By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead.....

Daelyn Rice has tried several times to kill herself. Unsuccessfully. But this time, she plans to succeed. She wants to be a "completer". So she logs on to Through-the-Light, a website she accidentally stumbled upon. Unknown to her parents, she creates an account and has 23 days to self-terminate. Along the way she meets others who have similar intentions and we follow her as she researches potential ways to kill herself.
So begins the story of the final days of Daelyn which she counts down, one by one. During these days we learn that Daelyn was bullied mercilessly for being fat. She suffered through fat camp, Girl Guides and other diastrous situations. According to her, almost every aspect of her life has been a failure and it's time to check-out, permanently. Her last attempt at suicide, was unsuccessful and left her with a damaged esophagus and vocal cords. She wears a neck brace and can't speak as she heals from this latest attempt.
But Daelyn doesn't count on meeting Santana, a boy she soon learns is dying from Hodgkins lymphoma. And so author Julie Anne Peters sets up an interesting contrast; a girl who desperately wants to die meeting a boy fighting to stay alive and for whom life is precious, even if it isn't great. Santana is quirky, kind and likes Daelyn. In his own way he seems to understand Daelyn. Santana is an endearing lovable character who I was able to identify with. Although it's not apparent to him, he gradually seems to be reaching into Daelyn's soul and stirring the hope she so desperately needs.

IN the end, he makes Daelyn an offer that might change the course of her life. She finally has to make the decision to trust one last time, to take a risk or to give up and end it all.

By the time you read this, I'll be dead, is dark and intense. You want Daelyn to open up, to try one more time to make things work out. I felt angry with her that she didn't fight back more and near the end of the book, Daelyn herself seems to be coming to some sort of recognition of this. Her parents, although well meaning, see clueless and disengaged from her inner life. Their relationship with their only child seems superficial and dysfunctional.

An outstanding, riveting treatment of a difficult topic for teens. This book considers many aspects of issues that are all too common for todays teens:the effects of bullying, suicide, and teen depression. Highly recommended.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson is yet another teen novel exploring ideas about death, life and what it means to be human.

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Angeline Fox has been in a coma for a year after an accident. In that time a second woman has been elected president, a twelfth planet has been  discovered in the solar system, and the last polar bear has died. The first few days her mind and body thrashed out of control but her mind settled followed by her body. Each day Jenna improved: at first she couldn't walk and then she could, one day she couldn't speak the next day she could. 

On the eighth day her father had to return to work in Boston but he tells Jenna that gradually things will improve. While jenna believes physically she is fine, she doesn't remember her mother, father or Lily who is her Nana.She doesn't remember Boston, or the accident which happened a year ago.

During the first week she's awake, Jenna's mother reviews her childhood, things like childhood pets, family vacations, and favourite books. But Jenna cannot remember any of them. She knows she should love her mother but she feels nothing because she doesn't know or remember her.

To help her, Jenna's mother gives her a box of discs to watch that are recordings of her life before the accident. Her Nana, Lily suggests she not watch them in chronological order but that she watch the one from last year. However, Jenna decides that she will watch them in order, from when she was a fetus. However, Jenna begins to feel curious. Why can she remember facts about the French Revolution but cannot remember if she has a best friend? 

On Day Sixteen her mother leaves the house to go into town. She works as a restoration consultant and is interviewing workers. In Boston her speciality was restoring brownstones but California doesn't have brownstones. Instead she's focusing on restoring the Cotswold cottage that they now live in. Jenna's mother tells her not to leave the house. As her mother is leaving, Jenna asks her first question and that is why they moved to California if their careers were both in Boston? Jenna's mother states that it was to give her a quiet place to recover, but to Jenna, the response is practiced and seems "smooth". 

Jenna begins to have many questions. She has been sick for a year and yet there are no cards from friends, and her Netbook never buzzes. Did she have any friends? While her Nana cooks in the kitchen, janna manages to sneak out of the house. Outside the house looks dilapidated with the top bricks of the fireplace bumbled down, and several windows in the garage house boarded up. Behind the house the lawn slopes down to the pond and beyond it is their neighbour, Mr. Bender's property. To the north of the pond is a forest of eucalyptus trees. Jenna crosses the stream that feeds into the pond and walks up Mr. Bender's back yard. Jenna wants to speak with somone outside her small family circle. 

He introduces himself as Clayton Bender and tells Jenna her hands are like ice. Jenna learns that Mr. Bender is a well-known environmental artist whose works can be found in major office buildings and doctors' offices. Strangely, although Jenna doesn't know about him, she does know detailed facts about the last earthquake in California. Mr. Bender tells Jenna that he was happy to see her family moving in "a couple of weeks ago".  As she's walking back from Mr. Bender's yard, Jenna slips and falls, cutting her knee. Although Jenna thought she was drowning in the pond she is not wet when Lily helps her.

At home that evening Jenna learns that she did drown when she wasn't even two years old after falling off a dock chasing white gulls. Her mother is thrilled because this means her memory is returning. Gradually Jenna remembers her friends, Kara and Locke but this leads to even more questions. On an outing with Lily, Jenna learns that her father started his own biotech company called BioGel. His company has allowed organs slated for transplantation to be stored indefinitely. When Jenna questions Lily about knowing the neighbours, Lily confirms what Mr. Bender told her - that they have only been here for two weeks. This is suspicious to Jenna who wonders,  "After I spent a year in a coma, how could they have predicted exactly when i would wake up and then move to California precisely at that time? Was it only coincidence? Or did they decide when I would wake up?" 

Lily takes Jenna to the San Rey mission. Inside the church, Jenna remember her own baptism when she was an infant, something that would normally be impossible. While Lily talks with Father Rico, Jenna comes to learn that the two belong to the World Seed  Preservation Organization which is "committed to preserving original species of plants." Bio-engineering and the resulting cross-pollination has meant there are few original plant species left. The feel that these bio-engineered plants are time-bombs similar to the Aureus epidemic that killed Jenna's grandfather and millions of people.

At home Jenna asks to go to school but is adamantly refused by her mother who orders her to her room. Jenna is furious but is compelled to do as her mother tells her. Sitting on the stairs she overhears her mother and Lily arguing, with Lily asking Jenna's mom, Claire, when she will admit to having made a mistake. 

Jenna continues to watch the discs which detail her life, while the work goes on around their home. While watching a video of herself at ten years of age, Jenna notices a thin red scar under her chin. A quick check in the mirror reveals the scar doesn't exist. Then one morning Jenna learns that she will be able to attend a local charter school that is within walking distance. This surprises Jenna as her mother was determined she not return to school. 

Jenna decides to visit Clayton Bender and at his home she reveals what she's learned about him on the Net. Clayton Bender confirms that he is not the real Clayton Bender who would now be well over eighty years old. Instead he reveals that he worked for Clayton for three years and then  took on the identity of Clayton after he suddenly died. Clayton tells Jenna that she was in a very serious car accident and that her situation was considered grave. 

While watching a video of herself at the beach, Jenna suddenly remembers several weeks of memories and that she loves hot chocolate with marshmallows. But when she makes some and tries to drink it, her mother screams at her. The hot chocolate has no taste. Jenna begins attending a nearby charter school where there are only a handful of students.  Dr. Rae is the director and the principal instructor. Jenna meets Ethan who is the boy she saw at the mission, Allys who has two artificial legs and replacement hands which she lost from a bacterial infection, Gabriel who has an anxiety disorder and prefers a smaller class and Dane. The school has a system of teacher-collaborators: Ethan is teacher-collaborator for literature, Gabriel is teacher-collaborator for logic and problem-solving, Dane does art, while Allys leads on science and ethics. Jenna is assigned history.

It is Allys who provides Jenna with some crucial information one day when they pick her up from her volunteer work. Allys volunteers for the Del Oro Ethics Task Force. Allys feels that her situation developed due to "an out-of-control medical system" and she wants to ensure "that no new medical injustices will be unleashed on the world." She tells Jenna and Ethan that the Federal Science Ethics Board (FSEB) runs the ethics task force. They control what research and medical procedures can be done and are able to shut down any research and even whole hospitals. Allys tells Jenna that BioGel is responsible for the FSEB being formed. They created biogel which is a blue gel that is "artificially oxygenated and loaded with neurochips". Allys explains that they are smaller than the human cell and can communicate like neurons but faster, and once uploaded with basic information are able to pass on that information and specialize. She states that just because this can be done doesn't mean it should be. So the FSEB restricts how much of a human can be replaced or enhanced. Allys explains to Ethan that "They're trying to preserve our humanity..."

This encounter sets the stage for what comes next. After watching the last disc featuring her life at age sixteen, a year before her accident, Jenna decides to investigate the small room off of her mother's bedroom. She had found a key to that locked room earlier in the day and desperate to learn what is behind the locked door, Jenna enters and finds three computers. But when she attempts to remove the computer from its steel brackets securing it to the table, Jenna badly cuts her hand. To her shock, Jenna discovers that despite the large gash, there is almost no pain and very little blood. What there is however, is not human. "The skin, lies on a thick layer of blue. Blue gel. Beneath that is the silvery white glimmer of synthetic bone and ligaments. Plastic? Mental composite?" 

Horrified, Jenna learns from her mother that her body is not real and that only ten percent of her brain - the butterfly part, was saved.  Filled with anger and shock, she must now deal with her new self. But what is she exactly?

Discussion

The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a young adult novel that explores what makes us human - our minds, our souls, our bodies, all? or some combination? and the bioethics of extraordinary measures to save a life.

Sixteen-year-old Jenna Fox was in a serious accident that left her badly burned, with infection and massive organ failure setting in. In a desperate attempt to save their very-much-adored daughter, Matthew and Claire Fox uss the banned biogel that BioGel and Fox Bio Systems had developed. Jenna doesn't know all of this and instead awakens a year later when she is seventeen-years-old. She is provided very few details and has few memories of her life a year ago.

But Jenna immediately senses that things are not as they should be. Her mother had a career as a restoration consultant whose focus was on brownstones but now has no career. Her Nana, Lily was chief of internal medicine at Boston University Hospital. "It seems that everyone in this house is reinventing themselves and no one is who they once were."

And it's not just her family's unusual situation. She begins to notice that things seem to be off about herself too. She notices that the birds in Clayton Bender's backyard will not feed out of her hand. -Jenna feels compelled to obey her mother when she doesn't want to. "What world have I woken up to? What nightmare am I in? Why am I compelled to do as Mother says even when I have a desperate need to do something else? "  First with Clayton Bender and then at school Jenna finds herself having detailed knowledge about specific topics like Easter Island and Walden - who she can recite word for word.  Her favourite drink, hot chocolate has no taste. She learns at school that her walk is "funny". When she tries to interlace her hands, Jenna feels "like the hands I am lacing are not my own, like I have borrowed them from a twelve-fingered monster."  As Jenna is working in the garden at the mission with Ethan she is certain she can hear the choir boys singing but he tells her they are too far away.  And Jenna doesn't tire while shoveling dirt in the garden for hours but Ethan is exhausted.

Even the recovery of her memory seems unusual to Jenna.  "It is curious how it comes. Each day, a rush of pieces, loosely connected, unimportant bits, snake through me. They click, click, click, into my brain, like links being snapped together. And then they are done. A small chain of memories that fill in one tiny part of my life. They come out of nowhere...."  As her memories come back in bits, Jenna wonders if it will take her lifetime to reclaim them all.

Pearson foreshadows the coming ethical dilemma through the character of Allys who has lost her limbs to a bacterial infection. She uses prosthetic legs but her replacement arms and hands are bioengineered. Allys is against the technology that Fox Biosystems and their BioGel have created, arguing that this is not "natural" and that there should be limits on how much of a human can be replaced or enhanced.

When Jenna accidentally discovers that she is the biogel that Allys mentioned, she is horrified. Her father explains, "Your body was injured beyond saving. We had to patch together a new one. Your skeletal structure was replicated. You have all the bone structure of a normal teenage girl. Muscle areas are taken up with additional modified Bio Gel. Most movement is accomplished through digital signals within the bone structure.Some is accomplished through the traditional method of cabled ligaments.Your skin was replaced. Your brain, the ten percent we saved, was infused with additional Bio Gel. " He also tells her that additional scans were made of her brain and uploaded what constitutes Jenna's mind. Jenna's father also explains that they have taken the butterfly of her brain and surrounded it with a sphere of Bio Gel and that the neural chips are building new pathways for her brain to access information. 

This shocks Jenna. "I shudder, repulsed at everything I may or may not be, wanting to escape but trapped again. By what? Myself? I don't know who or what I am anymore." She wonders about her heart and her lungs. And why she's remembering events like her baptism that she shouldn't. "He's tampered with the unknown. What door has he opened?"  Her father also reveals that the Bio Gel best functions at a stable temperature and that its "shelf life" is reduced under cold conditions.  Not only is Jenna "illegal" but she learns she has a shelf life between two and two hundred years, depending on the climate she lives in. It means Jenna will never grow old. She learns other specifics, that she has no stomach and a primitive digestive system.  tells her father she doesn't even know if she's human.

"What about a soul, Father? When you were so busy implanting all your neural chips, did you think about that? Did you snip my soul from my old body, too? Where did you put it? Show me! Where? Where in all this groundbreaking technology did you insert my soul?"

While her parents continue to focus on the biological, Jenna is more focused on her nature: is she human. When her nana reveals that before the accident Jenna and her motehr were arguing and that she didn't go to her room but left the house in a car that she couldn't drive, Jenna understands why she was compelled to now obey her mother: they have programmed her brain to respond to their commands. Her parents reveal that they have uploaded subliminal messages, and her entire tenth to twelfth grade curriculum which explains why she knows so much about random topics. But Jenna knows they still are not telling her everything because when she attempts to research her accident on her Netbook she is denied access. So she turns to Clayton Bender. On his Netbook Jenna learns the shocking truth: her friends Locke Jenkins died two weeks after the accident without regaining consciousness, and Kara Manning died three weeks after from severe head trauma. The cause of the accident was believed to be high speed and reckless driving.

Jenna's journey to self-acceptance begins while she's reading Walden. She realizes those thoughts about the work are her own and exist no where else in the universe. She is thankful to be experiencing these thoughts despite the cost.She also makes the discovery that her parents have scanned Kara and Locke's brains but were unable to get skin and DNA samples so they cannot be replicated like Jenna. Eventually Jenna decides to deal with this problem on her own.

The title comes from what Jenna finally realizes as she watches the videos of herself at age sixteen."I have more holes than substance, but I've pieced together a girl with the scatter of memories that have come back to me, and a life recorded beyond reason. I was treasured. Adored. Smothered with hopes. I was everything three babies could have been. I danced as hard as I could. Studied as hard. Played as hard. Practiced as hard. I pushed to be everything they dreamed I could be."  Jenna was so adored that her parents could bear the thought of her dying. And so they did whatever it took to prevent that regardless of the cost. 

But for the new Jenna the problem still exists. "There were so many things Mother and Father always wanted me to be...Now they want me to be just what I was before. I'm not. No matter how much they want it, or how much I want it, I can't make that happen. The feeling of failure is familiar.I always tried so hard to be everything they wanted. Everything three babies could be. Their miracle child.Me. Now ai am a different kind of miracle. The artificial freak kind."

However, Lily challenges Jenna to determine what she wants. "You've always been two people. The Jenna who wants to please and the Jenna who secretly resents it. They won't break, you know. Your parents never thought you were perfect. You did." However, Jenna points out that they did have the expectation of perfection because she was tutored and coached whenever it was required. "I've been under a microscope my entire life! From the moment I was conceived, I had to be everything because I was their miracle! That's what I had to live up to every day of my life!"  Jenna tells her mother, "I don't want to be your miracle anymore. I can't be your miracle anymore. I need to be here on this planet with the same odds as everyone else. I need to be like everyone else... I can't be really alive if I can't die too."  Jenna remembers seeing her mother at her bedside after the accident and wanting her to let her die but knowing that her mother would never do that because she was forever her miracle.

Eventually Jenna does seem to come to self-acceptance and to accept that this new technology may help save lives. When her friend Allys begins to die, she reveals what Jenna is to her parents in the hopes that they and Jenna's parents will save her with the same technology that saved Jenna. It is eventually revealed that Jenna lives much longer than her father believed - at two hundred and sixty years later she is still alive. But she has also made the decision to not outlive her daughter, Kayla, that one day she will travel to Boston with its cold winters, so that her body will begin to shut down. Immortality is not something she wants.

The novel has hints of religious undertones: Jenna's grandmother, Lily is a Catholic who prays, is involved in the nearby mission of San Luis Ray  and attends Sunday Mass. Yet she had Claire via "in vitro" which Catholic moral teaching forbids. However it is clear that Lily was very much against what her daughter and son-in-law were going to do with Jenna.  It is also implied that Claire had three "in vitro" pregnancies, of which Jenna was the only surviving baby - Claire's miracle. Jenna remembers her baptism but when she's in the church with her Nana she has no memory of how genuflect and to cross herself - a common Catholic custom showing respect for the Blessed Sacrament. This lack of "Catholic memory" is evident when Jenna and Ethan are in the mission church. Both are in the sanctuary, an area that is considered sacred and kiss there. This is a sacriligeous (and somewhat offensive) scene and it's puzzling as to why Pearson would have written this into her novel. Jenna goes to the church because she is struggling to determine if she has a soul and if not, what has happened to that part of her. This was a missed opportunity in the novel to explore this question more deeply and in a way that was not so off-putting to young Catholic readers. Jenna never really broaches this question with her parents or her grandmother.  Lily, who has known Father Rico for a long time, could have brought her granddaughter to talk to this priest and he may have offered Jenna some perspective. The question is left largely unanswered: Jenna has a mostly man-made body with some genetic material and the essence of her mind. But does she have a soul? The novel ends with Lily blessing Jenna with holy water, telling her that she believes Jenna has a soul. 

The novel generally ties up all the loose ends in a way that is clean and clear cut. Jenna remembers what happened to her and her friends, she begins to accept herself and what was done to her, she destroys the computers saving her friends from the same fate, and her parents seem prepared to help Allys's parents save their daughter. The Epilogue gives the reader closure, two hundred and sixty years into the future. Based on the scene in the church, this reviewer has reservations about this novel.

Book details:
The adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Henry Holt and Company 2008
266pp

Murder in the name of Honor by Rana Husseini

Murder in the Name of Honor deals with the controversial subject of honor killings which are common throughout the Muslim world and are becoming increasingly common in the West.

Rana Husseini, an investigative journalist, has devoted her professional life to the eradication of this evil practice and to the promotion of women's rights in the Middle East. Her main focus has been on the abuse of women in Middle Eastern Muslim cultures, specifically the crime of honor killings. Husseini, who is an Arab Muslim, looks in depth, at the culture and practice of honor killings in Jordan as well as in numerous other Middle East countries. 

In Murder in the Name of Honor, she tells the horrific stories of women from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Israel. Husseini discusses how honor killing has moved into Western society as Middle Eastern Muslims have immigrated and taken this practice with them and how Western law enforcement does not understand this crime and how to deal with it. The recent case of Rifqa Bary in the United States, is one such situation.

Husseini includes "as many human examples as possible in this book, to show that this is a very real tragedy, that every day, all across the world, bright young women are being slaughtered for no good reason."   Many of the stories are terribly heartrending. Women killed for talking to men, falling in love with men their families don't approve of, or of dressing differently. Many of these women are not just simply killed. Many are tortured and raped - by family members BEFORE being murdered. Husseini's stories show that their suffering is unspeakable; their terror, palatable.

Some of the most heartbreaking stories are those of women who have survived attempted honor killings only to languish for years in prison. Rana Husseini visited Jweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre for Women, one such prison in Jordan. Victims of honor killings are imprisoned to protect them from being killed by their families. For many of these women, their only hope to get out of prison, is to marry - usually a much older man who comes seeking the companionship of a younger woman. The other option available is to have a male relative post a guarantee worth $7000, that no harm will come to the woman. Many women have such guarantees posted only to learn this has been a ruse used to get them out of prison, to be killed.

What became very apparent in reading this book, is that many of the families are very conflicted about this crime. Family members feel compelled to kill sisters, wives, daughters to cleanse their "honor". Often all traces of the victim are expunged from the family. The murderers, who are brothers, fathers, husbands, uncles and grandfathers, sometimes feel intense conflict over having killed a beloved sister, wife or daughter. Other times there is no remorse at all, simply deep hatred towards the woman for "dishonoring" the family and placing the men in the position of having to reclaim their honour.

Husseini points out that laws do little to protect women. Often laws are passed with loopholes that still allow men to kill. Most Muslim governments simply will not pass laws protecting women. Pressure from extremist Muslims is often enough to change the minds of those in power who might be otherwise predisposed to change. And the women themselves often have no where to run - no safe place to go.

The problem is so enormous and so prevalent that it remains to be seen whether these societies will ever change. Views about women must change and the distorted notion of honor much be changed. This book is a start in helping publicize the plight of our sisters in the Middle East. We must be their voices. Husseini is one such voice. The forward in the book was written by Jane Fonda who penned these words:
"As I write this foreword, CNN is broadcasting the footage of a young woman being publicly stoned to death by a lynch mob, while the police just stand by watching. It pains me deeply to live in a world where a Kurdish woman has been killed for falling in love with a man from a different faith. Murders like this, which happen around the world, destroy the honour they are intended to restore. Honour is respect for life. Honour is respect for love. There is no honour in murder."

And from Rana herself these fine words:
"...Beliefs relating to women as the bearers of family honour are still embedded in many people's minds, making so-called crimes of honour acceptable. But these beliefs are about control, not honour. Women are placed in fear, knowing that one false move or one malicious piece of gossip could end their lives in a moment. A killing made in the name of honour is a murder, plain and simple, and must be punished as such."

This is heart wrenching, well-written book dealing with a very sensitive topic. A must read for all who care about women.

Book Details:
Murder in the Name of Honor
The true story of one woman's heroic fight against an unbelievable crime.
by Rana Husseini
250pp

Chenxi and the Foreigner by Sally Rippin

Since I'm a huge fan of books, both fiction and nonfiction, dealing with China it seemed only right to pick up this book.
The story revolves around Anna White, the daughter of a wealthy American business man who is in China to make his fortune in the late 1980's. Anna's parents have separated and she has come from San Francisco, to spend four weeks with her father in Shanghai. While Anna's father would like her to study business law and become an entrepreneur, her heart lies in being an artist. So it seems like a good idea to study traditional Chinese painting, at the local art college.

Her father hires Chenxi, a local Chinese art student and painter, to help his daughter around Shanghai. Almost immediately, Anna becomes infatuated with her young Chinese host but is put off by his seemingly cool, distant attitude towards her. She cannot understand the mindset of the Chinese as she gets mostly mixed signals from Chenxi.

Chenxi, in turn, is frustrated by Anna's naivete and her lack of understanding of how repressed Chinese society is. However, Chenxi realises that despite this, Anna understands his art which is modern and very different than traditional Chinese art. Chenxi is impressed with Anna's fearlessness in using art to express herself but knows she doesn't understand what it is like to live in a society where freedom to express oneself does not exist.

To make matters more complicated Anna's father does not like Chenxi but favours Laurent, a French national studying mandarin in Shanghai. In an attempt to get Anna to mix more with the foreigners living in Shanghai her father takes Anna to cocktail parties and encourages her to meet with Laurent more often. However, Anna dislikes Laurent who deals in drugs on the side.

Anna continues to be attracted to only Chenxi with drastic consequences for all involved. She tries to convince Chenxi to leave China but he rebukes her telling her that he does not want to go to America and be a Chinese man living in America. He wants to live in China and be Chinese.

It isn't long before Anna soon learns that Chenxi is involved in much more than just art, working with other artists and students who are seeking democratic reform in communist China. While students are demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Chenxi and local artists stage their own demonstration at an art gallery in Shanghai. When Chenxi disappears, Anna tries everything to find and see him again but to no avail. It is at this time she learns she is carrying his child. When she tells her father and finally makes a decision for herself about her life, Anna's father refuses to help or support her and Anna leaves China.

Several years later, Anna learns through mysterious circumstances that Chenxi is safe and free again. She hopes through one last act she might reconnect with him again.

Chenxi and the Foreigner was authentic and believable. It's obvious that author Rippin knows her subject well. Although the characters were realistic, I personally found most of them unlikeable. Anna came across as spoiled and self-centred. Laurent was a dislikable drug head who seemed out of character in helping Anna navigate the Chinese health system when she suspects she's pregnant. Even Anna's father seemed shallow and self-absorbed. What father sends his daughter home, cutting her out of his life, when he learns she is pregnant in a foreign country? He seemed to have little time for his 19 year old daughter. I also found Chenxi to be a somewhat one-dimensional character - getting into his head came in bits and pieces that were hard to put together. He seemed to want to be like the foreigners, trying to get into their nightclub and yet despising them. Perhaps this was an accurate portrayal of how Chinese view westerners. It seemed like Anna and Chenxi only really connected during the one time she critiqued his painting.

Nevertheless, Chenxi and the Foreigner is a good, engaging read about a time in recent China that hasn't been much written about. The story is based somewhat on author, Rippin's experiences as a teenager living in China during her teen years. She studied painting in China for three years, first at the Shanghai Institute of Fine Arts and the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art. Some swearing and a short description of sexual intercourse in this book.

For more information on the author, Sally Rippin see:
Sally Rippin

Book Details:
Chenxi and the Foreigner by Sally Rippin
Annick Press Ltd 2009
212pp

Th1rteen R3easons Why by Jay Asher

Hannah Baker killed herself. When Clay Jensen receives a box of tapes in the mail, he is stunned to hear Hannah's voice on them. Before her death Hannah made tapes covering 13 sides of cassettes because there are "13 sides to every story". Hannah recorded these tapes and has sent them to the people she considers responsible for her suicide. The rules are that each person listens to all the tapes and then passes them onto the next person. If the chain is broken there is a second set of tapes which will be publicly revealed.

Thus begins Jay Asher's unusual novel about teen suicide. The novel opens with Clay Jensen, the ninth person to receive the tapes, mailing the tapes onto the next person. What follows is a narrative in Clay's voice of his experience listening to all the tapes, juxtaposed with Hannah's voice on the tapes - a dual narration.

We see how Hannah fails to cope with situation after situation in her life; failing to make close friends or developing a support system both at home and at school. She pushes people away, when she either has the chance or is offered the chance for help and support. It's a recipe for loneliness and disaster.

There are lots of ideas for teens to consider in this novel, making it a great book for a teen group discussion. Possibilities include to what degree are we responsible for friends; signs that someone is contemplating suicide, what teens can do to help a friend in trouble and so forth.

A sad but thoughtful novel that is sure to engage teens on a difficult subject.

Book Details:

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
New York: Razorbill     2007
288 pp.

Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins was born in Kolkata, India and lived in various countries before emigrating to the United States. If you'd like to find out more about her, please do check out her website, Mitali's Fire Escape. Her website has poetry and short fiction contests, webpages about her fiction and about her personal life.

I have read two of Mitali's books, Rickshaw Girl and just recently, Monsoon Summer which I enjoyed immensely. The latter is about an American born East Indian girl named Jasmine "Jazz" Gardner who spends the summer in India. Summer is the monsoon season in India, and that means it's a time of madness and magic.
Jazz's father is American while her mother was an Indian orphan who was adopted by an American couple. Her mother arranges this trip to her native India to help the orphanage she was adopted from and the entire family tags along to help out as well.

But for Jazz, the trip means leaving behind the boy she's fallen in love with - Steve Morales who is also her business partner and best friend from kindergarten. The trouble is, while Jazz has come to acknowledge her feelings for Steve, she is certain Steve does not share feel the same way about her.
This novel deals primarily with Jazz opening her heart up to helping out others as well as opening up to Steve about her love for him. It is Danita, a lovable, warm and realistic character who really helps Jazz the most and who adds so much charm to this novel. Danita helps Jazz reconcile her Indian heritage and learn to feel comfortable with who she is, and who helps her to feel comfortable with her feelings for Steve. She also helps Jazz to step outside her own narrow world. In return, Danita gets a chance to make a better life for herself.
A subplot about her mother learning more about her background and time at the orphanage is never really developed. The book focuses more on Jazz and her long distance relationship with Steve over the summer and her relationship with Danita.

This is a romantic, coming of age novel that will appeal to younger teens, with a side focus on helping others along life's journey and on a first world teen reaching out to third world peers.
Highly recommended.

The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

When I was in my local public library last week, this book's title caught my eye . I have to preface my review with the fact that I'm enamored with the history of Niagara Falls. This is in part due to the fact that when I was a child, my music teacher, for reasons unknown to me, always had lots of books in her studio on Niagara Falls. The result is that I grew up knowing all about Blondin, Farini, Annie Taylor and the ice jam of 1848. I was thrilled to read about the people who went over the Falls in various contraptions, some of which worked, many of which, did not. Added to this, was my family's yearly visits to Niagara Falls to picnic in a small meadow beneath the huge black water tower - both long since gone. So, little wonder the title alone was enough to push me to pick up the book!


Cathy Marie Buchanan, a native of Niagara Falls, who has the eclectic mix of degrees in biochemistry and business from the University of Western Ontario presents an astonishingly good first offering with The Day the Falls Stood Still.

This historical romance opens with Bess Heath, the protagonist, leaving Loretto Academy at the end of her junior year. Her father, is director of the Niagara Power Company and her family has led a privileged life up to this point. But Bess's life begins to unravel right from the start.

Her father had recommended to all his friends that they invest in aluminum but with the war, the price of aluminum plummets, the smelter fails and many suffer severe financial losses. This leads his boss, Mr. Cruikshank to fire him and his son, Boyce Cruikshank, to call off his engagement to Bess's beautiful, older sister Isabel. Bess's father reacts by drowning his sorrows at the Windsor Hotel while Isabel struggles with depression and some other hidden worry.

When her father does not show up for Bess's final night at Loretto, she and her mother must take a trolley home. Along the way, they are offered help with Bess's trunk by a handsome, young man, Tom Cole, who deftly carries the trunk to Glenview, the family mansion in Silvertown, Niagara Falls.

Bess falls for Tom Cole who we learn is the grandson of Fergus Cole a legendary Niagara Falls figure in the 1800's, known for his fearless rescues and his knowledge of the river. Tom Cole lives at the Windsor Hotel, serving drinks and also works fishing "floaters" out of the river. Not surprisingly, Bess's family are not impressed and her older sister Isabel advises her that "while the Boyce Cruickshanks of the world might be out of the question" she doesn't have to "settle" for a fishmonger.

Despite an attempt to please her family and choose a man they approve of, in the end Bess follows her heart. The second half of the book is therefore devoted to describing her life with Tom Cole and her family's struggles set against the backdrop of life in the early 1900's in Niagara Falls and that of World War I. Buchanan bases the character Tom Cole loosely on William "Red" Hill, Niagara's most famous riverman.

The prose is often elegant, filled with delightful descriptions.

At first blush, Mother's garden seems as immaculate as always. Intricate blooms of columbine nod in midmorning sun. Coneflowers stand erect, their central cores thrust forward, bristling with seeds. But all except the hardiest spires of foxglove and delphinium lay toppled, stalks collapsed under the weight of their own flowers. Peonies droop, their heavy blooms, unsupported by stakes, decaying on the ground. Beneath the garden's canopy of foliage, purslane spreads its weedy tendrils. Fronds of yarrow and tapered blades of crabgrass poke through once orderly beds of hosta and cranesbill.....

Pictures and drawings of the environs of Niagara Falls add to the overall sense of history and understanding of the Falls. Buchanan also drew from the considerable canon of literature on the Falls as evidenced in her acknowledgments at the back of the book.

However, The Day the Falls Stood Still is more than just a historical romance. It is filled with tragedy and sadness. Buchanan writes about Bess's loss of faith in God, the separation of people due to different classes in society, the aftermath of World War I on soldiers, marriages and society, the controversy over the construction of the power dams on the Niagara River and the struggles of ordinary people at the turn of the century to survive personal tragedy. Buchanan's writing also imparts a sense of what life was like for single and married women in Canada during the era of World War I.

Although this book didn't have the ending I longed for, I thoroughly enjoyed this first novel and can't wait to see Cathy Buchanan's next offering.

Book Details:

The Day the Falls Stood Still  by Cathy Marie Buchanan
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd        2008
298pp

Silent In An Evil Time by Jack Batten

Silent in an evil time: The brave war of Edith Cavell by Jack Batten tells the story of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who helped to rescue hundreds of British and French soldiers trapped behind German lines during World War I.

Author Jack Batten accomplishes a great deal in this book, providing historical information on the development of the nursing profession from the late 1800's into the early 1900's, as well as background information on the events and conditions that led to the start of the Great War. In this way, Silent in an evil time is much more than just a biography about a remarkable woman. Young readers will be familiarized with many prominent figures of this era and in the years immediately preceding the early 20th century, including Florence Nightingale and Archduke Franz Ferdinand.


I will leave it to readers to discover the significance of the phrase, "Silent in an evil time" to Edith Cavell. In the end Edith was not only known for her nursing and for her heroic efforts in helping Allied soldiers during the war but also in her belief that "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone."
Batten directs his young readers in an informative and captivating way to this book's sad ending.

Highly recommended for ages 10 to 15.

Book details:

Silent in an evil time: The brave war of Edith Cavell
by Jack Batten

Tundra Books 2007
135pp

The Soldier's Secret

The soldier’s secret: the story of Deborah Sampson by Sheila Klass is a historical novel based on the true story of Deborah Sampson. The time is 1776 and Sampson enrolls in the Continental Army to fight the British. The opening chapter is riveting, with Sampson under the name of Robert Shurtliff, in an army hospital and taken for dead.


Although very much not dead, Sampson must pretend to be so because to be discovered a woman, would be as good as dead. Her secret however, is discovered by army doctor who removes Shurtliff from the hospital and cares for her. At his request, she writes her story, telling about her difficult childhood and her motives behind deciding to serve in the army. Along the way there is a tender love story and a bit of tragedy too that will pull young readers in.

Two major reasons I enjoyed this book were the beginning chapter: Klass’s hook is excellent, drawing the reader into what promises to be a fascinating story and that promise is fulfilled. The book begins in the present and then proceeds to fill in the history.

Secondly, the book is a quick read, not drawn out and therefore likely to interest young adult readers.

Highly recommended for ages 12 and up.

War Brides by Melynda Jarratt

War Brides. The stories of the women who left everything behind to follow the men they loved by Melynda Jarratt provides younger women like myself wonderful insight into exactly what it was like to leave everything familiar and come to another country - all for love.

When Canada joined Britain in its declaration of war against Germany on 10 September 1939, the last thing on anybody's mind was marriage.
But less than forty days after the First Canadian Infantry Division landed at Greenock, Scotland, on 17 December 1939, the first marriage between a British woman and a Canadian soldier took place at the Farnborough Church in Aldershot on 28 January 1940. That marriage, and the nearly 48,000 which followed over the course of the next six years, formed one of the most unusual immigrant waves to hit Canada's shores: all women, mostly British, and all from the same age group, the story of the Canadian War Brides of the Second World War is one worth telling.

While the book which is mostly the stories of many war brides who settled in different regions of Canada, such as Ontario, the Maritimes and so forth, there are also chapters which focus on specific aspects of the war brides. There is a chapter devoted to the unique issues of faith and language differences war brides of French Canadians encountered. Jarratt also has a chapter of the stories of the war widows of Canadian soldiers, and on war fiancees - that is, women who were not yet married to their Canadian soldiers when they arrived in Canada.

What I hadn't anticipated is the fact that many of these stories are a testament to the resourcefulness, resilience and courage of war brides, many of whom were not accepted by their husband's families and communities and many who struggled mightily with the huge cultural differences they encountered when they arrived in Canada. Many British war brides came from communities that had running water and inside toilets and arrived in Canada to find living conditions, particularly in rural areas, very primitive at best. Some found the isolation to be overwhelming.

There are many stories of women who came to Canada and never looked back. Though these women were homesick at times, they were warmly welcomed and had happy productive lives and long happy marriages.

War Brides has an extensive bibliography with listing of primary and secondary sources as well as various summary tables on marriages and births for Canadian servicemen serving outside Canada during WWII. There are photographs of the war brides and maps.

Highly recommended. An informative read.


Book Details:
War Brides. The stories of the women who left everything behind to follow the men they loved.
By Melynda Jarratt

Tempus Publishing Limited 2007
288pp

Fashion, fashion, fashion

Thought I'd post something a little different on here. A little something to get me into thoughts of spring!

Ever wonder what clothes you should wear for your body type? Ever wonder what basics you need for a good wardrobe? Have you ever gone shopping for a day only to leave the mall after an hour thinking "hopeless". Well Clinton Kelly and Stacy London from TLC's "What Not to Wear" have put together the definitive guide, Dress Your Best, to help you achieve this end.

The book's dedication reads "This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever looked into a full-length mirror and thought, "It's hopeless." It's not! We promise. "

And to that promise they definitely live up to. There are chapters for both men and women. What really appealed to me was the books organization: it is divided into chapters based on body type. Each body grouping has three categories, petite, average height and tall. Some examples of the body types listed in this book include "Bigger on top", "A little extra in the middle" and "Not curvy".

For each type there is a picture of a woman in a black body suit who represents that specific body type. This allows you to determine if you really do fit into the body type you think you might be. Then Stacy and Clinton work their magic and give tips on what works best for that body type, how to play up certain good features (yes, we all have a few of them) and how to disguise other "problem" areas.
For men, the body types are more simple with such categories as "Short", "Average", "Barrel-chested" etc.
This is a great book for those who might need to re-evaluate their dress code for work or a serious round of job-hunting. For the rest of us, it just might help us buy less and shop more efficiently.


The second book I found very useful is "InStyle. instant style. Your Season-By-Season Guide for Work and Weekend"

This book has lots of tips on how to build a wardrobe with basics and looks a fall/winter and spring/summer fashions. For example, the Fall/Winter Wardrobe chapter explains how to use one suit , four ways. There are plenty of pictures of actual pieces and what to pair them with. Even though this book was published in 2006, it's advice is still up-to-date.

Germania by John Wilson

Germania is a  novel about a Roman legion ambushed and slaughtered in the wilds of Germania. .The story is told by Lucius Quintus Claudianus, a member of the 19th Legion Scorpio, specifically the IXth cohort. In the opening chapter of Germania Lucius, nearing 100 years of age is living at his sister's grandson's villa just by the northwestern gate of the town of Herculaneum in 79 AD - the year of Mount Vesuvius' famous eruption which destroyed both Herculaneum and Pompeii. 

Lucius decides to write his story, "I have just returned from the roof and it is what I saw there that has prompted me to begin this tale. Although the sun still shines above and the sky to the west is as blue as a robin's egg, the picture is altogether different to the east. There a cloud hangs, turning the landscape below it as dark as midnight. It is no ordinary cloud, such as presages a thunderstorm, but an unnatural one that blossoms up in a vast column from the unknown depths of the mountain."

And so Lucius begins to tell us about the events that led up to a long forgotten tragedy, all the while unaware of the disaster about to unfold before him in Herculaneum. As a young apprentice signifer to the IXth Cohort, Lucius and a group of warriors are ambushed and captured by barbarians while on their way to Vetera to join the 19th Legion. They are quickly rescued by Cherusci warriors who are loyal to Rome and are part of the Roman Auxilliary forces. 

It is at this time that Lucius meets Freya, a Cherusci warrior who is travelling with her uncle Arminius. It is through Freya that Lucius begins to understand what life is like for the barbarian tribes that live on the borders of the Roman territory and what it is like to serve Rome but never be accepted as a an equal in Roman society. When Lucius offers Roman ways as a means to be civilized, Freya questions what being civilized will mean to her way of life and her tribe. It is this struggle to see the benefits Rome offers in contrast to the loss of a way of life and freedom that precipitates barbarian rebellion against Rome.

When the 19th Legion enters Illyria, Bato, leader of the Bruesci tribe rebels and attempts to force the Romans out of Illyria. The ensuing battle is described vividly and provides thrilling insight to Roman warfare. Although Bato is seemingly defeated this time, Freya soon comes to understand what her uncle Arminius is planning. When Arminius must choose between Rome and Cherusci, Freya must decide who she will be loyal to, Arminius, the Cherusci and their way of life, or Lucius and Rome.

Discussion

Germania is a novel that explores the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest which occurred in 9 A.D. The battle was fought between Roman soldiers and the Germani people. The battle began when the Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were ambushed by the Germanic chieftain, Arminius. 

Arminius was a prince in Cherusci tribe, the son of the Cheruscan chief, Segimerus who was an ally of Rome. He learned to speak Latin, had Roman citizenship and was well educated. He eventually served in the Roman cavalry and became a commander in the auxiliaries. Arminius returned to Gaul where he served sd an officer in Varus's auxilia as well as a trusted advisor to Varus who was governor of Germania. But behind the scenes, Arminius was rallying the various Germanic tribes including the Cherusci, Marsi, Bructeri and many others to form an alliance against Rome.

Varus was considered a ruthless ruler in Germania and Arminius was not really loyal to Rome. Along with the other Germanic tribes, a plan was devised to ambush the three legions under Varus's command. Since the Roman army was well armed and very well trained, special tactics were needed. Arminius convinced Varus to set up a summer camp in Cherusci lands where they could be observed by the tribe. The plan was then to attack the Romans on their way back to their winter camp.

Arminius set his plan in motion, having his allies create unrest, while he influenced Varus's actions over the summer months. Varus began his move to the winter camp on September 7, 9 A.D with the XVII, XVIII and XIX Legions. Arminius left Varus, telling the Roman commander that he was organizing the Cherusci auxiliaries but in fact was organizing men from the Angrivarii and Bructeri to attack. The next day as the Roman army made its way through the Teutoburg Forest, they were attacked. Because of the dense bush, the Roman soldiers were strung out along a long line which made attack not only easy but successful. It is estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 Roman soldiers were killed, with a small number likely being enslaved. The Roman defeat was so complete that it shocked Emperor Augustus. Although the Roman defeat in the Teutoburg Forest is often listed as the main reason for limiting the Roman incursion in Germania, there were likely other factors at work as well.

Wilson's writing is vivid, exciting and he manages to include a great deal of historical fact and information about Roman legions in Germania. The ending while tragic is supremely satisfying. Highly recommended.

Book details:

Germania by John Wilson
Key Porter Books Limited 2008
278pp