Tag Archives: Headstrong Girl

Kalifornia Blu by Kendell Shaffer

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Synopsis:
When dreadlocked and delinquent skater girl Kal’s rock star mom fails to come back to LA for a hearing, Kal finds herself living with the father she never knew, under a strict curfew–and enrolled in a magnet school for teens who aspire to careers in law enforcement.

Review:
Set in the meticulously and passionately described LA town of Venice Beach, Kalifornia Blu has attitude and the plot to back it up. Kal has always been a wild child, the daughter of an aging rock star who’s basically given up on being a mom, leaving Kal alone in a luxury apartment and tended by lawyers. When Kal is caught skateboarding at 3 a.m., the judge sentences her to an immediate transfer into a program for wannabe cops. She has to wear a junior police uniform and everything. Despite her desire to be anywhere else, she can’t help but get involved in the lives of her fellow students, and her unique talents may make her the only person who can really help her ex-gang member classmate before it’s too late. Kendell Shaffer writes the hell out of the story, giving Kal a voice that is funny, wise, foolish, tough, and vulnerable all at once.

Quintessence by David Walton

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Synopsis:
In an alternate version of Europe during the pre-Elizabethan years, with the Inquisition raging in Spain, an alchemist and a scientist and a headstrong girl bonded to a magical creature travel to the edge of the world to find quintessence, a substance that can unlock the powers of the universe.

Review:
Quintessence was great fun, a novel that felt as deeply “researched” as any historical novel, and with a fully realized magical world that kept unfolding until the very last pages. Catherine, the girl whose magical bond with on of the creatures of Horizon triggers a cataclysm, did do some foot-stamping, but I forgave the author because of all the other wonderful elements of this story. The use of Spanish inquisitors brought a level of risk and theological complexity that put the book over the top for me. I really enjoyed it.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

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Synopsis:
Seraphina is mistress of music at the royal court, but when dragon/human relations become strained, she fears that someone will discover her secret–that she is half dragon herself.

Review:
Seraphina was an absolutely delicious read. Fabulous world, great political intrigue, and a winning love story all centered around a fierce, strong, vulnerable, complicated protagonist. I am only sad that this is just Rachel Hartman‘s debut because I want to read more!

The List by Siobhan Vivian

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Synopsis:
When the annual list of prettiest and ugliest girls in each grade is posted, the named girls face their demons and find out who they really are.

Review:
The List is my favorite kind of YA–edgy, sharp, and deeply human. I loved the backstories created for all the characters and how it all came together.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

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Synopsis:
In a world divided into five factions ruled by a defining character trait, a young woman risks excommunication if anyone discovers that she is Divergent–showing tendencies to more than one character trait.

Review:
I initially dismissed Divergent as part of the post-Hunger Games dystopian frenzy and assumed it wouldn’t grip me and enthrall me in quite the same way. I was dead wrong–I actually think Divergent is a better story than HG–at least so far. I felt way more invested in Tris’s dilemma because I didn’t really feel like anyone was protecting her the way that everyone seemed to protect Katniss.

I’m also much more interested in the world created here than in that of Panem because Veronica Roth makes the contrivance of the factions really, really work. This series is a keeper and I’m already reading book 2!

A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

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Synopsis:
Subtitled “How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband ‘Master’.”

Review:
I didn’t think I wanted to read A Year of Biblical Womanhood because it seemed gimmicky and I assumed that the writer was going for snark. But I gradually became turned on to the beautiful, incisive, perceptive, and deeply Christian writings of author Rachel Held Evans and realized I had to make this my next read.

I want all of my friends to read this book so we can talk about how awesome it is. I double dog dare anyone to find fault with Held Evans’s commitment to orthodoxy and her belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. She doesn’t dismiss the hard sayings of Scripture nor does she assume that all Scripture is proscriptive. Instead she goes deep into Biblical exegesis, literary analysis, and theological research in order to find out what the Bible has to say to women.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein

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Synopsis:
When her plane goes down in Nazi occupied France, a teenage Scottish spy known only as Verity has just one chance to write her confession before her captors send her off to a concentration camp.

Review:
Code Name Verity was the best read I have had all year. No contest. (Well, maybe The Devil in Silver.) I seriously just want everyone to feel how I feel when I think about “FLY THE PLANE MADDIE.” I am about to cry and I might just have to go back and re-read the book immediately.

The book is ostensibly the confession of Verity, a British spy (“I’M SCOTTISH”) who has been captured by the Gestapo. Asked to confess, she readily gives up 11 wireless codes and is eager to tell all that she can. She’s given paper and ink and begins to write–but instead of a dry listing of facts, she begins to tell the story of Maddie, a girl with a knack for mechanics and a dream of flying planes. Maddie’s dream came true when she’s enlisted to fly errands over England. There, she befriends a posh upper class girl named Queenie, and the two of them make a stupendous team.

I just can’t tell much more about the plot without revealing spoilers, so I’ll just tell you that if you’re at all interested in brave girls fighting Nazis in WWII, then you have to read this book.

“Kiss me, Hardy!”

The Serpent’s Bite by Warren Adler

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Synopsis:
When troubled siblings head into the wilderness with their aging father, their hopes to secure their inheritance lead them to make unfathomable choices, even as their guide succumbs to alcoholism.

Review:
I really try to avoid posting negative reviews–when I don’t like a book, I just won’t finish reading it. But for some reason I kept reading The Serpent’s Bite even though I wasn’t really enjoying it, and since author Warren Adler has written a ton of books I think he can probably weather a bit of public negative criticism. At the outset I was drawn in by the meanness of the characters and hoped for something operatic and grand. Instead the story turned claustrophobic and perverse, and not in a good way. So despite the quality of the prose, plotting, and structure, I just didn’t really enjoy this book at all.

Ninepins by Rosy Thornton

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Synopsis:
A single mother of a troubled pre-teen takes in a 17-year-old girl with a history of arson, and finds her image of herself as a mother challenged and strengthened.

Review:
I loved Rosy Thornton’s Tapesty of Love so I leapt at the chance to review Ninepins. Thornton is a gorgeous writer and in Ninepins she offers a compelling situation that reads like a thriller.

Laura is an academic living in the fens outside of Cambridge. Her asthmatic daughter Beth is 12 and just starting at a new school, dealing with peer pressure and growing up. Laura is flummoxed by Beth’s changing demeanor and explorations with rebellion, but tries her hardest to keep the lines of communication opened. Her home is a former pump station, where the marshy, boggy fens were fought back by engineering but still pose a threat to the aging dikes. She rents out the pump house, converted into a bedsit, and she’s approached with an unusual request: to accept as a lodger Willow, a 17-year-old who has been “in care” (think the foster system/juvenile detention) because of a case of arson when she was not much older than Beth. Willow’s mom is a mess, a hippie who has never been there for her daughter. Laura’s heart goes out to the girl, whom she wants to rescue and whom she also sees a potential savior for Beth.

I’m sure you can imagine how these plot threads might come together, but what you can’t imagine is how hard it is to put this book down! It may seem like a quiet character study but the emotional drama is just riveting. And while it’s not exactly a mystery or a thriller, the atmosphere and mood maintained a wonderful level of suspense and tension. I’m not sure how well known Thornton is outside of the UK, but she really deserves a wider audience. She’s a kindred spirit to another of my favorites, T. Greenwood, so if you like her please do check this one out.

Many thanks to Sandstone Press for the review copy.