Alibi Junior High

While it is not entirely uncommon to find a haunted 13-year-old, Cody, in Greg Logsted’s Alibi Junior High, is haunted in an unusual way for teens in the western world.

You see, Cody has been living deep undercover with his CIA agent father pretty much his whole life. He speaks five languages, has two black belts, has lived all around the world, and can make lethal weapons out of whatever is around him. But in all of the dangerous situations he’s survived, he and his father have finally encountered someone who REALLY wants them dead. And now Cody must go into the deepest cover he’s ever known: Normal Kid. And junior high? Far worse than anything he’s ever imagined.

Just so we are clear, THIS IS NOT A TWEEN NOVEL. I know you might be tempted to give this to your average 10 year-old, but know this:

“There’s someone lying next to me. I look over and see the waitress who had winked at me. Her lifeless eyes are now permanently opened wide and there’s a large piece of metal sticking out of the center of her chest. The Yankees cap is still on her head, but it’s now soaked in blood and almost unrecognizable.

There’s an arm near me. Just an arm, and it has a wedding band on the ring finger. I pick my head up and look around at what’s left of the restaurant. There’s blood and bodies all around me. I start to scream but it’s a silent scream. All I can hear is the ringing” p 11.

I just made you either move this one up your queue or drop it entirely, didn’t I?

We originally had this one in the children’s section. We don’t anymore. That passage is by far the most graphic incident in the novel, but since it looks so incredibly kid-friendly with that cover and title, I thought you might want a heads up.

All of this said, you can also probably tell from that excerpt that Logsted captured the spy novel tone. Logsted also did well with that captured, helpless, alienated feeling junior high instills in most of us. Even with the fact that I MUST believe that he exaggerated the nightmare of school a little bit. That school was a misery, although the principal did begin to develop some depth through the novel.

Unlike some of the other characters. Most of Cody’s friends remain one-dimensional. Logsted did far better with the adult characters, most notably the Iraq War vet, Andy, who lost an arm in combat. Logsted handled the disability of that character frankly, never pandering and without didacticism.

An obvious match for Alex Rider and Charlie Higson fans. It’s more… believable than either of those, and immensely readable. Could be a series, although I've found nothing in my cursory searching that indicates it will be.

Don’t ALL throne rooms have that feature?

Ok, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale was published 6 years ago, so I’m not really worried about spoilers at this point. If you are, you might want to stop reading. However, I assume that if you are reading this blog you are in possession of an astute and finely honed intelligence, and nothing I say here would be any surprise to you, even if you haven’t read the novel.

I say that because there was nothing about The Goose Girl that was not entirely predictable. Entirely. I mean, it’s a given in this type of story (usually) that the heroine wins the prince, however, this went beyond the natural level of predictability with the villain being obvious, the villain’s goal and motive being clearly apparent (before there was ever real confirmation of WHO the villain would be, or, at that, IF there would be a villain), who the mysterious noble was, and, above all, exactly HOW it would all work out (not THAT it would work out, of course that would happen).

But here’s the remarkable thing. I DID NOT CARE. I did not care one whit that I knew how it would all play out, down to the very mode of resolution. And that, my incredibly intelligent friends, is a remarkable feat of writing. I read The Goose Girl almost straight through.

Now, I can’t really say that fairy tale plots get old; they generally turn into cozy blankets (although, to be honest, I’m a little sick of that 12 dancing princess tale, authors, please stop adapting it, thanks), but that alone can not make a compelling read to a discerning audience. What carried this novel were the characters.

It is not a surprise to me that this one book has gone on to inspire an interlocking series. The secondary characters were interesting and varied, and I am eager to read Enna Burning and River Secrets based on my introductions to the main characters in those two titles in this book. And Ani. Oh, Ani, how you grew through this novel. How you learned strength in yourself, first through (possible) artifice, then strife. And while I hate this term, you truly blossomed into a confident future queen. You never would have been able to rule your birthland, not with their nature (for even the settings had character), nor without the travails.

The language was great, and Hale truly captured the tone of the fairy tale in a wonderfully developed world. Some of that predictability, is as I said, unavoidable when working with this genre, other elements are due to some rather clunky foreshadowing.

The novel, as I’m sure you realize, is based on a fairy tale, but Hale, as she did with The Book of a Thousand Days, owned that world, skillfully setting up the next installments. Or so I assume, as I haven’t read them yet. But, as I picked up Forest Born at WASHYARG last week, I’ll need to read all of them before December 4th, when my review is due for that. Since I’m cursed with an obsession with chronology…

I'm sure this is someone's favorite book...but...

Here's some honesty for you: I don't care for novels where the protagonists are unlikeable. Sometimes the novel can overcome unlikeable characters, and it is realistic to expect them to pop up occasionally, since, you know, they pop up more often than occasionally in real life. Of course, I generally read fiction to escape reality or experience new realities, so that whole concept doesn't really jive much with my goals. But, like I said, I can get over it if the book is good in other ways.

Unlike A KISS IN TIME by Alex Flinn.

(omg, that was so harsh.)

That is not to say that this book didn't have it's high points - there was definitely some very good humor. And the two protagonists, I suspect, were supposed to be unlikeable, and they DO become more endearing as the book neared the end...but...they just...GRATED against my skin. I read on mostly because the plot was interesting and I wanted to see how it would all work out:

Talia was always told never to touch a spindle or the curse would descend upon their kingdom. Problem was, no one ever bothered to tell her what a spindle looked like... and so Sleeping Beauty slept for 300 years. And her prince never came. Well, until Jack stumbled into the forgotten kingdom... But Jack was no prince, he was just a kid from Florida whose parent's had gotten rid of for the summer by sending him to Europe. Now Talia's parents, the King & Queen, are FURIOUS at Talia and she so she runs away with Jack - back to Florida. Hijinks ensues.

So, Talia is a spoiled, but ignorant, princess who has just been plunged into the 21st century after 300 years of sleeping. Jack is largely ignored by his parents and expected to follow a career path he has no interest in. It's not that they don't have issues or the right to be surly. But seriously. Stop whining.

High points:

Talia, upon leaving her kingdom:

"...it will hard to be a commoner. They have to do a great deal of work, and sometimes they smell bad" p 113.

Talia, on living in the 21st century:

"I have never heard of a party without gowns. This is turning out to be a very disappointing century" p 167.


It's actually out-Disneyed Disney in that even the bad guys aren't really all that bad - just misunderstood. It has a happy ending. Which I can appreciate.

I know that I should write more in depth about other issues I have with the novel, but, I just don't want to expend the energy. So instead, I leave you...

Other opinions:
Young Adult Literature Review Blog
Sonder Books
And Another Book Read