Turns Out I'm An Old Adult - Unteachable by Leah Raeder

Unteachable by Leah Raeder

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



While I've been hearing a lot about the New Adult genre, this is my first NA title and now I'm pretty sure that I'm light years from the target audience. I'm an Evan, not a Maise. I'm also not a romance reader, so I had hoped for this to be a little more of a psychological drama instead of a romance, because teacher/student=ick.

Maise is 18, and meets Evan (early 30s) at the local fair.  They fall in love (lust?) in 30 seconds on a roller coaster (of course).  Once Maise heads back to school she discovers that Evan is her teacher, which adds a wrinkle to their budding lustship.  Never mind!  Maise is broken and smart and dangerous and Evan makes her feel all better and helps her come alive.  I never figured out any of Evan's personality traits, other than "hot" (Maise's interpretation) and shady (mine).  Hot sex ensues. Few conversations take place that are not about the status of their relationship.  Blech.

After finishing this I still can't come up with a single reason that Maise likes Evan. He's hot and it's fun to be risky? She feels different when she's with him? That's all I got, and it wasn't enough to make me care about their journey. I would have been much more interested in an evaluation of Evan's shady behavior.

I think this is really popular among the target audience, so we can chalk this review up to (a) I'm old and (b) I really hate romance novels.  But I will keep trying to find one that I like!



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"Mom, what's the 'gadget'?" - The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I read this book aloud to my 9yo and neither of us really loved it.

Set in the 1940s in New Mexico at the site of the Manhattan Project, this historical fiction deals with a subject that certainly is not familiar to most children today: WWII and the atomic bomb. Klages does a great job of filtering everything through the lives and viewpoints of children (Suze and Dewey) so there is just a sense that the "gadget" is causing either celebration or unease with the scientist parents feverishly working on the project. The subject matter opened plenty of options for dialogue with my daughter to explain the conditions of the world at the time, and the ramifications of the bombs.

The plot moved slowly, and while the themes were heavy (war! death! abandonment! women in science! bullying!) the novel felt almost quiet in tone. Lots of detail for setting and actions made the book seem sluggish at times.

Overall, while I would say neither of us felt glued to every word, this book opened up some great discussions and provided my daughter an excellent glimpse of the difference between a child in Los Alamos in the mid forties and a child today.



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