American Panda, by Gloria Chao

Growing up in the pressure cooker of a traditional Taiwanese family, Mei knew what was expected of her:  get perfect grades, attend MIT, and become a doctor.  Then afterwards marry a nice Taiwanese doctor and produce lots of babies (preferably male).

Her problem is that she doesn't quite measure up:  Mei is a germaphobe, can’t stand biology classes, and has no interest in the kind of boys her parents want her to marry. She’d rather run a dance studio and explore what the world has to offer.  And she’s found a Japanese-American guy who she thinks is pretty cute!  Her parents are aghast.  They already disowned Mei's bolder brother when he cast off their restrictive aspirations and now it looks as if the same thing will befall Mei.

So far, so typical – and the world hardly needs another story about an independent young woman trying to break free from traditional constraints and overbearing parents.  But then, the story takes off into less conventional directions, exploring why the parents are so tradition-bound and, more broadly, discussing what the purposes of traditions actually are. The character of Mei's mother does a major 180 – morphing from annoying tiger mom to and sympathetic and even tragic figure.  And while the story itself ends in a rosy happy place, Chao has done much more with the material in the interim.

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, by Shaun David Hutchinson

Elena was born by parthenogenesis (a literal virgin birth).  Aside from some voices she's heard her whole life, that is pretty much the only remarkable thing about her.  That is until the day that a boy shoots a girl in front of her and Elena finds that she is able to heal the girl by laying on hands.  Stranger, immediately her miracle healing performance,  the boy is swept up in a beam of light and disappears forever.

Elena has found she has the ability to heal, but it comes with a trade-off.  Each time she uses the power, people disappear from the Earth.  If it's any comfort, the voices assure her that this is what she is supposed to do.  In fact, it is the only way to save the human race as end times approach.

She isn't so sure and doubts that the voices are really telling the whole story.  Letting people suffer seems cruel, but causing unsuspecting people to be swept away to an unknown fate is no better.  The dilemma dominates the story as Elena and her friends grapple with the events occurring around them.

A bizarre but certainly original premise with a lot of clever banter.  It's a fast read and overall entertaining as long as you don't try to make much sense of the story.  A lot of time is expended in discussing the ethics and ramifications of the situation.  At times these can be profound but they go on entirely too long and there's a degree of repetition. The premise may be bizarre, but the characters are quite normal, which makes the most interesting part simply watching a smart and witty heroine deal with patently surreal circumstances.  And, unlike so many male YA authors, Hutchinson doesn't make the whole story about hormones and profanity.

You're Welcome, Universe, by Whitney Gardner

Julia can’t hear but she lives to express herself through street art, throwing up her spray-painted creations wherever she finds an inviting wall.   When she gets caught and expelled from her school for the deaf, she is placed in a mainstream school in the suburbs.  Stuck in such an alien surrounding, she figures that her graffiti will be pretty much on its own.  And so she is surprised when her tags are attacked by another street artist.  While tagging her tags is an act of aggression, even Julia has to admit that the mysterious artist’s contributions actually improve her work, which just makes her madder.

I have a problem with getting past the fact that Julia’s actually an unrepentant vandal and, while plenty of adults try to instill this message, she and the author never grow savvy to it.  Instead, I’m supposed to see this property damage as something good.

But that said, I liked the idea of Julia’s character.  Having her be deaf is an interesting choice.  It’s certainly integral to the story, but never really becomes the story.  In much the same way, the fact that she's a girl is notable but never made a point in the story.  This is a story about an artist trying to express herself and come to terms with others (which is a struggle for her -- being deaf and also a non-traditional artist).  The book is illustrated with some great artwork created by the author that goes a long way towards capturing the ethos of Julia's art.

Foolish Hearts, by Emma Mills

Claudia and her friends have a dramatic senior year of friendships growing and dying.  Mills' novel shies away from a particular specific story towards simply following her characters around.  There's a school play, an older sister's pregnancy, a lot of parties, and a rock concert.  But the story is simply about the ebb and flow of friendships, whether they are of the BFF type (like Claudia and Zoe or Noah and Gideon), between siblings (Claudia and her older siblings, Gideon and his younger sister), or romantic (Claudia and Gideon, Iris and Paige).  There's not really a message or even a central purpose.  Instead, the book just illustrates life and its networks.

If that is your sort of thing, Mills is a decent writer and has some creative outlets for it within her book, ranging from boy band worship to online gaming.   But I found the lack of a story and dramatic arc to be rather dull and the huge number of characters dizzying.  They kids were generally distinctive but with not much dramatic purpose to the interactions, it just seemed that I was being pulled one way and then another -- realistic, perhaps, but not terribly meaningful.

Blood Water Paint, by Joy McCullough

A vivid account, written in verse, of the life of the 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi.  McCullough focuses on the events surrounding her rape by a fellow artist, interweaving the Biblical stories of Susanna and Judith.  The result is a grim story of female suffering in the "present" of Renaissance Rome contrasted with the tales of relative triumph from the past.  McCullough portrays Artemisia as drawing strength from these stories (and certainly they are the inspiration for her art), but the ending is bittersweet (as indeed her life was in actuality).  The story is described as "feminist" but really only in the sense that the injustices depicted will fire up the reader in defense of the cause.

The story is beautifully written and it is an excellent novel, but it is mis-classified as YA.  Certainly, young people will find the story interesting, but there is little here about youth or growing up.  Instead, this is more of a protest piece against sexual double standards and the sexual dangers of being female.

Miles Away from You, by A. B. Rutledge

With his trans girlfriend in a coma, Miles is talked into taking a vacation in Iceland to get away from it all.  There, he befriends Oskar, a generous and sexy concierge who helps facilitate a series of wild adventures in Reykjavik and surrounding areas.  The experience allows him to come to terms with his loss and also to further explore his gender identity in sometimes funny and sometimes poignant episodes.

Rutledge is a rarity:  a female writer who gets boys down tone perfect.  Because even if Miles's sexuality is all over the map and the other male lead is gay, young men regardless of gender identity talk and act in a certain way that the vast majority of female writers just don't get.  That in itself would impress me, but Rutledge is also a very adventuresome writer (who else has created a character like Miles -- floating aimlessly across the Kinsey spectrum -- so matter-of-factly and so humorously?) who so effortlessly finds the humor in sadness and the sad in fun.  There were moments when things could drag and I didn't find the story particularly "heartbreaking" (as promised in the back cover quotes from heavy hitters Russo and Wittlinger), but this quirky Icelandic romp was well worth the read.

The Astonishing Color of After, by Emily X. R. Pan

In the aftermath of her mother's death by suicide, Leigh develops the notion that her mother's ghost has been visiting her in the form of a big red bird.  The bird, it becomes apparent, wants her to visit her mother's parents in Taipei, whom Leigh has never met.  Once there, a series of strange and wonderful events leads Leigh on a trip of discovery, not only into her mother's past, but also into the secrets of her family.  But still, the bird seems to have a message to tell her and with only a few days before her mother's ghost is gone forever, Leigh is desperate to find out what that message is.  At the same time, Leigh has left behind (but not forgotten) troubles at home, in the form of an old friend whom she wishes were someone more.

The novel is a mix of family drama and Taiwanese mysticism that sounds messy but actually gels nicely.  Pan writes beautifully and expressively and this lyrical story has a lot packed inside of it.  Surprisingly, the fraught and melodramatic themes of grief and regret are not so pronounced, instead the author focuses on discovering one's legacy and history (and the healing role that such a journey plays in coming to terms with loss).  The result is a transcendent novel about rebirth.

The Next Together, by Lauren James

Katherine and Matthew have a way of finding each other through history.  From their first incarnation in Carlisle in 1745, and again in 1854 in Sebastopol, and then again in 2019, and finally in 2039.  Each time, they end up trying to prevent an imminent catastrophe (and incidentally falling in love).  Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but each time one or both of them dies.  And the cycle repeats again.

Told out of sequence, the novel jumps around time periods fluidly and, towards the end, the characters do as well.  This leads to some pretty fast paced storytelling and a good deal of suspense.  A blurb on the cover promises “heartbreak” but there isn’t much of that, although a fairly breezy post script does provide a satisfactory conclusion.

The novel is rough in spots.  There’s apparently an additional timeline in WW II era that was cut out of the story, but a few stray references remain (which seems like sloppy editing).  And while the 2019-era Katherine and Matthew are cute and adorable, we don’t get much heat out of the rest of them.  I think this is a great entertainment and I enjoyed the set-up (what’s not to like about an adventure that transcends multiple epochs?), but it's not terribly deep and my emotional involvement in the characters was minimal.

Lovely, Dark, and Deep, by Justina Chen

While selling baked goods to benefit girls' education outside a Firefly convention, Viola falls ill and collapses.  The culprit is the sudden onset of an allergy to sunlight.  Her new condition threatens to derail all of her plans as she finds herself herded into a protective (dark) cocoon by her professional crisis-manager parents.  The love interest (Josh) has issues of his own, not least of which is trying to complete the design and drawing of a comic book started by his twin brother, before said brother was killed in an accident.

Chen's latest novel is a story of losses and how to deal with them.  The characters are vivid, memorable, and fun -- Chen has a good sense for how to craft memorable features and idiosyncracies. Towards the end, Chen does a great job of showing how all of these diverse characters actually are similarly unable to face breaking out of their safe zones.  And while Viola has the most to lose (i.e., her life) by trying to live her life large, she seems to appreciate the most about what is to be gained.  Chen's book has moments like this when it transcends the story and makes a great Deep Point.

But the story is a bit of a mess, which has generally been my issue with Chen's writing in the past.  So many different characters and (ending summary notwithstanding) not much to really bring them together, and nothing to say in the end.  In the last fifty pages, any of the given chapters could have made just as useful of a conclusion as the one that we actually end on.  And the fact that no issues are actually resolved and the only serious character growth is Viola's little sister (a bit part at most) leaves the reader wondering what the point really was.



[I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased pre-publication review.  The book is scheduled to be released on July 31st]

A Tyranny of Petticoats, ed by Jessica Spotswood

Fifteen short stories about young women in American history, providing a fictionalized herstory of the country.  Spotswood picks up a diverse collection of authors who delve into some fairly creative places. The most interesting stories pick up unusual locales (Coat’s story of survival in the arctic) or rarely treated eras (Tulley’s account of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention riots).  Mitchell’s spin on Bonnie and Clyde is amusing and ends on a high note.  Many of the stories are quite clever.

But short story collections tend to be uneven and some of the stories work better than others.  The good ones can be frustrating as they leave you longing for more (in counterpoint, at least the shorter ones don't last too long!).  For me, there were entirely too many supernatural stories and not enough serious history.  A greater diversity of time periods would have helped as well -- while the Civil War and WWII are each represented by a story, there’s nothing from the Revolutionary War or even the Gilded Age.

I Have Lost My Way, by Gayle Forman

Freya, on the verge of becoming a major pop sensation, loses her voice.  Harun, planning to run away, has lost his true love.  And Nathaniel, spending every last penny he has to come to New York City, has lost everything.  But when a freak accident brings the three of them together, they discover that while each of them alone have nothing left they hold the key to help each other rediscover their own paths and be reborn.  Along the way, the heartbreaks ("the order of loss," as Forman calls them) is laid out as an inevitable chain of events.

A story as beautifully written and as lyrically sweet as this probably doesn't need to have its story dissected.  I've not been a huge fan of Forman's previous novels (I gave her bestseller If I Stay only a single star), but in this deceptively simple story about strangers who become friends, she has produced something quite profound.  She's explored the way that individual losses and betrayals pile up and carve paths that send us to self-destruction, and shown how friendships can break and subvert that sense of predestination.  The novel transcends its narrative, producing a story of hope and redemption that I think all of us (with our own losses and failures) ache for.

Because I felt let down by the ending which seemed so predictable and trite compared with the overall strength of the rest of the story, I hesitate to call it a perfect book, but Forman has at last produced a novel of substance that deserves the accolades usually laid on her bestsellers.

Twelve Steps to Normal, by Farrah Penn

Sent away to live with her Aunt for a year while her father was in an alcohol recovery program, Kira is finally coming back home.  Dad has been discharged and as Kira comes back, she hopes to recover the way things used to be (without the drinking of course).

But so much has changed.  Her friends have grown distant and moved on.  Her former boyfriend is now dating one of her former friends.  And Dad, while no longer drinking, surrounds himself with his fellow recoverees, and Kira feels shut out.  He’s even invited them to come live with him, which Kira resents.  All of this is aggravated by Kira's unresolved hurt and anger at her father. To articulate her problems, Kira drafts up her own “twelve steps,” which list out the changes that she feels will help her recover the (normal) past.  Of course, it is not that simple.

Entertaining read but generally predictable and formulaic.  There are some nice characters like her father’s friends, but most of the roles are overly familiar tropes (the not-so-nice ex-, the sweet boy she always should have loved, the ineffectual Dad, etc.).  It was a pleasant read but didn’t add much to the genre.  That said, what it did do well is address the issue of the impact of addiction on family.  Not just through Kira and her Dad, but also through the other recoverees, Penn effectively discusses the anger and grief of losing a family member to addiction.