Tagged with books

I don't like to write bad book reviews. Normally, I don't finish books I don't like, but with young adult books, it's easier to keep going even when they suck. So this is my warning to you, should you not heed the fact that Deepak Chopra supplied one of The Seven Rays' blurbs: just because Ms. Bendinger wrote Bring It On and Stick It, the latter of which I love with all my heart, does not mean she can or should write novels.

And the weirdest thing, she thanks the cover designer in her acknowledgments.

I probably can't talk about this book without spoilering it, so proceed with caution, especially Danna, to whom I am going to mail it as soon as it's safe to go back to the post office. (i.e. after Santamas)

The first back of the book blurb likens the title character to a 21st century Lolita, but I think she's more similar to a blogging Go Ask Alice.

Searching for a long-lost (actually never known to her) family member, 15-year-old Maya eludes an icky foster care placement (Christians, with a would-be-Dad whose eyes rest at chest level) and takes to the mean streets of northwest Nevada and southeast Idaho. Ayarbe (Freeze Frame) draws a convincing sketch of teenage life on the run and also the familial bonds that develop between traveling companions. Bad things happen in this book and there is no romantic subplot.

My summary of this not-too- far-in-the-future dystopia in four haiku stanzas:

The Department of
Homeland Security runs
amok post attack.

Hacker teens fight the
power and teach the reader
about crypto tech.

Teen reader primer
on history, politics
and the internet.

Plus boy meets girl.
Parents are dumb then helpful.
Ends with vote or die.