Spy-A-Licious

Your teen years are formidable. It seems like you will barely survive, but you eke out the other side relatively unscathed and tougher for the challenge. But what if you were raised by international spies, a lock picking, safe cracking prodigy (given Master Locks to play with and crack as a toddler), and had never gone to school, gone to a dance, or even kissed a boy? In Also Known As by Robin Benway, Maggie is up for her first official case for the group of Good Guy Spies they work for: going to high school and fitting in!

When news of a journalist writing an article about the group of spies her family works for, thereby blowing their cover, is released, Maggie is given her first job: infiltrate the high school of the journalist's son and get the evidence for the story back. This job is even more important than the other "do-good" jobs Maggie has been a part of before, because now her family's safety is in jeopardy. Even though the group of spies only work their magic for good, stopping bad guys, toppling evil, and returning items to those good people who they were taken from, she is still a spy, complete with aliases and multiple passports. Infiltrating a high school sounds relatively harmless, unless you have ever been a new kid before. Then you know just how treacherous this assignment really was. Terrifying in fact.

To make matters worse, Jesse Oliver, the mark, is a popular bad-boy. Maggie knows she has no chance of getting to him without an in, so she makes friends with an eccentric former Queen Bee named Roux.  While Roux is currently a social-outcast, she still makes for a good in to Jesse Oliver's Halloween party. But after the party, Maggie realizes there is more to Jesse Oliver (she likes to say his full name!) than Maggie had expected. As she gets closer to him, she realizes she doesn't want him to just be a mark. But that would be breaking the cardinal rule for a spy: never get too close.

This was a fun, somewhat young, spy story, much in the same vein as Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. Maggie was a typical teenager, complete with sarcasm, snark, and a desire to be kissed by a cute boy, but it was her entourage that was the most fun. You find yourself really liking Jesse Oliver, and Roux is hilarious. I like the fact that Roux was a former-Queen Bee, fallen from her throne. It made her so much more interesting, and her hilarious rambling diatribes were so much fun! When she came face to face with Angelo, the family's spy friend, I thought I was going to die! Too funny!

But this is a rather young story. It would be good for any young reader transitioning from Middle Readers to YA. The cover screams girl book, but if you can get a boy to read it, I can see them being equally entertained, especially since Maggie isn't terribly "girly". The spy stuff isn't terribly dangerous, but made for a fun read. I am looking forward to the sequel to this story to see what happens to everyone!

Converse over Cranium

Families are as different as people themselves. The definition of family is so broad that it doesn't just cover a mom, a dad, and children. Sarah Tregay gets to the heart of this growing cultural difference in Love and Leftovers with a variety of different kinds of family, but they all have one thing in common: love. 

Marcie's mother drags her to New Hampshire after finding out Marcie's dad has been lying and cheating on her- with another man. Usually they just vacation at their family's old summer house, but fall has arrived, school has begun, and they should have left by now. Back in Idaho, Marcie left her father, her best friends (the Leftovers), and her perfect boyfriend, Linus. She didn't even pack for the move, and her aunt has to donate some clothes to the cold and changing cause (including underwear the size of Idaho). 

At first Marcie just wants to go back to Idaho, but she begins to settle in to her new school. In fact, she even starts hanging out with a boy named J.D. and starts to forget about the life she has back home. When her own father's lies and life choices start to invade her own thoughts, she finds herself uncertain about what to believe. Could Linus be gay like her father is? Is it easier to go after a boy who is so clearly not gay but might be a player?

There are so many layers to this book, it is hard to unravel them all. First you have the catalyst for the whole story, Marcie's dad. This whole relationship is handled so well, I was happy to see it in this book. Yes, the realization that he was no longer in love with Marcie's mother was difficult, but he still cared about her. And Marcie struggled with the separation and divorce, but eventually she accepted it and was actually quite understanding about her father's new relationship. She even becomes close with Danny, her father's boyfriend, and realizes how much happier her father is now. I loved the way this relationship unfolded, and it gave this added depth and love to the story that doesn't often come out of one parent cheating on the other.

Next were the supporting characters. In Idaho, Marcie's friends call themselves the Leftovers, the unclassifiable kids who don't belong to any group. They are an eclectic bunch, but they are truly fabulous- the kids you wish you were brave enough to be at that age! But they all have their skeletons too. Emily got pregnant and gave her son up for adoption. Linus' father lost his job and Linus spends most of his time babysitting his brother's daughter. All of these backstories make this group of kids enough for an entire book for each of them! But the backstories aren't hokey or cheesy, they just are what they are, and they all care about one another. I loved these kids!

This was a really great book written in verse with short but powerful sentences that suck you in and throw you into the spin cycle. I would love this book, which deals with such mature topics, to be used for an older, mature, struggling reader because the chapters are super short, the language is melodious but simple, and the verse is acceptable. They would be able to read it successfully but not feel like they were reading a story that was beneath them in terms of maturity. I really liked this story and applaud Tregay for fitting in so much material with so few words! Brilliant!

A Dysgraphic Romance

Who would move to a new city just to follow the boy you have a crush on, even though he barely knows you exist? Brooke would in Susane Colasanti's So Much Closer. A new city, a new school, and all in her senior year? Nothing can stand in the way of her love for him!

When Brooke moves to New York City, she has only one thing in mind. She wants to get Scott to finally notice her. Who cares if it means she has to ditch her friends, leave her mother behind, and move in with her absentee father who continues to ignore her even when she is under his very roof? Not Brooke. That is how much she loves Scott. Utterly and completely. It doesn't matter that he barely knows who she is.

And what are the chances that they would go to the same new school? Well, they do, and it gives them the opportunity to get to know one another. The new school is actually good for Brooke, despite her unhealthy attachment to Scott. She starts to tutor a fellow classmate who is dysgraphic and struggles to get his brilliant ideas onto paper. It gives her a chance to realize that her incredibly high IQ is a gift that she has been squandering on mediocrity and hiding for too long. She also has a chance to make a new friend. And most importantly, she falls deeper and deeper in love with New York City with each passing day. But can she win the boy she sacrificed everything for?

I hate to say it, but I had some real problems with this book, which was incredibly difficult because someone had compared this author to Dessen and Perkins, and there just aren't enough Dessen and Perkins books published to keep me satisfied. So I was excited to find a substitute while waiting for the next Dessen or Perkins, but that wasn't what I got with this book. Instead, I was really disturbed by this girl, who was a senior, dropping everything, her friends, her mom, her school, to follow a boy who didn't even know she was alive. And if that wasn't stalker enough, she would walk through his neighborhood day after day after day in the hopes of running into him. It was just creepy. Not romantic. Creepy. Add to that the fact this girl was brilliant. I am talking off the charts gifted, and she hides it. Now, I get kids being embarrassed by their smarts, but I really want a role model of a main character- a girl who can be cool AND super smart. Who rocks the genius gene with flair. Not Brooke. She is totally embarrassed to the point that she doesn't even try in classes and skates by with Cs. This has ruined her chances of going to a great college. And then she gets near perfect scores on her SATs? Why didn't anyone get to the heart of this behavior BEFORE she was ready to graduate? It was just not a quality I want to see in a main character my students are reading about. 

One thing I did like about the book was the connection to the beauty of NYC. As someone who has lived close enough to NYC for a day trip, I love what it contains but struggle with the bad parts of the city- in particular the stench. But Brooke sees the beauty in the city, especially in reclaimed structures like the High Line or rooftop gardens. It was nice to see. And my favorite part of this book was something that was so great at the beginning of the book and then ignore, sadly, for the remainder- the boy Brooke tutors is dysgraphic! Now, I teach dyslexics and dysgraphics, and I have seen a number of dyslexic characters in books, but none are really described very well, but this kid was a great representative of a typical dysgraphic- brilliant but totally unable to translate his brilliance into the written word. I was so excited to finally find a dysgraphic character, but then Colasanti ignored his dysgraphia after the first few chapters. Why? Why not run with that or not bring it up at all? It didn't make sense to me.

So, I would say this is a book for a younger student, as most young adults would find it cheesy and inauthentic. Still, I don't think I would recommend it to any of my girls, as I would rather give them Dessen or Perkins and know they have a great book in their hands. It is unfortunate because I really needed a good girlie book to read. I think I will give Colasanti one more chance, but I hope my next book by her is far better than this one.