Waiting on Wednesdayy: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Waiting on Wednesday recognizes that we as bookies pine for books. This post is about what I am impatiently waiting for right now. It was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

I can never get enough of Jennifer Echols' books. I have adored every one I have read & eagerly anticipate her next release. I have to admit that Such a Rush due out July 10 doesn't sound too much like most of her other works. While the main character is still a girl & she is still struggling to find herself, I feel that this one will be different. maybe it's the addition of the two brothers fighting over her, but something tells me that this one is going to play out differently than the others. Hopefully that will be in a good way!

High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires her to fly for his banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park. And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.    

But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business — until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers — and the consequences could be deadly.

From Goodreads 

Even if this wasn't written by Jennifer Echols, I probably still would have picked it up since the premise is one you don't hear of very often. The last book I read about a teenage girl & flying was Flygirl & that's been a ways back. I can't wait to see what she does with that storyline because it can only go up from there.

What are you waiting on this week?

Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher review

With her mother ill, it’s up to fifteen-year-old Ruby Jacinski to support her family. But in the 1940s, the only opportunities open to a Polish-American girl from Chicago’s poor Yards is a job in one of the meat packing plants. Through a chance meeting with a local tough, Ruby lands a job as a taxi dancer and soon becomes an expert in the art of “fishing”: working her patrons for meals, cash, clothes, even jewelry. Drawn ever deeper into the world of dance halls, jazz, and the mob, Ruby gradually realizes that the only one who can save her is herself. A mesmerizing look into a little known world and era.

From Goodreads

Ruby Jacinski is a good daughter. She has always done whatever was necessary to take care of her family. With a deceased father & a mother riddled with rheumatoid arthritis, Ruby drops out of school & goes to work in the meat packing plant. Even with all her hard work, it's just not enough. The basic ends aren't really being met & Ruby is at a loss as to what to do.

Enter Paulie, a rather smarmy young gent, who introduces Ruby to the idea of teaching the latest dances to willing-and-able-to-pay men. While she's a bit stricken by the idea of dancing with strange men for money, she does love a good beat & soon enough she's working at a taxi-dance hall. Earning it's name because the men are renting girls a dance at a time, Ruby soon finds herself out of her league in regards to customers' expectations & some stiff competition. Never one to give up, especially with everything at stake, Ruby begins to navigate the tricky waters of hiding her profession from her family & still being flashy enough to catch the big paying customers. Her balancing act is precarious at best & sooner or later, something's got to give.

Such a fascinating time period! This book instantly caught my eye because it's an era that not many people write about. Prohibition is big for the 20's & the hippies are good for the 60's, but the 40's seem to get lost in teen literature unless it's about the war. Well this book turns that notion on it's head by setting us up in the hip & swinging Chicago night life. We learn about all sorts of historical settings like the boom of jazz music, the struggle of the lower-class immigrant families & the illicit scenes that pervade the seedier parts of major cities.

Ruby moves through all these worlds with the biggest of eyes allowing the reader to really gain a sense of what it was like to live it. Such a passionately vibrant character in such muddled times helps the reader understand the reality of day to day struggles for a young woman. Even more characteristic of the time period is the trusting nature & gender roles that everyone subscribes to throughout all the sub-societies.

The story-telling is masterful with rich details that I can only presume come from either extensive research or first-hand tellings. This radically different world, in much simpler times, is a nice reprieve from the hustle & bustle that is our day to day existence. There really wasn't anything about this book that turned me off. The characters were unique & the story was one that I will never forget. A fast read, with deeper sentiments, it's no wonder that Ten Cents a Dance made ALA's Top Ten Teen Reads in 2009. I will worn those who might forget (or even be unaware) but as this is set in the 1940's, segregation is still a big thing & mixing races (for any purpose) is taboo, so there are some sensitive word choices (obviously made for authenticity). Nothing that you wouldn't read in Mark Twain, but enough to get the point across.

Fans of this might want to also try these historical fictions: The Luxe, Bright Young Things, Flygirl or The Vespertine. (All links go to my reviews). Anyone else read this one? What else would you suggest?

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

This fantastic historical fiction, set during World War II, is about one girl's dream to fly. Ida Mae is a fair-skinned African-American girl whose father taught her to fly so that she could help dust the crops. Sadly, his passing in a tractor accident left behind Ida Mae, an older and younger brother, her mother and her grandfather to tend to their strawberry farm in Slidell, Louisiana.

With World War II coming to the home front, Ida Mae's brother quits school (where he is studying to become a doctor) to join the fight as a medic. Frustrated by her imposed role due to her gender and race, Ida Mae decides to try out for the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). She "passes" for a white woman and goes through her training.

She meets some special and interesting characters along the way, like the wing walker Patsy "Cakewalk" Kake and the sweet, charming Lily Lowenstein. Their story provides a look into the all guts and little glory that was the life of a WASP.

While based on actual history, this particular story is not true; that the author knows about. Compellingly written with some Southern charm and accurate historical facts, Flygirl is a must read for teens looking to get a little history lesson while enjoying a good story.