The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Science is amazing. It is absolutely incredible to think of the things we can do today that we couldn't do 100 year ago or 50 years ago... My Uncle Bus just celebrated his 90th birthday. He lives in St. Louis and his kids live in California and South Carolina and he visits them often. "After all," he says, "they are just a short airplane ride away." That is so different from his childhood when he grew up in Kansas and Oklahoma and never traveled very far from his home until he joined the army and they sent him to WWII. Uncle Bus talks about his pacemaker and his heart by-passes and the many things that the doctors can do now that they couldn't do before. And all that raises the question of how much should we do just because we can. Cloning, genetic engineering and other biological advances are possible, but does that make them ethical?

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson explores these questions. Jenna Fox has been in an accident and was in a coma for over a year. When she wakes up, her parents have moved her from Boston to California and she can't remember anything about her past. Slowly these memories come back, and Jenna learns some disturbing truths about herself. Jenna discovers that she can recite Thoreau and tell about obscure events in history and she can remember things that happened when she was only a year old, but she can't remember the accident and what happened to her friends Kara and Locke. After much exploration, Jenna finally understands the horror of what has happened and what she truly is. The excitement of the novel is what she decides to do about it.

This is a great novel about what makes us human and the extents parents will go to in order to save a child, but it is more than that. I don't want you to think this is a boring book that makes you think. It is an exciting adventure of self-discovery. The people Jenna meets and the choices she makes build to a thrilling climax. This book will make you think, but it is also an truly enjoyable story.

Paper Towns by John Green

I will start off by saying that I love John Green. His book Looking for Alaska was a Printz award winner for the best YA book of the year a couple of years ago. But I think that I liked An Abundance of Katherines even better because of how quirky it was. It was a Printz honor book. Green seems to remember what it was like to be young and even though his books have male narrators and main characters, they can be enjoyed by both male and female readers. Additionally his books have just the right mix of serious and humorous elements. They are a joy to read.

Paper Towns is John Green's latest novel and it is just as good as the other two. Quentin has lived next door to the fabulous Margo Roth Spiegelman almost his entire life. While they were good friends when they were younger, now that they are in high school, they exist in entirely different circles. Margo is part of the popular crowd while Quentin is a geek. However, Quentin is quite content with his station in life and has no desire to be part of the popular group. But he loves the exotic and chaotic Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar or at least across the street.

One month before his high school graduation and one week before prom, Q is shocked when he finds Margo outside his window in the middle of the night. She has planned an adventure and wants Q to go with her. The adventure involves righting the many wrongs of the world. The conservative Q has the time of his life and can't wait to tell his friends about it the next day at school. However, the next day, Margo doesn't show up to school and Q discovers that she has disappeared. Her parents say that she has run off AGAIN and since she is 18, they refuse to look for her. But Q thinks there the something strange going on and he sets out to find her. To help the search, Margo leaves strange clues for him to find and Q worries that maybe Margo has gone off somewhere to die. Through the search for Margo, Q discovers that he is searching not just for the person, but for who Margo really is. Add in Q's two best friends and Margo's friends and Green produces a story that you can't put down until the last page.

How to Be Bad by E. Lockhart

I know this sounds really nerdy, but I like the idea of authors talking about writing and working together. Although it isn't true, I think of the world of Young Adult Literature as being a small tight-knit community where the authors know each and discuss their upcoming books. I think this idea was fostered by Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, two very popular YA authors. I really enjoyed their collaboration and the book that resulted which is now out in a movie, by the way. I hope to get a chance to see it one of these days.

How to Be Bad by E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle is another one of those great collaboratory efforts by very popular YA authors. E. Lockhart has written The Boy Book and The Boyfriend List as well as The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, a book that is getting lots of talk as the award season starts. Sarah Mlynowski has written Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses, neither of which I have read. Lauren Myracle has written TTYL and TTFN two interesting books that are written as instant messages between three girls. The three authors of How to Be Bad are well established in YA Chick Lit and this novel is a great example!

How to Be Bad is about three very different girls who develop a close friendship while on a road trip from Niceville, Florida to Miami. Vicks, Jesse and Mel all want the same thing to get out of Niceville for a while. Vicks' boyfriend Brady has left town to attend the University of Miami and she has only heard from him once in the two weeks since he has been gone. Jesse is dealing with her mother's recent diagnosis of breast cancer and she just wants to get away. So Jesse comes up with the idea to go see Brady in Miami. However, neither Jesse nor Vicks has any money, so when Mel offers to go along and pay for the gas, they jump at the idea. Wealthy Mel has just moved to town and she wants to fit in. So the three girls embark on an adventure that leads them through a hurricane, into a fight with an alligator, to Epcot Center and finally to Miami. Through their adventures, the girls learn many things about themselves and their friendship.

The three girls alternate chapters taking turns telling the story, so the reader gets to know all three girls and what they are feeling. It is a fun story, but also one that makes you appreciate the friendships in your life.

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox is one of those books that I just couldn't put down. It was odd and different from anything I have read before and yet I had to find out what was going to happen. It is really an amazing book--weird and wonderful.

I first picked up Dreamhunter when the sequel Dreamquake was selected as a Prinz honor book last spring. I wanted to read it but decided that I need to read the first book in the series. It took me several months, but I finally got to the bottom of my "To Be Read" pile and there it was. And I am glad that I finally read it!

Dreamhunter is set in a world where only certain people can enter a mystical location known only as the "The Place." Only certain gifted people can entire "The Place"; others walk right over it. But the gifted people known as dreamhunters are transported to a place where they catch dreams that they later share with the others of the community. There are dream palaces where people go to sleep and share in the dreams of the deamhunter. People pay to share these dreams and good dreamhunters can become very wealthy.

Cousins Laura and Rose belong to the first family of dreamhunters. Laura's father discovered "The Place" many years before and Rose's mother is a very famous dreamer. When Laura discovers that she has inherited the gift from her father, she must deal with the fears of entering "The Place" alone. To add to Laura's reservations, her father disappears leaving strange clues for only her to find. Laura must follow these clues to discover what has happened to her father. But more than finding her father, Laura finds the government secrets of how these dreams can be used against the people. Now Laura must decide how much of what she knows to share with her family and her community and how to protect herself from the dangers that follow.

This is a fascinating story of the power of dreams and nightmares. I can't wait to read the next book!

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. James Sveck is 18 years old and enrolled in Brown for the Fall term; however, New Yorker James does not want to attend college instead he wants to buy a house in the Midwest and read the Classics. He is a loner who doesn't really fit in. He is different and doesn't like other people especially people his own age and following a disastrous experience with a national student seminar in Washington D.C., he concludes that he is better off alone.

This book is a wonderful coming of age novel in which James struggles with his sexual preferences and what he wants from the future. At times it is difficult to like James as he tells his story, but still I hoped that he would discover his way and his place in the world.