Playground by 50 Cent

Butterball winds up having to talk with a therapist twice a week after beating up Maurice, someone Butterball thought was a friend.

Butterball is not happy with his life.  His mom NYC and away from his dad and he gets teased because of his weight. 

Until Butterball hits Maurice.  Now the popular guys are paying attention to him.  They want him to beat up another guy.  And home life is changing too, as Butterball begins to understand what's really going on with his mom.

A good story and thought out.  Not necessarily for reluctant readers like I thought at first.  There are some real issues here, and a good first teen novel for 50 Cent.

Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan

The events of Sept 11th changed things forever.  For New Yorkers Claire, Jasper, and Peter, things will never be the same.  Claire, when the first tower is hit, only thinks of her mom and younger brother.  They aren't allowed to go home, and for Claire, the whole event has changed how see sees things.

Jasper sleeps through the whole attack.  He's hungover and unsure of what's going on.  He does know it's big--and he can't get away from it.

Peter actually sees everything and he feels it keenly.  He was suppose to go on a date with Jasper that evening and he goes to school with Claire.

As these three are drawn together by what has happened, Levithan provides a perspective of what being in NYC during and after 9/11 was like.

A moving and short book.  Claire is the most developed, or at least the one I liked the most.  Told from all 3 viewpoints.

Ash by Malinda Lo

Aisling, Ash for short, lives in a small kingdom near a great forest. It is told there are fairies that live deep in the woods, and Aisling has heard stories about them her entire life. The old ways include revering and fearing the fairies, and her mother believed and lived by the old ways, while her father did not. When Ash's mother dies, Ash spends too much time with the grave, visiting her mother.

Ash's world is torn apart again after her father remarries and then dies. Ash moves to her stepmother's house and becomes their servant, supposedly because her father left them with debt. When she escapes to the woods to get away from her awful step-family, she meets Sidhean, whom she is convinced is a fairy. She also meets Keira, the King's Huntress. As she spends more time with each, she is torn between her attraction to Keira and her desire to go with Sidhean and see her mother again.

This is a retelling of the Cinderella story with a very different outcome. Ash is a great character and her story is well-told and engrossing. The ending seems a little too neat, considering the build-up to what fairies expect in return for their favors. Still, a great twist to an old favorite.