Reading Level: Young Adult

When Elephants Fly

Lillian has a plan. No boys, no stress, and no drinking. In fact, Lillian’s entire life revolves around a plan that avoids any sort of stress that could trigger schizophrenia. Schizophrenia runs in Lillian’s family; it drove her mother to throw Lillian off a roof when she was just a child. While Lillian’s plan to avoid stress seems like a good idea, Lillian’s best friend Sawyer worries she is letting life pass her by.

But Lillian doesn’t mind. That is until her job at a newspaper requires her to cover the birth of a baby elephant. The baby elephant, nicknamed Swifty, is rejected by her mother shortly after the birth and is nearly trampled to death by her mom. Due to their similar plights, Lillian finds herself drawn to Swifty and filled with a need to protect the baby elephant. But will saving Swifty cost Lillian her best friend, her freedom, and her sanity?

Throughout the story, Lillian struggles between taking the easy route to preserve her sanity and risking everything to save Swifty. The bond between Lillian and Swifty allows the reader to become emotionally concerned about Swifty and care about her well-being. The end of the novel suggests that it’s okay and even right for Lillian to risk her health and break the law in order to protect Swifty, despite the fact that she goes against the advice of adults with much more elephant experience than her. In the end, Lillian perseveres due to her unconditional love for Swifty.

When Elephants Fly has a delightfully original plot. It’s filled with facts about both elephants and schizophrenia that are conveyed to the reader in a way that meshes well with the storyline and doesn’t come across as obtrusive. The characters are unique but shallow. The original premise of the story will keep readers turning the pages. The lack of descriptions in When Elephants Fly may disappoint older readers; however, for readers just graduating to the YA level, this story is sure to delight with its many twists and turns.

The story touches on some difficult topics, including mental illness, genetics, family trauma, friendship, and animal rights. Although the author attempts to educate readers about schizophrenia, she unfortunately allows readers to believe that mental illnesses can be prevented–which is not the case. Flashbacks are scattered throughout the story, allowing readers to get a glimpse into Lillian’s thinking process as well as her increasingly unsteady mental health. Although When Elephants Fly has an interesting premise, readers will notice that some of the plot points are unrealistic, the romance is forced, and the characters are underdeveloped. Despite the book’s flaws, anyone interested in mental health or animal abuse should read When Elephants Fly.

Sexual Content

  • Lillian wants “to at least be kissed by someone other than John Jensen in the tunnel of love. We were ten and I let him cop a feel of my nonexistent boobs.”
  • Years ago, Lillian’s grandparents wrote a letter to Lillian’s parents begging them to abort her. Her grandparents were certain the stress of becoming a mother would trigger their daughter’s schizophrenia.
  • Lillian has a plan for a stress-free life to avoid triggering schizophrenia. That includes no sex. At one point, she sees a guy who is “cute in a hipster kind of way. I’ve taken a vow of celibacy for the next twelve years, but I can still look.”
  • Lillian thinks about a schizophrenic girl who “had hallucinations that she was having sex, all the time, day and night, fully clothed. Three years after her first episode, she’d attempted suicide twice, was addicted to cutting and lived in her stepmother’s basement.”
  • Lillian accidentally sees Otis skinny-dipping and remembers skinny-dipping with her best friend Sawyer. “Otis is naked . . . I should look away, but I don’t. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a naked guy. I mean, I’ve seen Sawyer plenty of times. We skinny-dip in his pool late at night when his parents are away or asleep. But it’s the first time I’ve seen a naked guy who doesn’t know I’m watching him. Technically, that’s uncool. But my eyes still travel from his broad shoulders to his lean waist, pretty much perfect butt and muscular legs.”
  • Lillian and Otis almost kiss. “Our lips are inches apart. His fingers drift down to trace my collarbone . . . Our lips brush, soft, fleeting. His mouth travels along my neck. Everywhere he touches comes alive.”
  • Otis says, “When I was seven, one of the workers took an interest in me. I was the kind of kid pedophiles target . . . One night I was sleeping outside Tambor’s pen. I woke up to the guy unbuttoning my jeans. Nothing happened. But it was heading that way.”
  • Lillian and Otis kiss. “It’s my first real kiss . . . Otis pulls back, runs his thumb over my lower lip. My skin is alive for the first time in my life. It’s like being woken up after eighteen years of trying to feel nothing.” They kiss several more times.
  • Lillian and Otis undress, but are interrupted before they can sleep together. “He cups my breasts, his thumbs instantly making my nipples insanely sensitive. He draws me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him, and I can feel how much he wants me. . . He slides me beneath him then bends, lips tasting the curve of my breasts, tongue teasing my nipples until I shiver from the sensation.”

Violence

  • Lillian thinks about examples of schizophrenic behavior often. “I mean like hearing a man’s voice telling you to drive your car into a group of little kids, watching your best friend’s face morph into a monster or people screaming so loudly in your brain that you consider taking a hammer to your own head to crush the voices.”
  • Lillian remembers her schizophrenic mom’s erratic behavior. “If she hit me, five minutes later she’d wonder about a red mark or bruise, then kiss it to make it better.”
  • Lillian watches an elephant give birth. “In a single breath the sac expands then Raki’s calf drops to the ground. There’s a gust of fluid followed by a stream of bright red blood that paints the insides of Raki’s legs crimson.” To make her baby elephant take its first breath, the elephant mother “kicks the newborn with her back leg—hard enough to move it several feet. The calf doesn’t react. Raki kicks it again. . . Finally, its dark eyes blink then remain open.”
  • Lillian thinks about a girl on YouTube with schizophrenia. The girl’s worst hallucinations “included seeing the lower part of her face in bloody tatters each time she caught her reflection in a window or mirror.” Another schizophrenic kid had “voices in his head that told him every single day to kill himself before someone else did it for him. His birthday was March 17 and he didn’t post that day, or ever again.”
  • When Lillian hears that her best friend’s dad is being a jerk, she thinks, “I want to drive over to Cushing Stafford Thompson’s mansion and light it on fire with him inside.”
  • The zoo director tells Lillian about the first orphan elephant she met. “He was found on the Masai Mara standing beside his dead mother. She’d been killed by a poacher’s poison spear. Her tusks had been sawed off, leaving gaping, bloody wounds.”
  • An elephant mother rejects her calf and attacks it. “With an earsplitting trumpet, Raki charges her calf and head-butts her in the torso so hard that Swifty Jones flies several feel through the air, hits the ground, rolls. Raki kicks her repeatedly, her body flipping down the length of the room until she’s ten feet from us. The calf is motionless, her eyes closed.”
  • Otis gets into a fight with his brother. “Howard’s backhand comes out of nowhere, like a bear attack. It catches Otis in the jaw, snaps his head sideways. He doesn’t go down but it’s close. Despite the blood on his lower lip, Otis keeps his hands balled at his sides.”
  • Otis confesses that his brother killed someone. “Howard stabbed the guy twenty-two times. I can still hear the sound of the tines going through skin, muscle, hitting bone.”
  • Lillian’s mother “committed suicide in prison.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jonah, a student at school, “told his dad that there was a keg at a preseason track party. His dad called the principal. Jonah is now a pariah.”
  • Lillian walks in to find her dad “drinking Scotch. By the half-empty bottle on the counter and the bleary look in his eyes, he’s had way too much. I haven’t seen him drunk in a long time, not since the last few months with Violet.”
  • Lillian’s dad leaves a voicemail. “I heard ice cubes in the background. Calvin was drunk again.”
  • It’s mentioned in passing that Sawyer’s mom “eats [Xanax] like candy,” though it’s never shown.
  • A circus worker mentions that he is on probation for “Drugs. Got hooked. Made some stupid choices.” Later it’s revealed that he “got hooked on heroin when he was thirteen, [then] switched to meth because it was cheaper.”
  • Lillian sees a circus worker drunk. “The way he’s moving reminds me of my dad when he’s had too much Scotch. What the hell is going on? Why is Howard working with the elephants when he’s been drinking?”

Language

  • Hell and damn are used frequently. Lillian’s boss tells her, “Get the hell out of my office.” Another time Lillian asks, “What the hell is wrong with you?” During an argument, Lillian’s dad says, “Dammit, how can you even remember?”
  • Ass, pissed, and crap are used often. For example, “Howard stares at his brother like he’s a total ass.” A worker tells his friend to “stop flirting and get your ass in the truck.” Another time, Sawyer’s mom tells her son, “What’d you expect? You pissed him off, dear.” Lillian said her dad “took a massive crap” on one of her ideas.
  • Shit is used frequently. After watching an elephant give birth, the zoo director tells Lillian, “Holy shit! You’re white as a ghost.” Another time, Lillian calls “Bullshit!” during an argument with her dad.
  • Fuck and motherfucking are used several times. Lillian’s best friend tells her “fuck you.” A woman says if a man wants to know if she is single, “he should fucking ask me himself.”
  • Bitching and bastard are both used a few times. “Matthews is bitching about video, though. It better be attached to your next article.”
  • Prick is used once. A man says, “Tiger is willing to risk her future for what she believes in. What we should all believe in, if we’re not callous, inhumane pricks.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

What Light

The Christmas season holds a special place in the heart of Sierra’s family. Her parents first met at a Christmas tree lot and quickly fell in love. Now her parents own a Christmas tree farm in Oregon. Every winter, the family travels to California to set up their Christmas tree lot. Because of this, Sierra has never had a normal Christmas holiday, but she has never wanted anything different, having friends in both Oregon and California.

Sierra has always been able to keep her two lives apart, but all that changes when she meets Caleb, a handsome boy with a bad reputation. Even though Sierra is warned to stay away from Caleb’s cute smile, Sierra is drawn to him. The more she gets to know him, the more questions she has about his bad reputation. Sierra is determined to show others that Caleb’s past mistakes should not define him, but with mounting pressure from her parents and friends, Sierra wonders if Caleb is worth the trouble. Amid growing suspicion and misconceptions, Sierra wonders if love really can conquer all.

What Light is a beautiful story about first love, forgiveness, and family. Readers will fall in love with Sierra, who doesn’t hide her intelligence when trying to attract a boy. Instead, she continues to use advanced vocabulary and enjoys the fact that Caleb tries to stump her with new words. Readers will be drawn to Sierra because of her sweet, trusting nature and her love of all things Christmas. Another positive aspect of the story is Sierra’s parents, who use positive communications skills to guide Sierra through her first love, even as they worry about the possibility of Caleb breaking her heart.

As teen romances flood the market, What Light will draw readers in with relatable characters who have healthy relationships. This sweet story steers away from sex, swear words, and other objectionable material. Any reader who is looking for an engaging holiday romance should grab a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa and curl up with What Light. Like a Hallmark Movie, this story will leave readers with a smile and the belief that love can indeed conquer all.

Sexual Content

  • Heather talks about her boyfriend and says, “If the choice is between listening to him or kissing him, kissing is a much better use of his mouth.”
  • When Sierra talks to Heather about her boyfriend, Sierra says, “You and Devon hang out a lot, and I know you make out a lot, but does he know you really like him?”
  • Sierra’s friend tells her to, “put a stupid mistletoe over his head and kiss him already!” During the conversation, the friend also says, “You should probably kiss him, though, before you make any bigger decisions.”
  • The first time Sierra and Caleb kiss, “he touches my cheek with his hand and guides me toward him. His lips are so soft against mine, sweetened with peppermint. I lean further in and get lost kissing him. I slide off him to the mat and then he rolls himself on top of me. I wrap my arms around him and we kiss with more intensity. We pull back to catch our breaths and look into each other’s eyes.”
  • Caleb kisses Sierra and “once again I lose myself in his kiss. I trace my lips from his jaw to his ear.”
  • While on a date, Caleb “kisses me softly. I reach up and touch his cold cheeks, which make his lips feel even warmer. I wonder if every kiss with Caleb will feel this new and magical.”
  • Caleb and Sierra kiss several other times, but the kisses are not described.

Violence

  • Caleb tells Sierra about a time when he was younger. He was angry at his sister and ran after her with a knife. When Caleb’s sister ran from him, “she got to her room and slammed the door. . . I stabbed her door with the knife over and over. I didn’t way to hurt her. . . but I could not stop stabbing the door. I heard her screaming and crying to our mom on the phone. Finally, I dropped the knife and just slumped onto the floor.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sierra’s friend went on one date with a boy who was “caught with an open can of beer in his friend’s car.”
  • On New Year’s Eve, a boy promises to be “the designated driver for the entire cheer squad.”

Language

  • God is used as an exclamation twice. Oh my God is used as an exclamation once.
  • Hell, damn, and crappy are all used once
  • Caleb’s sister calls her brother “bone-headed.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Sierra teases a boy, saying, “You probably consider your sweet tooth a major sin.” The boy replies, “No, I don’t remember that one being mentioned in church, but laziness has been, and I am that.”
  • A little girl tells Caleb that her family has “said a prayer for you.”
  • A family’s car breaks down on a long trip and the family has to rent a motel room. When the woman recounts the experience, she says, “Thank you, God, they had a pool there or the kids would have killed each other.”
  • Caleb and Sierra have a brief conversation about church. Caleb is a believer, and although he attends church, the story doesn’t go into his beliefs.
  • Sierra says a prayer. “Please don’t let this be the last time I see Caleb.”

Ice Wolves

Twelve-year-old orphans Anders and Rayna don’t know who their parents are, and they have always relied on each other to get through each day. The pair know all of the back streets of Vallen and they know to avoid the Wolf Guard as much as possible. When Anders is almost caught stealing, the twins join a group of twelve-year-olds who are in line to discover if they are elementals—humans that can transform into wolves.

When Anders takes the form of a wolf and his sister Rayna takes the form of a dragon, Anders wonders if they are related at all. Everyone knows that a wolf and a dragon cannot come from the same family. Even worse, after Rayna transforms two dragons appear and claim her as one of them. The only thing that Anders knows for certain is that Ice Wolves and Scorch Dragons are enemies. But despite the feud between the wolves and dragons, Anders is determined to find his sister.

To rescue Rayna, Anders must find the dragon’s hidden capital city. The only way to get the information he needs is to enlist at the foreboding Ulfar Academy, a school for young wolves. Anders only wants to find the dragons and save his sister; he wasn’t expecting to find friends. Will Anders have to betray his new friends in order to save his sister? And what will Anders do if he finds his sister only to discover that Rayna has become just like the cruel dragons that took her?

Ice Wolves begins with a heart-stopping surprise and plenty of action, but the story starts to drag when the main character enters Ulfar Academy to learn about Ice Wolves. Because Anders doesn’t understand the elementals or the Ice Wolves, the reader gets to learn along with him. However, when the story ends there are still many unanswered questions that will nag readers.

Anders is not a unique character, but middle school readers may relate to his insecurities and his desire to find a place to fit in. As the story progresses, Ander not only builds confidence in his abilities, he also begins to understand what it means to have friends “who’d back you up without needing to know the reason why.” Even though Anders clearly cares for his pack, he never loses sight of his ultimate goal to find his sister.

Amie Kaufman has created a world with multicultural, diverse people who live in peace—people who fear the Scorch Dragons, but the reason for this fear is never explained. Although the threat of dragons brings suspense, the dragons only appear at the very beginning and end of the book. Kaufman includes many diverse characters in the story, however, at times it felt as if she was trying too hard to incorporate every type of person. One character is referred to using the pronoun “they.” The use of the pronoun is never explained, which may cause readers some confusion. One positive aspect of the story is Lisbeth, a strong female who isn’t content with following orders. Lisbeth spends much of her time engrossed in books, and it is through her that Anders begins to understand friendship. Lisbeth is curious, loyal, and determined to do the right thing no matter what.

Fans of fantasy will enjoy Ice Wolves even though the plot is not fast-paced. Even though the characters are not unique, the story of friendship and family will entertain strong readers. The conclusion contains a surprise, a battle, and a cliffhanger that sets up the second book in the series—Scorch Dragons. Readers will love how Anders learns that bravery is “doing what you must” even when you are afraid. Readers interested in Ice Wolves will also want to read the Simon Thorn series, which also has shape-shifting characters, but has much more action.

Sexual Content

  • While telling Anders about a female professor, a girl says that the professor has a wife.
  • Lisbeth’s father “was a mercher from Baseyda who was back on a ship before I was born. I’m not sure he even knows I exist.”

Violence

  • During a celebration, a dragon appears in Holbard. The dragon “had breathed fire as it circled above the city, then vanished into the darkness. An hour later, a set of stables in the north of the city was ablaze with the ferocious, white-and-gold dragonfire that was almost impossible to put out. . .” No one was injured.
  • When Rayna turns into a dragon, the Wolf Guard attacks her. An ice wolf “reared onto its hind legs, then crashed back down to earth. As its front paws hit the cobblestone, two long spears of ice burst from the ground, sharp and jagged, flying straight at the dragon’s gleaming side. They were like huge, deadly icicles with razor-sharp points. . . When they struck Rayna, her scales instantly turned gray with cold. She screamed, spreading her wings, and more wolves brought down their front paws on the ground, launching ice spears at her. . .” When Anders tries to help her, he grabs the staff and turns into a wolf.
  • Rayna again turns into a dragon and “when she thrashed her tail, a shop front flew to pieces like a house of cards.” Ice wolves run towards Rayna, while “everyone else in the street was turning to run now.” When the wolves attack Rayna, two other dragons appear and lead her out of the city. The scene takes place over three pages.
  • The wolves believe that the dragons take children and “sacrifice them on the day of the equinox.”
  • A fire begins in the city and the Wolf Guard helps put out the fire. “With a great hissing the spears immediately began to melt, sending up steam, creating billows of white smoke against the night sky as golden sparks rained down on the cobblestone of the square. . . Many people have to escape through windows and some of the street children are trapped on a roof. A scream came from above as the flames licked higher, clouds of smoke enveloping the children.” Anders helps the children and everyone escapes unharmed. The fire scene takes place over three pages.
  • When Lisbeth and Anders go to the dragons’ city, the wolves follow them and attack. “Those dragons in human form were fighting however they could, swinging chairs, a few brandishing knives—they had overturned the huge table, which must have been the crash he heard, and some were fighting from behind it. The wolves were fighting with teeth and ice spears, his classmates acting with trained precision.” Several dragons and wolves are injured. Ander’s friend pauses, and “it was all the chance the human he was fighting needed—she swung the pastry pole hard at him, connecting with his head and shoulders and sending him flying backward.” Ander’s sister is hit with an ice spear that “caught her shoulder, knocking her back into the crowd, and she hit the ground.” The wolves eventually retreat. No one is seriously injured. The battle scene takes place over ten pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • One of the characters explains how elementals change. “Essence is the magic that’s found all around us. In nature, in the earth itself. When we transform from human to wolf, we channel it instinctively so we can make the change. Wherever they’re from in the wolf, elementals always have gifts linked to nature, because nature is where we find the essence that gives us our power.”
  • When elementals touch the Staff of Hadda, they turn into wolves or dragons. When Rayna touched the staff, “Rayna rolled onto her back, arms out flung. Her face darkened to a deep, unnatural burgundy, then shifted to shades of bright crimson, as if all her skin was bleeding at once. . . her arms and legs seemed to stretch impossibly long, and the arms of her coat stretched and slit. . . The fabric shredded and vanished in seconds as Rayna’s body grew, doubling in size, then tripling, her neck lengthening, her mouth open in a hoarse, unending scream.” Rayna turns into a fifteen-foot-long dragon and flies away.
  • The first time Anders transforms into a wolf, his clothes are shredded. The Ice Wolves use an amulet that keep makes the clothes transform with them. The amulet “helps your shirt stay where it belongs when you change. Helps you control when you change at all.”
  • In the past, dragons and wolves crafted magical objects with runes. Many of the objects are magical and the “runes are what channeled the essence—the power that came from nature, from the earth itself—into artifacts.” For example, “high above the entrance to the port were the huge, metal arches of the wind guards, the biggest artifacts in all of Vallen. . . The arches were marked with runes forged all along their length—the runes were the sign of an artifact—and were big enough for even the largest ship to pass under it.” The arches keep out the wind, making the harbor always peaceful.
  • While picking pockets, Anders almost “reached for a thiefcatcher. If he’d laid his hands on the zips to open her pockets, the charms would have started blaring a quick, high alarm, turning every face in the square toward him.”
  • One of the wolves has a mirror that “allows two-way communication.”
  • Anders discovers that he can create icefire—blue-and-silver fire. When he uses the fire, “the white fire and the ice spear both vanished into nothing as they connected with his blue-and-silver flames.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Cloaked in Red

So you think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl with the unfortunate name and the inability to tell the difference between her grandmother and a member of a different species? Well, then, try your hand at answering these questions: Which character (not including Little Red herself) is the most fashion challenged? Who (not including the wolf) is the scariest? Who (not including Granny) is the most easily scared? Who is the strangest (notice we’re not “not including” anyone, because they’re all a little off.)? Who (no fair saying “the author”) has stuffing for brains?

Vivian Vande Velde retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood and gives the story eight new endings. The stories aren’t truly a retelling because they take a small portion of the original story and weave it into a new and often strange story. The author makes fun of the original fairy tale, but her own versions of Little Red Riding Hood are flat and unexciting. Instead of digging deeper into Little Red Riding Hood’s life and character, the author doesn’t add any new insight or meaning to the original fairy tale.

The beginning of the story makes fun of the Grimm’s vision of Little Red Riding Hood, and the author seems to go out of her way to portray Little Red Riding Hood in a negative light. In all of the stories, Little Red’s name changes, which is not only confusing but also makes it hard for the reader to connect with the character. In addition, Little Red is an unlikeable character in all of the stories. She is either stupid, self-absorbed, or a witch.

Readers who love fairy tales, both the original and retelling, should leave Cloaked in Red on the shelf. Vivian Vande Velde’s versions of Little Red Riding Hood are uninteresting, strange, and difficult to read. Instead of reading Cloaked in Red, grab a copy of Seeing Red by Sarah Mlynowski or Misfit by Jen Calonita; both books are excellent retellings that have a strong female character.

 Sexual Content

  • A girl was wandering in the woods when a group of boys sees her. One boy asks, “Care to give us a kiss?” Then the boys formed a line and the girl kisses each boy. The girl then rides away with one of the boys.

Violence

  • When a wolf attacks Little Red Riding Hood, she “realized that the wolf’s sharp nails had not only pulled the cloak off her, they had ripped the fabric. She smacked the wolf’s muzzle, hard. . . The wolf backed away, his muzzle stinging.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A woodcutter finds a girl sleeping in the woods. The woodcutter assumes that the girl had “too much to drink.”

Language

  • Little Red Riding Hood repeatedly calls the wolf stupid and then says, “I bet your own mother was sorry she ever had a stupid excuse of a lunkbrain like you.” Later she calls him a “stupid clod.”

Supernatural

  • A woman makes a doll. When the woman wishes for a daughter, the doll comes alive.
  • In one story, Little Red Riding Hood is a witch and her grandmother is a werewolf.
  • When a vampire appears, Little Red Riding Hood “uttered a magic spell and transformed him into a frog—a pale, sickly-looking frog.”
  • A fairy godmother accidentally cast a spell on a cloak making it smart. The cloak can think, repair itself, as well as adjust its size.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

The Heir

Eadlyn, the daughter of Maxon and America, is next in line for the throne and will be the first woman in her country’s history to rule by herself. Eadlyn is powerful—the last thing she needs is a man to get in her way. When unrest begins to develop throughout the country, Eadlyn’s parents come to her with a solution to distract the people while they attempt to settle the turmoil in the country—a Selection of her own.

Eadlyn is against the idea. She doesn’t see how babysitting 35 boys will solve the country’s problems. Eadlyn finally agrees to an attempt at finding a husband through the Selection but plans to sabotage it by acting as unpleasant as possible, encouraging the boys to leave on their own and finishing the Selection her way. However, Eadlyn quickly discovers that she must play to the eye of the public in order to win the public’s favor of herself as the next ruler in line for the throne.

As the Selection runs its course, Eadlyn finds herself enjoying some of the boys and doesn’t entirely hate the thought of them being in her house. However, with fights and attempted inappropriate touching, the press begins to show that Eadlyn doesn’t have control over her own Selection. Will Eadlyn finish her Selection with a husband and continue on to rule the country?

Readers won’t be able to put down this installation of the Selection series as they watch the newest generation of Illea’s royalty work through a possible uprising, budding romance, and a whole new type of Selection. Although the first few chapters of The Heir are slow, the pacing picks up and will leave the readers turning the pages to find out if Eadlyn will find the love of her life and still rule Illea. Readers will want to read the previous books of the Selection series in order to fully enjoy and understand The Heir.

Eadlyn is shown as a powerful, headstrong heir to the throne, who learns how to let her walls down. Eadlyn discovers that letting people see her as more than just a ruler, will actually benefit herself. At the beginning of the book, her condescending, blunt, and rude personality may turn away readers. However, readers will eventually fall in love with Eadlyn as she learns how to be the “people’s ruler.” Entertaining characters from previous books make appearances along with new, well-developed characters. Overall, these components create a storyline that will keep readers turning the pages. The story highlights the importance of family and friends and shows that with the help of others, anything can be accomplished. Because the conclusion of The Heir ends with a cliffhanger, readers will want to have the next book of the series, The Crown, on hand.

Language

  • When Kile and Eadlyn greet one another on a date, Eadlyn jokes, “It’s ‘Royal Pain in the Ass’ to you, sir.”
  • Kile apologizes for calling Eadlyn “bratty.”
  • After a parade ends in a disaster, Eadlyn’s parents ask her what happened. Eadlyn replies, “Hell if I know.”
  • “Darn it” is used once.
  • Loser is used twice. Eadlyn jokingly tells someone, “Come in, loser.”
  • Erik tells Eadlyn, “That’s really none of my business, and you’re obviously having a rough day. I’m an ass.”

Sexual Content

  • General Leger is seen kissing his wife, Miss Lucy. In the studio, “General Leger was there, kissing Miss Lucy on her forehead and whispering something to her.”
  • When Eadlyn recounts her disastrous meeting of the Selected men, she says, “one blatantly stared at my chest for the entirety of our meeting.” Eadlyn later sends this man home for the reason, “‘When we met, you couldn’t stop staring at my breasts.’”
  • Kile and Eadlyn kiss in a hallway with the hopes of being photographed by paparazzi. Eadlyn describes their kiss saying, “Kile leaned down, lips meeting mine, holding them there. Then his lips parted and closed and parted again.” Their kissing is described for about a page.
  • Ahren, Eadlyn’s twin brother, makes fun of her for her lack of relationship experience. Ahren says a picture in the paper does not count as a relationship and, “Neither does making out with Leron Troyes at that Christmas ball in Paris.”
  • When going on a date with Baden, Eadlyn says, “Baden and I are going to make music…. I mean that literally, by the way.”
  • Eadlyn invites Kile over to her room and they kiss. Eadlyn recounts that she “wrapped my hand around his head, pulling him to me, and an instant later his arms were around my waist.” Eadlyn describes their kissing for a page.
  • Eadlyn is overwhelmed and goes to Kile for help. Eadlyn pushes Kile into a closet. “I was so overwhelmed, I pressed my lips into his, knowing that would make everything else stop for a minute.” As their kissing gets hotter, Eadlyn begins to remove his shirt, but Kile stops her.
  • Henri and Eadlyn kiss in the kitchen. Eadlyn describes their kiss as delicate. “I pressed my lips into his, trying to tell him without words that this was okay, that I wanted him to hold me.” Their kiss is described for half a page.
  • Camille, Ahren’s girlfriend, comes to Illea from France. When Camille arrives, Ahren, “held her tightly and kissed every corner of her face.”
  • Camille and Ahren sneak off to spend more time together. “Ahren snuck away with Camille, kissing her every step of the way.”
  • When Camille and Ahren don’t show up to breakfast one morning, Eadlyn assumes that either, “Ahren had come to his senses and told her that he needed to consider other options, and they were both in the process of avoiding each other… or they’d spent the night together and were maybe still in bed.”

Violence

  • When Kile calls Eadlyn “bratty” his mother “twacked her son over the head.”
  • When Jack tries to take things too far with Eadlyn, Ahren comes to Eadlyn’s defense. As Jack continues to torment Eadlyn in front of Ahren, Eadlyn had “never seen Ahren throw a punch before. It was almost as shocking as Jack’s limp body after my brother’s fist forced his head to whip back at an awkward angle.”
  • During a group date, Burke and Fox get into a heated argument over their cooking styles. As their argument continues to heat up, “Burke threw a punch that knocked Fox back several steps. I sucked in a breath, frozen. Fox came back at him, and I was pushed to the floor by Burke’s arm pulling back for another punch.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As Eadlyn and her parents prepare for the arrival of the Selected men, her mother and the chef discuss the need to finalize the first seven-course dinner. Eadlyn “groaned internally. A true seven-course meal could take six hours from the first sip of a cocktail to the final bite of chocolate.”
  • Eadlyn hides away from her people. She says she “took shelter in long baths or a drink with dinner.”
  • After Eadlyn’s parade for the Selected men goes awry, Eadlyn’s mother and father “were both drinking something a little stronger than wine—a rare occasion—though it didn’t appear to be doing much for their nerves.”
  • When Eadlyn invites Kile into her room, Kile “spotted the wine I’d provided and wasted no time in pouring himself a glass.”
  • When Ean questions Eadlyn on what her favorite food is, Eadlyn answers, “Do mimosas count?”

Spiritual Content

  • When Eadlyn comes across two guards, one of the guards says, “Thank God. Go to the king and tell him we’ve found her.”
  • When Eadlyn’s mother has a heart attack, Eadlyn rushes to the hospital wing. When she gets there, “Aunt May sat next to Miss Marlee, who appeared to be deep in prayer.”
  • When the Selected men find out that Eadlyn’s mother is in the hospital wing, they come to show their support. As they approach Eadlyn, Kile says, “We’ve come to pray.”

Supernatural Content

  • None

Heartwood Box

Araceli’s parents wanted her to have a normal, American senior year, so they sent her to stay with her Great-Aunt Ottillie. Araceli is supposed to be focusing on school and getting ready for college, but she thinks that her aunt’s old Victorian home may be haunted. Araceli can feel someone watching her, and it doesn’t help that her great-aunt still leaves food out for her husband that has been missing for twenty years.

Araceli’s great-aunt isn’t the only creepy thing in town. Local businesses are plastered with missing posters. The townspeople are watchful and suspicious of each other. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city walls that no one talks about. When Araceli begins getting letters from the past, she thinks someone is playing a nasty joke on her.

When Araceli’s friend disappears, she is determined to find out what is going on. In order to solve the mystery, she must investigate the other disappearances as well as the secretive lab. But someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep their secrets hidden. Can Araceli uncover the conspiracy or will someone make her disappear?

The Heartwood Box is an immensely enjoyable, complicated story that will have readers guessing until the very end. Told from Araceli’s point of view, the creepy town comes alive. Although Araceli isn’t the most relatable character, her story is compelling. The supporting characters are not well-developed but they help move the plot along at a fast pace. For those who love character-driven stories, The Heartwood Box might disappoint.

This story is a mix of science-fiction, mystery, and historical romance. The multiple plots may leave readers confused unless they pay close attention. Not only is Araceli falling in love with a World War I soldier, but she is also trying to fit in at a new school and solve the mystery of the town’s disappearing people. The end of the story ties all of the threads together in a satisfying, if somewhat implausible, conclusion.

Aguirre also throws in the theme of colorism. Several times in the story, Araceli talks about colorism and gives examples of how dark skin people are treated differently than whites. At one point she thinks, “I wish America cared the same about Black and Brown girls, but there’s a lot to do yet.” Even though Araceli is bi-racial, this theme is not well fleshed out.

Readers looking for a unique time travel mystery will enjoy The Heartwood Box, which has several surprising twists at the end. Some of the vocabulary is difficult, but the majority of the story is written in easy to understand language. Although the ending is rushed, the book will captivate readers who enjoyed the Ruby Red series by Kerstin Gier or Passenger by Alexandra Bracken.

Sexual Content

  • When Araceli has a friend over to the house, her aunt says, “You can watch TV in the parlor if you want. I do trust both of you, but it would be disrespectful for you to go upstairs.” Araceli thinks to herself, “Oh my God, if I wanted to hook up with Logan, I’d go across the street. He already said his parents aren’t home.”
  • In a dream, Araceli is able to see soldiers who are on a ship. She hears, “a slick skin-on-skin sound that I identify as a soldier jerking off, trying to be stealthy about it.”
  • While talking to a boy, Araceli thinks, “He’s thirsty for me. I’ve seen the look enough to recognize it, but I pretend not to know. . .”
  • When Araceli is sitting in a car with a boy, her aunt “saves me by flipping the porch light on and peeking out the front door, likely to make sure we’re not getting hot and heavy in her Plymouth.”
  • While in a dream, Araceli meets a soldier and, “I can touch him in this dream, so I do. There’s no reason to hold back. When he drops his weapon and opens his arms, I slide into them like I belong there. . . I stretch up on tiptoe and cup his face in my hands; I feel the heat of his skin, the scruff on his chin and jaw. Then I press my mouth to his, light and soft. He drags me closer and kisses me like our lives depend on it, all heat and desperation. . . We kiss and cling until I can barely breathe.”
  • When Araceli’s aunt and uncle see her sitting in a car with an older man, her uncle asks, “Is there something you need to tell us? We won’t judge you. Grown men who entice young girls should be ashamed.” Araceli tells them that the man was a family friend.

Violence

  • The town sheriff physically abuses his son. The abuse is not described, but Araceli sees the bruises. When the boy gets to school, she “can see his lip is busted, and his face is swollen on one side. At a minimum, someone slapped the shit out of him, and it looks more like he took a few hits to the face.”
  • In a letter, a soldier writes about his experiences. “France has become hell on earth, no way around it. Great tunnels in the dirt, piled high with bodies and you can’t tell a Jerry from a Brit from a Sammy. . . Death makes every soldier the same. Nobody is coming for those men, not to give them services or say a few words or even to bury them. The birds pluck out their eyes. . .” The soldier also writes, “I killed my first Jerry and threw up afterwards. . . My friend John took one in the gut, bad way to go. Took him hours to go west, and we were all freezing next to his body in a trench during that first long hour of hate.”
  • Araceli thinks back to the past. “The kids are protesting, shouting, waving signs. A shot rings out. The student leader goes down, bleeding from his head, and it’s all mayhem, all running and screaming.”
  • Someone tells the county sheriff to kill someone. The sheriff says, “You’re trying to give me a kill order? I can’t believe you think you bought me for fifty thousand.”
  • Araceli and her friends are trying to destroy mechanisms that create the ghost light. A man sees them and Araceli “rush[es] toward him, and everything else is instinct. With the hammer, I knock whatever he has out of his hand, and then I swing again, as hard as I can, right upside his head. His body goes flying, tumbling down the hill and into the water with an ominous splash.” The man dies.
  • Araceli and her friends are chased by guards who shoot at them. Araceli’s “heart thunders in my ears as more bullets spray the area. I get stung on a ricochet and a sharp pain slices across my calf. Shit, it hurts. . .” One of her friends is shot. “His voice comes out liquid with blood and breathy from his struggle for air. . . Jackson gives me a sad smile, his teeth stained with blood. . . He goes limp in my arms. . . Jackson’s blood is all over the soil and the stones, staining my hands and the suit he made to protect us.” The scene takes place over seven pages.
  • After Araceli’s friend dies, she jumps on an ATV and tries to escape. The guards, “snap shots at me as they can, but it’s not as easy from the back of an ATV, firing at a moving vehicle.” She crashes, and a man “twists my arms behind me and binds my wrists with what feels like a zip tie, then drags me out of sight. . .I taste blood from where my lips split against my teeth.” The man gags her and then puts her in a cell. The scene takes place over 4 pages.
  • Over a radio, Araceli hears “the sound of a Taser discharging and the impact of a fist hitting flesh.”
  • As Araceli and Dr. Perry try to get to the lab’s control room, Dr. Perry “slams into three guards coming around the corner. His weapon flies out of his hand. . .” Araceli shoots a guard in the belly and “the guard screams and topples over. . .” Dr. Perry shoots a guard. Later Dr. Perry shoots two more guards “neatly, two chest shots, two clean kills.” Eventually, someone shoots Dr. Perry. “Slugs slam into the blocks, shaking the cement. . . He’s down, bleeding from several wounds. . . He manages to shoot three of the four, and I fire on the last one while he’s reloading. . .” Dr. Perry dies. The scene takes place over four pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As Araceli goes through town, she thinks about her past homes. “I can’t remember ever living in a freestanding house. There will be no rooftop garden parties here, no barbeques that draw out the neighbors so that we grill whatever’s on hand, and I take beer from the cooler without anyone asking how old I am.”
  • While in the past, Araceli goes to a Halloween party and gets drunk.
  • Araceli goes into a pizza place where some adults are drinking beer.
  • A girl’s mother is put on depression medication after her son disappears.
  • In a letter, a soldier says that while passing through England, they stopped at a town and some men got “puking drunk.”
  • When a boy is teaching Araceli to drive, he tells her, “You’re going really slow. If you’re not careful, you’ll get pulled over. Only people who are slightly high drive this much below the limit.”
  • Araceli is given a document that has information about the Heartwood box. A researcher had an “unfortunate addiction to hallucinogenic drugs.”
  • Araceli sends a note to the past, but wonders if the person receiving it, “was stoned when he got my note, laughed and rolled a joint with it.”
  • A boy’s grandfather only talked about a girl he once loved when he “had a little to drink.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bitching, crap, damn, dammit, fricking hell, holy shit, piss, pissed, shit.
  • Araceli meets a boy and thinks that he is “kind of a dick.”
  • When Logan’s father gets home, he yells at his wife and asks, “Where the hell is he? I told him to come straight home from school and look after the fucking yard.”
  • OMG is used twice. Oh my god is used six times. Oh god and Oh Lord are both used once.
  • When her aunt gives her snacks after school, Araceli thinks, “I swear to God, I’m starting to like pretending I’m five. . .”
  • Araceli describes her mood as, “grumpy as hell.”
  • Araceli thinks, “I’ve experienced some shit in my life, but I can’t say I ever lived in a haunted house. Until now.” Later she thinks, “This house is so damn haunted.”
  • A boy is wearing a shirt that says, “Get in line B*tches.”

Supernatural

  • While in her aunt’s house and at school, Araceli feels a chill. She also feels as if someone is watching her.
  • Araceli has vivid dreams where she goes into the past and can interact with a World War I soldier. When she is dreaming, no other people can see or hear her besides the soldier. However, after one dream a picture of World War I changes. When she dreams, she can find the soldier because “there was a tug. . . I feel that same pull now, delicate and tenuous. . .”
  • Araceli goes into the attic, and “before I get to the pull cord, it’s tugged by an invisible hand until the distinctive click, and the light flares on.”
  • Araceli finds a treasure box that allows her to communicate with a World War I soldier. They write letters back and forth. Araceli also puts small objects like mint and antibiotic ointment into the box.
  • The town has “ghost lights” that make people slip into another time.
  • When people disappear, their loved ones leave out food for them, which also disappears.

Spiritual Content

  • When Araceli wakes up after being asleep for days, her aunt says, “Thank God.”
  • Araceli thinks about her parents who “aren’t religious. My mom’s agnostic and my dad is a lapsed Catholic, so I was baptized and that’s about it. . . We go to mass once a year at Christmas, and it’s a somber occasion in most of the countries I’ve lived in.”
  • Araceli goes to church with a friend, but the service is not described. While there, a woman says, “Everyone is welcome in God’s house.”

Dig Too Deep

Liberty is an independent teenager. She cooks, cleans, maintains a perfect GPA, plays volleyball, and applies for scholarships all by herself. However, her seemingly perfect life is turned upside down after her political activist mother is arrested on suspicion of being involved in a Washington DC car bombing. Her perfect life and her hopes of attending Georgetown are trashed. When her mother is sent to prison, Liberty is sent to Ebbottsville, a small town in rural Appalachia, to live with her grandmother. Liberty lived in Ebbottsville when she was a child, but now the top of Tanner’s peak is gone and the town’s water is neon orange.

Out of her comfort zone and away from her best friend, Liberty has to live in poverty and help her ailing grandmother suffering from lung cancer. At school, she is mocked as the “new girl” and she has a hard time adjusting to rural life when everyone seems to instantly hate her. However, Liberty quickly learns that her grandmother’s condition may have been caused by the infamous Peabody mining company’s mountaintop mine. Liberty soon finds herself in a fight with an infamous mining tycoon who will stop at nothing to keep his grip on the community. Will Liberty beat Peabody or will he silence her forever?

Poor, run-down, and alone – Allgeyer paints the perfect picture of a troubled girl against an unstoppable corporation in Dig Too Deep. Liberty is a good example for young girls, encouraging them to have a strong moral center and to take a stand when they feel something is wrong or unfair no matter the risk. Liberty takes time away from her own personal goals to care of her sick grandmother, which highlights the importance of loving with all of your heart. Liberty also shows forgiveness when she accepts her mother back into her life.

Dig Too Deep raises questions about modern-day mining practices and shows some harsh consequences of corrupt mining. The book brings environmental issues to young readers, encourages them to think about others, and research other environmental problems affecting our world.

Dig Too Deep has a quick and suspenseful plot with a perfect mix of teenage angst and real-world problems. Readers will not be able to put the book down because of the nonstop suspense. Liberty is a relatable character that readers will root for as she fights a corrupt mining organization. However, Allgeyer does push the extremes of young adult fiction and due to its intense sexual content, violence, and language, this book is best for older readers. Nonetheless, Dig Too Deep is a great book for those looking for a strong female character or for a book that discusses modern-day environmental issues.

Sexual Content

  • Liberty and Cole go to a party and sit by a bonfire where they kiss before being interrupted by Cole’s friend, Dobber. Liberty describes the kiss. “When our lips touch, warmth shoots through my body. I don’t feel the wind. I don’t feel the fire – just Cole’s lips and his tongue, teasing mine. His hands slide up, and I tense, thinking he’s going to grab my boob, but he touches my face instead, the back of my neck, pulling me into him.”
  • Liberty thinks Cole’s “kisses are absolutely the best thing about this place – all soft, warm, and Tic-Tac-y.”
  • Cole invites Liberty over to his house where things get spicy after he spills beer on her lap. After she throws her pants in the dryer and puts on some gym shorts, Liberty “can feel the heat of his body on my skin, his angles, hollows, and points. He’s doing that thing again, that feels so good – but also scary. I’m way, way outside my comfort zone.” This scene takes place over six pages where Liberty becomes partially undressed. Liberty is not comfortable or ready for sex, and they do not have sex. She leaves after her pants are dried.
  • Dobber and Liberty kiss two times in the novel. Once, when trying to avoid suspicion from Peabody, Dobber “leans toward me, puts one hand on the side of my face. . . and the other over my mouth. Then he kisses his hand.”

Violence

  • Cole explains that Dobber’s dad has an ankle bracelet on because he “attacked a guy in town” and “tried to strangle him. It took four men to pull him off.”
  • Liberty’s mother was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a New York car bombing. Liberty says that her mom can “blow up whatever she wants to.”
  • Cole refuses to let her go until she promises she will stay out of the mine’s business, so Liberty makes her free hand into a fist, and punches “Cole square in the face.” Liberty breaks her finger and Cole is bleeding out of his eye.
  • Liberty finds out what a rope dog is when she sees “Patient old Goldie hanging from a noose.”
  • Peabody’s men are hunting Dobber and his dad down with guns. “They’re not after Liberty. They’re after you. Dobber…” Cole stares him in the eye. “They have guns.” Dobber and his dad hide in Liberty’s house and Peabody’s men never find them.
  • After extorting Peabody, Dobber punches him in the face. “Peabody’s head snaps back before I realize Dobber punched him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party, Liberty watches as “Three girls sitting at a picnic table pass around a bottle of pink wine.”
  • When Cole invites Liberty to his house, he offers her a beer. Liberty takes “the can Cole hands me and he pops the top, misting me with Wittbrau Light.”
  • When Liberty asks Dobber’s dad questions about the mine, “Mr. Dobber opens the refrigerator and pulls out a beer.” He even offers one to Liberty, who refuses.
  • Dobber’s dad is an alcoholic and meth addict—Dobber tells Liberty that “the first day was the worst. I had to strap him down. But he ain’t had no drugs or alcohol in four days.” Dobber insists that his dad is changing and getting clean because of Liberty’s fight against the mine.

Language

  • Profanity is used in the extreme and is on almost every page. Profanity includes: ass, fuck, motherfuck, shit, hell, bitch, Oh my God, goddam bastard, and donkey balls.
  • Liberty’s cab driver won’t drive her all the way up to her house. She pays “him seven dollars, call him chickenshit under my breath, and haul my backpack and suitcases a quarter mile up the hill.”
  • Granny describes Liberty’s father. “Worthless piece o’ work ran his sorry ass out of town the same night Jess told him the news.”
  • On their way to the party, Cole looks over at Liberty and says “Shit, you’re probably freezing.” Then he hands her a blanket.
  • Dobber’s father calls Dobber a jackass.
  • Cole jokingly says he wants Dobber to go far far away and Dobber replies “Did I ask you, butthead?”
  • A girl warns Liberty about Cole. The girl says “He’ll shit on you just like he shit on every other girl he’s dated.” Liberty thinks the girl is a “bitch.”
  • Liberty calls her Granny an old bat and Granny mumbles “Old bat, my ass.”
  • At lunch, Dobber calls Peabody a ‘special kind of shit’ and Cole thinks that’s “bullcrap.”
  • “Oh my God,” Liberty exclaims when Cole tries to convince her the water is safe to drink.
  • After Granny is diagnosed with stage four lymphoma, Liberty thinks, “But my world’s far from perfect, and my one parent went AWOL, taking all my money and, with it, our only chance to escape this fucking toxic mountain.”
  • “What the hell?” Cole exclaims after Liberty punches him.
  • Dobber’s dad flips Liberty off when she leaves his house.
  • Dobber calls Mr. Peabody a “Mother fucker” when he sees him at the commissioner’s meeting.
  • After her speech to the commissioner did not go so well, Liberty says, “That bastard has the whole commission under his thumb!”
  • Dobber says his dad’s cancer, “sucks donkey balls.”
  • “Goddam Peabody” is a common expression used by Granny and Liberty. Liberty later adds to it, saying, “Fuck you, Peabody.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • For Liberty’s first meal in her grandmother’s home, she has to say grace. “God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food. By his hands, we are fed. Give us Lord, our daily bread. Amen.”
  • Throughout the book, Liberty goes to church. Liberty describes church saying, “But I like it. Even the sermon, which always lasted forever when I was little, flies by, and before I know it, the preacher is announcing the final song.”
  • Granny tries to calm Liberty during her X-rays, saying “Whatever happens to me, the good Lord says if you build your house on solid rock, you gon’ be okay.”
  • Liberty and her Granny are very poor and have to live off food stamps. She describes grocery shopping as recreating “the miracle of the loaves and fishes at Kroger today.”
  • After she is diagnosed with cancer and she starts experiencing intense pain, Granny “reaches for her Bible. As I close the door, she’s opening the book to random pages and reading whatever her finger lands on. I hope whatever she finds brings her some comfort.”

by Matthew Perkey

Hey, Kiddo

Not everyone’s family is the same. Jarrett learned this at a very young age. Most of his classmates had a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett’s family life is complicated. His mom is an addict who jumps in and out of his life. His dad is a mystery—Jarrett doesn’t even know his name. Jarett lives with his grandparents. Although his grandparents loved him, they could be very impatient and opinionated.

Now that Jarrett is a teenager, he wishes his life were normal. His grandparents send him to a Catholic high school, where he doesn’t know anyone. Jarrett’s trying to navigate a new high school, a drug-addicted mother, and new adolescent freedoms. Jarrett lives in a home where no one talks about his past, his parents, or his problems. Art is the only thing that brings Jarrett a sense of accomplishment. When Jarrett finally gets his driver’s license, he decides to confront his father and find his own identity.

Hey, Kiddo is a powerful memoir in a graphic novel format that explores the painful effects of drug addiction. Throughout the story, the author shares artifacts from his youth, including original letters from his mother and drawings he created when he was young. The easy-to-read format shows Jarrett’s narration and thoughts in burnt orange boxes to distinguish them from the conversation bubbles. The drawings appear in shades of gray with splashes of burnt orange. Although the drawings are not beautiful, they perfectly convey the dark tone, Jarrett’s hectic life, as well as show the array of negative emotions the characters feel.

Although Jarrett’s grandparents clearly love him, they are far from perfect. His foul-mouthed grandmother is often more concerned with her television shows than Jarrett. Jarrett’s grandfather is emotionally unavailable but teaches Jarrett about the value of hard work. The one constantly good thing in Jarrett’s life is his next-door neighbor and best friend. The two boys are completely different but stick by each other through difficult times. The story highlights that people do not have to be perfect to have a positive impact on someone’s life.

Many readers will be able to relate to Jarrett’s complicated relationship with his family. When it comes to his mother, Jarrett feels anger, hate, resentment, and love. One example of Jarrett’s conflicting emotions is when he has a hard time picking out a Mother’s Day card for his mom because no cards fit their relationship. Jarrett thinks, “Hallmark didn’t make cards that said, ‘Even though you did all of those drugs, you’re still a swell mom!’ or cards that read, ‘Hey, remember all that time you spent in jail and missed, like, every aspect of my childhood.’”

Even though Hey, Kid is a graphic novel, it contains mature themes and language. While the sentences on each page are short and simple, the words have an impact and highlight the harsh environment in which Jarrett lived, as well as the often frightening events in Jarrett’s life. The book ends with a detailed author’s note explaining more about his life. In the author’s note, Jarrett says, “Your childhood realities do not have to perpetuate themselves into adulthood, not if you don’t let them.” Hey, Kid is an impactful story that will make readers think about the true definition of family. Jarrett’s memoir is both heartbreaking and hopeful because it proves that circumstances do not have to define you.

Sexual Content

  • When Joe went on his first date with Shirley, they kiss.
  • Jarrett explains how his birth parents met. His mother met a man at “my father’s family’s bar. . . However they found each other, they did, and they managed to hide it from my father’s girlfriend. And then my mother got pregnant. . .My father backed off, claiming that the baby wasn’t his. Supposedly, his girlfriend started spreading stories about how my mother had been sleeping around, so the baby could belong to anybody. And sure, she had been sleeping around, but my mom knew he was the father as soon as I was born—I was white. All of her other boyfriends hadn’t been.”
  • When Jarrett was little, he walked into his mother’s room when she was in bed with a man. His mother yelled at him, “I told you not to come barging in here! Get back to your room!”
  • While watching the Price is Right, Jarrett’s grandmother watches a contestant go to the front, and she says, “Well this one looks like a tramp with her tits all flapping about.”
  • When Jarrett is getting dressed in the locker room, a boy laughs at Jarrett’s chest hair and says, “Nice chest vagina.”
  • A comic that Jarrett drew was printed in the newspaper. The comic shows two people getting ready to go into a dance. One boy’s quote bubble says, “Hey man, you got any protection?” The other boy’s quote bubble says, “What kind? Guns, knives, or condoms?”
  • Jarrett paints a mural of Napoleon, the school mascot. The light switch is on Napoleon’s private area.
  • Jarrett goes to a party where kids are drinking alcohol and one couple is making out. Someone yells, “Dude! Get a room!”

Violence

  • Two men show up at Jarrett’s mom’s house covered in blood and holding a knife. Although there are no words, the pictures show Jarrett’s mom helping the men clean up and dispose of the bloody clothing.
  • Jarrett’s hand gets stuck in an escalator, and someone pulls it out. The picture illustrates Jarrett’s bloody hand. His grandmother asks him, “What the hell were you thinking?” When he goes to school, Jarrett’s middle finger is sticking up in a huge bandage.
  • At a pool party, Jarrett and his friends put a flame to hairspray and accidently catch a stuffed animal on fire. They throw the stuffed animal in the pool.
  • Jarrett’s mother introduces Jarrett to her boyfriend. She tells Jarrett, “He had a tough childhood, watched his mother burn to death.”
  • After the cops show up at a party, Jarrett runs. Several boys see him walking and beat him up. A boy said, “You were looking at my girlfriend?” The fight is drawn over two pages. One boy holds Jarrett’s friend so he can’t help. Three other boys start punching Jarrett.” When Jarrett gets home, his grandfather tells him, “I told you nothing good happens after 11. . . This is what happens when you go ‘out.’ Now go to bed.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Often when Jarrett’s grandfather came home from work, “the front door would open and the smell of alcohol would fill the house.”
  • When Jarrett’s grandmother “was rally drunk” she used “foul language.” Once she tells Jarrett and his grandfather, “You are all a bunch of fecking assholes!
  • Jarrett’s mother was an addict, and “she’d steal anything to sell it for heroin.” Once, Jarrett’s grandfather sees a notice in the newspaper. After reading it, he tells Jarrett, “Well, if you were wondering where your mother has been, her name is here in the paper. They found her O.D.’d face down on the pavement.”
  • Jarrett and his grandparents go to a restaurant. Jarrett jokingly tries to order a “Southern Comfort Manhattan, gray with a twist, rocks on the side.” Jarrett says, “I had my grandparents’ drink order memorized. Ice on the side so they could fit more liquor in the glass.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often throughout the book. Although most of the characters use profanity occasionally, Jarrett’s grandmother uses it to the extreme. Profanity includes assholes, bitch, bastard, damn, goddamn, hell, holy crap, piss, fuck, son of a bitch, and shit.
  • When Jarrett’s mother found out she was pregnant, his grandmother “called her some terrible names.” Jarrett’s grandmother’s words are in large, orange letters and include: “goddamn mulatto baby! slut! You whore! prostitute! Hussy! Tramp!”
  • Jarrett’s grandmother calls her husband a “son of a bitch and a bastard.”
  • Oh dear God, for Christ’s sake, Jesus Christ, and Jesus, Mary and Joseph are used as exclamations often.
  • Jarrett’s mother was caught stealing, and she and Jarrett are taken to the police station. Jarrett’s grandfather tells her, “Les, you stay on this track and you’re gonna fuck up so bad that he’ll be taken into custody.”
  • A boy calls Jarrett a “wussy.” A different boy calls Jarrett a “faggot.”
  • While at the cemetery, Jarrett’s grandmother tells him, “And when I’m gone, I’m sure everyone will be saying ‘Thank god that bitch is dead.’”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Jarrett’s grandfather would go by the cemetery to see his parents, and “he always makes sure we stop and say a prayer for them whenever we are here.”
  • When Joe and Shirley married, their parents weren’t happy about the union. “It was a controversial union—Joe’s parents were Catholics who’d immigrated to the U.S. from Poland, while Shirley’s parents were Protestants who’d immigrated from Sweden.
  • Jarrett attends Holy Name, a Catholic high school. While at the Catholic School Jarrett is bullied by older boys. Jarrett tells his grandfather that “Holy Name is filled with a bunch of assholes.”
  • Jarrett’s half-sister asks if Jarrett will be at her first communion.

Far From the Tree

Grace always thought she was going to attend homecoming with her boyfriend, Max. All the pictures, suits, dresses, makeup, heels—it was supposed to be one of the happiest, most memorable nights of her life. However, after Grace gives birth to Peach, her and Max’s baby—Grace finds herself giving Peach away to adopted parents on homecoming night. After giving Peach away, Grace is desperately alone and decides to find her own biological mother.

As Grace searches through adoption paperwork for any information on her birth mother, she learns she has a biological sister and brother. Maya lives close by, but in a family where she feels she does not belong. After years of group homes Grace’s brother, Joaquin, now lives with foster parents. After a few awkward encounters at a local coffee shop, the three teenagers find out they have more in common with each other than they first thought. Together, they search for their mother, and along the way, they learn what truly defines a family.

Three diverse characters. Three diverse families. Three diverse storylines wrapped up into one magnificent book. Grace, Maya, and Joaquin are unique, well-developed characters each with their own problems. Grace feels alone in the world and finds it difficult to love. Maya feels as if she does not fit into her adopted family because her parents love their biological child more. Joaquin loves his foster parents but is scared to be adopted by them. Together, the three friends help each other cope with their problems. Their combined effort will show readers just how strong the ties of family and friendship are.

Although best suited for older readers, Far from the Tree paints a perfect picture of teenagers in modern-day society. Readers will feel as if they are one with Maya, Grace, and Joaquin and will empathize with them as they struggle against their inner demons. The siblings deal with a multitude of problems including racism, bullying, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, and mental health issues. The dilemmas the siblings face are authentic and will have readers in tears. Benway also dives into the problems that adopted children face and the bullying and torment they often encounter in school and foster homes.

Although the story is easy to read, the heavy topics, profanity, and sexual content make this book more appropriate for older readers. The three main characters each have a different perspective on the issues they encounter throughout the story, so every reader will be able to identify and relate to at least one of the characters and their struggles. Altogether, Benway creates a story of three teenagers against the world. Far from the Tree will tug on readers’ heartstrings and leave them with a new world perspective.

Sexual Content

  • Maya asks Grace if she had a boyfriend. Grace answered “yes,” and “Maya wondered if Grace was lying. Grace seemed like the kind of girl who would wait her whole life so she could lose her virginity on her wedding night, who would read Cosmo articles about How to give him the best blow job of his life! but never actually say the word blow job.”
  • Joaquin reminisces about the first time he kissed his girlfriend. He thinks, “The very first time she had kissed him, he had panicked at how soft she was, how hot her mouth felt, and he didn’t understand how someone with such cold hands could have such a warm heart.”
  • While eating in a sandwich shop, Rafe and Grace sit close to each other. Grace thinks that “no boy had been this close to Grace since the night she and Max had the sex that produced Peach, but she didn’t scoot away from him.”
  • After fighting, Maya and her girlfriend Claire decide to make out. “Maya smiled again, her teeth bumping against Claire’s mouth.” Maya says, “Because nothing’s more hot than making out behind the gym at school.”
  • When Grace accidentally falls in Rafe’s arms, “Grace knew what she was supposed to do in the TV-show version of this moment: kiss him. She knew what she wanted to do: kiss him. And she knew what she couldn’t do, not just yet.”
  • Maya asks Grace if intercourse with Max was good. Grace says, “At least tell me the sex was good. If you have to get pregnant and have a baby, the sex should be mind-blowing.”
  • After breaking up with his girlfriend, Joaquin sees her kissing Colin. Joaquin describes this encounter in detail saying, “They were kissing, Birdie’s long arm wrapped around Colin’s neck the same way that she used to wrap it around Joaquin’s. If he thought about it too much, Joaquin could almost feel the warmth of her skin, the heat of her mouth, the way she always smelled good, like soap and shampoo.” One of Birdie’s friends runs up to Joaquin after the encounter and insists that she is doing it to make him jealous.

Violence

  • When Maya was in third grade, Emily Whitmore explained how Maya’s sister would always be loved more than her because she is a biological child. Maya could still remember “Emily’s face as she explained the ‘facts’ to her, could still remember the sharp, cutting way she’d wanted to put her eight-year-old fist right through Emily’s smug little mug.”
  • After being harassed about having a baby with Adam, “Grace didn’t know what moved first, her body or her hand, but then she was flying over her desk like she was running the hurdles in gym class, her fist out so it could make clean contact with Adam’s face. He made a sound like someone had let the air out of him, and when he fell backward, his desk trapping him against the floor, Grace pinned him and punched him again. She hadn’t had this much adrenaline since Peach had been born. It felt good. She even smiled when she punched Adam for the third time.” Grace and Adam are both taken to the office, and Grace has to be homeschooled for the rest of the year. This scene takes place over two pages.
  • After going out for dinner, Maya finds her mom on the bathroom floor, “crumpled like a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, and there was blood coming from her head, staining the marble floor that was freezing cold under Maya’s bare feet.” Maya’s mom had fallen after drinking too much.
  • The siblings are meeting at a coffee shop when Adam appears and harasses Grace yet again for having a baby. “Maya was about to do something, say something, anything to release the pressure that she felt exploding her chest, when suddenly Joaquin was up and moving so fast that no one saw him coming. In one smooth motion, he had Adam up against the wall, his forearm pressed across his chest, and Adam looked wide-eyed and scared, a fish out of water.” Joaquin threatens Adam, and Adam never hurts Grace again. This scene takes place over two pages.
  • Joaquin discusses his anger management issues. During one of his temper tantrums when he was younger, Joaquin threw a metal stapler at Natalie, a toddler that Joaquin’s former foster parents, the Buchanan’s, loved. After it hit her in the head and knocked her unconscious, Mr. Buchanan let out a roar and grabbed Joaquin and threw him against a bookshelf, breaking Joaquin’s arm. “Joaquin could still hear the crack of bone, one white-hot pain replacing another, but nothing was as loud as the sound of Natalie falling to the floor.” This scene takes place over two pages.
  • Aunt Jessica describes a truck accident. The woman “was twenty-one, crossing the street, and she got hit by a trucker who ran a red light. He said he didn’t even see her. She died instantly, they said. She didn’t suffer. I worried about that, but that’s what they told us.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The night Maya got caught sneaking out with her girlfriend, Maya “had met up with Claire in the park, smoking a joint that Claire had stolen from her older brother, Caleb.”
  • Maya’s mom is an alcoholic, and Maya finds her hidden wine while looking for some costume materials. When Maya pulls boots from the closet, she thinks that “they were heavy when she pulled them out, though, way heavier than any boots should have been, and by the time she’d wrestled them out of the closet and into the bedroom, the bottle of merlot had fallen out. Maya looked at it for a long minute before reaching into the other boot and pulling out a half-full bottle of red zinfandel.”
  • Maya and Grace smoke a joint, much to Joaquin’s surprise. He asks, “Are you supposed to be smoking weed?”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes asshole, boobs, slut, idiot, damn, and variations of shit and fuck.
  • Oh My god is used as an exclamation often.
  • After Maya reminisces about being bullied for being adopted, Maya says, “Other kids could be real assholes.”
  • When they pulled up to Maya’s house, Grace’s dad whistled under his breath, and her mom said, “Oh my God, I knew you should have worn a suit.”
  • Joaquin realizes that he has two sisters and exclaims, “Holy shit.”
  • After breaking up with Birdie, Birdie’s friend Marjorie says, “You’re a real asshole you know that?” to Joaquin.
  • At school, Grace was called, “Slut, baby mama, Shamu – the list went on.”
  • When Grace sits down at her desk on her first day back, “Someone had carved SLUT into the fake wood desk, but she wasn’t sure if that was for her, some other girl, or just the product of some bored junior who had a limited vocabulary.”
  • Adam makes fun of Grace by saying, “Grace! Hey, are your boobs all saggy now?”
  • Rafe finds Grace crying in the bathroom after her fight with Adam and says, “Shit, I’m sorry, I’m so bad when people cry.”
  • When Grace asks Maya how school is going, Maya answers, “Sucks donkey balls.”
  • Joaquin likes “Ana’s no-bullshit approach to therapy.”
  • Joaquin thinks that his younger self was “a fucking idiot who fucked everything up.”
  • Maya says, “Everything is so fucking fucked up.”
  • Joaquin was scared of being adopted because he thought his birth mom would come back for him. He says, “It’s stupid, I know, it’s so fucking stupid. I was such an idiot.”
  • Claire freaks out after her parents question her about her relationship with Rafe, and says “If I can’t move forward and like someone and make friends and, God forbid, fall in love again, then I don’t understand why I gave up my baby in the first place!” She ends the argument by saying, “And you can tell Elaine from down the street that what I do is none of her damn business.”
  • After Maya continues to annoy Grace while driving, Grace says, “Maya, I swear to God.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Maya jokes with Grace about why she got grounded, saying “I snuck out last week to practice devil worship with these kids I met in a cornfield.”
  • Maya remembers how Lauren cried after her fish died. Maya “would still swear on a stack of Bibles that she hadn’t touched that creepy, scaly thing. Lauren was paranoid and a terrible fish parent, that was all.”
  • When Grace dips her fries in mayonnaise, Rafe says, “Mayonnaise, it’s the devil’s condiment.”
  • Jessica says, “Oh. Thank God ” after she learns that Grace has great parents.

by Matthew Perkey

Ghostopolis

Garth Hale is going to die, but he is still surprised when he is accidentally zapped into the ghost world by Frank Gallows, a washed-up Ghost wrangler. Frank doesn’t believe in himself, but he’s determined to fix his mistake and bring Garth home. But getting Garth home isn’t going to be easy. The power-hungry, evil ruler of Ghostopolis wants to trap Garth. With Garth under his control, the evil ruler can tighten his grip on the spirit world. While in the ghost world, Garth meets his grandfather, who promises to help Garth return home. With the help of a bone horse, his grandfather, Frank Gallows and others, Garth may just find a way out of the ghost world.

TenNapel creates a complex, interesting ghost world using comic-style illustrations that do an exceptional job showing the character’s emotions. Younger readers will enjoy the many multi-paged, action-packed panels that contain onomatopoeias like “shink, hack, putt, snuff.” The story contains surprising pockets of humor that will make the reader laugh out loud. However, many younger readers may not understand the historical reference to Benedict Arnold, which adds to the story’s humor.

The plot is not necessarily original, but the ghost world does have frightening, fantastic creatures. Integrated into the plot are lessons about not giving up, using your imagination, as well as the fact that children do not need to make the same mistakes as their parents. Garth meets his grandfather, who illustrates the idea that it’s never too late for second chances, even if you’re a ghost.

A man named Joe created Ghostopolis. Joe is similar to Christ, and although he is portrayed in a positive manner, his appearance in the story is random and does nothing to advance the plot. The story does contain a love triangle, and although the relationship happened before the story began, one of the characters comes to realize that, “Love is in the acts, not in the feels.”

Ghostopolis uses a creative story about the afterlife to focus on relationships. Younger readers will enjoy the spooky adventure that allows a boy to be friends with a bone horse. Older readers will appreciate the story as it explores family relationships. Ghostopolis will engage readers because of the easy-to-read text, spooky spirit world, and protagonist that they can root for.

Sexual Content

  • Claire, who broke up with her boyfriend, tells him, “If I had known what a slime you were, I’d have left you even sooner!”

Violence

  • A dog bites Frank on the nose.
  • When Garth gets to the afterlife, dinosaur skeletons chase him. The scene is illustrated over nine pages.
  • Bugs on four-wheelers chase Garth and his grandfather, but they are able to hide.
  • Bugs try to capture Garth, who uses his power to get away. During the fight, Frank tries to help Garth, but an old woman hits him. Then Frank’s friend hits the old woman, and a brawl begins in the street. The fight is illustrated over eight pages.
  • In order to save the boy from the bugs, Frank grabs him out of a flying vehicle. Grandpa hits the bug in the face. Garth eventually uses his power to whap the bug. The scene is illustrated over four pages.
  • A skeleton holds a sword against a woman’s throat and leads her away. Garth and Frank follow. The woman is not injured.
  • The story ends with an epic battle over 54 pages. The bugs attack and kill the bone king. The villain pulls a gun on Garth’s friends. In the end, Garth uses his power to defeat the evil villain, who flees and then comes back. The villain grows large and throws a man. He is defeated in the end.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Garth’s mother tells him, “Grandpa was a drunk.”

Language

  • Heck and crud are used once.
  • Frank calls Benedict Arnold a jerk.

Supernatural

  • Garth is accidentally zapped into the afterlife.

Spiritual Content

  • When people die and go to the afterlife, they go to a city called Ghostopolis, which was created by “A mysterious Tuskegee airman named Joe. He made every mountain you see, laying one chunk of sand at a time. He stacked every brick in Ghostopolis so that ghosts would have a place to live. . . Joe is a mysterious guy. Most of us have never even seen him. We only know him by the work he’s done.”
  • Garth meets Joe, who is helping people leave Ghostopolis through a crack in the wall. He helps the children, the widows, and the infirm go first. Joe will not take Garth through the crack, because “it’s not for you. . . yet.” Joe tells Garth, “I know a lot of things about you, Garth. And I’m rooting for you anyway.”
  • The afterlife has seven kingdoms—the bone kingdom, the mummies, the specters, the wisps, the zombies, and the boogeymen.
  • In the afterlife, people “get put back to our internal age. It gives us a chance to take care of unfinished business.”
  • After the villain throws a man, and when someone saves him, the man says, “Thank God!”

Anya’s Ghost

Anya just wants to fit in with the other kids. But, she knows that she’s not like them. She’s embarrassed of her Russian heritage, self-conscious about her body, and she only has one friend at school. After a particularly bad day at school, Anya distractedly walks home and falls into a well.

Anya didn’t expect to find a new friend at the bottom of the well, especially not one that has been dead for a century. Anya thinks the ghost is just what she needs to make her life better. But Anya’s new BFF isn’t telling the truth about how she ended up dead in a well. Can Anya trust her ghostly BFF or will Anya’s new friend turn into her worst nightmare?

Brosgal’s fantastic artwork brings Anya’s terrible teenage years to life. The illustrations capture Anya’s conflicting emotions and her angst as she navigates high school. After Anya’s family immigrated to America, Anya was bullied which caused her to turn away from her heritage. In order to fit in, Anya has learned to talk without an accent, as well as look like all of her classmates. However, Anya still struggles with making friends, she has insecurities about her body, and she is angry about life in general. Anya’s character is incredibly real—she is snarky, sarcastic; she sulks and sneers her way through life. Although Anya acts like many teens, she is not a role model. She’s rude to her family, unmotivated to do well in school, and sneaks out of class to smoke cigarettes. Despite Anya’s negative attitude, readers can still learn powerful lessons from the less-than-perfect teen.

Anya is self-centered and only thinks about herself. At first, when Anya meets her ghost, she just wants the ghost to disappear from her life. But when the ghost helps her cheat on a test, Anya thinks having a ghost around might not be so bad. Anya is so self-centered that she doesn’t even ask the ghost her name until the ghost becomes helpful. Anya also treats a Russian boy terribly. Anya doesn’t want to associate with the Russian boy at her school because he’s “fresh off the boat.”

The story also portrays teachers in a negative way. The teacher doesn’t notice when Anya sneaks out a classroom window. Another student complains about the P.E. teacher who makes them complete the physical fitness test because “he just likes watching us run around in these stupid skirts.” Then when Anya trips in class and the other girls jump over her, the teacher says, “Ladies! If we are all done losing ourselves in Anya’s derriere, we have a test to finish.”

Despite the negative aspects of the books, the story will make readers reconsider how they treat others. The story highlights the courage it takes for teens to embrace their differences instead of trying to blend in with the crowd. Anya’s Ghost uses real-life situations and humor to show how it feels to be an outsider. Anya wishes that she was skinnier, had more friends, and had a different last name. But thanks to Anya’s spooky, demanding ghost, Anya learns to appreciate her life, even if that means embracing her Russian heritage. Anya’s Ghost is comical, compassionate, creepy, and will engage even the most reluctant readers.

Sexual Content

  • Anya has a crush on Sean. She sees Sean in front of the school, kissing a girl.
  • When someone teases Anya, her friend tells the girl, “Hey, Katy, I heard about your nice moves in the boys’ bathroom today.”
  • Anya tells her friend that Sean talked to her. Anya’s friend replies, “Are you sure he wasn’t talking to your boobs?”
  • Anya fantasizes about kissing Sean. In the fantasy, the two dance, and then Sean says, “Oh Anya, let’s have an intense spiritual relationship for no believable reason.” To which Anya replies, “Oh, Sean, Take me away!”
  • To go to a party, Anya dresses in a short skirt and a low-cut shirt. When she looks at herself, she says, “this feels kind of slutty.” When Anya gets to the party, a boy tells her, “Your boobs look spectacular in that shirt.”
  • At a party, Anya finds Sean’s girlfriend outside a door. Anya can hear a girl giggling inside the room. Sean comes out of the room and briefly flirts with Anya. Then Sean tells his girlfriend, “Maybe a bit more of a signal next time, Liz?” Sean’s girlfriend reveals that the girl in the room is another boy’s girlfriend.
  • Anya decides she doesn’t want anything to do with Sean because “he’s upstairs making out with Amber.”

Violence

  • The ghost, Emily, tells Anya that she fell into a well and died, but “it didn’t hurt. But I couldn’t move or talk. I got very thirsty and then I died.
  • The ghost tells a story about how her parents were “very religious” and would offer to let passing people sleep in the barn. One man who “seemed like a good Christian” killed her parents. When Emily “woke up from a dream and came downstairs, he was standing over my parents’ bodies, ready to go upstairs for me.” Emily ran and fell down a well, where she died.
  • When Emily was alive, she had a crush on a man. When she sees the man with another woman, Emily killed them both. Emily says, “He said I was ugly! He broke my heart!”
  • The ghost tries to hurt Emily’s mother by turning on the stove burner and poisoning the food.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Anya and her friend skip class so they can smoke cigarettes.
  • During a conversation, Sean says that his friend gets “kind of freaky when he’s drunk.”
  • Anya goes to a party, where it’s implied that teens are drinking.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: ass, badass, crap, goddamn, and whore.
  • Anya’s friend tells her, “I heard about you down that freakin’ well for two days! That’s so badass.”
  • God, my God, and Oh my God are used as an exclamation frequently. When the ghost sneaks up on Anya, Anya says, “Jesus, Emily! You scared me to death!”
  • A girl tells Anya’s friend, “Screw you.”
  • When a girl teases Anya, her friend tells her, “forget about that whore, Anya.”
  • A girl says her brother said Sean was a dirtbag. The same girl says that Sean is a manwhore.
  • Anya says that Emily is “just a pissy cloud.”

Supernatural

  • Anya falls into a well and meets a ghost, who “can’t go very far from my bones.”

Spiritual Content

  • Anya falls into a well. When she finds food in her backpack, she says “Oh, Thank God.” Later, when someone finds her in the well, she again says, “Oh, Thank God.”
  • There is a picture of Jesus on the wall in Anya’s house. When Anya cusses, her mom tells Anya not to “swear in front of Jesus.”
  • Anya refuses to go to church with her family. When her mom tells Anya people are worried about her, Anya asks, “Because I’m sick or because I’m going to hell?” Later Anya tells the ghost that she doesn’t want to go to church because “orthodox church is weird.”

Every Moment After

After the gunshots were silenced. After the victims were buried. After the place of terror was torn down. Eleven years after the tragedy, survivors still grapple with the effects. Recent high school graduates Matt and Cole still deal with the guilt and questions. Everywhere they go, there are reminders of those who died. It is impossible for them not to ask, why didn’t I die? How can I move on?

Matt was not at school on the fateful day that his classmates were massacred. The fact that he was spared from witnessing the events has caused guilt to consume him. Matt obsesses over what would have happened if he had been at school that day. Did he cheat death? Was he actually meant to die? Caught in a downward spiral, Matt’s rash actions temp fate to take his life.

Meanwhile, after the shooting, Cole became the face of the tragedy because a photo of him being carried from the scene went viral. Cole would prefer to hide in the shadows, but now everyone recognizes his face. When people ask him about the shooting, Cole cannot give them answers. Even though he survived, he cannot remember what happened that day. On top of his amnesia, Cole is dealing with the recent death of his father and his mother’s depression.

Every Moment After is a gripping story that focuses on the survivors of a mass shooting. The story alternates between Matt’s and Cole’s points of view, which allows readers to feel the emotions of both victims. Written by a clinical psychologist, Every Moment After accurately explores topics of survivor’s guilt, grief, and changing relationships. As the two friends struggle to cope, they learn that “you don’t have to do it all at once. You just have to get through one breath at a time. One moment at a time.” However, both Matt and Cole sometimes find it difficult to move on, even one breath at a time.

In a time where mass shootings frequent the nightly news, Every Moment After explores a topic that many teens may have questions about. Matt and Cole are relatable characters struggling with questions about the past as well as their futures. As the boys take their first steps towards adulthood, their long-term friendship with each other is a crucial component in their journey. The boys’ friendship highlights the importance of having at least one person who has and will always love you, just as you are.

Every Moment After will leave readers thinking about gun control and the effects of mass shootings. It will take readers on an emotional, tearful journey, providing new insight and empathy for anyone who has suffered a great loss. In the end, the story makes it clear that “there are some things you can’t leave behind. They cling to you like cobwebs. They leave you with empty spaces. And the only thing you can do is to keep on going, as well and as gracefully as you can, without your missing parts.”

Sexual Content

  • Matt trades drugs with a boy. In exchange for the stories, the boy wants Matt to tell him stories about sex. Matt tells the boy about when he had sex with his girlfriend. Matt begins, “The first time, we were at her house. In her, uh, well, in her parents’ bedroom.” The description ends here.
  • Cole finds condoms under his father’s bed and wonders who they could belong to. He knows they don’t belong to the nurse because “she was pretty open about liking other girls and telling us all about her girlfriend.”
  • Cole uses a pseudonym when he submits poetry to be published. When he tells his friend, she says his pseudonym “sounds like the name of a porn star.”
  • Matt and Sarah go to the lake. Sarah “steps toward me, and before I can say anything or move or even take a breath, her lips are on mine. She still tastes like lemonade. . . before I can think of something to say, she kisses me again and pulls my shirt off and reaches for my belt, and by the time she’s pulling the Red Sox shirt off over her head and wriggling out of her shorts, I’m self-conscious that I’ve never been naked before. Even with Rosie, I kept a surprising amount of my clothing on. . .” Matt compares Sarah and Rosie and thinks, “I never wanted Rosie the way I want Sarah now.” Although it is clear that Matt and Sarah have a sexual relationship, the sex is not described. The scene is described over two pages.
  • After Matt stays the night at Sarah’s house, “I bend over and kiss one perfect nipple.”
  • A girl that Cole likes tells her about a conversation she had with an ex-boyfriend. She says, “It’s just that it’s a bit hard to really be comfortable with someone when they’ve seen you naked, isn’t it?”
  • Cole thinks about a girl. “I wonder where her bedroom is. I wonder how I could see her naked.”
  • Matt tries to figure out what story to tell about his ex-girlfriend. He thinks, “I mean, I only have so many of them. It’s not like Rosie and I were screwing every single day.”
  • Someone asks Cole, “Are you telling me that Matt Simpson is boning the daughter of the cop who’s carrying you in the picture?”
  • Matt goes into a bar and yells at an off-duty police officer. Matt says, “You want me to tell you what it’s like with her, Lucas? I know you think about it all the time. Because it’s nuts dude. I’ve seriously got scratch marks all up and down my back. You should fucking hear her. . . She always likes it on the living room floor, Lucas.”
  • Cole walks into his house and “the smell of weed overwhelms me.” When he goes into the living room, he sees two people. “One of them is my mother, and the other is a man with longish white hair. She’s leaning back, and he’s sort of half on top of her, kissing her.” When they see Cole, they are upset. The man leaves, while Cole and his mother have a talk.
  • Cole kisses the girl he likes. Cole takes “the final step, and before I have time to think about the blood in my mouth or about any of those other reasons that this is an unreasonable thing to do, I kiss her. . . I kiss her with my broken lip, and when I stop and step back, her eyes are closed.”

Violence

  • When a dog bites Cole, he yells, “Fuck you, you stupid little bastard. Fuuuuuuck you.” Cole is not seriously injured.
  • While at the lake, Matt and Cole come across some boys that are shooting garden gnomes. When one boy talks badly about Cole, Matt defends him. “Matt brings his left hand around in a wide, perfect swing. His fist arcs through the air, and in the moment before he strikes Ponytail’s face, I see the kid’s expression: surprise and fear, like a little boy’s. . . And then there’s a smack; I should be able to come up with a better way to describe the sound, but that’s exactly what it is, a loud smack of flesh-on-flesh, of Matt’s fist driving into the side of the guy’s face. . .” Ponytail boy falls down and the fight ends.
  • Later in the book, Matt thinks about the fight. “. . . Before I could even realize what I was doing, my hand had come around and made solid contact with Ponytail’s face, dropping him to the ground. I would have kicked him, too. Standing over him, I was lining myself up. I was going to break his fucking ribs. Crack them all. I wanted to kick him in the balls so hard they’d bust.” Matt didn’t do any of these things because Cole stops him.
  • When Matt yells at an off-duty police officer, the man hits him. “I’m on the ground before I know it; he drives down and I can feel the floorboards shudder as I hit them. My head snaps back, and there’s a burst of light in front of my eyes. He’s on top of me, his knee grinding into my groin, a flurry of punches to my chest and face.” The fight continues until Matt is knocked out.
  • When Cole gives his contact a bag of useless pills, the man hits him. “I never see Eddie’s fist coming; it catches me on my lower lip, and then I’m on my back in the grass, looking up at him, dazed.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Matt’s parents have a party where wine is served.
  • Matt wakes up in his truck hungover, and sees an “empty bottle of vodka is on the floor on the passenger side.”
  • Cole talks to a student who “reeks of pot.”
  • Someone offers Cole a bottle with vodka in it. Cole declines because “I don’t feel like vodka.”
  • Cole and Matt collect prescription pills in order to trade them. Cole collects his dead father’s pills and also fills an outdated prescription. Matt is able to get pills from someone he knows.
  • Matt injures his arm during baseball and the doctor gives him a prescription. Instead of taking the pills, he uses them to trade.
  • When Matt and Cole give their contact the drugs, there is a prescription for Percocet as well as other “good shit.” Later, Matt gives their contact another bag of pills. The contact gets angry because the drugs are “generic erectile dysfunction drug that was discontinued three years ago because it put people in the hospital with boners that wouldn’t stop.” The other pills in the bag are ibuprofen.
  • Cole’s mother is prescribed antidepressants after her husband dies.
  • When Matt goes to see a friend, he talks to the father and “can smell the liquor on him now.” Later when Matt goes to pick up the friend, the father’s “eyes are red-rimmed, and I can smell that the drink in the mug isn’t coffee.”
  • Cole and Matt drink a couple of beers while they are at the lake. Cole explains, “Dad left lots of beer in the garage. I doubt that Mom even remembers it’s out there, and she definitely has no idea exactly what and how much he had, so I can drink some whenever I want.”
  • Matt sneaks into Cole’s garage and gets drunk. When Cole finds him, Matt says, “It is your dad’s beer, Cole, and I apologize for drinking it.”
  • Cole has lunch with some people from school. One boy talks about a party where people were drinking and smoking pot.

Language

  • Profanity is used excessively and appears on almost every page. Profanity includes bitch, crap, crappy, damn, damnit, fuck, motherfucking, pissed, goddamn, hell, and shit.
  • My god, Christ, and Jesus are used as exclamations often.
  • A boy flips off a group of reporters.
  • When a boy is shooting garden gnomes, he yells “I’m gonna do it this time faggots.”
  • When Cole sees an ex-girlfriend, he acknowledges her because “there’s no point in being an asshole.”
  • While working on a class project, a girl tells Cole, “Holy fucking Christ, Cole, do I love Eliot.”
  • Cole says, “I’m sorry for being a dick.”
  • Matt calls someone a dick. Later Matt thinks he is being a “pussy.”
  • Someone calls Matt a “cocksucker.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Cole thinks that one reason that his mom is having difficulty grieving for his father, is because his parents were atheists. “. . . All of their friends were atheist too. Which is fine, but it’s not very good for dying.”
  • After the school shooting, one of the parents would invite the other kids to a birthday party for her dead daughter. “She says something about how Susie was watching from heaven and that Susie loved all of us.” Cole thinks, “no one’s watching anyone from heaven.”
  • A girl says her father is “an ardent conservative. He’d say that people will kill each other no matter what; you can’t regulate it away. That Cain killed Abel with a rock.”
  • Matt is drunk when Cole finds him. Cole thinks, “I hope to God he was at least a bit sober when he drove here.”

Paper Girl

Zoe hasn’t left her family’s Denver penthouse in over a year. Doctors continually tell her that her anxiety will get better if she takes little steps, but she knows that she can’t do that. That would mean going outside into the real world, and the thought of that is too terrifying to contemplate. It is much better to stay inside where it is safe, in a world that she constructs out of paper. Nothing can hurt you inside. Nothing can scare you.

Everything changes when her mom decides to hire a tutor for Zoe. But it isn’t just any tutor. . . it’s Jackson, a friend of her older sister Mae. Jackson is the only person from the outside world that Zoe wishes she could see. He’s the boy that she has been thinking about non-stop for a year. How can she let him into her world?

Zoe’s world is flipped upside down as Jackson enters her life and makes her realize that the world outside her door might not be as scary as it seems. The story doesn’t just focus on Zoe, but also shares Jackson’s perspective. Jackson faces many difficulties as he deals with homelessness, an alcoholic father, and the struggle of raising money for college.

Zoe and Jackson don’t realize that they have been communicating while playing online chess together. For over a year, they have been sharing their problems with each other. Online is the only place that they feel free to share their struggle. Will the two ever be able to connect in person? Paper Girl is a captivating read that sheds light on the diverse struggles of adolescence.

Paper Girl discusses mental health at length, as the main character has debilitating anxiety that restricts her from leaving her home. She often meets with therapists and doctors in order to grapple with her illness. Through first-person narration, the audience is able to feel her struggles firsthand, giving a vivid picture of life with a mental illness. Jackson’s father is also depicted as a rampant alcoholic, and although the audience never directly sees him in this state, it is referenced frequently. The characters face realistic hardships, which at times will disturb readers. However, Zoe and Jackson’s story also highlights the importance of having compassion for others who are trying to navigate life. The story does not only focus on the character’s hardships but also adds in a satisfying romantic plot.

Paper Girl is a delightful and easy read, making it an enjoyable experience for the audience despite having some heavy subject matter. The depth and relatability of the characters draw readers in, inviting them to enter Zoe’s paper world. The small details of the characters’ interactions and the sweet romance create an endearing charm that keeps readers on the edge of their seats, eager to see what happens next.

Zoe’s family is an integral part of Zoe’s journey, and although they are not always understanding, they truly want what is best for her. Another positive aspect of this story is that therapy is portrayed in a positive light.

Zoe’s journey is powerful, as she and the audience learn how to battle inner demons to live a fulfilling life. Beautifully written, Paper Girl is a must-read that has relatable characters who struggle with anxiety and are afraid of being judged by others. Paper Girl will evoke emotions of frustration and sadness, as well as give readers a message of hope.

Sexual Content

  • Zoe’s parents kiss in a scene, making her feel mildly uncomfortable. “Dad kissed Mom on the lips long enough to make me cringe.”
  • In Zoe’s fantasy world, she would “flirt with [Jackson] a little.”
  • Zoe’s fear of seeing Jackson was, “the equivalent of the naked dream.”
  • When Jackson’s elbow brushes Zoe’s, he thinks, “her skin was so smooth and warm and I wanted to touch it again.”
  • When Zoe thinks about Jackson wanting to get to know her, it “makes my whole body buzz.”
  • Mae teases Zoe about Jackson and says, “You think he’s hot and you want to kiss him?”
  • Mae kissed her boyfriend, Robert, “all the time, and even though I made faces, she seemed to like it.”
  • Zoe fantasizes about Jackson and thinks, “Jackson’s kisses were probably like his smiles. Overwhelming. Brilliant.”
  • In another fantasy, Zoe imagines that she and Jackson would walk around Denver. “He’d kiss me, right in the middle of the sidewalk. He’d slide his hand down the hem of my shirt, where a sliver of bare skin was exposed and—”
  • Gina, Zoe’s therapist, tells her a story of when she was in college and threw up on a guy’s shoes. “I offered to take him out that weekend, and though he didn’t want new shoes, he still went out with me. And we dated for a year.”
  • There is a scene where Zoe and Jackson stand on a balcony staring out at the night sky. During the entire scene, Jackson has his arms around Zoe’s waist.
  • Mae says that Zoe “has it soooo bad” for the comic book character Mr. Fantastic, and that he has “sexy glasses.”
  • Mae casually asks Zoe if Jackson is a good kisser. When Zoe says that she has yet to kiss him, Mae recommends that she, “pull him over to Mercury and say something about gravity not working or something then kind of fall into him. . . with your lips.”
  • Zoe and Jackson share their first kiss. “His found mine without hesitation. They were warm, like his hands, and softer than I expected. Gentle. My mouth parted, ready to say his name, but he took this as an invitation to step even closer, so his hand slid up my back and the other found my cheek with those same warm fingers.” Later, after trying again, Zoe says, “I was right, Jackson was a great kisser, and I never wanted him to stop.” They kiss several more times throughout the novel.
  • After they kiss, Jackson’s “fingers slid up my spine, making my world tilt.”
  • When Zoe tells Jackson that she wants to make a paper asteroid belt, he says, “Oh God, you make that sound sexy.”
  • While they are making out, Jackson is surprised when Zoe, “shifted in my lap to straddle my legs.” After this, the elevator unexpectedly dings, surprising them, and they hastily get up to look normal. Jackson “yanked down the front hem of my shirt to cover the effect Zoe had on me.”

Violence

  • Mae and her friends play a game when they watch horror movies, where they compete to see who comes closest to guessing the number of people who will die. Some of the movie is described. “She fired off another shot. The killer collapsed in a heap . . . In a last burst of unnatural and bloody vengeance, the Prom Night Slasher jumped on Alisha, using his bare hands to strangle her.”
  • Zoe worries that Jackson’s dad, who is an alcoholic, had “gotten violent.”
  • Zoe’s therapist, Gina, got jumped in college. “‘He had a knife. I tried to fight, but. . .’ She pushed aside her scarf to reveal a jagged scar that ran down her neck to her collarbone. ‘It almost killed me.’”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jackson’s dad is referenced many times as being an alcoholic and a drug addict. Eventually, he goes to rehab and gets his life back on track.
  • Jackson is homeless. His father still receives his mail and official paperwork, so he isn’t caught by social services, but “I wasn’t sure how much of that agreement Dad remembered, since he’d made it while working toward an epic high on heroin.”
  • Jackson thought his Dad had sold his clothes “for drug money.”
  • When Jackson’s Dad calls him for the first time in months, he grows suspicious and thinks of his schedule. His dad, “didn’t typically start the party until two a.m. First, a few beers, then tequila, and if that didn’t get him where he wanted, he’d hit the heroin.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the book. Profanity includes: damn, hell, crap, bastard, shit, holy shit, and dammit.
  • Jackson’s online chess partner was “kicking my ass.”
  • Zoe calls her math makeup homework “crappy.”
  • Jackson said that he’d been, “riding a ship through the shit storm of life with my father at the helm.”
  • Oh my God, God, and oh God are used as exclamations several times.
  • Jackson calls Zoe a “badass.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Filgas

Genuine Fraud

Imogen, the heiress of a wealthy New York family, has run away from her responsibilities to her family’s mansion on Martha’s vineyard. Jule is her best friend…or so she thinks. Jule is a social chameleon, becoming whoever she wants to be and getting rid of whoever is in her way. But does that include Imogen?

Told backward, Genuine Fraud tells the story of two girls and their intertwining fates as they navigate the adult world that they long to be a part of. However, this is no charming tale of growing up and friendship, but a dark thriller that takes the reader on mysterious twists and turns. The reader never knows who to trust as they delve deeper into the story. At the end of the story, the reader is confused by questions that are never truly answered.

Although the Genuine Fraud has an exciting premise, the story never quite lives up to the promised thrill. Instead of ending with a narrative payoff, the plot feels like it traveled in a circle. Because the main mystery isn’t solved, it doesn’t really matter what happens in between. At the end of the book, there are so many questions that were not answered that the reader will be left wondering why they suffered through to the end.

Fans of We Were Liars will be disappointed with the lack of charm and relatability of all of the characters. Both Jule and Imogen are not sympathetic figures, and they never connect with the audience. Although Imogen is constantly presented as “fun” and “bubbly,” she comes across as a spoiled rich girl running away from minor problems. Instead of creating unique characters, the characterization relies on overdone tropes and stereotypes.

This book is not suitable for younger readers as it is a thriller that uses a fair amount of profanity and violence. The main character Jule is constantly using brute force to get what she wants. This enables several disturbingly gory scenes that may be too much even for older audiences. These factors, combined with a plot that fails to fully draw the reader in, contribute to the overwhelmingly disappointing nature of Genuine Fraud.

Sexual Content

  • The head soccer coach at Stanford “was a perv… touching all the girls.”
  • Jule gets a ride from a bartender named Donovan, and when he suddenly becomes predatory, she wonders, “Was Donovan one of those guys who thinks a girl who wants a favor has to mess around with him?”
  • Jule describes herself as “brutal,” but says, “that’s [her] job and you’re uniquely qualified, so it’s sexy.”
  • When Jule tried to think of better times, she “remembered the feel of Paolo’s lips on hers.”
  • Imogen’s boyfriend, Forrest, is a main character in the novel, and they often kiss.
  • When Jule goes to Las Vegas, a woman asks her if she is a “working girl,” and tells her “don’t sell yourself.” Jule is not a prostitute but was just wearing heavy amounts of makeup.
  • When Jule was in an arcade, “two boys she knew from school came up behind her and squeezed her boobs. One on each side.”
  • When Forrest comes to Jule to find out information about Imogen who is missing, he asks her, “Did you want to sleep with her?”
  • Jule tells Forrest that she had three boyfriends during her time at Stanford.
  • Imogen thought she was pregnant and spent “all week skipping class and reading people’s abortion stories on the internet. Then one day I finally get my period.” Her boyfriend then broke up with her after she told him the news.
  • When confronted with a boy she had once kissed, Jule thinks she “didn’t need a guy, wasn’t sure she liked guys, wasn’t sure she liked ”
  • Jule makes out with Paolo. “He kissed her then, under the streetlight… He kissed like he couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else on the planet, because wasn’t this so nice, and didn’t this feel good?”
  • Brooke had “a series of boyfriends and one girlfriend, but never love.”
  • Imogen “hooked up” with guys while at college, making it hard to hold on to a boyfriend. These events are not described, just referenced.
  • Brooke goes to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with Lupton because she wanted to “get in his pants.”
  • Jule gets an email from Vivian that reported, “that she was in love with Isaac Tupperman and she hoped Imogen would understand because there is no controlling the human heart.”
  • Jule talks to a couple at a bar who are arguing over the movie Pretty Woman. The woman dislikes the movie because she says, “The perfect girlfriend is a whore who does ya for free. Disgusting.” The couple later discusses how Julia Roberts’s character is a sex worker.
  • Jule tells Imogen a story from high school when her track team had a “full-on naked battle, in the showers, three against one.” Imogen remarks that it sounds like a “prison porno movie.”
  • Imogen hires an attractive housecleaner named Scott. Imogen’s friend wanted him to “wash my grapes, strip down, and lick my whole body from head to toe.”
  • Jule goes to the grocery store and when she comes back, “Imogen and Forrest were naked, wrapped around each other in the swimming pool.”
  • Imogen tells Jule a story about when she stayed in London for a summer program and her roommates were “absolutely going at it on the floor of the kitchen one day, like fully nude and yelling. I must have walked in at just a major effing moment, if you know what I mean.”

Violence

  • Jule sees “a scar wound down her right forearm, jagged, like from a knife, not clean like from an operation” on a woman that she meets and thinks, “There was a story there.”
  • Jule believed, “the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.”
  • Jule creates a false origin story about herself in which her eight-year-old self finds her parents “in the grass facedown. Their bodies are crumpled and limp. The blood pools black underneath them. Mama has been shot through the brain. She must have died instantly. Papa is clearly dead, but the only injuries Jule sees are on his arms. He must have bled out from his wounds.” In this story, Jule is shot in the ankle and is taken to a specialized academy to be trained, similar to a spy. This is just a story that she tells about herself, and it isn’t actually true.
  • After feeling swindled by Donovan, Jule “brought her forearm up hard, snapped his head back, and punched him in the groin…. Jule grabbed his slick hair and yanked his head back…. He jabbed with one elbow, slamming Jule in the chest…. Donovan kicked out, hitting her in the shin. Jule punched him on the side of the neck and he crumpled forward….Jule grabbed a metal lid from one of the nearby trash cans and banged it on his head twice and he collapsed on a pile of garbage bags, bleeding from the forehead and one eye.”
  • Imogen had two marks on her upper right arm that, “the nurse at Vassar told me they were burns. Like from a cigarette.”
  • Jule spread a story saying, “Imogen Sokoloff had killed herself in that selfsame river, weighing her pockets with stones and jumping off the Westminster Bridge, leaving a suicide note in her bread box.”
  • When Jule was fifteen, two boys squeezed her boobs. In retaliation, she, “elbowed one sharply in his soft stomach, then swung around and stomped hard on the other one’s foot. Then she kneed him in the groin….When that boy bent over, coughing, Jule turned and hit the first one in the face with the heel of her hand.”
  • Jule murders Brooke, and it is vividly described. “She swung once, hard, coming down on Brooke’s forehead with a horrid crack…Brooke’s head snapped back….Jule moved forward and hit her again. This time from the side. Blood spurted from Brooke’s head. . . She got Brooke’s legs, which scrabbled on the ground. . . and lurched her up and over [the railing]. . . here was a dull crack as her body hit the tops of the trees, and another as she landed at the bottom of the rocky ravine.”
  • When Jule gets drunk, she tells a woman about a boy who threw a slushy in her face. She then, “brought up my knee and caught him in the jaw. Then I swung the shoe…. I brought it right down on the top of his head…. I hit him with the shoe, again and again…. He lay with his mouth hanging open…. Blood out his nose. He looked dead.” She didn’t actually kill him, but did cause serious damage.
  • Jule murders Imogen when they are on a boat together and get into an argument. “The paddle end hit Imogen in the skull. Sharp edge first. Immie crumpled…. She brought the board down on that angel face. The nose cracked, and the cheekbones. One of the eyes bulged and gushed. Jule hit a third time and the noise was terrific, loud and somehow final.”
  • Scott, Imogen’s housecleaner, kills himself. “He had hanged himself with rope from a beam high up in a neighbor’s barn. He had kicked out a twenty-foot ladder.”
  • Jule’s father, “bled himself out, naked in a bathtub.”
  • Noa, a private detective hired to find Imogen, discovers Jule at a resort in Mexico. Jule attacks her. “Noa’s head jerked back, and Jule swung the suitcase hard. It hit Noa in the side of the skull, knocking her to the floor… Noa hit the floor and scrambled for Jule’s ankle with her left hand while she reached toward her pant leg with the right…. Jule steadied herself against the wall and kicked Noa in the face.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jule hangs out at a bar in Mexico where she is staying at a resort and talks to the bartender, Donovan, about the drinks that he makes.
  • When walking through José del Cabo, Jule sees many American tourists who were, “all drunk and loud.” Many of them were “getting sloshed after a day of sport fishing.”
  • Imogen’s birth mother died by overdosing on meth.
  • Imogen’s father, Gil, died of a long-term illness and the characters often discussed how he had to take a lot of pills.
  • Jule had dinner in Vegas where she saw “a crowd of drunk guys [who] barged in talking about beer and burgers.”
  • Imogen asks Jule about the party scene at Stanford and asks, “With no beer and people being all intellectual?”
  • In the story that Jule creates about Imogen killing herself, she writes a suicide letter that says, “By the time you read this, I’ll have taken an overdose of sleeping pills.”
  • A drunk girl asks Paolo if he wants to get a drink.
  • Brooke’s death is seen as an accident. Paolo tells Jule that, “they think she’d been drinking. She hit her head and nobody found her till this morning… They found her car in the lot with an empty vodka bottle in it.”
  • Jule got drunk for the first time at the island of Culebra. “Jule’s drink arrived. She drained it and asked for another. And another.”
  • A man that lived on Culebra told Jule that he “had a little marijuana business…. I used to grow it in my walk-in closet with lights and then sell it…. But the cops busted me.”
  • When Imogen was in Culebra, she “drank a lot. She had waiters bringing her margaritas poolside.”
  • The people who hung out at Imogen’s Martha’s Vineyard house were, “funny and nonathletic, chatty and rather alcoholic, college kids or art students.”
  • Jule’s roommate, Lita, had friends that came over, “speaking Polish and smoking cigarettes.”

 Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel. Profanity includes: damn, hell yes, effing, fuck, dick, fucking, fuckload, and shit.
  • The hotel that Jule stayed at in Cabo San Lucas was a “bloody great hotel.” Jule frequently used the word “bloody” when she was pretending to be British.
  • Jule had, “watched a shit-ton of movies.”
  • Imogen calls herself and others an “asshole” a few times.
  • God and oh God are used as exclamations a few times.
  • Paolo says that it is “hellish” to talk to his mother on the phone.
  • Brooke’s roommate “bitched” because Imogen was in their room so early.
  • Brooke said that “Vivian was a huge witch to me.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual

  • Imogen is Jewish and “celebrated all the Jewish holidays and, when she grew up, she had an unorthodox bat mitzvah ceremony in the woods upstate.”
  • Shanna tells Jule that she “can have anything if you set your mind to it. You pray and you, like, visualize.”
  • A drunk man on a beach sings, “God rest ye merry gentlemen.”
  • When Brooke asks Jule if she is Jewish, she responds, “I’m not anything…I don’t celebrate.”

Pretend She’s Here

Emily can’t believe that her best friend Lizzie is gone. Every day she misses Lizzie now that she’s dead and her family has moved away. When Lizzy’s parents and her sister come back to town to visit Lizzie’s grave, Emily is happy to see them. Emily thinks that they are the only people who can understand her pain.

Emily doesn’t think twice about getting into the vehicle with them. After all, they are her second family. But soon, Emily realizes that Lizzie’s parents aren’t in town for a quick visit. Instead, they have come on a desperate attempt to bring Lizzie back to life. Soon Emily is trapped by the desperate parents, and she’s afraid there is no escape.

Pretend She’s Here is a unique story that has a major creep factor to keep the pages turning. The story focuses on Emily, who is kidnapped at the beginning of the book. Much of the story is told through Emily’s memory, which unfortunately eliminates much of the suspense. Emily’s large Catholic family is difficult to keep track of, and the many flashbacks of the seven siblings become confusing. There are simply too many characters to keep track of and many of them do not have a distinct personality.

Lizzie’s mom, Mrs. Porter, clearly wants to turn Emily into a replacement for Lizzie. The fact that Mrs. Porter’s family goes along with the plot allows the reader to see how desperate Mrs. Porter has become. However, Mr. Porter fades into the background, and readers will miss seeing how he fits into the family dynamic. The ending of the story is also a bit frustrating because Emily has so many chances to tell people who she really is, and yet she stays silent. At one point, she faints and is taken to the doctor, who sees many clues that Emily is in a desperate situation, but the doctor doesn’t act on her suspicions. Even though the author manages to make this unlikely scenario with the doctor believable, the ending of the book stretches the imagination too far.

Pretend She’s Here isn’t just a frightening kidnapping story; it also has themes of alcoholism, grief, friendship, and the power of forgiveness. While some readers may enjoy the kidnapping story, others may be frightened by it, especially because Emily is taken by someone who she considered her second family. Readers looking for a frightening story that examines the desperation that grief can cause will enjoy Pretend She’s Here. However, readers who are easily frightened should leave this book on the shelf.

Sexual Content

  • Emily’s friend says that she sees “stars” when she kisses her boyfriend.
  • Emily thinks back to her sister who would go up to the church steeple with her boyfriend “to kiss.”
  • Emily thinks about Casey and imagines “the feeling of his lips on mine.”
  • While at school, Emily sees Casey, and “all I wanted was for him to kiss me right there, that exact moment.”
  • While sledding, Emily and Casey’s sled crashes. They started laughing. “Then all at once the laughter stopped, I looked into his eyes, and he kissed me. The world fell out from under me, and I was floating in space, held up by Casey’s arms. . . His lips were soft and the kiss was hot, and I forgot I had a body and a life—and I was part of Casey and he was part of me.”

Violence

  • Emily is kidnapped and her hands are bound behind her back. She tries to escape. Emily “crouched as if about to bar, then used my legs as springs and smashed into Mrs. Porter, knocking her down, making her cry out. I turned and ran as fast as I could into the trees.”
  • In order to get Emily to behave, Mrs. Porter videotapes herself walking with Emily’s mom. Emily sees, “Mrs. Porter’s red plaid jacket and then, in her other hand, a knife with a thick, sharp silver blade. She made a jabbing motion.” After she watches the video, Emily “slapped her in the face as hard as I could, fumbled for the phone. Cloe (Mrs. Porter’s daughter) charged at me, clawed the phone out of my hand. We kept fighting for it, but then she shoved me.”
  • Emily sees her family and tries to get out of the car, but “Mrs. Porter wriggled between the two front seats and pulled my hair so hard my head smashed the headrest. She slapped my face. . . Mrs. Porter had now wriggled her way into the back seat beside me. Fingers still tangled in my hair, she tightened her grip, shaking my head, making every nerve in my scalp scream with pain.” Emily stops struggling when Mrs. Porter tells her, “I’ll kill your mother here and now.”
  • Mrs. Porter stops Emily from leaving. “I started to jump up. But she clawed my wrist, nails digging into my skin, pulling me back down. . . Then I saw the other hand. Her fingers were closed around the knife with the silver blade. . .” Mrs. Porter tries to kill Emily, but Emily “fought her. I hit her as hard as I could, heard my fist crack her cheekbone. I tried to kick her, but she’d leapt up from the bed, gripping my wrist, and my foot missed. She was waving the knife, stabbing the air, but I kept ducking, trying to pull away.” Mrs. Porter stabs Emily, who is rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone kidnaps Emily and gives her drugs so she will sleep. “A bottle clinked. I turned my head, saw her lift a small vial in front of her face, insert a syringe into the rubber cap to withdraw liquid, and lightly pump the plunger so a tiny clear stream squirted into the air. . . I felt the needle prick, then a slow ache in my bicep. Almost instantly, I felt light-headed.” Emily falls asleep.
  • Emily’s mother is an alcoholic, and Emily thinks back to a time when her mother missed her play because she was drunk. Emily’s mother, “had been sober over a year now. Since the last horrible fight that had sent her to rehab. . .” Emily thinks about her mom not being at the play, and when she got home, “I found my mother passed out in bed. The fumes left no doubt that there’d been alcohol involved.”
  • Casey’s mom was prescribed oxycodone. She became addicted and died of an overdose. Casey says, “One day she took too many. She never woke up.”
  • A doctor gives Mrs. Porter a prescription for Xanax.
  • While Emily is in the hospital, she is given Morphine which puts her in a “sick, sleepy twilight state.” She is also given opioids.

Language

  • Oh god is used as an exclamation twice; oh my God and OMG are used as an exclamation once.
  • Damn is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Emily’s family is Catholic and attends church. Emily thinks about all of her siblings’ names and how they were “Catholic to the max. My mom had gone to St. Joseph’s College; my dad had gone to Holy Cross.” She and her siblings were given saint’s names and were baptized. Emily thinks, “even though we skipped Mass a lot, we did our best. We believed in the sacraments and had all made our first communion and confirmations.”
  • Emily’s mother says, “By the grace of God, I haven’t picked up a drink since.”
  • Casey, who was blind, tells Emily about his mother. “. . . She never stopped hoping I’d be able to see better someday. . .I had the best doctors, but her real faith was in St. Anthony.”
  • When Emily is in the hospital, she thinks about her mother. “I prayed you wouldn’t drink. I just wanted everything to be okay.”
  • While Emily was missing her mother, she “tried to pray, but I felt there was no one listening. I couldn’t hear God talking back to me. The priest from All Souls Church came, but I told your father not to let him in.”

Losing the Field

Tallulah has always been the overweight girl no one wants to spend time with. She focuses on her studies, ignores the teasing, and bides her time until graduation. But when Nash, the boy she’s had a crush on for years, makes a joke about her weight, she becomes bent on revenge. Tallulah thought she and Nash were friends because Nash was the only person who seemed to be genuinely nice to her. After his teasing, Tallulah walks and walks all summer, losing weight and increasing her anger towards Nash, the boy who broke her heart. When her senior year starts, she’s the most attractive and revenge-bent girl in school.

Tallulah’s year isn’t what she expects though. Once Nash realizes his mistake, he and Tallulah become friends. Then they become more than friends. He is a brand-new person this year too, after a football accident leaves him with a permanent limp and he can’t play anymore. They find understanding and friendship in each other. They have to cling to this new relationship as car accidents, rumors, and inappropriate teachers all threaten to destroy their feelings for each other.

Losing the Field is a dramatic take on a tumultuous senior year of high school. The characters are easy to connect with, but at some points the plot and dialogue are overly dramatic. However, the plot does bring up important topics such as body image, bullying, substance abuse, and friendship. The main character Tallulah teaches readers that your outside appearance doesn’t matter as much as what’s on the inside, and she stands up for herself by telling the truth, even in a difficult situation.

This story is entertaining but predictable. The characters get themselves into hard situations because of misunderstandings and eventually come back together when they have learned the truth. Profanity is used often and is used to differentiate between the voices of Tallulah and Nash. The chapters are written in alternating perspectives and Nash uses expletives and coarse language in his narration.

The story does deal with a teacher who makes inappropriate advances on a student (Tallulah). Nothing beyond a kiss and words are exchanged, but it is presented as a serious issue. Tallulah does the right thing by telling the truth to the administration and voicing her objections to the teacher’s advances. The teacher is fired, though Tallulah decides to not press charges.

Readers looking for an easy-to-read book about teenagers in love will find Losing the Field a good read. Although Tallulah lost weight, she did it for the wrong reason—to get a guy. The story does hint that in order to be beautiful, you must be thin. Another negative aspect of the story is that the non-stop drama becomes hard to believe. While the book was about Tallulah and Nash’s relationship, this part of the storyline should have been better developed. It is also a misleading novel in its presentation; this book is not about sports. Nash did play football, but that is a minor plot point. Overall, Losing the Field is a quick, easy read for someone looking for a dramatic and action-packed plot. While Losing the Field is the fourth in a series, readers do not need to read the others in order to understand the plot of this book.

Sexual Content

  • Tallulah says to Nash that she can’t be late to class because she doesn’t want it to affect her college acceptance. Nash thinks, “Jesus she was serious. And it was sexy as hell.”
  • Nash’s ex-girlfriend sees him and Tallulah together at a restaurant only days after they officially broke up. Nash’s ex-girlfriend accuses him of being a player, and Tallulah gets upset and defends Nash. She says, “Oh, y’all just broke up on Tuesday? Was Hunter aware of that? Because the groping session that was going on in the hallway during second period Monday between the two of you made it seem you were perfectly available.”
  • Tallulah tells Nash that she knew Blakely, his ex-girlfriend, wasn’t right for him, but that his love life wasn’t her business. He corrects her and says, “Sex life, Tallulah. There was no love there.” Tallulah is embarrassed he said “sex” and when he realizes this, he says, “What if I say ‘blow job’?” He says this just to embarrass her. They share a first kiss after this conversation that is not described in any detail.
  • Before Nash heads to the sidelines of the football game, he kisses Tallulah. “Closing the distance between us, I slid a hand around her waist and tugged her close before placing my mouth firmly on hers. Just enough pressure to taste her.”
  • When Nash meets a famous YouTube vlogger the day after the football game, he asks him why he’s moving to Lawton. The vlogger says, “When your mother catches your father fucking your little brother’s college-age nanny in the pool, then shit happens.”
  • Tallulah and Nash go to his house to make out while his parents are at work. They kiss and take their tops off, but don’t go any further. “His eyes were locked on my chest. My breathing making it heave with each deep intake. . . He tugged me down on top of him, and I felt the rigidness under his pants as it pressed into my stomach.” Tallulah is nervous, and Nash says, “Tallulah, my pants are staying on. This is all I want. To hold you. I promise.” The scene lasts two pages.
  • A teacher and coach at school named Mr. Dace develops an inappropriate relationship with Tallulah. He asks her to help him with grading after school one day because she is his teacher’s assistant. While she’s helping him, he leans in and kisses her. “Coach D leaned in closer. . . (Coach D) closed the space between them.” Tallulah is shocked. “I jumped up, tripping. . . I had no words and wanted to leave just as his mouth covered mine. This was definitely not okay.” She runs away to the girl’s bathroom. Mr. Dace follows her to tell her how much she means to him and how much he loves her. Nothing else physical happens. This scene lasts four pages.
  • Nash’s ex-girlfriend is suspended from school. Nash “even told me about Blakely being suspended for being caught in the guys’ restroom giving Hunter a blow job in one of the stalls.” The guy was also suspended.
  • Dace makes advances on Tallulah again when she comes in early to help enter grades. She is uncomfortable being in his classroom with him alone. He invades her personal space. “It had moved past inappropriate now. . . He turned his head, and our faces were inches apart. . . He leaned in like he was going to kiss me again. . . I jerked my head to the side to miss his mouth and it landed on my cheek.” Tallulah runs out of the classroom, and the principal walks in to confront Mr. Dace after being alerted of the situation by a student who saw what happened. The scene lasts three pages.
  • Nash and Tallulah kiss after they reconcile at the end of the novel. “His palm touched my back and he pressed me closer. . . Then his lips touched mine.”

Violence

  • At school, a couple of girls get in a fight over the new superstar vlogger Haegan Baylor. The fight lasts two pages, is not described in detail, and is more drama than actual violence. “Pam had a handful of Julie’s red curly hair, and Julie was slapping the shit out of Pam’s face.”
  • Nash is in a car accident with Haegan. They are both extremely high after smoking weed. Their car collides with another car. Nash “heard the horn then. It was loud, the tires screeching almost sounded like screams. . . the clash of the vehicles slammed so hard my body jerked violently against the seat belt. . . His head was turned the other way, and he seemed limp. . . I shook his arm and his head fell forward, but not before I saw his eyes. Open and vacant. No life there.” Haegan dies in the crash. The scene lasts four pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Nash’s cousin brings Nash to a party after school because Nash has been feeling sorry for himself. It’s an effort to cheer him up, but all Nash thinks is how irresponsible it is to be drinking on a school night during the football season. Nash tells his cousin, “Stay focused. Get rest. Not drink beer for God’s sake.” Later during the party, the football coach shows up. He says, “if I call the cops, they’ll only care about the teens consuming alcohol and the smell of weed in the air.”
  • While walking towards the football field, Nash runs into a stranger smoking weed. The stranger throws his joint on the ground. Nash tells him, “This is Alabama, man. Pot’s not fucking legal.”
  • After seeing Coach Dace kiss Tallulah, Nash is very upset. He tells Haegan, “I need to get smoked.” They go to Haegan’s car to smoke pot when the chapter ends. In a following chapter, the scene picks back up. “Getting lit was probably the worst idea I’d had in a long time. . . We’d go to fucking jail if we were pulled over.” They continue to drive somewhere while high. It ends in a deadly accident.
  • While visiting Nash after the car accident, his cousin asks him if he has any beer. Nash doesn’t, saying, “My parents are being strict with that shit. Mom is worried I have a drug problem.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes Holy shit, shit, fucking, fuck, fucked, bullshit, ass, hell, dick, damn, asshole, shit, shitty, bitch, helluva, bastard, dammit, douche, douchebag, and motherfucking.
  • Ryker, a kid at school, said, “Damn, I hope she don’t wear swimsuits in the summer. No one needs to see that.”
  • After Nash calls himself a cripple, Ryker says, “Jesus, Nash, don’t call yourself that.”
  • After it surfaces that Mr. Dace and Tallulah were involved, a girl says, “You deserve this, you little whore.”
  • Tallulah is viciously bullied after the school finds out about Mr. Dace and her being involved intimately. Students write “SLUT” in red lipstick on her locker and call her various names. People tell her. “Go home, you whore,” “No one wants you here, slut,” and various other insults.
  • Jesus, goddamn, and God are all used as exclamations a couple of times.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Hannah Neeley

Fragments of the Lost

People blame Jessa for her boyfriend Caleb’s death, but most of them don’t know about the breakup. Instead, they focus on the day he died. The last time Jessa saw Caleb was standing in the bleachers during a track meet. When her good luck dragonfly necklace broke, she ran to him, handed him the necklace. And then he left.

Jessa knows that the teens at school aren’t the only ones who blame her for Caleb’s death. His mother thinks the accident was Jessa’s fault. But when Caleb’s mother asks Jessa to pack up his things, Jessa agrees. She’s hoping that it will help her work through her grief, take away her guilt, and lessen her depression.

But as Jessa begins to box up the pieces of Caleb’s life, every item she touches brings back memories. As the memories flood over her, she thinks that maybe she didn’t know Caleb at all. Each fragment of his life reveals a new clue that propels Jessa to search for the truth about Caleb’s accident. Can she put the pieces together to reveal what really happened on the day he died?

Fragments of the Lost, which is told from Jessa’s point of view, gives a unique perspective on the life of a person. As Jessa reflects on Caleb, her memories are mixed with other people’s memories of Caleb. Each person, each object, each memory shows a different fragment of Caleb, which adds mystery. The story is broken into two parts, with the second part ramping up the action. Although the ending of the story is action-packed, the beginning of the story is character-driven and readers must emotionally connect to Jessa or they will not enjoy the story.

The main part of the story is about Caleb’s death; however, Fragments of the Lost also gives a glimpse into Jessa’s home life, where she often feels overshadowed by her older brother. As Jessa recounts the past, she learns valuable lessons about love, life, and the importance of being honest with others. Although the story has mystery, the clues fall into place too easily which allows the readers to correctly guess what will happen next. This will not make the story less enjoyable for those who enjoy character-driven stories such as E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars. Fragments of the Lost will leave readers wondering what fragments they leave behind.  

Sexual Content

  • Jessa and her boyfriend kiss. The first time they kiss, Caleb “stepped even closer, so his body brushed up against mine. I could feel his breath, the tremble of his hand, smell the salt and sunscreen and summer air as he leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him back, my hands sliding around his waist. . .”
  • After a dance, Caleb and Jessa sit in the car. “My fingers on the buttons of his white button-down shirt. His hands on my bare shoulders when he kissed me.” Nothing else happens. Jessa and Caleb kiss 4 more times, but it is not described.
  • Once Mia’s sister walked into Caleb’s room and saw Jessa and Caleb. Caleb “was easing my shirt over the sunburn when the door opened. . . I yanked my shirt back down.”
  • The story implies that Jessa and Caleb had sex. Someone finds condoms hidden in Caleb’s room.
  • Someone catches Caleb in Jessa’s room when “Caleb wasn’t supposed to be in my room. We were only doing homework. And okay, his hand was on the small of my back, under my shirt, but still. Homework.”
  • Jessa wonders if Caleb talks about their sex life. “I had always thought Caleb was like me, keeping those details to himself. But suddenly I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t stand the thought—that I might be a secret, to be shared.”
  • As part of school spirit week, someone wrote on the school flag and “they’d added a line in black marker about their opponent. Specifically referring to how badly, and what, they sucked.”
  • While at school, Caleb and Jessa sneak into the “locker room to fool around in the ten minutes before their pregame warm-up.”
  • Jessa kisses a boy that is not her boyfriend. When he “finally lowers his lips to my own, I think I have never felt something so real.” Jessa contrasts how the two boys kiss. One boy’s “kisses more tentative, unsure. My first thought down by the riverbank, when he finally lowered his lips to mine, was frustration that he was pulling away and stepping back, until something tipped and he pulled me closer, our clothes cold and clinging to our skin, my body trembling against his. . . where Caleb was all anticipation and surprise.”
  • Jessa kisses Mas. “I close the gap between us, and I kiss him. I feel him smiling in the second before he kisses me back. His hand at the side of my face, his fingers in my hair.”

Violence

  • Caleb and his step-father had a fight. Caleb said, “Sean was hurting me. He was choking me.” Caleb’s mother pushes a man out the window, and he falls to his death.
  • While in a forest, Caleb’s mother finds Jessa and pushes her over a waterfall.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Caleb doesn’t answer Jessa’s calls she wonders if he had a hangover.
  • At a graduation party, “an ice bucket of cheap beer” went missing. The teens play beer games with it.

Language

  • Badass is used once.
  • Ass and damn are used twice. Jessa’s friends Hailey “could transform from ‘girl in a dress with red lipstick’ to ‘girl who can kick your ass in red lipstick’ in the time it took to slip on running shoes.”
  • Crap is used occasionally.
  • Oh God and oh my God are occasionally used as an exclamation. Jesus is used as an exclamation once.
  • Hell is used four times. For example, when someone grabs a paper out of Jessa’s hands, she gets a paper cut and says, “What the hell?”
  • “Dick move” is used twice. Jessa thinks about telling someone something “just to watch him squirm, but that would be a dick move too, so I don’t.”
  • A girl calls someone a jerk.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town

Nothing ever happens in Toby’s small Texas town. When Zachary Beaver comes to town, almost everyone is willing to give up their money to see the “fattest boy in the world” who weighs over 600 pounds. Toby and his best friend Cal try to befriend the boy, who says he’s been everywhere including Paris. Toby realizes that most people only see Zachary’s large size, not the sad boy underneath.

Zachary isn’t the only thing on Toby’s mind. Everyone seems to be leaving. His mother leaves home to chase her dream of being a country singer. His best friend Cal’s older brother is fighting in the Vietnam war. Toby doesn’t want anyone to know that his mom isn’t coming back, so he makes up a crazy tale. It is then that Toby realizes that he and Zachary might not be so different after all.

Set during the Vietnam era, When Zachary Beaver Came to Town gives the reader a glimpse into life in a small Texas town, where everyone knows everyone. Although Zachary Beaver is the main focus of the story, there are other subplots that weave their way into the story. Toby is dealing with teen love, his mother leaving, as well as his best friend fighting in a war and eventually being killed.

Even though all of the events are told in a kid-friendly manner, many younger readers will find the character-driven story less than exciting. The beginning of the story introduces many, many characters who are difficult to remember. Toby, who tells his story, is interesting and brings humor to the story. Even though the story is told by a 12-year-old narrator, the story deals with some heavy topics including feelings of abandonment, death, dementia, and forgiveness.

Readers will eventually fall in love with Toby and the community; however, readers who are looking for an action-packed adventure will be disappointed in When Zachary Beaver Came to Town. The story highlights the importance of not judging others and forgiveness. The ending of the story will leave readers in tears as it highlights the importance of striving to make your dreams come true. There is a reason When Zachary Beaver Came to Town is taught in schools—it gives readers a picture of the time period as well as teaches important life lessons.

Sexual Content

  • Toby makes a joke about Miss Myrtie Mae who wears a “wide-brim straw hat.” Toby says it’s to “protect her virgin skin.” Cal laughs, “That ain’t the only thing virgin about her.”
  • Toby talks to a girl he has a crush on. He thinks, “I want to reach for her, pull her toward me, and tell her it will be all right. I want to smooth her hair, massage her neck, kiss her toes. Instead, I wrap my arms around my knees.” They dance and then she “kisses me on the cheek.”
  • After Toby accidentally sprays himself with a girl’s perfume, someone tells him, “You smell like a French prostitute.”

Violence

  • Some kids start hitting Zachary’s trailing and yelling insults, so Cal and Toby throw rocks at them.  Toby’s “rock sails through the air and hits a perfect target. Mason’s hands fly to his porky bottom. ‘Ow!’ When Cal hits Simon Davis’s leg, Simon takes off crying, his hand pressed against his thigh.” Toby and Cal accidentally break a window.
  • Cal rides his bike to the lake, hoping to outrun Toby. When Toby appears, Cal kicked water in his face. When Toby doesn’t leave, Cal “slugs me on the arm. I still don’t move and he punches me again. My arm throbs in pain.” The two friends make peace.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the adult characters, Ferris, got a tattoo when he was drunk. “He said he got them the night he met Jim Beam. Cal thought he was talking about a real person until I explained that Jim Beam was whiskey and Ferris was drunk as a skunk when he got the tattoos. That was before Ferris met Jesus and got religion.”
  • While the townspeople are at a funeral, Ferris stays in his restaurant and gets drunk. He tells Toby, “Don’t ever start drinking, Toby. Next to money, it’s the root of all evil.”
  • Cal gets a letter from his brother who is fighting in the Vietnam war. His brother writes, “it doesn’t seem like anyone wants us here. Not even the people we’re protecting. They just want to sell us cigarettes, booze, and anything else we’re willing to put down our money for.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Before Ferris was hurt, he “wanted to be a preacher. He even went a semester to a Bible college in Oklahoma. Now he never goes to church, but Mom says he knows the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.”
  • Ferris owns a restraint and his “chalkboard hangs near the kitchen window behind the counter. . . Beneath the menu is the daily Bible verse. ‘It is an honor for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.’ Proverbs 20:3. Mom says some people wear their religion on their sleeves. Ferris posts his on the chalkboard.”
  • Toby includes Wayne, a boy who is fighting in the Vietnam War, in his nightly prayers.
  • Toby asks about baptism. Miss Myrtie Mae tells him, “The good Lord knows what state our mind is in when we make such a commitment. But it’s a wonderful commitment, Tobias. The Christian life is not an easy life, but it brings such joy. And of course, there is the gift of eternal life.” She then tells him the steps involved and hands him a paper with John 3:16 written on it.
  • Toby prepares to baptize Zachary, in case Ferris doesn’t show up to perform the ceremony. Toby reads the Bible looking for a verse. “But as I read the story, I forget about searching for verses. I read that Jesus goes to John the Baptist and asks to be baptized, but John doesn’t think he’s worthy enough to baptize Jesus. Then Jesus says, ‘Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’ So, John baptizes him.” Toby calls Ferris and tells him to read the verse.
  • Zachary is baptized. As part of the ceremony, he must agree to “take the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.”

Anger is a Gift

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Matthew Perkey

Neverwas

Neverwas continues the story of Sarah and Jackson in Amber House, who are not quite the same people. History has shifted thanks to Sarah’s successful rescue of her brother and aunt. As a result, this Sarah’s parents are happily married. There are other changes too, some good and some bad. Jackson’s aunt Ruth is dying. Hathaway’s mother never left him. Sarah’s best friend no longer exists.

The small changes Sarah understands, but there are deeper changes as well from farther back in history. The American Revolution failed. Nazi Germany won the war. North America is split into three countries, with Amber House located in the Confederate-like country where slavery has only recently been abolished.

How could saving her brother and aunt have caused such large changes to history? It makes no sense, and Sarah doesn’t want to fix it. She doesn’t believe that she can fix it. Together, she and Jackson start to unravel what happened—Jackson eagerly, Sarah unwillingly. Together they realize where history went wrong, and that it’s up to them to fix it, again.

Neverwas is a strong second book in the Amber House series. Though it lacks the beautiful imagery that made the first book a delight, Neverwas is based on an interesting “what-if” concept that will hook readers. The story explores what might have happened if the American Revolution failed, and the ripple effects it would have on world history; these changes keep the story interesting enough to keep the pages turning. The authors also did a wonderful job developing the alternate-Sarah. Sarah is still clearly herself, yet there are changes to her personality and how she views the world, changes that are there due to the fact that her parents are happily married, her aunt is alive, and other small alterations to her past.

This Sarah is not as likable as the Sarah in book one. The Neverwas Sarah is not as strong, she can be frivolous and clueless, and she would rather bury her head in the sand than try to change history again. But with Jackson and her brother urging her on, she does a commendable job of pulling herself up by her bootstraps, and in the end, she does all she can to rectify history and bring a better future. Overall, Neverwas has a theme of helping others, even when the cost to yourself may be great.

 Sexual Content

  • When a boy sees that he and Sarah are under the mistletoe, “his lips softly brushed my cheek.”
  • In an echo of the past, Sarah sees two people whose “lips met in a kiss that made me look away.”
  • In another echo, “A man had Maeve pinned against the wall. She was struggling to get away from him, but he had her arm twisted up behind her back. He kissed her. Hard. A possessive, violent gesture.” She is rescued, and tells him, “I should kill you, Ramsay. Just know if I ever see you on my property again, I will shoot first and swear you tried to rape me later.”
  • Jackson kisses Sarah once. “His lips met mine. Gently—so gently—but also fiercely. As if this belonged to him. As if he had waited for it. As if there was nothing in the world but that kiss. It could have lasted forever and it would have ended too soon. My first kiss.”

Violence

  • Deirdre finds a female slave who was “a tumble of limbs, her face battered and bloody.”
  • Sarah lives in an alternate world where Nazi Germany won the war and still exists. She is furious when a Nazi comes to her family’s Christmas party. “In seventy-five years, the Nazis had wiped out all the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled people in Europe.”
  • Jackson hits his head and has a seizure as a result. “He got to his feet abruptly, bumping his head hard against the mantel. He lifted his hand to his temple and brought away fingers wet with blood. Then his head jerked backward as he crumpled to the floor…his left arm and leg began to shake, and a trickle of blood oozed from his nose.”
  • A racist man asks Jackson, “What happened to you, boy? Half a lynching?”
  • Jackson and Sarah are attacked. “Jaeger raised a hand, and a blade into view. He stabbed it into Jackson. I saw the crimson of blood spreading all around the wound.” Sarah later shoots Jaeger. “Jaeger staggered back, sinking to one knee, his hand clapped to his shoulder. He brought his hand away to see; it was covered with blood.”
  • When a Nazi tries to stab a Jew, another man’s “hand came up and slammed into the Reichsleiter’s face…then [the Reichsleiter’s] face sank into the circle of backs surrounding him. The crowd seemed to swallow him. His protests ceased. The thud of blows continued.”
  • A man tries to kill Nyangu. “She reached out with claws and slashed his face…She grabbed the door frame and leapt up, jamming her bent legs forward to hit the Captain’s midsection with her heels. He doubled over, gasping, and she jerked loose, scrabbling up and away.”
  • When the Captain tries to kill her, Nyangu throws a sack of poisonous spider eggs at him. The spiders hatch, and “I saw tiny spiders swarming his face. Hundreds of them. More. They filled the claw marks down the cheek. They crawled along the lashes of his staring eyes.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sarah describes a bow of hers as, “hanging drunkenly to one side.”
  • A boy teasingly asks Sarah if she has “been sampling too much eggnog” when she spaces off.
  • In an echo, Sarah sees a man who “wavered slightly on his feet, and I understood he was drunk.”

Language

  • “God,” “Good Lord,” and other variations are used as exclamations frequently. For example, Sarah’s mother says, “Oh, my God.” Another time Rose exclaims, “Lordy, child.”
  • “Holy Jesus” is used once. A man says, “Holy Jesus, I just about lost my lunch looking at you.”
  • A boy calls himself a “git.”
  • “Damn it” is used twice. A sheriff yells, “Stop, dammit! You come back here.”
  • Sarah’s brother tells her, “You always get the crappy fortunes.”
  • “Bitch” is used in a poem once, referring to a dog. “A restless hound intent to make her bed…one chance there is to bring this bitch to heel.”
  • When a Jew calls a Nazi a murderer and grabs his arm, the Nazi says, “Unhand me, you filthy Jew.”
  • A news report in a Confederate-like state says, “The only known casualty is a negro youth who is presumed to have set the blaze.”

Supernatural

  • Sarah can see visions of things that happened in Amber House’s past when she touches items from its past, such as a doorknob or Christmas ornament. They are called echoes.
  • Jackson can see pieces of the future and different possible futures.
  • Sarah can feel where Jackson is, even when she cannot see him. She can use this strange sense of “Hotter, Colder” to find him.
  • Sarah finds an evil coin that a man used to change the future. “It seemed almost to squirm. My mind’s eye exploded with telescoping images…I felt possessed, attacked…violence surrounded them, every form of corruption, every kind of death, and I was drowning in it.”

Spiritual Content

  • Sarah’s family goes to a Catholic church service. The service itself is described very briefly; the morning is treated more like a social outing.
  • A girl says, “Merciful Lord” and “crossed myself to ward off evil,” when she finds a nearly dead woman.
  • A little girl says she doesn’t like the story of Pandora or of Eve from the Bible. Her grandmother says, “I used to think that too, Annie. But then I thought, what if we should be grateful to Pandora and Eve instead of blaming them? What if they did exactly what God wanted them to do—to choose choice itself? To bring change and chance into an orderly world.”
  • Sarah has her fortune told by a woman who says she is Catholic. The woman owns The New Dawn Metaphysical Bookshop and says, “Person can’t help it if she can see things other people can’t.”
  • Sarah’s aunt says, “Maybe God is an artist. He saw something deeper. And you must be here to help Him lay it bare.”

by Morgan Lynn

 Rogue Wave

Four thousand years ago an ancient evil destroyed Atlantis. This evil is stirring again, and it will take six mermaids—Serafina, Neela, Ling, Ava, Becca, and Astrid—to defeat it. The mermaids are descendants of the Six Who Ruled—powerful mages who once governed Atlantis. In order to defeat this evil, the mermaids must find the magical talismans that belonged to the six.

Serafina mourns the loss of her betrothed—the traitor who is working for the man who destroyed her realm. But Serafina doesn’t have time to mourn; she must research the location of the talisman and discover its hidden location before anyone else can. While following leads, she must avoid death riders, who have been ordered to capture her.

Neela travels to her home realm, Matali, to warn her parents of the impending danger. However, her parents don’t believe her outlandish story and confine her to her chamber so she can rest and recover. Neela needs to escape so she can find a talisman, which is in the possession of the fierce razor mouth dragons. As they hunt for the talismans, both Serafina and Neela need to rely on courage, cunning, and their allies. Can they endure danger, defeat death, and discover the secret locations of the talismans?

Rogue Wave, the second book in the Waterfire Saga, is full of action, intrigue, and a hint of romance. Even though the first book, Deep Blue, focuses on bringing the six mermaids together, none of the mermaids work together in the second book. Instead, Rogue Wave jumps back and forth between Serafina and Neela, as they both look for a talisman. Often one mermaid’s experience would end with a cliffhanger, and then jump to the other mermaid’s story.

Despite the interesting mermaid world, many of the events were extremely unrealistic. One minute Serafina is a strong, brave girl ready to face down evil, and the next minute, she makes rash decisions that make no sense. Instead of connecting with Serafina, some readers may find the whinny, impulsive mermaid hard to relate to. On the other hand, many readers will relate to Neela, who tries to cope with difficulties with eating sweets. Neela’s parents are more concerned with Neela’s appearance than anything else. Neela has been taught that as royalty, she must always look pretty wearing jewels. Readers will root for Neela as she tries to break out of her parents’ mold.

Rogue Wave continues the intrigue that began in book one. As Serafina travels looking for the talisman, she meets an interesting Spanish princess and is reunited with her betrothed. Serafina hopes to defeat evil and help her realm; however, she is unwilling to accept the obvious and naively ignores clues that prove some people plotted against her mother. Younger readers may enjoy the mermaid world and the intrigue, but more advanced readers will have a difficult time believing Serafina can become a strong leader. The conclusion of Rogue Wave reveals an important plot twist, and readers will want to read the third book in the series, Dark Tide, to discover how the other mermaids fit into the complicated plan of saving the mermaid realm.

Sexual Content

  • As part of a disguise, Serafina uses a spell to give her an enormous bosom. Serafina complained, “It looks like I have two sea mounts stuck on the front of me. . . All I can see is my chest.” Her friend says the goal is to make the soldiers focus on her bosom, “not the face.”
  • Mahdi and Serafina kiss. “And then she was in his arms and his lips were on hers, silently telling her who he was. Hers. Always. And for a moment there was no safe house, no danger, no grief. All she knew was the heat of his kiss and the feel of his heart beating under her hand.”
  • The ghost of a Spanish princess tells Serafina about a pirate trying to capture her. The ghost says, “I vowed I would not be taken. I was a princess of Spain, meant to be wife to a French prince, not a wench to warm a pirate’s bed.”
  • Mahdi tells Serafina that he has kissed another girl but that it meant nothing.
  • Serafina and Mahdi get married, and Mahdi “cupped Sera’s face in his hands and kissed her, and Sera kissed him back, forgetting there were others nearby.”
  • After Sera and Mahdi are married, as part of his secrete identity, he becomes betrothed to another.

Violence

  • Serafina goes to Atlantis, where the Opafango live. Someone warns her, “The Opafango eat their victims alive. . . while their hearts are still beating and their blood’s still pumping.”
  • Serafina ties a man up.
  • When a soldier comes into a room, Serafina threw a dagger at him. His arm was “immobilized because her dagger had pinned his sleeve to the door.” The soldier is uninjured.
  • A villain tortures people to get information. “Four days ago, he cut a finger off a child—a child, Sera—to make her mother tell him where her father was hiding. I saw him do it.”
  • Someone tells Serafina about the raids that have been taking place. “Some of the villagers must’ve tried to fight. There were bloodstains on the wall and floors of the houses. They scribbled notes and left them behind. Please tell my wife . . . Please help us . . . They’ve got my children. . .”
  • Death riders attack a safe house. Serafina uses a spell and “the explosion was instantaneous. The concussive force was so great, it shook the ground. . . she heard the impact of debris as it was flung against the iron and the bubbling and hissing of lava.” Someone tells her, “No one could survive a blast like that.” The scene takes place over two chapters. Most of the scene is running from the death riders.
  • Someone captures Serafina in a net, but lets her go when they discover she is one of them.
  • Someone tells Serafina about a man’s experiences with soldiers. “Traho’s soldiers beat him so badly, he lost consciousness. They left him for dead.” Someone found the man and took him to safety, but the soldiers “were rounding everyone up. . . My dad tried to fight them off, but they beat him up.”
  • The ghost of a Spanish princess explains how she died. A pirate “locked me in my cabin. He boarded his ship and gave orders to bombard my vessel. . . I can still hear the cannon shot. I can smell the gunpowder. I faced death bravely, as a princess of Spain must. . . Drowning is not an easy death.”
  • Neela and several others try to take a moonstone from a dragon’s nest. A baby dragon clawed her. “A swipe of pain across her back, sudden and blinding, made her scream. She dropped the moonstone. . . Blood rose from the jagged tears in Neela’s skin, curling through the water.” When Neela and the others try to leave the dragon’s lair, a baby dragon screeches and the father comes after them. The dragon knocks a girl down and “was advancing on her now, lashing his tail, baring his horrible teeth.” The group flees, and when the dragons follow, the mermaids lead dragons to a bloom of jellyfish. The scene takes place over 7 pages.
  • A woman “nodded at two of her guards and they sized the grand vizier. She drew a crimson-tipped finger across her throat and they dragged him away.”
  • During the introduction of the new regime, goblins patrol the crowds. A merman was “cheering halfheartedly. A goblin noticed, and punched him.”A human captures a mermaid and wants information. “His right hand was bloodied. Across from him was a mermaid bound to a chair with a rope. Blood dripped off her chin. Her head lolled on her chest. . . The mermaid lifted her head and spat out a mouthful of blood. Her lip was split. One of her eyes was swollen shut.” The man tells her, “I’d like to kill you, I’d like that very much. . . Unfortunately, I can’t. You’re valuable to me and you know it.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Serafina uses a potion to put a group of men to sleep.
  • Mahdi tells Seraphina about his partying and playing a beer game.

Language

  • Someone calls Serafina an “idiot girl.”
  • Serafina calls a man a “lumpsucker.”
  • Several times, someone is referred to as “sea scum.”
  • “My gods” is used as an exclamation several times.
  • Hell is used twice. Someone tells Serafina death riders are coming and to “Get the hell out of here.”
  • A death rider calls his companion a “dumbwrasse.”

Supernatural

  • Some mermaids have magic. “Magic depended on so many things—the depth of one’s gift, experience, dedication, the position of the moon, the rhythm of the tides, the proximity of whales. It didn’t settle until one was fully grown.”
  • Serafina and several other mermaids cast a bloodbind spell, which required them to mix their blood. The mermaids now share each other’s powers. For example, Serafina can now understand other ocean creatures’ languages.
  • Some ghosts live in mirrors. An unknown evil man tries to use the mirror to get to Serafina. He watches Serafina through a mirror, but “Long, jagged cracks, running through the glass like a network of veins, held him back now. The spaces between the cracks were too small to fit his body through but large enough for his hand. Slowly, silently, they pushed through the mirror, hovering only inches from the mermaid. It would be so easy to wrap them around her slender neck and end what the Iele had started. But, no, the man thought, drawing back.”
  • The ghosts, vitrine, that live in mirrors “stayed within the bounds of their own mirrors; others wandered through the realm. Some spoke to the living, others refused to. There was, however, one all were bound by: when a vitrina’s own mirror was broken, the soul was released from the glass.”
  • While in the mirror realm, Serafina meets Rorrim, who feeds off of dankling. Rorrim explains, “It’s a little piece of fear. They burrow into backbones. A few of them will infest a nice strong spine, and then as the bones weaken, more come. . . There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, as tasty as fear. Doubt is delectable, of course. Insecurities, anxieties—all delicious, but fear? Oh, fear is exquisite!”
  • Serafina uses a bloodsong, and “even after four thousand years, the blood came to life under Sera’s hand. It brightened as if newly spilled, then spun up from the floor in a violent crimson vortex. The mermaids heard a voice. And then another. And more. Until there were dozens of them. Screaming. Sobbing. Pleading. Shrieking.”
  • In order to create an escape route, Serafina uses a vortex spell to make pikes burst.
  • Several times throughout the story mermaids use transparensea pearls. “The songspell of invisibility used shadow and light and was notoriously difficult to cast. Spellbinders—highly skilled artisans—knew how to insert the spell into pearls that a mermaid could carry with her and deploy in an instant.”
  • Serafina meets the ghost of a Spanish princess. Serafina agrees to take the princess back to Spain. The princess took Serafina’s hand “and Serafina arched her back, gasping. It was as if the ghost had reached inside her and wrapped a cold hand around her heart.” When the princess got to an island off of Spain, “Her body glittered now, became a million points of silver light, and then crumbled into a fine, shimmering dust. As Serafina watched, the warm Spanish winds swept her away, until all that remained was the echo of her laughter.” However, Serafina was exhausted because “the ghost had taken too much from her.” Serafina’s friends find her and help her recover.
  • Orfeo appears even though he has been dead for four thousand years.

Spiritual Content

  • Morsa, the scavenger goddess of the dead, can change forms and practices necromancy, “the forbidden art of conjuring the dead.”
  • When someone dies, a priest places a white pearl under the person’s tongue to catch the soul as it left the body. Horok—the ancient coelacanth, the Keeper of the Soul—would take the pearl and carry it to the underworld.
  • When Orfeo’s wife died, he built a temple for Morsa and summoned the goddess. Morsa gave Orfeo power, and he sacrificed people for Morsa. At first, he sacrificed “those without families in Atlantis, those who wouldn’t be missed. Then he came for us. He came at night. . . Orfeo gave her death, and in return, she gave him her forbidden knowledge. It made him so powerful that he created Abbadon and declared he would use the monster to march on the underworld” and take his wife back.
  • When Neela finds a sweet, she says, “Oh, thank gods!”

Satellite

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language–

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

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

by Matthew Perkey

 

Ender’s Game

Earth has been attacked twice by the Buggers—aliens attempting to colonize Earth’s solar system. The whole world waits with bated breath for the Third Invasion and sends its best and brightest children to Battle School when they are six years old to be trained in strategy and warfare. Eventually, these children will become the pilots, commanders, and soldiers that will save the human race from extinction.

Ender is a governmentally approved Third child in a world with a strict two-child rule. He was allowed to be born in the hopes that he will be a genius like his two older siblings, but with the correct temperament for Battle School. The experiment succeeds, but Ender doesn’t want to go to Battle School. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He especially doesn’t want to leave behind his beloved sister Valentine, though he will not miss his psychopathic brother Peter. But Colonel Graff tells Ender that the world needs him, and Ender believes him.

What follows is Ender’s journey through Battle School, where his brilliance generates both respect and hatred from the other children. As the children study how to fight, Ender finds himself at the center of an immense web of manipulations, all designed to turn him into the Commander that Earth needs to defend itself. It doesn’t matter that Ender doesn’t want to kill anyone; it’s what he is good at and will become great at with the right push. And push him, they do.

Ender’s Game is a masterpiece, which is why it is required reading at many high schools. There is heavy content that is inappropriate for younger and sensitive readers: profanity and name-calling are used often, there are bouts of violence (including attempted murder), and there is a thematic question of whether cruel, immoral means are justified by an end that benefits humanity.

These masterfully woven questions will keep readers up at night, and readers will relate to Ender and his struggle to define himself. Is he a monster like his brother Peter? Is he a killer like the teachers want him to be? It is Ender’s emotional turmoil of self-loathing, loneliness, and despair that will haunt readers long after they read the last page—more than the aliens, the fights, and even the theological questions. Ender’s Game will leave readers desperately wishing that Ender’s life had not been so hard. Readers will forget that Ender is just an ink-and-paper boy from a story, and not the son, brother, or friend that they have fondly come to know him as.

Sexual Content

  • When Valentine says she has an oral exam at school, her brother says it could be worse. “It could be an anal exam.”
  • Dink says, “Hey, look! Salamander’s getting babies now! Look at this! He could walk between my legs without touching my balls!”
  • When Valentine is offered a weekly column in a newspaper, she says, “I can’t do a weekly column…I don’t even have a monthly period yet.” Later in the same argument, Peter asks her, “Are you sure you’re not having a period, little woman?”
  • When Peter is also asked to write a column, he says, “Not bad for two kids who’ve only got about eight pubic hairs between them.”
  • After a bully makes fun of another boy’s butt, “Look how he shimmies his butt when he walks,” the other boys start calling the bully, “Buttwatcher.”
  • One of the commanders “had programmed his desk to display and animate a bigger-than-lifesize picture of male genitals, which waggled back and forth as Rose held the desk on his naked lap.”
  • Ender jokingly calls his friend, “you circumcised dog.”
  • When the Buggers procreate, “each male in turn penetrated the larval queen, shuddered in ecstasy, and died, dropping to the tunnel floor and shriveling.”

Violence

  • Ender is attacked, and he beats the main bully thoroughly, to make sure no one is ever bold enough to attack him again. “Ender walked to Stilson’s supine body and kicked him again, viciously, in the ribs. Stilson groaned and rolled away from him. Ender walked around him and kicked him again, in the crotch.”
  • Ender’s older brother threatens to kill him. Peter “knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender’s belly just below the breastbone. He put more and more of his weight on Ender. It became hard to breathe. ‘I could kill you like this,’ Peter whispered. ‘Just press and press until you’re dead. And I could say that I didn’t know it would hurt you, that we were just playing, and they’d believe me, and everything would be fine. And you’d be dead.’”
  • A boy hits Ender repeatedly when they are on a space shuttle. “Just as the next blow was coming, Ender reached up with both hands, snatched the boy by the wrist, and then pulled down on the arm, hard…The boy sailed through the air, bouncing against the ceiling, then down against another boy in his seat, then out into the aisle, his arms flailing until he screamed as his body slammed into the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, his left arm twisted under him.”
  • Two teachers mention a prior student’s suicide in passing. “Everybody looks like Pinual at one time or another. But he’s the only one who killed himself.”
  • Ender plays a computer game that sometimes has gruesome deaths. One time, “the Giant cut him open along the spine, deboned him like a fish, and began to eat while his arms and legs quivered.” Another time, “He jumped at the Giant’s face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant’s eye. The stuff came away like cottage cheese, and as the Giant screamed, Ender’s figure burrowed into the eye.”
  • A commander slaps one of his soldiers. “Madrid stepped closer to the girl and slapped her across the face with the back of his hand. It made little sound, for only his fingernails had hit her. But there were bright red marks, four of them, on her cheek, and little pricks of blood marked where the tips of his fingernails had struck.”
  • Ender’s commander hits him after Ender disobeys orders. “Suddenly Bonzo swung at him, caught his jaw with a vicious open-handed slap. It knocked Ender sideways, into his bunk, and he almost fell. Then Bonzo slugged him, hard, in the stomach. Ender dropped to his knees.”
  • Ender and his friends are attacked by an older group of guys in the Battle Room. “Someone caught Ender by the foot. The tight grip gave Ender some leverage; he was able to stamp firmly on the other boy’s ear and shoulder, making him cry out and let go. . . the boy had hung on too well; his ear was torn and scattering blood in the air, and Ender was drifting even more slowly. I’m doing it again, thought Ender. I’m hurting people again, just to save myself. Why don’t they leave me alone, so I don’t have to hurt them?”
  • Ender gets picked on several times during Battle School. “So Ender got knocked down in the shower that morning. One of Bernard’s boys pretended to trip over him and managed to plant a knee in his belly.”
  • Valentine, “had seen a squirrel half-skinned, spiked by its little hands and feet with twigs pushed into the dirt. She pictured Peter trapping it, staking it, then carefully parting and peeling back the skin without breaking into the abdomen, watching the muscles twist and ripple.”
  • Bonzo tries to kill Ender. “Bonzo’s tight, hard ribs came against Ender’s face, and his hands slapped against his back, trying to grip him…instead of kicking, he lunged upward off the floor, with a powerful lunge of the soldier bounding from the wall, and jammed his head into Bonzo’s face. Ender whirled in time to see Bonzo stagger backward, his nose bleeding.” The fight takes place over two pages.
  • “Late one night [Ender] woke up in pain…He saw that in his sleep he had been gnawing on his own fist. The blood was still flowing smoothly.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Bastard” is used often. Peter tells his brother, “No, no, I don’t want your help. I can do it on my own, you little bastard.” Another time Colonel Graff says, “We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.”
  • “Hell,” “asshole,” and “ass” are used several times. Valentine says her older brother is “The biggest asshole.” Graff tells a teacher, “your ass is covered, go to hell.”
  • “Damn” is used a few times. Graff tells Ender, “I told them you were the best. Now you damn well better be.” Another time a student says, “I be the best soldier I can, and any commander worth a damn, he take me.”
  • Another student tells Ender to “kiss butts if you’ve got to.”
  • Variants of “piss” are used several times. One boy in the Game Room tells Ender, “Beating you…would be as easy as pissing in the shower.”
  • At Battle School, the boys’ slang includes frequent name calling. For example, Graff says, “Scumbrains, that’s what we’ve got in this launch. Pinheaded little morons.” Other variants include pisshead, fartface, etc.
  • “Son of a bitch” is used once. “I’m a pilot, you son of a bitch, and you got no right to lock me up on a rock!”
  • “There was a myth that Jewish generals didn’t lose wars.” The commander of Rat Army is Jewish, so it, “was often called the Kike Force, half in praise, half in parody of Mazer Rackham’s Strike Force.”

Supernatural

  • An alien race, called “Buggers,” invaded Earth’s solar system twice before. All of Earth is preparing for the Third Invasion.

Spiritual Content

  • When talking about how humans won the last war, Graff says, “Call it fate, call it God, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham.”
  • Graff says if Ender is not the one, “then in my opinion God is a bugger. You can quote me on that.”
  • After a battle, Ender saw that some people “knelt or lay prostrate, and Ender knew they were caught up in prayer.”
  • An admiral says piloting is “a god. And a religion. Even those of us who command by ansible know the majesty of flight among the stars.”
  • Speaker for the Dead is a book that became “a religion among many religions” on Earth. “But for those who traveled the great cave of space and lived their lives in the hive queen’s tunnels and harvested the hive queen’s fields, it was the only religion.”

by Morgan Lynn

 

 

The Host

Earth has been invaded and successfully conquered by tiny, worm-like aliens called “souls,” who invade the bodies of humans and take over their minds. The invasion is over, the souls have won, and only a handful of wild humans are left in hiding.

When one of those humans is captured, Wanderer is inserted into its body to report to the other souls what life this wild human led, and to discover if there were other wild humans with her. But when Wanderer enters Melanie’s body, Wanderer is shocked to find Melanie still conscious and resisting. This is Wanderer’s body now; Melanie should have faded away.

Melanie’s presence frightens and shames Wanderer, who feels weak at not being able to control her host body. But then Melanie’s memories start to seep in, memories of a human brother and a lover who are still in hiding, memories of what it means to be human. Wanderer starts to love these people who she has never met and longs for them. When the opportunity arises, will Wanderer destroy Melanie and sell out her family to the other souls? Or will Wanderer turn her back on her fellow souls and attempt to find Melanie’s family to taste just what makes humanity so special?

Many readers will want to pick up The Host because Stephenie Myers is the author. Even though The Host is considered an adult novel and has more advanced vocabulary than the Twilight series, the content level is similar to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. One area that may be controversial is that Melanie has a romantic relationship with a slightly older man; during The Host Melanie is 21 and her love interest is 29. However, there are many flashbacks to when Melanie is 17 and first met Jared, who was then 26. When she wants to be intimate, Jared initially says no because he does not want to take advantage of her. They do get together at some point after that, though their ages are not specified.

The Host is an emotional story that explores the bounds of love and examines what it means to be human. Wanderer is a kind, gentle soul who hates her host at first, but then grows to love her; Melanie is a spirited and sometimes violent girl who has learned to survive in the world the souls have created. Both Melanie and Wanderer have to set aside their preconceived ideas about the other species and find common ground. There is an array of characters who are all richly drawn and satisfyingly complex. The story contains enough danger to constantly keep readers on their toes. For readers looking for love, adventure, and an emotionally wrenching story, The Host is sure to delight.

Sexual Content

  • Jared kisses Melanie. “He kisses me again, and this time I feel it. His lips are softer than his hands, and hot, even in the hot desert night.”
  • When Melanie says she wants to share a room with Jared, he says that’s a bad idea because when he was stocking his place, “birth control was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”
  • Jared kisses Wanderer to test her reaction. “I think he just meant to touch his lips to mine, to be soft, but things changed when our skin met. His mouth was abruptly hard and rough, his hands trapped my face to his while his lips moved mine in urgent, unfamiliar patterns.”
  • The first time Ian kisses Wanderer, he “ducked in and touched his lips to my forehead.” The second time, “His lips were soft and warm. He pressed them lightly to mine, and then brushed them back and forth across my mouth. . . He caught my lower lip between his and pulled on it gently.”
  • After a soccer game, two friends are playing around. “She laughed, tugging away, but Wes reeled her in and planted a solid kiss on her laughing mouth.”
  • Wanderer and Ian kiss twice more, both described in similar fashion. When they kissed, Wanderer “shoved my mouth against his, gripping his neck tighter with my arms…Remembering how his mouth had moved with mine before, I tried to mimic that movement now. His lips opened with mine, and I felt an odd thrill of triumph at my success. I caught his lower lip between my teeth and heard a low, wild sound break free from his throat in surprise.”
  • When Wanderer and Jared kiss, “My hands knotted in his hair, pulling him to me as if there were any possible way for us to be closer. My legs wrapped around his waist, the wall giving me the leverage I needed. His tongue twisted with mine, and there was no part of my mind that was not invaded by the insane desire that possessed me. . . My hands fisted around the fabric of Jared’s T-shirt, yanking it up.”
  • When they agree to move into the same room, Wanderer thinks, “Ian and I would be together, partners in the truest sense.”

Violence

  • When Melanie is robbing a house, a man grabs her. “‘One sound and you die,’ he threatens gruffly. I am shocked to feel a thin, sharp edge pushing into the skin under my jaw.”
  • When Jared first kisses Melanie, “his lips come hard on mine…I jerk my knee up in a sharp thrust.”
  • Wanderer reads the headlines of an old human newspaper. There are stories including “Man Burns Three-Year-Old Daughter to Death” and “beneath this was the face of a man wanted for the murders of his wife and two children.”
  • When Jared first sees Wanderer, “his arm shot out and the back of his hand smashed into the side of my face. The blow was so hard that my feet left the ground before my head slammed into the rock floor. I heard the rest of my body hit the floor with dull thumps, but I didn’t feel it. My eyes rolled back in my head.”
  • A group of humans try to kill Wanderer. The struggle takes place over two pages. “His hands wrapped around my throat, choking off my air. I clawed at his hands with my useless, stubby nails. He gripped me tighter, dragging my feet off the floor.”
  • Jamie hits Jared. “There was a sharp crack, and someone gasped…Jared had one hand over his nose, and something dark was oozing down over his lips. His eyes were wide with surprise.”
  • Kyle tries to kill Wanderer; the fight is described over eight pages. “His hand locked on the back of my neck, forcing my face into the shallow stream…He fought to push me back into the stream, but I wriggled and wedged myself under him so that this own weight was working against his goal…He jumped over the smaller stream with a bound and carried me toward the closest sinkhole. The steam from the hot spring washed my face. He was going to throw me into the dark, hot hole and let the boiling water pull me into the ground as it burned me.”
  • Wanderer discovers that the humans tried to cut out one of the alien souls. “Brighter than these were other silver things. Shimmering segments of silver stretched in twisted, tortured pieces across the table…tiny silver strands plucked and naked and scattered…splatters of silver liquid smeared on the table, the blankets, the walls.”
  • Wanderer asks Jared to hit her face with a rock, to cover a scar. “It made a squishing sound and a thud—that was the first thing I noticed—and then the shock of the blow wore off, and I felt it, too.”
  • To fake an injury, Wanderer deliberately stabs herself with a knife. “I jammed the knife into my arm. The headrest muffled my scream, but it was still loud. The knife fell from my hand—jerking sickeningly out from the muscle—and then clunked against the floor.”
  • Ian punches Jared. “Ian’s fist struck Jared so fast that I missed the blow—I just felt the lurch in his body and saw Jared reel back into the dark hall.”
  • Melanie attacks Jared when she thinks he killed Wanderer. “He’s got my right hand, so instead of punching, I throw out a vicious backhand with my left, catching his face across the cheekbone. The force of the blow stings in the bones of my hand.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None.

Language

  • “Hell” is used a few times. When Wanderer remembers her host body’s death, she was, “sucked into the hell that was the last minute of her life.” Another time Jeb says, “How the hell would I know?”
  • “Damn” is used several times. One time Jared says, “Damn it, Jeb! We agreed not to—”?”

Supernatural

  • Earth has been overrun with aliens called souls, which take over the body of their human hosts. “The soul shone in the brilliant lights of the operating room, brighter than the reflective silver instrument in his hand. Like a living ribbon, she twisted and rippled…her thin, feathery attachments, nearly a thousand of them, billowed softly like pale silver hair.”

Spiritual Content

  • When Melanie asks Wanderer if souls believe in an afterlife, Wanderer says, “There’s a reason we call it the final death…We have so many lives. Anything more would be…too much to expect…When I die here, that will be the end.”
  • When a friend dies, Wanderer says at his funeral, “I hope your fairytales are true. I hope you find your Gladdie.”
  • A soul commits suicide. “Then his face went blank, and his body slumped, unresisting, to the cot. Two trails of blood flowed from his nostrils.”
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