Hush

Chayil, Eishes. Hush. New York: Walker and Company, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10175762]

Awards:
Sydney Taylor Honor Book (2011)
William C. Morris YA Debut Finalist (2011)

Booktalk:
Gittel has always lived in the Chassidic community of Borough Park, and she knows that she is part of a holy community. She knows that unholiness, evil, hate and hurt come from the outside, from the goyim. Her best friend Devory knows that's not always true.

Told in alternating viewpoints, Gittel at age 9 and Gittel as a newlywed, Hush looks at how a small community deals with abuse at the hands of their own, or more importantly, how they fail to deal with it.

Review:
Hush was a hard book to read. It was painful and sad and unbelievable, but it was never hopeless, even when Devory and Gittel were. And it was compelling. I always skip to the end of books to read the "About the Author" section, so I knew from the get-go that Chayil (a pseudonym) is really a grown-up Gittel. I needed to know how she went from a childhood that taught her never to say anything that could shame another member of her community to the point of being able to write about the abuse she witnessed as a child in such a public way.

I don't know how much of a spoiler this can be since it's in the description and in probably every synopsis of the plot, but read on with caution.

Devory's brother rapes her with Gittel feigning sleep in the next bed.  Because we, as adults, know what is happening, it's a horrible scene to read. But Gittel has no idea what is going on, coloring the scene with confusion and fear. She knows that Devory's brother is hurting her. It's what happens afterward that is really horrific: Devory's parents tell the girls that they must be wrong; nothing like that could have possibly actually happened. They send Gittel home and leave Devory with her brother.

OF COURSE, while I was reading I was outraged, but I must have braced myself for it too much. I was so prepared for the sexual abuse that I somehow didn't let the real horror of the situation sink in. It wasn't until I went back through the book after reading that it really hit me. I was sitting in Borders checking quotes in my ARC against the published copy. Maybe it was seeing those quotes that I had marked out of the context of the story, but I sat in Borders angry and almost crying. Every single adult in Gittel and Devory's lives covers up the situation so that no one else, including the authorities, can know for certain what happened. They keep this up long after Devory, at the age of nine, hangs herself in her best friend's bathroom.*

Here is one of the quotes I was checking:

I am so sorry, Devory. I am apologizing for all of them, for those who should have know but didn't, for those who knew but ignored, and for those who put their reputations above their children's lives. ... You didn't have to die. But for our ignorance, for our deliberate blindness, for our unforgivable stupidity, you did. I hope this letter will stop others from sharing your fate.

p.335

So, yes, this is a hard and painful book to read, but it is also important. And though it has won a couple youth honor nods (and is clearly a YA book), it needs to be read by adults. As Liz B. points out**, this is not a condemnation of the community that Chayil is writing about. Denial is not exclusive to this group, and it is the adults' denial that is the real problem.


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher


*This is the difference between Hush and a book like Hope in Patience. In the latter, Ashley's mom doesn't believe her about the abuse, which allows it to continue, but after the fact, Ashley's dad and step-mom believe and are supportive of her, which allows her to heal and move on. Devory has no one to turn to but Gittel, who has less understanding of and control over the situation than Devory herself. Even the adults that believe Devory and Gittel do nothing to help. Gittel's father (my favorite adult in the book) doesn't find out about the abuse until it is too late to save Devory, but he eventually comes around and helps Gittel to grieve and go public with what she saw.

**Her review is so much less emotional than mine, so I highly suggest that you check it out. She also has links to a few other reviews and an author interview.


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Buddha Boy

Koja, Kathe. Buddha Boy. New York: Frances Foster Books - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/91406]

Awards:
BCCB Blue Ribbon Book (2003)
Book Sense Summer Pick Teen Readers (2003)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2004)
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults - Religion: Relationship with the Divine (2007)

Booktalk:

"What is that?" from Megan in her usual drama-queen way: but it was a sight, really, this skinny bald-headed kid in a size million T-shirt, backpack humped and lumpy as a turtle's shell, making his way across the cafeteria like a rabbit crossing the freeway: this way, that way, looking all around. "An exchange student? From Mars?"

p.5-6

But Jinsen is no alien. He's just a new kid with an outlook on life that differs from everyone else at Rucher High. Associating with Jinsen, quickly dubbed "Buddha Boy," would be social suicide, which is why Justin is dreading their new group assignment, the one that requires him to meet Jinsen at his house after school. But  Justin and Jinsen have more in common than they think and, social suicide or not, Justin finds himself standing up for Jinsen, even when he won't stand up for himself.

Review:
Buddha Boy reminded me a lot of What Happened to Lani Garver. It has that same feeling of hurtling towards disaster running along in the backgroun of the whole thing. In the forefront, however, there is a great story about Jinsen and Justin. Jinsen seems not to care what anyone thinks of or does to him. Good thing, too, since he dresses, looks and acts odd, none of which gets him a bunch of friends. He practically invites kids to bully him when he starts to beg for lunch money in the cafeteria. Most of the kids do just that, either actively by throwing pennies or worse or passively by ignoring Jinsen altogether. Justin, instead, asks him why he's different.

The two boys have more in common than Justin had originally thought; they are both artists. Koja's use of language, especially when describing the boys' artwork, is beautiful. You can really see the works of art that Justin and Jinsen are creating as you're reading. Stemming from that, the rest of the book is simply lyrical. The story, even though it is set in a contemporary high school and deals with some pointedly cruel bullying, has the far away feel of a fairytale. Justin tells this story and it somehow manages to feel like it's happening in the present tense and like it's already happened at the same time. Regardless of the subject matter, it's beautiful. When you add Jinsen's attitude and actions, and the way he affects and changes Justin, the whole thing is really breathtaking.

I only had one complaint, and it's not exactly a deal-breaker. During the course of Justin and Jinsen's growing friendship, Jinsen explains a few things about Buddhism, but mostly smiles and lets Justin figure things out for himself. Jinsen lives by example. This is great and fits well with his reaction to the bullying in the story, but I did wish every once in a while that Jinsen would give a straight answer to Justin's questions. There doesn't seem to be a lot of young adult fiction dealing with Buddhism,* so it would have been nice for this one to be a bit more informative.

I loved Koja's writing and have since picked up a few of her adult books from the library just to get more of it (in addition to special ordering Under the Poppy).



Book source: Philly Free Library


*Or at least I couldn't find very many. I really wish librarything or goodreads allowed boolean searching...

Nothing Pink

Hardy, Mark. Nothing Pink. Asheville, N.C.: Front Street - Boyds Mills Press, Inc., 2008. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/5968322]

Awards:
ALA Rainbow List, Young Adult Fiction (2009)

Booktalk:
Vincent has been praying, for as long as he can remember, to have the burden of homosexuality lifted from him. Every time his father leads an altar call, Vincent goes to the front of the congregation to be prayed over and have hands laid on him. It hasn't worked yet, but Vincent is not giving up. He knows God hasn't abandoned him; he can feel His presence. Vincent just needs to be patient and avoid temptation. Then Vincent meets Robert, at his father's new church of all places, and everything changes. As Vincent gives up praying for deliverance and spends more and more time with Robert and the two become more and more involved, Vincent still feels God in his life. Maybe all of these years he's been praying for the wrong thing.

Review: (kind of spoilery, but the ending is mostly what you hope it will be anyway)
Nothing Pink is a pretty straight forward coming out story. That said, it's a very well done coming out story. Vincent does a lot of struggling within himself, with the help of his strict Baptist upbringing, about his sexuality. He does everything he can to try to change himself including making out with girls, avoiding TV shows featuring guys in tight pants, and a whole lot of praying. But this is not the focus of the book. This all happens before the book starts, though it is alluded to throughout the beginning. The book actually starts on the day things start to get better, the day Vincent meets Robert. Even though Vincent still has doubts about the morality of his relationship with Robert and has to hide the extent of their relationship from his parents, this is mostly a happy book about Vincent's first love and eventual acceptance of himself.

A lot of Vincent's happiness with himself hinges on religion, or rather, God. His relationship with God factors largely into Vincent's life and the story. Vincent is moved by his father's sermons, hymns, and prayer. He acutely feels God's presence in his life. He is a devout and upstanding Christian, except for his sexuality. That's why he's so confused and hurt by God's lack of response to his prayers to be straight. As he becomes more comfortable with Robert and his relationship with him, he becomes more convinced that God is okay with it too. It's great. His parents, however, do not agree. When they figure out what's going on, they give him a talking-to that centers around this oft heard sentiment:

"We love you, Vincent...But God hates the sin of homosexuality, so we must hate it too, son."

p.99

To their credit, they never say that God hates Vincent, and they stress that they love him unconditionally, though Vincent doubts that their version of "unconditional" should count when they hate something that is so much a part of him. I did get the feeling that the mom, at least, would come around at some point after the end of the book.

During the talk with his parents and later when he is at church camp, Vincent does a lot of defending himself. In his own head. I love that he didn't have to stand up and be out and and proud right away or a spokesperson/defender of all people queer in his Baptist community. Sometimes that's all you can do, and it's great that Hardy provides this positive role model of someone who can only hold it together for himself but is still not weak. Outwardly, Vincent simply stops asking God to make him straight. Internally, he does a lot of building himself up, and that involves a lot of "God-talk." The religious over tones and general message of God loves the gays becomes a bit redundant and heavy-handed toward the end. This is definitely not a book for readers uncomfortable with Christianity. I appreciated the message, but it did kind of take over the book in a couple of places and pull me out of Vincent's story. But given how heavy-handed much of the anti-gay, religious literature can be, I had to forgive this repeated positive religious message.

Also, and this surprised me a bit, the book is set in the 70s. It's not overly obvious and so led to some confusing moments for me, such as when Vincent lists the TV shows he avoids and its clear that I should have recognized the titles. Other than that, only the feathered hair and continual Barry Manilow references tipped me off (and the title verso, which is where I got the actual decade of the setting from). And I do mean continual, with the Barry Manilow. You'll be singing Copa Cabana for days after reading this one.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Simply Divine

Thomas, Jacquelin. Simply Divine: A Novel. New York: Pocket Books - Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2006. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/1828734]

Booktalk:
Divine is living the good life. Her mother is up for more than a few Grammy Awards; Jerome (her dad) is a little bit of a has-been, but people still recognize him from all of his action movies; and Divine herself is 15, popular, beautiful, and famous by association. Her biggest concerns are what to wear to events and whether she'll be allowed to attend the after parties. But living with that kind of fame and privilege has its drawbacks, such as everyone at school knowing, almost before Divine hears about it herself, that her father has been arrested for murder. As Divine's mother deals with this and a whole host of her own issues as well, she sends Divine away. Her mom says it's what's best for Divine, but how could moving, even temporarily, to a teeny town in Georgia to live with a preacher uncle and his family that she's never met be what's best? No malls, no friends, no Mom. Divine knows she's being punished, but for what? Her parents are the ones who were caught doing wrong.

Review:
Divine starts out as such a spoiled brat! All of the finery and ease that (her mother's) money has bought is simply owed to her. She can't imagine life without a personal assistant, bodyguard, and chef, mostly because she's never had to but also because she deserves to have people do for her. Not that she's actually done anything to earn the money that pays those people or done anything to justify the fame she enjoys. Her mom has. It made me hate her a little in the beginning. She's just so entitled and that bugs me. Luckily, for me at least, once Divine gets to Georgia her cousin Alyssa has absolutely no problem calling Divine out for her snobbery, general bitchiness, and trading in on her mother's name. And good for her! Alyssa, that is. She does her best to make Divine comfortable, the whole family does, but Divine is determined to be miserable in Georgia and drag everyone else down with her. Eventually, though, she starts to settle into life with her aunt, uncle, and cousins and generally becomes a much more likable person and character. And, really, she wasn't sooo bad in the beginning that I couldn't get into the book, and it was pretty obvious (in the way teenagers can be, not in a bad writing way) that a lot of her snobbery was to cover up insecurities about herself. But she still drove me a little bit nuts before she started chilling out.

One of the many things Divine has to get used to at her aunt and uncle's house is going to church. Though her daddy was also a preacher, Divine's mom does not have anything to do with the church now. Divine never has; that's just not the way she was raised. Her Uncle Reed's family attends the church he preaches in every Sunday. At first, waking up early on Sunday and sitting through a sermon causes problems for Divine; the girl is really not a morning person. As she starts to listen more often to what Uncle Reed is preaching, her problems change to focus on the act of forgiveness. How can she possibly forgive her father for what he's done to her and her mother? And why should she have to? Divine's internal struggle with forgiveness and her feelings about her father in general continue throughout the book. Her resentment about going to church does not, and she eventually becomes a Christian.

Religion is never forced on her by her family, nor is it really central to most of the book. However it is often present, particularly in the way that Uncle Reed and Aunt Phoebe raise and treat their children, including Divine. Especially with regards to Divine and Alyssa and boys. Both girls have boyfriends, but they are little more than names on a page. Given how little time they're allowed to spend with their boyfriends, this is not surprising. I expect that they, and the girls' relationships with them, will play a bigger role in the next book in the series, Divine Confidential, as the girls finally become old enough to be allowed to actually date.

But I have no doubt that the second book will be just as clean as this one. Even though it is a book with an extra-marital affair, drugs, sneaking around to meet up with boys, and even a murder, it definitely qualifies as a "clean read." I don't even remember any swearing. Yet it still manages to feel a bit edgy, probably because Divine's parents are kind of screw ups. With the help of her uncle, aunt, cousins, and God, Divine manages to move beyond her parents mistakes to star in a series that promises to be uplifting and cute while still tackling serious issues.


Book source: Philly Free Library
Thanks to MissAttitude at Reading in Color for the recommendation!


Simply Divine is only the first book in The Divine Series. The rest, so far, are as follows:
Book 2: Divine Confidential
Book 3: Divine Secrets
Book 4: Divine Match-Up
and the companion book: It's a Curl Thing, a Divine & Friends book

Once Was Lost

Zarr, Sara. Once Was Lost. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8305112]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2010)

Booktalk:

• Jody Shaw: Missing, presumed kidnapped. Focus of a community-wide search
• Mom: Also missing, but in a different way. In rehab. Focus of no search but her own. And maybe mine.
• Nick, Jody's big brother: Sweet, worried, disturbingly attractive, and suspect in his sister's kidnapping.
• Dad, AKA Pastor Charlie: Comforting the Shaws. Comforting the community. Forgetting about Mom. Practically ignoring me.
• Erin, youth group leader: Helping head up the search for Jody. Really wants to "be my friend" and spend time with Dad.
• Vanessa, my BFF: Getting a little fed up with my mood and my secrets.
• Me, Sam: Lost--not missing--in my family, in my town, in my faith. No one's looking for me, not even God.

Review:
Poor Sam. She needed a hug throughout almost this entire book, and not the one-armed youth leader kind. She sufferes from knowing a lot of people but being close to very few. She's also dealing with the absence of her mother, and her mother's long-time alcohol abuse, all alone. Her dad doesn't want to talk about the situation, or at least he doesn't want to talk about it with Sam, and Sam can't talk to anyone else about it either, not even her best friend Vanessa, without hurting her father's reputation. They just keep telling people her mom is "sick" and not letting anyone in the house. Luckily for Pastor Charlie's image, no one wants to come over anyway since it's August and their air conditioner is broken. When Jody is kidnapped, Sam is clearly upset (she's mad at life, not heartless), but it does give her something besides her mother and crumbling family to focus all of her energy/super-power-strength-worrying-skills on.

It's when the youth group is all gathered praying for Jody's safe return that Sam realizes that she doesn't know anymore if anyone's listening. How could a just and loving God let Jody be kidnapped? How could He let Sam flounder through her life feeling so abandoned and alone? Sam struggles through this by herself as well. A daughter who may have lost her faith could be more damaging to Pastor Charlie's reputation than a wife in rehab. But Sam's doubt isn't a rejection of God. She desperately wants to feel the closeness and comfort that her youth group friends feel, especially when she has such a lack of both in her day-to-day life. She just can't muster it, and so she feels isolated and wrong. Though Sam's situation would undoubtably be helped by talking to her church friends or youth leader, the fact that she doesn't feel she can go to them is ultimately realistic. Even if she had sought guidance, this is something so personal that she has to deal with it alone.

And she does, with the search for Jody, a budding relationship with Nick, fights with Vanessa, and unreturned voicemails left for her mother all buzzing in the background.

Though it is a heavy read, I highly recommend Once Was Lost, especially for regular youth group attendees.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Saving Maddie

Johnson, Varian. Saving Maddie. New York: Delacorte Press - Random House Children's Books, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9092942]

Booktalk:
Joshua sits in the choir while his dad preaches behind the pulpit. Just another Sunday until all the other guys start whispering and looking at the congregation instead of Pastor Wynn. They're looking at a woman in a really low-cut dress, too revealing for church. They don't point her out to Joshua; he's the preacher's son and wouldn't be interested. But he is, of course, and when he finally looks, he sees her. Maddie. She was his best friend a million years ago, when they were both kids and her father was the Assistant Pastor. Before her father took a lead pastor position out of town making their lives jump to different tracks. Because while Joshua is "too good" to do anything fun with the guys because he's a preacher's kid, Maddie, also a PK, isn't.

Review:
My mom always said that there are two kinds of PKs: those who follow the rules, act as a good example, and reflect well on their father [or mother], and those who rebel and do everything in their power to distance themselves from the ministry and the church. It was always made clear to me that my mother was the first kind of PK when she was young. The PK who helped me dye my hair black my freshman year of high school, on the other hand... That is neither here nor there, but I bring it up because Saving Maddie is all about the relationship between two PKs, Joshua and Maddie, who embody my mom's types perfectly.

Joshua Wynn has grown up being an example for other kids: The Wynn Boy. He doesn't seem to mind too much, except that he had to give up on his school's basketball team to lead the youth group and that everyone his age thinks he's some kind of prude. But even these things don't dampen his spirits, and he works very hard to keep his reputation. He has to; he's "Joshua Wynn, the preacher's son. ... a shining example of what [is] good and righteous and wholesome in the world" (28). More like some kind of super-hero than a real person, don't you think? It's not until Maddie comes back into his life that Joshua starts to object to the perceptions that other people have of him and the pressure that he is under, from his parents and the community, to do and be good. And no, he never liked that he gets left out of things because he's such a goodie-two-shoes, that he's the guy other kids hide their beer from at parties, but until Maddie comes along, it's as though he didn't know he could be any different. She opens up a world for him where he is not an extension of his father and his father's work.

Now, I've never been a PK, but I was raised by one, and I was definitely a goodie-two-shoes in high school who had more friends at youth group than at school. I think that Johnson has absolutely nailed that experience, or at least mirrored mine. The feelings and internal conflicts that Joshua goes through felt so authentic. His struggle to reconcile what he wants to do with what he's supposed to do with what everyone else is doing was ongoing. The lectures from his parents ("I'm not mad, I'm disappointed." -- the worst!) and the advice from his friends to just go for it (the BIG it, no less), were so familiar. And then there's Maddie, who seems so much more grown-up, experienced, and figured out than Joshua. Of course he falls for her! There is definitely attraction involved, but Joshua also gets one of those I-want-to-be-you crushes on her.

Saving Maddie is told from Joshua's perspective, so we don't get to see the inner workings of Maddie's head. Through her talks with Joshua, however, she becomes a fully realized and complex character. Something that makes up a large part of Maddie, and everyone else's problem with her, is that she is no longer religious. BUT she still has her faith. This disconnect between faith and religion is something that a lot of teens struggle with, not just PKs. Without going into great detail or getting bogged down in theology, Johnson makes Maddie an example of what it can mean to believe in God without participating in a specific religious tradition. She still considers herself spiritual and a Christian, but she doesn't go to church. Joshua sees her spirituality acted out in her life, rather than her Sunday attendance. It's a less obvious way of teaching-by-example than the kind of life he has been living, and while he may not change to be non-religious like Maddie, he definitely learns from her. Seeing how she acts out her faith in what she does rather than what she doesn't do gives him more choices for how he can show his. And he finally does that by sticking up for Maddie.

Because when Mom and Dad and everyone else saw Madeline, all they saw was the girl with the bad attitude and sexy body who didn't care about her faith or her family or even herself. The girl who threatened to sway me from the path of the righteous.

But when I saw Madeline, I saw a girl who prayed before every meal. A girl whose eyes shone with sadness every time her father was mentioned. A girl who desperately needed someone to tell her she was good.

p.145

While there is clearly more to Maddie than her lack of religion rather than her lack of faith, this is what stuck with me while reading. I think it will resonate with many other readers as well.


I could go on and on about Saving Maddie; there are at least half a dozen more quotes left in my notes. Johnson has done something wonderful here. He's managed to capture the PK experience, and the growing-up-at-church experience, so well! And he's managed to do it in a way that, I think, will be attractive and relevant to readers who've grown up without these experiences as well.


Book source: Philly Free Library