Genre: Realistic Fiction

What We Saw

When best friends Abbi and Skylar witness a clandestine meeting between a mysterious woman and someone in a dark van, they’re thrilled. Finally, a mystery to spice up the summer!

Who could these people be? Why are they meeting? Are they spies? Criminals? The two girls are determined to find out. But then a local woman goes missing and is found dead in the woods. And Abbi and Skylar realize that their detective work could hold the keys to solving her murder. Suddenly, sleuthing isn’t so fun anymore.

As tensions rise and their friendship frays, the girls find themselves in increasing danger, and must choose between keeping a secret or exposing a life-altering truth.

What We Saw is told from Abbi’s point of view and her best friend, Skylar, also plays a significant role. Nevertheless, readers may have a difficult time relating to either of the girls. Of the two, Skylar is more adventurous, but she is also jaded because her father is a “cheater.” On the other hand, Abbi is more fearful and often follows Skylar’s lead, even when she knows she shouldn’t. Both girls are secretive and hide things from their mothers because they don’t want to get into trouble. Even when the girls realize they have information about the missing woman, the girls don’t come forward at first. Both girls are immature and self-absorbed which makes it difficult to connect with them.

When Abbi discovers who killed her teacher, Ms. Sullivan, Abbi’s only concern is not letting her mom find out what she’s been up to. Instead of telling her mother the truth, she keeps quiet because “right now, I need a mom who loves me, not one who’s too mad at me to care if I go to jail. I’ll lie my head off to keep her on my side as long as I can.” First of all, Abbi isn’t thinking clearly since she has done nothing illegal. Secondly, Abbi’s mother is portrayed as a reasonable, caring parent who isn’t going to hate her daughter. In fact, when Abbi’s mother finds out part of the truth, she tells Abbi that she will never hate her.

While What We Saw is supposed to be a thriller, there is very little suspense besides the description of the creepy woods that is close to the girls’ treehouse. Instead, Abbi focuses on the typical boring events of the summer—going to the pool, going to the mall, and hanging out with Skylar. In addition, the story often goes off on an unnecessary tangent such as Abbi thinking about the books she’s reading. Another example is when Abbi sees her art teacher leaving Victoria’s Secret and thinks, “She’s my teacher. I don’t want to know she wears lacy bras or sexy lingerie.” These events slow down the pace and do little to advance the plot. 

To make matters worse, the story’s conclusion doesn’t show any personal growth in Abbi. When Abbi goes to Ms. Sullivan’s funeral, Abbi still focuses on herself. Abbi misses her teacher and thinks about Ms. Sullivan’s paintings, but she’s not concerned about the other people who are affected by her death. After the funeral, Abbi thinks of “Skylar and me and the strange distance that’s opened between us. . . I wonder what eighth grade will be like.” Unfortunately, What We Saw lacks the suspense and mystery that is typical in Mary Downing Hahn’s stories. Mystery-loving fans will want to skip What We Saw and instead explore a book with more depth and insight. For a mystery wrapped up in suspense, you can read The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel by Sheela Chari or Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter by Beth Fantaskey.

Sexual Content 

  • As the girls are biking through town, a “beat-up red pickup slows down long enough for the driver to bang on his door and yell something gross at us.” Skylar says the person is “a perv.”
  • Skylar’s father is a “cheater” who ran off with a woman. Skylar brings this up often.
  • Skylar and Abbi are in a tree house when they see two cars stop at the end of a dead-end road. Skylar says, “Maybe the woman is married and she’s meeting the man in secret. Or maybe he’s the one who’s married. Or they both could be married—to other people.”
  • Abbi watches a news report on her teacher’s death. “Ms. Sullivan was assaulted and killed in the woods near Marie Drive. A thirteen-year-old boy found her body under a pile of branches and trash near the train tracks.” 
  • Skyler thinks that two of her teachers, Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Boyce, were having an affair. She says, “Ms. Sullivan was a cheater, too. She knew he was married, she knew he had a kid, but all she cared about was breaking up his marriage so he could be with her. In some ways, she’s worse than he is.”

Violence 

  • Two mean boys from Skylar’s school, Carter and Jason, see the girls on their bikes. “Jason tightens his grip on Skylar’s handlebars, and Carter blocks me. . . Carter makes a move to grab my [Abbi’s] backpack, and I duck away. My feet tangle in the pedals and the bike and I topple over.” Abbi has blood “running down my leg from a cut.” 
  • Skylar finds her brother smoking pot with some of his friends. Her brother says, “Calm down, Skylar, it’s just pot. It’s legal in some places now.”
  • While at Dairy Queen, a man named Paul “grabs Jason by the shirt and says, ‘Keep it up and I’ll punch your face in.’” Abbi’s mom’s boyfriend jumps in and calms Paul down. The boyfriend says that Paul “has issues…Drugs and stuff.”
  • Carter and Jason see Skylar and Abbi coming down the treehouse ladder. As Jason goes up the ladder, he grabs Abbi’s backpack and she falls “not far enough to kill me, but it hurt when I landed hard on my butt.”
  • Carter and Jason get into a fight. “Jason punches Carter, and Carter punches him back. They grab each other like wrestlers and grunt and strain and struggle until Jason’s face turns so red I think he’s dying of heatstroke.” Abbi breaks up the fight.
  • Skylar and Abbi follow Carter and Jason into the woods where they see an old trailer house. A drug dealer, Paul, and his dog Diablo appear and when Diablo smells the kids, they all run. Paul shoots at them as they leave. Skylar, Abbi and Jason stay together, but Carter runs off in another direction.
  • Jason tells the girls how Ms. Sullivan died. After Ms. Sullivan wanders into the woods, she finds Paul’s old trailer. Then, Paul sees her. “He must’ve been out of his mind on drugs. . . He accused her of being after his drug money. . . he hit her. And he hit her, and he hit her again, and he just kept hitting her. And she was yelling, fighting back, but, but—”
  • A police officer tells Abbi that Paul is in jail. When the police went to arrest Paul, they found Carter “badly beaten. He’s in the hospital being treated for severe dog bites and fractures.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A boy at school smokes cigarettes.
  • Skylar found pot in her brother’s bedroom. Later, Skylar’s brother tells her, “Buying that stuff was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake.”
  • Twice during dinner, Abbi’s mom and her boyfriend have a beer.
  • Skylar and Abbi go to their teacher’s house to get advice. In his kitchen, “the recycling bin overflows with beer cans.” Later, when they go back to his house, Abbi notices that he “smells like beer and coffee.”
  • Carter and Jason were selling drugs for Paul. 

Language   

  • The kids in the story occasionally call other people names such as moron, jerk, druggie, and idiot.
  • Carter blows cigarette smoke in Abbi’s face and says “Bowwow, ugly dog.” 
  • Hell is used once.
  • Jason says that Paul is a “freaking crazy man. A psycho.” 
  • Oh my God is used as an exclamation twice.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • When Abbi finds out her teacher was murdered, she asks, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to people like her? I don’t understand.”

Ride On

Victoria has always loved horses. But riding in competitions is high stakes, high stress, and shockingly expensive. And even though Victoria’s best friend Taylor loves competing, Victoria has lost her taste for it.

After a heartbreaking fight with Taylor, Victoria needs a new start—at a new stable. A place where she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than riding. No competition, no drama, no friends. Just horses.

Edgewood Stables seems ideal. There are plenty of horses to ride, and Victoria is perfectly happy giving the other riders the cold shoulder. But can she truly be happy with no friends?

While Ride On will specifically appeal to horse-loving readers, the graphic novel also has a universal theme of friendship which all readers will be drawn to. Victoria’s past is murky and, although it is slowly revealed, she never explains why she has rejected all her friends including her yearbook friends. Despite the fear of rejection, Victoria slowly warms up to Norrie, Hazel, and Sam; while they all share a love of horses, it’s their love of the sci-fi television series, Beyond the Galaxy, that brings them all together. This adds both an interesting twist and some humor to the story.

Many readers will relate to Victoria’s insecurities as well as her desire to have a well-rounded life that doesn’t completely revolve around horse competitions. In a world where competitive sports are the norm, Ride On reminds readers that they do not need to let one thing consume all their time. Instead, they can love horses, cosplay, and hanging out with friends. Along the way, the story explores the importance of friendship as well as getting over fears. These lessons are wrapped up in a good story with interesting, relatable characters who often struggle with being different. Seeing the characters grow and connect is heartwarming as well as entertaining. 

The graphic novel’s artwork uses vivid colors to bring the characters to life. One of the best aspects of the illustrations is the characters’ facial expressions and body language—both of these will help readers understand the characters’ emotions. The horse pictures are wonderful as well. Some pages tell the story only through pictures, while other pages have up to seven sentences per page. This, along with the easy vocabulary, make Ride On accessible to most readers. 

Ride On highlights everyone’s need for companionship and validation. The graphic novel is a character-driven story that doesn’t have a lot of exciting conflicts. However, the characters are interesting enough to keep readers hooked. The conclusion holds several surprises that show the true meaning of friendship. Similar to Ride On, the graphic novel series Eagle Rock by Hope Larson is another coming-of-age story that explores the need to find your passion.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language   

  • Crap is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

The Day War Came

The day started with a young girl having breakfast with her family. Afterwards, she heads to school, where she and her classmates learn about volcanoes and the life cycle of frogs. Then just after lunch, war came, and the school was brought down around the girl. All the people she had been with that day, from her teacher to her classmates to her family, were taken away from her. What follows is a moving story that is equally heart-wrenching and thought-provoking, as the girl flees her country and is faced with the possibility that the war may follow her wherever she goes.

The Day War Came uses simple vocabulary and childlike illustrations to introduce young readers to the real-life issues of war and child refugees. The illustrations are drawn to mimic a child’s drawings, making the story more accessible to young readers while also placing them in the perspective of the book’s child protagonist. The book does not specify which war it describes and does not show the resulting violence in its illustrations. Still, the presence of the war and its impact on the protagonist can be felt on nearly every page. 

The arrival of the war is indicated by tall clouds of dark smoke, along with a destroyed skyline of buildings. These drawings, along with the narrator’s description of the attacks, portray the confusion and chaos without directly showing its violence. For example, the narrator describes, “at first, just like a spattering of hail, a voice of thunder. . . then all smoke and fire and noise that I didn’t understand.” The book does not shy away from the reality of war and the struggles faced by war refugees, as the narrator travels across mountains, roads, and seas before arriving in a town where people shun her. 

The story ends with a message of hope, as the children of the town come together to give the narrator a seat in their classroom. On the last page of the book is a note from the author, Nicola Davies. Davies explains that she wrote the book after hearing a story about a child refugee who had been rejected by a school because there wasn’t a chair for her to sit in. Davies hopes that through this story, young readers will be taught the importance of these issues and will be inspired to act for a better future. If you are looking for a book to help your child understand the serious and continuing issue of war and child refugees, The Day War Came is an honest and straightforward guide.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Although no violence is explicitly shown, the narrator says that the war “came across the playground. It came into my teacher’s face. It brought the roof down and turned my town to rubble.”
  • After the first attack, the narrator describes herself as “ragged, bloody,” although no blood is shown in the illustrations.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Luke McClain

Not That Kind of Girl

Natalie Sterling has made one thing clear: nothing will get in the way of her having a successful senior year of high school. She has big plans, such as applying to colleges and becoming Ross Academy’s student council president. Natalie doesn’t have time for distractions, and she certainly is not like the other girls, who get hung up on boys. But the road to success is not easy. On the first day of school, Natalie takes Spencer under her wing – a girl who has grown up considerably since Natalie used to babysit her long ago. Spencer likes getting attention and she’s not afraid to show it. Meanwhile, Mike Domski, a vulgar football player, is running against Natalie in student council. Still, Natalie stands strong: she is not the kind of girl who gets distracted.

Things start to change after Natalie is elected president. She fights with her best friend Autumn, who despite getting bullied over a failed relationship, still wants to go to parties and talk to guys. Autumn is willing to forgive the people who spread rumors about her, but Natalie can’t understand why her best friend would even associate with those people. Not to mention, Natalie’s caught the eye of one of Mike’s friends, Connor, who kisses her one night after school. Worst of all, Natalie starts to like him in return. 

Natalie’s perfect senior year crumbles. She sneaks out to see Connor nightly, letting her grades suffer in exchange for secret kisses. Natalie’s confidence wavers as she thinks about how people would perceive her if they find out. She might have feelings for Connor, but she says that “the realization that other people would judge what I’d done spoiled everything.” Their relationship becomes strained and awkward when Natalie can’t accept Connor outside their private nights. In addition, Natalie doesn’t speak to Autumn for weeks, and constantly butts heads with Spencer over the way she chases male attention. Disaster strikes when a nude photo of Spencer circulates, and Natalie knows that Mike is the culprit. Spencer begs Natalie not to get involved, but in an effort to protect Spencer, Natalie gets Mike in trouble. Retaliation is swift – Mike reveals that Natalie has been seeing Connor, and suddenly the perfect class president is perfect no more.

When Natalie’s whole world crumbles, she decides that her reputation is not as important as her relationships. Natalie has to accept that some part of her does like boys, and that she loved her time with Connor. The book encourages girls to explore their sexuality as long as they’re comfortable and in control of the situation. Natalie learns she’s okay not having perfect grades or being the perfect student council president. She says, “It didn’t matter if I was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her portrait on the wall in the library, or the kind of girl who got into the best college . . . I just needed to be okay with all the kinds of girl I was.” She reconciles with Spencer and Autumn, and even asks Connor out on a real date. Not That Kind of Girl ends with Natalie accepting that she can be focused on her goals while still having a relationship. 

This story is narrated in the first person and is an interesting take on high school drama. It can be quite vulgar when the students talk about each other and the things they’ve done, but it is not a complicated read. In fact, Not That Kind of Girl is not the kind of book you’re expecting – the narrator, Natalie, is not the typical “hero-like” narrator. Instead, Natalie is incredibly judgmental about people’s actions and concerned about how she’s perceived, which ruins many of her relationships. While readers may find it hard to stomach Natalie’s harsh criticism, this is a story about a character who learns to be more accepting. 

Natalie realizes that she’s been hypocritical and that it’s not possible to know someone by making assumptions. Natalie used to believe getting into a relationship was a girl’s downfall, but she realizes how wonderful it can be. Natalie starts to understand that just because someone likes boys doesn’t mean that they don’t aspire to do other things. Some readers may have trouble relating to Natalie, but a key aspect of the book is learning to accept that everyone has a different idea of success. At the beginning of the story, Natalie believes that a girl can’t have a relationship and be successful, but the events of the story prove her wrong. Readers can learn a lot from Natalie’s willingness to admit her wrongs and her attempts to be more open-minded. Not That Kind of Girl shows how, when confronted with challenges and opportunities that redefine you, you can either run away or face them head-on. Natalie realizes that her fear of how people perceive her is negatively impacting her life. When she accepts the person she always refused to be, Natalie finds freedom and happiness where she least expects it.

Sexual Content 

  • Natalie says guys will have a successful high school experience if they “wear a condom.”
  • Natalie describes an infamous high school couple as people who “fooled around.” According to Natalie, the girl “took things slow, preferring sweet kisses while walking through piles of crispy autumn leaves over half-naked wrestling matches.” 
  • Natalie describes how two students, Autumn and Chad, almost hooked up in the locker room. “Chad greeted [Autumn] with a grin. A moment later, before they’d even said hello, they were kissing. Which quickly turned into groping. . . Chad tried to convince her with words, with kisses. . . He pleaded with her to stay. After all, she’d barely touched him, and he was so turned on. . . [Autumn] leaned in to kiss [Chad]. A cute peck aimed for the tip of his nose, to make it all okay.” Autumn leaves to go back to class and Chad starts to ignore her. 
  • Natalie says that before this incident with Autumn and Chad, Chad’s “inability to get off with a freshman had become a running joke. . . He’d complain of blue balls after he’d drive [Autumn] home, or hump his locker door in mock frustration after [Autumn] hugged him good morning.” Everyone knew that he was going to hook up with Autumn in the locker room, but when it didn’t happen, he needed an excuse, so he started a rumor that Autumn smells bad. He starts to call Autumn “Fish Sticks” and breaks up with her.
  • Natalie says everyone forgets about the “Fish Sticks” incident months later, “when a junior supposedly had a three-way in her parent’s shower.”
  • Spencer bends down in the hallway, accidentally revealing her underwear. Natalie says, “The girl was kneeling on the floor. . . Her pleated uniform skirt tipped forward like a ringing church bell. A small triangle of lavender mesh barely shielded her rear from the entire hallway.” 
  • Natalie tells Spencer that people can see her underwear. “When you bent over before, you could see everything. And a bunch of boys were enjoying the view.” After Natalie leaves, Spencer bends down again, “her butt back on display for everyone. The eyes of the passing football players flitted to the left as if Spencer’s ass gave off a high-pitched noise at a frequency only boys could detect. One of the guys snatched a binder and flapped it furiously toward Spencer’s rear end, trying to make a strong enough breeze so her skirt would flutter up even higher.” 
  • A jock, Mike Domski, runs for student council with a poster “with a cartoon version of [himself], smoking a cigar and flanked by two busty bikini girls.”
  • Natalie says that one day Mike Domski will marry “a pregnant stripper.”
  • Mike vandalizes Natalie’s student council campaign poster. Originally the poster said “Vote For Natalie, a Leader with Experience.” Mike “had taken a marker and done some doodling at my expense. He had given me a mustache, drawn two enormous penises (one for each of my hands), and a bunch of question marks hovering over my head. He’d crossed out Leader and written VIRGIN on top of it. And squeezed the word NO in before Experience.”
  • When Natalie gets mad at Mike, he says, “I have to say Natalie, your level of intensity is pretty hot. . . I’m actually getting a chubby.” When Natalie tells him to stop, Mike says, “I’m only kidding with you. . . You could never give me a hard-on. You’re like. . . dick repellent.”
  • Natalie drives by a house party where the boys from the football team run out in front of her car drunk. “I tried to inch my car forward, but [it was] pinned by the human roadblock, forced to witness their drunken celebration.” 
  • While the football players surrounded Natalie’s car, “Mike Domski tossed aside a beer can and started humping my hood ornament. . . . ‘I’m trying!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, God, I’m trying!’ After Mike pretended to bring my Honda to orgasm, the laughing boys made their way up the front lawn.”
  • Spencer says that Natalie and Mike have “sexual tension.”
  • When Natalie asks Connor to donate wood for a bonfire, Mike says, “Natalie wants your wood. Bad.” Natalie says, “I don’t need anybody’s wood. I can buy my own wood. . . ” She later realizes what she said and “dream[s] about a tragic accident where Mike’s crotch caught fire.”
  • Spencer and her friends wear inappropriate shirts to school. “Each shirt had a pair of bulbous footballs positioned like pasties over their boobs. And above them, the same single word was printed across the chest, curling in a perfect arch. Rosstitute.” This is a combination of Ross Academy and prostitution. When one of the teachers tells Spencer to change, she takes off her shirt in the hallway. “She took off her shirt, right there, in the middle of the hallway. Her bra was a pink gingham number, with a tiny rosette in the center, underwire working overtime to hoist and enhance a modest amount of cleavage.” 
  • Natalie overhears the football boys talking. Mike says, “I’d like to make that Spencer girl’s titties my business. . . Did you see her dancing? I mean, she’s practically a stripper.” One of the players reminds Mike that Spencer isn’t interested in him because she likes Connor. Mike replies, “You think a girl like her will turn celibate because Connor shuts her down? Trust me, man. The Domski will make it happen. And none of you guys better try and cock block me.” 
  • A football player says, “That skinny blond freshman would be cute if she weren’t totally flat. I might as well feel up my little brother.” 
  • Mike says that Natalie is “the kind of chick who’d cut off your balls in the middle of the night. . . I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear Natalie has a bigger dick than I do.”
  • Spencer says that girls aren’t permitted to have “sexual needs” in the same way guys are. “I won’t be villainized because I happen to like being sexual. . . Forcing girls to be ashamed for doing the things that come naturally to them – it’s a ridiculous double standard, and we should all, frankly, tell anyone who judges us to screw off.” 
  • During an all-girls meeting, one of the girls admits that she gave a guy a hand job to prove that people treat her differently because she experimented with her sexuality, “My brother found out I gave a hand job to one of his friends, and now he won’t even look at me.” Spencer says, “That’s horrible! Because I bet your brother wishes a girl would give him a hand job. But because you’re his sister, you’re dirty.” 
  • Spencer shows Natalie a picture of “a back-to-school pictorial, where a sexed-up vamp of a teacher stood on her desk in fishnets and stilettos, with schoolboys cowering in a pile on the floor.” 
  • Connor kisses Natalie. Connor “took another step. A big step, closing the gap of air between us. And then he kissed me. He grabbed me and kissed me, and his whole body tensed up. . . When I felt him pull away, I leaned forward and kissed him harder. . . This kiss had heat behind it.” 
  • On Halloween, Spencer dresses as a “slutty construction worker.” The outfit “consisted of a skintight little denim minidress cut to look like a pair of overalls. She had a tight white cami on underneath, and the whole thing fit her like a corset, her boobs bubbling up over the top. The skirt stopped right underneath her butt cheeks, and when she dipped and bent to the music, you got flashes of a pair of electric orange booty shorts. . . She really, truly looked like a stripper.”
  • At the Halloween dance, Natalie notices Connor looking at another girl. Natalie says, “Of course guys like Connor were going to notice the scantily clad girls dancing in front of them. . . Immunity to booty and boobs did not occur in teenage boys.”
  • Spencer tells Natalie she looks hot. “Natalie, you have such a good body. Your butt looks totally hot in those pants. Why are you hiding it from everyone?. . . You could get any guy in this room, if you just loosened up a little.”
  • Connor and Natalie meet secretly in a shed behind Connor’s house, where they kiss. Natalie “leaned in and kissed him fast. . . And then he kissed me. This time with lips parted, as if he was whispering into my mouth. . . His hands moved up to my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. He was warm, hot even. I wrapped my arms around his neck, tucked my fingers down into the back of his collar. My whole body folded into his warmth, and then we both lay down. . . We were moving and pressing and shifting all over each other.” They end the kiss after a while. 
  • Spencer tricks Mike into meeting her at a movie theater. Later, she tells the story to Natalie. Spencer says, “I told Mike to whip it out and have it ready for me. He wrote back, You nasty little girl. . . Anyway, a bunch of girls and I were already hiding in the very last row, and we could see him shimmying and wriggling in his seat. I ducked out and found the manager and let him know that there was a boy with his pants down in theater twelve.”
  • While Natalie and Connor kiss, he tries to undo her bra. “Connor pulled me on top of him, and his hands slid up my back again. . . His fingers tucked underneath my bra strap, then he pinched the closure, trying to pop the hook open.” Natalie stops him.
  • Natalie tells Connor that she knows he lost his virginity in eighth grade. She says that everyone knew that Connor had gotten really drunk and had sex with a girl on New Year’s Eve.
  • Natalie gets a splinter in her rear while in the shed. Connor has to help her pull it out. “Suddenly my left butt cheek burned bad enough for me to gasp. . . I rolled over to my knees and stuck my butt up in the air. . . I unzipped my pants and pulled my jeans down. I’d never been undressed in front of a boy before.” 
  • Natalie looks at herself in the mirror and is unhappy with what she sees. “I wished that I had bigger boobs. . . I turned sideways and stared at the dimpled skin on my upper thigh.” Natalie wondered, “Is this the kind of stuff Connor would see if I let him look at me naked?” 
  • Spencer uses the gesture of wiggling a pinky to make fun of Mike. She says, “I invented a hand gesture to make fun of Mike Domski. It means teeny peeny, and it’s caught on like wildfire.” 
  • Spencer asks if Natalie’s guy is “all good down there” to which Natalie replies that she’s a virgin. Spencer says, “Like a total sex virgin? Or a straight-up intercourse virgin? Because I haven’t had complete sex with anyone before, either, though I’ve done lots of other stuff.”
  • Natalie and Connor have sex. “I lifted up my T-shirt and shimmied out of my pants. I unhooked my bra and slid down my underwear. . . I took Connor’s clothes off too. . . I rolled on top of him and let gravity press us together. Lips, chest, abdomen, thighs. I wasn’t planning to have sex with him. Only now it was all I wanted. . . The entire world fell away until it was just me and Connor. Finally.”
  • A naked picture of Spencer starts to circulate at school. Connor shows Natalie the picture. “Nothing could have prepared me for seeing Spencer like this on the tiny pixelated screen. Her curls, her puckered lips, her bare breasts cast forward toward the cameraman.”
  • Connor gets mad at Natalie for defending Spencer. Natalie says, “Mike takes naked photos of a fourteen-year-old girl and spreads them to the whole school, and I’m the one who did something wrong? . . . I wish that Spencer had kept her freaking boobs covered up… I also wish that the whole school didn’t think I’m a slut.”

Violence  

  • When Mike Domski calls Autumn “Fish Sticks” in the cafeteria, Natalie “reached for the closest object and hurled it at Mike. That turned out to be a slice of my pizza, and it hit him square in the chest.” 
  • Spencer says she wants to cut Autumn’s ex-boyfriend’s balls off because he started the “Fish Sticks” rumor.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Natalie says there is a “smoker’s tree” at her school.
  • Autumn takes Natalie to a party where there are guys smoking and drinking. “We came upon a big boulder. . . A bunch of guys sat on it, drinking beers and blowing smoke into the night sky.”
  • Natalie says that girls avoid the bathroom by the teacher’s lounge, so they don’t get caught smoking cigarettes. 
  • At the Halloween dance, Natalie smells beer on Connor’s breath.

Language   

  • Curse words like ass, shit, bitch, and damn are used occasionally.
  • Occasionally, the teens call each other names such as asshole, bitch, boners, sluts, and nympho.
  • Spencer says, “Mrs. Dockey was just bitching about Principal Hurley not approving her costume budget for the school musical. She actually said that she ‘can’t put on the Wizard of Oz with fucking bedsheets and a burlap sack.’”
  • A football player calls Connor a “lucky bastard” for getting Spencer’s attention.
  • Spencer says that she’s “not looking to shack up with some pervert.”
  • When Natalie tries to host a girls-only event, Mike wants to sign up. He says, “This girl’s night is more of a vaginathon. No dick allowed.” Spencer steps up and says, “That’s right, Mike. No dicks, no dickheads, no cocks, no penises, no wieners, no weewees, no boners, no dongs, no dill weeds, no scrotums allowed. Which, I think, are all adjectives used to describe you.” Mike gives Spencer the middle finger and leaves. 
  • Natalie and Autumn look at Halloween costumes, which Natalie finds too revealing. She says that she’s not going to be “slutting it up” on Halloween. At the Halloween dance, Natalie calls Spencer a “stripper” and calls another girl “Slutty Sherlock Holmes.”
  • Natalie calls Connor “as big of a dick as Mike Domski.” 
  • “Oh God” or “My God” are both used occasionally. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Natalie thinks about a biblical story when things feel awkward between her and Connor. “I thought about Adam and Eve. How they’d been so happy, playing naked in the garden. And then in one moment, it all turned to shame.”

The Wolves are Waiting

When fifteen-year-old Nora Melchionda wakes up, dizzy and disoriented, half-naked on the town’s golf course, with her underwear hanging from a flagstick, she doesn’t remember a thing. She was drinking a root beer, enjoying the Frat Fair, an annual fundraiser held by the local school fraternities, and the next thing Nora remembers is waking up next to her best friend, Cam, on the putting green. During the time that Nora doesn’t remember, “anything could have happened. Anything.”

Before that night, Nora’s life seemed perfect. She had good grades, she was a star player on the field hockey team, and she had a great circle of friends and a supportive family. Most importantly, Nora always had her father, Rhett Melchionda. Nora’s father was her personal hero and the athletic director of Faber University. He always said his job was to protect her. 

But after that night, Nora’s world comes crashing down. What Nora thought was true about the town she grew up in, the university, her father, and her family is all turned upside down. Through searching for the truth of what happened, her friends Cam and Adam Xu and her older brother Asher, uncover the larger truth about the town and university. The teens realize the attempted sexual assault of Nora was not an isolated incident, but part of a decades-long rampage of sexual violence tied to fraternities. To make matters worse, the violence has been swept under the rug.

While this story deals with the difficult topics of sexual assault and harassment, The Wolves are Waiting beautifully tackles this theme from different angles, from examining the prevalence of rape culture to highlighting the experience of survivors of sexual assault and harassment. This book raises important questions about societal beliefs surrounding sexual assault, including the trivialization of sexual assault. It questions why those in power often implicitly trust the word of assailants over victims. For example, when Nora confronts her dad about stories of college athletes sexually assaulting women, he dismisses her, saying “Events can be misinterpreted in the light of day.” 

The Wolves are Waiting also raises questions about the culture of victim blaming. Nora and others are continuously asked what they were wearing or what they were drinking or what they said, rather than simply being believed. When repeatedly asked if she had been drinking the night she was assaulted, Nora “flare[s] up with anger.” Nora explains “What difference did it make if she was drunk, or high, or roofied, or sober, or wearing a prairie dress, or a thong, or if she knew the guys, or if she’d never seen them before in her life? . . . Why should she thank [Adam] for believing her? She was telling the truth.” While some of this questioning is highly pointed in the attempt to discredit victims like Nora, The Wolves are Waiting shows how seemingly innocent questions or comments with good intent can actually help perpetuate these problematic social issues. As these questions are raised throughout the novel, it asks both the characters and the audience to reexamine their beliefs surrounding sexual assault and the harmful, yet prevalent stereotypes in society about sexual assault and survivors.

In The Wolves are Waiting, Natasha Friend examines the experience of survivors of sexual assault and their process of healing after trauma. At first, Nora is in disbelief and doesn’t want to talk about what happened that night. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” she keeps telling herself, hoping for it to be true. She also begins to push away her family and her friend Cam, who is hell-bent on finding the perpetrators of Nora’s attack and bringing them to justice. In reality, Nora feels alone, scared, and traumatized by her experience. But with the support of friends and family, she realizes she is not alone in her experience. After realizing her own silence will only perpetuate the problems in her town, Nora speaks out ferociously, “tell[ing] her story . . . own[ing] every word of it . . . set[ting] herself free.”

The Wolves are Waiting is a must-read because it tackles serious societal issues and misconceptions surrounding sexual assault. It considers not only the perspective of survivors of assault but also bystanders, showing how not speaking up makes one complicit in larger systems of abuse. Nora is an incredibly compelling character. She is strong and independent, yet also flawed. She is forced to re-evaluate the world around her. The Wolves are Waiting breaks down harmful stereotypes and misconceptions about sexual assault while also teaching readers the importance of questioning societal beliefs, even ones you hold to be the truth.

Sexual Content 

  • At a party, Cam sees Nora’s brother, Asher. Cam and Asher begin to talk. She tells him that he is not wasting his time pursuing art. “He looked so quintessentially Asher that Cam was overwhelmed by a sudden desire to hug him . . . It was a little awkward. Her nose rammed into his shoulder. She stepped away almost as quickly as she’d stepped toward him. But then. Then. Cam felt something warm on her face. It was . . . Asher’s hand, cupping her cheek . . . He bent down and pressed his lips to hers. Cam was 100 percent sober, but Asher’s kiss was like three slugs of Manischewitz straight from the bottle. When she came up for air, she felt warm and dizzy. ‘Was that okay?’ he said. And she said, ‘Definitely.’ They kissed again. And again.”
  • Cam and Nora promised “each other, back in sixth grade . . . They had vowed to share every boy-related detail, which was how Cam knew that Nora had tongue-kissed a Jersey boy named Evan Fendelbaum at Becca Bomberg’s bat mitzvah, and Nora knew that Cam had seen Kyle Tenhope’s erection through his swim trunks at the track team’s end-of-season pool party freshman year.”
  • Nora compares herself to other girls her age. “Nora knew there were girls her age . . . who were already having sex – not just making out with someone in the back row of the movie theater – legit sex. Nora also knew how guys talked. . . Nora never wanted guys to talk about her that way, which was why she never let Adam get very far. There had been kissing, yes. There had been up-the-shirt action, yes. But Nora always drew the line there.”
  • When Nora’s dad comes home from a game, he grabs Nora’s mother “around the waist and dipped her so low, her hair touched the floor.” Her father and mother kiss. “Nora didn’t love watching her parents make out in the middle of the kitchen, either. It was awkward.”
  • Outside the gym one day, Adam, Nora’s “kind-of boyfriend,” and Nora see each other. Adam “kissed her, for the first time, by the flagpole in front of the school – and another twenty times after that.” That morning, the two sit together. Adam “leaned in, kissing her lightly on the lips. She pulled away,” feeling uncomfortable. Normally, Adam was irresistible to Nora. “Every time he kissed her, he made her feel all melty inside. But now . . . how to explain? Thinking about his tongue darting inside her mouth made Nora think about other tongues darting inside her mouth, other hands touching her body.”
  • At school, Adam walks by and “whistle[s] through his teeth” at Nora. Nora explains the boys “made jokes behind her back about what kind of sauce she would taste like . . . and how they’d like to spread her on a sandwich.”
  • A few days after her assault, a picture of Nora circulates on the internet. “Her back was to the camera, and her head was resting on someone’s shoulder – a big blond guy in a gray hoodie. His arm was wrapped around her waist. A dark-haired guy in a red shirt was on the other side of her, laughing. His hand was on her butt, lifting her skirt.”
  • Standing outside Nora’s room, Cam and Asher look at each other. Cam imagines what could happen: “One step closer, and his breath would be on her face. One tip of the chin, and his mouth would be on hers. His hands, gripping the back of her head. His lips, his tongue. It took Cam a few seconds to come to her senses.”
  • After gym class, a group of guys were in the locker room when, “Kevin stood on a bench, held up his phone, and said, ‘Who wants to see some prime FU titties?’ . . . because Kevin had the newest iPhone with the biggest, brightest screen, the photo was right there in HD for everyone to gawk at. A pair of breasts barely contained by a lace white bra, with something black scrawled between them.”
  • When Cam goes to a fraternity party to do recognizance for Nora’s case, she meets a frat boy. He asks to kiss her. Cam “thought for a moment. She was sober. And he was asking. And maybe kissing him was the way to extract the information she needed. Also, if she was being completely honest with herself, she was curious. She’d only made out with high school guys. There wasn’t anything wrong with a little experiment, was there? A little compare and contrast in the name of science? It’s not like she was planning to have sex with him. The next thing Cam knew, they were kissing . . . Intellectually, she wanted to stop – she did – but her hormones had suddenly taken the wheel, and Malik was a great kisser . . . Malik had definitely more experience. The circles he was making with his tongue. The way his hands were holding her hips, lifting her up to meet him . . . And then he pulled away, breathless.”
  • After going out for ice cream, Cam and Asher talk outside of Asher’s house about everything that has conspired in the last few days including her going to a frat party and kissing a college boy. While upset, Asher agrees to move past the incident and asks her to the homecoming dance. The two kiss. As Cam walked home “her face was raw from kissing, but she didn’t care. The fact of the matter was, she could have kissed Asher all night.”  

Violence 

  • This story surrounds Nora’s attempted sexual assault and rape by three fraternity boys. Adam Xu stumbled across the assault, “one of the figures was holding something in the air. A phone? Another was bent over on the ground.” He heard one of them say, “Dude, she’s completely out” and another was “taking off his pants.” When he scared the three boys off, he found Nora passed out on the ground and texted her best friend Cam to come help her. 
  • Cam found Nora “lying on the ground, spread eagle.” Nora’s underwear was hanging off the flagstick on the golf course. Later at Cam’s house, Cam encourages Nora to inspect her pubic area for “bruises or scratches.” Nora is hesitant, but when she does eventually look, she sees something. “What she had seen up in Cam’s bathroom was a mark, maybe half an inch long, on the skin of her bikini area. Not purple like a bruise. Not red like a cut. Black. . . Up close it was pretty obvious. The black mark wasn’t a birthmark or a scab or an engorged dog tick clinging to her skin. It was the number 9.” The number marked that Nora was the ninth girl to be targeted by her assaulters; as part of the initiation into one of the local frats, new members have to sleep with 18 girls. 
  • Nora and her friends had always heard stories about sexual assault on campus and sayings like “don’t walk by Greek Row alone at night.” There “was a story about a girl who’d graduated from FCS years ago . . . One night after an orchestra concert, she had been walking past the frats on her way home. Some of her brothers from Alpha Psi had been sitting outside on lawn chairs. They’d called her over. The next thing she knew, she woke up on the quad in a Faber football jersey with a Blue Devil tattoo on her boob.” There were other versions of this story, whether it was a toga or a football jersey, or what type of tattoo it was. But nevertheless, it was heavily insinuated she was drugged, assaulted, and branded.
  • Asher tells Nora and Cam about other instances of sexual violence from frat members and her father’s involvement in the cases. There was a quarterback: “A girl said he raped her behind the Iron Jug. He said it was consensual. Dad helped get him off.” A hockey player, Peyton Mallory, “sexually assaulted a sorority girl at a frat party . . . She filed a report with the university saying he did . . . The guy got off. He was never expelled. He was never even suspended from the team.”
  • After Nora’s mother finds out about the attempted assault, Nora’s mother tells her about her first college roommate, who had been raped at a frat party. The theme of the party was “King Tuts and Egyptian Sluts . . . They were handing out shots of Goldschlager, with ‘flecks of real gold,’ they told us. Amy and I had one drink. That was our rule: one drink . . . Our other rule was to stick together . . . but at some point I had to go to the bathroom, and Amy was talking to one of the frat brothers about books.” 
  • When Nora’s mother got back from the bathroom, she “looked and looked,” but explained, “I couldn’t find [my roommate] . . . I figured she and the guy she’d been talking to had hit it off. So I went back to the dorm. . . she’d been raped at the party by two of the frat’s brothers. She had no idea who they were because they looked like every other King Tut.” 
  • When they told someone from the sorority, they were dismissed and told “Don’t worry about it.” Nora’s mother took her roommate to the dean. “She told him she had been raped, and he said that was a serious accusation. He asked if she had made a police report. He asked how many drinks she’d had. What was she wearing? Who entered the room first? Did she say no? He asked if she could identify the two guys. When she said she wasn’t sure, all the King Tuts looked the same, he said, ‘Well, if you don’t know who they are, I can’t help you.’”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • After Cam finds Nora on the night she is assaulted, Cam asks Nora, “What did you drink? Rum? Vodka? . . . Tequila?” Nora replies adamantly, “‘No, Camille.’ Cam knew she didn’t drink alcohol. Ever since that sleepover at Becca Bomberg’s house the last day of ninth grade, when the three of them drank an entire bottle of Manischewitz and Nora projectile-vomited into a potted plant on Becca’s porch.”
  • Since Nora was found passed out, Cam believes something was put in Nora’s drink. While originally the two think it’s roofies or Rohypnol, Cam has Nora’s hair sample tested and it shows that Nora was in fact drugged with “GHA. Gamma hydroxybutyric acid, otherwise known as liquid ecstasy.”
  • At a party, “one of the guys would bring out a bottle – whatever they could find in their parent’s liquor cabinets – pass it around. To avoid drawing attention to himself, Adam would take a few sips. Fifteen minutes later- bam. His face would heat up and start to tingle. His eyes would go bloodshot . . . He hated when that happened. . . . The reaction in Adam’s body was the result of an accumulation of acetaldehyde, a metabolic by-product of the catabolic metabolism of alcohol.”
  • The night Nora was assaulted, Cam was at Kyle Tenhope’s party, “on the Tenhopes’ front stoop, holding a beer and scrolling through her phone . . . everyone inside the house had been well on their way, but Cam had only had two sips of warm keg beer.” 
  • At the party a boy was wearing a yellow construction hat attached to two beer cans and was drinking through a tube. . . They found Kyle in the far corner of the kitchen, pumping beer from a keg.”
  • After a game one night, Nora’s father comes home after a few “victory beers.”
  • At a soccer game, the stands are “packed. Nora was aware of all the bodies pressed in around her. At one point, a guy tried to push past her to get to an empty spot. Nora could smell him. Beer. Sweat. For a second, she panicked.”
  • When Cam goes to a fraternity party to do recognizance, everyone is drunk. She is approached by some guy, who “lifted the cup in his hand, taking a sip of neon green – what? Toxic waste? Battery acid?”
  • As Adam tries to get access to a private Instagram account, he messages a fraternity member. After a while the fraternity member messages, “I am just drunk enough to give you 10 min” and he allows Adam access.

Language                                         

  • Profanity is used often. This profanity includes shit, fucking, slut, bitch, and bullshit.
  • Some of the profanity in the book is only implied, such as the use of “eff’s” or “effing.”

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Deep Down Popular

Jessie Lou Ferguson has loved Conrad Parker Smith since the second grade. Conrad is the most popular boy in school and the star of the soccer team. Jessie Lou, on the other hand, is described by her mother as a “tomboy,” and is an outsider with few friends. She doesn’t like dressing up. She cuts her own hair choppy and short. And she is very smart and loves to write poetry.  

Now, Jessie Lou and Conrad are in sixth grade at Cabanash County Elementary, and things have changed. Conrad is no longer the popular boy he once was. Conrad has developed a limp and wears a leg brace, hindering his performances in soccer, at school dances, and during field trips. When Jessie Lou is asked to help Conrad, they begin to spend more time together. But Jessie Lou is worried that if Conrad’s leg gets better, he’ll no longer want to be her friend. 

Deep Down Popular is a fun and light story that addresses issues such as friendship, self-image, and internal beauty. In the end, Jessie Lou finds the most meaningful friendships in the people she least expected—Conrad and a fourth grader named Quentin. The more they hang out with each other, the closer they become. By the end of the story, Jessie Lou tells Quentin that she, Conrad, and Quentin are “deep down friends, and as far as I’m concerned that’s about better than anything.” 

Additionally, as Jessie Lou’s sister, Melinda, prepares for the Junior Teen Beauty Pageant at the Apple Blossom State Fair, the two become closer. Jessie Lou had always been jealous of her beautiful, perfect older sister. Melinda has luscious long hair while Jessie Lou’s looks like it is buzzed. Melinda is doted on by their grandpa and mother all the time. Towards the end of the book, Jessie Lou and Melinda become closer as they bond through their sadness. Melinda is disappointed that she didn’t win the pageant and Jessie Lou thinks Conrad won’t be her friend anymore after his leg is fixed. They cry together and reassure one another, bringing them closer together.  

Jessie Lou struggles with self-image throughout the story. She compares herself to Melinda a lot and feels like a “stupid ugly old beanpole” next to her. On her self-portrait, she writes that she thinks she’s stupid, ugly, and skinny. Eventually, Jessie Lou realizes that she is her own special person and that internal beauty matters more. On her self-portrait, she writes the word “happy,” and realizes that being happy matters more. Her supportive family helps Jessie Lou realize, “I don’t know how I look on the outside, but I’d like to say that I feel pretty on the inside, and Granddaddy always told me that’s all that really matters.” Deep Down Popular is a sweet story because Jessie Lou’s relationships progress and she grows as a person.  

Stone writes mostly from Jessie’s first-person perspective, allowing readers to have a better sense of how Jessie Lou thinks. Naturally, readers end up rooting for Jessie Lou and hoping that she begins to think positively about herself. Deep Down Popular talks about the meanderings of a small town, and the events are believable. However, it is difficult to tell what is going on sometimes because of how much is happening. While the plot isn’t always entertaining, the characters are enjoyable. The kids and the shenanigans they got into are fun to read about. They are snappy, sarcastic, and silly little kids who are having fun while growing up. 

Sexual Content  

  • In second grade, Jessie Lou was so in love with Conrad Parker Smith that “when he’d go running by, I’d jump out and pull him down and give him a great big kiss on his cheek. He didn’t seem to really mind, but he never kissed me back.” 
  • Quentin, Conrad, and Jessie Lou watch an airplane flying while lying in the grass, “and then they roll over toward me and Conrad kisses my cheek and Quentin kisses my forehead.” 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • The word bimbos is used once. 
  • Heck is used four times. 
  • While talking about people’s names, Jessie Lou says you can tell who has hippie parents. She says, “I think I’d feel half stupid to have a name like Moon n’ Stars.” 
  • When Jessie Lou is left alone, she predicts how the rest of the night will go. She predicts she will go to her room and “write me a poem about feeling like a stupid old ugly beanpole, about never being able to be perfect and pretty like my snooty older sister, Melinda.” 
  • Jessie Lou’s teacher assigns a self-portrait where the students draw themselves and write words to describe themselves. When looking at Quentin Duster’s self-portrait, Jessie Lou comments, “I think I would have written on his, PIP-SQUEAKY, BOSSY, TOO BIG FOR HIS BRITCHES.” Around Jessie Lou’s own, she writes “STUPID. UGLY. SKINNY.” 
  • While talking about Tiny Bailey, a supposed fifth-year senior, Quentin says he sleeps a lot because of his size, to which Jessie Lou asks him, “is there anything you don’t have a lamebrain answer for?” 
  • Quentin asks Jessie Lou if she likes Conrad. When she denies it, he says, “Good. Don’t gross me out by liking that idiot.” 
  • Quentin gets a new snorkel set. Jessie Lou says he looks “like an idiot space alien” when running around in the yard with it. 
  • Conrad goes on TV. Jessie Lou says Conrad is still “plain old, stupid Conrad,” and that it won’t change just because he went on TV. 

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • While talking about Pizza Day at school, Jessie Lou says the pizza is so good that “you could just flap your way to heaven.” 

Piecing Me Together

Jade Butler, a black teenager in Portland, loves making art and collages. She constantly finds beauty in the mundane, everyday things that surround her. 

Jade is an ambitious, intelligent, and determined young woman striving for success. But, too often, Jade feels that in order to find success and “make something of this life, [she has] to leave home, [her] neighborhood, [her] friends.” Jade simply wants to be able to create, expressing her joys and pains, without feeling like she needs to completely change who she is. But it seems like her school, the programs she’s in, and even the world is trying to “fix” her. They want to tear her apart and make a “better” version of her. 

At school, Jade often feels like an outsider. It’s not only “because I’m black and almost everyone else is white,” Jade explains, “But because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.” Since Jade has grown up in a poor, single-parent household, her perspective on life is wildly different from her peers, which makes it difficult for her to connect with them. Moreover, Jade feels like she has been labeled the poor black girl, making her everyone’s charity case. While she is happy to accept the opportunities that come her way, Jade wishes she could be treated like the rest of the smart, successful students. She doesn’t want to be part of the mentorship program, where she was chosen because the school wants “to be as proactive as possible, and you know, well, statistics tell us that young people with your set of circumstances, are well, at risk for certain things.”  

When Jade meets her mentor, Maxine, she is again disappointed and discouraged. While Maxine is also black, she grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, with successful parents. At times Jade feels that Maxine understands her, and their friendship seems easy. But then Jade thinks, “how quick it is that Maxine reminds me that I am a girl who needs saving. She knows I want out and she has come with a lifeboat. Except I just don’t know if I can trust her hand.” Again, Jade feels like she is not being recognized fully for her successes and talents. 

In the end, Jade realizes that her situation will never change if she does not express her thoughts and feelings. “I need to speak up for myself,” Jade explains. “For what I need, for what I want.” If she wants to go on the study abroad trip to Costa Rica, she needs to advocate for her wants. If the mentorship program is upsetting her, she needs to say something about it. Jade confronts Maxine, and they talk about how they both can do better. Jade realizes even “imperfect people have things to teach you.” Furthermore, Jade realizes that she needs to take her future into her own hands and that the power of advocacy goes beyond just helping herself. 

Piecing Me Together explores racism, microaggressions, and social issues like police brutality. Throughout the novel, Jade encounters various instances of racially charged microaggressions. For example, when shopping in a store, Jade is singled out and asked to leave because she is “stand[ing] idle.” Afterward, Jade’s friend, who is white, does not understand why Jade is upset. Jade thinks “I don’t know what’s worse. Being mistreated because of the color of your skin, your size, or having to prove that it really happened.” In another instance, when Jade is taken to the opera, the volunteer leading their tour group says, “you know, some folks don’t think they can relate to this kind of music. But let me tell you, all kinds of people have been lovers of the symphony.” After Jade hears this, her “emotions are all mixed up and jumbled inside.” Jade thinks, the tour guide simply “thought we were the kind of kids who wouldn’t appreciate classical music . . . mak[ing] me feel like no matter how dressed up we are, no matter how respectful we are, some people will only see what they want to see.” 

Jade is also hyperaware of how other black people are treated. When Natasha Ramsey, a fifteen-year-old black girl, is beaten by the police, Jade cannot stop thinking about what has happened. Jade cannot help but think that Natasha “looks familiar. Like a girl [she] would be friends with.” While Jade hears about “this stuff all the time,” this time it feels personal like it could have been her. Piecing Me Together does not shy away from the realities of racism and police brutality, but it also shows the power of advocacy and community activism. Jade and her friends help organize an art event that creates an outlet for people of color to express their feelings. 

Piecing Me Together is a great book and a must-read. Jade is a strong, confident teenager, who is learning to live in the world as a black woman. She also is “discovering what [she is] really capable of.” Though this book contains serious discussions about what it means to be a person of color in America, it is also an exploration of learning how to stand up for yourself. Moreover, it is a story about the power of friends and family, who are the scaffolding that help support Jade through her journey in a world that too often is trying to tear her apart.  

Sexual Content  

  • As Jade is waiting for the bus, a drunk man approaches her. At one point “he leans in as if he’s going to kiss me.” Jade steps back, “tell[s] him to stop” and “walk[s] a few blocks to the next [bus] stop.” 
  • On the bus, a woman walks on with her “shirt [hanging] so low and is so thin, you can see her braless breasts.” 
  • Maxine and her friends tell Jade about a play entitled The Vagina Monologues. They explain “it’s a play that features stories about women . . . and rape, sex, getting your period.” 

Violence  

  • Jade’s uncle, E.J., “and his friends had been shot. E.J. was okay, barely grazed on his arm. Nate was wounded badly, and Alan died at the scene.” 
  • Jade thinks about what it means to grow up and go “out into the world.” She cannot help but “watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over.” She then explains “it’s kind of hard to believe this world is mine.” 
  • An incident in a town near Portland catches Jade’s attention, upsetting her. Police “were called to a house party because neighbors complained about loud music.” A fifteen-year-old girl, Natasha Ramsey, was “manhandle[d]” by the police. While the police claimed she was “being insubordinate,” they “beat her bad, she’s in critical condition . . . [with] fractured ribs and a broken jaw.” 
  • In a poem, Jade’s best friend, Lee Lee, wrote, she says “this black girl tapestry, this black body / that gets dragged out of school desks slammed onto linoleum floor, / tossed about at pool side, pulled over and pushed onto grass, / arrested never to return home, / shot on doorsteps, on sofas while sleeping / and dreaming of our next day.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Maxine’s ex-boyfriend “got fired because he kept showing up high and late.” 
  • During dinner at Maxine’s parent’s house, a few of the adults are drinking wine. 
  • Jade attends the annual fundraiser for the Woman to Woman organization. Maxine says it will be a cocktail party, but explains to Jade “of course, you won’t be drinking.” 

Language    

  • There is very limited profanity in this book. The word “ass” is used once. However, profanity at points is implied. For instance, at a restaurant, a teenage boy called Jade “every derogatory name a girl could ever be called.”  

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • At a Woman to Woman meeting, the group talks about relationships and dating. Jade notes one of the girls in the group seems like she is an “‘I’m Saving Myself for Marriage’ girl. Right now, Jesus is her boyfriend.” 
  • Jade’s mom explains, “Thanksgiving has always been a day for getting together with family, a day to thank God for my personal blessings.” 
  • Jade encounters a woman on the bus who continuously says, “Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.” 
  • Jade suggests she and her family pray for Natasha Ramsey, the black teenager beaten by the police. E.J., her uncle, responds by saying “what is prayer going to do… prayer ain’t nothing but the poor man’s drug.” E.J. continues saying “poor people are the ones who pray. People who don’t have what they need, who can’t pay their rent, who can’t buy healthy food, who can’t save any of their paycheck because every dollar is already accounted for. Those are the people who pray. They pray for miracles, they pray for signs, they pray for good health. Rich people don’t do that . . . plus, God isn’t the one we need to be talking to. We need to talk to the chief of police, the mayor, and the governor. They’re the ones with the power to make change.” 

Newton’s Flaw

Best buds Izzy Newton, Allie Einstein, Gina Carver, Marie Curie, and Charlie Darwin are all about solving mysteries and revealing truths by investigating, experimenting, and finding proof.   

School has barely started and Izzy is already nervous about her public speaking class and ice hockey tryouts, when a pop-up science fair is announced. Just as the squad begins to power up their science and tech smarts to dominate the competition, a mysterious illness wallops Atom Middle School, threatening to shut the whole place down. Izzy is feeling dizzy. 

Can she and her friends pull together to solve the mystery and crush the science fair? Can Izzy work up the courage to conquer public speaking? Or will Izzy Newton’s flaws be the end of everything? 

When the S.M.A.R.T Squad finds mold in the library they are determined to figure out why the mold has invaded their middle school. Each member of the Squad uses their unique talents to solve the mystery, exploring the science behind the mystery. For example, Allie writes notes using the scientific method. The notes are written on lined notebook paper and use a different font which makes them easy to distinguish. Another character draws a graphic organizer that explains how water and mold were able to invade the middle school. While the S.M.A.R.T Squad works together, they are not perfect, and sometimes the members clash. 

Newton’s Flaw mixes middle school anxiety with science to make an entertaining story focusing on a group of smart girls. The story uses relatable conflicts—making a team, public speaking, and friendship drama—that will help readers connect with the characters. The story has the perfect mix of science and middle school worries that will engage a wide variety of readers. Plus, the S.M.A.R.T Squad’s enthusiasm for science allows the girls to make learning about mold entertaining.  

When the girls go looking for mold, they use proper safety measures. However, at one point, the group decides to sneak into the school’s basement. Allie encourages the others to break the rules by saying, “sometimes rules have to be broken.” Even though the book contains a lot of scientific terminology, the concepts are explained well. For example, when someone says Izzy is a “gravitation wave,” Izzy thinks “a gravitational wave was so fast that it made ripples in space-time like a boat causes ripples in a pond.”  

One subplot revolves around Izzy’s desire to be the first girl on the hockey team. However, she is ineligible to play because she has an F in one class because she is too afraid to give an oral presentation. While her teacher, Ms. Martinez, is kind about Izzy’s stage fright, Ms. Martinez refuses to let Izzy off the hook. Ms. Martinez gives Izzy clear expectations, advice, and encouragement. At one point, Ms. Martinez tells Izzy about her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, who said “luck is work, not chance.” Eventually, Izzy finds a unique way to give her oral presentation and improve her grade.  

Overall, Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T Squad is a fun and educational book that will appeal to a wide range of readers. The book’s format is visually appealing with black and white illustrations that break up the text and help readers visualize the story’s action. Readers will appreciate the diverse characters who all have different talents but come together because of their love of science. The easy-to-read book ends with ten pages explaining scientific concepts and introducing female scientists. Readers who enjoy science-related books should also check out the Kate the Chemist Series by Dr. Kate Biberdorf. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

An Uninterrupted View of the Sky

Seventeen-year-old Francisco lives a poor life – he shares a bedroom with his sister Pilar, and his Papá struggles to make ends meet as a taxi driver. Francisco’s Mamá constantly nags him to do better in school, which Francisco could care less about. However, Francisco’s old life suddenly seems like a luxury when his father is arrested under false drug charges. Papá is sent to San Sebastián, a prison unlike anything Francisco could have imagined. When Francisco, Pilar, and Mamá visit Papá in the prison for the first time, Francisco realizes just how harsh life can be. There are no guards in the prison, and nothing comes free. If you want a cell, you have to pay for it. Until then, you sleep on the concrete.  

Then, when things can’t seem to get any worse, Mamá abandons Francisco and Pilar. Forced to leave their home behind, Francisco and Pilar move into prison with their father. While they can still go outside the prison to attend school, Francisco finds it impossible to study when his father is barely scraping by on the inside. As one of four women in the prison, Pilar lives in constant danger, and she’s only eight years old.   

Yet, slowly, the small family begins to adapt. Papá is able to purchase a cell so that he and the kids can be safe at night. Meanwhile, Francisco’s relationship with Soledad, a girl from the prison, develops into a friendship, while tension grows between Francisco and his friend Reynaldo, who starts selling drugs. While joining Reynaldo is compelling, Francisco can’t take that risk, not with his sister needing his protection and his father needing a lawyer. However, the corruption in the judiciary system makes it near impossible for Papá’s case to be examined. It will take years to free him. 

Francisco decides that he must graduate high school and make it into college so that he can help his father and sister. The story ends when Papá raises enough money to send Pilar and Francisco to his parents in the countryside. Though Francisco doesn’t want to break up their family, he knows life is safer for Pilar there. Due to his developing relationship with Soledad, Francisco takes her with them and leaves behind his hometown. The story ends with hope for reunification as Francisco is accepted into law school.  

An Uninterrupted View of the Sky is written in the first-person point of view from Francisco’s perspective. At first, Francisco seems bitter and standoffish since he fights with his parents and doesn’t care to do well in school. But after everything is stripped away from him, Francisco begins to appreciate what he had and starts to focus on what is important to him: family and safety. He stops fighting, works hard at school, and protects his sister and father. One of the most powerful scenes in the story is on the day of Francisco’s final school exams. Due to a murder in the prison, no one is allowed in or out, which means that Francisco will miss the exam. Papá uses his only savings to bribe a guard to let Francisco go to school. Early on, due to pride, Francisco never would’ve allowed it, but Francisco knows that he will never get a chance to escape prison if he’s unable to graduate. This scene shows Francisco’s newfound maturity and selflessness.  

The hardships Francisco, Pilar, Papá, and other characters inside and outside the prison face show the harsh reality of life in Boliva in the 1990s. This story is inspired by true events and exposes the effect of racial injustices supported by the Bolivian government. It touches on sexual assault, poverty, violence, and other dark themes, making the story appropriate for mature readers. While not everyone may be able to read An Uninterrupted View of the Sky due to its content, it is a powerful novel about perseverance despite dehumanizing circumstances. Readers will walk away from this story with sadness due to the family’s experiences, but also with hope like Francisco has—hope for a better future. 

Sexual Content  

  • Soledad is sexually assaulted when leaving school. “Two guys. . . step out in front of her. . . one of them slides beside her and reaches a hand under her skirt.” 
  • Soledad says that “girls my age on the streets – sooner or later, they end up selling their bodies so they can eat.”  
  • When Francisco offers to let Soledad stay the night, she says, “You want me in your bed, Francisco?” He blushes.  
  • Francisco and Soledad kiss. “I take [Soledad’s] face in my hands and kiss her. Those black eyes flutter closed as she moves against me. Her lips are salt and wind and fire on mine. She presses the length of her along the length of me, and the stars start spinning above.”

Violence  

  • Francisco gets in a fight while playing soccer. Francisco is “two steps from the goal when an elbow cracks against my eyebrow. Blood slicks down my cheek and drips onto the dirt in front of me.” He is unable to fight further because a friend holds him back. 
  • Francisco sees someone getting threatened in the prison. “I almost run into two guys pinning another prisoner against the wall. One of them has a knife.” The book doesn’t describe what happens after this.  
  • Papá sees a fight. “[Papá] passed a cell with men crowded around the door. You know what was going on inside? Two boys were fighting each other. For entertainment. Like cocks in a pen, they were being paid to fight.” 
  • Pilar is found in a cell with an older man. Nothing happens to her because Francisco comes to rescue her, but the prisoners take over and punish the older man. “[The prisoners] push into the cell. . . The sound of fists on flesh follows me down the stairs as I hurry to catch up with Papá. They must have stuffed a sock in that guy’s mouth, because I don’t hear anything from him but these choked, drowning sounds.” 
  • When Francisco was young, he beat up two boys after they “cornered me before school and called me indio bruto. I didn’t know what it meant, but I saw the twist of their lips, their mocking eyes. So I rammed the bigger one in the stomach and knocked him to the ground, which gave the other one the chance to kick me over and over again from above.” A friend stopped the fight. 
  • Francisco is beat up. “Behind me, feet scuff against gravel. . . I get two quick jabs in the side. My eyes fly open, and my lungs seize. Whoever it is has a ring on. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. The guys go for my back and my ribs and my gut. They don’t say why. They don’t have to. I’m a prison kid now. I’m just trash to them. My ribs are on fire, and my stomach has caved in on itself. But a fight has been coiling inside me tighter and tighter all week, just waiting for a reason to bust out. . . It’s three on one, so anything goes. I am for the nose and the jaw and the crotch and the knees, and I’m kicking and punching and everything hurts. I’m slamming my fist into the meat of their faces and darting around like a bloodsucking mosquito so they can’t pin my arms behind me. Watching the spit fly and their eyes go wide is like blood and bone and breath and life. They pummel me, and I beat the shit out of them.” 
  • When a boy in the prison insults Papá, Francisco punches him. “The words are barely out of José’s mouth before my fist flies out and glances off his teeth.” José doesn’t fight back.  
  • Soledad attacks the men that sexually assault her. When a man “reaches a hand under her skirt. In that second, her whole being bristles. . . Instead of running down the street, she leaps at them and claws at their faces, aiming for the soft flesh of their eyes.”  
  • Papá gets beat up and Francisco comes to his aid. Francisco “can make out a circle of men in the courtyard. They’re all yelling and in the middle of it, two big guys are pummeling this smaller figure on the ground. . . I run down the stairs and push through the hall, and I hear the sound of their boots in his stomach and their punches landing on his face.” The men scatter before Francisco arrives.  
  • One of the kids in the prison gets hit by a pot of boiling water. “Suddenly there’s this crash outside, and then a loud, long wail. Down in the courtyard, a boy a little younger than Pilar is lying on the ground, screaming. His mother bends over him, her hands fluttering above the boy’s blistering skin.” He is removed from the courtyard and sent to the hospital.  
  • Reynaldo and Francisco fight after Francisco refuses to sell drugs. Francisco describes, “Reynaldo plants both hands on my chest and shoves. . . He comes at me again, and this time, he doesn’t shove, he punches. Three quick fists in the ribs. The breath coughs out of me, and my arms close over my stomach.” Francisco doesn’t hit him back, but instead leaves.  
  • Francisco finds out that Red Tito, a man in the prison that is regarded as dangerous, is dead. “Red Tito is dead. His body was found early that morning, gouges like claw marks carved into his chest, a pain of puncture wounds like bite marks in his neck.” Later, Francisco finds blood under Soledad’s nails, implying that she was the one who killed him. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Papá is arrested. “The police stopped [Papá] and arrested him, said that he was going to make cocaine with that gasoline.” 
  • Reynaldo and Francisco drink alcohol together. “Reynaldo dips into his father’s liquor stash, and for the rest of the afternoon, we take turns drinking straight from a bottle of cheap singani.” 
  • After finding a stash of drugs in his bedroom, Reynaldo’s mother kicks him out. 
  • Soledad admits her father does drugs. “Drugs messed with [my] Papá’s head. I don’t even know if he knows I’m there most of the time.” 

Language    

  • Reynaldo says, “Forget those bastards.” 
  • On multiple occasions, Francisco uses the word “bastards” to refer to people he finds mean or difficult to work with, such as policemen and school bullies. 
  • Francisco says “dammit” and “shit” occasionally.  
  • “Indio” and “Indio bruto” are Spanish slurs that are directed at the mixed and/or indigenous population, including Francisco and Soledad. It is used a few times.  
  • One of the men who assaults Soledad calls her a “filthy bitch!”  
  • Francisco writes a poem where he calls the famous poet, Pablo Neruda, “that horny bastard.” 
  • Francisco refers to himself as a “cojudo.” It’s Bolivian slang for “asshole.”  

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Soledad says that she leaves the prison every weekend to go to the countryside and make an offering to Pachamama. She says, “I thought if the spirits knew how much I wanted a life out of the prison, they would help me find it.” Pachamama is an Andean goddess, similar to Mother Earth.  

Expecting

Kaelynn, Yessenia, and Lyric are three very different teenagers. Kaelynn is a country girl who wants to prove that she isn’t like her mother. Yessenia is a rebel who occasionally commits heists with her friends. Lyric is a popular girl who stays out of trouble. But despite their differences, they have one thing in common: they all attend a program for pregnant teens.  

While at the program, the girls deal with the struggles of pregnancy, as well as their own personal hardships. Kaelynn’s mother is addicted to drugs like “coke, meth, and crack,” and Kaelynn lives with her grandmother, who she fights with. Eventually, Kaelynn leaves home and moves in with the father of her child – an older man she met at a party.   

Meanwhile, Yessenia does not feel safe being in the same house as her lecherous stepfather, so she lives with her boyfriend’s family instead. But when she catches her boyfriend kissing another girl, she is left homeless. Kaelynn helps her find another home as the story progresses.  

Unlike the other girls, Lyric has a seemingly idyllic life. She lives with her mother and has a doting boyfriend who her family adores. But after she gets pregnant, her “doting” boyfriend disappears entirely, leaving her scared and alone. Together, the girls learn to navigate their hurdles and find solace in an unlikely friendship. 

A major theme in Expecting is dealing with hardship. Each of the girls is dealing with stressful pregnancies as well as issues unique to them. Although initially skeptical of each other, the three girls grow close and help each other get through their respective issues. Their comradery is especially important in light of their peers’ reactions to their pregnancy. At one point, Lyric remarks on how isolating being a pregnant teen is: “Yeah, you know being pregnant is kind of lonely. My friends call to check on me. They don’t ask me to hang out with them or call to talk about what happened at school.” The novel’s answer to these struggles is friendship, and the three friends learn to lean on each other in order to get through difficult times. 

Freemen attempts to reach teens who may be going through some of the same struggles portrayed in Expecting. Readers who are experiencing teen pregnancy, drug addiction, homelessness, or even just a cheating boyfriend may find aspects of the story relatable. However, the girls’ stories feel rushed. At only 99 pages, Expecting is an easy sell for reluctant readers, but it often sacrifices believable character development. That said, the simple writing style and easy vocabulary make Expecting accessible to all readers. Ultimately, Expecting is a simple but highly readable story about issues that many teens find relatable. Occasionally punctuated by informative facts about pregnancy, teens in a similar situation may find the story helpful. 

Sexual Content  

  • While at a friend’s house, Kaelynn flirts with a man. Later that night, she kisses him at a baseball field and it is implied that they have sex. Kaelynn continues a relationship with the man. At several points in the story, she kisses him. 
  • While staring down at a positive pregnancy test, Yessenia recalls that she was reluctant to have sex with her boyfriend, but that she gave in anyway because he said he had “needs.” 
  • Lyric expresses concern about looking “slutty.” 
  • Despite being hesitant to lose her virginity, Lyric agrees to have sex with her boyfriend because he “told her that he loved her.” 
  • Yessenia’s stepfather tells Yessenia that pregnancy “looks good on” her and that she’s “growing in all the right places.” Both Yessenia and Kaelynn are disgusted by this comment. 

Violence  

  • Yessenia acts as a getaway driver while her friends rob a store. Once everyone has reentered the car, a man from the store “point[s] a gun directly at the car’s tires” and attempts to shoot them out. Yessenia swerves to avoid the gunshots. 
  • When Yessenia sees her boyfriend kissing another girl, she “punche[s] him in the mouth.” The other girl pulls a gun on Yessenia, but Yessenia “slap[s] her as hard as she [can] across the face.” 
  • When Lyric’s boyfriend found out she was pregnant, he abandons her.  Later, she “slap[s]” her ex-boyfriend “across the face.”  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • At a party, a group of mostly adults drink beers and pass a blunt around. 
  • Kaelynn asks a man if he wants to smoke a cigarette with her. 
  • Kaelynn insists that she is not like her mother, who does hard drugs such as coke, meth, and crack. 
  • Yessenia joins her friends in a car they are “hotboxing,” a term for smoking weed in a vehicle. 
  • Yessenia drinks a mixture of tequila and Sprite. 
  • When Kaelynn asks Yessenia what drugs she’s done, Yessenia says that she has “tried just about everything.” 
  • Yessenia buys weed while pregnant.  
  • Kaelynn’s grandmother takes Xanax “to calm her nerves.” 
  • Doctors find marijuana in Yessenia’s urine samples, and she is forced to enter a rehab facility in order to keep her baby. 

Language    

  • Kaelynn’s grandmother tells her to “get [her] ass in here.” 
  • Kaelynn calls her grandmother an “old bat.” 
  • A girl calls Yessenia a “homeless skank.” 

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Lyric is described as the type of girl whose “family went to church on Sunday.” 
  • Kaelynn jokes that Lyric had “an immaculate conception.” Yessenia replies, “Yeah, right. She’s not the Virgin Mary.” 

The Cipher

Robert “Smiles” Smylie is not a genius. He feels like he’s surrounded by them, though, from his software mogul dad to his brainy girlfriend to his oddball neighbor Ben, a math prodigy. When Ben cracks an ancient riddle central to modern data encryption systems, Ben suddenly holds the power to unlock every electronic secret in the world—and Smiles finally has a chance to prove his own worth.
 
Smiles hatches a plan to protect Ben from the government agents who will stop at nothing to get their hands on his discovery. But as Smiles races from a Connecticut casino to the streets of Boston, enlisting the help of an alluring girl, he comes to realize the most explosive secrets don’t lie between the covers of Ben’s notebook—they’re buried in his own past. 

With topics such as public-key cryptography, the Riemann Hypothesis, and prime numbers, readers may be reluctant to pick up The Cipher. However, the mystery and thriller aspects of the story will quickly draw readers into the story and keep them entertained until the last page. The story explains many mathematical principles in a way that makes the math accessible to all readers. Even though the story focuses on math concepts, Smiles’ family life, his love life, and the mystery behind his birth mother combine to make a truly entertaining read.  

Even though Smiles doesn’t have to worry about money, his life is a mess. His adoptive mother died in a tragic car accident. He feels like he is a disappointment to his father. His birth mother rejected his attempt to reach out to her. Plus, he was kicked out of his prestigious high school for having weed in his dorm room. To make matters worse, his longtime girlfriend, Melanie, broke up with him. Smiles is a complete and total mess, and many teens will relate to Smiles’ wide range of emotions and the feeling that he isn’t sure what he should do with his life. Despite Smiles’ messy life, readers will find themselves rooting for him.  

Ford writes his story in the third person point of view, which allows readers to see the same events from different people’s perspectives. This adds a layer of depth and intrigue. In the end, each character reveals a different piece of the mystery. The thought-provoking conclusion will leave readers questioning morality, forgiveness, and the nature of love. Readers looking for a fast-paced mystery full of surprises will find all that and more in The Cipher.  

 Sexual Content  

  • After his girlfriend gives him a birthday gift, Smiles kisses her. Without thinking he “was dipping his head and drawing toward her. Kissing her. Tender but intense, soft but electric.”  
  • While in high school, Smiles tried to seduce his high school math teacher. 
  • A girl says she wouldn’t want to be a cheerleader and have “Greg Simmons palm my ass ten feet in the air for a whole football game.”  
  • At a math conference, Smiles meets Erin. They promise to “stick together” and then “their lips met with a wild energy.” 
  • After kissing Erin, Smiles thinks, “Melanie didn’t kiss him like this. Not at all. There was something hungry about it, something that made Smiles feel more desired than he’d ever been in his life. . . [Erin’s] lips were soft and yielding, her murmurs a hum of delight.” Someone walks into the room and interrupts them. 
  • Smiles kisses Erin several more times, but the kisses are not described. 
  • Smiles takes Erin to his family’s cabin. After they go into the hot tub, Erin goes upstairs. Smiles thinks, “And right now there was a hot girl lying on a bed upstairs, waiting for him.” It is implied that Erin and Smiles have sex.  

Violence  

  • A man goes to an affluent neighborhood, puts a package in the mailbox, and then shoots himself.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Smiles’ father is in the hospital dying of cancer. He’s given morphine for the pain. 
  • When he was little, Smiles’ mom taught him to “make daiquiris (virgin for him, double rum for her).” 
  • Smiles considers making “a beer pong app for smartphones for when you were drinking but didn’t have a Ping-Pong table around.” 
  • While in a conference room, Smiles sees his birth mother who is “flush with wine.” 
  • When stressed, Smiles thinks “he really could have used a Xanax or something.” 
  • For vacation, Smiles’ family and their friends would go to a cabin. “The moms would pair off and have drinks on the deck.” 
  • When Melanie’s father was overly tired, he would have “a glass or two of Cabernet.” 
  • Smiles was kicked out of his private prep school because he had weed in his closet. Later, he thinks about the first time he got stoned. 
  • An adult in the story drinks whiskey.

Language    

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes ass, bastard, bitchy, crap, piss, hell, and shit. 
  • Infrequently, the phrases oh God and God are used as an exclamation.

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Several times Smiles prays for something. For example, when Smiles sees a hot girl, he “prayed to a merciful God she would stop at the check-in. She did.”  
  • When the NSA kidnaps Smiles’ friend, Ben, Smiles “prayed someone would intervene, but there were no witnesses in the lot.” 
  • When Melanie sneaks a file out of an office, she put it in her purse and “could only pray that Jenna wouldn’t open it and see.” 

Bones of the Sun God

After his adventures in Egypt, Sam Force is finding it nearly impossible to return to everyday life at boarding school—especially now that he knows his parents are still alive. However, his Uncle Jasper has banned him from setting off in search of them until he can go with Sam, but Sam’s not sure he can wait that long. When a man turns up at his school—a man he last saw in the Egyptian desert—he knows he can wait no longer.

Sam needs to continue the hunt for his parents. Luckily, his friend Mary Verulam has a plan, and before he knows it, he’s on his way to Belize. However, from the moment he lands, Sam finds himself being followed and threatened. When his research leads him to a local crocodile park and the leader of a mysterious crocodile cult, things become really dangerous. Sam is left to wonder if he’ll ever be able to locate his parents—and if there is anyone he can trust. 

Right from the start, Sam knows he’s going to sneak out of the country to continue the dangerous search for his parents—he just didn’t expect the search for clues to turn deadly. Multiple people warn Sam about the dangers that lay ahead and strongly encourage him to return home. However, the stubborn boy refuses to listen. While Sam’s determination and resourcefulness are admirable, he’s also impulsive and reckless. To make matters worse, Sam isn’t afraid to sneak into places he shouldn’t be, which causes many problems. Despite his dangerous actions, Sam is a likable protagonist that readers will root for.  

Similar to the first book in the series—The Iron Tomb—Bones of the Sun God doesn’t shy away from violence. In book two, a new villain appears—Felix, the crocodile cult leader – who will do anything to keep his secrets safe. This includes plotting Sam’s death, killing his henchmen, and feeding people to his trained crocodiles. The constant threat of being eaten by crocodiles keeps the action high. Plus, readers will be shocked when the crocodile park’s secrets are revealed. 

Bones of the Sun God continues the mystery of the pyramids and of how the Arc of the Covenant is related to them. However, Sam spends much of his time being chased by others and the story lacks the clues that made book one so much fun. Despite this, Bones of the Sun God will entertain readers. Readers will also enjoy the black and white pictures that are scattered throughout the book. The illustrations will help readers imagine some of the complicated plot points.  

Readers who aren’t put off by violence will find Bones of the Sun God highly entertaining because the action-packed story follows a likable protagonist who is willing to jump into danger to discover where his missing parents are. However, the strange crocodile cult and the bloody violence may make the book inappropriate for some readers. For a high-interest, fast-paced adventure with less violence, there are many good options including The Serpent’s Secret by Sayantani Dasgupta and Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia. And if you want to discover some Egyptian history in a non-fiction format, check out The Curse of King Tut’s Mummy by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld.   

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • While in a pool of water, a beast attacks a knight. The beast’s “white teeth enveloped his legs. A loud crack echoed across the chamber as powerful jaws slammed together around his waist. With one last effort, he brought his dagger arm down onto his attacker’s skull. . . And then there was only darkness.” The knight dies. 
  • While at a river, a young boy named Elio sees a “crocodile’s jaw open. . . A cloud of white mist bursts from the beast. With the pain came sudden understanding. The boy stared down at the silver dart sticking from his thigh. His eyes felt heavy . . . the last thing he heard as his world went black was the sound of the beast laughing at him.” Elio is kidnapped and taken to the crocodile park. 
  • Sam was cleaning the rowing shed when bullies from his school show up. Sam “aimed the bottle of detergent at Andrew Fletcher and squeezed. The soapy liquid hit him in the eyes, and Andrew howled in pain. Before his two friends could react, Sam swung the foamy jet at them.” Sam is able to get away.  
  • Sam hides with a group of tourists who go to a crocodile park. During a show, a man appears and says, “The guardians of the underworld demand sacrifices.” Then, crocodiles appear and begin attacking people. “Two more [people] went down, the first rammed from the side, the second pushed from behind. Arms flailed, water churned, and then there was only one person left. . . Down at the pool, the woman scrambled back toward the edge, but before she could climb out, her legs were pulled out from under her and she disappeared beneath the surface.” 
  • As the audience watches in horror, another man steps into the pool of water. “Lights in the bottom of the pool switched on, illuminating the crocodiles, who were still holding their human sacrifices.” The man calls on Kinich Ahau and then, “the crocodiles, unburdened by their prey, swam to the far side of the pool and disappeared into the tunnel.” The people who the crocodile attacked walk out of the pool unharmed. The scene is described over three pages. 
  • Two policemen were taking Sam to the airport when they come upon a broken-down car in the middle of the street. “Two men spun toward the police car. They had guns. There were two flashes of light and everything went black. . . A man pulled Sam’s door open and wrenched him out. As Sam was dragged to the old car, the struggling policemen fell silent.” Sam is taken to Felix, the founder of the crocodile park, who locks Sam in a cage. 
  • Sam escapes from the crocodile park and runs towards the forest. Sam falls and “lay there, defenseless. . . he saw the silhouette of the man looming over him. Suddenly, the red [laser] beam hit the man’s face. . . then the man threw his hands to his eyes and howled in pain.” 
  • One of Felix’s henchmen, Azeem, ambushes Sam in the wilderness. Sam throws juice at Azeem’s face and bats attack him. Sam “heard the fluttering of hundreds of pairs of wings as they swept through the forest . . .Sam heard a cry as the first one of the tiny juice-hungry mouths fell on their new meal.” Azeem is not seriously injured.  
  • Sam returns to the crocodile park to save Elio, another boy who is held prisoner. As they try to escape, they see “the body of a large bald man in a white suit.” The man’s skin was a “sickly gray color” and he “had been dead for some time.” Later, Sam discovers that the dead man’s body was stolen from the morgue. 
  • As Sam and Elio run from the crocodile park, a bomb goes off. “The concussion from the blast hit them. Sam saw Elio lifted off the ground and pushed through the air.” Sam has a “nasty cut on his forehead,” but is otherwise uninjured. 
  • Sam finds a hidden entrance into a pyramid. When Sam goes in, he finds Azeem and Felix digging a hole. Felix holds a gun on Azeem, who is at the edge of a pool. Azeem’s “confused look transformed to panic as he heard the noise behind him. . .” Azeem sees a crocodile, but is unable to get out of the pool because “Felix kept the gun aimed down at the Scar-Faced Man.” 
  • As the crocodile gets closer, Azeem panics. “He tried to climb out [of the pool] again, but Felix lashed out with his foot. The kick sent the Scar-Faced Man stumbling backward. . . Azeem went rigid. The water around him became red and his screaming reached new levels of loudness. . . the man was pulled under, his scream cut off. . .” Azeem dies. 
  • After leaving the pyramid, Felix sets off a bomb. Sam and his friend, Mary, run. The explosion “grew to a deafening roar and a howling wind, so powerful Sam and Mary were pushed along the floor of the tunnel. . . Sam felt his exposed skin being stung by the tiny fragments of stone carried along by the explosion. . . He heard Mary screaming.” Afterwards Sam’s “head was throbbing, his ears were ringing from the blast,” but he was otherwise unharmed. 
  • In the pyramid, Sam finds a parchment belonging to a Templar Knight that tells why they built a structure inside the pyramid. While building the structure in a pool, crocodiles appeared. “I shall never forget the look of horror, the pain, as unseen monsters took hold of their legs. Screams were stifled as the men were pulled under…the ugly red stain that spread through the pool left us in no doubt as to the fate of our other two companions.” Later, the knight meets a similar fate. 
  • Sam goes into the pool to retrieve an item. A crocodile “comes out of the tunnel . . . and smashed into [Sam], knocking him back off his feet. . . he went under with his mouth open. The choking sensation triggered a burst of panic that wiped the crocodile from his mind.” Sam survives without injury. 
  • Sam and his friends follow Felix, who is trying to escape in a submarine. “Sam pushed the hatch down, hitting Felix in the head. Stunned, the man let go to the side of the ladder and fell back inside. . . Five feet below, Felix was sprawled in a heap unconscious.” 
  • Sam is trying to get out of the submarine when Felix “grabbed Sam’s pants . . . [Sam] swung his free foot backward, catching Felix in his stomach, then released one hand from the ladder and swung his elbow back, smashing into Felix’s forehead.” The two wrestle with each other for six pages and Sam eventually escapes. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • Some believe that the pyramids were “built on key energy points around the world. Powered by Arks, they create an energy field that holds the earth’s crust in place.” The Ark can produce a magical substance known as the philosopher’s stone, “but the Ark will only produce this magical substance if it is taken out of the pyramid.” Some men would like to remove the Arc and become immortal despite the danger to the earth.  

Spiritual Content  

  • The story revolves around Kinich Ahau, the Egyptian sun god and the god of the underworld. 
  • Sam visits Mayan pyramids where the Maya “performed ceremonies and made sacrifices to their gods.”  

Chester Keene Cracks the Code

Chester Keene takes great comfort in his routines. Afterschool Monday to Thursday is bowling. Friday, the best of days, is laser tag! But Chester has one very special secret—he gets spy messages from his dad. Chester thinks his father must be on covert government assignments, which is why Chester has never been able to meet him.

Then one day, Chester’s classmate Skye approaches him with a clue. They’ve been tasked with a complex puzzle-solving mission! Skye proves to be a useful partner and good company, even if her free-wheeling ways are disruptive to Chester’s carefully built schedule. As Chester and Skye get closer to their final clue, they discover the key to their spy assignment: they have to stop a heist! But cracking this code may mean finding out that things are not always what they seem. 

Chester is used to being alone. Nobody sits by him at lunch. Nobody sits by him on the school bus. And nobody helps him when Marc bullies him. His dad is the only person that Chester can talk to, but he’s never actually met his dad and they only communicate through emails. But in Chester’s greatest time of need, his dad goes silent. So, when a strange clue is left on his door, Chester is convinced that his dad is a spy in danger—and only Chester can help. When Skye approaches Chester with the other piece of the clue, the two are forced to work together even though Chester would prefer to solve the mystery on his own. 

Chester Keene Cracks the Code has a slow start, but once Skye jumps into the story, the story takes off on a fun hunt for clues. Even though Chester is a bit “difficult,” Skye doesn’t let his quirks chase her off. And soon, Chester discovers that he likes having Skye as a friend, even though she is impulsive. While the clues add mystery to the book, Chester and Skye’s developing relationship adds heart and teaches readers the value of friendship. Even though the story is written from Chester’s point of view, readers will be able to relate to Skye’s annoyance when Chester gets difficult. 

Throughout the hunt for clues, Chester thinks his father is leaving the clues. While Chester thinks about the need to solve the clues and help his father, there is no clear reason that explains why Chester believes his father is in danger. Because of this, Chester’s constant thoughts about his father’s danger become a bit tedious. However, many readers will relate to Chester’s feelings of abandonment and his deep desire to meet his father. Chester eventually learns that with or without his father, he is surrounded by people who love him, and that is enough.   

Even though Chester and Skye must solve the clues left for them, the clues are so specific to the characters that the readers don’t have a chance to solve the clues themselves. Despite this, the story contains enough mystery and adventure to keep readers interested. Plus, the story teaches the importance of friendship, family, and speaking up when being bullied. Chester realizes “people make mistakes. . . Perfect—it doesn’t exist.” Overall, Chester Keene Cracks the Code is a fun read that shows the importance of embracing the people in your life and accepting them for who they are. 

Sexual Content  

  • Chester’s mother is dating a man who stays the night at her house. Chester knows that “Mom and Christopher won’t come out of the bedroom until later.” 
  • Skye tells Chester that her dad might marry his girlfriend because he’s “over the moon. They’re all smoochy smoochy all the time.” 
  • After Christopher proposes to Chester’s mom, they kiss. Skye tells them, “Get a room.” 

Violence  

  • After winning a round of laser tag, Marc (the school bully) corners Chester. Marc punches Chester. “A flash of color bursts behind my eyelids. My ears ring with a tinkling sound, or maybe the force of my body being slammed into the change machine. . .” Chester gets a huge black eye. 
  • Marc is standing by Chester’s locker. When Chester approaches, Marc “tosses a casual punch at my shoulder. . . Only, his hand lands hard enough that it throws me off-balance, and my other shoulder collides with the bank of lockers.” Then, Marc grabs Chester. Marc “grips some combination of my shirt, my armpit skin, and my backpack strap, and with tremendous force, whips my entire body around him. . .” Chester ends up on his back “limbs sprawling, neck kinked.” Chester’s shoulders and neck hurt, and his shirt is ripped. The scene is described over two pages.   
  • Chester tells a story about a man who came into the bowling alley and “tried to rob Amanda [the owner] at knifepoint once. She hit him in the head with a bowling ball.” 
  • Four people rob an armored car. Two of the men have “guns raised, they charge on the truck. Boom. The guard flinches like he hit a wall. He grabs his neck, then slumps down.” 
  • When a guard falls, Chester thinks, “Is he dead? But there’s no blood. No terrible explosion. A tiny arrow sticks out of his neck.” 
  • When the robber sees Chester, he grabs him. “My shoulder pops as [he] binds my hands together behind my back. He uses something thin and smooth. It cuts into my skin.” 
  • Skye jumps in to help Chester. A female robber grabs Skye and “she goes down.” The robber says, “Pop ‘em and let’s get out of here.” One of the men refuses to kill them because “they’re just kids.” The robbery is described over five pages. 
  • The school bully, Marc, calls Chester “Salisbury-face” because they were serving it at lunch. Angry, Chester’s “lunch tray geos vertical, smashes straight into Marc’s face. Peas go rolling over his shoulder, down his arms, and onto the floor.” 
  • Marc corners Chester in the bathroom and gives Chester a bruise “exactly the size and shape of a urinal head.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Twice after being punched, Chester goes home and takes Tylenol for the pain. 
  • While having dinner, Chester’s mother and her boyfriend have a beer. 
  • At the bowling alley, a group of adults is drinking beer.  
  • Chester’s mom’s boyfriend serves pizza and beer to other adults. 

Language    

  • Marc calls Chester a loser several times. 
  • When Marc slams into Chester, Chester thinks Marc is a “jerk-face.” 
  • After hitting Marc with his lunch, Chester thinks, “Oh, no. Oh, crud.” 
  • Skye says Marc is a jerk. 
  • Dang it is used three times. 
  • Heck is used four times. 
  • OMG, my God, and oh my God are used as an exclamation a few times. 
  • Skye calls Chester a doofus and a goof.  

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Kelsey the Spy

Kelsey can’t resist collecting secrets in her spy notebook just like her hero, Harriet the Spy. When she learns Leo has been hiding something from the group, she writes his secret in her notebook as well. But when the notebook goes missing, everything she’s collected about classmates, friends, and family could be revealed to the world! After receiving a ransom note, Kelsey tries to solve the mystery on her own. But soon she realizes she needs help from everyone in the Curious Cat Spy Club in order to rescue her notebook, help a homesick 130-year-old Aldabra tortoise, and unmask a thief. 

When Kelsey’s notebook of secrets disappears, she is consumed with fear that the secrets will be revealed and someone will be hurt. When one of her secrets goes public, Kelsey is convinced that the thief must be stopped. Kelsey’s fear and worry drive much of her actions, but the constant reminders of the dangers of keeping secrets becomes annoying. While Kelsey’s concerns are justified, Kelsey’s inner monologue may frustrate readers. 

The story’s focus is on Kelsey’s stolen notebook, which doesn’t allow room for the other subplots to be adequately explored. For example, a lost dog that Kelsey is hoping to find only appears twice and the encounter is so short that it does nothing to add to the story. Part of the story includes interesting facts about an Aldabra tortoise, but animal-loving readers will wish that more time was devoted to the tortoise. Even though the animal aspect of Kelsey the Spy reinforces the theme of not keeping secrets, the subplot lacks depth.  

Readers will relate to Kelsey’s friendship problems. As Kelsey struggles with finding the notebook thief, she also has a difficult time with the changing nature of her friendships. When Kelsey’s friends are too busy to spend time with her, Kelsey gets frustrated. Kelsey finally talks to her friends about how she feels, which allows them to work through their problems. In the end, she realizes that friendships change, “rising and falling, then coming back together stronger than ever.” 

Kelsey the Spy has an inquisitive protagonist who helps put on a fundraiser for a local shelter. Kelsey is a typical preteen that many readers will relate to. However, the plot tackles too much—Kelsey’s brother who is sneaking around, a lost dog, the missing notebook, and the tortoise who needs a new home. Because of the many subplots, the story jumps around a lot. Kelsey the Spy does have some fun elements to keep readers engaged. Plus, it teaches important lessons about teamwork, friendship, and the dangers of keeping secrets. Even though Kelsey the Spy is the third book in the series, it can also be read as a standalone. Middle-grade mystery-loving readers should also read the Friday Barns Series by R.A. Spratt. 

Sexual Content  

  • While spying on her brother, Kelsey sees her friend’s mom. “The sheriff and Mrs. Morales are both divorced and went to high school together so they’re good friends. . . the sheriff kisses her—a big, fat kiss on the lips that lasts a very long time.” 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • OMG is used often. Oh my god is used once. 
  • Kelsey says drat three times. 
  • Kelsey’s friend calls a classmate a “slimy snake.” Later she calls someone else a jerk. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Aftermath

Three years ago, Skye’s older brother Luka was implicated as one of three perpetrators in a school shooting that claimed the lives of four victims. Though Luka never fired a weapon, the police saw him walk out of the bathroom holding a gun, and when he didn’t drop it, they shot him dead. The evidence that he was a willing participant could not be more damning than that, though Skye cannot fathom how her “kind and thoughtful brother . . . joined his friends in a school shooting.” In the wake of endless harassment and her father walking out on the family, Skye and her mother moved away to live with her grandmother.  

However, a turn of events forces Skye to move in with her aunt back in the town she grew up in. She knows that while much of the country has forgotten the shooting, “the people here will have not forgotten. They will not have forgiven.” She finds herself going to school surrounded by peers who were personally impacted by the shooting. One of these peers is her former best friend, Jesse, who lost his older brother that fateful day. Skye had anticipated the isolation, dirty looks, and cruel comments. However, strange events start occurring and it seems Skye is being given cryptic clues that there is more to the story of the tragedy. Skye and Jesse end up reconnecting and teaming up to uncover the truth. Could Luka have been innocent? More urgently, could the true third perpetrator still be out there, planning another attack?  

Aftermath is largely told from Skye’s perspective. She is a well fleshed out narrator and the reader is able to sympathize with the shame and defeat she feels as the sister of a school shooter. She struggles with misplaced guilt over the lives lost due to her brother. It’s heartbreaking to see her suppressed grief over losing Luka. As she puts it, “You aren’t allowed to grieve for someone like Luka. It doesn’t matter if he was an amazing brother.” However, the book falters in the chapters that are told from Jesse’s perspective, which are in third person. The perspectives do not alternate evenly and Jesse’s point of view is shared less frequently. Moreover, the reader might feel a disconnect with his character due to the different perspectives. Unfortunately, Jesse’s narrations end up feeling unnecessary and they disrupt the narrative’s flow. 

Though Skye is a well-rounded protagonist, there are areas of her character that will leave the reader wanting. For instance, her relationship with her deceased brother is not adequately explored. The novel states that they were close, and offers a couple memories, but not enough depth for readers to understand their strong bond. In addition, Skye’s romance with Jesse falls quite flat. Since the two friends were developing an attraction to each other before the shooting, it’s rather predictable that the flame will be rekindled once they cross paths again, but their romance ends up feeling like an unnecessary addition to the story.  

Aftermath is well written and easy to follow; plus, it has interesting twists and turns. Though some of the events that take place admittedly stretch the suspension of disbelief, young readers will likely be too wrapped up in the story to care. As the sister of an apparent school shooter, Skye’s perspective is intriguing and not one commonly found in stories that handle this type of subject matter. Unfortunately, the book loses some of this uniqueness when Luka is revealed as having been innocent, even heroic. As such, Skye is given an easy out from her shame and her struggle to balance mourning her brother while also accepting that he took part in the tragedy. 

Even though Aftermath is a well-told story that manages to stand out among other YA novels that handle shootings, it is undeniably flawed. Despite this, Aftermath is definitely worth reading for those interested in crime fiction, especially if they are interested in viewing crime from a unique perspective. However, readers might end up being let down by the conclusion’s reveal, which feels like a bit of a cop-out. Readers who want to explore the grief associated with school shootings may also want to read Every Moment After by Joseph Moldover and Shooter by Caroline Pignat. 

Sexual Content 

  • After the shooting, Skye read message boards where someone suggested that Skye should be sexually assaulted. The post reads, “‘I hear one of those bastards has a sister. . . Maybe someone should take her and –’ I won’t finish that sentence. . .”  At the time, Skye was thirteen and she was “reading what some troll thinks should be done to me and wondering how that would help anything.” 
  • Skye recalls being thirteen and playing basketball with Jesse. She says that Jesse’s older brother, Jamil, looked her “up and down in a way that [made] me want to hug the ball to my chest.” 
  • Jesse recalls the same incident mentioned above, adding that his brother watched Skye leave with “his gaze glued to her ass . . . [saying,] ‘She’s gonna be hot someday, little brother. I’m gonna be thanking you then, for keeping her around.’” 
  • Skye is harassed by a group of older boys, and one of them tells her, “You’ve got a smart mouth. How about I show you a better way to use it?” Nothing ends up coming from this threat. 
  • Skye remembers her father being away on business trips, speculating that he was “screwing his business partner.” 
  • When Skye and Jesse kiss for the first time, Skye describes “[pressing her] lips to his,” but the two of them are interrupted before things escalate further. 
  • Skye and Jesse begin kissing passionately. She says, “I’m finally kissing Jesse . . . his arms tighten around me, the kiss deepening, igniting a spark that is definitely not for middle grade Skye.” 

Violence 

  • The shooting that took place three years prior to the events of the book is referenced several times. Skye recounts that the police saw her brother with a gun and that “they told him to drop it. He didn’t. They shot him. . . [Luka’s friends] Isaac and Harley opened fire elsewhere. When it was over, four kids were dead, ten injured. Harley was arrested. Isaac had fled. He was found two days later – dead, having saved the last bullet for himself.” 
  • An anonymous number sends Skye illegally obtained footage taken by students during the shooting. The first video she receives is of a victim “under her desk, sprawled and there’s blood . . . her dead eyes staring.” She receives videos of the other victims’ bloodied bodies as well. 
  • Skye joins the newspaper at school and finds several notes about her, one of them saying, “I hope someone puts a bullet through Skye Gilcrist’s head.” 
  • Skye finds herself locked in the newspaper room and someone shoves paper and lit matches under the door causing a fire. Skye says, “I feel heat on my leg and look down to see sparks scorching through my jeans. I smack them out and stay down . . .[I] grab the metal [door] handle and fall back, hissing in pain.” She finally manages to break out and pull the fire alarm, having escaped any real damage from the flames. 
  • Jesse, troubled since his brother’s death, apparently got in trouble for a series of fistfights, “culminating in an attack on a younger boy.” 
  • A group of football players—Grant, Duke and Marco—harass Skye on the street. Jesse sees and runs over to defend her, causing a fight to break out. Skye narrates that Jesse “grabs Duke by the jacket and throws him down . . . Grant aims a kick straight at Jesse’s head . . .  [his] boot hits him in the face.” A bystander intervenes and the fight is stopped. Jesse is left with a bloody nose. The scene is described over five pages. 
  • At school, a boy starts intimidating Skye and Jesse, and the situation escalates into this boy attacking Skye. Skye describes, “his hand slams into my shoulder, and I fly into the lockers. Jesse grabs the guy by the back of the shirt and yanks him away . . . I grab the guy’s arm. As he yanks away, my nails rake down his arm.” Someone intervenes shortly afterward. 
  • While Skye and Jesse are investigating clues at a park, someone attempts to abduct Skye at knifepoint. Skye describes him locking his arm “over [her] throat… [she] can’t breathe.” She fights him off. He lets go and takes a knife from his belt. The blade “slashes through [her] jacket. Slashes through skin and into flesh.” He shoves her into a pit but flees when Jesse finds the two of them. Skye’s cut is quite severe, and she is later treated by a doctor. 
  • In the book’s final chapters, Tiffany, the girlfriend of one of the perpetrators of the shooting, is revealed to have been the true mastermind behind the massacre. She breaks into Skye’s apartment with a gun and sedatives. She has a confrontation with Skye where it is revealed that Tiffany sedated her aunt and is planning to kill her and frame Skye. Skye manages to drive a knife “into her, just enough to make her drop the weapon and try to grab me, but I have her by the wrist. . . and two seconds later, I have her on her knees, arm pinned behind her head.” This all takes place over the course of eight pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A group of high school football players that are harassing Skye is implied to be drunk. Skye tells them, “It seems like you’ve already had a few [drinks].” 
  • Jesse has been taking steroids at the recommendation of his track trainer, unbeknownst to his parents and the school. He eventually confesses and is kicked off the team. 
  • During the kidnapping attempt, Skye’s would-be abductor attempts to put her to sleep by putting a chloroform cloth over her mouth. 
  • Skye’s friend Chris is a weed smoker. 

Language 

  • After the shooting, Skye says someone wrote: “DIE, BITCH” in her locker. Bitch is used on multiple other occasions. 
  • Some refer to Skye’s lesbian aunt as a dyke. 
  • Shit is used twice. 
  • Profanity such as damn, hell, and ass is used often. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content 

  • Skye says that people have told her that they hope her brother is “rotting in hell.” 
  • As she arrives at the airport near her hometown, Skye describes “praying that [she isn’t] recognized.”  

Saving Montgomery Sole

Montgomery Sole is used to being the odd one out, the “mystery” kid, at school and in her small town. Montgomery is used to being judged and misunderstood by those around her, mainly because she has two moms. But Montgomery finds solace in her friends, Thomas and Naoki, who, like her, enjoy a good mystery. Together the group forms a school club dedicated to all things mysterious, strange, and unexplained. 

One day, after falling down a deep rabbit hole on the internet, Montgomery finds the “Eye of Know,” a possibly all-powerful and all-seeing crystal amulet, that is only $5.99. Intrigued by the mystery and ambiguity surrounding this necklace, Montgomery buys it. But once she begins to wear the Eye of Know, strange things begin to happen. People Montgomery despises, like her school bully, have unexplained terrible things happen to them. 

Montgomery, not knowing what is happening, begins to confront the bullies and ignorance in her life, fueled by her anger toward them. Montgomery is forced to learn how to deal with these mean people, without losing herself and the people she loves most in the process. Montgomery is a caring, headstrong, passionate sixteen-year-old. As she is dealing with the bullies and ignorance in her life, she is also trying to grow up and explore her interests. While Montgomery becomes slightly obsessed with figuring out all the mysteries of the world, she is reminded that when “exploring… [in] the end of it, what you know is you.” Montgomery reminds readers that you don’t need to try to fit in with society’s standards and that it is okay to simply be a mystery. 

Saving Montgomery Sole discusses religion and its weaponization. Growing up, Montgomery has felt at odds with religion since it has often been forced upon her. Plus, it is the religious people in her life who have told her that she and her family need to change. For example, when Montgomery was younger, her religious, Evangelical grandparents often told her that she needed a real father and she needed to be a “good Christian” girl. Then, when a religious preacher moves into town and begins plastering posters around the community that say the American family needs to be “saved,” Montgomery again feels targeted. Montgomery feels as if her family and their way of life are being attacked by this preacher, who is claiming to know what is right and wrong, and his religion. In the end, Montgomery realizes that while there will always be some people who use religion negatively to force their beliefs on others, it does not mean she needs to feel attacked. Montgomery realizes she can rise above the hate. 

Saving Montgomery Sole also highlights the importance of friendship and family. Throughout the novel, Montgomery keeps her worries and fears to herself. While Montgomery is feeling attacked by the new preacher and the school bullies, she keeps this to herself, insisting to those around her that she is fine. This only increases Montgomery’s feelings of isolation. It is only when she talks to her moms and her friends about what is bothering her that she begins to feel better. Montgomery reminds readers that they are not alone, and of the importance of relying on one’s support system in times of need. 

Overall Saving Montgomery Sole is a great book, with a diverse and hilarious cast of characters. Its magical undertones and fun storyline balance out its serious messages about hate and bigotry. While Montgomery Sole is coming to terms with the difficult world around her, she reminds the audience that it is okay to be unique. Montgomery’s actions show that people do not need to fit into society’s mold.  

Sexual Content  

  • When Montgomery and her friends are discussing lucid dreams, Thomas “says most of his dreams are sexy dreams.” 
  • When Matt transfers schools, Montgomery befriends him and they go on a lunch date. After flirting, Montgomery “leaned forward and . . . kissed him.” She explains “I wanted to because at the time I thought he was cute. . . I was enchanted. We had three soft kisses. They were these amazing little melty kisses. Then his hand grabbed my thigh. Clamped down. And all of the sudden it was just like tongue. And I pulled back . . . We kissed again. I learned to manage the overwhelmingness of tongue. And the meltiness came back. But that feeling was quickly replaced by something else, specifically his hand pushing under the front of my sweater. I could feel him searching from my boobs, like clawing past my T-shirt in this weird, frustrating way.” Montgomery pulls away from Matt not wanting to continue further. Matt responds negatively, saying “Oh my God, I knew it . . . you’re a dyke, right?” 

Violence  

  • Montgomery reads a blog about a woman who thinks she is in the “process of becoming a human cyborg.” An article Montgomery reads later explains the woman “had to give it up because she was hallucinating, possibly due to lead poisoning from all the bolts and screws she was inserting under her skin. 
  • There are many instances of bullying throughout the book, specifically towards Montgomery and her friend Thomas, who is gay. For example, the school bully, Matt, purposely bumps into Thomas. Matt spins around and says, “I thought you gays, I mean, guys were supposed to be light on your feet.” 
  • One day Montgomery finds a white cross on her locker, as well as “kick me stickers, MONTYZ MOMZ HAVE AIDS signs, [and] MONTY IS A LESBIAN Post-it notes.” 
  • When she is walking down the hall, Montgomery is “nearly slammed into a wall” by Matt, who says, “Watch your face, Sole!”  
  • At Montgomery’s younger sister’s soccer game, a group of girls make incredibly bigoted comments at the other team. These comments include: “I think a couple of these kids are, like, Mexican. They’re probably not even legal,” “That girl needs an eating disorder,” and, “Does this girl with the pink bow in her hair look retarded to you?” When the girls see Montgomery’s mothers hugging, one of the girls exclaims “let’s get out of here before they, like, rape us.”  
  • While she is standing by her locker, Montgomery “was hit with a heavy thud against [her] back.” It was Matt who hit her. 
  • One day after class, Montgomery and Thomas find that his locker was vandalized. The writing says, “Thomas blow jobs for $5.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes idiot, dickhead, dick, bitch, assholes, jerkoff, and shitty.  
  • Derogatory language is also used a few times. This includes retard, dyke, and fag. 
  • Some of the profanity in the book is only implied. For instance, at a soccer game, a woman yells obscenity “like the C word” at the ref.  

Supernatural  

  • Montgomery and her friends have a school club where they talk about the mysteries of the world, often these topics are of the supernatural nature. The topics include remote viewing, ESP, mind control, and more.  
  • The Eye of Know is described as a rock “excavated from an asteroid landing in the magical mountain ranges of Peru. When wielded by a skilled visionary, the eye is a portal to vision untold. Journey forward into insight. Explore the power of know.” 
  • When Montgomery was younger, she and her mothers went to a haunted antique store. Montgomery asks the shop owner about the ghost. The shop owner explains it is a “feminine spirit.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • Montgomery ponders on spiritual messages. She wonders if “maybe there was some connection between bread and Christianity that merited further investigation.” 
  • Montgomery explains that the new reverend in town thinks her and her friends are “going to hell.” 
  • Montgomery’s younger sister, Tesla, is interested in praying with some of her friends before their soccer game. Momma Jo explains “look. It’s not bad, Tesla. I just, I think what I’m saying is . . . I’m saying praying doesn’t win games. Praying is something people do as part of something much bigger, like a religion.” Mama Kate puts her hand on Tesla’s hand. “What we’re trying to say is, sweetie, praying is not something you do just so you can win a game.” When Tesla asks, “Why don’t we have a religious practice?” Montgomery snaps at her saying, “we don’t need one.” 
  • Montgomery explains, “Mama Kate’s parents are really religious. Evangelicals. Believers in the Second Coming. When we were little, they would give Tesla and me religious-type stuff all the time. Like for our birthdays they would send us books like Good Christian Girls tucked into the covers of regular books. They slipped little golf crosses into birthday cards signed, Jesus loves you.”  
  • Furthermore, Montgomery explains that when she was younger, she thought “Jesus was, like, this person my grandparents knew. Like a great-uncle. Great-uncle Jesus from Kansas.” 
  • Montgomery ponders about mystics. “A couple of mystics talk about Jesus a lot. About how Jesus was at work in the world of the living and the dead, shepherding people into heaven. Like Jesus was some kind of maître d’ for heaven. If he’s so important, I wondered, why is he working the door?” Montgomery says, “These people have no logic.” 
  • When Montgomery confronts the new priest, whose posters say he is trying to “Save the American Family,” he tells Montgomery she has a “depraved soul” and “will burn in hell with the rest of those who cannot and will not accept the love of Jesus Christ.” 
  • Montgomery confronts Kenneth, the son of the new radical preacher. The two begin to talk about religion. Kenneth explains “a person can believe in God and Jesus Christ, can be a Christian, and not be like my father.” They talk about what it means to be a “good Christian.” 
  • Kenneth comments on what his father preaches, saying “how about I don’t like calling stuff sin and saying people will go to hell? I don’t think it’s right. And I’ve studied my Bible my whole life just like he has. I don’t see that the Bible says you have to do all this and break in on other peoples’ lives and . . . don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do. I don’t think that’s being a good Christian, to answer your question.” 

The Place Between Breaths

It’s been years since Grace’s schizophrenic mother fled from her and her father, Dr. King. Deep down, Grace knows that her mother’s disappearance was purposeful – that she left out of fear that staying would only cause the family more pain. Now in her teens, Grace’s relationship with her father is strained. Dr. King is still working tirelessly as a recruiter at a lab that studies schizophrenia in order to find a cure. “He waits for [his wife] to return, to be found, and finally, finally, their love, [their] family [to be] whole again.” 

Grace, who is interning at the same lab, knows better than her father. She knows “what is and is not within the realm of possibility . . . [that] hope is just a four letter word.” The only thing she believes in is science. And one day, science comes through for Grace. She discovers a DNA code that could be the breakthrough her father has hoped for. Or at least, that’s what she thinks. The discovery could be a delusion, as Grace’s mind has already begun to slip. Grace is experiencing symptoms that are all too familiar to the ones she witnessed as a child. Soon, she cannot be certain of what is real—and neither can the reader. 

The Place Between Breaths is rather unique in the way it is presented. Grace narrates much of the novel; however, several chapters take on different points of view. Sometimes the reader is given flashbacks from Grace’s childhood that are told in the third person. Other times, the narrative takes on a second-person point of view with an ambiguous speaker who is speaking to an unknown person. This creates a somewhat disjointed and intentionally confusing reading experience, like puzzle pieces that are meant to be put together as the story goes on. 

Grace’s emotions are very raw making her easy to sympathize with. The reader feels her growing hopelessness as her schizophrenia consumes her. During a schizophrenic episode, Grace thinks to herself, “Please let me die. I refuse to live like this.” Readers will want Grace to find peace in her rapidly deteriorating state. Other characters are difficult to get a good sense of, which is clearly intentional. Since Grace cannot be certain of what is going on around her, the reader cannot be certain if the people around her are who she perceives them to be. 

The Place Between Breaths requires readers to pay careful attention to the text, particularly in the concluding chapters. It may even be necessary to read the novel over again to grasp what exactly happens. This is doable, as it is a brief 181 pages. However, certain readers might be irritated by how confusing the narrative is and frustrated by the lack of closure. The confusion is purposeful because the audience is meant to experience the story through the lens of having schizophrenia.  

The Place Between Breaths is an important novel that spurs an honest understanding and empathy for those suffering from schizophrenia. It is a uniquely told story that manages to be moving despite its confusing nature. It has a bittersweet message that, while many people continue to fall victim to this disease, medical advancements are slowly but surely being made. Teenagers who are interested in exploring mental illness in literature will likely enjoy the read. However, The Place Between Breaths is definitely not something everyone will enjoy. The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim also explores how mental illness can affect a family. 

Sexual Content 

  • Grace’s friend Hannah is pregnant. When talking about the pregnancy, Grace says, “I didn’t think things were that serious with you two. I thought it was strictly messing around.” 
  • Grace is cynical about Hannah’s relationship with her boyfriend and suspects that “he probably just [uses] her for sex.” 

Violence 

  • During a schizophrenic episode, Grace notes, “my teeth sink into the soft flesh of my tongue. Blood pools in my mouth.” 
  • Grace hallucinates a train coming toward her house and panics. She says, “I will myself to die before the train explodes into the house. I smash my face against the floor. My nose fills with blood.” 
  • During a heated argument, Grace attacks Hannah’s boyfriend, Dave. She describes, “I reach up and grab him by the hair. Bite his shoulder.” During the fight, Dave shoves Grace to the ground. “The back of [her] head slams against the pavement” and she is knocked unconscious. 
  • Grace’s fellow intern, Will, reveals that his schizophrenic twin sister killed herself years ago. He recalls stopping her during her first attempt. Will says, “‘My dad had this sword collection . . . she got into the room . . . I tried to take it away from her . . . that’s how I got these scars [on my palms].”  
  • Will says his intervention in his sister’s suicide attempt “didn’t do any good. Because in the end, she still found a way to end her life a few days later.” 
  • One of the book’s second-person perspective chapters describes the feeling of a schizophrenic breakdown, how “you will feel as though your ears are bleeding from the cries . . . your skin ripped open from the clawing.” 
  • At one point in Grace’s childhood, her mother harmed her during a schizophrenic episode. Her mother “pulled her close and then placed the blade [of a knife] against the pillowed fat of her cheekbone. The ridge and edge forming an indented line.” It is unclear if she actually cut her. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • As a young child, Grace witnesses her father injecting her mother with something to help combat a schizophrenic episode. 
  • Several characters note that the drugs for treating schizophrenia have improved vastly. 
  • Grace attempts to kill herself by poisoning her coffee with cyanide stolen from the lab, but she is stopped by a hallucination. 
  • While in treatment, Grace “takes the pills when [she is] told to.”

Language 

  • Minor words of vulgarity, including damn, ass, and hell are said on a few occasions.  
  • Fuck and shit are used occasionally.  

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content 

  • Grace confronts Hannah’s boyfriend, Dave, about him wanting Hannah to carry their child to term. He says, “I wasn’t raised to just cut and leave. My faith means a lot to me. I actually prayed on this, Grace.” 
  • Grace tells Dave that “‘there is a reason your GOD gave scientists the brains to create birth control and abortion.” 
  • A doctor at the lab Grace interns at compares the work of a scientist to religion, saying, “our place of worship is here [at the lab]. Our scriptures and prophets are the texts and scientists who have come before us. We are just as adamant and at times fantastical as any zealot.” 
  • Grace’s mother is described as praying at one point during her childhood 
  • Grace is highly skeptical of religious faith. The topics of faith and worship are motifs throughout the book. 

The Words We Keep

It’s been three months since Lily found her older sister, Alice, bleeding from her wrists on the bathroom floor. Now, with her father having drained his bank account for Alice’s mental treatment program, Lily knows she is not allowed to be a burden to her family. She’s told no one about her panic attacks, or how she impulsively picks the skin on her stomach until it bleeds, sometimes even in her sleep. She constantly wonders to herself, “What if you’re going crazy? Just like [Alice]. What if . . .you’re already gone?” Still, Lily knows she cannot let any of this out. She needs to keep her eyes on the prize – that being a full track scholarship to Berkeley. 

Her sister’s return home from Fairview is coupled with a boy named Micah transferring to Lily’s high school. As it turns out, Micah was in treatment with Alice, and he’s also Lily’s new partner for a school art project. The two embark on a project that involves leaving poetry in unexpected places throughout the school. The two maintain their anonymity, gaining the title “the guerilla poets of Ridgeline High.” Lily knows Micah can assist her in finding a way to help her sister. However, Lily also finds that she needs Micah to help her, because the words she’s kept inside for too long are beginning to break through. 

Told from Lily’s perspective The Words We Keep is a vivid and gripping story about the effect depression and anxiety can have. The reader feels the push and pull of Lily knowing she needs help but wanting to be strong for her family. The poetry she writes communicates this struggle very well. The highlight on mental illness and self-harm is unflinching, and while at times difficult to read, the narrative handles the difficult subject matter beautifully. Occasionally the chapters end by showing the reader Lily’s Google searches and her word-a-day calendar entries, which allow for deeper glimpses into her psyche. Other chapters end with comments on the high school’s student message board, offering insights into how other students perceive Lily and Micah’s poetry project.  

Lily and Micah’s tentative bond and eventual romance is developed well. Micah’s mysterious nature and affinity for the characters of Winnie the Pooh intrigue Lily, and she muses that he might be able “to understand [her struggles]. Maybe he’s the only one who could.” The strained relationship between Lily and Alice is also very important to the narrative. The sisters are both suffering, but unable to console each other because they are holding their struggles back for the sake of the other. Through their relationship, the importance of openness with those close to us during trying times is emphasized. 

The major characters in The Words We Keep are largely well-developed and likable, but those outside of the main cast are too numerous and one-dimensional. For example, a bully named Damon is at points unrealistically cruel to Micah. Damon goes as far as giving Micah a bottle of aspirin with a note suggesting that he kill himself, which Micah just shrugs off. Other characters, like Lily’s best friend and her stepmother, provide little substance to the narrative and seem to leave and reenter the story at random periods with little impact, leaving the reader to wonder why they were included at all. 

The flaws of The Words We Keep ultimately do little to detract from the impact of the story. Readers will be able to connect with Lily and will want to see her story to its finish. While not for the faint of heart, this is an important novel that explores the pain of suffering in silence, and how to overcome the fear of letting it out and asking for help. Readers will learn that many people around them may be fighting inner demons, and that compassion and openness about one’s own struggles is imperative. Readers who want to explore mental health through fiction should add Paper Girl by Cindy R. Wilson and Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge to their reading list. 

Sexual Content 

  • Lily texts Micah saying that a talk with her sister went over “like a fart in an elevator.” Afterward, Micah jokingly texts Lily that she needs to “work on [her] sexting skills.” 
  • When students begin leaving poems throughout the school, Lily notes “the occasional blow me” written along with them. 
  • Lily says that her father and stepmother are newlyweds, “which means sex. And lots of it.” 
  • Lily and Micah almost kiss in a janitor’s closet and rumors spread. One student speculates on the student message boards that Micah was “banging [Lily] in the janitor’s closet.” 
  • When Lily and Micah kiss for the first time, Lily describes, “his lips [moving] slowly, as gentle as a breeze, but the taste of him makes my whole body hum . . .our bodies, our lips, melt farther into each other.”  
  • Lily and Micah go skinny dipping in the ocean. Lily says, “I taste the ocean on his skin as I press my mouth to his shoulder, his neck, his jaw. He groans, low and guttural, when his lips find mine.” 
  • Lily sees her sister going skinny dipping with a guy at a beach party. He later says that the two of them were “messing around.” 
  • Micah was with Lily and her family at the hospital after Lily attempted suicide. He later confesses, “‘I have to tell you something . . . they put you in a hospital gown and I totally saw your butt.” She jokingly asks if it was “good for [him],” to which he responds it was. 

Violence 

  • As a child, Lily nearly drowned while swimming in the ocean. Her sister guided her back to shore. Lily remembers, “salt water fills my mouth, my ears, my everything . . . and then I’m on the sand. Dad’s swearing. He’s pounding on my back. He’s yelling my name so loudly, it hurts my head.” 
  • Lily discovers Alice on the bathroom floor, “blood draining from her wrist, pooling on the tile . . . Dad scoops her up, legs limp, blood dripping like a fairytale crumb down the stairs.” Alice is taken to the hospital and then to a mental facility. Lily recalls finding her in the bathroom several times throughout the book. 
  • Kids at school discuss rumors surrounding Micah. One boy says, “‘I heard someone found him perched on Deadman’s Cliff, trying to, you know. . . ’ [he] makes a throat slitting motion with his thumb.” 
  • One student says they heard that Micah “went full psycho on a kid at his last school. Like stomping him to the ground.” 
  • On a message board for students at Lily’s high school, someone suggests they make bets on “how long until [Micah] offs himself.” 
  • Lily self-harms. The earliest incident the reader is privy to is when she vigorously plucks hairs around her eyebrows, “[digging] the tweezers in until blood beads on my skin. But I keep going . . . got it . . . I wipe the pinpoints of blood from my eyelids.” 
  • When Lily was seven, a man, who is later revealed to be Micah’s father, leapt from Deadman’s Cliff. She remembers “watching the body covered in a white sheet like a bloated whale on the sand” on the news. 
  • Lily picks at the skin on her stomach, constantly picking off scabs and opening new wounds. She says, “it helps calm me, keeps me from having a full on meltdown . . . before long, blood coats my fingertips.” This process is described vividly throughout the book. 
  • Lily picks at her wounds in her sleep as well, waking up to find “bright red, angry splotches where I’ve ripped open my skin.” 
  • Micah lashes out at one of his bullies. In a fit of rage, Micah pushes him “up against a locker, and he’s hitting him, hitting him, hitting him.” A school security guard apprehends Micah and he is suspended from school and sentenced to do community service work. 
  • Alice has a breakdown at a beach party and tries to jump from Deadman’s Cliff, apparently convinced that she might fly. Lily tries to climb up to convince her to get down. She reaches for Alice’s ankle and “as she yanks her leg away, her other foot slips . . . and she’s falling. And screaming . . . and there’s blood in her hair. So much blood.” Alice survives the incident, ending up with a concussion. 
  • After her sister’s fall. Lily picks the skin on the entirety of her body in the bath, saying, “I continue even though the pain fills me. Because the pain fills me . . . I scrape myself away.” This happens over three pages. 
  • Lily has a nightmare about finding her sister in bed with “a waterfall of blood [pouring from her covers]. Soaking her nightgown. Splattering onto the carpet.” 
  • While in her room, Lily opens a box of razors and runs her finger “across all the razors and pencil sharpeners and scissors . . . If pain is all we’re going to feel anyway, why not bring it on?” She snaps herself out of it before she can act on the urge. 
  • Lily runs away from home in the middle of the night and attempts suicide by jumping off of Deadman’s Cliff. She thinks, “I just want it to stop. All of it—the monsters, the guilt, the never enough. It’s the only way.” Alice, Micah, and her father arrive and stop her. This scene lasts six pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Lily finds her father cleaning out a medicine cabinet in preparation for Alice’s homecoming. She suspects this is so he can “make sure Alice doesn’t down a fistful of Aspirin when she gets home.” 
  • Lily’s father takes sleeping pills. 
  • Lily begins secretly taking her father’s sleeping pills to combat her intrusive thoughts. 
  • A bully leaves Micah a bottle of aspirin with a note reading, “Do us all a favor.” 
  • After picking at her entire body, Lily takes one of her father’s sleeping pills and one of Alice’s prescribed pills. She sleeps for days while her father and stepmother are constantly with Alice at the hospital. When she awakes, she takes a double dose of sleeping pills and several of Alice’s before returning to sleep.

Language 

  • After Alice falls from the cliff, a student on the message board says that she and Lily are “total attention whores. The world would be better without them.” 
  • Shit, bitch, and damn are said on a few occasions. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Lily says that she and her family talk with her therapist while holding each other’s hands “like we’re saying a prayer. And maybe we are, supplicating a higher power to help us.” 

Handbook for Boys: A Novel

After a fight with another student, sixteen-year-old Jimmy is charged with assault, a crime that would normally get him six months in juvenile detention. But the judge offers him an alternative: a six-month community mentoring program run by a man named Duke Wilson. On the judge’s request, Jimmy begins working at Duke’s barbershop. There, he and another student named Kevin meet Duke’s “old guy” friends, who have a lot to say about life.   

At first, Jimmy finds his time at the barbershop unbearable. Duke and his friends frequently tease Jimmy, and each new customer prompts them to launch into a philosophical conversation relating to Duke’s “rules of life.” Gradually, Jimmy begins to warm up to Duke and his friends. Despite his skepticism about their rules, Jimmy continually sees Duke’s wisdom about making choices reflected in other parts of his life. Eventually, Jimmy must grapple with his friend Kevin’s choices that lead to Kevin’s arrest for drug possession.  

 A major theme in Handbook for Boys is intergenerational differences. Jimmy and Kevin are teenagers, while the men at the barbershop are repeatedly described as “old guys.” The novel is told from Jimmy’s perspective and, as a result, readers may be sympathetic to Jimmy’s concern that Duke can’t “understand what it is to be young now.” The rift that this creates is frequently commented on. Jimmy initially finds Duke’s advice to be judgmental, but he comes to accept much of it in the latter half of the book. 

Another prominent theme is the role of agency in everyday life. Duke and his friends firmly believe that people decide their own fate and are therefore always responsible for what happens to them. In fact, this belief is central to Duke’s philosophy. Jimmy initially disagrees. When Duke first posits his “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality to him, Jimmy says, “Anybody can make a mistake, but you figure everybody should be perfect. You’re not even perfect.” Jimmy pushes back in similar ways at various points in the story, but he also seems to internalize Duke’s worldview.  

Jimmy’s empathy makes him a likable character, and readers who often butt heads with respected elders may find him relatable. But even though the story is written through Jimmy’s eyes, he mostly serves as a vehicle for the lessons taught by Duke and his friends. Told as a series of conversations about life, Handbook for Boys frequently prioritizes life lessons over plot. Young readers looking for a clear storyline may find the novel’s philosophical tone preachy or see the issues explored in the story to be dated. 

Ultimately, Handbook for Boys is an insightful look into mentorship and second chances that presents some potentially helpful advice for young people, including the importance of making choices that better their lives. However, it occasionally leans too heavily into its advice-giving side at the expense of staying engaging. Readers who want an entertaining story about overcoming obstacles may want to skip Handbook for Boys and instead read the Hazelwood High Trilogy by Sharon M. Drape or the Alabama Moon Series by Watt Key. 

Sexual Content  

  • Duke and the guys discuss the dangers of pregnancy and venereal diseases like AIDS. Duke says that he’s not willing “to risk [his] health for a few minutes of pleasure,” but tells Jimmy and Kevin “[w]hat you want to do with your life is your business.” 

Violence  

  • Jimmy is on probation for assaulting another student. He describes the incident by saying, “We got into it and I wasted him. But then I was so mad that when it should have been over, I kept punching him. I knew it was wrong because he was hurt bad. His nose was broken and his lip was cut.” 
  • When Kevin makes a crack at him, Jimmy threatens to punch him in the face. The barbershop guys chastise Jimmy for the comment. 
  • One of Duke’s friends speculates about the life of a man in prison, saying that the man must be worried “somebody is going to stick a shank in” him. 
  • After another argument with Kevin, Jimmy thinks about “smashing his face.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Kevin’s mom catches him smoking weed and turns him into the police. 
  • A customer at the barbershop tells a story about getting arrested for accidentally purchasing a stolen watch. The previous owner sold it to the customer in order to buy drugs.  
  • Duke refers to a woman outside the barbershop as a “junkie,” which leads to a conversation about why people do drugs and the importance of avoiding them. 
  • One of Duke’s friends brings up the dangers of contracting AIDS from a drug needle. 
  • Kevin fails a drug test and is later arrested for possession. 

Language    

  • Jimmy calls a philosopher lame. 
  • The word crap is used several times. 
  • Words like stupid and dumb are occasionally used. For example, Jimmy refers to his uncle’s dog as stupid. 

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Duke asks Jimmy if he went to church Sunday morning. 
  • A woman comes to the barbershop and asks one of Duke’s friends to pray for her. 
  • Jimmy’s great-aunt Sister Smith visits and asks whether Duke is talking to Jimmy about “choosing the ways of the Lord over the ways of the world,” among other spiritual concerns. Jimmy is uncomfortable with the conversation. 
  • A customer says he needs a “good Christian man” to cosign a loan for him. 

Jumper

Blair Scott has been “hell-bent on a career in wildland firefighting” since she was in high school. Being only nineteen, she and her longtime best friend, Jason, don’t expect to be recruited when the Forest Service calls for an additional class of smokejumpers. It’s a particularly rough fire season, though, and they are both accepted. The only thing holding Blair back is type 1 diabetes, and with Jason’s help, she is determined to hide her condition from their instructors.  

Training is strenuous, and both Jason’s and Blair’s families become more insistent that Blair tell the truth. They point out that the medical forms for the job say “‘diabetes may be disqualifying. It’s not an absolute.’” Blair doesn’t want to take any chances. Things are going too well to risk stalling the momentum. Eventually, however, things do begin to spiral out of control. When tragedy strikes, Blair is forced to pick up the pieces and decide where she goes from this point. 

Blair narrates the story, allowing for meaningful insights into her life and why she is so passionate about smokejumping. Also apparent is underlying guilt about Jason having to look after her. He is fiercely protective of her, to the point where Blair wonders if he would even be pursuing a job as a smokejumper if “he weren’t so committed to keeping [her] out of the ER.” This sentiment is most poignantly felt after a tragic accident that leaves Blair struggling to cope.  

The friendship between Blair and Jason is the highlight of the novel. It is refreshing to see Blair, who is a lesbian, enjoy a strong but purely platonic relationship with a man. Their dynamic is very enjoyable. At one point, Blair playfully muses that “Jason and I always fall for the same girls, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s him they want . . . If I were interested in guys, even a little, I’d probably join them.” The reader feels the connection between these two characters very deeply, and, as a result, the experiences Jason and Blair have together are impactful.  

Jumper is not a novel for everyone. The narrative is a slow burn that might be less than engaging for certain readers. A large portion of the story focuses on Blair and Jason’s training, and while it is undeniably an intense process and the risk of Blair having a health emergency looms, this part of the book is largely uneventful. In addition, Blair’s stubborn hotheadedness occasionally makes her difficult to like. Her ambitions are easy to empathize with, but her reckless nature can be frustrating as suspense is built around the danger she is putting herself in. 

Despite the aforementioned flaws, Jumper is a solid story about two friends fighting against the world. Readers who are interested in platonic male-female friendships will get a lot of enjoyment out of Blair’s bond with Jason. Additionally, those who are diabetic will relate to the protagonist’s struggles. The book also contains plenty of interesting information about smokejumping and just how difficult and dangerous the occupation is. The reader will be left with an appreciation for people in this line of work. Readers who enjoy Jumper should also check out the Peak Marcello Adventure Series by Roland Smith which takes readers into the suspenseful world of rock climbing. 

Sexual Content 

  • Blair is attracted to one of the female instructors, and Jason jokes that seeing the two of them run together is “orgasmic or something.” 

Violence 

  • In her childhood, Blair was bullied by a boy, so she retaliated by punching his nose “so hard, he squealed like a pig. Bled like one, too.” 
  • Early on, Blair and the other trainees are informed that a hand crew in Idaho “got caught between two walls of fire . . . there [were] no survivors.” 
  • In the Idaho fire, “members of the shot crew deployed to help clear an exit path sustained serious injuries that [grounded] some of them for the rest of the season.” 
  • Blair’s training is quite strenuous and results in minor injuries along the way, particularly when jumping. Blair describes: “[slamming] down on my already bruised hip . . . everything hurts, but I breathe into the pain. I can handle the pain.” 
  • One of Blair’s trainers stresses the importance of bending one’s knees when landing from a jump. He says, “you may have braces on your ankles. But there’s nothing to keep you from jamming your hip into the socket. I’ve only seen that happen once . . . I’d never heard a human being scream like that.” 
  • During a forest fire, Jason is killed in an avalanche when a boulder hits him in the chest. Blair hears “that meaty thwack of hard meeting soft, of expelled breath and crushed bones . . .  Jason is on the ground . . . There is a peculiar dent in his chest.” 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • One of the trainers frequently chews Nicorette gum. 
  • After dinner, most of the recruits “head for the bar, while the four of us still underage park it outside the A & W next door.” Fellow underaged recruit Luís suggested joining the guys at the bar, saying “come on, goody-goodies, it’s only beer.” He convinces everyone but Blair to go with him. 
  • Blair uses insulin shots due to her diabetes. 
  • After a particularly rough landing, Blair says that she’ll have Advil with her dinner. 
  • Blair buys a “big bottle of ibuprofen” to lessen the pain caused by injuries sustained during training. 

Language 

  • Damn is said frequently.  
  • Occasionally shit, hell, and variations of ass are used. 
  • Blair says that Jason has a “natural resting-bitch face.” 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content 

  • A head trainer tells the newly minted smokejumpers, “‘If you’re the praying sort, ask for an early fall and a long, hard winter so we can regroup.’” 
  • During Jason’s funeral, Blair notes the pastor talking about Jason “like he was his favorite altar boy or something . . . Jason wasn’t religious. Why would they bother pretending he was?”

500 Words or Less

Nic Chen doesn’t want to spend her senior year known as the girl who cheated on her lovable boyfriend with his best friend and made him transfer schools. She doesn’t want to continue to be ostracized. She doesn’t want to be stared at as she walks down the hallway or have people write “whore” on her locker in lipstick. So, when an opportunity arises to write a classmate’s college admissions essay, Nic tries to use it as an opportunity to rebrand herself and change her reputation. 

As Nic is asked to write more and more essays, she begins to walk in her classmate’s shoes. But the more essays Nic writes, the more unsure of herself she becomes. Weighed down by the guilt of cheating on her ex-boyfriend and writing other people’s essays, Nic questions the person she is becoming and if she is still the perfect straight A, Ivy League-bound teenager society wants her to be. 

Written in poetic verse, 500 Words or Less is very approachable and is a great introduction to poetry and novels written in verse. Interestingly, Rosario includes the essays that Nic writes for her classmates throughout the book. Told mainly from Nic’s perspective, the reader will see Nic’s journey as she learns to move on from her failed relationship, deals with the heartache of breaking up with her first love, and rebuilds herself knowing she acted terribly wrong. Nic is a complex character. She is a determined, passionate girl, who has admittedly made mistakes. Readers will relate to Nic’s struggles with self-confidence, knowing who she is, and wondering if her actions define her. She explains, “I’m still the girl / who cheated on her boyfriend, / the girl who cheated / on those essays, / the girl who cheated / because maybe / that’s who I am.” Throughout this book, Nic learns to forgive and accept herself as well as forgive the people who have hurt her. 

Through Nic and her classmate’s experiences in their senior year of high school, 500 Words or Less takes a look at the pressures of high school and of getting into the right college. Nic explains that she and her classmates “waited for our lives to change / with a single e-mail / from a university / that wanted us.” Furthermore, Nic explores the pressure she and her classmates receive from their parents to be successful and get into the right school. When Jordan, an old friend, tells Nic he is no longer going to Princeton, he explains, “I was always supposed to go / to Princeton. / Because I was supposed to become / my father, / and my father is an asshole.” In the end, Nic and Jordan end up not going to Princeton. Rather than following their parents’ dreams for them, Nic and Jordan decide to do what’s best for themselves, showing that getting into the perfect college will not make or break someone’s life and that any path after high school is valid. 

500 Words or Less also touches on the topic of sexism. Nic points out that while people began to alienate her and write “whore” on her locker, everybody still likes Jordan, the guy she cheated with. She thinks to herself “was there even a male equivalent / to the word ‘whore?’/ There were words/ but none that carried / the same weight.” While Nic is outcasted, Jordan remains the popular kid, showing the blatant misogyny in the treatment of men and women even when they both make the same mistake. 

The book also touches on racism. When Jordan asks Nic for help on homework in Japanese, Nic says, “You know I’m part Chinese, Jordan.” Jordan responds, “It’s like the same thing- / Chinese, Japanese, Korean.” In another instance, a friend tells Nic that she’s “lucky because / half-Asians were always prettier than/ white girls like her.” Nic feels uncomfortable when her friend tells her this. However, Nic isn’t the only person who feels stereotyped. In a college application essay, an African American classmate writes, “I want to attend [this college] because I want to be more than a football player. In America, this is not what young black men are supposed to do . . . I want to be more than an athlete, more than a black man who has a great arm.” Although people would like to “forget that race exists,” Nic points out the subtle ways racism leaks into society, negatively affecting people of color.  

Furthermore, 500 Words or Less examines classism, as Nic’s school is predominantly full of upper-class students whose parents can afford to “[donate] handsomely to the school” they are applying to. Nic herself comes from a wealthy family. She admits that even though she charges $300 per essay, she doesn’t need the money. However, there are a few students who are lower class and do not have the same opportunities as the richer students. Unlike the rich students who know they can go to college no matter what, to some of these students going to college “means everything” as it is a path to upward social mobility.  

Overall, 500 Words or Less is an engaging book, written uniquely with a diverse cast of characters. However, it’s best for mature readers because of the profanity, alcoholism, and normalized teenage drinking. Readers who are applying to college and figuring out what they want to do after high school will relate to Nic’s story and learn that getting into the perfect school is not everything. Furthermore, 500 Words or Less explains that the choices you make in high school do not define you. If you’re ready to jump into another engaging book with a protagonist who is trying to figure out who she is, grab a copy of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez. 

Sexual Content  

  • At a party Nic throws, she and her boyfriend went into her father’s office to find a drink. Nic remembers she was “drunk / on love / and alcohol. / I ran my fingers along the side of his body. / He squirmed / and smirked / and grabbed my hand in his. / He pulled me closer. / Our lips met.” He begins to tug at “the zipper on my dress, / fumbled with the clasps on my bra. / I unlocked my lips and stepped away.” Nic is worried someone will find them and leads Ben up to her room. She describes, “I untangled my hand from his / and fell on top of my bed . . . / [He] fell on top of me . . .  / [and] this time I didn’t stop him.” 
  • On a date, Nic and her boyfriend stop for a bite to eat. As the two eat, Nic thinks, “I wanted to kiss him.” 
  • At Jordan’s party, Nic and Jordan “ended up / upstairs” and have sex. It is suggested that they have sex once or twice more.  

Violence  

  • Nic’s boyfriend dies in a tragic snowboarding accident. Nic explains “teenagers didn’t die in avalanches/ they died in / car crashes, / drunk-driving accidents, / drug overdoses, / gunshot wounds, / or suicide.” After the accident, Nic heavily researches avalanches to understand how he died. She finds out “the force alone / of snow / sliding down a mountain / can kill you,” or “one suffocates after being trapped / in the snow / for thirty minutes.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • During a family dinner, Nic’s father drinks wine. 
  • Nic’s mother was a heavy drinker. Nic remembers how her mother “couldn’t / French braid / my hair / because she was / drunk.” Her father would often find her mom “slumped in a chair” with “an empty bottle of wine” when he came home from work.  
  • Nic remembers how “Mom poured herself another / from a bottle of chardonnay / on one of the last nights / before she disappeared.”  
  • When Nic and her friend Kitty arrive at a party, they are greeted by the host, who smells like “a pitcher of margaritas.” At this party they find “handles / of cheap vodka, rum, and whiskey / wafting toxic smells on the kitchen counter,” along with a variety of mixers.  
  • At the party, Kitty pours “everything- / and I mean everything, / including the dredges of empty bottles- / into a plastic cup” and takes “a large gulp.” Nic leaves the party without checking on Kitty, leaving her “shit-faced” and extremely “drunk.” 
  • Nic reminisces on the party she threw two years ago where she first reconnected with her boyfriend. “Strangers filled empty spaces, / squeezing by, / finding friends / and a beer.” Nic found him in the kitchen drinking “a Keystone Light/ slowly.” The pair go into Nic’s father’s study and she offers him “whiskey, bourbon, or scotch” and pours the two of them “a glass of Glenrothes 1970 / single-malt whiskey,” which Nic explains is a “five-thousand-dollar bottle / of whiskey.” 
  • In a draft of an essay Nic is writing for someone else, she writes about this person’s mother who “is an alcoholic, which leads me to my biggest fear in college—drinking. . . I go to parties all the time. . . But I don’t drink. I haven’t drank.” 
  • At a barbecue, someone asks Nic to “grab a beer for me.” 
  • Nic reminisces about how it all went wrong with her ex-boyfriend. She thinks, “it was polishing off a bottle of Jameson / with Jordan / last summer, / at his party.” As Nic leaves this party she encounters “stragglers smok[ing] / cigarettes and weed.” 
  • Nic remembers previous Christmases where here mom “drank a bottle of Riesling / and passed out under the tree.” 

Language    

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes whore, shit, bitch, goddamn, fuck, slut, ass, and asshole.  
  • After the school finds out that Nic cheated on her boyfriend, her peers begin to bully her, calling her names like “slut” and repeatedly writing “whore” on her locker.  

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

What My Mother Doesn’t Know

When Sophie Stein enters high school, she finds herself falling in love with a boy named Dylan. However, as she goes through some difficult self-discovery, she realizes that she and Dylan are not compatible. Instead of being attracted to Dylan’s intellect, Sophie is only attracted to him physically. Meanwhile, the ups and downs of this romance lead Sophie to chat online with Chaz. At first, Chaz gives Sophie the validation she seeks, but Chaz isn’t prince charming. Instead, Chaz makes sexual comments toward Sophie, who finds herself alone again. 

Then Sophie meets Murphy, an unpopular boy who isn’t conventionally attractive. Despite this, Sophie becomes enamored by him and they start hanging out. Sophie discovers that she has more in common with Murphy than she initially thought, and she eventually falls in love with him. In this relationship, her connection with Murphy is stronger than anything she had previously experienced. However, Sophie has a difficult time telling her two best friends about the romance, since most of the school has spent many years making fun of Murphy.  

Sophie is a relatable character dealing with the average struggles of a teenager. Throughout the novel, she attempts to discover who she is in both her romantic life and family life. She also combats peer pressure and her own insecurities. In the end, Sophie overcomes her fears of becoming unpopular and is no longer afraid to show her affection toward Murphy. One of the big themes of this novel is that attempting to be popular and well-liked should not come above what brings happiness. Another theme is to not judge a book by its cover. At first, Sophie judges Murphy, but when she looks beyond his appearance Sophie forms a beautiful relationship with him. These messages will resonate with many teens. 

The story’s conclusion is predictable because from the first time Murphy appears Sophie finds herself dealing with a strange attraction toward him. Plus, the story lacks conflict and the ending is a bit too happily ever after. Because Sophie is a teenager, she can act a little childish at times. She approaches many things, like romance, for the first time in her life. Therefore, she comes across as a bit naive when dealing with these new situations. Since Sophie focuses a lot on her blooming sexuality and the intense attraction she feels towards the men in her life, only big romance fans will enjoy What My Mother Doesn’t Know.  

What My Mother Doesn’t Know is told through a series of poems and diary entries that Sophie writes, making it a quick read. While the novel is told entirely from the perspective of the main character, readers won’t find it difficult to relate to other characters in the book. Not only are Sophie’s romantic interests well-developed, but so are her best friends and parents. Overall, the story is a cute tale of teenage romance.

Sexual Content  

  • After sitting on a guy’s lap in a car, Sophie said it felt like “some R-rated movie and everyone else in the car was just going to fade away and this guy and I were going to start making out.” 
  • Sophie makes sexual references to prove that her father is not actually listening to her. When he asks how her day at school was, she says, “We played strip poker during third period and I lost.” Her dad replies, “‘That’s nice,’ without even looking up from his meatloaf.”  
  • Sophie has to listen to her friend, Grace, “moan about how horny she is.” 
  • Sophie says her “breasts have been growing so fast lately that if [she] were to sit there and watch them for a while . . . [she] could actually see them getting bigger.” 
  • Sophie discusses how her mother has never talked to her about safe sex or birth control, yet her mother is still scared Sophie will “get pregnant or something.” 
  • Sophie and her friends go to the ice cream shop wearing no clothes under their coats: “This afternoon before we put on our raincoats, we took everything else off!” 
  • Sophie talks about how she only really liked Dylan physically, saying, “If Dylan and I had met by chatting on the Net . . . instead of face to face and I hadn’t seen his lips or the way he moves his hips when he does that sexy dance and I hadn’t had a chance to look into his eyes and be dazzled by their size and all that I had seen were his letters on my screen, then . . . I think I would have liked him less.”  
  • Chaz tells Sophie that one of his favorite things to do is “jerk off in libraries.” 
  • While waiting for her mother after the school dance, a boy grabs Sophie’s breast on a dare. “The guy standing closest to me is suddenly bursting out laughing and grabbing my breasts with his slimy paws.” 
  • While having breakfast at a hotel, Sophie imagines “what it would be like to be lying naked underneath a sheet while a strange man rubbed oil all over my body.” 
  • Sophie dreams about having a man “remove every stitch of [her] clothes.” The man in her vision turns into Murphy and she dreams of “how his hands will feel cupping the lace of [her] bra.” 

Violence  

  • When a boy grabs Sophie’s breast after the school dance, she “slams [her] knuckles into his chin” and “smashes [her] foot into his friend’s knee.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Sophie briefly mentioned how her mother is “stuffing Hershey’s Kisses into her mouth, chain-smoking, watching her soaps, and weeping.”  

Language                                                                                                                                               

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • None 

 Spiritual Content  

  • Sophie flashes back to a confrontation with a group of girls where she is ridiculed for her faith. The girls ask Sophie’s friends, “Don’t you know you aren’t supposed to play with anyone who doesn’t go to church?” 

Just Three

Jillian is a teenage girl still reeling from the loss of her mother. But before her death, Jillian’s mom hired a woman named Rebecca to help out around the house. Two years later, Rebecca is still there, seemingly serving as a replacement for Jillian’s mother. When Jillian catches a romance beginning to blossom between her father and Rebecca, she panics and decides to set her dad up on a dating website. Her father is skeptical, but for Jillian’s sake, he agrees to go on three dates. Just three.

Chaos ensues. The first date ends in a chicken attack. On the second date, Jillian’s dad goes out with a pro biker and gets left in the dust. During the third date, Jillian and her brother spy on their dad’s picnic from the bushes and watch as it devolves into the woman yelling at him for cheating at chess. After witnessing the disastrous third date, Jillian realizes that Rebecca makes her father happy and that his happiness is what is truly important.

One of the main flaws of Just Three is that Jillian is not well-developed. Her primary character trait seems to be a strong dislike of Rebecca, who, in addition to being a blameless victim, is incredibly likable and described as having “this way of making everyone smile.” Jillian’s hatred for Rebecca is ostensibly balanced out by her love for her father, but she spends much of the novel attempting to sabotage his budding relationship. For these reasons, readers may find Jillian to be a somewhat unlikable character.

Just Three is told in first-person narration and alternates between Jillian’s matchmaking hijinks and her conversations with friends at camp. Like Jillian’s character, this second aspect of the story is not especially developed. The camp that Jillian attends is left unnamed and unexplained, and there is no clear arc within these conversations. The author hints at a romantic subplot between Jillian and a “nerdy” boy named Victor who she has a crush on, but this is not resolved in any meaningful way.

Meanwhile, Jillian’s matchmaking character arc is resolved suddenly in a single scene toward the end of the book. After the hostile third date, Jillian sees her dad with Rebecca and observes, “For some reason, [Rebecca] didn’t bug me so much this time. She was always so good-natured. I couldn’t imagine her ever screaming at my dad.” Given Jillian’s stalwart opposition to Rebecca up to this point, readers may find this emotional pivot to be rushed and unbelievable.

Despite the lack of character development, there are bright spots in Just Three. A key theme is learning to prioritize the needs of loved ones, even when it is difficult. While there is not an in-depth exploration of grief, children who have lost a parent or whose parents are dating other people may find Jillian’s actions relatable.

Released by Orca Current books, whose titles are written specifically for teens, Just Three ramps up quickly, but it’s a mixed bag. The easy-to-read story includes plenty of wacky scenes, which readers may find humorous. The book presents a surface-level exploration of grief and moving on. However, flat characters and a formulaic storyline detract from the quality of this premise. If you’re looking for a high-interest book written specifically for reluctant readers that explores family conflicts, you may want to start with In Plain Sight by Laura Langston.

Sexual Content

  • Jillian notes that all the girls at school “have the hots” for one of her friends.
  • Jillian’s father and Rebecca are described as “flirting” at several points throughout the book. This flirting mainly consists of laughing together or having lively conversations.
  • Jillian hears about a dating site and sets up a profile for her dad. He goes on three dates.
  • Jillian’s brother mentions that their dad “get[s] lots of attention from ladies” when he walks the dog in the park.

Violence

  • At a hobby farm, chickens attack Jillian. They surround her, “peck[ing],” “screeching,” and “flapping.” She emerges “covered in scratches.”
  • During a pool game, one of Jillian’s friends is accidentally hit “right in the face” with a ball.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Jillian’s brother calls her and a friend “geeks.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Naomi Brenden

What Goes Up

The past few months have not been ideal for Jorie, to say the least. Her ex-boyfriend, Ian, has left for college, but they are trying to “still be friends.” Her parents’ marriage is on the rocks after her father’s affair and she is struggling to trust him. In addition, Jorie is trying to understand why her mother chose to stay in the relationship. To escape life’s drama, Jorie decides to attend a college party with her boyfriend, Ian, and his two friends.

The next morning, Jorie wakes up in the dorm of an unfamiliar college boy, with a text from Ian that says, “you go and hook up with [one of my friends] right in front of me. You’re such a hypocrite.” Full of regret, Jorie decides to explore what led to this moment and where she goes from here.

What Goes Up is a novel in verse. Since the story is told through poems rather than traditional structure, the story is a little confusing. The reader must pay close attention to keep track of the timeline, as it is not well established. Another confusing element is that the bulk of the book is a series of flashbacks that aren’t in chronological order.

Jorie’s character is explored intimately, and she is easy to sympathize with. Her flaws are present, but they don’t detract from her likability. However, because of the introspective nature of the book, readers don’t learn much about the other characters. This is not a detriment to the overall story as the focus is clearly meant to be on Jorie’s emotions anyway.

Jorie is an artist with an interest in the science of mushrooms and fungi, using mushroom spore prints in her work. The reader will be surprised at how the mushroom and fungi facts parallel Jorie’s experiences and relationships. For example, she discusses signs of toxicity in mushrooms and how “even experts have been fooled by specimens they thought were safe,” clearly alluding to the trouble between her parents.

This breezy, uniquely told story is sometimes confusing. The shortness of the book will undoubtedly leave readers wanting more information about Jorie’s life and her relationships. The book implies that Jorie’s drunken hookup with Ian’s friend is just as big of a betrayal as her father cheating on her mother, which is puzzling. While insensitive, the hookup took place after her and Ian had broken up, so it was not adulterous.

Even though What Goes Up is a bit confusing, it is still a very interesting read that can be enjoyed by seasoned and new readers of verse novels. The writing is witty and charming which balances out the rawness of the serious topics. Overall, this story succeeds in sending out a powerful cautionary message about the domino effect that can be spurred by difficult moments in life and provides an important exploration of whether it is possible to still love someone after a betrayal.

Sexual Content

  • The book begins with Jorie waking up in the bed of a college boy who she recalls kissing the night before. They might have had sex, but her waking up to see his head “poking out from the shell of a green sleeping bag” leaves room for interpretation. She was drunk, and the book implies that the boy decided not to take advantage of her in that state.
  • Jorie recalls kissing a boy at recess when she was little, saying he “gagged me with his Dorito-crusted tongue.” The boy kisses her friend during the same recess period.
  • Ian begins jokingly “miming masturbation,” while alone with Jorie while talking about reproductive cells in mushrooms.
  • The day after the party, Jorie’s friend texts her in regards to how she made Ian feel. The friend asks how Jorie would feel if she saw him “ho it up with one of [her] friends.”

Violence

  • In seventh grade, Jorie and her friends were drunk while jumping on the trampoline. Jorie says, “a midair collision forced us back down to earth.” Her friend sustained a non-serious head injury.
  • Jorie remembers an incident in elementary school where a boy tried French kissing her friend. Her friend bit a boy’s lip “so hard it bled.”
  • In a fit of anger, Jorie slaps her mother. Jorie says “it was like smacking a stone, a wall . . . I was crying and thinking, Why is she letting me do this?”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In seventh grade, Jorie goes to a friend’s house and drinks an old bottle of wine they found in the back of a cabinet. Jorie and her friend “passed it back and forth until the taste didn’t matter, until we couldn’t stop giggling.”
  • Jorie goes to a party where she and her friends drink White Russians. Jorie becomes disoriented and is hungover the next morning.
  • Jorie watches a video of herself while she was drunk. “Drunk me teeters on the edge of the couch like a Jenga tower.”
  • Jorie makes art using mushroom spore prints. A fellow student asks her if he could get high by licking it. The student calls to Ian, “‘remember that time we were shrooming and you thought your sister’s guinea pig was possessed?”

Language

  • Jorie says that the boy who kissed her and her friend in elementary school began calling them “ugly Slut and Lesbo Bitch.”
  • The boyfriend of the woman Jorie’s father is cheating with shows up at her house “yelling about his whore of a girlfriend, [her] mom’s piece of shit husband.”
  • Fuck is said a couple of times.
  • “Dickweed” is said once.
  • In a blind rage, Jorie says she called her mother “a bitch, a fucking idiot, a stupid–I can’t even write the word.”

Supernatural Content

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Erin Cosgrove

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