Riding Freedom, by Pam Munoz Ryan

Based on a true story, Riding Freedom recounts the life of Charlotte Parkhurst, an orphan who disguised herself as a man and made a career in the 19th century as a stage coach driver.  Hearing of opportunities to own land out West, Charlotte migrated to California during the Gold Rush, becoming "One-Eyed Charley" and incidentally being the first women to vote -- illegally -- in the United States.

For young readers who love horses, there is plenty of great detail in the book to flip pages for.  As history, the subject matter is fascinating and includes many exciting anecdotes from her life.  But it is hard to know what is fact and what is fictional or embellished (although Ryan claims that she tried to hew as much as possible to facts of Charlotte's life).

Unfortunately, I found the storytelling rough and uneven.  Some of this is because Ryan has only anecdotes to work with, some of this is writing for a young audience, but one also suspects that Ryan found the transition from picture books (this is her first novel) difficult.  Her subsequent novels have substantially improved and are among the gems of middle reader literature.  The key problem with the weakness in this novel is that we never get to know much about our heroine.  That she is brave and smart is clear enough, but her feelings and thoughts are largely hidden (much as they apparently were in real life) -- it leaves a frustrating quantity of mysteries unanswered.

Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit, by Jaye Robin Brown

For Jo, there are two things that matter most:  her sexuality and her faith in Christ.  As the daughter of a successful radio preacher, her family's faith is often in the spotlight, but surprisingly she's been out about her homosexuality for some time.  That is, until her father asks her for a special favor: to keep it quiet for the next year.

Dad has just remarried and they are moving to his wife's home in a conservative small town.  He's concerned that, if Jo is out about being a lesbian, things will go badly for them in their new hometown.  She agrees out of loyalty to her father and because she will only be there for a year (it's her senior year at school so she'll soon move on).  It can't be that hard to keep a low profile, can it?

But keeping her promise becomes hard when she meets Mary Coulson, to whom she's attracted.  For a brief period, the two of them carry on a clandestine relationship, but Mary Coulson wants more.  She wants to come out loud and proud, with Jo by her side.  But how can Jo keep her promise to her father, keep her new girlfriend, and maintain her pride all at the same time?

There's only one subject I love to read about more than gender queer teens, and that is books about adolescent searches for faith.  Good books on teens and God are hard to find and one that combine both LGBT topics with religion (in a positive light) are near non-existent.  So, this is a special book.  More so, because the story itself is pretty good.

The other thing I really like about this book is its fairness.  In a book that features lesbians, Christians, and small-town folks, there's lots of opportunity for sloppy stereotypes.  Brown avoids that, treating Jo's sexuality and religious faith with respect and insight.  The fact that these two parts of her life could be at odds with each other is barely addressed (and mostly by peripheral characters).  And while there are a few antagonists to keep the story moving, for the most part, these are characters who interact respectfully and responsibly, providing a cast that I cared about and cared for.

Life After Juliet, by Shannon Lee Alexander

In this "companion" (or, more accurately, sequel) to Love and Other Unknown Variables, many characters return.  But it is the deceased Charlotte who casts the longest shadow.  Becca has never quite recovered from the loss of her friend and buries herself in reading to hold off the grief.

A school production of Romeo and Juliet and the affection of Max, the play's technical director gives Becca a chance to shine.  The opportunity is hard for her to grasp however and it takes much tougher love from jealous (but ultimately sensible) mean girl Darby to get her to start living.

Quirky and difficult to read, I haven't previously been much taken with Alexander's writing (I dumped Love and Other Unknown Variables without finishing it as I found it unreadable).  Her style is too cerebral and mature, her characters simply grown adults in adolescent bodies.  The epitome of rationality and lacking any of the impetuousness of youth or the urge to explore, the characters are "young adult" only in the minds of a writer's circle that have forgotten what it is like to be young.  The result is drab and boring -- a G-rated romance acted out by teens.

What made the sequel more readable than its predecessor is that Becca has room to grow and shows us vulnerability that extends beyond her tendency to self-pity.  And Darby (who never really seems as mean as she's cracked up to be) comes out as an unusual and fascinating protagonist.  The two end up as self-described "allies" (but not quite friends) in testament to a nuanced relationship.  The other characters are similarly complex.  All of which is a way of saying that Alexander is a good writer, and seems destined to creating strong NA and adult literature -- just don't expect the YA experience here.

Run, by Kody Keplinger

Agnes is legally blind, but as she's grown up, she's seen plenty.  And from a lifetime in rural Kentucky, she knows that she doesn't want to end up stuck here.  But she doesn't stand much of a chance of doing so as long as her parents keep treating her as an invalid.

Bo is the bad girl that everyone loves to gossip about from a family that everyone (including Agnes) avoids.  She is wild and free and Agnes can't help but idolize her.  Despite their disparate backgrounds, they bond.

When Bo's world collapses and she decides she has to run away, Agnes can't help but join her and the two girls hit the road, searching for Bo's estranged father.  In alternating chapters (Bo's in the present and Agnes's in retrospect), the two girls recall the story of how they met and formed their bond, and what they learned on the road.

This is less a sisters-on-the-road story and more character study of how these two young women found companionship and freedom together.  While it took me a while to warm to them, by the end I found myself heavily invested in their relationship and their emotional and spiritual journey together.  In striking contrast to my usual complaint about these sorts of books, I actually wished for less action as the drama often seemed to interfere with the more interesting back story.

Read Me Like A Book, by Liz Kessler

Ashleigh has never seen much point to school and she’s spent most of her energy trying to get out of doing any work.  With her parents separating, she’s even less engaged than normal.  But a young female teacher inspires her and awakens a love for literature in Ashleigh.  She finds herself caring about her homework which presages a turnaround in Ashleigh's life.  But is there something more behind her desire to please her teacher?

Ashleigh has far more questions than answers.  Kessler doesn't have much of a direction in her novel.  Instead, she basically lets Ashleigh stumble through bad relationships and friendships that run hot and cold, searching for something much more.  The fact that Ashleigh does in fact pull her life more or less together is what makes the story work.  Rather than achieve a true dramatic arc, we are presented with a slice in Ashleigh’s evolving life, watching her drift from one situation to another.  The result is something more of a character study than a story but Ashleigh's strength will inspire readers.

P.S. I Like You, by Kasie West

Some YA romances can pack a punch, other are intended more for casual pool-side reading.  I don't shy away from the subgenre because of the surprise enjoyment of finding a hidden gem, but it's a troubled field of mixed quality.  Many of the more popular ones are unreadable by anyone over the age of consent, which suits the publishers and the targeted readers just fine.  Kasie West's latest falls somewhere in between.

Bored in chem class, Lily doodles the lyrics of her favorite song on her desk.  The next day she finds that someone has written a message back to her.  She writes more and the mystery writer reciprocates.  Before long, they have graduated to paper letters hidden on the underside of the desk, and chemistry has become a lot more interesting for Lily.  As hearts are opened and secrets spilled, Lily discovers she's attracted to the letter writer and wonders who he is.  She's secretly hoping it's the guy she's been crushing over, but she fears it isn't.  When she does find out who it is, she's initially shocked and offended, but gradually comes to see the letter writer in the person.

This isn't a novel suffering from subtlety.  One of my least favorite things about it is the way that the story is unnecessarily dragged out as Lily turns out to be the most clueless young person on the planet.  A hundred or more pages before she figures out the love of her life, we're already there and finishing our popcorn.  That can be cute (smiling as you think about how excited she'll be when she figures it out), but taken this far, it grows boring and annoying.

In a different vein, her family (and her siblings in particular) annoyed me as well, but here it's all on me.  Siblings are annoying and West does a wonderful job of portraying the love-hate world of a big family getting along.  Lily's something of a saint amongst them, which seemed a bit too precious to me, but it otherwise sounded authentic.

I'm mixed on the romance itself.  The enemies-becoming-friends thing has been done better.  The initial sparring seemed mean and the explanations of how it was just misunderstandings seemed too convenient.  Really, it felt like some adolescent version of "if he teases you, it's because he likes you" nonsense that I would hope that young people have long since rejected.  I just didn't like the guy and couldn't really see why she would like him.  That didn't make me hate the story, but it made the romance less interesting.  If you don't like the guy as well as the girl, it's pretty hard to sell the reader a romance.

The Memory Book, by Lara Avery

Sammie's worked hard all her life to get good grades and a ticket out of her small Upstate New York town.  But when she is diagnosed with an incurable terminal disease that will strip her of her mind and bring on dementia, her plans get torn asunder.  Now just struggling to survive, she pours every memory she has into her laptop, creating "the memory book" which she hopes to use to record what she remembers while she still can.

That project becomes more than a place to download stories of her past.  It also serves to journal her slow descent into dementia, documenting in painful detail the way that her disease affects her friendships, family, and her loved ones.  In that context, the petty infighting and a potential love triangle that dominate her life will seem silly, but these things serve as a reminder that life does go on.

The novel is every bit as heart wrenching as you can imagine.  At times the story falters, but the material is powerful enough to move it along.  The weaknesses stem from the insurmountable issue of a heroine who gradually loses coherence as the story continues.  The tension between the personal emotional growth that Sammie experiences with her physical and cognitive degeneration is difficult to parse and occasionally fails.  In the end, it is really the side characters (her friends and family) who have to take over the story.  The reader is forced (along with her loved ones) to let go of her.  In the end, much of her story is unfinished -- which is a realistic (albeit unsatisfying) conclusion.

Never Missing Never Found, by Amanda Panitch

Kidnapped and forced to work as a slave for four years in a whorehouse, Scarlett has lived through hell.  Of all her traumas, the one that hangs with her the most is her memory of her companion Pixie who didn't make it out.

Years later, Scarlett thinks she has moved on.  But when a young woman at her new job in an amusement park goes missing, Scarlett is forced to re-live these memories.  And as the events unfold, she finds that the woman's disappearance is hardly coincidental.  A face from the past has returned to haunt her.  Subplots involving a love triangle and rivalries between Scarlett and her sister complicate the picture.

It pretty much all comes together in the end, but for most of the read I struggled to link it all (and it took some pretty major plot twists to get to that point!).  The twists are a bit improbable and so I'm not sure I liked where we ended up, but it is a sufficiently creepy (and depressing) ending. Probably better enjoyed by the targeted young and mopey.

How It Ends, by Catherine Lo

Shy Jessie and outgoing Annie seem opposite types, but they are drawn to each other for different (and largely unspoken) reasons.  Jessie needs Annie's strength to survive the bullying at school and a smothering mother who aggravate her panic attacks.  Annie's confidence belies the loneliness she feels living with a stepmother and a largely distracted father.  And she longs for the close family world of Jessie's home.

When Annie befriends Jessie's tormentors, the two girls are driven apart and these unspoken agendas aggravate the division.  Jealousies and betrayals ensue, which are lent drama by being told in alternating narratives.

A relationship story, this is quintessential chick lit, but I still enjoyed it.  It veers about a bit and there are some loose ends (the girls' relationships with their mother/stepmothers and Jessie's abuse of prescription sedatives, in particular) that I would have liked to seen reach some sort of closure.  There's also an abortion clinic scene that, while powerful and interesting, felt a bit tacked on to the story.

I was happiest when the girls were just talking with each other.  Their conversations felt real and the relationship complex and authentic.  Lo has a very good sense for how friendships work and the way that people give and take.  I also found that Lo's description of  Jessie's panic attacks resonated with me quite vividly.  Overall, this is an insightful and enjoyable read.

Once Confronted, by Lynne Stringer

After Madison and her coworker Evan are robbed and assaulted at work, they respond in dramatically different ways.  She retreats and grows fearful, avoiding strangers and dark places.  He becomes angry and belligerent.  But with time, Madison heals and finds the courage to confront her assailant.  Evan rejects that approach and slips deeper into darkness.

An interesting tale with a big heart and an eye for the roots of societal ills, I enjoyed the story.  The biggest distraction for me was the writing itself.  Stringer's background is in journalism and the writing here is very direct and to the point.  While a fairly slim book, there's a lot of action here and a great deal of things happen to the characters.  What we don't see much of is how they feel about those things.  Madison goes through some major changes and we are told that she is upset, angry, sad, and ultimately happy, but we don't see much of her psyche.  The characters, while varied and interesting, lack depth in general, making it hard to empathize with them.  I liked them, but I didn't feel for them.


[Disclaimer:  I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  No other compensation was involved.]

We Were Never Here, by Jennifer Gilmore

During summer camp, Lizzie finds herself struck down by intense pain, which is diagnosed as ulcerative colitis.  Soon, she's in the hospital and facing surgery. Scared and afraid, she finds comfort from a hospital volunteer named Connor and his dog, Verlaine.  He helps her through the ordeal and she falls in love with him.  It is a surprise when she finds that he likes her just as much.

But as she recovers from her ordeal, she finds that Connor has even darker challenges of his own.  And their relationship, far from being a source of happiness for her, becomes nearly as destructive as it is healing.

While the story wraps up nicely, it meandered too much for my tastes, introducing new characters at regular intervals (seemingly simply to give Gilmore something to write about).  There's the relationship with Connor, but also a sister, two very different friends, several animal adoptions, and a little dating with another boy on the side.  I was hard pressed to figure out the connection between all of this and it never quite comes together.

One for the Murphys, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

I wanted to take a break from heavy teen books and pick up a middle reader for something light.  Unfortunately, I picked poorly....

Carley comes to stay at the Murphy's home as a temporary placement.  Her mother is in the hospital and Carley herself is pretty beat up.  But the damage to Carley is more on the inside than the bruises on her arms that she hides away.  When her stepfather came after her, it was her mother that betrayed her.  Now, Carley trusts no one.  None of which stops Mrs. Murphy's efforts to reach out to her new foster child.

For every effort that Carley makes to resist Mrs. Murphy's outreach, the woman responds with kindness and patience.  Carley can't believe that anyone would act this way and she responds with distrust and anger.  But over time, she eventually opens herself to the possibility that love can actually exist and that she actually deserves to experience it.

A heart wrenching story about learning to love again after betrayal.  As a story of this nature requires to be successful, the characters are strong and vivid.  Their development and growth vivid and meaningful.  The relationship between Carley and her foster mother is nuanced and complex.  The one with her biological mother even more so. 

I loved the story, but it's a very painful read and the ending left me angry (even as I admitted to myself that it was the only plausible one out there).  The themes and their treatment are surprisingly mature for the target age range and the thematic material strikes me as not necessarily being appropriate, but I would suppose it would depend on the reader.

Maybe I can find a nice light dystopian to read next?

Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here, by Anna Breslaw

Scarlett does not have much of a life IRL, but she's a major force in Lycanthrope High fanfiction.  And when the show (a thinly veiled Buffy) is cancelled, she and her online friends have to come to grips with what lies in their futures.  Scarlett certainly has a lot of real life issues to deal with that she now finds herself unable to avoid:  a father who abandoned her, an old guy friend who drifted apart, and girlfriends who've turned to frenemies.  An eccentric old lady serves as advisor and oracle.

Packed full of cultural references, Scarlett Epstein is trying to go for snarky and cool (or at the very least to capture its snarky and cool heroine).  The style can get tiring and I found the attitude off-putting.  In the end, the old lady was pretty much the only character I bonded with.  And much of the time, I wondered what the point was?  It's all very clever but not a story which held much interest for me.

Written in the Stars, by Aisha Saeed

Naila is looking forward to finishing high school, going away to college, and to finally being able to spend time with her boyfriend Saif.  She loves her family and knows they mean well, but her parents don't approve of Saif.  In fact, they have plans to arrange a marriage for her instead.  But Naila knows that she just needs to outwait them.  Soon, she'll be away at school and she and Saif can see each other as often as they wish.

But when her parents discover that she is sneaking out to be with her boyfriend, they freak out. Under the pretense of a little summer vacation to see family, they take her to Pakistan.  And before Naila can figure it out and stop them, she's been married off to a Pakistani man she doesn't even know.

A harrowing story of a young woman with patience and strength that are hard to imagine.  Her primary characteristic seems to be her ability to wait -- for days, weeks, and even months -- for opportunities to escape her circumstances.

Rich in cultural detail, the story delights in its setting.  Still, it is an excruciating story full of cruelty.  One thing that readers will have trouble with is accepting how Naila's parents could do this to her.  And while no full explanation is made, Saeed does a valiant job of making it seem all too plausible.  Unfortunately, some readers may simply reinforce their derogatory attitude towards Muslim cultures, but as Saeed points out, forced marriage is hardly unique to only a few cultures.  It's a stunning book.

Goldfish, by Nat Luurtsema

After Lou fails to qualify for the British Olympic swimming time trials, she feels lost.  Her best friend has made it and left her for training camp.  And Lou realizes that after nine years of constant practice, there isn’t much else in her life.  She lacks the social life of her older sister or any particular academic talent.  Her greatest moment appears to be when her purse flipped over in class and spilled Tampons all over the floor.

But then she meets three boys with their eyes on winning a slot on the TV show Britain’s Hidden Talent.  They have dreams of getting on with a synchronized swimming routine.  And they want Lou’s help to make it happen.  Never mind that none of them are serious swimmers or that Lou has never coached before!

A cute and funny adventure with a big heart, but not much character development.  As with much British YA, there isn’t much depth here and the whole thing plays out as a comedy (with more than a few comic digressions in the mix).  It’s hard to take anyone or anything seriously and the story itself grows a bit repetitive.  But it’s lively enough if that is what you want.

Why British YA writers shy away from doing serious character studies is interesting in itself.  There seems to be an unspoken assumption that adolescents are able to handle it and need to be sheltered in emotional safe zones.  They can have adventures, but any serious repercussions are always handled by parents and other adults.  As a result, the adventures exist in a bubble.  This makes the characters seem shallow and clueless about the world.  Adolescence certainly has enough of that already, without the additional nannying.

How It Feels to Fly, by Kathryn Holmes

At a three-week summer camp for talented (but troubled) young people, Samantha and her peers learn how to cope with crippling anxiety attacks.

Samantha has dreamt of becoming a professional ballerina since she was six, but puberty has not been kind to her and she finds that, despite her best efforts, she no longer has the body type that she needs to land roles.  Or at least that is what her inner voice tells her.  Learning to overcome that voice is what camp is for.  But in the comradeship that develops, Samantha and the others find there is much more to learning to fly than simply learning coping mechanisms.

Fairly predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless.  The story combines ballet, summer camp, and illness recovery in a nice slick package.  Mothers come in for particularly heavy blame, which will appeal to the usual readers.  Some potential romance keeps things juicy.  And angst runs throughout.  You can't really go wrong.  The cover, however, is really unrelated to the story -- not really sure where it came from!

Personally, I found this a hard book to read at points as I too suffer from panic attacks, so the struggles and the discussions resonated with me.  No major breakthroughs, unfortunately, but it was thought provoking and I'll think about the conversations that take place and the ideas raised.  Holmes did a lot of research on therapy techniques and that was probably my favorite part.

Places No One Knows, by Brenna Yovanoff

Waverly can't sleep so she runs through the night.  And when she does sleep, she finds herself transported to the bedroom of Marshall.  It couldn't be a more incongruous set-up.  Waverly is popular, athletic, and an academic overachiever.  Marshall is a stoner, disillusioned, and on the edge of dropping out.  But in the twilight realm, two lost souls connect in a way that they can never do in real life.

A strange and original story about finding an honest voice in a world ruled by social pressure to conform.  Yovanoff's messages about the destructive expectations of adolescent life and peer pressure are nothing new or original, but are explored in a novel magical realistic way.  The nocturnal encounters are just one aspect of this novel's broader exploration of lost souls trying to escape their perceived fate, a theme that is manifested in several different ways.

The story is complicated and not an easy read.  I nearly abandoned it because I frequently lost the track or had trouble keeping up with the characters.  But the ending is particularly strong and made the effort worthwhile.  It is also a book which probably gains in a re-reading (which is rarely true in YA).

The Problem With Forever, by Jennifer L. Armentrout

When they were little, Rider always took care of Mallory.  Living in an abusive foster home, it was Rider who literally took the blows that the grownups dished out.  He promised her that he would be there for her "forever" and she believed him.  And with a knight in shining armor, she could hide in silence.  He called her "Mouse."

But when Mallory was injured and the dire state of their arrangement revealed, Rider and Mallory were split up.  She was taken in by two doctors who gave her a stable home and eventually adopted her, giving her a future.  She still has nightmares from those early years, but she's moving on.  What hasn't changed though is her silence.

Four years later, fate finds Mallory starting her senior year in a new school, where Rider also attends.   They haven't seen each other in all that time, but immediately bond again -- a bond that leads to attraction and romance.  But what neither of them can admit is how much they have changed.  And how much their reunion will change them further.

It is a moving story about recovery and survival that is as gritty (and depressing) as the the city of Baltimore, where the story is set.  The story has a lovely dramatic arc as we get to watch Mallory emerge from her shell and gain a voice of her own.  There's no denying the appeal of the complex characters of Mallory and Rider, and even the supporting characters (Mallory's step parents and the bitter Paige in particular).  But the novel is very long and it drags (and even repeats itself).  The overall effect is to blunt the impact of so much of the story.  The ending is a particularly drawn out affair and Armentrout's insistence on a happy ending just seemed too contrived and untrue to the story.

The Cresswell Plot, by Eliza Wass

Castella and her five siblings live in the woods in upstate New York, in a state of fear.  Their mother is crippled and their father bordering on insanity.  Raising them on a strict diet of religious fanaticism, he’s isolated the children from their peers.  In preparation for the coming of end times, the children have been betrothed to each other and are forbidden to socialize outside of the family. But the kids can’t help but be curious about the world and others.

In stories like this, there are two things that we commonly encounter.  The first is usually a pretty thorough dig at faith and the casual elision of fanaticism with all forms of organized religion.  To her great credit, Wass goes out of her way to distance this family's belief system from any specific religious tradition.

The second element is usually a tremendous effort to set up physical barriers that explain why the kids stick around.  The most common explanations are physical isolation or restraints.  Wass takes another tact altogether:  she provides her heroine with plenty of opportunity to flee, but puts psychological barriers in her way.  It is not confinement that keeps her around (far from it, she is quite free at all times). Instead, it is her loyalty to her siblings, the years of indoctrination, and her doubts about her own sanity that keep her in place (as they do to entire family as well).  The result is a chilling tale of faith and madness.  It's a fast-paced icky read.

Read Between the Lines, by Jo Knowles

Told in the voices of ten young people in ten separate chapters, their lives interact with each other over the course of a day.  What ties them together is their incomprehension of each other.  This translates into anger and resentment, causing each of them to have a moment when they flip each other off.  This leads in the end to some late moralizing about how we might all be happier if we took a little more time and effort to understand each other.

The result is clever, but often distractingly so.  At times, it is something of an effort to tie characters together.  Also, given the overall structural demands of the story, linking the characters overshadows any significant storytelling.  It is a story entirely too much in danger of being too clever.  Still, I liked the experiment and the ten voices were at least interesting to follow.  Naturally enough, it’s a bit gritty and having the central  organizing conceit being an impolite gesture is a bit risqué.