Han NolanResenhas

Sad.

Reading the back cover that says this is a story about a girl whose father "melts" according to her grandmother, a psychic, I read it assuming/hoping that it was a fantasy, where people really do melt and disappear, only to reappear in some alternate reality. Alas, the book is realistic fiction. And interesting as such, but I was a bit disappointed. Admittedly it deals with dysfunctional families and resulting mental illness and has important messages to share. But no one actually melted.

At one point, Miracle's grandmother talks about book knowledge: "Reading all the time locks up your brain so you're always thinking one way, and that way is never your own way. You understand me, sugar? It keeps you from perceiving and intuiting things. If you want to know something, you don't go look it up in a book. You put your question out there, out into the universe, and then you wait, and sure enough the information comes to you." [p. 43] I disagree.½

Eleanor is stubborn. She makes decisions based on the opposite of what she'd been told to do. She's tired of being told what to do, but she's not sure what she wants. She's only 16, and she'd pregnant.

I only started this book because I am on the Gateway nominee committee. After 20 minutes of reading, I was hooked. Good thing it was a slow day in the library--every spare minute I had, I was reading. Before the end of the day I was more than halfway finished. Fortunately, I also teach reading and got to finish it this morning. I did cry, but didn't feel manipulated in to crying. After listening to me talk about it, there is now a long reserve list for it!

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Eleanor Crowe is 16, opinionated, and pregnant - very pregnant. She's been in trouble, in juvie twice, and isn't really open to suggestions from her parents, or anyone else. She marries her boyfriend, Lam, under pressure. She's confused, but not really ready to listen to anyone. Elly and Lam move into the weight loss camp her new in-laws run, while her parents return to their work with orphans in Kenya. On their wedding night, Lam leaves to party with his friends - something Elly can't do anymore, and isn't willing to do. As Elly is thrown into camp life, some aspects improve, and she proves to be better with campers than she ever thought. At the same time, her married life goes downhill.
Elly is cranky, defensive, and confused, but she is a fairly likable character. Her husband, not so much - but readers will see that right away.
Books about teen pregnancy have changed quite a bit over time, but this is a not a pretty little story with a happy ending. I had trouble putting it down, and ended up reading it in one sitting. Upper middle school and high school readers will enjoy this. And I need to find some other titles by this reader.

If you love reading about World War 2 then you most definitely need to read this one! It was a story about two girls that were connected in a significant way, but neither knew it until the very end. One was in a coma and the other was at a working camp. They face their own battles, but lean on one another to escape the darkness. There was guilt... There was hope... There was weakness and there was courage like no other...

If I Should Die Before I Wake was an intense story with graphic, painful moments that brought an abundance of feels. I literally got sick to my stomach while I was reading. The vivid scenes and the heart wrenching deaths pulled me right into the pages. I felt for Chana and wanted to be the one to guide her through the dark times. No matter how weak her body and mind were she always pushed through. She helped others and in the end found that faith was her guidance. Hilary was a tough character for me. She was unlikeable from the beginning, but grew on me as the bitterness faded. The more her life blended with Chana the more she changed for the better. By the end I felt just as connected to her.

Overall, I was blown away by the history within the words. The Author made it easy for us to imagine what each character was going through and it really messed with my thoughts. I could feel my moods change with the pages. It was really an all consuming read that opened my eyes to just what took place at Auschwitz.

I definitely recommend it to all the history buffs or just someone looking for a unique story with a vivid realness to it.

Sixteen-year-old Eleanor has a great voice in this book, pure stubbonness and grumpy teen. Grumpy, pregnant teen to boot. The story of her pregnancy, her ambivalent feelings for her new husband, and the careening between hope and despair (especially the decision between adoption and keeping the baby) all feel authentic and realistic. And there are just great lines like: "Now I remember why I fell in love with Lam. When it's us against the world, he always makes sure we win." The happy ending is a bit too convenient and abrupt but from Eleanor's teenaged point of view, that's all she needs to know for the moment.

This is in the YA category. Ultimately, it's rather sad because the ending leaves you hanging & you never know if Jane/Leshaya cleans up her act, & grows up to realize her dream of being a jazz/R & B singer, or whether she gets back on the drug merry go round she's been on. Given what she's already been through, her mother a heroin addict who had her removed & sent to a bad foster home, then kidnapped from the foster home by her mother on an unannounced visit & in essence, traded to her drug dealers for a free supply of her fix, where she was taken better care of then she was at the foster home, but ran away from when the couple was arrested for dealing & sent to prison, etc. She proved she could survive, & we are left hoping that through it all, she learned some lessons about herself that would make her a better person.

This book reminded me of my troubled students. The lesson being: parents make all the difference. I can tell lots of stories about my silver-spoon-fed students - those whose parents told them they don't have to worry about money the rest of their lives - and they are no different with Janie/Leshaya of this story.

Janie grew up in foster care; her mother gave her up to an abusive foster parents. From the beginning there's always been someone who still cared for her, like Doris, the social worker who's assigned to check up on her from time to time. She's got a best friend in Harmon, who introduced her to 'the ladies' - the jazz greats Etta, Aretha, Odetta, Roberta - and made her sing. She could hit the right notes since she was little and people were struck by her youth when they turned around and see who sang.

However, life hadn't spared her from bad parenting. The book describes the downward spiral of Janie, reinventing herself into Leshaya, from an innocent 9 year-old kidnapped by a pair of drug dealers (her mom traded her for heroin) to a 13 year-old club singer who gave away her own daughter. At times people actually cared for her, but it had always been hard to trust people due to her upbringing, she ended up 'burning bridges' and either ran away or had herself kicked out.

Some reviewers wondered how Leshaya failed to appreciate all the cares she received, but after spending time with middle-schoolers, I know that children has to be both taught and nurtured, and even when they thought they know everything about the world, they do not. Also, you cannot make a difference in someone's life unless you are willing to sacrifice your own time. It takes a long time for people to turn away from bad influences, especially when you've known these things growing up.

Being a teacher means seeing a lot of different kids come and go. By the time kids reach middle school, they come with a lot of baggage, be it good or bad. I've been a teacher for almost 3 years, and sometimes I regret the way I acted toward some of my troubled kids, now going on to higher grades. Some kids have came up to me and acknowledged how my discipline have helped them in high school, but most just stayed their old same selves and made me wonder, if only I got to be their parents, I'd probably manage to change their bad habits.

This book opened my eyes wider about being a good influence to people around me who need help. Sometimes you think you don't make any difference by helping someone in trouble, but as long as you do it because it's right, you've touched that person's life and maybe, just maybe, someday they'll appreciate it and touch other people's life because of you.

Lastly, a word about the way this novel's written - it'd remind you of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' where the writer uses spelling and wording commonly found in the South, so please don't judge the book by its writing! And the way she ends the story, while it may exasperates some readers, I think it's a good way to end so we know that either way, Janie realized how this one decision may change the course of her daughter's life.½

I was first introduced to Han Nolan through her novel Crazy, a book that has stuck with me in spite of having read dozens upon dozens of books since. I remember being thoroughly impressed with the control she had throughout the book, giving each voice such a distinctive feel that they leaped off the page and grabbed my attention through dialogue and action. So, I was walking through my library the other day and Nolan's name jumped out at me from the bookshelf in the young adult section and I knew it was time to give her my attention again. Pregnant Pause, while not as smooth and polished a story as Crazy, was an entertaining read that had me flopping back and forth, much like the main character, between wanting to strangle her and cheer her on.

Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Dec. 23, 2013.

Grades 9 and up-- Miracle (so called because her birth involved her being pulled from the body of her dead mother) is surrounded by some of the most dysfunctional family members to have ever graced a YA novel. It's no great surprise that over time, she teeters closer and closer to the brink of insanity. The inability of her family members to recognize her decline is heartbreaking. The first two-thirds of the book drag (perhaps purposely, to reflect the lethargic emptiness of Miracle's life); it's not until Part II, in which Miracle is hospitalized after setting herself on fire, that the story really comes alive and the reader gets why this was a novel worthy of the National Book Award 15 years ago.

Dancing on the Edge is the story of a dysfunctional family that deals in half truths and suppressing their emotions. Miracle McCloy struggles to deal in the real world having been raised by her grandmother who is a self proclaimed "mystic" and a prodigy father who is emotionally absent. After a tragedy leaves Miracle traumatized she begins to meet with a child psychologist who helps her find her way and face the truth. I enjoyed this story it was quirky but realistic in that many families prefer to cover up the facts or avoid dealing with uncomfortable situations. I thought the book was well written but would have liked more of the back story of her parents.

Han Nolan is another author who is one of the best writing for young adult readers. This emotional novel about fifteen-year-old Jason whose mother is dead and whose father is debilitated by mental illness. He copes through three imaginary friends and through real friends he makes when he joins a therapy group at school whose members are also coping with losses and tragedies. The provide a strong support system for Jason who faces terrifying decisions and personal demons. A frequently painful, sometimes humorous story of friendship, loss, and forgiveness.

Han Nolan is a brilliant writer and her talent is vividly on display in this completely engrossing, emotional story. The ending comes together a bit too neatly, but that's easy to overlook because the rest of the story is so beautifully told.

Sixteen year-old Eleanor is in a bit of a pinch. She's got a record of trouble with the cops. She has a bad-boy boyfriend who got her pregnant, and she doesn't have a lot of viable options. Her parents are about to leave for Africa, where they work with AIDS orphaned children, and they insist she come with them. Eleanor is stubborn, however, and insists on staying at home. She marries her boyfriend Lam and agrees to live with him at the summer camp for overweight children Lam's parents run. Her new MIL and FIL (mother and father in law) have Eleanor tell the campers she's 20 and imply that she was married before getting knocked up, but no one really believes it. In fact, Eleanor seems to encounter resistance and judgment at every turn-- with the MIL and FIL, the other teenaged counselors, and the kids at the camp. Even her new husband abandons her on their wedding night, choosing to get drunk and high with his fellow high school graduates rather than spend the night with his new wife.

Author Han Nolan takes readers along with Ellie on her emotional roller coaster ride as she readies for the birth of her child and the decisions she isn't ready to make. While Nolan offers no judgment on teen pregnancy, she allows readers to see the judgment Ellie faces from all directions about her situation and the choices she has. Both Lam's parents and Ellie's sister want the baby for reasons of their own and Ellie has reasons not to want either of them to have it. We see Ellie struggle with the weight of that pressure, as well as her turmoil over what to do with the advances of another boy at the camp who promises to care for her and her soon-to-be-born baby.

The target audience is high school, and perhaps middle school, girls. While it'll be a tough sell with most high school boys, it's a worthwhile read for them, as well.

RGG: Well-handled historical fiction about a girl's survival of the Holocaust and another girl's overcoming her hate.

I chose this book because I wanted another title in the ‘edgy contemporary fiction’ category, and this one certainly fit the bill. Han Nolan is an award-winning author whose books are described in superlative terms, but this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. 16 year-old Eleanor, a rebellious teen with a history of trouble, doesn’t really accept that she is pregnant until she is about five months along, and is terrified that she will raise a child who will be as much trouble as she is. She defies the adults in her life by marrying the baby’s father and volunteering at her in-laws’ summer camp for overweight children in exchange for a place to live.

The good: I admire the skillful way Ms. Nolan portrays Eleanor’s roller coaster emotional ride as she navigates her way through her judgmental parents, her self-righteous sister, her severely disapproving in-laws, her loser husband, and both the fragile and the snotty girls at camp, for whom she is suddenly a role model. Along with these relationship minefields, she is also sorting through her complex emotions and no-win options for the baby when it arrives. Eleanor grows up in a hurry, making huge mistakes along the way, falling in and out of love, and finding emotional strength and resilience she never knew she had.

The not-so-good: the melodrama of the book got to be a bit much for me, and I had serious issues with the characters and their development. Or lack of, I should say. I thought Eleanor was a realistic character drawn with sensitivity (and an irritatingly smart mouth), and her sorry husband Lam was well-drawn as a rudderless kid who doesn’t have his s*** together. (Aside: I normally do not use profanity, but writing, I am told, is about finding the best and most exact words to tell a story and convey the right tone and mood, and in this case, it fits. Please excuse me.) The other characters are simply not believable, particularly every adult except the hospital rabbi, and ***SPOILERS…MAYBE?*** Ziggy, who is Eleanor’s other love interest and her supportive rock until his brain transplant. Okay, he doesn’t really have a brain transplant, but honestly, it’s the only way I can explain his actions, so I’m giving him one. ***END SPOILERS***

Curriculum: I could see this book being very useful in a health class. Besides the issue of teen pregnancy, there are descriptions of past drug and alcohol abuse, with serious consequences following.

Nolan, H. (2011). Pregnant pause. Boston: Harcourt.

This take of friendship, acceptance and empowerment is a must read for younger teens. Nolan does a brilliant job of helping readers understand the complexities, strengths and flaws within us all. In the end readers will certainly go away feeling a little inspiration to be the change they want to see.

Eleanor Crowe has a mind of her own, and nobody gets away with bossing her around. She usually makes decisions based on who she can piss off most, although that hasn't worked out so well. Now she's pregnant and sixteen--and her opinion doesn't seem to matter to everyone who's trying to tell her what to do. But as Elly's delivery date approaches, she has more questions than answers. Is she being punished for being a rotten daughter? Does she really love this boy she married? And what's she going to do with this baby? Being headstrong got her into this mess...maybe now it can get her out of it. But is that what she really wants?½

An intriguing premise drew me to this novel. The back cover reads in part, "Sixteen-year-old Hilary Burke hates Jews. As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she's finally found a sense of belonging. But then she is critically injured . . . finds herself bombarded by memories of a life in Poland - she becomes Chana, a girl whose family is forced from their home by the Nazis. . ." The juxtaposition of Hilary's present and Chana's past in one consciousness is the key to this novel.
A different kind of coming-of-age story, Hilary 'lives' the life of a person she claims to hate based only on religion.
Only a couple of things that bothered me - why is she in a Jewish Hospital and why is her mother quoting the bible so much? The mother's reasons for quoting scripture is explained in part, but not quite enough for this reader. The Jewish hospital is the real curiosity - is that the only hospital in the town? Is it the only one with the life-sustaining equipment and personnel needed?
Beyond those two nagging questions that I had, the novel was gripping and thought-provoking. Although a fictional story, the novel serves as a good introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust for young readers. Perhaps followed up by the truth of Anne Frank's diary, a young girl in today's world could learn from both the fictional characters and the real ones.½

Eleanor is 16 and pregnant. Her parents are about to go back to Kenya to continue their missionary work with AIDS orphans; her stuck-up sister and her husband have been trying to have a baby and would like to take Eleanor’s. But Elly doesn’t want to go to Kenya, or to California to live with her sister. She wants to stay in Maine with her boyfriend, Lam. Soon she learns you should be careful what you wish for …

Elly’s parents will only let her stay if she marries Lam. His parents offer them a cabin at their weight-loss summer camp in exchange for counselor duties. Now Elly finds herself stuck in a dump of a cabin, eating diet food (mashed cauliflower? Yuck!) and trying to help kids with crafts and dance class when she’s hopeless at both. Still, she makes friends with some of the other counselors and finds herself mentoring one of the campers, a whiny girl named Banner.

Just as Elly is starting to feel like she fits in, things start to fall apart. Lam gets caught messing around with one of the other counselors; yet another counselor, Ziggy, starts making moves on Elly. Suddenly her choices are multiplied: give the baby to her sister? give the baby to her in-laws? keep the baby and stay married to Lam? keep the baby and start a relationship with Ziggy?

As the day of her scheduled C-section gets closer, Elly gets more and more confused, until a tragedy at camp and some unexpected news about the baby make things crystal clear, at least to her. Now she just has to convince the rest of the world that she’s making the right decision.

I really liked this book. This book was about a girl who gets pregnant at 16 and her boyfriend is very involved in drugs. They get married and she works at the summer camp her boyfriends parents own all summer. As she works there she meets another guy and he tells her that he would take really good care of her and her baby. So she ends up cheating on her boyfriend with him and to find out he has been cheating on her too. So they break up and she takes care of the baby on her own. This book shows what teenage mothers go through and how hard it is to raise a kid when you are so young.

I received this book in a package from Thomas Allen & Son publishers for review and I didn't know much about this book. It was a book that I thought might be decent but I didn't have high expectations for this book. That being said, I ended up really enjoying it. Nolan was able to write about teen pregnancy, which has been done many times before, and make it her own. I never got bored of this book and I never thought "I've seen this before". I love that the majority of the book takes place at summer camp. I worked at a summer camp for two years and I loved it. It was a specialized camp for children and teens with physical and cognitive disabilities and it was one the best experiences I've had. I can why Elly really finds herself immersed in it and why in the end it ultimately changes her for the better. Elly is a great character too. She is headstrong and is not afraid to tell people what she is thinking. I love the scenes when she is with her in-laws; she is full of sass and isn't afraid to put them in their place. I have to admit that while I may be stubborn like Elly, I don't usually go around telling people exactly what I'm thinking. I like that Elly's character is a bit flawed too. She is naive and a little bit selfish. This is what it is like to be a teen; they don't always have the answers but they think they do. I can remember being exactly like this- without the pregnancy and juvie thing. I thought I had it figured out and so often I ended up disappointed because things didn't quite work out that way. Elly is disappointed in life in more ways than one: her husband, her in-laws, her parents. She is a tough cookie though and she keeps on trekking through the big pile of manure handed to her. I have to say while reading this I just wanted to take the parents in this book and shake them. What were they doing? Do you really think trying to force someone to give their child up for adoption is the right thing to do? What ever happened to being supportive? Anyhow, I ended up loving this book and I can't wait to read more books by Nolan. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5½

Pregnant Pause will take you on an emotional roller-coaster and a journey of discovery and growth for the main character Ely.
This is a different spin on teen pregnancy, and I like the other themes that are woven in like friendship, forgiveness, self-esteem and taking (or not) responsibility under high pressure situations.
The characters are rich and really make this book, from Banner the whiny camper, to Lam the teeter totter husband, to Ziggy the one who confuses us even more, the in laws with their quirks and her parents with their naiviety, and we can't forget the Old Bat. :)
Many things surprised me about the way the story went, and it's really stuck with me. So yes, you will get some of what you expect and a lot that you don't. a
It took me a while to understand and connect with Ely, at first I just wanted to smack some sense into her, but as we find out reasons behind her troubles, and as she grows into herself, she really is an admirable character that I learned from.
I really recommend this, but I would put a mature teen label on it for some language, drug reference, sex and tough issues.

I can't begin to tell you how much I loved this book. There is so much in it and so much to say! I loved reading it cause it gave me a whole new out look on the meaning of sacrifice.

First off, the characters. I thought the characters were very well developed as not only in being flawed but in their growth as well. The main character Elly, flawed from the very start. So much drama, accusations, etc, she worked with what she had. As the pregnancy progressed, I love that Elly thought of less of her and more about what she is going to do when the baby comes. Having a child requires not only love, but care as well.

Another thing I loved about this book is the trials and tribulations that Elly goes through. It made me angry that all people told her, she's too young. She can't do it. I just wanted to slap some one! Elly knew what she is getting into and knew it was not about her, but about the well being of her child. When she made that choice, my heart soared in the sky!

You can guess by now that I laugh and happy cried in the end. Being a mom is tough. Making the desicions of what to do with your baby at 16 years old is even tougher. I believe that Elly made the right choice for her. I was so ecstatic, that I had cried my way through the last few pages and smile when I was done.

This book touched me so much. Maybe cause I am a mom, and I can relate to that situation. Anyhow, this book is a wonderful read. Eye-opening, heart-shattering, amazing book! You must read this in order to understand what I am saying.