Rating: 
When Ben Wolf goes for his yearly physical prior to Cross-Country season, he gets some rather unexpected news. the worst sort of unexpected news really. But Ben has always felt that he wasn’t meant for a nice, long life on this earth, and takes the news about as in stride as anyone can. His doctor is none to pleased, dragging him to a specialist, and swearing him to twice weekly therapy for his silence and pass on the physical. Ben, being 18, knows the decision is his, and threatens legal action should his family find out.
Instead of returning to Cross-Country, where he’s a shoe-in for the State Title, Ben turns out for football, much to the amusement of the other players, and bemusement of the Coach. For a pint-sized guy, he’s quite the surprise as it turns out. And for a large part of the season, he’s their best-kept secret. The Horseshoe Bend game, which will surely go down in Trout History gives him one of the best moments of his life.
Meanwhile, outside school, he’s somehow landed the girl of his dreams. A thing he’d never conceived as a possibility. But dying made him bold. And is now tearing him to pieces. Not only does she like him, she forsees a future with him. One he won’t be there for. She tells him so secrets so huge he knows he should reciprocate, and yet by that time it seems too late.
The more the year progresses, the more Ben finds that attempting normalcy when the reality is anything but really wasn’t a good idea. And they tried to tell him. The doctor, the therapist, the next therapist, Hey-Soos. heck, even town drunk Rudy McCoy has confided an earth-shattering secret in him, and he still can’t get the guts to come clean.
He does though. Starting with Rudy, as it happens. And then Coach. And Cody.
Sometimes it goes much better than he could hoped. Sometimes it’s about the worst thing ever. Dying aside. Worse than that, even.
While it would seem that this would be a sad tale and a depressing read, it was uplifting throughout and largely funny, with its supremely serious interludes thrown in at just the right junctures. Definitely a recommended read for all.
Rating: 
For Alex, the fun ended when his brilliant plan went awry and landed him on a neighbor’s lawn, crushed lawn gnome under tire, puking his guts out on an officer’s shoes. Though if you asked him, it’s nothing to get in a tizzy over. Just a lawn gnome. So what if he intended to drive across down and didn’t make it to the end of the road? No way does he need to pay for it by spending his time with someone as old, unpleasant, and abusive as Sol Lewis. No way. Too bad Judge Trent and his mother don’t agree.
With no choice but to persist, Alex does eventually learn to handle Sol, eventually developing a rapport with him, if an uneasy one. Not until he arrives late one day, an occupies himself with guitar, thus accidentally discovering Sol’s love for music, do they really begin to bond. And at this point, Alex has another brilliant idea. But this time it really is good. He’s going to hold a concert at the home, with two of his insanely musically talented classmates, who he likes to call the Cha-KINGS.
Soon Alex is in it deep. After school practicing, trying to learn to keep up with two musical gods. Off-days, visiting Sol, trying to make the most of their time together, hard as that may sometimes be. In fact, he’s begun thinking of staying on after his time is up. Even after Sol finds out he’s not been there of his own accord and they have a falling out on New Year’s Eve. Even after Sol shows him up at his own gig.
With the arrival of Valentine’s Day, the situation gets more dire. Sol, who has emphysema, has been hospitalized with pneumonia. Alex gets the news as he’s about to leave, and has no option but to go pick up his date, explain the situation, and head to the hospital. After enduring the visit, during which Sol does nothing but call her Laurie, Alex sets his date up with Laurie’s date at the dance, after arriving, filling her in, and being directed to take her to the hospital right now.
By his return visit, Sol is looking better, but Alex is beginning to be forced to face the hard truth. He won’t be around forever.
Back at the home, Sol and Alex continue their lessons, and Alex learns that Sol and the Cha-KING’s have scheduled another show for April. Alex isn’t entirely interested, but agrees on the condition that Sol will take part.
Though she didn’t attend the first time, Alex takes the chance to invite Judge Trent to the concert, and this time she accepts. A fact that is even more surprising than Alex knows.
This was a really, really fun read, and exceptionally quick. You could add it to your pile and it would be gone again before you knew it.
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Rating:
James Sveck is not happy. And that’s really the least of his worries. After realizing he felt separate, alone as in not a part of this species, life took a bad turn for James.
It all came to a head with the whole America Classroom debacle. He doesn’t like to think about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it. And so for weeks he plays avoidance games, silence games, power games—pretty much any and every game—with his therapist.
His parents are worried. His sister is worried. James is just annoyed.
He doesn’t have much use for people, especially those his own age. Which makes college an extremely daunting proposition. He can’t see any point. He doesn’t want to be in that kind of environment, considers it an appalling waste of money, and would really rather just skip it and learn from books. To him, the idea is brilliant. To his parents, not so much.
And then there’s the whole sexuality debate. Suddenly, both of his parents become keenly curious as to his interests. As if knowing he were gay would suddenly answer all questions, solve something, allow them to help him. As if it were so simple.
And he’s alienated one of his only friends. John, who works at his mother’s gallery, and is one of the few people James feels he can talk to, liked to surf the web at the front desk, and wasn’t so good with covering his tracks. After stumbling upon John’s profile on a dating site, James creates John’s ideal mate. Anyone else would have realized, more than likely, what a bad idea this was, but to James it was just fun. A joke. Not to be taken seriously. To John, when James shows up in place of his date at a party, it’s nearly unspeakable. And it leaves James out of a job; fired by his own mother.
His college, or lack thereof, plans are falling to pieces, no one seems to understand him, everyone is hounding him, and now James has only Nanette (his Grandmother) to turn to. Luckily, Nanette is very good with both listening and advice. And she’s right about John coming around. The very next day James gets his job back. And faced with a pleading mother and sister, he even picks up the phone to speak to his future roommate, unsure what else to do.
There might just be hope after all.
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Rating:
Fanboy’s school life has been less than stellar, especially after the forced move to a new school, where he got off on the wrong foot and never got right. While he had his moments, like The Great Ecuadorian Tortoise Blight, all in all, he could really do without daily interaction with his classmates.
When Mitchell Frampton starts pounding on him daily in gym class, it seems unusually cruel, and yet perfectly normal for his life. The middle-of-the-night IM he receives about it isn’t. Against his better judgement, he agrees to meet the mystery writer, who he realizes must be the black and white blur who’s been watching his gym beatings.
Life gets even stranger, after Donnie and Kyra meet.
She’s moody, she likes graphic novels, but makes fun of the ones he reads, she’s always showing up in a different car and driving recklessly…on top of it all, she’s his first female friend, and only his second friend in town, period. Despite all her quirks, he likes her. Enough to share his work-in-progress, a graphic novel his only prior friend doesn’t even know about.
The more involved Fanboy and Goth girl get, the worse things seem to go. While he’d like to be different, Donnie is still first and foremost a guy. And while Goth girl is different, she’s also first and foremost a person with feelings and sensitivities.
There’s no shortage of tension in this story. But it’s also full of laughs and deep thoughts and great anecdotes. Self-realizations and epiphanies. And while it’s a story about a comic book geek, it’s a story that any book-lover should enjoy. Myself, I’ve never gotten into comics or graphic novels–it’s not a style I can manage to read. But this book was great. I had a blast reading it, and I’ll be looking forward to Lyga’s next work.
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Rating:
Colin Singleton has issues with his life. Mainly that he doesn’t understand it, and as a recent high school graduate, is sure of little other than his status as a failure. Utterly disgusted with his best friend’s state of mind, Hassan decides what they needs is a road trip. After somehow making their parents agree, off the head, no destination in mind.
A random highway exit boasts the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who Colin had been thinking of not long before, and so begins the journey to Gutshot, TN, where the road trip becomes stationary.
After the tour to the Archduke’s grave, Colin and Hassan meet Hollis, their tourguide Lindey’s mother, who brings them home for dinner and offers them a job for the summer. At $500/week, the pair can’t refuse.
The days soon settle into a sort of rhythm. Recording oral histories of Gutshot for Hollis in the morning, killing time in the afternoon while Lindsey goofs off with her boyfriend, and for Colin, working on the Theorem he’s come up with to predict the pattern of a relationship. First he can only get it to work for a few of the Katherines. With some tweaking, it works for all but one. After further delving, he realizes he’s misremembered this one, and once he adjusts the formula to show the true events, the Theorem is rock solid.
And yet…while History is easy to study (like they say, hind-sight is 20/20), the future is a different animal altogehter. And this is the realization Colin really needs to come to. That life can’t be predicted, there is no certainty, and the only sure thing to do is to get out there and try.
Excellent book. Unique story, great characters, much lighter than Looking for Alaska. Definitely worth a read.
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Fanboy (aka Donnie to his mom) wants three things in this life: a copy of Giant Size X-Men #1; a chance to meet Brian Michael Bendis and show him his own graphic novel, Schemata; and a third thing that he won’t tell anyone, because he’s afraid it won’t happen. Beat up in gym, ignored in school by his best friend, and dealing with his new stepdad and pregnant mom, Fanboy is just waiting to go to the Comic Con where he can finally meet Bendis and show him Schemata (which he just knows Bendis will love).
Enter Kyra, a goth girl with a mysterious past and a totally destructive attitude. The two form an unexpected friendship when she sees him getting pounded on in dodgeball, as the teacher stands oblivious talking to someone else. As the two precariously try to get through the daily grind of high school, they learn that the things that they want aren’t always as important as they’ve thought them to be.
A hilarious story, Fanboy and Goth Girl has a little fan-service in it for all comic book fans, geeks, goths, and those who just feel invisible and overlooked in high school. Full of angst and anxiety and humor, this is definitely one of the best books of 2006. Look for it in October, when it hits the stands (and the library!)
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Libby Brin is an IT girl. She’s funny, her parties are legendary, and she starts trends, whether she means to or not. And yet, she isn’t happy.
Libby is bored. Her friends bring her no comfort or joy. Her parents are going through changes, which travel down the line to make further impacts into the sudden non-sense that is her life.
When Libby signed up for an Internship at the Zoo she was confused, but when her friends razzed her about it she decided to see it through. In the end she gets herself kicked out, only to discover she’s come to love the place.
A quick read, full of laughs, and a pretty honest look into the decisions we face as we start to ask the bigger questions in life.
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