Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Twenty Boy Summer
Author: Sarah Ockler
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: The cover and the title made it look like a light read, which I was in the mood for after a string of not-light books.

Summary: Anna is getting what she’s always wanted—a summer vacation at the beach with her best friend Frankie. Frankie comes up with a game to find summer romance by meeting a new guy every day, and she convinces Anna to play too. But Frankie doesn’t know that Anna already met the guy she wants—Frankie’s older brother Matt, whom Anna can’t let go.

Review: This is what I get for not checking any reviews of this book or even the jacket blurb before I started reading it. Because it’s not exactly a light romance, like I had expected.

But it turns out that fact is what I like best about the book. As I read, my throat was thick with Anna’s grief for Matt and the guilt she felt for wanting to move on—and even worse, for actually moving on.

The ending tended toward melodrama in parts, but overall this one was a good read.

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• The Chosen One
• Prada and Prejudice
• Breathing
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: Liar
Author: Justine Larbalestier
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: 17-year-old Micah lies to everyone. First she said she was a boy, then a hermaphrodite, then the daughter of an arms dealer. So when her secret boyfriend Zach disappears and she says she’s innocent, why should anybody believe her?

Review: Woo boy. This story sinks its teeth into your throat and gives you a good shake every few minutes just to make sure the puncture wounds are good and deep.

I couldn’t read it fast enough.

Micah doesn’t want you to root for her, to be on her side. She keeps pushing and pushing and pushing you away. But if you stick by her, if you keep listening, you’re in for quite a story.

Want a taste?

The second day Zach isn’t at school, I wear a mask. I keep it on for three days. I forge a note from my dad to say I have a gruesome rash and the doctor told me to keep it covered. I carry the note with me from class to class. They all buy it.

My dad brought the mask back from Venice. It’s black leather painted with silver and unfurls at each corner like a fern. The silver is real.

Under it, my skin itches.

They tell us Zach is dead during third period on Thursday.

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Did you like this book? Try:

• Once Was Lost
• Girl in the Arena
• Beautiful Creatures
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Giver
Author: Lois Lowry
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: It’s been on my TBR list for a while (since November 20, 2005, to be exact) but forced its way to the top after I saw it listed as a suggested title for the DystopYA Reading Challenge.

Summary: 12-year-old Jonas lives in a utopian community with no crime, no unemployment, no problems at all. But when he gets chosen as the one and only Receiver of Memories, he starts to learn the dark secrets of his small world.

Review: The world in this book reminded me a bit of the movie Pleasantville.

I loved reading about this creepy world and Jonas’s journey to uncover the truth. I think the only reason I didn’t rate this an all-time favorite is that at 12 years old, Jonas was a little young for my taste. I like my main characters to be solidly in their teens, upper if possible. Or if they’re younger, I like them to be extra sassy (like 15-year-old Daisy).

This is probably because as a teen, I was about as dynamic as a baked potato. I wish I had been cool and self-aware and sarcastic. So I like to read about characters who are all that and more—not like my boring, starchy teen self.

Still, I am glad I read The Giver. I can see now why it’s considered one of the classic YA dystopias.

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Number the Stars
• Walk Two Moons
• Holes—My rating: 4/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: Story of a Girl
Author: Sara Zarr
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: Deanna made a mistake when she was 13. A big mistake. Her father will never look at her the same way again, and she can’t shake her nasty reputation at school. So how is she supposed to move on?

Review: I just resubmitted a request to my library to order Zarr’s latest, Once Was Lost. Because this woman can write.

I liked Story of a Girl even more than Sweethearts, which I liked quite a lot. This gritty story completely swept me away. I felt like I was reading about a real girl and her real problems.

The opening:

I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren.

I didn’t love him.

I’m not sure I even liked him.

I want more book recommendations from you! You’re making me go back and read “old” YA instead of just getting caught up in whatever hot new thing just hit the shelves. Without that feeling of obligation to do what you say, I don’t know if I would have the discipline to branch out from recent releases.

Your Turn: Got a book recommendation for me? Please leave it in the Pick My Next Book box to the right of this post!

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did you like this book? Try:

• Thirteen Reasons Why
• Twisted
• Sweethearts—My rating: 3.5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them and The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon–and me, Ruby Oliver
Author: E. Lockhart
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3/5
Why I Read It: The Boyfriend List was a good read, so I wanted to finish out the series.

Summary: Ruby Oliver just started her junior year, but she still doesn’t have much to speak of in the way of friends—and definitely no boyfriend. Not only that, but the one boy she wants to move into the BF column? Roo’s former girlfriend who’s slowly warming back up to a friendship with her happens to have a crush on that same boy.

Review: The rest of this series made for quick, fun reads. The two issues I had with The Boyfriend List—too many footnotes and a confusing story timeline—did not crop up in these two books.

Just pure, clean fun. Well, except for the flirty bits and also the kissing.

This exchange between Roo and her crush Noel made me smile. Someone at school called Roo a slut, and she’s telling Noel about it over an afterschool pizza.

“I wish I’d responded to the slut thing, though.”

“What is there to say?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘I prefer tart’?”

“Tart is nice. It’s a pastry.”

“Maybe I could reclaim the word slut,” I said. “Like gay people have reclaimed the word queer, so it’s not a whatever.”

“Epithet.”

“Yeah. I could run around with signs. ‘Slutty and Proud!’”

“Sluts of America Unite!”

“Exactly.” I took a sip of my pop.

“Your mom could wear a T-shirt: ‘I’m proud of my slutty kid.’” Noel fished around in his backpack for a pen. “Here, I’ll design you a slut logo.” He found a ballpoint and started to draw on a piece of notebook paper. A sketch of a woman wearing a superhero cape, glasses like mine and a strange pointy bra.

“I don’t think I ever told you that none of the stuff people say about me is true,” I blurted out.

“About the boyfriend list?”

“I was never with all those guys.”

Noel shook his head. “I wouldn’t care if you were.”

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things
• An Abundance of Katherines—My rating: 4/5
• Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing