Showing posts with label offensive language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label offensive language. Show all posts

The Crucible

Title: The Crucible
Author: Arthur Miller
ISBN: 0142437336

Plot Summary: In Colonial-Era Salem, Massachusetts, trouble is brewing when a group of adolescent girls accuse various members of the community of practicing witchcraft. Accusations fly of lying, land-grabbing, adultery, and even being in league with Satan. In the midst of it all, John Proctor, a decent if imperfect member of the community, attempts to repair his marriage and help justice be done while protecting himself from Abigail Williams, his charismatic former mistress and ringleader of the girls, who is determined to bring him down along with the people accused of witchcraft.

Hacking Harvard

Title: Hacking Harvard
Author: Robin Wasserman
ISBN: 1416936336

Plot Summary: A group of intelligent yet rebellious Boston high school students come up with a plan for the ultimate "hack," or sophisticated prank: take a thoroughly below-average student, groom him properly for the job via any means necessary... and get him into Harvard. Doing this will not only prove that the system is beatable, but will also deny admission to someone the group feels deserves to be shut out of Harvard - preferably a particularly obnoxious classmate. They initiate a complicated and technology-heavy espionage method to find out exactly what Harvard's admission standards are, but get more than they bargain for when the Average Joe they select starts actually believing in his own ability to get in. Meanwhile, Lexi, the lone female member of the group and a chronic overachiever, is desperately trying to get into Harvard via honest means. Whether or not either he or she get into the world's most exclusive University will be a learning experience for all involved.

The Handmaid's Tale

Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 0771008139

Plot Summary: A theocratic dictatorship has overthrown the government of the United States and created the Republic of Gilead, in response to what it perceives as widespread immorality, corruption, and increasing infertility. In this dystopic future, women are not allowed to read, or even venture outside their homes except to run errands. In addition to the wives men already have, they are also allowed to take "handmaids," presumably still-fertile women who can provide them with now desperately needed offspring. A woman known only as Offred, a patronymic indicating only the name of the man she serves, feels stifled by her current life, remembering as she does the way things were before Gilead was founded, when she could live, love, and work as she chose. The only roles available to women in Gilead society are as wife, handmaid, or - for those who want a bit more freedom - prostitute. Offred makes plans to escape, but her ultimate fate remains unknown.


The Catcher in the Rye

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
ISBN: 0316769533

Plot Summary: Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from his prestigious prep school for failing all of his classes. Rather than confront his parents with this news, he checks into a hotel, leaving only to visit his sister in secret, confiding in her as he can never do with his parents. After a failed sexual encounter with a prostitute, a disturbing one with a teacher, and another brief outing with his sister, Holden reflects on his current situation, regretting the fact that he cares about his old friends enough to miss them.

Mean Girls

Title: Mean Girls
Director: Mark Waters
Authors: Tina Fey (screenplay), Rosalind Wiseman (book)
Cast: Lindsay Lohan (Cady), Rachel McAdams (Regina), Tina Fey (Ms. Norbury), Tim Meadows (Mr. Duvall), Lacey Chabert (Gretchen), Amanda Seyfried (Karen), Lizzy Caplan (Janis), Daniel Franzese (Damian)
ASIN: B0002IQJ8W (DVD)

Plot Summary: Cady was raised in Africa by her well-meaning yet clueless zoologist parents. Upon relocation to American suburbia, she finds herself totally clueless about how to fit in socially with her peers. She initially becomes friends with two other outcasts, hip, sardonic Janis and her friend Damian, a boy she describes as "almost too gay to function." Cady is soon adopted as a pet project by the popular girls in her class, whom Janis describes as "The Plastics." She initially does so with the intention of bringing down Regina George, the leader of the pack and Janis's former best friend. However, in the process, Cady gets drawn into their web of backstabbing, lies, and passive aggression, unwittingly becoming just as vicious and shallow as they are and abandoning her old friends. When Regina finds out about Cady's plot to ruin her, she makes the contents of a secret "slam book" the Plastics keep public, and the entire school is thrown into pandemonium. Cady eventually mends fences with Damian and Janis, but not before she and the entire school makes an effort to get past its mass avoidance of direct confrontation.


Lord of the Flies

Title: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
ISBN: 0399529209

Plot Summary: A group of British schoolboys are stranded on a desert island after their plane crashes, killing all the "grownups" on board. Determined to create some form of order to survive, the group of boys soon split off into two factions: the main group, led by the charismatic Ralph, who feels it is his duty to look after the younger boys, and the "hunters," led by the older and more practical Jack, who takes responsibility for finding food for the group. Both tribes eventually become more animalistic, with Jack keeping his group in line by encouraging their belief in a rumored "monster" on the island. These rumors lead to the boys mistaking the corpses of a pilot, a parachutist, and a wild pig for the imaginary creature. Tragedy strikes when one of the boys is mistaken for the monster and killed by the others; this also causes a shift in power, as many of Ralph's followers defect to Jack's side. When Ralph's now much smaller band decide to steal the glasses of an overweight, awkward boy known as Piggy, the ensuing struggle leads to Piggy's accidental death as well. It is not until the boys are ultimately rescued that they come to realize exactly how far they have fallen into the traps of anarchy and barbarism.


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
ISBN: 0385512104


Plot Summary: An autistic English teenage boy discovers his neighbor's dog dead in his yard. The boy, Christopher, is the initial suspect in the case, but decides to figure out for himself who actually killed the dog. During his investigation, he uncovers secrets about his family, neighbors, and surrounding world, and comes to a new understanding of himself and his place in the world.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Title: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
Author: Carolyn Mackler
ISBN: 0763620912

Plot Summary: Virginia is a blonde, overweight ugly ducking born into a family of over-achieving swans. She deals with her negative emotions by either eating them away or engaging in various forms of self-injury. She carries on a romance with a classmate, Froggy, but hides it for fear of public ridicule, and misses her best friend, Shannon, a chronic stutterer, who has moved across the country with her parents. When her golden-boy brother is toppled off his pedestal, Virginia tries to find better ways of coping with her feelings about his mistakes, her life, and the world in general. In doing so, she must confront not only her family's bad habit of denial, but her own feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth, if she is to finally become more comfortable in her own skin.


Very Far Away from Anywhere Else

Title: Very Far Away from Anywhere Else
Author: Ursula LeGuin
ISBN: 0152052089

Plot Summary: Owen is an average young man with above-average math and science skills, who has never felt entirely at home socially. He has created a fantasy world, Thorn, in his head, but does not share it with anyone else until he meets Natalie, a beautiful young musician and fellow student who instantly relates to him. The two become friends, then become involved romantically, but neither of them is sure they are ready to go to the next level, nor are they sure which direction they want the relationship to lead.

The Kite Runner

Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
ISBN: 1594480001

Plot Summary: Amir led a privileged life in Afghanistan prior to the Communist revolution: he and his father lived in a spacious villa with servants, and his father was a well-respected man in his community. Amir had an unequal yet genuine friendship with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Yet when Hassan is brutally attacked by a group of boys, Amir stands by and does nothing, and later falsely accuses his friend of stealing, causing both him and his father to leave the estate, so that he will not have to feel guilty anymore. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and his father have to leave the country, eventually moving to Fremont, California, where Amir meets and falls in love with a young woman from the local Afghan community. After his father's death, Amir gets a telephone call from an old family friend, asking him to come back to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son. In the process, Amir comes face to face with parts of his past that he would rather forget, and slowly tries to help his best friend's son begin the healing process.


The Sandman: A Game of You

Title: The Sandman: A Game of You
Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrators: Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch, Dick Giordano
Lettering: Todd Klein
ISBN: 1563890895

Other Books in Series: Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll's House, Dream Country, Season of Mists, Fables and Reflections, Brief Lives, World's End, The Kindly Ones, The Wake.

Plot Summary: Barbie is a young woman with an active fantasy life, living in the city with a quirky group of friends including a lesbian couple, a male-to-female pre-operative transgender, a witch, and a quiet, somewhat mysterious man who turns out to be working for the book's main antagonist. When Barbie is visited by Martin Tenbones, a large dog from the realm of Dreams, he tells her that the fantasy land of her dreams is being threatened by a malignant being known as the Cuckoo. Alarmed, Barbie travels mentally to dreamland, leaving her comatose body behind in the waking world. After finding out that George, the quiet man, is in league with the enemy, Thessaly, the witch, kills him and draws down the moon to help her and the other women in their quest to find Barbie. However, the moon will not let Wanda, the transgender, accompany the three other women, as she feels he does not count as a "real" woman. While left behind with George's head, Wanda is ultimately killed by Thessaly's magic raging out of control. Barbie eventually defeats the Cuckoo, but not without paying a price, both in terms of the land of her dreams and the loss of a dear friend.


It's Kind of a Funny Story

Title: It's Kind of a Funny Story
Author: Ned Vizzini
ISBN: 078685197X

Plot Summary: Craig Gilner, a middle-class teenager from Brooklyn, feels lucky when he is accepted into a prestigious New York public high school. However, once he gets in, he is soon overwhelmed by academic pressure, and starts self-medicating with drugs and purging to handle the stress until his parents agree to send him to a therapist. The therapist prescribes anti-depressants, but Craig decides to stop taking them, and soon becomes suicidally depressed. At a loss, he checks himself into a mental hospital with his parents' blessing, hoping this will help him deal with his issues. While there, he meets a variety of different people, each with their own issues, and comes to gain new insight on himself in the process.


Forever

Title: Forever
Author: Judy Blume
ISBN: 0671695304

Plot Summary: Katherine, a teenage girl, meets and falls in love with Michael, who is slightly older and more experienced. She has her first sexual experiences with him, as well as her first serious relationship, but when they are separated for the summer, she starts having feelings for Theo, an older tennis pro at her summer job. What impact will this have on Katherine and Michael's relationship - and will it really last forever?



Flowers for Algernon

Title: Flowers for Algernon
Author: Daniel Keyes
ISBN: 0553274503

Plot Summary: Charlie Gordon, a developmentally disabled man, is selected by two researchers to be the subject of an experimental technique designed to increase intelligence, having already tried the technique on Algernon, a laboratory rat. The technique works, and Charlie's intelligence increases exponentially; at the same time, he also becomes increasingly aware of how the people in his life relate to him, and develops an interest in the opposite sex. However, this increased awareness is not without its drawbacks: his former co-workers, resentful that he now realizes how they have taken advantage of him, become alienated from him, and Charlie is unable to carry on a meaningful romantic relationship without being haunted by images of his former self. When his increase in intelligence turns out to be temporary, those around Charlie who care about him are distressed, but Charlie does not wish them to pity him, content with the memory that he was once a genius.


The Chocolate War

Title: The Chocolate War
Author: Robert Cormier
ISBN: B002AR3GAC (Audio Book)
Narrator: George Guidall

Plot Summary: Jerry Renault, a student at a prestigious Catholic boys' high school, has recently lost his mother. While at school, he is menaced by a secret society known as The Vigils, a group that enforces its own way at the school with the tacit approval of the administration. When the school's annual fund-raising chocolate sale comes around, Jerry decides not to participate, earning the wrath of both the Vigils and his teachers. Jerry's refusal to conform to the school's expectations escalates into an orchestrated display of brutal violence. Jerry ultimately emerges alive from this confrontation, but not without suffering both physical and emotional scars.


Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging

Title: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging
Author: Louise Rennison
ISBN: 0064472272

Other Books in Series: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God; Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas; Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants; Away Laughing on a Fast Camel; Then He Ate my Boy Entrancers; Startled by His Furry Shorts; Love is a Many-Trousered Thing; Stop in the Name of Pants!; Are These my Basoomas I See Before Me?; Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.

Plot Summary: Georgia Nicolson, a young British teenager, is dealing with many common teenage issues at once: embarrassing parents, a precocious younger sister, an insane pet cat, school rivalries, and of course, romance. In the process, she and her friends make up new words, find new and hilarious ways to deal with the problems they face, emerging more or less intact.


Be More Chill

Title: Be More Chill
Author: Ned Vizzini
ISBN: 0060747811 (Audio Book)
Reader: Jesse Eisenberg

Plot Summary: Jeremy Heere is just an average teenage boy, pining after a girl who doesn't know he exists - until he hears about a tiny internal supercomputer that can help you learn how to be cool, and win over any girl you want. This computer, known as a "squip," does everything it promises on the label at first, but Jeremy soon finds out that being the "cool" guy the squip wants him to become isn't everything he initially thought it would be.


Freak Show

Title: Freak Show
Author: James St. James
ISBN: 0142412317

Plot Summary: Billy Bloom is a teenage drag queen. He has moved to Florida to live with his father, a well-known local figure, and goes to a conservative high school where his flamboyant persona and outfits make him an outcast, figure of ridicule, and occasional target for violence. He makes a few friends and even falls in love, but it is as hard for the people around him to learn to live with him as it is for him to live with them.


Crank

Title: Crank
Author: Ellen Hopkins
ISBN: 0689865198

Other Book in Series: Glass

Plot Summary: Kristina is a bright, talented high school student dealing with the breakup of her parents' marriage. When she goes to visit her father, she falls in love twice over: with the boy she meets there, and with the drug, crystal meth, he introduces her to. While meth brings out her fearless side at first, Kristina soon finds the drug taking over, and ultimately threatening, her life.


Maus 1 & 2

Title: Maus 1 and 2
Author: Art Spiegelman
ISBN: B001G50SCS

Plot Summary: Art Spiegelman, a professional cartoonist, decides to record his aging father, Vladek's, stories about surviving the Holocaust. He intersperses his father's stories with scenes from the present of how his father is today, and Art's relationship with him. Throughout the book, the characters are anthropomorphized by nationality and ethnicity: Jewish characters are portrayed as mice; Germans as cats; Americans as dogs, and so forth. Although Vladek's stories "end" with his escape and survival, the fallout from the trauma he and his wife suffered reverberates long after they leave Auschwitz.