Mini-Reviews~ Negative Reviews and Questionable Children's Books

Its time for Mini-Reviews, where I get out a few thoughts on a bundle of books I have read. This week was a little hard for me cause yeah I don't like to write negative reviews.....but oh well it has to be done sometimes. So here's the bad and the DNF's.

Nothing by Janne Teller
February 9th 2010 by Atheneum
Borrowed

So I guess before I launch into Tina-rant time, I must tell you up front I only read this because last summer I was on a YA committee that read award winning novels...and now that that's out of the way......When I finished Nothing my very first thought was as follows:

This turd called literature actually won an award?

My question is why? Was it the astounding writing...with sentences like: Scared. More Scared. Most Scared. Or the really great one, Dark. So dark. Really dark.

I get it, your scared and its dark, what I don't get is how this story won an award....my only guess is that Im not "cool" enough or sophisticated enough to understand the minds of the Printz Honor panel, because the first thing that comes to my mind was that the author was either suffering from head trauma or under the influence when she sat down to explain to middle grade children the meaning of existential nihilism.

The Plot: One day Pierre climbs a tree, deciding that there is nothing and no meaning to life. The existence of our race, the human spirit...all meaningless.....and he shouts this out to his classmates on a daily basis from this tree.{Insert Question: Uhhh, where were the parents and teachers and adults in this story? Did the people actually over the age of twelve notice that a child was living in a tree outside of a public school for months and months? How did this child eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, get water....did his parents not notice when he didnt come home after a month????} Pierre commences day after day yelling the meaningless of life to his fellow peers and winds up frustrating them all to the point of psychotic breakdowns.

Months go by and while all the invisible adults are off drinking and working 24/7 the group of fifth graders kill a dog, become grave robbers, rape a student and lose all sense of themselves. During all the dirty deeds they create a nice pile of evil at the feet of Pierre leaving him evidence so he can see reason and the meaning of life. {Insert Question: Even if the parents and teachers were working nonstop how could they possibly not know a 13 year old child was living in a tree getting other children to fall into complete debauchery?} After the parents do find out, the media go's nuts and in a pile of crap called art by society, the children sell it for millions of dollars.......and then they get sick of Pierre drag him off his tree, beat him to death, burn his body in a barn and live happily ever after.

So what did I think? A complete utter waste of my time, a group of sick 5th grade freaks that need to go to jail and before Pierre fell to his untimely death I would of said:

Pierre! You are 13! Get over yourself and grow some pubic hair.

0/5- YA-Contemporary
Turd. Big Turd. Mega Turd.

Wildfire by Karsten Knight
July 26, 2011 by Simon and Schuster
Borrowed/Library

Ah, No.

Gratuitous violence for the sake of gratuitous violence....no thanks. Mythology masked in the likeness of a sleezy Sucker Punch....whatever. Sorry but Ill take my brains and read books were young teenage girls are not walking men fantasy's thank you very much!!! Complete nonsense. 




DNF/5- YA-Mythology

Various Positions by Martha Schabas
June 28, 2011 by Doubleday
Review Copy

Various Positions...um was this an Erotica, because I thought it was a teen book....my bad. By positions, as in not how far I can stretch my ballerina body but how many funky disgusting sex acts I can engage in at the age of 14?

For real you are 14!!! Please go chase butterfly's before babies start falling out of your vagina and all us tax payers have to pay for it.

Are these authors who write this stuff for real? Or is it horny old men punking us? How does this nonsense get published and marketed to underage children, particularly impressionable young girls? Is Martha Schabas really that creepy old pervert who owns MTV and is responsible for shows like 16 and Pregnant, Skins and How to get Herpes when Im 12?

I would never have read this if Id known what it was actually about, unfortunately before reviews started coming out I had already accepted a review copy.....and hitting the book more than half way through I was done with its perverse plotline. Thank goodness I had a trash can near by because that's where this piece of filth went.

Unacceptable for YA literature but in a pinch could be used to line bird cages.

DNF/5- YA Contemporary