A Happily Ever After with Bumps Along the Way

The story of the School of America in Paris continues with two new characters who are intertwined with the lovable characters you never wanted to give up in the previous two books. In Isla and the Happily Ever After, Stephanie Perkins does what she does best: she gets you to love two human and lovably flawed characters you can't live without even after the last page is turned. 

Isla has always had a crush on Josh her entire time in Paris. Unfortunately, he has never noticed her. Or so she thought. After a chance encounter, it appears she may have misjudged Josh all along. And he has definitely misjudged her relationship with her best friend Kurt. With all the information set straight, Isla and Josh start spending more and more time together, and their connection is undeniable to everyone around them, even friends like Kurt who begin to feel like the third wheel in a whirlwind romance. 

Like most real adolescent romances, not the kind in books, Isla and Josh's future is uncertain and paved with bumps and bruises. Isla is used to life with Kurt, her socially awkward but devoted best friend who can spend the night in her room and not set off any red flags. She is used to always being herself and having Kurt, who has Asperger's, tell her the truth even when she doesn't want it. But a relationship is different. Especially when she already has one very important person in her life. And Josh's life is no easier. The son of a politician engaged in a fierce campaign, his antics have landed him on his final warning at the school, and expulsion would most certainly embarrass his family in ways only the son of a politician could understand. But Josh is daring. And he can't resist showing sheltered Isla a little taste of the world, even if the consequences could tear them apart. 

This is a romance story for the realist in you. Don't expect a perfect story all wrapped up in a bow, but then again, if you like real characters who could be your own friends and family in all their flawed glory, this is the right romance for you! Stephanie Perkins has been as special to me as Sarah Dessen for a long time, and I waited what felt like an eternity for this book, and I wasn't disappointed, but I was definitely surprised by it! Perkins' realism is standard, but this relationship felt so real for two teenagers, I was actually surprised! While some might be turned off by this approach, I also think there are enough teenagers out there who are interested in seeing their own bumbling, awkward, passionate, life-or-death feelings aren't abnormal. Do you remember what it meant to be a teenager in love? I was strange, exhilarating, awkward, and fabulous all in one breath. And that is why I loved Isla so much. It was like being transported to that place all over again (without having to be the actual punching bag for emotions and hormones we all were! So much more fun from afar!).

There was this one part where Josh sends Isla his comic book memoir, and it truly chronicles everything in his life- even the girls before Isla. It is so honest and vulnerable, yet the unforeseen consequence was that it was more than Isla really wanted to know. Just the idea that Josh would bare his soul to her and not see how hurtful it could be to an insecure young woman was so real, it was palpable. This is just one small example of why this book was such a great story for all those young adults in your life. It may look like a cushy romance on the outside, but once you get into the thick of it, you realize just how special the story is. Perkins hits another one out of the park!

Coming-of-Age, Not a Romance

Sarah Dessen is a magician with beautiful, clean, innocent, but meaningful romances set in Colby, the calm, beach town that swells during tourist season. With The Moon and More she wrote a different kind of novel. All the components you love are there, but this story is about Emaline and Emaline only. 

Emaline's family runs Colby realty, renting houses for the owners to pushy tourists hungry for some time at the beach. As her last summer before heading to college, Emaline should be hanging out with her boyfriend and friends, enjoying the freedom before she heads off for college. Unfortunately, her sister Margo has recently returned from business school and has taken the opportunity to transform their comfortable family business into a well-oiled machine.  And Emaline's boyfriend Luke has recently been unhappy with the way their relationship is progressing, or rather, not progressing. But when a high roller rents the biggest house in Colby for two months, its occupants are about to change Emaline's life in a way she never would have expected. 

Ivy  and her assistant Theo are making a film about Clyde Conaway, the reclusive Colby native who also happened to be a world-renowned artist at one point. To everyone in Colby he is just Clyde, but to these ambitious New Yorkers he is much more: he is the ticket to fame. When Emaline's boyfriend turns out to not be the guy she thought he was, she finds herself in the arms of Theo, a somewhat dorky film student from New York who is more ambitious that even his boss understands. When Emaline's father (not her dad, but her biological father) comes to town to stay for the first time since getting her mother pregnant at the age of sixteen, she has more than just her romantic life and the rentals to deal with. He was the man who abandoned her mother, ignored her most of her life, and most recently, reneged on his offer to pay for Columbia, forcing her to go to East U in the fall. With her half-brother in tow, he spends the summer in Colby working to sell his aunt's house and adjusting his son to the separation of their family and the inevitability of his parents' divorce. What Emaline didn't expect was to really get to know Benji and to get to know the real man behind the fatherly emails. But even bigger was the opportunity Emaline had in one summer to truly and deeply get to know who She was. 

Dessen usually writes these amazing romance novels, but this book was not a romance novel. Not because you aren't really invested in either Luke or Theo (who is a total tool, but every girl finds herself with a tool at least once in her life, right?!), but because they are not really the focus of the story. Instead, this is a coming of age story for a girl who has always approached life passively and agreeably who finally stands up for herself and goes for what she wants, not what someone else wants for her. I think if you go into this story thinking you are going to find a romance, you will undoubtedly be disappointed. In fact, the jacket blurb talks about Theo as though he is a cool, almost sheik film student who transforms town. Instead, he is a tool. A total tool. He starts off pretty dorky, a guy who never had a girlfriend, never went to prom, was generally miserable in high school. Now this alone doesn't make him a toolbox. I tend to like the dorky guy (brings me back to my love for Duckie, if you must know), but when he become an arrogant, pompous, over-ambitious jerk, I had had enough. And still she stayed with him for most of the novel. This annoyed me at first, but I realized, after a great deal of anger and confusion that I waited for so long for a Dessen romance and got THEO instead, that Emaline needed to date this tool. She dated Luke, not because she was madly in love with him, but because he was comfortable. He embodied all that was Colby, and for a girl who was abandoned by her father, who saw her stepdad as her real dad and his daughter's as her sisters, whose mother was duped and got pregnant in a typical summer romance that faded before she even reached her nine months, she needed her stable, loving family. Theo, on the other hand, was different. It didn't matter that he wasn't a good different (because lord know he wasn't), but just that he was different. But quickly, Emaline realized that she didn't want different. She loved Colby. She didn't want to be "stuck" there for life like so many others, but she didn't want to flee like the other half of its recently graduated population. Instead, she wanted choices while also having her roots. And that was what made me really love this novel.

Instead of your simple romance, this was a complex and emotional coming of age story. Emaline never knew how to define herself, but throughout this story, you watch her finally become comfortable in her own skin and her own desires. Sometimes it takes the exact wrong guy to help you realize what you really want, and Theo was certainly that guy (I can't stress enough how much I disliked him). So, don't go looking for a lovely Dessen romance. You won't find it and you will be disappointed (I know I was at first). But if you go into this thinking you are going to find one of Dessen's more serious novels hidden within a beachy, carefree cover, you will enjoy the book as much as I did. It isn't your typical Dessen, but that is what I love about her the most. She isn't predictable, and neither are her characters. I can't say I loved this story, but I really liked it in more ways than one. But more importantly, I came out the other end of the story loving Dessen more than ever before. 

Pinning in the Classroom!

If you aren't currently addicted to Pinterest, you must be hiding under a rock with no internet connection! Pinterest is an incredible social media site where you are allowed to create Boards and then "Pin" images to the boards. Some of mine include ideas for my future dream kitchen, places I want to travel to, and, of course, many of those scrumptious recipes I might never have time to create, but gosh are they yummy to look at!

I also love playing with funky titles for my boards thanks to a previous college professor who always told me "titles are the most important part of the book. Even more important than what is between the covers!" I always thought that might be a little extreme (and this was one extreme little man), but the love for titles still stuck with me.

So Pinterest has been the glut of my time (I master the art of time suckage) for quite some time now. Need to procrastinate? PINTEREST!! But I kept wondering, how could this be used in my classroom? (Check out the toilet one where one student who will remain nameless for his own protection compares it to my mind! Rascals!) 

I had heard a few other teachers using it now that our school had bought iPads for every student, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out. So, while reading Slaughterhouse-Five with my seniors, I decided to implement a weekly Pinterest assignment for all students: 10 pins that relate to our book due every Friday. 

I have to say it has been really cool to see the images my students find that connect them to the book. For instance, one student chose this beautiful profile of a model with bright violet make-up and hair to represent the color violet Billy Pilgrim saw. Another used a beautiful photo of roofs in Santorini to illustrate the "ivory and blue" of Billy's feet throughout the book. 

These pins started to really expand and become creative expressions of the imagery that might be lost to them by the time they finished the book. They might forget that color violet or the car he drive or what they thought Montana Wildhack looked like, but now with their Pinterest Board, they could relive those images all over again with the tap of a screen!

Lovely, Dark, Deep

With a title so haunting, a cover so beautiful, and a description so vague, Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Amy McNamara was a mystery from the start. You might not know what you are getting yourself into as you start this book, but the outcome is nevertheless powerful.

Wren Wells survived the car accident, but not in one piece. Since the death of her boyfriend, Patrick, she hasn't been able to carry on with her life. The only reason she even started speaking again was to get the therapists off her back and get her mother to let her go live with father, the artist who is so wrapped up in his own creations he barely notices he has a daughter. And for Wren, being able to fold into herself and avoid all interactions is exactly what she needs. Until she meets Cal.

Cal is infectious. His kindness and caring is so sincere, Wren can't help but let him in (even if it is reluctantly at first). But Cal comes with his own demons. His recently diagnosed MS threatens his way of life and breaks the fragile soul who lost his mother to the very same disease. Apart, this pair is the most unsteady, tormented set of individuals. Together, they are lovely. They are dark. They are deep.

This is such a fluid and poetic novel. It is written beautifully, and that adds to the sincerity and gravity of the story being told. Both Cal and Wren are battling such dark demons that when they come together, you almost worry they are going to drag each other down. But they don't. They are each what the other needs: someone who listens but doesn't judge. Through their relationship, Wren is able to finally admit all the circumstances of the fateful car accident where Patrick died because focusing on Cal makes her own struggles seem less life-threatening. And Cal's illness is so painful to watch, especially after having lost his mother to the same illness. I loved the way these two were two halves who came together to make one whole individual, healing and ready to live lie again.

It was interesting how the supporting characters around them dealt with their struggles, especially Wren's parents and her friends from before the accident. It is interesting how they blame Wren and need her to push past the pain, but don't know how to help her do it. In fact, when she really sinks into a dark place, the only way they can think of helping is doing things that make it even worse for her at times. I imagined how real this was when people don't know how to help a person they love so dearly as that person slowly falls apart in front of their very eyes. This is a beautiful and haunting book, and if you want to talk to McNamara about it, she will be at Oblong next Sunday! I hope to get out there, and I am looking forward to finding the perfect student to pass this book onto. Its haunting beauty and poetic story are perfect for those deep, sensitive students!

Stole My Attention!

What do you get when you cross the Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, and Ocean's Eleven in a Young Adult Stew? Heist Society, by Ally Carter! I won't lie, I was turned off by the title- a bit to corny- but the picture made me think of Audrey Hepburn, so I gave it a shot. This was one instance where judging a book by its cover worked out for me!

Kat has left the life. Her father, her great uncle, her cousins, even her family friends are all thieves: con artists, pickpockets, art thieves, jewel thieves- you name it, they can steal it. But Kat wants to live a straight life, so she enrolls (aka cons) her way into boarding school until her long-time billionaire, friend (also a thief), Hale sets her up for an incident involving the headmaster's car and the school fountain which gets her kicked out. hale didn't do this just for fun, though; Kat's father was in trouble. A very evil man had his five prized paintings stolen, and he is sure Kat's father is responsible. Now Kat, Hale, and a merry band of misfit teenaged crooks must find the paintings to save Kat from a very bad man and his gang of thugs.

This story is very interesting, peppered with hilarious antics of supporting characters. Two of the crew, brothers Hamish and Angus, have me laughing from the moment they hit the stage until the very last page. Kat herself is a strong young woman who will go to great lengths to protect her family- even breaking into the most secure museum ever with only 6 other teens as her crew, despite the explicit instructions not to get involved from her father and her uncle. She isn't sure what she wants anymore in regards to "the life", but she knows how much her family means to her!

This is a great book for middle school and early high school students, but the characters and action-packed fun are perfect for low-skilled older students. They won't be burdened by a high reading level, but won't be insulted by a watered-down, hokey story. This was a fun story that ends well, but has a sequel on the way. If you have a student who needs some action to keep them going and would benefit from a fun story to hook them, this is a great choice! And don't let the cover fool you- this would be a good story for boys or girls!

What does "Beautiful" mean anyway?

I have had this book for a while, started it a couple of times, but never gotten very far. I finally picked it up again over the holiday and looking back, I don't know how I ever put it down. North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley is a beautiful story about physical beauty, inner beauty, pain, humiliation, and coming to terms with who you are.

Terra is a senior in high school who is determined to keep her body as beautiful and physically fit as possible. She obsesses over her body to compensate for the rather large port-wine birthmark that is splayed across her cheek. Despite years of trying to lighten the birthmark through painful laser surgeries, nothing has worked. But Terra has become a master at camouflage. She has enough make-up to cover her face, and sometimes her soul, from the rest of the world.

The birthmark isn't Terra's only source for humiliation. Her father is great at making her feel small and insignificant. When he isn't picking on Terra's mother for being overweight, this washed up cartographer waits for opportunities to keep his children down, humiliate them, and hurt them in anyway possible. Terra's two older brothers have escaped the tension of the household, but Terra is still stuck there. Each moment in the house is spent listening to her father abuse her mother and being torn between wanting to intervene and not wanting to be the next victim.

When her brothers come home for Christmas, Terra's father pulls his usual attack which causes the boys to leave- the eldest returning to China where he has lived for two years. When he sends Terra and her mother tickets to visit him in China, they immediately dispel the idea- Terra's father would never let them go. It takes the gentle push of a new-found friend and her son, Jacob, who offer to go with them to get Terra and her mother on the plane. Once in China, both Terra and her mother are forced to look at themselves, their lives, and most sadly, Terra's father and his verbal and emotional abuse.

This is an amazing book that put a knot in my stomach from the first word to the last. The description of the father's emotional and verbal abuse is so haunting, I felt as though I was Terra. Having known victims of such abuse, and having been a witness to such abuse, I have no idea how Headley could put those emotions and feelings on paper. I had a friend whose father was just like Terra's, and the tension, anxiety and fear Headley describes is what you felt the moment you walked into my friend's house. But at the same time, this book is beautiful. We are all flawed, but that is simply what makes us stronger.

I would recommend this book for students only if you can be sure they have never suffered this kind of family situation. I can honestly say the descriptions of the father are so painful and hurtful that if a student who had a similar home life were to read this book, the consequences could be great. However, this is an amazing book for that student who may need a "little touch with reality". We have all had the student who thinks the latest high school drama and who sat where in the cafeteria are the biggest happenings in the world. This book is certainly an eye-opener to how those silly high school dramas aren't really as important as kids think they are. My only caution is to please read this book before you give to a student and know the student you are recommending this book to- it isn't for everyone.