Bookburger

10 Sec Lit Crit (special prom edition): Prom Season

Call for your limo, pin on your corsage, and spike the punch: here's our last of our series of reviews of new PROM-THEMED novels from our mighty teen reviewer, Hannah.

A novel split into thirds, Prom Season: Three Novels is an...interesting read. While Jane is desperate to be popular and Nicole is intent upon finding the hotty she met at the prom dress store she works at, Christie deals with a more serious problem--her mother's breast cancer. The three novels tie in together quite well, but that's about the only good thing I could find about this book. All three stories end sickeningly sweetly, and they remind me of books written in the '70s. My friends and I, full of the dirty minds instilled in most high school students, had more fun circling the passages and sentences in the book that could be turned into double entendres than actually reading it. I don't recommend it, unless you want to read a cheesy story with a happy ending where everything turns out mostly alright. It's kind of like a chickflick with extra sugar... not very good for you.

chicklish

Hey burgerpeople...we just got the nicest email from luisa over at chicklish...which is like a British version of bookburger. They call themselves the "UK teen fiction site" and they've got reviews, tips, and all sorts of witty commentary. As our fave Brit rapper Ali G. would say:  Check it!

30 Sec Lit Crit: The Clique #7: It's Not Easy Being Mean by Lisi Harrison

[Here's a review by Leila Roy, dropping in from Bookshelves of Doom]

Yes, I read another one.  No, I don't know what is wrong with me.

This time, the girls have been un-expelled from OCD, but they have been forced to join an extracurricular activity.  They've also been given a quest by the eighth-grade alpha, Skye Hamilton:  To earn the right to take charge of the Secret Room* at OCD, the girls have to find the key, which Skye has hidden under the mattress of a boy she's kissed.  The list is LONG, and the Pretty Committee is not the only group looking for it.

Meanwhile, Claire's acting career is taking off.  She's set to audition for a movie with a multi-Oscar-winning director, which is awesome, but she's feeling left out of all of the Pretty Committee fun**.

• Still with the brand names.  There were at least fifteen fashion labels mentioned in the first chapter alone.  That's not counting the plethora of consumables, electronics, magazines, etc.  Also, there are fifteen pages of ads at the end of the book.  (I fully admit that it could be worse -- at least the ads are for other books.)
• Lisi Harrison does have a real talent for extremely catty -- but extremely funny --description:

"Stand up, you!" bellowed Kori Gedman as she approached their table.  A tight tan sweater accentuated her notoriously bad posture.  She looked like a croissant.

• Why in the WORLD would the girls choose soccer as their extracurricular activity?  (Discounting Kristin, of course, who is already a star player on the team.)  They mention that it'll burn calories and get them closer to the boys, but I find it odd that they wouldn't have considered the embarrassment factor.  Massie's a beast, but she's not stupid.
• Massie's crush, Derrington.  Good God, that boy is obsessed with butts.  Every time he appears, he's shaking his butt at someone or something.  And then, when he's talking about kissing Another Girl, he says, "Her lips were too puffy.  They felt like a butt."  Le sigh.  This is what dreams are made of.
• Speaking of Derrington, I'll be surprised if he and Dylan don't get together, ultimately.  They have that whole bathroom humor thing in common -- he's obsessed with butts, she's obsessed with burping at people.

In the Q&A at the end, Lisi Harrison says that there will be eight Clique books.  Only one more, and my torment will end.  Oh, wait.  She follows that up by saying: "But if you want more, I'll write more".  Damn.

She does sound like a good egg, though -- in the section on Becoming a Writer, she says "If someone tells you you'll never be a writer, put on your pointiest boots, take a deep breathe, and kick them in the shin.  Write about that!"

I'm curious to see if I'll be able to exert my will power and avoid the next one.  Either this one wasn't as entertaining as the last couple, or I've matured.  (I'm going to go with less entertaining.)

*A room that the teachers don't know about.  Yeah, I don't quite get it either.

**Because it's so much fun to be bossed around and mocked 24/7?  I still don't get it.

10 SEC LIT CRIT: Top 10 Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro

Hey all--here's incredibly cool teen reviewer Hannah to tell us about another one of these prom-themed YA novels....this one's called Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro. Take it away Hannah....

Have you ever been prepared for the night of your life, when, all of a sudden, it comes crashing down? Nicolette Antonivich has. Two days before prom, her spur-of-the-moment date decided to dump her, and her beautiful prom dress. Months later, she still can't give the dress, or the guy, up, and more things than prom are starting to come crashing down. Her home life, her school life, and her friendships all take a turn towards the unexpected, and it's up to her and her prom dress to make things better. Well, maybe with the help of her best friends incredibly cute older brother, too. I liked the book a lot, and read it all at once. I might not spend money to buy it, but I would definitely check it out at the library.

Stephenie Meyer's prom-otional genius

Hey, did you hear about burger interviewee Stephenie Meyer's prom? How cool is this: she had a formal evening for her fans. It was completely sold-out, with tons of vampire-obsessed teenies turning up in tafetta  and tiaras to meet the author of bloody best-selling YA vampire novels Twilight and New Moon...

If you ask us, this was a pretty ingenious way to let the world know that Stephenie's got a new one coming in August, Eclipse. We'll try to get her back to the burger for a sit-down and a giveaway...in the meantime, here's a sneak peek at the cover...and we hear that if you go to a bookstore and pick up the new "special editions" of her last novel, New Moon, you'll find the first chapter of Eclipse...

30 Sec Lit Crit: The Hollywood Sisters: On Location by Mary Wilcox

ATTENTION CLIQUE CHICKS: an important public service announcement
Hey, those Lisi Harrison novels are ok, but what does girlfriend do when girlfriend has read all seven, and number eight isn't out yet? Check out this review by Leila Roy of Bookshelves of Doom...she'll point girlfriend in the right direction:

I loved the first installment in the Hollywood Sisters series, so I was happy to pick up the second.  (Perfect timing, too -- I really needed a shiny pink book yesterday.)

This time, the cast of Two Sisters (and, of course, Jessica) are -- go figure -- On Location.  They go from Los Angeles to Mexico, from Mexico to Wisconsin.

We've entered into the Formula Fiction zone -- another saboteur, more romantic misunderstandings, another Special Guest Star Disaster, more characters you'll recognize from the gossip pages.  (Paige's mother is CLEARLY Dina Lohan, which I thought was especially hilarious.) 

Formulaic nature aside, it's still an entertaining sequel.  Jessica is still a likable, down-to-earth heroine -- and her narration still brings the laughs:

And poetry--those stacks of little sentences stand by you in tough times.  This is exactly the kind of poetry you need to read as a broken heart:

LOVE - what is love?
A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence;
and a long despair.
Life - what is life?
Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

--R.L. Stevenson

See?  Don't you feel worse already?

I've brought a book of poetry for the plane and my summer reading, To Kill a Mockingbird.  That title packs as much sad as a whole poem, I say.

I'll continue handing this series to Clique fans, in the hopes that they'll take to it.  As I said about Backstage Pass, like the Clique, it's mostly clean, it's got the money, the brand names (not as many, thankfully) and the in-fighting, but it's witty and it's not bitchy or gross.  Hooray!

birthday blowout extravaganza giveaway!

well, burgerfolk,they said it couldn't be done--they said we'd never last...(ok nobody ever actually said that) but still it's our one-year anniversary this week...OUR FIRST BIRTHDAY!

To celebrate, we're going to be giving away books galore....here are a few of the titles up for grabs:

The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel
Because She Can by Bridie Clark
Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky
Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb
The New and Improved Vivian Leigh Reid: Diva In Control by Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout
Being a Girl by Kim Catrall
Skate by Michael Harmon
The Other Sister by S.T. Underdahl
Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
Life As It Comes by Anne-Laure Bondoux
Grief Girl by Erin Vincent
The Whole Sky Full of Stars by Rene Saldana, Jr.
The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance by Catherine Ryan Hide
Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill

Here's how this explosion of free goodies is gonna work. Sign up for the bookburger b-list in the box on the right side of the page--(where it says "We deliver"). We'll choose a winner off of our b-list every day for two whole weeks....so lovelies, you've got nothing to lose and brand-new, hot-off-the-presses free books to gain!

happy birthday to all burgerpeople everywhere!

the ultimate Clique chick: haiku contest winner!

Ok folks...the winner of the complete Clique set is....Cynthia!

Why?
1. She wrote a haiku about practically every character in the entire series.
2. She can count syllables pretty well.
3. She's obvious a MEGA MEGA fan of Lisi Harrison's books, and so we can't imagine finding a happier home for those seven little novels than Cynthia's abode.

Congratulations Cyn!