I’ve definitely not been reading at the pace I usually do this year. Part of it is life stuff, and part of it is that I haven’t been finding myself falling in love with a whole lot of books. I’ve liked what I’ve read well enough, but little has consumed my attention completely. I keep picking up books and hoping that it’ll be the one which changes my reading and gets me back on track, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m trying to really respect that, especially as my normal tactics for getting out of a slump — changing genres, changing formats, diving into things I’m really eager about — hasn’t worked, either.

That’s probably not an ideal introduction to a series of short book reviews, but I wanted to get that out there because I’ve found that my enthusiasm for writing reviews has waned a bit in that light, too. Which isn’t to say none of the books I’m about to talk about are bad — in fact, one of these books will be making my best of 2014 list, for sure — but rather, it’s to say I’m less interested in a lengthy discussion of these titles and more interested in a quick look at what worked and didn’t work.

Torn Away by Jennifer Brown (available now) might be my favorite of Brown’s books to date. The story follows what happens in the wake of a devastating tornado that not only tears apart Jersey’s home, but leaves her without a mother and a little sister. Without shelter or her family, she’s sent to live with her father who is terrible and she’s put into a situation where her own life isn’t safe. In that environment, she’s unable to do anything she needs to do for herself on a daily basis, let alone do what she needs to do in order to properly grieve the immense losses in her life.

Fortunately, things change when she’s able to move in with her material grandparents, who she never met because her mother did not get along with them. In this move, Jersey comes to have space to not only grieve, but she’s able to work through building new relationships with people who she had been led to believe didn’t care about her nor her well-being. That process exposes her to a host of truths about her mother. Brown does an excellent job of not only exploring the depth of grief that Jersey has to work through — she lost everything here — but she also does an incredible job of exploring the idea of perception vs. reality when it comes to people who are or are not in your life. This is a complex family with a layers upon layers of relationship twists and turns, and while many could easily say that it’s “too complicated,” I found it refreshingly real and honest. Brown gets some extra points in this story because Jersey isn’t a skinny girl, but her fuller body is never, ever an issue. She doesn’t hate herself nor is she uncomfortable in her skin. Instead, this fact about her — and it’s a fact about her — is woven into the character development in subtle and authentic ways.

Hand Torn Away to readers who have loved Brown’s work in the past, appreciate complex family dynamics, or who love a story about disasters. This could be an interesting pairing with Lara Zielin’s The Waiting Sky.

Katrina Leno’s The Half Life of Molly Pierce, available July 8, was a title I saw pop up as a read alike to Stephanie Kuehn’s forthcoming Complicit, which I read and loved (the review will come later this month). The comparison isn’t without merits, but in many ways, that comparison was a heavy one: it put some high expectations on Leno’s book for me, since Kuehn’s knocked it out of the park.

I can’t talk a whole lot about this book since it would be all spoiler, but this psychological thriller is about mental illness, and I saw the twist of the story coming one chapter in. It’s hard when you have that idea in mind to not spend the rest of the novel gathering evidence for your conclusion and feeling both satisfied and frustrated when you come to the end and see you were right. It’s satisfying because you as a reader knew all along but it’s frustrating because the strings to get from point A to point B are too clear in the novel. It felt too obvious to me from the onset, and I’d hoped that my intuition would be wrong, but it wasn’t.

This is a book about a girl who has little memory of her past, and as she’s putting it all together with the help of those around her, the story becomes more complex and much scarier for Molly. Could it be that she never understood who she was to begin with? Or that everything she thought she knew about herself was a lie? How do you pick up the pieces of your own experience when you can’t remember much of what you’ve experienced?

Molly Pierce will appeal to readers who like psychological suspense, who like stories about mental illness that aren’t necessarily about mental illness, and those who may want to wade into this genre of book and don’t have a whole lot of experience with them, since the story will seem more fresh and surprising to them. It’s a very short book and it’s fast paced, so it’s one that would appeal to more reluctant readers as well.

Guy In Real Life by Steve Brezenoff (available now) is, hands down, one of my favorite reads this year. The story is told through two points of view, that of Lesh and that of Svetlana. The two of them literally crash into one another on a street corner in St. Paul, Minnesota one night and from then on, they can’t seem to stop bumping into one another in some capacity.

Lesh and Svetlana are anything but stereotypical. Lesh is an all-black wearing Goth-type but he’s much more than his appearance may let on. He loves his music metal and he has recently fallen in deep love with video gaming. So much so that after his run-in with Svetlana, he creates an entire character in his game based off her — he plays as a girl named after Svetlana. Real life Svetlana herself is a role playing girl and a dungeon master who embroiders skirts and listens to music like Bjork for fun. In other words, a nerd who is way more than that label would ever suggest. She’s not interested in Lesh the way he is interested in her, but over the course of their getting to know one another, her feelings change.

The story alternates chapters within each of their voices, and it also offers chapters told from the video game itself as Lesh is playing. It’s a bit meta in that way, but it works. At heart, Brezenoff’s novel is about gender expectations and by seeing how Lesh plays the role of a girl in the gaming world, he’s forced to reconsider what gender may mean in the real world. Can he build more empathy for females in the real world, as he’s learned how tough it is to be a girl in the virtual world? And how does that exploration of gender impact how he relates to Svetlana?

As for Svetlana, she, too, plays against those gender roles not only in who she is and how she presents herself, but she’s a leader for her role playing club and has to take on roles that don’t necessarily jive with what is often expected of girls. It never comes across as a message, nor does it feel inauthentic. In fact, what makes this novel so strong and memorable is that these characters are teens we all know. They’re immensely complicated, rather than defined by whatever label is slapped upon them, either by themselves or by others. “Nerd” and “Geek” and “Gamer” and “Girl” and “Guy” are all explored here in thoughtful and fun ways.

Is there romance? Sure. But I wouldn’t necessarily label this one as a romance. That’s one element, but it’s really a book about identity and about relationship building more grandly. Pass Guy In Real Life along to readers who are gamers, who are interested in gaming culture, who love books about gender and identity, or those who dig stories told from multiple points of view. You do not have to be a gamer at all to appreciate this book nor to appreciate the chapters told through the game itself — I’m not, and in many ways, I think because I’m not involved nor knowledgable in that world, I took a lot away from it. I have a feeling readers who loved what Rainbow Rowell tried to do in Fangirl will eat Brezenoff’s book up.

Last but not least is Amanda Maciel’s Tease (available now). This is a bullying story told from the point of view of the alleged bully, who played a significant role in the suicide of a girl at her school. Sara, the main character, slowly reveals what happened at school which caused her to have to face a judge and potential sentencing for Emma’s death. Told in alternating time lines — the present and the past — we get a glimpse into all of the things that Emma did which led Sara to act in the manner she did.

What makes Maciel’s novel not an average bullying novel is that it’s told from the point of view of the girl being blamed. Sara isn’t the hero here. She’s the one facing serious charges in the wake of Emma’s suicide. Where she shouldn’t be a sympathetic character, though, she does become one readers do sympathize. We see why she took the actions she did and why she bullied Sara as she did. Never are readers expected to forgive her actions; instead, we’re given the other side of the story, the one which rarely gets told (the only other novel I can think of which allows the bully’s voice to be the one we hear is Courtney Summers’s Some Girls Are, which is certainly a great read alike to Maciel’s book).

In reading from Sara’s point of view, I found myself conflicted. She did some awful, terrible things to Emma. But she was also not the person coming up with these ideas. She was being fed ideas and encouraged to pursue them by another girl, and in Sara’s desperation to maintain that friendship and save her own face, she acted. It doesn’t make her guilt free, but it changes the motivation behind her actions. I felt bad for Sara because she did those things to keep her own reputation going and to protect her own interests. It was far less about ruining Emma’s life and more about keeping her own secure.

However, I found the ending of this book exceptionally disappointing. I was all on board and really enjoying the conflicting emotions I had in reading this until the very end when — spoiler — Sara is redeemed entirely. She gets a way-too-easy out of the story, and I never once believed that she felt the way she claims she did. The way it’s written, too, doesn’t invite the interpretation that she might be sarcastic or insincere; it’s too clean, too clear-cut, and too pretty a bow on an otherwise powerful read about bullying culture. I’d still heartily recommend Tease, especially for readers who like intense, thought-provoking novels that will spur discussion and discomfort. But that ending was a total disappointment in an otherwise noteworthy book.

Tabitha is lonely.

Over the last few months — the last year or so, really — things in her life have changed quite a bit. Her parents, who had her when they were mere teenagers themselves, are expecting a new baby. Tab’s body has changed significantly, too. She’s developed a shape, including boobs, that have garnered attention. She’s gotten so much attention, in fact, that it’s the reason her former friends have ditched her. They think she’s turned into a slutty girl, now that she’s got the appearance of one.

And maybe Tab has changed more than just in her appearance. She can’t seem to stop thinking about Joe, the boy who has a girlfriend named Sasha.

The boy who admitted to liking her late one night.

The boy who kissed her.

Enter Life By Committee: an anonymous, online group of teens who make a deal to keep each other’s secrets safe and secure in exchange for following through with an assignment meant to help the secret teller stretch him or herself. There is a time limit to completing the assignments and failure to complete means those secrets may not be kept safe.

Tab finds Life By Committee by accident. She’s obsessed with note taking in novels — her way of close reading — and she likes to then exchange the book she’s written in for copies of other favorite books to see what other people have written in the margins. It was in flipping through a used copy of The Secret Garden her dad picked up for her she found out about the site.

Corey Ann Haydu’s sophomore novel Life By Committee tackles some interesting aspects of growing up and learning how to navigate the social dynamics that accompany physical change. Tab lives in a small Vermont town where everyone knows everyone else, or so it seems. When her body begins to develop, she’s on the outs with her friends because of the assumptions they make about what her having that sort of body means. Because she’s blonde and because she’s well-developed, they believe she’s heading on a path that means she’s more interested in the attention of boys than she is in being a friend.

In some ways, her friends are right and in other ways, they’re not. Their assumptions impress ideas upon Tabitha, who is indeed interested in boys, including Joe. But Tab also has another boy she’s been interested in, and he happens to be the brother of one of her now-former best friends. So indeed, she is interested in boys, but her interest in them isn’t at the level her friends have suggested. Because we’re inside Tabitha’s mind, too, we’re able to see where she begins to struggle with the perception of who she is and the reality of who she is and what she wants.

She likes these boys, but she’s torn about how much she likes them and why she likes them. Physical contact with Joe feels nice, but the emotional intimacy she develops with him via their online chats is nice too. She’s well-aware, too, of what comes with Joe: his girlfriend Sasha. Does Tab feel bad about making out with a boy who is taken? Yes and no. She knows it’s not right, but she also believes Joe when he tells her he’s not that into Sasha anymore.

When Tab dives into Life By Committee, her first assignment comes as a result of her admitting to kissing Joe even though he has a girlfriend. She’s told she needs to kiss him again, and she does. While she doesn’t do it immediately, she does complete the job before deadline, and in doing so, she’s afforded more opportunity to think about what it is she may want in a relationship with him.

Her second secret and second assignment has to do with her father, who has a problem with smoking pot. This secret, one that Tab held deep inside her, is met with the assignment that she’s to smoke pot with him. It’s not meant to get her high nor meant to show her some new side of why he chooses to do what he does to cope with life; it’s instead meant to be a wakeup call to her father — and it becomes just that, too.

What Tab takes from Life By Committee, though, isn’t so much the secret-telling and the assignment-completing. It’s instead a sense of community. Even though she’s at a distance, she finds herself drawn to the other anonymous people partaking in this online group. Who are they? What do their secrets say about them? How and where are they able to complete these assignments and what does success for them look like beyond the assignments? Are they finding love? Happiness? Creative fulfillment?

The idea of Life By Committee comes together in the end of the book, and because it’d be spoiler to explain what happened, I won’t. I will say I saw it coming from pretty far away, and I felt that it was almost too neat a bow on top of the story. I don’t know if that will be the case for all readers, particularly teens, who might see the ending as the kind of outcome Tabitha deserved to have for herself. For me, the idea of Life By Committee more broadly felt a little too convenient and a little too styled in terms of crafting a bigger narrative arc than I prefer. It wasn’t that it was too easy for Tabitha, but rather, it felt a little too easy for getting Tabitha from point A to point B in the story.

Life By Committee‘s strength lies in its character development and in the way it renders how painful it is to feel lonely and like you do not have friends you can rely on. But it’s done in a way that’s smart: Tabitha isn’t necessarily an easily likable character, but she’s easy to feel sympathy and empathy for. This is a girl who is knowingly pursuing a boy who has a girlfriend and Tabitha seems determined to find every bit of Sasha that’s repulsive or annoying and pack it away as evidence for why it’s okay for her to pursue Joe — even though she knows deep down it’s not okay. At the same time, Joe leads Tab on very clearly, and it’s hard to dislike what she does completely because she’s getting all the cues that it’s okay with him. Likewise, Tab’s home life and the changes to come soon because of the new baby, only make her emotional and mental states more complex.

Haydu does well in tackling the complicated body image elements with Tab. In many ways, it was novel to read a book where one becomes so conscious of themselves and the physical changes they’re going through in a way that’s not about weight. It’s about shape and about the way people react to one another during puberty. In many ways, this hit really close to home for me: Tab talks about clothing and how now that she has a different shape, people have commented upon how it’s not appropriate for her to be wearing certain things because it could draw unwanted attention. As a girl who developed large breasts when I was young, this is something I found myself being told quite a bit, and it was something that always made me feel a sense of shame because so little could deemphasize the fact my body now had a new shape. That shame and that sense of wanting to crawl inside yourself because of changes you have absolutely no control over were palpable through Tab and her experiences.

Some of the secondary characters weren’t fully developed, and I didn’t necessarily find myself compelled by the budding romance in the story — either the one Tab has with Joe (if that could be considered a romance) or the one that we find out may exist between Tab and another boy. I wanted to get to know Sasha better, primarily because I felt she was redeemed later on in the story in such a way that she seemed like a really interesting character. Tab’s limited perspective and insight on her as simply the weird girl who is Joe’s girlfriend left me wanting a little more.

Pass Life By Committee on to readers who like realistic YA and who are particularly eager for stories about friendship — or what happens when friendships go sour. Perhaps more than a book about friendship, Haydu’s novel is really about peer relationships and the sorts of feedback loops that exist within them. Fans of Siobhan Vivian should really enjoy Life By Committee.

Review copy received from the publisher. Life By Committee is available now.