100 Sideways Miles

This was one of the four books in the Best of 2014 Book Riot box, a satisfying purchase made possible in part from my sister’s Christmas Book Riot money. Thank you, sister.

Title: 100 Sideways Miles

Author: Andrew Smith

Year: 2014

Genre: Young Adult

Setting: San Francisquito Canyon, California

Characters: Finn (17-yr-old narrator, epileptic), Cade (best friend, class clown), Julia (the crush), Michael Easton/Easton Michaels (Finn’s dad, author)

Plot: A dead horse fell from the sky, and now Finn smells flowers before his atoms begin to drift apart. Finn sees the world in terms of atoms and miles traveled in time, and at sixteen-turning-seventeen, is unsure where his dad’s book ends and his life begins. This bildungsroman of Finn’s first relationship and cross-country trip explores the common teen issues of sex, booze, and parental constraints with unique pairings of epilepsy, OCD, and fandom. I enjoyed it and may take a look at the author’s backlist. 8/10

Counting by 7s

Paperback ARC

I picked up an ARC copy of Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan from the Family Bookshop in DeLand; I thought I recalled it being mentioned on Book Riot, and it was free with an appealing cover. Why not?

Title: Counting by 7s

Author: Holly Goldberg Sloan

Genre: Young Adult

Main Characters: Willow, Mai, Quang-ha, Patti, Jairo, Dell Duke

Plot: Willow’s parents are killed in a car crash, and she has no immediate friends or family. Dell Duke, the school counselor, and Mai and Quang-ha are with her when she finds out. She ends up living with her Vietnamese friends who must lie about their housing situation (consequently moving into Dell Duke’s apartment) to get social service’s approval for temporary guardianship. They all learn valuable lessons about compromising, opening up, pursuing dreams, etc.

Verdict: Yes, it was predictable; there was a happy ending and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place pretty neatly at every turn. However, the details of Willow’s obsessive compulsive tendencies made her character more vulnerable and realistic, especially when she chooses to ignore her previous compulsions in favor of being numb. I like that Mai and Quang-ha are Vietnamese-Mexican-American and that the book is about people of color; Willow sees Dell Duke as having his own foreign culture just as much as Mai and Quang-ha do. I think the book poses a good question about why there aren’t self-help books for young adults written about life-shattering events — but that may be my own bias in thinking there’s a need for the self-help book I want to write for young adults for a particular life-shattering event.