I am the Messenger

So, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief got tapped as a Printz Honor Book, and one of his earlier books was an honor book last year. It's one of the first books I read as an "official" YA Librarian way back in August. I also wrote up a mock-review of the book as something to submit to SLJ.

Here you go:
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

As in John Greene’s Looking for Alaska, lead character, Ed Kennedy, is in love with a young woman who seems incapable of loving him in return, but that’s the least of Ed’s worries. 19-year-old Ed’s life is changed completely after he thwarts a poorly planned bank robbery. The underage cabdriver thought his life would return to frequent walks with his 16-year-old, smelly dog, The Doorman, and poker games with his pals Ritchie, Marv and the lovely Audrey, but just a few days later, Ed receives the first of four aces in the mail. Each ace has three clues that need deciphering, three messages that need delivering. The first, the ace of diamonds requires Ed to inspire a beautiful 15-year-old girl to run as well on the track as she does during her barefoot, morning runs, to pretend to be the long-dead soldier still loved by a World War II widow and, quite possibly, to kill a man who abuses his family. Still, each ace demands more of Ed than the last. Messenger offers subtle but important lessons, delivered in a unique way. Some strong language and mature concepts make this a fine read for older teens.

Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe

Probably my favorite YA book to come out in the last several months...

Jasmine Callahan is nearly six feet tall, and that’s before she slips on her favorite pair of cowboy boots.

In other words, it’s hard to miss Jas, and maybe that’s why it’s so easy for trouble to find her.

Simply lounging by the pool at the Venetian in Las Vegas with Sheri!, her twenty-five-year-old step-mother, Jas certainly did not expect to have an enormous three-legged cat launch himself at her and imbed his claws in her chest.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Jas had merely been eyeing the tall (yes, tall enough for her), guy at the Snack Hut, but the three-legged orange furball stuck on her body pretty much killed the mood.

And how can it be her fault that in trying to disengage the cat’s claws from her chest she interrupted a Vegas wedding, knocked over a five-tiered wedding cake and watched in horror as the bride, in full regalia, jumped into the pool to try to save it? Quite simply, it cannot.

But try telling that to Jas’s dad and the security staff of the Venetian when they request that you, your father, step-mother, aunt, uncle, cousin and cousin’s dippy friend, all leave the hotel as soon as possible and please, don’t return.

All because a cat jumped out of nowhere?

A cat that belongs to Fiona Bristol, the Fiona Bristol whose husband is on the lam for killing his wife’s boyfriend?

Oh, there is definitely more to this story, and Jasmine Callahan will get to the heart of it. Yes, Jasmine Callahan, seventeen-year-old aspiring detective will get to the bottom of this mystery.

Of course, first she’ll have to outwit her father, who insists that she stay out of trouble, handle her evil cousin Alyson and Alyson’s equally evil friend Veronique and address the surprise appearance of her best friends, Polly, Roxy and Tom, in her suite in the Venetian. All that and maybe find that hot guy from the Snack Hut again.

Certainly that’s not too much for one weekend in Vegas.

Not for Jasmine Callahan, it isn’t.

But remember, this all started with a Bad Kitty.

Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe.