Hey Teen Books Hey

Summer Library Tour Destination #3: Northbrook Public Library On...

rudeflower — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:52:00 -0500

Summer Library Tour

Destination #3: Northbrook Public Library

On Father’s Day the only thing my dad wanted to do was go to Northbrook Public Library. He spent the drive over raving about their CD cataloging system.

I come by my library obsession honestly you guys.

Anyway I immediately found the Teen Section which was terribly well organized. Especially the nonfiction section. The books were separated and labeled by type (Biography, poetry, etc). Northbrook has the biggest YA collection I’ve seen. I went over to the juv desk to ask how many books they had in the collection, and that’s where I met Summer, the teen librarian.

Northbrook has a teen volunteer program with 43 volunteers. Overall teenage patrons come to the library for recreation rather than school, so the programs are focused on encouraging reading and volunteering. They also have an indoor greenhouse. Greenhouse. What kind of library has a greenhouse? A very cool one.

Books I Checked Out:

Garage Band by Gipi
Leave Myself Behind by Bart Yates
Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks

-Becky

Omg i know that book, i just can't remember the name :/

streetsbehindyou — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:18:58 -0500

At least now we know it exists. Next step: the goddamn title.

-Allyx

so im convinced that this book no longer exists. I don't know the name or author. its about a punk who throws his tv out the window and steals the family car, goes to his coworker's house who happens to be a skinhead and they go to a comicon like event. that's as far as a read from the library but if anyone knows what the name of the book is please let me know because I cant find it.

streetsbehindyou — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:12:48 -0500

We need to find out the title of this book. Because now I want to read it. Any takers?

-Allyx

I’m partial to #2, but that may be because it’s the...

streetsbehindyou — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:10:48 -0500

I’m partial to #2, but that may be because it’s the copy I own.

-Allyx

Which cover is your favorite?

Garage Band by Gipi When Giuliano’s father loans him the...

rudeflower — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:53:00 -0500

Garage Band by Gipi

When Giuliano’s father loans him the family garage, he and three of his friends form a band. Playing their battered secondhand instruments, the four teenagers find something they love to do, and they find in their friendship and music a refuge from difficult and turbulent home lives. But when their only amp blows a fuse, a desperate search for some new equipment lands them in more trouble than they ever saw coming.

Loved the art. Harsh lines and watercolor painting. All the characters had very unique faces that were easy to tell apart. Which shouldn’t be special, but it is.
The art is much stronger than the plot. With 4 lead characters to cover in 114 pages, there wasn’t enough time to care about the band.
At the end there’s a few pages of concept sketches that I absolutely loved.

Overall rating: B+ (apparently I do ratings now)

-Becky

I'm a sucker for romance. most of the novels I've read has romance in it. I was wondering if you can suggest at least 5 books that you like that has a romantic plot? I'd really appreciate it if it were the kinds of books that aren't really popular? if that's possible? Thanks! :)

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:08:00 -0500

I’m not sure I’ve even read 5. Here’s some goodreads lists though.

-Becky

What is your favorite graphic novel?

rudeflower — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:15:00 -0500

Definition: A novel in comic strip format

Ghost World by Daniel Clowers I am covet with hyper-realistic...

rudeflower — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:11:00 -0500

Ghost World by Daniel Clowers

I am covet with hyper-realistic dialogue. Dialogue in books usually doesn’t sound like the conversations we have every day. And rightfully so, most conversations are boring to an outsider and in my experience humans only say stuff like “We accept the love we think we deserve” once a month. So I always get excited about books with mundane conversations and abrupt topic changes.

The characters in Ghost World are very human and unapologeticly flawed. The way Enid and Rebecca spoke to each other (Lots of white lies. God I love white lies) was the best part of the book. And there wasn’t much else to the story, it’s very dialogue driven and focused on micromoments in Enid’s life. As much as I loved the dialogue, the actual narrative was pretty one note, with very similar situations repeated with slightly different emotional content. Which is fine for a serial comic, but I wouldn’t recommend reading Ghost World in one sitting.

Basically I loved the boring, but was kind of bored.

-Becky

hellyeah-bookcovers: Which cover is better?

streetsbehindyou — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 21:22:44 -0500

hellyeah-bookcovers:

Which cover is better?

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME COVER. So simple and scary. The cover paper...

rudeflower — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:03:09 -0500

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME COVER. So simple and scary. The cover paper is shiny and scaly. No tag lines, not even the authors name. Just one word. I could get behind more covers like this.

-Becky

Official Trailer for Geography Club. Based on the book by Brent...

rudeflower — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:27:00 -0500

Official Trailer for Geography Club. Based on the book by Brent Hartinger

Have you read the second book to delirium?

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:15:29 -0500

I haven’t. While I totally get why the it’s a hit, I didn’t like the first book enough to commit to the series.

-Becky

People keep talking while I'm reading

streetsbehindyou — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:34:08 -0500

yourewelcomeforbeingmyfriend:

I have already read the Mortal Instruments, but was wondering if you had an opinion at all on them. Personally, I love them...

streetsbehindyou — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:40:46 -0500

They’re near the top of my “to read” list. I’m determined to read at least the first one before the movie comes out.

-Allyx

bookgeekconfessions: Goodnight, Geeks!

rudeflower — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:57:41 -0500

bookgeekconfessions:

Goodnight, Geeks!

Trigger Warnings for "The File on Angelyn Stark"

rudeflower — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:46:00 -0500

The book I just reviewed has many triggering topics. I would feel wrong to not include warnings. They are under the cut

Sexual abuse of a child
Victim blaming
Abuse in a romantic relationship (verbal, emotional, pressuring for sex)
Verbal abuse from a parent
Teacher breaking appropriate boundaries

The File on Angelyn Stark by Catherine Atkins Angelyn Stark has...

rudeflower — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:33:00 -0500

The File on Angelyn Stark by Catherine Atkins

Angelyn Stark has a secret.

One day, her neighbor and friend, Nathan, saw something happen. Something between Angelyn and her stepfather. Then he told his grandmother, who was always looking out for Angelyn, and it turned into a mess. But Nathan didn’t know what he was talking about then, and he doesn’t know now.

Three years later, Angelyn is in high school and she thinks she’s getting along fine—but there’s a young teacher who wants to help her. He says she has potential she isn’t living up to. Nobody has ever cared this way about Angelyn, not since Nathan’s grandmother, anyway. But what does Mr. Rossi really want from her? And once Angelyn starts falling for him, does she really care?

The File on Angelyn Stark simply asks the reader to bear witness. In today’s dystopian saturated genre, it’s a small scale story about every day conflict. That the conflict isn’t at all rare is what makes it a shattering read.

The narrative is very clearly told by Angelyn. The dialogue and vernacular as specific to Anngelyn and where she lives, which was very refreshing. Many books in first person are affected by the author’s voice, but it was just Angelyn.

Almost all the prose is dialogue, and any time Angelyn’s thoughts were revealed they were short and reactive. The File on Angelyn Stark has no three paragraph epiphanies. At times the heavy-dialogue format muddled the story. There were many times the characters changed locations without a clear signifyer because there were nearly no descriptions.

However, the format served to make the story very stark. Reading a frank conversation about the sexual abuse Angelyn suffered carried great weight because as a reader, I couldn’t distract myself thinking about what the characters were wearing or what the weather was like. With only dialogue, every painful part of the story demanded your full attention.

Any writers struggling with purple prose should read this book as an example of how minimal language can be effective. It’s a short read, but is quite emotionally exhausting.

-Becky

"Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of..."

streetsbehindyou — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:25:48 -0500

“Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.”

- Virginia Woolf (via reconciled718)

theartofnotwriting: All the Divergent movie images so far! (All...

streetsbehindyou — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 21:05:41 -0500

theartofnotwriting:

All the Divergent movie images so far!

(All images courtesy of EW.com— 1, 2, 3— and taken by Jaap Buitendijk.)

First 3 official Divergent stills

rudeflower — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:08:13 -0500

First 3 official Divergent stills