Diana and the Island of No Return, by Aisha Saeed

Diana is fierce and brave.  She loves her home on Themyscira and is immensely proud of the work the women of the island perform guarding the entrance to the Underworld.  She begs her mother to let her learn more about fighting, but for now she is largely stuck watching the older women train.  

On the eve of an important festival, a spell is cast that puts the adults to sleep.  At around the same time, Diana and her best friend Princess Sakina discover a stowaway boy.  He has cast the spell and begs Diana and Sakina to come with him to his island in order to save his people from a demon who has taken over.  In exchange, he'll reverse the spell. It's a dirty trick, but Diana and Sakina don't see any alternative:  not only because it is the only way to wake the grownups, but also because even little Diana knows that it is her people's duty to fight evil.

And so begins the first in a series of middle grade readers for young fans of Wonder Woman.  It goes without saying that being familiar with the source material will make this a more enjoyable read.  I have not seen the recent films, but I imagine that there are plenty of Easter eggs in the story for fans.  Saeed certainly assumes we know a little about the locale and the characters.  But even so, the book on its own has several things in its favor:  it's fast paced and packed with action.  It also carries on the themes of female empowerment for which the originals are famous.  Even at twelve, Diana is no shrinking violet and makes quite a role model.  She bravely launches forth, even when the odds seem impossibly against her.  She's kind to others and loyal to friends and family.  The story is not terribly deep and my hopes that Saeed would imbue the formula with some deeper meaning are largely disappointed, but it's still a good book.

We Dream of Space, by Erin Entrada Kelly

In January 1986, Bird and her classmates are infected with space fever.  The Challenger is about to send the first teacher into space and schoolchildren across the country are studying space and the space program in preparation for the launch.  Bird's science class has split into teams of seven to match each member of the crew so the kids can be prepared to watch every step of the mission and write about it.  Most of the kids are bored, but Brid is in heaven!

Bird loves space, science, and taking things apart and drawing their innards.  She's endlessly fascinated by what makes things work.  And like she does with complicated machinery, she's dissected her family and noticed how her parents are always fighting, how her older brother Cash can't seem to find any enthusiasm for studying, and how her other brother Fitch is prone to sudden angry fits and spasms.  In sum, how her complicated dysfunctional family operates.  She'd like to feel she can control things by drawing their schematics, but when she watches her dreams literally explode in front of her, she faces a choice between giving up and change.  In doing so, she discovers unexpected allies.

A promising story with a strong and poignant ending suffers from a slow moving and poorly constructed plot.  While the book certainly made me flash back to where I was in 1986 (sophomore in college, hanging out in my dorm's kitchen when I heard the news), the story really didn't live up to its hype or its promise.  And there is a deeper frustration at how little is resolved in the story and its general downer conclusion.  There are so many things hinted at in the story, but none of them are really followed up on.

Chirp, by Kate Messner

Mia is spending the summer helping her grandmother manage a new venture growing crickets as a food source.  It's an uphill battle trying to convince people to try them, but they taste delicious and folks eventually warm to them.  Plus Mia is creative and motivated to help her grandmother's success, enlisting her friends and some fellow campers at a summer program she's in for young entrepreneurs.  

However, things keep going wrong with the equipment and with pests.  So many things, in fact, that Mia grows suspicious that someone is actively sabotaging the business.  Can Mia and her friends figure out who is causing the damage and stop them before its too late?

That would have been a straightforward story and made this middle grade reader less of an attention grabber, but Messner has a second storyline:  Mia used to be an aspiring gymnast, but then she got injured and now she just doesn't feel like doing it.  At least that is what she tells others.  In truth, she's lost her confidence and become afraid.  Something happened to her and she isn't really sure to whom she can turn to express her fears.

They are both good stories, but being unrelated they pull at each other for attention.  And given that the second is far more sensationalistic (and is basically why the book has endorsements from a collection of big name writers) it feels a exploitative, like Messner didn't feel that a detective book could sell and so threw in the heavier themes of her second topic.  I honestly think it wasn't necessary:  there's so much about Mia that is inspirational and positive that her story is a winner without any big message attached.

Either way, I enjoyed Mia and I liked her creative ideas and the way she interacted with the other kids.  There's lots of great positive energy here about following your dreams.  The ending gets a bit too perfect and rosy, but not everything works out in Mia's favor and that has lessons as well.  The fact that she is genuinely happy for the success of people other than herself though makes her a real winner in my mind.  And of course watching her seize the day and regain her confidence in the end is the pay off that brings the book to a rewarding close.

Time of Our Lives, by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Fitz is a reluctant prospective student.  It's not that he doesn't want to go to college, but rather that he knows that looking at other schools is a waste of time.  He's got the grades to attend pretty much anywhere he wants, but with his mother's failing health, he'll have to stick close to home.  Still, to make his mother happy, he's embarked on a week-long college visit tour of the northeast.

Juniper longs to go away to school.  She too has the grades and she's determined to go as far away as she can.  Being the eldest child in a large family however means that she's constantly in demand and that her family is reluctant to have her go away.  They are less-than-thrilled that she is considering schools that are not nearby and vocally unsupportive of her desire to move away.  But, in spite of her family's pressure, Juniper is set to find the school of her dreams and to do so with or without her family's help.

Fitz and Juniper cross paths in Boston at the beginning of their respective trips and then subsequently continue running into each other as they wind up visiting the same schools.  By the time they've worked their way to New York, they are basically traveling together.  Predictably enough, a romance develops, but its overshadowed by the emotional baggage that they each bring to their college search.

There are strikingly few YA books that deal with adolescent apprehensions about going away to college.  There are plenty of melancholy memories of final summers and lots of impatient longings for moving away, but the more quieter meditations on the end of childhood are surprisingly few.  And this is a surprisingly good contribution to the topic.  The characters are interesting and their well-researched roadtrip of Ivies and well-known state schools is fun and familiar to anyone who has attended such schools.  Personally, I was most drawn to the kids' apprehensions of the future, but there's plenty of other things going on here.

Moreover, the co-writing team of Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka has surprising chemistry.  Co-authored novels are inevitably battles of egos and styles.  You usually can tell who is writing what and there's usually some tension as the writers force each other into places that you can tell they don't want to go.  I didn't get that sense here.  As the authors pass the baton, there is instead a warmth, as if the other can't wait to continue what has been written so far. It makes the reading all the more joyful.

Thirty Sunsets, by Christine Hurley Deriso

Everyone is shocked that Brian, Forrest's brother, has turned down his acceptance at Vanderbilt to attend community college.  She would have never thought that her brother would throw everything away for a girlfriend, particularly one as dopey as cheerleader Olivia.  Forrest doesn't get that sort of thing.  She's yet to date anyone (or even be kissed) as she's focused on getting her education and not planning on any distractions.

Then her mother invites Olivia to join the family for a month on the beach.  Forrest is stunned.  How on earth is she going to be able to tolerate having her brother's bimbo with them for a month?  But something more is going on here and as the reveals occur, the summer becomes one for the books.

The reveals, in fact, keep coming and coming so fast that you may have trouble keeping up with the story, and that is really the problem with this book.  Based on the tired foundation of a summer beach story, Deriso does a decent job developing her characters.  Forrest and Olivia develop a charming chemistry which makes their friendship the real highlight of this book.  However, the author really struggles with the storytelling.  Not satisfied to have one big shock, she quickly follows it with a second, a third, and a fourth.  By that point, the story becomes muddled and the resolutions for each of the four dramas becomes less and less satisfactory.  To me, this is a sign that Deriso started with a great idea but couldn't figure out what to do with it.  Fumbling for resolution, she just threw up a new one and, when that didn't work, she just hit it up a notch higher.  So, rather than tell a story, we simply end up with a lot of action at the end.  It's a quick read, but unrewarding.

The List of Things That Will Not Change, by Rebecca Stead

When Bea's father announces that he and his partner Jesse are going to get married, she gives no thought to her Dad marrying another man.  She's known he was gay since her parents separated.  She's just happy that he and Jesse are happy together.  She also has little concern for the fact that he and Mom will never get back together.  That doesn't matter because her parents have promised her that there are things in this world that will not change and they have written them down (in a special green notebook in green ink!):  Mom loves her, Dad loves her, Mom and Dad still love each other (but in a different way), and so on.  With this list to give her strength, Bea knows she can face the world.

So, what is the most important part of her father's wedding plans?  Bea is going to get a sister out of the deal!  Sonia is the same age (10) as Bea and Bea knows that they are going to be great friends.  But when Sonia shows up, things don't go quite as smooth as Bea had hoped.  Sonia seems lonely and sad and doesn't want to share feelings and talk about everything the way Bea does.  For Bea, not having things go her way is hard.  When people don't act the way she expects, she gets angry and then she gets very sad.

With so many changes going on around her, it's hard to control her anger and frustration.  But controlling her feelings is what Bea learns to do.  And as two families come to together to celebrate the creation of a new family, Bea learns some lessons about how hard it is even for adults to get beyond their surprise and hurt.

This story of growth, acceptance, and love is all softly dealt by the author.  Even serious topics like homophobia and divorce are pitched in a gentle age-appropriate way for a middle grade audience.  The book is largely a string of anecdotes and recollections.  Ostensibly they lead up to the wedding and Bea's confrontation of some suppressed feelings, but it is really just catching up with Bea, hearing her stories, and sharing her feelings.

Thorn, by Intisar Khanani

Princess Alyrra has never known how to wield power in court.  Instead, she has found herself the pawn in other people's games. Her mother writes her off as useless and her brother physically abuses her at will.  She is a non-entity, a nobody, and everyone -- including herself -- knows it.  So, why has the most powerful king in the land come to Alyrra's tiny little corner to ask for her betrothal to his son, the crown prince?  She doesn't even know the prince and he, as far as she knows, knows nothing of her.  Something is going on here and neither she nor her mother can figure it out.  Alyrra's mother is anxious that things go well and that the family benefits from it.  Her decision on how to maintain control over her daughter is cruel.  Alyrra is sent to her betrothed with a companion -- her arch nemesis Valka -- who conspires against her but will do a better job at defending the family name, in her mother's opinion.

So, it was always going to be a difficult task (traveling to a foreign kingdom, becoming queen of unfamiliar people, and winning their loyalty), but it keeps getting harder.  Even before Alyrra and her party arrive at their new home, she is attacked by a sorceress who body swaps her with Valka.  Her enemy becomes her mistress, with predictable results.  Valka, now in the guise of the princess, quickly manipulates events to her favor, willfully ignorant that she is herself being played for some greater end.  Alyrra, sent in disgrace to the lowly job of goose girl, finds she is strangely at peace with her new role.  She embraces the simpler life and the ability to be free of the cruelties of court life.  But with a plot afoot and a sorceress with an unknown agenda, Alyrra is pressed involuntarily to a calling -- one that will take more bravery and strength than she ever knew she possessed.

An extremely rewarding fantasy, with a combination of a strong dramatic arc, complex characters, and a byzantine plot.  What makes it work is the character of Alyrra, who maintains a fine sense of decency and goodness while she grows from idealistically well-meaning but weak girl to become driven and strong young woman.  This is what fantasy is for, after all, showing us the core good and bad that humans can do in a world that is less fettered by mundane reality.  The climax takes it to an extreme: pitting the conflict in its starkest terms.  If you were suddenly given the opportunity to exact revenge for all the wrongs inflicted on you, would you seize the opportunity or would you voluntarily relinquish that power in the name of maintaining your decency?  And is the temptation to exact revenge in the first place a sin?

If those deep thoughts are too much for you to stomach, don't worry!  There is enough action and adventure going on here to reward a surface read.  With an internal power struggle, a family curse, political corruption, magic, crime, and deeply rooted social injustice, there is a little bit of everything for everyone in this one!

A subject matter warning.  There are several scenes of sexual (and sexualized) violence in this novel.  If rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence are triggers for you, you may want to approach this novel with caution.  None of the events are explicitly described, but they are prominent and central to the story.  The author uses them to make a strong statement against sexual violence directed at women so one may argue that the prominent place is appropriate, but some readers may prefer to avoid the book altogether on this account.

A Totally Awkward Love Story, by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison

Hannah believes that lobsters mate for life and she wonders when she'll meet her "lobster." She really starts to think she has done so when she stumbles across Sam at a party.  Awkwardly, they meet in a bathroom and therefore her friends nickname him "Toilet Boy." But sadly, fate works against them and Sam mistakenly believes that Hannah has a boyfriend and isn't interested in him.

What follows is a summer of missed opportunities and miscommunications that cause Hannah and Sam to keep not getting together.  Toilet Boy may in fact truly be Hannah's "lobster" but through the haze of young people clubbing and hooking up, the two of them never seem to be able to catch a break. 

It's a convoluted comedy of errors that shows much more about British dating customs and binge drinking than anything else.  The striking characteristic of the story is how protagonists are so terribly shallow (admittedly, they are also terribly 18!) so there's not much to bond with here.  Hannah has little self-esteem and blindly assumes that even the slightest hesitation from Sam is lack of interest.  Meanwhile, she lies and sends mixed signals purposely sabotaging the relationship. Sam is only marginally more sympathetic, lashing out easily and he doesn't show much fidelity or common sense.

The story, co-written by two former sweethearts who met when they were 18, is "inspired" by their own relationship but it does the authors no kindness.  Perhaps the story is meant to be funny, but it is as "awkward" as its title promises it to be.  The appeal of the story is its realism, but real is neither heroic nor interesting and that makes this novel a hard sell.  In sum, two immature young people who probably are not ready for a serious relationship try to have one.  Extra bonus final chapter gives us a TMI account of the consummation of the relationship.

When Elephants Fly, by Nancy Richardson Fischer

Lily is haunted by her family's history of mental illness.  When she was seven, her mother's schizophrenia drove her to nearly kill her daughter and to eventually kill herself.  Schizophrenia runs in families and.  Ever since then, Lily has been obsessed with the idea that schizophrenia usually manifests itself between the ages of 18 and 30.  She has worked out a "twelve year plan" with her best friend Sawyer.  All she has to do, she believes, is get through those twelve years without stress or trauma and she will be clear. 

Her eighteenth year has been going well so far.  She has an internship at the local newspaper.  Her assignment covering the birth of a baby elephant in captivity at the local zoo seems harmless enough. But when Lily witnesses the mother elephant turning hostile and attacking the baby, Lily is reminded of her own trauma. Rather than drive her away, the experience makes her resolute about defending the baby.  Lily gets drawn into a legal struggle to rescue the baby elephant that eventually sends her on a desperate flight to save it and definitely does not fit in her twelve year plan!

An ambitious and mostly successful coming of age story.  A number of great ideas (like Lily's constant questioning of her sanity, potential romantic sparks with Sawyer and co-conspirator Otis, and finally her reconciliation with her father)  never quite go anywhere, but the story is really about the baby elephant and Lily's bond with it.  The writer has an obsession with gross bodily fluids, but that serves to impart a lot of information about what it takes to keep an abandoned infant elephants alive in captivity.  And Fischer takes both zoos and circuses to task for their treatment of wild animals.  In sum, the adventure is satisfyingly dramatic and keeps you engaged.  It is a decent read, but falls short of living up to its ambitions of being a multithreaded psychological drama.

Amal Unbound, by Aisha Saeed

Twelve year-old Amal has big dreams for a schoolgirl in rural Pakistan:  she wants to become a school teacher.  But fate seems to have other plans.  First, as the eldest daughter, she has to spend considerable time at home helping out.  And while her mother is recovering from a difficult childbirth, she is unable to attend school at all.  

Then a much bigger tragedy strikes.  For the crime of talking back to the local landlord and refusing to let him have her pomegranate, she is taken from her family and forced to become then man's indentured servant, effectively ending any of Amal's dreams.  But as desperate as Amal's situation seems, she is determined to fight back.

A simply-written but powerful story of one girl's fight for freedom and respect is both full of joyous local color and insightful in explaining how injustices like the one described can occur.  As middle grade reading is concerned, this one packs considerable punch.  The plain writing in no way takes away from its powerful message which simultaneously attacks misogyny, economic injustice, and slavery.

Dragon Slippers, by Jessica Day George

As everyone knows, knights like to rescue maidens from nasty dragons.  And when you're an orphan and your aunt is desperate to get rid of you (and perhaps marry you off to an adventuresome knight in the process), becoming dragon bait is something of a career decision.  But Creel is no ordinary maiden and the dragon (whose name is Theodorus) is no ordinary dragon.  Theodorus would honestly rather not be bothered by pesky knights and has little use for maids.  And, no, unlike all the dragons you've heard spoken of, he doesn't horde gold -- his passion is shoes!

And nowhere else have you ever seen the collection of shoes that this dragon has!  Creel is astounded and quickly reasons that a nice pair of shoes might be the capital she needs to make it on her own in the world.  If she can't be rescued by a prince then maybe relocating to the capital and starting up a dressmaking business would be more practical.  With some negotiation she convinces Theodorus that, given a nice pair of shoes of her choice, she would be happy to leave him in peace.  He agrees but regrets the deal when he sees which pair she has chosen.

And thus a series of events are triggered that will lead to two kingdoms coming to war, the revisiting and settling of ancient scores between humans and dragons, and a young woman finding her place in the world.

The first of a beloved series, this entertaining and well-written middle grade fantasy novel combines a resourceful heroine, some good friends, a love and respect for animals, and just the right amount of action to create a great page-turner.  There are no great moral lessons, beyond the basic lesson that sometimes one has to make brave and bold choices to make one's dreams come true.  It's a fun way to spend a Saturday!

Mañanaland, by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Max loves fairy tales and the stories that Buelo tells about a dragon and the abandoned tower near their village are his favorite.  Max loves soccer and, along with his friends, hopes to be picked by a trainer and get to attend a clinic, leading to a professional career.  But most of all, Max wonders why his mother left and where she went.  Neither Papa nor Buelo will tell him anything about it.  But they know something!  Max can tell that there are secrets in his family.

Then one night a priest comes to their home with a request and Max suddenly knows what he must do.  Embarking on a dangerous mission he realizes he's been preparing for his entire short life, he finally comes to understand his family's secret and his family's debt to society.  Along the way, he also realizes that there are things far more important than soccer and far more fantastic than fairy tales.

A sweet novel that continues Ryan's amazing track record for producing culturally rich and authentic Hispanic novels.  Mixing a bit of magic, a lot of local flavor, and appealing characters, the book is a rewarding read.  This one bites off a bit more than Ryan's previous books, introducing the mature themes of political asylum-seeking and immigration in a gentle age-appropriate way.  This never becomes preachy but instead addresses the way political unrest and involuntary migration have affected Central American communities as much as fútbol.  The beautiful simple writing, cultural depth, and ultimate message about doing good turns for each other makes this short novel a winner!

The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill

Fear of the evil witch in the woods who would destroy them, drives the inhabitants of the Protectorate to sacrifice a baby each year.  The parents grieve their loss, but no one questions and no one resists.  That is, until the year that the mother refuses to cooperate and is thrown into the tower as a prisoner and goes mad.  But this seems only a minor hiccup in the process of law and order as, like all the other children, her daughter is left in the woods to be devoured by the witch.

But Xan, who lives peacefully in the woods with a verse-loving bog monster named Glerk and a tiny dragon with a big heart named Fyrian, doesn't eat the abandoned babies.  Instead, she rescues them and carries through through the woods to cities on the other side, finding suitable homes for the children.  This time, however, Xan accidentally feeds the baby girl moonlight, imbuing her with magic.  Such a baby can't be handed over to mere mortals and must remain with Xan, who names her Luna.

Luna, a magicked baby with omnipotent powers is a danger to herself and others.  When Xan finds that she cannot control Luna and keep her safe, she makes a fateful decision to suppress Luna's powers until her thirteenth birthday when everything must burst forth of its own accord and Luna will discover her full potential.  That potentially heavy handed way to approach puberty and coming of age is handled in a restrained fashion, in a story which has much more to say about the power of kindness and love and its ability to overcome grief and sadness.

For the real story here is about the Protectorate and its reliance upon fear and the importance it puts on the oppressive ritual of annual sacrifice.  About how a community that willingly submits to such rituals, reinforced by myths that are never questioned, creates a false sense of security and ossifies a power structure.  While Luna, her development to adulthood, and her magic have a role to play in this story, it is really the people of her home (and in particular the mothers who have sacrificed their children) that ultimately become the tipping point that changes the status quo and literally destroys the barriers that have fogged people's views.

The politics implicit in this less subtle and more important message are tragically likely to have timeless appeal.  The complexity of the story probably won't turn this into a classic anytime soon, but it did win the 2017 Newberry which will guarantee it some longevity on public library bookshelves.  It's entertaining and heartfelt, but restrained when it might be exuberant.  Whether its Luna's apprehension of adolescence, playing down the antics of Glerk and Flyrian (who would in any Disney adaptation become comic sidekicks), or having a male protagonist who turns out to be neither romantic interest nor hero, Barnhill surprises not by what she brings to the story, but what she doesn't do with it.  Instead, her focus lies on the less commented parts of a fairy tale (the power of helpers, the regrets of the elderly, and the cowardice of power) that make her story unique and memorable.

Again Again, by e. Lockhart

Adelaide is spending the summer walking dogs and trying to finish a set design project to fulfill an incomplete.  Otherwise, she stands to fail out of Alabaster, the private school which she attends.  When she transferred in she found the work much harder than at her old school, but the real reason she failed most of her classes was that she didn't do any of the work, choosing instead to spend her time with Mikey Double L, her boyfriend (who has now -- at the start of the summer -- dumped her).  But it quickly becomes apparent that there are deeper issues at play than teen romance.

Adelaide's brother Toby is an addict, stealing from his family and hurting them.  His failed stints in rehab have largely bankrupted them and is the reason that Adelaide changed schools.  Adelaide, unable to admit that Toby's struggle affects her, hides away in a world of what ifs, which is what the novel becomes.

What if you could play out every action and choose amongst them based on the different outcomes?  In a way, that is what this novel does by taking us through a "multiverse" where periodically the narrative splits into two or three parallel stories.  We walk through a scene of a page or two and then back up and do the scene all over again with a different outcome, and then once more.  Each time, Lockhart then picks one of them and moves forward.  The gimmick, combined with a less intuitive habit of switching into verse at random moments, makes for a tricky read.  It's an interesting writer's exercise (creating a scene and then rewriting it with a different outcome) and the sort of thing that writers do in their work.  The difference is that writers usually pick one and throw out the others.  The intention of including the different variants in the novel is supposed to give us more insight in the characters.  It does this, but it forces you to stop and re-read passages and compare variants, disrupting the pace of the story.  

As with her more recent novels, I found the characters uninteresting, elitist, distant, and painfully self-absorbed.  There's only superficial interaction between characters and no interest in exploring the world around them. Other readers compare this book with her more recent novels We Were Liars and The Disreputable History of Frankie-Banks (both of which I despised for pretty much the same reason of having unbearable characters) but the closest relative of this book is really Mister Posterior and the Genius Child, written under Lockhart's real name (Emily Jenkins) in 2002 and as suspiciously autobiographical as this one is.  Both are written in the same stilted passive narration and both describe a privileged community, seemingly in a vacuum from popular culture or modern technology.

Coo, by Kaela Noel

Raised from birth by pigeons, Coo is only indirectly aware of humans and how they live.  They don't live in dovecotes and they don't scavenge for food like her flock does, they don't fly, and they talk strangely.  Aside from a curiosity about humans and that pesky lack of ability to fly, Coo is perfectly happy living with her flock.  But when a retired postal worker named Tully notices that there is a girl living with the birds, Coo's life starts to change.

Tully rescues Coo and takes Coo back to her apartment.  There are certainly advantages like running water, heat, and a plentiful supply of food, but for Coo, the ways of humans are strange and scary. There are many strange things like money, police, and rules that prevent Coo from staying with Tully forever.  Most scary of all, someone in the city is trying to poison the pigeons. Coo is determined to use her position as both a human and a member of a flock to save the birds.

A curious middle reader. Noel struggles a lot to explain away the more implausible parts of the story (like how a child could survive for years being cared for by birds) and that can grow distracting.  But setting skepticism aside, there is an enjoyable story here about Coo's discovery of how she fits within a community (whether it is pigeon or human).  Coo wants to be independent and struggles against restrictions on her independence, but gradually she learns to accept help from others and to understand that even if people and pigeons seem largely selfish, there is an instinct to look out for each other to solve our shared challenges.

Every Moment After, by Joseph Moldover

Eleven years ago, a shooter came to school and left seventeen first graders and their principal dead.  Now, it's time for the survivors to graduate and for the town to say their final goodbyes.  Many families have moved on but enough of the living remain to turn this graduation ceremony into a memorial.  The news will pick up this grim milestone as just another story, but for the survivors there is no real moving on.

This novel picks up at that commencement exercise and traces two young men who survived the incident and how they spend the summer after school:  Cole (who became a poster child, with the picture of the police chief carrying his body out of the school as the primary image of the tragedy) and Matt (who survived by luck, being home sick that day).  For them, this final summer is also their goodbye and time to actually move on.  It finds them revisiting things that they have dwelled on for the past eleven years, but now finally have to let go.

I liked the idea of doing a survivor story like this.  Few books on the subject have taken such a long-term view and it is a meaty subject in need of a proper treatment.  The school at which I spent my freshman year (Simon's Rock) went through a shooting incident itself, so I know something firsthand about the subject.  On that basis, I felt that Moldover handled the combination of guilt, fear, and anger particularly well.  And he explores the subject from so many different angles:  local townspeople, first responders, civic leaders, as well as the children and their families.  This is done so seamlessly that you never really become aware of how thorough Moldover's sociological exercise is until you put down the book and reflect back on what you've learned.

I also liked the novelty of an authentic boy's YA book.  The vast majority of YA is written for girls and the few writers attempt a straight masculine perspective.  When you do find a book about boys, it usually wallows in gross-out and horn-dog stereotypes.  Deep, introspective novels about adolescent males are very very rare.  Thus, it is rewarding to find that Cole and Matt are emotionally complicated and authentic male protagonists.  I related to them in a way that I rarely relate to YA characters.

With all that said, it may surprise that I don't actually recommend the book.  I found the story a hard slog and the ending mystifying and frustrating.  There are amazing moment of brilliance in here, with much of it coming from the adult supporting characters, but the boys themselves never seem to pull themselves up or grow in the way I needed them to do.  That made the ending ultimately unfulfilling.

Finding Mr. Better-Than-You, by Shani Petroff

Camryn gets a rude shock at the start of her senior year when her guidance counselor informs her that her lack of extracurriculars is probably going to doom her chances of getting into Columbia.  This is followed by a very public dumping by her boyfriend Marc at a local hangout.  All of which leads to a lot of re-examination of priorities as Cam realizes that she has defined much of her life by trying to be there for Marc, instead of for herself.  While this reflection has some positive effect and sends her out to try trying new things, including joining yearbook, writing for the school paper, and becoming a school mascot, too much of the old ways persist.

Cam is a fan of rom-coms and believes that there is a "Mr. Right" out there for her.  At first, she's convinced that it's still Marc and so she tries dating friends of his to make him jealous.  When that doesn't work she tries finding a new boyfriend on her own, and eventually her friends try to set her up.  None of it really works and she eventually figures out that she is just trying too hard.  Through it all, her friends are loyally there for her and by the end of the novel she finds that Mr. Right actually isn't anywhere nearby, but since this is high school anyway, maybe it's just fine to stick to having friends.

Why this takes her an entire novel to come to terms with is anyone's guess.  She's pretty bright and intelligent and keeps on reminding herself that she has great friends, but her stubborn determination to find a boyfriend at least gives us a story to track, even if it doesn't always make much sense.  None of it is particularly dramatic and the story really doesn't have much of a point to make beyond the fact that high school dating pool is pretty shallow,.  The book is readable and mostly enjoyable, like the rom-coms that Camryn enjoys so much.

Girl Gone Viral, by Arvin Ahmadi

Opal Hopper is a senior at an elite computer science-centered high school in Palo Alto.  But her life, like that of most young people, centers around WAVE, a world-wide virtual reality platform, created by Palo Alto Labs (which also happens to bankroll her school).  Her presence in VR takes on a new meaning when she and her friends hack into PAL's data stream and start crunching through users' biometric monitoring (data that PAL has taken from users on WAVE).  Realizing how much power resides in such personal data, they turn that data around back on the users.  The epiphany that this unleashes on WAVE causes Opal and her channel to go viral, launching them into an elite world with millions of followers.  It also brings them to the attention of the greedy and the powerful, from the wealth of venture capitalists to the subversive political wrath of the emerging Luddites.

Opal, however, is not interested in influence and power.  She wants answers.  Seven years ago, her father, a brilliant computer scientist, went missing.  And no one will tell her the truth about his disappearance.  But one of the last people to see him was Howie Mendelsohn, the founder of PAL.  Mendelsohn is a hermit and won't meet with just anyone, but if Opal becomes the biggest thing on WAVE, there is no way that she'll be refused an audience.

Original and innovative, the book is tricky and tedious to read but rewards the effort with striking observations about technology.  I found myself alternately annoyed by the technological gibberish that fills Ahmadi's prose and astounded by his insights on tech.  With the reactionary "Luddites" serving as a surrogate from Trumpism, Ahmadi sends us into a deep exploration of how tech brings us both a better society and simultaneously weakens us for a populist backlash.  For Opal and her peers, there is no reasonable alternative than to move forward into a world of virtual reality, but her elders (and many readers) will achingly find themselves hanging on to some elements of the Luddite manifesto.  It's very subversive and the ideas raised will stick with you a long long time.

Good ideas do not however an excellent novel make.  Ahmadi is trying to be clever and he's also trying to describe a world that does not have a physical existence and which does not behave in the way we expect it to.  And, while it is easy to get swept away by the magic, he also has a human story (the final human touch, as he'll put it later, that must always be in charge) to tell.  That's a lot to bite off and it makes the book hard to create and (wherever he falls down) hard to digest.  There are numerous places where the story doesn't track, where action scenes and/or dialog make no sense, and where the logic of the story simply collapses.  In many ways, that is part of the experience, but for readers like me that search for human connections and human truths (and are more than a bit Luddite!) this isn't a story we enjoy.  The end result is a mediocre novel with terribly important things to say about the future.

The Silence Between Us, by Alison Gervais

Moving to Colorado poses challenges for Maya and her little brother.  Maya has been deaf since a case of meningitis a few years ago, but she's felt protected by being in a school for the deaf.  With the move to Colorado, she's forced to attend regular school, using an interpreter in her classes.  It's hard work lip reading and following her interpreter's signing, and it's painful to be an object of stares and gossip from her peers.  But what gets at Maya the most is the judgment that she senses that the hearing folks have about her condition.  They seem only capable of pity and she sees that they assume that she is miserable being deaf.  But nothing could be further from the truth:  she likes being who she is.

Her year presents other challenges:  her little brother is sick, she faces discrimination from peers/teachers/employers, and fights pressure from various sources that want her to get a cochineal implant so she won't have to "endure" being deaf.  Meanwhile, she surprises herself by falling in love with Beau.  Beau is a bright and intelligent boy who teaches himself sign language so he can talk with her and has plans to go to Yale, but has dreams of his own that he doesn't dare reveal.

It's a very busy little story, full of ideas, but Gervais really struggles to tie them together and resolve them.  The strength of the book is its glimpse inside of the character of a deaf teenager.  Gervais works hard to show what communicating with a mix of lip reading, signing, and speech is like.  The novel also touches on a variety of important issues for deaf people ranging from the history of disability rights to discrimination, and pays special attention to the debate over children getting implants.  But as a story, nothing really comes together and I felt very little emotional connection with the characters or sensed much of one between them.  Gervais has an episodic format, focusing on her challenges, but that doesn't give us much room to develop a character and doesn't create an organic flow.  A major casualty is the underdeveloped romance with Beau.  Subplots (like Beau's conflict with his father or Maya's brother's health issues) are just left to lay there.

It's My Life, by Stacie Ramey

Jenna's always been a fighter.  Born with cerebral palsy, she's been through countless treatments and surgeries, and endured the challenges of crutches and wheelchairs.  She's worked hard because she's felt that her condition was simply bad luck.  When she uncovers the fact that she was the subject of a medical malpractice suit against her obstetrician, she comes to realize that it was her doctor's fault that made her this way.  Angry at not ever being told the truth, she gives up on her studying and starts to demand a voice in her own treatment.  And when her parents refuse to consent to the latter, she sues them for medical emancipation.

At the same time, Julian, a boy that Jenna once knew from years ago, has moved back into the area.  He's lost much of his confidence but none of his charm, and Jenna reaches out to him, rekindling memories.  But afraid of being rejected, she sends him anonymous.  These develop into mutual affection.  But now Jenna is afraid that if she reveals herself to him as the correspondent that he'll reject her because she is crippled.  Eventually, of course, all must be revealed.

Great characters, including a surprisingly strong finish from Jenna's parents, coupled with a lot of growth from Jenna makes this a moving story.  But I still found it a hard slog because of the uneven pacing and storytelling.  Important details are easy to miss in a story that frequently seems to drift.  Key plot points are poorly explained, leaving mysteries that the reader has to work hard to figure out.  It doesn't help that the two separate stories don't overlap and never come together.

Me, Him, Them, and It, by Caela Carter

Evelyn ("me") is pretty surprised when she finds herself pregnant.  She'd only let Todd ("him") have unprotected sex a couple of times! She was getting a prescription for the Pill when they found out it was too late.  Telling her estranged parents ("them") about it is incredibly difficult, but she'e eventually going to have to find a way to do so.  In the end the baby ("it") is coming, whether she's ready for it or not.  And for the most part, she's definitely not ready!

Evelyn is a very difficult character to get into.  Reviewers have compared her to Juno (from the eponymous indie film), but I think of her as more like Cher (from Clueless -- or Emma, Cher's model).  She's lost and confused but also maddeningly stubborn and difficult to like.  She sees everything negatively.  She hates everyone (including herself).  Her best trait is her steadfast refusal to make decisions.

Some of these flaws are understandable.  She has emotionally cold parents and no role-model for empathy, but she's intelligent and insightful.  So her inability to overcome those barriers (and yes, she never overcomes them) is off-putting.  It's also understandable that the decisions she needs to make would be hard for any adolescent, but plenty of them do make the decisions, so Evelyn's refusal to even try is hard to sympathize with.  But it's realistic.

So, I'm left with a conundrum:  the novel's well written with a complex protagonist, well-drawn supporting characters, and (with the exception of some minor rushing of the story at the end) decent storytelling, but it's not a fun read.  I didn't like Evelyn but I found her authentic enough to care about her and that's a strong mark in this book's favor.  Ultimately, I didn't find it a redeeming story, but I learned things from it.  I think few authors have done as good of a job at getting inside the head of a pregnant adolescent girl before and Carter does an amazing job.  In Evelyn's case, it's not a pleasant place to visit.

Lucky Caller, by Emma Mills

When Nina signs up for an elective in radio broadcasting in her senior year, she finds herself stuck with a bunch of misfits and an old friend, Jamie.  She and Jamie haven't talked much since an unfortunate kissing dare back in middle school, despite the fact that they live in the same apartment building.  But now that they are working together, the opportunity arises for a lot of old baggage and forgotten feelings to  reemerge.

At the same time, the radio show causes Nina to reconnect with her estranged father.  A local celebrity when he was a DJ in the area (before moving out West and becoming a major star), Nina talks him into appearing on their radio show as an attempt to boost their ratings and improve their grade.  But when a rumor starts up that the upcoming "surprise guest" on their show is actually an underground musical recluse named Tyler Blight, the event blows up into a major event.  Faced with disappointment from rabid fans who are planning to attend the broadcast of the interview, Nina and her team have to figure out a way to manage the event.  But when Nina's Dad bails out and fails to show, an unexpected angel saves the day.

A bit of a messy plot (including a romance that never really clicks and a family reunion that peters out), Lucky Caller is rescued by an ending which is as heart warming as it is completely ridiculous.  Surprisingly, none of the loose ends really start to bother you until you have finished the book.  It's a feel good story with lots of good ideas, most of which never quite gel or come together, but it remains enjoyable throughout.

Orpheus Girl, by Brynne Rebele-Henry

Living in her small conservative town is dangerous for sixteen year-old Raya and her lover Sarah.  They've seen how the town deals with other kids who come out as homosexuals, but they feel powerless to avoid the certain outcome.  While they try to keep their relationship a secret, they are eventually found out and sent away to a remote conversion camp:  to be made un-gay.

The rest of this short book outlines the horrifying torture that Raya, Sarah, and other teens undergo in misguided attempts to "cure" their sexual orientation.  The author tries to give the story some weight by drawing analogies to Grecian myths, but these are fairly subtle and likely to be overlooked.  The storytelling is anything but and comes with a content warning, but compared to similar YA novels, I wouldn't consider this story particularly triggering, even if it is certainly not a pleasant read.

More fundamentally, the story is thin.  Raya and her background as a closet lesbian in her small town is an interesting story.  Similarly interesting is Char, a "cured" lesbian who now works at the camp administering electroshock therapy.  But neither they nor the other characters are all that well developed.  The book has shock value, but without much character development this is largely senseless.  More character study could have added gravitas to what is just pretty words about ugly things.  For a better treatment of the same subject matter, see The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

Three Things I Know Are True, by Betty Culley

Clay and Liv always enjoyed playing Three Things down by the river.  The rules are simple:  one person provides the subject and other has to respond with three facts about that subject.  The only restriction is that all three of those things have to be true.

Truth used to be easy, but it's grown considerably harder since Liv's brother Jonah was injured while Jonah and Clay were fooling around with a gun that belonged to Clay's father.  Now Jonah lies comatose, hooked up to numerous machines (his new "friends" thinks Liv and she gives them all names) and tended by home nurses around the clock.  While it was Jonah who basically shot himself, the gun was left out unattended and Liv's mother is thus suing Clay's father for Jonah's care.  For Liv who misses having Clay around and for Clay who misses his best friend, it is hard to know where loyalties should lay.  Culley's verse novel explores these ambiguities and how one moves on from such a tragedy.

Novels in verse, as I always warn, can be very good, but they are frequently bad.  This one does not stand out.  The poetry is rarely interesting in and of itself, neither in structure nor in content.  Culley simply doesn't have much to say about the tragic set-up that she's created.  There's some attempts at speaking about the river that flows by their home.  The Three Things game comes up as a repeating motif.  But no great drama comes brings the story to a climax and in the end the characters peter out in their own ways, none of them learning much in the process.  The verse in the end mostly serves as a way to take a fairly thin story and stretch it out into over 400 pages.

The Girl Who Speaks Bear, by Sophie Anderson

Discovered in the woods when she was a baby, Yanka has never quite felt like she fit in her village.  For one thing, she's so much stronger than the other children.  Her Mamochka watches her closely and seems overly protective, keeping Yanka as far away from the forest as she can.

One day, after she's turned twelve, Yanka wakes to find that her legs have turned into those of a bear.  Afraid of what the villagers will think of her transformation, she flees into the woods.  As she does so, she is reminded of a story that a woodsman named Anatoly told her about a girl whose family were cursed with living their lives as bears.  In fact, as she ventures in deeper, she begins to realize that a whole series of fairy tales she has heard over the years address her current predicament.  Anatoly the woodsman wasn't just telling her stories, he was trying to tell her about her own life.

The stories, which are delightful in their own right, are interspersed throughout Yanka's quest -- a trek that will include defeating a dragon, saving a magic tree, and eventually risking everything to save her village from a raging forest fire.  Each fairy tale, while a digression, serve as an oracle of what is to come,  in an ambitious attempt to demonstrate the role of fairy tale and myth in culture.

While this novel is more ambitious, I found Anderson's first novel (The House with Chicken Feet) more whimsical and fun.  Both books borrow creatively from Russian folk tale, but this second time around there is a lot more ground to cover and a plot which is more complicated and oft times confusing.  The endless feats that Yanka must confront and overcome become exhausting and one wonders if Anderson could have trimmed it down.  It certainly feels, in all that complexity, that the magical simplicity of a fairy tale is basically lost.

The Mozart Girl, by Barbara Nickel

Nannerl Mozart is talented and creative, but when your little brother is the toast of Europe, you will find yourself in the shadows!  And not so much for the talent that he obviously possessed, but for being the boy.  For no matter how skilled and hard-working Nannerl is, she'll never be allowed to become a professional musician.  Her efforts will always be treated as a fancy and considered a gimmick.  Nonetheless, she is determined that none of that will stop her from her dreams.  And this Christmas, when she and her brother are performing in Versailles for the King and Queen of France, Nannerl intends to unveil nothing less than a full symphony that she's written!

A modest and enjoyable middle grade historical novel about a little known piece of musical and women's history.  Some of the adventures may strike the reader as implausible, but Nickel does a remarkable job of avoiding anachronistic thoughts and feelings, while still making Nannerl instantly relatable (especially for anyone who's experienced sibling jealousy).  The result is a heroine who is charming and inspirational, as she seizes the day and pursues her dreams.  The book ends with historical notes, a chronology, and a selected bibliography that will fulfill any wishes for readers who want to learn more about Wolfgang's older sister.

Don't Read the Comments, by Eric Smith

Divya is a hot online gaming sensation.  Her live feeds are followed by thousands, playing a game called Reclaim the Sun.  She has fans and endorsements and she makes a modest income from her playing which she uses to help pay for her mother's continuing education.  But she's also picked up some enemies, particularly among the gamer bro community who see her as an unwelcome trespasser. Some of them are your usual trolls (posting their bile whenever they can, but largely all talk and no action).  Divya has her strategy for dealing with their misogynist and racist comments:  she simply doesn't read what they have to say.  That's all fine and good until a group appears on her gaming session and attacks her and her friends.  The group, which calls itself Vox Populi then goes much further, turning to physical attacks in the real world.

The other half of the story is Aaron, who writes scripts for games and is part of a team that is on the verge of their first release.  He dreams of making it big and getting rich, but he can't even get the person running the project to pay him.  His mother, suspicious that he's being taken advantage of, discourages from spending his time writing.  Aaron, to escape from it all, plays on Reclaim the Sun, where he happens to stumble across Divya.  And in the midst of their two troubles, they find a common bond in their gaming.

Smith has a lot of knowledge about online gaming, using the jargon and understanding the dynamics of multi-player games in a way that shows that he's a fan.  I'm an outsider, so I'll defer to someone else about how authentic the story is, but nothing glaring shouts out.

I can speak more confidently about the storytelling.  Of the two main plot lines, Divya's is really the more interesting and meaningful.  Aaron, who struggles with standing up for himself and winning the respect of his parents is in familiar (and boring) YA territory.  Any spark of romance between Aaron and Divya is undeveloped and not terribly interesting, so we can nix the romantic angle.  That leaves us with Divya facing off against the misogyny in the gaming community, which I found interesting,having heard a little about this in the news.  The rest felt distracting.

We certainly could have used less distraction, because as entertaining as this book is, so much of the story never really gels.  Consider the long list of ideas that get introduced and just sit out there like unexplored worlds:  Divya's fan club, her relationship with her BFF Rebekah, Rebekah's own troubles with men, Divya's relationship with her mother (and that doesn't even get us near any of Aaron's more numerous loose ends).  It is a sloppy story, but that won't distract you from enjoying it, because even a poorly plotted story can be successful with some pretty things to watch and a lot of well-paced action -- sort of like playing a couple rounds of games.

Every Reason We Shouldn't, by Sara Fujimura

When Olivia crashed and burned in her last skating competition, it seemed that her dream of heading to the Olympics was basically dead. She would never get to reach the heights of her world famous Olympian parents, but instead simply be stuck in Phoenix helping out at her family's struggling ice skating rink.  Still, not everything about the change is bad.  No longer pursuing professional skating opens up the chance to be a normal teenager, attend regular school, and start exploring her other dreams.  And there are definitely downsides to a career in skating as she can see as her mother struggles with physical damage from her years in the limelight and her father is stuck out on a grueling tour with Olympians on Ice in order to pay the bills.

Then a young speedskater named Jonah shows up.  He and his family have relocated to Phoenix and he needs a place to practice for his Olympic bid.  He brings much-needed money to pay for his rink time, but he also reignites Olivia's interest in skating.  Chemistry builds between them, but their dreams are leading them in different directions.  Meanwhile, Olivia's mother is taking a turn for the worse and she needs expensive medical treatment that they cannot afford, unless they sell the rink, leaving Olivia without her home base.

A satisfactory romance and athletic adventure, but the storytelling slips off the rails too often for my tastes with muddled endings and incomplete idea.  Some of the key plot points that never quite get finished explored include Olivia's biracial background and the possibility of Olivia and Jonah skating together.  These are not casually mentioned ideas.  They are actually built up steadily through the story, but then get tossed aside and forgotten.  Climactic moments in this book tend to be confusing to track (I did a lot of re-reading).  Action just isn't Fujimura's strength.  That's a problem.  No matter how good the characters are, if the story doesn't deliver, they are basically orphaned, and that is what happened here.

Furious Thing, by Jenny Downham

Lexi has a fiery temper, is quick to verbally lash out when she feels attacked, and prone to violence.  Her peers and the adults around her can't make sense of it.  Little things seem to set her off. Her reactions are entirely out of proportion.  Her mother and stepfather-to-be fret and worry about what to do with her.  He thinks it might be time to look into medication or institutionalization.  And for the first hundred pages or so, the reader is pretty much in agreement:  Lexi's about as unsympathetic a protagonist as one could dream up.  I honestly was about to toss the book.

But then the veneer starts to crack and the reasons for Lexi's seemingly inexplicable behavior become -- shockingly -- clear.  Her family is deliriously dysfunctional.  Her mother is obsessed with pleasing her fiancee, a man who turns out to be a cruelly abusive control freak.  He gaslights the entire family and drives away anyone who has the strength to leave (including her first wife and his son).  For those who don't have the strength like her mother and her half-sister, Lexi stays around to defend them by "becoming the monster"-- turning violent as a way of redirecting his abuse towards her.

Lexi gets described midway through the book as a "survivor," but she's much more than that: a total badass, proto-mama bear, and general monster.  Lexi would describe life as a fairy tale, but she would mean that is the sense that it is a story in which you stuff witches in ovens and burn them alive.  She's a tough and brave character, but she's also achingly weak and lonely.  Ultimately, she's inspirational, working her way from victimhood to angry rage to choosing to cultivate love instead of hate.  And finally, to finding her voice and understanding that love isn't something we earn.  It's something we simply deserve. Because the writing is so good, I'll try tempting you to do so the same by giving away that things sort of work out in the end, so you can at least see Lexi pull herself out of her trap.  But you won't come out feeling that good about grownups.

Unpleasant characters and a gripping story line make this a novel you hate reading but don't quite manage to put down (unless you're strong enough to just walk away).  I'm not that strong, so I was there to the bitter end. This is an angry book (written by an author who wants us to be angry as well).  If you like a book to really piss you off, then this is an excellent read.

What I Carry, by Jennifer Longo

Muir has learned from seventeen years in foster care how to survive:  travel light and don't make friends.  That way it will all go easier when it's time to go.  Whenever things have gotten tough or they have gotten too good, she's known it was time to go.  Now, within a year of aging out of the system, she's almost out!

Being free is a mixed blessing. She'll also be without support and without a distinct plan.  But that's OK.  She'll figure out a way to manage -- she always has.

Aging out gracefully and starting anew, however, is thrown awry in her final placement.  She's been sent to an island and placed with a woman who is herself about to retire from fostering kids.  Muir, who has tried so hard to form no connections, finds herself drawing closer to her foster mother, forming bonds with two kids (Kira and Sean), and even becoming attached to the family dog.  No matter what Muir may intend, it would seem that one cannot always travel light.

A pleasing story about foster care that hits all the right notes. Longo has made some effort to avoid the usual tropes about violence and sexual abuse stories in foster care, and instead pulled up lots of unique anecdotes from foster children she's interviewed.  It gives Muir an intriguing backstory to share through the novel.  The ending is intentionally very happy (although leave it to Muir to try to sabotage it all the way up to the end) but avoids getting too weepy, retaining a modicum of authenticity and faithfulness to the characters.  That's challenging and the only real blemish on the story is a degree of repetitiveness that sets in as Longo struggles to get everything right.

Full Disclosure, by Camryn Garrett

After being essentially driven out of her old school, Simone is starting over again at a new one.  She's gotten to be the student director of her school's production of Rent and she's fallen for the very cute Miles.  But she's haunted by the truth she can't run away from:  she's HIV positive (and has been since birth).  And while this sensitive fact about her ought to remain private, she knows that she needs to come clean to Miles and to others she is close to.  Someone, however, is trying to beat her to it and leaving her anonymous messages threatening to out her if she doesn't stop dating Miles.  Determined to fight back, Simone risks everything to stand up and retain her life.

Garrett's debut novel shows a writer of great promise.  Simone is a complex protagonist: a mixed-race bi-curious young woman who is open about her feelings and her needs.  Her relationship with her two dads is something of a revelation in its closeness and mutual respect.  And pretty much all of the characters in this diverse and richly drawn story are interesting and unique.  Unfortunately, the story has serious execution problems:  from its clunky extortion plot to its lack of focus on its own plot points, this can be a maddening read.  Really interesting characters stumbling through a poorly developed script makes me hope for better on her next outing (and leaves me looking forward to checking out that novel).

I Know You Remember, by Jennifer Donaldson

Three years ago, Ruthie and Zahra were close friends, hanging out at a fort they created at an abandoned neighborhood playground, co-writing their own fantasy stories.  But when Ruthie's mother and father split up and Mom took Ruthie with her from Anchorage to Portland, the girls drifted apart.

Now, Ruthie's mother has died and Ruthie is returning to Anchorage.  She can't wait to catch up with her old friend.  But when she gets back, she finds out that Zahra has gone missing.  A few nights before, at a party where Zahra and her boyfriend Ben had a big blow-out fight, was the last time anyone's seen Zahra.  Like everyone else, Ruthie is eager to find her friend and she dives into the search effort.  But as Ruthie gets to know Zahra's new friends, she finds a lot has changed in the past three years and that maybe she doesn't know her old friend all that well anymore.

The review I thought I was going to write when I was reading this book was overshadowed by a large twist in the last forty pages of the book, when the story switches narrators and point of view.  Obviously, I don't want to spoil the ending, but it's quite jarring and a lot of the story that is built up gets tossed aside and abandoned.  Not just stories, but entire characters are discarded as the entire purpose of the story is re-formulated in front of our eyes.  I have done a bit of soul searching about this, thinking about whether I missed clues or foreshadowing, but there really isn't much to justify the shift.  It's jarring and it feels artificial -- a gimmick to startle the reader.

If we back up and consider the story up to the moment of the twist, this is fairly by-the-numbers stuff.  Ruthie's journey of discovery as she comes to understand the changes that Zahra has gone through and her fleeting romance with Zahra's ex-boyfriend create a decent character.  The setting in Anchorage is nicely atmospheric and the action unfolds at a decent pace.  It's a decent but unremarkable story.  But again, that very late plot twist mangles most of that set-up, leaving us with a new story that felt like it involved entirely different characters and seemingly unrelated motives.  Startling, but it didn't work for me at all.

Yes No Maybe So, by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed

A topical story of two awkward teens who meet while canvassing for a long-shot Democratic campaign in a traditionally conservative Atlanta district (a fictionalization of the 2016 Ossoff race).  Jamie is a great organizer but terrified of public speaking.  He has no problem stuffing envelopes and doing what he can around the field office, but can't ever imagine himself knocking on doors to get out the vote.  Maya is struggling with finding her bearings as her family breaks  apart.  Her father has moved out. He and her Mom claim that they are taking advantage of Ramadan to reflect, but as things drag on, it seems that the separation might become permanent. Maya's mother suggests volunteering on the campaign to get Maya out of the house and Maya finds herself paired up with Jamie.

Through a summer of working on the campaign, Jamie and Maya discover a lot about the world.  Maya quickly finds that this campaign is about bigger issues than simply her guy winning.  The legislature is considering a ban on head coverings, which she sees as a blatant attempt to discriminate against Muslims.  As a Jew, Jamie imagines that he understands what it is like to experience prejudice but as they engage in politics, he finds out how little he has experienced to date.

While the book addresses a number of key topics about contemporary elections (the role of social media, public polling, the purpose of focused convassing, and acts of dog whistling and of gaslighting), this is a surprisingly superficial story.  Conversations occasionally turn to racism and cancel culture, but the authors make almost everyone sympathetic and shy away from deep discussions.  A farcical anti-semitic attack sends confusing messages.  The overall tone is light and the book seems more targeted towards middle schoolers.  That proves disappointing for a book so centrally focused on politics.  I get that the agenda is to stir some interest in contemporary politics, but the book is too superficial to achieve much.

All the Stars and Teeth, by Adalyn Grace

When you have reviewed close to 2000 books, it becomes harder and harder to find a book that feels truly novel.  And in few subgenres (beyond summer beach romance) is the repetitive and formulaic found more often than fantasy.  Swords, magic, monsters, and teen angst -- it's been done again and again.  Yet it entertains and when you want to just sit back and relax, it's great choice of subject matter.  No great surprises, just bloodthirsty action and mayhem.  So, imagine my surprise when I read this startling original debut fantasy adventure from author Adalyne Grace!

Amora is the princess of Visidia, a kingdom made up of seven islands.  Each island practices its own type of magic (levitation, shape shifting, healing, earth moving, time enhancing, and "curse").  Each person can practice only one type of magic.  To attempt to master more than one is the path to madness and forbidden.  And ruling over them all is the magic of the Visidian royal family -- soul magic.  Heir to the throne, Amora must master the family's monopoly -- the ability to destroy a human from within by crushing their soul -- to prove herself worthy of her title.  And when she fails her test, not only her legitimacy, but her life as well becomes forfeit. To her rescue comes a young pirate Bastian who helps her escape.  Her doggedly loyal fiance Ferrick follows along and proves his value through healing.  With time, they also pick up a mermaid named Vataea as a guide.

The stakes are higher than Amora's challenges in mastering her magic. The entire kingdom (and the core principles that support it) are under challenge.  There is a rebellion afoot and the kingdom is under siege.  It is also under challenge from within.  Amora and her compatriots must confront an ancient curse that lays bare the corruption of their entire society and find a way to rebuild it.

There are plenty of familiar fantasy tropes in the bare story, but the directions that each one goes in will leave you surprised.  Even the obvious final showdown between Amora and the leader of the evil forces doesn't quite unfold according to plan.  And the defeat of the bad guys is in fact never truly confirmed in this enlightened 21st century take on the battle of good and evil.

That's where the story starts getting really interesting.  There's an obvious romantic triangle at play here (Amora, Bastian, and Ferrick), but it doesn't play out as one would imagine.  Magic interferes with free will and the characters don't quite cooperate with the usual unfolding of a fantasy romance.  Sure, there's some great passionate scenes in the story, but these characters are wiser than that. Amora, while she is fully capable of lust, is not throwing herself at either of these boys.  She has more important business at hand that picking up a prince.  It goes almost without saying that this a realm of unremarkable gender equality where men and women are equally capable fighters.

That's really just the beginning of Grace's social and political critique.  While there's no mention of American politics, it isn't hard to see the agenda and the striking critique of the story.  This is a fantasy novel for Trumpian America, from a king who knows no moral boundaries to holding on to power to an inner circle who struggle to maintain the status quo for the benefits they reap from it.  The gradual unveiling of the sheer scope of the degradation (through the concept of "soul magic" and the way it both empowers and corrupts) couldn't be a clearer parable to modern party politics.  This is a deliciously subversive book.

Finally, this is a great story.  Amora has a highly satisfactory dramatic arc, from callow, selfish, and materialistic, to ultimately self-sacrificing leader as a young woman who comes to understand the sacrifices one must make to earn the trust of her people and the wisdom necessary to rule.  Highly recommended.

Dark and Deepest Red, by Anne-Marie McLemore

A complicated story of magic and historical destiny.  In the 16th century, a curse befalls the city of Strasbourg.  Women start dancing uncontrollably, unable to stop until they collapse from exhaustion.  Two local Romani women are accuse of witchcraft, consorting with the devil, and causing the affliction.  Five hundred years later, Rosella Oliva, from a famous shoemaking family, finds her feet bound to a pair of red shoes that take over control of her body and make her dance.  Her friend Emil, a budding young chemist, comes to her aid to solve the mystery, which ultimately involves identifying his blood connection to the two women from the past.

It's a strange story, often difficult to follow, but beautifully written.  In general McLemore and their books are this way: thick and meaty prose combined with strange magic and deep meaning.  It makes for slow reading and a great deal of effort.  In this case, I'm not so sure that they succeeded as much as they had hoped. 

The story intends to combine a real historical event from the summer of 1518, when a large number of women were indeed afflicted with an uncontrollable urge to dance, with Han Christian Anderson's "The Red Shoes." It's clever but the author assumes the reader will make connections and be as obsessed.  You can see McLemore's excitement, but it's hard not to feel left behind.  In addition, attempts to work in themes about gender identity and sexual agency, while well-intentioned, felt forced and like an attempt to give a pretty and clever fairy tale some last minute gravitas.  Overall, I found the novel to be a collection of ideas that never really gels.