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.