The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

In the distant future, North America is now known as Panem, and is ruled by a tyranny from the Capitol. In retribution for an uprising many years ago, a contest is held every year called the Hunger Games, where each of twelve districts must send two of your young people to fight to the death in gladiator contests. This year, District 12 is represented by Katniss and Peeta. Peeta is a weak baker's son, but Katniss has struggled all of her life to support her family and has a suberb survival instinct. But will it keep her alive in the contest against the others? And what about Peeta, who she must also kill to stay alive (an idea which becomes more complicated as her feelings for him begin to develop)?

Not my usual thing, but a strangely compelling book. I had a great deal of trouble putting it down, which speaks highly for its value. The suspense level is high and Collins spins a very tight story. Perhaps not as much character development as I was hoping for, but there will be a sequel and that promises ample opportunity for taking this further. The book is getting a lot of hype, so it probably doesn't need another endorsement, but I'll give it anyway. If you want entertaining, hanging on your seat excitement, you can't do much better than this book.

Everything Beautiful, by Simmone Howell

When Riley screws up again, her Dad and Stepmom decide that the best thing to do with her during their planned vacation is to send her to a Christian camp in the outback for a week. This naturally enough does not go down well with atheist and wild grrl Riley. And in her first day or two there, she does her best to not fit in. However, she grows close to wheelchair-bound Dylan and (against her own better judgement) begins to enjoy herself, even as she manages to get in more and more trouble.

Despite some originality in the characters (Howell does a good job of giving everyone a twist that keeps them a step or two away from the stereotypes), the story itself is pretty much by-the-numbers and the conclusion falters badly. The novel gets points for avoiding feel-good observations about paraplegics and any temptation to throw in a cheap redemption scene. But the cost is that the story never quite wraps up and an attempt at spiritual depth towards the end falls flat. But I found the characters interesting and original enough to keep me involved in the story.

No More Us For You, by David Hernandez

Life as a museum guard ought to be fairly boring, but red licorice-loving Carlos has an amusing ability to attract trouble. Add to this some awkward relationship stumbling and a lot of boy-on-boy hazing and trash-talking (the writing is definitely R rated) and you mostly get a fairly uneventful story about a 17 year-old boy for the first half of the book. This changes though when a tragedy strikes out of the blue. Now the book becomes an exploration of survivor guilt and coping with loss. Employing alternate narrators (Carlos and Isabel), we attempt to get two perspectives on the events.

If my summary sounds a bit half-baked (and if it seems a bit odd that I have nothing to say about the narrator [Isabel] of half of the novel), that should give you a sense of the book's flaws. The book lacks direction, preferring to wallow in dialogue that seems to exist mostly to prove its authenticity than to further the story. The boys (Carlos and his male friends) are well drawn-out but the girls are throwaway and never really emerge with clear purposes of their own. This would be forgivable if the story had a point to make, but it never does that either.

My Tiki Girl, by Jennifer McMahon

In Maggie's mind, there is her Before Accident self (where she had friends and a mother that everyone liked) and then there is the After Accident Maggie where she has become "Frankenstein Girl" (hobbling from a leg injury) reeling from the death of her mother. Drowned in self-pity and blaming herself for the loss of her mother, Maggie has shut herself off from her friends. It takes a quirky outcast (Tiki) to bring Mags out of her shell. But the relationship develops into something more, triggering rumors and backlash from their peers. All of this aggravates the problems that Mags has dealing with grief.

Long-ish and slow paced, this story fails to deliver. Aside from an attempt at a cathartic ending, the key problems remain unadressed. Instead, we get a lot of ingredients (angst, dead mom, gender identity, oddball adventures, etc.) but no recipe. The characters are surprisingly thin for such a cerebral story (perhaps because their behavior is so predictable) and the story meanders.

Everything You Want, by Barbara Shoup

When Emma's Dad wins $50 million on Lotto, it seems at first as if everything is coming up roses. But that just isn't how life works. Instead, the sudden influx of wealth complicates things. Emma finds that all of her previous issues (insecurity, lack of focus, fear, etc.) get magnified by the money. Now, she can do anything she wants, but she can't figure out what that is. Add to this an extreme awkwardness with boys, and she has to do some serious soul searching.

This might be interesting territory to go down if you have never watched a rags-to-riches story on VH-1, but otherwise you might already be familiar with the concept that money corrupts. And you might have noticed that it has a tendency to turn character weaknesses into social pathologies. The question you have to ask yourself: do you care? Do you feel sorry for the poor little rich girl or do you (like me) get a bit tired of caring for someone who can't seem to get their life together? It doesn't help, of course, that the parents are not exactly paragons of responsibility either!

Overall, this story goes on too long. You'll get the idea in the first fifty pages that these are people who can't handle wealth. After that reality is established, where does one go with the story? I longed for some serious redemption, but Shoup avoids any real deep sul discovery. As a result, the characters never quite dig themselves out of their wallowing and self-pity. It makes for light escapism, but there isn't much in the lessons learned department.

Climbing the Stairs, by Padma Venkatraman

In India in 1941, there are two wars taking place -- WW II is going on in the periphery but closer to home, India is struggling for its independence. When Vidya's father is rendered an invalid from a savage beating, the family is forced to take refuge in the unsympathetic arms of her father's family. In their new home, Vidya must struggle simply for the right to read (the family does not approve of such pursuits by a woman). So, it seems like a lost cause to continue to hope to be given the chance to go to college when she graduates from school (far more likely, she will be forced into marriage). But hope comes from surprising places in this exotic and inspirational tale.

A lot of momentum is lost to exposition and explanation of the culture, but that is to be expected given the unfamiliar locale and customs, and Venkatraman makes up for it with a well-paced story. The characters are interesting and Vidya's ability to overcome her adverse conditions with a combination of luck and perseverance is appealing and rewarding. An interesting story that will appeal especially to people not familiar with the era or the place.

Girl, Barely 15: Flirting for England, by Sue Limb

This prequel to Girl, 15, Charming But Insane, picks up Jess's life a few months earlier (as the title suggests) when a group of French students come to visit on exchange. Jess's surprise at having to host a boy is quickly supplanted by her fantasies of ending up with a Gallic Stud. When Edouard ends up being a mealy geek instead, Jess turns her eyes to one of the other boys. Things get complicated during a weekend camping trip when Jess and her girl friends find themselves in competition for the same young man.

As I noted in my review of Girl, Going on 17: Pants on Fire (the third book in the series), the franchise seemed a bit exhausted, and as I started this one I was pretty much afraid that that was how it was going to go. But after some purely dreadful passages with the girls basically just doing silly gossipy things, they hit the countryside and the story starts getting interesting! Far too soon, however, we're back at school and it goes dreadful dull again. Younger readers may enjoy this book, but most American teens will find them either hopelessly tame or frivolous. For the most part, the joy and fun that was in the original is largely gone (or retread).

I was also rather annoyed at the two attempts to tie in Limb's new characters (Zoe and Chloe -- see forthcoming review of the first book in that series!). Largely pointless, these two passages have nothing to do with Jess's story and seem solely intended to create name recognition and product placement. Shame!

Julep O'Toole: What I Really Want To Do Is Direct, by Trudi Trueit

In this third installment, Julep is unwillingly drafted into a drama club production of Princess and the Pea in order to save her English grade. But she can't stand it. Just as she is about to give up (having fought a losing war against the paper mache trees she is being forced to make for stage crew), she is granted the opportunity to become an assistant director. This changes things immensely, but even Julep isn't prepared for what happens next!

Clever and witty middle reader material about an energetic and adventuresome girl. She had trouble asking for help (probably a problem that readers her age can relate to) but she is resourceful and charming. The series is getting a bit worn out and tired and this latest edition lacks the charm of the first book, but this is well-written entertaining material for the right audience.

My One Hundred Adventures, by Polly Horvath

In one busy Summer, 12-year-old Jane gets roped into helping the minister distribute Bibles, babysitting the horrible Gourd children, and meeting a series of men who used to date her mother (and may or may not be her father). There's her best friend getting dragged off to soccer camp and the lonely Mr Fordyce with his endless berries (and love for all children - even the Gourd kids!). In sum, a array of crazy situations. Jane starts off the Summer wishing for a hundred adventures. And while she doesn't quite manage that many, she does come close!

Another zany Mainelander tale from Horvath. In spirit, this is a close relative of The Canning Season, but with a slightly meaner streak to it (in terms of how the characters treat each other). For this reason mainly, I had a hard time getting through this story. It lacked the lightness of Horvath's other books and its zaniness came across as disjointed ideas instead of the usual cleverness of Horvath's other writings.

Baby, by Joseph Monninger

Baby is at the end of the line. At 15 years old, she's been kicked out of a series of foster homes and she is on her last chance before being sent to Juvie. Yet, this last chance may actually work out! She's been sent to a home in rural New Hampshire and learns to care for a dog sled team (and eventually on how to run the dogs herself). But can she accept good things in her life? Or will she insist on wrecking it all to follow after her boyfriend?

This well-meaning story suffers from two fatal flaws: an unsympathetic heroine and a story that grows increasingly erratic as it progresses. Monninger obvious loves dog sledding (he's written several book on dogs and is a real-life dog sledder) and that is revealed by how well-written those sections are. However, the rest of the book is weak and undeveloped. Everyone seemed overly tolerant of Baby's overly nasty personality and I never saw any real redemption or remorse.

The Good Girl, by Kerry Cohen Hoffman

In Lindsey's family, she is the good one. She takes care of her father, serves as a surrogate mother for her rebellious sister, reassures her mother (who has moved away and started a new family), and keeps silent about her grief for her dead brother. Despite this dramatic challenge, she manages to get good grades, the respect of her teachers, and the admiration of her peers. But inside, she is falling apart. And when she starts stealing things to soothe her pain, the situation quickly reaches a breaking point.

Full of lots of good ideas (and maybe a bit too many explanatory behavioral factors!) this slim book is maddening. It read largely like a abstract, as if Hoffman had started the book and written all of the key parts but never fleshed them out. There is much to like in this book and the character is understandable and sympathetic, but the novel could have been so much more expanded. And in doing so, it would have been a better read because we would have developed a deeper understanding of Lindsey's story and the causes of her issues. The current result looks more like a rush job.

The Wild Girls, by Pat Murphy

In 1972, Joan and her family move to California. Joan quickly befriends an eccentric and independent girl who calls herself "Fox," and the two girls dub themselves the "Wild Girls" -- brave and fearless conquerors of nature. But Fox and "Newt" (Joan) are anything but fearless, and struggle with families that are disintegrating around them and afraid of what this means for them. They do, however, share a love of writing and through a Summer course at Berkeley in creative writing, they learn a lot more about themselves as well as how to craft a story.

Obviously autobiographical, I would have normally been prone to dismiss this story as lazy writing (how hard can it be to tell your own life story, peddling it as fiction?) but this one is done terribly well. There are many brilliant observations about human nature, beautifully-written narrative, and just the right amount of angst to make the story and the characters matter. In sum, this is a gorgeous book and a model of what autobiographical YA really should be about (i.e., take stories from your youth and spin them into something substantive that transcends your individual experience). Highly recommended.

Cycler, by Lauren McLaughlin

Jill has a terrible problem that comes around once a month -- she turns into a boy named Jack. And only after spending four days in a boy's body does she get her period (talk about nasty PMS!). But beyond that catchy premise, there's a story about identity as Jill and Jack struggle to find their place in the life of a single body -- a problem only complicated by adolescence, love, and the Senior Prom.

The plot probably sounds gimmicky, but in fact does not disappoint as McLaughlin quickly transcends the novelty and humor to develop a truly interesting story about gender identity and acceptance. I found Jack a bit too stereotypical (although I suspect that women have the same complaints about the heroines that male writers create!) as a teen horndog, but he grows on you. And the story, while carrying a strong message, never sacrifices its entertainment value. Recommended, yet strangely overlooked by most of my peers. Seek it out!

The Book of Jude, by Kimberley Heuston

It is the late 1980s and Jude is a mildly over-imaginative teen living in New York in a struggling Mormon family. But she does not do well with change and when her Mom gets a chance to study for a year in Prague, Jude can't imagine a worse situation than losing her Mother for a year, until she learns that the plan is really to have the whole family move to Prague. Not only does this sound worse, it actually is worse as Jude's flights of fancy quickly deteriorate into psychosis and madness as she becomes unable to differentiate between reality and nightmares as the country around her shifts between paranoia and chaos.

Set against the historical events of the Velvet Revolution (for some bizarre reason, the blurb writer cofuses this with the Prague Spring [of 1968]!), Heuston's latest historical novel is an interesting dpearture from the usual mold. Part historical, part I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, this complex story traces stories of change, historical upheaval, religious faith, and mental illness. Staying true to the jumbled mental state of the narrator, the story itself jumps and bounds around from topic to topic. That can make for very frustrated reading as interesting subplots get lost in the haze and the main storyline never really wraps up. However, it feels more realistic this way. My one complaint is that the story could have been much longer and benefitted from fleshing out of the story. That said, Heuston is one of the stronger and more original voices in YA historical fiction today and worth reading.

The Mousehunter, by Alex Milway

In an alternate world, mice come in all sizes and shapes, and have proven to be the most versatile helpmates a human could long for. And in this world, young Emiline yearns to fine tune her mousekeeper skills to the point that she can one day be considered a mousehunter. But in the meantime, she has left the employ of her eccentric mouse-collecting Lovelock to join the privateer Drewshank on an expedition to capture the dread pirate Mousebeard. Through storms and sea monsters, Emiline and her trusty gray mouse Portly take the adventure of their lives.

An extremely developed and colorful fantasy read, Milway's descriptions of all of the various mice that populate his world are the true highlight of this book. And the book certainly has enough twists and turns to keep things busy. However, Milway seems to delight in throwing in these details and twists not so much to keep the story exciting as much as to fill the story with activity. Far too many storylines are introduced and die with a whimper. And I found the constantly shifting narrative voice (sometimes with the girl, sometimes with the privateer, and even sometimes with the villians) very distracting. This is not a story for character development (or even growth) and that makes for dry reading. Very creative but dreadfully dull (in spite of its frenetic activity level).

Everything Is Fine, by Ann Dee Ellis

Mazzy's mother is sick, lying at home slowly vegetating from grief. Mazzy's Dad is away from home pursuing his dream job of being a sports commentator on ESPN and avoiding facing th truth about what is going on at home. People come by to help (a home health aide named Bill, the neighbors, a hired woman who brings the groceries, a concerned social worker, etc.) but each time Mazzy tries to drive them off with her "karate chops" and an assurance that "everything is fine," even if it most certainly is not.

The story seeks poignancy by telling the story entirely through Mazzy's voice and her drawings. That would work if Mazzy wasn't such an unlikeable character. Some of this nastiness is a result of her need to protect her family, but there is also a terrible selfish streak to her that really turned me off. And as the story promised that everything would be revealed, I wanted to find out that Mazzy had some good reason for behaving as she did (autism, ADHD, anything!) but that never came. Once I hated the main character, my interest in what happened to her plummeted. And my desire to read her (realistically) scrappy narrative declined. An interesting concept but a book that you will probably want to give a pass on.

House of Dance, by Beth Kephart

With her mother distracted by an affair with her married co-worker, Rosie is left alone to help her dying grandfather go through his possessions and decide what to give away. It's an eye-opening journey for Rosie who has not known that much about her grandfather before. Determined to give him something very special before he is gone, Rosie organizes a party for Granddad with the help of the dance students at a local studio.

Beautifully written and inspired by the death of Kephart's mother, this story of family and dealing with change is striking and memorable. It is not, however, a YA book, despite its teenaged heroine. I have no doubt that some young readers might enjoy it (and many adult readers will be taken by the gorgeous narrative and adult observations of the characters), but it is being mis-marketed to a teen audience. Moreover, it suffers from one of my least favorite attributes of the adult modern novel: the tendency to use characters and story to sell a point, rather than letting the characters find their way into your heart. As beautiful as the story was, I never found myself caring for the characters at all.

Fancy White Trash, by Marjetta Geerling

Abby has developed a series of rules (You Don't Need Him, No Baggage from the Past, etc.) to help save her from the fate of her sisters and mother. Mom's been married three times already (twice to Abby's biological Dad) and she's now pregnant with the child of The Guitar Player (who's also managed to get Abby's older sister pregnant). Add to all this that Abby's about the only one in the family so far that hasn't been a teenage mother, and you can appreciate why she's trying to live by some sort of order. But her life is really just a Jerry Springer episode in the making -- her best friend is an in-the-closet gay boy with immaculate taste, and she can't tell if she's ready to date the older brother of that same best friend (she's hesitant because she's convinced that he might be the father of one of her sister's kid). Oh yeah, she likes to watch soap operas...can you tell?

If you take this story as light entertainment, it works pretty well as a farce. It's a little too serious to be comedy though and way over-the-top for serious drama. So, I just sort of waded through it, never quite managing to get connected with the characters. It's cute and it's original at times (skipping over a very tired cliched portrayal of the gay friend), but it's not very compelling.

Unraveling, by Michelle Baldini and Lynn Biederman

Amanda is always getting into trouble with her mother. Her younger sister, on the other hand, is perfect and skates through life unscathed. But it isn't all Amanda's fault -- Mom's sister and even Dad notice that Amanda seems to get singled out a lot for blame. But it's complicated and no one is really all that perfect in this look at familial relationships.

A complex story that is at its strongest when it is dealing with the mother-daughter relationship. It struggles more when it attempts to deal with peer pressure and teen sex (as it is pretty obvious that these subplots really don't have much to do with the story). Also, a little more subtlety in the maternal abuse would have gone a long way (most readers will have to admit that Amanda has it a lot worse than they ever have had it).

But putting that aside, the story itself is striking and the characters true and vibrant. I, of course, have no first-hand experience with mother-daughter relationships, but this story seemed honest and accurate. The frustrations and disconnects between Mom and Amanda seemed familiar, and I am sure that all of us will recognize a bit of their struggle in our own relationships with our parents (or children, as the case may be).

Ten Cents A Dance, by Christine Fletcher

In 1941 in Chicago, Ruby must find a way to support her widowed mother and younger sister. Working in the stockyards, she can barely earn anough money to scrape by and certainly not enough to get her family out of their living situation. But when a local boy tells her about a dance hall where she can get paid for dancing with men, she decides to explore the option. She loves dancing, after all, and the promise of earning $50 a week sure sounds great! Very quickly, Ruby realizes that there is much more to the job than simply dancing and comes to understand that she is going to have to make some difficult decisions in order to survive.

Appearing on several "best of 2008" lists this year, I was intrigued by this book. It doesn't fall into the category of a book I would normally want to read. I'm not big of historical novels and 20th century really tends to bore me. However, the richness of the detail and the engrossing story very quickly take over. Gangsters and jazz in Chicago is pretty tired cliche but this book never falls a foul of that. Instead, we get a glimpse of a really vibrant world and a story about a truly original heroine. Truly, a very well crafted story!