Review: Another Day

Companion to Every Day
By David Levithan
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy
Read my review of Every Day

Note: ANOTHER DAY can be read independently of EVERY DAY.  I have read EVERY DAY, so this review contains spoilers.

Spoilery note: A considers themselves to be the gender of the body they're currently in.  I could switch pronouns to reflect this, or default to one gender, but I intend to identify A gender neutrally.  This is not a reflection of how A identifies, just shorthand for this review.

ANOTHER DAY covers the same time period as EVERY DAY.  Rhiannon and A meet (although she doesn't know it), and their love story goes from there.  Some people may not want to read a repeat of events, but I think Rhiannon's point of view is sometimes more interesting than A's.  She's less philosophical, a normal girl suddenly faced with the unexplainable.  

I do wish ANOTHER DAY had started a little earlier.  Rhiannon and Justin's relationship has soured, but Rhiannon still thinks it is worth fighting for, so she doesn't give up even though Justin treats her horribly.  It makes more sense while inside her head than A's, but it might make even more if we got a glimpse at the good days.  I do like that ANOTHER DAY concludes with Rhiannon forging her own path, seeking what she wants instead of trying to deliver what her significant other wants.  It's also a great hook for a straight-up sequel.

I liked that Rhiannon had a mix of mundane and more fantastical struggles.  Her friends don't like her boyfriend - standard high school stuff.  Her significant other is a different body every day - not so normal.  Sometimes she isn't physically attracted to the person she's in love with?  Somewhere between the two.  (And I liked that David Levithan worked to course-correct the fat-shaming in EVERY DAY.  Rhiannon isn't turned off by that body, but she is turned off by the way A is ashamed of it.)

Rhiannon's growth throughout ANOTHER DAY is wonderful.  She's a bit of a doormat at the beginning, and struggles with respecting herself for a long time.  She's a terrifically real young woman, although A's instant and intense attraction seems rather inexplicable at times.  In the end, I thought Rhiannon's point of view was just as strong as A's.

Review: Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

By Kelly Jones
Illustrated by Katie Kath
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

The back of UNUSUAL CHICKENS FOR THE EXCEPTIONAL POULTRY FARMER recommends the book to fans of Roald Dahl, which is a good call.  It doesn't have his particularly wicked humor or sense of real menace, but it does have his matter-of-fact magic and a young protagonist who succeeds through a mixture of cleverness and goodness.  It also has ink illustrations by Katie Kath that will remind readers of Quentin Blake.

Sophie Brown and her parents move to a farm in a small town that they inherited from Sophie's great-uncle Jim.  They're new to farm life, but her dad is still searching for a new job and her mom is making do selling articles and they needed somewhere to live.  Things start to change for Sophie once she finds a catalog for unusual chickens - and then starts finding unusual chickens.  The story is pretty predictable, but it is told with a light hand and strong characterization.

Sophie tells her story through letters to her deceased abuelita, her uncle Jim, and Agnes (who owns the chicken farm).  There are also newspaper clippings, lists, and lessons on poultry farming interspersed throughout.  The drawings by Kath help tell other parts in the story in addition to illustrating some of the memorable parts of the letters.  There are even a few letters from Agnes, poorly typed and brief.  I like how actual facts about the work that goes into raising chickens are woven into this tale of unique chickens and the girl who is determined to protect them from a pernicious chicken thief (and anyone else who might use their strange qualities for unsavory means).

Also wonderful is how smoothly Sophie's heritage is woven into UNUSUAL CHICKENS FOR THE EXCEPTIONAL POULTRY FARMER.  Sophie, her mother, and her abuelita are all Latina.  There's Spanish phrases in her letters to her grandma, the inclusion of a migas recipe, references to the family dancing to Celia Cruz.  It's a small but pertinent detail of her life.  (Especially in her new town, where pretty much everyone but the mailman is white.)

UNUSUAL CHICKENS FOR THE EXCEPTIONAL POULTRY FARMER is an excellent choice for the younger reader who likes their books flavored with a hint of the exotic.  It mostly reads like a contemporary tale of a girl going to a new place, making friends, and finding a hobby.  But the subtle strangeness around the edges is ever present and pervades the entire story.  It's definitely a fantastical book.  A debut worth clucking about.

Review and Excerpt: Lucky Strike

By Bobbie Pyron
Available now from Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)
Review copy

Nate Harlow is the unluckiest boy in town.  His toast is always burnt, and he can never call a coin correctly.  He takes pictures of lost shoes, hoping that one day he can reunite a pair, that maybe that will be good luck.  Then he's struck by lightning on his birthday and everything turns around.

I liked that LUCKY STRIKE was ambiguous about whether there was anything magical happening.  Nate's luck (good and bad) strains credulity, as do other events in the novel, but there is no concrete statement that it is all real or all imaginary.  After all, as Gen's mother points out, much of the changes in Nate's life could come from his increased self-confidence.  There's a nice balance of possibility.

Pre-strike, Nate is best friends with Genesis "Gen" Beam and firm in his solidarity with her as the two biggest losers around.  Post-strike, he is excited by his new opportunities to make friends and lashes out when Gen's lack of social skill makes it harder for him to fit it.  It's hard to see a nice kid succumb to popularity like that, but it is believable that Nate wouldn't know how to handle all of the changes in his life gracefully.  I did find it slightly awkward that LUCKY STRIKE starts switching to Gen's point of view at this point when the beginning is firmly in Nate's point of view.  However, I did like that both friends get their say.

The messages of LUCKY STRIKE are pretty simple: good friends stick with you through thick and thin, and fancy new things aren't always better than what you had.  There's also a good exploration of the kind of jealousy that unwarranted good fortune can engender.  It's not groundbreaking stuff, but it is presented charmingly.  I particularly liked the environmental element of LUCKY STRIKE.  Gen is passionate about protecting the loggerhead turtles that nest on the beach.

Young readers will enjoy Nate's reversal of fortune and discovery that some things are more important than luck.  LUCKY STRIKE is a cute, almost magical realist, read that does hit some deep notes.

Read on for an excerpt from LUCKY STRIKE, and visit later today for an interview with Bobbie.  For more, visit other stops on her blog tour.

Excerpt:

When Nate opened his eyes, he saw two things: his grandpa’s worried, sea-weathered face hovering above his, and a complicated-looking machine beside him with flashing lights and zig-zaggity lines.

Grandpa clutched his grandson’s hand and said something Nate couldn’t quite make out: his voice sounded like it was two miles away in the bottom of a wishing well.

“What, Grandpa? I can’t hear you.” He licked his lips and tasted blood.

Review: Get in Trouble: Stories

By Kelly Link
Available now from (Penguin) Random House
Review copy

GET IN TROUBLE: STORIES is a collection of nine stories by Kelly Link, who is perhaps best known for her short stories (beyond even her skills as an anthologist and small publisher).  I'd read two of the stories: "The New Boyfriend" in MONSTROUS AFFECTIONS and "Secret Identity" in Geektastic.  Neither were my favorite story in either anthology.

I feel like GET IN TROUBLE leans hard on the Kelly Link formula.  Her mix of the ordinary and fantastic is nearly unmatched, but much of this collection feels like she's resting on her laurels.  GET IN TROUBLE opens promisingly with "The Summer People," a sharply drawn tale that carefully breaks down both an Appalachian town and an aging estate full of fae.  It hints at danger and dark fates while also focusing on the blooming friendship between two teen girls. 

The second story, "I Can See Right Through You," killed all momentum to me.  It is set through the point of view of the demon lover, an aging movie star who once played a vampire going to see the woman who played his love again.  There's hints of good stuff in the story, but the conceit of calling him the demon lover through the whole story drove me nuts.  Although the story has a pretty juicy payoff, it's not as good as an actual incubus showing up to make the repetitive epithet worth it.

My two favorite stories after "The Summer People" were the final two in the collection.  "Two Houses" takes the classic plot of a bunch of people telling ghost stories to each other and takes it to a predictably meta but chilling place.  I love a good creepy intelligent computer.  "Light" is a story that takes place in a world where most people have a normal shadow, but some have no or two.  It focuses on the main character Lindsey, recently divorced and a recovering alcoholic, and her gay brother who has moved back in with her.  The setting of the story keeps revealing new strange details of this world (perhaps too much for one short story), but it goes down smooth and with no lingering unpleasantness.

I like Link's worth, but GET IN TROUBLE is not an essential collection.  If you're a fan, go ahead and get this one from the library.  Otherwise, stick to the first story (and maybe the last two).

Review: Bones and All

By Camille DeAngelis
Available March 10 from St. Martin's Press (Macmillan)
Review copy

This is not a just one chapter book; it is a one more chapter book.

I picked it up, meaning to read a couple of chapters before I went out since I was ready early enough that the stores weren't open yet.  And then I just kept reading, because I had been sucked into Maren's world.

Maren's world is just like ours - almost.  But it contains people like Maren in it who eat.  People who eat people, when the right situation presents itself.  Maren eats people who fall for her, who get just a bit too close.  It's why she's moved from place to place with her mother, leaving a wake of missing persons. Her mom, however, has had enough, and now sixteen-year-old Maren is on her own.  The only thing she can think of is to find her father.  Along the way she discovers that she is not the only one, but it's not entirely a relief.  Because many of them are a danger to her, and she to them.

BONES AND ALL is not quite magical realism, because Maren and the others question why they are the way they are and don't accept it as normal.  But it often has that feel, instead of outright fantasy.  The premise is outlandish, and Camille DeAngelis makes no attempts to explain it.  (Nor do I think she should.)  It isn't meant to be realistic though; it is strange and grotesque and downright fascinating, the way DeAngelis writes it.  This is a very sensual sort of horror, unbelievable yet visceral.  The litany of boys Maren has eaten is quite affecting.

What I particularly loved about BONES AND ALL is the way it immersed me in Maren's story, her journey to find a place for someone like her.  I felt for her as she feared what might happen to her if people found out.  I never stopped to think that she deserves to be incarcerated, that she knows what a danger she is to others and takes only the most flimsy of precautions.  (In true fictional monster fashion, she does tend to warn her victims that if they keep going she won't be able to stop.)  I don't mind at all that BONES AND ALL forced me to pay attention to the story and not get hung up on other ways it could have gone.

The ending of BONES AND ALL feels a touch unfinished, but I liked it.  I'm free to imagine what happens next, which is quite good, because it is the sort of story that invites the reader to ponder what it meant, how we're supposed to interpret the shocking things that happen.  (I'll ignore the author's note that says she's a vegan and it means we should think more about what we eat, because seriously?  Way to bring down my good book high.)  BONES AND ALL is a macabre and strangely beautiful read, one that I hope is found by the many readers out there who are inclined to that sort of thing.

Review: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

By Leslye Walton
Available now from Candlewick
Review copy

THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER is an unusual read.  It is beautifully written, with unique turns of phrase and indelible imagery.  It is magical realism of the best sort, where the strange becomes mundane and yet still extraordinary.

It fits a little  awkwardly in the YA category.  Ostensibly, Ava Lavender is the protagonist and this is her story.  It reads much more like a family saga.  The book traces the lives of her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, as well as the men in their lives.  Sometimes it follows along the lives of other passing characters, spinning out the strange connections between them.  Almost half of the book passes before Ava is even born.

The women in Ava's family are marked by tragic, foolish love.  As much as I loved the writing, I was turned off by this aspect of the book.  The lives of her ancestors are pretty brutal and tragic, misery porn wrapped up in a layer of literary sophistication.  But I kept reading because I did love the writing, and I wanted to reach Ava and learn her story, what made her sorrows stand out above the rest.

I think THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER is an amazing accomplishment, particularly for a first-time author.  It has a singular voice and a clear vision of what it is and what it is trying to achieve.  The plot is much tighter than it appears at first, and the depiction of obsessive love is terrifying.  At the same time, I felt like I still wasn't sure who Ava Lavender was when I finished the book.  Too much of it wasn't her story.

I highly recommend THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER for readers looking for an unusual fantasy, something gorgeous and sad.  I hope Leslye Walton's sophomore novel is just as striking.

Review: Glory O'Brien's History of the Future

By A.S. King
Available now from Little, Brown BFYR (Hachette)
Review copy
See my A.S. King tag

A.S. King has frequently dabbled in magical realism, and GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE brings that aspect of her style to the fore.  When Glory and her 'best friend' Ellie drink a petrified bat (long story), they start seeing visions when they look at people.  Ellie mostly sees domestic histories, but Glory sees a war coming in fifty years - a war over women's right to work, among some other women's rights.

Her work with character is as on point as ever.  Glory has just graduated high school and intends to take a gap year.  Already unsure of what she wants to do next, the fact that she doesn't see anything about her own future deepens her worries about her path in life.  She becomes obsessed with a journal that her mother left behind after committing suicide, a tome full of musings and (haunting) photos and family secrets.  The past, the present, and the future intermingle as Glory discovers all sorts of new connections between the people in her town.

Back to those scare quotes around best friend.  Ellie is a member of a commune run by her mother.  She and Glory haven't truly been close since she left to be homeschooled, but Ellie clings to Glory as her connection to life outside.  Glory is uncomfortable with the divide between them, especially Ellie's greater experience with boys.  I really liked how King explored the fraught relationship between the girls, and what the way they related to each other and their powers meant about them as people.

I didn't always find the future sections convincing.  I mean, the leader of the conservative side of the Second Civil War calls himself Nedrick the Sanctimonious.  Maybe if his enemies called him that ...  I can see the roots in current events, but still thought it was too extreme.  However, the various implications about the length and outcome of the war made it work a little better for me.  It still felt a bit far-fetched and sketchy.  At the same time, it is supposed to be sketchy since Glory only sees the future in intimate flashes.

GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE will satisfy A.S. King fans, and perhaps draw in some more who are intrigued by the stronger speculative element.  King's agenda is pretty obvious, but tempered by the nuanced way she writes Glory's present-day feminism.

Review: The Heart Does Not Grow Back (and Giveaway!)

By Fred Venturini
Available November 4 from Picador (Macmillan)
Review copy

(A version was previously published as THE SAMARITAN by Blank Slate Press.)

Dale Sampson, through a fortuitous game of Blind Man's Bluff becomes Mack Tucker's best friend.  Before that, Dale was a lonely, ignored boy.  But together, he and Mack have big dreams.  That is, until a horrific tragedy at the end of their junior year.  A tragedy that leads to Dale discovering that he can regenerate.

THE HEART DOES NOT GROW BACK begins much like a YA novel, full of young love and sports triumph.  It becomes something much more bleak, although it always retains a dark humor and eventually finds hope.  Dale is a broken, pitiable man, and I often just wanted for him to get a good therapist.  At the same time, even at his lowest point, he retained the ability to think and plan that made him once so promising.

Over the course of its pages, THE HEART DOES NOT GROW BACK takes on ethics, reality television, and domestic abuse.  But its heart is always the characters, who are all dealing with trauma in their own ways. 

I often disliked Dale.  In fact, none of the characters are written to be particularly likeable.  They're deeply flawed people.  As Dale is the protagonist, we get to know him in particular.  He's obsessive about women, has a bit of a savior complex, and is pretty confrontational.  It works because author Fred Venturini understands that these things are flaws and that Dale needs to work on them.

THE HEART DOES NOT GROW BACK is an intense reading experience.  As Dale cuts away more and more of himself, I feared the promise of the title coming true.  From coming-of-age tale, to reality TV satire and slice-of-life superhero, to nailbiter, this is a memorable book.

I have one copy to giveaway to someone with a US or Canada mailing address.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: (Don't You) Forget About Me

By Kate Karyus Quinn
Available now from HarperTeen (HarperCollins)
Review copy

Kate Karyus Quinn's sophomore novel is an unsettling fable about a town called Gardnerville, where no one dies of illness but strange things happen, getting worse every fourth year.  Last fourth year, Skylar's older sister Piper killed sixteen other teenagers in revenge for getting dumped.  Now, it is a fourth year again.

Skylar is one of the last of the Gardners, the founding family.  Her greatest pursuit is the forget-me-nots, a drug that leaves her forgetful.  But Skylar needs to remember if she's going to prevent this year's tragedy.  She needs to remember her sister, who no one else in the town wants to remember.  She needs to remember her family's shadowy history.  She needs to remember who she can trust.

(DON'T YOU) FORGET ABOUT ME is an interesting beast.  Every other chapter is a tape from Skylar's childhood, recording her memories with Piper from various points in their lives.  The present chapters cut in and out, sometimes coming back to a Skylar who doesn't remember what happened last chapter -- or even what happened between chapters.  And the story just gets stranger the more Gardnerville reveals its secrets.

I liked the romance between Skylar and Foote, who has is own secrets.  It's very subtle, which is what saves it from its predictability.  The rest of the novel is too surreal for a rote romance.

If you're looking for a disorienting read that requires you to put together the pieces, I suggest giving (DON'T YOU) FORGET ABOUT ME a try.  It's a little bit fairy tale, a little bit magical realism, and a lot bizarre.  It's certainly a memorable reading experience.

Review: Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

By Kate DiCamillo
Illustrated by K.G. Campbell
Available now from Candlewick
Review copy

I bumped up FLORA & ULYSSES: The Illuminated Adventures on my reading list when it was long-listed for the National Book Award.  The shortlist has since been announced and FLORA & ULYSSES is not on it, but it is worth reading.

I've loved Kate DiCamillo's work since her breakout hit, BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE.  She's a tremendous author, with beautiful but accessible prose.  I liked that FLORA & ULYSSES used a graphic novel format for the illustrations instead of just static images.  It gives the novel a chance to play with point of view, and can also be used to entice readers to try a graphic novel or to try a prose novel.

However, I don't think the story is DiCamillo's best.  I'm quite fond of the central characters.  Flora is the sort of child to believe in strange things when they happen and a huge comic book fan.  When she sees Ulysses the squirrel gain superpowers by being sucked into a vacuum, she's ready to take him in and be friends.  I also liked her neighbors, the "temporarily blind" William Spiver, who is Flora's age and quite verbose, and his aunt Tootie, who takes a little while longer than the children to warm up to a poetry-writing squirrel.

But the story fell apart around Flora's parents.  Her relationship with her mother could be powerful, but her mother spends too long acting like a cartoon villain.  Meanwhile, her father compulsively introduces himself for no apparent reason.  I kept waiting for someone to  mention it within the story, but no one ever did.  To top it off, the plot is a little thin.  FLORA & ULYSSES feels like an origin story.  Although it would be a wonderful series, I think it is a standalone.

I thought FLORA & ULYSSES was wonderfully written and that the story was playful and exciting.  But it's not DiCamillo's best.  And to be fair to FLORA & ULYSSES, I have high expectations of her work.  I must add, however, that Ulysses' poetry is a highlight.  It's beautiful without being esoteric.

Review: Starry Nights

By Daisy Whitney
Available now from Bloomsbury
Review copy
(Daisy Whitney wrote a short-lived pick-of-the-month feature on IBWB.)

Daisy Whitney takes a departure from the contemporary novels she's known for in the magical realist tale of love, inspiration, and freedom set in Paris's famous Musée d'Orsay.  Julien has nighttime access to the museum thanks to his mother, which comes in handy when he sees the paintings come to life at night.

STARRY NIGHTS has a premise that's been done before, but Whitney does it well.  The paintings can not only come to life, but also get sick.  It's up to Julien to heal them, but he doesn't know how.  As to why they are sick, it mostly boils down to arguments over who has a right to create art and a sore loser.  The Musée d'Orsay has a new painting, one by the great Renoir.  The girl in the portrait is Clio, and she's been trapped there for more than a century.  However, she might not want to be let out.  At the same time, it may be taken out of Julien and Clio's hands since people keep trying to steal the painting.

I am an art geek, so I had lots of fun with Whitney's descriptions of paintings - what it would be like to be in them, how they might change.  I also liked the cast of STARRY NIGHTS.  Julien was refreshing, since few romances have a male lead.  He and Clio fell in love a bit quick for my taste, but I liked how they grew closer through working together.  And I loved Julien's friends, new and old.  They're colorful personalities.  (Particularly Bonheur, who would enjoy being singled out as colorful.)

I've never been to France, but Whitney made me feel like I was visiting.  Her Paris is not one of tourists, but of people who live and work there, stealing cups from cafes with bad tea and going out to dance together at night, willing to help a friend out when asked.  Although I certainly hope that if I visit Paris I'll run into more aspiring ballerinas than vengeful ghosts.

Fans of ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS looking for something with more magic should flock to this one.  While the paranormal elements are integral to the plot, the tone of STARRY NIGHTS is similar to a contemporary.  It really is magical realism rather than outright fantasy.  I found it to be a low-key, sweet read with some interesting thoughts on the philosophy behind creating art.  Honestly, it's exactly what the cover promises.

(Please note that I read the Kindle galley, which was capitalized like a serial killer's message to the police.  I've decided that my ability to read the book despite that drawback is in its favor.  The final book, of course, is capitalized normally.)

Review: Momo

40th Anniversary Edition
By Michael Ende
Translated by Lucas Zwirner
Illustrated by Marcel Dzama
Available now from McSweeney's McMullens
Review copy

I'll admit to only being familiar with Michael Ende through the movie version of The Neverending Story. I'd watch it when it came on network television, but I never read the book.  Now that that confession is out of the way . . . MOMO made me wish I'd found Ende's books as a child.  I'm not saying that I didn't thoroughly enjoy MOMO as an adult, but I would've liked to grow up with this book sitting on my shelf, likely sandwiched between Dahl and L'Engle.  I might not have read MOMO in my childhood, but it felt like it accidentally fell out of there into my adult life.

The illustrations by Marcel Dzama furthered that impression.  Something about the lines of his work makes me think of Jules Feiffer and his illustrations for THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH.  They fit with the story seamlessly, stylish but not too modern.

MOMO is the tale of a young orphan with one great power: she listens.  She really listens, and enriches the life of her entire village.  But then the gray men come and start to steal time from the villagers, making them harried and hurried and completely without time to stop and talk to someone.  Honestly, MOMO did not feel like it was written forty years ago.  It's horror at occupying children with gadgets to keep them quiet instead of engaging their imaginations feels extremely contemporary.  As for the themes of listening and story, well, those never go out of style, do they?

I can't say anything truly critical about Lucas Zwirner's translation.  I haven't read MOMO in the German, or even in another English translation.  However, it's not a conspicuous translation.  I didn't notice any jarringly modern turns of phrase, nor did the prose feel leaden and lifeless.  The tone was very classic children's adventure novel.

I highly recommend MOMO, particularly to those who have a child in their life who could use the gift of a good book.  It's a story that reminds us to slow down, to engage with our world and the other people in it.  Earning money is not the end all, be all of life.  It's a familiar moral, but it's told with such wonderful trappings.  A little girl, standing alone against faceless hordes.  A turtle that can see the future, a boy whose brain isn't as big as his mouth, a faithful old man, a world in peril.  I'm already planning to re-read it come winter, when I'm snuggled up and cozy.

Review: The Elementals

By Francesca Lia Block
Available now from St. Martin's Press
Review copy

Francesca Lia Block's style is as beautiful as ever, dreamy and almost more poetry than prose.   It can lean toward the purple, but I think it works with her lush stories wherein fairytales clash with harsh reality.  In THE ELEMENTALS, college freshman Ariel Silverman searches for her best friend Jeni, who went missing on a trip to Berkeley.  While searching, she falls in love.

THE ELEMENTALS may be published as an adult novel, but it reads very similarly to Block's YA novels.  Although, since it covers Ariel's first three years at college, it fits nicely into that new category of YA-style novels aimed at twentysomethings.  ("New adult," but that name is terrible.)  The sex is slightly more explicit than Block's YA novels, but she's never been an author to shy away from sexiness.  Her style revels in the sensual.

The various threads of THE ELEMENTALS don't always fit together neatly.  There's the search for Jeni, in which Ariel does not prove to be a master detective.  She's a teen looking for any answer in her grief.  There's her mother's cancer, which she ignores for much of the first year the novel covers.  There's her classwork and attempts to interact with her classmates which mostly fade away once she meets John Graves.  Ariel falls very deeply into John Graves, along with his strange roommates Tania and Perry.  Each element is important to Ariel's growth, but the novel felt episodic.

However, it's a beautifully told story.  I thought the person who took Jeni was pretty obvious, although others might not - there were several red herrings.  But the book is about Ariel's journey, not whodunit.  Block's magical realism is more intriguing than ever, as there's a sense that nothing magical at all is happening in THE ELEMENTALS.  Instead of this being a setting where some of the rules of are world simply don't exist, it feels like there is an explanation in line with our world.  It's a trick I haven't seen Block pull before.

I devoured THE ELEMENTALS in a single sitting.  It's a book that moves between lovely and creepy without blinking an eye.  It's cathartic, to see Ariel overcome her depression and grief, ready to make a future for herself.  When she enters Berkeley, she mostly attends the college in order to find out what happened to Jeni.  By the end, she's there for herself.  It's a fantastic story with an ending full of love and hope.

Review: Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance

Edited by Rhoda Belleza
Foreword by Chris Crutcher
Stories by Jaime Adoff, Josh Berk, Jennifer Brown, Mayra Lazara Dole, Zetta Elliott, Kate Ellison, Brendan Halpin, Sheba Karim, James Lecesne, Lish McBride, Elizabeth Miles, Kirsten Miller, Matthue Roth, and David Yoo
Available now from Running Press
Review copy

I recommend reading CORNERED: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance in small doses, one or two stories at a time.  This anthology is an intense, brutal experience.  Bullying is covered from every angle, from the eyes of the bully to the follower to the bullied.  There are many differences between the characters and their situations, but each story showcases some of humanity's worst behavior.  I am sure those being bullied will find comfort in many of these stories, but I would like to warn in advance, for those with triggers, that many stories involved suicide, transphobia, and - despite there only being one protagonist who is a lesbian - a great deal of homophobia.  (Because it is sadly easy to go from, "It is okay to hate and hurt people who are gay" to "It is okay to hate and hurt people who might be gay.")

Editor Rhoda Belleza wisely begins and ends CORNERED with the stories of Kirsten Miller and Lish McBride respectively.  I am a fan of both Miller and McBride, and both of them wrote two of the most hopeful stories in the collection.  They ease you in and out of the experience.  McBride's story features characters from her popular Necromancer series, so her fans might want to read CORNERED just for "We Should Get Jerseys 'Cause We Make a Good Team."

I suspect the stand-out stories will vary for each reader.  I particularly liked Zetta Elliott's "Sweet Sixteen," in which the bullies don't make a personal appearance in the story.  But their actions still affect the two girls who meet in the custody of social services.  Another good one is "The Shift Sticks" by Josh Berk, in which a boy runs into a girl he used to bully in elementary and is attracted to her.  The only story I didn't really like was "Inside the Inside" by Mayra Lazara Dole.  It had one of my favorite characters and some of my favorite scenes - the story always lit up when it focused on Alyssa.  But it didn't really work.  The magical realist elements (possibly imagined due to the guilt of the protagonist, rather than actually happening) were incoherent.

CORNERED is a read that will get you thinking.  It might be a good book to read with other people and discuss how you felt about each story.  And it's a great anthology to read in October, since this is Anti-Bullying Month.  Hopefully these stories can inspire at least one person to end the cycle of violence.  It's a tough thing to do, but these authors show the cost of perpetuating the status quo.

And a change in our culture regarding bullying is needed.  Between when I wrote this review and when it will be posted, fifteen-year-old Felicia Garcia killed herself.  During the time period that I read the stories, fifteen-year-old Amanda Todd killed herself.

Review: Zip

By Ellie Rollins
Available now from Razorbill (Penguin)
Review copy

Ellie Rollins had an absolutely brilliant idea for her first novel.  ZIP is a retelling of THE ODYSSEY with a young girl as the heroine, struggling to get from Kirkland, Washington to Austin, Texas on a scooter in order to save her childhood home.

Lyssa grew up in the Texas Talent Show, where her mother was a star.  Ana brought magic into Lyssa's life - into the lives of everyone she met - onstage and off.  But now she's dead, and Lyssa can't find her mother's magic.  She likes her stepfather Michael, but doesn't like all the changes in her life.  She's also in denial about her mother's death.  Then she finds out that her home, which had been donated to the community, is going to be torn down but the Texas Talent Show is reuniting to protest.  She decides she's going to travel and perform with her made family.

ZIP is a magical journey that will appeal to children with big imaginations.  (And it will definitely help out when they're expected to read Homer during high school and college!)  I loved how Lyssa gets to know a variety of people throughout America, some who are helpful and some who aren't.  There's a strong thread of optimism in ZIP, but it never quite ignores that what Lyssa is doing is dangerous.

As a former resident of Austin, I absolutely loved the ending.  Lyssa lives in an exaggerated version of the real world, but her Austin sure seemed like my Austin.  ZIP isn't the kind of book where you demand things be plausible, but I think the climax was both plausible and a fitting fairytale-perfect resolution.

If you're looking for a good book for an elementary school student, I direct you to ZIP.  Rollins debut will appeal to fans of Roald Dahl and other writers of fantastical adventures.

A More Diverse Universe Review: The People of Paper

By Salvador Plascencia
Art by Sarah Tillman
Out of print from McSweeney's (HC)
Available now from Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin) (PB)

Aarti of BookLust came up with the idea of the A More Diverse Universe Tour.  From September 23-29, bloggers will be reviewing speculative fiction titles by authors of color.  You can go here to read more about why this tour is happening.  The full schedule is available here.

THE PEOPLE OF PAPER is not an easy book to describe.  You can throw around terms like 'postmodern' and 'magical realism' to try to get a grip on it.  While both of those are accurate, they're too small for THE PEOPLE OF PAPER.  It's a highly experimental novel, ambitious, a mesh of fiction and fact, a meditation on art, the debut of Salvador Plascencia, and it should be a total mess.  There is a character whose name is cut out of the book.  But it's a mesmerizing work that exceeds its ambition and stands apart as something unique and exciting.

I could tell you that there is a woman made of paper in the story.  There is a prophetic baby who speaks in black rectangles.  There is a grown man, Frederico de la Fe, who still wets his bed.  There is the daughter of the man, Little Merced.  There is Saturn, who the man wars against.  There is Saturn, who is the author.  There's enough crazy typography to make TRISTRAM SHANDY and HOUSE OF LEAVES look like your normal left-to-right reading experience.  There is a love story.  There is a gang war.  There are flower pickers.  Most of the book takes place in California, El Monte, to be specific.  But none of the little details can truly prepare you for reading THE PEOPLE OF PAPER.

Yet, it's the small details that linger with you after finishing.  (And okay, the binary chapter, which - if you're like me - you plugged into your computer to find out what it said.  No, I'm not going to give it away.  I was disappointed at first and then liked it.)  THE PEOPLE OF PAPER is a wild ride, but there's a grounding in character that many less-successful experimental novels forget.  Each of the many narrators has a distinct voice.

And, honestly, I can't imagine many readers THE PEOPLE OF PAPER wouldn't appeal to.  It's a book about making art, about writing, about being a character, about reading, about how books work.  It's bibliophile meta that still functions as a story.

Since the A More Diverse Universe Tour is partially about the author, here is some of Plascencia's description of himself, from an interview with the Nashville Review:

"Professionally—albeit a meagerly profitable enterprise—I’m a writer. But I’m not a professional Mexican; that’s Ruben Navarrette’s gig. I’m a Latino. I’m a writer. I identify as both, but not when “Latino” is serving as a modifier. ...

This might seem like I’m contradicting what I said earlier—I’m not—but what was a major [publisher] going to do with an experimental Mexican-American writer? The reality is that—aside from the Cisneros and Dagoberto Gilb, writers who reinforce parochial views of Latinidad—there are very few of us on the majors. Name them. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Alex Espinoza, Joe Loya, and my fellow El Montian Michael Jaime-Becerra. But Joe and Michael were under Rayo, some HarperCollins specialty imprint aimed exclusively at Latinos. The Houghton Mifflin’s and HarperCollins don’t see us as marketable to the general public. There is Luis Rodriguez—a writer that heavily informed me—but even he is pushed as some sort of exotic criminal. ...

But there are obvious advantages, too. Sometimes, for no good reason aside from the fact that I were born south of the Rio Grande, my name gets tangled up with the greats: Bolaño, Borges, García Márquez. I’m never going to complain when that happens."

A small, personal list of suggestions (mostly YA) for further reading:

• AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor - YA novel in my own TBR
• ALIF THE UNSEEN by G. Willow Wilson - An exciting genre-bender I've reviewed
• ANGEL SANCTUARY by Kaori Yuki - My all-time favorite manga (only 20 volumes!)
• ASH or ADAPTATION by Malinda Lo - Fantasy lovers to the first; sci-fi to the second
• BATTLE ROYALE by Koushun Takumi - Make up your mind about the comparisons to THE HUNGER GAMES; also it's just an interesting read
• CITY OF THE BEASTS by Isabel Allende - This series used to be pretty popular
• THE GIRL WITH BORROWED WINGS by Rinsai Rossetti - A lyrical, lovely debut that I adore
• THE HUNT by Andrew Fukuda - I have this vampire novel on my to-buy list
• LEGEND series by Marie Lu - Loved the first book and awaiting the second
• LOST AND FOUND by Shaun Tan - Anything by him is great but I've reviewed this one
• ONCE UPON A TIME IN AOTEAROA by Tina Makereti - May be harder to find since it's by a Maori writer and published by a small New Zealand press; I only know about it because I received it as a gift
• THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie - Banned Book Week is coming up; make your own decision about the controversy
• SORRY PLEASE THANK YOU: Stories by Charles Yu - Yu is an emerging talent
• TANTALIZE series by Cynthia Leitich Smith - Also has a diverse selection of narrators
• A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS trans. Husain Haddawy - His translation is so much more better than the popular (public domain) one by Sir Richard Burton I'm not even kidding
• THE VICIOUS DEEP by Zoraida Córdova - This is my favorite of the mermaid trend

Review: The Raven Boys

Book One of The Raven Cycle
By Maggie Stiefvater
Available now from Scholastic Press
Review copy courtesy of Krystal of Live to Read
Read my reviews of LAMENT, BALLAD, SHIVER, and LINGER
Read Maggie's guest blog

Guys, I am blown away.

It's not like I don't know that Maggie Stiefvater is a terrific author.  I've been a fan from the very beginning.  And I knew she was excited about THE RAVEN BOYS, from both her blog posts and hearing her speak at TLA.  I still didn't expect this.  All of the books I've previously crowned the best of the year are going to have to step aside for the true king.

Blue Sargent knows that magic exists.  She lives in a family of seers, though she is not a seer herself; she magnifies others' abilities.  Every seer tells her the same thing: the first boy she kisses, her true love, will die.  Then she sees Gansey's spirit on St. Mark's Eve.  The only explanation is that he's her true love or she kills him.  In Blue's case, it might well be both.  But when she meets Gansey, she doesn't fall for him.  She falls for Adam, one of his best friends.  But she is pulled into the magnetic Gansey's search for a lost Welsh king.

The characterization in this story, you guys.  The characterization.  Gansey cannot say the right thing and he buries himself under a perfect, empty surface.  Ronan is a bundle of anger and hugs for his pet raven Chainsaw.  Adam is a scholarship student and both cares deeply for his friends and wants to make his own way through live without their help.  Noah, the smudgy one, hangs quietly around the edges.  Suffice it to say, I want to knit each raven boy a fuzzy, ugly sweater to replace their school raven sweater and cuddle them and show them that they are loved and it will be okay.  And of course, it isn't going to be okay.  There's an aura of dread throughout THE RAVEN BOYS.  There's going to be death.  It's inevitable.  THE RAVEN BOYS is a book where you know things will not end well.  And I may love happy endings, but I adore impossible situations and certain doom even more.

If you didn't like the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, I'd still give THE RAVEN BOYS a chance.  With it's use of Welsh mythology, it's closer in style to her faerie books.  Even then, THE RAVEN BOYS is a new sort of beast.  It's a book where the magic is limited in scope and barely present, yet frightening to encounter.  It's a book about love - not romantic love, particularly - and the lengths people will go to for love.  And the lengths people will go to for power.  It's about being a teenage boy and being a teenage girl and all the craziness that entails even without life and death on the line.

If this review is incoherent, please excuse me.  I've been left bereft of much of my senses.  The only thing clear to me is that I must read the second book of Stiefvater's Raven cycle as soon as possible.

Review: Alif the Unseen

By G. Willow Wilson
Available now from Grove Press (Grove/Atlantic)
Review copy

G. Willow Wilson wanted to talk to the literati, comic book geeks, and Muslims at once.  She wanted to write a book that was a dialogue between them.  In the process, she borrowed a bit from almost every genre and wrote a funny, affecting novel about the internet, revolution, and the many ways we can see the world.

Alif is a hacker specializing in providing security for other hackers, bloggers, anyone who wants to cover their tracks from the State.  He has a girlfriend, who he met over the internet, who leaves him for a rich fiance.  Her last request is to never see him again.  He complies, writing a program that can track any person by their typing patterns and blocking her from accessing his presence on the net.  Then her fiance, the Hand of God and the State's premier computer surveillance guy, hacks Alif's machine and gets the program.  But what he really wants in the copy of the Alf Yeom (The Book of a Thousand Days) given to Alif by Intisar.

By the time the book is though, Alif's allies will include jinn, an American convert, a holy man, a prince, and a pious neighbor.  He will  be repaid for saving someone's life unknowingly, survive a car wreck in the desert, and grow up a little.  Although no age is given for Alif, it's heavily implied that he's a teenager.  He certainly has a teenager's captious passions and lack of long-term planning.

I loved ALIF THE UNSEEN.  I loved how it revels in the powers of literature, belief, and the internet.  I like how handles are used, as legitimate identities, although there are some characters like Dina who need nothing but their real name and that's okay too.  I liked that there is a world of magic right beside out own, but few can see it because they're too busy being superstitious to actually believe in something.  I liked the strong sense of time and place.  I liked that Wilson clearly had something to say but didn't sacrifice story for didacticism. 

I know lots of literary types who having been raving over ALIF THE UNSEEN, exactly as Wilson wanted.  I think there's room for a large young adult and new adult audience as well.  ALIF THE UNSEEN, among the many other things it accomplishes, captures what it is like to be young.  It's a tale of being in over your head, of deciding when to be reverent, of being both crushed and new in love, and being awesome at computers but not knowing as much as older people about a bunch of important things.  All in all ALIF THE UNSEEN is a terrific, thrilling novel.  And you can be assured I'm going to look into reading Wilson's graphic novels.

Review: Cardboard

By Doug TenNapel
Available now from Scholastic Graphix
Review copy

You might be familiar with Doug TenNapel through his creation Earthworm Jim or one of his other graphic novels, including GHOSTOPOLIS.  I haven't encountered any of TenNapel's work before and thought CARDBOARD was an interesting introduction.  The art reminded me a little of both Jhonen Vasquez and John Kricfalusi.  It's very stylish and dynamic with some character designs that make me cringe.  (Marcus, the bully, has these dead fish lips.)

CARDBOARD can be enjoyed many ways, from creepy adventure to morality play.  Although aimed at children, there's plenty for adults to enjoy.  Cam's father may have the most on-panel time of any of the characters.  Mike is an out-of-work carpenter recovering from his wife's death and doing his best to provide for his son.  But on Cam's birthday, he can give him nothing more than a cardboard box he bought from a strange vendor.  Together, Mike and Cam make a boxer from the present.  And that boxer comes to life.

But the cardboard came with two rules and Mike decides to break them.  Soon Marcus is making his own cardboard creations - ones that are far less benign than Billy the Boxer.  It's a journey to the center of the id to stop the cardboard run amok.  (How does the cardboard come to life, you may ask?  A religious alien wizard did it.)

I thought CARDBOARD was a creative book with high visual interest.  It has cross-generational appeal and tackles tough topics in a funny way.  I only had strong issues with one line.  While giving good, sensible advice to Mike a character tells him, "Cam needs a father and a mother (249, ARC)."  It's not said in a way that indicates the reader should be credulous of the advice.  Mike does have a prospective romance with a neighbor that he keeps sabotaging, but the counseling should've focused on moving on.  Single parents should not feel pressured to find a spouse for their children.  Nor should a father and a mother be the only acceptable arrangement.

CARDBOARD probably won't turn people who aren't fans onto the way of the graphic novel.  But for those who do enjoy the form, it's an entertaining magical realism adventure.

Review: The Girl With Borrowed Wings

By Rinsai Rossetti
Available now from Dial (Penguin)
Review copy

Right now, I feel very unaccomplished.  Rinsai Rossetti is currently twenty one and wrote the first draft of THE GIRL WITH BORROWED WINGS when she was eighteen.  I'm twenty three and have yet to write anything as beautiful or as wonderful as Rossetti's debut.

Frenenqer Paje lives the way her father wants her to live.  He dreamed of a perfect, submissive, quiet daughter and Frenenqer will be that girl no matter her natural inclinations.  He keeps her in her room except for when she goes to the local English-speaking school where she gets a low-quality education.  She couldn't really go out if she wanted to, since the streets of the oasis (in an unnamed Middle Eastern country) aren't safe for a lone teen girl.  Frenenqer tries to stay within the bounds, escaping only through her books and a dream that she was supposed to be born with wings and she can feel the phantom of them on her back.

Then she meets a boy without a name, a Free person, unbound by any rules.  He can shapeshift and travel between worlds and he can take Frenenqer flying.  Soon she names him Sangris and he calls her Nenner, a name much lighter than the one of her father's expectations.  But as the two grow closer, they become quarrelsome.  Frenenqer is afraid to step outside of her father's rules, as well as the rules of society, and Sangris pushes her to ignore them all.  Above all else, Sangris is free, and he fears the limits of Nenner's affections.

It's girl-meet-boy filtered through the fantastical lens of magical realism and told in Rossetti's gorgeous, poetic prose.  But in addition to the romance, it's Frenenqer's discovery of herself.

"I'm young!" I shouted at him in exhilaration.
"What?"
"I'm young!"
His gaze flickered over me.  From my free-flying hair -- I became very aware of it as soon as he looked at it; I felt it lifting off the base of my neck where the spine is tender, and streaming out behind me in tendrils -- to the tightness of my stomach -- I realized for the first time that I had a narrow waist and hips rather than the straight lines of my childhood; when had that happened? -- and down to the legs.  At that point he pulled his gaze back up to my face.  "Yeah," he said.  "Didn't you know?"
-p. 63-4, ARC

I liked that Frenenqer's dialogue, as well as that of her long-suffering friend Anju, are in a modern vernacular unlike the narration.  It emphasizes her youth and that she's not truly a prim lady, even before Sangris (and Anju) force her to stop denying her dreams for herself.  It complements the narration rather than clashing with it.

THE GIRL WITH BORROWED WINGS is one epic romance.  One moment the atmosphere is cramped and stifling; next, there's a lush description of Nenner and Sangris's travels.  There's sophisticated storytelling and a heroine who is just seventeen and well aware of own immaturity.  It's the struggle between control and chaos.  Do not miss Rossetti's debut.  THE GIRL WITH BORROWED WINGS is a story of startling power and beauty.