Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

genre: memoir 

As World War II looms, Jeanne's family is living a peaceful life on the shores of California.  While her father fishes in the family's fishing boat, she goes to elementary school like any other American.  When Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese, however, her life abruptly changes because although she was born in America, her parents are Japanese. Her father is taken away and her family is moved to a relocation camp out in the desert - a camp called Manzanar.

This book is her memories of that place, of how they got there, how it changed them and what it was like after they got to leave.  It is told in a very straightforward voice, perfect, I think, for younger teens to get a glimpse at what life as a true 'outsider' is like.  I read this along with my 7th grader daughter and I am glad that they are studying this rather shameful side of our country's history.  Jeanne never rants or acts critical - actually, she's incredibly patriotic.  She just tells what she did and how things seemed to HER, as a child, and she is able to also look back and figure out WHY she dealt with things, especially the very blatant racism, the way she did.

And while this is definitely an interment-camp-story, it's also a family story.  It is Jeanne watching her father, as children do, seeing him scramble to retrieve his stolen dignity.  It is Jeanne watching her mother handle being uprooted and then dropped down into a shack the size of a modern-day master bathroom and trying to turn it into a home for her and her children.

I found this a quick and interesting read.  Great for teens with any interest in history.

In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler

genre: memoir

My first impression of Eve is that she is a survivor. A warrior. A victim.  Someone who wants so much to understand who she is and how that person fits into a world that is so full of pain and horror.  Eve was abused by her father.  Eve has spent years of her life as an activist among women who have been ravaged by wars and violence to their bodies.  Eve feels the pain of our earth that is being destroyed by both our actions and our negligence. And when Eve is diagnosed with cancer, she begins to see parallels between her own battle with her diseased body and the earth's fight against the humans that would turn it inside out.

This is not an easy book.

This book made me cry.

One particular scene was so upsetting that I had to look away and I had to skip it.  The tears came afterwards, imagining the horror I only glimpsed on a paper page but that was someone else's life.

It is hard to read about horrible things happening to people and it is hard to read about them from the point of view of a woman who has been broken but has put herself back together.

It is hard to read about cancer - about a woman's journey in all its sloshy and uncomfortable and realistic detail.

It is hard to think about the crimes that are committed against the bodies of women, as though our flesh and blood are somehow prizes to be won or bullets to rip through the hearts of those who would protect us or trash to be torn apart and left to rot.  It is very hard to think about that.

But Eve Ensler makes us.  She makes us look in the face of this horror and she doesn't pretend to be anything other than a person who cares.  A person who cares enough to DO something about it.

I can't say I liked it.  It hurt too much.  The language was too harsh, the feelings too raw.  But I can say that her words were sometimes so beautiful that it was astonishing.  It opened my eyes.  It made me FEEL.

And that, I think, is what she wanted.

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Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

genre: young adult fantasy

My experience with Peter Pan growing up was exclusively the Disney animated movie.  In my head, Tiger Lily is just this proud girl with a feather in her braid, sitting in a boat, unafraid of Captain Hook.  Truthfully, I don't think I ever even wondered about her and HER story.  I probably liked Wendy better and wished Peter Pan would have just forgotten Tiger Lily. And Tinker Bell?  What a little brat.

And then, you pick up this book. And that little brat Tinker Bell tells the story of Tiger Lily and Peter Pan and the story you knew is turned on its head.  It's familiar, sure - it's just more raw, mostly because Tiger Lily and her world is a wild one and her people are both ancient and naive about the world beyond their Neverland island.  There is a frightening boldness to this version of an old story - and Tiger Lily is a deep character, with amazing strength but that strength can sometimes be her downfall when she refuses to change her square self to fit into anyone's round hole.  Not that we want to change the core of who she is - but we all have flaw, and sometimes even just a little bit of change can bring a great amount of happiness.

She figures it out, eventually, and I think what grabbed me most about this book is Tinker Bell's observations on love - how we love, how that love can change and yet never leave us.  Sometimes the "bad" characters seemed to meet their end a bit conveniently, but I suppose she did have to stick with the original to some extent and I was always rather pleased when it happened.  Sometimes Tiger Lily and her 15 year old self drove me a little crazy - but WOW does our author understand the mind of a 15 year old in love.  I was actually reminded of my own selfishness at that age and I think her portrayal is pretty spot on.  The writing is powerful and lyrical and even though it didn't end how I necessarily wanted it to, I believed it, and that really matters.

This isn't a perfect book, but its pretty dang fabuolus.  

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The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

genre: fiction/historical fiction

 Nicola has a gift - with a touch, she is able to look into the past of an object, see its history.  With her love of art and all things Russian, her job with an art dealer is perfect.  When an beautiful object with an uncertain past makes its way into her hands, Nicola knows she has to find out its story.  But for a journey this big, her gift might not actually be enough to discover all the clues she needs and it will take a man with an even more amazing talent to help her determine if The Firebird ever truly belonged to Russia's Empress Catherine.

Again, Susanna has a formula - modern day strong and capable career woman who, in one way or another, is able to access the past.  And that "past" is a second storyline that we follow throughout the book.  However, I happen to LIKE this formula.  She writes good books. They keep me interested. I like the characters (what IS it about Scottish men, anyway?).  I loved seeing Russia this time and learning about the relationship between British ex-pats in Russia, the Jacobite movement and the tsar and tsarina.  If you have already read Shadowy Horses or, especially, Winter Sea, you will see MANY familiar characters, which I really enjoyed despite the fact that my knowledge of that story did lead me to know some spoilers about the ending of this one - but it didn't bother me too much.  If you can suspend your disbelief about spirits and mind-reading and journing-to-the-past-in-your-mind, then you can have a lovely time.

They don't change my life, Susanna's books, but they do enrich them.  They are romantic without being graphic, which I appreciate, and I'm always happy to loose myself in her stories.  At the end of her novel she gives a thorough history of who is real and who is fictional, and I always appreciate that in my historical fiction.  Yep, I'll read whatever she writes next.

note: if you're interested in the content of the books I read, please go to http://ratedreads.com

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

genre: young adult science fiction/dystopia

June has grown up in a giant glass city.  In this future world where older men are rare and a queen and her "aunties" rule, June and her best friend Gil revel in parties, making art and generally soaking up whatever pop culture has to offer them.

But then the new Summer King is elected, and Enki has ideas of his own that will take June into a world of deception and body modification, daring and art and a terrifying kind of love that makes you do things and understand things that maybe you're not quite ready for.

I read this for the cover. That glowing tree on her skin is fantastic, I think.  June is intriguing.  Her arc and coming-of-age is a little frustrating but resolves well and is believable.  Enki is crazy and a very unique and creatively drawn character. I didn't love how sexual the book was.  I didn't love that there was so much Portugese-ish phrasing and pretend-world building that I often felt like I wasn't completely sure of what was going on.  In fact, I really was probably a third of the way into the book before I felt like I had my feet under me in her world and that felt too long.  I did think the ideas in it were QUITE fascinating - the city itself, the ways that people could modify their humanness, the subplot of art for expression and political dissidence, and even the plot, once I understood it, I really liked.  She is a very strong writer and some of the phrasing was absolutely beautiful but enough of it bugged me that I still give it three stars.

note: if you're interested in the content of the books I read, please go to http://ratedreads.com

The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molliy Caldwell Crosby

genre: history, nonfiction

How much do you know about Yellow Fever?  Anyone?  Anyone?  I can't possibly be the only person who knew NOTHING about this disease.  I am embarrassed, now that I have read this incredible book, about how little I knew. This fever literally ground life to a halt in parts of our country, over and over again.  Her descriptions of life during Yellow Fever epidemics was chilling, disgusting and unsettling.    No wonder our government was frantic to figure out what caused it, how it spread, and how to get rid of it.

This book is both a history of the disease in our country (and Cuba) as well as the story how how we figured it out - the story of scientists that literally put their lives on the line to save humanity from this terrifying hemorrhagic fever.  Although I have heard the name Walter Reed all of my life, I had no idea that he was such an important part of this story.  I also need to keep reading things like this because it is so easy to forget how hard life was before we know what we know.  When people did NOT know about viruses or about insects transmitting disease or that it was even important to keep the privy away from the drinking water.

When you have a sister who is an epidemiologist, all kinds of interesting books end up in your hands.  I would have never picked this one up on my own but holy cow, it was readable and fascinating.  Beware, however - you may never look at mosquitoes the same way again.

Priceless by Robert K. Wittman

genre: memoir

Very few people in the FBI have anything to do with stolen art –it’s just not a big enough or necessarily high-profile enough area of expertise. But Bob Wittman solved art crimes at the FBI for years and Priceless is a memoir of his time trying to recover stolen art. By working undercover, he creates relationships with thugs and criminals, eventually setting up situations where he gets the art and the bad guys get in trouble. In theory.

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the art history, the theft stories, the way the author played the set-up situations. I grew to have a real respect for his ability to think on his feet in some pretty frightening circumstances. He’s honest about his mistakes and while part of it did feel like he was sort of “tattling,” for lack of a better word, on people in the Bureau who made his job really frustrating, I still liked to read about the internal workings of the organization from his point of view. I came to appreciate how logically intense uncover operations can be. I didn’t need him to tell me, every time there was a press conference, that he kept in the back out of the view of the cameras, but beyond his repetitive use of the word “wiseguys” there wasn’t anything else that annoyed me.

I just found myself always interested in reading it. He tells a very unique story. I actually finished wishing there was more to read.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

genre: adult mystery

11 year old Flavia is a curious sort, the kind of girl who loves problems to solve and sees an unreal beauty in chemical formulas.  So, when a stranger dies in her family's cucumber patch, Flavia naturally takes a great interest in what might have caused such a thing to happen. Her investigation takes her all over the British countryside (on her bike) as she finds out what a dead bird, a stamp and a from-out-of-town redhead have to do with her father and his past.

Oh my stars.  Why did I not try this earlier?  Per the advice of a friend, I listened to the audiobook which was DELIGHTFUL.  The Yorkshire accent totally immersed me in the story.  Flavia is crazy bright (so much that you really need to suspend your disbelief, which I was happy to do) and the mystery kept me very engaged (and I am REALLY not so much a mystery person).  I liked the stamp-collecting subplot and sometimes Flavia's comments had me laughing out loud in my car.  Despite the tangents in her internal dialogue sometimes going a little long for me, she's a wonderfully unique character that I wish I could meet in real life.  I must listen to another.

Fairy Godmothers, Inc. by Jenniffer Wardell

genre: adult fiction

Kate has a rather intriguing job: she's a Fairy Godmother.  Yes, she's got the wings and her duties really do include creating happily ever after for people.  Well, for those people who have paid for it and signed a contract dictating what SORT of "Happily Ever After" they desire.  Typically True Love is involved.  And Kate has learned how to orchestrate it all, enjoying her job just enough to make it tolerable.

And then she gets her latest case.

It involves your typical Cinderella story only, Cinderella is NOT so typical and the prince that's SUPPOSED to be involved is, actually, not available.  It's the brother of this prince that begins to make this story exciting and turn Kate's life and job pretty much upside down.

If you are needing a little bit of fluffery fun, this was quite enjoyable.  There's a fair bit of snarky banter that I enjoyed, the love story is smartly written and I like the author's twist on the fairy tale genre.  I'm not sure why I wasn't completely thrilled, maybe the ending was just a bit much for me to believe.  I couldn't tell if she was just rushing to finish and set it up for another book - the pacing and action just felt off somehow.  She had me all the way until the very end, though, and I am still glad I read it, since there is, at least, a happily ever after.

note: if you're interested in the content of the books I read, please go to http://ratedreads.com

The Heist Society by Ally Carter

genre: young adult

Kat's family business isn't your typical venture.  For this 15 year old, learning how to pull off a con or steal from a maximum security facility was like learning to tie your shoes or ride a bike.  It's just what you learn how to do, surrounded by the people who know the ropes.  And even though she had decided she was done with that life, a family friend with connections gives her the perfect reason to do one last job: some incredible artwork has been stolen and her dad has been framed.

Time is of the essence and Kat's going to have to figure this one out on her own.  Well, on her own with some teenage accomplices with skills that just might be enough help to pull it off.

Thanks, Melissa, for the recommendation.  Probably I wouldn't have tried this but it was absolutely unputdownable fun.  The writing is sharp and fast-paced and, surprisingly, with some heart.  I liked the "Robin Hood" slant to the plot and there were a few really great twists.  I can't actually complain about anything from off the top of my head, so, good times.