Plain Truth

This cover sold me, with the grass and the simple white dress.

Plain Truth
by Jodi Picoult
Washington Square Press
Purchased in paperback
[#26 in my 75 book challenge]

Ooooohhh, Picoult, you sure have a way of showing me both sides of a complicated issue. You’ve made me sympathetic to murder-suicide, anti-gay ex-husbands, and kids who refuse to donate a kidney to their sisters. And now you’ve made me sympathetic to neonaticide.

Almost.

In this novel, a newborn baby is found dead in an Amish barn, and Katie Fisher is on trial for the murder. Big-city lawyer Ellie Hathaway ends up not just representing Katie in court, but also living in Amish country as her client’s court-appointed guardian prior to the trial. Like all Picoult novels, the story grows more and more complicated as we find out more about Katie’s life. We are given one twist and turn at a time, even throughout the trial in the last 1/3 of the book, and are left wondering exactly what happened until the last few pages when the truth comes out and the verdict is given.

Though I like Picoult’s books and read them like 400+ page candy, I found myself not liking either Ellie or Katie in this story. That fact didn’t hurt my overall enjoyment too much, but it was problematic none-the-less. I didn’t find myself feeling sympathetic toward the commitment-phobic, workaholic lawyer (ohmygoodness, will a few month living the simple life cure her?!) and I didn’t feel any sympathy toward Katie. She’s supposed to be sort of mature and naive at the same time, but I felt like I didn’t trust her from page one. And that trust didn’t even change at the end of the book.

Why do characters always have to hold on to secrets that they KNOW will be important (like who the baby daddy is) and that they know will be found out? And why on earth do they seem surprised that other characters in the story want to know these things? You are on trial for murder, honey. The baby daddy IS IMPORTANT. Characterization aside, though, it was a good page-turner of a book.

FINAL GRADE:   B   I liked it, in a quiet way. The ending wasn’t quite satisfying for me, which is why it’s knocked down from an A to a B. There are a few flaws, but overall it was what I was expecting in a Picoult book — legal drama with a lot of depth and a good twist. I’ve seen many people list this as one of their favorite Picoult books. I can see why, but I’m still sticking with The Pact as my #1.

Other Picoult books I’ve read:

Handle With Care

Sing You Home

The Pact

My Sister’s Keeper

Nineteen Minutes

Have you read any Picoult novels? Why or why not? Which is your favorite?

(Also, did you know Picoult’s name is pronounced Pec-o? I learned that while researching this novel. Fun fact.)

The Chosen One

Beautiful cover. I love that her braid is coming undone.

The Chosen One
by Carol Lynch Williams
St. Martin’s Griffin
Purchased from Amazon
[#19 in my 75 Book Challenge]

Oooooooo I loved this book. REVIEW SPOILER: I give it an A. That’s why you should read this review. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give any real spoilers. Because I want you to read it for yourself.

So it’s a book about Kyra, a thirteen-year-old girl living on a polygamist compound. She has three mothers and nineteen siblings. Kyra finds out that she has been chosen as the seventh wife of her own uncle, a man she finds extremely unpleasant. One thing is certain: Kyra is not going to marry that man, no matter what.

I am fascinated by polygamy, and my purchase of this book came from a little obsession I had with the topic last year. I watched Big Love and Sister Wives like it was my JOB. And while those shows are trying to promote a more progressive image of the culture, The Chosen One represents tradition polygamy…the almost cult-like groups that live on dusty compounds. We do see Kyra living in a loving family, but the power given to the religious leaders is huge and oppressive. They rule with force and fear. No one can leave.

Anger. That was the emotion I felt throughout this book. Anger at the injustice and hypocrisy. Anger at the treatment of women. Anger at the abuse of religion for personal gain. The climax of the story left me with my jaw hanging open in disbelief, and the ending was perfect. I’m not necessarily against polygamy, but I am against polygamy as practiced in this way. Child brides, forced marriages, domestic violence, child abuse, forced poverty, and abuse of power are terrible in any situation, but it does seem difficult to separate polygomist groups from this type of behavior.

Final Grade:   A   I’m a sucker for a good book that pulls real emotions out of me, and this one delivered. It’s beautifully written, I read it almost in one sitting, and it made my heart pound. It made me angry and it made me cry.Though the topic might seem mature, is done in a very MG/YA appropriate way. There is graphic violence, but no graphic sexual scenes. I would recommend it to my more mature students and any adult.

The Red Blazer Girls

I love the pulp-feel of this cover. It's actually the reason I bought the book.

The Red Blazer Girls
by Michael Beil
Scholastic
Audio book from public library/
Purchased from Scholastic Book Fair
[#17 in my 75 Book Challenge]

Sophie, Margaret, and Becca are three normal seventh grade girls attending a normal Catholic school (St. Veronica’s) in New York City. One day they stumble upon an old woman with a puzzle to solve — a puzzle created twenty years before for her estranged daughter. The puzzle was never solved and Mrs. Harriman enlists the girls to go on the adventure and recover the hidden prize at the end.

The puzzles in the book range from word problems to literature trivia and math equations, and they are exactly appropriate for a bright middle school student. Unlike most of the books I read, this is quite solidly a middle grades novel. YA’s would be too mature for the story.

By far, I loved the characters the most. Sophie, Margaret, and Becca are normal girls that I would want to be friends with. They are bright, yes, but a little sassy and a little lost when it comes to boys. The narrator on the audio book, Tai Alexandra Ricci, nailed the voice and tone of the story without sounding too juvenile (unlike the obnoxious narrator in The Lightning Thief).

Final Grade:   C   While it was a cute story with likable characters, it didn’t blow my mind. I’m grading it as  C against other middle grades fiction, not against all fiction, since the novel knew so clearly which audience it wants to reach. There’s a very small portion of middle-class middle-school girls who would appreciate the novel, and they would love it. I am not a middle school girl anymore, so it fell a bit short for me. This is a short-ish review because I just don’t have much more to say!

Quotetastic Friday

Photo from adamfg on flickr.com under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

 

All These Things I’ve Done

Not a very memorable title. I might forget the name of this book in the future.

All These Things I’ve Done
By Gabrielle Zevin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Library book from Junior Library Guild

[#3 in my 75 book challenge]

If you need a summary of the book, just take a look at the cover. Instead of having some cliche picture on there, we’ve got a list of the things going on: chocolate is contraband, caffeine is illegal, the city is riddled with crime, Anya is torn between accepting her birthright and following her heart.

When I picked this one out, I thought it was dystopian. While it sort of is, it’s really more like a mafia novel taking place in 2083. Anya’s family is in the chocolate business, making her father one of the most powerful men in the city…until he was murdered. Anya’s mother was also murdered, and her older brother was severely injured in hits on her family. Though her ailing nana is technically her guardian, Anya is basically in charge of keeping her family healthy and safe, while also trying to survive high school.

You probably noticed that the chocolate on the cover is in the shape of a heart. That’s right, kids — Anya falls in love! Romeo and Juliet-style, she’s falling in love with the Assistant DA’s son, Win (short for Goodwin). He’s so dreamy, he’s so perfect, he’s so atrractive. She’s so…Catholic. And waiting until marriage. Whilst Anya’s trying to figure all of this out, there’s drama, scandals, hits, attempted poisonings, and a lot of distrust going around “the family business.” I didn’t trust anyone, even at the very end. The ending was satisfying, but this is definitely a series and this book has a lot of loose ends.

In reading other reviews of the novel, I noticed that many people thought the story started out strong and fell flat in the middle. I disagree. I was bored at the beginning and found I liked it more at the end. Anya was realistic — yes, she falls victim to high school love and becomes distracted for a bit, but isn’t that understandable? I also felt her struggle with losing her virginity was realistic. It’s not as simple as “good, Catholic schoolgirls don’t do that” for her, there’s a bit more to it than that. I think it’s a struggle a lot of girls have when they really fall in love in high school. The entire premise of the novel was a little odd (why did they outlaw chocolate? Are the going to unveil more to that plot in later books?), but once I accepted that I read it as a love story. And, as has been the trend lately (hurrah!) Anya is a pretty kick-ass female protagonist.

Final Grade:  C   I’m still having a hard time with this rating system business, but I have to keep reminding myself that a C is a good grade. It was average book. Adequate. Kept me reading, kept my interest, and entertained me. However, I don’t think it’ll be making any Top 10 lists at the end of the year. It just isn’t going to be memorable. Worth a read if you like a good mafia story or love story, absolutely. Worth putting in the school library for sure. But I have a feeling many of my students will be returning it unread.

Quotetastic Friday

Quotetastic Friday

Intensely Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Peering into the evangelist lifestyle

I love this cover, but I think the title gives away the ending.

An Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University

by Kevin Roose

[#43 in my 52 book challenge]

Take a Quaker boy from ultra-liberal Brown University and plop him onto the campus of the ultra-conservative, evangelical Christian school that is Liberty University and you get this book. Instead of studying abroad, Kevin Roose experiences another culture right here on our own country. Liberty was founded by Dr. Jerry Falwell to raise the next generations of evangelical Christians in holy, conservative environment. Roose goes undercover as a full-time student, living in the dorms and following the “Liberty Way” to learn more about evangelical Christianity and the students who choose to attend such a university.

While at Liberty, Roose learns to read the Bible daily, pray, and witness. He attends church every Sunday, sings in the choir, and goes on a mission trip over spring break. For his courses he must learn about evangelism, the Old Testament, and creationism. Roose learns to see the students as individuals, instead as simply “The Religious Right,” as he learns more about himself.

An Unlikely Disciple is one of the best books I’ve read in this year’s set. I was impressed by Roose’s open-minded approach to this project. He has liberal views about evolution, abortion, and homosexuality, and he quite strongly believes that the evangelical approach is flawed in many ways. However, he plants himself in the middle of a community of people with completely opposing viewpoints and seeks to understand them. I think we all could benefit from learning about each other with such open minds, and I applaud his strength in holding on to his own beliefs while he did so.

I was most intrigued by Roose’s insights on prayer and praying for other people. He, like me, struggles with the idea that God actually sits down and listens to/answers all of our prayers. With all the terrible things going on in the world, how could He? Roose’s conclusions after experiencing hours of praying each week taught me some things about why people pray. He also shed some light on why students attend such a strict University — offenses such as kissing, cussing, and watching R-rated movies are punished with monetary fines.

If you are fascinated by religion or even slightly intrigued by fish-out-of-water-type experiences, I highly recommend this book.