Kearsten's Book Club: Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill

Monday, night, our book club discussed David Macinnis Gill's science fiction, action-adventure story, Black Hole Sun. 

On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders.

We started our discussion with some gripes, as many of our book clubbers felt it took too long for them to get invested in Durango and his world.  As the story is set on Mars in the future, the characters used many slang words (and other languages); however, almost none of the words were defined in the text, and there was no glossary to be found.  It turns out, interestingly, that many of our teens (myself included) are fantasy readers, and we've grown accustomed to using included maps and glossaries to dissect an author's world.

We had a great time, though, talking about the characters (nearly everyone loved the creepy, crazy queen), the society (which seemed to have no middle class, unless you counted the military), and about the European and Asian feudal influences on Durango's military background.  Most fascinating for us were the military regulations: they were almost religious in nature, and so strictly adhered to, it seemed as if the rigid honor code was in place to easily control the people who followed it unquestioningly...except for Durango, of course!

Overall, while the group gave the book an "okay" average of about 6 1/2 out of 10, we had a lively and fun discussion about Black Hole Sun.

As this is action-packed, with some awesomely intense battle scenes (with some wicked-sounding weaponry and armor that adapts to one's environment), a strong and snarky male point-of-view, this is a great read for guys and girls alike!  But if you've already read it and its sequels, Invisible Sun and Shadow on the Sun, why not try one of these readalikes, chosen by our own teen readers?

If you like exciting science fiction/action: 

The Last Thing I Remember (bk 1 in the Homelanders series) by Andrew Klaven. High school student Charlie West awakens bloody and bruised in a concrete bunker, only to discover that he has lost a year of his life and remembers nothing about escaping from prison after being convicted of murdering his former best friend, or why he is being pursued by both the law and a group of terrorists trying to bring down the government of the United States.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

If you're intrigued by children being trained by a shady military/government: 

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. "An outstanding tale of the child-hero Ender Wiggin, who must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive."

Legend by Marie Lu. In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

If you wonder how outcasts can survive in a very rough world:

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother's footsteps and become a bounty hunter.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

Kearsten's Book Club: White Cat by Holly Black

Last night, Kearsten's Book Club met to discuss Holly Black's magic-con-men-caper novel, White Cat. Cassel's grown up in a family of con men, and learned from an early age how to spot and manipulate marks for gain.  However, unlike the rest of his family, Cassel has no ability for 'curse work', an illegal type of magic that can manipulate emotions, memories, luck, and even the human body. An outsider in a family of outsiders, seventeen-year-old Cassel has distanced himself from that criminal world, full of magic-wielding gangsters, and is just trying to coast through an elite boarding school when he begins sleepwalking himself into very dangerous situations.

As this story is full of awesome twists, I'll have to limit revealing everything we talked about, but it ran from admiration for Holly Black's writing (she does a wonderful job building a world with clear and logical rules, yet does so without that annoying info dump many other authors rely on), Cassel's incredibly messed up family/upbringing, to a great discussion of whether a person would remain his/herself if that person's memories were stripped away.

Reaction to White Cat was mixed - while a couple of us LOVED this one (Cassel joins the ranks of Kearsten's fictional boyfriends), others found it too slow to get started.

If you like snarky male protagonists like Cassel, dig on Holly Black's writing, or just like smart, awesome characters, try some of these Book Club suggested titles:

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride.
Valiant by Holly Black.
Hero by Perry Moore.
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
Gone by Michael Grant.

Riding Invisible by Sandra Alonzo, illustrated by Nathan Huang

Yancy has lived his whole life in fear of his older brother.  Diagnosed with a conduct disorder, his older brother Will's extreme behavior - violence, threats, etc - has created an atmosphere that feels as if he's holding the family hostage.  In order to escape, Yancy has been spending time at a local horse boarding facility, adopting a recuperating horse named Shy, but when Will threatens Shy, cutting off his tail and slashing at his side with a scissors, Yancy, fearing for his horse despite telling his parents what happened, runs away.

Sandra Alonzo's Riding Invisible is Yancy's journal, and this journal includes Yancy's illustrations, as he's a budding artist.  (Nathan Huang does the illustrations for the book, which is done like Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian).  While on the run, Yancy meets a kind Mexican immigrant who takes him in, giving him a place to stay and to board Shy, while Yancy helps out on the ranch where the man is employed.  Yancy begins to see his family's situation from his parents' point of view - how difficult must it be for them to struggle with such an out of control child, both wanting to help him, to fix him, while also trying to protect Yancy and themselves - and when they find him, he tries to come to terms with the whole situation.

I was skeptical of this story from the moment I realized how similar the format was to Alexie's National Book Award winner, and my skepticism increased through the first couple of chapters.  Yancy's voice is very young for a 14/15-yr-old at the beginning (especially one who's faced a troubled sibling, who it is later revealed is into drugs, etc.).  Alonzo throws in some curse words, but it feels forced.  However, she seems to hit her stride at about the middle, and the descriptions of his family's troubles are both scary and sad.  I also felt that Yancy's feeling that as the 'good' son, he's become invisible to his parents, as they're forced more and more to cope with their oldest son was realistic and handled well.

I read this as a consideration for the Maricopa County Mock Printz awards, and while I think Riding Invisible is worth reading, I don't think it's the best teen book of the year.

Recommended.