Young Adult

Goth Girl Rising

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult /

TW was right, Goth Girl writing letters to Neil Gaiman was a nice touch. Without the letters, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed Goth Girl Rising nearly as much. The poetry pages were a nice touch, as well – slowly adding stanzas until we get to the end. Lyga does a nice job of building us up and then bringing us back down safely – or as safely as you can get when you’re dealing with Kyra.

Great sequel.

Normally I want a series I like to continue but I think in this case, Lyga should call it finished.

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Fathom

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I don’t know how many times I can say it – Cherie Priest is a brilliant YA writer. Hell, she’s a brilliant writer PERIOD. Fathom was fascinating. The stone girl and the water girl. The water witch and a servant of the earth. The old pirate revisiting his old haunts – sailing a party vessel, retrieving his old treasure, wandering Ybor City and darn right grouchy about the Gasparilla festival – and who could blame him for that? The Iron Mountain. The bells. A wonderfully creepy story with amazingly written characters.  Brilliant, really brilliant.

I can’t wait for Priest’s Steampunk… Clementine can’t get here fast enough for me.

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Rage: A Love Story

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult /

I didn’t mean to read Rage: A Love Story all the way through, last night. But – I couldn’t put it down.

Peters writes at the beginning of the book that this was the story she did not want to write … I can see why. Nobody wants to face partner abuse in teen relationships and certainly not partner abuse in queer teen relationships. But… thank goodness Julie Anne Peters did it. I’m not sure I know of another author who could have pulled this story off – The Joyland entries were a smart, smart addition to the story.

I literally could not put the book down and stayed up hours after TW had gone to sleep (that really never happens, it’s usually the other way around.)

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The Celestial Globe

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

The second book in the Kronos Chronicles wasn’t quite as good as the first. The Celestial Globe had all of our favorite characters but for most of the book they were split off from each other. Well, not exactly. It was Petra and Astrophil and Dee in England and Neel and Tomik together… in several places. Which was interesting, very interesting, but it took too long to bring the whole gang together. Or maybe it was that once they were all together, the story moved too quickly and we didn’t get to see the relationships of the three kids together.

It looks like the next book will remedy that, though…

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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

And here’s the problem with the Cybils – and with any awards really – books that don’t really “go together” are judged in the same category. How do you put Where the Mountain Meets the Moon in the same category with something like Farwalker or Dreamdark? 11 Birthdays is a completely different type of “fantasy  or science fiction” than Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which is different from The Prince of Fenway Park, which is different than… it goes on.

Folk tales should not be up against science fiction.

Modern fantasy should not be up against folk tales.

Bah.

Can we just give every book in the Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade) a prize. They’ve all been excellent. Every single one of them.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon felt familiar – like I’d read it before, or like I’ve read all of those Chinese folk tales before, in one book – or maybe like I know Minli. If you do read aloud with your kids, this would be a nice one – short chapters and within most of the chapters are stand alone tales that are being told within the story. So if you’ve really only got just two minutes to read, there are a lot of easy stopping points – and you can drag the book out for a long time, if you have kids who like that.

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The Prince of Fenway Park

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I didn’t expect to like The Prince of Fenway Park, much less love it. But – it rocked. I mean it really did.

I know a good bit about baseball but I’m not a fan. I only watch it when we go to dinner at Booby’s and I’m facing a TV that is playing a baseball game.  So really, why would a kids book about baseball appeal to me at all? Well… it was a fantasy. It had great characters, and I’m not just talking about the Hall of Famers (and those who should be in the Hall of Fame) but the cursed creatures who lived underneath Fenway Park – those characters were brilliantly written.

I was almost sorry to see the book end.

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So Punk Rock

2010, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Young Adult /

A mix between a YA novel and a graphic novel, So Punk Rock And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother was funny. A little predictable – but funny. Did you read Fat Kid Rules the World? The book about making the fat kid a rockstar drummer? Well… yea. Happens again.  Predictable like that. All of the characters do/learn pretty much what you’d expect but the Jewish kid twist makes it just different enough that I didn’t feel like I’d heard this story before. Fifty times. 

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The Poison Eaters

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, short stories, Young Adult /

I think I might have to stop saying things like, “I don’t really like short stories” because the last few books of short stories have been pretty darn good. Then again, not everyone can tell a story like Holly Black… The Poison Eaters was excellent. I don’t think there was a single story that I didn’t like. A couple of them, I LOVED. The story set in the Philippines was perfect.  The story about the three sisters, fabulous. Every single one of them – fabulous.

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11 Birthdays

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Young Adult /
11 Birthdays http://www.amazon.com/11-Birthdays-Wendy-Mass/dp/0545052408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF… was tons of fun. I loved it – but I’m a big fan of the movie Ground Hog Day, so it makes sense that I would love this book. Two kids relive their 11th birthday over and over again until they can fix something that went wrong.

It’s a lot of fun – easy to read – by the end, you’re frustrated for them, having to do it over and over again even after they think they’ve fixed what needed fixing.

Excellent Cybil shortlist book. Kids will have a lot of fun with it.

Sent from my iPad

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