YA Review: No Good Deed

No Good Deed
by Goldy Moldavsky
Scholastic
2017
352 pages
ISBN: 9780545867511

Available May 30, 2017

No Good Deed is set up around a promising premise. Young activists are chosen by billionaire entrepreneur/do good-er Robert Drill (who is a caricature of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates) to  attend a teen summer camp/activism competition. Gregor Maravilla is excited to get an invitation to attend  his idol's camp. He dreams of winning the internship to work alongside Robert Drill, his long time hero.

Sarcasm and zingers abound but most of the characters never come to life. No Good Deed satirises  activism's flaws and the p.c. fishbowl that we live in.  Gregor keeps getting called "white" and insists he is half-Mexican although no one believes him. Half the humor comes from Gregor trying to direct his inner thoughts to be p.c. He has to keep apologizing to himself for even his own thought process.

Every camper is competing for his/her own cause--the more far-fetched, the funnier. At least that's how the book is supposed to read. The kids are so checked out and into themselves that they don't bother knowing anyone else's real name. They refer to each other by their specific cause. There's I Like Paint, Feed the Children, Men's Rights, Seat Belt Safety, and Diabetes.

Gregor is not excited that teen movie star Ashley Woodhouse is at the camp. Her campaign is Eat Dirt which she insists is a real thing. Eating dirt would save the planet according to Ashley and end world-wide hunger. Gregor keeps trying to avoid Ashley, yet everywhere he turns, she pops up.

Moldavsky's debut Kill the Boy Band is a tough act to follow. Goldy Moldavsky is still funny, but her humor is contagious when her protagonists are female and flawed. In No Good Deed, Gregor never engages as the central force of this novel.

Grade 9 and up. Some humor and funny moments, but this one falls short.

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

High School Pick: Grasshopper Jungle

Grasshopper Jungle
by Andrew Smith
Dutton
2014
388 pages
ISBN: 9780525426035

Irreverent, irrepressible, irrational, and irresistible, Grasshopper Jungle breaks the mold for YA fiction. There are no shiny, pretty  vampires or hot werewolves; the protagonist is not a smoldering hunk. The love interest is not a hot, lean, long-legged vixen. The setting is not Gothic--nor exciting, nor metropolitan, nor the least bit "cool." Ealing, Iowa, is probably the most un-cool place on the planet, or so thinks our protagonist Austin Szerba. Austin tells the history of the world according to Austin, and the reader has to trust him because he's the only historian left to tell the tale.

Austin and best friend Robby spend their days chain smoking cigarettes, talking about the town's few people, wasting time before college, and skating (skateboarding). When they go up against a gang of bullies, Robby and Austin lose their boards and have to venture up to the roof to retrieve their shoes. This sets in motion the beginning of the end. Up on the roof, the boys notice a trapdoor  into the store below, and being curious-- and teenagers--they decide it would be okay to go inside the store after hours just to "look around."  Austin had always wanted to see what was in the boss's office anyway. The boys get an eyeful of that strange and weird office of doom. From a two headed baby to a jar of human hands, Austin's boss Johnny McKeon collects bizarre stuff. The boys look around but leave everything intact. If only every burglar left those jars intact, the plague that takes over would never have been set free.

Soon the town of Ealing faces an invasion of giant man-eating grasshoppers and no one is safe. Austin, Robby and Shann go underground...literally...to stay alive.  The trio uncovers the secret of Ealing and its early sci-fi experiments gone wrong. This coming of age story is truly like no other!

Friends Robby and Austin are lovable and laugh out loud funny. When visiting Shann's house, the boys question whether the house has a demonic presence or just smells like people died inside. Robby says, "You should get that kind of air freshener ##@* that you plug into outlets so it masks the scent of death and decay with springtime potpourri."

Smith delivered with Winger, and he continues to capture boyish bad behavior and humorous sarcasm. Austin is a true mess--overflowing with teen angst and ironic wit--he is a character you are not likely to forget...EVER! Andrew Smith may have just written this generation's answer to The Catcher in the Rye, and Austin Szerba will go down in literary circles as the new Holden Caulfield.

The book design is nothing short of genius. The bright neon green cover with even brighter yellow page edges set this book off on any shelf.

Highly, highly recommended grade 9-up. Overflowing with profanity and witty charm, this book is a real hoot! Sexual references and innuendo, mature situations, the end of the world and doom!

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)

Hilarious Pick: Gorgeous

Gorgeous
by Paul Rudnick
Scholastic Press
2013
320 pages


Scathingly satirical, causticly comic, wickedly witty, in-your-face pun-y, and filled with more laughs per second than any comedy show, Gorgeous slapped me in the face and made me laugh until I cried. From the very first irreverent paragraph,  I was hooked and better yet, pleasantly shocked! Rudnick has that rare, ethereal gift of winsome wit that many fiction writers would kill for. David Sedaris (the funniest writer I've ever read) says, "Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth and love and great wicked humor, whom we ignore at our peril."

Becky Randle grew up in a trailer in East Trawley, Missouri, the daughter of a morbidly obese mother who dreams of Hollywood, glamour, movies and the good life. Just before her mother dies, she makes Becky promise that if something magical shows up, Becky should play along. She swears there will be magic and that Becky should use it. When getting some of her mother's old clothes ready for charity, Becky happens upon a phone number with an area code in New York. Becky calls the number and a woman sends her a plane ticket and some cash to come to New York. Becky is confused; why would someone, a complete stranger, send her money and a ticket to New York?  She enlists the help of best friend Rocher--whose mother named her after the box of fancy chocolates, famous for their gold wrappers. Rocher convinces Becky to take the ticket already  and get on that plane. If this isn't magic, what is?

Becky is whisked away by chauffeur to meet mysterious Tom Kelly, a designer so revered that he has become a recluse even from the world of high fashion. He tells Becky he will make her three dresses: one red, one black and one white. The dresses will magically make her the World's Most Beautiful Woman. The magic only lasts one year. Within that year, Becky must meet and marry Mr. Right or the magic wears off.

Wearing Tom's couture designs, Becky is immediately transformed to Rebecca Randle.  Her legs morph into supermodel legs, her skin becomes flawless, she is drop dead gorgeous.The kind of gorgeous that is simply other-worldly.  Everyone clamors to meet the new "It" girl. Soon, she's on the cover of Vogue and tapped to film a movie with hot Hollywood teen hunk Jate Mallow. The press is soon calling them Jatecca and papparazzi snap their every move.

Rebecca revels in the attention but finds it a bit vapid...that is, until she meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne. Suddenly, Becky knows what she must do. She must marry the prince and use her beauty and his power to help change the world!

What happens when a normal girl from nowhere rubs elbows with the A-list and British royalty? A hilarious romp that will have readers laughing out loud and quite possibly rolling around on the floor, gasping for breathe.

Libba Bray, no slouch to fierce and sardonic wit herself, wrote," Rudnick's considerable talents as a satirist as he uproariously eviscerates our celebrity-mad, class-concious, appearance-obsessed, reality-TV-vapid culture with puckish delight." (New York Times Book Review).

Highly, highly recommended grade 9-up. Profanity runs amok but it's so funny!

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC 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)

High School Pick: Beauty Queens

Beauty Queens
by Libba Bray
Scholastic Press
2011
page count not yet determined, the arc had 396 pages
Hardcover available May 24, 2011

Quick, biting, satiric, sardonic, and sophisticated, Beauty Queens is Libba Bray's best young adult novel to date. Bray is the queen of the one-two punch and is the teen set's David Sedaris.

Teen contestants from across the United States are on board a jet carrying them to a beach destination where they will set up a photo shoot. The plane goes down killing the camera crew, pilots, adult sponsors, and many of the contestants. Miss Texas (of course, Miss Texas, who else?) Taylor Rene Crystal Hawkins takes over as the leader of the few Teen Dream contestants left alive. You can almost hear the twang in her voice when she tells the other girls what to do and continues to grill them on their pageant practices.



The girls are ill-prepared and even less equipped to last long on an island where they have no electricity, no running water, no spray tans, and no beauty parlors. First they lament their lack of necessities like hair extensions and shaving cream; then they get busy creating an existance, still hoping someone is looking for them and that they will be saved soon.



Meanwhile, the island is a hotbed of smuggling and weapons deals: the Corporation--the same company that sponsors the Teen Dream Pageant--is selling weapons to Mo Mo Be ChaCha, ruler of the Republic of ChaCha. The girls' presence on the island must be dealt with; no one can risk the eyes of the world on the island and the rescue of teen-age girls--much less nubile beauty contestants lost at sea who overcame great odds and built a civilization of their own. Imagine the headlines! Beauty Queens Spoil Arms Deal!



Bray's footnotes are hilarious. About Che Guevara, she writes, "the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who later became a best-selling t-shirt icon."

When Miss New Mexico exticates herself from the plane, an airline food tray is lodged in her forehead. As she is crying and begging the girls to remove it, Taylor suggests that she just grow bangs to help hide the tray!



Later Taylor says, "Let's not speak ill of the dead, no matter how hideous their fashion sense," referring to Miss Massachusetts' choice of evening gown.

State stereotypes abound and Bray has fun with them. Audina, Miss Ohio, tells the girls, "I'm from the Buckeye State. We are serious about our tailgating parties. I can turn ANYTHING into a grill."



Teens and adults who love satire and lunacy will love Beauty Queens. It reminded this reader of "Idiocracy" the film that made fun of how stupid Americans have become. Reality television has corrupted our thinking, and Bray has fun pointing this fact out.



Highly, highly recommended for high school collections. Grades 9-up. Language, sex, mature themes, mature humor.

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