FINISHED:

Wild, Kate. (2007). Fight game. New York: Chicken House.

[Will post my ACL review once I have it written. Click on the link above to see a "trailer" for the book. The cheesy "trailer" kind of says it all, though...

And, here's my review:

Freedom, a gypsy with a “Hercules gene” that makes him a web-footed super-fighter, is reluctantly enlisted by Phoenix organization (an undercover government agency that investigates the paranormal) to infiltrate an underground fighting operation. While debating what he should do, the sister of a missing teen who has likely been taken in as a fighter in the club attempts to get Freedom to assist her in her search. Freedom is your typical “rebel without a cause” – conflicted and torn between wanting to do what’s right for his gypsy family and what’s right for himself – never really being drawn as a complex character with any depth that might make us sympathetic to his “struggle”. Somewhat laughably, the novel ends with a fight between Freedom and a malformed creature that turns out to be “related” to Freedom, having been created as a super-fighter using some of Freedom’s DNA. Moreover, an inconsistency involving the walls of the underground fighting chambers is a further example of the lack of care and thought put into this tome: Freedom finds out from young orphans that the walls emit mind-control signals, yet, only two pages later, Freedom stealthly presses himself against the walls to avoid being seen – with no reference at all this time to the walls’ mind control properties. Careless. This is a slow-paced yawner with, despite the title, VERY little actual fighting that might have actually been a way to entice reluctant male readers to pick it up. A concluding sequel is in the works for release in Summer 2008, but the ending is such a non-cliffhanger (Oh! The fight club leader is actually a woman… and she’s getting away!) that this reviewer ponders if there really was even a need for another episode in this dim tale.]




STARTED & FINISHED:

Reinhardt, Dana. (2007). Harmless. New York: Wendy Lamb/Random House.

[Read this for ACL - it was on the Distinguished list and I read it so that I can write an annotation. Three high school girls make up a lie about where they were one night so that their parents don't find out that they were actually making out with some older boys. Their lie, that they were attacked by a stranger down by the river, takes on a life of its own and tears them apart. Good character building and interesting home life situations make this a compelling read.]

STARTED:
Stewart, Trent Lee. (2007). The mysterious Benedict Society. New York: Little Brown.

[Another one that's been on my radar for a while because I've heard so many good things about it. I'm still only on the first chapter and already it's made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Promising, indeed.]

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