Finally by Wendy Mass

Mass returns to Willow Falls, the setting of 11 Birthdays.  This time it is Rory’s turn to have a birthday and she is finally turning twelve.  Her entire life her parents have told her that she could do things when she turned twelve.  She can have a pet, shave her legs, go to a girl/boy party, have a cell phone, get her ears pierced, and much more. But hours before her birthday, she finds herself stuck in a drainpipe and rescued by a little old lady who has surprising strength.  That women tells her, “You won’t get what you want, Rory Swenson, until you see what you need.”  Rory though is sure that her list of promises from her parents are exactly what she both wants and needs.  As Rory works her way through the list, her efforts meet with disaster.  It is especially bad when they start filming a movie at her school and all of her disasters could force her to give up her new job as an extra.  It just may take a gold allergy, an evil murderous bunny, and loss of skin on both legs for Rory to see what she needs.

Written with a strong voice in the first person, Rory’s take on life is wry, funny and always upbeat.  She is a great character whose disasters make for laugh-out-loud moments that are perfect for the tween age group.  Her personal wants may not match those of readers, but they will easily see themselves in her.  She is utterly understandable, completely accident prone, and simply delightful to spend time with.

This book reads quickly as readers move from one of her wishes to the next with Rory, each resulting in if not surprising, then very funny events.  Rory’s family members are just as vividly written.  Her parents are busy but involved and caring if a little overprotective.  Her toddler brother offers just the right amount of distraction and silliness too. 

Take humor, a zing of some sort of magic, and an accident prone tween, and you have this winning book.  The cover is bright, friendly and will invite children to pick it up and read it quickly.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) received from publisher.

Also reviewed by Kate Messner on her blog.

Nothing by Janne Teller

Before you open this book, make sure your schedule for the next few hours in clear.  Seriously.

Pierre Anthon left school abruptly after announcing, “Nothing matters.” Instead of going to school, he climbed into a plum tree and called to the other teens in his class, mocking them for still trying to conform to a world where nothing actually matters.  After awhile, the others in his class decided that they must prove him wrong and demonstrate that there are things in life that matter.  So they built a heap of meaning, filled with items that meant a lot to them.  At first they volunteered to put items onto the pile, but when that stopped working, it was decided that the last person to put something on the  pile would decide what the next person must add.  As this progresses, the tension mounts as one student must decide for the next just how far this will go and just how much meaning their effort will have.

Written in stark, haunting prose, this novel starts with a slow buildup and then becomes impossible to put down as one character after the other makes horrific decisions.  It is a story about what matters in life, but also about the meaningless that becomes imbued with too much meaning as well.  The book is heartbreaking, strange and completely riveting. 

Translated from Danish, this book is markedly not set in America and keeps its Danish place names and other touches.  The translation is done with great skill, allowing readers to realize that it is set elsewhere but also keeping the all-important connection with the characters alive. 

The novel is told from the point of view of Agnes, a girl who only has to give her new sandals to the pile.  This perspective is perfectly rendered as Agnes is witness to the horror, completely involved, but remains apart and an observer because it does not affect her as deeply as some of the other students.  Teller creates characters that we all recognize, but they surprise us with their reactions, their strength, and their fragility.  She puts the characters in a mix of peer pressure, violence and existential crisis, revealing much about each of them.

Highly recommended, this is one of the deepest, cruelest, most remarkable books I have read recently.  It is filled with beauty, tragedy and horror but offers meaning and plenty of fodder for discussion.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

The finalists for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been announced.  They have finalists in a variety of categories.  Here are the ones for Young Adult and Graphic Novel.

Young Adult Literature Finalists

The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy by James Cross Giblin

The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge

Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Graphic Novel Finalists

Luba (A Love and Rockets Book) by Gilbert Hernandez

GoGo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Released April 2010.

Will Grayson is gay, depressed and only has one friend, Maura.  She’s more a friend of convenience with their snarkiness holding their friendship together.  Will heads out to Chicago to meet a boy he’s fallen for online, only to find out that Maura has been pretending to be that boy online.  This puts him on a path to meet another boy.  The other Will Grayson is straight.  He has lived most of his life in the large shadow of his gay best friend, Tiny.  Now he has started to like a girl, Jane, that goes to school with them.  Meanwhile Tiny is working on his very fabulous and very gay musical that is all about his life and prominently features Will as a main character.  Though both boys are different, there are similarities.  They both want to avoid feeling things too deeply, but their lives change after meeting one another.

These two great authors have created an incredible novel that is the best work of their of their careers.  Each author writes alternating chapters in the voice of their Will Grayson.  Green writes the straight Will Grayson with his trademark intelligence and humor.  Levithan writes the gay Will Grayson with equal humor that has a snap and darkness to it.  The two combined really make for a novel that readers will never want to end.  Add to this the genius that is the character of Tiny, a huge boy with an even bigger heart who lives life to the fullest.  He forms the hub of the novel, the voice of the musical, and the applause for both Will Graysons in all their differences and similarities. 

I love finding books that are savvy, smart, silly, funny, intelligent, irreverent, and honest.  This is one of those books.  Put it in the hands of teens, let them see themselves in it because we are all of us there in this book.  Gay and straight, we are there, and we can hear the truth and love being spoken in this novel.

Highly recommended, this is the best novel of the year so far.  Brilliantly written, gorgeously complex characters, and humor.  What more could you want? 

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy from publisher.

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork

Released March 2010.

Stork returns with his second teen novel after Marcelo in the Real World.  D.Q. and Pancho could not be more different except for their focus on life and death.  D.Q. is dying of cancer and trying to understand how to hold onto life.  Pancho is healthy but everyone in his family has died, and he is now planning to murder someone.  When Pancho meets D.Q., he wants nothing to do with him.  But he gets paid to help D.Q. and when D.Q. is sent for treatment to Albuquerque, Pancho is eager to go along because the man he is hunting for lives there.  As he spends time with D.Q. and Marisol, a girl at the recovery facility, Pancho finds himself changing but will it be enough to prevent him from taking a life?

As with his first book, Stork excels at character development and the creation of people who are damaged, fascinating and vividly human.   Pancho is a boy filled with anger and denial who has so much going for him, but is unable to see it.  D.Q. is reaching the end of his battle to live but seizes every day with a fierceness and vigor.  This book is an exploration of two boys and their unique friendship that ends up changing them both.  It is a celebration of life, an honoring of death, and a tribute to faith in the broadest sense.

Fans of his first book will adore this second book.  This is another novel to linger in, dwell with and savor.  Appropriate for ages 13 and up.

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy received from publisher.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Based on personal experiences, this graphic novel will speak to those of us who are teenagers and those who have survived that age.  Raina just wants to be a normal kid.  But one evening, she falls when running, tripping and damaging her front teeth.  This sets her on a journey of braces, dental surgery, and headgear.  On top of her dental issues, Raina also deals with the normal teen issues of friends, bullies, and crushes on boys.  Readers get to watch Raina grow up from a sixth grader to a high school student as she learns about acceptance, self-esteem, and the importance of good dentists.

Written with lots of humor, this book has a feel for what makes being a teenager both funny and painful.  Telgemeier’s writing is refreshing and fast paced.  Her art is friendly and silly.  With her art and writing combined, she has created a book with a fresh feel that has universal appeal.  While speaking of her own issues with teeth, she speaks to all of our strange teen situations and what each of us dealt with or is dealing with. 

A fresh, funny look at being a teen, this book will easily find a readership and be eagerly passed from person to person.  Appropriate for ages 11-14.

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) where most of the illustrations were not yet in color.

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

Hanna has never really fit in.  She is distractingly beautiful, uses sex as a weapon, has been diagnosed as manic depressive, and hears her dead father in her head.  After bashing her aunt in the head and leaving her for dead, she heads to the home of her mother whom she has never even met.  But Rosalee is cold and aloof, nothing like the mother that Hanna pictured.  Rosalee gives her two weeks to see if she can fit in with the other people in town, or she will have to leave.  Hanna heads to school and immediately finds herself surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters, glass statues that used to be people, and other teens who dismiss her as a transient.  But Hanna is determined to find a place for herself in this odd town that just might be even more strange than she is.

Hanna is a character who is easy to dislike immediately, but throughout the book readers get to see beyond her outer shell and to the girl who is desperate for a mother who cares for her and for a place where she belongs.  Reeves writes with a flair for horror.  This book glories in gore, is filled with eye-widening moments, and will have readers turning the pages breathlessly.  This horror is right in your face and almost tangible.  The pacing is also done very well, with moments of stillness nicely contrasted by frenetic action scenes.  The world Reeves has created will remind readers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Hanna as heroine takes the novel in a different direction.

I must also mention after so many questions about YA covers and protagonist’s skin tones, that Hanna is bi-racial.  The is half Finnish and half African-American.  On the cover, her skin is a caramel which is just right. 

Get this into the hands of Buffy and Twilight fans and they will be delighted with a new heroine who isn’t afraid to get her hands bloody.  Appropriate for teens aged 14-18.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

Also reviewed by TheHappyNappyBookseller, Pure Imagination, Frenetic Reader,

Plus you can see an interview with Dia Reeves at WriterJenn or you can visit Dia Reeves’ blog.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Liam is a twelve-year-old who looks like a he’s thirty.  He’s the tallest in his class and even has a wispy beard growing in.  So Liam is able to do things that other kids his age can’t.  He rides carnival rides that they are all too short for.  He is mistaken for a teacher on his first day of school.  He pretends that a girl in his class, Florida, is his daughter.  And he almost test drives a Porsche before his father stops him.   Thanks to these mistakes, Liam lives in a place between childhood and adulthood.  So when Liam is asked to bring his daughter on the trip of a lifetime to the best theme park in the world, Liam easily decides to do it.  He needs to pose as one of the world’s best dads to get on the spaceship, and it just may take a child to be the best father in the bunch.

I love Boyce’s books because you never know what journey you are about to start out on.  The book will seem to be one thing and delightfully morph into something else along the way.  Readers will start out thinking this is a book about space travel, but it is so much more.  It is an exploration of what age means, a novel about what it takes to be a parent and what it takes to be a kid.  It is a deep book that never loses its light heart and sense of fun.

Liam is a great character who even when he is acting like a great father never could be confused with an adult.  Boyce has written a wonderful hero here who is smart, intuitive and thoroughly juvenile in a great way.

I only have one teeny quibble with the novel.  Boyce uses World of Warcraft as one of Liam’s main interests.  I play WOW and so will many of the kids who read this novel.  The problem is that Boyce gets a lots of the details of the game wrong.  Some he has right, but others are really jarringly off.  This doesn’t detract from the book’s quality, but it may really bother some young readers.  I know that whenever he got a detail wrong it pulled me right out of the story, which is unfortunate.

Highly recommended, even for WOW junkies, this book is a beauty of a novel filled with humor, grace and a hero for our times.  Appropriate for ages 10-14.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Nayu’s Reading Corner and Fuse #8.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

Release date February 1, 2010.

Nimira dances for a pittance as a trouser girl until she is hired by Hollin Parry.  Parry, a sorcerer, hires her to sing with his newly acquired automaton which plays the piano when wound by a key in its back.  Nimira is the last in a line of girls that have been hired to be the singer, but the others fled because they thought the automaton was haunted.  Left alone with the automaton, Nimira discovers that it is trying to communicate with her though it cannot speak and cannot move unless wound.  Through the use of an alphabet chart on the keyboard, Nimira realizes that the automaton contains the trapped spirit of an elven prince.  Though Parry is courting her, Nimira and the fairy prince become closer and fall in love.  But more danger is swirling around them, as political intrigue, personal danger, and horrors of the past come together.

This slim volume holds an enticing story of love, betrayal and magic set in an alternate historical world.  Nimira is a wonderful character who hails from another land and offers great perspective on the setting.  She is feisty, intelligent and caring, just what any heroine of a love story should be.  The love triangle of Parry, Nimira and the elven prince is delightfully drawn against the setting of danger and sorcery.  To its credit, this book is wonderfully light despite its dark content.  It reads quickly and will have readers looking for the next book in the series to find out what happens.

A light fantasy of magic and love that explores dark desires and sinister motives at the same time.  Appropriate for ages 13-16. 

Reviewed from ARC received from publisher.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

The only thing Thomas remembers when he wakes up on the lift is his name.  When the doors open, he is in the Glade where he is greeted by many other teen boys who also don’t remember anything beyond their names and the Glade.  The Glade is a community based on order and structure. Every morning the doors open to the maze, every evening they close.  Though some boys have been there for years, they have never solved the maze and found an exit.  There are monsters in the maze, creations of flesh and metal that roam the maze and attack any boy they find there.  Thomas finds himself wanting to be a Runner, one of the boys who tries to solve the enormous maze, even though commonsense tells him not to do it.  The day after Thomas arrives, everything changes when an unconscious girl arrives on the lift, and deep inside Thomas recognizes her though he can’t remember anything else.  Could she be the key to the maze?  Could he?

Grippingly written, this book grabs the reader from the moment the lift doors open and never lets go.  Dashner has created a wonderfully conceived compact world that really works well.  The reader knows no more than Thomas, making it a book with constant questions and tensions.  One of the only issues I had with the book was Thomas himself.  I would have enjoyed a more regular protagonist rather than a boy who is braver, stronger, and more clever than any of the others.  The book has great pacing which is headlong and wild, fitting the subject perfectly.  And though Thomas may be a bit to super, his character has a strong inner voice that works well.  The setting is written with such clarity that readers will feel they know the space well by the end of the novel. 

Highly recommended, the next book in the series will be eagerly awaited by those who read it.  Recommended for fans of The Hunger Games series, this book is appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from library copy.