Ha Ha Ha-larious Teen Reads!

Want to read something ha ha ha-larious? We have a new bibliography of YA comedy gems that are guaranteed to split sides and bust guts, or your money back!  Okay, it is FREE to check out books, so the money back thing might not be THAT enticing but these books truly are cream of the crop of comedy!  Click here to see our full list of book lists for teens and check out some of my TOP of the Top comedy picks below:

Bad Machinery: The Case of the Team Spiritby John Allison YP FIC ALLISON Six kids navigate the treacherous waters of school and adolescence while whole-heartedly diving into the whirlpool of mysteries that swirls around the peculiar English town of Tackleford.

Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator by Josh Berk YP FIC BERK Guy Langman, his best friend Anoop, and other members of the school Forensics Club investigate a break-in and a possible murder, which could be connected to the mysterious past of Guy's recently-deceased father.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray YP FIC BRAY  When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

Mangaman by Barry Lyga and Colleen Doran YP FIC LYGA Ryoko Kiyama, a character from a Japanese comic book, or manga, falls through a rip into the real world--the western world--and tries to survive as the ultimate outsider at a typical American high school.

Crap Kingdom by D. C. Pierson YP FIC PIERSON Tenth-grader Tom Parking's dream of being swept away to a fantasy land where he becomes a hero nearly comes true when he finds himself the Chosen One of a nameless world, the most annoying, least "cool" place in the universe.  

Dodger by Terry Pratchet YP FIC PRATCHET In an alternative version of Victorian London, a seventeen-year-old Dodger, a cunning and cheeky street urchin, unexpectedly rises in life when he saves a mysterious girl, meets Charles Dickens, and unintentionally puts a stop to the murders of Sweeny Todd

 Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story by Adam Rex YP FIC REX After being bitten by a vampire, not only is Doug doomed eternally to be fat, but now he must also save himself from the desperate host of a public-access-cable vampire-hunting television show that is on the verge of cancellation.

There is no Dog by Meg Rosoff YP FIC ROSOFF When the beautiful Lucy prays to fall in love, God, an irresponsible youth named Bob, chooses to answer her prayer personally, to the dismay of this assistant, Mr. B who must try to clean up the resulting

Winger by Andrew Smith YP FIC SMITH Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

Bandette: Presto by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover YP FIC TOBIN The world's greatest thief is a costumed teen burglar in swinging Paris by the nome d'arte of Bandette! Gleefully plying her skills on either side of the law, Bandette is a thorn in the sides of both police inspector Belgique and the criminal underworld.

Dogs of War by Sheila Keenan & Nathan Fox YP FIC KEENAN

Boots, Loki, Sheba.  Three dogs in three wars that wagged their take in the face of death.  Boots braves the dangers and rats of trench warfare of WW I, Loki pulls a sled in a forgotten front of WW II, and Sheba sniffs out snipers and booby traps in the jungles of Vietnam. A harrowing but hopeful look at the ravages of war and the humanity and canine-ity  that comes from unlikely heroes.

This is a gorgeously illustrated and very well measured look at war.  It has all the rousing adventure and excitement that is common of classic war movies and stories, but looks at the all-too-high human cost of war. It never turns The Enemy into an evil monolithic force, and invites the reader to both feel the fear of being fired upon and the sadness of having to fire back to survive. Best of all is it has dogs!  Great, beautiful, heroic dogs that absolutely leap off the page and into your heart!  I felt as much (if not more) tension worrying what would happen to the dogs as I did for the human characters. the book does occasionally stray very close to cliche, but the unique and detailed artwork keeps it from every feeling cheesy or stagnant. Fox uses a slew of clever artistic devices to bring the reader into the action: tight, cramped panels to press the claustrophobia of trench warfare, the use of bright color against expanses of white and light blues to play off the feeling of being all too visible against an invisible enemy, dreams and reality fading into each other for a vet that is still in the jungle even when he make sit home, and more. The only gripe I have is that it perpetuates the long discredited myth of Vietnam veterans being spat upon when returning home. This is a commonly told myth, so it doesn't distract too much from the overall story. If you are a fan of comics, then you have a great beautiful book to read, and if you like war stories at all this could be a great way to break into graphic novels.

You can find Dogs of War in our catalog here.

Bandette Volume One: Presto! by Paul Tobin art by Colleen Coover YP FIC TOBIN

Bandette is the world's greatest thief!  She steals from the dastardly and gives to well, herself, but also to claims adjusters and museums (if the pay is right).  And she does so with panache,  style, flair, elan, dash, verve, zest, spirit, brio, éclat, vivacity, and gusto!  She outwits the long suffering Police Inspector Belgique, matches wits with the other world's greatest thief (the title is currently contested), Monsieur, and draws the ire of the Arch Criminal Absinthe.  Can Bandette and her crew of urchin helpers defy the world's deadliest criminal empire?  Presto!

This book is flat-out fun. It is (sadly) so very rare to say that about any comics these days.  Every one thinks that being moody, violent, and depressing is super mature and deep. This results in a LOT of overly and unnecessarily violent books that all feel sophomoric instead of smart.  I mean, even Superman is brooding and dark these days!  SUPERMAN! So this retro-cool throwback to heist movies and books of the 60s is a glorious breath of fresh air.  Bandette, the carefree thief, who can outsmart everyone and have fun doing it is an antidote to the antihero!  The art is as vibrant, colorful, and fun as Bandette herself. It has a simple, painted look of old French posters, that evoke the spirit of energy and motion perfectly.  the characters aren't incredibly deep, nor do they need to be.  They are fun archetypes that move the clever and absurd plot forward. Also, it is very nice to see a female lead that isn't a pin-up girl wearing as little skin tight clothing as possible. This is a great read for fans of fun, happiness, and comics that are actually comic.

You can find Bandette (but you'll never catch her!) in our catalog here.

Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergast YP FIC PRENDERG

Raphaelle (call her Ella. Do it.) is starting a new school with a new name and a new attitude. No more rivalries, no more 'pranks', no more glowing in the dark, and certainly no remembering the horrible night. She'll fit in, get through it, and start her 'real' life after high school. But when her muse calls, she has to answer and her art gets labeled a crime.  

I love a good verse novel and this is a very strong addition to the form.  It has snark to spare, confronts Serious Issues with a deft hand, a crackling pace, and a memorable narrator.  Of course, verse novels live or die by the narrator.  A good narrator makes the poetic language feel natural and confessional. A bad narrator painfully reminds you of your own terrible teenage poetry that should most definitely be burned with fire. Ella's dark as midnight on a moonless night humor made me want to be her partner-in-crime BFF from page one. She can be cutting and is already very removed and aloof when the novel starts, but her interest in The Starbucks boy later to be known as Sam, humanizes her and adds some much appreciated warmth in the early pages. Sam's issue with his Muslim faith conflicting with his growing interest in Ella are handled well without ever seeming to mock or bash the idea o religion itself.

The book is wonderfully interesting to read even before the plot gets into serious motion, which is always a sign of a good novel.  However, the story sometimes does seem to have a lot going on all at once.  There's a love forbidden by Religion, art vs. censorship, Mom's eating disorder, general high schoolery, and Ella's painful past all thrown in the mix.  Overall, I think the novel balances them pretty well and, of course, often life does hit you with everything at once, but there are places where it feels like more could have been done with less.  If you like verse novels like those by Ellen Hopkins or Carol Lynch Williams, you should greatly enjoy Audacious.

You find Audacious in our catalog here.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (Book 1 in the Finishing School Series) 
YP FIC CARRIGER

Sophronia Temminnick (age 14) is incorrigible, or at least her mother and most of her family think so. She likes to climb things, such as people, trees, and dumb waiters. She is also very forward in her ways (doing things that are "not done" by "proper young ladies") So when her mother learns about Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, she decides to send Sophronia there. Unfortunately for her mother (and very fortunately for Sophronia), this is not exactly the kind of finishing school that her mother thinks it is. An attack on the group on the way to school is the first clue. The mention of a "prototype" carried by the woman who came to get her is the second. The werewolf that gets them on board the giant derrigible, which is the school, is the third. What Sophronia does not expect is to fit in so well to her new school so well, or to make some good friends along the way. Will her new skills, new friends, and incorrigible nature help get her through her first year in finishing school, get her hands on the "prototype," and foil the schemes of resident mean-girl Monique?

Having read Gail Carriger's Soulless, I had high expectations for Etiquette & Espionage, and I was not disappointed. Sophronia is a lot younger than Alexia, but still has the same independent and capable nature. Carriger always impresses me with her witty dialogue, and she can write a simple phrase that just has me rolling with laughter. This a very fun read, and I highly recommend it.    

Written in the same world as her Parasol Protectorate series (set 25 years earlier), Gail Carriger takes a YA look into Victorian England and Steampunk, along with series like The Steampunk Chronicles Series by Kady Cross (The Girl in the Steel Corset, The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, The Girl With the Iron Touch), The Infernal Devices Series by Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess), The Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volumes 1 and 2 (the graphic novels) by Alan Moore.

The second book in the series, Curtsies & Conspiracies was recently released and can be found in the New YP book section.


If you are interested in more Steampunk, check out the Steampunk display next to the catalog computers.

Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick YP FIC SEDGWICK

A reporter in 2073 investigates a remote island said to have discovered the secret to immortality, an archeologist in 2011 tries to dig the island's secrets from the ground, a downed pilot in WW II trying to go home, further back a painter, further back a ghost, further still a vampire, and last or first a Viking king.  Throughout it all a love that lives and dies again and again.  Seven stories that all make on tale of Midwinter Blood.

I can see very easily why this won the prestigious Printz Award. It is dark, lyrical, haunting, and stays with you every time you put the book down. It is a sad, beautiful, and frightening look at lives interconnected by love, loss, and violence. This isn't a ghastly and gory look-out-it's-right-behind-you!!! kind of book, it's a much creepier slow building tension. The feeling of inevitable and inescapable doom. The very first chapters introduce you to a strange, seemingly perfect island. Since, we've all seen the movies and read the books about perfect small towns, that alone puts the reader on edge. Sedgwick ratchets up the tension quickly but vaguely. You know something is very wrong, but not what. This will be a recurring theme!  

Sedgwick jumps each story further back in time repeating images, phrases, and similar characters. This can be maddening at first, because you get so little to go on to solve the ever weirder mystery. Even when you finish the book entirely you may feel like you have more questions than answers. I'd like to go on record as calling that a good thing. It's so refreshing to read a book that respects teen readers enough to let them come up with their own answers.

What's so great about this book, is that it's deep and simple.  Sedgwick relies on as few words as necessary making it a stark and spare style that fits his story and themes perfectly. It also makes it so much easier to be swept quickly again and again on the currents of time. This is a rare and unique novel that should be read by anyone that loves a good story, especially a dark and haunting one

You can find Midwinter Blood in our catalog here.

 

YALSA's announces their Printz award for 2014!!!

YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association if you're not into that whole brevity thing) awards one and only one book with it's most coveted honor (and pretty much the biggest deal ibn YA fiction PERIOD), the Printz Award.  Named in honor of Michael L. Printz, a long time member of YALSA who has passed away, the Printz is given to the book that exemplifies the best of what young adult literature can do.  This year's winner is...

Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick YP FIC SEDGWICK
Seven linked vignettes unfold on a Scandinavian island inhabited--throughout various time periods--by Vikings, vampires, ghosts, and a curiously powerful plant. Stories of the future, the past, fate, and tragedy wrap in and out of each other in an ever widening tapestry.  A strange, beautiful, and intricate novel of quiet power that will stay with you far after the last page. You can find Midwinter Blood in our catalog here. Watch out for my review coming soon!


 
The also excellent, very prestigious, and just-an-honor-to-be-nominated honor books are:

2014 Honor Books

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.  Find it in our catalog here. Read my positively gushing review here.


Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal YP FIC COKAL
The wedding festivities of Scandinavian Princess Sophia are thrown into turmoil by an illness plaguing the royal family and a courtier's plot that places a seamstress and a royal nursemaid at the center of an epic power struggle. Find it in our catalog here.
 
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, illustrated by Julian Crouch J FIC GARDNER
Following a stray football to the other side of a wall where there is a secret, Standish Treadwell discovers astonishing truths about a moon landing that the overseeing Motherland, a ruthless regime, is determined to hide. Find it in our catalog here.

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool YP FIC VANDERPOOLOdyssey-like adventure of two boys' incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail where they deal with pirates, buried secrets, and extraordinary encounters. Find it in our catalog here.

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?

Luke's Top Ten books of 2013 are:

Since everyone else in the world gets to opine on what the best YA books of last year were, I have decided to (humbly) offer my own list of MY favorite    titles.  Enjoy!


October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman YP FIC NEWMAN 
A beautiful and heartbreaking collection of poems about the sensless murder of Matthew Shepard.





 
Read my review here.

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

Adam Strand kills himself, but just keeps coming back.  If he can't figure out how to die, maybe he can figure out how to live.

Read my review here.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL

Two outcasts find love, but don't know how to hold onto it in this sad and beautiful love story.





Read my review here.

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy A. Bastian YP FIC BASTIAN
A beautifully illustrated comic about a pirate girl with a curse and a great adventure.


 


Read my review here.

manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen YP FIC LEVEEN

Tyler loves Rebecca Webb, but has no idea who she really is.  Can he summon the courage to tell her and will eh like what he finds when he really gets to know her?




Read my review here.

Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff YP FIC ZADOFF
He is nobody. A teen shadow assassin that goes from job to job killing whatever target he is assigned.  But the new target has him questioning his orders, something that could get him killed.



 Read my review here.

Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin YP FIC BEAUDOIN
The court ordered diary of an aspiring punker and his (mis)adventures that lead him in juvie and looking at what went wrong.





 Read my review here.

The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman YP FIC WASSERMAN
After the Killing Night, where five murders killed with no motive, the sleepy town of Oleander just wants to forget. But something has changed in the people, an evil has awakened, and it will destroy the whole town if it is isn't stopped.


 

 Read my review here.

Winger by Andrew Smith YP FIC SMITH
Ryan Dean is younger than all the other students at Pine Mountain Boarding School and both too smart and too dumb for his own good. He'll need all the help he can get of this sad, hilarious, ridiculous, and profound coming-of-(almost)age novel.



 Read my review here.

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block YP FIC BLOCK
Pen's world (heck the whole world) turned upside down after the Earth Shaker.  Now her, a rag tag group of froends, and a dog eared copy of The Odyssey are all that stand between an army of giants, their psychotic leader, and the total destruction of the (rest) of the world.


 Read my review here.

Unwritten by Mike Carey art by Peter Gross SF CAREY

Tommy Taylor is a worldwide phenomenon.  The boy wizard that has repeatedly bested the evil Count Ambrosio is beloved by people of all ages across the globe, and even has a almost religious following among his most fanatical fans.  Tom Taylor is just the son of the author and coasting on his celebrity as the 'inspiration' for Tommy.  Then a woman tells him he has it all backwards.  He IS Tommy and fiction is far realer than any of us know.  Happy to write her off as a raving lunatic, Tom changes his tune when he becomes targeted by a secret society dedicated to controlling all human history and destiny by controlling the stories we tell. This starts an amazing adventure beyond truth, fiction, fantasy, or reality.

This series just keeps getting better and better! It starts as a mystery/thriller and the story keeps twisting and turning and adding all sorts of amazing new layers.  The slower start really lets you get to know Tom and watch him grow and falter. It helps build the relationships between Tom and his two companions to something of real substance. What makes the series so great is that Tom isn't just a reluctant hero, he's not necessarily even a hero at all.  He has been written to be a hero by his controlling, reality-altering father for ;the greater good', but he balks at heroism at every turn.  The book's villains are definitely capital E evil, and raise the stakes remarkably well.  However, Carey isn't afraid to upend everything and start anew with Volume 7.  The book feels epic in scope and grandeur, without ever feeling forced or corny.  It has a lot to stay about the power and source of stories and builds a fascinating and ever growing world of fiction that lies underneath our own.  You will find yourself finishing one volume and jumping to the next immediately.  You will also find yourself rereading several pages over and over, or even whole issues to relive a big moment.  This book has serious complexity and depth and challenges the very notions of what is fiction and what is real.  It does it all with a mix of action, adventure, romance, humor, and philosophy that is hard to match in comics today.  

The art took a while for me to really appreciate. Peter Gross isn't the flashiest or most detailed artist, but he really does work for this project.  He helps ground the book in a sense of reality, so when they interact with the world of fiction it feels momentous.  That's hard to do in a comic book, where we are used to impossible things on every page.  This is an absolute must read for fans of serious comics, and I think it will make a lot of fans of comics for anyone that gives it a shot.

SIDENOTE: We have volumes 1-7 and a sort of prequel called Tommy Taylor and the Ship that Sank Twice.  I'd wait to read it until you've finished Volume 6.  That was when it was published and it fits really well there.

You can find the first volume of Unwritten in our catalog here.

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block YP FIC BLOCK

Pen has a story to tell.  Stories have power and hers may just save the world. At least what's rest of it.  The Earth Shaker ripped the world apart and the sea reclaimed the land.  all Pen wanted was to find her family, a home, but she'll have to make a journey first. An odyssey.  She'll make a new family, face down giants, and fight the man that destroyed the world. 

This is the best posy-apocalyptic reimagining of the Odyssey I've ever read! Sure, it's the ONLY one I've ever read, but that's just another point in it's favor.  Francesca Lia Block always writes beautiful stories with amazing descriptive prose that can pull you into any world or person she imagines, so it is no surprise she can make something as odd as a post-apocalypse Odyssey come to life. Like the Odyssey before it this book is really about the power of stories and storytellers.  It also goes deeper into what gives the stories power.  Things like hope, faith, loyalty, love, hate, death, and more.  It is also about how we make our own family's but are also tied forever by the family that made us.  If this all sounds pretty philosophical and heady, well, yes it is.  It's also beautiful and magical and filled with an unashamed wonder of words and magic.  It's a love letter to the power of belief and fantasy.  It's also a look at what happens when the good things in life are betrayed and twisted.  This won't be a story for everyone. It tosses and turns and gets twisted inside and out before it all comes back together.  For me that was a frustrating, but ultimately rewarding experience.  I realized I was taken on a journey, too.  Like Pen it was not the one I wanted, but it was the right journey.  If you want a very strange trip, I can't recommend this book enough.

You can find Love in the Time of Global Warming in our catalog here.

Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang YP FIC YANG

Boxers- Little Bao was happy with his simple life in his small village, but when foreign missionaries smash the harvest idol it leads to a path of destruction for his family.  A strange man come to town that teaches the ways of kung fu, he becomes his disciple and later the student of the man's master.  He learns the skills to drawn in spirits and gods to become invincible warriors.  They realize they must drive out the foreign influence that is killing their nation and kill any, including women and children, that stand in their way. 

Saints- Four-Girl.  She doesn't even get a name. Born fourth means born unlucky. Four means death, so when she meets a strange doctor that gives free cookies and tells her that a Christian church will giver her a new name, she jumps at the chance.  She is reborn as Vibiana, but that rebirth marks her for death. Her visions of Joan of Arc make her want her own calling, but what will it be and will it call for her to suffer the same fate as Joan? The Boxers are slaying Christians wherever they find them and she has put herself right in their path.

This is a brilliant look at cost of war, violence, and oppression.  It makes no excuses for the atrocities on either side, while populating the book with all too human characters.  Little Bao is driven by heartbreak, desperation, patriotism, and hope.  Unfortunately, he is driven to commit atrocities against innocent people.  Vibiana is driven to find some sort of destiny after being born cursed.  Her early attempts to be a devil are one of my favorite parts of the whole story, as are the young Little Bao's love of Chinese opera.  It was very hard to follow Little Bao down a path of darkness and watch him continually betray his own principles. It was hard to watch Vibiana blindly head straight to her own destruction, but in crossing paths they find a way for the death to actually have some meaning, if only for one person. This story of childhood to adulthood makes the death and murder that comes later all the more tragic.  Yang has taken a very tricky historical period and looked at it on a human level.  He populates the book with various characters of Chinese culture and Christian culture, never questioning their 'reality'.  This makes the book a work of not just warring people, nations, and ideas, but of the power and dangers of stories themselves.  The book offers no clear heroes and few clear villains, it also offers no easy answers.  It does ask very good questions.  I think it will lead most readers to seek out more information on the Boxer rebellion and Chinese history, which is always a great thing.  Even if it doesn't, it stands by itself as a powerful example of what comics can do.

You can find Boxer in our catalog here and Saints in our catalog here.

RASL by Jeff Smith SF SMITH

Rasl is a thief.  He can break into almost anywhere, steal priceless works of art, and disappear without a trace.  It's easy. He just has to jump between parallel worlds!  He used to be Robert Johnson, the military physicist that found the lost journals of Nikola Tesla and used them to develop the technology to jump between worlds, but after horrible betrayal and irrevocable loss he is a thief on the run with little left to live for. Then he finds that he isn't the only one jumping between worlds.  The government has found him and will do anything and kill anyone to get Tesla's secret diaries.  If Rasl can't stop them then they'll rip a whole big enough to destroy all parallel worlds.

This is the best work Jeff Smith has done since his masterpiece Bone.  It uses the unique language of visual storytelling to be much more than just an  amazing noir science-fiction adventure. It is a dark and sad look at fate, love, loss, and the drive to know what makes the very universe run.  Smith doesn't do very much to make Rasl very likeable.  He's fairly down and almost all the way out when we meet him, and its only revenge that drives him through a lot of the story.  Its through revealing his past piece by piece and having Rasl face it piece by piece that he becomes the story's hero. It also helps that eh gives us a truly repellant and malevolent villain to root against in the lizard faced Agent Crow. Crow is gleefully willing to murder again and again, because he sees parallel worlds as a sick perversion of reality that he has to exterminate.  it makes for a more driven and interesting foil than a simple 'company man'.  I called it noir science fiction, because it is clearly inspired by two-fisted hardboiled crime fiction and a good dose of classic sci-fi.  It is not the first to mix the two by a long shot, but it is definitely the best graphic novel to do so.  My only gripe is that the idea of Tesla as the genius that discovered secret science powers and lost them to history becoming a pretty tired cliche.  Fortunately, the use if Tesla is very thoughtful and has deep thematic resonance to the story in RASL. This is not just a must read for older serious comic fans, but a must obsess over.  it has all the propulsive drive that Bone had that makes you rush through your first reading, and like Bone it has so much texture and detail to make it worth revisiting again and again.  Now that Smith has the best all ages fantasy comic epic ever and the best dark and gritty science fiction comic, there's no telling what is next.  

You can find RASLin our catalog here.

More Than This by Patrick Ness YP FIC NESS

"Here is the boy, drowning.
In these last moments, it's not the water that's finally done for him; it's the cold.
It is too late for him.
He will die.
And he will die alone.

He dies."

He wakes up.  He's covered in weird bandages. Well, partially covered.  He's in a strange, desolate, dried up town that seems totally empty and totally dead.  Then he finds something that cannot be. His childhood home.  The one in England. The one an ocean away from where he died. The one he left years ago after the tragedy that no one in his family will talk about.  The tragedy that is all. his. fault.  It is a dusty dead, burnt out world. A world in which he doesn't dream, so much as relive his past life in painful, frustrating detail. Since he can't really be alive and he can't really be in England. He realizes that he must be in his own personal, private Hell.  But even in Hell, there has to be more than this!  Doesn't there?

This is a tough book to review, because so much of what I love about it would reveal plot twists that should go unspoiled!  I can say that Ness has hit it out of the park once again with his deft use of realistic reaction and emotion in fantastic and seemingly impossible situations. The boy, Seth is a scared and scarred teen trying to survive and looking for a reason to survive. His doubts and frustration in the dead world he wakes up in and in his reliving his past are so well conveyed they feel universal.  I found myself rooting for Seth whether he was gripped by loneliness and despair or searching anywhere for a glimmer of hope.  Ness is able to wring drama and action aplenty with Seth just wandering around his new wasteland home, before he ever begins to reveal any of the books mysteries. For the price of one book (free because we are a library) you get a weird sci-fi (maybe) apocalytpic adventure, a devastating and harrowing look at living (and dying) with grief, a TOTAL brain twisting look at the very nature of reality itself, a beautiful and painful contemporary romance (as told in flashback), and several other wonderful surprises I won't spoil!

Young Adult fiction definitely has a lot of books where the main character has a painful past that is revealed bit by bit every few chapters until the final cathartic reveal. What makes More Than This stand apart is that the structure isn't just used to string the plot out, it becomes a part of the plot and the deeper themes of the book itself. Also, unlike some books that use this device, you never want to yell "HURRY UP ALREADY!!!", because BOTH worlds Seth is living in are fascinating in their own way.  I highly recommend this to anyone taht wants to read something truly unique.  It is going SUPER high on my Best Of list this year, and I think it will top yours too.

Check our catalog for More Than This here.

Texas Library Association announces their picks for best YA books of the year!

It's December, so it's time for everyone and their brother, sister, mother, cousin, uncle, and/or neighbor to make their Best Of lists for the year! Below are the Top Ten best YA novels of the year according to the Texas Library Association.  For the full TAYSHAS list click this link. Want to know what's the best of the bestest in graphic novels? Check out TLA's Maverick list here.

 All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry YP FIC BERRY
Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family. Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home. But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.


You can find it in our catalog here.


The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black YP FIC BLACK
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret.  Tana enters a race against the clock to save them by going straight to the wicked heart of Coldtown itself.



You can find it in our catalog here.


The Wicked and the Just by Jillian Anderson Coats YP FIC COATS
In medieval Wales, follows Cecily whose family is lured by cheap land and the duty of all Englishman to help keep down the "vicious" Welshmen, and Gwenhwyfar, a Welsh girl who must wait hand and foot on her new English mistress.







You can find it in our catalog here.


 
Ask the Passengers: A Novel by A.S. King YP FIC KING 
Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl.




You can find it in our catalog here.


 
Reality Boy by A.S. King YP FIC KING
Gerald Faust started feeling angry even before his mother invited a reality TV crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he's still haunted by his rage-filled youth--which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle. No one cares that Gerald has tried to learn to control himself; they're all just waiting for him to snap. And he's starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that...
 



You can find it in our catalog here.
  

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg YP FIC KONIGSBE
Tired of being known as "the gay kid", Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school--but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.







You can find it in our catalog here.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan  YP FIC LABAN
The story of Tim Macbeth, a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is "Enter here to be and find a friend." A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential "It" girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving's most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out.
  

You can find it in our catalog here. 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL
Set over the course of one school year in 1986;this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under.

 



You can read my glowing review of it here. You can find it in our catalog here. 

 Winger by Andrew Smith YP FIC SMITH
Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy. Against the odds, Ryan Dean manages to survive life's complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what's important, even when everything has falls apart. 

You can read me raving about it here. You can find it in our catalog here. 

 
 
Are You Experienced by Jordan Sonnenblick YP FIC SONNENBL
On the 45th anniversary of his uncle Michael's death, Rich Barber, an overprotected 15-year-old, travels back in time to Woodstock. There, he meets Michael for the first time-and gets to know his strict father as an enthusiastic teen. Rich also runs into rock star legends , inadvertently ingests psychedelic mushrooms with his father, and learns about the pressures Michael is under, including trying to protect his brother from their terrible parents.



You can find it in our catalog here.