Tag Archives: Coming of Age

The Naming by Alison Croggon (The First Book of Pellinor)

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Synopsis:
A slave discovers that she is The One prophesied by the mystical race of Bards.

Review:
It really is all about execution when it comes to epic fantasy. I mean, that one sentence synopsis of The Gift could pretty much describe about a zillion other books, many of them truly dreadful. In fact, I was listening the audiobook of Mistborn at the same time, which has basically the same premise!

So far, Alison Croggon is delivering a fine, fine tale. She admits to being heavily influenced by JRR Tolkien, and it shows, but her writing is strong enough to that the book doesn’t feel like a copy or a pastiche. (Plus, there are no elves.) Maerad is strong without being plucky–that awful fantasy cliché for women–and her mentor Cadvan has a lot going on under the surface.

Cadvan is training Maerad in the Gift to which she was born, that of the noble race of Bards, who are teachers and healers and benevolent rulers. However, a strain of dark Bards called Hulls has arisen, under the leadership of the darkness, and Maerad might be the One prophesied to bring them down. This first book concerns itself with Maerad’s discovery of her gift and her increasing awareness of the threat, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes next.

Posted in Australian Literature | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Replies

The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini

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Synopsis:
A Zimbabwean woman strikes up a friendship with a white neighbor suspected of arson, and their lives become inextricably linked.

Review:
First-time author Irene Sabatini has a marvelous (or should I say, “lekker”) ear for the distinct vernacular rhythms of her native Zimbabwe. In The Boy Next Door, she chronicles a most unconventional love story that begins against the backdrop of the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. Later, the story settles amid an Africa in flux, dealing with issues of racial and national identity, history, and memory.

Sabatini does an excellent job building the chemistry and passion between Lindiwe, a “colored” girl from an unhappy family, and her next-door neighbor Ian, who is white and accused of setting the fire that killed his stepmother. Lindiwe pursues Ian while her family falls down around her ears. Later, Ian finds her again, an adult woman with a passion for politics and her native Africa. Drawn together by a shocking secret, they forge a life together but don’t quite live happily ever after.

I was reminded a lot of Zadie Smith, mainly in the characterizations. The Boy Next Door isn’t quite as sprawling, but Sabatini shares Smith’s obsession with the intersection of culture and identity. The book is a success, and I look forward to seeing what Sabatini does next.

Posted in African Literature | Tagged , , , , | 5 Replies

Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin

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Synopsis:
Sophie Blue is so goth she’s roadkill, at least in her dreams, as she searches for her lost father and tries to find herself.

Review:
Fade to Blue is very, very hip and very, very stylish–so much so that it made me feel old because I didn’t really get it. I am kind of old, closer to middle- than teenage, so maybe that’s okay. The writing is fantastic, and the plotting creative, but I just didn’t click with it. I think many teens will, though. For some reason, I thought it was going to be a graphic novel, and think it should be. Perhaps some pictures would’ve helped me follow the intricate, surreal storyline.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , | Leave a reply

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

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Synopsis:
A 6-year-old wunderkind enters Battle School to train to defeat the aggressive, invading Buggers.

Review:
This was actually my first foray into audiobooks on the iPod. I am a huge fan of podcasts, but had yet to tackle a book during the time I spend pushing my stroller and nursing Superfast Toddler to sleep. I figured Ender’s Game was a good entrée, since I have read it before and it wasn’t terribly long, only 11 hours. Since it only took me 2 or 3 hours to actually read the thing, the inefficiency sort of bothered me at first, but I got into it really quickly.

What amazes me about Ender’s Game is how skillfully Card pulls off such an absurd premise. Ender and his cohorts are children who are capable of tremendous feats of military strategy and intellect. It’s impossible to picture–yet it totally works. Even more remarkable is how he maintains sympathy for Ender, who could’ve been totally insufferable in his excellence and achievement. Ender never fails, but you don’t hate him, because Card gets into his alienation and fears so deeply. All told, it’s a fine book for newcomers to science fiction, and definitely held up to a second read.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Replies

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford

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Synopsis:
Carter just can’t believe he’s still a virgin, but hopefully starting high school will change all that!

Review:
Carter Finally Gets It was really not for me. I am very sensitive now that I’m a mom and it was really hard to read about 13- and 14-year-old girls dressing like prostitutes. I just don’t want to read about children being sexually active as a comedy.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , | 4 Replies

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

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Synopsis:
Orphaned Kira is tapped to continue her mother’s work as a weaver with mystical powers, but her glimpses into the world lead her to question everything she’s ever known.

Review:
Gathering Blue is Lois Lowry’s follow-up to The Giver, her dystopian look at a world without pain. Gathering Blue is a much lighter work, and feels like a bridge to the next book in the trilogy, Messenger. I wasn’t really blown away by this book so I’m not going to say much, other than Lowry’s prose is lovely and the world she created is captivating. The story was just a bit lacking.

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Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby

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Synopsis:
A math whiz blows a huge presentation just days before graduation, and now he’s haunted by the ghosts of his family’s past tragedies and the very real threat posed by his unhinged rival.

Review:
The afterword says that M. Ann Jacoby toiled at Life After Genius for years. I’m hoping it doesn’t take her as long to get the next one out because she’s got a great writing style and brings a lot of intelligence and originality to her storytelling. The book is reminiscent of the movie Rushmore, only without the cutesy factor–her characters are idiosyncratic without being quirky. The result is that Mead’s journey feels epic and important, as well as suspenseful, thanks to Jacoby’s well-engineered structure and unexpected plotting.

I was really good at math when I was younger–made it all the way to AP Calculus II, with As and everything. But it wasn’t my passion, so I didn’t pursue it at all in college, and now I’ve forgotten everything except the quadratic formula. Even so, I’m drawn to the beauty of higher math, the way that numbers dance as though they don’t need people at all. I always hated the word problems in physics–I’d get too caught up in the narrative to be able to turn it into an equation. Jacoby captures the joys of math and makes Mead’s passion come alive. She doesn’t bog the story down explaining the intricacies of the Riemann zeta function, but she’s not afraid to talk about it either. I might not know how Mead is calculating zeta zeros, or what the critical line looks like, but I liked that she trusted her readers enough to use some jargon. It made the story feel real and helped me lock into Mead and identify with him.

Mead is a boy genius, off to college just shy of his 16th birthday and scheduled to complete it by age 18. He’s surrounded by scheming academics, a jealous rival, a family of undertakers, and naked girls thanks to the dormitory’s coed showers. Fists fly, hearts break, and families disintegrate and it’s funny and poignant and edgy and real. Outstanding debut!

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

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Synopsis:
After spending time incarcerated in a secret prison after a terrorist attack, a computer-savvy teen decides to fight back in the name of the Constitution.

Review:
I am so not cool enough for Little Brother. I’ve never hacked, coded, partitioned or flashmobbed. I don’t understand crypto and I’ve never touched an Xbox. I did learn BASIC programming when I was in elementary school, and one time I spent half a day typing in commands that I got from Mad Magazine, promising to render a picture of Alfred E. Newman right there on my Apple II+. When I hit RUN, imagine how disillusioned my 9-year-old self was to see my screen fill up with green, save for one blank dot right in the middle. Oh, Mad. You so crazy. I decided to stick with reading and counted cross stitch.

Little Brother follows a technologically adept teenager who builds an underground computer network in order to get around the Department of Homeland Security’s stranglehold on civil rights. Marcus is way smart, yet he keeps on underestimating the power that he has to sway the masses. Time and again, he sees that his flash mobs are no better than the terrorists that DHS purports to fight. Yet he keeps persevering, trying to find his righteousness, continually returning to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to remind him what the fight is all about.

There’s a love story, too, and a coming of age story featuring parents who just don’t understand. And just as Moby-Dick interspersed Captain Ahab’s metaphysical quest with the minutiae of whaling (whale-penis costume, anyone?), Little Brother digresses into discourses on the history of the internet, the logistics of cryptography, and the addictive power of writing code. Somehow author Cory Doctorow manages to keep it all from feeling pedantic, mainly because he obviously shares Marcus’s passion and exuberance.

The book suffers a bit from too much speechifying, and there’s not much depth in the character development. However, it’s a fun, breezy read with a worthwhile lesson about civil liberties and the importance of freedom.

Guardian by Julian Lester

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Synopsis:
A white boy in in 1946 witnesses a lynching.

Review:
While the subject matter of Guardian is powerful, the approach is heavy-handed, and I don’t think it has anything new to say about racial violence. It’s certainly no To Kill A Mockingbird, and honestly I would be disappointed if a teen picked up this book instead of that one, just because it’s new.

The characters are thin to the point of caricature, and there is such a sharp distinction between the good guys and the bad guys as to make it impossible for a reader to interrogate his or her own prejudices. The central act of violence really frustrated me, because it was so extreme that it was hard to understand how a town would want to shelter such a monster, powerful father or not. Evil and hatred is so much more insidious than all that.

However, I give teen readers a lot of credit, in that they don’t tend to get hung up on lazy writing when big issues are at stake. And since we have yet to eradicate racism from American society, it’s good for them to be reading books on this topic.

The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner

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Synopsis:
A wealthy young woman takes a job transcribing the diary of a victim of the Salem witch trials, discovering a powerful love story that changes her perspective on her privileged life.

Review:
Deftly interweaving the very different stories of three headstrong women, Susan Meissner has crafted a novel that delivers a powerfully moving reading experience. I found myself on the verge of tears many times, overcome by Lauren’s journey as she inhabits the world of Mercy, a young woman fated to die by hanging during the Salem witch trials. The Shape of Mercy is one of those books that wraps around you like your comforter from high school–warm, familiar, and safe for crying.

Lauren is trying to untangle her identity from that of her family, a dynasty of self-made men. She’s haunted by the guilty feeling that she is playing at real life, and coming to the realization that her money colors the way she views the world. Mercy’s diary is owned by Abigail, an 83-year-old librarian who has also been surrounded by wealth, and now lives alone and lonely, with nothing she loves except for the diary. Lauren believes that Abigail is the victim of a broken heart, and fears the same fate for herself, because she can’t imagine that her cousin’s handsome friend Raul could ever really look her way.

I would recommend this book to both young adult and chick lit fans alike. Meissner’s prose has the simple depth of an Anne Tyler, and I think the book is the kind that gives you a different experience depending on where you are in your life when you read it.