My Best Friend, Maybe, by Caela Carter

Years ago, Coley and Sadie were best friends, but they grew up and grew apart.  Coley never quite understood why and Sadie never explained.  So, when Sadie invites Coley out of the blue to join her family for a wedding in Greece, Coley doesn’t know what to think.  And Sadie won’t offer any explanation. 

By all rights, Coley should turn her down. Not only is the invitation weird, but Coley already has plans to go on a mission to Costa Rica with her boyfriend.  And her parents will never approve.  But Coley desperately wants to understand what happened to their friendship and she realizes that this may be the only way that she ever finds out the answer.

There are many good books about friendship, and we’ve certainly been to Greece before (with the traveling pants or with the thirteen little blue envelopes), but this is a standout example of the genre.  In its beautiful setting, Carter tackles numerous subjects (most of which I can’t reveal without spoiling the latter part of the book) and does so with great sensitivity.  I’d compare it to Jenny Han’s magnificent books on love and friendship.  And while there is a steamy romantic lead, this is in the end a story about two young women trying to figure out who they are and what they mean to each other.  Touching, beautiful, and achingly honest.

Stray, by Elissa Sussman

Princess Aislynn has always tried to be a good girl and follow the Path faithfully and stay pure.  However, her best intentions seem to be thwarted by accidental discharges of magic.  Magic is destructive and a young woman's duty is to be obedient and learn to control it if she has any hope of being married.  But instead of focusing on learning that self-control, Aislynn has been trying (unsuccessfully) to hide her magic.  After an unfortunate incident at a Ball, she finds herself "redirected" to a career as a caregiver for princesses.  In that new role, she begins to discover a conspiracy that threatens the rules Aislynn has always followed and she finds herself tempted to stray.

A strikingly vivid fantasy with some heavy handed, but ultimately enchanting parallels to real-world adolescence.  The balls, princesses, and dreams of marriage are more traditional fantasy fodder, but Sussman has darker ambitions.  Magic (the "curse" it is called) is a metaphor for female empowerment. And the young women's struggle with containing their passion bring them face to face with the authorities and simultaneously with personal madness.  I like this idea -- imagining what a patriarchy would do when it found that women are the sole owners of a very powerful internal force.  And both how it poisons the relationships between the women as well as the image issues it promotes in the young women themselves.  There's even veiled references to cutting as Aislynn subjects herself to self-abuse when she privately releases the magic inside of her.  It's sort of as if Shannon Hale (and her Princess Academy) met up with Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale.  Powerful stuff!

Still, at the end, Sussman takes a detour into action mode, with the introduction of an underdeveloped animal sidekick, a largely disposable skirmish in the woods, and a hard-to-follow battle of the sorceresses.  This is such a striking break from the more interesting psychological stuff in the rest of the book that I almost felt that I had picked up a few pages from another book altogether.  It is neither effective nor terribly interesting, making the ending messy.  There was also a lot of unfinished stuff at the end, which was largely done (one suspects) to take a book that could well have been self-contained and generate enough room for a sequel or a trilogy.  Up until the last sixty pages or so, however, I was really enjoying the tenor and themes of the book.  Perhaps the sequel will pick that good stuff back up again.

The Opposite of Love, by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

"The opposite of love is not giving a damn," says Rose, and she should know.  Abandoned by her mother and adopted without any say by super strict (and largely clueless) foster parents, sixteen-year-old Rose feels trapped in her life.  They won't listen to her, so she has become mute.  And as she has grown non-communicative, they have shut virtually imprisoned her at home and cut her off from her friends (which makes her angrier and less communicative in a vicious cycle).  When she runs away leaving a goodbye note with her friends Chase and Becca on Christmas Eve, her friends completely freak out and race to track her down.  This precipitates a series of flashbacks in which we learn how Chase has had his own demons to deal with.  And how Chase and Rose have mostly been the blind leading the blind.

For most of the duration of the story, this seemed to be a novel about learning to rise above the hand life dealt and to break free of parental bonds, to learn to accept responsibility for yourself, and to make your life your own.  And while it does actually end up on that track, there's a sudden plot twist in the last forty pages which completely changes the way the story treads.  It drastically increases the stakes and adds all sort of complexities, and it is never foreshadowed.  As the book's message stays unchanged, I'll assert that the twist was unnecessary and distracting.  I won't spoil the ending for others, but it seemed like a sledgehammer delivery for a story that was getting there just fine on its own.  It also seemed like an easy out for a tale that called for subtlety, and replaced it with high stakes drama.

How To Speak Dolphin, by Ginny Rorby

Taking care of her severely autistic half-brother Adam has stretched Lily and her stepfather to their limits.  But getting help has been difficult because no one wants to deal with him.  Caregivers say he should be in a program to learn coping mechanisms, but Lily's stepfather (who is in denial about the scope of Adam's difficulties) resists the idea.  That is, until they discover the concept of Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT).  Adam has always loved dolphins and swimming with them makes him happy and seems to help him adapt.  It gives the family hope, but finding a program nearby is challenging.

When a young dolphin is rescued and is brought to a nearby commercial aquarium to recover, it is a rare opportunity.  Lily's stepdad is brought in the consult on the dolphin's care and, in exchange, the aquarium allows them to hold DAT sessions for Adam.  However, as Lily learns the aquarium's ulterior profit motive (and her father's willingness to abet it), she realizes that what might be helping her brother is harming the animal.  They need to end the therapy and let the dolphin go.  But how can she do this if it will hurt her brother?

The combination of a story about autism and about dolphins is busy.  Throw in a blind best friend, dad's complicated emotional response to his son's disability, and a dead mother and it gets more crowded than a Sea World tank!  But it all works.  Middle readers may find the extended depictions of Adam's behavior or the dolphin's activities to be a bit dull at points, but Rorby has done her homework and wants a chance to convey it.  The fact that she makes it all readable and interesting while also education is remarkable.  The end result is a satisfying story about family loyalty, empathy for other (animal and human), and learning to accommodate differences. And it's all wrapped up with a beautiful ending that threatens to make you bring out the Kleenexes but ultimately avoids sentimentality.


[Disclaimer:  I received a solicited copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.  I'll be donating the book to my local public library.]

Falling Into Place, by Amy Zhang

Liz struggles to understand her physics class, but she thinks she may understand the Three Laws of Physics, at least as far as they have been manifested in her own life -- a series of actions and reactions.  That life is just about to end at the beginning of the book, she hopes, as she drives her car into a ravine on purpose.  In her reflection, it’s a miserable life full of cruelties she has committed against her peers and plenty of suffering that has been self-inflicted.  That may seem harsh, but through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, we slowly come to understand why she wants to die.

It’s a poetic and well-written story, but gruesome and relentless in its depiction of Liz and her friends – lives full of substance abuse, petty rivalries, and thoughtless cruelties.  It isn’t so much overblown (in fact, it all seemed quite realistic) but the truth is that Liz really isn’t a nice person.  And while her peers seem willing to forgive her, the reader is not necessarily going to be ready to do so.  At each point we understand her and start to absolve her, something even more horrible shows up to shock us again.  Overall, the portrait that Zhang provides of these teens is not flattering.  So, while well-written and plotted, it is a depressing and discouraging read.

The Way Home Looks Now, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

In former days, Peter remembered how his older brother would always spar with their Dad over everything from how to play baseball to standing up for what was right (even if it meant protesting instead of studying).  But when it came to rooting on the home team, the family was united:  whether it was listening to the Pirates play or joining other Taiwanese-American families in Williamsport to root on Chinese Taipei demolish the Americans in the Little League World Series.  Baseball was a way that Peter's family came together.

But after Peter's older brother dies in an accident, the family falls apart.  His mother becomes withdrawn and non-communicative.  His father retreats into stern demands of his surviving son.  And Peter himself rejects baseball itself.  There is plenty to be glum about in the summer of 1972.  Nixon is reaching out to Mainland China to the inevitable disadvantage of Taiwan.  Major League baseball was on strike.  So, Peter hatches a plan to rescue his family and make the difference that his older brother always spoke of.

I'm not a big fan of sports stories, but baseball is always an easy sell.  Combine some reader-friendly sports action with family reconciliation, a tough father who loves his children, and a healthy dose of social consciousness raising, and you get a winning story.  It doesn't hurt that the story was based in part on real events, that the historical details are so pitch perfect and interesting, or that Shang painlessly teaches us a lot about baseball along the way.


[Disclosure:  I received a solicited reviewers copy in exchange for my unbiased review.  After completing this review, I will be donating the book to my local public library.]

A Different Me, by Deborah Blumenthal

For years, Allie has wanted to change her nose.  As she starts to research the process of rhinoplasty (i.e., a nose job), she meets two other girls on-line who are planning on having the same procedure.  Each girl has their own reason.  And as the young women go through their procedures, they respond differently.  And, as they do, Allie begins to question what she is hoping to accomplish.  Input from friends at school and the intervention of a romantic interest play a role as well.

The novel follows a predictable dramatic arc and reaches a conclusion that -- while sweet and poignant -- is basically predictable.  I don't mind having a decent old chestnut (i.e., beauty comes from within) rehashed, but this edition of it is crowded with characters.  Less, in my opinion, is always more and when you need a scorecard to keep track of all the people who come and go, one wonders if the tale would have been simpler with fewer of them.  It certainly would have allowed more space for character development and proving the worth of their inclusion.  As is, the romantic lead is pretty much thrown away.  And some of the cameos (like a brief appearance by a teen-aged author) are bizarre non-sequiturs.

Counting to D, by Kate Scott

Sam is crazy smart when it comes to math and she doesn’t do too badly in her other subjects.  In fact, she’s taking solely AP classes in her sophomore year.  But at the same time, she's hiding a big secret:  she’s dyslexic and completely illiterate.  She gets by through listening to her textbooks on audio recordings (and, the math is easy because it’s all numbers).  It's worked for her for many years.

But when she and her mother relocate to Oregon midway through the year, Sam has to start at a new school.  Her precocious abilities bring her to the attention of the smart clique at school and, in particular, a nerdy (but very hot) senior named Nate.  But what would her new friends think if they found out about her concealed disability?

The book does a great job of explaining dyslexia to reader and I liked the kids.  Scott does a nice job building up her characters and avoids a lot of stereotypes that fill YA books:  In this world, kids don’t always fight with parents, pretty A-listers can be friendly with geeks, and kids don’t always get sick when they are drinking.

But the story itself left me cold.  There was simply no dramatic tension in the story.  There’s all sorts of set-up, but Scott seems unwilling or unable to let things blow up.  There isn’t even a hint of tension between Sam and Nate.  The feared revelation of Sam's dyslexia is a non-event.  Basically, without any drama, there isn’t much of a story.  Scott also has a mission here (teaching us about her own struggle with dyslexia) and the book frequently veers into preachiness, which is always a turn-off for me.

Graceful, by Wendy Mass

At the end of The Last Present, little Grace had awoken from a coma with powers inherited from the local eccentric (and enigmatic Angelina).  The full scope of those supernatural powers is not known to anyone (most especially Grace) although she does seem to have the ability to create pizza!  But mysteries don't remain such for long, and as a series of cryptic postcards start arriving from Angelina and things start changing, the kids of Willow Falls know something is afoot!

In this fifth installment in Mass's Willow Falls series, all is (more or less) revealed and loose ends are (more or less) tied up.  One could argue that that was the intention of the previous book (The Last Present) as well, but this novel does a more solid job of finishing the series.  It is not, unfortunately, nearly as compelling as its predecessors.  Unlike the quirky 11 Birthdays or the more poignant Finally or 13 Gifts, there really isn't a theme here. With the prior books, there was always some sort of unifying theme and the magic was simply window dressing for something deeper and more meaningful (usually growing up, discovering friendships and love, etc.).  Also, as Mass warns in the forward, if you haven't read the other books, you will have trouble following this one.  But moreover, you might not care.  Unlike the preceding books, there simply isn't much of a story here and the magic exists in and for itself. So, we have a combination of a confusing storyline and not much of a purpose.  This simply extends the story, but with a focus on the magic rather than what made these magical.

While the story (or lack thereof) left me cold, I still enjoy the author.  Mass gets the middle reader audience.  I continue to love the pitch perfect way she depicts the age (with the characters neither ignorant nor worldly) and the utterly comfortable way she depicts friendships without all the hangups of writers who want to make a big deal anytime a boy and a girl are in the same room.


[Disclosure:  I received a solicited review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.  Having completed that review, I will be donating the book to my local public library.]

The Boy I Love, by Nina de Gramont

This year, Wren and her best friend Allie are starting at a new high school.  It's bigger than their old school and full of lots of opportunities.  But Allie is quickly disappointed when she fails to make the cheerleading squad and the cute upperclassman Tim isn't interested in her.  Meanwhile, Wren (who was never sure she'd be comfortable at the new school) not only lands a part in the Fall musical, but has gained Tim's attentions.  Allie is jealous and Wren wishes she could tell her friend not to worry about it.  However, she's been sworn to secrecy:  the truth is that Tim is gay (a fact that Wren wishes wasn't true as she'd like to date him, but which she accepts with much more grace than her peers would).

But helping Tim keep his secret is only one of Wren's trials.  Her family is facing bankruptcy and it is likely that they will be selling their home.  Not a moment too soon for Wren's older sister and her Dad, who both associate their old plantation with the shameful past of slave-owning ancestors.  But for Wren's Mom and her, the looming changes are scary.

It's a busy little story and one wonders if it needed to have so much going on.  The themes of homophobia and racism have a moderate amount of tie-in, but the financial woes really seemed like an entirely separate story.  Still, I liked the attempt to tell a story about a young woman in love with the wrong man -- it just isn't much of the story.  And unfortunately that's the thread that the publicists have taken too.  The novel is anything but the "romance" it is billed as.  Rather, it's a story about how various people deal with prejudice.

The Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson

(And now for a palate cleanser!)

Tracy Beaker lives in a foster home because her mother is a famous beautiful person who is off in Paris or in Rome, or probably starring in a movie (cause she's so beautiful and all!) in Hollywood.  And while Tracy wishes she would come round for a visit, she knows that that probably isn't going to happen.  And she also knows that she may tell a fib or two, but it's completely justified, considering how everyone abuses her and tells stories about her.  Now, if she could just convince a nice writer lady named Cam to foster her and get her out of this Home (or at least take her to McDonalds and get her some presents) that would make up for everything!

And so it goes.  A breezy middle reader about a ten year old girl in a British foster home.  Wilson tells us her story precisely by avoiding it altogether, having Tracy talk about everything except the truth.  Rather than admit how much she misses her mother, she's allegedly perfectly content to be a rabble rouser and carry on.  The misbehavior and acting out that fills the pages are on their surface annoying and grating, but ultimately sad as we realize the pain and rejection which Tracy herself cannot quite accept.  As such, the book has a subtle nature to it that I don't imagine quite sinks in to younger reader's heads.  I wonder what they do think of Tracy?

The Cellar, by Natasha Preston

One night, while Summer is outside on the street searching for a friend, she is abducted.  Her kidnapper is a psychotic man who throws her into her cellar.  Down there, he has installed a "home" for Summer and three other young women, whom he collectively refers to as his "flowers" -- Lily (Summer), Rose, Poppy, and Violet.  Forcing them to keep the place and themselves spotless and clean at all times, he reenacts bizarre "family" rituals with them and rapes them repeatedly.  There's also the occasional murder thrown in.

Ick!  The subject matter itself is pretty repulsive, but what really sent me over the edge was the portrayal of just about every female character in the book.  I get the victimization concept and how repetitive torture (particularly in the ritualistic manner that Preston describes here) can really disempower and weaken a person, but what is so shocking is how ineffectual the women in this story are.  No one ever makes a legitimate attempt to fight back (and what attempts there are are quickly defeated -- more often than not by the women's own reluctance to carry through).  While the characters frequently describe how angry and upset they are, they seem only able to turn this anger inward.  The female characters not incarcerated in the cellar are no better -- helplessly sitting around and weapily waiting for the menfolk to do something. What a terrible message to send to send young (presumably female) readers!  So, take it from a guy old enough to the target demographic's father:  if a man attacks you, it doesn't matter how strong he is, immobilize the SOB with a well-placed knee shot.  Yes, you'll hurt him but it will feel good (for you).

All of which may beg the question of why I finished reading this book?  I think I just kept hoping that the young women would eventually rise to the occasion and reign down some righteous vengeance on the psycho.  I was hoping for some catharsis and a little emotional growth in the victims.  Let me save you the trouble of reading this book in hopes it will be there: While Summer does try to fight back, it's the (male) cops who save her in the end.

The book was terribly repetitive as well, but we don't need to go into its other flaws....

The Porcupine of Truth, by Bill Konigsberg

Carson hasn't seen his father since he and Mom left when Carson was four.  So ending up back in Billings, Montana to help his mother take care of Dad (even if he is dying -- from complications of years of alcohol abuse) isn't exactly Carson's idea of a great way to spend the summer.  But on a visit to the woefully underpopulated Billings Zoo, he meets Aisha -- a young woman who has just been thrown out of her home for being a lesbian by her homophobic parents.

A friendship between Carson and Aisha develops and takes on new meaning when they uncover evidence that his grandfather (also estranged and long absent from the rest of the family) may in fact still be alive.  Following a few leads, Carson and Aisha set out on a road trip that will take them all the way to California, along the way exploring spirituality (through the eponymous Porcupine of Truth) and learning about the true meaning of family.

It's a decent road trip story, with some colorful characters and a fair share of tumbles and turns.  However, it really takes off towards the end when Carson learns about his grandfather.  The two weakest parts of the book for me were the spirituality discussions (which I found either trite or overly simplistic) and the ending (which suffers from overly convenient resolution in the form of a wealthy benefactor).  But those blemishes are countered by Konigsberg's excellent exploration of the family loyalty and acceptance, and by the characters.  I liked Carson's wit, his ability to bullshit ad hoc, and his predilection for bad puns.  Aisha is a sympathetic young woman struggling for acceptance (not always successfully) from Carson and others around her.  Both of them were winning personalities and made the read enjoyable.


[Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.  After I am finished with the book, I will donate it to my local public library.]

Bright Before Sunrise, by Tiffany Schmidt

Jonah can't stand living amidst the snobby kids in Cross Pointe.  He's give anything to be back in Hamilton with his friends and his girl Carly.  And of all the people in Cross Pointe, the most annoying of all has to be Brighton -- the ever-chipper do-gooder who keeps nagging him to join in one of her volunteer projects.  Why can't she leave him alone?  For Brighton though, Jonah is a big mystery -- why is he so rude and mean to everyone, even when she is being so nice to him?

And then one night, fate brings them together on an adventure where the angry young man and the self-centered young woman will discover there's a lot more beneath the surface.  And they will discover that they are simply perfect for each other.

It's a classic no-surprises romance, but I like those and (assuming you like a fun romantic book) you will too.  The set-up is a bit too obvious and the starting points are a bit too convenient, but there's the growth in the relationship felt organic and perfectly natural.  Both Jonah and Brighton are interesting young people and it's easy to see how they could hit it off once we get through the initial  posturing and misunderstandings.  And that's basically what one wants from a romantic story.