Towelhead by Alicia Erian

Despite the incendiary title, this novel was more like a modern day version of Lolita than anything else. Thirteen year old Jasira moves in with her extremely strict Lebanese father after her mother feels threatened by her daughter's sensual effect on older men. Things go from bad to worse for Jasira as she struggles to accept her father's isolating attitude, racist remarks from classmates because of her mixed heritage and her black boyfriend, an inappropriate relationship with her next door neighbor and just plain old adolescent angst.

I felt so horrible for poor Jasira throughout this entire book - I mean, the kid has no awareness about her growing sexuality, her awful father is emotionally vacant and physically abusive, she confuses rape with a warped perception of love and on top of all that, she gets picked on because of her ethnicity. Though the book *does* have a happy ending, it comes at a really depressing cost. The only shining light in this kind of bleak novel is Jasira's positive and loving relationship with a female neighbor, who's like the only person that actually cares about the kid.

Overall, a good read, but mildly depressing. The film version of it came out in 2008 and I'd be curious to see how they could pull it off (Aaron Eckhart from Thank You For Smoking plays the creepy neighbor)

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Ape House by Sara Gruen

In Gruen's debut novel Water for Elephants , readers fell in love with the titular elephant Rosie. In her second novel Ape House , a similar fondness occurs with the aforementioned apes. The cast of bonobos live happily in their Language Lab under the watchful eye of scientist Isabel Duncan. They are able to use sign language to communicate and enjoy playing around with visitors and the other scientists. Everything is going great until the lab gets bombed and the apes mysteriously disappear. Once the dust settles, Duncan is horrified to find out that the bonobos have been sold to a television producer who has casted them in their own 24 hour reality tv show. Joining forces with a newspaper reporter, an exotic dancer, animal activists and other research assistants, Duncan takes on the fight of her life to rescue her bonobos and give them the proper kind of life they deserve.

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Tomorrow by Graham Swift

Swift won the Booker Prize for Last Orders back in 2004(?)...but I don't think he'll go 2 for 2 with Tomorrow , a quick read about a family with a dark secret. Paula Hook lies awake on the eve before her and her husband Mike divulge a long kept secret to their twin teenagers. The story centers around the history behind this secret and the rationale behind it. Truthfully, I was kind of annoyed for most of the book. The build up goes on and on for many pages with, like, no pay off whatsoever. The ideas in my mind were juicier than the real "truth" that was going to be told to her children. Though the prose is extremely well-written, I still kept saying to myself, "jesus, get to the point already"

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