The Spectacular Now
Author: Tim Tharp
Publication Date: 11/11/08
Publisher: Knopf Books For Young Readers

Blurb(GR): SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually.

Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

Review:

I’m not sure if this book would have affected me quite as much if I didn’t know this boy.  He is one of the people that I love the most on this planet, and he shares more DNA with me than anyone else.  He’s intelligent, effortlessly popular, charming, kind, and entertaining.  He has a big heart, fragile and exposed.   We once spent hours in our backyard collecting slugs and setting them up in their very own tree stump castle.  Once when he was facing a spanking, we schemed and plotted, arming ourselves with sticks for weapons.  We were thick as thieves.  But we all deal with the stress and trauma of childhood in different ways; we all have our coping mechanisms.  As we grew up we fumbled our way down different roads, which led us further and further apart.  I learned how to live inside my own skin, fired to hardness like pottery.  He learned to smother everything under a chemically induced happiness.

I think that’s the most heartbreaking thing about Sutter Keely – he’s smothering himself.  I can so easily feel the pain seeping out of the cracks in his bonhomie:  when he reflects on all the girls that like him, but never seem to love him; when he thinks about how much better off his father is, now that he’s no longer living with his mother; when he tells the mother of a lost child, “Your son is hurting.  He misses his Dad.”  He can so clearly see the pain of others, but he can’t see his own grief, disappointment, and heartbreak at all.  He’s the shoulder everyone likes to cry on, and he can’t see a friend in pain without trying to fix it, but he has no ability to fix himself.

I think that this is one of the most accurate portrayals of addiction that I’ve read.  So many books tend to gloss over it, or go in the other direction and become “issue” books, and completely forget that addicts are still people.  This book captures so much of the essence of addiction, and the first person narration lets us in on all of the bullshit he feeds himself to cope with the loneliness and self-hatred.

I know that the ending seems dark, but I found a bit of hope in this story.  Aimee and Sutter are two lost kids, and while there are moments of honesty and beauty in their relationship, they cannot build anything solid when they are both dealing (or not dealing) with so many internal battles.  Sutter’s method of ending things seems incredibly
realistic to me: both selfless and selfish at the same time, and suffused with his heartbreaking lack of self-worth.  I’d like to find hope in Sutter’s increasing lows.  Pain like that can’t be contained forever, and I do feel that despite the ending, he has begun to see certain things more clearly. That may be just because I’d like to hope that my brother can get better someday, though.

Perfect Musical Pairing
Bright Eyes – Landlocked Blues

So many parts of this song remind me of this book: the questionable security of the future, isolation, the liquid cure, the “one quotable phrase, ‘if you love something give it away."

4/5 Stars

The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Publication Date: 3/14/06
Publisher: Knopf

Blurb (GR): It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul. 


Review:
I find it so exciting that every book is its own adventure. Though each of them is merely a cover and pieces of paper, the author has filled it with words that make it unique and the reader has only vague ideas of what might be coming in the hours of reading ahead. This book has been haunting me foryears. I attempted to read it several times and ended up just putting it down but since my new book club picked it for our first meeting, I was somewhat obligated to finish it. I'm extremely glad I did. 

This novel, narrated by Death itself, tells the story of a young German girl, Liesel Meiminger, growing up during the Holocaust/WWII era. She starts her life with her mother and brother and we follow her journey as a foster child in a small town outside Munich. Though this book is labeled young adult, for reasons completely unknown to me (perhaps merely the fact that Liesel is a child?), I definitely enjoyed it as literature. Then again, you'd never hear me utter a blasphemous word about the young adult genre--as it stands, I find myself reading about 70% young adult literature these days. I guess the point I am trying (horribly) to make here is that it saddens me that perhaps less people will have easy access or hear of this book (or the many, many other AMAZING young adult books) because of marketing and chosen publishing audiences. 

The narration of this book took a little getting used to, but once I was with the program, I found Death's asides to be some of my favorite parts of the book. He (she?) filled me in with those details that might be left hanging in other books. Death also left a lot of vivid imagery for my imagination, though Liesel and Max's relationship was what brought me the most pleasure from this story. I found the descriptions of the clouds lovely and the thought of the brightness of the stars blinding Max was rather poignant. 

It was definitely interesting reading a story from the German aspect of WWII. Though I am doubtful that any story relating to the atrocities of the Holocaust can actually be termed "accessible," I thought Zusak did a great job of describing what one girl's life during that period could've encompassed. I loved her friendship with Rudy and the characters in the neighborhood were perfect--every neighborhood has people like each of them. 

The most meaningful part of this book to me was the way it nailed the wonders of being a reader. Mark Twain once said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." Liesel was on a mission to learn to read and her journey of learning and then of actually reading certain stories defined a lot of her experiences. Reading is powerful, just look at how much influence Hitler had with Mein Kampf. (sorry to state the obvious) Not a day goes by that I don't think of at least one idea from a book I've read or about what I want to read next. There is an unlimited supply of adventures out there for those that are looking for something--I'm only saddened by the fact that more people don't realize what they are missing. 

5/5 stars

A Little Wanting Song (aka Chasing Charlie Duskin)
Author: Cath Crowley
Publication Date: 6/8/10
Publisher: Knopf

Blurb (GR):
A summer of friendship, romance, and songs in major chords. . . 

CHARLIE DUSKIN loves music, and she knows she's good at it. But she only sings when she's alone, on the moonlit porch or in the back room at Old Gus's Secondhand Record and CD Store. Charlie's mom and grandmother have both died, and this summer she's visiting her grandpa in the country, surrounded by ghosts and grieving family, and serving burgers to the local kids at the milk bar. She's got her iPod, her guitar, and all her recording equipment, but she wants more: A friend. A dad who notices her. The chance to show Dave Robbie that she's not entirely unspectacular.

ROSE BUTLER lives next door to Charlie's grandfather and spends her days watching cars pass on the freeway and hanging out with her troublemaker boyfriend. She loves Luke but can't wait to leave their small country town. And she's figured out a way: she's won a scholarship to a science school in the city, and now she has to convince her parents to let her go. This is where Charlie comes in. Charlie, who lives in the city, and whom Rose has ignored for years. Charlie, who just might be Rose's ticket out.

Told in alternating voices and filled with music, friendship, and romance, Charlie and Rose's "little wanting song" is about the kind of longing that begins as a heavy ache but ultimately makes us feel hopeful and wonderfully alive. 

Review:
“We were the only three people awake in a world half asleep and the air felt heavy with maybe.”

The Aussies hit it out of the park again. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder if there is something in the water down under that allows them to produce amazing YA lit. (or maybe all of it is put through a strainer and only the best of the best is published in the US—either way, I haven’t read a bad Aussie YA book yet) And I can’t wait to get my grubby hands on Graffiti Moon. 

Charlotte (Charlie) Duskin has been going to stay in her grandparents’ town every summer since she was young. Though she lost her mother several years earlier, her grandmother recently passed away and her father and grandfather are still mourning their losses. Charlie always saw Rose, Dave, and Luke playing around town but was never a part of their fun. Before she left the city for the summer, she had a huge fight with her best friend and was embarrassed in front of tons of her peers. She’s looking for an escape.

Rose Butler feels stuck. She’s lived in the same small town forever and, though she loves her family and her two best friends, she wants to go to school in the city. After taking an entry exam and winning a scholarship, her summer plan is to befriend Charlie Duskin and then return to stay with her family so she can attend the school. Only no one knows about Rose’s plan…and there’s that lovely hump of an entire childhood of being a total jerk to get over.

This author takes several of my pet peeves and then serves them back to me on a silver platter. And they tasted like enchiladas….mmm, enchiladas. We’ve got shifting narrators—usually, this is a major buzzkill for me but I smiled over and over when the author replayed the same conversation from the other side. And a musical theme—I usually tire of that after a chapter or two. I get it, you like the GD guitar. Here, it was endearing. Charlie’s personality and the song lyrics (which are interspersed in the text) are just lovely. I especially loved her snark—“tell anyone who doesn’t like it to shove it up their arse.” 

When it comes down to it, this book is between 4 and 5 stars for me but I'm feeling especially happy after reading it so BAM! 5 stars it is. 

5/5 stars

Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Author: A.S. King
Publication Date: 10/12/10
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

_Blurb (GR): Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.
 
So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?
 
Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

Review:
Let me just get this out of the way, I am glad I gave A.S. King another chance. I liked her debut novel (The Dust of 100 Dogs) OK, for its creativity and originality, but I wasn't wowed by it. Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a better, even though more mainstream, YA novel.

I don't know how it happened, but I've read quite a few YA books about death and grief over the last couple of months (I Heart You, You Haunt Me, Revolution, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour), however Please Ignore Vera Dietz is definitely the one I enjoyed the most.

Vera's long-time childhood friend Charlie is dead. She is hurt by his death, but her feelings are ambiguous. Their relationship has been difficult and not always happy, maybe they even hated each other at some point. They used to be so close and yet so separated by their preconceived notions that a romance between them would never work. After all, they both have so much emotional baggage. Vera has to work through many deliciously convoluted aspects of her friendship with Charlie in her mind to finally find peace with him...

Please Ignore Vera Dietz is the kind of story I love to read the most in YA fiction. It is not over-burdened with romance, where a boy miraculously solves all heroine's problems, it is character driven. Vera is a multi-dimensional character, she has to face her past and deal with her mistakes and regrets in regard to Charlie. Her grief is palpable, but not expressed in hysterical fits and throwing herself around in despair, like it often is in teen lit. Vera's actions speak for it. Her inner world is complex - there are issues she has to deal with that add another layer to this already great story - how can she live up to her father's expectations? how can she get over her mother's abandonment? how can she overcome her seemingly pre-written destiny?

The more I think about this novel, the more I like it. It is not as quirky as The Dust of 100 Dogs, there are no pirates, magic dust or doggy lessons, but it is unique in its own way. I like that Zen Buddhism wisdom is added into the story. There is a ghost who sheds some light on the events. And there is the Pagoda with some opinions of her own. It all works beautifully together. As a whole, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is just one clever novel.

P.S. Who knew pizza delivery business was such a dangerous occupation? I will absolutely never, under any circumstances, do it, knowing now that there are people who open their doors to delivery people with no pants on and in "full alert."

5/5 stars

Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Author: A.S. King
Publication Date: 10/12/10
Publisher: Knopf

Blurb (GR):
Vera's spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she's kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?

Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

Edit: For some reason, many people seem to be finding this review while looking for the setting of Please Ignore Vera Dietz--it is set in an unnamed town outside Philadelphia. Somewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania. (at least I can't remember the author ever mentioning the name.)

Review:
Vera Dietz is a good person. This book is like watching Vera in the gallows being pelted with tomatoes until she is finally released to go on her way. Her lifelong best friend Charlie just passed away under somewhat mysterious circumstances, the town blames him for something which tarnishes his reputation, and Vera is being harassed by some of her schoolmates. The thing about Vera, and I absolutely loved her as a character, is that she just deals with it. She is angry with Charlie, she hates him and she loves him and she realizes it is possible to feel both of those feelings at the same time. She resents all the choices that he made that led up to his death and she resents herself for not doing something more to help him.

Vera’s father has been raising her as a single dad since his wife skipped town. The narration, which skips between Vera, her father, Charlie, and even a town architectural landmark, lets us know that the main characters are all worried about being foregone conclusions. Are we all destined to be like our parents or what everyone tells us we’ll become? I truly hope not, not because my parents aren’t lovely people but because that would be a sad state of affairs. Vera’s father Ken struggles with Vera drinking because he is an alcoholic. Vera worries about becoming like her absent mother. Charlie worried about becoming an abuser like his father. We all worry about something.

I can absolutely see why this book was a Printz Honor pick. Vera’s voice is very matter-of-fact but her contemplations and commentary were funny at times, poignant at others, and she keeps a level-head for almost the entire book. She deals with her missteps while still trying to figure out how to grieve for her best friend who was mostly lost to her even before he died. I’m reading another book right now where someone has just passed away (Minding Frankie) and a character talks about that saying that a person remembered through memories or mentions is never truly gone. Or how Jacob Coote tells Josie Alibrandi that he dealt with his mother’s death by crying at the memories until one day, he could smile or laugh at them. (Looking for Alibrandi) This book takes place before Vera has come to terms with the loss but by the end, it was clear that she was no longer using a band-aid to cover up a gaping wound.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz was very successful in audio format. The narrator’s Vera was perfect and I appreciated the fact that male narrators pitched in for the points in the story not narrated by Vera. I’m curious whether the descriptions of flow charts in the narration were actually flow chart images in the book so maybe someone who knows can chime in with an answer. I would absolutely recommend it in this format.

I’m excited to check out A.S. King’s upcoming Everybody Sees The Ants. After reading a review that said it had similar themes, I’m hoping that it will be sufficiently different but retain a similar tone. This one was sad but weirdly hopeful. It was about 4.5/5 for me.

4.5/5 stars