I Absolutely Didn’t Hate The Haters

After my soapbox-declaring love for Jesse Andrews’ debut novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, let’s just say I was eagerly awaiting his followup, The Haters.

Best friends Wes and Corey love hating on everything, even the stuff they love. When we find them at the novel’s beginning at a super-competitive jazz camp filled with really intense campers they start hating on it immediately. But, as the great philosopher Swift once said, “haters gonna hate” and Wes and Corey find a likeminded hater in Ash, seemingly the only girl at camp. After bonding over their mutual hateship, the trio ditch camp, form their own band and go on tour, which turns out exactly like you’d expect a tour planned by pre-college teenagers to turn out.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was a fairly mature young adult novel, what with (spoiler alert) one of the title characters (spoiler alert) dying from (spoiler alert) cancer, but with The Haters Andrews has doubled-down on the young adult experience, including all the ridiculosity and awkwardness that comes with it. Not to give too much away, it’s a much less sad book, but no less realistic. From Corey defying his parents for the first time to Wes’ first time having sex—in a scene that so closely resembles my own first time that I’m half-convinced Andrews was hiding in my closet—The Haters will undoubtedly have something in it to which you can relate, and it rewarded my eager anticipation in spades.

Similar to Wes and Corey, I was in jazz and concert band in high school, but I didn’t hate on it. As my classmates listened to the whispers of the Ying Yang Twins, Kelly Clarkson‘s complain about her career in optometry and the Black Eyed Peas sing about camels, I was plugged into my portable CD player (remember those?) listening for countermelodies, harmonies and other musical flourishes on the first CD I ever bought—the Jurassic Park soundtrack. Yes, I was that band geek.

Maybe it’s cliché to describe writing like this as “real,” but I can think of no better term. Andrews imbues his characters with a penchant for self-deprecation and I absolutely love that, mostly because I’m the mayor of self-deprecating humor. If you ever see me on the street, ask me to tell you about my one pickup line that involves me carrying a microscope around a bar. My friends get a kick out of it. Anyway, when Andrews uses this humor it adds a natural level of realism to his writing and it makes the characters feel like friends I haven’t met yet. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in the world of The Haters and couldn’t stop myself from reading, even though I dreaded what I’d do with my life when I finished. I considered being an alpaca farmer a few times.

“When I leave, alpaca this book.”
Source

While Andrews obviously excels at capturing teen angst and awkwardness, I’d love to see him branch out to more adult novels. I’m not asking for Fifty Shades of Grey written by Jesse Andrews (but now that I’ve typed those words I want nothing more), but I’m eager to see him tackle a different genre. For example, Matthew Quick maintains his style in both adult and young adult books, and although I’ve never read anything by James Patterson, I’m pretty sure he’s written books for every reading audience. He even wrote a book for zoo animals.

Wes, Corey and Ash might not be the most likeable characters in the beginning, but that could be the point. Do you remember what you were like as a teenager? Besides a lot more acne, you probably weren’t the pleasant bouquet of posies you are today. You most likely changed, as does our trio. Likewise, your opinion of them may change. No matter what flaws readers may perceive in The Haters, I’ll definitely be in line for whatever Andrews writes next. He wrote the screenplay for the movie version of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl—which I also loved—so maybe an film adaption of The Haters is right around the corner …

Shredfest!
Source

Part Scott Pilgrim with shades of a Monty Python sketch plus a lot of heart,  you’ll be hard-pressed to find a reason to hate on The Haters.

–Ross

We all have flaws

I just recently finished a book called Flawed by Cecelia Ahern. According to the book jacket, Ahern is the author of P.S. I Love You & Love, Rosie, and they were both made into films. This is Ahern’s first young adult novel. The book’s cover is what garnered my attention. It’s very simple, but the big F and a circle around it is hard to miss.

The novel’s protagonist is Celestine North, and she’s the quintessential perfect teenage girl. She gets good grades, has good looks, is polite and never gets in trouble. She also has the perfect relationship with her boyfriend, Art. Celestine lives in a society where everyone is supposed to be perfect. If you do something morally or ethically wrong, then you are deemed Flawed. They have to go to trial, which is run by an organization called the Guild, lead by Art’s father, Judge Crevan. After you’re deemed Flawed, you get branded. There are 5 places on your body where you can be branded:  your temple, the palm of your hand, your foot, your chest and your tongue.

Things are going great in Celestine’s life until their neighbor and Celestine’s piano teacher, Angelina Tinder, is accused of being Flawed and taken into custody. Angelina is later deemed Flawed. Celestine starts to question the system because she’s known Angelina practically her whole life and never saw a Flawed quality in her.

One day Celestine, Art and Celestine’s sister, Juniper, are on the bus on their way home from school. To give some background, on the bus there’s a special section of seats on the front of the bus for the Flawed and all of the other seats are for everyone else. This bus ride will change Celestine’s life forever. Anyway, two ladies who aren’t Flawed are sitting in the Flawed seats having a conversation, one of whom has a broken leg. A Flawed elderly man gets on the bus and he can’t sit down because of the ladies sitting in the Flawed seats. Suddenly, the man starts to have a coughing fit. Celestine sees what’s going on and has to decide whether she is going to help the man or not because if she helps him that’s considered aiding a Flawed and that’s against the law.

So, Celestine decides to ask the ladies to move so the old man can sit down. They refuse and act like the old man doesn’t even exist. Celestine helps the man into a seat and then is taken into custody. Judge Crevan wants Celestine to lie and say that she didn’t help the old man. If she does this, she would only serve two years in prison. Otherwise she will be deemed Flawed.

Initially, she does lie, but in the end she tells the truth, much to the anger of Judge Crevan. He makes her get 5 brands, the most ever. Crevan is so angry that he ends up secretly putting a 6th brand on Celestine’s spine. If anyone finds out that he did this, Crevan would be ruined. He’s so desperate to maintain his power that he’s prepared to do anything to keep it a secret.

The experience drastically changes Celestine. Now on the other side of society, people look at her differently. Juniper is afraid that Celestine is angry with her because she doesn’t speak up for her. Celestine’s relationship with Art is pretty much over because Judge Crevan doesn’t want her anywhere near his son. She is ostracized at school because she’s the only Flawed student, and some teachers even refuse to teach her.

Here’s an interview with Cecila Ahern talking about what her inspiration was to write Flawed.

There were some quotes in the novel that struck me. One was when Celestine said:

-have found that it is their right to express their opinion of me freely, as though it can’t hurt or alter me. It’s the branding that does that. And I know it. It dehumanizes me in a way to others. I’m to be stared at and talked about as if I’m not here.

To feel invisible or inhuman and to have people treat you with no respect just because you made one mistake has got to hurt. Personally, I wouldn’t consider what Celestine did a mistake. She was trying to help an elderly man who was in need.

Another quote that struck me was:

Good. You remember that. It’s easy to forget sometimes. Though criminals get better treatment than us. As soon as they serve their time, they’re out. We’re like this forever.

This quote was interesting because in our society criminals are reminded of what they did every day and find it hard to go back to their lives before they went to prison. Meanwhile, in this novel criminals are treated better than the Flawed, and that’s crazy to think about.

The last interesting quote was:

Everything has been given a soul in advertising. Yet the soul is being taken from people. Humanizing objects, dehumanizing people.

Sadly, I’m sure that we can think of plenty of characters from commercials that are given human qualities. Meanwhile, there are actual humans who aren’t treated with any respect because of who they love, what they believe in, the color of their skin, etc.

This book was very interesting to me, and along Celestine’s journey she goes through a lot and finds it hard to trust anybody except for her parents. The ending leaves it open for a sequel which commonly happens with young adult novels these days. Flawed  is available in our catalog. Does Celestine’s world sound similar to ours? What do you think of the flawed society? Let us know in the comments below!

~Kayla

 

Sarah J. Maas’s World of Assassins

I read an article a couple of weeks ago announcing that an adult coloring book based on the Throne of Glass series would be released. It will be released on September 6th, the same day as Empire of Storms, the latest book in the series. I started reading Throne of Glass months ago, but put it down to read other things. The article made me wanna go back to it.

I’m glad that I did, because the book was so great! Throne of Glass follows Celaena Sardothien, an assassin from a land called Terrasen. She was brought to the land of Adarlan by the Crown Prince, Dorian Havilliard, to compete in a contest to become the King’s Champion. Before that, Celaena was a slave in the mines of Endovier. For the sake of the competition, only a few people know Celaena’s real identity, and they are Crown Prince Dorian; the king; and Chaol Westfall, Captain of the Guard.

Celaena is underestimated throughout the competition by just about everyone because she’s a girl. Chaol is mistrustful of her throughout most of the book because of who she really is. Meanwhile, Dorian finds himself falling for her and she likes him too, even though she doesn’t want to admit it at first. As the competition goes on, contestants start to die. Celaena begins to look into why it’s happening, and she becomes skeptical of the people around her. Although Celaena finds that most people either don’t like her or are intimidated by her skills, she makes a friend in Nehemia, a princess who is visiting from Eyllwe.

Celaena is a strong, multi-dimensional female character that you can root for. I’m excited to continue on with this series. Throne of Glass is available in print, audio and e-book format in our catalog.

Have you read Throne of Glass? If so, what did you think of it? Read anything similar to it? Let us know in the comments below!

~Kayla

A Tangled Web of Crazy

The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas is one of the best books that I’ve read in a long time. It’s a young adult book, but it reads like an adult thriller. One of the aspects of the novel that drew me to it was the setting. It’s set in Fayette County, PA, which is where my mother and her sisters grew up. Pittsburgh is even mentioned in the novel a few times.

The story centers around Tessa Lowell, who left Fayette County 10 years ago to live with her grandmother in Florida. She comes back to visit her father who is dying in prison. She left Fayette after she helped put Wyatt Stokes in prison for the murder of Lori Cawley, her friend Callie Greenwood’s cousin. Cawley was visiting for the summer from college. Tessa and Callie hadn’t spoken to each other since the trial, and Callie wasn’t happy to see Tessa, especially since she would be staying with the Greenwoods for the duration of her visit.

As the book goes on, readers learn that Tessa and Callie lied about seeing Stokes the night that Lori Cawley was murdered. Tessa and Callie go on a wild goose chase throughout the novel to discover the real killer. One of their childhood friends, Ariel Kouchinsky, is murdered and they try to find her killer as well for most of the book. As the novel goes on, Tessa discovers secrets about her family, former friends and even her own origin.

In addition to trying to find Ariel & Lori’s killer, Tessa is trying to find her mother, Annette, and her sister, Joslin, who ran away when she was a teenager after a fight with their mother. It’s a novel full of twists and turns. Every time, I thought that I had figured out who the killer was another plot twist was thrown my way. It’s an excellent book and is definitely worth reading. The Darkest Corners is available to request in our catalog in print format only. It will be released on April 19th. Happy reading!

~Kayla

The Lunar Chronicles: A YA Fantasy Series Worth Reading

I had first heard about Marissa Meyer’s series through a former colleague. My colleague said to me (and this is actually true) that Meyer got her start through a writing contest. I think that it’s great that Meyer went from winning a writing contest to being a best-selling author.

This series is what I’d call fairy tales with a science fiction twist. The first book, Cinder, is about a girl named Cinder who is what I’d technically call a mechanic even though she doesn’t fix cars—she’s a cyborg. She ends up doing work for Kai, the prince of New Beijing. She tries to warn him about the evil plan from the series’ main villain Lunar Queen Levana’s to start a war with Earth. Cinder, whether she wants to admit it or not, ends up developing feelings for Prince Kai in the process, despite her not telling Kai that she’s a cyborg.

In the second book, Scarlet, the title character is on a journey to find her grandmother when she crosses paths with Cinder, who’s trying to escape from prison.

In the third novel, Cress, Cinder and her crew need help from Cress, an expert hacker working for the bad guys against her own will. Cinder wants Cress to help her try to stop something catastrophic from occurring. I won’t give you any spoilers—just know that it’s not good.

What I like about this series is that even though each book centers around a different character, they’re all connected. The next book in the series, Winter, comes out on November 10th. In the meantime all of the previous novels are available in our catalog as well as Fairest, which is Meyer’s prequel novel about Queen Levana.

Happy reading!

~Kayla

Just in Time for Banned Books Week

Earlier this month, a mother from Tennessee called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot “pornographic”–because of the description of Henrietta discovering a cervical tumor–and demanded it be removed from the school’s reading list.

Rebecca Skloot responded in the best way.

First, she called the mother out for “confusing gynecology with pornography,” and second, and even better, she’s raising funds to donate copies of her book to kids who can’t afford it.*

The book traces the life of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in the 1950s. When Henrietta died, she left behind six children–and cells from a sample her doctor had taken from one of her tumors.

No one in Henrietta’s family knew the doctors had taken the sample. The cells, now known as HeLa cells, became the first cells that survived in a laboratory setting and led to many scientific advances, including the polio vaccine.

Now scientific and pharmaceutical companies sell HeLa cells to labs across the country, but Henrietta’s family has never seen any of the profit. Skloot has attempted to offset this injustice by using proceeds from her book to create The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which you can read more about here.

In her compassionate and beautiful telling of Henrietta’s story, Skloot raises issues of medical ethics, race, poverty, and more as she investigates Henrietta’s life, death, and the legacy she left behind. Getting young adults to read this book is an incredible way to promote scientific literacy and engage broader issues of medical ethics and our country’s long history of viewing people of color as “less than.”

If you haven’t read this book, now is the perfect time. Banned Books Week is happening right now, and Henrietta Lacks is available to you in print, large print, e-book, e-audio, and CD.

-Kelly

 

Help Me Choose: YA Book Club Edition

Before I ever worked for the Library, I was a member of a Young Adult book club. Our book club has gone through a few different iterations, but in the past year or so, we’ve settled into a pretty great rhythm: One person picks the book and the restaurant, and we meet up on a predetermined date to eat tasty food and chat about our book. It’s my turn to pick our title for August, and my deadline to choose just so happens to be tonight. I have so many potential choices I’m having difficulty narrowing it down.  Here’s a look at a few books I’m considering – if you’ve read any of them, please comment and help me decide what my pals and I should read next.

33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp – A gritty-yet-lyrical look at three teenage runaways and their life of crime, this book is sure to be emotional and should inspire some pretty interesting discussions.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kristin Cronn-Mills –  Gabe is balancing his transition from female-to-male, his course load at school, and his burgeoning success as a late-night DJ, and he does it all with uncommon humor and honesty.

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero – Written like a journal, this book gives readers a glimpse at the complicated, messy life of Gabi Hernandez as she navigates everything from a drug-addicted parent to her blossoming sexuality during her senior year in high school. Lots of CLP staff have already declared their love for this title, one review I read on GoodReads described this book as “the YA poster child for #WeNeedDiverseBooks“, and it’s the theme book for this year’s Teen Alternative Homecoming, so this one seems like a pretty strong contender.

Sunrise over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers – I’m not typically very interested in books about war, but the description of this book sounds really compelling:  it’s told from the perspective of several young soldiers in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with less of a focus on tactics of war and more of a focus on the people grappling with this incredibly difficult situation. It’s easy for us to forget how many members of the armed forces are still teenagers, and I expect this to be a sobering reminder. Also, I think I’ve only ever read one other book by Walter Dean Myers, which seems like a major gap in my reading history.

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin – We’ve only read one other historical fiction title in my book club, and we all enjoyed it. I’m intrigued by the description of this book’s plot, where the main character tries to break free of gender roles in 1920s America.

So, friends, help me decide: What should my book club read next?

-Ginny

Travel Here, Travel There, Travel Everywhere…..Hopefully

Summer is the time to take vacation. Some people like to take vacation at home, just relaxing and reading a good book (a librarian can hope). However, some people like to travel during their summer vacation. The question is always, where to go? There are lots of lists about where you should take your (summer) vacation. I’ve been very lucky with my personal travel experience. I’ve been able to visit a lot of places, and for one semester in undergrad I was able to study abroad. The one thing that I have learned through my travel experiences is that you can have fun anywhere you go; it’s all in how you plan it. Make sure that you are prepared for that plan to fall apart entirely, and then you will be able to explore. Some books that I have found helpful, either because they are awesome reads and take place where I was traveling, or because they provide loads of information, are below.

DK books overall are extremely helpful. They provide a lot of information and most of them also contain maps. Where To Go When is great if you are taking a summer vacation … not during the summer. Or in fact if you are taking a summer vacation during the summer too. It will tell you weather and other facts about places, including what is happening during that time of the year.

If you are traveling to France, consider taking along this classic. The Count of Monte Cristo has everything a book needs: romance, adventure, mystery, and revenge. This book gives the appeal of old France along with the importance of the City of Love. Plus the movie is awesome!

This book is not your typical beach read, but what kind of post would this be if I didn’t put a beach read on for the summer? We Were Liars is about a girl who is trying to remember her last summer on the private island where she had been every summer before. What was different about this summer? What had happened? A sad, but moving book, I would recommend this book for any time of the year. If this isn’t the type of beach read you are looking for though, there are a lot of lists with plenty of other titles.

I hope everyone has a wonderful adventure-filled (or not, if you prefer quiet) summer. Are you traveling somewhere exciting? Let me know in the comments.

-Abbey

An Ember to Remember

Courtesy of Goodreads

I’ve been excited about An Ember in the Ashes ever since I read the description for it on Amazon a few months ago. The cover also intrigued me. It is aesthetically pleasing. The book has two main characters, Laia and Elias. It takes a while, but the characters eventually cross paths. Through many interactions they learn that even though they’re from different ranks in the world that they have more in common that they thought.

The book is set in a time similar to ancient Rome. There is an empire and most of the story takes place at Blackcliff Academy, which is a place that trains children to become soldiers for the empire. Laia ends up at Blackcliff as a spy after soldiers raid her home, kill her grandparents and kidnap her brother on suspicion that he is working against the empire. Laia seeks help from the Resistance, a group her parents once led, to help find her brother. Their leader, Mazen, tasks her with the mission to go undercover as a slave to spy on the leader of Blackcliff, the Commandant, and bring back information. In exchange, they will help her find her brother.

Meanwhile, Elias wants to escape from Blackcliff because he hates everything about the empire and everything that it stands for. He has plans to escape until he talks to Cain, an Augur with the ability to read minds. He tells Elias that he can’t be free from Blackcliff unless he competes in a battle called the Trials to become the next Emperor. Cain also tells Elias that if he comes in second he would be the Blood Shrike and that if his best friend, Helene, becomes Empress that she could set him free.

What I like about this book are the many twists and turns that take place throughout the novel. Just when I thought that I had the book figured out another plot twist occurred and threw me for a loop. I loved how Sabaa Tahir, the author, made the main characters relatable. Even though I would never be in either situation, the feelings that the characters experienced were feelings that I have also experienced.

I thought that the book was well written. Although, there was in a way two love triangles going on, it didn’t distract from the purpose of the novel. There was a good balance of action, mystery and romance. The romance in my opinion was secondary to the plot. I was impressed with how Tahir was able to volley back and forth between Laia and Elias’ points of view without it being confusing. The last time that I saw this method well executed was in Veronica Roth’s Allegiant. Sometimes this method can be confusing, but at the same time a refreshing change of pace.

I won’t give away any spoilers as to how the novel ends, but just know that this novel is worth reading. An Ember In The Ashes is available in our catalog.

Kayla

Grab the Grisha Trilogy!

Credit to firewaterman.wordpress.com

WARNING: If you haven’t read any of the books in this series, there are MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Grisha trilogy is one of many series that was on my never-ending to-read list. I’ll be honest that my initial reasoning behind reading the books is shallow: I liked the covers. They’re really cool covers in my opinion. Later, I read the description for the first novel, Shadow and Bone, and was interested.

The series centers on Alina Starkov, who is a mapmaker, and her best friend, Mal, who is a tracker. Mal is a people person and was always considered the cool one of the two. Alina and Mal have known each other for years because a lady named Ana Kuya adopted them both. Alina always felt inferior to Mal even though she has strong feelings for him. She feels like he doesn’t see her as more than just a friend.

One day when Alina and Mal are captured, Alina discovers this power involving light that she never even knew that she had. She is then whisked off to the First Palace to train to become a Grisha soldier. Also, her training is supposed to help The Darkling to take down this area called The Fold that is separating their home country, Ravka, from other countries. At first, after seeing the chemistry between Alina and the Darkling I shipped them. Later on while reading the book I discovered why that was a terrible idea.

As the story goes on, we learn the Darkling’s true motives with the fold and it has bad repercussions for everyone. When Alina finds this out, she tries to stop the Darkling’s plan but it doesn’t work. In the midst of everything, Alina and Mal finally revealed their feelings for each other.

Fast forward to the second book, Siege and Storm, Alina and Mal are on the run from the Darkling after their battle at the end of the first novel. Of course the running doesn’t last long because the Darkling finds them. There’s another battle, but this time they have help from a privateer named Strumhond and his crew. After that battle, Strumhond takes Alina and Mal back to the palace for what they think is to meet a client of his. We also find out that Strumhond is hiding the truth about his real identity.

Throughout this novel there’s a lot of talk of politics and Alina feels like everyone is only interested in her for what she can offer them. We see a change in Alina from books 1 to 2 in that she’s become a lot stronger. She’s also become more powerful, but with this power comes a hunger and desire for more. This hunger for power almost causes her to lose everything. I would consider Alina to be a feminist character because she’s strong and doesn’t take crap from anybody. Although she is heavily flawed, she still has a lot of redeeming qualities.

There is a lot of romance in this series particularly with Alina and Mal as we see their relationship deepen. In the first book, there was some romance with Alina and the Darkling before she found out his true intentions. Strumhond also acts like he has feelings for Alina, but he can’t be trusted so these feelings don’t seem genuine. With all of this romance comes a heaping amount of drama. In Siege and Storm, there begins to be a strain on Alina and Mal’s relationship because they’re being directed in different directions. Fans of the relationship have to suffer through a lot. Despite the characters going through some tough, scary, and sometimes dire situations there was a lot of humor in these novels. I found myself laughing a lot.

While I’ve yet to read to the last book in the trilogy, Ruin and Rising, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next. All of the books, which are written by Leigh Bardugo, are available in our catalog. Bardugo has a new series of books coming out. The first one, Six of Crows, comes out this September.