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.

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.

 

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 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.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life: Color Edition by Bryan Lee O’Malley YP FIC OMALLEY

Scott Pilgrim is dating a highschooler! And he’s totally 23 (and unemployed)!  (Don’t worry, they’ve only held hands.) Just when things feel nice and simple he meets the girl of his dreams, (Literally.  She rollerblades through his dreams to deliver packaged for amazon.com), and decides to fall head over heels.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell his high school girlfriend and even more unfortunately his new girlfriend has Seven Evil Exes that he must defeat to continue dating her.  NOW IN COLOR!

Okay, I know I already gave a rave review to the Scott Pilgrim series, so it may seem silly to re-review a book just because it’s in color.  Who do I even think I am, Ted Turner!?  Well, I understand your skepticism and must admit that I too was skeptical of a Colorized Scott Pilgrim, cynical even.  However, the superb job Nathan Fairbarn (the ONLY colorist I’ve yet to praise by name) did on this book really makes it worth a second look even if you have already read the series. I rarely find a series that changes so much with the addition of color as this one. It adds a new depth to the art and the new larger pages are dynamite.  Maybe even best of all is the extra content at the back.  There’s character design sheets and stories about how O’Malley came up with all the names and designs and ideas in the book!  Scott Pilgrim fans simply HAVE to read this and Soon-to-Be-Scott-Pilgrim-Fans should read it too.  I think anyone with an even passing interest in comics or manga should give this one a try.  

You can check our catalog for Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life: Color Edition here.

Johnny Hiro: Half Asian, All Hero by Fred Chao YP FIC CHAO

Johnny Hiro is not a hero…really.  He just minds his own business and tries to (barely) make ends meet and keep from ruining things with his girlfriend.  Sure he may occasionally have to face down a giant monster, business men turned samurai, or the FEARSOME WRATH OF JUDGE JUDY, but that’s just what life in the big city is like.

This is a surprisingly hilarious graphic novel that brings out the comic side of comics.  The art is sort of loose and sometimes feels amateurish compared to some more accomplished draftspersons, but the off-kilter, absurdist humor won me over again and again.  Johnny is a slacker, 20-something without much ambition, drive, or vision, but he slowly grew on me.  He may not want a lot out of life but he fights zealously for what’s important to him as bizzarro situations come left and right.  I mentioned above that he has to face down Judge Judy and I was not joking.  What’s even better is that he faces her in night court, but not any night court, Night Court.  The much loved mid 80s-early 90s sitcom starring John Larroquette, Markie Post, Richard Moll, Charles Robinson, and Marsha Warfield.  ALL of which are in this comic in a pitch perfect recreation of the series. The book also features NYC mayor Bloomberg, LL Cool J, Alton Brown, and many other completely hilarious unnecessary cameos. These types of off the wall tributes to ENTIRELY dated 80s and 90s pop culture keep things fresh and liven up what could be another karate/samurai/Asian sterotype montage send up.  And we do have LOADs of Japanese stereotypes thrown around for humor, but they are done in a way that looks playfully at the nature of stereotypes and the difficulties of living between differing cultures. This is a very original and out there comic with loads of humor and some real heart.  I’d highly recommend it to comic fans who like a good dose of humor and especially the Scott Pilgrim fans out there.

You can check our catalog for Johnny Hiro here.