Books o' the day
Jun. 6th, 2005 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonlunaSince ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
troutkitty is in Edmonton with the car, I'm taking the bus in to work this week. It's not too bad, one bus all the way up, and a five-minute walk to the bus stop on either end. It does mean an extra half-hour of travel time either way, which is why I usually drive. However, I think I'll be averaging two to three books a day this week, especially since I've been reading through some of the nominations for YALSA's 2006 Best Books for Young Adults.
Day One:
Order of the Poison Oak by Brent Hartinger (GLBT YA)
In this sequel to Geography Club, after starting a gay-lesbian-straight alliance at school, Russel's put up with a semester of being "the gay kid." When his best friend suggests spending the summer at camp counsellers, he's thrilled at the thought of being somewhere else. Where to start... there's the drop-dead gorgeous guy both he and bisexual Min have fallen for, and the fact that the first two weeks of camp are for burn survivors, who Russel's surprised to find can be just s obnoxious as any other ten year old. The metaphor gets a bit heavy at times, but it's fast-paced funny, and emotionally honest.
Flip by David Lubar (SF/F YA)
Even though thirteen-year-old Ryan and Taylor are twins, they couldn't be more unalike. Taylor (who, incidentally, is a girl) is the responsible one. She's organized, always on time, and at the top of her class. Ryan, according to their perfectionist father, can never finish anything. He takes off after any impulse, and never considers consequences. Therefor, when Ryan finds a misplaced cache of alien disks that temporarily turn you into famous historical figures, things can only get worse... The premise is goofy, the story, not as much as I thought. The biggest flaw is that a lot of the secondary characters are flat enough that they come across as caricatures, but it's still worth a shot.
The Boyfriend List (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs, and me, ruby oliver) by E. Lockhart (YA girl book)
Ruby's been having panic attacks lately--and wouldn't you, if in ten days you'd lost your boyfriend, best friend, other friends, did something shocking with by #15, something suspicious with boy #10, argues with boy #14, drank your first beer, lost a lacrosse game, failed a math test, and became a famous slut? Her parents send her to a shrink, who suggest she make a list of her boyfriends. Which expands to include crushes, etc, etc. And it might have ended there, except she tossed her rough draft into the trash at school... The text's peppered with all sorts of asides in footnotes, capturing a great voice for Ruby. It reminds me of Susan Juby's Alice, I Think books, only not quite so sardonic and satirical.
Annnd this headache is catching up to me, so I think I'm off to bed early tonight. Bleh.
troutkitty is in Edmonton with the car, I'm taking the bus in to work this week. It's not too bad, one bus all the way up, and a five-minute walk to the bus stop on either end. It does mean an extra half-hour of travel time either way, which is why I usually drive. However, I think I'll be averaging two to three books a day this week, especially since I've been reading through some of the nominations for YALSA's 2006 Best Books for Young Adults. Day One:
Order of the Poison Oak by Brent Hartinger (GLBT YA)
In this sequel to Geography Club, after starting a gay-lesbian-straight alliance at school, Russel's put up with a semester of being "the gay kid." When his best friend suggests spending the summer at camp counsellers, he's thrilled at the thought of being somewhere else. Where to start... there's the drop-dead gorgeous guy both he and bisexual Min have fallen for, and the fact that the first two weeks of camp are for burn survivors, who Russel's surprised to find can be just s obnoxious as any other ten year old. The metaphor gets a bit heavy at times, but it's fast-paced funny, and emotionally honest.
Flip by David Lubar (SF/F YA)
Even though thirteen-year-old Ryan and Taylor are twins, they couldn't be more unalike. Taylor (who, incidentally, is a girl) is the responsible one. She's organized, always on time, and at the top of her class. Ryan, according to their perfectionist father, can never finish anything. He takes off after any impulse, and never considers consequences. Therefor, when Ryan finds a misplaced cache of alien disks that temporarily turn you into famous historical figures, things can only get worse... The premise is goofy, the story, not as much as I thought. The biggest flaw is that a lot of the secondary characters are flat enough that they come across as caricatures, but it's still worth a shot.
The Boyfriend List (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs, and me, ruby oliver) by E. Lockhart (YA girl book)
Ruby's been having panic attacks lately--and wouldn't you, if in ten days you'd lost your boyfriend, best friend, other friends, did something shocking with by #15, something suspicious with boy #10, argues with boy #14, drank your first beer, lost a lacrosse game, failed a math test, and became a famous slut? Her parents send her to a shrink, who suggest she make a list of her boyfriends. Which expands to include crushes, etc, etc. And it might have ended there, except she tossed her rough draft into the trash at school... The text's peppered with all sorts of asides in footnotes, capturing a great voice for Ruby. It reminds me of Susan Juby's Alice, I Think books, only not quite so sardonic and satirical.
Annnd this headache is catching up to me, so I think I'm off to bed early tonight. Bleh.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-07 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-08 05:54 am (UTC)He's written another one, The Last-Chance Texaco, about a girl in a foster home, that's also good. It's not a GLBT one, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-08 08:35 pm (UTC)Okay. That's good to know.
He's written another one, The Last-Chance Texaco, about a girl in a foster home, that's also good. It's not a GLBT one, though.
Yeah, I saw the Texaco book (and ascertained that it was unrelated to the other two) when I searched my library catalog for the Poison Oak book. I might check it out later.