Golden by Jessi Kirby

Golden by Jessi Kirby




Nicholas Sparks fans will like Golden. Parker Frost is the perfect daughter for her mother: she has always done what her mother wants so that she can go to Stanford and become a doctor, but is that what she really wants?

Mr. Kinney, a teacher at Parker's school, gives the seniors a composition notebook near the end of school and poses a question to answer.  The students write down their answers in the book anyway they want, seal them up, give them to their teacher who hold on to them for ten years and then mails them to the students.  Parker was to mail out all the composition books, but when she came across a dead girl's, she did something out the ordinary: she took the journal and read it. 

Kirby gives teenagers what Sparks gives all of us to believe in: true love and fate.  I like how Kirby begins each chapter with a line from one of Robert Frost's poems. 

How would you answer the question Mr. Kinney poses from Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day":
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

Doppelganger by David Stahler

Doppelganger by David Stahler



To me it seems strange that the last two books seem to be about different topics but have so much in common.  Stahler's Doppelganger, which in German is a double of a living person,  is about a shape-shifter or chameleon who has no name.   A doppelganger will kill a human and take on his or her life form to live as a human. 

So what does this have to do with The Tragedy Paper that I just finished before picking up this novel? Shakespeare.... or even more specific Macbeth.  Both novels tie in the character's story with Shakespeare's tragic hero Macbeth and the choices Macbeth makes.

When the doppelganger takes Chris' life, he thinks living with a real family, going to school, and dating will be like what he sees on television.  He finds out quickly real life and TV shows are not the same.  That is what I keep telling my children and students: the reality shows are not real; producers focus on the drama to keep the audience entertained and wanting more.

Like Emma Donoghue's Room in which Jack is locked in a room for the first five years of his life with books and television, Stahler pulls me in at the beginning when the doppelganger is isolated from everyone in a cabin and reads and watches television to learn about life.  While I am not as emotionally pulled toward the doppelganger as Jack, I do feel for him as he deals with "a crappy place, filled with crappy people."

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban



This reminded me of Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why. 

During the senior year at the private Irving School, students have to write the Tragedy Paper, "the Irving School's equivalent of a thesis project."  That is one of the three items on Duncan's mind when he returns to school for his senior year.  He also worries about what room the previous senior assigned him and what "treasure" they left for him. 

Like Asher's 13 Reasons Why, in which Clay listens to Hannah's story on tapes, Duncan listens to Tim's CDs of what happened to him his last semester of his senior year.  Laban keeps alluding to a tragedy throughout the CDs and Duncan's thoughts but readers do not find out what the tragedy is until the end.  As Hannah's tapes help Clay change the way he is around girls, Tim's CDs help Duncan do the same with Daisy. 

I do like Laban's allusion's to various Shakespeare plays and events, but without being familiar with those plays most readers will not understand the significance behind characters'  names and events.  I was just discussing Jane Smiley's Thousand Acres with a co-worker the other day, and I read this novel.  Would that be a coincidence or fate?

Bad Boy by Dream Jordan

Bad Boy by Dream Jordan


While I think Jennifer Brown's Bitter End is better than Bad Boy, this does have merit.

Katie is in the foster care system in New York. She is about to be adopted, but because of extenuating circumstances, she has to be returned to foster care.  When she volunteers to help with a 4th of July picnic, she meets Percy who takes an interest in her.  They begin dating and he spoils her with expensive gifts and her own cell phone so that he can reach her when necessary.  Percy begins losing his temper with Katie and after he smacks her, she decides to break up with him.

I hate to think of teenagers and women who are in abusive relationships and do not have the friends or resources to get out of it.  Katie is a tough girl, and she has to learn that she does need to open her eyes to the type of friends she wants to be with.  How many of do ignore the bad side of someone because we want to only see the good side.  I like wearing my rose colored glasses, and I am just as guilty of being in an abusive relationship when I was in high school.  Luckily I was never hit, but he did cut me down and verbally abuse me all the time.  I was not mature enough to end the relationship until college and see that I do deserve better.

Do not think you are the only person this has happened to because you are wrong.  And there is help out there for you. 

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

While this is not my favorite Jennifer Brown novel, I do think the content about sexting is relevant.  One of the high school counselors recommended that I read this novel, and when I told her I finished it but I didn't think the actions the school did are realistic, she told me that we should have the resource officer read it to see his viewpoint.

Ashleigh is a junior in high school, and at the end of the school year pool party where alcohol is involved, she is dared to take a naked picture of herself and text it to her boyfriend, Kaleb, so that he will pay more attention to her than his baseball team friends.   (If that is all the guy thinks is important about you, dump him!)  I think if Ashleigh wasn't drunk, she may have not made this poor choice.  Her boyfriend leaves for college in the fall, and when Ashleigh would call him, he would say that he is busy or she would hear girls laughing in the background.  Ashleigh thinks Kaleb is cheating on her and they begin fighting.  They end up breaking up and he text her picture to his contacts who then forward it to their contacts.  Everyone in the school ends up seeing Ashleigh naked, including her father, the superintendent. 

Both Ashleigh and Kaleb are arrested for child pornography, and Brown shows us how Ashleigh deals with the aftermath. 

Both Brown and I grew up in the 1980s without all the technology at our fingertips that the world has today, and I worry about all the girls who act before they think and then their information and pictures are out there for the world to view.  I worry everyday about what my own children post on the Internet that could come back to haunt them in the future. 

Girls think that just because you send that picture to your boyfriend doesn't mean that he won't send it to others where it can be posted on the Internet for anyone to see.  Do you really want men your father's or grandfather's age seeing you like that? 

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen



This is the last summer Emaline has before she attends college in fall.  She wonders what it would be like to have a summer fling as she has dated Luke since her freshman year of high school.  Emaline does not want to be like her mother who had a summer romance and ended up pregnant, but she wonders if change would be better.

While some things stay the same--her dad constantly remodeling the house--change does occur for Emaline this last summer: she and Luke break up; she kisses Theo the same day and begins dating a "dater"; her older sister, Morgan, brings in changes to the family rental business; and her father and half brother move to Miss Ruth's house after she dies to sell it.  Emaline has to adjust to these changes around her while learning what type of person she is and wants to be.  

I don't know if reading this during the summer is such a good idea because when Emaline refers to the countdown of days until school begins in the fall, it only makes me think about how few days I have left until school begins, and I have to begin work again. 

Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles (sequel to Rules of Attraction)

Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles (sequel to Rules of Attraction)'




I do suggest you read Perfect Chemistry and Rules of Attraction before reading this novel so that you know the Fuentes brother's back story.

This novel follows Luis in his senior year of high school as he deals with moving back to Chicago; his attraction to Nikki, who doesn't like him; and the Latino Blood (LB) gang that wants him to become a member.

Elkeles alternates chapters between Luis and Nikki so I knew they were going to end up together just like his older brothers end up with their future wives, but I was clueless along with Luis on his connection to the LB gang, except that his older brothers used to be gang members too.  I vaguely remember the secret Luis finds out from the earlier novels, but I'm not sure if I am imagining it or not.

After reading other novels these past couple of weeks in which the teachers at the school turn a blind eye to the bullying that goes on in the classroom, I can say that I enjoyed the interaction Luis has with his chemistry teacher, Mrs. Peterson, who shows tough love in the classroom with the students but also shows she cares about them too.  

This is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell

This is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell



This is not like the school shooting novels I have read previously (Nineteen Minutes, Hate List, She Said Yes).  Emery and Jake are high school seniors who go to Mrs. Campbell's first grade class three mornings a week to teach them French. Emery and Jake used to date so they have a little conflict before the hostage situation occurs.

McDowell alternates between Emery and Jake's perspective with them letting readers know what is happening in the present as Stutts holds the class hostage and with flashbacks to their personal relationship and their family relationships.

After the Connecticut elementary school shooting, this puts a little more perspective on how elementary children react in this situation.  These two situations are not alike, but I wonder if the children in Connecticut acted the way these first graders acted. 

On the first page of the novel, Emery states: "And by the afternoon, three people were dead", but by the end of the novel only two people are dead.  Is this an editing error or is Emery speaking metaphorically? I know we joke and laugh when we have the various drills in school, but if we were in the same situation as Emery, Jake, and Mrs. Campbell would we be able to keep our cool to protect the students in the classroom?