Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have Review

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(More customer reviews)I was completely absorbed by this book, once I picked it up I couldn't put it down! It is so well written, so funny, with such a wonderful message about being oneself in the face of the tremendous pressure of adolescence coupled with society's twisted love affair with food/war on fat. Given the recent statistic that 66% of Americans are overweight, this book lands smack in the middle of the national zeitgeist with compassion, razor-sharp intelligence and humor. This is a great book for teens and adults - fat or thin.

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What's worse than being fat your freshman year? Being fat your sophomore year. Lifeused to be so simple for Andrew Zansky–hang with the Model UN guys, avoid gym class,and eat and eat and eat. He's used to not fitting in: into his family, his sports-crazedschool, or his size 48 pants. But not anymore. Andrew just met April, the new girlat school and the instant love of his life! He wants to find a way to win her over,but how? When O. Douglas, the heartthrob quarterback and high-school legend, saveshim from getting beaten up by the school bully, Andrew sees his chance to get inwith the football squad. Is it possible to reinvent yourself in the middle of highschool? Andrew is willing to try. But he's going to have to make some changes. Fast. Can a funny fat kid be friends with a football superstar? Can he win over the Girlof his Dreams? Can he find a way to get his mom and dad back together? How far shouldyou go to be the person you really want to be? Andrew is about to find out.

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Spelldown: The Big-Time Dreams of a Small-Town Word Whiz Review

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(More customer reviews)I confess that I am a personal friend of the author, Karon Luddy. I have known her since 1976, and she was a student in several of my English classes. What follows is a paragraph I wrote to her after reading SPELLDOWN. The "crummy little novel" remark was just part of our competing-authors banter from previous emails. WARNING -- the end of the paragraph contains a "spoiler" of sorts. My recommendation: buy it and read it.
"I am so proud of you. Your crummy little novel is absolutely brilliant. I'm a thousand percent jealous! I loved every page, every paragraph, every sentence. The wordplay is mind-boggling! It is so intelligent, so beyond intelligent. But mostly I just loved Karlene. Right from the beginning, so intelligent and independent-minded, half-child, half-adult manque, an astute observer, and yet she does the dishes without complaint and chops down and hauls home and decorates a Christmas tree without feeling sorry for herself. The details you incorporated make it all seem so undeniably real, and Southern, and personal. And I love that at the heart of the novel is the girl's search to understand love, especially family love. She's surrounded by it, immersed in it, but can't comprehend it. At the end, she seems to let go of the need to get an intellectual grip on it and just accepts it, happy that it's real."

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Last Night I Sang to the Monster Review

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(More customer reviews)For several years I worked in a therapeutic setting for male juvenile sex offenders. What a gift this book would have been back then. Before I launch into my accolades, let me state that there are elements of this book that many adults may find to be lacking in authenticity. In other words, Zach at times says things that I know someone with his troubled mind would not say. Most certainly he would not have finished this program as quickly as he does in the novel.
But remember this: the book was not written for adults although I highly recommend for adults.
The other reviews provide you with information about where Zach is and why he is there. So I will not do that. Instead I want to focus upon why we need more books like this. Millions of kids grow up in hostile homes. And so much damage is done by parents who do not have the skills needed to be effective parents. Most situations are not as overwheming as Zach's, of course, with his many addictions as well as his seeming inability to relate to anyone, to trust anyone. The reader, however, will not know the full reason until the end. In other words there is a plot.
The book is very engaging, skillfully written albeit not exactly authentic in the voice of an 18-year-old in a few places. I quite literally did not want to put it down. So I spent the entire day reading it. And now I am about to order three copies as gifts to people I think will find it a rich experience.

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