The Unwritten Rule, by Elizabeth Scott

The unwritten rule is that you shouldn't fall in love with your best friend's boyfriend, but what if you loved him first?  And what if your best friend wasn't really acting like they should either?  Lusting about Ryan ought to be a non-starter for Sarah since Brianna is dating him, but Sarah can't help herself.  She also can't help but notice how poorly Brianna treats him (not that that would justify her desires, but it bothers her nonetheless!).  What she doesn't do as good a job of noticing is that Brianna doesn't exactly treat her that well either.

On its face, the love triangle ought to be a pretty tired genre, but Scott livens up the story by introducing a mild sense of evil (in the form of Brianna).  This is not done simply to make Sarah's betrayal of her BFF acceptable to the reader, but rather to add another dimension to it.

The story is also given legs by the way that Scott breathes real life into her characters.  Sarah is often wiser and more articulate than her years, but this gives her a chance to send the reader on a guided tour of the dysfunctions of her peers and their parents (Brianna's mother is a particularly formidible character).  So, while the action of the story doesn't surprise, the interactions of the characters do tread new ground -- particularly the complicated relationship between Sarah and Brianna.

The Diviners, by Libba Bray

It is the Roaring Twenties and Evie is a totally modern gal, which is why live in boring Ohio is unbearable.  And why being sent to New York City to live with her uncle is a dream come true.  New York is the city where it's at -- gin joints, hopping jazz, fashionable people -- just the place for a gal who wants to have some fun!

However, New York is also full of strange and evil things.  A murderer is loose in the city and engaged in a series of ritual murders.  Evie's uncle, an expert on the occult, has been consulting for the police and very quickly Evie herself gets drawn into the investigation.  Teamed up with a series of paranormally-enhanced and gin-addled friends, they are on the hunt.  The question is whether they can stop the killer before he manages to end the world.

It's Libba Bray's typical collection of crazy and wild ideas, which combine supernatural thriller with pulp fiction detective novel.  Bray has infused the story with a lot of detail, but there's no escaping the sheer corniness of the setting, which is part Ghostbusters and part Dick Tracy.  Either way, this extremely long tome (578 pages, you chumps!) is more cinema than literature -- light and airy, and largely insubstantial.  Obviously, since I read the whole thing, I can't have felt like it sucked, but it lacked the fun of Beauty Queens and ultimately seemed pretty silly.  And the last forty pages of the book existed merely to pave the way for an unnecessary sequel, while avoiding any sort of closure.

What Can(t) Wait, by Ashley Hope Perez

In the barrio of Houston, Marisa dreams of making something of herself.  It isn't easy.  She's good at math, bright and intelligent, and has supportive teachers, but between the need to work to help her family and their other demands, there frequently isn't enough time left to study or even attend school.  No member of her family shares her love for education and some of them (like her father) are downright hostile to her bookishness.  That would be enough or a challenge, but Marisa complicates things by occasionally messing up (especially with guys).  Still, she has a lot of drive and determination, and with some help from unexpected sources she just might make it.

It's a familiar story (Real Women Have Curves, anyone?), but a good one.  And told in this unvarnished and authentic fashion (with enough R-rated material to get the book-banners salivating), the novel has a lot of appeal.  It's gritty and sounds right (and not just because of the frequent use of Spanglish). 

It's the character of Marisa herself that carries this story.  If she had just been this virtuous hard-working young woman pursuing the American Dream, I would have gotten bored pretty quickly, but Perez gets extra points for allowing her to be flawed.  You want her to succeed so very badly that when she screws up, it breaks your heart.  But Perez doesn't milk it.  For every mistake, Marisa dusts herself off and jumps right back into things.  So, yes, she's tough, but she's got a lot of heart (and a thin skin on the things that matter to her) so she's also very endearing.  I rooted for her from the start and stuck with her to the end -- and I think it paid off quite well.

Being a product of a nice anglo suburb, I don't tend to have much interest in urban culture (or stories placed in such settings), but a great heroine transcends their environment and anyone can enjoy this book.  If urban latinas find something special to like in the book, so much the better, but white guys will like it too.

Alice on Board, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Now that the girls have graduated from High School, Alice is realizing that they will soon part and go off in different directions.  But for one more summer, they will be together, working on a cruise ship in the Chesapeake Bay.  It's hard work, but Alice gets to see a lot of scenery and they have some adventures.  Pamela is dealing with her needy mother, Gwen is trying out a new romance, and Alice herself is mostly fretting over Patrick and whether she is being too clingy.

It's another installment in Naylor's long-running series.  Alice's adventures aren't quite as cute as before and the books tend to read like serial installments, rather than as themed books, but Alice remains an interesting young woman (if, for no other reason, than there's been so much written about her).  Naylor is not quite in touch with the technology that is the foundation of adolescence (confusing Facebook with some sort of chat room or Craigslist) anymore and her writing style seems more grandmotherly, but this gives the books an innocent charm that make them popular with younger readers.  This particular installment is a bit more action-packed than some of the previous ones, but notably thinner on emotions, feelings, and getting inside Alice's head.

In many ways, this is probably my greatest reservation about the series.  Having tracked every little bit of Alice's life for 12+ years, we have a wonderful opportunity to explore why she feels like she does.  Occasionally, Alice lets down her guard and Naylor explores an idea briefly (in this example, there's a tease where Alice wonders if her clingy feelings are somehow tied to losing her mother when she was little), but the ideas are dropped just as quickly as they appear.  That makes the books overall superficial and frustrating.  Sure, we know when she got her first bra, had her first period, and lost her virginity, but not that much about her anxieties and her dreams.  A person's made up of more than anecdotes and milestones.

[Note:  This was supposed to be the very last book in the series, but apparently Naylor decided that she needed to do another one, so look forward to Always Alice, sometime in 2013.]

Want To Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

Abby's having a hard time adjusting to High School.  She's shy and awkward, the school is big, the teachers different, and her best friend is distracted by different classes, extracurriculars, and a new boyfriend.  Abby's got a boy in school that she's crushing on too, but he isn't the focus of her life.  The focus of her life is Luke, a guy she's met online.  She knows all about stranger danger and how you shouldn't talk with people you don't know on the Internet, but Luke is different.  He's kind and caring and supports her all the time.  And as Abby struggles with her friends and family, she really needs Luke.  So, when Luke suggests that they meet, she decides to go for it.  The rest of the book deals with the consequences of that terrible mistake.

I have mixed feelings about this one.  Littman is tackling an important subject but she knows it.  The story is liberally littered with adults telling the reader about sexual predators online and how they "groom" their victims.  Lots of action in the story is really thinly-veiled advice about what to do (and not do) in situations like this.  The result is a pedantic story that terrorizes the reader as much as it enlightens them. I don't like books that preach, especially about something this obvious.  Want to help kids avoid sexual predators?  Show how those predators work.  But scaring them with graphic and nasty scenes?  With stories of how they will be subject to not only mortal danger, but (gasp!) the derision of their peers?  Why?  It seemed more like scare tactics and felt like exploitation.

Given the mission, the characters are largely secondary to the message.  The kids have endearing qualities, but I didn't really feel that I got to know them (and the adults are throwaway).  Most shockingly, I never really understood why Abby went with the guy.  We gets lots of repetition of the word "grooming process" as an explanation but its depiction in the book is shockingly sparse.  Rather than show the gradual process through which the predator insinuated himself into her trust, we jump roughly ahead a few months to later scenes where the guy has already trained her to disrobe on command.  As a result, we're left mystified as to why she would do this.  For the mission of the book and the understanding of the young readers to whom it is targeted, it would have made more sense to show that development process (and maybe lowered the explicitness of the yucky stuff).

Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore

Not so much the latest installment of a trilogy as much as a parallel sequel to Graceling (taking a minor side-story and expanding it), this is ostensibly the story of how King Leck's daughter Bitterblue helped her kingdom come to terms with his murderous legacy.  Her efforts are complicated by the terror she still feels towards her father and a growing sense that her advisers are resistant to reforms.  Overcoming those fears becomes Bitterblue's own shining contribution.

The book is a bit longer and thematically more complex than the other books in the series.  Cashore is great with details and telling a complicated story.  This is a good thing since she has chosen two difficult tasks (to depict a very lively political scene and to dig in to the concept of terror and the way that one recovers from its trauma).  She's not always successful in keeping up a good pace to the story and the middle of the book starts to drag a bit with navel gazing peer counseling and a number of subplots that even Bitterblue's surly archivist writes off as "of questionable relevance."  The conclusion is also painfully drawn out, sending us through nearly 100 pages of tying up loose ends.  Still, one can be indulgent over the dull sections as the work overall is a magnificent and complex achievement that continues to develop the world of its two predecessors.

Bittersweet, by Sarah Ockler

Three years ago, Hudson was on her way to a professional career in figure skating.  And then she threw her skating competition.  Her teammates thought that she had just choked from the pressure, but the truth was that she and her mother had just found out that her Dad (her all-round biggest fan) was cheating on them.  And, in that moment on the rink, she realized that she wanted nothing more to do with him.  Since skating was the thing she did with him, she vowed that she would never do it again.

Now, with her Dad long gone, and Hudson, her little brother, and Mom trying to make ends meet, Hudson realizes that she misses skating after all.  A rare opportunity to skate in a competition again presents itself with a tantalizing offer:  a college scholarship that could be her ticket out of her dead-end life.  But in order to get practice time at a local rink, Hudson finds herself coaching the high school hockey team, which in turn leads her into the arms of not just the team's captain, but his smoldering co-captain as well.

If you get the sense that there is an awful lot going on in this story, then you would be right.  The nearly 400 pages of this novel are full of a dozen overlapping plots.  It seems that Hudson's life is complicated and complex.  Normally, I'm not a fan of such a busy story (I'd rather a writer choose a story and focus the novel around it), but it works in this case because much of the book's point is that Hudson's life is complicated and complex.  I'm not such a fan of Hudson herself (she's a bit spacy and not very responsible with her friends), but she's brave and fearless and I give her kudos for what she accomplishes in the story.  The ending is all a bit too over-the-top cheery and pink fluffy bunnies, but Hudson grows a great deal over the course of the story, so I was satisfied overall.

Lucky Breaks, by Susan Patron

Lucky and the odd-ball inhabitants of Hard Pan have aged a year or so.  Brigitte is trying to learn how to become an American (as well as a good mother to Lucky), Lincoln is mastering his knot tying skills and working out the secrets of the universe, and Miles - while still a bit weird - has been declared a genius.

And now there's a new girl - Pamona - the niece of a scientist working in the area.  She's the same age as Lucky and - Lucky hopes - might potentially become her best friend.  But Pamona also shakes up things as Lucky struggles to come to terms that in order to have a best friend, one has to be a best friend (and not just to Pamona, but to Lincoln and Miles as well).

It's been a while since I read the first book (The Higher Power of Lucky), but I remember being enchanted by the quirky characters, gentle storytelling, and kindheartedness of that book.  That all continues here, but in the sequel it wears a bit thin.  Maybe it's because the story itself never really gels, but instead rambles around between subjects.  Or maybe the appeal of the original is lost once the novelty fades.  Either way, I found it hard to engage with the book.  It was pleasant to read, but ultimately forgettable.

Lexie, by Audrey Couloumbis

It's the first summer that Lexie's parents haven't been together, so it feels particularly weird to be going out to the beach house with only Dad.  Weird to leave her Mom in the city, but also a little good - a feeling with which Lexie struggles. 

When they get out to the shore, Lexie is in for number of surprises:  Dad has invited a "friend" to join them and she's coming with two boys.  Lexis is torn about this:  she hates having to share her father with other people, but she grows to like the boys and even her father's friend.

Couloumbis can be a bland writer.  I didn't care much for her acclaimed novel Getting Near to Baby because I found it dull and boring.  However, for a story with this book's subtle complexity, Couloumbis's style works well.  The characters here are smart and insightful and the feelings they express are complicated.  It is a gentle story that avoids melodrama and instead explores how the process of changing families can be both good and bad at the same time.  Lexie and the boys are allowed to both love and hate the changes that are happening around them, and even the adults get to express their feelings as mixture of joy, fear, and sadness.  While the kids can seem a bit precocious at times, I think that is mostly because we are used to dumbed-down characters in books like this.  In the world of Lexie's beach house, it all seemed quite reasonable.  The story itself breaks little new ground, but its treatment of the subject of divorce and remarriage makes this smart little book notable.

The Unforgotten Coat, by Frank Cottrell Boyce

It's a memorable day for Julie when two Mongolian boys show up unannounced at her school.  While they struggle with the language, the boys quickly assert themselves as different and Julie is entranced.  The older boy Chingis announces that Julie will be their "good guide" and help them understand their new home.  Julie is pleased to accept.  However, the younger boy Nergui is afraid that a demon is after them and the boys (with their new guide) must find a way to escape Nergui's nemesis.  Told in flashback and through a series of Polaroids, Boyce lays out a story that is both magical and yet very down-to-earth, ultimately exploring the immigrant experience.

For a very brief book (under 100 pages, with many photographs), I found it strangely moving.  The story lives on minimalism, with Boyce preferring to do less with his words and more with the images.  The book's design (like a notebook with lined-paper pages) and enigmatic photographs are striking and integral to the story.  The overall product is effective and original.

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

With Lucy's older sister going away to College, Lucy is psyched to be getting their room to herself.  She's also looking forward to going out for captain of the basketball team this year.  Sixth grade is going to be totally great!

But then things go awry.  Her late grandmother's long-lost sister is coming to visit and Lucy is going to have to share her room with the old woman for several months.  And Lucy's parents have decided that Lucy needs to attend Chinese school on Saturday mornings, even if it means missing basketball practice!  She just wants to be a normal American kid, yet her family keeps forcing her to be Chinese!  And no one seems to care that she loves basketball!

A gentle (albeit mildly preachy) story about the power of silver linings.  As is typical in books for this age group, Lucy begins as a self-centered (and mildly bratty) kid and ends up more open-minded and considerate.  It's a satisfying model, but doesn't offer a lot of surprises.  What works better is Wan-Long Shang's ability to work in a lot of Chinese culture, and to remind us that it doesn't exist in a vacuum (i.e., being Chinese-American means bringing the two cultures together).  She also does a nice job of bringing generations together as Lucky's visiting great-aunt proves to have some unexpected strengths.

The Difference Between You and Me, by Madeleine George

Jesse is a rebel and an outcast, from the huge fisherman's boots she wears to the angry manifestos she posts on the walls at school.  She's got an agenda and she's not shy about trumpeting it.  Emily, on the other hand, is the perky clean-cut student government vice president with a plan for everything and an explanation for every twist and turn in her life.  Nothing scares her more than the chaos and disorder that epitomize Jesse's life. Together, they are an unlikely couple, and yet are strongly attracted to each other. However, as hot as it gets between them, it is all under wraps as Emily must maintain a perfect sheen to the outside world.  Jesse, strangely enough, tolerates this because of her serious lust for Emily.  However, these compromised arrangements come undone when a big box store comes to town and the girls find themselves on opposite sides of the debate over whether such stores benefit the communities in which they operate and whether corporations have a place in public schools.

I absolutely loved the human interactions in this story.  From the way that the girls talk to each other to the interactions that Jesse and her parents have, the dialogue and the behaviors rang true.  I was less thrilled with the plotting, which was uneven and cluttered with subplots.  Perhaps because I found the relationship of Jesse and Emily to be so interesting, I really didn't care about anything but the girls, and I found myself racing past anything else in the book to get back to them.

The Disenchantments, by Nina LaCour

Upon graduating from high school, Colby knows exactly what he's going to do for the next year:  go on a short tour up the West Coast with The Disenchantments (an all-girl band, made up of his three best friends from school).  None of the members can play, but what they lack in talent they make up for with spirit and energy.  Afterwards, he and Bev (one of the girls in the band) are going to bum around Europe for the rest of the year.  Afterwards, perhaps they'll go to college.

However, on the first day on the road, Bev confesses that her plans have changed and that she's going to Art School in the fall instead.  Naturally, this makes life on the road together a bit awkward and tense.  As with all good road trip stories, there's plenty of discovery along the way.  By the end, Colby figures it out and learns that often life just hands you random stuff.

It's a very dialogue-heavy book, without much of a narrative thrust.  The plot just rolls along however it feels and the characters spend a lot of time talking.  For this reason chiefly, the book never managed to grab me.  It isn't that it was dull, but simply not very adventurous or ambitious.

Without Tess, by Marcella Pixley

For the past five years, Lizzie has been struggling with coming to terms with the death of her older sister.  As children, the two girls were tightly bonded and shared an intense love of fantasy and make-believe, with Tess always leading the way.  As they grow older and Lizzie begins to outgrow both the make-believe and her intense devotion for her sister, Tess retreats more and more into fantasy, eventually leading to tragedy.

Told in a combination of flashbacks, Tess's poetry, and counseling sessions, this is a gritty and bare-open portrayal of mental illness and the impact it can have on a young family.  I liked Pixley's previous novel Freak a lot, but this book is on an entirely different playing field.  The anecdotes are so raw and so confessional, that it's impossible to remain impassive.  Knowing the tragic ending that awaits in no way prepares you for it.  Pixley does let us off a bit with a positive ending, but you will be in tears by the end of the book.

There's so much to love here.  The writing is superb and recalls the wistfulness of early Sarah Dessen.  The imagery ranges from the naturalistic (the seaside setting is employed to great effect) to the spiritual (Lizzie's flirtation with Catholicism is wonderfully juxtaposed with the "betrayal" of her sister).  The characters are amazing (whether it is the lyric Tess herself, her scared sister Lizzie, the well-meaning neighbors, or the confused parents) and every portrayal is spot on.  These people seemed real to me and my heart went out to each of them.  Without a doubt, one of the truly great books I've read all year, although it will undoubtedly break your heart!

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, by James Patterson

Rafe Khatchadorian has an amazing imagination and a deep fear of sixth grade.  To get through it, he (and his friend Leo) have come up with a plan:  this year, he will break every rule in the school's handbook.  The plan moves along swimmingly.  And while Rafe finds it exciting to be so fearless and bold (and the attention it brings him is pretty cool), he also discovers the downsides to being a troublemaker.

The result is a lively story, with a questionable moral compass that is perfect for younger readers.  The book is enhanced with drawings and cartoons (by Laura Park) that capture perfectly the mindset of a sixth-grade boy in all of its awkward immaturity.  This is a story that will remind female readers of how stupid boys can be, but Rafe has a heart of gold and learns a lot from his exploration of naughtiness, and so ultimately it redeemed.  Mixed in gently, a mature theme about domestic abuse is also dealt with in an age-appropriate fashion.

The Fine Art of Truth or Dare, by Melissa Jensen

Ella has an esteem problem, exacerbated by the burns she got on her shoulder when she was younger (and prompted by being a teen).  She spends a lot of time covering up and trying to lay low.  That doesn't stop her from wishing that suave popular Alex would notice her.  Add to the mix Ella's obsession with an obscure American artist (and her "conversations" with him when she's alone in her room), as well as her obsessive search to find out the identity of his secret love life.  Then toss in the antics of her largely stereotypical South Philly Italian family (complete with family restaurant and wise-talking granny).  And, just when you think you can't add another layer, sprinkle on a gay friend and her (predictable) estrangement from him as she chases after dream-boat Alex.  And the dish is called:  a busy little romance with literary pretensions!

Jensen can certainly write lively and witty prose.   She gets her details right:  this Philadelphia is pitch perfect and instantly recognizable.  The characters are amusing, if uninspiring.  And the story has its moments -- many of them completely random (e.g., swimming with sharks -- you'll have to read it yourself to get that one!).  There is one very striking and memorable scene (on page 353 -- if you need a prompt) that will stick with me. 

However, the book is so busy!  Having a few good hits won't make up with the sheer chaotic nature of the storytelling.  The characters are largely stereotypes.  Alex is a pretty boy without much of a personality (I'm terribly amused by other reviewers who describe him as "cute" -- how can you tell from a book?).  He says all the right things and seems pretty boring.  The father, grandmother, and a bitter archivist are forgettable tropes.  The exception is Ella, who gets some moments to shine.  It's a comfortable read but largely insignificant.

Rockoholic, by C. J. Skuse

Jody's a bit obsessed with Jackson Gatlin, lead singer of The Regulators.  So, nothing's going to stop her from seeing them in concert -- not her mother, not a full day waiting in line for front row seats, and not some kid vomiting on her while she waits in the line. When an accident in the mosh pit lands her backstage in the infirmary, she misses most of the show but she gets to meet her idol face to face.  And she makes a split second decision to kidnap him.

At first, it is surprisingly easy to guide Jackson back to the car and spirit him back to her home, but then she finds that that is because he doesn't really mind being abducted.  Also, that he's a bit more than she can handle, being a detoxing speed freak with a nasty temper.  It will take some creative foot skills for Jody and her friend Mac to keep Jackson under wraps from the paparazzi and a homicidal manager.  Rock on!

It is, of course, just a bit over the top.  And it could be great fun, if it wasn't for the gross out factor (vomit plays a prominent role in the story) and the utter annoying nature of Jody herself.  She isn't just an obsessive fan, but also a complete ditz (or "stupid cow" as her friends put it, since they're British).  I haven't quite figured out if British YA writers think young women are stupid, but it does seem to be a trend in UK YA that the girls are dumber.  I suppose you can sit back and laugh at the how irresponsible and thought-free they are (and at all the barfing too), but I found it annoying.  I did, however, read the book all the way to the end and it turned out OK, so maybe if you're into the characters more than me, you'll enjoy it.

[Full disclosure:  This one came to me as a free advance copy.  The book comes out in November.]

The List, by Siobhan Vivian

Every year, a list appears at Mount Washington high school.  No one knows who creates it.  The list simply appears one morning, attached to every wall and locker possible.  It names the hottest girl and the ugliest girl in each class.  This act of mischief, cruelty, and hazing becomes a tool that the novel uses to navigate us through how eight young women deal with being singled out and labeled.  Their reactions range from despair and desperation to denial, but without exception the experience affects them, often in very surprising ways.  By the end of the story, we even find out the identity of the list's author and why they created it, but by that point, it almost doesn't matter -- the list has taken on a life of its own.


Vivian points out that, surprisingly, being labeled the "prettiest" is not necessarily a good thing (and likewise being called "ugly" is not necessarily a curse).  Instead, it is really the fame of being called out that is life-changing.  And it is the way that society treats people who are nominated to these roles that is most telling.  The story covers a broad canvas of personalities and reactions.  In doing so, we get a reflection of a much bigger world -- of how young women (and many adults as well!) allow themselves to be defined by others, and what it takes for each one to overcome it.

On its face, this is well-tread territory, but Vivian breathes new life into the subject by trying to cover so much ground.  At the same time, it is hard to keep track of eight different stories.  At times, I wished for a simpler narrative, maybe 2-3 characters instead of eight!  Still, it's hard to imagine which roles could have been cut.  Each one of the eight girls has something to teach us.  There's a lot of cold hard truth here and lot of raw frailty and doubt on display.  It doesn't make for comfortable reading, but it will certainly make good fodder for discussion!

So B. It, by Sarah Weeks

There are only a few things that Heidi knows for certain:  she has incredible luck (winning every time she plays the slots, for example), her family's friend Bernie is afraid to go outside the house but is otherwise her primary caregiver, and her mother's name is So B. It. 

At least, that's about all she thinks she knows about her mother.  Mom is a bit slow and isn't much for communicating (she knows only twenty-three words) and can't tell her much.  Still, Heidi is determined to find her roots.  When she finds an undeveloped roll of film in her Mom's things, it sets off a chain of events that sends Heidi on a cross-country trip.

A surprising and delightful book.  I'm not a big fan of children-abandoned-to-danger stories, but the scary stuff in this one is kept to a minimum (maybe because of Heidi's innate luck?).  And the book has many things going for it.  The characters are memorable and quirky.  The story is well-paced and engaging.  And while the ending is drawn out, it is satisfactory, without trying to tie up every loose end.

The Sledding Hill, by Chris Crutcher

Elliott has suffered a double whammy:  his best friend and his father are both killed within three weeks of each other in separate accidents.  In both cases, he's the one who first discovered them. With a touch of ADHD, Elliott in general has trouble communicating and decides to deal with his losses by shutting down and going mute.

His plans to lay low, though, are challenged when his town is plunged into a censorship debate that pits a liberal English teacher against a bigoted minister and his church.  With the help of his late best friend's father and the ghost of the best friend himself, Elliott goes up against the church.

It was probably intended to be clever, but Crutcher's decision to put himself in the story and make one of his books (admittedly, not one that actually exists) into the challenged text seemed like incredible hubris.  Reading repeated testimonials from the characters about how transformative Crutcher's writing is (from the pen of the author himself) seemed self-serving.  My immediate (uncharitable) reaction was that Crutcher's writing is not in the same stratosphere as the literature that one normally associates with challenged books.

And there is no getting around how dreadfully Crutcher actually writes.  His command of grammar is weak and despite apparently significant editorial intervention, there are some pretty obnoxious errors (it's "would have" not "would of"!). The characterizations are weak and facile.  An attempt to humanize the minister by belatedly bringing up childhood abuse is half-hearted.  Crutcher's primary position seems to be that organized religion is intrinsically evil and plagued with mob-mentality.  It's fine for dramatic license, but it doesn't really enlighten the reader about the debates surrounding challenged books.  The overall story is awfully random.  The ghost best friend is a bizarre character, to put it mildly, and the relationship with the grieving father and his own mother are left underdeveloped.