teen fiction

The Truth About Forever

I have to admit, I’ve only recently become a fan of Sarah Dessen. My students have read her books non-stop for years, but I never really gave them a fair chance. I just assumed they’d be simple and stereotypical plots. But, that assuming? It totally made an ass of me. I’ve read several of Dessen’s books now, but the one that absolutely solidified my status as a legit fan (to the point where I follow her on both twitter and instagram) was The Truth About Forever.

The protagonist of this novel, Macy, maintains insane control of her life as she strives (and achieves, sickeningly) perfection in everything she does. This stems from the traumatic death of her father and the way that her family has dealt with that loss. And though, on the outside, it looks like Macy is a pristine model of the perfect life, in reality she’s just sad. Her relationship with her boyfriend is sad. Her relationship with her mom is sad. Her life in general is just sad.

Luckily, Macy meets an entirely new group of people who are everything she needs. She learns to act like she’s alive again. She laughs and argues and smiles and talks. It’s a good thing… especially as a relationship begins with Wes, leaving her to decide what to do about her “perfect” boyfriend.

Dessen’s style is unique. Her writing is charming and enjoyable, but also very real and authentic. Life’s not always sunshine and roses, but you have to find some sunshine to warm your face and some roses to delight your senses in every rough spot you go through. You just have to. Dessen has an understated, graceful way of putting that life lesson into her books, and the result is addicting and inspirational. I’m sure we’ll see her on the blog again later as a Friday Favorite. :)

For now, though, go read The Truth About Forever. It’s wonderful in ways you’d never expect. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. It’s like forever, always changing. For any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You can never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count. What you have to decide is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, is this how you’d want to have spent it?” 

― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

Enjoy this story!

Stealing Parker

WOW this book caught my attention immediately. I seriously went to bed at 8:30 last night just so I could lay there and start reading… but then I couldn’t put it down and actually go to sleep until I’d finished it!

In Stealing Parker, Miranda Kenneally deals with a whole crapload of issues that are VERY relevant to teenagers right now, but she did it in this neat, compact, fast-moving way that was so well written I didn’t even realize how much stuff I was having to think about. It was a really fun read, and I instantly connected with the protagonist, Parker, through her struggles and snippets of journal entries (which she mostly burned, so the pyro in me enjoyed that immensely).

One of the main issues Parker has to deal with is her Christian faith and how it has been affected by the recent divorce of her parents. The way Kenneally writes about this is uncomfortable, but so very authentic and real. It’s true that sometimes Christians get it all wrong – none of us are perfect – and the way that’s portrayed in this book is eye opening and heart breaking, but it’s not blasphemous or disrespectful. It’s just honest. Now, I will say that I didn’t agree theologically with some of what Parker’s mom ends up telling her, and I have some other theological disagreements with lifestyle choices in this book, but the bottom line is that it made me think without challenging my own faith.I think that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t, though, recommend this for anyone under high school age (like, UPPER high school) or anyone who’s not solid in their own beliefs. It’s a challenging read in that area.

I absolutely loved the infusion of softball and baseball into this fun romance, too. I never realized how much I seriously enjoyed playing softball until I stopped after 10 years, so it was really fun for me personally to read a book with that as an element in it. It doesn’t seem like there are many YA novels out there with sports-playing female protagonists, but maybe I just haven’t found them.

And of course there’s plenty of romance, which I just can’t get enough of. Parker finds herself attracted to and flirting with the new assistant baseball coach (he’s 23, and she’s turning 18 in less than 2 months). While the age difference really wouldn’t be that big of a deal once she’s out of high school, the flirtation is scandalous just because he’s a teacher and she’s still a student. In the beginning you’re almost rooting for them, kind of like Aria and Ezra from Pretty Little Liars. But then there’s also this guy that she’s been competing with academically for years, but now that her position as valedictorian is secure, she can look at him as more than just the competition. I won’t give away too much. Just know that in the end, it’s all good and delightfully romantic.

Enjoy!

You had my heart from page one…

I just picked up Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally from the library. I’ve only read the first page so far, but it was a really, really engaging first page. It made me look forward to bedtime later so I can curl up under the covers and stay up way too late reading. I’ll review/recommend it in coming days, of course.

I’m curious, though. What kinds of “first pages” engage you? What hooks you into a novel and makes you want to keep reading immediately?

It’s All About The Beach

First of all, take a minute and look at this cover. Really. Look at it. Imagine yourself there. Who wouldn’t want to be spending their weekend on that balcony, reading a book, listening to the waves? Exactly. Everybody in their right mind would want to be there right now, which is why I’m recommending it this weekend.

The Guest Book is a great modern romantic read for any time of year. Of course, right now as we head into winter, it’ll have you looking forward to the fun possibilities that every summer brings and begging your parents for a weekend at the beach. Like, NOW. The characters are fun and full of life, especially Macy, the protagonist. There is a sweet, very romantic mystery involving the Guest Book that had me guessing all the way to the end and left my heart super happy.

Enjoy the book… pretend you’re on that porch on the cover as you read. It’ll make it even more fabulous.

I’m blessed to know this author personally (a bunch of her kids have already had to endure my Language Arts class, and her youngest once chased my son around the church classroom to kiss him when they were two years old… hahaha). Marybeth Whalen and her family have had a great impact on me personally, for which I’m eternally grateful.

But, while all of that it nice and warm and fuzzy, it’s not the reason I’m recommending her book on my blog. I’m recommending it because it’s GOOD STUFF. When I first read it, I found myself becoming totally jealous of this family and their annual time in the beach house, as well as the protagonist’s fun, artsy, mysterious romance. I wanted to stalk the locations and spend my summer in it. I resisted, but mostly just for financial reasons. :)

Anyway, Marybeth Whalen’s books aren’t typically what you’d consider YA or teen fiction, but teenage girls love them! I’ve had them in my classroom library, and they’re checked out regularly. While I’m focusing on The Guest Book for this recommendation, I also would recommend The Mailbox for teen readers. Yeah, the protagonist is older, but it’s overall a hopeful story that inspires younger girls.

She’s So Dead To Us

After that very serious and difficult to write review of Lois Lowry’s Son, I need a fun brain break. And the perfect book for a fun brain break? Kieran Scott‘s She’s So Dead To Us. Now, that’s not to say that this is a dumb book. It’s not. It’s full of great stuff to think about… but it’s also just really enjoyable.

http://www.amazon.com/Shes-So-Dead-Hes-Trilogy/dp/1416999523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352508305&sr=1-1&keywords=she%27s+so+dead+to+us

In this book, the first in a trilogy, protagonist Ally is forced to move back to the town where she grew up – and is now an outcast. Why? Because her dad pretty much screwed the families of her very wealthy friends out of a lot of money, so all of her old friends totally hate her for what her dad did. Plus Ally has moved back with just her mom, her dad having left the family out of his own shame, and they’re living on the poor side of town.

As if this isn’t all hard enough to deal with, there’s a new family living in her old house, and their son, Jake, is downright dreamy. And he’s now friends with all of Ally’s old friends. While there are undeniable sparks between the two of them, all of these social issues are bound to come between them. Luckily they each give their own POV in the narrative, so we get insight into what they’re both thinking throughout the trilogy. It’s pretty awesome.

These books are great for the high school crowd and enjoyable for the rest of us, too. As I was doing some research for this post, I discovered that Kieran Scott also writes under some pen names, and I’ve actually read TONS of her books when you take the pen names into account. But it brings me to ask this question: WHY would an author write under a pen name if it wasn’t a secret??? Any thoughts?

Anyway, ENJOY this trilogy! It’s so fun.

~Melissa

The World of The Giver

One of my very favorite books of all time is Lois Lowry’s The Giver. It’s a classic. It’s fun to teach. It makes you think. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to get it out of your head, always popping up to make crazy connections with controversial current events. I’ve had many conversations with former students about The Giver several years after I’ve taught it to them. The book is alarming to say the least, but I feel like it’s ultimately hopeful. At this point, after teaching it for 10 years to over thirty separate classes, I’d say I’ve read it 12-15 times. I just really, really love it.If you haven’t read it, you MUST.

As Lois Lowry has published companion novels to The Giver, I’ve read them eagerly. They’ve been good, but not quite as amazing as The Giver. Of course, for me, it’s hard to live up to the standard set by The Giver. In Gathering Blue, we see a different community that’s equally as strange with a female protagonist named Kira. Definitely worth reading. In The Messenger, we see yet another community that is less strange, more free, and has specific references to some of the main characters from The Giver. (I’m trying not to give away spoilers. I want you to read these if you haven’t already, and I refuse to spoil the ending of The Giver for anybody.)

Now, I thought this would be the end of The Giver books. And it was a good ending. So imagine my surprise when I discovered a fourth and final book, Son, in this weird little series was being published! I pre-ordered my copy immediately and set about waiting. Impatiently.

Now, I’ve already admitted my extreme love of the original Giver book and how hard it would be to live up to its excellence. So it’s impossible to detach myself from that and truly JUST read Son without all of my previous Giver experience.

In a nutshell, Son was not what I’d hoped. It tied up all the loose ends left dangling in the previous three books, gave another viewpoint (and we all know how I love alternate POVs) of the community from the Giver, and wrapped it all up with a pretty little ending. You’d think all of that would be GREAT. You’d think I’d be HAPPY.

The thing is, Lowry’s books have always been a little mysterious and ambiguous. She has said in interviews that she MEANT for the ending of The Giver to be hopeful, but she wanted the reader to think about the ending and come up with the characters’ futures for themselves. And so I did. A lot. Jonas and Gabe and The Giver and the Community have been moving forward with their futures in my head for over 10 years. In my head, they’re all happy and successful and have become better people after going through their conflicts. But then Lowry comes along and wraps her version of their futures up into Son, and they didn’t match with what was in my head.

So I guess what I’m saying is that if you read all four books now, you’d probably think Son is perfect. If, like me, you read The Giver ages ago and you have deep emotional connections to it, you might want to avoid it… but you probably won’t because the thought of another Giver book is pretty irresistible. So just brace yourself. If you’re interested in reading an interview with Lois Lowry about Son, you can find one here. It’s interesting, for sure, to hear her motivations for writing Son… but at the end of the day I still wish she hadn’t. Sorry if that’s harsh.

I also stumbled upon this article about a possible movie version of The Giver… I don’t know if I could handle that, either! :)

Enjoy the worlds Lois Lowry has created in these books!

Shades of London: The Name of the Star

Ok, I really, really, really like Maureen Johnson. She’s a wonderful, quirky writer and she makes me laugh on twitter. For real, you should follow her on twitter. Trust me.

I haven’t quite read all of her books – our county library doesn’t own some of her earlier books, and my book money only goes so far. But, most of what I have read is pretty girl centered (in a good way) and perfect for the teen girl market.

When her latest book, The Name of the Star, originally came out (the original cover is the older looking one with the creepy black and white ghosty guy) I was excited to read something from Johnson that didn’t necessarily fit into her typical book category. It didn’t disappoint. At all.

The Name of The Star has the perfect amount of mystery and creepiness balanced with lots of fun. I love Maureen Johnson’s voice in her books – that playful quirkiness always comes through. It’s like you can just tell she’d be really fun to go get some coffee with. Anyway, in this book, London is being terrorized by someone who is copying the Jack the Ripper murders. The protagonist, a teenage girl from Louisiana studying at an English boarding school, is named Rory. She’s instantly likable and easy to identify with as she navigates this mystery.

What I like about this, too, is that it IS the first in a series of books called Shades of London. The next book, The Madness Underneath, comes out in February. BUT this is not like those series where you can’t stand to wait for the next one, even though you’ll definitely look forward to it. The Name of the Star has a resolved, finished feel to it. It’s perfectly satisfying, and it’s good to know there will be more of them.

You can click here to be taken to the Barnes and Noble site for this book if you want to order. (I’m not endorsed by BN or anything. It’s just one of my happy places.) On that page, you can preview the first part of the book by clicking on the book cover. They also have a cool preview of Book 2 in the series so you can check it out. Enjoy… I know I did!

~Melissa

The Summer I Turned Pretty

As the weather turns cold and we’re all starting to wish summer would hurry up and roll around again, I find myself recalling events, settings, and characters from this trilogy of Summer books by author Jenny Han. They’re so much fun and full of sweet, romantic longing. As far as content (language and sexual) goes, I think they’re fine for 7th grade and up.
Belly, the protagonist, is pretty self absorbed and her self confidence is horrid, but I identify with that… Don’t all of us struggle with those things some? I’m not really a fan of characters that have their acts together more than I do. Anyway, I liked Belly, and I liked the other characters. I’d love to spend time with them all in real life, which is how I know an author has really made characters believable and honest and real. I loved the setting and am thoroughly jealous of people who get to spend entire summers at the beach like that. The only thing I didn’t like was that it ended. And, if it had to end, it could have at least ended with a freakin kiss. The rest of the trilogy doesn’t dissapoint in the romance department, though – if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to escape to a different place for the summers and experience having your choice between two boys (and what girl hasn’t?) then you’ll love these books.
Han has recently been working on a new trilogy beginning with Burn For Burn, which just came out this summer. It was great. I was a little disappointed in the end because it was a HUGE cliffhanger that left me wishing I had just waited until all three were published before starting. If you don’t mind cliffhangers, though, you should definitely check out Burn For Burn. Like, now.
Enjoy!

Friday Favorite: Jenny B. Jones

I’m trying out a new Friday blog feature – Friday Favorite. I’ll share some of my favorite books, authors, coffees, and whatever other favorites I feel like sharing. Ha!

For my very first Friday Favorite, I’m highlighting author Jenny B. Jones. I stumbled upon one of her books two summers ago while in a Christian book store. It was on sale and part of a promotional thing to get people hooked onto her Charmed Life series, and it most certainly worked for me! I am a Christian, but I tend to not like very much “Christian Fiction” because it can be SO preachy. Anyway, that’s why the sale was enough to entice me to try So Not Happening out. 
I could not have been more pleasantly surprised! It was in line with my beliefs AND not preachy or cheesy AT ALL. In fact, Jones has a great voice that comes through in all of her characters – she in smart, sarcastic, witty, hilarious… I could go on, but just trust me. I bought and devoured every one of her books, both YA and Adult, and have loved every single one of them. Everybody that reads one of her books after hearing my recommendation comes back with absolutely glowing reviews. 
So the first one I want to highlight is the Charmed Life books, which have been conveniently repackaged into one volume. This volume includes So Not Happening, I’m So Sure, and So Over My Head. In these books you follow the protagonist, Bella, a high school city girl (YAY for city girls!) that gets transplanted to rural Oklahoma through a series of unfortunate family events. She goes through all kinds of troubles as you’d expect, and even manages to find herself solving crimes. I read these as separate volumes and went insane having to wait for the next book (because of course I wasn’t smart enough to just buy all three when I happened upon the first one on sale), so I’d highly recommend just buying this one, all inclusive volume. You won’t be sorry.
The other title from Jenny B. Jones I want to specifically mention is There You’ll Find Me. It’s probably my very favorite of hers, which is really saying something, because I love them all. In this one, though, we get to follow Finley Sinclair, an 18 year old girl who’s already been through a lot in her life, as she goes to Ireland to follow her older brother’s travel journal. She meets a famous actor but doesn’t go all crazy for him like most girls would and, of course, there’s great romance in the book. Just writing about it here has me wanting to reread it again!
I highly recommend all books by Jenny B. Jones. You can find her Amazon author page here: http://www.amazon.com/Jenny-B.-Jones/e/B001JP850C/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1351478714&sr=1-2-ent
She’s also fun to follow on twitter – https://twitter.com/JenBJones 
Enjoy!
~Melissa

Dangerous Pie

As an English teacher, nothing makes me happier than seeing my students really connect with and enjoy a book that I’ve forced upon them. This book, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, is one of the few books I’ve ever taught that literally EVERY student liked. Unfortunately, I’ve switched grade levels and don’t get to teach this book anymore, but I still recommend it. Constantly and quite forcefully.

Jordan Sonnenblick has a way of storytelling in this book that can have you laughing through tears, putting yourself into situations you hope you’ll never have to face, but that you’re happy to accompany his characters through. In it, we follow Steven through the journey of his eighth grade year. He’s a skinny dork with glasses and braces, a hopeless crush on the hottest girl in school, a total band geek, and a little brother that ends up turning his whole world around. While this book does have a main character with cancer, it’s not a book about cancer. It’s about growing up and going through crap that makes you better for having lived through it.

The fact that this is Sonnenblick’s first novel is amazing to me. I’ve read most of his other books, which are good too… but not quite as magical as this one is. The companion/follow-up to this, Notes From The Midnight Driver, is a close second though. Just the first chapter had me laughing out loud (I guess the death of porcelain lawn gnomes will always be funny).

If you haven’t read any Sonnenblick, you should. And you should start with Drums. This is literally one of the best books I’ve ever read. Enjoy!

Side note to English Teachers: Don’t let the fact that this is modern YA keep you from teaching this book – not everything has to be old to be good. There’s a ton of rich text in this that make it VERY appropriate to teach in a 7th/8th grade classroom, and also a lot of interesting author’s craft stuff (like his unique way of handling dialogue that switches at the very end of the book) that goes right along with Common Core Standards. It’s all kinds of awesome.