When You're Brave Enough, by Rebecca Bendheim

Growing up, Lacey and Grace have always stuck together, but the thing about being friends with extroverted Grace is that it's hard to be noticed by anyone else from the shadows.  So, when Lacey and her family move away, Lacey takes advantage of the opportunity to try to figure herself out and shine on her own.  At her new school, she goes out for the school play and gets selected for the lead part.  She finds herself accepted into the popular clique.  Things are starting to look up.

However, there is a catch.  The school's unofficial tradition is that on the final night of the show that the two leads will kiss for real.  Lacey has never kissed anyone before and she isn't sure that she wants her first kiss to be so public in front of all her friends and family.  And she isn't sure she wants the kiss to be with someone she doesn't like in the right way.

Outside of the play, she is preparing for her Bat Mitzvah and struggling nearly as much with the speech she will give during the ceremony.  But in the end, she finds that her search for the right decision in the play and her search for the right things to say in front of her congregation are part of the same struggle:  finding the strength to make the right decision despite the difficulty.

A fairly chaste middle school story about making the decisions that are right for you.  Supported by her family, her faith, and ultimately her friends, Lacie's worries and the choices she makes will be relatable to other fourteen year-olds.  The story hits all of the right notes, albeit in awfully predictable ways (for example, by invoking Anne Frank).

However, I found the pacing and exposition very uneven and difficult to follow.  So many really important scenes (the climactic kissing scene or Lacey's D'var Torah, for example) are underplayed and even buried in the story.  And other themes (like Lacey and Grace's relationship) are revealed late and in strange ways.  I understand wanting to do something original, but the story was often difficult to followat key points.  This is usually where I feel another round of drafts and stronger editing would have helped.

The Secret to Belonging, by Megan E Freeman

Living in the shadow of her drug-addicted brother, our unnamed protagonist is largely neglected by her parents.  Her brother acts up and all attention and resources are directed to "helping" him.  Time and time again, he breaks their hearts by relapsing and Mom and Dad forgive him again.  It's time to get away.  But when her college fund is stolen to pay for another round of rehab, it seems that any chance of getting away has disappeared.

Then her best friend suggests a study abroad program for high schoolers through Rotary.  With dreams of spending a year in Rome, she applies and is accepted.  But rather than getting to go to Italy as she requested, she is offered Norway.  And not just Norway, but far far in the north.  She doesn't even know where Norway is located but now she is about to live above the Arctic Circle.

It's remote and alien, but the change is transformative.  Freed from the destructive cycles of her family and presented with an alternative, she thrives and blooms.

Told in brisk verse, the story is both heartbreaking and empowering.  She is both terribly unlucky for the family she comes from and blessed by the family she moves to -- a beautiful fantasy of escape from hell. I laughed a lot, cried a little, and in the end was jealous as hell at how wonderful things turn out.  Who hasn't wanted to escape their lives to become someone else?

Chasing After Knight, by Heather Buchta

Alexa Brooks, valedictorian, track star, and general overachiever has a lot going for her.  But for the past four years, she's carried the weight of the one who got away and the boy whose heart she broke -- Carson Knight.  She wants to make amends but the problem is that he's now Cayden McKnight, an A-list movie heartthrob and Hollywood's best known bad boy.  The reputation doesn't suit him and Alexa knows in her heart that she bears some responsibility for him turning out that way.

Encouraged by her best friend, the girls hatch a plan to meet up with McKnight again and simultaneously to plot out a campaign to blow his cover and expose what a sweet guy he really is.  But Alexa has at least as many things wrong about Cayden as she has right and the further she pursues him, the more her own life falls into chaos.  She risks losing everything she's built up to pursue this one great obsession.

I really liked Buchta's first novel, Beyond the Break and picked up this one on that basis.  But they're very different books and while the heroine of the first novel had a very solid moral core, Alexa's priorities here seem more than a little off.  The discipline that gave her all of her accolades (athletic prowess, academic excellence, and leadership skills) are nowhere to be found when she's blowing her life savings on secret plane tickets to Los Angeles and sneaking into clubs.  And while I suppose there's something romantic about throwing away your life for the love of your life, it all seemed very very unnecessary and cringeworthy.

As with the first novel, it's all well written and easy to get through, but Alexa is a train wreck and it wasn't pleasant to sit on the sidelines and watch her screw up her life.  That there is a last minute deus ex machina moment that rescues her is nice, but hardly redeems a life poorly lived.

The Lions' Run by Sara Pennypacker

The other boys at the orphanage tease Lucas for being un petit eclair -- a soft pastry, a coward -- but Lucas isn't afraid to stand up to defend the weak against the strong.  And when he rescues a bag of kittens that have been tossed into the river to drown, the act sets of a chain of events.

The Second World War is entering its final days and in occupied France, little acts of bravery will get you the bad sort of notice.  Any one who wants to survive lays low.  But Lucas has a hard time doing that.  Searching for a safe place to stash the kittens, he stumbles over a young English girl who is trying to smuggle her horse out of France.  And they reluctantly agree to keep each other's secrets.

Lucas is not yet done doing his good deeds.  He smuggles goodies to his fellow orphans.  He slips extra rations to a family that has a suspiciously large number of mouths to feed.  His everyday acts of kindness bring him into contact with the Resistance, which allows him to become a courier.  And a rash act of loyalty to a young mother brings him into dangerous conflict with the Nazis. It might all very dangerous but what else can one do?   And he is far from alone:  everywhere there are people helping each other and resisting the occupiers.

Like her Pax books, Pennypacker has created another formidable allegory masquerading as a children's book.  As in those books, the material is definitely on the intense side: animal cruelty, genocide, eugenics, child abduction, and concentration camps, amongst other topics.  Her overall theme about our obligation as humans to choose, in the face of fascism, to either commit small acts of resistance or to acquiesce to collaboration is strong tea.  There is no way for a single lone orphan to topple an evil regime, but if no one tries then there is no hope.  That's an important message in a time when resistance seems to carry such a high cost.

It's intelligently written, entertaining, and thought-provoking story.  If one is going to ban books, these are the type of books a government should fear.

Some Mistakes Were Made, by Kristin Dwyer

When Ellis's family began to fall apart, she found herself spending more and more time at her friend Easton's house.  An old friend of Ellis's father, Easton's mother Sandry virtually adopted Ellis; feeding her and giving her a place to stay.  Ellis even had her own room in the house, but she preferred to crawl into Easton's bed every night for platonic spooning.

But then a tragic series of events occurred, where members of Ellis's family betrayed Easton's family and Ellis was sent to live far away with a distant aunt.  Now, a year later, Ellis has been invited back to help celebrate Sandry's birthday.  While reluctant, Ellis decides to come and face the memories of her young years and re-visit the hurt she felt when she was sent away.  The complex dynamics of Ellis and Easton's relationship are dredged up and just about everyone has pain to share.

This is one of these YA stories that I can see teens loving for the pathos and the pain, but a grownup reader is just going to cringe.  The problems start with the extremely toxic nature of Ellis and Easton's relationship -- full of blame and anger, but completely unable to truly accept personal responsibility.  It's a natural outgrowth of the unhealthy codependency they built up.  And the fault quickly spreads to their families -- not only Ellis's neglectful and selfish parents but also Easton's family.  What parent would allow unrelated adolescents to sleep together in their house for years?  To the extent that there is any development of the adult characters, it seems that they are basically checked out on their parenting duties.

It isn't that just some mistakes were made.  It's that a lot of mistakes were made and compounded again and again.  And that these characters can dredge up their grudges and their bitter memories repeatedly doesn't make for uplifting reading.  So, yes, there's plenty of pain here, but you just wish that they would all just walk away from each other.   With the volume of past bad decisions, the characters' inability to forgive, and everyone's tendency to repeat and recycle the same stuff again and again, this is plain exhausting.  I kept hoping for a breakthrough, but it just never comes.  

So, young readers, pay attention:  this novel may have "all the feels" but it is a textbook for what bad relationships, child neglect, and a general inability to grow look like.  It is well enough written, but the overwhelmingly unhealthy nature of the relationships depicted was a huge turn off.

Kestrel Takes Flight, by Joy McCullough

Kestrels are small, but fierce raptors that are capable of finding homes in a wide variety of places -- a point that sixth-grader Kestrel notes with pride.  One night Kestrel gets her own opportunity to prove it.  Her mother spirits her out of the house that they share with Kestrel's grandfather.  They end up at a unique center where Karelians, a special type of dog bred for interacting with bears, are trained to help keep humans and bears separated.  It's fascinating work and for a good cause but Kestrel is terrified of dogs and immediately misses her grandfather.

With time, Kestrel settles in her new home and becomes more comfortable with the dogs, learning their nuances and how to interact with them.  At the same time, she grows to understand that her grandfather was actually abusing them and that she is better off in her new home.

Told in prose verse, this story about overcoming emotional abuse and finding a new family plays all the appropriate emotional notes in an age-appropriate way.  The verse itself is disappointing.  It lacks any particularly memorable passages, being more of a sketch draft of the story where short sentences replace storytelling.  It leaves gaps in storytelling and covers a multitude of narrative flaws, but feels superficial and unfinished.

K-Jane, by Lydia Kang

Living in white-bread Nebraska, there are not a lot of Koreans around and Jane has always been more into the Huskers and American food than anything to do with Korea. Her white friends are actually far more interested than she is in all things Korean (K-pop, K-dramas, and K-beauty).  But with the impending birth of her baby brother, Jane suddenly feels that she and her incipient sibling have been deprived of their heritage and she becomes committed to rectifying that.

Her solution is to research aspects of Korean culture and create videos about them.  She knows better than to post them to a general audience and simply shares them with her cousins.  But what starts as a small little hobby becomes so all-consuming that soon it is impacting Jane's school work and affecting her friendships.  And when her parents find out, they are none too pleased -- and that is become the videos accidentally get released to the world and go viral!

Looking at the cover, I feared that the book would be heavy with pop references and light on character development and almost didn't check it out.  But I actually found that it was actually the reverse and enjoyed it a good deal. There's plenty Korean stuff in the book, but the message in the end is that one isn't obligated to know one's background or like things just because they are considered cultural treasures.  In sum, a light and fun read with a classic YA message about finding one's place within one's culture.  

Winter White: A Modern Retelling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, by Annie Cardi

Pia and her brother Max live off the grid in rural Maine with their father.  The highlight of Pia's life in the semi-annual trips that she gets to take into town with her father.  Otherwise, both Pia and Max are kept at home and not allowed to see other people.  

But when an accident happens and father is not able to do his various chores, he reluctantly allows Pia to take the truck and run deliveries of eggs and wool for him into town.  Quickly, Pia begins to understand that the deliveries are not really farm products.  Dad's running a lab and supplying the local junkies with Fentanyl.  And if they are surviving on the proceeds of drug production, she starts to wonder what else he is hiding from them.

At the same time she makes these discoveries, the trips into town help her meet a few local young people and befriend them.  While her father's warnings to stay away from strangers ring in her ears, her curiosity about other young people override her raising.  And when she meets a boy named Felix, it sparks recognition of a past that has been locked away in her mind for the past ten years.

While described as a "retelling" of Shakespeare, there is only a thin connection between this novel and the play.  It might be better described as being inspired by the story.  Character names are similar and the idea of past events coming to affect the present is part of both stories.  But the settings, the situations, and the lack of a comedic angle in the novel to match the play's second half make this a very different story.  Even the miracle ending (so famous in the play) is only a passing aside in this book.  I'd have hardly drawn the connection without having it called out.

But in the end, none of this really matters.  This is a good story with a strong protagonists, an interesting love interest, very tense family setting, and enough impending dread to keep the pages turning, especially towards the end.  I enjoyed it all.

All We Once Had, by Katy Upperman

Three years ago, Piper and Henry shared a moment at the apartment pool one night.  It was a magical moment that did not repeat.  Henry was at the end of a short visit to see his Dad and the next day, he was gone.  Piper thought she'd never see him again, but now Henry has returned to town.

He's come back with some emotional baggage.  A bad breakup and trouble at home has led his mother to shipping him to his Dad for the summer.  Dad's a wild guy, running a local sports bar and quick to offer everyone a drink and partake alongside them.  He's the opposite of responsible parenting, but Henry doesn't need much parenting -- he's straight edge and preparing himself for entering West Point.  He just needs to get his head on straight.

The situation could not be any more different for Piper and her older sister Tati, who was forced six years ago to become Piper's guardian after the death of their parents.  Tati overcompensates for the lack of their parents by running a strict house.  Piper responds to this by acting up and sparring constantly with her sister.

Opposites attract though as everyone learns to straighten out their lives and live happily ever after.  The overly rosy happy ending ties up every a bit too neatly and detracts from an actually good story about forgiveness and moving on.  I cringed a bit when the Henry's Dad and Tati started dating and Henry himself was a bit too squeaky clean for me.  But if you like awkward parental dating and perfect boyfriends, you'll swoon for this story!  That's being a bit unfair though as there is a fair amount of substance here, just in a pretty safe for younger teens way.

Reason We Break, by Jesmeen Kaur Deo

Rajan is back home on probation after a stint in juvie for a variety of crimes including murder, committed when he was a member of the Lion's Share -- a local Indo-Chinese gang.  Now that he's back, his probation officer wants to keep him away from his gangbanger friends.  Part of that is getting him through school, which will be a challenge because Rajan has always struggled with math.

Simran's an overachiever, brilliant at school, and a volunteer at a local outreach that helps people on probation. She gets assigned to help Rajan with his studies.  She already knows Rajan from school, but mostly from reputation.  And she has a sense that Rajan is not as bad as they say.  Always a bit of a softie for charity cases, she's committed to saving him -- a decision that scandalizes her friends and their Sikh community.  Even casually associating with Rajan could ruin her reputation.  Rajan, they say, is nothing but trouble.  Rajan's definitely in plenty of trouble.  He owes money and has no way to come up with it in time to save himself.  There's not a lot of space here for romance.  

So far, so West Side Story...but Simran has an unexpected trick up her sleeve. The gang needs someone with math skills and Simran might just have what they need.  Without Rajan's knowledge she offers her skills to the gang to free Rajan of his obligations.  But doing so will cost her much more than she realizes.  And by the time Rajan realizes what she's done, it's too late and it has dragged them both into the middle of a gang war.

Good girl bad boy hookups are fun stuff and the Romeo and Juliet doomed romance is classic, but when the honors student turns out to have the negotiating skills of a Corleone, things start to get really interesting.  It's a premise that sounds really implausible on its face, but within the novel it works really well.  And full of the color of its setting within the Canadian Sikh community, this is a really distinctive story.

The Glass Girl, by Kathleen Glasgow

Bella knows how to party.  And she's great with her friends on a Friday night.  But she also likes to drink at home.  It mellows her out and smooths out the edges.  Given her excellent grades, being good at helping her parents, and a fantastic older sister, Bella figures she has it all under control.  Her Dad drinks plenty and her grandmother used to actually give her glasses of wine.  She's not addicted and she has it all under control.  Under control, that is, until she starts having black outs and ends up almost dead on her own front porch.

Involuntarily sent to rehab by her parents, she has to confront a host of demons that have brought her down to this point.  It's hard going as she sorts out her family's attitude towards alcohol, her poor coping strategies, and her resistance to seeking help.  There are small victories, but she keeps making mistakes, suffering one relapse after another, and discovering that the path to sobriety and healthy living is a lifetime journey.

At nearly 450 pages, this is a long read.  And while the pacing is sometimes off (the pre-rehab material has a really slow start while the post-rehab stuff went by far too quickly), it's hard to identify anything that could have been effectively cut.  This is a very thorough story and well-told.  Bella's addiction and the reasons for it are clear and the obstacles she faces equally straightforward.  Whether you want to read such a detailed story of alcoholism is another matter, but if watching Bella hit rock bottom and pull herself out feeds an emotional need for a story of redemption, then this is a pretty good read.  And no, there's no conclusive happy ending here.  By the last pages, we can see that Bella has made progress but backsliding is just a page away and nothing in the book suggests that Bella's life will be happily ever after.  That felt right.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price, by Holly Jackson

For most of her life, Bel has lived without her Mom and without knowing what happened to her.  When she was only two years old, Rachel Price was abducted and baby Bel was left abandoned in their car.  The mystery was never solved and Rachel was eventually presumed dead by most people (although never declared so).  Now, a documentary film crew is working on the story, interviewing the family and digging up a lot of memories.

One night, in the midst of all the interviews, Rachel Price appears on their doorstep.  It comes out that she has been kept alive but imprisoned by an unknown stranger for the past sixteen years.  The family cautiously rejoices in Rachel's return, but things don't quite sit right with Bel.  In the next few weeks, Bel keeps finding inconsistencies in her mother's story.  The rest of the family is acting strange as well.  The deeper Bel digs, the more it becomes clear that the real story of Rachel's absence is far more complicated that anyone is admitting.

A very long whodunit with one twist after another -- and at least one or two twists too many.  There's a very good build up to the story over the first 300 or so pages, but it just keeps going and going, with each new plot twist becoming just a bit less plausible than the last one.  This undermines the really nice sleuthing in the beginning as the story becomes increasingly unrealistic.  By the end, I gave up and just rode along to see when this would all stop.  It was ultimately disappointing, and I am surprised by how popular the book is.

Lying About Last Summer, by Sue Wallman

Still grieving a year after the tragic and violent death of her older sister, Skye gets sent to a summer program for grieving teens.  There she meets others who have lost loved ones and explores their shared experiences.  The story gets spiced up when Skye suddenly starts to receive text messages from her dead sister.  Someone has hacked her sister's accounts, but who would do such a thing?  Given the timing, she suspects one of her fellow campers is trying to mess with her head and she homes in on one boy who she notices is trying to manipulate and control the others in the group.  However, in the end, it turns out the texts are coming from an entirely different source.

An average summer read with a plot twist.  The main storyline (of the mysterious message-sender) is a false flag, which is just as well since the guilty party isn't even introduced until page 200.  It's not badly written, but rather terribly executed.  Ordering the events in the story better for dramatic impact and stripping out the superfluous materials (starting with the largely pointless flashbacks) would have done wonders.  Too much of this book is spent on scenes that have nothing to do with the story and the ending is rushed through far too quickly.  Lots of nice ideas, but it's all under-edited and rushed out.

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.