SHOCKTOBER Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell YP FIC BLACKWELL

Callum Harris has no idea how or why he went down Crystal Falls. All he remembers is the sensation of being puled down, down, down into total blackness.  When he wakes up he can't see, move, or talk, which is a big problem while his best friend tries to kill him. Aster, he finally is able to communicate he notices everyone is treating him different, hostilely.  He tries to blow it off, but there are other changes.  The town has shut up building which used to be stores only Callum remembers.  Everyone is treating him like he's a completely different person.  His home, his family, even his own dog are all different, all wrong.  either everything in town has changed or he's losing his mind.  Either way he needs to figure out which fast, because it isn't just his former best friend that wants him dead and reality itself seems to be pulling him under.

This book is so creeeeeepy! It's like a really awesome episode of the Twilight Zone. It will keep you spinning and wondering which way is up.  It starts with a very tense and harrowing description of slowly coming out of a coma and not being able to communicate.  These opening chapters totally hooked me.  Blackwell perfectly conveys the panic and powerlessness of the situation and will have you feeling as trapped as poor Callum.  Then the next chapters have him awake, but deeply paranoid as to why people suspect him in the disappearance of someone he never met and who is trying to kill him. It really draws out the eeriness of hospitals late at night.  After that you feel like you can finally get a breather, but you're hit left and right with impossible changes to Callum's reality. He's constantly bouncing from situations that are both familiar and horribly foreign while trying to act 'normal' to people that see him as an almost totally different Cal. It will keep you totally off balance and as unsure as Callum if he's losing his mind or reality itself has shifted.  Either way it makes for a unsettling experience. I especially liked how Callum reacts to the changes.  He behaves totally realistically and is in a near panic that he has to do his best to hide. This is a lot more interesting than if he accepted his situation straight away or immediately went to theorizing and trying to 'fix' his problem. Undercurrent is the rare example of a great idea for a unique plot paired with great execution.  If you want your mind bended, definitely check it out.

You can find Undercurrent in our catalog here.

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.

In Mozart's Shadow by Carolyn Meyer YP FIC MEYER

Nannerl (try saying that five times fast!) has a bright future ahead of her. As a musical prodigy, she could have something precious few women have in 18th century Salzburg: choice.  Unfortunately, Nannerl is a Mozart (as in THAT Mozart) and when wee Wolfgang starts composing at five her gifts pale next to his blinding genius.  She is all but ignored by her family and stuck at home while her family and future seems to fade away.  Her only hope is in her love of music and of a man she is forbidden to be with. This is her courageous and heartrending story of living and loving in the shadows.

Nannerl is such a fully realized character.  Her resentment and determination is made all the more painful, because she has history against her.  Women in the 18th century simply didn't have the same choices as men and therein lies the drama and tragedy.  however, this isn't just a story of being eclipsed by fame, but also reflects a more universal story of family, love, loss, and acceptance.  Carolyn Meyer excels in making humanity shine in young women from history.  She also excels in capturing period details that transport a reader through time, but making the prose and dialogue accessible and flowing.  She really makes the time and place FEEL lived in and real and the people that live their feel like people of their time.  Sadly, most of her fine novels end with compromises and broken hearts because history is often unkind regardless of sex or station. But Meyer does a stellar job at focusing on moments of joy and brightness and seeing the value in lives that can seem empty from far away. I found myself rooting for Nannerl even though I KNEW what her ending had to be, but when all was said and done Meyer did such a great job at emphasizing the little joys that it both highlighted and undercut the sadness and loneliness in her tale.  

You can check the catalog for In Mozart's Shadow here.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL

1986. Eleanor: new kid, big, awkward, crazy-curly super-bright red hair.  Wants everything to just stop. Park: virtually the only Asian in school. Nerdy without being officially classified as a nerd. Wants to drown out the world.  There was no reason they should be together, except for an empty bus seat and a love of X-Men.  Now they’re finding about the power of first love and the powerlessness of love to overcome some obstacles.

This is smart, fun, funny, sweet, genuine, sexy (sta-sta-sta-steamy in parts!), and sad love story that will ABSOLUTELY win over anyone that believes in first love.  You have to love a book where a guy tells a girl, “You can be Han Solo and I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.”  You simply have no choice. I think it could almost function as a human test.  If this book doesn’t make you happy and sad all at the same time you may have to turn in your human card and join the Robot Registry. It takes two very real characters and puts you in both their heads.  The book alternates between both their points of view so you see how both of them view the same situations.  This really makes you feel for and root for this couple, which makes it all the more heartrending when their young love is threatened.  It was also super smart to set the book in the near past.  It brings in obsolete technologies like mix tapes and landline telephones that made connecting with people harder, but perhaps more personal (but that could just be my oldness showing!) Like The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman (which I LOVED as well), this book is realistic about how rare it is for teenage love to work out. So fair warning: this is a definite have a hanky handy read.  Without giving TOO MUCH away, I will say that I loved the ending and it melted by cold dark heart.  It is sweet sad and totally open-ended, so you can write your own ending for these kooky kiddos. 

You can check our catalog for Eleanor & Park here.

The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand by Gregory Galloway YP FIC GALLOWAY

Adam Strand is bored.  So bored.  So bored that he wants to die. So he does. 39 times.  Each time he wakes up “good” as new.  Each time the people around him feel more and more devastated and he feels more and more drawn to die.  Only when another person needs him does he start to question his place in the world and what his absence would mean.

Fair warning: this is a frank and unapologetic look at the urge to die.  This is one of the least sentimental looks at suicide and suicidal thought I’v ever read, which makes it seem all too real. Adam pulls no punches and makes no apologies for wanting to die.  Thusly, he isn’t always the most likable or relatable protagonist.  However, he is clever and intelligent and his feeling of utter alienation and emptiness has been felt by a full 100% of the human population at least once during their lifetimes, so perhaps he’s so unsettling because in a dark and scary way he IS relatable. Galloway’s writing is excellent for the subject matter.  He is excellent at drawing the reader in then pushing the reader away.  This seesaw between interest and anger at Adam’s clearly selfish and devastating actions make for tough but fascinating reading.  Since we are stuck with Adam as our Point of View we have to deal with his apathy and lack of understanding.  This makes the book a character study of sadness and isolation that is hard to beat in YA literature.  I was very happy that Galloway introduced elements of self-awareness and growth slowly and organically.  You can’t have a kid kill himself 39 times and then meet a great gal or a true friend and then turn everything around.  At the same time, it would be irresponsible if the book didn’t address the harm in Adam’s actions and just reveled in bleakness and edginess. Fortunately, Galloway excels at avoiding either extreme. I think anyone that wants to read a incredibly well written book should pick this up, especially if they know someone that has or has had problems with wanting to die.  However, I don’t think anyone entertaining the thought of suicide should read this book until they’ve sought help first, because books like this can be triggering for people facing such thoughts.

As Galloway does at the end of this book I urge anyone considering harming themselves, or anyone that worries someone they know may harm themselves, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-784-2433 or visit www.suicidehotlines.com.   

You can check our catalog for The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand here.

Happy Families by Tanita S. Davis YP FIC DAVIS

“That thing Tolstoy said about happy families got to me. Happy families all are alike-all of them are safe and confident that nothing on this earth can take that away from them. Just like we were before Dad’s little secret hit us like a wrecking ball.”

Ysabel and Justin are two twins on the right track.  Y is a rising art star and Justin has the Ivy League beckoning in his future, but when their dad’s secret life is revealed the ground opens under them and swallows them whole.  Both lose friends and bury themselves to hide from the confusion, guilt, and shame.  When they are forced to go live with their dad during Spring Break and face his secrets head on, they start to question what family really means and how any family can ever be ‘happy’.

So the blurb on the jacket doesn’t let you in on the secret, but the dedication and cover art do AND it’s revealed pretty early on, so SPOLIER ALERT: Y and Justin’s dad reveals that he wears women’s clothing and feels that he is a woman.  So, a bit of a shock is an understatement.  The novel starts with Y and Justin before the big reveal and then cuts to right before their trip with their dad and their lives sort of wrecked.  We get the story from both Y and Juston’s viewpoints and fortunately, both feel like real and different voices. The twins go gradually through the stages of shock, anger, and disbelief into understanding and eventually acceptance.  This is dealt with realistically and doesn’t turn into a lecture or an after school special (Dear Teenagers, ask your parents about after school specials!). They meet people, learn from them, question things, and eventually adapt.   

What I liked most about this novel is the real sense of a loving family torn apart and eventually reunited through love.  Way too often families are entirely on the sidelines or cardboard cutouts in YA lit, but this book has a genuine and warm focus on the family. The book is about a controversial and tough issue to address, but it looks at it in a clear-eyed and non-sensational way. I think it is a great read for anyone that likes family dramas or wants to read about a provocative and unique subject.  

You can check our catalog for Happy Families here.

Zom-B by Darren Shan YP FIC SHAN

Everyone thought it was a joke, a hoax, anything but real.  There’s no such thing as zombies.  B just puts it out of her mind and tries to go about her ‘normal’ life.  But B is wondering more and more how normal her life really is.  She tells herself that even though B's dad is a bigot and has a short fuse, he’s basically okay, but more and more B has to face the evil from inside B's dad and inside.  That’s only if B survives!  Turns out flesh eating zombies ARE real and they’re really hungry!

Okay, I totally get that there are about 18 billion zombie books on the market right now, so it is pretty difficult to wade through the moaning hordes of books.  But Darren Shan is a no-brainer for writing a zombie series!  He is the absolute king of modern gross out teen horror!  And he has made a bold and bloody claim to have the best zombie series out there.  What I love is that this book starts with a bloody bang of zombie mayhem, then switches gears and looks at B’s day to day life and what makes B tick.  And B is not our typical hero.  B’s seriously conflicted about following in B's father’s racist footsteps, but too scared to challenge the life B has.  And that conflict is interesting enough even before zombies start ripping people’s brains out!  And the bloody, gruesome violence will not let down Darren Shan fans or any zombie lovers that like their action fast and brutal.  The central mystery of what is causing the outbreaks and who the mystery figure that B calls Owl Man and what makes the mutants different form the zombies will have to be solved in future volumes.  The book definitely ends with a heart-rending climax that will leave readers drooling for the next title.

I’d say that this is the first zombie horror series that stands up to my all-time favorite zombie series The Enemy books by Charlie Higson.  Weird that they both take place in England! The Brits have a lockdown on my favorite zombie fiction! This is the first part of a 12 part series, but you’ll rip through the slender volumes so fast you’ll be left wanting more.  Fortunately, Shan promises a volume every 3 months and we already have Underground the second book in the series. I’ll definitely be following this one and will keep you all recapped after a few more volumes to let you know how the mystery unfolds.

You can check our catalog for Zom-B here.

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.