Unwind

Shusterman, Neal. Unwind. New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2009.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/3813967]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2008)
Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (2008)
Top Ten Quick Picks (2008)

Booktalk:
Following the Heartland War, a second civil war between the pro-choicers and the pro-lifers, a compromise is reached. There will be no more abortions, but parents can choose to "retroactively terminate the pregnancy" of a child that does not meet expectations by the age of 13. Parents can choose to unwind their teenagers. Too many fights at school, bad grades, simply being unexceptional. Anything can convince your parents that you're not worthy to reach adulthood. Anything can turn you into an Unwind.

Review:
I heard about this book during that dead time when there were no more hardbacks left and no paperbacks yet. I feel like I have been waiting forever for it to come out in paperback, and it was worth the wait. The book follows Connor, whose parents chose to have him unwound; Risa, who is a ward of the state who is not special enough to be worth the money it would take to house and feed her until her 18th birthday; and Lev, who has always know he would be unwound as a tithe from his parents, the 10th percent of their children. Each grow and change as normal teenagers have a tendency to do, but they do it while hiding from the cops and traveling in an underground railroad type connection of protectors. Their romances and fights never manage to take precedence over their anger, betrayal, hurt, and fear about the orders that have been given to end their "undivided" existence, but they do reinforce the normalness of all of the teenagers depicted in the book, which makes the thought of them being unwound all the worse.

Given the content, especially the origins of the concept of unwinding teenagers, this book was decidedly not preachy. In fact, while you know that unwinding is really really wrong before you make it out of the first chapter, a definitive stance on abortion is never taken. The ways that society can go wrong when a single idea is carried out to its horrific extreme, however, are illustrated in a way that is perfectly clear. As are the consequences of knowing right from wrong, seeing others suffer, and doing nothing about it.

The Juvie Three

Korman, Gordon. The Juvie Three. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.
[Book cover credit: http://www.librarything.com/]

Summary:
Gecko, Terence and Arjay, all residents of their local juvenile detention centers, are given a second chance at life when Doug Healy comes along. They all move into an apartment in New York together which becomes their own experimental rehabilitation program. When Healy is knocked unconscious and wakes up with amnesia, the guys have to cover it up or go back to juvie.

Booktalk:
"Gecko regards Terence in surprise. 'Didn't Healy give you the warning? That he had to fight to get this program going, and the whole thing is kind of a trial run? Mess up, and you go straight back into the system.'" p22

Gecko, Terence and Arjay are fighting for lives that they never thought they would get back. But how can they keep each other in line when they are still the same people who ended up in juvie to begin with?

Monster

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York, HarperCollins, 1999.
[Book cover credit: http://www.librarything.com/]

Awards:
National Book Award Finalist (Young People's Literature, 1999)
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (2000)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2000)
Coretta Scott King Honor (Author, 2000)
Edgar Award Nominee, Young Adult (2000)
Printz Award (2000)
South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominee (2000)

Summary:
After a man is shot with his own gun during a robbery, Steve is arrested and put on trial for being the lookout for the robbers. This is the story of his trial, written by Steve, as a screenplay.

Review:
The alternate format of Monster makes this an impossibly fast read given its almost 300 pages. That said, there is a lot going on in this book. Steve, through his screenplay, shows us an almost objective view of his court case and related flashbacks. His camera and character direction are the only things that betray his bias. This is contrasted with his handwritten journal that he keeps in prison during the trial. The raw fear that he shows in this format cannot help but to color the feeling of the clinical portrayal of the court scenes. The combination is at times chilling.

While we are limited to Steve's perspective of his trial and the events leading up to them, we can see, through him, what the people around him are thinking. This contrast between how we see Steve, frightened and trying to distance himself from the situation, and how the adults involved in his case, including his own defense attorney, see him is the main conflict of the book. This will appeal to many readers, but especially those who have been the victim of prejudices and stereotypes. Steve cannot get away from his young-black-man-from-the-hood image, even if it is placed on him rather than coming from him, which is something that many young readers can unfortunately identify with.

hole in my life

Gantos, Jack. Hole in my Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.

[Book cover credit: www.librarything.com]

Awards:
American Library Association Notable Children's Book (2003)
Sibert Honor (2003)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2003)

Massachusetts Book Award - Children/Young Adult (2003)

A Horn Book FanFare Best Book (2002)

Summary:
Jack Gantos started living on his own and making his own decisions, for better or worse, before graduating high school. He lives in his own world of literary splendor, physical squalor, and weed induced fascination/boredom with it all. To make money, Jack takes a job sailing a boat full of marijuana to New York City, where he is caught by federal agents. He recounts his trial, stay in prison, and how both change his lifelong dream to become a writer.
Review:
With the mugshot on the front and all they hype about this being a "prison memoir," readers may be a bit mislead. While Gantos does indeed talk about his unique prison experience, that is not the content that makes up the bulk of this book. Because the reader knows that a stint in prison is in store for Gantos, he uses it as the shadow that darkens everything leading up to his capture by federal agents. This leaves the reader feeling that this path was completely inevitable, rather than something that happened to Gantos because of a series of choices he himself made.
With an essentially uplifting ending, Hole in my Life fails to give the reader a true look into Gantos' life experiences or mind. His extended use of literary allusions a wide variety of sources keeps the reader either in the dark or on a goose chase looking for Gantos' meaning in other people's work. The overall effect is that of a watered down version of a story we have all already heard, with a large dose of "if I only knew then" on the side.