![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blue_ant79. What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson
It's always a treat for me when I find a book like this one. What They Always Tell Us is a strong, moving story about growing up. James and Alex are brothers living in Alabama, James just wants to get out of the state, while Alex just wants his life to be normal again. The book begins in James' senior year and Alex's junior and we follow them throughout the school year. Martin Wilson splits his story between the two bothers by using alternating chapters with each brother's point of view. In many ways, Wilson's book reminded me of several other extremely well written and thought provoking gay YA books, especially Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You. Wilson doesn't try to sugar coat his story, which follows James as he struggles with his high school friendships, girlfriends and fears about college; and Alex, who must come to terms with his own budding sexuality, a deep depression he tries to overcome and the fears that accompany him when he goes to school. Wilson draws his characters as vivid, real people and I found both James and Alex to be sympathetic people that I identified with. I think that all parents, and teenagers, should read books like Wilson’s because it’s easy to forget that everyone gets depressed, especially in high school. What They Always Tell Us embraces this fact in an uncompromising manner and is better for it. I look forward to reading more of Wilson’s works.
80. Let The Right One In by John Lindqvist
Lindqvist's striking novel takes the familiar vampire myth and twists it into something both romantic and horrific. Let The Right One In is the story of 12-year-old Oskar, social outcast with few friends and a seemingly 12-year-old girl, Eli. But, as Lindqvist proves time and again, things are not always what they seem and Eli's more than just a girl, she is, in fact, a vampire. The novel follows the stories of several different people, Oskar and Eli, but also students from Oskar's school, his friend Tommy, as well as strangers whose significance we only discover as the novel progresses. A friend of mine and I were reading this together and she found the different points of view to make the novel disjointed and would rather have just read about Eli and Oskar. I, on the other hand, liked the change of pace from each chapter to the next -- and as a reader of Scandinavian mysteries, I thought it fit quite well within that
While the main characters quite young, this book is not really middle school and high school readers, though young adult readers of horror (Stephen King, for example) might like this book. It's an excellent story, well written and equally as engaging.
81. The Center of the World by Andreas Steinhofel
In many ways, The Center of the World reads more like and adult book than a young adult one. The maturity level of the writing, the insight Steinhöfel brings to Phil's character, drives the novel more than the plot. Through slightly confusing flashbacks, we follow Phil as he struggles with his sexuality, his family relationships and his outcast status in the small German town where he lives. If you only read the back of the book (as I did) without learning anything else about the novel, you'd imagine you were going to read a grand love story, The Center of the World is much more than that. It is, at it's core, about love, but not just between two boys, it's about love between friends, between family and what it means to feel loved. Steinhöfel's novel is moving, emotional draining and well written (though the English translation could have been a bit better).
82. The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
The reviews for The Vast Fields of Ordinary compared it to several of my favorite books in the same genre, and it turned out to be just as good as they predicted. Burd does an excellent job of writing on a much more mature level (not unlike Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You), as if he knows that the audience he's writing for is much more mature than people give them credit for. I wish more YA authors would take this chance. I felt that it took on all the issues associated with being gay in the midwest and embraced them in such a way that we felt what Dade was going through as much as he did.
83. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
A friend recommended this series to me and I quite enjoyed this first book. The style is a little odd and took some getting used to, but I immediately fell in love with Rennison's quirky characters. Georgia is hilarious and the book is a light, very cute and fun read.
83 / 100 books. 83% read!
It's always a treat for me when I find a book like this one. What They Always Tell Us is a strong, moving story about growing up. James and Alex are brothers living in Alabama, James just wants to get out of the state, while Alex just wants his life to be normal again. The book begins in James' senior year and Alex's junior and we follow them throughout the school year. Martin Wilson splits his story between the two bothers by using alternating chapters with each brother's point of view. In many ways, Wilson's book reminded me of several other extremely well written and thought provoking gay YA books, especially Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You. Wilson doesn't try to sugar coat his story, which follows James as he struggles with his high school friendships, girlfriends and fears about college; and Alex, who must come to terms with his own budding sexuality, a deep depression he tries to overcome and the fears that accompany him when he goes to school. Wilson draws his characters as vivid, real people and I found both James and Alex to be sympathetic people that I identified with. I think that all parents, and teenagers, should read books like Wilson’s because it’s easy to forget that everyone gets depressed, especially in high school. What They Always Tell Us embraces this fact in an uncompromising manner and is better for it. I look forward to reading more of Wilson’s works.
80. Let The Right One In by John Lindqvist
Lindqvist's striking novel takes the familiar vampire myth and twists it into something both romantic and horrific. Let The Right One In is the story of 12-year-old Oskar, social outcast with few friends and a seemingly 12-year-old girl, Eli. But, as Lindqvist proves time and again, things are not always what they seem and Eli's more than just a girl, she is, in fact, a vampire. The novel follows the stories of several different people, Oskar and Eli, but also students from Oskar's school, his friend Tommy, as well as strangers whose significance we only discover as the novel progresses. A friend of mine and I were reading this together and she found the different points of view to make the novel disjointed and would rather have just read about Eli and Oskar. I, on the other hand, liked the change of pace from each chapter to the next -- and as a reader of Scandinavian mysteries, I thought it fit quite well within that
While the main characters quite young, this book is not really middle school and high school readers, though young adult readers of horror (Stephen King, for example) might like this book. It's an excellent story, well written and equally as engaging.
81. The Center of the World by Andreas Steinhofel
In many ways, The Center of the World reads more like and adult book than a young adult one. The maturity level of the writing, the insight Steinhöfel brings to Phil's character, drives the novel more than the plot. Through slightly confusing flashbacks, we follow Phil as he struggles with his sexuality, his family relationships and his outcast status in the small German town where he lives. If you only read the back of the book (as I did) without learning anything else about the novel, you'd imagine you were going to read a grand love story, The Center of the World is much more than that. It is, at it's core, about love, but not just between two boys, it's about love between friends, between family and what it means to feel loved. Steinhöfel's novel is moving, emotional draining and well written (though the English translation could have been a bit better).
82. The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
The reviews for The Vast Fields of Ordinary compared it to several of my favorite books in the same genre, and it turned out to be just as good as they predicted. Burd does an excellent job of writing on a much more mature level (not unlike Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You), as if he knows that the audience he's writing for is much more mature than people give them credit for. I wish more YA authors would take this chance. I felt that it took on all the issues associated with being gay in the midwest and embraced them in such a way that we felt what Dade was going through as much as he did.
83. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
A friend recommended this series to me and I quite enjoyed this first book. The style is a little odd and took some getting used to, but I immediately fell in love with Rennison's quirky characters. Georgia is hilarious and the book is a light, very cute and fun read.
