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Clarity by Kim Harrington

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I have to preface this review with a little description of the weather in East Texas. This past weekend was a beautiful one: highs in the mid 70s to low 80s, sunny without the kind of heat that bakes your skin, a light breeze. I took Friday off from work and set up my hammock in my backyard, between two trees that provide the perfect amount of shade. And I proceeded to spend approximately three hours zipping through Kim Harrington’s debut novel Clarity in that hammock, in my shorts and tank top, blissful and happy.
I say this not only to make you people who live in the frigid north jealous (how many inches of snow did you get this week?) but also to point out Clarity was a book written for hammock-reading. It’s a mystery with a paranormal twist set in New England during the summer. There’s frequent talks of beach visits and swimsuits and vacation spots. It’s the best kind of popcorn book: well-written with an engaging plot, interesting characters, a witty first-person narrative, and nothing too depressing to darken your sunny skies (metaphorically, of course, since the sun just wouldn’t go away last weekend. Your envy sustains me.).
Our protagonist is named Clarity, and surprisingly she’s not the character in the book with the most unfortunate name. (That honor belongs to her brother, Periwinkle, or Perry for short). Clarity goes by Clare (and wouldn’t you go by Clare too?) and belongs to a family of gifted people. Clare is psychic, her brother Perry is a medium, and her mother can read minds. (Can you think of a worse ability for your mother to have?) Her father left them long ago.
As a family, they run a business where they tell tourists about their lives – they can’t tell the future, but they are able to tell the tourists things like “Your husband is sleeping with his secretary.” Of course, they only relate negative news when they don’t care about being paid. They are not particularly well-regarded by the other people in town, who view them as frauds or freaks. Clare’s particular psychic ability doesn’t mean that she is all-knowing. Instead, she can touch an item and see the events associated with that item. For example, she’d be able to touch a knife and know it was used to kill someone.
Which brings us to our murder. Clare’s town is a vacation hot spot, and one of its visitors has the misfortune to be murdered in her hotel room. This has nothing to do with Clare, until her brother tells her that he had hooked up with the murdered girl the night she was killed. This makes Perry a suspect, and suddenly the murder is very personal.
And then her ex-boyfriend, the son of the mayor, asks her to help him solve the case using her special abilities. Clare and said ex-boyfriend are exes because she touched his jacket and discovered he had cheated on her with her arch-nemesis, a girl named Tiffany (arch-nemeses are almost always named Tiffany, aren’t they?). But he convinces her to help in the name of justice…and the fact that she’d also be working with Gabriel, the hot son of the new police chief, doesn’t hurt. Love triangle: there is one. It’s cute, but it doesn’t overwhelm the story. The mystery is central, and it’s a good one.
One of the things I liked best about Clarity is Clare’s voice. She’s snarky without coming across as rude or mean, and she wisecracks constantly. She’s got such a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor. I laughed out loud three times during the first fifty pages.
Clare is a very likable protagonist, and Harrington uses this to her advantage when she writes about Clare’s relationships with others in the story, in particular her brother. Because Clare is so likable, we want to trust the people she trusts, which makes it even more wrenching when Perry is suspected. It was really nice to read a story where brother and sister are friends with each other, but the sister doesn’t necessarily idolize the older brother. Clare recognizes her brother’s faults – he tends to love and leave women, which doesn’t put him in a good place when the girl is murdered. Clare is torn between revealing Perry’s hookup to the police and keeping it secret. She knows the police don’t always arrest the correct person, and her family is already regarded as liars and frauds by the townspeople.
I wasn’t terribly surprised by the identity of the killer, but that didn’t matter a whole lot. The book kept me guessing long enough, and even if I had known from the beginning, Clarity would have been a treat to read due to the sheer awesomeness of Clare’s narrative style. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a story where the narrative voice is so distinctive and entertaining.
Clarity is very obviously the first in a series of books, but the mystery genre has always done series best. This book, like others in its genre, neatly wraps up the murder mystery but leaves open a few threads about Clare’s family and her abilities that I anticipate will be explored in future books. It all adds up to a satisfying read that also leaves you wanting more. That, my friends, is the right way to do a series.
Copy checked out from my local library.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

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The tagline for Ann Aguirre’s Enclave is “Welcome to the apocalypse,” which gives you a pretty good idea of what it’s about.  Deuce, our protagonist, lives in an underground world where the living conditions are harsh, but they help keep everyone alive.  When the citizens of this world are children, they’re called by numbers.  They’re not given a name until they reach the age of maturity (fifteen) and are finally able to contribute to society by becoming either a Breeder, a Builder, or a Hunter.
On Deuce’s fifteenth birthday, she’s given her name and initiated as a Huntress, something she’s been training for all her life.  As a Huntress, it’s her responsibility to not only bring back food, but also protect her community from the Freaks (think zombies) that lurk in the tunnels.  Every hunter has a hunting partner, and Deuce’s is Fade, the enigmatic boy (there’s your love story) who showed up underground a few years ago and was adopted by the community.  Fade has some strange ideas, coming from aboveground, ideas that may get him and Deuce in trouble – such as that the elders may not always be right, and the restrictive rules that they live by might just get them all killed.
Things aren’t going so well for the underground world lately – the Freaks have taken out another community a few days away from Deuce’s, and they’re encroaching upon hers.  The elders refuse to listen.  Events eventually conspire to force Deuce and Fade aboveground, a fate worse than death.  While the community underground is far from a utopia, aboveground is worse.  Deuce does not expect to survive, but she’s got Fade with her, who lived for years there before.  By working together and trying to avoid the bands of savage humans that now populate the earth, they might just survive.
Enclave has a lot going for it.  The world-building is excellent, something I really appreciate considering this aspect is so lacking in so many other books of the same genre.  Aguirre’s really got the ability to transfer us to her post-apocalyptic world and make us shiver.  Deuce’s underground world – both its setting and its culture – is particularly well done and is unique enough to stand out from the crowd of other post-apocalyptic settings. 
Aguirre has also given us some wonderfully gray characters.  She answers the question of “What would you do to survive in a world like this?” with her characters and doesn’t pull any punches.  At least one of the characters has done some pretty awful things, but Aguirre still manages to force some sympathy for said character on the part of the reader.  Deuce is a terrific protagonist, strong but also doubting herself and in a situation that’s more than a little over her head. She’s kick-ass (how I like my heroines best) but also has believable weaknesses.
With so much going for the book, I’m sad to say that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to.  This dissatisfaction can be traced directly to the plot.  While there is some promise when Deuce is still underground, that fades when she emerges into the wide world above.  From then on, the plot is typical of any other post-apocalyptic novel: a plucky band of survivors try to to find the perhaps-mythical land where things don’t suck.  It’s a road trip where nothing out of the ordinary happens (and by nothing out of the ordinary, I mean out of the ordinary for this genre – people trying to kill you isn’t exactly ordinary for most people).  I can’t say a whole lot more without spoiling things, but trust me when I tell you that if I did choose to spoil it for you and you’ve read one or two other post-apocalyptic novels, you wouldn’t be spoiled in the slightest. 
You should not be surprised to hear this is the first book in a series.  Unfortunately, it reads like even less than that – it’s more like Part One of the first book in a series.  No major revelation about the post-apocalyptic world is reached, no major character growth occurs, and the climax is so artificial and out of place I wonder if it was inserted after the book had been written.  It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that Aguirre intended her book to be a standalone and was convinced otherwise by an editor or publisher, forcing her to go back and make major edits, extending a story that was really fit for just one book into two or more books.  After all, this book was originally titled Razorland.  Now it’s called Enclave: Razorland #1.  Hmmmm.
It may sound like I’m bashing every YA dystopia and post-apocalyptic book to come along lately, but that’s not really the case.  When a genre has exploded as much as this one has lately, there are bound to be more duds than usual.  Most of them normally still have something to recommend them, like Enclave does.  I wouldn’t not recommend this one, but I could probably more wholeheartedly recommend it after the second (and third?) book is out so they could be read back to back.  Otherwise, it’s an all too unsatisfying and incomplete read.
Review copy received from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.  Enclave will be on shelves April 12.

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

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I’ve been reading more adult books to temper some of the less-than-amazing YA books I’ve read lately. It’s not that there’s anything horrible, per se, but nothing has been that spectacular for me in a while. Perhaps it’s a case of needing a little reading change.

I picked up a copy of David Levithan’s first adult novel The Lover’s Dictionary at ALA Midwinter, a little reluctantly. I am familiar with Levithan’s YA offerings, and I’m a fan of the books he edits at Scholastic. I gave this one a whirl.

I can’t give a real plot description for this book, since it’s not a plot-driven book. It’s not really a character-driven book, either. This is an extended letter from one person in a relationship to another, and the set up is really the point of the story: it’s a dictionary.

Each page begins with a word that we’re familiar with — bolster, elegy, only, and yesterday being a few examples — and then there is a short description for the word, told through an episode in the relationship. Perfunctory, for example, is a short one that reads “I get to sign some of your Christmas cards, but others I don’t.” Other words have longer explanations, some spanning a few pages. But the entries are short, much like these moments in any romantic relationship are, and the book reads quite fast. Because I wanted to savor it, I read this one in many sittings, over the course of a few days. Since there aren’t any character or story arcs in Levithan’s book, this is a great book to read at any pace, fast or slow.

This is a sweet book, and I think it really captures both the ups and downs of a relationship. It’s at times a little over-the-top for my romantic reading inklings, but these moments are countered with tension in the relationship, too.

Although I liked the book, the story didn’t do much for me. I think I liked the execution and style, the exercise in trying a dictionaryesque approach to story telling, much more than what was contained within. I found it kind of thin otherwise, something fairly forgettable. There are some excellent lines in the book, and some things worth quoting reading aloud, but don’t go in expecting much in terms of substance. This is the kind of book I’ll reread passages from when I’m looking for a little writing inspiration.

While Levithan is a well-known YA author, this is not a book for teens. There’s an interesting discussion on one of the YALSA blogs about this book, and how there’s question of why this wouldn’t be one worth cross-shelving (that is, having a copy in adult fiction and one in teen fiction). But for me, there’s no reason for this. Sure, the characters in The Lover’s Dictionary are adults; however, the reason this isn’t a book for teens is that this is a story about an adult relationship. It’s a love letter, sure, and there are teens who will read this and love this. But the fact of the matter is, it’s a very limited appeal to teens who simply do not have this sort of understanding yet. They’re not mature enough to appreciate what this is, and frankly, there are many better books for teens that are love letters between romantic partners. It’s less an issue of sexuality (there’s not much) or of language (again, not much) but more an issue of development and understanding of the adult side of life. Teens will get there on their own; we don’t need to push them there. Those who are ready will find their way to the adult fiction area themselves and discover this.

Pass this off to your fans of romantic reads or books that are simply a little different. It’s not standard Levithan, but I think it might drive adult readers to check out his other works.

Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler

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Chelsea always wanted to play basketball in college — it was her ticket to a big scholarship and it was a game she loved. She was passionate about it. But then an accident on the court her junior year leaves her wounded
and unable to pursue this dream.

She aches.

Clint is a former hockey player who works at a lake resort in Minnesota. Something terrible has happened to him — something so awful he’s quit playing hockey and vows never to play again. When Chelsea’s family takes a trip there for three weeks during the summer, her father hires Clint to help Chelsea regain some of the physical strength she’s lost during her recuperation.

Even though Chelsea’s in a relationship and Clint’s not a believer in the summer fling, their shared struggles to overcome the loss of their dreams may bring them together in surprising ways.

Playing Hurt is Schindler’s second novel, and it is a completely different story than her first, A Blue So Dark (reviewed here). Although both stories deal with loss and grief to some degree, this one focuses on what it feels like to lose the thing you love the most. For Chelsea, this is basketball. It’s ripped from her prematurely, and it’s done in a manner that is completely out of her control. It was a real accident, and it’s a moment she lives over and over, both in her mind and in person: she has a video of it. She continues watching it, hoping for some sort of solace in it. It’s aching because as readers, we know how it feels to have a dream like that and have it torn from you.

For Clint, we’re left a little more in the dark about what happened to him. We know he’s experienced pain and loss, and frankly, he’ll never tell. He’ll admit when confronted, but he won’t be the one to tell Chelsea or the readers. Since I don’t want to ruin it, I’ll say it goes back to his beliefs about love and relationships.

The book is written in dual voices, beginning with Chelsea’s and then going to Clint’s. Their voices are distinct, though I wasn’t entirely convinced of Clint’s voice nearer the end of the story. Chelsea’s is pitch perfect, though, and Schindler really grasps her pain and her need to recover. The story is well paced, and like in A Blue So Dark, it is quite literary in execution. There are moments when the language really begs to be read aloud.

One of the issues I had with this book was Chelsea’s preoccupation with losing her virginity. Although that in and of itself wasn’t problematic, it doesn’t really present itself early on. We know she has a boyfriend at home, and we know he’s gone to great lengths to arrange a date for them to have sex for the first time together after she returns from her trip. Well, because she and Clint become an item, his work will be for naught. Chelsea gives it up to Clint. The bigger issue, though, is the writing in these intimate scenes — and there are quite a few of them. I found it clunky and unbelievable, especially from Clint’s voice. It came off more Harlequin than teen, more of a voice of experience and sensuality than of two clumsy teenagers in the backwoods of Minnesota. As much as I didn’t want it to, it did mar some of the great aspects of Chelsea and Clint’s characters.

Moreover, there is nearly no remorse in Chelsea for cheating on her long time boyfriend. She’d been with Gabe for two years, but she spent no time really thinking about him while engaging with Clint. Sure, she sent him letters and checked her email from him, but in those intimate moments, it never crossed her mind. This made me really dislike her as a character, despite the point of the story being to care about her and want her to overcome the loss she’s experienced with her injury. And trust me when I say it didn’t make me like Clint anymore, either, since he knew full well she was in a relationship.

That said, this is a story focused more on character than on sport, but your maturer sports readers who appreciate stories like Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen will enjoy this one. Chelsea and Clint are relatable characters and what they go through in terms of mourning loss and accepting change will resonate with readers who’ve done the same.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

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June 14, 1941. Fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas is sitting in her bedroom in Lithuania, ready to compose a letter to her cousin Joana, when a violent pounding on the door startles her. With that noise, her life is upended, as officers of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, barrel into her family’s house and take Lina, her mother Elena, and her brother Jonas prisoner. Separated from her father, a university provost, Lina and her family are forced onto a caravan of train cars, then sent on a perilous journey across Lithuania and Russia, all the way to Siberia and the Arctic Circle. While enduring starvation, abuse, and excruciatingly difficult labor picking beets in a work camp, Lina nevertheless manages to endure these hardships through the few things she has left–her family; her desperate belief that her father, sent to a Soviet prison, is still alive; the kind boy, Andrius, that she meets along the way, and her love for art. As Lina witnesses the horrific treatment of her fellow prisoners, fears for her younger brother’s heath, and desperately wishes for the life she has left behind, she continues to draw the atrocities that are happening around her and the people she has met along the way. This art both sustains her, serving as a record of her experiences, and gives her hope: as she passes her drawings through other prisoners’ hands and through the mail, she retains the hope that her father will somehow find them, and realize that they are still alive.

I am ashamed to say that before Between Shades of Gray, I had not realized what happened to the residents of Lithuania and other Baltic region countries in the 1940s, where the ‘educated’ and ‘professional’ citizens were listed as anti-Soviet, and were rounded up to be sent as slaves to Siberia. Wrested away from their homes, which were seized as Soviet possessions, these citizens were treated as criminals, separated from their families, and sentenced to hard labor, little food, and utter cruelty.

Sepetys based Between Shades of Gray on her own family’s history, which lends an extra sense of gravity to the plot unfolding in its pages. While Lina does get to stay with her mother and younger brother as they journey the 6,500 miles from Lithuania to Siberia (a map depicting their journey is included at the beginning of the novel), this is only because of her mother’s sacrifice, who bribes a guard with a precious family heirloom to prevent him from taking Lina’s brother Jonas away. As Lina states simply, “Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.” Sepetys depicts the familial bond so strongly in this novel, as the reader can feel the devotion that Lina’s mother has for her children, and the desperation that Lina has to keep both her mother’s and Jonas’ spirits alive.

The other supporting characters, who the Vilkas family meet when they are first herded into a stuffy, cramped, and unsanitary train car, also become their surrogate family. The bald man, who injured his leg trying to escape, and whose complaints become a cantankerous soundtrack to their journey, is nevertheless treated with never-ending compassion by Lina’s mother. Ona, who was dragged from the hospital minutes after giving birth, struggles to breastfeed her newborn child. And Andrius Arvydas is a gentle, yet often infuriating, voice for her to talk to. The community this group forms, which tragically diminishes throughout their incarceration, is strong and inspiring.

While Lina does meet Andrius, a boy her age, there is no sweeping romance that overwhelms the utterly serious narrative. And this is as it should be. The history presented in this novel needs to stand on its own. Yes, it is humanized by Lina and her family, who give us a window into the lives that Stalin’s regime destroyed. But these characters and their humanity can, and should, be enough, should not be overshadowed by stolen kisses or angsty crushes.

Sepetys’ writing is spare and beautiful, full of simple descriptions that utterly fit the serious subject matter. Lina’s brief flashbacks to her life before the Soviet raid are well-placed, complementing the present-day narrative and giving the reader an emotional juxtaposition to the carefree, well-to-do life that the Vilkas family enjoyed prior. Well-researched and well-plotted, this book does not simply end, as there were no happy endings for these citizens, whose entire lives were transformed. As Sepetys noted in her Author’s Note, the prisoners who lived spent ten to fifteen years in Siberia, returning to a transformed Lithuania, where they were still treated as criminals, evildoers who were forced to keep their imprisonment and abuse a secret.

And a secret it was, to so many people. Between Shades of Gray brings a horrific period of history to the forefront, imbuing it with emotion, humanity, and hope. This book will not let us forget. As Lina noted with horror, “Two Soviets pulled a priest down the platform. His hands were bound and his cassock was dirty. Why a priest? But then…why any of us?”

Copy received from Pam at Iwriteinbooks.