RIVAL by Sara Bennett Wealer

Title: RIVAL
Author: Sara Bennett Wealer
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 15, 2011
Number of Pages: 336
Source of Book: Won from The Contemps Challenge
Author's Website: www.sarabennettwealer.com

Goodreads Summary:
What if your worst enemy turned out to be the best friend you ever had?

Meet Brooke: Popular, powerful and hating every minute of it, she’s the “It” girl at Douglas High in Lake Champion, Minnesota. Her real ambition? Using her operatic mezzo as a ticket back to NYC, where her family lived before her dad ran off with an up and coming male movie star.

Now meet Kathryn: An overachieving soprano with an underachieving savings account, she’s been a leper ever since Brooke punched her at a party junior year. For Kath, music is the key to a much-needed college scholarship.

The stage is set for a high-stakes duet between the two seniors as they prepare for the prestigious Blackmore competition. Brooke and Kathryn work toward the Blackmore with eyes not just on first prize but on one another, each still stinging from a past that started with friendship and ended in betrayal. With competition day nearing, Brooke dreams of escaping the in-crowd for life as a professional singer, but her scheming BFF Chloe has other plans. And when Kathryn gets an unlikely invitation to Homecoming, she suspects Brooke of trying to sabotage her with one last public humiliation.

As pressures mount, Brooke starts to sense that the person she hates most might just be the best friend she ever had. But Kathryn has a decision to make. Can she forgive? Or are some rivalries for life?
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All right Gleeks - this is your book (and you've got two more weeks until a new Glee episode - just enough time to read RIVAL!) Before I start raving too much about the book, I just have to share that I read this book on a plane flight, and I am now typing my review based from my notes on airplane beverage napkins as I didn't have any paper with me (what was I thinking?!)

I ADORE this book about the roots of friendship, and popularity, and the fleetingness of acceptance in the high school social hierarchy. It's about figuring out what one really wants, what's really important, and who really matters. Both of the main characters have voices that were so true and honest. It was refreshing that they were both well-rounded and the focus wasn't on boys (although boys do, of course, play a secondary role to the main point of the story-this is YA after all!), but it was refreshing that wasn't the main focus - it was about this friendship, why it started, why it failed, and if it could be saved. It was about girls and the pressures they feel about friendships and rivalries, even if they don't want them that way. It was one of the most interesting contemporary books that I have read recently and the vocal music piece added another level of sophistication to it and heightened the drama.

I love that we get to hear the story from both Brooke and Kathryn's points-of-view in alternating chapters, and that it alternates sections from senior year and junior year (when it all went down). It was a very effective way to tell this story (instead of strictly chronologically) to leave the reader in a bit of suspense as to why these two girls are such staunch rival - and then to find out that they were friends at one point. Tension built throughout the story as we get clues and eventually get the full story of what happened and what turned these two girls into friends and rivals. The big competition looming at the end adds the perfect prize at the end. Wealer writes in a straight-forward and engaging style as we see into the minds of both girls and how they perceive the same situations so differently. One of my favorite lines from this book highlights the writing style and voice and gets to one of the themes in this book about rivalry, "But I don't shatter; I'm not made of glass. Anyway, the parts that break aren't on the outside."

Ultimately, this book shows that sometimes you really don't know someone else, nor can you see yourself clearly as others do. It's a fascinating look into perceptions and intentions and misperceptions and true desires. This is a fantastic new addition to the contemporary genre - and a great YA book! I highly recommend getting this one - it will be a quick read because you won't want to stop until you find out who wins the big competition at the end.

4.5 STARS for RIVAL

THE MOCKINGBIRDS by Daisy Whitney

Title: THE MOCKINGBIRDS

Author: Daisy Whitney
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: November 2, 2010
Number of Pages: 332
How I Got It: Won it from The Contemps Challenge


THE MOCKINGBIRDS is one of those books that is so powerful for young adults to read, but deals with a very sensitive topic. In the same way that SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson brought the topic of date rape and it's psychological impact on a high school girl to adolescents eleven years ago, Daisy Whitney is doing it now in a more straight-forward way in her debut novel, THE MOCKINGBIRDS. To then find out that the author herself has personal experience with this, makes it all the more clear how true and accurate the portrayal of Alex's experiences in the aftermath of this horrifying experience are throughout this novel. At the start of the book Alex wakes up next to a boy she doesn't know and isn't able to remember how she got there. As she goes through that day trying to figure out and remember what happened to her, it becomes apparent that she was incapacitated and date raped. At her boarding school, where the adults trust the students to behave honorably because they are so exceptional in all they do, she has no adults to turn to for help, especially because she herself isn't sure of what happened. So, with the help and support of her close and loyal friends, she debates about turning to The Mockingbirds, a secret society made up of students who have decided to police and judge their own and right the wrongs fellow students commit. Alex's journey to find her truth and path is searingly honest and provides a powerful example of struggling to discover one's own truth and sense of right and wrong, and what one will do to find it.

I read this book in one day - I just wasn't able to put it down because Alex's story is so engrossing and captivating, providing a powerful message for young adults. It provides an interesting look at how those who want to stand up for others and do the right thing can organize a system to police themselves that works. It sends a strong message that "the absence of a no does not mean yes." It touches on bullying issues as well, and shows another way of looking at high school students: if they know what others are doing is wrong, what are they willing to do about it? At Themis Academy, The Mockingbirds are willing to do what it takes to call out those who have wronged others and support the victims in every way. Whitney's writing style drew me in, made me interested in the story and what was happening, and gave me clues along the way that propelled the story forward along with my desire to read it. She wrote smart, real characters with real friendships and struggles and desires. This book has main and secondary characters who were written so I honestly cared about them, wanted to know more about them, wanted to root for them, and would love to hang out with them.

This book is about doing the right thing, finding yourself and your inner strength and beliefs by standing up for yourself and others, becoming stronger in knowing the truth and fighting for it, and surrounding yourself with ones you love who would stand up for and support you when you need them. I think the book speaks for itself: "Maybe, ultimately, that's what we're all aspiring to - to have our own sense of right and wrong and to act on it."

This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read this year, any year really, and I highly recommend that you read it!
5 STARS for THE MOCKINGBIRDS
I look forward to reading more by Daisy Whitney! In fact, book 2 in The Mockingbirds is coming out in fall 2011 - it will definitely be on my to-read list!

Other Books You Might Like: SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson and THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDEAU-BANKS by e. Lockhart 

The Contemps Challenge Winner-ME! New Books Coming Soon

I'm soooooooo excited right now!  I found out that I am the winner of The Contemps Challenge. That means I'm getting 21 new books - what's better than new books to read and bring into my classroom?!?  The Contemps is a group of 21 contemporary realistic fiction authors who got together and created a website to promote their books and the love of reading their genre. They had a contest to get people to take the challenge to read as many of their books as possible. When you accepted the challenge, you also were entered into the contest to win all of the books. I can't believe it, but I won!


Thanks so much to The Contemps: YA Authors Keeping It Real!  Visit their website for more information from all of the authors: The Contemps


This is the list of books I'll be getting as they're published (with publisher and release date):
Losing Faith by Denise Jaden (Simon Pulse, September 7, 2010)
The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger (Little, Brown/Poppy, September 7, 2010)
Girl, Stolen by April Henry (Henry Holt, September 28, 2010)
Freefall by Mindi Scott (Simon Pulse, October 5, 2010)
The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney (Little, Brown, November 2, 2010)
Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler (Little, Brown, December 15, 2010)
Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers (St. Martin's Press, December 21, 2010)
Trapped by Michael Northrop (Scholastic, February, 2011)
Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer (HarperTeen, February 15, 2011
Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt (Bloomsbury, March 1, 2011)
Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard (Random House/Delacorte, March 8, 2011)
Family by Micol Ostow (Egmont USA, April 26, 2011)
Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith (Dutton, April 28, 2011)
Pearl by Jo Knowles (Henry Holt, Spring, 2011)
Saving June by Hannah Harrington (Harlequin Teen, May, 2011)
Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott (Simon Pulse, May 24, 2011)
The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder (Simon Pulse, June 28, 2011)
Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker (Bloomsbury, July 19, 2011)
The third book in the Carter series by Brent Crawford (Summer, 2011)
Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy (Disney-Hyperion, Summer, 2011)
Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman (Scholastic Press, August, 2011)