Bitter Melon, by Cara Chow

Frances has lived her life so far (or rather, had it lived for her) in the name of her mother and her mother's needs. Couched in the terms of Confucian filial loyalty, she has devoted herself totally to pleasing her mother, which has meant focusing of her education so she can get into Berkeley and then go to medical school (and thus care for her mother financially and physically for perpetuity). It's a clear plan and one that Frances's Mom drives into her head constantly. But when a clerical error lands Frances in a speech class (instead of Calculus), an unorthodox teacher helps Frances discover her talents as a writer and public speaker. And she discovers that she has a lot to say in her own voice.

Starting as a stereotype about tiger mothers, and a predictable tirade against Asian child-raising techniques, the story morphs into abuse as the story progresses. There's a point at which this becomes less plausible and more one-sided, and thus less compelling. It's also a depressing affair and the book doesn't really attempt to redeem itself. So, while the writing is good and the characters (especially the daughter, but there are some attempts to explain the mother) are well-developed, there is an overriding helplessness to the narrative that makes reading less-than-enjoyable.

As usual with novels that seem so transparently autobiographical, I have to ask whether Chow is really capable of writing fiction. Does she have another story in her that isn't just settling scores with her childhood? Having told this story of a familiar childhood, will she be able to move on to something else?

The Fortune of Carmen Navarro, by Jen Bryant

A shy military cadet meets a sexy and enticing gypsy girl who works at the local convenience store and dreams of becoming a popular singer. They have a passionate affair but the girl loves her music most of all and eventually finds the boy's attentions too constricting. The boy doesn't handle the rejection well, becomes obsessed, and chases after the girl, with tragic results. If the story sounds a bit familiar already, this last detail will clinch it: the girl's name is Carmen.

Loosely based on the story that inspired Bizet's famous opera, Bryant has not just modernized the tale (placing it in contemporary Valley Forge), but added more nuances to the title character. More than a seductress, this Carmen is a young woman with vision and will. She know who she wants to be and will fight whatever demons she has to in order to fulfill her dreams. It is Ryan (this version's Don Jose) who is the relatively less substantial character. Both Ryan's best friend Will and Carmen's best friend Maggie play substantial roles as well.

It's a good adaptation that just may draw a few readers to the opera, by showing that a great story is a great story. I don't see it is earth shattering (and it is obviously not original), but it performs the valuable purpose of decent modernizations: taking a classic story and making it accessible to a newer audience.

The Girl Who Became a Beatle, by Greg Taylor

With perhaps the coolest book cover of 2011 so far, this is a playful fantasy on the dangers of wish fulfillment. In this case, Regina is obsessed with The Beatles and her tribute band (The Caverns) is her means of relating to the world. This all starts to look unhealthy when her band breaks up and Regina loses it. As she hits bottom, she makes a desperate plea for fame (keep the band together and make them famous). When she wakes up the next morning, her wish has been granted. She has become as famous as The Beatles or, more to the point, she has replaced them -- taking credit for both Lennon and McCartney and all of their compositions. Naturally, the question that arises is whether fame is everything it is cracked up to be.

It's a clever idea with a satisfying ending that moves beyond the fantasy to say some original things about wishes and self-empowerment. This, in spite of the fact that the ending won't surprise anyone (and isn't meant to). And the story, which is very much at risk of becoming ridiculous, saves itself quite handily by not being entirely predictable. After all, the idea that The Beatles (or a band like them) could exist - even in an alternate universe - in the contemporary day is ludicrous. The music of The Beatles was very much a product of its time and was essential for what followed. So, the idea that Dr Dre, the Edge, and Madonna could be hearing "Yesterday" for the first time in 2011 is implausible (since they probably wouldn't exist without The Beatles paving the way). But taken less literally (and the novel offers its own explanations), the concept works well as a medium for an allegory.

A minor criticism would be the need for better editing. Taylor packs in a lot of subplots (reconciling Mom and Dad, Regina's relationship with her mother, fighting for her bandmate Lorna) that simply get lost in the story and which would probably have been best left out altogether.

Exposed, by Kimberly Marcus

Liz prides herself on her fine eye for a photo and her ability to frame an image. So, it takes her by surprise when her best friend Kate suddenly stops talking to her after a sleepover. She's even more surprised when Kate comes out and accuses Liz's older brother of raping her that night. Liz wants to believe her best friend, but it's hard to see her own brother as such a monster. When Kate decides to press charges, Liz finds herself torn between her loyalty to her best friend and her ties to her family.

The plot has wonderful dramatic potential, but the decision to write it in verse adds a challenge that Marcus never really rises up to. Verse works when it has something to say. In this case, it sounded more like an attempt to avoid having to writing annoying transitions. To me, the decision in this case felt like lazy writing.

And the cost of choosing to write this in verse is that it is much harder to fill out the characters and give them life. Kate never really gets the development she needs and Liz's family is similarly flat. As a result, I didn't really feel the pain that Liz was going through choosing between them. And the potential impact of the story was diminished.

Delirium, by Lauren Oliver

In Lena's world, falling in love is a disease - the deliria nervosa. Thankfully, the state has a cure for it. Unfortunately, you don't get the treatment until you are 18. Lena can hardly wait. Her own mother died of the disease and Lena is determined not to follow in her footsteps. However, when Lena meets Alex, she begins to fear that it might be too late. Alex is beautiful and enchanting and Lena is swept off her feet. She can feel the disease getting its grip on her. But Alex is far more dangerous than Lena suspects. He reveals another side to the world she lives in -- a side of darkness and deceit. Soon, the stakes are much higher than any love-struck delirium.

As dystopias go, the premise of this one is silly and implausible. Only an adolescent could really believe that grownups want to take away your ability to love. Even as a metaphor for human agency, the set-up doesn't really work. In the end, the setting is really just there to create the action. And for that, Oliver certainly throws up the volume pretty high. There is plenty of action and enough visuals here to power the film that is slated to go into production soon.

The writing suffers from poor pacing. I got pretty bored of the constant mention of "unbearable shooting pain." As they say in Princess Bride, "you keep using these words, but I don't think they mean what you think they do." How much agony and terror can Lena take? And how much more of it do I have to read about? At the very least, I wanted Lena to admit that the pain/terror/fear she felt twenty pages back was nothing compared to what she was feeling now. The ending (and its accompanying cliffhanger) won't really surprise anyone either. I'd suggest waiting for the movie and skipping the book.

Inconvenient, by Margie Gelbwasser

Alyssa has the normal problems of a 15 year-old YA heroine (a boyfriend who may or may not like her, a best friend who has grown distant, etc.), but then she also has some less usual issues (being a Russian-Jewish-American and having an alcoholic mother). Her father, in denial, tries to convince Alyssa that her Mom's struggles are just an "inconvenience." However, Russian stereotypes aside, we get to see how Alyssa's mother's disease grows and threatens the entire family through the course of the novel.

I loved the Russian cultural details (reminding me of my many Russian-Jewish friends in the 1980s). I really liked the sensitive and nuanced way that Gelbwasser handled the topic of alcoholism (particularly in a culture that has trouble admitting that it is a disease). Avoiding any melodrama, we get a knowledgeable and sympathetic portrayal of how addiction destroys families. And the ending, as devastating as it is, felt honest and authentic.

With such a strong setting and a superb theme, I was maddened by the cluttered state of the rest of the story. So many themes (racism, the romance with Keith, teen substance abuse, and even the beautiful butterfly imagery that starts off the story and graces the cover) never get developed. I wanted the number of themes weeded down and the ideas allowed to grow. There is so much beauty in the writing, but a more ruthless editor could have made more happen with it.

Red Riding Hood, by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

For years, the village has been victimized by a werewolf, but the town has had an implicit deal: regular sacrifices are left and the monster leaves the villagers alone. But something has changed and the werewolf has begun to attack the villagers brazenly. Valerie, unbeknownst to her neighbors, has always felt a link with the creature, just as she has also been drawn to outcast bad boy Peter. Her parents would have her marry rich boy Henry, but her heart belongs to Peter. And Peter may be far more than he initially appears. With peace and order disturbed, an inquisitor and professional werewolf slayer arrives to rescue the town, but his efforts unleash blood and mayhem across the village.

While loosely inspired by the fairy tale, this book (and the movie on which it is based) is largely drawn from the success of the Twilight series and represents (in my mind) the quintessential werewolf fantasy -- girl falls for local bad boy who is probably also a lycanthrope, she forsakes her family and friends (who conveniently disown her), and she gives herself over to his ... er... desire. Neither she nor the boy really have much more than lust going for them, so this is basically YA porn. But you all know that, whether you like it or condemn it.

I haven't seen the movie, but my sense is that it must be fairly violent based upon the body count and the graphic descriptions in the book (the sex is pretty graphic too, but I'm more bothered by the violence). The characters seem pretty shallow here, which is striking since a novelization should have afforded the opportunity to expand where a film could not. And the plot is nonsensical (or missing the details from the screenplay that explained the flow). In sum, I wasn't terribly impressed. The exercise seemed largely derivative, even though the idea (riffing of the Brothers Grimm) was promising.

The Exile of Gigi Lane, by Adrienne Maria Vrettos

Gigi Lane is an A-list girl, and an over-the-top caricature of the popular girl, or in her words, a "head hottie." In her junior year, she has her sights set on one thing, being inducted into the position officially, as leader of the "Hot Spot" (the very highest clique in her school -- Swan's Lake Country Day). And the cliques at Swan's Lake are carefully and explicitly regimented: the "Mr. T's" (drama), "Vox Foxes" (school paper), Cheerleaders, "Whompers" (LARPers), and so on. In this world, it really would seem that Gigi's self-affirmation ("I'm Gigi Lane and you wish you were me") was true. She's the top dog and destined for greatness.

But then, a major scandal at the year-end Founder's Ball endangers Gigi's ambitions. She is disgraced and sent to Alaska for the summer to clean fish. When she returns, she has lost all of her status and has to rebuild her disgraced brand from scratch. While readers will expect her to eventually succeed in her rehabilitation (and maybe to develop a conscience and a soul along the way), the ending is so completely unexpected and bizarre that readers have an exciting surprise to look forward to. Suffice it to say, that the mean-girl genre never was skewered so brilliantly before!

If you read the book straight, Gigi's utter meanness will be very unappealing. And the exaggerated portrayal of high school cliques will bother most readers as unrealistic. But both criticisms miss the point in this social satire. The usual cliches are all present, but sent up in such a ridiculous fashion that they cannot be taken seriously. The result is a contemporary novel in the grand tradition of Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw, but without all that pesky literary mustiness. Enjoy the laugh!

The Queen of Water, by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango

Born in a poor rural area of Ecuador, Virginia had a tough beginning. In a community of subsistence farmers, where alcoholism and domestic violence is rife, no one really expects to make much of their life. Children are seen as commodities and, at the age of seven, Virginia is given away to a middle-class family in the city as a servant. While Virginia thinks that it is to be a temporary arrangement, the family enslaves her, subjecting her to physical (and eventually sexual) abuse, until she manages to escape and rebuild her life. Strikingly, despite the years of abuse she has endured, Virginia remains thankful for the opportunities that the family has given her and goes through regular struggles with rejecting them altogether.

From an early age, Virginia realizes that a good part of her struggle is fighting the racial prejudice that exists between the indigenous peoples and the mixed-race (and lighter-skinned) mestizos. Without any direct help, she figures out the logic of this system of inequality and develops her own strong viewpoints and sense of self-worth. The strong tear-jerking ending provides the emotional payoff that the reader needs having survived Virginia's struggles and near-disasters along the way.

In gripping detail, The Queen of Water outlines the true story of Virginia's efforts to overcome her roots and society's prejudices. It's a magical story, made all the more enticing by Resau's beautiful writing and her multi-layered approach to Latin America culture. The fact that this is a biography narrated and co-written by its heroine makes it interesting, but in lesser hands than Resau (who acts as an experienced cultural translator) it could well have become pedantic and dull. Instead, Resau brings in extensive local color and just enough education to make the book seem "good for you" but not so much that it seems like a reading assignment.

Cryer's Cross, by Lisa McMann

It's a huge shock for the small town of Cryer's Cross when freshman Tiffany Quinn goes missing. Nearly the entire town turns out to help with the search, but she is never found. When Kendall's best friend (and possible boyfriend) Nico also disappears, the shock hits closer to home. She is devastated. And while the town's suspicions fall on brooding newcomer Jacian, Kendall develops an alternative explanation when she starts hearing voices and seeing signs that no one else notices. Is she going mad or does she have access to clues through her OCD that could lead her to Tiffany and Nico?

Chilling and creepy, this is a story that will give you goosebumps while you read it and nightmares afterwards. It combines McMann's signature obsession with voices from beyond (see the Wake series) and gives it a moderately more plausible situation in the form of OCD-suffering Kendall. The result worked for me and is not nearly as silly as it might sound.

Kendall is also a much more interesting character for me than Wake's Janie (who went from tortured soul to whining super-detective a bit too quickly for my tastes). Kendall's OCD is easier to grasp and her rather human hesitations and weaknesses seemed more real. The potential romance with Jacian is predictable but handled nicely and doesn't interfere with what is otherwise a nice creepy ghost story.

Never Been Kissed, by Melody Carlson

Elise is almost sixteen years old and she's never been kissed. While she impresses a younger girl in her apartment complex with her (exaggerated) worldliness, Elise knows that she's a fake. But when she meets a cute boy named Asher, she wonders if he could be the one. He's friendly enough and is sending her flirtatious emails. The problem is that he's taken.

From there, the story could have predictably become a sweet romance about boy and girl trying to find each other and Elise (maybe) finally getting her kiss. But that's not what Carlson has in mind. Instead, the subject of being unkissed gets sidelined by serious criminal accusations lodged against Elise. She must do everything she can to protect her reputation. Thankfully, she has faith in God to pull her through.

I am always on the lookout for YA books that address honest explorations of faith, but this sort of "inspirational" literature makes my skin crawl. Harping on about how "being a Christian" making you better than Lutherans (or anyone else) and proving your faith by attending services and judging others who do not isn't faith -- it's prejudice and arrogance. So, I tried my best to ignore the gratuitous references to faith here and didn't bother taking them seriously.

Oddly enough, the book actually worked as a decent whodunit. Yes, I think I might have preferred a more innocent book about kissing, but I enjoyed what the book was really about (integrity and making good decisions). There were a few plot points that seemed blazingly obvious, but the story unfolds nicely and I kept eagerly turning the pages.

This isn't a book for those with an interest in strong character development. The characters are flat and some of them (like the adults in authority) are grossly exaggerated, but Elise herself is appealing and multi-faceted. In many ways, this helps to keep the focus firmly on Elise and keeps the pace brisk.

Banished, by Sophie Littlefield

Hailey has always been at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Trashtown MO. But when a girl in her gym class suffers a serious injury, Hailey discovers that she has the ability to heal people. That's when things start to go terribly wrong. Strange men show up looking for her. Her grandmother starts acting suspicious. And when Hailey's long-lost aunt shows up out of the blue, all heck breaks loose. Soon, Hailey and her aunt are on the run from a greedy scientist, hired goons, a sociopath neighbor, and zombies!

I liked the way the book began (with a struggling teen trying to fit in amidst some pretty dark settings), but by the time we got to the marauding zombies I had pretty much lost interest. The ending gets pretty busy and ends on a cliffhanger (which suggests a sequel, of course, but doesn't really seem justified), which left me with too many unsatisfying loose ends. Hailey begins as an interesting heroine, but once the violence level kicks up (there's an amazing amount of non-fatal gunshots here), she becomes rather drab.

Trapped, by Michael Northrop

When school is cancelled early because of a snow storm, Scotty's first worry is that his big game that evening will be cancelled. But when he and six other kids find themselves trapped at the school in the middle of an incredible blizzard, things take a more serious turn. By the time their tale of survival has drifted into days, events have grown fatal. What develops is classic disaster novel stuff, but told through the lens of a group of resourceful teens.

This isn't a very touchy feely book, focusing more on the action than the books I normally read, but there is a certain amount of male posturing and psychological drama. In addition, some intimations that a romance might develop are factored in, but as Scotty himself says, this isn't a boy-meets-girl story. What it is is a pretty decent adventure story with a group of fairly believable teens, who make a couple of decent choices as well as a fair share of stupid decisions. It all seems in character.

The novel is hardly earth-shattering, but it's entertaining. Northrop knows how to keep the pace up and ratchet up the suspense. The ending comes on a bit sudden but it's satisfying, even if not terribly deep.

The Properties of Water, by Hannah Roberts McKinnon

When a tragic accident takes Lacey's older sister and mother away, Lace and her Dad must try to cope with maintaining the house and healing from their losses. Simply maintaining the house is struggle enough. Enter Willa Dodge, housekeeper extraordinaire, who whips things back into shape. While Lace initially distrusts Willa, she learns that she can be a powerful ally. A tiff with her best friend and a romance with an older boy also play a role in helping Lacey come to terms with what has happened to her family.

A short and nicely written novel that unfolds in a highly surprising fashion. It's hard to tell the whole story here as it would reveal too many of those surprises. Suffice it to say that there is a lot more to the tale than is immediately apparent. I enjoyed that and especially liked the way that it all grew in complexity as we went along. The characters are somewhat less interesting and I think the strength of the novel lies mostly in the storytelling and not the narrators.

The Absolute Value of Mike, by Kathryn Erskine

Mike's father is absolutely convinced that Mike should become an engineer. Never mind that Mike is hopeless with math or spatial relationships. Dad is obsessed. So, when Dad gets an opportunity to go overseas for the summer, he decides to send Mike to his distant relatives Moo and Poppy in rural Pennsylvania to help Poppy build an "artesian screw" and hone his engineering skills.

That's when the fun really begins. Moo is half-blind and confused, and her driving is downright terrifying. Poppy is grieving his dead son and completely tuned out. The entire town is obsessed (and united) around the goal of raising enough money to adopt a Romanian orphan named Misha. As Mike gets sucked into the plan, he discovers that he may make a lousy traditional engineer, but he's good at getting this oddball group to come together.

Erskine has a wonderful ability to come up with lively and original stories. So far, she hasn't fallen into a rut and each of her three novels has been unique. While stories about quirky small towns tend to drive me nutty (as they usually come across as big city stereotypes of what life in rural areas are like), this one doesn't fit the mold. For while the characters all seem like crazy hayseeds at first, their behavior is eventually explained. All of which sends a message to Mike (and the reader) that initial impressions are deceiving.

Mike is also an appealing character. He's quick tempered, jumps to conclusions and a bit stubborn, but these are traits that actually serve him well (and to which boys as a whole will relate). He occasionally comes across a bit too insightful for his age (14), but struggles realistically with self-identity and his maturing relationship with his Dad. While many classic YA books have done this too, it's fallen out of vogue. It's nice to find a good coming-of-age boy book. And it's particularly nice to find a book for boys that focuses on human relationships and not blowing things up or winning the big game.

As You Wish, by Jackson Pearce

After Viola discovers that her best friend and ex-boyfriend Lawrence is gay, she feels alone and invisible. The solution, she is convinced, is to find a way to get over Lawrence entirely and find someone new. If she could pull that off, life would be so much better!

So, when a jinn (a genie) shows up and grants her three wishes, it might well seem like a perfect solution. However, Viola is smart enough to realize that she cannot simply wish herself to happiness. In fact, she finds it difficult (if not impossible) to imagine a set of wishes she truly wants. But a strange thing happens: the longer it takes her to decide three things to wish for, the more clearer she becomes about how to achieve happiness. Ironically, it will come to depend on her ability to not use up those wishes. A battle of wills erupts with surprising consequences all round.

A fascinating twist on the Aladdin story. Pearce has fun reimagining the story as a more blatant exploration of adolescent identity and self-discovery than the traditional tale allows. All well and good and it might have made a memorable riff. The ingredients are all in place for a fable about how happiness truly comes from within. But somewhere along the way, Pearce decided that that wasn't the book that she wanted to write. Instead, she plunges midway into a more traditional romance. This is unexpected and will appeal to a particular audience, but seemed like a waste of a good story to me.

You Are Not Here, by Samantha Schutz

Told in verse, You Are Not Here is the story of Annaleah and Brian's short-lived romance, cut short when Brian suddenly dies. In the aftermath of Brian's death, Annaleah falls into self-pity and shuts herself off from her friends and family in grief. It doesn't help that her friends never liked Brian and that Brian never publicly acknowledged the relationship. Isolated, with her right to grieve unrecognized and unvalidated, Annaleah spends day after day at Brian's grave, trying to draw some sense of it all. Slowly, she manages to pull herself out of her depression, helped along by persistent friends and a chance for new love in the form of a guy at work.

Verse novels, I'm fond of noting, are very much hit or miss. I find them so risky that I usually avoid them altogether. This is one of the successes. It doesn't succeed so much on the strength of the poetry (some of which is good) or on the occasional poignant observation (far too easy when continuity is optional). It works in this case because of Schutz's keen sense of the human psyche. The grief that Annaleah is feeling is authentic and her feelings in general are real. Surprisingly, for a novel about grief, there are some really hot sex scenes in here as well (a particularly memorable shower scene sticks out). All of which is to say that Schutz sees a world that is full of many emotions, where a character can cry and laugh, grow angry and even lust -- all in one package. A fair share of sage advice about overcoming grief is a valuable side benefit.

The Big Crunch, by Pete Hautman

June has been dragged from one town to another by her "never look back" father. She's learned that everywhere she goes, schools and kids are pretty much the same. That is, until she meets Wes. It isn't love at first sight, but after a few false starts, they fall for each other. Unfortunately, soon enough June has to move again. This time, though, is different and June and Wes struggle to stay together, realizing that friends in life are not always interchangeable.

While there isn't much of a plot, it's an interesting book. The romance, despite the hype of the dust jacket (which also strangely refers to the girl as Jen), is by-the-numbers. But that really isn't the point here. It's the characters who are interesting. Their language is refreshingly frank and sounds authentically real. And not just the kids -- the adults also sound painfully real. Cliches like the totally self-absorbed teen or the arrogant/clueless adult are tossed out, and replaced by real human beings. The result are people who are plain appealing to read about. So what if the story breaks no new narrative ground? I could read these folks reciting the phone book and would still be interested!

The Running Dream, by Wendelin Van Draanen

Jessica has nearly always thought of herself as a runner. From when she was little, running meant freedom. And running on the track team has been her favorite thing in the world. So when an accident crushes her leg and the limb is amputated, she has to redefine herself. How will she ever survive not being able to run again?

Step by step, Van Draanen shows how Jessica heals her physical and psychic wounds as best she can, and how she re-learns her abilities and her limits. Along the way, she befriends a younger handicapped girl who helps her in her recovery.

Most of the novel is good but average -- a well-researched story about amputation and rehabilitation. There's lots of nice details about how prosthetics are fitted and how they work. I was reminded of a similar book I read a few years back by Priscilla Cummings called A Face First (about a girl recovering from significant burn damage). It's one of my all-time favorite books. The challenge with this type of story is taking all of that research and making the story still flow -- combining entertainment with the education. Cummings pulled it off, but I didn't feel like Van Draanen did as well here. For its majority, the book is more a string of episodes -- related to each other but never quite flowing together.

All of this changes in the last sixty pages or so, when Van Draanen seemingly discovers the unifying theme for her story and brings it all home. Having gotten 2/3 through the book, I wasn't expecting such a strong finish, but it easily made the rest of the book (which isn't bad!) worth reading.

Jumpstart the World, by Catharine Ryan Hyde

When 15 year-old Elle's mother decides to settle down with her new child-hating boyfriend, Mom decides that Elle should be settled down in her own apartment. Despite feeling hurt by the abandonment, Elle doesn't really mind because she's always been a loner (and also because Mom has never been very attentive in the first place). Elle has learned that she can't really allow people into her life.

That starts to change through the adoption of a rescue cat and her hard crush for the older man next door. The cat isn't terribly friendly and the man next door is a bit different. In fact, Elle's entire new world is full of misfits and colorful characters, but somehow she finds what she needs from the diverse group.

"Jumpstart the world" as a phrase will probably not resonate as well as Hyde's earlier "pay it forward," but she is attempting to weave the same magic: telling a story that is deceptively simple while delivering a bigger message. As a story, though, it didn't work. In this case, the message is hindered by the narrator, who is maddeningly contradictory. She's astute and well-spoken, but immature. She's capable of taking care of herself and articulating complex feelings, yet prejudiced and selfish. Being so articulate, her self-realizations sound fake (you find it hard to believe she was ever so ignorant in the first place) and her changes are too sudden.

The supporting characters are also very thin. In some cases like Elle's Mom or Molly this works very well, leaving open plenty of room for reader-supplied elaboration. With others, like Elle's schoolfriends, the flatness seems a bit lazy.