshing in a YA book to see a boy and a girl be friends without someone realized they always loved someone else.  I also enjoyed the way their friendship started(by leaving snarky little notes for each other in the music room) their conversations were pretty funny.  Sometimes when authors try to be funny they come off wooden and eye-rollish more than anything.  Some parts were like that but for the most part Mary Amato captured the humor of their friendship well.

Then the twist(?)

The last little bit of the book though, shows a major shift in the slow nice development the author had going.  With a random car crash, Lyla is left in a comatose state that only Tripp can bring her out of.  Give me a break...I thought "dramatic twist" was completely unnecessary and out of sync for the rest of the book.  Why can't they just be two normal teens becoming friends through music?  There doesn't really have to be some big drama "If I Stay" type moment to make the story interesting.  That's actually the part I sort of skimmed through because it seemed silly. I liked the book overall but I think that someone told Ms. Amato to make something exciting happen and she just had to throw it in there because that part didn't seem as polished as the rest of the book.  It was something major happening and it was covered in like...one chapter or something(like I said I skimmed).

 feel like I’m in a rut of “Just So Stories.”  This one again wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible.  There were things I really liked about it and only a few things that fell flat for me. Maybe I should stop expecting these randomly assigned books to wow me but I’m still holding out for a diamond in the rough!

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: Dreamland Social Club

Author: Tara Altebrando

Series: none

Pages: 389

Call Number: YA ALT

Read: 10/1/15 - 10/17/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Jane Dryden and her brother travel the world thanks to her dad's career as a roller coaster designer. When they inherit their grandfather's house in Coney Island, Jane is forced to face the death of her mother - who died suddenly from an aneurysm when Jane was just six years old - and a family history that she has no interest in. Her grandfather, nicknamed Preemie due to the fact that he was one of the first premature babies to be displayed in a Coney Island store-front incubator, spent his life hoarding Coney Island memorabilia and keeping a carousel horse chained to the radiator in his living room. Jane initially has trouble fitting in to her carnie high school, but of course, she makes friends and falls for the tattooed boy with "traffic-stopping" good looks. Together, the two of them try to piece together clues to a puzzle Jane's mother left behind.

I guess I went into this abandoning all hope because it was in the wrong spot on the shelf, but there was an attempt.

<rant>

Two words: teenage carnies. And I'm not talking carnies like these:

I'm talking bearded ladies,

goth dwarves,

and...amputees that skateboard?

(which, by the way, is impossible to find a working gif for.)

Okay.

Jane perpetually struggles with her normalcy and how “plain-Jane” she is. I guess being a teenager surrounded by people who embrace their “freakishness” and would willingly jump into a sideshow attraction would do that to you. And still, there are some secondary characters who also struggle with their weirdness and want to be normal, so that’s good that we get to see that not everyone in this town has gone off the deep end. 

When Jane's goth dwarf friend Babette compliments Jane on a vintage dress she wears to a party, Babette says it’s edgy. But oh no, not just on the outside. Jane thinks “...edgy had a ring to it. It was how she felt inside, too” (147). She’s edgy on the inside, is what you’re telling me right now.

Of course the main character, Jane, falls in love with the first boy she sees, Leo, who is the tattooed boy with the “traffic-stopping good looks”, as the official book description puts it. And of course it’s instalove, so we’ve reached blogging quota in that area. At first, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to amount to much - she’s all like ‘and dis boi ova here...has sum sweet tats’...til Jane starts drooling over him after the shock of “Carny High” wears off.

So, it turns out that Leo’s mom, who works at the Coral Room (a burlesque club), was Jane’s mom’s best friend when they were teenagers. Because of course our beautiful boy love interest is crucial to solving the clues that Jane’s mom left behind. *This isn’t a spoiler, it’s spelled out within the first 150 pages.* Right around page 185, there is a surprise guest appearance by nipple tassels! Because Jane goes to a burlesque club, so of course there are nipple tassels. It’s not even just mentioned either, the tassels and their dancers are focused on for about two whole paragraphs.

Not that I jotted that particular page number down to remember for this review or anything.

As a kind of sub-conflict, the grandchildren of the man that made the carousel horse that is chained to Preemie’s radiator have decided to torment and bully Jane because they want their grandfather’s horse back. This isn’t even worth mentioning except that somewhere along the way, Jane decides she’s going to put an end to this and confront them. So when her father asks where she’s going, she replies, “I’m going to see a man about a horse.” Which, for those of you watching at home, typically means you are excusing yourself to go to the restroom. Unless you’re Jane and you are saying it literally.

There’s lots of teenage existential nonsense, because Jane is the first teenager to ever question her identity. And there’s so much mystery around her mom’s hidden clues and her journal that any normal teenager would have probably gotten super annoyed ages before the end of the book, even if her mom is dead.

Here are some other random thoughts while reading:

Name-dropping Hemingway makes you so literary. I’m just sure that that’s why you did it...because it has no bearing or relation to ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS BOOK.

Feck is a Gaelic thing, but the author never even hinted at Jane’s lineage. Is she Irish? Scottish? Either would be news to me. So why does Jane randomly say it? It isn’t her catch phrase, because it was only used once, like the author was dared to include it somewhere in her writing.

“He pulled a bag of peanuts out of his backpack and Jane felt a rush of love - yes, love - for him” (232). Honey, just...no.

</end rant>

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: Let’s Get Lost

Author: Adi Alsaid

Series: none

Pages: 338

Call Number: YA ALs

Read: 9/10/15 - 9/25/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost. Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth—sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way. 

This book was blah X 100.  I want to read a book that will blow my socks off or at least be so terrible I can complain about how terrible it was in my review so that I have SOMETHING to say.  Maybe this book’s crime is it’s just too cliche, predictable, and basically unrealistic.  I really wanted to like this though so perhaps its just pissing me off on its wasted potential.  I was intrigued by these 5 people that Leila meets on the way and how they're the speakers in the chapters but Leila is our one constant throughout the story.  How intriguing to see how meeting one person can change 5 different peoples' lives?  You'd think right? Nah... Also, it was a road tripping book, that seemed like a good time to me.  But again, no. And the most unrealistic part?  Leila doesn't feel like a real person.  Most of these situations these kids find themselves in don’t seem real.

The character Leila: she’s blatantly that "cool' girl that guys dream about.  She's super attractive, she drives a super red sports car, she flings herself into fun situations with random strangers(which sounds like a great way to get raped and murdered Leila) she's traveling across the country finding little "treasures" everywhere she goes. She has a favorite Vonnegut quote.  She's kind of like Zooey Deschenel on crack. 

 She's not real.  She's some guy's version of a real cool girl that would be great to fall in love with.

Besides the "main" character I'll break down each section 1st section: Hudson-The romance in the book=instalove.  Seriously they fall in love in the first chapter of the book. This was stupid

2nd section: Bree-this part was slightly enjoyable because I felt like Bree's problems were believable and legitimate. It didn't make sense how they just started stealing stuff for fun and Leila was cool with it but whatevs.

3rd section: Elliott-NOPE.  This guy confessed love for his friend and she said no.  Don't worry here comes Leila zooming up in her red sports car right when middle class white teenagers everywhere need her!  She gets into zany hi jinks with Elliott in the hopes to win his girl over(um she said no dude....) By the end the girl is like "oh Elliott I should've been with you always lets make out" which I hate because it reinforces the whole "well she said no but...if I bug her enough she'll say yes" thing guys think sometimes. Also in this section Elliott and Leila talk about 80's rom coms like they're some hipster cool thing.  "zOMG you've never heard of the Breakfast Club or Say Anything or Pretty in Pink?!"  uh...yes everyone has heard of them(even if not everyone has seen them) they're not new.  

4th section: Sonia: I seriously skimmed this section.  Sonia gets trapped in Canada and Leila tries to help her sneak across the border?  And they get caught walking through the woods but end up going to some donuts shop and trying to ride in a donuts truck across the border? When that doesn't work out some dude drives them but then just bribes the guards with donuts? Basically: Donuts are featured heavily. Yeah sounds like I'm just making crap up at this point but that all actually happens in the book. 

5th section: Leila: Oh we finally get to learn her backstory?  Except by this point I don't really care and good thing I didn't because her backstory is ridiculous.  She has freaking AMNESIA?  What is this a Telenovela?? Better just bring out her twin sister/mother who slept with her finance and then tried to murder her except she can't remember because...amnesia Then Hudson comes back (yawn) and he's tracked her letters across the US and has found her and now they can be in the loves.  Give. Me. A. Break.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life

Author: Tara Altebrando

Series: none

Pages: 239

Call Number: YA ALT

Read: 8/10/15 - 8/25/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Mary and her friends (a ragtag bunch of misfits that call themselves ‘The Also-Rans’* even though they are the smart kids who probably own every academic team meet they ever attended) are participating in a senior scavenger hunt, which is apparently illegal (can someone please explain this?) not to mention not condoned by Mary’s parents. Along the way, she has to balance her desire to win the scavenger hunt with her platonic and romantic relationships, and not get caught by her parents. Oh, and they actually have to find the objects on the lists for the scavenger hunt that the ENTIRE book is about. That's right, lists with an s - and these lists are detailed for the readers over a six pages. That's 150 items total; I counted. 

*also-ran [awl-soh-ran] noun. 1. a person who loses a contest, election, or other competition.

So Mary’s best friend Patrick has some unrequited love for her going on, but everyone knows it, and of course Mary is more interested in some other jerky, popular guy because that’s how these things work. Its similar to the laws of physics - best guy friend likes high school girl, high school girl likes popular but mean guy, popular but mean guy does not like high school girl back, high school girl ignores best friend’s feelings and causes a lot of drama. She backstabs, she invades privacy, and she lets jealousy get the best of her. As you can probably guess, you really start to care for Mary about halfway into the book. I really felt her struggle.

Our lovely protagonist also has some grudge against another popular guy because he got into her dream college (because apparently college’s only take one person per high school and she didn’t have any backup colleges, even though she’s supposed to be super smart).

In order to keep this review spoiler-free, I won’t say how it ends, but...that ending. Geez. I’d rather not even think about it too hard, because then I realize how this entire book was a waste.

Then you have lines like this one: “I wanted to hug her. And not for being the kind of mother who was going to let me go back out, but for being the kind who made me come home in the first place.” Just your typical teenager’s reaction to a parent’s grounding sentence, nothing to see here. This is probably the most self-aware and reasonable Mary has been in the book. 

AND HER MOM JUST LETS HER LYING, STEALING DAUGHTER GO BACK OUT WITH HER FRIENDS AFTER SHE GROUNDS HER.

I’ll take things that never happened for 1,000, Alex.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: The Perfect Shot

Author: Elaine Alphin

Series: none

Pages: 360

Call Number: YA ALP

Read: 7/14/15 - 7/19/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Brian uses basketball to block out memories of his girlfriend and her family who were gunned down a year ago, but the upcoming murder trial and a high school history assignment force him to face the past and decide how far he should go to see justice served. Includes facts about miscarriages of justice in American history.

This book had a lot going on but not a lot going well.  In this book we had: race issues, slight gay/lesbian issues, the fallibility of the US justice system, bullying, parents pressuring their kids with sports, the moral question of whether to speak up or remain silent, oh and also there were 3 drug cartel murders.  Whew. Normally I'm all about issues...bring 'em on, ask the hard questions. For a book with this much going on I shouldn’t have been bored but...

However, most of the issues seemed crammed in just "because", they seemed to crowd the book with lots of subplots that stretched out the book before we got a resolution to what I thought was going to be the main point: Brian's girlfriend, her little brother, and her mother were all murdered in a garage while he shot hoops a few houses away. Very little of the book was actually about that though. That plot was resolved quickly at the end of the book after like 300 pages of "other stuff"

Also-with the introduction of the race issues( Brian's friend Julian getting arrested for absolutely nothing other than being a black kid driving a car in the city) Julius got very mad-understandably-but I felt like nothing was really resolved for him.  And he started talking in uncomfortably lame-type Ebonics. It was weird and it really seemed like a middle-aged white lady wrote this book(which...she did)

All in all not a good book in my opinion.  It might be a helpful book to recommend to boys since that is often hard to find but its not a book about just sports(despite the sports sticker on the spine at my library) and its kind of all over the place, so I'd be cautious before recommending it unless someone comes up asking for a book about: basketball, murders, justice, and race.  Hey, it might have its niche. But not for me, I read it and I’m done and never want to do it again. 

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean, telt by hisself

Author: David Almond

Series: none

Pages: 50/256

Call Number: YA ALM

Read: 6/18/15 - 6/29/15

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

This is the ferst buk to go on our did nawt fynish shellf. Yew mite nawt ndurstand this revue, or this centinsays, or thees wurds, but thats ownlee bcuz this is the wey Billy Dean, our protaginust, rites his tail. The seting is post upakaliptik, with Billy growing up in isolayshon with sum "enjins of destrucshon" kauzing sed upakalips, so I held owt sum hope that maybee there wuld b a deepr meening. All I got was the swiff removul of kwaite a few brayn sels & 1 awer or so takin off my life. Wile this riting stile deffinetlee ucheevd its perpuse it wuz jest ahfull.

...could you understand any of that? Good. Then you also understand why I caved and did-not-finish our first book ever. It was like one of those stupid things that someone you vaguely knew in high school posts on facebook. Typoglycemia, a quick Google search tells me.

Except the letters are on fire, it's a grease fire, you've just intentionally rubbed sulfuric acid into your eyes to prevent yourself from looking at the grease fire, and the grease fire is impassibly between you and the only remaining baking soda on the planet.

This had potential; it could've been good if it weren't soooooo bad. I know those are two complete opposites, like saying, 'this would've been delicious if it hadn't tasted like garbage!' But dem's da facts. 

As for this book:

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: Populazzi

Author: Elise Allen

Pages: 400

Call Number: YA ALL

Read: 6/11/15-6/11/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Cara has never been one of those girls: confident, self-possessed, and always ready with the perfect thing to say. A girl at the very top of the popularity tower. One of the Populazzi.

Not to be confused with

which was stuck in my head the WHOLE time I was reading this book...thanks for that title Elise Allen.

Man oh man this book.  It was like someone served me vanilla icecream(but forgot sugar or something equally as horrible) then topped it with uncooked white rice.  So so bland...mildly horrifying.  “But Dawn,” you’ll say, “TV’s Hilary Duff raved about this book on the back cover.”  Sorry Lizzy McGuire...it don’t float my boat.

Actually the main character’s best friend was my favorite part of this book even though she pushed this whole insane scheme through.  And I think we only physically saw her like twice in the book.  She was just mostly in the background on phone conversations with Cara.

The premise was mildly sassy in the way that YA books cater to- “girls doing it themselves” but not really because we need boys to do it- kind of way.  Cara needs to climb the social ladder and she’s going to do it by dating boys and using them as rungs. Fair enough, Cara(not good morality- wise but fine).  It’s completely obvious the first boy she meets will be THE ONE.  Even if he freaks out the first time she tries to kiss him.

Then surprise, surprise she rises to popularity using the ladder but finds she’s not happy inside because she’s not HERSELF. *cue inspiration music and voiceover*  Cara actually becomes a fairly unlikeable person by the end.  She turns a cold shoulder to people who were previously nice, becomes a popular gay guy’s beard and gets mad because he’s using her(exCUSE me Cara?), disses her best friend, and then blackmails the ultimate popular girl with her binging/purging problem.

I mean lets face it Katy...I mean Cara

By the end I just...

But eh...she gets THE GUY and everyone hates her but her and her man are all like 

and just decide to ignore all the haters. Oh yay happy ending.  Totally forgetting all those people you crushed on your way up and then spiraling down that social ladder are going to hate you for the next four years and make your life a living hell 

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: City of the Beasts

Author: Isabel Allende

Series: Eagle and Jaguar #1

Pages: 406

Call Number: YA ALL

Read: 5/18/15 - 5/29/15

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

 This book was sooooooo tough to get through.

I had hopes for this one, actually. An adventure fantasy into the Amazon forests filled with dangerous wildlife and isolated natives are something so...different from what's out there in the literary YA canon as of late.

So, fifteen-year-old Alex is sent to live with his grandmother due to his mother's extensive cancer treatments, and ends up traveling to the Amazon rainforests with his grandmother...I mean, Kate, as she insists to be called, because she is a writer for some transparent National Geographic spoof. The rainforests of the Amazon, where anacondas, piranhas, and a whole ton of other poisonous and/or dangerous things live...oh, and he's pretty much forced to, what, drop out of school to go do this, more of less? And his only other friend in their expedition, apart from his verbally abusive grandmother, is Nadia, a girl slightly younger than him who is apparently an expert zoologist and linguist.

I would hesitate very, very much to call this magical realism. Perhaps Alex is hallucinating from the high fever induced by the malaria transmitted through one of the many mosquito bites mentioned. But using the word magic implies that, I dunno, there might be some entertainment, or at least some mysteries worth solving.

The thing that bothered me the most about this book was that it was so obvious that the author was watering down her writing for a younger audience. There were bits of great writing scattered amongst the pages, but not a single scene stands out to me as being particularly spectacular.

I also couldn't find a single character that I liked. At all. They were all so two-dimensional...and that grandmother, man. She was the absolute worst. What kind of grandma would treat their grandson this way?

Please don't make me finish this series.

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Dawn

Title: 17 Kisses

Author: Rachael Allen

Series: none

Pages: 319

Call Number: YPBK ALL

Read: 5/14/15 - 5/16/15

Rating: ★★★★☆

No matter how many boys Claire kisses, she can’t seem to find a decent boyfriend. Someone who wouldn't rather date her gorgeous best friend, Megan. With true love and best friendship on the line, Claire suddenly has everything to lose. And what she learns—about her crush, her friends, and most of all herself—makes the choices even harder.    

It probably was good for this book I went in with very low expectations.  Like...low. I started reading like this.

Just like already waiting for it to suck horribly.  But this book you guys, actually surprised me! 

There were definitely cliched moments.  Some dialogue that made me wince a little but all in all it wasn’t bad.  I read it for what I assumed it to be: a light hearted read.  It was that definitely but there were also unexpected rounds of feels spliced in with the boys, partying, and flirting.  I really loved the relationship between the girls in this book.  It starts out with a Mean Girls scenario where Megan and her group of cronies take CJ under their wing and make her one of them.  I.E. pretty and popular.  CJ looks at Megan just like...

But that's on the surface turns out she’s actually CJ’s friend.  Like through it all.  These girls do some crap to each other that calls for no forgiveness but through the years and flashbacks(other kisses) we see how they had each others backs for years.  I was so proud of these girls (that in other books would have been reduced to one faceted cruel girls).  They had back stories, they had feelings, they loved each other, and yes they all fight and do stupid stuff but in the end they totally go hard for one another. After CJ has done a terrible thing Megan saves her from date rape at a party from a creepster guy and when CJ asks her why Megan just replies that they made a pact back ages ago to be friends forever and that Megan doesn’t hate her. Hoes over bros ladies.

Even the supporting character Amberly(the slutty popular girl) was amazing because at first all you see as the reader is “slut” but she supports CJ through some rough times.(heck even CJ thinks shes a mindless bimbo at first)  And you see how she’s not the superficial slut but a real character that has issues and is still a person no matter how much people are pidgeonholing her.

Also I enjoyed that when CJ found out who she should’ve been with all along.  Instead of falling into his arms, she’s like “wait...we’re about to go to college in separate places, lets put a pin in this”  YES!  They make a pact to see others, have a college experience and come back to it in a few years if they still feel the same.  

The back story of the tragedy in CJ’s life was revealed nicely through her flashbacks of her previous kisses.  And it was actually very sad and I got all involved in it.

Also I loved this quote: 

in reference to some slut-shaming that happens   “You guys act like it’s okay to heap all the blame on the girl but let the guys off with a free pass.  Don’t you get how screwed up that is?”

Preach Girl!

[readingthruthelibrary]

Read by: Kristi

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie

Series: none

Pages: 230

Call Number: YPBK ALE

Read: 5/11/15 - 5/12/15

Rating: ★★★★☆

What’s exciting about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is that its our first banned book! So that’s a milestone right? Do I get something for that? What’s the protocol here?

Well, worry not! This book has words and pictures! And at first, I was worried that it was going to be “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Red Edition (Parental Advisory: Explicit Content)”, but there was lots of character development, a few feels, and the cartoons were actually amusing.

So basically, white people are jerks. We are! To black people, to Indians, to anyone that isn't the same color as we are. Which, okay thanks, everyone already knew that, BUT. Arnold Spirit, our “every-box-in-awkwardness-checked” protagonist whose diary you are assumed to be reading, does every introvert’s nightmare and steps waaaaaay outside of his comfort zone. And he flips that white racist jerk stereotype on it’s head when he does. He goes to an all-white school 22 miles away from the reservation his family lives on because he wants a better future for himself, and is treated like a traitor by his fellow Indians. I don’t want to say much else because

Overall, this was a good and quick read, and I can see why it won the National Book Award.