Numbers, by Rachel Ward

In this unusual mixture of supernatural and hard gritty urban reality, Jem is the daughter of a heroine addict whose been kicked around her share of foster homes. Her biggest problem is not her difficult homelife but the fact that whenever she looks a person in the eye, she sees a date -- the date when that person will die. This terrible piece of knowledge has prevented her from making friends until she meets Spider - a trouble youth with his own baggage (not least of which is the date which Jemma sees when she looks at him -- only a few weeks away!). But everything skews dramatically off course when Jemma and Spider find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time (a fact that Jemma knows because every person she sees has the same date hanging over them -- today's date!).

This book is many things: a taut suspenseful story, supernaturalism with some nice religious commentary, and a story of two troubled youths who battle with themselves, with each other, and with a system that has given up on them. It's not an easy book to read. Given the high stakes that are riding on them, you'd rather they were more valiant, more mature, and more together, but that would not be realistic. Instead, Jemma and Spider are every bit the screw-ups that society has ordained them to be. The irony that society has already determined their future when it is Jemma who can actually predict the future is just one of the nice subtleties of this story. Refreshingly original!

For Keeps, by Natasha Friend

Sixteen years ago, Paul (the boy who got Josie's mother pregnant) moved away without a second thought. It was hard on her mother to raise Josie on her own, but it also brought mother and daughter very close together. All of that is thrown into jeapardy when they spot Paul's parents (Josie's grandparents) in a local grocery store and Josie learns that they have moved back into the area. This discovery sets off a chain of events that irrevocably changes their world and challenges everything Josie thought she understood about her mother, her father, and the nature of love itself.

On its face, this is fairly predictable YA fare and will not offer any major surprises, but Friend has a particularly strong talent with depicting complex familial interaction (as seen in her previous novels like Perfect). It's easy to find parallels to Gilmore Girls here but Josie and her mother Kate's relationship is far more realistic and nuanced. In a similar vein, Josie's relationship with her BFF Liv (and with Liv's Dads) is also refreshingly honest.

I randomly picked this up off the shelf at my local library, but I think it deserves a good buzz, so I'd recommend it to others.

Nuts, by Kacy Cook

One day, Nell and her brothers find a baby squirrel lying in their back yard. Its mother has abandoned it and the kids decide to rescue it and adopt the squirrel as a pet. Pretty soon thereafter, they find a second baby and the work of raising two baby squirrels goes into full swing. Nell does some research on the internet and finds out that she is supposed to hand them over to a professional wildlife rehabilitator. But instead, she lies to her parents and claims that she knows how to take care of the animals. Against the odds (and basic common sense) she succeeds in raising the animals but then suffers from the difficulties of breaking her bond and letting the animals go free.

This is an educational middle reader in several senses of the word. For one thing, you can learn a lot about squirrels by reading it, but there is also plenty here about wildlife conservation and various moral lessons about the costs of deceit. It is a very easy book to use in pointing out to young readers what they should not do when they find a baby wild animal.

The moral compass though is a bit skewed. In the end, everyone regrets the bad choices they have made (and the author reiterates that message in her acknowledgments), but since the consequences of these decisions are so minor, it doesn't really seem like the typical reader would take home that message. Instead, it seems more likely that reading a book like this would make you want to raise a baby wild animal of your own.

The Life of Glass, by Jillian Cantor

Glass may be very fragile (forming cracks at an incredibly high speed if dropped), but it is also very durable (taking a million years to break down). Glass is a metaphor for the changes in Melissa's freshman year (whee friendships shatter easily but the basic roots are nearly impossible to dissolve). Her father has recently died from cancer, but the focus of this story is on Melissa's friendships and romances (and those of her friends and her sister). There isn't much of a plot to this story, but rather a series of dramatic events that exist to illustrate and highlight her growth.

Cantor's earlier book September Sisters bothered me for its lack of plot and its general formlessness. This novel is written in much the same style, but is more successful. Melissa is an interesting character and her relationships have a complexity to them (based as much upon acceptance and forgiveness, as they do about attraction). The friendships have the transience and insecurity of adolescence. Cantor understands the psychology of human interaction and depicts it well. One suspects that she would just prefer to write about those relationships than be burdened with a plot and a story. In this case, it works out.

Saving Maddie, by Varian Johnson

Years ago, when they were kids, Josh and Maddie were close friends. When Maddie moved away, she promised that she would stay in touch. The promise was easily broken, but Josh never forgot her. When she returns five years later, showing up at church in a scandalous dress, it is clear that she has changed. Josh's parents, fearing for his reputation, forbid him from seeing her, but Josh can see beyond her appearance. He is convinced that he can rescue her and bring her back to the church. But are his motives pure or does his own stirred-up feelings play a role in his desire to help?

The story is a bit hard to describe as it is about as much about what is not said as it is about what is. Overall, the pacing is a bit slow, but Johnson's focus is more on characters than storytelling. And he has created a pair of vivid characters, struggling to find their place. Maddie wants to regain her self-respect (and escape the label of being a slut) while Josh is trying to grasp at who he really is (and move beyond his reputation for being the goody goody minister's son). Neither of them knows where their search will lead and that exploration is really the point of the story.

In sum, this is a very basic example of a coming-of-age story (in the grand tradition of many classics) and deals with those issue of finding oneself and defining one's role in the community in the most basic sense. The story has a timelessness to it that promises the book long legs.

Love, Aubrey, by Suzanne LaFleur

It is rare for a book to shine new light on a tired topic. And what could be more tired in kidlit than death and grieving?

Aubrey loses her father and little sister in a car accident. A few weeks after that, her mother abandons her. After coping at home alone for a week, Aubrey's grandmother rescues her and takes her to live in Vermont at her home. In that new home, Aubrey befriends the girl next door and established a quirky friendship with an emotionally-troubled boy at school. All along, she copes with her losses and slowly recovers.

It's such a cliche plotline with my least favorite subplot (child abandonment) as an opener, that I didn't have a lot of hope for the book when I started. I expected to be able to predict every plot turn as it came and I was prepared to groan my way through it all to the tearful confrontation and life-affirming ending. I was only half right. Yes, the plot followed the predictable direction and LaFleur made no attempt to throw up any surprises in the action of the story. However, she managed to catch me off-guard with her totally original handling of how Aubrey (and her friends) actually handled the challenges.

There's a surprising clarity to Aubrey's behavior. One might even accuse it of not being age appropriate, but I think that would do a disservice to kids. And it isn't so much that Aubrey doesn't act her age as it is that she refuses to let herself be dragged down into melodrama. She certainly has her down moments and she doesn't always act calmly, but she is able to reason through things. She doesn't fight, but she stands up for herself. Through her difficulties, she is able to reach insights that are inspiring. I found that refreshing.

Far too often, authors create obvious flaws in their characters for the sole purpose of "solving" their problems by the end of the book. Aubrey is an eloquent and capable problem solver from the beginning, but she has plenty of problems to work through. In creating a more complex and vibrant heroine, the story is raised far above any sort of manipulative tear-jerking formula into something much more interesting.

If You Live Like Me, by Lori Weber

After three years of traipsing around economically-depressed sections of Canada, Cheryl is fed up. She misses her home and friends in Montreal, but instead of heading home this year, her father is dragging them to Newfoundland! She can't imagine a more forlorn place on earth. It doesn't help that their purpose in going (so her father can write yet another chapter for his book on dying cultures) is downright embarrassing. Cheryl is determined to find a way back home, even if it means stowing away on a ship. But then she meets Jim (the literal boy next door) and leaving becomes more complicated.

Too much effort is expended in this book on two things: providing a breathless tour of the Rock and making sure we know how frustrated Cheryl is to be dragged out there. Of course, we all understand that she'll be seduced by its charms (with some help by the right boy) and Cheryl's protestations to the contrary are weak and fairly pointless. So, the first 150 or so pages drag on. Weber obviously loves Newfoundland but her praise of its scenery and beauty gets tiresome. The romance, while inevitable, is not all that interesting and the similarly predictable parental confrontation doesn't thrill either. In sum, the drama never builds and neither did my investment in the characters.

Leftovers, by Heather Waldorf

After a lifetime of sexual abuse from her father, Sarah hates having her picture taken. When Sarah's mother's boyfriend tries to take her picture, not realizing what it will trigger, Sarah freaks out. She smashes the camera and flees in his car. She can't really drive (she doesn't even have a license) and her ride is quickly cut short when she crashes the car. In the aftermath, she is sentenced to do community service at a summer rehab camp for dogs. It is there that she befriends a young cancer survivor and a big sloppy dog. With them (and all of their combined emotional baggage) she is able to face her fear of photographs and of the sexual abuse that caused it.

The idea of the story is pretty compelling and the narrative sucks you in pretty quickly. The writing is functional and flows well enough. However, I found myself feeling detached from the characters and simply wishing that the story would end as soon as possible (perhaps because having exposed the sexual abuse Sarah experienced right up front, I wanted it resolved as an issue as soon as possible). In a story like this, you start flipping the pages simply to get on with it. And, while there is a twist or two, the story essentially delivers what you expect in the end. That's not a fatal flaw but leaving so little else in the story makes the journey seem less worthwhile.

Split, by Swati Avasthi

After years of watching his father beat up his mother, Jace finally stands up and hits him back. As a result, his Dad throws him out of the house and Jaces goes off to find his older brother Christian who fled many years before. Reunited, Jace and Christian face their horrifying past together. It's a rocky road as the brothers find that the years of witnessing the abuse have left them far more damaged that either of them realized. Initially, they have the help of a few friends, but it becomes very clear that the two young men have to battle their demons for themselves.

This is a truly outstanding book, albeit with a harrowing narrative. You'll need a strong stomach to get through the abuse scenes as well as to witness the realistic portrayal of what being witnesses to such acts has done to the boys. The book is an extremely strong character study. Nothing about Jace or Christian is simple. Their personalities and problems unravel slowly through the story, revealing only a little at a time (not so much for suspense as simply to help the reader digest the complexity of the issues. I like that complexity a great deal and in my mind Avasthi accurately displayed the impact of abuse within families.

In sum, this is not an enjoyable book to read, but it is a necessary one. To better understand the horrors of abuse and its long-term impact on children, this is a superb place to start. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book for light summer reading, but I feel it is a great book nonetheless.

And Then Everything Unraveled, by Jennifer Sturman

When Delia's mother disappears in Antarctica and is presumed dead, Delia is sent to live with her eccentric aunt Charley in New York City. But rather than grieve about her loss, Delia attempts to figure out what happened to her mother. It quickly becomes apparent that things don't add up and Delia grows convinced that her mother is still alive and being kept against her will. In the midst of her sleuthing, there's a bit of romance as well with a boy from school who is also the son of a man apparently tied to Delia's mother's disappearance.

It's a nice fast-paced read with a bevy of memorable characters. Not very realistic, but the humor keeps things moving along. I'm also not a big fan of the ending (or the lack thereof) but it will lead well to the inevitable sequel (which hit store shelves on July 1st). I'll also note my usual protest against gratuitous references to 80s teen movies.

The Carbon Diaries 2017, by Saci Lloyd

In this sequel, two years have passed since the flooding of London from global warming. Laura's parents have moved to the country but Laura has stayed in London, occasionally attending art school classes and trying to get her band Dirty Angels off the ground. The times are definitely unusual: climate change has destroyed most people's livelihoods, the government has turned authoritarian, drought in Africa has triggered a mass exodus northwards and set up massive anti-immigrant sensibilities. When Laura isn't jamming, she and her friends are protesting the government and just trying to stay alive.

The first book was an uneasy balance between science-fiction and YA, but the second installment is even more untenable. When one considers the true horror of the political situation described in the book, it's really hard to figure out why Laura puts so much effort into her band. She may simply be obsessed, but for the reader it is hard to know where to throw one's focus: massacres of dozens of people or canceled gig? The writing is wooden and the characters are largely forgettable. Since I didn't find the people worth paying attention to, I turned to the unfolding events, but everything is told so flippantly (albeit a bit like a teen would process things so I'll give it points for realism) it is really hard to figure things out and the violence just seems arbitrary.

Alice in Charge, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

In this twenty-fifth installment of the Alice series (Wow! It's hard to believe the sheer stamina of this project!), Alice is finally entering her senior year. She's struggling with her intense workload and applying to colleges. She's missing Patrick (who's now at Chicago in his freshman year). There's a new student from the Sudan for her to help acclimate, a developmentally-challenged girl named Amy for her to support, and a club of neo-Nazis to shake things up.

One of the interesting things about Alice and her development is observing how her priorities have changed. While friends were very important in the earlier books, so much of her life now is spent doing things. Relationships have become a much lower priority for Alice (or at least for Naylor). The chief casualty is the relationship with Patrick (which is a poorly maintained plot thread now) but there is also surprisingly little in this book on her relationship with her best friends like Pamela.

Beyond that, there is a certain tiredness with the story these days, as if we are just going through the motions of a contractual obligation. Naylor has promised us that she'll continue to follow Alice's life until at least she graduates and that puts us one or two books away from the end. That achievement is certainly worthy of notice as no other YA writer has documented so minutely every developmental moment in the life of their heroine. However, Naylor's abandonment of tracing the nature of Alice's friendships in these later books (in favor of highlighting as many actions as possible) is a sign that things are truly wrapping up.

The Secret Language of Girls, by Frances O'Roark Dowell

I'll be reviewing Dowell's latest book in a few weeks and thought I should go back and read some earlier ones. This particular one is something of a minor classic in tween reads.

Kate and Marylin have been best friends since they were in nursery school, but when they enter sixth grade things start to change between them. At first it is the influence of Flannery, a girl who moves into the neighborhood, who seduces Marylin away from Kate. But in the end, Marylin and Kate find that they just want different things from life: Marylin wants to become popular and Kate wants to just enjoy life and her friends. Strangely, no matter how apart they drift, they both come to realize that they will always share a bond.

Each chapter in the book stands on its own as a short story exploring the strains and pulls on the friendship between Kate and Marylin. Told in a passive first person voice (usually from the point of view of one of the girls, but sometimes through the eyes of Marylin's little brother), each chapter takes on a different theme (friendship, kissing, divorce, marriage, etc.). The writing is fairly basic and the tone fairly preachy (there are obvious morals to draw from each story). Dowell is clear to avoid any language that would lose the younger reader. This could have made the book unreadable, but there is a basic sweetness to the stories that redeems them.

After, by Kristin Harmel

After her father dies in a car accident (how have I managed to end up with this whole series of books about teens grieving over death?) Lacey has thrown herself into taking care of her remaining family (her distant mother, disconnected little brother, and substance-abusing older brother). Having those responsibilities keeps her together. When a girl at her school loses her mother to cancer, Lacey gets an even more ambitious idea to form a club for kids with deceased parents. The idea takes off and brings her closer to a new boy who's suffered from losses of his own.

While a little bit preachy (Harmel wants to introduce readers to the real-life Kate's Club for children who have lost parents), this novel is overall entertaining and interesting to read. It's not great literature but Harmel has a good sense for the nature of the suffering that the kids are going through and realistically portrays their frustrations. I like books that show me a new world and this one does a nice job of doing that.

Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine

Caitlyn struggles to get through life as it is. Suffering from Asperger's Syndrome, the only person around her who ever really Got It was her older brother Devon. But after Devon is killed in a school shooting, she tries to both cope with her grief and to articulate her feelings to others. Her father, while unimpaired, is in his own way unable to deal with his emotions either. In these difficult circumstances, Caitlyn proves to be wonderfully insightful, reaching the right conclusion through significant struggle and solving the problem in her own unique way.

There have been several other children's books which attempted to explain Asperger's to readers, but this one strikes me as the most successful one to date. Without sacrificing entertainment value, strong character, or realism, Erskine has Caitlyn shows us clearly how she thinks and gets through her communications with others. It can be a difficult ride at first to follow the narrative but by the end of this poignant story of loss and perseverance, you really find that you are putting yourself completely in her mindset. In her words, by the end of the story, I finally Got It.

Even beyond the tremendous achievement of Erskine's portrayal of Caitlyn, her ability to develop even her "normal" characters is notable. The father is nicely portrayed as difficult and troubled in his own way. Caitlyn's friendship with Michael is developed in both a beautiful and realistic fashion.

I suppose that one could fault the book for its sentimentality (I'm a sucker for books that make me fight back the tears), but the story never became syrupy. Rather, I found my spirit both moved and uplifted. This is, by far, the best book I've read in 2010 so far and it is hardly an outlier. I had not noticed before I started reading this book that Erskine is also the author of Quaking (a near miss book I reviewed some years ago) and all I can say is that she keeps getting better and better. You will want to make a point of catching some time to read this one!

The Secret Year, by Jennifer R. Hubbard

After Julia is killed in a car accident, Colt has a need to grive. After all, the two of them were in a close intimate relationship for an entire year. But she was from the Mountain where the rich kids live and he is from the Flats, and their relationship was always a secret. They met only at night and she never led on in public that they were together (even keeping an official boyfriend from a well-to-do family).

In the year that follows Juliet's death, Colt learns to cope with and overcome his grief, while never being allowed to make it public. Along the way, he learns that there are plenty of other people with secrets. And he also begins to question not just the relationship he had with Julia but also the divisions between rich and poor and between the Mountain and the Flats.

A fairly brisk read which has some good depth to it. While I expected a book that dealt with grieving, this actually is more about class divisions and the difficulties that adolescents go through dealing with them. The writing is sharp and the story moves along. The characters are well developed and sympathetic.

Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver

Samantha is part of a totally It clique -- four girls who rule the school and don't mind putting everyone else in their place. But after a party in their senior year, the girls are in an accident and Sam dies. When she wakes up in the morning, she's convinced that it was all a horrible nightmare, until she discovers that she's woken up on the previous day and now must live the last day of her life over again. It won't really surprise anyone that the point of this exercise is to learn to fix the wrongs of her life before she'll be free of the cycle. What is a surprise is how it all will work out -- with a conclusion that will keep you totally in suspense until the very end.

Now, my initial thought was: who on earth needs to take Groundhog Day (a totally sweet movie) and make a YA version of it? Especially since Wendy Mass wrote a similar book called Eleven Birthdays which had essentially the same premise. And why make the story an amazingly long 460-odd pages? But once you read this book, you realize that Oliver really has a much more ambitious agenda. Certainly, the story starts off as one YA-cliche after another (popular girls, unpopular girls, self-absorbed boys, parties, beer, feminine hygiene references, etc. etc.) but once that groundwork is laid out, the story takes some significant jumps forward.

The key, as always, is great characters. Sam is the epitome of great YA heroines. Getting to live through the same day again and again, we really get to see her grow as different choices in each day allow other events to happen. She's multifaceted and her growth has a great and natural progression to it. Supporting characters like Lindsay and Juliet are also quite moving. Neither is quite the villian or victim that would be shown in a typical novel. Instead, their particular "flaws" blur the edges of their characters. The result is depth everywhere you look.

For a first novel, this is truly a stunning work and I look forward to seeing more from Lauren Oliver!

Flightsend, by Linda Newbery

After the death of the baby who would have been Charlie's sister, her grieving Mom decides to make a full break of things, quit her job, break up with her lover, and move out to the country. Charlie is pretty messed up over the whole thing. While the death of her would-be sister is traumatizing, Charlie is most upset about the loss of her Mom's partner (even if he had no legal status as her stepfather). She is keen to get them to reconcile.

She doesn't have much success with getting them back together, but she does spend the summer in their new home (Flightsend) making new friends and discovering herself.

While the writing is strong and Newbery occasionally strikes gold, I found the book overall to be quite dull. Despite the book's subtitle ("a summer of discovery"), there really is surprisingly little of that in the novel. Charlie adopts a dog, takes a job, babysits for a child who reminds her of her dead sister, meets some people, addresses some feelings of infatuation, but not a whole lot of actual growth here. And given the slow pace and low energy of the story, I had trouble tracking all of the characters and/or their significance. In the end, I couldn't find much of a point to the book.

Tangled, by Carolyn Mackler

It starts in the Caribbean as four teens (Jena, Skye, Dakota, and Owen) meet at a resort. While Dakota and Owen are brothers, the four of them share almost nothing in common (except perhaps being all from New York). In the subsequent months, their stories overlap in unexpected ways. To drive home this overlap, the novel switches storytellers at key junctures giving us a fresh perspective on the events.

At its heart, this is a fairly pedestrian teen romance. While it has some of the Mackler-trademarked humor (more on that below), it does not especially break new ground. The big shtick in this one is the shifting viewpoints, which is done in entire sections of the book rather than in alternating chapters. Thus, a full quarter of the book is told by Jena and then the second quarter is passed to Dakota, and so on. Key revelations are doled out sparingly (and frequently much later in the book) to conserve the ah-ha! moments.

Mackler's made something of a name for herself with spunky and funny heroines. In comparison to her earlier books, this one is not terribly funny. That doesn't mean that she's trying her hand at drama, but rather more a mark of the low energy of the story. Part of the problem (and its true with any book that shifts POVs) is that, just as you are starting to get interested in one of the narrators, it shifts to the next and the story you were following (if character is what you are into) gets lost. It's more true in this case since once the story switches to a new character, the others get sidelined.

Some Girls Are, by Courtney Summers

Regina has enjoyed being part of Anna's top clique. Sure, it's involved plenty of dirty work -- helping Anna ruin the lives of other kids -- but it gave her a place to belong. Regina may have felt uncomfortable doing what she did, but she was always too afraid to challenge the order of things.

But when Regina is nearly raped at a party by Anna's boyfriend, Anna is convinced that it was really the other way around and she turns on Regina. Soon, Regina finds out what it is like to be on the receiving end of Anna's wrath. Pranks and taunts turn to abuse and violence, spinning very definitely out of control. Adults prove ineffectual and the situation escalates. In the midst of it all, Regina finds some solace with one of her former victims -- a loner named Michael.

Harrowing, disturbing, and mildly exploitative, the book sucks you in and leaves you madly digesting every page. In fact, I found it a bit sick just how interested I got. After all, what joy is there in reading a story about kids doing horrible things to each other? My guess would be that you would enjoy this if you had never been a victim of bullying before. But for the rest of us, this just hits a bit too close to home. So, I wouldn't decsribe the book as fun reading.

Very LeFreak, by Rachel Cohn

Essentially two separate stories loosely tied together, this is a novel about a freshman at Columbia named Very (short for Veronica) LeFreak who is a combination of a technophile and a party animal. She spends the first half of the book hosting parties, mooching off her peers, losing herself in emails, browsing, and texting her friends. In the process she fails her classes, alienates her friends, and generally loses touch with reality. In the second half of the book, she goes in to "rehab" trying to recover from her tech obsessions and come to grips with her real life (which she has been avoiding with all of the tech gadgets).

The first half of the book, which generally worked for me, is sort of an updated retelling of Party Girl. The Middle Eastern falafel seller is replaced by a mysterious South Asian online companion, but the obsession with hosting good parties and the conflct between wanting to do something real with her life and escaping into hedonism is pretty familiar territory. There's enough of a hint in those early chapters about why Very has trouble with reality and also about her own acknowledgement that the current situation cannot last. It has a good sense of tension and Very is an interesting character to watch.

However, the second part really falls apart in my opinion. Even the concept (a summer camp in Vermont where addicts recover from their tech obsessions) just seemed downright silly and impractical. Yes, I understand that obsessions come in all flavors, but the program laid out is goofy. Worse, the storytelling declines significantly. The timeline turns jumpy, plot points are lost and recapped later, romantic lines that were barely hinted at in the first half are sloppily developed. Worst of all is the two dimensional counselor Keisha who is an amalgam of every literary stereotype psychologist and less. Frankly, I just tried to plow through part two as fast as I could. I'd recommend that you skip it altogether.

Rachel Cohn the author has grown to disappoint me. Her first books (Gingerbread and - to a lesser extent - Shrimp) were outstanding original works with a great sense of humor. I loved them. But since then, her writer has weakened noticeably. Very could have been an interesting character, but it seems as if once she hits rehab, Cohn doesn't know what to do with her.

It's Raining Cupcakes, by Lisa Schroeder

When you're working 50-60 hrs/wk for your job and feeling the pressure, sometimes you really need to regress back to good middle reader, so for a little break from both work and the teen reads, we have this one...

Twelve-year-old Isabel has never been out of Oregon, let alone to all of the exotic places in the world she'd like to go to, but she hopes to change all that by winning a trip to New York City as a finalist in a baking contest. Before that, however, she's got to help her mother open up a cupcake shop called It's Raining Cupcakes. She'll have plenty of adventures along the way: a babysitting job from heck, eccentric neighbors, an ill-advised trip out on the fire escape, and some falling out with her best friend. She'll also discover that she's got a pretty decent head on her shoulders even if she doesn't always make the best decisions.

It's cute and fun. Not very substantial and probably fattening (just like the cupcakes!). The book has a nice whimsical tone to it and, although it drags a bit towards the end, it's light and quick reading. There are lots of cute touches, including (to name a few) a series of knock knock jokes, chapters named after cupcake flavors, recipes for cupcakes at the end, and Isabel's passport cover journal. Nice!

Broken Soup, by Jenny Valentine

After her older brother Jack died, Rowan had to step up to keep her family together. Her mother had retreated into herself in grief, her father had left them, and her little sister Stroma was too little to manage without someone to help. But it's been hard going.

Then one day a stranger (an American boy named Harper) hands her an old photographic negative in a shop. She's never seen it before but he claims it fell out of her bag. When she discovers that the negative is actually a picture of Jack, the mystery deepens. But that mystery is only the beginning of a series of revelations that help Rowan come to terms with Jack's legacy.

While this sounds like a lovely book and it's gotten several rave reviews on other sites, I couldn't get past how deadly dull the story was to me. The characters were not interesting and their struggles were meaningless to me. It seemed like every time Valentine ran out of things to write, she'd just introduce a new crisis. The book lacked direction.

The Summer of Skinny Dipping, by Amanda Howells

Rebounding from getting dumped by her boyfriend, 16 year-old Mia is looking forward to spending the summer in the Hamptons with her aunt, uncle, and two cousins (the youngest of whom - Corine - Mia has always been close with in the past). But this summer, things have changed. Corine has grown more worldly and the two girls find that they have little in common. In Corine's mind, Mia hasn't grown up, but Corine's drugs and alcohol lifestyle repulses Mia.

When Corine dumps Mia at a party, it provides an opportunity for Mia to meet the boy next door (Simon) and the two of them hit it off. Meeting late at night on the beach, Mia finds herself being drawn into a romance that she never expected and didn't even think she wanted. Meanwhile, family relationships are being sorely tested as just about everyone is confronting each other. By the end of the summer, Mia realizes that many of her impressions of herself and of her family need to be corrected.

On its face, this novel follows a pretty familiar trajectory and thus provides nice summer comfort reading. In that respect, it reminded me for the most part of the Au Pairs series. However, this novel runs deeper than that sort of mindless fluff. Both the romance and the relationships between the other characters are fairly thickly drawn. There's plenty of character flaw lying around and both adults and children behave in a fairly realistic fashion.

The real difference with this story is the ending and I'm less thrilled about that. Without giving away the specifics, the book takes a sudden and serious shift into tragedy in the final chapters. I'm never a fan of last minute twists, but it does provide a heavier sense of pathos to the story and provides some good emotional weight. The danger is that it also drowns the other plot lines. When tragedy strikes, the seemingly important spats and conflicts seem insignificant. And the rushed ending sweeps most of them under the carpet.

Bad Girls Don't Die, by Katie Alender

Alexis is a bit of a high school misfit with a reputation for causing trouble with her peers. Alexis's little sister Kasey is no better. She has hardly any friends and is attached to her dolls, risking ridicule at the age of 13 for doing so. With all of this outsider vibe going on, Alexis is surprised when a popular boy named Carter starts to show an interest in her. Before she has much time to worry about that change of fortune, Alexis begins to notice strange things going on around the house (doors closing on their own, strange noises, etc.) and odd behavior from her sister that seems to suggest that Kasey is either developing multiple personalities or is becoming possessed. These disturbances take on an increasingly sinister character.

This is a strange novel with a split personality of its own. One angle is the story of an outcast learning to accept that she too could be popular. On the other side, it is a ghost story (part mystery and part horror) -- consider it like Sixteen Candles meets Poltergeist. And I'm not convinced that it really works. The ghost story is the strongest part, as the romance with Carter and the friendship with cheerleader Megan end up becoming annoying distractions far removed in tone from the rest (and are a less developed part of the story).

Not My Daughter, by Barbara Delinsky

Note: Sometimes books hit my reading list as much because teens are reading them as that they are YA. This is one of those books. I would guess that it is actually mothers that are reading the book and their daughters are curious about what Mom is reading. As I am neither of the above, I have no idea what that makes me!

Susan is dismayed enough to learn that her 17 year-old daughter is pregnant. It doesn't reflect well on her as a mother or as the principal of the high school. It also hits close to home because she herself was a teen mother. The far worse news appears soon enough, though, when two of her daughter's friends reveal that they too are pregnant. This can hardly be a coincidence.

As Susan attempts to control the rumors and protect her family's privacy, the issue quickly escalates into a battle between the town's traditionalists who have found the excuse that they have been looking for to dislodge Susan from her job, and Susan's supporters who are determined to keep the focus on the issues at hand.

The novel is a good read and the characters are well-developed. If you are looking for a book that describes what a mother would go through in this circumstance, I would think this is a good book for that. Delinsky does an excellent job of balancing Susan's disapproval for her daughter's decisions with her need to support the girl. The relationships in this story are drawn maturely and respectfully. Only a few of the bad guys fall into flat stereotypes.

If I have a complaint, it is really for what the book is not. I regret that the story never explored the girls' point of view. That wasn't really the point of the story so it is hardly a valid criticism, but it is a lack I felt profoundly. The decision of the daughter and her friends to form a pregnancy pact would have been interesting to explore (the motives are hinted at but hardly developed). Also, it is obvious that the girls' perspective about their decision to have babies changes throughout the story. That would have been interesting to develop more fully.

Dirty Little Secrets, by C. J. Omololu

Lucy's Mom has been collecting and saving stuff over the past couple of years. What began as an aversion to throwing away stuff needlessly has turned into a full-blown psychosis. The house has become so cluttered with garbage that one can barely move around it. Living conditions have deteriorated. For Lucy, the biggest struggle is to appear normal so that the other kids don't notice the problem. That's a challenge: she never invites anyone over, she makes up lies to keep her friends at a distance, and she is constantly in fear of someone discovering her family secret.

Just when she thinks she is getting ahead, she comes home to find her mother dead. Now she is faced with the reality that her mother's death will bring her unwanted attention and guarantee that she will never be "normal" again.

On the one hand, I like a story that introduces me to a new world. I had read about "hoarders" before but liked getting to understand the phenomenon in more depth. I also liked the way that Lucy's attempts to dig through the layers of garbage in their house served as a means to sift through the years of her mother's decline. Those parts of the story worked quite well.

I'm not a big fan of the child-in-peril plot line though. This is so obviously a case of a child in over her head that it is hardly something I could enjoy. I'm also not a big fan of the moral ambiguity in the decision to leave the dead mother just lying there for a day (a la Weekend at Bernie's). But mostly I didn't like the way that the story drifted. Exploring the relationship with Mom (and even with the siblings) was interesting, but the romance, Lucy's friendships, and the little boy next door were all plot lines that were so far removed from the story that they mostly distracted me from the dread of what was to come. Finally, the ending is something of a complete cop out as it comes completely out of left field, and doesn't provide emotional pay off.

Flash Burnout, by L. K. Madigan

The book's title refers to what happens when you misuse a flash, causing a photograph to be overexposed and washed out. It's the perfect metaphor for what happens to 15 year-old Blake's life when he gets sucked in to helping a friend (Marissa) cope with her troubled home life. There's also a difficult juggling act with his girlfriend (Shannon) and plenty of trouble with his peers and various adults (his parents, his girlfriend's parents, and his teachers).

It's pretty much required that any book about teen-aged boys focus on their raging hormones. I'd never be a fool enough to deny that 15 year-old boys are obsessed, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. So, kudos to Madigan for understanding that lust is not an end in itself, but rather a low-key roar in the background of everything else. Blake and his buddies may spend a lot of time talking about sex and posturing for each other, but he comes off as sympathetic and interesting at the same time. Sure, he'd like to get his girlfriend into the sack, but he's got plenty of other things going on in his head.

Just about every character in this book has a bit of depth in them: Blake's parents are embarrassingly geeky while still being clued-in and responsible parents, Blake's older brother is a wonderful foil, and both the boys and the girls act in a realistic and believable fashion. The only part that didn't work for me was the DJ girl (Cappie) who seems more like she is supposed to be symbolic of something than that she really exists in the story. And Shannon's parents are probably intended more for comedic value than anything else.

The story is funny, moves swiftly, and keeps you interested. It's also the sort of "boy book" that is targeted as much at female readers as male ones.

The Indigo Notebook, by Laura Resau

Zeeta and her mother are wanderers. Just when Zeeta gets settled in one place, her Mom decides to pull up stakes and take them someplace else. This time, they've come to South America.

In the town of Otavalo, Zeeta meets an American boy named Wendell who is looking for his birth parents. Zeeta (whose Spanish is much better than Wendell's) helps him in his search, which ends up in a remote village with a series of dark secrets. Meanwhile, back at home, Zeeta's mother Layla has found a new boyfriend who has finally convinced her to settle down. But after wishing for this for so long, Zeeta gets cold feet when the reality of returning to a "normal" life appears to be becoming a reality.

Like Resau's other books, this one is filled with loads of beautiful cultural details. However, I found the story itself more disjointed and muddy than her previous books. There are a lot of characters and having the narrative split in two (between the Wendell story and the Layla story) didn't help. Subplots (like the romance between Wendell and Zeeta, and Faustino's relationship with his family) remain sketchy and underdeveloped. It's simply a case of trying to do too much.

And as for the meaning of that blue notebook? Forget it! That never really gets any decent explanation.

The Girl With the Mermaid Hair, by Delia Ephron

Sukie has a serious problem with narcissism. When she can't see her reflection, she will use her phone's camera to take a "selfie" (a picture of herself) just to make sure she looks OK. Her mother's present of an antique full-length mirror is thus very welcome. But weird things start to happen: at a tennis match, a strange man man attacks her father, her mother disappears to a "spa" and returns with a nose job, and the mirror itself mysteriously develops holes and cracks. Only the family dog Senor seems to know what is going on.

Erroneously billed as YA, there really isn't much in this story (aside from the age of the heroine) that is teen. Instead, this is one of those bizarre "modern novels" of which I am such a fan (not!). The mirror is probably symbolic, but I didn't get it. The characters are numerous and largely forgettable, and thus hard to track. And, in the end, I couldn't figure out what the point was. Read at your own risk.

The Lonely Hearts Club, by Elizabeth Eulberg

When Penny's lifelong crush crushes her heart, Penny swears that she is done with boys...at least until after high school is over. Curiously, she begins to notice that so many of the girls around her (friends and non-friends) have had similarly bad experiences with boys and an idea is born: the Lonely Hearts Club. The mission of the Club is to provide each other support as its members swear to be true to each other and forgo romantic attachments. Pretty soon, it's a movement. Penny can hardly believe the transformations that the young women around her undergo and could never have predicted where it all will lead.

You won't have much trouble seeing where the story is going to go (no one ever said that a romance is supposed to be suspenseful), but this novel takes an unusually interesting trip to its destination. Now, with the wisdom of age, I could easily point out to these young women that they would all be much happier focusing on their friendships and spending less time in messy romances (and given the selfishness and inexperience of your typical adolescent, does anyone expect the romances to be anything other than messy?), but it's fun to see a group of girls figure this out for themselves. And if the story inspires some real-life teens to take charge of their lives and empower themselves, so much the better!

As for the story itself, it's hard to dislike a book with such a winning heroine. Penny is strong and opinionated, but she backs up her convictions. She can be shy and occasionally have a lapse of judgment, but she really is the kind of person that you would want as a best friend. My one grievance with the book is the unevenness of the story telling. For every strong section (some of the more caustic observations about boys had me rolling in laughter from pain self-recognition) there are painfully weak sections (the Principal, for example, is a throwaway and a pointless addition to the story, as in fact are all the bad guys). Eulberg has a terrible problem creating realistic motivations for her characters, instead making every villain a bad guy simply on the basis of being shallow. Every kind person is just doing the decent thing. And Eulberg quickly runs out of original ways for her characters to express emotions (affectionate or combative). To compensate for this problem, I coped by glossing over the more embarrassingly poorly-written sections. Thankfully these are few!

Overall, this is great fun. It's grl power stuff and obviously intended to be secretly shared by female readers, but I think boys could read it without getting cooties or having their manhood excised. And maybe they could learn a bit about how to avoid being such creeps!

By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead, by Julie Anne Peters

Daelyn has decided that it's time to stop being a failure. This time she is determined that she will actually succeed...at killing herself. She discovers a website called Through The Light that encourages her to plan it right and actually "complete" the plan. The website assigns her 23 days to wrap things up.

This book then traces those next 23 days. Daelyn recounts the traumas and losses that have brought her to this desperate point. We learn about a history of bullying, physical and sexual assault, and near-constant harassment and humiliation from her peers (and indifference from the adults). We also get introduced to two of her peers (Santana and Emily) who reach out to her and we get a hint that there might be something for her that is worth living for.

This short book is a quick paced read and, like so many of Peters's other books, is thought-provoking and well-written. Peters has a knack for picking out interesting troubled teens (Luna, Define "Normal", etc.) and I tend to like her books. The themes of bullying, abuse, and suicide will resound with a lot of young readers. I suspect that this book is going to be one of her more popular books and get a wide and positive reception. It's easy to sympathize with the fear of being bullied (we've all gone through it) and the ending will provide plenty of room for discussion (whether informal chatter or a classroom group).

While it is a good book and I totally get why people will like it and recommend it, I'm not going to join that chorus. I didn't like the book and most of all I didn't like Daelyn. That may sound like a cruel and heartless thing to say, but I just found it hard to stomach the constant woe-is-me whine that permeates the entire book. As Daelyn herself acknowledges in the end, that sort of self-pity is probably her worst enemy. I'm not convinced that readers will pick up on that subtlety. Now that I'm grown up, I realize that the melodrama that she relishes so much just isn't going to solve anything. And enduring it for 190 pages really grated on me like nails on a chalkboard (sorry folks, it's a dated analogy!). Now, that feeling is totally personal. It in no way reflects on the fact that the book is well-written and thought-provoking and 99% of folks who read it will love it and find it moving. All of that is true as well. So, I'm going to praise it as an excellent book that you may or may not like (but which I personally didn't enjoy).

Oh, yeah, one thing I think we can ALL agree to criticize this book for is its cover. Daelyn is allegedly this totally overweight girl. Do not even pretend to tell me that the girl on the cover of this book is fat. Julie Anne Peters should SHOOT her publisher for the ironic decision to put Little Miss Twiggy on the cover of a book about body image. And yes, technically, Daelyn does mention that she's recently lost weight, but you KNOW that isn't why the art department made the decisions they made about this cover.

Solace of the Road, by Siobhan Dowd

The late Siobhan Dowd's final novel features Holly, a girl who decides to run away on her 15th birthday from her foster parents to find her mother. In logic that makes more sense to a lonely teen, Holly is convinced that her mother, who abandoned her years ago, is waiting for her in Ireland. Emboldened by a blonde wig she has stolen from her foster mother, Holly christens herself as "Solace" -- an older and wiser version of herself. She hitchhikes across western England and Wales, managing to reach the coast, but not without struggles (both material and mental, in both present and past).

As an adventure story, the young girl's mishaps will annoy some readers, but come across true to her age. She is both very brave and very foolish, weak but ultimately strong enough to pull herself back from the brink. While she makes her fair share of mistakes, she makes enough good decisions to survive the trip. Far more important, however, is the emotional journey that Holly takes as Solace. While ultimately predictable, the story is affirming and rewarding, and delivers a proper emotional payoff. In my opinion, a bit more ambitious than The London Eye Mystery and more interesting than A Swift Pure Cry. Worthy reading.

Crossing, by Andrew Xia Fukuda

Xing Xu is one of only two Chinese kids at his high school in Upstate New York. Unlike the other one (the bright and popular Naomi Lee), he's never been able to fit in. Instead, he tries to stay unobserved in the shadows. But when boys in his class start to disappear, Xing realizes that he -- on the sheer basis of being different -- is going to be eyed as a suspect. Ironically, as a careful observer of his peers, he proves to be the most adept at identifying the real culprit.

A chilling and scary book about psychopathic killing, prejudice, and paranoia -- in sum, not really my thing. For me, a simpler story about prejudice and how it makes its victims self-doubting would have been a compelling story, but Fukuda wanted to amp up the story with the murders (it does tend to expand the appeal of the book). While I didn't care for that particular decision, I can still acknowledge the strength of the book. It works on many levels. If you want a suspense/mystery novel, this will work for you.

The key to the book's success lies, as always in a decent book, with a great protagonist. Xing's character is particularly vibrant and interesting. His observations about the town's prejudice are damning and spot on. But Xing's real appeal lies in his ability to be an honest judge and he is equally critical of himself, which makes the misunderstandings in this story all the more poignant (and makes the ending just that much more haunting).

All Unquiet Things, by Anna Jarzab

Neily is the guy who found his ex-girlfriend Carly shot dead on an abandoned bridge over a year ago. Audrey is Carly's cousin and it was her father that was accused of the crime and sent to jail. But a year later, Audrey convinces Neily that the cops got the wrong man. Soon, there is a story of drugs, kidnapping, rape, and disappearances to add to the mix. Very quickly, both young people realize that they are getting in over their heads as the plot thickens.

This is extremely well-paced and Jarzab does a nice job of unraveling the story -- through a combination of narrative shift and flashbacks -- in such a way to keep things very interesting. Even the ending, which is predictable, keeps you beholden to the page. If story is what you're after, this is a good one.

The writing, however, is not nearly as good. First of all, despite being told by two separate narrators, there is no effective difference between the voices of Neily and Audrey. They both just sound old (what teenager would ever describe a room as being like "an English garden" or write such convoluted prose as "free to pace the winding corridors of our minds in search of answers to questions we had just started to learn how to ask"). Jarzab also has a rather odd notion of the generation she is writing about. At one point, she notes that the kids remember 9/11 like their parents remember where they were when JFK was shot. Excuse me? Whose parents?! (Let's do the math -- most HS seniors today were about nine years old during 9/11 which is not really an age where that sort of thing sinks in and their parents were probably 1 or 2 years old when Kennedy was shot!) Yes, it's small stuff, but it piles up after a while and it bugged me. I wanted to like the book because of its great story, but the lack of attention to detail distracted me.

Intensely Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Following the Alice series has become a major commitment and for those unfamiliar with the books, it would take a bit long to get you caught up. What began as an interesting series about a girl growing up in suburban Maryland has become something of a teen lit behemoth. It's not so hard to see the appeal of the books as Naylor details the life of Alice so thoroughly that we know basically every personal embarrassing detail of herself and her friends. The Alice series reminds me of the 7 Up television series -- it shows up at regular intervals to remind us of how we have grown. I've been reading the series for nine years now, and I imagine that there are plenty of people who have read them longer than that. They are not great literature and Alice's normality is coupled by a degree of shelteredness that only a fellow suburbanite could truly equate with reality, but this is literary comfort food and it serves a purpose (more on that below).

This latest installment takes us through the summer between Alice's Junior and Senior years of High School. Her long-term boyfriend Patrick has gone off to Chicago for the summer and Alice is going out to visit him. The big decision (should she have sex with him?) hangs over her for the first half of the book. It's a big decision and one that fans have been waiting for her to decide for at least the past six-seven books. And then there's also her cousin's wedding, a stint working at a homeless shelter, and a bunch of reflections about getting older. Near the end of the book there's a big shocking plot twist to give it all some gravitas.

The problem with Naylor (and I've said it before in nearly all of my reviews of her books) is that she really doesn't know how to write for older teens. For as much explicit material is included in this book, it is surprising just how chaste these books are. That may strike some adults as crazy talk (this novel, for example, includes a pretty explicit sex scene -- on pp 113-14 if you want to jump ahead to the "good stuff" -- and some major sexual themes lifted right out of Judy Blume's Forever), but Naylor is always cutting an agenda. Whether it's how to deal with unwanted guests, sexual harassment, or even being assertive in bed, Naylor always makes sure that Alice does the right thing. All that makes Alice look like a goody goody and just a bit to perfect to be true. In fact, I would argue that Alice isn't supposed to be real (protestations of her fans to the contrary) -- she's a representation of what Naylor would like girls to be like. In a way, it's like a 21st century equivalent of a good for young ladies. I personally find that a bit creepy, but I suspect that people enjoy the fantasy too much to worry about it. And for the younger teen readers, there probably is a comfort in having a role model who squeaks as well as Alice does.

Donut Days, by Lara Zielin

The Crispy Dream donut chain is opening a new branch in town, and Emma is determined to write the story of a lifetime to win a college scholarship from the local newspaper. She needs the money because her parents have made it clear that they won't pay for school if she pursues a secular education (they would prefer it if she went to a Christian school). But then, she's always been the black sheep of the family. While her parents share ministerial duties at an Evangelical church and her little sister is the poster child of pink, innocent devotion, the binding on Emma's Bible cracks loudly from lack of use during prayers and she's never yet spoken in tongues.

But writing this article opens up an entire new perspective for Emma, as she meets obsessed donut fans, college students getting to know each other, and even a group of born again motorcycle riders (whose issues and challenges, Emma discovers, mirror her own).

Meanwhile, her parents are facing their own problem: a wealthy congregant who has launched a campaign to remove Emma's mother from the ministry (under the old chestnut that women should not serve in the role). Emma is suspicious of the man's motives but her parents refuse to discuss the subject with her. And for her protestations, Emma alienates her friends as well.

While the donut shop grand opening and the political struggle at Emma's parents' church may seem largely unrelated, Zielin makes the stories overlap in a way that does not seem forced. And the overall message -- mostly, about standing up for what you believe in -- is sufficiently unifying to both story lines.

I was mildly twitched by the obvious cover of Krispy Kremes (I really didn't get why Zielin couldn't have stuck with the real brand name) and on guard with my religion-fairness radar. The latter more so because Zielin conflates faith with stubbornness and hypocrisy. It isn't so much that I like Evangelicals all that much (in case someone misconstrues my criticism) but rather that I consider it a lazy target. It's far too easy to create a religious nut case with a secret sinister agenda. And it's far too easy to assume that people who have faith are incapable of having an open-minded discussion. Now, it is true that at the end of the book some of the characters come clean, but it's a little too little and too late for me. It also struck me as a bit cheap that the main conflict with the parents is resolved so easily (oh, you mean that all those times you said that you didn't like being cut out, that you were telling the truth, Emma? Oh, my, I'm so sorry we didn't do what you asked us to do!). I thus found the bad guys to either be too simple or too weak.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, by Julie Halpern

Jessie's talent in math (and school in general) along with her unusual hobby of sewing her own skirts out of goofy fabrics would probably get her branded with the "geek" tag if it weren't for her uber-cool older brother, his punk rock band, and his orange mohawk. Jessie's status is also secured by her two BFFs (Char and Bizza) who, while not the nicest of people, at least cut out a place for themselves (and Jessie by association) through their own outlandish tastes.

But as Sophomore year starts, Jessie is beginning to wonder what she really gets out of the deal. Her BFFs don't really support her or even care what she does. All they want is to flirt with the members of her brother's band. And when Bizza makes the moves on Jessie's long-term crush (the bassist of the band), Jessie has to confront the fact that she is being used.

Simultaneous with the realization that her friends really aren't her friends anymore is Jessie's acquaintance with a girl in study hall who plays Dungeons and Dragons and wants to recruit Jessie to sew her and her friends some garb for a live-action role-playing weekend in Wisconsin. To learn more, she surreptitiously joins them for a gaming night and discovers that it is a lot of fun! Now, Jessie is torn between being a borderline geek (with cool friends that lend her some status) and throwing it all away and plunging into the wild nerd frontier of D&D and a group of kids who are actually nice to her for a change.

You can almost certainly guess where the story is going, but with Halpern the fun is really in the trip itself. At the core of that fun are the characters. Jessie is a great character with the spunkiness and attitude of some of the best YA heroines (think Ruby Oliver or Cyd Charisse). She mixes vulnerability with strength (crushing seriously on her guys yet willing to take the initiative and kiss them instead of waiting for them to pick up the nerve) in a way that is really appealing. Her older brother is sufficiently annoying to be believable yet sympathetic and wise enough to be helpful and useful. The parents are unobtrusive but not clueless. Even the bitchy ex-BFFs are decent foils without being over the top.

The story moves at a decent pace, yet develops in a believable fashion. That is certainly a big challenge as Halpern needs to get Jessie from being credibly committed to her friends and her crush, yet, by the end, she has successfully morphed into a person who can reject that life and choose a new one. This hardly happens overnight (or in a few pages) and Halpern keeps a tight watch over the dramatic arc to deliver a story that you can accept and a metamorphosis that you can root for. Good fun!

Wild Things, by Clay Carmichael

After her neglectful mother dies, 11 year-old Zoe comes to live with her wealthy and famous sculptor uncle Henry. At his cabin in the woods, Zoe is free to mostly run wild and, while she's distrustful of most people, she eventually befriends a feral cat, a wild boy, and the boy's mysterious companion - a white fawn. Told in alternating voices of the Zoe and the cat (an unusual narrator to say the least), we gradually get to see Zoe open up. There are also a number of sundry subplots about local corruption and pushy customers.

While the story has plenty of original ideas and is well-written, it doesn't really carry itself like a children's book. Rather, it is more the type of artsy book that teachers read to kids. The heroine doesn't sound even vaguely like a kid, let alone an 11 year-old. At the very least, she is wise beyond her years and I honestly didn't find her very interesting. In fact, the most interesting character is the cat, which is not surprising as he has one of the most unique voices in YA literature and gets most of the good observations.

Mostly, I dislike books that attempt to be too literary at the expense of being entertaining. Too much of this book was trying to make a point. I'm not going to say that kids will all hate it, but I have a hard time imagining why they would enjoy it.

Forest Born, by Shannon Hale

This fourth outing in Hale's highly-successful Books of Bayern series introduces Razo's little sister Rin, who has a very different -- and more subtle -- talent than the previous heroines of the series. When she concentrates, she can hear trees (but not speak to them). She also seems to have a second power to read the truth and influence people (as well as an unspeakable fear of using the power).

While an obedient and helpful daughter to her large family, she feels lost in her home in the woods. Fearful of her talents, uncomfortable with her roles at home, she feels drawn to take a trip to the capital of Bayern to visit her brother. She arrives in a time of turmoil as mysterious events are taking place on the northern border with the Kingdom of Kel. Rin gets drawn into these events and comes face to face with the true nature of her powers (and why she fears them so much).

As fair warning, the series has now become so developed that you really need to start at the beginning in order to get its full flavor. Yes, there is sufficient backstory in this installment to catch you up with the important details, but to truly appreciate the characters it is worth the time to read each of their stories in the previous three books.

That said, I found this latest novel to be one of the most emotionally and psychologically complicated in the series. A true YA master, Hale recognizes that the key to writing truly outstanding literature for teens is both telling a good story and also creating characters whose struggles resonate with them. For teens who fear their own abilities (or even just taking the risk of exercising their talents), Rin's search for balance between action and observation is welcoming balm. This is fantasy for the thinking teen.

What the Moon Saw, by Laura Resau

Clara has developed a restlessness at home. She feels distant from her friends and she finds herself drawn to wander outside after dark. But just as her parents are beginning to despair, a letter comes from her grandparents in Mexico. Seeming to know all about Clara's problems (despite never having met her before), they invite her to come visit them for the Summer. It is the answer to everything and Clara departs on an adventure of a lifetime.

At first, she finds her grandparents' life in impoverished rural Oaxaca to be unbearable, but soon enough she opens her heart to the different pace of life and discovers a great deal about her family and herself. A parallel story about her grandmother's own girlhood provides some elaboration on the timeless theme of self-discovery.

As with her novel Red Glass, which I reviewed a few months back, this is a beautiful introduction to rural Mexican life. Resau expertly interweaves local culture and language into a well-paced and interesting story. One might quibble that the two books bear an awful lot of similarity to each other (as if Resau has trouble getting out of the same rut), but they are each beautiful in their own way and so are both worth reading.

Hold Still, by Nina LaCour

In the aftermath of her best friend Ingrid's suicide, Caitlin feels aimless, drifting through her junior year. A new friend Dylan and a new boyfriend Jayson cannot erase the missing presence of her friend. Over the course of a year, this book traces Caitlin's grieving process and coming to terms. When Caitlin discovers the dead girl's journal under her own bed and she starts to read it, she learns lots about her friend that she didn't know before.

There are plenty of books about grieving and loss in the YA cannon. And more than a few of them have come out in the last year. This one, however, really stands out from the pack for several reasons.

LaCour is a formidable writing presence. The great challenge with writing a book like this is keeping the pace moving. It is far too easy to fall into navel gazing and melancholy. And it is similarly easy to pull out the stops and go for melodrama in an attempt to avoid the lethargy. LaCour achieves the perfect balance, never letter Caitlin become a whimpering helpless mess yet not resorting to extreme (and uncharacteristic) emotions. Instead, we get a beautifully-written story about coping.

As usual, what I really keyed in on was the way that everyone in this book is imperfect, neither evil nor good. The photography teacher Ms. Delani is probably one of the more complex teachers to grace a teen book in some years (and she could have been so evil in the hands of a lesser writer). Ingrid's parents, introduced quite late in the book, are breathtakingly fragile. Pride in place, however, goes to Caitlin's lesbian friend Dylan who never falls into the stereotype that you would expect from the new-kid-at-school (neither that nor her sexual orientation ever become a real issue in this story - although some school-based homophobia is briefly hinted at). I love the way that Dylan's friendship not only supports Caitlin, but also feeds certain key elements of the plot.

And that brings me to another strong point in this story: LaCour's ability to bring it all together. In a novel with a lot of characters and a fair number of subplots (a closed movie theater scheduled to be demolished, romance, struggle with art, the journal, building a tree house), it is always a notable event when the author manages to tie all of the elements together without forcing them. The result is you leave this book never feeling that your time was wasted. Every page is truly important to the story. Remarkable!

So, even if the topic of death and grieving may be old hat, this novel will rank as one of the very best attempts to do it.