Review: And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky

And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
YA, Contemporary, 254 pages, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

• Series: stand-alone
• Pub date: July 26th 2011
• Disclosure: Received a copy in my giant ALAN box of books. Thanks!

Judged by its cover: Just a hair too twee for my liking, but still unusual, relevant to the story,  and eye-catching. Well done, Simon & Schuster.

Goodreads blurb:

Keek’s life was totally perfect.
Keek and her boyfriend just had their Worst Fight Ever, her best friend heinously betrayed her, her parents are divorcing, and her mom’s across the country caring for her newborn cousin, who may or may not make it home from the hospital. To top it all off, Keek’s got the plague. (Well, the chicken pox.) Now she’s holed up at her grandmother’s technologically-barren house until further notice. Not quite the summer vacation Keek had in mind.
With only an old typewriter and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for solace and guidance, Keek’s alone with her swirling thoughts. But one thing’s clear through her feverish haze—she’s got to figure out why things went wrong so she can put them right.

The Long...

I remember a poetry month at a library long ago, a colorful display full of thick books and thin ones and chapbooks and hardbacked classic editions and paperback small press local poets. Because I was eleven or twelve, max, I picked up Sylvia Plath's collected poems thinking that she fell into the latter category: unknown, and all mine. I've never read The Bell Jar, but the memory of how soft and sweaty her poetry felt in my hands has never left me; And Then Things Fall Apart brought me back all over again.

In Keek, Tibensky has perfectly captured that delirious summer that we all face in which everything has meaning just for us, personally. In schizophrenia, that's called a referential delusion. When you're a teenager, it's just life. Of course, there are the real high fever deliriums in this story, too--but the metaphor hangs heavy over everything.

What makes And Then Things Fall Apart so excellent is how well it functions on both levels: literary allegory, and teen-next-door. Keek is the sort of smart, sassy, brooding, artsy, effortlessly popular conflicted teen we all knew at least once in our lives (and often wished we could be), with the timelessness of Holden Caulfield and her heroine, Esther Greenwood. She is both archetype and flesh and blood, and we can't help but fall in love with her and her problems: parents who can't stand each other, a former best friend who slept with her dad, a grandma she doesn't understand and a boyfriend who's ready to go all the way, even though Keek's not sure she's ready.

While Tibensky does a fantastic job of juggling subplots and taking them all to a logical, satisfying conclusion as Keek grows in herself and in others, she does an especially fantastic job of capturing the not-entirely-unpleasant tension of teen dating. Not since Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer have I read such a terrific YA virginity story with shades of Judy Blume, from the tingly sexy scenes to all the crushing doubt and guilt that follows. The great thing about And Then Things Fall Apart is its refusal to caricature the boyfriend: he's not a perfect dreamboat, nor the kind of abusive asshole that makes us long for a breakup. He's just a teen boy, a little awkward, a little confused, a little young.

I'm awed again and again by how well certain people seem to be able to hold on to being young, and put it into words so well. I still am a teen, and the words are slipping out of my reach just the same. In Arlaina Tibensky we've found a fresh and lovely voice to bring us all back to adolescence once again.

...and the Short: 

Sharp, witty, sexy, sweet, and brimming with adolescent awkwardness and angst by turns, Arlaina Tibensky is a fresh new voice I can't wait to see more of.
 
The Final Word: Loved it!

The Girl on Fire is here...

...and she means serious business:

Attagirl, Jennifer. We'll have a kickass Katniss yet.

(These photos are from various THG premieres around the world. All credit to Cinna and other respective owners, etc., etc.)

Review: Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King

Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
YA, Contemporary,  279 pages, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

• Series: stand-alone
• Pub date: October 3rd 2011
• Disclosure: Received a copy in my giant ALAN box of books. Thanks!

Judged by its cover: Easily one of the best covers of 2011, falling squarely into the "cool album cover" camp of cover design. It's eye-catching and fits the story well, and I love it.

Goodreads blurb:

 Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn't ask to be the target of Nader McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far. But Lucky has a secret--one that helps him wade through the daily mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos--the prison his grandfather couldn't escape--where Lucky can be a real man, an adventurer, and a hero. It's dangerous and wild, and it's a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky keep hiding in his dreams before reality forces its way inside? Michael L. Printz Honor recipient A.S. King's smart, funny and boldly original writing shines in this powerful novel about learning to cope with the shrapnel life throws at you and taking a stand against it. 

The Long...

It started back in 2009 with The Dust of 100 Dogs. It was cemented in 2010 with Please Ignore Vera Dietz. And after 2011's Everybody Sees the Ants, I know my love for A.S. King's bold, heartwrenching, quirky, and all-around terrific writing will last for eternity.

When I saw the book peeking out of my ALAN box, I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified. What if it didn't live up? What if I hated it? What if I didn't find Lucky as relatable a hero as Saffron or Vera? What if? And, as usual when I work myself up into a tizzy over these things, I shouldn't have worried. While it wasn't a story I could personally relate to as much as Vera's, Lucky Linderman creeped into my heart and broke it from the inside out over and over again.

The mark of a good YA writer is one who manages to keep a distinct voice while telling very different stories, and it's a strength King has in spades. From the magical ants to Lucky's (also magical) lost grandpa to all the ins and outs and ups and downs of family to the kickass feminist sensibility, there was never any doubt I was reading an A.S. King novel, but I was also awed by how out of left field the story seemed to be, too.

First, the narrator's a boy, and a believable one; a surprise from an author who brought us such memorable girl-voices in Saffron and Vera Dietz. Second, King takes us out of trailer parks and poor small towns to houses with swimming pools, yet never loses her brutal honesty. From the very first scene where Lucky explains an experiment gone wrong in suicide questionnaires, to a climactic performance of the Vagina Monologues, the book is pure grit, dark humor, and heartbreak the whole way through.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Ginny and her pals, who feel more like caricatures than the rest of the cast of characters--teen model hates her parents, sexual experimentation and empowerment for all--but also manage to tell a blunter, different sort of truth than King's usual head-on razor-sharp wit. When Ginny sits Lucky down and tells him about first times--"It's a crazy mix of fear and excitement and white noise and--uh--lust, I guess. It's not romantic"--it reads just like growing up feels. And that's the highest compliment a YA novel can get from me.

All in all, this book is awesome in all senses of the word: an utter tour-de-force, and I can't wait for more.

...and the Short:

Easily one of the best books of last year, and it joins King's other work as some of the best YA written, ever. Brutally honest and beautiful, I can't recommend it more highly.

The Final Word: Loved it!

**CLOSED** The Knife and the Butterfly giveaway follow-up and extension!

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED**

Remember my giveaway of The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez? If you don't, you can check out the original two truths and a lie post here, and my (rave) review here.

Unfortunately I only got one entry (!!!) in the giveaway, which just won't do, so I'm posting Ashley's reveal of her lie here and cracking the giveaway wide open. All you have to do is enter your name, email, and follower information in the form at the bottom, and you're entered to win! No guessing required.

The new deadline for this giveaway is Monday, April 2nd. 

Here are Ashley’s stories behind the truths and the lie from her guest post on Feb 22 (don't forget to read the original post):


---

1. LIE! The truth is that (a) I’m kind of a coward and (b) crowds scare the crap out of me.
My activism as a college freshman at Simon’s Rock College consisted of writing letters
with Amnesty International and starting up the Cafeteria Improvement Committee to get
better options for vegetarians and vegans in the dining hall. For the record: I am not a bad
ass.

2. TRUE. This was a total teacher-fail moment. I think I realized my error the day after
I taught the fateful lesson; driving home, the NPR news mentioned the word and I had
this “oh, crap, is that how you say it?” moment. I’d like to say I retaught the word and
it’s proper pronunciation, but I just hoped that my lesson sucked enough that they’d never
use it, anyway. Double fail.

3. TRUE. I’m pretty sure the basketball shoes I wanted were a size too big, which
probably was the reason for my repeated face planting. Twinkle Toes is kind of cute, so I
guess my teammates were generous. They could have called me… Face Plant… or Floor
Licker. Or something worse.

---

I'm automatically including the entry from the previous giveaway in the new contest, and if you haven't entered already, now's your chance! Fill out the form below, and I'll announce the winner on April 2nd!

Poetry bomb, part one: Guante

I have an interesting relationship with poetry. I used to write it. (Badly.) I used to read it, because I thought it made me look literary. (Also badly.) Then I forgot about it. And now, I'm finding, I love it all over again.

That's why I'd like to make Poetry Bomb a semi-regular feature here at the Bookshelf to feature poetry and spoken word artists I'm liking as I educate myself all over again, and I can't think of a better place to start than a local spoken word and rap artist I saw perform in my hometown Friday night: Guante. Check out my favorite piece of his, "The Family Business":

Guante - "The Family Business" from Justin Schell | 612 to 651 on Vimeo.

I just found his stuff on the recommendation of a truly awesome English teacher, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Whether he's doing spoken word pieces or rap, there's so much power, activism, and sheer emotion in it that watching him perform live felt like I imagine watching the "I Have a Dream" speech in person must have been like.

He's got a free music sampler for download here, and you can find his blog with musings on sexism and homophobia in hip hop, the Occupy movement, great local artists and more ( as well as many other music downloads) at www.guante.info. You can also follow him on Twitter, @elguante.

Have a spoken word artist or poet you'd like to see for my next Poetry Bomb? Please leave your recommendations in the comments!

Review: Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
YA, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, 320 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Series: companion novel to The Shadow Speaker
• Pub date: September 26th 2005 (new edition 2008)
• Disclosure: Received a final copy as a birthday present from my parents. Awww, shucks. 

Judged by its cover: It's eye-catching and, most importantly, not whitewashed, but I can't help but think Zahrah wouldn't find much use for eyeshadow in the jungle.

Goodreads blurb:

In the northern Ooni Kingdom, fear of the unknown runs deep, and children born dada are rumored to have special powers.

The Long...

Full disclosure: Nnedi Okorafor is one of my favorite science fiction authors of all time. So you may forgive me if this review is a little biased. But truly, even if I hadn't already been in love with Okorafor's work, this book would have been just as much of a delight, and I can't recommend it more highly for those new to Okorafor.

The novel's charm resides, as usual for Okorafor, in its plucky heroine: young, vain, clever, anxious, and ultimately courageous Zahrah. Middle grade and YA novels are particularly susceptible to "issue" characters--characters that preach morality tales instead of telling real, meaty stories--and Zahrah is the perfect example of the character I'd like to see instead: imperfect, afraid, and lovable anyway. Zahrah's friendship with Dari, which becomes the catalyst for the entire plot, is also sweet and true-to-life. It's the kind of almost-romance that makes this reviewer's cold heart melt around the edges.

The world of Ooni, which I had already gotten to know in The Shadow Speaker, is just as offbeat and lovely, from the village marketplace to the Forbidden Greeny Jungle. Okorafor weaves quirky and believable lore for her characters to explore, from terrifying jungle creatures to a tribe of sentient gorillas to a giant fortune-telling frog. It has the best anything-could-happen feeling of good fairy tales, while the African mythology it draws on gives it an unfamiliar and heady air in a middle grade market saturated with dragons, unicorns, and other European fantasy creatures.

In the end, what makes this novel a winner is the power of its ending: the culmination of Zahrah's quest, and how she comes to terms with her new almost-grown-up self. It's rare to see an author who has the courage to make her female characters both vain and smart, both silly and strong; flawed and powerful and beautiful. I hate to make any book all about messages, but this is the kind of book girls everywhere should read: one that tells them they can become their very best selves.

...and the Short:  

A charming and ultimately powerful tale of self-discovery and friendship; the perfect introduction to Okorafor's body of work. 

The Final Word: Loved it!