Dust In The Wind...

Expected Publication: October 9th, 2012

A Thunderous Whisper

By: Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Knopf Books for Young Readers

ISBN-13: 9780375869297

Ani believes she is just an insignificant whisper of a 12-year-old girl in a loud world. This is what her mother tells her anyway. Her father made her feel important, but he's been off fighting in Spain's Civil War, and his voice in her head is fading. Then she meets Mathias. His family has just moved to Guernica and he's as far from a whisper as a 14-year-old boy can be. Ani thinks Mathias is more like lightning. A boy of action. Mathias's father is part of a spy network and soon Ani finds herself helping him deliver messages to other members of the underground. She's actually making a difference in the world. 

And then her world explodes. The sleepy little market town of Guernica is destroyed by Nazi bombers. In one afternoon Ani loses her city, her home, her mother. But in helping the other survivors, Ani gains a sense of her own strength. And she and Mathias make plans to fight back in their own unique way.

Review

   Ani lives in the small town of Guernica, with her Mother and Father.  She goes out every day to sell sardines with her Mother, who makes a living at it.  Ani is teased and ridiculed by her classmates, has no friends and desperately misses her Father who is fighting in the Spanish Civil War that is raging around her.  Also going on at this time is WWII, so Ani and her neighbors also gave to worry about being bombed by the Nazis.  When Mathias moves to town with his parents who take over management of the movie theater, Ani makes her first friend.  She also becomes involved in something far more dangerous than she ever imagined when the two kids stumble across a spy ring involving Matt's parents.  They become involved as messengers and when they have the chance to make a difference for real Ani and Matt have to fight to be heard.  But after Guernica is bombed and their families are shattered, Ani and Matt must decide what is more important - fighting back or saving others from the ravages of war.  This was different from my usual supernatural fare.  I know almost next to nothing about Spanish history, the Basque subsect of the population and the Civil War that was raging in the backdrop of WWII.  But I really    felt connected to Ani and Mathias despite the cultural differences.  I loved seeing Ani's joy at watching her first movie (Top Hat, with Fred and Ginger of course) and the happiness that came with her and Matt's growing friendship.  The devastation after the bombing of Guernica just about broke my heart in half and I loved the fact that the author was realistic about the survival of family versus the death of them.  The ending was beautiful and it truly made me glad that this book will be published.  If I can find more books like this, historical fiction might become a steadier part of my diet.  The only thing I wasn't too enamored with was how unreasonable Matt became later in the novel.  But then again, he was a fourteen year old boy.  If you want to read a wonderful book about coming of age during the two separate wars that intersect in a horrific way, and in spite of them, this is the book for you.  It definitely made me feel like I was gaining something important.

VERDICT:  4.5/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book's expected publication date is October 9th, 2012.*

Girl Interrupted, Trying to Cope

Published: February 14th, 2012
Interrupted
By: Rachel Coker
Zondervan
ISBN-13: 9780310729730


Can love really heal all things? If Sam Carroll hadn't shown up, she might have been able to get to her mother in time. Instead, Allie Everly finds herself at a funeral, mourning the loss of her beloved mother. She is dealt another blow when, a few hours later, she is sent from Tennessee to Maine to become the daughter of Miss Beatrice Lovell, a prim woman with a faith Allie cannot accept. Poetry and letters written to her mother become the only things keeping Allie's heart from hardening completely. But then Sam arrives for the summer, and with him comes many confusing emotions, both toward him and the people around her. As World War II looms, Allie will be forced to decide whether hanging on to the past is worth losing her chance to be loved.

Review

   Allie has had a hard life so far, but she is happy living with her Mother.  Things change suddenly though when her Mother becomes sick with a brain tumor, becoming progressively worse until she dies leaving Allie alone.  She thinks she can make it one her own, but Allie is forced to become foster daughter to a woman who seems to want to replace her Mother.  Determined to not forget her Mother and the opposition she had to religion, Allie distances herself from everyone in her new life, just biding time until she can leave.  Then a boy from her past shows up and throws her life into a tailspin, forcing her to reconsider her bitter and lonely approach to life.  Can she let go of past disappointments and allow herself to love again, even when it seems like war on the horizon might endanger everything Allie has left in her life?  This book was like looking in a mirror at times.  When I was younger, I was a lot like Allie - bitter, depressed, mad at the world and unwilling to recieve love from anyone with actual BELIEF in it being real.  That could have made this a hard book to read, but instead it made it hard to put down because Rachel Coker drew a portrait for a character that I could fully relate to.  My heart broke for Allie when she lost her Mother, the only person she'd ever really had in her life.  I understood her reluctance to 'replace' her Mother with a new family, even if a times Beatrice does break through her tough exterior.  This was a love story between Allie and her childhood friend Sam, with the anguishing backdrop of WWII but it's mostly a story of allowing oneself to find redemption and love wherever you can, letting it into your soul.  Also, although it's marketed as Christian fiction it didn't get overly preachy but managed to showcase what real Christian love looks like.  Rachel Coker is a talented author who managed to touch my spirit and the only complaint that I have really is the unrealisticness of Allie not recognizing Sam when they meet up after only four years apart.  Seriously?  This book is highly recommended for the beauty of its spirit.

VERDICT:  4.5/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book was published February 14th, 2012.*

The Girl Is Growing Up

Published: July 19th, 2011
The Girl Is Murder
By: Kathryn Miller Haines
Roaring Brook Press
ISBN-13: 9781596436091


Iris Anderson is only 15, but she's quickly mastering the art of deception in this YA novel for fans of Veronica Mars. It's the Fall of 1942 and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business.

Review

   Iris Anderson is still in shock from her Mother's sudden suicide less than six months ago.  Now she's living with her Pop in run-down neighborhood, going to public school.  She's been taken away from the Upper East Side, her private school and all the friends she's ever had.  Not to mention that Pop is barely scraping by as a private detective because he only has one leg after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, and he refuses to ask for help.  Iris is miserable in public school and starts creeping around trying to solve Pop's cases for him, even after he told her to stay out of it.  She begins to make friends in school with the 'Rainbows' a group of outcasts after she tells a white lie about her Pop.  Then Tom, one of the group, goes missing all of the sudden.  Iris' Pop takes on the case, but is getting further and further off the trail.  So she steps in, getting in closer to Tom's friends and staying out late into the night at Harlem clubs, rolling them for information.  The information leads back to Grace, her former friend at private school who had been secretly involved with Tom.  What really happened to Tom?  Was he murdered, did he run away or did someone make him 'disappear'?  By the time the book ends, you find out all of the answers to these questions.  I liked the start of this book and it had a very promising premise.  I do however, have a few complaints.  Iris was not a very strong heroine.  She came off as weak and clingy in some parts of the book.  Others she seemed like a stubborn brat.  That was okay though because she was very much a teenager.  That I could handle withough complaint.  It was the lackluster ending to the booklong mystery that truly irritated me to no end.  It might have been realistic, but it was not at all exciting and it made me feel like I'd wasted my time.  If you're in need of a girl detective fix, go watch Veronica Mars instead - you'll be much more satisfied. 

VERDICT:  3/5  Stars

*No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores and online.*