STACKED

books

In My Mailbox (15): Or when things get out of hand.

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This image makes me miss spring time and the smell of flowers and days before my mailbox broke into two pieces. Also, it makes me want to hole up in a Dutch windmill and do nothing but read.

Welcome to this week’s installment of In My Mailbox, hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It’s a weekly look at everything received for review, purchased, or picked up at the library.

The Cybils? Full swing ahead, baby. But I also got a nice box and envelope of 2011 preview titles from Simon and Schuster. I also got my nookcolor, which I am already in love with. More on that later.

For review:

10 Miles Past Normal by Francis O’Roarke Dowell: This is her first teen novel (she’s written a number of middle grade titles). The cover of this one is after my own heart.

Choker by Elizabeth Woods: A thriller!

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton: A story where New Orleans is rebuilt and reimagined? Yes please.

All three of these came together in an envelope with a cube of paper featuring the covers on four of the sides and a “2011 Debut Titles” logo on the forth. I love it so much I took it to work just to look at it.

Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe: This one’s out of Australia and it’s by a teen author. It’s about coincidences and growing up and lawn gnomes. I finished it last week, and I’ll be really interested to see how it might be made a little stronger when it launches in the US through Egmont.

Runaway Storm by D. E. Knobbe: A boy takes on his own to kayak the Canadian wilderness.

Survivor’s Leave by Robert Sutherland: Looks like a war story of some kind.

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins: I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, so, this was a nice gift.

I Am Nuchu by Brenda Stanley: I don’t know much about this one, but I know it’s one of Westside Books’s later 2010/early 2011 offerings.

Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty: Forth in the series, and it’s supposedly a gothic novel…which you know how I feel about.

Rhythm and Blues by Jill Murray: Cecil Castellucci is blurbed on the cover, which already makes me excited.

Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson: I didn’t like the first one. I know that pretty much makes me satan but I’m pretty okay with that.

8th Grade Super Zero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich: This is the longest author name I have ever typed in my life.

After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick: Loved the first one so I’m excited to see this story continue.

The Deadly Sister by Eliot Schrefer: A mystery!

Sellout by Ebony Joy Wilkins: A story about race and being “inauthentic.”

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan: I read this one last week and really, really liked it. Review will be up shortly!

Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman: I know this one has to do with a foreign country in South America.

The Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell: The audiobook! I think this one will be hilarious. You know, for when I’m don reading Cybils titles.

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins: Last book in her Kristina series.

Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst: A funny story, I believe aimed at the middle grade.

Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis: A magical story set in London for middle grade.

Freefall by Mindi Scott: I’ve read this one, and you’ll be hearing about it (and Mindi!) soon.

The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott: I’ve read this one, and I haven’t reviewed it here purposely. I’ll leave it to that.

Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick: Read and reviewed here.

Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber: A historical fiction that looks pretty good!

Forget You by Jennifer Echols: High intensity romance? Yes please.

Losing Faith by Denise Jaden: Read and reviewed it here.

Nothing by Janne Teller: Read this one, and it made me want to drink.

Every Little Thing in the World by Nina de Gramont: Read and reviewed here.

Sweet, Hereafter by Angela Johnson: This one’s gotten a lot of attention. It’s the third in her “Heaven” trilogy.

Lifted by Wendy Toliver: Read this one, too!

Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams: Read this book in verse and reviewed it here.

After the Kiss by Tera McVoy: Read this. Also a book in verse with alternating voices.

Perfect Shot by Debbie Rigaud: One of the Simon Pulse romantic comedies.

Change of Heart by Shari Maurer: This one sounds a bit like In a Heartbeat.

The Girl Next Door by Selene Castrovilla: Something about grown up decisions and I think heartbreak.

Scars by Cheryl Rainfield: Read and reviewed this one here.

Something Terrible Happened on Kenmore by Marci Stillerman: Historical murder in 1930s Chicago.

Stringz by Michael Wenberg: This one’s got a backdrop of music and performance.

The Summer I Got a Life by Mark Fink: The main character had a bad summer. It changed his life.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

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Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to. In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago. Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal. The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them. Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

Summary from Amazon.com

Since The Maze Runner was one of my favorite reads of last year, I made the rare step of actually pre-ordering this book (a huge deal for a librarian on a budget). When it arrived, I was in the midst of another book, so I handed it over to my husband to read. When I inquired as to how it was, he responded, “Bad shit happens. Then more bad shit happens.”

In a way, that perfect sums up The Scorch Trials, part two in James Dashner’s planned trilogy. The Scorch Trials deals with the aftermath of the maze, with what happens to the Gladers when they have finally escaped the experiment that they were at the center of. And that’s the key word here: “happens.” This book is action packed, careening from horror to horror as Thomas and his friends navigate their way across the scorched wasteland that the world has become. James Dashner’s imagination is vivid and his writing is incredibly illustrative (almost to the point of gross at times) as he describes the heat of the sun; the melting silver orbs that attack Gladers, encasing their heads in murderous metal; and the crazy Cranks, infected with the Flare, the disease that will soon reach Thomas and his friends if they don’t make it across the Scorch. But in the end, the book almost has too much action. I missed the character and relationship building that featured so strongly in the first book and that is key (for me) to any truly great dystopian novel. The action plain overwhelmed any character progression that could have occurred, until it seemed that no character growth had occurred.

In fact, my favorite parts of The Scorch Trials were when Thomas was regaining his memories, having brief flashbacks to his former life, when he and Theresa were young, co-creators of the maze that had ended up tormenting them. And although we learned a bit more about WICKED and the changed world that these characters now inhabited, it wasn’t enough to satisfy me.

But in the end, it is a middle book in a trilogy, and a journey across a scorched land is part for the course. And in the end, I will most definitely continue reading. James Dashner can write a mean cliffhanger, both at the end of chapters, and at the end of this book. I just hope that I find out more about these characters in the future.

When I Was Joe by Keren David

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How would it be to have to start all over again, to have everything you know erased? That’s what happens to Ty and his mother after he bears witness to a crime that may have cost someone their lives. But he can’t talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

By not talking, he has to follow the strict orders of the police and enter into the witness protection program. He and his mom abandon their lives in London — leaving his grandmother and assorted other relatives — and move away.

He’s no longer Ty, the shy and “weak” guy. He’s now Joe, a guy who is confident, popular, athletic and . . . a catch to many of the girls in school. As if being witness to something atrocious wasn’t enough, he has to learn to navigate new waters when it comes to high school and relationships. And let’s just say that one of these girls has a secret of her own, and he may be the only person who knows.

When I Was Joe is a thriller in the true sense: it’s nonstop and relentless in pacing, moving quickly but purposefully toward a powerful ending. As the jack flap copy notes, this story delves into issues of identity and justice, and I could not help but be reminded of Gail Giles’s Right Behind You. I mentioned on GoodReads prior to starting this that the premises sounded so similar, but when I got to reading, they are actually almost exact inverses of one another. For Joe, this is a story of surviviorship, for making it through witnessing something horribly unjust and living with the consequences every day. Right Behind You is a story of hidden identity, too, but told through the eyes of the criminal himself.

This is a swift book, one that could easily be read in one sitting. Ty is a likeable and sympathetic character and one whose complexity unravels at every page. In building a new life for himself, the old haunts him constantly, and it is no thanks to his unstable mother he never feels safe or secure.

David’s book is set in Britain, but as an American reader, I never once felt like a foreigner. The slight differences in language use and mannerisms does not detract from my reading. I found the writing itself is tight and focused as a good thriller should be. We know just enough characters and just enough about each to feel satisfied in the conclusion.

If you’re looking for a good “guy” book to pass on, this may fit the bill. Fans of Giles will find a lot to enjoy here, as will fans of a good action-packed story. For me, it was the witness protection program hook that reeled me in and ultimately left me a satisfied reader.

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

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When Gemma wakes up, she’s no longer in the airport with her parents. She’s in a strange guy’s house in what appears to be the middle of a never ending desert.

As she comes to, she can’t figure out how she got here or why she’s here, but she remembers distinctly seeing this man in the Bangkok airport. She was with her family, heading on vacation. She remembers this guy being strange, watching her, talking with her about coming to Australia and America and all the places in the world she’d like to see.

He drugged her drink and took her. She needs to escape, but there is no where to go. She’s fenced into this place with this man who greets her by telling her he hasn’t raped her. Will she got out, find somewhere in this foreign country that will guide her back to her parents or will she become so broken down and desperate to begin understanding and sympathizing with her captor?

Christopher’s debut novel Stolen is a powerhouse. The book is told through a long letter from Gemma to her captor Ty, detailing her side of the story and why she does the thing she does while living with him. Although I’ve read many reviews suggesting this book is told in the second person, it’s not. It’s told through first person but addresses the captor by the word “you” because of the letter format (see Charles Benoit’s You for a true flavor of second person narration).

We don’t get to hear Ty’s voice in this story, and we don’t need to or want to hear it. Put simply, this book is an exploration of Stockholm Syndrome, or the psychological phenomenon within victims to take sympathy with their criminal. It stems from desperation and from isolation, both of which Gemma feels here. It’s not a simple book to read nor understand.

Gemma’s captor tells her he loves her, and he took her away because of the passion he had to protect her and cherish her. He tells her he’s known her for a long time and has always wanted to take her someplace safe where he can love her in the way no one else could or would.

But she’s a flower under glass.

Maybe.

As she hears more from him, whether they’re truths or elaborate lies, she begins to develop a love for him and a belief that he needed to do what he did in order to become a better, stronger person. His life as a child was rough, and this is his opportunity to start over. Not only can he start over, but he can give his dream life to someone else who he can nurture. He’s created a utopia, for just the two of them.

Stolen is both fast and slow paced. The writing is smooth and vivid, the landscape and surroundings easily imaginable and believable. But the story itself is slow, and it needs to be. This is intentional to get to the bone of what’s going on in Gemma and Ty’s minds and why either ultimately make some of the decisions they do regarding one another’s futures. Christopher’s style makes reading this almost too easy and begged me to return to pages already read and reread for better understanding. Her careful lacing of symbols — the camel, the snake pit — add layers to what seems simple.

While reading this book, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl but be warned: Stolen won’t have the wide appeal that Scott’s title has. It’s a much more mature book in what it is doing internally for the characters and for the reader. They both are well written and powerful but with differing goals.

This is the kind of book I wait for because it begs to be book talked. The unassuming cover and the foreign setting may make it an easy one to overlook on the shelf, but once you get to the meat of it, it’s one not easily forgotten. Pass it off to your fans of psychologically-driven titles, the ones that bore into the psyche of character. The potential for discussion here is rich.

Face this city

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Here’s a cover trope I’ve seen a couple of times: the face in the city.


The Beautiful Between by Alyssa B. Sheinmel, published May 2010. It’s pretty distinctive a cover: gray with the face of a girl hovering over the New York City skyline.

And a bit of a twist on it is this one:

Other Words for Love by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal to be published by Delacorte in January 2011: This time, we have a close up of a girl’s lips (see this post) over the New York City skyline.

It’s an interesting style, I think. They’re distinct enough that there won’t be any cover confusion here, but they are composed of the same elements.

I know there are additional ones, so if you know of any, share them.