Sorta Like a Rock Star-- Matthew Quick

Amber Appleton is a girl I really wish I would have known in high school. No matter how hard her life might be she is totally dedicated to having a positive outlook and spreading happiness. Seriously, this girl even calls herself the Princess of Hope. Amber is a fierce protector of Franks Freak Force Federation (a group of boys who are her best friends), teaches English to a group of Korean women through the eternal wisdom of 60s girl groups, befriends a war vet who only communicates through haiku, and makes weekly visits to a local nursing home to cheer up the residents with her witty happyslams.

But there are some really hard things about her life too. Amber and her mother live on a school bus (her mom drives it for a living). Amber's mom is an alcoholic and frequently disappears on booze-benders. When she want to eat or shower, she has to do it at her friend Ricky's house. Amber never lets these things get her down... until one day something very tragic happens to her and the Princess of Hope disappears. The truly compelling part of this book comes from her peers... the people she used to help. They band together to help her out of her dark time and the end of the book is pretty darn magical.

So I have to admit, I did struggle with this book for the first few chapters. Amber's voice is S-T-R-O-N-G and overwhelmed me a bit. But I couldn't help it; I was totally sucked in by her quirky story and I bawled my eyes out (on an airplane, embarrassingly) through the last quarter of the book. But don't worry, the Princess of Hope would never leave you on a depressing note. I would recommend this book to girls or boys (though I think girls might like it more) who are looking for a unique story with strong characters.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson-- John Green and David Levithan

Meet Will Grayson: He's the quiet almost-but-not-quite popular kid whose BFF Tiny is the biggest, gayest force in his small world. Will Grayson, his crush Jane, and Tiny take off for Chicago to catch an amazing band. When Will Grayson's fake ID doesn't work, he's reduced to passing the time in a very unlikely place...

Meet Will Grayson: He's the kid in all black, on antidepressants, and a closeted gay guy in love with his internet boyfriend Isaac. When Isaac proposes they meet IRL, Will Grayson travels to Chicago and finds the proposed meeting place, which is a very unlikely location...

Will Grayson stumbles upon the other Will Grayson... and when two universes collide, all kinds of unlikely things start to happen. Throw in some unrequited love, musical theater, lies, and recovery and you have this story. It's told in chapters narrated by alternating Will Graysons and each have a distinct voice and personality.

I enjoyed this book. It's a quick read and thankfully the concept of the two Will Graysons doesn't wear on the reader. The end was a little cheesy, but hey, you can't have it all, right? I would recommend this book to teens who like coming of age type stories, other books by either of the authors, positive coming out stories, or quirky concept type books.

This book will be published in April 2010.

King of the Screwups-- K. L. Going

Liam Geller is everyone's best friend. He throws the best parties, has a supermodel mother, and always gets the girl. People can't hate him because he's just such a nice guy. It's like friends and popularity fall right into his lap...

The only person who doesn't think this is great is his father. Liam's dad is a high-powered banker who has no need for his socially advanced but scholastically lacking son. In fact, it seems like every opportunity he has to finally win his father's love, Liam epically fails and embarrasses his dad publicly. After an incident involving booze, a hot girl, and his father's desk in his office, Liam is sent away to live with family. If Liam can't reform his uber-popular party boy ways, he'll be sent to boot camp.

Liam's only saving grace is that his mother sends him to live with Aunt Pete, his cross-dressing glam-rocking Uncle who lives in a trailer park in nowheresville. If Liam can succeed there, he can succeed anywhere... but the question remains, will Liam win his father's love or will he only win the crown of the King of the Screwups?

I won't lie to you... I enjoyed this book but didn't love it. If it were written by any other author I might just accept it for what it is, but this is K. L. Going, author of awesomeness like Saint Iggy and Fat Kid Rules the World! This is basically a fluff book with a good heart, and we all need some of those books, but I have to admit I was left wanting for a bit more. Either way, I would recommend this to girls and guys who like K. L. Going, Tim Tharpe's Spectacular Now, James St. James's Freakshow, or Meagan Brothers' Debbie Harry Sings in French.

Marcelo in the Real World-- Francisco X. Stork

Marcelo has a few special interests: he loves horses, classical music, and religious theory. He lives in a tree-house in his parent's back yard, wears blue pants with a white button-up shirt every day, and cannot feel emotion the same way most people do. Oh, and he hears intensely beautiful music in his head, which he calls internal music, and because of this most people think he has Asperger Syndrome. He doesn't; he just lives in a world that's pretty different than the one most people live in, and it's easier on people like you and me to label him in some way.

Marcelo's father hates that his kid is "special." His father, Arturo, is a high-powered attorney and wants Marcelo to work at his law firm for the summer... to join the real world, and to normalize before he sends to him the regular public high school instead of the small special school Marcelo was previously attending. While working in the mail room at the law firm, Marcelo finds that he can feel emotion he never knew existed, and meets people who challenge his ways of thinking. When an issue of morals and good choices arises, Marcelo must decide what to do: should he protect his father's career and pretend that he has no knowledge of the situation, or should he fix the problem at his own family's expense.

Honestly, it's hard to summarize this book. Most of what makes it so good is the way it's written and how the characters relate to each other. I read this soon after I read Anything but Typical, and while they are different stories, it's hard not to compare them in my head as the characters have similar cognitive issues. Anything but Typical was more well-written, but Marcelo in the Real World was much more moving. Has anyone read both, and what did you think of them?

I would recommend this book to fans of Anything but Typical, Curious Incident of the Dog in the night-time, and even Wendy Mass's A Mango Shaped Space.

The Carbon Diaries, 2015-- Saci Lloyd

Imagine crossing Georgia Nicholson (Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging) with Miranda (Life as We Knew It). If you did, then you'd get Laura Brown.

It's the year 2015 and the entire world is suffering the effects of global warming, climate change, and rebuilding after The Great Storm. England has decided to be the guinea pig in a new carbon emission limitation scheme, which will later be imposed on the rest of Europe and beyond. Laura Brown is a regular teenage girl living in London. She is the bassist for a punk band, The Dirty Angels, is in love with the boy next door, and needs to find a way to pass her exams. When her family begins to fall apart at the seam because of the strict carbon rationing, Laura quickly learns there are bigger things at stake than a first kiss, a good test score, and a killer bass riff. She learns about civil disobedience, living off the earth, being a parent to her own self-destructing parents, and how to stand up for herself. She also learns that no matter what, family is your home even when everything around you crumbles away.

Although the topic matter of Carbon Diaries, 2o15 is quite serious, the book itself is light. Maybe it's the British slang, but I kept hearing Georgia Nicholson's voice throughout the book in the way that Laura nicknames her teachers, lusts after boys, etc. Still, the author does try to be appropriately serious when it's called for, and mostly succeeds. While it isn't a fine piece of literature, teens will most likely enjoy this book, and it's a less depressing option for teens who want to read futuristic books like these.

If I Stay-- Gayle Forman

Ooooohhhh, a ghost story! But not just any ghost story... If I Stay is a novel of love, family, music, and the most important decision a girl could ever make: should Mia stay in her body and in the earthly realm, or should she go to the ethers and beyond?

Mia is a teenage cello prodigy. Her boyfriend is a punkrocker whose band is just starting to get national attention. Her parents are so cool, they almost seem fake (her mother wore pleather to her own wedding and her father is one of those retro-chic dudes). Although Mia has some tough decisions to make, and she has to work extremely hard for all the successes she's had, her life is pretty darn amazing... And she knows it. But then the unthinkable happens: while cruising down the road in a freak Oregon snowstorm, her dad crashes the car she and her entire immediate family are riding in... and in that moment, everything for Mia changes forever.

It seems like I just spoiled the plot for you a little, by telling you that Mia gets in this big car crash, doesn't it? Well, perk up, I didn't spoil anything! That happens in, like, the first chapter. This book instantly sucks you in; it's compelling, haunting, achingly beautiful, and well written. I also appreciated that Mia had a good relationship with her parents (I think parents and adults in general get a little demonized in teen fiction). Overall, this was a very enjoyable book, and I expect to see it receive many positive reviews (it will be published on 4/2/09).

I would recommend this book to teen girls who liked Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light, Zevin's Elsewhere, or to teens who enjoy books that focus on relationships between people in general.

Impossible-- Nancy Werlin

I am always looking for books that have a little bit of magic to take me out of my normal day-to-day. I don't mean actual magic, not hocus-pocus stuff, Harry Potter stuff, or witchie stuff. I mean the magic that transports you from your couch to the time and place in which a really good story takes place. Impossible, by Nancy Werlin, is one of those magical books.

We've all heard that folk song right? You know, the one Simon and Garfunkel made popular...

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme..."

This novel is based on that folksong... mostly. Lucy Scarborough is the foster daughter of Soledad and Leo. Her mother, Miranda, is an insane bag lady who wanders the streets singing snippets of the Scarborough Fair song. When Lucy turns 17, Miranda starts pursuing Lucy in earnest; she has an important message for her and will get through to her no matter what. The women in Lucy's family are cursed, and have been for generations. They must accomplish three nonsensical tasks as laid out in the Scarborough Fair song, and will go insane at 18 if they do not succeed. Luckily, Lucy has what the other women in her family did not: very supportive foster parents and Zach, a boy who loves her unendingly. This story is a little bit fairytale, a little bit romance, and very engaging.

I would recommend this book to teens who like retellings of fairy tales, fantasy, fairy-lore, and romance.

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone-- Stephanie Kuehnert

I have met hundreds and hundreds of teenagers in my line of work and they all have one thing in common: they are passionate about music. Really. Ask ten teens what their favorite book is, and there will be a few who won't come up with anything. Ask them who their favorite singer/band is and they will struggle to narrow down their list.

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Huehnert is sure to be a hit with older teens... but make sure to get it into the right teens' hands. It's a brutally honest tale about Emily Black, a who grows up in nowheresville, Wisconsin. She was raised by her musician father and music is literally the driving force behind her life. Emily loses her virginity at 14, drunk, to a "rock-god" who ultimately disappoints her. Swearing to never feel powerless because of a man again, Emily forms her own punk-girl band, rocks harder, parties longer, and is more talented than any other musician on the scene. Although she is emotionally crippled by being abandoned by her mother as an infant, Emily trudges her way top and finds solace in the one thing that has never failed her: music.

I was really surprised by this book. I picked it up looking for a light read this weekend, but found it to be engrossing and ultimately a harder read than I thought. Reading about the abuse Emily puts up with, really does to herself, was challenging. I did feel drawn by the magnetic pull of an underground music scene, and there were times I wished the characters were real people so I could pull them out of the drug and sex induced coma they kept throwing themselves into. I think teen girls who like edgy fiction, music (especially punk), books about drugs, and strong female characters will like this book. I would recommend it to readers of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, punk rock bios, or other musical fiction.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower-- Stephen Chbosky

Rarely, maybe even just once or twice in a lifetime, you read a book and it changes your life. This was one of those books for me. When I was in college, a dear friend, now sister-in-law, told me I needed to read this book. At this stage of my life, I was knee deep in Bronte, Whitman, and Shakespeare and had never really read any current YA literature. I began reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower just after dinner and finished the book in the wee hours of the morning... because I just couldn't put it down.

In this book you meet Charlie, a character who will never really leave you. You read his letters, though you are not quite sure to whom exactly he is writing. As the story progresses, Charlie tries to transform himself from being a transparent, vanilla, passive wallflower. He befriends older kids who are the Rocky Horror, beer drinking, Smiths loving types. He experiments. He makes mix tapes. He BECOMES. Instead of hiding from his life, he starts living it with the gusto and recklessness of youth that simultaneously breaks your heart and makes you nostalgic for those times of your own life. Music, especially one song "Asleep" by The Smiths, is central to this book. Here is a list of songs that are featured in this book (thank you wikepedia!): If you have never heard "Asleep" then you must must must listen to it. Trust me on this one.

Asleep- The Smiths
Vapour Trail- Ride
Scarborough Fair- Simon and Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale- Procol Harum
Time of No Reply- Nick Drake
Dear Prudence- The Beatles
Gypsy- Susan Vega
Nights in White Satin- The Moody Blues
Daydream- The Smashing Pumpkins
Dusk- Genesis
MLK- U2
Blackbird- The Beatles
Landslide- Fleetwood Mac
Smells Like Teen Sprit- Nirvana
Another Brick in the Wall Pt. II- Pink Floyd
Something- The Beatles

Now, dontcha want to go and make a mix tape? Oh, and how did this book changed my life? Well, after I read this book I started reading YA books obsessively... like 10-12 books a week... like if you could go to rehab for reading-addiction, I would have been there. And now, 6 years later, I am a YA Librarian (go figure). Thanks, Ingrid.