Return of the Obligatory YA Book Blurbs
Jul. 27th, 2004 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonlunaDoing data entry for the next two weeks. Thhhbt. HowEVER, the company's internet use policy does not object to personal internet use as long as it doesn't interfere with productivity. Seeing as I'm trying to balance getting this done with making sure it does last me to the end of next week, and also save my wrists from massive RSI doing nothing but numerical entry I feel justified in taking a few minutes to catch up on some of my book blurbs. (And dear god, let some of those job applications pan out so I can actually get back to doing something in my field...)
Son of the Mob 2 - the Hollywood Hustle by Gordon Korman
Mwaha. It doesn't come out until October, but I've borrowed an advance reader's copy from a friend. When last we saw Vince Luca, things were looking up for him. He had the girl (despite the fact that he's the son of a mob boss, and Kendra's the daughter of the FBI agent sworn to track him down--and that they bonded over catching lice at the same party.) Vince has never wanted anything to do with the family's... er.. vending machine business, and is on his way to film school in L.A.--as far across the country as he can get from his family in New York. What could go wrong? Well, his roomate is the son of a congressman. And a kleptomaniac. Kendra spends all her time working with his upstairs neighbour on HIS film project, a biblical comedy. Then not only his brother, but his many "uncles" all show up on his doorstep bearing his mother's home-made pasta, and Vince doesn't believe for a minute that they're just sight-seeing. (Mobsters... in sombreros... making margaritas with his roomate's purloined blender... sure...) Of course, since this is Korman at his best, there is much confusion and hilarity ensues.
Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan
The story of a young girl growing up in rural Communist China. When Chu Ju's mother gives birth to another girl instead of the hoped-for boy, her grandmother declares that they will give the baby away to an orphanage, as the family can't afford the exhorbitant fines they'd need to pay in order to have a third child, trying again for a son. Attempting to keep her mother from becoming attached to baby Hua, Chu Ju's grandmother appoints her the baby's caregiver. Chu Ju can't bear the thought of giving up Hua to an orphanage, and decides that if there can only be one girl in the family, then she should leave. She runs away from home, and sets her hand to various things, including a stint with a fishing family, tending silk worms, and ends up staying with an elderly farm woman. Not as nearly depressing as it sounds--Gloria Whelan's got a deft touch. It's more about Chu Ju's own growth and the juxtaposition of tradition and innovation in rural China than an adventure novel, but is a fairly quick read for all that. Engaging, but not quite as good as Homeless Bird (also by Whelan), about a young girl entering into an arranged marriage in India.
For something more mature on the subject, try Throwaway Daughter by Ting-Xing Ye and William Bell, about a young woman adopted from a Chinese orphanage by Canadian parents. She's adamantly opposed to having anything to do with her Chinese heritage despite her well-meaning parents' attempts, until she witnesses the Tiananmen Square massacre, and later returns to China to try to track down her birth parents. Despite being nominated for Best Books for Young Adults, it reads like adult fiction to me, especially with the complexity of the narrative (multiple POVs and timeshifts--but it's not as confusing as it sounds). Adjectives include lyrical, bittersweet and Canadian.
Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins
Jasmine (Jazz) is leaving a lot behind to go to India for the sumemr with her parents. She's got a lucrative business taking photos of tourists, and a best friend and business partner that she's secretly been in love with for a while now. But her parents, ever altruistic, have a grant to work at the orphanage in Pune where her mother grew up. Immersed in the steamy weather of monsoon season, Jazz faces Indian private school, an evolving long-distance relationship, charity and caste systems. Jazz is an immensely likable protagonist, even when she's feeling sorry for herself, and the tangible detail of moonsoon season in India combined with a complex, engaging cast of characters makes this one book I'd recommend to anyone who wants something with more depth than Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, but none of the grinding despair of most of the latest crop of teen realism.
Montmorency, Thief, Liar, Gentleman by Eleanor Updale
The latest in a growing number of Victorian historical YA books. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Not a chance. The protagonist is a petty thief. Upon pursuit by the police, he crashed through a skylight, and was patched back together by a physician with something to prove. He's been the showpiece in a never-ending whirl of academic lectures for the past few years, and his jail time is nearly up. One lecture in particular caught his interest-- the one on London's brand-new sewer system. He's nothing if not ambitious--this is going to be his ticket to a career as a master thief. And while he's at it, he sets out to forge himself a new identity as the gentleman Montmorency. Fast-paced and fun.
Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril, and Romance by Marthe Jocelyn
1901, Stratford, Ontario. Mable Riley has been sent off with her sister, Viola, to accompany her to her first teaching post. Mable hopes for excitement and romance, and despite the drag of daily chores and sibling rivalry, finds adventure when she befriends the eccentric Mrs. Rattle and her Ladies Reading Society. For bloomer-clad Mrs. Rattle is a real writer and her reading group are actually (gasp!) suffragists! Women's rights, a mill strike, and Mable's first kiss are all told through Mable's diary, letters home, and the poems she writes for Viola's classes. Comparisons to Anne of Green Gables are inevitable and deserved. Fun, irreverent, and anything but didactic.
More later, as I try to remember what else I've read recently. Fanfic recs coming, too... but perhaps I should post those from home.
Son of the Mob 2 - the Hollywood Hustle by Gordon Korman
Mwaha. It doesn't come out until October, but I've borrowed an advance reader's copy from a friend. When last we saw Vince Luca, things were looking up for him. He had the girl (despite the fact that he's the son of a mob boss, and Kendra's the daughter of the FBI agent sworn to track him down--and that they bonded over catching lice at the same party.) Vince has never wanted anything to do with the family's... er.. vending machine business, and is on his way to film school in L.A.--as far across the country as he can get from his family in New York. What could go wrong? Well, his roomate is the son of a congressman. And a kleptomaniac. Kendra spends all her time working with his upstairs neighbour on HIS film project, a biblical comedy. Then not only his brother, but his many "uncles" all show up on his doorstep bearing his mother's home-made pasta, and Vince doesn't believe for a minute that they're just sight-seeing. (Mobsters... in sombreros... making margaritas with his roomate's purloined blender... sure...) Of course, since this is Korman at his best, there is much confusion and hilarity ensues.
Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan
The story of a young girl growing up in rural Communist China. When Chu Ju's mother gives birth to another girl instead of the hoped-for boy, her grandmother declares that they will give the baby away to an orphanage, as the family can't afford the exhorbitant fines they'd need to pay in order to have a third child, trying again for a son. Attempting to keep her mother from becoming attached to baby Hua, Chu Ju's grandmother appoints her the baby's caregiver. Chu Ju can't bear the thought of giving up Hua to an orphanage, and decides that if there can only be one girl in the family, then she should leave. She runs away from home, and sets her hand to various things, including a stint with a fishing family, tending silk worms, and ends up staying with an elderly farm woman. Not as nearly depressing as it sounds--Gloria Whelan's got a deft touch. It's more about Chu Ju's own growth and the juxtaposition of tradition and innovation in rural China than an adventure novel, but is a fairly quick read for all that. Engaging, but not quite as good as Homeless Bird (also by Whelan), about a young girl entering into an arranged marriage in India.
For something more mature on the subject, try Throwaway Daughter by Ting-Xing Ye and William Bell, about a young woman adopted from a Chinese orphanage by Canadian parents. She's adamantly opposed to having anything to do with her Chinese heritage despite her well-meaning parents' attempts, until she witnesses the Tiananmen Square massacre, and later returns to China to try to track down her birth parents. Despite being nominated for Best Books for Young Adults, it reads like adult fiction to me, especially with the complexity of the narrative (multiple POVs and timeshifts--but it's not as confusing as it sounds). Adjectives include lyrical, bittersweet and Canadian.
Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins
Jasmine (Jazz) is leaving a lot behind to go to India for the sumemr with her parents. She's got a lucrative business taking photos of tourists, and a best friend and business partner that she's secretly been in love with for a while now. But her parents, ever altruistic, have a grant to work at the orphanage in Pune where her mother grew up. Immersed in the steamy weather of monsoon season, Jazz faces Indian private school, an evolving long-distance relationship, charity and caste systems. Jazz is an immensely likable protagonist, even when she's feeling sorry for herself, and the tangible detail of moonsoon season in India combined with a complex, engaging cast of characters makes this one book I'd recommend to anyone who wants something with more depth than Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, but none of the grinding despair of most of the latest crop of teen realism.
Montmorency, Thief, Liar, Gentleman by Eleanor Updale
The latest in a growing number of Victorian historical YA books. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Not a chance. The protagonist is a petty thief. Upon pursuit by the police, he crashed through a skylight, and was patched back together by a physician with something to prove. He's been the showpiece in a never-ending whirl of academic lectures for the past few years, and his jail time is nearly up. One lecture in particular caught his interest-- the one on London's brand-new sewer system. He's nothing if not ambitious--this is going to be his ticket to a career as a master thief. And while he's at it, he sets out to forge himself a new identity as the gentleman Montmorency. Fast-paced and fun.
Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril, and Romance by Marthe Jocelyn
1901, Stratford, Ontario. Mable Riley has been sent off with her sister, Viola, to accompany her to her first teaching post. Mable hopes for excitement and romance, and despite the drag of daily chores and sibling rivalry, finds adventure when she befriends the eccentric Mrs. Rattle and her Ladies Reading Society. For bloomer-clad Mrs. Rattle is a real writer and her reading group are actually (gasp!) suffragists! Women's rights, a mill strike, and Mable's first kiss are all told through Mable's diary, letters home, and the poems she writes for Viola's classes. Comparisons to Anne of Green Gables are inevitable and deserved. Fun, irreverent, and anything but didactic.
More later, as I try to remember what else I've read recently. Fanfic recs coming, too... but perhaps I should post those from home.
