Dirty Little Secrets, by C. J. Omololu

Lucy's Mom has been collecting and saving stuff over the past couple of years. What began as an aversion to throwing away stuff needlessly has turned into a full-blown psychosis. The house has become so cluttered with garbage that one can barely move around it. Living conditions have deteriorated. For Lucy, the biggest struggle is to appear normal so that the other kids don't notice the problem. That's a challenge: she never invites anyone over, she makes up lies to keep her friends at a distance, and she is constantly in fear of someone discovering her family secret.

Just when she thinks she is getting ahead, she comes home to find her mother dead. Now she is faced with the reality that her mother's death will bring her unwanted attention and guarantee that she will never be "normal" again.

On the one hand, I like a story that introduces me to a new world. I had read about "hoarders" before but liked getting to understand the phenomenon in more depth. I also liked the way that Lucy's attempts to dig through the layers of garbage in their house served as a means to sift through the years of her mother's decline. Those parts of the story worked quite well.

I'm not a big fan of the child-in-peril plot line though. This is so obviously a case of a child in over her head that it is hardly something I could enjoy. I'm also not a big fan of the moral ambiguity in the decision to leave the dead mother just lying there for a day (a la Weekend at Bernie's). But mostly I didn't like the way that the story drifted. Exploring the relationship with Mom (and even with the siblings) was interesting, but the romance, Lucy's friendships, and the little boy next door were all plot lines that were so far removed from the story that they mostly distracted me from the dread of what was to come. Finally, the ending is something of a complete cop out as it comes completely out of left field, and doesn't provide emotional pay off.

Flash Burnout, by L. K. Madigan

The book's title refers to what happens when you misuse a flash, causing a photograph to be overexposed and washed out. It's the perfect metaphor for what happens to 15 year-old Blake's life when he gets sucked in to helping a friend (Marissa) cope with her troubled home life. There's also a difficult juggling act with his girlfriend (Shannon) and plenty of trouble with his peers and various adults (his parents, his girlfriend's parents, and his teachers).

It's pretty much required that any book about teen-aged boys focus on their raging hormones. I'd never be a fool enough to deny that 15 year-old boys are obsessed, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. So, kudos to Madigan for understanding that lust is not an end in itself, but rather a low-key roar in the background of everything else. Blake and his buddies may spend a lot of time talking about sex and posturing for each other, but he comes off as sympathetic and interesting at the same time. Sure, he'd like to get his girlfriend into the sack, but he's got plenty of other things going on in his head.

Just about every character in this book has a bit of depth in them: Blake's parents are embarrassingly geeky while still being clued-in and responsible parents, Blake's older brother is a wonderful foil, and both the boys and the girls act in a realistic and believable fashion. The only part that didn't work for me was the DJ girl (Cappie) who seems more like she is supposed to be symbolic of something than that she really exists in the story. And Shannon's parents are probably intended more for comedic value than anything else.

The story is funny, moves swiftly, and keeps you interested. It's also the sort of "boy book" that is targeted as much at female readers as male ones.

The Indigo Notebook, by Laura Resau

Zeeta and her mother are wanderers. Just when Zeeta gets settled in one place, her Mom decides to pull up stakes and take them someplace else. This time, they've come to South America.

In the town of Otavalo, Zeeta meets an American boy named Wendell who is looking for his birth parents. Zeeta (whose Spanish is much better than Wendell's) helps him in his search, which ends up in a remote village with a series of dark secrets. Meanwhile, back at home, Zeeta's mother Layla has found a new boyfriend who has finally convinced her to settle down. But after wishing for this for so long, Zeeta gets cold feet when the reality of returning to a "normal" life appears to be becoming a reality.

Like Resau's other books, this one is filled with loads of beautiful cultural details. However, I found the story itself more disjointed and muddy than her previous books. There are a lot of characters and having the narrative split in two (between the Wendell story and the Layla story) didn't help. Subplots (like the romance between Wendell and Zeeta, and Faustino's relationship with his family) remain sketchy and underdeveloped. It's simply a case of trying to do too much.

And as for the meaning of that blue notebook? Forget it! That never really gets any decent explanation.

The Girl With the Mermaid Hair, by Delia Ephron

Sukie has a serious problem with narcissism. When she can't see her reflection, she will use her phone's camera to take a "selfie" (a picture of herself) just to make sure she looks OK. Her mother's present of an antique full-length mirror is thus very welcome. But weird things start to happen: at a tennis match, a strange man man attacks her father, her mother disappears to a "spa" and returns with a nose job, and the mirror itself mysteriously develops holes and cracks. Only the family dog Senor seems to know what is going on.

Erroneously billed as YA, there really isn't much in this story (aside from the age of the heroine) that is teen. Instead, this is one of those bizarre "modern novels" of which I am such a fan (not!). The mirror is probably symbolic, but I didn't get it. The characters are numerous and largely forgettable, and thus hard to track. And, in the end, I couldn't figure out what the point was. Read at your own risk.

The Lonely Hearts Club, by Elizabeth Eulberg

When Penny's lifelong crush crushes her heart, Penny swears that she is done with boys...at least until after high school is over. Curiously, she begins to notice that so many of the girls around her (friends and non-friends) have had similarly bad experiences with boys and an idea is born: the Lonely Hearts Club. The mission of the Club is to provide each other support as its members swear to be true to each other and forgo romantic attachments. Pretty soon, it's a movement. Penny can hardly believe the transformations that the young women around her undergo and could never have predicted where it all will lead.

You won't have much trouble seeing where the story is going to go (no one ever said that a romance is supposed to be suspenseful), but this novel takes an unusually interesting trip to its destination. Now, with the wisdom of age, I could easily point out to these young women that they would all be much happier focusing on their friendships and spending less time in messy romances (and given the selfishness and inexperience of your typical adolescent, does anyone expect the romances to be anything other than messy?), but it's fun to see a group of girls figure this out for themselves. And if the story inspires some real-life teens to take charge of their lives and empower themselves, so much the better!

As for the story itself, it's hard to dislike a book with such a winning heroine. Penny is strong and opinionated, but she backs up her convictions. She can be shy and occasionally have a lapse of judgment, but she really is the kind of person that you would want as a best friend. My one grievance with the book is the unevenness of the story telling. For every strong section (some of the more caustic observations about boys had me rolling in laughter from pain self-recognition) there are painfully weak sections (the Principal, for example, is a throwaway and a pointless addition to the story, as in fact are all the bad guys). Eulberg has a terrible problem creating realistic motivations for her characters, instead making every villain a bad guy simply on the basis of being shallow. Every kind person is just doing the decent thing. And Eulberg quickly runs out of original ways for her characters to express emotions (affectionate or combative). To compensate for this problem, I coped by glossing over the more embarrassingly poorly-written sections. Thankfully these are few!

Overall, this is great fun. It's grl power stuff and obviously intended to be secretly shared by female readers, but I think boys could read it without getting cooties or having their manhood excised. And maybe they could learn a bit about how to avoid being such creeps!

By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead, by Julie Anne Peters

Daelyn has decided that it's time to stop being a failure. This time she is determined that she will actually succeed...at killing herself. She discovers a website called Through The Light that encourages her to plan it right and actually "complete" the plan. The website assigns her 23 days to wrap things up.

This book then traces those next 23 days. Daelyn recounts the traumas and losses that have brought her to this desperate point. We learn about a history of bullying, physical and sexual assault, and near-constant harassment and humiliation from her peers (and indifference from the adults). We also get introduced to two of her peers (Santana and Emily) who reach out to her and we get a hint that there might be something for her that is worth living for.

This short book is a quick paced read and, like so many of Peters's other books, is thought-provoking and well-written. Peters has a knack for picking out interesting troubled teens (Luna, Define "Normal", etc.) and I tend to like her books. The themes of bullying, abuse, and suicide will resound with a lot of young readers. I suspect that this book is going to be one of her more popular books and get a wide and positive reception. It's easy to sympathize with the fear of being bullied (we've all gone through it) and the ending will provide plenty of room for discussion (whether informal chatter or a classroom group).

While it is a good book and I totally get why people will like it and recommend it, I'm not going to join that chorus. I didn't like the book and most of all I didn't like Daelyn. That may sound like a cruel and heartless thing to say, but I just found it hard to stomach the constant woe-is-me whine that permeates the entire book. As Daelyn herself acknowledges in the end, that sort of self-pity is probably her worst enemy. I'm not convinced that readers will pick up on that subtlety. Now that I'm grown up, I realize that the melodrama that she relishes so much just isn't going to solve anything. And enduring it for 190 pages really grated on me like nails on a chalkboard (sorry folks, it's a dated analogy!). Now, that feeling is totally personal. It in no way reflects on the fact that the book is well-written and thought-provoking and 99% of folks who read it will love it and find it moving. All of that is true as well. So, I'm going to praise it as an excellent book that you may or may not like (but which I personally didn't enjoy).

Oh, yeah, one thing I think we can ALL agree to criticize this book for is its cover. Daelyn is allegedly this totally overweight girl. Do not even pretend to tell me that the girl on the cover of this book is fat. Julie Anne Peters should SHOOT her publisher for the ironic decision to put Little Miss Twiggy on the cover of a book about body image. And yes, technically, Daelyn does mention that she's recently lost weight, but you KNOW that isn't why the art department made the decisions they made about this cover.

Solace of the Road, by Siobhan Dowd

The late Siobhan Dowd's final novel features Holly, a girl who decides to run away on her 15th birthday from her foster parents to find her mother. In logic that makes more sense to a lonely teen, Holly is convinced that her mother, who abandoned her years ago, is waiting for her in Ireland. Emboldened by a blonde wig she has stolen from her foster mother, Holly christens herself as "Solace" -- an older and wiser version of herself. She hitchhikes across western England and Wales, managing to reach the coast, but not without struggles (both material and mental, in both present and past).

As an adventure story, the young girl's mishaps will annoy some readers, but come across true to her age. She is both very brave and very foolish, weak but ultimately strong enough to pull herself back from the brink. While she makes her fair share of mistakes, she makes enough good decisions to survive the trip. Far more important, however, is the emotional journey that Holly takes as Solace. While ultimately predictable, the story is affirming and rewarding, and delivers a proper emotional payoff. In my opinion, a bit more ambitious than The London Eye Mystery and more interesting than A Swift Pure Cry. Worthy reading.

Crossing, by Andrew Xia Fukuda

Xing Xu is one of only two Chinese kids at his high school in Upstate New York. Unlike the other one (the bright and popular Naomi Lee), he's never been able to fit in. Instead, he tries to stay unobserved in the shadows. But when boys in his class start to disappear, Xing realizes that he -- on the sheer basis of being different -- is going to be eyed as a suspect. Ironically, as a careful observer of his peers, he proves to be the most adept at identifying the real culprit.

A chilling and scary book about psychopathic killing, prejudice, and paranoia -- in sum, not really my thing. For me, a simpler story about prejudice and how it makes its victims self-doubting would have been a compelling story, but Fukuda wanted to amp up the story with the murders (it does tend to expand the appeal of the book). While I didn't care for that particular decision, I can still acknowledge the strength of the book. It works on many levels. If you want a suspense/mystery novel, this will work for you.

The key to the book's success lies, as always in a decent book, with a great protagonist. Xing's character is particularly vibrant and interesting. His observations about the town's prejudice are damning and spot on. But Xing's real appeal lies in his ability to be an honest judge and he is equally critical of himself, which makes the misunderstandings in this story all the more poignant (and makes the ending just that much more haunting).

All Unquiet Things, by Anna Jarzab

Neily is the guy who found his ex-girlfriend Carly shot dead on an abandoned bridge over a year ago. Audrey is Carly's cousin and it was her father that was accused of the crime and sent to jail. But a year later, Audrey convinces Neily that the cops got the wrong man. Soon, there is a story of drugs, kidnapping, rape, and disappearances to add to the mix. Very quickly, both young people realize that they are getting in over their heads as the plot thickens.

This is extremely well-paced and Jarzab does a nice job of unraveling the story -- through a combination of narrative shift and flashbacks -- in such a way to keep things very interesting. Even the ending, which is predictable, keeps you beholden to the page. If story is what you're after, this is a good one.

The writing, however, is not nearly as good. First of all, despite being told by two separate narrators, there is no effective difference between the voices of Neily and Audrey. They both just sound old (what teenager would ever describe a room as being like "an English garden" or write such convoluted prose as "free to pace the winding corridors of our minds in search of answers to questions we had just started to learn how to ask"). Jarzab also has a rather odd notion of the generation she is writing about. At one point, she notes that the kids remember 9/11 like their parents remember where they were when JFK was shot. Excuse me? Whose parents?! (Let's do the math -- most HS seniors today were about nine years old during 9/11 which is not really an age where that sort of thing sinks in and their parents were probably 1 or 2 years old when Kennedy was shot!) Yes, it's small stuff, but it piles up after a while and it bugged me. I wanted to like the book because of its great story, but the lack of attention to detail distracted me.

Intensely Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Following the Alice series has become a major commitment and for those unfamiliar with the books, it would take a bit long to get you caught up. What began as an interesting series about a girl growing up in suburban Maryland has become something of a teen lit behemoth. It's not so hard to see the appeal of the books as Naylor details the life of Alice so thoroughly that we know basically every personal embarrassing detail of herself and her friends. The Alice series reminds me of the 7 Up television series -- it shows up at regular intervals to remind us of how we have grown. I've been reading the series for nine years now, and I imagine that there are plenty of people who have read them longer than that. They are not great literature and Alice's normality is coupled by a degree of shelteredness that only a fellow suburbanite could truly equate with reality, but this is literary comfort food and it serves a purpose (more on that below).

This latest installment takes us through the summer between Alice's Junior and Senior years of High School. Her long-term boyfriend Patrick has gone off to Chicago for the summer and Alice is going out to visit him. The big decision (should she have sex with him?) hangs over her for the first half of the book. It's a big decision and one that fans have been waiting for her to decide for at least the past six-seven books. And then there's also her cousin's wedding, a stint working at a homeless shelter, and a bunch of reflections about getting older. Near the end of the book there's a big shocking plot twist to give it all some gravitas.

The problem with Naylor (and I've said it before in nearly all of my reviews of her books) is that she really doesn't know how to write for older teens. For as much explicit material is included in this book, it is surprising just how chaste these books are. That may strike some adults as crazy talk (this novel, for example, includes a pretty explicit sex scene -- on pp 113-14 if you want to jump ahead to the "good stuff" -- and some major sexual themes lifted right out of Judy Blume's Forever), but Naylor is always cutting an agenda. Whether it's how to deal with unwanted guests, sexual harassment, or even being assertive in bed, Naylor always makes sure that Alice does the right thing. All that makes Alice look like a goody goody and just a bit to perfect to be true. In fact, I would argue that Alice isn't supposed to be real (protestations of her fans to the contrary) -- she's a representation of what Naylor would like girls to be like. In a way, it's like a 21st century equivalent of a good for young ladies. I personally find that a bit creepy, but I suspect that people enjoy the fantasy too much to worry about it. And for the younger teen readers, there probably is a comfort in having a role model who squeaks as well as Alice does.

Donut Days, by Lara Zielin

The Crispy Dream donut chain is opening a new branch in town, and Emma is determined to write the story of a lifetime to win a college scholarship from the local newspaper. She needs the money because her parents have made it clear that they won't pay for school if she pursues a secular education (they would prefer it if she went to a Christian school). But then, she's always been the black sheep of the family. While her parents share ministerial duties at an Evangelical church and her little sister is the poster child of pink, innocent devotion, the binding on Emma's Bible cracks loudly from lack of use during prayers and she's never yet spoken in tongues.

But writing this article opens up an entire new perspective for Emma, as she meets obsessed donut fans, college students getting to know each other, and even a group of born again motorcycle riders (whose issues and challenges, Emma discovers, mirror her own).

Meanwhile, her parents are facing their own problem: a wealthy congregant who has launched a campaign to remove Emma's mother from the ministry (under the old chestnut that women should not serve in the role). Emma is suspicious of the man's motives but her parents refuse to discuss the subject with her. And for her protestations, Emma alienates her friends as well.

While the donut shop grand opening and the political struggle at Emma's parents' church may seem largely unrelated, Zielin makes the stories overlap in a way that does not seem forced. And the overall message -- mostly, about standing up for what you believe in -- is sufficiently unifying to both story lines.

I was mildly twitched by the obvious cover of Krispy Kremes (I really didn't get why Zielin couldn't have stuck with the real brand name) and on guard with my religion-fairness radar. The latter more so because Zielin conflates faith with stubbornness and hypocrisy. It isn't so much that I like Evangelicals all that much (in case someone misconstrues my criticism) but rather that I consider it a lazy target. It's far too easy to create a religious nut case with a secret sinister agenda. And it's far too easy to assume that people who have faith are incapable of having an open-minded discussion. Now, it is true that at the end of the book some of the characters come clean, but it's a little too little and too late for me. It also struck me as a bit cheap that the main conflict with the parents is resolved so easily (oh, you mean that all those times you said that you didn't like being cut out, that you were telling the truth, Emma? Oh, my, I'm so sorry we didn't do what you asked us to do!). I thus found the bad guys to either be too simple or too weak.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, by Julie Halpern

Jessie's talent in math (and school in general) along with her unusual hobby of sewing her own skirts out of goofy fabrics would probably get her branded with the "geek" tag if it weren't for her uber-cool older brother, his punk rock band, and his orange mohawk. Jessie's status is also secured by her two BFFs (Char and Bizza) who, while not the nicest of people, at least cut out a place for themselves (and Jessie by association) through their own outlandish tastes.

But as Sophomore year starts, Jessie is beginning to wonder what she really gets out of the deal. Her BFFs don't really support her or even care what she does. All they want is to flirt with the members of her brother's band. And when Bizza makes the moves on Jessie's long-term crush (the bassist of the band), Jessie has to confront the fact that she is being used.

Simultaneous with the realization that her friends really aren't her friends anymore is Jessie's acquaintance with a girl in study hall who plays Dungeons and Dragons and wants to recruit Jessie to sew her and her friends some garb for a live-action role-playing weekend in Wisconsin. To learn more, she surreptitiously joins them for a gaming night and discovers that it is a lot of fun! Now, Jessie is torn between being a borderline geek (with cool friends that lend her some status) and throwing it all away and plunging into the wild nerd frontier of D&D and a group of kids who are actually nice to her for a change.

You can almost certainly guess where the story is going, but with Halpern the fun is really in the trip itself. At the core of that fun are the characters. Jessie is a great character with the spunkiness and attitude of some of the best YA heroines (think Ruby Oliver or Cyd Charisse). She mixes vulnerability with strength (crushing seriously on her guys yet willing to take the initiative and kiss them instead of waiting for them to pick up the nerve) in a way that is really appealing. Her older brother is sufficiently annoying to be believable yet sympathetic and wise enough to be helpful and useful. The parents are unobtrusive but not clueless. Even the bitchy ex-BFFs are decent foils without being over the top.

The story moves at a decent pace, yet develops in a believable fashion. That is certainly a big challenge as Halpern needs to get Jessie from being credibly committed to her friends and her crush, yet, by the end, she has successfully morphed into a person who can reject that life and choose a new one. This hardly happens overnight (or in a few pages) and Halpern keeps a tight watch over the dramatic arc to deliver a story that you can accept and a metamorphosis that you can root for. Good fun!

Wild Things, by Clay Carmichael

After her neglectful mother dies, 11 year-old Zoe comes to live with her wealthy and famous sculptor uncle Henry. At his cabin in the woods, Zoe is free to mostly run wild and, while she's distrustful of most people, she eventually befriends a feral cat, a wild boy, and the boy's mysterious companion - a white fawn. Told in alternating voices of the Zoe and the cat (an unusual narrator to say the least), we gradually get to see Zoe open up. There are also a number of sundry subplots about local corruption and pushy customers.

While the story has plenty of original ideas and is well-written, it doesn't really carry itself like a children's book. Rather, it is more the type of artsy book that teachers read to kids. The heroine doesn't sound even vaguely like a kid, let alone an 11 year-old. At the very least, she is wise beyond her years and I honestly didn't find her very interesting. In fact, the most interesting character is the cat, which is not surprising as he has one of the most unique voices in YA literature and gets most of the good observations.

Mostly, I dislike books that attempt to be too literary at the expense of being entertaining. Too much of this book was trying to make a point. I'm not going to say that kids will all hate it, but I have a hard time imagining why they would enjoy it.

Forest Born, by Shannon Hale

This fourth outing in Hale's highly-successful Books of Bayern series introduces Razo's little sister Rin, who has a very different -- and more subtle -- talent than the previous heroines of the series. When she concentrates, she can hear trees (but not speak to them). She also seems to have a second power to read the truth and influence people (as well as an unspeakable fear of using the power).

While an obedient and helpful daughter to her large family, she feels lost in her home in the woods. Fearful of her talents, uncomfortable with her roles at home, she feels drawn to take a trip to the capital of Bayern to visit her brother. She arrives in a time of turmoil as mysterious events are taking place on the northern border with the Kingdom of Kel. Rin gets drawn into these events and comes face to face with the true nature of her powers (and why she fears them so much).

As fair warning, the series has now become so developed that you really need to start at the beginning in order to get its full flavor. Yes, there is sufficient backstory in this installment to catch you up with the important details, but to truly appreciate the characters it is worth the time to read each of their stories in the previous three books.

That said, I found this latest novel to be one of the most emotionally and psychologically complicated in the series. A true YA master, Hale recognizes that the key to writing truly outstanding literature for teens is both telling a good story and also creating characters whose struggles resonate with them. For teens who fear their own abilities (or even just taking the risk of exercising their talents), Rin's search for balance between action and observation is welcoming balm. This is fantasy for the thinking teen.

What the Moon Saw, by Laura Resau

Clara has developed a restlessness at home. She feels distant from her friends and she finds herself drawn to wander outside after dark. But just as her parents are beginning to despair, a letter comes from her grandparents in Mexico. Seeming to know all about Clara's problems (despite never having met her before), they invite her to come visit them for the Summer. It is the answer to everything and Clara departs on an adventure of a lifetime.

At first, she finds her grandparents' life in impoverished rural Oaxaca to be unbearable, but soon enough she opens her heart to the different pace of life and discovers a great deal about her family and herself. A parallel story about her grandmother's own girlhood provides some elaboration on the timeless theme of self-discovery.

As with her novel Red Glass, which I reviewed a few months back, this is a beautiful introduction to rural Mexican life. Resau expertly interweaves local culture and language into a well-paced and interesting story. One might quibble that the two books bear an awful lot of similarity to each other (as if Resau has trouble getting out of the same rut), but they are each beautiful in their own way and so are both worth reading.

Hold Still, by Nina LaCour

In the aftermath of her best friend Ingrid's suicide, Caitlin feels aimless, drifting through her junior year. A new friend Dylan and a new boyfriend Jayson cannot erase the missing presence of her friend. Over the course of a year, this book traces Caitlin's grieving process and coming to terms. When Caitlin discovers the dead girl's journal under her own bed and she starts to read it, she learns lots about her friend that she didn't know before.

There are plenty of books about grieving and loss in the YA cannon. And more than a few of them have come out in the last year. This one, however, really stands out from the pack for several reasons.

LaCour is a formidable writing presence. The great challenge with writing a book like this is keeping the pace moving. It is far too easy to fall into navel gazing and melancholy. And it is similarly easy to pull out the stops and go for melodrama in an attempt to avoid the lethargy. LaCour achieves the perfect balance, never letter Caitlin become a whimpering helpless mess yet not resorting to extreme (and uncharacteristic) emotions. Instead, we get a beautifully-written story about coping.

As usual, what I really keyed in on was the way that everyone in this book is imperfect, neither evil nor good. The photography teacher Ms. Delani is probably one of the more complex teachers to grace a teen book in some years (and she could have been so evil in the hands of a lesser writer). Ingrid's parents, introduced quite late in the book, are breathtakingly fragile. Pride in place, however, goes to Caitlin's lesbian friend Dylan who never falls into the stereotype that you would expect from the new-kid-at-school (neither that nor her sexual orientation ever become a real issue in this story - although some school-based homophobia is briefly hinted at). I love the way that Dylan's friendship not only supports Caitlin, but also feeds certain key elements of the plot.

And that brings me to another strong point in this story: LaCour's ability to bring it all together. In a novel with a lot of characters and a fair number of subplots (a closed movie theater scheduled to be demolished, romance, struggle with art, the journal, building a tree house), it is always a notable event when the author manages to tie all of the elements together without forcing them. The result is you leave this book never feeling that your time was wasted. Every page is truly important to the story. Remarkable!

So, even if the topic of death and grieving may be old hat, this novel will rank as one of the very best attempts to do it.

Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield

Kendra has been going through a lot in recent months. Recollections of childhood sexual abuse have begun to appear out of suppressed memories. To cope with them, she has turned to cutting. And while the self-abuse gives her a sense of release, her level of tension keeps rising as she becomes convinced that her abuser (who she cannot remember) is following her in an attempt to intimidate her and prevent her from identifying him (as if she could!). Her parents are both weak and ineffectual and Kendra's only allies are her Mom's gay friend Sandy, her therapist, and a new best friend at school Meaghan, with whom Kendra is falling in love (and who, incidentally, has significant problems with physical abuse at home).

This is a very dark book, but if you can stomach these sorts of things, the novel has a lot to offer for itself. Certainly the story is riveting and will keep you hooked. I'll admit that I didn't care for the ending (the story veered off into a far too easy conclusion when the guns started to appear), but I found the characters compelling. It is always a bit of a challenge to take a victim like Kendra and make her strong yet believable. Yet in this case, Kendra's struggles seemed realistic (and it helps to learn that much of her sufferings were based on the author's own experiences -- it lends credibility to the overall story). That I'm saying this is significant as I've always found cutting hard to understand, and I really got it in this case. Kudos for getting through to the hard-to-reach!

One thing I do wonder is where Rainfield will go next. Once you've written the fictional account of your life, what do you do for a second novel? It seems that she has the skills to write a less autobiographical book, so I hope she will and give us a taste of her skills as a writer, and not just as a survivor. Her own story was compelling, but I'd like to think she could pull it off with someone else's story as well.

An Off Year, by Claire Zulkey

As her father is dropping her off at Kenyon to start her freshman year, Cecily suddenly reaches a moment of intense clarity that she doesn't want to be there. So, she turns to her father and says she wants to go home. Her father, at a bit of a loss for words, takes her home. While Cecily doesn't know what she wants to do next, she does know that she simply isn't ready for college. During the next year, she attempts to figure out why and whether it is something she wants to change.

An insightful story about the jitters and the difficulties of facing change. But for me it never really took off. First of all, because the heroine is sort of a 21st century teen Oblomov (that's college reading folks!) who sits around moaning and complaining about her own lack of ability to motivate. And secondly, because in the process she just comes off as spoiled, coddled, and clueless (anyone here want to guess what tuition/room/board at Kenyon actually costs? it sure must be nice to blow that off!). Overall, it was really hard to relate to Cecily. Ironically, the number of times that her friends and family pointed out to her how spoiled she actually was never really seemed to have any impact. OK, she grew a little by at least understanding a bit about her fears, but she took an entire year to figure it out. Give me a break!

And an old pet peeve about the depiction of my home town: Zulkey has obviously never been to Madison, so don't pay much mind to that section of the book. Madison is hardly a "small town" with a "small lake" (which one? we have four of them!), "cute restaurants, cute theaters, cute stores" (they are nice, but I'd hardly describe anything in Madison as "cute"), and the "main drag" (State Street?!) is actually not home to many head shops. Maybe she should have browsed through Google Earth's 360 view for inspiration! Sloppy research!

So, yeah, original idea with some nice insight here and there, but overall not my idea of a fun read.

Touch, by Francine Prose

When 14 year-old Maureen is "inappropriately touched" in the back of a school bus by her three best friends, the story of what really happened and why it happened is not exactly clear, even to Maureen. And as the people around her (adults and former friends alike) begin to use the story for their own ends, Maureen becomes more and more upset with her inability to explain her feelings and thus ironically less and less articulate. What eventually develops is a fairly complex understanding about adolescent behavior, puberty, body image, and the ways that friendships get torn apart through change.

While I've noticed that this book does not seem to have a lot of adolescent fans, I was nonetheless very impressed by its complexity, bravery, and honesty. I was frankly surprised by the book. My initial feeling had been to distrust the book and the author, but Prose won me over with her very insightful heroine and the painful and truthful thoughts she expressed. Perhaps as an adult, I find the way that relations between boys and girls change during adolescence to be more interesting -- and more poignant -- than a teenager would. And perhaps the idea that the basic fact of growing breasts could be not-so-simple and, in fact, so tragic to this young woman is something that is worth pondering. So, in the end, perhaps this is a YA book intended for an adult audience. After all, puberty is probably far more interesting to read about in hindsight!

I do know that I enjoyed Maureen's character. She brilliantly skewers the supposedly adult people around her (she so brilliantly nails her Mom's insecurities, her Mom's boyfriend's childishness, her stepmother's self-centeredness, her father's and teachers' avoidance, and -- in something of a departure for this sort of novel -- even her own shortcomings. That may not always be so realistic, but it is welcome in a book that is this cerebral. The other characters, most of them flawed in significant ways, are also realistic in their limitations. And the ending of the story eschews any unrealistic happy tie-up, leaving us with an understanding that nothing like this is truly going to end up bad or good.

The ABCs of Kissing Boys, by Tina Ferraro

Ok, so I'll have to admit that between this book's title and its cover, my manhood felt a bit too threatened to read it in public. That's probably a bit of a shame, because this is a decent read that shouldn't be limited to a female audience...

Parker has had her hopes on getting into varsity soccer for some time, so when she discovers that she will be one of the only juniors who is stuck in JV for another year, she realizes it is time to hatch a desperate plan to win a spot with the big girls (and her former friends). Through some convoluted logic, she comes up with a plan that involves her older brother's handsome friend, a large bribe, and a kissing booth. The only catch? The handsome friend insists that before any kissing takes place, she'll have to get some lessons so she does it "right." That takes an even more awkward turn when Parker enlists her neighbor's son (nearly a year younger -- and two grades behind her) to give her the education she needs. And while getting on varsity is what Parker needs to maintain her status and self-respect, being caught kissing a freshman could easily damage her far worse.

It's a silly story, of course, with a plot that's so farcical that it's actually believable, but it has a lovely charm to it. And while the middle drags and the ending ties things up way too conveniently with a combination of coincidence and predictability, these are the kind of fluff that make enjoyable reading. The key of the book's success is the characters. Parker is shallow and cruel to people who deserve to be treated better (her old friend Becca and the boy next door Tristan) and way too sycophantic to the evil Chrissandra (where on earth did that name come from?!), but she has a lot of spirit and a decent enough moral compass to guide her through her authentic adolescent lack of judgment. And that mixture of good and bad makes her very appealing.

Ferraro knows her audience and doesn't condescend to them (no one here is stupid and their behavior is never criticized). The key theme throughout is insecurity and finding self-worth. And it's a message that appeals to readers who are trying to do that. Of course, you want to smack these kids in the head and tell them that they don't need to study kissing (or put up with nasty bullies or turn against their friends to become popular), but that isn't how it plays out in the teen years and Ferraro gets that right.

There is no deep meaning buried in this novel and very little long term redeeming value, but that means that a book like this can be safely enjoyed for being fun to read. And that's more than enough!