Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

The beginning chapters of this book are brutal as the main character is abused, raped, and struggles to survive in a cruel existance. Cornered in a hopeless existance, she finds sanctuary in magic when she is whisked into an alternate reality. Here the story gets interesting. She is raising two very innocent daughters in her safe but tiny world when reality begins to intrude in the form of visitors from the real world, some who are decent people, and some who are not. Eventually the bolder daughter escapes back into the real world, and her mother and sister follow. The story has a message about how life is full of brutality and evil existing side by side with love, integrity, and good. Does the existance of evil make the existance of good more precious?

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

Marcus is computer wise, and outwitting school security is his ticket to a day off to play the real world component of his favorite online game. But Marcus and his friends pick the wrong day to escape school when they find themselves near ground 0 of a terrorist attack similar to 9/11. Picked up by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison (think Guantonimo), they are subjected to merciless interrogation for days. When finally released, Marcus discovers that San Francisco has been turned into a police state with every action watched, every move monitored by a DHS gone mad. His computer is bugged, he's under police surveilance, and he's on a mission - bringing down the DHS.
The author of Little Brother is a tech guru in his own right, and the story has implications that should make us all stop and think about where technology can lead us in the not that distant future.

The graveyard book, by Neil Gaiman

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own. The story of Bod's childhood is a fresh story with surprises on every page. I liked Gaiman's Coraline, but I like this one even better. The illustrations add to the spooky atmosphere and help make this one just plain fun to read. The Newbery award folks got it right this year!

An abundance of Katherines, by John Green

I love guy humor, and this book has it in spades. Always being dumped by girls named Katherine, Colin Singleton, a washed-up child prodigy with a Judge-Judy obsessed best friend, embarks on a quest to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will impact all of his future relationships and change his life. By the same author as Looking for Alaska, but this time John Green trades in the drama for humor, and does it every bit as well. And what is more fun than a road trip?

Lament, by Maggie Stiefvater / Wicked lovely, by Melissa Marr

These two books have essentially the same conflict, but the two authors have dealt with it in two very different ways. In both stories, a teen girl is chosen by the Summer King of Faerie to be his queen. How the girls react and respond to the situation makes for good romantic suspense. Both are engaging and fun to read. Wicked lovely has sequels that we will have to be getting, though we don't have them at CHS now. The author of Lament is working on a sequel, so we will be watching for that to come out next year.

Dishes, by Rich Wallace

Summertime out East - Straight Danny spends the summer working aa a dishwasher in a gay bar, running, hanging out at the beach, getting to know his Dad who has never been a big part of his life, checking out the girls, softball, the GIRL. It's a summertime story. No tough issues, no drama, no angst. It's ok to be straight seems to be the message.

A Northern light, by Jennifer Donnelly

This historical fiction story takes place in rural Maine at the turn of the last century. Life was slower, more agricultural, and a young woman had to make a choice between love or a career. Love in a time before birth control meant marriage, babies, and backbreaking labor to keep a house and farm going. So seventeen year old Mattie is resisting the growing pressure she feels to marry the young man who loves her. Her father needs her to help raise her younger brother and sisters and to stay at home. Her teacher at school is trying to show her the possibility of a college education in New York. Girls in 1906 decided their lives early, and Mattie has already stayed in school long past the time most girls quit school and married.

This is an introspective, quiet story. Well written, and one that will stay with me for a long time I think.

A great and terrible beauty, by Libba Bray

I recently re-read this book. It is a mysterious and compelling story that follows a Victorian girl who has been brought up in India until the murder of her mother on her 16th birthday forces her father to send her back to England. In England she is sent to a boarding school for upper class young women. Gemma soon discovers that a mysterious young man she saw in India has followed her, and he has explanations for the haunting visions that begin to plague her. But are his explanations truthful, or is there another, darker explanation? Gemma is thrown into a world where she doesn't know who to trust or who to turn to for help. The book is a combination of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and a little romance.

Impossible, by Nancy Werlin

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....." The old folk ballad is at the heart of this modern tale of a 17-year-old high school Junior whose ordinary life is ended with a date to Prom, a rape, and the discovery that she is one of a long line of women doomed to bear a child and live the rest of her life insane. The fairie king responsible for her fate has her in his sights and is looking forward to breaking her fighting spirit. Lucy has nine months to fullfill the terms of the curse or fall prey to her magical stalker.

Nancy Werlin is an author that I enjoy reading, and this newest book is as good or better than anything I've read of hers. Impossible to put down.

Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar

I guess I have too high expectations, even for chic lit. This one was a dissapointment for me. Full of people who if not for their fabulous wealth, good looks, and designer clothes, would be in trouble with the law.

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Native American 14 year old Junior is a classic underdog - poor, weak health, humiliated daily by even his best (and only) friend. But sometimes there is a spark of courage that just IS, even in the most unlikely people. That spark leads Junior to leave the poverty, alcoholism, and hopelessness of life on the Spokane reservation and seek an education 22 miles away in an all white school. Junior faces the challenges with stoicism and with humor - balancing his home life on the rez with his school days where he is the only Indian except for the school mascot. It's about the redemptive power of sports and of friendship. It's irreverent, tragic, funny, and a deeply moving story that had me laughing through tears.

The missing girl, by Norma Fox Mazer

Told from alternating points of view, this is the story of a family of five sisters and the stalker who is choosing which one of the five to abduct. It would have helped if the chapter titles indicated which of the five girls narrates each chapter. The stalker on the other hand is easy to distinguish and creepy.

The adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna wakes after a car accident has left her in a coma for a year to a world she barely understands. Gradually her memory returns, and gradually she learns the extent of her injuries. The body she is now in is not her own, and in fact very little of her brain is original. The issues of organ transplantation are explored well here, but I was reminded of Peter Dickinson's Eva, which I think does a better job with a similar premise.

Burned, by Ellen Hopkins

A powerful story about a girl from a religious yet abusive family who in one magical summer discovers life free from the narrow confines of her ultra conservative life. Pattyn blossoms under the loving guidance of her Aunt J and the budding romance with neighbor Ethan. But even as Pattyn's eyes are opened to new possibilities in life, the seeds of her destruction are being sown, and the reader is swept along for the roller coaster ride with growing fear. After all, we know the title of the book.

The free verse poetry means lots of white space on each page, and 532 pages fly past very quickly. I was intruiged with the placement of the words on many of the pages that if read vertically revealed alternate messages.

The ending of the book disturbed me - I would like to have seem a postscript letting us know that tragic loves are survivable in the end, as some of us know that they are.

Cherry Heaven, by L.J. Adlington

Cherry Heaven is the name of the property where Kat and her sister Tanka have moved with their parents. They are settlers in a new, frontier community far from the big cities where a race war based on one's DNA is raging. Based on DNA tests, everyone has one of three colors of tattoo on the back of their hand. Here on the frontier there is peace, but the girls soon discover that peace hasn't come without a price, and DNA discrimination has not really been eliminated in the frontier as they have been told. In fact, the "lowest" caste has been turned into slave laborers, and a revolution is about to be ignited right in their own backyard when a slave escapes and tries to return to her former home of Cherry Heaven. The story reads like a mystery as the girls discover the truth about Cherry Heaven and just how powerful and ruthless the politicians in charge truly are beneath their charming ways.

Bonemender, by Holly Bennett

This has been one of the Abe books that goes out often, and after reading it folks usually want to go on to read the Bonemender's oath and Bonemender's Choice, the third book in the trilogy. I enjoyed reading it, but didn't find anything unique about it - nothing that hasn't already been done by the Inheritance series in particular. Now if I hadn't already read that series fairly recently maybe I would have enjoyed this more...

Exodus, by Julie Bertagna

This was a terrific book - a futuristic view of our civilization a hundred years from now, when the polar icecaps have melted and the world is flooded. There are still islands with people living on them on former mountaintops. Mara is living on an island she knows as Wing. It took me a while to figure out that Wing is all that is left of Scotland. Her village is about to be swallowed by the rising sea and Mara, after researching on her handheld computer, has devised a plan to save the villagers by traveling by fishing boats to a "sky city" built above the ocean to withstand the storms that lash the earth. But the sky city of New Mungo is a closed society to refugees. So Mara must find a way in, and find a way to rescue the refugees she meets there. The futuristic New Mungo society is interesting, as are the different bands of refugees. All are believable, as is the dilemma posed by how to deal with refugees when to take them in means to overwhelm the available resources.

What my mother doesn't know/What my girlfriend doesn't know by Sonya Sones

What my mother doesn't know (2002) is a love story told from the girl's point of view. Sometimes a girl's heart and her head disagree about a guy. When that happens the girl has a tough decision to make. Sophie thinks she is in love with Dylan, so why is she thinking about Murphy...the guy who's very name is synonymous with dork, nerd, wimp? Sophie is in for some surprises when her heart starts paying attention to Murphy.

What my girlfriend doesn't know (2007) starts where the 1st book left off, but is told from Murphy's point of view. Having Sophie for a girlfriend is better than anything he's ever imagined. But how much abuse is she willing to stand as everyone in school laughs at her and Murphy together? He loves her, and watching her lose her friends over him hurts.

I really couldn't put this book down till I finished it and found out how it ended.

Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

It's too bad the cover of this book has that cow with the tiara....This book IS funny, but not cow in a tiara kind of funny. It's the kind of funny where you recognize the characters and what they are going through and it makes you smile - you KNOW people like this. D.J. Schwenk, the main character, is from a family that does not talk about the stuff that's going on in their heads. At the opening of the book she is working like crazy to keep the farm going while her dad is laid up with knee surgery, and trying to keep up at school, and maybe finding a little time to have a life of her own. This was fun to read, and I laughed out loud.

The God box, by Alex Sanchez

Sanchez makes a valid point about homophobia and how destructive it is to gays and straights alike. But in this book the gay main character's doubts and confusion and unhappiness seemed neverending. I thought the moral of the story was a little heavyhanded, and would have benefited from lightening up a little. The other books by this author are better.

Tithe, Ironside, Valient - by Holly Black

These three books, all subtitled "a modern tale of Fairie" by Holly Black are dark and sinister. The world of Fairie in these is a dangerous place for humans and fey alike -don't expect to find Tinkerbell. The author says they can be read in any order and are not a series, but if you are particular about that kind of thing (me too), watch the publication dates and read them in that order. The urban New York setting makes these a little darker than the Melling series that is set in modern Ireland, tho the world of Fairie in both series has a lot in common.

Nick and Norah's infinite playlist, by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

I've been hearing that the movie is great, and VERY funny. But it's funny - I read this book a year of so ago and never once thought of it as a comedy. It's a smart love story between two people who are on the rebound from disasterous relationships. Conventional wisdom says their relationship will never work, but Nick and Norah are anything BUT conventional. Romantic, wrenching, and you can almost hear the music.

Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini

I hardly need to tell anyone what fun this series is to read - but if the purpose of this blog is to talk about the books I've been reading, then these 3 are the reason I haven't entered any new postings in quite a while. I think each of these books is better than the one before it, and that isn't always the case with books in series. The action is fast paced and the host of human and magical characters that we meet in the saga are never dull. Eragon, with his dragon Saphira at his side, grows up to claim a destiny that the young man never dreamed of. Friendships, loyalties, and love that he finds along the way steady him as he fights old evils and new foes, with treachery where he least expects it. A teriffic fantasy series.

Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld

This book and it's sequel, The Last Days, are my favorite Westerfeld books and my favorite vampire books too. (Well, there is that whole Twilight series too - but that's another review). There's no magic, no superpowers involved here. And no V word, either. Vampirism is spread by a parasite. Cal has been infected by the parasite, but is a carrier. He is still sane and able to control the V urges, but he will transfer the parasite to anyone he so much as kisses. Cal resolves to do the right thing, and begins working with a secret organization that works to control the spread of the plague. This is a modern take on the old vampire legends and is a great read, as so many of you at CHS know for yourselves.

I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak

Ok, to be honest I think this book is weird. Entertaining in places, thought provoking in places, and overall weird. The story concerns a nineteen year old who is driving a taxi for a living and feels he's wasting his life away. One day, playing cards begin arriving in the mail with addresses written on them - addresses of people who need his help. He begins living a sort of secret life of helping strangers. And it keeps getting weirder from there........

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Miles Halter is tired of his dull, ordinary life and is ready for a change when he begins school at Culver Creek prep school. His life does change as he becomes part of a tight group of friends led by beautiful, sexy, smart and screwed up Alaska Young. With her guidance, Miles experiences his first drink, his first smoke, first prank, and some other great firsts. Then one more first - first death of a loved friend. This is a hard hitting story with equal parts humor and tragedy.

The summer king, by O. R. Melling

This is the perfect kind of book for a hot July afternoon spent inside, lost in fantasy. The author, O.R. Melling knows her Irish legends and lore and knows modern Ireland as well. The main characters in The summer king flip back and forth between modern day Ireland locations and Faerie with ease, taking the reader along for a fast ride. The plot concerns twin American teens Laurel and Honor. As the book opens Honor is dead, having fallen off a cliff the previous summer while tracking a faerie being near their grandparents' home in Ireland. Laurel is now returning to Ireland searching for answers to her sister's mysterious death. The search sweeps her into the alternate reality of Faerie, full of beutiful and dangerous beings who care little for the humans they encounter. But where Laurel and Honor find love as well...

Three cups of tea, by Greg Mortenson

Good non-fiction account of what one person can do to change the world for the better with determination, and at what cost to his personal life. Greg Mortenson was a mountain climber, who attempted climbing K2 in the Himalayans. The attempt failed, but he was so moved by witnessing Pakistani children being schooled in the open air and without the benefit of trained instructors that he returned to the US determined to raise the money needed to build one school. One school turned into many schools, and the account is a great reality check. We really don't know how good we have it here in the United States. A friend lent my this book this summer, knowing that I would like it. I do, and only later realized that it is an Abe book for 2009.

Hawksong, by Amelia Atwater Rhodes

Ok, you all knew this before I did - this is a great fantasy book. I've seen this go off the shelf over and over and be talked about word of mouth for a couple of years now, and I finally have gotten around to reading it this summer. Danicae Shardae, the main character, is a princess of a shape-shifter society - a delicate blonde beauty of a girl whose avian form is a golden hawk. Her avian race has been in a devastating war with the serpent race for as long as anyone can remember. On the eve of her ascension to queen, the prince of the Serpiente comes to her with a bold and risky plan for peace. Zane Cobriana suggests they marry and join their two kingdoms. It's a plan as frightening as it is bold. Danicae is desperate for peace, but there is a natural revulsion between bird and snake, and the romance is tense and dangerous for all.

Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

I bought this book this summer to read myself, and have to add it to the high school library!

This is historical fiction set in Stalinist Russia in the 1950's. In Stalin's Russia there is no crime - crime is the product of Western capitalism. But children are disappearing, and Leo Demidov of the State Security Force secretly suspects a mass murderer is preying on innocent children. Leo risks his job, his family, and his life in his attempt to stop the murders.I couldn't put this down - it's interesting for the inside look at Stalinist Russia and the paranoid terror the state imposed on it's citizens. Leo's awakening conscience leads him to discover that the murderer isn't a stranger....