The Teen Summer Reading Club is wrapping up, but our teens are still reading! Here’s a few more highly recommended teen selections.

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

This book is about a girl named D.J., who has to run her family farm because her dad is having hip issues. D.J. goes to Red Bend high school, and her dad used to coach football at Hawley high school, whose archrival is Red Bend. Since her dad used to work at Hawley, the football coach sent his quarterback, Brian Nelson, to the family farm to help out. The Hawley coach then wants D.J. to train Brian. While training Brian, D.J. realizes she likes football, and tries out for the Red Bend team. I really enjoyed this book; it was so hard to put it down.

- Cara Ellen M.

Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Audrey, Wait! is the hilariously funny story of a girl named Audrey who breaks up with her boyfriend, Evan. Evan is the lead singer of a band and he writes a (surprisingly good) song about their break-up called Audrey, Wait. The song becomes famous and so does Audrey. Now, no one leaves Audrey alone, strange people know her name, and she’s all over the news. Anything she does appears in the tabloids, and she gets a hundred messages and phone calls a day. All she wants is to have a normal life where she can go on a date with her boyfriend or hang out with her best friend without being harassed. When you read it you will love the main character Audrey, as well as her best friend, Victoria. It’s also realistic and makes you realize that being famous isn’t all its cracked up to be.

- Samiha A.

My Life in Pink & Green by Lisa Greenwald

This book is about twelve-year old Lucy Desberg, who lives with her mom and her grandma. Together they run their family pharmacy, only all their customers are now shopping at big stores. Money is tight, with Lucy’s sister Claudia in college, and they may need to sell the struggling pharmacy to pay off their debts. Lucy and her best friend Sunny find a grant for going green, and they decide it can help save the pharmacy. Claudia goes to an eco-spa and Lucy realizes that is exactly what the struggling pharmacy needs. Will they get the green grant and, will people stop treating Lucy like a little kid so her idea can work? I liked this book because it’s about girls going through troubles that kids my age can relate to. It has boy troubles, friendship troubles, and most important family struggles. Claudia and Lucy love doing make-up as a pastime and are good at it. I also like how each chapter begins with a beauty tip, business tip, or a quote from Laura Mercier.

- Bailey Rose A.

In The Road Home, novelist Rose Tremain stays faithful to real life in her flesh-and-blood creation of 43-year-old Lev. Lev is an Eastern European dreamer and widower with a young daughter, a hopelessly superstitious mother, and an irrepressible pal named Rudi, whose voracious (but misconstrued) appetite for everything “West” has him selling, in one very funny scene, the coat off his back and seven bottles of vodka for an ancient sky-blue "Tchevi" Phoenix with some serious transmission issues.

Lev, though, is more pragmatic — especially since the saw mill at Baryn closed. When he goes off to London in search of work, he schools himself to expect little and yet, what he finds shocks him. Here are the harried, often insensitive, and (from the viewpoint of someone coming from a land of nothing) grossly self-indulgent men and women of Rudi’s fanciful West – and none, Lev discovers to his dismay, look at all like his frame of reference: the actor Sir Alec Guinness.

Disoriented, bereft, and soon on the brink of collapse, Lev finds himself in a men’s washroom sobbing as the memory of his dead wife comes to him unbidden. “Why master feelings that, in this unreal world he’d just entered, felt real and true?” Tremain asks this question as Lev endures both emotional compromise and the struggle to keep a toe-hold on dignity – the plight of all immigrants.

When he finally lands a job as dishwasher in an upscale restaurant, his luck seems to be turning. Fascinated with the fast and furious kitchen drama surrounding him, Lev begins to realize a way out of his frustrating existence – but not until he is willing to let go of palpable memories. He meets this challenge with the help of his philosophizing Irish landlord, a Moslem kabob seller (who is certain that virgins are waiting for him in Heaven when he extends a kindness to Lev), and Ruby, a senior “living well beyond her shelf life," who recognizes in Lev a man deserving of dreams. Readers will agree, treasuring all of Tremain’s characters. But Lev they will cheer for!

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

I have owned and given away at least three copies of Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. The copies I loan rarely come back to me because this is one of the best feel-good romantic comedies ever. It’s an opposites-attract romance, with a great supporting cast that includes his friends and family, her friends and family, a neurotic cat, Elvis, an Italian restaurant,, and a collection of snow globes. Min Dobbs is an actuary who wears great shoes and goes by the nickname "Stats," and Cal Morrisey owns a training consultant business with two of his best friends and loves to bet on everything. The book hangs on a bet (and whether it was actually made) about Cal getting Min to go on a date — and maybe into bed. My favorite scene involves chocolate donuts and a Little League baseball game.

While Bet Me is my favorite (the audiobook is good, too), other Crusie titles don’t disappoint. Manhunting romps through a golf resort when Kate Svenson decides she has The Plan to find the perfect husband. It’s funny how plans can fall apart at a moment’s notice. In Welcome to Temptation, a big city girl Sophie Dempsey meets small town small-mindedness. Of course, mayor Phin Tucker is just the one for her. This book contains some of the funniest scenes ever put in print.

Crusie’s newest novel, The Cinderella Deal, offers a sweet romance between two lost souls. Daisy Flattery is an artist who collects cast offs (furniture, clothes, pets) because she still sees the value and beauty in them. Her mantra is "color and contrast." Linc Blaise is a college professor who has a line on the perfect job, only the dean prefers married staff. He and Daisy strike a Cinderella Deal where she pretends to be his straight laced fiancee until "midnight." Of course, it turns out to be a fairy tale match.

The author has a talent for writing about smart, modern women who still believe in happily ever after. The dialogue in all her books sparkle, and often produce out-loud chuckles. The pacing is fast, and the romances are hot. Or maybe, the romance is fast, and the pacing is hot. Either way, a Jennifer Crusie novel is always good for a laugh, a blush, and a sigh.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

“A soul could be captured through a shadow. It was in the Ojibwe language. Waabaamoojicchaagwaan — the word for mirror can also refer to shadow and to the soul: your soul is visible and can be seen. Gil had placed his foot on Irene’s shadow when he painted her. And though she tried to pull away, it was impossible to tug that skein of darkness from under his heel.”

The title of Louise Erdrich’s Shadow Tag comes from a game in the Native American traditions in which participants win by stepping on the shadows of other players. The shadow is seen as standing in for one’s soul.

Even though I think it is dark and somewhat depressing, what kept me reading this author’s new novel is the spare prose that pulls you in. Irene America discovers that her husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, so she decides to manipulate him by keeping the real “blue” diary in a safe place while leaving the fictional “red” one where he will find it. The story alternates between the two diaries along with some third-person narration, making it a haunting read.

Gil is an artist who achieves substantial success painting portraits of Irene, some of them deeply disturbing. Irene resumes her doctoral thesis on a 19th-century Native American painter whose subjects have died soon after being painted. The two have been married for approximately 15 years, and realize that something is missing from their relationship. They have three children: Florian, Riel, and Stoney, who look forward to the few times that their parents are getting along. Irene is dealing with her alcoholism, while Gil realizes that his fear of losing Irene may force him to create the defining work of his career. The complex relationships in this dysfunctional family can possibly serve as a warning to some, and those looking for an uplifting read will not find it here. The ending, as well as the whole story, is quite bleak, but the writing will keep you reading until the very end.

Michele Happel – Miller Branch

"There are some people with a gift for conviction — a talent for cutting a line through the jumbled phenomena of world affairs and saying, I’m in: this is my position. All of the Litvinoffs had it to some extent. It was a genetic thing, perhaps."

The Litvinoffs of New York have always prided themselves on being radically chic and believers of many causes. Joel, the patriarch and the family’s unifying force, is a lawyer famous for defending accused terrorists and radicals. His wife of 40 years is Audrey, an Englishwoman who is vividly described as a "middle-aged termagant." Their daughter Karla, a social worker trapped in a slightly disappointing marriage, feels unattractive and bears patiently her mother’s wisecracks about her weight. Their younger daughter Rosa is flirting with Orthodox Judaism and goes after it in such an awkward, charming way in spite of ridicule from her parents, who are contemptuous of any organized religion.

When Joel suffers a massive heart attack, the women in his life struggle to redefine themselves and their relationship with each other. Heller has the gift of letting her characters, faults and all, come alive and interact with the reader. The Litvinoff women are fascinating in a weird way — the kind of dinner guests who will stare you down and argue all the way to dessert. Audrey muses in one poignant scene: "How had she ended up like this, imprisoned in the role of a harridan? Her anger had become a part of her. It was a knotted thicket in her gut, too dense to be cut down and too deeply entrenched in the loamy soil of her disappointments to be uprooted."

The Believers is Zoe Heller at her best — witty, intelligent, acerbic and funny. Heller may not be known for her lovable characters, but they surely are memorable. Her novel What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal, about an obsessive English teacher, became a movie. She believed that the "point of fiction is not to offer moral avatars but to engage with people whose politics or points of view are unpleasant or contradictory." Be prepared to be entertained with this book. I surely was.

Cristina J. Lozare – Central Library

“War is like a disease. Until you’ve had it, you don’t know it.”

On an overcast August afternoon in Nagasaki, Hiroko Tanaka loses her German fiancé in the flash of the second atomic bomb. Ravaged by the blast, her back engraved with scar like black birds, Hiroko survives. She seeks out her fiancé’s family in India, discovering a whole nation on the brink of independence. With Pakistan’s creation approaching, what will become of Hiroko’s friendship with the colonialist family, the Burtons? And what of her budding relationship with Sajjad, her young, kindhearted Urdu teacher?

Author Kamila Shamsie takes us from Nagasaki to Delhi, Karachi to New York, stopping by the way of Dubai, Islamabad, Kandahar. Hiroko’s story evolves into the tale of her family, trying to hold themselves together over the decades. Over and over again, history shatters what little stability they can find. The Afghan war of the 1980s and 9/11 overwhelm the second half of the book, tying the personal with the political.

Yet, life goes on. Burnt Shadows‘ strengths are not so much in the heart-wrenching tragedies that befall Hiroko and her family, but rather, the lovely moments of peace, the belief in love, and family over all things ideological. Hiroko herself is an emblem of this: literally scarred by war, she still manages to find love in a strange land, and learn new languages, becoming an enigma of identity in a world of conflicting creeds.

The novel is broken up into five sections, oceans and decades apart. Shamsie’s prose flows throughout, keeping a steady pace, but still taking time to detail the minor beauties, the intricate sentiments of these characters. In the relatively tranquil moments of family drama, we grow to love Hiroko’s confidence, and Sajjad’s enthusiasm. Thus, when the burn of history scorches their home life, the pain is visceral. Burnt Shadows is a breathing tale of our times, encapsulating a half-century of conflict as well as the plurality of identities that populate this world of ours.

Khaleel Gheba – Miller Branch

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck is my candidate for best opening line in a fiction book: “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” The rest of the opening paragraph isn’t bad either, and provides a great orientation for Steinbeck’s exploration of the characters inhabiting this small part of Monterey, CA before the Second World War. Dropping in on Cannery Row, we meet Lee Chong, Dora, Mack, and Doc as we’re introduced to their community. Like much of Steinbeck’s short fiction, the chapters build upon each other in layers, and we see the characters interact with each other in different ways as they struggle to support one another, get ahead, and survive.

Rich details pull you into the book. Cannery Row is a place that Steinbeck knew well, and you can taste the spray coming in off the ocean as you read. The author was friendly with Ed Ricketts, who appears here as Doc, and he based the events of his novel on the real stories and culture of the Row. Steinbeck’s inspirations for the novel are detailed in Real Life on Cannery Row, a comprehensive collection of biographical and historical anecdotes collected by Al Lundy that vividly brings characters and locations to life by placing them in context. If you’re looking for a more visual experience, a 1982 movie starring Nick Nolte and Deborah Winger consolidates material from the novel and its sequel, Sweet Thursday.

You can’t beat the original novel though, and especially that first dynamite paragraph. For a close-up look at an interesting community, check out Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. You’ll be hooked by the end of the first page! Please leave a comment naming your candidate for best opening lines. I’ll be interested to see the list.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

I was initially bored with the descriptions of stylish clothing worn by the "beautiful girl" sisters — 21-year-old Pearl and 18-year-old May. However, as I persisted listening to the CD of Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, I became totally immersed in the imagery of the sights and sounds of 1930s Shanghai. The sisters were somewhat "modern" Chinese girls, living with traditional parents, while hiding their modeling job for a local commercial artist. The two also enjoyed late night dining and entertainment.

Here is what Pearl said about her relationship with her younger sister May: "Whenever you have two sisters – or siblings of any number or either sex – comparisons are made. May and I were born in Yin Bo Village, less than a half day’s walk from Canton. We’re only three years apart, but we couldn’t be more different. She’s funny; I’m criticized for being too somber. She’s tiny and has an adorable fleshiness to her; I’m tall and thin. May, who just graduated from high school, has no interest in reading anything beyond the gossip columns; I graduated from college five weeks ago. "

When their father’s financial circumstances decline, Pearl and May are shocked and dismayed to learn that he has arranged marriages for them in exchange for monetary assistance. 

With the onslaught of war, the family is torn apart and nothing is ever the same again. Pearl and May discover troubling family secrets, lies, and betrayals as they face the harsh realities of coming-of-age in a war-torn world.  Eventually they both endure the often tedious, humiliating immigration process into the United States via Angel Island — only to face even more difficult challenges in a new country.

The bonds of love, friendship, and sibling rivalry were brilliantly exposed in Shanghai Girls. Share this gem with your sisters! Chock-full of universal themes worth discussing, I would recommend See’s engaging, thought-provoking novel for most book clubs. 

A 2010 Adult Summer Reading Club recommendation

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

I am a sucker for dragons. I’ll read just about anything that has dragons, although I prefer them to be intelligent creatures instead of marauding predators. I was thrilled when Tanya Huff introduced me to cool new dragons in The Enchantment Emporium. These dragons are suave, debonair fellows, except when they get bored — and they tend to have short attention spans.

When Allie Gale inherits her grandmother’s antique and yo-yo shop in Calgary, she moves to Canada because she’s at loose ends. Plus, Allie’s family has certain talents to charm (literally) the world into going their way, and she’s not entirely sure that all is what it seems. She has good intuition because she quickly befriends a homeless leprechaun, discovers her attraction to a reporter who writes about the arcane, and deals with her wild-child cousin Charlie.

When you mix all these elements together with dragon lords who like to fly over the shop, you get a story that runs on non-stop action and surprises. Huff has a talent for entertaining her readers with snarky banter and hysterical situations. There’s one scene in which a bar fight doesn’t go exactly how anyone planned (do you plan bar fights?). And if this weren’t enough, twelve Gale aunties arrive for the final showdown between good and evil…beware the pie.

If you enjoyed The Enchantment Emporium, Huff has also written several series. Keeper’s Chronicles begins with Summon the Keeper, another fun urban fantasy featuring a kick-butt young witch, a particularly vocal cat, and Hell in the basement. Her military sci-fi series Confederation follows the career of Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr as she saves the universe and keeps the recruits in line.

Kristen Blount – Administration

It has been years since the publication of Sister Souljah’s last literary masterpiece The Coldest Winter Ever. Souljah, a gifted storyteller and social commentator, is much wiser than her earthly years. As an educator/advisor to at-risk urban youth, she is an ardent spokesperson. Her latest offering Midnight: A Gangster Love Story represents a fictional account of a handsome Sudanese youth’s complex adjustment to the often brutal life in the slums of New York City.

When just seven years old, Mayonaka and his pregnant mother Uumma are sent to America by his father to avoid the political strife and human devastation in Sudan. Prior to the civil unrest, their family enjoyed a life of wealth and relative tranquility. Mayonaka’s father, educated abroad, was a brilliant advisor to Sudan’s Prime Minister. His father taught him how to conduct himself with dignity, guard his family at all costs, and practice the Muslim faith.

Once in New York, Mayonaka is responsible for protecting his mother and baby sister, while dealing with the cultural shock of American urban life (gang violence, disrespect of the elderly, crooked police). Through all of his trials, Midnight – dubbed this name as he frequently played basketball well into the night — remains calm, thoughtful, and courageous. While working at a fish market in New York’s Chinatown, 14-year-old Midnight meets 16-year-old Akemi, a stylish Japanese student in the U. S. on an art scholarship. The two forge an instant friendship, although Akemi does not speak English.

Midnight will send chills up and down your spine. The more you read, the more you will be shocked and amazed. The author cleverly uses the first person narrative to heighten suspense. Because of the myriad of issues that are covered, this is a wonderful novel for book discussion.

Excerpt:
"Everything you have ever seen or heard about Africa is wrong. My African grandfather taught me that the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world after God. My grandfather said be careful who you listen to and what they are saying. The storyteller is clever and masterful and has already decided exactly what he wants you to think and believe."

Author Sister Souljah scores another hit right out of the ball park with her latest tour de force. Awesome! Bravo! (Due to its range and explicit language, Midnight is recommended for sophisticated readers.)
 
Elaine Johnson – Central Library