Review Blog - Digital Reviews

Couloumbis, Audrey. 2008. Love Me Tender.

“Early Friday afternoon, Daddy left mad.
He carried his guitar. The weather had turned so hot, the sweaty circles on his T-shirt looked like the wings of an insect against his back.
I followed him, dragging his duffel and panting, “Daddy, this thing is too heavy. What all are you carrying in here?”
What, besides his blue suede shoes and tight white jeans, did he need?”

The narrator of Love Me Tender is thirteen-year-old Elvira. The oldest of what will soon be three children. She’s got an eight year old sister, Kerrie, and another sibling on the way. Her mom, whom she calls Mel because that’s what her Daddy calls her, is seven months pregnant and very, very cranky. Elvira is worried that it’s only going to get worse from here on out–first the hormones of pregnancy, later the diapers and crying and babysitting.

The family is in the beginning stages of crisis. Her dad is unhappy with his job, her mom is unhappy and moody with this unplanned pregnancy, and her younger sister has reverted to acting like a three year old. When we first meet the family, it doesn’t look good. The parents have just had a big fight. Her dad is on his way to Vegas. On his way to compete in an Elvis impersonator competition. Her mom is glued to the recliner and hooked to cheesy TV movies. And her sister is driving her crazy.

And then the phone call comes.

It’s a strange call. Almost cryptic. Mel’s sister, Clare, says simply that their mother’s time has come. Thinking that she only has hours–maybe a day or two–to make amends with her estranged family, Mel quickly packs up her two kids, borrows her husband’s most prized possession–a classic car in great condition–and heads to Memphis, Tennessee. Taking turns behind the wheel, Mel and Elvira make it to her grandmother’s house–just barely with all their nerves and spirits intact. (After a bit of a scare with Kerrie and some “toy” eyelashes.)

This will be the children’s first time to meet their grandmother, and to meet their mother’s younger sister, Clare. That family–much like Elvira’s–seems to be in crisis as well. Clare is convinced that her mother–their mother–needs to be put in a nursing home.

During this weekend, lives will changes, fences will be mended, there will be laughter and tears as well.

Family drama galore (mainly through intense conversations/confrontations) is what you’ll find in Love Me Tender.

Honestly, I thought this one was a bit disappointing. When I see the name Coulombis, I expect better things, greater things. Not that this one was bad, it just wasn’t as magical as I expected. The premise, the author, the cover, I expected to be wowed a bit more than I was. I kept reading thinking that there was a big reveal on the way, something huge that would shake this family up, something that would act as a catalyst for this family. But nothing really happened.

Other reviews: Flamingnet, Not Acting My Age,

© Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews
Source

Similar Post

• Travel the World: Australia: When Mum Was Little
• Almost Forever
• Wicked Cool Overlooked Books: Notes On A Near-Life Experience
• 7 Weird/Random Facts Meme
• Looking Forward (by Marcia Willett)

Stein, Tammar. 2008. High Dive.

“The phone rang at 6 a.m. Even though I expected it, my heart leapt at the shrill sound. I lunged for the receiver, picking it up before the ring ended, and looked over at my roommate. She’d burrowed deeper undercover. I could see only a skein of hair on the pillow. Good.
I glanced at the clock to begin the countdown. My mom and I had exactly fifteen minutes for the phone call.
Technically, everyone was allowed two fifteen-minute DSN, the military phone system, calls a week, but we rarely managed two. Usually it was one call, which you might think meant we could talk for thirty minutes, but the army doesn’t work that way.”

Arden’s mom is stationed in Iraq. Arden’s dad died several years ago in a car accident in Germany. So when our novel opens our heroine, Arden, finds herself a bit confused, a bit lost, a bit angry, a bit sad, and a lot worried. Her mother has decided to sell the family’s vacation home in Sardinia (yes, Italy), and Arden has volunteered to help her mom out by closing the place up. She’s in college. And as an army brat she’s used to taking care of herself, used to change, used to making the best of whatever comes her way. So a trip to Europe on her own shouldn’t really be a problem, right?

Arden is about to get a dose (or two or three) of spontaneity. On her plane trip, she meets three college students, three young women from UT who will be vacationing in Paris. They clicked so well on the ride over, they ask Arden to join them. Though she was scheduled to just lay over in Paris and then catch another plane to her destination in Germany, Arden decides to be un-Arden, to try something a bit scary, a bit new.

With this decision, most of Arden’s plans go out the window. And this uncomfortableness begins to open up her heart and mind and soul to the possibilities of life–good, bad, ugly. She begins to think about her dad’s death, to think about her mom, to be honest with herself and her mom about her worries. War is dangerous, yes. Everyone knows that. And as a nurse, Arden’s mom could very well be hurt. But war also changes a person, scars a person. Arden is afraid her mom might be radically different when her tour in Iraq is over later in the year. No doubt about it, Arden’s burdens are genuinely heavy.

During these few weeks in Europe–Paris, Florence, Sardinia–Arden learns a bit about life and a lot about herself. It’s her chance to become a better, more honest, more vulnerable, healthier Arden.

Rich in detail and featuring well-crafted characters, High Dive is a great book highlighting the nuances of life.

Other Reviews: Teen.reads.com, YA Book Realm, Patchwork of Books,

© Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews
Source

Similar Post

• Week One Snowflake Schedule
• Auction One Begins Today
• Auction Three Begins Today
• Moving Forward: Taking the Lead In Your Life
• dive

Johnson, Maureen. 2008. Suite Scarlett.

“The Hopewell has been a family-run institution on the Upper East Side for over seventy-five years.”

“Perhaps it sounds like a wonderful thing to be born and raised in a small hotel in New York City. Lots of things sound fun until they are subjected to closer inspection. If you lived on a cruise ship, for example, you would have to do the Macarena every night of your life. Think about that.” (15)

The Martin family has owned the Hopewell hotel for years–several generations–and they want to instill a good work ethic in each of their children: Spencer, 19, Lola, 18, Scarlett, 15, and Marlene, 11. As each child turns fifteen, they are given a suite within the hotel that is theirs to manage. When their suite is occupied, it is their responsibility to see to their guest’s needs. Since the family is struggling economically, the family has entered a crisis period. Each handles the stress in their own way. Spencer, the oldest, is an actor. He is doing everything in his power to make a go of it. He goes to audition after audition after audition. His parents have given him a deadline: get hired–Broadway, TV, movies, commercials, anything, etc. Or face the facts and seek another career–enroll in culinary school. Lola has a steady job, or so she thinks, but will her love life prove to be her undoing? Marlene is a tyrant–no other way to phrase it. A cancer survivor, she thinks that that entitles her to rule the world. And Scarlett? Well, Scarlett is about to have a summer experience that will either make her or break her. She’s just turned fifteen, just been given her own suite, and just had her first guest arrive. Mrs. Amberson. Life at the Hopewell will never be the same again.

There is a depth to the relationships and characters in Suite Scarlett. There’s a good amount of humor as well. I think most will like this one, and some will even love, love, love it.

This book had me from the dedication. “This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever played a dead body on stage or screen. It takes a big actor to lie on the ground and keep quiet. Droop on, my lifeless friends.”

Also of note, the author’s bio on the jacket flap, “Maureen Johnson lives in New York City. She wonders if you have read any of her previous books: The Key to the Golden Firebird, the Bermudez Triangle, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Devilish, or Girl At Sea. It’s okay if you haven’t; she is sure to like you anyway. Unlike Scarlett, Maureen does not live in a hotel, but she wishes she did.”

Other reviews: Reading Rants, bookshelves of doom, Tempting Persephone, Little Willow, Westerblog, Teen Book Review,

© Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews
Source

Similar Post

• Janes Hotel Family Hero
• BTT: Favorite Heroines…
• Hotel Solitaire
• The Prestige (2006) - a movie review
• Awesome movie trailer 1408

Design by Jason Booher

Not entirely sure if the humor of this comes across online, but there’s something about the great big heads of the Renaissance’s foremost writers and dramatists on spindly little legs that made me giggle and, more importantly, pick up the book.

Humor aside, though, this is a nice way to fill out the frame without reverting to the all-too-familiar Brady Bunch grid approach:

Source

Similar Post

• Travel the World: Ireland: One Voice, Please
• Graphic Novel Challenge Completed
• Who put the Kid in Kid-Friendly
• GRID
• A Midsummer Night’s Challenge

Rinaldi, Ann. 2008. The Redheaded Princess.

The Redheaded Princess. What can I say about this one? It’s a fictional novel–for teens–about Princess Elizabeth. The novel opens when she’s a child and she’s still estranged from her father, King Henry VIII. The novel closes with the death of her sister, Queen Mary, a.k.a Bloody Mary. In between, there are many ups and downs along the way. Her semi-reconciliation with her father and his newest and latest wife, Katharine. Her relationship with her half-brother, Edward, the boy who would become King (and did in fact become King) yet who never really “reigned” on his own. Too young. Too sickly. Her very, very strange relationship with Thomas Seymour. Her turbulent relationship with her older half-sister, Mary.

Elizabeth’s life was strange. No doubt about it. Never knowing her mother, only really hearing about how she had “bewitched” the King into divorcing his wife. She was presented to the girl as a whore and a witch. Someone dangerous to imitate. She had a distant relationship with her father. Sometimes in favor and in court, other times forgotten and left to fend for herself in the country. Not that she was alone. She had her servants, her friends, her tutors. But still. Without parental guidance let’s say. And she didn’t have normal family relationships with her brother and sister either. When one sibling has the power of life and death over the others, the power to imprison, things can get messy very very quickly.

The plotting. Oh the plotting. The scheming. It seems that there was never an end to the number of people who wanted to use these three children as pawns to gain favor, esteem, wealth, and power. Manipulations. Trying to turn the family against one another time and time again.

The religion. I wonder if readers grasp just how big this Catholic versus Protestant issue was back in the day. Where being one or the other could cost you your life. To realize just how opposing and judgmental they were of one another. It is hard, I think, for readers to grasp until they’ve studied the era, studied the writers of that time period. This was really and truly life and death stuff. And believers had to be ready to die for how they chose to worship. For how they viewed the sacraments.

Anyway, if you’re already familiar with the Tudors, with Henry VIII and his children (Mary, Elizabeth, Edward), then you won’t learn much more than you already know. If you’re not that familiar, this would be a nice place to start.

This novel would be a good companion to Rinaldi’s previous novel, Nine Days A Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey.

The real question may be how does this one compare to Carolyn Meyer’s series on the Young Tudor women.
Mary, Bloody Mary. Doomed Queen Anne. Patience, Princess Catherine. Beware Princess Elizabeth. And the answer to that would be purely subjective.

© Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews
Source

Similar Post

• Summer Reading Challenge 2008 (Rock Creek Rumblings)
• Mary Ingalls On Her Own
• The Stainless Angel (by Elizabeth Palmer)
• Letters From A Slave Boy
• Travel the World: Germany: Princess Pigsty