A Kiss in Time

A Kiss in Time
By Alex Flinn
HarperTeen, 2009. 371 pgs. Young Adult

Fifteen-year-old Princess Talia has been warned against spindles her entire life, but she cannot resist the curse placed on her at her christening and she pricks her finger and sends all of Euphrasia into a deep sleep. When American teenager Jack finds her and kisses her awake 300 years later, Talia convinces him to take her with him to Miami, hoping to make him fall in love with her and free her from the curse forever.

While I found the set up of Jack and Talia’s meeting a bit awkward, this story develops into a fun adaptation of Sleeping Beauty that encourages the pursuit of dreams and (somewhat surprisingly) the development of teen and parent relationships. Some of Flinn’s best novels address contemporary young adult issues and emotional growth and, for me, the strength of this work was Jack's character development and maturation.

MBC

An Accomplished Woman

An Accomplished Woman
By Jude Morgan
St. Martin’s Press, 2009. 407 pgs. Romance

Thirty-year-old Lydia Templeton has reluctantly agreed to accompany Phoebe Rae to Bath to help her sort out her romantic tangle, but when Miss Templeton begins dispensing advice about Phoebe’s competing suitors, she discovers that her judgment is not always as sound as she believes and that her treatment of Mr. Durrant, the man whose proposal she refused years earlier and who is now actively seeking a wife in Bath, may have been unfair.

Jane Austen fans, rejoice! Jude Morgan is a talented Regency romance writer with a particular gift for dialogue. An Accomplished Woman is a satisfying and self-aware comedy of manners, with Morgan occasionally making pointed reference to the fact that she treads on Miss Austen’s territory. She does it so well, though, that readers will surely forgive the trespass.

MBC

Something, Maybe

Something, Maybe
By Elizabeth Scott
Simon Pulse, 2009. 217 pgs. Young Adult

Hannah’s parents are unusual. Her (estranged) father is famous for his playboy lifestyle and her mother is most well-known for appearing in a commercial wearing nothing but a pizza box. While Hannah wears loose clothing and a tight pony tail in an attempt to avoid the attention her parents receive, she struggles to attract the interest of her co-worker and crush, Josh, and deflect the interest of another co-worker, Finn.

Hannah’s romantic lead is a darling character, but the odd (though not explicit) world Hannah inhabits, visiting her elderly father and his “special girls” in New York and finding her mother regularly wandering through the house in lingerie, make this novel most appropriate for older teens.

MBC

Garden Spells

Garden Spells
By Sarah Addison Allen
Bantam Books, 2007. Fiction. 290 pgs.

With a garden that blooms all year round and a set of mysterious gifts, the Waverleys are an established oddity in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Thirty-four-year old Claire works as a caterer, using plants from the Waverley garden to encourage love, to repel evil influences, and to allow night-time picnickers to see in the dark. While Claire has embraced her role as a Waverley, her sister Sydney ran from it and only returns to Bascom to flee an abusive relationship and protect her 5-year-old daughter. Reunited, both sisters are making new discoveries about their places in and out of the family.

This is an interesting novel vaguely reminiscent of Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day or the TV show Pushing Daisies, similar in its magical premise and contemporary setting. Love and relationships are the center of the novel (complete with a few steamy scenes) and that center is surrounded by a strong Southern sensibility and a few quirky characters. I enjoyed a number of the story elements but several things didn’t quite hang together right for me. Regardless, Garden Spells has received some very laudatory reviews and fans of romance and quirky reads will likely enjoy this one.

MBC

Essential Pleasures

Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud
Edited by Robert Pinsky
W.W. Norton, 2009. Nonfiction. 508 pgs.

Essential Pleasures presents poetry perfect for reading aloud and includes a CD of selected poems from the anthology. A wide range of time periods are included and the poems are notable for their accessibility to readers who may be less familiar with poetry. Offerings from authors like Gerard Manley Hopkins, Billy Collins, and Amy Lowell will be a pleasant surprise for students who may have stumbled over more abstruse poets in school.

Readers who enjoy Essential Pleasures should also pick up the three Favorite Poem Project anthologies, also edited by Robert Pinsky. (Poems to Read is my favorite.)

MBC

Lady of Quality

Lady of Quality
By Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2008. 299 pgs. Romance

At 29-years-old and unattached, Miss Annis Wychwood is headed to Bath to set up her own residence. On the way, she encounters Lucilla Carleton stranded at the side of the road and offers to take the runaway home with her. Oliver Carleton, Lucilla’s guardian and a man renowned for his rudeness, soon appears in Bath to straighten out his flighty young charge, and he and Miss Wychwood strike up a surprising (and antagonistic) friendship.

Georgette Heyer is the perfect read-a-like for Jane Austen. She first began publishing Regency romances in the late 1920s and her books were recently reprinted, bringing back her lovable rakes and quick-witted spinsters. Black Sheep may be my favorite Georgette Heyer story, but they are all fun, humorous, and gentle reads.

MBC

Marcelo in the Real World

Marcelo in the Real World
By Francisco X. Stork
Arthur A. Levine Books, 2009. 312 pgs. Fiction

Seventeen-year-old Marcelo loves working with the ponies at the school he attends for students with disabilities, but Marcelo’s father, Arturo, believes Marcelo is ready to attend a public high school in the fall. When Marcelo protests, he and Arturo make a deal—Marcelo will work in the mailroom at Arturo’s law firm over the summer and at the end of the summer, if Marcelo follows all the rules of the “real world” and successfully completes his job, he will be allowed to choose the school he attends in the fall.

Marcelo’s Asperger’s-like perspective is reminiscent of The Curious Incident in the Night-Time and his naivete lends itself well to the story’s examination of good and evil, love, and integrity—all concepts Marcelo is truly grappling with for the first time as he discovers hard truths about his father and the world at large.

MBC

The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square

The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square
By Rosina Lippi
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008. 351 pgs. Fiction

John Dodge buys a failing store in Lamb’s Corner, South Carolina with plans to turn it around and sell it in eighteen months, just like he does with all his business ventures. Lamb’s Corner is different than anywhere else Dodge has been, though, and he finds himself seduced by the affairs of the town’s quirky residents, particularly pajama-clad Julia, who owns a neighboring linen store.

Fans of Lorna Landvik and Joshilyn Jackson will likely enjoy this one.

The God of Animals

The God of Animals
By Aryn Kyle
Scribner, 2007. 305 pgs. Fiction

When her older sister elopes with a rodeo cowboy, 12-year-old Alice Winston is left as the lone support to help her father, Joe, on the family’s failing horse ranch. Joe is preoccupied with the ranch’s wealthy clients and Alice’s mother suffers from depression and refuses to leave her bedroom, so Alice finds comfort in nightly telephone calls to her English teacher, Mr. Delmar, telling him the stories she wishes were true about her life. This is a beautifully-written and poignant coming-of-age story told from Alice's isolated but observant perspective.

MBC

Home

Home
By Marilynne Robinson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 325 pgs. Fiction

Thirty-eight-year-old Glory is home in the small town of Gilead, caring for her dying father. When Jack, the family’s prodigal son, also returns home, he and Glory develop a cautious friendship colored by Jack’s troubled past and the years he’s spent in prison and as a vagrant, never comfortable with his own family. Although Jack seems to be doing well, returned letters from a woman he loves sends him on a bender, and Glory is forced to deal with the consequences.

Marilynne Robinson writes exceptional prose. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Home’s companion novel Gilead and both are beautiful. However, they are both also very slow-moving novels. The relationships, motives, and characters of Jack, Glory, and their father are carefully examined, giving readers plenty to discuss about family and the concept of home, but little occurs in the story outside of conversation and contemplation.

MBC

The Magic of Ordinary Days

The Magic of Ordinary Days
By Ann Howard Creel
Viking, 2001. 274 pgs. Fiction

Toward the end of WWII, Olivia Dunne leaves her graduate studies and travel plans to marry a farmer in rural Colorado, a man she meets the day of their arranged marriage. Lonely and unable to help on the farm, Olivia befriends two Japanese-American sisters who live at a nearby internment camp, but while she welcomes the friendship of the sisters, Olivia resists developing a relationship with her new husband, viewing the marriage only as a solution to a problem.

This is a lovely, well-written story that focuses on the character development and relationship between Olivia and her husband Ray. While there is little action, the story still moves along quickly and enjoyably. My only complaint is that one plot element, Olivia’s unwitting involvement in a crime, occurs so close to the end of the novel that its resolution feels rushed. Otherwise, it is a delightful book.

MBC

If I Stay

If I Stay
By Gayle Forman
Dutton Books, 2009. 199 pgs. Young Adult

While driving with her family, Mia’s car is struck by another vehicle and her parents are killed on impact. Mia is severely injured and she watches from outside herself as she is transported to the hospital and her family members and friends gather to visit her in the ICU. As Mia learns about her injuries and considers what her life will be like if she lives, she realizes that the decision whether or not to continue her life is left to her to choose.

This is a thoughtful tearjerker that guides the reader back and forth between Mia’s current condition and her life and decisions prior to the accident. If I Stay has received great professional reviews and will be enjoyed by older teens and adults.

MBC

Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Authors Famous and Obscure

Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Authors Famous and Obscure
Edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith
Harper Perennial, 2008. 227 pgs. Nonfiction

Just like the title says, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a collection of six-word memoirs collected by Smith magazine from a variety of writers, including Dave Eggers, Stephen Colbert, Nora Ephron, and Elizabeth Gilbert. Two examples I enjoyed from the book are

WASP wants
to be soul
man.
-Scott Pratt

and

Put whole self in, shook about.
-Melissa Delzio

Entries vary in quality, but the collection as whole is an interesting and very quick read. The Library also owns Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak.

MBC

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spahetti

I LOVED, I LOST, I MADE SPAGHETTI: Giulia Melucci: Grand Central Publ.: Nonfiction: 288 pgs.

Giulia Melucci cooks for the men she dates—the good-natured alcoholic, the perfect commitment-phobe, the aging Vespa owner, the free-loading Scottish author—and she cooks for herself when the relationships inevitably end. Melucci shares relationship tales and the recipes that accompanied her romantic ups and downs, ending her memoir with some delicious meals but, still, no man.

The recipes look wonderful and Melucci’s anecdotes are compelling but be prepared for a number of drug references and cringe-worthy moments.

MBC

Wintergirls

WINTERGIRLS: Laurie Halse Anderson: Viking: Young Adult: 278 pgs.

Lia’s childhood friend Cassie died alone in a motel after calling Lia thirty-three times—calls Lia did not retrieve until after Cassie’s death. Now Lia’s parents fear that the death will trigger Lia’s anorexia, a well-founded fear as Lia is sabotaging her parents’ attempts to monitor her weight and holding conversations with Cassie that illuminate Lia’s emotional illness.

This is Anderson’s best work since she published her wonderful novel, Speak. Lia’s narrative is a heart-breaking chronicle of anorexia and the physical and emotional destruction it wreaks. Like Speak, the strength of Wintergirls is the accurate portrait and dead-on voice of the troubled teenage protagonist.

MBC

Home of the Brave

HOME OF THE BRAVE: Katherine Applegate: Feiwel & Friends: Young Adult: 249 pgs.

Fifth-grader Kek, a Sudanese refugee, has just joined his aunt and cousin in Minnesota, while he waits for news of the mother he left behind in a camp. Lonely and bewildered by things such as snow and washing machines, Kek finds solace in caring for a cow that reminds him of home and the friendship of a neighbor girl.

Written in free verse, this is a touching book with a sweet narrator who makes the crisis in Sudan accessible and human.

MBC

Handle With Care

HANDLE WITH CARE: Jodi Picoult: Atria: Fiction: 477 pgs.

Sean and Charlotte O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, suffers from a brittle bone disease, a condition that has left her susceptible to painful breaks since before her birth, demands more time and money than her parents can afford, and leads her teenage half-sister to desperate attempts for attention. When an attorney suggests that the O’Keefes sue the doctor who provided Charlotte’s prenatal care, Charlotte agrees, although the doctor is her best friend and the case is a “wrongful birth” suit predicated on the idea that if the O’Keefes had been informed of Willow’s condition earlier, they would have terminated the pregnancy.

Jodi Picoult once again examines the tricky gray areas of medicine, law, and family life. As always, her characters are well-developed and multi-faceted, grappling with complicated ethical issues that are not presented as straight-forward right and wrong choices. This title has a plot and feeling similar to the author’s earlier book, My Sister’s Keeper.

MBC

The Mental Floss History of the World

THE MENTAL FLOSS HISTORY OF THE WORLD: AN IRREVERENT ROMP THROUGH CIVILIZATION’S BEST BITS: Erik Sass and Steve Wiegand: Collins: Nonfiction: 416 pages

In just 400 pages, Sass and Wiegand gallop through 62,007 years of global history, highlighting major inventions, political shifts and wars, important figures, and bizarre facts. The sheer volume of information presented can be overwhelming, but the book is full of interesting information in a very digestible and well-organized format. The title is correct—it is often an irreverent romp through history, but also a highly entertaining way to get your facts straight.

MBC

Housekeeping vs. the Dirt

HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT: Nick Hornby: McSweeney’s: Nonfiction: 153 pages

In this second collection of “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns from The Believer magazine, novelist Nick Hornby reviews the books he’s read each month in the same conversational and witty style familiar to readers of Hornby’s nonfiction. Of the three “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” compilations, this may be my favorite, although they are each enjoyable, easy reads with reading recommendations from an entertaining and interesting narrator.

MBC

Olive Kitteridge

OLIVE KITTERIDGE: Elizabeth Strout: Random House: Fiction: 270 pages

Loosely connected stories of the inhabitants of a small Maine town collectively present a narrative of Olive Kitteridge and her family. The extraordinary accomplishment in this novel is the author’s ability to portray Olive as an incredibly complicated character through her interactions with her family and neighbors, although she is sometimes only briefly mentioned in a particular story. At her son’s wedding, Olive steals one loafer from her daughter-in-law’s closet out of spite, she often speaks sharply to her husband and demonstrates her explosive temper, but she also weeps for a young, anorexic girl, offers support to the students in her classes, and daily visits her husband in a nursing home after a stroke leaves him disabled and unresponsive. Most of the stories are heartbreaking—a bride is left at the altar, a husband cheats on his wife—but somehow the affection between characters and their continued attempts to find happiness ultimately inspire hope.

MBC