Rainbow Party - by Paul Ruditis

First of all, this is the most controversial book in young adult literature right now. Bookstores have opted to only sell it through their online businesses, and there is not a library shelved copy in the entire state of Massachusetts (the one I read came from CWMARS, not from a specific library in my system). For those of you who are wondering why is it so controversial, please see this definition from the Urban Dictionary.

There is a great deal of debate as to wheather the term 'rainbow party' existed before Oprah's October 2003 show "Is Your Child Living a Double Life?". Personally, I have never heard the term before, and my very thorough dictionaries of sexual terms, The Big Book of Filth and The Bald Headed Hermit and the Artichoke, have no entries even hinting at such a thing (and I would like to point out that the BBoF, first released in 1999, has entries like "Russian salad party [1950s-60s] an orgy in which everyone is drenched in baby oil". Somehow, I think that if 'rainbow party' had been a real term, they would have included it.)

Anywho...

As far as the book is concerned many folks are deciding that its poor quality of writing is enough of an excuse to not include in aquisitions or make it worth defending. While I agree that the writing is quite simplistic and honestly not very good, I have read MUCH WORSE and I don't see this as a good enough reason. The authors insistance of naming all the character after colors was rather annoying though.

Now we get to the content of the book. It's about teens having sex. Plain and simple. There are no two ways around it. This is enough to get a lot of folks in a tizzy. It's not actually about a 'rainbow party' happening, but the planning of one, and how it causes several teens to examine their own sexual choices. It actually brings up many really good issues including, abstinance, love, reciprocation, STD's, reputation, pregnancy, is oral cheating, and a few others. I think this book could easily be used as a jumping off point for a very good and very frank discussion of sex and its role in relationships. And I felt this way until I got to the end of the book. And then I slept on it. The next morning a rage of monumental proportions decended upon me when the full message of the book hit me.

EVERY CHARACTER WHO HAD SEX IN THIS BOOK WAS PUNISHED IN SOME FORM.

I think that bears repeating. Every character who had sex in this book was punished, with STD's, unfaithful partners, or unplanned pregnancy. Even one of the character's ADULT sister did not escape this. Admittedly, most of these characters had unsafe sex, and the message of sex needs to be safe is important, but there where still NO positive examples of relationships with sex included in this story. The characters who had good relationships, of course abstained from sex and therefore were rewarded. I take issue with this message. I also take issue with the semi-abusive relationship involving a closeted gay male that was not resolved, he was simply punished with the rest of the degenerates. This is reason enough for me to not defend this book. I could forgive the heavy handed handling of the material, but I cannot forgive the "sex is bad, will always be bad, and if you have it something really horrible will happen to you" message. I don't like scare tactics, and I found them very unnecessary in a book that has all appearances of a very open and candid discussion of sex and teenagers.

OK, I think this one broke my brain

Spanish Catholic Church ordains married priest

It sounded cool, and a step forward for the Catholic Church as a whole, until I read this passage:

In 1980, Pope John Paul allowed married Episcopal clergy to join the Catholic Church and serve as priests. After the Church of England decided to ordain women as priests in the early 1990s, several Anglican priests in Britain opposed to that move converted to Catholicism and the church modified its celibacy rule to admit the married clergymen.

Who, what, now?

Momo - by Michael Ende

Read this book*. What ever you have to do to find it, read this book. Everyone who told you that it was one of their favorite books from childhood meant it.

Much like The Neverending Story, Momo is social commentary told in a fantasy set fable (is that redundant?). Where NE gives importance to imagination, Momo cherishes the time you have while you are here, not "saving" it so you can spend more and more time at work and less and less time with your family and taking pleasure in life. Intense simplification, but it's a fable.

The storytelling is beautiful. I found myself trying to explain to Jeremy what was the difference in my mind between a good writer and a good storyteller. Good writing captures you, pulls you along and makes you care, but it takes work and patience for the author to craft this. Good stroytelling to me just flows. It seems as if the author would be able to give a story whether he was sitting in front of you speaking off the cuff, or laboring over a keypad. Michael Ende strikes me as the latter. It seems as if I could just sit down in front of him and the most amazing thimgs would then be created. But that's just me.

The inside back book jacket cover says "...Mr. Ende has become a veritable publishing legend." Where the hell are the rest of his books Hmmmm!? Why have only TWO been translated and published here?!

*I'm not linking it. It's out of print and all the versions of it I can find pictures of are seriously ugly. I got it out of my library, and it's a very nice copy and harkens back to the original (german?) title The Grey Gentlemen. Go to your library. The screen commands you!

Buffalo Tree - Adam Rapp

I was all set to defend this book. I really wanted to defend this book. I don't know if I can. I don't know if I can finish this book.

What's really bothering me, and feel free to chime in with comments/disagreements, is it doesn't feel accurate. I HATE that I'm agreeing with that woman, but I have to question the research.

For those of us who read Last Chance Texaco, we have a first hand account of what a last chance group home is like from Brent. And we know he worked at one for a period of time. I have a difficult time believing that the security in a juvenile PRISON would be less than that in a group home, eg. no bed checks every two hours, no complete lock down after lights out, apparently even no doors.

Also, do I really believe (especially after reading Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos) that 1, if ANYONE had lice that the entire population would not be de-loused and have their heads shaved, 2, that the prison would allow hat wearing let alone stolen hats with lice running rampant, and 3, that the kids who are setting watch each night (thanks to the complete lack of doors on their cells) are most worried about having their stuff stolen. No, no I don't really believe it, and that's the problem.

I was all set for a really hardcore, frighteningly accurate, scary book. So far, it's losing points for believability.

I'll stop here because I have not finished the book. It's going to take a lot at this point though to make me feel better about this one.

Hope Was Here - Joan Bauer

Wow. I mean really, WOW. Leila had described this as comfort reading (hmmm, can't find that post, sorry). I can't think of a better way to describe it.

This book hit me like the Lois Lowry books hit me, I just couldn't believe how beautifully a seemingly simple story was told.

It had some 'issues', abandonment, cancer, death, but they are building blocks of the story, not what it is founded upon. It was a very sweet story, without it feeling sappy. Nope, can't explain why I feel that way.

It's a sad book. I read it while I was at my grandmother's watching her go through radiation and chemo. But, the death in the book is not an unexpected death. It's one of someone who's lived a good life, and while we could be sad for the loss, we could not feel cheated by it. It was strangely comforting at the time I read it.

Looking for Alaska - John Green

I wanted to quote passages from this book. I kept the book, risking overdue fines, so I could quote passages. I can't find it. I am now dealing with the fact that I may have LOST a library book.

I liked this book. Parts of it made me laugh out loud and read to Jeremy. I would have put some of those passages here if it weren't for books growing little feet and wandering off.

One might ask why did I like Looking for Alaska but not As Simple As Snow. I don't know, but let's try to examine it.

First, the weird girl of the story, Alaska, was not a goth. Nor was she particularly weird. She just was. And she was believable. She had her issues and her baggage but they made her a person, not a stereotype.

Two, the main character, Pudge (real name lost with the wandering book), was not an invisible normal cardboard cut out guy. He had his own personality that was not related to his being obsessed with weird girl. I liked his penchant for last words. It made him interesting and his own person.

Three, I just enjoyed the story. I enjoyed that the characters felt like teens, not someone's image of teens. I cringed at the amount of drinking and pranking (and bad rapping), but I couldn't fault it as being inaccurate of teens at a private high school trying to break as many rules while still doing well, and not losing a scholarship or getting expelled in the process. But not so focused on what can easily be described as stupid high school hijinks that it was a chore to read.

The ending was brilliant and touching. I was just a little unexcited about the book until I got to the ending. There'd probably be another quote here.

As Simple As Snow - Gregory Galloway

This book has the most awesome opening paragraph I have ever read. It made me desperately want to read it. About three more paragraphs in, however, I felt as though I had been hoodwinked and taken advantage of.

I can't really say the book was bad. There was really nothing technically wrong with it. It was the reason for my goth in YA lit rant though. I spent the first 160 pages wondering whether the weird goth girl was going to die, disappear, run away, move away, or go psycho. Turns out I needn't have wondered as we ended up with a little from all categories. Sort of.

Also, I kept putting down this book and reading others. I just wasn't that engaged by it. It was trying too hard to make Anna weird and deep, and I found it annoying. The 'deep' interests in literature, the fascination with Houdini, the themed music compilations, the short wave radio. Again, nothing technically wrong, and it all was important to the story, but it just kept bothering me. I don't think it would have bothered me as much if the author hadn't made the weird girl a goth girl. They don't need to go hand in hand, but it's becoming a stereotype and it's glaring to the point of interfering with a potentially decent story.

I enjoy weirdness for the sake of weirdness, not because someone's trying to squish a character into a pre-defined concept of weirdness.

I would still recommend this book to the right folks. It definately has qualities to it that I can see myself going if your interested in [blank] then read As Simple As Snow. I just don't think I'll be raving to anyone about it.