Falling for Hamlet

Ray, Michelle. Falling for Hamlet. New York: Poppy - Hatchette Book Group, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10848571]

Booktalk:
Not too long ago in modern-day Denmark, there was a prince. He was handsome and smart and, of course, very charming. His girlfriend, a beautiful media darling, was the daughter of a palace adviser, and together they tried to live normal happy lives while their faces smiled out from grocery store magazine racks. Then the unthinkable happened. The king, the prince's father, died. And our sweet prince lost it, falling into grief and paranoia, and leaving his beautiful girlfriend to fend for herself among the wolves, both inside the palace and out.

Review:
Let me start by saying that you should not judge this book by its cover. Or by its opening lines:

"Frailty, thy name is woman." - William Shakespeare
"Willy, thy name is sexism." - Ophelia

Don't get me wrong, both have very much to do with the story (other than Hamlet's hair color on the cover), but they really make this look like a much lighter, funnier, beach read kind of book than it really is. I mean, really, how would one make an adaption of Hamlet light? Instead, this book is everything it should be; it's brooding and dark and, at times, intense. It's also narrated by a strong Ophelia who is understandably worried (and sometimes so tired/drunk she's a bit loopy - how else could one explain the flower scene) about her boyfriend's apparent loss of sanity but who also does her best to be supportive and helpful to those around her, especially her aforementioned boyfriend and her widower father, all while trying to keep her own life together in the midst of circumstances no high school senior should have to deal with. She is so at odds with both the classic and modern versions of how we usually see the character of Ophelia. I loved it.

The story stays pretty true to the original, with one major difference that is given away on the jacket flap: Ophelia survives. The motivations behind people's actions, however, are different. The "truth," what Ophelia is telling us the readers, is book-ended by Ophelia's tell-all appearance on fake-Danish-Oprah in the beginning of each chapter and her interrogation by the Danish police at the end. These three concurrent tellings of the same story, illustrate the fabrication of what we take for "fact" from the media and the reach of a government cover-up more explicitly than that paparazzi pic on the cover ever could. On faux-prah, Ophelia is sweet, in love, heart-broken, and kind of ditzy. She's the almost princess. While being interrogated, she is bitingly sarcastic, angry, and fiercely loyal to Horatio and Marcellus, the only other people to survive the bloodbath that is this story. She's accused of being the master-mind of a plot to overthrow the Danish monarchy. In between, she's just a girl doing her best to do what's right for herself and those she loves.

Really and truly, I loved this book. It sucked me into the story and kept me on the edge of my seat even though I knew, more or less, what was going to happen. The characters were well-rounded and real in ways that Shakespeare characters usually are not. I cried when the king died. Have you ever cared about Hamlet's dad enough to even care that he's dead? I haven't. And Hamlet himself made a bit more sense, not a lot, but a bit. Giving him a happy background with Ophelia, at least in flashbacks, made their whole relationship much more believable which made it all the more crushing when he becomes cruel. Michelle Ray has managed to take a story that I already knew well and liked, and she made it into something new and original that I love. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.


Falling for Hamlet comes out July 5th!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.

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Spinning Out

Stahler, David. Spinning Out. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10831527]

Booktalk:
Gilliam High's annual musical is kind of a big deal. The kind that's looked forward to by the whole town. That's why Frenchy thinks Stewart has got to be joking when he suggests they audition. The audition will be marginally fun, wholly embarrassing, and the biggest jewel in their pranking crown. Or so Frenchy thinks. It turns out, flubbing the audition for laughs is not part of Stewart's plan. That's how Frenchy and Stewart snag the leads in "Man of La Mancha," as Sancho and Don Quixote respectively. For Frenchy, it's all a little surreal. When Stewart starts immersing himself in the role just a little too much, things really start to get weird.

Review:
Frenchy's had a hell of a year, and now he just wants to coast through his senior year. But Stewart wants to get involved and, as his best friend, Frenchy backs him up. Their relationship, mirrored in the master-servant/leader-follower relationship of Sancho and the Don, is the driving force of this book. And it's a serious and challenging relationship. Still, Spinning Out is mostly hilarious. It's not laugh-out-loud funny; it's more subtle than that. If this book were literary fiction instead of YA, it would be called "intelligent humor." The banter between Frenchy and Stewart is always snarky, and when you throw Ralph, their pot dealer/Frenchy's mom's boyfriend, into the mix, it's gets a little out of control. In a good way. That's why, when Stewart starts to act a bit...off, Frenchy doesn't think too much of it.

Stewart falls further and further into the role of Don Quixote; it's great for the play, but hard on Frenchy. It's also hard on his budding relationship with stage manager Kaela (who is awesome-sauce). So he steps away, just a little bit. Finally able to claim a little bit of his own limelight in the role of Sancho, Frenchy separates himself just the tiniest bit from Stewart. They're still best friends (and just like Norah, Frenchy is a Great Friend), they're just no longer practically surgically attached.

During all of this changing and growing and relationship stuff, there is still a show to put on! Long rehearsals, music practices, hot chicks with power tools building sets, it's all there. Theater geeks and show choir enthusiasts (and fans of books like My Invented Life) will love this aspect. All readers will be treated to a meaty story in the meantime.


Spinning Out will be available for purchase May 25th!


Supers, Super Spoiler only for people who want to know the "issue," or what's really going on, or the ending: (highlight to read)
Stewart has undiagnosed schizophrenia. During his descent into the disease, he clings to Don Quixote, convinced that the Don is the real him. The fact that Stewart is obsessed with/plagued by the wind turbines on the edge of town helps push him over the edge. Now, I'm not an expert in mental illness, but I thought the schizophrenia was handled very well. Though the school bullies call Stewart crazy, Frenchy never does. The whole thing is handled with respect. It's also really scary, and Stahler doesn't shy away from that fear, Stewart's or Frenchy's. I also thought that the reactions of the adults in Stewart's life were, sadly, probably pretty realistic. Stahler doesn't shy away from the consequences of those reactions either. Still, at no point did this feel like an "issue book." It was not preachy and there was no info dump. All the necessary information was worked seamlessly into the story. This is a great book for readers interested in mental illness in general and schizophrenia in particular.






Book source: ARC provided by the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

My Invented Life

Bjorkman, Lauren. My Invented Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8212420]

Booktalk:
Roz and Eva have always been best friends as well as sisters. Secrets, giggles, pillow fights, the works. Sure, Roz has always lived in Eva's shadow, but it's an impressive shadow so she doesn't mind too much. That was before Eva removed Roz from her life. Now, PD (Post Deletion), Eva is doing a pretty good job of pretending Roz doesn't exist, and Roz thinks she knows why. Eva MUST be a lesbian and she MUST be terrified of coming out. Even though Eva is being horrible to Roz, she wants to do something nice for her, to help her. So Roz pretends to be a lesbian and comes out at school, both to show Eva how it's done and to snag a bit of that spotlight for herself.

Review:
I checked out My Invented Life after reading Libyrinth and being overjoyed at reading about a queer character with friendS. It seems like such a simple thing, to give a queer character more than one friend and/or a friend who is NOT another queer character of the opposite sex so that none of the real life problems of one-sided-lovey feelings between friends get in the way of the story arc. My Invented Life was suggested (by the awesome MissAttitude) as another book featuring queer teens with (gasp) friends of both sexes and multiple sexualities. On that basis alone, this book is already a win!

My Invented Life is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's "As You Like It," but instead of mistaken genders, we have mistaken sexualities. In case you don't get that similarity right away, the characters are also auditioning and rehearsing for a school showing of the play. Much of the book takes place in the big barn behind the school where the theatre geeks hang out and practice. The characterizations of the drama club crowd are pitch-perfect. The major players range from Eva, popular cheerleader who always gets the lead, to Eyeliner Andie, the showy goth chick with the super-skinny, shy boy toy. Amazingly, up until Roz decides to pretend to be queer, there doesn't appear to be any other non-hetero folks in the group.

Right before auditions, this tight-knit group (which also includes Roz and her arch-nemesis Carmen) is joined by the drama teacher's nephew, Jonathon. He's new (read: automatically crush-worthy for most of the group), has done something that has gotten him kicked out of his parents house (mysterious bad boy with a serious chip on his shoulder), and African-American (a fact which seems to surprise only Roz). Roz lays claim to him on the basis that he's her next door neighbor, she's the drama teacher's favorite, and she could use a friend. Coming out does not go as she hoped. She gets attention, RoZ iZ a leZ on the bathroom wall, but not the outpouring of love and support she was hoping for:

"None of my friends hugged me, not even once." We theater geeks touch a lot -- hug, polka around the room, and smoosh cheeks together for pictures. ..."They probably though I would fondle their breasts."

p.63

So Roz starts a campaign to educate her classmates about the Kinsey Scale and to make them accept her as a lesbian. For Eva's sake, of course. Even though Eva still won't admit that she's queer (no matter how much Roz tactlessly badgers her about it), Roz keeps up the facade. She and Eva begin to bond again over The L Report (Roz's nightly updates on her "experiment" with lesbianism), Roz gains some new friends (including Jonathon and Eyeliner Andie) and a new understanding of what all those people online mean when they say "sexuality is fluid," and secrets come out of the woodwork and from all directions.

This is a cute story with an engaging and memorable cast of characters and a predictably happy ending (if you're familiar with "As You Like It"). It's also a great book about being the only "one" in a crowd, whether by "one" you mean POC, queer, poor kid, goth, whatever.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Jane

Lindner, April. Jane: A Modern Romantic Retelling of Jane Eyre. New York: Poppy - Little, Brown and Company. 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8873909]

Booktalk:
After the death of her parents, Jane finds herself running out of options. With no money to pay for school and no home to go to when the dorms close, she applies for work at a nanny agency. Jane's never been overly social or interested in pop culture, facts that made her a bit of a loner at Sarah Lawrence, but they make her the perfect candidate for a nanny position in the home of world-famous rock star Nico Rathburn. After reading through internet archives of tabloid stories about Nico Rathburn's sordid life so far, she expects to have to babysit through a constant drunken party. Instead she finds life at Thornfield Park to be calm and her charge's life to be almost normal. And Nico Rathburn isn't the playboy she expect either.

Review:
In the review of a book like this, a modern romantic retelling of a classic, you might expect a bit of commentary about how the retelling relates or compares to the classic. There are plenty of reviews of Jane out there already that do that, so I'm not going to. Also, I've never read Jane Eyre, which would make the comparison a little difficult. More importantly, I've never had any desire to read the original, and yet Jane was one of the new books I most eagerly awaited this fall. Because, really, who hasn't had a daydream (or two) about a chance meeting with a rockstar/actor/hot guy in French class where you fall in love and live happily ever after in a mansion?

Well, Jane Moore apparently never had that daydream. She's very serious and very artistic at the same time. I bet her doodles never involved practicing her Mrs. Nico Rathburn signature (or any other future signature, for that matter) in middle school. That's why when she gets to Thornfield Park and finally meets Mr. Rathburn (who looks just like Russel Brand in my head), the guy all the guys want to be and all the girls want to date, she's completely blindsided by the feelings she develops for him. From the very beginning, Mr. Rathburn takes Jane seriously and values her opinion, not only because she's basically raising his daughter Maddy, but because he sees intelligence and value in her. The problem is that with their real big age difference (which I would have loved to see addressed or at least acknowledged at some point) and his role as Jane's employer, she's never sure if he's interested in her as Miss Jane, Maddy's nanny, or in Jane, all on her own.

What follows is a book's worth of "does he like like me?" introspection and touching moments that will generate enough butterflies in your belly to last a lifetime. It's practically a fairytale in its perfection...

And because the real plot of the story starts so far into the book, this might be considered a bit spoilery. Proceed at your own risk:
...until you realize that you're reaching the happy ending only about 2/3 of the way through. With happily ever after right within their grasp, the world comes crashing down around Jane, Maddy and Mr. Rathburn. If you're familiar with Jane Eyre, this mini-apocalypse probably won't be all that shocking, but I was completely thrown for a loop, as was Jane. And she runs from it. Jane, on her own and without a plan, gets to pull herself up by her bootstraps and figure out what she really wants in life for the first time since her parents' death. As much as I loved the lovey-dovey parts of the book that led up to this, Jane on her own was the best part. It finally gives her time to mourn the loss of her family, both her natal family and the family she had been building with Mr. Rathburn. She becomes more than the mousy youngest sister, the proper nanny, the "Plain Jane" that managed to snag Nico Rathburn's heart. I definitely liked her more as a character for her growth and found all that happens after much more believable. I get why all Jane's growth had to happen so far into the book, plot-wise, but I wish Jane had been a more realized person from the beginning. I don't think it's a problem with the characterization or the writing; I think it's just that Jane was kind of coasting on auto-pilot up to that point, or as auto-pilot as one can be when dropping out of college to be a nanny.
Done with the spoilers.

In short, this is the story of a great romance. It combines all those timeless, delicious feelings of a first love with the glamor of the rich and famous and the realities of how real life can intrude on both.


Jane comes out on October 11th! But it looks like it's already available for purchase on amazon.


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher

Amiri & Odette

Myers, Walter Dean. Amiri & Odette: A Love Story. Illustrations by Javaka Steptoe. New York: Scholastic Press, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/6906772]

Booktalk:

I asked myself if there were modern dangers to young people similar to magic spells of folklore. The answer, of course, was a resounding yes, and I began to craft a modern, urban retelling of the Swan Lake ballet.

from "How I Came to Write This Poem"

(unpaged)

Amiri is the basketball playing "prince" of the Swan Lake Projects, destined to fall in love with Odette, a woman "cursed" and owned by her dealer, Big Red.

Review:
I can't unknow the story of Swan Lake, so I am not a good judge of how clear that story in in Amiri & Odette to the non-balletomane. I can, however, say that there are a lot of little touches that hark back to the ballet in beautiful ways, such as Odile's (who is never actually named in the book) black mask at Amiri's party, but nifty connections to the ballet are not the strongest part of this telling. What Myers does fantastically is really make this a story that isn't about princes and magic; he makes it real. The curse is drug addiction and the evil wizard, a dealer. This makes the cause and effect of Amiri's profession of love for Odile a bit nonsensical (Odette's addiction and debt to Big Red will not magically go away if Amiri loves her and only her, nor will she be trapped in that life with no possible means of escape if Amiri doesn't love her), but it also leaves room for non-magical consequences. There is no but-the-spell-said moment that makes Amiri's mistake irreparable. Just because the deal is broken, doesn't mean that the curse is everlasting or that Odette is doomed. Myers' telling makes way for a change in the ending.

The artwork in Amiri & Odette is fabulous. It is dark and gritty and portends doom in a way that dozens of classical white tutus never could.* The artist's note says that the collages that make up the illustrations were painted on slabs on asphalt. They are large and hardcore; each a complete work of art on its own. The texture of the asphalt shows through and Chinese food menus, feathers, pieces of jewelry and other street flotsam are used throughout. The feathers surrounding Odette as she tells Amiri about her entrapment make her look like both an angel and a beast, much like the swan-woman Prince Siegfried is initially afraid of in the original story, even if all the audience sees is a ballerina in white. Or a girl watching a basketball game.


There have been countless stagings of Swan Lake, and all but the most traditional performances (the ones that dance four full acts) are showing some kind of adaptation for the modern audience. I can't embed the videos here, but I can give you links to a few versions of Swan Lake:
Classic Odette Variation by Svetlana Zakharova (2:43)
Classic Odile Variation by Svetlana Zakharova (2:40)
Matthew Bourne's staging of the pas de deux between Odette and Prince Siegfried (5:58)
Parody of the "Baby Swans" pas de quatre by Ballet Trockadero (1:37)


Book source: Philly Free Library

*Romantic white tutus (the long ones), on the other hand, suggest doom quite nicely. In the midst of this trend of YA paranormal romances, where is the modern day adaptation of Giselle?!?

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation

Bradbury, Ray. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation. Illustrations and letters by Tim Hamilton. Introduction by Ray Bradbury. New York: Hill and Wang - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8185039]

Booktalk:

"It's fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan."

p.8

In a world of fire-proof buildings, all that's left for firemen to do is burn. They hunt down the owners of personal libraries and burn their books. Without books, society watches the walls, parlour walls that show passive and faux interactive programming all day. Everyone watches the same shows, everyone has the same opinions, everyone falls in line.

Review:
I have a confession to make. I've never read Faherenheit 451. I know that makes me a bad book lover, bad librarian, and possibly even a bad person. I've known this for a while, and still I haven't read it. Maybe if I had, I would have liked this graphic novel adaptation better.

For a sparse book to become a graphic novel, with even less text, things must be cut. Unfortunately, the lack of dialog between the characters was coupled with really dark illustrations that didn't exactly show everything that was being left out in the text. Don't get me wrong, the illustrations were amazing. They were mostly in shades of blacks and grays with bright splashes of orange; the threat of fire was always present. The only frames that were free of the darkness and the orange flames were those picturing Montag and Clarisse. Unfortunately their interactions were so brief and curt that I didn't particularly care that she was, clearly, Montag's way out of the life he had built for himself. Worse than that, I couldn't understand why her death affected him so much. This lack of understanding or empathy made it hard for me to follow him through his life-altering decisions thereafter.

The one big highlight for me was Bradbury's introduction. It was beautiful, moving, and reminded us all to pick one book to memorize should books become contraband. His writing at the opening of this graphic novel has inspired me to go find a copy of the original novel. His writing style seems more to my taste. Maybe once I've (finally) read it, I'll appreciate the graphic novel adaptation more.

For some positive thoughts on this book see Natalie's review at This Purple Crayon.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Annie on My Mind

Garden, Nancy. Annie on My Mind. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982.
[Book cover credit: http://www.librarything.com/]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1982)
Booklist Reviewers Choice (1982)
School Library Journal's 100 Books that Shaped the Century (2000)
Retro Mock Printz Award (2002)

In 2003, Nancy Garden was also awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement for Annie on My Mind.

Summary:
After meeting in a museum, Annie and Liza strike a friendship that crosses the boundaries between Liza's private school upbringing and Annie's metal detector, public school reality. When this friendship also crosses the line between friendship and romance, they must figure out how to proceed and who to tell.

Booktalk:
"Chad kept kidding me that I was in love, and asking with whom, and then Sally and Walt did, too, and after a while I didn't even mind, because even if they had the wrong idea about it, they were right" (p109).

When Annie and Liza's friendship becomes something more, will they be able to keep if a secret? Will their relationship survive being hidden? More importantly, should it?

Weetzie Bat

Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat. New York : Harper & Row, 1989.
[Book cover credit: www.librarything.com]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1990)
ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults
ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
Parents' Choice Gold Award

Francesca Lia Block is also the recipient of the 2005 Margaret A Edwards Award for the books in the Weetzie Bat series, of which this is the first.

Summary:
Weetzie Bat (real name) is a not quite typical high school student. When she meets Dirk, another not quite typical high school student, they become fast friends riding around in his car, visiting his grandmother, and looking for cute boys. This short novel chronicles their not quite typical Los Angeles young adulthood as they move into a house of their own, fall in love with their respective beaus, and start a family, complete with a couple of indie movie gigs to prove they're really in LA.

Review:
There is no space in this little book for exposition. Instead of describing the places and time that Weetzie and co. live in, Block sets the reader down in an LA even the people who live there have only heard about. Anything can and will happen. In the same way, the plot rushes past without hardly any marker of time. What anchors this story is the wonderful characters. Their unique personalities make this book easy to relate to and insure that there is someone in this slim novel for every reader to relate to.

This modern day, boho, so-cal, indie fairytale tells the perpetually happy story of Weetzie and her Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk and his Duck, and a smattering of other people who come in and out of their fantastic lives. This story is about building a family of friends in the face of differing standards, evolving relationships, births, deaths, AIDS, and often surreal circumstances. Though there are some heady issues being addressed in Weetzie Bat the story remains light and carefree, so channel your inner bohemian and enjoy the read!