Book Review: Small Medium at Large by Joanne Levy

When 12-year-old Lilah Bloom is struck by lightning at her mom’s wedding, she discovers she has a new skill: she can hear dead people.  They are everywhere, and they are verbose.  Her Bubby is one of the most opinionated ghosts, and she wants Lilah to help her get Lilah’s dad dating again.  All of this means Lilah must navigate the stress of seventh grade while also dealing with chatty ghosts–and somehow, she’ll have to try to work up the courage to talk to her crush, Andrew Finkel.

Joanne Levy’s debut middle grade novel takes a premise that could be sort of frightening–being surrounding by the voices of ghosts all the time–and subverts it by making light and a little silly.  Lilah’s frank voice feels authentic and is frequently very funny.  The supporting characters are vivid, and there’s just a touch of romance that will appeal to readers but won’t put parents on the offense.

While it could easily fall into the trap of being too silly or too slapstick, Levy walks the line carefully and successfully.  She creates a strong narrator in Lilah and allows her cultural identity and strong family ties to enhance the story, giving it a great deal of heart along with the (very real, very funny) humor.

Although it falls into the paranormal genre based on its premise alone, Levy’s book transcends its fantastical plot elements and offers some very real commentary on middle school.  Lilah has to navigate all the things that a normal seventh grader has to, and she has to do it while attempting to ignore the advice and commentary of invisible ghosts.  Readers will be able to relate to the real stuff happening in Lilah’s life while being entertained by the ghostly stuff, too.

This is a quick read that will work for reluctant readers. Levy never panders to her audience.  A definite stand-out in the paranormal middle grade market, this is an author to watch.

Small Medium at Large by Joanne Levy. Bloomsbury: 2012. Library copy.

Book Review: The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti

For Frenenqer Paje, life is stifling with its sameness day in and day out.  Books are her only escape from her overbearing father and the stifling heat of the desert oasis in which they live.  One small act of rebellion leads to her meeting a boy named Sangris–a boy who can shapeshift–and this spins her life into a different direction.  At night, Frenenqer and this boy travel to distant lands where she can barely feel the tug of her father’s commands.  If she can learn to let go, Frenenqer might just be able to finally live as she wants to.

Rossetti’s fantasy novel provides a neat twist on the genre that a lot of readers won’t see coming.  Instead of providing mere escapism for readers, Rossetti forces the reader to accept the fact that her fantastical world also has a grim reality to it.  The harsh environment in which Frenenqer is raised comes to life with Rossetti’s lush prose.  The scenes where Sangris and Frenenqer travel to distant lands are particularly well-rendered: the use of color to describe nature and their surroundings is often breath-taking.

Rossetti’s characters also subvert a lot of the usual tropes found in a fantasy novel.  Although Frenenqer and Sangris have feelings for one another, it takes a good long while for those feelings to develop, and even longer for the characters to admit it.  Frenenqer is a strong heroine who is also deeply damaged from her upbringing.  An easy read this is not: there’s a lot of emotional turbulence to be found here, but Rossetti’s excellent characterization and good pacing keep the pages turning.

There are a lot of issues explored within the pages of Rossetti’s book.  She writes about ex-pats with a kind of familiarity that hints at her own background and makes Frenenqer’s displacement palpable.  The concepts of love, trust, and self-identity are all here, but Rossetti doesn’t push and never gives her readers an easy answer.  Deeply affecting and deeply satisfying, this is a must-read for fans of YA.  Highly recommended.

The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti. Dial: 2012. Library copy.

Book Review: Every Day by David Levithan

A wakes up in a different body every single day.  There’s no telling who it will be, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.  All A knows is that the person will be roughly the same age as A and will be in roughly the same geographic location as the body A went to sleep in the night before.  Each day, A navigates the world from a different perspective and tries hard not to make connections.  Then A meets Rhiannon, and everything changes.  What do you do when you meet the person you want to be with but you’re a different person every day?

David Levithan’s latest offering gives the reader plenty to think about.  Although there’s not much time spent explaining why A’s life is the way it is, the reader soon discovers that it doesn’t matter so much why A spends a each day in a different body as much as it does that it means A can never have a normal existence.  Levithan’s take on this is brilliant for myriad reasons.  Because A has no actual body, A has no set gender, race, or sexual orientation.  This allows the reader to think about what it means to love without the social constructs of these categories.

It’s an interesting, intriguing premise, and Levithan’s gorgeous prose draws the reader in and doesn’t let go until the end.  While some readers might struggle with how quickly A develops feelings for Rhiannon, this reader never felt like it was too rushed.  Everything about their intense feelings for one another felt authentic, heartbreaking, and all too real.  Rhiannon, like A, struggles with what her feelings mean for a person she can never truly see.

There are things here that don’t quite work.  Levithan’s novel is clearly approaching the topic of love from a perspective of tolerance and understanding, and yet he devotes an entire chapter to fat-shaming one of the bodies that A inhabits.  The fact that this happens later in the book and largely serves as a way to wedge some distance between A and Rhiannon is understandable, but Levithan’s insensitive handling of obesity clashes horrifically with his overall message.  This is going to alienate some readers and tarnish the overall reading experience, which is a shame, because there’s a lot here worth thinking about and enjoying.

A sad, thoughtful YA book with plenty of crossover appeal for adults.  Recommended.

Every Day by David Levithan. Knopf Books for  Young Readers: 2012. Library copy.

Book Review: Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

Fifteen year old Delilah fits the bill of a bookish loner pretty well.  She spends most of her time reading, and lately, it’s been the same book, over and over.  Between the Lines is a fairy tale meant for much younger readers, but Delilah feels a connection to it and its protagonist and hero, Prince Oliver.  One day, Prince Oliver actually speaks to her, and Delilah’s world is forever changed.  How can the two have any sort of real relationship when one of them lives in the real world and the other lives in a book?

Much has been made about the fact that this is Jodi Picoult’s first foray into young adult fiction (despite the fact that her novels have crossover appeal for teens), and that she collaborated with her teenage daughter on this book.  The result of this collaboration is a mostly fun metafiction offering a twist on the traditional teen romance.

This is definitely a novel meant for younger readers, as the story offers the lightest of light romances to its readers.  While there are certainly older teens who will enjoy the novel’s central romance, it’s going to work best for a younger audience who like their love stories without any messy emotional complications or complexities.  There’s plenty of lightly silly humor to be found in this book’s pages, too, which makes the whole thing feel rather young.

Despite all that, there are still three different narrative threads found throughout the book.  Although each of these threads is presented in different fonts and colors, this is not a book that lends itself to a reader who is likely to put it down for large chunks of time.  The book is incredibly plot-heavy, which might deter some readers.  However, large font and more than a smattering of fairy-tale illustrations help break up the text.

While certainly not offensive in any way, it wasn’t particularly remarkable for this reader, either.  It’ll find an audience because of its topic, tone, and author, but it’s largely forgettable.  Recommended to readers looking for light fairy-tale romance.

Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer. Simon Pulse: 2012. Library copy.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.  Its purpose is to spotlight eagerly-anticipated upcoming releases.

This week I’m eagerly awaiting:

The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Expected Release Date: January 22, 2013

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall. 

(summary via Goodreads)

The fact that I really enjoyed Schwab’s debut last year meant that I was much more likely to pick up her sophomore effort.  It helps that this novel is much more my style than Schwab’s first novel.  It also helps that the novel seems to deal with librarians (or at least some form of them).  If this is anything like Schwab’s previous effort, it’ll be beautifully written, tightly plotted, and expertly paced.  I, for one, can’t wait.

What are you waiting on this week?

Book Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus arrives without any advance warning.  It just appears on the outskirts of a town and draws people to it.  The all black-and-white circus amazes people with its fantastical elements, and it is an experience that stays with its attendees forever.  Little do the common people know that there is an ongoing competition within the circus.  Two young people have been selected to compete against one another in a battle of skill and imagination.  Despite their destiny to be opponents, Celia and Marco fall in love and must contend with the consequences of their choices.

Morgenstern’s novel garnered a fair amount of publicity and critical acclaim when it was published last year.  Topping many of the best of lists for 2011, the book also managed to make a number of lists of adult fiction recommended for young adults.  Rich description, lush writing, and an absolutely creative premise make this book a standout. It’s already been optioned for a film, and its cinematic story will translate beautifully to the screen.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. A lack of character development for the book’s two leads combined with pacing problems and a surplus of secondary and tertiary characters made this book an uneven read at best.  However, the book’s undeniably beautiful prose and moving conclusion helped make up for some of the issues with the story.

Part of the problem present here is that despite the fact that the two main characters are supposed to be in competition with one another, there’s never any sense of true tension.  At one point, Celia remarks about the fact that the game feels more like a “dual exhibition,” and she’s never proven wrong.  Even though there’s some loss of life, both Marco and Celia never seem to be in any real peril.  They also remain fairly static throughout the course of the novel, and since the book spans much of their lives, this feels oddly inauthentic.

The fact that there are so many characters who populate this novel is also problematic.  The chapters jump around in time and focus on a wide variety of people.  While this is a neat narrative trick, it’s only partially successful, because some of the characters are much more interesting than the others (I could have done with way more of the twins and way less of pretty much everyone else).  It’s hard to keep everyone straight, and at a certain point, you start to wonder why you should have to, anyway.

Some readers won’t mind the issues I found in this book.  It’s got a sort of magical realism to its story that makes it intriguing in a very unique way.  The descriptions will be enough to keep some readers satisfied, and others will revel in the love story between the two magicians (though I kept feeling like something was missing).  Despite my issues with the book, I can see this one’s appeal, absolutely.  I’ll definitely be seeing the movie.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Doubleday: 2011. Borrowed copy.

Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette’s touch can kill.  Put in isolation by The Reestablishment after being charged with (accidental) murder, Juliette is left alone with her thoughts and her guilt.  Then she meets Adam, a soldier, and he is different.  They are different together.  Unwilling to be a pawn for The Reestablishment, Juliet has to make a decision: fight or be killed.

Tahereh Mafi’s debut novel was one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of late last year.  The buzz surrounding the novel on the YA blogosphere was overwhelming.  Many early reviews were positive.  The film rights were snatched up early on.  This was supposed to be something different, something to shake up the dystopian/post-apocalyptic YA world.

Unfortunately, the book doesn’t live up to its hype.  At all.  While the story is serviceable, the highly stylized prose and overwrought metaphors make for a clunky reading experience.  Pacing problems, flat lead characters, and a twisty, comic-book ending makes for a mostly underwhelming reading experience.

Which is too bad, because it’s clear what Mafi was trying to do.  What sets the novel apart from other post-apocalyptic novels is the prose.  The problem is, Mafi’s prose is so overwrought that it’s almost as though it got away from her.  It doesn’t feel like Mafi (or Juliette, for that matter) is in control of what’s happening on the page.  Too often, the register is off, which messes with the dialogue, the character’s actions, and the pacing of the novel.  Mafi’s metaphors (which occur on almost every page) often don’t make a lick of sense.  It’s jarring and confusing when the connotations are clearly not what Mafi intended.

Stylistic problems won’t be noticed by every reader, and this reviewer would have been willing to ignore them if it hadn’t been for the fact that the story itself isn’t particularly novel.  Both Juliette and Adam are fairly flat characters, and while their chemistry isn’t completely lacking, it isn’t completely scorching, either.  Surprisingly, it is Mafi’s villains–the power-hungry Warner in particular–that are the most fully-realized and complex.

Pacing problems in the middle and a lack of world-building don’t help matters.  While the beginning of the book is the most compelling part, the comic-book-like ending is something of a head-scratcher.  This will work for some readers who don’t get tripped up on the prose and aren’t looking for a lot of depth in their characters.  Recommended for fans of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic genre.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. HarperTeen: 2011.  Borrowed copy.

Book Review: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Josh and Emma have lived next door to each other their entire lives.  When Josh’s mom gets a free AOL CD in the mail, she tells him to give it to Emma, who just got a new computer.  When they sign on, they end up logged into their Facebook profiles.  The problem is that it’s 1996, and Facebook hasn’t been invented yet.  With a glimpse into their lives 15 years later, the two are hooked.  As they make decisions in their daily lives, they begin to notice that changes occur in their futures.  What are they doing right and wrong, and how do they ensure that they end up happy?

It’s a great premise, isn’t it?  Both Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler have made names for themselves in the YA world, and to say that this collaboration was eagerly anticipated is putting it mildly.  Unfortunately, a promising premise and two popular authors can’t help the fact that the result is shallow, silly, and ultimately uninteresting.

The novel’s strongest point is that it acts as both a trip down memory lane for Gen X-ers as well as relatively smart commentary on today’s obsession with social media.  The name-dropping of 90s pop culture feels a bit forced at times, but it’s still fun to cringe when characters say things like, “Dave Matthews is one of the most underrated guitarists ever.”  Also, Josh and Emma’s shock at what people are willing to say about themselves on the internet is entertaining.  How far we’ve fallen.

Unfortunately, these tidbits can’t sustain the story as a whole.  Instead of focusing in the main characters (or developing them at all), the authors allow their characters to worry over who they will marry and what job they will have.  This propels far too much of the plot, and it doesn’t take long before it starts to make the story feel totally claustrophobic. Is that really all teenagers have to think about?  Their future spouse?

There are several opportunities to develop side stories and secondary characters, and each one is completely ignored.  Instead of allowing the story to open up, the plot moves along at a steady, fast pace.  The result is a page-turner to be sure, but there’s no depth to be found here.

Some readers will enjoy the light fantasy element of getting to know your future before it happens, but most will be frustrated by lackluster characters and a kiddie-pool-shallow plot.  I’d give this one a pass and watch The Butterfly Effect instead.  At least that one is unintentionally hilarious.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler. Razorbill: 2011.  Borrowed copy.

(#58) Book Review: Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

Fourteen-year-old Luce expects to die when she falls off a cliff ledge into the sea near her home.  After losing her father and being abused by her uncle, Luce is truly a lost girl, and death is almost welcome when faced with her other options.  But Luce doesn’t die.  Instead, she becomes a mermaid, and finds solace in a group of other lost-girls-turned-mermaids.  These girls are beautiful and strong and never age, but they have a darkness within them, too: they feel a desire to take down ships and their passengers with their enchanting singing.  Although Luce is alarmed by this, she also finds that she has a particular talent and a wonderful voice, and she captures the attention of the mermaid queen.  Struggling to retain some of her human compassion while also adapting to her new life as a creature of the sea, Luce finds herself at a crossroads.

Sarah Porter’s debut novel has certain qualities worth mentioning.  She has taken an age-old myth and given it a shiny new spin.  Drawing from the sirens who populate the Odyssey and playing up the fascination that many have with the concept of mermaids, Porter has managed to meld a story that is both compelling (in theory) and intriguing.  Girls who are abused and have no voice to speak out find it when they become mermaids.  These girls then use their voices to take down the massive ships in the icy waters of Alaska.  The empowerment present in the pages of Porter’s novel is clear.  She also plays with the concept of bullying and social pressures, but never fully develops either issue.

Luce herself is a character that waffles a great deal.  Although she appears to be quite headstrong at times, she also backs down and changes her mind quickly and without any real indication as to why.  Unfortunately, she is still the most well-developed of all the characters in Porter’s novel (the first in a planned series).  The other mermaids seem to be drawn from stereotypes or are barely drawn at all.  There’s never any sense of any of the girls’ real identities, and because of this, I had a hard time caring about anyone’s fate.

There are also problems with the pacing of the plot.  While Porter has a great idea, she struggles with the execution of it. Rising action is inter-cut with too much exposition and hesitation.  Porter is also plagued by too much repetition, which bogs the momentum of the story down to the point where it feels almost like a crawl.  For too long through the story, the reader is unaware of what Luce is supposed to be heading toward.  The last quarter is slightly better as Luce starts to come into her own, but it takes too long to get there and many readers will be frustrated long before reaching the book’s climax.  Although the ending is supposed to serve as a cliffhanger for the next novel in the series, it’s so incomplete that it’s jarring and unsatisfying.

This is not a book for every reader.  Fans of fantasy and paranormal are more likely to enjoy this trip into the icy waters off the Alaskan coast than fans of contemporary realistic fiction.  Recommended to fans of paranormal fiction, people who are fascinated by mermaid myths, and those looking for a YA novel that features absolutely no romance whatsoever.

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s, 2011. Electronic ARC accepted from publisher for review.

Book Review: Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin

Phoebe Rothschild befriends the strange Mallory in middle school, and for the next four years, the girls are as close as sisters.  When Mallory’s strange and yet kind of alluring older brother Ryland shows up, Phoebe finds herself drawn to him, and the two enter into some sort of strange relationship.  Ryland makes her question her life and her self-worth, and Mallory doesn’t seem to be helping the situation.  Both Ryland and Mallory have a secret, though, and it’s pretty sinister: they are fae, and have come into Phoebe’s life to tear her down in order to save their faerie land as part of a deal made by Phoebe’s ancestor hundreds of years ago.  Will Phoebe be the one to save the fae, or will she be strong enough to resist?

As a cautious fan of Werlin’s other works, I approached this one with more reservations than normal.  In the interest of full disclosure, fantasy is not my preferred genre, and I don’t have a lot of experience reading it.  Werlin’s fantasy is accessible simply because it is not overcomplicated.  In fact, one might make the argument that her fantastical world is so simple that it is a detraction from the story.  In nearly four hundred pages, I never got an understanding for the magical world that Ryland and Mallory came from.  I didn’t understand their motivations, nor did I understand their blind devotion to the fairy queen.  The book’s revelation about why the fae are the way they are comes way too late, and by the time I realized what was happening I didn’t care.

There’s no doubt that Werlin is a strong writer, and while some reviewers liked the almost dream-like undertone of the novel, I found it wearying.  In order to really enjoy a book, a reader must feel at least one connection to a character.  There isn’t a character in the book that I feel like I got a sense for.  Even Phoebe, who is our heroine, seems flat.  Her attraction to Ryland isn’t explained until the end (again, too little too late), and her friendship with Mallory is something that we are supposed to take for granted, because there is little interaction between the girls that allows us to see why they are friends.

While I understood what Werlin was doing in building the strange relationship between Phoebe and Ryland, I felt that it was rushed and much of it occurred off the pages.  Being told that she feels a connection is not the same as seeing the connection.  However, the uneasiness that the reader is supposed to feel around Ryland is conveyed nicely.  Every time he refers to Phoebe as “Phoebe-bird,” my skin crawled.

At the end of the day, this book will find fans in some readers.  Being a lover of fantasy as a genre probably helps, but it shouldn’t be a requirement.  For me, though, this book left me cold and I was glad to be done with it.