12 Days of Teen Lit: 10 Brooding Loners!

Another day, Another 12 Days of Teen Lit post.

Today we are happy to bring you

10 Brooding Loners!

Arisotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Crazy. Fifteen-year-old loner Jason struggles to hide father's declining mental condition after his mother's death, but when his father disappears he must confide in the other members of a therapy group he has been forced to join at school

Gemini Bites. When their parents announce they are taking in a fellow student for a month, 16-year-old twins Kyle and Judy sit up and take notice. Kyle has just come out of the closet to his family and fears he'll never know what it is like to date a guy. Judy is pretending to be born-again to attract a boy who heads a Bible study group. And Garret Johnson is new in town-- a mysterious loner who claims to be a vampire. Both twins are intrigued.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot.  After moving to Baltimore and enrolling in a private school, high school senior Beatrice befriends a quiet loner with a troubled family history.

 Invisible.  Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.

The Knife that Killed Me. Paul Varderman, a secondary student in an English Catholic School, is a loner until, just as he is becoming friends with "the freaks," the school bully encourages Paul to join his gang and gives him a knife to carry as an incentive

My Sister's Stalker. When fifteen-year-old Rig, a loner, discovers that his popular older sister is being stalked while away at college, he sets out to save her, with unexpected help from his divorced parents.

The Night Road.  Battling his own memories and fears, Cole, an extraordinarily conscientious vampire, and Sandor, a more impulsive acquaintance, spend a few months on the road, trying to train a young man who recently joined their ranks.

Narc. When his little sister is caught with a bag of weed, seventeen-year-old Aaron Foster takes the fall. To keep the cops from tearing his family apart, Aaron agrees to go undercover and help bust the dealer who's funneling drugs into his Miami high school. But making friends with the school's biggest players isn't easy for a waste-case loner from the wrong part of town.

TWOC: Taken Without Owner's Concent.  Ever since the joyriding accident that killed his brother Jake and left Jake’s girlfriend Jools hideously scarred, Matt has been tortured by his inability to remember exactly what happened. He decides to reconstruct the events of that tragic day—but can he survive the accident a second time?

paranormal romance

Hey all, did you know that Tuesday's Teen Book Cafe is all about Paranormal Romance? As everyone who notices the new bookshelves in the teen area will know, there are a lot of paranormal romances written for teens. Seriously, a lot. I have a bookcart filled with them next to me right now waiting for the program. Here's a sneak peek at some of books I'll talk about:

Ghosts--A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

Helen has been a harmless ghost for 130 years. Her current haunt is an English teacher--she loves reading over his shoulder. One day in class she looks up to see a boy staring at her. The first human to be able to see her since she died.

Vampires--Pretty Dead by Francesca Lia Block

After the death of her human friend, Charlotte finds herself slowly turning back to human. What a great cover!

So there's a sneak at two of the books. I'll post more after the program. And if I'm ambitious there will be a craft activityin the program too.

Have a great weekend!

Vamps and Gummies and Ghosts, Oh My!

I know, I know, “who is this Kearsten person and why is she posting here?!?” Yes, it’s been awhile, but I’m finally making another appearance here, even if I’m slacking by blogging about two books that are smack-dab in my genre of choice: the supernatural!(cue spooky music). However, these books do differ in subject matter: one is a graphic novel involving slacker vampires, while another is a soon-to-be-released novel about a teenage girl who is dying to be popular and gets her wish – sadly, she gets the dying part, not the popularity.

Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel, Gabriel Soria and illustrated by Warren Pleece, tells the story of Dave Miller, undead night-manager at Last Stop, a vampire-owned convenience store. Turned when the vampire owner (and Dave’s new Vampire Master), Radu, needed to fill the night-manager position, Dave’s vampire life is boringly routine, consisting of sleep, blood from a bottle and the monotonous manning of the Last Stop’s front counter. The only highlights of his evenings are when Rosa, a goth vampire-wannabe, drops in for snacks with her fellow goths. It’s not until a mean-spirited fellow vamp, Wes, decides to compete with Dave for Rosa’s affections, that Dave’s unlife gets complicated. The view of vampire life in Life Sucks is very different than in, say, Twilight, but Dave’s boredom, his frustration with a literally dead-end job, an obsession with a Spanish soap opera and his fierce crush on Rosa – not to mention his refusal to feed from the living – help make Life Sucks charming and funny. It’s a quick read and you, like I, will finish thirsting for more…

Now, I’m kinda cheating with this next book – I haven’t actually read it, though I did get a chance to “sample” two chapters of Ghostgirl, an August release by Tonya Hurley. The “ghostgirl” in this story is Charlotte Usher, a high school senior who, on the first day of school, chokes to death on a Gummy Bear right after finding out that she’s won the BEST kind of lottery: her hot crush Damen as a lab partner. Talk about life sucking! From the chapters I read, it seems Ghostgirl will be funny and snarky, though there were a couple of references that struck me as a bit old for a teen audience (Young Frankenstein? An old Twilight Zone episode? Election? I knew what she was referring to, but I’m...old.) Truth be told, the biggest reason I’ve already put a hold on Ghostgirl is the promotional material I received for it while at Comic Con this past weekend (yes, I’m a geek, and holy cow was it fun!): cute and ghostly black and hot pink temporary tattoos, and a teeny metal tin (containing gummy bears, of course) upon which is inscribed, “WARNING: EATING MAY RESULT IN SUDDEN DEATH AND EXTREME POPULARITY.”

Hee!

Night Road

Ever thought being a vampire would be cool? Read A.M. Jenkins's Night Road and you're likely to change your mind. The undead characters in this book actually despise the term "vampire" and all of the horror movie connotations it carries. They prefer to call themselves hemovores, or blood drinkers. The hemes have been around for centuries and over the years have established The Colony, a safe house in New York City where they live protected from the sun and surrounded by doting omnis (short for omnivores, or humans) who have become addicted to giving their blood. The hemes don't take too much from their victims because if they drain an omni, it creates another heme. And the hemes know all to well that their lives aren't glamorous. They're basically parasites who suffer from a disease. They don't have superpowers, they suffer from the Thirst, and they can't die, not even if they want to. They can, however, feel pain. The pain is real and vicious. They just heal faster than the average bear.

Cole, eternally eighteen-years-old, hasn't been back to the Colony in years. He left after he turned the girl he loved into a creature like himself, and the end result was, well. . . not good. In fact, finding out what happened to Bess is one of the creepiest parts of this novel. Ever since the disaster with his girlfriend, Cole has been careful, living a life of the utmost control, blending into his surroundings, never standing out, never getting attached to anyone. What's the point of loving anyone when they will only age and die, leaving Cole alone and bitter? So Cole wanders. But he is summoned back to the Colony one day and when he gets there, he learns that an old friend has unintentionally created a new heme. Gordon's his name but the other hemes call him "the Accident." Gordon is young, immature, and out of control. It becomes Cole's responsibility to take Gordon on the road and teach him the ropes of being a heme, but Gordon is focused on getting back to his home town and seeing the girlfriend he attacked after he turned.

I have loved everything I've ever read by A.M. Jenkins and Night Road is no exception. I loved seeing a new take on the vampire tale. Vampires seem to be exploding all over teen literature these days and this is a fresh idea in an over clogged genre. This book really makes you consider the drawbacks and the limitations that some other novels tend to gloss over, favoring the pomp and glamour of the undead story line instead. Jenkins makes you think: What does it mean not to be fully human any longer? What would it be never to feel the sun on your face? To watch everyone you ever loved age and die? Never to be able to drink anything but blood? To have to hide? What would it really be like to be immortal with all of these limitations placed upon you? And most of all, how do you get over the guilt of destroying the person you once loved?

This isn't really the book for readers who liked Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, even if they both are about vampires. This is a book about guilt, bitterness, and responsibility, from a male point of view. There are quite a few shuddery moments--especially when Cole encounters a "stray," or a heme not from the Colony. The reader shivers, thinking on one level, "Oh, this is just a story," while on the other level. . . "But what if something like these creatures existed, unknown, in our world?" Very, very creepy. This book has quite a different feel from Twilight or Claudia Gray's Evernight. It hits on a deeper level and seems to ask deeper questions. I think the Meyers series might be edging toward some of the conclusions Jenkins makes in Night Road, conclusions about the beauty of being mortal and the sacrifice entailed in becoming other than mortal. Jenkins beat her to the punch. The only small quibble I have with Night Road is that I kept expecting it to reach a bigger climactic plot moment than it ever did. But this is a book about a journey, both a physical one and a metaphorical one as Cole is forced to confront the mistakes of his past. I liked it a lot, and I definitely recommend it.

If you are up to speed on teen books, then you've heard of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. If not, you need to go to the library right now and pick it up. Seriously, get up and step away from the computer, and go already!

Just look at the cover, how inviting it is. It wants you to open up the book. Before this book came out, I had heard buzz about it. I knew I wanted to read it, so at a conference in June, I begged for an advanced copy of it. It's the only time I have ever begged for a book. I love books, but I'm okay to wait to read something usually. Not this time. I had to have it. I had to read it. And it was well worth it.

Merideth posted on the blog on January 19th all about Twligiht, so if you still don't know what it's about, click over to that post and she'll tell you all about it. So you're wondering why I'm posting about this book, huh? To get more people to read it of course!

Two weeks ago, I got a package in the mail. I opened it up and wrapped in black construction paper was New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. I screamed. Literally screamed. Then I promptly called Karen, my co-worker, and gloated. Don't worry I'm not planning on giving anything away. I'm completely savoring this one, reading it at lunch time only. I'll admit it's a little torturous to read it that way, and I'm tempted not to come back to lunch, but it is well worth the year wait.

So anyway, go read Twilight and tell me what you think. And if you know me in real life, you can find out more about New Moon later!

Love, Sex and Vampires

So, as I'm prepping for the Main Library's Rocky Horror Buffy program, I find myself thinking about vampire romance books, and what a weird kind of thing they are.

I mean, I know tons of girls (and not a few boys) who love these kind of girl-meets-boy/girl-falls-in-love-with-boy/boy-turns-out-to-be-undead love stories. Once upon a time, I really got into them too, and I will admit, I still enjoy a good vamp-y read.

But, if you think about it, a vampire would make a rotten boyfriend. You couldn't really take them anywhere, at least during the daytime, you couldn't go out to eat and there's that whole drinking your blood and making you their slave thing.

Maybe the vampire lover is popular because everybody knows that it can't really happen, so it's a kind of dangerous fantasy, but still completely safe. Or maybe it's because there are very few ugly vampires in romantic fiction. It could also be because a vampire is the ultimate project boyfriend -- not only do you need to help him cut his hair and organize his CD collection, you must SAVE HIS SOUL!

Well, whatever the reason, here are three recommendations for new-ish good romantic vampire books.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. This one is by an author right here in the Valley! Bella moves to Forks, Washington, where it's always rainy and gloomy. She becomes fascinated the handsome but distant senior Edward. Although he seems aloof, Bella feels there is more to him that meet the eye. She discovers that Edward is a vampire, but that he and his clan have renounced hunting humans. Edward is drawn to Bella, but his attraction to her could spell her doom.

Got Fangs by Katie Maxwell. Fran's mom is a real witch. No I mean a real witch. She travels around Europe in a GothFaire, selling her skills alongside others with supernatural gifts. Fran has to travel with her, and to add insult to injury, Mom is encouraging Fran to use her gifts of reading the thoughts and feelings of others through touch at the Faire. Despite all the weirdness, Fran thinks she can get through the next few months, at least until Benedickt shows up. Ben is really hot -- especially for a 312 year old vampire. When Ben declares that Fran is his Beloved -- the one woman who can redeem his soul. Now, not only does Fran have a devoted, and infuriating admirer, but she has to solve the mystery of who's stealing from the GothFaire, a question which may not be as simple as it seems...

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. I don't know if you'd call this a romance really, but it is kinda sexy. When Cal moved to NYC from Texas for college, he lost his virginity -- and found a whole mess of trouble. You see, the girl with whom Cal slept with was a "peep" or parasite positive. She passed the disease on Cal and now he too is a -- well, Cal doesn't like to use the "v" word. Cal works for the Night Watch, an organization dedicated to hunting down the peeps, most of whom are bloodthirsty cannibals. Through his work, Cal discovers that something much worse than the peeps is threatening NYC, and he is in the thick of the conflict.