TTYL ~ Lauren Myracle

Title: TTYL
Author: Lauren Myracle
Publisher: Amulet Books, 209 pages
Copyright: 2004


Summary: 
Plot: None whatsoever 
Major Characters: Angela, Maddie, and Zoe 
Major Subjects: High School Drama


School Library Journal Review:
Gr 8-10-Three high school sophomores, lifelong best friends, are now facing a variety of emotional upsets in their personal and social lives. Angela is boy crazy and emotive, but able to lend support to her friends when they need it. Zoe is the quietest and most self-effacing, considered by some to be a goody two-shoes but in fact headed full speed into a very dangerous relationship. Madigan is the hothead, less certain of how to grow up than she allows anyone, including herself, to see. The entire narrative is composed of the instant messages sent among these three, from September into November, as they each get involved with dating, sort out how to have friendships with others, cope with disasters that range from wardrobe issues to getting drunk, and offer one another advice and defiance. Each character's voice is fully realized and wonderfully realistic in spite of the very limiting scope of the IM device. Page layout mimics a computer screen and each girl IMs in a different font and in her own unique verbal style. (The title is IM jargon for "talk to you later"). Myracle not only sustains all this but also offers readers some meaty-and genuine-issues. Both revealing and innovative, this novel will inspire teens to pass it to their friends and will suggest to nascent writers that experimenting with nonnarrative communication can be a great way to tell a story.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


Review:
Let me just say this first, Lauren Myracle is laugh-out-loud funny in person. She's adorable and a sweetheart, but I don't like her books. First of all, I don't see the teen appeal in TTYL. Why would teens want to read through an entire book of instant messaging messages between three friends in high school (who also act like they are 12, not 16)? Will teens really want to read "IM" dialogue because that's how most of them communicate with their friends outside of school? I'm not sure. It was very difficult for me to get through this book. 

I thought this book was pointless, drawn out, and completely and utterly useless. The main characters were nothing special; one was boy crazy, one was religion obsessed, and the other was just crabby. The ending was unresolved and unresolvable because frankly, the character's lives are so pointless that there's no reason to resolve their problems. 


No plot, lousy character development, and bad attitudes all around. I don't recommend this one. 


Reading Level: Beginner
Notes about Audience: For readers ages 13 and up. 

Other books by Lauren Myracle: 

http://www.laurenmyracle.com/yummy-books

Refresh, Refresh ~ Danica Novgorodoff

Title: Refresh, Refresh
Author: Danica Novgorodoff
Color by Hilary Sycamore
Publisher: First Second, 144 pages. 
Copyright: 2009


Summary: 
Plot: Three teenagers in rural Oregon are affected by the war going on abroad. 
Major Characters: Josh, Cody, and Gordon
Major Subjects: Graphic Novel, Military Families


VOYA Review:
he title of this graphic novel comes from the act of refreshing an e-mail inbox often to see if anyone has replied, in this case, teens' fathers who have gone off to Iraq to fight in the war. Cody, Josh, and Jordan miss their dads and stay busy by beating each other up in the back yard (to make themselves stronger), hang out at the local bar and drink alcohol, hook up with older women, and participate in a slew of other activities that are pretty risky but make sense, feeling left behind. Of the three, Josh's future looks the least bleak as he receives an acceptance letter to college. The story is well drawn, with the damage from the fight scenes among the teens evidenced in painful black eyes and blood. The day-to-day living is also painful when the power has been shut off because the bills are not being paid. Although the story is never really upbeat, it will probably ring familiar to readers whose parents have gone off to fight in the war or are simply absent for various other reasons. It is a good book for discussion as it touches on tough topics with which many teens may be wrestling, whether or not their parents play a large role in their lives. Reviewer: Kelly Czarnecki


Review: 
Refresh, Refresh is a graphic novel that follows three teen boys (Josh, Cody, and Gordon) all struggling with the loss of their fathers who are soldiers in Iraq. They continuously click "refresh" on their computers, hoping for emails from their dads. Their frustration and rage grows and festers to the point where they can not contain it and look for ways to vent. They do this in largely unhealthy ways. The book is disturbing in its depiction of all of these things and requires a mature reader. The bleakness of the rural Oregon landscape only makes the three boys more vulnerable and their behavior more troubling. 

As their fathers fight in Iraq, the boys are beating each other up in their own backyards, drinking illegally in the local bar, and using rifles to hunt deer in the woods.  Refresh, Refresh deals with a serious contemporary issue: the ramifications of war that we may not always see such as how the family left behind deals with another family member being away at war. It troubled me that there was no time to really take in the author's message. The characters and their stories are covered quickly and not explored in depth. The issues of families of soldiers struggling to survive financially, with loss, with loneliness, with rage, with having to take on additional roles, and with lack of information deserve our thought and consideration. Refresh, Refresh does not give the reader time to do this.

I also felt that the characters were not developed in any depth, which would have also helped to distinguish them. Overall, I thought this graphic novel was mediocre. 

Reading Level: Beginner (for mature readers)

Notes about Audience: Recommended for ages 14 and up. 

Other books by Danica Novgorodoff:

http://www.danicanovgorodoff.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=4

An Abundance of Katherines ~ John Green

Title: An Abundance of Katherines
Author: John Green
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile, 256 pages.
Copyright: 2006


Summary: 
Plot: After being dumped nineteen times by girls named "Katherine", ex-child prodigy, Colin Singleton (what irony!) conspires to think of a Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability and solve the great mystery that is relationships.
Major Characters: Collin Singleton, Hassan, Lindsey Lee Wells
Major Subjects: Humor


School Library Journal Review:
Grade 9 Up–This novel is not as issue-oriented as Greens Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005), though it does challenge readers with its nod to postmodern structure. Right after intellectual child-prodigy Colin Singleton graduates from high school, his girlfriend (who, like the 18 young women and girls whom he claimed as girlfriends over the years, is named Katherine) breaks up with him and sends him into a total funk. His best friend, Hassan, determines that he can only be cured with a road trip. After some rather aimless driving, the two find themselves in Gutshot, TN, where locals persuade them to stay. There, Colin spends his spare time working on a mathematical theorem of love, hypothesizing that romantic relationships can be graphed and predicted. The narrative is self-consciously dorky, peppered with anagrams, trivia, and foreign-language bons mots and interrupted by footnotes that explain, translate, and expound upon the text in the form of asides. It is this type of mannered nerdiness that has the potential to both win over and alienate readers. As usual, Greens primary and secondary characters are given descriptive attention and are fully and humorously realized. While enjoyable, witty, and even charming, a book with an appendix that describes how the mathematical functions in the novel can be created and graphed is not for everybody. The readers who do embrace this book, however, will do so wholeheartedly.–Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston 


Review: 
Picture this: You used to be a childhood prodigy. Member of an academic game team. You excelled in school. You were special. You met a girl named Katherine and the two of you started dating. 

Then she dumps you. 

Then eighteen more girls named Katherine dump you. 

Suddenly, you're a teenager with no claim to fame except for your former status as a prodigy. No new ideas. No girl. No plans for the summer excepting wasting away in your room and moping. 

This is not your life. But it is Colin Singleton's life immediately after his graduation from high school. Colin is a new high school graduate, a soon-to-be-ex child prodigy, and this theorem, the theorem that could potentially make him a genius, is the problem he is facing.

You see, Colin has a problem. Colin falls in love very easily.  He tries to make himself a genius by coming up with the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, to not only make himself known for something, but to also figure out why all nineteen Katherines have dumped him.

As a distraction, Colin and his best friend Hassan set out on a road trip to nowhere, in The Hearse (Colin's car). Seeing a sign for the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the boys head to Gutshot, Tennessee; a small town, where they happen upon Lindsey Lee Wells, a girl who is nothing like any Katherine has been for Colin. Their road trip stops in Gutshot, Tennessee. But the adventures don't. Hired by a local bigwig to compile an oral history of Gutshot, Colin and Hassan find themselves staying with Hollis and her daughter, Lindsey. It is in Gutshot that Colin finally has what he has always wanted, a truly original idea. Thus, Colin begins to create a theorem of love in his attempt to understand his own rocky love life. 

The hook of An Abundance of Katherines is an intriguing one. Looking at the cover, it'd be easy to assume this was a novel about cloning. Instead, it's a coming-of-age story for Colin and his best friend, Hassan. Colin's desparation to prove himself--not only as a genius but also to the Katherine XIX (as she's known in the novel)--is a fascinating journey. The novel does hit some predictable markers for a young adult story, but John Green hits them with such refreshing honesty and nicely done characters that you won't really mind that much. 


Reading Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Notes about Audience: Recommended for ages 14 and up. 

 Other books by John Green:

http://johngreenbooks.com/

You might also enjoy:

Like Nothing but the Truth by Justina Chen Headley

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Rules of Survival ~ Nancy Werlin

Title: The Rules of Survival
Author: Nancy Werlin
Publisher: Penguin Group, 288 pages.
Copyright: 2008


Summary: 
Plot: Matt, Callie, and Emmy struggle to survive under the wing of their tyrranical and unstable mother. When their mother begins dating Murdoch, things begin to look up, but then slowly spiral back down, leaving Matt with an important decision to make. 
Major Characters: The Walsh Family (Matt, Callie, Emmy, and Nikki) and Murdoch M
Major Subjects: Parental abuse, Problem Novel, Realistic Fiction


VOYA Review:
Unlike Werlin's previous four novels, this latest includes nary a mystery element. But the departure from genre does not mean that Werlin's newest book lacks suspense. If anything, it is one of her most deliciously harrowing works. Eighteen-year-old narrator Matthew introduces the novel with a letter to his younger sister, Emmy; the body of the book is what he calls the "true story of our family's past" and is written in short, tight, first-person chapters that occasionally address his sister-and readers, his "real" audience. In the novel, Matthew recounts his thirteenth through sixteenth years, during which he, Emmy, and their "middle" sister, Callie, lived in a small apartment in South Boston with their manic and abusive mother. Much of what Matthew describes involves his and Callie's attempts to protect the younger and more vulnerable Emmy. The siblings spend much of their time on edge, attempting to appease their mercurial mother and protect Emmy from her often-violent wrath. When their mother begins dating a complicated man named Murdoch, Matthew casts this newcomer as the family's savior and is frustrated and depressed when Murdoch does not immediately rise to the occasion. The plot moves swiftly and unrelentingly to a climax that visits themes common to some of Werlin's earlier works and offers an uneasy recognition of the same conclusion David Yaffe voiced in The Killer's Cousin (Delacorte, 1998/VOYA October 1998), "Anyone in this world can have the power of life and death over someone else. It's horrible, but true."


Review:
Set in South Boston, The Rules of Survival is the story of three kids whose childhoods are held hostage by a severely volatile, unpredictable, and cruel mother, who goes from placid cool to angry demon in seconds. Their mother, Nikki Walsh, regularly locks her three kids in 100-degree rooms without a second thought, pushes a butcher knife onto the throat of her son, Matt, and has frequent, volcanic eruptions of rage. 


But then Matt discovers Murdoch, a man he witnessed rescuing a little boy in the convenience store from the rage of his father. Matt is star-struck by this convenience store savior and immediately becomes focused on finding him once again, befriending him, and gaining his trust. With some luck and gusto, Matt's sister, Callie, finds out where Murdoch lives and presents Matt a piece of paper with his name, address, and a phone number. Then, their mom comes home and after one thing leading to another, Murdoch and their mom begin dating. 


Then, life’s almost good for a whole three months. When Murdoch dumps their mom,  all roads lead to hell. Nikki Walsh goes back to cocaine, the drink, serial dating, and putting her kids' lives in danger. Matt knows he’ll need to take action, but can he survive these measures alone? 

The novel is written in letter form – from Matthew, the oldest child, to Emmy, the youngest – in which Matthew lays out the stories his sister may have been too young to remember about their mother and the events that led to their eventual escape from her.  This book-length letter is a cathartic working-through for Matt, a young man who would have fled if it weren’t for the responsibility of protecting his sisters, who’s still haunted by the ceaseless fear of his childhood and the survival impulse to kill that eventually came of that fear. Since Emmy is the recipient of the letter, and also an actor in the stories Matthew writes, Werlin hits on an unusual, but effective 1st-person-meets-2nd-person format that allows for a painful honesty and engaging immediacy to the story that will make your heart race. 


Reading Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Notes about Audience: Recommended for ages 13 and up. 


Favorite Line: "Emmy, the events we lived through taught me to be sure of nothing about other people. They taught me to expect danger around every corner. They taught me to understand that there are people in this world that mean you harm, And sometimes, they're the people who say they love you." 

Other books by Nancy Werlin:

http://www.nancywerlin.com/

You might also enjoy:

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

A Fast and Brutal Wing by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson

The Child Called It by Dave Pelzer

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Looking for Alaska ~ John Green

Title: Looking for Alaska 
Author: John Green 

Publisher: Dutton Books, 160 pages 
Copyright: 2005 

Summary: 
Plot: Sixteen year old Miles moves from Florida to Alabama to attend boarding school. This is a coming of age story about Miles's adventures and misadventures at Culver Creek Academy.
Major Characters: Miles "Pudge" Halter, Alaska Young, Chip "Colonel" Martin 
Major Subjects: Coming-of-Age, Romance, Boarding School 

School Library Journal Review: 
Gr 9 Up: From the very first page, tension fills John Green's Michael L. Printz Award-winning novel (Dutton, 2005). Miles Halter, 16, is afraid that nobody will show up at his party because he doesn't have many friends. He loves to read biographies and discover the last words attributed to famous people. He's particularly intrigued with the dying words of poet Francois Rabelais: "I go to seek a great perhaps." Miles is leaving his loving Florida home for the "great perhaps" of the same Alabama boarding school attended by his father. Ominous chapter headings (40 days before, 10 days after) reveal that something tragic may happen. At school, Miles is accepted by a brainy group of pranksters led by his roommate and Alaska Young, a smart and sexy feminist. The teen becomes captivated by his new friends who spend as much energy on sex, smoking, drinking, and cutting-up as they do on reading, learning, and searching for life's meaning. As the school year progresses, Miles's crush on Alaska intensifies, even after it becomes evident that her troubled past sometimes causes her to be self-destructive. This novel is about real kids dealing with the pressures of growing up and feeling indestructible. Listeners will be riveted as the friends band together to deal with the catastrophic events that plague their junior year, and rejoice at their triumphs. Jeff Woodman clearly delineates the voices for each character in an age-appropriate, smart-alecky manner, injecting great emotion while managing not to be overly sentimental. This story belongs in all collections for older young adults, especially those who like Chris Crutcher, David Klass, and Terry Trueman. 

Review: 
This is a book about the big things that happen to us: love, loss, grief, forgiveness. 

Looking for Alaska is a Printz Award Winner, so I was expecting something with a little more "ummph" to it, but I didn't find that in this book. It's a very well-written novel, but there's no punch; instead, the novel seems to drag on and on and on and on and on. 

Once Miles arrives at Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama, he is taken under the wing of his roommate Chip, otherwise known as the Colonel, a dirt-poor genius on a scholarship who spends his spare time coming up with extravagant plans to bring down the uber-rich preppies of their school. Chip quickly creates a fitting nickname for scrawny Miles, Pudge. 

Miles, or Pudge, meets kids his age that he would never imagine being friends with back at home. His roommate, the Colonel; Takumi, the Japanese whizz kid; Lara, the shy, but beautiful Romanian, and the crazy wild child he can’t keep his mind off of, Alaska. Being the leader of the group, Alaska is an outgoing, flirty, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants girl who doesn’t go by the rules. All three characters are presented as if they are wise beyond their years, but high school drama, intensified by boarding school highs and lows, transforms them bad-ass. As the novel progresses, Miles’s feelings for Alaska become stronger and stronger, but Jake, her boyfriend, is the only thing holding Miles back from expressing how he feels. 

The novel is divided into two sections, "Before" and "After", so readers can expect a major event to happen in the second section. The event shakes up Miles, Chip, and the entire school. 

It's hard to see this book as young adult fiction because it reads like Miles is looking back on it years later. It is written in first person past tense and the voice of Miles is so mature, so self-aware that it is hard to believe a sixteen year-old telling the tale of his own coming of age with such effortless aplomb. 

Green spends more time on Miles’s inner spiritual life using his world religions class as a foil for what is happening to him. Miles’s monologues can be dense and philosophical and, again, feel too sophisticated for a boy who counts layers of clothing and drinks milk and vodka. (On the other hand, many YA novels have a character whose actions on the outside contradict their mature and thoughtful internal feelings.) His narrative is jumping with self-deprecating humor and teenage struggle to be truthful and to still maintain the facade of coolness that they project. 

Favorite Lines: "It's not because I want to make out with her." Hold on." He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he'd just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me. "I just did some calculations, and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit" 

Reading Level: Intermediate

Notes about Audience: Recommended for readers in high school, ages 15 and up. 

Other books by John Green:

http://johngreenbooks.com/

You might also enjoy:

King Dork by Frank Portman

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne

Spud by John Van de Ruit

Going Bovine ~ Libba Bray

Title: Going Bovine
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Random House Children's Books, 496 pages
Copyright: 2009


Summary:
Plot: Sixteen year old Cameron Smith is diagnosed with Mad Cow disease and discovers that he will die. He goes on a wild ride in a surreal dreamland while he is in a drug-induced state.
Major Characters: Cameron (or Cam) Smith, Dulcie,
Major Subjects: Fantasy, Death and Dying


VOYA Review:
Sixteen-year-old Cameron Smith is a social outcast and known slacker. He has no desire to care about anything in life until he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, otherwise known as mad cow disease, and discovers that he is going to die. As Cameron's health continues to worsen, he sinks into a dreamland that resembles a world on a bad drug trip. Hope arrives in this parallel universe with punk angel, Dulcie, who makes Cameron believe there is a cure for his illness. Cam's journey for that cure takes him on a cross-country road trip from Texas to Florida where he makes friends with a dwarf nicknamed Gonzo and a talking garden gnome who believes himself to be the Viking god Baldar. Together they encounter mythical jazz musicians, battle fire giants, escape a happiness cult, meet universe-hopping physicists, dodge wacked-out snow-globe police, and befriend fame-obsessed teenagers. Bray portrays Cameron so realistically that he is every teen struggling with his or her identity. At times, readers will both love and hate Cameron as his adventures are alternately comical, nail biting, and heart wrenching. Readers will be rooting for Cameron to overcome his obstacles to save himself and claim his love for Dulcie. The novel is a laugh-out-loud, tear-jerking, fantastical voyage into the meaning of what is real in life and how someone can learn to live. It is a must-purchase for any libraries wanting to reach out to all teens who need to know there are stories out there for them. Reviewer: Laura Panter


Review:
Buckle up, readers. You're in for a wild ride. You won't know what's real and what's not, but then again, that's the whole point. This novel is a monumental undertaking and somehow Bray accomplishes it. 


Cameron is going nowhere at school. He gets fired from his job at Buddha Burger with good reason. He talks cynically about his family and they aren't too fond of his sarcasm either. His only hobby seems to be to listen to music he hates so he can mock it. He's high at least once a week. Basically, Cameron is on a slow but uncontrollable skid to nowhere.


That is, until his recent bouts of uncontrolled behavior and terrifying visions are revealed to be caused not by drug use (as his parents suspect) but by Creutzfeldt-Jakob's, better known as mad cow disease. Basically, the tissue in his brain is breaking down, turning into a spongy mess (and apparently also letting in armor-clad wizards and threatening pillars of flame). Pretty soon, Cameron is finding himself poked and prodded, stuffed into hospital beds and down MRI tubes, with a terminal diagnosis and the horrible realization that he might be about to die without ever having lived. Does that sound like anyone you know? I thought so. 

The only chance that Cameron has to save his life is to undertake a mission to save the world. No biggie. 


Guided only by cryptic clues from an elusive and strangely attractive punk rock angel named Dulcie and accompanied by a hypochondriac, video game obsessed dwarf named Gonzo, Cameron sets off on a wild goose chase to find the enigmatic Dr. X, a physicist who disappeared as if into thin air years ago. According to Dulcie, Dr. X holds both the potential to destroy the entire world and the ability to cure Cameron's disease. Joined along the way by a talking yard gnome,  aided by drunken frat boys and a Portuguese warbler and a visionary jazz man, Cameron's trip culminates in what might be the world's wackiest spring break. 


Living inside Cameron's head as he travels across the US after ditching the hospital with the LP is tedious, at times, and fantastically funny at others. The book takes place in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. By turns hilarious and tragic, Going Bovine above all will keep readers guessing, as they must unravel what is real, what is a dream, and whether any of that really matters.


As a kooky old woman that Cameron meets on his journey says, “No one should die until they’ve wrung out every last bit of living they can,” and this book is absolutely alive on every page. 


Favorite Line: "The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage." 


Reading Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Notes about Audience: Recommended for ages 16 and up (curse words, especially overuse of the "f" word, "pot talk" and other mature content in this book)

 Other books by Libba Bray:

http://www.libbabray.com/books.html

You might also enjoy:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Bog Child ~ Siobhan Dowd

Title: Bog Child
Author: Siobhan Dowd
Publisher: Random House Children's Books, 336 pages.
Copyright: 2008


Summary: 
Plot: "Bog Child" is a historical novel set in 1981 Northern Ireland during the Hunger Strike at Long Kesh. 
Major Characters: Fergus, Uncle Tally, Joe, "Mel"
Major Subjects: Historical Fiction, Ireland, Political Prisoners, Mystery


VOYA Review:
When Fergus McCann finds a 2000-year-old body of a young girl buried in a bog, his life begins to unravel. As Fergus tries to solve the mystery surrounding the body, he gets word that his jailed brother, Joe, has begun a hunger strike protesting the Troubles in Ireland. His family also begins to crumble as his father and mother argue over whether Joe's decision is noble or a pointless path to slow death. Fergus is directly drawn into the Troubles between Ireland and England when he is blackmailed into becoming a smuggler, he believes, for the IRA. Amidst the conflict, Fergus falls for a girl examining the body in the bog. He also struggles to study for exams so he can keep alive his dream of becoming a doctor and the first McCann to attend college. Set during the early 1980s in Ireland, the novel expertly uses the country and its conflicts as a backdrop for this coming-of-age novel. Dowd realistically depicts a character trapped between Irish Republicans and loyalists, between his mother and father, and ultimately between boyhood and adulthood. A few surprises keep the reader moving along as the novel juggles several story lines. The conclusion, however, although interesting seems a bit too tidy and slightly abrupt. Dowd, who died of cancer in 2007, has an ear for dialect and an eye for detail that creates a powerful novel filled with tension, strife, and subtle humor. Reviewer: Jeff Mann

Review: 

Fergus McCann, the 18 year old protagonist, and his Uncle Tally, discover the 2000 year old body of a young girl in the bog while stealing peat for fuel. Felicity O'Brian, the archaeologist in charge of the find, arrives with her daughter Cora to examine the body. Dowd slowly reveals to the reader, through clues and Fergus' dreams, the story behind the death of the 2000 year old girl who Fregus names "Mel." This plot is interwoven with the story of Fergus' family who is dealing with the older son, Joe's, decision to become a part of the Hunger Strike at Long Kesh, where he is a political prisoner. 

What makes Bog Child an award winning book? It isn’t that you can’t put it down, although that is true, but for me it was knowing that as I read, I was becoming a better person. The genre is historical fiction, and to fully appreciate the story the reader needs to research and understand the very complicated religious, political mess that is Ireland’s history. Fergus is an honest and compelling character who you can't help but root for as he directs his life through the myriad of issues that arise with his family, his country, his blossoming love life, and the girl he's found in the bog. The family is there in this story, its ups and downs, its sound in the dialogue, its personal pain, its laughter and its tears. For me this book had it all: plot, characters, theme and the beauty of words.

As for the details, Dowd's description of Northern Ireland during this tumultuous time is astounding. I truly felt the tension that Fergus felt and was able to get a clearer glimpse into the complicated world of Northern Ireland at the time. 

Bog Child is a beautifully written work; the dialect had me repeating lines out loud, trying to imitate their sound. The imagery is vivid. The plot is full of surprises. Many things occur that I had no idea were coming. 

Reading Level: Intermediate

Notes about Audience: Recommended for tweens and teens, ages 12 and up. 

Other books by Siobhan Dowd:

http://www.siobhandowdtrust.com/

You might also enjoy:

The Dog in the Wood by Monika Schroder

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

Shiver ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Shiver
Series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls #1
Author: Maggie Stiefvater 
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks, 400 pages.
Copyright: 2010


Summary:  
Plot: Grace watches the wolves in her backyard -- one wolf in particular. Chaos ensues as the wolves begin to make trouble in her town and Grace fights to save the boy that she loves.
Major Characters: Grace and Sam
Major Subjects: Paranormal, Werewolves, Twilight fans, Supernatural


VOYA Review:

Grace and Sam met six years ago when she was attacked by werewolves. Sam changed from a yellow-eyed wolf to a yellow-eyed boy and carried her home. Although bitten, Grace survived and did not change, the only werewolf victim ever to do so. She has a more developed sense of smell, improved hearing, is stronger physically, but she is still a girl, only now a girl connected to a wolf, her guardian who watches her every winter. When Grace finally meets Sam again in human form, it is in the fall of her seventeenth year. Sam, attacked and forcibly changed when he was seven, has grown up spending his winters with Beck, his werewolf mentor, running through the woods with the pack, and his summers in human form, learning how to read, write, and become a man. The chapters have temperatures for headings because these werewolves are turned, not by a full moon, but by the cold, and there is plenty of cold in Mercy Falls, Minnesota. Also the number of times they can change is limited, and this change may be Sam's last in human form. After the wolves attack a local teenager, Sam is shot and winds up in Grace's arms, literally. She saves him, but the days are getting colder and the nights longer. Neither can bear the thought of being separated, but one cannot argue with Mother Nature. The first volume in The Wolves of Mercy Falls series is yet another winner for the author of Lament. (Flux/Llewellyn, 2008)/VOYA December 2008). This novel is perfect for Twilight fans or a Romeo and Juliet list. It is sensuous, intense, riveting, and so very satisfying. Reviewer: Bonnie Kunzel

Review: 
When you pick up Shiver, forget everything you thought you knew about werewolves. That's right, Twilight fans. You heard me. 

Forget the full moon and silver bullets. Maggie Stiefvater's werewolves are different from any you've seen before. After being bitten, a werewolf changes erratically for a while, then settles into a seasonal cycle. Cold weather brings on a change to wolf form; warm weather returns the werewolf to human form. However, this cycle doesn't last forever. As the years pass, it takes more and more heat to trigger the change back to human, until one year the werewolf remains a wolf forever.  


Shiver begins with the seemingly sudden "death" of one of its main characters, Grace. Stiefvater creates a magical wood where Grace lies in a pool of blood. Grace lives, but is transformed after the attack. She becomes even more fascinated with the wolves that creep in the woods behind her home, disappearing from her sight as soon as she locks eyes with them. Much like the series Twilight, Shiver is focused on a love story between Grace and a mysterious boy named Sam. Grace and Sam's relationship is full of lightening bolt chemistry that is hard to miss. 

The relationship between Grace and Sam is portrayed in a beautiful way, as if they already knew each other for a long time (which is true in some way). Personally, I was fully engaged in their romance, I loved with them, wanted nothing more than for them to be together. The heroine, Grace, is the strong and pragmatic one, whereas Sam is more the sensitive and artistic type, which was a nice change from other novels where the opposite is true. 


The real action in this novel commences when one of Grace's high school classmates is seemingly killed in a wolf attack and several of the local men take it upon themselves to rid the town of the beasts. At that point, Grace's and Sam's relationship is budding and Grace bravely tries to save Sam and the wolves of the wood from being killed. 


Shiver is written in vivid prose that engages all of the senses. Maggie Stiefvater does a great job of evoking the sight of a single spot of red against a sea of white, the sound of canine nails scratching at the deck outside Grace's house, and the smell of paper and ink in a bookstore on a warm summer day, making Shiver a fully immersive experience. I couldn't put Shiver down, wondering how Grace and Sam's story would end, and Stiefvater kept me hanging till the very last page. 


Reading Level: Beginner to intermediate. 
Notes about Audience: Recommended for ages 13 and up. 


Favorite lines: "I settled on the floor and whispered to Sam, “I want you to listen to me, if you can.” I leaned the side of my face against his ruff and remembered the golden wood he had shown me so long ago. I remembered the way the yellow leaves, the color of Sam’s eyes, fluttered and twisted, crashing butterflies, on their way to the ground. The slender white trunks of the birches, creamy and smooth as human skin. I remembered Sam standing in the middle of the wood, his arms stretched out, a dark, solid form in the dream of the trees. His coming to me, me punching his chest, the soft kiss. I remembered every kiss we’d ever had, and I remembered every time I’d curled in his human arms. I remembered the soft warmth of his breath on the back of my neck while we slept. 
I remembered Sam."

Other books by Maggie Stiefvater:

http://www.maggiestiefvater.com/

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