Two Must-Read Books for Gay Teens

You'd think with only five months left before graduation that Foster High and its senior class would only have smooth sailing. If you really thought so, you haven't been following John Goode's series at all or you haven't been in high school for a very long time.

The previous book in the series, End of the Innocence (reviewed at All About Romance), brought the tales of Foster Texas High School through the first half of senior year when something cataclysmic occurred, an event so horrific that it reverberated through the tiny town of Foster.

Be warned: To get the most enjoyment out of this two-book look at Foster High's senior year, it's imperative to read the the books in order. Although readers will be brought up to date at the beginning of 151 Days, John Goode is making an incredibly important point in these books, a point that is blunted if one reads this book first and then decides to read the previous one.

The event from End of the Innocence is still on everyone's mind as the second half of senior year begins. And this tragedy is causing everyone to look inward.

Brainy Kyle Stilleno and baseball star Brad Graymark are still together, and Foster High's principal still resents their abnormal relationship being accepted by so many students, faculty, parents, and residents of Foster. The stir that Kyle and Brad made coming together has affected more than just the students, and past sins, especially the long ago death of a prominent citizen's son by a hit-and-run driver, are being dug up to join the pall that's fallen over the town from recent events.
Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.

Two Hanukkah Tales

Yesterday two review sites featured my reviews.  Today The Romance Reviews is featuring two of my reviews of Hanukkah stories.  Both are by Dreamspinner Press, and I'm still trying to figure out why these stories are included in Dreamspinner's Advent Calendar.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Advent is a purely Christian concept.  So why are Jewish holiday stories included?  Or why isn't the Advent Calendar called something like the Holiday Calendar?

Anyway, the two novellas that I review on the TRR site are both nice, "awwww"-inspiring tales.

In Bashert by Gale Stanley, a Jewish Penn State freshman is having religious doubts and meets up with a Jewish grad student who celebrates Hanukkah with him.  The word bashert translates as "destiny" or "soul mate" which I think is a little presumptuous for this particular story.  Just because two people click for eight days doesn't mean they're destined for each other.  I don't think because someone is Jewish (or Roman Catholic, or Southern Baptist, or any other religion for that matter), he will automatically become a soul mate of a person who practices that same religion.  Isn't more necessary to make someone a soul mate?  My answer's yes.

In Another Life by Cardeno C., on the other hand, is a strange riff on It's a Wonderful Life.  Instead of seeing what life would be like if he weren't born, the Jewish 18-year-old who is committing suicide sees what life would be like if he lived.  Hanukkah is mentioned in the story, but isn't a focal point like it is in Bashert, so calling this a holiday novella is stretching the point as far as it'll go.

But the author's use of humor in an otherwise grim tale makes the story likable.  As holiday stories go, however, it falls very short, making me wonder why it was included in the Advent Calendar.

I Wish I Could Love All Review Books

I think the universal truth about reviewers is that they hope every galley turns out to be the best galley they've ever read.  I know it's true for me.  I start reading, not looking for the negatives, but eager to read something brilliant that takes me outside of myself for a few hours, and if I'm lucky, sporadically for a few days or months while my mind wanders to what I learned or how much I enjoyed certain passages.

Unfortunately, books like The Cost of Loving pop up, leaving me perplexed as to how they got published without someone--a friend of the author's, an editor, someone--mentioning to the writer all the problems the manuscript has so that the writer could fix those problems.

There are so many improbable situations in Cost of Loving that I can't imagine the book previous to it would actually make Loving make sense.  But as a reviewer I live in hope that what I don't understand might make a little sense to someone else.  However, for me to honestly say that I like a book, the very basic requirement is that I understand what's happening in the book and don't have the problems I did with this one.

What confused me?  Why didn't this book work for me?  Click the link on the title above and read my review.  It says it all.

Spoiler Alert in the Title

Sometimes as a reviewer I have to ask myself what authors and editors are thinking when they title a book.  Billy's Bones by Jamie Fessenden is a case in point since the Billy in the title isn't even mentioned until over half of the story.  So as a reader, I spent most of the time waiting for the mysterious Billy to show up, knowing at some point he'd be reduced to bones or at least have his bones (true self?) exposed.

By the time Billy did show up, I was a little irked that it'd taken so long for him to do so.  What were the author and editor thinking?  Or were they?  Could they be hoping to annoy the reader?  Did they think it was cute to make readers think that maybe the wrong cover had been put on the book?  What was the plan here?

Fortunately, Fessenden is a good enough writer that the story moved along otherwise and the plot was one of the angst type that I enjoy.  In the hands of another reader, this book could easily be rated much lower than I rated it.

Usually with a writer that I enjoy, I look up the backlist and see if another of the writer's books sounds interesting.  In the case of Fessenden, I didn't.  I'm not sure I want to wade through another book to figure out what the title means or how the title relates to the story as a whole.  In a way, I felt a little like Billy's Bones was a bait-and-switch story that starts as one thing and changes to another without warning.  In this case, however, the warning is in the title.