Revenge of the Flower Girls, by Jennifer Ziegler

When Lily announces that she's planning to get married to dorky nincompoop Burton, her three little sisters - Dawn, Darby, and Delaney - are aghast!  Under no circumstances can they allow this to happen!  They've always preferred Lily's prior boyfriend Alex and they know that Lily and Alex are still in love with each other!  So, with a month before the great day, the three girls start plotting how they will prevent the wedding from occurring, and also how to get Lily and Alex back together.  Many tricks and hi-jinx follow in what imagines is the beginning of many stories about these spunky eleven-year-old triplets.

While the story is lighthearted and cute, I found it a bit hard to enjoy a story about a group of children intending to sabotage their older sister's wedding.  Despite numerous warnings from all the grown-ups around them, they persist in their goal.  And their stubborn persistence made them seem more like selfish brats concerned with getting nice presents and having fun, than caring younger siblings.  Perhaps younger readers won't be bothered by the story's inherent mean streak (the title itself is a misnomer - there is no "revenge" going on here; but rather, simple plotting), but it interfered with my own enjoyment of the book.   And regardless of the happy ending, it was hard to not feel that a lesson in respecting people's choices and proper boundaries was called for.

A note on the cover:  in the book, the girls resist wearing dresses and end up attending the wedding in tuxedos.  Somehow, the marketing department at Scholastic didn't get that message!

[Disclaimer:  I received the book from the publisher in return for my consideration and review.  No other compensation was received.  As is usual, I'm donating the book to the public library.  This book will be released on May 25th.]

Storm, by Donna Jo Napoli

When the rain begins to fall, young Sebah just thinks that they have come early this year.  But as the rain turns to flood, she finds herself climbing higher and higher to find safe ground.  As that becomes harder and her situation grows more desperate, she is rescued and joined by a young man.  Eventually building a raft, they set out on the sea.  Still, the rains continue.  Tragedy strikes but as all seems lost, they suddenly come across a large mysterious ship, full of animals, messianic humans, and few new allies.

Napoli loves to explore legends and myths.  In this novel, she takes on the story of Noah.  Genesis doesn't actually provide much detail and since this story doesn't actually focus on any of the known participants, she has a great deal of license to imagine instead what stowing away on the Ark might have been like.  It's an interesting premise but surprisingly different than I imagined it would be.  Much of Napoli's interest is in imagining life for the animals and the book focuses on how hard spending a year in the Ark would have been for human and animal passengers alike.  It's a sort of brutal realism that doesn't quite work for a story like this (Genesis is not exactly the most realistic of books in the Bible!).  And some might argue that her literal interpretation sort of misses the point.

Towards the end, Napoli makes a belated exploration into the entire mindset of being Noah and what that experience might have been like.  It's an interesting digression and gets into territory that would have been much more interesting to explore.  Overall, the book seemed a bit of a lost opportunity.  Well-written, but simply not rising up to the glory of its source material.

The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose, by Mary Hooper

Eliza's arrival in London starts off badly: nearly immediately she is tossed in prison for theft.  Through a series of struggles and set-backs, Eliza gradually works her way up through the theater and gains the attentions of the nobility and the royalty in Charles II's Court.  Along the way, she holds a number of occupations as diverse as selling oranges at the theater to being an accomplice highway man.  Her quest throughout is to find her true family, having been cast out of the only family she knew, when she discovers that she is not the child of either of the parents that raised her.
No one writes as richly about seventeenth-century London as Mary Hooper.  Beautiful historical detail fills this story, which will serve mostly to impress upon readers just how terribly hard life was - especially for an unattached woman.  Hooper hasn't ventured far from the settings of her other books (and there is even a small cross-over to the heroines of her Petals in the Ashes and At the Sign of the Sugared Plum books), but this provides familiarity and lends her confidence to tell a slightly bolder story that mixes fiction and fact, and remains truly entertaining throughout.

Letting Ana Go, by Anonymous

She always thought that girls with eating disorders who starved themselves to death were dumb.  Yet, when she sees her father abandon her mildly overweight mother in favor of a more streamlined girlfriend, she learns the importance of watching what you eat!  Along with her friend Jill (and Jill's mother guilt-inducing cheerleading), she starts counting calories and losing weight - in search of a perfect body that is always just a few pound less than her current weight.

The author has drawn out a pretty classic text-book case of anorexia nervosa (perhaps a bit more eager to blame the grown-ups than the media that normally gets the nod).  It's a book with a mission (one that few of us would disagree with) but not much to sell it.  The characters and story exist to scare or warn the reader of the perils of eating disorders.  It seems unlikely that most young readers would be unfamiliar with the concept already.

If not original, is it still a story worth repeating?  If someone reading this book learns enough from doing so that a death is averted, than some good will have been done.  The problem, I fear, is that the book probably can't do that for the simple reason that the story illustrates so well:  the behavior is not rational.

The Rules for Disappearing, by Ashley Elston

Meg and her family are in Witness Protection and have been relocated six times in the past ten months.  Each time, they are forced to assume a new identity.  Meg doesn't know why they are hiding out - her parents won't tell her - but the strain is wearing everyone out.  Dad is continually on edge, skulking around, and having angry private conversations with strangers.  Mom has dived into the bottle and turned her social drinking into a major problem.  Meg's little sister is fleeing every time men in suits show up, afraid that they are about to be relocated again.

Meg is convinced that this most recent relocation needs to their last.  She wants answers to why they are hiding and has started sleuthing to figure out what is going on.  She has also decided that, after numerous hasty departures, that she won't get attached to anyone or anything this time - no clubs, no friends, nothing to miss if she has to leave again.  But that plan is thrown when she meets Ethan!

A little slow to start and periodically rough (the "rules for disappearing" at the beginning of each chapter are consistently silly and unnecessary), the story does pick up as it goes along.  Also, important for a story with lots of subplots, Elston does a great job of tying everything together into a satisfying conclusion.  Some of this gets a bit too neat and convenient, but it's a good piece of escapism (no idea, however, about whether the sequel coming out later this month can keep up the magic!).  The romance did less for me than the action, but thankfully Meg and Ethan's relationship is not a critical part of the story.

The Secret Tree, by Natalie Standiford

Minty and her friend Paz love to roller skate.  They dream of becoming roller derby stars together.  And while their older sisters warn them that starting sixth grade may bring changes that will challenge their friendship, they are sure that they will stay best friends.  However, as the summer progresses it seems like those warning may come true even before school starts!  Suddenly, everyone seems to have secrets!

But the real adventure occurs when Misty finds a strange boy spying on her and her friends.  Tracking him when he runs away, she finds that he is living alone in an abandoned house next door to the crazy "Witch Lady" who strikes terror in the local children.  But it is his pastime - collecting other people's secrets - and how he does it (pulling them out of the trunk of a tree in the woods) that interests Minty.

If that synopsis sounds a bit odd, it's because the story is a bit hard to summarize.  It's an odd mash-up of realistic middle school drama and junior supernatural lore.  It's a story where your best friend's sister can be casting voodoo spells on your friend, but the biggest problem is that that same friend has failed to invite you to a pool party!  As crazy as this all sounds, it actually works.  There's just enough fantasy to seem magical and enough realism to be grounded.

Tales from My Closet, by Jennifer Anne Moses

Five sophomores struggle through family difficulties.  While the specific details of their obstacles differ (and encompass some pretty heavy subjects like divorce, addiction, and parental neglect), each of these young women share a love of clothes.  And while it might sound a bit pathetic, each chapter (rotating narrators) ties in to a particular piece of clothing.  Rather than displaying vanity, the stories instead show us the importance of clothing and the varieties of ways it plays a role in our lives.

The writing itself is functional and the characters fairly stock items, but the novel benefits from its clever and ambitious concept.  When I cracked the book, I fully expected some tired fashionista agitprop and maybe a bunch of shallow clothes-obsessed girls gabbing about their fave brand names.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while the story does indeed center around clothing, it isn't really about it at all.  There's plenty of wardrobe details here for the reader who craves that stuff, but the clothes are really just props (or maybe literary devices) here.  And, as much as I'd like to chide young readers for caring too much about style and fashion (being a crotchety middle age guy!) I found these stories about self and self-expression to be surprisingly deep.



[Disclosure:  The publisher supplied me with an unsolicited free copy of this book with the hope that I would review it.  Upon finishing the review, I will donate the book to my local public library.  No other compensation was received.]

Until It Hurts To Stop, by Jennifer R. Hubbard

Back in seventh and eighth grades, Maggie was the victim of a series of bullying incidents.  Years later, in high school, she is still terrified of being attacked.  In the intervening years, she has learned to use outdoor activities (hiking, in particular) to escape her anxieties and build confidence.  But this year, her former nemesis returns to the school, and Maggie's fears come back full-force.  Worse, her friend and hiking partner Nick is becoming interested in other girls - something which Maggie never expected to bother her.

The romantic subplot won't win any originality points, but the story stands out for its depiction of the PTSD-like qualities of recovering from adolescent bullying.  Hubbard does an excellent job of showing how the years of abuse cause Maggie to live in a state of constant anxiety, in which she in fact chooses to stay (ironically, for the comforting security it brings her!).  Two particularly remarkable scenes occur near the end where Maggie confronts her former enemies to find to her shock and surprise that they have moved on and forgotten everything (and that Maggie is no longer the center of their interest).  Other subplots (including the romance) are carefully tied in to the main theme and illustrate other aspects of bullying and of recovery.

The Vow, by Jessica Martinez

Mo and Annie have been friends (and only friends!) for years.  For different reasons (Annie's loss of her older sister and Mo's status as an Arab living in Kentucky) they have never bonded with anyone else.  So, when Mo finds out that he is about to be deported with his family back to Jordan, it is not that much of a stretch for Annie to propose a radical solution to let him stay: the two of them will get married.

But what seems like a perfect solution at first comes with complications and problems (some anticipated, others not).  In order to make their plan work, they must convince their family and friends that they are truly in love and serious about being a married couple.  This causes understandable turmoil between the two of them and their social circles and heightens the difficulty of living together (which they now must do in order to convince the INS that their marriage is legit).  Everything gets more complicated when Annie falls in love - for real - with another boy.

There are a number of missed or underdeveloped opportunities in this book (the racial dynamics of the relationship, Annie's fears of letting others down, the differences between Mo's and Annie's expectations of the relationship, and Mo's feelings for his homeland), but much of that is because of the story's ambitions.  Martinez does a good job of setting up a plausible motivation for the faux marriage and making the set-up all seem possible.  In the end, when their plans unravel quickly, that too seemed plausible given the circumstances.  What got lost was allowing us time to truly get inside the heads of these two characters, but I suspect that would have doubled the size of this already lengthy book.

Picture Me Gone, by Meg Rosoff

Mila, an unusually insightful teen, likens herself at the beginning of this novel to a terrier -- both in her ability to discern peoples thoughts and motives, and also because of her steadfast loyalty.  These traits prove useful when she and her father arrive in the States to visit her father's old friend Matthew.  When they arrive, they find that Matthew has disappeared.  No one know where he has gone or why he left, and the two of them set off into Upstate New York to find him.

The result is a gentle adventure (where the most danger they encounter is a little snow and some dodgy restaurants).  As is true in most literary road trips, the story is about self-discovery as much as finding they quarry. Spending the time with her father and learning more about his missing friend helps Mila understand her Dad better and also reveals things about herself.

The novel has potential, but never really delivers in the end.  The story is muddled.  While the blurb promises adventure, the plot is weighed down in ruminations and meditations.   The search itself - in many ways - is unsuccessful, even though some of its goals are achieved (being more specific would spoil what little suspense the book offers).  And once one reaches the end of the book, we are left (much like Mila herself) wondering why we started out in the first place.

Rosoff is fond of mood pieces. For her, the plot tends to seem like an annoyance that gets in the way of the emotion.  But the mood here -- a bit of lost hope and failed opportunity - is so melancholy and beige that it doesn't capture the heart.  It is all very pretty, but fails to engage.

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford

Lavender is a gawky nerd, comfortable in her skin, but still a magnet for abuse from her classmates.  She's the complete opposite of Scarlett -- popular and graceful, but cautiously walking a social high wire.  They share a longing for change and also a birthday.  And on the evening of their birthday, they each make a wish.

In the morning, they awake to find that they have somehow swapped bodies!  Now, Lavender (who has never before cared about appearances) must learn how to navigate Scarlett's complex social world.  Scarlett, meanwhile, who has built her life around being popular, finds herself an outcast and is stuck in the everyday humiliations of Lavender's life.

The initial process of adjustment provides by entertainment and education. But once they move beyond the process of working through the contrasts in their lives, the two girls realize that they can both benefit from the new perspective that their differences bring.  While they search for a way to reverse the process and return to their own bodies, they still manage to help the other make changes to improve eachother's lives.

It's cute and predictable, with an entirely too happy and sweet ending, but satisfying life lessons are learned and tweens will enjoy the story.  Some gentle and unobtrusive life lessons about dealing with bullies will appeal to parents and teachers.  So, the overall result is useful and entertaining, but not particularly unique.


[Disclosure:  I received a free copy of the book from the publisher for consideration and this review, and will be donating the copy to my local public library after I finish with it.  No other compensation was received.]

All I Need, by Susane Colasanti

One summer on the Jersey shore, when Skye is looking for something new, she meets Seth and a new love is born.  They have a variety of mishaps (amongst other things, they lose touch for a year because they failed to exchange contact information).  Throughout it all, they have friends to bond and break with, and a variety of family issues.  None of these themes are developed or explored.  The book simply drifts from one topic to the next.  In the end, they have the promise of living happily ever after.

In sum, nothing much happens.

Colasanti can be good when she wants to, but here she merely phones in her book.  It's a lazy affair and lacks a story, any meaningful character development, or the vaguest attempt to be contemporary (we're treated to yet another example of adolescents who worship 80s music, don't appear to own a smart phone, and have never heard of social media). And worst of all, it takes place on a beach.  Enough said!

Unthinkable, by Nancy Werlin

The curse of the Scarborough women was lifted in Werlin's earlier novel, Impossible, but Fenella Scarborough is still imprisoned.  When Padruig pronounced the original curse, he laid a second one on top of it: immortality.  And what might be considered a blessing by most people has simply meant eternal suffering from guilt for Fenella as she has been haunted by generations of her offspring whom she was unable to rescue from imprisonment during the past 400 years.

In order to end the second curse and be allowed to die and finally achieve peace, Fenella is informed that she must perform three acts of destruction against her own family.  Set free from Faerie with the company of the queen's brother in the disguise of a cat, Fenella must find a way to "destroy" her family (while causing the least amount of actual harm) and break the final hold that Padruig has over them.

While the backstory fleshes out how the original curse started, overall this novel lacks the depth of the original.  The original benefited from the rich source material of the "Elfin Knight" and is a hard act to follow - a perfect storm of a book that took a classic and fleshed it out in an exciting and original way.  This novel is a more average work and doesn't measure up. The companion novel is less rooted in anything of importance.

It also hurts the story to base the breaking of the new curse around acts of destruction, which seem much harder to justify.  One is immediately struck with the thought that Fenella's predicament is more of her her design.  Only later in the book does Werlin come up with a compelling justification for breaking the curse.

Dear Life, You Suck, by Scott Blagden

Cricket has had a pretty rough life.  Eight years in an orphanage in northern Maine have given him a home.  As the oldest resident, he takes care of the younger kids.  But his sense of responsibility also gets him into heaps of trouble, as he often lands in fights to protect the younger boys from bullies.  And, despite the pleas of the nuns who run the "prison" or the principal of the school, Cricket is convinced that violence is the only way to solve some problems.

The salient feature of this novel is Cricket's language, and a lot of the critical attention to this book has focused on Cricket's profane and rude banter.  It is a bit over the top and likely to offend many readers, but it makes a point:  Cricket doesn't really care what we (or anyone else) think of him.  Once you get used to it, the language fits the character.  And also, once Blagden has made his point and gets the story moving, the language gets dialed back a bit and the focus switches over to the action.  But beyond that, I appreciated the messiness of Cricket's life and Blagden's willingness to keep it messy.

Golden, by Jessi Kirby

Every year, the seniors in Mr. Kinney's class write a journal in which they describe their hopes for their future, seal their writings in an envelope, and leave it with the teacher.  Ten years later, he returns it to them so they can be reminded of what they thought and felt at that crossroads in their life.  This year, current senior Parker Frost is helping Mr Kinney send these journals back to their owners when she finds the journal of the late Julianna Farnetti.

Julianna and her boyfriend Shawn were the perfect couple - the school's golden pair - when they disappeared into the icy waters of Summit Lake on their graduation day and were lost forever.  Holding the doomed girl's journal, Parker makes a fateful decision to break the seal and learn more about Julianna's last days.  She find more than she bargains for.

A loving tribute to poet Robert Frost as well as a painful and tragic story, this novel pulls all the heartstrings.  The pace occasionally flags, but when Kirby is on a roll, the story hits hard.  There are my usual favorite themes of integenerational miscommunication, learning to make your own future (and breaking free of parental expectations), and the pain of growing up and leaving home, but the stakes are raised in this treatment of them as we see the tragedy of Julianna's disappearance intersect with Parker's own life.

I was less taken with the supporting characters.  Parker's friends (her BFF Kat and her persistent suitor Trevor) left me unmoved.  They seem largely wasted and unnecessary - which is reinforced by the fact that they are conveniently absent during every major scene in the book.

To Be Perfectly Honest, by Sonya Sones

Colette is planning on taking her friends along with her for a fun-filled summer in Paris, but then her mother announces that she's just signed on to do a film in San Luis Obisbo (if you're unfamiliar with the thriving metropolis of SLO, look for the empty space on the map between San Francisco and LA!) and Mom's decided that she's taking Colette and her little brother along for some quality time.  Colette can't imagine a worse fate, until she meets a sexy guy named Connor who makes the summer much more interesting.

Or does it?  The problem is that Colette is a compulsive liar, prone to making up half of her adventures.  And for every truth that she tells, there's usually also a whopper mixed in!  That makes her real life very complicated and it spins the reader around a bit as well.

Sones's trademark is writing in verse, so this 480-page tome goes down in under two hours.  That doesn't make it thin and lightweight though.  She is truly one of the best in this little niche and she can craft in a lot of impact out of a fading thought or an angst-ridden title.   As for the story, it is pure predictable romance, but the ever-present deceit is a nice twist.  And the story itself is really stolen by Colette's lisping and potty-mouthed little brother.

The Tragedy Paper, by Elizabeth Loban

No setting is as tired and trite in YA literature as the boarding school.  Traditionally single-sex (and usually just boys) but nowadays co-ed (and more casual about sexual exploration), the boarding school is always portrayed as a place where poorly-supervised teens spend their days committing petty infractions of the rules that build up to the point of tragedy and heartbreak.  At which point, students are usually dead and teachers' careers are ruined.  Growing up usually occurs.  The difference with this book is that it dispenses with the idea that there is any other purpose to the genre and instead starts us off from the beginning with the idea that tragedy is the central theme of the book.

The story is told a year after the facts through the artifice of a senior named Duncan, who moves into the former room of the tragic student and finds a series of CDs with the former inhabitant's confessions on them.  And it is the tragic figure, Tim who tells his story so that Duncan can both (a) avoid the same errors; and (b) get some juicy material for the "Tragedy Paper" (a senior thesis on the meaning of tragedy) that the students must write.

This is no Looking for Alaska or Dead Poets Society, but it is an interesting and sophisticated take.  Early on, we are introduced to Tim's and Duncan's love interests and it would be obvious to assume that they play a role in the tragedy, but the story is more ambitious than that.  Even Tim's unusual characteristic of being albino is a bit of a red herring.  Instead, the ending is a genuine (but well foreshadowed) surprise.

The story, with its series of CDs, reminded me of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, but Tim is a much less whiny narrator.  I cared less for the other characters, who were thinly drawn.  And then, there's the matter of Tim's monomania -- a hallmark of tragedy, as the book points out -- which I found as annoying as I find it in Shakespeare (but that's my problem with the entire genre, not this book in particular).

Firecracker, by David Iserson

Astrid comes from a super rich family of not-very-nice people.  She isn't very nice either.  Her role model is her ornery grandfather, a politician and corporate big guy, who teaches her how to screw over people and get away with it.

After she is kicked out of her elite private school for cheating, her parents decide to teach her a lesson by sending her to public school.  Being used to buying whatever she wants, public school is a bit of a shock.  Worse is her new therapist who wants her to practice being nice.  At first she tries to buy nice deeds as well, but when that doesn't work, she eventually figures out a way to complete her odious assignment.  Meanwhile, she is hot in pursuit of the person who ratted on her in the first place and got her thrown out of private school.

The result is a story that is long on snarkiness (lots of "whatever" and "I stopped listening") and short on heart.  It's funny for the first 20-30 pages but quickly wears thin.  If it had been more rich girl finds her heart of gold by slumming it (instead of nasty person stays nasty for most of the book but eventually makes points sacrifice), I would have been more taken by the story.  Instead, I simply failed to engage with the characters.  What was intended to be humorous just seemed tacky by the end.

How I Lost You, by Janet Gurtler

"Buds before studs" has always been Grace and Kya's motto -- never let guys (or anything else) get in the way of your friendship.  Grace and Kya have made plans together.  As two of the best paintballers in the area, they want to join the women's collegiate team at Seattle University (unfortunately fictional, although Seattle U does have a good paintball program!).  They just need to impress the team and keep their grades up.

But as they are approach realizing their dreams, Kya starts to go off the rails -- ending up in risky situations involving alcohol, drugs, and boys.  Her behavior becomes more and more erratic and threatens not only her safety, but both of their plans.  People tell Grace that she needs to jettison her relationship with Kya, and that continuing to defend her friend is going to drag her down.  But it's hard for Grace to let go.  Grace believes in her heart that she has to have Kya's back - on and off the field - and she can't bear to break her pledge.

A satisfying story of friendship lost and the pain that goes along with letting go.  It's a little hard to truly understand the depth of Grace's loyalty from what we can witness in the book (some flashbacks on the girls' past would have helped to fill in why the girls are so bound to each other).  Also, the conflict between the girls in the present grows tiresome, and their fights become repetitive and fail to advance the plot.  But in terms of showing the complicated dynamics of a long-term friendship coming apart, the story achieves its mission.

The Chaos of Stars, by Kiersten White

It's really hard to be a kid when your mother is Isis and your father is the Lord of the Underworld.  Isadora's father is literally in a different world and Mom not only thinks she's the Mother of Mankind...she like actually is.  They have an annoying habit of wanting to be worshiped and, anyway, who needs to look at yet another statue of your Mom nursing a pharaoh?  So, when the chance presents itself, Isadora latches on the opportunity to join her older brother Sirus in San Diego.

Once out of Egypt, she makes some friends, meets a boy who looks good enough to be a god (but to the best of Isadora's knowledge is a mere mortal), and helps to supervise the set up of a small exhibit of some priceless odds and ends that her parents have lying around.  There's some danger afoot but Isadora is worried most of all about Mom finding out that her new boyfriend is Greek (for understandable reason, Ancient Egyptian deities don't like the Greeks!).

It is all beautifully absurd and hilarious, and has a nice undercurrent about intergenerational understanding.  The first half works spectacularly well as comedy (mostly based on the premise that modern dysfunctional families share a great deal in common with Egyptian gods) and is lively and fun.  The second half is a decent adventure and mystery, but lacks the originality of the first part.  That could be a mood killer, but overall there is that nice poignant familial reconciliation stuff that gets me all weepy.  It's funny and ultimately uplifting, with a pleasant romantic coating.  Overall, reminiscent of a better-than-average Meg Cabot novel like Avalon High.

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, by Susin Nielsen

As Henry starts at a new school, he's worried about making a good strong first impression.  He's reminded of the trouble his older brother got into when he didn't do so and he ended up being cruelly bulled.  That took a tragic turn last year when his brother brought a rifle into school and shot the bully, before turning the gun on himself.

Since that tragedy, Henry's family has fallen apart.  Mom has moved back in with her parents and been in and out of institutions.  Dad and Henry have moved to a new town and are struggling to rebuild their lives, come to grips with grief and anger, and keep their past a secret.  Why couldn't life be more like the professional wrestling matches that Henry loves -- where good and evil are well-defined and the good guys usually come out on top in the end?

In all, a pretty sweet book for a story that ought to be difficult and traumatic to tell.  It ends on a saccharine sweet note (which is probably demanded by the young target audience of the book), but Nielsen is restrained and avoids tying too many things up.  This leads me to the book's strongest suit:  the complexity of the characters.  From the non-romance of Henry and his classmate Alberta, to the strained relationship of his parents, the awkwardness of Henry and his best friend Farley, and the great lightening impact of the neighbors bickering, there are some wonderful characters and great interactions.  It's quirky, but very endearing.

Allegra, by Shelley Hrdlitschka

Allegra is the daughter of two professional musicians and, while musically talented, she longs to become a dancer.  When she enrolls at an arts high school, she even tries to place out of music theory.  However, the teacher, Mr. Rocchelli, won't let her withdraw.  He's young and handsome and turns out to be full of unorthodox ideas.  Recognizing that Allegra's knowledge of music really does cover the class's curriculum, he challenges her to compose an orchestral piece instead.  She accepts the alternative assignment and, with his help, produces a masterpiece.  But their close collaboration on the work sparks rumors and accusations of inappropriate behavior from their peers and Allegra finds herself defending their integrity as well as her talent.

It's a good story and I enjoyed reading it in spite of two systemic problems.  The first is the challenge of describing a musical composition in prose.  Without being able to hear the beauty of it, we are stuck with the author's descriptions (and there are only so many times one can read how incredible the music is before the assertions fall flat).  The other issue is the plotting of the story.  The core of the story (Allegra's relationship with her teacher) builds in tension but never resolves, ending in a bit of a literary whimper.  Similarly, the subplots (her dancing career, tensions with friends, a might-be romance with a classmate, and the pending separation of her parents) all peter out without resolution.  This left me at the end with a sense that the story was unfinished.

Pieces, by Chris Lynch

When Eric's brother dies, he is the only member of the family to resist the idea of allowing the doctors to harvest useful organs.  But after a year has passed and his parents have largely moved on, Eric becomes curious about the recipients of those pieces of his brother and reaches out to the people who received them.  Some of the recipients choose to remain anonymous, but three of them agree to meet.  The initial meeting surprises just about everyone and gradually a friendship develops between Eric and the people whose lives his brother's gifts changed.  It's an odd friendship.

The book starts out with an interesting premise but after a few moments of wonderment about what it means to have parts of your brother inside of strangers, the story starts to unravel.  By the end, it has become a disorganized mess of ideas and characters that largely failed to capture my interest.  I don't think Lynch really knew what to do with the story.  No character really develops and the original premise merely serves as an excuse for these disparate characters to interact.  The highlight of the book is actually a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, but that could have been spun off as an amusing short story, as it has nothing to do with the story.

OCD Love Story, by Corey Ann Haydu

An unusual romance about what happens when two teens who both suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder fall in love.  It's an easy mental disease to make fun of, but, while there are certainly some very funny parts of this book,  the overriding sense of this story is respect for what the condition puts its sufferers through.

Bea's illness manifests itself through obsessions with tracking other people.  Constantly afraid that the objects of her concern are in danger, she needs to "check up" on them.  Given the repetitive nature of her anxiety, the behavior is easily misconstrued as stalking, and it lands her in all sorts of legal problems.  Beck's obsession lies with hygiene and fitness.  He literally works out at the gym to the point of exhaustion and then rubs his skin clean off trying to wash up afterwards.

To the extent that it is possible between these two colorful young people, the romance follows the traditional pattern of acquaintance, misunderstanding, and forgiveness.  What is different is how their disorders affect their everyday lives and how they complicate each other's already-complex routines.

At times, this is a hard book to get through.  The nature of the disorder is exhausting in itself and one is tempted to simply wring some necks, but overall impression I found the book fascinating.  Haydu's accomplishment is creating a sympathetic and nuanced portrait of such unusual young people, and bringing them truly to life.  Mental illness is hard to get right in a book and she does an impressive job here.

Samphire Song, by Jill Hucklesby

Hit by the double blow of a father killed in action in the Middle East and a younger brother suffering from kidney disease, Jodie soothes herself by taking care of the horses at a local stable.  When she is offered the chance to buy her own horse, everyone thinks she'll find a nice gentle mare or pony to take care of.  Instead, she is drawn to a wild-eyed part-Arabian stallion.  Considered unmanageable by just about everyone, Jodie sees through his exterior and feels sympathy for an animal who needs as much TLC as she does.

It would be hard to find the justification for yet another horse book for girls as it's already a pretty crowded field.  Unfortunately, this one doesn't break new ground.  It has plenty of appealing elements and, if you like the genre, the authentic details, some adventure, a loving family, and a brave girl, then you can't really go wrong with it, but it doesn't stand out in any particularly unique way.

There is one super-distracting element of the book.  Originally published in the UK, someone made the editorial decision to Americanize the story.  This is a half-hearted affair where "Pounds" are changed to "Dollars" and "County" is (inconsistently) changed to "State." Even so, there are plenty of Anglicisms slipping in (for example, a "pub landlord") that seems sloppy.  Honestly, it would have been better to leave it alone.  Girls who love horses, also love horses in the UK just as much (if not more) than horses in the US.

If You Find Me, by Emily Murdoch

Carey and her little sister Janessa have eked out their survival in an old camper in the woods for years.  Their mother, usually strung out on meth, leaves them alone for weeks at a time.  The absences grow longer and longer until finally she doesn't return at all.  As their food is just about to run out, they are found by a social worker and their estranged father.  Brought back to civilization, the two girls struggle to adjust to their new life and move beyond the terrors of their past.

As you can imagine, it's a heartwrenching story with plenty of opportunity to shock the reader.  I'd be cold-hearted (and lying) to claim that it didn't move me.  However, a few days later as I write this review, the impact of the reading has faded surprisingly quickly.  The culprit in my mind is the roughness of the writing (a narrative that is paced irregularly - skipping forward and sometimes unnecessarily repeating).  The characters also are thinly drawn (with the adults either entirely evil or unbelievably virtuous and self-sacrificing).  Some attempt to draw out the mother and father (and even the step mother) a bit more would have made the situation more interesting.  As is, only the children have any sort of depth.  I get that Murdoch wants to keep the focus on the kids and they certainly have an interesting story to tell, but in the vacuum of capricious and mysterious adults, they are merely pawns for events that the reader wants to understand better.

Burning Blue, by Paul Griffin

Nicole is the most beautiful girl at school.  Therefore, jealousy seems like the most likely reason for the brutal assault in which half her face is burned with battery acid.  But Jay is convinced that there is more to the story.  Frustrated by the slow pace of the police investigation, Jay hacks into computer systems and pounds the pavement in classic sleuthing fashion, uncovering a truth that reaches far wider (and simultaneously far too intimately close to home) than is comfortable.

The book is billed as "a tender, haunting look at life after beauty." It isn't really.  Instead, it's really a very complicated whodunit with an extremely sloppy wrap-up (for about 240-odd pages, the story slowly rolls out, but something lit a fire under Griffin and the last fifty pages just become a messy unveiling of the real story with little-to-no effort to have it make sense).  Some heartstring-pulling at the end winds this mess up (probably that "tender" stuff in the blurb), but the characters feel neglected and unresolved.  It doesn't help that the cast of characters is vast and the story is unfocused.  Basically, it's a mess!

Midwinterblood, by Marcus Sedgwick

In seven short stories, told in reverse chronological order, we get the inter-related tales of Eric and Melle, and the isolated northern island of Blessed through the ages.  Some of the stories feature the rare Dragon Orchid, some an immense painting, and all a sense of historical destiny which we only learn the full truth of when we travel back to its source.  Not only does the era of the setting change (the first story takes place in the late 21st century, while the earliest is pre-historic), but the roles played by the characters change as well over time (adults become children, children adults, and even genders are switched).

It's a complicated and fascinating ghost story.  While slightly marred by an epilogue that makes an attempt for a happy ending, the seven stories within this book are rich and each stands on their own.  Together, they weave a compelling story that has been masterfully crafted:  elements of one story reappear in another - often to shocking effect.  The story is so complex and carefully designed that subtleties are undoubtedly missed on the first reading (and thus a re-reading is recommended).  The originality of the story captured me and I'll be thinking about it for some time to come.  I highly recommend this book if you like classic ghost stories and don't mind something that will stick in your head for days!

Hooked, by Liz Fichera

Out of the 1150 books that I've reviewed in this Blog so far, this is only the third Teen Harlequin I've read.  I've never expected much from them and have figured them to just be slightly less-explicit versions of the adult books (and with a cover like this one has, I was pretty much hiding it behind a paper bag on the plane!).  However, the three times I have read a Teen Harlequin have all been a pleasant surprise.  Far from being exploitative romantic fantasy, the stories have been stimulating and sophisticated.  Yes, it's a romance and it follows some of the basic conventions of the genre, but the writing is strong and the authors push the boundaries.

Fred is an avid golfer, even though she plays with second-hand equipment and can't afford the greens fees. When the high school team's coach recruits her to play, she's a bit reluctant:  it's a boy's team and she would be the only girl.  But there's another twist: she would also be the only Native American in the entire league.  But Fred manages to overcome these fears and prove to herself and her teammates that she can truly play, even as she faces hostility from both the white kids at school and from her friends back on the Rez.  Things get truly complicated though when she finds that she and her teammate Ryan share a love of each other as strong as their love of the game.

There's no major plot frontier being burst here (it's typical boy-meets-girl storyline), but the setting and the characters make this an unusual story.  Fichera doesn't move too far out of modern stereotypes of the Native American experience, but the idea of choosing such an unusual heroine for this story is remarkable.  And, for that matter, how many teen romances involve golf in the first place?  Somehow, I don't expect a Harlequin novel to tackle class and race conflict.  As for the romance, it's strictly G-rated (not at all like the cover!).

Better Off Friends, by Elizabeth Eulberg

Macallan and Levi have been friends since seventh grade and just that.  As a boy and a girl, they've endlessly been subjected to questions about their "relationship." No, they aren't dating; they are just friends and that is all they ever intend to be!  But being boy-girl friends is complicated in adolescence and this novel traces how, over the years, their friendship is tested by all the other relationships in their lives.

It's a sentimental (and sometimes manipulative) journey through years of a friendship.  However, it is also a surprisingly intelligent romance that avoids stereotypes and the usual hallmarks of teen romance novels (since it is really about friendship).  Eulberg has done a remarkable job depicting both Macallan and Levi's take on adolescence and each other -- no small feat when most authors specialize in either boys or girls but not both!  By the end of this deceivingly simple story, you'll find yourself terribly invested in both of these young people and in the deep and meaningful relationship they have developed.  The result, in sum, is a humble teen "romance" with depth, pathos, and poignancy.

The Caged Graves, by Dianne K Salerni

After a long absence, Verity Boone returns to her father's home in Catawissa Pennsylvania, in 1867.  She has been betrothed to a neighbor named Nate and she is returning to marry and settle in her parent's house.  But her return is marred by a sinister mystery -- the discovery that her mother and aunt (who died around the time that Verity was sent away) were buried in caged graves on unhallowed ground.  No one will explain why this was done, but the insinuation is that the two women were witches (and that the cages were intended to keep them in their graves).  An alternative explanation that is floating around is that their bodies were interred with a long-lost cache of Continental Army gold and the bars are intended to protect the loot!

The result of all this is a rich historical novel that, while flirting with supernatural ideas, stays pretty soundly within the realm of the possible in its historical context.  The story is multi-layered and also includes a complicated romantic triangle that I found compelling and mature.  If I have a complaint, it is that the book is being mis-marketed:   despite its seventeen year-old heroine, the story could only passably be considered a "young adult" novel.

I liked the richness of the characters and the complexity of their motivations.  While superstitions and fears at the beginning convince even the reader that higher forces are at play, by the end it is revealed that complex human passions can be far more mysterious than evil spirits.  The story's own mysteries are plausibly and satisfactorily resolved by the end, but still manage to surprise and startle.  Very good storytelling!

Return to Me, by Justina Chen

Rebecca is on the verge of starting her freshman year at Columbia, studying architecture.  She has a premonition that things are not going to go well.  And there are certainly issues:  her father has landed a new job in New York and the family is literally following her out east, leaving their beloved island home outside Seattle.  Meanwhile, Rebecca has to say goodbye to her boyfriend and ponder the viability of a long-distance relationship.

But then, her father drops a bombshell on the whole family:  he's leaving their mother and shacking up with a new woman.  Moreover, he's been carrying on a secret affair for the past several months.  His revelation and decision to dessert the family plunges all of them into crisis, as they deal with their grieving, anger, and eventual acceptance.  It also leads Rebecca to revisit her plans and reconsider what she really wants to do with her life.

Justina Chen writes novels full of lots of layers and meanings.  Here it seems a bit more aimless than previous books like North of Beautiful.  While some key concepts, like the meaning of architecture and Rebecca's love for tree houses, are integral to the story, there's a whole thread about Rebecca and her maternal relatives being clairvoyant which hangs awkwardly.  I have bigger issues with Chen's depiction of male characters, which are strikingly flat in comparison with the women.  The father is a glaring example, being at best shallow and seeming like a caricature.  For a story with so much insight on grieving and healing from a feminine perspective, Chen struggles with her male characters.  Rebecca's brother is a throwaway character and Rebecca's boyfriend seems to serve no further purpose than to be endlessly understanding.

Better Nate Than Ever, by Tim Federle

Thirteen year-old Nate dreams of making it big on Broadway.  Not just for the fame, but for the chance to escape his small town Western Pennsylvania existence.  He's tired of being mocked for being short and fat.  And he's tired of everyone assuming that he's gay (he's, in fact, decidedly undecided on the topic!).  So, on a weekend when his parents are away, he slips out of the house, buys a bus ticket, and makes his way to New York City to audition for a new musical based on the film ET.

It's quite an adventure for a small-town kid, and Nate's innocent and wide-eyed love for the Big Apple is a major part of the book's charm.  Nate learns in short order how to manage the chaos of the street as well as the ropes of the audition process, and he does both in his own unique way.  Through the intervention of his long estranged aunt, he also learns some family history and opens some doors.  And, while the subject of Nate's sexual orientation is addressed only fleetingly, it is obvious that he is beginning to have revelations on that front as well.

As with many books targeting middle readers, the frankness and sometimes "adult" nature of the story may make grownups squirm, but at a distance, it all seemed quite age appropriate.  For children too young to understand everything, the sympathetic Nate and the lack of serious harm that befalls him will make the book entertaining and enjoyable.  As a grownup, Nate's string of good luck seemed improbable, but it is in keeping with the spirit of this fun adventure, which promises a run of sequels.

A Tangle of Knots, by Lisa Graff

A wonderful middle reader fantasy about kids and grownups who have particular talents (whistling, disappearing, baking, etc.) and a surreal series of coincidences that bring them together in just the right way to fix everything.  It's a story that's so chaotic and jumbled that it's hard to explain, but it basically involves a bitter old man who steals away people's talents, and the efforts of a motley group to stop him.  Learning to break from past mistakes and forgiving oneself, finding a home, and a mysterious man riding a balloon in a well-pressed grey suit figure in as well.  Some homespun wisdom (e.g., "It's the way we deal with what fate hands us that defines who we are") and a series of interesting looking cake recipes fill out this fun offering.

Sometimes a book is just silly enough and a tale is just heartwarming enough that it captures that niche of children's literature that doesn't have to try to be loved.  This one fits in that special place.  Graff's story is reminiscent of Because of Winn Dixie and Savvy but the story is simpler and more direct. Like those stories, the characters are quirky and multi-generational (kids get to be kids, but adults have a role to play in the fun), and the plot isn't afraid of reaching for a little matter-of-fact magic when the real world can't be special enough.  It's a charming story that middle schoolers through young teens (and those with similar young hearts) will enjoy.

The Ruining, by Anna Collomore

Annie is excited about her new job as a nanny in San Francisco.  She'll be able to attend classes at SF State, live in a fabulous house on Belvedere Island with a great couple, take care of a sweet little girl, and (most importantly) finally escape her traumatic past.  It is a dream come true.

At first, things go well, but slowly circumstances change.  Her employers accuse her of doing things she cannot recall doing.  Strange things start to happen (Annie get mysteriously sick, things disappear, the walls get redecorated).  Annie begins to question her sanity.  In the end, her employers completely destroy Annie's life.

This very creepy story is at its best in the beginning when the freaky manipulative stuff is just starting to unfold.  But the pace picks up and eventually simply goes over the top.  At that point, since I no longer believed that the story was plausible, I stopped caring about the character.  And, since Collomore painted herself into a very tight corner, her solution has to be pretty drastic (and invoking a deus ex machina solution, it is dramatically disappointing).  The ending also completely sidesteps the issue of the evil that was done to Annie, so we're robbed the satisfaction of a final confrontation.  In all, I'll grant that the earlier parts of the book are engrossing psychological stuff, but I felt let down in the end.

Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger

Sophronia is the type of girl to drive a mother mad.  Unlike her older sisters who managed to become proper young ladies, Sophronia is always managing to get into some sort of trouble (and always of the most unladylike nature!).  She can't even curtsy correctly! So, Mumsy is only too happy to send her errant offspring off to finishing school.  Little does the woman or her daughter realize what is in store.  Mme Geraldine's school for young ladies teaches poise and etiquette, but also deceit, subterfuge, and diversion.  It is a school for girls to learn how to get what they want one way or another (through coquetry or espionage).  And, in this case, what almost everyone seems to want (and is willing to kill for) is the prototype (whatever that is!).

Apparently based on Carriger's popular steampunk universe The Parasol Protectorate, this new series of YA novels imagines the adolescents' view of a world of steam power, vampires, werewolves, Picklemen, and flywaymen.  Not being so well versed in steampunk, the concepts were a bit odd for me and seemed a bit too precious and pretentious.  The counterposing of traditional finishing school subjects with espionage is a cute joke the first couple of times, but after a couple hundred pages, the humor grows stale.  Much like steampunk fashion for me, the book is pretty to look at, but seems to paint itself in an artistic corner from which there is little room to move.

Gated, by Amy Christine Parker

Lyla feels safe in the Community.  Thanks to the wise leadership of Pioneer, her family and twenty other families will be saved when the End comes.  They will simply barricade themselves inside an underground bunker and hold out against the Outsiders.  If there is anyone she fears, it is the Outsiders!  It was one of them that abducted her sister in front of their house in NYC so many years ago.  But now she is with friends.

However, as the End time draws near, Lyla begins to notice that things are not quite right.  Pioneer doesn't always appear to be acting in their best interests.  And a chance encounter with an Outsider, a boy named Cody, opens Lyla's eyes to what is really going on.  However, as she tries to awaken her family and friends to the true source of danger in their midst, Pioneer turns his deadly attention directly on her!

A very tense (and bloody) thriller.  This one is definitely not for younger readers and it contains a fair amount of blood, major animal cruelty, and disturbing scenes.  The outcome of the story isn't terribly in doubt, but thanks to some excellent writing it remains a nail biter to the very end.  So, if you have a thick skin, this one is worth reading.

Unremembered, by Jessica Brody

When she wakes up, the girl is told that she is the lone survivor of a crashed plane flight - a crash that no human could have survived.  And that is all she knows.  Her memory has completely disappeared.  She appears to be super smart, multilingual, beautiful and physically strong, but she has no idea how she got that way.  The only clues are a locket around her neck and a tattoo on her arm.  And then there is a young man named Zen who informs her mysteriously that he is going to "rescue" her.

One of the very first things the girl figures out is that she is on the run and that Zen is a friend.  And she doesn't seem to have many of those as several groups of people are chasing after her and appear to want to cause her harm.  If only she could figure out why?  (And, by the way, it would be nice to know some simple basics like what is her name?)

This is not a deep think book, but it is a fast-paced action story with a decent mystery that takes most of the book to unwind.  It's a bit heavier on violence than I generally like and the characters are flat and disposable, but that's an artifact of the genre.  I found it entertaining for what it was.  I probably won't seek out the next installment of the trilogy, but I'm sure it will be amusing.

Fat Angie, by E E Charlton-Trujillo

Even if Angie wasn't big and uncoordinated, she would still never measure up to her sister.  But she would never want to do so.  Ever since Angie's sister was kidnapped in Iraq and went missing (and presumed dead), Angie's world has fallen apart.  The loss of her sister has made Angie more of a target to bullying from jealous classmates.  And without her sister to protect her, she is an easier target.  Angie's very public breakdown at the start of the school year didn't help anything.

Her remaining family is no refuge.  Her father is gone.  Angie's brother has turned against her and cruelly attacks her in public.  And Angie's mother accuses Angie of acting up for attention and uses her sadistic version of tough love on her daughter.

Her life, in sum, is hell, until a new girl named KC shows up.  KC is beautiful, West Coast cool, and ardently loyal to Angie, coming to her defense and helping her see beyond the abuse.  Angie can't begin to imagine how she has managed to luck out so much.  KC, however, has issues of her own and they complicate Angie's life further.

The story plays its hand very coolly.  The family may seem unnecessarily cruel, but friends are found in interesting places (in particular, from a gym teacher and a jock at school, who both look out for Angie).  It's a depressing story that you really want to end well.  Charlton-Trujillo teases a bit with partially happy endings, but the real conclusion leaves a lot of things messily unresolved.  That's not as satisfying, but it feels much more authentic.  The story has a lot of things going on:  family drama, sports competition, and love story, and it manages to balance it all fairly well.

Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell

Saying that Cath is a Simon Snow fan is a major understatement.  She and her twin sister Wren are deep into fan fiction, with Cath writing (and Wren editing) one of the most popular Simon Snow stories.  Simon Snow is the world to Cath and has sustained the girls through high school and family trauamas.  But now that Cath and Wren are freshmen at UNL, things have changed for Wren.  She no longer wants to do Simon Snow, being drawn to new social circles and parties.  Cath stays the path, but even she is opening her eyes to the broader world that exists after high school.

It's a book that straddles the line between YA and NA (New Adult) literature.  It's about growing up and (while not letting go of childish things altogether) about integrating them into a grownup life.  That's interesting stuff.  I also enjoyed all the local detail on Lincoln and Omaha, as I remember the area well.

In comparison to Rowell's Eleanor and Park, however, it pales.  Cath, Wren, and their roommates and boyfriends make relatively less interesting characters.  And the story itself is less compelling.  It's a long book and subject to a widespread abandonment of subplots.  To paraphrase Chekhov, if an estranged mother shows up in chapter one, you need to have a big confrontation with her by the last chapter.  Instead, the family traumas (and many other subplots) are allowed to wither without any significant conclusion.  And they could easily have been excised from the book, creating a shorter and smoother story.

Half A Chance, by Cynthia Lord

Lucy has moved to a new home on a lake in New Hampshire, just in time for the summer to start.  She quickly befriends a neighbor boy Nate, who is her age.  It won't be a long-term thing,because he is only spending the summer on the lake.  This doesn't stop them from becoming friends as they take part in the Loon Patrol, which monitors the lake's breeding pair of Loons.  Nate also helps Lucy in assembling her submission to a photography contest.

Their summer is darkened by two things:  another girl named Megan who is jealous of Lucy and Nate's new friendship, and the growing demise of Nate's grandmother who is losing her sense of reality (and afraid of becoming a burden to her family).  The former thread is never completely pursued, but the latter one combines a lesson about growing old gracefully with a bit about letting go of things.  It ends up providing the story with a nice poignant ending.

This summer story about a girl and boy developing a friendship is full of all the sweet and innocent stuff that one expects from a middle reader.  There aren't a lot of surprises, but it's a nice story that you can simply enjoy.  Sort of the tween version of a summer romance (boy and girl have adventures and fun, but we don't get into any kissing stuff!).

[Disclosure:  I received a review copy from Scholastic Press in return for my consideration.  After completing this review, I will donate this copy to my local public library.  The book will be released in late February.]

Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Willow, twelve year-old genius and oddball, copes with the world by counting in sevens.  But no knowledge or coping skill can prepare her for the death of her foster parents.  Instead, she finds that life's salvation comes from the most unexpected places:  a Vietnamese family, a dysfunctional guidance counselor, and a Mexican taxi cab driver.  And, in the same odd way that they have managed to help her, she ends up changing their life in equally unexpected ways.

The general path of the story won't surprise anyone -- it basically begs to becomes a tale of random good fortune and luck -- but what makes this book a joy is the connectedness of the random events.  The message is that no matter how hard you try to order the world and control the outcome, in the end you never quite know where you will end up.  Meanwhile, it is such a nicely written book with such charmingly odd and unusual characters, that you'll be willing to swallow a whole lot of sentimentality along the way.  As with many books of this sort, it's more designed for adults (and librarians) than for kids, but one hopes that children will just enjoy a gentle story.

Manor of Secrets, by Katherine Longshore

Lady Charlotte lives a life of luxury, but her existence is hardly happy.  She envies the kitchen maid Janie, who has the freedom to pursue her dreams.  Charlotte meanwhile is bound by her mother's oppressive rules and has little to look forward to beyond marriage to a boring local lord.  Janie, on the other hand, longs for Charlotte's pampered existence.  For Janie, live is about constantly being on the verge of poverty; only a wrong step away should she be dismissed from service.  She would give anything to have Charlotte's comforts.

A chance encounter in the woods outside the estate (where neither girl is supposed to be) brings them together in friendship and secret rebellion against the roles they must play.  It also helps them see the truth behind the rosy appearance of each other's lives.  However, the manor won't tolerate any fraternizing between upstairs and downstairs.  Too much is at stake in the calcified hierarchy that has developed.  As the two girls grow closer, the scandal that is unleashed throws the entire household into disorder.

With an obvious debt to Upstairs Downstairs and Manor House (and probably Downtown Abbey as well), we get a junior version of the Georgian soap opera genre.  It's highly sanitized and a bit too Americanized for my tastes, but I can see the appeal.  Glamorous gowns, some forbidden love, a little acting out, and a whole lot of convenient coincidences in the end to make it wrap up neatly.  It would seem to be a perfect candidate for moderate commercial success and maybe even spawn a sequel (and a few copycats).  It's not great literature, but that's not its role either.

[Disclosure:  I received an ARC from Point-Scholastic for the purposes of reviewing this book (it is scheduled for release on January 28), but no other compensation for my consideration]

Peaceweaver, by Rebecca Barnhouse

Hild has grown up in a privileged existence as the daughter of the king's sister.  And while her uncle has, in recent years, fallen too easily under the advice of short-sighted and war-mongering men, he is a kind man.  So, when Hild saves the king's son from an assassination attempt, she is confident that she will be honored by a grateful father.  Instead, she is accused of being possessed by demons (on account of her instinctive recognition of the assassins before they had attacked) and she is threatened with exile.

Instead of exile, she is betrothed to the son of the recently-slain king Beowulf from the neighboring (and hostile) kingdom of Geat.  Geat was, until the betrothed prince slayed it, terrorized by a dragon and has suffered greatly from years of the beast's attacks.  But it was always a backwards place and hardly suitable for Hild.  Her situation is worsened because Hild learns on the eve of her departure that her uncle intends to betray the peace that the betrothal promises.  He's using the marriage as a ploy to camouflage plans to strike against Geat.

A richly-drawn fantasy, deeply rooted in Norse culture, with a fair bit of the epic of Beowulf thrown in for good measure.  Hild is resourceful, strong-willed, and handy with a weapon, but also annoyingly indecisive.  This is the primary weakness of this colorful novel.  Most of the story is spent with her plotting to escape -- trying to figure out a way to get away from her uncle, from the Geats, and eventually from her uncle again.  However, each time she does actually run, she reconsiders and comes back on her own free will.  This gets tiresome as it feels like a lot of lead up for nothing.  And given the vast number of unresolved plot points, the energy could have been much better directed on the parts of the story that really matter.

Manicpixiedreamgirl, by Tom Leveen

Ever since ninth grade, Tyler has had a massive crush on Rebecca Webb, but he's never been able to find the will to tell her.  Instead, he's told his friend Sydney in honors English.  She even offered to hook them up, but Tyler couldn't imagine doing it.  Instead, he started dating Syd instead.  And so a weird triangle developed:  Sydney likes Tyler and Tyler is OK with hanging out with Syd, but both of them know that Tyler dreams of Becky.  Meanwhile, Becky doesn't know how Tyler feels about her at all.  At least, not until tonight, when Tyler's thinly-veiled story about Becky has just been published.

And what has Tyler written?  He's created a short story all about the wonderful way he feels about Becky.  About how perfect she is and how he is not worthy of her.  The problem is that Becky (big surprise!) is hardly the perfect creature than Tyler imagines.  She's hardly the straight-A perfect student of Tyler's dreams.  In fact, as everyone at school (including Tyler) knows, she's pretty screwed up.  Becky, to put it mildly, has self-esteem issues and a reputation for hooking up with any boy who asks, which Tyler would know if he ever asked her.  Doing that, however, would destroy the dream world that Tyler has created.  He would rather imagine rescuing her.

An amazingly intense story of how human beings (and perhaps adolescents a bit more strongly) create fantasies to avoid awkward truths.  It's an unpleasant story -- there are no true heroes here -- and Leveen makes no attempt to sweeten any of the protagonists.  Whether it's Tyler's obsession for Becky, or Syd's hopeless desire to stay with Tyler, or Becky's complete self-destructive behavior, these are messed up kids with very believable issues.  If you've never been in one of these roles, consider yourself lucky -- the rest of us have the t-shirt to show for it in our closet!

I especially like the fact that this is a book written by a man about a boy.  I take no small amount of flak for reading "girl" books all the time.  I do so because it usually takes a woman author writing about a girl to tell a story with this much emotional honesty.  Male authors don't have the patience to tell this story and everyone assumes that only boys will read about a boy (and that boys won't read something like this with so little action in it).  The result is that it is very rare to find a novel like this.  Leveen truly is an outstanding YA writer who has the insight and the skills to create strong and realistic young men and women, and tell a story with brutal honesty.

This may well be the best book I read in 2014.  What a way to start the year!