Interesting Reader Society - Book Reviews by Young Adults
Interesting Reader Society -- School Library Journal, 11/04/2009
Halpern, Julie. Into the Wild Nerd Yonder. Feiwel & Friends. September 2009. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-312-38252-0. Gr 9 and up.
Jessie is one of those types that just don’t belong anywhere in school, a fact that is only amplified when her two so-called best friends begin to change into people she doesn’t even know anymore. Now she has a quest to fulfill—to find friends somewhere in the clique-filled halls of high school, a task that ends up leading her into some unexpected situations.
This book is well paced, original, and is an adventure to read. It has the perfect balance of teen angst and humor, a balance that is all too often missing in young adult books nowadays. Not only that, the plot had unexpected twists that made me want to keep reading until the final page. There was so much that I liked about this book, it’s hard to narrow down the best element!
The first thing that I loved was the humorous descriptions (I also loved the antics of the various cliques). Julie Halpern is a genius when it comes to portraying the strange chemistry that resides among band kids, and each of those characters had a unique personality of their own. However, what really made me love this book was how much I could connect with the main character, Jessie. The way she acted and thought were so much like myself that I actually felt as if I were looking out through her eyes. I was only disappointed when the book ended.—Rachel B., age 17
Another review of Into the Wild Nerd Yonder
Witty, sarcastic, and drop-dead hilarious, Into the Wild Nerd Yonder tells the humorous tale of a young lady trying to find her place in high school. Although Dottie was on the math team, she always fit in with her very eccentric and flashy punk rock friends and her brother’s deep metal band. But she soon gets tied up in a romance that even she can’t hope to traverse and loses her place among this crowd. Eventually, she begins to branch out and try new things including a fabulous adventure with Dungeons and Dragons as well as finding new love along the way. Read this book and hop into a humorous ride into the “wild nerd yonder!”
The cover was a tad confusing with the dual summaries on the front and back, and it strayed from the imagery that could have been provided based on the book’s characters and plot. However, the color scheme was brilliant and entirely fit the mood of the piece.
The best part of the book was the humor that interlaced the plot sequencing. This book made me laugh the most out of any book I have ever read and I was nearly rolling on the floor, in stitches. The brand of humor switched from satirical to sarcastic to ironic, with a little cheesiness along the way. A perfect blend of many styles! Although the book was a tad awkward with the time skipping around, it ended up worked nicely and definitely cracked into my top 20 favorite books of all time (even with this odd time sequence).—Jason P., age 14
Despain, Bree. Dark Divine. Egmont. December 2009. ISBN: 978-1-60684-057-3. Gr 7 and up.
The night Grace Divine’s first crush, Daniel Galbi, disappeared and her brother returned covered in blood was a dark night indeed. But Daniel comes back three years later, and he brings more questions than answers with him. Why does her brother Jude hate him? Why does Daniel seem so dark and distant? What happened that night three years ago? Now Grace must choose between her brother’s wish for her to stay away and the attraction Grace has to Daniel. Can she save them both from themselves? Or will she lose herself trying?
Honestly, the cover made no sense at all. All it shows is a pair of legs wrapped in fabric. It was the title that drew me in—such a lovely contrast of ideas. Grace’s narration was very entertaining, especially her views on promises. But the truths lurking along the edges are also very compelling and the red herring is a huge plus. It was kind of obvious with all the foreshadowing what Daniel was, so it wasn’t much of a shock to find out when the time came. Twilight readers will probably like this book.—Rachel M., age 16
Lieb, Josh. I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President. Razorbill. October 2009. ISBN: 978-1-59514-240-5. Gr 6-9.
Oliver Watson could be just a relatively average boy. Slightly overweight, he appears to be a little dim and failing all of his classes, but this isn’t reality. Oddly enough, this 12-year-old kid is a billionaire and one of the most powerful people in the world. He has all the power a person could ever want and then some, yet he wants something more. Revenge. Revenge on his arch nemesis, named "Daddy," for crushing Oliver’s dreams at a young age. And boy, if Oliver could, he would get it. This leads him to enter a world of nefarious plots involving Star Wars’ figurines, secret agent employments, and hilarious scenes involving mothers, young elementary school love, and insignificant class president voting.
The cover is very humorous. The little boy sticking out his tongue expresses the mocking tone of the story and provides insight into the main character’s thought process. After all, he is a bit immature. There were also interesting scenarios involving Oliver’s many servants. His teachers, classmates, principal, and many frightening people work for him and yet have no idea what he is really like, or are unimpressed by such a feeble-looking boy. This allows hilarity to ensue and makes for a great story.
The book was a little confusing as to whether or not the author was serious. Sometimes the tone was so mocking that it seemed as if this were a dream the boy came up with, and yet there was so much evidence against that theory that it made things difficult to unwind.—Jason P., age 14
Madigan, L. K. Flash Burnout.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. October 2009. ISBN: 978-0-547-19489-9. Gr 9 and up.
When you have two people in your life—one who needs you and one who wants you—who do you choose? This is exactly the choice that Blake has to make when he finds his friend Marissa’s long-lost mother and reopens old wounds that had just started to heal. Now, torn between Marissa’s tangled life and his actual girlfriend, Blake has to decide to whom his loyalty belongs.
Conceptually, the cover of the book reflects the story, with a boy holding two pictures, one of a girlfriend and the other of the friend-friend. However, I do not feel like the people on the cover accurately depict the characters as they were described in the story.
Blake’s struggle with his decisions was just the thing needed to add the human element to this story; without it, this would have been somewhat less interesting to read about. It was a bit disappointing for a character that I had become so attached to during the course of the book to get such a lousy ending as Blake did in this story. As I read the last chapter, I found myself flinching as one thing followed another and put Blake higher on my list of "characters who just never get a break."—Rachel B., age 17
McKinley, Robin and Peter Dickinson. Fire. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. October 2009. ISBN: 978-0-399-25289-1. Gr 8 and up.
From award-winning authors Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson comes the second collection of short stories focused on one of the classical elements. The first, Water, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and Fire is just as good. The five tales that make up Fire range in setting from a forest in England to a world where dragons travel through the Firespace at will, moving miles in a few wing beats.
Every story is unique, well-crafted and beautiful, making the collection as a whole a joy to read. To start off, McKinley and Dickinson are fantastic writers on their own, so any collection featuring their stories is bound to be good. The central theme is specific enough to keep a common thread binding all five works, but broad enough that there’s a lot of variation between them. As for the cover, I loved the way the fire pattern was the background for the authors’ names, cut out of the blackness. It was very simple, but elegant—the swirl of the fire, the slight difference between the title’s background and the main image, and even the little curves cut out of the corners around the title.
The variety of the stories was extremely impressive. Each seemed to center around a particular animal, but none of them were the same or even more than slightly similar—a phoenix, dragons, salamanders, a hellhound, and a firework, all unique and intriguing. I particularly liked McKinley’s story “First Flight.” Her concept of three-eyed dragons was pleasantly unusual, and one I’d love to read more about. Perhaps in a novel? That would be cool.—Lisa M., age 15
Smith, Alexander Gordon. Lockdown. FSG. October 2009. ISBN: 978-0-374-32491-9. Gr 7-12.
Lockdown tells the grim and horrifying tale of poor Alex Sawyer who steps into the world of a dark and dangerous prison, called “the furnace.” After watching and being framed for his best friend’s murder, he is thrust into this most inescapable and horrifying place. Soon his new friends become dark enemies, new enemies are created, abuse is a constant threat, dark monsters haunt the night, and the biggest dream is freedom. 
I liked the cover with the skull made out of the boy’s face, and the red and black color scheme. The skull showed that death can haunt anyone in the furnace and was a grim sign of what was to come. The colors showed the blood and pain that was a constant. The only problem for me is that the series title is written so closely to the author’s name that it was confusing.
The most interesting aspect of the book was life in the furnace. By day, the inmates performed dangerous or back-breaking manual labor as a way to make them too tired to fight. Despite that, they still fought for survival throughout the day, and their plots against Alex gave the story a heightened sense of fear. By night, the cell mates would sleep in cramped quarters with hardly any warmth and could be visited by the murderous dark figures at random. Even in the safety of darkness, there was fear.
I was disappointed with the ending, because after making it out, the inmates promised to return to the furnace to free their friend even though they had just attained the greatest freedom imaginable. If they did return, they would more than likely be locked up again or killed.—Jason P., age 14
The Interesting Reader Society (IRS--"teens, not taxes!"), is a library teen advisory and reading group for kids in grades 6-12 from the Poudre River Public Library District in Fort Collins, CO. Currently, there are about 40 members with an average of 25 teens per monthly meeting. IRS is also one of the 15 2009-2010 national teen reading group appointees for the Teens' Top Ten/YA Galley project of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).
