"The F-- It List" Literary Review

The F- It List by Julie Halpern
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every once in a while there will be a book that comes along that will become one of those stirring sticks of controversy... Boy oh boy I can't wait to see the reality television-esque turmoil that will erupt once this book gets released. First and foremost, look at that title!! "The F-It List" implies exactly what you think... it's a list with things that the protagonist Alex and her cancer-striken friend Becca want to say "F it!" and just do within their lifetimes. But along the way, both of the girls become stronger both within their friendship and their individual lives. Becca struggles with chemo and the fact that she may not survive to graduation, while Alex deals with more menial aspects of teenage life, such as saying "I love you" to a boy she truly loves, but she's still insecure.

This is a great book for teens to indulge with and connect to.... The only downside is the proverbial usage of vulgarity. Oh well, teenagers will be teenagers.

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"Ship Breaker"- Literary Review

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For fans of futuristic and dystopic literature, here's one that you'll enjoy! I won't even say that it's anything similar to The Hunger Games, other than it is geared towards Young Adults, simply because it can hold its own in this genre.

Nailer is a teen who is scraping for metal in deserted ships in the Gulf Coast region. He works dawn to dusk crawling in tight places for copper wire and signs of oil, and his only refuge is in the loyalty that he tries to foster with his crewmates. When he and a fellow crew member find a shipwrecked schooner off the coast of their island, Nailer wants nothing more than to find a way to escape his life and abusive drug addict of a father. However, he never expected to find Nita.

Nita is a swank, aka rich girl, who is a pawn in corporate trading to gain monopoly over the known world. She finds Nailer and promises him an escape to paradise if he can help her return to her father. Nailer, despite every instinct to say no, accepts. They are chased by bounty hunters, greedy corporate assassins and pirates, and even Nailer's father, Richard, in an adventure that I would consider exciting on an epic scale.

Adventure stories are not often well constructed, but with a dystopia, there's a lot of room to create a "new world". Bacigalupi does this with perfection; he constructs a desolate world, connects it to his teenage protagonist, which furthermore allows a young adult reader to connect with it. The aspect of abusive parent also plays in well, because despite pirates, disease and danger lurking around every corner, it's worse when it exists at home within your own family.

As a teacher, I would recommend this title to students as a great coming of age story, as well as an interesting and engaging read.

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