Review Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson

Three days before her drama club's trip to Italy, Jessa Gardner discovers her boyfriend in the costume barn with another girl. Jessa is left with a care package from her best friend titled "Top Twenty Reasons He's a Slimy Jerk Bastard," instructing her to do one un-Jessa-like thing each day of the trip. At turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, Instructions for a Broken Heart paints a magical Italy in which Jessa learns she must figure out life-and romance-for herself.

First love is always the hardest to deal with since there is nothing to compare it to. For Jessa finding her boyfriend Sean tangled together in the school’s costume barn with another girl days before her trip to Italy with the drama club (including the cheating duo) is only the beginning of Jessa’s struggle to deal with her heat break. Jessa gets a leg up from her best friend Cassia, who sends a care package in the form of the top twenty reasons Sean is a pathetic excuse of a boyfriend and instructions Jessa must follow throughout her trip. Not unlike Songs of a Teenage Nomad, Kim Culbertson’s lyrical writing, sense of humor and strong teen voice, provides Instruction for a Broken Heart with strong emotions that anyone who has ever dealt with a heart break can relate to.

One aspect of Culbertson’s writing that I thoroughly enjoy is her ability to create realistic characters that are easy to relate to. Jessa is definitely one interesting character. She is use to doing everything well, but she finds herself in new territory when her well ordered, albeit scripted life, calls for her to adlib a lot. Cassia knowing her best friend all too well, prods her to try new roles with her instructions, and as Jessa attempts to follow her friend’s instructions, she slowly makes some personal gains.

Other characters also give Instructions for a Broken Heart a freshness to the drama. Tyler, who is responsible for giving Jessa Cassia’s instructions was  a great addition as was Dylan Thomas who definitely had some possibilities for distraction from Jessa’s ex. I also completely enjoyed some of the cameo characters provided in the form of another school, who joined Jessa’s group for the duration of the trip and provided quite a lot of comic relief.

Add to a great cast of characters the beauty of Italy and Instructions for a Broken Heart became for me a truly fun adventure. I wish I had had a friend like Cassia and Tyler when I experienced my first heartbreak because Jessa’s growth from poor pitiable me to being able to see new and exciting possibilities was greatly aided by their knowledge of their friend.  Overall, Instructions for a Broken Heart is filled with great insights and fun adventures making it a  delicious read.

 Source: Received copy for review from publisher

Review Miles from Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams

 Thirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work at the grocery store. Lacey hopes that her mother's ghosts have finally been laid to rest; after all, she seems so much better these days, and they really do need the money. But as the hours tick by and memories come flooding back, a day full of hope spins terrifyingly out of control....

“No one can get inside the head and heart of a 13-year-old girl better than Carol Lynch Williams, and I mean no one," said James S. Jacobs, Professor of Children's Literature at Brigham Young University, of her breakout novel, The Chosen One. Now this award-winning YA author brings us an equally gripping story of a girl who loves her mother, but must face the truth of what life with that mother means for both of them. (Publisher's summary from Goodreads)

Miles from Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams is an intense and gut wrenching story that brings to light a day in the life of 13-year-old Lacey. The book, a short 195 pages, packs a powerful punch that left me feeling completely drained by its intensity.

Lacey is both strong and vulnerable. Living alone with her mother who is incapable of functioning normally due to her mental illness, Lacey has had to be a child caregiver for some time. However, the child-Lacey, craves normal, and as her day and the story begins, she forces away her doubts and focuses on the possibility that normal is a bus ride away for both her and mom.

I loved how Williams allowed us to tag along with Lacey as she begins her new job at the library where we get a hint of the 13-year-old she should be, but also expertly weaves the reasons why this has been completely out of her reach. Lacey voice is as authentic as can be and it is poignantly clear that Williams knows how to maintain a tension that drives a story forward building to a terrifying and heart-wrenching end. I really needed to save Lacey, but admired her devotion to her mother too.

Miles from Ordinary is one very emotional read and has me wondering just how many kids end up living their lives with a parent who has a mental illness like Lacey’s mother. Williams prose is shockingly simple, but beautifully poetic, and while this is my first experience reading one of Williams’ books, it will not be my last. As the title prophetically states, the story is certainly miles from ordinary and am thankful I made the trip. 

 Source: Received ARC copy for review from publisher

ReviewLeverage by Joshua Cohen

There’s an extraordinary price for victory at Oregrove High. It is paid on—and off—the football field. And it claims its victims without mercy—including the most innocent bystanders.

When a violent, steroid-infused, ever-escalating prank war has devastating consequences, an unlikely friendship between a talented but emotionally damaged fullback and a promising gymnast might hold the key to a school’s salvation.

Told in alternating voices and with unapologetic truth, Leverage illuminates the fierce loyalty, flawed justice, and hard-won optimism of two young athletes.

Leverage is a book I am glad is fiction, and fear may hold a few too many truths about the power of high school athletes, athletic programs, steroids usage, and the high cost of bullying. As YA contemporary novels go, this one knocked me out with its explicit and graphic portrayal of what happens when the need to win supersedes everything.

Let me warn you from the get go that Leverage is not a feel good story, and if you are squeamish reading about violence, there are a few scenes of a graphic nature that are extremely hard to take. However, Cohen’s portrayal of how quickly a bunch of pranks can spiral into deadly consequences is meant to make you uncomfortable and he succeeds. 

Even now as I try to describe my feelings about this book, I am at a lost for words. How do I explain liking something that made me cringe and recoil from the experience. What I can say is that Cohen’s writing is frank and tensely suspenseful and left me a lot less innocent than what I was before I read the book.

To be certain, Leverage's plot  is strongly character driven. Cohen alternates the story between two totally different boys. Danny dreams of being an Olympic gymnast. He is small, a sophomore, and is just trying to survive high school. Kurt, on the other hand is a “man-giant” and the school’s new fullback. He arrives at Oregrove with a lot of baggage. Most of his life has been spent in the foster care system and as the plot develops, Cohen gives ever increasing snippets into the abuse he has suffered at the hands of his caretakers. Despite his size, and his past, he is gentle and caring, and the complete opposite of the three senior football players, whose main goal in life is to let others know they rule the school.

I really like Danny, but it was Kurt, who I felt the most compassion towards. Both boy are fighting personal demons, and Cohen's skillful development of Danny and Kurt’s unlikely friendship is carefully scripted in a realistic way. In the end, their friendship is the vehicle that allows them both to summon the strength they need to face their fears and stop being victims.  

While the secondary characters, including the football coach, whose main goal is to ensure his players are stars and pushes them to remain in top form by giving them steroids to get them bigger, seems at times stereotypical, Cohen manages to provide enough background to keep them from being flat. From the very first chapter Cohen aptly describes the disparity found between the football players and other athletes in the school. The bullying by the entitled seniors is accepted as part of the school’s hierarchy, and becomes increasingly more dangerous throughout the story.

Leverage is an extremely powerful novel. Although I was horrified by the violence, I was also compelled by Danny and Kurt’s stories and found the book impossible to put down. While I cannot recommend Leverage to my middle school students, I highly recommend it for older YA readers, especially guys. It provides a sense of empowerment through friendship and proves that courage is fighting back fear and standing up for what is right.

 Source: Received ARC copy from author for review

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else Guest Post, Review, & Giveaway, Oh My

I am very pleased to welcome Erin McCahan to Eating YA Books today as part of her blog tour. Erin was kind enough to write a guest post just for Eating YA Fans, and since I love some of the great themes and issue in I Now Prounce You Someone Else I asked if Erin could talk about self-identity vs peer pressure and sex.

Self-identity.  Peer pressure.  And sex.  Yikes!  These are three weighty issues.  Are you sure you don’t want to talk about something fun like monkeys or hamsters?  But I do address these thing in I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU SOMEONE ELSE, so, okay, I can write about them here.

Self-identity:  Find it
Peer pressure:  Don’t give in to it.
Sex:  Ah, geez.  It’s such a hyper-sexualized world anymore, and that’s just sad.

Am I done?  No?  More?

Okay.

Let me tell you about Bronwen.  She is seventeen at the start of the novel’s action, twenty or twenty-one – don’t you love how I don’t remember – at its end.  These aren’t Magic Years of self-discovery.  But they’re crucial.  I just don’t want anyone thinking that you hit twenty-one and somehow – poof – become endowed overnight with a fully formed adult identity.  You don’t.  No one does. 

It is formed over long years by experience, and experience is a mix of success and failure, trial and error, learning and application, practice and refinement.  And Bronwen is at the beginning of this process, which is, she discovers, learn as you go.

The one advantage she has, that some girls do, some girls don’t, is that she takes into the process of self-discovery some depth of understanding about herself already.  Some.  She knows a few things that are right for her – including no sex before marriage.  She has started this process already – whether she is wholly aware of it or not.  And much of it comes from the very good emotional and moral foundation laid by her father and reinforced, initially, by her step-father.  So no matter how battered she gets by heartache and loss or by the errors that are unavoidable as we all grow, she always has this foundation to return to and to build on.

So – now can we talk monkeys and hamsters?

Thank you Erin for stopping by today. Oh, and just in case haven't already read or heard about her debut novel I Now Pronounce You Someone Else, then all I can say is you do not want to miss adding this to your must read list, and I am going to help you do just that by giving away to one lucky reader a copy of Erin's new book. More about that later. First, here is my review of I Now Prounounce You Someone Else.

Eighteen-year-old Bronwen Oliver has a secret: She's really Phoebe, the lost daughter of the loving Lilywhite family. That's the only way to explain her image-obsessed mother; a kind but distant stepfather; and a brother with a small personality complex. Bronwen knows she must have been switched at birth, and she can't wait to get away from her "family" for good.

Then she meets Jared Sondervan. He's sweet, funny, everything she wants — and he has the family Bronwen has always wanted too. She falls head over heels in love, and when he
proposes marriage, she joyfully accepts. But is Jared truly what she needs? And if he's not, she has to ask: What would Phoebe Lilywhite do? (Publisher's summary from Powell's Books)

Although I Now Pronounce You Someone Else is a fun, light read that had me laughing and giggling and wishing I had been more like Browen when I was in high school, it is also a book that deals with some important teen issues such as self-identity, peer (and parental) pressures, and teen sex.

I adored Browen. She is strongly committed to not having sex until she is married. And I applauded her decision. While she stays true to her belief, she also has some deep seeded issue with her mother, which unfortunately caused her to feel like she doesn’t belong. In some ways, it is Browen’s whole switched at birth mentality that has her deciding in her senior year to marry Jarred, a college senior.

Browen’s decision to marry Jarred changed the tone of the book for me and had me worried up until the end. Don’t get me wrong I really liked Jarred, he was the perfect guy: attentive, sweet, and always the perfect gentleman. And although I felt that Browen and Jarred really did love each other, I am afraid my own mother instincts kicked in and I felt that Browen’s decision was based too much on her need to be a part of a family that was the exact opposite of the one she  had.

The true strength of the novel is Erin’s writing. The originality of the plot and Erin’s marvelous characterization was stunning. The fact that I wanted to have a long talk with Browen about her marriage plans proves that Browen was a very believable character. I also really disliked Browen mother and completely understood why Browen felt disengaged in her own family. None of these feeling would have surfaced in me if Erin’s writing had been anything less than perfect. 

Unfortunately, I feel that I have not even come close to adequately explaining just how much I enjoyed this book. Therefore, I really hope you will read this book for yourself because I am positive you not be disappointed.

And to back up my recommendation, I am very pleased to able to offer (courtesy of Erin and her publishers) one lucky person US resident their very own copy of  I Now Pronounce You Someone Else. And I am throwing in an additional copy from the Book Depository to all my international friends. All you have to do is leave a comment below. Make sure you also leave an email address and let me know where you live. Giveaway ends November 5.

Source: Received copy from publisher for review

Review/Losing Faith by Denise Jaden

When Brie's sister, Faith, dies suddenly, Brie's world falls apart. As she goes through the bizarre and devastating process of mourning the sister she never understood and barely even liked, everything in her life seems to spiral farther and farther off course. Her parents are a mess, her friends don’t know how to treat her, and her perfect boyfriend suddenly seems anything but.

As Brie settles into her new normal, she encounters more questions than closure: Certain facts about the way Faith died just don't line up. Brie soon uncovers a dark and twisted secret about Faith’s final night...a secret that puts her own life in danger.

I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book on my own if it hadn’t been on the Contemp Challenged. What I found was a so so book about the loss of a sister. The plot revolved around Brie’s search for the truth about how Faith died. While the premise of the plot was different, I am afraid that the plot was not enough to fully engage me primarily because of the characterization.

From the start, Brie’s connection to Faith was pretty non-existent. Faith and Brie’s parents were quite religious while Brie was not. I found it hard to accept that after Faith’s death, that Brie suddenly had an all consuming desire to figure out exactly how Faith died. Her motives just didn’t ring true. I also had a hard time with the connection to Alis, who slowly became Brie’s love interest. One character I did like was Tessa, but again I really couldn’t wrap my head around the relationship that Brie and Tessa developed over the course of the story.

One thing I did like about the book was Jaden’s ability to create suspense, which she did throughout the book. However, I really wanted more about the cult. The ending was exciting and exposed the cult enough to satisfy most of my questions. I was also impressed with how Jaden handled the religious aspect of the book, never preachy, she does explore the possibility that sometimes religion can turn into over zealousness and lose touch with the true meaning of faith.

Although Losing Faith did not totally engage me, I feel that it is a book that will appeal to the YA audience, and that the book more than establishes Jaden as a strong voice in contemporary YA fiction.

Review Girl Stolen by April Henry

Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her step-mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price? (Publisher's summary from Powell's Books)

While I love fantasy and especially the plethora of paranormal stories available in YA books, I am always up for a well-executed realistic fiction read too. Girl Stolen by April Henry is just such a read. Cheyenne’s story is terrifying, suspenseful, and scarily real primarily because of Henry’s brilliant characterization.

From the first moment Cheyenne realizes that someone has stolen her step-mom’s SUV, I began feeling the fear. Cheyenne is blind, which makes her an extremely vulnerable victim. Being inside her head, I was constantly amazed at her ability to use her blindness to her advantage. Even sighted I doubt I could have stayed rational given the initial situation Cheyenne faced. When you add to this the hopelessness of how kidnappings often goes badly for the victim, Cheyenne’s bravery and fight was inspiring.  

The most surprising aspect of this story; however, was how sympathetic I felt towards Griffin, Cheyenne’s abductor. Griffin’s character is revealed to the reader and to Cheyenne through his interactions with her and his father. It becomes apparent that Griffin is a scarred young man both physically (he was burned in a meth lab explosion at a fairly young age), and internally (he believes his mother abandoned him, he is dyslexic, and a drop-out).  Griffin’s life with his father, who is a duplicitous malfeasant, made it impossible not to see him as a victim too, and I could not help worry what would happen to him even as I feared for Cheyenne’s safety.

Henry knows how to build and maintain suspense. Trust me when I say that once you begin Girl Stolen you will be unable to put it down until you reach the end, which comes quickly and is not without some well placed twists and terrifying moments for both Cheyenne and Griffin.

If you are looking for an engrossing realistic fiction story, I highly recommend Girl Stolen, which is scheduled for release September 28, 2010. I know I will be buying a copy for my classroom and nominating it for placement on the 2011-2012 Book Battle list.

Source: ARC copy provided by We Love YA Tours

Accepting the Comtemps Challenge

There is a new challenge in the blogosphere, and I for one am more than a little excited about it. 

The Comtemps Challenge is hosted by a group of YA authors with contemporary novels releasing over the course of the next year. Their website states, "We are passionate about realistic fiction because these are the books that remind us we're not alone in this real world. Our mission is simple - to spotlight contemporary fiction for young adults through blog posts, author events, and (over)sharing from our teen years" 

By accepting the challenge I am promising to read 18 to 21 upcoming contemporary novel starting now and ending August 15, 2011.

Here are the books:

1. Losing Faith by Denise Jaden
2. The DUFF by Kody Keplinger
3. Girl Stolen by April Henry 9/5
4. Freefall by Mindi Scott
5. The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney
6. Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler
7. Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers 2/5
8. Trapped by Michael Northrop
9. Rival by Sarah Bennet Wealer
10. Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt
11. Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard
12. Family by Micol Ostow
13. Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith
14. Pearl by Jo Knowles
15. Saving June by Hannah Harrington
16. The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
17. Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker
18. Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott
19. The third book in the Carter series by Brent Crawford
20. Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy
21. Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

Thanks to Michelle and Leslie's Book Picks for turning me onto this great challenge.

So are you up to the challenge too?