The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

“It’s all in the view. That’s what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count.”

After her father dies, Macy hopes to work at a library or more importantly, the library information desk where she can waste the summer away as she waits for her boyfriend to come home from some geeky camp. Instead, Macy finds herself working for a catering business, or more specifically, Wish Catering, where she finds a random group of friends, but more importantly, she finds Wes.  He’s kinda weird and doesn’t really fit in with her lifestyle, but she’s comfortable enough with him to talk about her father’s death and finally face the grief that was threatening to overwhelm her.  In her novel, Dessen tackles such issues as denial, grief, comfort, sadness, and love as the reader engages with the story and watches as Macy fills her life with happiness again.

The book, while being quick paced and having some likable and wacky characters, seemed a bit unrealistic and cliché to me.  This book will probably be enjoyed by young adults, but adults (especially adults that have experienced grief) will have a hard time relating to the issues Macy is faced with.  Macy’s attitude that she needs to be perfect in order to be liked is an overdone cliché and a bit immature for older readers.  The characters, while somewhat likeable, are a bit flat and sometimes annoying. After all that, I would only recommend this book to young adults and wouldn’t recommend it to those 20+.

To read a few reviews, click here and here!

Blog Review — Jane Yolen’s Journal

Two to four posts a month keep readers of Jane Yolen’s blog up to date on her reading, writing, travels, and other adventures. Personal stories make Yolen feel relatable and accessible, but the real treasure is her talk about her own experiences with writing, including her struggles with editing (and re-editing) stories in order to both satisfy her editor and keep the stories cohesive, and her ongoing receipt of rejection letters. Yolen also occasionally shares her poetry–in fact, a recent post describes her process of finding just the right words to express a thought on in-between spaces, helped in part by a chance to bounce ideas back and forth with a friend. Along with her blog, Yolen’s website offers resources developed/gathered for children, writers, teachers and storytellers, as well as information on her poetry, her travel schedule, and awards she’s won.

Yolen keeps her website content-rich and current, emphasising, again, her accessibility, as well as her commitment to connecting with her readers. Like her writing, which includes fantasy, science fiction, non-fiction, poetry, picture books and graphic novels, Yolen’s website promises broad appeal and plenty of content. Whether readers are long-time fans or newcomers looking for stories about dragons-dinosaurs-folklore-the end of the world, Yolen’s blog is a great place to find out about who the author is and what she writes.

Note: IE seems to have some trouble with her Works and Book Trailers pages–scroll down to the bottom of the page, or try Firefox instead.

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle

When Adam Eddington is recommended for an internship in Portugal with marine biologist Dr. Calvin O’Keefe, he’s ready for the challenge. His confidence is shaken, though, when the doctor’s daughter, Poly, is kidnapped while temporarily in Adam’s care. Adam rescues Poly, but doing so places him in the middle of a conflict between Dr. O’Keefe and those with plans for his research—a conflict in which the “good guy” is far from apparent (for Adam, at least), and the potential for serious abuses of power is real. The Arm of the Starfish is on one level a spy novel, complete with exotic locations and conflicting powers supported by networks of allies and secret passwords. At its core, however, the story’s focus is on the question of trust: newly aware of his inability to handle things alone and faced with two very convincing stories, Adam is left with no option but to offer his loyalty to one side and accept the consequences.

Whether writing realistic fiction, fantasy, or political suspense, L’Engle has a knack for asking universally relevant questions in creative and engaging ways. With attention drawn to A Wrinkle in Time for its 50th anniversary, this is a great time for readers to discover some of L’Engle’s other novels. An added bonus: L’Engle’s characters have a habit of reappearing in other novels. Those familiar with Wrinkle will find out what happened to Meg and Calvin here, while those first introduced to L’Engle’s world through The Arm of the Starfish can follow Adam to A Ring of Endless Light and Troubling a Star, or rediscover Poly in Dragons in the Waters and An Acceptable Time.

Read the Kirkus review, or the more involved Tor review.

The Sad Book by Michael Rosen

“Sometimes I’m sad and I don’t know why.
It’s just a cloud that comes along and covers me up.”

Sometimes people are sad for no reason at all, but in this story, Michael is sad thinking about the death of his son who died suddenly in his youth. Michael copes with his sadness by telling himself that everyone is sad at one time or another and tries to do something everyday that will make him happy. He goes on to explain how sometimes people try to cover up their sadness to make it more acceptable for others.  In other moments, he explains how he’s just angry at his son for “dy[ing] like that”.

This book is a very personal story that can be emotionally felt by older children and adults alike; especially, for anyone that has a loved one pass away very suddenly and doesn’t understand what happened or even why it happened.  I do not recommend  this title to younger children, because the topic is quite heavy and can be very burdensome to a younger child. In addition, grief and suffering are presented in a very abstract way and may be more confusing to younger children than helpful  As with any book, I recommend reading it to understand whether or not the book is appropriate to give to someone coping with their loss.

To read a review, click here and here!

Merry Christmas!

We’re taking a bit of a Christmas break, but will be back Wednesday!

Blog Review — Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is a prolific writer for children and teens, perhaps best known for her Giver series. Her blog is a frequently updated, journal-style publication, located on the her website alongside videos, copies of past speeches, book news, and a handful of frequently asked questions (though she does her best to respond to those who e-mail her directly). Lowry’s writing is chatty and personable, but while portions of her website are explicitly aimed at the students and teachers most likely to be reading her books, the subject matter and tone of her blog seem more suited to adult readers. Most posts are short musings about personal experiences, from having her roof repaired after Hurricane Sandy to discovering via the audio version of her latest book, Son, that she has overused certain words. The tone is matter-of-fact, sometimes rueful, occasionally weary.

That said, if the goal is to gain a bit of insight into the mind and experiences of the author behind the stories, Lowry’s blog is a good choice. Less focused on ideas or on the writing process than some, Lowry’s posts tend to come across more like personal letters, updating friends on events, memories, and small curiosities that have been on her mind lately. The material does not seem to be polished for a particular audience, and readers may appreciate the trust that that implies.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (“inspired by an idea from Soibhan Dowd”), illustrated by Jim Kay

When bad things are happening, it can be tough for a thirteen year old boy to get his hands on the truth. Conor’s mom is sick, and ever since his teachers found out, they’ve been letting him get away with anything. At home, his mom and grandmother argue over how much to tell Conor – but neither asks him whether he wants to know. And then, one night, a monster arrives at Conor’s window, demanding that Conor tell the truth that he’s been hiding from himself.

The best first: Jim Kay’s illustrations are glorious — dark and detailed, with an emotional strength about them that grabs the attention and adds hugely to the power of the story to linger in the imagination. The characters are believable, and Ness does a great job of bringing the reader into Conor’s experience, offering comfort for those who have experienced something similar, and increasing understanding and compassion in those who have not. The fantasy element adds mythic depth to the story — in keeping with the theme of the novel, there’s a sense of universal truth here, even as the majority of the story lives in the particulars of selfish fathers and guardians too caught up in their own pain to see and address the needs of a child. Although, to me, the story doesn’t quite fulfill its potential — it stays too much on the surface, moves along too quickly, to really develop the depth of truth it hints at – this is absolutely a novel worth sharing.

Read about how Ness and Kay turned Siobhan Dowd’s idea into A Monster Calls, or read a review written from a doctor’s perspective.

Watch a trailer (and see a sample of the illustrations!):

Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

Brontë and Tennyson are at odds again. Soft-hearted Brontë has started dating local mystery Brewster Rawlins. Tennyson doesn’t want a guy nicknamed “Bruiser” anywhere near his twin sister. When Brontë accuses her brother of being a snob and a bully, Tennyson follows Brewster home from school, looking for further arguments against the relationship. Instead, he finds himself drawn into Brewster’s story. As the truth about Brewster gradually becomes clear — who he is, what he can do, and the price he pays — Brontë and Tennyson discover that this new friendship requires more of them than either knew they had to offer.

I picked up this book both because I had enjoyed Neal Shusterman’s Unwind and because the premise reminded me of one of the most intriguing gifts in Zenna Henderson’s People stories — the ability to literally share someone else’s pain. What I found was that, once again, Shusterman had told a great story that left me thinking about something deep: in this case, the role of suffering in relationships and in personal development. The choice to tell the story not only in four different voices — those of Brontë, Tennyson, Brewster, and Brewster’s little brother, Cody — but also in four different forms (Brewster’s chapters, for example, are written entirely in verse, while Cody’s are presented in stream-of-consciousness form) adds further distinction to already well-developed and dynamic characters. Readers willing to follow the somewhat complicated path of the narrative will find themselves engaged in both the unravelling of Brewster’s secret and the overarching exploration of the cost — and value — of suffering.

Read the Kirkus or Publishers Weekly review (warning: both reviews contain significant spoilers).

Read a sample

Watch a book trailer:

A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson

This book details the story of six siblings struggling to cope with the recent death of their mother. The children try to keep their family together when their father withdraws to his work. Eleven year old Corrie describes how the eldest child, Sebastian, has begun a role-playing game of Knights of the Round Table which turns out to be quite the adventurous escape from reality. The fantasy starts to crumble when Roz, the second oldest, starts to find reality much more interesting than anything in a made up world. Corrie begins to worry that Sebastian may have lost his interest in reality, and struggles between her new friend, Meredith, and the fantasy that may no longer hold her reality together.

In 164 pages, Kit Pearson engages the reader with topics such as death, grief, mental illness, coping, and growing up. 11-year-old Corrie is faced with some awfully big issues for her age but the ending wraps up the story in a nice “Happily-ever-after.” Because the book is set in the 1950’s and there are references to Elvis and other 50’s references, I believe this book would be nostalgic for any adult. The same references, however, may be lost on the young adults of our generation.

For book reviews, click here and here!

Blog Review — Friends with Boys (Faith Erin Hicks)

Faith Erin Hicks offers a blog in archive (the last post was published in February of 2012) focused on the development of her webcomic-turned-graphic-novel, Friends with Boys. Posts cover topics such as the places and experiences that inspired the story, advice about the writing/illustrating process, and the realities of life as a cartoonist (e.g. marketing, working with writers, pitching a graphic novel). Hicks's writing is personal and engaging, and her comment threads were active, with visitors interacting not only with the material and its author–Hicks responded to a number of the comments, and a couple of posts reference earlier comment-thread discussions–but even occasionally with one another. The blog feels genuinely interactive.

Though understandable (the project on which the blog is based was completed early in 2012), the lack of recent posts from Hicks is disappointing, increasingly so as I've discovered the quality of the existing content. Still, the current setup does have some distinct benefits. As a closed system, the entire blog can be read in an afternoon, and favourite posts can be easily found in the archive list. At the same time, readers experience Hicks's personable nature and willingness to engage with her readers — a tendency that shows up, too, in her much more up-to-date Twitter presence. While not an ongoing resource, then, Hicks's Friends with Boys blog is certainly one worth recommending to anyone interested in the “how” of webcomic/graphic novel creation.

P.S. You can also check out Hicks’s other artwork on her Deviant Art page!