Vol. 11 #2
Just a reminder, the books reviewed here are recommended. I can't see wasting time reading a book I don't like when there are so many fabulous reads out there. Every book here kept me reading instead of dropping it and going on to the next book.
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YA/ Contemporary
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Every once in a while a contemporary YA novel comes along that makes a huge impact. These are the books that I talk about for years and recommend often. I’ve tried to think of a good genre designation for them but haven’t come up with one. They are books that touch my heart. Some of the books that have fallen into this category are Rats Saw God, A Room on Lorelei Street, and Breathing Underwater. The latest one I’ve found is Nailed by Patrick Jones. It really delves into how Bret, a teenage outsider who is coming into his own with a band and a girlfriend, feels and makes him a very real, very complex person who grows through the course of the story as he faces first love and betrayal while all the time battling his father who tells him that the nail that sticks out the farthest gets hit the hardest. The relationship between Bret and his father is extremely well depicted and even the villain of the story is sympathetically portrayed.
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World of Faerie
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Musician and former heroin addict, Douglas Stewart takes up the long forgotten offer of a place to stay made years ago by his grandmother who lives in Scotland. Trying to stay clean he ventures to Edinburgh where he takes up busking. When a mysterious young woman gives him a vial of white powder he just can’t resist and shoot up with it only to discover that instead of being his drug of choice it is something that has given him the ability to see those of the fey who move among us. Soon he is thrust into the conflict between two warring factions of faerie.
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Sword and Sorcery / Epic
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On his 50th birthday, the Nain equivalent of human age twelve, Ven goes out on his first inspection cruise on a ship built by his family and finds himself at the beginning of an adventure that will see him facing pirates, ghosts, and horrifying evil, leaving messages on the winds, traveling to a distant land, being thrown in jail, and finding friends loyal and true. This is truly a stunning fantasy novel with well developed characters, an exquisitely rendered world, and fast paced plotting. Even though it won't be out until August, participants at last month's Future of Fantasy PLA preconference took advance reading copies home with them and are sharing them with teen readers who love it. Read the teen reviews.
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YA/contemporary
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Harlan has a quip for every situation and is at ease everywhere, after all he’s been being groomed for high political office all his life. He has a girl friend he doesn’t really like, and is popular not only with his classmates who elected him president of the student body, but also with his teachers. Unfortunately his overbearing mother plans his entire life for him requiring him to attend functions that will make his father, the senator, look good. He has also been experiencing terrifying premonitions. Harlan’s story alternates with that of Manny, a theater geek, who lives with his single dad and hangs out with his best friend who is a Deaf girl. Manny suffers from horrific nightmares that make him start thinking his dad is hiding something which coupled with the fact that there are no photos of his first three years makes him very suspiscious. Like Graham McNamee’s Acceleration, the pacing starts off at a moderate pace and accelerates to the totally unexpected ending. Hartinger always satisfies with a great read and Grand & Humble is no exception. Readers will be talking about this unique story.
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YA/ Issues/ Homelessness and Foster Living Arrangements Sparrow
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Kendall lost her entire immediate family in a car accident when she was four. Since then she and her G’ma have been family and G’ma in addition to imparting a love of the blues has instilled in Kendall the concept that family is of utmost importance. High school has been tough for Kendall since she rushes home at lunch and after school to take care of G’ma after she suffered a stroke. In her last semester of high school G’ma dies and Kendall finds that she has an aunt who lives in New Orleans. When the aunt doesn’t show up at the funeral and Kendall needs a signature to keep her apartment she leaves Chicago on a bus to New Orleans where she finds her aunt has left. With shrunken funds and no place to stay she agrees to stay in the shotgun apartment that had been rented to her aunt if she will take care of the landlady’s seventeen year-old-daughter who has serious physical disabilities. A touching and poignant tale of Kendall discovering what family really means as she makes a new home for herself with people she needs and who need her. Smith also wrote Lucy the Giant, another fabulous novel of a teen girl surviving bad things in her life.
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YA/ Contemporary/ Fashion Accessory
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The three teens from The Nannies are back about two weeks into their stints caring for the kids of the rich and famous. Lydia is scheming a way to make some big money, Esme is torn between her long term boyfriend who escaped a gang to become an EMT and Jonathan, the hunky son of her boss, and Kiley while trying to keep her young charges safe, suspects that the gorgeous male supermodel she is dating only likes her as a friend. A titillating title for a well told story of three teens from wildly divergent backgrounds who are trying to make their way in the alien world of the rich and famous. Like the main characters in Zoey Dean’s A-List series, the protagonists are not mean spirited and are easier to relate to than the ones in Gossip Girls.
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YA/Issues /Death |
Liz’s life changes when her grandmother, Bunny dies. Her mother falls apart, becoming seriously depressed until she starts going to a church that purports to talk to those who have gone beyond. Unfortunately her dad has reasons to distrust religion and the family ends up in serious trouble. The crabby neighbor across the street suddenly has grandchildren and a daughter, Lily, living with her. Lily is dying of leukemia while sixteen year old Nathan tries to come to grips with his mother’s imminent death and keep it secret from his younger sister Courtney who adores Liz.
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YA/ Issues/Death YA//Contemporary/Coming of Age |
Clay and Addison, first cousins, had been close when they were little but their families had a falling out when Clay’s family moved out of the projects. They come together again in a rehab/school day program. Clay has been sent by his parents because they discovered he was smoking weed. Addison was caught selling crack on a street corner. One evening on their way to a school function, Addison starts chasing a kid who owes him a gambling debt and he and Clay end up on a roof in the projects. The police come through the door and shoot Addison. A local politician comes into the mix using what he considers a case of a white cop killing a black teen to further his own goals and putting words into Clay’s mouth. A thought provoking book that really dissects the issues from Clay’s beautifully depicted viewpoint. Volponi’s book Black and White was a huge hit with teen readers and this shares the same “life is tough” appeal.
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YA/Fantasy
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Rossamund Bookchild arrived at Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls as an infant with only one possession -- a girl’s name. He grew up hearing tales of the vinagaroons and dreaming of sailing the vinegar seas but when people came to Madam Opera’s looking to hire on the foundlings who were old enough to go out into the world he wasn’t picked by anyone who wanted him for a seagoing career. Finally he was hired as a lamplighter a position for which he would have to travel far. His dear friends at Madam Opera’s, his school master and a maid, made sure he was well equipped to go out into the world. Heading for the small craft that would take him on the first leg of his journey to his new job, Rossamund is deceived by pirate and ends up on the wrong boat starting his adventurous quest. High quality word building makes this a delight and readers will be looking forward to the next installment with great anticipation.
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YA/ Paranormal
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Sabine is forced to leave her friends and grandmother and go back to live with her mother. She becomes an assistant to her former fencing teacher and reconnects with some old friends but is haunted by the ghost of Kip, the football player she had tried to warn whose death led to her expulsion from school and estrangement from her friends. Kip wants her to save someone but first she must discover who. Don’t Die Dragonfly was a huge hit with reluctant teen readers attesting to Singleton’s ability to tell a fascinating story with impeccable pacing .
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Fantasy/ Humorous
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Bad Prince Charlie, the bastard son of the King of Damask, returns home for his father’s funeral and finds that his uncles want him to take the throne. Damask is in trouble -- faced with famine and corruption in high places. The only solution seems to be having another country come in and take over Damask. Of course something has to be done to make the populace accede to the take over. Charlie is to make everyone hate him so the nobles will rebel and the neighboring kingdom will step in. The ghost of Charlie’s father clues him in to the existence of a WMD (weapon of magical destruction) that takes him to a temple and a beautiful young seer. Moore's humorous fantasies are delights filled with word play and the twisting of fairy tale tropes.
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Adventure/ Crime/ Legal Thriller |
A finalist for the Edgar Award, Connelly’s latest follows the story of Mickey Haller, a defense attorney who works out of a Lincoln Town car. He has a young daughter and two ex-wives with whom he is still friends. When a “franchise client” a client with lots of money accused in a crime that involves a lengthy and involved defense named Louis Roulet hires him, he is elated but his late father’s words "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [mess] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life" haunt him. Working on the case he finds true evil that takes one friend and threatens everyone he loves. A very fine legal thriller with unforgettable characters.
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Mainstream / Literary
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Ruby and Rose Darlen are as close as sisters, as twins, can be but have never directly seen each other’s faces. They are craniopagus twins, joined at the head. This fictional autobiography told as they approach their thirtieth birthday with knowledge of their mortality is filled with love, between them and their adoptive parents Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash Darlen. As people are a result of their parentage and upbringing Lovey and Stash’s stories are also told adding texture and depth to well told stories of the conjoined twins called by all in their small Ontario town simply The Girls. Abandoned by their teenage birth mother, Lovey and her Slovak immigrant husband Stash took them in. It is subtle, complex, literary fiction of the highest caliber not only written with grace and charm but also telling a compelling story beautifully.
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Crime/ Suspense
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A young widow’s son is kidnapped and she is forced to withdraw her savings and wire them out of the country for the kidnapper but then her son’s baseball coach, the local sheriff, is found in her freezer with a bullet between his eyes. All evidence points to her. Her smart attorney and an unusual investigator keep up the search for the missing boy. Meanwhile in another part of town another mother has a missing son. This page turner is impossible to put down. Fans of Mary Higgins Clark will enjoy caterer Kate Bickford’s, unrelenting mission to find her adopted son Tomas before it is too late. It is my number one recommendation for vacation reading this summer.
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Crime/ Legal Thrillers
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Victor Carl wakes up after a drunken night with a tattoo of a heart and a banner reading Chantal Adair on his chest and no memories of how he came to have it. Meanwhile he is working on a case as a favor to his father. A formidable elderly Greek woman, Zanita Kalakos wants to see her son who has been on the lam for 25 years. Victor is to make a deal so that Charles can come home. Unfortunately, even though the statute of limitations on the robbery of a museum where a couple of priceless paintings were stolen has run out, the FBI wants him to turn on some criminal cohorts he hooked up with later. While trying to find out why the DA won’t give Charles a deal and looking for how and why name Chantal Adair was tattooed on his chest, Victor discovers that a six year old girl went missing in the same neighborhood that Charles and his four co-criminals lived in at the time of the robbery. Victor's travels take him to a strip club where he meets Monica, the unusual sister of the dead girl, to LA where the mastermind of the robbery had become successful with a new name and a life in the movie industry.