Biblio Reviews

Sona Charaipotra's Symptoms of a Heartbreak (2019) in idea sounds great. A modern female Doogie Howser works to knock out cancer while trying to balance life as a teenager. In execution, however, the story...falls flat. It's unfortunate, really, because the book has so many good things going for it: teenage romance, friendship troubles, work drama, and overall likable secondary characters. On a technical front, the writing is also strong with effective pacing. An additional plus is that the story is centered around Indian-American female protagonist, sixteen-year-old Saira. So what's the issue? In the end, Symptoms of a Heartbreak suffers from too much: a lack of definition and focus on a central conflict. In addition to balancing the everyday growing pains of teenage life with being a "girl genius" medical professional, Saira is also contending with the following: maintaining professional relations with a patient, managing others' expectations of her girl...

Emergency Contact (2018), the debut novel by Mary H. K. Choi, is a book I judged by its beautiful cover: a soft pink backdrop, a female and male in near fetal position, back to back, staring into their cell phone in perfect contrast along with a cursive title in gold superimposed at center over both characters. The cover is perfect in balance and harmony--unfortunately, the story is not. Snarky, angst-filled, anti-social Penny Lee is a freshman with mommy issues at the University of Texas. On a forced excursion out with her roommate to a local coffee shop, she meets Sam, who works there. Penny immediately falls for him. Sam, homeless and slightly older, has in own serious life problems to get through, so Penny isn't immediately on his radar.  After a disorienting experience for both, they exchange numbers and become each other's "emergency contact," a person to talk to in moments of crisis, and develop their relationship over text messages. In the end, they get tog...

At 464 pages, Angie Thomas's  The Hate U Give  (2017)   is a surprisingly quick read for a text that deals with such a heavy and heated topic: the fatal shooting of an unarmed, black male at the hands of a white cop and the surviving witness who has to cope. "Tragically timely" (to quote Adam Silvera), the novel is another entry into what is unfortunately, in the lyrics of Smokey Norful, the "same old sad song." Nearly twenty years ago, Jacqueline Woodson first tackled the same subject in her typically poetic and poignant style in the novel  If You Come Softly (1998). It is a story of first love, an interracial one between fifteen-year-old Jeremiah and Ellie who meet at their private school. They have to deal with society's response to their relationship. In the end, this modern day Romeo and Juliet comes to an abrupt end when Jeremiah is fatally shot by police. Woodson continues these characters' story with Behind You (2004) which focuses on the imp...

I generally try to avoid anything that is a "hit" or trending with the masses. In fact, the more something is a "hit," the less likely I am to consume it, for my tastes often seem to not be aligned with the crowd's. At CBR, Rainbow Rowell is a hit, so much so that, for many, anything she writes is an automatic "must buy." A couple of years back, I chose to find out if all the hype was warranted by reading  Attachments  (2011), her debut novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, though for seemingly different reasons: I loved the male protagonist whereas others loved the cleverness of the email exchanges between the two female characters. Fangirl  (2013) is another of Rowell's character-driven  YA novels that has been well-received by readers and well-reviewed by critics. As of this post, it has a slightly higher rating on Goodreads (4.12) than her very much revered  Eleanor & Park  (4.11), also published in 2013. A coming-of-age story,  Fangir...

Reading  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland  (2016) by Rebekah Crane, I found myself thinking about history and what the books of today, the ones that resonate years from now, will reflect about the preoccupations and struggles of this historical period in which they've been published. I also thought about John Green's  The Fault in Our Stars  (2012), if only because the characters of these two books seem to deal with snarky teens who are dealing with some serious health issues. Whereas  The Fault in Our Stars  deals with cancer,  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland  deals with teen mental health. Sixteen-year old Zander Osborne is spending her summer at Camp Padua, a camp for at-risk teens who seem to suffer from some form of a social-emotional-psychological issue. There's Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic; Alex Trebek, better-known as Bek, a pathological liar; and the titular Grover Cleveland who anticipates becoming ...

Adapted by Ian Edginton from Robert Muchamore’s popular teen-spy series,  The Recruit: The Graphic Novel  (2013) stars James Choke, a preteen on a path to delinquency who is placed in foster care after his obese mother suddenly dies. The opportunity to transform his life comes about when he is recruited to train and become a member of CHERUB, a covert intelligence organization for children. The Recruit  is the first graphic novel I read that was not based on a story already known by me. Marvel's graphic adaptation of  Pride and Prejudice  is the only other graphic novel I had previously read. Familiar with the story, my focus in reading the graphic version was on whether a comprehensive version of the novel was represented. I was less interested (or familiar) with whether the artwork or layout were of good quality and did justice to the characters and story. I imagine that's what comic book/graphic novel aficionados focus on. I went to an NCTE conference a c...

Slow to act, especially when anything is trending super hard, I finally read R.J. Palacio's  Wonder  (2013). I freaking love this story! It is uplifting, if a bit saccharine, and gives me hope in humans' capacity for good. In all, the story's message is simple: Be kind. At this point, many are familiar with the story of August "Auggie" Pullman, a ten year-old whose facial deformities despite numerous operations have lead to his isolation with the rest of the world. That is, until his parents decide that middle school is the ideal time to literally expose Auggie to the world in hopes of jumpstarting his interaction with it. Auggie, of course, is terrified. However, he faces his new world bravely. As expected, Auggie's peers (and a few adults) struggle to see Auggie beyond what's on the surface. With time and perseverance on the part of Auggie, especially, his schoolmates learn to see him for the beautiful and resilient wonder that he is. Narrated by...

More than a story about football, Carl Deuker's  Payback Time  (2010) is really a story about identity and growing up. It tells the story of Daniel "Mitch" True, a Lincoln High School journalist seeking to make a name for himself during his senior year. Enter Angel Marichal, an enigmatic and NFL-talented transfer who shies away from his much-deserved spotlight. The search to find out Angel's secrets is the mystery that propels Daniel's investigative work. Through the experience, Dan learns that reporting the truth has consequences. In the end, the mystery is really the secondary story, for the true takeaway is in Daniel's transformation from an overweight, unconfident nerd seeking to redefine himself by making a splash as a reporter to being a young, fitter, and confident man coming into his own, satisfied with being a work in progress. Nicknamed "Mitch," short for the Michelin Man during his freshman year because of his weight,  Daniel chooses t...

My avoidance of Jenny Hubbard's Paper Covers Rock  (2011) stemmed from my negative associations with John Knowles' A Separate Peace  (1959) , a required read from my tenth grade honors English class in high school. I never read the book: I didn't have to because the teacher basically did all the work by summarizing it for us each day. What I do remember is that I couldn't relate and so didn't care. A few years ago I tried to re-read it and found myself as equally uninterested. Last year, while I looked for interesting titles to add to my classroom library, I came across Paper Covers Rock.  It piqued my interest but not enough to make it a must-read. And so, it sat in my classroom library for months until a student chose it for her independent reading and wrote a response that propelled me to download it immediately on my Kindle. Set in 1982 North Carolina (though I'm not fully sure why),  Paper Covers Rock  has similarities to  A Separate Peace:...

Written a decade ago,  Geography Club  (2004) spawned a book series and a recent TV movie. An engaging read, I can understand why this debut novel by Brent Hartinger is so successful. After all, it was written at a time when stories featuring gay characters were rare.  Geography Club  is the story of a Russell Middlebrook, a high schooler convinced he is the only gay teen at his high school--until he learns he is not. With his newfound knowledge and company, Russell and his other gay friends are desperate to have a safe space for them to gather and talk to each other. What other way than to create a boring club no other high schooler would be interested in joining than the Geography Club? In the end,  Geography Club  is a story of identity, of people coming together to define and accept who they are. It is also the story of what seems to be the universal high school experience in which reputation creates division lines and the goal is to figure out on whi...

What must living be like for Steve Bartman? On October 14, 2003, Bartman became the most infamous Chicago Cubs fan when he deflected a foul ball in game 6 of the National Championship Series between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins. In the immediate aftermath, security escorted him inside the stadium to watch the rest of the game and later hustled him (in disguise) to a safe place. The next day, Bartman released a statement begging fans for forgiveness and pleading that threats against his loved ones be stopped. In the following weeks, Bartman headlined the news of nearly every sports-related program and planted himself firmly in Cubs lore. After all, the Cubs went on to lose the game and the series. More than a decade later--and still no World Series championship for the Cubs--Bartman has yet to be seen or heard from publicly. Bartman is simply one example of one, along with his friends and family, whose life was altered in ways unimaginable. Yes, in general, life is unpredictable...

For my first official read for #CBR6, I'm revisiting a book I read fifteen years ago (holy crap!),  Annie on My Mind  (1982) by Nancy Garden. Then, I had been working at a library and came across it on the shelves. From the title and the cover, I knew that it would deal with a taboo topic (by certain standards), homosexuality / lesbianism, but because I thought it would be a coming-of-age romance, I plowed forward with reading it...though the world not being what it is now (in a way), I did not publicize that I was reading it. In late November 2013, I attended my first professional conference but didn't know that authors autographing books was part of the deal (or that conferences were book publishers' money making machines), so it was quite by chance that I stumbled upon the giveaway and autograph session for  Annie.  I was on my way out the sales area onto the conference rooms for a workshop when one of her publisher's sales people asked if I was interested in ge...