Deadline by Chris Crutcher

This is a book written for teen boys, but I think that I got more out of it than my teenage son. I think a person has to have lived life (longer than the teenage years for sure!) to really appreciate the message of this story. My son thought it was "boring" in places. I thought it was thought-provoking.

Ben Wolf is a senior in High School, as is his younger brother Cody. Ben started his education late because he was such a small child. So instead of attending school one year ahead of Cody, they started together. Ben is a track star. Cody is a football star (quarterback). Their mother has significant mental health issues and their father simply exists. He lets life just pass him by, knowing that he can't change anything since it's out of his control. It's because of this that Ben forms a deeper relationship with Coach, even buying and driving Coach's old car.

After having his sports physical exam, Ben is told by his doctor that he has an aggressive form of blood cancer. In order to live longer than a year, he would have to undergo aggressive treatment, which may extend his life a bit, but would obviously affect his quality of life. Ben decides to skip treatment and live the final year of his life to the fullest. This includes joining the football team (with his brother), bravely asking out the girl of his dreams (Dallas) who is considered out of his league (she says yes!), befriending the town drunk (Rudy) and challenging his history/civics teacher nearly every minute of every class. The kicker here is that he decides to keep his diagnosis a secret from everyone. He wants the last year of his life to be "normal".

Ben's journey brings him to a state of "self-awareness". As he develops new relationships with people, like Dallas and Rudy, who share their own heart-breaking secrets with him, he discovers how painful it is for people to live with secrets. In other words, Ben figures out that he is being selfish for keeping his diagnosis from the people who love him. He is not giving them the time to process that he will not be in their lives after the year is up and that there is no future for him/them.

Ben wants to make an impact before he dies, and he definitely does. There are a lot of sad stories in this book involving physical and sexual abuse, mental illness, alcoholism and death by suicide, accident and illness. But I loved Ben, Cody and Coach - and I loved their relationships, which included full acceptance and unconditional love. In the end, Ben's deterioration and death come fast, and I definitely shed some tears.

Wendy's Rating: ****

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark

This story is about a con artist, Meg Williams, but she is more of a "Robinhood" con artist. Meaning, her marks are not innocent, vulnerable people, but rather unscrupulous characters who have harmed others. Meg returns to her home town after 10 years and her mark is the man who stole her and her mother's inherited home out from underneath them - and then gloated about it. This man, Ron Ashton, is now a candidate for state senator. Meg returns to make him pay for what he did to her mother.

Meanwhile, Kat Roberts, a reporter, has been waiting for Meg to return so that she can expose her for the con artist that she is. Ten years previously, Meg had anonymously given Kat a "tip" regarding a source on a story involving a principal preying on his students. Kat met the source, but the source raped her. So Kat blamed Meg for this traumatic event. Another element in Kat's life is that her boyfriend, Scott, plunged them into debt because of a gambling addiction, but which he is undergoing treatment for. So you could say that Kat & Meg both have trust issues, for good reason.

What's great about this story is the relationship that builds between these two women. They hold each other "close" so they can keep an eye on each other. Kat uses a fake name and background when she introduces herself to Meg so that Meg doesn't know that she is researching her for the "big story" she is writing. Meg is too smart for that though. She figures out quickly enough who Kat really is, so then gives her a part-time job to keep her close. Scott  does not trust Meg at all and he keeps warning Kat how seductive con artists are and how good they are at lying. Meg doesn't actually trust Scott and keeps voicing sympathy to Kat about her gambling-addicted boyfriend when someone starts messing with her bank account and opening up a credit card in Kat's name. Kat really doesn't know who to trust.

This is an engaging story and I very much enjoyed it!

Wendy's Rating: ****

Lodestar: Keeper of The Lost Cities, Book Five by Shannon Messenger

As usual, a lot happens in Book 5 of this series. The kids figure out that the different symbols they are discovering in various places (like Keefe's cloak and the former Neverseen hideout where Sophie & Dex were held) are sections of the Neverseen Lodestar.  Each piece of the Lodestar leads to a different Neverseen hideout. Since Tam is a shade, they are able to go to these secret hideouts without being discovered. Sophie, Fitz and Tam end up at an occupied hideout however, and although they are initially trapped by a force field, Tam is able to get them out of it and they are successful in capturing both Brant and Ruy. Keefe refuses to come with them though, still trying to earn the trust of the Neverseen, including Alvar (Fitz' brother).

War is pending. No one trusts the other groups. King Dimitar wants to leave the treaty and he wants the ogres to simply be left alone. A band of rebel ogres however, attack Lady Cadence. Brielle (Grady's goblin bodyguard) ends up being killed. An Exillium Camp is set up at Foxfire and all of the elves start training in skills taught by Exillium teachers.

Wylie gets kidnapped. Sophie & gang figure out that Wylie's mother, Cyrah, was actually murdered. Wylie's kidnappers think that Wylie knows more than he does about his mother. We also find out that Dex' mother, Juline, is actually working with the Black Swan Collective and one of her disguises is Squall.

Sophie is invited to attend the Peace Summit at Lumenaria. The Neverseen end up destroying Lumenaria unfortunately, and one key character ends up dying. I am still sad about it so I won't reveal who it is here. Keefe is able to steal Fintan's & Kenric's caches from the Neverseen, but I guess we don't know if they are the authentic caches or not.

Finally, in this very brief summary, the ending goes in an direction I wasn't expecting. Sophie searches for her human sister, Amy/Natalie, and finds her in a closet in Amy's home. Oddly enough, Amy recognizes Sophie, even though her memory had been wiped clean.

This is already a complex story, but it's even harder to explain because of all the different "disguises" and roles that various characters play.

Wendy's Rating: *****