Jaemi's Reading

Reviews on this Page: Poison | Looking for Alaska | Grand & Humble | Defining Dulcie | A Bad Boy can be Good for a Girl | Ptolomey's Gate
Missing Angel Juan | Endgame | Eating the Cheshire Cat | Candy | Charlie Bone and the Hidden King | Tomorrow, Maybe | Permission Slips

Reviews on Page 2: Magic Lessons | Perfect World | Wrecked | Dirt Liar | Girl, 15, Charming but Insane | The Last Cato | No Right Turn
Queen of Cool | you remind me of you | Life Expectancy | Freaks: Alive on the Inside! | Ravens Gate

Poison, Chris Wooding
PoisonPoison's life in the Black Marshses leaves her wishing for change. With her mother's death, life became a constant struggle with a stepmother who can't stand her, and a father who can't see his own family's struggle. She views herself as little more than the problem, and so it was she chose her name.

When her sister Azalea is exchanged with a Changeling, suddenly the stories Poison has read all her life become real. With the help of Fleet, the only person in the marshes to understand her, Poison sets off to get her sister back.

So begins a journey from the realm of man to the realm of phaerie, from certainty to illusion, from youth to...

Along the way, unlikely friendships are formed and enemies are earned, and the many mysteries Poison has always puzzled over slowly unravel into an even more mystifying reality.

Looking for Alaska, John Green
Looking for AlaskaMiles Halter hates his life in Florida. No friends, no hobbies, other than his mental collection of Last words. Knowing there has to be something more out there, he applies to Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama.

Upon arrival he realizes that his lofty ideals for the place will not in fact be met, but once befriended by his roommate, The Colonel, and after meeting the girl down the hall, Alaska, he starts to realize there's potential after all.

Getting off to a rocky start, having a near miss with drowning thanks to an over-zealous prank, Miles, now "Pudge," has a lot of reservations. The concussion he receives from a Basketball thrown at his head, and the subsequent being sick on his girlfriend-to-be do little to ease his worries. But there are classes he likes, the bufriedos are great, and his small crew of friends make things worthwhile.

Just when he's starting to feel at home with his new world, a shattering blow brings it to pieces around him. Therein follows much avoidance, soul-seeking, unending questions, anger, pain, detective work, and eventually....enlightenment.

Grand & Humble, Brent Hartinger
Grand & HumbleHarlan is the boy with the perfect life, and lately it's become unbearable. Manny is the Geek with few friends and bad dreams, and lately he's been getting very little sleep.

Harlan's cover is starting to fail. His girlfriend is getting to him. He doesn't talk to his best friend. And after an incident with a Ouija board at a party, the whole school clues in to his unease.

Manny's cover is also starting to fail. He can't see straight. He zones out on his best friend, which is worse than usual as she's Deaf, and can't talk to him if he's not paying attention.

Harlan wants to be able to make up his own mind, to follow his own will, to stand up to his mother and not fear the consequences. Manny wants to know why he keeps dreaming of large things smashing into him, and why his dad freaked out when he finally told him about one of the dreams.

At the center of their stories lies the intersection of Grand & Humble, where more than just streets coincide.

Great book. Be prepared for your brain to tie itself in a knot.

Defining Dulcie, Paul Acampora
Defining DulcieWhen Dulcie's Father accidentally kills himself, it's a bit of a shock. When her mother decides to move them off to California, it's more than Dulcie is prepared to take. When she finds out her mother intends to get rid of her father's truck, she officially draws the line: she takes it and drives herself back to Connecticut.

Upon arrival, she meets not her grandfather, as expected, but a girl she's never seen before standing in the flowers. Roxanne, who now works for Dulcie's grandfather, knows exactly who Dulcie is, and that her grandfather has been expecting her.

The welcome isn't as warm as she had hoped. Turns out taking off and going cross-country as a teen worries your elders. But Frank does agree to let her stay. She even gets her old job back, though as punishment she will receive no pay for the summer. She also has to call her mother. This stipulation is easier to get around: she knows when her mother is going to be at work, and always makes sure to call when she won't be there.

Back at work as a janitor, Dulcie makes fast friends with Roxanne, whom Frank has somewhat adopted, as it seems she's not necessarily well taken care of at home. The night Dulcie drops by with her to get fresh clothes on their way to dinner with Dulcie's suprise-visiting mother, Dulcie finds out just how bad Roxanne's home life is. This harsh glimpse at events causes a flurry of actions on multiple fronts, which almost lead to disaster.

In the end, Dulcie, who's always known who she is, gains a greater understanding of relationships, friendships, love, and home. Roxanne, who's never had it great, adopts Dulcie's family. While perhaps no one's ended up quite where they expected, they all know they've found their place.

An excellent book, worth reading again (and again).

A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl, Tanya Lee Stone -Jaemi
A Bad Boy Can be Good for a GirlJosie, Nicolette and Aviva have one thing in common. He goes by the intials T.L., and he misled them all.

Josie, who never cared much for boys or what others thought of her in the word of Middle School, finds herself slightly less certain upon entering High School. And even though she balks are her own reactions when a hot Senior jock starts paying her attention, she finds herself somehow unable to resist. But he continually pushes her boundries, trying to move beyond where she's prepared to go. Unwilling to give in, she eventually finds herself left behind. Her situation reminds her of the book Forever, and she seeks it out in the Library in order to begin her payback.

Nicolette has always gone with boys from other schools. She knows what she likes, and knows that in High School it would be bound to lead to a bad rap, since she's not a guy. But the story of Josie travels the halls, and Nicolette is sure she must not have had what it took. T.L. seems mighty fine to her. She steps right up to be next in line. And even though there are no dates, and she's never invited to sit with the crew at Lunch, the fact that they have their own special place within the school soothes her.

Until she hears about Aviva.

Until the day with the frog in Biology, Aviva is pretty sure she never entered into T.L.'s radar. But they seem to hit it off, and when he asks her to a party, she says yes. Soon, weekends with the boy become a regular thing, and Aviva's other life is forgotten. Old friends try to warn her, but she sees things differently. She's sure this is different. She gives him what he wants, only to find out she gave too much.

One more of many to be left in tears, Aviva takes Josie's advice and heads to the library to check out Forever. She finds all empty space covered with stories and warning of the one and only T.L. and wonders how it can be possible. And yet, for all that, the girls he's damaged have all come out for the better, with a little more knowledge to help them along the way. It's a pretty safe bet that in the end, all he'll get out of it is a list of empty names.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book Three: Ptolemy's Gate, Jonathan Stroud
Ptolemy's GateFirst and foremost, if you haven't read the first two books of this trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye), I wouldn't start with this one. Without all the back-story there's a lot to miss. That being said, I think this might have been the best of the three.

We're back in London, after the downfall of the Lovelace affair, and Nathaniel/Jonathan Mandrake, is now Information Minister. The Commoners are growing restless, the war in America is going poorly, and Bartimaeus has been kept in service for so long that his powers are all but gone. The government is beginning to split into factions, everyone is always looking over their shoulders, and the lower magicians seem to be plotting something.

It turns out the elusive Hopkins is returned. Finding him becomes top priority. In the meantime, Mandrake also learns that Kitty Jones is not, as he had thought, dead. Finding her then becomes his top priority. And just when it seems like things might be falling into place....everything comes apart.

The entire government is kidnapped, the streets overflow with commoners who've noticed a lack of government response, and Mandrake and Kitty have fallen into the middle of a most sordid plot.

This was the quickest read of the trilogy, for me, and even though I knew it was winding down, in the end I harbor hopes that perhaps there will be another story someday.

Missing Angel Juan, Francesca Lia Block
Witch Baby always felt out of place. With her tangled up hair and purple eyes and anger, she was never as soft and gentle as her almost-mom Weetzie, or her half-sister Cherokee. Only Angel Juan could ever make her feel like she belonged. So when he tells her he's leaving, that he needs to go to New York and be on his own, she can't understand, and runs away. When she wakes up and realizes she didn't get to say goodbye, she decides she's going to follow and look for him.

When no letters follow his first postcard to her, she becomes even more frantic, and knows she has to go. She asks permission to stay in Charlie Bat's apartment, and sets off for the city.

Upon arrival she metts Meadows and Mallard, two kindly gentlemen who take care of Charlie's apartment during the year. They take her to dinner, but as it turns out, they're Ghost Hunters, and are off to Ireland. Witch Baby would wallow in her aloneness, if not for the appearance of a spectral Charlie.

With his help, Witch Baby wanders the city, usually searching for Angel Juan, sometimes sidetracked by her Ghostly Grandfather, but almost always gaining a new appreciation for life.

In the end, she follows her heart, which leads her to Angel Juan, and to some realizations about the dangers of the way she wants to cling to him and keep him to herself.

Endgame, Nancy Garden
EndgameAfter bullying incidents lead him to carry a knife to school, Gray Wilton finds himself suspended, and uprooted. Starting High School with a clean slate, and in a new town, he hopes that somehow things will be better in Connecticut. Maybe he can try harder, maybe the kids will be nicer, maybe his father will understand.

But though he makes some friends, and joins the school band, where he can play drums, it doesn't take long for the bullies to find him. Teachers look the other way. Ignoring them doesn't make them stop, fighting back only makes it worse, telling makes it worst of all. His father is just as angry, his life seems just as hopeless.

Throughout Gray's story we feel his pain, and see the world through his eyes, and understand how he came to feel so low. And yet even with all said and done he doesn't seem quite able to understand what's truly happened, what he's really done, the impact of his actions.

A sincere look into the everyday events of teenage life, and how the actions of those around us can escalate from harmless to deadly when carefully averted eyes refuse to see.

Eating the Cheshire Cat, Helen Ellis
Eating the Cheshire CatIf you appreciate a darker sense of humor, this is a book for you. If not, you might only end up wanting to throttle the cast.

Sarina Summers is perfect in every way. Except for her pinky fingers. Their slight crookedness mars her style, and so when she is 16, she gets drunk and has her mother break them.

Nicole Hicks lives across the street, and has idolized Sarina her whole life. Her mother is nicer, her life is better. As long as you keep her happy, she'll return the favor. And all Nicole wants is to keep this balance. So much so that she intentionally fails 10th grade, thinking it will better her chances for a friendship, when in fact it proves to be her undoing.

Bitty Jack Carlson grew up in a small town, on a Summer Camp. Summers, she attends. The rest of the year, she's home-schooled. The year Sarina attends, life changes forever.

Caught using a hairdryer in an unusual fashion by Bitty Jack's father while he's changing a light bulb, Sarina cries abuse. Camp maintenance workers are no longer allowed into cabins without staff invitation, and her father is not allowed to work in them at all during summer, but otherwise, things mostly blow over. Until years down the line when Bitty Jack is dating Sarina's first boyfriend, and Sarina's life is coming apart at the seems.

Sarina hatches a plan to get Stewart back. The plan? Out herself as an abuse survivor at a Take Back the Night rally, where both Stewart and Bitty Jack will be there to hear. The back-lash causes the Camp to come under siege by the Press and thus ends the Carlson's have always known. So when Nicole Hicks climbs through Bitty Jack's window late one night with her own plan, rather than being afraid, Bitty Jack is mesmerized.

She has few details. They need to hijack the mascot uniform from Stewart. That's all she knows. From the President's Box she looks on, and as we wait for Nicole's plan to hash out, we come to find Bitty Jack had one of her own.
Candy, Kevin Brooks
CandyJoe Beck's life is pretty run-of-the-mill. Parents separated, doesn't get on so well with his father, goes to school, plays with a band, tries to stay out of trouble. And then he meets Candy.

Something about her draws him right in. He can't believe she's talking to him. That he could be so lucky. And when he gets chased off by a very large and very scary Iggy, who can only be her Pimp, he can't believe that either. He mulls it over for a week, after finding her number in his pocket, then calls to ask her out, knowing it's the only thing to do.

At the Zoo she seems so normal. She explains Iggy away as some guy who's just a little crazy. Joe wants to believe it, so he does. When she leaves him in the cafe to go to the bathroom and comes back changed, he understands she must use drugs, but he doesn't give that much thought either. She likes him. He likes her.

But when she comes to his Band's show only to be dragged off by Iggy and his hoarde, a fight which gets Joe's brother-in-law to be injured, things come to a head. With nowhere left to turn, he finally tells his sister everything. Unable to believe there's nothing he can do to help, and unable to get Candy on the phone, as soon as his dad's left for his business trip, Joe takes off, losing all cares about being grounded.

He takes a train back to the spot where he first stumbled into her. Nothing. He wanders around London, trying to find somewhere within 10 minutes that could be the spot where she lives. If that part was true. Ready to admit defeat, he's heading back to catch another train when he spots Iggy leaving the station, and gets it in his head to follow him.

After being led to the house, he hides in the bushes for quite awhile, making his move when an elderly woman loaded down with shopping bags arrives. He helps her carry them in, then takes off up the stairs to find Candy. And find her he does--severely battered and bruised. Broken, she tells him everything. How she came to be here, how it went so far. They're concocting a plan to get her out of there when Iggy returns. There's no saying if Joe could have stayed hidden in the bathroom if his cell phone hadn't rung. But it did. And things very suddenly became life or death.

With a straight-edge razor held to his throat, Joe is staring at the end, when Candy breaks a lamp against Iggy's head. They quickly bind him up with tape, and take off into the night. They stop at Joe's house for supplies, then board another train, heading for the summer cottage. The plan is to get Candy clean, then take it from there. Iggy won't find them. He's sure of it, despite a nagging at the back of his brain.

But just when the worst of it seems over, when Candy seems to be herself again, and not a withdrawl insane version, Joe realizes just what kind of trouble he's in. Iggy has his sister. He can find them, because Joe tells him exactly where they are. Any bargaining power he had has gone. Even with Mike on the way to help, there's no knowing if he'll beat Iggy to them, or what they can do even if he does.

In the end, it turns out in a way no one would have imagined.

Time goes by, but Joe can't remember how life was before Candy. All he can do is struggle to find his way back to it.
Charlie Bone and the Hidden King, Jenny Nimmo
Charlie BoneThe trouble in and around Bloor's Academy grows even greater, as the Children of the Red King struggle on with their fight. All the town's animals have disappeared over night, and no one knows why. With the help of Billy's rat Rembrandt, Charlie Bone uncovers the answer. And with the help of a mysterious girl named Naren, is able to find the animals and bring some back. But as he only brings his friends' animals back, he then finds himself to blame for the rest of them being missing. Having sworn never to tell the secret of Naren's family, he can only hope that the rest of the animals will return on their own. Luckily, they do.

Meanwhile, there are rumors circulating of a mysterious Shadow. One which Rembrandt tried to warn them about, but the boys could make no sense of his cryptic message. While it's widely known that there was someone called the Shadow who tore the Red King's family apart, there is almost nothing to be found about him, outside of travel journals written by Bartholomew Bloor, which he gets to Charlie, and which Charlie must then hide, once he's read them and discovered all he can.

And if that's not enough, his best friend's parents have been sneaking around Bloor's, his mother has been bewitched and is forgetting his father, and the nicest teacher at the Academy has turned out to be an enemy. Armed with a charm that can free the King and the knowledge of where his father is, Charlie aims to set his life straight.

A fun and fast read that's rather difficult to write well about without giving it all away.

Tomorrow, Maybe, Brian James
Tomorrow, MaybeIt can be a world of shadows, ghosts, haunted memories, and shame. But it can also be freedom, beauty, and solidarity bred of understanding. Every street kid has their story--they don't ask, but they know. For Gretchen, it was her Stepmother. Continued life under the same roof as her: impossible. At 15, she still feels like the baby, even though it's been two years. Two years learning to love the morning, before the city wakes up. Loving life while the sun is rising. Liking it less once there's a world to see. Two years on the streets take their toll. Lately, it's the dream of getting out that keeps Gretchen going.

Until Elizabeth.

Tiny, cold, and silent, she arrives one night on the stairs. It's not a place Gretchen usually stays. Still, she can't help but take a stand. They tell her a kid that young will only be trouble. But all she sees is someone who needs her. Someone to take care of. From that moment on, Elizabeth is hers.

At first it's simple. Easy enough to make Elizabeth smile. Easy to be happy just because she is. Then people start to drift, police start to raid, life gets more and more out of control. The streets aren't as fun anymore. The dream seems farther and farther away. Today isn't enough, tomorrow slips from her reach. Only the finality of total loss can bring resolution.


Permission Slips, Jerry Sander
Permission SlipsTake life in any small town as you know it, mix it up with a few other small towns, throw in a little imagination for the things you might not know, and you've got life in Hadleyville Falls High School. Sometimes it seems like a world far away and others it's eerily familiar. Students will likely enjoy reading about the Administration, and Administration may enjoy reading about the students. Although for the most part they are far from funny, or charming, and in some cases likeable. Yes indeed, High School might be the last place in the world anyone wants to be nowadays. It's quite the mixed up bag of pros and cons, and in this novel, we take a pretty close look at some of those cons.




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