For my February feature, I decided to focus on the holiday EVERYBODY cares about during this month - Valentine's Day! Every Saturday I'll pick one book or series, that, no matter how trashy, really put me in the Valentine's Day mood. And this week's choice is...
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (Amazon/IndieBound). I LOVED this book! Clever, snarky and funny...not to mention Jace. I won't even try and find the words for Jace. My friends joke about the fact that I'm romantically deprived - let's just say that The Notebook wasn't my thing and I don't dig vampires - but this book was the most fun I've had in a very long time! Witty and well-written enough to slide under the "literary" radar, but with enough *golden Jace-ness* to put me in the February mood. And Simon was pretty sweet, too. (That's four out of five stars!) So if you're as pragmatic as me, give City of Bones a try and you might just be pleasantly surprised, despite a few flaws. I can't wait to read the rest of the series!
The Ghost, the Eggheads, and Babe Ruth's Piano by Larry Sweitzer
ISBN 9781440171048
Associate Links:Amazon/IndieBound
All year Freddie Holtzman has been waiting to return to Camp Mason for the science fair that pits gifted kids—affectionately known as “eggheads”—against each other for a scholarship prize of $5,000. All year he has been waiting to hang out with old friends, to solve the mystery of the camp ghost, and most importantly, to reconnect with the girl he kissed last summer on a dare—Ginny Haig, the beautiful egghead girl of his dreams. But when science projects start to go missing and no one has a perfect alibi, things start to get a lot more complicated…
Independent novels always feel like a bit of a gamble for me. Sometimes I love ‘em and sometimes I hate ‘em, but usually I’m just disappointed—for the reason that they always seem to be missing the thing that would make them truly good.
True to form, this book gave me the feeling of perpetually being on the edge of something great, but never quite getting there. From Billy and his friends’ giggly interactions with girls, to the conveniently lax supervision of the campers, even the funny moments felt forced.
That said, it’s still one of the best independently published YA novels I’ve read in awhile, because clearly the author genuinely cares about his story and how he’s telling it. The characters may not be the most realistic (actually, they felt more like 13-year-olds than high-school juniors), but you do care about them and the scholarship competition. The lack of a cloying, happy ending of love and acceptance all around was also nice, even if the ending on the whole was unsatisfying for me.
So if you’re looking for fun, puppy love and a little bit of mystery, The Ghost, the Eggheads and Babe Ruth’s Piano by Larry Sweitzer could be for you. Just don’t expect too much out of it.
The Final Verdict: Sweet and funny, but unsatisfying. That said, one of the best self-published books I've read in a long time - definitely keep an eye out for this author's future work! Three out of five stars.
Wow, is there some serious loot going around the blogosphere this week!
Check out Book Bound's Best YA of 2009 Mega Giveaway - the more followers this blog gets, the more winners there will be - so far, first place winner receives 4 books, second place receives 3, and so on and so forth. Book choices include Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and tons more!
Win a copy of Beautiful Creatures or My Soul to Save from Novel Novice!
And yet another Mega Giveaway, this time from Teens Read and Write Too! The Dark Divine by Bree Despain, Fallen by Lauren Kate, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, and more!
When 15-year-old black high schooler Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in March of 1955, it helped to spark the civil rights movement that would give us such celebrated national heroes as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. But what happened to passionate, opinionated Claudette, whose actions were condemned even by her own community as headstrong and foolish?
In three words: I loved it! Truly excellent young adult nonfiction is hard to find, much less nonfiction about subjects I actually want to read about. Twice Towards Justice scores on both those counts.
While I was reading this book, the thing that struck me the most was how on earth Claudette’s incredible story could have flown under the radar for so long. In an era of political correctness, it seems like we’re stuck inside a perpetual time warp of Rosa Parks—instead of studying heroes and heroines that are easier for teens to relate to, specifically, other teens. Hoose’s voice is unflinchingly, refreshingly honest—giving us some frank yet sympathetic perspective on Claudette’s story.
My personal favorite chapter was “We Seem to Hate Ourselves”, detailing Claudette’s experiences at an all-black high school where girls spent hours straightening their hair and attempting to lighten their skin to look more “white”. When Claudette left her hair in its thick, unruly curls, she was teased by her peers and even other, adult members of her community. Interestingly, the reason I could relate to this was because I watch my (white) peers spending hours attempting to look more “ghetto”, while also watching my (black and Hispanic) peers agonizing over their curves. Apparently, some things never change.
And that’s what seems to be the underlying message in this book—that you don’t need to be a hero to make a difference, that standing up for your rights as a human being is a fight that never ends—whether it’s your right for better transportation and education, or your right to dress the way you’d like without ridicule.
The Final Verdict: Both fun and informative, and deserves to be read by everyone who enjoys the story of the civil rights movement. Five out of five stars.
/IndieBound). I LOVED this book! Clever, snarky and funny...not to mention Jace. I won't even try and find the words for Jace. My friends joke about the fact that I'm romantically deprived - let's just say that The Notebook wasn't my thing and I don't dig vampires - but this book was the most fun I've had in a very long time! Witty and well-written enough to slide under the "literary" radar, but with enough *golden Jace-ness* to put me in the February mood. And Simon was pretty sweet, too. (That's four out of five stars!) So if you're as pragmatic as me, give City of Bones a try and you might just be pleasantly surprised, despite a few flaws. I can't wait to read the rest of the series!
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