"Between Shades of Gray" by Ruth Sepetys

A long time ago, I swore off Holocaust novels.  Much like Dystopia today, there was a time when tales of this kind dominated the YA market.  This story, however, is a little different.  It is about the fictional Lina, who is a Lithuanian caught up in the Russian annexation of Baltic Republics during World War II.  Russia invaded Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, killing some 20 million people, nearly a third of those country's populations.  Some were murdered outright, but many more were sent to prisons or labor camps where they perished of disease and starvation over the next few decades.  To this day, Russia denies this ever occurred.  The U.S., in their fight against Germany, was aligned with Russia and seemingly turned a blind eye.  Ms. Sepetys did her homework.  Although fictionalized, the story reads as truth.  It is horrific and brutal but not painful to read.  Each event is covered in a brief, almost analytical way, but not dwelled upon.  The characters are drawn in fairly flat stereotypes -- being described as "the bald man," "the grouchy lady," or "the girl with the dolly," for instance.  It helps the reader distance themselves from the action of the novel.  In most cases, we only learn in retrospect that the person had dimensions to them.  Much of that perspective comes from the narrative voice of Lina, who seems young for her 15 years, until you remember that this is 1941, an age long before Social Media helped sophisticate our children.  Interestingly enough, the book does have lyric flow to it ... in a series of flashbacks to "normal life" as Lina tries to piece together the clues of what was to come.  It creates a colorful, rich backdrop to the stark sameness of the gray that dominates her new world.  A fast read with a strong page-turning quotient, this one is not only a worthy read, but one that brings an atrocity to light in an accessible way.  Definitely a must read.

"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" by Jonah Berger

I was hesitant to read this book club title, given that "The Tipping Point" is one of my favorite books, and this sounded strikingly similar.  The author doesn't beat around the bush, letting us know in the introduction that "The Tipping Point" is a very good read, but alludes to it being both incomplete and unscientific.  In short, Berger thinks his theories are better, and restates that, in various ways, throughout the book.  The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.  Nonetheless, his is an interesting set of ideas, which could be taken as a drill-down of "The Tipping Point."  Where Gladwell looked at trends, Mr. Berger looks at human behavior within those trends, particularly with an eye to marketing.  He creates a six-point plan which he calls "STEPPS."  While not a scientific formula, he believes these six elements are the major factors at play when we pass on information, essentially making something "popular."  They are:  Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Making Something Public, Practical Value and Stories.  Much like that oft-mentioned other book, he uses good examples which support his premise and keep the concepts very accessible.  It is a readable book, and one that most probably complements other similar titles on the market, such as "How We Decide" and Daniel Pink's "Drive."  The only quibbles I have with it are the epilogue, which, like any good college paper, simply restates the points made in the previous chapters, and a sense that Mr. Berger is, in true Animal Farm style, "more right" than others.  The bottom line is that if we truly understood human behavior, marketers would all be rich and our society would be very different.  People may be predictable en masse, but we are also messy and complex.  We don't always act the way sociologists think we will, which is what makes it all so exciting ... we can be unpredictable now and then.  Which is why my next pop-psych book will likely be Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers."  I guess it is Berger's turn to determine whether Gladwell is predictable, or someone who helps shape public opinion.

"The Runaway King" by Jennifer Nielsen

With publisher pressure on YA authors these days, one wonders if it is really up to the writers as to how long their stories run.  In the case of this tale, a sequel proves unfortunate.  The first book in the series introduced us to Sage, a clever street urchin with surprising survival skills.  The book was well-written, fresh, and a solid fantasy which I very much liked.  As one of my students said, however, the sequel is derivative ... of the first book.  The young man said it perfectly, in that this book feels like the exact same story as the first in terms of plot.  It is also very slow.  After a big fight in chapter one, almost nothing happens for the next half of the novel.  Sage is moody, he pouts, he's not nice to others, and then he is finally pressed into action (which becomes quite violent at times).  The last third of the tale is fine, but by then it is hard to care.  With apologies to Ms. Nielsen, I'm probably skipping out on book number three.