Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

Punkzilla is considered an epistolary novel, which is a story told through documents. In this case, Punkzilla’s (Jamie is his real name.) story is told through letters. He is conversing with his brother, Peter (referred to as “P”), who is dying of cancer. Jamie is writing to him on a bus on his way from Portland, Oregon to Memphis, Tennessee to see his brother before he dies. Jamie writes his brother of the adventures and experiences he has while on this cross-country journey. Travelling by bus is pretty sketchy, which is made abundantly clear based on the things Jamie sees while staying at seedy motels, stopped at eerie bus stations, and with the bevy of oddballs who accompany him on his journey. Jamie’s language is blunt, lucid, at times raw, but still poetic as he describes his current adventure and his memories. This is also an emotional journey for Jamie as he tries to reach his brother in time. The reader is fully in-tunes with his roller coaster of emotions as he travels across the country.

This book is dark, edgy, and contains some graphic content, which is typical of Adam Rapp’s work. I would recommend Punkzilla for older teens (Grades 10 & up).

Author Adam Rapp is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Other books written by Rapp available in the Moore Young Adult collection are: Under the wolf, Under the Dog; 33 Snowfish; Little Chicago, The Buffalo Tree; and Missing the Piano.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Beloved young adult author, Sarah Dessen, recently published her ninth book, Along for the Ride. This story focuses on recent high school graduate, Auden, who slowly begins to realize all the things she missed out on during high school because she chose to focus on her education. Spending the summer with her father, step-mother, and newborn baby sister, in the remote cottage, beach-side community of Colby, only furthers this realization. During her last summer before going off to attend university, Auden, works at her step-mother’s boutique, which exposes her to a whole new world of “girl”: gossip, boys, and friendship.

Auden, in addition to having missed out on many social forays of teen-dom, also suffers from insomnia. She hasn’t slept normally for years, and she spends her night driving around the small cottage town drinking coffee. These all-night adventures eventually lead to a friendship with Eli, a local loner, who also seems to also suffer from insomnia. Both have emotional obstacles they need to overcome, and during the summer they learn to rely on one another and face the many things that may hold them back from living the lives they desire.

Similarly to other Dessen works, this story is character driven. Readers will find themselves attached to the characters and the world in which they live. Other books in the Moore Young Adult collection by Dessen are: That Summer, Lock & Key, Just Listen, The Truth about Forever, This Lullaby, Dreamland, Keeping the Moon, and Someone like You.

Homecoming / by Cynthia Voight

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After being evicted from their home in Massachusetts, a single mom parks a car containing her four kids at a mall and disappears into the night. Now the four abandoned siblings--Dicey(13), James(10), Maybeth(9) and Sammy(5) Tillerman--are left to ponder what to do next with no money, no caretaker and no place to go. Knowing a confrontation with authorities will only lead to the family's being split up, Dicey resolves to set out for the family's only other relative's known whereabouts--their never-before-seen Grandmother's home in Maryland. With no available means of transportation other than a token bus ride only taking them 20 miles or so, the foursome largely encounters the journey on foot, Dicey doing everything she can to keep everyone together and out of harm's way. Meeting with trouble, hardship and more than a few prying eyes becomes pretty routine as the Tillermans tread through mostly off road territory routinely coping with illness, hunger and bickering as they make their way to an uncertain destination amid an indeterminate future.

This is Voight's first novel in her Tillerman saga about four kids striving to stay a family amidst thwarted odds. With the the situation seen primarily through Dicey's eyes, the reader can't help but be drawn into an already pitiable situation only compounded by neglectful and indifferent adults. Voight manages to keep things in-bounds though, not overdoing any sentimentality or sympathy aspects of what, on the surface, might look like another sappy tear-jerker. The Tillermans are kids, plain and simple. And while they're rigorously challenged by largely adverse circumstances, it's not hard to interpret each as a child with like problems and issues rather than some Huck Finn or Johnny Tremain type elevated above the status of normal vulnerabilities.