All Better Now

All Better Now by Emily Wing Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All Better Now is a memoir, written for a YA audience, detailing Smith’s young life as the thank-God-she-got-hit-by-a-car girl. She uses episodic chapters to tell the story of her awkward and angry childhood and the aftermath of a car accident that was also a blessing. The chapters are interspersed with such things as pictures, medical records and letters from her imaginary boyfriend, “Rembrandt,” which serve as a reminder to the reader that this is not fiction, but a real person’s story. The narrative is so rich in detail that it reads like fiction and Smith’s voice so vivid on the page that she could be sitting next to the reader, telling her story as a good friend would tell secrets to another. She’s funny, quirky and real. A must read for anyone who’s ever felt broken, awkward or alone. I loved this book.

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A Practically Perfect Middle Grade Read

Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave by Jen White
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Welcome to the most perfect middle grade book I've read in a long while.
It has
1. an endearing 12-year-old protagonist who takes her job as protector of her little sister very seriously.
2. a heart-pounding plot, where the palpitations begin on page one.
3. achingly beautiful prose in which every word seems to be exactly the right one.
and
4. enough fun and interesting animals facts woven throughout to delight boys and girls alike.
I thought about this book long after I finished it. I'm pretty sure you will, too.

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Book Review: THE END OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

The End or Something Like That by Ann Dee Ellis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One day my best friend named Kim died.

So begins Ann Dee Ellis’s quirky, funny and sweetly sad novel, THE END OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

Ellis’s simple opening sentence accomplishes several things at once. The reader learns the problem, that a best friend, Kim, is dead. We understand, through the short, clipped prose, that the protagonist is hurting. And we take our first taste of Ann Dee Ellis’s concentrated style of writing. Her words are spare but each practically shouts in the voice of the protagonist. We hear Emmy talk, see the world through her eyes. By not very many pages into the book, she’s as real to the reader as though she were sitting next to us, telling her story aloud.

And that’s important because Emmy’s story is strange. It might even be unbelievable if Emmy weren’t so darned believable. Her dead friend, Kim, has made Emmy promise to try to contact her. Emmy tries but it’s the dead science teacher who appears instead, and Emmy didn’t even like her. Through flashbacks, we learn the story of Emmy and Kim’s friendship and come to know quirky Kim through Emmy’s memories. We ache with Emmy and we learn with her.
I loved this book.


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Top Shelf, Bonus Selection--The Harry Potter Series

I couldn't limit my top shelf choices to ten. And maybe this one's a gimmee. Books that I'll reread have characters that feel like friends, a vivid setting that draws me back, and a core to it that helps me see a truth in a different way. For me, the Harry Potter series has all that, perhaps more so than any other book on my top shelf.  

Some adults might be embarrassed to admit that. After all, this was a series written about and for children. However, I'll take light and truth wherever I find it, in most any type of literature. And I did find it here, in this sometimes dark and painful tale about witches and wizards.
An example seems in order. There's a scene where Harry and Dumbledore discuss a certain prophesy that Harry, as The Chosen One, is supposed to fulfill. Harry feels hemmed in, coerced by the words, as though, because it's been foreseen, he has no say. However, Dumbledore helps Harry see that the prophesy doesn't really matter. Harry would choose to do that thing whether or not it had been predicted--and not because he would have to do it, because he would want to.  
Upon reading that passage, I thought of my hero, my Savior. It had never occurred to me to consider what he might have done had he not known of the prophesies about his life. Would he still have made the choices he did? 
Of course, I reflected, he would have. He didn't choose to suffer and die because he was supposed to or because it was a duty. He did it because he loved us, and he would have done it even without the prophesies. 
That realization filled me with gratitude, not only for what my hero did, but for who he was. He truly was worthy of emulation.
I have to thank J.K. Rowling for helping me better learn something I thought I already knew. And that example was only one of the bits of light I've found in this incredible series.  

Top Shelf, Selection Ten--The Thief and the Attolia Series

Eugenides, aka, the Queen's Thief, is another of my favorite literary characters. He takes some getting used to, though. In fact, while reading The Thief for the first time, I found myself wondering when the guy would stop whining. I'm not sure that he ever really did, but by the end, I didn't care. My esteem for him was that great.
He goes by the name of Gen in the first book of the sequence and that subterfuge--hiding his real name--is only the first of many to come. Although a complainer and a bit of a dandy, Eugenides is a master of political intrigue and behind the scenes maneuverings. He's also a believer in the gods of his Greece-like world--and for good reason. They speak to him and,  occasionally, interfere, which leads to some interesting insights for Eugenides and for the reader.
In her beautifully written Attolia series, Megan Whalen Turner has created a detailed and real-feeling world. Setting is important to me, one of the aspects of a book that determines whether I'll settle in for a second reading, but as much as I'm drawn to the time and place of Attolia, it's Gen that keeps pulling me back.
I can't wait to see what he'll do next. Ms. Turner, I'm waiting.