Being Friends with Boys

Being Friends With Boys
By Terra Elan McVoy

When Charlotte’s sister Jilly leaves for college and her best friend Lish dumps her to hang with the volleyball team, Charlotte does not have a lot of girlfriends.   She does , however, enjoy an easy relationship with the boys in the all boy band, Sad Jackal.  That all starts to change when Trip quits the band, and Charlotte, who has always served as the songwriter and the behind-the-scenes girl, is asked to sing.  Oliver, the leader of the band, seems jealous of Charlotte’s new fame and attention when she sings at the homecoming dance.  One of the new members, Fabian, seems to be flirting with Charlotte and asking her out secretly.  Charlotte is heartbroken when Trip, who she expected to remain friendly with after his departure from the band, makes new friends, takes a new girlfriend, and stops returning Charlotte’s texts.   And if frustrations with the boys from the band weren’t enough, Charlotte also makes friends with Benji McLaughlin, a boy with a less than stellar reputation at school, but one who seems to be a good friend and possibly more.  When the attention that Charlotte receives for her singing leads to an offer to sing with a girl band, it seems like the perfect solution at first.  Will Charlotte abandon Sad Jackal or will she find a way to remain friends with the boys?

This novel, the first I’ve read by Terra Elan McVoy, is an easy read.  It would appeal to girls who like music, girls who have many friends who are boys, or any girl looking for a romance read because, as you can guess, Charlotte won’t remain “just friends” with all of the boys.

Genre:  Realistic fiction, Romance    

Reviewed by:  Lauren Sprouse (librarian)

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesic

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

By Gabrielle Zevin

Naomi is about to begin her junior year in high school as the editor-in-chief of the yearbook when she takes a tumble down the exterior stairs to the school, hitting her head but saving the yearbook camera.  She is rescued by a new boy, James, who takes her to the hospital.  When Naomi wakes up she has amnesia.  She doesn’t remember much of anything since 6^th grade, which was the year her parents got divorced.  She doesn’t remember that her mother is remarried and that she has a half-sister.  She doesn’t remember her best friend and co-editor-in-chief of the yearbook, Will.  She doesn’t remember her boyfriend, Ace.  And now there is a new boy in her life, James.  She does remember that she is mad at her mother, but she is unclear about the details.  Naomi reinvents herself during this year, until the memories come flooding back.  Then she must move on with her life.  She must decide whether she wants to have a relationship with her mother and which boy she wants to keep in her life.  As in all of Gabrielle Zevin’s books, the narrator, Naomi, is entertaining and likeable.  Readers will be pulled into her journey of rediscovery. 

Genre:  Realistic fiction, Romance

Reviewed by:  Lauren Sprouse, librarian

The Storyteller

The Storyteller
by Jodi Picoult

I stayed up until nearly 2 AM this morning to finish Jodi Picoult’s newest release The Storyteller.  It is just one of those books that I couldn’t put down.  As is typical of Picoult’s style, the book has several narrators.  The first is Sage Singer.  Sage is a baker.  She lives in the same small New Hampshire town where she grew up baking bread from family recipes that have been passed down through her Jewish ancestors for generations.  She feels all alone in the world since the death of her mother in a car accident that also left Sage’s face disfigured.  Working as a baker allows Sage to work at night where there is no one to see her face.  She attends a weekly grief group to deal with the death of her mother, and it is there that she strikes up an unlikely friendship with an 85 year-old-man named Josef who has recently lost his wife.  Josef is a well-known and well-loved figure in the town, where he taught German for many years and coached little league baseball.  Sage and Josef seem to identify with each other somehow, Sage with her scars and Josef with his grief.   But that all changes when Josef tells Sage that he is really a Nazi war criminal and that all these years he has passed as a good man.  And if that is not enough, he asks that Sage do him a favor.  He wants her to help him die.  Sage agrees only to listen to his story.  As she does, she realizes that as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor she can never forgive Josef and that he should pay for his crimes.  Sage contacts the FBI and speaks with Leo Stein, a persecutor with the office of Human Rights and Special Prosecutions.  Leo is a Nazi hunter.  He is also a Jew and a young man.  He agrees to meet Sage, and there is an undeniable attraction from the beginning on his part, at least.  But Leo has no way to confirm the story that Sage claims Josef told her. Sage believes that her grandmother, Minka, can confirm it if only she would tell her story.  All these years, Minka has never told her family the story of her survival, but Sage and Leo convince her to tell it now.    And it turns out that Minka is a great storyteller.  Not only does she tell the story of her survival, but she tells the story of how her storytelling saved her.  . . . The lives of these characters begin to intertwine:  Minka, Josef, Sage, Leo, and even the characters from Minka’s imagined stories are all interconnected and unforgettable.  And of course, the story includes a final, surprising plot twist that we have come to expect of Picoult.  This is a great book.  It is one I will be thinking about for many days. 

Genre:  Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction

Reviewed by:  Lauren Sprouse (librarian)

Just One Day

Just One Day
by Gayle Foreman

If you were a fan of If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Foreman, I can’t in good conscience tell you that you will enjoy her newest book, Just One Day.  It isn’t terrible, but it just isn’t in the same league as her first two books.

Allyson Healey has led a charmed life.  She graduates from high school never having had to have a job, in the fall she is attending a private college on her parent’s dime, and she is in England when the story begins, finishing up a summer tour of Europe, also a gift from her parents.  Just as she is about to join her group to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet, she and her lifelong friend Melanie meet some actors from a group called Guerilla Will.  This group is performing Twelfth Night that same evening.  They advertise themselves as doing “Shakespeare without borders.  Shakespeare for the masses.  Shakespeare for free.  Shakespeare for all.”   But what really attracts Melanie and Allyson is the cute boy who is part of the company.   They decide to ditch the RSC in favor of seeing this group perform instead.  After the performance Allyson meets the cute boy, Willem, who played the part of Sebastian.   Even though her tour of Europe is about over, and she should be spending her last two days in London, Willem talks her into taking the train to Paris with him.  This is very out of character for Allyson, who hasn’t even enjoyed her time in Europe and is definitely a rule follower and not someone who would normally hop a train to a foreign country with a boy she just met.   In Paris, Allyson starts to reinvent herself as Lulu, who is open to trying new things and having new experiences.  She also starts to fall in love with Willem, even though she knows they will only have one day together and most likely never see each other again.  As they travel through Paris, Allyson (Lulu) learns little of Willem’s past.  He has been travelling for two years.  He is from Amsterdam, and he seems to have a lot of girlfriends.  Everywhere Willem takes Allyson, he seems to know lots of girls, but Allyson is still taken with him.  After she spends the night with him, she awakes to see that he has abandoned her and taken with him her very expensive watch that was a graduation gift from her parents.  Allyson is devastated.  She returns home and begins college, but she can’t help feeling that she lost some of herself in Paris.  The rest of the book becomes a journey as Allyson tries to reinvent herself and discover who she really is apart from her parent’ s expectations.  Spoiler alert:  Willem does return to the story, and it is very clear by the end that there will be a sequel.  Also, by the end, I will say that the reader is very interested in the story.  This book doesn’t have the immediate pull for the reader the way that If I Stay and Where She Went do, but if you stick with it, I think you will still enjoy it.

Genre:  Realistic Fiction, Romance

Reviewer:  Lauren Sprouse, librarian

All These Things I've Done

All These Things I've Done

by Gabrielle Zevin

Thanks to the snow gods and Roanoke County Schools for assigning a snow day yesterday so that I could finish this very fine read by Gabrielle Zevin.  This is perhaps my favorite teen read of 2013, so far at least.   All These Things I’ve Done is set in Manhattan in the year 2082.  The world as we know it has changed quite a bit.  Many things we take for granted are now illegal:  phones with cameras, paper without a permit, even chocolate and caffeine.  No new clothing is manufactured.  Food is rationed and water is very expensive.    The main character and narrator of this novel is sixteen-year-old Anya Balanchine, the orphaned daughter of organized crime boss Leonyd Balanchine, leader of the famed Balanchine Chocolate.    Anya lost her mother to a mob hit that was meant for her father when she was six years old.  That same hit also left her brother Leo brain damaged.  Three years later the mob finally succeeded in killing her father as well.  Now Anya lives with her grandmother, Galina, her younger sister, Natty, and her brother Leo.  Anya’s grandmother is supposedly their guardian, but in reality she is dying, so Anya is really the caregiver of the family.  It is Anya who makes decisions for the family.  It is Anya who contacts the family lawyer when her mob relatives are stirring up trouble.  It is Anya who takes care of her older brother.  Still, Anya manages to attend a prestigious private Catholic school.   She has a new boyfriend, Winn Delacroix, who is the son of New York City’s top cop, which is ironic since she is the daughter of the city’s most famous criminal.  In some ways she lives a privileged life, until her creepy ex-boyfriend is poisoned by a chocolate bar that Anya gave him and the police believe she is responsible.   This novel is full of action and twists as Anya must negotiate to protect her herself, her immediate family, and her boyfriend, whose father would prefer that he not date the daughter of a famous crime boss, from the law and from her own mafia connections.  Will she ultimately have to accept her birthright and become the next Balanchine Chocolate crime boss?  Only time and the sequel, Because it is In My Blood, will tell. 

Lauren Sprouse, Librarian

Beta by Rachel Cohn

Beta by Rachel Cohn

Genre:  Science Fiction, Dystopian

Rachel Cohn is one of my favorite teen authors.  Usually she writes realistic fiction, and her
characters are quirky and witty.  This novel, Beta, is a departure from Cohn’s usual style, but it will not disappoint readers.   The novel is set in the future.  The ice caps have melted, and Earth is now a watery planet.  Flooding is prevalent on the mainland.  The novel, however, takes place on the island of Demesne, a new island that was created after the eruption of volcanoes under the sea.  The island is the playground of the elite, wealthy families that are left on the planet after the Water Wars.  The ocean surrounding the island was reengineered by scientists to create the Io Sea, which “ripples in patented violet crests and offers a totally transforming experience” (17).    Even the air has been reengineered to “pump premium oxygen into Demesne’s atmosphere” (17).    And, of course, to serve these elite families, the scientists have created clones.  The clones serve as butlers, maids, construction workers, etc.  They are cloned from humans who have died, but they have no souls, so they are supposed to be happy in their work.   The main character in this novel is a “beta” meaning she is a new form of clone.  She is a teenage clone, and in the past the teenage clones have all turned “Awful,” which Dr. Larissa Lusardi, the world’s expert on cloning, has attributed to teen hormones.  The beta clone is named Elysia.  She is bought by Mrs. Bratton, the wife of the chief executive officer of Demesne and taken to live in their home.  Her role, unlike the role of the family’s other clones, is to be a “replacement” daughter for their daughter who has recently left for college.  Mother loves Elysia because she doesn’t have any of the sullen attitudes that her real daughter Astrid has.  It isn’t long before Elysia discovers that she is different from most clones.  She can taste food, which she isn’t supposed to be able to do.  She loves chocolate and macaroni and cheese.  She also has memories of her “First,” the girl from which she was cloned.  As Elysia tries to hide these “defects” from her family, she also discovers that she is not as unique to clones as she was led to believe.  There are other clones who are unhappy with their situations and who yearn for more.  Will Elysia find what she wants?   Spoiler Alert:  There will be a sequel, and there is no release date yet.

Lauren Sprouse, Librarian

Book Review: Trapped

Trapped by Michael Northrop

Genre:  Realistic Fiction, Adventure

The novel Trapped by Michael Northrop is a quick, easy read that would have a lot of appeal for teens.  The entire action of the story takes place inside Tattawa Regional High School, a rural school in New England, during a snowstorm.  The central characters include, Scotty Weems, a sophomore who is also the narrator of the story, his long-time buddies Jason Gillispie and Pete Dubois, Krista O’Rea and Julie Enders, freshmen girls, and Les Goddard and Elijah James, both misfits at Tattawa but for different reasons, and the football coach Mr. Gossell.  This band of eight ends up stuck in their high school during what turns out to be the worst Nor’easter in the history of the U.S.  They endure cold, hunger, freezing pipes, and a collapsing roof.  Perhaps worst of all, they have no communication with the outside world and realize that no one knows where they are.  Even when help arrives, no one will know where to look for them.  From the beginning of the story, which is told as a flashback, the reader knows that not all of the party will survive the storm.  The novel is very suspenseful and teens can easily imagine themselves in similar situations as these characters, as they are forced to make decisions that could be deadly. 

Lauren Sprouse, Librarian

Book Review: Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands

Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Set in 1951 in the orange groves of Central Florida, this novel, which is based on the author’s own family story, is reminiscent of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.  It is narrated by fourteen-year-old Reesa McMahon, the white daughter of Northern transplant parents.  Reesa is growing up in a house that shows respect and kindness to local African American families, much like Scout’s family in To Kill a Mockingbird.  And her father, in particular, will remind readers of Atticus Finch in his heroic, often to the detriment of his family’s safety, commitment to seeking justice for his African American friends.  The novel’s central focus revolves around the death of nineteen-year-old Marvin Cully at the hands of the Klan.  Reesa’s family not only stands up to the Klan on behalf of their family friend, but also draws the wrath of the Klan down on their own family as they give help to Civil Rights leaders Thurgood Marshall and Harry T. Moore and seek help from the FBI.  The characters are memorable and entertaining.  The writing is poetic and powerful.  This is an excellent historical fiction piece that recalls horrors of racial tension in the South and highlights the story of good people who stood up for the right thing, even when it was perilous to their families.

Lauren Sprouse, Librarian