Teen Tuesday and Audiobook Review: The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

Image: Penguin Random House

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass. Unabridged e-audio, ~8 hours. Read by Kevin R. Free and Michael Crouch. Listening Library/ Penguin Random House Audio, July, 2021. 9780593411513. (Review of downloadable audiobook borrowed from the public library.)

Happy Tuesday! It's pretty cold out there! The moon sure was pretty to watch though. Some strange critter or critters must have been in the neighborhood because the dogs were yanking me here and there to check out the scents. 

Teen Tuesday features The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass. Jake is a closeted junior at a mostly white private high school where his brother is the popular one and where he has to deal with micro-aggressions, overt racism and classism. He can't imagine how he'd be treated if he came out. He also can't imagine what would happen if people knew his other secret. He's a medium. He can see dead people-all around him, all the time. It's kind of hard to concentrate in math class when you can see ghosts stuck in their death loops. They're mostly harmless though. He's untrained and doesn't know how to control his power. Unfortunately, there's Sawyer, the sixteen-year-old who walked into his school the previous year and killed six people before killing himself. He's an angry ghost, opposite of harmless and out for revenge.

This dual-narrative switches between Jake's POV and Sawyer's journal entries. It's creepy and suspenseful and the horror is not limited to ghostly, but the real horror what real people can sometimes do to their fellow humans. If you're a mature teen who loves the horror genre, The Taking of Jake Livingston should be on your list of books to read.

Both narrators did a lot to bring this book to life. Kevin R. Free brought an earnest likability to Jake and Michael Crouch excels at portraying evil. 

Teen Tuesday and Audiobook Review: There's Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon

Image: Simon & Schuster

There's Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon. Unabridged e-audiobook. ~12 hours. Read by Soneela Nankani and Vikas Adam. Simon & Schuster Audio, May, 2019. 9781508294900. (Review of finished e-audiobook borrowed from public library.)

Teen Tuesday features There's Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon. This is Menon's third book and something of a companion to her debut, When Dimple Met Rishi. This dual narrative is Rishi's brother, Ashish's story along with Sweetie Nair. Sweetie is the only child and dutiful daughter. She's also a track star who happens to be fat, something her well-meaning mother always reminds her of. Ashish lost his basketball mojo in the aftermath of being dumped by the beautiful and white, Celia. When Ashish's parents suggest making a match, he thinks, "Why not?" After all, they matched Dimple and Rishi and that relationship seems to be working out. What neither Ashish nor his parents expect is rejection. Sweetie's mother outright refuses Mrs. Patel, leading Sweetie to launch the "Sassy Sweetie Project." Though breezy, this novel has depth, exploring issues of fat-shaming and culture through two smart, sensitive and winning characters. There's Something about Sweetie can stand alone.