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Band Geek Love
by Josie Bloss
Reviewed by TadMack (Tanita S. Davis), Finding Wonderland: The Writing YA Weblog
Her trumpet section thinks she's scary. She screams a lot and constantly threatens them. She's a COMPLETE obsessive control freak. Ellie Snow couldn't
care less. Ever since that day freshman year when she made such a fool of herself over her best friend's older brother—in front of everyone at band
camp—Ellie's shut down the dating drama, said bye-bye to boys, and has been driven toward her goal—to shine as the best trumpeter in her high
school's history. She's section leader of the trumpets and first chair in band, and after four years of avoiding the emotional chaos of the hell known as
High School, she's on her way out.
Marching band means everything to Ellie—the strict cadences, right angles, and creased, perfect uniforms have been an oasis of sanity in her life.
It may be out of balance to be All Band, All the Time, but if you say anything to Ellie about it, she might just go upside your head with her instrument.
This is her life the way she likes it. Her goal is to make her Senior year be perfect—down to her trumpet solo at Homecoming—and nothing and no
one will get in her way.
Unfortunately, all of Ellie's plans are about to go up in flames.
You can control the way you play the trumpet. You can control how much you practice, and you can control the way you march. You can't control your heart, and
Ellie's has just started racing.
Connor Higgins is tall and gorgeous and plays trumpet like a pro. He likes her. And he's a...sophomore. And if that isn't enough, the boy she made a fool
of herself over is...back?
Ellie's in way over her head, and everything is out of control.
Readers may want to throttle acid-tongued Ellie because her perfectionism and cluelessness can be tiresome and at times she's simply flat out mean. She's
not the most sympathetic of narrators, but when four years worth of drama catches up with her, Ellie's insecurities as she negotiates the new world of
emotions are pathetic and realistic. Anyone who has tried to control what other people think of them will recognize the flailing and freaking out that
Ellie does as she realizes that the world is what it is, and she's not in control of anything.
Connor Higgins comes across at times as ridiculously well-rounded, mature and wise for fifteen, and Ellie's parents are conveniently
one-dimensional until the end of the novel, but taken all together, this is a bumbling, geeky little love story that may make you smile.
Or Not
by Brian Mandabach
Reviewed by TadMack (Tanita S. Davis), Finding Wonderland: The Writing YA Weblog
"You have to love your whole life, Cassie. Each moment is the only thing
that's real. If you damn even one moment, you risk damning the whole thing.
Think about it. Each moment arises and then slips away so quickly—if
you're not living in the present, if you're living in the past or for the
future, you'll miss it, because now happens only once."
It's more than good advice. It's the best advice Cassie Sullivan's ever heard. Unfortunately, by the time she hears it, she's already shot herself in the
foot.
From her staunch refusal to listen to CDs because 'digital music sounds robotic,' and isn't real, to her strict vegan diet, to her hatred for suburban
life and her longing to live alone in the woods, Cassie is an original. Brilliant, moody, perceptive and interested in truly thinking about world events,
Cassie has become dangerously bored in school, especially since her defense of Darwin has earned her the label of school antichrist, and her refusal to
sing so-called "patriotic" songs for a September 11th Memorial assembly has gotten her nicknamed 'Osama O'Sullivan' and kicked out of show choir. In a
fever of what they assume is patriotism, Cassie's classmates react, and make her life a nightmare. Cassie withdraws into her journal, rereading Tolkien and
the writing of Kurt Cobain, and writing stories which concern the adults around her.
Even if she's the school outcast, she can survive the hundreds of notes shoved into her locker, the hazing, the abuse, and losing her few friends. Even if
the teachers don't like her and her parents aren't sure what's up with her, she can survive, right? But the question ringing in Cassie's head asks if
anything is worth the hassle—if anything good remains to be saved, if anyone still has a conscience, a heart, and a brain in the hypersensitive,
post-September 11th world around her.
To be, ...or not? Suddenly, that's the only question.
Though Brian Mandabach creates in Cassie a character very unlike the average middle school student, the voice is real. Sarcastic, self-righteous, and
idealistic, Cassie struggles with becoming, and also with being brighter than everyone else and despising them—and herself—for various reasons.
Themes of depression, prejudice, peer pressure and religious conservatism are familiar territory in YA fiction, but older readers may find that Mandabach
allows Cassie and some of her detractors to get off a little too easily. While she has been brought up to be a critical thinker, Cassie is remarkably
rigid and refuses to allow that others have reasons for their negative behavior—most notably, fear—and immaturity makes her miss this—and
her own fear, entirely. Still, solid writing and a nonconformist heroine may make Cassie a kindred spirit to other teens fighting toward maturity.
Spanking Shakespeare
by Jake Wizner
Reviewed by TadMack (Tanita S. Davis), Finding Wonderland: The Writing YA Weblog
Luckily, Shakespeare Shapiro can write.
That's kind of his saving grace, that and the really great assignments his English teacher, Mr. Parke, gives him. A talent mixed with his strange name
give him the platform he needs to be crowned the constant class clown, cheerfully belittling himself with wildly exaggerated tales of his so-called life.
Shakespeare, together with classmates and good buds Neil and Kate, is supposed to be writing his high school memoirs for the final English project of his
senior year, but at the same time, he's not sure he has anything to write about. The last seventeen years of his life, according to him, have been a string
of horrors and humiliations. His parents are oversexed nutjobs who gave him his name in a story because of a conception he would really rather never hear
about; his mother is a passive-aggressive shrew, his father a drunk, his little brother, Gandhi, already has a girlfriend, has already smoked pot, and is
just so much cooler than Shakespeare that he's not even sure they're really related. In contrast, his life, which he renders humorously in ongoing
glimpses of his memoir, consists of being caught with dirty magazines in junior high, being sent to spend time with his grandmother, who is certifiable,
getting lost with his dead drunk father in Italy, and having to listen to blow-by-blow daily accounts of Neil's bowel habits.
Shakespeare is forever going for the laugh, moaning about his virginity, and the fact that he's just got to do something to break the mold before high
school is over. The whole world is all about him, ad nauseum...until he becomes interested in someone whose life is so radically (and melodramatically)
different than his own that it makes him stop and really...for once, shut up. And think.
Maybe it's not that bad being Shakespeare Shapiro.
This novel is stuffed full of clever repartee and funny zingers—which, unfortunately, isn't that much like real life in high school. Kind of a
wish-fulfillment novel where the author got to turn back the clock and return to a much cooler high school alter ego, Spanking Shakespeare
runs toward a slightly clichéd worldview. Get past the loud, dumb, but cool jock, the kind of cute, spirited, poor girl, the basic blonde goddess and the
funny guy and you'll find yourself with a lightweight, amusing storyline that drags a little at times, but will keep you mildly amused all the way through.
You can whip through this one in an afternoon on the lawn in the sunshine.
Wake
by Lisa McMann
Reviewed by Rebecca Laney, Becky's Book Reviews
Janie has a problem. No, it's not that she thinks she's too fat. It's not that her dream guy isn't asking her to the prom. Her problem? She has been
falling into other people's dreams. She first discovered this ability as a child—on a subway I believe (or public transit of some sort)—but
it's been getting worse, a lot worse since she's become a teen. At school, her classmates have a tendency of falling asleep. And that spells trouble for
our heroine, Janie. It's not that all the dreams she falls into are nightmares, but any dream can become tedious after awhile. After all, how many times
has she lived through others dreams of falling, or of being naked in a crowd of people, or other people's sex dreams. (Just imagine it! Having to face your
friends, your classmates, your enemies on a day to day basis after witnessing their most embarrassing dreams.) Yes, Janie wishes this ability, this power
would disappear. Maybe then she could have a normal social life, a normal dating life.
Wake has an interesting premise, and I am pleased there will be a follow-up novel called Fade. While Wake has an intriguing
opening, Janie experiencing a dream during the study period at the library, the book perhaps spends too much time setting up the story through a series of
flashbacks. As a reader, you don't really realize their significance, their purpose, until later.
It is through these flashbacks that Janie is revealed, her friends and enemies revealed, her home life revealed. Did I enjoy this one? Yes. I definitely
enjoyed it and would recommend it. I enjoyed it more once the 'action' was back to the present year of 2005 because the narrative flowed more smoothly
then and read more like a traditional novel.
More YA this month:
Before Green Gables, by Budge Wilson
Toby Wheeler: Eighth Grade Bench Warmer,
by Thatcher Heldring
Bonus YA Review section
Books Reviewed:
Band Geek Love, by Josie Bloss. Flux, 2008. ISBN: 0-7387-1358-9.
Or Not, by Brian Mandabach. Flux, 2007. ISBN: 0-7387-1100-4.
Spanking Shakespeare, by Jake Wizner, illustrations by Richard Ewing. Random House, 2007. ISBN: 0-3758-4085-0.
Wake, by Lisa McMann. Simon Pulse, 2008. ISBN: 1-4169-5357-4.
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