Tag Archive | memories

Statistical Probability of Falling in Love, by Jennifer E. Smith (book review) – love is in the air?

Jan27

Bridesmaid’s dress? check.
Passport? yes, Mom!
Dickens novel to throw at Dad? of course.

Even if you’ve never missed a travel connection or worried about having to get along with people you’ve never met or been stranded in a crowded airport, you can still imagine Hadley’s anxiety about traveling by herself from JFK to London for her dad’s second wedding…

Meeting Oliver makes the delay and the flight so much more bearable for her. All those crazy statistics he quotes – he must be making them up! Why, oh why couldn’t they have gotten to say a proper goodbye at Heathrow Airport before she had to find a taxi and rush to the wedding?

Twenty-four hours of hurry and bother – wonder if it’s the last thing that Hadley needs or merely what she’d never expect…
**kmm

Book info: The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love / Jennifer E. Smith. Poppy Books, 2012. [author’s website] [book’s Facebook page] [publisher site] [Hadley’s book trailer] [Oliver’s book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Four minutes late! The plane is leaving; Hadley will be late for her father’s wedding. At least there’s a cute guy to talk to as her trans-Atlantic flight is rescheduled and she tries to calm down in the overcrowded airport.

She can understand why Dad went to study in England – he is a poet, after all – but why did he fall in love with someone there? How could he leave her and Mom alone? Just sneaking in and taking his personal things from their house while they were on vacation – ha! How can he expect her to be a bridesmaid in this wedding and be happy? She’s never even met the woman – her new stepmother – arrgh!

Thankfully, the cute guy is on her flight. Oliver is British, studying at Yale, listens a lot, talks a little. He even has the seat next to hers and helps Hadley relax on her first long plane ride, inventing silly statistics and listening to her worries about the future.

Separated at the passport checkpoint in the London airport, Hadley hopes she can see Oliver one last time before she heads into a strange city and a strange new relationship with her father. With the delays, she’ll barely make it to the London church in time for the wedding.

As the day goes on and Hadley moves her jet-lagged self through the ceremony and family photos, she feels compelled to find Oliver, to find out why he was returning to England suddenly, to see if he can come up with a statistic that will make her feel better about what lies ahead.

Can she remember enough from their sleepy conversations to figure out where he is? Can she travel there without getting run over by traffic traveling on the wrong side of the road? Can she just make it through this nerve-wracking day and go back home to Mom, please?

It’s easy to understand Hadley’s fears and frustrations during all the changes in her life and to root for her to find someone special for herself, even if she doesn’t believe in love at first sight. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Book Award List Time! (reflective)

Jan26

It’s nice when someone validates your choices and opinions, isn’t it? And when the someones are the noteworthy folks on the American Library Association’s many book awards committees, then it’s even nicer.

Several BooksYALove selections were tabbed on the 2012 award lists, which looked at books published in 2011 and late 2010. And, yes, some are now on bestseller lists, but were posted here well before sales popularity moved them there. You should be able to find them all at your local library or independent bookstore, but you may encounter a waiting list!

Beat the rush on future award books by reading them whenever something appealing to you is introduced on BooksYALove – no spoilers, I promise!

As I read YA books that deal with real-life issues during the “YA Saves Reading Challenge” hosted by TheBusyBibliophile blog, plus all the wonderful science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction on the publishing horizon, I’m sure to find plenty of great young adult books beyond the bestsellers which will be included in future award lists – and you could see them here first!
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2012 Newbery Medal – Honor Book
Breaking Stalin’s Nose, written and illustrated by Eugene Yelchin – my recommendation

2012 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults – “Forbidden Romance” category
I Love Him to Pieces (My Boyfriend is a Monster #1) / by Evonne Tsang; art by Janina Gorrissen – my recommendation

YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults
What Happened to Goodbye, by Sarah Dessen – my recommendation

Payback Time, by Carl Deuker – my recommendation

Ten Miles Past Normal, by Frances O’Roark Dowell – my recommendation

Icefall, by Matthew J. Kirby – my recommendation

Huntress, by Malinda Lo – my recommendation

Legend, by Marie Lu – my recommendation

Karma: a novel in verse, by Cathy Ostlere – my recommendation

This Thing Called the Future, by J.L. Powers – my recommendation

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs – my recommendation

Now is the Time for Running, by Michael Williams – my recommendation
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(thumbs up image courtesy of Mohamed Ibrahim via http://www.clker.com/clipart-29226.html)

Unison Spark, by Andy Marino (book review) – social network or mind control?

Jan6

book cover of Unison Spark by Andy Marino published by Henry HoltA perfect world made just for you,
optimized to provide everything that you want,
more realistic than real life.
What could go wrong with that?

Future Friday takes us to sprawling Eastern Seaboard City, where the Haves can access the ultimate social network – Unison – and the Have-Nots are relegated to the below-street slums, with its rampant crime among the scabbed-together shacks and cast-off technology bits.

Mistletoe can engineer and coax her hunk-of-junk scooter into maneuvers just beyond the maximum recommended for that old model – good thing, as gun-wielding topsider goons pursue her and lost Ambrose through Little Saigon’s alleys and hidden passageways. Why would any sensible topsider come down here?

All good things do have their price, and some revolutionaries think that the price of Unison will far exceed its subscription costs. Can the teens trust the revolutionaries or UniCorp or anyone?

How far is UniCorp willing to go in its search for maximum profits? Can they truly predict every individual Unison user’s ultimate needs through process-flow? When does the will of an individual become merely a consumable piece in a worldwide business plan?

This page-turning potential future is available now at libraries and bookstores – grab it!
**kmm

Book info: Unison Spark / Andy Marino. Henry Holt, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: When Mistletoe saves a young topsider from uniformed non-police thugs, she wonders why this wealthy teen is in the grotty lower city. She certainly can’t go up into his world of real sunshine and Unison – the social network that knows you better than you know yourself.

Ah, Unison! Just shimmer in (for an appropriate fee) and enjoy limitless data flow, countless friends, your own custom-structured world for work and play. Everything is clearer, brighter, happier in Unison – as long as you keep paying your subscription. And UniCorp provides all the little things in the real world that make it less painful to be part of the “fleshbound parade” of humans during those so-long moments of being out of Unison.

No one can predict process-flow as well as teenaged Ambrose, who is chair of UniCorp’s profits division well ahead of his older brother Len. Ambrose will today move into Unison permanently, when surgery to his hypothalamus will eliminate his body’s need for sleep and give him 24 hours a day in Unison to maximize profits for their father’s corporation.

A rogue data-transfer message as he enters the UniCorp building tells Ambrose to go down into Little Saigon now, before the surgery, or his brain and dreams will be siphoned away by… who? Len? Their father? Revolutionaries? Contrary to best process-flow data, Ambrose flees for the subcanopy’s depths.

As Mistletoe and Ambrose escape through Little Saigon’s grimy alleys and tunnels on a puttering old roboscooter, they discover that both received the same rogue message “Carpe somnium” and wonder why they’ve been told to “seize the dream.”

Bombs in a world where explosives are illegal, closed off from the data of Unison and allies in the subcanopy, the teens must stay alive and free as they try to discover who’s trying to keep Ambrose out of Unison and why the data message brought them together.

Clever and suspenseful, Unison Spark is an adventure story of the future which threads questions of self and community through its action-filled pages. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Once a Witch, by Carolyn MacCullough (book review) – prophecy with no power?

Jan3

book cover of Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough published by ClarionGetting away from a bad situation always seems like a good idea… except when a bigger problem roars down from an unexpected quarter.

There’s always someone, somewhere, who is taller or has a better free throw average or solves the crossword puzzle faster than you – usually we find something else to focus on and things seem better.

But Tam’s birth prophecy said she would be “most powerful” and “a beacon to us all” – she’s not imagining her family’s disappointment as she grows up with no Talent at all. Her mom’s arguments about Tam leaving home made the weather storm and moan; her grandmother’s future-sight never shows whole pictures.

At least Gabriel is here now – his Talent for finding things might help Tam as she searches for the professor’s long-lost family heirloom. And a little time-Traveling with a cute guy…

Followed by Always a Witch which extends and completes the story of Tamsin and the Greenes as they struggle to keep the Knight family from gaining control over humankind.
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Book info: Once a Witch / Carolyn MacCullough. Graphia HMH, 2009. [author’s website] [book website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Recommendation: Boarding school is a better place for Tamsin, unTalented among her family of powerful witches. There, she can almost forget the words of her seer grandmother – that Tamsin will be most powerful of them all. Ha!

At least her childhood pal Gabriel and his mother have moved back to Hedgerow, where the extended Greene family has lived quietly for many decades, more than content to stay out of public notice. He doesn’t yet know that Tam’s Talent never manifested, but someone will surely tell him soon.

When a professor visits the family bookstore and asks her help in tracing an heirloom, mistaking Tam for her very Talented sister, she agrees. A bit odd that McCallum finds them both in New York City soon after, as Rowena shops for her wedding dress…

Tam’s search for the missing clock takes her and Gabriel much further than she had imagined – back to 1899, in fact, thanks to Gabriel’s time-traveling Talent. But finding the clock triggers a new quest as Tam learns more about her family’s history and their past battles with another group of witches who’d rather rule over unTalented humans than avoid their notice.

Can Tam keep the clock away from the professor long enough to discover its secrets? Have she and Gabriel altered the path of time? How can she do anything to help her family when she has no Talent?

Tam tries to balance her personal world with the larger questions of good versus evil in this first book of a duet which is followed by Always a Witch. Surely Rowena will decide on a wedding dress before it’s all over… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Nowhere Girl, by A.J. Paquette (fiction) – born in Thai prison, American girl seeks home

Dec28

Far, far from anyone who knows her.
Far from the crowded streets of Bangkok.
A single twisted tree visible through the prison bars.

Luchi’s mother refused to contact anyone in the USA when she was transferred to Khon Meung prison in northern Thailand, so the sweet blond baby born to her there was raised by the women who shared their cell.

Imagine being 14 years old and riding in a car for the first time! Windows with glass and computers are equally new technologies for Luchi, as she travels away from the only place she’s ever lived, following the wishes of her mother who died just before she could give her daughter any concrete information about their family in the States.

Beautifully written and satisfyingly original, you’ll remember Luchi’s difficult journey long after you finish reading Nowhere Girl. Find it today at your local library or independent bookseller.
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Book info: Nowhere Girl / A. J. Paquette. Walker & Company, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Luchi Ann must leave the prison where she was born. As her American mother died, she told the blond teenager to “go home”, leaving scraps of information. Questions about her father always sent Mama into bleak depression – Mama, who was so glad to be relocated to this remote women’s prison in rural Thailand before Luchi’s birth, who warned her to stay safe from danger outside the prison. Oh, the inmates educated Luchi with every book they could find so she knows math and literature in three languages, but very little about the current world outside the prison walls.

So now she’s headed for Bangkok with an old list of phone numbers, a discarded letter, and her mother’s US passport. First time to ride in a car, first time to eat with strangers, first time to see buildings reaching to the sky… Trying to find answers to her mother’s past, to her own identity – this is no easy task for someone who has never before traveled wherever she wanted, never touched a computer.

Can Luchi discover the location of her mother’s home in America? How can she travel half-way around the world with no money and no passport? What is the danger outside the prison walls that her mother always warned her about?

A stirring tale of self-discovery and unexpected adventures, readers will be enthralled with Luchi’s reflections on life in Thailand as they root for her to succeed in her quest to fulfill her mother’s final wish. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Same Difference (fiction)

Dec9

Sort of rude,
Fairly crude,
Still totally inept at social interaction.

It’s Fun Friday for us, but not so much fun for mid-20s Simon, as a fleeting glimpse of an old high school friend sets off a chain of reminiscences and regrets.

Simon’s high school acquaintances couldn’t even remember that Koreans weren’t Japanese – why did he expect them to show a little respect to Irene who was trying to make her way through the sighted world?

And you’ve got to wonder why Nancy decided to open the letters addressed to the former tenant of her apartment. Did this Sarah really move without a forwarding address to avoid being contacted by Ben? Did Nancy really write back to Ben, pretending to be Sarah!?

Derek won the 2004 Eisner, 2004 Harvey, and 2003 Ignatz Awards with Same Difference as a self-published book; it’s even better in this hardback reissue, published this week with spiffed-up art and Derek’s notes about how he used sites he knew to create an authentic setting for this mostly-not-autobiographical story.

If your local library doesn’t have it yet, head for an independent bookstore to get Same Difference – hope your copy has the cool acetate cover with the fish! Proof again that comics ain’t just for kiddies.
**kmm

Book info: Same Difference / Derek Kirk Kim. First Second Books, 2011. [author’s website] [author’s blog] [publisher site] [author interview]

Recommendation: Regretting the past is familiar for Simon in his mid-20s, but worrying about his pal Nancy’s offbeat response to misdelivered mail is new territory.

Unexpectedly catching sight of an old friend from his small-town California high school, Simon explains to his friends why he just can’t go talk to her. Even several years after graduation, he feels the pain of being an outsider, a grunge-rock Korean surrounded by waves of belligerent Anglo blockheads.

Irene transferred in during their senior year. Since they had two classes together, sometimes Simon would walk with her to class. Oh, and she was blind, so the local yokels loved to make stupid jokes about that, too. When she hinted about going to the dance together, he bailed out, made an excuse about visiting relatives…but didn’t.

Nancy finally lets Simon know about the mail that’s been coming to her new place – mail from Ben Leland to the last tenant, mail that professes his undying love for Sarah, mail that Nancy opens, week after week, and then answers!

When a package arrives from Ben, Nancy decides that she has to get an actual look at him and wrangles Simon into driving her to Pacifica – Simon’s hometown.

Can they find Ben? Will Nancy really try to take a peek at him? Or contact him? Will Simon cross paths with Irene again and get the nerve to apologize? Sometimes growing up is a lot more difficult than it appears on the surface.

Derek Kirk Kim has successfully melded several episodes of his famed webcomic into a single graphic novel which won several awards as a self-published work. Enjoy this new edition with wacky introduction by fellow West Coast cartoonist Gene Yang, plus Derek’s notes on creating his characters and setting. (Review copy courtesy of the publisher.)

Hannah’s Winter, by Kierin Meehan (fiction) – Japanese ghosts, ancient puzzle mysteries

Dec7
book cover of Hannah's Winter by Kierin Meehan published by Kane MillerWinter in Japan.
Hot Australia far away.
Ghosts throwing donuts?

A mystery in the snow-shrouded town of Kanazawa is not what Hannah expected when she came to Japan. High school for her, horticultural field study for her mum, and then a ghost who tosses donuts and writes on Hannah’s mirror with sunscreen??

The town’s winter festivals and historic sites draw Hannah and her new Japanese friends Miki and Hiro further and further into a ancient mystery.

Dire visions foretold by three old women and dragons hidden in plain sight – could they be relevant to the task that “the ocean boy” begs them to accomplish? Dive into the puzzles of Hannah’s winter in Japan at your local library or independent bookstore.
**kmm

Book info: Hannah’s Winter / Kierin Meehan. Kane Miller, 2009. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Recommendation: Going to school in Japan instead of starting high school in Australia with her friends worries Hannah; her height and auburn hair will really make her stand out. But a mysterious message from the past sends her exploring her new city quickly.

Her host-father translates the ancient kanji on the fragile paper – it’s a puzzle, asking the finder to “help the ocean boy” by following the cryptic instructions. After “the first snowfall,” Hannah, host-sister Miki, and neighbor Hiro travel to “the temple of secrets” and see a vision from the past!

A boisterous ghost in the house, donuts tossed in the air, messages on her mirror, that recurring dream of the tunnel, a house of cards… Hannah finds they’re all pieces of the puzzle (except the donuts). A suit of samurai armor is delivered to Miki’s shop and puffs out incense with no fire. Japanese school is interesting, but waiting until time to “go at sunrise to wake the dragon” is hard.

Why has the “ocean boy” chosen Hannah to help him finish his task from the past? Is the man suddenly appearing all over their neighborhood “the one who does not want the boy to go”? And why has the samurai armor’s incense smoke changed from blue to yellow?

You’ll get peeks into modern Japanese culture as well as older folktales and traditions as you visit Kanazawa’s festivals and parks with Hannah, Miki, and Hiro to solve the mystery before it’s too late for “the ocean boy.”(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Misfit (fiction)

Dec5

Never fitting in.
Moving all the time.
World’s grumpiest dad.
A long-lost uncle who’s a demon?

Jael had hoped for an old clunker car or even a cellphone for her 16th birthday, but her dad didn’t even leave her a birthday card on the breakfast table. Just a note, “Come home right after school. We have to talk.”

Who would ever imagine that she was half-demon? Or that someone on the faculty would attack her at their Catholic school? Or that a cute skateboarder guy would think she was worth talking to? Jael’s hair becomes her crowning glory – just like her mother Lilith’s was – and things get really complicated.

Flashbacks are written in the expected past tense, but the author has chosen to have Jael’s story lurch along completely in simple present tense – a bit odd, but soon the gripping pace of the story lets readers slide over this unconventional writing tic.
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Book info: Misfit / Jon Skovron. Amulet, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Jael’s dad is so strict that she’s never been on a date, never been kissed, never fit in at school. Her mom died when Jael was a baby, but is that any reason for her ex-priest father to keep dragging them from town to town? Always she’s enrolled in a Catholic school, but he forbids her to talk about angels or heaven or hell…

On her sixteenth birthday, he reluctantly gives her a pendant from her mother, but only because it was her deathbed wish. Suddenly, Jael’s dreams are filled with visions of mystical creatures, and she discovers that her mother was a demon – the infamous Lilith – who was killed because she tried to defect from the most ambitious duke of Hell.

Now her uncle-demon warns her that Belial can sense her through the pendant and is coming to exact his final revenge against her mother. Jael has a short time to learn what powers she may have as a half-demon and how to use them to defend herself and her father and her first-ever friends at school.

Can Jael’s uncle cram a lifetime of training into a few days? Will he be able warn her before Belial’s attack? Does Jael truly have the seductive beauty of her mother hidden under the frumpy clothes her father chooses? And Dad was really a demon-hunter?

Flashbacks to the past adventures and perils of Jael’s parents give the reader insights into the story that are later revealed to her. She never thought her life was easy, but now the fate of humanity may be at stake. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Paper Daughter, by Jeannette Ingold (book review) – family tree with hidden branches?

Nov23

When what you “know” about your family isn’t true,
When the person with the real answers is gone,
How far can you search back into the past without losing yourself?

Maggie knows that she wants to be a reporter like her father, recently killed by a hit-and-run driver. But when investigations get too close to home, when the truth upends everything she thought she knew about her family background…

Her hometown of Seattle has always been shaped by immigration and change – from its wild days as a frontier logging town through the countless immigrants from China who made one corner of the city their own, despite the strangling restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

So what does Maggie discover about her family’s past and her own future?
Find out at your local library or independent bookstore on our World Wednesday – and remember to share family stories around the table this Thanksgiving.
**kmm

Book info: Paper Daughter / Jeannette Ingold. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] [student video book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: As a young journalist, Maggie Chen has her late father’s writing skills and reporting instincts. His recent death has left a gaping hole in her life, but she is determined to complete the summer internship he helped her arrange at the local newspaper.

That Jillian rushed in and grabbed photo desk before Maggie could even open her mouth – good thing Maggie won’t be working directly with the other intern, who is all talk and nosiness. But internship means trying every aspect of the job, so she’ll start at the sports desk and move to other assignments as the summer goes on.

Maggie and her professor mom start to notify Dad’s out-of-town contacts about his death, about that hit-and-run driver. When one call connects Maggie to Dad’s best friend in college, pieces of his life story begin to crumble as the truth about his past erases the family stories that he’d always told them. Now she’s wondering about the unfinished articles in her dad’s files.

If Dad wasn’t from a well-to-do family, then where did he come from?
Why did he contact so many people in California just before his death?
Was he in Seattle’s old Chinatown on the day he died for a newspaper story or on a personal investigation?

During her first “hard news” assignment, Maggie learns that someone else was killed in the same area on the same day, someone who might have been ready to blow the whistle on corrupt land development deals. Was her father’s death connected to that, too?

Murmurs of Chinese immigrants’ stories thread through Maggie’s search for answers, stories of “paper sons” claimed as blood relatives on immigration applications, of changed names and unchanged resentments. Can she ever know who she really is? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Tag! (reflective)

Nov21

Hmm… what’s the trend?
Recent themes of books recommended here?
Top tags and noteworthy notes?

Wordclouds can give a graphical look at patterns in information.
Try Tagxedo or Wordle to make your own free wordcloud of a passage from a favorite book, your Facebook posts, Twitter feed –
do you see any patterns that surprise you?

And watch for upcoming books on BooksYALove – with familiar subjects and new horizons for us to explore together.

Which recently recommended book intrigues you most?
**kmm