Audiobook Review: "Revolution" by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: Revolution
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Publisher: Listening Library, 2010 (print version available from Delacourte Books for Young Readers)
Narrators: Emily Janice Card (Andi) and Emma Bering (Alex)

Andi is spiraling down. It's been two years since the death of her brother, which she blames on herself, and her mother is slowly losing her mind. Andi is constantly fantasizing about her own death, imagining the one step she could take to end all the pain. She tries to use her music to forget, but she can't play her guitar forever, try as she might. She doesn't even want to attempt to graduate. But her father, who is more concerned with her going to a good school (not for music) than with her as a person, drags her along to Paris with him when he goes for work.

Though sullen at first, Andi eventually finds the diary of a girl named Alexandrine Paradis, who wrote during the thick of the French Revolution and took constant risks for the benefit of one small boy locked away in a tower. Told as a story within a story, we see Andi's trials in modern-day Paris and those of Alex, and how they weave together against all odds.

So, first things first. I listened to this on CD, so my experience is probably very different from that of the person who just read the book. I was instantly put off by Andi's voice and Emily Janice Card's narration; Andi seemed over-the-top angsty, even for someone as grief-stricken as she is. I was annoyed, frankly, which sounds cold, but it's true. I was also distracted by Card's English accent when she narrated for Nick, a minor character in the beginning. This was all I could think of (skip to 2:30). That said, Card did have some wonderfully performed sections, most notably when Andi is in the deepest part of her grief and it starts to consume her.

However, once I got over that, I started to really like the story and how the two girls' lives fit together. There is so much history in here, so much I never learned about the French Revolution. Oh yeah, and about music. There is a lot of music in here, as Andi is very serious about it. I do wish there had been a note in the audio somewhere (not sure if there was one in the actual book) about how the composer (Malerbeaux? No idea how to spell it since I only heard it) is fictional. I found that out later in a Publisher's Weekly review.

My favorite parts were Alex's. Bering does an excellent job at her narration, even if I thought she sounded a bit too old at first. Her accent adds much to the performance (she's French, so I'm assuming it's real), and her characterizations are distinct and incredibly fitting for each person to whom she gives a voice.

And let's talk about Virgil for a moment. He is just awesome. So cool, and so incredibly intelligent about music and life. Plus he's the only person who could penetrate Andi and get to the heart of her. I must admit, Card's French accent is excellent as well, and she puts it to good use with Virgil (pronounced "Veer-zheel" in the recording) and the other French characters.

At times the narration seemed to drag a bit, and I felt like the book could have been shorter—I wouldn't have minded one less CD. But I enjoyed listening to this for the most part, aside from the gripes I mentioned above. If you don't think you have the time to sit down and actually read this, it would be worth getting the audio version and listening to it on your commute (or wherever else you listen to audiobooks).

Disclosure: I got this audiobook on CD from my local library.

Review: "What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones

Title: What My Mother Doesn't Know
Author: Sonya Sones
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2001

Happy National Poetry Month! Here's a little something to give you your poetry fix.


What My Mother Doesn't Know is a verse novel, narrated by 14-year-old Sophie. She tells us her story of that particular time in her life; she meets boys and has boyfriends, she has a tumultuous relationship with her mother and an almost nonexistent one with her father, and has two very close best friends.

The poetry is lovely, though at times I didn't see how the free verse helped move the story forward. It worked much of the time, with the line breaks being just perfect, but there were points when it felt like this part of the story had to be told as a poem since the rest was—it filled in information we needed to know, but the free verse seemed unnecessary. Some of the poems had rhyme schemes, which was nice and different to see, and one had a shape to the words. I always like when poets to play with form like that.

Sophie deals with a lot during this half year in her life. She has one boyfriend, meets another (sort of), and then (possibly) another. But it's not like she's boy crazy—it all seems very natural and normal. Plus Sones isn't afraid to talk about things like sexual desire (not sex, at least in this book), which might be why she's been banned so often, even if the situations in the book are pretty tame.

I did enjoy the bits with Sophie and her mother. I got just as angry at her mother as she did, and I wish I could have jumped into the story to help them. But yet, her mother was very human and showed multiple sides that made it impossible for me to hate her. I'm glad we got to see this relationship develop a little.

This was an honest look at the life of a girl blooming into maturity and discovering all the sides of love—the love between a mother and child, between friends, and between a girl and a boy. What My Mother Doesn't Know is a sweet coming-of-age story as well as a quick read.

Disclosure: I got this book (with the pretty new cover) at my local library.

Review: "13 Little Blue Envelopes" by Maureen Johnson

Title: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: HarperTeen, 2006

Ginny is an average girl. Quiet, shy and as normal as you could be. So when she sets off to London under the direction of her recently deceased runaway aunt, it takes her by surprise. This is completely out of the ordinary, but then again it's right in line with what she should expect from Aunt Peg, who ran off to Europe years earlier. Following the directions of letters in blue envelopes that her aunt wrote before she died, Ginny goes on a tour that starts off in London and takes her across the continent. Along the way, she meets some old friends of her aunt's, some new friends of her own, and a fun and funny English guy, of course.

I loved reading about Ginny in all the different countries; in fact, I was swept away immediately when she first set foot in London. Having spent a semester there, I fondly remember many of the places and sites Ginny saw and visited. It's also great for people who haven't been to any of these places, since Johnson does such a great job at setting the scene. It's a European tour from your bedroom (or backyard, or wherever you're reading it).

Johnson has a very gentle tone to her storytelling, and it was a nice change. Most of the YA I've recently been reading has been, for lack of a better word, tense. But the third-person narration (also a nice change) was unhurried and relaxing. That's not to say nothing exciting happened; it was just written in such a way that lacked urgency, which I found to be a good thing.

All of the characters were great fun to read about, whether it is the mischievous Keith, the nutso artist Mari, or the houseboat-dwelling Knud. I found myself smiling a lot while reading about them all.

Throughout, there is also the sadness Ginny feels about her aunt, who disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Because she was absent so long, her death doesn't quite feel real to Ginny at first, and we see the progression of her grief as she travels around Europe.

I'm looking forward to the sequel, The Last Little Blue Envelope, which will be released on Tuesday. I'm eager to see what happens to Ginny in this last adventure her Aunt Peg will send her on.

Also, for a limited time, 13 Little Blue Envelopes is a free e-book for both Kindle and Nook. I'm guessing it's free for Sony too, but I'm not sure where to look for that link.

Disclosure: I got this e-book for free from bn.com.

TGIF: Explicit YA

Every Friday at GReads!, Ginger hosts TGIF and asks us a question relevant to the book and blogging world.

This week's question: Explicit Material: How do you feel about explicit language and/or sexual content in YA books?


I feel like every story is different. So long as the author stays true to his or her characters and world (be it fantasy or teens in high school), I don't have too much of a problem with a little bit of cursing or sexual situations.


That said, I don't like to read material that is obviously just gratuitous. Not all teens are having sex; everyone does not do it, and that was something I wish I had known back in high school.


I suppose I don't like too much swearing either... I know it is completely realistic for swearing to be gratuitous (I used those words far more often as a teen than I do now), and it's completely reasonable and natural for them to be in YA books. But I don't want to see one in every sentence. Then it might start to get away from the actual story.


So to sum up, I don't mind that kind of stuff being in the YA material I read. It will bother me if it's completely unnecessary and the author just seems to be using it to get "cred" with teens or because they think that's the way all teens act and need to include it, forcing it in. I just like some balance in there—not all teens are the same and that should be reflected in their literature.

Silent Auction items that might be of interest to you all.

Hi all! So I met this awesome lady last week who works for Pine Street Inn, a pretty prolific charity that caters to the homeless in and around Boston. Most of the people there are just kind of ignored in society (be it for mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, whatever you can think of) and they won't turn anyone away.

Right now they are having a silent auction online with some pretty awesome items up for bid (for the Boston area), including a $50 gift card to Brookline Booksmith and a meal with Arthur Golden (yeah, the same one that wrote Memoirs of a Geisha. That Arthur Golden).

Here's a link if any of you are interested! www.biddingforgood.com/pinestreetinn

Movie review: "Jane Eyre"

For those of you who are wondering about the new adaptation of the great Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, let me give you a quick rundown. For those of you who haven't read the book, you might not understand some of my references, so you could probably just skip to the final paragraph for my final word.

Many of you know the story. As a young girl, Jane, despised by her living relatives, is sent off to a cruel boarding school where she at least gains enough education to later become a governess. Governess to the ward of one Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester, who is not the most handsome of men but dreamy in that broody moody Gothic lit way. Jane keeps all emotion out of her affairs with others, as they never seemed to help her before, until Rochester admits the unthinkable: he loves her! But a terrible secret is revealed, and Jane must make the biggest decisions of her life.

Okay, so I have to admit, when the movie started I looked over to my friend (who also loves the book) and said, "What the hell is going on?" We open with a clearly upset Jane who eventually ends up sobbing in the grayish British moors, for no apparent reason. What part are we on, I wondered? Is this supposed to e 12-year-old Jane running from the house of her awful cousins? No, it's not—it is 17-year-old Jane, surprise! And she is running away from Thornfield. Far too early.

You see, the people of Focus Features decided to kind of tell the story in flashbacks. Jane is telling parts of her story to the Rivers (you'll find out who they are, sort of, by the end of the movie/book). But after my initial confusion on this front, I started to get into the movie a bit more.

I loved the casting they did. Sure, Rochester might have been a bit too pretty, but he wasn't too good-looking or too old. And Mia Wasikowska is lovely. I thought she did an excellent job in her portrayal, and her looks fall right into one would expect for Jane. At least they did for me. And Dame Judi Dench!!! Score right there. Also, Amelia Clarkson, who was little Jane, did a great job. I hope she has a career ahead of her, she's got some talent.

I know it's hard to do justice to a tome like Jane Eyre, but a one-and-a-half hour movie just doesn't cut it. The movie felt too condensed; Jane's childhood was glossed over, with parts completely cut. And and IMPORTANT scene with a VEIL was cut too!! I was a little upset about that.

But again, considering they couldn't make this five hours long, I thought this was a good adaptation of the novel, though of course it is no substitute for reading the book itself. So much is missed with just the movie.

Final word: If you have read and loved the book, this is worth seeing, though you could probably just wait to get it on Netflix or the library instead of dropping $10. If you haven't and are too lazy to read it, at least you'll get the gist of the story. But if you have the time to read it, do it—it's a much more fulfilling experience.

Review: "Bumped" by Megan McCafferty

Title: Bumped
Author: Megan McCafferty
Publisher: HarperTeen, 2011

Note: This title will not be published until Apri 26, 2011.

Set in a very near future (2035), the world of Bumped by Megan McCafferty is a world where only teenagers can have babies because of a Virus that prohibits anyone over the age of 18 from conceiving. As a result, teenagers are not only needed but enthusiastically encouraged to have lots of sex and babies. In fact, it's common for teens to "go pro," or enter into contractual agreements with older couples who want children. Preteens and young girls buy FunBumps, or fake bellies. Teens have masSEX parties that are basically orgies in hopes that the girls will end up pregnant. Popular songs talk about sperminating etc. And there is a lot of language that we would mostly find gross, but are normal here.

The main plot is told alternately by Melody and Harmony, twin sisters who were separated at birth and recently reunited with each other. Melody grew up in the pregnancy-worshiping world, while Harmony grew up in a very strict and isolated Church community where early marriage and procreation are highly valued. Melody has signed a pregnancy contract and is waiting to be paired with someone to "bump" with (you figure out what that means), while Harmony wishes to convert her newfound sister and save her soul by stopping her from doing this. As might be expected, things don't go according to plan and there are a few major cases of mistaken identity.

A lot of people have been buzzing about Bumped in the blogging world. Most of the reviews I've seen so far are lukewarm at best, but I think McCafferty deserves more credit than she seems to be getting. I think she handles the satire very well. I've read about people being uncomfortable with the glorification of sex and pregnancy, but it's not that far off from what we're experiencing in our own society. Though it might not be with explicit sex, girls are certainly gaining knowledge of sexuality earlier and earlier. If you doubt this, just take a look at this Jezebel post about Kotex's new line of maxipads aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds. No joke.

I also wasn't as grossed out by all the semen and pregnancy puns and phrases thrown around in typical conversation. In fact, the language kept me engaged in the text. I doubt many teens will be too put off by it, either—it's just a part of this world that McCafferty has created. And it's beyond clear that McCafferty is in no way endorsing sex or teen pregnancy. This is a future in which a new way of living is forced upon everyone, but most especially teens and, in particular, teen girls. Yes, it's disgusting, but that's the point.

In any case, this was a short read with a lot to say. However I was not impressed with all of it. I could not believe that this was all taking place in 2035, a mere 24 years into the future. It was easier for me to ignore this detail while reading. I also was not a huge fan with how religion is treated in the book.

Perhaps the biggest question for me is this: How does the LGBTQ community fit into this society? I'm betting teens are not allowed to be in these relationships or to explore these possibilities in their lives. It's briefly touched upon, but only very briefly. I'm pretty sure this will be explored more fully in the sequel(s), but it was something I wondered about while reading.

Bumped is not going to be for everyone, but it's not without merit. I foresee a lot of challenges in this book's future because of its content; I'm sure it will be deemed "inappropriate" by many. But I think it's worth checking out. It will certainly be unlike any of the other futuristic (I blanche only slightly from calling this a dystopia) books popular at this point in time.

Disclosure: I received an e-galley of this via NetGalley.