Feed

Titus and his friends take a little trip to the moon where he meets Violet, a girl that seems so different from the shallow, trend-obsessed girls he knows.  Then, when they are all together at a club, a man infects them with a computer virus which shuts down their feed and disconnects them from the whole world.  While this is an inconvenience for the others, it's life threatening for Violet.  Her relationship with Titus gets more and more strained as her feed malfunctions, and worst of all, while she's been trying to be her own person, the companies that run the feed have decided that she is not a good enough consumer, and thus not worth saving.  This is a hard look at connectivity, consumerism, and relationships that will leave readers reeling.

If adults think that teens are too connected to their devices now, just think about this book for a second. Even in our overly connected world, devices haven't quite invaded our brains specifically, but it's an interesting idea to throw around, especially how getting the feed at an older age turned out to affect Violet.  Plus, Violet states in the book that something like 30% of people don't have the feed, which really makes you think about internet connectivity in our society-it's not as present as we are led to believe, even in this country.  The digital divide is a real issue currently, and seems even bigger in this book.

While Feed is a thought-provoking book, it is draining.  The conversations are so jumbled, due to the feed and what it has done to people, and the governmental messages are just horrible.  Violet's spiral into sickness is hard to read and the ending is like a mile long drop.  

I had a hard time dealing with Titus.  While it was more believable that he didn't get overly involved in Violet's quest for life, it was hard to see him miss that the world was crumbling around him.  He was too self involved to take notice, but then again, everyone was too self involved.  I wish he would have been more courageous.

I need some time away from dystopian fiction.  I'm very glad that I read Feed, but I need a break.  I tried to start reading, The Fault in Our Stars, but Doug made me stop.  For good reason.  Reading a book about teens with terminal cancer is probably not a good pick me up.  Right now I'm reading Size 12 and Ready to Rock by Meg Cabot.  Trust me, there is nothing dark about that book.  All pop songs and sugar, with the occasional homicide.  Well, the homicide is dark, I suppose, but not the way the Cabot writes it.  

Anyone else out there need a little sweetness and light?

Happy Reading!

Let me see you get excited!!

I realized while looking over my recent posts that I haven't done a non-review post in some time, and since my reading has slowed a bit with the end of winter break, now's the perfect time to tell you all of the things that have me excited this morning.

1.  My upcoming ALSC class:  Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy.  This online class will start next week and hopefully I'll learn how to integrate a little fun into science, or a little science into fun.  Plus, this one comes with continuing ed credits, which as a secretary I don't need, but will look great on my resume.

2.  Youth Media Awards on January 28.  While I haven't been following the awards race close enough, I'm still very excited to hear the winners, and honorees.

3.  Pre-Registration for the ALA Annual Conference starts Monday!  I'm going to start pinching my pennies, but luckily my sis-in-law is going to hook me up with free lodging.  I am super excited about this one since it will be my first, full ALA conference.  And even though it's not until the summer, there is still a lot to do to prepare.  I have to get business cards and learn the el lines and find a suitable bag.  That last one alone could take months.

Plus, the days are getting longer, can you tell?  I know that you can tell, mom, you start saying that at Christmas.  And my I've stuck to my resolution to eat better, and eat less candy, pretty well so far.  I ordered Twizzlers for the office because I don't like them so I won't eat them.  Swimsuit season here I come!  And I could say some amazing things about a local sports team, but I don't want to jinx them.  So, there is a lot to be excited about, library related and not, around here.  Sometimes you just have to look for it!

Happy Reading!

Stupid Perfect World

In this dystopia, diseases have all been cured, war has been eradicated, hormones no longer run wild, and the world is generally a better place.  But just so students don't forget how easy they have it, there is a class called Scarcity.  In this class, students must choose an old affliction to deal with for two weeks.  Some selections include the common cold, hunger, using traditional transportation instead of teleportation and blindness.  Maria chooses to forgo her hormone balancers while Kieran decides to sleep 6 hours per night.  Together, they discover that the old ways might have been better as both unlock feelings that they didn't know existed.

I bought this on a whim for $2 on my Kindle.  I love Scott Westerfeld and I honestly think that his Uglies series was dystopian before dystopian was cool.  (Just to note, he also did vampires before vampires were cool.  He's way ahead of the trend, and speaking of trendspotting, he wrote a book on that too.)  It was well worth the $2 price tag to read this story.  It's quick, it says much more about our society and future societies in under 100 pages than most dystopian trilogies, and it was funny.

The thing about Maria and Kieran is that they are not really more than friends before this experiment, although you can tell that Maria would like for Kieran to see her that way.  Then once both of them are addled due to their assignment, their feelings come out.  When Kieran teases Maria about writing poetry because of her hormonal state, then she not only writes poetry, but starts thinking in poetry is just too much.  And that she learned that you can in fact die from walking around around in the freezing cold with wet hair was also funny.  There were just so many light-hearted parts of this story that make me smile when I think back, plus if I want to read it all again, it will only take about a half hour-totally worth it!

This story originally appeared in the anthology Love is Hell, so if you would like to seek out this title in print form, there you go.  I would recommend that if you are a fan of dystopias, and need a palate cleanser, or if you are a Scott Westerfeld fan, then you should read this novella.  Even if it's not your favorite, it's only 30 minutes of your time.

Happy Reading!

Wait-there's more!  I forgot to tell you that I received my latest batch of review books!  I receive four middle-grade sports biographies-all from the same series-and a book/CD kit by a very minor celebrity.  My hopes are not high, but I do hope to get them out in a reasonable amount of time.  Here's hoping I check back in a few weeks with a big, I'm done!

Also Known As

Maggie is used to cracking safes, not people, so when she is assigned to get close to Jesse Oliver to prevent his father from publishing an article about The Collective, she is out of her element.  All her life, Maggie has been a spy, moving from country to country (let's not talk about Luxembourg) and working with her parents to take down bad guys.  But now, she gets to be normal (sort of) and go to high school.  But how do you infiltrate the social pyramid that is high school without getting involved? Between Maggie's adorable social awkwardness, her crazy new BFF, Roux, and her guardian angel, Angelo, you've got a plot driven novel with some very compelling characters.  

Maggie makes a great spy.  She's exceptional at her trade, but she has a very hard time being a normal person, which makes for some great situations, like forging a signature for Roux, and breaking into Jesse's locker.  Also, the relationship that she has with her parents is great too.  They've never had to raise a normal teen before and they are rather daunted by the task.  The scene where they find out about her date with Jesse is probably one of the most entertaining in the whole book.  Despite being a spy family, they are very normal.

Then there's Roux, all alone in her penthouse apartment without a friend in the world.  But she's feisty and impulsive and it turns out, quite helpful.  Plus her relationship with her ever patient doorman, Harold, was so funny.  I bet that deep, deep down that old curmudgeon does care about her.  

I had to admit that Angelo had me guessing.  His three piece suits and suave manner bring to mind James Bond, without all the special effects.  He is the typical cunning spy.  But I was afraid that maybe he was a double crosser, because who knows Maggie and her family better than Angelo.  I'm very glad that my fears were wrong and that Angelo is the good guy he was always portrayed to be.

This book will have instant success with fans of Ally Carter's books, Gallagher Girls and Heist Society. It's quick, fun, and entertaining, but also shows a loving family relationship and good friends.  There are definitely sequel possibilities, and I wouldn't mind getting a little more of Maggie, although what I'm really looking forward to is Roux as a future spy.  

I'd say that this book is best left in the YA section, but teen readers should really enjoy it.

Happy Reading!

Murder at the Foster Manor (or Why I'm Not Writing a Young Adult Book-It's Hard People!)

I wasn't expecting much from this book, but I read it because I am a fan of Big Rich Texas.  I'm a fan of most ridiculous reality TV, sadly, and this show has me hooked.  It's funny, I never seek the series out, but once I see that a new season is on, I'm there!  I will sit glued to by TV for hours watching these women fight it out.  So when there was a book release party for the second Fiona Frost novel this season, I realized that I was behind on my reading.

Fiona Frost is an overachieving student that set up a forensic crime lab in her high school using a $250,000 federal grant (this cannot be said often enough).  Together with her team of high school investigators, they shadow the police, usually on petty crimes, until there is a death at Foster Manor!  Old Mr. Foster died while a team of paranormal investigators from the local university were attempting to verify an otherworldly presence in the house.  But Fiona is much too logical to believe in such nonsense and she starts digging for the real killer, which puts her in real danger as she starts to receive threatening letters and her cousin is kidnapped!

It's all very dramatic.  There are many, many exclamation points and much of the book is beyond belief, but not in a fun, campy kind of way.  Maybe in a it's-so-bad-it's-good way.

There are several problems with this novel, so let's start small and work our way up.

1.  Editing.  Oh, small press books, you make it easy for even a terrible speller and grammar butcher like me to see the mistakes.  There are probably half a dozen grammar and punctuation errors in the book, but that wasn't the worst of it.  One character, a homeless guy that was taken in to Foster Manor on the night of the murder, it named Kosmo Wilder, but twice he is referred to as Kosmo Kramer.  Too much Seinfeld there?  These are relatively small mistakes that a quality editor would catch and correct.

2.  Preachiness.  I know that some teens can be over zealous in their commit to not drink, or smoke, or text and drive-I know because I was one of them.  But the level that Fiona is against smoking, phone use while driving, and slacking on school work was absurd.  Take this for example:  "I felt awful for not paying attention to my teachers for I loved to learn and felt compelled to respect those in authority". This was obviously a book written by an adult that had some advice to dispense.

3.  Voice.  And while we are talking about the writer, let's mention voice.  The characters do not sound authentic at all.  They swing between sounding too adult to sounding too forced and fake.  The dialog is not authentic and it is distracting.

4.  Overloaded plot.  The plot is far too complicated to come up with the gardener-did-it ending.  Oops, spoiler.  There's Fiona and her crime lab, Fiona's locker bombing, paranormal investigators, poisonous snakes, a kidnapped cousin, high school student arrest, overprotecting mother relationship, slight love interest, car accident, etc. etc. etc.  I know that high school is a complicated time, but this is not Degrassi (love that show too!  Drake played a kid that was paralyzed from a shooting by a disturbed kid-not quite the street cred he was hoping for I'm sure.).  There is way too much going on for such a simple conclusion.

5.  Unbelievable.  The whole plot was utterly unbelievable, and let's remember that I read this book after Going Bovine, which is essentially one long morphine trip.  A high school getting a FEDERAL grant for a quarter-million dollars?  My university can't buy ink pens and you want me to believe that a high school got a quarter-million dollars-in Texas.  I'd believe it if it were for a football stadium, but not a crime lab.  Fiona's life was too perfect.  Her mother and father were both wildly successful, she has a loving nanny, big mansion, all new town cars, and a master key to the school.  Don't believe that last one for a second.  I don't care if you brought five million dollars into the school, there is no way that you are getting a master key.  It's the little things that kill, and it was finally the little things that drove this book to complete fantasy land.

All that being said, the basic premise of this book isn't terrible.  If you boil it down far enough, it's a forensic Nancy Drew-CSI High School, if you will, and there is a market for that.  I think to make this book more believable, the main character needs to be in college, not high school-it's much more likely that a college has a crime lab.  Plus, many colleges do look at old criminal cases, so the idea of working with the police is again more believable.  Leave the poisonous snakes at home, and you might have something.  And take out the paranormal references-only one pop culture phenom at a time, and you've already chosen CSI, so leave Twilight out of it.

I honestly don't recommend this book.  And unless you also watch Big Rich Texas, you've probably never even heard of it.  But this is another example of someone that is intelligent and thinks, hey how hard can it be to write a young adult book?  It's hard people.  And that's why I stick to blogging.  For now.  I'm working on it, dad!!

Happy Reading!

Skippyjon Jones in a Nutshell

Five Skippyjon Jones books in one sitting is a lot to take in.  Personally, I had never read Skippyjon Jones before as my picture book reading was mostly contained to what I could use in storytime and what was winning awards and buzz.  Skippyjon didn't fit into either of these categories, so I mostly just let him alone.  But my little nephew loves him, so this is for you Anthony.

Basically, Skippyjon Jones is a silly little siamese cat, and as he says in every book, his ears are too big for his head and his head it too big for his body.  So, he pretends to be a chihuahua and scampers off into his closet for make believe adventures with a band of imagined chihuahuas.  The adventures he has are very strange, but it's a kids book, so that is fine.  I still hold my belief that these are not my type of story time book.  There is no consistency in rhyming parts, it's all very helter-skelter and the pictures are a little too much to take in with a group.  (My opinion obviously, because SJJ is huge at my nephew's preschool.)

Now for the controversy.  While SJJ has received some acclaim, it has also received criticism for poorly portraying Hispanic culture.  Skippyjon Jones becomes Skippito in the books, a Zoro-like bandit that uses mixed-up Spanglish and silly songs with claps.  While SJJ isn't the best role model, he is certainly not harmful, but keep in mind this is coming from a girl whose favorite children's book is Little Black Sambo (I'm in it for the pancakes people!).  

One reader on Goodreads also commented that she thought it was disturbing that SJJ pretended to be something he's not in every book.  That's what kids do!  And really SJJ is the only boy in his family and he doesn't look anything like his siblings, so of course he's going to pretend to be someone else for a change.  I'm not going to get into the psyche of a fictional kittenboy, but he probably feels some measure of ugly duckling syndrome here, like he was dropped off with this cat family by dog parents or something.  

My nephew loves these books because they are absurd, because SJJ sneaks into his closet and ends up in the desert or on Mars.  Because this silly little kittenboy is called all sort of adorable names by his mother (a few of which my sis uses to refer to Anthony).  And mostly because kids just have a really messed up sense of humor and this plays right to that audience.

So adults, stop ruining children's books with your own political correctness.  While I do not intend to become a Skippyjon Jones pusher, I see the merit of it.  If that's what Anthony wants to read, that's cool.  I'm sure that he will end up a well-adjusted member of society even though he read Skippyjon Jones as a child.  His adult neurosis will come from having a weird family, not from the books that he reads.  

And isn't that what we're all trying to avoid, permanently screwing up our children?  It's not going to happen.  Every child will have that one weird memory that scars them for life (mine has to do with the hiding of Christmas presents, but that's a story for another day), so you might as well go with it and let them read whatever they like.

Happy Reading!

Going Bovine

Having a couple of days to digest this book is a good thing, because it is definitely the type of book that leaves an impression.

Cameron is an average kid, just this side of slacker, and he's just trying to make it through high school and find some good in life.  Then he is diagnosed with what is basically Mad Cow Disease.  Now his limbs don't function the way he wants and he's prone to seeing things.  This lands him in the hospital with a death sentence.  Until Gonzo, a hypochondriac dwarf, ends up in his room too.  Cameron had met Gonzo at school, and knew that he was an eccentric guy, but it's more than that.  And one night, a beautiful punk angel, Dulcie, appears in his room and tells Cameron that there is a cure for his disease and that all he has to do is travel across the country, find Dr. X, resolve the parallel universes, overcome the fire demons and save the world.  Easy peasy.  Cameron takes off with Gonzo in tow, picks up a Norse god disguised as a garden gnome, plays jazz with a legend, bowls for happiness, gets laid at Spring Break, and lands himself in Disney World trying to find the cure.  And other assorted adventures occur too, but this is just a summary.

Basically, Cameron fights so hard and lives so much in the little time that he has left.  He is full of hope and longing to keep living this life that he previously thought was torture.  He becomes close to unlikely people, receives help in the strangest places, and learns that nothing is random.

And the ending is both heartbreaking and uplifting, because in between all the driving, swearing, and partying, there are these dreams where Cameron is still in the hospital, and he sees his family gathered around him.  What is real and what is a dream?

What is amazing about this book is that nothing is ever random.  The smallest thing, like a broken snow globe, leads to a major plot point down the road.  And Cameron's desire to live despite his diagnosis is incredible.  He does not have a stiff upper lip bravery, or an overly optimistic positive attitude, just a desire to live for once before he dies, and honestly, most people, sick or not, could use that perspective.

Plus, there's some pretty crazy physics going on this book, which interests me as a languish in the physics office.  I'm seeing a display in my future explaining the physics of parallel universes as it relates to this book, although someone will have to explain parallel universes to me first.

This book is not for the faint of heart.  There is a lot of swearing, sex, drug use, etc.  It's a teen boy quest!  He wants to live with no consequences, because he's dying anyway, and get with any girl that will have him.  But, the foul language and incessant partying are not forced, it's all very natural and fits the character.  Just don't give this to a prim and proper reader and you'll be fine.  I honestly see this as a great book for the grown-up Percy Jackson fan.  It's a quest novel.  There is danger and fantasy, and a Norse god for crying out loud!

I finished this book a week ago, and what I remember most now is that the plot was exhilarating, the friendships were true, the losses hurt, and the ending brought me to tears.  Not too bad for some light, holiday reading.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!