Tag Archive | abandonment

Pills and Starships, by Lydia Millet (book review) – climate change, drugs, and lies

Jan3

book cover of Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet published by Akashic BooksToo sad to keep on living in a climate chaotic world,
her parents have chosen their time to die…
or is it the pharma talking?

Nat’s mom and dad – former environmental activists – could have waited just a few more years to invoke the Service Contract ending their lives, till the teen and her younger brother moved out as workers – why now?

In this too-possible dystopia, global warming has changed weather patterns, babies are now illegal, and new diseases mutating weekly make face-to-face contact rare.

Ask for Nat’s story at your local library or independent bookstore to see if she can find a way to keep her family together once she discovers the truths that pharma-corps are trying to hide. (I loved the book, but its title… not so much)

**kmm

Book info: Pills and Starships / Lydia Millet. Black Sheep/Akashic Books, 2014.  [author site]  [publisher site]  [author interview on NPR]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: Preparing to honor her parents’ final week of life, Nat learns that big money uses pharma to trick the few remaining Americans into thinking that global warming has eliminated the entire natural world.

At a tropical resort devoted to final Contracts, the teen and her hackerkid brother discover real plants and animals and people who think for themselves.  Are pharma-corporations really lying to the public about imminent doomsday?

Her decision about joining the rebels must come soon, as her parents’ date with a lethal farewell drink in mere days will leave Nat and Sam in a group survivors’ home in Oregon – are her parents really sad enough about the state of the world to leave it forever?

When a mega-hurricane hurtles toward Hawai’i, will it be too late to rescue her not-old parents and not-old-enough brother?

Addressed to an imagined friend safely orbiting this climate-chaos world, Nat reflects in the Contract-provided mourning journal about Starships and Pills  and her unexpected opportunity to escape pharma-managed life… if she can. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

The Lost, by Sarah Beth Durst (book review) – lost her way & her self, forever?

Dec30

book cover of The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst published by Harlequin MiraBreaking out of her normal drive to work, speeding through the desert, away from cancer specialists and Mom’s insistence that everything is fine.

“Unfortunately, I seem to have packed all my emotional baggage for this impromptu road trip,” to where? Click to read more

Get Happy, by Mary Amato (book review) – wanted: uke, dad, happiness

Dec4

book cover of Get Happy by Mary Amato published by EgmontTeen songwriter wants an ukulele and better days.
Teen’s long-gone dad wants to see her at last.
Teen’s hyper-organized mom wants him to stay gone.

As the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want,” but be assured that the teens eventually do get what they need, even if they don’t know what it is Read on, read on!

Soul still here? Meet Me at the River, by Nina de Gramont (book review)

Nov8

book cover of Meet Me at the River by Nina de Gramont published by Atheneum Books for Young ReadersMoving past grief means leaving Luke behind.
Tressa just can’t do that,
but she can’t find peace among the living either. read my recommendation

In the multiverse, A Thousand Pieces of You seeking me; by Claudia Gray (book review)

Nov4

book cover of A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray published by HarperTeenEach choice you make creates a fork in time,
a new path in the multiverse through history –
Which dimension holds Meg’s happiness? Read more about this new book

Scary book pair #2 – enemies seen and unseen

Oct28

Another pair of scary BooksYALove favorites for the witching season: if blood-spatter and dire peril aren’t your thing, search the tag cloud (over there on right) for something else!

Click to read about these gory titles, now in paperback

Somewhat scary & completely wonderful: spooky season books pair #1

Oct26

Y’all know that I cannot read horror books; my imagination is just too good and needs no super-terrifying prompts.

I can take on scary tales in measured doses and do love mysteries, of course..

So as we count down the days till Hallowe’en, check out BooksYALove favorites to get you ghoul and ready for some frights! Today’ pair, future based on past inequities and past predicting the future: Click for today’s titles

Me On the Floor, Bleeding, by Jenny Jagerfeld (book review) – thumbtip gone, mom gone, Maja is… where?

Oct2

book cover of Me On the Floor, Bleeding by Jenny Jagerfeld published by Stockholm TextMaja really wouldn’t harm herself.
Mum really wouldn’t forget their weekend plans.
Dad really wouldn’t assume the worst (yes, he would).

A classic outsider at her high school, Maja is willing to wander a bit further in search of the truth than the adults in her life are comfortable with.

Not the first book-in-translation that I’ve featured on BooksYALove, but its publisher is my first small press from Sweden. Hope to see more YA from Stockholm Text in the future!

**kmm

Book info: Me On the Floor, Bleeding / Jenny Jagerfeld; translated by Susan Beard. Stockholm Text, 2014.   [author site in Swedish]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: When Maja is injured at school, everyone worries that she did it on purpose… except her mom, who’s gone missing. The Swedish teen’s search turns up more answers than she was looking for.

If she hadn’t been trying to make a bookshelf instead of sculpture for art class, the 17 year old wouldn’t have mangled the tip of her thumb in the electric saw after hours.

If Mum had answered her text, Maja wouldn’t have taken the train to an empty house for her visiting weekend and found Mum’s mobile phone left behind.

If Justin next door hadn’t helped Maja clean up after yet another accident, they wouldn’t have gone to the coffeehouse together, or the bar, or his room.

And Maja keeps flashing back to the whirling saw blade and the blood and Mum’s increasingly odd communications. Where are the answers?

Dirt Bike, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly, by Conrad Wesselhoeft (book review) – grief, honor & gaming

Sep12

book cover of Dirt Bikes Drones and Other Ways to Fly by Conrad Wesselhoeft published by Houghton MifflinPlaying chicken with big trucks on the highway,
joysticking into the Drone Zone,
adrenaline removes Arlo’s grief…for a while.

Trying to cope with Mom’s murder, Siouxsie’s progressive neurological disease, Dad’s retreat into the bottle – Arlo keeps his dirt bike running, scrounges change to play Drone Fighter at his tiny town’s online cafe, but then what? One early morning phone call changes things (but not everything).

Traveling recently through bone-dry northern New Mexico where the author strands this small town, I can see why anyone there would want to find a way to get away, even if it means trading the make-believe of gaming for real drone piloting and its violent consequences.

Read this April 2014 book now – right now!
**kmm

Book info: Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly / Conrad Wesselhoeft. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, 2014. [author blog]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: Arlo’s gaming skills could pay his sister’s huge medical bills, his dirt bike prowess could salvage his reputation in their small New Mexico town, but it’ll take something more to rescue his family from their endless grieving for Mom.

When the US Air Force wants Arlo to fly real reconnaissance drones over Pakistan from their base at White Sands, based solely on his Drone Fighter video game world ranking, the 17-year-old’s journalist dad is skeptical – until the Colonel erases their debts for Siouxsie’s treatments.

When gorgeous Lee slides into dusty Orphan County to stay with her aunt until her dad returns from his Afghanistan deployment, Arlo thinks she’ll scorn scruffy dirt bikes after leaving her smooth Harley in Seattle – until she helps his Evel Kneivel-style jump go higher and farther.

Zooming down I-25 from the New Mexico-Colorado borderlands whenever the Colonel phones, Arlo has too much time to think on his way to White Sands. Even if he can discover the most-wanted terrorist’s whereabouts with his drone, how can he recover what his family lost when Mom was murdered?

Mountain vistas, Mom’s ashes spread atop the mesa, small-town football as seen from the snack bar, and a moto-stunt for the ages fill this don’t-miss novel about love, grief, and honor.

One Death, Nine Stories (book review) – his last act triggered many firsts

Aug26

book cover of One Death Nine Stories edited by Marc Aronson & Charles R Smith published by Candlewick Press “Kevin’s dead?”
“I can’t believe it!”

As they did in Pick Up Game  (my review here), the editors asked one YA author to write the first story on the collection’s theme of initiation. Then eight other writers took strands from “Down Below” as they introduced teens whose lives were impacted by Kevin’s life and death, each tale one of a pivotal line crossed, a change that can’t be undone.

Like a kaleidoscope’s image changes when it’s passed from one viewer to the next, these nine interlocked stories show many different images of the 19-year-old New Yorker, darkness with glints of hope, questions of racial identity, parental affection, and the bonds of friendship.

Just published today – come over to Kevin’s neighborhood, meet his sister, his running buddies, the funeral home cosmetologist, the dead ends and new beginnings.
**kmm

Book info: One Death, Nine Stories / edited by Marc Aronson & Charles R. Smith. Candlewick Press, 2014.  [Marc Aronson’s website] [Charles R. Smith Jr.’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: Initiations in teen life – joyous, bitter, tragic – weave together this short story collection of the many firsts experienced after Kevin’s death by teens who knew him and some who’d never even met the 19 year old.

The anthology begins as Rita Garcia-Williams takes us to a teen’s first day of work at his uncle’s funeral home as drifting-along Morris suddenly realizes that he went to high school with the guy in that body bag.

Mick first meets Kevin as an altar boy in “Initiation” by Ellen Hopkins, but won’t play along to “The Next Next Level” of dangerous deeds in Torrey Maldanado’s story.

Kevin’s track teammate “Running Man” must outrace a bullet, tells Charles R. Smith, while Jackson starts football “Two-a-Days” down in Chris Barton’s Texas wondering about this Kevin guy whose death caused so many messages online.

“Just Once” Candy would have liked Kevin to give his affection without the bleak insults, chronicles A.S. King, while Kevin’s little sister reclaims his personal effects and finds herself saying “I Have a Gun” in Will Weaver’s tale.

Nadira’s “Making Up the Dead” (by Nora Raleigh Baskin) and making something of herself, while the college “Connections” described by Marina Budhos aren’t enough to keep Kevin in this world.

A strong collection of short stories about a life cut short and the choices made by those left behind.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)