Bad Machinery: The Case of the Team Spirit

British artist and writer John Allison started his web comic career earlier than most — back in 1998. Though his stories and characters have changed, he sets his serialized comics in the fictional English town of Tackleford. He currently has been working on a comic series called Bad Machinery, which follows six mystery-solving Tackleford teens, all students at Griswalds Grammar School.

If patiently reading a comic strip panel by panel on an electronic screen isn't for you, fear not; last year Allison released the first print installment of Bad Machinery, called The Case of the Team Spirit (YP FIC ALLISON). (Volume 2, The Case of the Good Boy, is due out later this spring.) My colleague Luke, our young adult librarian, reviewed Team Spirit back in July of last year and I have to say I really agree with his take on the overseas import.

It's hard enough that classmates Shauna, Charlotte, Mildred, Jack, Linton and Sunny are having to navigate both a new school year and a new school. Before they know it, they're all embroiled in the same extracurricular mess. The girls resolve to help an old woman whose house is threatened because it sits on the site of a planned football (as in English football, i.e., soccer) stadium. The boys, on the other hand, are investigating why the local football team seems to be truly cursed with bad luck.

This is a fun, fast read that rocks along with humor that's both silly and snarky. The wonderfully drawn illustrations (and accompanying sound effects) tell half the story; they crackle with energy. Though the style is Allison's own, the comic has a manga-like feel to it because of its mix of heartfelt drama and sly wit. But the teens' sarcastic (and entirely believable) repartee is definitely the star of the show.

Allison does a great job of conveying the relationships between his main characters, the way they both support and snipe at each other. In addition, he populates Tackleford with a colorful cast beyond the story's six young protagonists, and gives each character a distinct personality, even the minor ones like the local bully and the resident middleman ("Johnny Swaps").

Teens and adults alike will enjoy the adventures of these young sleuths. They'll have you chuckling aloud and rooting for them as they attempt to right wrongs and and, oh yeah, suss out the supernatural while mollifying their teachers and family. We can all relate, can't we?

SHOCKTOBER Truth or Dare by Jacqueline Green YP FIC GREEN

Truth or Dare?  It's just a stupid game, right?  Not for Tenley, Caitlin, or Sydney it isn't.  Sure it started as a game, but when they start receiving messages that if they want their most painful  'truths' hidden they'll have to complete more and more dangerous dares, they realize it's deadly serious.

This is a very twisty and exciting thriller from a debut author.  The novel starts off fairly quickly with the basic set up, but takes its time revealing the dark secrets of our three protagonists. Splitting between their viewpoints is a good way to keep the reader more in the loop than the heroines and build tension.  Green really populates her novel with plenty of characters that are more than just set dressing.  It makes the book more than just a Pretty Little Liars knock off, and something special of its own.  It has a great 'just one more chapter' quality that kept me flying through its close to 400 pages! I think there are enough reversals and false clues to keep most readers guessing, but even if you DO figure out the culprit...YOU DON'T!  The book ends with a twist cliffhanger that means you'll have to wait for a sequel to unlock more secrets...if you dare!  

You can find Truth or Dare in our catalog here.

The Symptoms of My Insanity by Mindy Raf YP FIC RAF

Izzy is such a hypochondriac she can't stop wanting to self-check for breast cancer in Bio class.  It doesn't help that her mom for real has cancer, her best friend got a major personality transplant, and the most popular guy in school is acting like he likes her which is CLEARLY impossible.  So it's no wonder she's going insane, the only question is which exact psychosis in the DSM IV should she diagnose herself with.

This is a sneaky, sneaky book.  You'll be so busy laughing at Izzy's super snarky and witty POV you'll sort of lose track of how her life in falling apart around her; until BOOM it hits you right in the kidneys (metaphorically). Izzy gets seriously mistreated by almost everyone she cares about it and keeps on soldiering on with her wry sense of humor, so that you want to shake her and yell, "STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!!!" That is all part of the point as she learns to make better choices as she goes, but I still felt like someone that wronged her most gets off way, way, way, and WAY too easily.  Without spoiling anything the person actually breaks a pretty serious law and gets away scot-free even though they get caught.  I think that this is a mistake on Raf's part.  It became a sort of galling distraction for me and did make me enjoy the book somewhat less.  However, individual readers mileage may very.  The wonderful humor and imminently likeable main character and her hilarious POV really make this book a charmer and a winner.  It also has a very likeable romantic plot and a wonderful family story.  Izzy and her mom's relationship gave me a serious case of the heart warms. This is definitely a wonderful summer read that does a really nice job of being breezy and serious in a very smart way.

You can check for The Symptoms of My Insanity here.

Bad Machinery: The Case of the Team Spirit by John Allison YP FIC ALLISON

In less-than-jolly old Tackleford, England there are mysteries afoot, and two separate trios of youths are on the cases!  Shauna and Charlotte are total BFFs, but Mildred is totes butting in, will they be able to save poor old Mrs. Biscuits from the evil developer that wants to destroy her home to build a new football (the soccer kind) stadium? Jack, Sonny, and Linton want to solve the curse of the local football team (well Linton does, Jack and Sonny are just bored) who happens to be the aforementioned evil developer.  Also there may be a ghost!

This book is absolutely hilarious.  It is filled with clever gags, great characters and at least one joke on every page!  The book is a recurring webcomic (read it here), so that means every page has to have at  LEAST one joke and forces the funny to be on the money. The cast of sort of wonky 12 year-olds looking for something to do really drives a lot of the jokes.  They're in the middle of not being silly kids anymore and having no clue of how to start being teenagers. Allison has absolutely crackling dialogue and knows how to use lettering and pacing to maximize his jokes.  My favorite bit has to be when Mildred points out how illogical ghosts are, because if ghosts DID exist they would absolutely show up every time an American president made a speech to make fart noises. He also makes all the side characters wonderfully weird.  Even the mysteries which are silly and solved in a ludicrously lazy fashion by the kids pay off very nicely.  there are quite a few Britishisms, but they usally make sense in context and there is a helpful glossary in the back. All in all it's a must read for any one that likes their comics actually comic.

You can look for Bad Machinery: The Case of the Team Spirit here.

Mojo by Tim Tharp YP FIC THARP

Dylan Jones wants 'it'.  Charisma, the x factor, that undefinable something: mojo. With mojo, you have power, respect, without mojo you have Dylan, a practical non entity with just enough friends to count on two fingers.  After he (literally) stumbles upon a dead body in a dumpster, and the richest girl in town go missing, Dylan figures his knack of being in the wrong place at the right time might just lead him to solve the case and maybe finding some mojo along the way.

Full disclosure: I picked this book up hoping it would be a memoir by Mojo JoJo.It wasn't, but dag-nab-it I ended up reading it anyways! It is one of a group of mysteries that takes the hard boiled style of the detective stories of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett and transports them to a high school near you.  As a avid reader of those two-fisted who-dun-its I am a sucker for the gab and grit of those books thrown into a new setting.  Mojo does not disappoint.  It get's plenty hard boiled when our hapless hero happens upon some seriously out of his league criminality. Drug dealers, murder, kidnapping, private school gangsters, and class warfare all stand in the way of Dylan and his big scoop (and chance at some elusive coooool).  The book also has a serious humorous side as Dylan and his friends often crack wise (or crack stupid in his best bud's Randy's case) and find the funny side of crime and punishment.  It's like a bit darker version of the Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (YP FIC BERK), which I loved. I will say that some of the close shaves Dylan gets out of are a bit fa fetched, but the book was so fun and fast paced I never really minded.  A great summer read for the mystery humor fans.

You can find Mojo 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!

 

manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen YP FIC LEVEEN

GOOD NEWS: Tyler Darcy has just been published! And he's just a teenager!  BAD NEWS: It's complicated.

Tyler Darcy has loved Rebecca Webb since the moment he first saw her, separating her animal crackers into broken pieces and whole pieces. She only ate the broken ones. ever since then she has been the Unattainable One, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that shakes up your life and teaches you how to really LIVE, man. He tried to find out more about her with Sydney, but just ended up sort of dating her...for two years.  He finally managed to make friends with Rebecca, but never got the courage up to tell her how he feels.  Which brings us back to GOOD NEWS/ BAD NEWS. BAD NEWS: Tyler went and wrote a beautiful story all about Rebecca (well the one that lives inside his head at least) so Sidney has dumped him, his friends think he's at least a little psycho, and he has to finally tell his dream girl all his squishiest feelings.  Unfortunately, dreams don't always come true and when a girl is on a pedestal she has an awfully long way to fall.

DISCLAIMER: I should admit that I hate the fiction trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (a girlish, whimsical young woman that brings troubled moody men out of their doldrums by teaching them to let go and live life to the fullest).  Fortunately, Rebecca isn't really a MPDG at all and this book is a very intelligent look at the dangers of idealization. Really, this book is almost TOO well written. that seems like a pretty unfair complaint, but Tyler is often too witty to read as a real teenager, BUT he is a (newly) published author so it ends up working.  In fact the whole book ends up working really exceptionally well.  It has pitch perfect dialogue, a likeable, relatable, and infuriatingly real (read that as totally blind) protagonist, and a really well developed supporting cast. The book takes place over one night with frequent flashbacks to show how the story got to this point. Leveen is quite good at picking the best moment to jump back and forward to keep us hooked and to highlight his themes and illuminate character.  By only getting flashes of Rebecca we have to first rely on Tyler's (faulty) view of her and his friend's (faulty in a completely different way) view of her.  This keeps the reader as seeing her as mysterious and alluring as Tyler does, and makes her slowly revealed reality more compelling as well. It takes pretty much the whole dang book, but you eventually get to really know both Rebecca and Tyler and they get to know more about themselves.  It's a great book about how stupid love, lust, and impossible ideals make us all.  It's equal parts fast, funny, cool, smart, and memorable. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants a great book about love that isn't always lovely.

You can check our catalog for manicpixiedreamgirl 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 Rule of Won by Stefan Petrucha YP FIC PETRUCHA

Caleb Dunne is a total slacker, so there is no way he’d want to join any movement.  However, if he doesn’t then his overachiever girlfriend, Vicky(in theory they’d balance each other out, in practice…eh?) will dump him hard.  So joining the newest fad is easier than finding a new girl, so dutiful club goer is he.  But this club may just be perfect for Caleb.  It’s all about the new book The Rule of Won. The book teaches you to be a Craver to use positive energy to will the universe to give you whatever you want.  That’s as close to a slacker religion as Caleb has ever heard of!  And it seems like it’s working too!  Sure the leader is sort of creepy and Caleb’s girlfriend seems a little too in too him, sure the club seems way more like a cult than an afterschool pastime, sure any dissent is met with violent retribution, but that’s no reason to go rocking boats, is it?  And if Caleb stops slacking and starts “standing up for what’s right” then he’ll lose everything and be the club’s worst enemy. So why is thinking about fighting back, and how do you fight a group with the whole universe on their side?

This is a weird, dark look at the perils of group think and the desire for easy answers.  It looks at the flip side to philosophies that claim just wanting and believing in something is enough to make it happen, especially any philosophy that promises material gain as a means of fulfillment.  Petrucha does a great job of looking at the emptiness of materialism and the dark side of any philosophy that claims that wanting something makes it happen.  After all, victims of violent crimes shouldn’t be told they just aren’t positive enough.  The fact that the book does so with a lot of humor and a brisk pace is really impressive.  I especially like the message board chapters that show the building mania of the group and their rapid dehumanization.  It’s a clever way to use real life uses of these types of philosophies to push the book forward quickly. I was drawn to the book by the great premise, but was propelled through by the humor and by Caleb.  He’s reliably hilarious and Petrucha does a fine job of setting up relatable reasons for him to be so insufferably lazy.  It is galling to see him chase after the truly heinous Vicky, but it fits with his “do as little as possible to get by” ethos.  Petrucha has crafted a wonderful piece of satire that is both thought provoking and genuinely funny.  It definitely deserves more attention than it got and I hope readers will give it a chance.  I WILL IT INTO BEING. j/k.

You can check our catalog for The Rule of Won here.

The Boy Recession by Flynn Meaney YP FIC MEANEY

The recession is just plain bad for business, but now it’s downsizing Whitefish Bay’s chances for love sweet love.  With a faltering economy a mass exodus of people has left the town’s high school with a 4 to 1 female to male ratio.  That means that any ambulatory male can be on the school team and prize relationship material.  Smart slacker Hunter Fahrenbach has made a school career of just getting by without being noticed, now he’s pursued on all sides.  Kelly Robbins has always been Hunter’s friend but just as things MIGHT be happening with them, he’s become a much desired commodity.  Will the forces of supply and demand trump the power of love?

Wait, Luke is reviewing a book with no zombies, dystopias, death, or horrible bleakness!? I know!  For Valentine’s Day I decided to review a light, funny romance and I’m glad I did.  Told form both Hunter’s and Kelly’s perspectives, this is a laugh filled trifle that goes down easy and doesn’t leave a bitter aftertaste.  Sure, the characters aren’t incredibly nuanced and it has absolutely no action sequences or deep looks at the darkest parts of the human experience, but that doesn’t keep it from being a witty read that I found myself flying through.  Even I found myself rooting for the two kids to find a way to make it work, because I ended up genuinely liking them. The banter is fast and moves at a great clip, which isn’t always realistic, but it sure makes for snappy reading. So, if you want something fun, funny, light-hearted, romantic, and cute then give this one a spin.

You can check our catalog for The Boy Recession here.

Morning Glories Volume 1 by Nick Spencer art by Joe Eisma by Ian McDonald YP FIC SPENCER

Morning Glory Academy is the most prestigious and secretive prep school in the country.  Students are dying to get in, but the students at Morning Glory are just plain dying. The newest crop of students soon discovers that the school has dark secrets, murderous teachers, and tests that are pass/die.  

This is an intriguing new mystery.  Spencer does an excellent job of putting a slew of twists and turns to confound the reader ate every turn.  Every couple of pages we are introduced to a new freaky character, someone is brutally murdered, characters hint at mysterious unrevealed secrets, or other insanity pops up.  There are mysterious artifacts with unexplained power, doppelgangers (Clones? Evil twins? We don’t know yet!), psychic ghost like murderers, and secrets galore.  The plot moves fast and furiously and keeps the reader off balance through each page.  My only real complaint is that a lot of the dialogue sounds like Joss Whedon (Writer/Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse, etc.) light.  Modern teenagers do not make super detailed Star Wars jokes.  Sorry, they just plain don’t and they won’t and your nerd fixations are not his generation’s nerd fixations, Mr. Spencer.  That being said, there is loads of humor that does not feel like it was written by 30-somethings for teenagers and the book is one of the genuinely surprising comics I have read in years. 

You can check our catalog for Morning Glories here.