Echoes Between Us, by Katie McGarry

Veronica lives with death.  There's the tumor in her brain that causes her unbearable migraines and whose severity she hides from her Dad.  And there's also the ghost of her dead mother that haunts the house and keeps her company, giving her the strength to face her illness.

Downstairs, in the apartment that they rent out, is Sawyer and his mother and little sister.  Veronica knows Sawyer but they are not on good terms.  Sawyer's part of a popular clique and he and his friends delight to tormenting Veronica and her friends.  They shouldn't even be talking to each other, but Veronica has an intuition about him.  When she finds herself needing a partner for their senior project, she reaches out to him.  Sawyer, for reasons that mystify his friends, accepts.

But as far as surprises are concerned, Sawyer turns out to be much more complex than even Veronica could imagine.  He's covering for his mother's erratic behavior, justifying her drinking, and trying to make everything look normal.  Things are far from normal.  Sawyer's getting injured and hurt, and the truth is that he's inflicting it on himself.

A girl with her mind set on dying and a boy being driven to self-destruction make a complex and powerful couple.  The novel, which adds supernatural and historical elements (a diary written by a young woman dying of TB in 1918 plays a part) to its tale of addiction and learning to let go, is ambitious.  Parts of it work well, others do not.  It is difficult initially to see much of a connection between the two very different struggles that Veronica and Sawyer face, but it eventually comes together powerfully.  The attempt to draw pathos from the historical tie-in to the diary and a nearby abandoned TB hospital falls resoundingly flat and contrived.  It's not an easy read and may not be to many people's tastes, but I found it interesting, challenging, and ultimately rewarding.

It Sounded Better in My Head, by Nina Kenwood

Natalie's parents take ten months to get around to telling her -- on Christmas Day! -- that they are getting divorced, her two best friends Zach and Lucy are suddenly a couple, and Zach's brother Alex may like her (but she can't really tell!).  Everything confuses Natalie.  And it couldn't happen at a worse time.  Now that Natalie's eighteen, she has to figure out what she'll do with her life.  She'd put the whole business off, imagining she'd live at home forever (no longer an option as her parents are downsizing).  And boyfriends?  Well, it was never going to happen!  Natalie's her own worst enemy, finding a way to sabotage every chance of romance, which is what makes Alex's interest in her all the more perplexing.

Aussie YA is seemingly always a challenge for me.  For reasons I can't really explain, I leave more Australian YA novels unfinished than I complete.  Usually, the storylines simply don't engage.  It isn't so much the cultural differences but really the overly dense style that seems to predominate.  This novel is no exception.  I struggled throughout to track the action which jumps through a large number of parties and dramatic interactions with decisions and actions that don't instinctively make sense.  But what made the book ultimately work for me was Natalie herself.  I stopped worrying about what she was doing and spent more time listening to her.

Natalie is ostensibly as much of a navel-gazing angst-ridden teen girl as you will ever find in YA, but the extent to which she self-doubts and owns that doubting is adorable and outright hilarious.  Natalie's fumbled seduction attempt on Alex had me in stitches. The best part of being witty and self-deprecating at the same time is that we can sympathize with her flaws and easily admit to the ones that we resemble far too closely.  So, while I have only a vague sense of what the book was actually about, I loved the heroine!

Scared Little Rabbits, by A.V. Geiger

Nora is really excited to be spending the summer in an elite tech summer program at Winthrop Academy.  She's hoping to win the camp's contest, wowing judges including Emerson Kemp, the founder of augmented reality social media sensation InstaLove.  Not that she knows much about InstaLove the program (which her parents won't let her download) or love in any real life sense either!  But she's optimistic that this summer will be different and that she will burst out of her caccoon.

Things don't start off propitiously.  Everyone seems to know everyone else and queen bees Eleanor and Reese take a profound dislike towards her.  Saving the day, moody dreamboat Maddox has eyes for her, although Eleanor is a jealous ex- and tries to keep them apart.  That said, nothing is all that simple.  Eleanor is blackmailing Maddox and hiding secrets from just about everyone.  As the contest creeps closer, a sudden death sends everything into a frantic and tense conclusion.

While rooted in tired YA tropes (unsupervised summer campers get in big trouble while awkward and inexperienced girl gets an A-list boy to fall head over heels for her), the augmented reality stuff is kind of fun.  InstaLove, combining Instagram and PokemonGo sounds plausible enough to make a fresh foundation.  The story is paced well and the mystery largely maintained with a lot of distracting false leads to keep us off track.  However, the ending gets rushed and overall I just didn't find Nora interesting enough, boy toy Maddox sexy enough, or Reese and Eleanor bad enough to make this worth recommending.

I'll Be the One, by Lyla Lee

Skye loves dancing and singing.  She dreams of one day becoming a K-pop performer, but the reality is that Korean culture expects female performers to be thin and petite.  Skye is strong and healthy, but not some 110-pound waif.  Her mother repeatedly warns her that she needs to lose weight if she has any hope of becoming famous.

When a contest in announced in LA for contestants in a new Korean entertainment competition, Skye is so psyched to be in it, but her mother won't even allow her to take part (her father has to step in to give permission).  But sixteen years of being bullied and fatshamed has toughened Skye and she is determined to prove her mother, a bullying judge, and all the doubters in the world that fat girls can dance and sing and do it well!  Along the way, she wins the heart of the cute boy and makes a great group of friends as well.

Its a story told in a rich cultural context.  Not knowing much about K-pop, I surmise that the author has done her homework (and/or is a serious fan).  She name drops plenty of real groups and songs, and tirelessly notes what makes particular songs significant.  A similar love is given to Korean food and culture.  For outsiders, this culture lesson is really the best part and is effortlessly delivered alongside the winning storyline.

In sum, this is a feel good romance about body positivity.  There's no end to the trials that Skye endures ranging from thoughtless comments to outright emotional abuse, but Skye is a poster child for standing up for herself.  One wonders exactly where she got this strength, but Lee's not terribly interested in exploring the sources for Skye's strength as she is in promoting the healthy result.  There's a similar approach to the mother's cruel emotional abuse, which is ultimately and disappointingly side-stepped.  The mother's behavior goes far beyond Tiger Mom stereotypes into darker spaces, but this is far too lighthearted of a book to dwell on anything truly serious.  A rousing climax complete with song and dance and a curtly dismissed villainess wraps up the adventure satisfactorily.

The Ballad of Ami Miles, by Kristy Dallas Alley

In post-apocalyptic Alabama, Ami lives with her grandparents, aunts, and uncles at the Heavenly Shepherd compound.  Great grandfather packed away supplies so the family would be well taken care of and they just laid low, studying the Bible and living a righteous and obedient life.  Mama had to flee a few years ago when the government rounded up the few remaining fertile women and Ami hasn't seen her since.  It's safe here and Ami is well-fed, but the strict rules and the lack of anyone Ami's age makes it a lonely existence.  The final straw comes when her grandparents announce that she has to marry an older man she's just met in order to preserve the family line.  With help from her uncles and aunts, Ami flees for freedom.

Searching for her mother, she ends up at a repurposed campground with people who have different ideas about how to live -- ideas that shock Ami and open up her horizons at the same time.  The stories she was told growing up turn out to not be so true and the principles she has lived by turn out to not be so useful.  Life is very much more complex than she ever imagined.

Like Ami's struggle with her perceived reality, my notions of what the template for a dystopian novel should got really shook up by this novel.  I expected ruined towns, anarchic bandits, and some big final showdown with the family she left behind.  Some of that happened, but not quite as I expected.  No guns are fired.  No zombies or enemy armies.  No one dies in the entire book.  And the bad guys are profoundly ineffectual and inconsequential.  What I totally did not count on was the human coming-of-age story for Ami.  Rather than action and adventure, the drama of the story comes a very sweet romance and a complex coming to terms between Ami and her mother.  Both provide depth to this novel that takes the dystopian framework and crafts a profound story about exercising freedom of choice.

Fault Line, by C. Desir

Ben and new girl Ani hit it off at the beginning of senior year.  It's a great relationship.  Ani is spunky and spirited and knows how to keep Ben on his toes.  Ben adores her.  They have even begun to think of spending the summer after graduation taking a road trip across the United States.  But then there's a party that Ben can't go to and something happens.  Ani's best friend Kate calls Ben and begs him to come to the hospital.  Ani's been hurt.

When Ben gets there he learns that Ani's been raped, but she can't remember what happened.  Everyone else seems to know, however, and soon afterwards the rumors start spreading around the school.  About what Ani did and how much fun she had doing it.  Ben knows these are lies but they still hurt to hear.  He wants to defend Ani and take care of her, but she won't let anyone help her.  Instead, she closes off and pushes away all of her friends.  And Ben watches helplessly as her life spins out of control, taking him down with her.

Dark and depressing with an ending that left me deeply unsatisfied, the novel is hard to like.  I appreciated the nuanced portrayal of Ani and the depth of Ben's feelings. His struggle between acknowledging his own pain and the need to be supportive of Ani felt very immediate and sympathetic.  Ben is a bit too much of a tough guy jock for my tastes, but he you feel for how he is way out of his depth.  Not that any of his efforts really matter because Ani is pretty determined to be her own worst enemy.  And that's largely what makes this book so hard to take.  The story is not ultimately about rescuing Ani but about rescuing Ben, and I didn't really care as much about him.

Diplomatic Immunity, by Brodi Ashton

Piper dreams of becoming a journalist.  But to realize her dream, she needs to get into a journalism program and to do that she needs someone to pay for it.  That has always made the prestigious teen journalism-focused Bennington scholarship part of her plan.  Attending the elite Chiswick Academy in DC is part of the plan as well and when Piper gets a scholarship mid-way through her senior year to finally go she knows she has to move fast to be a contender for the Bennington.  But what can she write about?

Chiswick has a large foreign student contingent, made up mostly of the children of diplomats.  These golden kids flaunt their privilege and their unique ability to weasel out of trouble.  It's diplomatic immunity, both in the literal sense or simply from the ability to invoke the names of their powerful parents to get out of tight situations.  For scholarship kids like Piper, it all seems terribly unfair.

And then suddenly Piper realizes she has her story.  Ingratiating herself with Raf, the son of the Spanish ambassador, she slips into the private world of expat parties, where alcohol and drugs flow freely.  But as Piper collects her material, she finds herself growing close to Raf in a distinctly non-professional way. She realizes she has to choose between her ambition and her heart.

A well written, but mostly by-the-numbers YA romance.  Nothing really shouts out in this story.  The characters are fine but break no major new territory.  The romance has some nice moments but doesn't particularly heat up.  The scandal and action are slow moving.  It reads fast but doesn't deliver any notable punch.

The Burning, by Laura Bates

When Anna's ex-boyfriend creates a revenge porn site dedicated to her, she and her mother change their identities and move to a town up in Scotland.  There, Anna tries to start a new life, cautiously making friends and return to her studies.  A history assignment has her writing about a local famous personage and she chooses a woman who was persecuted for witchcraft in the 16th century.  With help from a local historian, she tracks down more information about this woman and her tragic circumstances.

Meanwhile, it doesn't take long until some of the students in her school track down her past and soon the harassment resurfaces.  The attacks spread beyond her to encompass her friends and her family.  As they do, Anna is struck by the similarities between her situation and that of the subject of her study.  A series of historical flashbacks help make the parallels clearer.  The school, unable and unwilling to help Anna, allow the bullying to continue until Anna and her mother finally stand up to it.  The witch fares less well.

British YA tends to be pretty heavy handed, especially with hot button social topics like this, but I was actually pleased at how few polemics were in this story.  While I am shocked at the ineffective adults and the non-existence of law enforcement (does Scottish law tolerate child porn more than the US?), it does permit Anna to defend herself, which is ultimately more fulfilling.  The juxtaposition of Anna and Maggie (the accused witch) is surprisingly effective.  It lack historical integrity, but serves its literary purpose quite well providing a stark parallel in how latent misogyny tends to emerge in mob rule situations.  No real surprises in other words, but if it fires up a couple young readers, then no foul!  Helpful discussion questions provided at the end of the book for those young people who are forced to read this instead.

I Love You So Mochi, by Sarah Kuhn

There is a subgenre of YA and NA literature that I like to call "tour guide romance" which basically consists of a story about a young woman who travels somewhere (usually overseas), meets a foreign boy, and tours the exotic scenery.  Most of the time, one suspects that the author has herself been to the milieu in question and started planning the novel during their trip.  Such stories usually consist of key tourist must-sees being used as a backdrops for a trans-continental romance.  Local culture is studied, kissing occurs, and occasionally cultural differences cause complications.  Eventually, the girl and boy come face to face with the reality that, in a few short days, their special romance will become long-distance.  Cinematic versions of this include Karate Kid 2 and Before Sunrise, but there are far more numerous examples that have never made it to the silver screen.  The key to the success of any new contribution is the ability of the author to capture what makes the chosen locale interesting and finding some way to imbue the local culture seamlessly into the story.

I Love You So Mochi follows Kimi's trip to Kyoto, ostensibly to meet her maternal grandparents and get some distance from her mother, with whom she is currently fighting.  The love interest is Akira, a young man helping his uncle sell mochi balls, but who dreams of studying to become a doctor.  Kimi doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, but she does know that she doesn't want to be a painter, even though she's been accepted to an art school.  That decision, with surprised both her and her mother, is why things have grown so tense between them.  But what else could she do when it was clear that art did not bring her joy?

As far as her actual desires are concerned, the only thing that Kimi really likes doing is designing outfits for herself and her friends.  Why this doesn't occur to her as a career choice until half-way through the book is a mystery, but it at least provides a pretext over which Kimi and Akira can bond.

The story is full of lots of cultural detail and given some emotional punch by the strained dynamics between Kimi, her mother, and her grandparents, but one can't escape a sense that this is playing safely by a formula.  Family conflict, romance, and the requisite cultural detail are all inserted at the right spots and worked through appropriately.  Grandparents are charming, boy is amazingly supportive, and BFFs at home are peripheral.  It's a charming read, but there are no surprises and, aside from the local flavor, not much value imparted.

Genesis Begins Again, by Alicia D. Williams

When Genesis and her family get evicted, it's just the latest in a series of hardships she and her mother have had to endure.  Neither of them can believe it when her father takes them to a fancy suburban house in a nice neighborhood.  No way they can afford it but Dad promises that things are going to change.  But as much as Genesis wants to believe it, she knows that Daddy loves the bottle more than her and Mama.  And she can even tell you why:  her skin is too dark. Mama has lighter skin, but Genesis's is as black as Daddy (or, as her maternal grandmother informs her, darker than a grocery bag!).  And by that measure and other things like her nappy hair, she knows that she's not worth much.  She's even developed a long list of things that are wrong with her to keep track of all of the reasons that she dislikes herself. But when the kids at her new school start acting friendly and her attempts to "fix" her problems just make things worse, Genesis has to reevaluate her explanations and consider the possibility that there's nothing wrong with herself at all.

A poignant and often painful novel of a young girl with a serious self-esteem problem.  While I'm hardly an expert in African-American YA, Colorism is a delicate and uncommon subject and I liked the treatment here.  For me, it opened a window on a world I have never seen.  For young readers of color, it could possibly mean even more.

Genesis can be a bit hard to take.  She often is her own worst enemy in her harsh self-judgements.  She's makes poor decisions and has trouble accepting responsibility (a trait that she insightfully realizes is learned from her father).  She's often not as kind or as loyal as she ought to be.  But she has a great sense of inner strength and stands up for herself.  Her journey from self-loathing to qualified acceptance is realistically portrayed and fulfilling to share.

Diana and the Island of No Return, by Aisha Saeed

Diana is fierce and brave.  She loves her home on Themyscira and is immensely proud of the work the women of the island perform guarding the entrance to the Underworld.  She begs her mother to let her learn more about fighting, but for now she is largely stuck watching the older women train.  

On the eve of an important festival, a spell is cast that puts the adults to sleep.  At around the same time, Diana and her best friend Princess Sakina discover a stowaway boy.  He has cast the spell and begs Diana and Sakina to come with him to his island in order to save his people from a demon who has taken over.  In exchange, he'll reverse the spell. It's a dirty trick, but Diana and Sakina don't see any alternative:  not only because it is the only way to wake the grownups, but also because even little Diana knows that it is her people's duty to fight evil.

And so begins the first in a series of middle grade readers for young fans of Wonder Woman.  It goes without saying that being familiar with the source material will make this a more enjoyable read.  I have not seen the recent films, but I imagine that there are plenty of Easter eggs in the story for fans.  Saeed certainly assumes we know a little about the locale and the characters.  But even so, the book on its own has several things in its favor:  it's fast paced and packed with action.  It also carries on the themes of female empowerment for which the originals are famous.  Even at twelve, Diana is no shrinking violet and makes quite a role model.  She bravely launches forth, even when the odds seem impossibly against her.  She's kind to others and loyal to friends and family.  The story is not terribly deep and my hopes that Saeed would imbue the formula with some deeper meaning are largely disappointed, but it's still a good book.

We Dream of Space, by Erin Entrada Kelly

In January 1986, Bird and her classmates are infected with space fever.  The Challenger is about to send the first teacher into space and schoolchildren across the country are studying space and the space program in preparation for the launch.  Bird's science class has split into teams of seven to match each member of the crew so the kids can be prepared to watch every step of the mission and write about it.  Most of the kids are bored, but Brid is in heaven!

Bird loves space, science, and taking things apart and drawing their innards.  She's endlessly fascinated by what makes things work.  And like she does with complicated machinery, she's dissected her family and noticed how her parents are always fighting, how her older brother Cash can't seem to find any enthusiasm for studying, and how her other brother Fitch is prone to sudden angry fits and spasms.  In sum, how her complicated dysfunctional family operates.  She'd like to feel she can control things by drawing their schematics, but when she watches her dreams literally explode in front of her, she faces a choice between giving up and change.  In doing so, she discovers unexpected allies.

A promising story with a strong and poignant ending suffers from a slow moving and poorly constructed plot.  While the book certainly made me flash back to where I was in 1986 (sophomore in college, hanging out in my dorm's kitchen when I heard the news), the story really didn't live up to its hype or its promise.  And there is a deeper frustration at how little is resolved in the story and its general downer conclusion.  There are so many things hinted at in the story, but none of them are really followed up on.

Chirp, by Kate Messner

Mia is spending the summer helping her grandmother manage a new venture growing crickets as a food source.  It's an uphill battle trying to convince people to try them, but they taste delicious and folks eventually warm to them.  Plus Mia is creative and motivated to help her grandmother's success, enlisting her friends and some fellow campers at a summer program she's in for young entrepreneurs.  

However, things keep going wrong with the equipment and with pests.  So many things, in fact, that Mia grows suspicious that someone is actively sabotaging the business.  Can Mia and her friends figure out who is causing the damage and stop them before its too late?

That would have been a straightforward story and made this middle grade reader less of an attention grabber, but Messner has a second storyline:  Mia used to be an aspiring gymnast, but then she got injured and now she just doesn't feel like doing it.  At least that is what she tells others.  In truth, she's lost her confidence and become afraid.  Something happened to her and she isn't really sure to whom she can turn to express her fears.

They are both good stories, but being unrelated they pull at each other for attention.  And given that the second is far more sensationalistic (and is basically why the book has endorsements from a collection of big name writers) it feels a exploitative, like Messner didn't feel that a detective book could sell and so threw in the heavier themes of her second topic.  I honestly think it wasn't necessary:  there's so much about Mia that is inspirational and positive that her story is a winner without any big message attached.

Either way, I enjoyed Mia and I liked her creative ideas and the way she interacted with the other kids.  There's lots of great positive energy here about following your dreams.  The ending gets a bit too perfect and rosy, but not everything works out in Mia's favor and that has lessons as well.  The fact that she is genuinely happy for the success of people other than herself though makes her a real winner in my mind.  And of course watching her seize the day and regain her confidence in the end is the pay off that brings the book to a rewarding close.

Time of Our Lives, by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Fitz is a reluctant prospective student.  It's not that he doesn't want to go to college, but rather that he knows that looking at other schools is a waste of time.  He's got the grades to attend pretty much anywhere he wants, but with his mother's failing health, he'll have to stick close to home.  Still, to make his mother happy, he's embarked on a week-long college visit tour of the northeast.

Juniper longs to go away to school.  She too has the grades and she's determined to go as far away as she can.  Being the eldest child in a large family however means that she's constantly in demand and that her family is reluctant to have her go away.  They are less-than-thrilled that she is considering schools that are not nearby and vocally unsupportive of her desire to move away.  But, in spite of her family's pressure, Juniper is set to find the school of her dreams and to do so with or without her family's help.

Fitz and Juniper cross paths in Boston at the beginning of their respective trips and then subsequently continue running into each other as they wind up visiting the same schools.  By the time they've worked their way to New York, they are basically traveling together.  Predictably enough, a romance develops, but its overshadowed by the emotional baggage that they each bring to their college search.

There are strikingly few YA books that deal with adolescent apprehensions about going away to college.  There are plenty of melancholy memories of final summers and lots of impatient longings for moving away, but the more quieter meditations on the end of childhood are surprisingly few.  And this is a surprisingly good contribution to the topic.  The characters are interesting and their well-researched roadtrip of Ivies and well-known state schools is fun and familiar to anyone who has attended such schools.  Personally, I was most drawn to the kids' apprehensions of the future, but there's plenty of other things going on here.

Moreover, the co-writing team of Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka has surprising chemistry.  Co-authored novels are inevitably battles of egos and styles.  You usually can tell who is writing what and there's usually some tension as the writers force each other into places that you can tell they don't want to go.  I didn't get that sense here.  As the authors pass the baton, there is instead a warmth, as if the other can't wait to continue what has been written so far. It makes the reading all the more joyful.

Thirty Sunsets, by Christine Hurley Deriso

Everyone is shocked that Brian, Forrest's brother, has turned down his acceptance at Vanderbilt to attend community college.  She would have never thought that her brother would throw everything away for a girlfriend, particularly one as dopey as cheerleader Olivia.  Forrest doesn't get that sort of thing.  She's yet to date anyone (or even be kissed) as she's focused on getting her education and not planning on any distractions.

Then her mother invites Olivia to join the family for a month on the beach.  Forrest is stunned.  How on earth is she going to be able to tolerate having her brother's bimbo with them for a month?  But something more is going on here and as the reveals occur, the summer becomes one for the books.

The reveals, in fact, keep coming and coming so fast that you may have trouble keeping up with the story, and that is really the problem with this book.  Based on the tired foundation of a summer beach story, Deriso does a decent job developing her characters.  Forrest and Olivia develop a charming chemistry which makes their friendship the real highlight of this book.  However, the author really struggles with the storytelling.  Not satisfied to have one big shock, she quickly follows it with a second, a third, and a fourth.  By that point, the story becomes muddled and the resolutions for each of the four dramas becomes less and less satisfactory.  To me, this is a sign that Deriso started with a great idea but couldn't figure out what to do with it.  Fumbling for resolution, she just threw up a new one and, when that didn't work, she just hit it up a notch higher.  So, rather than tell a story, we simply end up with a lot of action at the end.  It's a quick read, but unrewarding.

The List of Things That Will Not Change, by Rebecca Stead

When Bea's father announces that he and his partner Jesse are going to get married, she gives no thought to her Dad marrying another man.  She's known he was gay since her parents separated.  She's just happy that he and Jesse are happy together.  She also has little concern for the fact that he and Mom will never get back together.  That doesn't matter because her parents have promised her that there are things in this world that will not change and they have written them down (in a special green notebook in green ink!):  Mom loves her, Dad loves her, Mom and Dad still love each other (but in a different way), and so on.  With this list to give her strength, Bea knows she can face the world.

So, what is the most important part of her father's wedding plans?  Bea is going to get a sister out of the deal!  Sonia is the same age (10) as Bea and Bea knows that they are going to be great friends.  But when Sonia shows up, things don't go quite as smooth as Bea had hoped.  Sonia seems lonely and sad and doesn't want to share feelings and talk about everything the way Bea does.  For Bea, not having things go her way is hard.  When people don't act the way she expects, she gets angry and then she gets very sad.

With so many changes going on around her, it's hard to control her anger and frustration.  But controlling her feelings is what Bea learns to do.  And as two families come to together to celebrate the creation of a new family, Bea learns some lessons about how hard it is even for adults to get beyond their surprise and hurt.

This story of growth, acceptance, and love is all softly dealt by the author.  Even serious topics like homophobia and divorce are pitched in a gentle age-appropriate way for a middle grade audience.  The book is largely a string of anecdotes and recollections.  Ostensibly they lead up to the wedding and Bea's confrontation of some suppressed feelings, but it is really just catching up with Bea, hearing her stories, and sharing her feelings.

Thorn, by Intisar Khanani

Princess Alyrra has never known how to wield power in court.  Instead, she has found herself the pawn in other people's games. Her mother writes her off as useless and her brother physically abuses her at will.  She is a non-entity, a nobody, and everyone -- including herself -- knows it.  So, why has the most powerful king in the land come to Alyrra's tiny little corner to ask for her betrothal to his son, the crown prince?  She doesn't even know the prince and he, as far as she knows, knows nothing of her.  Something is going on here and neither she nor her mother can figure it out.  Alyrra's mother is anxious that things go well and that the family benefits from it.  Her decision on how to maintain control over her daughter is cruel.  Alyrra is sent to her betrothed with a companion -- her arch nemesis Valka -- who conspires against her but will do a better job at defending the family name, in her mother's opinion.

So, it was always going to be a difficult task (traveling to a foreign kingdom, becoming queen of unfamiliar people, and winning their loyalty), but it keeps getting harder.  Even before Alyrra and her party arrive at their new home, she is attacked by a sorceress who body swaps her with Valka.  Her enemy becomes her mistress, with predictable results.  Valka, now in the guise of the princess, quickly manipulates events to her favor, willfully ignorant that she is herself being played for some greater end.  Alyrra, sent in disgrace to the lowly job of goose girl, finds she is strangely at peace with her new role.  She embraces the simpler life and the ability to be free of the cruelties of court life.  But with a plot afoot and a sorceress with an unknown agenda, Alyrra is pressed involuntarily to a calling -- one that will take more bravery and strength than she ever knew she possessed.

An extremely rewarding fantasy, with a combination of a strong dramatic arc, complex characters, and a byzantine plot.  What makes it work is the character of Alyrra, who maintains a fine sense of decency and goodness while she grows from idealistically well-meaning but weak girl to become driven and strong young woman.  This is what fantasy is for, after all, showing us the core good and bad that humans can do in a world that is less fettered by mundane reality.  The climax takes it to an extreme: pitting the conflict in its starkest terms.  If you were suddenly given the opportunity to exact revenge for all the wrongs inflicted on you, would you seize the opportunity or would you voluntarily relinquish that power in the name of maintaining your decency?  And is the temptation to exact revenge in the first place a sin?

If those deep thoughts are too much for you to stomach, don't worry!  There is enough action and adventure going on here to reward a surface read.  With an internal power struggle, a family curse, political corruption, magic, crime, and deeply rooted social injustice, there is a little bit of everything for everyone in this one!

A subject matter warning.  There are several scenes of sexual (and sexualized) violence in this novel.  If rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence are triggers for you, you may want to approach this novel with caution.  None of the events are explicitly described, but they are prominent and central to the story.  The author uses them to make a strong statement against sexual violence directed at women so one may argue that the prominent place is appropriate, but some readers may prefer to avoid the book altogether on this account.

A Totally Awkward Love Story, by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison

Hannah believes that lobsters mate for life and she wonders when she'll meet her "lobster." She really starts to think she has done so when she stumbles across Sam at a party.  Awkwardly, they meet in a bathroom and therefore her friends nickname him "Toilet Boy." But sadly, fate works against them and Sam mistakenly believes that Hannah has a boyfriend and isn't interested in him.

What follows is a summer of missed opportunities and miscommunications that cause Hannah and Sam to keep not getting together.  Toilet Boy may in fact truly be Hannah's "lobster" but through the haze of young people clubbing and hooking up, the two of them never seem to be able to catch a break. 

It's a convoluted comedy of errors that shows much more about British dating customs and binge drinking than anything else.  The striking characteristic of the story is how protagonists are so terribly shallow (admittedly, they are also terribly 18!) so there's not much to bond with here.  Hannah has little self-esteem and blindly assumes that even the slightest hesitation from Sam is lack of interest.  Meanwhile, she lies and sends mixed signals purposely sabotaging the relationship. Sam is only marginally more sympathetic, lashing out easily and he doesn't show much fidelity or common sense.

The story, co-written by two former sweethearts who met when they were 18, is "inspired" by their own relationship but it does the authors no kindness.  Perhaps the story is meant to be funny, but it is as "awkward" as its title promises it to be.  The appeal of the story is its realism, but real is neither heroic nor interesting and that makes this novel a hard sell.  In sum, two immature young people who probably are not ready for a serious relationship try to have one.  Extra bonus final chapter gives us a TMI account of the consummation of the relationship.

When Elephants Fly, by Nancy Richardson Fischer

Lily is haunted by her family's history of mental illness.  When she was seven, her mother's schizophrenia drove her to nearly kill her daughter and to eventually kill herself.  Schizophrenia runs in families and.  Ever since then, Lily has been obsessed with the idea that schizophrenia usually manifests itself between the ages of 18 and 30.  She has worked out a "twelve year plan" with her best friend Sawyer.  All she has to do, she believes, is get through those twelve years without stress or trauma and she will be clear. 

Her eighteenth year has been going well so far.  She has an internship at the local newspaper.  Her assignment covering the birth of a baby elephant in captivity at the local zoo seems harmless enough. But when Lily witnesses the mother elephant turning hostile and attacking the baby, Lily is reminded of her own trauma. Rather than drive her away, the experience makes her resolute about defending the baby.  Lily gets drawn into a legal struggle to rescue the baby elephant that eventually sends her on a desperate flight to save it and definitely does not fit in her twelve year plan!

An ambitious and mostly successful coming of age story.  A number of great ideas (like Lily's constant questioning of her sanity, potential romantic sparks with Sawyer and co-conspirator Otis, and finally her reconciliation with her father)  never quite go anywhere, but the story is really about the baby elephant and Lily's bond with it.  The writer has an obsession with gross bodily fluids, but that serves to impart a lot of information about what it takes to keep an abandoned infant elephants alive in captivity.  And Fischer takes both zoos and circuses to task for their treatment of wild animals.  In sum, the adventure is satisfyingly dramatic and keeps you engaged.  It is a decent read, but falls short of living up to its ambitions of being a multithreaded psychological drama.

Amal Unbound, by Aisha Saeed

Twelve year-old Amal has big dreams for a schoolgirl in rural Pakistan:  she wants to become a school teacher.  But fate seems to have other plans.  First, as the eldest daughter, she has to spend considerable time at home helping out.  And while her mother is recovering from a difficult childbirth, she is unable to attend school at all.  

Then a much bigger tragedy strikes.  For the crime of talking back to the local landlord and refusing to let him have her pomegranate, she is taken from her family and forced to become then man's indentured servant, effectively ending any of Amal's dreams.  But as desperate as Amal's situation seems, she is determined to fight back.

A simply-written but powerful story of one girl's fight for freedom and respect is both full of joyous local color and insightful in explaining how injustices like the one described can occur.  As middle grade reading is concerned, this one packs considerable punch.  The plain writing in no way takes away from its powerful message which simultaneously attacks misogyny, economic injustice, and slavery.