DJ's Life in Fiction

Bài đăng

Đang hiển thị bài đăng từ Tháng 6, 2011

Hiển thị tất cả

Fashion Kitty and the B.O.Y.S. (Ball of Yellow String)

Fashion Kitty and the B.O.Y.S. (Ball of Yellow String) by Charise Mericle Harper (NY: Disney Hyperion, 2011). Reviewed from e-galley provided by publisher via netgalley.com. In this exciting installment of the Fashion Kitty series, Kiki Kittie's superhero alias Fashion Kitty attracts the jealous wrath of the mean-spirited Leon Lambaster the III, who hatches a vicious plan to entrap her. Kiki is transformed into her superhero alterego after a stack of fashion magazines knocks her unconscious on her birthday. Suddenly she can sense fashion emergencies and must fly off to save the unwitting victims. Leon knows her modus operandi and uses it to lay his trap. He's from a family of inventors of yellow objects, most of which don't work very well. One of them is a ball of slimy yellow string that sticks to anyone who handles it unless that person is wearing special gloves. The idea is to spray the string with special supersticky spray, tie it in a not, then spray it with 6-ho...

Frost

Frost by Wendy Delsol (Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2011). Reviewed from Kindle ARC provided by publisher via netgalley.com. In Stork , Katla moves from California to Minnesota and discovers she's part of a mystical union of women (aka Storks) with special soul-gathering and -dispersing powers. She also meets and falls in love with Jack, a descendent of Jack Frost, gifted with his own weather-controlling powers. Now that's a power couple. As Frost begins, Katla wishes for a white Christmas and Jack overdoes it with a snow storm so powerful it attracts the attention of world-renowned (and drop-dead gorgeous) climatologist Brigid Fonnkana, who expeditiously arrives from Greenland and installs herself in the lab of Katla's mother's fiance, Stanley. More dauntingly, Jack quickly becomes wrapped up in the research as well and seems to be pulling away from Kat in favor of Brigid. Soon, Jack is spending less and less time with Kat and more and more time in the lab...

Demonglass

Demonglass by Rachel Hawkin (NY: Hyperion, 2011). This fabulous sequel to Hex Hall has the indomitable Sophie Mercer, who has recently discovered she's a demon, traveling to London for the summer to live with her father, also a demon. Sophie is sort of sad to leave Hex Hall, the juvie for Prodigium (literally monsters, but encompassing magical creatures of all sorts--shapeshifters, fairies, witches, warlocks, etc.) she got sent to for some over-the-top magic. There she meets--and crushes on--Archer Cross. Their first kiss would have been great if Sophie hadn't actually seen that Archer bore the mark of the secret society sworn to kill all Prodigium! After other events involving her demon great-grandmother, Sophie believes that she should go through the Removal--a grueling, life-threatening process that would strip away her powers--so that she won't kill anyone since that's what demons are made to do. Her father does not want her to go through this procedure becaus...

Starcrossed

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini (NY: HarperTeen, 2011). Shy Helen Hamilton leads an isolated life on Nantucket with her dad. She keeps to herself except for her long-time friend Claire and a few others--the ones who don't think she's weird. She feels weird most of the time, too tall, too strong, too everything. She just wants to hide. Then a new family moves onto the island and suddenly things get even weirder. Helen is having vivid dreams about blood-weeping crones out in a desert and is hearing incessant murmurs and noise. Worse, she makes a fool of herself at school when she tries to strangle new boy Lucas Delos, and she can't even explain why she hates him so much since she had never set eyes on him. Her usual defenses are breaking down and her isolated life no longer seems possible as she has to decipher the meaning of the dreams and Lucas's crucial role in her destiny, a destiny she had no idea she would have to face so soon. Angelini spins an excellen...

Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman (NY: Dutton, 2011). It's been three years since Mia broke up with Adam, and he's still suffering. She has fully recovered from the accident that killed her whole family and nearly killed her, too. Adam begged her to wake up from her post-accident coma (as documented in the gripping If I Stay ), even promising to let her go if that's what she wants. They're an unlikely couple to begin with--she's a classical cellist on her way to Julliard, he's a heavy metal guitarist in an up-and-coming rock band. He helps her recover, but then she drops him without explanation right after she moves to New York. At first Adam retreats from everything, but then he channels his pain into a bunch of songs that rocket him and his band into the rock-and-roll stratosphere. Despite his instafame, and all the accouterments, Adam feels cut off and alone, often lashing out at his manager and bandmates, or even strangers, like reporters who want the i...

S'Mother

S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed to Him by Adam Chester (NY: Abrams Image, 2011). Reviewed from Kindle ARC and e-galley, both provided by publisher via netgalley.com. This hilarious memoir is kind of the mom version of $#*! My Dad Says , in that Adam Chester preserves the crazy letters his mother has sent him since he moved away to go to college. Chester's mom, Joan, happens to be a lot less vulgar than Halpern's dad, but just as funny! There are non sequiturs galore, and the Chester's book includes plenty of scans of the letters--in case you can't believe some of the stuff she's written, or just to showcase the wackiness of some of the letters. (As a side note, the scans were not readable on my Kindle!) Chester lost his dad at age 8, and as he says in his Foreword, his mom should've come with a warning label about her crazy-making potential. This is true. It's easy to laugh at Jo...

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (NY: Lerner Publishing Group, 2011); reviewed from Kindle e-galley supplied by publisher via netgalley.com. In one of 16-year-old Alison's first memories, she's begging her mother to keep making the pretty gold stars, for that is what Alison sees when her mother is clanking utensils together in the kitchen. Her mother's horrified response and admonition to never, ever tell anyone what she sees, lets Alison know that there's something wrong with her, something she can't reveal to anyone else. She can see colors for numbers, objects, and noises, and experiences tastes for shapes and names. Lately, she can sense a bitterness when someone is lying to her. Worse, if she herself lies, she becomes violently nauseated. And when she wakes up in a psychiatric ward, she initially encounters some lies, or at least half-truths, about the tough time she's had the past couple of weeks that she's been there. Not that she remembers. But th...

Hereafter

Hereafter by Tara Hudson (NY: HarperCollins, 2011); reviewed from Kindle e-galley supplied by publisher via netgalley.com. Eighteen-year-old Amelia has meandered aimlessly for a long time. She remembers the dark waters and has relived her horrible death regularly. She recognizes the general environs of the Oklahoma town but not much else. She can see and hear people, but they can't see or hear her. It's not what she expected from the afterlife. Not at all. Periodically she loses consciousness and has the drowning nightmare, then wakes up in a graveyard to being her wanderings again. Until something different happens. She's in the water, but she sees a boy. He's been thrown from his car into the river while she's there. She screams and tries to wake him. She can even hear his heart slowly petering out. A final scream and he miraculously opens his eyes, and even more amazingly he can see her and touch her. Awake, he struggles to the surface as she hovers ...

After

After by Amy Efaw (NY: Viking, 2009). This is an absolutely gripping story about what happens to a girl who dumps her newborn baby in the trash. We've all read that story in the paper and wondered how anyone could do that to a baby. Efaw's novel gives one highly plausible answer. Fifteen-year-old Devon didn't even know she was pregnant. That may seem hard to believe, but the story makes it clear that she truly did not know and makes her denial seem realistic. All of a sudden she's violently ill and gripped by horrendous pain. Then the blood starts flowing and after endless hours of suffering, out comes a Thing. And it's still attached to her. She gets it off. With nail clippers. It looks like a blob of bloody white rubber, but then it starts making noise. Devon needs it to be quiet. She wraps up all the bloody mess of her ordeal, puts everything in a trash bag, and carries it to a dumpster. Then she wraps herself in a blanket and retreats to the sofa, dri...

Inside Out

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (NY: Harlequin Teen, 2010). Seventeen-year-old Trella is a scrub, aka a lower, which means she spends her ten-hour shifts cleaning the pipes and ducts of all four levels of the insular world she inhabits. She hates the crowded space allotted to scrubs on the lower two levels of Inside, so she's the "Queen of the Pipes," and spends most of her time, including her off-hours, crawling around the shafts. She's skeptical when her only friend, Cog, takes her to listen to yet another prophet proclaiming there's a better place Outside. But then Trella gets involved in locating some disks the prophet has hidden in the ducts above his room in his upper level dwelling before he was beaten and paralyzed by the Pop Cops and dumped in the lower levels. Trella starts out thinking she'll disprove the prophet, but ends up leading a rebellion that involves all the scrubs fighting against the ruthless uppers and their domination of the lower le...

Falling Under

Falling Under by Gwen Hayes (NY: New American Library, 2011). The gorgeous cover of this novel enticed me to carry it home from the library, and it was worth the effort! Theia Alderson's father has kept her isolated in England for much of her life. Her mother died when she was born, though for some reason Theia thinks her father blames her mother's lifestyle for her death. Now Theia and her father are living in California, and while her father still tries to control her every move, Theia has made a few friends and has slightly more freedom. Then she sees the burning man. He falls right past her window, and she quietly, though somewhat hesistantly, runs down to his aid. He should be dead, right? But instead they have a brief conversation before he d incinerates to dust right before her eyes, leaving only a small scorch mark on the lawn. As if this isn't weird enough, Theia starts having dreams about an odd timeless place where skeletons cavort to haunting music and a...

I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend

I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend by Cora Harrison (NY: Delacorte, 2010). The novel starts out with a bang with Jenny Cooper, Jane Austen's cousin, having to save Jane from dying of a terrible fever while they're both practicially imprisoned at a horrifyingly grim boarding school. They end up back at Jane's country home, and Jenny feels very fortunate to be there. Her parents have died and her brother and his wife need the money that is supposed to go for Jenny's upkeep. Jenny keeps a journal to record all her feelings and all the happenings in the exciting Austen household, especially the antics of her witty cousin Jane. Soon enough, Jenny has fallen in love, but will a secret keep her from the happiness she deserves? This is a lovely story in so many ways. Harrison researched Austen and the period extensively and weaves historical facts seamlessly into the fiction. Austen fans will recognize characters and situations that find their way into her novels. And ...

Going Too Far

Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009). Meg has dyed-blue hair and a penchant for bad behavior. That's how she ends up drunk on a railroad bridge with the town rich-boy drug dealer in the middle of the night. And she's even gotten a pair of goody-two-shoes classmates to join in the fun. Luckily, the train misses them; unluckily, they're all arrested--by a driven young cop who constantly patrols the bridge to keep teens from getting killed. The rich boy's lawyer dad gets him out of trouble, but Meg and the others have to do community service over spring break, and Meg is royally peeved about that because she had planned to go the beach for the very first time! Instead, she has to spend her vacation on night shift with the very cop who arrested her plus work her usual day shift (for free, as usual, too) at her parents' greasy spoon diner. Echols is clearly trying for an edgier, more realistic novel than her usual fluffy romances here,...

The Other Girl

The Other Girl by Sarah Miller (NY: St. Martin's Griffin, 2011). Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn introduces Midvale Academy, a ritzy East Coast prep school where Gideon has just started. Unbeknownst to him, a girl on campus can hear all his thoughts, from the moment he enters the grounds. This girl turns out to be scholarship student Molly McGarry, who has come to love Gideon after spending so much time in his head. Gideon and Molly are a couple now--and Molly's still inside Gideon's head. This is not a totally bad thing. She can give him just what he wants, and he thinks she's amazing. But then Gideon happens to focus Pilar Benitez-Jones, the most beautiful girl on campus, at a tender moment with Molly, and she abruptly dumps him. But what to do about their mind connection? Problem solved when Gideon actually kisses Pilar, until Molly discovers she's now inside Pilar's mind. And it's pretty weird. Molly realizes fairly quickly that she's ma...

The Last Little Blue Envelope

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson (NY: HarperTeen, 2011). This novel picks up where 13 Little Blue Envelopes left off. Ginny Blackstone has returned to her home in New Jersey after her European adventure following a series of enveloped instructions from her recently deceased artist-aunt Peg. Ginny's backpack--and all the envelopes--had been stolen in Greece, but she had read all but one and was able to complete the tasks, or so she thought. But as she procrastinates about writing her college application essays, she receives a message from a guy in London named Oliver who happened to purchase her stolen backpack and has her letters, including the last one. Ginny has to go to London and get it, which leads to another adventure. She's hoping her romance with actor/playwright Keith can pick up where it left off, but she soon finds that he has a girlfriend. And the guy who has her letter won't give it back to her unless she'll make a deal with him abo...

Moonglass

Moonglass by Jessi Kirby (NY: Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2011). Seventeen-year-old Anna loves the ocean, the soothing tidal rhythms, the blue water, the shifting sand. She loves running on the beach and looking for sea glass, something she used to do with her mother. She still combs the shore hoping to discover new, colorful treasure. It helps her remember her mother, despite the sadness of knowing her mother left her by walking into the salty waters and never returning when Anna was only seven. Anna doesn't really want to move when her beach supervisor dad gets a promotion and transfer to a different town--the town where he met Anna's mother when she was just a teen. Anna worries about the memories this will stir up for both of them, but also that she won't fit in at the new high school attended by the town's many wealthy residents. But their new cottage on the beach is cozy and immediately feels like home. And there's a lifeguard who immediately catches her ...

Clarity

Clarity by Kim Harrington (NY: Point, 2011). Clarity "Clare" Fern considers herself a freak. Actually, her whole family is freakish. She's a psychic--one touch and she has a vision. Her mother is a telepath, and her brother is a medium. They make a living in their Cape Cod tourist town of Eastport by giving readings. They're popular with the tourists, but with their fellow townsfolk, not so much, so Clare doesn't have a lot of friends and has only recently had a boyfriend--who ended up cheating on her. As the summer season begins, a teen-aged girl is found dead--murdered--in a hotel room, and Clare's brother turns out to have been the last person to see her alive. Clare has to join forces with her cheating ex and a hot new boy in town, who happens to be the son of the new police detective, to suss out the truth and help her brother. Tired of paranormal romances that follow the same old plot line? Want something a little different to pop in your beach b...