Torn Away, by Jennifer Brown

After a tornado devastates her town, seventeen year-old Jersey has to learn how to recover.  Her mother and little sister have been killed.  Her stepfather, while physically alive, is so emotionally damaged by the loss that he shuts her out.  All that is left are her estranged father (and his dysfunctional family) who don't want her and her mother's parents (whom she's never met and was well-warned off by Mom while she was still alive).  With her home and family destroyed, all would seem lost, but Jersey finds that even when you seem to have lost everything, there's always something left to hang on to.

A moving and engaging story that explores two powerful themes: the process of coping with loss and the meaning of family.  These are hardly new themes, but Brown breathes new life into them with compelling characters and tightly-woven narrative.  A story without a dull moment is a joy, but it's really the people in this story that made me thoroughly enjoy it.  Brown has previously shown a talent (see Hate List or Bitter End) for creating rich and realistic characters with complex motivations, and she does not disappoint here.  Most of all, it is Jersey's spirit and determination that wins over the reader, but even the most repulsive members of her father's family are interesting. 

Hidden Girl, by Shyima Hall

When Shyima was a little girl living in rural Egypt in the 1990s, she was sold by her family into slavery to pay off her older sister's debts.  After a few years of service, her captors moved to the United States and brought her along to continue her back-breaking servitude.  It took almost three years for her to be found and rescued, and many more years after that to recover.  While this true story was widely recounted in the press at the time, in this book she gets to tell that story herself.

The book itself is fascinating, eye-opening, and (of course) horrifying.  That said, it is hard to critique it.  It comes off as petty to point out the inadequacies of the writing as the author has the double whammy of being a non-native speaker and of being denied primary education until well into her teens.  If anything, the halting and sometimes unfocused writing gives the book authenticity and a clear sense of voice.  Some light assistance from co-writer Lisa Wysocky helps, but doesn't interfere with the immediacy of Hall's anger and hurt as she recalls her most painful memories.

What really makes the book shine is Hall's honesty about herself.  She has many strong opinions, but she is as quick to find fault in herself as she does in others. In particular, there's a fascinating section near the end of the book where she talks about her own personality and what enslavement did to how she relates to others and the outside world.   But even before you reach that point, you know that one of the striking legacies of her ordeal is her ability to be bold and frank here.


[Editorial aside:  I don't read much non-fiction and I have never reviewed it here, so this is a bit of a departure for me.  But as this autobiography covers Shyima's adolescent years, it seemed appropriate to include (and the book is being marketed as YA non-fiction by the publisher).  It also doesn't hurt that I've been heavily exposed to Egyptian culture through my father and can vividly recall visiting the type of town from where Shyima came.]

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy, by Kate Hattemer

When it is announced that a reality show will be staged at the Selwyn Academy (a high school for the arts in Minnesota), a group of nerds and outcasts decide that they have to do something to fight back against it.  Reality television and this show in particular, is simply an exploitation of the school and a perversion of true "art." Inspired by the poetry of Ezra Pound, which they are studying in English class, four of these students embark on a secret plan to strike back.  Even when their plan is betrayed by one of their members, the other three double down to bring this television show to its knees and to expose the hypocrisy of the show's producers and the school's administrators who are in cahoots with them.

It's an odd story that flirts with absurdity while maintaining humor and originality.  Undeniably, it's very funny, but in the crass and tasteless way that I associate more with male writers like David Levithan.  In the end one doesn't know how seriously to take a story featuring defecation artwork, a heroic tumor-ridden gerbil, and an 864-page "long poem." It works best as an adventure, but Hattemer makes the mistake of occasionally trying to add gravity by exploring hero Ethan's fear of commitment and decisiveness.  The story doesn't have the patience to pursue this, though, and Hattemer was better off sticking to the crude and the rude.

We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

Every summer, Cady and family have come to their private island off the coast from Martha's Vineyard.  Three families in all (grandparents, uncles and aunts, and lots of cousins) -- the entire Sinclair clan in their rich privileged WASPish glory.  The eldest three children (Cady, Mirren, and Johnny) and Johnny's friend Gat (who Cady has been crushing on for many years) have been inseparable.  But something happened in their fifteenth summer and Cady got very sick.  She was found in the water, suffering from terrible migraines and, for some unknown reason, totally alone in her underwear.  And she had no memory of how she ended up this way.  She missed the opportunity to return the next year but, now in her seventeenth summer, she looks forward to being reunited with Gat and her cousins.

However, something is not quite right.  No one will talk to her about what happened two summers ago.  Her grandfather has torn down his old house and put up a new one.  Her younger cousins keep their distance.  As the summer progresses, memories come back to her and the terrible horrible truth is re-emerges.  For Cady, who has been unable to recall it all, the horror is being relived.

A rather darker tale than I usually associate with E. Lockhart, and I don't think I cared for it much!  The story is well-written and the mystery unfolds at a nice pace (although, once revealed, the book really has nowhere to go for the last twenty pages).  I did love the little interludes where Lockhart goes off on the gruesomeness of Brothers Grimm in a lovely set of parallel tales.  But the story was not very pretty or beautiful or even as suspenseful as I hoped it would be.  It was ultimately gross and tragic and a bit cruel.

Never Ending, by Martyn Bedford

And while we're on a dead brother kick, here's another one...

After Shiv's little brother Declan dies, she can't shake the sense that she was responsible for his death.  The guilt is tearing her apart, making her prone to sudden violent acts and memory loss.  When traditional therapy fails, she ends up at a remote institute that practices an extreme form of immersion therapy.  Along with a group of other young people who have also lost loved ones, they struggle through the emotional healing process. As for the facts of what happened to Shiv's brother, they are slowly unfolded through alternate chapters of flashback, recounting how an idyllic and romantic Greek vacation went tragically bad.

It's well-written and the characters of Shiv and Declan are interesting and their relationship complex, but it's hard to shake the fact that we've done this story all before -- the tragic accident, the exaggerated self-blaming, the institutionalization (with its combination of patients who want to get better and those that don't), and so on.  There simply isn't anything new here.  In fact, there's plenty of the old tricks, like not revealing the great "trauma" until the end so we can't evaluate how legit (or usually, illegit) the main character's sense of guilt is.  All of which leaves us with the Big Question:  why read it?

In Honor, by Jessi Kirby

After Honor's older brother Finn is killed in Iraq, Honor is basically an orphan (their parents died when they were young).  In his last letter home, Finn sent Honor tickets to Country-Pop singer Kyla Kelley's final concert and, after the funeral, Honor decides to fulfill his final wish and take a road trip to California to attend the concert.  Awkwardly, she is joined by Finn's estranged best friend Rusty on the trip.

As these stories tend to go, there are plenty of adventures and things do not go quite as planned.  And, as is to be expected, there is lots of recollection and reconciliation as Finn and Rusty come to understand each other (and their relationship with Finn) better.

Not quite as original as Moonglass or Golden, the book follows all the standard conventions, but Kirby's writing still manages to enthrall.  It's a combination of a great sense of character and voice (with the weird exception that her Texans add a "the" to Interstate Highway names the way that only SoCal folks do!) and her eclectic tastes (who ever thought of watching the sun rise from underwater in the middle of New Mexico?).  There's always something interesting going on in this book and that makes the typical navel gazing of the road trip genre slide by a bit faster.  Kirby really is one of the better YA writers currently out there and not nearly appreciated enough!

The Here and Now, by Ann Brashares

Prenna and her mother live in a tight secretive community that lives by twelve key rules designed to keep them at arm's length from others.  It's necessary to protect the "time natives" of the present from contamination from their community of time travelers.  After all, they all understand what the future will bring:  global warming and plagues.  No matter how tough life might seem now, it is paradise compared to where these people come from!

But Prenna discovers that there is even more danger in not interfering. With the help of a time native (i.e., a particularly talented classmate named Ethan), she is trying to influence a series of events that form a "fork" in the continuum.  This juncture will take place very soon and decide whether the future will turn into nightmare or whether it will take an unknown alternative path.

It's a strange choice of genre for an author most strongly associated with those amazing traveling pants!  And, while she struggles a bit with the usual rigor expected in science fiction, Brashares does a surprisingly good job with this time travel yarn.  That's mostly because she keeps the story very much in the present and (mostly) in New Jersey.  In her telling of the tale, Prenna and her friend Ethan are just a bunch of normal, impulsive teens.  The focus is strongly on their relationship, while the high stakes adventure takes a back seat.  Even though the pacing is brisk, its doesn't stop Prenna and Ethan from having time to hang out and even walk on the beach as the world hurtles towards its critical moment.

The Boy in the Dress, by David Walliams

After Dennis's mother moves out, Dennis finds it hard to express the feelings he is having.  Neither his father nor his older brother want to talk about it.  Dennis misses his mother but he finds he also misses her dresses.  Dennis has always had a thing for women's clothing.  At first, he tries to smuggle home copies of Vogue, but when those are discovered and tossed out by his worried Dad, Dennis befriends Lisa (a budding fashionista).  The two of them enjoy long hours discussing clothes and she eventually convinces him to try on some for himself.  That leads to the idea of smuggling him into school as a girl, which ends up disastrously.

A surprising and unusual book for its subject and for its target audience (middle readers).  The book goes a bit silly in the end with just about everyone wearing dresses and giving out fashion advice, but it's all in service to the theme that self-expression is a wonderful thing.  And despite the implied subject of transgender identity, Dennis's sexuality is never really brought up (beyond the fact that he has a strong crush on Lisa).  A breezy and fun read -- and probably a great way to freak out uptight parents!

The Chance You Won't Return, by Annie Cardi

Alex is an absolutely atrocious driver.  It isn't that she's reckless, but quite the opposite:  nervous and terribly afraid that she'll cause an accident.  It's a phobia that is endangering her ability to pass Driver's Ed.  But thanks to help from Jim (an older boy with the patience of a saint and, ironically, a worse driving record), she may master driving.  However, this is really the least of her worries.

Alex's mother is suffering from the delusion that she is Amelia Earhart.  The condition appeared suddenly and grows worse quickly.  The family's insurance won't cover residential treatment, so they have to bring Mom home and care for her as well as they  can at home.  This causes immense stress to Alex, her siblings, and her father, as Mom loses touch more and more with reality.  And Alex begins to realize that Mom has taken to playing out Earhart's life, recreating in her mind each of Earhart's trips, which gets Alex worrying about what will happen when Mom "sets off" on Earhart's last round-the-world trip -- the one from which she never returns!

An ambitious story that tackles vibrantly the crippling impact of mental illness on entire families (and also neatly underscores the financial difficulties of doing so).  The book is at its best when it focuses on Alex's relationship with her parents and the maturing influence of having to rise to these new challenges.  These relationships are nuanced and show both strength and weakness and heartbreaking honesty.

Less successful for me was the driving story and the boyfriend.  I kept waiting for those plot points to get tied in, and one might stretch and find a few places where they converge, but in general they seemed like separate stories.  Cardi's focus is (where it should be) on the family tragedy at play here so those other stories are frequently neglected.  As much as they help to fill out Alex's character, I would have given them an editor's red pencil altogether.

Famous Last Words, by Katie Alender

Willa has been seeing things (dead people, flashes, water on the floor, writing on the wall) that no one else sees.  It appears to be tied to her obsession with reaching out to the Afterlife to contact the spirit of her dead father.  But when she and her mother move into her new stepfather's mansion in Hollywood, these hallucinations take on more sinister tones.  And it takes the help of an obsessive-compulsive outcast at school to help her figure out that it all has to do with a serial killer who's stalking young actresses and forcing them to reenact famous death scenes from movies.

Yes, it doesn't make a terrible amount of sense (and it only gets worse in the end), but it's fun enough escapist stuff to read.  Not a lot of character stuff here either (a forgettable girlfriend seems particularly inconsequential), but it's a story with a breakneck pace.  If you like sociopathic killers and poor little rich girls, you'll probably enjoy this.


[Disclosure:  I received an ARC from the publisher in return for my critical consideration.  The book is scheduled for release on September 30th.]

Don't Look Back, by Jennifer L. Armentrout

The first thing that Samantha remembers is walking along a road in her bare feet.  She's badly injured.  She doesn't know it then, but once she is rescued, she discovers that she has been missing for days.  Worse, she was not alone when she disappeared and her companion (her best friend Cassie) is still missing.  Samantha doesn't know what happened to Cassie and, in fact, can't remember anything about herself or her life.

Much to the surprise of everyone around her, the amnesia causes her to change.  People with whom she was apparently friends before no longer appeal and she doesn't feel drawn to her rich and stuck-up boyfriend Del.  Instead, she bonds with hunky, but low-class Carson, the son of her family's groundskeeper (a choice that elicits strong disapproval from her peers and her family).  But the real issue is the mystery of what happened to her -- a matter which grows more urgent when Cassie turns up dead and suspicions are aroused that Alice's amnesia may simply be an act to cover up her guilt.

With the whole amnesia plot (and particularly the opening), I was reminded of the book Pretty Girl 13 (which I reviewed a few months ago), but this is a very different story.  Less creepy and far more suspenseful, it's a classic whodunnit.  I enjoyed turning the pages in search of the answer to the mystery.  The pacing is near perfect and played out well.  I had plenty of suspicions of the culprit but nothing definite until the reveal.  As for that ending, it was a bit too melodramatic, but had a good pay-off.

This is not, however, a great character read.  I liked Sam, but the other characters are less memorable.  The romance isn't very interesting and even the peer rivalries seem weak and contrived.  The characters are there to make their required appearance.  The plot itself is king.

Side Effects May Vary, by Julie Murphy

When Alice got sick with leukemia, life went on hold.  Alice's problems with her ex-, the knowledge that her mother was cheating on her Dad, and even her arms-length relationship with her friend Harvey changed.  She was dying and in the period of a year, as her condition grew worse and worse, she found new joy in her family and in Harvey.  She settled scores with old enemies with particularly poetic forms of revenge and came to peace with her fate.  Harvey meanwhile adored Alice and devoted himself to being whatever she wanted, completely losing her own sense of self.

Then a terrible miracle happened.  Her condition reversed and she went into remission.  Suddenly, the idea of living long enough to go to college didn't seem so crazy.  And that is when Alice realized that she's in trouble.   Those kids she settled scores with are still out there.  Her family's issues haven't gone away (they've just been on hold during her illness).  And now that she isn't dying soon, she knows that Harvey is no longer what she wants (despite the fact that he still wants her).  Facing death was easy -- now Alice must face life!

A strikingly original story about life and living in an imperfect world with flawed people.  If you want your characters to be likeable, this isn't a very good book for you.  Most of the kids (and some of the adults) are selfish and mean.  Harvey is weak and spineless.  But Alice takes the cake as a self-centered, cruel, and manipulative young woman.  And while she gets cut some slack for being sick, there's no denying that she's simply not a nice person!  Yet, these are recognizable people with real raw emotions and their struggles ring very true.  So, while this can be unpleasant to read, it is engrossing for its honesty.

My only complaint is the structure of the book -- which shifts between Alice and Harvey's narration and jumps around fairly liberally along the timeline.  Stylistically, I found the combination of regular flashbacks and multiple POVs to be a bit hard to follow (it took about a hundred pages for me to get into the swing of things).  However, it's still a great book!

The Summer of Letting Go, by Gae Polisner

It's a beach story (there's a boy who's off-limits and best friend to betray), but it's also not your typical summer romance.

Four years ago, Frankie's brother drowned in the ocean while she was supposed to be watching him.  In the intervening years, her mother's never quite recovered and seemingly never forgiven Frankie either.  Her father has drifted away from the family, leaving Frankie pretty much on her own, to wallow to self-pity.

Frankie lives in fear of the ocean, of taking care of others, or of opening up to (even to her best friend).  But this summer she decides to be brave and put one foot in front of the other and confront her fears.  In the course of finding out why her father is sneaking around with a next-door neighbor, Frankie stumbles into a job caring for a rambunctious little boy who bears a striking physical and personality resemblance to her dead brother.  As the coincidences and similarities pile up, Frankie becomes more and more convinced that this child is actually a reincarnation of her brother.  Somehow, in the midst of all this drama, there is still some time to squeeze in the love triangle.

Obviously, it's a book trying to do a bit too much.  In general, the romance gets sacrificed to the rest of the story, but by the end, almost every plot line suffers through a quick fix.  This is a shame as the originality of the potential reincarnation plot is interesting and needed a fuller resolution.  Still, I enjoyed a late summer beach novel that finds some novel territory in which to explore.  And, as usual, I want to give a shout out to another YA book that does a decent job of portraying grownups as being real people (and not clueless boobs!) -- parents and other random adults got to be human beings, much to the chagrin of the adolescents in the story.

Felix the Comet, by Cathy Coley

Felix is a first class geek with two geek parents (they are both teachers at a local college), but Felix can't help the fact that he's smart and knows stuff.  Thankfully, at his school, it's never been a problem.  He's been free to pretty much be himself.  Kids just know that's how he is. 

But when a new boy transfers in, trouble begins.  The kid takes an instant dislike to Felix and goes out of his way to tease and torment Felix.  The book's title however comes from a side plot: Felix and his dog Cosmo discover a comet.  This makes Felix instantly famous and all that attention further infuriates the bully.  Felix tries to cool things down by maintaining a low profile, but it does no good.  Felix's friends, meanwhile, try to convince Felix to tell an adult.  Felix, however, wants to figure out a solution on his own (and he's no tattle-tale!).  But, as the situation escalates, Felix discovers that he may be in over his head!

Coley is great with details, portraying in loving detail the dynamics of Felix's friendships and family life.  The parents, in particular, are well-rounded and authentic.  Dialogue is less of a strong suit and I found the kid's voices stiff and not as true.  That said, the story (and Felix's motivation to avoid making trouble in particular) made sense and build a satisfying dramatic arc.  I would have liked to have seen more development of his nemesis (we get a small bit of that in the end when Felix observes that the bully's family may be the source of his anger, but it is an underdeveloped idea and a lost opportunity.


[Disclaimer:  I'm friends with the author and she bravely asked me to review her book (even sending me a copy for the review).]

Can't Look Away, by Donna Cooner

Torrey has always liked being in the public eye.  Her popular fashion VLOG has been a dream come true, garnering plenty of attention.  But after her younger sister is killed by a drunk driver, Torrey finds that public attention isn't always kind.  As the comments turn from sympathetic to nasty, she shies away from posting to her site.  Conveniently, her family decides to move from Colorado to Texas, giving her a chance to start over (at least outside of cyberspace).  But once in Texas, she finds that the desire to re-establish her credentials as an It-Girl conflicts with her desire to escape her past.

Her attempts to ingratiate herself into the company of the popular clique also come into conflict with her romantic aspirations as she finds herself falling for brooding Luis -- an outcast.  Luis, however, understands her grief over the loss of her sister in a way that no one else does.  And he helps her to understand the futility of seeking fame and popularity.

It's a pleasing story with most of the tropes of YA fiction.  The girl doesn't quite fit the plain Jane standard for a heroine (she far too pretty and vain), but she has the right amount of insecurity to make her instantly worthy of empathy.  But Torrey didn't really grab me.  She's too narcissistic and her complaints are repetitive and whiny.  Her coming around at the end is entirely too neat.  The boy is, of course, too perfect as well as being conveniently unattached.
Not everything is standard and predictable.  There is a nice side story about Mexican death customs.  And I also liked the side story of Torrey's awkward cousin Raylene, who provides a not-so-subtle comparison with the dead sister.

The Milk of Birds, by Sylvia Whitman

Nawra (a refugee in Darfur) and K.C. (a high-schooler in Richmond VA) make an odd match.  Through a correspondence sponsored by an NGO, they spend a year trading letters.  Their differences are stark:  Nawra deals daily with starvation, disease, threats of physical harm, and privations that K.C. cannot even imagine.  But as the two girls learn about each other, they find the ability to inspire each other.

Of the two of them, Nawra's story is by far the most compelling.  Not only is she facing daily unimaginable challenges, but she does so with strength and optimism that nearly defies belief.  Her proverbs, which pepper the story, are wonderful.  In comparison, K.C. comes across as a terribly whiny and spoiled suburban brat.  While K.C. slowly redeems herself, the book's primary weakness is the handicap that K.C. presents from the start.  How many First World problems can we tolerate when the stakes are so dire for Nawra?  It's hard to read about genocide and then be expected to care about K.C.'s desire for a smart phone.  It seems a bit overkill:  Even a less spoiled American girl's life would have come across as a contrast with the world of Darfur.  Perhaps this book would have seemed less uneven with a milder opposite number?

Still, I think it is a remarkable achievement to tell this story and to do so with such authenticity and love.  Whitman excels in opening up the world of Darfur and making it accessible to Western readers.  It's the little moments where the characters misunderstand each other, but the reader realizes that they are in a privileged position to realize it that really make the reading of this book a joy.

The F*** It List, by Julie Halpern

Alex has a lot of trouble in her life.  Her father recently died in a car accident, her best friend has cancer, and there's a guy (Leo) who she isn't sure she wants to get close to (which doesn't stop her from tearing off her clothes, when given the opportunity).  She's a supportive friend to Becca and good older sister to her fatherless brothers, but it pulls her in way too many directions.  What she does have is a great love of horror films and Becca's bucket list, which they have renamed the "Fuck It" list.

The result is a story that meanders along through the year as Becca goes through treatment, Alex and Leo struggle to figure out what they want.  Surprisingly, the List itself doesn't play much of a role in the story.  There's a lot of death and also a lot of sex (the first masturbation scene is on page 57, if you're looking for it!).  Neither the death nor the sex really did much for me, as there isn't much emotion behind it.  Some of that flat emotionless delivery v is the cynical dark attitude that Alex carries with her, but mostly it is the lack of investment that the storyteller conveys.  A functional story, but it doesn't really add much to the genre.

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo

Flora is a natural-born cynic, while Ulysses is a might-be superhero squirrel.  After an unfortunate encounter with a powerful vacuum cleaner, Ulysses emerges as a rodent with a big fluffy tail (and no fur) who can lift heavy items, fly through the air, and write poetry.  And while Flora wants to help him conquer his arch-nemesis (her Mom), Ulysses would really just like to find something to eat (perhaps a giant donut?).

A clever and wacky fantasy that intermixes odd-ball characters, poetry, and comic-book styling (complete with storyboard interludes) together to tell a story about a girl and her amazing squirrel friend.  It's completely chaotic and absurd, but in a way that you can enjoy if you let your grown-up sensibilities go (whether children will even understand it is another matter altogether!).  DiCamillo won me over originally with Because of Winn Dixie, but she has since drifted fairly far into Absurdism and I'm not sure how many readers want to follow her there.  Some reviewers claim that the story has a deep theme (abandonment), but I consider it just so over-the-top that any message is largely lost.  I did enjoy it, but it was a bit of a close call.

Oh, yeah, it won the Newbery too, if that sort of thing matters to you.

Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom, by Susin Nielsen

After Violet's father moved out on them, Mom went through a string of disastrous relationships.  Violet has had enough of these losers and decides that the only thing to do about it is to hook her Mom up with the perfect man: George Clooney.  It's not going to be easy, but Violet and her friends are resourceful.  They also have to be fast though because Mom is on the verge of getting hitched to the unfortunately-named Dudley Wiener!

Violet is the type of kid who's always getting into trouble.  The appeal of the book is supposed to center around her mishaps.  For me, that only works part of the time.  Violet is stubborn and a bit cruel, and her issues (which include a mild case of OCD that lies largely uncommented-upon throughout the story) can be a bit hard to take.  So, the humor (such as it is) has a dark side.  I'll give the book points for being lively and original, but the meanness of so much of the story detracted from my enjoyment.

Black Helicopters, by Blythe Woolston

Valley and her brother Bo have been raised by their Da to survive in a frightening world.  They've been living under the radar and in secret ever since the death of their mother.  Da says it's the black helicopters that Those People use and he has trained the kids to be alert and cautious.  Relentlessly, the children have been trained on how to hide and how to fight back against their enemy.

One day, Valley and Bo return home from a mission to find their home destroyed and their father presumably dead.  Following their training, they set out on their own, avoiding contact with their parents' murderers.  They reach out to their father's network of friends and prove their worth taking on missions against the enemy.  But Valley wants revenge, and with a jacket full of C4 she intends to get it.

A short but chilling portrait of the paranoid world of domestic terrorists.  The story is a nail-biter and definitely hooks you in.  However, it's an odd story, with a lot of loose ends and poorly developed supporting characters.  Details are confused and don't entirely match up.  Some of this is stylistic (Valley's own confusion permeates the narrative), but some of it is simply overly concise storytelling.  The brevity that gives this thriller urgency also sacrifices character development.