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Format: Audiobook

How does a teen with mental illness cope with the recent death of her father? How does Aza maintain top grades in school, and continue to be a good friend? Can Aza open herself up to a romantic relationship? Can she stand all the pressure?

John Green is able to capture the tension and attraction in teen relationships like few other authors. Add to that the minefield of mental illness, and I think Green either did a tremendous amount of research for this book, or he already had a close knowledge of someone with similar symptoms. It is a complex and engaging scenario, and Green pulls it off with aplomb.

Turtles All the Way Down will appeal not just to the YA readers, it can easily draw out the empathy of a parent. Thankfully Aza’s mom has a good job with insurance, so when Aza’s world spirals out of control she is already established with a mental health professional. Thankfully when she needs in-patient treatment she isn’t shuffled out the door. Her own doctor sees her and has input in managing her case.

Is Aza cured? No. Most mental health illnesses are chronic. So it is likely that even with the best of treatment these same hospital staff will see Aza again. And again. There’s always worry when a child goes off to college. When your child has a mental illness any illusions of your control in their lives are removed from your grasp.

This can be a gut-wrenching read. Or, someone used to dealing with a chronic mental or physical disease may see it another way. Aza, her mom, and Daisy have taken a step toward being happy with “stable”.

#TurtlesAlltheWayDown @johngreen

Format: Audiobook narrated by the author.

Heavy is an unveiled, first-person account of a Black male growing up in a single parent family, in poverty, in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1980s. Kiese Laymon is tall and overweight for his twelve years. He’s obsessed with his weight and self conscious. Laymon is supposed to be watched while his mother is at work, but there is no supervision. He deeply empathizes with a young teen girl who is forced into sexual acts by older boys. This helps to shape Laymon’s values.

Laymon’s relationship with his divorced mother is unhealthy for both of them, emotionally and physically as well. His mother is intelligent and holds a doctorate degree, yet it seems she can’t pay the bills and keep food in the house on her teacher’s salary. She insists that Laymon read books and write reports, which usually must contain an element of overcoming White oppression. Laymon is constantly told he must rise up against the White man, and during the highly charged atmosphere of the race riots surrounding the Rodney King beating, both Laymon and the rest of society seem primed to erupt.

There’s so much dysfunction in Laymon’s life it is easier to ask, what’s right with this picture?

This is a difficult book to read, because it is heartbreakingly honest. How many millions of Black youth are trying to survive in those same conditions – or worse – right now?

@ScribnerBooks  @KieseLaymon ‏

Scott Pelley, former anchor of the CBS evening news and part of the current 60 Minutes reporting team, has written a memoir of his storied career.

In Truth Worth Telling, Pelley gives us glimpses of his coverage of the White House, battle zones around the world, and the selection of Pope Francis; interviews with Nadia Murad who was kidnapped and raped by ISIS and would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for bravely telling her story, parents of slain Sandy Hook Elementary children, and Ben Bernanke in the midst of the Great Recession.

As a teen in Lubbock, TX, Pelley was developed an interest in photography, and lied about his age to get hired as a copy boy, hoping to one day be promoted to photographer. An editor conspiring to keep reporters’ wages low snagged the teen and set him to work as a reporter, and into a 40-some-year career as a news journalist.

Pelley was able to make his way to Ground Zero on 9/11 before the second plane hit, and he gives a riveting account of his on-the-ground experience, the first-responder radio chatter, and who was where as the horrific events evolved. Eighteen years after that awful day, I thought I had seen and heard all the 9/11 stories from every perspective. But Pelley pulls it off; I was transfixed.

Pelley makes no secret of his disapproval of Bill Clinton’s extra-presidential activities involving Monica Lewinsky or what he calls Clinton’s hubris, but his comments regarding Donald Trump are vitriolic.  This is the only section where the book is truly acerbic.

I’ve only been able to mention a few of the highlights covered in Pelley’s book. He’s a great storyteller, and this is well worth the read. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author, and I think Pelley’s inflections add another layer of “being there”. Don’t miss this one.

@ScottPelley @Hanover_Square @HarperAudio @HarlequinBooks @HarperCollins @60Minutes #truthworthtelling

The latest book from multiple best-selling author Catherine Ryan Hyde, Have You Seen Luis Velez?, is one of her best, and I’ve read several.

We meet Raymond, a studious older teen with a soft spot for a stray cat, rushing from his apartment on the day before his best (and only) friend moves across the country. Before he can get out the door an ancient woman calls out to him, “Have you seen Luis Velez?” The woman – Mildred Gutermann – is blind, and Luis Velez had been coming to help her navigate to the bank and grocery, but Luis had inexplicably stopped showing up.

Raymond is the only child of his white mother’s first marriage to a black man, and he now feels out of place in a white family. His step-father’s income is less than that of his biological father, a dentist, but he isn’t allowed to accept expensive things from his dad. His dad’s second wife seems to despise him, so he doesn’t fit in there either.

Raymond determines Mildred needs help, and steps in where Luis disappeared. Raymond encounters extreme danger for his stray cat, and he begins a search for Luis. Do you know how many Luis Velezes live in the city?

Hyde uses a predictable formula. She takes a kid who needs help, adds an animal, and she weaves a story around them. Hyde is also known for including a thread in her books to promote acceptance of an alternate sexual orientation.

The addition of the older woman adds a refreshing element which is key to the success of Have You Seen Luis Velez?. Mildred’s back story incorporates references to the Holocaust, an important topic.

If you are going to choose one of Hyde’s books to read, this would be a good choice. Believe it or not, even with a slow-moving old blind woman there is suspense. Raymond meets some interesting people named Luis Velez in his search for the one who used to help his neighbor. Five stars!

#HaveYouSeenLuisVelez #NetGalley @cryanhyde ‏

There There: A Novel is a social-consciousness raising book that leaves you reeling like a punch in the gut.

The opening remarks cause you to start seeing the world differently. Remember the black and white Indian-head test pattern drawn in 1939 and broadcast until the late 1970s? It was “surrounded by circles that looked like sights through rifle scopes.”

Orange, himself of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, portrays a contemporary Native American in his fiction. The Native American of There There is Urban and fraught with identity issues; searching for heritage or trying to distance himself from it.

Set in Oakland, California, Orange follows the story line of several Natives as they plan to attend an intertribal Powwow at the Oakland Coliseum. For the Urban Native Americans, the city they once called home wasn’t any more. A quote from Gertrude Stein about Oakland, “There is no there there,” provided the title for Orange’s novel.

The Native peoples of There There have other problems common to urban Blacks, Hispanics, and marginalized groups. We see alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome, poverty, suicide, teen sex, and teen pregnancy. Drug use and drug sales fuel violence and death.

Orange, born and raised in Oakland, has deftly woven the heartbreak and hope of the characters in a compelling story.  This book lives up to the hype. So far There There has garnered the PEN/Hemingway award, a prize from the National Book Critics Circle for best new book, and the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction.

Thanks to my local library for the loan of the audiobook. The narration by several voice artists is well done!

@AAKnopf

A few of us had great fathers. Some of us had rotten fathers. Too many of us had no father at all. Regardless of what kind of earthly father we had, Louie Giglio’s message is, “God is not the reflection of your earthly father, He is the perfection of your earthly father,”

Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, has written Not Forsaken, a book about fathers. Giglio writes of our desire, even from childhood, to be noticed by our father. Whether or not we received the attention we craved from our earthly father, our heavenly father is watching over us.

Giglio and his wife had been successfully ministering on the campus of Baylor University in Texas when Giglio’s father had a stroke. The couple wanted to return to Atlanta to help care for Giglio’s dad, but did not feel a release from God to stop what they were doing and move.

After several years of seeking God to return to Atlanta to help care for his dad, Giglio and his wife finally felt they had the green light from God. But just before their move, Giglio’s dad died. That put Giglio in Atlanta with no job, wondering why he was there, and if he had heard God correctly.

Within a couple months Giglio had an idea that eventually grew into Passion Conferences, a gathering of college-age young adults. These annual meetings are well attended, drawing thousands of young people. Passion City Church is an outgrowth of the Passion Conferences.

As God’s plan for Giglio played out, he was able to see that God had not forsaken him. Giglio says our heavenly father will not forsake us, either.

I received a free audio copy of this book, and I choose to give an unbiased review.

@louiegiglio ‏ #Notforsaken #NetGalley @BHpub