Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver

Review:

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Before I Fall gives a remarkable sense of the transience of human life, and how precious and unappreciated it is. As much as the main character, Sam, can make you want to slap her, she also makes you want to understand her. But it’s a double edged sword; some people will empathize with Sam. Some will find it hard to feel for her. But Lauren Oliver, master of character development, lets you see through her eyes as much as your own.

Summary:

Sam Kingston and her three best friends rule the school. And I do mean rule (think Mean Girls). The night Sam dies, she and her best friends had been at a party. Drinking. And being cruel to a girl from school, Juliet. They hit something on the road and Sam feels herself dying, and simultaneously waking up again, to the same morning of the day of the accident. At first, she is reckless. She lives with the kind of abandonment that you might have too, if you thought nothing worse could happen to you. But eventually, she decides that she wants to make the world better, and therein is the drive of the plot.

She is determined to save herself. But as she repeats the day of her death six times, she discovers things she never knew before: Juliet is going to commit suicide that night. Anna Cartullo, who is having sex with another girls boyfriend, is a really kind, funny person. That her best friend, Lindsay, is hiding dark secrets and a past with Juliet. That she herself doesn’t really like the person she is. That she’s falling in love, over and over, with a childhood friend, Kent.

And on the seventh day, Sam finds a way to change everything- for better or worse.

If You Liked: If I Stay, Thirteen Reasons Why, Mean Girls (movie), The Running Dream, Uglies, Something Like Fate, Hunger Games

Ten Things We Did and Probably Shouldn’t Have – Sarah Mylnowski

Review:

Appropriate scale

This book proved to provide a pretty detailed list of ten things you could do but probably shouldn’t, such as underage drinking, and having unsupervised parties. It’s a personal choice, of course, and April hasn’t really had the ability to make those choices for a long time. So another thing that you could do but probably shouldn’t is anything that has the potential to limit your freedom or your choices. Teenagers make poor choices- that’s probably the understatement of the century. But most of the teenagers I know understand fairly well the consequences behind their decisions. So I guess that even if you’re doing things you probably shouldn’t, you know pretty well what’s behind the doors you’ve chosen to open. It’s almost an inevitability that eventually, somehow, someone will find out, or alternatively, you’ll wish you never had in the first place.

Summary:

When April gets the chance to live with her friend Vi, unsupervised, she jumps at the chance, especially since she has had a ten o’clock curfew since 10th grade. The only problem? April’s dad will never agree to it. So Vi makes a fake email account for both April’s father and Vi’s mother, giving her mother April’s dad’s fake email, and April’s dad gets Vi’s mother’s fake email.

Not too long later, April’s moved in with Vi. She gets money every month, for gas, groceries and rent. April discovers that she does not enjoy grocery shopping, but does enjoy the products, and that she loves cats when she is given a new kitten. They also purchase a hot tub (they call it the Hula).

April and her boyfriend Noah had been planning to have sex for a long time, but when April gets scared of getting pregnant, she goes to Planned Parenthood and gets birth control, forcing Noah to wait until it kicks in. They decide to do it on Valentine’s day, and Vi loses her virginity the night before – Friday the thirteenth.

April’s cat gets run over and she borrows three thousand dollars from a potential drug dealer in order to pay for his surgery.

April’s best friend Marissa comes to stay with them when her parents tell her she can’t go to Israel that summer with her boyfriend (Marissa goes to Jewish Camp).

The night of April’s birthday, Vi decides to throw a wild party and charge admission and snack costs in order to help pay back said drug dealer for the cat.

The drug dealer turns out not to be a drug dealer (he’s a babysitter), April gets an STD, breaks up with Noah, moves out of Vi’s, and goes to live with her mother and brother in France.

If You Liked: Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, Suzanne Colasanti(author), Jenny Han’s summer series, The Lying Game

Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell – Crickett Rumley

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Review:                                                                          In Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt, I found that both humor and sadness were a common element found in every chapter. They were intermingled together in a way that way satisfying and amusing both, and the main character, Jane, is just the sort of person everyone envies for their witty remarks and clever comebacks. Jane makes you wish that she was a real person, that she was your best friend, sitting next to you and saying things like “Great thorn on a thornbush!”, as many great characters do.The whole book comes across with a very genuine, sarcastic tone that sets the stage for Jane and the Magnolias.

Summary:

When Jane gets kicked out of her thirteenth boarding school, her grandmother convinces Jane’s father, who she calls Cosmo, to let her come back to Bienville and finish senior year with a tutor. When Jane arrives, she is harangued into competing to be one of the “Magnolias” – a group of five girls and an alternate who dress up in “antebellum dresses” (think Scarlett O’Hara), and talk to people about the “rich history of Bienville”.

To her horror, Jane is selected to be a Magnolia, and begins the rigorous process of Magnolia training. She soon finds that her un-southern-belle-like attitude will get her in trouble, and when she and another girl, Brandi Lyn, who cannot afford to buy the Magnolia dress are given the suggestion that they quit the Magnolias, Jane refuses for both of them and decides to find a way for them to stay in the Magnolias. And she does- in the form of an old friend, Teddy Mac, whose mother is the richest woman in Bienville. Teddy, who Jane determines is gay, agrees to help both Jane and Brandi Lyn find a more Magnolia appropriate style.

Jane and Brandi Lyn discover that the change of style and attitude are somewhat interesting changes. They make quick work of the snobby Magnolia girls and even discover that most of them are not so snobby. Brandi Lyn and another Magnolia named Mallory become fast friends, and Jane finds a kindred spirit and ally in Zara, the first African  American girl to make Magnolia Court.

The Magnolia’s decide that their fundraiser should be to help clean up the Bienville coastline from the oil spill that happened a couple days ago. After their first session, the Magnolia’s go to a party and one of them, Ashley, discovers that her boyfriend has been cheating on her.

A couple weeks later, the Magnolia’s have a Mizz Upton (leader of the organization) imposed sleepover, and get drunk. They decide to go give their boyfriends and boy friends a piece of their minds, and Zara, the least intoxicated, drives. However, they go in Magnolia dress, and when a hoopskirt turns on Zara and they get pulled over (driving blind) and arrested (Jane’s big mouth), they have a big fight.

But a couple days later, when Jane and Ashley, the most estranged of the Magnolia’s, become friends, Jane decides it’s time to repare the friendships of the Magnolia court, after which it’s time for the first Magnolia event. Jane pulls a few strings… and saves that too.

If You Like: Beauty Queens, Libba Bray(author), Lauren Myracle(author), E. Lockhart(author)

Where She Went – Gayle Forman

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Review:                  Where She Went is about more than finding yourself. It is about the fundamental idea that other people are the ones who make you. In the end, who you want to be is who you’re becoming, and other people are helping you to do that every minute of every day. Where She Went is a poignant reminder of how little time we have. To wonder, to think, to love, to live. Where She Went is a blend of all those things, a potent mixture of future, present, and past, and how irrevocably linked they are.

Summary:

Three years after the tragic accident that killed his girlfriend Mia’s parents and little brother and nearly killed Mia, Adam Wilde is a rock star. But his music is slowly killing him, because it is one of the many things that Mia made impossible to love, to care about.

Mia and Adam had been the perfect couple in high school. “Groovy and the Geek”, as dubbed by Mia’s friend Kim. They both loved music, and each other, and while they were as different as oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, chicken and broccoli, they still managed to fit more perfectly than any literary couple ever invented.

But after Mia’s accident, they both change. Mia drops Adam after she leaves for college, devastating him in the process. Adam goes on with his band, Shooting Star, and Mia goes on to become Julliard’s rising star.

But the rift running through Adam’s band is strong, and deep, so when he discovers that they are scheduled to go on tour on Friday the thirteenth, he latches onto it as an excuse to go a day after the rest of his band.

On his night alone in New York, Adam discovers that Mia is playing a show, and decides to go see her play.

She finds out he’s there, and asks that he be brought backstage. She tells him she’ll give him a tour of her city, which will double as a farewell tour to her own city because she’s leaving soon, to go on a tour of her own.

Through the course of the night, Adam and Mia relive the months of their breakup. They discover things about each other they never knew, and they discover things about themselves that weren’t there before.

If You Liked: If I Stay, Before I Fall, Thirteen Reasons Why, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer,    The Future of Us, Hate List

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares – Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

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Review:

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is one of those that makes you long for romance, and wish you had someone with whom you could pass back and forth a red moleskine notebook. Honestly, it makes everyone wish for something different, which is truly special.  Some people might wish for someone who knows what the word “philatelist” means. Some people might wish for someone who loves to think, or to read. Some people might wish for someone who would choose lebkuchen over rice krispies.

But in the end, what really matters, is that it makes you wish. Makes you ponder and think, and draws you in so completely that when it’s over you wish there was more. You wish that you could follow Lily and Dash through their lives, wish to be as daring, as kind, as brave. But in the end, what it shows you is that, inevitably, wishing just doesn’t measure up.

Summary:

When Lily’s parents decide they are going to Fiji during Christmas, Lily is shocked and horrified. She may have said it would be okay with her… but that doesn’t mean it is! Her older brother Langston, proposes that in order to find herself a boyfriend, she go the conventional path and find the as-yet-found boyfriend through a notebook. She writes a series of Dares to the yet to be discovered boy, and supplies many dares  some of which involve the books French Pianism, the Joys of Gay Sex, and Fat Hoochie Prom Queen. She had to choose unusual titles in order to scare off any boys who wouldn’t be worth dating.

Dash (short for Dashiell, as he will tell you), takes up Lily’s challenge. His ex-girlfriend, Sophia, has recently moved to Spain and while he never really liked Sophia so much, and certainly didn’t love her, he finds himself missing Sophia more than he would’ve expected. So Dash takes Lily’s notebook, and soon enough Lily and Dash find themselves daring each other into places they never would’ve expected to go.

If You Like: The Indigo Notebook, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (book or movie), How to be Bad, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Mean Girls (the movie)

Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green and David Levithan

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Review:

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is one of those rare books you find in which you become convinced throughout the course that it was written just. for. you. And the reason for this could be attributed to several different things: the fact that the book is written by two different but still fantastic authors, the idea that true love conquers all, or, if you dig a little deeper, you can look and see that Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a book about epiphanies. It’s about letting life change you. About letting other people let you. But most of all, it’s about acceptance of you and everything you are and want to be. It’s about truth. Lies. Love. Hate. Anger. Fear. Wisdom. Naivety. Trust. Doubts. It’s about the inumerable things that make you you and how every single one of them is the truth.

Summary:

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is about two teenage boys, both named Will Grayson, who cross paths through a twist of fate late one night, when both of them have plans that fall through and wind up in the same unlikely place.

In order to somewhat de-confuse this summary, I would like to give it from the point of only one of the Will’s, the one who starts the book.

Will’s best friend, Tiny, who is “not the world’s gayest person, or the world’s largest person, but possibly the largest gay person” is a very enthusiastic person, to an extreme that I can only say is remarkable. He is joyful, and exuberant, and it is around Tiny that the plot revolves.

Tiny decides to put on  a play, written by himself, entitled Tiny Dancer, which is pretty much entirely fact based. In the midst of this brilliant idea, Will Grayson goes with Tiny and his friends Jane and Gary to a show which is supposed to be from the band Neutral Milk Hotel, but instead winds up being from Ashland Avenue. Tiny proceeds to attempt to force Jane and Will together, but Will, having decided long ago that caring, in general, is a bad idea, insists that he shall not care. But when Will starts falling for Jane he agrees to go to another show with Jane and Tiny, this one from the Maybe Dead Cats. When his fake ID turns out not to work, Will tells Jane and Tiny to go on. After they leave, Will decides to show them that he can have fun by himself. He goes to a porn shop, insisting on using his new fake ID at least once that evening. There he meets the Other Will Grayson, and discovers that they have the same name, and also that OWG is gay. Will, being the good and honorable friend that he is, decides to set Tiny up with OWG, and from that point on, everything is about falling in love, falling-outs, and just plain falling, in inumerable ways.

If You Like: An abundance of Katherines, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Boy meets Boy

Sold – by Patricia McCormick

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Review:       Sold is a book that puts you into  perspective. In a world where having hope can be hopeless, the main character, a thirteen year old named Lakshmi holds on to the only things that you can hold onto; promises to herself, and the                     hope that someday she will be able to change her own fate for the better. Lakshmi is a character who shows us that having hope is as important as fighting back; in the end, they both do the same things; they are truthful, and constant. And when a person is their own constant, they develop a strength unmatched by anything in the natural world.

Summary:

Lakshmi lives in a very poor village in Nepal. Despite the poverty in which she lives, Lakshmi has her small pleasures, until a monsoon sweeps away her family’s crops. Her stepfather tells her she must take a job to help the family, and he introduces her to a glamorous woman, who is known as Auntie. Auntie offers to take Lakshmi to the city and get her a job as a maid, and Lakshmi, not knowing any better, accepts. Arriving in the city, Lakshmi discovers that she has been sold into prostitution when she is passed off to a man she knows as Uncle Husband, who then sells her to the old woman who runs the brothel. He gets ten thousand for Lakshmi, and leaves her with Mumtaz, the woman who runs the brothel. Mumtaz asks Lakshmi if she is ready to go to work, and Lakshmi answers yes. But when she discovers what she is expected to do, she refuses. Mumtaz is furious. She cuts off Lakshmi’s hair, marking her as a brothel girl. She beats her. She starves her. Eventually, frustrated, Mumtaz drugs her, and sends a man in to be with her. He rapes her. Lakshmi, too depressed and too young to know what to do, does nothing. She discovers that with each man that comes to her room, her debt to Mumtaz grows smaller and smaller. Lakshmi meets a boy she calls the David Beckham boy. He brings her sweets and tea, and eventually, Lakshmi starts to get better. Happier. Never safer, because she can’t feel safe here. But knowing she has friends in this horrible place is an improvement. One day, a man comes to Lakshmi’s room. An American man. He asks her if she wants to leave this place. He tells her he will take her to someplace clean and safe.

If You Like: Free Verse genre, Esperanza Rising, Cut (Patricia McCormick

Suite Scarlett – by Maureen Johnson

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Review:                                                         Suite Scarlett was a surprising book.The content, of course, contributed to that, but more surprising was the issues that arose from between the lines; growing up to fast, wanting things too much and getting more than you bargained for are all central themes. Scarlett is a character with a lot of empathy; even when you want to slap her across the face, you feel very sympathetic towards whatever plight is currently going on in her life. Suite Scarlett is a book worth reading.

Summary:

Fifteen year old Scarlett’s family runs the Hopewell Hotel, in New York. Having grown up in a hotel, Scarlett is not a typical teenager. When her fifteenth birthday comes, she gets a couple of things from her parents: a key to the Empire Suite (it is now her room to care for), a cell phone, and the news that the hotel is not doing well. Scarlett is going to have to work at the hotel, mostly for free. Her older sister Lola is taking a year off college to work at a boutique and help out around the hotel and with Scarlett’s irritable little sister Marlene, whose life revolves around the Powerkids, a group for cancer victims and survivors (Marlene is a survivor). Her brother, Spencer, is in the worst spot of all. Throughout the book, he wants to be an actor. His parents had given him one year to find work, but the year is up, and Spencer hasn’t found anything significant.

When an old friend of Spencer’s comes into town bearing news of a show and the need for an actor, Spencer jumps into position. It’s not on Broadway… well, technically it is, the street is names Broadway. But it’s being held in a parking garage, and a four dollar a day salary is not exactly what he was aspiring to. It’s a job though, so by stretching the truth, Spencer convinces him parents to let him do it, partially due to a new guest at the Hopewell… Mrs. Amberson.

Mrs. Amberson arrives suddenly and announces she’ll be there the whole summer. She takes the Empire Suite, and decides that she wants Scarlett to be her assistant. She’ll pay Scarlett 500 dollars a week. The best way to describe Mrs. Amberson would be nosy, which is shown by the fact that when Spencer’s theater company loses its very little funding, Mrs. Amberson steps in to be the director and to fund the show.

But when an old frenemy of Mrs. Amberson’s steps into the picture, and the frame gets even more twisted, no one knows where Mrs. Amberson will lead them.

If You Like: Lola and the Boy Next Door, Beauty Queens, Just Listen, E. Lockhart (author)