Personal Effects and PTSD

I recently read two books that I felt deserved to be written about together: E.M. Kokie's Personal Effects and Laurie Halse Anderson's The Impossible Knife of Memory.

I'd never heard of Personal Effects, but it caught my attention on the shelf of "What Teens Are Reading" at Barnes & Noble. I know that it's hard to find a book with a male protagonist, so I knew I had to get this for my students. The main character, Matt Foster, lives with his dad, and he can't quite seem to do the right things. He often gets into trouble at school, and his dad has these very strict ideas of masculinity: if someone hits you, you beat them up; you don't show your weaknesses; and you certainly never talk about your feelings.

This makes it difficult for Matt to deal with life, as his brother, T.J., was recently killed in Iraq. Matt's dad essentially shuts down any conversation about T.J., and he has also hidden all traces of T.J. in the hopes of preventing any conversation about him. This takes a toll on Matt because it seems like no one wants to talk about the pain that is so evident.

This book is a real page-turner. When Matt and his dad receive his brother's personal effects (I can admit that I did not know this term until this book!), Matt decides to go on an adventure to understand the missing aspects of T.J.'s life that he never knew.

I didn't know what The Impossible Knife of Memory was about before I bought it--I just trusted that Laurie Halse Anderson, one of my favorite young-adult authors,  produced yet another book that I would fall in love with. And I have to say that this is, by far, my favorite of her works.

The main character, Hayley, is sort of in a similar situation to Kokie's Matt Foster. She lives at home with her dad, an ex-trucker and veteran from the war in Iraq, and she, like Matt, is the emotional fulcrum. Her dad doesn't talk about his experiences, but Hayley often hears her father's nightmares in the middle of the night and has to cope with his, at times, erratic behavior during the day.

This story takes place during Hayley's senior year of high school, when she and her dad attempt a year of life off the road. But things get emotional and deep really quickly in this novel. Hayley endures and copes with her father's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in ways that I could never imagine. She is brave, strong, and more mature than anyone her age should have to be as things worsen with her father's illness. Her lies to cover up his behavior and her frustrations at school all build up to make this story intense and one you won't want to put down.

The Power of the Truth

I just finished E. Lockhart's We Were Liars--and I now know why it seems like everyone is raving about this book.

The entire time reading this novel, I couldn't make sense of the title. I don't want to spoil it for you, but when you get it to the end, it all makes sense. Well, as much sense as it could to Cadence, the main character. What seems like just a group of wealthy teenagers and one outsider all comes together to explore some pretty deep issues about life, friendships, relationships, and family. I found myself rooting for Cadence's, the first-born grandchild and heir to the family's wealth, and Gat's, viewed as an outsider by Cadence's grandfather, relationship and hoping that things would just work out.

When reading this, I began making connections to The Great Gatsby, King Lear, Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, and every other novel that I remembered exploring patriarchy and wealth. But this novel is so much more than that.

Lockhart's book gets to issues of truths. 

It makes me think of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness," questioning who or what we take for granted. And Cadence explores this idea as she tries to recover her memory of a night that changed her life and her family's lives forever.

This book will make you question what's in front of you, and it will make you question your memories and the memories of others. Because of that, I can't wait to add it to my classroom library in September.

A title that caught my eye: RATS SAW GOD

I didn't buy this book for myself; I bought it for a student. He was struggling to find a book that he wanted to read, and I was struggling recommending titles for him. I can't remember the name of the series he enjoyed in middle school, but he described how he enjoyed them so much that he read the entire series. I knew then that we had something we could work with. 

Using whatshouldIreadnext.com, we were able to enter in the title of his beloved series, and Rob Thomas' novel appeared in the results, along with another book. He chose to read the other text when it arrived, and I wanted to know more about this quirkily titled text. 

Meet Steve York. His dad is an astronaut, and his parents are recently divorced. Over the course of the novel, you find out that Steve is coping with said parents' divorce, and his grades have plummeted. Writing this novel is his counselor's last-ditch effort to grant him the necessary credit that he needs to graduate. 

The book resonated with me because it told the story of so many of my own students. They are more than just the kids I teach; they are people. And those people have busy lives with so many forces pushing and pulling them. Like Steve, so many of them have so much potential, but there are obstacles they must overcome--and want to overcome--in order to succeed.