Beastly by Alex Flinn

The guy who used to be Kyle Kingsbury has been transformed by… well… a witch, after standing up the wrong girl for prom.  But he gave a rose to the girl taking the tickets, and for that he gets a chance to redeem himself.  His father is a news anchor and never home anyway, but when he thinks Kyle’s new appearance could jeopardize his job (or his ratings!), Kyle gets a house to himself (and his housekeeper, and his tutor) to do with what he likes, as long as he stays inside and out of sights and has, you know, no contact at all with the outside world.  He has two years to be kissed by someone who truly loves him, someone he loves truly in return.  Will he find someone who can look beyond his appearance?

Beastly is scheduled to be made into a movie, with Neil Patrick Harris playing Kyle’s blind tutor, and Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen playing two of the girls in Kyle’s life.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron

James Sveck may not be the most likeable guy.  In the summer after high school, he’s decided that he doesn’t want to go to college after all.  He’d rather take the money his dad would have spent on four years at Brown and buy a house in the midwest.  This would be a complete change of pace for James after his upbringing in New York City with his artist and art gallery owner mother and hot-shot lawyer father.  As the summer progresses, James doesn’t really know what he wants, and what starts out as friendly joking with the other guy who works at his mother’s gallery might have more consequences than James thinks.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

Virginia feels out of place in her family.  Her mom is a fitness junkie, her dad only likes skinny girls, her older sister is in the Peace Corps, and her brother is off at college.  Oh, and her best friend just moved to Washington for the year.  And now Virginia’s mom wants to take her to another doctor because of her weight.  Honestly, she thinks her weight is more of a problem for her mom than herself.  Even the doctor tells her she’s completely healthy.  And even when her brother gets kicked out of college for the semester while they “investigate” the charges against him, Virginia still feels like she’s the black sheep of the family, and no one wants to talk about what’s really going on.  So it’s easy for her to take her friend Shannon up on her offer to fly out to Seattle for Thanksgiving.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things was given a Printz Honor award.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have by Allen Zadoff

Andrew’s always been fine with his life.  He’s 307 pounds and hangs out with the Model UN guys, while his sister is miss thin and popular.  He’s used to not fitting in.  But just before the start of his sophomore year, he meets a girl.  And not just any girl.  He meets a really pretty girl at a wedding his mom is catering.  And it turns out she goes to his school now.  So what’s a guy to do?  He tells her he’s an athlete.  So when the star quaterback saves Andrew from getting beaten up on the day of the football tryouts, Andrew takes it as a sign and trys out.  To his great surprise, he makes the team.  But is he really a football player inside?

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Young Warriors: Stories of Strength edited by Tamora Pierce and Josepha Sherman

What makes someone a warrior?  Is it physical prowess, tactical skill, strength, dexterity, boldness?  Is it courage?  Is it simply standing up for what you believe in?  Tamora Pierce and Josepha Sherman have collected fifteen stories with all sorts of warriors, warriors who fight for the glories of war, and warriors who fight for the possibility of not needing to fight in the future.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Touch by Francine Prose

Maisie isn’t the most reliable narrator.  She admits something happened on the bus between her and her three best (guy) friends.  Memory can be a tricky thing, and the stories just aren’t adding up cleanly.  Maisie  says the boys all touched her breasts and that she said no, and that one of the boys held her wrists to keep her from stopping them.  The boys say it was her idea and that she asked them if anyone would pay her money to let them touch her breasts.  The truth, as it turns out, is pretty complicated.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Everlost by Neal Shusterman

Nick’s eating a candy bar when he dies.  Allie’s arguing with her dad about the radio and adjusting her blouse.  A couple seconds later, Nick and Allie meet when they crash through the tunnel from this world to whatever’s after life.  And that’s when the story starts.  Nick and Allie wake up most of a year later not knowing that they’re dead.  Obviously, they want to get back to their parents who must be worried sick about them.  But another boy they meet in the woods explains the situation to them.  Are they stuck being ghosts forever?  Can they trust anyone or anything in the ghost world?  Or are Nick and Allie truly lost?

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Valerie’s going back to school for the first time since the attack.  At the end of her junior year, her boyfriend, Nick, opened fire in the high school Commons, killing and wounding classmates, teachers, and school staff, even Valerie, before turning the gun on himself, and all because of a list they had created called the Hate List.  The Hate List was a notebook filled with all the people, places, ideas, and things that they hated.  Teachers who picked on them, cheerleaders who scorned them, the girls who called Valerie “Sister Death.”  But Valerie wasn’t the shooter; she didn’t even know Nick was going to kill anyone, and she tried to stop him.  But everyone knows about the Hate List, and they think she’s just as guilty as Nick was.  Valerie thinks they might be right.  Can Valerie really go back to her school?  Can anyone move on?

Hate List is a powerful novel, with a very moving ending.

Review by Kathleen

Tattoo by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

When Bailey and her three friends get temporary tattoos at the mall, things start getting strange.  Bailey hears a voice saying “To fight, to live, we two of three bestow this gift.”  The tattoos are talking to her.  She starts seeing people, and she sets fire to another girl’s shoes.  One of her friends can hear what the others are thinking.  Another gets premonitions of the future.  And the fourth can change things.  The girls are excited about their new powers.  But then the girl who can see the future gets a vision of a girl on a balcony, falling.  Suddenly, the powers aren’t fun anymore.  Something serious is going on.  Can the four friends figure out the mystery and stop it before their powers disappear?

Review by Kathleen

The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas

Antonia wants two things out of her life.  She wants to be kissed, and she wants to be the first living saint in Catholic history.  Neither one of these goals seems very likely for her.  She’s been petitioning the Vatican to add new saint specialties and offering herself as a candidate for sainthood for the past half-dozen years, and she rarely even gets so much as a rejection letter.  And there’s no Patron Saint of Kissing, and Antonia’s sure that she won’t get a first kiss without some kind of saintly intercession.  The boy she likes, Andy, barely knows she’s alive, and a boy she doesn’t really like happens to really like her.  So the only kissing she gets to do is kissing the skinned knees and elbows of neighborhood kids, and the forehead of the woman who hasn’t walked in years.  But her kisses seem to heal.  But is it possible for Antonia to be a saint while still being a normal fifteen year old girl?

Review by Kathleen