Thursday, January 28, 2016

The Prometheus Award Book List

Do you enjoy award winning books? Check out this book list...




1) "The Stars Are Also Fire" by Poul Anderson

Several generations after Dagney Beynac and other humans settle on the moon, social, political, and economic strife is on the rise between the Lunarians, genetically altered descendants of these first human settlers, and the rest of the human race. A struggle for Lunarian independence is thwarted by the cybercosm, a sort of cosmic Big Brother of linked artificial intelligence that likes the status quo. The key to gaining independence, one Lunarian leader believes, is to be found in the uncovering of an astronomical find kept shielded for centuries by the cybercosm and the descendants of Beynac, a discovery dating from the earliest days of lunar colonization. Two intrepid humans, Aleka Kame and Ian Kenmuir, agree to take on the challenge of exposing the secret, and their adventures take them to earth cultures transformed by political and technological upheaval, and the passage of time. Meanwhile, the reader is taken back in time, to the first century of lunar colonization, to the creation of the Lunarian race, and the discovery in space that drives this other quest, centuries later. Anderson (Harvest of Stars, 1993, etc.) demonstrates once again his powerful storytelling talents, and betrays once again his tendency to hang far too much political, sociological, and technological baggage on the shining thread of the tale.

Book Two of Four



2) "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge

A distant prequel to Vinge’s 1992 masterpiece, A Fire Upon the Deep, with a single character in common. Some 8,000 years hence, the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet investigates the enigmatic OnOff—a star that shines for 35 years, then extinguishes for 250; once understood, its weird physics may yield an improved star drive. Meantime, its single planet harbors intelligent aliens, the Spiders, divided into warring factions, but thought to be descendants of an advanced starfaring civilization. During the Dark, they survive frozen solid in pools of ice. Also arriving at OnOff are the acquisitive, ambitious Emergents. Cooperating at first, the Emergents later mount a treacherous sneak attack, defeating the traders and enslaving the survivors. The Emergents’ overwhelming advantage is Focus, the result of a brain-infecting virus that can be induced to secrete mind-controlling chemicals. Those Focused are instilled with unswerving loyalty. The Emergents are led by a smiling deceiver, Tomas Nau, his sadistic assistant, Ritser Brughel, and personnel genius Anne Reynolt, once Nau’s greatest adversary, now enslaved and Focused. The Qeng Ho resistance is thin, consisting of legendary genius and onetime leader Pham Nuwen, whose failed dream of a Qeng Ho galactic empire forced him into exile; young trader Ezh Vinh; and, secretly, Ezh’s love, linguist Trixia Bonsol, now Focused and translating the Spiders’ language. Both the Emergent and Qeng Ho fleets lost interstellar capability during the battle, so the humans must wait until the Spiders develop technology advanced enough to help them. As the OnOff star reignites, the Spiders emerge from their “deepnesses” and, galvanized by genius Sherkaner Underhill, burst into a frenzy of technological development. Nau plans to trick the Spiders into destroying themselves in a nuclear war. Pham, meanwhile, schemes to defeat Nau but sees in Focus the key to realizing his old dreams of empire. Huge, intricate, and ingenious, with superbly realized aliens: a chilling, spellbinding dramatization of the horrors of slavery and mind control.



3) "Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld yarn—#28 if you're counting (The Last Hero, 2001, etc.). Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork's City Watch has it made: he's a duke, rich, respected, and his wife Sybil is about to give birth. But then Vimes is called away to deal with a notorious and ruthless murderer, Carcer, now trapped on the roof of the university library. Amid a furious storm, lightning and magic hurl Sam and Carcer 20 years back in time. Sam's younger self is a rookie Night Watch cop. History, and Sam's memory, tells that Sam learned his street smarts from a skillful, straight-arrow cop named John Keel. But Carcer's arrived in the past, too—and he's murdered Keel. In the same fight (coincidentally?), Sam received an injury he remembers Keelhaving. Must he somehow impersonate Keel, and teach young Sam how to survive? What will the History Monks—the holy men who ensure that what's supposed to happen, happens—do? Adding further complications, Sam knows that the current ruler of the city, Lord Winder, is both mad and utterly corrupt: revolution's a-brewing, with riots, street barricades, cavalry charges, and thousands dead. And the horrid Unmentionables, Winder's secret torturers and jailers, must be curbed—especially when Carcer turns up in charge of them.

Not a side-splitter this time, though broadly amusing and bubbling with wit and wisdom: both an excellent story and a tribute to beat cops everywhere, doing their hair-raising jobs with quiet courage and determination.

Book 28 of 35



4) "The System of the World" by Neal Stephenson

The Baroque Cycle crosses the finish line: somewhat winded but still spry.

One thing that becomes obvious on reading this third and final volume in Stephenson’s genre-defying historical reinvention (Quicksilver, 2003; The Confusion, p. 107) is that the author was right to say the work wasn’t a trilogy, but just one long (nearly 3,000-page) novel. Another thing is that it’s a hell of a way to finish things off. We’re in the early 1700s now, and the characters are a bit older (Quicksilver started in the 1640s) but no less active, physically or mentally. The loquacious Daniel Waterhouse is still serving England as a member of the Royal Society, and the bulk of this last installment follows his attempts to stop a plot threatening the lives of his fellow scientists with a nefarious invention: the time bomb. As prolix as Waterhouse and his comrade-in-long-windedness, Isaac Newton, can be in their scientific discourses, it’s nothing compared to the mind-boggling stew of conspiracy that’s London, with Tories and Whigs battling for position and civil war threatened over the possible ascension of the Hanoverian Princess Caroline to the throne. While the back-and-forth can be dizzying, Stephenson’s droll humor (he even tosses in an anachronistic Monty Python joke) and knack for thrilling set-pieces—the meticulously plotted escape of a Scottish rebel from the Tower of London is a tour de force of its own—act as guiding lights through the political murk. On the periphery, the onetime slave and now Duchess Eliza uses her own considerable diplomatic skills to advance her shadowy goals, and after far too long a delay comes the return of the fabled Jack Shaftoe, the Indiana Jones of the series. Stephenson knows that the inimitable Shaftoe is ultimately the star and provides him with a crowd-pleasing exit as heart-poundingly exciting as it is surprisingly emotional.

Learned, violent, sarcastic, and profound: a glorious finish to one of the most ambitious epics of recent years.

Book Three of Three



5) "Glasshouse" by Charles Stross

Far-future mind control, from British author Stross (Accelerando, 2005, etc.).

By the 27th century, death need not be permanent: People routinely make backup copies of themselves; disease and old age can simply be edited out. Human civilization, scattered across the galaxy in diverse habitats connected via wormhole gates, is slowly recovering from a prolonged and brutal war against an insidious memory-deleting, mind-controlling cyberworm called Curious Yellow. Narrator Robin, a citizen of the Invisible Republic, emerges from a memory edit, guessing he wanted to remove painful memories of the conflict. He meets, and soon falls in love with, Kay—and realizes that somebody’s trying to kill him—because of what he was? Or something his former self knew? His robot psychiatrist advises him to join a closed experimental community where he can safely recuperate. So, after his next routine backup, Robin wakes in the Glasshouse—in a female body. Robin, now Reeve, is part of a sociological experiment aimed at recapitulating a long-lost environment: Earth during the 1950s. Glasshouse residents, however, are expected to conform, and there are heavy penalties for deviants. Reeve agrees to marry big, unhappy, skeptical Sam, and tries to assimilate. But things are not what they seem. The Glasshouse is run by two notorious Curious Yellow collaborators, Major-Doctor Fiore and Bishop Yourdon. Meanwhile, Robin’s memories begin to surface. He was a member of the combat Linebarger Cats and later became an agent—sent into the Glasshouse, memories suppressed to evade the censors, to find out what’s really going on.

A perfectly tuned combination of gravitas and glee (the literary/cultural references are a blast). Stross’s enthralling blend of action, extrapolation and analysis delivers surprise after surprise.



6) "Homeland" by Cory Doctorow

Doctorow strikes a successful balance between agenda and story in his newest near-future, pre-dystopian thriller.

Marcus Yallow is at a loss; he’s dropped out of college because of finances and struggles to find employment in a terrible recession. Through a lucky encounter and thanks to his reputation as a technological guru and activist—a reputation left over from Little Brother (2008)—Marcus lands a job as webmaster for an independent politician campaigning as a reformer. Even as Marcus works to effect change through legitimate channels, he grapples with an ethical quandary. Frenemy Masha has given him some confidential information as insurance to release should anything happen to her—which it does. He’s tasked with sorting through the massive potential leak, making sense of the secrets revealed, and coming up with a method of release that is credible, will attract notice and won’t be linked back to him. After all, the secrets contained reveal large-scale privacy breaches and government corruption that involves military contractors like the intimidating figures following Marcus around. Such nerd-favorite icons as 3-D printers, Wil Wheaton and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic serve as in-jokes, but the concise explanations of real-world technology and fast pace make it accessible to less technologically savvy readers.

Outstanding for its target audience, and even those outside Doctorow’s traditional reach may find themselves moved by its call to action. (afterwords, bibliography) (Science fiction. 13 & up)



7) "Influx" by Daniel Suarez

In his latest, Suarez (Kill Decision, 2012, etc.) follows the adventures of eccentric genius Jon Grady, who has run afoul of the Federal Bureau of Technology Control.

The BTC is a Cold War relic, an agency spawned by the supersecret government nether world. Cold fusion, artificial intelligence, quantum computing with holographic presence, an immortal strand of DNA and countless other advances are quarantined—but employed—by the BTC, which theoretically is "assessing their social, political, environmental, and economic impacts with the goal of preserving social order." That means Jon Grady, a self-taught researcher without think-tank or university backing, draws BTC’s notice when he employs exotic particle states to create a gravity mirror. Grady’s kidnapped by the BTC, but he refuses to cooperate and employ his knowledge of manipulating gravity for their shadowy purposes. Grady’s relegated to Hibernity, BTC’s prison, and BTC co-opts his technology. The book is premise-driven, with characters running to type. The wizard nerd, Grady, has avuncular advocates like Dr. Bertrand Alcot, supportive retired professor, and Archibald Chattopadhyay, nuclear physicist and a fellow Hibenity prisoner, as guides. Hedrick, BTC chief, is self-important, an authoritarian under a benign shell. Morrison, BTU security, former military special ops, employs his squabbling clones as staff. Alexa, with altered DNA that "give[s] her longevity, intelligence, and perfect form," is BTC’s biotech wonder. A self-appointed prophet, Cotton, head of the Winnowers, wants to halt technology’s progress. With BTC under scrutiny of a new U.S. director of intelligence and Hedrick coping with breakaway BTC elements gone rouge in Russia and Asia, Grady escapes Hibernity and sets out to bring BTC down. The story is atomic-weighted with science terminology from college-level texts, but the narrative is easily understandable. There’s a thread left unraveled and a plot hole related to a character’s scientific and technological capabilities, but the narrative rockets along right up to a good-versus-evil battle that would be better resolved on the IMAX screen than the page.

Fun tech-fiction wrapped in black helicopter conspiracy.



Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Young Adult Science Fiction Book List

Are you interested in science fiction? Do you like young adult books? Want a marriage of the two? Check out this book list...




1) "Icons" by Margaret Stohl

Humanity’s only hope against an alien occupation is a quartet of teens with emotion-based superpowers.

When the aliens landed on Earth, they cowed humanity into submission with the mass murder of several cities via an electromagnetic field generated by the alien Icons. Dol somehow survived and, under the care of the compassionate Padre, has developed a deep friendship with fellow vaguely superpowered teenager Ro. They hide from the Embassy that “oversees” Earth–alien relations by shipping humans off to work as slaves on mysterious, never-defined projects. On Dol’s 17th birthday, the Padre gives her a mysterious book explaining who and what the Icon Children are. Inexplicably, she decides not to read it; this is part of a pattern of clunky information-withholding that sits awkwardly and frustratingly alongside exposition. Embassy soldiers capture Dol, and after an encounter with a more-than-he-seems mercenary, they bring Dol and Ro to the Embassy where they endlessly bicker with fellow Icon Children Lucas (the Ambassador’s son) and silver-haired Tima. With all that squabbling, readers will feel like they are reading the same scene over and over again without the payoff of plot progression. Dol’s torn between best friend Ro and mysterious new Lucas, yielding a clichéd romantic storyline. Top-secret documents filed between chapters make the invasion and mystery of the Icon Children more interesting than Dol’s narration does.

Those without superhuman patience should pass. (Science fiction. 12 & up)



2) "The Rules" by Stacey Kade

A likable science-fiction romance features strong co-protagonists who know where they come from, but not who they are.

Born in a GenTex lab with human and extraterrestrial DNA, Ariane gives new meaning to “test tube baby.” A lab employee, now her adoptive dad, rescued her from a nightmarish, lab-rat existence, thwarting Dr. Jacobs’ plans to mold her into a designer weapon (her abilities include mind reading and telekinesis). Following strict rules and hiding in plain sight, Ariane’s evaded capture for a decade, but GTX is closer than she realizes. Popular, athletic and good-looking Zane coaxes her into revealing herself, while hiding from her the wounds inflicted by his mother’s abandonment and police-chief father’s contempt. Reluctantly drafted by Dr. Jacobs’ granddaughter, Rachel, the plot’s evil catalyst, into her scheme to humiliate Ariane, Zane instead is intrigued and attracted. Ariane’s long-blocked powers come roaring back when Rachel pushes her buttons. Struggling to unite the disparate strands of her identity, Ariane’s an appealing original who (in a welcome departure from YA orthodoxy) does not have beauty-queen looks of which she’s modestly unaware. She and Zane know precisely where she stands in the appearance hierarchy. Cartoonishly evil, Dr. Jacobs and Rachel are less persuasive.

The traditional cliffhanger ending leaves readers hungry for the next course. (Science fiction. 12 & up)



3) "Spark" by Amy Kathleen Ryan

The sequel to Glow (2011) delivers a page-turning plot while delving deeper into questions of leadership, trauma and violence.

The girls of the Empyrean have returned to their ship after being kidnapped by the New Horizon. Waverly Marshall has endured and committed terrible acts aboard the New Horizon. She is tormented by both her own memories and a faction of younger girls who cannot forgive her for failing to rescue their parents. Kieran, who became the ship's de facto leader when the adults were taken out of the picture, delivers sermons designed to promote both unity and loyalty among his followers but is deeply anxious about his own power. Meanwhile, Seth, the former leader and third leg of a love triangle with Waverly and Kieran, escapes the brig under mysterious circumstances and discovers a major threat to the ship. As Waverly, Kieran, Seth and the large but generally well-constructed cast of supporting characters work—often at cross-purposes—to keep the peace, secure the ship and rescue their parents from the New Horizon, meaty political and moral questions arise. Is torture ever justified? What about imprisonment and surveillance? How does one stay human after doing something monstrous?

Readers hungry for the next installment will have plenty to ponder in the meantime. (Science fiction. 14 & up)


Book Two of Three


4) "A Confusion of Princes" by Garth Nix

Exuberant and insightful, this science-fiction bildungsroman grapples with the essential question: "Who am I?"

After 16 years of intensive training and superhuman augmentation, Khemri is ready to take his place as Prince of the mighty intergalactic Empire. Alas, he immediately finds out that his status isn't quite as exalted as he had always thought. To start with, there are tens of millions of Princes, and most of them are out to kill him. Khem must negotiate a deadly maze of military training, priestly recruitment and even Imperial interest, never knowing whom he can trust. He can rely only on himself—and all the mechanical, biological and psionic enhancements that far-future science can provide, until the day even that is stripped from him….From the riveting opening sentence to the final elegiac ruminations, this is rip-roaring space opera in the classic mold. Add a perfect protagonist: Overprivileged, arrogant and not nearly as clever as he thinks, Khemri's first-person narration is also endearingly witty, rueful and infinitely likable. Perhaps his account relies a bit too much on "had I but known" foreshadowing, and the secondary characters are thinly sketched accessories to the hero's personal journey. But the rocket-powered pace and epic worldbuilding (with just the right amount of gee-whiz technobabble) provide an ideal vehicle for what is, at heart, a sweet paean to what it means to be human.

Space battles! Political intrigue! Engineered warriors! Techno-wizardry! Assassins! Pirates! Rebels! Duels! Secrets, lies, sex and True Love! What more can anybody ask for? (Science fiction. 14 & up)



5) "Crewel" by Gennifer Albin

Too many slubs in the fabric of this dystopian romance land it in the "irregular" bin.

In Arras, men control everything except reality, which is continually woven and re-woven by Spinsters, all women. They labor at the behest of the patriarchal Guild to maintain a post-apocalyptic utopia. Despite being rigorously coached by her parents to fail her aptitude test, 16-year-old Adelice shows her incredible talent at weaving and is wrested violently from her home to labor in the Coventry for the rest of her life. There, she draws the attention of two handsome young men with electric-blue (or cobalt blue, or sometimes just bright blue) eyes, the oily and evil power-hungry ambassador of the Guild, various catty Spinsters and the Creweler, the most powerful Spinster of them all, who extracts the material that forms the reality of Arras from the ruined Earth. Adelice narrates in the genre's now–de rigueur present tense, whipsawing readers through her guilt, grief, fear, revulsion and lust as she learns the power structures of the Coventry and plots to escape. A genuinely cool premise is undermined by inconsistent worldbuilding, fuzzy physics, pedestrian language, characters who never move beyond stereotype and subplots that go nowhere (including a well-meaning but awkwardly grafted-in gay rights thread). These last may reemerge in the sequel that will follow one of the slowest cliffhangers in recent memory.

It's clear that Adelice cares deeply about her fate; it's debatable whether readers will. (Dystopian romance. 12-16)




6) "Article 5" by Kristen Simmons

In an unimpressive dystopian romance, a girl flees a repressive institution with the soldier she once loved.

After a war whose details never quite emerge, the U.S. government authorized the Federal Bureau of Reformation, better known as the Moral Militia, to arrest any citizen in violation of the stringent “Moral Statutes.” Ember's mom is arrested for violating Article 5—having conceived a child out of wedlock—and Ember is sent to a girls' rehab where rule-breakers are punished with violence and those who try to escape are shot. Ember does escape, however, with the help of Chase Jennings, a friend who joined the Moral Militia years earlier, and most of the book chronicles the pair's tense and treacherous journey in search of Ember's mother and safety. That the two have feelings for each other is immediately clear, but drawn-out misunderstandings and a tedious unwillingness to communicate keep the two travelers at odds. Despite the book's implicit critique of sexism (“[women]'s subservience” is mandated by the Articles), Chase is portrayed as knowledgeable, street-smart and in charge, while Ember is loose-tongued and impulsive, frequently requiring Chase's assistance to get out of a scrape.

There are a few engaging action scenes here and there, but overall, it's a disappointment for romantics, feminists and dystopia fans alike. (Dystopian romance. 12 & up)



7) "Unremembered" by Jessica Brody

What should a 16-year-old girl with no memories trust: her own instincts or the cryptic words of a boy who insists she knows him?

Our heroine washes ashore when the book opens, apparently the sole survivor of a plane crash. Dubbed Violet by a nurse after her (yes, violet) eye color, she becomes a national news story and is quietly sent to a foster family in northern California when no one steps forward to identify her. The only person she meets who claims to know her is a boy who appears mysteriously when she's alone and warns her that she's in danger. Short, dramatic, present-tense sentences move the action forward, and the book's central questions (who is Violet? who is following her? when will she start believing the boy who is clearly the romantic lead?) provide plenty of suspense. Although the mysterious boy is more of an archetype than a character in his own right, Violet's 13-year-old foster brother Cody is pleasingly funny, suspicious and competent. There are intriguing sci-fi elements at play, but analytical readers will notice holes in the workings of genetics and the logistics of time travel.

Fast-paced and sure to satisfy romance-oriented readers, if not skeptics. (Science fiction. 12-18)


Book One of Three


8) "Blood Red Road" by Moira Young

Born on Midwinter Day, Saba and her twin brother Lugh are opposites—she’s dark, scrawny and cantankerous, while he exudes calm with his golden beauty—but that doesn't stop her from rising to the occasion when he needs her.

Weeks before their 18th birthday, four rough horsemen ride into their isolated, desert homestead, killing their star-reading Pa and taking Lugh captive. Saba embarks on a treacherous journey to save Lugh, with her pet crow, Nero, and her 9-year-old sister, Emmi, in tow. Saba and Emmi are kidnapped by slavers, who sell Saba to the Cage Master of the Colosseum, where she becomes known as the Angel of Death. Overseeing this macabre world is a king who keeps people in check with a narcotic, convincing them to renew his life by sacrificing a boy born on Midwinter Day. Saba learns about Lugh’s fate from Jack, a fellow prisoner. With the help of Nero and a group of freedom fighters, Jack and Saba escape and rush to Lugh’s rescue. This debut is a mashup ofSpartacus, the court of Louis XIV and post-apocalyptic dystopia. Saba’s naive, uneducated voice narrates this well-paced heroic quest in dialect, an effective device for this tale that combines a love story, monsters and sibling rivalry.

Readers looking for a strong female protagonist will find much to look forward to in this new series. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Book One of Three




Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Travel The Globe Book List

Want to have an adventure and never leave the comfort of your own home? Check out these titles...




1) "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" by Paul Theroux

Travel writer and novelist Theroux (The Elephanta Suite, 2007, etc.) offers an elegiac retracing of roads and railroads taken across the vastness of Eurasia.

Rejoining his 1975 travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar, Theroux takes to the chemin de fer from London to Kyoto four decades older and, it seems, more inclined to the better things in life (“a woman in a blue uniform brought me a bottle of Les Jamelles Chardonnay Vin de Pays d’Oc 2004 . . . and then the lunch tray: terrine de poulet et de broccolis, chutney de tomates, the entrée a fillet of lightly peppered salmon, with coup de chocolat for dessert”). He is a touch rueful and more than a touch reflective, viewing his metaphorically mirrored self in the sleeping-compartment window and thinking of marriages, friendships and youth lost. The meditative aspect soon yields to Theroux’s testy, Kiplingesque impatience with the cultures east of Folkestone, to his allergy to the “Asiatic ambiguity” that lies before him. He is willing to debate such things with the people he meets, unafraid to argue the relative merits of Western civilization vis-à-vis Islam, to name just one topic of conversation. As with his previous books, Theroux is unafraid of roughing it in the interest of getting a story, and some of his new memoir’s best moments find him stealing across snowy, remote borders, “like a specter, in a strange country at nightfall,” only to have his strength and compass restored by a delicious bottle of wine or morsel. Theroux wanders to places that scarcely cross most other travel writers’ minds, among them Vientiane (“a sleepy town on the banks of the muddy river, famous for its cheap beer”) and Phnom Penh (“scruffy, rather beaten-up…like a scarred human face in which its violent past was evident”). He also keeps up a running argument with the books he reads along the way, to say nothing of his contemporaries (Chatwin never traveled alone, he harrumphs, and neither does bête noire Naipaul).

Fans of Theroux will say that he hasn’t lost his touch; the more critical will say that he breaks no new ground. Either way, worth looking into.



2) "The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon" by David Grann

A stirring tale of lost civilizations, avarice, madness and everything else that makes exploration so much fun.

As New Yorker staff writer and debut author Grann notes, the British explorer Percy Fawcett’s exploits in jungles and atop mountains inspired novels such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, and his character is the tutelary spirit of the Indiana Jones franchise. Fawcett in turn was nurtured by his associations with fabulists such as Doyle and H. Rider Haggard, whose talisman he bore into the Amazonian rainforest. Working from a buried treasure in the form of long-lost diaries, Grann reconstructs the 1925 voyage Fawcett undertook with his 21-year-old son to find the supposed Lost City of Z, which, by all accounts, may have been El Dorado, the fabled place of untold amounts of Inca gold. Many a conquistador had died looking for the place, though in their wake, “after a toll of death and suffering worthy of Joseph Conrad, most archaeologists had concluded that El Dorado was no more than a delusion.” Fawcett was not among them, nor was his rival, a rich American doctor named Alexander Hamilton Rice, who was hot on the trail. Fawcett determined that a small expedition would be more likely to survive than a large one. Perhaps so, but the expedition notes record a hell of humid swamps and “flesh and carrion-eating bees [and] gnats in clouds…rendering one’s food unpalatable by filling it with their filthy bodies, their bellies red and disgustingly distended with one’s own blood.” It would get worse, we imagine, before Fawcett and his party disappeared, never to be seen again. Though, as Grann writes, they were ironically close to the object of their quest.

A colorful tale of true adventure, marked by satisfyingly unexpected twists, turns and plenty of dark portents.







3) "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson

An unlikely diplomat scores points for America in a corner of the world hostile to all things American—and not without reason.

Mortenson first came to Pakistan to climb K2, the world’s second-tallest peak, seeking to honor his deceased sister by leaving a necklace of hers atop the summit. The attempt failed, and Mortenson, emaciated and exhausted, was taken in by villagers below and nursed back to health. He vowed to build a school in exchange for their kindness, a goal that would come to seem as insurmountable as the mountain, thanks to corrupt officials and hostility on the part of some locals. Yet, writes Parademagazine contributor Relin, Mortenson had reserves of stubbornness, patience and charm, and, nearly penniless himself, was able to piece together dollars enough to do the job; remarks one donor after writing a hefty check, “You know, some of my ex-wives could spend more than that in a weekend,” adding the proviso that Mortenson build the school as quickly as possible, since said donor wasn’t getting any younger. Just as he had caught the mountaineering bug, Mortenson discovered that he had a knack for building schools and making friends in the glacial heights of Karakoram and the remote deserts of Waziristan; under the auspices of the Central Asia Institute, he has built some 55 schools in places whose leaders had long memories of unfulfilled American promises of such help in exchange for their services during the war against Russia in Afghanistan. Comments Mortenson to Relin, who is a clear and enthusiastic champion of his subject, “We had no problem flying in bags of cash to pay the warlords to fight against the Taliban. I wondered why we couldn’t do the same thing to build roads, and sewers, and schools.”

Answering by delivering what his country will not, Mortenson is “fighting the war on terror the way I think it should be conducted,” Relin writes. This inspiring, adventure-filled book makes that case admirably.






4) "A Year in the World" by Frances Mayes

A collection of tales about searching the globe for inspiration, only to find fulfillment on the return home.

Seemingly inspired by Martin Buber (“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”), Mayes (Swan, 2002, etc.) finds comfort in the world as a visitor, not a permanent resident. In previous work, Mayes has described her adopted provenance of Tuscany with insight and allure. Here, her location has changed, but her writing remains in familiar territory. Divided into chapters that each represent a separate adventure, the book is at its best when its author describes the people she encounters along the way, like Rachid, the faithful tour guide in Fez who possesses an unusual enthusiasm for Joseph Conrad, and Guven, the rug dealer in Istanbul who speaks eight languages and sends notes woven in miniature looms. Literate and seductive, Mayes’s anecdotes are immersed in the culture of each destination. Whether it’s listening to soul-filled fadoin Portugal, sailing in a traditional Turkish gulet along the Lycian Coast or participating in a Greek baptism in Mani, her observations get to the essence of place. The travelogue falters a bit when Mayes details her visits to museums and ruins; these guidebook staples can grow tiresome and require a degree of patience. Food is a constant topic throughout the book: tortilla de verdura in Madrid, steaming churros in Sevilla, tajines in Morocco and Sally Lunn bread in the Cotswolds. Shelter causes concern because Mayes and her companion, Ed, suffer from a common affliction: They have high expectations. They crave intimacy with their environment; large, impersonal chain hotels are out of the question. Getting the nod is an old stone charmer in the south of France and a well-outfitted row house in Lisbon. A noisy rental in the English countryside, meanwhile, proves unacceptable.

This is Mayes in top form.







5) "Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu" by J. Maarten Troost


Troost returns to the South Pacific, where he had spent a couple years on Kiribati (The Sex Lives of Cannibals, 2004), when the sensory overload of life in Washington, D.C., gave way to a gilded weariness.

His life as a well-paid drone for the World Bank got to Troost. He yearned for his days on Kiribati, at their wonder and mystery, of water so blue it made him gasp. Forget the human feces on the beach, ringworm and dengue fever, the unrelieved diet of rice and rotten fish and the dreadful time the beer delivery went to the wrong island. Living on a South Pacific island could be grim, horrifying and revolting, Troost writes, but never less than interesting. So off he goes with his wife to Vanuatu, where the earth is alive and well and reminds you of it everyday, whether through volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. Troost works hard to find all that is fine and weird on the former British-French land mass. There will be coconut shells filled with kava—the local recreational intoxicant wrung from a masticated spitball of pepper bush root; discussion of the impulse behind cannibalism (“while I may not have completely understood what holy communion was all about, Catholicism did allow me to see the nuances in cannibalism”); and considerations of the spectacular governmental corruption of the island. Troost, who also briefly nests in Fiji, is a travel writer who delivers the gratifying, old-school goods: curious cultural practices; encounters with venomous, nay murderous, creatures; perspective on recent history, with all the chaos wrought by European interlopers.

Troost is now washed up in landlocked Sacramento, but this “unapologetic escapist” should soon be on the move.



6) "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town" by Paul Theroux

America’s master traveler (Fresh Air Fiend, 2000, etc.) takes us along on his wanderings in tumultuous bazaars, crowded railway stations, desert oases, and the occasional nicely appointed hotel lobby.

“All news of out Africa is bad,” Theroux gamely begins. “It made me want to go there.” Forty years after making his start as a writer while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, he returns for a journey from Cairo to Cape Town along “what was now the longest road in Africa, some of it purely theoretical.” More reflective and less complaining than some of his other big-tour narratives (e.g., The Happy Isles of Oceania, 1992), Theroux’s account finds him in the company of Islamic fundamentalists and dissidents, sub-Saharan rebels and would-be neocolonialists, bin Ladenites, and intransigent white landholders, almost all of them angry at America for one reason or another. The author shares their anger at many points. Of the pharmaceutical plant outside Khartoum that was flattened by a cruise missile on Bill Clinton’s orders a few years back, he remarks, “Though we become hysterical at the thought that someone might bomb us, bombs that we explode elsewhere, in little countries far away, are just theater, of small consequence, another public performance of our White House, the event factory.” Such sentiments are rarely expressed in post–9/11 America, and Theroux is to be commended for pointing out the consequences of our half-baked imperializing in Africa’s miserable backwaters. His criticisms cut both ways, however; after an Egyptian student offends him with the remark, “Israel is America’s baby,” he replies, “Many countries are America’s babies. Some good babies, some bad babies.” Theroux is often dour, although he finds hopeful signs that Africa will endure and overcome its present misfortunes in the sight, for instance, of a young African boatman doing complex mathematical equations amid “spitting jets of steam,” and in the constant, calming beauty of so many African places.

Engagingly written, sharply observed: another winner from Theroux.




7) "Lost on Planet China" by J. Maarten Troost

The roving journalist and travel writer takes on China.

In his previous two books—Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu (2006) and The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (2004)—Troost chronicled his time on the tiny, isolated islands of the South Pacific. Here, the author considers a decidedly different environment, a “massive and rapidly changing…vast and complex country.” That description proves to be an understatement, as he encounters one bewildering thing after another, from the “hermetically sealed Super Deluxe Executive Suite” at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, the world’s highest hotel, to rampant prostitution and unspeakably foul restroom conditions. “It is remarkable,” he writes, “how quickly a country like China can reduce a foreigner—this foreigner, in any case—to a state of childlike powerlessness.” As Troost travels through Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Guangzhou and a half dozen other teeming cities, he notices the pervasive remnants of the Cultural Revolution, as well as the driving force behind the new “Chinese Model” for organizing society: “unfettered capitalism combined with authoritarian rule.” With the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the author notes, comes a widening gap between the rich and the poor—the government is currently sitting on a $1.4 trillion reserve—in addition to increasing levels of air and water pollution, which Troost duly notes in each impossibly smog-choked city. The author finds relief in the relative order of Hong Kong, the utter barrenness of the Taklamakan Desert, the quiet calm of Lhasa (Tibet) and the staggering beauty of Tiger Leaping Gorge, but he is underwhelmed by the fabled Shangri-la. Interspersing sections of cultural history—and plenty of tasty and not-so-tasty culinary tidbits—throughout his travelogue, Troost offers a serviceable primer on life in China. But uncharacteristically awkward prose too often creeps into the narrative, and the author relies heavily on bland generalizations (“It’s a complicated country, China, full of complicated people”) in lieu of thoughtful commentary.

Not as smooth or consistently engaging as his first two books, but worthwhile reading for armchair travelers and Sinophiles.



8) "Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman" by Alice Steinbach


The travel memoir of a professional woman on a Grand Tour.

In 1993 Steinbach, Pulitzer-winning journalist and divorced mother, went on a nine-month sabbatical in Europe. "In this,my Year of Living Dangerously, I was . . . wading into the stream of the unknown, accepting whatever the gods had to offer."

Her sojourn begins in the Faubourg-St. Germain during a Parisian spring, where she meets Naohiro, a Japanese widower in whom she develops a romantic interest. In London for the summer, Steinbach meets a trio of women who become her nursemaids when she falls ill; she befriends Jean, an Australian psychoanalyst, at Freud’s house and joins her for dinner with the smart set.

Steinbach enrolls in a late-summer course at Oxford, learns an important lesson about ballroom dancing from Barry, her pot-bellied instructor, and wanders up and down the Italian peninsula, frequently turning to memories of Naohiro for emotional sustenance and to the words of Freya Stark for spiritual guidance. If the adventure evolves without the higher risk of other kinds of travel (and travel memoirs), and if the dramatic episodes primarily involve civilized exchanges with shop clerks and museum-goers, Steinbach doesn’t make more of getting lost around Brasenose College or of hitting upon the perfect wedding gift for a temporary friend than she can (or should); the book quickly loses its early sense of willed promise and gains a likable, well-mannered modesty as it unfolds—the quiet, nothing-to-it triumph of getting from an unfamiliar airport to a distant hotel.




Friday, January 22, 2016

Books for Reluctant Readers Book List

Having a hard time finding books to interest your child? Need something that keeps them interested? Check out this book list...




1) "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen

The straight-arrow son of a maybe-federal agent (he’s not quite sure) turns eco-terrorist in this first offering for kids from one of detective fiction’s funniest novelists. Fans of Hiaasen’s (Basket Case, 2001, etc.) novels for adults may wonder how well his profane and frequently kinky writing will adapt to a child’s audience; the answer is, remarkably well. Roy Eberhardt has recently arrived in Florida; accustomed to being the new kid after several family moves, he is more of an observer than a participant. When he observes a bare-footed boy running through the subdivisions of Coconut Grove, however, he finds himself compelled to follow and, later, to ally himself with the strange boy called Mullet Fingers. Meanwhile, the dimwitted but appealingly dogged Officer Delinko finds himself compelled to crack the case of the mysterious vandals at the construction site of a new Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House—it couldn’t have anything to do with those cute burrowing owls, could it? The plot doesn’t overwhelm with surprises; even the densest readers will soon suss out the connections between Mullet Fingers, the owls, and Mother Paula’s steadfast denial of the owls’ existence. The fun lies in Hiaasen’s trademark twisted characters, including Dana Matherson, the class bully who regularly beats up on Roy and whose unwitting help Roy wickedly enlists; Beatrice Leep, Mullet Fingers’s fiercely loyal sister and co-conspirator; Curly, Mother Paula’s hilariously inept foreman; and Roy’s equally straight-arrow parents, who encourage him to do the right thing without exactly telling him how. Roy is rather surprisingly engaging, given his utter and somewhat unnatural wholesomeness; it’s his kind of determined innocence that sees through the corruption and compromises of the adult world to understand what must be done to make things right. If the ending is somewhat predictable, it is also entirely satisfying—Hoot is, indeed, a hoot. (Fiction. 10-14)









2) "How to Eat Fried Worms" by Thomas Rockwell

Even fried with ketchup, mustard and horseradish sauce or baked as "Alsatian Smothered Worm" with onions and sour cream by Billy's supportive Mother, fifteen nightcrawlers are still a lot of worms to eat. Having made a fifty dollar bet, Billy persists in his one-a-day regimen much to the disgust of his friend Alan, who knows his father won't let him use his money this way in any case and tries all sorts of schemes to sabotage and psych Billy into quitting. The person who comes off best here is Billy's mother, who after a quick call to the doctor accepts the plan with perfect equanimity, but Rockwell's sensibilities (if that's the word) are so uncannily close to those of the average ten year-old boy that one begins to admire Billy as a really sharp operator.










3) "The Lions of Little Rock" by Kristin Levine

The remarkable story of the Little Rock Nine is familiar to many, but what happened next? In this quietly powerful page-turner, Levine focuses her attention on the events that unfolded in Little Rock the year after the integration of the city’s public schools.

Readers meet quiet, 12-year-old Marlee and her outgoing and warm-hearted best friend, Liz, who is instrumental in Marlee’s burgeoning ability to speak her mind to anyone outside of her family. To Marlee’s dismay, Liz suddenly vanishes from school, and the rumor is that she has been passing for white. Marlee initially feels betrayed by her friend, but her understanding of the complicated nature of race relations and politics matures. Levine sensitively portrays her process as she sorts out these feelings, finds a way to stay friends with Liz and becomes involves with the Womens’ Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC) after the city shuts down all of its public schools to prevent integration. When Marlee’s father, a schoolteacher, is fired because of his pro-integration stance, the entire family becomes involved in the Stop This Outrageous Purge (STOP) campaign in an attempt to have all of the teachers rehired and the public schools reopened.

This engaging story, with its emphasis on the impact of friendship and on finding one’s voice when it is most important to be heard, will no doubt appeal to a broad range of readers and inspire many interesting conversations. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)





4) "Cadillac Chronicles" by Brett Hartman

Angry, just-turned-16-year-old Alex, a white boy, and equally angry but very old Lester, a black man, are unlikely road-trip buddies in this novel that transcends its conventions.

The cross-generational road trip is a familiar trope; so is the life-changing cross-racial relationship. Where this book that combines the two stands out is in its refusal to make Lester simply a tool for Alex's coming-of-age. While Lester initially seems to conform to many of the stereotypes, he is, as Alex learns, nevertheless entirely an individual, one who hates his age-inflicted vulnerability with bullheaded passion. They come together—unwillingly—when Alex's frankly odious, local-politician mother takes Lester in to make herself look good. In fairly short order, though, they find themselves on the run together in Lester's Cadillac, on their way to, first, Florida to find the father Alex has never known and then to Alabama, to visit the sister Lester hasn't seen in years. Lester counsels him: "[W]hen you commit to a course of action, don't hesitate. Don't limp-dick yourself into a hole." Accordingly, Alex learns to drive, comes to understand a little of the hard truth of race in post–civil rights–era America and spectacularly loses his virginity in a scene that will surprise readers as much as Alex.

If there's little doubt about the end of the trip, readers will be happy they've gone along for the ride. (Fiction. 14 & up)



5) "Lunch Money" by Andrew Clements

Budding billionaire Greg Kenton has a knack for making money and a serious rival. When he issues his first Chunky Comic Book at the beginning of sixth grade, his neighbor and classmate Maura Shaw produces an alternative. Their quarrel draws the attention of the principal, who bans comics from the school. But when they notice all the other commercial messages in their school, they take their cause to the local school committee. Without belaboring his point, Clements takes on product placement in schools and the need for wealth. “Most people can only use one bathroom at a time,” says Greg’s math teacher, Mr. Z. Greg gets the message; middle-grade readers may ignore it in favor of the delightful spectacle of Greg’s ultimate economic success, a pleasing result for the effort this up-and-coming young businessman puts into his work. Clements weaves intriguing information about comic book illustration into this entertaining, smoothly written story. Selznick’s accompanying black-and-white drawings have the appearance of sketches Greg might have made himself. This hits the jackpot. (Fiction. 9-12)







6) "Here Lies the Librarian" by Richard Peck

“Who’d want to be in the pit crew when you could be in the race?” asks Irene Ridpath, the new librarian at14-year-old Eleanor McGrath’s school. It’s 1914 in the unincorporated Hazelrigg Settlement in Hendricks County, Ind., and feisty Irene and three other Library Science students from Butler University have come to town to fill the vacancy left when the elderly former librarian Electra Dietz died, heaven having stamped her OVERDUE. The young ladies plan to expand the 225-book collection, add shelving, a Photostat machine, lighting and subscriptions to all major magazines. And if the library is remade, so is Eleanor, transformed, with Irene’s help, from grease monkey to young woman with a sense of herself in the world, who wins the first ten-mile stock car race in Hendricks County history. As always, Peck writes with humor and affection about times past, elders and growing up strong. This ode to librarians is a fine companion to Peck’s ode to schoolteachers, The Teacher’s Funeral (2004). (Fiction. 10+)






7) "Fire From The Rock" by Sharon M. Draper

Sylvia is completing her last year of middle school, and she’s excited about going to the local high school with all her friends. But this is not a typical coming-of-age tale because the setting is Little Rock, Ark. in 1957, and there are important decisions to be made that will affect not only Sylvia but all African-Americans. Central High School is to be integrated and Sylvia has been selected as a candidate to enroll. If she attends her segregated school, she’s guaranteed a good education as well as an abundance of activities and an assured social life. If she goes to Central, she will be prohibited from participating in clubs, sports and all social events, and will definitely be subjected to threats and danger to herself and her family. In the end, she chooses the option that is right for her. Draper evokes the escalating tensions and violence of that seminal summer, giving them a sense of immediacy via a strong central character. Compelling. (Historical fiction. 11-15)



8) "Surviving the Applewhites" by Stephanie S. Tolan

Reminiscent of the loud, loving, eccentric family in Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It with You, the Applewhites are brilliantly talented and wildly adverse to mainstream mentality. As successful writers, directors, and artists, they are sure that their creative ideas will help a delinquent teen, Jake, turn away from destructive thinking and behavior and turn toward educational and personal interests that will teach him how to be happy. Even though E.D. admires her family’s brilliance, she knows they don’t have the patience and foresight to adequately plan for success; in fact, she’s the only one in the family with a creative talent for organization. Business and personal associates commonly come to visit, and many end up taking semi-permanent residence in the 16-acre paradise, adding to the already quirky group. Though they enjoy the luxury of pursuing their aspirations in the Applewhite’s comfortable home and modernized school, they are blinded by the Applewhite fame, taking E.D.’s skills for granted until the conflict of promoting Jake’s education and producing a well-known play sweeps everyone into a hurricane of activity and invention requiring the coordination that only E.D. can supply. Tolan (Flight of the Raven, 2001, etc.) systematically combines third-person narration and the semi-omniscient first-person narration of E.D. and Jake, ultimately resulting in well-built characterizations held together in a structure that smoothly organizes the chaos that busy artistic geniuses generate. (Fiction. 11-14)




Thursday, January 21, 2016

Young Adult Novels Book List

Want some young adult books to read? Check out this book list...




1) "Even When You Lie To Me" by Jessica Alcott

Charlie, an insecure high school senior, finds herself in a troubling relationship with a teacher.

Charlie’s tense relationships with her casually cruel mother and her beautiful best friend pop up occasionally in this story, but the distressing heart of the book is Charlie’s relationship with Mr. Drummond, a man who deliberately blurs the lines between teacher and student by swearing in class, engaging in sexual innuendo, and initiating lots of “playful” physical contact with students. When lonely Charlie blossoms under his teasing attentions, he quickly encourages her crush through inappropriately personal, private conversations with her after school about his failed marriage; his reaction to finding her stalking him at his gym is to take her out to lunch. Though it takes some time, readers will be unsurprised by the graphically depicted sexual escalation of the relationship, especially given the increasingly shocking series of encounters that leads up to it. That is, shocking to readers though not to Charlie, who narrates the story with an all-too-believable, single-minded cluelessness. They are given glimpses of Drummond’s ambivalence and remorse, but a disturbing “what might have been” moment he and Charlie share at her graduation ends both story and Charlie’s character arc with unsatisfying ambiguity.

Ultimately, readers see almost none of the anguish that this relationship would likely have caused Charlie, which dangerously de-emphasizes the predatory nature of Mr. Drummond’s attentions.(Fiction. 14-18)



2) "Truest" by Jackie Lea Sommers

A girl looks for definition during the undefinable time before her senior year of high school.

The arrival of Silas shakes up the small town of Green Lake—and preacher’s kid Westlin's life. Her everyday routine of dating a football star and running an auto-detailing business is upended by the mystery of Silas. He's mercurial, curious, and quirky, and there's something strange about his twin sister, Laurel. The more she learns about Silas, the more West likes him, and good-guy boyfriend Elliot pales increasingly by comparison. Everything about Silas seems perfect, even when Laurel’s bad days intrude: there are long conversations about the future, wacky adventures, and nights spent listening to their favorite radio program (a fictional cognate to such documentary shows asThis American Life). But when tragedy strikes, West is left wondering how she should shape her life. What defines her, and who can help her with this task? Sommers’ debut is languidly paced, befitting the season, and somewhat overpopulated with characters, which further slows things down. Still, many readers will identify with bookish, story-loving West and her frustration with her moment in life.

A satisfyingly realistic portrait of small-town life and one girl's spiritual and emotional maturation within it. (Fiction. 14-18)



3) "Like It Never Happened" by Emily Adrian

Budding actor Rebecca Rivers knows who she is and where she’s going; she’s also shadowed by an old, unearned middle school reputation that refuses to die.

Getting the lead in every school play, the only actor exempt from the director’s caustic criticism, Rebecca knows she’s envied by some, but her theater cohort—the Essential Five —has her back, right? But as rumors based on her past resurface and affect her intensifying relationship with Charlie Lamb, she finds there’s a lot she doesn’t know about her fellow thespian overachievers. Tensions mount as floating rumors accrete to and harm a faculty member. Meanwhile, getting to know her estranged sister, Mary, prompts Rebecca to question her own assumptions and their provenance. In the standard-issue teen-lit template—present-tense narration, narrowly focused time span, text larded with brand names and cultural icons—the past is an afterthought, viewed in brief flashbacks. Here, time passes, opening up new narrative possibilities. Rebecca’s understanding of those around her and her place among them evolves over several years, giving both her and readers access to retrospective wisdom. Her world’s sculpted by contemporary culture’s relentless pace, lack of privacy, and unprecedented need—and ability—to label and respond to every transient permutation of human behavior. Theater’s the single constant in Rebecca’s life, a prism through which to interpret life for others and for herself.

Original and intriguing; a powerful debut. (Fiction. 14-18)



4) "Fans of the Impossible Life" by Kate Scelsa

Failed by the institutions and adults who rule their lives, three stressed-out teens rely on their friendship to overcome—or at least survive—abuse, depression, and homophobia.

Having been brutally outed by classmates, Jeremy dreads returning to St. Francis Prep, but at a teacher’s urging, he reluctantly starts an art club. His first recruit is Mira, whose crippling depression last year landed her in a hospital psych ward. There, she met Sebby, who’d been savagely beaten by school homophobes. Their bond became a lifeline for each; now their friendship nourishes Jeremy. Whether it can replace adult support is another matter. Jeremy’s the child of supportive, emotionally mature dads. Mira’s the biracial daughter of a workaholic black lawyer and white stay-at-home mom; her high-achieving sister’s at Harvard. Their high expectations weigh heavily on Mira. Orphaned, openly gay Sebby has endured multiple foster placements. He lacks a safety net. Terrified to return to school, he lies about where he spends his days to his foster mother. Well-intentioned but unfit to parent a gay teen, she threatens to send him to a group home. Constrained by his teacher role, Peter—the adult best-equipped to offer support—can do little as stresses mount. Rounded characters large and small, drawn with insight and empathy, drive the plot.

Buoyant writing and wry humor balance the pathos in this powerful debut, a moving tale of friendship as refuge and shield against a hostile world. (Fiction. 14-18)



5) "Twisted Fate" by Norah Olson

In this bracing tale of modern teenhood, the lives of estranged sisters Ally and Syd become re-entwined through an obsession with a mercurial boy.

With photonegative personalities, the sisters fill opposite dark and light spaces. Ally, the compliant, helpful, muffin-baking sister, is flattered by the attention the new neighbor, Graham, is paying her. On the other hand, Syd, the pot-smoking, rebellious, brainiac, is both fascinated and repelled by Graham’s strangeness and tousled good looks. Syd guesses immediately that the glaze in his eyes comes from drug use. Plagued by his past, Graham sees the sisters as a fresh start in what he believes to be his genius filmmaking career. Syd becomes suspicious when a little boy in the town goes missing, and her terror mounts as Ally’s relationship with Graham becomes increasingly intimate. In short chapters that switch point of view, each character describes events in disconcertingly different ways; the story is compelling in its shifting focus. It’s a riveting scrutiny of a youth culture raised on a regimen of prescription drugs such as Ritalin and compelled to record and share every moment. The ending blindsides readers, shedding a clarifying backward spotlight on the plot and leaving a haunting afterimage.

A goose-bump–raising psychological thriller that will engross even the most jaded mystery enthusiast. (Thriller. 14-18)



6) "For the Record" by Charlotte Huang

Eager to leave her small-town life behind, a high schooler embarks on a whirlwind tour as the new lead singer of an established rock band.

Huang’s debut novel delves into the typical turbulent relationships between teens but against an unusual backdrop. Even after losing a reality TV singing competition, Chelsea jumps at the opportunity to replace the lead singer of popular band Melbourne. She’s thrilled about her band’s summer tour but has a tough time breaking into the group’s well-established chemistry. Her new rock-star status earns the attention of teen movie star Lucas, whose narcissism threatens to derail her fragile relationship with her band members. Chelsea is determined to embrace the adrenaline rush, and she has a real passion for performing. However, her growing feelings for a fellow band member make things even more complicated….Huang is married to a music agent, and she draws upon her knowledge of the industry to create a behind-the-scenes look at tour life. This, realistically, includes drinking and sex but more as backdrop than plot elements. Just as Chelsea’s excitement about joining the tour quickly fades when reality sets in, the novel’s glamorous atmosphere loses its luster due to its slow pacing.

A pleasant read for teens who dream of a glamorous lifestyle. (Fiction. 14-17)



7) "Ruthless" by Carolyn Lee Adams

Can 17-year-old Ruth’s relentless drive to win save her from a serial killer?

When she’s competing or training Tucker, her horse, Ruth Carver pushes herself to the limit to be the best. In fact, the other girls who take lessons from her mother at the stable, part of Ruth’s family’s farm, call Ruth “Ruthless.” Waking in a dark vehicle and sure she has a concussion, Ruth knows she’s been kidnapped and vows to follow her sheriff grandfather’s advice to do anything to escape. When she meets her wolflike abductor and learns she’s not his first victim and that he wants to show her the error of her high-and-mighty ways, Ruth knows this fight will take every ounce of resolve and smarts. She escapes, naked, into the Blue Ridge Mountains’ wilderness, but the “Wolfman” has plans to get his seventh victim back. Seattle screenwriter and sometime stand-up comic Adams’ solid-enough debut plumbs the depths of serial-killer and bitchy-teen psychology in alternating chapters of back story that trade off with Ruth’s present-tense narration of her harrowing experience. Ruth is a strong character, but her nickname fits, and even in extremis she may be more unlikable than sympathetic. Several high-adrenaline set pieces dot this at-times improbable and repetitive thriller.

A between-books read for avid fans of survival fiction and serial-killer tales. (Thriller. 14-18)



8) "The Weight of Feathers" by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Palomas and the Corbeaus are more than traveling circus performers; the two families have magical bloodlines, and as with all magical acts, they have their secrets.

The white-scaled Palomas bury their secrets deep underwater; the black-feathered Corbeaus send them flying up to the highest boughs. One thing that’s not a secret: how much these two families hate each other. Lace Paloma and Cluck Corbeau first meet when she saves him from a beating at the hands of her cousins. After a chemical-rain disaster, Cluck repays the favor but ends up accidentally binding Lace to him and causing her exile from her family. Hoping to cleanse herself of Corbeau “black magic,” she ends up working for them, growing close to the deformed, scarred Cluck. The fabric of lies woven by both their families becomes unraveled, untangling long-standing myths as their own stories entwine. It seems Lace and Cluck are destined to repeat history when an unlikely event leads to answers to questions long left open. Slow momentum early on makes it hard to form attachments to the characters, but readers beguiled by the languorous language—a striking mix of French and Spanish phrases, wry colloquialism, lush imagery, and elevated syntax—will find themselves falling under its spell. The third-person narration alternates between Lace and Cluck, doling out twists and building to a satisfying, romantic conclusion.

A contemporary, magical take on an ever compelling theme. (Urban fantasy. 14 & up)