The Summer I Wasn't Me, by Jessica Verdi

When Lexi’s mother finds her secret portfolio of drawings, Mom freaks out at their homoerotic content.  Mom’s been unstable since Dad passed away and Lexi is terrified that this incident will push her over the edge.  So, when her mother demands that Lexi enroll at a treatment facility to get cured of her “disease,” Lexi feels powerless to resist.  Even though she knows that her sexual attraction to girls is unlikely to change.

Lexi is sent to the New Horizons program, a residential program of brainwashing and indoctrination to learn how to “de-gay” herself.  Much of the process seems to involve being coerced into traditional gender roles as well as adopting heterosexual behavior.  With her mother’s sanity on the line, Lexi is desperate to somehow straighten her life out.  But the program and her new friends there have the opposite effect.

It’s hard to ignore the offensiveness of the religious stereotyping that goes on in the novel.  At the very least, there are a lot of cheap shots as the obviously hypocritical adults spout off soundbites culled from an urban liberal's idea of what conservative Christians believe. At best, Verdi is just being a lazy writer (and not a bigot!), but it soured me on the book.  And by the time that the “exorcist” showed up, Verdi basically flew into absurdity, dragging out every stupid and offensive stereotype about organized religion she could find.

Moving beyond the offensive stuff, Lexi's journey is enjoyable to follow.  From starry-eyed romantic to a young woman willing to commit her life to another person, Lexi’s growth as a person (and maturing of her sexual orientation) is dramatic and stunning.  She’s helped along the way by strong and complex characters like Matthew (who talks tough yet carries secret fears), the beautiful Caroline (who submits to brainwashing and painful interrogations because she can’t come to terms with herself), and Daniel’s fear-driven Judas act.

So, I liked the characters and much of the story, but for a much more compelling and nuanced story about reparative therapy, see Emily Danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post (reviewed on May 19, 2012). It contains much of what I liked here and skips the unnecessary digs against religion.

Five Summers, by Una LaMarche

Four girls spent five summers together at a camp in New England.  Three years after their last summer together, they've come back for a camp reunion.  They approach their gathering with mixed emotions, but they all underestimate how much they had changed since those summers.  Coming back together highlights not just those changes, but also exposes secrets that they never revealed to each other in the past, despite their closeness.  Doing so now threatens to destroy friendships that they expected would last forever.

This is the novel I thought Proof of Forever (reviewed a month ago) was going to be (and it would have been albeit for it's weird fantasy twist) -- a story of childhood friendships revisited and infantile relationships matured.  There's a tremendous potential emotional punch here as the girls strip each other bare through sheer familiarity.  However, LaMarche has trouble delivering that punch.  The first 250 pages of this novel dragged for me as we traveled through rising tensions and unrevealing flashbacks.  In the last 100 pages, the book starts to pay off and the actual climactic blow up is gripping, but it deflated fast afterwards.

I liked the girls and their quirks and differences were well-portrayed.  The setting felt authentic and sent me back on a nostalgic trip through my own experiences with sleep-over camp in New England.  But the story just dragged and then, just as it was getting interesting, came to a screeching halt.  Unlike her more compelling sophomore effort (Like No Other), this first novel doesn't stand out.

Kissing in America, by Margo Rabb

Eva is obsessed with romance novels, and in the two years since her father died she's read over a hundred of them (slacker!).  But now she's had a taste of the real thing with Will -- a boy who seems to really get her.  That is, until he moves away to California, leaving her bereft (much to the chagrin of her feminist academic mother).  All seems lost to Eva until her best friend Annie wins a slot on a game show taping in Los Angeles.  This provides a pretext for Eva and Annie to set off on an unlikely road trip across the continent, finding out a great deal about their families and the nature of love along the way.

An entertaining story of high improbability that explores some of the more irrational elements of romantic obsession.  I found Eva herself to be grating and melodramatic.  Ironically, this makes her funny at times, but there's no getting away from how self-absorbed she is.  Most of the rest of the characters are stereotypes (some of them -- like the cowboys in Texas -- are lazy and borderline offensive).  But I don't think that depicting great characters was the point!   Somewhat more crucial is the dearth of actual romance in this tribute to love.  Despite the book's title, there doesn't really seem to be that much kissing going on across the country!

My Life After Now, by Jessica Verdi

Lucy has a slew of problems (absent mother, straying boyfriend, failure to get the lead in the school's production of Romeo and Juliet, etc.), but all of these pale compared to the consequences of one irresponsible evening.  Finding herself HIV-positive changes everything and puts the rest in perspective  The bulk of the novel then depicts how she struggles with the diagnosis and with how to relate to her family and friends in this new light.

I found the storytelling pedantic at times, like Verdi was lecturing us, and Lucy's character was uneven and inconsistent.  But overall, there are so many wonderful scenes in this novel that I can forgive the rough spots along the way.  The story's crowded and cluttered plot became surprisingly organic and the author seemed quite comfortable with complicated and fitting together initially unrelated characters.  I liked the story's overall message that life truly does go on, even if you're struggling with a terminal illness.  Finally, there's something to be said for bringing out an HIV story in this day and age.  I haven't seen one in a long time and it isn't a bad thing to dust it off and remind younger readers that AIDS still kills even if it's not in the headlines much anymore.

The Memory of Light, by Francisco X. Stork

After a failed suicide attempt, Vicky spends several weeks in a hospital, where she befriends three other young people struggling with suicidal tendencies.  She quickly comes to understand how depression has brought her to this point and seeks to sort out its triggers and how to overcome it.  But she must also deal with her family's unwillingness to acknowledge her needs.  And, seeing that resistance, she has to find the strength to push back for what she needs.

Suicide and depression are important subjects, but I didn't find this treatment to be particularly compelling.  The kids are nice enough and do a great job of illustrating different manifestations of depression, but so much of their discussions seemed like frivolous filler.  There's some effort to explain mindsets, but I didn't really learn much about mental illness, except how easy it is to backslide.

Crow Mountain, by Lucy Inglis

Hope has been dragged by her mother from exciting London to boring Montana, to spend a month on a ranch while Mom researches the local ecosystem.  There's a cute boy (of course!) with a mysterious past, but otherwise not much to keep her occupied with, until she uncovers a long-forgotten journal.

The journal is written by another English girl named Emily who came through Montana in the mid-19th century.  On her way to Portland to unite with her future husband, Emily's trip goes awry and she is rescued by a frontiersman (with a mysterious past) hiding in the wilds.  At first reluctant to stay and eager to get away, Emily eventually comes to love him.  This leads her to reconsider her plans for the future and discover the joys of frontier life.

Meanwhile, in the present, Hope and her current-day mystery man embark on a trip of their own, which also goes awry.  A series of adventures occur that parallel Emily's in the past.

It ends up being a nice mix of history and adventure.  The bad guys felt a bit over-the-top and I hope Inglis got her historical detail better than her contemporary ones ("passport control" in Helena MT?!), but I enjoyed both stories and the way that they intertwined.  The historical stuff reminded me of Cold Comfort Mountain in a good way and was the more interesting section of the novel.  Overall, this was exciting and engaging, with four strong characters and fluid storytelling.


[Disclaimer:  I received an Advance Reviewers Copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.  This book is slated for release on May 31, 2016.]

Up To This Pointe, by Jennifer Longo

When her life plan of getting a position as a professional ballerina fails, Harper Scott decides to flee as far away from San Francisco as she can go.  She ends up at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, following in the footsteps of her distant ancestor, Robert Scott.  It's the winter and a brutal time to be in the harshest environment on Earth.  But the isolation and climate suits Harper.

Told through alternating chapters of her earlier failure at home and of her search for healing in the present, the novel is an engaging story of failure and reinvention.

There is a terrible melodramatic potential to the idea that a young person can be so wrapped up in a childhood dream that they fall apart -- so much potential in fact that it is instinctive to not take her seriously.  But as the story unfolds, it becomes clearer how deeply embroiled she was and why it was possible for her to be so devastated.  And, by the end, Longo had convinced me that Harper had truly suffered.  The rest was easier.  Strong and interesting characters, fascinating details about ballet and Antarctic life, a surprisingly effective Shakespearean plot device, and an engaging story made this a fun read.  The ending is bit too cheery and happy, but it felt earned (so I'll let it mostly slide!).

Althea & Oliver, by Cristina Moracho

Althea and Oliver have been neighbors and friends for ages.  Althea would like their friendship to bloom into something bigger, but Oliver is reluctant.  He's got bigger issues -- suffering from a sleep disorder that causes him to experience black outs that span multiple weeks.  He'd like to find a cure and just be a normal person.  The combination is combustible and Althea makes an error in judgment that drives Oliver away.  Coincidentally, a research study has been announced in New York that Oliver can participate in.  That it gets him away from Althea is a not-so-insignificant side benefit.

Distraught from their separation, Althea gets suspended from school and runs away from home, following Oliver to New York.  Meanwhile, with lots of time in the hospital to think back on what has happened, Oliver begins to regret his decision to flee. All might have been well if they had managed to reconnect, but fate works against them and they are both plunged into the wilderness.  Surprisingly, this turns out to be exactly what both of them need.

It's a weird story that I found hard to track.  More precisely, it is really two separate stories.  Both of them are seeking to change their own lives, but there have very different paths to take.  This is quite obvious from the beginning and, despite Moracho's attempt to depict them as close friends, I never noticed much chemistry between them. They were both interesting characters, but at their best when they were on their own.  And while the novel was vibrant and original, Moracho's dialogue-heavy style didn't work for me.  Instead, I found it a hard slog getting through lengthy conversations that I could not understand or see the relevance of to the story.

I'm From Nowhere, by Suzanne Myers

Wren's mother gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to work in Greenland, but she can't take Wren with her.  Instead, she enrolls her daughter at Hardwick - an exclusive boarding school.  The move surprises Wren because all of her life she's listened to her Mom complain about how awful that place was.  But within days, there she is with some hastily-bought cold weather clothes and a new Gibson guitar.

Being at her Mom's alma mater gives Wren an opportunity of her own to learn about her Mom's history.  And harnessing her detective skills, she tries to uncover her mother's biggest mystery -- who is Wren's father? But as she comes closer to an answer, tragedy strikes and a series of events unfold that teach Wren a lesson in the true meaning of family.

While plagued by some pretty crazy fantasy and a few glaring improbabilities, this is actually a lovely story.  The key is Wren herself -- one of the more no-nonsense YA heroines of recent memory.  She's far from perfect, but comes with great composure, refusing to be dragged down into dramatics.  The story is straightforward and free of angst.  Even the story's foil (a snooty bully) never really fazes her and the slight bit of romance is pretty matter of fact.

Proof of Forever, by Lexa Hillyer

Two years after the last summer that Zoe, Joy, Tali, and Luce spent at camp together, they come back for a campers' reunion.  That last summer had been very special, but they have long since moved on.  Seeing each other is awkward and each of the girls is dealing with issues of their own that distract them from enjoying seeing each other again.

But then a freak incident in a photo booth transports the four girls back in time to that summer two years ago.  And they find themselves in a week-long do-over.  At first, they are convinced that they must reenact the past exactly how it originally happened.  But it quickly becomes apparent that not only do they not remember the past well enough, but that things are different this time around.  Or perhaps, it is they that are different?  In the process of reliving the most memorable week of their lives through their older and wiser selves, they discover that what they remember and what actually was going on are entirely different things .

I loved the idea of a story which combined summer camp fiction with the buddy girl story (the blurb hypes this as the new Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and threw in a little time travel to boot.  Admittedly, the time travel is the weakest part of the story -- it's poorly explained and makes little sense -- but since it is not essential to the story, it can be easily forgotten.  The girls are all interesting and the process of discovery through a critical reexamination of their past was lots of fun.  I was less taken with the plot's slow pacing (the ending really did seem to drag -- there were simply too many events -- talent show, fencing competition, scavenger hunt, etc. to get through).  It could have been trimmed down a lot!

Underwater, by Marisa Reichardt

A survivor of a school shooting, Morgan may be considered "lucky," but she couldn't feel farther from it.  Since the tragedy, she's been home bound, terrified of leaving the house.  She takes her classes by correspondence, barely bothers to get dressed, and eats the same meal every day.  When a new boy named Evan moves in next door and (annoyingly) won't leave her alone, it awakens a desire in Morgan to try to reclaim her previous life.  But the pain is always overwhelming to her and getting back out into the world is scary and maybe just a bit too much for her to deal with.

A heartfelt book that sensitively explores trauma, anxiety, and recovery.  I liked this better than the other book about a school shooting (This Is Where It Ends) that I finished earlier this week.  Neither book explores the shooter's perspective, but I felt that Reichardt did a much better job of exploring what it means to be a survivor, expressing Morgan's fears, guilt, and willpower.  Some minor elements (like the subplot about Morgan's estranged Dad and his PTSD) seemed a bit clunky, but the novel got Morgan's journey right and provided a heart warming, but unsentimental, tale of a strong young woman coming back from the brink of madness.

Time Between Us, by Tamara Ireland Stone

In 1995, Anna meets Bennett, a boy from seventeen years in the future, who has traveled back in search of his sister (he lost her on a previous trip through time).  However, he falls for Anna and stays because of her.  But there are issues with remaining and, while no one understands the dangers of his presence in the past, he fears that it could cause great harm.

Time travel stories are not that common in YA and the combination of teen romance with such a fantasy premise is appealing.  It helps that both Anna and Bennett are likeable and that they make a good couple.  Also, that it's intelligent writing (time travel books have to be to grasp at all the paradoxes and Stone does a good job of laying out the logic and the principles of time travel without slowing things down during most of the book).  Some of that pacing is lost towards the end, but it mostly comes together.  What does get lost are some of the subplots (like Anna's running or her relationship with her friend Justin), but overall the novel worked for me and I found it entertaining.

This Is Where It Ends, by Marieke Nijkamp

An outcast boy traps his classmates in their school's auditorium and then opens fire, methodically settling scores with his tormentors.  Told in alternating viewpoints by four of his classmates (but crucially, not from the shooter's viewpoint), the story briskly covers forty or so minutes of terror and mayhem.  Each of the narrators have ample opportunity to reflect on what they know about the shooter and his victims.

Despite the dramatic potential of the story, there isn't much of a tale to tell.  People ruminate and tremble with fear, while others die.  And with a large cast of characters, it was hard to get overly attached so the casualties are mostly just a body count.I never felt invested in anyone, although I remained curious about who would live and who would die.

I am stuck on the question of what it is all for?  It's a lively adventure, but what is the appeal?  There's certainly not much of an exploration of what drives a person to commit such an act.  And none of the characters seem to have grown from the experience.

Beyond Clueless, by Linas Alsenas

Marty is starting her freshman year at a Catholic girls' school, separated from her best friend Jimmy, who's staying on in public school.  Jimmy thrives at his school, coming out (to no one's surprise) and making lots of new friends.  Marty though feels lost and confused.  She's not exactly friendless, having met a sharp tongued girl named Xiang, but she still feels socially awkward.  Her love of theater leads her to try out for the school musical and it turns out to be the way to break through her issues.  Jimmy brings his new friends over to help out and Marty herself catches the eye of a gorgeous upperclassman.  But people are acting funny around her and she can't figure out what is going on.

A fast paced friendship drama -- full of the twists and turns one expects in ninth grade.  I enjoyed Marty and her honest emotions and her snarky friend Xiang is a highlight.  The boys did less for me.  There are numerous characters here and neither Felix (the love interest), Jimmy, or Oliver (or any of the other friends) left much of an impression.  I did start to wonder where the story was heading mid way through and, while the ending does a decent job of sorting out thing, I was as clueless as Marty about what was going on in the story.  That may have been due to my inattentive reading, but the clean wrap up in the end seemed a bit of a cheat.  So, I'd call this novel great for character development, but confusing and hard to follow.

No Shame, No Fear, by Ann Turnbull

In seventeenth century England, taking a political stand could be a life-endangering choice.  And choosing to follow a religious creed which challenged the social order could easily get you accused of sedition.  Susanna's father sits in jail for refusing to pay tithes or swear fealty to the Crown.  And Susanna herself must leave their small village seek her fortune in town.  There she encounters more persecution but also befriends an idealistic gentry lad who is sympathetic to her faith.  Love develops between them, but it coexists with cruel persecutions.

A stunning and gritty portrayal of the brutal persecution of the early Quakers.  The novel badly needed some historical notes to explain to readers what was depicted (it helped tremendously that I have just read George Fox's Journal a few months ago).  But aside from the fact that the novel will confuse people, I found it compelling.  The two lovers are endearing in their passionate youthful obsession with each other, but the commitment they make to their faith makes an even stronger impression.  It's a fascinating historical adventure with a sequel that I am looking forward to reading.

Rules for 50/50 Chances, by Kate McGovern

Ever since Rose's mother was diagnosed with Huntington's disease, Rose has lived in fear -- fear of what it would do to her mother and to their family, but also fear of whether she too would get sick some day.  While there is still plenty of time before she could start to show symptoms, the 50/50 chance that they will appear hangs over her and holds her back.

Then, as she is about to turn eighteen, she meets Caleb, a black boy with two family members suffering from sickle-cell.  He challenges her notions about race and her fear of getting sick and pushes her to overcome what is holding her back.  It couldn't come at a more opportune moment as her talent in dance blossoms into the chance of a lifetime to attend an elite ballet school.

It's a novel with a mix of big ideas.  There's the heavy subject of a family coping with chronic illness and a frank look at race and prejudice.  And then there is all this little stuff (falling in love, pursuing dreams, etc.).  Having all this stuff going on probably makes the book seem like a mess, but McGovern juggles it all flawlessly.  But again, the highlight for me turned out to be her treatment of Rose's notions of race.  Caleb insightfully probes Rose's racial privilege (one of my favorite scenes is when she protests that she is colorblind to race and he retorts that he wants the fact that he is black to be acknowledged and does not want her to ignore him).  It's sophisticated stuff and moves us beyond tired tropes of political correctness.  And while Rose frequently comes across badly as both naive and self-centered, there is an honesty and logic to the relationship that drew me in.  And yes, there was a dying mother too.

The Heir and the Spare, by Emily Albright

Evie was only six years old when her Mom died, but through a series of letters that she left behind, Evie has been guided by her mother.  It's led her to her Mom's homeland of England and to enrolling at Oxford.  There, however, she has a totally unexpected turn, when she she falls for a classmate who turns out to be a prince.  This in turn makes her a target of jealous girls and the paparazzi, both of whom she finesses with a sharp tongue and stereotypical American brashness.

Her mother's letters keep coming and they lead Evie to the realization that she is herself from a noble background.  This is eminently convenient, as it removes the potential barrier of Evie the commoner trying to ingratiate herself with her prince.  But it raises another problem:  will the prince love her for who she is and not for her title?

An entertaining read, but ultimately silly and frivolous.  While ostensibly about college-aged young people (and featuring some steamy -- but largely non-explicit -- romance), the mindset of the book is adolescent.  From the fantasy of the cute unattached boy who is always available and obsequious in all ways, to the friends who always have Evie's back without any needs of their own, to the easily vanquished baddies, Evie and her world are a simple place.  There's no need to study, no worries about money, and complete self-centricity.  The only thing that matters in this book is whether the prince will kiss her or not.

A Hundred Hours of Night, by Anna Woltz

After Emilia's father loses his job due to a scandal involving one of the students at her school, Emilia runs away from their Amsterdam home, all the way to the Big Apple.  She arrives to discover that her lodging arrangements have fallen through and she is homeless.  But with some resourcefulness and good luck, she finds a place to stay with a boy her age and his little sister.

There are a number of other issues, including her obsessions about infections and lingering anger at her family.  But when she learns that Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on New York, she discovers that some problems can easily outshine others.  When the hurricane makes landfall and knocks out the power for over four days, she and her new friends come together in a way that Emilia never imagined possible.

The end result is a survival story with a big heart.  I enjoyed they many fascinating details about what it was like to be trapped in Manhattan during and after the storm (the author based the story on her own experience) but the the real point of the story is Emilia moving beyond her shame and anger.  We don't get to see enough of Emilia's earlier self to truly appreciate the transformation, but there is a satisfying growth in her character.


[Disclaimer:  I received an advance reviewer's copy of this book for the purpose of creating an unbiased review.  The book is slated for publication on April 26, 2016]

What's Broken Between Us, by Alexis Bass

Ever since Amanda's brother went to jail for the DUI killing of a girl at her school, Amanda has lived in shame.  She'd like things to return to normal, if she could figure out how.  It doesn't help that her brother is seemingly unrepentant for his behavior or that Amanda is cheating on her boyfriend (with the brother of another girl who was injured in the same accident).  The truth is that over a year after the tragedy no one has healed.  Forgiveness and coming to terms escapes everyone, and Amanda remains crippled by guilt.

The story is a bit slow to start and it ends in a maddeningly inconclusive way.  In between, it suffers from an overabundance of characters and storylines.  But it is nonetheless outstanding for its subtlety and complexity.  That the conclusion leaves much unsolved is an acknowledgement of the complicated emotions portrayed within.  The overall effect is dreary and not particularly affirming, but I found it realistic.  Amanda's character, despite her infidelity, is sympathetic and believable as she lies trapped in her attempts to "fix" the people around her to no avail.

The Pretty App, by Katie Sise

Every year, the Public Company has released a must-have app.  This year it's the Pretty App, which will help choose the most physically attractive girl in the United States.  Blake wants to win so bad!  She figures that, given her ability to alienate friends and her lack of academic achievement, her looks are basically all she has left.  But as she rises through the ranks of the contest, she discovers that there's a lot more resting on the results than her own self-esteem.

Ostensibly a sequel to The Boyfriend App, this story reunites some of the characters from that novel and sends them on a new adventure.  The message is largely the same:  building faith in yourself and rejecting exploitative technology.  It's a message with a sledgehammer (even teens won't need it laid on this heavy).

The story is entertaining enough, although the romance didn't really take off (and perhaps that was for the best?).  Blake seems a bit uneven -- starting overly shallow and discovering her virtuous side too quickly.  Not an appealing character in the first book, she is not much of a hook for the second.  So, not much of a character study, but the pace is brisk and there isn't a dull moment.

Forget Tomorrow, by Pintip Dunn

In this innovative dystopian novel (part one of a presumed trilogy), seventeen year olds receive a "future memory" that tells them who they will become.  This then determines the education and opportunities that they will receive for the rest of their lives.  But when Callie receives her memory, it spells out that she will kill her sister.  To prevent her from doing so, she is detained as an "aggressive" and a predicted criminal.  But with the help of a sympathetic guard and a resistance underground, she escapes.  Fate, however, is a tricky thing and the farther she tries to get away from her future, the more she finds herself drawn back to it.

There are lots of fascinating ideas like the "future memories" and some lovely mixing of realistic and science fiction settings, but I found the novel hard to track (and wildly implausible at several points).  Much of the reason for this is because Dunn doesn't make much of an effort to tie all of her ideas together.  There's plenty of action but it doesn't really lead to anything.  And novel concepts - while often fascinating -- aren't actually explored or developed.  One potential explanation is that this installment is merely intended as exposition (with the ideas returned to and developed later). But I still would have preferred a more organic connection of characters and milieus.

Silence, by Deborah Lytton

Stella is focused on pursuing her dream of a professional musical theater career.  Only a sophomore, she's landed the lead in her school's production of West Side Story.  She's also attracted the attention of the male lead.  Stella and her BFF Lily are well on their way to popularity.  But despite it all, she can't help but notice the gentle beauty of shy, stammering Hayden.  He's mocked for his speech impediment (and even she cringes when listening to him), but there's something about him that nonetheless catches her eye.

Then, a tragic accident leaves Stella deaf and unable to sing in the musical.  And in her new found state, everything has changed.  She hopes to eventually regain her hearing with an implant, but in the mean time, her loss gives her time to refocus her priorities, which she does with Hayden's help.  She discovers that, in silence, everything becomes clear.

A sweet romance, which is surprisingly understated for the material it covers.  From the tragedy of Stella's injury to Hayden's dark history, there is plenty of heavy potential here, but Lytton doesn't explore it very thoroughly.  Stella tells us that she's upset, but we don't dwell on it for long.  Hayden has ghosts in his closet but even a potentially charged reunion with his estranged mother is oddly flat. This approach saps much of the dramatic potential of the story and the novel largely runs out of steam, ending with a hundred pages or more of flowery prose as Lytton has less and less to say.  The result sounds like Stella's diary (in an embarrassingly melodramatic adolescent way) and not really in a way that adolescents actually think.  They looooooove each other, but there is not much honest emotion here.  By the end, rather than feeling close, this over-the-top angsting just left me bored.  A great start

Not If I See You First, by Eric Lindstrom

"Not if I see you first!" was what Parker always said to her best friend Scott with when they said goodbye.  Since Parker had been blind for years (the result of a car accident that also took the life of her mother), it was more of a joke between them than a threat.  But after Scott betrayed her, she shut him out of her life, determined to not ever have anything to do with him again.

Parker is a fighter with a fierce set of principles.  It got her through learning to cope with her vision loss.  It gets her through the challenges of practicing long-distance running.  And it's getting her through the more recent loss of her father to an apparent suicide.  But some struggles are impossible to overcome and some forms of blindness affect even the sighted.  When Scott reappears in her life, Parker's attempts to keep everything ordered and together falls apart.

Despite what sounds formulaic, this book surprises.  Just when you think you know the story, Lindstrom takes it someplace else.  I liked being kept on my toes, but there were other things that bothered me.  There is a lot going on in the story.  In addition to her blindness, recent loss of her father, and the reappearance of Scott, there is an aborted relationship with another runner, squabbles with her cousin, and various drams with her friends.  I found that a bit annoying as the story grew hard to track and there were a lot of characters in it. But it was also nice when things happened that seemed more real for avoiding stereotypes.  There's no real resolution in the story either, which will drive some folks batty!

Unidentified Suburban Object, by Mike Jung

Being the only Asian-American in her school draws Chloe Cho a lot of unwanted attention.  And it annoys her to no end that people think she's Chinese or Japanese, or think nothing of spouting cultural stereotypes ("oh, you must be so smart!" etc.) about her.  But more maddening is the way that her parents keep dodging her questions about life back in Korea.  Why won't they answer her questions?

In seventh grade, Chloe's new social studies teacher turns out to actually be Korean as well.  Chloe finally has a way to get answers to her questions!  But what she finds out isn't exactly what she was expecting.  And the revelation about her origins shifts everything that Chloe thought she knew about herself.

An unusual book that, for its first half, plays as a typical celebration-of-diversity/self-discovery story, full of sharp observations of the way that well-meaning people can say terribly thoughtless racist things.  The book could very well have stayed that way and been a darling of librarians seeking to flesh out their middle reader diversity offerings.  Chloe's struggles are quite enlightening and her strong personality makes her appealing in dealing with them. 

But then, at almost exactly the half-way point, the books takes a very abrupt turn.  I don't want to give away any spoilers so I won't reveal what sort of shift takes place, but it pulls the story out of realism and into science fiction.  In doing so, the book stands out as a really unique offering.  But I'm less keen on the result.  Unexpected plot twists need good follow-up and it really seemed like Jung didn't know where to take it.  The result is that the book coasts to the end.  Overall, it's clever but didn't really develop its gimmick.


[I received an Advanced Reviewer's Copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.  The book is scheduled for release on April 26th.]

Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon

Eighteen year-old Madeline has spent the vast majority of her life inside her hermetically-sealed house.  She's been diagnosed with a rare disease that makes her immune deficient.  Exposed to the outside world, she would probably die.  Inside and protected, her life is quiet but lonely.  She has forgone hope of having any significant connection with the outside.

But then a new family moves in next door and they have a boy her age.  Seeing him stirs curiosity and feelings that she didn't know where even present to be stirred.  And with some encouragement from her nurse, she reaches out to this stranger.  The results are unexpected and change her life in previously unimaginable ways.

Told in a surprisingly effective and complementary mixture of prose, verse, and artwork, the novel is a unique document.  And yet, it has so much more going for it.  The story is touching.  The characters are moving and enchanting.

The narrative is complex, even as the writing is simple.  Ostensibly, this is a story of a sick girl being coaxed out of her shell and discovering a bit more of the world.  But the story on the surface is only an analogy for the inner journey that Madeline undertakes and it deals with the more complicated feelings of first love, trust, and risk taking.  I was a bit disappointed by the plot twist towards the end that sent the story down to earth.  But I still found the overall experience lyrical and enchanting.  This is truly a gorgeous and special book!

Believarexic, by J. J. Johnson

At age 15, Jennifer convinces her parents that she needs to be committed to an inpatient facility to treat her eating disorder.  And while she has lots of expectations for how the process will go (largely fed by pop culture depictions of anorexia and bulimia), the real experience quickly diverges away from her preconceptions.  What she finds is a mixture of helpful and destructive caregivers and fellow patients who can be good friends or bitter enemies (or both!).  She knows that the key is "sticking to the program" but the challenges to her plan come from many unexpected places.

Based loosely on the author's real-life experience, I appreciated the honesty and the realism of the story.  As well, the way that Johnson has subverted a number of common tropes (in particular, the helpful nurse/doctor) by depicting a ward where nurses and patients are all flawed in their own ways is particularly interesting. 

Johnson makes an unusual decision to veer away from describing much of her heroine's mindset.  There are brief mentions of Jennifer's feelings of being overweight, but her mental state plays a very minor part in the story.  There are also numerous clues about the family, social and even biological reasons for Jennifer's disorder, but nothing is definitively stated about why she struggles with food consumption.  Rather than describe or even explain what having an eating disorder is like, Johnson focuses on the specifics of treatment.

The book also has some unusual literary elements.  It begins in third-person free verse (for its admission and stage 1 sections), which is at times quite awkward, and then switches to first person prose for the remainder of the story.  Type fonts also change throughout the novel.  The author Q &A at the end of the novel never mentions the shifts (they are obviously intended for some sort of purpose, but what?).

In sum, a very readable book which leaves many things unsaid and unexplained.

What We Left Behind, by Robin Talley

In this NA novel, Toni and Gretchen were an inseparable couple in high school.  And, like many other high school sweethearts, they promised each other that they would stay together even when they went off to college.  They even intended to attend schools in the same town (Harvard for Toni and BU for Gretchen), although it didn't quite work out that way.  At the last minute, Gretchen decided to go to NYU instead.  But even with that last minute shift, they agreed that they would still see each other every weekend.

As you can probably guess, even those revised plans fall through.  Course work and social activities make it hard to get together.  The two girls find themselves drifting apart.  Toni finds friends at Harvard that allow her to explore her burgeoning transexualism and her struggles with gender identity.  Gretchen, feeling Toni slip away, tries to hold on tighter by throwing herself at her lover (which only drives Toni farther away).

The story itself is not full of much suspense, but it's all about the journey.  What makes the novel unique is its focus on gender queer relationships.  Or rather, how relationships fare when one of the parties starts to question their gender identity.  Doing so in the context of a young lesbian relationship is a further twist.  The novel explores many different topics, from Toni's obsessive search for pronouns to the ways that both gays and straights discriminate against the gender queer to what it means to have the person you love change their gender.  Not all of these concepts are new, but their treatment here will open your eyes.

While I was impressed by the story, I was less taken with the characters.  Gretchen was too weak and self-sacrificing.  But Toni annoyed me far more.  Toni's endless experimentation with language and her unwillingness to commit (combined with her demands that everyone had to respect her indecision) just came off as precious.  And there's no way around Toni's privileged background (a point that really gets driven home when she has to briefly consider the idea that her parents might pull out her financing and she might not be able to continue her pricey Ivy League education).  It's not that she's spoiled, but simply that she lives a gilded life.  The far more common situations that young transexuals find themselves in (poverty, danger, and insecurity) are only briefly mentioned and don't threaten Toni's exploration.

If You're Lucky, by Yvonne Prinz

People thought of Georgia's brother Lucky as blessed.  Gregarious and loved by almost everyone, he had an amazing talent for cheating death up until when he actually died in a surfing accident.  At the funeral, Georgia meets one of Lucky's buddies named Fin.  Afterwards, while he's never visited before, Fin decides to stay around and settle in.  Soon, he's working Lucky's old job and dating Lucky's girlfriend.  Georgia smells a rat.  And as Georgia digs into Fin's murky history, she uncovers a series of suspicious mysteries in Fin's life.  In the end, she suspects that Lucky's death wasn't an accident after all and that Fin had something to do with it.

But there's a problem:  Georgia suffers from schizophrenia and she has a history of paranoid delusions.  As a result, no one believes her as she starts to express her suspicions.  And even she doesn't know whether to trust her perceptions.

An interesting psychological thriller, following a heroine who becomes a steadily less reliable narrator as the story progresses.  This isn't fine literature and the writing and the characters seemed merely functional, but it's an entertaining story with a brisk plot.

One, by Sarah Crossan

Grace and Tippi are literally as close as two sisters can be.  They're conjoined twins.  And while the doctors never expected them to live past their second year, they're now in their Junior year.  Their lives are full of special challenges, most notably their difficulty at fitting in, but they both have no desire to change.  With the help of two new friends (the wild Yasmeen and her friend Jon), the girls finally have a social life and (for Grace) a chance at something more.  But then tragedy strikes and the twins face a challenge for survival.

Written in free verse, the novel (despite its many pages) is a brisk read.  That verse isn't particularly stand out, but the subject matter is riveting.  It's not really a spoiler to say that it ends in heartbreak (the lives of conjoined twins are rarely happy ones) but Crossan tells their story with dignity and Grace's voice is compelling.  The classic gold standard for a novel for me is whether the book is readable, full of interesting and sympathetic characters, and whether I learn something from it (with bonus points for a weepy and life-affirming ending).  This novel delivers all of the above.

Future Perfect, by Jen Larsen

How far would you go to realize your academic dreams?  And would you reach for them even at the expense of your pride and self-respect?

Every year, Ashley's grandmother gives her a card for her birthday which promises her a fantastic gift in exchange for her losing weight.  One year, it was a trip to Disneyland if she would lose fifty pounds.  Another year, it was a new car for losing eighty pounds.  It's never worked.  Ashley has never accepted the offers because she doesn't see any reason to lose weight -- yes, she's a large person, but she's content in her skin and happy with who she is.

Now, in Ashley's senior year, her grandmother has raised the stakes:  if Ashley gets accepted, her grandmother will pay her tuition at Harvard for four years.  It's a dream as Ashley has the grades to get in but doesn't have the resources to cover the costs.  The catch is that her grandmother's demand this time is that Ashley undergo gastric bypass surgery.

The premise is fascinating but ultimately flawed.  Any protagonist worth reading about will ultimately make the right decision, so it is really a matter of waiting until Ashley does so.  And the plausibility of the grandmother's character, so cruel and insensitive that she feels justified in ruining her granddaughter's self-esteem and endangering her life, is hard to swallow.

The writing suffers from a different problem:  extremely uneven pacing.  For the most part, the story follows a familiar dramatic arc with familiar settings (school, part-time job, home) and a story that traces Ashley's personal growth as she struggles to make her decision.  But we digress from time to time to odd settings where the action slows down like molasses and becomes dreamy (in a way that I can most easily compare with the way that the mind wanders on drugs -- a literary high?).  I don't know quite what to make of these digressions but they ultimately don't add anything to the story (consider, for example, the vignette at the art exhibit in the Tenderloin) so they could have been jettisoned.  Subplots about Ashley's transgendered friend and another friend who runs away are only loosely tied in to the story and seem wasted.

Apple and Rain, by Sarah Crossan

Apple's grandmother is terribly strict and Apple is convinced that her life would be better if only her mother came back to take care of her instead.  But after eleven years, she's pretty much given up hope that her Mum will ever come back, until she in fact does!  At first, it is a dream come true, but as time goes by Apple learns that her mother isn't all that Apple has imagined.  And that family is often a very complicated thing.

Covering fairly familiar ground, including my evergreen favorite (not!) of child abandonment, Crossan still manages to pump some fresh life into this.  Apple's resourceful and pretty good at standing up for herself.  And the other kids are similarly useful, from little sister Rain to their geeky neighbor Del.  And even grandma has some depth on her.  It's less easy to see much in Apple and Rain's mum, but that may be the point -- being so blinded by wishful thinking, they can't see their mother's flaws.

Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead

Bridge, Tab, and Emily are best friends who never fight, but when Em starts trading photographs of herself with a boy, her friends become worried about her.  Meanwhile, Sherm is struggling with dealing with his grandfather, who has moved out on grandma.  And Sherm and Bridge are toying with starting a relationship of their own.  And Bridge still occasionally has trouble coping with the aftermath of a horrible accident she was in when she was eight.  And through it all, a mysterious older girl is hiding out at a coffee shop, afraid to be seen now that she's been completely humiliated.

This mash-up is basically the story that Stead is telling in her latest novel Goodbye Stranger, which explores concepts of friendship.  It's a difficult story to track and I'm never a fan of that sort of thing.  Individual characters are compelling, but jumping around so often when the relationships between them are less than clear is frustrating.  By the end, I had to sit back and just let the story take me where it wanted to go, but I didn't really follow it and that left me feeling distant from the novel.  In sum, it's pretty, but hard to invest in.  I'm reminded of Lynne Rae Perkins' Criss Cross, a similarly hyped YA novel that I found nearly unreadable (Goodbye Stranger, however, is better written!).

Love, Lucas, by Chantele Sedgwick

After Oakley's brother dies from bone cancer, she and her Mom go to live with her Aunt Jo on the California beach for a few months.  Oakley grieves for her brother and spends her days reading a journal that he left for her.  But she also starts to rebuild her life and meets Carson, a local surfer.  Carson helps her to escape from her grief and naturally enough she falls hard for him.  But is it too soon to be entering a romantic relationship?  And what happens when Oakley and her mother return home?

Decent, but not terribly surprising, romance (with the exception of a big plot twist towards the end that provides the dramatic climax that Sedgwick seemed to be struggling with creating).  The ending is not a complete cheat, but I would have been happier with something less abrupt and more organic to the overall story.  And that pretty much sums up my take on the novel overall: nothing terrible, but nothing really outstanding either.  I didn't find myself sucked into any of the characters or their traumas (and the dead brother's journal is surprisingly ineffective!), but I was content to keep reading and following their travails.

Complete non-sequitur:  I loved the gratuitous mention of both barnacles and (twice!) Phase Ten.

Cut Both Ways, by Carrie Mesrobian

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Dark Shimmer, by Donna Jo Napoli

In this retelling of Snow White, set in medieval Venice, tortured Dolce flees her home after her mother dies and is befriended by little Bianca and Bianca's father Marin.  Dolce, raised by dwarfs, has always seen herself as some sort of giant monster and is astonished to discover that she is actually normal-sized!  For his part, Marin adores Dolce and brings her home.  Living with him and Bianca, Dolce is no longer treated as an oddity.  Marin marries her and Dolce settles.  But she is not at peace. Instead, she becomes obsessed with freeing the dwarfs of Venice, who are kept in servitude for the amusement of the nobility.  To buy their freedom, Dolce creates little mirrors, made of the clearest glass and backed with tin and quicksilver.  That the quicksilver is toxic, she knows, but her obsession to free more people makes her reckless in handling it and leads her into madness.

Another beautifully researched historical novels from Napoli, who does them so well and also does some of the most sophisticated retellings of myths and fables.  That's a potent combination in this novel.  There's all sorts of lovely detail here (from the science of mirror making and glass blowing to the social mores of the Venetians).  And Napoli's re-imagining of the fairy tale and her refusal to fall on to magic in any way (she adeptly provides plausible explanations for everything from the poison apple to the glass coffin to the Prince's rescue) is enchanting.

However, I found this storytelling itself hard going.  The beginning was fairly slow and it's only half-way through that the story of Snow White became recognizable.  This is also the point in the story where our heroine becomes the villain -- a twist which is awkward in its unexpectedness.  Having invested rather heavily in Dolce, it is asking a lot of the reader to accept her transformation.  It makes her more sympathetic, to be certain, but should fairy tales really have sympathetic villains?

Infinite In Between, by Carolyn Mackler

On their first day of high school, five freshmen are put together in the same orientation group.  As an icebreaker activity, they write letters to themselves with a plan to read them together when they graduate in four years.  They then embark on their lives and this novel traces the paths of these kids (and their friends) through high school.

Ambitious and, unfortunately, too much so!  With five characters and their supporting players, there isn't much time to spend on any one of them.  Covering four years, there's quite a lot to keep track of.  The result is a story where each chapter (averaged 3-4 pages!) just starts to get interesting before we're jumping to the next character or month and moving on.  It's thin, superficial, and ultimately not very interesting.  I like Mackler as a YA writer, but this is too much and, even at nearly 500 pages, she can't really deliver a story that gels with so much going on.

Your Voice Is All I Hear, by Leah Scheier

April was obsessed with Jonah before they had even met (she scoped him out before he showed up for his first day at their school).  And, much to her surprise, he's just as taken by her.  Their romance kicks off beautifully, but something isn't quite right.  At first, it's just little quirks that she easily ignores and explains away, but his behavior becomes more and more erratic until he has to be committed to an inpatient psych facility.

He is diagnosed with schizophrenia and, as he struggles with the sickness, April is urged by her parents, friends, and even Jonah himself to let him go.  They are too young and she shouldn't be wasting her life on him, April is told.  But Jonah is the first great thing that has happened to her and she simply cannot abandon him.

Heart wrenching stuff, as one would expect.  I loved April and the way we really got in her head.  She's brutally honest with herself, which wasn't terribly realistic but more fulfilling from a dramatic perspective.  She always knew when she was screwing up, even as she did so.  And I loved Scheier's sensitive and authentic description of Jonah's suffering.  The resulting dynamic between the two of them was captivating and hard to watch at the same time.  As a result, this is a difficult book to get through because you really feel for these kids and the nearly impossible situation they are in.

I was less taken with the narrative, which kept jumping about.  Scheier focused on particular dramatic moments, often without sufficient transition or foreshadowing and I felt like I was being dragged through the story.  It felt like April was telling the story in retrospect years later and just glossing over details -- a realistic approach, perhaps, but not very good storytelling.

Don't Fail Me Now, by Una LaMarche

With their mom in jail again, it falls on Michelle to take care of her younger sister and brother.  But the kids are running out of places to stay and the means to take care of themselves.  Her younger sister is being bullied at school and her younger brother is about to be expelled.  Michelle's job won't pay their bills and she's too young to gain custody anyway.

In the midst of her despair, Leah and her stepbrother show up.  They couldn't be any more different from Michelle and her siblings (wealthy, white, and privileged), but Leah and Michelle share one thing in a common:  they have the same father.  And now their dad is dying and has asked the girls to leave Baltimore and come out to California so he can see them.  This unlikely pair, with their siblings, set off on an illicit cross-country road trip full of widened horizons and adventures.

Ostensibly, a typical road trip-and-getting to know you adventure, Don't Fail Me Now is an outstanding example of the subgenre.  Strong characters who are fun and interesting move this story along.  I'm not a fan of YA that put kids in danger, but LaMarche is gentle with these kids and they mostly muddle through on their limited resources (one might even accuse her of soft-pedaling their hardships!).  A lot more could probably have been done with the underplayed class and racial differences, but that was not the story the author wanted to tell.  In general, it was pretty enjoyable.

All the Rage, by Courtney Summers

Everyone in town knows the Turners.  Power neatly resides with whoever is allied with them.  So, when Romy and her family falls out with the Turners, it's pretty much open season.  The older Turner boy rapes Romy, but rather than elicit sympathy, Romy is accused of fabricating the story and she is subjected to another sexual assault a few weeks later.  The second attack is not so easily written off by the town, because another girl has disappeared at the same time.

None of which matters to Romy.  She has no will to fight the town and she seeks refuge in a job out of town and a boy she meets there.  All she wants is to keep that world separate from the one back home.  But doing so is getting more and more difficult.


A gruesome and unpleasant story that combines a suffering and sympathetic protagonist against some heavy baddies.  It also has a lot of ambitions, building a story on the important subject of rape culture, but it stretches credulity along the way and relies on thinly drawn villains and poorly explained motives.

The blurb for the book claims that the author is trying to show how silence is "inflicted upon young women" but it is not that simple (even in this story where Summers has stacked the deck against Romy).  I have no problems believing that a rape victim would be reluctant to go public and that she would not want to deal with a law enforcement force that is this blatantly corrupt.  But when she is unwilling to talk to anyone at all (including a mother with whom she apparently has a good relationship), one has to acknowledge that some of this silence is self-imposed.  And rather than explore that idea, the story leaves a huge void that leaves us wondering why Romy doesn't speak (and not why others try to silence her).

Furthermore, it all seems terribly exploitative.  Rather than give Romy a chance to gain a voice or to heal, we're just shown again and again how helpless and ineffectual she is.  There is enough injustice in the world and sexual violence is cruel enough in itself to provide ample drama for a decent story.  Inventing a character who does everything she can to hurt herself just seems cruel and mean.  To me, it seemed like Summers just wanted to amp the trauma and drag out the story.  What I learned is that when you're hurting and need help, you should spurn every offer you receive (that is, if you want to make the story "shocking").

The Accident Season, by Moira Fowley-Doyle

Cara is searching for a girl in her class named Elsie that no one seems to remember.  Elsie, however, seems to show up in every photograph that Cara owns and Cara wants to know why.  It is also the beginning of the "accident season" when Cara and the members of her family are subject to an unusual rash of accidents that always seem to strike them in October.  Undeterred by falling bridges and collapsing bookshelves, Cara goes ahead with her plans for a Halloween party at an abandoned house, which somehow seems to evoke the spirit of Elsie.

A really strange paranormal story.  I liked the way it was heading (even if I didn't understand every scene) but it got steadily weirder and weirder.  By the end, it simply ceased to make sense and lost me entirely.  Perhaps I didn't give it the attention it deserved, but once lost in the plot, I lost interest in the story.  Nice writing but a story that went from poetic and lyrical to ridiculous and illogical.  Skip it.

Fair Coin, by E. C. Myers

Crazy things are happening to Ephraim.  His mother has ended up in the hospital from an overdose, after trying to kill herself because she believes that he's just been killed by a bus!  In the belongings of the dead person (who does look a lot like Ephraim) is a strange coin. With a little trial and error, Ephraim discovers that the coin appears to grant wishes, sending Ephraim into alternate realities where his dreams come true.  But with each wish granted, unexpected side effects start occurring and Ephraim (along with his best friend Nathan) find themselves in deeper and deeper trouble.

What starts off like a series of Sliders episodes, morphs about half-way through into darker territory when the guns appear and people start dying.  It also gets bogged down around that point by long explanations of what is going on.  A little exposition is a good thing, but my attention and patience lagged as the adventure became a physics lesson.  So, an uneven story.  Ephraim and his love interest make an unlikely (but eventually pleasing) pair but, by the end, I had really lost interest in their fate.  Like Mary Shelley (one of the characters) kept begging, just shoot the bad guy and get this over with!

Where People Like Us Live, by Patricia Cumbie

Libby and her family have moved a lot.  Whenever her Dad's job has dried up, the family pulls stakes and they relocate.  Now, they've come to "Rubberville" (a.k.a. Racine WI).  But during this final summer before High School, things are different.  Her father's pulled into a strike and the family has to scrimp to get by.  Her brother and sister are striking out into new territory.  And Libby has made her first real friend, Angie -- a girl with a troubled past and a dangerous secret.  And when Libby figures out with is going on with Angie, she realizes she is going to have to decide between saving her friend or protecting the friendship.

A well-written novel aimed really at an adult audience (full as it is with life-changing secrets and the frustrations of adults).  This is classic character-centric work -- the people are vivid and the action quite languid.  That slow pacing allows us to savor each person we meet but there isn't much to take away from the story.  And not really much effort to tie it together.

A Year Without Mom, by Dasha Tolstikova

In 1991, Russian middle schooler Dasha is struggling with typical middle school problems:  friends who are drifting away, passing exams, and a boy she has a crush on.  Her greatest desire is to get accepted to a prestigious high school.  The world is changing in other ways, as the Soviet Union comes to an end and the Russian Federation emerges as an independent state.   But the greatest trauma of all is that Dasha has to deal with these problems without her mother, who has gone away to a graduate school in the United States to study advertising.

Told in a graphic novel drawn in a style that betrays Tolstikova's love of the Russian absurdists, A Year Without Mom tells a simple but genuine story of growing up in a time of change.



And now for the full disclosure....

I met Dasha's mother Natasha when she came to the University of Illinois to study advertising during the "year without mom" and met Dasha herself the following summer when I visited the family in Moscow in 1992 (somewhere around page 152 in this novel).  I, of course, knew nothing of the dramas of her life (for me, she was a schoolgirl with an impressive knowledge of The Beatles), but I grew to know her mother and grandparents quite well in the years that followed.  And I took this picture of Dasha in her family's kitchen that summer: