Skinny by Donna Cooner

Pages: 260
Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens
Genre: Real Life / Social Issues
Notes for parents: Some mature scenes

The Back Cover

Hopeless. Freak. Elephant. Pitiful.
These are the words of Skinny, the vicious voice that lives inside fifteen-year-old Ever Davies’s head. Skinny tells Ever all the dark, unwhispered thoughts her classmates have about her. Ever knows she weighs over three hundred pounds and that she’ll probably never be loved, and Skinny makes sure she never forgets it.
But there is another voice: Ever’s singing voice, which is beautiful and strong but has been silenced by Skinny. Partly in the hopes of trying out for the school musical – and partly to try and save her own life – Ever decides to undergo a risky surgery that may help her lose weight and start over.
With the support of her best friend, Ever begins the long uphill battle toward change. But demons, she finds, are not so easy to shake, not even as she sheds pounds. Because Skinny is still around. And Ever will have to confront that voice before she can truly find her own.

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

First-time author Donna Cooner was a gastric-bypass patient herself.

What’s good?

Good pacing and an even flow make this Cinderella story a quick and easy read. The characters are well-drawn and likeable. I love how the main character, Ever, is deserving of sympathy but also held responsible for many of her worst moments. Ever’s inner voice, however, is the star as far as I’m concerned. Known as Skinny, she is a strong and imaginative character that represents a similar voice in all of us. Skinny is a powerful reminder that we are all, at times, our own worst enemy. I liked the eventual shift in Ever’s relationship with her step-sister Briella and the ultimate message it delivers. Although the parallels to the Cinderella story were sometimes a bit corny, it was entertaining.
Best part: Skinny.
 

What’s not so good?

Oh, where do I start? Be aware that what follows may contain spoilers!
The story is sadly predictable. Ever’s decision to have gastric-bypass surgery is a fairly easy one (the author alludes to Ever’s previous struggles, but never allows us to feel emotionally involved in those struggles), her success after the surgery appears quite effortless, and her resulting popularity and confidence are a direct result of her weight loss. Ugh!
Ever never deals with the reasons behind her eating disorder – her mother’s death, her loneliness, her lack of self-esteem. Her decision to have surgery is a cursory one and her motives are superficial – to get the boy, to go to the dance, to get the part in the play, to be happier. There’s no mention of physical or mental health. The story glosses over food as an addiction and presents surgery as a quick fix that doesn’t require counseling, education, family support, or any real lifestyle changes.
Worst of all, she loses all that weight only to realize that people didn’t dislike her because she was fat, they disliked her because she was mean, and angry, and not open to friendship. I didn’t buy that.
Worst part: The overall message

Recommendations þþooo

This was an increasingly common issue that was grossly oversimplified. We learn to pity Ever’s situation rather than understand it. We learn that that problems are easier to solve if you lose weight. We learn that fat people’s problems are mostly self-inflicted and the solution is for them to just change. There was great potential in this book to offer amazing insight into a world rarely visited, but unfortunately even the author suggests that you have to be skinny to be worthy of a story. Sadly, this was a miss for me.

Cooner, Donna. Skinny. New York: Point, 2012.

Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

Pages: 260
Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens
Genre: Real Life / Historical / Holocaust
Notes for parents: Many scenes of violence, cruelty, and suffering. For mature readers only.

The Back Cover
Ten concentration camps.
Ten different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.
It’s something no one could imagine surviving.
But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.
As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has and everyone he loves have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner—his arm marked B-3087.
He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could never have imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror.
Can Yanek make it through without losing his will to live—and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside?

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

This is based on the true story of Ruth and Jack Gruener. However, there is a disclaimer that reminds the reader that it is a work of fiction. The author says he has “taken liberties with time and events to paint a fuller and more representative picture of the Holocaust as a whole.”

What’s good?

Told with a detached, almost cold writing style reminiscent of Elie Wiesel’s Night, this disturbing tale of a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust is a heartbreaking reminder of man’s inhumanity toward man. The writing is simple and easy to read and the plot is straight forward and predictable all things considered. However, the content of Yanek’s experience is filled with cruelty and suffering which makes the ethical dilemmas he encounters and the moral decisions he must make heartbreakingly difficult to watch.
Best part: Crying over a toothbrush.

What’s not so good?

Almost 70 years after the end of World War II, the book market continues to be saturated with Holocaust stories. This one is really no different than any other. It’s a story of unspeakable crimes, amazing feats of survival, and the desperate struggle to hold on to one’s humanity in the midst of history’s most shameful human behavior. Sadly, I think many readers, especially young ones, are becoming desensitized to the horrors and are experiencing these stories more as entertainment rather than truth.
Worst part: None for me.

Recommendations þþþþo

This book is powerful in its simplicity and an excellent addition to the numerous stories that have been told about the Holocaust experience. It contains realistic scenes of violence and cruelty and should be read only by the most mature readers. Absolutely recommended.

Gratz, Alan. Prisoner B-3087. New York: Scholastic, 2013. (Hardcover)

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher

Pages: 227
Intended Audience: Teens
Genre: Real Life
Notes for parents: Some mature scenes, language, underage drinking.

The Back Cover

My name is Adrienne Haus, and I’m a survivor of a mother-daughter book club. For three of the four of us daughters, membership wasn’t voluntary. My mother signed me up because I was stuck in West New Hope all summer with my knee in a brace instead of going to camp with my best friend. CeeCee Christiansen’s parents forced her to join after canceling her trip to Paris when they found out she’d bashed up their car. Jill was pressured by her mother, who thought she needed to socialize more. Wallis was the only one who actually wanted to be in the book club. No one knew why.
We were all going to be in AP English in eleventh grade. But we weren’t friends. We were not a sisterhood, and we didn’t share any pants. We were literary prisoners, sweating and reading classics and hanging out at the pool. But, of course, that’s not the whole story.
If you want to find out how book clubs can kill people, read on. Here it is.

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

This is not a murder mystery, just so you know.

What’s good?

It’s a good premise with great potential. I love how each chapter begins with a literary term and that chapter demonstrates that term without disrupting the flow of the story. The setting is pleasantly quaint, the characters are interesting, and four girls being brought together by an AP book club is a fresh and original story. I enjoyed the brief book discussions and how Adrienne carried what she learned from the books over to her own life.
Best part: The beginning.

What’s not so good?

Ugh! The story felt so promising at the beginning, but, for me, it quickly crumbled into a pointless mess. The characters were intolerable. The moms are cookie cutter, Adrienne is bland, Jill is whiny and rude, CeeCee is flippant and selfish and pushy; and Wallis – the only truly interesting character of them all – is an awkward wallflower that is never truly developed. I could possibly have overlooked the horrible characters if the story was better, but the end seemed absolutely pointless! There was no resolution to the few interesting things that happened…<<spoiler alert>>…Who’s Adrienne’s father? How did Wallis get the scar? What was Adrienne’s mom’s big mistake? Why Utah and not Connecticut?...<<spoiler over>> I feel like I missed a chapter that explained all this. Or was I suppose to deduce something and figure out the answers?
Worst part: The drowning victim.

Recommendations þþooo

This should have been called The Boring Book Club for Unlikeable Girls. The book club discussions amount to almost nothing and the characters are not people I would want to be friends with. This is nothing but summer beach fluff. Read at your own risk.

Schumacher, Julie. The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls. New York: Ember, 2012.

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Pages: 233
Intended Audience: Teens and mature tweens
Genre: Graphic novel / Real life
Notes for parents: Some mature scenes

The Back Cover

Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school’s production of Moon over Mississippi, she can’t really sing. Instead she’s the set designer for the drama department’s stage crew, and this year she’s determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget. But how can she when she doesn’t know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that occurs once the actors are chosen. And when two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier.

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

The main characters are in the upper middle grades – 7 and 8.

What’s good?

This is a middle school drama with high school appeal. The artwork is fabulous – bold and colorful – and very expressive. The storytelling is excellent, with plots and subplots evenly paced and well executed. Characterization is phenomenal. Callie and her friends have real voices, personalities, and gestures that make the characters genuinely believable. The theatre theme permeates the story from beginning to end, and I love that it’s the play’s crew that gets prominently featured. (Anyone who has ever worked on a play knows that 85% of the magic happens backstage!)
Best part: I liked the fleeting romances, the quick-to-forgive friendships, the acceptance of ethnicities, obsessions, and orientations, and the broad-based, quick-paced dramas that are fairly typical of the age group.

What’s not so good?

Many of the reviews I read criticized the author for including too many gay characters (3?) in her story, but I think some people grossly underestimate the number of LGBT students in the average middle school – add to that the number of students who are questioning their sexuality and it’s way more than three. My only criticism would be that the story itself didn’t always feel age appropriate in terms of character maturity, but perhaps that’s just me underestimating the average tween’s capacity for maturity.
Worst part: None.

Recommendations þþþþo

There’s friendship, romance, humor, and the very typical kind of drama you find in the average middle school. The illustrations are well-done and the author is a master storyteller. The only reason I gave this 4 checkmarks and not 5 is because I gave her other graphic novel, Smile, a four and thought Smile was just a little bit better. I thoroughly enjoyed this fast and entertaining read. Highly recommended.

Telgemeier, Raina. Drama. New York: Graphix, 2012.

Ungifted by Gordon Korman

Pages: 280
Intended Audience: Tweens and teens
Genre: Real life
Notes for parents: Includes some pranks and bad behavior.

The Back Cover

The word gifted has never been applied to a kid like Donovan Curtis. It’s usually more like Don’t try this at home. So when the troublemaker pulls a major prank at his middle school, he thinks he’s finally gone too far. But thanks to a mix-up by one of the administrators, instead of getting in trouble, Donovan is sent to the Academy for Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a special program for gifted and talented students.
It wasn’t exactly what Donovan had intended, but there couldn’t be a more perfect hideout for someone like him. That is, if he can manage to fool people whose IQs are above genius level. And that becomes harder and harder as the students and teachers of ASD grow to realize that Donovan may not be good at math or science (or just about anything). But after an ongoing experiment with a live human (sister), an unforgettably dramatic middle-school dance, and the most astonishing come-from-behind robot victory ever, Donovan shows that his gifts might be exactly what the ASD students never knew they needed.

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

It tells you everything.

What’s good?

This is a good, light, easy-to-read classic tale of a fish out of water. In this case, the fish is Donovan, an average, goofy, distracted middle school boy whose impulsiveness leads to disaster. Luckily for him, a mistake sends him to a school full of overachievers. The characters are likeable, the plot is simple but engaging, and most of all, the message at the heart of the story is a good one – we all have something to offer, regardless of our IQ.
Best part: Noah.

What’s not so good?

It’s pointless to look beyond the surface of this story, because all you’ll find are ridiculous stereotypes. Noah has an IQ over 200 and he’s never heard of YouTube? Why have they never thought of naming the robot – isn’t it standard practice at these competitions? Schools for smart kids are clean and roomy with the latest technologies while regular schools are dumpy and dirty?
Worst part: Smart kids are not creative?

Recommendations þþþoo

It’s best to accept this for the light, entertaining read that it is and avoid analysing it too much. Recommended for a rainy afternoon.

Korman, Gordon. Ungifted. Toronto: Scholastic Canada, 2012. (Hardcover)

The Opposite of Tidy by Carrie Mac

Pages: 332
Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens
Genre: Real life; social issue
Notes for parents: Subjects include hoarding, lying, and divorce. Some coarse language.

The Back Cover

Fifteen-year-old Junie is barely coping. Her mother has started sleeping in the chair in front of the TV, and the house is so packed with junk, newspapers, cupboard organizers and other helpful items from the Shopping Channel that she can barely get in the front door. Her father is no help since he’s always with That Woman. To top it off, she’s failing math.
So when Wade Jaffre, the hot new guy at school, offers her a ride home, it seems too good to be true. Junie surprises herself by accepting—and even talking! She doesn’t have to think twice about directing him to her best friend Tabitha’s house, or about continuing the charade of pretending she lives there.
Tabitha and her mother are understanding—and willing to go along, for the moment. But as the weeks go by, Junie’s lies start piling up and the opportunity to tell the truth seems to slip away. Until the day Junie’s world—and her mother’s—is literally turned inside out for everyone to see, and Junie and her mother must face the consequences of her mother’s illness…and the lies they both told to hide it.

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

This was a White Pine Awards official selection for 2013.

What’s good?

Excellent characterization and good, even story-telling make this a compelling read. Besides Junie’s problem of her mother’s hoarding, there’s a myriad of subplots – her dad’s desertion, her step-mom’s culpability, Wade, the lies, the media, the big family secret, and to top it all off, Junie’s failing math – that keep things moving forward without overwhelming the plausibility of the main character. Junie has a lot to deal with and it’s heartbreaking to watch the choices she makes as she carries the shame of her families problems, knowing full well that the lies will catch her in the end.  
Best part: Tabitha—the ultimate best friend

What’s not so good?

I can’t relate to the level of lying that Junie achieves and while I believe a friend would help her lie, I found it inconceivable that her friend’s mom would be part of the deception, especially a lawyer!  I also found the behind-the-scenes look at the television show to be a bit disturbing.
Worst part: I didn’t like the end.

Recommendations þþþoo

Overall, I really enjoyed the story. It flowed nicely, and though it was fairly predictable in the larger sense, there were smaller twists and turns that kept it entertaining. The side story with Royce and Jeremy was well done and probably would have made a great story on its own. Recommended.

Mac, Carrie. The Opposite of Tidy. Toronto: RazorBill, 2012