Addison Schmeeter knows what normal is. Or maybe she doesn't, but at least she knows what it's not. It's not a mom leaving her kids for nights on end without letting them know where she is or when she'll be home. It's not a mom refusing to get out of bed for a week. It's not a 12-year-old doing all the cooking, cleaning, and shopping. It's not a parent acting like a child. The way Addie and Mommers live - nothing about it is normal. Addie knows their situation's unconventional (to say the least); she also knows she can't tell anyone about it, not if she wants to avoid ending up in foster care. Besides, Mommers needs her. Addie can't abandon her mother, no matter how crazy Mommers acts sometimes.

So, Addie hides the truth about her mother's violent mood swings - from her teachers at school, from her grandfather, and from her new friends across the street. Only Addie's ex-stepfather knows how bad Mommers gets sometimes, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't really help Addie. She knows he'd take her to live with him and her little half-sisters if Mommers would let him, but she won't. No way. She hates Dwight. And since he's not Addie's biological father, he can't legally force the issue. So Addie waits. And waits. For normal to make an appearance in her increasingly wonky life.

At least, Addie's in a new neighborhood, attending a new school. No one in this part of Schenectady knows her or Mommers. It's easier to hide. Until things get complicated. Suddenly, along with daily survival in an always-unpredictable home, Addie's got to deal with a friend's devastating secret, Dwight's new romance, and the intense stage fright that grabs hold of her every time she thinks about her upcoming violin solo. She'll have to face it all, while, at the same time, trying to predict what her mother will do next, where she will (or will not) show up, and how she's going to keep Mommer's erratic behavior a secret from prying eyes.

Although not as hard-hitting as other novels about children dealing with a parent's mental illness, Waiting for Normal is nonetheless affecting. The 2009 Schneider Family Book Award Winner by Leslie Connor takes a poignant look at one girl's brave fight for normality despite living with a mother whose manic-depression makes her life anything but. While I didn't love the book, I do think it's a well-written story about an important issue.

(Readalikes: Reminded me of Miles From Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams, You Are My Only by Beth Kephart, and Small As An Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, and A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler)

Grade: C

If this were a movie, it would be rated: I waffled between PG and PG-13, but finally settled on the latter because of mild langauge, intense situations, candid discussions of female issues associated with puberty and references to homosexuality.

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of Waiting for Normal from the generous folks at Katherine Tegen Books (an imprint of Harper Collins). Thank you!

I'm not sure why I thought Feed, a 2002 National Book Award finalist by M.T. Anderson, had to do with zombies. Maybe because of the title? Or maybe because the closer we creep to 2012, the more nervous I get about an undead apocalypse? Anyway, whatever the reason, I was totally wrong. No zombies shuffle their way through this book. Except, sort of, in a way, they do. Only they're not the slobbering, walking dead variety. Not exactly.

In this futuristic YA novel, almost anything has become possible. Spring Breakers can party on the moon. Jet-setting off to Mars is completely doable. And no one has to go offline. Ever. Feeds are transplanted straight into people's brains, allowing them to not just stand, but live their entire lives, at the very center of the information superhighway. A constant stream of content pours into their heads, meaning they never have to sound ignorant, never have to wonder about anything, never need to bother with learning or thinking at all. Ads flash through their minds continually, keeping them up-to-date on the latest fashion trends, celebrity breakups and cool, new gadgets. With a functioning feed, they can fit in anywhere, with anyone.

But what happens when a feed malfunctions? Titus is about to find out.

When the teenager and his friends go looking for a little lunar fun, they discover something: the Moon kinda sucks. In no time, their little excursion has gotten totally null. They're bored out of their feed-blasted minds. Then, Titus meets Violet Durn. Not only is Violet stunningly beautiful, but she's different. Like, somehow she seems more real than anyone else Titus has ever known. She's a little out of the loop, sure, but she's unique, something exciting to brighten his dull vacation. Titus convinces a reluctant Violet to come party with him and his friends at a night club his feed assures him is hot. He's having a good time (even if she's not) when the unthinkable happens - a raging doomsayer hacks into both their feeds, spamming them with angry extremist mumbo jumbo. In order to get their systems back online, both their feeds will have to be shut down. Immediately.

Without the noise in his head, Titus experiences an unsettling quiet, a kind of clarity he's never known before. Between the weird emptiness in his brain and Violet's odd observations about life (""Everything we've grown up with - the stories on the feed, the games, all of that - it's streaming our personalities so we're easier to sell to ...'" [97]), Titus literally does not know what to think. Even when the feed doctors reboot him and everything's back to normal, he's out of sorts, a feeling which only increases when Violet gives him some very disturbing news. Suddenly, Titus is asking questions he's never even considered before: What, in his life, is real? Who is he - his own person or some kind of product manufactured by the wily feed gods? If he didn't have his feed to stuff him full of info, would he be worth anything at all?

The allegorical Feed offers a chilling commentary on our Internet/Facebook/Twitter-obsessed times. In alternately frenetic (when he is on feed) and calmer (when he's off) chapters, Titus explores concerns that plague all of us with our increasingly virtual lives - realitiy vs. the online world; genuine human conversation vs. instant messaging, Facebook status updating, and Tweeting; true scholarship vs. copycat research; and developing authentic personality vs. allowing marketers to tell us who to be. The book's lesson isn't very subtle, but the plot's entertaining and Anderson's point comes across in a way that's both vivid and affecting. I can't say I loved Feed; I can say I appreciated it. And I haven't stopped thinking about it. Must be the zombie thing ...

(Readalikes: Reminded me a little of Girl Parts by John M. Cusick and, oddly, of the movie Wall-E)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for strong language

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of Feed from the generous folks at Candlewick Press. Thank you!

I tried to resist reading After the Snow by S.D. Crockett. I really did. Not for forever, just until it got closer to the book's publication date (March 2012). But everything about the book intrigued me - the setting (an arctic dystopian England - haven't seen that one before), the cover (chilling, no?), and the plot (teenager's family gets taken, leaving him to fend for himself in a frigid, empty world). So, you see why I had to read it, right? Right? And, of course, I could just post-date this review, but where would the fun in that be? This way, you can get just as interested, just as excited about the novel as I did!

The story begins on a cold, icy day - because that's how every day dawns in Willo Blake's eternally white world. The 15-year-old is a straggler, one of the few people who live outside the enclosed cities, staying well below the government's radar. He, along with his father, stepmother, younger sister, and an assortment of friends, eke out a life in the hills, eating the animals they kill and trading their furs to a trusted outsider in order to purchase other supplies. The stragglers may not play by the government's rules, but they're not doing anything wrong. Just trying to survive.

So, I've realized that Thanksgiving is a lot more work when you're doing all the cooking yourself. It's a revelation. Seriously. Usually, my talented-in-so-many-ways MIL does all the cooking and all I have to do is show up. Bring a vegetable tray, maybe, or help peel potatoes, but nothing more strenuous than that. This year, though, she's out of town, as are most of my other turkey-making relatives. Thus, Thanksgiving's all on me. Are you worried? You should be. At least I can console myself with the knowledge that even if I totally screw up the meal, only my immediate family will know about it. And, sadly, they're no strangers to my cooking catastrophes.

But, enough about the food. That's not what Thanksgiving's really about, right? Right? Of course not; it's about counting one's blessings. I have so much to be thankful for, including a large, lively group of blog readers. Thank you so much for supporting BBB this year - for your comments, your emails, your Likes on Facebook, your recommendations and, most of all, your friendship. It truly does mean a great deal to me.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone! And, if you're offering up prayers tomorrow, send one up for me and my turkey, won't you? We're going to need all the help we can get.

(Photo is courtesy of my SIL)

Imagine a world where, instead of being sentenced to prison terms, criminals are chromed, their skin tinted different colors to announce their status as thieves, swindlers, pedophiles. That's the punishment given to all but the worst offenders in the dystopian U.S. of Hillary Jordan's thought-provoking new novel, When She Woke. A re-imagining of The Scarlet Letter, Jordan's book raises the same questions Hawthorne's did: Does one sinner have the right to judge another? When has one suffered enough for the act he/she committed? Who is more free - the incarcerated individual, whose crimes are publicly known, or the one whose guilt must be endured alone and in silence? How do "faithful" Christian people justify shaming, instead of forgiving, one who has wronged another? How much of a role - if any - should religion play in the formation and upholding of a country's laws? And, perhaps most relevant, what is the most effective method of punishing and reforming a wrongdoer?
For Hannah Payne, a 26-year-old seamstress, chroming is just a part of life. She sees Chromes frequently on the streets of Dallas, but like any good girl, she stays far away from them. A devout woman like Hannah, whose almost cloistered life revolves solely around her church and her family, has nothing in common with outcasts like them. At least that's what she thinks. Until a secret affair with a prominent minister leaves her pregnant. By law, she can't have the baby without naming its father. Not willing to risk her lover's pious reputation by exposing him as an adulterer, she seeks an abortion instead. The act, considered murder by both church and state, earns Hannah a sentence of 16 years as a Red.
When she's released from the hospital, where her chroming procedure was not only performed, but televised to the public, Hannah stumbles out into a world grown suddenly cruel. Her flaming red skin seems to render her inhuman, making her both a target for lewd jeers and a danger to be avoided at all costs. Shunned by her family, Hannah must make her way in a world where she has no rights, where discrimination colors her every interaction, where she's judged - instantly and harshly - by the crime she has committed. It's a bleak, tortorous existence, one made even more difficult by the fact that Hannah can't see her family or acknowledge the man she loves or live any kind of normal life. The shunning, the humiliation, the hardness of the punishment are all designed to teach Hannah one thing - how it feels to be victimized.
Hannah knows she could end it all by choosing suicide over endurance, but she doesn't have the courage to do to herself what she did to her unborn child. Besides, her new life is showing her things she never saw before: hypocrisy, lies, hate, and truth. As she struggles to come to terms with life as a Red, Hannah "unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love" (quote from jacket copy).
The premise of When She Woke intrigued me from the second I heard about it. It's a fascinating concept, explored in a way that is raw, searing, yet sympathetic, too. Much to my surprise, Jordan made me care about Hannah, even though I found her crime repugnant and her "selfless" justification deplorable. I didn't agree with the majority of Hannah's decisions, but I still found her story riveting. Jordan writes so vividly, so provocatively that I literally could not stop myself from turning the pages of When She Woke. In the end, though, I disagreed so strongly with Hannah's conclusions that I found myself ultimately disappointed by a novel I thought I might love. My own beliefs just differ too strongly, I guess, although I still think this novel would make a great book club choice. Like Hawthorne's masterpiece, When She Woke just begs to be discussed.
(Readalikes: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Small-Town Sinners by Melissa Walker)
Grade: B
If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for language, sexual content and adult situations/themes
To the FTC, with love: I bought When She Woke at Changing Hands Bookstore with some of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.

"I had my protective shell of funny talk and shyness, but underneath that lived a wilder me, a girl who would take punishment, and take it, and take it, but who would never let go of herself all the way, never completely surrender" (87).

Marjorie Richards knows all about fear. The 17-year-old can't go home without feeling it, she can't walk the school corridors without experiencing it and, now that teenage girls are disappearing in her rural New Hampshire community, she can't go anywhere at all without constantly looking over her shoulder. Marjorie's reclusive parents have always told her the outside world isn't safe - she's starting to believe them.

Unlike her parents, though, Marjorie can't hide out in the hills. She's required by law to attend school. Even though her classmates snicker about the way she talks, her teachers raise their eyebrows at her bruises, and more than one boy makes it clear what he wants from her, Marjorie craves the normality of it all. When she's hired to help Arturo "Sands" Ivers, a 24-year-old stranger in town, build a church, she spends even more time basking in the freedom of life away from her cruel parents. As intoxicating as it is to be out from under their constant supervision, Marjorie's afraid to step too far away from her mother and father. She pities them, but mostly she fears what they will do if she dares defy them. The paycheck she brings them every month may be the only thing that keeps them from killing her outright.

As Marjorie grows more comfortable with her job as an assistant stonemason - and with her inscrutable boss - she feels her confidence growing. But will it be enough to save her from her parents' escalating sadism? Or the vicious murderer, who may be closer to Marjorie than she knows? Will it be enough to rescue her from the squalid fate for which she seems destined? Or will she become just another victim - of poverty, of abuse, and of a violent killer?

(Readalikes: Reminds me a lot of Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell and a little of Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for mild language, sexual innuendo/content, and violence

Meghan Chase has never quite fit in - not in her tiny Louisiana hick town, not with her classmates at the high school, not even in her own family. Only goofy Robbie Goodfell seems to get her. Everyone else thinks Meghan's weird, but it's not until Meghan turns 16 that she starts to believe them. Because, suddenly, she's seeing things that can't be real, hearing things that make no sense, and feeling the oddest sensations. The shivery feeling reminds her of the day when her six-year-old self watched her father disappear without a trace. It's not a happy feeling.
If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language (1 F-bomb, plus milder invectives), violence and sexual innuendo)

Since Hannah is, primarily, a cookie baker, the majority of "her" recipes are for just that. From drop cookies to bar cookies to cut-out cookies to a cookie pizza, the variety is dazzling. Hannah's specialty might be cookies, but that's not all she does - "her" cookbook includes instructions for making several different types of candy, muffins, cakes, cupcakes, pies, even soups and salads. All of the recipes look delicious, are clearly worded and seem to be doable even for newbie bakers. Oh, and did I mention the substitutions list that starts on Page 323? I've never seen the like - who knew there were substitutes for brown sugar, self-rising flour, even eggs? I didn't.

Those bakers who also love the Hannah Swenson books will enjoy the story that runs through the cookbook. It's nothing terribly exciting (no one gets killed anyway) and you won't miss any important plot developments by ignoring it, but it's kind of fun to read about Hannah's catering woes during an oncoming snowstorm. Also, on the inside book covers is a quaint, colorful map of Lake Eden - something I, at least, have never seen before. It's a fun visual that helps bring Fluke's stories to life.

My complaints about the cookbook are few. I would have liked a bigger, spiral-bound version, which would make the book much more kitchen-friendly. As is, it's formatted like another volume in the series - hardbound, with no color (except on the map). Also, it would have been really nice to see color photos of each of the finished products, since, without a picture, I'm never sure if what I baked looks like it's supposed to look. Additionally, the recipes do not include any nutritional info at all. Considering how much fat and sugar are in many of them, maybe it's better that I not know!

Despite those little annoyances, I've been really pleased with Lake Eden Cookbook: Hannah Swensen's Recipes From The Cookie Jar. I can't wait to try more of the recipes, since they all look fantastic. If you've got a Fluke fan or a baker or both on your Christmas list this year, search this one out. Seriously. Just thinking about baking more of Hannah's sweet treats makes me salivate. Mmm, mmm, mmm. I hope Fluke's coming out with a diet cookbook next - I'm definitely going to need it!

(Readalikes: All the books in Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen series, including Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, Strawberry Shortcake Murder, Blueberry Muffin Murder and Lemon Meringue Pie Murder)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for very mild sexual innuendo

To the FTC, with love: I bought The Lake Eden Cookbook from Amazon with some of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.)

I must have been really overloaded on Halloween candy when I selected the recipes I wanted to make for this blog post. Usually, I go straight for the chocolate, but the two treats I selected both involve fruit (which totally makes them healthy, right?). Enjoy!

Oh, and in the recipes, comments in parantheses are Fluke's/Swensen's, comments in brackets are mine.

3 cups orange juice (you'll need 6 cups in all)

Pour the 3 cups of orange juice into a blender. Add the envelope of dry Dream Whip and the dry pudding mix. Blend for one minute on LOW and then for another minute on MEDIUM speed.

Pour the mixture into a 2-quart pitcher. Add the remaining 3 cups of orange juice and stir well.

Yield: Makes almost 2 quarts

When you've finished forming and coating all your lime balls and placing them in the cake pan, cover them with another sheet of wax paper and refrigerate them for 2 to 3 hours before serving. If you're not serving them for several days, place a sheet of foil over the cake pan and secure it tightly. keep the cake pan in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve.

When Abby wakes up in an alley next to a house engulfed in flames, she remembers nothing - not her name, not her age, not her address, not anything. But when a guy tries to help her up, she feels a flicker of ... something. He says his name is Sam, says Abby knows him, says he'll help her. And he does, taking her to a hidden cave in the middle of a lovely forest. It's like something from a fairy tale and sharing this cozy new home with Sam makes her almost delirious with happiness. She doesn't exactly remember the world outside their secret woods, but she trusts Sam, knows he's telling the truth when he says it's not safe for her to venture too far beyond the cave.

(Readalikes: Reminded me of Stolen by Lucy Christopher)

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for strong language, intense situations and sexual content