Skunk Girl

Skunk GirlSheba Karim

Nothing's worse than liking a boy knowing that even if he somehow noticed you and actually liked you back, you'd never be allowed to date him. Well, some things could be worse. Your older sister could be a supernerd who manages to set the academic bar so high you'd never even come close AND be the perfect Pakistani daughter. You could have some severe body hair issues-- like a line of hair running down your back right in the spots where you can't reach it to wax or bleach it. But, if you're Nina Khan, even with all of these problems, you have an excellent voice that makes readers laugh out loud at your dry, wry sense of wit and observation.

It's as though there's an unofficial Pakistani prestige point system; the higher your score, the more esteem you hold among the aunties and uncles, and the more attractive you are as a marriage prospect for their sons and daughters. Everyone starts off with zero, and points are added and subtracted based on different types of criteria. For example:

+5 if you're a doctor
+4 if you went to an Ivy League school
+3 if you're a businessman, a lawyer (the moneymaking kind), or an engineer
+2 if you're fair, if you speak Urdu, or if you're moderately religious
+1 if you're slim (for a woman), or if you're tall (for a man)

-1 if you can't speak Urdu, or if you're fat or short
-2 if you can't understand Urdu, or if you're dark
-3 if you're a religious fanatic
-4 if you're an artist, musician, poet, and anything else in the creative fields
-5 if you're gay or an atheist

Salman has to be at least an eleven. So does Sonia. Asiya's brother Zeeshan is up there too. If I do get into an Ivy League school, I'll be at least a six. But I have a feeling, when everything is said and done, that my score could end up in the negatives, and so I will be a disappointment to my parents, and the aunties and uncles will be reluctant to allow their songs to marry me. But, once you're able to leave home, maybe the amount of fun you have is inversely proportional to your score, which would mean all those gay Pakistani atheists out there must be having the absolute time of their lives.

I loved Nina's voice. I loved her snarky headings of the short chapters. I loved how she was just the right amount of self-involved-- a believable teen with issues she was dealing with but not too much invented woe-is-me drama. I loved how the fact she couldn't go to parties and stuff was commented on, but not really an issue (except with her arch-nemesis). I also loved her big, jolly, happy father. So nice to have a family life that's stricter and traditional in a way many Americans aren't used to but WITHOUT the crazy mean authoritative parents. Seriously, I loved her father.

Overall, just a lot of love for this one.


Book Provided by... my local library

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Big Nate

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself Lincoln Peirce

Nate knows his day will be awesome, because the fortune cookie told him "Today you will surpass all others." Only, in trying to find a way to surpass all others, all he does is manage to rack up the detention slips.

Half written, half illustrated (Nate fancies himself a cartoonist) it's definitely one for your Wimpy Kid fans. Very silly and funny it's not a book you need to sell that hard. If your kids aren't already clamoring for it (we can't keep it on the shelf) just show it to them (MAYBE you'll have to open a page) and they'll take it.

The action only follows 1 day, but it gets the highs and lows of junior high life pretty well and Nate, bless his heart, is a really likable guy, he just can't catch a break. (Although I can't fault most of his teachers for whipping out the detention slips!)

Good, silly fun, especially of the boy readers in your life.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Bright Young Things

Bright Young Things Anna Godbersen

In the summer of 1929, Cordelia Grey gets married in rural Ohio and skips town that very night with her best friend, Letty. They're destined for the glitz and glamor of New York City. Cordelia's convinced that the famous bootlegger Darius Grey is actually her father. Letty's convinced she has a spot on the stage. Already in New York is Astrid--girlfriend of Darius's son, Charlie and daughter to a socialite mother who's about to ruin her third marriage.

The cast is much smaller than The Luxe, and I kinda miss the large number of characters, but it has that same gossipy, history soaked drama charm. All of the characters are, to some degree, on the shady side of respectable (or at least end up there). I loved the time period and how well Godbersen immerses you in the 1929 New York, but... it doesn't have the the same drive (? maybe? is that the word I'm looking for?) as The Luxe. I enjoyed it and can't wait until the next one, but it wasn't as compelling as The Luxe and I didn't love love love love it in the same way.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Invisible Girl

Invisible Girl Mary Hanlon Stone

After Stephanie's drunk, abusive mother walks out on their family, she is sent from Boston to California to live with a wealthy family friend. In Boston, she never had friends (ever since the sleep over when parents came to pick up their kids and found Stephanie's mom drunk) and knows how to be invisible. Now she's thrust into a world of pretty people and she reinvents herself to fit into their world. It is only when her host sister Annie's queen-bee status is challenged by a beautiful newcomer that the lies Stephanie has built up start crumbling.

Eh. Stephanie annoyed me a lot. For someone who was supposed to be smart, she did a lot of stupid things. For someone who spent so much time observing people and reading, she had no idea how the world worked, which I found to be rather unbelievable. There were also weird character things, like she has this list of vocab words and uses big words to hide herself, but doesn't know what pasta is? Really?

Also, WTF was up with her father sending her away? WHY was that necessary? Her father really sucked (never did anything to stop the abuse and sends her away and won't let her come back with no explanation?) and while Stephanie thought about it (a bit) it was never really explored, just kinda put out there and dropped. The basic premise required a suspension of disbelief that I wasn't entirely ready to give.

It's like there were two stories that didn't quite come together-- Stephanie dealing with her mom and the break-up of her family and Stephanie being a poor outside observer to the rich and beautiful.

That said, it was a quick read that, despite my issues and lingering questions, I did get sucked into. The social politics and mean-girlness of Annie's group of friends was well-done, especially how Annie reacts to the arrival of Amal.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

A Time of Miracles

A Time of Miracles by Anne-Laure Bondoux, translated from the French by Y. Maudet

Koumail knows that his real name is Blaise Fortune. He is a French citizen. As a baby, he was rescued from a train wreck by Gloria. Since the age of 7, they have been on the run from the rebels, from the war. He doesn't understand the war and everytime he asks, Gloria tells him that it's useless to try to understand the Caucasus. It's not the concern of a French citizen. And so they try to get from Georgia to France, finding kindness and refuge, fleeing from rebels and militias. The politics aren't fully explained until the end and it's hard to know what they're running from, but this confusion that the reader feels is the same that Koumail feels-- he knows they are refugees and that the soldiers mean badness and that's all the reader knows as well.

It's hard to pinpoint, this book. It's quiet and fast-moving at the same time. We start when he is 7, we end when he is 20, but the book is only 180 pages long and the chapters are short. Koumail narrates his story simply, and to the point. Despite all the action, it's still going to be a book for your readers-- Koumail's constant upheaval is just the way his life is, so he's not that focused on it. Instead, he focuses on the relationships he makes-- the friends he meets and inevitably loses along the way. Through it all his is relationship with Gloria, the woman who has raised him and his fear that he will lose her, too.

The twist isn't that hard to see coming, but the twist isn't what's important. It's how Koumail grows, how he focuses on the positive so he doesn't give in to despair and his journey.

It's not a book for everyone, but I really loved it.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Pick-Up Game

Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court ed. by Marc Aronson and Charles R Smith, Jr.

9 poems, 9 photographs, 9 stories, 10 authors, 2 editors, and 1 full day of basketball.

These short stories follow the action of a day of basketball at the Cage, which is the West 4th Street Court near Washington Square in Manhattan. We have new players, good players, bad players, players who talk a good game, girls who want to know players, film students, friends, and old-timers watching the action, shooting the balls and shooting the breeze.

There's more than enough basketball action here to entice your reluctant readers with a good sports book, but the writing, diversity of characters and voices (in every single way), and different takes on the same people and events will draw in your anti-sports book people. I mean, you're looking at writers like Walter Dean Myers, Sharon G. Flake, Joseph Bruchac, Adam Rapp and Rita Garcia-Williams. How can you NOT find something to enjoy about this?

I especially enjoyed Charles R. Smith Jr's poems and photos that started each story. They helped keep the action moving as we shifted focus and voice, but I also enjoyed how different the poems were-- different styles and voices and perspectives as well. The photographs were a great design addition.

There are reoccurring characters in the book and I like Aronson's note at the end that gives some of the history (and the real-life legends mentioned) as well as a bit about the process. Aronson and Smith chose the setting and date and gave each author a time slot. Author's couldn't start writing until the story before theirs was done, so they knew who was on the court and who was playing well that day. A great way to write a collaboration that turned out really well.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Hello

Hi all!

Sorry for the disappearance. I thought I had pre-scheduled further out than I did. Oops!

Anyway, earlier this month I presented on multi-cultural and international books for teens at the Maryland Library Association Annual Conference. I think it went well.

I'm very excited that the 6th Annual (OMG! 6!) 48 Hour Book Challenge is almost here! I love this event. Sadly, I'm not sure if I'll be doing it this year. That's one of my last (if not my last) weekend before I become a parent. In addition to trying to enjoy some time, or sleep, or just spending an unholy amount of time trying to get off the couch, I have a feeling I might be madly putting the nursery together at the last minute. Or something.

On the other hand, most of my library books come from the library I work at and I may be using that weekend to finish reading anything I still have checked out as I transition to the library that it near my house...

WHO KNOWS? All I know is that *you* should totally sign up and DO IT because it's very good fun.

Also, we're under a month until the baby comes. I don't know what the blog is going to look like this summer. Posting might be spotty at best. Or I'll update every day at 1:14am. WHO KNOWS? Not me. I know enough to just see what happens instead of trying to plan it.

Bear with me. :)

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

Confessions Of The Sullivan Sisters Natalie Standiford

When The Almighty (otherwise known as their grandmother) declares that a member of the Sullivan clan has offended her greatly, and therefore the entire family will be cut out of her will, the family decides it must have been one of the girls. The only way for the family to regain their promised wealth is for the guilty party to confess, so the three Sullivan sisters write out their confessions.

Norrie dated an older man (interestingly enough, no one really mentions that he is probably African-American, the issue is his age and what happens in their relationship, which I really liked.)

Jane wrote a blog publicizing the family's secrets.

Sassy became immortal.

The premise is interesting and I liked the internal politics that play out in their set of Baltimore's upper crust. I liked how the sisters dealt with their wealth and society and tried to find themselves in the world they had been born to. The tone is light and often funny.

Overall though, I just liked the Sullivan family. I liked the sibling relationships and their relationship with their parents, especially Daddy-O. Sometimes their parents are absent or just clueless, but even though they don't have the most respect for them (especially their mother) the kids obviously love their parents and their parents obviously love and care for them. I also really liked the character of The Almighty. The Sullivan grandmother is the grand dame of Baltimore society, but through the book we see her struggles and private life that round her out a bit more for both the reader and the rest of her family.

I really liked it.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Split

Split Swati Avasthi

Jace's driven through the night, across the country, with blood on his face to reach his brother's doorstep, hoping his brother will take him in.

Jace's father is physically abusive. Jace grew up watching his dad beat the hell out of his mom and older brother. Then Christian disappeared and Jace's father started coming for Jace. Now he's kicked Jace out and he's on his way to find the brother who got out and left him there.

While this book explores how one does or does not escape an abusive situation, what it really focuses on is what happens next. How do you deal with the emotional and physical scars? How do you move on with life knowing that people you love are left behind? How can you get them out? Can you?

First off, Jace's dad is a judge. Major props for making this about a rich family. So often books with problems like abuse or drinking feature characters in a lower socio-economic class. Because they're poor people problems. (Ugh.)

This is a brutal book. Avasthi doesn't spare us the details of the beatings and more. Jace and Christian are broken. Their relationship is broken, and there are times when you don't think that they or their relationship can ever heal.

That said, I couldn't put it down. It's powerful and moving, but plot-wise it also moves really well as it shifts between Jace's life with Christian and flashbacks to Jace's life with his parents.

I wasn't sure about reading this one. It got RAVE reviews, yes, but I knew it was going to be a brutal book and a major downer just from the plot descriptions. And, of course, the better written a book is, the more brutal it's going to be, right? Or at least the more it's going to get to you. But, we were discussing Cybil's winners at book club (this won for YA fiction) AND we put it on the teen notable list for the in-system training I'm co-coordinating so I had to read it. I couldn't put it down. It's just that good. The pacing is impeccable and it moves really quickly, even more so when you consider that it's a book driven by character growth, not plot. Amazing, amazing work.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss Stephanie Perkins

Ok-- this is just as scrummy as everyone has been saying it is.

Anna's not happy about being shipped off to Paris for her senior year in high school. She recognizes that yes, she should be excited about. PARIS! BOARDING SCHOOL! PARIS!

But... she misses her brother and her friends and the guy that she was almost dating-- the one that she would be dating if she hadn't moved across an ocean as soon as things started to heat up. Plus, you know, she doesn't speak any French.

Paris, though, is PARIS. Parts of school are challenging, but she quickly finds friends, learns to enjoy coffee, discovers French pastries, and finds many, many, many movie theaters to visit. PLUS there's Etienne St. Clair, her new best friend. The one that has a girlfriend. The one that Anna is totally hot for (not that she'll admit it, but she is.)

While it's an overall light book, there's a lot there that I really enjoyed-- I loved the dynamics of Anna's new group of friends-- dynamics that Anna doesn't always get because she's a new comer. I thought the hole that Ellie's graduation created was really well handled. I also loved how much had changed at home when Anna was away and how hard that hit her.

My second most-favorite thing about this book (first being St. Clair. YUMMY!) was that Anna's father was so clearly based on Nicholas Sparks. And the part where Anna compares her father's works of love and death with Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto? And how both stories in Kitchen "are about heartaache and mourning, but they're tinges with this... simplicity and romance." PERFECT.

I also just loved Anna's voice in general (but not her love of Lost in Translation.)

Overall, a perfect romance without too much self-invented drama.

Plus, PARIS! BOARDING SCHOOL! PARIS!


Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Back When You Were Easier to Love

Back When You Were Easier to Love Emily Wing Smith

Zan was Joy's perfect boyfriend, one of the few things that made life in Haven bearable. Until the day he decided he couldn't take Haven anymore, got his GED, left town and cut Joy out of his life completely. Joy needs closure and ropes Zan's best friend Noah (the epitome of everything that is Stepford-creepy-perfect about Haven) into a roadtrip to seek Zan out and get some answers.

But, as we flip between the past of ZanandJoy and the current of Joy searching for him, we realize that Zan might not have been everything Joy thinks he was...

LOVE.

First off, this one gets mad, mad props for being a book about normal Mormons. Nothing scary, no compounds or sister-wives. Just a story that happens to have Mormon characters. I think Mormons tend to get shafted in teen lit and in pop culture in general. There are some freaky scary interpretations out there of *every* religion, not just LDS, but that's not how we paint it. I remember last year a request came through on YALSA-BK to help put together a list of books about Mormons. The suggestions that came back were Sister Wife, Chosen One, Burned... none of which paint a pretty picture of the Mormon faith-- in fact none of which paint a picture that most LDS-ers would recognize as their faith.

So, score one on that one.

I also love that there is a faith-based struggle here. One of Zan's big things, that it takes Joy awhile to realize, is that he doesn't believe. I also love that Joy does really believe, but she still struggles with Haven (which I think is a suburb of Salt Lake) which she describes as "a town where it's hard to tell where belief ends and culture begins-- I don't like the culture, but I do like the belief." (p107)

I like that there is definite swoon-worthyness here, even though kisses are treated very carefully by the characters. It may be just hand holding, but trust me, it's hottttt. And I read bodice rippers. Anyone who can make hand holding this steamy gets definite props. I also loved the guy reversal. It's not unusual to have a girl fixated on one unattainable guy and eventually realizing that the perfect guy has been right next to her all along. Usually, Mr. Unattainable is the most popular boy in school and Mr. Perfect is the geeky artistic type. Not in this one. Mr. Unattainable is geeky and artistic (but totally pompous and his poetry sucks) and Mr. Perfect is the popular jock.

It's funny and snarky and all around wonderful.

It gets a perfect 10 on friendships, heartbreak, recovery, road trips, and enough Barry Manilow to make Jessica Darling swoon.

ARC Provided by... publisher at ALA, at my request

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.