Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja

Buddha Boy is a YA book about bullying that takes a different and refreshing look at a common topic. Justin, the narrator, is a sophomore at a typical high school in an affluent community, where he is just trying to make it through the year without garnering excessive attention. He has a couple of close friends, Jakob and Megan, and the three of them form a tight knit group. As far as Justin is concerned, the three of them only need each other.

That is, until Jinsen arrives on the scene, a strange new student with no self-consciousness, who begs at lunch tables and who seems impervious to taunts and harassment. Justin doesn't think it's funny when the jocks make fun of Jinsen and throw things at him, but there's nothing he can do about it except not participate. Justin and Jinsen end up paired in a group project, and Justin reluctantly gets to know his partner better. Jinsen turns out to be a fantastic artist and attends the Buddhist temple. It's his faith that enables him to ignore the mistreatment of his peers, but as Justin comes to know, like, and respect Jinsen, it's not as easy for him to put up with the ignorance and bad behavior of his classmates.

Because the narrator was a separate character from the kid who was getting bullied, I was worried for a lot of the book that Justin was only describing events as they occurred and that something really bad was going to happen. Luckily, over time Justin became more involved in the story and was a more active participant, and I felt like this happened at a realistic pace. I enjoyed reading about a kid who felt the peer pressure but didn't necessarily buy into it. Justin was also confident in his friends even though they were less accepting of Jinsen at first, and he was lucky to have a supportive, functional family.

I ended up listening to the book on tape because it was more readily available than the print version, and I am not an audiobook kind of person. I enjoyed the story well enough but I would have probably liked it much better if I had read it on paper. I was never able to go back and check something I had read earlier as I often do. The vocies were distracting as well- they often didn't have the tone or inflection I would have expected. I wouldn't choose a full cast reading if I listened to another audiobook. But I feel like they are worth trying every so often considering their popularity.

Arrogant Invader by Jenny Arden

For one I don't know why I let this book get to me, and for two my life would be so much simpler if I could resist reading everything I see in print. I would never have inflicted this book upon myself. I don't even know how it got into my house- it's a Mills & Boon title from 1990 that I saw lying under some other books, including a Christopher Pike behind a bookcase between my room and my brother's.

Usually I can give this type of category romance some leeway in the realism department because I know what to expect, but lately I haven't able to take them with a grain of salt, which is why this book irritated the crap out of me.

The story opens with Gwenyth and her fiancé Marc flying into Wales from France where they met and fell in love during her junior year abroad. G is taking M home to meet her family as a surprise. So far everything seems good- G & M are in love, he has a successful career in France, she's sporting a big old rock on her finger, he's French and she's a French major. As far as I'm concerned, that's an HEA right there. However, when they land expecting to be greeted by G's father, they're surprised to see Jeb, the arrogant jerk who bought out G's father a few years back when he was injured at his slate quarry.

The antagonism between J & G is palpable as he begins subtly taunting her, slipping into an old familiar pattern. Apparently he's amused by her irritation and dislike of him, which is bad romance shorthand for a latent sexual attraction that she's too sweetly naive to pick up on. J is snide to the fiancé, harasses G when they're alone together, even casting aspersions on M's ability in bed even though G's obviously a perfect virginal heroine, and otherwise comes across as a rude, arrogant jerk, except around the rest of the family who finds him charming and generous.

This is how the book proceeds- J's harassing G left and right, grabbing her and kissing her until she submits to his will, making fun of her fiancé, and eventually blackmailing her, virtually forcing her to dump M and marry him. The one advantage I found him to have over M and which apparently proves that M is bad husband material, is that J wants G to finish the last year of her degree before spending the rest of her life as a SAHM, while M wants her to begin the SAHM part immediately and to quit her fourth year of studies. She already knows French after all, so why get the piece of paper to prove it? I'm inclined to agree with M in this because it's not like she needs the degree to pursue a career or anything; she's never going to work outside the home and she's already successfully been living in France.

But of course J eventually convinces G that M will stifle her and would otherwise be wrong for her. He also issues a challenge to M saying that he plans to court G himself. This made me so mad! He should have respected the ring on her finger. If he had been nice to her at any point during the years of their acquaintance, that would have redeemed him more than his eventual confession that he did it all for love. Not to mention the blackmail- her father needs a job at the quarry because of bad investments, and J says he will offer the job if G agrees to marry him. I can't see a heroine falling in love with a man like that, but more likely with a man who would help her family out because it's the right thing to do.

J and G have their sham of a wedding but she is unable to go through with the wedding night because she has gone and fallen in love with her masterful new husband. After her tearful confession he professes his long hidden love and they proceed to have the best sex ever, and presumably live happily ever after.

I hated that J couldn't just be nice to the woman he loves, and I hated G's lack of self-awareness- apparently all the bad feelings J made her feel were really the hots that she had for him. This is a common romance novel heroine theme- they hate the hero, don't get along with him despite his cold handsomeness, they get angry whenever they're around him, and then one day this is all magically converted into true love. This seems like laziness on the writer's part- the better writers are able to make a conflict out of something believable and can make a budding attraction feel like something delicious and worth exploring.The book really is typical for its time, and I certainly took it way too seriously and personally, but I'm glad category writing standards have come so far since then-well, some of them anyway.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

This book was absolutely captivating and well-written. Everything about it just fit together so well. Green did an excellent job of both characterization and scene-setting.

Colin has just finished high school and been dumped by his 19th girlfriend named Katherine. He's at a loss of how to spend his summer when his best friend Hassan proposes a road trip. They end up in the hick town of Gutshot, Tennessee, where they decide to settle down for a while.

The thing is, the author could have written any series of adventures for these characters and it would have been equally as entertaining. Colin's a former child prodigy who feels that since he has outgrown his prodigy-hood, he has nothing else interesting or unique to show the world. To me it seemed like he had a touch of Asperger's, but that is never mentioned in the book. Hassan is his devout-Muslim-when-it-suits-him friend who graduated from high school a year prior and although he's smart, he specializes in laziness. He's the fat funny kid. The author does really well at showing people's common insecurities, and he effectively deals with the theme of being able to be yourself. All the main characters deal with some form of this issue.

I would absolutely love to read a sequel to this book- I just want to know more about Colin's life and see how things turn out for him.