Sometimes, I just rock at picking out great books!
Around here I get a ton of book catalogs - at least a ton. They come in stacks and stacks from all the major publishers and many of the midling sized ones as well and I love them, I love each and everyone of them.
I am a book catalog whore.
It is so easy for me to get lulled in by all the glossy pages and the promises in the PR text - by everything that looks new and vital and significant. But I try very hard to remain strong and remember that I simply can not read every single book on the planet. It can't be done. Really. (I have accepted this, I swear!)
All fun aside, what's really hard is picking out a variety of books to potentially review, especially since I primarily read young adult. The young adult category seems to go through fits of duplication - everyone wants a young wizard, or a girl with serious problems or a bunch of empty-headed twits in high school - there is a general lacking of variety in more than one of the catalogs I receive. The toughest area by far to find books about is minorities, especially groups other than African Americans (not that there are a ton of African American YA books out there, but at least Black History Month forces a few to be published every year.) So, I keep my eyes peeled for anything that fits the minority mold - and sounds like a good book, (because if it isn't good, I'm not going to review it. Period.) I was thrilled, positively thrilled, to come across Justina Chen Headley's Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) in the last Little, Brown catalog. And after finishing it today I am quite happy to report that it rocks.
Totally.
Nothing is about Patti Ho, a high school freshman who is 1/2 Taiwanese and 1/2 American. She is tall, pale and has big feet - in other words, not the typical Asian-looking kid. She is, as a friend puts it, "hapa", meaning half and half. For her this split ethnicity presents all kinds of confusions about identity which are not helped by an absent father and a strictly conservative mother. As the book begins she is horrified to find out that her mother has decided that summer math camp at Stanford is the best place to keep Patti from running into trouble with non-Asian boys. To Patti this sounds like a fate worse then death but of course it ends up to be very different from what she expects. Ultimately she learns way more than math while she's at camp and it pretty much changes her life. And because Headley is such a great writer, Patti's story is not only believable and compelling, but it easily transcends any sort of audience classification. In other words, you don't have to be Asian or hapa to love Patti, you just have to be confused and really, who doesn't fit that classification? (I mean, really!)
This book just totally charmed me. It is funny and serious and daring and a little bit crazy at times. Headley gives her readers lots to think about like why parents do the things they do and just what math camp is like and who might want to free climb up buildings and who creates the words we all take for granted. She also describes an amazing picture in her book of an Asian girl with her mouth bound so she can not speak. Seeing it proves to be a catalyst for Patti and the painting particularly impressed me. In so many ways we all feel as if we can not speak, and because of that we limit our own greatness - we limit the greatness of the world.
Do you believe me now when I say I pick great books?!
Nothing but the Truth is due out in April. I will have a longer review of it in my column at Bookslut later on this Spring (with many other titles about surviving high school). And speaking of Bookslut, the new issue is up. Go read it - I promise, it will make you very happy! (Books always make me happy............:)
