Book Review: Break in Case of Emergency

Break in Case of Emergency
by Brian Francis
Pub Date: 04 Feb 2020

Read courtesy of NetGalley.com

First, I don't get the title; although, I get what the author wanted me to get from the title. It just didn't work. Even the addition of Trisha's egg gift to Toby didn't make the title any more relevant. I almost feel like the title is the opposite of what the author intended. 

Rural, conservative Canada... and a homophobic town. That's the setting. It was pretty one dimensional. I couldn't get past the characterizations and dialogue as stereotypical rather than as prose. The people in Toby's life are afraid to talk about everything: her mother's suicide, her father's abandonment, sex... They taught her to be humiliated by her parents. OK, I know that's how characterization occurs, but the turnaround time on the undoing of years of silence occurred quite quickly once Toby herself tries to commit suicide.

Toby's friendship with Trisha is seen from Toby's point-of-view, a skewed portrayal of a shallow, not-very-supportive long-time friend. Trisha seems to both protect and rip on Toby simultaneously; it feels superficial. And Trisha uses the phrase "bitch mom" when talking to Toby about Trisha's mother, but no where in the story does Mrs. Richardson get portrayed that way. 

Suicide isn't meant to be logical, and the author doesn't make it so. That's a good thing. Toby's justifications for committing suicide herself make that lack of logic clear. The only reason she offered that gave me pause was by asserting that people (she) loved her mom more when she was dead than when she was alive. It struck home for me how people convince themselves that others would be better off without them. But other reasons given felt more like exaggerations of teen drama. I don't know enough about suicide to know the accuracy of the reasons or if it was just the writing that didn't work for me. On the other hand, having Toby later be made to actually think about herself as one day being old felt like a genuine response to make to someone who attempted suicide.

I was taken aback by how quickly Toby turned around from thinking how she could try to commit suicide again to thinking there might actually be hope. It seemed to occur in one afternoon. Not only that, but that one afternoon also swayed her grandmother Kay to accept Toby's father again after years of animosity. The time frame for this turnaround was not realistic. It detracted from Toby's believability as a character.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I don't. I'm not sure how useful it would be in a YA collection in a community where teen suicides occur, especially since the repair of this character's psyche occurred in the snap of a finger... the egg shell never got broken (a-ha! Maybe that's what the title meant? There was never a second emergency?)

Book Review: What Unbreakable Looks Like

What Unbreakable Looks Like
by Kate McLaughlin
Pub Date: 23 Jun 2020

Read courtesy of NetGalley.com

There's a group in my high school promoting the understanding of human trafficking. I think I now understand it more with this book than from the group's efforts alone to educate our community. What Unbreakable Looks Like brought the topic home, literally. I embarrassingly never realized how close to home it could be. Thank you, Kate McLaughlin, for this important story.

At first I was thinking this coverage of the topic was too much for some of my high schoolers, but I was self-censoring. If it could happen to my students, they should be able to read about it. I'm also going to recommend it as a book club title sponsored by the group in my school who have taken on this terrible topic.

What Unbreakable Looks Like is an accessible read. I read it in one day, which shows how well-written and well-told this compelling story is. I made a note at one point in the book at which Alexa (not Poppy) sees a familiar, i.e., threatening, car and speculates who is behind the wheel. McLaughlin deftly uses Alexa's thoughts juxtaposed with the reality of the situation to allow the reader to experience what Alexa experiences. Not once did I feel I encountered a character who did not have a part to play in this story; the characters were real, three-dimensional people. The flow of the story, which flashed back and forth in time, didn't confuse the reader and might have even helped to break the tensions in the action to allow the reader to process the intensities.

I highly recommend this visceral novel to high schoolers who are drawn to social issues or to the YA genre of realistic fiction that includes death, drugs, and disease (which is actually a genre-subsection in my library!) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review: Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Book Review
Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Pub Date: 07 Jan 2020
Read courtesy of Netgalley.com

LOVED IT! I got almost half way through the book before I even stopped to make my usual notes. Gripping, engaging, accessible, and intriguing. Then when I did finally make my first note, it was to express how the box of brownies Jane has with her in captivity reminded me of Wilson in the movie "Castaway." And that's a good thing (for me) since I love watching that movie.

I cannot go into how much this book pulled me in, or I will give away some of the plot. Suffice it to say that I 😲OMG'ed to myself when the abductor was revealed. Since this genre isn't my usual fare, maybe I just wasn't able to piece things together, so I was wonderfully surprised. I'd rather like to think, though, that Stolarz did a great job of weaving a believable tale that allowed her reader to be, well, wonderfully surprised! I had another WOWOWOWOW moment about 85% through the story, which I also cannot describe without giving away some of the mystery. However, it occurred regarding a drawing when the psychological background of the abductor was being revealed. Stolarz crafted both believable characters and a plot that didn't use ploys to make it happen.

I also really liked the way Stolarz allowed Jane to organically find someone with whom she could click in order to get the help she needed after her kidnapping. It felt real or natural for a traumatized teen to reject the counselors her equally traumatized mother wanted her to see.

I also liked Stolarz's use of NOW and THEN to guide the reader through the story. My favorite use of this was between chapters 59 and 60. I liked that NOW chapter 59 was followed by another NOW chapter. It kept the reader in an important moment of the story.

Regarding the plot thread of the shelter dog, I did note to myself that "maybe it's too obvious a connection between Jane and the dog's plight, but maybe that's how it works in real life, too." And being a dog love, I'm glad that sometimes, yes, that's exactly what happens; we heal each other.

In both books and movies, I get the feeling it is really difficult to create an ending. While I was pleased that the story didn't have a tidy ending for Jane, the epilogue felt extraneous and forced, like Stolarz had to try to explain what really couldn't be explained... Jane just had to work through what happened to her, and leaving the reader with a dreamlike final explanation detracted from the work the reader knows Jane has ahead of her. Still, a 5 ☆☆☆☆☆!

Book Review: Oasis by Katya de Becerra

Book Review:
Oasis by Katya de Becerra
Pub Date: 07 Jan 2020
Read courtesy of Netgalley.com

I so wanted to like this as much as I started out liking it. It really pulled me in quickly. I can see how it was initially described as Lost mixed with Twilight Zone, but I guess I was hoping for more Twilight Zone mixed with Lost.  I personally enjoy more scifi than fantasy, and Oasis was definitely more fantasy than scifi.

Confession: At first I thought the "diversity thing" was over the top, but I quickly understood the setting was absolutely appropriate for scholars from all over to participate in an archaeological dig. I was glad to find the mix of characters was not just a ploy for inclusiveness. I did have a bit of a struggle with some of the characterization (Would a 13 year old boy run to greet an older teenager girl and hug her? What about a brooding, moody, slightly older assistant would appeal so strongly to a teenage girl?) On the other hand, I give de Becerra props for being able to provide two different personalities to each character depending on the plot influences.

From what follows you might get the feeling I really didn't like the book, but I did. I just liked the beginning and where I thought the dig plot was going more than I did where it ended up. So what follows in this review are things that detracted from my fuller enjoyment of the book:

• I get the teen hormone thing, but the kissing did seem to appear at random (or inopportune) times. I guess that's how it is with teens. I know the kissing was the plot device to imbue the main character with self-consciousness and doubt, but it seemed to belie her strength and wisdom as a strong female character. 
• In one scene, the brooding, moody character tells the main character, "It'll be all right," after she says she has doubts about their situation. It reminded me of the insurance commercial where the frightened teens agree to run into the chainsaw shack instead of escaping into the running car. A bit too obvious that danger lurked ahead.
• Another short scene was full of psychobabbly, new-agey philosophy. I wondered at the time I was reading it if teens like that mumbo-jumbo and would buy into it.
• For me the depth of the stolen tablet's insight into the characters was lessened by the fully developed characterization of the main players previously by the main character. I just thought the part where the tablet "made things clearer for its host" really just reiterated the things that main character had already revealed about her friends.
• When the characters each experienced the tablet in different ways, why was Rowen's depiction one of a tree? Nothing else in the story implied that vision, so it felt random to me.
• Is it me, or was it too obvious for the author to use the terms "alternate reality" and "parallel universe" toward the end of the story. Did that need to be spelled out so blatantly? And what about the use of "alien threat"? That TOTALLY changed what the dark essence was for me and took me even further out of what I had come to find comfort in while trying to stay engrossed with the story. An alien threat is a very specific choice of words that restricts the reader's imagination. 

The book had a really strong beginning; I'll give it that. I was compelled to read it, and then I was compelled to read it to see if it dug its way out of the hole it fell into. If you're a fantasy fan, it did. If you're a scifi fan, it stayed buried.