Teen

Daughters of Ruin by K.D. Castner

| Tasha

Daughters of Ruin by KD Castner

Daughters of Ruin by K.D. Castner (InfoSoup)

Four princesses have all lived together as sisters since they were small children. But they are far from being sisters, each heir to their own throne. After a war ravaged all of their kingdoms, the victor brought the daughters of his enemies together in peace to forge a new truce. Ten years later, the girls still live together but the peace between them is strained and fraying. There is Rhea, distrusted by the other princesses because her father is the king. Cadis is the beauty and the strongest fighter but there is some question about whether her democratic sea-faring society even lets her be royalty. Iren is the quiet and meek one, concentrating on long letters home to her mother. Finally there is Suki, the youngest of them and most volatile. When the peace of the palace is breached, the princesses have to choose alliances and take up arms.

Castner has created a very strong debut novel. She has not just one strong young woman but four, each of them different from the others. Castner gives them each a unique perspective and voice and yet also keeps them from becoming stereotypical in any way. These are all princesses of war, teens who have been raised to kill and damage, to defend their kingdoms and to win. While some of them are closer than others to being true sisters and friends, others are almost enemies. The dynamics of a four teenagers living closely together and isolated is intriguing and Castner captures the subtleties of it as well as the broader issues.

Castner focuses mostly on the girls themselves and the world comes into focus as the girls leave the palace and venture outside it. Because so much of the book is political intrigue, it makes for a book that truly is from the perspective of the main characters where what they are touched by is the thing that the reader knows most about. In this way, Castner also avoids lengthy exposition about the world made up by the kingdoms. There is just enough detail for it all to make sense and work and nothing more.

Strong female protagonists who wield weapons with panache combine with politics and plenty of twists and turns to create a debut worth exploring. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from copy received from Margaret K. McElderry Books.

 

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

| Tasha

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki (InfoSoup)

Montgomery has two best friends who are the reason that she can make it through high school at all. They have a Mystery Club at school where they are the only members and they explore the mysteries of the universe. Thomas loves to talk about superheroes and Naoki focuses on crystals. With Monty’s two moms and Thomas being bullied for being gay, Monty knows there is hate in the world, something made even clearer when a preacher arrives in town putting up signs against people who are gay. When Monty buys The Eye of Know online, she doesn’t expect it to work any better than their other experiments, but soon the Eye seems to be channeling Monty’s personal anger and exacting revenge.

Tamaki captures the anger of a teenager with precision here. It all feels deeply organic, often not being logical at all, lashing out at those she loves, and withdrawing into her room. The issues that Monty is furious about are so tangible both in her life and in her friendships, yet she goes much farther than those who love her would want her to. There is a sense of her reaching a cliff of anger and having to make a choice of how she is going to be in the world. It’s a powerful place to set a YA novel and works well.

The magical realism in the book is done well too. It strikes a balance between being entirely believable but also allowing readers to see it as something that could be unrelated too. Readers will get to see what their own opinions of mysteries of the universe are in this well-written novel.

A novel about anger and its positive and negative sides, this book will speak to young teens navigating their own issues. Appropriate for ages 12-14.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

 

 

 

The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski

| Tasha

The Winners Kiss by Marie Rutkoski

The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski (InfoSoup)

This is the third and final book in the Winner’s Trilogy. Arin is now fighting to keep his country from once again falling into the hands of the Valorians. He has a new alliance with the Dacran queen who has sent her brother to monitor the war and Arin. Arin is trying to convince himself that he doesn’t love Kestrel anymore after she rejected him so clearly. Kestrel is being sent to a work camp where no one knows who she is. She mines sulfur by day, her strength increased by a drug in the food and water. At night, another drug allows her to sleep without thinking of what she has lost. Even drugged though, Kestrel cannot help but try to escape. When news comes of Kestrel’s death from disease in a remote area, Arin refuses to believe it. Then he gets a whisper of her true circumstances and sets off to find her. But it may be far too late for them.

Rutkoski has managed to keep this romantic fantasy trilogy entirely engaging and powerful through the entire series. In this third book, readers will once again discover her skill in writing battles and fight scenes which do not scrimp on blood, sweat and emotions. She is also highly skilled in creating a world that feels real with the various kingdoms at war and two people caught between them.

And then there is the romance as well. Here readers who adore Arin and Kestrel get to watch them reconnect and rebuild what was stolen from them. It is a romance of timid and tender beginnings, false starts and sudden flares of passion. It is written with a delicacy that is beautiful, particularly against the backdrop of war, personal risk and sacrifice.

A glorious end to a remarkable fantasy romance trilogy, fans will need to know how the story ends. Now we can look forward to what is next from the talented author. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

 

Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh

| Tasha

Bread Pig_Case

Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota (InfoSoup)

What do you do when you lose your job and your apartment on the same day? Well, if you have a friend with a storage unit, you move in there! Penny lands a job with her friend’s family too at their laundromat working for a 12-year-old manager. As Penny figures out the tricks to living in a storage unit, she also meets a boy who works at the community center. At first she tries to trade him a date to be allowed to shower there, but their connection grows. Still, there are problems with living in a storage unit like heat, kids trying to break in, and more. Perhaps it will take a villain and his henchmen to battle to change Penny’s luck. Or not.

I loved this playful graphic novel that will work for both teens and adults. Penny is clearly out of high school but also in that bizarre interim before becoming a “real” adult. She is entirely lovable in her own unique way with a tattoo she hates, plenty to worry about and very few plans for the future. Still, she manages to take care of herself, keep a job, flirt a little, and fall in love.

I particularly enjoyed the way that the book would suddenly have battle scenes. The majority of the book is a slice-of-life from Penny’s world. It is filled with small moments that are charming and lovely. Still, there is real humor here such as the scores above characters’ heads as they drink in a bar. The fighting too brings this graphic novel to a different and unexpected place where it pays homage to plenty of hero comic tropes.

Funny and smart, this graphic novel will be appreciated by older teens and adults, some looking forward to life beyond high school and some looking back to when they weren’t adults either. Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

 

 

 

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.