YA Review: Scored by Lauren Mclaughlin

Scored by Lauren McLaughlin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My ACT score was in the 20's.
Nobody cares about that anymore.

My GPA has always been "above average"
No one wants to hear about it.

My life has been carefully controlled by grades, scores, ratings and rank since before I was even aware of it, all under the premise that if I scored well enough, the finances that I didn't have wouldn't matter.  That without these scores, I was doomed to only achieve the levels my money would allow.  The rich children would have better opportunities, but the well-scored could always level the field through merit-based scholarship.

Recently, I've begun to monitor my Klout score.  Klout is an algorithim calculations based website that monitors your social media influence.  Higher scores reflect the amount of people on the web that value what you talk about and share.  Companies use these scores to pinpoint the best people to help market their products.  For instance, a high klout score with an emphasis on Cars, may get you a free week-long test drive from a car company.

On the surface these things sound AWESOME.  No more is it about "who you know", or "what you have", but it's about YOU.  Who you are.  What you do.  Fair and impartial, technology does the work that humans have failed at.

That said, let me just start this review by admitting that the most chilling thing that hit me almost immediately, was that Imani, our main character's "score" in this book is 64...

My Klout "score" is 64.

We're ALREADY scoring and charting and tagging ourselves into a fresh new caste system.  One where everyone is "better" because no one is.

Oh my gosh where do I even begin.

YA Graphic Review: Level Up by Gene Yang

Level Up by Gene Luen Yang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Almost every gamer has had this boss battle.
Almost every young adult has had this hurdle.
The one where what you LOVE to do, is questioned by parents who want you to do things that will get you a job.


Dennis Ouyang was bitten by the video game bug when he was six years old but try as he might, his parents refused to even let him have money for the arcade, let alone purchase a home system.  Playing games is no way to learn how to "eat much bitterness", his father decides, and instead steers young Dennis into a life of science and schoolwork.

YA Review: Plan B by Charnan Simon

Plan B by Charnan Simon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Before I tell you what I did like about this book, let me first say that if you've ever watched a really good episode of Degrassi, or MTV True Life:I'm a Pregnant Teen, etc., then you've already read this book.
It played out sooo seamlessly predictable that it was hard to take it seriously at first. I mean really, Luke and Lucy?!? That's the best you could come up with?

But anyway, what I did like about the book was that for all of its predictability, there were some classy touches that put small twists on the usual pregnant teenager story.

Graphic Review: Tales From The Crypt Series

I'm impressed.  I don't get impressed easily, so let's let that tell you how much I liked this series.  They are short reads, so I was able to get about five under my belt this week alone.  The crypt-keeper and his friends have been out of print since the 50's, but gained a HUGE following in the 90's when HBO brought them to the small screen.  I was pretty young when the series came out and so I didn't much like being grossed out so much.  LOL  Now, I'm game for quite a bit of gore.

This series is a great reintroduction to the franchise.  Like I said before, many horror books are good for trying to be scary and missing the mark.  These are not those at all.  I was totally freaked out! 

The horrifics are spruced up a notch because they tie in to very real themes:

• There's the story of the slumlord who lets his tenant freeze to death.
• The crooner who summons a demon to help him win Idol.
• The backwards story of the real "paradise" suicide bombers may wind up in.
• The poor chap who lets his online persona mix a little too closely with his real life.

These stories were frightfully believable and I found myself unable to stop turning the pages.  The comics employ different drawing styles for each story and the pictures work seamlessly with the tales, which may seem like a common sense feat, but is one that many graphic novels fail to accomplish. 

As for the humor and puns, which is also a great staple in Tales from the Crypt history, it is there as well.  As I suspected, the Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid parody was adorably ghoulish, and that volume also had a pretty awesome Twilight spoof called Dielight. 

There aren't any over-the-top sexual themes or the like, but I'm sure there are some that probably find the books to be gruesome or racy due to the murder scenes.   However, the redeeming quality of these stories is very much like that of classic folktales.  The "victims" in these stories are always vindicated and the bad guys always get their comeuppance.  I really did enjoy this series and will be adding it to my horror files.  I believe they will draw in tons of readers who like chills and thrills.
 Check out the series website at: http://www.papercutz.com/tc/tc.html

YA Review: Life As We Knew It

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this story, as with M.T. Anderson's Feed, is that it could possibly be more accurate than even the author is aware. Chilling.

After the first twenty pages, you will never look at the moon the same again. Author Susan Beth Pfeffer, bravely takes on the topic of environmental apocalypse with a freshness and somehow comfortable humor that is all but infectious upon reading. Set in modern times, seventeen-year-old Miranda is more concerned with the amount of homework she has to complete, not being asked to the prom yet, and the news of her stepmother's pregnancy than the thought of the asteroid that is set to collide with the moon.

Not too long after it does make contact, Miranda, along with the rest of the world realizes all too soon that the crash is more of a tragedy than once believed, as it tilts the moon and leads to cataclysmic events happening worldwide.