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Dead Ends – Erin Lange

This is the story of Dane, the school bully and his unlikely friendship with his neighbour, Billy D. This is kind of the mirror of her previous book, Butter. I have read Butter and enjoyed it, although the end was not as satisfying as you would expect.

Dane is a typical 16 year old boy. His grades at school are really good but he has a lot of anger. He lives with his mom who is a yoga instructor. She had him when she was in high school and his father has never been on the scene. The books opens with Dane beating up a boy who is driving in a red mustang, a car being something that he doesn’t have and desperately wants, when he gets distracted by another kid staring at him. He describes the need to hit someone as being like a physical itch on his palms. Every time he gets angry his hands itch. The boy that distracts him is Billy D, a new kid in town who happens to live opposite Dane. Billy D has Downs Syndrome. Billy D somehow persuades Dane that if he walks him to school then he won’t get beaten up by the other bullies at school because they’re all scared of Dane. The first example in the novel of Billy’s ability to manipulate people. He ends up persuading the behaviour officer at the school that instead of giving Dane a detention, Dane can act like his personal bodyguard. This leads to a fascinating friendship between the two boys; and they both discover a little about themselves in the process.

Billy D has a map with clues in written by his dad. Billy and his mum have been moving around from state to state to escape him and Dane assumes that he understands the reason for this. As they follow the trail of clues and Dane teaches Billy to fight so that he can protect himself, their friendship grows and Dane starts to evaluate the reasons why he behaves in the way he does. There is a really interesting scene in the canteen when Dane beats a boy up for drawing a picture of Billy which he thinks is offensive, when the reason is investigated a different truth emerges. Along the way they also meet Seeley, who has two gay dads and a bio dad oh, and white hair!

This isn’t your average story about school bullies.   Its a story about two fatherless boys who are a bit lost in the world, but it is also a novel about misunderstanding. Dane is following a path based on a misconception and Billy is generally misunderstood because he looks different. I wish I could say that it ends happily ever after, and I guess in a way it does, but not in the way you would expect. If you have read the book Wonder by R J Palacio then it may give you another view of teens with disabilities and how others view them. This book makes you think about how you treat people because of the way you look and that if you took the time to look beyond what they look like, you may really like what you see.

This author is really insightful about the world of American teenagers and their need to fit into a category. Butter wanted to be thinner so that he can be liked, and when this doesn’t work he takes another option. Dane, Billy D and Seeley are a bunch of kids who don’t fit in anywhere until they find each other and create their own category – yeah for them!

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Attachments – Rainbow Rowell

I read this book in a day, that’s how much I enjoyed it!

The book follows the emails (and lives) of two women, Beth and Jennifer, who work for a local newspaper. It’s set in 1999 so the concept of sending messages to each other via email is relatively new. Because the ‘powers that be’ are convinced that people will immediately start online shopping and looking at porn, they employ an IT guy who comes in at night and monitors what’s going on. His name is Lincoln. He reads any email that is red flagged, or has a word in it that may cause offense. This is how he meets Beth and Jennifer. Instead of disciplining them he starts to enjoy reading their emails to each other and feels like he is involved in their lives. He is a kind of lonely guy who had a bad break up and is now back home with his mum. He plays Dungeons and Dragons for goodness sake!

So, the more he reads the more he starts to fall for one of them. Although she is in a relationship with a rock god she is unhappy and longing for some normality. She feels too old to be a groupie and wants to settle down, while the other one is trying to avoid getting pregnant (although she is married and her husband is longing for a child). But now he’s in a difficult position; how can Lincoln introduce himself to the woman that he has fallen in love with, without mentioning that he has been reading her personal emails for months and knows everything about her? in the meantime he finds out that she is interested in him –  very complicated!

I really enjoyed this book, maybe because it reminded me of a less complicated time when you had to speak to the person you liked instead of texting them! There is also the Y2K drama in there which I remember really clearly because everyone was convinced the world was going to end and there would be no more computers (imagine if that happened now?!) The ending is kind of predictable but I didn’t really mind that, the characters were a little annoying and I didn’t empathise with them as much as I wanted to but, its definitely worth a read. It has also made me want to read more of her books, especially as I have already read Eleanor and Park and really enjoyed that too.

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Every Day – David Levithan

This book blew my mind! The concept of a body being inhabited by a soul that is totally asexual, who then falls in love with a girl, who then meets the soul inhabiting other bodies, and is still in love with it! How crazy is that?!

‘A’ is a soul that inhabits a different 16 year old body every day. At the beginning of the book it goes into the body of Justin, a thuggish boy who treats him girlfriend badly. His girlfriend is called Rhiannon. ‘ A’ feels an immediate connection with Rhiannon and plans the perfect afternoon with her at the beach. It is obvious that she loves Justin and although she can tell that he is different she just enjoys the day. The next morning when ‘A’ wakes up it is in the body of Leslie Wong, a girl. Luckily most of the bodies that ‘A’ inhabits live within driving distance from Rhiannon so ‘he’ can still see her, the challenge is getting her to A. accept that its the same soul but in a different body and, B. the strength of feeling towards her.

It’s difficult even writing about ‘A’ because I want to say ‘he’ all the time, I suppose because stereotypically it is a man who loves a woman, but that’s what challenges us in this book. Love is not about male and female or male and male or female and female, it’s just love. Because ‘A’ does not have a gender it makes the love even more poignant. To persuade Rhiannon that she can love a soul, or personality if you like, and look beyond the body is what we, as the reader, are being asked to do too. For us, we meet someone, like the look of them and then the process of love begins, this book is taking away that beginning and just asking us to get to know the personality inside. Almost like internet dating!

I love this book; I love the fact that it is challenging stereotypes, I love the different teenagers that are inhabited every day and how, in the end they all get a bit confused at the things they are doing when ‘A’ is controlling them, but they are, in essence all still struggling with the same issues and think they are the only ones. The square kid who goes to a party so that ‘A’ can see Rhiannon, the twins who both look the same but have visits from ‘A’ on consecutive days, the goth girl, the jock – all parts of teenage life are there for us to experience through the consciousness of ‘A’. you know when you’re reading it that it can’t possibly have a happy ending but you want it to, so much!

The book stretches our concept of why we love; ‘A’ is in a female body and asks Rhiannon for a kiss – such a lovely description of a first kiss but with the challenge that Rhiannon is not gay and therefore feels a little weirded out by it.

This book is in my top ten books of all time, and I’ve read a lot of books! It will make you  laugh and cry, and wish that someone will love you so completely that they are willing to give up eternity to spend a day with you. Go and read it: now!

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The Giver – Lois Lowry

I decided to read this book because it is shortly to be released as a film. I read a review of it on goodreads and was surprised to find that there was a lot of stuff written about it. The book was written in 1993 and follows the life of Jonas. He lives in a community where everything is the same. Children are given to ‘parents’ and brought up following a very strict system. When they are 12 they are allocated their positions within the community and work until the can join the old. The old are then looked after until they are no longer useful and the ‘released’. It is pretty easy to work out what that means but Jonas thinks that  they have this wonderful ceremony where they recount all the marvellous things that the old person has done and then set free…. Set free to where?

Jonas is allocated as the position of ‘receiver of memories’; a special job that is unique within the community. He has to meet with a man called ‘the giver’ who will pass along memories to him. It becomes clear that the community has given up things like this. They are given tablets to repress their sexual appetite, do not have relationships and feel no emotions. Jonas is given the gift of all these so that he may pass them along in his turn. There is an interesting section where he asks his ‘parents’ if they love him, their response is  alarming. Jonas’ father is a Nurturer. He works at the Nurture Centre looking after the newborn children until they are ready to put with a ‘family’. There is a sinister feeling to this, the child they look after in their home, Gabriel, is obviously cared for, but only in a practical sense. If he does not shape up, he will be ‘released’ too.

I can see why this book has been so talked about. They study it in American schools and it is easy to pigeonhole it as utopian/ dystopian fiction. What starts off as an idealistic portrayal of  society quickly deteriorates into a controlled regime where mind control and chemical suppression is normal. As with most dystopian fiction the main character realises the danger that they face and tries to escape it, you will need to read the book (or watch the film!) to see if he makes it…..

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Hate – Alan Gibbons

This book is on the short list for the Hounslow Teen Read Award 2015. I have never read a book by Alan Gibbons before, they all look a bit gloomy. I know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that but a book with a picture of a bag of blood called Piggies just doesn’t appeal…. This one however, is different. In the blurb it tells us that the book is based on the tragic murder of a girl called Sophie Lancaster and that the main character, Eve has lost her sister Rosie to a violent attack.

The book deals with the aftermath of the attack and how each person affected copes with their grief. This isn’t just the family but a boy called Anthony Broad, who was a witness to the attack. By a cruel twist of fate, Anthony is transferred into Eve’s school to finish off year 11. Eve recognises the name and it goes on from there. Anthony is not only dealing with the guilt of not trying to stop the attack, but his mother’s abusive ex boyfriend who they have just escaped from. I’m not sure how much sympathy the author wants us to feel for Anthony, but I guess he is trying to ask ‘what would you do if it was you?’

The subplot to the book is about Eve’s best friend Jess and her brother Oli. Oli has just told his parents that he is gay, and then comes out to the whole school in a debating competition about political correctness. This debate is kind of the premise for the whole book; should we be protecting the bigots or do they have the right to express what they think, whatever hurt and upset it causes to the others? His outspoken behaviour towards another boy in Eve’s class could also put him in danger and history may be about to repeat itself…..

We have all these pockets of society today who want to be different, to escape the norm and these leads to people thinking they can bully them. So what if Rosie wants to dress in black clothes and have red and black dreads, she’s still a human being under all that make up. What gives them the right to kill her just because they don’t like her dress? Does Eve have it in her to forgive Anthony for not taking more action, you’ll have to read the book. But, don’t let other people dictate how you live your life, dare to be different, after all wouldn’t life be boring if we all looked the same?

http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLGhPHzxjc

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She is not invisible – Marcus Sedgwick

I read this book as part of the shortlisting process for the Hounslow Teen Read Award 2015. It begins with the narrator, Laureth Peak, negotiating Heathrow’s Terminal Five building looking for the check-in desk for a flight to New York. She has her brother in tow and he is accompanied by his fluffy raven, Stan. The first line ‘One final time I told myself I wasn’t abducting my little brother’. Hmm, why would she be doing that? As he is only seven and a little bit annoying you have to ask yourself why she would want to.

The answer soon becomes obvious. Laureth’s father is an author. Laureth is not invisible but she is blind. She is 17 and helps her dad with his website. He is off chasing a story when the website receives an email saying that someone in New York has found her dad’s precious notebook containing all his material for his latest  book. His latest book is all about coincidence. Laureth knows that her dad would never go anywhere without his notebook and starts to worry that something bad has happened to him. But, she needs her brother to help her negotiate the world outside, particularly the airport and New York City.

The underlying story about her parents marriage is an interesting aside. She knows that they are problems but she is unaware of what they are. Her dad is exploring the theory put about by Jung that life is a sequence of coincidences, buoyed up by an incident that happened to him on a train. The book is based on the authors own theory about coincidence that he relates at the end. He has a favourite number (354) and it always seems to crop up. He has stayed in hotels where he has the same number room time after time, train seats, flight numbers; all contain this number. so, is it a coincidence or does the number have another significance?

I liked this book. I liked the characters of Laureth and Benjamin (and Stan). Laureth is a strong individual and dealing with her disability in a positive and enlightening way. She doesn’t want people to see her (pardon the pun) as a blind girl, she wants people to see her as Laureth. The passages from the book were a little tedious but overall it was well written. It also makes you think about coincidence. Does everything we do have a connection? or are all these random events just that, random?

Marcus Sedgwick’s books are usually pretty dark so this one was a welcome change; and it wasn’t set it Russia! Give it a go, it will open your eyes to the world of the blind teenager and how they are treated by the rest of the world.

LJJ 1114

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Hello and welcome….

Hello, welcome to the first post of my blog – grownupscanreadteenfictiontoo.com! A bit of a mouthful I know but, hey it gets the point across! So, the first point of order has got to be, what classifies a book as YA or Young Adult? Secondly, why is this genre so popular? is it just that there is such a wealth material or does it just mean that young people can access more challenging fiction that is written specifically for them?

Well, therein lies the problem. Who is regarded as a Young Adult? according to Wikipedia it is any person aged between 12 and 18. Does that mean that if you aren’t in that age bracket then you can’t read them? Well the answer to that is a categorical no. In 2012, a US study revealed that 55% of YA books were purchased by people older than 18 – sometimes by a considerable margin.

Some books deal with sexuality, the LGBTQA+ section is growing by the week; there is a misery lit section to rival Jodi Picoult and the romance gives Barbara Cartland a run for her money but, throw them all together and you have got a gold mine.   Film tie-ins also generate a huge response, most teens I know need  to read the book as well as the film, a great money spinner for the author.

Obviously the most famous of these is JK Rowling and HP. Some say that JK is the foremother of all YA fiction and many authors that I have met cite her as the one that sparked the YA revolution. Certainly she was the first author who openly acknowledged that she was writing particularly for the teen market and the characters in her novels follow her audience as they grew through adolescence. A neat trick which ensures that she will never have to work again.

‘Many authors say they didn’t write their book specifically for a YA audience – either it was a marketing strategy decided upon by the publisher or the YA audience found the book on its own.’ (AbeBooks.co.uk)

As a fully grown up person I can safely say that there is something in there for everyone; even if you are over 18. So, read on and I promise you, there is a book out there for you and you might just learn something about how this generation of teens tick…