A Review of Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber

This is one of those books I wanted to read mostly because of the title, also because it seemed to have that Cohn/Levithan flavor. While Au Revoir is certainly a clever read, it zooms by a little too fast and will most certainly make you think of a screenplay treatment (as another blogger pointed out—can't remember who!). Big surprise: I did a Google search and discovered that this book is already being made into a movie. Oh, and the author is another crossover from the adult side. He's been writing horror novels.

So. You are likely to feel like you are reading a movie novelization with this one, and you wouldn't be too far off. Check out the action flick premise—a teenage boy has had a dull Eastern European exchange student staying at his house for a few months. Unlike the girl in Better Off Dead, this one is not attractive. She lacks social skills, too, and Perry Stormaire has been razzed by his friends for having her around. Even so, he has persisted in being kind to her. Then, just when his band finally gets a gig, his parents make him take Gobija to prom instead.

Pretty soon we've got what the book jacket copy bills as "Ferris Bueller Meets La Femme Nikita" because Gobi turns out to be, not only more hot than previously anticipated (Where are Clark Kent's glasses when you need them?), but also a woman with a mission. The kind that involves getaway cars (Perry's dad's Jag, to be precise) and flying bullets.

Perry handily plays the scared-but-decent schmuck in this scenario. He even gets to stop by for his band's performance. Meanwhile, the bullets just don't quit. Neither do Perry's gripes, shrieks, or attempts to escape. But one way or another, Gobi's going to get the job done. Leaving Perry to figure out just what she's up to, and why.

During the course of the evening, these two form an odd and somewhat romantic bond. Teens might get a kick out of the non-stop action and humor here, but actual readers may find themselves annoyed by the lack of multi-dimensional storytelling, not to mention by an overall sense of being commercially manipulated. That evokes an analogy, doesn't it? You, the reader, can be hapless Perry, while the marketing machine can be dark, driven Gobi. She basically holds him captive, as you can see in this passage:

She glanced at the lit office window twelve floors off the street, then back at me. "Here," she murmured, leaning over to wrap the plastic handcuffs from her bag around my wrists.

"Wait, what's this?"

She hooked the restraints through the Jaguar's steering wheel, cinching them to the skin.

"Ow, that's too tight!"

"Stay here."

"Like I could go anywhere!"

She reached into the bag and took out the gun I had seen earlier.

"Gobi, wait—"

She got out and sank into the shadows half a block off Pearl Street, a Lithuanian ninja. I jerked tentatively on the wrist restraints but that only made them tighter. She had left her bag sitting on the passenger seat, and I wondered what else she had in there—passports, more weapons, a bazooka?

Thematically speaking, we learn that Perry's dad has been really hard on him and kept him from developing his own identity. I'm not sure this works because the speed of the plot doesn't leave much room for it to be convincing. Gobi's mysterious backstory also suffers from the pell-mell pace of the book. Schreiber does manage to throw in a few plot twists, which I appreciated. The one truly great thing about Au Revoir is the chapter headers, each a supposed entrance exam essay question from a university. I think my favorite is "You've just written a 300-page autobiography. Send us page 217. (University of Pennsylvania)."

I won't say it wasn't fun reading this book, but I do feel a little cheap after the fact, as if my virgin strawberry margarita wound up having alcohol in it, maybe even a roofie.

Note for Worried Parents: There is a lot of violence in this one, as well as a couple of mature plot details having to do with sex. The book has a kind of comic book feel, however, so it's not as bad as it sounds. Still, we're definitely talking teens.

Also: I requested a copy of this book from Amazon Vine. Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick will be on shelves October 25.

You can watch the book trailer here.

A Review of The Project by Brian Falkner

This YA adventure/suspense book reads more like middle grade fiction a lot of the time; in fact, I was surprised when I realized that Luke and his buddy Tommy are in their mid-teens instead of middle school. But let's just agree that Luke and Tommy are pretty immature and move on...

Luke believes that the book assigned by his English teacher, Ms. Sheck, is the most boring book in the world, but he is wrong. Of course, he doesn't know that: when he argues with Mr. Kerr, the vice principal gives Luke and Tommy just a few days to prove what they say about James Fenimore Cooper's classic. He and Tommy have been caught bungling an elaborate prank on school property; now they will have to do some research to save themselves from being suspended.

Luke goes home and googles "the most boring book in the world." According to the online encyclopedia, that honor goes to a tome called Leonardo's River by a man named Darcy Benfer—an English inventor. It was so boring it even put its writer to sleep, and only one copy was ever printed. But a millionaire book collector named James Mullins would love to get his hands on it. He's willing to pay a lot of money for that single copy.

Luke forgets all about the book, caught up in the relative excitement of having to sandbag his town because the river is rising. But while he and Tommy are helping bring books upstairs from the university library's basement to the upper floors, Luke catches a glimpse of a book he is pretty sure is Benfer's sleep-inducing masterpiece. That night, he gets Tommy to sneak across the river with him and look for the book.

Only the river is flooded and the library is beginning to flood, too. Luke and Tommy manage to get by the security on the bridge, then discover they aren't the only ones looking for the book. Rather, they are the ones without guns.

The twosome makes it out, but Ms. Sheck disappears. And the menacing people from the library are soon on the trail of Luke and Tommy.

This suspenseful story heats up with a plot that involves Nazis and Leonardo da Vinci and even [spoiler!] time travel.

The whole thing is even more tricky because everyone thinks of Luke and Tommy as troublemakers, which means that no one takes them seriously when they try to get help from the authorities.

About the only thing they've got going for them is Luke's photographic memory. That and an unquenchable spirit of curiosity and adventure.

Here is an excerpt from the prologue:

This is not the most boring book in the world.

This is a book about the most boring book in the world, which is a different book altogether.

This book is really interesting and exciting, and parts of it are quite funny...

You might think that your history textbook is the most boring book in the world. But you are wrong. Or you might think that your auntie's book about dried flowers is the most boring book in the world, but that's like an action-packed adventure story compared to the real most boring book in the world.

The prose in this non-boring tale does its job handily, and Luke and Tommy are a cheerful, if slightly bumbling, duo.

Falkner, the Australian author of books like Tomorrow Code and Brain Jack, specializes in action/suspense stories. The Project is a light-hearted ride, despite the peril and the threat of world domination from the bad guys. It's salted with guy humor (at least one fart joke that I can recall) and stars a couple of goof-offs playing Hardy Boys. But it is a fun read, and your son might get a kick out of it.

Note for Worried Parents: Though this book is being marketed as YA and has teen protagonists, it reads like upper MG fiction. There is definitely peril, but little actual violence.

Visit Brian Falkner's website to learn more about The Project and other books.

Also: I like the Australian cover (gold) a lot more than the U.S. cover (red); what about you?

A Review of Living Hell by Catherine Jinks

This book's title represents truth in advertising in a big way: the story gets bleak, then bleaker, working its way clear down to bleakest. In that sense, Jinks's new YA science fiction work is ultimately a horror story, Edgar Alan Poe on a spaceship. Or maybe it's just an especially creative example of dystopian fiction. (Spoiler ahead!)

We begin with a seventeen-year-old boy named Cheney who lives on the Plexus, a huge spaceship outbound from Earth many years earlier. More than a thousand colonists live in a perfectly well-ordered environment which supports their every need. But during the middle of a birthday party in a virtual environment, Cheney gets an inkling that something has gone wrong. As the son of leaders, he is able to find out that the ship is about to pass through a strange wave of radiation.

If this were a movie script, the wave would be what is called "the inciting incident." The other movie term I'm thinking of is "high concept." Because—and this will be a spoiler—the radiation essentially transforms the ship into a living organism. An organism whose immune system tags the humans as something along the lines of attacking bacteria.

I tell you this because there is no way to describe the book at all without showing you where Jinks is going with this. The remaining three-fourths of Living Hell describes the terrible struggle for survival of those who manage to get through the first few hours. The author goes all out with her concept, coming up with intriguing details about the problems Cheney and his friends encounter, as well as how they get around the ship and defend themselves.

So this book is action-adventure of a kind boy readers might particularly enjoy (including some grisly deaths), especially if they like horror. Jinks does a great job of depicting the ship's transformation, carefully envisioning what each change might entail. Here's a sample from right after the change:

Slowly, one by one, we clambered through the hole between the door panels. It was becoming so small that by the time Dad squeezed through—nearly falling on his face in the process—the fleshy rims of the panels were sucking at his body.

It was disgusting to watch—like someone being born.

Out in the street there were samplers flying everywhere. The street shuttle had disappeared. All the doors had turned into valves and the floors into slippery paths of tissue, some of it slick and smooth, some of it rough with soggy bristles, some of it bunched into funny pads or pillows that looked a bit like cauliflower heads.

Mum seized my hand.

"I feel as if I'm in somebody's stomach," Dygall muttered, and I glanced at Mum in alarm. She knew exactly what I was thinking.

"We're not in a stomach," she declared. "If we were, those excretions would be eating through our pressure suits."

(Yep, there are quite a few scientific explanations of what is happening!)

Now, I'm usually pretty good at suspension of disbelief. But this one is tough to buy into, and perhaps that's because the change is so abrupt that, in addition to being a shock to the crew of the Plexus, it's a shock to the reader. I would have liked to see the change come on more gradually, with a building of suspense, having people being picked off one by one instead of everyone being completely under attack all at once. It also seems like the characters figure out what's going on and what each change means a little too quickly. (Including an explanation of what the strange radiation is, which isn't entirely satisfying.) Though many readers will appreciate that Living Hell is fast-paced, at times it feels a bit rushed.

As for characterization, we mostly get to know Cheney and an aggressive friend of his named Dygall. Cheney is a likable first-person narrator who is forced to become the leader of a small group of kids in short order. He rises to the challenge, and readers will be rooting for him to succeed.

It's possible there could be a sequel, although I didn't get the feeling the author has decided to write one just yet. For the moment, if you're in the mood for a happy ending, you should probably skip this book. On the other hand, if you don't mind a dose of gloom and doom and have a fondness for science fiction, action-adventure, and horror of the gooshy variety, try Catherine Jinks's latest.

Note for Worried Parents: Living Hell is a book for teens and includes some peril and gruesome deaths, but the author doesn't linger on the gore.

Also: I requested this book from the Amazon Vine program. It is scheduled to be published on April 12.

A Review of Death by Denim by Linda Gerber

This is one of the more intriguing mystery titles you’ll come across, perhaps even more so than the title of Gerber’s first book in the Aphra Connolly series, Death by Bikini. (Book 2 was Death by Latte.) I hope you’re not too squeamish to imagine just how denim might be used as a murder weapon.

Aphra began her adventures in Book One at a private resort run by her father on a remote tropical island. That’s where she met Seth Mulo, who was in hiding with his parents from some deadly enemies. In her attempts to uncover Seth’s secrets, Aphra inadvertently gave the bad guys the location of Seth’s family. So it seems like cosmic payback that in Book Three, Aphra and her mother are now in hiding themselves from the Mole, a rogue CIA operative with way too much power. Of course, Aphra does get to sneak around out in Paris instead of in Dulltown, USA, which is way more fun for readers.

As acting school librarian (long story), I often get requests for books for teens, and more and more of the kids are saying that they don’t want “a boring story.” In that case, the Aphra Connolly books are a good choice. In the first few pages of Death by Denim, Aphra and her mother realize they’ve been discovered by their enemies. The rest of the book is mostly about trying to get away from the Mole and his minions. Death by Denim moves fast.

There are delicious twists and turns along the way, with Gerber revisiting her theme of “Who can you trust?” Unfortunately, Aphra doesn’t always get it right. Relying on her less-than-stellar skills at evasive maneuvers, she leaves her mother behind, then ends up leading the Mole right to Seth Mulo and his parents, who are now hiding in Italy. (I’m pretty sure Seth and Aphra have yet to go on a date, not unless you count running around trying not to get shot. It’s hard to maintain a long-distance relationship when one person is in the international version of the Witness Protection Program, let alone when both are.)

Death by Denim represents a turning point in this series. As the book ends, Aphra is thinking about college, having defeated her arch nemesis. She has also been recruited for a whole new role in the world of espionage (though not by her protective CIA agent mother). Since too many series writers end up producing what is essentially the same plot over and over, I really like the way this author refuses to let her series stagnate.

If your daughters have been reading Alex Rider, introduce them to Aphra Connolly. She’s the perfect fit for a generation of text-messaging girls who want an adventurous read featuring a young shero.

Note for Worried Parents: Gerber’s books are remarkably wholesome considering that they’re Young Adult titles, but they do include a lot of peril and the occasional action/adventure-type death.

Disclosure Note: Linda Gerber is in my long-time writing group. She's at work on another action-packed YA series with Puffin.