A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me by Jason Schmidt

From inside jacket:

"Jason Schmidt wasn't surprised when he came home one day during his senior year of high school and found his father, Mark, crawling around on the kitchen floor in a giant pool of blood. Things like that had been happening a lot since Mark had been diagnosed with HIV three years earlier. From watching Mark get arrested in their living room when Jason was three years old to enduring a series of house fires, homelessness, and a bout of flesh-eating staph infection, Jason had figured out a long time ago that his home life wasn't like most other people's."

 

This book may not be for everybody, that being said I think this memoir is great. Jason seriously lives through some ordeals that you can't even fathom happening. This isn't a very PG rated book. There is swearing. There are situations that some parents may not want younger teens to read, but ironically many of those situations happened to Jason when he was even younger. 

This is a great read for teens that thinks their family is dysfunctional, have issues in their home life, or even feel lost.  Many of us have lived a sheltered life compared to Jason, but there are plenty of times while Jason is growing up that we can all relate to him. I think the major benefit of reading memoirs like Jason's is being able to step back from your own life. We are all egocentric but it's memoirs like these that we can appreciate people like Jason for their perseverance and honesty about their struggles in life, and ultimately reevaluate our own major problems in life and downgrade them to annoyances or, better yet, take them on with a new sense of tenacity.   

My only issue is that while Jason takes the majority of the 419 page book to tell us about his childhood and teen years, once he is on his own really struggling with his future, we only get the last page in the book tackling that. I would have liked to read about his struggle with adulthood and how he eventually came to peace with his dad (if he really did forgive him) and how much he has "settled down." 

my rating: A-

 

A.B.

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff

Jacket Art Copyright: The Heads of State

Inside jacket summary:

"Here's what Sam knows: There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, Sam's best friend is dead. All he left Sam was a playlist and a note, saying that he took his own life. But what Sam doesn't know is: why? To figure out what happened, Sam must rely on the playlist and his own memory. But the more he listens, the more he realizes that his memory isn't as reliable as he thought."

Based off the jacket, you really expect the story to center around the significance of this playlist Hayden leaves Sam before committing suicide. Very disappointingly, it really doesn't. The chapter names are songs on the playlist and while they are mentioned briefly at the beginning of the chapter, there is no real significance to the playlist in the story. So while some very cool songs are picked, there is no real meaning there and seems to be just a selling point for the book. Lame. 

There is no answer to why Hayden killed himself, which I understand the author choice in not answering that for Sam or any of the other characters, because ultimately with suicide one can't really ever know for sure. That being said, the author never really explained why Hayden kept something a secret from Sam. We are told that Sam and Hayden are more like brothers. Despite Hayden's awful parents and brother, he is able to find escape by being at Sam's house where he liked it more. Nothing that Hayden was facing really gives you the sense that he lead the worst life, especially when he had Sam. 

That wasn't the worst offense by the author. In the end, the author throws in the character of Astrid, who is a "friend" of Hayden, unbeknownst to Sam. After Hayden's death, Sam's search for answers really then just turn into a romance with Astrid. Which ultimately doesn't work out because Sam finds something out about Astrid that he simply can forgive. There was just way too many things and characters that just didn't do anything for the story which a shame. The premise of learning about your best friend through a playlist is interesting and is why I picked up this book, but don't be fool.

my rating: C-

A.B.

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Monster is one of Walter Dean Myers's most popular books and is occasionally taught in school. It is written as a script and journal, a unique style that I felt both helped and hurt the story. While I know teens enjoy the book, I felt that it lacked something.

Steve Harmon is a 16 year old boy who is on trial for participating in a robbery that ended in homicide. In order to cope with the reality that he might be facing life in prison, Steve documents what's going on during the trial in a script as if what's happening to him is actually a movie rather than his life. The story, therefore, is the trial written out as a script. Mixed into the script are the occasional journal entry that reveal some of Steve's inner thoughts and fears, along with a few flashbacks from his life.

The fact that this is written as a script makes it an exceptionally fast read, which probably appeals to a lot of teen readers. The novel also doesn't hold back too much on the unpleasant aspects of jail-life. In other words, it gives a decent reality check of what might happen if you get caught in an unsavory situation. On the other hand, Steve somehow seemed to escape the truly horrible aspects of jail on a personal level - others were abused but not him, yet he was probably the youngest one there. Is that realistic, especially since he doesn't explain how the others left him alone? Even though he doesn't cry at night, he still seems like an easy target. Did the author hold back so as not to offend or turn-off readers? At the same time time, I felt that the trial pulled back from the actual story - you're looking at it rather than being a part of it. True, that's what Steve seemed to be doing, but as a reader, it's better to be a part of it. The story lacked character development. People came in and out of the story without making a mark - although Myers does do a good job of giving the characters realistic voices, so they seem real but they could still be anyone. Even Steve, whose head we get into, seems to be missing something. You can't tell if he's innocent or guilty. I ended the novel wanting more. It all went by too fast.

For teens this is a great novel to introduce them to many different things from unique storytelling to trial life to consequences of actions to life in jail. There are many things to talk about such as whether or not he's really guilty or not, how does a person's past change his or her credibility, and how should Steve be punished if he was merely a participant yet not completely involved. While the novel does have that working for it, as a whole it still lacks something in my eyes in terms of story telling and development. A little more would have made it better.
MMK

Flash Burnout - L.K. Madigan

Blake's life is going good. He's got a great girlfriend, Shannon, he's got his guy friends to hang out with, and he's got Marissa, a girl he met in photography class last year as a freshman, as a friend too. While doing one of the photography assignments in Old Town, Blake takes a picture of Marissa's mother. Marissa sees the picture the next day, and she heads to Old Town. She finds her mother, brings her back to her grandma's house, and gets her into rehab for her meth addiction. Blake starts to spend more and more time with Marissa and less time with Shannon. One day Blake, Garret (Blake's brother), and Marissa go to the morgue because Blake's dad was talking about a drug overdose victim that came in the night before. Marissa fears its her mother, who's been missing for a few weeks. They break into the morgue, and find out it isn't Marissa's mother. Blake and Marissa spend the whole day together when Blake was supposed to go to Shannon's recital. Blake and Marissa end up having sex, and Blake takes a few pictures of her afterwords. The next day Shannon tells Blake her grandmother died, and she wanted to know why he wasn't answering her calls. After those two days Blake's world falls apart.

I really enjoyed this book. It tackles the question can guys and girls just be friends, which in Blake's case is good for awhile, but then certain urges take over and things fall apart. I also liked that it was told from the guys point of view. Flash Burnout won the 2010 William C Morris YA Debut Award at last months ALA Midwinter conference.

T.B. 2/10/10