LGBTQ – Page 5 – Sneak Peek Books

Drama

When Callie’s middle school decides to produce Moon over Mississippi, Callie doesn’t want to be on stage. She loves theater, and as part of the stage crew, she wants to create a set worthy of Broadway. But bringing her big ideas to life won’t be easy with a middle school budget and her lack of carpentry knowledge.

Once the actors are chosen, Callie finds herself in the middle of drama onstage and offstage. The actors don’t all get along, and Callie has a confusing crush on an eighth-grader. When two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier.

Drama focuses mostly on the stage crew, which gives the readers a unique look at the hard work that takes place behind the scenes. Told from Callie’s point of view, many fans will be able to relate to Callie as she deals with the confusing world of middle school. Callie is naive, cheerful, and obsessed with having a boyfriend. Callie seems to fall in love with any boy that is nice to her, which causes her heartache. However, Callie does seem to finally realize that having a boyfriend isn’t necessary.

The drawings are colorful and do an excellent job of showing the character’s emotions through their facial expressions. Reluctant readers will appreciate that many of the pages do not have words, but instead tell the story through drawings. Readers will love the manga-infused art, which shows the jealousies and misunderstandings of the cast members.

Although Drama does revolve around the students’ production of Moon Over Mississippi, a majority of the story focuses on the characters trying to discover themselves and their sexual orientation. Like a soap opera, the characters in the book are very interested in who likes who, and who broke up with who. When Callie’s friend tells her that he is gay, Callie easily accepts it and promises to keep the information secret. Drama highlights the importance of being accepting and open-minded, and not judging those who are exploring their sexuality—whether they are straight, gay, or bisexual. Although many readers will enjoy the graphic novel Drama, Callie and the plot are not unique or memorable. There is too much romantic angst and not enough action focusing on the production of the play.

Sexual Content

Callie has a crush on Greg. When Greg tells her that he broke up with his girlfriend, she kisses him on the cheek. Greg asks, “What was that for?” Callie tells him, “Oh, I don’t know. Just something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.” They have a short conversation, and then Greg kisses her on the lips. The next day at school, Greg ignores her.
In order to make Greg jealous, Callie walks by the baseball field with two of her guy friends.
One of Callie’s guy friends tells her that he’s gay. Later, when they discuss the eighth grade dance, the boy says he won’t ask another guy because “my dad would probably flip out, and I’m not sure if he’s ready for that. I’m not sure if I’m ready.” The boy says his parents suspect he’s gay, but “we don’t discuss it.”
Callie and a group of theatre kids go into the school’s basement to look at the costumes. They find a girl and a boy hiding behind a rack of clothes, kissing.
During the school production, a boy breaks up with the lead girl right before the play is about to begin. The girl melts down and refuses to continue acting in the play. In an act of desperation, one of the boys dresses in an evening gown and steps in for the missing girl. During the kissing scene, two boys kiss. There is an illustration of the shocked expressions of the audience.
A boy likes another boy, but he’s unsure if they will become a couple because “West still doesn’t know if he’s really gay. Or, I dunno, Bi, or whatever.”

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

Callie calls her brother a “fuzzbrain.”
Callie’s friend calls Greg a “dork.”
A boy calls his brother a “jerk-face.”
“Heck” is used twice. “Darn” is used once.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Anger is a Gift

Moss Jeffries is anything but an average teenager. Ever since his father was shot by the Oakland police outside their home, Moss has dealt with intense anger issues and constant panic attacks. In addition, Moss has a difficult time going outside because of the kinks of the homosexual community, his popularity amongst protesting groups, and his constant fear of the local police. After meeting Javier on a metro train and falling in love, it seems everything is finally coming together for Moss. He is happy; his friend Esperanza is going to a great school; his mother just received a promotion–life is good.

However, when school starts things begin to change. Due to a lack of school funds and the influence of the local police, Moss and his friends encounter more troubles as they are harassed and berated by the school’s administration. However, after a school cop brutalizes one of Moss’s friends, police-patrolled metal detectors cripple another, and his organized school-wide walkout turns chaotic and deadly, Moss personally takes the fight to the police, gathering a city-wide protest that will change the city, and leave readers with a new sense of community and self-determination.

With its diverse characters, Mark Oshiro paints a brutal yet beautiful picture of problems today’s teens face. The well-developed characters each have their own individual type of problems. Esperanza is adopted and struggles to keep in tune with her own culture. Reg was crippled by a car accident when he was younger. Moss struggles with his anxiety. But Oshiro makes them appear to be real people with their own type of language, jokes, and emotions. Readers will fall in love with these realistic characters and root for them.

Moss has a huge group of friends, and the large cast of supporting characters may confuse some readers. The diverse group of characters gives a wide range of people a voice—the story focuses on minorities and also includes the following: gay characters, non-binary characters, bisexual characters, asexual characters, Muslim characters, undocumented characters, and disabled characters. The one thing that brings these groups together is the social injustice they face.

Anger is a Gift has a rapid and suspenseful plot with a perfect mix of teen society and real-world problems. However, Oshiro pushes the extremes of some of the moral problems today’s young adults face. Told from Moss’s point of view, it allows the reader to get a glimpse of what a person feels when they are faced with PTSD and panic attacks. Moss’s descriptions of his grief and anger, in addition to the brutal descriptions of the senseless acts of violence, can, at times, be hard to read.

Besides detailing the oppression minorities face, Anger is a Gift has a hint of romance. Issues of sexuality, race, ethnicity and class affect each of the characters, while senseless anger and violence threaten them all, killing some and injuring others. This book is not for the faint of heart and is intended for older readers. Nonetheless, Anger is a Gift is a book for those wishing for a new perspective on how police brutality, oppression, and racism affects poor people of color from the author’s perspective. The character development mixed with the book’s brutal, bloody action scenes will leave readers with a different perspective of racism in America.

Sexual Content

Ever since they started to date, Javier and Moss make a game out of kissing each other when they see each other. When they see each other, they will peck each other on the cheek. For instance, “Moss kissed him back for just a little bit longer, pushing back against the awkwardness that tried to conquer him. He had never kissed anyone in front of his friends, but he focused on how it made him feel. Warm. Secure. Admired.”
Before Moss’s first date with Javier, his mom asks, “You have any condoms?”
On their first date at Javier’s apartment, Moss and Javier get intimate. “But Javier pulled Moss to him again, only this time they faced each other, and Javier brought them back down on the couch. He wrapped his leg around Moss’s and squeezed his hand. Moss felt moisture and thought his palms had started sweating again, but it was Javier’s sweat this time. Moss went still, and he could feel Javier’s heart beating against his chest. It was racing even faster than Moss’s was. The two enjoyed the warmth of each other’s bodies. . .” They do not have intercourse.
On a brunch date, Moss asks Javier, “Maybe you just wanted me for sex. We’re gay men. That’s not exactly an unbelievable suggestion.”
While escaping the chaos after the school walkout, Moss suggests that they escape out the back of the school through the hallway down by the science labs “where the football players always take their girlfriends to make out.”
After Javier’s death, Moss remembers him, thinking about how much he loved Javier, “The way you kissed my jaw. The way sweat ran down your chest. The feel of the muscles in your arm, the scent of your breath, the blackness of your hair, the curled smile.”

Violence

Wanda tells Moss that she stopped protesting after she saw a cop that had previously threatened her “standing over your father’s body.”
After finding drugs in Shawna’s locker, “Hull’s arm shot out, hard, and his forearm hit the spot just below Shawna’s throat, and the man pinned Shawna against a locker, her back hitting the metal so hard that it buckled. Moss dropped his lock on the ground, heard it clatter against the tile, and Shawna tried to yelp.” Shawna is epileptic and falls to the ground, shaking, as students gather around them. This scene takes place over four pages.
After the metal detectors are installed in the school, Reg refuses to go through due to the six metallic pins in his knee. One of the officers shoves him through, and “Reg didn’t make it through. His right knee jerked to the side and the metal detector seemed to respond to Reg. Thrum! His body hit the frame hard, hard enough that it made a hollow ringing like a steel drum, and Moss saw that Reg’s breath had been knocked out of him. As his hands went to his chest, Njemile and Kaisha shouted, scrambling to reach their friend as he doubled over, his arms shooting out to the ground to catch himself.” Reg goes to the hospital and has to go through surgery and physical therapy. This scene takes place over eight pages.
After their school-wide student walk-out turns chaotic, Moss and his friends seek shelter in a nearby room to plan their escape. A cop finds them and uses the infamous Mosquito weapon – a weaponized sonic sound used to disperse crowds of teenagers. After being blasted by the sound, “Chandra threw up. It was violent, loud, and her wrenching caused Sam to do the same, and it was in their hair, all over the floor.” Moss and some of his friends remain uninjured while Chandra and Sam go unconscious. This scene lasts over two pages.
During the same walkout, Javier is shot by Officer James Daley. “The beet-faced cop had a gun trained on Javier. And then he fired. it wasn’t the first time Moss had heard the pop of a gunshot. Nor was it the first time he’d heard the sickening sound of the air leaving someone’s body. The sound that meant the worst. Javier curled into himself; his brown hands jerked up to his chest, and blood squirted out between his fingers. Moss screamed, again and again, and pitched himself forward as Javier crumpled to the ground, the life too quickly draining out of him.” Javier dies, Mr. Jacobs and Moss are beaten, and many of the students are sent to the hospital. This scene takes place over three pages.
Moss’s city-wide protest turns chaotic after the militarized Oakland PD uses a Silent Guardian, an infamous heat ray, against the protestors. The narrator describes the Silent Guardian in action saying, “The antenna on the top of the box would move sluggishly, and as soon as it seemed to be pointing at someone, that person would drop to the ground. Hands scraped at skin. People clawed at their faces, into the side of a car, trying to escape the sensation that Martin had described to him, and she lay still on the ground.” Many protestors are sent to the hospital, Haley dies, and Moss’s mother almost dies. Moss and his friends’ wounds are described later. “He watched Kaisha and Reg sit as still as they could, saw the sweat on Reg’s bloody face, felt his own pulse pounding in his head.” This scene takes place over fourteen pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

During Shawna’s locker check, Officer Hull finds drugs in her locker. Moss describes the encounter saying, “Hull held a Ziplock bag up in the air, and Moss’s heart dropped. White pills. Lots of them.” They are Shawna’s epilepsy medication.

Language

Typically, characters use profanity in the heat of the moment. Profanity is used infrequently but includes phrases like “dickwad,” “piss,” “jerk,” “ass,” every variation of “shit,” derogatory terms, and “assholes.”
When Reg is trying to go through the metal detectors for the first time, someone shouts “Hurry up, dickwad!”
Before shooting Javier, James Daley snarls, “You little shits never learn.”
After Javier’s death, Moss gets angry and yells at Esperanza, “I hate your mother, and if her nosy, white savior ass hadn’t called Mr. Elliot, Javier might be alive today.”
During the Oakland Police Department’s press conference at the end, somewhere near the back of the crowd, someone yells out “Bullshit!”
Afnan describes Mr. Jacobs when he says, “That man was a smug asshole…I bet no one has ever told him otherwise”.
During Moss’s protest, Martin hands him an empty bottle and says, “You’re gonna have to take a mean piss eventually.”
After slipping on a canister, James Daley falls and Reg shouts out, “Did you see that jerk hit the ground?”
During the discussion amongst friends after Javier’s death, Kaisha suggests, “Do you think the cops aren’t capable of just making shit up?”
Moss reflects on his father’s death when he says, “Months of those Piedmont assholes teasing me at school, telling me he deserved it because he was a thug and the streets were cleaner without him.”
Racist terms are used throughout the book, and the characters’ skin colors come up a lot. One time during a discussion about what to do about the metal detectors, a man in the audience steps up and says, “You call a spade a spade.” Another time, when thinking about Javier, Moss thought to himself, “Oh god, he thought, that makes me sound so white.”
“Oh my god” and “Oh god” are used as exclamations.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

by Matthew Perkey

Satellite

Named after constellations, Leo, Libra, and Orion have been trapped since birth on Moon 2, a space station orbiting Earth. Not old or strong enough to survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, the teens have been parented by teams of astronauts, training their entire lives to one day return home. Each teen anxiously awaits their sixteenth birthday, the day they would be declared strong enough to return home. They meticulously plan out their bucket lists for Earth while Earth taunts them from outside their windows.

However, after mechanical errors send them hurtling back to Earth earlier than expected, the group of teens soon find their new environment hard to adapt to, despite all its wondrous beauties. To survive, the friends must defy unimaginable odds while facing a dangerous monopoly, a new and strange world, and their own self-identity problems. Their bonds of friendship and their definition of home and family will be put to the test. Going back home will not be as easy as they thought.

With its text-speech writing style, futuristic setting, and an incredible amount of space facts, Nick Lake tells an extraordinary tale. Lake explores the meaning of home and family, the definition of love, and the search for one’s self-identity. Lake’s use of interludes and first-person narration makes Leo come alive on the page, causing readers to empathize with the teenager searching for a place to call home. Riddled with space politics, action, and references to our own modern-day culture, the fast-paced story is a page-turner from start to finish. A diverse set of characters will leave readers crying at the end.

Satellite has a unique plot with the perfect mix of action, space, suspense, and drama. The well-developed characters, who are all distinctly different, act like real people. Even though Leo has a secret crush on Orion, the story does not go overboard on the romance. Instead, the story focuses on Leo’s relationship with his grandfather and his mother as he strives to find out who he really is. Through Leo’s experience, the reader will be forced to look at Earth in a new light. When Leo gets to earth, he is overcome with wonder when he sees birds, fire, and even the simple act of throwing a ping-pong ball for the first time while other characters think of their surroundings as “just Nevada.”

Often called Andy Weir’s The Martian for teens, Satellite is so much more. It explores some of the true moral questions young adults have about life, and it seeks to answer these questions by teaching readers about the value of home and family. However, due to the constant cussing by the characters during stressful times, this book is best suited for older readers. The story’s text-speech, which mimics those of NASA commands, does not demonstrate proper grammatical concepts, which may frustrate some readers. Nevertheless, it is a must-read – not only entertaining young readers but teaching them not to take their everyday lives for granted.

Sexual Content

At the beginning of the novel, Leo describes how both he and the twins ended up being born in space and how they were conceived. Leo says, “1 of the results of the experiment was unexpected: if u put male and female astronauts in a confined space for 2 years, they will eventually have sex.” Leo also describes his own conception saying, his mother “had a fling a few nights before she launched.”
Throughout the book, Leo has constant feelings for Orion and Soto, which he recounts in detail saying, “he stands still while i get up, & i put a hand on his shoulder. i feel the strength of his muscles thru his shirt. a little electric current goes thru me. i feel something happen, in the center of me.”
Just before Orion dies due to his inability to live in 1g, Leo says, “u can’t go anyway u can’t … u can’t because I always thought my first kiss would be with u I always dreamed of it anyway and u can’t go because I haven’t had my first kiss, so u can’t go u can’t go u can’t go.” Orion and Leo kiss while Orion imagines Leo as Leo’s mother.

Violence

Wile e Coyote and the Road Runner are mentioned continuously throughout the book along with the various ways the main characters can die during space travel including burning to death, exploding, splattering, and suffocating.
When traveling through a ghost town in Sonoma County California, Leo notices that there are long lines at both the bank and multiple gun stores while other businesses have no activity. Leo asks his grandfather why, and Grandpa says, “hard to make a living these days. So people want to keep their money liquid. & they want guns to protect it.”
Grandpa is a rancher and during the book, Leo watches as they send cows to slaughter. Although not explicitly stated in the book, Leo ponders how his grandfather’s cows are raised only to die.
After discovering Leo’s location, a group of rebels against the Company tries to rescue Leo by attacking the ranch. When Leo’s grandfather walks in and sees one of the mercenaries pointing a gun at Leo, Leos says that his grandfather “doesn’t hesitate for a moment. He fires as easy as breathing, and the man is thrown back against the wall, a spray of blood, an arc of it, his head hitting the wood with a thud.” All three mercenaries die, Leo sprains his wrist, and Leo’s mother dislocates her shoulder during the fight.
While escaping Mountain Dome, Leo glances back and sees the muzzle flare and hears the “whistling sound” of a bullet as he notices one of the facilities guards shooting at them. None of them are injured.

Drugs and Alcohol

Virginia describes Commander Boutros when she says, “get him drunk, he’s a whole different person.”
Before their launch, Grandpa, Yuri, and Leo all drink vodka mixed with rocket fuel for good luck. Yuri, of course, leaves out the vodka for 16-year-old Leo.
Medications are used frequently throughout the book, such as acetaminophen used to treat Leo’s fever and painkillers used to relieve the pain in Leo’s mother’s dislocated shoulder.

Language–

Profanity is used in the extreme. Almost all the characters at one point in the novel use it. Profanity includes: shit, fuck, fricking, bitch, ass, piss, oh my god, and goddamned.
Leo’s grandfather bets Leo that he cannot play catch on Earth because “gravity is a bitch.”
After astronaut Brown dies, Virginia responds with “fuck. what went wrong with the program? what did I do?”
After realizing that they will place a huge reliance on the boosters of Moon Two to maintain attitude instead of using their gyros, engineer Singh says, “shit.
After realizing they will never be able to survive on Earth outside of a hospital, Orion says, “well, this sucks ass, doesn’t it.”
Grandpa describes Kazakhstan as “a bit of a shithole.”
After seeing a Soyuz rocket, Grandpa says, “holy shit.” Later, he fights with Yuri about the legitimacy of their mission saying, “we can’t fly a Soyuz either! It’s a goddamned rocket.”
Former cosmonaut Yuri and former astronaut Freeman are “piss brothers for life” after their many adventures in space together.
After the Soyuz rocket fails to detach from Moon 2’s peripheral system, astronaut Sara says “dammit.” Later, astronaut Sara does her first EVA and describes space as “in-fricking-sane.”
When Leo saves Sara from dying by using his EVA suit rockets, he says, “I can hear her still in my helmet saying oh my god oh my god like all other words have been wiped from her mind.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Libra loves plants and dreams of being a botanist. While at Mount Dome, she spends most of her time in one of the company’s projects where they attempt to create perfect biodomes for construction on earthlike plants. The project is entitled Creating Eden.
The book references an EE cummings poem with the starting line of “I thank You God for most his amazing day.”
Throughout the book, Leo, Orion, and Libra are referred to as angels returning to Earth from heaven, and when Leo returns to Moon 2, he is like an angel returning to heaven once more.

by Matthew Perkey

I Believe in A Thing Called Love

Desi has a plan for everything. With a plan, anything is possible. That’s how she became the student body president and a soccer star. That’s how she’ll get into Stanford. Desi knows how to plan. She knows how to study. But, when it comes to boys, Desi is a flailure. “Flirt + failure = flailure.”

Desi is a disaster at romance. But when a hot art student moves to her school, Desi decides she wants to capture his attention. After watching Korean dramas, Desi realizes that love is, “like a freaking equation!” Desi is determined to be like the K drama’s unlucky heroine, who always ends up with her true love. Desi follows her, “K Drama steps to True Love,” and goes after the moody, elusive artist Luca Drakos. After a boat rescue, love triangle, and staged car crash, will Desi end up in the arms of Luca?

I Believe in A Thing Called Love will capture the reader’s heart from the first chapter. Told from Desi’s point of view, readers will laugh at Desi’s crazy antics, understand her insecurities, and root for her as she goes after the guy of her dreams. Desi wants to control everything, but this smart nerdy girl is hilariously clueless when it comes to boys. Desi isn’t portrayed as a stereotypical smart girl; she also isn’t perfect, and Desi’s imperfections make her even more lovable.

Desi has a strong and warm relationship with her father. Despite the fact that he is a mechanic and often has grease-stained hands, despite his imperfect English, and his love for watching K dramas, Desi is never embarrassed by her father. Desi’s father isn’t just a background character, but a well-developed part of the story. Desi’s father understands her quirks but doesn’t try to change her. The readers will appreciate the scenes with Desi and her father just as much as the failed romance scenes.

I Believe in A Thing Called Love isn’t just a typical teen romance. Through Desi’s experiences, readers will learn valuable lessons. When Desi is afraid that she is acting weird, Luca tells her, “Everyone’s weird, though. If you’re not even a little weird, you are truly weird. In a bad way. Not in the good way.” When Desi thinks about giving up on love, her father tells her, “You cannot control who you love, Desi, but you can always control how hard you fight, okay?” In the end, not all of Desi’s plans work out and despite the pain of failure, Desi knows life can still be good.

Do not pick up I Believe in A Thing Called Love unless you have time to finish the book because once you pick it up, you will not want to put it down. I Believe in A Thing Called Love takes a humorous look at first love and will leave readers with a smile. Desi is a heroine that will not be forgotten easily. The story ends with a list of K dramas that readers may want to watch. And after seeing Desi put the K drama’s love formula to the test, readers may also become hooked on K drama’s themselves.

Sexual Content

Desi thinks back to fourth grade when “a boy asked me if I want to look at his ‘special’ books and I told him I wasn’t allowed to look at pornography. Turns out it was comic books and he didn’t even know how boys were made yet. I was the fourth grade perv.”
Desi thinks about how Korean romantic comedies are different than in America. One difference is that “in American shows, the leads would barely blink twice before jumping into bed.”
Desi tells her friend, “I’m not an experienced seductress who like, has men drinking champagne from her high heels.”
Desi’s friend tells her, “I, too, think one should get laid before entering college.”
When Desi talks about her crush, a friend says, “I don’t want to see flailure heartbreak. I was hoping it was just you needing to round out your high school years with a good old-fashioned devirginizing.”
Desi goes to a “sex party” that was, “fertile ground for hooking up. . . there were rooms for spin the bottle and seven minutes in heaven.” Desi goes into the seven minutes in heaven closet with a friend. They just sit around and look at their phones.
Desi wonders, “Was everyone having sex but me? God.”
Desi’s friend Fiona is a lesbian, who has dates with a lot of girls. “Girls lined up for Fiona every year. Sometimes it was the classic bad-girl type and they’d make out rebelliously in the hallway at school.” The story talks about how her family reacted when she came out. “Her family eventually recovered, although they still weren’t thrilled with her active love life. I’m pretty sure that would have applied to boyfriends, too, however.”
Desi and another girl see Luca kissing a girl.
Desi thinks Luca is going to kiss her. “His eyes met mine and suddenly. . . suddenly it felt real . . . This was it. Kiss time. Holy crap. A wave of heat passed between us—the vibrations of our bodies’ atoms and molecules transferring heat. . . And then he blinked.”
Luca and Desi kiss. “Lips met mine, soft, a little chapped, and warm. My eyes were open in true K drama heroine fashion.”
Desi, “brushed my lips against his. Soft and a bit hesitant. And he kissed me back just as softly, with a little pressure at the very end.”
When Luca picks Desi up, he quickly kisses her. “My skin buzzed, every part of me awake and alive.”
When Luca finds out he got a scholarship, Desi and he begin jumping around. “Then suddenly we weren’t jumping anymore—just a whole lot of kissing.”
Desi and Luca kiss. “He strode over, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me. Not a gentle, sweet kiss—but an urgent one.”

Violence

Desi thinks back to first grade when, “I kicked my first crush, Jefferson, in the nuts during taekwondo class, and he had to be taken to the ER.”
Luca covers Desi’s mouth so she will be quiet. She, “responded by biting his gloved hand. I tasted rubber. He yelped and let go of me. . .”

Drugs and Alcohol

After binge watching television series all weekend long, someone asks Desi, “What! Are you on speed?”
When Desi is at home, her dad took, “a sip of beer.”
Desi and her friends go to a “sex party” where there is alcohol.
Someone asks Desi, “Are you high?”
Someone is upset that Desi didn’t want to be her friend. The girl says, “You would never talk to art freaks who smoked pot.”
Desi and her friends go to the beach and her friend, “took a swig of beer.”

Language

Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, bitch, bitchiness, badass, bullshit, crap, dang, damn, douche, f-ing, hell, holy shit, freaking and shit.
Pissed, motherf-ing and fuck are all used once.
Oh my god, God, Oh Lord, Oh Sweet Jesus, and Jesus are often used as exclamations.
Desi thinks, “I might be a flailure in love, but I was the motherf-ing boss of studying.”
Someone asks a boy, “Why do you even hang out with a bunch of girls, anyway, you caveman douche.”
When someone suggested getting a hummer limo for prom, Fiona says, “I’d rather eat dick.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Star-Crossed

Matti has never wanted to be on stage before, but when her teacher announces that the eighth-grade play is Romeo and Juliet, Matti wants a part. Everyone expects Matti to be on the sidelines, but can she convince her teacher she deserves to be on the stage?

Matti had a crush on Elijah, but when the play begins everything changes. Gemma—a smart, pretty, British girl—gets the part of Juliet. Matti starts to wonder why she feels fluttery whenever she is near Gemma. If Matti was crushing on Elijah—a boy—could she also have a crush on a girl?

Many middle schoolers will relate to Matti as she struggles to understand her feelings. She also must figure out who she can trust with her secret. Even though she loves her friends, can they be trusted to not only accept that she has a crush on a girl, but can they also be trusted to keep Matti’s secret until she’s ready to reveal it?

Matti struggles with telling people she has a crush on a girl. When she tells her best friend and her sister, they both accept the news without shock and encourage her to pursue her crush. The story never delves into the negative reactions that others may have to her news.

Star-Crossed has plenty of dialogue and drama to keep readers engaged until the end. Throughout the story, the characters discuss Romeo’s and Juliet’s behavior and feelings of love. Although Matti’s story parallels Romeo and Juliet, the discussion of the play slows down the plot.

Middle school readers will fall in love with Matti and her friends. The characters include the typical mean girl, but also adds some unique characters. Tessa and her Shakespearean insults add humor. Matti’s inner thoughts add depth to the story. In the end, Matti’s story contains drama, crushes, family, and friendship conflict that will keep readers entertained. Star-Crossed is a romance appropriate for younger readers who want to learn about Romeo and Juliet.

Sexual Content

When Matti thinks about the play, she thinks, “All I could think about was Gemma kissing Liam, Liam kissing Gemma—and wondering why that image made my insides knot up.”
During play practice, the kids are teasing a boy about having to kiss Gemma. When the boys are talking, Gemma “marched over to Liam and smooched him on the lips.”
Matti wonders if she has a crush on a girl. If she did have a crush on a girl, “would it mean that you were gay, or a lesbian, or whatever word you were supposed to call it, if you liked only one particular girl?”
When Matti sees Gemma, her “heart zoomed.”
Matti reveals that she has a crush on a girl. Her sister responds by asking, “Have you ever kissed a boy?” When Matti says no, Cara replies, “Too bad. Because kissing a girl works the same way.”
Matti thinks that she can crush on boys, even though she currently has a crush on a girl.
During play practice, Gemma “smooched” Matti’s mouth. Then the two practice the scene that requires the two to kiss. When they have to kiss at play practice, “it made me (Matti) swimmy-headed.”

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

When talking about others or to others, often there is name-calling including dirtbag, moron, malt-worm, and doofus. For example, some said, “in my opinion Elijah’s a stuck-up dirtbag.”
Tessa went to a Shakespeare camp and learned Shakespearean insults that she uses throughout the story. A list of the Shakespearean insults is included at the back of the book.
When someone calls Tessa ugly, Tessa says, “I’m ugly? You’re like a toad; ugly and venomous. Thy face is not worth sunburning.”
One of the characters says “bollocks” several times. The character also calls someone a “prat” and a “dimwit.”
Dang is used three times.
Oh My God, OMIGOD, and God are often used as exclamations.
Holy Crap is said once.
While discussing Romeo and Juliet, a student asks, “Isn’t that kind of gay?” The teacher explains, “People may choose to identify themselves as gay, and it’s a word of pride. But the way you’re using the word, it’s just an insult, and there’s no room for that in this production, or in this school. “

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

The War Outside

Margot’s German-American family lived in a small Iowa community. After attending a rally, her father is detained in the family internment camp in Crystal City. In order to keep the family together, Margot and her mother follow him. Since being in the internment camp, her mother’s health is deteriorating and her father is changing. Instead of being a loving father, he is spending time with Nazis and learning how to hate.

Haruko wants to pretend that Crystal City is just another town. She’s made friends and goes to school. On the outside, she looks calm, but on the inside, she is stricken by fear. She questions her father’s innocence and wants to know what he is hiding. Her soldier brother, who is fighting in the Japanese-American unit of the US Army, is also keeping secrets. Haruko wants to know the truth, but will the truth help her family or destroy it?

A dust storm throws Haruko and Margot together. Despite being of different ethnicities, the two start a secret friendship. The two begin to trust and rely on each other. Can this fragile friendship last in the desert prison camp or will the two discover that hate is stronger?

The War Outside gives readers a glimpse of the fear caused by World War II and explains why the internment camps came to exist. Margot’s family highlights how being imprisoned in an internment camp begins to change everyone. Margot’s father’s anger begins to control his actions, and he begins spending time with Nazi sympathizers. Margot struggles with the fact that she loves her father, but doesn’t approve of his actions. Margot knows that “marching with a Nazi swastika is not like algebra, where you can get the wrong answer but be right some of the time. This is all wrong.”

The story is told from the perspectives of both Haruko and Margot, which allows the reader to understand the motivation of both characters. The struggles of the internment camp bring Haruko and Margot together, and they both have romantic feelings for each other. While the girls’ attraction is hinted at, the topic is not explored in depth which makes it hard to relate to the girls’ strong feelings for each other. In the end, Haruko wonders how she can make a decision based on a moment, “for a person I have known barely a month? For a feeling that was so fast and so strong, and that I can barely even describe?” The reader is left wondering the same thing—why are the two girls so devastated by the other’s actions?

There are several family conflicts that should have been explored in more detail. Even though it is clear that the girls love their families, the story lacks family interaction that would have brought their relationships into focus. In the end, the characters lack development, the ending seems rushed, and the conclusion falls flat. Although the story is an interesting read, it will be easily forgotten.

Sexual Content

Margot and Haruko hide so they can talk. As they are talking, “I (Haruko) press my index and middle finger to my own mouth, which suddenly feels hot and swollen, and hold them there for a minute, and then I take those same fingers and press them against Margot’s. Her lips are chapped. She closes her eyes. . . I feel my pulse, very faintly, in the tips of my fingers, pressing against the cool of Margot’s lips, and slowing so that every beat crashes in my ears.” The two are interrupted.
While talking to Haruko, Margot “has a sudden urge to touch her nose, her hair, to go with her to the icehouse where it’s dark and private. There is throbbing, deep in the pit of my stomach.”

Violence

Haruko accidentally hit her sister. Her sister’s “mouth falls open and she reaches to where there are four white finger-shaped lines appearing on the side of her face.”
Haruko thinks back to when “a car drove past and the window rolled down and the driver threw a bottle of soda at us that splashed all over our clothes.”
While in the internment camp, Margot finds out that someone “painted swastikas on the barn and burned the house to the ground.” Her family has no home to return to.
Margot’s father tries to hit his pregnant wife. When Margo stops him, she “reached for his hand and he pulls away from me, and then I’m off balance and spilling to the ground. My mother rushed towards me, but she’s forgotten about the fallen chair. Her foot twists around the rung, and instead of shooting her hands out in front of herself for support the way I did, she’s kept them wrapped around her midsection, protecting her baby.” Her mom ends up with a bruised face.
There is news that at another internment camp, a riot began and, “guards fired into the crowd with a machine gun. . . Two people died.”
Two girls drown in the swimming pool. They are “pulled out of the pool, limp as rag dolls.” When people get upset, a guard points a rifle at the people.

Drugs and Alcohol

The general store sells cigarettes and German beer.
Some of the men at the internment camp are “building secret distilleries to get drunk on grain alcohol.” This is discussed several times.

Language

Thank God, for God’s sake, and Oh God are used as exclamations several times.
Someone calls Haruko a “yellow bitch.”
A man tells Margot that she would like his son because he’s “not an ass like me.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

During a funeral, the mourners “sing hymns that most of us know by rote. We recite the Apostles’ Creed, we recite the lord’s prayer.”

Spotlight on Coding Club!

Erin loves being on stage. When the school announces an upcoming talent show, Erin knows she can come up with a winning performance. Erin also agrees to help the coding club with developing an app to help score the contestants. Erin knows she’s taking on a lot, but she’s determined to distract herself. Erin doesn’t want to think about her father’s deployment and staying busy is her solution.

With operation distraction in full force, Erin’s anxiety gets the best of her. She wants to pretend that everything is okay, but her stress levels keep increasing. Her friends from the coding club have always been there for her, but Erin doesn’t want to tell them what’s really going on in her life. Will Erin be able to handle the pressure? If she tells her friends the truth, will they still like her?

The fourth installment of the Girls Who Code series has the same lovable characters but is told from Erin’s point of view, which allows the story to focus on a new conflict. Readers will get a look at Erin’s thought process as she tries to use humor to diffuse stressful situations. Erin tries to hide her true feelings from her friends. Readers will relate to Erin’s struggle with anxiety and her fear of telling others. The story makes it clear that having anxiety should not be viewed as an embarrassment. Erin is told, “I think it’s really cool that you talked to a therapist about this. Getting professional help was definitely the mature way to handle it.”

Spotlight on Coding Club uses texting bubbles, emojis, and simple vocabulary, which makes the story easy to read and assessable to younger readers. The fourth book in the series focuses less on the girls’ friendship and more on Erin’s personal struggle. Although Erin’s struggle is real, the story contains less action than previous books. Along with Erin’s personal struggle, Maya struggles with asking a girl on a date. Although dating is a topic many preteens are interested in, Maya’s romantic interests seemed forced and added little to the plot. In the end, Spotlight on Coding Club teaches a valuable lesson about friendship and anxiety but lacks action and suspense.

Sexual Content

There is a short conversation about Maya asking another girl out on a date. Later in the story, Maya asks the girl to the movies and it is “definitely a date.”

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

“Oh my god” is used as an exclamation three times.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Chemistry Lesson

Maya has her summer all planned. She has an internship at MIT and the perfect boyfriend, but before the summer fun can start, Maya’s boyfriend breaks up with her. Maya, who is still grieving her mother’s death, has one thing on her mind—getting Whit back.

When Maya finds her mother’s old notebooks, she thinks she’s discovered the perfect way to get her boyfriend back. With the help of her mother’s lab intern, Ann, Maya makes a love serum. But before Maya can use it on Whit, she needs to test out the serum on two test subjects. Maya embarks on an adventure that leads her to discover the unpredictability of love.

The best part of Chemistry Lesson is the relationship Maya has with her best friend, Brian. Realistic, funny, and kind, Brian shows what true friendship should look like. Another positive relationship in the story is between Maya and her father. Both are trying to deal with the loss of Maya’s mother and struggle with the grieving process.

Although the storyline has an interesting premise, Maya’s willingness to ignore moral codes to get Whit back seems farfetched. Whit’s early disappearance from the story leaves the reader wondering why Whit is worth all of the effort to create a love potion. For a person who is so smart when it comes to science, Maya is completely clueless when it comes to guys. By completing the experiment, Maya does learn about herself and others, but her naivety when it comes to boy-girl relationships comes off as false.

Chemistry Lesson is a quick, easy read that has a diverse cast of characters. Even though the story focuses on a love potion, the love scenes won’t stir up much emotion. For those looking for a fun, unique love story, Chemistry Lesson will hit the mark.

Sexual Content

Brian is gay, but the only reference to his sexuality is when Maya asked, “Were you ever this upset about Matt?”
Maya’s aunt has a female partner “of more than 20 years.” Pam tells Maya that when she “had crushes on women and men while I was with Pam,” but because she was older, she was “able to ignore the crushes.”
Maya’s friend Yael told Maya “how a woman she’d met in undergrad pursued her for months only to dump her for a guy on the rugby team.”
Maya and her boyfriend, Whit, decided “we’d have sex in four weeks—once Whit moved into off-campus housing, where he’d have his own room.” Maya was “unable to stop myself from imagining what was going to happen in less than a month.”
When Maya’s boyfriend breaks up with her, her friend tells her, “This whole ‘losing my virginity thing is a heteronormative concept anyway.”
Maya makes out with Kyle. The scene is described over three pages. As they kiss, “He tipped me back so that my head rested against a couch pillow, and then he was half on top of me, one leg on the couch, one on the floor. . . He shifted so that his knee fell in between my legs.” Maya stops Kyle. Then he said, “This kind of thing happens all the time in college.”
Maya thinks back to visiting Whit at college where, “I’d seen students bring strangers back to their rooms and then say goodbye forever the next morning.”
One of Maya’s friends “hooked up with one of the techs from next door.”
Maya makes out with a boy at a party. “He pulled me close and hugged me, and I reciprocated with my arms around him. Then I felt a tickling wetness on my neck. . . He put one hand on my butt like it was no big deal . . . I couldn’t do much besides keep my mouth open as his tongue began wagging from side to side inside it.” The scene is described over four pages.
Someone tells Maya, “sometimes the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
When Maya is in Whit’s room, she teases him for having Bananagrams in his nightstand. She says, “You’re supposed to have condoms and drugs in there.”

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

For an experiment, Maya takes drops. When her friend catches her taking the drops, she tells him, “I’m ingesting a pheromones-masking formula to get Whit back.”
Maya thinks back to “the wine that Whit once stole from his parent’s liquor cabinet so we could share it on one of our first real dates.”
After dinner, Maya’s aunt poured her a “full glass of sweet wine.”
Maya goes to several parties where there was alcohol. At one, “Most of the kids were drinking beer procured by someone’s older brother.”
When trying to explain an experiment, one of the characters mentions Viagra.
Maya, her father, and her friend go to an outdoor play. Her father brought “water bottles filled with his special juice drink.” Maya’s father said, “I’m teaching her that alcohol isn’t something you consume in excess for the purposes of getting drunk.”
Maya goes to a party where teens are drinking and she “could see a pack of adults smoking something in a circle.”
When Maya hurts herself, she takes Percocet for the pain.

Language

When someone makes fun of Kyle’s singing, he “lifted his middle finger in our direction.”
When Maya visits her aunt, her aunt uses profanity including “goddamned.” The aunt’s accent is so thick that the curse words sounded like “fahckin’ or ‘gawhddamned.’”
“Oh my god” is used as an exclamation.
Profanity is used infrequently but includes bullshit, dammit, hell, and shit.
After Maya sings karaoke, her friend says, “you sounded like a fucking robot.”
“Jesus” is used once as an exclamation.

When Maya falls down, a guy says, “Holy shit, she’s down.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Stealing Parker

Parker loves her family, her church, and her life. But all that changes when her mother divorces her father and leaves with her new lover—a woman. When Parker’s church and best friend turn their back on her, Parker sets out to prove that she likes boys. But when the boys’ assistant coach catches her eye, Parker’s life spirals out of control.

As Parker struggles with how to deal with her secret relationship, she is besieged with more problems. Parker’s father is in denial. Her brother is always high. And her best friend, Drew, is hiding the fact that he is gay.

Parker works through her insecurities and frustration through a prayer journal, which gives the reader insight into Parker’s emotional state. The reader will be able to understand Parker’s desire to be loved and how that leads her to kiss so many boys, although the illegal relationship between Parker and the boys’ baseball coach leads to frequent and steamy sex scenes and ends with an investigation.

Finding Parker hits on difficult topics relevant in today’s world. Parker explores her faith in God and how that faith impacts those who are gay. The story also tackles the difficulties of high school friendships; most of Parker’s friends abandoned her after her mother came out, classmates that don’t even know her talk trash her, and even her best friend stops talking to her. Finding Parker brings realistic problems to light and shows the dangers of being promiscuous. In the end, Parker learns to love herself and accept her mother’s new lifestyle.

Although Parker is a well-developed and relatable character, her sexual relationship with the adult coach contains graphic sexual details. The story contains mature content, which some readers may want to avoid.

Sexual Content

Parker’s mom “announced she’s a lesbian and ran off with her friend who was more than a friend.”
Parker has kissed many boys, trying to prove that she isn’t a lesbian like her mother. She lost weight so she wouldn’t look “butch.” “All the guys know I look good. They know I want them and I love kissing and sometimes rounding a couple of bases (I never go further than second).”
Parker thinks about when, after church she, “let him kiss me beside the turtle sandbox thing, so people will know I like boys.”
When Parker decides to manage the boy’s baseball team, the coach tells her not to date or “mess around” with team members. The coach said, “the girl who managed the team last year, uh, well, we had some incidents on the bus and in the locker room.”
Parker and her friend talk about her “one-night thing” with Matt Higgins. She thinks, “I didn’t enjoy kissing Matt Higgins very much. He kept trying to go up my shirt.”
A boy said, “Everyone knows she (Parker) puts out.” Parker gets upset and thinks, “I’m still a virgin.” She then thinks about how she can’t insert a tampon.
At last year’s prom, Parker’s date “kept trying to feel me up in the middle of the gym.”
Parker has a few minutes, “before we need to leave for church, so I unzip my dress. . . lie down on my bed, and slip my fingers under the elastic of my underwear, wondering what it would feel like if a guy touched me there.”
Parker thinks that Seth likes a girl but “he’s too embarrassed to get involved with her, considering the whole scandal with her dad, the district attorney, screwing his secretary and all.”
Parker has a crush on the baseball assistant coach. During class Parker lets out a moan when she, “picture(s) myself tangled up in his crumpled sheets, our legs knotted. The idea scares me a little because I’ve never gotten naked with anybody.”
While at practice, someone yells, “Corndog’s got a hard-on for Coach!”
When a group of boys try to get Corndog to tell them how far he’s gone with his girlfriend, Corndog said, “Hell, no. I can’t tell you. She’d rip my balls off.”
A boy tells a story about, “how he saw a hot pink dildo laying on the concrete behind the cafeteria . . . ”
Parker and Corndog write notes back and forth discussing someone’s penis size.
At a party, a girl “French kisses” a boy she doesn’t know.
Parker has a sexual relationship with the assistant coach, who is an adult. The first time they kiss, “He digs fingers into my hip. . . My mouth found his, and I wrap my arms around his neck. . . I deepen the kiss. His tongue explores the inside of my mouth. My knees go wobbly.”
Parker and the assistant coach begin making out in the parking lot of the laundromat, behind the dumpsters. The first time they meet there, they make out. “He tastes like mint toothpaste. My hands are on his neck and his are in my hair, and I can tell he’s experienced. . . He pushes me backward and climbs on top, his weight heavy, yet comforting.”
Parker gets a hall pass and goes to the assistant coach’s office. “Then his lips were on mine and he lifted me onto his desk. He pulled my hips to his and kissed me until I was so dizzy I could barely breathe. Brian began to grind against me and I was so drunk on him, I couldn’t think at all.” They stop because someone knocks on the door. Parker then thinks about a couple nights before when, Brian went up my shirt again and unsnapped my bra, and ran his hands over my bare breast. Him running his calloused fingers over my skin . . . I couldn’t stop trembling. . . His teeth sank into my shoulder.”
One night when Parker and Brain were making out, “he kissed my breast and felt me through my jeans. I wasn’t comfortable enough to touch him yet. But he took my fingers and put my hand there anyway.” They stopped when a “cop knocked on the truck window and told us to move along.”
Brian asks Parker to give him a blow job, but she doesn’t. Instead, he “pushes my panties aside, making me moan softly as he works a finger inside of me. . . Later I straddle him and he wraps his hands around my waist and we kiss and kiss. . .”
Brian and Parker park behind the dumpsters and, Parker “felt him too. He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat while my fingers moved up and down. I could tell by the noises he made that he liked how I made him feel, but it was almost as if I could be anybody. It didn’t matter who I was, it was only that somebody was giving him pleasure.”

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

At a party, a boy gets drunk and falls in a ditch. “. . . He was so drunk he started screaming about how he’d broken his leg. And Marie Baird had to convince him that his leg was already broken.”
The assistance baseball coach takes Parker out to eat and orders a beer.
Parker’s brother, Ryan, has a drug problem. She makes him eggs to “hopefully clean out whatever he drank/ate/snorted/shot-up last night.”
Parker goes to a party where teens are drinking beer. Some play beer pong and someone “takes a shot directly out of a Smirnoff bottle and wipes his mouth, then does another shot.”
Parker finds her brother passed out with “an empty bottle of Robitussin in his fist.” Parker and her friend take him to the hospital.
Parker’s mom tells her she needs to get on birth control.
Parker’s best friend is gay but hasn’t told anyone. Parker attempts to get him and another guy together. Later, Parker finds out that her best friend likes the same boy she does.

Language

Profanity is used often and includes ass, bitch, dick, fucking, hell, pissed, and shit.
When Parker and her friend look at a book of Kama Sutra, the friend said, “Jesus Christ, is that move physically possible?”
God is used as an exclamation often.
Someone lectures Parker on “how I screw over his friends.”
After being mean to Parker, Corndog apologizes, “Last night I heard my mom crying, and I got upset. That’s why I was a dick today. I’m sorry.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

The story contains entries from Parker’s prayer journal beginning when she was little. In the first entry, she writes, “as I prayed, I didn’t ask you for anything. I only thanked you for giving me Mom.”
Parker blames God for ruining her family. She often asks, “Why did God let this happen to my family?”
When Parker’s mother came out as a lesbian, members of the church began ignoring the family. However, Parker’s dad makes her attend church. They have a conversation about if the Bible says, “thou shalt not become a lesbian?” Her father replies “no.”
When the pastor’s daughter spreads rumors that Parker is “a butch softball player who probably likes girls,” Parker wonders where God went.
Parker makes a list of “Reasons Why I’m the Worst Christian of All Time.” Her list includes, “I don’t see how a loving God would split a family up like he did mine.”
When Parker was little, the pastor accuses her of lying and, “gave me a lecture on how lying is a straight path to Hell.”
When Parker flirts with the assistant coach, she thinks, “When God created the Earth, he had such a sick wicked sense of humor. He made everything that’s wrong feel really, really good.”
Parker’s dad breaks up with his girlfriend because his church friends tell him to. Parker prays, “Please help my family. Hasn’t our church taken enough from us?”
Parker and her mom have a conversation about God and church. Parker’s mom said, “God still loves me and he loves you too . . . All that matters is your personal relationship with God.” Parker’s mom tells her that she doesn’t need to go to church because “I can talk to God while I’m walking the dog or running in the woods just the same as if I’m at church.”

This is Where It Ends

No one ever thought this could actually happen to them. Not here. Not in Opportunity, Alabama.

It is just a normal morning at Opportunity High School when a frightening series of events forever alters the lives of all who are inside. At the conclusion of Principal Trenton’s back-to-term speech in the auditorium, the exit doors fail to open as thousands of students frantically attempt to exit. Two minutes later, someone starts shooting.

Lasting only fifty-four minutes, this harrowing story is told from the perspectives of four different students, each of who have personal connections with the shooter. Those minutes are packed with enough action and tension to feel like a year. This suspense-filled novel dives deep into the emotions of high schoolers and examines the complexities of a murderer’s personality. Riddled with guilt and fear, the characters of this novel make the tragic and once so seemingly impossible situation relatable for the average teen reader.

As the subject matter of this book is very mature, it is not recommended for younger readers. It deals with content such as a school shooting, the passing of a parent, violent deaths, and homosexuality. The author suggests it for readers 14 and above, but some teens may still be disturbed by the novel’s contents. Nevertheless, This is Where it Ends is a well-written and compelling book that examines a topic that has become increasingly important in modern teens’ lives. It allows readers to ponder the intricacy of teen relationships and the value that we place on social acceptance.

Sexual Content

There are several references to a romantic relationship between Claire and Tyler, the shooter.
Autumn and Sylv are dating secretly. They often hold hands and Sylv, “wanted nothing more than to kiss her, but instead, we held hands.” In another scene, they kiss, “I leaned in, cupped her cheek in my hand, and kissed her,” but as Autumn is afraid of what people will think, she does not “come out.” Facing death, the two admit their feelings in front of the entire school.
One of the murdered characters is “Kevin Rolland, one of Opportunity High School’s only out-and-proud students.”
At junior prom, Tyler corners his sister’s girlfriend, Sylv, and attempts to kiss her. This experience is traumatic for Sylv and leads to the breakup of Claire and Tyler.
During the shooting, Claire and her track teammates are locked out of the school, and they try to get help. As the crisis continues and deaths are discovered, Claire realizes that she is in love with her best friend, Chris, and acts on her feelings. It begins as “I curl my fingers around Chris’s and lean into him” and escalates to, “I look up and touch my lips to Chris’s . . . It’s as if I don’t know where he ends and I start . . . He leans in and kisses me again as if the world were ending. And actually, it has.”
Sylv mentions that Tyler raped her. It is not described.

Violence

Autumn’s father abuses her. She mentions that he hits her and shows her bruises.
Tomás constantly beats up and bullies Tyler for threatening his sister. Tomás thinks, “The one time his eyes weren’t glossed over with contempt was when I slammed his head into a locker. My fingers itch to do it again.”
Tyler enters the auditorium and shoots many people; he “picks them off methodically.” He shoots the principal first. “All I can see is Principal Trenton’s surprised smile as she was shot and the horror of the people around who rushed to help her . . . There’s death, there’s dying, and there’s blood everywhere.”
The bodies of two victims are described. “Two students . . . are splayed across the chairs in front of Tyler. The boy still has his bag half slung over his shoulder as his blood mixes with hers.”
Tomás is frustrated with his inability to be helpful during the shooting, and “I turn on my heels and ram my fist into one of the supply cabinets. The thin board splinters on impact, cutting my knuckles, but the pain offers no relief.”
During the shooting, Tyler threatens Sylv. “He placed his hands on my shoulders again, his thumbs digging into my neck . . . When I tried to roll over and crawl away from him, his boot found my stomach, and I doubled over. He pinned me, his knees on my arms and his hands on my shirt.”
When attempting to find the janitor to help unlock the auditorium doors, Tomás and Fareed find him dead in the supply closet. “His hands are bound together with a cable tie pulled so tight his fingers have gone black. Cable ties circle his neck, and he is gagged. His eyes are empty; his face is as discolored as his hands. Bloody scratches mark his neck, as if he tried to rip through the plastic with his bare hands.”
The shooting of students and teachers is described in detail. “The first bullet buries itself in the teacher’s arm. The second bullet drills a hole through his chest.” In another scene, “A freshman beside us stumbles and trips, sliding against the seat when a bullet perforates her neck. I almost join the screaming as blood splatters my face.”
Some bullying boys set fire to a student’s locker. Another student’s tires are slashed for revenge.
Because her brother is the shooter, Autumn feels grief and responsibility for the deaths of others. She thinks, “Every time I blink, I see Nyah’s face being torn apart by the bullet . . . Ty is my only brother, but right now, I want him to die. To take the gun and shoot himself.”
Autumn gets hit with the barrel of the gun while she is trying to stop Tyler. “His arm snaps back and the barrel of the gun bashes my cheek. Spots of light burst in my vision. Pain blossoms over my face. Blood pools in my mouth.”
Near the conclusion of the novel, Tyler shoots Autumn and then kills himself, “When he pulls the trigger, I feel the shot rather than hear it. Pain overwhelms me. The floor opens up around me. The last thing I see before I fade is Ty turning the gun on himself . . . Then he blows his brains out.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Tyler and Autumn’s father is an abusive alcoholic. “Mr. Browne drowned his sorrows in alcohol.”
Tomás describes what usually follows an assembly as, “So everyone pushes to leave, then strolls, dawdles, sneaks out for a smoke and some air (the two aren’t mutually exclusive, thank you very much).”
Claire thinks of the track runners’ get-together at the end of the school year. The event has “no alcohol until the JV athletes are asleep, but then we’ll drink. We’ll toast our four years together.”

Language

Profanity is used fairly often throughout the novel. This includes: dammit, hell, fuck, and fuck off.
Claire describes the re-built version of Opportunity High School as, “state of the art—larger sports fields, fancy equipment, right in the middle of fuck all.”
“Oh my God” is said once and “God” is said once.
The people who are around Autumn in the auditorium are described as, “no longer pitiful, no longer worried about my poor, fucked-up home.”
Tyler rants to Autumn in between shooting people. “You know how much it hurt to find out about you and that—that slut?”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

After hearing the sound of the first bullet rip through the air, Claire and Chris decide to run for help. Before running, she chooses to “whisper a prayer to anyone who might listen.”
Upon seeing the mutilated body of the dead janitor, Fareed, “mutters something, but I can’t make out the words. It sounds like a prayer of sorts in the language of his parents.”
When Sylv comes out to her family as gay, she mentions that “Father Jones preaches about sin, hell, and damnation.”

by Morgan Filgas

We Are All Made Of Molecules

Stewart always wanted a sister. However, he never imagined that it would take his mother’s death, and his father moving in with his girlfriend before he got his wish. Plus Ashley isn’t anything close to being the sister of his dreams. She’s one year older than Stewart, and they have nothing in common.

Ashley is a typical mean girl whose only concern is staying at the top of the social ladder. So when her father announces that he is moving out because he is gay, Ashley fears that if any of her friends find out about her father’s gayness, it will ruin her social standing. Then when her mother’s boyfriend and son move in, Ashley’s anger ramps up even more. After all, Stewart is a total nerd.

We are all made of molecules is told from the points of view of Stewart and Ashley, who are both loveable in their own way. Stewart is a logical nerd who just wants to fit in. Ashley is a self-centered, angry teen who is trying to deal with the upheaval in her life. Having the story told by both Stewart and Ashley gives the book an interesting twist, because not only can the reader see each character’s thoughts and feelings, but the reader also sees how the two view each other.

Through Ashely’s experiences, the reader learns about the danger of drinking as well as the sexual dangers girls may face. In the end, Ashley realizes that outward appearances are not as important as she thought, and that nerdy Stewart may just know a thing or two about friendship.

We are all made of molecules is an easy-to-read, fun story that explores the messy relationships of parents. Ashley’s father reveals that he is gay, and his gay boyfriend appears. Ashley’s mother has her boyfriend and son move in. In the story, the group of five is shown becoming a unique family unit.

Sexual Content

A subplot of the story is about Ashley’s divorced father, Phil, who has revealed that he is gay. In one scene, Phil tells Stewart, “I didn’t decide to be gay. It’s not something you choose.” They then discuss why Phil married Ashley’s mother and didn’t tell people he was gay until two years ago. Phil says, “I didn’t want to be gay. I grew up in a very conservative and strict religious family . . . I made myself believe I was straight.”
Ashley sees her father kiss another man.
In the locker room, Stewart, “sat quietly on one of the benches and tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to notice that almost every single guy in my class was well into puberty. They had hair in all the right places, and their you-know-whats actually dangled. . . Mine does not dangle. Mine is more like a protruding belly button.”
Ashley watches an episode on TV about a guy that found out that, “he wasn’t the father of his girlfriend’s baby, and that the real father was the guy’s own brother.”
Jared says to Stewart, “You have the hots for your stepsister, don’t you? Gross, Stewie, that’s verging on incest.”
Ashley goes to Jared’s house and while there he pushed her onto the bed and tried to take her shirt off. “I grabbed his hands, but he kept yanking . . . I tried to move, but he pinned my arms down. When I looked at his face, it was as if he’d gone somewhere else. It was like I wasn’t even there . . .He was pulling at my shirt and my skirt at the same time.” Then the housekeeper comes in and Ashley leaves.
At a party, Ashley is passed out on her bed. After Jared and his friend make sure Ashely was completely out of it, Jared pulls up her shirt and takes a picture of her in her bra. Jared then pulls up her skirt and takes a picture of her underwear.” Then Stewart shows up and runs off with Jared’s phone and calls the police.
When some of the students at school find out that Ashely’s father is gay, one of the characters says, “I think it’s so cool that your dad is gay. It’s so . . . twenty-first century. Very cutting-edge. Ashley is then invited to the LGBT club. Ashley says, “But I’m not gay. Or lesbian, or bi, or transatlantic.”

Violence

Stewart tries to hide in the locker room because he doesn’t want to take a shower with the other boys. When Jared notices him, he “grabbed my gym shorts and yanked them down around my ankles . . .Then suddenly he grabbed hold of my boxers and I realized with sphincter-tightening horror that he was about to pull them down.” Then the teacher walks in and Jared leaves.
When Jared sees Stewart in the locker room, he again tries to pull his pants down. Stewart was prepared and wearing a wrestling uniform. Then Jared, “Yanked my T-shirt up and over my head. I couldn’t see a thing. I felt his hand grab one of the straps of my wrestling uniform and pull it down . . .” Before Jared can get the uniform off Stewart, Steward reveals that he is Ashley’s brother and Jared stops.
Stewart is wearing the school bulldog mascot costume and scares Ashley. “She started pummeling me . . . She started kicking me. I tried to shout, but my voice was muffled, and her screams drowned me out.”
Jared was kicked out of a private school. He said he, “dealt with someone who needed dealing with. Guy was a colossal turd, and everyone knew it.” Later in the story, it is revealed that in the locker room, Jared beat up the guy because he was gay. “Then I saw him looking at my junk after our final game, so I punched him . . . stupid faggot.”
Jared said that Ashley was a, “total tease. All she’s let me do is squeeze her tits a few times. Outside her clothes . . . I’ll break that bitch down.”
Stewart remembers a time when a little boy was throwing rocks at him. The little boy’s mom and Stewart’s mom got into an argument. “That’s when my mom picked up a stone and threw it at [the kid]. Not hard, but still; I couldn’t believe my eyes . . . Then she threw a second stone.”
Stewart is dressed up as the school mascot when Jared comes up to him and talks badly about Ashley. When Jared walks onto the basketball court, Steward, “was working on pure fury when I ran onto the court and plowed my dog-head into Jared’s stomach . . . I ran behind him and pulled his gym shorts, along with his underwear, down to his ankles.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Jared invites Ashely over to his house. Jared drinks a beer and Ashley has a wine spritzer.
Ashley has a party. Some of Jared’s friends show up. “They were carrying bottles of vodka and rum and stuff, probably stolen from their parents’ liquor cabinets.”

Language

One of the characters describes her family as FUBER. Then she explains the term is a military term that means, “’Effed Up Beyond All Recognition,’ but in the military, they don’t say ‘effed.’”
Ashley called a girl’s mother a “skank.”
When her mother’s boyfriend compliments the pasta, Ashley thinks, “which was a total butt-kiss because the pasta was just so-so.”
Ashley describes her mom’s boyfriend as having, “MPAL (Male Pattern Ass Loss, a tragic and devastating syndrome in aging men.”
When Ashley finds out Stewart is in the same English class as her, she thinks, “OH MY GOD . . . This cannot be happening.”
Ashley said she had a “crappy day.” She also tells her friend that a pair of jeans makes her “ass look fat.”
Profanity is not used frequently, but it is scattered throughout the book. The profanity includes: hell, ass, bitch, pissed, slut, faggot, shit.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Stewart thinks about his dead mother. “Even though the scientific part of my brain tells me she probably isn’t looking down on me from heaven, and that all that is left of her is random molecules, I feel a deep need to do this for her.”

Bang

Fear: that’s what Sawyer feels. And Jules can understand why. After all, she is the one who gave the vision curse to Sawyer. Now Sawyer and Jules must decide if they are going to risk their lives trying to stop a tragedy.

Book II of the Visions series adds more involvement from Jule’s brother Trey. Jules loves her brother, and it’s easy to see why. He’s good-natured, loyal, and teases his sister about her love life. The relationship between Trey and his sister adds depth and delight to bang. However, both Sawyer’s and Jules’ relationship with their parents is dysfunctional and full of distrust. Sawyer’s grandfather hits him, in the past, his mother had an affair, and Sawyer lies to his parent so he can spend time with Jules and try to solve the mystery of the vision.

At the beginning of the book, the language is mild with words like “crap” and “friggin.’” However, it doesn’t take long until the cursing (and the make-out scenes) increase in frequency and intensity. Another troubling aspect of the book is Jules’ sisters’ romantic relationship. Her sister decides to fly to New York to stay with a boy she met at soccer camp, all without her parents knowing about the trip until she’s left.

bang loses a lot of the suspense that was contained in the first book, crash. Instead of focusing on the mystery of the vision, bang delves into Jules’ relationship with Sawyer as well as their family relationships. Although Jules cares deeply about her siblings, she is disrespectful and deceitful to her parents. None of the characters consider confiding in the adults in their life. Instead, Sawyer, Jules, and Trey band together to try to stop a tragedy from happening.

Sexual Content

Jules sneaks out of the house where she receives her first kiss which was the, “most weirdly amazing feeling.”
When Jules sees her boyfriend, he tells her that he’d like to kiss her but only, “runs his thumb across my lips and looks at me so longingly it hurts.” Later Jules presses, “a finger to his lips and watch his eyes droop halfway in response,” and, “his gaze lingers and burns.” When her boyfriend leaves she thinks, “At this rate, we’ll have, like, nine babies by the end of our senior year.”
There are many scenes where Jules and her boyfriend make out, which involves kissing and caresses each other. In one scene Jules thinks, “I really want to see that chest once more.”
In another scene, the two make out and they are, “kissing and panting and touching each other, starving and lusty and steamy hot . . . he presses against me, his chest against my chest, our feet finding spaces every other, and his thighs squeezing mine. And suddenly, I realize that what’s pressing against me is not all thigh, and I am secretly amazed and a little shocked by it being there, doing that.” She describes being, “intoxicated by his fervor and the overwhelming electric, psychedelic aching in my loins.”
While joking with his sister and her boyfriend, Trey says, “I’m not into incest, thank you. However…If you ever, you know, want to experiment.” Sawyer replies, “Maybe I could bang all the Demarco siblings.”
At school, a girl who likes Sawyer comes up to him and, “sticks her boobs out.” She asks him to Spring Fling and promises they can, “make out behind the bleachers like when we were a couple.” Sawyer tells the girl he is gay, and she gets upset and asks, “I made out with a gay?” and “Were you gay when we made out?”
Jules father asks her, “What do you want to say that I don’t already know? That you’re pregnant?” Jules is angry that her father, “thinks I’m out there banging people left and right.”
Jules thinks about her father’s past affair, and she talks about it with others.

Violence

Jules boyfriend talks about how his grandfather used to hit him.
Sawyer has a gruesome vision of a school shooting where eleven people are shot. He describes the scene of the shooting and how the “faces are blown into bits.”
A college campus was vandalized and someone spray paints a stop sign so that it reads, “Stop fags.”
The college campus shooting is describe in detail over four pages. Several people are shot. One of the shooters jabs a gun between a boy’s eyes. There is a fight between the gunman and several others, which is described. “I kick the crap out of her arm that holds the gun, and I whack the shit out of her face with my cast . . . I kneel on her fucking head as she screams.” Trey shows up and is shot. Jules watches as he sinks, “to the floor, leaving s streak of red on the wall behind him.”
Trey says, “All I can remember is someone screaming ‘Die, fag!’ in my face, which really, you know, sucked. Then I took one look at the blood spurting out of my arm” and he passed out.
In the hospital, several characters discuss the events of the shooting and the injuries of the victims.

Drugs and Alcohol

While in the hospital, Trey is given morphine for his pain. He acts goofy and, “a little drunk on morphine.” Later when Trey talks about going to a pricey private school that she knows her family can’t afford, Jules thinks, “there’s always the power of morphine to make your forget about the minor details of your life.”
Jules, “scared the hell out of Trey when I tell him that he totally threw himself at a college boy while under the influence of morphine.”

Language

Cursing is frequent. The cursing includes crap, dang, shit, damn it, fucking and pissed.
Jules uses Oh my God and Oh Christ as profanity.
Jules wonders when she became an “insecure loser” and thinks, “back when I accepted the fact that I was a total psycho.”
A character says jokingly, “tell the two-timing lunch whore I said hey.”
When Trey is frustrated, he says, “for shit’s sake, Jules.”
Jules brother, Trey, is jealous that both of his sisters have a boyfriend and he doesn’t. When his sister talks about sneaking out of the house and flying to New York to see him, Trey says, “Fuck…Why the hell not. Why the hell not.”
Jules’ sister jokingly tells her, “You ruin this for me, and I will ruin your face, bitch.”

Supernatural

Jules talks about, “the vision isn’t a total fix; it’s a chance to change a bad thing to something less bad . . . the vision’s gone. You did what you were supposed to do. Maybe . . . maybe those people needed to go through that experience in order to become the people they’re meant to be, you know? Maybe the experience triggers something inside of them that will help them become great.” Sawyer replies, “And maybe it’ll make them dependent on prescription drugs, or want to kill themselves.”
Jules asks Sawyer, “You think the vision gods, or whoever, gave us these changes so we can end up watching the people we save turn into drug addicts?”

Spiritual Content

One of Jules favorite sayings is, “thank dog for that.”
Jules finds a newspaper article that reports about a protest lead by a cult preacher who’s been, “shouting about gays taking over the government, and he’s been ragging on U of C lately because their rights group have been picketing the guy.” The preacher has been getting his followers and, “saying God wants his cult to rid the country of homosexuality.” Sawyer asks, “So you think our shooters are some outsider cult followers of the raving lunatic, coming to campus to . . . do God’s will?”
When Jules talks about the news article she asks, “Who would want to believe in a God like that? If God is not, like, totally in love with all the people he created, why would anybody want to believe in him? Five things a real God should be: Not a hater. 2. That about sums it up.

Crash

Jules wonders if she is going insane. After all, she sees a truck smashing into a building, exploding, and then nine body bags in the snow. And one of the bodies is that of her childhood friend, with who she is in love. As the vision comes more frequently, life gets complicated. Jules can’t warn her friend because of a long-standing family rivalry. And even if she did tell him about the visions, would he think she was crazy? After all, that’s exactly what Jules wonders.

Crash is a fast-paced book that throws the reader into suspense from the beginning until the end. The story is full of drama-family drama, school drama, and boy drama. Jules doesn’t think she can trust her family with her fear about the visions so she lies and sneaks around. And it turns out that secrecy is normal in her family; after all, her sister has a secret boyfriend, her father had a secret affair, and Jules secretly tries to figure out the meaning of her visions.

To add to the drama, Jules has been banned from taking to her childhood friend, who may end up in a body bag. In order to save her friend, Jules is willing to do whatever it takes.

Crash is an entertaining mystery with lots of unexpected turns. Jules is a likable character who is easy to relate to because her life is so messy. Her relationship with her brother adds to the book’s enjoyment.

One downside of the book is the cursing, which is common throughout the book, both in dialogue and the character’s thoughts. Although the book is entertaining, it also contains some heavy topics such as hoarding, depression, dishonesty, and homosexuality. Although the topics are not discussed in detail, it is clear that Jules does not respect her father because of his depression and his hoarding. Also, there are so many characters keeping secrets from each other that honesty seems to be a trait that is not highly valued.

Sexual Content

Jules’ brother is gay. There are several times that Jules and her brother tease each other about liking the same boy.
When Jules begins acting strange, her brother asks, “You’re not pregnant, are you?” Her brother then tells Jules that he only asked because that’s what their father said. During this conversation, Jules says she is, “the poster child for purity” because she still has her… Her brother finishes the thought with the words “cheery, and hymen.” They also mention a chastity belt. During the same conversation, Jules’ brother asks, “You’re not having an alien Antichrist baby for the seed of Angotti?”
Jules’ sister is having a long-distance relationship with a boy she met at camp. When Jules asks about meeting him online, her sister replies, “. . . his online user name is Child Predator77. I sent him pictures of my naked budding bazooms and he wants to meet me behind the Dumpster at Pete’s Liquor to give me candy. Jeez, Jules! Of course not. I’m not stupid.”
When Jules’ crush walks into the room, he, “ducks his head in a shy sort of way, which makes my thighs ache, and not because of the bruises” and later when he smiles Jules’ “stomach flips.”
Jules’ mother tells her that her father had an affair.
Jules’ crush gives her an anxious, “hungry look” before he, “slips his fingers gently into her hair.” Then he leans her against a wall and traces her lips with his fingers. He kisses Jules, “but soon he’s pressing harder and I’m reaching for him and I can’t be bothered to think or remember anything at all. I just need to be in it and try to breathe . . . “
During the kissing scene, Jules describes feeling the warmth of his back and how “his tongue finds mine.”

Violence

Jules describes a time when she was delivering a pizza and a guy came up behind her, grabbed her by the neck, and stole her money belt before he shoved her into a snowy bush. The thief held a knife by her ear. Luckily a stranger tackled the guy and the mugger got away. The police tell Jules the man was, “probably some meth addict who needed money for supplies.”

Drugs and Alcohol

The narrator thinks about her grandfather who, “killed himself with I was little. ” Although the grandfather’s death is mentioned several times, how he committed suicide is never described.
One of the character’s cousins, “takes a drag and drops her cigarette butt to the ground.”

Language

One of the Jules’ favorite sayings is, “Oh my dogs.”
The narrator describes a character as a “douche” and another as an “asshole.” Her car is a “piece of crap.”
The words dammit, hell, crap, fucking, son-of-a-bitch, and shit are used in dialogue as well as in Jules’ thoughts.
Several times when Jules is having a difficult conversation, she says, “Oh my God.”
In an argument, Jules says, “mother-fuh-lovin’ crap.”
In one scene, the narrator describes her feelings as “pissed.”
One of the characters yells, “Get your asses out there!” Another time she says, “Where’s the fucking phone book? God! I hate this stupid place.”
While talking to a friend, Jules yells, “But goddammit, Sawyer, despite all that, I’m going to save your fucking life anyway, because I love you, and one day you’d better fucking appreciate it.” After she hangs up the phone, she thinks, “You? Are bumblefucking nuts, Demarco.”
As two characters discuss a family member, one says, “He’ll bring out his whole tradition and honor bullshit and use that as an excuse to be a bastard.”
Jules’ mother tells her husband, “act your age once, will you. We’re in a hospital, for Christ’s sake.”

Supernatural

Jules sees visions in billboards, television screens, and in windows. When she begins to get clues and figure out the pieces of the puzzle, the visions let up. However, when she is getting the meaning of the clues wrong, the visions become more frequent.

Spiritual Content

Jules’ parents will not discuss the fact that their son is gay. Jules and her brother don’t go to church because, “if their church won’t accept my brother, they can’t have me either. Plus her parents, “religious fear runs deep.”

Gasp

The vision has been passed on to another, but who? If Jules passed the vision curse to Sawyer when she saved him, isn’t it logical to think that Sawyer passed it on to another? And is it Jules’ responsibility to help the next person since the vision curse started with her?

Jules and Sawyer go on a search to discover if the vision curse has been passed to another. After searching and finding the next victim, all they want to do is help. But the victim’s overbearing mother doesn’t believe in the curse and doesn’t want Jules and Sawyer anywhere near her daughter. With few clues to go on, Jules and Sawyer attempt to prevent tragedy. And in the end, they find out that the vision curse refuses to be ignored.

Gasp has enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested. Jules and Sawyer, with the help of their friends, try to help the next victim of the curse which allows the author to throw many surprises into the storyline. Unlike bang, gasp focuses more on the mystery of the curse, and less on the romantic relationships between characters, which makes gasp a very enjoyable read.

Sexual Content

Jules thinks that her older brother’s crush on a cute guy is “fun” to watch develop.
Trey said that a boy, “touched my face and kissed me.” Later in the book, Jules watched Trey kissing the boy.
When Sawyer kisses Jules she, “feels like the fire is inside me now.”
Jules’ sister asks her if she is ‘sexting.”
In one scene that lasts approximately three pages, Jules tells Sawyer to pull over the car. When he does she straddles his lap and then begins touching his face and, “nipping his lips with my teeth, drawing the tip of my tongue across his.” They then makeup and she unbuttons his shirt. “I guide his hand up my side and press it against my bra, and through the fabric his thumb stumbles over my nipple.” In the scene, “his torso jerks and shudders and his gasp turns into a low moan.” Then Sawyer said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know that could . . . you know, happen, without actually, you know. Touching it.”
When Jules’ mom asks where she’s been, Jules thinks, “I try to think of something other than Sawyer spooged his pants so we called it the night.”
Jules, Sawyer, and Trey are teasing each other when Sawyer says, “Aw, man. I thought Ben would cure you of this desire to force homosexuality on me for your own selfish whims.”
When Sawyer is putting on a wetsuit, Jules yells, “I can’t wait to see your package in that suit.”
Jules’ father asks her if she is pregnant.
Jules and her father discuss his affair.

Violence

The story reviews the school shooting that happened in bang. One of the victim’s wounds are described—“only her guts were ripped up, and the shreds sewn together. She still has tubes going into her arm—pain meds and antibiotics . . . ”
Jules thinks about the first vision when she saw Sawyer’s face in a body bag.
Jules, Sawyer, and their friends help the victims of a ferry accident.
Jules goes back to the scene where she was mugged and describes what happened.
Jules asks her father about the “years of never knowing if we were going to come home to find that you killed yourself.”

Drugs and Alcohol

They talk about how the victim of the school shooting is “heavily medicated” by pain medication and that when Trey was in the hospital, the pain medications make troy “emboldened.” They say the medication makes a person “stoned.”
When walking on a boat, Trey’s walk is described as, “like a drunk.”

Language

Jules said spring break being over, “sucked balls.”
Rowan’s sister calls her a “grammar whore” and later said, “don’t be a douche.”
When Jules father can’t be found she thinks, “He’s a douche for making you worry. Maybe it would be best if he does just go kill himself, so we can get on with our lives.”
Jules wonders if her teacher thinks she’s “batshit crazy.”
When Jules thinks Sawyer is dead she goes to school where she doesn’t, “want anybody infiltrating it (her grief) with their fake-ass, digesting bullshit.”
Profanity is used often throughout the book. The profanity used includes the following: shit, fucking, Oh my God, damn it, pissed, holy shit, and Jesus futhermucker.

Supernatural

The story revolves around a person who sees a vision of a tragic event. The vision changes based on if the person is finding clues to help the potential victims or if the person is on the wrong track.

Spiritual Content

When Jules feels like she has failed the victim, her brother says, “You didn’t fail. The victim failed. We are not God. Or dog.”
Jules rolls her eyes to the Jesus in the sky.
The victim said, “I guess since you and Sawyer didn’t get shot, we figured you had some mystical protection or a guardian angel watching over you or something.”
When the group of teens is talking about the ferry accident, Trey said, “Hey, let’s not bring God into this.”
Jules’ parents will not discuss the fact that their son is gay. Jules and her brother don’t go to church because, “if their church won’t accept my brother, they can’t have me either. Plus her parents, “religious fear runs deep.”

Prince of Shadows

Prince of Shadows puts a fresh twist on the story of Romeo and Juliet. Instead of focusing on the two original star-crossed lovers, Prince of Shadows focuses on Benvolio and Rosaline. Many of the scenes follow the play Romeo and Juliet. In several scenes, the words of the characters also come from the play; however, the author put the words into a new context which adds interest to the story.

Benvolio is trying to keep Romeo from an irrational and dangerous love for Rosaline. However, in doing so Benvolio finds that he is drawn to Rosaline, the beautiful niece of Lord Capulet. This complicates Benvolio’s life in several ways. Now Benvolio must not only concern himself with keeping Romeo safe from the Capulets, but he must also make sure that Rosaline does not come to any harm because of Romeo’s infatuation.

Romeo’s problems are only part of Benvolio’s difficulties. He must also deal with a demanding sister, a conniving grandmother, and hiding the fact that he is a thief. When night falls, the reader often sees Benvolio sneak into other people’s houses to exact revenge by stealing their possessions.

This book also explores Mercutio in more detail. Mercutio is full of fire, wit, and love. Yet Mercutio’s love is dangerous because he happens to be in love with another man. Although Benvolio and Romeo know of Mercutio’s “sinful” love, they are loyal to their friend.

Sword fighting, thievery and intrigue are abundant in Prince of Shadows. The fighting scenes add danger, but they also include descriptions of bloody wounds, as well as death. The fighting between the Capulets and Montagues happens often and is a major plot component of the story, and in another scene a character is hung because he is homosexual. These scenes are described in detail, so this book may not be appropriate for squeamish readers.

The story also contains a lot of sexual content. It explores the topic of marriage during the time period, as well as the prevailing beliefs of homosexuality. Because of the sexual content and the violence, Prince of Shadows should only be read by the mature reader. Although the storyline is intriguing and the book is fast-paced and entertaining, the subject matter is not suitable for the younger reader.

Sexual Content

The Prince of Shadows steals from Tybalt and then, “The next day, Tybalt Capulet’s sword was found driven an inch deep into the heavy oak of a tavern door. Pinned to it were ribald verses that detailed a highly entertaining story about Tybalt, a pig, and acts not generally condoned by either the Church or right-thinking sheepherders.”
Benvolio’s sister, Veronica is upset that she is being married to an old man. She is hiding from her grandmother because “she wishes to instruct me on the nature of wifely duties.” Benvolio replies, “Shall I go tell her you need no instruction on wifely duties?” Veronica slaps him and he continues, “I won’t pretend you are pure as the Virgin if you won’t pretend to care.” During the conversation Veronica said, “You’ll not be the one he’ll paw in the marriage bed . . . or perhaps you’d prefer that, Ben. Given the company you keep—.”
Benvolio found out that Mercutio was a homosexual by chance. “Walking in on Mercutio in close embrace with a pretty young man a bit older than either of us. I’d heard of such things, of course, but never seen, and I confess to a certain unsettled embarrassment that drove me from them—from Mercutio—for most of a week. . .”
Benvolio meets a girl for the first time. Before she leaves he, “bent over her knuckles and brushed my lips lightly over the skin. I kept my gaze on her as I did it, and saw the response in her. It frightened her, I saw; she might never have felt such a thing before.”
The Prince of Shadows breaks into a house and is surprised to find a girl in bed. “She mimed back a throat cutting, then looked at her bed companion. I admit, by that time I had begun to realize that the sheet did not by any means cover all of her, and though the darkness made it more of a suggestion of assets than a true sight of them, the room was suddenly a good deal too warm…I closed her fingers over them (coins) before lifting her hand to drop a kiss on the rough skin of her knuckles…then she sat up and…kissed me. It was surprising, and I should have pulled away for many reasons, not the least of which was my own self-preservation, but there was something darkly wonderful about the danger of it . . . for a moment I entertained a feral thought that perhaps he might now wake. . . ” Later he tells his friend about the encounter and said the girl was naked, “as sinful Eve . . . and quite a willing mouth on her, too.”
After Mercutio is forced to marry, he writes in his diary, “It is a bitter bed we make, and after, she weeps herself to sleep. I tell her that once she bears a living heir she can be shut of me…Men say that love is cruel, but it is the lack of it in the act that is cruelest.”
While Benvolio is with Rosaline, he thinks, “I wanted her, a Capulet, in ways that I had never wanted a woman before—not a hasty, impersonal fumbling in the dark, not the duty of a cold husband with an unfamiliar wife . . . something else, for the sake of passion, and fire, and challenge.”
When Romeo is looking for Rosaline, Mercutio asks, “So eager to deflower the girl? ‘Tis the job your grandmother set you, or missed you her message? Humiliate Capulet by showing that their precious convent-bound virgin is a trull.”
Benvolio thinks about Mercutio’s marriage and how “girls of means were sold or bartered.” Mercutio’s father would make sure Mercutio was married. Benvolio thinks, “I did not like to think on that unhappy wedding night. If it was consummated at all, it would be done coldly and ruthlessly.”
Benvolio was talking to Rosaline when his hand, “moved from her wrist, glided up her arm, and now it touched her cheek . . . I felt drugged with the tingles of pleasure of my skin on hers…My fingers trailed down, tracked the tight line of her jaw, and I felt the fast beat of her pulse.” Rosaline then backs away. Later during the conversation, Benvolio wonders, “would she resist me if I took hold of her, kissed her, bore her back to that curtained mattress? Would she cry for help, or would she sigh my name, rise to meet me, crave the same senseless release that I did?”

Violence

In one scene, Benvolio thinks about a bedtime story about a Capulet named Sophia. “The gruesome horror of being bricked up in a lavishly appointed room, with only a pitcher of water and a dagger for company. Once the water had gone, Sophia more than likely would have sought the dagger’s point for her final comfort . . .”
When Veronica threatens to hint that Benvolio is a homosexual, he reminds her about the boy, “they hanged last winter. Claiming someone a sodomite is no joking matter.”
When Benvolio sneaks into Rosaline’s room he thinks she is asleep, but then he, “felt the ice-cold prickle of a blade on the back of my neck.” Rosaline tells Benvolio must leave, but before he can Tybalt hears them talking and advances on her. Tybalt grabs her arm and twists it until she cries out. When she refuses to answer Tybalt’s questions that, “earned her an openhanded slap hard enough to leave a blood red imprint on her fair skin.” Later than evening Benvolio (in disguise) and Friar Lawrence go to check on Rosaline and find her, “wedged into a cold corner, knees drawn up, nightgown bloodied from her split lip and the open cut on her forehead. It would take time for the bruises to form, but her left eye was already swollen, and the right side of her jaw distorted from the beating she’d received. She held her right arm tenderly, and I saw the bloody scrapes on her knuckles.”
Rosaline writes about the abuse of Tybalt. “Of late, I have begun to fight back, since I had come into a height where it was possible—though strictly forbidden—to do so. I had scored him with my nails more than once, and even bruised him, but never did I hurt him enough to matter.”
There is a sword fight between a “Capulet pig” and Benvolio. In the end, “the sword plunged easily just below the ridge of his collarbone, angling down as the dagger found ribs and angled up . . . The two points almost meet at his heart . . . So I waited until the life had left the man’s eyes and he fell to the cobblestones, kicked his Capulet-given sword to the side, and turned just as the second man drove Bathasar back at the point of his blade.”
There is a sword fight between Tybalt and Benvolio. Several others join the fray. Benvolio thinks, “I wanted his blood, badly as he wanted mine.” The fight is interrupted by the elder Capulet and Montague and no one is injured.
Mercutio’s lover is, “on his knees, with his hands bound roughly behind his back, and a circle of armed men surrounded him.” Mercutio’s father then proceeds to beat him. “I was not sure if he could see through the torrents of blood that obscured his face.” Mercutio’s father then makes sure Mercutio watches his lover be hung from a tree. “Though his toes kicked just a few inches above the ground, it was enough . . . It took a horribly long time to be finished.”
Benvolio reflects on the above incident, thinking, “I thought I’d known the depths of cruelty men hide, but this . . . this was another thing entirely. I’d known all our lives that we were fragile, easily punctured flesh, but seeing the boy choke on that noose, seeing the laughter and jeers from those who’d killed him . . . hearing the thumps as rocks pelted his dying body . . . had shattered something within me . . .”
When Benvolio overhears his sister gossiping about Mercutio’s lover, he grabs “her by the back of the neck and dragged her squealing around the corner.” They argue and he lets her go.
Mercutio has a fight in a tavern. “He was spattered with fresh red, and his dagger ran with it, and the floor was thick with writhing, groaning men.”
Benvolio is in a sword fight and his, “blade slipped easily in, though, and I cut sideways to open the vessels. Blood gushed like a fountain, sheeting gory down his hose, and he let out a short, sharp cry as he fell to his uninjured knee. It was a killing wound, and he knew it instantly.”
Another sword fight happens, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. Tybalt, “yanked his blade free of my friend’s ribs. It slid out with a terrible sound, steel grating bone, and the blood that spouted out was the exact shade of Capulet livery…my ears seemed tuned only to the sound of Mercutio’s tortured, hitching breaths, and the pulse of his blood flowing to the stones.”
Romeo, Tybalt, Benvolio, and others get into a sword fight. Several people are killed. Benvolio, “stabbed him in the throat and ended him.” In the same fight, Romeo stabs Tybalt. “For an instant, the cut looked small, but then it parted, and the blood, oh, the blood. He fell into the arms of his adherents, thrashing in his death agonies.”
In another scene the Capulets and Montagues fight, which takes place over several pages. “The cobbles were already wet with blood, and bodies fell to my left under a strong assault . . . my sword slid between his ribs and out his heart, and he was down, grimacing now.” During this fight, Veronica is killed and the boy who killed her is dragged away to be hung.
When a priest discovers Benvolio is the Prince of Shadows, the priest gave, “a blow with his closed fist . . . his servants, as expected, took this as a sign, and instead of ripping away my mask, they closed in, fists flying as they screamed curses upon me for my insolence. I hunched in to try to ride the blows, but soon I was on my side, and the rope had been pulled tight. Air had become a frantic struggle, and I was all but senseless when I felt fingers tugging at the silk knotted around my face. It was wet with blood . . .” By the time the mask is pulled away, Benvolio’s face is so bloody and swollen that he is unrecognizable.

Drugs and Alcohol

The characters in the book are often seen drinking and in a state of drunkenness. For example, on the first page of the book Tybalt is described as, “a drunken, undignified mess in sodden linen.” Later on in the story, Benvolio, “quaffed my wine in a choking gulp.”
There are several references to drunkenness. In one scene, Rosaline said, “I dismissed the tales of you as drunkard’s gossip.” In another scene, Benvolio, “stumbled to a halt, as unsteady as if I’d been into Tybalt’s wine cellar instead of his apartments.”
Benvolio asks the friar, “Have you been into the sacramental wine again, Friar Lawrence?” Benvolio thinks, “It was obvious indeed from the eloquence of his breath.”

Language

In a conversation about the Prince’s new mistress, the mistress is described as, “a woman no better than a whore.” Later in that same conversation, Benvolio’s grandmother said, “It isn’t healthy for a strapping young man to be introduced to whores at your age, before you’ve even settled on a wife.”
Trying to start a fight, a man calls Benvolio a, “Mongrel son of an English bitch.”

Supernatural

There is a “witch” who Mercutio’s wife seeks out, hoping for a potion that will help her get pregnant. Later, Mercutio sees the same witch who helps him curse those who betrayed him.
When Benvolio tracks down the witch, she explains the spell she gave Mercutio was made of three parts— “one faith, one mind, one flesh.” Part of the spell was cast by writing on Mercutio’s skin. “For the mind, it wrote down in his own hand . . . The other . . . the other was cast upon rosary beads.”
At the end of the story, the curse affects Benvolio and Rosaline. Because of the curse, they seek “comfort in each other’s bodies, heedless of consequences.” They fight to ensure they do not fall to the curse’s allure. In the end, Benvolio has to destroy the rosary that has been cursed. In order to do this Benvolio must, “thrust my whole hand into the flames. /The agony hit in an instant…I heard flesh sizzle.”
Mercutio and Romeo appear as ghosts at the end of the story.

Spiritual Content

Benvolio’s grandmother said it is good that he will be married soon because, “all men’s blood runs too hot, and the apostle said that it is better to marry than to burn.”
Mercutio is secretly in love. His love is, “not simply unwise, but reckoned unnatural by Church and law alike.”
Friar Lawrence questions Lady Capulet about Rosaline’s injures asking if violence was necessary. Lady Capulet said, “The scriptures tell us that a disobedient child should be corrected; is it not so?” Later in the chapter, Friar Lawrence said, “You were right to fear for her, but with God’s grace we may have saved her life. Her lady aunt will not wish to have Rosaline murdered this night; they might be within their right to so dispose of a rebellious girl-child, but they have not the liver for questions the Church must bring.”
Benvolio prays to the beloved Virgin, “for patience, guidance, and most of all, for my cousin to stop loving Rosaline Capulet.”
Benvolio goes to church looking for someone, “in the confessional…but I found that it must have been a busy morning for sinning. At least ten aspired to cleanse their souls before me.”
When Benvolio finds out that his sister has betrayed Mercutio’s secret, he thinks, “God does answer all prayers, but sometimes, he answers with a cold and remorseless denial…”
After Mercutio’s father beats him, no one is allowed to tend to Mercutio’s wounds. The next day, his father said, “You live to see the dawn, then. It is a sign from God that even He does not want you…Give up your sinful perversions, and embrace a life of piety and duty to your family.”
In reference to Mercutio, a character said, “I believe God loves all, sinners and saints, and judgment is His business, not mine.”
Benvolio’s sister, Veronica, writes in her diary that, “God wills that these vile, unnatural sinners [homosexuals] be condemned and cast out, and whatever Benvolio believes (heretic that he is), I believe that I did God’s business in whispering of the assignation—still best to blame fall on the Capulet whore, for safety’s sake, for Mercutio makes a bad enemy.”
Friar Lawrence marries Romeo and Juliet because, “their love was so strong that if I had refused to bless it, it would have been done without God’s seal; there is no doubt of it. Would you have me step aside and allow the sin instead?”
When Benvolio discusses Mercutio’s homosexuality, he says Mercutio, “was as he was formed, as God made him.”