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We’ve got new book-fair books ready for check-out. Have a look at these-and then come on over and check one out.
Category: Horror/Mystery/Suspense
Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez 
Confession: Of the books I’ve been reading in preparation for the author visits on April 16, this is my favorite! Quick, entertaining, and very smart—Marlene Perez makes fun of all the tried and true clichés about teens and the supernatural, high schools and cliques, and young romance.
I like the protagonist, Daisy Giordano. She’s the only ‘non-psychic’ in a family of women with ESP, telekinetic powers and the ability to help solve crimes. She’s sleuthing throughout the book, determined to help solve a murder and several attacks in the city of Nightshade—a small fictional town somewhere in the Bay Area (the teens hang out in Santa Cruz). Meanwhile, Daisy finds herself a great boyfriend and makes the cheerleading squad when some of the girls on the squad fall mysteriously ill.
All of the problems seem to have started with Samantha, Nightshade High’s It Girl, who comes back from summer vacation looking dead and dragging a scaled down coffin around very day. As more and more girls take on the dead look, and then actually become fatally ill, Daisy discovers she has powers she’d never realized.
And a note to reluctant readers: the book checks in at 208 pages, just eight pages over that magical must have at least 200 pages marker!
See you on Saturday, April 16 at 1 PM in the Ontario Senior Center. Maybe I can get Marlene Perez to sign a few copies of her book for our libraries.
Saturday, April 16 is soon approaching—and I’m reading as fast as I can in anticipation of the five YA author visit at the Ontario Senior Center from 1-4 PM. I previously reviewed Evermore by Alyson Noel. I just finished Wicked: Witch. Nancy Holder, one of the novel’s two authors will also be at the Teen Book Fest.
In this first book of the series, Holly Cathers, our powerful teen witch, has no idea who she is or what her destiny involves. The book opens with a terrible river rafting accident in which Holly’s parents are killed. When she goes to live with her cousins, her true destiny becomes known. The Cathers are members of an ancient coven of powerful witches who have a longstanding rivalry with the cove of the Deveroux clan. The spirit of one Isabel is reincarnated in Holly; in the clan Deveroux, Jer is the one with a reincarnated family member living in his person—Jon, who was Isabel’s husband and rival 600 years earlier.
Now the covens fight over the secret to the Black Fire, and members will gladly kill one another—and I don’t mean just members of the opposing coven, I mean father killing son, a man knocking off the woman he’s having an affair with, anyone is game.
If you enjoy a book full of witchcraft and the supernatural—potions, powders, Ouija boards, cats as familiars, appearances of the dead (and decaying), folks dropping dead from spells, unexplained incidents around every corner—you’ll enjoy Witches. Two caveats: As though the authors are trying to fit in every possible witchcraft myth (and even Shamanism), you’ll have to accept that people get sudden powers and then suddenly become even more powerful at just the right time. (They also have a great ability to figure out what happened in the past, down to the very last detail, just by dreaming about it.) And the book is for mature readers. In some of the flashbacks to the covens 600 years earlier, there are some gross sacrifices and insinuations of drinking human blood, etc.
Evermore by Alyson Noel 
Alyson Noel is one of the five authors coming to Ontario on April 16 for the Teen Book Fest. She’s a New York Times best seller. She writes The Immortals series, and Evermore, is, of course, the first book. It’s pretty easy to find reviews, and I probably can’t add much in the way of a new perspective. So quickly—
The Immortals series is a great read for fans of the Twilight series. If you’ve read my past reviews, you know I’m not a Twilight fan. What this series—or at least Evermore, which I’ve read—has over Twilight is that the writing is better. And it’s not a vampire book. These immortals are different.
Ever is a seventeen-year-old girl living in Orange County, California. (Much of the description is of Laguna Beach and the area that surrounds it, as well as the activities that take place there such as the Sawdust Festival. However, Laguna Beach isn’t actually named.) Ever lives with her lawyer/wealthy/single/too-busy-to-pay-much-attention aunt because her family had a car accident back in Oregon which killed the rest of them—mom, dad, sister and dog, Buttercup.
Having survived the accident, Ever finds that she has special ESP-like powers. This really isn’t fun—and she becomes withdrawn and introverted, the important joy in her life being conversations with her dead sister. (And these are actually pretty fun—they argue as though both are still alive.) Luckily, the gorgeous new boy at school, Damen, has eyes for Ever although she hides under a hoodie every day. And there’s a reason for Damen’s attentions. Plus, in addition to his mysterious love and weirdly alternating attention/neglect, he performs magic often, by making red tulips appear for Ever.
The Immortals is classic gothic romance. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll love the series. Come on out to the Teen Book Fest April 16, 1-4 PM at the Ontario Senior Center on East B Street. Meet Alyson Noel and hear about her upcoming series Soul Seekers. You’ll have the chance to be photographed with the authors and have books signed. (You can buy copies there if you don’t already own them.)
During the month of March the Ovitt Family Community Library (Ontario City Library, downtown) will be hosting author visits (and one publisher) every Saturday. They are partnering with a publisher to have women writers talk about writing strategies and techniques during National Women’s History Month.
If you are secretly a creative writer, this is a great opportunity for you. The speakers are shown in the slides above. Click on the images for more information.
I enjoyed reading all three books in this series. What made me think of them today was something that may seem unconnected: I read an article stating that a new version of the classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is going to be published soon.
I don’t think of “The Girl” series as on the same level as Huck Finn, but I did think about why I haven’t recommended the three books to you even though I liked them all. They’re not YA books and they don’t fit with any of our library projects. They’re adult books and they contain some graphic violence, particularly against women. So I worry a bit about your maturity level, about whether your parents would mind if you read these uber-popular bestsellers.
The reason Huck Finn is no longer read much in schools is that some people find it offensive because the characters use the ‘n’ word. The new version is taking that word out in the hope that with this censoring, it will be allowed back in the schools. So I thought about whether a YA version of “The Girl” books would be popular with teens. But here’s what I came up with:
The book is available in the library in the regular adult fiction section.
The violence against the women is not glorified–it makes you hate the perpetrators and root for Lisbeth. I remember when I finished the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I thought that the book title should have been “Men Hurting Women.” Sure enough, I later read a review that said the title in the original Swedish was “Men Who Hate Women”(or something very close). And in a later book, the narrator even tells us that this is a story about men hating women, even more than it’s a spy story. I think the circumstances of the novel are sort of a cautionary tale–a safe opportunity for teen girls to see just how bad some men can behave toward them.
I let my own teens read it. I didn’t worry about them. They were not emotionally scarred or damaged.
There are teens who don’t like some of the books teachers recommend, but they get hooked on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and then read through all three novels. Library folks call these types of novels ‘homerun books’ because they are the ones that get you into the reading game. You read them and then you move on to other books. And that is exactly what we want to happen.
So, if you’re mature and not easily scared, you could give these a try. In the first, an old uncle hires a journalist to help him find out what happened to his niece. The journalist seeks help from Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant computer hacker. And through the series, this becomes Lisbeth’s story, the damage done to her, her will to fight back and survive in bizarre circumstances that involve spies, intrigue, government cover ups and some incredibly loyal friends.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
As a classic, The Picture of Dorian Gray is summarized and analyzed in many places, and I have nothing to add.* However, as the new semester starts and seniors at both schools are beginning projects, I think this quick classic is a great choice for either the novel required before research at Chaffey High or, at Colony High, as one of the two works of British literature to be read and later analyzed.
My oldest son once told me that he thought half of all witty quotes posted anywhere were by Oscar Wilde—and that if you saw a quote and had to guess who said it, naming Wilde would mean you’d be right half the time. Should you read The Picture of Dorian Gray, you’ll know why he said this. Although the character Lord Henry Wotton is a sort of Satan personified and gets Dorian started on his life of evil and debauchery, a lot of what he says contains wry witticisms that you’ll enjoy. Even when he is perfectly awful, I couldn’t help but laugh about his observations of women and romance. Whether you sympathize with Basil Hallward or with Sibyl Vane, you’ll have to agree that in love, everybody plays the fool. (Sorry if you have already been that fool who’s had your heart broken. If you aren’t, steel yourself—it’s around the corner.)
As a novel to analyze, the many quotable lines will give you a lot of citations in your paper. As a jumping off point for historical research, the novel outlines many practices of the late 19th century—the division between classes, the things people did as work and recreation. It also minutely details Dorian’s interests, which alter frequently. You may have a hard time with the lists of things he likes to do—his study of perfumes, tapestries, art, music, etc.–as modern novels don’t do this (and modern readers seem to have no patience for it). Still, I’ll make a prediction: when mainstream reading goes multimedia, Dorian Gray will be very popular. Imagine as these places and objects are listed that you will click on the words and have images of them. Perhaps in a bit more distant future, perhaps you’ll even smell all the perfumes that are mentioned. Very cool.
Try this one.
*Our own resources for summaries and criticism include Dorian Gray. All students can use the city library’s online database The Literature Resource Center, but you’ll need to give your library card number to view it. Chaffey students can use ProQuest Learning Literature (You need the passwords—ask us if you don’t know them.)
Anyone can use the free online guide from Shmoop.
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan 
If you’re already a fan of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, you’re going to love this book. And if you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Riordan yet, start here.
I picked up this book because a few CHS students, looking for a (easy) novel to start their senior project with, asked me for something on ancient Egypt. While this novel fits that description, it isn’t historical, even by the loose definition we use for our project. However, I believe it will work perfectly for any student who’d like to form questions on ancient Egyptian culture, particularly on religion.
At the center of the novel are the current-day Carter and Sadie Kane. Their father is a famous Egyptologist and their mother, who died mysteriously six years before the book opens, was an anthropologist. After their mother’s death, the children are separated, Carter then traveling the world with his father and Sadie settled with her maternal grandparents in London
Dr. Kane only has visitation rights with Sadie two days of the year. On Christmas Eve Day, he picks her up, and, along with Carter, they go to the British Museum to visit the Rosetta Stone. There, working magic, Dr. Kane blows up the priceless artifact and unleashes powerful Egyptian gods, including the evil Set, who encases him in a magic sarcophagus (coffin). The children run for their lives.
From here on out, it’s all action as the sharp-tongued Carter and Sadie discover their true natures and powers. While they are fighting ancient evil forces, much of Egyptian culture is mentioned—various pharaohs, a number of gods and their special divinities, famous architecture and archeological sites—all great teasers just perfect for posing research questions about ancient Egypt.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier 
Micah is the ‘after-school’ girlfriend of Zach Rubin—who has a ‘real’ girlfriend at school. No one else knows about their relationship. Both are excellent runners, although, again, no one knows this about Micah. She hides the truth about herself and lies all the time.
When new at school, Micah pretended to be a boy, then a hermaphrodite. She seems to have family members that don’t exist. She says her dad is an arms dealer. And wait until you hear about the purposes of her bedroom furnishings. As she is caught in one too many lies, no one believes anything she says anymore. So when Zach is found dead—apparently brutally murdered and mutilated—the police start to question her. Micah says she’s going to tell us the truth—the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ the murder.
But Micah can’t stop lying. And you never know what to believe. Just as you think you have the story straight, there’s a new twist and it all falls apart. You’ll end not knowing if you’ve unraveled the lies, not knowing if there is a supernatural element at work in the murder—just not knowing anything. But you’ll race through the suspense, desperate to get inside Micah’s head.
Fast, fun, full of surprises. One of my best summer YA reads.
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Stephanie Edgley is brokenhearted over the death of her Uncle Gordon, who, in a surprise move, has left Stephanie his estate. He was a bestselling author of fantasy and magic, and hung out with what his family considered a weird, low-life crowd. One of this crowd comes to the reading of Gordon’s will. He is hidden by his dark glasses, muffler and overcoat. When Stephanie is later staying the night in the house she inherited from Gordon, this strange man saves her life. It quickly becomes apparent that Gordon was murdered and Stephanie, bored with life on the east coast of Ireland, wants to help find the killer.
But the strange Skulduggery Pleasant isn’t a man—at least not a live one—he’s a skeleton, and a powerful one at that, a detective who takes on cases in the world of magic, vampires, sorcerers, ‘cleavers,’ Elders and Hollow Men. Apparently, Gordon’s best selling novels were based on reality. And thus begins Stephanie’s adventures in the world of the supernatural.
Skulduggery and Stephanie (aka Valkyrie Cain) are a smart-mouthed, wise cracking pair as they fight the evil Nefarian Serpine, who hopes to resurrected the Faceless Ones and destroy mankind. They dodge bullets (or are shot), outrun vampires, escape cleavers and more. They survive broken bones, burning and torture. The action never stops—violence, danger nor magic—but through all they are cool. (Skulduggery even drives a 1954 Bentley.)
Skulduggery Pleasant has many great twists and turns that keep you involved in detective books. Though Stephanie is twelve, she acts much older. The violence in the book, while not gratuitous, is also more suited to teens than to kids. So don’t pass this one up if you find a copy shelved with the kids’ books. Oh—and it has that always sought after ‘more than 375 page’ benefit—even though the pages are short and the action so fast that you’ll finish in no time at all. And if you really like it, sequels are here.
