Teen

Review: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

| Tasha

impossible knife of memory

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

Released January 7, 2014.

The amazing Laurie Halse Anderson returns with a book that is powerful, thought-provoking and personal.  Hayley and her father just have each other.  For the past five years after her mother’s death, they have been hauling freight in his truck.  But now they have returned to her father’s home town so that Hayley can finish high school and live in a normal home.  However, their home is anything but normal.  Her father can’t hold down a job because of the images and flashbacks that come over him from his time in Iraq.  He drinks to keep the visions at bay, but then blacks out and forgets what he has done.  He has never hurt Hayley, but he is getting worse rather than better and Hayley is all alone in dealing with him.  At the same time, Hayley is slowly making friends at school, particularly Finn, a boy who has his own family issues to contend with.  As things at home get darker and more dangerous, Hayley has to figure out who she can trust to help, if anyone.

Anderson has written a book about PTSD and the traumas of being a soldier that speak to vets from any war.  She herself was the child of a vet from World War II and has a father who struggled himself with these issues.  Thanks to this personal connection, her book goes deep below the skin into the world of Hayley, her love for her father, and truly connects with the horrors of heroes who return home just to be haunted by what they have done and seen. 

Hayley is a strong character but also deeply flawed.  She is hidden behind so many protective layers that readers discover her as she gets to know Finn.  She slowly reveals a bright intelligence and witty humor.  Her relationship with her father is one based on adoration but also on pure coping with his disabilities.  She herself has faulty memories and blank places that she refuses to focus on and think about.  She too is hiding from her memories, but in her case they are the happy ones.

This book is deep, dark and haunting.  Anderson writes with consummate skill here and looks beyond the headlines into what PTSD in a family member truly means.  Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from ARC received from Viking.

Review: Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

| Tasha

palace of spies

Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

Peggy is an orphan who lives with her uncle, aunt and beloved cousin, until she is thrown out of the household for refusing to marry the man her uncle has chosen for her.  Peggy has few options, so she turns to a gentleman who seemed to know her mother when she was alive but whom she only met the day before.  With no other choices, Peggy is drawn into the sparkling grandeur of being a lady in waiting at the palace of King George I.  But she does not go as herself, instead she assumes the identity of Lady Francesca Wallingham.  As Fran, she joins the circle of girls serving the queen but she also must be watchful for anyone discovering her.  As the intrigue increases, Peggy realizes that anyone around her could be a spy and starts to question what happened to the real Fran.

Zettel manages the near impossible in this novel.  She has a historical novel that stays true to the time period and yet manages to read as swiftly as a more modern teen novel.  Without ever breaking out of the setting or inserting modern sensibilities, Peggy still manages not to turn off readers with her opinions.  Readers are quickly shown what life was like for an orphaned and penniless girl in this time with a sexual assault on Peggy soon after we meet her.  This helps underline her lack of power and explain why she takes on the danger that she does for the rest of the book.

Zettle plots this book with great skill, revealing the true motivations of the characters slowly.  There are several mysteries at play here and more that emerge as others are figured out.  The pacing of the book is don’t very well too, with enough historical detail to make sure the setting is strongly presented but never too much to slow down the speed of the storytelling.

A dark and mysterious historical novel, this is much less froth and much more intrigue and betrayal with some romance too.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Review: Champion by Marie Lu

| Tasha

champion

Champion by Marie Lu

This is the third and final book in the Legend trilogy and it does not disappoint.  June and Day have almost entirely stopped communicating with one another now that Day has his brother Eden to care for and June is busy learning to be the next leader of the Senate.  Day also is keeping his deteriorating health secret from everyone, though he is finding it harder and harder to deal with the blindingly strong headaches.  Eden may be the key to stopping a plague that threatens an invasion of the Republic by the Colonies, so June asks Day to join her in Denver without mentioning his brother.  Reunited, the two feel their connection immediately, but both are holding secrets that they don’t want to reveal.  Yet they are also the only two people who have the ability to change the course of a war where winning could be the biggest loss of all. 

Lu has written her entire series with a grand feel of cinematography behind it.  In each of the scenes, they come to life as if shown on a mental screen.  Her writing is crisp and clear, yet it also delves into murky situations that are less than clear.  The question of loyalty to a government that has hurt your own family, killing some members, grapples with dark issues.  It is this wonderful mix of action and adventure but also thoughtful questions about larger issues that make this series compellingly readable. 

The characters of Day and June have grown throughout the entire series.  Both started at very different places than they ended up, and yet the growth has been natural, with distinct reasons for the changes.  Their romance, flawed and consistently stumbling, is gut wrenching and entirely beautiful.  They are a couple that are drawn together like moths to flames and then burned, retreat and then burn themselves again.  The romance just like their character development is honest, natural and glorious.

An action filled, taut ending to an incredible series, this book also has plenty of heart, romance and wisdom.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian

| Tasha

sex and violence

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian

Evan had always been the new kid at school, but he found advantages to that.  In each new school, he knew just which girls would be the ones to say “yes” and have sex with him.  That all changes when he picks the wrong girl at a private school in North Carolina and ends up savagely beaten in a boys’ restroom.  Evan’s father, who has been absent physically and emotionally since his mother’s death when he was a child, moves them to a lakeside cabin in Pearl Lake, Minnesota.  As his body starts to heal and scars start to form, Evan also has to deal with the damage to his mind.  He can no longer take showers because they evoke the same terror as the attack.  And even sex is so mixed with guilt and fear that it holds little appeal.  Pearl Lake is quiet but also filled with teens who know everything about one another but nothing about Evan, and that’s just the way he likes it.  Or is it?

This novel looks deep into what happens psychologically after a physical trauma.  Mesrobian handles dark issues with a certain tenderness, yet never shies away from the trauma itself.  While details of the attack are shared in snippets throughout the novel, they are not lingered over and sensationalized.  This is far more a book about a boy who survives and grows, combined with the agonies of change along the way. 

Evan is a wonderfully flawed protagonist.  The book begins just before the attack but with a prologue that foreshadows what is going to happen.  Evan is entirely detestable at this stage, a boy who screws girls just for fun, feeling little to no connection with them emotionally.  He convinces himself he is right about the way he is treating Collette.  Then early in the book, the attack comes, and Evan is transformed in a matter of pages into a character worthy of sympathy.  This sort of complexity runs throughout the novel which provides no easy answers but lots to think about.

Another great character is Baker.  She is a smart senior who is sexually active and even describes herself as sexually aggressive.  She and Evan almost immediately form a friendship that deepens over the summer.  She stands as one of the most honest and beautifully written teen girls I have read in a long time.  I love that she is not scared of expressing her sexuality, that her life doesn’t fall apart because of it, and that she is still feminine, smart and kind.  Amazing characterization!

This novel asks tough questions, changes underneath you, demands that you think and never gives concrete answers to the questions it asks.  Beautifully written, complex and brilliant.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

Hunger Games Catches Fire Online

| Tasha

If you have looked at almost any news today or yesterday, you will see reviews and commentary on the new Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie.  Here are some links to learn more about this second film:

From Salon: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Whose revolution is it?

There’s a naiveté to the politics of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” the second movie chapter, that’s simultaneously appealing and troubling.

From USA Today: Hunger Games: Catching Fire gets spark from Lawrence

Whether on the runway or shooting an arrow, Lawrence is powerfully convincing.

From the LA Times: Review: Hunger Games: Catching Fire burns bright with fiery Katniss

Jennifer Lawrence gives her all as the fight-to-the-death teen, elevating the thrills in the ‘Hunger Games’ sequel

From Slate: A Textual Analysis of The Hunger Games

Why might a reader take a shine to one series and not the other? The content, of course, differs considerably: Twilight is filled with fantasy romance, Hunger Games with fantasy violence. But what about the authors’ approach to writing?

And finally, something funny!

From The Week: The Hunger Games: Watch the 11 funniest parodies

…there are plenty of good spoofs of the dystopian teen franchise to be found — and we’ve collected some of the best for your perusal.

Geography Club – The Movie

| Tasha

Thanks to Lee Wind for sharing the trailer of The Geography Club based on the book by the same title by Brent Hartinger.  Looks amazing!

Review: Little Fish by Ramsey Beyer

| Tasha

little fish

Little Fish: A Memoir from a Different Kind of Year by Ramsey Beyer

This graphic novel takes real journals, collages, lists and drawings to show the author’s transitional first year of college.  Ramsey grew up in very small Paw Paw, Michigan.  She was an artist from a young age and worked very hard at it, earning a spot in one of the top art schools in the country.  This meant moving to Baltimore and making new friends for the first time since she was a young child.  It also meant that she would no longer be the best artist around, she would be challenged as an artist in her classes, and she would have to find her own way in this new setting.  Beyer’s novel shows the difficulties and triumphs of a freshman year of college, and is sure to encourage other little fish to try their luck in the big city.

Beyer’s use of her own personal real-life work that comes directly from that time in her life makes this entire novel work.  It carries a weight that it would not have without that honest voice of youth at its core.  The mixed media format also makes the entire book compulsively readable.  Since you never know what is on the next page or what format it might be in, there is a constant desire to find out more and read longer.

Beyer’s art is done entirely in black and white in the book.  She plays with light and dark throughout, capturing both the loneliness of the first days at college and also the dynamic friendships and love interests that come later.  Her work is humorous and yet poignant.

This is a very strong, dynamic look at the first year of college.  Teens will enjoy looking into their own future plans with a little laughter and lots of optimism.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow

| Tasha

sorrows knot

Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow

The dead live in every shadow.  There are small dead and larger dead, but they are all dangerous.  That’s why the women of the Shadowed People have binders, members of their tribe who are able to use knotted string to turn the dead away and even destroy them.  Otter is a binder, daughter of Willow, one of the strongest binders ever.  As she spends the last of her childhood playing with her two best friends, Cricket and Kestrel, she is almost entirely carefree.  Then Cricket is attacked by one of the dead, and suddenly life is not so simple.  The wards around the town seem weaker, and Willow is slowly becoming insane as her power to bind turns inside out.  As one of the strongest dead, a White Hand, stalks the village, Otter’s must find her own role not only as binder but as a woman of the Shadowed People.

This is the second YA book by Bow and it is a stunner.  First, you have the fact that it is entirely unique.  It’s a horror novel set in the distant past and populated by aboriginal tribes.  The entire world that Bow has created is well developed and manages to be familiar yet profoundly different from anything you have read of before.  Then you have the characters, who are strong and amazing.  There is Otter, the brave and proud girl who transforms into a woman before your eyes, but not before facing the horrors that are plaguing her world.  Kestrel, the ranger, who is also brave but loves deeply and ferociously too.  And Cricket, the storyteller, quick-witted and one of the few boys in the village of women. 

It is Bow’s writing that really sings throughout the novel.  It is her writing that shows us the world she has built, lets us love these characters so deeply, and allows us understand the danger and horror as well.  Here is a quote from page four, early in the book, that shows her skill in creating a place:

So Otter was born, and so she came to girlhood, among Shadowed People, the free women of the forest, in the embrace of mountains so old they were soft-backed, so dark with pine that they were black in summer.  A river came out of those mountains, young and quick, shallow and bone-cold.  Where it washed into a low meadow, the people had cleared the birch saplings and scrub pines and built a stronghold of sunlight.

Her voice is that of a story teller, filled with rhythm and intention.  She captures the setting she has created in just the style of her writing.

Unique and amazing, this book offers a fresh take on horror and an incredible teen heroine who faces death in many ways.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

Review: Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

| Tasha

ketchup clouds

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

Zoe stays up late at night and writes to her pen pal, a Texas death row prisoner who murdered his wife.  He is the only one with whom she can share her dark secret:  she too killed someone.  Zoe slowly reveals her story, including her own role in a boy’s death and living with the aftermath of having done it.  Zoe’s story is one of being drawn to two boys, using one against the other, and the startling result of her betrayal.  It is a story of love that is beyond the expected, first romance that is tortured but desperately real, and the wounds left behind that are impossible to heal.

Pitcher, author of My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, has returned with a beautifully written second novel.  She lays bare Zoe as a character, giving her the space to reveal herself in all of her remorse and conflict.  Here is one of my favorite passages in the book:

I’d do anything to forget.  Anything.  Eat the spider or stand naked on top of the shed or do math homework every day for the rest of my life.  Whatever it took to wipe my brain clean like you can with computers, pressing a button to delete the images and the words and the lies.

But perhaps what Pitches does best in this novel is to build tension and doubt.  Throughout the book until the final reveal, readers do not know which of the boys died.  Pitcher writes in a way that lets readers fall for both of them for different reasons, so that either one’s death is a grand tragedy and something to destroy lives. 

This is a book that is burning and compelling.  It is a book that is beautifully honest, vibrantly written.  This is Zoe’s heart on a page in all of its wounds and glory.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from digital copy received from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Edelweiss.