Book Log: While I Live, The Bermudez Triangle, Zazoo

[penmage]

34. While I Live: The Ellie Chronicles #1, by John Marsden

It is four months since the war ended, and for Ellie Linton, life is slowly returning to some form of normalcy. She is living on her family farm with her parents and helping to pick up the pieces of their life. She is back in school, and is slowly reclaiming who she was before the war. And then, in the blink of an eye, devestating tragedy strikes. Now, Ellie must pick up the pieces all over again and struggle to hold on to everything that she's managed to build. And this time, some of her enemies are closer to home.

If you haven't read Tommorow, When the War Began and its sequals, then go out and read them, and then read this book. They are about a group of teenagers who, upon returning from a camping trip, discover that their country has been invaded, their houses ransacked, and their families taken captive. Those books blew me out of the water. They are so well-written, so intense that I literally could not breathe at times when I was reading them. You know how when something traumatizing happens, something that shocks you, that image is indelibly burnt on your brain - a snapshot of the moment? One of the scenes in those books is like that for me. Indelibely burned. I still gasp for breathe when I think about how it felt when I read it - like a punch in the gut. That's how good these books are.

I was a little afraid to start reading While I Live. I knew that Ellie's narrative would grab me, and I knew that if something bad happened to her, it would hurt me. It would hurt me a lot, the way the life of a character you have spent seven books with matters to you. And I was right. Ellie's tragedy made me gasp with pain. And that's when I knew that John Marsden hadn't lost it, that even after a war, even during an uneasy truce, these books were still carried by Ellie's strong voice. These books are good. They are as good as their predecessors, if quieter (at least in part.) I am hungrily looking forward to more books in the Ellie Chronicles. (janni, I especially think you might like the series.)

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35. The Bermudez Triangle, by Maureen Johnson

Nina, Avery and Mel have been best friends all of their lives. And now, for the first time, as Nina heads off to precollege camp in the summer after their junior year, they are going to be apart. But how much could happen in ten weeks? As it turns out, plenty. Nina falls in love with Steve, the eco-warrior down the hall. And while she is away, Mel has her first kiss, too - with Avery.

This book is not as good as the other Maureen Johnson books. As you may know, I consider Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes to be possibly the best teen novel ever, so I was kind of dissapointed in this book. The premise seemed a little Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants to me, but unlike those girls, we never really see how the girls mesh as friends. Even though they talk a lot about how close they are, and how much they care about each other, it's hard to see. The bond between them feels more - well, fictional - than actual. It's not a bad book. Mel's struggle to come to grips with her homosexuality, as well as Avery's to understand whether she's homosexual, bi, or just in love with her best friend are compelling. But Nina's relationship with Steve is predictable. And the book drags, and ends on a vague, undefined note that left me feeling vaguely unfulfilled.

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36. Zazoo, by Richard Mosher

Thirteen-year-old Zazoo is an orphaned Vietnamese girl who lives on the quiet banks of a French canal with her elderly adoptive Grand-Pierre. Her life is peaceful, marked only by worries about her increasingly aged and beloved grandfather. One day, her life is disturbed by a seemingly chance encounter with a boy on a bicycle who asks questions that lead Zazoo to start to question her grandfather's past. What happened to him during World War II, which he calls the Awful Time? And why do the villagers call him a hero, but seem to be afraid of him?

This is a quiet story about past life and present, filled with missed romance and romance that spans generations. Zazoo's narrative is lively and sweet and innocent, peppered with poetry and occasional true insight. And the mystery of Grand-Pierre's past, as well as the motives of Zazoo's bicycling friend, are compelling enough to move the story to its very beautiful and touching end. It's not an exciting story, but it is a lovely one.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I need to reread Tomorrow When the War Began. I think I didn't quite realize it was a series when I first read it, and so the one book didn't stand well on its own, and by the time the next book came out it'd been a while since I'd read the first. But every time I hear about them, they sound like the sort of thing I would like. :-)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

They are kind of like How I Live Now, only less dreamy and more violent. And with a lot more. And Ellie has this great, uterly unique and strong voice - as soon as I picked up While I Live, even though it's been a couple of years since I read the last Tommorow book, it felt like meeting up with an old friend.

They are really good.