Reading Level: Young Adult

Above All Else

Del is a striker on the school soccer team, the Cardinals, which has gone almost three seasons undefeated. To Del, it’s just a game, but some of the players think winning is all that matters. After an in-game altercation with the Cardinals’ main rival, the Rebels, one of Del’s teammates is attacked and seriously injured by an unknown assailant. Is it an act of retaliation or did someone finally take the above-all-else mentality too far?

Above All Else blends on-the-field action and mystery into a fast-paced story that will leave readers with one question: should a team play dirty in order to win?

While the story has some play-by-play soccer descriptions, much of the story revolves around the mystery of who hurt Del’s teammate. The mystery focuses on Del’s perspective, which allows the reader to piece together the clues. In the beginning, Del avoids conflict by staying quiet. However, in the end, he stands up for what he knows is right. Both Del and his teammates learn that “you can lose and walk off the field with your head high.”

Above All Else will appeal to both sports fans and mystery buffs. Written as a part of the Orca Soundings books, which are specifically written for teens, Above All Else is a fast-paced book that explores the idea of winning at all costs. While Above All Else may appeal to younger readers, parents may object to the frequent profanity and name-calling. However, older readers who are reluctant to read will enjoy this high-interest, easy-to-read story.

Sexual Content

  • Riley and Kira start spending time together. She goes to Riley’s soccer game. At halftime, Kira “threw her arms around Riley’s neck and kissed him full on the lips.” After the game, Riley and Kira “were locked in an awkward-looking kiss.”
  • Riley and Kira kiss several more times, but the kisses are not described.

Violence

  • During a soccer game, Rom intentionally hurts a player named Tim. Tim “was almost past Rom when Rom performed a slide tackle, knocking the ball out of bounds and sending Tim flying.” Tim is angry, but not injured.
  • Later in the game, Tim is getting ready to score when “Rom rushed him. Tim went head-on into the challenge, probably thinking he could rotate around Rom at the last second. . . Rom charged and, as Tim began his rotation, jutted his leg out and caught him square on the knee.”
  • After Rom takes down Tim, Tim’s teammates “ran right into Rom and took him down. He managed to get four quick punches in before his own teammates pulled him off . . .”
  • Del and his friend, Riley, find their teammate Rom injured. Riley says, “I just found him here . . .” Rom was “completely out.” Later Rom tells his friends, “Someone came up behind me while I was getting into my car and choked me out.” Rom’s ankle is also badly injured.
  • Del and his friends go into an abandoned mall, looking for the person that they think injured Rom. Del “turned around to find Jared sitting on top of Doug Richards.” After that, there is a lot of chasing, but everyone gets out of the mall without being hurt.
  • Elsa tells Del, “my brother got beat up at the mall the other night.”
  • At a game, Del accidentally crashed into the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper “caught me in the side of the head with a quick sharp punch. . . I tried to stand up to get away from the situation and he kicked me in the gut.”
  • Elsa and Del go back to the abandoned mall and a gang chases them out. When Elsa and Del get in the van, “the guys were banging on the van like wild apes.” When she goes to leave, Elsa runs over someone’s foot.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, bullshit, crappy, damn, hell, piss, and shitty.
  • There are many instances of name-calling, which include asshole, dick, dickhead, idiot, sucker, prick, dillweed, and knobs.
  • Del and his friends are going into an abandoned mall. When Del doesn’t want to go, his friend says, “Grow a pair, Del.”
  • One of the other team’s players yells at Del, “Goddamn dirty players.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

An Abundance of Katherines

Just hours after graduating from high school, Katherine XIX dumps Colin Singleton. Colin grew up as a child prodigy, who does not get along well with others. And he only falls for women named Katherine. He understands that his role in the universe was to fall in love with Katherines and then to inevitably be dumped by them.

Following the break-up, Colin’s only friend, Hassan, takes Colin on a road trip. They end up in Gunshot, Tennessee where they meet Lindsey. Lindsey’s mother offers Colin and Hassan a summer job collecting an oral history of the small town. The two boys interview people about their experiences in Gunshot. At the same time, Colin works on creating a mathematical theorem to graph, describe, and predict relationships.

An Abundance of Katherines follows Colin as he grapples with finding his purpose in the world. Colin struggles with being an incredibly gifted child prodigy but feeling as though he is failing to live up to his expected potential. Colin states, “Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do.” Colin also struggles with the expectations his parents have for him, as his father always pressures him to not only be a prodigy but also to grow into a genius. This causes Colin to frequently have anxiety when he fails to meet these unrealistic goals. But Colin is still determined to make his mark on the world and be remembered.

Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey are likable characters who provide many perspectives. Although the book is only told from Colin’s perspective, Hassan and Lindsey’s experiences are thoroughly described as they spend every day with Colin. Colin provides meaningful insights into a gifted child struggling with failure and navigating the process of growing up. Readers will be able to relate to Hassan who struggles with discrimination and finding motivation in life’s endeavors. In addition, Lindsey’s perspective helps readers understand the struggle to identify their true self.

This upbeat novel takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery and maturing into adulthood. An Abundance of Katherines will resonate with readers of different ages because of the relatable conflicts. As teenagers transition into adulthood, they might grapple with understanding their place in the world. Colin’s journey provides readers the opportunity to feel less alone in these struggles, while also providing an entertaining, hilarious story. Ultimately, Colin finally has his Eureka moment by discovering, “You matter as much as the things that matter to you do.”

Sexual Content

  • Hassan frequently refers to his penis, which he has named “Thunderstick.”
  • Colin jokes with Hassan. Colin says that if he had religious beliefs, “I’d like to believe that I could fly into outer space on the fluffy backs of giant penguins and screw Katherine XIX in zero gravity.”
  • Sexual intercourse is insinuated a few times. For example, Colin was surprised his parents were allowing him to go on a road trip, but he assumed “maybe they just wanted a few weeks alone to rekindle the romance.”
  • Colin and Hassan see Lindsey’s purple bra. During this interaction, Colin thinks back to Katherine XIV “who wore a black bra and everything else.” He also thinks about other girls’ bras he had seen.
  • Colin recalls his time with Katherine XIX where they “climbed into bed downstairs, she pulled off his shirt and he hers, and they kissed until his lips were numb except for tingling.”
  • While thinking about his failed relationships, Colin has his Eureka moment, describing it as, “feeling like a thousand orgasms all at once, except not as messy.”
  • When Colin meets Lindsey’s friend, he describes her as “tall and thoroughly Abercrombified in her tight tank top. The girl also had – how to put this politely – gigantic gazoombas. She was incredibly hot – in that popular-girl-with-bleached-teeth-and-anorexia kind of way.”
  • Colin attempts to explain how unpopular he is by saying, “The end of that story is that I came relatively close to having a lion bite off my penis. And my point was that shit like that never happens to popular people.”
  • For two pages, Lindsey tries to teach Colin how to make his story about the lion more interesting by emphasizing his “giant winky.”
  • Lindsey describes an attractive guy at her high school. She describes him as a “self-professed proponent of the 4 Fs: find ‘em, feel ‘em, fug ‘em, and forget ‘em.”
  • Hassan plays spin the bottle with Lindsey and her friends. Hassan ends up kissing someone. The next day Hassan tells Colin the story. Hassan says, “She made a beeline for my mouth and, I swear to God, her tongue was licking my teeth.” Hassan proceeds to embellish the story for three pages.
  • When she goes out with Colin, Lindsey jokes to her mom saying, “We might be back late. Hot sex and all!”
  • Hassan begins going out with a girl. He tells Colin that he and the girl got to “second base over the shirt.”
  • Hassan’s girlfriend and Lindsey’s boyfriend are caught having sex: “She was facing away from them, her back arched, her butt bobbing in and out of visibility. Colin had never seen actual people having actual sex before.”
  • Colin finally convinces Hassan to go to college. Hassan says, “I only registered for two classes in the fall, so don’t start creaming yourself.”
  • Colin tells Lindsey about all of the Katherines he has dated. He said Katherine X “was the first girl I ever French-kissed, and I didn’t know what to do so I sort of kept darting my tongue out from behind closed lips like I was a snake.”
  • Colin discusses Katherine XVI. In their brief relationship at an academic decathlon, Colin says, “we had to kick her three roommates out of her hotel room so we could make out properly.”

 

Violence

  • After Colin is dumped by Katherine XIX, his parents are attempting to comfort him. Colin felt “a tremendous need to get them out of his room immediately like if they didn’t leave, he would blow up. Literally. Guts on the walls; his prodigious brain emptied out onto his bedspread.”
  • The violence surrounding Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination is frequently discussed. For example, while Lindsey is providing a tour of his grave, she states, “From everything I’ve read about Franzy, he and Sophie had about the happiest marriage in the whole history of royalty. It’s sort of a cute story, except for how on their fourteenth wedding anniversary – June twenty-eighth, 1914 – they were both shot dead in Sarajevo.”
  • Lindsey also describes how Franz Ferdinand became the successor to Austria’s throne. “His uncle was the emperor Francis Joseph, but being the Austro-Hungarian emperor’s nephew don’t matter much. Unless, say, the emperor’s only son, Rudolph, happens to shoot himself in the head.”
  • The first meal Colin and Hassan have at Lindsey’s house is quail. Colin asks, “The bird was shot?” To which Lindsey states, “Yup.” Colin responds, “And I’m eating the bullets?” Lindsey smiles and states, “Nope. You’re spitting them out.”
  • Lindsey attempts to have Hassan and Colin conduct interviews of the townspeople. Hassan responds, “No fugging way. That’s how horror movies start. We drop you off, walk into some stranger’s house, and five minutes later some psycho’s lobbing off my nuts with a machete while his schizophrenic wife makes Colin do push-ups on a bed of hot coals.”
  • One of the townspeople was arrested for killing a neighbor’s pet snake. When explaining his rationale, he states, “You see a snake, you kill it. That’s just how I was raised up. So I shot it. Split it right in two.”
  • The same townsperson said he did not want to go off to fight in any war, so he “shot off two of his toes because he is a coward.”
  • Colin’s father is nervous that Colin is staying with a stranger in Tennessee. Colin responds, “Dad, I survived seventeen years in Chicago without ever getting mugged or stabbed or kidnapped.”
  • When Lindsey finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her, a fistfight breaks out between her boyfriend and Colin and Hassan. This is described in detail for six pages. At one point, Colin and the boyfriend face-off, “In the moment before the strike, Colin felt it in his loins – the phantom pain – and then Lindsey’s boyfriend’s knee came up into Colin’s groin so hard he briefly left the ground.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a rest stop, Colin finds graffiti on the bathroom stall stating, “CALL DANA FOR BLOW” causing Colin to wonder “whether Dana provided fellatio or cocaine.”
  • Colin’s childhood tutor, Keith, used to drink with Colin’s parents. Colin remembers thinking, “After those dinners, the parents would sit in the living room laughing louder as time passed, Keith shouting that he couldn’t possibly drive home, that he needed a cup of coffee after all that wine – your home is an Alamo for oenophiles, he’d cry.”
  • Lindsey attempts to describe her popularity by stating, “I’m not just some former ugly girl who sold her soul to date hotties and go to the finest keg parties the Greater Gunshot Area has to offer.”
  • One of the townspeople says he was arrested multiple times. He was arrested when he “was drunk in public in 1948.”
  • Colin thought his mother wanted him to behave like a more “normal” kid. He thinks that “she’d be secretly pleased if he came home one night at three in the morning reeking of booze because that would be normal. Normal kids come home late; normal kids drink warm forties of malt liquor in alleys with their friends.”
  • For two pages Hassan tells Colin how he “drank half a beer.” He split it with Lindsey.
  • Colin contemplates what would happen if he became popular. He thinks, “He had seen enough movies to know what happens when dorks go to cool-kid parties: generally, the dorks either get thrown into the pool or they become drunk, vacuous cool kids themselves.”
  • Lindsey and Colin share moonshine together. Lindsey states, “Sweet holy shitstickers, it tastes like you’re washing down a bite of corn with a pint of lighter fluid.”

Language

  • Colin and his best friend Hassan periodically use profanity, which includes ass, hell, damn, dick, pissed, and bastard.
  • When addressing each other, Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey occasionally use the word “retarded” or “tard.”
  • Colin and Hassan use the term “fugger” frequently. The term is used in conversation as “fucker” normally would. For example, when Hassan is confronting Colin for being a poor friend he says, “Have you ever sat with me for hours and listened to me whine about being a fat fugger whose best friend ditches him every time a Katherine comes along?”
  • Lindsey asks, “Why the fuck do you and Hassan say fug all the time?”
  • “Shit” is used frequently. For example, when Colin is describing himself, he states, “I’m washed up, I’m former. Formerly the boyfriend of Katherine XIX. Formerly a prodigy. Formerly full of potential. Currently full of shit.”
  • One time, Colin also uses the word “merde,” which is French for “shit.”
  • Hassan and Colin frequently refer to each other as “Kafir,” which is a derogatory Arabic term meaning “infidel.”
  • At a rest station, Hassan finds a table that has “God Hates Fags” written on it.
  • When Colin continues to drive without deciding on a destination, Hassan complains, “I like this interstate as much as the next guy, but the farther south we go, the hotter it gets, and I’m already sweating like a whore in church.”
  • Hassan says he does not need to go to college or work because his father is, “rich as balls.”
  • “Pussy” is used twice. Lindsey teaches Colin to shoot a gun with a lot of kick, saying, “I don’t want you to look like a pussy.”
  • Colin calls Lindsey’s boyfriend a “paardenlul”, which directly translates to “horse penis,” which is stated in the footnotes.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Colin and Hassan frequently discuss Hassan’s religion. Hassan introduces himself to Lindsey as, “Hassan Harbish. Sunni Muslim. Not a terrorist.”
  • Colin makes fun of Hassan saying, “How very odd, to believe God gave you life, and yet not think that life asks more of you than watching TV.”
  • Hassan frequently prays. On the road trip, they stopped at a rest stop so Colin could use the restroom “while Hassan knelt on the concrete outside, facing Mecca.”
  • Hassan discusses his viewpoints on haram, stating, “The haram shit I do is, like, having a dog. It’s not like smoking crack or talking behind people’s backs or stealing or lying to my mom or fugging girls.”

by Paige Smith

 

 

 

 

Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter

Isabel Feeney is one of the few newsgirls working in 1920s Chicago during the era of guns and gangsters. Every day, while she sells copies of the Tribune, she dreams of being a journalist like her hero, the famous crime reporter Maud Collier. So when Isabel stumbles upon a murder scene on her own street corner, she’s determined to solve the case.

Who murdered mobster Charles “The Bull” Bessemer? Was it his beautiful fiancée, Miss Giddings, whose fingerprints were found on the gun? A jealous husband? Or Bessemer’s associate, Al Capone? As Isabel tracks down clues, she finds herself working alongside Maude, who is covering the case.

But as Isabel gets closer to discovering who killed a gangster, someone becomes determined to silence her, too.

Readers will quickly fall in love with Isabel, who is intelligent, observant, and determined to solve the murder mystery. As Isabel follows the clues, she meets several possible suspects and her snooping often gets her into trouble. Along the way, Isabel meets two new friends, Flora and Robert. These friendships add interest because Flora’s family are gangsters, and Robert has a physical disability due to polio.

Even though the fast-paced story takes readers into the violent world of Chicago, none of the crimes are described in gory detail. Instead, Isabel’s journey focuses on finding the true killer by meeting the people in the prime suspect’s life. Isabelle’s new friends include the dead man’s daughter, a famous female reporter, and a police detective. As Isabel searches the city, readers will get a look at Murderess’s Row—a wing of the Cook County Jail.

Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter will appeal to both mystery and history fans. Despite Isabel’s good intentions, she often speaks without thinking and gets herself into potentially dangerous situations. As Isabel follows the clues, she writes them in a notebook, which helps the reader keep track of all the clues. Even though the story is written from Isabel’s point of view, all of the characters are uniquely interesting and well-developed. The conclusion wraps up all of the story threads and will leave the reader smiling. Readers who love a mystery that revolves around a plucky heroine should add The Friday Barnes Series by R.A. Spratt to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • After a man is murdered, Isabel is the first person on the scene. The man is “stretched out on the snow, bleeding.” Isabel sees “a puddle of blood near his ear.”
  • Isabel tells a detective, “I’ve had way worse fights with the kid next door—pounded him—but it doesn’t mean I’d kill him.”
  • Isabel thinks about her dad’s death and wonders, “if my father had suffered, like from poison gas the Germans had used, or if he’d gone quickly, like from a bullet. Or if it had been really horrible, from a bayonet.”
  • A reporter tells Isabel, “I’ve trudged through the ash-covered remains of big fires. And waded into the river to get a better look when a corpse was being dredged out. And of course, I’ve stepped over bodies, sometimes several at once, because this is a violent city.”
  • A gangster is called the Nose because his nose got shot off.
  • Isabel mentions how “Mrs. Harq had bumped off her dentist husband . . .”
  • The newspaper has an article about how “Marty Durkin, who’d killed a federal agent in Chicago, had finally been caught after leading police on a wild-goose chase over America.”
  • While walking down an alley, someone hits Isabel over the head. She “stumbled on something—right before everything went black.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Al Capone is mentioned several times. “As everybody in Chicago—even kids—knew, Al Capone was a very dangerous man who’d made millions of dollars selling alcohol, which was illegal because of Prohibition.”
  • Isabel passes a speakeasy. “Secret places where men and women went to listen to jazz music and drink bootleg alcohol, away from the police—until the parties got raided.”

Language

  • Heck, darn, and jeez are used occasionally.
  • Isabel thinks that her friend is a witch.
  • A man calls Isabel a “brat” and a “lying little monster.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

All Summer Long

Thirteen-year-old Bina has a long summer ahead of her. She and her best friend, Austin, usually do everything together, but he’s off to soccer camp for a month, and he’s been acting kind of weird lately anyway. So it’s up to Bina to see how much fun she can have on her own.

At first it’s a lot of guitar playing, boredom, and bad TV, but things start to look up when she finds an unlikely companion in Austin’s older sister, Charlie. They like the same music, and Charlie actually seems to think Bina is cool. But then Austin comes home from camp, and he’s acting even weirder than when he left. Can Bina and Austin get back to the way things used to be? Or does growing up mean growing apart?

When Bina starts spending time with Charlie, she is excited that a cool high school student wants to hang out together. But it often feels like Charlie is using her. For example, Charlie needs help putting boxes in the attic, but leaves Bina to do the work alone. At first, Bina is afraid to tell Charlie how she feels, but when Charlie skips out on Bina while babysitting, Bina finally speaks up.

Middle school readers will relate to Bina, who wants to appear cool but is also insecure. Even though none of her friends appreciate music, Bina doesn’t let that stop her from playing her guitar. While much of the plot revolves around Bina’s summer, the story has glimpses of her family life. One aspect of the plot is Bina’s older brother and his husband adopting a baby. While this plotline isn’t well developed, Bina is looking forward to being an aunt.

Readers will enjoy the graphic novel’s panels, which are black with orange highlights. Each page has eleven or fewer sentences and the story uses simple vocabulary. However, the text is small, which makes some of the words difficult to read. Despite this, the format of All Summer Long will appeal to many readers.

All Summer Long deals with themes of friendship, family, and coming of age. However, the story’s plot is not well developed and is not very memorable. Despite this, Mila’s experiences will encourage readers to find their own passions.

Sexual Content

  • Austin runs into a boy from soccer camp. Austin introduces Mila as “my friend.” The boy asks “with benefits?”
  • Austin’s teen sister has a boy come over to her house. Austin tells Bina, “That skater guy’s been in Charlie’s room all afternoon, so maybe I’ll get to be a fourteen-year-old uncle.”
  • Austin tells Bina about a girl he met at soccer camp. He says, “Her name’s Rosemary. Ro. We met at camp. She’s a striker. . . It means she scores a lot.” Bina makes a funny face and asks, “Did she score with you?”

Violence

  • After an argument, Austin and Bina shove each other.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Someone is called a jerk three times. When Bina is upset with her best friend, she thinks he is a jerk.
  • When Mila loses her house key, she thinks, “Crud! Where’d it go?!”
  • Freakin’ is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan

 No one wants me to tell you about the disappearance of Sloane Sullivan.

Not the lawyers or the cops. Not her friends or family. Not even the boy who loved her more than anyone. And most certainly not the United States Marshals Service. You know, the people who run the witness protection program? Yeah, those folks definitely don’t want me talking to you.

But I don’t care. I have to tell someone.

If I don’t, you’ll never know how completely wrong things can go. How a single decision can change everything. How, when it really comes down to it, you can’t trust anyone. Not even yourself. You have to understand, so it won’t happen to you next. Because you never know when the person sitting next to you isn’t who they claim to be…and because there are worse things than disappearing.

This story begins with Sloane once again changing her name and going to a new school. While Sloane is quickly brought into a group of friends, none of the characters are likable. By the end of the story, readers will wonder why Sloane let any of these people into her life. Each character is so full of secrets that it is difficult to distinguish the truth from rumors. While Sloane’s lies are understandable, the rest of the characters come off as self-centered, manipulating liars.

Sloane tells her own story, which allows the reader to understand her motivations. In addition to her thoughts, Sloane often has flashbacks. Readers will empathize with Sloane, who constantly has to move in order to keep safe. Her only stability is Marc, who is posing as a federal Marshal. Marc has taught Sloane the importance of being aware of her surroundings as well as how to protect herself. Despite this, Sloane makes so many mistakes that it’s amazing she is still alive.

While The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan has a unique premise and suspenseful moments, by the end, none of the characters can be trusted. The complicated ending is not believable, and even Marc, Sloane’s protector, turns out to be a bit of a creep. At 400 pages, some of the high school drama and Sloane’s inner struggles could have been cut out. If you’re looking for a suspenseful mystery romance, some better options would be Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards and Crossing the Line by Simone Elkeles.

Sexual Content

  • While talking about the senior trip, someone says, “I heard the chaperones go to bed early and everyone sneaks out and hooks up.”
  • When Sloane was a freshman, she skipped school to hang out with Ben, a senior. “Ben gave a throaty laugh as he pushed my brown hair off my shoulders and kissed the side of my neck. My heart jumped in my chest.” When Marc finds them, Ben “leaned in and kissed me right on the mouth, all the while glaring at Mar . . I’d done my fair share of imagining my first kiss, even the possibility it might happen with Ben, but I never thought it would happen just to taunt Mark.”
  • When Sloane enters a new school, she sees some students “making out in front of classrooms.”
  • Sloane thinks back to a time when she had a boyfriend named Duke. “He leaned in and kissed me. It was slow and sweet and steady, just like him.”
  • Sloane’s friend, Livie, is upset that her boyfriend broke up with her. Livie says, “But we were together for almost two months. We made out tons of times. . . That counts for something, right?”
  • According to rumors, Jason has “slept with half the girls in the school.”
  • Jason said he left a party because “I found my date making out with him [the host] in his bedroom?” Another time, he agreed to go to a party with Lauren, but “when I got there, she and her friends were already drunk. . . she kept trying to take me to her room so we could be ‘alone.’ She said she wanted to ring in the new year by doing something special and she wanted me to be her first.”
  • When a girl disappears, some people say that she’s “hooking up with a guy and she’s “holed up in a motel room somewhere.”
  • Even though Sawyer knew Sloane didn’t like him, he kissed her.
  • While on the senior trip, Livie implies she’s going to a boy’s room to have sex. Livie says she can ask the guy if “he has any lonely friends.” Sloane tells her, “I don’t want some random trip hookup, Livie.”
  • Sawyer and Livie “slept together.”
  • Once Jason knows who Sloane really is, they kiss. Sloane “grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulling him the rest of the way to me. . . So when I finally pulled away from him, breathless and dizzy from the amazing softness of his lips and the feeling of his hands against my skin. . .” After this, they kiss several times, but the kisses aren’t described.
  • After months, Jason and Sloane are reunited. “And then Jason is kissing me. His kisses are urgent at first, insistent like he’s trying to erase the last eight months. Then they slowly turn soft and sweet and gentle. . .”

Violence

  • Sloane was told her father committed suicide, but later she finds out he was murdered. The death is not described.
  • When a boy gives Sloane an unwanted kiss, she “yanked my knee up as hard as I could until it landed between Ben’s legs. He groaned and doubled over, and I shoved him with both hands. . . I watched him hit the ground.”
  • Sloane has a series of flashbacks. She saw two men kill a man. “The older man slumped against the warehouse at their feet. His blond curly hair was matted with blood and his face was swollen and bruised.” The flashback is described over two pages.
  • While at a birthday party, the girl’s father walks behind Sloane and scares her. “Without thinking, I crouched down and swung my leg around in an arc just like Mark taught, sweeping a man’s legs out from under him. He crashed onto his back with a loud oof . . .”
  • Sawyer gets angry at Jason. “Sawyer planted his hands on Jason’s chest and shoved with all his drunken might. Jason stumbled backward, but caught himself before he fell.” Sloane gets between them and stops the fight.
  • Sawyer taunts Jason and Sloane “grabbed Sawyer’s wrist with my right hand, pulled his arm across my chest, and flipped him over my shoulder in one impossibly fast movement. He hit the ground with a loud smack. . . Then he lunged at me. Faster than I could react, Jason jumped in front of Sawyer and punched him so hard his teeth clicked together as his head snapped back. . . He was out cold.”
  • When the “bad guy” shows up at Sloane’s school, she runs home only to find a man’s body. The man’s eyes “were dull and empty and I couldn’t look at them.”
  • Marc’s family is full of gangsters. He says, “For my tenth birthday, my uncle Gino taught me the best places to cut a person so it would hurt like hell but they wouldn’t bleed out before they confessed.”
  • A rival gangster, Reuben, killed Marc’s little sister. Reuben “told us where we could find her body. He even mocked the way she’d begged for her life.”
  • When Marc threatens Jason with a gun, Sloane “shot him.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • While talking about the senior trip, someone tells Sloane, “people smuggle alcohol along and party in their hotel rooms.”
  • In the past, Sawyer got drunk and “got pissed someone beat [him] at cards and punched a hole in the drywall in [his] basement.”
  • While at a party a girl is drugged. The doctors “think someone must’ve slipped something in her drink. . . No injuries or evidence of sexual assault or anything.”
  • At prom, Sawyer gets so drunk that he can’t stand up.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes ass, crap, damn, hell, holy hell, pissed, and shit. For example, a boy tells Sloane, “You’re getting ready to tell me we shouldn’t be friends, right? That you don’t want to be dragged into all of my crap.”
  • Christ, Jesus, oh Lord, God, and good God are used as exclamations occasionally. For example, when someone makes a sexual innuendo, Sloane says, “Oh my God! You did not just turn Harry Potter into something dirty.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Occasionally, Sloane prays for something. For example, when Sloane sees someone from her past, she prays that her brown eyes “would be enough to throw him off.”
  • When Sloane and her friends sneak out of school, they go to a carousel. When the cops show up, Sloane introduces everyone. Sloane “prayed, prayed, he didn’t know the characters’ names from The Goonies.”

 

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation

Decades ago, Albert Einstein devised an equation that could benefit all life on earth—or destroy it. Fearing what would happen if the equation fell into the wrong hands, he hid it away.

But now, a diabolical group known as the Furies are closing in on its location. In desperation, a team of CIA agents drags Charlie into the hunt, needing her brilliance to find it first—even though this means placing her life in grave danger.

In this adventure that spans the globe, Charlie must crack a complex code created by Einstein himself, survive in a world where no one can be trusted, and fight to keep the last equation safe once and for all.

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation starts with an epic chase scene and continues the fast-paced adventure until the very end. The story is told from Charlie’s point of view, which makes her relatable despite the fact that she is a genius. Even though she is intelligent, Charlie doesn’t always know what to do. But when it comes to difficult situations, Charlie can visualize numbers in her head, which allows her to solve complicated problems. This talent comes in handy when she uses a cipher to reveal Einstein’s message.

Charlie wants to keep Einstein’s equation out of the hands of terrorists and hostile governments, but she’s not sure the U.S. government can be trusted. Charlie is cynical when it comes to the U.S. government. She says, “America’s priorities are pretty darn clear: The first thing we do with any major discovery is try to kill people with it.”

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation deals with some mature topics including religious extremism, death, and Charlie’s complicated family life. The intense fight scenes, life-or-death chases, and the death of several characters may upset sensitive readers. In addition, the complicated plot is best suited for strong readers. However, readers who are ready for more mature content will have a hard time putting the book down because of the action and mystery.

Charlie’s journey takes readers on a suspenseful trip that will keep readers guessing until the very end. Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation will entertain mystery fans. At the end of Charlie’s adventure, she realizes that “all the talent in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you squander it.” The conclusion wraps up all of the story threads and also leaves readers wanting to know what will happen next. Readers will be eager to pick up the next book in the series, Charlie Thorne and the Lost City.

Sexual Content

  • Charlie teases her brother Dante, saying, “Jeez, you might know a whole lot about terrorist cells, but you don’t know much about women. That was a full-on ‘I wish Dante would say to heck with the regulations and just kiss me’ look.”
  • Dante tells Charlie to go to bed, but she will have to share the bed with his partner agent Milana. Charlie says, “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be in there with her? You could do a little smooching before bed.”

 Violence

  • At Einstein’s request, his friend Ernst began burning Einstein’s papers. Ernst “continued feverishly stroking the flames, even as he heard the men break down the front door and shove Helen aside, even as they burst into the room and pulled their guns and screamed at him to stop, right up until their leaders clubbed him from behind, crumpling him to the floor.”
  • Charlie wants to steal the pool guy’s truck. When he refuses to give her the key, Charlie “lashed out a leg and swept the pool guy’s legs out from under him. . . He slipped and landed flat on his back.” Charlie shoves the guy into the hot tub and then takes off.
  • The KGB captures an American spy, who “cowardly offered secrets in return for his life. The old man and his fellow agents listened as the American spilled his guts—and then they killed him anyhow.”
  • The narration states, “The world’s most infamous serial killers had all been unimpressive losers who had been unsuccessful at just about everything except murdering helpless people.”
  • A terrorist steals one of Einstein’s books. When “the young archivist instinctively moved to protect it. . . he [Marko] punched the archivist in the face, then drilled a fist into his stomach as he reeled backwards. The archivist went down, whacking his head on a table. . .”
  • Charlie tries to get Einstein’s book back. She grabs a skateboard and jumped on a railing. “Then she rode down quickly grinding along the rail, bearing down on Marko . . Charlie bounced off the railing, hitting Marko with the full force of her body. The two of them tumbled across the asphalt.”
  • When Marko recovers, he “lowered his shoulder and rammed into her [Charlie]. . .He knocked the wind out of her while sending her falling backward into the trunk of a parked car. The trunk caught her. . . sending a lightning bolt of pain up her spine.”
  • Marko tries to escape Charlie but she uses the skateboard to trip him. “He flew forward, the rage on his face now giving way to surprise. . . Marko plowed headfirst into a lamppost, hitting so hard that the sound rang across the parking lot. . .She grabbed a handful of his hair, and with a surge of adrenaline and rage she’d never known she had, she slammed his head back into the lamppost again.” One of Marko’s companions kills him and then tries to kill Charlie. The chase scene is described over six pages.
  • In order to escape Dante, Charlie “drove her knee into her brother’s crotch.” Dante runs after her. “Charlie was thrown several feet by their combined momentum and crashed into a kiosk selling fresh fruit.” Dante wrestles her to the ground and drags her to a safe house.
  • When entering the safe house, the terrorist attacks Dante and Charlie. Dante is “beaten down and a gun was pressed against her [Milana’s] head.” One of the terrorists “kicked Dante in the stomach so hard it made Dante curl into a ball.” In order to escape the terrorist, Charlie“grabbed the mug and smashed it on Alexei’s temple, sending him reeling. Then she threw it at Vladimir, hitting him in the face.” As Charlie and Milana run, Charlie can hear the sound of fighting and guns being fired.
  • As Charlie and Milana try to escape, Dante “fired down, directly through the floor. There was a scream of pain from below, and then Dante dove away as more bullets tore upward through the floor. . .” The fight with the terrorists is described over 20 pages.
  • The terrorists kill a CIA agent. A terrorist says, “The brown man? He’s dead. We tossed him in the bathroom.”
  • When Charlie and Milana run from the terrorists, Charlie runs into a fruit stand. “The owner grabbed her arm roughly and raised a hand to strike her . . .” Milana stops the man and “wrenched the man’s arm so hard that he howled in pain, releasing Charlie.”
  • When the terrorists catch up to Charlie and Milana, Charlie threw chili powder into a man’s eyes. “Oleg roared in pain and stumbled forward blindly. Milana spun around and drove a knee into his crotch, folding the man like a hinge.” Charlie throws boiling water in a terrorist’s face. The scene is described over two pages. Both Charlie and Milana escape.
  • The CIA looks at the security video from the safe house. An “unknown figure . . . shot both of the agents before they could even react.”
  • While leaving a church, “three of the pilgrims pounced on her [Milana], knocking her to the ground. . .” Charlie was hit and “her legs were swept out from under her, her face was slammed into the cobblestones, and a gun was pressed against the back of her head.” Then the Mossad arrested them.
  • In order to free Milana and Charlie from the Mossad, Dante shoots one man “in the shoulder, spinning him and dropping him to the ground.” The Mossad lets the two go free, but then there is a high-speed chase.
  • In a multi-chapter conclusion, Alexei, a rogue CIA agent, the Mossad, and Charlie’s group race to get Einstein’s work. The rouge agent shoots and kills a man sitting in a car. Agents shoot at each other and someone points a gun at Charlie’s head.
  • Milana tries to catch Charlie, but “bullets stitched the earth around her, and she felt a sting as one caught her thigh. . . The bullet had only nicked her, although it still hurt like heck.”
  • The rogue CIA agent, John, catches up to Charlie. Charlie punches John. “The punch caught him off guard, but he rolled with it and then came in low. He drove his fist into Charlie’s solar plexus, then caught her with another blow that floored her.” A bullet hits a propane tank and there is a strong explosion. “The explosion roared over her [Charlie] and blasted John off his feet, slamming him into a tree with such force that his bones snapped. . . His spine had been broken when he had been thrown into the tree. . . John felt a sudden rush of heat and smelled something burning close by. . . Within seconds, the flames leapt up all around him. John screamed, but no one heard him.”
  • While trying to flee Jerusalem, Milana and Dante have to get by the security guards. “The CIA agents caught the poor security agents by surprise, rendering them unconscious within seconds.” Then the terrorists show up and open fire. “The CIA agents emptied their guns. One after the other the Furies screamed in pain and dropped. Alexei was the last to go.” When one of the Furies shoots toward a fuel tanker and “emptied his clip. . . The tanker exploded. A ball of fire raced toward the plane. . .” Charlie, Milana, and Dante escape. Three people die. The scene is described over seven pages.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Albert Einstein was gravely ill, his doctor gave him morphine.
  • Alexei goes into a bar and talks to a man who has been drinking. “At first Alexei thought the [man’s] story might be the ravings of an alcoholic.”
  • Einstein’s friend believed he had failed Einstein. A few months after Einstein’s death, his friend died in an alcohol-related death.
  • Several men who are part of a group of terrorists have been in jail for drunk driving. One of the men spent time in jail because of public intoxication.
  • After a fight with a terrorist, Charlie takes ibuprofen for the pain.
  • The terrorist discovers a man works for the CIA and, “The Furies, drunk and vengeful, had shown no mercy. . .the Furies were brutal.” The CIA agent’s body was unrecognizable.

Language

  • The story has a lot of name calling including: creep, idiot, jerk, slimeball, and stupid punk. For example, Charlie calls a pool guy a “sexist jerk.”
  • Crap is used four times. For example, Charlie drove her friend’s “crappy car.”
  • Charlie tells a CIA agent, “I nearly killed myself trying to save your stupid butt. What kind of idiot jumps in front a moving truck?”
  • God is used as an exclamation once.
  • Damn is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Alexei is planning on bombing a large city “teeming with people of inferior races. . . He would destroy them all. The day was close. Alexei knew it. God had willed it.”
  • Alexei believes that immigrants are “rats” and his job is to wipe them out. “God had chosen him to do it.”
  • While trying to escape the terrorists, Charlie was “praying her math was right.”
  • Charlie “wasn’t religious . . . And now, here she was sitting inside one of the most important churches on earth. It occurred to her that maybe she should take that as a sign and pray for Dante.”
  • Einstein “didn’t believe God played dice with the universe.”
  • Charlie thinks about God and Einstein. “Einstein had been a religious man, but he had claimed the God he favored was that of Baruch Spinoza, who had declared, ‘God is in the details, the beauty, the math of the world.’”
  • While looking for Charlie, Alexei, “Prayed to God that he would get to Charlie Thorne before the Mossad.” When Alexei finds Charlie, he thinks, “God smiled on him again.”

 

The Invaders

As champions of the Brotherband competition, Hal and the rest of the Herons were given a simple assignment: safeguard the Skandians’ most sacred artifact, the Andomal. When the Andomal is stolen, the Herons must track down the thief to recover the precious relic. But that means traveling stormy seas, surviving a bitter winter, and battling a group of deadly bandits willing to protect their prize at all cost. If it comes down to a fight, Brotherband training might not be enough to ensure the recovery of the Andomal—or the safety of the Herons.

Even though the Herons have left Skandia, their training continues as they wait for the winter winds to cease. The beginning of The Invaders focuses on Thorn’s training of the boys, which allows Thorn’s character to shift from a broken-down drunk to a respected warrior. The story often shifts focus from the Herons, to the pirate Zavac and back to Skandia. While the three story threads are easy to follow, the large cast of characters do not allow for sufficient character development. Hal and Thorn are well-developed, but the other characters fade into the background.

Despite the lack of character development, one theme runs true: “We all have different levels of ability. What we must do is make the most of what we’ve got.” Each character has a different ability and even Ingvar, who has poor vision, is a valuable member of the crew. The Invaders adds Lydia to the crew. Lydia is not a helpless girl who needs a man to save her. Instead, her skills are essential in helping save lives during the battle against the pirates.

While the plot is somewhat predictable, the interactions between the Herons’ Brotherband, Swengal’s Skandian crew, and the town people add interest. Unfortunately, at 400+ pages, The Invaders does little to advance the plot. The story ends with the pirate Zavac’s escape and the Herons alone in their search to find Zavac and take back the Andomal. The sluggish beginning, the difficult vocabulary, and the descriptive sailing scenes make The Invaders best for strong readers.

Unlike the Ranger’s Apprentice Series, the main characters are not fighting to help their country. Instead, Hal is fighting to restore his Brotherbands’ reputation. Another main difference between the two series is that Hal’s ingenuity is constantly praised, and he does not learn and grow. Readers who fell in love with Will in the ranger’s apprentice, will miss the three main characters—Will, Horace, and Halt. Even though The Invaders is not as captivating as the Ranger’s Apprentice Series, readers ready for an adventure on the high seas will enjoy the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When Jesper questions Thorn’s ability to train the boys, Thorn “moved with blinding speed. . . The old sea wolf’s left hand closed on Jesper’s collar in an iron grip and hoisted the boy off his feet, holding him suspended, his feet dangling clear of the ground. Then he gathered himself and hurled Jesper away like a sack of potatoes.”
  • While training the boys, Thorn uses a hickory baton to give the boys “a none-too-gentle rap on the behind” to get them moving. Once, Thorn “put a little extra venom into a whack.”
  • Thorn teaches the boys how to fight in battle. During an exercise, “Stig launched one last, massive blow at Thorn. . . Thorn caught it on the slanting face of his shield and deflected it.” Stig loses his balance, and “Thorn jabbed the baton painfully into his ribs like a snake striking.”
  • Pirates attack a ship. When a sailor tried to surrender, “a pirate’s spear was already thrusting forward. It took him in the middle of the body and drove him back. He screamed and fell to the deck, the spear still transfixing him as the pirate struggled to free it.” Even the sailors that surrendered were killed. “One died in silence. The other gave a brief cry of pain and despair, then fell to a bloodstained deck.”
  • The pirate captain, Zavac, questions a sailor to find where the ship’s treasures are hidden. Zavac “slashed the thin blade of the dagger across the Gallican’s face, laying open a long cut. . . Now the pain registered with him, a burning sensation across his face, accompanied by the rush of blood dripping down onto his clothes.” When the sailor stays quiet, Zavac tells his men, “Torture him. . . . On second thought, when he’s ready to talk, keep torturing him for another five minutes. Then call me.” After being tortured, the sailor is “barely recognizable. . . Two of his fingers on his right hand were missing, as was his left ear.” The sailor was eventually killed. The ship attack is described over eight pages.
  • Zavac and the pirates attack a small town, killing many people. The watch commander and his men try to defend the town. Zavac joins the fight and “he pivoted on his right foot and thrust viciously with the long curved blade in his hand. He felt it strike a momentary resistance, pause, then penetrate. Only now, he looked, and saw his sword deep in the belly of one of the garrisons. . . Zavac’s thrust had gone just below the highly polished breastplate that the man wore. The officer’s eyes were wide-open with shock.” The man dies. The pirate’s attack is described over several chapters.
  • A group of pirates chase Lydia. Trying to escape, she gets into a skiff. A pirate “grabbed hold of the stern” and Lydia “unshipped one of the oars and jabbed it at him, aiming at the hand that clutched the stern. He yelled in pain, releasing the boat.” Another pirate comes after her and Lydia “took quick aim at the man who had nearly caught her, then cast. His comrades were startled as he screamed and threw his arms up, then fell backwards against the wave. . .” The pirate dies.
  • Stig asks Barat, a company commander, to allow some of his men to help save Hal. Barat tells Stig no and Stig “hit Barat with every ounce of his strength. . . It was a savage right that connected flush on the side of his jaw, lifted him off his feet, then dropped him to the sand like a sack of potatoes. . . Barat was out like a light.”
  • The Skandians team up with the town people to defeat the pirates. Hal and his crew hit the balustrade with huge arrows. “A few seconds later, a section of the pine balustrade around the tower exploded in a hail of splinters as the heavy projectiles smashed into it, then through it, cartwheeling among the defenders and knocking men over.” Some pirates are injured, but the injuries are not described.
  • After Hal and his crew set the watch tower on fire, the pirates flee. However, the Skandians are waiting for them. The Skandians “smashed into the disorganized Magyarans, axes rising and falling in a deadly rhythm. The pirates, stunned and demoralized by the sudden onset of the watchtower fire, eyes streaming from the smoke, had no chance against the charging Skandians.”
  • Swengal and one of the pirates have one to one combat. “The Magyaran panicked as he tried in vain to withdraw his trapped spear. As a result, he never saw the roadhouse stroke from the massive ax that ended the fight for good.”
  • The story ends with a multi-chapter battle where the Skandians help free the town from pirates. When one of the invaders was shooting arrows at the Heron, Lydia threw a dart at him. The man “reappeared, arrow nocked, bow half drawn—and stepped straight into the plummeting dart she had just thrown. He threw up his hands, the bow went spinning away, and he reeled, then toppled over the railing, hitting the support frame several times as he fell.”
  • One of the Heron’s crew, Ingvar, was hit by an arrow. “. . . Ingvar [was] writhing on the deck, clutching at the arrow that was protruding from his left side, close to the hip.”
  • The Heron uses an oversized crossbow to send projectiles into a platform. The projectiles “wreaked havoc on the platform, smashing and splintering the railing and cutting down five of his [the pirate leader’s] men.”
  • One man is hit with a dart and then “toppled off the catwalk and thudded to the street below.”
  • Another pirate tried to flee, but Thorn “slammed the small metal shield into his unprotected midriff and he gasped and doubled over. A rib-cracking jab from the club finished him, sending him sprawling.”
  • During the battle, many pirates die. One dies when Hal “jabbed quickly forward and saw the shock on the man’s face as the sword penetrated his defense and slid between his ribs.”
  • When some of the pirates attempt to flee, the towns’ people attack them. “After a few brief violent moments, the townspeople moved on, leaving the broken, battered bodies of the pirates sprawled on the cobbles.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • A Skandian in the common room had an ale cup in his hand.
  • Sometimes Thorn’s past drunken behavior is discussed and Thorn is called a, “Broken-down old drunk.”
  • A ship that the pirates attack is carrying “a few barrels of wine and ale.”
  • After the town is liberated, they throw a celebration where ale is served.

Language

  • One of the boys says, “Don’t be an ass, Stefan.”
  • Lydia calls someone a “pompous, overbearing prat of a man.”
  • Thorn calls someone a “preening idiot.”
  • Gorlog is a Skandian god. Five times, Gorlog’s name is used in creative exclamations such as, “Oh for Gorlog’s sake.” Another time, Thorn says, “Gorlog’s bleached and broken bones you’re a sorry lot.”
  • Someone says, “Oh Bungall’s braided beard.” Bungall was a minor deity, generally referred to as the god of acting in an embarrassing manner.
  • One of Hal’s crew says, “Perlins and Gertz,” who are the Skandian demigods of snow and ice.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Occasional the Skandian gods’ names are used as exclamations.
  • Thorn thinks, “May the Great Blue Whale fly up to the sun.” The reference is not explained.
  • There is a brief reference to Tharon, the god of thunder.
  • When Hal and his crew are found, Swengal says, “Thank the gods you’re all safe.”
  • After a man knocks out Barat, he tells one of Barat’s men to tell the others “Barat stayed behind to pray to Torink for a great victory.” Torink was their god of battles.

More Happy Than Not

Aaron struggles with his father’s seemingly meaningless suicide and his own attempted suicide. Through the process of coming to terms with his losses, Aaron leans on the support of his mother, brother, girlfriend, and friends. He has been with his girlfriend, Genevieve, since before his father’s suicide and she supported him after his own suicide attempt, solidifying her role as a central part of Aaron’s support system. Then, Aaron meets a boy from a nearby neighborhood, Thomas, who changes his entire life as he begins to fall in love with him.

Since Aaron can’t stay away from Thomas or turn off his newfound feelings for him, he considers turning to the Leteo Institute’s revolutionary memory-alteration procedure to straighten himself out, even if it means forgetting who he truly is.

More Happy Than Not follows Aaron’s journey of meeting a boy who changes his life in a way he has never experienced before. The story is told from Aaron’s perspective which allows the reader to understand Aaron’s internal struggles as he grapples with his sexuality. The reader follows Aaron’s feelings for his perfect girlfriend, which become complicated with his potential feelings for a new boy, Thomas. Aaron struggles with this internal battle of sexuality, his love and care for others, and internalized homophobia.

Following his regained memories, Aaron is upset that the Leteo procedure did not “fix” his sexuality. He confides in Genevieve, who reveals she was aware of his previous relationship a boy, and had helped him through the Leteo procedure in the hopes that it would help him love her the way she loved him. With the return of painful memories and a rejection by Thomas, the novel ends with Aaron considering whether or not he should undergo an additional Leteo procedure to take the pain away.

This raw novel highlights struggles of sexual identity, mental illness, suicide, grief, homophobia, and hate crimes. Aaron is a likable character with challenges that may be relatable to LGBTQ+ readers. More Happy Than Not is an engaging, suspenseful story that is difficult to put down. Yet Aaron’s experiences may be painful for some readers, especially those who have not yet come out. However, it is important that this story be told for LGBTQ+ youth who have faced discrimination as Aaron’s experiences explore how to move forward after painful experiences.

This sensitive and gruesomely realistic novel takes the reader on a journey of understanding Aaron’s inner conflicts. In the end, Aaron learns an important lesson and he decides, “I will do my best to always find the sun in the darkness because my life isn’t one sad ending – it’s a series of endless happy beginnings.”

Sexual Content

  • Aaron’s girlfriend, Genevieve, insinuates she wants to have sex with Aaron, to which he thinks, “A sexy lightbulb flashes on. . . I remember something very crucial: Fuck, I have no idea how to have sex.”
  • When preparing to have sex with Genevieve, Aaron thinks, “I am so screwed later on. Okay, poor choice of words . . . I was hoping I could watch an unhealthy amount of porn to memorize techniques. . . I’ve considered maybe watching porn in the morning while he’s [his older brother] knocked out, but even naked bodies can’t wake me up.”
  • When preparing to have sex, Aaron consults his friends. A friend states, “Fuck all that. I boned a bunch of girls just so I could get off and get better.”
  • When Aaron has sex with Genevieve, in-depth details aren’t given, but kissing and undressing are discussed. Aaron broke “free from her not-so-tight grip, slide up on her, and kiss her lips and neck…She pulls my shirt off and it sails over my shoulder. . . I take off her shirt and leave her in a bra. She unzips my jeans and I kick them off with much awkward difficulty.”
  • Aaron discusses having sex with Genevieve. “Skinny-Dave wanted to know how many times we did it (twice!) and how long I lasted (not long but I lied).”
  • Aaron thinks back to when his best friend said, “Yo! I just got my first blow job!”
  • In his recovered memories, Aaron recalls a previous romance with his classmate, Collin. As they grew closer Aaron wanted to move forward in their relationship physically. “Collin has already lost both of his virginities. He got it on with this girl Suria when he was fourteen, after she gave him a hand job under the bleachers in the gym. Then he let this guy plow him last year when he was vacationing in the Poconos. I still have both of my virginities to lose. . . I want to take it to the next level with Collin.”
  • Once Aaron recovers his memories, he remembers he had sex with Collin multiple times. Aaron thinks back to when he tackled Collin “against the wall, unbuttoning his shirt, and it’s all condoms and awkward first memories from there.”

Violence

  • The book opens with Aaron thinking of his father’s suicide and his own suicide attempt. “I trace the smiling scar, left to right and right to left, happy to have a reminder to not be such a dumbass again.”
  • Aaron shares a long hug with Thomas. When Aaron’s friends see him, they jump him. During the fight, Aaron thought, “I don’t know where we’re going until we crash through the glass door of my building and I am sprawled across the lobby floor. There’s an explosion in the back of my head, a delayed reaction. Blood fills my mouth. This is what death feels like, I think. I scream like someone is turning a hundred knives inside of me, spitting up blood as I do.”
  • When Aaron recovers his memories, he angrily remembers how his friend’s brother died. “Kenneth was fucking gunned down yesterday and it’s all Kyle’s fucking fault. Kyle couldn’t fucking help himself and just had to fucking fuck Jordan’s fucking sister, even though we all fucking knew Jordan is the kind of fucking guy who would fucking kill someone if you fucking crossed him. Those bullets were fucking meant for fucking Kyle but no, they fucking found their way into fucking Kenneth when he was fucking innocently coming home from his fucking clarinet lessons at school.”
  • When Aaron remembers coming out to his father, he recalls his father’s violence. Aaron’s father said, “ ‘I’ll fucking throw him out myself.’ My mom guards me. Dad wraps his big hands around her throat, shaking her. . . I run over, grab his TV remote, and hit him so hard in the back of his head with it that the batteries pop out. . . My dad – the man who fucking played catch with me – punches me in the back of my head. . .””
  • Aaron was sitting close to Collin in a park and two guys yell, “Yo. You two homos faggots?” Then the two guys jump Aaron and Collin. “One slams my head into the railing, and the other hammers Collin with punches. I try punching the first guy in his nose. . . I have no idea how many times he punches me or at what point I end up on the sticky floor with Collin trying to shield me before he’s kicked to the side. . . His kind brown eyes roll back when he’s kicked in the head.”
  • When Aaron gets home after being jumped, he enters his bathroom to find his dead father. “When I see who’s sitting in the bathtub, I drop the shirt and blood just spills down my face and chest. Holy shit. Dad. His eyes are open but he’s not looking at me. He didn’t take his clothes off before getting into the tub. The water is a deep red, stained by the blood spilling from his slit wrists. He came home to kill himself. He came home to kill himself before I could bring a boy here. He came home to kill himself because of me. All this blood. All this red makes me black out.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Aaron and his friends frequently drink together. For example, Aaron and his friends are in high school and sneak onto the roof top of Thomas’s apartment complex to drink and party together. During one of these parties, Genevieve goes to find Thomas and Aaron, who are talking in Thomas’s room, and she shouts, “Is party central happening down here now? Let’s go up and drink! Wooooo!”
  • In addition, Aaron and his friends drink in excess. However, when they drink in excess they make a point to not drive. Aaron noticed Genevieve had been drinking heavily and says, “Genevieve is pretty damn drunk and needs to get home.” Then Aaron calls a taxi to drive her home.

Language

  • Dumbass is used frequently by Aaron and his friends. For example, Aaron uses the word “dumbass” to refer to himself after attempting suicide.
  • When jokingly trying to get his girlfriend to break up with him, Aaron calls her a “bitch.”
  • Profanity is used excessively. Profanity includes ass, fuck, dick, holy shit, and shit. For example, when asking his friends how to properly have sex with his girlfriend, he responds to their remarks by saying, “Thanks, asshole. Help me not fuck this up.”
  • Aaron says, “It feels like a dick move to take a girl’s virginity without some kind of present.”
  • The term “faggot” is routinely used in a derogatory manner. For example, Aaron’s friends call him a “faggot” and Aaron’s dad yells, “I’ll be damned if I’m alive the day you bring a boy home you fucking faggot.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Paige Smith

See You in the Cosmos

Alex is a brilliant eleven-year-old, fascinated by space and astronomy. He has been working on building a rocket to launch his “Golden iPod” into space. After working at a local gas station sorting magazines in Rockview, Colorado, he saves enough money to attend SHARF, a rocket festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

On the way to SHARF, Alex meets Zeb who is an author that frequently meditates and has taken a vow of silence. By using a chalkboard to communicate, Zeb becomes friends with Alex and accompanies him to the rocket festival. On the day of the rocket launches, Alex’s rocket does not end up in space but crashes into the ground. While crying in disappointment, Alex is comforted by a fellow attendee who encourages Alex by telling him how his team went through many failures before finally succeeding. Alex learns, “Right now is the most important moment – how they react to failure. They could either let it stop them or they could redouble their efforts, figure out what went wrong, and fix their mistakes so they can make the next try a success.”

From Colorado to New Mexico, Las Vegas to L.A., Alex records a journey on his iPod to show other lifeforms what life on earth, his earth, is like. But his destination keeps changing. And the funny, lost, remarkable people he meets along the way can only partially prepare him for the secrets he’ll uncover—from the truth about his long-dead dad to the fact that, for a kid with a troubled mom and a mostly absent brother, he has way more family than he ever knew.

See You in the Cosmos is a heartbreaking and touching story of a child following his dreams and his unconditional love for his family. The story is told as a transcript of the recordings Alex makes on his “Golden iPod,” which he is determined to launch into space someday so extraterrestrials will know what life on Earth is like. The reader is given an opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of an eleven-year-old, which provides a new perspective on life’s challenging issues.

The novel follows Alex as he learns to cope with difficult family situations as a young child with a limited view of the world. Upon returning from his adventure, his mother gets diagnosed with schizophrenia, and Child Protective Services gets involved to determine Alex’s future. The reader forms an emotional connection to Alex, feeling empathy for the experiences Alex is facing while providing the reader a deeper understanding of how children interpret life’s events.

See You in the Cosmos provides an innovative story that will pull at the hearts of readers of all ages. Younger readers may miss the deeper meanings behind Alex’s journey. However, since this book is told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old boy, this novel could serve as a new way for children to learn to cope with difficult situations in life or help children understand situations that others, such as classmates, might be going through. This book will teach readers how to be themselves, what it means to be brave, and how to follow your big dreams.

 Sexual Content

  • Alex records the story of how his parents met saying, “They went to the top of Mount Sam on the tramway and when they got up there they looked out over all of Rockview and up at the stars and that’s when they have their first kiss.”
  • Alex’s half-sister, Terra, tells him about a guy she is seeing. Alex asks her if she French-kissed him, and she responds, “Yes. We French-kissed.”
  • Terra and Zed’s roommate, Nathaniel, were alone in Nathaniel’s bedroom and Alex sneaks in with his iPod saying, “I thought maybe they were French-kissing and I thought you guys might want to know what that sounds like.”
  • Alex asks Terra what being in love means asking, “Is it wanting to French-kiss somebody?”

Violence

  • Steve has a crush on Terra, and when he sees Terra and Nathaniel alone together, he punches Nathaniel. Terra says, “Oh god, he’s bleed–.”
  • While climbing up a roof, Alex falls off the ladder and is impaled on a fence. Terra records on the iPod saying, “Just hearing his voice– I kept seeing him hanging over that fence.”
  • Ronnie tells Alex the truth about their father. “Deep down he was selfish and abusive.” Alex responds, “Did he hit Mom with a hockey stick like Benji’s dad hit his mom?”
  • Later in the conversation, Ronnie says, “Dad never hit Mom, at least that I know of. He never hit me either but he came really close once. . . He started yelling and undoing his belt and Mom was trying to shield me. . . Just ‘cause he never hit us doesn’t mean he wasn’t abusive in other ways.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Terra explains why she did not attend college. She says, “Why go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when you’re competing against other people on an artificial standard or even worse, drinking and partying away four years of your life only to come out with a piece of paper that isn’t worth sh–.”
  • Terra, Zed, and Zed’s two roommates all drink beer and vodka. Alex says, “I don’t know how you guys can drink that stuff because I tried a sip of one of Benji’s dad’s beers once and it was so gross.”
  • Alex reflects on a party. Alex stayed in his room all night but he had to use the restroom, and he ran into a girl drinking from a red cup. He asked her what she was drinking and she responded, “Coke and vodka.”

Language

  • Alex occasionally says “bleep” where individuals would normally curse in a sentence. For example, when he is at SHARF and sees the Southwest High-Altitude Rock Festival Banner and registration desk, he says, “HOLY bleep!”
  • Terra and Alex discuss swear words, and Alex says, “One time in school, Justin Peterson who’s on the basketball team and his locker’s next to mine asked me, Do you even know any swear words? And I said, Of course, I do, DUH! and then I told him all the swear words and I said sometimes Benji and I even combine them into sentences like, Bleep the bleep bleep who bleeped on my bleep bleep bleeping bleeper.”
  • Alex speaks into his recording saying, “Venice Beach was so huge, guys. I could see it even as we were driving up, and I said, Son of a beach! B-E-A-C-H.”
  • Steve gets into an argument with Terra and yells, “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Well maybe I AM. Maybe it takes an IDIOT like me to tell Alex here how things work in the real world. An IDIOT who’s not just going to feed him a bunch of false hopes!”
  • After the argument, Terra tells Alex, “Steve’s a jerk.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Paige Smith

 

 

 

 

Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 2

Socially anxious high school student Shoko Komi’s greatest dream is to make some friends, but everyone at school mistakes her crippling social anxiety for cool reserve. Luckily, she meets Tadano, a timid wallflower who decides to step out of his comfort zone in order to help her achieve her goal of making 100 friends.

It’s time for the national health exam at Itan High, and the excitement of eye exams and height measurements has fanned the flames of competition in the heart of Makeru Yadano. She’s determined to beat the class idol, Komi, in the health test. Komi’s total obliviousness to their impassioned duel just feeds Makeru’s determination. As the epic battle heats up, how will Komi handle her first rival when she’s barely made her first friends?

Much of the time Komi seems to be in her own world and doesn’t notice those around her. For example, at the beginning of the story, one classmate wants to compete with Komi on the physical fitness test. However, Komi doesn’t even realize the classmate is trying to beat her during the races and other activities. Even though Komi has social anxieties and doesn’t talk to anyone, many of Komi’s classmates idolize her and consider her a “goddess.”

Several of the characters are odd. For example, one classmate, Agari, acts as if she is Komi’s dog. Another classmate, Yamai, desperately wants to meet Komi, so she threatens Komi’s friend, Osana. After Osana agrees to introduce Komi to Yamai, the situation becomes even stranger. Yamai kidnaps Tadano, binds him to a chair, and puts tape over his mouth. Later that day, Osana and Komi go to Yamai’s house where they discover Tadano trapped in a closet. Despite this, Komi still wants to be friends with Yamai.

Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 2 shows Komi’s growth from a girl with no friends, to one who is beginning to communicate and has two friends. Even though Komi communicates by writing on a piece of paper, she does stand up for Tadano. Tadano is a bright spot in the story because he truly wants Komi to form friendships, and he pushes her to try new things. However, one drawback of Komi’s friends is that they all focus on her beauty.

The black and white illustrations are adorable and portray the socially awkward girl and her interactions with others with humor. Each page has 1 to 11 simple sentences which appear in quote boxes. Square boxes are also used to show characters and general information. The illustrations help show Komi’s nervousness by showing her tremble.

Even though Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 2 has some strange events, the story will resonate with high school students who are insecure. As Komi begins to communicate, she also begins to act like a normal teenager by going to the mall and eating at a restaurant with her friends. Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 2 will entertain readers, even though it lacks the depth of Volume One. Readers will be curious to find out what happens with Komi’s new friend Yamai in Volume Three.

 Sexual Content

  • Yamai has a crush on Komi and is obsessed with Komi’s smell.

Violence

  • Yamai kidnaps Tadano, threatens him with a knife, and binds him to a chair. Yamai thinks, “It’s utterly bizarre for a loser like him to hang around a divinity like you, Komi.” Yamai justifies her actions by saying Komi is “glorious, so it’s psycho for a bottle-feeder like Tadano to hang around you!”
  • Komi doesn’t talk to Yamai, so Yamai threatens to kill herself with a knife. She says, “I have no reason to keep living!”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • One of the students says, “F*** you!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

We Unleash the Merciless Storm

We Unleash the Merciless Storm is the second book to take place in Medio, a world ruled by a wealthy inner city and divided by walls. In Medio, wealthy men take two wives—a Primera and a Segunda—who have trained their entire lives to fill these positions. Meanwhile, rebellion brews in the outer lands, and the rebel faction, La Voz, plans to strike on the capital. In We Set the Dark on Fire, Dani Vargas becomes a Primera to the powerful and dangerous Mateo. Dani becomes involved in a world of espionage and subterfuge while falling in love with Mateo’s Segunda, Carmen. We Unleash the Merciless Storm picks up right where We Set the Dark on Fire left off, following the aftermath of the car explosion that ended the first book.

Half of the story is told from Carmen’s perspective. When she returns to the headquarters of La Voz, Carmen discovers that the organization’s leadership is on thin ice, with distrust and skepticism everywhere. After having her loyalties questioned in light of her relationship with Dani, Carmen leaves the La Voz camp and steals back into Medio’s central city to find Dani. After a perilous journey, Carmen and Dani are reunited and must go on the run to escape the government’s police. What follows is a climactic battle as Dani and Carmen fight to stay together while turbulent change spreads across Medio.

Readers who enjoyed We Set the Dark on Fire will enjoy this second installment, which concludes the story of Dani and Carmen’s relationship. Their passionate love is the heart of this story, and readers will be rooting for this couple as they overcome adversity.

The political undertones of this book are similar to those of the first installment, as the characters rail against oppression and a corrupt government. A wall divides Medio, and the rebels must sneak past border patrol agents and hide from the police.

Readers will enjoy seeing Carmen’s past explored in more detail. Carmen, who has been raised by La Voz and taught to put the cause first, often feels conflicted about her loyalty to Dani, which is just as strong as the loyalty she feels to the rebellion. She also feels conflicted about the number of violent acts she has committed as a La Voz agent and wonders what Dani will think of her. The moral conflict over violence forms a large part of the story. La Voz’s leader says, “The goal of true resistance is not violence. It’s not about blood or death. The goal of true resistance is peace. Abundance. Violence is only a means to an end.” Throughout the story, La Voz agents strive to stay true to their morals and find that it is often difficult.

 

We Unleash the Merciless Storm is not quite as intriguing as the first book and includes less of the captivating world-building and detail that marked its predecessor. Still, the plot moves quickly and readers will be eager to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. Part apocalyptic love story and part espionage spy thriller, this sequel will satisfy fans of the first book.

 

Sexual Content

  • Carmen remembers Dani looking at her like she’d “never kissed her dizzy.”
  • Someone calls Carmen a “whore,” and she thinks, “Like being a whore wasn’t condoned by [the government]. Like girls weren’t sold to the highest bidder to warm the beds of the men who would never deserve them.”
  • Carmen and Dani kiss and “Carmen could taste the truth on Dani’s tongue. There was no stopping now; there were only hands and lips and hair and hips and the feeling of drowning and coming up for air all at once.”
  • Dani and Carmen share a bed. “[T]heir noses were brushing each other, and Dani’s hands rose up to bury themselves in Carmen’s hair, and there was no pain in the world, no grief, no sadness, there was only the charged space between their lips, and every day Carmen had wanted this stretching out behind them.”
  • When Carmen and Dani kiss, “their lips met like a lightning strike, thunder reverberating through their bodies as they pressed frantically into each other, hands tugging at clothing and hair, mouths open in agony and relief as the friction built to a fever pitch between them.”
  • Dani and Carmen have sex, but the act is not described in detail. Afterward, “Carmen felt she was being left somehow cleaner than she had been found. Purer. How could something that was said to be so wrong do all of that? How could something the gods supposedly denied feel like a baptism? How could it feel like faith?”

Violence

  • Dani hears gunshots as La Voz has a shootout with “border patrol agents who’d followed them from the wall [and] entered the camp, guns blazing.”
  • Carmen must kill a captured border patrol agent to prove her loyalty to La Voz. She “reached forward without hesitation and opened the officer’s throat. He slumped to the ground, his blood spreading slowly at their feet.”
  • Dani’s weapon of choice is throwing knives that are dipped in various poisons. The poisons have the power to kill a person instantly, send them to sleep or send them into madness.
  • Dani throws a knife at the president, and watches “the president of Medio reach for his throat, his eyes uncomprehending, and pull out the blade.” The wound itself is not fatal, but “the poison was already spreading through his veins.”
  • During the final battle, Dani hits a soldier with a poisoned knife that causes madness, and he “was roaring, his rifle in his hands, spraying bullets in every direction.”
  • A man is shot, and “the bullet ripped through [his] chest, sending him to the ground, blood splattering and pooling and absolutely everywhere.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a dignitary function, Carmen sees the President of Medio “as he took another goblet of wine and downed it in one gulp before grabbing another.”
  • The president is clearly drunk, and later he stands in the entrance to a grove, “his fly comically open, swaying on the spot.” Carmen thinks he is a “drunken, cowardly fool.”

Language

  • Profanity is used very rarely. Profanity includes bitch, damn, and hell.
  • Someone tells Carmen, “Not only are you a traitorous bitch, but you’re a whore, too.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The beginning of the book contains a myth from Medio, which tells the story of the Salt God and the Sun God. The Salt God calls upon a man and a girl, and “the spirits within them came forth, meeting the god’s spirit of pure light as at last his human form was abandoned forever.” At the end, the man and the girl say they will be the voice of the people. This myth is said to be the origin of the rebel organization La Voz. (“La Voz” is Spanish for “the voice.”)
  • Carmen looks at the wall that separates Medio, which some people believe was built by gods. She thinks, “She didn’t believe gods had built the wall. She believed men had made other men do it.”
  • Carmen looks at statues of deities, which include “the goddess of secrets and the god of the harvest” and “the four capricious children of the god of fermentation and fertility, who were said to be present at every feast or festival ever held.”
  • Carmen says, “The gods were only stories told by people in power to make oppression seem glorious, fated. Carving their likenesses is the very thing keeping the people broken and suffering? Cut off from the resources that could save them? It was nothing more than a cruel joke.”
  • Carmen tells Dani, “There isn’t a god or a person living who could keep me from coming back to you.”
  • A miracle is described as “an act of a god, when [the people] had too long believed all their gods had abandoned them.”
  • Carmen prays “to the gods Dani believed in, the ones Carmen never could.”

by Caroline Galdi

A Short History of the Girl Next Door

Matt and Tabby have been best friends almost since birth. When Matt and Tabby enter high school, Tabby starts dating a senior basketball player and makes other friends. Because of Tabby’s other friends, Matt struggles to understand his place in his best friend’s life. He also tries to make sense of his feelings for her, all while trying to be the best basketball player on the junior varsity team. Then tragedy strikes. Matt’s world is turned upside-down, and he has to piece himself back together.

A Short History of the Girl Next Door surrounds Matt and Tabby’s friendship, basketball, and the tragedy that strikes their community. Matt loves Tabby, and losing her to senior basketball star and school golden boy, Liam Branson, is unbearable. Much of Matt’s life and his memories include Tabby, so when she and her father suddenly died in a car accident, Matt has to figure out how to deal with all his feelings. Although Matt, who narrates the story, sometimes can come off as petulant, his personal growth at the end of the story is commendable.

With the help of his family and basketball, Matt makes peace with Tabby’s death and apologizes to the people he’s hurt. The book deals with themes of friendship, death, and forgiveness. The most bittersweet and touching moments come when Matt learns to cherish his memories and opens up to those who are also grief-stricken. Family and community rally around their collective sadness, and they help Matt through his personal grief. Matt is only able to get better by relating his experiences and his pain to others.

Although most of the book is about Matt and Tabby’s friendship, basketball is also important to Matt. Basketball is Matt’s outlet, and the only activity he has that is separate from Tabby. However, when Tabby is dating fellow basketball player Liam, Matt’s two worlds become intertwined. And when Tabby dies, Liam becomes a reminder of what Matt has lost. Basketball itself isn’t as important to the story as the relationships between Liam, Matt, and Tabby, and the sport serves as a vessel for their personal issues.

A Short History of the Girl Next Door will appeal to those who enjoy slower-paced, slice-of-life stories. Those looking for a basketball-heavy book won’t find it here, as basketball is not the primary focus. The sexual content and language are geared towards an older audience and may not be appropriate for middle schoolers. Nevertheless, Matt’s growth throughout the novel is commendable, and Matt’s reaction to Tabby’s death will no doubt resonate with readers. A Short History of the Girl Next Door is a quiet book that looks closely at the ending of a friendship, and how someone learns to pick themselves back up.

Sexual Content

  • Matt admits that he started making “a mental list of the top-five hottest girls by grade level. Lily Branson landed the #1 ranking on [his] list.”
  • Tabby says about Lily, “People say she’s all stuck-up, but she’s actually really nice. I think people just say stuff because she’s pretty, you know?” To this comment, Matt says that he feels “like a complete ass. [He’d] made that comment—and worse—more than once, about Lily Branson, and any number of other attractive girls. Probably every girl on [his] top-five list. Because, you know, if a hot girl doesn’t want to mate with you, she’s obviously stuck-up.”
  • Matt is attracted to Tabby, his longtime best friend. He thinks, “Seriously, how can you see a person nearly every day of your life and never think a thing of it, then all of a sudden, one day, it’s different? You see that goofy grin a thousand times and just laugh, but goofy grin number 1,001 nearly stops your heart?”
  • Matt says upon describing the height difference between his grandparents, “The Wainwright men’s infatuation with pocket-size women is apparently genetic,” a nod towards Tabby’s small stature.
  • Matt describes the book An Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie as “an amazing book about basketball, and masturbation, and feeling shitty and alone, and how Indians are perpetually screwed.”
  • One of Matt’s neighbors, Corey, is very straightforward with girls at school and “openly tries to get [girls who like Corey] to touch his dick at his locker.”
  • Tabby tells Corey to go away, and Corey responds with, “You know, if you grow some tits, I’ll let you suck my dick.” Matt tries standing up for Tabby by saying, “Hey, that’s what I said to your mom last night, bro.”
  • One of the basketball players says to Liam, “What’s the deal with the freshman, B? She sucking your dick yet?” It is clear that he is talking about Tabby. He then says, “She’s a cockmonster, isn’t she?”
  • Matt jokes that his mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing is so good that he and his dad get “stuffing boners.”
  • Matt has a physical copy of his “Do List: Girls [he] would do if there were no consequences—social, emotional, or physical: freshman class.” Tabby finds the list and is very upset. She tells him, “Let me know when you’ve done the first hundred on the list, Matt. So I can spread my legs and wait my turn.”
  • Matt and his friend Trip have to write gift poems for poetry class. Matt jokes that he’s writing his for Trip, and that Matt “couldn’t think of a word that rhymes with bulge.” Trip responds, “Indulge,” with a wink, messing with him.
  • Matt writes a persona poem for his poetry class from the point of view of Mr. Mint, who has “wildly inappropriate opinions on King Kandy, the princess, and most of all, Plumpy, whom Mr. Mint tells to choke on it.”
  • Matt’s mom wants him to wear a bald eagle costume for Halloween. He would have to wear skinny yellow pants with the costume, and he says, “Where am I supposed to keep my nuts in these things?”

Violence

  • Tabby playfully “punches [Matt] in the shoulder, hard” when Matt asks if she likes Liam Branson.
  • Corey grabs the front of Matt’s shirt, looking to start a fight. Tabby, holding a corked baseball bat, “swung. Hard. The bat slammed into Corey’s right arm, the dented plastic barrel and duct-taped head finally giving way.”
  • After Tabby hits Corey with the bat, “he shoved Tabby to the ground. Tabby flew backward, landing hard on her elbows to keep her head from smacking the pavement.”
  • After hearing other basketball players make sexual comments about Tabby, Matt envisions different scenarios in his head, usually violent. He imagines “Branson going stone-faced in the locker room, grabbing Lighty by the neck and slamming him back into a locker . . . Or me, walking up behind Lighty as he’s singing his song, palming the back of his stubby, lumpy head and slamming his face into his locker, smashing his nose and knocking him unconscious.”
  • Matt tells Trip that he looks like a “squirrely-ass twelve-year-old.” Trip responds by picking up “a spent pizza crust from the box and backhands [him] with it on [his] arm.”
  • Trip and Matt play a video game where their characters spar against each other. Trip beats him one round, saying “I just made you my bitch.” Matt describes, “On the screen, his demon-girl flips into the air over another empty swing from my dude’s battle-ax and lands on his shoulders. In one quick motion, she scissor-cuts my poor bastard’s head off, reaches down into his gaping neck-stump, pulls out his still-beating heart, and eats it.”
  • Tabby “passed away in an automobile accident” while visiting her grandparents. Matt and the other students hear about it at school. It is later stated that, “an SUV lost control on a patch of ice coming off a turn, hit Tabby’s dad’s pickup head-on. Died instantly. Felt no pain. Probably never saw it coming.”
  • The team rallies around Liam because he dated Tabby and took her death hard. Matt is frustrated that no one has acknowledged that Tabby was Matt’s best friend, so when another player brings out armbands for the team to wear in solidarity with Liam, “a laugh escapes [Matt’s] mouth before [he] can stop it.” Liam “stands and drills [Matt] in the face.”
  • Grampa talks about when they used to paddle kids in school, as a teacher. After his first wife and daughter died in an accident, “by Christmas, a kid was getting it about every day. Usually the same ones.” On one kid who was being particularly nasty, he “broke the paddle.” Grampa never hit a kid after that.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Of Liam Branson, Matt thinks, “This time next year, Branson will be gone—hopefully putting on forty pounds of beer fat in a dorm at some state college.”
  • Trip’s dad explained how to cork a bat to Trip while “a beer [rested] on [Trip’s dad’s] stomach.”
  • One of Matt and Tabby’s neighbors, Corey, takes “weed from his parents’ stash.”
  • Tabby’s mom was a “drug-addict” who left when Tabby was a few months old.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: ass, bullshit, fuck, douche, badass, damn, shit, bastard, dick, slut, and cock.
  • Tabby calls her friend’s boyfriend a “complete perv-ball.”
  • Matt sketches a carny ride operator that wears a “a trucker hat that reads ‘I <3 Little Boys.’”
  • Matt writes a poem that’s an “ode to Internet pornography.” The reader never sees the poem.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Matt’s grandpa takes one look at Matt in the bald eagle costume and says, “Sweet Jesus.”
  • At Tabby and her father’s funeral, Matt listens to “a few more numbing hymns” and the priest “speaks in infuriatingly generic terms about ‘the mystery of God’s love’ and [Matt] thinks, Yeah, this is a pretty big fucking mystery.”
  • Grampa has a heart-to-heart with Matt after Tabby’s death. Matt’s struggling to reason out what happened to Tabby and if life has meaning. Grampa says, “If there’s a God—and I’m pretty skeptical, myself—I figure he can fill me in when my time comes.”

by Alli Kestler

 

Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina

Professional ballerina Michaela DePrince hasn’t always lived in the world of ballet. Adopted from war-torn Sierra Leone when she was young, her life was forever changed by her adopted family and a picture of a ballerina, ripped from a magazine, floating in the wind. Upon seeing that ballerina, ballet became DePrince’s love. Taking Flight is DePrince’s memoir of her life as a war orphan who became a professional ballerina in the United States.

Taking Flight begins with many of DePrince’s memories of her native country of Sierra Leone, which was experiencing a destructive civil war. DePrince’s recollections of events are often harrowing. Her birth parents, who were clearly a shining light in her life, died in quick succession due to events surrounding the civil war. She talks about the orphanage that her uncle dragged her to, and the terrible treatment of the children there. However, DePrince’s narration shows that despite the terrible situation, she was still bright and animated, making friends with the other children and making up games.

Much of the story describes DePrince’s experiences in ballet after the DePrince family adopted her with a couple of the other girls from the orphanage. Family is an important feature of her story and considering her earliest memories, it is a relief to watch her life improve thanks to her jovial spirit and the loving people in her life.

DePrince, being a professional ballerina, talks a lot about ballet. When she describes seeing the Nutcracker with her family and eventually performing in various productions of the show, the reader can feel the love she has for her chosen profession. Not all that glitters is gold, however. DePrince also addresses the extreme lack of diversity in the ballet world, and her own struggles being a black ballerina. She sometimes describes comments from other parents, ballerinas, and instructors about her race and how it affects or will affect her dancing in the future.

Despite these obstacles, despite the odds, DePrince is a professional ballerina living well in the United States with her loving family. DePrince ends the book by discussing how she hopes she can be a role model for other aspiring ballerinas and how she wants to help other people affected by war in their home countries. Taking Flight oozes DePrince’s love for ballet and her family. It is a wonderful and wondrous thing that DePrince found a picture of a ballerina that day in Sierra Leone, jump-starting the rest of her life. This book will appeal to people who like dance as well as people looking for a book about overcoming adversity. DePrince had the odds stacked against her, and her story is inspiring for people from all walks of life.

Sexual Content

  • The critics discuss Michaela DePrince’s Odile in Swan Lake, “She was the sweetest seductress you ever saw . . . but she has yet to develop any ballerina mystique.” DePrince discusses how she needed to become mysterious and a “seductress” in the role.
  • Michaela says of her boyfriend Skyler, “I was lucky enough to fall in love with a young man who was capable of doing all the things my mother had described to me.”

Violence

  • DePrince’s Uncle Abdullah had three wives and fourteen children, and DePrince says at night they could hear Uncle Abdullah “beating his wives and daughters . . . He blamed any and all of his misfortunes on their existence.”
  • DePrince is originally from Sierra Leone, where a civil war has been brewing since 1991. “As the war progressed, the youth lost track of their goals and started killing innocent villagers.”
  • A man came to DePrince’s family “moaning and wailing. He told us that he was the only survivor of his village. The debils (rebel forces) had forced him to watch as they killed his friends and family. Then, laughing, they asked if he preferred short sleeves or long sleeves. He said that he usually wore long sleeves, so they cut off his hand and sent him on his way to spread fear and warnings throughout the countryside.”
  • The debils shot and killed DePrince’s father while he was working in the mines. DePrince describes, “I woke up to the sound of my cousin Usman’s voice. ‘Auntie Jemi,’ he hissed quietly. ‘Auntie Jemi, the rebels came to the mines today. They shot all of the workers.’”
  • DePrince’s mother refused to marry Uncle Abdullah, which angered Uncle Abdullah. He abused both DePrince and her mother, starving them. DePrince says, “We often went hungry, and for months Mama gave me most of her food.”
  • DePrince’s mother dies of Lassa fever. DePrince notes that “Most of the night I had heard Mama tossing and turning. Just before dawn I heard her sigh loudly three times and finally grow quiet.” DePrince did not realize that her mother had died, and instead thought that her mother had finally fallen asleep.
  • Within a couple of days of both of her parents dying, DePrince ends up at the orphanage, where “If [DePrince] awakened Auntie Fatmata (one of the workers) with [her] crying, she will beat [DePrince] with her willow switch.”
  • Another girl was going to be whipped in the orphanage for wetting her mat, but DePrince steps between the girl and the worker and tells the worker that the punishment is unfair. As a result, “Auntie Fatmata raised her switch and struck [DePrince] first and then Mabinty Suma. She struck us over and over again, raising welts all over our bodies.”
  • It is noted that in the orphanage, the “aunties loved to tug on our tightly braided cornrows, because it hurt so much but left no evidence of their abuse. This was important to them. Andrew Jaw needed to send our pictures to America, so he did not want to see bruises on us.”
  • In order to make DePrince cry, Auntie Fatmata “ground chili peppers into a fine powder” and “sprinkled it all over [DePrince’s] face until it filled my nostrils, eyes, and mouth.”
  • When most of the children in the orphanage contracted malaria, Auntie Fatmata made “one of the younger children go to the bathroom on [DePrince’s] hair and face while [she] was asleep.”
  • DePrince’s teacher, Sarah, is killed by the debils, and they cut her unborn baby out of her body. One of them, “slashed downward with his knife and cut into Teacher Sarah . . . The debil reached inside of Teacher Sarah and pulled out her unborn baby.” The nightwatchman, Uncle Sulaiman, saves DePrince. It is assumed that the baby died.
  • The director of the orphanage “beats [DePrince] with a switch for leaving the orphanage.”
  • When they are forced to walk into the jungle, DePrince and the other orphans, “saw hundreds of dead bodies on our way out of Sierra Leone. The debils had taken machetes to many of the people, but the majority of them, even small children, had been shot in the head. They lay sprawled on the ground with their eyes and mouths open in terror.”
  • DePrince vomits on herself and Uncle Ali out of nervousness on the plane ride to Ghana. Uncle Ali “dragged [her] into the toilets and spanked [her] soundly before bringing [her] back past everyone a second time.”
  • DePrince’s new mom (Mama) made a list of rules for DePrince and her sister. They were, “No hit, no bite, no pinch, no scratch, no say caca.” They soon stopped doing those things, except to their dolls because they were “mimicking the way Auntie Fatmata had treated the children in the orphanage.”
  • DePrince notes a statistic about Sierra Leone. She says, “More than 90 percent of girls in Sierra Leone endured genital mutilation.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As a child in Sierra Leone, DePrince had contracted a form of mononucleosis and had not recovered from it, leading to an infection five years later in her left eye. The doctor “put [her] on an antiviral drug.”
  • While attending boarding school, some of the older high school students taught DePrince “that alcohol mixed with a power drink would relax [her] muscles, relieve the stress of Auntie Fatmata, and ease the pain of tendinitis. Someone suggested I try it once when I was off campus, and I did and never tried it again because it made me violently ill.” Some other students suggest fad diets, smoking cigarettes, and “taking laxatives and vomiting after meals.”

Language

  • Uncle Abdullah is extremely sexist and uses plenty of sexist language. For instance, he says of DePrince, “All she needs to learn is how to cook, clean, sew, and care for children.”
  • Uncle Abdullah tells DePrince’s father that DePrince, “needs a good beating.” He then says about DePrince’s mother, “And that wife of yours, she too needs an occasional beating. You are spoiling your women, Alhaji. No good will ever come of that.”
  • DePrince and her adopted sisters experience racism in the United States. Once when she and one of her sisters were having a tea party on the lawn, “a neighbor walked over and said, ‘You girls will need to take your things and move your tea party out of sight of my property. I’m trying to sell my house. Someone is coming to look at it, and I don’t want them to see the two of you.’” DePrince describes these experiences over the course of a chapter, and some more stories are littered throughout the novel as well.
  • DePrince notes that “unless I’m in physical danger or my civil rights are being violated, I ignore [bigotry aimed at DePrince]” except for the “racial bias in the world of ballet.” DePrince spends a chapter explaining some of the things parents, other dancers, and dance coaches said about black dancers. In one incident, “one of the mothers who was chaperoning us said, ‘Black girls just shouldn’t be dancing ballet. They’re too athletic. They should leave the classical ballet to white girls. They should stick to modern or jazz. That’s where they belong.’”

Supernatural

  • To get revenge on Auntie Fatmata, DePrince pretends to be a witch and have “voodoo powers.” She does this by rolling her eyes back into her head and turning her eyelids inside out, saying, “I am a witch. I will place a spell on you if you harm me.” She then says, “The aunties were superstitious, and we lived in a place where many people practiced voodoo, so I knew my trick would scare them.” They never again physically abused her.
  • While working as an apprentice on a touring company for The Nutcracker in New England, DePrince lived in a house with other ballet dancers. She and the other dancers thought that the “Victorian house looked and sounded haunted,” and DePrince confesses to being afraid of “getting up to go to the bathroom at night, fearful of running into a shadowy specter in the hallway.”

Spiritual Content

  • DePrince and her family are Muslim, and to learn to read and write, DePrince would be “outside, sitting cross-legged on a grass mat, studying and writing my letters, which I copied from the Qur’an.”
  • DePrince notes how loving her parents are and says that at night she would “thank Allah because I had been born into the house on the right, rather than the one on the left,” meaning the one where her uncle beat her cousins.
  • DePrince’s mother notes that the debils (rebels of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone) spared DePrince’s family’s home and their lives when they burned the crops. Her mother then says, “We should be grateful to Allah for that.”
  • When DePrince’s father died, she and her mom had to move into Uncle Abdullah’s house because “according to Sharia, Muslim law, Uncle Abdullah became our guardian.”
  • Uncle Abdullah often refers to DePrince as the “devil child” because she could read several languages and had vitiligo, the condition that causes patches of her skin to lose coloration.
  • DePrince was knitting a scarf for her brother, Teddy, when he passed away from complications with hemophilia. DePrince said, “What should I do with this? I was knitting it to go with Teddy’s favorite hoodie. I wanted to give it to him for Hanukkah.”
  • DePrince had the opportunity to travel to Jerusalem where she “left a prayer for her [mother] in the chinks of the Wailing Wall, and [DePrince] wore [her] hamesh (or hamsa), a hand-shaped charm, for protection during our travels to the Dome of the Rock and the salty Dead Sea.” The reason why DePrince wears it is because “Muslims believe that it represents the hand of Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and Jews believe that it represents the hand of Miriam, the sister of Moses.”
  • DePrince’s mom explains to DePrince the story of Moses. She says that “thousands of years ago, when the pharaoh was killing Jewish baby boys, Miriam had watched over her baby brother, Moses, after their mother floated him down the Nile River to protect him from the pharaoh’s wrath. He was then found by the pharaoh’s daughter and raised as a son of Egypt.”

by Alli Kestler

Deception

When Baalboden is destroyed, the survivors are left to fend for themselves. The ragtag group elect Logan as their leader. With Rachel by his side, Logan is determined to get the survivors to the safety of another city-state. The survivors must leave the ruins of their home and take their chances in the Wasteland. But the Commander and a rival city-state’s army both want to take the device that controls the Cursed One for themselves.

Soon, it becomes clear that the survivors have a traitor among their ranks, who is killing them. Both Rachel and Logan are put under an unbearable strain, causing Logan and Rachel to wonder if their love will be shattered. Soon, everyone is questioning if they can survive the Wasteland.

The second book of the Defiance Series has wide plot holes, long and unrealistic fight scenes, and underdeveloped characters. Even though the story’s point of view alternates between Logan and Rachel, the two are frustrating characters to follow.

Rachel’s father trained her to defend herself, and Rachel is portrayed as an excellent fighter who can defeat male soldiers. Her daring acts in battle are described in long descriptive scenes that are completely unrealistic. In addition, Rachel is amazingly self-centered. When Rachel’s best friend Sylph dies, Rachel is distraught and only thinks about how Sylph’s death will affect her. Instead of being a heart-wrenching moment, Sylph is so underdeveloped that her death has little impact on the reader.

Most of the time, Logan only thinks about keeping Rachel alive. He feels guilty about everything and doesn’t trust anyone in his inner circle to help him keep the survivors safe. Even though Logan is surrounded by others who are older and more knowledgeable, Logan acts as if he is the only one intelligent enough to save the survivors. He over-thinks every situation and doubts his own abilities, but is still arrogant enough to think only he can find the solution to every problem. Plus, Logan’s repetitive inner dialogue is annoying.

This dystopian novel blends action and romance together; however, the story’s many flaws will leave readers wishing that they had left the book on the shelf. If you’re looking for an entertaining dystopian romance, you should read The Selection Series by Kiera Cass and the Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie.

Sexual Content

  • Rachel and Logan kiss several times. For example, Rachel gives Logan a “quick kiss.”
  • Logan thinks “kissing Rachel is like discovering a new element—one that turns my blood into lava and sends sparks shooting straight through every logical thought still lingering in my head.”
  • Rachel has a bad dream. When Logan wakes her, Rachel “raise[s] my head to kiss him, swallowing the rest of his words. My lips are harsh. My hands grip his arms. Claw his shoulders. . . This is what I need. This will make it better. I wrap my leg around his. . . I kiss him hard enough to hurt.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • Rachel and another girl have a short conversation about Logan’s kissing abilities. Rachel thinks, “I lose myself for a moment in the thought of his callused fingers gently sliding over my back, his lips pressing urgently against mine, his breath quickening against my skin.”
  • Rachel and Logan walk into a bedroom and see a husband and wife in bed together. Both the woman’s and man’s chest are exposed.
  • Logan helps Rachel, who is injured, change clothes. Rachel’s skin “glows, my breath hitches in my throat, and a feeling just as real as the pain in my arm but infinitely more delicious spreads through my stomach in lazy spirals. . . His chest scrapes the sensitive skin along my back as he breathes in quick, little jerks as if he’s been running.” Logan admits being tempted by Rachel.

Violence

  • The story begins with a multi-chapter battle. After Baalboden is destroyed, a group of soldiers try to enter the town to attack the survivors. “The first wave of soldiers crashes into the tiny band of survivors and the scream of metal against metal shivers through the air. . . Logan slams into another man, and their swords clash. We lunge, swing, hack, and parry with the Wall at our backs, and slowly gaining ground toward the gate.”
  • During the above fight, Rachel “leap[s] to my feet, and he [a soldier] lunges toward me on legs suddenly too weak to hold him. I follow his gaze as he stares down at the deep cut on his thigh, at the blood gushing out of his artery with every beat of his heart.” Another soldier attacks and Rachel “slice[s] my knife across his neck as he turns. Blood spurts, and I stagger back as it arcs toward me.”
  • A soldier pens Rachel down. Rachel jabs “the knife into the soft meat of the soldier’s leg, and he stiffens, his grip on my Switch arm loosening slightly. Before he can recover, I snap my head back, smashing my skull into his nose.” A man helps Rachel “as he wrenches the man’s sword arm to an impossible angle. The soldier screams in agony as the sickening crack of a bone ripping apart from its tendons fill the air.”
  • During the battle, Willow uses a bow and arrow and “takes them [soldiers] both down in less than ten seconds.” Rachel looks “away before I can see the blood that pours out of their wounds and spreads across the soot-stained cobblestones beneath them.” After the fighting, Logan gives an order “to strip the soldiers’ bodies of anything we can use.”
  • Rachel thinks back to when she killed a man. “My knife. His chest. Blood covering me as I sat horrified.”
  • When soldiers attack, Rachel tries to keep them away from the others. “I plant my right foot, lean back slightly, and snap my left leg into the air, kicking his windpipe with my boot. He drops to the floor. . .” She kills the man, but other soldiers attack her. “I slash my knife, sticking into a soldier’s neck. A line of brilliant red spills across his coat and splashes onto my hand.” Many of the soldiers are killed in bloody detail.
  • The Cursed One attacks a group of survivors. “A thick stream of red-gold fire spews out of its snout. Frankie dives beneath it, but flames grab hold of his tunic and his clothing ignites. He rolls across the grass, extinguishing the flames.” Frankie dies.
  • Someone slits a man’s throat. Logan finds the body. “I shake him and watch in horror as his head tips back, revealing the thick crimson slice across the base of his neck.”
  • While in the forest, someone throws a rock at Logan, making his head bleed.
  • As the group of survivors flees, highwaymen attack. Rachel leads their counterattack. “The highwaymen are converging on me. . . I dive out from under his feet before he can finish swinging his sword at me. His momentum carries him past me, and I slash the tendons behind his knees with my blade.” When the man is down, Rachel goes after another one. “I snatch my knife and lunge to my feet, bringing my weapon in his sternum as I stand. He deflates slowly, and I shove him away as he crumples. . .” Twenty-three of the highwaymen are killed.
  • An army attacks the group. The survivors throw jars full of acid and “the cypress explodes in a shower of splinters, branches, and shards of bark the size of my arm. . . A handful of soldiers are crushed beneath the trunks. Still more are bleeding from gaping wounds to their heads, arms, and legs. . . The soldiers closest to the explosion are thrown onto their backs, their skin riddled with cuts.” The survivors escape by blowing up a bridge. The fight takes place over eight pages.
  • One of the survivors, Willow, jumps into the river to save someone. When a solider goes after her, Rachel shoots him with an arrow. “He staggers, reaches up to grab the arrow, and falls backward into the river. Three more arrows fly, and all of the injured soldiers stop moving.”
  • As the survivors are resting, the rocks near them begin to explode. “Before they can move, another piece of the ground bursts into flames, right beneath the feet of an older man. . . He screams, a long, high wail of agony that tapers off into silence as his body twists away from the fire and falls to the grass in a smoldering heap.” Rachel pushes a child out of danger’s way. The stone explodes and “pain—searing, vicious pain unlike any I’ve ever felt—blazes a trail of agony down my right forearm. I scream and belly crawl away from the terrible heat that reaches for me.” Many people die or are injured. The scene is described over seven pages.
  • Two of the characters reveal that they killed their father. The father’s death is not described.
  • Rachel is kidnapped. Quinn tires to stop the traitor. “He drags me to my feet, but Quinn is already there, crouched and shaking, his breath rattling in the back of his throat like a trapped animal. . . Quinn falls to the ground and disappears beneath the cloud of smoke.” Rachel tries to escape, but the traitor finally “balls up his fist and slams it into the side of my head. . . then my ears ring, my eyes close, and darkness takes me.” The scene is described over eight pages.
  • When Rachel insults the traitor, “the knife plunges down, slicing through my bandage and digging into burned flesh. I scream as raw agony blisters my arm.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone poisons the survivors with castor seed poison, which cannot be cured.
  • Several times people are injured and are given pain medication.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When soldiers try to ram their way into the city, Logan prays that the survivors have time to escape.
  • When the Cursed One attacks a group of survivors, Frankie gives his life to save them. “I [Rachel] close my eyes, praying that Frankie dies quick and that the pain is over in seconds. Praying that the monster leaves once he’s satisfied his prey is dead. Praying that everyone else has the good sense to honor Frankie’s sacrifice by remaining silent.”
  • While holding an infant, Rachel prays “that I don’t break her.”
  • When Rachel is kidnapped, Logan prays that she is okay.

They Called Us Enemy

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans are forced into internment camps. While George knows there is a war against the Japanese, he does not understand why he and his family are being forced to leave their home. Unable to grasp the injustices that George, his family, and other Japanese Americans are being forced to endure, George describes his joyful, yet troubled boyhood in two of America’s ten internment camps.

As George and his family adjust to life in the internment camp, George cannot help but notice the anguish and anxiety his parents and families around them are experiencing. When will the war end? How long will Japanese Americans suffer under this legalized racism? Will George, his family, and the other 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps ever be able to return home?

As he grows older, George angrily questions how his parents and so many other Japanese Americans could have let this happen. George’s later successes as an actor, activist, and author force him to reflect not only on his time in the camps but also on his understanding of his parents and their situation.

This heartfelt story highlights the themes of family, sacrifice, and empathy. As readers learn George’s story and watch his growth physically and emotionally, they will view all stages of George’s life—from blissful childhood ignorance to teenage anger and thoughtful adulthood. In addition, George includes his thoughts on his incarceration. Through simple, captivating images and storytelling, readers are given the chance to grow alongside George as the story progresses.

They Called Us Enemy utilizes compelling visuals and accessible language to engage and educate readers on the difficult and often overlooked subject of Japanese internment. The animated illustrations and comic style make this difficult subject more palatable for young readers while still depicting the tough reality of the characters’ situations.

From the eyes of a young George Takei, readers are able to join George in his journey to understanding and coming to terms with his and his family’s imprisonment. The combination of George’s conversation and a short, accompanied narrative tells not only George’s autobiography but the evolution of Japanese sentiment during and following World War II. Overall, this 2020 American Award Winner lives up to the praise. With its engaging historical background and cultural depictions, They Called Us Enemy is a must-read for readers of all backgrounds.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When residents become seemingly more radical, George notes the unrest that exists throughout his second camp, Tule Lake. This results in “hostile words quickly erupt[ing] into violence throughout Tule Lake.”
  • As George and his family prepare for Christmas, they hear on the radio that Pearl Harbor has been attacked by the Japanese which would “naturally mean that the President would ask Congress for a declaration of war.”
  • Thousands of volunteers from Hawaii and across internment camps form the 442nd regimental combat team of all American-born-Japanese Americans. George narrates that, “the 442nd suffered over eight hundred causalities.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After leaving the internment camp, George and his family live on Skid Row in Los Angeles where they lived among “derelicts and drunkards.”

Language

  • Older boys teach George and his brother the phrase “sakana beach” in order to prank the young boys and upset the guards. The words do not hold a negative meaning in Japanese but are meant to imitate the phrase “son of a bitch.”
  • Before yelling “sakana beach,” an older boy warns George to “run like hell” in order to avoid being caught by the angry guards.
  • While being arrested by a guard, a man yells, “Damn Ketoh,” which George’s father later explains is an offensive term used against white people. Ketoh translates to “hairy breed.”
  • During a fight between the guards and the internment camp residents, a man yells, “Go to hell ketoh!”
  • The term “Jap” is used in a derogatory manner by non-Japanese individuals throughout the story.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Katie Ng Ross

The Art of Holding On and Letting Go

Cara Jenkins feels that rock climbing is in her blood. Her parents and uncle, famous rock climbers themselves, have raised her as a nomad and a child of the wilderness. But when her parents and uncle go on a climbing trip in Ecuador, tragedy strikes Cara’s life and she is sent to live with her grandparents in Detroit, Michigan—a world away from her usual life in their cabin in California.

Stuck in her grief and in a normal high school, Cara finds herself at a loss without rock climbing and without her parents, who are dealing with the grief of losing their friend, Cara’s uncle. Cara has to learn how to navigate a normal high school, friendships, and the city. But then someone starts leaving notes in her locker, trying to get her to return to climbing. Cara has to figure out how to return to the one thing she loves without it being too painful to bear.

Much of The Art of Holding On and Letting Go is about Cara’s first love: rock climbing. The book delves into the uniqueness of her life and the sport, giving readers a look at something that they may not know much about. Along with rock climbing, the book discusses nature a lot, as Cara and her family read books by famous writers who wrote about nature, including Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. These elements make Cara’s story vivid and unique.

Much of the story focuses on Cara’s loss, not just of people but of places as well. As a person who was raised in nature and led a fairly unconventional life, getting thrown into public school in Detroit and living with her grandparents is a very difficult change for her. Cara makes friends and is able to find a connection with them and her grandparents despite their differences. However, she still longs for her old life. She learns that she can include the old and the new in her life. Although some things can’t be reversed, Cara reconciles her losses with the fact that life is forever changing, and she is able to embrace the good things that have come from moving to Detroit.

The Art of Holding On and Letting Go is a wonderful story that tackles grief, friendship, and nature without feeling preachy. Cara and the rest of the characters feel real, and their story gives a glimpse into the world of rock climbing. Told from Cara’s point of view, rock climbing and themes about grief and loss come to life. Through this story, Cara learns how to live again. This book will surely appeal to nature-lovers and Cara’s story will also resonate with anyone who has ever felt lost in the world.

Sexual Content

  • Becky, a climber, would like a reason “to hang all over Zach,” one of her teammates.
  • Of her Uncle Max, Cara says, “I knew he’d had boyfriends over the years, but they never seemed to last long.”
  • Kaitlyn, one of Cara’s new friends, and Cara talk about their friend Nick’s sexuality. Cara is convinced that he likes Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn says, “Sometimes I even wonder if he’s gay.” It is later revealed that Nick does like Kaitlyn.
  • Cara has to take Sex Ed with the rest of her classmates. When Grandma sees the permission form, she says, “Well, I hope this is an abstinence-based program.” To this, Grandpa replies, “Don’t think so, Margaret. Says here the class will discuss all methods of birth control in the context of healthy relationships.”
  • Cara mentions that her mother had “gotten pregnant with [Cara] when she was only twenty.”
  • When Kaitlyn asks Nick to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance, Nick says yes and “kisses her hand.”
  • Nick “kissed Kaitlyn on the top of her head.” Nick and Kaitlyn end up dating.
  • Tom, the boy Cara likes, “kissed [Cara’s] cheek.”
  • Tom and Cara kiss. Cara describes it as a “deep, blood-cell bursting kiss . . . our lips met again, hungry and searching. The Earth tilted.”

Violence

  • Cara has a head rush and loses her grip while climbing. Then, she “slams into the climbing wall.” Several other climbers fall on the same hold. No one is injured badly, just minor scrapes.
  • After a giant sheet of ice separates Uncle Max from Cara’s parents, he is presumed dead.
  • Cara walks into another student at school and, “Crack. [Their] skulls collided.”
  • Tom was in a bad car wreck a few years prior. He says, “a huge SUV plowed right into us.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Grandma wants Cara to go out and have fun on a Friday night when Cara would rather stay in. Grandma then says, “I suppose [staying home is] better than going around with some boy, smoking dope.”
  • While staying at Kaitlyn’s house, Cara and Kaitlyn drink Baileys and get a bit drunk. Cara mentions that she’d “tried beer once during a camping trip and hated the bitter taste.”
  • Nick’s older brother Mike “started getting into drugs and trouble a few years ago.”
  • Nick’s brother Mike ran off to Colorado. Nick is certain it’s because “they just legalized pot.”
  • Cara falls ill with the flu, and her grandparents give her some “dandelion wine” to help her feel better. Grandpa mentions that the secret ingredient is “whiskey.”
  • On New Years, Cara’s dad calls from Ecuador, and he is crying on the phone. When Cara’s mom finishes the call, she turns to Cara and says, “He’s had a little too much to drink.”
  • One girl shows up to the Sadie Hawkins “trashed.”

Language

  • There is occasional profanity throughout. Profanity includes shit, hell, bitch, damn, fuck, and asshole.
  • In middle school, a girl spread a rumor about Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn says, “Swimming was part of our gym class, so we had to change and shower before we got into the pool. She went around and told all the guys that [Kaitlyn] was a true redhead. You know, meaning that [Kaitlyn] had red hair everywhere.” Kaitlyn’s nickname then became “firebush.”
  • One of Cara’s classmates is referred to as “Virgin Goth Girl.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Cara’s parents go missing on their climbing expedition, Becky tells Cara, “I’ll pray for you.”
  • Uncle Max had “strewn Tibetan prayer flags” from the cabin after returning from Mt. Everest.
  • Grandma has a collection of “five baby angels” in the house. They stand for each of her miscarriages, her daughter, and Cara.
  • Tom’s “mom’s Jewish” and “dad’s Catholic,” but “they’ve kinda left it up to [Tom]” to decide which he would rather practice. He does not show a preference for either.
  • Cara and Kaitlyn talk about fate and God. Cara mentions that there is no word in Chinese for “coincidence,” and with that absence, something must take its place. Kaitlyn asks if that thing is “God.” Cara responds, “Maybe. God, spirits, angels, nature, fate. The Chinese call it yuan. Destiny. But I guess it depends on what you believe.”
  • Cara celebrates Christmas with her grandparents. When she wakes one morning, Cara can hear that Grandma “had changed the radio station from oldies to Christmas carols.”
  • Cara wonders if her grandparents went to church on Christmas, noting that her own parents didn’t. Cara says of her dad, “he felt closer to God when he was on top of a mountain than he possibly could in any church.”
  • Cara and her grandparents build two cairns as burial markers for her dog Tahoe and for Uncle Mark. Grandpa goes back the next day and notes that “standing near those stones, you almost feel like they’re alive.” Cara replies, “There’s an energy there.”
  • Tom jokes that Cara is like “the Angel of Darkness.”

by Alli Kestler

 

 

 

 

 

She’s The Worst

Sisters Jenn and April used to be close, but lately they’ve been drifting apart. Thanks to school, sports, and the looming threat of college, the two don’t spend much time together. Plus, their emotionally immature, always-bickering parents have made their home an unpleasant place. But as Jenn prepares to start college, April remembers a pact she made with Jenn at the beginning of high school: before Jenn leaves town, they’ll spend the whole day together, revisiting places in Los Angeles that hold special memories for them.

Despite boyfriend troubles, needy parents, and secrets keeping them apart, the girls manage to make time to embark on their journey. Through the course of the day, secrets are revealed, arguments break out, and tensions rise. High-achieving Jenn plans to leave for Stanford soon, but she hasn’t told her parents, who think that she is staying in LA to work at the family antique store. Messy, sporty April thinks she can get a soccer scholarship, but doesn’t know how to get her family to take her hobby seriously.

While the girls work through their issues with themselves, their parents, and their respective love interests, they discover that they haven’t been communicating nearly enough. By respecting each other’s differences and talking things through, they’re able to address conflicts that have been bothering their family for years—and become closer as sisters. Through the course of a single day, their lives and relationships change dramatically.

She’s the Worst is a light read that moves quickly through its time frame of a single day. Its fast pacing sometimes comes at the expense of emotional impact or effective description. Readers still may find themselves connecting emotionally to Jenn and April’s struggles, especially when the story addresses their parents’ relationship.

The family antique store has caused a rift in April and Jenn’s parents’ marriage, and the sisters have both coped in different ways—Jenn mediates her parents’ arguments, while April spends as little time around them as possible. Readers who are familiar with such family dynamics will enjoy seeing them faithfully played out on the page. After seeing how desperately Jenn wants to get away from her parents, but how deeply they rely on her to keep the family business functioning, readers will surely root for her in her quest to leave her hometown.

She’s the Worst promises a story of sisterhood, and while it delivers that story, it also delivers a story of dysfunctional families, emotionally immature parents, and the complicated relationships people have with their hometowns.

Sexual Content

  • April is “sleeping with” Eric, a boy from school. Eric has “snuck in [her] bedroom window a few times already,” as April knows her parents would not approve.
  • April remembers “the way Eric kissed me last night, the way his body felt next to mine as we fell back asleep.”
  • April says that even though she’s not dating Eric, “that doesn’t mean we can’t hook up.” When Jenn expresses concern that Eric is toying with her feelings, April says, “What are you, a nun?” Jenn says, “Does he really like you? Or does he just like having sex with you?”
  • Eric kisses April. April says, “It’s fast but deep, like he wants to have as much of me as he can while he can, and I shiver despite the sun on my back.”
  • April admits her feelings for her friend Nate, and they kiss. April says, “I . . . press my lips to his. He freezes for a second, as surprised as I am by what I just did. Then his lips part and he pulls me closer. The kiss deepens as his hands start to creep down my back.” They are in public and don’t go any further.
  • Later April and Nate share an intimate moment in April’s bedroom. “Then he lifts me up and carries me to the bed, and it’s still me and Nate, but not like always—it’s totally new, and totally hot. I wrap my legs around him as the kiss deepens and intensifies, and soon I’m not thinking about anything at all. When he eventually pulls back, I feel drunk with happiness.”

Violence

  • April jokes that if someone went to the UK and called soccer “soccer” instead of “football,” they would “get jumped by a hooligan.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jenn says, “Remember when we brought up sparkling cider and pretended it was champagne?” April says, “We could probably get our hands on some real champagne. Or at least some cheap beer.”
  • April’s friend Nate brings the sisters some red wine he stole from his house.

Language

  • Profanity is used somewhat frequently. Profanity includes crap, ass, piss, hell, and damn.
  • “Fuck” is used very infrequently.
  • April says, “Mother. Fucker.” once.
  • April uses the expression, “Speak of the devil.”

Supernatural

  • April remembers using an Ouija board with Jenn once, but goes into no further detail.

Spiritual Content

  • April recalls wearing a new dress for a relative’s neighbor’s bat mitzvah.

by Caroline Galdi

 

The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

When Horace travels to the exotic land of Nihon-Ja, it isn’t long before he finds himself pulled into a battle that is not his—but one he knows in his heart he must wage. A kingdom teeters on the edge of chaos when the Nihon-Ja Emperor, a defender of the common man, is forcibly overthrown. Only Horace, Will, and his Araluen companions can restore the Emperor to the throne. Victory lies in the hands of an inexperienced group of fighters, and it’s anybody’s guess who will make the journey home to Araluen.

In the last book of the series, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja brings many of the characters from previous books together. The story follows the same format as the other books, ending with an epic battle. The Emperor of Nihon-Ja teaches that all men have value and that each person has a unique skill. Even though not everyone is able to be a warrior, everyone is important—diplomats, soldiers, attorneys, and the common man. Hoping to overthrow the Emperor, Ariska forms a rebel army and his brutal ways are in stark contrast with the Emperor, who is “kind and honest and incredibly courageous. He’s trying to better the lot of the common people here and give them a bigger say in things.”

Alyss and Evalyn also play an integral part in the battle. The two women are never seen as silly maidens. Instead, they are courageous, brave, and imaginative. Even though the two girls do not get along, they are able to put their differences aside and work together for the greater good. In the end, the girls discuss their conflicts, which allows them to understand each other and finally become friends.

The Ranger’s Apprentice series reinforces the importance of friendship, loyalty, courage, and imagination. Even though most of the books have the same format, each story is unique and interesting. The Emperor of Nihon-Ja shows that a ruler’s strength does not come from brute force. Instead, a ruler is “a man who would forsake the highest position in the land to save the lives of his subjects.” Even though many of the characters are from different countries and have completely different cultures, they respect each other’s cultures and do not expect others to change.

The Emperor of Nihon-Ja concludes the Ranger Apprentice series. The series is a fast-paced and entertaining series that also has positive lessons. By the end of the series, readers will feel like Halt, Horace, and Will are their friends. For readers looking for another great series to enjoy, the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce would make an excellent addition to your reading list because the story contains action, adventures, and knights.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The Senshi class tries to overthrow the Emperor. A soldier tells about the beginning of the uprising. “Many of the Emperor’s clan are dead already. They tried to resist Arisaka, and his men killed them.”
  • Soldiers ambush the Emperor and his traveling companions. “Horace heard a savage hiss as something flew past his face, missing him by inches. Then he saw George swaying, a long arrow buried in the upper part of his arm. As he watched, George slid sideways from the saddle and thudded onto the rough, churned-up earth of the track.” George survives.
  • Three soldiers attack the Emperor. “One grabbed the reigns of the Emperor’s horse, and as Shigeru drew his sword and struck at him, the man ducked under the horse’s neck to avoid the blow.” Horace jumps in to save the Emperor. The soldier “felt a moment of surprise when Horace’s horizontal stroke took him in the rib cage, exposed as he raised the sword high, and smashed through his lacquered leather armor. Then he felt nothing.”
  • Another soldier attacks Horace, but Horace “kicked flat-footed into the side of his knee. The man’s leg collapsed under him and he stumbled forward with a shrill cry of pain. A quick thrust cut off his cry, and he fell at Horace’s feet.” By the end of the ambush, seven of the attacking soldiers are dead and two of the Emperor’s men are dead. The ambush is described over four pages.
  • While traveling to Nihon-Ja on a boat, pirates attack. “The riders Halt had singled out were in the act of shooting again when the two long, heavy arrows hissed down and struck them. Halt’s target yelled in pain, dropping his bow and clutching at the arrow that had suddenly slammed into his upper arm.” One pirate is killed and one is injured before the pirates flee.
  • When the rebel army finds the Emperors’ coin in a peasant’s house, “they killed him. Then they ran amok through the village, burning cabins, killing women and the old people.”
  • A lieutenant in the rebel army plans to kill a village leader. Halt pretends to be the leader, and “the lieutenant raised the long weapon above his head, preparing to sweep down… The kneeling headman suddenly came up onto his right knee. There was another ringing hiss and his hand emerged from under the ragged Kikori cloak with a gleaming Senshi short sword… he thrust forward, burying the blade in the lieutenant’s midsection.”
  • After the lieutenant is killed, a battle ensues. The village is burned and “gradually, the sounds of fighting died away as the last of Arisaka’s men were cut down… Four of Shigeru’s warriors also lay silent on the bloodstained soil of the common ground, and another two were nursing wounds.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • A ship of pirates attempts to overtake another ship. Evalyn uses her sling and “one of the shouting, gesticulating pirates in the bow suddenly toppled over, folding up like an empty garment…” Evalyn shoots again and “the pirate skipper abruptly reared up, clutching his forehead, then crashed over backwards onto the deck.” The Skandian’s attack the pirate ship, disabling it. During the process, “nearly half the pirates were killed or disabled.” The scene is described over four pages.
  • As the Emperor flees from the rebel army, Horace watches the men who are engaging the army, allowing the Emperor to escape. “Several bodies were slumped over the hedge or sharpened stakes that had been driven into the ground of the riverbank. More were visible, drifting slowly downstream in the deeper water below the ford. The river itself was streaked with red ribbons of blood.” As men begin to die, the rebel army continues to attack. “The ten men with Arisaka crowded forward, slashing and stabbing, in a compact mass… Shigeru’s cousin staggered to one side, his sword falling from his hand. He doubled over in agony and fell to one knee. Almost contemptuously, Arisaka took a pace forward and struck again. Shukin fell face down on the sandy riverbank. He didn’t move…” The battle is described over four pages.
  • The Emperor tries to get to safety, Horace holds off a warrior. The warrior “stumbled forward, off balance. As he tried to recover, Horace made a quick, darting lunge and took him in the left thigh…” Horace uses his sword, which “crumbled the lacquered leather body armor the Senshi wore, crushing the ribs behind it. The man gasped in pain.” The man falls off a bridge. Several others also fall of the bridge falling to their death. The scene is described over three pages.
  • When the Arisaka’s army attacks the Emperor’s hideout, some of the men are killed when “rocks showered over the ramparts, hurled down.” Some of the Emperor’s men were killed when “an arrow slammed into the defender’s chest and sent him staggering back off the rampart.”
  • During the above attack, the rebel army finds themselves in a trap. “A vast pile of rocks, earth and timber tumbled end over end down the wall, bouncing, smashing, crushing anything and everything in its path.” Several of the men are killed. The attacking army lost more than thirty comrades. The battle is described over five pages.
  • The Kikori are loyal to the Emperor. They engage the enemy. The Kikori work as one and use shields to protect each other. While the Senshi attack with their swords, “short, razor-sharp iron blades began to stab out of the gaps in the wall, skewering arms, legs, bodies, aiming for gaps in the Senshi armor… Some of the Senshi did manage to cause casualties.” After many deaths, the Senshi retreat. The scene is described over three pages.
  • After the Senshi retreat, many of the warriors refuse to go back into the battle. One man speaks up, explaining the reason. His leader’s “sword flashed in a blur of reflected light, striking the man in the gap between helmet and breastplate. With a startled, choking cry, the Senshi staggered and fell.”
  • Alyss and Evalyn kill a large cat that had been hunting people. Alyss uses herself as bait and when the cat jumps on Alyss’s shield, Evalyn uses her sling. Evalyn’s “shot hit the animal with a sickening crack, taking it on the left shoulder, smashing and splintering the bone beneath the fur… Evalyn placed her third shot carefully, sending it crashing into the animal’s rear left hip. Again, bone crunched and the tiger’s left rear leg suddenly went limp.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • The book ends with a multi-chapter epic battle. The battle’s violence is similar to the battles that were described above.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Horace and Evalyn announce their engagement, Halt yells, “Break out some of our special provisions, and some wine and ale. We’re having a party tonight!”

Language

  • “Oh God,” “for God’s sake,” and “my god” are used as an exclamation several times.
  • Darn is used once. Horace says, “That’s the trouble with you attorneys. You’re too darned literal.”
  • “By Gorlog’s beard,” “by Gorlog’s teeth,” and “by Gorlog’s toenails” are each used as an exclamation once.
  • Evalyn calls Alyss a “great gangly cow.”
  • A Skandian, Niles, calls the pirates “raggedy-bum backstabbers.” The Skandian’s captain yells, “Get back on board, you great idiot!”
  • Someone calls Arisaka a “bantam rooster.”
  • “What the devil” is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • In Nihon-Ja, the Emperor is “a person whose accession to the throne was guided and consecrated by the gods. To rebel against him was an unthinkable sacrilege.”
  • When Halt agrees to let Alyss and Evalyn go on a dangerous mission, Halt says, “But god help me when Will and Horace find out about it.”

Mare’s War

Mare’s War is a Coretta Scott King Award honoree and a tale of family, history, and resistance. Told in alternating “then” and “now” perspectives, the book follows Mare’s time in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II and as well as a road trip she takes back home to Bay Slough, Louisiana with her grandchildren in the present day.

The “now” sections are told from the perspective of Octavia, who is 15 and struggling to learn how to drive and fit in as a teenager. She tells about her conflicts with her older sister, Talitha.  Both sisters’ perspectives are given through postcards they write home to their mom and friends. Octavia does come to appreciate Talitha, at one point saying, “I’m actually kind of proud of my evil sister.”  Talitha is nearing her 18th birthday, and (through Octavia’s eyes) the readers see her struggles with boys, friendships, and growing up. Both sisters are reluctant to go on this road trip with their grandmother, thinking it will be boring, but the trip eventually brings the three women together, all with a greater appreciation for each other and their stories.

The “then” sections are told from Mare’s perspective. The story follows her from basic training all the way to Birmingham, England, and Paris, France. After an incident with Toby, a man her mother is involved with, Mare lies about her age to join the Women’s Army Corps. While she worries about her younger sister Josephine, Mare finds freedom and agency through her time in the army. She is relegated to some unsavory jobs as a member of a Black women’s unit.  In addition, Mare compares the discrimination she faces in the Southern U.S. to what she experiences in the military. When she returns home to Bay Slough, she sees how much has changed.

Mare’s War includes themes of family, growing up, and the importance of history. These themes teach readers to understand Talitha, Octavia, and Mare as they learn from each other. The reader sees the various forms of discrimination Black women experience at all ages, from the 1940s to the present day.

Mare’s War is an engaging story and one of the few books that address Black women’s role in World War II. However, the difficult scenes with Mare and Toby may upset younger readers even though these scenes are sexually charged, but not explicit. Mare’s sections use a form of African American Vernacular English, which could be confusing to readers who are unfamiliar with the dialect. At times, the easy-to-follow plot is slow. However, the characters make the story interesting and worth reading.

Sexual Content

  • When introducing Mare, Talitha and Octavia talk about finding her “panties” in the bathroom that have a “fake butt” attached. They describe them as “fanny pants”
  • There are two scenes where Toby, a character from Mare’s arc, makes unwanted sexual advances on Mare and other young women. “Toby been bumping me, touching me, cutting his eyes at Mama when he thinks she don’t see. He’s been talkin’ filth to Josephine…”

Violence

  • Mare’s younger sister Josephine (“Feen”) hides under the bed while Mare and Toby interact. Mare knows she must keep Josephine safe, so she defends herself with a hatchet. “[Toby] smacks me in the mouth before I can get my hand up. Feen hasn’t stopped screaming, but I have. I tighten my hands on the hatchet.” Mama eventually saves Mare and Josephine by shooting Toby, but he survives.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Present-day Mare is a smoker, so there are many scenes that involve her and cigarettes.
  • Toby drinks and smokes in ways that impact his personality, character, and actions. Mare describes Toby. “I can smell that nasty pipe Toby always be smoking… his voice is slurred.”
  • While out at dinner, seventeen-year-old Octavia drinks an alcoholic beverage with Kahlua in it.
  • While out in London, Mare and her friends go to a cafe and a club where Mare drinks for the first time. She is 18, so it is legal, but the scenes do depict her enjoying drinking. When she first drinks, Mare says “when I take a sip, it’s not too bad at all.”

Language

  • Dad says Mare drives “like a bat out of hell”
  • When Mare goes out in London, she is racially targeted. Someone says “forgot who you are, n——found out you can get a white girl here. Been seeing you and them other c—ns of yours stepping out with them English whores.” Some of these words appear more than once in this section.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Toby attacks Mare and Josephine, Josephine prays to Jesus asking him save her.
  • While Mare is in service, she communicates with Sister Dials, a religious figure.

by Talia Marshall

 

Beneath the Citadel

Prophecies have ruled the city of Eldra for centuries. With each new prophecy, the ruling high council tightens their control on the city, crushing any who would rebel against them. For Cassa Valera, the council and their leader, the chancellor, are her number one targets for revenge. After her parents led a rebellion and were killed, Cassa has been looking for a chance to free the city from the council’s clutches. Along with her friends Evander, Alys, Newt, and Vesper, she hatches a plan to infiltrate the mighty citadel where the council resides.

But even if Cassa and her friends are brave enough to fight against the citadel, their plans won’t go smoothly. The council will hound their every step, as they use their diviners to foresee the future. Old friends will betray them. Their loved ones will be in danger. And most of all, their relationships will be strained.

The fight against the council will be a hard one. Yet, with the unexpected help of a stranger, they may just be able to pull it off. That stranger, however, may turn out to be more monstrous than the council. Will Cassa and her friends be able to save the city they love?

Beneath the Citadel is a fun read that follows the main characters Cassa, Evander, Alys, Newt, and Vesper. The story jumps from each character’s point of view. Each character is unique, with their own realistic troubles and fears. For instance, Alys deals with anxiety that affects her everyday life.  Alys’ younger brother, Evander, is afraid he won’t be able to protect his family. Newt was abused by his father, and worries he doesn’t matter to anyone. And Cassa is always afraid that nothing she does will ever matter. But while these characters have flaws and fears, they work to overcome them, making them likable. Readers will root for them to triumph in the end.

While the characters will pull readers in, the plot is strong as well. The plot is simple to understand, but complex enough to make readers think about each character’s actions and decisions. At the start, the group’s goal is simply to take down the citadel, but by the end, each member is fighting against a monster more destructive than the council: a man named Solan. Solan is the main villain who has numerous powers including being able to see the future and steal people’s memories. Readers will enjoy the thrill of watching the four young heroes fight to stop Solan in his tracks before he destroys Eldra.

Overall, Beneath the Citadel has a nice pacing and is a fun read from start to finish. It focuses on the theme of teens dealing with the mistakes of their parents and predecessors, as well as the smaller themes of handling anxiety and discovering a new love. As a standalone novel, everything is neatly wrapped up by the end of the story. Destiny Soria’s novel is a great choice for any reader of YA fantasy fiction.

Sexual Content

  • Before the start of the story, Evander and Cassa were romantically involved. “They had broken off their romance six months ago. It had been a mutual decision and very amicable, but you don’t just forget almost a year of your life being so closely intertwined with another person’”
  • Newt recalls when he first met Evander and Cassa. They were still an item and Newt watched as Cassa turned to Evander and “leaned down and kissed him.”
  • Evander is bisexual and falls head over heels for Newt. “Evander had figured out he was bisexual around the same time he’d figured out what sex was. But Newt held a strange fascination for him, ever since their first chance meeting years ago.”
  • Newt realizes he has feelings for Evander too. “There was a thrill of new energy inside him, a tingling in his fingertips, and the dawning certainty that one day he was going to fall in love with Evander Sera.” When they’re outside of the city walls, Newt and Evander kiss each other. “It wasn’t Newt’s first kiss, but it was the first one that mattered. His thoughts were deliciously hazy. He was kissing Evander Sera. Evander Sera was kissing him.”

Violence

  • Evander recalls being beaten during an interrogation. “He’d already earned a few bruises during the interrogation. It wasn’t supposed to be a painful process, but the sentient who was reading his memories hadn’t appreciated his sense of humor and had called in a burly guard to impart the wisdom of keeping his mouth shut.”
  • Newt can contort his body in order to get in and out of bad situations. “Newt breathed in deeply through his mouth and, with a wince, popped his left thumb out of its socket. It didn’t hurt, but he’d never grown used to the uncanny sensation.” That contortion takes a toll on his body. “He’d never told them about the alarming frequency of sprains when he didn’t use the braces, that while he could bend his body in fantastic fashion, it came at a price.”
  • Alys watches Newt knock out a guard. “She didn’t see Newt until he was only a few feet away from the guard and was swinging something—a lantern—in a high arc toward the back of the man’s head. There was a terrific thump, followed by another thump as the man fell to the floor, his gun clattering beside him.”
  • Alys often thinks she’s dead weight. At one point she thinks, “Maybe it would be better if she just died before they caught up. Maybe it would be better if she died now. Maybe it would be better. Maybe it would.”
  • When Mira, the Blacksmith’s daughter, performs the blood-bonding ritual on Solan, she has to cut open his arm. “Mira leaned in beside Cassa and slit a long, deep line into the inside of Solan’s left arm, a mirror to Evander’s own scar.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The group originally sneaks into the citadel in barrels. “The kitchen workers had unknowingly smuggled all four of them into the basement storerooms in barrels of beer that were only half full.”
  • Cassa talks to Alys about possibly becoming a legend in the streets of Eldra. Cassa then tells Alys, “We’ll get a whole tavern drunk one night and spread the rumor.”

Language

  • Damn, ass and shit are used frequently. For example, when her friends break her out of a prison cell, Cassa says, “Just open the damn door.” Another time, Evander talks to Cassa about her terrible escape plan. “I doubt your half-assed escape plan would work a second time.”
  • Bitch and bastard are both used a few times. For example, the Dream Merchant, a man who buys and sells dreams, tells off Cassa. “This is none of your business, you little bitch.”
  • The Dream Merchant calls Cassa’s parents, “scum parents.”

Supernatural

  • Eldra, and the country it’s a part of, Teruvia, are ruled by ancient prophecies. These prophecies dictate life for the vast majority of people in the city of Eldra. Pretty much everything in Eldra revolves around prophecies, and many characters use these powers to see the future. The Chancellor says, “The teachings laid down by Teruvia’s forefathers tell us that the elder seers saw every thread of the tapestry that is our present and future.”
  • There are official gatherings in Eldra to talk about prophecies. For example, “Most of the citadel’s inhabitants would be at the monthly council session, where any new prophecies were discussed and the fulfillment of old prophecies was speculated on.”
  • Solan uses runes to foresee Cassa and her friends stumbling across him in the dungeons beneath the citadel. Solan has “known for a while that you [Cassa] would be coming. I saw it in the runes.”
  • Bloodbonding is a process by which an individual is magically connected to some metal or other substance. The Chancellor thinks about bloodbonding after meeting with Evander. “With a bloodbond’s complete control over a particular metal, any number of everyday items could become weapons.”
  • Evander is bloodbonded to silver. “He could feel the silver like an extension of himself, moving farther and farther away, the connection weakening more and more.”
  • People who can manipulate other’s memories, or take them, are called Rooks. Vesper is a rook. She thinks about how “Rooks had to be patient and gentle, so very gentle. Memories were fragile. They could be torn or teased out too thin.”
  • When Cassa visits the Dream Merchant, a man who barters in dreams, she’s afraid he’ll take too many of her memories. “She had no doubt that Gaz would try to take far more than the memories she’d offered. And she didn’t know if she’d be able to stop him—or pull away once he’d started.”
  • Those that can magically read a person’s immediate past in their face are called sentients. Newt thinks, “He’d heard that skilled sentients could read so quickly and thoroughly that they might as well be reading someone’s mind instead of just their past.”

Spiritual Content

  • In Eldra, people worship the Slain God. Vesper, in a church, listened as, “The choir began to sing a gentle, haunting requiem in Teruvia’s dead language. The tale of the god who had once cradled Teruvia, protecting it from those who, in envy and greed, would do her harm.” Soon after the choir sings, “The tale of their dying god, who used the last of his strength to scatter his omniscience across Teruvia, a gift for the chosen devout few.”
  • It is believed the Slain God gave a few people his power, allowing them to foresee the future.
  • Before people pass on, they are typically given death rites. Death rites often involve taking one’s memories. Cassa thinks about the practice. “She did know that the devouring of memories was meant to be a cleansing of sorts, a final penitence in honor of the Slain God.”
  • Alys thinks about the typical rituals. “Normally, even if someone died without death rites, a priest would be on hand to talk about how every person’s greatest honor is to join the Slain God in blissful oblivion. Candles would be lit and doused at intervals. Sometimes someone would sing a verse from the Slain God’s requiem.”
  • Solan very much hates the religion of the Slain God. He tells off the chancellor, saying, “What a strange way of describing the duty that your pathetic religion demands of me.”

by Jonathan Planman

Deathcaster

In the Fells, the war with Arden couldn’t get any worse. The Queen is sick and out of the picture. The young Ardenine King, Jarat, is marching his army to the capital of Fells. And the heir to the gray wolf throne, Alyssa ana’Raisa, has been captured by the ruthless Empress Celestine.

For Ash, prince of the Fells, the only way forward is to rescue his sister, Lyss, from the Empress. But now that Celestine is on the war path, her armies ravaging the coast, that isn’t going to be an easy task. To cross the ocean and take on Celestine’s bloodsworn army, he’ll need help from unlikely allies and former enemies.

The rebel Ardenine general Hal wants nothing more than to see Lyss safe and in his arms. Yet to do that, he has to find a way to crush Celestine’s invading army. Between the arrogant King Jarat and his stubborn father, fielding an army to help the Fells drive off Celestine won’t be a walk in the park. Will Hal succeed in freeing Arden and the Fells from Jarat and Celestine’s grasp? Will Ash succeed in bringing his sister home to take her rightful place on the throne? Only time will tell.

Chima’s final entry in the Shattered Realms series is a wonderful conclusion to the saga. Focusing on the epic battles between the three nations and royal families, Deathcaster doesn’t disappoint in its suspense and action. Since this is the final book, the main theme of war is much more prevalent as multiple armies battle each other. These battles are each unique and well thought out, creating exciting and heart-pounding scenes.

The book splits its chapters into many points of view, including all of the main characters such as Ash, Lila, Jenna, Lyss, Hal, Destin, and Evan. While the sheer amount of main characters might appear to be overwhelming, the ease with which each chapter transitions to different points of view will pull readers in and never make them feel overwhelmed. Plus, each character is unique and interesting, with their own problems and personality that will hook readers.

The events of the story are believable, from the civil war in Arden to Ash’s journey across the ocean to save his sister. The ending feels a bit rushed, while some parts of the novel drag on, but overall the story is very well paced. The writing is easy to read and flows well, with each character getting a distinct voice. Overall, Deathcaster is a satisfying final entry to Chima’s Shattered Realms series.

Sexual Content

  • After a year apart, Ash meets Jenna. “There were many kisses but few words. His questions drew brief, vague answers, punctuated with the vivid images she delivered through touch.” Ash and Jenna have sex. “Making love with Jenna Bandelow was a twining of minds as well as bodies, a mingling of imagery and sensation so complete that sometimes it was hard to tell who owned what—who was giving, who receiving.”
  • Jenna tells Ash about dragon mating, “Dragons often mate in flight, so they twine their tails in order to, you know, maintain their—.”
  • Empress Celestine believes Lyss and Breon are lovers, and often tries to break them up. During dinner, Lyss thinks, “Celestine often included some handsome young men for Lyss, and a lovely young woman for Breon, or vice versa. She seemed determined to distract the erstwhile lovers with new options.” Later on, Lyss nearly shouts, “If I go to bed with someone, I want it to mean something.”
  • Samara, Celestine’s attendant, says, “I find that a bout between the sheets stirs my blood and prepares me to shed the blood of others.”
  • Ash gives Evan a massage to help ease the pain in Evan’s body after a fight. Evan then teases Ash, saying, “According to customs here in the drylands we are married now, and you are bound to perform this service every day.”
  • A soldier tells Hal, “There’s a rumor going around that you died at Delphi but the witch queen brought you back to life because she fell in love with your dead body.”

Violence

  • Lyss thinks about the fighting tournaments Celestine holds. “Sometimes the empress would choose two women to fight, or a mixed pair, or three against three. In one case, she blinded two soldiers, and then set them against each other.”
  • Evan and his subordinates are ambushed in his home. “Blood spattered Evan’s face and the floor around him. He lay on his back, helpless, though fully conscious, while the fighting went on around him. He was stepped on at least once.”
  • Hal is told that, “Karn’s disgraced, dead, and hanging from the city walls.”
  • Jenna’s dragon, Cas, attacks a member of the empress’ army. “He struck the bloodsworn, hard, just as he took his shot. The shot went wild and the soldier ended up pinned to the ground, screaming, bleeding from a dozen wounds.”
  • A group of dragons attacks the empress’ fortress city, “They burned everything that was burnable, from the quays to the houses that were tucked into the terraces on the hillside, to the small fishing boats that were all that remained in the harbor.”
  • Lila discovers a dead body in the woods. “It was what was left of one of the Darian Brothers, blood spattered all around. A knife lay in the mud nearby. He looked like he’d been torn apart by wolves.”
  • A servant is killed during a coup. “Before he could get there, the maiden lay dead in a pool of blood, run through by one of the blackbirds.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Hal’s younger brother says, “This drunk stumbled up to me, and I thought she was going to ask me for money or something.”
  • Ash and Sasha get drunk on a beach after being stranded at sea. Evan, the only one sober, “got the impression that they’d been at the cider for a while.”

Language

  • Bastard is used several times. A soldier tells Hal about a general’s death. “The scum-sucking bastard’s dead, thank the Maker.”
  • Ass is used frequently. When King Jarat orders Destin to lead a company of mages, Destin thinks, “And I will pull mages out of my ass.”

Supernatural

  • Jenna can see images of a person’s true self. “When Jenna gripped the Commander’s hands, images slid through her mind—a much younger Adam and Alyssa, dressed in elaborately stitched clothing, holding hands, watching a funeral procession, both weeping.”
  • Evan binds his followers to him with a blood ritual. “One dose was enough to bind a person; after that, they had an unquenchable thirst for more.”
  • Ash travels to the dream world, Aediion. “He was swept into a swirling black vortex. Gradually, he rebuilt the scene at Drovers’ Inn from memory.” In Aediion, spirits can meet with the living. Ash meets his father there, and his deceased father says, “Thank the Maker. I was close to giving up.” In Aediion, Ash also meets a demon. “It resembled a demon’s face—thin-lipped, hollow-cheeked in a cowl and prelate’s robes.”
  • When Ash enters Aediion, a demon attacks him with shadows. “It took everything Ash had to stand fast with shades flying into his face, swiping around his body, sliding under his clothes.”
  • Hadley DeVilliers uses her magic to sound proof a room, “Back at Kendall House, Shadow pulled glasses down from the shelf while DeVilliers circled the room, her hand on her amulet, putting up barriers to eavesdroppers.”
  • In Arden, mages are collared to keep them in check. Hal tells a mage about a key that can unlock every collar. “One key opens all of the collars. One key controls all of the collars. Nearly all the mages fighting for the Ardenine king are wearing them now.”

Spiritual Content

  • Magic is viewed as a heresy in Arden. Father Fosnaught condemns a group of mages. “You will burn for this, I promise you. We will wipe the scourge of magic from every corner of the Seven Realms.”
  • The Church of Malthus is the primary religion in Arden. Destin Karn, a spymaster, thinks about a saint, “There was plenty of information about Saint Darian, one of the patriarchs of the Church of Malthus a thousand years ago, and his followers, known as Darian Brothers, who were bent on eliminating the gifted from the Realms.”

by Jonathan Planman

City of Villains #1

Mary Elizabeth Heart is a high school senior by day, but by night she’s an intern at the Monarch City police department. She watches with envy from behind a desk as detectives come and go, trying to contain the city’s growing crime rate. For years, tension has simmered as the city’s wealthy elite plan to gentrify a decaying neighborhood called the Scar—which once upon a time was the epicenter of all things magical.

When the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful businessmen goes missing, Mary Elizabeth is thrilled when the Chief puts her on the case. But what begins as one missing person’s report soon multiplies, leading her down the rabbit hole of a city in turmoil. There she finds a girl with horns, a boyfriend with secrets, and what seems to be a sea monster lurking in a poisonous lake. As the mystery circles closer to home, Mary finds herself caught in a fight between those who once had magic, and those who will do anything to bring it back—even if it means creating a few monsters along the way.

This dark, fairytale-inspired world explores the reimagined origins of Maleficent, Ursula, Captain Hook, and other infamous Disney villains. Readers who expect to walk into a world of Disney characters will be disappointed to discover that while the characters are named after Disney characters, they are normal humans. To make matters worse, at the beginning of the story, a slew of characters are introduced, but most of them have only a brief appearance which leads to confusion. In addition, the characters are so underdeveloped that readers will have a hard time connecting with them. While the story is told from Mary Elizabeth’s point of view, her insight into her friends’ true personalities also adds to the confusion.

The setting of the story is unclear because it references the United States in modern day, but it also is a world that magic used to exist in. Like the characters, the world building is underdeveloped. Unlike most Disney stories, City of Villains revolves around teenagers who hang out at bars. Plus, Mary Elizabeth is an intern at the police station which gives her access to some brutal murder cases, including her own family’s murder. For example, the police are attempting to solve a gruesome case that involves a murderer leaving gift-wrapped body parts all over the city.

City of Villains will leave many Disney fans disappointed. The plot takes the reader on a winding and confusing journey through a world with little magic. The gruesome murder scenes, the underdeveloped characters, and the unrealistic conclusion make City of Villains a book that is best left on the shelf. Readers who want a fairytale-inspired story should check out Fairy Tale Reform School by Jen Calonita or the Once Upon a Con Series by Ashley Poston.

Sexual Content

  • Mary Elizabeth and her boyfriend kiss, but the kiss is not described. For example, “James and I pause to kiss while Ursula stops to answer a call on her cell.”
  • When a girl is reported to be missing, the chief of police doesn’t want to investigate. “The last thing I need is drama over a girl who’s probably in a hotel room with someone she met in some club last Saturday night, picking up parasites from the questionable bed linens.”
  • Mary Elizabeth argues with a boy at school. He tells her, “I think what Mr. Iago is getting at is that your need to engage in confrontations with me boils down to attraction and sexual tension. . . if you didn’t have that ugly birthmark and weren’t totally concave in the chest area, I might consider relieving all that tension for you.”
  • While in a bar’s bathroom, Mary Elizabeth sees writing on the wall. It says, “For a good time call Mary Elizabeth.”

Violence

  • While working at the police station, Mary Elizabeth learns about a case. “Body parts showing up all over the Scar . . . So far there’s been a thigh, an arm, a hand with the fingerprints cut from the skin. . . they come in these boxes wrapped up like holiday gifts, frozen in dry ice.”
  • A new package arrives. “A hand rests in the center, mist rising all around it as the dry ice burns off. Its fingernails are blackened and congealed blood crusts at the wrist. It’s discolored gray, and the middle finger is pointed straight upward, flipping the chief the bird.”
  • At school there is a scuffle between two boys. “Stone slams into Lucas Attenborough, who pushes him back easily, so Stone falls onto his back, loses his breath, and looks up at us in panic. Lucas gives him a kick that’s more symbolic than painful.”
  • When Mally isn’t invited to a party, she shows up with her pet bird, Hellion. Mally’s bird “flew everywhere, digging his talons into the rose blossom cake, knocking over the vat of ginger beer, pecking into the chestnut-toasted suckling pig.” Later, Mally “cut Flora’s break lines, left a roadkill on Fauna’s doorstep, and bleached Merryweather’s grass.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s parents and sister are murdered and Mary Elizabeth sees some crime scene photos with “all that blood.” She also learns that the man who killed them “just wanted to know what it would feel like to take lives.”
  • In a vision, Mary Elizabeth sees Mally, who is trying to tell her something. “She is yanked out of the chair. She slaps against the plastic seat and whacks heavily against the floor, and then she slides along, head lolling to the side, eyes unblinking and open.”
  • Bella, a young police officer, accidentally shoots someone. “I was aiming for his leg, but I killed him.”
  • Bella tells Mary Elizabeth about a trucker who “kidnapped a couple people, and then left their remains outside of Las Vegas.”
  • The police arrest a man who “had a kill kit in his vehicle: ropes, hacksaw, trash bags. . . and we found trace elements of Ursula’s blood in his shop and on his clothes.”
  • The person who helped kidnapped Mally and Ursula tells Mary Elizabeth, “I thought they’d be drugged, poked with needles, dosed with forgetful serum, and then returned home. . . I had no idea it would turn out this way, that people would actually be monstrously altered.”
  • While trying to free Mally and Ursula, men try to stop Mary Elizabeth. “I kick the gun out of one man’s hand and then punch and duck and swerve but feel something hit my chin and something else grab me by the back of the head. . .” Ursula jumps into the fight. “She swings her arms out and the men go flying, making hard thudding noises as they hit the wall. She makes a rising motion and the men get up like marionettes, doing jigs. They are horrified and helpless as their bodies are flung to and from.”
  • While trying to escape, Mally “hurls blue lights at him. She hits him and he is singed and within seconds has disappeared.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend James’s hand is hit with darts. His hand begins to shrivel. In order to save his life, Mary Elizabeth grabs an ax. She swings “high and brings the ax down, severing James’s hand from his arm. . . He screams as I take off my belt and loop it around his arm tightly as I can.”
  • At the end of the battle, the police show up. “Pieces of broken glass and bodies are strewn everywhere. Medics have begun to collect Kyle’s men one by one and puts some into ambulances, while others are covered in blankets, a signal that they will need to be collected for the morgue.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend is “the son of a drug-lord/murderer.”
  • Mary Elizabeth and her boyfriend see a man who is “wasted.”

Language

  • The teens often call each other names such as doofus, idiot, moron, jerk, prick, loser, and crazy witch.
  • Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes asshole, damn, bitchy, hell, pissing, and jackass.

Supernatural

  • Magic used to exist, but now the only place that is magical is the Ever Garden. “Once someone tried to sell hot dogs from a cart and was hurled out by a redwood.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend shows her a blue ball of light. “So I keep looking at this light until I’m part of it, until I am the swirl and I can see it isn’t just a flat blue. . . It’s alive and beckoning, its fingers reaching for me. Half a second later, the light shoots into my chest.”
  • Due to a magical experiment, Mary Elizabeth’s best friend, Ursula, is changed. “She has tentacles, black ones that look to be part of a backless dress.” At one point, Ursula “changes from a human to an eel to a giant floating jellyfish and back to a human in a matter of seconds.”
  • While looking in a mirror, Mary Elizabeth sees a reflection of a different version of herself. She can step through the mirror into another place. She pushes the glass and “the glass gives, turning opaque like silver satin as my fingers disappear to the knuckle.”
  • At one point, Mary Elizabeth levitates.
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend uses magic to put her to sleep. “He presses his lips against mine and pulls me in close. . . He pulls back, puts a thumb to my forehead. . . ‘Sleep,’ he says, and blue light shoots into my head. The world abruptly fades to black.
  • Mally turns into a “badass” dragon.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Outcasts United

In the 1990s, the small town of Clarkston, Georgia, became the center for refugee resettlement. The United States government didn’t tell the original residents that soon people from war-torn nations would be settling in the area and trying to navigate a world vastly different than the homes they had come from. When an American-educated, Jordanian woman named Luma Mufleh moves in, she starts a soccer team comprised of refugee kids, hoping to keep them off the streets. They dub themselves “The Fugees.”

Outcasts United tells the true story of one of the Fugees’ seasons, led by dedicated soccer coach Luma. Reporter Warren St. John details the lives of the players and their coach on and off the field as they maneuver through their lives in a town that didn’t see them coming. Their story demonstrates shared humanity and the need for compassion.

Much of the book revolves around Luma’s life. Luma’s old-school coaching methods produce results in her players. St. John captures how much Luma’s players valued her, as she is much more than just a coach to them. Luma consistently helps the boys’ families with daily tasks, especially when English isn’t well-spoken or understood in the households. Despite her tough-love approach to coaching, the players see her as a mentor and someone to be admired.

The boys face serious challenges in their lives, but soccer unites them as brothers. Many of them come from rival nations that carry their own prejudices against each other, and the small southern town in Georgia they now live in certainly carries its own prejudices about the refugees. Despite these differences, Clarkston is a global community. Luma forces the boys to get along or get off the field, and the strategy in unifying Clarkson is not much different – they have to make the situation work. There is no other option.

The sense of community in Outcasts United is striking. Community is built from the ground up, and it requires that everyone makes an attempt to work within it. Luma has built a community through soccer, and the Fugees family still exists today with more teams and schooling opportunities. Luma could not have done this work without compassion—compassion for the refugee families in Clarkson and for the community that they were trying to build. Through that compassion and through soccer, they have created something truly beautiful.

Outcasts United is inspiring because of the work that Luma and her Fugees put forth. Despite their trials, they’re a team that wants nothing more than to live their lives and play soccer. Although soccer fans will be the main target audience of this book, this true story is moving for anyone interested in themes of compassion and community through sports.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Some of the players on the team are refugees, and they have experienced “the horrors of war. There were Sudanese players on the team whose villages had been bombed, and Liberians who’d lived through mortar fire that pierced the roofs of their neighbors’ homes, taking out whole families.” One boy “had been forced by soldiers to shoot a close friend.”
  • Descriptions of violence and death are present throughout the book. The players’ stories are revealed, detailing the histories of war-torn nations. In Liberia, one group’s “force grew quickly, in no small part augmented by boys whom [Charles Taylor] armed and drugged into a killing frenzy. Some of these boy soldiers were orphans whose parents had been killed . . . others were kidnapped from their families by Taylor’s own militias . . . Soldiers terrorized citizens and looted at will . . . More than one hundred and fifty thousand Liberians died.”
  • One morning a player is shot at a practice, and “the exact circumstances of the shooting were murky.” It is made clear that gang activity caused it and one of Luma’s players, unfortunately, got caught in the crossfire. He survives.
  • There is a lot of discussion about gangs and gang activity throughout the book, and Luma does her best to deter the boys from joining.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Former president of Liberia and convicted war criminal, Charles Taylor, was captured on the Nigeria-Cameroon border “in an SUV stashed with cash and heroin.”

Language

  • Xenophobia is littered throughout the book. The old residents of Clarkston, Georgia often make it clear that they don’t like the refugees or Luma, who is Jordanian. At one point, Luma is pulled over for a broken taillight on the way to a soccer match and the police cuff her and keep her overnight in jail “just in case.” It is expressed here and elsewhere that Luma and the others know that this isn’t normal protocol for a broken taillight, and it is in no way an isolated situation in the book.
  • The refugees also have their own baggage, which Luma discovers. Luma says, “The Afghan and Iraqi kids would look down on the African kids, and the kids from northern Africa would look down on kids from other parts of Africa.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Luma is from Jordan, which is under “Sharia law, which applies to domestic and inheritance matters, the testimony of two women carried the weight of that one man. A wife had to obtain permission from her husband to apply for a passport. And so-called honor killings were still viewed as minor crimes in Sharia courts.” It is also stated that Luma is Muslim.
  • Places of worship are sometimes mentioned in town. For instance, “A mosque opened up on Indian Creek Drive” in Clarkston, Georgia, where Luma’s soccer team was based.
  • In Clarkston, “a third of the students at the local elementary school skip lunch during Ramadan. Attendance at the old Clarkston Baptist Church dwindled from around seven hundred to fewer than a hundred.”
  • Assistant coordinator Tracy Ediger, growing up with her sisters, “attended church three times a week, rarely watched television, and had each enrolled at Christian colleges after high school.”
  • One of the refugees that Luma meets, says, “God very, very good.”
  • Before a game, the team prays together, but not everyone practices the same religion. To remedy this, “Grace would offer a Christian prayer; Eldin, a Muslim one. The boys formed a circle at midfield, draped their arms around each other, and bowed their heads.”

by Alli Kestler

The Girl with the Broken Heart

For the past few months, family has meant nothing but heartache for Kenzie Caine. When her second year at college comes to a close, the last thing she wants to do is return home. Luckily, she’s just landed her dream summer job working at the well-known Bellmeade horse farm in the nearby town of Windemere. Rehabilitating abused horses is hard work, but it’s the perfect distraction from her mother’s deep depression and her turbulent relationship with her father. With the beautiful horses, Kenzie is in her element.

Still, she has her own health limitations—a weakened heart. Her employers, the affable Jon and Ciana Mercer, are well aware of her condition and have tasked the charming stable hand, Austin Boyd, with helping Kenzie with some of the heavy lifting. But Austin has his own secrets. As Kenzie and Austin become closer, those secrets lead to shocking revelations that test the walls Kenzie has built around her heart.

The Girl with the Broken Heart follows a familiar romance format and holds few surprises. Kenzie is an admirable character who doesn’t allow her heart condition to get in the way of her dreams. However, the complicated backstory, which lacks development, makes it difficult to connect with Kenzie. Much of her conflict is internal and revolves around her family life, but the reason for her conflict lacks detail, which causes confusion.

Even though The Girl with the Broken Heart is a clean romance appropriate for younger readers, the age of the character may make it difficult for readers to connect with her. Kenzie is in college, but her love interest’s age is unclear, though he has been working as a police officer for many years. The story hits on the topic of sexting, internet bullying, and suicide. However, these topics are also underdeveloped and unfortunately don’t evoke an emotional reaction.

Kenzie’s summer job is rehabilitating abused horses and the story explains the dangers of the painful method of soring Tennessee Walking Horses. While the abuse may resonate with those familiar with horse competitions, others may be confused because soring isn’t described until later in the book. In addition, the story focuses more on Kenzie’s relationship with Austin instead of her interaction with the horses.

The Girl with the Broken Heart is a sweet romance, but the older characters and lack of plot development make the book more appropriate for older readers. While Kenzie’s heart condition adds interest to the story, in the end, her character will quickly be forgotten. Teens looking for romance with a unique plot should try I Believe in A Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo.

Sexual Content

  • Dawson and his fiancée kiss several times. For example, “Dawson bent down and kissed Lani on the mouth.”
  • After Kenzie acts frosty towards Austin, he says, “Why, I could have sworn yesterday when we held hands that you liked having me close to you. So much so that if I’d walked you to your door last night like I wanted, I might have gotten a kiss.” Kenzie denies her attraction towards Austin.
  • Austin tells Kenzie about his first kiss. “We kissed once just to try it out and broke out laughing. No chemistry. No magic.”
  • Kenzie doesn’t know how to feel about Austin. “When he’d leaned over her, listening to her every word and looking into her eyes, she’d felt a fluttering sensation in her heart. . . desire.” She thinks Austin is going to kiss her and is disappointed when he doesn’t.
  • Austin doesn’t like it when a coworker “let his gaze roam over Kenzie’s body.”
  • Kenzie falls asleep while caring for a sick horse. When Austin sees her, he “wanted to touch her, smooth her hair . . . He wanted to bend down and kiss her awake.”
  • Kenzie recalls when she was thirteen and one of the ranch hands cornered her in the stable. The man “came up behind me, started rubbing my shoulders, telling me he thought I was pretty. I froze. He said other stuff, too, sexy things I didn’t understand at the time. . . Then he turned me around and planted a big wet sloppy kiss on my mouth.”
  • After walking Kenzie home, Austin “longed to take her in his arms, hungered for the feel of her warm mouth on his.” He forces himself to leave.
  • After an outing with Austin, Kenzie “placed both hands against his chest, rose up on her toes, and brushed her lips over his. Pulling away with a saucy smile, she whispered ‘Tag, you’re it,’ and ran back to the house.”

Violence

  • An upperclassman convinced Kenzie’s sister to “send pictures of her naked body to him, she did . . . because he said he loved her.” The boy then sent the pictures to others, who “shamed her! Made f-fun of her.” Afterward, Kenzie’s sister hangs herself on Valentine’s Day.
  • Someone vandalizes Kenzie’s car. “Both seats had been slashed with long vicious wounds that left the innards oozing out of the pale creamy leather like pieces of roadkill.”
  • When Austin is in the barn alone, a masked man stabs him with a knife. “Austin, gagged, heard a whoosh—his lung blown, deflating. He staggered, twisted away from the stall, fell backwards, his head slamming against the hard floor. . . searing, burning pain.” The farm dog attacks the man. “The assailant was hurled to one side, then hauled backwards amid growls and snarls. The man screamed. Human bone crunched.” Both men end up in the hospital.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Kenzie goes to a party where people “gathered around patio tables, drinking sodas and beer.”
  • Kenzie’s mom takes pills for depression.
  • While at a Fourth of July party Austin is “nursing a beer.”
  • While in the hospital Austin is given a “morphine infusion pump.”
  • Austin tells Kenzie about a case he was working on. “Kids were dying. Opioids. Five area high schools had lost seven teens in four months.”
  • After taking drugs, a teen tells Austin, “The first time I used, I felt like I’d been kissed by an angel. Every time after, I was chasing that feeling. Never got it again.”

Language

  • Kenzie calls Austin a conceited jerk. Later, Austin tells Kenzie that someone is “pretty much a jerk.”
  • Crappy is used twice. Once Kenzie says, “Having a crappy heart condition wasn’t going to slow me down. So far, it hasn’t.”
  • At a horse competition, a man sees Kenzie looking at a horse. The man says, “If it isn’t the bitch who helped destroy my grandfather.” After the altercation, Austin asked, “And what should I have done? Beat the crap out of him?”
  • Damn is used once. Hell is used twice.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None
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