Perhaps the world does not need another sociopath/mean girl story, but this novel transcended the genre for me, going through great pains to show a chain of plausible events that gradually blew out of control. The story gains gravitas by not limiting itself to the children. For while immaturity is the spark, the fuel for this fire comes from the grownups. The girls in many cases are simply copying the vanity, classism, and greed of their elders. It's makes for grim, but compelling reading. The shocking reveal is perfectly unfolded.
Monday, July 25, 2022
All the Best Liars, by Amelia Kahaney
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Melt With You, by Jennifer Dugan
A lesbian romance set on a food truck -- part workplace hijinks and part road story -- that relies for much of its story on the central conceit that neither Fallon or Chloe are very good at communicating. Rather, they are incredibly egocentric and inwardly focused. It's so bad, in fact, that Fallon spends the first couple of chapters defending her stubbornness to the reader in a one-way Greek Chorus. After a while though, Dugan gives up trying to justify the self-created tension of her drama queens and lets them just do their thing. The result is frustrating as it becomes painfully obvious that if Fallon and Chloe just sat down and listened to each other (rather than constantly taking offense and having meltdowns) that they could happily settle down. I just didn't care about them and I didn't like either of them.
That pretty much kills a romance story.
Saturday, July 16, 2022
Queen of the Tiles, by Hanna Alkaf
The police ruled Trina's death to be the result of natural causes, but looking around the room at all the familiar faces, Najwa wonders if someone here had something to do with it. And when Trina's Instagram account suddenly comes back to life, broadcasting anagram clues that only a Scrabble maven would appreciate, Najwa grows convinced that whoever was involved last year is planning a re-match.
A tense whodunnit that follows the standard pattern of evolving prime suspects and theories, but manages to nonetheless deliver plenty of twists and turns to keep the mystery solving fun. The Malaysian setting and the Asian characters provide unusual color and make the story more interesting. But the real winner is Najwa herself who proves a formidably capable detective in the grand tradition, ably sleuthing out the guilty party through a mastery of the world's most popular word game. The final reveal is a disappointing throwaway, but doesn't overly detract from an original story and Alkaf's stirring love letter to competitive Scrabble.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Seed, by Caryl Lewis
A whimsical middle grade fantasy that combines realistic issues (e.g., mental illness, disability, and neglect) with granddad's truly fantastical ideas. And while the latter events of the story are highly improbable, the story's message of going after your dreams and taking a positive view of life is sweet.
Sunday, July 10, 2022
The Best Liars in Riverview, by Lin Thompson
And so, it doesn't really surprise Aubrey when she learns that Joel has gone missing. She may even know where he is, but she doesn't really want to give away the secret. When the grownups start asking her what she knows about his disappearance or where he might be, she lies. She feels guilty about doing so, but she realizes that really everyone is lying is one way or another. Her lies may not ever be the biggest ones. That knowledge also convinces here that she needs to be the one to find him.
The story of Aubrey's search for Joel (with the help of a mutual friend Mari and Aubrey's older sister Teagan, heavy with remembrances and flashbacks, is more of a means to quest for identity -- a search that Aubrey is not really truly aware that she is on until the end. The reveal is drawn out, but natural and organic to the characters. We never are really told what they are and how they feel, but more allowed to travel with them as they discover things for themselves. We're left with a sense of evolving emotions. We can see where the two of them are now and how they got this far, but not really who they will be yet. That, in itself, feels particularly appropriate for a middle reader.
Thursday, July 07, 2022
Rising Above Shepherdsville, by Ann Schoenbohm
A gentle period piece set in 1977 (although the story itself is timeless) which is beautifully written, but not very adventuresome. This is the sort of uncontroversial children's book that used to be more common. The basic coming-of-age tale in which Dulcie comes to terms with the loss of her mother, learns some life lessons about honesty and kindness, and has some nice interactions with the three adults in her life. There's nothing particularly wrong with this book, but it isn't really anything new (and books like Because of Winn Dixie have probably done it better).
Monday, July 04, 2022
Hopepunk, by Preston Norton
It seems that the family would just muddle through in dysfunction but then things are shook up when Hope's crush at school, a boy named Danny, comes out as gay and is thrown out of the house by his family. In an act of atonement, Hope's family takes him in and an angry dynamic develops between Hope and Danny's twin brother Dylan. Dylan is a nasty homophobe and forms a hate band called Alt-Rite, who write songs attacking Hope and her friends. In response, Hope forms her own a band, a group of hopeless misfits called Hope Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, who challenge Alt-Rite in their school's Battle of the Bands. A lesbian science-fiction story runs in parallel through alternate chapters and an internet influencer plays a prominent role as well in this mixture of social commentary and satire.
Norton is a good writer and I was quickly drawn in to the family tragedy that unfolds at the beginning. I didn't initially get (and never really warmed to) the science fiction story, but I loved the depth of the characters. The three sisters and their parents each had distinct personalities and roles to play. Even Danny's outing and the way the family reunited over sheltering him presaged a fascinating look at the conflict between religious intolerance and charity. But Norton has grander intentions for the story and that's when things really started running off the rails. From the blatant hate speech to the official tolerance of bullying to the eventual official maleficence, I found myself being pushed towards accepting greater and greater levels of implausibility. The conclusion is so utterly over the top that I just tuned the mess out. In the end, it seemed a shame to take what was a really nice character study and fully-formed family tragedy and turn it into something absurd and over-the-top, especially with a subject as important as homophobia and the normalization of hatred. Profoundly disappointing.
Sunday, July 03, 2022
Candidly Cline, by Kathryn Ormsbee
In comparison to the rest of her problems, this is small change. Her grandmother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and Cline is struggling to understand Gram's unpredictable health and behavior. Cline also is grappling with her sexuality and why she likes girls more than boys Also with the experience of being betrayed by her best friend when she confesses as much to her in confidence.
But for every bad surprise, there's a good one as well. Through good planning, fortuitous moments, and a few karmic moments, Cline discovers that it takes a small kindnesses and a village to fulfill a dream. And that when it comes to big dreams, there are more people who want you to succeed than to tear you down.
I was slightly afraid that the book might end up tying off every problem with a cheery bow, but that's not really what happens. While Cline benefits from some pretty good luck, there's plenty of things that don't work out, but for all those Cline comes to peace with the outcome. She makes plenty of errors in judgment (most egregiously the decision to go behind her mother's back), but she's courageous and dedicated. Most importantly, the story shows Cline dealing with a wide variety of people of all ages, both sympathetic and not, and learning to navigate difficult social interactions with maturity.
In the end, this is a warm and positive story about working hard, taking responsibility, and owning your outcomes. Good life lessons.
Saturday, July 02, 2022
Today Tonight Tomorrow, by Rachel Lynn Solomon
But even when that ultimate is dispensed, their competition still remains fierce. Their high school has an annual tradition -- the senior Howl, an assassination-themed scavenger hunt. The seniors are given a list of fifteen items to find and the name of another senior for them to "kill" (by stealing the armband that each of them must wear). The goal is to find the fifteen items first and avoid getting killed by an opponent. Rowan intends to annihilate Neil and end her high school career on a victory. But instead, Rowan and Neil find themselves teaming up. At first, they are reluctant, but gradually they grow close enough that by the end their relationship becomes more important than the game.
I loved all the city details, with its combination of well-known and obscure spots that made up the scavenger hunt (this is definitely a much more fun story if you know Seattle!). I was less taken by the story which seem drawn out and meandering. For kids that are supposed to be such over achievers, they seemed awfully unfocussed and were far too easily distracted. I would have had a better time with the story if they had just aced the hunt and then turned to focusing on their relationship -- that would feel more in character.
There's an interesting digression about Rowan and Neil's experiences as the only Jews in their school and a bonding that occurs in sharing their recollections of the microaggressions they have experienced. It serves as one of the things that brings them together and it becomes character-defining, but it's introduced awfully late and abruptly (on page 119, in a strange scene where a classmate makes an anti-Semitic remark). Somehow, we're supposed to accept that Rowan's Jewish identity is definitive, despite the fact that she doesn't mention a word about it for the first third of the book.
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Forward March, by Skye Quinlan
Margot has been corresponding (explicitly) on Tinder with someone purporting to be Hunter. The great mystery is who and why? And while that person is definitely not Hunter, Hunter is surprised to find that she soon wishes it had been. For while not entirely sure how she feels, Hunter has to admit that Margot is kind of cute and she does sort of/maybe likes girls. Not, of course, that she could ever let that become public because of what it would do to her father's political career and to her mother. However, when someone lets the secret out, Hunter has to make some decisions about who she is trying to please and whose life she is really living.
While purporting to be a marching band story, I honestly found that part of the story weak and distracting. The story is really about finding out who your true friends are. They certainly are not the ones Hunter has collected around her. By the end, pretty much every friend Hunter had at the beginning of the story turns out to be toxic and she's ended up with a complete new set of friends. That's just one of the many turn-offs of this novel. Hunter is a weak character who largely lets people walk over her and I really didn't care that much in the end what happened to her. And the things that happened didn't seem to matter either: (as already mentioned) the marching band setting was largely inconsequential, the political stuff likewise, the parents were not worth reconciling with, the friends were repulsive, and Hunter's self-realization never really materialized.
Saturday, June 25, 2022
Lawless Spaces, by Corey Ann Haydu
Her mother knows all about those double standards. She's in the midst of the backlash from her own decision to come out and accuse a public figure of having hurt her when she was sixteen. Under that pressure, Mom shuts Mimi off and abandons her, just as Mimi is enduring her own version of the same events.
Mimi, left alone on her own sixteenth birthday, digs through old dusty journals she finds in the attic. They turn out to have belonged to her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother -- generations of women, who at sixteen faced the same experiences, the same painful double-standards, and the same consequences. While powerless to change their circumstances, each young woman (within the "lawless spaces" of their private diaries) poured out the truth. Taking in the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same, Mimi becomes determined to break the curse that has afflicted the women in her family (or perhaps all women?).
Reading a story of intergenerational sexual abuse (including an unwanted pregnancy and forced adoption) is perhaps not the most cheery piece of literature to be reading on the day that the Supreme Court overrode Roe v Wade, but it may in fact be appropriate. As I am today making the mistake of reading people's Facebook feeds (and the comment streams in particular), I am reminded of the terrible tendency of human beings to oversimplify and choose witty snarks over complicated truth This book reminded me that the world is not nearly as simply as we try to convince ourselves it is.
I went through distinct waves of emotion while reading the book. At first, with its litanies of the wrong men do to women, I wondered what new ground could possibly be covered here. Did we really need another story of girls being taken advantage of and having their lives destroyed? As the sheer cruelty of Mimi's mother was revealed (and excused in the name of everything Mom was dealing with), I began to wonder if the author would ever connect the dots between the family's unhealthy psychology and its perpetual victimhood. In developing that feeling, I wrestled with the guilt that I was blaming the victims. I struggled with trying to explain why it was all so much more complicated. I was already thinking about how to explain in this review that the women were not to blame for their being assaulted but were for their lack of compassion. Then the author beat me to it and went so much farther than I had thought to. By the last stanza, I was blown away by the beautiful and devastating way that Haydu captured the complex interactions of misogyny that make women their best friends and worst enemies simultaneously. No matter that very little of the story is tied up at the end. Instead, the book concludes with an understanding that acceptance does not necessarily come from neat ribbons and bows, and that that's OK.
Told in verse, this 490 page book is mostly white pages and a lightning fast read. Poetry is useful in this case because it allow Haydu to leave things unsaid and unresolved. It permits things to be implied and felt without having to actually spell them out. Verse also has its weaknesses. Within the poetry, all of the characters sound the same. With voices from six different generations of women, there should have been nuances and differences in tone. But while they had different values, they all sounded alike.
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Aetherbound, by E. K. Johnston
Pendt, judged to be a waste of food and oxygen, is kept alive until her eighteenth birthday so she can then be sold off. But just a few weeks before the sale, the ship makes a rare docking and Pendt takes the opportunity to run. Doing so, she finds a new life, with a loving new family, but there are unintended consequences. Her birth family returns with demands that threaten not only Pendt, but the entire universe as well.
While there is some fantastic universe building in this tale, the storytelling is rough and the pacing uneven. Given the setting's complexity, the story is initially buried in historical background which, while interesting, bogs down the pace. To make up for that slow start, we jump forward through events quickly, which allows only the sketchiest of development. This leaves the general feeling of an unfinished story. Aside from Pendt herself, just about everyone is an unfinished portrayal, motivations are largely declared with little demonstration, and the climax, while based on all that backstory, comes up quite abruptly and feels rushed. It's not a question of length -- given the book's short length (241 pages), this easily could have been filled out. It's more an issue of manuscript not ready to publish.
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating, by Adiba Jaigirdar
Ishu has bigger problems. Her older sister is dropping out of school to get married and her parents are scandalized. To distract them, Ishu wants to get elected Head Girl at school. But only popular girls get elected and Ishu's never considered making friends to be priority. However, when Hani comes to her with an unusual request and needs a big favor, Ishu sees an opportunity. A deal is hatched: Ishu will pretend to be Hani's girlfriend and, in exchange, Hani will help ingratiate Ishu into her social circles and build up some social capital so that Ishu can win the election.
In true rom-com fashion, this rather tortured premise blooms in unexpected ways and in the end Hani and Ishu find that their relationship may be more real than either intended. The result is a sweet and funny LGBT story of high school romance between two Irish-Bengali girls (checking off quite a few diversity checkboxes in the process). I loved the ethnic flavoring and the attention to the family life that plays such a big role in Ishu and Hani's lives. I also enjoyed reading an Irish YA story for the chance to visit a slightly different milieu. Good characters (with realistic flaws and insecurities to offset their strengths) and excellent pacing make this an enjoyable read.
Friday, June 17, 2022
Between the Lighthouse and You, by Michelle Lee
Now Alice wants to return to the islands and interview the family that runs the lighthouse to see if she could somehow receive messages from her Mom. While her family is unsupportive, her father does in the end agree to go down to the islands for a visit.
Leo is just the eldest son in the crazy large family that lives at the lighthouse, but he bears a heavy responsibility. While the whole family claims to love the Tidings, Leo feels like he's the only one who appreciates their true meaning. When he receives a special message on a cassette tape from his dead grandfather, addressed only to him, he must find a way to listen to it (this involves a bit of an adventure in finding a player). When he eventually gets to listen to the message, he is surprised to find it is addressed not only to him but to Alice's family as well.
With subtle and unobtrusive magic elements, this middle grade novel is really about grief and recovery. Both protagonists are learning how to adapt to a world where their beloved family member is gone. In doing so, they find their relationships changing with the adults and siblings around them. I found the siblings overly obnoxious, but portraying them as such allows for a clearer lesson that one must love the family one has in order to honor the memory of those who are no longer with us.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
The Memory of Cotton, by Ann K. Howley
One day, going through one of her grandmother's boxes with Darrin, they discover a Ku Klux Klan robe. When they ask grandma about it, she is initially reluctant to explain, but a short while later, she changes her mind. She announces that she'll explain everything but she needs to revisit her hometown in North Carolina and she needs Shelby and Darrin to drive here there. Shelby has never been there. The homecoming goes on to uncover several family secrets and along the way explore the foundations of discrimination and hatred.
A mixed bag. I found the characters interesting and the story compelling but I had a hard time getting into the story. The storytelling is sketchy and needed to be fleshed out. The overall theme of where hatred comes from is powerful, but the pieces of it (the contemporary town bully, the KKK membership, a murder, and even familial rejection) are left lying about. Distractedly, Shelby's reconciliation with her brother's death sort of hangs as an outside theme, never quite adhering to the rest of the story. Seen as an early draft, this is a knock-out story, but it really felt unfinished.
[Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased opinion.]
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Extasia, by Claire Legrand
But as proud as Amity is in this perverse honor, she is aware that there are forces on the outside that are bringing change to Haven, whether its people embrace them or not. A coven of witches are encircling the town and plotting the downfall of its patriarchal regime. Men are being murdered.
Amity is stuck between two warring camps. Through magic that she is just beginning to understand, she stands as a catalyst of change for her world. While Amity longs for an end to the suffering of her sisters, she also wants to protect her community and she is torn between those two desires.
A brutal and horrific setting featuring systematic physical and sexual abuse of young women. While not particularly explicit, this is a gory tale full of unpleasantries including child abuse, rape, and even a brief episode of cannibalism. This is plenty of blood!
Legrand is shooting for a grand statement about overcoming institutional misogyny through empowerment and reconciliation, but it never quite comes together. The problem is that the book is so good at showing the cruelties and atrocities, that there is little space for forgiveness. It is hard to not agree with Vengeance (one of the witches with whom Amity allies) who would just as soon kill every man and every female ally who aided them. Amity (or Rage, the name to which she changes her name mid-novel is not a convincing leader for a kumbaya moment. The story, while excellent at wallowing in horrors, never really grapples with what drives misogynistic impulses and so the story lacks the depth to reach for solutions. It works for a horror/fantasy novel, but lacks gravitas.
Thursday, June 09, 2022
A Thousand Steps Into Night, by Traci Chee
While infused with a feminist message and a gender inclusive world, this is not a terribly message-heavy story. Rather, it was more of a traditional hack-and-slash fantasy novel, albeit with a dizzying array of characters. The first forty pages or so are stuffed with footnotes, which while a bit distracting, are largely indispensable for understanding the rest of the story. Despite that copious background development, I had largely lost track of the characters and the importance of various villains by the end. I would strongly suggest keeping notes on who is who as you go as characters reappear and earlier events have a habit of becoming important later. That is all a sign of good construction but I still found it a bit too much! Too much work to be enjoyable.
Saturday, June 04, 2022
Prepped, by Bethany Mangle
She's earned a scholarship for college and plans to leave after graduation. But when a terrible accident occurs, the compound's belief in end times hits a higher intensity and Becca has to decide what she is willing to sacrifice to have her freedom and her dreams of a future not weighted down by fear.
A well-paced survival story that never really generated much interest in its characters. They are largely two-dimensional, especially Becca's abusive mother. I took Becca's love for her little sister at face value, because I never saw any real evidence of it. And the romance between Becca and Roy largely fell flat. It won't give you much insight into preppers but the setting at least allowed for an entertaining adventure.
Monday, May 30, 2022
Loveless, by Alice Oseman
It's not like she hasn't thought about it, but whenever she tries to think of someone she'd like to date, it doesn't seem right. And kissing? Eww! And no, she's not gay either -- girls hold no more interest for her than boys. Friends and family try to reassure her that she'll get there eventually. Someday, she'll meet her "special someone." But she doesn't believe it.
So, what does that mean? If she never feels a sexual attraction or a romantic desire, is she destined to end up alone and lonely? Will her friends drift away as they marry off and start families, leaving her to live by herself? Is there such a thing as love without romance? Is there life without love?
Oseman's groundbreaking novel of an aro/ace young woman explores the sexual orientations that aren't -- asexuality and aromantic (that's the tail end of the LGBTQIA+ acronym, by the way) . I have only passing familiarity with the concept (if knowing two ace people in real life counts) so this was all a big education for me. My jury's still out about my personal feelings about asexuality as an identity, but the fact that Georgia identifies with it is enough for me to be interested in learning more. This is a fairly painless way to do so.
However, I found the novel a bit of a chore. Written in a fanfic style that rambles on and on, Loveless is a long soap opera of the first year of college, with lots of bed hopping, too much alcohol, and very little studying. It comes off like a non-hetero British version of Felicity and can be just as grating. The writing is in desperate need of an editor and a lot of trimming. The protagonists break character frequently, when they are not repeating themselves.
Sunday, May 29, 2022
The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna
From the prison where she is being held, a stranger rescues her. The stranger won't give her name, but Deka takes to calling her "White Hands" and the name sticks. Deka is taken to a training camp where she meets other "impure" girls. They are called the alaki and are condemned as abominations and demons by men. But they are also super strong and incapable of easily being killed and so feared as well. This combination of revulsion and fear permeates the rest of the novel as Deka and her sisterhood of aleki are trained by White Hands and other women to help rid their lands of even more fearsome demons called "deathshrieks."
The training and preparations for a final battle of men and the despised (and indispensable) aleki against their shared foe becomes complicated as Deka starts to develop strange powers. As she learns to master these powers, she becomes simultaneously more knowledgeable of the deathshrieks. In the end, she comes to understand that she is fighting for the wrong cause.
This rich tale of female empowerment has a surprisingly upbeat ending, but the story doesn't start out that way. It's a pretty grisly tale full of gore and violence. Female endangerment features prominently throughout the story. I would hesitate to accuse it of being gratuitous since the violence itself is integral to the story, but the sheer mass of it may turn some readers off. It's that brutality that has probably earned Forna the moniker of being "the Toni Morrison of fantasy YA." The drama itself, covering the damage of patriarchal misogyny and the damage it has wrought is hardly new material, but her treatment of PTSD in its victims is a a rarity.
I actually had a different issue with the book. Forna does a poor job of allowing her story to unfold. Instead, major plot developments appear out of thin air as important details are simply dropped into the story, unconnected to anything that occurred prior. Much of the drama of the story relies on the late introductions. Still, despite its flaw, the novel is an immersive and easy read.
If you want more, the novel's sequel, The Merciless Ones will be released on Tuesday.
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Da Vinci's Cat, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Young Federico, kept hostage by the Pope, is on friendly terms with the artist Raphael and familiar with the far grumpier Michelangelo. They are fine artists but he doesn't understand the intense interest in them from strangers wearing strange clothes who appear out of a closet in the Palace. These strangers are desperate to acquire cast offs from Raphael and Michelangelo. Even rough sketches excite them (especially if they are signed)! And in return, they bring Federico the most delicious sweets, made from something called "chocolate." Federico has never tasted anything better in his life and sees no harm in absconding with a drawing or two in exchange for more of it. But when Bee shows up, history is changed and only the cat seems to understand it all, and she doesn't say much.
An amusing time travel story with some educational value from the attention it gives to the artistry of Raphael and Michelangelo and to its many lovely details about everyday life in 16th century Italy. The story doesn't always pace well and some parts get confusing (as is true with many time-travel stories!), but it is entertaining. Absolutely lovely sketches of the cat Juno throughout the novel are a high point.
Thursday, May 26, 2022
That Thing About Bollywood, by Supriya Kelkar
The pressure drives her so crazy that an unexpected thing happens: her life becomes a Bollywood film! Now, when things get bas, she breaks out into lavish song and dance numbers. Colors become brighter. A musical soundtrack starts up. The people around her become a chorus and background dancers. In her songs, Sonali finally expresses her real feelings. She calls it "Bollywooditis," where music, dancing, and a larger-than-life world becomes the only place Sonali can be heard. But she knows that it is not real and as much as she loves it, she wants things to be normal again.
This magical Disney-esque conceit serves as a loving tribute to Bollywood and all of its camp. While the story itself is fairly basic and carries no particular surprises, it becomes a vehicle for Kelkar to bring up all of her beloved tropes of "filmi magic." For a Westerner with limited exposure to Bollywood (I once shared an apartment with a group of Indian students who watched nothing else all summer), I could recognize and appreciate only some of the references, but for true fans there is a lot to enjoy. Kelkar pulls out all the classic ingredients and creates a story that puts American middle school drama into the Bollyverse. I enjoyed the novelty of the concept and the sweet way that it was implemented. Perhaps I should watch a filmi again?
Sunday, May 22, 2022
How Not to Fall in Love, by Jacqueline Firkins
But her best friend, boy-next-door Theo, is in complete disagreement. For him, there is nothing greater than love and he proves it by falling in love every week! And overtures are spurned, the objects of his affection flee, and his heart inevitably crushed, he picks up the pieces and finds another girl to chase. Theo's hobby (LARPing) with it's drama and romance feeds his obsession and his perpetual optimism. He loves the whole idea of the grand gesture.
Theo despairs that he'll never be fully happy. Harper thinks he should stop trying so hard. She promises him that if he would just relax and stop making such a big deal out of love, he could be happy. He argues that she is in no position to judge because she's never been in love. A challenge is hatched: they will prove each other wrong. And, of course, since this is a rom-com, it will all go completely off-plan, surprising the two of them when they find each other in the end.
Based on the classic trope of the girl dating the wrong guy in order to find the right one, we have all the basic ingredients in place: the long suffering (and coincidentally, cute!) neighbor boy, the studly (and wrong) initial love interest, and the supportive BFF who selflessly supports Harper. Fabulous bridal shop anecdotes provide humor (a function also provided by some brief LARPing). A very supportive mother helps Harper sort through her adolescent angst. Some pretty hot sex scenes spice things up. At the end of it all, a completely over-the-top public confession adds the cherry on the top of this caloric romantic confection.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
True Letters from a Fictional Life, by Kenneth Logan
For all of his life, James has struggled with these thoughts: finding the courage to say what he really feels. He wonders if any of it is worth saying. He questions what he really wants. When he meets a gay boy named Topher, it motivates him to step out. He's afraid of what will happen but taking things slow is OK and seem to be going well. But then someone breaks into his desk drawer and steals his letters. And they start showing up in people's mailboxes.
I found this story disorganized and unfocused. The pace is uneven and aimless. I never really got a sense about what James saw in Topher and about why he was willing to come out because of him. The great letter fiasco proved to be anti-climactic. And Teresa, who could have been all sorts of things to this story about coming out, just came off as selfish and annoying, with little indication of where her appeal to him ever lay. So, while I was sympathetic to James, he didn't seem to have interesting friends or an interesting life. I never engaged with the story.
Saturday, May 14, 2022
A Place to Hang the Moon, by Kate Albus
It is their solicitor who lands on the idea of having the children join in the evacuation of London, pretend to leave their parents behind, and settle with a host family in the countryside. Preposterous as it might sound, perhaps they will uncover a suitable foster home? A place where, as the children put it, they might find someone who thinks that they "hang the moon."
Reality is much harder of course and the children find themselves shuttled from one unsuitable place to another. Faced with different types of abuse and neglect, the one bright spot in their lives is a kindly librarian, Mrs. Müller. The children adore her and she reciprocates, but she cannot host them. She has been judged an unsuitable guardian due to the questionable loyalty of her husband, a German national who left her and disappeared at the outbreak of the War.
The orphan genre is truly a golden part of children's literature and this one pays homage to the greats. It's a predictable formula but one that is very effective. It combines adventure as the children face peril and yet emerge happily in the end in the arms of a loving family. The emotional pay off is strong. In this particular case, period detail about the evacuation of children into the countryside gives us some meaty subject matter as well. The result is an enjoyable and memorable read. Recommended.
Friday, May 13, 2022
Daughter of the White Rose, by Diane Zahler
Sunday, May 08, 2022
365 Days to Alaska, by Cathy Carr
But she knows a secret. Before she left, her Dad promised that, if she could just make it through the next year, that he would find a way to let her come back and live with him. So now she keeps herself going by counting down the days before she can go back home. However, as the number of days dwindle, her father becomes more distant and unreliable. She also begins to realize that maybe Connecticut isn't so bad and that home is where you make it.
While hardly surprising material, the book charms with its main character. Rigel is an engaging heroine with a strong will and a deep and enchanting love of nature. Her confidence, derived from the life in the wild, serves her well in negotiating the hostile halls of middle school. Her supportive family allows Rigel the space she needs to make the transition to the "outside" world. Enjoyable, with lots of fun anecdotes about living in remote Alaska.
Friday, May 06, 2022
Of a Feather, by Dayna Lorentz
Reenie is an eighth grader, uprooted from her home and school, and transplanted with an aunt that she hardly knows. Her mother suffers from depression and keeps falling apart, leaving Reenie in an insecure state. From her struggles, Reenie has learned that she can't trust anyone and so she never does. But at her new school, she slowly warms to a boy and a girl in her class and forms friendships.
More importantly, Reenie's aunt is an animal rehabilitation specialist and a falconer. While initially skeptical of her aunt's activities, Reenie quickly is enchanted by the birds. Exploiting Reenie's enthusiasm, her aunt enlists her assistance. Her aunt even helps Reenies try to capture a falcon of her own to train. But instead of a falcon, they capture an injured Great Horned Owl.
Owls are largely untrainable, her aunt warns her, but this one forms an inexplicable bond with Reenie and the two of them regain their confidence together and learn to reach out again. However, as with all wild animals, Reenie must learn to let go of Rufus once he has finished his rehabilitation.
A terribly sweet story highlighted by numerous interesting bird facts and some very funny owl dialog. While the story may be a bit contrived, the message about trust, family, and being brave plays very nicely through both of the story's protagonists. The anthropomorphism is less jarring than one would think as it draws on known owl behavior. A truly delightful read!
Sunday, May 01, 2022
Almost There and Almost Not, by Linda Urban
The Star Outside My Window, by Onjali Q. Rauf
There is a complication. As a promotional stunt, the Royal Observatory is holding a contest to name the star. Anjali knows she has to make sure that no one gives her mother the wrong name, but what can she do about it? The contest has tens of thousands of entrants (and children aren't allowed to enter anyway!) so she has no way to effect a result directly. She'll have to go and explain to the adults that they can't give her mother's star a different name. Getting from Waverly Village (outside of Oxford) to Greenwich seems an insurmountable task for a ten year-old, but with some help from her friends, she and Noah set out on their bicycles to prevent the Observatory from giving the new star a wrong name.
Holding aside the breathtaking danger of the premise, this is a stirring adventure with resourceful children sticking together and accomplishing their goals. Tt is all wrapped up a bit too neatly, but along the way the children get to show a few skills. The suppressed memories that prove the motive for Anjali's obsession with naming the star have a poignancy to them that gives the story some weight. Spending more time addressing those feelings would have fleshed the story out better, but (again) this being British kidlit, we don't have much comfort with exploring emotions. Instead, the conclusion has to be that the adults will step in at the end and make everything better and Anjali and her friends don't need to worry themselves over grownup matters. That's not a very empowering message, even if it is motivated by good intentions.
Saturday, April 30, 2022
Rescue at Lake Wild, by Terry Lynn Johnson
Madison has received an ultimatum from her parents: no more strays! If she brings home one more needy animal, the trip they are supposed to take in two weeks to hear and meet Jane Goodall will be off. That's pretty important for Madi, who has been trying to learn as much about wild animals as she can. But when she and her friends find two dead beavers and then rescue two hungry kits, Madi can't help but take the babies home to save them. Keeping her parents from finding the babies is going to take ingenuity, but there is a bigger issue: who is killing the beavers?
A light and delightful adventure and mystery. The storytelling is disjointed and full of loose ends. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the behavior that was being modeled (some of which was seriously dangerous and some of it mildly unlawful). However, the overall intelligence of the story and the good advice about how to interact with wildlife was a net positive. I also enjoyed Madison's strong and inspiring character. Perfect for young animal lovers and anyone who likes cute baby animals.
Friday, April 29, 2022
At the End of Everything, by Marieke Nijkamp
With no one to guard them or take care of them and public attention elsewhere, the kids struggle to take care of themselves. That grows challenging as they run low on supplies, utilities start to fail, and they start getting sick.
While not about a pandemic, this story of survival and coping with the stresses of the mass outbreak of disease draws on the Covid-19 experience, and it does so in a way that is strikingly more effective than any of the books that have been written to date about the Covid Pandemic. Characters voice very familiar fears (about getting sick, distrusting others, longing to be around people, and being anxious about the future) that will feel familiar to all readers. As a story, it never really goes anywhere and some elements (like a trans character) seem to really lack any purpose, but as a study of coping it's actually a fairly engrossing read.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao
Huaxia has long been protected by the Great Wall. But defending the empire from swarms of alien Hunduns also requires special robotic war craft called Chrysalises. Run off of the qi of two young pilots, they are capable of mutating into a variety of forms, depending on the level and source of that qi. Proper operation requires a strict hierarchy: in the more powerful yang seat sits the young male pilot. Alongside with him, in the yin seat, sits a young woman. Occasionally, the two co-pilots can balance their qi and become a "perfect match" but far more often the qi of the male overwhelms the female and she is annihilated during combat. So, while a male pilot can be feted as a hero, female pilots are almost always victims. Still, despite the near certainty of death, families willingly sacrifice their girl children for the opportunity to bring glory to the family.
For Zetian, there is another motivation for enlistment altogether. Her older sister was killed by a male pilot and she wants revenge. When she gets it, murdering her male co-pilot in cold blood, she gains the moniker of "the iron widow." To her surprise, she is not killed, but instead is reassigned to co-pilot with Shimin, a notorious psychopath and the holder of the strongest qi in the empire (rumored to be almost as strong as the great lost emperor himself!). The presumption is that he will destroy her in combat but that doesn't happen. Instead, Zetian and Shimin are found to be a perfect match and pitched as the best chance of finally eliminating the Hunduns. Their survival now depends upon making themselves indispensible and they find themselves in an even more dangerous game of intrigue -- a game that may just undermine the foundations of their civilization (if the Hunduns don't get them first!).
A rollercoaster ride of blood-soaked action, full of twists and turns. The plotting is sufficiently byzantine to keep me enthralled and always guessing as to what will come next. Zhao's vision (and the logistics of qi combat in particular) are breathtaking. I won't claim to fully follow the ending of the story, but I did appreciate the true originality of the fight sequences. The Chinese-esque setting is sweeping and beautiful without falling into twee orientalism. It is masterful storytelling.
This is also an uncompromising feminist work. From the obvious (attacks on the politics of foot binding) to the unexpected (a defense of polyamory), the writing is an unrelenting attack on sexism and patriarchy that is nearly as intense as its robot wars. The Chrysalis itself serves a particular sexual function that Zhao exploits in a variety of different ways throughout the story. Who knew that mecha could be so erotic? Or so useful as a literary device?
It's all quite dark though so if you don't like your YA dark, bloody, and unrelentingly political, then this is one to pass by. But by doing so, you are definitely missing one of the best science-fiction YA novels of the past year!
Saturday, April 23, 2022
Mirror Girls, by Kelly McWilliams
But when they get there, Charlie's in for another surprise. There's more to the trip than a dying wish. It's time for a prophecy to be fulfilled. Charlie learns that she has a twin sister, named Magnolia -- a girl who's lily white and been passing as a member of the southern gentry in Eureka. Shortly after the girls were born, their parents were murdered for mixing races. The girls were separated. Their white paternal grandmother wanted Magnolia because she looked white enough to pass as an heir. And she likewise had no use for Charlie. Unable to stop the separation, Charlie's maternal grandmother took Charlie north. But the separation of the twins triggered a series of supernatural events in Eureka. And the reunion eighteen years later rouses old ghosts, the men and women who live in the "veil" between life and death because of the racial injustice they experienced during their lives.
A swirly atmospheric horror story with plenty of magic, but also more grandiose attempts to explore the curse of slavery and racial inequity. I was pretty excited at first at the audacious ambition of the idea. McWilliams's previous novel (Agnes at the End of the World) showed that she had the skills to pull this off. However, despite her affinity with the characters, she doesn't have much understanding of the subject matter. Her vision of the south is largely stereotypes and two-dimensional characters (sadistic white racists, virtuous blacks). There's little of the nuance that would show how the evil of segregation could exist -- the evil that is precisely what the novel is focusing upon). It's all interesting as an idea and the melodramatic finale is surprisingly effective and original, but for the most part the storytelling is simply not executed very well.
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Willodeen, by Katherine Applegate
The key seems to the decline of the Bumblebears seems to lie with the Screechers -- a unloved pest that plagues the countryside and which only Willodeen seems to appreciate. Most people would prefer to eradicate the Screechers and concerted recent efforts to kill them have been almost successful. Willodeen proves that that was a mistake. However, even after Willodeen discovers the link between the animals, she still has to find the personal strength to present the unfortunate news to the grownups in Perchance, overcoming her fear of public speaking and criticism.
With its ecological theme, Willodeen has a political angle, but it is also a universal story about finding one's voice and learning to articulate it. Both themes are valuable. I felt that the backstory that explains Willodeen's fear of the public was sketchy and could have been better developed, but the depiction of how Willodeen followed the scientific method to identify the interrelation between Screechers and Bumblebears was clever and exciting. A fast read, suitable for early readers but enjoyable to much older ones. Fans of Greta Thunberg should consider the book to be obligatory reading.
Sunday, April 17, 2022
Called Upon, by Bethany Lee
However, the camp itself is strange: largely unsupervised, the kids are free to roam, but they are painfully aware of the watchful gaze of the creepy security guard and their grey-eyed counselors. When campers start to disappear, Kaitlin and some of the others start to get suspicious. And when she falls ill with mysterious symptoms, things turn deadly. She'll have to draw on strengths hidden inside of her and learn to believe in herself.
Adding to the mystery, the story is also told through the perspective of two other characters (Ashley, an unwed mother of twins, and Parker, a young man with an intense hatred of his father). Who these people are and how they fit in with the nefarious affairs of this summer camp unfolds only slowly.
While it starts slow and it takes a while to accept the multiple narrators (especially when it becomes clear that Ashley and Parker don't have much to contribute to the story), Lee does an excellent job of building up her mystery. However, the story becomes less interesting as the implausible truth unfolds. Once things unravel, the explanation just seems silly. It probably works as a juvenile thriller, but really fell apart for me. In the end, I found it entertaining, but not particularly rewarding.