Review of All the Little Hopes

Weiss, Leah.  All the Little Hopes.  Sourcebooks, 2021.

 

In 1943, thirteen-year-old Allie “Bert” Tucker is sent by her poor father on a bus trip across North Carolina to stay with her pregnant Aunt Violet and help with her forthcoming baby.  However, through a series of circumstances, Bert ends up living with thirteen-year-old Lucy “Lu” Brown and her large family, instead.  Not only do Lu and Bert become best friends, but they also become sisters.  Because Bert is illiterate, Lu and her mother teach Bert how to read, write, and do arithmetic.

 

The Brown family lives on a tobacco farm in Riverton, NC and also has a thriving beekeeping and honey business.  In exchange for cane sugar and cash, the Browns agree to provide the US government with beeswax and honey from their hives.  Not only do family members help with working the hives, but neighbors and close friends chip in, as well.  

 

A Nazi POW camp is built on the outskirts of Riverton, and many of the townspeople are distrustful of the prisoners.  One Riverton resident, Terrell Stuckey, is particularly disturbed and sits outside the camp whittling all day.  Three of the prisoners are working on the Brown’s farm as part of their rehabilitation.  When a double murder takes place at the camp, everyone thinks that Terrell did it, but he can’t be located.  

 

Terrell Stuckey is the third man to go missing in Riverton.  Lu and Bert, who are avid Nancy Drew fans, decide to try to find out what has happened to the men.  They engage the help of Trula Freed, an eccentric neighbor, and Lu’s rich Aunt Fanniebelle and her Ouija board, which the girls name “Weegee”.  However, the mysteries remain unsolved until a close friend’s death, when Lu, Bert, and Helen, one of Lu’s older sisters, make a surprising discovery.

 

All the Little Hopes is a delightful read, filled with nostalgia, small town life, and love of family and friends.  The book contains short chapters and is told in the alternating voices of Lu and Bert.  The novel sails along while World War II is going on in the background, quietly affecting the town and the Brown family.

 

The characters, even the minor ones, are extremely well-thought out.  I love the whole Brown family, but especially the parents, Minnie and David.  They are caring parents and calming forces in their children’s lives.  Several of the characters very quirky, which adds to the charm of the novel.  Trula Freed, the town’s mystic, reads tarot cards, provides medicine for a variety of ailments, and seems to be clairvoyant.  Lu’s Aunt Fanniebelle, who is quite wealthy and lives in a mansion, gets her words mixed up, which makes her stories hilarious.  I also love that Lu and her whole family are bibliophiles, and they turn Bert into one, too.

 

Readers will be able to tell that Ms. Weiss has done her research, as she inserts historical anecdotes into the story.  The POW camp in the book is based on a similar one she was able to locate in Williamston, NC.  Other factual truths in the novel are the World War II beeswax contracts, the disappearance of band leader Glen Miller, the 1918 Spanish Flu, and folklore wolpertingers from Bavaria.  She has also provided recipes in the back of the book matching those in the novel.

 

There is a “Conversation with the Author” in the back of the book, where the author answers questions about her life growing up, beekeeping, Nancy Drew, the importance of reading, and the development of her characters.  She has also provided a “Reading Group Guide” containing questions and author’s notes explaining how the book came about.

 

All the Little Hopes is a charming, heartfelt, and touching read.  While it is written for young adults, it would be enjoyed by adults, as well.  Hand this book to readers who enjoy stories about family and friendship and World War II.  I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read and review this book!

Review of The Girls with No Names by Serena Burdick

Burdick, Serena.  The Girls with No Names.  Park Row, 2020.

It is 1910 in New York City, and women have strict upbringings and very few rights.  Suffragettes are marching in the streets, and working conditions in factories are terrible.

Effie Tildon comes from a wealthy and socially affluent Manhattan family.  After discovering a shocking secret about their father, Effie's older sister, Luella, acts out and is gone the next day.  Effie is determined to find her older sister.  She believes that Luella has been sent to the House of Mercy, a type of women's reform institution, by their father to punish her for breaking the rules.  When Effie comes up with a plan to have herself committed to the "House of Mercy, she is shocked to find out that Luella is not a resident there.  And much to her despair, getting out of Mercy House is much harder than getting in.  No one will believe that she really shouldn't be there!

At the House of Mercy life is hard; the residents are forced into grueling labor, and are often punished,  Another girl, Mable Winter, befriends Effie and they try to come up with a plan to escape.

The House of Mercy reformatory is based on the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, which were run by the Catholic Church.  In these institutions, wayward and unmarried, pregnant women were forced to work and were horribly mistreated.  Ms. Burdick has done an extraordinary job of portraying the horrors that went on in these institutions.  She has deftly woven both the historical events happening during the early 1900s into the plot and the plight of women during this time period.  I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the Romani people, their camp, and their everyday activities

Effie and Mabel are portrayed as strong, persevering characters.  This is a novel of friendship, love, courage, and hope.  I highly recommend it for older high school students and public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

Review of Eliza Starts a Rumor--An Adult Read

Rosen, Jane.  Eliza Starts a Rumor.  Berkley, 2020.

Eliza Hunt has run The Hudson Valley Ladies' Bulletin Board for years.  She is happily married and has raised her two children, who are now in college.  Much to her dismay, she discovers that someone has started another bulletin board called Valley Girls, which is not competing with hers!  She has been giving out parenting advice for years and feels so threatened by the new offering that she writes a gossipy "rumor" post on her board.

It is through this post that she comes to be friends with Alison Le, a lawyer raising her infant son alone, and Olivia York, who thinks her husband is cheating on her.  Eliza's best friend from high school, Amanda Cole, and her daughters have recently moved back in with her father across the street from Eliza.  Amanda has left her movie-producer husband, who has been accused of scandals involving many women.  Allison has made a friend on the bulletin board who may not be who she thinks, and Eliza is having trouble even walking outside her front door!

Eliza Starts a Rumor has a unique plot--dueling bulletin boards for women!  The characters are well-developed and have a lot of interaction.  The books explores current social issues of the #metoo movement, rape, agoraphobia, PTSD, infidelity, and self-mutilation, so the book is very current.

It was so refreshing to see women bonding and supporting each other throughout this book. Despite some of the heavy topics, the book has some hilarious moments and is a quick, cute read!  This book will make its appearance on June 23.  I recommend it to public libraries and give it four out of five fleur de lis.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for allowing me to read and review this book!

Review of One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus

McManus, Karen M.  One of Us is Next.  Delacorte, 2020.

After the tragic death of Simon Kelleher, the “Bayview Four” were cleared of all charges, and they graduated and moved on with their lives.  Even though Simon’s “About That” gossip app has disappeared, people in the suburb of Bayview, near San Diego, have not forgotten what happened a year prior.

Someone wants to keep playing the shaming game and has started group-texting students at Bayview HS.  Students are being coerced into taking part in an online game of “Truth or Dare”.  The first dare taken is harmless, but the second dare falls on Phoebe’s shoulders.   The truth revealed when she doesn’t take the dare is a piece of gossip that causes the whole school to shame her.  The next victim is Maeve, the sister of one of the original “Bayview Four”.  She ignores the dare, and her former boyfriend, Knox, who is now her friend, is ridiculed and harassed when her truth is revealed.  The next dare is taken, and it results in a student’s death.

Despite each facing personal problems, Maeve, Phoebe, and Knox work together to discover who is behind the new game while following anonymous threatening posts on a Reddit site.  At the same time, Knox, who works at “Until Proven”, a local law firm, tries to figure out who is sending anonymous death threats to their office.  Could the game and the death threats be connected?

This companion novel to One of Us Is Lying is written in chapters of three different viewpoints, that of Maeve, Phoebe and Knox.  However, some of the characters in the first book do show up in this sequel.  All three main characters are going through some family and personal issues.  Maeve is worried about her leukemia coming back; Knox feels he is not valued by his father; and Phoebe is dealing with her father’s sudden death.

The pacing of the novel is quick and full of action.  Although there are a lot of characters in the book, there are a lot of diverse personalities—a family who owns a Hispanic restaurant, a gay baseball player and his boyfriend, and Maeve’s Columbian ancestry.  The tech elements keep the plot fresh and new.  There are many underlying themes within the book—bullying, sexual harassment, slut-shaming, forgiveness, and criminal justice issues.  Although this is a mystery, there is no lack of romance, so those readers will not be disappointed.  There are plenty of twists, turns, and shocking moments to keep readers engaged and the pages turning.

One of Us Is Next will keep the reader guessing until the very end!  Hand this edition to those who read the first book, fans of the Gossip Girls series, and those looking for a suspense novel.  I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries, and I give it five out of five fleur de lis!

Roe, Robin.  A List of Cages.  Disney-Hyperion, 2017.

Adam Blake, a senior in high school, is the happiest, most energetic, albeit clumsy, student at his high school.  Although he has ADHD, he has learned to compensate and has excelled in his classes and is one of the school’s most popular students.  One of his classes involves being a student aide to Dr. Whitlock, the school psychologist, and he is bored most of the time during this period.  One day, she asks Adam to locate a freshman named Julian, who, consequently, lived with Adam and his mom for a while after both of his parents were killed in a tragic car accident.  After several years, Julian’s uncle took custody of him, and the Blakes were not allowed to see him.

Adam is thrilled to see Julian again and is happy that he actually remembers him.  However, Julian has become extremely shy and withdrawn and is slow to open up to Adam.  We learn through Julian’s eyes that he also has undiagnosed dyslexia and is scorned by many teachers for his poor grades and scholastic performance. 

Adam begins spending a lot of time with Julian, and he is accepted into Adam’s group of senior friends.  Adam notices that Julian’s clothes are old and do not fit him well, and that Julian often misses school due to illness.  Adam eventually figures out that Julian is keeping secrets from both him and Dr. Whitlock.  What Adam and his friends ultimately discover about Julian could put all their lives at risk!

This debut novel by Robin Roe is an emotional roller coaster of a ride.  I am a sucker for teenage male protagonists, and she has created some very special ones.  The novel is character-driven, told in first-person through the eyes of Adam and Julian.  All the characters, including the supporting group, are exceptionally well developed.  Adam is just a great guy and well liked by students and teachers.  Julian has had a lot of trauma in his life since losing his parents but is still disdained by his teachers and his impatient, evil uncle.  All of Adam’s friends have distinct personalities.  I did not like Charlie, Adam’s best bud, at first, but he grew so much during the story that I actually ended up loving him.  He is like a giant, lovable teddy bear and fiercely loyal to his friends!

The dialogue and setting are authentic, the characters are wonderful, and the villain is hateful.  I could not believe the abuse that Julian has to endure from his uncle, who does not even care for him one bit.  The scenes where Julian is locked in a trunk emotionally drained me.  It was no surprise to find out that Robin Roe is an adolescent counselor, since she portrays the characters so realistically and compassionately.

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This novel has it all—family, friendship, great characters, a little romance, drama, and a happy ending, despite cruelty.  It is a real page-turner, and I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries.  I give it five out of five fleur de lis!

Review of Losers Take All by David Klass

Klass, David.  Losers Take All.  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015.

At Fremont High School, aka “Muscles High”, if you are not an athlete, then you are a nobody.  The whole school—and the town of Fremont, New Jersey—is totally obsessed with sports.  They even have a whole week at the end of every school year devoted to honoring their athletes.

Jack Logan’s father and two brothers were talented football players, but Jack---well, not so much.  In fact, Jack doesn’t even like sports.  At the end of his junior year, his seventy-year-old principal dies of a heart attack during the annual “senior run” and is replaced Coach Muhldinger—the football coach.  As his first official act as principal, Coach Muhldinger decrees that all seniors must play some kind of sport.

When Jack is roped in to trying out for the football team, he ends up in the hospital, instead.  Jack and his girlfriend, Becca, decide to form a “C” level soccer team and ask the school’s part-time Latin teacher, Mr. Percy, to be their coach.   A whole group of unathletic seniors join the team with the goal of not winning, but just surviving the season without getting injured.  Hilariously, they lose games in fine fashion and become a media sensation via online videos.  .  The team attracts a whole group of fans that are against violence in sports and bullying.  This does nothing to enhance the team’s image with Coach Muhldinger, who seeks revenge on the team for the humiliation it has brought to him.

In Losers Take All, David Klauss has succeeded in capturing the essence of competitive sports, including the negative aspects of violence and bullying that sometimes go along with it.  He has tackled these hard issues “head on” and provided a thought-provoking look into how sports culture affects the mood of a school and a town.  He has also put a lot of humor into the plot with his descriptions of play-by-play scenes of the soccer team’s games.  Readers will find themselves cheering for the mix of misfits that are doing their best to lose every game they play.

The characters are extremely well developed.  Principal Muhldinger is your stereotypical coach—all business, gruff, overbearing, and opinionated about non-athletes.  Our main character, Jack, who is also the narrator, provides a genuine male teen voice.  He thinks he has no athletic ability, but discovers he has a true talent for soccer.  Even though it seems like his football-hero dad is not on his side, Klass shows that Tom Logan is a loving and supportive parent.

Sports fans and non-sports fans, alike, as well as readers who enjoy humorous fiction, will enjoy this book.  I recommend it for middle school, high school, and public libraries and give it four out of five fleur de lis!

Review of Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  Orbiting Jupiter.  Clarion, 2015.

Life has not been easy for fourteen-year-old Joseph Brook.  He has endured abuse by his alcoholic father, a placing in a group home setting, life at a juvenile detention center, and worse of all, incarceration in a high-security prison, where other inmates abused him.  As a last resort, a social worker places him with the Hurd family, who lives on a farm in Maine.  Joseph joins twelve-year-old Jack, who had been adopted by the Hurds some years previously. 

Because of what Joseph has been through, he some strange idiosyncrasies.  He won’t wear anything orange, let anyone stand behind him, let anyone touch him, go into rooms that are too small, or eat canned peaches.  And one more thing--he’s a father to a baby girl who is named Jupiter, and more than anything else in the world, he wants to find her.

Joseph has to keep overcoming obstacles and fighting back but has finally reached a point where two loving adults and a boy who “has his back” believe in him and provide a nurturing environment.  Just when things start to turn the corner, Joseph has to face his past and figure out how to protect his future.

I love male protagonists, and this novel has two outstanding ones in Jack and Joseph.  Our narrator, Jack, tells the story as only a young boy could.   He and the rest of his family are accepting, loving, down-to-earth people who truly care for Joseph.  They welcome Joseph into their family with open arms and provide the kind of family life that he has always needed.  Even when situations become rough, the family continues to lift him up.

Although Joseph has had a hard life, he has a huge heart and is unusually forgiving.  He is intelligent, has a natural ability for mathematics, and is athletically inclined.  It is through Jack’s eyes that readers learn about Joseph’s past and realize that he is wise far beyond his fourteen years.

Orbiting Jupiter is not all serious. From day one, Joseph is expected to do chores around the farm just like Jack and his dad.  Joseph learns you can tell a lot about a person the way cows acts around him.  The Hurd family cows, especially Rosie, take a shine to Joseph, but he learns that milking a cow is not as easy as it looks!

Gary Schmidt has written an endearing novel about acceptance, healing, and the ability to overcome life’s obstacles.  Make sure you have a box of tissues when you read it!  Although I highly recommend it for middle school and public libraries, older readers will also enjoy it.  I give it five out of five fleur de lis!

 

Review of Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Oliver, Lauren.  Requiem.  HarperTeen, 2013.

Lena is trying to get on with her life.  As part of the resistance, she is helping fight the regulators and Delirium Free America.  Alex has nothing to say to her; he has lived through his own personal hell and just wants to forget.  Julian is trying to adjust from his life as part of the DFA to that of a resistor. 

Meanwhile, Hana is preparing for her wedding to Fred Hargrove, who has followed in his father’s footsteps as mayor of Portland.  Fred is “hardcore” when it comes to resistors, the uncured, and their sympathizers.  He will do whatever it takes, including mass murder, to bring the resistance to its knees and kill it.  Hana has resigned herself to a loveless, cruel life with Fred until she discovers that Fred is hiding secrets, some about his first wife, Cassie O’Donnell.  Hana is determined to find out what happened to her.

Told in first person from both Lena’s and Hana’s viewpoints, Requiem culminates the Delirium trilogy in a riveting conclusion.  Readers will find out what happens to Lena, Hana, Alex, and Julian, as well as Lena’s relatives who were taking care of her before she vanished into the Wilds.  Lena’s absent mother also makes an appearance as mother and daughter try to mend their broken past.  One last meeting occurs between Lena and Hana, once best friends, now separated by their opposing views on what society and their lives should bring to them.

Both Hana and Lena are strong female characters, each showing sides of their personalities contrary to what their beliefs should convey.  Lena must choose between the two men in her life—Alex, her first love, and Julian, her current one, and decide what path her life will eventually take.  Hana must make the hard choice to help Lena or turn her over to her vengeful fiancé, Fred.

Requiem  is a fabulous ending to a series that is great from book one to book three!  The series builds and builds until its conclusion and never let me down.  It will make its debut on March 5, 2013.  I highly recommend it to upper middle school, high school, and public libraries!

Reviewer’s Note:  The book reviewed was a digital edition received from Edelweiss Above the Treeline in exchange for an honest review.



Review of What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman

What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman. Scholastic, 2012.

Lita Wold and Adam Merchant have been friends since they were very young, and now they are juniors at Wellstone High School. Lita, who is working on a romance novel, aspires to be a writer like her famous author mother. Unbeknownst to anyone, Lita also secretly writes an advice blog under the alias, Miz Fitz, doling out answers on dating and boys. Adam, on the other hand, has no interest in writing, so Lita is surprised, but also a little upset, when Adam announces his intentions to write a book on what boys really want from their relationships with girls. Writing a book turns out to be a lot of work, so Adam ends up obtaining much of his book from material he finds online. Unfortunately, a good bit of it comes from Miz Fitz’s blog!

What Boys Really Want is a quick, playful read about relationships built on a book about relationships! It is told in the alternating voices of Lita and Adam and spiced up with “quotes” from Lita’s Miz Fitz blog and Adam’s book. There is a lot of humor in the book; I found myself laughing out loud at some of the scenes in the novel!

I loved both Lita and Adam. Lita is a sarcastic, tough realist; she tells it like it is. Adam is exactly the opposite; he is easy-going, fun-loving, and happy-go-lucky. Adam’s eventual love interest, Blair, who some students think is a “skank”, actually has the same type personality as Lita. It is no surprise Adam is drawn to her. Dennis, Adam’s friend, is the typical geeky tech guy. I was delighted to find that two school librarians figure prominently in the story. One is the strict, stereotypical librarian, and the other is a cool, laid-back bibliophile.

The dialogue is realistic and believable, and the teen interactions are spot-on. The blog and book snippets at the beginning of each chapter add a lot to the mood of the book. There are some surprises and twists in the story that I did not expect! Although the book is a little over three hundred pages, it did not take long to read at all.

Teens will easily relate to the events, dialogue, and characters in the book! I recommend What Boys Really Want to middle school, high school, and public libraries.

**Note:  The copy reviewed was an advanced reader's copy obtained from Library Media Connection in exchange for an honest review.

Review of Boy 21 by Matthew Quick.

Boy 21 by Matthew Quick.  Little, 2012.

High school senior Finley McManus lives with his dad and disabled grandfather in Bellmont, PA, which is a suburb of Philadephia.  Bellmont is not a great place to live; residents must deal with violence, racial tension, drugs, and the Irish mob.  Finley wants to get out of Bellmont, and he figures the only way this could happen would be if his girlfriend, Erin Quinn, receives a college basketball scholarship.  Finley, who wears number  21, on his basketball jersey, works hard to perfect his playing skills and loves the game, but he will never be as good as Erin. 

Russ Washington, whose parents were murdered, has come to Bellmont to live with his grandparents.  Before his parents were murdered, Russ was a brilliant student and star point guard, being recruited by dozens of colleges.   The trauma of the murder has changed him, and he is having problems coping.

Coach Wilkins, who coaches the Bellmont High School basketball team, secretly asks Finley to befriend and keep an eye on Russ.  Although Finley is worried that Russ could take his spot on the team, he agrees to help his coach.  Finley discovers that Russ is extremely unusual, and their relationship turns out to be a turning point in both of their lives.

I read Boy 21 as an ARC awhile ago, and I can’t stop thinking about it.  I loved everything about this book—it was awesome!  It has so much in it—humor, romance, sports, and a great plot line!  When Boy 21, aka Russ, was introduced, I was laughing out loud at his “antics”.  Boy 21 tells Finley that he is waiting for his extra-terrestrial family to pick him up, and that he was sent to earth to study human emotions!  The things that Boy 21 does and says and Finley’s reactions are priceless!  The characters in the book are so likable and real!  I especially like the cafeteria scene where Boy 21 claims, “We are not rabbits!”  I loved this character.  Even when he wants to play basketball again, he purposely messes up because he doesn't want to take Finley's starting position away from him.

The two boys are foils for one another.  Finley is the only white player on an all-black basketball team; conversely, Russ has been the only black member of an all-white team!  Both boys sport the number 21 on their jerseys; both have had tragic events happen to them in their young lives.  Each uses basketball and friendship to each other as coping mechanisms to deal with their respective tragic situations. 

Coach Wilkins, at first, comes across as having a caring and compassionate attitude.  However, as the story progresses, it turns out that he has ulterior motives.  He takes advantage of Finley’s loyalty to him and to the team when he pushes Finley to get Russ back on the basketball court.  Erin, Finley’s girlfriend, respects that Finley doesn’t want to give Russ’s secret away, even to her.  Without giving anything away, I will say that I was mad and upset at the situation that happened to her.

Readers don’t have to be basketball fans to enjoy this book; it has something for everyone!  I highly recommend it for junior high, high school, and public libraries!

 **Reviewer’s note:  The copy reviewed was an ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.