Dear Martin by Nic Stone

 In Dear Martin, Nic Stone has given us a powerful story about our country's continuing struggle with racism.  Our main character, Justyce McAllister is a black teen who is working hard to succeed in life.  He is an elite Prep school, is near the top of this class, captain of the debate team, and he is headed to an Ivy League school after he graduates.

He has it all until the racism that has always been out starts to creep in to his own life.  He begins a project studying Dr. Martin Luther King and begins to write letters to him.  He is always asking the question, "What would Martin do?"  But as his experiences pile up he starts to wonder if maybe he wasn't asking the right question. 

This powerful debut novel helps the reader to explore the issues of race in our country and maybe find ways to start the process of discussion and eventually healing.  This one is definitely well worth your time. 

From Amazon:

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Raw and gripping." —Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys

A must-read!” —Angie Thomas, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give

Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning debut.

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.

Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.

This Darkness Mine by Mindy McGinnis

Previously reading The Female of the Species, I guessed that author Mindy McGinnis is not someone you would want to mess with.  After reading her latest novel, This Darkness Mine, I am now sure she is someone you would never want to cross (Okay, so she really is a great person and one that has recently said that she "really liked Kansas").

 This Darkness Mine is the story of Sasha Stone, the perfect girl who has everything going for her.  She is the soon to be valedictorian.  She is the leader of the school band.  She has the perfect boyfriend.  Her college plans are all in order.  She has it all....until one day things start happening that she has no recollection of.

The dark truth that she discovers is that she was once a twin, but that twin died before she was ever born.  Sasha comes to believe that she absorbed her twin while in the womb.  Sasha believes that Shanna, her twin, still lives inside her and is now trying to live the life she never had a chance to live.  The problem is that Shanna is not the good girl that Sasha always has been. 

Mindy McGinnis has brought us another powerful and thought provoking novel that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat until the very end.   
 

From Amazon:

Mindy McGinnis, award-winning author of The Female of the Species and A Madness So Discreet, returns with a new dark and twisted psychological thriller—perfect for fans of Gone Girl and Fight Club.

Sasha Stone knows her place—first-chair clarinet, top of her class, and at the side of her Oxford-wearing boyfriend. She’s worked her entire life to ensure her path to Oberlin Conservatory as a star musician is perfectly paved.

But suddenly there’s a fork in the road in the shape of Isaac Harver. Her body shifts toward him when he walks by, and her skin misses his touch even though she’s never known it. Why does he act like he knows her so well—too well—when she doesn’t know him at all?

Sasha discovers that her by-the-book life began by ending the chapter of another: the twin sister she absorbed in the womb. But that doesn’t explain the gaps of missing time in her practice schedule, or the memories she has of things she certainly never did with Isaac.

Armed with the knowledge that her heart might not be hers alone, Sasha must decide what she’s willing to do—and who she’s willing to hurt—to take it back.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Wow!  What a beautifully written story.  Long Way Down is an incredible story, told in verse, about a young man (just 15 years old) whose brother has just been murdered.  Will is planning on following the rules that have been passed down in his family, in his neighborhood for years.  Rule #1: No crying.  Rule #2: No snitching.  Rule #3: Get revenge.

Armed with his brothers gun, he takes the elevator down from the seventh floor with the plans to go and kill the man he is SURE killed his brother.  At each floor someone new steps on the elevator, someone who has passed away, someone who has a connection to Will.  Each tells their story, making Will have to decide if he is really going to do what he says he is going to do.

This is a novel that is super fast paced and one that, due to it being told in verse, you will read in a very short time.  But you will also be blown away by the way that Reynolds so beautifully puts his words to paper.  I really cannot say enough good things about this one!

From Amazon:

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature

An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

For those of you who regularly take a look at this blog and what I am reading, I am sure you are fully aware that I a HUGE fan of A.S. King.  She is an incredible writer and an even more incredible person.  The Dust of 100 Dogs was her first novel and they just recently re-released it.  And I am so glad they did, because if not I probably never would have known about it and therefore never read it, and believe me when I say I am so glad that I read this one.

This book was so much fun!  It tells the story of a modern day young woman who is fighting to get back to her past.  A past that goes back to the 1600s and her life ans a famous teenage pirate, Emer Morrisey.  As she was trying to escape this dangerous lifestyle, an old nemesis comes back to kill her and curse her with "The dust of 100 dogs."  A curse that will cause her to live the lives of 100 dogs before she can come back to her contemporary form....with all of her memories still intact.

This book beautifully weaves the stories of both the former Emer Morrisey and the present day Saffron Adams, jumping back and forth between the pirate tales of the late 1600s and the present day search for the treasure she buried many, many years ago.  In between these tales, we get tips from our narrator about dogs and why they do the things they do (remember, she lived the lives of 100 dogs, so she has a bit of insight).  This book is full of twists and turns and is another amazing story from the incomparable A.S. King.  

From Amazon:

The first book from LA Times Book Prize and Printz Honor winner A.S. King--a witty, snarky tale of love and family, revenge and reincarnation, and pirates.

In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact.

Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs to escape her no-good family and establish a luxurious life of her own is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica...

In Sight of Stars by Gae Polisner

I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of Gae Polisner's (author of The Memory of Things and others) upcoming novel In Sight of Stars.  While heartbreaking at times, it is a beautiful story about the things that tear us apart in our lives, but also about the things that help to put us back together.

This story is filled with wonderful characters that help teach Klee, whose father has recently committed suicide, that the world doesn't always have to be working against us.  They teach him that we get to choose who we will become.  They teach him about forgiveness.  And maybe most importantly, they teach him that when we encounter a chute in our lives, there is always a ladder there waiting for us to climb back up.

This novel will not be released until March 13, 2018, but if you are interested I can pass it on to you.

From Amazon:

"An achingly fierce exploration of the way the world wounds us and heals us. If you love exquisitely written coming-of-age stories that will leave you breathless, In Sight of Stars is for you." - Jeff Zentner, William C. Morris award-winning author of The Serpent King and Goodbye Days

Seventeen-year-old Klee’s father was the center of his life. He introduced Klee to the great museums of New York City and the important artists on their walls, he told him stories made of myths and magic. Until his death.

Now, forced to live in the suburbs with his mom, Klee can’t help but feel he’s lost all the identifying parts of himself―his beloved father, weekly trips to the MoMA, and the thrumming energy of New York City. That is until he meets wild and free Sarah in art class, with her quick smiles and jokes about his “brooding.” Suddenly it seems as if she’s the only thing that makes him happy. But when an act of betrayal sends him reeling, Klee lands in what is bitingly referred to as the “Ape Can,” a psychiatric hospital for teens in Northollow.

While there, he undergoes intensive therapy and goes back over the pieces of his life to find out what was real, what wasn’t, and whether he can stand on his own feet again. Told in alternating timelines, leading up to the event that gets him committed and working towards getting back out, Gae Polisner’s In Sight of Stars is a gorgeous novel told in minimalist strokes to maximal effect, about what makes us fall apart and how we can put ourselves back together again.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I had heard about The Hate U Give for a long time, had seen it at #1 on the NYT YA Bestseller list forever, but I hadn't yet picked it up and read it.  I finally decided to give it a read.

This is a story about so many things.  It is a story about racism in our country and the ugliness that comes with it.  It is a story about bravery and being willing to stand up when things are tough.  It is a story about families and the support they give one another when it is most needed.  It is about community and being proud of where you came from.   It is so many things, and Angie Thomas does a masterful job of making these points through the character of Starr Carter and all those characters who are a part of her life. 

I'm glad I finally picked this up, just disappointed it took me so long. 

From Amazon:

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston

Okay, it has been a long time since I've completed one of these.  Life got busy in July and school was starting up in August.  Combine these two things and not much reading gets accomplished.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear is a title that has been on my radar for a long time.  I finally started it in July and just finished it this weekend.  Exit is the story of a girl entering her senior year of high school, and maybe more importantly for her, her senior year of cheerleading.  Just before the school year starts, Hermione Winters is drugged and raped on the last night of cheer camp.

Over the course of the novel we see her as she is dealing with the emotional, mental, and physical fallout that comes with such a traumatic event.  More importantly, we see the support that she receives from those around her, some more reluctantly than others.  While this book is centered around the tragic event of her rape, it is a book that ends with a hope for the future, a chance at not letting this horrible event define who Hermione is in the end.
 

From Amazon:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author E.K. Johnston comes a brave and unforgettable story that will inspire readers to rethink how we treat survivors.

Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a small town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of…she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.

In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The rape wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale.


"This story of a cheerleader rising up after a traumatic event will give you Veronica Mars-level feels that will stay with you long after you finish."—Seventeen Magazine