Review: Just Like That

By Gary D. Schmidt

Available now from Clarion Books

Review copy

Just Like That is a companion novel to The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now, both of which I haven't read. I thought it stood well on its own, although I did get the sense at the beginning that I was reading the sequel to a book I hadn't read.

Meryl Lee Kowalski is struggling with grief, or the "Blank," as she calls it. Every night on the news, she sees reports of soldiers killed in Vietnam who never got to say good-bye to their loved ones. She struggles to handle the weight of it and the way it mirrors her feelings about her best friend Holling Hoodhood, who died suddenly in a car crash. She never got to say goodbye to him. Her parents don't know how to handle her feelings and are secretly dealing with their own issues, and choose to send Meryl Lee to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls. 

Meryl Lee struggles to fit into the boarding school culture, which involves things like not talking to the girls who work around the school. It also requires doing a sport, which Meryl Lee had never considered before and initially fails at, until finding something strangely compelling about the violence of lacrosse. She also starts to notice a power struggle between the headmistress and some teachers with different political views.

In a parallel story line, Matt Coffin moves into a shack on the coast. He's on the run from someone, and dealing with his own grief. He starts to carve out a life for himself, a storyline that appeals to the part of me that loved rugged domestic stories like Hatchet and the first Boxcar Children. He also encounters some helpful adults that give him room to approach them - one of whom happens to be the headmistress of St. Elene's.

The eventual meeting of Meryl Lee and Matt is inevitable, but the path to that point is an enjoyable one. Just Like That is stuffed full of incident and ideas and interweaving stories. I never felt like Gary D. Schmidt had lost control of the plot, however. He masterfully balances the disparate elements of Just Like That, tying everything together with the themes of grief and the struggle to heal. Just Like That is  deeply sad novel, but also a very funny and hopeful one.

Review: Kit: Turning Things Around

American Girl Historical Characters

By Valerie Tripp

Illustrated by Walter Rane

Available now from American Girl

Review copy

Kit: Turning Things Around is an abridged collection of the final three core Kit books. (Kit also had a mystery series.) This second volume has more action than the first, but continues to be mostly character driven. These three books don't flow as smoothly together as some of the others.

The first part involves on of the most memorable characters in the series, Kit's Aunt Millie. Aunt Millie is an expert at thrifting and making the best out of what they have. As much as Kit loves her, she still lashes out when Aunt Millie demonstrates how poor she is to her classmates. In the second part, Kit and her friend Stirling visit a hobo camp with their new friend, the homeless Will Shepherd, and end up getting arrested when they ride the rails together. These two misadventures do help Kit in the climax. Her Uncle Hendrick keeps writing editorials criticizing the New Deal, so aspiring journalist Kit writes her own editorial based on her experiences with the people living and working through the Great Depression.

The aforementioned second part struck me as pretty over the top compared to everything else in the Kit books, but I probably would've loved the excitement as a young reader. Overall, this volume brings Kit's story to a satisfying conclusion. The first bit of news she writes in Kit: Read All About It! is a bratty complaint about her mother; in the end, she's using her writing to give a voice to children who are truly in need.

I do feel like abridging this set of books didn't do them many favors since the focus is so different in each that it feels like the book really hops around. At the same time, Kit: Turning Things Around is a pretty quick read with a lively heroine that I'm sure bookish young girls will love.

Review: Kit: Read All About It!

American Girl Historical Characters

By Valerie Tripp

Illustrated by Walter Rane

Available now from American Girl

Review copy

Kit: Read All About It! collects what were the first three core books in the Kit series in a single abridged edition. (Kit also had a mystery series.) Kit was added to the American Girl lineup in 2000 and was the first girl whose books I never read as a child because I considered myself too old for them.

It's 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio and the Great Depression is in full swing. So far, Kit Kitteridge has been insulated from the worst. But suddenly, her family has to take in boarders and she has to live in the attic. Her brother Charlie reveals the truth: their dad is losing his car dealership. He'd tried to hang on, not firing any employees and paying them from his savings, but now he has to close the dealership and the family must make money in other ways to keep their house. Kit is still better off than many of her contemporaries due to her family's home ownership, but they're teetering on the edge of poverty.

Kit: Read All About It! takes a dramatic period of American history and makes it personal and child friendly, as all the American Girl books did. Kit is motivated by her ambition to become a reporter, and writing her newsletter is also a good way for her to hang out with her friends. There's friction between her and her old friend Ruthie, since Ruthie's family is better off than Kit's. There's also tension with the only boarder Kit's age, Stirling, until they learn how to deal with his overbearing mother. Even though Stirling is her friend, Kit is often frustrated by all the boarders. She doesn't like the chores that come with them and wants more of her own space. Her feelings on the situation are very relatable.

The Kit books aren't as dramatic as the Abby books, but they're still fun, quick reads. Real history is woven into stories of friendship and community. There's also a short nonfiction section at the back of the book. I think this is a good read for about the third-grade level.

Review: Addy: A Heart Full of Hope

American Girl Historical Characters

By Connie Porter

Illustrated by Dahl Taylor

Available now from American Girl

Review copy

Addy: A Heart Full of Hope picks up where Addy: Finding Freedom ended and collects the final three books in the Addy series, edited to flow as one story. Once again, I couldn't tell where the original books began and ended when reading.

I appreciate that Connie Porter didn't make Addy's story entirely about slavery. The American Girls have the burden of representing history to children, and Addy's time living free in Pennsylvania helps give a fuller portrait of Black lives in the late 19th century. At the same time, Addy:A Heart Full of Hope lacks the distressing details and terrifying flight of Addy: Finding Freedom. Most of the American Girl book series peaked in action with the final "Saves the Day" book. Not so for Addy, whose fundraising efforts can't compare to escaping slavery in a desperate flight.

Still, there are plenty of events to keep young readers turning the pages, including Addy's hope of reuniting with her older brother.

The "Inside Addy's World" section at the end of the novel provides more historical detail on life for Black people after the Civil War. This nonfiction section is an excellent extension of the novel, which is full of fascinating historical detail. I appreciate the advisory board that put so much effort into the Addy novels. I think these books are a great way to introduce young readers to slavery, the Civil War, community organization, and civil rights. I love that they're being repackaged for a new generation.

Since 2021 is the 35th anniversary of the Pleasant Company, a reproduction of the original Addy is currently available for sale, in addition to the current version.

Review: Addy: Finding Freedom

American Girl Historical Characters

By Connie Porter

Illustrated by Dahl Taylor

Available now from American Girl

Review copy

Addy: Finding Freedom collects three books in the Addy series, edited to flow as one story. I couldn't tell where the original books began and ended when reading.

Addy was the first Black doll made by the Pleasant Company, before they became American Girl. I appreciate the lengths they went to in order to tell Addy's story with historical accuracy and keep it appropriate for young girls. The novels were written with the help of an advisory board made up of historians and other experts, which I actually think would be useful for all the American Girl historical novels.

The story starts in 1864, when Addy is a slave on a plantation. The story does not gloss over the realities of slavery. One visceral, unforgettable image is when Addy is forced to eat the worm off a crop because the overseer was unsatisfied with her work picking insects. (This is a real thing that was done to children.) Even in escape, Addy's family has to make decisions about who is too young and too old to make the journey. Her father and brother are also sold before their family can make their attempt.

Not all of Addy: Finding Freedom is so gut wrenching. There's quite a bit of detail about the Black community in Pennsylvania. There are concerns about work, school, housing. No one can escape having a mean girl in their class. Addy is also concerned with paying it forward and helping others who are starting with nothing like she and her mother did. Along the way, she even gets a Christmas miracle.

The Addy books have meant a lot to generations of children. I'm glad the books are being republished with fresh, appealing covers. There's also an interesting section in the back with further historical information.

Since 2021 is the 35th anniversary of the Pleasant Company, a reproduction of the original Addy is currently available for sale, in addition to the current version.

Review: Closed Casket

By Sophie Hannah
Featuring Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot
Available now from William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Review copy

I have not read THE MONOGRAM MURDERS, Sophie Hannah's first outing as the authorized novelist of new Hercule Poirot mysteries. I have peeked at the reviews, which don't seem very kind. I didn't mind going into CLOSED CASKET without having read it; after all I've read the original Poirot mysteries by Agatha Christie in a very hodge-podge fashion. (The order I read them in depended mostly on what the library had in stock.)

After a prologue featuring a meeting between a Lady Playford and her solicitor, the novel is narrated by Inspector Edward Catchpool, a character invented by Hannah. His voice isn't as memorable as many of Christie's narratives. In fact, I struggle to name a defining feature for the character. He's a policeman who is not as smart as Poirot, and that's about it. He felt a touch like a placeholder, a character there merely to narrate.

This impression may be aided by the fact that many of the other characters are strong personalities. The murder victim, Joseph Scotcher, is a charismatic man and compulsive liar who makes an impression before his untimely exit. Lady Playford, Scotcher's employer and the host of the house party all of the characters are at, is an older woman with a mind for intrigue. She's also a novelist of mysteries herself, and I'd be curious on her view of events. The chapter where Catchpool relates her testimony is certainly one of the most compelling, both clear eyed and blinded by optimism.

CLOSED CASKET does suffer some from too little Poirot. He goes off to chase a lead in Oxford and disappears for what felt like half the book. I wanted more scenes with him, because the curmudgeonly Belgian is why I picked up the book in the first place.

Honestly, the narration is a disappointment to me because Christie's prose wasn't flashy, but it never failed to draw me deep into the story. The mystery itself is well constructed, and I enjoyed the simplicity of the solution to what seemed to be a very complex snarl. It's not an Agatha Christie novel, but it is a fine mystery.

Review: The Ninja's Daughter

The fourth Hiro Hattori mystery
By Susan Spann
Available August 2nd from Seventh Street Books (Prometheus Books)
Review copy

I have not read the previous Hiro Hattori mysteries, but it was easy to catch up on the basics. Hiro is a ninja in disguise as a ronin, following mysterious orders to protect a Portuguese priest. Said priest, Father Mateo, keeps getting him involved in solving crimes when he'd rather focus on protecting his charge.

Their latest mystery hits close to home for Hiro, however. Emi was found strangled on the banks of a river by a young man she had been flirting with. The officials are uninterested in her case since she was just a daughter from an acting family. Secretly, her father is a former ninja and uncle to Hiro. He calls upon their family ties to get Hiro interested in who killed Emi.

You don't have to know much about Japanese history to enjoy THE NINJA'S DAUGHTER, but it does make parts more fun. For instance, there are many nods to famous figures of sixteenth-century Japan. Mostly, the outsider of Father Mateo is used to introduce cultural concepts. One he struggles with is the fact that Emi would've been seen as more respectable as a prostitute than what she was -- an actor's daughter who liked to walk with men by the river. (The book is ambiguous about whether Emi ever actually worked as a prostitute to further her dreams.)

I found Emi a compelling murder victim, a woman out of her time and place, who wanted a career instead of a husband and children. There's a good mix of people with motive to kill her. I came to find the title a bit distasteful, since Emi deserved a title focused more on who she was than her father, especially since many people were interested in finding out who killed her for money or ambition or anything but justice for her. The ending brought me right back around to liking it, fortunately.

There's also an ongoing plot about Hiro and Father Mateo's relationship. Father Mateo reveals a secret past that I found disappointing, and I can't imagine long-time readers would find much more satisfying. But I did enjoy how clearly protecting Father Mateo is more than a job to Hiro, and the bond of mutual respect between the men. I'm curious what will happen to them in the next book, since Father Mateo had to flee the city in fear of the shogun, straight to the home of Hiro's clan.

If you like your mysteries with immersive settings and complex motives, THE NINJA'S DAUGHTER is a good choice. I'm not rushing out to read the earlier books, but I'll certainly pick them up if they cross my path.

Review: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories

Edited by Stephanie Perkins
Stories by Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Stephanie Perkins, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, Jennifer E. Smith
Available now from
Review copy

Stephanie Perkins' follow-up anthology to MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME is another set of twelve strong stories by popular and up-and-coming authors, including adult author Lev Grossman.  The only repeated author is Perkins herself (who writes a sequel to her story from the first anthology).  The theme of summer is a little looser than the theme of winter holidays, and the stories range wider in tone and style as well.  There's contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, and historical stories.  The protagonists are diverse too, both in skin color and sexuality.

In fact, not all of the stories end happily.  "Sick Pleasure" by Francesca Lia Block tells of a doomed summer romance.  "Souvenirs" by Tim Federle tells of two boys who know they have to break up because one of them is going to college.  "Souvenirs" is one of my favorite stories in the collection, for how it gets lots of messy emotions into so few pages, including those little things that make you love someone even when you know they aren't the best person.

Of the speculative stories, my favorite might have been "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" by Lev Grossman, a groundhog-day tale of a boy and a girl who are trapped in a loop and manage to find shocking beauty in a single mundane (but tragic) day.  Close behind is "Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail" by Leigh Bardugo, which taps into my love of mythological sea creatures.  The inventive ending gets my approval.  Okay, I loved "Last Stand at the Cinegore" by Libba Bray, too.  It's a trippy meta tale about a horror film coming to life and the apathetic cinema workers who are the only ones that can stop it.

The more mundane stories were a bit more uneven to me.  "The End of Love" by Nina LaCour is an adorable story about two girls finding their way to each other while one of them goes through a difficult time. "Love is the Last Resort" by Jon Skovron is a farce about multiple couples who need a few tricks to get them to take that leap of faith and ask each other out.

This made for a very fun read on my plane ride home from California.  (Can you get more summer than that?)  There was only one story I didn't think fit the anthology.  "Inertia" by Veronica Roth was a nifty sci-fi romance, but I'm not sure what it had to do with summer.  Overall, this was a strong set of stories, although not quite as strong as MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME.  I hope for fall and spring sequels!

Review: Chasing Secrets

By Gennifer Choldenko
Available now from Wendy Lamb Books (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Newbery Honor-winning author Gennifer Choldenko, known for her Alcatraz trilogy, shifts her focus to Gilded Age San Francisco in CHASING SECRETS.  Heroine Lizzie Kennedy is a bright young girl interested in the work of her physician father.  When her family's cook Jing goes missing, Lizzie starts paying more attention to what is happening in her city.

I found the facts behind CHASING SECRETS fascinating and appreciated that Choldenko detailed the history and some resources in the back of the novel.  I had no idea that there had been a plague outbreak in modern America.  Choldenko is known for developing a rich historical setting, and she doesn't fall down on that front.  This turbulent time in American history is given its due.

As Lizzie starts digging deeper into San Francisco's secrets with the help of her brother and another friend, she's shocked by how many secrets different people are keeping and their motivation for them.  It starts with Noah, Jing's son, who Lizzie finds hiding on the Kennedy property after Jing's disappearance.  At first, she can't believe that Jing didn't trust her enough to tell her about Noah.  Then she starts to realize how the Chinese are being treated.  They are being quarantined in Chinatown, even though white residents are free to enter and leave that quarter - defeating the disease-prevention motive for the quarantine.  People are on the edge of rioting.

I liked that Lizzie didn't just listen to her family and others that told her nothing was wrong.  As a girl, she's used to people disavowing the medical knowledge she's learned at her father's side and other things she knows.  She loves her father and uncle, and trusts them, but she trusts her own curiosity and observations more.  She isn't content to just listen to what others tell her, but goes out and investigates.

There is a tragic aspect to the ending, which is fitting in a novel about an epidemic, although I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Overall though, I enjoyed CHASING SECRETS.  It is a compelling combination of medical thriller and historical fiction.  I often find historical fiction dry, but Lizzie's story is a juicy one.

Review: Tangled Webs

By Lee Bross
Available now from Disney-Hyperion
Review copy

TANGLED WEBS is the first historical novel by Lee Bross, who has also written YA under the name Lanie Bross and NA as L.E. Bross.  It is a rather flawed novel, particularly in the way that characters disappear until they're suddenly needed for the plot.  At the same time, I found it hard to put TANGLED WEBS down.

Arista works for Bones, who bought her from the orphanage when she was a child.  She acts as Lady A, the face of his blackmail operation.  Everyone knows her mask, because she's the only one who has personal contact with clients.  She takes all the risk with only a knife and her best friend Nic to protect her.  When TANGLED WEBS opens, Arista is falling out of love with Nic because she is more desperate than ever to escape Bones and go straight, and she has realized that Nic wants to become Bones and loves this life.

Sooner than she expects, Arista has her chance.  But she ends up working for a man who just might be worse.  Grae, the son of a merchant, might be her only way out.  Associating with Arista might ruin him, however.

It's a tangled web of a plot, with lots of clashing motivations.  It's juicy stuff, and the setting of London in 1725 provides as intriguing social milieu.  I rather liked Arista, who is good with a knife and not a bad thief, but who is desperate to find a way to break her way free without losing her soul.  She wants redemption as much as she wants escape from the men who seek to control her, and that morality limits her choices in a good way.

I did appreciate that TANGLED WEBS mostly escapes the dreaded love triangle, despite their being two men in Arista's life.  At the same time, she goes for and spends the most time with Grae, who is a rather straightforward sort.  I can see why she likes him: honest, honorable, loyal.  Nic, who she is in the process of getting over, drives the plot forward and actually has some ambiguity to him.  He and Arista share a tight past, but is he still her friend or has he decided she's expendable?  He's a source of internal and external conflict, and yet he disappears to give space to a straightforward romance.

Lee Bross can definitely write the historical side convincingly and spin a plot that keeps the pages turning.  TANGLED WEBS has a bit of a character problem, one that hopefully can be course-corrected in the next book in the series.  There's potential here, for sure.

Spotlight on The Predictions

By Bianca Zander
Available now from William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Review copy

There was a bit of a shipping mix-up, so I'm still reading THE PREDICTIONS.  But I like what I've read so far.  It starts with a literal bang when Shakti wrecks her car arriving at Gaialand's, the commune where Poppy was raised.

Shakti isn't the only other change in their lives.  Poppy and the other six kids on the commune were raised equally by all the adults, not knowing who their birth parents were.  But when hormones started flying, the adults realized they had to step in and tell.  Shakti reveals more of the cracks between the commune's ideals and reality, but that was the first for the kids.  And as Poppy puts it, "I didn't say any of this to Shakti, but in my opinion if the adults didn't like the way we had turned out, it wasn't our fault. It was theirs (page 58)."

THE PREDICTIONS is a very swift read.  I was interested in it because I thought it would stretch my horizons.  I haven't read much literature from New Zealand, so that peaked my interest.  I also like the idea of a book that spanned both a commune and the fading 80s punk rock scene in London.  The very original settings help this bildungsroman stand apart, and Zander's writing keeps it all from seeming too crazy.  I'm looking forward to finishing the second half of the book!

About The Predictions

Gaialands, a bucolic vegan commune in the New Zealand wilderness, is the only home fifteen-year-old Poppy has ever known. It's the epitome of 1970s counterculture—a place of free love, hard work, and high ideals . . . at least in theory. But Gaialands's strict principles are shaken when new arrival Shakti claims the commune's energy needs to be healed and harnesses her divination powers in a ceremony called the Predictions. Poppy is predicted to find her true love overseas, so when her boyfriend, Lukas, leaves Gaialands to fulfill his dream of starting a punk rock band in London, she follows him. In London, Poppy falls into a life that looks very like the one her prediction promised, but is it the one she truly wants?

The Predictions is a mesmerizing, magical novel of fate, love, mistakes, and finding your place in the world.

Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

About Bianca Zander

Bianca Zander is British-born but has lived in New Zealand for the past two decades. Her first novel, The Girl Below, was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and she is the recipient of the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writers' Bursary and the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship, recognizing her as one of New Zealand's eminent writers. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the Auckland University of Technology.

Check out Bianca's website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Review: Black Dove, White Raven

By Elizabeth Wein
Available now from Disney Hyperion
Review copy
Read my Elizabeth Wein tag

Elizabeth Wein combines the WWII setting of CODE NAME VERITY and ROSE UNDER FIRE with the Ethiopian setting of her last four Lion Hunter novels in a book that is sure to please her fans new and old. 

BLACK DOVE, WHITE RAVEN beings with a letter from Emilia to the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie asking for him to grant her brother Teodoros a passport.  What follows are the diary entries, flight logs, and stories they wrote together, the evidence Em sends to the emperor that Teo deserves his help leaving the country.  This letter is the first of many indications that the idyllic way Em and Teo's story starts is sure not to last.

Em and Teo were raised together by Rhoda (Em's mother) and Delia, two barnstormers, until Delia's tragic death due to a bird strike.  They emigrate to Ethiopia to escape the racism in the US, because it was where Teo's dad was from, and because Delia dreamed of all of them living there together.  For the most part it is a happy life, although Momma refuses to teach them how to fly.  But there are rumors of invasion, that the Italians are going to try to take over the only African country that was never colonized.  Staying in the country becomes ever more dangerous for the half-Italian Em and her mother, and for Teo, who is just old enough to be conscripted.

BLACK DOVE, WHITE RAVEN builds up the intensity slowly.  About halfway through the novel there is an awful, life-changing reveal that kicks everything into a higher gear.  I loved the slow dread of what was to come, the hints of war on the horizon and their mother's careless optimism putting the family in a dangerous situation.  Throughout it all, there's the infallible relationship between Em and Teo, who never regard each other as anything less than siblings no matter how outsiders treat them.

I also liked how deeply Wein delves into the details of the setting.  The first half portrays everyday life, the clothes, the flashy church, the minutiae of learning to fly.  The second disrupts that.  Throughout the novel, good and bad things are shown about both the Ethiopians and the Italians.  For instance, the Ethiopians are still in the process of ending slavery and the Italians commit war crimes such as using mustard gas.  I knew very little about the the setting of BLACK DOVE, WHITE RAVEN before I started reading the novel, and I was horrified by many of the events that really happened.  Wein provides a detailed author's note about the actual history and the liberties that she took for the story.

BLACK DOVE, WHITE RAVEN isn't as brutal of a reading experience as CODE NAME VERITY or ROSE UNDER FIRE, but it is still not for the faint of heart.  It's a wonderful portrayal of how children get caught up in war through no fault of their own.  It's also a wonderful portrayal of family and community and how humans seek out a place for themselves.  I'm definitely still a fan.

Fellow Houstonites and Wein fans, be sure to go out to Houston Teen Book Con to see Wein this Saturday, 4/11!

Review: Honey Girl

By Lisa Freeman
Available now from Sky Pony Press (Skyhorse)
Review copy

For a book from a small publisher, HONEY GIRL has been getting some strong word of mouth.  It came up in two totally unrelated forums that I frequent and I just knew that I had to read it.  Lesbian surfer girl?  Sign me up!  Of course, the problem with word of mouth is that the message can get a little garbled on the way.

I was sad when I started HONEY GIRL to discover that Nani Nuuhiwa doesn't surf.  She knows how to, but she doesn't, because she wants to be cool.  (And the consequences for being a girl that surfs can be way worse than a little social ostracism.)  I would've thought that the 1970s were more open to girl surfers; after all, Gidget was almost twenty years earlier!  But I do know progress can be slow.  Plus, the setting is so wonderfully done.

Lisa Freeman nails the setting.  HONEY GIRL takes place in a different time and place, one that doesn't exist any more.  It takes place on State Beach, whose denizens must follow any number of unspoken rules in order to be accepted.  Nani, moving to California from Hawaii, takes all the knowledge she learned from the coolest girl at her beach and puts it toward getting in with the locals at State.  It's historical Mean Girls.  Nani can be frustrating, with her dedication to a bunch of rules made mostly to keep girls in line, but it is such a true process.  Sometimes you have to color within the lines to gain social capital.

Nani is afraid of coloring outside the lines, not the least because she likes girls (as well as boys).  She's cool with who she is, but she knows what will happen to her if she comes out.  And maybe it's a moot point, since she falls pretty hard for one of the surfers.  (Even if she falls pretty hard for one of the girls on the beach too.)  She's got enough trouble from being mixed race, especially since her mother wants her to just be white since her father's death.

Nani, in other words, is dealing with a lot.  Her summer is something to behold, as she both comes closer to her original goal and to realizing who she really wants to be.  HONEY GIRL is a coming of age story with an immersive sense of place and a heroine caught between her strong sense of self and the knowledge that who she is inside will never quite fit in.

Review: I'm Glad I Did

By Cynthia Weil
Available now from Soho Teen
Review copy

Songwriter Cynthia Weil drew from her own life for her debut novel I'M GLAD I DID.  JJ Green is an aspiring songwriter who gets a job as an assistant at a music publishing company, where she comes to find love, a mystery, and personal success.  The summer of 1963 setting is used well, and the racism of the time is definitely a factor in how the story plays out.

The mystery in I'M GLAD I DID takes awhile to show up.  I knew there was a mystery, so I kept being afraid of who would die.  I was right to be afraid, because it did wrench my heart.  But this is not a dark murder mystery, if you can't tell by the bright colors on the cover.  Much of it is just about tracking down the truth of the victim's life, honoring who they were and how much they'd managed to overcome and how sad it was that their hopes for the future could no longer be accomplished.

I didn't know there would be a romance at all, but I liked it.  JJ is a strong personality, steadily pursuing her dreams despite her parents' disapproval.  She's young, but she knows what she wants from life and how to work for it.  She's dazzled by her love interest's green eyes, but their relationship really takes off because it is about more than looks, or even their shared interest in music.  Both of them have a passion for doing the right thing, for doing the difficult thing if it is what they believe in.

And the music side of the story gets plenty of attention too.  There's lots of interesting detail about how the music publishing and recording companies worked (and how writers often got screwed out of royalties).  There are references to contemporary artists, including the recently deceased Leslie Gore, and to past giants, especially in the jazz and blues genres.  Weil deftly gives Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, and other often forgotten women their due.

I'M GLAD I DID is sure to delight music and mystery fans alike.  The historical detail isn't overwhelming, but it is never forgotten.  The story works wonderfully with the setting.  I can see I'M GLAD I DID having a strong appeal for Nancy Drew fans looking for something more complex.

Review: A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

Click here to read some of my thoughts on this series as a whole.

By Denise Lewis Patrick
Available now from American Girl
Review copy

Of all the Beforever books I read, A NEW BEGINNING was by far the best.  It takes you back to 1864, where Addy is a former slave living in the North.  Your character is also a little black girl.  So unlike most of the books, some of the stories in A NEW BEGINNING have actual stakes.

To wit, I really enjoyed the story where the girls are chased by slave catchers.  It demonstrates the danger of the time while still being appropriate for a younger reader.  Most of the other storylines are less harrowing, although they do contain interesting historical information.  There are less storylines than most of the other books, but the focus is on quality over quantity.

If you're looking to pick up one of the American Girl CYOA books, this is the one I recommend.

Review: The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey with Samantha and The Glow of the Spotlight: My Journey with Rebecca

Click here to read some of my thoughts on this series as a whole.

By Erin Falligant
Available now from American Girl
Review copy

My favorite American Girl was always Kirsten, but I knew so many girls who adored Samantha.  This book takes the reader to 1904, in the persona of a girl dealing with her relationship with her stepmother and stepsister.

The stakes are pretty low in all of the possible Choose Your Own Adventure paths.  There's a pretty simple message about staying true to your beliefs, and I do like how it is exemplified by Samantha's aunt, a suffragette.  I do wish there had been some deeper or more exciting storylines.  Nellie, my favorite character from the Samantha books, only gets a few mentions.

This is a good read for Samantha fans, but not essential, even for fans of the other American Girls.

By Jacqueline Greene
Available now from American Girl
Review copy

This book takes you to 1914, ten years after Samatha's time, to explore life as a Russian Jewish immigrant in New York City.  Rebecca Rubin dreams of becoming part of a vaudeville show, and thinks you're in experienced member of a troupe -- that is, in some of the stories.  In others, you're escaping illness.

The stakes are pretty low in all of these storylines, but I found them high in interest.   I think most of the illness storylines are more interesting, although I can see more kids picking the way that leads to performances.  Either way, every path is so short you can go through several before getting bored.

I recommend THE GLOW OF THE SPOTLIGHT for children who like to dance and perform (aka my niece).  It's got a lot of information for them about a certain type of performance, and offers other bits of history as well.  Because of Rebecca's background, there's also a decent amount of cultural information.

Review: Catch the Wind: My Journey with Caroline

An American Girl Beforever Journey
By Kathleen Ernst
Available now from American Girl
Review copy

I used to get the Pleasant Company catalogs for American Girl and would page through them, wanting each and every one of the dolls.  I never got one, but I could go to the library and check out the American Girl books.  Since Mattel bought American Girl, they've played around with the focus and product offerings.  The latest is a line of choose your own adventure American Girl books.  As a fan of both, I couldn't resist giving them a whirl.

The actual CYOA element could be deployed much better.  You don't get to make many choices.  Most of the time a section tells you to flip to the next page (or to another specific page).  It's maybe one in six sections that you actually get to make a choice.  Some of the storylines end very quickly, and one per book requires you to go online to read the ending.  I really didn't like that element -- I had to stop and boot up my computer to read maybe six pages.  It's a good idea but needs some tweaking.

I do like that each book includes a short introduction to the history of the time at the back.  Caroline's story takes place during the War of 1812, near the Canadian border.  It's a war I wouldn't expect the elementary-school-age audience to be very (if at all) familiar with. 

In this story, you take the place of a young girl with a Navy mom who is about to be deployed and younger twin sisters.  You travel back to Caroline's time using a compass.  There, by Lake Ontario, you meet Caroline, whose father is a prisoner of war.  Caroline is one of the American Girls who was after my time, so her story was new to me, but easy to pick up.  There's lots of exciting storylines, including one involving a naval battle.

I like that CATCH THE WIND was very easy to read.  I think my eight-year-old niece could manage, especially since it is divided it to short sections.  This one is a good choice for a girl who is interested in war history or who has a parent in the military.  Or, perhaps, for a girl who has to stick with the books because a doll is out of le parent's budget.

Review: Wild Rover No More: Being the Last Recorded Account of the Life & Times of Jacky Faber

Book twelve of the Bloody Jack Adventures
By L.A. Meyer
Available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt BFYR
Review copy
Read my Bloody Jack tag

When I read BOSTON JACKY, I noted that it felt like the "same old, same old, and the new elements introduced never go as far as they might."  When I saw that WILD ROVER NO MORE was going to be the final book in the Bloody Jack Adventures, I felt relief.  It was a fun ride, but it ran out of new ideas a few books ago.

(Then I learned that author L.A. Meyer died in July and was quite sad, but I am happy he managed to finish this series as he wanted.)

WILD ROVER NO MORE follows the usual pattern.  Jacky gets in trouble, Jacky runs and hides in a new identity, flirts with a new man, eventually reunites with old friends just as the danger is greatest.  I did particularly enjoy the stretch where Jacky hides as a governess since it required her to use more of her respectable skills, too often unemployed.  I was very confused by the section where she disguises herself as a red-haired Russian named Natasha Romanoff.  Was that a deliberate reference to The Avengers or did everyone involved in the book somehow miss that?

I enjoyed WILD ROVER NO MORE much more than BOSTON JACKY.  The early reunion didn't entirely reconcile me to Jaimy, but I accepted that it worked for Jacky.  I do always enjoy spending time with Jacky as she wreaks havoc through nineteenth century history.

If you've been following this series, do yourself a favor and pick up the conclusion.  Meyer concludes most of the major strands of the story and provides a finish that does Bloody Jack Faber proud.  If you haven't read this series, give it a whirl if you're into adventurous girls, age of sail, and hijinks in wacky disguises.

Review: Lies We Tell Ourselves

By Robin Talley
Available now from Harlequin Teen
Review copy

LIES WE TELL OURSELVES is a hard book to read.  It focuses on the first year of integration at a Virginia high school.  Debut author Robin Talley doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the brutality the black students faced.  Racial slurs fly, violence is common, and nasty comments are constant.  Although the students who go to the white school were chosen because they were the best of the best, they're stuck in remedial classes and everyone acts like they're stupid.

And the hate definitely goes beyond simple bullying and the relentless use of variations of the n-word.  The white characters genuinely believe that they are superior.  The normalization of the racism, accurate to the period, is horrifying.  The resistance to integration is a shameful part of our nation's past, and it is difficult to read about such hate happening in the same era my parents were in elementary school.

The point of view in LIES WE TELL OURSELVES switches between Sarah, one of the "agitators," and Linda, the daughter of a powerful newspaper editor who is firmly against integration.  I found Sarah's sections more compelling.  Linda's were a bit over the top - not only is her father firmly racist, but also abusive.  He's so evil that he's easy to dismiss, when so much of the antagonism in the rest of the novel is deftly drawn.  Despite being on opposite ideological sides, the girls are instantly physically attracted to each other.  That's a problem for their beliefs in more ways than one.

I felt like the romance tended to fade being the historical detail and focus on what happens during the tumultuous school year.  I believed the girls were attracted to each other, because they had a real antagonist spark that drove each of them to respect the other's intelligence (through time spent in debate).  But I feel like LIES WE TELL OURSELVES ended before really convincing me that Sarah and Linda could make it as an interracial lesbian couple.  I believe both girls have the strength to try, however.

I think LIES WE TELL OURSELVES is a strong debut.  The story wanders without much focus, more interested in the historical atmosphere than the actual romance.  But the growth of the characters is wonderfully done and it is a fascinating piece of history.  Do not expect to read this one in one day.  It is rough to revisit integration.  At the same time, the social issues the girls face are a reminder that we still have so much farther to go.

Review: Present Darkness

The fourth Emmanuel Cooper mystery
By Malla Nunn
Available now from Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Review copy

The Emmanuel Cooper books just might be my favorite ongoing mystery series.  The series started in 2009 with A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE, set in 1952 South Africa.  Although PRESENT DARKNESS comes three books later, it is only one year later in story time.

The setting is incredibly important to these novels.  Apartheid legislation started in 1948.  It segregated people - white, black, mixed race, Indian - as well as services.  It also made sexual relations and marriage between people of different races illegal.  Cooper, a detective sergeant, grew up in a mixed-race slum, growing up as a "white kaffir."  In the present, he seeks to hide his sympathies even as he helps find justice for those the law would ignore.  It's becoming harder, especially since he has to hide all details of his private life.  His girlfriend is mixed race and they have a daughter together.

PRESENT DARKNESS starts with two separate crimes.  A prostitute is kidnapped.  A white couple is critically beaten, and their daughter names two black men as the attackers.  The first crime takes a long time to tie into the story, although the updates on the girl's situation are quite harrowing and make one hope that she'll somehow escape a grisly fate.  The second seems like an open and shut case.  However, one of the men she names is the son of Cooper's good friend Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala.  Cooper realizes that the crime is too neat and investigates on his own.

The mystery weaves together slowly, taking several unpredictable turns, complicated at every step by the inescapable racial politics.  Malla Nunn's hero might be impossibly progressive, but he does have his dark side, and as the case gets more personal it brings out his violence.  I thought PRESENT DARKNESS hammered a bit too hard on Cooper's concern about his secret family being discovered, but I did like how the theme of family was woven through the climax.

This series is good because Nunn's plotting is tight and twisted, the sense of place not a gimmick but an integral part of each mystery.  It is also good because Nunn's writing is so good.  Nunn got her start in screenwriting, and she has a real sense for laying out cinematic landscapes.  You can practically see the geography rolling out before you.  A new book in a favorite series is always cause for celebration, and PRESENT DARKNESS didn't let me down.  I know I'll be back for book five.