YA Pick: Spontaneous

Spontaneous
by Aaron Starmer
Dutton Books
2016
355 pages
ISBN: 9780525429746


Laugh out loud hilarious, Spontaneous will leave readers snorting with laughter.  Then they realize that they are laughing at a teenager  who just blew up. While that is not cause for laughter in a normal world, Starmer frames teens blowing up in such a comic way they it is instantly (spontaneously) hilarious. This kind of black comedy is rare in YA and done only by a few writers like Andrew Smith and Libba Bray.

When teens begin blowing up, Mara Carlyle  is present each time a classmate meets a  terrible demise. She has the record, in fact, of most teen blow-ups witnessed.  As time wears on, Mara treats it like combing her hair in the morning--just a part of life. Mara is glib, witty and chatty as the narrator and takes the reader on an entertaining journey through her senior year. While insensitive and blatant, Mara uses it as a coping mechanism against the blood and gore around her. Instead of breakups and make-ups, it's blow ups and clean ups. When it becomes obvious that kids from the senior class are blowing up and it's not some random thing that cannot be explained, the government gets involved and surrounds the city. The kids are now prisoners and then lab rats. What is causing the senior class of Covington High to blow up?  Is it something they ingested? Something they took in an illegal drug? Did they pick up a parasite? Is it a medical condition?

The agent covering the case is FBI agent Carla Rosetti who Mara secretly admires, even striving to be her best buddy. The agent lets her know that the government may indeed be involved. She gives Mara and her  bff Tess burner phones to contact her if they find out anything about the case.

Spontaneous is enjoyable and entertaining although some may find the ending disappointing as the cause of the blowups is never addressed. Readers will have to write their own ending to this novel.

Recommended for laughs! High school grades 9-up. Profanity, lots of sex, bad behavior, alcohol, drugs, partying like it's 1999--hey, they are all blowing up, you know.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Killer Thriller Pick: Project Cain

Project Cain
by Geoffrey Girard
Simon & Schuster
2013
352 pages
ISBN: 9781442476967

Terrifying, taut, terrific, tragic, and tremendous! Project Cain is a tour de force that grabs you up and won't let you go until you turn the last chilling page. Even then, you are destined to think about the premise of cloned serial killers and secret government genetic testing.

Fifteen  year old Jeff Jacobson's life goes from "normal" to nightmare in minutes. His whole life has been a lie. Not only is he NOT Jeff Jacobson, he is a clone of famous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeff's "father," a scientist and famed geneticist has raised hundreds of clones of famous serial killers for the government. Now, his father is hell bent on releasing the clones into the public and witnessing their killing spree. His father deserts Jeff and leaves behind a folder explaining Jeff's existence. He warns Jeff to stay away from his company and the government.

Jeff hides out at home and barely escapes government agent types who break in and take his dad's papers and computers. Later, Jeff hides from another killer, but Castillo finds him and takes him away. Castillo isn't the government and he isn't a good guy, but he's not a bad guy either.

Jeff learns just how dangerous the government can be from Castillo. The U.S. government has always done secret testing on various unknowing populations. The government admits to more than 100 illegal genetic tests and biological weapons studies. Military scientists have released toxins in the subways of New York just to see how many people would get sick. Jeff learns the U.S. did secret drug tests with LSD and other psychotic drugs just to see how people would act. Now, the government wants to clone the clones and use them in warfare as the perfect killing machines.

Jeff also learns that Castillo is an ex-soldier who spent time in Afghanistan, and now works as a "contractor" of sorts. Castillo is hunting for the escaped clones and he needs Jeff's help to find them.

As Jeff's grasp on sanity begins to weaken,  he has terrible nightmares...or are they really memories? Surely being the exact replica of a monster named Jeffrey Dahmer comes with some shared likenesses. Jeff starts seeing things that aren't really there, but at least he knows he's seeing things. When will Jeff become a killer? When will he lose his humanity?

Trying to decipher his father's secret code, Jeff realizes a chilling fact: his father expected him to solve the puzzle all along. Is that why he used things that Jeff would remember? Is his father testing him or toying with him? Castillo and Jeff  plan a trap for the killing clones. They travel the Murder Map together coming closer and closer to evil. The two "men" share more than they care to admit. Both are broken and bruised, but both are willing to die righting the wrongs of Jeff's father, whatever it takes.

This is a must read for horror and thriller fans. Project Cain is riveting and terrifying; brilliant storytelling and an adrenaline fueled plot will force teen (and adult) readers to burn the midnight oil to finish this one!

Highly, highly recommended grade 9-up. Mature situations, violence, language. Not for middle school.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Conspiracy Theory Pick: Adaptation

Adaptation
by Malinda Lo
Little, Brown and Company
2012
386 pages

Compelling, clever, twisted, and tense, Adaptation will have you looking under your bed and in closets, hurrying down dark streets and worrying that the guy in a dark suit might be following you.

Reese and David are at Phoenix Airport waiting on a flight home to San Francisco. They were just in a debate tournament and are looking forward to getting home. Reese knows she blew their chances at the win and worries that David is blaming her. She watches as birds begin falling from the sky onto the tarmac outside. Something’s wrong, Reese feels it. Then news stations start reporting plane crashes all over the country. Birds are downing aircraft. The president cancels all air traffic and Reese, David and their teacher are trapped—along with everyone else flying that day.

Suddenly there’s no cell phone reception either. The kids convince Mr. Chapman to rent a car and drive back home. When they stop for gas, Mr. Chapman is carjacked and shot. David starts the car and he and Reese race away from the crime scene as the gas station blows up. As the kids race through the desert, they are in a car accident.

When Reese wakes up, she doesn’t realize she’s been in a coma for twenty seven days. Where is Reese and why are the doctors keeping everything so hush-hush? David seems okay, too, but they both feel “different” somehow. After signing a non-disclosure agreement from the government, the kids agree to keep their treatment and the facility a secret and they are escorted home.

While they were in comas, the country has been put on lock-down. In many cities, rioting has occurred and the feds have enforced curfews and taken back the streets. Reese’s friend Julian has been working with a “conspiracy theory” Internet guru, and finds out about a government plot to keep the bird problem a secret. The government is hiding a lot more that a few thousand dead birds and Reese and David are right in the middle of the government’s secret program. A girl named Amber befriends Reese and soon they become much more than friends, but what is Amber’s secret? She says she’s trying to help Reese, but is she? (She immediately became suspect for me).

Reese and David notice that they’re not themselves. Their wounds heal in minutes and they are starting to understand each other’s thoughts. When Julian starts digging into Area 51 and uncovering government secrets, he unleashes a storm of publicity. Just what is going on in the Nevada desert? What happened to Reese and David?

The government conspiracy was easy to believe and even the fact that aliens had visited Earth was conceivable, but I felt the relationship between Amber and Reese was unbelievable; suddenly a girl wakes up from a coma, is greeted by government agents, is lied to, is forced to sign an agreement that places her in grave danger, and she turns around and trusts a complete stranger immediately with her secrets and her love? When Reese’s mother catches the two girls kissing, she has no reaction. Also, Reese’s mother is a lawyer with friends in high places, yet she accepts the fact that the government has had held her daughter for 27 days and returns her, yet she still has no reaction, legal or otherwise. It seemed almost as if Reese’s mother was involved in the conspiracy.

Recommended grade 8-up. Girl on girl kissing. Reese questions whether or not she is gay, but realizes she likes David, too. She has a discussion with Julian about whether she might be bisexual. The Amber/Reese relationship does not go any place and it’s over before it begins. Since there are gay characters in most prime time network television shows, students will likely look past her brief “like” with Amber. No language. Some violence.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my library. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Funny Pick: Spy School

Spy School
by Stuart Gibbs
Simon & Schuster
2012
304 pages

Just released March 6, 2012


I have 5 copies to of this exciting new book to give away here

Clever, comedic, cute, charming, witty, punny, and sensational, Spy School is seriously entertaining and delivers chortling, mad fun. Readers will laugh out loud by the incompetence of the nation's most skilled special agents and roll around the floor aching with side-splitting laughter as a twelve year old boy is able to take down the entire elite team of agents and hide out from surveillance and capture.

Ben Ripley is a "normal" 12-year old middle school boy--he's trying to survive his geeky phase and stay alive another day. On a normal, mundane day, he arrives home to find a CIA spy in his living room. James Bond sauve and debonair look-alike Alexander Hale explains that the CIA wants to hire Ben--they have been watching him for some time. Ben can't believe his luck! How did they find him? --Agent Hale explains that due to his 728 searches of the CIA website, Ben has caught their attention. Hale offers to send Ben to Spy School--all very hush-hush and top secret, of course. Ben's parents think he's off to attend Science Camp.

The moment Ben steps foot onto the grounds of the Academy, bullets start whizzing through the air. Someone's trying to kill him! Then, he's attacked in his dorm room by an armed assassin, but Ben fights him off in the pitch darkness using only his wits and a well-aimed tennis racquet.

The school is covering something up and it's up to Ben to find out what it is before he's hunted down and killed. With the help of Erica Hale (Alexander Hale's daughter), Ben searches for clues and puts himself in danger as a target for someone who trying to kill him and steal the secrets of Pinwheel--a top secret program that Ben is supposed to have invented--someone planted that lie in his files hoping to catch the mole at the Academy.

This gem of a spy story featuring loveable, nerdy kid Ben will amuse tween and teen readers. The mole and the mole's story set up for a sequel quite nicely. Readers will cheer as Ben is able to catch the mole and outsmart the adults, the administration and all the CIA agents.

Some of the funniest lines are when Ben asks Agent Hale if the Department of Education knows that there are test questions on their standardized tests inserted by the CIA. Hale responds, "I doubt it. They don't know much of anything over at Education."

When Ben meets Erica, he is speechless by her beauty and describes it by saying,"She even smelled incredible, an intoxicating combination of lilacs and gun-powder."

Professor Crandall in defending the CIA quips, "The people who run the CIA might be incompetent, paranoid, and borderline insane, but they're not psychotic."

Chapter titles are dripping with CIA chic, too. Titles include, "Intimidation," "Ninjas," "War," "Surveillance," "Ambush," and "Detonation" to name a few.

Highly, highly recommended grades 5-up. This is the funniest book of the year and I predict it will be on many state's recommended lists and Best Books of 2012.

No language, no sex, just good old funny spying and espionage.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.