Review of The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander

The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander.  Walden Pond Press, 2011.

Best friends and sixth-graders Vince and Christian (aka Mac..from MacGuyver) have their own business giving advice and procuring items for fellow students. Their office is located in the fourth stall of an abandoned bathroom in the east wing at their grade school. Mac solves kids’ problems and Vince handles the money side of the business. They are both Chicago Cubs fans and are saving their money so that they can see the Cubs play if they make it to the World Series. The business is going great until they take on a third-grade client who needs protection from a legendary crime boss named Staples. Staples is running a gambling racket at the school, paying players to throw games, and charging enormous amounts of interest to his clients. Students who don’t pay up have their lives made miserable by Staples’s henchmen. In trying to put Staples out of business, Mac, Vince, and even the school bullies find out that they have taken on more than they bargained for!

The Fourth Stall has to be one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. In his debut novel for young adults, Chris Rylander has successfully given voice to some very likable and memorable characters. The story is written from the point of view of Mac, who is extremely resourceful when it comes to solving problems. His best friend, Vince, is wise in the ways of number crunching and comes up with some hilarious lines he steals from his eccentric grandmother. The author really seems to understand guys’ minds and their friendships. Mac even persuades the school bullies to help him take down Staples, who has previously just been a rumor around school. The description of the grade school bullies, which include biters and computer hackers, is extremely comical! Staples is portrayed as a really bad guy, and as quite controlling. He has high school and middle school students doing his dirty work, and they are tormenting the younger students. The plot is extremely believable, and it genuinely works!

Even though there are young characters in the book, this book can be enjoyed by older students. I highly recommend it for middle school, high school, and public libraries!

Review of Darkness Becomes Her

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton.  Simon Pulse, 2011.

Thirteen years ago, New Orleans was destroyed by two hurricanes, which also decimated the southern half of Louisiana. Now called “New 2”, the old New Orleans and the surrounding area has been bought and rebuilt by the Novem, a group of powerful Louisiana families. The rest of the United States believes the rumors that exotic, mysterious New 2 is a sanctuary for paranormals. (And it is!)

Seventeen-year-old Ari Selkirk, who has been different all her life, is searching for her biological mother who gave her up for adoption at age four. What sets Ari apart are her teal-colored eyes and silver hair, which can never be cut, curled or colored. She has grown up in the foster care system, and her search leads her to New 2. Ari is befriended by Sebastian and his unusual friends, who try to help her discover why monstrous demons are trying to kill her and why her mother abandoned her. It all has to do with a family curse, and she must try to break the curse. Otherwise, she could end up dead, like her grandmother, at the young age of just twenty-one!

Darkness Becomes Her is the first young adult novel for Kelly Keaton, who has previously only written for adults, under the pen name “Kelly Gay”. The author has managed to incorporate quite a lot of Greek mythology into the story, along with the paranormal element. Since I grew up in Louisiana, I really enjoyed the descriptions of New Orleans, with its voodoo undercurrents and mystical references. Ari is a cool, but tough heroine, who doesn’t realize just how beautiful she actually is. Sebastian, who turns out to be her love interest, and the other outcasts who live with him, are just as intriguing, each in their own way. I expect these characters will be more developed with the next two books in the series.

Unfortunately, I did find a mistake in Ms. Keaton’s research. On page 28, she refers to the area around New Orleans as having counties. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. that does not have counties; instead, it has parishes, due to heavy influence of the Catholic Church on Louisiana’s heritage. I am surprised that this error was not discovered during research, or caught by the editor.

Darkness Becomes Her is a dark, necromantic read, sure to keep the reader turning pages! Look for two more additions to this series! I recommend it for high school and public libraries.

A YA Author is Living Among Us!!!!!

Yes, there is a new young adult author living right here in Flower Mound, Texas!!!  How awesome is that!?  Stephanie Amox, the author of Painfully Ordinary (kNight Romance Publishing, 2010), lives about five minutes from Flower Mound High School!  Who would have known?  She came by today to donate a signed copy of her book and chat for awhile!  Turns out that parts of her book take place in Flower Mound, and the main characters attend school at Marcus High School, just down the street!  I actually downloaded a sample of the book and began reading it when she contacted me a couple of days ago.  Hold onto your hats!  This is a great read, and sequels are already in the works!  Pictured above with Stephanie, who is holding a copy of her debut novel, are me (on the left) and Melinda Buchanan, FMHS English teacher and my partner in YA lit adventures, on the right.  Look for a review when I finish the book!

Review of Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Bumped by Megan McCafferty.  HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 2011. 

    

The year is 2035, and teenagers are a valuable commodity. A virus has hit the world and rendered 75% of the adult population over the age of twenty sterile. Teenage girls are urged to “bump” or become pregnant in order to keep the world populated. Many of them, called Reproductive Professionals or “RePros”, become surrogates to the highest bidder before they ever become pregnant. The rest are Amateurs and either put their babies up for public auction or donate them to infertile couples. Sixteen-year-old Melody Mayflower’s adoptive parents have spent large sums of money to give her the best schooling, athletic opportunities, and musical training money can buy, grooming her to be a RePro. The Jaydens offer full college tuition, a Volkswagen Plug, a postpartum tummy trim, and a six-figure signing bonus for her to be their Surrogette, and she is waiting for her agent, Lib of UGenXX Talent Agency, to find a professional male RePro “match” for her. Appearing on Melody’s doorstep one day is her identical twin, Harmony, who lives a “church life” in Goodside. Harmony, who is betrothed to Ephraim, decides it is her goal to convert Melody and bring her back to Goodside to live. Ephraim shows up in Otherside to bring Harmony back to Goodside. However,

Melody and Zen, her best friend, discover that Harmony is missing.  Unbenownst to them, Harmony is trying to pass herself off as her sister to the extremely attractive Jondoe, who has been chosen as Melody's RePro match.

In this dystopian adventure, Megan McCafferty has written about a sensitive subject, making it both humorous and tragic, at the same time. Alternating chapters are written in the twins’ voices in their points of view.

I spent the first chapter of the book thinking that Melody, who is in a Babiez R U Store, is pregnant. However, at the end of the chapter, she takes off a “fun bump” which simulates a forty-week real set of twins in the womb, and hangs it on the wall! This blew my mind! I went back and reread the first chapter, from this perspective. Futuristic terms, like MiNet and MiChat, among others, were frequently used, and it took me half the book to figure those out! Once I became accustomed to the lingo, I was able to absorb was going on.

The two societies of Goodside and Otherside are very different, but at the same time, strangely alike. They exploit teenage girls’ sexuality through contrasting views. While both societies are trying to propagate the human race, Goodside does it in the name of religion, and Otherside does it for consumerism. I find it interesting that Melody began the book waiting and hoping to be bumped and did a three hundred, sixty degree turn in the opposite direction. On the other hand, Harmony, who was raised to believe it is a sin to have sex out of wedlock, also does a complete turnaround when she meets Jondoe!

Bumped is actually a provocative satire of the manner in which sex is portrayed in the media today! If readers can get past the futuristic computer lingo, they will have a real page turner on their hands. The copy I read was an ARC from NetGalley.com and is scheduled to be released in print on April 26, 2011. Because of the subject matter, I recommend the book for only mature high school readers and public libraries.



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