Armchair BEA: Young Adult Science Fiction

Logo by Amber

Today is a combination of free day and talking about middle grade and YA fiction.  I decided to split the difference and talk about YA science fiction!  I think YA is well suited to science fiction.  Teens tend to be early adopters of technology, and they might be a bit more culturally flexible when running into aliens.

Here are some upcoming (or recent) titles I'm excited about:

CATALYST by S.J. Kincaid
This is the final book in the Insignia trilogy, which is one of my favorite things ever.  Main character Tom is a smart mouth, a bit of a con man, and very talented with video games.  He's training to be a child soldier, but his personality is holding him back.  Plus he falls for Medusa, a talented girl fighting for the other side.  Kincaid knows just when to twist the knife, too.

OTHERBOUND by Corinne Duyvis
I won a copy of this from Duyvis on Tumblr, and I'm saving it for 48HBC.  The summary, about a boy named Nolan who closes his eyes and sees the life of a girl named Amara, reminds me of the classic BEING OF TWO MINDS by Pamela F. Service.  That alone is enough to make me pick it up.

SCAN by Walter Jury and Sarah Fine
This book actually came out earlier this month; I just haven't read it yet.  This book promises lots of suspense, with aliens that have infiltrated the human race and an invention everybody once.  I love stories where anybody could be the enemy.  It really ratchets up the tension.

LOVE IS THE DRUG by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Honestly, I tend to hate books about viruses because the biology is always so, so bad.  (Alexandra Bracken's THE DARKEST MINDS is a rare one that I like, even if the disease doesn't make any sense.)  At the same time, I really liked THE SUMMER PRINCE and lots of other things Johnson has written.  Therefore, it all add up to me being excited.

GOLDEN SON by Pierce Brown
RED RISING is one of my favorite reads of the year.  It sets the stage for an epic series, and I am eager to see where Brown takes his protagonist Darrow next.  Darrow has successfully hidden himself among the elite he once slaved for, and now it is time for him to start taking them down.  But he'll have to be careful in a brutal society that sacrifices their own children to rise to the top.

TAKE BACK THE SKIES by Lucy Saxon
This book has a cross-dressing heroine and smugglers on an air ship.  I don't care about anything else, I want to read it.  It is the first in a planned six-book series, so Bloomsbury must have some confidence in debut author Lucy Saxon.

Check out the YA science fiction novels I recommend.

Review: Love and Other Foreign Words

By Erin McCahan
Available now from Dial (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Josie Sheridan is very analytical, a bit distant from her own life.  She dissects people's words, the way the same phrase can mean two totally different things depending on tone, speaker, audience, and other context.  She's pretty good at responding to people the way they expect, since she's so good at breaking down communication.  But she's missing a deeper, natural feel for interaction.

Josie's need to understand love comes to a head when her sister introduces her fiance to the family.  Geoff is pretentious and awkward and Josie just knows she can't let Kate marry him.  I liked that we were clearly getting a biased view of Geoff (and Kate), although Geoff did make a genuinely bad first impression.  At the same time, Josie's biases muddled some of Kate's character progression.  Geoff stays about the same, but Kate becomes needlessly cruel.  It's a fairly abrupt character change and I didn't really buy the resolution.  It wasn't earned.

I did think Josie's relationships with boys worked well.  Josie has many sort of love interests, but there is no love triangle.  Author Erin McCahan does a good job of capturing such things as that guy you really like but just don't love and that embarrassing crush on someone older who is basically who you want to be when you grow up.  She also describes Josie's relationships with other girls pretty well.  It brought back memories of all those high school friends who were basically friends because you were in the same extracurricular activity.

I suspect that precocious teen girls will devour LOVE AND OTHER FOREIGN WORDS.  I think Josie's story is very relateable, struggling to find your place when you almost but don't quite fit in.  The family shenanigans will entertain anyone who has been at odds with their siblings.  As a bonus, the romantic plotlines never take over the story despite "love" being the first word in the title.  McCahan get high marks for realism in her latest contemporary novel.

Review: The Swift Boys & Me

By Kody Keplinger
Available now from Scholastic Press
Review copy

When I was in the third or fourth grade, we read THE CAT ATE MY GYMSUIT by Paula Danziger.  I enjoyed the book, but was happy that I didn't have to worry about my parents divorcing.  It seemed like such a terrible thing, especially since I didn't know anyone with divorced parents.  By the time I was twelve, my parents were divorced and I lived in a new city where most of my friends had single parents for one reason or another.   It was a whole new world, but one that was easier with other people who had experienced the same thing and the memory of reading that one book in school.

It is not divorce that breaks the Swift family apart.  (Not initially, anyway.)  It is the father leaving in the night without even a goodbye.  The mother sinks into depression and the three boys react in different ways.  Brian, the oldest, tries to be responsible even though it is too much to handle alone for a boy.  Kevin, the youngest, goes silent.  Canaan, the middle child and Nola's best friend, gets angry.  The fact that their turbulence is viewed through Nola's eyes allows THE SWIFT BOYS & ME to be much lighter than it might have been through one of the boy's eyes.

Nola has lived next door to the Swift boys her entire life.  This is the first summer she hasn't spent palling around with them, and it leaves her a bit adrift.  I really, really loved how Kody Keplinger tackled the friendship between Nola and Canaan.  I wish I'd been exposed to more stories about friendships that become toxic.  Nola makes allowances for Canaan's behavior, which is completely reasonable, but she also determines where she draws the line about how mean he can be, especially if he doesn't apologize.  And, as Nola ventures out on her own, she starts to discover opportunities for friendship and other connections that she was previously closed off to.

I thoroughly enjoy Keplinger's YA books, but I was worried about how her voice would work in an MG novel.  He previous works are very much upper YA.  THE SWIFT BOYS & ME has a cadence that's very Southern and comforting, a cross between Kathi Appelt and Joan Bauer.  It keeps Keplinger's humor and directness, but softens it for the audience.  (I will mention that one scene that might have encouraged my mind to leap to Appelt involves animal abuse.  The animal survives without serious injury.)

I do with that the cover of THE SWIFT BOYS & ME had a chubby girl on the cover, since that is how Nola is routinely described.  Based on the way different characters describe her, I assume that she isn't that chubby, but she's definitely not the skinny girl on the cover.  That's sad, because I feel like Nola is the type of bigger heroine many readers are looking for - one who doesn't lose weight over the course of the novel.

THE SWIFT BOYS & ME is a summer read that tackles growing up, growing apart, and growing together with sympathy and delight.  There are some dark moments, but Nola always fights her way back to the light.  She's a strong little girl, and it's easy to imagine her growing up to have a wonderful life after the book ends.

Armchair BEA: Beyond the Borders

#WeNeedDiverseBooks has been gaining traction across the 'net, and Armchair BEA is no exception.

Logo by Amber

Over the years I've blogged, I've become more aware of what I'm reading.  Who is the author?  Who were the main characters?  Are they just like me, or are they different?  Were they based on a real culture?  Was that culture researched and treated respectfully?

I've found resources like Diversity in YA and American Indians in Children's Literature.  I've tried to maintain my own resource through my QUILTBAG YA list.

Probably the biggest change is that I've imposed a quota on myself.  I try to review at least one book a week by a diverse author or with a diverse main character.  I don't always manage it, but it's been a much easier goal to meet than I first expected.

Some diverse reviews this month include:

• THIS ONE SUMMER by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki
• THE SUMMER I WASN'T ME by Jessica Verdi
• ONE MAN GUY by Michael Barakiva
• ADAPTATION by Malinda Lo
• THE QUICK by Lauren Owen

It has been an extremely rewarding project.  I try to be an attentive reader, and doing this has not only made me more attentive, but more knowledgeable.  I don't always get it right, but with practice I'm getting it better.

Please note that next weekend, June 6-8, is the 48 Hour Book Challenge, hosted by Mother Reader.  This readathon is so much fun, and this year the focus is diverse books.  You read at least 12 hours in a 48 hour period, raise money for charity, and get the chance to win prizes!  Check out my posts from the two times I've participated.

Review: One Man Guy

By Michael Barakiva
Available now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux BFYR (Macmillan)
Review copy

I read ONE MAN GUY this weekend while I was resting in bed, sick.  It was the perfect sort of book to read in those circumstances, light and cute and sweet and so optimistic that I could forget that there is an emergency room bill on the way.

Alek Khederian is stuck in summer school, retaking English and Algebra to make it into the Honors track.  His Armenian parents have high standards that are hard for Alek to live up to, especially when his brother Nic makes it look so easy.  At summer school he gets to know Ethan, who runs with the DOs (dropouts).  He's a relaxed guy, in sharp contrast to the uptight Alek.  Of course, opposites attract.

I liked that ONE MAN GUY wasn't just about the relationship between Alek and Ethan, but that the relationship does affect many things going on in Alek's life.  At fourteen, Alek is really just starting to blossom into his own person, especially given his strict parents.  When the story begins, he's not even consciously aware that he likes guys.  The slightly older Ethan helps him gain another perspective on life.  At the same time, Alek definitely doesn't need to change everything about himself.  He's got qualities that Ethan can learn from too.

Alek's home life is drawn with exquisite detail.  There is food, church, celebrities, history marking Alek and his family as Armenian.  There is dedication to never buying Turkish, due to the fact the Armenian genocide isn't recognized.  It was a wonderful introduction to a culture I know little about.  (And you know I am going to use the recipe for salmas in the back of the book.)

The descriptions of New York City are also top notch.  Ethan is an expert at navigating the city, and he sets out to show Alek the sights.  The use of real places adds to the verisimilitude of the novel and the boys' dates/not dates.  They're certainly more revealing of each boy than simple dinner and a movie.

ONE MAN GUY is a great choice for romance fans.  Unlike a true romance, the main focus is on Alek and his growth as he comes to terms with his sexuality and the difference between his ambitions and his parents' ambitions for him.  (That does not mean Ethan is underdeveloped.)  And I haven't even gone into some of the other great aspects of the novel, like Alek's classic movie and rollerblading-obsessed best friend Becky.  ONE MAN GUY is a great pick for fans of romantic, contemporary YA novels.