THREE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

I accidentally allowed myself to run out of fresh books to read, so while awaiting the arrival of a new batch through the mail, I turned to my two teenage granddaughters for some of their favorite Young Adult novels. These were the ones they lent me.

feed by M.T. Henderson (2002)
This dystopian look at a future America portrays a nation of consumers who are addicted to the internet, which allows corporations to use it to target customers and convince them to buy, buy, buy. Wait, that's true right now, isn't it? The difference is that in this future the internet connection is implanted in the brain, not held in the hand. So nobody even has to learn to read because all information can be transmitted verbally. (Wait, that's Siri, isn't it?) And nobody has to really talk out loud to anybody because communication from person to person can be transmitted over the feed. (Wait, that's texting, isn't it? Except that you still have to know how to write and read,, after a fashion, for texting.)

The basic premise of this book is not original; I have read a couple of adult novels and viewed a television drama with a similar situation. The important difference is that this novel is targeted for teenagers, a group supremely susceptible to the enticement of having instant knowledge of how to be up-to-the-minute`and fashionable and supremely cool. It can perhaps warn them of the potentially dangerous results of their current actions.

The most praiseworthy aspect of this novel, in a literary sense, is the excellent job Henderson has done in his first-person narrative voice as a teenage boy. He succeeds in making the narration entirely believable, not as if it were written by an adult trying to recreate being a teenager.

Here's an outstanding quote from the book:
"They're (the corporations) also waiting to make you want things. Everything you've grown up with--the stories on the feed, the games, all of that--it's all streamlining our personalities so we're easier to sell to. I mean, they do these demographic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you supposedly like. They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. It's like a spiral. They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on."

I would recommend this as a must-read for teenagers 13 or 14 and above. Adults can enjoy it, too. At least I did.


The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (2016)
This one is a teen romance (with social implications) between an American-born Korean boy and an illegal immigrant girl from Jamaica who meet on the day she is to be deported. It is all about fate and finding your soul mate and love at first sight, with a bit of attention paid to the problems of assimilation faced by a first-generation American and the plight of children reared in America who are sent to a country they don't even know because their parents arrived illegally.

The narration alternates between the boy and the girl, and sounds to me like an adult putting clever adult repartee into the mouths of her teenage characters. I find this a pretty common failing in YA books. I believe teenagers must like this because they wish they could be this cool and think that somewhere teenagers are actually this witty and profound.

My granddaughter really liked his book, but as an adult I am too cynical to appreciate it. It does provide some insight into cultural issues, which should induce readers to have more empathy for those who are not born white in America.

Recommended for teenager 13 or 14 and above, primarily girls.


I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (2002)
This tells the story of a young man of 19 who is leading an aimless life, working in a dead-end job and playing cards and drinking with friends. Then one day he almost accidentally foils a bank robbery and becomes a temporary hero. Immediately after, he starts receiving anonymously-sent playing cards with messages leading him to people who need help. He intuitively (and unbelievably) figures out what each person needs and provides it.

Zusak creates a goodly amount of suspense about the sender of the messages, but when the answer comes, it is TOTALLY BOGUS. (This is slang from back-in-the-day. I don't know what kids would say now. NON-LEGIT?) Anyway, for adults old enough to remember, it is right up there with the ending of the "Who Shot J.R." story line of Dallas.

I do not recommend this book. Besides being manipulative and having a terrible ending, it is written on about a 5th grade level while containing older teenager subject matter. I suppose it has a good message--we should all look for ways to be of benefit to others--but as a novel it stinks. Still, my granddaughter liked it.