Tag: Young Adult

Native American kid Arnold Spirit Junior lives on a reservation in Spokane, Washington. He likes drawing comics, reading, and messing around with his best friend (skirting danger by climbing a hundred-foot-plus pine tree for example). He describes how dead-end life feels on the reservation- seeing so many people around him sunk in alcoholism and poverty, attending more than forty funerals in less than fifteen years. Decides he wants something better and transfers to an all-white high school off the reservation. He has to hitchike or walk most days to get there, since his family usually doesn’t have enough money to put gas in the car. Adjustment is tough. Kids at the new school ignore him, or tease. People back home resent him for what they see as a betrayal. He just wants more opportunity. He makes the baseketball team but then has to go up against the team he used to be on- from the rez high school. Full of guilt for trying to live one foot on each side of a fence, as it were. So much sad stuff in this book- deaths in the tribe, sister who moves away, best friend now hates him, etc. Yet there’s also great strength in the family, the traditions. And everything is treated lightly- held at arm’s length by the humor (or at least, that’s how it felt to me). I get why this book was banned in some places- the narrator is a teenage boy and he talks frankly about things like masturbation and staring at women’s breasts – it wasn’t terribly offensive. More offensive is what I learned afterwards, of the author’s behavior. I still like the book okay, but now have no interest in anything else by this writer.

Sonia is struggling to get through highschool. She wants to be the first person in her family to graduate. Her parents are first-generation immigrants to the United States. Her father is always busy with two or three low-paying labor jobs, and her mother never learned to speak English. Their house is always crowded and expectations on Sonia are high- to clean up, cook meals, help her mother decipher bills, care for her new siblings (who are born halfway through the story) and so on. Family demands often keep her home from school more often than not, but sometimes she doesn’t want to be there- seeing her brothers laze around and use drugs, her drunken uncle make messes and unwanted advances towards her, a religious aunt dropping by unannounced acting super judgemental. Sonia has a plan to get ahead by doing her best at school, but her attempts always seem thwarted. More than ever when her mother sends her to Mexico to visit her grandmother for the summer- cutting short her school year- and frustrating her with lack of amenities and differences in culture she experiences in the very rural setting. But things change during her visit with relatives. She learns more about where her family has come from, starts to see things differently. Not so much resentment and criticism, a bit more compassion and understanding. Maybe upon returning to the States after this vacation, she can start to make a real difference in her life.

Things get in the way again. In particular, her nasty uncle. And there’s a boy who is fixated on becoming her novio– but she’s determined to not let that distract her from her goals. Honestly I thought the boyfriend was a little weird. I was positively surprised to realize when I was done reading, this book was written by a male author- I thought he got a female voice down very well- but the romantic phrases that boy kept repeated were just a bit too much. Absurd, at times. (Who talks like that? Is this what the author thinks girls dream of hearing??) There was one typo in the book that threw me off- I actually read the sentence three times to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood the homophone. And then there was a scene where her grandmother was killing a chicken for the family dinner, she saw the head chopped off, and made a statment that chickens don’t have eyelids. What? Um, YES THEY DO. Also disappointing was how briefly the time in Mexico was treated. For how life-changing this seemed to be, there wasn’t enough said about it. The story skipped over that part relatively quickly, which disappointed me.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this book. Made me feel happy to be reading a good book again.

Borrowed from my teenager.

A book off my pre-teen’s stack. She asked me if it would be “okay” for her, so I agreed to read some of it first, curious myself as I’ve never read a book with an asexual character before. Having started, I kept reading to the end, even though it was rather long. The short chapters (some only a page or two!) were just right for my abbreviated attention span right now (still recovering from the car accident). I suggested my daughter read it when she’s older- there’s plenty of frank discussion on sexuality. (Nothing shocking or offensive, but I think it would make her uncomfortable right now for sure).

The main character is Georgia, who at the end of high school is somewhat dismayed to have never kissed anyone. She loves the idea of romance, but when it comes to experiencing it, nothing works for her. Has she just never met the right person yet? She’s determined to find love while at college, in spite of never having had feelings for anyone before- male or female. Her two best friends are at the same college, and she gets assigned a roommate; soon the four of them are often together, attempting to put on a Shakespeare play. Things get messy and complicated when Georgia rather unwisely decides to use her friends to experiment with her ability to feel attraction. Her roommate and her friend Pip seem to hate each other at first, but just can’t admit they really like each other. It’s not until Georgia comes across a group of LGBTQIA students that she starts to realize that not feeling attracted to anyone might simply be who she is. And that it doesn’t at all mean a diminished life, or one devoid of love, because her friendships can be just as strong and supportive as any romance.

It’s a good story with some nice points about relationships and being considerate of other people feelings (by showing how badly it goes when you’re not). But it kind of dragged on for me. Several parts where other characters explained things to Georgia, felt like an info dump. I didn’t mind too much though. The incredibly short chapters made it easy to dip in and out of this book, which was just what I needed right now.

Borrowed from the public library.

In this case, I knew from the start the book was a retelling of sorts. Lord of the Flies, set in today’s eara, mostly girls from a private high school (and a few boys). They’re a team of fencers who were travelling on a private plane that crashed on an island and yes, the pilot died. Some of the kids die in the beginning too. And things only go downhill from there. Quite a few of them have remarkable skills and abilities- one had a mother with a greenhouse so knows all about useful plants, another had an aunt who used a loom, so she knows how to weave, and so on. There’s a lot of parallels to Lord of the Flies– from the pink rocks and iconic conch shell to a torn parachute in tree branches. And the dissolution of social norms. Interestingly, this story shows racism from another side- the dark-skinned Indian girls quickly set themselves up as superior- better able to adapt, avoiding sunburn. They try to set up rules and organize themselves for survival and hopefully, eventual rescue, but it falls apart before too long. Bad things happen, horrific injuries, betrayals. One girl struggles with mental illness- not having access to medication- and the others pretty much ignore her plight. Another is constantly ruminating on the family she left behind (including a sister who had an eating disorder). Some of them want to plan an escape, but then others realize maybe they don’t want to leave this brutal paradise where there are no adults, they can just do what they want . . . So much crammed in here. The island also has every little thing you’d imagine in an exotic survival story- secret trysts, poison frogs, a tar pit, a bird species thought to be long-extinct, an unseen menacing enemy who wants them to leave. The story moves at a quick pace- a bit too quick for me. I was intrigued by all its parts, but on the whole found myself oddly disinterested. Maybe because most of the characters felt rather flat- even the ones I thought I ought to sympathize with or like, I couldn’t find much feeling for. Maybe because the writing style and dialog felt a bit simplistic, the girls’ various skills a bit too convenient, the jibing and social vying for control a bit too juvenile, or predictable. So many interesting ideas but not quite all I’d expected.

I kind of read this book on a whim. Saw it suggested as a book someone was looking for on LibraryThing’s “Name that Book” group- it wasn’t, but the description caught my attention and when I saw it was available at my library, thought I’d just give it a try. Almost didn’t get far. It was overall kind of flat for me- but I was enjoying turning the pages because of the particular book smell (I kept trying to place it- finally realized it has a very cardboard and hint of dust scent which reminds me of the warehouse I worked in during summers off from college, decades ago!) I finished the book to see what happened, but didn’t like some of the parts near the end, particularly what the religious group did.

It’s a light teen romance wrapped around sports and LGBTQ+ issues. Spencer is trans, recently transferred school after some serious bullying happened at his previous highschool (only hinted at, no details). He passes very well, and feels cautions about coming out to anyone at the new school. Joins the soccer team against his parents’ wishes, and quickly falls for a teammate who doesn’t seem to like him at first. They’re forced to work together, gradually become friends and then maybe something more. But of course Spencer is wary of letting Justice know he’s trans- will that change everything? Especially when he finds out that Justice’s family is fanatically religious. There’s all kinds of other issues in this book- petitioning the school to change their bathroom situation, his younger brother is autistic, his parents are a mixed-race couple, his coach lost his son to a drug overdose, and so on. Unfortunately it felt like a lot of things were thrown in just to give the story more inclusiveness, not that they added much to the plot. The little brother for example. I wish the story had stuck to one main thing and gone into more depth, personally. Maybe that’s why it felt lackluster for me. Or because so much is about the soccer games, which I followed okay but couldn’t get excited about. Then again, I’m not the target audience for this book, so feel I can’t be too critical.

Borrowed from the public library.