Review: 'Dig' by A.S. King

Dig
By A.S. King
YA Contemporary Fiction
March 2019
Dutton Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-1101994917

Family secrets and the sins of the preceding generation, unrolled as lives unravel, are the basis of Dig by A.S. King. The novel focuses on the youngest generation to face the repercussions of hatred, both bigotry and self-loathing. It is a fascinating, layered, enthralling tale.

The narrative rotates among a group of teens who turn out to be cousins. One boy finds that carrying a snow shovel everywhere gives him a sense of comfort. One girl, called Can I Help You, makes a killing selling drugs through a fast-food drive-through window. Another girl is a self-named Freak who flickers in and out of places. Loretta trains fleas. Malcolm's father is dying of cancer, and they both have found a measure of solace on the beaches of Jamaica.

But the story opens with Marla and Gottfried, a couple who have been married forever. She's amping up the pressure to get the annual family Easter dinner just right, including hiding plastic eggs for grown grandchildren. He's alternating between bemused irritation at her ritual search for perfection, and sorrow for a destroyed nest of robin's eggs.

They are the grandparents of the teens, and those baby birds who never came to be turn out to be a strong metaphor for the spirits of Marla and Gottfried's progeny.

These are the damaged children of damaged parents who were damaged by their own parents. The sins of the father, or in this case, the grandparents, are shown by the way they have affected the children.

One thing that appears in the stories of most characters is the potato. It is a source of both strength and sorrow to every character. It also serves a purpose not only in the actual circumstances of the characters, but in the characterization of the family:

A potato plant. Leaves up top, potatoes down below. All those stems and roots joining the two -- like veins and arteries. His father always said that families were the same. Everything was connected, everything worked in synchronicity.

Gottfried got to see the sun and he got to flower. His kids were harvested from shallow soil. His grandkids, accidental plants for the most part, would eventually mature and one day they, too, would rise from the dirt, their brittle roots still connected.

For King to be able to wrangle such a large cast, with the characters remaining clear, and to bring that cast together, is a grand achievement. How the darkness has entwined each character, and what the future holds for them, are as worthy of praise as any novel written for adults. It's easy to see why Dig was honored as the Printz winner for YA fiction by the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association this year.

The idea of family and how it shapes and supports individuals is portrayed strongly. The sin that stains every family member is stated plainly, but how and why it gained such a stronghold is the novel's biggest weakness. That this sin would stain a family, affecting generations, is uncontested, however.

For the younger members of the family to reach understandings about the important, not just of the sin, but how the stain affects them and whether it should overwhelm them, is conveyed very well. So is a tragedy hanging over the youngest generation:

Taking things for granted is the privilege of existence. The living don't even think about it, same as boys aren't scared to go missing at the mall. Sam as her white cousins can drive over the speed limit across state lines to New Jersey.

©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and posted with permission

Review: 'With the Fire on High'

With the Fire on High
By Elizabeth Acevedo
YA fiction
May 2019
Harper Teen
ISBN: 978-0062662835

In The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo crafted a novel in verse that expressed the wonder, questioning and determination a young woman feels. In her sophomore novel, With the Fire on High, Acevedo brings to vivid life another young woman who infuses her life and those around her with joy, pride and fierce love.

Emoni is in her senior year, a good but not great student who is more interested in her family and creating magic in the kitchen than studying. It's a focus Emoni needs. She's been raised by her grandmother in Philly. Her father went back to Puerto Rico when her mother died. Emoni and her grandmother are now raising Emoni's daughter. When not caring for Babygirl, hanging with her great friend Angelica, or appreciating her grandmother, Emoni also keeps her cool when her ex-boyfriend (a generous term) picks her three-year-old up for visitation. Even Tyrone's snooty mother doesn't knock Emoni's balance. All the irritations fade into the background when Emoni gets to be her best, true self -- creating food in the kitchen the way a musical genius might improvise a symphony.

Even with a plate this full, our heroine is about to see if she can handle more. There is a transfer student this year -- a fine young man who sees Emoni's beauty and strength straight away. And there is a new elective class, about restaurant food and service, taught by a real chef. Emoni makes the cut for the class, as does the new guy, Malachi. But it is no cake walk. Chef Ayden recognizes her ability. But he does not appreciate her last-second improvisations. He teaches her that you need to know the rules in order to break them.

For someone who has weathered her circumstances with aplomb, Emoni remains unsure if she can reach out higher, wider and deeper. A class trip to Spain, to be able to work for a professional chef, is her chance to find out if she has limits beyond what she has placed on herself. This is especially true considering the cost of being able to go.

The wisdom, grounded in reality, and the joy that are the essence of Emoni's story, along with the poetic flow of Acevedo's writing, make With the Fire on High a reading experience as filling as a grand meal prepared with love and a secret ingredient or two. It's also a grand inspiration to have a blast in the kitchen, making one's own music.

©2019 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and posted with permission

Review: 'All the Crooked Saints'

All the Crooked Saints
By Maggie Stiefvater
YA Fiction
October 2017
Scholastic
ISBN: 978-0545930802

Being a saint isn't easy, as too many members of the Sorio family know. There's not only the granting of miracles, there's the aftermath when the recipient has to figure out what the miracle means and what to do for the second miracle to take place. Because it takes both miracles before a pilgrim can move on.

For the saint and family, that means not interferring lest their own darkness appear. When a new pilgrim seeking a miracle, and a young man who just wants a truck to start a business, show up at the Sorio outpost in remote Bicho Raro, Colorado, in the 1960s, it's going to be harder for all of the Sorios to not become involved.

In Maggie Stiefvater's magical new novel, All the Crooked Saints, the Sorios have known for generations that helping a pilgrim get to the second step of a miracle, after the saint performs the first miracle, is dangerous to the pilgrim and themselves. As a result, their little settlement is overrun with pilgrims who haven't found the solution, from a bride whose dress is covered in butterflies and who weeps rivers of sadness, to twins entangled by a snake, to a padre with a animal head.

But Pete and Tony, the new guys in town, set in motion changes that cannot be stopped. Pete has a hole in his heart but it is an organ filled with kindness and determination. He works harder than anyone, and falls in love with the desert. The desert, in return, loves him back. Tony is a DJ making a name for himself but cannot bear being stared at any longer. He is in search of a miracle.

The current saint is quiet Daniel. His two beloved cousins are Beatriz, the tinkerer who works mechanical wonders, and Joaquin, an amateur DJ and weaver of tales. The trio drive through the desert at night so Joaquin can broadcast via the pirate radio station Beatriz created. The station exists in the back of the truck Pete was promised by a distant relative.

Although miracles that finish the quest of pilgrims are in short supply when the novel begins, the meeting of the determination of Pete and Tony with the traditions and family heritage of the Sorios results in a story filled with magic realism, hope, love and problems that were decades in the making. Stefvater has a beautiful way of using hyperbole to create the world of the Sorios, to enrich the characterizations and to make everyone's quest meaningful.

The novel is marketed for teens, but it is a one that anyone who loves fables and family stories should miss. All the Crooked Saints is a beautifully elegant story that can make a reader's heart ache, and sing.

©2017 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Review and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Extraordinary Means'

Extraordinary Means
By Robyn Schneider
YA Realistic Fiction
May 2015
Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN: 978-0062217165

Lane has put himself on the fast track during his high school career -- AP, power electives, creating clubs that will look good on his Stanford application. That life is rudely interrupted when he goes to a most exclusive private school, one where homework is frowned upon, eating as much as possible is encouraged and getting tired or excited is the last thing that should happen.

The school is only for teens with a highly contagious form of TB. They are prisoners, waiting to see if they survive or die.

Lane rejects that. He continues to see his sojourn at the bucolic setting as an enforced holding pattern and continues to exert himself in studies. Meanwhile, at the table of kids who appear to shine over the rest, he recognizes a girl from summer camp a few years ago.

Sadie recognizes Lane as well, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the boy who caused her greatest humiliation. That's especially true now that she has come into her own. She is no longer one of the awkward kids, the kids who don’t fit in. She is thriving, finding ways to break the rules and stand up to authority.

In a story that outdoes The Fault in Our Stars for strong character voice, drama and humor that do not feel manipulative, Extraordinary Means is a most welcome novel for lovers of contemporary YA fiction.


©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and republished with permission

Review: 'None of the Above'

None of the Above
By I.W. Gregorio
YA Realistic Fiction
April 2015
Balzer + Bray
ISBN: 978-00623335319

Things are going well for Kristin during her senior year -- she has two solid friends, a dreamy boyfriend, is interested in life and school, and she runs. She and her father are coping with her mother's death from cancer several years ago.

Then she discovers everything she knew about herself is not what she thought, and everything changes.

When she and her longtime boyfriend finally try to have sex, it's painful. Kristin is smart enough to go to a doctor to see what's wrong. She's surprised to discover she's intersex, with organs of both genders.

So at an age when most people are discovering themselves, Kristin is doing so, but starting from scratch. Everything she has thought about herself she now questions.

So do other people when the entire school finds out.

Debut author Gregorio, who is a doctor, handles Kristin's situation with kindness and from more than one angle. Regular teen complications of finding the right boy, dealing with scorn and discovering who you can really rely on are woven into the novel seamlessly.

Because Gregorio writes honestly about sexual matters, but with great taste, this is on the older end of YA fiction. But it is a novel I have recommended for every high school library.


©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted by permission

Review: 'Bone Gap'

Bone Gap
By Laura Ruby
YA fantasy
March 2015
Balzar + Bray
ISBN: 978-0062317605

Finn and Sean have been raising themselves in a rundown farmhouse on the outskirts of a small town in the middle of nowhere for years. Their father died long ago and their mother left with another man, nursing her broken and vagabond heart. Sean, the older brother, is one of those strong, silent, sturdy types who everyone relies on. Finn is seen as dreamy and not quite with it.

Their lives started to look up when Finn found Roza one morning in their barn. The young woman had been hurt and was more skittish than a wounded animal. But the boys gave her sanctuary, Sean tended to her physical wounds and the chance to pay them back with her cooking and gardening gave her a chance to begin healing.

One day she disappeared. Finn can’t describe the man she left with and people aren’t even sure if they can believe the scanty details he provides. But he’s not going to quit looking for her. Even Petey, the beekeeper’s daughter who is more comfortable with the hives than with people, except for Finn, isn’t sure what to think.

Laura Ruby takes this premise and these characters, going back and forth between viewpoints, time and place to create a stunning novel of devotion. She delves into the ways people look at each other, literally and figuratively. The characters are resilient and spend more time thinking about others instead of themselves. 

The novel works on so many levels. There is a realistic depiction of a very small town where everyone knows everything about everyone else. There is magic realism and a fable-like aspect to the story. There is a princess who has been spirited away but who works to rescue herself; she doesn't just sit there and wait for a hero. There is the kind of deep friendship that can lead to something more. There is overcoming hardship and heartache.

Bone Gap is thoughtful, entertaining and a tour de force of storytelling.

 ©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Review and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Tunnel Vision'

Tunnel Vision
By Susan Adrian
YA science fiction
January 2015
St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN:  978-1250047922

Jacob thought his life was nondescript but all right. And it was, until the night the high school senior drank too much at a party and showed his friends his secret ability.

"Tunnel Vision" is what Jacob can do. If he holds an object belonging to someone else, he can "tunnel" his vision to where they are. His military father told him to always keep that ability a secret, but his dad died in a plane crash a couple years ago. Now a stranger is following him and he's worried about keeping his little sister and mom safe.

Who the stranger is and how anyone found out from the party about Jacob's ability are just the opening mysteries in Susan Adrian's fast-paced YA novel. Along the way, Jacob will have his loyalties and sense of trust tested, and will discover his family's secrets.

Jacob also knows other people's secrets when he holds their objects. Some of the cases he is obliged to take on by holding the objects are intense, and at least once lead him to questioning whether he's serving a higher purpose or adding to people's sorrows.

Adrian's novel not only is a page-turner, it also features strong characterizations of Jacob's family, including his grandfather, a reclusive Russian, and those Jacob is forced to work with. Tunnel Vision also kicks into high espionage gear, with the twists and turns one would expect. As with all great espionage stories, the themes of who to trust and why play a significant role here. Indeed, observant teens and other readers could have a field day making connections between Tunnel Vision and principles that underscore current events. Adrian has not written a sermon on the last, but her storytelling skills have folded in layers that make the most of story and theme.

At the end, it's evident there is more that could be told about Jacob, so more novels would be welcome. This is a young man on the cusp of coming into his own, and it bodes to be a journey well worth watching.


©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Falling into Place'

Falling into Place
By Amy Zhang
YA contemporary realistic fiction
September 2014
Greenwillow Books
ISBN: 978-0062295040
                                                                                                                    
Liz Emerson doesn't care that she is beautiful, well-off, popular and has a boyfriend the other girls envy. The sham of how her life appears on the surface is brilliantly depicted in the debut novel by Amy Zhang, herself a teenager, in a nihilistic story of a girl who has had enough and is determined to kill herself.

Drinking, drug use, casual hooking up, debilitating bullying, Liz and her circle do it all. Liz and her boyfriend are cruel and unfaithful to each other. She does horrible things to her friends, who stand by her even though they carry the wounds of those things. There is one boy who still cares about Liz despite the horrible thing she did to him. Her mother is never around; she's trekking around the world for work since Liz's father died years ago and can afford to buy a very fancy car for her daughter to deliberately drive off the road.

There is no suspense that Liz will drive that car off the road. There is suspense in what happens afterward and parts of the story are not revealed until the very final pages.

It is a horribly sad world these teens live in. Their hope was killed in them long ago. Moments of happiness are depicted mainly because their absence is another way to show what a horribly sad world these teens live in.

Zhang keeps the story flowing with frequent time jumps and short bursts of story. There is the addition of a mystery narrator who occasionally comments on Liz's life ever since her father accidentally died in front of her when she was very young. It's a great touch because it is a way to show what Liz used to be like, as well as a way to look beyond the unrelenting depression of the teens' outlook.

The author is so good at building that depressing world that a moment when that black fog lifts feels shoehorned in. Except for that, however, Falling into Place shows Zhang's adept strength at characterization and storytelling. This should not be her only work of fiction, but should be only the beginning.

©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Review and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Red Queen'

Red Queen
By Victoria Aveyard
YA fantasy
February 2015
HarperTeen
ISBN: 978-0062310637

Mare Barrow is a pickpocket, trying to help her family make ends meet until she is conscripted into the army. She will join her older brothers to serve in an unending war that crippled their father. She is a Red, one of the poor who serve the Silvers, the rich and powerful who run their society.

One evening she runs into a stranger who she thinks is a servant to aristocrats. He is kind to her even though he caught her stealing from him. Then Mare is summoned to court to become a royal servant herself.

The Reds bleed red and have no special powers. The Silvers bleed silver and have various powers, including telekinesis and the ability to invade minds. During a tournament in which aristocratic Silver girls compete for the hands of the two royal princes, Mare and the entire arena discover she’s different.

The scheming queen quickly concocts a story about Mare’s supposed past and brings her into the court that is filled with intrigue. She’s to marry the queen’s son, the younger prince, even though she’s often drawn to his older half-brother. There’s also her guilt over the harm she caused her sister and a childhood friend who may now be lost.

Aveyard combines a dystopian setting with court intrigue, fantasy elements, a strong heroine determined to help her friends and family, and boys who seem to lie when they tell the truth. The world-building in the first quarter is a bit slow but once Mare arrives at court, it’s nonstop action with a broad range of characters. Each character's motivations are integral to what they do, and make for rich, deep, compelling stories. This is a debut novel that is a completely engaging work.


©2015 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Review and reprinted with permission

Review: 'No One Else Can Have You'

No One Else Can Have You
By Kathleen Hale
YA Thriller
January 2014
HarperTeen
ISBN 978-0062211194

Sometimes a book receives notoriety and it’s tempting to read it to find out why. And sometimes that turns out to be a mistake.

No One Else Can Have You is billed as a darkly comic tale of a 16-year-old coming to terms with the death of her best, and only, friend in a dull and creepy town. Her mother died several years ago so she’s had experience with it.

Earlier this year, Hale’s novel gained attention when she tracked down a person egging on negative reviews of her novel and wrote about it in the Guardian. Then that received a backlash. So I had to find out what had caused all the fuss and fortunately had an ARC of the novel.

Fortunately, because I didn’t have to pay for it. Hale’s protagonist has a sardonic voice and the author has a dark view of small-town Wisconsin, where everyone is a hypocrite, drunk and a hunter. The protagonist, Kippy, had one friend, Ruth. But Ruth was killed and her body left in a corn maze after horrible things were done to it. Was the deed done by her vandalizing, womanizing boyfriend? Was the killer the middle-aged attorney in town who also was shagging Ruth? Or was it someone else?

Ruth’s brother comes home from serving in Afghanistan; he shot his finger off when Ruth was killed in an attempt to be sent home and now has a dishonorable discharge as the least of his problems.

Kippy’s father is a school counselor, calls her ridiculous names and keeps her close by. Their friend across the street lives by himself ever since his parents died in a truck accident when it collided with a deer. He mostly plays video games and collects stuff, but he was Kippy's babysitter and seems to be about the calmest, rational character in the bunch.

When Ruth’s boyfriend is arrested, despite every indication that he didn’t do it (especially when there is a subsequent murder), Kippy decides to find out who really killed Ruth. The sheriff doesn’t care who really did it because Ruth’s boyfriend also tried to have his way with his daughter and he hasn’t forgiven the kid.

All the relationships in the book are tainted in similar ways. The language used throughout is very fond of certain Anglo-Saxon terms. Everyone lives on beer and meat; the one time Kippy asks her father for a salad is sad and typical of the way Hale's story condemns everything Kippy sees. After Kippy’s father catches her trying to solve the murder, he has her committed to a mental hospital. Pre-publication publicity compared the novel to Fargo, and that was not accurate.

This novel disappointed on so many levels -- characterization, plotting, who the killer was. But overall, the biggest disappointment is that Hale's novel would have been so much more with some finesse. The sardonic tone is wonderful but the world is describes is so OTT that it doesn't matter. Not much of anything matters in Kippy's world. If you care, you get sent to the looney bin.

Ironically enough, that original review's complaint about the book apologizing for rape that set Hale off to stalking the reviewer? Didn't see that part in the actual ARC, unless the reviewer meant the subplot where the middle-age attorney shags the teenage murder victim in a consensual relationship. For fiction that's far worse in that regard, there's always a certain novel by Greg Iles.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Faking Normal'

Faking Normal
By Courtenay C. Stevens
YA realistic fiction
February 2014
HarperTeen
ISBN: 978-0062245380

Faking Normal opens at the funeral of a mother killed by an abusive father. Bodee is now alone, except for a grown brother. But he's not the central figure in this novel. That's Alexi, one of his classmates. Although they have gone to school together forever, and live nearby, they're not close. Bodee is, after all, the Kool-Aid Kid and not quite cool.

Alexi, on the other hand, is one of the golden girls of Rickman. Her older sister has gone out with the football coach since they were in school together, her friends go out with football players and Alexi, well, Alexi is struggling. Perhaps her struggling allows her to feel some empathy for Bodee, who runs out of the funeral rather than speak over his mother's coffin. Alexi goes out to silently comfort him.

Alexi is struggling because she let a guy go all the way last summer -- a guy she knows and who was on the outs with his girlfriend. She didn't want to do it, but she didn't say no. And now Alexi feels like she is damaged goods and it's her own fault. Alexi and Bodee form a solid friendship in which wise and comforting Bodee gently encourages Alexi to come out with the truth about what happened to her. (No one knows that something happened except Alexi and her attacker; Bodee suspects she is keeping a secret though.)

Her other source of comfort -- and Alexi needs a lot of comfort, especially compared to a boy who lost his mother to a murdering father -- is lines of songs left by an unknown student on a desk they share. Could this unknown bard be the football player her friends want her to out with? And what's up with Bodee, who uses Kool-Aid to dye his hair and who is the most quietly confident teen in the book? Who is Alexi's attacker, and why is she scared to admit she was raped?

Faking Normal has a lot going for it. Alexi's dilemma is real and her feelings are portrayed honestly. Bodee, however, seems too good to be true, especially with his healing seeming to go on the back burner for much of the book. It's also worth noting that most of the characters are portrayed as strong church-goers. Yet not much is done with the themes of forgiveness and the ways in which females have been historically portrayed in patriarchal churches as the ones to blame for any sexual transgression.

The author's writing does shine in portraying the ups and downs of small-town life and a gorup that has gone through school together, forming a community that seemingly knows each other so well but still has secrets. It would be interesting to read any explorations Stevens may create regarding small towns and congregations in works to come.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Loud Awake and Lost'

Loud Awake and Lost
By Adele Griffin
YA realistic fiction
November 2013
Knopf Books for Younger Readers
ISBN: 0804123675

Ember is returning home after months of rehab, recovering from a car accident in which she was the driver and which claimed the life of the teenage boy who was riding with her.

She’s got a lot going on -- continuing her physical rehabilitation, including giving up the life of a dancer she once might have been; her loving parents trying not to suffocate her with concern; her former boyfriend, a perfect guy who isn’t over her; losing her touch as a foodie with panache in the kitchen; and not remembering anything about Anthony, who was in the car that night. No one else knew Anthony either.

Spending time on her own, lost in her own thoughts, Ember meets a street artist, Kai, who seems to know her better than she knows herself and who lights up her world. She keeps him a secret from everyone else.

Pages and pages later, we find out why.

This is far from a perfect book. The slow pacing will just about kill interest for teens craving action, although Ember’s yearning for the excitement of being with Kai may keep romance readers interested. It’s not hard to figure out the mystery in the story, and it does make sense. But the Ember who is drawn to Kai and the Ember in the real world don’t mesh. Adele Griffin writes lyrical prose but could have written a shorter novel here to attract more readers. For a high school fiction writing workshop, this would make an interesting book to deconstruct.


©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Don't Call Me Baby'

Don't Call Me Baby
By Gwen Heasley
YA realistic fiction
April  2014
HarperTeen
ISBN: 978-0062208521

Imogen has had it. She is 15, starting high school, and she would love to have a normal family life. Instead, every moment of her existence is photographed and chronicled by her mother, a famous mommy blogger.

Instead of living a normal private life, Imogen is Baby and she has been on display since before she was born. But she has her best friend, whose mother also is a well-known blogger, and they have an English class in which student blogs are assigned. It's time, Imogen decides, to get her life back.

Gwen Heasley's Don't Call Me Baby starts off as a humorous, breezy story in which daughters square off against moms. She's got the online persona down. She's got the reader right there with their daughters.

And then the author does something even better. She goes for higher stakes than the two teens getting their moms to pay attention to them.

Heasley also weaves into her story how a big blogging commitment affects a family, how a blog can be a hungry monster that must be continually fed and a brand consistently maintained if a blogger is to create an online presence. She shows both sides of what it means as young people come of age in a digital age during which their baby pictures and other embarrassing moments of their lives are stored forever on some server.

She also creates an engaging story of how moms and daughters try to talk to each other but miss each other's point, how family members keep trying to find their way to each other and how friends can be humanly fallible and yet remain totally awesome.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Here and Now'

The Here and Now
By Ann Brashares
YA science fiction
April 2014
Delacorte Press
ISBN: 978-0385736800

Preena really isn't like most of the other kids in school. Really. She is from the future.

Ethan has something that sets him apart as well. Four years ago, he saw Preena arrive.

She is one of a group of time travelers from the future. Plague has decimated humankind and climate change is ending life on the planet. The time travelers came back to our time because their families wanted them to be saved.

Preena and Ethan are the kind of couple destined -- normally -- to have a romantic comedy after meeting cute. They pair up well and Brashares conveys fresh, light-hearted like-into-love very well. But the pair are soon drawn into an attempt to set things on a different course in time, so the future Preena knows doesn't happen. A mysterious homeless man appears to know more than a crazy old street man should know about Preena and the others like her.

From there until the story's end, The Here and Now weaves together the personal and world conflicts in stunning fashion. The ups and downs that face Preena and Ethan as they race to prevent a cataclysmic event that set the future into motion may affect the possiblity that they have a future together, or not, as well as the future of humanity.

Before the heartfelt conclusion -- an "oh, wow!" ending if ever there was one -- Brashares adds another mindful layer to the novel. What is a solution to some characters is a tragic new problem to others. Even if a reader takes sides, it's still worthwhile to be able to see another perspective.

This is a tremendously thoughtful novel with engaging characters. The biggest fans of Brashares's popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and those coming to her writing for the first time will all be glad they have read The Here and Now.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Coldest Girl in Coldtown'

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN
By Holly Black
YA Horror
September 2013
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-21310-3

Tana is one of those teens who don't think too much about their futures because their pasts are so disturbing to them. In a world where vampires exist, and have now been cordoned off into Coldtowns to try to contain the infection, she believes she has nothing to lose.

That's because her mother was infected by a vampire when Tana was little. Her father didn't follow the law but tried to do the right thing. He locked Mom in the basement to see if she would be able to fight off the infection, and the overwhelming urge for blood. Mom talked Tana into unlocking the basement door and coming downstairs. Dad chopped off Mom's head before she could do more than scrape Tana's arm.

But that's backstory. When we first meet Tana, she's waking up at a nihilistic teen party where drinking and sex are the norm. Her ex-boyfriend, Adrian, tried to capture her attention yet again. He's tied up on a bed with a vampire chained in the room. Everyone else has been killed.

After Tana gets them out alive, before other vampires behind the door can get to them, they have little choice. They have to get to the nearest Coldtown. That's where vampires, those who are Cold -- have been infected but may or may not turn vampire -- and thrillseekers go. Tana will never see her still grieving, still heavy drinking father or younger sister again.

The vampire chained in the room with Adrian is a famous old vampire and stone-cold assassin. He and Tana are, of course, drawn to each other. But Gavriel, the second son of minor Russian aristocracy, has a great backstory as well.

With the level of violence and sex, this is easily an older teen book. It also is a very well-written horror novel of characters who feel they have nothing to lose, with the themes of betrayal and trying to do the right thing regardless of the circumstances.

©2013 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Book Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Black Spring'

BLACK SPRING
By Alison Croggon
YA fantasy
August 2013
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6009-3

Wuthering Heights is one of those seminal works that can sweep away a reader. Often, the earlier a reader discovers this work, the stronger a hold the story of doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff can be.

So it’s no wonder that Alison Croggon was inspired by the Emily Bronte novel in writing Black Spring, about doomed lovers Lina and Damek, for a YA audience. The pair live in a harsh European setting in an inhospitable land, away from the softer, more sophisticated life in the south of their land. Wizards live among them, vendetta is a way of life and these willful children are determined to live as they prefer, society be damned.

Croggon’s novel follows the same narrative as the Bronte novel, from a stranger meeting a deranged Heathcliff, um, Damek, and seeing the ghost of Catherine, um, Lina, to the inevitable ending.

Added to the tale is a touch of paranormal. Lina is a witch, which usually means a death warrant, but she is protected by the king. When her father dies and his estate is given to a rough toadie, the local wizard plays a role. A highly structured vendetta that lasts for years showcases how noble the condemned men who have killed in vengeance are (yes, really) and, in a last-minute poke, is supposed to show why the nobility are above all that.

Croggon excels in creating a highly effective atmosphere of overwrought emotion that is as foundational to her setting as the harsh landscape. She also pays full homage to the novel and characters that inspired her own work.

Black Spring raises the same reservations that Wuthering Heights does. Although Lina despairs of being loved for herself and not coveted as a possession, and the society in which she lives gives women little chance of that happening, the idea that it is only as half of a couple that one truly is alive does not bolster this independent spirit. But for those readers who think Bella’s love of Edward is the height of attainment, Black Spring will fit their interest for more in the same vein.

©2013 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Girl from Felony Bay'

THE GIRL FROM FELONY BAY

By J.E. Thompson                                                                                   

Middle Grade Mystery

April 2013

Walden Pond Press

ISBN: 9780062104465

Life once was very good for young Abby Force. She and her father lived in a beautiful old house that had belonged to the family for generations, back to before the War Between the States. She had the whole of Reward Plantation to roam and horses and a private school in nearby Charlotte. She loved them all.

But everything changed a year ago. Abby’s father, once a respected attorney, lies in a coma, accused of stealing from an elderly client. The client is herself the victim of a stroke and cannot speak well. Their house has been sold and Abby is forced to live with her aunt and uncle. Uncle Charlie is nothing like Abby’s father, his brother. He drinks, punishes Abby, puts her down and pretty much treats her like Cinderella.

On the last day of school, after a miserable year without her friends, Abby has had enough. When the bully goes after her and a smaller, younger boy, Abby fights back. She’s had enough of Uncle Charlie, too, and is determined to find out why her father was found at the bottom of a ladder in his study with his client’s jewelry.

Abby has felt alone, but reinforcements have arrived. The new owner of Reward Plantation also is a Force, but from the former slave side of the family. He’s with one of his companies in India, but his daughter, Bee, who is Abby’s age, and Bee’s grandmother have arrived. After the discovery that part of the plantation on Felony Bay itself has been sold, and holes are being dug on the beach, Abby and Bee go into action.

They go through public records, the law, neighbors’ memories and spying on suspicious activities before putting all the pieces together. Both their investigating and episodes of danger are believable and entertaining. They also are informative in a non-lecturing way as to the limits and strengths of various types of law. They weave in historical and contemporary issues, as well as treasure.

Abby and Bee are smart, intrepid young teens who face their fears, overcome family tragedies and have fun. Even the secondary characters have more than one-dimensional stories. The bully, for instance, is the hit by his father, a deputy who is awfully friendly with Uncle Charlie. Bee’s grandmother and the people Abby seeks out at her father’s law firm play their roles without taking over from the girls.

Highly recommended for grades 5-8

©2013 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Beneath a Meth Moon'

BENEATH A METH MOON: An Elegy
By Jacqueline Woodson
YA contemporary realistic
February 2012
Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin Young Readers Group)
ISBN: 9780399252501
                                                                                                                                                                   
Laurel has been through a lot in her 15 years. She, her father and her younger brother lost her mother and grandmother when they wouldn't leave Pass Christian when Hurricane Katrina came. They've moved to a small Midwest town after living with her aunt for two years in Jackson.

To say she misses her mother and grandmother, M'Lady, is understatement. Their loss is a deep pain that is with her always. It's not enough that she dearly loves her baby brother, who was three months old when they left Pass Christian, and that he deeply loves her. It's not enough that she adores and respects her father, a good, quiet, God-loving man. It's not enough that she has found a good friend, Kaylee, who is the reader to her writer (and Woodson's recounting of their dialogue in this regard is a gorgeous homage to the joys of reading and writing).

It's when the cute boy on the basketball team, the one with a tattoo of gumbo, kisses her and offers her meth, that she thinks she has found something that is enough. Meth dulls the pain of loss, makes her giddy and makes her want more. And more. And more.

Woodson tells Laurel's story by weaving back and forth in time without preaching, but by showing what Laurel is thinking and feeling throughout her descent into drug addiction and living on the street, through attempts at rehab and believing she can handle it. Laurel is fortunate that even on the street, she meets a wonderful person. Moses is a teenager who is paid by grieving parents to paint portraits of their meth angels, the teens they lost to meth, on buildings.

For both Laurel's story and Woodson's strong, lyrical, heart-deep writing, Beneath a Meth Moon is a very good book for teens to discover. The publisher recommends for ages 12 and up; it's going into my middle school library next to Woodson's other books.

©2013 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Brotherhood of Shades'

BROTHERHOOD OF SHADES
By Dawn Finch
YA Fantasy (Middle school)
October 2012
Authonomy (HarperCollins)
ASIN: B0095C3J6Q

When Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the church in England and wreaked havoc throughout the country as monasteries and other religious communities were pillaged, a small group determined to remain true to traditions they deemed necessary. The foremost tradition was to have three souls to mourn another's passing.
                                                                                                                                 
Documents gathered by a monk who saw visions of turmoil to come were given to a boy who had survived the illness that claimed the rest of his family. He made his way to a nunnery where knowledge from across the realm was to be hidden as their world collapsed. Grievously wounded, he was still able to deliver the materials.

Several hundred years later, another young teen dies in a hospital after being found starving on the streets of London. The homeless lad had no one to mourn him. But unlike the others solaced by the Brotherhood of Shades, this boy saw the spirits moving amongst the living. Now the teen, named Adam Street for where he was found, may be the one to fulfill a longstanding Brotherhood prophecy.

This is the setup to Dawn Finch's debut YA novel, a paranormal fantasy that involves the boy wounded during the Dissolution, the boy from the modern streets and a witch whose spirit has survived in her family for generations.

Adam has a guide to help him adjust. Toby D'Scover is the Keeper of the Texts. He takes care of the ancient documents and monitors current spirit activity around the world, and is the one to whom other members of the Brotherhood report unusual phenomenom. The fact there is more activity is but one of the reasons he suspects Adam may be the Sentinel predicted of ages ago. Perhaps he is the one who, with two others to help him, will defeat the resurgence of evil. But first he has a trial to survive.

Finch is superb at world-building in this debut novel, which could serve as the springboard for a series. But for that to happen, the writing will need to be more balanced between the expository writing that threatens to overwhelm the narrative and the action scenes. However, as a bonus, Finch, a children's librarian, adds an afterword with information and links about the real-world objects and places that figure in her story.

D'Scover is a particularly interesting character, with a fully developed past and present. He and Adam work well together. As dead guys, their ability to navigate the world is augmented by the addition of 14-year-old Edie to form a trio. The potential development of a relationship between the dead Adam and living Edie is a problem it would be interesting to see how Finch develops.

A note about the publisher: Authonomy is an online community developed by HarperCollins book editors.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission