STACKED

books

A Few Cybils Reads – Part V (2015)

|

Untitled design-4

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

Sierra Santiago is a shadowshaper, meaning she can control spirits through art, including murals and music. Once she discovers this, she quickly learns that shadowshaping has been passed down through her family. It’s an ability others who don’t inherit would kill for (and that’s not a metaphor). Sierra’s abuelo tells her to team up with Robbie, another shadowshaper, and together they try and puzzle out just who is targeting shadowshapers and why. There’s a lot wrapped up in this story. Through the idea of shadowshaping and its misuse by the primary antagonist who wants it for his own, Older tackles heritage, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as more standard themes like romance, friendship, and family. Older also asks his readers to consider the field of cultural anthropology, particularly who gets studied and who does the studying. The setting feels alive, not the least because the murals on the building really do come alive thanks to Sierra’s abilities. It’s also incredibly diverse. I don’t think there’s a single white person (gasp!), and two of Sierra’s friends are lesbians. Sierra herself is proud of her heritage – she’s proud to be a shadowshaper and proud to be Puerto Rican, which is demonstrated in one particularly moving scene. I was especially impressed by the dialogue, which feels authentically teen – Sierra and her friends use current slang and rib each other good-naturedly in conversations that go from serious to silly and back to serious again. This is a mega appealing book with lots of twists and a smart, strong protagonist.

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

This is a nearly perfect book, and that is no exaggeration. I normally avoid prison stories because they’re just so depressing, but I know I can rely on Nova Ren Suma to write a beautiful book. This one is both beautiful and terrifying, a sort of horror story without any gore or sudden frights, a psychological thriller that makes your heart race and your brain light up. It’s not fast-paced, per se, but it is intense and completely absorbing. It’s told from two different perspectives: Amber, locked up in Aurora Hills juvenile detention center for a crime she insists she didn’t commit; and Violet, an aspiring ballerina whose best friend was sent to Aurora Hills for a violent crime a few years ago. This friend of Violet’s is Orianna, and while she doesn’t ever narrate, she is the key to the story. For a few months, she was Amber’s cellmate – until all the girls at Aurora Hills mysteriously died of…food poisoning, perhaps. There are multiple threads that Suma teases out: what happened to the 42 girls at Aurora Hills? What did Orianna do to end up there, and how does Violet fit into it? Just who is guilty of what, and will the guilty parties ever be made to atone? It’s a book that tackles what it means to be guilty and what it means to be innocent, how justice is meted out and who can escape it. It’s a ghost story that gets creepier as it goes on, with an unsettling yet perfect ending. The characters live and breathe. Suma’s writing is haunting and gorgeous. The plot of this story should make it an easy sell to teens and the writing is deserving of its many critical accolades.

Atlantis Rising by Gloria Craw

When I was a teen, I was a sucker for all things Atlantis (one of my many fledgling stories I wrote took place there). I’m always interested to see how the myth is reshaped by writers today. Alison is a “dewing,” a member of the Atlantean race and a descendant of the people who used to live on the island before it sank. The dewings have been at war with each other, one side wanting to use their powers to subjugate humanity and the other side fighting against this idea. Alison was raised by humans, thinking she was one of them, though she always knew that her ability to impress thoughts upon other people and make them believe these thoughts were their own was not something normal people could do. Once she discovers her true heritage, she becomes caught up in the war between the two groups – and she is especially prized by both sides for her abilities as a thoughmaker. Craw has created a rich mythology surrounding the Atlanteans/dewings and an interesting, fast-paced story. Readers who can’t get enough of contemporary paranormal fantasy will enjoy this a lot, though it does drop a couple of story threads, which seems unintentional as there’s no real setup for a sequel. Refreshingly, despite the fact that dewings live to be 300 and look youthful for most of those years, Alison’s romance is with another 17 year old dewing.

 

A Few Cybils Reads – Part IV (2015)

|

accident season burning nation illusionarium

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The premise of Fowley-Doyle’s debut novel is intriguing. Each October, Cara’s family becomes accident-prone: “Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.” A couple of her relatives have died during previous accident seasons, and it’s become a natural part of their lives to be wary around that time. But no matter how many precautions they take – covering up the hardwood floors with rugs, for example – the accidents always happen. Cara’s first-person narration takes us through this accident season and delves into her family’s past, bringing at least two explosive secrets to light, one of which might explain why the accidents happen each year – or if they’re accidents at all. Magical realism is really hit and miss with me, and this book was a bit of both. The writing is lovely, literary without sacrificing Cara’s teen voice. But the plot meandered and the pace was overly slow. Not perfect, but a good pick for fans of magical realism and literary YA.

 

Burning Nation by Trent Reedy

This is the sequel to a book I read for the Cybils last year, Divided We Fall. The audio production on that one was so good, I opted for the audio for its sequel as well, and I was not disappointed. Burning Nation picks up where its predecessor left off, with the United States growing more and more fractured and Danny caught in the middle of it all. Initially Danny is very pro-Idaho, burning for revenge for his mother’s murder by “the Fed.” As more states follow Idaho’s example, officially seceding from the rest of the country due to the mandatory federal ID law, Danny becomes their emblem – somewhat willingly, somewhat not. This one is more violent than the first, with a prolonged scene of torture by an agent of “the Fed” that may be hard to take for some readers, but is essential to the story.

Reedy does an excellent job painting both sides of the conflict in shades of grey: he brings up the likelihood of racist and other extremist groups supporting the secession (something missing from the first book) and ends the novel with a disturbing scene that demonstrates no one may be truly in the right. The effect of violence – both as victim and perpetrator – on one of Danny’s friends is particularly well-done. Reedy also does a good job portraying more conservative Americans (including teens like Danny and his friends) as not all being raging racists, a stereotype I sometimes find in YA fiction. The focus is on current events (invasion of privacy by the federal government is cited as the reason for the conflict) and the book feels unsettlingly prescient as a result. Like the first book, this audio version includes fully-voiced snippets of radio broadcasts, social media, and blog posts with lifelike sound effects that make the story come alive. Listen to it in your car for a really authentic experience

 

Illusionarium by Heather Dixon

The concept of Dixon’s second YA novel (after the acclaimed Entwined) is fascinating. It’s set in an alternate 19th century England where London has been renamed Arthurise and airships dot the skies, giving it a bit of a steampunk feel. The venen, a terrible disease, has just infected the queen, and the king comes calling on Jonathan’s father, a great scientist, to cure it. As his apprentice, Jonathan feels he can help, especially with a new substance called fantillium that Lady Florel, another scientist working on the cure, has just introduced to him. Fantillium causes group hallucinations that allows Jonathan and his father to try out various cures and speed up time without actually harming anyone. But Jonathan’s father feels that something isn’t right about it, or about Lady Florel, and refuses to use it, even to save his own wife and daughter who have come down with the illness. Jonathan decides otherwise, and it takes him on an adventure to another alternate world where fantillium is a way of life.

Dixon’s novel is heavy-handed with the message – the consequences of fantillium use are horrific and Jonathan’s father’s metaphor of a compass as a way to tell him what is morally correct is woven throughout. It feels a tad preachy as a result, but the ideas are interesting, particularly how fantillium works and what these two alternate worlds look like (and how they got that way). Ideas aren’t good enough for a great story, though, and Illusionarium never completely comes together writing-wise. It’s choppy and feels a little juvenile for its intended age range, with exaggerated dialogue and unsubtle characterizations. Still, fans of parallel worlds and fast-paced adventure stories should find a lot to like here.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part III (2015)

|

Untitled design-4

 

Denton Little’s Death Date by Lance Rubin

Denton Little lives in a world where everyone knows the date they will die, and it’s never been wrong. Unfortunately for Denton, his death date is the day of his senior prom. In the day leading up to it, he’s focused on cramming as much into what remains of his life as he can – have sex with his girlfriend, tell his classmates what he really thinks about them, and so on. But things don’t go quite as planned – he gets a strange purple rash, for starters. And he notices that he’s being watched.

In order to enjoy this one, you’ve really got to suspend your disbelief. Don’t interrogate the concept too closely – or at all, really. The book isn’t much interested in how the death date technology works, or, assuming we buy that such a thing is possible, what that means for the idea of free will. The characters have accepted it, and if you want to get through this book, so should you.

If you’re able to move beyond the problems with the concept, this is a pretty fun book. Denton has a great voice – he’s sarcastic and an asshole at times, but he has moments of genuine heartfelt goodness too. I wouldn’t call the book laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s amusing throughout and I always looked forward to listening to more of it when I could. Rubin narrates the audiobook himself and he’s actually quite good at it, which is pretty unusual for an author-narrated book. It’s fast-paced and all takes place in about 48 hours, and it leaves you with a big cliffhanger at the end. There’s another bit of “science” that may as well be magic near the end, and Rubin doesn’t really bother trying to explain it. My advice? Just do your best to accept the hand-waving and enjoy this book for what it is: a fun ride propelled by a ludicrous concept.

 

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

This was my second book about bird people, which is…a bit odd. Actually, a lot of the Cybils YA speculative fiction nominees this year have something to do with either birds or feathers, whether literally or metaphorically. This one is more the literal kind.

Echo’s parents treated her poorly when she was a child, so she ran away and was taken in by the Avicen, a race of bird people who live underneath New York City. Think mostly human-looking, but with feathers. She had been surviving as a thief and she keeps it up once she starts living with the Avicen, though she does it more for the thrill or to help out her adoptive family rather than for survival. The Alla, an elder of sorts of the Avicen and the one who took Echo in, asks her to locate (steal) something called the Firebird, an entity which will help the Avicen defeat their long-time foes, a race of dragon-like people. Of course the task is not easy, and Echo must soon team up with the very people the Avicen are fighting, including a newly-deposed dragon prince. Romance and violence ensue, naturally.

The marketing describes this as a readalike for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which is very accurate, though my love for that book makes this one pale in comparison. There are a lot of similarities: a human living with a found family of monster-like beings (though the Avicen aren’t terribly monstrous like the chimera are), portals that take you to big and interesting cities across the globe, a centuries-old battle between two powerful races. There’s a bit at the end of the book that is perhaps a bit too resonant of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and made me go “hmm.” The idea is not new, but having read Daughter of Smoke and Bone certainly makes what happens here easy to predict. Despite the plot similarities, this is a well-written novel with good characterization and interesting world-building. Julia Whelan narrates the audiobook and she does a fine job. This would be a good pick for urban fantasy fans who want a story that feels epic.

Cybils Spiderweb

|

When you participate as a Round 1 panelist for the Cybils, you read a lot of books in a very short period of time. Last year was my first year as a Round 1 panelist, and as a result of my frantic reading, I saw a lot of little connections between books in my category that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This year, I’m tracking them! I’ve turned those connections into what I’m calling a Cybils spiderweb, represented below. Interestingly, most of the connections spring from the book I’m currently reading, The Girl at Midnight, so I’ve used that as the center of my web. I have no doubt the spiderweb will grow as the awards season progresses. Click on the image to enlarge.

cybils spider

A Few Cybils Reads – Part II (2015)

|

Untitled design-5

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

It’s 1930s America, and Love and Death are playing a game. They each have chosen a player: Love has Henry, a white boy whose parents have died, leaving him in the care of a family who considers him not-quite-a-son; Death has Flora, a black girl who dreams of flying her own airplane across the ocean and sings jazz in a nightclub she partly owns. The rules of the game aren’t quite clear initially, but as readers we do know that these two teenagers will fall in love, and the implication is that their love will be rocky and affect Love and Death – and perhaps the world – in uncertain ways. This is a slow-moving and contemplative story, one that takes a considerable investment of time to appreciate. At first I found it difficult to connect with the story and its characters, which I think is deliberate. The narration is third-person omniscient (mainly), which can often lead to that kind of feel. Some portions are told from the perspective of Love and Death, and they’re both inscrutable entities, though they become a bit clearer as the story goes on. This kind of narration brings inevitable comparisons to The Book Thief, though the two didn’t seem very similar to me. By the time I got over halfway through, though, I felt like I knew the characters on a really deep level – and I felt like I knew Love and Death, too, despite their strangeness. This is a unique sort of book that should appeal to fans of historical fiction and those seeking something different.

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

This is a story about parallel worlds, which is one of my plot kryptonites. Marguerite’s parents are scientists who have been researching the possibility of travel to parallel worlds, and just as it seemed they had finally figured it out, one of their research assistants – Paul – kills Marguerite’s father and steals all of his research, running away to one of these parallel worlds. Marguerite teams up with another research assistant, Theo, and they go after him. Of course, all is not as it seems, and Marguerite begins to suspect that Paul was framed – but by whom, and for what reason? Fleshing out this mystery is a really fun series of adventures. Marguerite and Theo first travel to a world where technology has advanced at a much faster rate, so we get to see what a potential future would be like. Then they find themselves in Russia in a world where neither the Russian Revolution nor the Industrial Revolution happened – though both might be on the cusp of happening, putting Marguerite in exceptional danger. It’s tons of fun to see all of these possibilities play out, like the best combination of a parallel worlds and alternate history story. There’s a love triangle that adds a lot of appeal, and the question of who really killed Marguerite’s father and why propels the story forward. Exciting and well-written.

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Aza Ray Boyle has always been sickly. Since she was a small child, she’s had trouble breathing, and it’s sent her to the hospital many times. She wasn’t expected to live to see her 16th birthday, which is right around the corner. She’s been hearing something calling her name lately, and then something crazy happens with a bird, and Aza dies – maybe. She actually wakes up on a ship in the sky, surrounded by strange bird-people, though her body is being buried on the earth below. It turns out Aza is actually one of these bird-people, kidnapped at a young age, and her mother – a bird person as well – has finally found her and brought her “home.” This is one of the weirder books I’ve read. You’ve really got to buy into the concept of a race of bird-people living up in the sky unbeknownst to all the humans below, plus believe the explanation for how Aza’s body was buried but she isn’t really dead. The narration (I listened to this one on audio) is excellent, infused with all the panic and disbelief that Aza feels when she finds herself in a sky ship. Aza’s voice overall is pretty good, actually, and starts the book off really strong – she’s snarky about her illness and how people treat her because of it, and there’s a lot of dark humor in the early parts. Personally, I never fully connected with the bird-people living in the sky plotline, but I’m sure it’s just the right kind of weird for another reader.