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Posts Tagged ‘coming of age’

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A Librarian Reads The Girl Is Murder

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines

In a few short months Iris Anderson’s life has turned tragic. First her father loses part of his leg in the attack on Pearl Harbor that forces America’s entry into World War II. Then before her father arrives home her mother commits suicide.

Her father copes by moving Iris out of the Upper East Side of New York to the poorer Lower East Side. He works as a private investigator but his skills as a sleuth have diminished since he now walks on a prosthesis. He can barely pay the bills. Iris herself faces difficulties because she has changed schools. Instead of the private all girl school she is used to she now attends a public school. No one wants to be her friend because of her upper class background. And she doesn’t want to keep her old friends from her private school because they now look down upon her for being poor;  even though one, Grace, keeps calling to talk to her.

Then one day a boy from her school, Tom,  suddenly goes missing. Her father is hired to track the young man down. Iris decides to secretly help her father’s investigation out by infiltrating Tom’s gang of friends, who are called the Rainbows because they wear zoot suits and like to dance in Harlem.

But can she live with the lies she must tell to her would be friends? Will she be able to deal with the classism,  racism, and bigotry that her new friends endure everyday? Can Iris help find one boy in a world where young men are killed everyday in a horrendous war?

The Girl is Murder is a good mystery novel that captures a place and time extremely well. There is lots of Fifties era lingo and Iris is a compelling character who is discovering who she really is while dealing with a horrible loss. Plus the novel leaves open the possibility of a sequel or a series. Recommended to mystery and historical fiction fans. The book is appropriate for ages 14 and up.

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The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills: A Review by Erica

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson

3 Stars

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I went into it expecting a typical teen drama, but the author took what could have been cliché and gave it a fresh and amusing twist.

We follow our protagonist, Janice Wills, as she navigates the tricky waters of high school social life in her small town. Rather nerdy and introverted, she has chosen to avoid the pitfalls of cliques by observing her classmates with the detachment of an anthropologist. Her comments are somewhat sarcastic and amusing, and are not without the tint of disdain despite Janice’s attempts to be objective. She describes her interactions with the “mean girls” as encounters with “the enemy tribe” and the text is peppered with deviations from the plot as anthropological factoids about the residents of Melva.

Janice’s life is going along swimmingly, between her fervor for anthropology and two close, supportive friends, but then life throws a couple curveballs. Her mother is wild for her to take part in the “Miss Livermush Pageant”, the local beauty pageant that everyone who is anyone competes in. And the “Hot Theater Guy” begins paying attention to her. Janice just might have to interact with life rather than simply observe.

The author does an excellent job of affirming, subverting, and playfully mocking high school stereotypes. Janice even comments that the “mean girls” of the school seem to have taken their behavior and fashion sense from a cliché high school movie. Yet Janice, her friends, and many others are shown to be far more than what one sees on the surface, and it is this that makes Janice herself such a likable, if eccentric, protagonist.

This was an enjoyable and quick read with a good if somewhat obvious point about truly living life. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a different sort of “high school” book.

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A Librarian Reads Girl From Mars

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Girl From Mars by Tamara Bach

Miriam is an average small town girl growing up in Germany. She hangs out with her fiends in the bathroom every morning before school. Sometimes the smoke cigarettes, other times she listens to them talk about their boyfriends or what they did the night before. A small town doesn’t offer much variety for having fun so Miriam lets her friends just drone on and on.  Miriam waits for the eternity of the school day to end only to go home to an empty house, eat, and wait for her mother to come home. Then for one trivial reason or another Miriam and her mother usually end the night shouting at one another. Miriam feels trapped between being a child and an adult, trapped by the small town she lives in, and trapped by her friends boring lives.

Then one day a new girl, Laura, is in her class. Laura is so cool that she evens rolls her own cigarettes. Soon, Laura starts hanging out with Miriam and showing up at the bathroom before school. Miriam isn’t sure what is going on with her new friend but she knows that whenever she looks at her she gets all wonky inside. Soon Miriam’s world doesn’t seem so small and boring anymore because now she has met her first love. Laura knows there is a connection between them as well. But how does a girl from nowhere talk to that someone special, especially someone like Laura. Soon Miriam and Laura start dancing around that attraction between them. They are both trying to figure out how to be more than friends, and how to be themselves, especially in a town where they feel like no one is like them.

Girl From Mars is a great read about first love, the confusion of being a teen and discovering things about who you are and how the world works. It is appropriate for ages 14 and up and contains foul language, drinking, and explorations of physical intimacy. Highly recommended.

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A Librarian Reads The Second Base Club

Friday, May 20th, 2011

The Second Base Club by Greg Trine

Elroy and Vern are best friends and incoming sophomores. One of their favorite hobbies is checking out girls and rating them from 1 to 10. They both wish they could have girlfriends. Unfortunately they get tongue tied before they can ask out any of the girls they know.

Elroy tries all sorts of plans to get a girl. He joins the wrestling team even though he is small and weak. He starts lifting weights to get abs and pecs. He even starts a band. No matter what the girls just turn him down.

Soon Elroy discovers that the school’s star quarterback and ladies man leads a secret group of athletes in the Second Base Club. They jocks keep score of how far they get with girls and keep score. The goal is to get the most points before the end of the year. Elroy is at first disgusted by the Second Base Club and considers them jerks. But as the year drags on he begins to wonder if being a jerk is the only way to a woman’s heart.

Can Elroy ever be truly himself or will he become a pig just to kiss a girl? As his hormones rage Elroy struggles with what is right and what is wrong. Will he be man enough to find a girl on his own or will he resort to the ways of the Second Base Club?

I really enjoyed The Second Base Club a lot because it captures the torment young men go through of being stuck between their hormones and respect for others. If you want a funny coming of age story about finding who you are and how to talk to women you can’t go wrong here. But because of it’s content the book is appropriate for ages 14 and up.

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A Librarian Reads Frankie Landau-Banks

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Frankie is a sophomore at an elite boarding school called Alabaster. Her father went to Alabaster and is still friends with his high school companions to this very day. They help each other get jobs, promotions, and most of all money. Frankie’s father claims that Alabaster is where she will learn how the world works. But all Frankie can see is that Alabaster is where young white men with money become old white men with even more money. How does she as a female fit into that world?

One example of the male centric attitude at Alabaster is a secret society that Frankie’s father used to belong to: The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. It’s a male only club that pulls pranks, but also is made up of the most influential male upperclassmen of Alabaster. These are the future businessmen, lawyers, and politicians; those who could most impact the world.

But Frankie can’t join because she is a woman. What is worse is that the Order wouldn’t even conceive of letting women be a part of it. It just so happens that  Frankie’s new boyfriend is the leader of the current Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. But what is better is that she discovers that the order has lost the Order’s journal that details its notorious history.

Frankie decides then what she will do. She will find the Order’s journal, and then covertly take over the Order through an anonymous email address. Then with the Order’s help she hopes to pull off the best school prank that Alabaster has seen in decades. Then she can prove that she is just as good as any man.

Except Frankie gets carried away with proving herself. What is she really after? And once the pranks start piling up who will take the blame? Is Frankie willing to betray her friends, boyfriend, and the school just to make a point? Does Frankie even know what point she is making? Or has she just fallen to the basest of motivations: revenge?

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is an amazingly entertaining and thought provoking book. It is highly recommended and appropriate for ages 14 and up.

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