Perpetual Night-time: Marked

I just finished Marked this afternoon. I picked it up for summer reading because I've had a few students talk the book up and read every book in the series. It's co-written by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast, a mother-daughter team. Some of the content struck me as quite interesting, particularly knowing the authors' relationship. The book finally began to win me over by about page 200 (out of 307 pages), and I could see how the book was easily part of a series- because of the slow buildup to the story itself.

The story begins with Zoey, an above average 16 year old. She's pretty (but she tries to pretend not to know it) and she's smart- so smart that she realizes her best friend, Kayla, and her ex-almost boyfriend, Heath, are even more moronic than they first appear. However, it takes her a week into the story to realize this, because all she needs is a little perspective, vampire perspective. The conflict is simply this: Zoey has just found out that she's 'marked' to become a vampire and she has now been rejected by her "People of Faith" loving friends and family- with the exception of her grandmother- who has strong Cherokee roots, religiously and biologically. Zoey runs away from her house to visit her grandmother and ends up at the House of Night after a vision-inducing fall (or because of one?). The House of Night is the vampire school that helps 'fledglings' adjust to the idea of 'vampyre' life.

The vampires (the Casts refer to them as vampyres) take classes in the middle of the night. The life seems like a night boarding school, except that magic and religion come into the school. The hocus-pocus is thick in the book and I couldn't help but read while imagining parents throwing fits about the blood drinking, religious circles, possible ghosts, and the rejection of the "opiate of the masses' (but, somehow thinking that the magic performed in the name of the Goddess Nyx doesn't fall under this category).

While at the House of Night, Zoey inevitably finds friends and finds that she is gifted. Of course there is a mean, popular girl who tries to make Zoey's life hell, but then Zoey shows this mean girl a thing or two.

I had a hard time buying into the book, but finally it took off around page 200 as Zoey begins to have contact with her love interest and she begins to use her abilities and "affinities" for improvement at the House of Night.

I appreciate the Casts' creative version of 'vampyres' and use of magic and Native American traditions, but it seemed that there was an overwhelming amount of text devoted to telling the potions and ceremonies rather than the story itself. However, once the story finally started to take off with Zoey and her friends, I began to like the story a bit, but I couldn't help but be reminded of Harry Potter. With this said, I think I'll stick with Harry Potter if I want magic and a creative storyline. But, knowing that the Casts' stories are still getting my students to love reading, I'd suggest reading the books for yourself, and rumor has it (on PC cast's blog- linked at the top of this blog entry) that the books may be made into movies.

Milkweed

I picked up Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed because I'd loved his book Maniac Magee when I was a teenager. Milkweed is about a young boy, who's an orphan, during WWII. The young boy doesn't exactly have a name until he joins with other orphans and one of the older boys, Uri, starts to keep an eye out for the young boy. Uri makes up a story and a name for the nameless orphan, who Uri has named Misha Pilsudski. Misha become quite good at stealing food and he learns to steal from a variety of places.

While stealing some tomatoes from a garden, Misha meets a girl his age, who lives at the house near the garden. This girl, Janina, invites Misha to her birthday party. Misha comes to the party, and he runs away with the girl's cake. In return for the cake, Misha returns later and leaves a present for her on her door stoop. Janina begin a friendship in which they leave presents or food for one another on the door stoop. After a period of this, Janina's family gets taken away with other Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto. In the meantime, the orphan boys have been sleeping whereever they can and they've been talking about how they're all Jews, gypsies or some other form of unwanted people. Eventually, the orphans get thrown into the ghetto too.

The boys figure out ways to continue to steal food within the ghetto, and finally they get desperate enough to find ways in and out of the ghetto to steal food from restaurants, homes and trashcans. Misha meets up with Janina and her family and he begins to bring their family food that he's stolen. After a while, Janina's family essentially allows him to stay with them when he wants and Janina's father begins to show that he cares about Misha through simple acts of giving Janina and Misha small presents and kind words. Of course, things aren't exactly hunky-dory in the ghetto as the food situation and the rampant murder of Jews by Nazis continues in and out of the ghetto. With this, Janina's father convinces the children that the two of them need to sneak out of the ghetto and stay out because the danger is becoming too great.

While I enjoyed the book as a whole because it reminded me of The Book Thief and it's an interesting time period, I was disappointed with the ending. I enjoyed the characters in that they were each unique and the children's perspectives were interesting in that their naivete created a compelling story.

Someone Like You

Someone Like You, by Sarah Dessen, is another feel-good teenage romance and friendship novel. The book starts with Scarlett finding out that her best friend, Halley, has just lost her summer-fling to a motorcycle accident. To complicate things, most of their classmates don't even realize that Halley and her soul-mate, Michael, have been seeing one another. This becomes a bit awkward when Halley and Scarlett attend the funeral and some of Michael's ex-girlfriends are convinced that he was still in love with them.

Then the bomb drops- Halley finds out she's prego. after having only had sex with Michael (or any one for that matter) once. Halley's mother is less than supportive and sees an abortion as the only way to 'solve' the situation. Meantime, Scarlet is falling in love with a pseudo-bad boy Macon. Scarlett and Macon continue to hang out with one another and gradually Halley begins to cover for Scarlett so that she can sneak off to hang out and make out with Macon.

As Halley and Macon get more serious, she starts to realize how little she actually knows about Macon, but she's still drawn to him despite her parents not exactly approving of the relationship. Someone Like You demonstrates the extents that friendships extend, even through extenuating circumstances. It's a fun, quick read, particularly if you're looking for some fluffy, girly drama.

Bottled up

I'm on a bit of a tight schedule, so I'll make this really quick, but I need to get it out before I get distracted by a new book. I just finished Bottled Up by Jaye Murray and it was just what I needed after reading a few light-hearted, girly romance novels. Bottled Up is about a teenager named Pip (stands for Phillip), who's dealing with a set of deadbeat parents. Pip is no angel himself. He's in trouble from the start. His favorite past-times: smoking pot and skipping class. He finds himself in a predicament when he lands himself in the principal's office and Principal Giraldi is in the process of calling's Pip's father, when Pip reaches over the desk and hangs up Giraldi's phone on his dad- to Giraldi's astonishment. Giraldi gets it. The one thing/person Pip is afraid of and will do anything to avoid is his alcoholic, abusive father. Giraldi makes a deal with Pip that if Pip begins counseling then Giraldi won't call Pip's father & rat him out about having an addiction problem ( Pip's parents actually don't realize Pip has a marijuana problem because they're both too busy with alcohol and pills).

Aside from Pip, a large portion of the book is actually about Mikey, Pip's 6-year-old brother. As a reader, it's easy to see how Mikey is beginning to follow in his brother's footsteps and ultimately their father's footsteps. However, it's hard for Pip to realize the problem is that he's taking after his father... until the therapist finally lets Pip demonstrate it to himself. This book is perfect for anyone who's ever dealt with substance abuse themselves or within their family. It's also a good book for teens in that it really shows how there are always choices, even when it doesn't seem like there are.