Guest post on Yay! Reads

Remember my Give Thanks to Books post, a special event from the blog Yay! Reads? Well, the guest posts are up, and if you wanted to check out mine, try following the link here. I'd post it here too, but let's try and drive traffic to my fellow wonderful book blogs!

I will tell you who made my list of classic (and modern classic) favorites: Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle. Thank you, books!

The links in the book titles in this post lead to Amazon.com. As a member of the Amazon Associates program, I will receive a small referral stipend of 4.00 to 6.00% of the purchase price of the book if you order these books through Amazon.com by clicking on my links. This money is used to cover blog expenses and to purchase more books for review. (See Disclosure in Accordance with FTC Guidelines)

J. Kaye's Book Blog's YA Reading Challenge

Go ahead and Supersize Me! I've joined J. Kaye's Book Blog's YA Reading Challenge 2010, a challenge to read at least 75 YA novels between January 1st and December 31st 2010. Think I can manage it? Keep track of my reads in the left sidebar and see.

Join the challenge here!

Fade to Blue

Originally reviewed and published at www.readerviewskids.com as a Free Review (see Disclosure in Accordance with FTC Guidelines) 

Fade to Blue
By Sean Beaudoin
ISBN 9780316014175 - August 1st, 2009 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Sophie Blue and Kenny Fade seem to have nothing in common: she's the goth, he's the school's dreamboat basketball star. But now, one year after Sophie's father mysteriously disappeared on her seventeenth birthday, nothing seems to make sense. First, a freaky popsicle truck begins to circle Sophie's house and follow her to school. And then Kenny starts to feel like his life...isn't really his life. Now they must investigate a very shady bio-lab and some dubious school experiments, all before a psychotic nurse and the Popsicle Man find out what they're up to...

I can honestly say that, perhaps for the first time ever, I was stumped by a novel. I loved it, I hated it; I was utterly confused by it. One part "The Matrix," one part "Donnie Darko" and the other just plain weird, it's a hilarious thrill-ride that shouldn't be missed by any teen fan of the offbeat and satirical. But it's also overcomplicated, too quick-moving and too witty for its own good.

From the constant plot twists, raunchy, snarky humor and comic-book sci-fi pace, everything about this book could be construed as either good or bad or both, depending on what you like to read -- which, of course, makes it a reviewer's worst nightmare. I literally felt listless and depressed while I was reading it, knowing that, at some point, I was going to have to face the dreaded blank page and dredge up the words to describe this sardonic little gem.

So now I've filled that page with four paragraphs of saying that I was confused. In "Fade to Blue" by Sean Beaudoin the writing was good, the story clever if a little unoriginal--so what was my problem? I don't really know. Something about it just didn't add up, and while a little mystery is the spice of life, this book had way too much. Part of me wants to read a sequel, if only for a little bit of closure, but the rest of me thinks that I'll only end up more nonplussed.

The Final Verdict: Hectic and confusing and probably worth it, if only for it's breakneck pace and raunchy, snarky humor. Three out of five stars.