Teens Around the U.S.
(x-posted from Away With the Spoon)

(For the uninitiated, I am playing a reading game at the library wherein I read as many books as I can that are set in different states. I've been posting book reviews along the way, and here's the latest set.)

I'm still reading my way around the United States, and exactly halfway through the year I made it halfway through my game, having read 24 books set in different states. My next post will show my progress, but this time I'm going with a big giant set of book reviews for the young adult books I've read for the game. Here goes!

Illinois: Intensely Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
I’ve been a Phyllis Reynold Naylor nut this year, happily taking the time to catch up with my favorite teen, Alice McKinley. This is the latest offering in the Alice series (one is published each summer) and I found it to be right on par with the rest of the series. It had all of Naylor’s typical wit and charm and true-to-life qualities that attracted me to the books in the first place (ten years ago!), and it also handled a difficult and terribly tragic situation gracefully and heartbreakingly. I feel like I’ve grown up with these characters, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Missouri: In Search of Mockingbird, by Loretta Ellsworth
Erin is a teenaged girl who has grown up without a mother. All that she has left of her is her worn paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which she is obsessed with. When her father announces his plans to remarry and gives Erin her deceased mother’s old diary, she takes to the road and goes on an impromptu bus trip from Minnesota to Monroeville, Alabama to seek out her and her mother’s favorite author, Harper Lee. It’s a quick and sweet read, and I, as a huuuge Mockingbird fan, especially enjoyed going along for the ride.

New Jersey: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart
Secret societies and prep school drama collide in this marvelously funny book, which follows clever and beautiful young Frankie Landau-Banks as she navigates her hunky secretive boyfriend and her sabotage of the secret club that he belongs to at their school, Alabaster. It was sharp and clever and laugh-out-loud funny and spun the prep school elite and the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds on its head. I loved it and will definitely be reading more by this author.

Ohio: Dramarama, by E. Lockhart
In another delicious offering by Lockhart, we follow Sadye and Demi, two fabulous drama-obsessed teens who escape from the drudgery of the Midwest to attend a prestigious performing arts camp. Loooove, unitards, haughty directors, botched auditions, dancing and singing and butchered Shakespeare plays ensue. As well as being laugh-out-loud funny and terribly clever and well-written, this one gave me more than few flashbacks to my own high school theatre days. Musical lovers will especially like this one.

Tennessee: How to Build a House, by Dana Reinhardt
Apparently I’m very into the whole teens-going-on-trips theme this year. This one follows an environmentally conscious girl named Harper who, in order to escape her crumbling family situation and to lend a hand to a tornado-struck town, leaves LA behind to go to Tennessee and build a house with a teen volunteer group. Building a house teaches her how to slowly recreate the foundation of her own life, and she (and a potential new boyfriend) has the summer of her life.

Washington: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
This one, which is also one of our teen book discussion books at the library, is about Arnold Spirit, an Indian boy growing up on the reservation in Washington State. A smart, glasses-wearing misfit who loves to draw cartoons, he doesn’t fit in anywhere, except for his tenuous friendship with local ruffian Rowdy. To try and save himself from his bad home situation, he follows the advice of a teacher and transfers to the nearby public school, mostly inhabited by rich white kids. He’s a freak at school and an outcast at the rez, and he has to claw his way into acceptance bit by bit. Illustrated throughout with Arnold’s funny cartoons, this was definitely a book worth reading.

Wisconsin: Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Another teen book discussion book at the library, this one is set in a small town in Wisconsin. D.J., following the severe injury of her father and the abandonment of her football hero older brothers, is stuck working the family farm to the detriment of her school work and social life. When her father takes on the rival high school’s quarterback to work for them, she ends up falling for him and becoming his football coach for the summer. Not content just to be a cow and let things happen to her instead of taking charge, she defies social convention and goes out for her school’s football team, pitting her directly in competition with the very boy that she trained. I loved D.J.’s voice and her story, and it was unexpectedly good. I never thought I’d care about football before.