Richie's Picks: PARTY by Tom Leveen, Random House Books for Young Readers,
April 2010, 240p., ISBN: 978-0-375-86436-0; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-375-96436-7
"What's the go?"
"Pumping up the volume with this brand new beat
Everybody's dancing and they're dancing for me
I'm you're operator, you can call anytime
I'll be your connection to the party line."
-- Pink, "Get This Party Started"
It's a summertime Saturday evening, and an enormous house in Santa Barbara
is packed to the gills, inside and out, with hormones, alcohol, and high
schoolers. The photo-shopped invite had been tacked up around the high
school corridors before summer vacation began. This is the party that
everybody has been waiting for.
We view the evening's unfolding events through the eyes of eleven students
-- most of them incoming seniors; a few others newly graduated -- who
bring their individual hopes and desires, prejudices and points of view, angers
and appetites to that house on Beachfront.
Containing a healthy measure of sex, tunes, beer, and violence, this is
the one that my eighteen year-old plucked from the piles as looking
especially entertaining. I'm betting that it will be one of those books that will
be embraced and shared by any number of reluctant teen readers who are
fortunate enough to run across it.
When I picked it up, I was figuring it would be a tasty bit of junk food
for me to consume on a quiet Saturday night at home. But I actually found
PARTY to be far more than that. I was surprised and impressed that after
reading these eleven intertwined stories upon which the evening builds, I
could readily recall in depth who every one of these eleven narrators is.
There are lots of secrets and surprises about which we come to find out.
And, because the book takes place over this single night in the lives of each
of these eleven complex characters, I am really wanting to know what is
going to happen tomorrow with every one of them.
Don't miss this PARTY.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
(http://www.librarything.com/profile/richiespicks)
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FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he
will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after
reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review
copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools and
libraries.
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