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Still reeling from the unexpected death of his mother, the last thing 13-year-old Jack Baker wants is to be shipped off to boarding school.  But that's exactly what has happened.  Jack longs for Kansas and the home he's left behind.  Maine just isn't the same.  Even with his Navy captain father stationed nearby, Jack couldn't feel more adrift.  It's not like he really knows his father—a strict man who's been fighting in the European Theater for the last four years—but he'd rather be in Kansas with him than living on the shores of the Atlantic with a bunch of boys he doesn't know.  Jack's mother would have listened to his concerns; his father doesn't care.

It doesn't take long for Jack to realize he'll never quite fit in at Morton Hill Academy for Boys.  He's a hick, who gets nauseous just looking at the ocean.  Boats are as foreign to him as the moon—he certainly doesn't know how to row like the other boys.  And that's just the most noticeable difference between him and the others.  When Jack meets Early Auden, a strange kid who's mostly ignored by Morton Hill's staff and student body, he knows he's finally made a friend.  No one else hangs out with this oddest of boys, but with Early, Jack feels tolerated, if not accepted.  

When Early hatches a crazy plan to track an (allegedly) extinct bear, Jack wonders if his new pal might be not just weird, but actually insane.  And yet, Jack finds himself following his crazy friend on a wild adventure along the Appalachian Trail.  On the way, they'll encounter pirates, mountain men, and all sorts of other strange characters.  Will they locate the great Appalachian bear?  Or will the startling truths they discover about themselves be enough of a treasure to satisfy the young adventurers?

The best words I can think of to describe Navigating Early, a new middle grade novel by the Newbery Award-winning Clare Vanderpool, are the same adjectives with which the boys of Morton Hill labeled Early—strange, odd, weird, etc.  It really is a different kind of book, one that I'm just not sure its target audience is going to appreciate.  The story starts slowly, drags through the middle, and finally picks up at the end.  The question is, will young readers stick around that long?  Because, like I said, it's a strange little book.  And the tale pretty much centers around math.  I mean, its real themes are friendship, loyalty and overcoming grief, but there's a lot of talk about the number pi.  Odd for a children's book.  The writing itself isn't bad, it's just that the story scoots along at such a snail's pace that I grew bored with it very quickly.  Honestly, if I hadn't been reading it as part of my volunteer work at my kids' school, I wouldn't have gotten past the first couple chapters.  I just can't imagine young readers seeing it through to the end either.  

(Readalikes:  Reminds me a little of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain)

Grade:  C+

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  PG for scary images and violence

To the FTC, with love:  I borrowed a copy of Navigating Early from my children's elementary school library as part of my volunteer work with the school's homegrown reading program.

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Astronaut Elle McClure walked away from a threatened space mission unscathed—Matt Beaulieu is pretty sure his fearless wife can survive anything.  But when Elle suffers a traumatic brain injury after falling off a ladder, she slips into a coma from which, experts say, she's unlikely to awaken.  As much as he hates to let her go, Matt knows Elle had strong opinions about prolonging the lives of people in vegetative states.  She didn't want to suffer a slow, agonizing death, the way her mother did.  Maybe Elle never put her wishes in writing, but Matt is 100% sure his bright, adventurous wife would not want to waste away in a hospital bed.  And he's prepared to honor her wishes, however difficult it might be for him to take her off life support.  

Then, Matt receives news that changes everything:  Elle is eight weeks pregnant.  After suffering through multiple life-threatening miscarriages, the 38-year-old is carrying a baby who appears to be healthy.  Matt knows there's only one thing that would have made Elle reconsider her desire not to have her life lengthened by artificial means—the chance to bear a child.  It was the one thing she wanted above anything else, the one thing she longed for, hoped for, would have sacrificed her own life for (and nearly did).  Matt knows this and he's determined to make the decision in her place, no matter what anyone else thinks of his choice.  

Living with himself, though, is an entirely different thing.  As Matt watches his wife's body shut down, he's wracked with torment.  How can he do this to the woman he's loved since childhood?  It doesn't help that his plight has turned into a media circus, bringing all kinds of journalists and protesters right to his front door.  Even his mother doesn't trust his judgment.  With a court case looming, Elle's body shutting down, and Matt's emotional state becoming more fragile by the hour, it's a race against time to save the person that matters most to Matt—but is that his wife or his baby?  

In her debut novel, The Promise of Stardust, Priscille Sibley puts her characters into an impossible situation.  Through them, she examines complicated themes like love, family, and the rights of comatose people and unborn children.  Hot button issues, all.  As a neonatal intensive care nurse, Sibley obviously has strong feelings about the issues, as well as the knowledge and compassion to address them in an open-minded, yet sensitive manner.  Still, the situation felt a little unconvincing to me.  The characters who opposed Matt's decision to keep Elle alive came off as callous and cold-hearted.  Maybe this comes from the story being told by only one narrator (Matt), but I found myself unable to sympathize with anyone but him (and Elle, of course).  And I didn't even find Matt particularly likable!  So, yeah, I would have liked a better rounded story with a cast I cared more about.  Having just read Lone Wolf, a Jodi Picoult novel with a similar premise, I've decided I like Picoult's multiple-narrator approach a lot more than Sibley's Matt-only format.  The former just provides a fuller, more thought-provoking story.  

So, what did I think of The Promise of Stardust, overall?  It's decent.  The characters didn't do a lot for me, the writing's a little bumpy and the main situation just didn't seem all that convincing to me, BUT the novel was still thoughtful and interesting.  It definitely kept me turning pages.  Did it knock my socks off?  No, but it held my interest well enough.  For the most part, it's a decent read.   

(Readalikes:  Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult)

Grade:  B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  R for strong language and mild sexual content

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of The Promise of Stardust from the generous folks at Harper Collins.  Thank you!

   

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Pandora Walker's as plugged in as the next teenager.  Like all her friends, the 17-year-old spends hours texting on her cell phone, scrolling through Facebook updates, and playing her favorite virtual-reality games.  But when her laptop starts interacting with her—well, that's when things get really weird.  

It all begins when Pandora opens a mysterious e-mail, supposedly from her long-lost father.  Downloading the included attachments triggers a chilling message from her favorite online game:  Beat the Game.  Save the World.  Pandora's sure the whole thing is just some elaborate prank, but when the Internet crashes, the phone lines quit working and cities around the nation go dark, she's convinced that this is no joke.  She has to believe what she's reading on her computer screen—in ten days, life as she knows it will end.  The only way to save it?  Beat a terrifying, very real version of Pandora's Box, the most popular virtual reality game in the world.  Pandora hasn't even mastered the original—how is she supposed to conquer this one?  It's impossible, but she has to play.  And win.

When the FBI shows up on her doorstep, accusing Pandora of cyber terrorism, she realizes she's going to have to save the world on the run.  Along with her neighbors, two stepbrothers she barely knows, Pandora's racing across the South trying to figure out game clues that are astonishingly personal.  With chaos reigning on the streets, surviving in the real world's becoming just as dangerous as fighting monsters in the game.  Even if she can level up enough to beat Pandora's Box, she might not survive looters, street gangs and the government agents who won't give up until they have her behind bars.  As the world falls to pieces around her, Pandora plays as well as she can, as fast as she can—but it may not be enough to save herself, let alone the planet, from total annihilation.

Although the plot of Doomed, a new YA dystopian thriller by Tracy Deebs, gets confusing, it's engrossing enough to keep readers engaged.  The gaming aspect keeps the story (somewhat) fresh, although there's plenty of the same ole, same ole as far as dystopian elements go.  I found Pandora sympathetic, but annoying, especially since her affections kept flip-flopping between her two travel companions.  Fickle much, Miss Walker?  Also, the story gets a little far-fetched (okay, a lot far-fetched).  Overall, though, I found Doomed to be a fast-moving, action-packed thriller compelling enough that I digested it pretty much in one sitting.  It didn't bowl me over or anything, but I still enjoyed the read.     

(Readalikes:  Reminded me a bit of The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken and Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon)  

Grade:  B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  R for strong language (half a dozen F-bombs, plus milder invectives), violence and sexual inneundo

To the FTC, with love:  I received an e-galley of Doomed (via NetGalley) from the generous folks at Bloomsbury.  Thank you!

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Eleven years ago, in the middle of a fierce snowstorm, 5-year-old Sadie Rose was found in a snowbank, frozen almost to death.  She hasn't uttered a word since.  Only vague memories of that night remain, which is just as well.  Why would Sadie Rose want to remember the night she wandered into the blizzard looking for her mother, only to discover the woman had drunk herself to death?  It was better this way, wasn't it?  Instead of growing up in the brothel where her mother worked, she's being reared in a senator's home, enjoying all the luxuries his wealth can buy.  So what if the Worthingtons won't officially adopt her?  This life is infinitely better than the one Sadie Rose would have had otherwise.  Isn't it?

When Sadie Rose finds some old photographs of her mother, a powerful curiosity is awakened inside her.  Who was her mother, really?  What led her to succumb to a life of prostitution?  And what really happened on the night she died?  As Sadie Rose tries to make sense of the blurry images that haunt her memory and learn the truth about her past, she makes an even more powerful discovery—her voice.  But what she has to say could ruin reputations, if not lives.  And there are people out there who would gladly silence her forever ...

Set during a tumultuous time in history—a time of Prohibition and dirty politics—Frozen by Mary Casanova is a stirring drama about the eternal struggle between the powerful and the powerless.  Sadie Rose is a sympathetic heroine with a worthy goal.  It's easy to root for her success.  The novel's plot moves swiftly, keeping the story chugging along.  It feels contrived in places and the ending's too tidy, but all in all, it's a decent mystery that's both atmospheric and affecting.        

(Readalikes:  Reminded me a little bit of Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys)

Grade:  B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  PG-13 for language (no F-bombs), sexual content and violence

To the FTC, with love:  I received an e-galley of Frozen from the generous folks at University of Minnesota Press (via NetGalley).  Thank you!