"Sold" by Patricia McCormick

This 2008 National Book Award finalist has been on my list for a very, very long time.  A local high school selected it as their number one book this year, which was the impetus to finally get around to it.  A verse novel (blank verse), it was a quick read, but it was not an easy one.  The story is that of Lakshmi, a thirteen year-old girl from a mountain village in Nepal, who thinks she is going to the city as a house-maid to earn money for her impoverished family.  Instead, she is taken across the border to Calcutta, and is kept in a brothel from which there is no escape.  I could have read the book in a single sitting or two, but I spread it out over a week, as I had to "take a break" now and then.  There are not words for how devastating this is.  Lakshmi is a girl with a spark, and that spark is all but put out.  She is a child, and, throughout it all, she craves the things a child would -- a friend, a hug, a kind word, but in the end, there is a part of her which is forever changed.  What makes this especially hard is that Lakshmi is fiction, but her story is not.  End notes say that this happens to some 12,000 Nepalese children a year, and more than 500,000 girls worldwide.  The novel made me ache in much the same way as when I watched the film "Beasts of No Nation".  We know these kinds of things happen in the world -- why can't we stop it?  The difficulty of the subject matter is mitigated, somewhat, by the verse style, and by Lakshmi's spirit.  It is this inner voice which calls to the reader and undoubtably made this a top pick for the students who selected it.  It is what makes this book great.  But seriously, get some kleenex.  Then, find a charity that addresses this horror, and give some money to it.

"Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld

Sometimes, I get to read a book "just for me."  This was one of those times. 

Long before "Hunger Games" and "Divergent", before "Legend" and "Matched" and "Pandemonium", there was a Dystopian series by Scott Westerfeld called "Uglies".  This four book series was so popular when it came out (and for a good number of years afterwards), that I never got a chance to read it.  Like all Dystopian books for the YA market, this one has a fairly predictable outline.  Tally is an "ugly" -- a child in a society which turns kids into "pretties" when they turn 16, using extreme plastic surgery.  There is, of course, an underground that says the surgeries are not what they seem, and Tally gets drawn into the community of rebels living in the deep dark forest away from the city.  So, if the plot seems familiar, what makes one Dystopian tale work, while another seems formulaic?  I'm not 100% sure, but there are a couple of things that drew me to this book, and some of the other Dystopian fiction novels.  First, for me, is character.  Tally isn't your typical revolutionary type.  She wants the surgery (really, really wants it) and spends a huge percentage of the book deeply conflicted.  When she finally does land on one side of the issue, she has made some tragic mistakes.  The flaws are interesting, given that most Dystopian protagonists are super-hero like in their abilities.  Tally, on the other hand, kind of falls into situations.  The second thing for me is twists.  I know what Dystopia is, I know where the book is heading (I could have predicted most of the plot of Mockingjay before I read it) but this book defied expectations.  Every single time I was sure of where it was going, it went someplace a little unexpected.  And I liked that.  The book is action-packed and a page turner.  It takes the hoverboard concept to the next level in some deeply cool ways.  The only aspect I wasn't overly thrilled with was the romantic storyline.  Tally is as gushy and over-the-top as most almost-16 year old girls are, and her love triangle is pretty generic, but it is tinged with a "Romeo and Juliet" level of angst.  I haven't read the other three books, but that analogy is likely to come close to the mark, given the nature of the society in which these characters live.  In the end, I like Westerfeld's writing, and the new covers are notably more creepy than the original ones.  The book is not literary, per se, but it is engaging, lively, accessible and pulls you in.  Bottom line:  This one is a good choice for anyone who hasn't burned out on this overexposed genre.  May the odds be in your favor.

"Listen, Slowly" by Thanhha Lai

There is a saying in acting -- "find the love, find the humor, find the obstacles".  They also say that good actors need to make the stakes big enough to register, regardless of the subject matter.  Think of it as anti-Seinfeld.  The problem with this book is that the stakes just weren't big enough, the obstacles too small, the humor unfunny and the love -- well, one kind of love (familial) was touching, but the boy crush thing was just irritating.  If you are Sharon Creech, you can get away with a story where not much happens (The Wanderer) but that wasn't the case here, IMHO.  The summary:  Mai (goes by Mia) wants to spend the summer on the beach in Laguna, CA with her best friend, crushing on a boy with her boyfriend-stealing-too-skimpy-bikini best friend.  Instead, her parents send her off to Vietnam with Grandma, trying to find out the end of her Grandfather's story from the Vietnam War.  Mai spends 2/3 of the book whining about the situation, then has a fairly predictable epiphany or two, and, without much of a climax, everything is neatly tied up in a bow.  I could have maybe sort-of put up with that if not for other glaring issues.  The descriptions of Vietnam, the culture, the village life ... is all so specific I feel like I learned a lot.  It was kind of like reading a travelogue with a CW TV teen show subtext.  But it just didn't engage me.  The narrative was pretty bland, with very occasional lyric sections.  I haven't read "Inside Out and Back Again" but have to believe Ms. Lai might be better at poetry than prose?  There was also the age issue, which I could have dismissed, but it kept being repeated, over and over and over again.  Mai is supposedly 12 going on 13, and supposedly 6th grade going on 7th grade.  The age and the grades don't match.  Twelve going on 13 is 7th to 8th, and Mai's behavior throughout is not that of a rising 7th grader.  There is this whole thing about getting the girls in the village to turn their panties into G-strings.  It's a spoiler to mention it, but frankly, the entire section was so pointless to the plot that it doesn't matter.  It was, however, one of many parts of the book that rankled -- it just didn't "fit" the character, IMHO.  It was part of an overarching feeling that the author was TRYING TO MAKE A POINT.  Much of the book felt like an adult immigrant looking at her Americanized kid and trying to (unsuccessfully) write from their point of view.  The parents were beyond stereotypical -- mom is a big-deal lawyer and dad is a Doctors Without Borders type.  The whole thing, ironically, didn't feel authentic.  The ~~setting~~ was authentic, but the characters felt like they were being driven by moralistic efforts of the writer rather than being real people.  The one character I loved, and the one with a real story to tell, is Ba (Grandma).  Perhaps, if the tale had been told from her perspective, it would have made more of an impact on me.  As with all things, this is my opinion.  I read the book because several colleagues really enjoyed it -- different strokes when it comes to literature, yes?