Review: Delicate Monsters

By Stephanie Kuehn
Available now from St. Martin's Griffin
Review copy

DELICATE MONSTERS is a singular experience.  It's dark as hell, a look into some very twisted minds.  Sadie Su has just come back to town.  She's a vicious girl who likes people who do bad things, who seriously injured a boy to make him not like her.  Emerson Tate, her much poorer neighbor, dislikes that she has come back since she knows that he's a psychopath.  Meanwhile, his younger brother Miles is suffering homophobic bullying and the effects of an idiopathic illness.  All three exchange narration duties, their pasts, presents, and futures intertwined.

Plenty of DELICATE MONSTERS is hard to read because of the accurate depiction of human viciousness.  There's homophobic language, as previously mentioned, that escalates.  There are references to past racist statements made by Emerson, thrown in his face by Sadie when he starts dating a black girl.  There's violence inflicted on animals and children.  There's sexual assault.  This is not a novel for the delicate.

I'm sure many will dislike the characters.  Emerson appears to be the golden boy, but he does some awful things.  At the same time, his thoughts are fascinating.  I particularly liked Sadie, who is just plain strange.  She doesn't do the things most people would do, but her actions make sense for who she is.  Miles contrasts them both as the innocent one who doesn't deserve what's happening to him.  At the same time, he has a dark side too.  All three narrators are capable of violence.

DELICATE MONSTERS is one of those books where it is hard to categorize your reaction.  It's the sort of story most authors don't tackle.  Stephanie Kuehn has the talent to pull it off, but most authors don't.  I was slightly disappointed by the end, which could use a touch more resolution.  There's a moment of catharsis, but I felt that only Sadie's story was complete.

Review: Charlie, Presumed Dead

By Anne Hetzel
Available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt BFYR
Review copy

Charlie Price was not a perfect boyfriend.   At his funeral, his girlfriend finds that more true than ever - when she meets his girlfriend.  Aubrey Boroughs was a young American swept off her feet by the rich and worldly Charlie.  Lena Whitney was the girl from the same circle of privilege who thought she knew all of his friends and family.

But both girls have one thing in common beyond their boyfriend: they want to track down what happened during Charlie's final days.  Both girls have very different motives, however.  Lena even thinks he's still alive. I really liked that Aubrey and Lena kept secrets from each other.  They turn out to be fairly fast friends, but there isn't a reason to trust someone with your deepest secrets instantly, even if it causes trouble.

CHARLIE, PRESUMED DEAD alternates between Aubrey and Lena, with some passages from Charlie illuminating what he was thinking.  I hate to do this, but I have to compare it to GONE GIRL.  A person disappeared and presumed dead under suspicious circumstances, manipulating their significant other from beyond the grave.  As such, CHARLIE, PRESUMED DEAD does rely on a fairly preposterous plan with one last-minute twist that makes particularly little sense.  But the journey to the extremely open ending is fun.  (Is a sequel coming?  I think it must be.)

I thought the girls had distinct voices and perspectives.  My sympathies shifted between them, sometimes empathizing more with one girl than the other.  Charlie's passages are an insight into the method to his madness, his strange desire to not just have two girlfriends but also to be a totally different person for each of them.  It's fun to watch the girls put together all these pieces that don't quite make sense, and travel the world doing it.

CHARLIE, PRESUMED DEAD is a preposterous and surprising dark thriller.  I thought it was a great ride, and I'll definitely be there for a sequel if Anne Hetzel writes one.

Review: Ask the Dark

By Henry Turner
Available now from Clarion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Review copy

Henry Turner's debut novel ASK THE DARK is about a boy who encounters a serial killer, but it isn't straight horror.  At the Houston Teen Book Con, Turner said HUCKLEBERRY FINN was a huge influence on this novel, and I can really see that.

Billy Zeets used to be pretty wild, vandalizing people's cars and egging homes and more.  It's earned him a bad reputation even though he's managed to mostly turn himself around.  His mother died and his dad got sober, but an accident left him disabled and unable to work.  It's up to Billy and his sister to get the money to keep their house out of foreclosure, and his sister is really pinning it on Billy. 

The kids in town are on curfew because boys have been disappearing, and the first two to disappear have been found murdered.  But Billy just can't stay inside.  He's always roamed the neighborhood in the dark.  And he's started to realize that he sees things when he roams.  That maybe he has the pieces he needs to find the killer.  He needs proof, however, because no one will trust him.

I really enjoyed ASK THE DARK.  Billy's voice is compelling, the dialect present but not distracting.  As a boys' adventure story gone wrong, it's aces.  I particularly like how much Turner leaves to the imagination.  There's no description of the bodies, nor of exactly what he does to the boys he's taken.  Billy alludes to things, is traumatized by things, but he wants to maintain some privacy.  And imagining what might've happened is both scarier and without the unpleasantness of those authorial descriptions of torture that seem to into it.

Those looking for a horror story or thriller might be disappointed by ASK THE DARK.  But it is a terrific dark coming of age tale, a boy finding his mettle in the worst circumstances possible.  Turner has a very developed sense of character voice for a debut author, and I look forward to his future works.

Review: Denton Little's Deathdate

First in a series (?)
By Lance Rubin
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

DENTON LITTLE'S DEATHDATE  is one of those stories that switches genre partway through.  It starts out as a black comedy about a teenage boy who knows he's going to die tomorrow and struggling with how he wants to go out and what he wants to do in the limited time before he dies.  Then, it shifts into a paranoid conspiracy thriller.  (Admittedly, this shift is seeded early in DENTON LITTLE'S DEATHDATE.)

I found the world debut author Lance Rubin created fascinating.  He only makes one big change to the world as it is, but he clearly thought through the consequences of that change. Due to future genetic developments, a simple test can find out on what day you're going to die.  There are a small percentage of people who are undateable, including Denton's best friend Millie.  The US is one of the few countries to make deathdate testing mandatory.  There's a pretty elaborate set-up for the whole thing: a funeral the day before, then a Sitting the day of.  (This helps ensure that people who are about to die aren't on a plane, for instance, since that indicates that the plane might crash.) 

These are also all recent changes: Denton's grandfather remembers what life was like before everyone knew their deathday.  (This also helps explain why none of the other technology in the book seems that different.)  I particularly liked the detail, sad as it was, that Denton's best friend Paolo is set to die one month later.  That is the kind of thing kids would bond over.

Denton's voice is extremely appealing.  He's a funny guy, and one who tries to look on the bright side even though he's been dealt a bad hand.  He could be unlikeable, since DENTON LITTLE'S DEATHDATE starts with him cheating on his girlfriend.  But he still worked for me as a sympathetic narrator, because he acknowledges that a) he thought they were broken up and b) he was blackout drunk, but c) that doesn't absolve him of guilt and if he did it while drunk, it was potential lurking in him all along.  Of course, that doesn't mean he immediately wants to fess up and hurt his girlfriend.  Except he may have just given two girls a (fatal) STI.

I'm not entirely sure the shift in genre and tone worked for me.  It comes so late in the book (about the last 1/5) that there isn't really time for the explanation of what's really happening to breathe.  Even though there are solid hints about what's going on beforehand, the change in pace is massive.  It also causes some of the humor of Denton's voice to get overwhelmed by the action.  It also builds to an ending that I'm not sure stands on its own.

DENTON LITTLE'S DEATHDATE is a funny, clever book.  I enjoyed the first part of the book more than the ending, but I still found the whole delightfully weird and fun.  I hope for future adventures with Denton, and I'm sure Rubin has plenty of great books ahead of him.

Review: Vanishing Girls

By Lauren Oliver
Available now from HarperCollins
Review copy

Nick and Dara are sisters.  Dara is younger, prettier, and likes to party.  Nick is older, more buttoned up.  But they were still the best of friends until things started getting between them, especially the ways they reacted to their parents' acrimonious divorce and Dara's relationship with the boy next door (and Nick's best friend) Parker.

And then, of course, there was the accident.  The accident that Nick can't remember, and has led to Dara avoiding her.

VANISHING GIRLS has a slow start.  It moves back and forth in time, through direct narration and diary entries, as well as snippets of news blogs.  It can be disorienting (which is quite on purpose, as the climax of the novel proves).  I want to reread VANISHING GIRLS knowing the ending so that I can spot the pieces moving into place, but it didn't entirely grab me at first.

The central mystery brews in the background for a long time.  The biggest news story in the town is the disappearance of Madeline Snow.   Dara and Nick pay about as much attention to it as you would to any big news story, when the pieces start to fall together and Madeline's disappearance turns out to be very pertinent to their lives.  VANISHING GIRLS best trick is hiding the true mystery from the reader until secrets start bursting forth.  It's a terrific use of point of view.

I expect that Lauren Oliver's fans will be thrilled with VANISHING GIRLS.  It's a clever, feminist mystery with a central sister relationship that feels wrenchingly real.  As her author's note says, she's really exploring the way siblings can define themselves in opposition to each other in order to carve out their own space.  I think she succeeded.

While the beginning is a bit rough, I'm glad I kept reading.  Once Dara disappears, the story kicks into full gear and the revelations just keep coming.  The surprisingly bittersweet ending was quite satisfying, and as I said, tempted me to start right back over and see what more I would notice the second time around.

Lauren Oliver will be speaking and signing at Blue Willow Bookshop tonight.

Review: Personal

Book nineteen of the Jack Reacher series
By Lee Child
Available now from Delacorte (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

My grandfather gave me a copy of PERSUADER, telling me that it was a good airplane novel and Jack Reacher was "a good man to know and a bad man to have for an enemy."  My family has always loved sharing their favorite novels with me, since they know I'll read anything and talk about it after.  PERSUADER was the last book my grandfather ever gave me.  As such, I have a special soft spot for the Jack Reacher series.

Now, this series isn't one you think of when you think of a soft spot.  It's almost hypermasculine, with a retired military police hero who has no home or real possessions, and who always happens to be in the wrong place at the right time.  In this case, he's lured there by an ad in a paper meant just for him.  An assassination attempt was made on the French president, and it appears to have been an audition for an assassination at the upcoming G8 or G20 summit.  One of the suspects is a man Reacher put in jail almost two decades ago.  (He kept up his sniper skills through yoga, as one does.)  And so he's on the case, his only companion a young CIA agent with anxiety issues.

Casey Nice is young, pretty, and reminds Reacher of Dominique Kohl, one of his proteges who was tortured and murdered when she went to arrest a suspect.  It's ground the series has covered before, although Lee Child thankfully doesn't make us witness any flirtation between the twenty-something Casey and the reaching-true-retirement-age Reacher.  However, their relationship is one of the highlights of the book.  The plot, such as it is, is a bit ridiculous even for a macho thriller.  Child's attention to research and detail just helps highlight how goofy elements like the yoga sniper and the giant man with fingers larger than sausages and a house 150% as big as a normal house are.

It didn't take me long at all to read PERSONAL, because Lee Child does know how to keep the pages turning.  But at nineteen books, the Jack Reacher series seems to be churning a bit of water.  There's a high level of silliness to the proceedings.  It doesn't, however, erase the memories of the tight earlier books or discussing them with my grandfather.  I like to think that if he was still alive, he'd have fun reading the newest book in his favorite series.

Review: Trust Me, I'm Lying

By Mary Elizabeth Summer
Available now from Delacorte (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

TRUST ME, I'M LYING is the tale of a teenage grifter, a type of con artist that sells people things that don't exist.  When her father disappears, Julep Dupree isn't worried.  That is, until her apartment is ransacked, leaving her with little but a cryptic note and a gun.  Finding out that her father somehow got involved with the mob is the cherry on top of the something-is-wrong sundae.

There is a heightened reality to the novel.  Julep is running several large-scale scams at her school, almost everyone she comes in contact with is somehow involved, and there is an incredibly elaborate scavenger hunt that took a lot of work to set up in likely very little time.  It's the sort of crazy plot that is fun to read but falls apart after you start to think about it.  You've just got to suspend your disbelief and go with it.  It's also slightly hurt in story by the inclusion of a sex slavery ring.  TRUST ME, I'M LYING is too much of a breezy read about a teen criminal in over her head to really incorporate such a heavy issue in a meaningful way.  The emotional payoff felt unearned.

Julep has an appealing, witty voice and conflicting goals.  On one hand, she wants to leave the life and go to Yale.  On the other hand, she's desperate to know what happened to her father and rescue him if she can.  If that means breaking the law and getting into trouble, so be it.  She also has two love interests, as is de rigueur.  One is Sam, her best friend and partner in crime, who needs to gather up the courage to tell her.  Despite being talented at reading people, Julep misses the obvious.  The other is Tyler, the cool kid who is suddenly interested in helping her out and following along.  Despite being talented at reading people, Julep misses the obvious. (In this case, it bears repeating.)

I found both relationships vaguely tedious.  They were nothing new, and standard romantic drama is boring compared to trying to outwit the mob.  The romance, however, did have the stronger emotional payoff. 

TRUST ME, I'M LYING is Mary Elizabeth Summer's debut novel.  It certainly shows promise for future endeavors.  Summer could take a page from her heroine and do things a little less by the book next time.

Review: Broken Monsters

By Lauren Beukes
Available now from Mulholland (Little, Brown)
Review copy
Read my review of The Shining Girls

This cover (reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk's INVISIBLE MONSTERS) doesn't do justice to the strange cornucopia of imagery within.  There is a killer stalking Detroit, and he's leaving behind mutilated bodies.  Bodies that he sees as art.

BROKEN MONSTERS switches between a number of point of views including  Detective Versado, who is hunting the killer; Layla, her daughter; Jonno, a videoblogger looking for his big break; TK, a homeless man who works at a church; and Clayton Broom, a homeless artist looking for a break.  At first their lives seem completely separate, but they intertwine as the case goes on.  It's a technique I always enjoy, seeing the pieces come together.

It took me a touch longer to get into BROKEN MONSTERS than Lauren Beukes' other novels.  It's quite grotesque, and many of the characters aren't that likeable.  They're well rounded, but they're selfish and self deluding and the kind of human that is sometimes hard to spend time with.  But I was drawn into the case, which just keeps getting stranger, until a surreally frightening climax.

One particularly fun twist of the procedural (beyond the supernatural elements) was the use of the internet.  There are small passages of subreddits, police-line phone calls, and other ephemera of modern life.  (Some of it reads a little off, but most is pretty accurate.)  The population's reactions to a bizarre serial killer seemed quite authentic, scared and unhelpful and sometimes unjustly ignored.

I recommend BROKEN MONSTERS to fans of Stephen King.  Lauren Beukes is continuing to expand her genre-bending prowess, and BROKEN MONSTERS takes on many elements of horror.  The how isn't always answered, which just makes it scarier.

Review: Blood of My Blood

Book three of the I Hunt Killers trilogy
By Barry Lyga
Available now from Little, Brown BFYR (Hachette)
Review copy
Read my reviews of I Hunt Killers and Game

The I Hunt Killers trilogy comes to a violent conclusion in BLOOD OF MY BLOOD.  When GAME ended, Jasper, Connie, and Howie were each in mortal peril.  With Billy Dent on the loose, everyone else is pretty much in mortal peril too.  And, as the survivors are starting to realize, Billy and Jasper's history is more complicated than it first appears.

I am quite honestly not sure how I feel about all of the revelations.  I feel like half of them were awesome, and half were terrible and not what I wanted at all (even though I expected that's what was going on).  And I really can't talk about them in detail since I don't want to spoil any of the (many) twists in this review.

Suffice it to say, if you've enjoyed I HUNT KILLERS and GAME, then you need to read the conclusion of Jasper's story.  If you haven't read the first two books, you'll be totally lost trying to navigate BLOOD OF MY BLOOD.  It builds strongly on the events of the previous novels.

I'm sad to see these characters go, but I like how well the trilogy played itself out.  Another book would be stretching the premise far too thin.  I'm not sure if this is the ending I wanted for Jasper, but I'm well satisfied with it.

Review: The Rules for Breaking

Sequel to The Rules for Disappearing
By Ashley Elston
Available now from Disney-Hyperion
Review copy

So I didn't know THE RULES FOR BREAKING was a sequel until after I read it, but that explains so much.  I didn't feel lost reading the book, because things were explained, but I felt like it opened in an odd place.  After all, that action Anna describes would be a great book in itself!  Turns out it was.

I was sucked into Anna's story instantly.  She's been in the Witness Protection Program since seeing her crush and his father murdered.  The assassin left her alive because she knew where some information was.  She's trying to build a normal life with her boyfriend Ethan, but recently Thomas - the assassin - made contact with her again.  Soon enough, she, Ethan, and her little sister Teeny have been kidnapped.

Anna felt very realistic to me.  She sometimes makes uninformed or shortsighted decisions, but her motivations are clear.  (They're mostly to keep herself, her boyfriend, and her little sister alive.)  Her relationship with her traumatized sister was sweet, despite the circumstances.  Her relationship with Ethan was a bit close to too perfect, although his possessive streak helped temper it.  The villains were quite chilling, particularly the one who fancied himself friendly.  (I don't want to give too much away!)

THE RULES FOR BREAKING is a story with multiple twists and turns.  It seems fairly predictable at first, but then things start turning inside out.  I guessed a few of the twists, but not all.  It's not deep, but it is fun.  Anna's growth throughout the novel was well done, and her strong personality helped ground the book during the more ludicrous twists.  I definitely want to pick up the first book to see what I missed!

48HBC Review: Cold Calls

By Charles Benoit
Available now from Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Review copy

I first heard of Charles Benoit when I saw him at the Austin Teen Book Festival.  I thought his book YOU sounded interesting, not the least because it was written in second person.  I never picked it up though, but I remembered his name.  His latest release is COLD CALLS, a high-tech thriller about three teens: Eric, Shelly, and Fatima.

Each of the teens has a secret that someone has found out.  And that someone is calling them, blackmailing them, and forcing them to bully someone at their school.  It gets them all put into an alternative program, where they meet and decide to track down their harasser.  It's an intriguing plot,  but COLD CALLS' biggest problem is having too much plot.

The story is driven by the fact that each of the teens is willing to bully someone else in order to have their secret kept.  Their motivation is key to the story working.  But each of the characters felt so shallow.  The weakest is Fatima, who doesn't get a point of view chapter until halfway through COLD CALLS.  It felt like Eric got the greatest focus in the novel, but he doesn't have much of a personal arc.  Shelly has the strongest emotional arc, but it felt like it cut away from her at a dramatic moment and then came back to her personal story once she was over it.

The super bully is chilling, but left me a bit cold.  COLD CALLS has some interesting things to say about the relationship between bullies and victims, but it felt like it went slightly over the top.  Again, it seemed like a bit more character development might've made it all work better.

I did think that the plot was interesting and moved along at a good clip.  There is quite a bit to discover, as the secrets unfold bit by bit and the three teens start getting closer to the antagonist.  COLD CALLS does engage with interesting ideas.  As I mentioned before, there is the nature of bullying.  There's also themes of personal responsibility, protecting private information in a digital world, and confession.  It's a decent choice for anyone looking for a quick, thrilling read.

Note: This review took me 20 minutes to write.

Review: The Recruit

Book one of the Cherub series
By Robert Muchamore
Available now from Simon Pulse (US) and Hodder (UK)
Review copy

I enjoy stories about child spies, like Alex Rider or the Gallagher Girls or Jimmy Coates.  Cherub is a popular series from the United Kingdom, now being re-released with updated covers.  I believe THE RECRUIT first came out in 2004, which meant it looked pretty dated.  I missed hearing about this series when it first came out, but when the re-release came to my attention, I wanted to give this spy series a shot.

James Adams is heading towards jail.  He's got an anger problem, and after his mom dies, he starts hanging out with the wrong kids at the orphanage.  It's just small marks on his record now, but he's sure to eventually do something that'll really get him in over his head.  But there's no reason to write him off.  He has potential.  And a secret agency known as CHERUB notices.

CHERUB uses children as spies, because adults so rarely suspect kids.  They can enter homes unsuspected, as friends of a mark's children, or pretend to be harmless vandals.  It's the perfect opportunity for James.

I liked that THE RECRUIT explored the lives of kids who aren't often protagonists, especially in children's literature.  James has lots of rough edges.  I also liked that it tackled difficult topics, and didn't reduce complicated issues to black and white stances.  After James completes his first mission, he isn't entirely sure that things worked out for the best, since no one involved was entirely good or bad.  I didn't enjoy how much time was spent on boot camp.  I would've eaten up as a kid, but found it a bit distressing to read about a kid going through something that is hard on adults.

I think that THE RECRUIT could be read by younger readers - nine or so.  The language isn't overly difficult, and it's very engaging.  However, the subject matter (including terrorism, underage drinking, and drugs) probably bumps up the intended age of the reader.  For concerned parents, I think that everything is presented in an age appropriate way and not in a favorable light. 

THE RECRUIT was a fun, fast novel, but I don't think I'll keep reading the series.  It skews a bit too young for me.

Review: Sekret

By Lindsay Smith
Available now from Roaring Brook Press
Review copy

SEKRET is set in the Cold War-era USSR, when Nikita Krushchev was in power.  Heroine Yulia is in hiding with her mother and brother.  They used to be part of the Party, but then their father turned traitor and fled.  Now they survive based on her mother's medical skills and Yulia's talent for fencing medicine.  But things are about to change.

Because in SEKRET's Soviet Union, there are psychics.  Yulia just happens to be one of them, and her government wants her.  Working for the government means better food, better clothes, care for her brother, training in her powers.  It also means working for the government.  Getting people killed. Other bad things.  Yulia knows she has to escape, but doesn't know how to escape from people who can read her mind or predict her every move.  Escaping might not mean freedom, either.  It might mean working for another country's government instead.  It might also mean the execution of her brother and mother.  Yulia's stuck, unless she's very, very clever.

Not one of SEKRET's twists surprised me.   That didn't matter much, because I still enjoyed reading it.  I liked most of the other psychics, and felt for Yulia and them both when their motives conflicted.  SEKRET doesn't shy away from how hard it can be to live with people whose goals only partially align with yours and who have the ability to discern just where you diverge.

The relationships between the kids aren't restricted to friendship and suspicion.  There is romance.  It is not a love triangle of the type where the heroine can't decide between two guys, although two boys are involved.  Yulia is only interested in one of guys, which causes a great deal of friction.  (And, well, there aren't an equal number of girl and guy psychics, so pickings are slim.)  I liked Yulia and Valentin's relationship, which develops as they begin to trust each other, and is both sweet and sexy.

I think SEKRET will appeal to fans of spy thrillers who don't mind a bit of genetic mutation in their plot.  Smith mixes the science fiction and history well so that both are integral to the story.  Best of all, the Soviet Union-United States space race is involved.  Smith's debut novel is quite the thriller, intriguing characters and concepts more than making up for a predictable plot.

Review: Ripper

By Isabel Allende
Translated by Ollie Brock and Frank Wynne
Available now from Harper (HarperCollins)
Review copy

Isabel Allende has a tremendous reputation, and I was excited to see that her latest novel was genre: a thriller.  However, her literary roots are obvious.  The crimes and their investigation tend to take a background to character vignettes and digressions.

At first, I thought that RIPPER would focus on teenage Amanda and her leadership of a group of kids (and her grandfather) determined to research true crimes.  But the book quickly turns its focus to her mother, Indiana, and Indiana's various loves, customers/patients, and friends.  Although Indiana seems entirely peripheral to the crimes, it doesn't take a great detective to realize she'll be central at the end.  (It's that fact that gave away who the killer was for me, although there was a brief moment where I doubted my own guess.)

Thus, RIPPER took awhile to capture my attention.  There was much flipping between a large cast, and I didn't find Indiana all that compelling.  She's a touch too beloved by every other character.  However, I read it while waiting for car repairs, which forced me to push through and eventually fall into the rhythm of the novel.

I particularly liked the setting.  RIPPER is set in San Francisco and makes good use of the city's various neighborhoods, social classes, gay friendliness, and reputation for hippie-ness.  Also, the various characters seemed to connect in natural ways, although it took awhile to put together who knew who and how.  To be fair, that seemed to be Allende's design.

I think that RIPPER has a bit too much literary fiction in its blood to be a truly compelling thriller.  The same details about the crimes are endlessly rehashed, and since the police characters aren't the focus, there's rarely an actual scene with someone discovering a new clue, just reporting it.  I must admit, I'd also rather read a novel about ambitious, morbid Amanda than healing, maternal-except-with-her-daughter Indiana.  It was fun to read a thriller that didn't pay much attention to the conventions of its genre.   I enjoyed RIPPER by the end, but think I'd've given up if I had more with me to read.

Review: The Tyrant's Daughter

By J.C. Carleson
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Laila, her mother, and her younger brother are sharing a small apartment in America.  They fled their home country following Laila's father's death in a coup.  He was the leader of their country, the king (as Laila understood it).  Now, they have to find a way to survive in a new country with few of their old connections.

I loved Laila's point of view.  She's just at the right age to really start questioning her parents, and of course any normal teenage issues are compounded by the questions of just who her parents are.  Was her father a king or a dictator?  That's the obvious question, but many questions arise about her mother too.  Laila has access to information and people she never would've encountered in her home, but she knows how hard it is to get the full picture.  After all, she's been blind to it her whole life.

Much of THE TYRANT'S DAUGHTER deals with the culture clash Laila experiences.  Sometimes I wish things were clarified more.  For instance, it becomes clear that Laila isn't religious, but it still takes awhile to figure out why she leaves wearing a veil behind immediately.  (Especially when one of the book's early passages dwells on the benefits of a veil.)  Or, when Laila remembers her mom removing layer after layer on a flight to France, there's no indication of whether Laila changed her appearance too.  However, I thought THE TYRANT'S DAUGHTER did a nice job of not demonizing Laila's culture while illuminating flaws and restrictions she never noticed before because she had never experienced anything else.  Plus, not all American culture is presented as good.

There's quite a bit going on in THE TYRANT'S DAUGHTER.  There's the aforementioned culture clash in addition to espionage and a romance.  Laila's country remains unnamed and is obviously made up, based on a variety of real places.  But there's a nice level of detail to the politics, believably curtailed by Laila's own naivety and lack of experience.  There's a nice amount of material in the back about J.C. Carleson's research and good nonfiction to read afterwards.

I thought THE TYRANT'S DAUGHTER was absorbing.  It was just the right length.  I thoroughly enjoyed Laila's journey and felt for her as she searched for the truth and tried to do the right thing, all while trying to build a new life for herself.   Sometimes the high school stuff was a bit bland, but it was saved by Laila's through self-examination.  She's a memorable narrator.

Excerpt: The Edge of Normal

Back in September, I reviewed Carla Norton's debut novel, THE EDGE OF NORMAL.  It made a strong impression on me, as you can tell from my closing comments:

"THE EDGE OF NORMAL will leave you at the edge of your seat.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and hope Norton keeps on with this fiction thing.  THE EDGE OF NORMAL has fascinating, complex characters, a twisting, fast-paced plot, and it lingers in the mind afterwards.  It's everything a good thriller should be."

Today, I'm happy to share an excerpt with you.

ONE 
San Francisco, California
Tuesday Before Thanksgiving

Tuesdays are always a test, and getting to his office is the hard part, but twenty-two-year-old Reeve LeClaire has never told her psychiatrist about her route. It begins with a short walk to the Ferry Building, where she routinely orders a hot chocolate and carries it outside, sipping its sweetness while watching the ferries emerge from the fog. The boats come from Vallejo and Larkspur and Sausalito, trailing white foam and flocks of gulls before stopping to off-load a morning rush of commuters.
When the sun breaks through the fog, Reeve turns her face to it, shuts her eyes, and savors the red heat on her eyelids.

No one notices her in the flow of the crowd, and she feels almost smug about her anonymity. She’s hardly recognizable as the schoolgirl pictured in the “Missing” posters, or the pasty waif heralded in the tabloids. Though still on the small side, she has grown an inch and gained sixteen pounds. Her teeth are fixed. She is clean and smooth and has plucked her eyebrows to precise arcs.

Her hair has grown back so nicely that it’s almost a source of pride. She often changes its color to black or blond or, today, maroon. She wears it neatly cut, feathered, and always long enough to cover the scars that remain visible on the back of her neck.

When the clock tower begins its 9:00 A.M. chime, Reeve shoulders her bag. By the time its elaborate music is finished and it’s pealing seven … eight … nine, she is out of the Ferry Building and crossing onto Market Street. The street vendors and musicians are too busy to bother her. But the farther she makes herself walk down this street, the more cautious she must become.

Review: Day One

By Nate Kenyon
Available now from Thomas Dunne Books (Macmillan)
Review copy

DAY ONE takes a familiar premise (man vs. machine) and centers in on the very beginning.  John Hawke is interviewing James Weller, a tech mogul who left his former company under acrimonious circumstances and claims that he has a doozy of a story to tell.  It's strange that he would tell it to Hawke, a disgraced journalist (and hacker, of course).

I thought DAY ONE did a terrific job with the horror elements.  Several scenes are terrifying, and the expanse of the antagonist is daunting.  Even the coffee makers have turned against humanity, under the control of Doe.  I did feel that the protagonists sometimes made terrible decisions.  For instance, they decide that the best way to travel through New York is the subway tunnels.  They had a few reasons for that, but none of them make up for forgetting that subways tunnels are full of trains.  Who sets themselves up to be stuck in a small, dark area with a massive, fast machine that doesn't like you?

Some of that may come from the fact that I never really liked Hawke.  I thought that some of the other members of his party were more interesting.  Hawke is driven by the need to get back to New Jersey, where his wife and son might be in danger from their neighbor.  Obviously, everyone understands the need to be with and protect family.  But I just had to grit my teeth every time Hawke made a justification for not moving away from a scary guy who clearly has creepy designs on his pregnant wife.

Basically, I liked the action but thought that the attempts to make me bond with the protagonist fell flat.  I never cared about his redemption as a family man, I cared about these people escaping murderous technology!  I'd stick to checking this one out from the library.

Review: Hushed

By Kelley York
Available now from Entangled
Review copy

When I wrote about MADE OF STARS, I mentioned that I'd long been interested in Kelley York's first book, HUSHED.   What then pops up on Netgalley but HUSHED, with a new cover?  I seriously couldn't resist the bonkers summary.  Archer has been killing people to protect his best friend Vivian, because he once failed to protect her when they were younger.

I'll admit that I never quite warmed up to Archer.  There's a real sense of unreality to the premise, but the book was written more realistically than I expected.  Archer definitely has psychological trauma, but I never really fell into the revenge fantasy.  Maybe I'm just maturing.  It didn't help that I had very mixed feelings about the Archer and Vivian friendship.  Vivian eventually becomes outright villainous, but at the beginning she was much less manipulative than I expected.  She's a little shallow, but that's a minor character flaw comparatively.  Archer, meanwhile, is a full blown Nice Guy.  He thinks that if stays by Vivian's side (and kills enough people), then she'll realize he's been the perfect guy for her all along.

However, I liked Evan quite a bit.  Evan is the catalyst in HUSHED.  He's a new student at the local university who first meets Archer when he's alone on campus.  Their budding relationship forces Archer to look more critically at his relationship with Vivian.  It also starts him towards the realization that you can't just kill people.  Evan isn't just an instrument of the plot, however.  He has his own interests and family, and his ethical dilemmas about Archer become increasingly important as the story moves on.

I didn't love HUSHED as much as I expected, partially because it wasn't as campy as I was expecting.  It suffers a little from wanting to have its cake and eat it too, to portray Archer's crimes as real, unjustified crimes and still have him be the hero of the story.  It's pretty entertaining and there is interesting psychological and character work, but it's a little rough.  There are definable, understandable reasons for Archer and Vivian's behavior, but there was something about the story that kept me separate from them instead of buying in.  The sweet romance between Archer and Evan was a nice counterpoint to the murder and associated darkness, and it was easy to see how that would affect Archer so deeply.

In the end, I still thought HUSHED was worth reading.  It was certainly different from the other books I've been reading lately.

Review: Broken

By CJ Lyons
Available now from Sourcebooks Fire
Review copy
Read my interviews (old) and (new) with CJ and my review of Lifelines

Sheltered Scarlet Killian wants a chance at the life of a normal high-school girl.  But she's barely convinced her overprotective parents that she'll be alright, especially her nurse stepmom.  But Scarlet has spent her life in the hospital due to a rare heart disease, and she wants to live.


I loved the depiction of Scarlet's high-school life.  It was a nice balance of the better parts of high school and the bad parts.  She gets bullied by some jocks due to her portable defibrillator, which she carries in a wheelie backpack, and her mother frequently popping in to make sure she's taking her vitamins.  (Did I mention her mom is the school nurse?)  At the same time, she makes some friends in her support group and biology class.  Two of them are cute boys, of course.  But Scarlet talks about her attractions to a friend and decides to pursue only one of the boys.

My main complaint is that the thriller elements take a bit too long to come into play.  It makes since on a character level, since Scarlet is quite naive.  But when the tension ratchets up in the last quarter, any less naive reader already has a good idea about what's going on.  Most of the actual suspense comes from whether Scarlet will reach the police in time.

I enjoyed BROKEN quite a bit, and didn't mind the shift in tone to a thriller too much because I knew it was coming.  Just go into the book aware that much of it reads like a straight contemporary.  And that's fine, because Scarlet's journey to independence is a good story.

Review: The Naturals

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Available now from Miramax (Disney Hyperion)
Review copy
Read my review of Raised by Wolves

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of those authors that routinely has interesting new books coming out but has never found mainstream success.  Personally, I'm very fond of her work.  She's not someone who comes to mind when I'm making favorites lists, but I've never been disappointed by one of her books.

THE NATURALS is the story of Cassie, a seventeen-year-old girl who is a natural at profiling, who joins a group of teens at the FBI who have their own natural special abilities that can be used to solve crimes.  They each have their own reason for wanting to spend their days studying serial killers, statistics, and other related topics.  Cassie is driven by the unsolved murder of her mother, whose body was never found.

Obviously, that becomes relevant to the case the teens find themselves pursuing.

What really makes THE NATURALS work is the characters.  Cassie falls into a love triangle with Michael and Dean, but it doesn't seem forced.  They're attractive, intelligent guys and while they're both a bit standoffish at first, they explain their reasons and are generally perfectly nice to her.  The other girls, Lia and Sloane, both develop on their own.  Cassie becomes closer to Sloane, and not just because they're roommates.  All five teens have their own personalities.  It made me kind of sad that THE NATURALS is a standalone, because I'd like to see how their relationships would develop.

I'm totally not sad it's a standalone.  More standalones!

As for the detecting, it could use a little work.  THE NATURALS has a villain POV, a trope I'm not hugely fond of.  In this case, I don't think it really added or detracted from the story.  There are a few gory moments in those passages that might turn off more sensitive readers.  The kids aren't experts, of course, despite their abilities, but I wished they'd contributed more to finding out who the killer is.  The identity is a plot twist instead of a mystery solved by the characters.  That keeps things exciting, but I found it left satisfying after I finished.

THE NATURALS is a quick, fun read that will appeal to fans of ensemble procedurals.  I like that it doesn't resolve absolutely everything and that while there is a love triangle, it comes in a distant second to catching murderers.  The premise is a little silly, but I like bought into it, especially since a large part of the book is the characters training to use their talents effectively.  This isn't Barnes' strongest book, but it probably has the broadest appeal.