The Quiet You Carry, by Nikki Barthelmass

The story opens with Victoria thrown out on the street at 3am.  Her father, accusing her of sexually attacking him, wants her sent away.  Victoria finds herself thrown into foster care, with no home or family.  Up to now a star student, her education is in jeopardy.

She ends up being placed in a foster home two hours away, dealing with an incompetent and overloaded social worker and an abusive foster mother.  She is worried that her father is going to hurt her stepsister.  But as much as these problems are not her fault, it is Victoria who has to rescue herself.

The novel does that annoying thing where the heroine refuses to help themselves.  Through all the suffering, she can't bring herself to accuse her father of abuse (yet grows angry that no one will help her).  The thing that she is carrying – the truth—could have been spoken earlier and created a much shorter story.  But the device bothered me less in this case because Victoria kept fighting even when she wasn’t doing the right thing.  And she recognized early that staying silent was hurting herself and others.

Enthralling and hard to put down, Barthelemass portrays the hard reality of foster care where adults don’t always do what they are supposed to do.  Against these seemingly insurmountable odds, Victoria comes through as inspirational.  I also appreciated that not every adult was evil.  Even the harsh foster mom reveal subtleties that make her, while not nice, at least human.  A good read.

Wilder Girls, by Rory Power

In case you are looking for some fiction to put you in the mood for a global pandemic....

When the students at the Baxter School for Girls on a remote island off the coast of Maine start contracting a strange and fatal disease, they and their island are placed under quarantine.  The disease, which they call the "Tox" causes rapid mutations that painfully disfigure the body and appear to be tied to the ecology of the island itself, affecting the animals and even the plants.  While the CDC works on a cure, no one can leave.  Regular supply runs drop off what the girls and their teachers need to survive, but otherwise the residents are on their own as the they grow sick and die terrifying deaths.

They told us to wait and stay alive.

A year and a half later, junior Hetty recounts the state of existence for the survivors.  There is still no cure and a vast number of the girls (and nearly all of the adults) have died.  Supplies are running low and the wildlife on the island has grown so hostile that venturing outside of their school grounds is too dangerous to consider without weapons.  Things are coming apart.  Hetty (along with her friends Byatt and Reese) suspect that the government is giving up on them and fight a last ditch effort to survive as the supplies stop coming and panic sets in.

A grim and brutal horror novel that turns a boarding school into a killing field.  From the start, the tension was captivating, the situation dark and gruesome.  The suspense picked up as more discoveries and dangers unfurled.  But by the time we reach the half-way point, things start to tip into the realm of silly and unbelievable.  Characters start behaving irrationally and counter-intuitively,  A super generous interpretation would be that everyone started to go mad, but the stupidity of some of the actions belie a more plausible explanation -- trying to keep the action going and wrapping up the story.  In sum, the last hundred pages unravel the story in a not-so-glorious way.  Still, there's no denying the topical relevance of reading this book while you're riding in a plane with a bunch of coughing people.  Definitely, one of the creepiest reads I've had in a long while!

The Night of Your Life, by Lydia Sharp

It’s almost graduation and JJ has his senior prom to look forward to.  He’s taking his best friend Lucy with him and it’s bittersweet because when they graduate she will leave for school in Italy.  To complicate matters, he’s also taking Jenna – the recently ex-girlfriend of Blair and High School royalty -- who needs company.  It’s just as friend, but JJ could never deny that he would like a chance with her (even if he is strangely uncomfortable admitting as much in front of Lucy).

So far, so typical YA prom/romance.  But there’s an additional dimension.  Lucy and JJ’s just completed their joint science project -- a time machine -- which they actually got to work.  Sort of.  While all there preparations went well, the thing mysteriously failed during their presentation.  Or so they thought.  In fact, it triggered a time loop/glitch which causes JJ to relive again and again what will become the prom night from hell.

A story so much like Groundhog Day that there’s even a token groundhog in the story, this quirky time travel adventure may be all over the place but it is surprisingly entertaining and ultimately touching.  It turns out that Bill Murray really missed the boat – the purpose of repeating something again and again is not to get it right or become a better person:  it is to totally transcend the rules of the universe and embrace what you really expect from the world.  In sum, what JJ will ultimately learn is that we make out own fate.  That surprisingly deep lesson combines with stand out characters to create a fun read which breaks the mold of the calcified genres it has chosen.  Who knew a prom time-travel adventure could be so interesting?

[Discliamer:  I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.  The book is slated for release on March 3, 2020.]

The Candle and the Flame, by Nafiza Azad

The city of Noor lies in the crossroads, a mixture of Arab, Indian, and Chinese cultures.  Nearly destroyed when a chaotic band of Djinn attacked the city and slew almost everyone, it has been repopulated by refugees from many lands.  Thus creating a place of many cultures, faiths, and traditions.  But it is not a place of peace.  Rival factions of Djinn and humans struggle to gain control of the region.  A dizzying assortment of nobles and commoners play a part in this vivid and complex setting, key among them is Fatima, one of the few survivors of the attack.  She now bears special powers that even she doesn't fully understand, which could bring peace or annihilation to the people.

Strikingly original amalgam of cultures and ideas, Azad has drawn on a wide palate to create this crossroads world that combines not only different world cultures, but also different ideas of magic and religion.  The story takes liberties with many of these in its mashup and introduces a matriarchy and strong women characters that fit loosely on top of  the traditions it invokes.  That can at times feel revisionist, but it fits in smoothly.  Azad triumphs in cultural detail, obviously in love with the food, clothing, and smells of this world.  No meal takes place without a detailed description of what is being served.  No clothing is worn without extensive description of what is being worn and how it is accessorized.  If you are into that and have the patience to spend a lot of time in the Glossary (helpfully provided at the end of the book), then this is a rewarding read.  For more casual readers, it can seem like cultural overload and one longs for more story and less culture.

Girls of July, by Alex Flinn

Four girls in the summer before their senior year come to spend a month in a secluded cabin in the Adirondacks, where they have adventures and bond.  As usually happens in this subgenre, this involves rejecting the expectations of their parents and finding their true callings.  The adventures are mostly unremarkable (car trouble, a romance, helping a family in need), but each of the young women go through a very satisfactory personal growth arc in the story.  That said, the most interesting story probably belongs to the fifth character (the owner of the summer house and the grandmother of one of the girls).

At 470 pages, it seemed terribly long and it wore me out.  It begins strong with a certain amount of tension between the characters, but they break through that quickly and the second half of the novel treads water.  And while the girls start out different, they gradually lose their distinctiveness, which I guess is how we know that they are all getting along.

Night Music, by Jenn Marie Thorne

Ruby is the youngest member of the Chertok musical dynasty.  Her father teaches at the elite Amberley School.  But the truth is that Ruby is failing to make it and, after she botches her audition at Amberley, she realizes that she needs to find something else.  But what?

Oscar is a musical genius.  Taken under the wing of Ruby’s father, he is positioned to become something truly revolutionary. As a young black man, everyone wants to pigeonhole him as a ‘disadvantaged’ kid and use him to promote a diversity fund at the school, rather than pay homage to his actual talent.  Ruby seems to be the only one who can see beyond his race and truly appreciate his musical genius.  But with the shock to her own dreams, can any appreciation of him be truly selfless?  And is she hanging on him out of love or desperation?

A smart and fun romance with smarts in a glorious rarified setting.  It's got rich kids in Manhattan, classical music, fancy parties and glitz, and a final climax at the Lincoln Center.  On top of this is an intelligent take on how race and class (and a large generation gap) play out in elite artistic circles.

Beyond the story, Ruby and Oscar are fun and complicated.  Oscar does tortured artist well, but it is Ruby’s family and their beautiful psychopathy that steals the show.  In short space, Thorne packs a strong emotional punch with each member of the Chertok family (regretful father, cold and steely mother, siblings unable to reconcile).  The result is light and enjoyable entertainment, with some depth and substance behind it to give you the feeling that you aren't just reading a romance. A beach read, to be sure, but a superior one at that.

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland, by Rebekah Crane

When Zander shows up at Camp Padua, a summer retreat for at-risk teens, she insists that there is nothing wrong with her.  That makes her stand out.  Everyone knows that Cassie is anorexic, Bek is a liar, and Grover is just odd.  But the most that can be said about Zander at first is she doesn't like apples.

Faced with a summer of group therapy and outdoor games that is about to change.  Grover's, convinced that he is destined to become schizophrenic, and similarly persistent that Zander and he are a couple.  Amidst Cassie's snarky observations about just about everyone are a few pointed ones at Zander that show that she sees far more than anyone else at Camp.  And Zander will open up and address the feelings and behavior that wound her up here.

A familiar story of institutionalized teens healing gets a lift in this case from some fresh characters.  Cassie and Grover are the most colorful and provide excellent soundingboards for Zander.  Character growth is a given in this genre but follows a less predictable arc that gives us some suspense and a better pay off in the end.  The language is smart and mixes believably vulnerable adolescence with intelligence.  A pleasant enough read but not terribly noteworthy.

Oh, Rats! by Tor Seidler

Phoenix is one impressive squirrel.  The largest in his litter, his luxurious fur and big fluffy tail make him a great catch.  But unfortunately, that vanity costs him when he is caught by a hawk instead and swept away from his New Jersey home.  Making it through a series of near-death experiences, Phoenix finds himself in New York City, but without his fur and his tail now bare.  He looks almost like a rat!

While the local rats don't really trust him, he proves to be their good friend, helping to protect the abandoned wharf they call home from a greedy real estate developer.  It will take serious climbing, inventiveness, help from a bird of prey, and a few sticks of dynamite, but Phoenix is determined to save the day.  In the end, he finds that home is where you make it, even if you are a hairless squirrel from Jersey!

On a whim, I picked this up from the new middle school bookshelf.  It looked cute and even a bit funny.   It proved to be strange and more than a little bit dark. It is cute, but not very funny.  I also fail to see how it really qualifies as a book for middle schoolers, although I'm at a loss to say what the audience should be.  It's not a bad adventure, but between the violence, some mature themes (alcoholism, family abandonment, etc.) it doesn't really seem age appropriate. But at the same time, the talking animal genre tends to skew young.

We Are the Perfect Girl, by Ariel Kaplan

In this retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, Aphra is the brave and fearless fighter.  Skilled with words and outspoken, she's a loyal friend to her little brother and to her best friend Bethany.  While Bethany definitely has the looks, she becomes tongue tied in the presence of handsome Greg.  And as much as Aphra keeps trying to encourage her, Bethany seems condemned to sit on the sidelines.  Aphra won't stand for that though and she helps Bethany find the words to capture Greg's attention.

Meanwhile, Aphra is developing a phone app that uses artificial intelligence to chat with people.  The app is supposed to be anonymous and confidential, but when the program starts failing, Aphra fakes results by intervening and writing the app's responses herself.  That's when she discovers that Greg has been confessing to the app.  Unable to help herself, Aphra responds, trying to gently nudge him towards her best friend.  It doesn't take long for Greg to figure out that the responses are not coming from a computer.  And when he calls her out, she is forced to confess, but due to unfortunate circumstances, he mistakenly assumes that the app's author is Bethany.  Now smitten, he falls madly in love with her.  This leaves Aphra in the unenviable position of coming clean with Greg about her true identity and confessing to her best friend that she's been secretly chatting with her love.  The fact that Aphra actually likes Greg as well only complicates matters.

Clever is the way that Kaplan has managed to modernize and adapt Rostand's classic play, the book also shines for its clever writing. The book is hilarious, with a whole slew of amusing and original anecdotes and scenes (ranging from an awkwardly misplaced swimsuit donut to a grand confession in front of an entire school assembly).  At times, these are so clever that they overwhelm the story itself, threatening to make the novel just one funny scene after another, but it mostly works.  Meanwhile, I loved the characters.  The dynamics with Aphra's family are particularly refreshing (I'm always a fan of parents who actually do more than forbid the heroine to do something and then ground them afterwards).  And Aphra's journey from self-obsession towards self-acceptance is real and meaningful.  A delightful read.

Sadly, the unusual and notable inclusion of rarely-seen-within-YA Russian to the story falls flat due to the multiple errors in its usage in the book.  But A for effort, nyet?

The Undoing of Thistle Tate, by Katelyn Detweiler

At seventeen, Thistle is the author of two bestsellers.  The third installment of her Lemonade Skies trilogy is almost finished.  But as successful as she is, she carries a terrible secret: she’s not the author.  Rather, it is her father who produces the books with Thistle listed on the jacket.  After years of unsuccessfully attempting to get published, he resorted to this subterfuge as a hook to get the manuscript noticed.  At the time, they were in desperate financial straits and risked losing their home.  Thistle, just fourteen at the time, agreed to go along with this ruse because she knew it would make her Dad happy.

The home and her father is pretty much all that Thistle has left of her mother.  Dad, though, is close-lipped and reluctant to tell her much about Mom, who died when she was only three.  But the Lemonade Skies series, which features a young heroine searching through the afterlife for her lost mother, is a rather heavy handed analogue to their real life.

Dad always promised that the third book would be the last and that Thistle would no longer need to carry on the charade.  She would go to college, get her own life, and move on.  But Dad’s been wavering about the future of the series and Thistle is worried that she’ll be trapped forever.  But then those fears are swept aside, and Thistle and her Dad find their hands forced by a tragic chain of events.

While a little slow at first, the story picked up steam and gained a poignancy as the initial deceit and cover up is replaced by Thistle’s search for her mother.  The ending, while perhaps a bit overly rosy, is deeply satisfying.  Tear jerking occurs and key life lessons are expounded.  In sum, the story is good.  Thistle wallows a bit much in self-pity and makes the usual bad choices of lying and deception that seem to plague young women in YA novels, but she’s strong willed and brave and comes through in the end.  The love interests suffer more and the relationships are a bit of a yawn.  Read this for the story, not for the characters.

When Reason Breaks, by Cindy L. Rodriguez

Ms. Diaz's class is studying the poetry of Emily Dickinson.  For two young women in the class, the poetry has a particular impact.  Goth girl Elizabeth is largely considered a troubled teen.  Abandoned by her father, she lashes out at everyone around her.  Her disturbing artistry gets her regularly sent to the counselor.  Sweet Emily, seemingly the antithesis of Elizabeth, struggles with an inner demon of depression.  Both girls, latching on to Dickinson's melancholy, apply it to their contemporary lives, which are seemingly falling part. By the end of the book, one of them will be lead to take their life.

Unfortunately, the suicide angle feels artificial.  Yes, obviously it  provides a direction to the story.  But once we get there, the writing falls apart with the narrative becoming disjointed and passive.

I didn't clue in until the afterward that the characters are amalgams of Dickinson or people who moved in her circle.  It helps to explain some of the more forced parts of the story. Unfortunately, it is more clever than enlightening or entertaining.  Which is pretty much my issue with the entire book.

Meet Me in Outer Space, by Melinda Grace

Edie has a cognitive disorder that causes her to mis-hear words.  In English, she can usually manage to figure sentences out in their context.  But in the French class she is taking, it is nearly impossible for her and she struggles.  She'd quit, but the class is crucial for her in her chosen career as a fashion designer and her plan to go to Paris to study this summer.

She needs a tutor and the class’s TA, Hudson offers to help her.  He obviously wants more from Edie but she resists getting involved.  Any sort of relationship is just going to complicate her life.  Still, Edie can’t deny that she is attracted to him.  But really what future can they have when she is planning to study in Paris?

Quirky and original story with strong characters.  Edie, despite the temptation that Hudson presents, is pretty steadfast in her dedication to her career goals.  I did find it rough and amateur, but there is raw talent here.  Finally, it got mislabeled as YA, when it is really NA, but young readers may not care (the characters are not terribly mature so the primary visible difference is that they live in dorms and not at home).

Have a Little Faith in Me, by Sonia Hartl

CeCe lost Ethan.  After succumbing to pressure from him to have sex, he decided to break things off.  He says he needs to re-connect with his faith and is going away to Summer Bible camp.  CeCe, whose faith in Jesus was never very strong, is convinced that by following him there and proving she can be a good Christian too, that she’ll win him back.  Her best friend and neighbor Paul tries to convince her that this is a very bad idea.  When he fails to do so, he announces that he’ll go too in order to help.

At camp, CeCe is definitely in over her head.  Her ideas clash repeatedly with the staff and the campers, but her biggest shock is finding that Ethan has a girlfriend at camp.  Desperate, she gets Paul to agree to pretend to be her new boyfriend and make Ethan jealous.  It works so well that CeCe and Paul discover they have feelings for each other.  It culminates in a stand off at a campfire confessional.

So far, so predictable.  I twitched quite a bit at the depiction of organized Christianity, but that’s pretty common with writers who want a group that’s still OK to trash.  But the great climactic fireside showdown occurs on page 185 and there are almost 150 MORE PAGES TO GO!!  What on earth are they going to do with the rest of the book?

The answer is to embark on a treatise about sex and consent.  The girls at the camp, shocked by what CeCe has endured launch into an extended dialogue about sexual mishaps, questions, and consent.  Much of it is fine and the material is sound, but it is so dense that it largely comes across as a textbook.

The book's popularity may be boosted by a pretty explicit sex scene at the end that the sex education material seems to be building up for.  It contains probably the most thorough by-the-book explicit consensual sexual encounter ever recorded in a YA (or any other) book.  And there is a stress on verbalized consent (i.e., implicit consent does not count so everything must be spoken aloud), which will raise eyebrows. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with teaching that good sex is consensual sex, but it has so little to do with the first half of the book that it felt like a hidden agenda.

It’s a little hard to review the book since it is really two books – one fiction and the other non-fiction.

The characters start as young people but largely become mouthpieces in the end.  CeCe and Paul get the best treatment, but that’s because they get to be the models for perfect sex.  In the first half of the novel, I found them much more interesting.  The end is a mess as the story shifts in several different directions, but finally gets the kids back home and into each other’s arms.

Call It What You Want, by Brigid Kemmerer

Rob lost everything when his Dad was caught embezzling money from his clients' investment accounts.  Most of their possessions were seized.  Rob became an outcast at school as everyone assumed he knew about it.  Meanwhile, his father escaped in his own way (with a failed suicide attempt that left him in a vegetative state).

Maegen got caught last year cheating on the SATs and caused an entire classroom's worth of exams to be invalidated.  But that scandal pales compared with her star older sister coming home from school pregnant and unsure about what she wants to do about it.  Maegan's family life has grown unbearable.

Both Rob and Maegan now lie at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but neither of them have any reason to associate with the other.  It takes a group project in Calculus to bring them together and help them discover that they have much in common.  One thing they have both come to understand is, as desperate as things seem for themselves, there are others who are in greater need.  They can make a difference by doing good deeds.  While they don't have track records for making good choices, now that are are trying to do so, they find that it is not so easy to know what is right.

A stirring and moving story of two flawed, but resilient young people.  Supported by complex and well developed supporting characters, Kemmerer has created a very strong story of love and loyalty.  Whether it's the sisterly bond between Maegan and her pregnant older sister, between Rob and his former best friend Conner, or even between the children and their parents, there's so much interesting stuff going on here.  And that doesn't even begin to touch on the complex dynamics between Rob and Maegan, who fluctuate between distrust, love, betrayal, and forgiveness in one of the more fascinating pas de deux in YA.  It's a wonderful thing to read a story where no one really acts to type and there's a believable surprise around every page turn.  I wasn't so hot on the plot twists at the end involving the scandal that got Rob's father in trouble, but that is a minor quibble for a novel when the characters themselves are so fascinating.

True to Your Selfie, by Megan McCafferty

Twelve year-old Ella and popular IT girl Morgan aren't just taking seventh-grade by storm, they plan to achieve multi-platform global domination!  Morgan's got the vision: what they should wear, how they should act, what they should put on their website.  She's shaping the "brand" of Morgan & Ella.  But as the number of followers that the girls have start to rise, Ella finds that more and more she seems to merely be an accessory for Morgan's climb to fame.  And, as much as Ella would like to be famous on the socials, there are things about her old life she misses and opportunities she can see slipping away.

Fairly heavy-handed look at the allure of fame and fortune, from a middle schooler's perspective. It's largely over the top but the descriptions of social media will ring true enough to make any adult cringe.  In the end, Ella learns her powerful lessons about life, so the moral purpose of this fable is served, bu there are few surprises here.  Ella is not a character to really like as she spends most of the book making mistake after mistake, but she's real and one can't help but feel a bit sorry for her.

More successful for me was the entertaining and quick moving story.  It's a fun and breezy read.  It's not fine literature, but it's a good story, told well, with some satisfying lessons about being true to yourself (which is always a good message to drive home with middle schoolers).


[Disclaimer:  I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an impartial review.  The book is scheduled for release on February 4th.]

The Haunting, by Lindsey Duga

Twelve year-old orphan Emily has a dream come true, when the wealthy Thorntons adopt her and take her away from the nasty orphanage to which she is consigned.  Life at her new home is a dream:  a huge manor house, fine food, pretty new dresses, and best of all she gets to keep her pet mutt Archie.  There's even an odd little girl named Kat who keeps suddenly appearing and disappearing, who shows Emily around the vast estate.

But then strange things start to happen:  thumps in the night, falling bookcases, exploding windows, and a brutal sudden chilly air that keeps reappearing.  What starts as oddities becomes life-threatening.  Emily and Archie must find out what haunts the place and how to rid it of its ghosts.

Extremely formulaic middle reader, full of all the usual suspects:  abused orphan, stepparents with secrets, gothic mysteries, ghosts, and that friendly canine companion.  For the target audience, the story's lack of ambition is probably fine, but this is one of hundreds of similar books and I don't see how this one is going to stand out in any remarkable way.

Disclaimer:  I recieved an ARC of this book from the publisher in return for an unbiased review.  The book is slated for release on February 4th.

The Art of Breaking Things, by Laura Sibson

Skye is a promising young artist, probably on her way to a full-ride at art school, but she's grown indifferent to her success.  Getting high with her best friend Ben, she's drifted through school a party girl.  But two things startle her indifference:  Ben gets busted for drugs and her mother's ex-boyfriend Dan returns to their life.

Years ago, when Skye was ten, Dan molested her during a family camping trip.  Her oblivious mother never acknowledged the incident and Skye withdrew into drugs (the party girl was in fact just self-medicating).  She could manage things when Mom was no longer seeing Dan, but now Mom's talking about marrying him!  Skye can't deal. Especially not when she catches Dan grooming her younger sister Emma.

I'll get my big complaint about the story off my chest first:  a plot that rests precariously on a misunderstanding.  I hate hate hate when authors set up these entirely artificial conflicts.  The trauma and its extension over seven years rest entirely on Skye and her mother unwilling to find a way to communicate.  Given how wonderfully they do so in the end, I'm simply not buying it.  I get that trauma can silence a victim, but this is just made up.  And made up for the sole purpose of creating a story.

That complaint aside, I actually thought this was a well-written book.  The character relationships between Skye and her BFF Luisa, between Skye and her sister Emma, and all the little relationships with casual friends were complex, nuanced, and realistic.  I didn't find much of a flame in Skye and Ben's romance/friendship, but I also didn't find it an important part of the story (despite its placement front and center).  Skye herself is a bit of a screw up and makes some amazingly bad choices, but that mostly illustrates the corrosive nature of the trauma she's carry with her and she actually comes across as pretty tough.  Finally, the importance of art in her life felt very organic to her character and not just something tossed in.  Sibson shows some great writing and I look forward to her next novel.

Michigan vs the Boys, by Carrie S. Allen

Michigan had just learned that she was going to be this year's girl's hockey assistant captain when it is announced that the team is being shuttered because of budget cuts in the school district.  Michigan has to figure out some way to stay on the ice.  But in her small town in the Upper Peninsula what opportunities are there to play?

The obvious solution is to try out for the boy’s team.  But in her town, that doesn’t go down well.  She finds herself the target of discrimination (some subtle, some overt) and hazing.  As the threats and attacks grow more serious, Michigan has to ask herself how much getting to play is really worth it?

Full of lots of hockey action, fans of the sport will enjoy themselves. However, I’m fairly ignorant about hockey so most of the play-by-play went over my head.  As a story, I found the book gripping and engaging.  There’s some fairly intense scenes of violence, but that merely reinforces how tough Michigan is and how hard she has to fight.  The ultimate pay off at the end is, of course, very rewarding.

The Goodbye Summer, by Sarah Van Name

Caroline has a secret she can’t tell anyone:  she and her boyfriend Jake are going to run away at the end of the summer.  Sure, she’s going to just turn 17 in August, but Jake is already 18 and has figured the whole thing out!  They are young, but they are in love and that will be enough to get them through. Jake is her entire world now. Ever since she and Jake started dating, her friends have pretty much all drifted away.

But then Caroline meets Georgia.  Georgia has issues of her own (mostly dealing with her over-controlling parents) but the two girls find something in the other that they need.  As Caroline confides in Georgia the plans that she and Jake have, Georgia begs her to reconsider the plan.  Caroline pushes back, but even she realizes the craziness of her plans.  Always a pleaser, Caroline is faced with the dilemma of who she can afford to disappoint.

A well written but cringe worthy story.  I was disappointed that Van Name didn’t make more of an effort to depict Jake more appealing.  He really didn’t seem worth all the fuss.  Still, I sincerely believed Caroline’s struggles with making the right decision.  And it all just reminded me of how much it sucks to be young and immature.  I’d love to say that I don’t know anyone who was like this when they were her age, but the story is intimately familiar.  Faithful and authentic and heartbreaking.

The Year We Fell From Space, by Amy Sarig King

Liberty's got a plan to redesign the constellations.  She's going to modernize them by asking people to look at unlabeled star maps she creates and describe what shapes they see.  She thinks it will get people as excited about the stars as she is.  Every night, she goes out and creates the detailed maps.  One night, she witnesses a meteorite enter the atmosphere.  With devastating impact, it lands near her (an unbelievably rare event) shattering windows around the neighborhood.  But the damage is superficial and Liberty's home has already been destroyed when her father has moved out a few days before.

While this book could be seen as just another middle grade story about divorce, it's significantly more complicated.  Liberty and her father both suffer from depression.  Her younger sister and her mother have emotional issues of their own.  And, as a result,  no one is an entirely reliable narrator.  The resulting insightful tale takes a very honest look at the dissolution of marriage and redefinition of family in a way that all ages will understand.  Hardly just "adult talk," Liberty observes, each of them (parents and children) have a "quarter share in the divorce."

I really liked this novel.  It is a very well-trod topic and hardly one that would seem to need a new treatment, but King has a gentle way of handling what Liberty calls "irrational" behavior as her characters (both children and adult) behave in authentically imperfect ways.  And the message that reflection, communication, and (ultimately) forgiveness is crucial for all of us is uplifting.

Dear Sweet Pea, by Julie Murphy

Sweet Pea’s parents are getting a divorce.  Their “perfect solution" is that her Dad has bought a house on the same street (just two houses down).  The two houses are nearly identical and they fill them with matching furniture.  Her parents want her to have a “mirror” home, so that whether she’s staying with Mom or Dad, she pretty much has the same space.  But it just seems creepy to Sweet Pea and she would much rather that they all just stayed together in the first place.

Between these two houses lives Miss Flora Mae – an eccentric old lady who authors a local agony aunt column.  She hires Sweet Pea to handle her mail when she has to go away for a few weeks.  While Sweet Pea is only supposed to bundle up letters and forward them, she succumbs to the temptation to read and answer a few of them for herself.  Those actions have consequences.

A lovely middle reader from the author of NA stand-outs Dumplin’ and Puddin’.  Sweet Pea is basically a little sister to the heroines of those books – full of resourcefulness and a bit of mischief, but with a heart of gold.  It’s rare for an author to manage success in different genres, but Murphy does so with aplomb, dialing down her style for a tween audience.  And while she pulls out some well-trod topics (divorce and friends outgrowing each other), she gives them a nice original (Texan) flavor.  A fun and enjoyable read.

How to Make Friends With the Dark, by Kathleen Glasgow

Sixteen year-old Tiger has a typically turbulent relationship with her overly protective mother.  But as much as she resents her mother's clingy behavior, she is devastated when her mother suddenly dies.  Without another parent or any near relatives, Tiger is in for an even greater shock as she is shunted into the foster care world. Overwhelmed by grief, Tiger must learn to navigate an alien world without roots and without a home.

A brutal story about grief. It's vivid and realistic, but ultimately numbing in its length and breadth.  The good news is that it ends well, but for anyone who finds that they can take grief in only small doses, this is not a good read.  It will suck you down into a very dark place alongside its heroine.  Only in the end do things start to look up and this, surprisingly, is the least authentic part of the book.  For masochists only!

Forward Me Back to You, by Mitali Perkins

Robin is drifting, not really sure what he wants to do with his life. He feels rootless.  Adopted, he wonders why his Indian birth mother gave him away.  Kat, on the other hand, knows exactly what she's running from:  a boy at her school who attacked her.  She's a fighter (a fact which actually saved her during the assault) but the school's turned against her and she's come to stay with a friend of her martial arts trainer in Boston.

Fairly soon after arriving, Robin and Kat learn of a unique opportunity to spend the summer in Kolkata, working at an organization that rescues children from sex traffickers.  Robin realizes this might be a chance to search for his birth mother and make peace with his past.  For Kat, it is a dream of sharing her knowledge of self-defense with other girls who have suffered from the hands of men.  But once Robin and Kat reach Kolkata, they realize how far out of their depth they are.

A unique story of young people who are struggling with their past and find that what they really need is so much different from what they thought.  They both start off arrogant, but they go through some humbling readjustments and eventually adapt.  The result is a satisfying story of growth and maturation.  The characters are distinct and have clear personalities (ranging from Kat's tendency to describe everyone she meets as animals to Robin's embrace of his Bengali heritage). In sum a well-developed story and strong characters are combined with the exotic locale and a true respect for Bengali culture (as well as a little comic relief) to created a readable and enjoyable adventure.

The Root of Magic, by Kathleen Benner Duble

In the midst of a powerful winter storm in northern Maine, Willow, her brother Wisp, and her mother crash their car.  They are rescued by a plow driver who takes them to the small town of Kismet.  Stuck in town for a few days because of the storm, they have time to get to know the inhabitants and become aware that something a little fishy is going on.  The people of Kismet have an uncanny ability to anticipate things (like knowing what you want to order for dinner before you do so).  They also seem to be hiding a secret.

None of which seems to both Willow's mother.  Always a bit obsessed with monitoring the health of sickly child Wisp, she becomes convinced that living in Kismet may be the solution to his health issues.  For Willow, who has had to endure a fair amount of sacrifices for her brother's care, this is a final straw: She wants to go home and leave this place forever!

An entertaining fantasy novel, which poses questions about fate versus free will in terms that younger readers will understand.  Willow is observant, brave, and assertive, yet also kind and respectful (all traits that parents will appreciate in a book).  An age-appropriate romance with a local boy adds some fun and is nicely integrated into the tale.  The result is an easy reading and fun story.

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree, by Lauren Tarshis

Emma-Jean is really book smart, but she doesn't really understand her classmates.  With the odd way she talks and the way her mind flits around, they don't get her either.  Up to now, they've given each other a wide berth, but that changes in a fateful bathroom encounter between Emma-Jean and Colleen.  Colleen's having trouble with another girl in their class and Emma-Jean realizes she can help!  However, the help that Emma-Jean comes up with end up making everything even more complicated.  To fix the mess (which literally ends up with Emma-Jean falling out of a tree!), both girls will have to expand out of their comfort zones.

A sweet middle reader about building friendships, communicating with others, and the importance of kindness.  The general positivity of the story is a welcome anecdote to mean girl stories.  I enjoyed having a break from the doom and gloom of the other books I've been reading lately.

Emma-Jean is a fascinating character.  Somewhere on the Autism Spectrum (as apparently her late father was as well), she forms an interesting and sympathetic narrator as she tries to understand the people around her.  But Tarshis, while occasionally exploiting Emma-Jean's misconceptions for humor, never lets the story exploit her heroine, who in the end proves to be more insightful than any of us imagine.

Lie to Me, by Kaitlin Ward

Amelia is lucky to have survived her fall into the river.  All of which has folks shaking their heads and wondering why she was fooling around on the wrong side of the guardrail in the first place (although some folks think it was suicide).  Amelia also wonders what happened.  She's never been clumsy and the whole thing seems off.  While she can't remember much of the incident, due to the concussion she endured, she has a faint memory of being pushed.

It is easy to discount those notions until another girl is found in the same river (allegedly from jumping in as well).  Who would be doing this?  Who wants her dead and these other girls dead and why?  Amelia takes a hard look around her:  at her friends, her boyfriend, the creepy neighbor across the street, but nothing comes together.  As the body count grows, Amelia no longer knows who is safe and who is not.

Average mystery that has fine delivery, but suffers from a bloated story.  It feels like a short story that the author enlarged to novel length with trivial activities -- shopping trips, general socializing, school activities, and so on -- none of which really feed into the plot.  Of course, given the genre, some of it is there to mislead the reader, but a lot feels unnecessary.  As I read it, I found myself willing the filler to end so I could get back to the real story.


(Disclaimer:  I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased and independent review.  The book is scheduled for release on January 7th.)

The Black Coats, by Colleen Oakes

It's been months since Natalie was murdered and her suspected murderer set free for lack of evidence.  The world has moved on, but her cousin Thea can't.  Lost in grief, she barely functions.

Then one day she receives a mysterious letter.  Intrigued, she follows its instructions and finds herself at an old house.  There, she learns that she has been invited to join the Black Coats.

Founded by a woman who was raped and couldn't get her assailant punished, the Black Coats are a secret organization of young women who engage in "balancings" (vigilante justice against the accused).  Recruiting only from victims or friends of victims, the young women in the group are personally driven to the cause of punishing men who escape justice because the victims were women.  Thea finds herself training in martial arts and covert ops with four other girls, learning the ropes and engaging in their own balancings.

Participation gives her confidence and Thea starts to bloom again at home and school, even sparking a romance.  But as the girls get more involved in the organization, Thea begins to have doubts about the "justice" that they are dispensing.  These doubts grow larger when the organization reveals its darker side.

While the premise raises eyebrows and the morality of vigilante justice was giving me doubts about this book early, it all begins in humor and fun.  Certainly the idea of young women gaining confidence and breaking free of debilitating grief is an empowering idea.  And, at least at first, a great deal of stress is placed on the idea that murder is out of the picture.  I felt sympathy for and interest in the characters and didn't stress over the violence.  Slipping a serial rapist a roofie actually seemed quite poetic to me.

As things turn dark and those earlier promises are tossed aside (and the body count starts to grow), the empowering themes are largely lost.  The book itself loses its way, forgoing the empowerment for psychopathy.  Oakes says in her notes that this book rose from the ashes of another about a girl recovering from grief.  That seems a shame as a more serious book would have been more meaningful.  By the last fifty pages of this one, as the violence grows and becomes largely girl-on-girl, I pretty much lost interest in this story.

We Set the Dark on Fire, by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Trained to be observant and quick thinking at the Medio School for Girls to become a primera (trusted companion, confident, and first wife) Dani is cautious and rational.  Top of her class, she is the opposite of Carmen, the top-ranked segunda.  Segundas, in contrast, are trained to be beautiful and sensual.  Every powerful man of Medio has two wives (a primera and a segunda).  It is an irony that these two schoolyard enemies end up married off to the same man – a boy who is slated to lead the interior ministry and aims to some day become president.

In the midst of all of this is  La Voz who seek to call attention to the inequality and injustice in society, and raise a rebellion against it.  La Voz is everywhere and while Dani’s husband is committed to crushing them, Dani has been recruited by them to spy on his husband and the family.  She does so at first because of blackmail, but eventually she develops sympathy for their cause and the backbone to support it.

Part one of a projected duology, this wonderfully Hispanic-flavored dystopian combines some great character development with a power struggle complex enough to rival any telenovela.  Things get really weird at the end, but it wraps up with a perfect lead-in to the sequel (not a cliffhanger, but rather a ramping up of the story that makes what comes next look interesting).

Girls on the Verge, by Sharon Biggs Waller

When Camille finds out that she is pregnant, she’s pretty certain from the start that she wants to terminate her pregnancy.  However, getting an abortion as a seventeen-year-old in Texas in 2014 is no easy matter.  She struggles with doctors and judges, traveling across the state, across the border to Mexico, and finally on an epic road trip to New Mexico.  This adventure creates a quirky road story.  Accompanied by her best friend Bea (who supports her but feels conflicted by her own pro-life beliefs) and Annabelle (who feels driven to help Camille figure this whole thing out for reasons of her own), the three young women find that nothing about America's culture wars is simple.

The story itself is really a bare-bones skeleton on which Waller layers a variety of legal facts and anecdotes in order to show how the politics of abortion has turned the experience of seeking one into a surreal and hellish landscape.  Given my beliefs, I have no personal issue with the author’s ideology and I even see the value in opening some eyes about how much politics has subverted things, but this is not a book that is going to be read through to the end by anyone with doubts about a woman’s fundamental right to choose.  And that raises a question about its utility.

As a story, there is not a lot here.  The girls have interesting differences and there is some perfunctory effort to allow them to grow a little during the story.  Some drama occurs with various challenges they experience (harassment, violence, and a brush or two with the Law).  But aside from the three girls, the other characters are stereotypes and lack substance.  Overall, the book comes across as a screed…to an audience who is already converted.

Birthday, by Meredith Russo

Eric and Morgan are best friends and share the same birthday.  With the exception of the year they got sick, the two of them have always spent their birthdays together.  Back when they were little and didn’t know better, they would tell each other that they loved each other.  They swore they would be best friends for life.

But things change as the boys get older:  Morgan’s mother dies of cancer, Eric’s parents are getting divorced, and the idea of love between the boys has evolved.  Eric knows he isn’t gay, but he’s always felt that Morgan was more girl-like, in a way that he found attractive.  Sure, Morgan is a guy (they play football together!) but somehow Morgan has always seemed pretty.  And Morgan who actually does find boys attractive, doesn't feel particularly gay either.  Instead, the body parts just feel wrong.  Morgan feels like a girl – a girl very much in love with her best friend.

Told over a period of six birthdays, the novel explores the development of Morgan’s gender identity and the love story between her and Eric.  Tracing key events and tracking all the emotional stages from exploration to self-loathing and depression to eventual acceptance, we get both Morgan's search to find peace as a trans girl and Eric's understanding of his romantic feelings for Morgan (i.e., being straight and romantically attracted).

It's a moving and informative work about a life journey for both Morgan and Eric that will be meaningful for trans teens and those who love them.  In many ways this is a similar story to Russo's debut novel, If I Was Your Girl.  But while the dead mother angle is tired cliche and exploitative, I find this sophomore effort more effective than her first book.  For one thing, being seemingly autobiographical, its more personal.  It's certainly better written and reads quickly.

You Asked for Perfect, by Laura Silverman

Ariel has managed to maintain a straight-A all-AP-courses workload almost all of the way through high school.  But in his final year, there just no longer seems to be enough time to fit it all in.  Even with tutoring from his friend (and potential boyfriend) Amir, it seems that as soon as he fixes one problem, another one pops up.  Trying to do everything and do it all perfectly is simply too much but he's so invested in being perfect that he doesn't feel he can stop trying.  Eventually, it all comes to a head, but in the end it takes a family tragedy to reset Ariel’s priorities.  These are immediately tested as he has to choose between his dreams and his friends.

The book has two notable elements:  the casual approach it takes to Ariel’s bisexuality and the strong role that religion (Judiaism, in this case) plays in Ariel’s life.  For readers used to sexuality being the focus of a book, the non-issue of Ariel’s sexuality is ironically notable for not being noted  Have we really normalized to that point or is Silverman making a point by playing it up?  As for the prominent role of faith, while Judaism is no foreigner to YA, the positive role of religion is a stand out and welcome.

The story however is pedestrian.  Ariel’s overworking and stressful lifestyle is blatant.  His eventual burnout is no surprise and the solution too straightforward.  The heavy handling of the topic would be more appropriate for a middle reader but seems preachy for a teen audience.  

You Must Not Miss, by Katrina Leno

Magpie has a lonely life.  Her alcoholic mother is frequently away.  Her sister, frustrated with taking care of Mom, moved out and refuses to come back home.  Magpie's circle of friends has been reduced to Ben and Clare and Magpie's social capital is spent. As soon as she turns eighteen, she plans to move out of the town of Farther.

But before that move happens, something strange and wonderful occurs.  As an escape, Magpie has been creating an imaginary world in her notebook.  It’s a perfect world with friends who like her, mothers who don’t drink, and everything is great.  She calls the world "Near." Fantasy is one thing, but one day she discovers that she can actually visit Near through the woodshed in the backyard and it is every bit as perfect as she imagined in her notebook.

But as her fantasy world of Near becomes more and more real, Magpie finds it has a dark side, which can be used not only for escape but also for revenge.  With all the anger that Magpie carries with her, the temptation of such power is too much.  Despite numerous warnings that the costs of using Near to inflict suffering on her enemies is dangerous, she becomes obsessed with striking back at her tormentors.

Thus, what starts as Secret Garden becomes Carrie in this strange and blood-thirsty tale of revenge.  I wasn’t sure in the end what the point of it all was.  Magpie, consumed by her anger and frustration achieves some sort of peace in the end, but it doesn’t really have a huge impact.  Her bloodthirstiness and cruelty pretty much shuts down anything sympathetic about her.  I didn’t like her and found her cruel and ultimately pathetic.  That even she judges herself that way in the end was little comfort from this dark piece.

Better Than the Best Plan, by Lauren Morrill

Maritzi’s mother has always had a flighty streak to her.  So when she leaves a note saying that she’s going away for six to twelve months to learn how to be a meditation and life skills coach and that seventeen year-old Maritzi should just “follow her own path,” it isn’t too surprising.  It’s going to be hard to get by, given that Maritzi isn’t exactly earning much money from her part-time job, but she’s always managed to keep things together anyway.  How much harder can it be without her Mom around?

But before Maritzi has much of an opportunity to find out, a tipped-off social worker comes and takes Maritzi into a foster home. Kris and Ryan, her foster parents, turn out to have a history with Maritzi that she didn’t even know existed. As Maritzi settles in, they all find that there is a lot to this than they ever imagined.  Lightening things up a bit, a little light romance with the boy next door also makes an appearance.

The highlight of the book is definitely the character of Maritzi herself.  She not only says that she could have taken care of herself, but she could also have had a decent job of pulling it off.  She's a particular responsible and capable young woman, yet sufficiently flawed to be believable.  It’s nice to have a story where the heroine goes to a party and doesn’t drink at all.  And while her foster mother is pretty hard on her (for entirely believably flawed reasons of her own), Maritzi probably doesn't deserve it.

But sadly the story sort of goes nowhere.  The romance is underdeveloped, the eventual inevitable show down with Mom fizzles away, and the question of whether Maritzi will live with her mother or her foster parents becomes a non-event.  It all wraps up neatly and there is not much drama to it.

The Grace Year, by Kim Ligget

In the County, men hold all of the power.  But when a girl turns sixteen, she enters the "Grace Year" and is consumed by forces so powerful that she threatens the entire community.  To protect the rest, all sixteen year-old girls are sent away to live (or die) on an isolated island for a year.  Surrounded by “poachers” who will skin them alive if they try to escape because the flesh and blood of the girls is highly desired (and illicitly bought) by men who crave the magic that it allegedly possesses.  Those young women who survive and return will be married off or sent out to a life of labor or prostitution.

Tierney has always been her father’s daughter, willful and rebellious, and it’s gotten her into a fair share of trouble.  But it has also given her the strength and resourcefulness to survive the  ordeal.  Yet she will find that the physical harshness of exile is not the greatest challenge.  Far more dangerous than the poachers and the wilds that surround them are the girls themselves.  Petty jealousies between the girls (over who will marry at the end of the year and who will be sent into labor) face them off each other and put everyone in danger.

Part Handmaid’s Tale and part Lord of the Flies, this dark and brutal dystopia explores society's fetishization of feminine adolescence.  The treatment is gory and bloody and thoroughly unpleasant. Tierney is one of the tougher heroines you’ll ever meet, but she also a powerful leader and her aforementioned resourcefulness and intelligence serves her well. In telling her story, Ligget pulls no punches and the storytelling makes no attempt at subtlety.  The book is vivid.  It’s apparently been optioned for a movie, although one imagines that the gruesome nature of the book will need to be toned down if the target adolescent audience is going to be able to access it.

What makes the novel so interesting to me are the arguments it makes about society's treatment of sexuality and sexual inequality.  This is not just a criticism of patriarchy (as people so often misread Margaret Atwood's classic). Ligget’s point that women weaken themselves by being their own worst enemies is powerful and controversial stuff.  It fleshes out the usual anti-patriarchal dystopian by showing in Foucaldian terms the way the prisoners aid the jailers, the way that girls' gazes on each other are every bit as violent as men's.  The novel’s non-traditional ending, with its rejection of traditional literary forms is both its own rebellion against patriarchy and strikingly original.  Formidable and provocative.

This Time Will Be Different, by Misa Sugiura

The Heart's Desire flower shop has been a key part of the Katsuyama's family for years. It carries with it a bitter legacy.  When CJ's grandfather was relocated to an internment camp during WWII, the family was forced to sell the property for next-to-nothing to the McAllisters.  After they came back, the McAllisters demanded a huge sum to reclaim it.  Others would have walked away, but for decades they worked and saved until they could buy back the property.  Katsuyamas never quit.

For CJ's grandfather and aunt, the McAllisters could never be forgiven, but CJ's mother is more pragmatic.  She shunned the family business and went into finance, ironically joining the McAllister venture capital firm, a move that threatened to split the family.

Flash forward seventeen years and now the business is not doing well. CJ's mother has negotiated a deal to sell the property back to the McAllisters.  CJ's aunt Hannah objects on principle and CJ herself sides with her aunt. The conflict reopens the old wounds, but there is no denying that the flower shop is losing money.  And while Hannah and CJ sentimentally hold fast, Mom's relentless realism is winning out.

The issue broadens when the local newspaper uncovers that old man McAllister pulled the same property trick on literally hundreds of Japanese Americans -- using racist rhetoric as a smokescreen to enrich himself by swindling them.  The money he raised in the process become the foundation for the McAllisters fortune and was used to buy the family prestige.  One of the most damning legacies of this is the fact that CJ's high school is named after the man.  Inspired by the story and driven by her personal vendetta, CJ organizes a student movement to get the school renamed, an act that threatens her Mom's career plans.

Intertwined with this is CJ's conflict with a publicity-seeking white girl named Brynn, Brynn's complicated relationship with CJ's best friend Emily, CJ's own romantic issues, and CJ's struggle to win her mother's respect.  Teen pregnancy and whether to raise the baby or have an abortion figure in prominently as well.  So, it's obviously a rather complex story to summarize

Despite the multitude of stories being told, the novel is surprisingly fluid and readable.  For the most part the various subplots fit in to the main story (although the teen pregnancy subplot is ultimately peripheral and probably could have been cut).  Sugiura has previously shown an affinity to writing about Japanese Internment and has found a creative way here to bring contemporary relevance to the topic.  The character of Brynn gives her the opportunity to discuss White Privilege effectively, albeit the issue seemed too blithely resolved.

Where Sugiura struggles is in depicting conflict and conflicting views.  In general, all of the conflicts in this book are resolved the same way -- characters spar and then meet up later, literally say "I fucked up," and then move on.  There's not much debate or grayness allowed (presumably because Sugiura doesn't see any).  It's thus a bit of a rude surprise that the ending is so bittersweet and unresolved.  In this novel the characters can all agree to live together, but the outside world is still unfair -- there's no map to resolution and Sugiura apparently can't imagine one.  That's ultimately unsatisfying.

I Wish You All the Best, by Mason Deaver

Ben decides that it is time to come clean with their parents and tell them that they are non-binary (and uses the pronoun "they").  It doesn't go well and Ben's parents literally kick them out on the streets. With few options available, Ben reaches out to Hannah, their sister (who has herself been long estranged from their family) and she takes them in.

With Hannah's help and a relocation, Ben is able to finish school and have some space to reconsider what they want.  Part of that search is a burgeoning relationship with best friend Nathan.  But being in a romance is challenging to Ben, who doesn't necessary understand how to articulate love and sexual attraction as non-binary.  From their family's abusive background, Ben's also prone to anxiety and panic attacks, all of which are aggravated by Ben's parents who struggle with understanding Ben's identity.

As a pioneering novel about non-binary teens, the book has obvious significance:  giving a voice to a group that doesn't really yet have one in YA literature.  But while it does a remarkable job at articulating issues common to young people who identify as non-binary, it largely fails as a novel.  The plot drags and meanders as it tries to cover lots of bases rather than tell a story.  It also doesn't help that Ben is not a particularly sympathetic character.  With his wide variety of issues, they come off as self-centered and insular.  That's less Ben's fault than the author's:  there's plenty of history which (if explained) could help the reader develop sympathy for Ben's struggle, but that history is stated (rather than shown), so the reader can only surmise and make assumptions.  Some discussion of Ben's identity issue prior to deciding to come out, at a minimum, would have helped.  After all, the pain of not being accepted hardly started when Ben came out.  The way the book is written, one might come to the conclusion that all Ben cares about is being addressed with the correct pronoun, but there is so much more than that going on and it is never developed.