Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Waiting on Wednesday - Touch by Francine Prose

The Waiting on Wednesday spot (a post started by Jill at Breaking the Spine) is where we talk about "the" book we cannot wait to get our hands on. This week I want to talk about Touch by Francine Prose. And I'm a big fan of her writing.

I read her first YA novel After and was hooked. It was very, very good. And I thought I'd post my review again because I wasn't blogging when I wrote this review

What if some students at a local high school went crazy, brought guns to school, and starting shooting. How would that impact your own school? At Central High a grief councilor is hired and brings with him a whole new set of rules. They start to take away privileges, give no explanations why, and students who don’t conform are taken to detention camps. After is creepy, ripped from the headlines, memorable, and compelling. How would you deal with this?

Bullyville, her second YA title, was about 9/11 and bullying, and yes, again I'm reposting my original review:

A familiar scenario: boy wakes up with high fever and, with noone to help, his Mom stays home to look after him. But this is no ordinary day, this is 9/11, and both his Mom and Dad (who had moved out six months previously) work in the World Trade Center. Thus Bart becomes the “Miracle Boy,” the boy who saved his Mom from certain death. When he is offered a scholarship to a local elite private school his Mom is overjoyed at the thought of such a wonderful new start. Bart isn’t, and finds that the school lives up to its nickname: Bullyville. It will become the worst year of his life. This novel for our times is brutal, provocative, plausible, and insightful. It really touched me.

Touch is coming out in June. And I can't wait.
From the back cover: What really happened in the backseat of the school bus that day? The boys tell one story. The girl tells another. IS anyone telling the truth? Prose delivers a stunning novel of what happens when pressure, expectations, and disappointment combine to create an explosion of emotions that can destroy friendships forever.

Here's a video of the author talking about Touch to whet your appetite.

So what are you waiting for?

1 comment:

Megan Kurashige said...

I thought her Reading Like A Writer was excellent. Rarely have I been so fascinated by syntax!