How To Be Normal, by Ange Crawford

Homeschooled by her stay-at-home Mom for most of her life, Astrid has grown up in a world that was tightly controlled by her father.  But when he loses his job and her Mom has to return to the workforce, Astrid goes to public school for her final year.  Being out of the house helps Astrid develop a backbone begin recognizing that she's allowed to want things and do things.  Understanding that living in constant fear of setting off her father's fiery temper is not normal and not okay.  She and her mother develop a plan to escape.

A strikingly original voice in a harrowing tale of domestic emotional abuse.  Handled by most YA writers, this would have been drudgery but Crawford takes a new spin on just about every YA trope, breathing life into everything from a bathroom sob fest to the climactic senior formal.  It's hard to surprise me at this point. Most writers fall back on outrageous plots twists to make their new book stand out, but Crawford doesn't have much new here on its face.  What she does instead is take a scene that's been done to death like getting caught sneaking out and make it seem like something you've never read before.  This is really a stand out novel.

Birdy, by N. West Moss

After the death of their mother, Birdy and her little brother Mouse are placed with a pair of distant relatives in Upstate New York.  Neither of them has ever been outside of New York City before so they find things very different.  Cars honking are replaced by frogs peeping through the night.  They are allowed to go outside by themselves and explore on their own.  There's summer camp and their aunt bakes wonderful treats for them.  The place is safe and they don't have to worry about things.

Birdy hates it.  She hates that the placement is only for six months.  What happens after that?  Will they be sent to another foster home?  Will she and Mouse be split up?  Yes, things are going well now, but they could easily go bad -- Birdy's seen enough times when that's happened!

With some persistence from the adults and a few odd friends, Birdy's fears are gradually overcome in this sweet piece about finding a home and building a new family.  Birdy's emotional rollercoaster authentically captures the challenges she faces learning to trust people.  The story is tried and true.  The surprises are few, but it's a nice story.

Always Your Sister, by Frances Prentice

A little over three years ago, Millie's mother delivered a stillborn baby.  Ever since that day, Millie has thought of what baby Noah would have been like if he had lived.  In her diary, she writes him letters and tells him about who she is.  And with Mom pregnant again, Millie has a lot to think about.  Set on a farm in rural Australia, Millie also describes life raising sheep in the midst of Australia's brutal droughts as well the various trials and tribulations of her family and friends.

While the pregnancy ties the whole thing together, the book is really just a long series of random vignettes chronicling how farm kids keep themselves busy and various details about the family's life over the nine-month period.  While certainly packed with activity, this doesn't really translate into a plot or a story.  The kids build a swing, start a garden, take turns helping out around the house, and regularly process their feelings about Noah's death, but there's no character development and no attempt to link the activities together.

American readers may also struggle with the lingo as well. A glossary for words like "ute" and "esky" would have been really helpful.

Love in Ruins, by Auriane Desombre

Natalie is spending a month this summer in Greece on a high school trip.  She's supposed to be studying the cultural antiquities and working on a project.  But instead she's distracted by Melanie, the pretty daughter of one of the instructors on the program.  It all comes at the worst possible time:  Natalie is trying to sort out having been recently diagnosed formally with OCD and how, because of her condition, relationships always seem to defeat her.  Every romantic attachment she has seems doomed and there is no reason why this new one should be any different.  But under the hot Mediterranean sun, anything seems possible.

Lovingly depicted by the author, Greece (and its food in particular) seems irresistible.  Our heroine and her erstwhile romance is much less interesting.  The major problem is that Natalie comes off as unfocused and undisciplined -- not so much OCD as immature. Schoolwork comes last and Natalie and her girlfriend spend the entire vacation sneaking off and having private adventures without any regard for chaperones or a budget.  It actually would have been a lot more interesting for Natalie to get busted on one of her escapades.  It would have provided a small dramatic edge to the story, which otherwise seems trite.  Despite some "third act" drama (a term actually used by the author herself), this is largely a travel guidebook to Greece and its more picturesque spots.  It excels at enumerating the must-see places and describing in mouth-watering details the cuisine.  The romance and Natalie's behavioral challenges are far less compelling and less fully enumerated.

Calling Me Home, by Laurin Becker Macios

Upon graduation, Jenny goes to Europe to explore before she starts college at NYU in the fall.  Backpacking across the continent, staying at hostels, and making lots of new friends, she has a small adventure.  Along the way, she meets an Irish boy named Colin and has a brief romance.  When she finally returns home (after a postponement or two), she discovers she is pregnant.  And while she decides to terminate the pregnancy and stick to her plan to attend university, things don't work out.  Her experience has changed her and the plans she made before Europe no longer fit who she has become.

Told in wistful verse, Jenny's voice is full of melancholy and regret.  That can create some isolated dramatic moments, but the storytelling overall is coarse and sketchy.  The verse is good quality but few of the pieces really stand out.  

Verse novels, as a genre, are prone to overly precious navel gazing. To succeed as a story, they really has to break new ground. But while pretty and full of feelings, this novel doesn't go into uncharted territory. It seems modestly satisfied with asserting that encountering new cultures and developing new relationships was transformative for Jenny.  Strangely underplayed and overlooked is why and how the changes happened.

Where Lost Girls Go, by Kody Keplinger

The five girls who have ended up living in the woods with a man they call Sol are not going to be missed by anyone.  They left home or were kicked out long ago.  Each one ended up at the end of their rope in the mountains of Kentucky, and were found and offered a home with young women like themselves.  Sol calls it a "garden" -- a place where the girls are finally treated with kindness.  Yes, there's chores and rules (and food sometimes run low), but there's a roof over their heads and safety.

For Iris, who was kicked out of her home and ended up here when her car died, Sol's cabin is an oasis.  After a year living there, she's eager to prove that she deserves to stay forever.  But to do that, she'll have to pass three trials that Sol hands out to her.  That doesn't bother her at first.  But when a new girl shows up who starts asking questions, Iris begins to wonder why she has to undergo "trials," why all the rules exist, and why they live this way?  And as Iris starts to look around with a critical eye, she finds that the garden has a snake or two.

A creepy story that provides enough tension to keep things interesting.  It certainly could have been made much more disturbing and exploitative, and I'm thankful that the author made an effort largely to stick to implied threats and dangers.  So, while you're on the edge of your seat to see what is going to happen next, things are kept largely PG-rated. 

The personal dynamics are a bit more hit or miss. It's hard in a story like this to convey how brainwashed the characters are and to make their behavior believable.  As outsiders, it's easy to see through Sol's grooming behavior and hard to see why Iris hesitates to leave.  That makes the hesitation and the deliberation a drag on the story's pacing.  But it's also realistic and the author does a good job of drawing distinctions between the behavior of the newer girls and the long-term residents which make the behavior more nuanced.

Bad Badger: A Family Story, by Maryrose Wood

In this sequel, Septimus the badger and Gully the seagull have settled into family life together, but not all is bliss.  Raising three white fluffballs is a lot of work!.  Gully is always out searching for food for them, leaving Septimus at home with his paws full.  Septimus longs for the joys of his old life:  listening to the opera or just having some alone time.  Gully meanwhile is worn old from foraging all day.  Tensions rise.

This threatens to get much worse when the forest badgers come for an extended visit.  After all, Septimus did invite them to come any time!  And, according to the forest badgers, a badger always says "yes"! With eight visiting badgers, the house falls into chaos.  And now it's Gully's turn to fret:  the chicks are showing no interest in learning to fly!  Worse than that, they've become convinced that they would rather dig with the badgers than fly with the gulls.  But with help from their respective flocks, Septimus and Gully get the chicks where they need to be.

The first Bad Badger book was a lovely story about the compromises that one makes in a loving relationship.  This sequel expands the theme into family in all of its many forms.  Whether it is Gully's flock of gulls or Septimus's  "flock" of badgers, the members help each other grow, doing for the individual what he or she needs.  Never too heavy or precious with that message, the story is full of humor and fun, and a packing in a thrilling adventure as the fluffballs grow into becoming members of their large extended family.  A lovely book for children and adults alike!

Three Sisters, by David Macinnis Gill

Three girls and their father climb a dormant volcano in the Cascades to release the ashes of their mother.  The girls are bickering and fighting, and their father, wracked by grief, is struggling to keep himself together.  The family is a wreck and that's before the mountain they are climbing starts becoming seismically active.  As strange smells, dying animals, and tremors start to appear -- all clues that something is seriously amiss -- the children and their Dad remain locked in their familial drama.  By the time they realize that they are in serious trouble, it is almost too late.

While the snarking between the girls had a realistic quality to it, it was overdone and carried on for too long.  When the girls are refusing to talk to each as volcanic ask is falling on them and their father is bleeding out, one just started to wonder how they ever became so bratty?  Quarrels can be cute but here it became distracting and annoying.

Far more enjoyable was how resourceful the girls are.  The youngest is a first aid whiz, which comes in awfully handy when the injuries start to happen.  Another is able to lead, even when the father basically shuts down inside his surprisingly immature mind.  And the third is a scientific wunderkind, able to carefully narrate what is happening around them with a surreal knowledge of all things geologic.  It wasn't terribly realistic either, but dramatically satisfying and necessary for such a complex situation to have someone be able to explain what was happening and what could happen next.

The pace is fast and unrelenting as one disaster after another befalls the girls and their father.  That keeps the pages turning and allowed me to blow past the annoying bits, resulting in a surprisingly rewarding read in the end.

One Word, Six Letters, by Adib Khorram

Dared by a friend to shout an offensive word at the school assembly, Dylan finds himself in a heap of trouble after he does so.  At first, he doesn't understand why.  It's was just a funny thing to do and didn't hurt anyone.  It's not like he's a homophobe.  But when the school's reaction is severe and Dylan starts losing friends because of his actions, he begins to consider the harm of words.

Farshid lives in fear of people thinking he's gay.  He's not, is he?  He likes some girls, but he also can't help but admire the toned bodies of some of the guys with whom he works out.  To compensate, Farshid exercises several times a day and watches his diet to maximize muscle gain.  If he can be strong enough, no one will question his masculinity.

Two young men with image issues, learning to take less for granted and focus on being better people.  For Dylan, it's about separating himself from his prejudiced friends.  For Farshid, it's about accepting who he is.  Both have a journey to take.

While the setup is original (gay-curious Persian kid meets clueless boy with homophobic friends), there isn't much going on in this story.  The characters struggle with their egos and their need to prove themselves, but they don't really branch out.  I didn't feel much interest in or empathy for them.

The Secret Astronomers, by Jessica Walker

Two young people meet through messages that they leave each other in their school library's oldest circulating book -- an archaic nineteenth century astronomy textbook.  One of them was sent to the book by a note left by their late mother.  The other one is actually trying to use the book for their studies and is flummoxed to find that the book is being rapidly defaced through doodles.  What starts as an angry conversation about vandalizing school property morphs into a friendship between misfits, two outcasts stuck in their rural West Virginian school.  A search to solve a number of clues left by the dead mother points them to an unsolved mystery from the past.

The design of the book is truly remarkable.  Every page is a collage of original drawings and post-it notes, laid over and frequently inspired by the original text of an ancient science book.  It feels like a graphic novel, but is far more immersive. And it represents an amazing effort -- well planned and plotted -- and a unique reading experience.  The presentation doesn't just bring us into the story, it essentially makes the reading part of the narrative.

It's hard not to admire the design and originality, so I feel bad about noting that I didn't find the story itself all that engrossing and the design element makes this a slow read.  Still, for a taste of something truly different, this takes the cake!

Dust, by Alison Stine

Transported to a drought-ravaged Colorado by her prepper parents, Thea yearns for school, friends, and someone to understand her.  Hard of hearing, she struggles to communicate in the best of circumstances.  Now stuck miles away from the closest town with a father who is paranoid about any contact with the outside word, Thea is isolated and alone. Her own family blames her for her issues and refuse to get her help. Thea herself doesn't see any future, just a premonition of doom.

But financial difficulties mean that Thea needs to earn money and that brings her into town, where she meets a boy who is half-deaf like her and knows how to sign.  It opens up a path -- one that her family will do everything to block.  But as the homestead fails and the family's plans crumble in the face of drought, locusts, and dust storms, something has to give.

A timely update to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath that takes global warming and the expansion of agribusiness into account, this novel has a timeless quality to it that promises that it will become part of many required reading lists in the near future.  Strong characters, a unique setting, and some brilliant universe building creates a compelling story. I was disappointed at the ending which aims to wrap everything up neatly, which seemed overly ambitious, but overwise wowed by this book.

Jane Stays Dreaming, by Britnee Meiser

To enliven a life that she finds dull and meaningless, Jane secretly maintains a blog in which she portrays herself as a beautiful and glamorous girl named Anastasia who has popularity, a cute boyfriend, and endless trips to New York City.  In her netzine, she posts photos, gossip, and advice to thousands of followers.  

No one in her real life knows about her online activity and Jane wants to keep things that way.  But when a new girl moves to town and reveals that she's a follower of Anastasia's writings, Jane is put in an awkward position.  The girl confesses online that she has an interest in Jane's best friend Leo.  While Leo and Jane are only friends, the outside threat makes Jane realize that her feelings for Leo are stronger than she's ready to accept.

On the face of it, this novel doesn't offer much that is really new.  It has all the tropes -- the false crush, the mean girl competitor, the inevitable unveiling of Jane's secret life, and soulmates-in-denial -- and doesn't attempt any surprises.  So, why did I enjoy it?  I suppose because who doesn't like two lovers finding each other in the end (after all, it worked fine for Shakespeare on multiple occasions)?  But really it's the characters that make this novel.  Jane and the others are articulate but still very much adolescent.  Their jealousies and insecurities are worn on their sleeves for the reader to clearly see and we don't waste much time with miscommunications.  That allows for some pretty quick resolutions, but it's a relief not having to drown in lots of invented drama.  These kids can pretty much invent enough on their own!

So, while the story is formulaic, this novel gets a boost by crafting relatable characters from whom readers can learn some lessons without being preached to.  And for those who already know the curriculum, there is the delight in a well-written account.

All Better Now, by Neal Shusterman

A new virus has begun to spread around the world called Crown Royale.  It carries a 4% mortality rate and for the survivors the after-effects are particularly striking:  recoverees find themselves free of all worldly cares.  Unhappy people find happiness.  Rich people give away their money.  Fighters become peacemakers.  The virus is transformative.

For people with problems, there is something appealing about the changes that the virus triggers.  But for others, particularly with things to lose, the virus is dangerous.  With no cares, greed is eradicated and along with it capitalism.  With fear erased and war ended, power structures that rely on them are threatened.  While many recoverees come to embrace the changed world and promote the spread of the virus, a shrinking group works hard to find a vaccine that will curb the infection.

Three young people with an important role to play form the crux of the story.  Ron, the son of one of the richest men in the world.  Mariel, penniless, but ultimately one of the most powerful people on the planet.  And finally Morgan, ruthless enough to make the decisions that could change the course of humanity.  

Given the time that has passed since the COVID pandemic, the themes of the book feel less vital and vibrant, but Shusterman's exploration of the spread of greed and fear, a countervailing movement of empathy, and the struggle between them feels quite relevant in the present day.  Making the contemporary clash of social movements that currently wrack havoc in our world into viral pandemics may lack subtlety but it provides biting commentary in a highly digestible form. 

In the end, I enjoyed this action adventure with some moral heft. The storytelling itself is lively and page-turning and most of the time Shusterman keeps the philosophical debates to a minimum (not that those are not interesting, but it can become burdensome and negatively impact the pacing).  The balance between action and social commentary that he achieves left me feeling entertained but also full of thought-provoking questions (like whether infecting the world with kindness would make us truly better off or whether people should have the right to make wrong decisions).

16 For Ever, by Lance Rubin

When Carter wakes up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday, he's psyched and ready to give his little brother hell.  But he finds his little brother is now older than him, as in fact is the rest of the world.  To him, it may seem like he was fifteen years old yesterday, but six years have gone by since then.  For unknown reasons, Carter is stuck in a loop.  Every year, instead of turning seventeen, he turns sixteen all over again.  And with no memory of the past year, he's forced to relearn everything, aware that time has passed for everyone else and his friends have gotten older.

This is especially hard for Maggie, his girlfriend for most of the past year, whom he no longer even remembers and who is now a year older than him.  If Carter is going to loop every year, what chance does their relationship have?  At first, Maggie tries to keep the fact that they even dated a secret, but that doesn't last long.  And since this is a YA novel, they are pretty much fated to come back together.

All of which leads to the pressing question of why Carter is stuck in his loop in the first place. At first, Carter thinks that there was a mistake that he made somewhere before his seventeenth birthday that triggered this.  But as he and his friends and family dig into the matter, it seems much more complicated.

I liked the premise of the story, but it's a hard idea to pull off.  Not only fantastical, the concept of getting older without growing up raises all sorts of logistical issues (some of the funnier of which, like a high school junior being legally old enough to buy booze, are explored).  Rubin goes down a few rabbit holes trying to logic these out, but the story suffers the harder he tries to explain it.  It works best if we just take the aging thing on faith and run with it.  The rest of the story is fairly average -- entertaining and enjoyable summer reading -- but without much to help it stand out.

Messy Perfect, by Tanya Boteju

Years ago, Cassie and her best friend Ben got caught dressing up in each other's clothes.  It wasn't so bad for Cassie to be seen in Ben's trousers, but Ben wearing her skirt took some more effort.  But rather than explain the truth when the rumors began to fly, Cassie abandoned Ben to bullying homophobia.  A few weeks later, Ben left the school.

Now, he's back. Wracked by guilt for her childhood cowardice, Cassie is determined to make things right and she alights on the idea of setting up a Gay Straight Alliance in her very conservative Catholic school.  Allying with an existing GSA at a nearby public school, Cassie starts a secret campaign of "pop ups" to make her school more gay friendly (and thus easier for Ben).  But as the project consumes more and more of her time, Cassie's grades start to suffer and her relationships with her friends and family begin to fray.

As for her goal to fix the mistakes of her past, it doesn't quite work out as she planned.  Ben is amused, but strangely non-committal to the project and Cassie begins to realize that making her school more accepting to queer students may be more important to her personally than she's comfortable admitting.

Cassie is a perfectionist who makes plenty of messy mistakes along the way in this story but does a decent job of knowing how to fix those errors and come back better -- a mash-up that gives the book its title.  While the novel can be boringly repetitive and overly preachy about the importance of safe spaces, Cassie's journey into self-discovery is compelling.  I liked her and also the many supporting characters as well -- a colorful cast of peers who represent an exuberant form of teen queerdom that has fallen out of fashion in YA lit shockingly quickly in the wake of terrorized libraries.  Far more so, I appreciated a strong presence of adults in this story, ranging from the keen librarian to the surprisingly sympathetic principal to a mother who was confident enough to know when to crack down and when to let up.

The Winter of the Dollhouse, by Laura Anne Schlitz

Tiph struggles to be seen by her family and at odds with her stepmother.  Tiph loves dolls and everything about dolls, but her stepmother doesn't understand why she wants to spend all of her money on doll house accessories.  But one day, outside of the local toy store, Tiph meets an old Hungarian woman who does understand her.  Tiph is fantasizing about owning an antique German doll of Gretel when the woman collapses on the street.  Tiph ends up helping the woman gets home and is entranced to find that she owns a fabulous old doll house.

The old woman needs help around the help and they develop a plan whereby Tiph will do chores and earn money to purchase dolls.  meanwhile, the woman invites Tiph to play with hers.  Tiph, however, has a problem with kleptomancy that is getting her into trouble and when one of the lady's dolls disappears, suspicion falls in Tiph.

Gretel the doll is in a panic.  She wants to be Tiph's as much as Tiph wants her and if the mystery of the missing doll is not solved, this will never happen.  So, the toys work away at a plan to fix everything.  And in the process of doing so, they discover an ancient doll that reveals secrets about the old lady.

Meanwhile, there is a school production of The Wizard of Oz that Tiph is in.  Disappointed with her part as a munchkin, she is encouraged by the old lady to volunteer to understudy for the Wicked Witch (which is the part she really wants).  When the actress playing the witch falls ill, Tiph gets her opportunity.

Along the way, Tiph works out her issues with her stepmother and learns that adults have very complex lives.  All in all, it is a very busy story!  While much of this is well-written and the individual threads make great stories, it is terribly unfocused.  Was this a story about Tiph learning to stand up for herself and/or understanding the importance of honesty?  Was this a story of the old woman coming to terms with her lost childhood?  Or of a mother and daughter coming to mutual understanding?  Or of the dolls getting the humans to sort out their problems so they would be played with?  Likely, it is all of those things, but it left me with distractions, being thrown from one thread to another when, even at the very end, nothing seemed to come together.

Orris and Timble: The Beginning, by Kate DiCamillo

The first in a trilogy of early reader books about the unlikely friendship of Orris the rat and Timble the owl. When Timble gets caught in an abandoned mouse trap, Orris struggles with whether to help free him or not.  Remembering the tale of the Lion and the Mouse, Orris reasons with himself that helping Timble will mean that Timble will owe him a debt of gratitude.  When Timble simply flies away, Orris is upset that he didn't even get a thank you.  But a much greater gift awaits.

Quirky and sweet in the way that all of DiCamillo's works tend to be.  The deeper meaning of the story is probably not going to sink in to the target audience's minds, but this easy-to-read book is engaging enough to lead the reader to the rest of the series.

The Danger of Small Things, by Caryl Lewis

In the near future, the bees have died off.  And along with them, the various species of plants that rely on bees to be pollinated.  And along with those, the animals that feed on those plants.  In sum, the death of pollinating insects has caused a global food collapse.  Panic, wars, and the downfall of civilization follow shortly thereafter.  So far, so interesting.

In the aftermath, young girls are sent to concentration camps where they are worked to the bone using brushes to pollinate the fruit and nut trees by hand in hopes of raising a crop that can in turn be sold to support the totalitarian regime under which they live.  This is only until they reach puberty, when they are "married" off to young soldiers to make children for the regime.

Jess is one of those girls.  She was sent to the camp when she and her brother were caught trying to cross the border and escape.  Initially distrusted by most of the other girls and targeted by the camp's queen bee, Jess becomes the leader of a quiet rebellion in the camp.  To foment an uprising, she creates secret works of art to agitate the masses.

From a fascinating premise, the novel falls back on so many familiar dystopian tropes -- from the beginning (lifted from Handmaid's Tale) to the pro-natalist plotline (Divergent).  An evil priest and a bullying queen bee offer little new to a story that can't seem to decide whether military regimes or high school cliques are worst.  It's tired material and a story that adds little to the genre.  It also makes very little sense -- the fruitless effort to hand pollinate on the industrial scale that modern apiculture attempts, the strange waste of resources using hand-made brushes, the mystery of what the little boys are up to, and so on.  Disappointing exposition on an original and thought-provoking idea.

Bad Badger: A Love Story, by Maryrose Wood (ill. by Giulia Ghigini)

Septimus loves to watch sunsets from his porch as he listens to opera and sips chamomile tea.  All of which makes him a bad badger.  He doesn't even look like one!  Instead of the stripes that all badgers are supposed to have, he has spots.  Perhaps he isn't even a badger at all?  He might have a better time sorting out his conundrum if he knew any other badgers.

For while Septimus enjoys his quiet life, he longs for a friend.  And when he is visited by a friendly gull, Septimus does everything he can to make Gully feel at home.  In subsequent visits, the two of them explore their shared interests and their differences (Gully loves the ocean, for example, but Septimus hates to get sand in his fur!).  The visits become so regular that Septimus comes to take Gully and her company for granted.  But then one day Gully doesn't show up on the porch.  Days pass and still no Gully!  Septimus goes in search of his friend and learns some powerful lessons about friendship along the way.

A delightful and quirky book.  Charmingly insecure, Septimus (a badger "within acceptable parameters") frets and worries in a funny way that will delight children and adults.  While there is a story for children here, it really is an adult story -- full of meditations about the compromises that one makes in friendships and the way in which friendships enhance our lives.  The ultimate lesson about acceptance ties the story's sweet and timeless message with a bow.  

The first of a series intent on exploring relationship building.

The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls, by J. Anderson Coats

In 1910, in a mining town in Colorado, Stanislava doesn't have a lot of options.  The daughter of Slovenian immigrants, she is expected to marry and have lots of children.  Her family is dirt poor. The boys work with their father at the smelter and meanwhile the girls take care of the babies and the housework.  But until now, Stanislava has been able to go to school and read books.  This has stirred big ideas in her head.  She dreams of actually going to college.  She dreams of renaming herself Sylvia and no longer being looked down upon as a "Bohunk."

But when her older sister runs away and elopes with a Protestant man, Stanislava is pulled out of school and set to work helping her mother get all of the chores done. No longer allowed to go to school or read books, she can feel her dreams slip away.  So, she decides to run away herself to the big city of Denver.  There, she stumbles across the public library and eventually finds a home there.

An entertaining and fast paced adventure of survival against the odds for a young girl trying to eke by a living and running up against sexism, racism, and tradition.  There are a fair share of anachronisms and a fair share of improbably good fortune, but it doesn't detract from the thrill of the story.  Stanislava/Sylvia is intelligent and clever and full of lots of great ideas -- the hallmark of a children's heroine.

Books on the immigrant experience of Eastern European immigrants are few and far between.  While this is hardly an educational book, there is enough period detail here to send a curious reader to the non-fiction shelves.

Butterfly Heart, by Moa Backe Astot

Vilda, a half-Swedish half-Sami teen, has been grown curious about her ethnicity.  Her mother doesn't know Sami and Vilda never got to attend a Sami-speaking school, so Vilda's never learned how the language.  Her grandfather though has been teaching her a few words and she's hungry to learn more.  She also wants to get a gabdde (a traditional ethnic outfit) so she can wear it at festivals and show off her heritage.  But then her grandfather suddenly dies.

Wracked by grief and a realization that learning how to be Sami has just grown all the more harder, she stumbles through the summer trying to piece her plans back together again.  There's a cute older boy who speaks Sami, who she pins her hopes on, but he rejects her as being a child.  She unsuccessfully tries to explain her feelings about not knowing her heritage and losing her grandfather to her bewildered friends.  To top it all of, she's just gotten her first period.

A spare story of grief and search for identity through the eyes of a thirteen year-old.  American audiences won't know much about the Sami -- an indigenous people who live in northern Scandinavia -- but the search for one's heritage and where one fits in should be meaningful to anyone.  Vilda can be pretty mean at times and definitely selfish (and her use of language will trigger some parental readers) but her coarse edges and big feelings struck a realistic note.

17 & Gone, by Nova Ren Suma

Seventeen year-old Lauren sees missing girls.  Girls who ran away, girls who stepped out for a minute, girls who got into the wrong car.  All of them seventeen like her and now gone.  It started when she found an old missing person flyer, but quickly became an obsession as she hunts down more examples and finds out how many of them there are.  How easy it is to become "gone" where you're young and female.  

The girls talk to her, telling her their stories and how to find them.  They tell her the things they wish they could tell their families.  Lauren has become a conduit for them. And in doing so, she loses touch with herself.

A graceful story of a descent into schizophrenia -- a common enough trope in YA.  What makes this one stand out is its theme:  the danger of being female and seventeen.  A lot of seventeen year-old women  disappear. They are hard to find and frequently disappear under circumstances that leave them abandoned and forgotten.  A young woman runs away from home.  Does she disappear because she doesn't want to be found or because she has been abducted?  Or perhaps initially the first and then the latter?  And for those safe at home, how easy is it to become overwhelmed by all the dangers that are out there?  All of the reasons and ways in which a girl can become gone?  And how seemingly little concern there is that so many of them are missing?  The novel, as compelling as it is in its storytelling, is equally unsettling in its message.

A Scar Like A River, by Lisa Graff

Fallon is keeping three secrets inside of her.  One of them is the truth about how she got a deep jagged scar across her face.  The other two are so horrible she can't even think of approaching them.  But when her uncle dies, she realizes that she wants to start talking about these secrets.  To her horror, when she tries to tell someone, she finds that she doesn't know how to do so.

Told in three parts, this story about sexual abuse becomes most compelling in its final section.  There's no real surprise about what  actually happened to Fallon, which creates some drawn out and tedious reading in the first two parts -- one of which addresses her realization that she has to start talking and the other her struggle to actually do so.  It's only in the final section, when speaking out creates complications in her relationships with her family, that the novel becomes suddenly engrossing and original. That's a long battle with little pay-off.  It also does not help that the book is stuffed with fluff (her facial injury, Fallon's mother's illness, a protest at school against the school musical, a classmate who can't pay for her lunches, etc.) that doesn't relate or contribute to the story.

Lies We Tell About the Stars, by Susie Nadler

After the Big One hits San Francisco, Celeste can't find her best friend Nicky.  The library, where he likely was at the time of the quake, has been reduced to rubble.  So when Nicky fails to materialize, people suspect the worst and he is eventually pronounced dead.  However, Celeste knows something:  right before the quake, Nicky was talking about going away, disappearing for a while.  Convinced that her friend is in hiding and not dead, she starts looking for him and finds tantalizing clues that he might still be alive.

Before all of this, they were both obsessed with space and the upcoming missing to Mars.  And as Celeste's search continues, she becomes obsessed with the notion that Nicky may have headed to Cape Canaveral, to be at the launch.  So, Celeste uses her savings to go to Florida in a desperate last effort to find Nicky.  There, she finds something far more impactful.  An epilogue, of sorts, either caps off the story or ruins it -- if you're worried by such things, you can skip it without suffering too much!

This is a languid novel that never really figures out where it is heading.  Despite that lack of direction, the story still makes plenty of mistakes. The quake, Celeste and Nicky's friendship (in flashback), and an aborted romance with another boy all feel like wrong turns.  Even Celeste's health problems, which is screaming out to be a pivotal plot point somewhere in the story, are never utilized as much of anything except a periodic insubstantial annoyance.  There are many fine ideas here, but I was left wondering what for?

The Walls Around Us, by Nova Ren Suma

Violet, about to graduate and start dance school in New York, has everything before her.  Amber, incarcerated in a maximum security juvenile detention facility, has nothing.  But they are tied together by a third girl, Orianna, who was arrested for murder.  

Told through the author's hazy mix of unreliable narration, magic and hallucinations, and liberal use of flashback and foretelling, who did what to whom is both instantly known and a mystery until the final page. 

Like her other novels, it's beautifully written prose but full of grotesque and horrifying imagery.  Calling this a ghost story is technically correct but oversimplifies a novel that is as much about adolescent insecurity as it is about justice from the grave.

As in the other novels I have read, I enjoy the complex structure and the sparseness of the exposition, but was found myself frustrated by the repetition and the oblique storytelling.  Nova Ren Suma does this style quite well, but having now read three novels of hers in this genre and this format, I yearn for a change and something different from her.

Room to Breathe, by Kasie West

FBI agents ransacking the house one morning is how Indy discovers that her father has been accused of committing fraud.  But while the accusation and the subsequent investigation puts great strain on her and her family, Indy isn't allowed to tell any of her friends.  Suffering in enforced silence, her academics and her social relationships suffer.  She isolates herself, cuts off her friends, and ends up hanging out with a loser skateboarder who only adds to her troubles.

Then, through a twist of fate, she finds herself locked in the faculty bathroom with her former best friend Beau.  Stuck together for the next twenty hours or so, they have no choice but to dredge up recent events, confront each other, and work through their problems.  Told in alternating "then" and "now" chapters, their shared captivity leads to an easy-to-anticipate romantic breakthrough.

Cute and surprisingly breezy romance, in which the heavier material about family disintegration and Indy's acting out stands in awkward juxtaposition.  There's some pretty heavy stuff going on in this story for a story that obviously mostly wants to be about Indy and Beau finding each other.  There certainly would have been easier ways for that to have been pulled off.  

Take A Sad Song, by Ona Gritz

When the police come to apprehend Jane at a party, she demands to speak with her mother, only to find that it is her mother that called the police in the first place.  Declared incorrigible by her Mom and the courts, Jane is sent to Spofford and then to a year at the New York State Training School for girls in Hudson.  In 1970, your parents or just about any adult could get a child locked up and sentenced to servitude.  

On the inside, Jane suffers through abuse, bullying, and solitary confinements.  To cope, she becomes part of a pseudo family that the girls call "The Racket" whose members look out for each other and lend each other emotional support.

Told in brisk verse, this engaging story is far too short.  What's on offer is teasingly brief.  It's sufficient to tell the story and whet the appetite, but there's a meatier novel yet to write with this material.  Indeed, it could have benefitted from more fleshing out of the girls' backgrounds and the relationships they have with each other.

A Room Away from the Wolves, by Nova Ren Suma

Bina holds a deep resentment towards her mother.  Years ago, they nearly succeeded in running away to New York to escape Bina's abusive Dad.  But on the way out of town, they were "rescued" by a man who gave them a safe place to sleep.  Bina's Mom decided she liked it there and abandoned their plan, but Bina never did.  After years in this new prison, Bina decides to run away finally to the City on her own.

She has a destination -- Catherine House -- a boarding house for young women trying to escape from their pasts. But when she finds it, it seems to not be the haven she had hoped for.  Bina is allowed to move in to the recently vacated (and only available) room and is welcomed but not welcome.  The place is full of mysterious passages, invisible staff, secrets, and a foreboding sense of tragedy. At first desperate to be allowed to stay, Bina begins to fear that she will never be allowed to leave.

Mystery upon mystery are piled on in this atmospheric horror novel.  But while well-written, the story is too much mystery and too little resolution.  The author delights in presenting things that don't make sense and then compounding secrets with characters who do not explain themselves and a protagonist who tries too little to figure things out.  Rather than resolve any of this in the end, she simply piles more mysteries on, leaving us with the burning question of "what the f*** was that all about?!"

Nobody in Particular, by Sophie Gonzales

Danni, the poor American scholarship student, is fleeing a bad school experience.  Princess Rosemary is trying to rebuild her reputation and repair some broken friendships after a scandalous tragedy in Amsterdam.  Falling into each other's arms in this Princess Diaries-like fantasy isn't going to be easy, but no worries.  Boarding school with a royal is really just like American public high school, but you get to wear a tiara!  In other words, pure and unabashed escapism with lots of angst around friendships and a few serious concerns about coming out.  

It's sweet and fun.  At times quite steamy and sexy (the cover probably is enough to get the book banned across Florida!), we never quite forget that these are teens with all the strong and serious feels.  Grownups are generally in the background and useless.  

The novel was wildly entertaining and worth a read.  But there's not a serious bone in its storyline, despite some intimations at the end that a lesbian queen might just be the thing to shake up a stagnant monarchy.

Love Me Tomorrow, by Emiko Jean

After watching her parents separate, Emma has grown cynical about romance and love.  But she is forced to reconsider her hard heartedness when she starts receiving letters from someone who claims to be the love of her life in the future.  Naturally skeptical, she becomes convinced that this is for real when the letter writer starts describing personal secrets she has never (yet) shared with anyone else.  Now convinced, she begins to look for clues of the writer's identity comparing things he's let slip with things she learns about her friends.  Each new lead makes her question her decisions, wondering if this person or that person is the future letter writer and love of her life, and questioning every choice she makes.  In the end, she realizes that regardless of who this person is, she does indeed believe in love after all.

A sweet concept that serves as a launching point for Emma's development of faith and personal confidence.  With the exception of the premise, we are on familiar and satisfying territory as Emma's hard heart melts and she realizes that she is not only capable of love but she is eager to have that happy ending her pen pal from the future promises.  Along the way, she also develops a more mature understanding of her parents and the decisions that they made.  Finally, a little twist at the end provides just the right amount of uncertainty for a satisfying conclusion.

Wake the Wild Creatures, by Nova Ren Soma

Raised in a abandoned and abandoned vacation resort in the Catskills, Talia spent the first thirteen years of her life cut off from the world.  Her mother, a fugitive from justice, sheltered them in this place (called the "Neves"), which somehow was invisible to outsiders.  With time, other women (and their children) were selected to join them.  Each woman, like Talia's mother, fleeing from men -- fathers, brothers, husbands, etc. -- who have hurt them.  At the Neves, they can live in a sorority of consensus decision making and peace.

But as the community grows, its tensions grown and its contradictions start to tear it apart.  And then one day they are betrayed.  Her mother is arrested and the sanctity of the place is violated.  Captured and forced to live with an unknown aunt, Talia tries to acclimate into a new life in the outside world.  Never fitting in, she bides her time and tries to find a way to reunite with her mother and return to the Neves.

A beautifully-told magical realist novel that combines striking naturalism with Talia's keen and stark perceptions of human behavior.  Talia is the star of the show and one of the stronger and more captivating heroines that I've seen in recent YA stories.   There's plenty here about the struggles of mothers and daughters, the way women and girls mistreat each other, and a bit about sibling rivalry.  What's strikingly absent is any sort of romantic angle.  The fact that you won't miss it is testament to a story that has something meaningful to say about girls that doesn't involve angst over boyfriends (or girlfriends).  Strikingly original ideas combined with strong lyrical prose makes this an engrossing read.  It's one of those deep thinking books that will leave you pondering its meaning and messages long afterwards.  Strongly recommended.

Sometimes the Girl, by Jennifer Mason-Black

Maya's dreamed of being a writer, but after a bad mentoring experience, she's given up on her novel.  She's focused now solely on following her ex-girlfriend on a trip to New Zealand to do farming for a few months.  To earn the money to make the trip, Maya agrees to take a job helping Elsie McAllister clear out her attic.

Elsie is the author of one of the greatest novels of the previous century.  Maya and just about every other schoolchild has read the book.  Notably, Elsie never wrote a follow-up but instead faded into obscurity about the novel's publication.  Maya wonders why, of course, but Elsie isn't volunteering any answers.  Instead, Elsie issues terse instructions for how to dispose of her possessions.

Maya can't help but be curious about the old woman and as she retrieves box after box of mementos and paraphernalia of Elsie's life, inventorying the contents for her boss, she sift through them for clues.  Meanwhile, Elsie's grown children, suspicious that there may be an unpublished manuscript hiding upstairs, apply pressure to Maya to set aside anything of significant literary value.  And Elsie makes Maya promise to do no such thing.

Filled with a variety of stories, the most compelling sections have to do with the revelations about Elsie than Maya uncovers.  There's an effort to portray Maya's own life (and her struggles) as relevant or parallel, but Maya's story simply isn't as interesting.  For example, somewhere in all of this is a story about Maya's older brother committing suicide, but it barely captured my attention.  The story of Elsie's lost love and the horrid circumstances that led to her death, on the other hand, are burned into my mind. In that context, Maya brings just the right amount of grit and fortitude to make her relationship with the bitter and grumpy Elsie compelling and revealing.

This is a mature book, misclassified as YA simply because of its focus on coming of age, but actually not really focused at all on adolescence.  Part gay history and part speculation about real writers (like Harper Lee) who had only one great novel in them.

The Judgement of Yoyo Gold, by Isaac Blum

Yoyo has always been an exemplary Jewish girl, serving as a model in the way that being the rabbi's daughter seems to require.  Taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, doing well in school, and mediating for her peers is exhausting but she relishes the way it makes her feel.  In her Orthodox community, she feels at home and just hopes that she is a credit to her family.  It's hard these days because she had a close friend who had a falling out and was sent away.  The absence leaves her feeling lonely and even more committed to doing good and to counter the judging eyes of the community that she feels upon her.

She's also a teenager in contemporary society.  From a non-Orthodox acquaintance, she learns about TikTok videos.  Her own phone is filtered and social media are definitely forbidden, but she gets excited by the technology and, following a rumor, finds a boy name Shua in her community who can hack her phone.  She's surprised to find out from him that many other kids have used his help to overcome the phone filters.  It would seem that the community is not quite as virtuous and pious as she grew up thinking.

These revelations keep coming.  And when she spies on a particularly self-righteous girl from her community eating unkosher food, she's scandalized and she hatches a plan.  Following the example of others, she creates her own anonymous TikTok video in which she complains about the girl's behavior.  The post goes viral and, while Yoyo's role in it remains secret, she is enthralled by the attention it receives.  Soon, she is posting other exposes about her community.

Meanwhile, she's also finding herself tempted in other ways, especially by Shua, for whom she discovers a forbidden attraction.

A well-nuanced study of the life of a modern Orthodox girl -- a complex mix of modernism with traditional faith.  Her mature reasoning skills, tempered by her adolescent impetuousness, made for an interesting character study.  And her pride and the sense of self that she develops by the end was immensely gratifying.  

I was disappointed by her descent into cyber-bullying and her lack of genuine repentance, but justice is dealt out and lessons learned.  And I was actually surprised at the amount of freedom she had as a young woman, but much of that leeway may have been because of her responsible reputation.

Just Harriet, by Elana K Arnold

Harriet likes things to stay the way they are, but with her mother expecting a baby that doesn't seem too likely.  And when Mom gets prescribed bed rest, Harriet finds herself and her kitty sent to grandma's for the summer.  Grandma runs a bed and breakfast on an island, a place Harriet has loved visiting in the past, but not like this!

Unhappy with being away from home, unhappy that Mom and Dad are not available to her, and unhappy that everything is changing, Harriet mopes and says mean things she doesn't mean.  

Nothing makes her happy until she discovers a mysterious key.  No matter where she looks, she can't figure out what it unlocks!  She searches all over the bed and breakfast and across the island.  When she does find is mate, a lot more than she expected will be unlocked.

Falling into the trope that the most appealing early reader protagonists are bratty, Harriet is a bit much to take.  And the fact that her meanness is endlessly forgiven and indulged lessens my interest in her otherwise amusing character.  The more fatal flaw of the book, though, is its lack of a substantive story.  The mystery of the key ought to have some sort of adventure connected with it, but what happens is resolved too quickly to provide a meaningful payoff.  The artwork is cute and Harriet's naughtiness may appeal to young readers, but mostly the book seems designed for easy lessons about what mistakes Harriet makes.

Call It What You Want, by Brigid Kemmerer

Last year, Maegan got caught cheating during an SAT exam.  As a result, all of the tests in the room were invalidated and she became a social pariah.  To make matters worse, Maegan's sister has come home from college pregnant and Maegan is unable to talk about any of it with anyone outside of family. 

No one wants to work with a cheater, which is why when Maegan's Calculus class starts a project that requires a partner, there's a lack of volunteers to work with her.  The only person left is Rob and no one wants to work with Rob either.  It was Rob's father, a financial advisor, who was arrested last year for embezzling everyone's savings.  Unable to live with the shame of what he had done and how it destroyed his family, Rob's father tried to shoot himself...and missed.  Now, Rob and his mother live in a house stripped of all of their possessions (seized by the court) and tend a vegetative man.  

So, Bob and Maegen are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Placed together to work through their project, Rob and Maegan find comfort in their shared woes and open up to each other.  Any romantic feelings are deeply complicated by the judgements of their parents and peers.

While obviously addressing issues of familial guilt and forgiveness, the novel also spends considerable time on class and race, observing the strain between richer and poorer students.  The story is compelling and, while wrapped up all too neatly in the end, fairly rewarding.

Not Your Average Jo, by Grace K. Shim

Riley Jo is tired of being one of the very few Asian students in Bentonville, Arkansas. She's fed up with well-meaning people coming up to her and saying horribly insensitive things.  She dreams of going to a more diverse urban environment where she won't stand out.  And most of all, she wants to pursue her muse as a pop music guitarist. But her parents don't have a lot of money and her mother, who teaches at a local university can get Riley free tuition if she stays here.

Riley is convinced that she'll bloom elsewhere and finding a school where she can study music will be the ticket to making it as a pop singer and never having to settle down in small-town Arkansas. But as she is searching for a college that she could afford she discovers a private boarding high school for the arts that offers a contemporary music program.  And when she applies, she is accepted.  It's only for her senior year and, after she graduates, she'll have to come back home for college, but Riley hopes that within that year she'll be able to break through.

Things at school don't go as she would hope.  She discovers that prejudice and microaggressions are just as common in the big city and that the music industry is riven with racism.  She may have an opportunity to become famous, but it will cost her her self-respect.  Is it worth it?

The story is outlandish and implausible, but told in an entertaining fashion.  Riley is interesting, but she gets pretty prickly towards the end and the love interest is surprisingly played down.  Where the novel really focuses is upon prejudice (external and internal, outwardly-directed and inwardly-directed).  There's not a lot of revelations and occasionally things grow a bit preachy, but it's well-formulated.  I preferred to simply enjoy the fantasy of the storyline in which kids can just become pop stars by writing a few songs.

The (Un)popular Vote, by Jasper Sanchez

When a boy at school gets in a fight with bullies because of his sexual orientation and then is expelled, Mark bristles at the injustice.  And he decides to do something about it:  Run for class president.  Most people would point out that student government is not a place of power but Mark is the child of a US Congressman and he's been raised on politics and he understands that a position is what you make of it.  Soon, in a witty nod to the real national political landscape of social media, media buzz, focus groups, and demographic research, Mark is killing the political circuit.

But there's another story.  When Mark came out as a trans male, his father basically disowned him.  To make peace and in hopes of a reconciliation, Mark made a deal with his Dad.  He would change schools and hide his past so as not to embarrass his father.  Part of that deal was maintaining a low profile.  But when Mark hits off his very public campaign, he invites the curious school media to dig into his past, which sabotages the arrangement Mark has made with his family.

I absolutely loved the way Sanchez finds ways to evoke political America in this story of school politics.  The book is actually over five years old, but the things that Sanchez calls out are even more present now than they were when this was written.  The story of Mark's coming out is also moving, albeit a bit underplayed as it becomes a non-event in the end.  Where the story faltered however was the relationship between Mark and his father.  Dad is a very two-dimensional bigot, really incapable of any sort of development and a hugely wasted opportunity.  In other words, the congressman adds nothing to the story and really could have been removed altogether.

Finding Lost, by Holly Goldberg Sloan

When Cordy's father died, her family had to rely on the charity of their friends and neighbors.  A friend found her mother a job as a housekeeper that came with a dilapidated boathouse in which Cordy, her little brother, and Mom could live.  Two jobs gave them barely enough money to squeak by, but nothing for "UE" (unnecessary expenses).  So, when a stray dog follows Corey home from school, she knows already that it is unlikely she'll be able to keep it.  But surprisingly, Mom lets the dog stay and she names him "Lost."

A series of surprises await.  Lost leads Corey to the unusual sight of a pod of dolphins (including an apparent albino) swimming in the river. Her little brother learns of a free clinic for doing check-ups for animals.  And when they take Lost in for a check up, the veterinarian strikes up a friendship with Corey's mother that sparks into something more serious.  Corey's none too pleased that her mother appears smitten with the vet.  She worries that Mom will forget about Dad and want to leave their home.  But in the end, things work out -- just not how Corey imagined they might.

There's a bit too much happy ending in the final chapter, but up to that point the story is bittersweet with a combination of good news and bad that felt right.  Corey's intelligence and inquisitive nature shines throughout.  And even when she is making poor choices, she recognizes her flaws.  Corey's acknowledgement of her grief and the subsequent re-opening of her heart becomes compelling. A poignant and gentle story about a family in transition.

The Best Worst Summer of Esme Sun, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Esme is tired of being ignored in her family.  Her three sisters are constantly getting praised by mother for the things they do.  Mom is always bragging about their accomplishments and Esme feels left out.  But it's actually Esme's fault since she's not good at anything!  It's not that she covets her sister's trophies.  Esme is ambivalent about awards and prizes, but maybe it would be good to excel at something so her Mom would notice.  Her sisters warn her that it isn't all that great of a thing, but Esme wants to try nonetheless.

This summer on the swim team seems like it just might be the thing! She's swimming much faster than she ever has before (coach says it's because of her growth spurt).  She wins her first heat, sets personal bests, and even starts to close in on a pool record.  And most of all, she's really beginning to enjoy it and the comradery with the other team members.

But being a good team member presents challenges as Esme has to negotiate through misunderstandings and friends who choose different paths.  And as Esme starts to win, she begins to question how far she is willing to go to be a champion.  She likes to win, but is it worth it if her friends have to lose?  And when her mother takes notice and starts paying attention to her, Esme discovers that there is a cost for that maternal notice and Esme isn't sure she's comfortable with paying it.

A delightful middle reader about friendship, sportsmanship, prejudice, and making life choices.  Packed full of adventure and excitement, the story plants its lessons within comfortably familiar tween settings.  The result is an enjoyable story that will resonate with its readers.

Hangry Hearts, by Jennifer Chen

Once close friends, Julie and Randall now would never think of even speaking to each other.  Their families have been at war with each other ever since the failure of a joint restaurant venture -- a battle fought from their competing food trucks at the weekly farmer's market.  But when they are assigned to work together on a community service project, they rediscover what made them besties in the past.  A secret romance blooms between them, but before they can come clean to their families, they need to find a way to resolve their families' war.  Food plays a large role in bringing them all back together.

A narrative mess with very little romantic heat, the novel suffers.  Too many plots (the community service thread lasts only for about a third of the book and is replaced by others) complicate things and make the  story meander and stray.  I grew impatient for the story to resolve.

The co-stars range from the mildly amusing would-be suitor of Julie to her entirely obnoxious and toxic brother Tyler, but none really perform valuable service.  Instead, the story rests on the suitably interesting protagonists.  Unfortunately, there isn't much to their romance as most of it is off-the-page and lacking in drama.

A Guide to Falling Off the Map, by Zanni L Arnot

Vinnie has plans to be in charge of her school's drama club next year and also turn her success into an audition in New York at the Juilliard.  In contrast, her best friend Roo is a disaster.  He's dropped out of school and trying to make money so he and his mother don't get evicted from the last place in town where they can afford to live.  

But their fates change quickly and when Vinnie fails to get her position and finds out her plans for New York have been undermined, it would seem that they are both in trouble with little left to lose.  So, they go on a week-long road trip to try to run away from their problems.  In their meandering trip, they run into the usual colorful cast of characters and end up finding each other.

A quirky Australian YA book with a familiar motif but a lot of original ideas behind it.  There are cultural differences that will be lost on North American readers, but the universal search for self-acceptance and enduring friendships will appeal to all.  Roo and Vinnie are both vivid and original characters, interesting enough to follow through their trip.  The story may be a bit flat and dull at points, but it picks up at the end for a satisfying conclusion that is neither clean nor pretty, but ultimately feels right.