Teen

Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley

| Tasha

Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley

Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley

Solomon hasn’t left the house in three years. Not since he had a panic attack at school and ended up in his boxers in the school fountain. Now at age 16, Solomon has decided that he really doesn’t need the outside world at all, not missing his old friends and doing his school work online. Lisa is ambitious, knowing that she wants to leave her home town far behind. Her dream is to become a psychiatrist and Solomon is her key to the essay that will earn her a full-ride scholarship to the second-best school in the country. Lisa steadily befriends Solomon, not sharing with him that she is using him as a test subject. As true friendship starts to grow with not just Lisa but also her boyfriend Clark, Solomon starts to improve. But can a friendship built on one lie survive the truth?

Pritz-Award winner Whaley has once again created characters that are beautifully crafted and intensely human. While it is easy to sympathize with Solomon, Lisa is one of the more conflicted and complex characters I’ve read in a long time. She is exceedingly easy to dislike, since readers understand her selfish motivations very clearly. Yet as the novel progresses, readers will slowly realize that they understand Lisa and may even like her. Her character brings up difficult questions about motivations and what it means to help someone else.

Solomon too is an impressive character. Whaley allows us to see Solomon beyond his agoraphobia and to see into the world of a boy who has chosen to shut everyone out. At the same time without doing information dumps, Whaley gives readers insights into this mental illness and the devastation of panic and anxiety. He gives readers the experience of wondering at times if Solomon is actually just fine and then sending Solomon into darkness once again. It is a powerful and truthful look at battling a mental illness.

This teen novel is complicated and incredibly vibrant. It looks at so much of what it takes to be a teenager in the modern world and asks whether it is the place for any teen to live. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from ARC received from Dial Books.

The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry

| Tasha

The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry

The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry (InfoSoup)

The author of All the Truth That’s in Me returns with another historical novel that once again speaks to the role of women in history. Here we follow the story of two very different young women in medieval France. There is Dolssa, born to wealth who speaks directly with Jesus and who gains the attention of the Church who brands her as a heretic and sentences her to death. There is Botille, who is a matchmaker and who owns a tavern along with her two sisters in a small seaside town. When their two stories collide, Botille discovers a person who both brings miracles and doom along with her.

Berry has created a novel that shows how power worked in the Middle Ages with two young women who are both products of their society and also find themselves outside of it some of the time. The two young women are as different as can be, both in their backgrounds and in their beliefs, but still between them there is a sisterhood that cannot be denied and a love that is transcendent.

Each of the women is fully formed on the page, shown in all of their questioning, their doubts and their beliefs. While Dolssa is certainly a different creature than Botille, it is the two of them together that is so brilliant it can be painful to read, particularly because there is no doubt that they are risking everything to support one another. Berry makes sure that readers understand the way that the Crusades and then the Inquisition worked, the holy people left to starve due to their heresy and the flames and torture that accompanied their work in France. It is a world of cruelty, particularly for two young women who have the audacity to think for themselves.

Brilliantly crafted, well researched and filled with the darkness of impending doom yet lit brightly with faith and miracles, this is a wrenching historical read. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from ARC received from Viking.

 

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

| Tasha

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

The author of Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty returns with a powerful verse novel. Addie is one of the stars of her Catholic high school’s cross country team and dating a popular boy in a band. Then after having unprotected sex, Addie ends up pregnant and decides to have an abortion. After that everything changes as Addie keeps her pregnancy and decision secret from everyone except her parents and her boyfriend. Addie tries to keep on running, but she has lost her drive to excel at it. She quits the team but doesn’t tell anyone about her decision. Spending time in a coffee shop away from school, she runs into Juliana, an old friend who is having her own troubles.

Heppermann writes superb poetry. I enjoyed the fact that she incorporates the title of the each poem right into the poem itself or makes the title turn the poem a new direction for the reader. She uses each word in the same way, creating tightly crafted verse that is distinct for its powerful message. Addie’s own voice in these poems is consistent, aching at times with pain and defiant as hell in others. It is the voice of a teenager struggling with  huge decisions and their repercussions as they lead her to really be true to herself.

Throughout the book, the Virgin Mary is used as a symbol but also as a figure of worship. She is seen as intensely human as well as a religious figure. It is the poems about her that really shine in this novel, each one stunningly fierce and unrepentant. Religion is part of Addie’s life and a large part of the novel. Heppermann demonstrates in her poetry how one’s faith is complex and personal and can get one through dark times.

A great verse novel that takes on big topics like pregnancy, abortion and what happens afterwards. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and Greenwillow.

Booked by Kwame Alexander

| Tasha

Booked by Kwame Alexander

Booked by Kwame Alexander (InfoSoup)

In his follow up to the Newbery-Award-winning The Crossover, Alexander once again blends sports and poetry. Nick loves soccer and is really good at it too. Nick and his best friend are on opposing teams in an upcoming soccer cup and Nick is also getting ready to ask out April, a girl he can’t stop thinking about. Everything is going well except for his father who insists that Nick read the dictionary of large words that he personally created. That’s when Nick finds out that his mother is moving away for a job working with horses, leaving Nick with his father, not a great combination. Nick will have to rely on soccer and his best friend to get him through this rough patch. Because there is more tough road to come.

Alexander is quite simply amazing. He writes verse that is both poetic and beautiful but also accessible and welcoming to young teens who may be far more interested in kicking a ball than reading a book, especially a book of poetry. Alexander also demonstrates throughout the book the power of words both in his poetry itself and through the story line, where Nick is clearly smart and uses words from his father’s collection without even thinking about it. Nicely, definitions are provided in footnotes.

Nick is a protagonist who is easy to relate to. He has several things on his mind: soccer, girls and gaming. It is life though that pulls him outside of those interests and broadens his scope. His father does this in a clumsy way, forcing Nick to learn words. A school librarian also helps, getting books that Nick will clearly love directly into his hands. So as much as this is a book about a smart young teen boy, it is also a book about the power of having adults who care in your life.

A worthy follow-up to his first verse novel, this book is just as beautifully written. Appropriate for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.

 

 

The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle

| Tasha

The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle

The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle (InfoSoup)

Quinn has always dreamed of being a Hollywood screenwriter and creating films with his sister Annabeth directing. Then Annabeth died. Now Quinn spends a lot of time in his room alone, not looking for the phone that has Annabeth’s final text to him on it sent right before she ran a red light. As summer starts, Quinn longs for air conditioning and his best friend Geoff shows up with a solution. It means that Quinn has to finally leave the house. It also means heading to his first college party where Quinn meets a very hot guy. As Quinn works to see his life playing out as a screenplay, life as other ideas.

Wow. Federle has a gift with voice. He has created in Quinn a gay teen boy who does not fit into any stereotype at all. Quinn is very smart, very sarcastic and amazingly self-centered. He could have been completely unlikable, but Federle has also made Quinn one of the most stunningly human protagonists of all time. Riddled with grief and unable to voice or even think about his loss, he hides from everyone but most particularly himself.

This is a profound look at grief, but it is also a book about being a gay teenager. It’s a book that thinks deeply about coming out to friends and family, finding out other people’s secrets, exploring new love. It’s a book where there is sex, gay teenage boy sex, and it is wonderfully awkward and normal.

Thank you to Federle for creating a gay protagonist where the book is not driven by the angst of being gay, but where sexual orientation is also not ever ignored as the important piece of life that it is. Beautifully done. Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston

| Tasha

Exit Pursued by a Bear by EK Johnston

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston (InfoSoup)

Hermione is headed into her senior year as the co-captain of her school’s cheerleading team. At her school, cheering is more important and more prestigious than the sports themselves. She’s dating one of the boys on the squad and they are all at summer cheerleading camp getting ready for the competitions coming up, knowing that they are probably heading for nationals again. The safety of Hermione’s world is shattered when she is drugged at the camp’s dance party and then raped near the lake. She is found unconscious on the lake shore, half in the water. Hermione must now face being the victim rather than the queen bee, a label that does not sit well for her. She must also wait for a pregnancy test and the decisions that that will bring with it. Hermione fights not to be defined by what has happened to her and to find her footing again so that she can still fly.

Johnston, author of The Story of Owen, once again sets a teen novel firmly in Canada, though this time not in a fictional Canada at all. Instead this book is richly real, a book for teens about a rape where it does not consume the victim or define her life. It’s a book where Hermione’s family and friends come forward to support her, never to question her own role in the attack, never to push her feelings and emotions aside, but to support her completely. A mention must be made of Polly, Hermione’s best friend who is a zingy mix of support and healthy attitude, exactly the friend you want at your side. This novel is a guidebook to how we should be treating assault survivors, not as victims but as survivors who should have our support not our pity.

Johnston takes it one step further and also has Hermione get an abortion. It was at this point in the novel that I found myself entirely overcome. Johnston writes about a Canadian abortion system, one that Americans will have problems relating to due to its ease. Still, there are emotions here, ones that are not questioning Hermione’s decision or situation at all. The emotions are large because here is another sisterhood that Hermione is a part of. It’s not dramatic for any effect or statement, it’s dramatic simply because it is. Because it’s necessary. Because it’s a choice being made. And that is so beautiful and moving.

Immensely powerful and empowering, this novel has so much to say to teens in our world. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from library book.

2016 Teen Choice Awards Finalists

| Tasha

The finalists for the 2016 Teen Choice Awards have been announced. The website is now open for voting by either individual teens or teachers, parents, librarians and booksellers working with groups of teens. Votes can be cast through April 25th. The winners will be announced during Children’s Book Week, May 2-8.

Teen Book of the Year Finalists

All the Bright Places A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2) Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)

Winter by Marissa Meyer

 

Teen Choice Debut Author Finalists

Conviction An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)

Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

More Happy Than Not Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

More Happy Than Not by Adan Silvera

Simon and the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

We All Looked Up

We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

| Tasha

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (InfoSoup)

The author of Otherbound returns with a stunning science fiction novel for teens. Denise and her mother are ready to leave their apartment, but her mother won’t move fast enough. She is trying to wait for Denise’s sister, Iris. Now they are not going to reach the shelter in time and that means that they probably won’t survive the comet hitting Earth. As they drive the empty streets to their temporary shelter, desperately late, a chance encounter leads them on another path. Instead of a temporary shelter, they are offered shelter in a generation ship that will wait out the comet hit and then leave earth. Now it is up to Denise to figure out how to fix everything, to find her sister in destroyed and flooded Amsterdam, and even more importantly get them all a spot on the generation ship before it takes off. But who is going to take Denise who is autistic and her mother who struggles with drug addiction?

Duyvis set this book in her native Amsterdam and throughout the novel, one can see her love for her nation and her city. Yes, she destroys much of it, but the spirit of the people is clear on the page as is the beauty of the city even through its destruction. The science here is done just right, with a clear connection to today’s technology but also taking it leaps ahead, allowing readers to truly believe it is 2035. This book is not afraid of asking difficult questions about disabilities and addiction and whether only the perfect deserve to survive in this situation.

The book is beautifully written, with an impressive protagonist who shows that disabilities are no reason that you can’t be a survivor and even more so, a heroine. Denise is a beautiful mixture of autistic behaviors when she is pushed but also bravery and resilience. The book is an intelligent mix of adventure and survival with a compelling question of what could make Denise worthy enough to stay. There are additional ethical questions throughout, including how far one would go to save a loved one.

A brilliant science fiction novel that offers diversity and a powerful story. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Abrams.

 

The Last Execution by Jesper Wung-Sung

| Tasha

The Last Execution by Jesper Wung Sung

The Last Execution by Jesper Wung-Sung (InfoSoup)

Originally published in Danish, this novel looks at the last 12 hours before a teen boy will be executed on Gallows Hill. The novel shows the approach the execution from the point of view of different members of the community and from the boy, Niels, himself. It opens the night before with Niels swinging out and trying to hit the devil but instead smashing his hand badly. He then has a fly he speaks with, who buzzes around him and Niels imagines himself having long conversations with it. There is the master carpenter in town who will measure Niels for his coffin. The master baker who looks to profit from the busyness that an execution brings to the market. A poet who pens his record of the events. A three-legged dog, who befriended the boy and now waits in the streets. A girl who has fed the boy before and even kissed him. And the executioner with the axe he has inherited.

Based on the last execution in Svendborg, Denmark in 1853, this novel takes a serious and haunting look at what could have brought a boy to the edge of execution and whether he deserves his fate. The entire book ticks closer and closer to the execution and the book offers little hope of reprieve at any point. As the hours pass, the full story of the boy and his father emerges. The desperate poverty they lived in together, working on farms for food and then walking to another farm looking for work. The dire illness of his father that led him to be unable to work some days and eventually die. The hope that starts to light Niels life just before a mistake takes it all away.

I appreciate so much that this is such a dark story. There are moments of hope that shine like sunbeams but they are for past hope, happening before Niels is in his cell. Once there, there is no hope. There is no reprieve for him and no promise of such is ever held out. It is a novel that moves on and on and on to the inevitable, something that could be stopped but now can only be witnessed and readers are forced to witness it along with those that thronged and judged.

Terrifying, moving and deeply poetic, this historical novel asks huge questions and leaves the answers to the reader. Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum.