Summerlost

Ally Condie's middle-grade debut is a distinct departure from her Matched trilogy and Atlantia--no dystopian world here, though Cedar Lee feels as though her life has cracked wide after the accidental death of her father and brother. On a visit to her mother's childhood home, her mom falls in love with a house and buys it for the summer. As the summer goes on, Cedar falls "in like" with a new friend and takes a job working for a Shakespeare festival (and giving unauthorized tours in the early mornings about one of the festival's most famous actresses).

The story is driven by the characters, particularly by Cedar, who is still coming to terms with her loss and her tangled relationship with her brother Ben, who died (Ben has autism, like one of Condie's sons, though this is never spelled out in the book). I thought it was a lovely meditation on family, friendship, and grief. I loved Cedar's relationship with her surviving brother and her new friendship, and the resolution of the story made me cry (in a good, cathartic kind of way).

Mostly, though, the story reads as a love letter to the town where Condie grew up (and the town where I now live), and for that alone I would have loved the book. The house Condie describes is a real house, some four houses down the street from me, and the university campus where the festival takes place is the same campus where I teach, where my husband teaches.

A sweet, tender, must-read middle grade. 

Bookishly Ever After

Isabel Bandiera's debut, BOOKISHLY EVER AFTER, is the kind of book I wish I could have read as a bookish, nerdy teenage girl who knew more about book boyfriends than the real kind.

Phoebe Martin is perfectly happy with her life, working at a knitting store, hanging out with her best friends, and reading as many books as she can fit into her life. She finds book boys more appealing than real-life ones (aside from the unattainable boy she crushes on from afar). That is, until her best friends presents one of her friends as a real-life option, and when Phoebe finally notices Dev "that way," she starts to flounder. Not knowing how to handle a real crush, she turns to her beloved books for advice--with funny, and charming, consequences.

This book was sweet--Phoebe was adorable and genuine, and I thought the portrayal of a crush (and the often terribly awkward ways they unfold) was one of the most realistic I've read in some time. For a fun, sweet, clean YA read, this one is just about perfect. 

Stronger than You Know

 Whenever I pick up a book by an author I know, I'm both excited and hesitant (excited because--look, I know her! And hesitant because if I don't like it, I never know what to say. Usually I don't say anything). Luckily, Jolene Perry's Stronger Than You Know was lovely--a perfect mix of drama and hope.

When the novel opens, Joy is struggling with just about everything: adjusting to her new school, a new life with her aunt and uncle and cousins, talking to anyone she's not related to. Sometimes just existing.

Because Joy has just escaped from a terrible, abusive environment with a mother who almost never let her leave their tiny trailer home, and who didn't protect Joy from her boyfriends in the most basic way a mother should.

What I loved about this book was how Perry managed to make Joy wounded and believable without drowning the book in darkness--it's easy to write dark. It's less easy to write hope that doesn't dissolve into schmaltz. I loved Joy--she was vulnerable, but there was an iron core to her. She'd gone through terrible things, but she wasn't willing to let those things define her. Watching Joy come out of the trauma of her past was one of the best parts of the novel.

I also loved that Joy was surrounded by good people. So often, it's easy to create drama in books by making everyone around the hero disagreeable. But Joy's aunt and uncle are warm and loving and wonderful. Justin was great, too, as the boy who sees something in Joy she doesn't yet see herself, but who's careful to only ask for what Joy is ready to give.

Overall, a powerful book about a survivor, one that made me smile as often (or more) than it made me cry.

One Plus One

 A good friend of mine has been raving about Jojo Moyes' novels, so when I saw her newest at the library, I snagged it. And while women's fiction isn't always my first choice of genre, I did quite enjoy this one.

Jess is a young single mother, struggling to raise her ten-year-old math whiz of a daughter, Tanzie, and her ex's son, Nick, a sweet-hearted but odd loner of a teenage boy. She works two jobs to make ends meet, and her life pretty much revolves around her children. But she can't seem to figure out how to protect Nick from the local bullies, and when Tanzie has the opportunity to go to a fantastic private school on a generous scholarship, she can't seem to find the money she needs to make that happen.

But then a freak opportunity presents itself: a math Olympiad with enough prize money to cover the remaining school fees. The only problem: the Olympiad is in Scotland, Jess can't afford train fees for the three of them (not to mention their enormous black dog, Norman), and her ex's old Rolls Royce barely runs, and Jess doesn't have insurance.

Enter "Geeky Ed," the man Jess has met only occasionally--as his cleaning lady. Deeply embroiled in his own woes (accused of insider trading when all he really wanted to do was uncomplicated his love life), Ed wants nothing to do with Jess and her crew. Yet somehow, he finds him taking all three of them--and the dog--to Scotland. And no one's life will be the same.

It took me a while to get into the story: there's a lot of POV shifting in the first little bit. And I still think Ed agreeing to drive them all the way to Scotland is a little far-fetched. Setting that aside, I did really enjoy this. The characters are engaging (particularly Jess), and Moyes does a great job getting inside all their heads. The last quarter of the book was unexpectedly wrenching.

Overall, a solid read.

Unspoken

I loved Brennan's Demon Lexicon, and I have been waiting for some time to get my hands on a copy of this particular book. It did not disappoint.

The premise was intriguing. Kami Glass has lived her whole life in a town under the shadow of the currently uninhabited great house. People speak of the Lynburns in tones of reverence or abhorrence, but no one is indifferent to them. But they've been gone for all of Kami's life. So when she hears they are about to return, the girl-reporter in her has to know what's going on. But what she finds is much more than expected.

To begin, all Kami's life she has talked to a voice in her head: Jared. She suspects she might be crazy, but Jared is familiar, comforting, and she's not about to give him up. Until the Lynburns return, and she finds that Jared is real--and he's one of them. Then, what was fascinating becomes terrifying. (In fact, I loved this part of the storyline, that Brennen did not romanticize how creepy and horrifying it might be to find that a *real* person has access to your mind and feelings. Particularly when that person is someone you might otherwise very much like). Not that she's ready to give up on Jared--her history with him runs too deep--but things are . . . complicated.

Not to mention, someone is doing dark magic in the village, leaving bloody animal carcasses in the forest. But when Jared starts seeing strange creatures in the wood and a girl turns up dead, Kami and her friends realize that it's up to them to figure out what's going on--and what the Lynburns have to do with it all.

Brennan has a knack for creating fascinating, flawed characters. I loved Kami--her outspokenness, her inquisitiveness, and even the fact that she wasn't conventionally pretty. (In fact, when Jared first meets her, he's not impressed).  And I loved Jared too. He was interesting, intense, prickly (in all the right ways) and outrageous. Kami's friends were fun and unpredictable too.

But more than the characters, I loved Brennen's writing, which was the perfect balance of dark, funny, and lush.

What I didn't love? The ending. I really disliked the ending and it's only (slightly) redeemed for me by the fact that there is a sequel . . .

Date Shark

Date Shark, DelSheree Gladden's first adult novel, has a cute premise: Eli is a date shark, a psychologist who gives date advice to struggling women. But when he meets Leila, he's perplexed. Not only is there no obvious reason for Leila's dating struggles, Eli is strongly drawn to her--to the point where he gives her his phone number, something he never does with clients.

For her part, Leila is also interested in Eli, but she's convinced his interest is professional/friendly. As she begins to date Luke, she finds her friendship with Eli flourishing on the side. Ultimately, she has to make a choice about what she really wants.

The story took a little for me to get into it--I couldn't understand why Leila had such a low self-esteem, when to all appearances she is lovely, intelligent, and likeable. In fact, if I had an issue with the book, it's that the characters all seem a little too good to be true. But for a clean, escapist romance, that might not be  a bad thing.

Gilded

Christina Farley, Gilded

I picked up this book a couple of months ago (part of the Amazon First program) and, now that I'm done frantically trying to finish the Whitney Award books, I finally had time to read it.

Jae Hwa is a sixteen-year-old Korean American girl living in Seoul, Korea, for the first time as her father has transferred to a new position and both he and Jae are still recovering from the death of her mother. But not long into their stay, strange things begin happening. Jae sees creatures out of Korean folklore, and her grandfather hints at a centuries-old curse plaguing her family: namely, as revenge for his rejection by Princess Juwha, the demon Haemosu has been stealing away the oldest young woman in each generation.

This just happens to be Jae. And despite her martial arts skills, this is one battle that Jae can't win alone.

I have really mixed feelings about this book. I love mythologically-based fantasy (both historical and contemporary), and Farley includes some lovely, rich details of Korean mythology. The setting, too, was wonderful: nice details and evocative images. But I struggled to warm to Jae, who often does stupid and impetuous things just because she can (and I know that lots of teenagers are impetuous, but Jae seems dangerously so sometimes). And, as other reviewers have pointed out, it seems a little problematic that in a story centered around Korean mythology and culture, Jae's love interest is an American guy, and his American parents are often the key to her solving the mysteries that face her.

That said, I'm not sorry I read it--I learned a lot of cool stuff about Korean mythology and the plot moved quickly enough that I was never bored (although annoyed, sometimes, yes).