In 1888 New England, young orphan Will Henry serves as an apprentice to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a scientist who practices the secret practice of monstrumology, or “the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans and not recognized by science as actual organisms, specifically those considered products of myth and folklore.” In this series opener, Will and his master are on the trail of a hidden pod of Anthropophagi, a race of muscular albino headless monsters who wear their over-sized obsidian eyes on their shoulders, their shark-tooth filled mouths on their stomachs, and their tiny brains in their crotch. Though they originated in Africa, somehow these horrific beasts have managed to cross the pond into the New England states, and are now running amok in the countryside, tearing off heads and sucking down the entrails of their human victims while they still draw breath. Will and Dr. Warthrop don’t only have to find a way to stop them, they must also solve the mystery of how and why they got there in the first place to prevent others from coming—and breeding—and EVOLVING. Friends, I can barely contain my morbid delight at having discovered this delightfully gruesome book! Yancy’s bloody tale, written in a delicious Victorian gothic style, is just gory and disturbing as the early Stephen King I devoured as a teen while still being a cracking good yarn between explicit scenes of dismemberment and disembowelment that leave nothing (and I mean NOTHING) to the imagination. When not running for his life from headless freaks trying to open one of his major arteries, soulful Will Henry contemplates the meaning of life, death, and his complicated feelings about his single-minded caretaker, making this a much deeper read than your average run of the mill horror pulp. But violent and bloodthirsty it is, and if Goosebumps and Coraline are more your speed, then this graphic gore-fest is not for you. I can’t even give you an excerpt here, just in case you come back and blame me for your nightmares. (And even though I haven’t slept very well the past couple of nights, I just CAN’T WAIT to read the next one!) This is YA horror at it’s stomach-churning finest, heading further down the dark path that Lauren Myracle paved with the creepy Bliss. Go ahead and read it—if you dare!
Boy Meets Book
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy
10.25
Refresh, Refresh by Danica Novgorodoff, Benjamin Percy and James Ponsoldt
09.30
“We didn’t fully understand the reason our fathers were fighting. We only understood that they had to fight…We could only cross our fingers and wish on stars and hit refresh, refresh, hoping they would return to us.” Cody, Gordon and Josh all live in the same small town, and all have fathers who are fighting in Iraq. Even as they constantly refresh their computer screens waiting for word of their dads’ safe return, they try to distract themselves from their worry by engaging in their own “fight club,” where they hit each other as hard as they can in an attempt to honor their fathers’ sacrifice by denying their own pain. “If you stepped out of the ring, you lost. If you cried, you lost. If you got knocked out or if you yelled stop, you lost.” Each boy is taking his own emotional knocks, as well. Cody struggles to raise his little brother on his own while his mother works endless factory shifts in order to make ends meet. Gordon suffers at the hands of bullies and longs to use his hunting rifle for something other than shooting deer. Josh’s secret college acceptance letter is his ticket to a better life, but will he use it if it means leaving his best friends behind? One brutal confrontation takes away all choices but one, and suddenly the boys find themselves facing a future that was once improbable but now seems inevitable. This bleak and emotionally raw GN, based on a short story by Benjamin Percy, realistically captures the pain of modern reservists’ families, who are often left in limbo when their breadwinners are sent off to war. Danica Novgorodoff’s gritty unpolished style and earth tone palette help convey the boys’ hopelessness and sorrow, the only bright colors being the red of their boxing gloves and spilled blood. A violent and heartbreaking tale that didn’t leave me feeling any better about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, but maybe that was the point.
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President by Josh Lieb
09.20
If Stewie on Family Guy ever grew out of his diapers, he might turn out to be like Oliver Watson, the pudgy, angry, brilliant seventh grade narrator of IGUEIWYCP, who is addicted to his mom’s grilled cheese and bent on world domination. Some kids dream of being king of the world—but Oliver actually is. He hides his intellectual genius behind the dumb façade of a dopey middle schooler when he is really secretly running the world from his incredible underground command center, which would put the Bat Cave to shame. “I freely admit I’m evil…that doesn’t mean I torture kittens or plot the genocide of entire continents of people; that’s insanity, not evil. And insanity is just what we call stupidity when it doesn’t make sense.” There’s only one thing Oliver can’t buy with his millions or manipulate with his cutting edge intellect—his emotionally immature father’s respect. So he decides to run for office—7th grade president to be exact—to show “Daddy” once and for all that he’s not a total loser and maybe even win his love. There’s only one problem—Oliver has been pretending to be an idiot for so long, it’s going to be hard to get people to believe he can really do the job. Is a self-described evil genius smart enough to figure out which battles are worth fighting and which are merely petty annoyances on his way to total global supremacy? I would expect nothing less than sarcastic snickers that quickly morph into ginormous guffaws from debut author Josh Lieb (whose day job is executive producer of The Daily Show) and that is exactly what he delivers in this rollicking tale of a tiny Napoleon. Bullies, beware–Oliver Watson is waddling your way!
Pop by Gordon Korman
09.10
Quarterback Marcus Jordan has a big problem. The team at his new school had a perfect season last year, so they aren’t interested in some hot shot rookie hitching a ride on their air-tight winning machine. Especially Troy Popovitch, the resident star QB who doesn’t like the way Marcus is eyeing his position–or his flirtatious cheerleader ex. So Marcus begins training extra hard at the local park in a hopeless attempt to win the team’s love, and it’s there he meets Charlie, a fit middle-aged man who not only seems to know his way around a football, but has an bone-shattering tackle technique as well. Even though Charlie is chronically forgetful and often shows up hours after he tells Marcus he will, he helps Marcus step up his game to the point where Coach Barker starts to let his butt off the bench once in a while. Then Marcus discovers that his buddy Charlie is actually Charlie Popovitch, famous retired NFL linebacker–and Troy’s dad. When Marcus tries to talk to Troy about his famous father, Troy goes ballistic and warns Marcus to stay away from him. What is going on with the Popovitch clan? Why won’t Troy acknowledge his well-known parent? And how is it that Charlie seems to know everyone in town, yet sometimes appears lost on his own block? When Marcus finds a unique way to pay back Charlie for all the help he’s given him that will help restore some of Charlie’s former glory, he knows he’s going to get in big trouble with both Troy and the team. But he also knows he’d do anything for the man who taught him how to make his defense go POP. This Superbowl of a sports book is about a lot more than football (although there are some seriously tense on-field scenes). Korman also tackles themes of family, conscience, friendship and loss, scoring a touchdown on all counts. A perfect choice for the crisp, cool days of fall.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher
09.05
The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko
06.10
What would you do if your doppleganger suddenly walked up to you and offered to show you the parallel universes that existed right outside the thin fabric of your reality? One day when Ohio teenager John Rayburn heads to the barn to do chores, he is confronted by an identical man who claims he is actually JR himself, but from a parallel world. He calls himself John Prime, and offers JR a deal—a 24-hour vacation in a parallel universe, free of charge. What red-blooded adolescent wouldn’t take such a proposition? To travel to another time and place while your twin guards your life here? Except, that’s not exactly what happens. Turns out Prime’s device only works one way, and that’s forward. Once JR jumps ahead to another universe, he can no longer go back. And now Prime is living his stolen life and JR has no choice but to find a new place in the universe. At first JR stumbles around multiple universes (universi?), making newbie-universe-traveler mistakes like losing his money, accidentally bringing alien species into other universes, and referring to objects or technology that haven’t been invented yet in the universe he is currently visiting. But finally JR settles down in a universe not unlike his own and decides to study physics in order to learn how the device works—so he can throw the lever in reverse, kick Prime’s butt and take his life back. But first he’s going to finance his college education by inventing a little game called pinball…This mind-bending and thoroughly entertaining sci-fi will leave you pondering the possibilities of parallel worlds and appreciating the little things like reality TV, root beer and Rubik’s Cubes that make THIS universe so frickin’ awesome.
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams
05.25
Seventeen-year-old football quarterback Cody Laredo never considered himself a good student. He maintained grades just high enough to keep his butt off the bench, hoping that a college football scholarship would be his ticket to the NFL. But now that he’s blown out his knee, lost his gorgeous upper-crust girlfriend Clea to boarding school and missed so many classes that he has no idea what is going on, he’s decided to drop out. Which is why he’s free to skip town and head east when he hears on the local news that Clea’s gone missing. When her beloved horse Bud comes back rider-less, the local authorities assume Clea was thrown in the woods and a search party is quickly assembled. Cody quietly joins their ranks, initially concealing his identity from the townies. But when Clea isn’t found in a few days, the search is called off and Cody begins to conduct his own investigation, based on little more than commonsense and intuition. As he begins to collect clues about Clea’s disappearance, Cody struggles with who to suspect and who to trust. Among the possible perpetrators are: Ike, the crabby old stable hand at Clea’s fancy school who seems to know more than he’s letting on; Sergeant Orton, the local fuzz who appears to be playing Cody just as much as Cody is playing him; and finally Townes, the rich boy who stole Clea’s heart—and maybe more. One of these men know what happened to his best girl. And it’s up to Cody to find out who before it’s too late. Reality Check is a solid, satisfying mystery with an earnest, blue-collar teen sleuth at it’s center. I love how Cody, who readily admits he’s not the biggest intellectual in the world, operates from the heart and realistically struggles with putting the pieces of the puzzle together, instead of snapping his fingers and solving it all in one fell swoop. This is the first book I’ve read by mystery author Peter Abrahams, but you can bet it won’t be the last!
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn
05.15
Meet Bernie and Chet, the two hard-bitten P.I.’s of the Little Detective Agency. Though one has two legs and the other four, both are tough, not easily fooled dudes with hearts of gold. Bernie Little is a down-on-his-luck detective with a big debt and small checking account. Chet “the Jet” is his loyal-to-the-bone mongrel sidekick whose wandering nose and lack of impulse control often gets him into trouble. Chet is the star of this mystery-series opener, as he narrates Bernie’s life in an uber-realistic, easily distracted canine voice that often comes across as barkingly funny. In their first adventure together, Bernie and Chet are hired to find wealthy teen Madison Chambliss, whose divorced mother reports her missing. But there’s more to this apparent runaway case that meets the eye (or nose, in Chet’s case), and the dedicated partners soon dig up connections between Madison’s disappearance, a real estate development that’s gone bottoms up, and the Russian mafia. To make matters more complicated, both have recently become smitten: Bernie with local investigative reporter Suzie Sanchez and Chet with a mysterious furry female he only knows by her come-hither bark. Unlike some other best-selling doggerel, this book nails the dog’s-eye point of view perfectly and also serves as an excellent introduction to the detective genre if you haven’t had the pleasure of dipping into it before. A doggone good book that even a cat person can love. I can’t wait to go on a stake-out with Chet and Bernie again!
Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson
04.30
Seventeen-year-old James Hoff is the world’s biggest pessimist. He doesn’t believe that all this “green” action is really going to do any good, that humans “have ravaged the planet with our insane lust and greed, everywhere leaving behind horrendous pollution, toxic waste, and lethal contamination” and we are all destined to die slow, agonizing deaths from SUV carbon monoxide poisoning. So what’s a cynical guy like him doing with an idealistic optimist like Sadie Kinnell? NOTHING, because philosophical and political differences finally led to their break-up at the end of sophomore year. But no matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise through the writing of heated English assignment manifestos that his teacher Mr. Cogweiller has no idea what to do with, James is still in love with Sadie. And as he grapples with what to do about the Sadie situation, how to call off his eighth grade sister’s horny best friend and whether or not he should accept his corporate dad’s offer of an evil, pollution-spewing car (“I just don’t want one. I don’t want to put gas in it, I don’t want to insure it, I don’t want to park it, I don’t want to look at it. If I am the first teenager in the world to refuse a car, so be it.”), a funny thing happens. James grows a conscience and suddenly Sadie’s point of view starts making a lot more sense. But is it too late for this gloomy Gus to turn over a new (green) leaf? Part angsty “dude” lit. and part angry meditation on the sad state of the environment, Destroy All Cars is one teen’s timely, comic take on love, life and ecology. Blake Nelson is one of my fav authors because he writes some of the smartest and most realistic guy characters in YA lit. Plus his dry, deadpan delivery never gets old and often leaves me smirking at statements like this one from James: “Because I have cut holes in my sweater and have been seen reading books in the cafeteria, I have declared myself to be some sort of fringe, radical, intellectual type. Now I must face the consequences.” Ha! A great companion read to this book.
Punkzilla by Adam Rapp
04.15
