Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler

Summary from Goodreads:

High school senior Ally Duncan’s best friend may be the Vanessa Park – star of TV’s hottest new teen drama – but Ally’s not interested in following in her BFF’s Hollywood footsteps. In fact, the only thing Ally’s ever really wanted is to go to Columbia and study abroad in Paris. But when her father’s mounting medical bills threaten to stop her dream in its tracks, Ally nabs a position as Van’s on-set assistant to get the cash she needs.

Spending the extra time with Van turns out to be fun, and getting to know her sexy co-star Liam is an added bonus. But when the actors’ publicist arranges for Van and Liam to “date” for the tabloids just after he and Ally share their first kiss, Ally will have to decide exactly what role she’s capable of playing in their world of make believe. If she can’t play by Hollywood’s rules, she may lose her best friend, her dream future, and her first shot at love.

________________________________

I’ve been following Dahlia on twitter for a while now, and I knew from the books she recommends that I’d enjoy her writing.

I was right.

Ally is a sweet, fun, totally relatable protagonist who is easy to root for. When she meets and develops a crush on Liam, we’re not jealous of her very lucky situation… we’re hoping she realizes she’s every bit as worthy of his attention as anyone else. I loved that Ally and Liam met through Van, but that it wasn’t anything “Hollywood” related that made them connect; it was a similar family situation that made them open up to each other. The romance between Ally and Liam is beautifully and, though the situation is more dream-like than reality-based, realistically written. They aren’t perfect people, but their romance is one that any girl would love to live out.

There are plenty of other great characters here, too, with a lot of depth and full of their own stories to tell. I’d love to see Dahlia write more books involving these characters!

My only reservation here is the language and some of the sexual content, both of which would make me cringe to see in the hands of my 8th grade students, but for more mature readers it’s a really great choice, especially for the summer. Behind the Scenes comes out on June 24th; you can find it here on Barnes and Noble’s website, or look for it at your favorite book store.

The Geography of You and Me by Jen. E. Smith

I’ve been a big fan of Jen E. Smith’s previous books, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and This is What Happy Looks Like, so when I saw the cover (LOVE) and the blurb for this one, I couldn’t wait.

In The Geography of You and Me, Lucy and Owen meet when they’re stuck together in an elevator during the New York City blackout a few years ago. The story, told in the alternating points of view that Smith is an absolute master of, follows Lucy and Owen on that blackout day and then throughout the next few years as they both end up all over the world but still manage to keep in touch.

Now, I liked this – I really did – but I have to say up front that it didn’t grab me quite the same way that her previous books did. Actually, it’s much more like Statistical Probability in feeling, with a lot of emotional depth and sadness to the characters’ lives, but my absolute favorite of hers is Happy which is, well, happy. For me, while I enjoyed Lucy and Owen as characters and liked the way their stories ultimately played out, there just wasn’t enough at the end to fully lift my spirits and leave me feeling upbeat. I’m still recommending it, of course, or else I wouldn’t post it here, but be prepared for an emotional journey rather than a light, summery fling of a read!

You can find The Geography of You and Me at your favorite local bookseller, or here on Amazon.

Cassie Mae’s Newest Book in her “How to” series!

I’ve been in contact with Cassie since last summer when I read Friday Night Alibi. She’s a great young author who has grown quickly in the publishing industry. She’s super sweet and writes great YA romances featuring smart girls and swoon-worthy, geeky guys. It’s an honor to turn this post over to her now to celebrate the release of her newest, How to Seduce a Band Geek!

______________________________________________________

Big THANK YOU to Pimples, Popularity, and Protagonists for letting me crash for the HOW TO SEDUCE A BAND GEEK tour!

I’m lucky to have had several people make some adorable teasers for this book, so I’m just going to display some of the awesome art that was made. Details, links, etc. below!

By Lenore

By Lisa

By Lenore

By Tiffany

By Lenore

By Lisa

By Tiffany

Sierra Livingston’s got it bad for her sister’s best friend, Levi Mason—the boy who carries his drumsticks in his pocket, marches with the school’s band, and taps his feet to whatever beat runs through his head. Sierra racks her brain for ways to impress the sexy drummer, but the short skirts and bursting cleavage don’t seem to cut it.

When Sierra gets paired with Levi’s sister, Brea, for a mentorship program, they strike a deal. In exchange for Sierra keeping her mouth shut about Brea ditching the program, Brea lets Sierra dig for more info on Levi to help get the guy of her dreams.

But when Sierra discovers Levi no longer plays the drums, his family has moved into a trailer, and he’s traded in his Range Rover for a baby blue moped, Sierra’s not sure if she can go through with violating his privacy. She’ll have to find the courage to ask him straight out—if he’s willing to let her in—and explore other ways to seduce the school’s band geek.

Amazon/Barnes and Noble/Kobo

Cassie Mae is a nerd to the core from Utah, who likes to write about other nerds who find love. She’s the author of the Amazon Bestsellers REASONS I FELL FOR THE FUNNY FAT FRIEND and HOW TO DATE A NERD, and is the debut author for the Random House FLIRT line with her New Adult novels FRIDAY NIGHT ALIBI and SWITCHED. She spends time with her angel children and perfect husband who fan her and feed her grapes while she clacks away on the keyboard. Then she wakes up from that dream world and manages to get a few words on the computer while the house explodes around her. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with the youth in her community as a volleyball and basketball coach, or searching the house desperately for chocolate.

Author Links:

photo iconfacebook-32x32_zps64a79d4a.png

Blog Tour organized by:

The Book Thief, the book and the movie

I’m usually fascinated by and really connect with Holocaust literature, but when I tried to read The Book Thief a while back I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t know why, and many people would think that’s insane, but I just didn’t like it.

When the movie came out, though, I was intrigued… and just got around to watching it recently. And, while the book didn’t hold my interest, I found that the movie really did. It was well done, and the casting/acting was superb. If you didn’t get into the book, like me, you should definitely check out this movie!

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

With the movie version of The Maze Runner coming out in September, which looks amazing based on all I’ve seen so far, I wanted to get started with actually reading the series.

In The Maze Runner, a teenaged boy named Thomas suddenly wakes up in a sort of elevator. He has amnesia – he doesn’t remember anything about who he is or how he got there, but he remembers basic things about how to live, the names of things, and feels like he recognizes stuff but doesn’t know why. At the end of the lift, the doors open to reveal a group of other teenaged boys stuck in a maze. Just as Thomas starts to figure out how the maze society works, another unexpected thing happens: a girl is delivered in the box the very next day, the first girl ever to be sent to the maze, and she has a scary message to deliver. Throughout the course of the book, Thomas tries to remember anything that would explain why they’re there and how they could possibly make it out of the maze.

I don’t even really know how to classify this book – it’s not dystopian as there’s nothing seemingly “perfect” about the society Thomas suddenly finds himself in, and Dashner doesn’t reveal much to us about life outside of the maze until the very end so I hesitate to call it a post-apocolytic novel, but it’s pretty clear that something big is happening. As the reader tries to figure it out along with Thomas and the other kids trapped in the maze, we’re a part of and adventure that is definitely thrilling.

Fans of books like the Divergent and Hunger Games series’ will find The Maze Runner interesting, though it doesn’t have the romantic element found in those. I’ll definitely be adding this title to my 8th grade summer reading list – it’s a great option for students probably 7th grade and up.

Nantucket Red by Leila Howland

As we already know, I’m a sucker for a good YA story with a beautiful, beachy, romantic cover. So, when I saw this cover in NetGalley’s YA section, I just knew I had to get it.

What I didn’t know when I started reading is that it’s actually the second book in Howland’s Nantucket series, the first of which is Nantucket Blue (the cover of which is equally as beachy and romantic and gorgeous, as seen below). Sometimes you just can’t pick up a sequel and have any idea what’s going on, but that wasn’t the case here. Howland does a great job of providing enough back story that someone like me can know what’s happening without having read the first book, but I don’t think there was so much backstory that it would have bored me if I’d read the first book.

In Nantucket Red, the protagonist is Cricket Thompson, a senior in high school who works her butt off to get what she’s always dreamed of – a spot on the lacrosse team at Brown University. She succeeds, and in the summer between her high school graduation and freshman year of college, she spends a few months on Nantucket, earning money for her freshman year at Brown. Of course beach-filled fun and romance ensue as Cricket tries to salvage her best-friendship, considers the new available (or is he?) guy she works with, and tries to get over her first love (who just happens to be her best friend’s brother, which is why she’s trying to salvage that best-friendship). Along the way, though, Cricket does something far more important – she begins to think about what she really wants to do with her life, and whether or not jumping into her freshman year at Brown is really the right answer.

Overall, I liked Cricket a lot. She was realistically flawed as a human being and she struggled with decisions in a way typical of older teens, but she was able to resolve her problems and set herself off in a positive direction for beginning adulthood. If more books follow in this Nantucket series, I’ll definitely be checking them out.

Nantucket Red will be out next week on May 13th, which gives you time to read Nantucket Blue before then! Check them out here on Amazon or at your favorite bookseller.

Catch A Falling Star by Kim Culbertson

Kim Culbertson’s Catch a Falling Star is one of the best contemporary YA romances I’ve read so far this year. It has everything I want to see: a strong, relatable, intelligent protagonist, a swoon-worthy boy, great supporting characters (including good parents – YAY!), a setting I’d like to spend time in, and a cute, cleverly written plot sprinkled with some humor and sweetness.

Carter Moon is happy with her life – she helps out in her parents’ deli, she’s about to graduate high school with some great friends, and she loves the small town of Little, CA. The problem? Well, there are a few. One, she’s so content with her current life that she hasn’t made any plans for beyond high school. Two, she takes on too much responsibility for her brother’s gambling addiction. And three, she’s completely unprepared for the impact the filming of a Hollywood movie in Little will have on her nice, quiet little life.

When Adam Jakes, current teen heartthrob and object of almost every teenage girl’s obsession, comes to Little for his next Hollywood movie, he’s in need of some positive PR. When Adam’s manager sees Carter and her small-town sweetness, he hires her to “date” Adam while he’s in town to build up his public image (Carter only agrees so she can use the money to help her brother).

Adam is not prepared for a girl who speaks her mind and seems immune to his celebrity status, and Carter is not prepared to actually find some depth and humanity behind Adam’s public persona. The result? A really, really cute story reminiscent of Jen E. Smith’s This Is What Happy Looks Like. I devoured this is a day and instantly wanted more of Carter and Adam’s story. I’d love to see these characters reappear in future Culbertson titles.

Also, though these characters are upper high school age, I was really pleased to see that the book was totally clean and appropriate even for my middle schoolers to read. It was also pleasantly surprising to see that Carter’s parents are really good parents, models for the kinds of parents I wish we saw more in YA titles. Culbertson is a refreshing new voice in the YA world – I’d love to see this book on a bestseller list (and it would be perfect for a movie, too).

Catch a Falling Star releases today, so grab your copy now! Find it here on Amazon or at your favorite bookseller.

YA Fiction: Who Is It For, Really?

I read a TON of teen fiction. I’m passionate about a well-told story that can teach a student more than I could ever hope to, like Divergent’s Tris in her sacrificial determination to save those around her, or The Giver’s Jonas in his refusal to sit back and let immorality rule, or The Outsiders’ Ponyboy in his effort to “Stay Gold.”

Fiction can be so powerful, and there’s nothing I love more as a teacher than seeing a student really connect with and learn from a character.

However, I’m noticing an alarming trend in YA fiction. More and more, I’ll get an advance copy of a book and wonder, as I start reading, WHO is this actually written for?

Shouldn’t that answer automatically be young adults? Teenagers? After all, that IS what YA stands for – Young. Adult. Now, though, it seems like there are tons of YA titles being published that are written FOR adults, though the characters happen to be teenagers.

What’s the difference? In books written for adults, there’s a feeling like the characters can do whatever they want because it’s all made up anyway, so the natural consequences of the world don’t matter. It’s like that creepy mom who tries to live vicariously through her popular daughter, sending her off to unchaperoned parties and indulging her every whim. It’s grown-ups trying to go back and live their teenage years the way they wish they could have spent them, without worrying about what will happen as a result. This is really disturbing.

While a fictional story is made up and can be a place to explore all kinds of dreams and hopes and wishes, however impossible they may be in real life, it’s also necessary to recognize choices that lead to heartbreak and rough adulthoods. As much as we might wish we could go back and have the party-filled, alcohol and vulgarity laced, sex and excitement ruled high school and college experience, there’s a reason we didn’t have that in the beginning: It’s. Not. Good. For. You.

And really, as authors, we have a responsibility to our readers. The best interests of teenagers should be at the forefront of our minds while we write. There should be some value to the reading experience – something to take away from it. That’s what I love about YA fiction; it’s a powerful avenue for teaching truths through the experiences of a fictional character.

On this site, I only highlight books that I feel are worthy of teens. The books I’d like to see my students reading. Otherwise, how can I call myself a teacher and a writer for young people?

From She Reads: The Divergent Trilogy

This review originally posted on www.shereads.org last month.

—————————————————————–

Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT series has taken the YA literary world by storm, comparable to the popularity of TWILIGHT and THE HUNGER GAMES in previous years. Some readers are eager to jump on the bandwagon and experience the latest all-the-rage series, while others are left with questions:

Does it really stand up to the hype?
Could it really be as good as The Hunger Games?
Is it worth reading the book if I already saw the movie?
Can I go see the movie with young adults without feeling awkward?
Is the movie more than just a reason to go watch Theo James on the big screen for a few hours?

The answer is a whole-hearted YES on all counts.

DIVERGENT is a dystopian trilogy taking place in a far-future Chicago. War has left the city in disrepair, and in an effort to keep peace people are divided between five factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), and Dauntless (the brave). When the story opens, the main character, Beatrice (Tris) Prior is preparing for the test that will help her choose which faction she’ll enter for her adulthood: Abnegation, which she was born into, or one of the other four. The drama begins, though, when Tris’s test results are inconclusive and she has to navigate society as one who doesn’t fit with just one faction; she is what they call Divergent, and that makes her a target of society leaders.

As a writer, Veronica Roth is incredibly talented. She has created a future world that is fascinating and believable, yet far-fetched enough that it feels not like home. There are references to known Chicago landmarks, making the setting recognizable and relatable. Her characters, while futuristic, are also completely relatable – it only takes a few pages to get drawn into Tris’s story, which starts in DIVERGENT, continues in INSURGENT, and resolves in ALLEGIANT. I’m also intrigued by the fact that she started writing this in college and, even now, with three books out, a major motion picture, and a fourth book coming soon, is only twenty-five years old. That’s crazy!

I saw the movie on opening night, and it was great. Really. But, it didn’t get anywhere near the level of detail that you find in the books. I know that’s a common complaint with movies based on books, but in this case it’s not just a casual observation about the movie; it’s a compliment to the depth of Roth’s writing. I love the way she has broken people down into factions to describe personality types and how that forces you think about human nature as you read. I love that there’s plenty of romantic appeal in Tris’s relationship with Four (played by Theo James, as seen in the movie poster) and that their relationship is supportive and exciting without being sexual. I love the suspense and intrigue that keep you reading without being able to stop – I blew through all three books in a week and just couldn’t get enough.

Basically, I just love this trilogy. This is one case where, whether you see the movie before or after reading the books, you really need to read the books. I won’t say they’re an easy, lighthearted read – the emotional rollercoaster is a wild one, and the characters and storyline will dominate your thoughts even while you’re not reading – but I will promise that they’re worth your time!

How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly In Love by Ken Baker

In How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly In Love, we follow sixteen year old Emery Jackson’s journey from an overweight, outspoken, sarcastic, binge-eating girl to a healthier, mature, still outspoken and sarcastic young lady. It’s definitely an addicting read in that her family is pretty much a train wreck that you can’t help but stare at. In an effort to save the family house, which is in danger of foreclosure despite the fact that Mr. Jackson is a former NBA player and now healthy-living life coach, the Jacksons sign up for a “reality” TV show which will shower them with a million dollars… IF the star, Emery, can manage to lose fifty pounds in just fifty days.

There are some things about this book that I really enjoyed. One, Emery is a great character. She’s sassy and smart, but her one big flaw is not being able to control her weight or her food intake. She feels completely out of place in her family (which, with a perfectly gorgeous and thin sister named Angel, it would be hard not to). She deals with crap at school resulting from her appearance. She suffers from depression, though she wouldn’t admit it. Through it all, though, she’s not like a “woe is me, I give up on life” kind of character. She’s funny, and though things don’t seem to be going her way, she’s tough and she’ll get through it. I was surprised at the realness of her and the spot-on inner workings of a teenage girl mind given that the author is a guy, but good for him!

Another thing I enjoyed was the supporting characters, some of which I would have strangled if I could, but they were all well-written and, unfortunately, realistic. The premise behind the book was cool, too, and afforded the reader lots of behind the scenes looks at reality TV shows and how they manipulate reality. As the show went on, Emery’s well-being became less and less important until Emery stood up and made it important.

So, while there was a lot here that I liked, I can’t say that I really loved the ending. Without giving anything away, because it’s quite a surprise, it did make me proud of Emery for doing what was best for her. As a reader, though, it left too many loose ends. There were some big things that didn’t resolve enough for me. Maybe Baker plans on writing a sequel, but I don’t know. It probably resolves enough to satisfy most people, but I’m a needy reader.

I think Emery’s story will be especially valuable for teenage girls who struggle with body image. Her journey to healthy living is nothing if not inspirational!

How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly In Love is available this Tuesday! Find it here on Amazon, or at your favorite local bookseller.

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!

Like it? Share it!