My Favorite Realistic Fiction Books
Thursday April 18th, 2013
5. Sisters
In “Sisters,” the latest graphic memoir by Raina Telgemeier, it is the summer before high school and Raina is stuck between a squirrelly little brother and a volatile younger sister in a van without air conditioning. They are on a weeklong drive from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado Springs, and as temperatures rise, so do tempers. Raina and her sister, Amara, argue over everything, from what to do about a snake on the loose (“What if we shut him in a suitcase till we’re home?”) to their parents’ relationship (“You don’t think Mom and Dad are gonna split up . . . do you?”). Memories of improbable pet deaths, their father’s unemployment and the difficulties of coexisting in a small apartment are woven into the tale of their emotional and sometimes tense journey through the American West.
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4. Crossover
Josh and JB are twins, double trouble on the basketball court, almost 13 years old. When we first encounter them in Kwame Alexander’s beautifully measured novel of life and lines, “The Crossover,” they are deep into a year when everything changes. The story is written in verse, but have no fear: Here, poetry is in service to the interior and exterior worlds of Josh, who plays forward to JB’s shooting guard. Besides being an inch taller and the one with dreadlocks to his neck, Josh is also the brother with the larger vocabulary — by the novel’s end, he will define 12 important words and terms.
Josh and JB’s world is one in which both parents are professionals. Their father is a former European league basketball player, and their mother is an assistant principal at the boys’ junior high school.
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3. Wonder
August 'Auggie' Pullman is a normal ten year old. Except he has a severe facial deformity and all he wants is to blend in. In Palacio's words, 'Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse'.
The book kicks off when he starts middle school and follows him right through to the uplifting ending. It was a disturbing read, as it so accurately portrayed, and described what people do when they meet someone like Auggie. They look away with expressions of shock and they even tease – it's all there, written from Auggie's point of view as he realises that few people see him as he really is. It also makes you feel guilty too, as, however unintentionally or ashamedly, isn't that how we'd all react?
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2. Where She Went
Wow! I recently finished Where She Went and it was perfection in my eyes. Maybe even better than If I Stay. Everything was perfectly tied up by the end and the whole thing gave me insight into what it's really like to be in an incredibly popular band (which made it VERY interesting to go and see The Vamps last Wednesday which was insanely good and also got me fascinated on the real lives of the band members). One thing's for sure, I never want to be in a popular band. It sounds miserable.
Where She Went is told from the perspective of Adam, three years after Mia woke up from her coma and went of to Julliard, basically stamping Adam out of her life. Since then, the band, Shooting Star, completely took off with the album that Adam wrote after his break-up, the songs of which ended up winning numerous awards.
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1. Paper Towns
Paper Towns is told from the point of view of a teenage boy named Quentin 'Q' Jacobson. Quentin loves Margo Roth Spiegelman, though she has never been one to hang around with him. One night, Margo appears at Q's window, asking him to come along with her on a 'mission' around the neighborhood and he does. But after Margo doesn't show up at school for weeks after, Quentin begins to investigate, observing the clues that Margo has left behind for him.
Paper Towns was a book I could not put down from the moment I started it. John Green has done an amazing job with writing the book in Quentin's point of view. I also love the different relationships shown between the characters, many teenagers could probably relate to this.
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