Category Archives: American Literature

XVI by Julia Karr

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Synopsis:
Nina Oberon doesn’t want to turn 16, when she’ll be tattooed and expected to become sexually active, but a family tragedy puts her in touch with an underground movement to reform society at any cost.

Review:
XVI raises a lot of really fascinating issues with identity, coming of age, the exploitation of women, gender roles, and power. Unfortunately, the plotting really faltered near the end. I gave the sequel, Truth, a try but the plotting in that one was even less inspiring and I gave up.

Boot Camp by Todd Strasser

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Synopsis:
Sent to a teen boot camp for falling in love with his teacher, Garrett fights to keep his integrity through beatings and psychological torture, while planning his escape.

Review:
Boot Camp was titillating and highly readable, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it. It just felt so extreme, not just in its depiction of the boot camp but in the characterizations and plot. It definitely kept me hooked in, but when it was over I didn’t feel like it rocked my world.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

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Synopsis:
After dying in a car crash, popular high school senior Samantha has to re-live Cupid day, facing up to her own weaknesses and those of her best friends, and finding a hope that fuels her will to find out how she can avert her own inevitable fate.

Review:
Before I Fall was recommended to me by YA book reviewer extraordinaire Renee Fountain, whose site Book Fetish is chock-a-block with a wonderfully diverse assortment of reviews. I had a lovely breakfast with Renee and enjoyed getting to talk books with a fellow YA-aficionado. She told me I had to read this book, and she was absolutely right.

The story follows a popular high school girl who lives an unexamined life of keg parties, teasing the less fortunate, and basking the reflected glow of her popular best friends. Samantha has never stopped to wonder if she’s cut out for anything more until the night when she is killed in a car accident. The next morning she wakes up on the day she died, and it seems like she’s being given a chance to make things right. Only Sam can’t figure out what she’s supposed to do, and makes some hideous mistakes before finally figuring out what it is she’s supposed to live for. I was tremendously moved by Sam’s journey and loved the way Lauren Oliver made me care about the kinds of girls I tend to hate, the popular, beautiful, lucky ones who don’t care who they hurt as long as they remain on top. The story is fearlessly told with ruthless honesty and no fear of the darker side of life. I loved it!

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

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Synopsis:
Chloe’s always admired her older sister, but when Ruby shows up with a girl who was dead the last time Chloe saw her, Chloe starts to fear that her sister can do anything–absolutely anything–she wants, no matter what Chloe or anybody else thinks about it.

Review:
Both Ruby and Chloe are compelling characters, for completely different reasons, and that’s what makes Imaginary Girls so successful. Ruby is obsessed with Olive, a town buried under a reservoir thanks to some eminent domain shenanigans in the early 20th Century. Chloe fears Olive, because she almost died in the reservoir, saved only by the timely appearance of a rowboat containing the dead body of London, a girl in Chloe’s class. Chloe left town, but when Ruby summons her back for the summer, Chloe is excited–until Ruby shows her London, who isn’t dead. She’s alive–and she shouldn’t be.

This is a wonderfully creepy premise, reminiscent of my favorite author Shirley Jackson, only with a YA touch. Ruby is so alive, such a vibrant and exciting character and it’s easy to see why the world seems to revolve around her. It’s impossible to imagine her as anything other than a beautiful teenager, at the peak of her life and beauty and power. She’s everything every girl wants to be, and Chloe loves that there’s no one on the planet whom Ruby loves the way she loves Chloe. The sisters build a world together, and it’s just about perfect, except for London, whose very existent freaks Chloe out and threatens the world that Ruby has created for them. Even though this is a contemporary story, set in summer sunshine among partying teens, this book is a classic Gothic story that hits all the right notes.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

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Synopsis:
Hazel and Augustus have terminal cancer–but that won’t stop them from falling in love.

Review:
I just can’t do justice to The Fault in Our Stars with a simple logline. Hazel and Augustus are simply two of the most original, quirky, lovable, real, charming, intelligent characters I’ve found in YA fiction–and that’s saying a lot, because I read a lot of awesome YA fiction. The competition is fierce for awesomest couple ever, but Hazel and Augustus win hands down. I loved them, I loved their story, I wanted to hang out with them and especially go to Amsterdam with them and watch them conquer the world even while their cancer is eating them from the inside out. These kids are so alive and I just ached for every minute of this book. I’ve never read a book about illness that moved me the way this one did. There’s nothing sentimental or schmaltzy or easy or stupid about this book. It’s truthful and honest and funny and poignant and heartbreaking and everything. Just everything.

Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton

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Synopsis:
A memoir by the chef-owner of Prune in New York City’s East Village.

Review:
I loved Blood, Bones, and Butter, and not just because I have eaten at Prune. Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir is more than just a restaurant tale–it’s an eyewitness account of the gentrification of both New York City, and of a street smart, fearless woman with a work ethic you just won’t believe.

My favorite section of the book was an extended musing on what it means to be a “woman chef.” Few people have articulated so well the dilemma of every woman working in a man’s world, expressing a simple desire for the game to just go away. In many ways, cooking is a pure meritocracy, but not enough people see it that way and still persist in playing the same games of gender politics. The food should be all that anyone talks about, yet women and men alike still want to rate one sex as superior to the other, by saying equally dumb thinks like “She’s a good woman chef” or “Women have superior palates.” Neither gets anybody anywhere.

It helps that Hamilton’s life is riveting. I thoroughly enjoyed this read and look forward to discussing it with my foodie friends.

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

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Synopsis:
Essays from the chef, commentator, and food chronicler who wrote Kitchen Confidential.

Review:
I picked up Medium Raw through a sale on Audible, drawn in by the chance to hear Anthony Bourdain read his own book. I really really like the sound of his voice, except for the way he pronounces “restaurant” to rhyme with “runt.” (Or another word he’s really fond of that I won’t type here.) I enjoyed but didn’t love it. I was promised way more Top Chef trivia than I got here. I do love the way he describes food and appreciate that he’s got lots of opinions, but sometimes I felt like I was missing some of the references. The best essay was the one about the guy who butchers the fish at Le Bernardin and how he finally got to eat a meal there. He was on an episode of Top Chef so it was great to learn more of his backstory.

When Sparrows Fall by Meg Moseley

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Synopsis:
A homeschooling widow with six kids finds her life thrown into chaos when her pastor announces the whole church is moving to another town–and she doesn’t want to go.

Review:
I just loved When Sparrows Fall. It’s the rare book about Christians that manages to portray a life of faith while still remembering that the characters are people, too. It was critical of things that are wrong in certain sectors of Christianity without condemning the faith as a whole. And the details brought to Miranda’s life were just spot on–I really felt like I knew her and came to really love her and wish that we could be friends.

I’m a Christian homeschooling mom myself, albeit an urban one who isn’t involved in a patriarchal church or marriage. We don’t use corporal punishment and we wear regular clothes. We’ll probably stop at just 2 kids–no quiver-filling here. Yet I’m oddly protective of the women who get laughed at for their old-fashioned ways. Their earnestness and sincerity appeals to me. I loved seeing how Miranda was able to wake up to the things that were holding her and her family back from following God while still remaining fundamentally the same.

Her pastor was clearly a guy to be wary of, yet Meg Moseley held back from making him a full-on wicked villain. He was just a man, with flaws and sins and errors. Sure, he’s dangerous–very much so–but he’s not a cartoon character. I appreciated that, too. And there were some great surprises hidden in that storyline.

Love love love this book.

Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan

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Synopsis:
Emma has everything going for her–success in the classroom and on the soccer field–but her home life is a nightmare of epic proportions, and she’s just trying to get by until she meets Evan and decides she deserves more out of life.

Review:
The love story in Reason to Breathe just blew me away. I really felt like I was falling in love myself–and I never get that feeling when I’m reading books. Romance just doesn’t do it for me in general–I’m not inclined to let myself get swept up in it. The last time I was this taken in by the power of the dynamic between two people was when I read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon–and if you’ve read that book and are shaking your head in disbelief, yes, I am comparing Emma and Evan to Claire and Jamie.

What kills me the most about the book is that Rebecca Donovan didn’t publish her book through traditional means. She e-published. I chose the book because it’s part of Amazon Prime’s Kindle library program, where you can get 1 free book a month (but can’t keep it). It’s really incredible to me how far e-publishing has come.

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown

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Synopsis:
A teen girl’s new boyfriend isn’t the gentleman he seems to be, but she alienates her two best friends when they try to intervene, with violent results.

Review:
Bitter End is an insightful look at the psychology of a teen girl in love with an abusive boy. I thought that Jennifer Brown‘s execution was perceptive, risky, and emotionally honest. It was hard to watch Alex push her friends away, hard to see her put up with excuses and apologies, but I understood every choice she made from the inside out.