I’m excited to be participating in the blog tour for the new young adult collection of short stories, Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides To Every Story. I have one copy of this book to give away to someone who comments by midnight (PST) on Tuesday, February 14. Addresses in the U.S. and Canada only please. Read on for my review, then check out the Girl Meets Boy Book Trailer.

In Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story, twelve young adult writers team up to six stories from two different points of view: his and hers. This collection, edited by Kelly Milner Halls, is funny and smart and raw in the way it looks at teens in love.

Joseph Bruchac writes of a Native American boy who is short for his age and learning martial arts to defend himself against the bigger guys at school. He would like to get together with the tall star of the girls basketball team, but he’s sure she would never go for him. Cynthia Leitich Smith writes the other side of the story, of a girl who’s not very girly and who intimidates the boys around her. In this story, as in all the other, the boys and girls face their insecurities, their fears, and sometimes even defy the wishes of their parents in the pursuit of love.

Other writers in the collection include Chris Crutcher and Kelly Milner Halls, James Howe and Ellen Wittlinger, Terry Davis and Rebecca Fjelland Davis, Terry Trueman and Rita Williams-Garcia, and Randy Powel and Sara Ryan

Issues that these teens deal with include being attracted to someone of a different race, someone of the same sex, and someone of a different religion. Their moral backgrounds don’t always match. But they all share one thing in common: they are taking a chance on someone in the hopes of finding love. The writing is fresh and thoughtful and provocative. Girl Meets Boy is fun to read. It’s also interesting to see what each author has to say about the inspiration for his or her character. I recommend it for ages 15 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Kim Culbertson has a way of capturing the conflicted emotions teens experience as they go through high school, begin and end relationships, and get ready for life away from their parents. In Songs for a Teenage Nomad, Callie kept a song journal to help her cope with the loneliness that came from constantly moving with her mother. Instructions for a Broken Heart found Jessa breaking out of her normal patterns to help get over a cheating boyfriend.

Now, in The Liberation of Max McTrue, Culbertson brings to life a character who has always done just enough to get by. He lets his girlfriend and his parents make the big decisions in his life, but on the verge of turning in his college applications, he questions the path laid out for him. A girl who seems to appear from nowhere, on a quest to find her dog, intrigues him. As he helps Clara Jane follow a set of clues set up by her dad as part of a homeschooling assignment, he begins to question everything he assumes to be inevitable about his future.

Taking place over the course of one school day and into the evening, Max McTrue takes a look at the pressure teens can feel to know what they want to do when they leave high school. Max feels like everyone except him has a “thing” they are passionate about. Secretly, he does too, but it’s something he knows his parents wouldn’t approve of. And up until now, it’s been easier for him to go along than to rebel.

I thought about Max long after I had read the last word of Culbertson’s novella. Part of that may be because my own daughter is applying for colleges this year, but also because Max’s struggle applies to more than just young adults on the verge of leaving home. In some ways, the issues he grapples with are relevant to adults too, who may be going through a career or life change. Max is standing on the brink of a something big and he has to make a decision which way to go. He can either let others make that decision for him, or he can make it himself. I recommend Max McTrue for ages 14 and up. It’s available as an eBook for Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Hadley dreads the trip she is making to London to be in her father’s wedding. But when she misses her flight there by four minutes, she’s rebooked on the next flight, where she meets Oliver. As they talk over the Atlantic Ocean, Hadley feels a connection to him that is stronger than to anyone she has felt before. Could her four-minute mistake turn into the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time?

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith looks at what it means to be in, and out, of love from several different points of view. Hadley’s parents are divorced, and her mom and dad have both found someone else who makes them happy. Hadley loves her dad, but she has a hard time forgiving him for leaving in the first place. She feels he has left his old life behind, including her, and is moving on to something new.

Oliver had a difficult relationship with his own father, but he’s able to help Hadley see hers in a new light. As the two of them find and lose each other several times in a 24-hour period, they learn more about what they truly want for themselves and their families.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Andi’s life fell apart after her younger brother died. Her parents divorced, her mother paints canvases with her brother’s face on them all day, and Andi feels Truman’s death was all her fault. The crushing weight of her depression has her feeling hopeless and contemplating suicide.

Her dad, a world famous geneticist, tries to save her by taking her from her home in Brooklyn with him on an assignment in Paris. Tasked with matching the DNA from a long-preserved heart to Marie Antoinette and her son, he is too occupied with his own project to truly be of much help.

Andi sees no way to shake her hopelessness, until she meets a taxi driver who shares her love of music and finds the diary of a girl assigned to care for the young prince during the French Revolution. As Alexandrine’s story unfolds, Andi finds herself entwined in a mystery that spans several centuries and threatens to send her spiraling even further down than before.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly moves deftly between the modern world and the chaos that existed in the late 1700s revolutionary France. In Paris, Andi explores the life of a well-known composer who lived during the time of the revolution. She also explores the dark world of the catacombs that lie beneath the city and scratches at the current of racism against northern Africans that France struggles with today. She sees parallels between the current situation and the revolution. Ultimately, if Andi is to survive she has to find a way to hope for the future once more.

Revolution will satisfy readers who love historical fiction as well as those who like to read about teens in today’s world solving problems. Andi as a heroine is difficult to like, as she is prickly and dark and lashing out at those around her. Yet her raw emotions and search for hope in the midst of despair will have you pulling for her to make peace with herself. I recommend this book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 16 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Here’s a guest book review by author Christina Hamlett (AuthorHamlett.com).

Title: “Growing Up Jewish in Small Town America: A Memoir”
Author: Elaine Fantle Shimberg
Published in 2011, Abernathy House Publishing

Among the numerous delights in Elaine Fantle Shimberg’s latest release, Growing Up Jewish in Small Town America: A Memoir, are the inclusion of quotes that speak as much to Jewish culture and philosophy as they do to the universally bewildering dichotomy of wanting to blend in and yet still stand out as unique. Shimberg’s fond recollections of being one of the 32 Jewish families living in 1940’s Fort Dodge, Iowa are funny, conversational and reminiscent of a safer era in which kids could ride their bicycles after dusk down neighborhood streets and not worry about ending up on the back of a milk carton. The black and white captioned photographs sprinkled throughout the text are sweet frosting on an already delicious cake, and it’s easy to see how the young Elaine’s curiosity, daredevil sense of adventure, and unabashed mirth laid the foundation for such a successful career as an author, columnist and talk show host when she grew up.

As a former actress, I can likewise find much to relate to in her anecdotes about treading the boards as the Virgin Mary at her kindergarten’s Christmas pageant and turning her time in the spotlight into a boisterous solo of “Rock a Bye Baby.” That she disavows blame or credit for her embarrassed teacher later joining a convent is one of many humorous postscript remarks guaranteed to have liquid come out of your nose if you’re foolish enough to be drinking while reading.

What I especially admire about Shimberg’s breezy and approachable style is that she doesn’t resort to one of the common practices of others who have penned life stories; specifically, their penchant for analyzing, interpreting and justifying actions and events from the 20/20 perspective of adulthood instead of just relating them from the innocence of memory. Though written decades after-the-fact, the voice in which she whimsically brings her past to life is that of an inquisitively impatient young adult who wants to rush headlong into the future and yet recognizes that – like Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” – everything that defines her true values has not only been with her all along but was shaped by the experiences of her ancestors, themselves strangers once upon a time in a strange land.

Shimberg’s book will resonate as much with teenagers starting out on their own journey as it will with well traveled adults caught up in the introspection of all the roads not taken. If I have any criticism at all of the book, it’s that it was much too short. One can only hope that this exceptional storyteller has many more chapters and pictures up her sleeve that will entertain us in the coming years.

Martha Allen is 22 and well past the age when her family started to think of marriage for her. But her hard disposition has attracted no man who would marry her, and so she is sent to live with her cousin Patience and help with the household while Patience goes through a difficult pregnancy.

Lie is hard in rural Massachusetts during the late 1600s, and Martha is a big help. She finds herself attracted to Thomas, an indentured man who helps to run the farm. There are whisperings that Thomas has a secret to hide, that he was somehow involved in Cromwell’s execution of England’s king years before. Whatever happened in his past, it now threatens to shatter the peaceful existence that has settled over the household.

The Traitor’s Wife by Kathleen Kent tells the beginning of the story of Martha Allen and Thomas Carrier, the parents of Sarah Carrier in The Heretic’s Daughter. In this prequel, Kent once again brings this time in the early years of the Massachusetts colony alive. There were fears of violent natives on the prowl, the plague, and mischief-makers from England. This new frontier was a hard place to live, and despite the separation of colonists they depended on each other to stay alive.

In The Heretic’s Daughter, Sarah struggles to understand her mother and the hard exterior she shows to the world. Here, Martha is revealed as someone who has a backbone of steel, but it’s a rigidness born of necessity as much as personality. The same goes for Thomas, who is reluctant to involve anyone else in protecting him from his past, but is eager to begin anew in this raw country.

Through Kent’s research and masterful storytelling, she has created another fascinating tale that draws on family stories of her very real ancestors. I recommend The Traitor’s Wife for anyone who loves historical fiction.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Lucky Linderman has had to face a lot of challenges in his 14 years. His grandfather has been missing in action since being captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. His father doesn’t really talk to him about anything important, and his mother escapes the home life tension by swimming laps every day. Then there’s Nader McMillan, the bully who has abused Lucky repeatedly since they were seven. When Nader goes too far one day, Lucky’s mom takes him from their home in Pennsylvania to stay with family in Arizona for a few weeks.

Outside of his regular environment, Lucky has a chance to gain a new perspective on everything in his life and decide what he’s going to do going forward.

Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King is a powerful and gripping story about an uncomfortable subject. Lucky’s parents know he’s being bullied, but their initial efforts to do something about it prove fruitless. Eventually, they give up. Most of the people in Lucky’s life turn a blind eye to Nader’s abuse because they don’t know what to do about it. With no one to guide him on resisting, Lucky avoids Nader when possible and takes whatever Nader gives out when he can’t.

Over the years Lucky has learned to escape into a world where he is rescuing his grandfather from his captors. In his dreams he is more powerful than in real life, and he finds a way to work through the issues that bother him. The question is, will Lucky be able to figure out how to rescue himself without doing something drastic?

Everybody Sees the Ants doesn’t flinch at the brutal reality of war zones, whether they are on the playground or in the jungle. It refuses to turn that blind eye to the consequences of those brutal actions: children who grow up without fathers, parents who blame each other for their ineffectiveness and grow apart, and a society that doesn’t protect the vulnerable. It’s not an easy book to read, but it is an important one. I highly recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 14 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Evan and Lucy have been best friends ever since they can remember. They used to spend hours playing together and creating stories and drawings for an imaginary place they call Aelysthia. That was before Lucy’s parents split up and she moved with her mother from New England to Georgia. Now she comes back once a year to visit her dad at Christmas and New Year’s.

Evan hasn’t heard from Lucy in months when she lets him know she’s at her dad’s home again. And she’s changed. Her hair is chopped short and dyed black. She’s got an earring in her nose, and she’s wearing heavy makeup. She doesn’t say much. It’s clear to Evan that something has changed dramatically for her, but she won’t talk about it.

As the two spend time together, they struggle to reconnect and find the person they remember behind the façade they each show to the world. Evan conforms to his dad’s expectations of achieving an Ivy-league education at the expense of his love of art, and Lucy hides the heartbreak of her home life that is at the center of her rebellion.

WinterTown, with story and art by Stephen Emond, takes readers on a journey of self-discovery for both characters. Emond’s illustrations of the wintry world Lucy and Evan navigate, both in reality and in Aelysthia, create a feeling of coldness that applies to the outside as well as inside world of both Evan and Lucy.

Evan’s perspective comes first, followed by Lucy’s story and point of view. Woven between chapters is the graphic art Evan creates of Aelysthia, What emerges is a story of teens struggling to be who they are for themselves, regardless of who their parents expect them to be. Evan’s father wants to control too much of his life, while both of Lucy’s parents are too wrapped up in their own lives to pay much attention to hers. Evan and Lucy are important to each other, yet neither can save the other from the challenges they face.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Have you ever wished you could do more to contribute to a cause or organization you really believed in? Kevin Salwen and his family took that desire and turned it into something tangible by selling their upscale home, downsizing to a smaller house, and donating half their profit to a charity.

Inspired by daughter Hannah’s frustration with the inequity she saw around her suburban Atlanta neighborhood, the Salwen family’s decision is probably more of a sacrifice than most of us are willing to make. Yet, the premise behind their decision, to identify something they could use less of and give away half of the excess, can be put into action by most anyone.

Kevin and Hannah Salwen tell their story, and hope to inspire others to take action, in their book, The Power of Half. While Kevin writes most of the narrative, Hannah contributes sidebars that call the reader to action, such as the one titled, “Helping Small Kids Start Volunteering.” We also get to see how the rest of the family reacts during the process, including Kevin’s wife Joan, and their son, Hannah’s brother Joseph.

Many mother-daughter book clubs have taken on volunteer projects as a group, and reading The Power of Half could help groups identify something they believe in and decide how they want to contribute. When my adult book club read this book we made a list of organizations where we have volunteered time or contributed money. We discussed the criteria that go into helping us decide which organizations we want to support. We also decided to volunteer together as a group by helping an organization dedicated to providing books to needy children.

In 1965 the U.S. was committing more troops to Vietnam, Malcolm X was assassinated, civil rights demonstrators marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and riots broke out in Los Angeles. Sex, drugs and rock and roll was the mantra of the day. In Purple Daze by Sherry Shahan, six high school friends navigate these unsettling times along with other challenges of growing up, like having alcoholic parents, deciding whether or not to have sex with a boyfriend, trying to get through school, and getting drafted.

The story is told in journal entries, verse, headline news clips and letters that give us insights into the inner lives of each of the characters, as well as a feeling for the backdrop of historical events of the time. This format is powerful and compelling, getting to the heart of all the issues with a minimum of words. As the year progresses and the characters are more and more affected by events within their own group of friends and in the country, each of them struggles to determine how they will respond and what they truly believe in.

Purple Daze is not only a good way to learn more about this time in our country’s history, it’s also a moving look at how the lives of individuals were affected. While many of the issues were particular to the era, others are more universal for teens at all times. I recommend it for ages 15 and up.

Publisher Running Press Teens provided me with a copy of this book for review.