Posts Tagged "Teen Fiction"

This is the story of Amelia and Riley, bad kids from bad Brookfield High who have transferred to Ashbury High for their final year. They’ve been in love since they were fourteen, they go out dancing every night, and sleep through school all day. And Ashbury can’t get enough of them.

Everyone’s trying to get their attention; even teachers are dressing differently, trying to make their classes more interesting. Everyone wants to be cooler, tougher, funnier, hoping to be invited into their cool, self-contained world.

But they don’t know that all Amelia can think about is her past — an idyllic time before she ran away from home. Riley thinks he’s losing her to the past, maybe even to a place further back in time. He turns to the students of Ashbury for help, and things get much, much worse.

In the tradition of the gothic novel, this is a story about ghosts, secrets, madness, passion, locked doors, femmes fatales, and that terrifying moment in the final year of high school when you realise that the future’s come to get you.

Before you begin reading The Ghosts of Ashbury High, put all those expectations you may have about how a book is written on a shelf somewhere. You can pick them up later when you’re back to reading regular books.

Good. Now that that’s done, I can tell you about Jaclyn Moriarty and the Ashbury High books (Feeling Sorry for Celia, The Year of Secret Assignments, The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie). These four books aren’t sequels, but they do revolve around the same high school and involve characters who tend to appear in most or all of the other titles. Moriarty’s narrative is often told through letters, school assignments, meeting notes, blog posts and comments, emails, and more, making it a. sometimes difficult to remember that the narrator may not always be reliable and b. really, really fun to read.

The opening of The Ghosts of Ashbury High sets the scene for us: it’s the final year of school for Em, Lyd, Cass, Toby, and the gang. But this year, two new students appear: Riley and Amelia. And no one knows from whence they came. (Cue scary music here.) The bulk of the entries that make up the book are school assignments the students have written—and considering the assignments are to write a gothic retelling of the first term and ghostly retelling of the second, the reader is never entirely sure what’s true (did a ghost really start typing into Lydia’s computer?) and what’s the students’ flexing of their creative muscles.

Em makes it her mission to unravel the mystery surrounding the ethereal Riley and Amelia, and most of her homework assignments and blog posts involve her musings on the two new students. In typical Em fashion, they’re hilarious. Meanwhile, Lydia is dealing with the aftermath of her breakup with Seb and her parents’ weird relationship by throwing spectacular parties, while Toby has taken to sorting out the meaning of black holes and the life story of an Irish convict who was sent to Australia several centuries earlier. (Trust me, it all ties in to the story.)

And then, of course, there are Riley and Amelia themselves. Their background is a mystery, revealed with carefully placed (and misplaced) breadcrumbs that lead us back to their real stories near the end of the book. I loved them. Then I hated them. Then I admired them. Then I worried about them. And then I ended up realizing they were only a small, small part of the message Moriarty is sending with this book: about second chances, and redemption, and friendship.

For a gothic novel/ghost story, The Ghosts of Ashbury High sure is funny. It’s also wickedly smart, wholly engrossing, and has found its way on the top of my “must re-read” pile. It’s a shame to me that Moriarty isn’t more well-known here in the U.S., and I’m making it my mission to change that. You should join me.

Pages:496

Publication Date: June 1, 2010

Rating::

Teaser quote: “There was the creeeeeeaaaaking of a door. (The door to the common room opening.) We turned as one, the three of us. And I think that we felt chilled to the bones. (In all honestly, I myseld did because the open door was letting in a draft.) For there, in the dooray, they stood: Riley and Amelia. I knew, at once, that it was they.”

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in fragile bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the thinnest. But then Cassie suffers the ultimate loss-her life-and Lia is left behind, haunted by her friend’s memory and racked with guilt for not being able to help save her. In her most powerfully moving novel since Speak, award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s struggle, her painful path to recovery, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the most important thing of all-hope.

We live in an era obsessed with body shape, size, and beauty. We live in a world of constant scrutiny from media outlets, peers, and most importantly, ourselves. Ever corner you turn, a magazine cover or billboard is plastered with a half naked girl the size of a toothpick. When did this become the norm, the standard? Products are being shoved down our throats that claim to help us look younger, skinnier, fitter, more tanned, more perfect. What’s wrong with us just the way we are?

Meet Lia. I’d love to tell you she’s your average, run of the mill teenager, but I’d be stretching the truth a little there. Lia suffers from a serious eating disorder, but don’t tell her that, because she’ll vehemently disagree with you. She’s already been to rehab twice, but according to Lia, she’s just fine. But if she’s just fine, why does she feel like she needs to hide her weird eating (or non-eating) habits from her family?

Then her best friend and partner in all things ‘thin’ dies one night under suspicious circumstances in a hotel room. Although the police are investigating all avenues, Lia has a pretty good idea about what happened to her: Cassie’s body simply shut down. Instead of setting an example for Lia, Cassie’s death only adds more fuel to her smoldering fire, and Lia’s eating habits (or lack thereof) take a deathly turn for the worse.

She’s not eating. She’s down to 98 pounds, but its not enough. All she sees when she looks in the mirror, all she feels when she runs her fingers over her skin is fat fat fat fat fat. She starts working out in the middle of the night when her family is asleep, creating ridiculous calorie deficits. She cuts herself. She fights with her family about her eating habits, but mainly, she fights with herself.

Every. Single. Moment. Of. Every. Single. Day.

Lia’s story is completely and absolutely unputdownable, and a must read for women and teenagers everywhere who have ever struggled with, or contemplated an eating disorder. Now I understand why Laurie Halse Anderson is an award winning author. Not only does she create shining characters with strong, loud voices, but she writes from the heart -  her blood, sweat, and tears are all over the pages of this novel.

Lia’s internal struggle with food, her inability to love herself, and the overtly warped reflection that she sees when she looks in the mirror is something many women can relate to. Her lack of control and the lengths she goes to in order to achieve a state of what she considers perfection is a heart wrenching, sobering lesson.

Wintergirls doesn’t point fingers, doesn’t lay blame. It doesn’t deal with the why so much as the what is. For people that simply don’t understand the grasp eating disorders have over their victims, Wintergirls is a must-read for you. For those of you who are currently struggling with issues of self-esteem and have a delicate relationship with food and your body, Wintergirls is a must-read for you.  For family and friends of victims of eating disorders, Wintergirls will help you understand your loved ones motivations a little better. Absolutely everyone can learn something from this book.

A powerful story that should be shouted from the rooftops. Laurie Halse Anderson, I heart you for telling it so honestly.

There’s no sugar coating on this one, folks. Kleenex may be required.

Publication date: 2009

Pages: 278

Rating::

Teaser Quote: If I got down to 070.00 I’d want to be 065.00. If I weighed 010.00 I wouldn’t be happy till I got down to 005.00. The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.

Hey guys!

Here is my last review as an official member of yaReads team! Hope you enjoy, it has been a pleasure being here, and I have loved every moment. A big welcome to Christina, and to the forum go-ers, I’ll see you all around there.

Katie.

Jill Jekel has always obeyed her parents’ rules – especially the one about never opening the mysterious old box in her father’s office. But when her dad is murdered and her college savings disappear, this good girl is tempted to peek inside, because the contents just might be key to winning a lucrative chemistry scholarship.

To better her odds, Jill enlists the help of gorgeous, brooding Tristen Hyde, who has his own dark secrets locked away. As the team of Jekel and Hyde, they recreate experiments based on the classic novel, hoping not only to win a prize but also to save Tristen’s sanity. Maybe his life. As things heat up in the lab, though, Jill’s accidental taste of a formula unleashes her darkest nature and will compel her to risk everything – even Tristen’s love – just for the thrill of being…bad.

Jill Jekel has just lost her father to a brutal death. No one knows why. A murder in the dead of the night, no answers to be found by the police. Her mother can’t cope, spiralling downwards into a state of despair. Jill’s life has been turned upside down, with false sympathy on all sides, no one to talk to and no one to understand. Except for the mysterious Tristen Hyde who turns up at her father’s funeral for the soul purpose to comfort Jill. Or so it seems.

For Jill and Tristen are about to get to know each other better than what they ever thought they would. Paired up together to work in secret on an entry into the prestigious Foreman Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Inquiry national scholarship contest, Jill and Tristen start to discover that their own family history might be closer linked than anyone had ever imagined. Found in the locked box in her father’s study, Jill and Tristen start to work on the secret manuscripts that were part of the hit novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As Tristen starts to let Jill into more of his life, the pair discover that not only is it a matter of winning Jill a scholarship so she can attend college, but it might just be the answer to saving Tristen’s life. Yet as things begin to spiral more out of control, will Jill know when enough is too much?

Jekel Loves Hyde is the second novel from bestselling author Beth Fantaskey, her first novel being the popular Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side. Jekel Loves Hyde is something different. Borrowing themes and linking in with the classic novel, I found you didn’t need to know anything about the original to understand the story. It was captivating and intriguing, the plot moving forward from one surprising revelation to the next. Twists that you didn’t originally see coming soon developed into influencing the ending.

Jill and Tristen were also developed characters. They interacted in ways that are real, feeling like they could actually be real people in Fantaskey’s developed world. They faced trials and hardships and overcame them in their own unique way. However, it seems that despite two well-crafted lead characters, Fantaskey lacked development in her supporting characters. Becca, for instance, was weak and difficult to like. Supposedly the best friend to Jill, she never acted like it, and felt like a character that was merely there to create a conflict between Jill and Tristen.

Despite all the merits to Fantaskey’s plot, writing and main characters, I felt that Jekel Loves Hyde another novel aimed at the Twilight loving fans. The danger Jill and Tristen went through seemed too much like a heighted state of ‘life or death’ that they characters had to overcome to be together. It was, at times, difficult to see that the situations they found themselves in would really occur. I found that I needed to convince myself to continue reading, that whenever I put it down, it was difficult to pick it up again.

Pages: 282

Publication date: 2010 – available now

Rating::

Teaser quote: Not daring to believe, I swiped one arm across my eyes and slowly turned my face to his, sucking in my breath at the sight of his open eyes. Astonished not just by the fact that Tristen was alive but by the expression on his face. I heard the wonder, the confusion, in my voice as I dared to say his name. ‘Tristen’?

Nothing has been the same since Caleb Becker left a party drunk, got behind the wheel, and hit Maggie Armstrong. Even after months of painful physical therapy, Maggie walks with a limp. Her social life is nil and a scholarship to study abroad—her chance to escape everyone and their pitying stares—has been canceled. After a year in juvenile jail, Caleb’s free . . . if freedom means endless nagging from a transition coach and the prying eyes of the entire town. Coming home should feel good, but his family and ex-girlfriend seem like strangers.

Caleb and Maggie are outsiders, pigeon-holed as “criminal” and “freak.” Then the truth emerges about what really happened the night of the accident and, once again, everything changes. It’s a bleak and tortuous journey for Caleb and Maggie, yet they end up finding comfort and strength from a surprising source: each other.

Caleb wishes that his parents would stop pretending that everything is fine. He just got out of juvenile hall, for Pete’s sake – everything is not fine. So when Caleb’s mom throws a little ‘welcome home’ party for Caleb and invites all her friends rather than his, he almost wishes he was back behind bars. On top of that, he’s having trouble getting back into school, his friends are treating him differently and his girlfriend wants to pick things up from where they left off, but she’s seeing someone new now. Just when Caleb thinks his life couldn’t possibly suck any more, he runs into Maggie.

The girl he hit with his car.

His sister’s ex-best friend.

His neighbor.

When he looks into her eyes, he’s confronted with a whole bunch of emotional baggage that he would rather not think about. He wants to apologize for ruining her life, but what would be the point? There is nothing he could say that could possibly fix what he did to her. He knows he should turn and walk away – after all, his probation forbids him from speaking to or contacting her – but he just can’t seem to get his legs to move.

When Maggie sees Caleb standing there only a few feet away from her, it hurts. It hurts more than she thought it would. He did this to her. Before the accident, she was an athlete. A good one, at that. Now she can barely walk. Her athletic scholarship has been revoked and she’s got no chance of getting out of this place. She turns to walk, to get as far away from him as possible, but she stumbles. He reaches for her, catches her. She recoils, of course, but it’s in this moment that both Maggie and Caleb’s lives are forever changed.

As always, Simone Elkeles does not disappoint. Leaving Paradise is raw, emotional, and anything but heart-warming, but it’s one of those ‘must read’ kind of novels. There are many things I love about Simone Elkeles: her writing style is free-flowing and effortless; her descriptions are bright and colorful and tantalize the imagination; but most of all, her characters are enigmatic and alive. I could be Maggie. You could be Caleb. Elkeles creates characters that are flawed and mirror real life, actual people. And that, dear yaReaders, is the thing that sets Simone Elkeles aside from many Young Adult authors today.

Leaving Paradise is so believable it reads like a memoir, rather than popular teen fiction.

Simone Elkeles – I heart you!

Rating:

Teaser Quote: Caleb crouches down, his face right in front of mine.

“You are not a loser. Hell, Maggie, you always knew what you wanted and went for it.”

I tell him the honest truth. “Not anymore. When you hit me, a part of me died.”

Love is all you need…or is it?

Penny Lane is sick of boys and sick of dating, so she swears off it all and starts The Lonely Heats Club. What penny doesn’t realise is just how many of her friends feel the same way and want to join her club. Even some girls she’d never have thought would care, want to sign up. Then the unthinkable happens…

So what do you do when you’re the founding member of an anti-dating club and you start to have feelings for a guy who obviously likes you back?

Penny is your average, normal everyday girl. She passes school, has her best friends who are there for her and a family who is normal. Well, normal if you discount the intense love her parents have for the Beatles. So intense, that they named their daughters after their favourite songs, went vegetarian because that’s what Paul McCartney did and refuse to listen to anyone else singing a Beatles song, except the Beatles themselves. And it’s the summer where Penny starts to think that she might get what she wanted. Nate Taylor.

Penny has known Nate since they were five; the Taylor’s are her parent’s longest friends after all. Nate was the only person Penny looked forward to seeing on her summer, her mind fixed on what they could do. This year, there is something more underneath the flirting. There is promise of what might be. Penny is thinking that all her dreams are going to come true. She has finally decided that Nate is the one, that he will be her first. That is until she finds him in the basement with another girl. A girl that is missing quite a few clothes. Suddenly, Penny knows what it is like to have a broken heart. Nate was all she ever wanted, and he lied to her and betrayed her, the one thing he said he would never do. Penny does the only thing she knows how to – turn’s to the Beatles for comfort, and inspiration.

For hanging on her wall is a poster of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Lonely. Hearts. Club. It’s an idea that changes the rest of Penny’s school year. Penny decides that she has had enough. Enough of guys that cheat and lie, enough of getting her heart broken and enough of the jerks that go to McKinley High. She starts a club that has her swearing off guys for the rest of her high school life. No dating, ever. It’s a decision that has her friends thinking she is crazy that is until they decided that they too, want to join.

Before she knows it, Penny’s club is the hottest thing at McKinley. Girls from all grades are want to join, and not always for the right reasons. And as the club gains more popularity, Penny is dancing closer to the edge of the line that could see her lose her best chance at a guy that could actually be right for her. For her decision to stick by the club rules, could not only affect her own life, but those of the people around her.

The Lonely Hearts Club is debut novel from Elizabeth Eulberg, who just like Penny, was sick of having to change herself to get a guy. It was this idea and an experience with a past friend that inspired Eulberg to create the story of The Lonely Hearts Club. It is something different, a romance where the rules have changed. One where friends try to understand who they are, and exactly what they want, not always with the best outcomes. The plot is easily relatable too – who hasn’t thought they found the perfect guy, only to discover that he defiantly wasn’t the perfect boyfriend. Who has lost a best friend to their new boyfriend, someone they haven’t known for long but is suddenly much more important than the friend they have had since year four. It’s a story of a group of friends brought together through the common trait of being single. Yet it is a celebration of finding yourself, of staying true to your friends and discovering that there are the good guys out there, but it might take a while for you to find them.

The characters that Eulberg constructed are instantly likeable, albeit at times a little frustrating. Penny as the founding member makes the most discovery and growth. From someone who doesn’t know who she is or what she wants, she turns into someone that decides exactly what she is going to do. Yet, getting there wasn’t easy, and Penny made her own fair share of mistakes along the way. Tracey provided the comic relief in a way that made you wish you knew her in real life. Tracey was always there, being supportive and knowing the right thing to do, even Penny didn’t know it herself. Diane is the friend that we have all seen, the popular cheerleader whose life all revolves around her boyfriend. That is, until she breaks up with her boyfriend. Diane becomes the second member of The Lonely Hearts Club, and comes to discover exactly what she was missing out on.

The Lonely Hearts Club is one of those easy, enjoyable reads that leaves you feeling good at the end of. A great debut from a promising writer.

Publication date: 2010

Pages: 290

Rating::

Teaser quote: “And, Nate? You kiss like a sobering dog, you have bad breath, and you wouldn’t know how to push the right buttons on a girl if we came with manuals. Happy Thanksgiving, Jackass.”

All right, I am going to be a bigger person starting right now.