Cassel is an outsider in his own family. Of all the members of his immediate tribe, he is the only one without the power to change people’s emotions, luck, even memory with the touch of a hand, an act known in his world as “cursing.†The law prohibits those with cursing powers to wield them, so the individuals born with these abilities live on the fringes of society in loyal family groups not unlike the organized crime families of our world. Because he has no aptitude for curse work, Cassel has developed other skills, especially in the art of the con. He can set up a mark as easy as 1-2-3, and runs a pretty profitable numbers game at his boarding school. But when he wakes up standing on the roof of his dorm one night wearing only his boxers, Cassel’s legendary cool begins to crack. Is it just a case of innocent sleepwalking? Or is it possible that a diabolical curse has been laid on him? As Cassel begins to investigate, he discovers a secret about himself that ties him to the most powerful of all crime families and causes him to realize that he has been utterly betrayed by the people he trusted most—his own flesh and blood. Now Cassel has sworn revenge on the folks who made him who is. But how do you grift a grifter? How do you trick a family of supernatural con artists who know not only how to shake a mark down but also how to shake off his memories of ever even being conned? Easy. Cassel has an ace up his sleeve, and while it may look like just a scruffy white stray cat, it’s actually the key to bringing his entire family to their knees. Cassel’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. See, he’s killed before. And if he has to, he will again. This noir-ish genre-blender from urban fantasy maestro Holly Black is a heady mix of The Sopranos,
Category: Boy Meets Book
Books from the male perspective for everyone.
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
In a dirty near future where children risk their lives scavenging scrap metal in order eat one more day, Nailer is a ship breaker. He and his crew swarm over long abandoned rusted oil tankers hunting for copper wiring and hidden caches of black gold. His life is mean, hard and cheap and every day that he dives back into the depths of the old ships, he knows he may not make it back. But what is his alternative? His mother is a distant memory, while his sociopathic, drug addicted father is so terrifying Nailer would rather spend the night in a pitch-black hold than go back to their shabby little beach shack. Ship breakers pray for that one big lucky break, and one day, Nailer gets his. A devastating hurricane, a “city killer†levels the beach where he lives and works, bringing with it a marooned clipper ship full of valuable salvage. On board, he discovers a “swank,†a rich, beautiful teenage girl who is dripping with gold and nearly dead. His decision to save her instead of murder her for her jewels changes his life irreparably. Suddenly he is thrust into a bewildering world of corporate corruption, high-speed chases and brutal violence. But his hard upbringing serves him well–if Nailer knows one thing, it’s how to survive. It is only when his murderous father appears seeking revenge for what he believes is Nailer’s betrayal does the intrepid man-boy falter. His father is worse than any monster Nailer has faced so far. Does he have the courage to fight the one person faster and smarter than himself? This dystopian environmental thriller is magnificent in its pacing, characterization and world building. When Nailer arrived in the drowned city of Orleans, I got a shiver down my spine imagining that rich metropolis abandoned to hurricanes and left to turn into a rotting hulk. While the action is fast and furious, sci-fi master Paolo Bacigalupi doesn’t sacrifice an iota of characterization. Nailer and his supporting cast of canine half-men, courageous ship captains and crafty orphan naïfs come to life on the page—I felt as though I were reading about a present that was instead of a future that may be. Imagine all that in a book that clocks in under 350 pages. I’m getting pretty tired of big books that seem bloated with unnecessary detail, but no worries here, THIS Ship is t-i-g-h-t. Batten down the hatches, lift anchor and prepare to set sail with Nailer on a gritty adventure of a lifetime!
Riding Invisible by Sandra Alonzo, illustrated by Nathan Huang
Fourteen-year-old Yancy Aparicio is miserable. His big brother Will is a clearly a psycho, but no one seems to notice how dangerous he really is. Will is charming and manipulative to their parents, while being cold and cruel to Yancy, and no matter what Will does, their parents keep giving him more chances. So when Will cuts the tail off Yancy’s horse Shy in a fit of rage, Yancy decides he’s had enough. He packs his bags, saddles up Shy and heads for the hills. He also takes his journal, where he writes and draws about his journey, including small comic panels about Will, his parents, and his cute crush from school, Christi. The journey is hard, made worse by the fact that Yancy has no real plan for his future. He can’t just keep running from Will forever, but how can he convince his well-meaning parents that Will is the one who needs to be sent away, not him? Sometimes it feels like he’s the invisible son, and the only one his parents really see is Will. This modern day Western is full of unexpected accidents, suspenseful near misses and miraculous saves, with the tone and flavor of two of my other fav rodeo-ish reads. I’m also loving this trend of the illustrated novel for dudes, like Wimpy Kid
YOU by Charles Benoit
Fifteen-year-old Kyle Chase knows the score. Just like you, he can almost recite his parents’ and teachers’ lectures as they’re saying them, because he’s heard them so many times before. “Is that all you’re going to do all day, sit in front of that computer?†“Why don’t you wear some clothes that fit for a change?†“Stop mumbling and speak up.†“Because I said so.†It’s funny how it never changes. Funny in a sad way. Kyle can’t find much to laugh about these days. His friends are idiots obsessed with partying, his teachers are robots, his parents don’t listen and the girl he’s secretly in love with doesn’t take him seriously. And he’s starting to suspect that it’s mostly his fault that his life is like this, his fault for letting important decisions slide by until the choices were made for him. Now there’s no going back. Kyle’s just floating through his days—until he meets Zack McDade. Zach is off-the-hook weird, with his strange airs, million dollar vocab and bright colored sports coats. Kyle doesn’t like Zach, but his particular brand of smooth sarcasm and utter confidence does make school a little more interesting, a little more alive. Until he turns his massive powers of manipulation on Kyle. What happens next may be inevitable given what has come before, but Benoit’s explosive ending is not one that YOU will forget anytime soon.
What’s so fantastic about this book isn’t the topic, which will be sadly familiar to many of you. It’s the way Benoit, a former high school English teacher and adult mystery author, tells Kyle’s story, from back to front (like Gail Gile’s amazing Shattering Glass) and in a rarely used second person voice that draws you uncomfortably close to Kyle’s troubled psyche. You may want to pull away from Kyle, or deny what’s happening to him. But you won’t be able to. Because Kyle’s not that different from you. Or one of your friends. Or that quiet guy who sits slumped in the back of your Algebra class. Though this book reminds me of several other outstanding titles, Benoit has also crafted something here that is so original and raw that I couldn’t put down until I finished the entire thing. The bad news: YOU isn’t coming to a library or bookstore near you until September 2010. The good news: YOU have a really amazing read to look forward to this fall.
Zeus: King of the Gods by George O’Connor
Ever wonder how we got here? How the Earth was formed, how we human beans popped into existence? There are several versions of the creation myth–you can take your pick when it comes to explaining how we emerged from the Great Black Void: Christian, Hindu, Egyptian, Norse, the list could go on and on. But my favorite has got to be that wacky Greek version, so recently made popular by former middle school teacher Rick Riordan. But forget Percy Jackson, he’s just some johnny-come-lately compared to the dude who made the lightning in the first place, the very first international playboy and rebellious teenager, Zeus. Artist and author George O’Connor provides readers with a crash course in the Greek creation myth, which basically consists of Mother Earth and Father Sky giving birth to some big nasty gods, including Kronos, who wants to keep all the temporal goodies for himself. So every time his wife has a baby, he swallows it so it can’t grow up to challenge him. Eventually his wife gets sick of giving up her babies for dinner, so she hides one. Zeus is raised in secret by hot nymphs (which will explain his later lady-killer ways) and tricks his father into swallowing a poison plant which makes him vomit up all Zeus’s sibs, now fully grown and totally pissed off! What happens next is the story of how Zeus claims his father’s throne with the help of his super sibs (more about them later) and gets the lightning that Percy’s gotta find in couple thousand years. O’Connor’s hyper-kinetic art is old school comic book illustration, full of action, energy and bursts of color. For those of you also interested in more than just a good celestial butt-kicking, there’s also a helpful Greek god family tree in the front and some fun extras in the back, including minor god and goddess profiles and some cool websites you might want to visit. For more Greek superhero action, pair this GN with the new and improved Clash of the Titans.
Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick
Private Matt Duffy wakes up one morning in a hospital ward in Baghdad’s Green Zone with scrambled brains and scrambled memories. He’s awarded a Purple Heart before he can even remember exactly what he did to earn it. Matt just knows there was an alley he wasn’t supposed to be in, an Iraqi boy who wasn’t supposed to be there, and a rocket propelled grenade that was supposed to hit him—but didn’t, though it knocked him around pretty bad. Now Matt has to piece together the broken bits of his memory to try and establish what happened in the alley that day. But the higher ups don’t seem to be looking into his story too closely and Matt starts to wonder if they want to learn the truth—or bury it. Soon Matt rejoins his unit, happy to be back with his friends but troubled by the fact that he still doesn’t know exactly what went down the day his world exploded. What did he do? Did he run? Did he hide? Did he cover his buddies? Did he…kill someone? With a minimum of words and a maximum of heart, Patricia McCormick tells one young soldier’s story that could be every young soldier’s story. “It wasn’t about fighting the enemy. It wasn’t about politics or oil or even about terrorists. It was about your buddies; it was about fighting for the guy next to you. And knowing he was fighting for you.†Matt’s feelings and observations are sincere and very real, based on McCormick’s extensive research and interviews. With only a few words, she quietly captures small moments that bring the war right up out of the pages. Like when Matt sees orderlies coming down the hall pushing a gurney with a body bag. “Still, he kept his head erect, his back stiff, his mouth set in a straight line as the gurney got closer. Then, just as it passed by, he flinched.†When Matt finally does learn the truth about what happened that day, he begins to realize that the black and white war he believed he was fighting is much grayer than he could have ever imagined. This sobering psychological mystery pulls no punches. Want to learn more about what it’s like on the ground in Iraq? An excellent nonfiction follow-up is The Good Soldiers
Calamity Jack by Shannon and Dean Hale, illustrated by Nathan Hale
The crackerjack team of Hale, Hale & Hale are back with another rootin’ tootin’ graphic adventure of that wild girl Rapunzel and her trouble-making friends. This volume covers the back-story of ‘Punzie’s scheming sidekick, Jack. Before he met Rapunzel out west, Jack made his living swindling chumps in the big city with his partner Prudence, a stylish pixie with a serious attitude and an addiction to fancy hats. He was forced to skip town after a problematic beanstalk, a golden-egg laying goose and an angry giant named Blunderboar made it unsafe to return home to his hand-wringing, bakery-owning mama. After hightailing it west and meeting Rapunzel, Jack knows it’s time to head back home and make things right. Except in his absence, the fearsome giant Blunderboar has set up a corrupt shadow government and taken Jack’s mother prisoner in order to force her to bake his human-bone meal bread. Now Jack and Rapunzel must team up with Prudence and verbose muckraking journalist Frederick Sparksmith III to uncover Blunderboar’s citywide scheme and prove to the people once and for all what a, well, BOAR Blunderboar really is! All the while, Jack is trying to work up the courage to tell Rapunzel how he really feels about her. But will silver-tongued Frederick sway her heart instead? This action-packed sequel is every bit as entertaining as its predecessor, and then some. Jack’s big city, in contrast to Rapunzel’s Wild West, is a bustling technological marvel, which adds a little steam punk to the whole whimsical affair. The imaginative team of Hale to the 3rd power envisions their fantastical teeming urbanity as a magnet for diverse immigrants of every color and creed; from Native and African Americans to fairies and porcine half-men. Thanks to Nathan Hale’s meticulous attention to detail, each full color panel is a little work of art. This GN was so much fun that just writing this review makes me want to read it again! Batten down the hatches and tie up the dirigibles–this is one wild ride.
Happyface by Stephen Emond
He’s just a regular dude. Sure, his parents fight sometimes, and his older brother is a pain in the ass. And yes, occasionally he’s lonely and his best friend and secret crush Chloe seems to have no idea how he really feels about her. But for the most part, his life is just fine. After all, he’s “got my art and my journal to write in, and I’ve got Ol’ Trusty, the Internet to keep me company. If the apocalypse strikes tomorrow, that’s still a pretty good survival kit.†Then life comes to a screeching halt (for reasons our narrator slowly reveals that I won’t be spoiler-y and tell here) and our dude finds himself starting over at a new school, with a new crush and a new crowd to navigate. What happened to Chloe? What’s up with his parents? And where has his big bro gone? Our hero isn’t telling—yet. All we know is that he’s in so much pain he’s turned himself into Happyface—an alter-ego that always smiles and has sworn to never be hurt again. But how long can Happyface hold that grin before his past comes crashing down on him?
Some of you will find Happyface a little TOO typical. He’s not fighting vampires or turning into a werewolf, he’s not wasting away from a terminal disease or being secretly abused by his parents. He’s just living and recording the story of his (somewhat) normal life in words, drawings and comic strips the year after something terrible happens. Something terrible enough to make him want to start his life over as someone else. Someone who’s happy. Someone who’s popular. Someone who knows all the answers. For some of you, this story will be too close to your own experiences, and you’d rather go to a different head space when you read. But for those of you who read to know you’re not alone, or who always hang around the art room after school and put all your most secret thoughts in your sketchpads, this personal and incredibly honest story is YOURS.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan
Meet Will Grayson. He’s the guy at school who tries to blend in with the scenery. He doesn’t like to rock the boat and he doesn’t like to get too emotional. “I don’t really understand the point of crying. Also, I feel that crying is almost…totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1. Don’t care too much. 2. Shut up.†Unfortunately, Will’s best friend Tiny Cooper is his exact opposite: big, loud and flamboyantly gay. And Tiny keeps making Will care—about him, about the musical he’s writing based on his life called “Tiny Dancer,†and about Jane, the uber-smart girl in the Gay-Straight Alliance who likes the band Neutral Milk Hotel as much as Will does and drives an orange Volvo. Will could probably care about Jane if he tried. In fact, he could probably fall in love with her—if he wasn’t so terrified by the idea that she might find out the truth about him: “Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.â€
Now, meet will grayson. He’s the guy at school who hates everything. “i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.†He feels one emotion—rage, and makes sure everyone knows it. Unfortunately for will, despite his obvious dissing of her, this girl Maura seems to like him although he can’t understand why. “it’s like those people who become friends in prison even though they would never really talk to each other if they weren’t in prison. that’s what maura and i are like, i think.†will’s only solace is chatting online with isaac, a guy he’s never met face to face but who feels like his soulmate. He could probably fall in love with isaac if he let himself. And that’s exactly what he intends to do when makes plans to meet up with isaac in Chicago in, of all ironic places, a porn shop.
…the same porn shop Will Grayson finds himself wandering around after his fake i.d. gets him thrown out of the club he tried to get into with Tiny and Jane. Will Grayson, meet will grayson. Two very different dudes with the same name and the same problems when it comes to matters of the heart. But now that they’ve actually met? Their lives will never be the same…
This epic and utterly unforgettable book brings together two of the biggest and brightest names in YA lit: John Green and David Levithan, both writing as, well, will Grayson. As a result, the levels of smart and funny are off the charts. My advance review copy is chock full of scribbles, giggles, highlights and underlines. And stealing every scene is the irrepressible Tiny, whose sheer exuberance at being alive and being in love helps both Will graysons get their acts together. (The amazing thing about Tiny is that he’s written by both Green and Levithan, who manage to keep him consistently fabulous through the whole book.) Who’s writing who? Well, you’ll just have to read it to find out!
You Don’t Even Know Me: Stories and poems about BOYS by Sharon G. Flake
Though I am grateful for many things this Thanksgiving weekend, one item that tops my list is Sharon G. Flake’s new collection of short stories and poems featuring teenage boys and their angst. She is one of the hippest authors for teens around, and a new title from her is ALWAYS cause for celebration. This book is a companion piece to one of her earlier works, Who Am I Without Him? Short stories about girls and the boys in their lives (a title I have successfully shopped to so many teens I’ve lost count), and provides the adolescent 411 from the dudes’ POV. Navigating issues from teen marriage and suicide, to neighborhood politics and hot moms who attract unwanted attention, these guys struggle to make sense of the world around them while trying to solve that most maddening of mysteries—what makes girls tick? Flake also dishes up some hot poetry in this collection, including this excerpt from the title poem, “You Don’t Even Know Meâ€: You tell me to quit fronting,/ You ask who I think I am,/Pretending/That I’m better than you know I really am./…You know/I’ve been wondering lately,/Trying to figure out just how it could be/That we call each other brother,/And you still don’t know a thing about me/ There’s some surprises here, too. I like all the stories, but my favorite just might be “Fakin’ It,†about a last-chance boy who’s been kicked out of every one of his relatives’ homes and is now about to be kicked out of his aunt’s house, a six million dollar lottery winner. Despite her new money and resources, she still has old-school rules and he still can’t seem to follow them no matter how many chances she gives him. Unusual and unsettling because we like to think money solves everything, I just can’t get that story out of my head. So if you want to be moved to tears, laugh out loud, or be lit up with surprise, then this is YOUR book.
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy
In 1888 New England, young orphan Will Henry serves as an apprentice to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a scientist who practices the secret practice of monstrumology, or “the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans and not recognized by science as actual organisms, specifically those considered products of myth and folklore.†In this series opener, Will and his master are on the trail of a hidden pod of Anthropophagi, a race of muscular albino headless monsters who wear their over-sized obsidian eyes on their shoulders, their shark-tooth filled mouths on their stomachs, and their tiny brains in their crotch. Though they originated in Africa, somehow these horrific beasts have managed to cross the pond into the New England states, and are now running amok in the countryside, tearing off heads and sucking down the entrails of their human victims while they still draw breath. Will and Dr. Warthrop don’t only have to find a way to stop them, they must also solve the mystery of how and why they got there in the first place to prevent others from coming—and breeding—and EVOLVING. Friends, I can barely contain my morbid delight at having discovered this delightfully gruesome book! Yancy’s bloody tale, written in a delicious Victorian gothic style, is just gory and disturbing as the early Stephen King I devoured as a teen while still being a cracking good yarn between explicit scenes of dismemberment and disembowelment that leave nothing (and I mean NOTHING) to the imagination. When not running for his life from headless freaks trying to open one of his major arteries, soulful Will Henry contemplates the meaning of life, death, and his complicated feelings about his single-minded caretaker, making this a much deeper read than your average run of the mill horror pulp. But violent and bloodthirsty it is, and if Goosebumps and Coraline are more your speed, then this graphic gore-fest is not for you. I can’t even give you an excerpt here, just in case you come back and blame me for your nightmares. (And even though I haven’t slept very well the past couple of nights, I just CAN’T WAIT to read the next one!) This is YA horror at it’s stomach-churning finest, heading further down the dark path that Lauren Myracle paved with the creepy Bliss. Go ahead and read it—if you dare!
Refresh, Refresh by Danica Novgorodoff, Benjamin Percy and James Ponsoldt
“We didn’t fully understand the reason our fathers were fighting. We only understood that they had to fight…We could only cross our fingers and wish on stars and hit refresh, refresh, hoping they would return to us.†Cody, Gordon and Josh all live in the same small town, and all have fathers who are fighting in Iraq. Even as they constantly refresh their computer screens waiting for word of their dads’ safe return, they try to distract themselves from their worry by engaging in their own “fight club,†where they hit each other as hard as they can in an attempt to honor their fathers’ sacrifice by denying their own pain. “If you stepped out of the ring, you lost. If you cried, you lost. If you got knocked out or if you yelled stop, you lost.†Each boy is taking his own emotional knocks, as well. Cody struggles to raise his little brother on his own while his mother works endless factory shifts in order to make ends meet. Gordon suffers at the hands of bullies and longs to use his hunting rifle for something other than shooting deer. Josh’s secret college acceptance letter is his ticket to a better life, but will he use it if it means leaving his best friends behind? One brutal confrontation takes away all choices but one, and suddenly the boys find themselves facing a future that was once improbable but now seems inevitable. This bleak and emotionally raw GN, based on a short story by Benjamin Percy, realistically captures the pain of modern reservists’ families, who are often left in limbo when their breadwinners are sent off to war. Danica Novgorodoff’s gritty unpolished style and earth tone palette help convey the boys’ hopelessness and sorrow, the only bright colors being the red of their boxing gloves and spilled blood. A violent and heartbreaking tale that didn’t leave me feeling any better about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, but maybe that was the point.
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President by Josh Lieb
If Stewie on Family Guy ever grew out of his diapers, he might turn out to be like Oliver Watson, the pudgy, angry, brilliant seventh grade narrator of IGUEIWYCP, who is addicted to his mom’s grilled cheese and bent on world domination. Some kids dream of being king of the world—but Oliver actually is. He hides his intellectual genius behind the dumb façade of a dopey middle schooler when he is really secretly running the world from his incredible underground command center, which would put the Bat Cave to shame. “I freely admit I’m evil…that doesn’t mean I torture kittens or plot the genocide of entire continents of people; that’s insanity, not evil. And insanity is just what we call stupidity when it doesn’t make sense.” There’s only one thing Oliver can’t buy with his millions or manipulate with his cutting edge intellect—his emotionally immature father’s respect. So he decides to run for office—7th grade president to be exact—to show “Daddy” once and for all that he’s not a total loser and maybe even win his love. There’s only one problem—Oliver has been pretending to be an idiot for so long, it’s going to be hard to get people to believe he can really do the job. Is a self-described evil genius smart enough to figure out which battles are worth fighting and which are merely petty annoyances on his way to total global supremacy? I would expect nothing less than sarcastic snickers that quickly morph into ginormous guffaws from debut author Josh Lieb (whose day job is executive producer of The Daily Show) and that is exactly what he delivers in this rollicking tale of a tiny Napoleon. Bullies, beware–Oliver Watson is waddling your way!
Pop by Gordon Korman
Quarterback Marcus Jordan has a big problem. The team at his new school had a perfect season last year, so they aren’t interested in some hot shot rookie hitching a ride on their air-tight winning machine. Especially Troy Popovitch, the resident star QB who doesn’t like the way Marcus is eyeing his position–or his flirtatious cheerleader ex. So Marcus begins training extra hard at the local park in a hopeless attempt to win the team’s love, and it’s there he meets Charlie, a fit middle-aged man who not only seems to know his way around a football, but has an bone-shattering tackle technique as well. Even though Charlie is chronically forgetful and often shows up hours after he tells Marcus he will, he helps Marcus step up his game to the point where Coach Barker starts to let his butt off the bench once in a while. Then Marcus discovers that his buddy Charlie is actually Charlie Popovitch, famous retired NFL linebacker–and Troy’s dad. When Marcus tries to talk to Troy about his famous father, Troy goes ballistic and warns Marcus to stay away from him. What is going on with the Popovitch clan? Why won’t Troy acknowledge his well-known parent? And how is it that Charlie seems to know everyone in town, yet sometimes appears lost on his own block? When Marcus finds a unique way to pay back Charlie for all the help he’s given him that will help restore some of Charlie’s former glory, he knows he’s going to get in big trouble with both Troy and the team. But he also knows he’d do anything for the man who taught him how to make his defense go POP. This Superbowl of a sports book is about a lot more than football (although there are some seriously tense on-field scenes). Korman also tackles themes of family, conscience, friendship and loss, scoring a touchdown on all counts. A perfect choice for the crisp, cool days of fall.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher
