Beneath a Meth Moon - Jacqueline Woodson

Young Adult
Pages: 192
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Release Date: February 2, 2012

Laurel Daneau has moved on to a new life, in a new town, but inside she’s still reeling from the loss of her beloved mother and grandmother after Hurricane Katrina washed away their home. Laurel’s new life is going well, with a new best friend, a place on the cheerleading squad and T-Boom, co-captain of the basketball team, for a boyfriend. Yet Laurel is haunted by voices and memories from her past.

When T-Boom introduces Laurel to meth, she immediately falls under its spell, loving the way it erases, even if only briefly, her past. But as she becomes alienated from her friends and family, she becomes a shell of her former self, and longs to be whole again. With help from an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee, she’s able to begin to rewrite her story and start to move on from her addiction.

Okay, so obviously this is a book about meth addiction. And that part was great. Woodson portrayed addiction and its effects in an excessively accurate manner. Not that I know first hand, but from knowing people who've been through it, you can tell. Her writing was gripping and entrancing and very real.

What I loved the most though, is that this is also about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Every time a reverberating disaster happens, it becomes part of history. As such, it becomes a matter to write about. Now the fact that Laurel has a heart-breaking past that is no one's fault, makes this that much more powerful. The story was vividly atmospheric and you can feel yourself standing where Laurel is standing.

Deeply sad and wonderfully moving, Beneath the Meth Moon is as memorable as Katrina itself. I was a little bothered by how timelines blurred while reading, but then again, this made you feel even more in the character's feet, feeling her confusion and disorientation as your own. This book has been widely overlooked by many. What the author has accomplished in this extremely short read is admirable. If you like harsh, dark contemporary fiction based off recent history, this is a wonderful choice.

Goodreads / Amazon

Clean - Amy Reed

 Young Adult
Pages: 288
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: July 19, 2011

Olivia, Kelly, Christopher, Jason, and Eva have one thing in common: They’re addicts. Addicts who have hit rock bottom and been stuck together in rehab to face their problems, face sobriety, and face themselves. None of them wants to be there. None of them wants to confront the truths about their pasts. But they’ll all have to deal with themselves and one another if they want to learn how to live. Because when you get that high, there’s nowhere to go but down, down, down.

Clean is somewhat different to every other substance-abuse book I've read. I must admit I love and deeply enjoy reading about this subject though. But every other book I've read about it is either a before rehab part of it (Ballads of Suburbia) or somewhat of a love story inside rehab. This was very different though. It is told from two main povs but includes essays, group dialogue during sessions and questionnaire. It tells the recovery story of five troubled and very different teenagers and their process to overcome addiction and other issues.

I feel like I went to rehab and intimately explored one of the places I strongly hope I never visit in real life. It was very eye-opening and entertaining. It's also extremely gripping because it is short and formats keep changing and the subject is so dark you just cant stop reading. The content is all very dark and not at all sugar-coated, so some readers may find it hard to digest.

All the characters felt very real and I extremely liked Eva because she was so straight-forward and had a wonderful story-telling ability. It was very original how she wrote her story. But I found Jason a bit hard to swallow. Like, the poor boy had absolutely nothing good going on for him, and the only time he had deep scenes I felt they benefited the other character. The other four teens had something to hang on to, something positive that made them lucky in some way. But Jason was just... all screwed up. Which was weird.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this and I'm eager to read more form Amy because I really appreciate author who are not afraid to write about hard issues bluntly.

Goodreads / Amazon

Ballads of Suburbia - Stephanie Kuehnert

Young Adult
Pages: 368
Publisher: MTV books
Release date: July 21, 2009

There are so many ballads. Achy breaky country songs. Mournful pop songs. Then there’s the rare punk ballad, the ballad of suburbia: louder, faster, angrier . . . till it drowns out the silence.

Kara hasn’t been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park. . . .

Amidst the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own.

This is hardcore. It tried to suck life out of me. Read it if you dare. This is the dark reality every teenage kid fears or faces. We all know drugs, but we see it as the enemy. It's hard to see it from the eyes of an insider. I'm glad this book is out there for teens to read, but be warned: it's not pretty or pink. Specially if you have had experiences with this.

With that said... dude! this woman is a genius! OMG! What an amazing book. The 'ballad' concept is mind-blowing. What a great theory. I believe it has changed the way I see the world. The way she writes it, as a song, is brilliant. The whole book, to me, is a work of art. Powerful is an understatement. It goes beyond limits and plays with your view of reality.

I liked the cover, definitely fitting. Even if the book is fiction; the characters are real people, who probably Stephanie never met- but I bet each of those stories are out there, exactly like she wrote it. And the writing and plot are the way they should be, as if Kara wrote it. This is one of those books that leaves a mark so I do recommend reading it, specially if you love music and books as much as I do.