The Sweetheart of Prosper County, by Jill Alexander:
Mostly invisible 15-year-old Austin Gray doesn't want to spend yet another year watching the parade go by. She doesn't want to stand on the curb being harassed by loser-bullies like jerkface Dean Ottmer -- she wants to be IN the parade, smugly waving at loser-bullies like Dean Ottmer. So she sets out to be the Future Farmers of America Sweetheart. Which means she needs to raise an animal. And then there's that whole hunting requirement as well...
As usual, Feiwel & Friends has done a great job of capturing the essence of a book with their cover art. Super cute, sweet, funny, quirky, and how could anyone not love a rooster named Charles Dickens? HOWEVER. There are so many characters and so many Big Issues that I didn't feel that there was any room to breathe -- everything and everyone was introduced, but there wasn't much depth of character, they didn't really develop, and the issues weren't really explored. Like I said, cute and sweet, though.
The King's Rose, by Alisa M. Libby:
Although 15-year-old Catherine Howard has been groomed by her family for something far more ambitious than a simple marriage to a nice, rich noble, she is still terrified when she catches the eye of King Henry VIII. After all, her cousin was Anne Boleyn. Granted, Catherine knows -- like everyone else -- that her cousin was a witch and that she deserved to die, but... still. And while being queen will be nice, she'll be an old man's queen -- which will leave no room in her life for romance or for passion. Or will it?
I really enjoyed this one. While I never connected emotionally with Catherine (Which I think is due to My Stuff, since, well, why get attached when you know someone isn't going to be around very long?), I found her voice compelling and sympathetic, the political maneuvering fascinating, the descriptions of the period vivid, and the slowly-growing peril felt wonderfully tense and claustrophobic. All that goodness, and the Author's Note made me appreciate the book all the more -- partly because Libby explained what she'd invented and what she'd based on fact, and because her affection and sympathy for Catherine Howard shone through and affected me, making me feel so sorry for this young girl who was used by everyone around her and who, even in death, was eclipsed by her more flamboyant, fiery cousin.
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be you Class President, by Josh Lieb:
12-year-old Oliver Watson is so dumb that, on rare occasions, people look at him sideways and wonder, "Is that really possible? Could ANYONE really be THAT STUPID?" What no one knows (except a few trusted employees) is the answer to both of those questions (at least in this case) is a big fat NO. Oliver uses the dumb act to disguise his true Evil Genius self. From his secret Evil Lair underneath his parents' house, he controls multi-national corporations, politicians, much of the media, and, of course, the teachers at his middle school. What he wants now, though, is something insignificant, something that should be very easy to accomplish -- he wants to show his despised father up by getting elected class president. Which, even taking into account his father's annoying PBS-brand idealism and his own carefully-crafted paste-eating persona, will turn out to be his most frustrating Evil Plan yet.
I had mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, it was hilarious. Example? In one of his many wonderful footnotes, Oliver refers to Machiavelli as "A dead Italian who wrote an early self-help book." On the other, I felt it fell into the This Book Was Published as a MG/YA Book Because the Protagonist Is Twelve, But Really, It's a Humor Book Mostly For Grown-Ups. Which is fine. Because I totally did enjoy it. And there certainly are middle-schoolers who'll enjoy it (I'll definitely give it to my Artemis Fowl fans).
But, you know. Oliver, while awesomely, evilly funny, isn't exactly a three-dimensional character -- again, think Artemis Fowl -- and while it makes sense that his musical and literary taste would be more mature than the average twelve-year-old's, I found it odd that his musical and literary taste seemed to be more in tune with someone of my generation or older. Captain Beefheart? Really? Raymond Carver? Okay. I could have let that go if there hadn't been a scene featuring a (non-genius) classmate of Oliver's wearing Knight Rider pajamas. I realize that there was a recent attempt to bring it back, but... yeah. It tanked so fast that I doubt ANYONE was selling pajamas. And that just felt sloppy to me. Or at least supremely unrealistic. Of course, I may be taking this a tad too seriously as the scene in question also involved our antihero torturing the KITT-loving kid by hanging him up like a marionette and making him dance to Oliver's Guitar Hero moves.
So. Wicked funny, but not, you know, Raymond Carver. Not that it was trying to be.
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Book source: The Alexander, borrowed from my local library; the Libby, ILLed from my local library; the Lieb, review copy from the publisher. All three books are Cybils nominees.
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