This Is What I Did

Book: This Is What I Did
Author: Ann Dee Ellis
Audience: Junior High
In a Nutshell: boy who won't speak up becomes junior high pariah

Something bad happened to Logan, but he doesn't want to talk about it. He's always been kind of a shy kid, but now he avoids everyone, stays in his room as much as possible, and tries to stay out out of his new tormentors' way. After The Incident, his parents even moved across town for a "fresh start," but the first thing his mom does is call all the neighbors and tell them what happened and that he's deeply depressed, so it's not very fresh. It involved his best friend Zyler, and now people avoid Logan like the plague. The crueler ones call him a sicko, and crapstock, and a pervert. Boy Scouts is torture, especially since the Scout Leader is the head tormenter's dad, but Logan goes just so his dad thinks he's okay.

There is one girl, Laurel, who is nice to him. She's obsessed with palindromes, and they trade notes of new examples. Through his friendship with Laurel, his participation in the school production of Peter Pan (he's a Lost Boy), and the therapy his parents take him to, Logan is gradually able to come out of his self-imposed solitude and talk about Zyler, Zyler's abusive father, and what happened that night.

Quick, engrossing read with no real chapters. Short paragraphs are interspersed with silhouette icons that sometimes mean nothing at first, but gradually take on significance. Logan has an awkward, honest voice, and very sympathetic. He really is a lost boy through much of the book, which makes the steps he takes in the end toward knowing who he is and exerting himself very satisfying to read.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Book: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Audience: Teen
In a Nutshell: Lose your memory, find yourself

When she wakes up after her accident and head injury, Naomi has lost the last four years of her life. She can't remember how to drive, or where her new house is. Her best friend Will, their co-editing of the school yearbook, her boyfriend Ace, even her parents' divorce are all missing from her memory. And from some of the things she's learning, the person she was isn't someone she wants to be anymore. For one, there's the mysterious bad boy who first came to her aid, someone the Old Naomi would never associate with, but whom she is drawn to. There's the popular kids she eats lunch with by virtue of the fact that she's Ace's girlfriend, but she doesn't really like them, and they obviously don't think much of her. While she's waiting and hoping her memory will return, Naomi gets a chance not many people do: an excuse to start over, to reinvent herself.

A very good, often funny, book. It's divided into three parts: I was, I am, I will. Zevin has some great similes in here. I forgot to mark the exact page, but to paraphrase: "he looked confused and a little frightened, like Bambi after his mother gets shot." A great look at doubled-edged treasure and burden of memory and personal history. It can make us who we are, but also sometimes trap us there.

Vampire Academy

Book: Vampire Academy
Author: Richelle Mead
Audience: Teen to Adult
In a Nutshell: high society vampires and the almost-humans who love them

Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a slightly-more-than-human with enhanced speed and strength, who is sworn to protect the Moroi. Vasilisa "Lissa" Dragomir is a Moroi princess, pale, sensitive to sunlight, and lives on human blood. You know the type. But these aren't your ordinary blood-sucking fiends. In this story, there are two types of what we'd call vampires. Moroi feed only on willing humans (I guess the buzz is fantastic) and possess various types of nature-related elemental magic. Then there are the Strigoi, who have turned evil and bloodthirsty by misusing their power. They're very strong, but they've also lost their earth-mothery magic.

Rose and Lissa are students at St. Vladimir's Academy in a secluded region of Montana. Rose is in training to hopefully be Lissa's bodyguard. They already have a bond between them that's unheard of since the days of St. Vladimir (you know the one); Rose can read Lissa's emotions, and sometimes can even see from her perspective, literally- as if she was in her head.
There's a war building between the Moroi and Strigoi, and it's starting to touch the school in both small and deadly ways.

Let's not forget Dimitri, the hot, slightly older Dhampir who is training Rose so she can catch up with her class after returning from her and Lissa's time on the run. If you want to know why they were on the lam, you might as well read it.

I've got a thing for vampire novels, and I liked this one too. This twist on vampire legend was intriguing to me, especially the existence of both good and evil vampires. Heck, the Moroi are traditionally even Catholic, kind of. That whole burned by crosses thing not a problem here.

Book 2, Frostbite, is due out in April 2008. Strong start to a new series here.

Tamar

Book: Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal
Author: Mal Peet
Audience: Teen and Adult
In a Nutshell: subtitle pretty much sums it up

If you liked The Book Thief, here's another really excellent WWII story that covers all sorts of time periods, several characters, and could really be either a teen or an adult book. And hey, it won the Carnegie Medal in England, so it must not suck. ;)

Tamar is reeling from the mysterious death of her grandfather, the man who named her. When she opens a box he left for her, she discovers even more mystery about his and her grandmother's life, both in the present and when they were part of the Dutch resistance during World War II. Unraveling the mystery takes her on a journey up the Tamar River to a surprising revelation at the end- or the beginning.

Interspersed with Tamar's story is the tale of two Dutch men, code-named Tamar and Dart, who were trained in England for covert operations against the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. It was the winter of 1944, known as the "Hunger Winter," when the weather was harsh and the Nazis were starving the will to fight out of the resistant occupied people. Tamar was charged with the task of uniting the fractious Dutch resistance, and Dart was his WO, or wireless operator. Like many great stories of war and betrayal, it all comes down to a woman: the beautiful country girl Marijke, with whom Tamar had a semi-secret relationship on his last mission.

Both the 1995 and 1944 stories are compelling and interesting, and the language is evocative without drawing undue attention to itself. Since the Printz Award isn't limited to American authors (Peet is British), I put this on my Printz short list. Really excellent stuff.