Return to Me, by Justina Chen

Rebecca is on the verge of starting her freshman year at Columbia, studying architecture.  She has a premonition that things are not going to go well.  And there are certainly issues:  her father has landed a new job in New York and the family is literally following her out east, leaving their beloved island home outside Seattle.  Meanwhile, Rebecca has to say goodbye to her boyfriend and ponder the viability of a long-distance relationship.

But then, her father drops a bombshell on the whole family:  he's leaving their mother and shacking up with a new woman.  Moreover, he's been carrying on a secret affair for the past several months.  His revelation and decision to dessert the family plunges all of them into crisis, as they deal with their grieving, anger, and eventual acceptance.  It also leads Rebecca to revisit her plans and reconsider what she really wants to do with her life.

Justina Chen writes novels full of lots of layers and meanings.  Here it seems a bit more aimless than previous books like North of Beautiful.  While some key concepts, like the meaning of architecture and Rebecca's love for tree houses, are integral to the story, there's a whole thread about Rebecca and her maternal relatives being clairvoyant which hangs awkwardly.  I have bigger issues with Chen's depiction of male characters, which are strikingly flat in comparison with the women.  The father is a glaring example, being at best shallow and seeming like a caricature.  For a story with so much insight on grieving and healing from a feminine perspective, Chen struggles with her male characters.  Rebecca's brother is a throwaway character and Rebecca's boyfriend seems to serve no further purpose than to be endlessly understanding.

Better Nate Than Ever, by Tim Federle

Thirteen year-old Nate dreams of making it big on Broadway.  Not just for the fame, but for the chance to escape his small town Western Pennsylvania existence.  He's tired of being mocked for being short and fat.  And he's tired of everyone assuming that he's gay (he's, in fact, decidedly undecided on the topic!).  So, on a weekend when his parents are away, he slips out of the house, buys a bus ticket, and makes his way to New York City to audition for a new musical based on the film ET.

It's quite an adventure for a small-town kid, and Nate's innocent and wide-eyed love for the Big Apple is a major part of the book's charm.  Nate learns in short order how to manage the chaos of the street as well as the ropes of the audition process, and he does both in his own unique way.  Through the intervention of his long estranged aunt, he also learns some family history and opens some doors.  And, while the subject of Nate's sexual orientation is addressed only fleetingly, it is obvious that he is beginning to have revelations on that front as well.

As with many books targeting middle readers, the frankness and sometimes "adult" nature of the story may make grownups squirm, but at a distance, it all seemed quite age appropriate.  For children too young to understand everything, the sympathetic Nate and the lack of serious harm that befalls him will make the book entertaining and enjoyable.  As a grownup, Nate's string of good luck seemed improbable, but it is in keeping with the spirit of this fun adventure, which promises a run of sequels.

A Tangle of Knots, by Lisa Graff

A wonderful middle reader fantasy about kids and grownups who have particular talents (whistling, disappearing, baking, etc.) and a surreal series of coincidences that bring them together in just the right way to fix everything.  It's a story that's so chaotic and jumbled that it's hard to explain, but it basically involves a bitter old man who steals away people's talents, and the efforts of a motley group to stop him.  Learning to break from past mistakes and forgiving oneself, finding a home, and a mysterious man riding a balloon in a well-pressed grey suit figure in as well.  Some homespun wisdom (e.g., "It's the way we deal with what fate hands us that defines who we are") and a series of interesting looking cake recipes fill out this fun offering.

Sometimes a book is just silly enough and a tale is just heartwarming enough that it captures that niche of children's literature that doesn't have to try to be loved.  This one fits in that special place.  Graff's story is reminiscent of Because of Winn Dixie and Savvy but the story is simpler and more direct. Like those stories, the characters are quirky and multi-generational (kids get to be kids, but adults have a role to play in the fun), and the plot isn't afraid of reaching for a little matter-of-fact magic when the real world can't be special enough.  It's a charming story that middle schoolers through young teens (and those with similar young hearts) will enjoy.

The Ruining, by Anna Collomore

Annie is excited about her new job as a nanny in San Francisco.  She'll be able to attend classes at SF State, live in a fabulous house on Belvedere Island with a great couple, take care of a sweet little girl, and (most importantly) finally escape her traumatic past.  It is a dream come true.

At first, things go well, but slowly circumstances change.  Her employers accuse her of doing things she cannot recall doing.  Strange things start to happen (Annie get mysteriously sick, things disappear, the walls get redecorated).  Annie begins to question her sanity.  In the end, her employers completely destroy Annie's life.

This very creepy story is at its best in the beginning when the freaky manipulative stuff is just starting to unfold.  But the pace picks up and eventually simply goes over the top.  At that point, since I no longer believed that the story was plausible, I stopped caring about the character.  And, since Collomore painted herself into a very tight corner, her solution has to be pretty drastic (and invoking a deus ex machina solution, it is dramatically disappointing).  The ending also completely sidesteps the issue of the evil that was done to Annie, so we're robbed the satisfaction of a final confrontation.  In all, I'll grant that the earlier parts of the book are engrossing psychological stuff, but I felt let down in the end.

Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger

Sophronia is the type of girl to drive a mother mad.  Unlike her older sisters who managed to become proper young ladies, Sophronia is always managing to get into some sort of trouble (and always of the most unladylike nature!).  She can't even curtsy correctly! So, Mumsy is only too happy to send her errant offspring off to finishing school.  Little does the woman or her daughter realize what is in store.  Mme Geraldine's school for young ladies teaches poise and etiquette, but also deceit, subterfuge, and diversion.  It is a school for girls to learn how to get what they want one way or another (through coquetry or espionage).  And, in this case, what almost everyone seems to want (and is willing to kill for) is the prototype (whatever that is!).

Apparently based on Carriger's popular steampunk universe The Parasol Protectorate, this new series of YA novels imagines the adolescents' view of a world of steam power, vampires, werewolves, Picklemen, and flywaymen.  Not being so well versed in steampunk, the concepts were a bit odd for me and seemed a bit too precious and pretentious.  The counterposing of traditional finishing school subjects with espionage is a cute joke the first couple of times, but after a couple hundred pages, the humor grows stale.  Much like steampunk fashion for me, the book is pretty to look at, but seems to paint itself in an artistic corner from which there is little room to move.

Gated, by Amy Christine Parker

Lyla feels safe in the Community.  Thanks to the wise leadership of Pioneer, her family and twenty other families will be saved when the End comes.  They will simply barricade themselves inside an underground bunker and hold out against the Outsiders.  If there is anyone she fears, it is the Outsiders!  It was one of them that abducted her sister in front of their house in NYC so many years ago.  But now she is with friends.

However, as the End time draws near, Lyla begins to notice that things are not quite right.  Pioneer doesn't always appear to be acting in their best interests.  And a chance encounter with an Outsider, a boy named Cody, opens Lyla's eyes to what is really going on.  However, as she tries to awaken her family and friends to the true source of danger in their midst, Pioneer turns his deadly attention directly on her!

A very tense (and bloody) thriller.  This one is definitely not for younger readers and it contains a fair amount of blood, major animal cruelty, and disturbing scenes.  The outcome of the story isn't terribly in doubt, but thanks to some excellent writing it remains a nail biter to the very end.  So, if you have a thick skin, this one is worth reading.

Unremembered, by Jessica Brody

When she wakes up, the girl is told that she is the lone survivor of a crashed plane flight - a crash that no human could have survived.  And that is all she knows.  Her memory has completely disappeared.  She appears to be super smart, multilingual, beautiful and physically strong, but she has no idea how she got that way.  The only clues are a locket around her neck and a tattoo on her arm.  And then there is a young man named Zen who informs her mysteriously that he is going to "rescue" her.

One of the very first things the girl figures out is that she is on the run and that Zen is a friend.  And she doesn't seem to have many of those as several groups of people are chasing after her and appear to want to cause her harm.  If only she could figure out why?  (And, by the way, it would be nice to know some simple basics like what is her name?)

This is not a deep think book, but it is a fast-paced action story with a decent mystery that takes most of the book to unwind.  It's a bit heavier on violence than I generally like and the characters are flat and disposable, but that's an artifact of the genre.  I found it entertaining for what it was.  I probably won't seek out the next installment of the trilogy, but I'm sure it will be amusing.

Fat Angie, by E E Charlton-Trujillo

Even if Angie wasn't big and uncoordinated, she would still never measure up to her sister.  But she would never want to do so.  Ever since Angie's sister was kidnapped in Iraq and went missing (and presumed dead), Angie's world has fallen apart.  The loss of her sister has made Angie more of a target to bullying from jealous classmates.  And without her sister to protect her, she is an easier target.  Angie's very public breakdown at the start of the school year didn't help anything.

Her remaining family is no refuge.  Her father is gone.  Angie's brother has turned against her and cruelly attacks her in public.  And Angie's mother accuses Angie of acting up for attention and uses her sadistic version of tough love on her daughter.

Her life, in sum, is hell, until a new girl named KC shows up.  KC is beautiful, West Coast cool, and ardently loyal to Angie, coming to her defense and helping her see beyond the abuse.  Angie can't begin to imagine how she has managed to luck out so much.  KC, however, has issues of her own and they complicate Angie's life further.

The story plays its hand very coolly.  The family may seem unnecessarily cruel, but friends are found in interesting places (in particular, from a gym teacher and a jock at school, who both look out for Angie).  It's a depressing story that you really want to end well.  Charlton-Trujillo teases a bit with partially happy endings, but the real conclusion leaves a lot of things messily unresolved.  That's not as satisfying, but it feels much more authentic.  The story has a lot of things going on:  family drama, sports competition, and love story, and it manages to balance it all fairly well.

Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell

Saying that Cath is a Simon Snow fan is a major understatement.  She and her twin sister Wren are deep into fan fiction, with Cath writing (and Wren editing) one of the most popular Simon Snow stories.  Simon Snow is the world to Cath and has sustained the girls through high school and family trauamas.  But now that Cath and Wren are freshmen at UNL, things have changed for Wren.  She no longer wants to do Simon Snow, being drawn to new social circles and parties.  Cath stays the path, but even she is opening her eyes to the broader world that exists after high school.

It's a book that straddles the line between YA and NA (New Adult) literature.  It's about growing up and (while not letting go of childish things altogether) about integrating them into a grownup life.  That's interesting stuff.  I also enjoyed all the local detail on Lincoln and Omaha, as I remember the area well.

In comparison to Rowell's Eleanor and Park, however, it pales.  Cath, Wren, and their roommates and boyfriends make relatively less interesting characters.  And the story itself is less compelling.  It's a long book and subject to a widespread abandonment of subplots.  To paraphrase Chekhov, if an estranged mother shows up in chapter one, you need to have a big confrontation with her by the last chapter.  Instead, the family traumas (and many other subplots) are allowed to wither without any significant conclusion.  And they could easily have been excised from the book, creating a shorter and smoother story.

Half A Chance, by Cynthia Lord

Lucy has moved to a new home on a lake in New Hampshire, just in time for the summer to start.  She quickly befriends a neighbor boy Nate, who is her age.  It won't be a long-term thing,because he is only spending the summer on the lake.  This doesn't stop them from becoming friends as they take part in the Loon Patrol, which monitors the lake's breeding pair of Loons.  Nate also helps Lucy in assembling her submission to a photography contest.

Their summer is darkened by two things:  another girl named Megan who is jealous of Lucy and Nate's new friendship, and the growing demise of Nate's grandmother who is losing her sense of reality (and afraid of becoming a burden to her family).  The former thread is never completely pursued, but the latter one combines a lesson about growing old gracefully with a bit about letting go of things.  It ends up providing the story with a nice poignant ending.

This summer story about a girl and boy developing a friendship is full of all the sweet and innocent stuff that one expects from a middle reader.  There aren't a lot of surprises, but it's a nice story that you can simply enjoy.  Sort of the tween version of a summer romance (boy and girl have adventures and fun, but we don't get into any kissing stuff!).

[Disclosure:  I received a review copy from Scholastic Press in return for my consideration.  After completing this review, I will donate this copy to my local public library.  The book will be released in late February.]

Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Willow, twelve year-old genius and oddball, copes with the world by counting in sevens.  But no knowledge or coping skill can prepare her for the death of her foster parents.  Instead, she finds that life's salvation comes from the most unexpected places:  a Vietnamese family, a dysfunctional guidance counselor, and a Mexican taxi cab driver.  And, in the same odd way that they have managed to help her, she ends up changing their life in equally unexpected ways.

The general path of the story won't surprise anyone -- it basically begs to becomes a tale of random good fortune and luck -- but what makes this book a joy is the connectedness of the random events.  The message is that no matter how hard you try to order the world and control the outcome, in the end you never quite know where you will end up.  Meanwhile, it is such a nicely written book with such charmingly odd and unusual characters, that you'll be willing to swallow a whole lot of sentimentality along the way.  As with many books of this sort, it's more designed for adults (and librarians) than for kids, but one hopes that children will just enjoy a gentle story.

Manor of Secrets, by Katherine Longshore

Lady Charlotte lives a life of luxury, but her existence is hardly happy.  She envies the kitchen maid Janie, who has the freedom to pursue her dreams.  Charlotte meanwhile is bound by her mother's oppressive rules and has little to look forward to beyond marriage to a boring local lord.  Janie, on the other hand, longs for Charlotte's pampered existence.  For Janie, live is about constantly being on the verge of poverty; only a wrong step away should she be dismissed from service.  She would give anything to have Charlotte's comforts.

A chance encounter in the woods outside the estate (where neither girl is supposed to be) brings them together in friendship and secret rebellion against the roles they must play.  It also helps them see the truth behind the rosy appearance of each other's lives.  However, the manor won't tolerate any fraternizing between upstairs and downstairs.  Too much is at stake in the calcified hierarchy that has developed.  As the two girls grow closer, the scandal that is unleashed throws the entire household into disorder.

With an obvious debt to Upstairs Downstairs and Manor House (and probably Downtown Abbey as well), we get a junior version of the Georgian soap opera genre.  It's highly sanitized and a bit too Americanized for my tastes, but I can see the appeal.  Glamorous gowns, some forbidden love, a little acting out, and a whole lot of convenient coincidences in the end to make it wrap up neatly.  It would seem to be a perfect candidate for moderate commercial success and maybe even spawn a sequel (and a few copycats).  It's not great literature, but that's not its role either.

[Disclosure:  I received an ARC from Point-Scholastic for the purposes of reviewing this book (it is scheduled for release on January 28), but no other compensation for my consideration]

Peaceweaver, by Rebecca Barnhouse

Hild has grown up in a privileged existence as the daughter of the king's sister.  And while her uncle has, in recent years, fallen too easily under the advice of short-sighted and war-mongering men, he is a kind man.  So, when Hild saves the king's son from an assassination attempt, she is confident that she will be honored by a grateful father.  Instead, she is accused of being possessed by demons (on account of her instinctive recognition of the assassins before they had attacked) and she is threatened with exile.

Instead of exile, she is betrothed to the son of the recently-slain king Beowulf from the neighboring (and hostile) kingdom of Geat.  Geat was, until the betrothed prince slayed it, terrorized by a dragon and has suffered greatly from years of the beast's attacks.  But it was always a backwards place and hardly suitable for Hild.  Her situation is worsened because Hild learns on the eve of her departure that her uncle intends to betray the peace that the betrothal promises.  He's using the marriage as a ploy to camouflage plans to strike against Geat.

A richly-drawn fantasy, deeply rooted in Norse culture, with a fair bit of the epic of Beowulf thrown in for good measure.  Hild is resourceful, strong-willed, and handy with a weapon, but also annoyingly indecisive.  This is the primary weakness of this colorful novel.  Most of the story is spent with her plotting to escape -- trying to figure out a way to get away from her uncle, from the Geats, and eventually from her uncle again.  However, each time she does actually run, she reconsiders and comes back on her own free will.  This gets tiresome as it feels like a lot of lead up for nothing.  And given the vast number of unresolved plot points, the energy could have been much better directed on the parts of the story that really matter.

Manicpixiedreamgirl, by Tom Leveen

Ever since ninth grade, Tyler has had a massive crush on Rebecca Webb, but he's never been able to find the will to tell her.  Instead, he's told his friend Sydney in honors English.  She even offered to hook them up, but Tyler couldn't imagine doing it.  Instead, he started dating Syd instead.  And so a weird triangle developed:  Sydney likes Tyler and Tyler is OK with hanging out with Syd, but both of them know that Tyler dreams of Becky.  Meanwhile, Becky doesn't know how Tyler feels about her at all.  At least, not until tonight, when Tyler's thinly-veiled story about Becky has just been published.

And what has Tyler written?  He's created a short story all about the wonderful way he feels about Becky.  About how perfect she is and how he is not worthy of her.  The problem is that Becky (big surprise!) is hardly the perfect creature than Tyler imagines.  She's hardly the straight-A perfect student of Tyler's dreams.  In fact, as everyone at school (including Tyler) knows, she's pretty screwed up.  Becky, to put it mildly, has self-esteem issues and a reputation for hooking up with any boy who asks, which Tyler would know if he ever asked her.  Doing that, however, would destroy the dream world that Tyler has created.  He would rather imagine rescuing her.

An amazingly intense story of how human beings (and perhaps adolescents a bit more strongly) create fantasies to avoid awkward truths.  It's an unpleasant story -- there are no true heroes here -- and Leveen makes no attempt to sweeten any of the protagonists.  Whether it's Tyler's obsession for Becky, or Syd's hopeless desire to stay with Tyler, or Becky's complete self-destructive behavior, these are messed up kids with very believable issues.  If you've never been in one of these roles, consider yourself lucky -- the rest of us have the t-shirt to show for it in our closet!

I especially like the fact that this is a book written by a man about a boy.  I take no small amount of flak for reading "girl" books all the time.  I do so because it usually takes a woman author writing about a girl to tell a story with this much emotional honesty.  Male authors don't have the patience to tell this story and everyone assumes that only boys will read about a boy (and that boys won't read something like this with so little action in it).  The result is that it is very rare to find a novel like this.  Leveen truly is an outstanding YA writer who has the insight and the skills to create strong and realistic young men and women, and tell a story with brutal honesty.

This may well be the best book I read in 2014.  What a way to start the year!

Skin, by Donna Jo Napoli

[Gotta get that 100th review in tonight....]

Vitiligo is a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the pigment of the skin and causes patches of white to appear at random locations on the body.  Like other autoimmune disorders, there is no known cause and no real treatment for the condition.  It's chronic and, in this case, not terminal.  Still, for sixteen year-old Sep, it might as well be....

When Sep wakes up one morning to find his lips have gone completely white, she is terrified.  It isn't so much that she has been afflicted with a rare condition, but with how this one manifests itself.  She's a scientist at heart and loves to learn the causes and results of everything.  And what she sees isn't pretty.  Victims of vitiligo are just plain ugly.  Soon, she knows, she will be just as bad as they are.

She hides her condition, applying makeup and strategic clothing to cover up the "splotches" that are appearing on her body, in denial of what is happening.  And she refuses to tell anyone beyond her family and her best friend about the condition (and even then, she tries to obscure how far the condition has advanced).  She even keeps her boyfriend in the dark, until it is too late.

A great story about coming to terms with illness and learning (quite literally) to be comfortable in your skin.  Napoli always does great storytelling, but she usually works with mythic or historical settings, so this is a bit of a new thing for her -- and she does just fine.  The story itself works well because it takes any interesting concept (a disease that no one has heard of that has a particular resonance with image-conscious adolescents), creates a well-rounded character with realistic friends and family, and just lets the story wind itself out naturally.  As Sep grew meaner and nastier to her boyfriend and friends, I started to really hate her, but that was really just a measure of how much she had gotten under my skin.  By the conclusion, she redeems herself in an ending that wraps things up in a nicely sloppy way that felt plain right.  What better way to round out a year?

The Suburban Strange, by Nathan Kotecki

At the start of her sophomore year, Celia (like so many heroines of YA novels) is something of a wallflower at Suburban High.  But, out of the blue, an uber-stylish clique of kids called "the Rosary" adopt her.  She gets a complete life makeover - changing her hair, her clothes, and her social circle.  It is a fantasy come true for so many heroines of YA novels.  And finnaly, like far too many heroines of YA novels, she discovers the alleged artistic superiority of obscure New Wave bands from the Eighties (more on that later).

But meanwhile at school, things are turning darker that Celia's new outfits.  Girls are suffering an unusually large number of freak near-fatal accidents -- always on the day before their sixteenth birthdays.  It doesn't matter if they stay home or come to school.  In fact, the only thing that seems to protect some girls is losing their virginity.  Celia and her chemistry lab partner Mariette don't consider that to be an option.  They have a theory about what is causing the accident, and have to move cautiously but purposely towards a solution before their own birthdays come!

It's all over the place story-wise, but actually a nice original story with supernatural themes but an adolescent sensibility (how would you know that black magic was afoot?  why, what else would explain why everyone is failing chemistry?).  The book is long and really has a few too many moving parts, but it comes together in the end.  And while Kotecki is a clumsy writer (particular at the start of nearly every chapter), the creativity and the pace cover his sins.  That's a mixed review, but I enjoyed it.

Most of all, what bothered me was that way overused fiction that today's coolest kids would listen to their parents' alternative music.  I realize that writers have to write about what they know and that few of them can be bothered to research contemporary music, but get real!  Even though I am a child of the 80s myself, I can assure you that the Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Cure are not gods.  And old dudes trying to claim that they are are simply pathetic!

Neverwas, by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed, and Larkin Reed

Sarah's father has a dream to unite New England, the Confederate States of America, and the free territories of Astoria in a last-ditch effort to defend the Americas against the Nazi Reich of Europe and the Japanese Empire.  It's an audacious plan for survival in the early 21st century.  It might even work.

Meanwhile, Sarah senses that something is not quite right.  Somehow, she remembers a different version of the present, where the American colonists did not lose their war of independence in the late 18th century, and where England was not defeated by the Germans.  The answers lie again with the famed Amber House and its mysterious "echoes" of the past.

In the sequel to the surprise wonder of Amber House, the mother-and-daughters writing team of Moore and Reed once again spin an outstanding supernatural tale.  The stakes are much higher this time and the story is a great deal more complicated (filled as it is with plenty of paradoxes of time travel), but basically this is another shot at the young female sleuth finding allies (quite literally) in the woodwork.  This time, I have to admit that I never quite figured out what was going on, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the ride and I let the story simply take me along with it.  With that in mind, this may be a book that rewards handsomely in the re-reading.

Friday Never Leaving, by Vikki Wakefield

Friday has never felt rooted in any one place.  Years of living on the road and in the bush with her nomadic mother ensured as much.  But she always had Mom...until she didn't.  After her mother dies of cancer, Friday is cast adrift and leaves her grandfather's home for life on the street.  Out there, she falls under the spell of a charismatic teen named Arden and a gang of kids that Arden leads.  While uneasy around them, the gang gives Friday the sense of family she has been missing.  Her years on the road growing up, however, make her more savvy than the others and ultimately brings her into conflict with Arden, with deadly consequences.

The characters are well-developed.  It is hard business to develop a large cast of characters and make them vivid enough to distinguish. The kids in the gang are a notably strong cast.  And the dynamic between Arden the leader and each of them is complex and interesting.

The book is nicely written, but the story didn't grab me.  Wakefield put a lot of effort into her writing, and it shows...sometimes a bit too much.  The title (and the cover) are an allusion to a prophecy that Friday will die from drowning on a Saturday (just as all of her female ancestors have).  A nice image, but one which is so obvious in its literary pretensions that you trip over it (you know from the first page that drowning will figure in prominently by the end...and are constantly watching out for any mention of water).  It's the obvious literary pretensions that make this beautiful book feel lifeless.  Too much like a book that you'll be assigned to write a book report on than actually enjoy.

Flowers In the Sky, by Lynn Joseph

Nina has always been happy with her flower garden and her quiet life in Samana, on the coast of the Dominican Republic.  But after her mother catches Nina in a compromising position, mami is determined that Nina will go to New York and live with her older brother Darrio.  Darrio has lived in the North for many years, sending a steady stream of money home, and Mom is convinced that Nina will find great fortune there, by marrying a rich doctor or baseball player.

What Nina finds is that life in Washington Heights (where all the Dominican immigrants live) is nowhere as easy as her mother thinks it is.  It's a rough life and it takes a while for Nina to make friends and find a place.  A young man named Luis with a secret past captures her heart but Darrio doesn't like him and won't explain why.  Meanwhile, Darrio has secrets of his own and Nina realizes that the beautiful life of the USA comes with dangers and a dark side.

All of which probably makes the story sound cliche.  However, there's a gentleness and honesty to the book that makes it stand out a bit.  Nina acclimates to her new environment, but maintains a strong sense of self and a strong moral center (loyalty, beauty, and love) that make her interesting as a person.  The story ties up sweetly in the end, but with just enough messiness to make it believable.  A good read.

The Lost Girl, by Sangu Mandanna

Eve is an "echo" - a clone of a living person -- created and stored at a sufficiently remote distance for the sole purpose of serving as a replacement if something should happen to the original.  Amarra, Eve's "other," lives in Bangalore, while Eve lives in rural England.  Eve's job is to study everything that Amarra does and memorize every key fact about Amarra -- in case she has to step in and take over Amarra's life.  It's a job that is all encompassing, but largely unfulfilling, as few echos ever need to take up their other's life.  And for Eve, whom longs for time to be herself, it has grown unbearable to be enslaved to Amarra's life and be unable to have any life of her own.  And then, there is the small problems of "hunters" (vigilantes who oppose the concept of echos and try to find them and kill them) and also growing instability amongst the "weavers" (the three creators of the echos who work at the "Loom" that manufactures them).

Eve's growing self-enlightenment is interrupted when Amarra is killed in an accident.  Suddenly, Eve is sent to India to take on the role for which she has been preparing.  Despite all of Eve's study, things do not go well as neither she nor Amarra's family are able to adapt to the change.  And as Eve, her new family, and Amarra's friends struggle with the situation, it unveils a deep complexity to the issue.  Eve may have little choice of the role she has been created to play, but for the family that chose to do this, how do they make it work?  And is replacing your deceased daughter with a clone really going to fill the gap in your life?

It's thoughtful and original science fiction.  While paying homage to Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein, Mandanna has created a finely textured study of the meaning of relationships (both friendly and familial) and of loyalty.  The book runs a bit long and the ending becomes muddled by a subplot about the weavers that is allowed to achieve too much prominence, but the story is quite fascinating.  From the ethical questions of life replacing life as a means to achieve immortality (a topic borrowed from Shelley) to the meaning of self for a clone, there is plenty of thought-provoking stuff here.  Finally, it's nice to have some science fiction placed in India.  While Mandanna doesn't really explore the local color, it is notable as India doesn't often feature in YA lit (or in sci-fi, for that matter).