The Twilight Saga

I read the much buzzed about YA Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I was transported to the little town of Forks, Washington where a teenage love triangle has just sprung into bloom. This is not a typical love triangle, however, (nor is it entirely teen-aged!) consisting of a human girl named Bella, a vampire, Edward, and the werewolf, Jacob. They’re pretty indulgent books, with entire paragraphs dedicated to Edward’s hard marble-like skin and deep, endless ocher colored eyes, (not to mention Jacob’s inhumanly warm, russet colored skin) but I was fascinated by the story, to be honest!
One of the more interesting plot lines is the existence of the ancient coven of vampires in Italy known as the Volturi. They are a collection of especially talented vamps that make sure their entire race stays under the human radar. One vampire myth is also squashed with the revelation that the sun does not burn them. They avoid it because if they ARE caught in the sunlight, it would attract lots of unwanted attention from humans for their skin sparkles like thousands of diamonds, and casts tiny little rainbows everywhere.
There are three books so far. Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, with the next book, Breaking Dawn, tentatively set to be released Fall of ’08. Meyer leaves lots of burning questions unanswered, including The Big One. How will Bella give up her humanity and forsake her parents to become immortal for Edward?

Young Adult Staff Summer Reading

I read 4 YA books for this summer project and wrote up little summaries of each title (okay, sometimes I am an overachiever). Here they are:

1. James Patterson – Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports – This is the third of the Maximum Ride series. Max continues to try to protect her flock of recombinant DNA bird kids from evil scientists and a variety of wolf people, find out information about their backgrounds, and oh yeah, in her spare time, literally save the world. The book is a very fast read, or listen, as many Patterson books are. It does answer many questions posed in the previous two books as it was supposedly the final book in the trilogy. However, it also leaves enough open for more books to follow.
   
2. Gene Luen Yang – American Born Chinese – This book, winner of the 2007 Michael L. Printz award, is a graphic novel depicting three seemingly unrelated stories. They are then woven into one ending which powerfully conveys the theme of cultural identity and ultimately personal acceptance.
   
3. John Green – An Abundance of Katherines – Aging child prodigy, Colin Singleton is good at languages and being dumped by all of the girls he has dated. All of which are named Katherine. After being by Katherine XIX immediately following graduation, he sets off with his best friend on a road trip. There he begins to develop his theorem of the predictability of relationships, which he hopes will define him as a genius and cause him to matter in the world. There is a lot of math in this book, even more fully explained in an appendix (which I will admit I skipped). It is an interesting twist on what could have just been another guy gets dumped story.
   
4. Rachel Cohen and David Levithan – Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Set amidst the chaotic backdrop of the NYC punk music scene, this book details one long evening in which two high school seniors, who meet by accident, find that they may be what each other has been looking for all along. The story is told in alternating voices, which makes for some interesting viewpoints as we see the action through each person’s eyes. A very well done story, however potential readers should be cautioned in that there is a lot of strong language and sexual content (hetero and homosexual) throughout.