Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin YP FIC BEAUDOIN

Ritchie Sudden has 90 days.  90 days to think and write about why he's got 90 days.  Well, maybe not think.  Ritchie doesn't want to think the way he thinks you want him to think, but he's worried that that's a cliche so he doesn't care about that...I think.  He does care about his one true friend El Hella, his new very old guitar, a girl that may be just screwed up enough to like him, and his terrible band Wise Young Fool.  Maybe just one or two of those days he'll figure out why everything happened and if it means anything.  Maybe he won't. He may even end up a wise young fool. If not, two out of three ain't bad.

Ritchie has a hilarious and very genuine voice.  Beaudoin totally nails the trying-way-too-hard-to-not-try-too-hard that comes all too often with being a teenager.  Ritchie's crushingly stupid mistakes and unnecessary (but totally awesome) punk rock defiance end up making sense and seeming almost rational as he slowly lets us know more about who he is and what his last few weeks of freedom were like. Especially excellent is the very authentic understanding of music and being in a band.  Beaudoin nails this to the wall and slam dunks it and sundry other expressions for exactitude. It is a welcome change from the often idealized and false look at teen music that comes from writers that have clearly watched too many of those super-awesome movies form the 80s about teen bands Makin It! (this is NOT really the title of a movie starring Lea Thompson and a young Demi Moore, but it could be. It could be.) The music , the grime, the feeling of crushing conformity all make this a book with unique texture, attitude, and spark.  My one gripe is that it definitely suffers from Main Character Making references that are From Author's Teen Decade and Not His Own Too Often, but hey I'm old too so I actually get them! It may be one of many wayward young man write from a correctional facility in a snarky voice and eventually (maybe) learning something from the writing (symbolic of how writing and reading of novels can form a catharsis, perhaps?), but it is definitely one not to miss. 

You can find Wise Young Fool in out catalog here.

Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto YP FIC MATSUMOT

The story of an orphanage in a small Japanese town, the kids that live in it, and a broken down Nissan Sunny 1200. Their hopes, dreams, and loves seem are all shown in vivid relief next to the shame and stigma of being cast offs. 

This is not a fighting giant robots, magical girl, comic love romp, or any other of the well-worn genre staples.  This is a completely unique work. It has a striking visual style that mixes manga and European comic art to create something unlike any other comic being published.  it has it's own slow, wan style that feels more like a Japanese art house film than a comic.  It is an at turns sad and funny look at growing up when you're cast off.  There isn't a grand over arching plot, instead there are short vignettes with each chapter looking at either a different character or a different facet at growing up surrounded by people that are all alone.  It's a beautiful look at nostalgia, loneliness, longing, and the ache of hope.  I think it might end up being his finest work when it's completed. Which is saying a great deal because I absolutely LOVED GoGo Monster (reviewed here) and Tekkonkinkreet (reviewed here).  If you enjoy comics as a valuable artistic medium, then you just have to give Sunny a try.

You can find Sunny in our catalog here.

Winger by Andrew Smith YP FIC SMITH

Meet Ryan Dean West, Ryan Dean is his first name. This is the least of his worries You can just call him Winger like everyone else that doesn't care what his name is and just knows he's a winger on the rugby team. not the least of his worries? Being in O-Hall the wing for miscreants and screw ups at prestigious Pin Mountain Boarding School. Worse, yet?  He's only 14 and a Junior. He reasons it could be worse he could be 15 and a Senior.  Either way every single person he knows is a minimum of two years older than him and considers him "a kid." Especially, and heartbreakingly Annie, the girl of Ryan Dean's heart (and other body parts we won't mention). Though the scrums, the blood, the puke, and the other body fluids of the year he'll learn more about life than he ever wanted to know and that there way more than one way to break your heart. 

Winger  is So! Darn! Great!  Stop what you are doing RIGHT NOW and read Winger. Don't even finish this review.  It's a waste of Winger reading time.  For those of you doubters out there that are still reading this and not Winger, a) ouch, where's the trust and b) I guess I'll have to convince you. For starters, this book is utterly hilarious.  Like busting guts and snorting milk funny. It will speak to the 14 year old boy inside of everyone!  Even if laughing uproariously at brilliantly stupid humor isn't your thing, it has genuine human emotion to spare!  The book is bursting with great supporting characters that are awesome enough to be the protagonists of their own book. even the total jerks are really well written total jerks and some (SPOILER ALERT) turn out not to be jerks at all! It has a great central love story!  Heck it has two!  Ryan Dean and Annie and Ryan Dean and his best friend Joey.  it is able to look at first friendship and first love in a way that is bracingly unsentimental.  You'll find yourself rooting for and against Ryan Dean throughout the book as he goes big and goes stupid in equal measure (again he's 14), but in a way that feels human and all too familiar for anyone that ever felt 'small' and hated it. The book also has a wonderful flow.  It's got Ryan Dean's cartoons, loads of weird asides from our narrator, and loads of seemingly inconsequential but clearly monumental important (when you're a teen) stuff actually happens.  It feels like Smith had such great material, dialogue, characters, and jokes that he could have easily doubled the book, but cut down to keep only the best of the best. The book feels really tight, like every scene serves a real purpose to further show character or move the story forward.  It makes for a really hard to put down book.  So for all of you out there that still aren't reading Winger and are actually reading this review, I apologize.  Clearly I am not a good enough persuasive writer to get you to read what might the best YA book of the year yet.  For everyone else enjoy reading what is DEFINITELY my favorite YA book of this year*.

You can find Winger in our catalog here. 

*Even if the ending was a total gut-punch/face-punch/kick-in-the-ribs of sadness!

 

Riding Invisible by Sandra Alonzo Illustrated by Nathan Huang YP FIC ALONZO

Yancy didn’t run away from home.  He rode…a horse.  That’s vaquero style!  Unfortunately, he doesn’t feel muy macho, because he’s running away from his older brother, The Monster (the docs call it Conduct disorder, but Yancy knows Pure EVIL when he sees it).  Yancy brought his journal so he writes everything that is happening with drawings and comics and everything.

This is one of the best coming-of-age going on a journey books I’ve read in a long time.  First, Yancy is hilarious and his voice seems genuine.  Also his adventure is realistic, exciting, and the people he meets aren’t just there to teach him lessons. Also, his journey from sniveling in fear of his brother to learning to face his problems head on his handled realistically and smartly.  For instance, all of Yancy’s problems aren’t solved in a climactic scene where he finally has to face down his brother and his on fears.  Nope, poor Yancy is powerless to change much of his problems, because he’s fifteen.  This book works so well as a vision of a family dealing with mental illness because it looks at how hopeless it can seem and how only the Adults can make any real changes.  I really wasn’t sure how I’d like the journal format; the font looks like handwriting and instead of chapters we get date entries, but it grew on me and helped me see Yancy as a real person.  The art throughout is quite good and works, because Yancy wants to be an artist.  It never feels like a cheap gimmick.  This is one of those surprising gems that can fall through the cracks, because it isn’t based on a movie, have zombies, or about the world ending.  However, if you want a funny and unique book you should really give Riding Invisible a chance.

You can check our catalog for Riding Invisible here.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield YP FIC ROSENFIE

Amelia Anne is dead but she isn’t gone quite yet.  Becca is ready to get away.  Get away from her small town and everyone that knows her, but the sudden violent death of a stranger keeps Becca stuck as her life seems to spiral out of control over a long summer.  She soon learns that she has more in common with a dead stranger than anyone she thinks she knows and loves, and that the people around her know more about the stranger’s death than they’re letting on.

This book is a weird hybrid between small town coming-of-age tale, gritty murder mystery, and poetic look at the similarities and differences between love, sex, and death. That may seem like an odd combination, and at times it does veer perilously close to melodrama, the end result is an original and powerful look at the perilous period between adolescence and adulthood.  The book occasionally gives chapters from Amelia Anne’s point of view, teasing the reader with knowledge the main character doesn’t have.  This also highlights how much Amelia and Becca have in common and how (and this is sort of a major theme of the book) people that never even meet in life can be connected by death and how violence has ripple effects no one could ever anticipate.  The slow reveal of what REALLY happened to Amelia really builds the tension and having the mystery develop from two points of view makes the story richer and more entertaining. 

Honestly, I had a hard time liking Becca at first because she’s going through a hard time and doesn’t handle it all that well at first.  Also, I immediately liked Amelia Anne and that made the comparison sort of unflattering, but Amelia is several years older than Becca and as I read on I started to see why the death of a total stranger was having such a bizarre effect on Becca. It’s to the author’s credit that she never spells it directly out for the reader and allows you to figure it out for yourself what lies beneath the surface. The prose is truly the shining star of the book.  Rosenfield makes the ordinary seem vital (which is crucial in a book that takes its time to build to any climax) and is able to slowly unfold a moment with her words.  I think Ellen Hopkins fans will appreciate this book (even though it isn’t in verse it’s beautifully written words often feel like poetry), but it moves slower than some of her novels.  It’s dark, sad, and offers no easy answers, but I think honest books about violence ought to be complex.  A very good and very rewarding read that isn’t for everybody, but that will stay with everybody that reads it.

You can check our catalog for Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone here.

Any Empire by Nate Powell YP FIC POWELL

Stuck in a small town, a group of kids look anywhere for escape.  Sometimes this escape is the hyper violent fantasy of daydreams of war and conquest and sometimes it is casual cruelty.  When this leads to the a series of turtles being tortured, one girl vows to find the culprits leading to a spiraling series of events that will tear apart siblings, bring together friends, and lead to a final confrontation years later that could save or doom them all.  

This is a bizarre and brutally accurate look at the horrors of the average adolescence.  Boredom, apathy, cruelty, isolation, loneliness, confusion, and sadness are all commonplace and unchanging.  Powell is an amazing artist and storyteller.  His Swallow Me Whole is an equally frightening look at the dark side of adolescence and his artwork on The Silence of Our Friends is equally stunning.  For the first 90% of this book I was thinking it might just be his masterpiece.  It’s powerful, honest, and raw and pushes the story slowly, but very well.  Unfortunately, the last pages introduce an inexplicable twist from realism to a science fiction parable that ends without a resolution and left me looking back many times to see if I lost some pages that would make any sense of it.  And then the story sort of just ends.  It’s all very avant garde and surreal and very confusing.  I found the sudden surreal ending of Swallow Me Whole much more fitting and actually understandable, so this one does disappoint a bit with the ending.  However, there is a lot that does work with Any Empire and some readers may like the pure weirdness of the ending.  I definitely recommend it for fans of comics as a true artistic medium, just not as enthusiastically as I recommended Swallow Me Whole.

Check out my reviews of Swallow Me Whole here, The Silence of Our Friends here, and check our catalog for Any Empire here.

Silhouetted by the Blue by Traci L. Jones YP FIC JONES

Serena Shaw is finally in the spotlight, but her life behind the scenes threatens to eclipse the on stage drama.  Serena got the lead of her school’s version of The Wiz and she should be happy, but she has to raise her own family since her mom died and her Dad came down with the blue.  Just when she thinks she can’t possibly handle all the responsibilities in her life she starts to learn that if she trusts other people she doesn’t always have to.

This is a short and bittersweet tale of personal growth and overcoming serious problems, but never feels like a Problem Novel.  This is due to Traci L Jones’ excellent understanding of how to sketch characters with just the right few chosen words. Both Serena and her brother Henry are really well realized characters. I liked Serena a lot even though she was often less than likable.  People going through serious hardship usually aren’t all that easy to get along with and her move towards opening up felt real, natural, and earned.  The book doesn’t give a rosy all-too-perfect ending and strikes the right balance of realism and hope.  My only complaints are because the book is so short some plot elements felt rushed and some secondary characters seem shallow.  A good read for people that like realistic fiction and want a quick read.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young YP FIC YOUNG

Saba and her twin brother Lugh have always been inseparable.  Living on a small farm in a wasteland called Silverlake (which hasn’t had a lake as long as Saba’s been alive) they egt by one day at a time.  When a dust storm brings with it four horsemen dressed in black, it also brings the destruction of Saba’s world.  Her father is murdered, Lugh kidnapped, and she set to the winds of the wasteland with her little sister in tow.  She learns fast that to survive on the road you must pay a toll of blood: yours or someone else’s.  Thus her epic journey from girl to warrior begins.

This is one of the best dystopian novels I’ve read in a while and I have to read about 3 a day (slight exaggeration)!  Fans of the Hunger Games need look no further for a new series to seek their teeth into.  This has all the blood, carnage, tragedy, character, and world building that make Hunger Games so great. Saba is tough, cool, and a worthy successor to Katniss. She’s a bit tough to like at times, though.  She has a hard time accepting friendship or help and her single-minded drive to achieve her goals makes her hardcore but also off putting. I loved seeing her turn from normal girl into gladiator and warrior, but at times her awesomeness seems kind of unrealistic. Besides a great main character it also has a really interesting writjng style.  Everyone speaks in this odd dialect that takes a while to get used to, but draws you into this new world very well.  What I love was the brave decision to make Saba the narrator, so that we are in her head and that the whole story is in her unique voice.  Great action packed plot, wonderful prose, great strong female protagonist, that clinches it, Blood Red Road is my must read pick for any and all readers!

Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked this Way Comes : The Authorized Adaptation by Ray Bradbury adapted by Ron Wimberly SF BRADBURY

Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show is a carnival like no other. It promises to fulfill your every dream while feeding on your darkest nightmares.  destroying every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. It’s just rolled into the small town of Green Town, Illinois and best friends Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are determined to uncover its secrets, but some secrets are best left unknown.

This is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the original novel.  The wonderful characters and language that bring this creepy tale to magical life is fully intact in this graphic novel adaptation.  I like the artwork quite a bit.  It is funky, odd, and almost cartoonish it is so stylized. It reminds me of the European-Japanese inspired style of Taiyo Matsumoto behind Tekkonkinkreet (FIC MATSUMOTO) and that is a very high compliment coming from me. I only have a minor complaint.  Sometimes the lettering is blurry and you have to read more carefully than you should.  It’s a surprising mistake in a professional publication, but it never makes the words unreadable. With great art and a classic and timeless story you really can’t go wrong.  This is a must read for all fans of dark fantasy young, old, and in between.  Absolutely check out the source material.  The original novel can be found at SF BRADBURY.