When You Open Your Eyes, by Celeste Conway

In the exotic setting of the expatriot community of Buenos Aires, Tessa and her friends live fun, but dangerous lives of parties in seedy tango bars, chauffeurs, and drugs and alcohol.  While Tessa thinks she knows what she is doing, she finds herself head over heels infatuated with a smoldering and disturbed French boy named Lucien.  She's the daughter of the legal attache to the US Embassy and he's the son of the cultural attache of the French Embassy.  Together, they make beautiful art and steamier romance.  But Lucien is a troubled young man and his needs may be a bit too much for Tessa to cope with.

As anyone who's ever tried to "help" a friend who really needed professional help knows, it's easy to fall into the trap of going from being a good friend to being in too deep.  And when love and lust are involved (never mind throwing in an exotic locale), it's easy to get sucked in.  Conway does a good job of showing that trap slowly forming and of showing how easy it is for Tess to get trapped.  She also does an amazing job with the setting, depicting with great detail what life in Argentina is like for an expatriot teen.  What works less well for me is the story itself, which heads in one particular direction for the first 264 pages, but shifts to a completely different trajectory in the last 40 or so.  The split is so dramatic that it is basically like reading a different book.  I felt cheated out of my "original" story.  It's certainly foreshadowed so I can't complain that it came from nowhere, but the complete abandonment of the central characters and core plot elements makes the ending feel orphaned.

Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

The "me" of the title is Greg Gaines, an angry neurotic Jewish kid with self-loathing issues (think Eminem meets an Annie Hall-era Woody Allen).  Greg has made a committed effort to be a casual acquaintance of everyone at school without allowing himself to be labeled as part of any one group.  By being stand-offish, he avoids being labeled (positively or negatively).

Earl is Greg's friend-of-sorts.  Angry in his own way and generally hostile to everyone around him, Earl's in-your-face attitude make a perfect foil for Greg's low-profile.  What brings them together is a love for art films and their own collaborations creating the world's worst remakes (which Greg also reviews for our edification).  These are films that aim to rival Werner Herzog, but (in their own words) "suck donkey dick."

The dying girl is Rachel, with whom Greg has been only passively acquainted through the years.  But when she is diagnosed with leukemia, Greg and Earl find themselves drawn into her confidence.  Much to Greg's surprise, it turns out she loves Greg's humor and Greg and Earl's home movies.

What develops isn't heart-warming (or especially deep).  As Greg constantly reminds us, he isn't the type of guy that would fall into that particular rut.  Instead, we get a story that portrays these three angry teens in a fairly honest fashion, showing how they relate to each other and develop an unexpected alliance together.

An unfair comparison for this novel would be with John Green's Fault in Our Stars.  Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl is neither as nuanced nor as funny as John Green's witty look at pediatric oncology.  However, this story does have its charms.  While Greg and Earl's lewd banter can get old and tired, the riff has an unrelenting honesty to it.  Andrews rigorously and aggressively avoids sentimentality, even as he (through Greg's voice) acknowledges (and even mocks) how much the reader wants an easy out.  At times, this works and keeps the readers on their toes, but I'm a sucker for an emotional uplift and the unrelenting dreariness of this tale became oppressive.  The lack of payoff is realistic and authentic, but aesthetically unappealing to me.

The Princesses of Iowa, by M. Molly Backes

[Note:  I've been on the road for the past two weeks, so haven't had an opportunity to post my reviews, but I have been reading so I'll try to catch up here over the next couple of days]

After Paige is involved in a car accident, her image-conscious mother decides to ship her off to Paris until things calm down, in order to preserve Paige's shot at being elected Homecoming Queen.  This leaves behind her best friend Lydia injured and other friend Nikki grief-stricken, without any explanation.  Returning home several months later, Paige finds her friends distant and changed, and a general sense that she will not be allowed to mend fences with them.  Her boyfriend now devotes all his attention to Lydia who (as everyone reminds Paige) is "going through a difficult time." What about Paige?  Paris wasn't exactly a joy ride and she misses her friends!  Senior year is a turning out a far cry from the dreams that the three girls had when they were growing up.

To the rescue comes a creative writing class that Paige is taking at school.  Taught by a young grad student, she is encouraged to channel her anger and frustration and "use it" to write.  In the process, she discovers new friends and explores new options, opening herself to the idea that the world may mean a lot more than being a "princess." Paige's mother, still obsessed with the old dream, continues to push Paige in a direction that she is no longer certain she wants to go.

A fairly lengthy book, which felt artificially drawn out by dialogues that never quite finish.  When you can pinpoint a hundred-odd pages that could have been eliminated by simply completing a sentence, you know the story's in trouble.  Tighter would have been better.  Or maybe it's simply the characters that drove me nuts.  Paige didn't really show much sign of being nice until about page 350.  That's a long time to hold out hope for her redemption!  And her peers were far worse.  Basically, these weren't people I wanted to get to know (in some cases, they were people I actively wanted to run away from!).  So, a story that dragged on and characters that didn't appeal basically defeated some strong writing -- in sum, a beautifully depicted world that I didn't want to get to know.

Speechless, by Hannah Harrington

Chelsea likes to have the dirt on folks and she loves good gossip.  That is, until she catches Noah and another guy in flagrante delicto in a bedroom at a party. The news is so juicy that, without even thinking, she blabs about the whole thing to everyone she sees.  But what seems like so much fun takes a sinister turn when Noah is beaten into a coma by two boys that Chelsea told.  Wracked by guilt, she turns them in to the police and her troubles begin.

Labeled a snitch, Chelsea is shunned by her classmates.  She decides that the root of her troubles lie in her inability to keep her mouth shut, so she takes a "vow of silence" and refuses to speak aloud.  Without the ability to speak (and defend herself), Chelsea begins to notice things about herself and her peers that she never did before.  And in that silence, she gains understanding, new friends, and an opportunity at a new life.

As a Quaker, I naturally love a story about the power of silence.  For a normal teenager, it must seem like a horrendous ordeal, but I think Chelsea shows us quite well what it can do.  In fairness, however, she is actually hardly ever silent since she is the narrator of the story.  Instead, we have to imagine what it must be like for her friends and family who don't benefit from her inner dialogue as we do.

The story itself is not all that remarkable.  The plot is predictable (self-centered girl learns to care about others and conquers her enemies with kindness), but it is of course a winner.  You can't not root for Chelsea as the bad guys keep getting in shots -- you want revenge just as much as she does.  So, you flip the pages in anticipation of the payback.  Other parts are less compelling.  The romance is warm, but nothing terribly exciting (which is surprising for a Teen Harlequin novel).  The repartee at the workplace (a diner) is meant to be interesting but also feels a bit like we're going through the motions.  Even the bullies and the clueless teachers seem lackluster.   The energy simply isn't there.  Readable, but not surprising.

Tangerine, by Edward Bloor

Paul Fisher may be legally blind, but he notices a lot of things around him. He sees the way that the ospreys steal the koi out of the artificial lakes (not an alligator or a human thief as the adults suppose).  He sees the way that his father obsesses over older brother Erik's football successes (while ignoring Paul's soccer prowess).  He sees the tensions between the rich kids in Lake Windsor Downs and the farmers' children in Tangerine.  Yet, he doesn't seem to remember how he lost his vision (he's told it was due to staring at a solar eclipse, but he vaguely recalls a different series of events).

And with this knowledge, Paul is thrown by a series of events onto the soccer team at Tangerine middle school, a group of kids so unlike Paul that they have a lesson or two to teach him - about the game and his life.  The result is a thrilling sports novel and an enlightening story about loyalty and honesty.  Some fun facts about citrus farming are an added bonus.

For a book that is definitely targeted at boys, this is an odd pick for me.  But I've always said that what draws me to a good read is the characters and the message.  Bloor has written a fascinating book that combines an appealing story about awkward friendship with some great social commentary.  Paul is a great character, with some geekiness and yet a clear sense of social justice and the strength to stand up for the right thing (even when the adults around him won't do so).  These are the ingredients for building a classic that his endured for multiple reprintings.  It's amazing to think that this was Bloor's first novel.

Burn for Burn, by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

Liliya, Kat, and Mary have all suffered injustices.  In each case, the source of their suffering is caused by the cruelty of a specific person.  And when chance brings the girls together and allows them to compare notes, they discover a mutual desire for revenge.  So, while the girls have nothing in common beyond that wish, they bond nonetheless.  And along the way to realizing their rather twisted dreams, they come to understand each other and become unlikely allies (if not friends).

Team-written novels are usually painful ego-stroking exercises, best left in rough draft at a writers' retreat.  Their sole source of entertainment is watching the authors try to trip each other up (see, for example, anything written with David Levithan).  Thus, it is notable how well this one actually works.  I recognize all the beach town details as Han's milieu and the insights on clique psychology are Vivian's strength, but the writing is stylistically seamless and the reader doesn't trip over abrupt shifts from one author to the other.

The characters are quite interesting (as both Han and Vivian excel at building strong complex young heroines).  These are dark people and it takes quite a bit to make ostensibly mean girls into interesting (and even sympathetic) characters, but the book largely succeeds.  Liliya, torn between her loyalty to her best friend Rennie and simultaneously helping Kat exact revenge against Rennie has particularly complex motivations.  All three girls waver a bit on their convictions as they find that their commitment to striking back is not necessarily iron-clad.

The story itself is less smooth, and this is ultimately what defeats the tale.  In all the effort to collaborate, Han and Vivian can't quite figure out where they want the story to go.  And there are tantalizing subplots (including one that suggests supernatural forces at play) that never get developed.  The ending is particularly wimpy and seemed more like the authors just got tired of the exercise and threw in the towel.



Final Note:  There is absolutely NOTHING in this book that says "trilogy" (aside from the atrocious ending), so the recent announcement that this is part one of the "Burn for Burn Trilogy" is obviously a cynical post-publication marketing ploy.  The story doesn't have enough steam to justify two more books, so I won't hold my breath for the rest of the series.  I wish Han and Vivian would both focus on putting out good books instead of trying to cash in on the trilogy craze!

Openly Straight, by Bill Konigsberg

Rafe has been out of the closet for years.  The kids at school in Boulder know about him, his parents are super supportive, and his best friend (a girl named Claire Olivia) totally has his back.  But when Rafe transfers to an all-boys boarding school in New England, he decides he wants to try something different.  Instead of being out and proud, he'll keep his sexuality to himself.  After years of being the "gay" kid at school, Rafe wants to experience being "normal." He's tired of having his sexuality define who he is to others.

At first, the plan works great.  Rafe goes out for sports and becomes "one of the guys" hanging with a group of jocks whom Rafe can't imagine being so close with back home.  But things get complicated as Rafe tries to get Claire Olivia and his parents to understand why he's back in the closet.  And as Rafe's attempts to evade the question of his sexual orientation at his new school become white lies and the white lies become outright deception, Rafe discovers that he's in a trap (of his own making).

Surprisingly interesting and effective.  Decent gay literature is hard to come by and a book that goes far beyond the whole coming-out scenario to explore what being "gay" really means when you are a teen are rarer.  Konigsberg writes well with a good ear for boys.  The characters are strong and interesting.  And while placing the story at an all-boys boarding school won't win any prizes for originality, the story itself is fresh.

[Disclosure:  I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher, but no other compensation.  I am donating my copy to the Middleton Public Library after I finish with it]

Gorgeous, by Paul Rudnick

After Becky Randle's mother dies, she receives a surprise message to contact Tom Kelly (the world's preeminent fashion designer).  It appears that, despite their trailer park existence, Mom had a famous life before Becky was born.

Tom Kelly invites Becky to New York with an even more extraordinary invitation:  an offer to transform her into the Most Beautiful Woman in the World with an mysterious dose of magic.  Famous stars and glitzy life awaits Becky as her supernatural looks give her access to a world she could never have imagined.  From co-staring in a blockbuster action pic with heartthrob Jate Mallow to meeting Crown Prince Gregory of England, nothing is beyond her reach.  But she knows that all this fame is based upon her external appearance (and an appearance which itself is achieved through deception).  What everyone would think if they knew the true Becky Randle?

The story is not all that special -- a sweet story about finding your inner beauty wrapped in a  coating of magic and a huge dollop of outrageous romantic fantasy.  The charm of the book is really in the writing.  Rudnick is a would-be Faulkner, easily spinning out sentences that fill half a page, but which sound much more like the verbal diarrhea of a ninth-grader than a southern literary giant.  A cornucopia of cultural references and social satire are buried in these long-winded sentences and they deserve at least re-read or two.  Still, it can all get a bit too precious and even clever writing can't save a story that is more wishful and silly than meaningful.


[Disclosure:  I received a free advance copy of the book to review, but will be donating it to the Public Library.  I received no other compensation for this review.]

Not That Kind of Girl, by Siobhan Vivian

Natalie has learned a lot in her first three years of high school.  She's seen the way that when boys and girls get into trouble, it's the girl who gets all the blame.  Her best friend Autumn got humiliated that way in freshman year and she still deals with the shame of it!  If Natalie had her way, the girls would receive a special orientation session on watching your reputation.

Natalie is a strong-minded young woman, with good grades and the esteem of principal and her teachers.  She even wins the position of class president -- one of only nine girls to do so at her school.  Two things threaten her position:  the antics of a girl in the freshman class who challenges Natalie's notions of propriety and a whirlwind romance with a guy on the football team which Natalie must keep secret from the school at all costs to prevent the exact type of scandal from which she wants to protects other girls.

It's a strikingly insightful book about agency and self-identity.  On a broad stage, Vivian brings in the major debate between feminists who argue that women need to seize control of their sexuality and others who argue that women cannot "play the game with the boys" in a world that is so stacked towards patriarchy.  She then pitches the conflict in terms that young readers will understand -- the struggle between desire and reputation, and the anger and frustration that that struggle creates in the minds of young women.  Whether it's young Spencer's attempts to control the boys with her sexuality or Natalie's grasping for a safe space to experience sexual pleasure, it's powerful stuff and should give most readers food for thought.  Obviously girls will relate more readily to the material, but boys could stand reading it as well.

Natalie is a great character -- she's strong-minded, independent, and well-spoken.  Her positions make sense and are laudable -- it is easy to identify with her and even admire her.  So, watching her struggle and make mistakes is hard for the reader, even as it feels authentic and plausible.  There is that strong sense (maybe even a degree of horror at the realization) that we would do the same things in her position.  The ending (and ultimate resolution of Natalie's issues) comes on a bit too quickly and easily, but the point has been well-made by then:  when in the business of telling yourself "who you are" and "who you are not," you need to consider what you are trying to achieve.  Does labeling yourself and others bring you comfort or simply stress you out?  Siobhan Vivian's novel begs the reader to figure it out for themselves.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, by Joe Schreiber

In his senior year, Peter's family decides to host a Lithuanian exchange student named Gobi.  They knew it would be an interesting cultural experience, but they didn't quite count on what they got.  Gobi turns out to be a wallflower in baggy clothes who is painfully shy.  During the nine months she stays with them, she barely communicates, makes no friends, and by the end Peter awkwardly avoids being around her.  So, when Peter's parents decide that Peter should take Gobi to the prom, Peter objects.  But Peter has always been cowed by his parent's demands and soon enough Peter and Gobi are on their way to the Prom.

As they are heading to the Prom, Gobi promises Peter that, before the night is over, he'll understand her a lot better than he does now.  Peter doesn't know how to take that statement or what it means.  But when Gobi pulls out a gun and leads Peter on a nerve-wracking marathon across New York City knocking off bad guys, Peter realizes that his initial perceptions of her have all missed their mark!

Fast and fun, there's nothing like a genre-defying book!  If we're going to search for a mash-up, this is probably Risky Business's Joel meets La Femme Nikita (although I like the review that called it "Nick and Norah's Infinite Hit List").  Despite the over-the-top action, there's a surprising amount of depth to Peter and Gobi and a nice chemistry between them (although Gobi is primarily relegated to Schwarzenegger-ish monotone).  And, like a good action movie, there's humor to drive the story along.  I enjoyed the combination of a coming-of-age story with serious gun play and fast car chases.

And then there's the central conceit of the story: the way that each chapter is introduced with a real-life college application essay question, which is then answered in the chapter itself.  This works surprisingly well (and also reminded me a bit of Risky Business).

Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters, by Meredith Zeitlin

When Kelsey starts ninth grade, she's committed to the idea that this is the year that she is finally going to step out.  She has her eyes on Jordan, a star on the boy's soccer team, and she figures she'll get him to notice her by doing well on the girl's team.  But this plan (and most of her other ones) go astray (sometimes spectacularly) as she struggles through her first year of high school.  Good friends, however, provide support as she learns many life lessons.

It's a readable, but unremarkable story -- basically, a series of familiar tropes ranging from family (mother-daughter conflict, obnoxious younger sister, and clueless father) to peers (disappointing crushes, unexpected knights in shining armor, etc.).  This is not necessarily bad, but it makes the book painfully predictable.  I understand the appeal, but did we really need yet another example of the genre?

This Is Not A Test, by Courtney Summers

Six teens get trapped at their high school when the Zombie Apocalypse starts.  Even before the kids have managed to secure the entrances and fortify their perimeter, they are sniping at each other.  Partially, it's baggage from the past, but several key events (revealed slowly over the course of the book) have taken place in the week since the world started going crazy and before the story proper begins.  The result is a story more like Lord of the Flies than The Evil Dead.

The central character, Sloane, is initially the most unstable.  She's angry at her sister for running away from their abusive father six months before.  Left on her own to face a hellish homelife, Sloane grew suicidal (even before people around her started getting killed).  It is ironic then that, as the hopelessness of the situation grows, it is Sloane who develops survival instincts.

It's a decent book that suffers from trying to do too much.  As a coming-of-age story about domestic abuse, sibling separation, and even interpersonal relations in the hallways of Cortege High, the novel works.  Even as a zombie adventure story, it works pretty well (plenty of adventure and dramatic events).  But combined together, the pace fluctuates too much.  The dialogue seems whiny and drags on too long.  The zombie action feels like a story from an entirely separate book.  It is jarring mash-up.

Rotten, by Michael Northrop

When Jimmer returns home at the end of the summer, his buddies are desperate to find out where he's been.  He claims he was at his Aunt's all summer, but they suspect it was juvie he was "visiting." Jimmer himself isn't saying and in fact is trying to avoid the subject, just as he's trying to avoid his ex-girlfriend and lay low.  Matters are complicated by a new addition to the household.  While he was away, Mom has adopted a Rottweiler named Johnny.  Boy and dog quickly bond, but will they be able to stick together?  And will the people around them forgive their pasts and their reputations?

It's a boy book and a dog book, which means that there are at least two reasons why I normally wouldn't touch it.  But it came as an unsolicited ARC and I was short on reading material, so I decided to expand my repertoire and give it a try.  The story isn't big on character development and the boys are generally pretty limited (and dumb), but the story grows on you and you do end up caring for the dog.

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, by Julie Schumacher

When Adrienne injures her knee right before the summer begins, her plans to go canoeing with her best friend are ruined.  Instead, she's stuck moping around the house or spending time at the pool, bored out of her mind.  Seeing this, her mother gets the idea of forming a mother-daughter book discussion group along with three of her friends.  The problem with this is two-fold:  book clubs aren't very cool when you're seventeen and none of the daughters like each other.

In addition to Adrienne, there's rich and popular CeeCee who won't crack a book, Jill is unsociable and distrusts CeeCee, and then there's weird and mysterious Wallace (who none of them can figure out).  They don't like their situation, but the girls are basically stuck with each other.  So, together, they try to make sense of a series of classic books, and figure each other along the way.

The story has potential and the blurb on the book jacket is a big draw, but ultimately this story falls flat (or, maybe better said, never comes together in the first place).  Schumacher has high ambitions, peppering the story with analogies to the classic books the girls are reading.  But what should have been the greatest strength of the book -- the mismatching personalities of the girls themselves -- never quite develops.  Instead, we get a confusing series of vignettes and subplots that fail to gel.  The characters are smart and intelligent (both child and adult), but ultimately not interesting to drive a story that ought to be about the girls themselves.

The Girl With Borrowed Wings, by Rinsai Rossetti

As my ardent followers know, I rarely find a book that I consider perfect, and anytime I do find a four-star book, it is major news.  Instead, I prefer to break my books down, picking away at them, as if I could control them and shape them.  In this way, I am very much like the father of Frenenqer Paje, the heroine of this haunting, amazing, and original novel.

The literal storyline of this book is of a young woman, who has been shaped by her father through constant emotional (and physical) abuse to be the perfect woman -- a dream he developed years before she was born, in a field of sunflowers near Santiago Spain.  Now living in an oasis somewhere in the United Arab Emirates, an adolescent Frenenqer is trying to form a sense of self-identity.

One day, she happens upon a dying cat in a souk and rescues it (against the demands of her father).  The cat turns out to be a shape-shifter and a "free" person, becoming a beautiful boy that Frenenqer names "Sangris." Sangris fulfills a long-held fantasy of Frenenqer's by growing wings and secretly spiriting her away to faraway destinations (both terrestrial and otherworldly).

A romance develops, but in a totally unexpected and surprisingly organic fashion.  This is fitting as Frenenqer is no friend of romance ("He.  Does there have to be a he?  It seems weak and unoriginal doesn't it, for stories told by girls to always have a he?") Frenenqer loves the freedom that Sangris brings her, but recognizes that using Sangris's wings to escape her father's tyranny is hardly liberating.  Rather, it is trading one form of subjugation for another.

Desperate to find love and agency on her own terms, she struggles to navigate between the worlds of her father and of Sangris to find a path that works for her.  It is not an easy path, but the end result is surprisingly authentic.  The book's conclusion definitely raised the temperature of the room a few degrees!

The story operates on so many levels.  As a paranormal romance, it works fine, although a reader might wonder at the harshness of the characters, at the sheer cruelty of the father.  The characters are clear and understandable, their inner conflicts instantly recognizable as the universal struggles of self-understanding and the search for social acceptance.  Frenenqer's conflicts between being a good daughter and being a self-confident young woman are authentic and familiar.  The narrative is beautiful, with numerous quotable passages.

But the novel has so much more going on.  It is the type of story that begs a generation of literature majors to write dull and boring theses about it that quote obscure French literary critics.  It is the book that high school English teachers who abandoned graduate school ABD years ago assign to their honors students in hopes that the kids will get it.  And it's the novel that publicists hope they can figure out a way to explain and sell well enough so that at least a sufficient number of public librarians will purchase it to turn a profit.  Rossetti may never write another book like this (it has too much of her heart displayed in it), but it ought to be sufficient on its own.  Truly, a classic to be!

Zoe Letting Go, by Nora Price

When Zoe's mother drops her off at the Twin Birch facility, she won't explain why she is doing so.  But Zoe quickly realizes that the other five girls there suffer from eating disorders.  That just heightens the mystery since Zoe isn't like that!  She keeps an eye on what she eats, but she doesn't starve herself like those girls do!  Still, there's something about Zoe that seems to bother the other girls, and it creeps Zoe out that no one will tell her what it is.

The edginess of the opening is quite a draw and I had high hopes for something unusual to come from this novel.  Unfortunately, after the excellent set-up, Price opts for a more traditional rehabilitation story in the end.  There's some mystery in the details, but in the end, there really is something wrong with Zoe (she just needs to figure it out)!  And the author takes so long to deliver the answers that most readers will have figured the whole thing out long before Zoe does.  That slow pace, combined with the loss of that initial creepiness, were the key disappointments.

On the positive side, I liked the author's idea of inserting recipes into the story -- a nice device in a novel about eating!  And some of the recipes sounded pretty good!

That Time I Joined the Circus, by J. J. Howard

After Lexi's father dies, she is thrown out on the street with only a rough sense of where to find her estranged mother.  Mom, it seems, has joined the circus!  But when Lexi catches up with the outfit, she finds out that her mother has moved on.  With no idea of where to find the woman and no viable means of support, Lexi is forced to take the only option available to her: join the circus herself.

After the dramatically-predictable rough start, she gradually finds her place amidst the company, makes new friends, and rebuilds her life.  And through flashbacks, we gradually come to understand how she ended up here.  A series of convenient plot twists at the end send the story in wild directions, but Lexi at least grows a bit from her experience before it wraps up.

It all starts off well, but with poor plotting, this is hard to get through.  The flashbacks are at least part of the problem.  For the device to be effective, they have to correspond in some way to the present.  But here they are used primarily to delay the development of the story (what horrible thing did Lexi do?  why won't her friends talk to her?).  And then there's that crazy ending.  It comes largely from nowhere (and relies on information that wasn't even hinted at before -- lack of foreshadowing is always a winner with me!).  Mostly, it just seemed like a desperate attempt to close the story.  Happy endings are fine, but when even the character comments about what a crazy string of good luck she's had, you know something's fishy!


[Disclosure: I received an advance reader's copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of writing this review.]

Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible, by Suzanne Kamata

Aiko tries to keep a low profile.  Her cerebral palsy gives her a limp and a stiff arm, which she doesn't like people noticing.  But privately, she imagines herself as Gadget Girl -- the amazingly dextrous heroine of a manga zine that she writes and illustrates.

Most of all, she dreams of going to Japan, to have the chance to meet her father -- an indigo farmer -- whom she has never seen.  But instead, her Mom takes her to Paris, where Aiko becomes close with a gorgeous guy who gets her to think beyond her limitations and step out into the light.

All of which will make it seem like there is an awful lot going on in this story!  From classic movie references to indigo plants to exotic food and music references, Kamata's interests are diverse.  And, as writers are generally encouraged to write what they know, she's drawn to write about many things.  As for the writing itself, it's fine, but not in any major outstanding way.  The book is a good read and the plot moves along at a decent pace.  The story mostly stands on some particularly strong scenes, a bit of wish-fulfillment, and a sentimental streak that ties everything together.  It's enjoyable and I don't mind giving a shout out for it.

This charming book comes out in May 2013 and is well-worth reading.



[Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book from the author for the purpose of creating this review.  I received no further compensation and will be donating the book to the Middleton Public Library book sale when I am done with it.]

The Look, by Sophia Bennett

When a talent scout accosts Ted and her sister on a London street and tells her that she could have an amazing future in modeling, Ted first presumes that he means her sister.  And then, when he clarifies who he's admiring, she suspects that he is some sort of scam artist.  But the guy is legit and serious.  And Ted reluctantly embarks on an attempt at a fashion career.

To complicate matters, Ted's sister has just been diagnosed with cancer.  Ted finds herself overextended between pursuing the new career (both for herself and for her sister who uses Ted's adventures as a distraction) and taking care of her family.

The cancer angle is something different, but the being-swept-away-by-fame story has been done to death (let alone the whole ugly-duckling-finds-out-she-is-actually-amazing-swan-after-a-make-over plot).  Consider, Melissa Walker's Violet on the Runway as a more recent example.  It is really not giving much away to say that Ted will get swept away by the excitement and then belatedly come to realize what is most important in the end.  After all, if she didn't come back from the brink, we'd all hate her!

What makes the story stand out is the character of Ted herself -- assertive and sure of herself, she knows what she's getting into and never quite loses herself as much as the reader expects her to.  Standing up for herself, she's definitely a fish out of water in the fashion business (which is otherwise portrayed in stereotypes).  Ted thus makes an appealing guide to this alien world -- the type of brash young woman that young women reading fashion magazines and this novel might like to imagine themselves as resembling.  Far more than a look, then, Ted is an attitude.


[Disclosure:  my copy of this book came unsolicited from Scholastic.  I received no compensation for this review and I'm donating my copy to the Middleton Public Library book sale after I'm done with it.]

Purity, by Jackson Pearce

When Shelby's mother was dying, she asked her daughter to promise her three things:  to listen to and love her father, to love as much as possible, and to live without restraint.  And after Mom dies, Shelby is determined to honor those promises.  In fact, they become a lifeline for her as she comes to doubt just about everything else in her life.  Her best friend Jonas even helps her keep track of a bucket list in order to keep her constantly working on promise #3.

However, when her father suggests that they participate in a father-daughter "Princess Ball" at which the girls will pledge to their fathers to remain "pure," Shelby is torn.  She's uncomfortable making such a promise to her Dad, but promise #1 to Mom means that she must do whatever he wants and then live by the pledge she makes.  Somehow, she must figure out a loophole to get around it, and figure it out before the Ball takes place.  Otherwise, she'll have to make the pledge.

When I read the synopsis of the book, it seemed a bit silly to me - a bit like the premise of a sitcom: girl tries to wiggle out of deathbed promise to Mom.  The book, however, wasn't like that at all.  Instead, there were some serious questions raised by the author about how we remember and honor our parents' wishes.  And some nice insights on faith and regaining a sense of faith when it has been seriously challenged (in this case, forcing Shelby to reconcile her anger with God with her need to believe in an Afterlife for her mother). 

Be warned (or intrigued): there's also a strong sexual theme going on (a bulk of the book is devoted to Shelby's attempt to lose her virginity), but it's integral to the plot and treated candidly and intelligently.  It didn't feel particularly exploitative.

Instead, it's hard not to like Shelby's strong character and her ability to stand up for herself.  And as a parent-aged male, I'd be lying to say that I didn't relate to Shelby's father and really take a punch to the gut reading how she and her father struggle to sort out their relationship.  Not that the book is all heavy stuff.  There's also some amazing humor that will have you rolling (for example, the every hilarious condom purchasing scene). 

This is truly an amazing book and really the best one I've read this year so far.

A Girl Named Digit, by Annabel Monaghan

Farrah may be stuck with an awful name by her seventies-TV-junkie mother, but it's her brilliance at math that's earned her the much more detested nickname of Digit.  Her talent is amazing, but she'd rather suppress it so she can fit in at school.  That is until she uncovers a secret code being broadcast during her favorite TV teen drama that leads her to a secret terrorist cell operating in the US.  When said nefarious group launches a devastating attack at JFK, Farrah springs into action.  Helped by the irresistibly cute (and conveniently available) FBI agent John, Farrah is jetting across the country, hiding out from the bad guys, and launching a plan to bring them down (that will involve her little brother, her parents, and one of the most popular girls at school).  All she needs to do is stay alive and survive a week's worth of leg hair growth!

For folks who are a bit older than the target audience, the storyline is reminiscent of True Lies (remember Arnold and Jamie Lee?) but a bit more over-the-top.  It's funny, silly, and ridiculous as hell, but if you can manage to not take it seriously, this is a pretty amusing read.  The romance is awkwardly adolescent but tongue in cheek (how else to describe John and Farrah's parents meeting while plotting to entrap an FBI mole)?  It's nice that Farrah is math smart and bright, but I would have preferred if she wasn't as boy crazed (and if she had avoided the whole Bella Swan mope thing at the end).  Still, I admire the genre mashing going on here.

Same Sun Here, by Silas House and Neela Vaswani

An Indian-American girl from New York City becomes pen pals with a boy from the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky.  Through letters back and forth, each shares their lives with each other.  While they are very different in terms of background they share many things in common (in addition to the obvious commonality of the title, they also both have fathers who away for extended periods of time, they maintain strong bonds with their grandmother, they have a heightened awareness of their environment, they both love to read classics, and they share strong literacy).  Through a number of adventures, they pass a year together from a distance.

It's a sweet and pleasant read, but not very big on revelations.  And like so many team-written projects, it seemed a bit lazy to me: House and Vaswani simply started writing letters back and forth, challenging the other to respond to what they had written.  For entertainment value, it works, and I have no complaints about the quality of the writing.  But it doesn't leave much of an impression in the end:  two nice kids, struggling to understand each other and their world.  How nice.

Getting Over Garrett Delaney, by Abby McDonald

When Sadie fails to get accepted to a special writer's camp for the summer, it ruins her plans.  Not only that, but it means six weeks of separation from her best friend (and major crush) Garrett.   It's just her luck, anyway, as she's been just as much a failure at getting Garrett to notice her these past two years.

But as the reader quickly learns, Sadie's crush on Garrett isn't harmless -- in fact, it's stalker-level obsessive.  She virtually lives for any hint that he might like her, carefully crafting her clothes, likes and dislikes, and mannerisms to be as appealing to him as possible.  And when her situation comes crashing down, her friend Kayla and the co-workers at the coffee shop decide to stage an intervention and convince Sadie to embark on a twelve-step program to move on with her life.

What emerges is a story, initially humorous, but ultimately quite touching, about the way that people (and young women, most of all) go from wanting to be pleasing to others to losing themselves entirely to a partner.  As Sadie herself muses towards the end:  we all want to be loved, but how do you do that while maintaining a sense of self?  It certainly helps when the guy you like isn't a selfish prick (as Garrett is), but McDonald is more subtle and goes on to show that, even with the men who aren't creeps, it's very easy to fall into the trap of forgetting what is important to yourself in order to "win" someone's heart.  The book tackles all this without becoming overly preachy.  While it is certainly a story with a message, McDonald achieves a suitable balance of fun and function that made the book entertaining and simultaneously valuable.

When the Butterflies Came, by Kimberley Griffiths Little

On the day of her grandmother's funeral, a beautiful butterfly visits Tara.  It's a small comfort in a world that has grown pretty dark:  Daddy's long gone, Mamma has suddenly disappeared, Tara's older sister Riley won't talk with her, and everything else seems to be falling apart.  But then Tara starts finding letters from her grandmother that lead her on a hunt for clues.  The hunt becomes serious as Tara learns that her grandmother was on the verge of an important discovery involving special butterflies.  Grandmother's death may in fact have been planned and the murderer may have been someone she trusted!  Each letter leads Tara closer to the truth as she goes first to her grandmother's house in the bayou and then half-way across the Pacific Ocean to the island of Chuuk in the midst of Micronesia.  Tara (with reluctant help from Riley) must figure out what happened and save her grandmother's secret work and the butterflies!

While the story eventually comes together in the end, my overall impression of the book was that it was rough and in need of further editing.  The plot meanders, with subplots that don't really move the story forward.  Much of this static is intended to keep the pace up, but it was ultimately distracting.  At the same time, major developments are poorly foreshadowed and instead introduced roughly into the story.  And finally, key elements (like the butterflies, for example) are left underdeveloped.  As I said, it wraps up alright in the end, but it's a narrative mess!

[Note:  The book is being released on April 1st.  I read an ARC supplied by the publisher, but received no compensation for my review.]

Zero, by Tom Leveen

Amanda's nickname Zero pretty much sums up how she sees herself.  She's no longer talking with her best friend.  Her parents are always fighting.  And her dream of attending art school in Chicago has been ruined when she is accepted, but denied a scholarship.  In despair, she drowns her sorrow in her painting, her love for Salvador Dali's artwork, and reciting the lyrics of songs written by local punk bands.

Enter Mike, the drummer of an up-and-coming local band.  She finds him at a concert and works up the nerve to talk to him.  Much to her surprise, he likes her back.  But the bigger surprise is how he ends up turning her life around, challenging her to change her attitude and start reaching for her dreams.

The setting (suburban Phoenix) is a bit hard to relate to, but I grew to really like the characters.  Leveen has great voices for his people that had authenticity and appeal.  Zero makes more than a few lousy choices and she can whine up a storm, but her fierce independence made her sympathetic even when she wasn't always likable.  Mike, in contrast seemed too perfect to be real, but that really was his purpose, so I'll cut that one some slack.  The overall story is a meaningful and quirky take on the process of learning self-respect.

Unraveling Isobel, by Eileen Cook

Isobel isn't thrilled that her Mom is moving them from Seattle to a remote island where, as Isobel puts it, "there are more endangered birds than people." Mom's gotten remarried and it's all a bit creepy:  Dick the step dad just lost his previous wife to an unfortunate boating accident a few months ago under somewhat mysterious and unresolved circumstances.  Even the place is unsettling.  Dick and his son Nate live in a huge "estate" on the island that is rumored by the island's inhabitants to be haunted and cursed.  At first, Isobel doesn't worry about stuff like that.  But then she starts to see strange things and begins to wonder if someone (or something) is trying to tip her off?  Or maybe she's just going crazy (like her biological father did)?

And then, just when you've settled in to reading a good supernatural thriller, we have Nate, the stepbrother.  He's hot and haunts her in an entirely different way.  It's a situation that could get very complicated as the most popular girl at school vies for his affections as well, and she's more than a little jealous of Isobel's access.

Fun!  It gets a bit complicated and one could take Cook to task to trying to bring in too much (and leaving some threads - like Isobel's father - underdeveloped), but this is a great mixture of suspenseful and creepy stuff with a dash of high school angst thrown in.   Even if the story can be chaotic and implausible at points, I enjoyed the mix of humor, action, and romance.

The only major downer was the book's lame cover, which I noticed that they jettisoned for the paperback edition.

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality, by Elizabeth Eulberg

Lexi (this seems to be a popular name these days!) has lots of great friends, but she's not the type of girl to get the guy.  Boys think she's got a "great personality," which is just a nice way to say that you're ugly, Lexi reasons.  She has friends who are guys but they want to talk with her about the girls they really like.  All that changes after a friend convinces her to dress up fancy, put on some makeup, and pretend to be one of the Beautiful People.  Suddenly, people are noticing, including the guy that Lexi has dreamed about.

Meanwhile, back at home, Lexi is trying to survive her younger sister's kiddie beauty pageants, which are breaking up the family and literally bankrupting them.  Lexi's mother is obsessed with participating and Lexi's sister Mackenzie is a total brat, sucked in by all of the attention.  None of which is helped by the realization that Mom obviously values Mackenzie's talents more than Lexi's.

The story has great potential as a examination of perceptions of beauty, but is undermined by the voice of Lexi.  Eulberg gets awfully preachy and puts some pretty mature diatribes into the mouth of her heroine.  It isn't that what Lexi is saying isn't good advice or that a sixteen year-old isn't capable of such logic, but it is implausible (and frankly not very interesting) to have a young woman with greater wisdom on human relationships than most adults possess.  Lexi is far too perfect (with amazing self-determination and objective thinking skills) to really develop into an interesting character.  She's strong, but way too perfect.

I also found the two story lines (Lexi's relationship with her peers and the situation at home) to be distracting.  The two stories never coalesce and so I impatiently waiting to get back to the one I cared the most about (which, for me, was the home story).

My Life in Black and White, by Natasha Friend

As long as Lexi can remember, she's defined herself through her beauty (this isn't ego, but simply what she has absorbed from others who always commented upon her appearance).  So, when she is permanently disfigured in a car accident, she has no idea of how to cope with the change.  Who is she in a world where she is no longer seen as perfect?  Coming back from the trauma and rebuilding her life will be a big challenge.

The situation is complicated by other changes in her life.  Right before the accident, she was betrayed by her boyfriend and her best friend, which puts her in a bind: just when she needs the support of the people who care for her, she's lost two people she trusted.

While the basic outline of the story would seem prone to melodrama and hysterics, Friend keeps the whole thing level-headed.  By the end, most everything works out, but the solutions are plausible (conflicts stay realistically unresolved, but people move on). The story is well-paced and, aside from a few unforeshadowed plot twists which seemed largely engineered to keep things moving, the plot is logical.  Moreover, the characters are believable and generally likable.  By the end, even the more evil folks have been redeemed and explained.  And I found Lexi's growth away from her obsession with external appearances, while familiar, to be treated in a fresh manner.

Being Friends With Boys, by Terra Elan McVoy

Charlotte isn't very good with girls and she's at her most comfortable around her guy friends, whether it's long-time friend Oliver (who leads the band that Charlotte manages) or newer guys like Trip.  But the drawback with hanging out with guys is that they aren't very good for baring your heart to.  Far worse, though, is navigating the fine line between friendship and romance with them.

There is an overall story about the band (Sad Jackal) that Charlotte and her boys are in and their struggles to stay together (and a small subplot about Charlotte finding her voice quite literally as a singer for the band), but the vast majority of the book is simply about navigating the minefield of adolescent romance and friendship.  With its sensitive ear to how older teens interrelate, the book will resonate with its target audience.  For older readers, it mostly elicited groans of recognition (I'm reminded of a friend of mine who explained she couldn't read YA because it brought back up all those painful memories).  The idea of teens trying to balance romantic and platonic relationships is a good subject and treated with great authenticity by McVoy.

In comparison with her other books (which weren't that bad to begin with) this is really a stand out novel.  McVoy navigates the complex drama of relationships quite well, highlighting the different issues that can arise (ranging from jealousy to misunderstandings) that plague adolescence.  And Charlotte is a very sympathetic character -- hardly perfect, but reasonably clear-headed.  The book shines when we're in her head trying to figure out what makes boys act the way they do.  The book gets slightly weaker when we're amidst Charlotte's family (it's a bit much to expect this book to juggle family conflicts as well) and scenes with Charlotte's estranged mother seem largely disposable. Those are minor quibbles though, as overall this is a magnificent achievement.

Tiger Lily, by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Fifteen year-old Tiger Lily is betrothed to oafish Giant, but longs to be in the woods of Neverland, hanging out with fun-loving Peter and his gang of Lost Boys.  Her sneaking out threatens her standing in the village, but she brazenly refuses to care and fantasizes about living with Peter forever.  In spite of this, Tiger Lily has never trusted anyone, and even with Peter, she stays restless and aloof, confident that she can have it both ways.  It is thus a rude surprise when dainty submissive Wendy arrives from England.  She quickly captures Peter's heart (and the loyalties of the Lost Boys as well), leaving a bitter and jealous Tiger Lily in the lurch.

For anyone raised on Walt Disney's Peter Pan, the story here will be quite a rude shock.  All the characters make an appearance (Captain Hook, the other pirates, and even the crocodiles are there), but everything is slightly different and a bit darker.  This version, narrated by Tinkerbell, is far less about Peter than the troubled adolescent Tiger Lily.  Gone is the joyous "I won't grow up" of the original and in its place is a world where another girl's withering stare is the deadliest of weapons.  The focus has been shifted to a tale of betrayed friendships and vengeance.

It's a very imaginative piece and really quite unlike Anderson's previous novels.  It's certainly one of the more unique retellings that I've read in a while.  However, it is not an easy read.  There are a lot of characters to track, the narration itself is opaque, and overall it is hard to get into.  By the end, I found myself enjoying it, but it took a lot of work.

Shooting Stars, by Alison Rushby

Jo is a professional photographer and, at 16, the youngest paparazzo on the circuit. Her age and diminutive size makes her an expert at getting into places (and getting the shots) that no one else can.  Still, even she is surprised when she is offered a big contract to sneak into a treatment facility for troubled teens and land some snapshots of heartthrob Ned Hartnett (a guy that Jo herself has serious hots for).  At first, she thinks her reluctance to take the pictures is caused by an ethical dilemma, but she comes to realize that the cause of her anxiety is much more complex.

The story is a bit silly, with whole bunches of improbabilities and illogical plot twists.  Who would really give a teen the type of money (and responsibility) described here?  How would you sneak in to an exclusive mental facility for teenagers as a patient?  My own personal favorite -- given what I do for a living -- is the kids' alleged red-eye flight westward from Logan to LAX! 

You know you're in trouble when most of the reviews for this book exclaim about how "cute" it is.  Let's just say that the plot wasn't really meant to make sense.  Nor, for that matter, were the characters.  Jo is an OK heroine.  Her ethical quandary seems a bit exaggerated (given her chosen profession) and is repeated so often that it grows tiresome, but she's fun when she's on the hunt.  And that sums up a lot of the characters -- there's not much depth and when they start baring their souls, I found it hard to really care.  They certainly couldn't be taken seriously.

Small Damages, by Beth Kephart

When Kenzie finds she is pregnant, her mother immediately assumes that they will simply "fix the problem." Her boyfriend is not much better:  he's heading to Yale in the Fall and can't be bothered with a child.  And neither he nor her mother can understand why Kenzie wants to carry the baby to term.  But upon learning Kenzie's intent, her mother decides that the best thing to do is to send Kenzie away to Spain, where Kenzie can have the baby and give it up for adoption to some old friends of Mom's.

And so, Kenzie finds herself in a small town in sun-drenched Spain, working as an assistant to a cook named Estela -- a woman with a past and regrets of her own.  And, as the baby comes to term, Kenzie deals with her anger at being sent away and with her search for the meaning of "family."

It's a very lyrical book with beautiful language and is simultaneously surprisingly brisk to read.  Readers who enjoy poetry and verse books will delight in Kephart's prose.  That said, the style is also opaque and hard to follow (and, at times, a bit too precious).  I personally would have preferred a clearer and more direct style (it can get exhausting to read pretty prose!).  And while the story certainly evoked a mood, it all seemed a bit dull.

Every Day, by David Levithan

Imagine a life where every day of your life you were a different person.  Some days a boy, some days a girl -- large, small, popular, outcast, gay, straight, transgendered, asexual.  You change so often that you don't even know who you are...yet you do because you remember who you were before.  It could be terrifying or lonely, but to survive it, you must become very self-aware, because (ironically) you lack a unique physical body.

It's hard enough to get by with the confusion of changing every day, but what happens when you fall in love?  How can you maintain a relationship when every day you change?

It's a fascinating concept that allows Levithan to explore (at first subtly and later - when he grows bored with subtle - with a sledgehammer) the concept of identity.  The romance nicely complicates things, but even without the issues of an interpersonal relationship, the book raises many interesting questions about the importance we place on appearance in defining who we are.  Thus, one of the most fascinating parts of the book is the beginning of each day, as our hero wakes up in a new body and we share his/her first impressions.  That initial first paragraph neatly sums up how the rest of the day will go.

Levithan the writer doesn't usually do much for me.  The writing is fine, but I don't like being preached to.  He's created some of the best LGBT literature, but he can get didactic (and even bigoted) at times.  I found particularly disturbing the chapter about the day as an overweight kid.  The character's unconcealed distaste mostly shows that Levithan himself believes that physical appearance matters as much as his hero says that it shouldn't.

Perfect Escape, by Jennifer Brown

The return home of Kendra's brother from the hospital ought to be a happy moment, but for her it's a source of stress.  Grayson suffers from OCD and his rituals drive her crazy, let alone his full-scale freak-outs when things get really bad.  She loves him, but Kendra resents the way that everything in their family revolves around Grayson's illness.  But moreover, Kendra doesn't need anything more to stress her out right now:  her efforts to maintain a perfect world for herself are coming brilliantly unhinged.  Now, on the verge of being suspended from school, she has a freak out of her own and kidnaps her brother on a road trip to California.  It's a crazy trip that only a perfectionist and her anxious compulsive brother could have.

It's Rain Man for the YA crowd, but with more pathos and grit.  As a story, it's fairly typical road trip stuff (some misadventures, the mandatory side trip, and a wind-down at the end), but the characters make it come alive. I found Kendra to be a bit of a pill -- the idea that she ever thought the idea of fleeing across the country was a good one defies belief, so that when she later on comes to "realize" her mistake, I cringed.  But beyond the sheer implausibility of her character, I liked the rest of it.  Grayson is an interesting character by himself (far more self-aware and assertive than we usually presume of the mentally-ill) and the rapport that he has with his sister is authentic and enticing.

My Life Next Door, by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Ever since the Garretts moved in next door, Samantha has been fascinated with them.  They are the polar opposite of her own family:  anarchic, disordered, loud, and chaotic.  While Sam's mother kept a tight lid on Sam and her sister and everything had its place, Mrs Garrett and her noisy brood of eight children seemed to run wild.  Now that Sam is older, her interest has become focused on Jase, one of the older Garrett boys and nearly the same age as her.  Of course, a romance blooms, but with Sam's mother's open disapproval of the family, Sam finds herself hiding the relationship from her family.

That would have made a nice and unremarkable romantic storyline (boy and girl from opposite families find love and overcome the objections of their families), but Fitzpatrick kicks the story up a notch with an out-of-nowhere plot twist that raises the stakes dramatically.  By the end, Sam has to make some difficult decisions about where her loyalties lie and what really matters.  This last-minute twist adds some intensity but doesn't really add to the story in the end, becoming a distraction from the conclusion towards which we were heading anyways.

The meandering and unfortunate plot detour aside, I enjoyed the characters.  Jase and Sam had authentic voices (emotional, but not dumb) and were generally sympathetic.  I found them a bit precocious in their ability to maneuver amidst the Garrett larvae (I'd believe that Jase would have that talent -- having grown up with them -- but Sam comes out and says that she has little-to-no experience with smalls, so the adeptness with which she handles Jase's younger siblings defies belief), but it's cute that they do have these skills.  And the interactions with the littler kids add humor and pathos to the story.  As for the adults, they have flaws but come through in the end in a way that fulfills the YA lit need for kids to be on top, but without sacrificing the reality that grownups are not without problem solving skills of their own.

Jumping the Scratch, by Sarah Weeks

After Jamie's aunt suffers an industrial accident that damages her short-term memory (essentially, preventing her from remembering anything that has happened since the accident), Jamie and his mother move in to take care of her.  This happens at around the same time that Jamie's cat dies and his father leaves them, so Jamie has gone through a lot and he is is very lonely.

Despite that, Jamie resists the attempts of a girl in his neighborhood to befriend him.  She's a bit strange and insists that she can hypnotize him.  While an odd statement, Jamie is curious:  could hypnosis help his aunt regain her memory? Secretly, he is actually hoping that her tricks might help him forget an even worse thing which has happened to him.

The story (and how it ends) is never really in doubt and most readers will have figured it out long before it ends.  However, that doesn't detract from a story that is fun and sweet.  The characters are memorable and Weeks keeps the story short and spare.  The gentleness makes the story suitable for younger readers, but it is far from childish and older readers will enjoy it as well.

Monument 14, by Emmy Laybourne

On their way to school one normal day, the Apocalypse dawns.  It starts as violent hail and expands to earthquakes.  A chemical weapons accident kills some and turns others into homicidal maniacs.  In the midst of this chaos, fourteen children find themselves secured (imprisoned, in fact) inside a superstore.  They have food and supplies to last them for months, but no adults to help them, and little idea of how they will survive.

With obvious tribute to Lord of the Flies, the twists and turns of this surprising and entertaining book keep up a high level of energy.  There are numerous implausibilities (most notably the premise of the particular Armageddon proposed by the story), but the characters are interesting and distinct enough to follow.  Unfortunately, the central figure Dean is actually the least interesting of the bunch.  But the others have merit and with so many characters, the reader never gets stuck with any one of them for very long.  I did not care for the ending (which was rushed and more of a last-minute attempt to generate a cliff-hanger for the sequel), but the story had a lot going for it.  Once Laybourne gets this series out of her system (I try to avoid series books like the plague that they are!), I look forward to reading her future work.

Take A Bow, by Elizabeth Eulberg

Talented kids enter the High School for the (Creative and) Performing Arts in New York City.  Each one is slightly different and over the course of their four years in school, they love and live and discover the important truths that will help them succeed in life.  Yes, if you're my age, you saw the movie version of this.  If you're a bit younger, you might remember the TV series.  But if you're a teen now, you have this book (one of the great joys of YA is that there is no institutional memory so even a seminal film like Fame can be forgotten).

In this take on the story, we focus on the kids' final year and have only four characters:  driven but obnoxious Sophie who is going to succeed whatever the costs; sweet talented Emme who sits in Sophie's shadow;  Carter, the child actor superstar who is fleeing his fame to have a "normal" life in high school; and Ethan, the dark brooding bad boy with issues but a soft spot for Emme.  Very quickly, Sophie establishes herself as an evil bitch and the reader spends the rest of the book just waiting for justice to lower an axe on her.  Famous boy Carter doesn't really have any issues that can't be resolved with some conversation.  So, that leaves us with the starcrossed lovers of Emme and Ethan.  By the last fifty pages, every character in the book (along with the readers) are basically shouting at the pair to just get over it and shag each other!  In sum, not much of a plot, but it keeps moving and is oddly enticing enough to make you want to finish.

There are some nice stylistic twists (Carter always speaks in script, as a way of hitting us over the head with a clue-by-four that he sees his entire life as a performance) and Sophie is consistently loathsome, making it easy for us to hate her.  This isn't a book that makes you think.  Just some good escape literature.


[Full disclosure:  I received a free review copy of this book from Scholastic/Point and will be donating my copy to our local public library after I have finished with it]

Zombies vs Unicorns, eds Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black

Definitely one of the more unique anthologies (with one of the more catchier recent titles to boot!).  This is a collection of short stories devoted to either zombies or unicorns.  Ostensibly, the purpose is to allow Larbalestier and Black to debate which creature makes a better protagonist.  To prove their point, they've enlisted the help of some high-power YA talent, including Meg Cabot, Libba Bray, Kathleen Duey, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfeld, and Maureen Johnson.

The stories range widely, but most of them are quite dark, which means that the zombie stories generally come across better.  Modern YA writers are apparently more comfortable with brain-eating zombies than with unicorns.  The best zombie stories in this case came from Carrie Ryan (a complex story of a Carribean island's attempt to survive), Alaya Dawn Johnson (a homo-erotic view of the undead), and Libba Bray (imagining prom night amongst the survivors).  Most of the unicorn authors re-imagined unicorns as mean and nasty, and most of the stories dragged a bit.  The notable exceptions were Meg Cabot's satire (despite its gratuitous mention of the SCA) in which a rainbow-farting unicorn rights all wrongs at a birthday party and Kathleen Duey's melancholy look at the perils of immortality.  While mentioned, the obvious subject of virginity doesn't feature as much as one would expect.

Most of all, I was disappointed that there was no story with zombies taking on unicorns directly (which I assumed from the title and the cover was the original intent).  I was hoping to see whose powers were stronger:  flesh-rotting zombies or health-restoring unicorns?  Now that would have been a cool story!

It's Our Prom (So Deal With It), by Julie Anne Peters

Azure has always considered proms to be totally bogus.  You have to be outrageously rich (and straight) to go to them, so only the super popular kids bother to show up.  When the principal asks her to form an alternative prom, by serving on the prom committee, she signs on with reluctance.  The opportunity to actually make something different is simply too enticing.

Needing help, she enlists her friend Luke.  He's busy staging a musical drama based on his coming out story ("Closets are for Mothballs"), which is slated to premier days before the prom.  Luke and Azure take turns (in alternating chapters) telling of their struggle to take control of the conventions of proms and make theirs more inclusive.

The story is a bit convoluted (and far more than just a story of staging an unconventional prom and play).  There's a love triangle of sorts, some familial struggle with sexual identity, a little school politics, and a very silly conclusion.  The book has got heart and Peters has certainly made another stride into the territory of books about LGBT characters who are incidental (rather than having the story be solely about their identity).  However, this particular story is so random and unstructured, and the ending so completely silly (and half-baked) that the book never came together for me.  The characters, including Azure and Luke, are underdeveloped and two-dimensional.  And there's not much point to the story beyond imagining how much fun kids could have at a prom that featured poetry slams and drag queens.

Prairie Evers, by Ellen Airgood

In her first year living in New Paltz (that's Hudson Valley area, for the uninitiated), Carolina-native Prairie has a lot of adjustments to make:  from managing without her grandmother (who's decided to return back to North Carolina shortly after they all move up) to going to school (after years of being homeschooled).  In that first year of changes, there are also plenty of totally new things, ranging from learning how to raise chickens to having her first real best friend.  There are even a few challenges both minor (some poultry trouble at school) and major (her friend Ivy dealing with a difficult home situation).  The book recounts these events.

When I asked the girl who introduced me to this book what it was about, she gave me a blank look.  I now understand why:  it's not really about anything.  There's plenty of activity, but no real plot beyond "this is how I survived my first year up north without my Grammy!" More problematic than the lack of a storyline is the lack of development in the characters.  It's a pleasant enough story, but rather dull.

The Girl in the Park, by Mariah Fredericks

Once upon a time, Rain and Wendy were best friends.  Wendy was the brash and fearless one who always urged the shy and more restrained Rain to seize the day ("go for it, tigress!").  Rain never could quite manage it, but after Wendy is killed in a brutal assault in Central Park, Rain wants to figure out why it happened and she launches her own private investigation.

There are plenty of suspects (being brash and fearless can earn you plenty of enemies!) and early evidence points to the bad boy at school with whom Wendy had a fling.  But as Rain digs deeper, she discovers some dark secrets about her school, her friends, and herself.

It's a nicely-paced whodunnit, with a bright and interesting girl solving the murder.  I found myself a few pages ahead of the characters in figuring the whole thing out, but that is mostly because the story follows the predictable conventions of a classic mystery novel (i.e., just think of who's getting a lot of attention in the story but is not a current suspect).  However, while the story follows conventions, I enjoyed Rain's intelligent insights on her peers, as well as her weaknesses (mostly adolescent insecurity) that made her a bit more vulnerable than Miss Marple.