YA Religion and Religious Issues

I haven't read too many books with religious themes.  I can't say why, I just haven't.  These books, at least in my library, are really gaining in popularity, though.  We live in a pretty conservative area, so lots of teens (or their parents) come in looking for specifically Christian fiction.  I'm not one to only buy Christian fiction, however, so we have lots of books from other religious perspectives as well.

As teens are exploring their faiths and finding out how they feel about it all, it is good for them to have books to bounce these ideas off of.  For those who are already very secure in their faith, I imagine it is nice to see characters that reflect their ideas.

First off, let me say that I adore this cover.  I think whoever chose it did an excellent job.  It is both literal and symbolic at the same time and I simply love it.

Lacy is the daughter of a youth pastor and very involved in her church.  To Lacy, the world is black and white.  This is what the Bible says, these things are right, these things are wrong.  She is thrilled to get to perform in this year's Hell House, which is a huge deal for her church.

Enter Ty, a new boy in town (although he attended school with Lacy and her friends as a young child) and Lacy knees go weak.  He is sweet and cute and he seems to like Lacy.  They start meeting at a park to hang out and talk, often working their way to religious topics.

But when one friend gets bullied, with no consequences to the bully, and another ends up pregnant, with no consequences for the boy who got her pregnant, Lacy's world starts turning gray.  How can the church turn such a blind eye to the bully and the boy?  How can they pass such judgement?  Where is their compassion? Fortunately for Lacy, Ty is a great sounding board and helps her not only ask the tough questions, but helps her come to her own conclusions instead of just parroting her parents.

I think this book would especially touch teens who love God but struggle with "the church" and many of its attitudes.

Amal is in the 11th grade at a prestigious Australian prep school.  She is a Muslim and a very faithful one, at that.  She makes the decision to start wearing a hijab, or head covering, full time.

This is a seemingly small decision, to cover her hair, that leads to huge repercussions.  Her school principal doesn't want her to do it.  Her parents worry that she will have trouble dealing with the stereotypes and have trouble finding a job.  Her crush is initially too shocked to speak to her.  People at school are either curious about why she decided to start wearing it or downright rude about it.  It has a huge ripple effect on her life.

Fortunately, Amal has amazing friends.  Two of them are Muslim and she met them at the Islamic elementary school she used to attend.  Two of them are from her new school.  All of them are insanely supportive and help Amal when she needs help the most.

One thing that struck me about this book is how real and authentic it was.  And how NORMAL Amal was.  I don't really know what I expected (a religious zealot, maybe?  Showing my own stereotype, there...), but Amal was your typical teenager with a scarf and a refusal to kiss boys.  It was so refreshing to see a Muslim portrayed in such a positive way; I fully intend to read Abdel-Fattah's other book, Ten Things I Hate About Me.

YA Dystopian Novels

I love dystopia.  I love the worlds and the issues and the technology so many of them have.  If I could only pick on genre to read for the rest of forever, dystopia would be it.

It isn't hard to see why teens have recently been drawn to books of this nature.  When you're a teen, you feel constantly out of control.  You have rules at home, rules at school, and your life doesn't exactly feel like your own.  And you constantly feel like your world is ending; everything is a big deal.  And, in dystopian novels, the characters also feel the same way.

This is my new favorite book.  In fact, I had to really push myself to get all my reading done this week so that I could go on and read the sequel; I couldn't wait!

Lena lives in a world where love is viewed as a huge problem.  Wars are fought for love.  Families broken because of love, or a lack of it.  Depression can be caused by issues with love.  Love is a problem.  In her world, at the age of 18 you are surgically cured of being able to love.  Up to that point, boys and girls are strictly segregated.  Teens who fall in love can be taken in to surgery early, but there are issues that can arise if the surgery is performed before age 18, which is why society tries to keep people from "catching" it.

Lena's mother died because the cure didn't work on her.  This eventually led to her suicide and a huge stigma being placed on Lena.  Because of this, Lena is beyond thrilled that her time is coming to be cured.  She can hardly wait.  After this she'll get to go on to college and live the rest of her life free of the fear of love.

But she meets a boy.  And she knows she's really not supposed to spend time with boys, but he's older, in college already, and he has the telltale scar behind his ear that one gets during the surgery, so she's pretty sure she's safe.  But it turns out Alex isn't really cured, he's a part of the underground resistance, and he and Lena fall in love.  Now Lena has to decide: does she choose Alex and a life outside the safety of the city, in the Wilds, or does she choose to lose Alex and go through with the surgery, to live the life she had planned.

Things get complicated when she and Alex are caught in their secret meeting place and she's scheduled to get the surgery early.  She knows that that is not what she wants and fights her way out, only to be stopped at the fence surrounding the city.

This book was equal part ethics, love story, and adventure.  Hard to go wrong with that combination!

This book is a mind game.  Or, at least, it screwed with my head.

The basics of the story are this: one day, you wake up and you are in a metal box.  You have no clue what is going on.  You can remember your name.  You can remember things out in the world, but not the context for which they were used (for example, you know what a shower is but you can't ever remember taking one).  You can't remember much of anything else.

So the box starts to rise and you show up in basically a huge stone enclosed square.  And facing you is a group of about 60 boys.  Turns out you are in the center of a big maze.  At night, the walls move to close the square off from the maze because these creepy killer blobs, called reapers, come out.  They come complete with things like chainsaw arms, hooks and needles and no one who has ever faced one has come out unscathed.

One day, a girl shows up and everything starts to change.  She has a note on her that says, "I've triggered the end." and all of the sudden the stone doors aren't closing at night.  The reapers are coming in and dragging one boy at a time out.  They have to be proactive and GET OUT.  People have been running the mazes for years and never found the way out, but a huge clue reveals itself once they place a map of the maze routes, one on top of the next.

It is bizarre and it is fabulous.  This is probably the strongest first book in a trilogy that I've read, save The Hunger Games.