I Am Not Jessica Chen, by Ann Liang

Jenna is an average student, which means she's a failure in comparison to her brilliant, talented, and beautiful cousin Jessica.  Awards and honors come easily to Jessica, while no matter how hard she tries, Jenna just never quite makes it.  When Jessica gets accepted to Harvard and Jenna has to admit to her extended family that she has not been, Jenna has decided she's had enough.  That night, when a shooting star passes by, she makes a wish that she could be Jessica instead of Jenna.

The next morning she wakes up in Jessica's bed and that she has suddenly become so.  Initially basking in the adulation of friends and teachers, Jenna-as-Jessica marvels at how much easier her life is.  But the glow quickly fades as she learns of the intense pressure Jessica is under to maintain her position as a role model and the hollowness of her fame.  Meanwhile, no one seems to know what has happened to Jenna.  And with time, they start forgetting that Jenna ever existed.  It seems that the true cost of becoming her cousin is that her own life will disappear.

While body-swapping is hardly a new idea, the theme is treated deftly by Liang, who uses the artifice to explore self-identity and how intense social pressures lead us to make trade offs.  The inevitable moment when Jenna finally realizes how flawed Jessica is combines with an urgent sense that she is quite literally losing her own self in trying to be her cousin.  A short digression into racism, while itself throwaway, drives home the shallowness of fame.  Another aside about academic dishonesty casts a shadow over Jessica's coveted narrative of success.  While both Jessica and Jenna turn out to be flawed characters, the story avoids demonizing and instead teaches that no one is perfect and that there is no intrinsic value in trying to portray yourself as such.

Marketed as YA, the material is tame and the story skews to a young teen demographic, despite its older protagonists.

Finding Normal, by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Gemma and Lucas meet as patients at an inpatient facility for children with eating disorders.  She has anorexia and he has bulimia.  Neither of them really feel like they belong there; they are simply misunderstood.  Gemma wishes that they could just go someplace and be treated as normal.  Why not a place that is normal?  Looking up in an atlas, she finds there are five cities in the United States named Normal and she becomes convinced that visiting them will somehow transform her.

The notion would have just been a whim, but when she shares the idea with Lucas, he's all in for the plan and even knows a way to find a car to get them there.  So they spring themselves from the hospital and start a desperate road trip adventure that will take them far further than they imagined to find normal.  The usual cast of odd characters and side trips to America's weird small towns ensues.

It's a fairly standard teen road trip adventure with an above average story about eating disorders. Most notably, it features a boy with bulimia.  Almost every YA story about eating is about girls so it's nice to highlight the fact that it can happen to boys as well.  But beyond that, the story benefits from applying a light touch, showing them struggling with food but focusing more on the elements of their life that got them to this point.  That in turn brings out the real strength of the road trip genre:  having two characters get to know each other better by baring their souls to each other.  Small, compact, and modest, this short novel punches above its weight. 

The Last Bookstore on Earth, by Lily Braun-Arnold

A year ago, a rain fell across the Earth that was so acidic that it dissolved whatever it came in contact with.  Those who survived the Storm had to find a way to stay alive in an anarchic world where almost all of civilization had come to a halt -- finding food and shelter where they could.  But for Liz, survival came through denial.  Ignoring the death of her family, she simply went back to work at the same  independent bookstore where she had been employed before the Storm.  For the past year, she's traded books for essentials with random people who pass through.  It's a quiet life that allows Liz to imagine that nothing has really changed.  She focuses on clearing out her overstocked books rather than worrying about her dwindling food supply.  Liz even ignores the news that another round of acid rain is on its way.  Her grief paralyzes her.

But when a young women named Maeve shows up, she challenges Liz to face the reality around them.  Maeve pushes Liz to take precautions, trying to make her care about the future, their future together.  But for Liz, who cannot accept what has happened, preparing for a repeat is far too difficult of a task to undertake.

Currently an undergraduate, Braun-Arnold seems an extraordinarily young writer to be able to create such a striking debut.  Her youth gives her a fresh insight on the foibles of her protagonists.  There's not much space here for romance, but the relationship between Liz and Maeve is full of grudges and resentments and feels authentically youthful.  She wisely stays away from writing about anyone older than their teens.

The storytelling is smooth and the action is well-paced, including an extended bloody climax full of suspense and a touch of horror.  A few improbable plot points like a bit of field surgery that goes entirely too well will raise eyebrows, but there is nothing that significantly detracts from this exciting post-apocalyptic adventure.

Give Me A Sign, by Anna Sortino

Summer camps, like boarding schools, are popular terrain for romantic YA adventures.  But Sortino's novel uses the setting in a new way to write a sprawling introduction to deaf culture.

When she was little, Lilah attended Camp Grey Wolf, a summer camp for deaf (and some blind) kids.  But now she's being given the opportunity to return as a junior counselor.  The place has gotten run down over the years and Lilah is shocked to learn how shaky the camp's finances are.  But it's still the fun place she remembered.

Living with hearing parents and with some hearing, Lilah has tried to get by with hearing aids and lip reading back home.  It's proven frustrating and alienated her from her parents and her friends.  But at camp, everyone understands and she finds herself being included.  What she's not expecting is the wide diversity of opinion about the use of American Sign Language, hearing aids, cochlear implants, and mainstreaming.  Everyone has different opinions and the kids find themselves navigating the options and their choices throughout the summer.

At times, the book digresses too deeply into the specifics of the debates and loses track of its storytelling purpose, but in general Sortino has crafted an entertaining book about kids who have disabilities and what makes them the same and different from other kids.  The romance gets overrun by other events and largely forgotten and the camp hijinks are pretty low key, but strong emotional growth for Lilah and some nice lessons learned all round make this a rewarding read.  And yes, the camp is saved in the end!

First Love Language, by Stefany Valentine

Since the passing of father, Catie has grown increasingly obsessed with learning more about her Taiwanese mother and her cultural background. Afraid that she'll offend her stepmother, Catie's kept the desire to herself.  When she discovers that Toby, one of her coworkers, has recently returned from Taiwan, she begs him for language lessons.  But what can she offer him in return?

Toby is handsome, but shy.  He's infatuated with a girl named Nichole, but he's helpless at communicating with her.  So, Catie offers to teach Toby how to date.  Not that she knows anything about dating, having never had a boyfriend before.  But using an old copy of The Five Languages of Love that Catie inherited from her late father, she devises a series of "fake dates" to teach Toby some interpersonal skills.  As one would predict, teaching Toby how to court Nichole becomes complicated when Catie finds that she has feelings for Toby herself.

A number of other (largely unresolved) subplots also contribute to the story, including Catie's search for her biological mother and her family in Taiwan, and also her cousin's search for her sexual identity.  On the whole, much about the story feels unresolved, but the romance is pleasant enough although it is quite chaste lacks much heat. There's some cute feel-good moments at the end, but not much that carries a punch.  This is sort of the issue with the novel in general: for all the action, it's lacking much in excitement.  My impression is that the author likes to set up conflicts, but has little interest in playing out drama.

Blood Gone Cold, by Katy Grant

Abby and her sister Natalie are always fighting.  Abby is the smart one and Natalie is the popular one and they despise each other for their differences. 

During a family ski trip, their mother declares that she and Dad are so tired of the squabbles that they are going out to dinner alone.  That suits the girls just fine and they settle in for an evening alone at their remote ski cabin, alternately ignoring and pranking each other.  But when two threatening strangers show up, Abby and Natalie have to think fast to survive.  Fleeing for their lives, they put aside their differences and rediscover their family bond.

Most verse novels are slow-moving navel-gazing affairs; pages torn out of angsty adolescent diaries.  The format suits reflection.  But it also works surprisingly well for a taut thriller like this.  Stripped of unnecessary text, this novel is a lightning-fast read that turns pages.  It lacks depth but for a visceral and intense thrill it definitely hits the mark.

With or Without You, by Eric Smith

For years, Jordan and Cindy have had one of the most well-known rivalries in South Philly.  Their families run competing food trucks. Jordan's family does traditional cheesesteaks:  meat, onions, cheese, and (if your willing to endure a public shaming) mushrooms.  Cindy's folks do healthy alternative sandwiches.

Throughout the lunch rush, Jordan and Cindy launch insults back and forth.  The videos of their famous spats have gone viral.  But what is less known is that they (and indeed their families) are actually good friends.  The sparring is simply good for business.

Jordan and Cindy have plans.  With school almost over, Jordan is going to buy his own food truck and hit the road.  Cindy, planning to go to school in a year, plans to spend her gap year riding along.  Once they are out of Philadelphia, they can finally be public about their feelings.  But then a local television producer approaches them to turn their famous spat into a reality show.  And with all the attention on them, it seems that it won't be so easy for Jordan and Cindy to shed the pretense of being enemies after all.

Cute rom-com that seemed pitched for a younger audience.  The romance is virtually non-existent. The family drama is more slapstick than scary.  And the fact that it all ends on a happy note just underscore that this isn't a story to take very seriously.

Biology Lessons, by Melissa Kantor

In the wake of the repeal of Roe v Wade, Kantor decided to write this novel which depicts the story of a seventeen year-old Texan girl named Grace who becomes pregnant and has to negotiate her options.  Unwilling to give up her career aspirations and facing a hostile family situation that makes it impossible to reveal her condition, she chooses to have an abortion and then faces the gauntlet of trying to find a means to terminate her pregnancy.  

While vaguely aware of the current state of abortion access in Texas (a.k.a. none at all), she quickly comes up-to-speed.  But she's a smart girl and determined to find a way to get the procedure.  Along the way, she faces the paucity of good resources, falling for a fake crisis center at one point.  But she eventually discovers an underground group that helps her travel to New Mexico where abortion is still legal.  Amidst all of these practical challenges, the story finds time to encompass Grace's emotional journey as well.

Kantor dispenses with any suspenseful moments or dramatics and you won't find some showdown with Grace's parents or the boyfriend.  While Grace has moments of great fear and moments of danger, Kantor has opted for a quiet matter-of-fact story where one things leads to another.  That lack of "action" ought to make the book rather dull, but the simple facts of Grace's circumstances are really interesting enough to keep the reader engaged and the authenticity of Grace's emotions makes her character compelling.  By not dramatizing things, the book is probably more effective as an instructional work.  Regardless of the fictional characters, the story is extensively researched and factual.  It reads as non-fiction, making it a useful resource if it falls into the right hands.  It probably also guarantees that the book will be banned in the places where it would be most helpful.

Stay With My Heart, by Tashie Bhuiyan

Liana Sarkar's father is an A&R man for Ripple Records and a lot of his love for music has rubbed off on her.  She plans to study the music industry and follow in her father's footsteps.  But since her mother died, he doesn't seem to have any room in his life for her anymore.  That doesn't stop her from trying to win his love by proving that she can find and nurture new talent.  

When she discovers the band Third Eye, she knows that this is the group that will get her father's attention and admiration.  But a crucial error in judgment ends up putting Liana in an embarrassing position and hurts the band's prospects.  To save them and correct her mistake, she surreptitiously promotes them, trying to angle a way for the band to succeed.  Along the way, she comes to understand the limits and prospects of love.

A romance without much of an actual love story, The story is really about the bonds of friendship between the members of the band and what that working relationship teaches Liana.  It's not a terribly compelling story and most of the story feels formulaic (down to the playlists that fill the story).  Despite the multiethnic coloring of the cast, the characters are largely stereotypes.  Liana's relationship with her father never develops and her relationship with Sky, the band leader, never builds up any suspense, let alone any heat.  Entertaining, but not terribly exciting.

Someone To Love, by Melissa de la Cruz

Since the day that Liv was rejected by her boyfriend for being too fat, she has struggled to gain control of her weight.  She's fasted and purged, starved herself and used laxatives.  And more than anything, she's hid it from her friends and family.  Life as the daughter of an up and coming gubernatorial candidate is full of pressure and fears of public exposure, but the secrets she is hiding are slowly killing her.

Full of lots of partying and alcohol, just to add to the poor life choices depicted throughout, this turns into something of a slog to get through.  While Liv is described as an exceptional girl, we don't see many of her strengths.  We're told that she does well in school, but she spends far more time obsessing about a useless boyfriend than she does about mastering her classes.

But the greatest disappointment of the story is the last section of the book, where Liv turns her life around.  Her recovery is a straightforward process and mostly consists of people lining up to apologize for being so mean to her.  There's little indication of any struggle towards recovery.  Instead, it seems like an easy road.  That's disappointing as, after having to endure hundreds of pages of her complaints and self-delusion, there's no real confronting her own role in her situation.  She makes some small protests that she played a small part in all of this but the focus is on everyone else behaving better. The book ends with her committing herself to loving herself, but there's rarely been much doubt that that is where her heart is. 

Every Time You Go Away, by Abigail Johnson

Ethan has grown up with a mother who has struggled with drug addiction.  She'll periodically hit the bottom and then commit to sorting out her life, but eventually succumb to the drugs after a while.  Each time she's gone into rehab, she's left Ethan with her parents.  But in the intervening years, Ethan has gone through hell trying to keep things together and take care of his Mom.

When he's at his grandparents, his closest friend is Rebecca, the girl next door.  They've confided to each other and the last time they saw each other, those feeling spilled over into a romance of sorts.  But then he went away and he didn't return for four years, without any communication at all..  

In those intervening four years, Rebecca's life came apart.  A car accident took the life of her father and put her permanently in a wheel chair.  Her mother, wracked with grief and unable to forgive her daughter, has distanced herself, abandoning Rebecca.  So, when Ethan returns, it's almost a godsend to her to have her old confidant back.  But the reality of Ethan can't match the fantasies that Rebecca has fostered all of these years.  He has issues of his own to deal with.  When he learns that his Mom has skipped out on rehab and disappeared, he is determined to find her whatever the cost might be to him or to Rebecca.

A powerful story about parental neglect and the process of reconciliation and healing.  Ethan and Rebecca's pain is so visceral and their struggles to cope with their own demons while finding some space to open their hearts to each other so heartbreaking that this is a hard read.  It took for a while to get through the story, but that was no fault of the writing. It's simply a story that slows you down as there is so much going on with these complex characters.

It's difficult to imagine a happy ending for this story that would feel realistic and Johnson doesn't attempt to deliver one.  Instead, the characters get to be honest with each other and make decisions about what that means for their futures.  There's some hope offered in all this, but no joyful reunion or lasting amends.  Sometimes, you're not meant to live happily ever after, just to move forward.

Imagine Us Happy, by Jennifer Yu

Ostensibly a story about the way that depression wrecks relationships, this is a teen romance that isn't.  As the narrator explains in the beginning, "I don't want to disappoint anyone in search of a happy ending. I'll say it from the start: this isn't that kind of story." to prove the point in an original twist, the novel starts off with the end of the romance -- the final fight.  With the matter of whether these two teens will find true love settled before the story even begins, we are left with an extended autopsy instead. 

Stella not only suffers from depression, but also from a neglectful father and a clinging mother.  The parents use Stella as a weapon to launch at each other -- each accusing the other of being the worse parent.  Traumatized by her parents' behavior, Stella seeks comfort where she can and stumbles across moody intellectual Kevin at a party.  When Kevin isn't drowning himself in existential literature or contemplating doom and gloom, he practices self-harm -- a behavior that he too weaponizes against Stella, but claiming that she bears some responsibility for it.  Barely into the relationship, Kevin's nasty side appears as he launches into abusive jealous tirades against Stella's friendships with other boys.  Stella, desperate to keep the one thing she feels is "safe" puts up with Kevin's abuse. You get the picture.  It all ends (at the start of the novel) when Stella accepts that she can't help Kevin and needs to just let him go. 

Like Sarah Dessen's Dreamland, it is pretty obvious from the beginning that Kevin is manipulative and Stella is manipulatable.  Between her depression and low self-esteem and the poor parental exemplars, she's completely unequipped to deal with Kevin's head games.  Any sane person would run far far away from him, but Stella is easily sucked in.

The light in this otherwise grueling story, is the authenticity of the characters and the insights they shed on themselves.  Stella, her mother, and their friends all seem enlightened (not that it halts the corrosiveness of their relationships).  The males are (Kevin and Stella's Dad), however, are pretty useless. Whether those insights would actually make a difference seems unlikely given that the type of people who fall into these toxic relationships generally don't accept advice from others.

Stepping Off, by Jordan Sonnenblick

Fatefully, when Jesse was young, his parents bought a place in Pennsylvania in order to get away from NYC in the summers. In the neighborhood there were two girls of his age as well -- Ava and Chloe -- and they became close summer friends.  They never bothered to stay in touch during the year and they safely knew that they were friends and nothing more. But maintaining the friendship has grown harder as they have grown older.  Jesse fantasizes about going out with Ava, but knows she doesn't care for him in that way.

The summer of 2019 (between their sophomore and junior years) begins fortuitously with the three of them taking a ceremonial leap off of a nearby bridge together as part of a local rite of passage. But it is also a summer when they will take much riskier leaps together.  By the end of the summer, Jesse and Chloe find themselves together, but neither one knows what it means and things are left hanging.

Back home during the fall, Jesse's parents are separating and when he reaches out to Chloe for support, she doesn't answer.  So, he turns to Ava and things start developing between them.  Or do they?  It would seem that the friendships are changing, but the more they do so, they more a sense of dread develops that they are losing each other.  And then in March, everything changes as the world shuts down for Covid.

The arrival of Covid is interesting but not really organic to the story.  And the book loses its focus as Sonnenblick shifts the story to the challenges that the three of them face trying to sort out their feelings in isolation (not that any of it seems to stop them from spending a lot of time in close proximity). For that reason and others, there really isn't anything essential about the Covid Pandemic to the plot and it is actually distracting.  I’ve been waiting for a good historical YA set during the Pandemic.  This might have been it, but the first 2/3 of the novel isn’t about Covid and thus the story isn’t either.
 
I still loved the characters, their near misses and misunderstandings, and the anxieties about the changing nature of their friendships are topics that are all handled well.

Dispatches From Parts Unknown, by Bryan Bliss

Julie and her mother have lived without her Dad for three years.  And while the death still affects them, life goes on.  Julie goes to the Mall and gets two Orange Juliuses and her best friend Max who works there never asks any questions about the extra one.  It might be for herself, or for her Dad, or for her constant companion, a professional wrestler named The Masked Man that no one except she can see.

In comparison, the rest of the story makes sense.  Like her favorite teacher's decision to put Julie on the prom committee to help get her out more.  Or the way that a popular extrovert Bri would latch on to her and fall in love with Max the Orange Julius guy.  Or the way that two skaters (God and Legs) would commandeer the prom committee and convince the school to embrace a Top Gun (the original version) - themed prom.  Or that Julie would find herself actually going to the prom with Legs as her date in the end.  Somehow, all of these non-sequiturs add up to a story about moving on from your grief.

The book is quirky and weird and funny, but surprisingly slow.  With so many storylines (few of which actually resolve), it is hard to say what the story really is about.  The invisible pro wrestler is a cute idea but doesn't really add much to the story and quickly becomes repetitive and dull.  Almost everything else simply peters out (prom is anti-climactic, a wrestling match in the Mall which ought to be the climax gets cut off at the end suddenly).  It's an original story, but weird and unique does not make for compelling reading.

We Shall Be Monsters, by Alyssa Wees

An atmospheric parable about three generations of women, told in alternating chapter by Gemma and her mother Virginia, that involves a witch, a man-eating beast, a curse, and an enchanted forest in rural Michigan.  It's one of those stories where the girl is warned by her mother to not venture into the woods, but she does so anyway.  Bad things happen.  Cut to next chapter and the whole thing repeats with the next generation.

But the story here is only a small part of the novel.  Behind the magic and the monsters lies two mother and daughter relationships with much more everyday magic and drama.  It's a story, for example, where cutting your mother open and eating her heart can be both literal and figurative.  And that fuzzy elision between reality and fantasy leads to some fantastic prose that feels deep and meaningful.

The story's complexity, vast cast, unclear direction, and jumpy narrative makes the book hard to read.  I did so very slowly, but I was left with a clear sense that I would only understand the story through re-reading it a few more times.  That's too much like work and the tale simply didn't interest me enough to put in the time.  A hard pass on this for me due to its demanding storytelling, even though I enjoyed the beauty of the writing.

The Fragile Ordinary, by Samantha Young

Comet has lived a private bookish life almost all the way through high school.  She has friends but keeps them at arm's length.  She and her parents barely talk.  She's terribly lonely and she just counts the days until she'll graduate and go to college somewhere far far away.

But then she meets Tobias, a boy with a bad attitude who hangs out with a bad crowd.  She'd ignore him, but he has a spark that intrigues her and he turns out to be smarter and nicer than he appears.  Soon, as always happens in the world of YA, she is swept away and spreading her wings.  That is, until they are riven apart by forces outside their control.

The novel never quite worked for me.  It's not the hackneyed plot, for that particular crime would condemn a thousand YA romances.  It's not the characters -- who are wondrously diverse and intriguing.  It's the storytelling, which is surprisingly clunky and wooden.  The story meanders with frequent surprises along the lines of "oh, and by the way, there is this character who I have never mentioned in the first 200 pages who is suddenly the central focus of the story" or "remember that subplot I labored over at the beginning? never mind, I've just resolved it in a page." In other words, real interest killers.  

I've liked Young's other books but this was just painful.

The Notes, by Catherine Con Morse

Claire Wu, a junior at a performing arts high school, wonders if she has what it takes.  Is she a good enough pianist to make it into a conservatory in two years?  Is she Asian enough to be accepted into the school's exclusive Asian Student Association?  Is she attractive enough to get the attention of senior Rocky Wong, the school's best pianist?

A new teacher, Dr. Li, thinks so and she inspires Claire to take risks.  She gets Claire a job as the accompanist for the dance recital, she assigns her harder pieces, and she makes her come in for extra practices.  Rocky and her other fellow students make fun of Claire for being a teacher's pet.  Rocky warns her that it isn't worth it to throw away her life trying to please this new and mercurial teacher.  But Claire likes Dr. Li and wants to prove she is good enough. 

Then things take a sinister turn.  Someone starts leaving notes lying around for Claire, warning her that Dr. Li is hurting her, that Dr. Li is using her, that Claire is wasting her time, and so on.  The messages grow threatening as the time of their piano showcase approaches and Claire is left wondering who is trying to hurt her?  And is she the real target or is it the new teacher?

A thriller with an engaging cast of characters and beautiful attention to detail, but an unevenly paced story.  The first two-thirds of the novel rolls out this story of threatening notes, backgrounded by the engaging mystery of Dr. Li's past and Claire's on-and-off relationship with Rocky.  But then that mystery of the anonymous messages is quickly resolved and a new issue is unveiled -- one involving the mental health of the notes' author.  This essentially new story is quickly run through with no development, completely changing the mood of the piece.  Character's personalities change, new motivations appear, and things that were so important in the first half fade from people's minds.  Worst of all, the story grows sketchy and the tempo speeds up dramatically.  This second part is not a bad story, but it's really not the same tale. 

Everything Within and In Between, by Nikki Barthelmess

One day, Ri discovers a letter under her grandmother's mattress written to her from her mother -- a mother that her grandmother claims has disappeared.  This is just one of the many lies in Ri's life from her controlling grandmother. 

Despite the fact that Grandmother is Mexican-American and Ri is half Latinx, her grandmother has never allowed her to learn Spanish.  Forging a permission slip to switch to Spanish class at school, Ri is determined to learn Spanish, become more familiar with her cultural roots, and find her mother.  And while she manages to do these things, it doesn't work out as she has planned and Ri has to come to terms with the realities of her family.  While that search for her mother doesn't quite work out, she does manage to connect with her heritage despite her grandmother's interference.

The novel raises some good points about discrimination in the Mexican community towards lighter skin colors, general racism, and classism.  The tone can get fairly preachy, but Ri makes an articulate and principled stand against her classmates who tolerate racially-motivated microaggressions. She stands up against classist behavior, especially when it is coupled with racism. While the story also brings up alcoholism and drug abuse, it handles these less convincingly.  But overall, my chief complaint with this story is how repetitive and slow the pace is.  A less-than-convincing change of heart by grandma saves the day so the story ends on a happy note, but it feels over convenient and unsatisfactory.