Book Blogs #9-16; LSSL 5385; Spring 2019
Gabi Hernandez is seventeen years old and surrounded by adult problems. Her father is addicted to meth and often goes missing for days when he is on a binge. Her best friend Cindy, also in high school, is pregnant and planning on raising the baby while living with her mother. Her best friend, Sebastian, told his parents that he is gay and was kicked out of his home and needs a place to stay. Her little brother, Beto, is constantly sneaking out to graffiti areas of the neighborhood, risking being arrested. Her mother is trying to hold the family together while raising her teenagers with an addict for a husband and is now pregnant. Gabi loves food but is self-conscious of her full figure. She loves writing and performing poetry. And she’s beginning to date boys realizing that brings an entirely new set of emotional issues. Dealing with all of her family drama while trying to find her place in life creates many internal struggles that Gabi must face, and often depend on the support network that surrounds her. Quintero goes back and forth between Spanish and English, using both first person narrative and poetry in the novel that is written as Gabi’s journal during the course of her senior year. There are parts of this book that are absolutely hilarious and the honesty with which Gabi writes is refreshing. There are also parts that are emotional and heartbreaking to read. I found myself so angry at Gabi’s mother when she would tell Gabi she was overweight or make references to how much she would eat. I am so happy to see the teacher play such an important part of Gabi’s success. Any teacher would love to be compared to Mrs. Abernard as she is Gabi’s biggest supporter of her writing and furthering her education by getting into her first college choice. The cover of the book is a collage designed by Zeque Penya of what makes up the strongest pieces of Gabi. The book was a William C. Morris YA Debut Book Award Winner along with Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award winner.
Lucky Linderman has been bullied by Nader McMillan since elementary school. He has watched him torture young, scrawny kids in the locker room. He has seen him make a girl who has lost her bikini top at the pool expose herself to get her clothes. And he has been the target of multiple threats. Lucky is in high school trying to make it through each day avoiding confrontation with Nader while overcoming the fact that the teachers and administrators think he’s suicidal. Lucky’s grandfather was captured during Vietnam and was never found, a situation his own father has never been able to overcome. Lucky’s mother is trying to hold the dysfunctional family together and when it gets too messy, she reverts to swimming more laps in the local pool. Lucky finds his own escape in his dreams where he helps his grandfather face the enemy and avoid being killed in the jungles of Vietnam. When Nader makes a bloody mess of Lucky’s face, his mom decides to pack them up and visit her brother and sister-in-law in Arizona. Lucky finds support and the strength he needs to return and face his bully. I struggled through parts of this book and required absolutely no distractions to avoid going back and re-reading. The characters are complex and the author does an incredible job at making them relatable to students who may be facing the same situations. Other books about bullying are Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina.
(Best Fiction for YA)
Shusterman, N. (2018). Scythe. London: Walker Books and Subsidiaries.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice a Scythe in a world where accidental deaths don’t happen. There is no war, no poverty, no diseases. The world would be overpopulated except for the creation of Scythes. Scythes must follow 10 rules and they can choose how people die. Citra and Rowan do not want to be Scythes, which is why they were chosen. Only one of them will succeed and become a Scythe, the other will die. As they work together to master the art of taking someone’s life, the relationship that develops makes it more difficult to continue or want to succeed. In this dystopian fiction novel, people are chosen to die based on previous world statistics of death. The journal entries at the beginning of each chapter invite you into a world where Shusterman envelops you and explains the rules. I could not put this book down as the plot and characters are so different than anything I have ever read. It’s intriguing and suspenseful as the reader becomes attached to both Citra and Rowan and to choose one over the other would mean that one character must die. The Arc of a Scythe series continues with book 2, Thunderhead. There is also anticipation of book 3, The Toll, due out in 2019 or 2020. Other books by Neal Shusterman that I would recommend are Unwind, Bruiser, The Schwa Was Here, and Challenger Deep.
Starr Carter is a 16-year-old high school student living two different lives. She has her school life where she is only one of a few African-American students in a predominantly white private school in a wealthy area. She has her home life in a poor neighborhood where her dad owns a business and her family tries to avoid violent situations. Starr is with a childhood friend on the way home from a party when a police officer shoots and kills him when he thought he was reaching in the car for a weapon. Starr is now the key witness to a murder and must face her own feelings of that night along with the racial tensions that arise at her school when her friends defend the policeman’s actions. Caught between worlds, Starr is forced to grow up overnight where she must choose to stand up for what’s right and fight against the wrong. I loved this book and found it impossible to put down until the end. Thomas gives us a serious look at the issues facing our world through teenagers to allow us to bring up the conversations we should be having in our homes and our schools. The hate u give movie was released in 2018 and has been awarded the following:
Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best
William C. Morris Award Winner
National Book Award Longlist
Printz Honor Book
Coretta Scott King Honor Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller!
Angie Thomas just released the book On the Come Up about a young girl fighting for equality to fulfill her dream of being a rapper.
McManus, K. M. (2017). One of Us is Lying. New York: Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House.
Five students at Bayview High School are assigned detention on a Monday afternoon at the end of the school day. However, only four make it out of the room alive. The mystery of Simon’s death and who is guilty of his murder is the plot of this story that explores the lives of the five teenagers and how all of their lives are connected. Each student has a unique background and their own story to tell. Each student would have a reason to kill Simon. Simon was the writer of an online gossip column that exposed secrets of the students in the high school. If someone cheats, steals or has a hidden past, Simon would uncover and reveal for the entire student body to discover. I liked that the introduction of the characters was only the surface layer and that the author wrote from multiple points of view to allow the reader to really appreciate each character’s existence. The book will remind you of the movie, The Breakfast Club, with all the unique personalities of the students that are thrown together. In fact, the idea for the novel was inspired by The Breakfast Club. I loved the mystery of trying to determine who murdered Simon since each character in the book would have their own personal reason. I did think that the story was a little too glamorized for a high school but it gave it a soap opera feel or “Riverdale” or “Gossip Girl” resemblance. This is the author’s debut novel with her second book, Two Can Keep a Secret, due out in 2019.
Zentner, J. (2016). The Serpent King. London: Crown Books for Young Readers/Random House.
Dill is a senior in high school living in a small town in Tennessee with his mother and recently-sent-to-prison father. His father is a pentecostal preacher with a talent for snake handling and he wants his son to continue with his religious ways. Dill has two best friends Travis. Travis dresses in all black, reads fantasy books and lives with an abusive dad. Lydia comes from a wealthy family but doesn’t fit the stereotypical “rich girl” personality. She is a fashion blogger looking forward to the day when she can get out of the small town mentality. Both Dill’s mother and father blame him for his father being sent to prison since he did not lie to cover up the pornographic images his father was in possession of on his computer. The town is critical of him because of his father’s religious beliefs and he is teased and harassed at school for the dynamics of his family. His mother forces him to visit his father in prison and Dill feels like getting out of the town after high school graduation is a hopeless dream. His mother is not supportive of higher education and thinks that there is no reason that Dill would need to leave the town to pursue a different life. Zentner tells the story from all three perspectives and the heartbreaking loss of one of the characters left me in tears. I love the subtle touch of romance between Dill and Lydia and the “real-ness” of the characters toward their family situations and how they handle the conflicts in their lives. When I think back to my high school days, I think that there may have been one or two of my best friends that I felt safe to share my feelings. I guess this story reminded me that true friends accept and encourage the real you, in spite of your family or anything else that tries to stand in the way of becoming what you’re meant to be.
This was Zentner’s debut novel that was recognized with the following awards:
William C. Morris YA Debut Award (2017)
Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee (2018)
Milwaukee County Teen Book Award Nominee (2017)
Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Nominee (2017)
Lincoln Award Nominee (2018)
Great Lakes Great Books Award for 9-12 (2018)
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Debut Goodreads Author & for Young Adult Fiction (2016)
Missouri Gateway Readers Award Nominee (2018)
Another book by Zentner that I would recommend is called Goodbye Days.
Marjane Satrapi’s life growing up in Tehran, Iran is told in comic strip form in black and white images and text. She was born in 1969 and was living in Iran during the cultural revolution that required women to be hidden and silent. Because her parents were more liberal than most, Marji had her own opinions, ideas and dreams. Many of the events that occurred between the ages of 6-14 would shut down those dreams. Marjane tells each significant event through her own eyes of the situation with only the knowledge that she has or is told to her by her parents. I found her to be extremely witty at such a young age when she would withhold the fact that she wanted to be a prophet from her parents after they were brought in by the teacher to discuss her future. The images contributed so much to the text and teaching about Iran and the Islamic Revolution. I can understand why this book is used in high schools to communicate the difficult subject matter in an engaging manner and view Marji's political and religious viewpoints. The thematic relationship between Marjane and her parents and how that formed her views on the situations that arise in the book should be explored by students as they are about to leave for colleges and jobs. The introduction provides the background needed to understand how the Shah came into power and Marjane's purpose in telling her story. This is a memoir unlike any other that I have read. Persepolis 2 continues with Marjane's story through adolescence and young adulthood.
A book written in first person poetic verse by main character, Xiomara Batista, growing up in a Harlem neighborhood with her parents and twin brother is now on my top ten list of favorites. Xiomara’s mother is a devout Catholic woman who wanted at one time to be a nun and has felt like she has cheated on God since she became a married woman. Her father lives with them but is essentially nonexistent in their daily life and experiences. Xiomara uses her writing to express her feelings of lust and love for Aman, her displeasure of God and going through confirmation, and her unpleasant experiences with her mother. Her best friend Caridad is her constant supporter and the person who knows all of her secrets and dreams. Xiomara’s twin brother is also going through his own personal struggles as he is hiding the fact that he is gay from his parents. I think my favorite part of this book is when Xiomara feels like she is ready to have sex with Aman. But when they actually get to the point where she feels uncomfortable and asks him to stop, he stops. He doesn’t call her names like she thinks will happen, he doesn’t make her feel guilty, and he patiently and gently helps her get dressed and wipes her tears. I love Xiomara, but I love so much more that Acevedo made a character like Aman. A character that is good and does the right thing even when challenged. I was so angry that the fight between Xiomara and her mom ends with her mother burning all of her poems. It broke my heart because of all the writing that was lost. This book took me through all emotions and I could not stop reading. I wanted to see Xiomara escape the harsh rules of her home and succeed. But I also wanted to see that her mother could learn from Xiomara and see that holding on so tight to her daughter would cause a wedge that can’t be removed. And most importantly, I want to be Mrs. Galiano. I love books in verse and this one is probably one of my favorites.
The Poet X has received the following awards:
National Book Award for Young People's Literature (2018)
Michael L. Printz Award (2019)
Kirkus Prize Nominee for Young Readers' Literature (2018)
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Poetry (2018)
Pura Belpré Author Award (2019)
Other books by Elizabeth Acevedo are With the Fire on High and Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths.
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