The Program

Wow, The Program was unique. And infuriating. And terrifying. This is a whole new type of Dystopia, people.

In this world (one not too far distant from our own), depression and suicide are an epidemic. Something like one in four teens commit suicide. Sloane knows this fact intimately after her older brother committed suicide, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

To battle this epidemic, an organization called The Program arose. The Program has the cure, or so it advertises. But the teens who walk out its doors are shells of the people they used to be.

No teen wants to be taken into the program. When teens come out, they don't remember their friends. They don't recognize them. They're kept separated. They have handlers who stay with them for weeks. But, every day at school, teens have to fill out an assessment that asks how they feel. And if there's a wrong answer-or god forbid a tear leaks from your eye at any point--you could get flagged and taken to the Program. 

Obviously, Sloane gets taken into the Program. And she's pissed about it. And I was pissed too! Sometimes when you're reading, you get such a sense of frustration by what is happening to the character. Sometimes, I cry because I'm so frustrated that a character has no way out of a situation. I cried for Sloane.

For weeks, these "psychiatrists" are sucking her memories away--everything that is important to her aand that makes her HER--and she knows it's going to happen but doesn't realize it's happening. Does that make sense? It will if you read it. And it's infuriating! Because if she doesn't take the pills that keep her complacent, they'll just inject her with the meds. So there's no way out.

I didn't love it. It wasn't the best Teen book I've ever read. But I'm glad I read it. It's kind of a classic. I might finish the series if it comes up. I did feel a lot of emotions throughout it. A lot of anger. Sadness. Irritation (come on Sloane, can't you tell you're being duped here?). There's a classic love triangle, but it doesn't really feel like one for most of the book.

All that was pretty jumbled. Sorry-I haven't  blogged in a while and just wanted to get it all out so I wouldn't keep procrastinating. 👍 Happy reading!

City of Saints and Thieves

I was intrigued by City of Saints and Thieves because it was one of Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers selections, but it was also YA. I've never seen a Teen book make this list.

The story follows Christina aka Tina aka Tiny Girl aka Tiny. Tina is an excellent thief. She has to be; it was the only way to avoid becoming a prostitute on the streets of Sangui City. She works with the Goondas, a street gang in the city, to make her living--and work toward taking revenge on the man who killed her mother.

When her mother first brought Tina to Kenya from Congo, she found a job as a maid for Roland Greyhill, an American businessman. There, she spends five (7? Can't remember) easy years of childhood, plays with Greyhill's son, Michael, and gets a new sister. But everything changes when her mother is murdered. Tina, 12 years old, takes her sister and flees to the streets because she knows exactly who killed her mom: Mr. Greyhill.

Tina stashes her sister in a nun-run school where she was able to get a scholarship, then goes to the head of the Goondas for help in taking revenge. She wants to kill Mr. Greyhill. But he has other ideas--among them taking Mr. Greyhill's extensive fortune. So he gives Tina a book: The Count of Monte Cristo (and c'mon, this is my all time favorite book. How could I not love this?!) So Tina decides the best formula for revenge is: 1. Dirt. 2. Money. 3. Blood.

So when she gets a chance to break into the house to copy info from Greyhill's computer, she takes it. With a little support from computer genius Bug Boy, she gets all the info she needs tot ake Greyhill down.

She also gets caught.

She has to spend the next week with Mr. Greyhill's son, Michael, who convinces her to try and find proof that his father did it--because Michael is positive he didn't.

This was a whole different type of mystery that was absolutely impacted by the setting. The situation is dire: Tina is beholden to this game, they're chasing down a murderer, being chased by murderers and militia. The book taking place in war-torn Africa just added a new element to what otherwise would have been a typical Nancy Drew type mystery. Tina has much greater concerns than whether her friends will betray her (she knows they will) or what clothes to wear (she lives on a roof, for goodness sake). She has to figure out how to survive on a daily basis.

And there are no happy endings like in your typical YA story. Tina doesn't fix Africa. She doesn't take down the bad guys or a corrupt government. She solves a mystery that has deeply affected her life, and then her life goes back to normal-stealing and surviving.

It was a phenomenal story, and the narrator was spectacular. I cried a few times. I can't imagine a life like many in Africa live. This is my second book recently that takes place there and deals with that violence, and it's horrifying. But I do hope more books are written (and read) about it.

Highly Illogical Behavior

I actually met John Corey Whaley a few years ago in some of my early bookseller days. He used to live in the Shreveport area, and he came into the bookstore to do a signing. At that time, only his first book was out. I think it was called Where Things Come Back. I've never read it, but I remember how cool it was to see another book by him come out.

This was available through the library as an audiobook and I decided to take a chance on it. Highly Illogical Behavior follows Lisa, an aspiring psychologist, and Solomon, a severe agoraphobe. Lisa wants to go to college at the school with the second best Psych program in the country. To do that, she needs a scholarship. And to get a scholarship, she needs to write the best essay about her experience with mental health. And she has the perfect topic.

Three years before, a boy had walked out of the school, stripped his clothes off, and laid down in the big water fountain outside the entrance. Lisa never saw him again. She decided to make him the subject of her essay. Better yet, she was going to write how about she helped him. But first, she had to find him. She finds out his mom is a dentist, wrangles an appointment with her, and tells her she used to go to school with her son. That's when she finds out Solomon hasn't left the house in over 3 years.

Lisa goes into the whole project thinking she's going to be objective. She's going to find out what this boy is so afraid of and therapy him through it without him realizing it. But Lisa finds out Solomon is actually pretty cool and really funny. What she doesn't expect is to become his friend. Solomon even eventually meets Clark, Lisa's boyfriend, and the three become inseparable. I loved reading about (listening to) their growing friendship. It was unlike many other teen fiction stories with the backstabbing and secretly hating each other (although there was like, a chapter of this).

Half the story is also told from Solomon's point of view, and he explains that the world is too chaotic. There are too many things outside his control. At home, he can control his environment, and that makes him feel safe. And even though he has panic attacks before, after, and sometimes while Lisa is visiting, he keeps inviting her back, and lets her enter his world. He gets to a point where he does trust Lisa, and she is able to help him through his attacks and he is able to go outside (to the backyard), but that anxiety is still a part of him. It's not something that could just disappear because he suddenly has friends.

One of the things I thought was really well done was how severely flawed Lisa is as a character. Not flawed like Solomon, where he has an actual mental health problem. But flawed in her thinking. She knows her approach-pretending to befriend someone to treat them--is crossing ethical boundaries, but in her head, it's worth it--for Solomon and her future career. Even her boyfriend, Clark, tells her that what she's doing is not ok (he keeps her secret anyway, but he tries to convince her to tell Solomon). I love that this book demonstrates how profoundly wrong Lisa's way of thinking about mental health is--that it's something that can just be fixed. I also love that Solomon wasn't just a token character who shows the reader how Lisa develops. He was his own, fleshed out, well-developed person. I mean, there's no story without him, but sometimes an author makes such a character a stereotype or what they imagine such a person to be, which can come off as demeaning and spreads misinformation. Solomon is just like any other teenager. He just doesn't go outside.

Personally, I have been very lucky in that I've never had anxiety or depression or low self-esteem or any other of a number of problems that so many people struggle with. I have known many who do, though, and I know it's never something that just goes away. It's always something they have to fight, and sometimes they can't do it alone and that's ok. If you're one of those people, I hope you know how strong you are. It takes a lot to fight the kind of battles you do every day. I hope you know you're not alone and that even when things feel hardest, you're valuable. You have something to contribute. You're important. You're wanted. And if anyone tells you otherwise, I'm happy to tell them to go to hell.

These Shallow Graves

This book tricked me. It was in the Fantasy section, so I thought, yeah, I'll try it out. There was nothing Fantasy related in the summary but that happens sometimes. Maybe the Fantasy was subtle. Finished the whole book. Not a speck of Fantasy. Legit Historical Fiction the whole time. Which is not a problem! I love Historical Fiction! But I don't love Historical Fiction when I'm expecting Fantasy. My expectations definitely tempered my enjoyment of this book.

These Shallow Graces follows Jo, a nice girl from a good Manhattan family with a bright future ahead of her--the only one really available for a young girl from a good family in the late 19th century: marriage to a gentleman and babies to follow soon after. But Jo wants more--she wants to be a journalist. She has an innate curiosity that she nurtured by working on her school newspaper (is that a thing a girls school would have had in the 1890s?). But one day, she's called to the office to get the news that her father has died. In a locked room. By bullet wound.

Everyone says it must have been an accident. He was cleaning his gun. But Jo wonders why her father, an experienced hunter and gunman, would clean his gun with bullets in the chamber? He wouldn't. Some are saying it was suicide. But that doesn't ring true either. And when Jo overhears a young journalist discussing his death as murder, she decides he's just the one to help her learn the truth.

By day, Jo is your typical young woman looking for a husband. By night, she's a secret journalist, following leads with Eddie Gallagher and venturing into the seedier parts of town. She meets hustlers, prostitutes, coroners, and crimelords all while maintaining her modesty and falling in love.

Like I said, the book was pretty good. I mean, it was painfully obvious who the culprit was, as were numerous other subplot mysteries, but the characters are engaging and the book was actually pretty funny. Ladies, imagine walking down the street and someone offering you money, repeatedly upping the price and trying to convince you to take it. That happens to Jo and she has no idea the man is actually propositioning her. It's hilarious. And seriously, could Eddie Gallagher be a more perfect for name for a journalist?! The answer is no.

And I was curious about how the author would wrap up the love thing. How could Jo end up with the journalist? Her family would never allow it. And if she did marry him, she would be penniless. WHAT IS THE RIGHT ANSWER? I was very satisfied with the way that ended. Just FYI.

The Young Elites

I read the Legend series by Marie Lu not long ago. I can't say I loved it, but it was a well-crafted and well-developed story. Marie Lu is a fantastic writer. Something about the story just didn't resonate with me. The same thing happened with The Young Elites.

The Young Elites takes place in a fantasy world where a virus tore through the country. In addition to killing a great percentage of the population, it also turned some of the survivors into malfettos: scarred individuals with special powers.

Adelina survived the virus, but she has not developed any special powers. According to her father, she is useless. Who would want a scarred, silver haired, one-eyed bride? Her father tried for years to provoke a gifted response from her, through both physical and verbal abuse. Finally, her power shows itself, and she kills him with it.

Oh, the irony!

He totally deserved it.

So she gets arrested, and then rescued during her execution. Who rescues her, you ask? Why, the young elites! They're led by Enzo, the former heir to the throne. You know, before it turned out he was a malfetto and his older sister ran him out of the city. The young elites are hoping that Adelina can help Enzo take back the throne, and ultimately make gifted individuals an accepted-rather than shunned-part of society.

Adelina was definitely an interesting main character. She had a terrible childhood, was always told she was worth nothing, had only a naive sister for company, and then suddenly finds out she has this powerful gift. So, to sum it up, she has issues.

Adelina's thoughts are dark. Not only does she hear whispers, but she also sees her dead father. He speaks to her after death and continues to tell her how unloveable she is. On the surface, she seems fairly stable, though some of the characters have their doubts. As a result of a third person omniscient narrator, so does the reader. Sometimes, when Adelina was thinking, I just wanted to scream at her! The way she thinks is not okay. She is desperately at risk of becoming the bad guy. Even though the reader can totally sympathise with why she thinks the way she does, we know it's wrong.

Ultimately, I'm absolutely going to read the next two books. And, more importantly, I'm absolutely going to read Warcross when it comes out later this year. EVERYONE is talking about it. There is so much good YA coming out this Fall!

I hope my kids can feed themselves by then... 🤔

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

I just finished listening to Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston. It's not usually the type of story I would read because 1. It's YA fiction which I mostly don't read and 2. It's about a girl who is raped. I decided to pick it up because I heard good things from a friend. Also, because I met E.K. Johnston once. She stopped at the Barnes and Noble where I work on her way home one time and I got to meet her. She's awesome, btw. She's also won my undying loyalty so there's that...

But back to the book! Exit is about a girl named Hermione Winters. She's co-captain of her cheerleading squad about to enter her senior year of high school. The story opens with her attending her final cheer camp. She's taking it very seriously because at the end of her senior year, she wants her team to win nationals, a huge cheerleading competition. At camp, there's a lot of work to do, but there's fun, too. She's surrounded by her team, and teams from all over Canada, and get the chance to bond with many different people. Then, there's the dance. Hermione is having a great time. She's dancing with her friends, loving the music, out of breath, and someone hands her a drink. The next thing she knows, she wakes up in a hospital bed with her best friend Polly hovering over her. She doesn't remember anything else.

Let me just tell you hard it is riding a bike while bawling your eyes out. It's hard. I mostly listened to this while taking bike rides in the morning, and I'm glad I was alone. This is not the kind of book that you walk away from the same when you're done. Once I started, I felt this visceral need to finish the story, and I didn't want anyone interrupting it. It's hard to immerse yourself in the world of this girl whom this terrible thing has happened to, and then look back up at the real world and realize life is going on.

I feel like two elements had a huge impact on this story.

First, Hermione's fierce best friend, Polly. If anything tragic ever happens to me, I want someone like Polly there to stand up for me and hold me together. Polly was there every day when Hermione needed someone to take care of her. She was also there when it was time for Hermione to be strong on her own. Polly defended her, protected her, and told her the truth when she needed to hear it. She was profoundly unselfish in a way that I imagine it's hard for anyone to be. I want my own Polly and I want to be that strong for someone if anyone I know ever needs it.

The second element was the fact that Hermione didn't remember her rape. This made her post-trauma experience very different. She knew that she was raped, but since she remembered no part of it, she didn't feel like she was raped. She didn't have flashbacks or nightmares. She wasn't frightened to be around men or have someone touch her. She mostly behaved throughout the book like any other teenager, and had to make sure those around her treated her like one. She was relatively emotionally stable. The book demonstrated how different assault experiences have different effects. Just because she wasn't in hysterics doesn't mean it didn't happen, and I think it's an important comment on how our culture responds to rape. The book brings up important questions of victim-blaming and coping mechanisms. Hermione has a loving and supportive family, friends, a team, a therapist. There are numerous people for her to turn to if she needs help. This certainly made a huge difference in her healing process. Those who don't have such a support system in place are at a huge disadvantage.

I don't know if 'love' is the right word for how I feel about this book. It was impactful. It was riveting. It made a strong impression on me. And it was so worth it.

Court of Fives

Aside from reading a lot of books, I also listen to a lot of audio books. Listening to books can be tricky for two reasons:

1. If the narrator is terrible, the book is terrible. Sometimes, I know the book is probably fantastic,  but I end up disliking it because I couldn't listen to the narrator. I've gotten to the point where I know when this is happening, so I just stop listening and just wait until I get the chance to read a book.

2. If the book isn't fast paced enough, I find myself zoning out and losing track of the story. I'll miss whole parts without even realizing it. So I make sure to pick books that are fairly easy to listen to. Fortunately, that is the case for most YA (my favorite!).

I love listening to books because I can do it while I'm driving, cooking, cleaning--almost anything. I can get an extra book read (and YES, it does count as reading) that I normally wouldn't be able to.

So I listened to Court of Fives by Kate Elliot. She usually writes adult Sci-fi/ Fantasy, and I've never read her adult work. I needed to read Court of Fives because I received a free ARC for book two forever ago.

So Court of Fives was...ok. It was a good idea, but I feel like nothing about it was well-developed.

The setting was a class divided fantasy world of Patrons and Commoners-no elaboration necessary. Jessamyn's father is a Patron soldier and her mother is a commoner. The two could never marry because of their country's laws, but they were completely devoted to each other. You know, until a story needed to have a conflict, at which time that devotion was conveniently forgotten. Jessamyn, our main character, behaves in public and rebels in private. She wants to run the fives, a challenging obstacle course where the winners receive fame and fortune.  The problem is, she's not supposed to be doing it. So even though she knows she can win, she has to pretend not to so that no one can find out who she is.

Ultimately, I had a few problems with this book. First, the characterization just wasn't very strong. I would think I had a handle on who a character was, and then they would act outside their character. This happened regularly throughout the book and not in a good way. It wasn't like the characters were suddenly bad and became good. They did things that didn't make sense to advance the story. It just wasn't well constructed. I don't know how to really put it into words, but the characters changed for the story's sake rather than advancing the story on their own. It felt fake. Does that make sense?

Another thing that bothered me was the sudden romance that developed between Jess and Cal, a high born Patron who also runs the fives. For much of the book, they were just helpful to each other, and then BAM, they're lovers! Not a big fan of that...

Overall, I gave it a 3 on goodreads. I'm going to read book two, The Poisoned Blade, because I have it and book one wasn't the worst thing ever. But I'm hoping Elliot was able to work out some of the kinks of the first book.