There's a little something for everyone this week, as the gems in today's roundup of new releases include Libba Bray's much anticipated quirky "road-trip" novel, GOING BOVINE, and the family drama ELI THE GOOD by Silas House, as well as the paperback releases of the philosophical fantasy NATION and John Green's bestseller PAPER TOWNS. Perfect for your sci-fi/fantasy fix --- replete with monsters, vamps and faeries --- are PRETTY DEAD by Francesca Lia Block, Rick Yancey's THE MUNSTRUMOLOGIST and the fantastical fairy tale WONDROUS STRANGE by Lesley Livingston.
New Releases for September 22nd
Hardcover
ELI THE GOOD by Silas House (Candlewick Press)
Bicentennial fireworks burn the sky. Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And down by the river, girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Yet for ten-year-old Eli Book, the summer of 1976 is the one that threatened to tear his family apart. There is his distant mother; his traumatized Vietnam vet dad; his wild sister; his former war-protester aunt; and his tough yet troubled best friend, Edie, the only person with whom he can be himself. As tempers flare and his father’s nightmares rage, Eli watches from the sidelines, but soon even he cannot escape the current of conflict. From Silas House comes a tender look at the complexities of childhood and the realities of war --- a quintessentially Southern novel filled with music, nostalgic detail, a deep respect for nature, and a powerful sense of place.
GOING BOVINE by Libba Bray (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school --- and life in general --- with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure --- if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.
HOMESTRETCH by Paul Volponi (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster)
A runaway boy with nothing finds everything he needs, including a family, in the most unlikely of places --- at a racetrack.
PRETTY DEAD by Francesca Lia Block (HarperTeen)
People pity me, but mostly they feel envy. I have all the luxury and freedom a girl my age could want.
Something is happening to Charlotte Emerson. Like the fires that are ravaging the hills of Los Angeles, it consumes her from the inside out. But whether it is her eternal loneliness, the memory of her brother, the return of her first love, or the brooding, magnetic Jared --- she cannot say. What if it's something more . . .
Something to do with the sudden tear in her perfect nails. The heat she feels when she's with Jared. The blood rushing once again to her cheeks and throughout her veins.
For Charlotte is a vampire, witness to almost a century's worth of death and destruction. But not since she was a human girl has mortality touched her.
In what way will you be transformed?
Until now.
Z. REX: The Hunting, Book 1 by Steve Cole (Philomel Books)
You’re 14 and find yourself on your own. Your father, who has developed the world’s cutting-edge research on virtual electronic game-playing, has been missing for weeks. And suddenly you’re being hunted by men with guns, your picture is on the news, and, worst of all, something seemingly impossible is chasing you --- a savage, man-eating dinosaur. How can that be? Why is everyone trying to capture you? And what is your strange connection with this 21st-century prehistoric monster?
THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST by Rick Yancey (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)
These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me...and the one who cursed me.
So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore War throp, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.
Critically acclaimed author Rick Yancey has written a gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does a man become the very thing he hunts?
Paperback
NATION by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
When a giant wave destroys his village, Mau is the only one left. Daphne --- a traveler from the other side of the globe --- is the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Separated by language and customs, the two are united by catastrophe. Slowly, they are joined by other refugees. And as they struggle to protect the small band, Mau and Daphne defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down.
- Click here to read our review of and an excerpt from NATION.
PAPER TOWNS by John Green (Speak)
Likable Quentin Jacobsen has yearned for his vibrant neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman, since they were kids. So imagine his ecstasy when she lures him into a middle-of-the night adventure…and his pain when she vanishes. Finding Margo becomes Q's quest in an irresistible plot combining a friendship tale, a road trip and a mystery.
Click here to read our review of and an excerpt from PAPER TOWNS.
WONDROUS STRANGE by Lesley Livingston (HarperTeen)
Since the dawn of time, the Faerie have taken. . . .
Seventeen-year-old actress Kelley Winslow always thought faeries were just something from childhood stories. Then she meets Sonny Flannery. He's a changeling --- a mortal taken as an infant and raised among Faerie --- and within short order he's turned Kelley's heart inside out and her life upside down.
For Kelley's beloved Central Park isn't just a park --- it's a gateway between her ordinary city and the Faerie's dangerous, bewitching Otherworld. Now Kelley's eyes are opening not just to the Faerie that surround her, but to the heritage that awaits her . . . a destiny both wondrous and strange.
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September 21, 2009
This Week's New Releases
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