The Girl is Trouble

The Girl is Trouble
by Kathryn Miller Haines
sequel to The Girl is Murder

It's the Fall of 1942 and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business. (description from Amazon.com)

 

Amateur sleuth, Iris, is back and the stakes have gone up another notch. The war is Europe is looming over everyone in Iris' life and it's starting to take its toll on her friends at school, her neighbors, and especially her father... The kids at school in the Jewish afterschool club have started receiving threats.  Iris learns her mother may have been murdered and because...well, the reason would have been absolutely horrifying! Unsure who she can trust, whether her best friend and father are lying to her, and feeling like her world is crumbling around her, Iris must do the best she can to find out all the nitty-gritty details to clear everything up and set her world back to rights. 

 

Again, my fellow Veronica Mars fans, remember those moments when Veronica's life was spinning completely out of control and while Veronica was emotionally crumbling, her mind seemed to clear and she became a private investigating MACHINE?  Those were the best parts of each season...the moments when I was absolutely riveted. This book, is that moment in written form.  Absolutely riveting and emotionally draining in the best type of way...

 

Full disclosure: Borrowed through interlibrary loan

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Generation Dead

Generation Dead
by Daniel Waters

Phoebe is just your typical goth girl with a crush. He's strong, and silent, and dead.

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is happening. Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead. They are coming back to life, but they are no longer the same - they stutter, and their reactions to everything are slower. Termed "living impaired" or "differently biotic," they are doing their best to fit into a society that doesn't want them.

Fitting in is hard enough when you don't have the look or attitude, but when almost everyone else is alive and you're not, it's close to impossible. The kids at Oakvale High don't want to take classes or eat in the cafeteria next to someone who isn't breathing. And there are no laws that exist to protect the differently biotic from the people who want them to disappear - for good.

With her pale skin and Goth wardrobe, Phoebe has never run with the popular crowd. But no one can believe it when she falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids. Not her best friend, Margi, whose fear of the differently biotic is deeply rooted in guilt over the past. And especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team. Adam has just realized his feelings for Phoebe run much deeper than just friendship. He would do anything for her, but what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy? (description taken from Amazon.com)

This was a really well written book. It's a cool concept. Teenagers, just in the US (and a few in Canada) coming back as zombies. I loved reading the different potential explainations for the phenomenon, especially when Tommy finally tells Phoebe why he thinks that different zombies are able to be more highly functioning. Waters is able to present this topic in a humorous way, while still exploring some deeper emotions.

In fact, racism and discrimination are HUGE topics in this book. Yet, it's done in such a way that it's touching and the reader becomes invested in the characters and so it doesn't have that overwhelming heavy feeling that can totally ruin a book with its overarching concept. Waters presents not only the evidence that zombies are being murdered because they are "unnatural," but also allows readers to see how easily "traditionally biotics" can grow to hate.

There are degrees of fear and hatred shown, from Margi's fear derived from guilt over her friend's death, to Adam and Phoebe's mild fears of the unknown, to Pete's overwhelming, unrelenting, and unreasonable hate...that leads to some atrocious plans. What really struck me about this book was that it also showed the fear and hate that builds on the receiving end of this kind of racism. Several of the zombies are afraid to interact with "trads" for fear of being hurt. There is a moment when Adam and one of the zombies, Karen, connect and he kisses her cheek - she is overcome by the fact that he did it...like she was any other girl. Honestly, that was my favorite moment in the whole book!

There were moments when I felt like this book sort of dragged for me, but each time I thought about maybe, just maybe taking a break, two pages later one of the excellently drawn characters sucked me right back in! I loved Karen, Evan, Thorny, and Adam...

There was quite a bit of foreshadowing in this book, and I like where it's leading. Then with the big twist at the end....I will definitely be reading Kiss of Life very shortly!!