Threads That Bind, by Kika Hatzopoulou

"Other-borns" are descendants of the gods (loosely based on the Greek pantheon) who embody elements of their powerful ancestors.  Those born from the fates can see the invisible threads that tie people with the people and the things that bring them joy and make their life come alive. In each generation, there are always three siblings:  one who can weave the threads, one who can draw them, and a third that can cut them and break the connection.  Io is the "cutter" of her family and widely feared and distrusted by mortals for her powers.

Io gets by in the flooded slums of the city, working with low-lifes and criminals as a private investigator.  When one of her assignments results in her witnessing her assignment being murdered by a woman who for all intents and purposes is already dead, Io realizes that there are bigger things at stake than her petty investigations into marital infidelity and fraud.  Following leads that take her from being hired by a criminal syndicate to a garden party in the home of the next mayor, she finds herself embroiled in a mystery that implicates the entire power structure of her world.  It will eventually force her to confront the gods themselves.

This is a pretty bare bones description of the story and is part of the issue I have with this novel.  There's always a fine line in fantasy novels between building enough of your alternative world that it is immersive and at the same time not going so far that the details swamp the story.  This proves even more challenging in a story that is more mystery than adventure.  In order to appreciate the byzantine politics of Io's world, we are introduced to endless factions and historical backstories.  It literally takes some 150 pages or so before we can get through a page of the story without being introduced to a new character or setting!  Little of this is actually superfluous and I can well imagine a frenzied editor fruitlessly trying to find some fat to cut out.  There simply isn't any!  So, as a result of this huge amount of exposition, there are lots of important elements of this story that largely suffer.  A really interesting emotional dynamic between the sisters, for example, largely gets shortchanged by the details of the setting and a drive to keep the action moving.

I suspect that there is a sequel to come and perhaps the need to provide so much exposition will subside and allow more time for character development.  This rich novel in the mean time will benefit from a re-reading and a patient study of the numerous elements.

Forget Me Not, by Alyson Derrick

In their conservative small town, Stevie and Nora have to keep their relationship a secret.  But they have plans to get away:  Stevie's been accepted to UCLA and Nora will get a job.  Nora has figured out how they can get by on their limited means.  It will be hard but it means that they can finally be out about their relationship.  Nobody in LA will care that they are gay.

But then Stevie suffers a severe concussion that leads to weeks in the hospital and results in partial amnesia:  she's forgotten who Nora is and everything about their relationship.  From being on the verge of running away together, Nora has become a complete stranger to Stevie.  Not only is it devastating to be unrecognized by her girlfriend but she can't even tell her the truth for the trouble it would cause.  And would Stevie even believe her?  For Stevie, this huge gap in her memories leave her with suspicions.  Who knows the truth about what was going on?  And who is now taking advantage of Stevie's amnesia to re-write history?

It's an interesting premise that locked me in.  Sure, it relies on the trope that love is predestined and that true love is not dependent on circumstances.  But as cynical as I am that there is no particular reason for Stevie and Nora to find each other again, you know we all are rooting for them to do so (although to be fair, Derrick allows some flexibility and not everything is like it was before). Somewhat less forgivable is the too-good-to-be-true ending which comes from out of nowhere and in fact runs against the entire direction of the rest of the story.  Do yourself a favor and skip the last chapter -- you'll thank me for that!  Other than that, I enjoyed the characters and the nuanced relationship between Stevie and her mother which exposes a lot about how families cope with children coming out.

The Sharp Edge of Silence, by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

It's senior year at Lycroft Phelps and three students are finding out how they will embody the motto of the school, "Who will you be?" For Charlotte, it is her moment to shine as a guest choreographer for the ballet.  For Max, the stereotypical STEM nerd, it is a rare chance to join the A-team, as a coxswain for the varsity crew team and a seat at the most influential table at the school.  But for Quinn, who carries a legacy of six generations of Lycroft Phelps alums, it is the shame of having been sexually assaulted at the end of the previous year.

The contrast of Charlotte's and Max's dreams coming true against the nightmare of Quinn's descent to madness creates a stark narrative in the first half of the story, which otherwise largely follows the typical pattern of the boarding school subgenre of poorly supervised teenagers.  Charlotte has issues with her distant boyfriend, who she suspects of cheating on her.  Max, flattered by the perks of his new social status tentatively flexes his power by getting the nerve up to date his crush.  The crew team has initial success and starts planning pranks against a rival school.  Meanwhile, Quinn steals a gun and plots murder against her assailant.

But in the second half, the narrative comes apart.  Max is exposed to a secret society that the boys have formed to promote a rape culture and finds himself unable to stand up to it.  Charlotte questions whom her jealousy actually serves.  Quinn finds her voice and speaks out.  And at this point, the book takes another unusual step by bringing in the adults to help out and the children become (slightly) less unsupervised.  The story itself largely abandons its original trajectory as many of the important subplots (Quinn's homicidal plans, winning a big crew race, getting into college, and striking back at school rivals) simply are dropped and overshadowed by the bigger question of toxic cultures.

As far as that main theme is concerned, if the novel had simply been an indictment on toxic masculinity, it wouldn't be terribly original.  What is interesting is the focus on the young women finding their voice.  Whether it is Quinn learning to stop seeing herself as a victim, Charlotte refusing to excuse her ex-boyfriend's behavior, or Max's ex-girlfriend Alex standing up to well-meaning but largely inept Max, this is more about the important role that women can play in protecting themselves.

You Bet Your Heart, by Danielle Parker

Sasha knows how much her mother has sacrificed so she can attend Skyline High and focus on her studies.  And ever since her father died, she's known that the best way to honor his memory is to excel academically.  But what she didn't know is that Ezra, her estranged childhood best friend, is locked in a tie for the highest GPA. That matters because the school gives a $30K scholarship to the Valedictorian and Sasha needs that money to go to school.

While they were once close friends, Sasha has not taken Ezra seriously in some time.  He goofs off and barely makes any effort in his classes.  But now that he knows how close the competition is, he's suddenly a greater threat than ever before -- acing tests, besting Sasha in oral exams, and tricking her into missing classes.  Before things go out of control, the two of them decide to declare a ceasefire and settle the whole matter with a bet:  based on just three major upcoming projects, the winner of at least two of them will take the prize and the loser will blow a future test to ruin their GPA.  This simplifies the competition but takes no heat out of their struggle.

Naturally, this being a YA romance, the two of them fall in love, have a major misunderstanding and falling out, and then reconcile dramatically in the end.

This may be formula but it works well.  Sasha and Ezra have good chemistry and much of the story is spent with them building mutual appreciation.  The book shines when the two kids just focus on each other, but the author seems uncomfortable with the genre, finding a need to force in some profundity with political facts or grand rhetoric.  An artificial and cringeworthy fight between Sasha and her friends mostly shows that even inclusive language can be weaponized in the hands of adolescents.  It's also emblematic of good material that is sabotaged by an agenda.

The Truth About Everything, by Bridget Farr

Lark lives with her parents in a remote homestead in Montana.  Until the age of fifteen, she thinks that she's learned everything she needs to know.  She can hunt and fish, repair engines, and defend her family from the government.  But when she gets her first period, she doesn't know what is happening to her.  She thinks she's miscarried like her mother did with each of her pregnancies (except Lark).  It sets Lark wondering that there is a lot else she hasn't ever learned about.  Like how to read.  Like what really happened on 9/11. Like what normal teenagers do with themselves.

No longer content to stay sequestered in the family's remote fortress preparing for the Armageddon, she secretly enrolls in school and develops a longing for knowledge.  And the more she learns, the more she realizes the limitations of her parents and the way that their paranoia is killing themselves and her.

A grim story of a wildly abusive family.  I'm not a big fan of child endangerment, but I am inevitably sucked in by stories like this.  For as unpleasant as the setting is, I long for watching the child rise above their situation.  Lark doesn't disappoint.  She has a lot of handicaps, but her survivalist parents got one thing right:  making her intensely curious and fiercely independent.  So, for every time I cringed at her Dad's stupidity and her Mom's cowardice, I could still cheer at Lark's tenaciousness.  That's small comfort in a story that will just depress you and leave you wondering how many Larks there are out there and what happens to the ones who lack Lark's survival skills?

The Secrets We Keep, by Cassie Gustafson

Emma's carefully manicured world is torn violently open when her father is arrested.  He's accused of hurting an unnamed minor, who quickly turns out to be Hannah, Emma's best friend.  Initially, Emma and Hannah try to maintain their friendship as their families circle the wagons and break into opposing factions.  Emma loyally defends her father, but cracks in her resolve appear almost immediately.  Something has been going on and the question is whether Emma is mad at Hannah for what she said or mad at someone else altogether?

It's a harrowing tale full of triggering scenes of abuse.  The sexual abuse, I was prepared for.  It was Emma's monstrous mother and her emotional abuse I wasn't quite set for.  Not only in denial of what her husband is doing to her daughter, Mom actively blames Emma for it as well.  And while I'm aware that that behavior is not unknown in these situations, it's brutally hard to read.   Emma's autistic and neglected younger brother adds yet more weight to a situation that doesn't actually need it.

The writing is superb and the use of second voice flashbacks  to describe scenes that become less and less ambiguous particularly effective.  A more experimental use of fairy tales seemed too heavy handed and distracting, but it added some depth to the depiction of the emotional trauma that Emma is experiencing.  And, of course, Emma herself is a major force.  We're naturally drawn to be sympathetic to her, of course, but Gustafson rewards us with rich character development.  In sum, a moving, traumatic read about friendship, family, and abuse -- best taken with frequent breaks and reminders that the world is not completely populated with monsters.

Boy In the White Room, by Karl Olsberg

A boy wakes up in a white room with knowledge of the world around him but no memories of how he acquired the knowledge (or indeed of who he is).  He eventually is greeted by his father who tells him his name is Manuel, his physical body is comatose, and that he is living within a virtual reality.  His father then introduces him to all of the wonderful things he can do in his meta world.

But something is not quite right.  When a girl claiming to be his sister tries to reach him, his father denies he has a sister and forbids him from contacting her. Suspicious, he uncovers the truth that the man is not his father and that his sister and her friends are trying to rescue him.  But no sooner is he successfully rescued than he finds he has merely peeled away one layer of mystery and revealed a new one.  Soon, he needs to be rescued from his supposed sister!

By the end of the story, Manuel is not sure who is real and who is made up, whether he has finally found the real world or is still living inside a simulacrum, what is his real name, or even if he is a real person.  In the extreme paranoia that this story presents, the conclusion simply raises more questions. It is simply not possible to answer the questions.

This sort of mindf**k book that poses a paradox (in this case of consciousness) would have deeply appealed to me as a teenager so I can appreciate it now.  Beyond that clever idea though, it's not a terribly exciting story and the characters are pretty flat.  So, fun to ruminate over and maybe discuss.

When We Had Summer, by Jennifer Castle

Daniella, Carly, Penny, and Lainie have spent their summer every year on the Jersey shore.  And each summer, the self-proclaimed "summer sisters" pass their time completing a bucket list that Carly has assembled for them.  While there are a few items (like seeing a breaching whale) that they never seem to be able to achieve, the annual rite defines their friendship.

This summer, things are changing.  Lainie's family is moving away in August, Daniella has gotten a music scholarship in New York for most of the summer and will be away, and Penny is dealing with the disintegration of her parents' marriage.  But most traumatically, Carly isn't with them at all -- she died over the winter -- leaving a huge gap in their circle.

While going through some of Carly's things, Daniella discovers that before she passed away Carly had created a bucket list for the upcoming summer.  So, with the heavy realization that this will be their last summer together, the remaining three summer sisters pledge to honor Carly by completing this last list.  What starts with good intentions and passion ends up testing the girls' bond as they discover that the forces of change are powerful.

It's everything you would wish from a summer beach read.  But in spite of containing just about every trope in the genre (and yes, there's a boy in there too!), I found Castle's book surprisingly fresh and enjoyable.  It delivers the expected bittersweet conclusion that the story demands, but along the way there are some nice lessons about growing up, making new friends while cherishing the old, and accepting that one can move on.  It's not weighty stuff, but you finish it feeling like there was some nutritional value in it.

6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did), by Tess Sharpe

While looking very much like a cute romance book about two girls who are best of friends and come close multiple times to actually locking lips, this novel is actually weightier material.  The girls are Penny and Tate, daughters of two best friends who have known each other most of their lives.  Tate's mother is in need of a new liver and Penny's mother volunteers to donate a part of hers to save her friend.  To make the whole thing work, the four of them have to move in with each other.  That would be fine, except that Penny and Tate have a long and complicated history which they have generally tried to avoid discussing or revisiting.  That proves difficult when the events and people involved are not exactly going away.  

The story contains a number of typical rom com tropes like the two girls having the share a bed after a snafu with their hotel reservations, but it quickly becomes apparent that there's more to the book.  A few years ago, Penny and her father were in a kayaking accident in which  Penny's father was killed. Penny's mother has never worked through her grief (or allowed Penny to do so).  This has left an awkward dynamic in their relationship, which being in close proximity with their best friends make much worse.  It's really the reconciliation of this painful history that ties the entire story together, making the predictable eponymous kiss at the end of the book something of an afterthought.

I liked the dynamics between the characters.  The complicated relationship between Tate and Penny which is far less romantic than one would expect.  The mothers (with each other and with their daughters) also bring in complications that are handled with aplomb by the author. I find the story of suppressed grief to be compelling enough to push the story forward.  And I even find the near-miss kisses to be surprisingly more dramatic than one would find usually in a romance.  This is a book of great characters and powerful emotions.

It's also a terribly busy story.  As often happens in these cases, the ending is a really hard trek tying up all of the loose ends.  Things suffer along the way.  A subplot involving an ex-girlfriend (Leslie) does nothing for the story and is even a bit bizarre.  More importantly, even the liver transplant story feels superfluous -- it provides an excuse for everyone to be together, but adds little else to the actual story.

Time to Roll, by Jamie Sumner

Ellie is dealing with a lot of changes this summer.  Her Mom has  gotten remarried -- to her gym teacher -- and is traveling Route 66 with him for their honeymoon for the next month.  Her Dad, who's never been that close wit her, has come (with his new wife and their boys) to live with her for the month.  The result is chaos and Ellie would do just about anything to get out of the house.  Her best friend Coralee has an idea:  they should both compete in the Little Miss Boots and Bows together.  Coralee lives for beauty pageants, but Ellie wouldn't be caught dead in one.

One of the more obvious reasons Coralee doesn't like the idea is that she has cerebral palsy and needs a wheelchair to get around.  She's not embarrassed by this fact, but often annoyed by the way her wheelchair causes people to treat her.  But Coralee is persistent and Ellie agrees to go along with it.  It's just about everything Ellie feared.  And when the organizer starts using Ellie to promote the "diversity" of the event, Coralee grows resentful of the attention Ellie is getting.  Ellie decides she has to take control and do this on her own terms.

There's undeniably excellent representation here for children with disabilities and the best part of this story was the character of Ellie.  She has the right amount of spunk and intelligence to be interesting.  But the  story felt rough and unfinished.  The development of Ellie's relationship with her estranged father had potential but never really takes off and the tensions with Coralee get a rushed resolution.

The Sky We Shared, by Shirley Reva Vernick

In the final days of World War II, two girls try to do what they can for their families and countries, and learn along the way that the right thing to do is often not as simple as grownups make it sound.

Nellie lives in Bly, Oregon.  Her father has been away for years now, defending the Aleutian Islands against Japanese advances.  Her next-door neighbors have just lost their elder son in combat in Europe and the younger brother, Nellie's best friend Joey, struggles with anger and grief.  Nellie knows that she can't really understand what Joey is going through but she wants to help him however she can.  Meanwhile, as a keen observer of his town, she sees the varying ways that the war has impacting the others around her as well.  It all seems to come down to luck! The war itself seems far away from her as all she sees first hand is rationing and blackout curtains.

In a village in southern Japan, Tamiko and her aunt sit worrying about Tamiko's brother who has trained as a kamikaze and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the Empire.  Tamiko is proud of her brother but wishes he were home safe.  She understands the war in inevitable and everyone must give their best if Japan is to emerge victorious.  

So, Tamiko is excited to serve when her class is summoned to a factory to help assemble huge paper balloons.  They work long and arduous hours for weeks putting together these balloons with big sheets of washi paper.  At first she knows only that balloons are part of the war effort.  It's only when their work is completed that she learns that they will be used to drop bombs on the Americans.  She's OK with that as the Americans are the ones who are trying to hurt them, so anything that will bring victory quicker is to be celebrated.

But in the weeks that follow, things change dramatically for both girls.  The Americans start a ferocious bombing campaign of the Japanese mainland and Tamiko experiences war first-hand as her villages is destroyed.  And in Oregon, Nellie one night catches sight of what she thinks at first are shooting stars in the sky.  But instead, they turn out to be mysterious floating balloons.

A haunting story based on the true history of Japanese Fu-Go campaign which brought hundreds of floating explosives over North America in the dying days of the World War II.  For the most part, these attacks proved ineffective, but they did cause the only domestic casualties of the War in Bly, Oregon when one of the bombs killed a pregnant women and five children on a church picnic party.  Knowing nothing of the topic, I was fascinated and horrified at the way Vernick chooses to tie her two protagonists -- who never meet face to face -- together.

With a sometimes overly enthusiastic attention to historical detail, Vernick builds sympathetic portrayals of her characters who are typical young teens in so many ways but also products of their country's propaganda.  You clearly sense that they could be friends, but in a time of war such sympathy is impossible.  The novel becomes an unapologetic look at what causes hatred and fear for the alien other and what is necessary to pull back and learn to forgive.  Written for a middle school audience, the lessons are straightforward and unambiguous but there is wide room for discussion and debate for thoughtful adults as well.

This is children's literature at its finest.  It takes an interesting idea and spins it into an opportunity to explore the world and how it works.  It could be accused of trying a bit too hard at times (for example, a late inclusion of a nasty racist incident distracts from the general focus of the story), but there's so much here for readers to explore and think about.  It achieves its goals without sacrificing the story, which remains entertaining throughout.  Highly recommended.

Spin, by Rebecca Caprara

Caprara presents us a retelling of the story of Arachne, the young weaver who challenged the goddess Athena and was transformed into a spider for her hubris.  In this version, Arachne's antipathy towards the gods is born out of a life of economic hardship and social injustice.  The stories of the gods, clearly written to uphold patriarchal norms, hold no value to her.  She doesn't solicit divine intervention, but rather sets out through her own hard work to cultivate her talent.  Her efforts to set forth justice through her work is hindered at every turn by men, by the community, and ultimately by the gods themselves.

Not content to set the record straight on Arachne, Caprara takes apart most of the genre, calling out its misogyny, violence, and perversity with a strong grasp of the material.  Feminist retellings of classical literature have been done before, of course, but rarely as well as they are here.  The book is written in generally excellent verse and this gives the customary gravity but also evokes the epic style itself.  It's not Ovid, but it's a fitting tribute to the way such stories are told.

Caprara's instinct to make calls to action give the novel the taste of a screed (which will mostly be preaching to the choir as it is hard to imagine Ron DeSantis plucking up a copy of this book from his public schools' burn pile).  The writing could never be accused of subtlety!  A lot more could have been done without always connecting every dot.  However, that doubt in the reader's intelligence is a small flaw for this is a beautifully written tribute to Greek mythology and a work of great contemporary relevance.

Unseelie, by Ivelisse Housman

Iselia (or "Seelie") and her twin Isolde have managed to survive since they had to flee from home through their wits and their magic.  And it was their magic that first got them into trouble.  Seelie is a changeling who wields poorly-controlled magic that tends to get them into trouble.  But it is Isolde and her plan to burgle the home of the powerful enchantress Leira Wildfall that puts them in enough danger to set off the events of the story.  

While they are breaking in they find themselves face to face with another criminal duo (a boy named Maze and a girl named Odani) who are attempting to do the same thing.  The four of them are caught and have rely upon each other for their escape.  A much bigger heist/quest ensues where the four young people face greater and greater challenges, revealing strengths and powers that they didn't know they had.  All in all, pretty typical and unremarkable.

What makes this fantasy story about magic and fairies different from the rest is Seelie.  She's neurodivergent.  The idea is born from a theory the author has that people who were accused of being changelings or possessed by spirits were really autistic.  And so she imagines how an autistic person would understand a fantasy story.  Seelie's view of the world is our view.  From Seelie's understanding of her magic powers to the basic way she communicates with the others, she struggles.  Events are not always linear.  A huge stress is placed on sensory perception:  caves that are pitch black, walls that seem endless, lights that blind, and so on.  Scenes are not always easy to follow as Seelie sorts out what is going on around her, but they come together in their own way in the end.

The result is storytelling that is fresh and a voice that is unique and distinct.  However, I was less taken by story, which was repetitive (endless variations of the same basic set-up:   a battle that they inevitably lose, a hasty deal or a rash decision to escape the leaves Seelie disoriented, and then it just happens again).  There's an endless supply of new characters to supply these iterations of conflicts, but no clear direction to the story.  And a plot twist at the end suddenly undoes most of the understandings developed during the novel in order to create the requisite cliffhanger for the second half of this duology.  I'll entertain that my expectations for the story may bear a neurotypical bias, but I found the story boring.

The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent, by Ann Jacobus

Del suffers from anxiety and panic disorders, which she has in the past self-medicated with alcohol and narcotics.  A suicide attempt a year and a half ago brought her to live with her Aunt Fran, an art dealer in San Francisco.  Now in recovery, Del is planning to start school in the Fall, works on a suicide help line, and is excited that her high school crush Nick is coming to visit.

However, the panic attacks have not gone away and there is temptation everywhere for Del to relapse.  Nick is friendly, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with her because of all that baggage.  Helping suicidal people feels good, but it's challenging to Del and a failed rescue leaves her doubting her ability to do the work.  And then Aunt Fran starts showing signs of getting sick, which morphs into a terminal cancer diagnosis.

As Fran's condition declines, she decides to stop seeking treatment and starts hospice at home.  But it isn't enough.  Fran doesn't want to let the disease take its course and she asks Del to help her get to Oregon so she can get help in terminating her life on her own terms.  For Del, who has struggled so long with fighting her own suicidal impulses (as well as talking her callers out of them) she is reluctant to help her Aunt "speed up the process."

While plenty of YA novels use death as a dramatic device (dead mother, dying best friend, etc.), very few focus on the process of dying and hospice the way this novel does.  The book is well-researched and intelligently discusses the process of assisted suicide.  Moreover, the latter part of the book becomes a detailed catalog of the later stages of dying and it's quite eye-opening.  The story doesn't make for the cheeriest of reading but there's a raw honesty to the way the experience is portrayed and the impact on Del and her family and friends.  I feel that alone makes this a notable book.

A Scatter of Light, by Malinda Lo

When pictures of Aria topless find their way on to Instagram, her parents decide it would be best if she spent her last summer before college with her grandmother in San Francisco rather than unsupervised with friends on Martha's Vineyard.  While she is naturally resentful of this decision, she eventually finds her summer to be memorable.  

Set in 2013, right after California legalized same sex marriage, Aria undergoes her own realization that she might be a lesbian as she falls in love with Steph, her grandmother's gardener  At the same time, her grandmother Joan opens Aria's eyes to art.  Aria, who wants to study astronomy and is on her way to MIT, has never entertained that she has artistic leanings, but under her grandmother's guidance, she starts to blossom as an artist.

In sum, a coming of age story with several different facets. Aria's transformation is interesting to follow, but she's a surprisingly dull protagonist.  She goes through a number of important self-realizations, but they mostly seem to bounce off of her and I felt largely excluded from what she was experiencing.  It doesn't help that both Joan and Steph are cut out of the story rather abruptly, leaving Aria on her own to sort things out at the end.  And instead of doing so, the novel simply jumps ten years ahead after everything has worked out.

Intended to be a companion work to a much heavier novel called Last Night at the Telegraph Club, this novel stands on its own and makes only fleeting reference to the characters of that book.

Remind Me to Hate You Later, by Lizzy Mason

As the subject of her mother's blog, Jules has lived her entire life in the spotlight.  It's not a place where she's ever been comfortable, but her mother refuses to stop writing about her daughter, often in great graphic detail.  Every embarrassing moment in Jules's life has been fodder for her Mom's millions of followers.  The more mortifying the event, after all, the better for ratings.  Never mind that the violations of privacy are driving Jules to depression and self-harm.  Tragedy ensues when, after a particularly invasive post that discusses Jules's burgeoning sex activity, Jules decides to end her life.

In the aftermath, Jules's best friend Natalie tries to cope with the loss.  She knew plenty about Jules's misery but she didn't understand how bad it was for her.  She despises Jules's mother for what she did to Jules. And she hasn't stopped.  Now she's writing a book to capitalize on the experience!  But Natalie also wants to explore her own role in the tragedy and address the guilt she feels for moving on.

The first half of the book, told by Jules, is a harrowing story of parental abuse.  But while it gives us a clear sense of what she went through, it turns out not to be the most interesting part of the novel.  It's really the second half, where Natalie takes over, that brings the pieces together.  For one thing, Natalie is a far more reliable narrator, with a strong sense of obligation to get the story right.  And while she is immensely sad and angry about what happened to her friend, she recognizes that there are multiple sides to the story.  She even eventually comes round to being willing to sit down with Jules's mother!  She also struggles with guilt as she and Jules's boyfriend develop romantic feelings towards each other.

The story packs a pretty heavy punch and is a compelling read, but it transcends the usual suicide tropes by spending considerable time on how people's lives go on after a tragedy.  So, while there is plenty of grief, the story doesn't really dwell on it. I also found the subject of social media addiction to be quite interesting.  A lot more could have been made of it, but Mason avoids preaching and simply sets out the point that Mom's narcissism (fed by her followers) really was the trigger for this tragedy.  And her daughter's compulsion for paying attention to those posts sealed her fate.  That leaves us food for thought.

We Weren't Looking to Be Found, by Stephanie Kuehn

Two girls of color from different worlds room together at a residential psychiatric facility and seek clarity and connection.  With the possible exception of the racial diversity in this novel, this has been done so so many times, what could possibly make this iteration stand out? Insight, patience, and charisma.

Dani comes from a well-off family in Dallas.  Her mother is an ambitious black politico and she can't stand it.  To escape what she sees as the hypocrisy of her family, she drowns herself in alcohol, pills, and parties.  And when it all gets to be too much, she runs away and ends up getting sent to Peach Tree Hills, a facility for young woman outside of Atlanta.

Camila loves dance and after three years of auditions she's finally gotten herself accepted to a dance school.  But the stress of getting this far has taken its toll and Camila developed a habit of cutting to relieve her pain.  The breaking point, however, is when her parents inform her that she can't go because the money that was to have paid for school is gone.  In crisis, she tries to end her life and ends up at Peach Tree Hills.

Both girls are angry and frustrated, convinced that their issues have everything to do with their parents and other adults who want to keep them down.  But through patient guidance from the facility's caregivers and the bond that develops between them, they begin to dig their way out on the road to self-discovery.  A minor subplot about a cache of found letters written by a previous resident adds some pathos to their search.

The characters make this story.  Dani and Camila are intelligent and articulate advocates for themselves.  Even in the beginning when they don't have the focus they need to find their way out, they are fearless and determined.  They make plenty of mistakes and do things that are plainly stupid, but these are their mistakes to make and they accept the responsibility for them.  There are a few tears but never any self-pity from these girls.  That makes this novel rather unique in a genre that tends to wallow in navel-gazing and self-hatred.  There were times when the story seemed to drift (the whole letters cache being the most obvious example), but Dani and Camila kick ass from beginning to end.

Miracle, by Karen S. Chow

For Amie, her father has always been the muse for her art.  It is his love for music and his love for her playing that has helped her succeed at violin.  And while he is dying of cancer, she tries desperately to please him.  She know the prognosis but it can't stop her from hoping that somehow he will get better.  When he does eventually succumb, she is bereft and finds that she simply cannot play at all anymore.

In the ensuing months, she works through guilt and anger to try to find a new equilibrium and build a new hope of her own, rekindling her music.

A better-than-average story of grief and recovery, helped by the beautiful way that Chow works music into the story of Amie's relationship with her father.  Another aspect I liked was the contrast between the way that Amie and her mother copes with their loss, showing the complexity of dealing with one's own needs balanced against those of another.  While each of them attempt to solve their own problems in order to not burden the other, the find that it is really something they need to do together.  Finally, instead of a clean ending with some sort of full recovery, we find only hope for the future -- a solution that felt right.

Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, by Hanna Alkaf

There are certain rules about the jungle that every Malaysian child knows:  always ask permission before you enter, never take anything without permission, and never give out your real name.  But Hamra doesn't care.  It's her thirteenth birthday and everyone has forgotten.  No one has done anything more than order her around.  So, she enters the jungle, brazenly refusing to seek permission, and takes a piece of fruit home to her family.

The fruit turns out to be magical and the fearsome weretiger who owns the tree it came from demands compensation for her offense -- Hamra must go on a quest to help the weretiger become a man.  That quest sends Hamra, her best friend Ilyas, and the weretiger on an adventure through the realm of fairies and demons.  They struggle with a variety of magical forces to restore the weretiger's humanity and unearth his history, which she finds is intertwined with her own family's history.

Heavily populated with Malaysian culture and folklore, Alkaf spins a story loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood and set in the middle of the Covid Pandemic.  It is a wildly incongruous setting where Hamra and her companions do things like use invisibility spells to dodge detection from police enforcing the quarantine.  That complexity doesn't always work, making the story feel crowded.  It is also long and repetitive as similar events (taking things without paying for them, narrowing escaping certain death through a surprise visitor, etc.) happen again and again.  After a while, the narrow escapes become largely indistinguishable.  A final complaint I would have is that the heavy use of unfamiliar words and settings, while delightful in theory, makes the story challenging to read and it takes a while to get into it.

Leeva at Last, by Sara Pennypacker (ill by Matthew Cordell)

Leeva's mother only cares about fame.  Her father only cares about money.  Neither of them cares anything about her.  When Leeva finds out that the town has a school and gets excited about attending, her parents laugh off the idea.  School?  What an absurdity!  What good could school ever do for you?  But Leeva is curious and when her curiosity leads her to sneak out of the house (violating the "Employee Handbook" her parents have created for her) she discovers a whole world out there.  It's a world full of books, homemade cookies, an orphaned badger, and a hypochondriac boy in a hazmat suit.  Most of all, it is full of human beings making connections.

In an absurd style that will remind readers of Roald Dahl or David Walliams, Pennypacker deftly explores a variety of topics including friendship, family, and creativity.  It's a story that cannot be taken seriously and younger readers who can't recognize the satirical elements may find it confusing.  I personally found the abusive nature of the humor disturbing.  But if you delight in books that are so cruel that it is "obvious" that they are not to be taken seriously, this can be a silly read.