Are You Experienced by Jordan Sonnenblick

304 p. Feiwel & Friends, September 3, 2013. 9781250025647. (Review from Netgalley e-arc courtesy of publisher)

Fifteen-year-old Rich Barber awakens, kind of, in a hospital bed, attached to a variety of monitors and eavesdrops on a conversation his parents are having - not about him, but about an event that occurred 45 years earlier, an event that he, improbably, just attended.

Wait. What? In chapters which alternate between now, well, October, 2014, and then, Rich tells us about growing up as the overly protected only child of much older parents. Rich's dad lost his brother to a drug overdose when he was fifteen and never got over it. In fact, each year, around the anniversary of his brother's death, Rich's father gets depressed and locks himself in his study. Rich understands that this drives his parents' overbearing strictness but he's still angry about it.

Naturally, Rich chafes and rebels. His latest rebellion takes the form of a guitar performance at a protest rally. He really doesn't know what the rally is protesting. His girlfriend asked him to perform and that's enough, but he gets a bit of clue when the police as well as his dad show up. Isn't getting arrested and sharing a jail cell with your dad a great opportunity for bonding? After dressing down Rich for lying, sneaking out and getting arrested, his dad retreats to his study to commune with mementos from his past - one memento, a signed Jimi Hendrix guitar, accompanied by a cryptic note, turns out to be Rich's ticket to August 15 - 17, 1969.

Imagine meeting your fifteen-year-old father, the eighteen-year-old uncle you never met because he was (will be?) dead a few months later, and attending Woodstock! Well, meeting your fifteen-year-old father might be a bit traumatizing, especially when he's with a girl who's not your mother, but being at Woodstock would be amazing.

Rich is a likable main character. He's bright, a bit over-analytical and prone to over-use the word, "super." He's also a talented musician and devoted music scholar. His knowledge of the concert is impressive and re-inforces his 1969 friends' view that he is indeed an angel when he unwittingly blurts out what's coming up next despite what the program says.

I don't ordinarily love, or even like time-travel books. They require a leap of faith that I'm usually not willing to take. The concept is just too twisty mind-bending for my simple mind to wrap around. I liked loved this one. The time-travel trigger was brilliant. The world-building at Woodstock was vivid, given Rich's encyclopedic knowledge of rock and the event. Teens who are classic rock aficionados will love the setting. Those who are not will still enjoy it and are likely to request the documentary referenced by Rich from their local libraries. I know I want to view it. 

I was not old enough to attend Woodstock, but remember how newsworthy it was. I also love the music of the 60s and 70s but am by no means a scholar. So when I emailed the author to say how much I loved the book, I had to ask about the title. I admitted that I didn't get it. He graciously responded and I learned that, Are You Experienced? is the name of Jimi Hendrix's first album (face/palm) and it also referenced  passages that weren't in the galley, but will be in the final copy. (Hence the request by publishers to arc reviewers to note in reviews that the copy is not finished.) (And a good argument for rereading the final copy.)

I also must admit that were it not for the author (I am a huge Sonnenblick fan), given the combo of time-travel and that, IMHO, god-awful cover, I would've passed. I hear that the cover is not final. Hopefully, it will be changed. I find that my students are not attracted to psychedelic art on books. I have to sell them hard and even then, I'm more often waved away. Not only that, but given the prominence of Jimi Hendrix in the story, what's with the white rocker-dude on the cover?

Please change the cover. Fans of the author will ignore it and devour the book, especially fans who have grown up with the author, cutting their late elementary/ early middle grade teeth on his Dodger and Me trilogy, then moving on to his older middle grade offerings, Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie; its companion After Ever After; Notes from a Midnight Driver; Zen and the Art of Faking It; and Curveball. 

The author wades a bit deeper into the YA pool what with Woodstock commonly thought of as the epitome of "sex, drugs and rock & roll." He handles it (mostly) cleanly, matter-of-factly and with his trademark humor. Still, drinks are drunk, (acid) trips are taken, heroin is shot and questionable choices are made. It's edgier than his earlier books, but that's okay. His fan base is aging (!) and ready for edgy. Are You Experienced? might be a bit lonely sitting all by itself over on my YA shelf (grade 7 & 8), but hopefully it will have some company soon.

What's New? Stacking the Shelves

STS is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Pop on over there to share your new books and ogle what other bloggers got.

For Review: 

Too Cool for (This) School by Kristen Tracy. 285 p. Delacorte Press/ Random House Children's Books, August 6, 2013. 9780385740708.

Publisher synopsis: Lane Cisco loves, loves, loves her life at Rio Chama Middle School—until her offbeat cousin comes for an extended visit and turns everything upside down. With her individual sense of style and nonconformist attitude, Angelina "Mint" Taraval is everything Lane isn't. And instead of branding her a loser the way Lane and her friends expect, people actually want to hang out with her. Including the boys Lane and her best friend, Ava, like. 

When Ava comes up with a plan to ruin Mint, Lane feels stuck. She doesn't want to be mean . . . but she doesn't really want to stick up for her weird cousin either. Why can't things go back to the way they were before Mint arrived? 

Kristen Tracy has written a terrific novel about friendship, family, fitting in, and finding out who you are when no one's looking. 

Texting the Underworld by Ellen Booraem. 319 p. Dial Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Young Readers Group, August 15, 2013. 9780803737044.

Publisher synopsis: Perpetual scaredy-cat Conor O'Neill has the fright of his life when a banshee girl named Ashling shows up in his bedroom. Ashling is—as all banshees are—a harbinger of death, but she's new at this banshee business, and first she insists on going to middle school. As Conor attempts to hide her identity from his teachers, he realizes he's going to have to pay a visit to the underworld if he wants to keep his family safe.

"Got your cell?"
"Yeah . . . . Don't see what good it'll do me."
"I'll text you if anything happens that you should know."
"Text me? Javier, we'll be in the afterlife."
"You never know. Maybe they get a signal."

When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney. 262 p. Little, Brown and Company, June 4, 2013. 9780316209748.

Publisher synopsis: Danny's mother lost her five-year battle with cancer three weeks before his graduation-the one day that she was hanging on to see.

Now Danny is left alone, with only his memories, his dog, and his heart-breaking ex-girlfriend for company. He doesn't know how to figure out what to do with her estate, what to say for his Valedictorian speech, let alone how to live or be happy anymore.

When he gets a letter from his mom's property manager in Tokyo, where she had been going for treatment, it shows a side of a side of his mother he never knew. So, with no other sense of direction, Danny travels to Tokyo to connect with his mother's memory and make sense of her final months, which seemed filled with more joy than Danny ever knew. There, among the cherry blossoms, temples, and crowds, and with the help of an almost-but-definitely-not Harajuku girl, he begins to see how it may not have been ancient magic or mystical treatment that kept his mother going. Perhaps, the secret of how to live lies in how she died.

That's what's new with me. What's new with you?

Happy reading!

Waiting on Wednesday

WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which we share the titles we are eagerly anticipating.

Terminal (Tunnels #6) by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. 448 p. Scholastic, Inc., October 29, 2013. 9780545479646.

Publisher synopsis: Total Termination of the English: The Styx and their lethal cohorts of Armagi will settle for nothing less. Not even the mighty US military is strong enough to stop the assault!

Will and Elliott flee back underground, down to the innards of the Earth first mapped in DEEPER and FREEFALL. With the support of a small team that survived the plague of New Germania, they discover a secret at the site of the three core pyramids. A secret that may explain not only where the Styx came from, but the human race, too. Can Elliott, with her mixed blood, unlock the clues before Earth itself spins out of orbit?

All the many threads of the prior TUNNELS books come together in this epic conclusion!

For some reason, I thought the last book, Spirals, was the final book of this saga. New revelations near the end made it clear that the conclusion was at least one book away. I read the entire series with my ears so I will most likely read the concluding volume that way as well. So far, I see no release date for the audiobook. The book is a definite purchase for my school library as the series is quite popular among my students.

Non-Fiction Monday: Queenie: One elephant's story by Corinne Fenton

Illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe. 24 p. Candlewick Press, June 11, 2013. 9780763663759. 

Whenever I recollect childhood visits to the Bronx Zoo when I was a kid in the 60s, I remember feeling sadness even though these animals were most impressive to view up close. 

Even though Horton Hatches an Egg is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Horton's travails make me terribly sad. 

When our kids were small, my husband and I took them to see The Big Apple Circus. When the elephant was trotted out, we both turned to each other with identical looks of sadness. There's just something so wrong about such a majestic beast balancing on a beach ball let alone enclosed, far away from its natural habitat.

Queenie was born in the Indian jungle sometime in the late 1800s but hunters trapped her, tied her up, hoisted her onto a steamship and sent her to a zoo in Melbourne. In 1905, when she was estimated to be nine-years-old, she was deemed old enough to carry passengers. And so, six days a week, she would wait patiently while zoo visitors climbed a stepladder and sat in a saddle called a howdah. She was a very popular attraction and folks would wait for hours for a ride. "On some days she carried more than five hundred people." 

She seemed to have special affection for one of her keepers. Children would leave treats on the fence posts. But some children would tease her and stick pins in her trunk. She was able to exact some revenge though.

The zoo made lots of money with merchandising. Queenie posters, pencils and postcards were quite popular and her birthday was celebrated every year. 

After nearly forty years of service, Queenie accidentally killed one of her zoo keepers in 1944 and the Zoo Board decided it was too unsafe for her to continue carrying passengers. Despite thousands of letters written on behalf of the elephant, she was put to sleep in 1945 due to the food shortages during the war and the high cost of feeding Queenie.

The story ends by explaining that the Melbourne Zoo as well as most zoos around the world now provides the animals in captivity habitats similar to their native habitats. 

In merely 24 pages, using gently matter-of-fact language, the author invites the reader to reflect on the issue of animals in captivity without bashing us over the head with the message. As if the story weren't sad enough, the illustrations, though gorgeous evoke the terror of her capture and delivery to the zoo, first via cart, then ship, then truck. They are realistically painted, but left unfinished around the borders giving them action a sort of spot-lit feel. In each picture, Queenie appears stoic and dignified. They just beg the reader to linger. This one is a keeper.

Non-Fiction Monday is hosted by Practically Paradise today.

What's New? Stacking the Shelves

STS is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Pop on over there to share your new books and ogle what other bloggers got.

For review: 
Many thanks to my arc-godmother at Candlewick for these three:

Living with Jackie Chan by Jo Knowles. 384 p. Candlewick Press, September 10, 2013. 9780763632806.

Publisher Synopsis: After fathering a baby, a teenager moves in with his karate-loving uncle and tries to come to terms with his guilt — and find a way to forgive.

This isn’t how Josh expected to spend senior year. He thought he’d be hanging out with his best friends, Dave and Caleb, driving around, partying, just like always. But here he is, miles from home — new school, new life, living with his Jackie-Chan-obsessed uncle, Larry, and trying to forget. But Josh can’t forget. So many things bring back memories of last year and the night that changed everything. Every day the pain, the shame, and the just not knowingare never far from his thoughts. Why is he such a loser? How could he have done what he did? He finds some moments of peace when he practices karate with Stella, the girl upstairs and his one real friend. As they move together through the katas, Josh feels connected in a way he has never felt before. He wonders if they could be more than friends, but Stella’s jealous boyfriend will make sure that doesn’t happen. And maybe it doesn’t matter. If Stella knew the truth, would she still think he was a True Karate Man? Readers first met Josh in Jumping Off Swings which told the story of four high school students and how one pregnancy changed all of their lives. In thiscompanion book, they follow Josh as he tries to come to terms with what happened, and find a way to forgive.

Fallout by Todd Strasser. 272 p. Candlewick Press, September 10, 2013. 9780763655341.

Publisher Synopsis: What if the bomb had actually been dropped? What if your family was the only one with a shelter?

In the summer of 1962, the possibility of nuclear war is all anyone talks about. But Scott’s dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst. As the neighbors scoff, he builds a bomb shelter to hold his family and stocks it with just enough supplies to keep the four of them alive for two critical weeks. In the middle of the night in late October, when the unthinkable happens, those same neighbors force their way into the shelter before Scott’s dad can shut the door. With not enough room, not enough food, and not enough air, life inside the shelter is filthy, physically draining, and emotionally fraught. But even worse is the question of what will — and won’t — remain when the door is opened again. Internationally best-selling author Todd Strasser has written his most impressive and personal novel to date, ruthlessly yet sensitively exploring the terrifying what-ifs of one of the most explosive moments in human history.

Black Spring by Alison Croggon. 288p. Candlewick Press, August 27, 2013. 9780763660093.

Publisher Synopsis: Inspired by the gothic classic Wuthering Heights, this stunning new fantasy from the author of the Books of Pellinor is a fiercely romantic tale of betrayal and vengeance.

In a savage land sustained by wizardry and ruled by vendetta, Lina is the enchanting but willful daughter of a village lord. She and her childhood companion, Damek, have grown up privileged and spoiled, and they’re devoted to each other to the point of obsession. But Lina’s violet eyes betray her for a

witch, and witches are not tolerated in a brutally patriarchal society. Her rank protects her from persecution, but it cannot protect her from tragedy and heartbreak. An innocent visitor stands witness to the devastation that ensues as destructive longing unleashes Lina’s wrath, and with it her forbidden power. Whether drawn by the romantic, the magical, or the gothic, readers will be irresistibly compelled by the passion of this tragic tale.

As Fast As Words Could Fly by Pamela M. Tuck. 32 p. Lee & Low Books, Inc. April 28, 2013. 9781600603488.

Goodreads synopsis: Mason Steele, an African American boy in 1960s Greenville, North Carolina, relies on his inner confidence and his typing skills to face challenegs and break racial barriers after he begins attending a "whites-only" high school.

I am participating in a blog tour for this one. Look for it later this month.

Purchased:
Want to guess where I'm going later this month?

ALA Annual, and can you believe that my library cooperative did not own an up-to-date guide?

Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo. Unabridged audiobook on 1 MP3-CD. 6 hours, 27  minutes. Read by Angela Dawe. Candlewick on Brilliance Audio, March, 2013. 9781469275086.

Publisher synopsis: Her sister was captured in Iraq, she’s the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat. Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?

Angie is broken — by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain (or the shouts of "crazy mad cow!") away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance, the kind of girl who doesn’t exist in Dryfalls, Ohio. A girl who is one hundred and ninety-nine percent wow! A girl who never sees her as Fat Angie, and who knows too well that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside. With an offbeat sensibility, mean girls to rival a horror classic, and characters both outrageous and touching, this darkly comic anti-romantic romance will appeal to anyone who likes entertaining and meaningful fiction.

Gifted:

Yay Charlie Joe Jackson!

That's what's new with me. What's new with you?

Happy reading!

Waiting on Wednesday

WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine, in which we share the titles we are eagerly anticipating.

Unhinged by A.G. Howard. 384 p. Amulet Books, January 7, 2014. 9781419709715.

Publisher synopsis: Alyssa Gardner has been down the rabbit hole. She was crowned Queen of the Red Court and faced a bandersnatch. She saved the life of Jeb, the boy she loves, and escaped the machinations of the the disturbingly appealing Morpheus. Now all she has to do is graduate high school.

That would be easier without her mother, freshly released from an asylum, acting overly protective and suspicious. And it would be much simpler if the mysterious Morpheus didn't show up for school one day to tempt her with another dangerous quest in the dar, challenging Wonderland-where she (partly) belongs.

Could she leave Jeb and her parents behind again, for the sake of a man she knows has manipulated her before? Will her mother and Jeb trust her to do what's right. Readers will swoon over the satisfying return to Howard's bold, sensual reimagining of Carroll's classic.

I totally loved Splintered, the author's debut and am so psyched about this sequel.

Top Ten Tuesday

TTT is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is travel.

Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie. In this emotionally wrenching debut, seventeen-year-old Matt finds his dead brother's correspondence among his personal effects and sets out to Wisconsin to learn about the life his brother had there. 

In Honor by Jessi Kirby. Here's another with a brother lost in Iraq. In this one, Honor receives a last letter and sets off to California to fulfill his final request.   

On a lighter note, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer Smith is pure fun fluff.

Are We There Yet? by David Levithan. Two brothers separated by seven years and lots of hurt are tricked by their parents into touring Italy together.

Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen. Sam has Tourette's Syndrome, just like his dad who died. He also has a stepfather who despises him. He sets out to on a road trip to California to discover the truth about his life.

Born to Rock by Gordon Korman. High school senior and president of the Young Republicans Club, Leo Caraway has his life turned upside down when he loses his scholarship to Harvard and also discovers his father is a punk rock star.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray. Sixteen-year-old Cameron Smith sets out on a wild road trip from Texas to Florida in search of a cure for his Mad Cow disease.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. A five book trilogy that is absolutely hysterical. I highly recommend reading them with your ears. Stephen Fry narrated the first and Douglas Adams narrated the rest. Or you could purchase the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide and read all five. 

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I have to say that this is my favorite Green novel.

I will end with one that has been sitting on the tbr pile.

Don't Stop Now by Julie Halpern. Recent high school graduates Lil and Josh leave Illinois for Oregon seeking Lil's sort-of friend Penny, who faked her own kidnapping to escape problems at home and an abusive boyfriend, but Lil also wants to find out if she and Josh are meant to be more than friends.