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A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

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A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley is the third in a series of mystery novels featuring precocious eleven year old amateur detective Flavia de Luce. Despite the age of the protagonist, the books are written for an adult audience, although they do have great crossover appeal. They’ve garnered a lot of acclaim, and it’s well deserved. Even if you’re not particularly interested in mysteries, if you like a quirky character, you’d enjoy reading about Flavia’s adventures.
Flavia is a special sort of child. She’s more interested in her dead uncle Tarquin’s chemistry laboratory than any other more normal childish pursuit (although she does enjoy flitting about the town on her bicycle, Gladys). Her specialty is poisons, and she often uses these (non-fatally, of course) against her two older sisters as vengeance for their mean-spirited pranks. (Let’s be honest, sometimes it’s not vengeance for anything, sometimes it’s just to torment them.) She also has a penchant for discovering dead bodies, and like any good character in a mystery novel, she ensures she’s involved in solving the crime.
Flavia lives with her sisters and father (her mother died when she was a baby in a climbing accident) in 1950s England, in the de Luce family’s sprawling estate of Buckshaw. Her father’s been a bit remote since the death of her mother, and her two sisters, while once close to her, now make it a habit of torturing her (a favorite taunt is that Flavia is a changeling, a fairy swapped out for the real human child as a baby). Buckshaw sits in a peculiar little English town called Bishop’s Lacey – a town full of colorful characters and an alarming number of murders. The town and time period lend the stories much of their charm.
What makes these books truly entertaining is Flavia’s voice. She’s got a tremendous amount of character and it’s remarkable that Bradley, a grown man, is able to write her voice so convincingly. It helps that Flavia is very deliberately not your typical eleven year old. She’s resourceful, cheeky, intelligent beyond her years, and treats adults as her peers. She’s also frequently selfish, petulant, mean-spirited, and foolish. Despite all that (or perhaps because of these failings), she’s also always likable. As a reader, I never felt left behind by Flavia’s sleuthing nor did I find that I was miles ahead of her. She treats the reader as her confidant and makes numerous (often very amusing) asides that allow us to get into her head.
A Red Herring Without Mustard involves a gypsy, a lost baby, and a ring of forgers. Its predecessor, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, finds Flavia investigating the death of a famous puppeteer, and the first in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, involves a dead philatelist (that’s stamp collector to the uninitiated) on Buckshaw’s lawn. The mysteries are all good, by which I mean they always make sense, there are not gaping plot holes, and they move along at a fair clip without forcing the reader to slog through boring bits. They’re also different than what you tend to find in your usual mystery fare (dead lovers and the like). So while each book is rather long, clocking in at 400 pages or more, they never feel so and can be read in a couple lazy afternoons.
Each book is a distinct mystery unto itself, so they can theoretically be read out of order, but I wouldn’t recommend it. One of Bradley’s talents as a storyteller is to let his characters grow from book to book. Flavia’s relationships with her father and sisters change over the course of the three novels, as does her understanding of her mother and the people in Bishop’s Lacey. By the end of the third novel, I was left with the knowledge that the de Luce family dynamic is much more complex (and therefore richer) than I realized in the first novel.
I’ve heard that the audios are really good with spot-on narration for Flavia’s voice. I think these are books that would do well on re-read (or re-listen) – even though I know whodunnit, there’s enough humor in Flavia’s irresistible voice to keep me interested a second time around.
Copy checked out from my local library.

Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

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At 15, Grace has more wisdom and insight than I can admit to having at 26. To say Like Mandarin completely blew me away would be an understatement.

Grace is bored in her podunk town of Washokey, Wyoming. Nothing happens here, and she’s got no real way out until college, which feels like light years away. She doesn’t want to end up like everyone else, stuck here for eternity — or worse, end up like her mother who had a taste of freedom when she spent time in Jackson Hole, a town where something happens. Too bad mom threw it all away to come back here, to Washokey, where the only thing she cares about is her sister Taffeta’s pageant career. Since Grace threw her potential pageant career out the window years ago, well, mom doesn’t really care about her.

There is something in Washokey that drives Grace, and that is Mandarin. She’s 17 and the town slut, but she’s everything Grace wants to be: worldly, experienced, edgy, different. Sexy. If Grace could have any of those qualities, she’d be so much happier. If she could even get close to Mandarin, she knows her life would improve by leaps and bounds. Lucky for Grace, a school project leads her to end up in Mandarin’s orbit.

As their school relationship develops into something more serious — friendship, as Mandarin put it (and this acknowledgment is important) — Grace quickly begins to understand that the person she thinks has it all actually might not have anything. That everything she does and everything that feels so loose and free about her might be a cry for help. Mandarin is far from perfect. Grace can’t resist what comes with being associated with her, though, and she continues to spend time with her and seek her out. And when Mandarin suggests she and Grace run away and leave Washokey together to make waves in bigger places, Grace is at first excited. And just to ensure that Grace is on board with this trip, Mandarin will prove to her protege how truly horrible the people in this town are.

Like Mandarin is a little bit Courtney Summers with a little bit Siobhan Vivian with a little bit C. K. Kelly Martin with a little bit of Carol Lynch Williams. That is to say, this is an edgy story about a girl coming to terms with who she is and how the people she interacts with really impact her perception of self. It’s emotionally gripping, and it is completely honest in its portrayal of relationships. It is what every contemporary book should be, and it is one that will not last long on shelves. This book should be given to every teen girl when she enters high school — it is what they experience every day and not just in high school but even after. Hubbard’s book is a girl’s bible.

Grace feels lost. She’s lonely, feels like a bit of an outsider and a castaway in high school. She feels divorced from her own family, where her mother spends more time paying attention to her little sister than her. Grace wasn’t wanted, anyway; she was an accident, the reason her mom’s desire to escape was dashed. But Mandarin — she’s everything Grace longs to be. She’s beautiful. She’s sought after. She’s got a future ahead of her. She’s fearless. The longing Grace expresses is so raw; she believes just by being around Mandarin, her life will be better. That energy, that vibe, it’ll rub off on her, too. Grace goes as far as to imitate Mandarin, slinging her jeans low over her hips, wearing tighter, more revealing clothing, mimicking her trademark walk.

Every girl has felt this. Every girl has felt lost and driftless and believed that what someone else has is what they need. It’ll make them better and stronger. They idolize another girl, put her on a pedestal then hope to reach that, hope to even just touch that. Reading and experiencing this with Grace was tough. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. Sometimes, I still do it and still believe that. How I wanted to redirect Grace here. But I certainly can’t tell her the truths she knows already. She’s got them figured out. I’m not sure I do.

Mandarin isn’t all she’s cracked up to be. She’s a huge liar, but not so much to other people as she is to herself. She tells people things about her family that aren’t true, sure, but the fact is she tells them because they’re the things she’s convinced herself to believe. And the rumors about her being a slut aren’t rumors: she really is. She doesn’t lie to herself about the fact she sleeps around. What she lies to herself about is how this makes her feel. She says it makes her feel powerful, makes her feel like she has something she can hold about the head of other people.

This is a story about power. Mandarin knows she’s admired by Grace, knows that she can turn Grace into whatever she wants to. She knows — at least thinks she knows — Grace’s weak point. She’s going to get her there. Make her bend to her will. THIS is what fuels Mandarin, this power. When we get to the crux of the story though, the moment when Mandarin tries to prove to Grace how messed up the people in Washokey are and that she has no other choice but to leave with her, Grace realizes that Mandarin is doing nothing but lying to herself. Filling herself with meaning when there’s really nothing there. Sleeping with men and convincing herself it’s meaningful even though she knows it’s actually the opposite. And it’s here that I needed to back away because what Grace says to Mandarin is so much smarter and more insightful than anything I’ve ever thought. This is the moment when Grace comes into herself. When she realizes she’s one heck of a person herself.

One of the things I loved about this story was that there wasn’t a traditional romance here. There’s no boy vying for the attention of either of these girls. Hubbard keeps her focus on these girls and that’s all. That’s not to say, though, that what Grace feels toward Mandarin isn’t a crush — she has a complete crush on her. It’s a girl crush. It’s the kind of thing all girls experience, whether they’re willing to vocalize it or not. She’s not a lesbian, and she’s not interested in a romantic relationship with Mandarin. She’s simply infatuated with her. And Mandarin will, of course, tease the hell out of her. Maybe it’s sincere; we’ll never know because we don’t really get to know Mandarin’s internal thoughts. But knowing Mandarin, seeing her actions, understanding how completely unhinged she is, I think she was simply trying to get more of a rise out of Grace. She wanted to mess with her, break her completely.

The relationships feel authentic and are true and real to girls. Hubbard never tries to push the envelope here, never tries to make it anything it’s not. That’s why I appreciated it so much. There’s something honest in a mean girl story, but blatant meanness isn’t the only kind of relationship that happens among girls. Sometimes it’s subtle, even if it’s about power.

If you’ll remember, too, I talked a lot about the idea of place when I reviewed Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies here. I love what Hubbard does in talking about these very issues in her novel. We know how who we are is linked to where we are, and both Grace and Mandarin really expand upon this. They live this and breathe this and believe everything about themselves to be tied to Washokey, though they go about it in different ways. But like Wertz’s character, Grace figures out that it’s only part of her whole. Mandarin, on the other hand, is letting this thing — this place — be her excuse for not confronting her real problems.

In addition to being a fantastic story about power and longing and growth, the writing in Like Mandarin is strong. Hubbard weaves together images that just work well and never feel cliche. As a reader, you feel the aura Grace places around Mandarin. Despite her longing to leave Washokey, you actually see how beautiful it is too — anyone who has spent any time in Wyoming knows the beauty of the open sky and the vast prairies dotted among the mountains. There isn’t a wasted word in this story, nor is the writing sacrificed for the sake of the story. This is a well paced book: it clips along but it does beg the reader to slow down at times and soak in the language.

This book will appeal to teens without question, and I also think this book will have great appeal to 20-somethings. Everything here is still as relevant and as relatable to them as it is to teenagers. I’ll be honest: this book doesn’t hold a whole lot for male readers, and you know what? It doesn’t have to. In fact, I suspect that what Hubbard might open the door for here is an opportunity for someone to shed light into this sort of relationship from the male perspective. This is a book that will speak to girls on a number of levels and it’s an important one. Grace is really something. I think she’ll be something to a lot of girls.

This is a debut author, but I suspect we have a lot to look forward to. I cannot wait for more. If you didn’t get the chance, check out the trailer we debuted right here. I think it captures the book perfectly!

Sean Griswold’s Head by Lindsey Leavitt

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When Payton begins seeing her school counselor, she’s reluctant. Why would she need to get help? Her father’s the one who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and he and her mother have been keeping it a secret from her. How dare they! Payton’s only reacting how anyone who has had such a secret kept from them would: she’s not talking to them. Not acknowledging it.

Yet, there’s something in her counselor’s suggestion to keep a focus journal that appeals to Payton. She’s a bit of an obsessive organizer and perfectionist, so maybe focusing attention on one object not related to her at all might help. So she chooses the thing that’s always been in front of her but to which she’s never paid attention: the back of Sean Griswold’s head.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a story about Payton’s working through her problems via the back of some guy’s head if there wasn’t a little crushing involved. It seems natural when you spend hours every week thinking about this random guy’s head you’d begin doing a little more investigating. Then you’d be following them. And maybe you’d be really liking him. Oh, Payton.

Sean Griswold’s Head is the kind of story we need once in a while: Payton’s dealing with a very challenging life event, but it’s not really her event. Rather, it’s her father, and the fact of the matter is, he and her mother have tried to shield Payton from it. As readers, we side with Payton on the issue, knowing that not being honest about this is wrong. It impacts her more than if they’d been honest about the situation. But the truth of the matter is this isn’t really Payton’s issue. It affects her, certainly, but the reason mom and dad keep it from her is because this particular aspect of the story isn’t hers, and it shouldn’t be. What Leavitt’s done is set the ground for the story about Payton to play out — the one about her navigating a family challenge while also coming to terms with who she is as a person, and what she wants in her own life. A lot of stories that tackle teens and ill/unstable parents focus too much on the parents and not enough on the teen, but this one gets it right. The set up is very smart and smooth.

The issues are dealt with in a realistic, 15-year-old manner. Payton’s got a great head on her shoulders, and she has a sense of humor that carries readers through the ups and downs of her father’s illness and her working through her focus journal. We’re right there as she experiences some pretty horrific-to-see events happen to her father (though note that these are done exceedingly well and in a manner that’s not scary to readers) and while she does the funny stuff that teen girls do when they want to get to know a guy better (she stalks him but in a not-creepy kinda way). We’re laughing right along with Payton but we know that despite her strong attitude on the outside and her ability to make light of so many situations, she’s got deeper feelings going on inside and she’s working hard toward acknowledging them and figuring out how to work with them.

In addition to dealing with her father and Sean, Payton’s also worried a bit about her friendship with Jac. At the beginning, they’re as close as possible, but when things in Payton’s life begin to change with her father and she tells Jac about her focus project, things become a little unwieldy in their friendship. I thought Leavitt did a great job highlighting how friendships ebb and flow, particularly in high school. Although Payton and Jac bicker, they come back together as they should. The addition of a boy in the story is simply a small thing they surmount together, and he does not ultimately change their friendship nor does he change who Payton is as a character. This is exceedingly important, I think, in a world of books where boys too often change the core of who the female character is.

Some of the other things I liked about this book were the smooth pace, and both the story and character arcs are realistic. The prose isn’t chunky or clunky, and the writing itself is pretty good. Payton has a great voice in the story, and she’s self-aware without being self-aware — which she has to be to understand the value that a focus journal has in helping her work through the tough stuff in her life. The book’s also clean, meaning you could easily hand this to a middle school reader and not worry about language, drugs/alcohol, or sex. Some of the stuff with her father might be a little over the heads of some readers that young, but for those who have had family members dealing with physical challenges like this, it will all make perfect sense. Likewise, I thought the way the romance played out with Sean was sweet in a first-boyfriend kind of way. It ties together with what her father’s going through in the end, and I quite liked that. I’m purposely being vague because how these things come together is smart and yet, it doesn’t change the core of who Payton is.

While I liked this book, I didn’t get enough resolution with Payton’s father and I’m not certain I buy that Payton herself has completely come to terms with what this all means for her as a character. I’d have liked a little more of how this plays out. I’m afraid this might make the book a little forgettable for me personally as a reader. I know it will stick with other readers far longer, but for me, there wasn’t quite enough to hold on to. This is, however, the kind of book I think will make an excellent book talk title because it will certainly resonate with readers who have experienced similar situations.

Pass this one along to fans of realistic, clean fiction and though I don’t usually limit my readership by gender, I think this book will have stronger appeal for females than males, given the role Payton’s relationship with Sean has in the story. I’d give this to fans of Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, or Jenny Han pretty easily. It reminded me a bit of Han’s Shug and so your younger readers of that kind of fiction will certainly like Sean Griswold’s Head.

Leverage by Joshua Cohen

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When a book gives me a visceral reaction, I’m always a little surprised. Sure, there’s been more than one or two books that have made me tear up for one reason or another, but it’s rare to both cry and feel utterly sick to my stomach. I think I can count the number of those books on one hand.

And now I add Joshua Cohen’s debut Leverage to that elite group of books. This is one you need — need — to pick up and read.

Danny is a gymnast: he’s small, nimble, and he’s impressive as hell at what he does. He knows how the locker room works, too; steer clear of the football players, the track players, and go only to where his teammates have their space and everything will work out fine.

Kurt is the new guy in town. He’s been moved around more times than he can count, but now in the new school, he’s ready to just settle. He’s a football player and can probably best be described as a tank. He’s huge and he incites fear where he goes because of it. But Kurt’s a bit of a wimpy guy. At least, in comparison to his football teammates. Those guys define fear and power; Kurt is more laid back, less willing to jump into their coach’s offer of enhancing supplements.

I don’t want to explain too much more of the plot, but I’ll say this much — this is a mean guys story. This is the story of what happens in the locker room when smack talk goes beyond talk and turns into an all-out physical display of power. The things that the leaders of the football team do to other boys is unimaginable and leads to consequences far greater than one can imagine. We’re not talking about a little hit or slap in this book; we’re talking lives. And their reactions are probably what made this book so difficult to get through without a few tissues.

As far as Danny and Kurt are concerned, the two of them play a key role together. They’re allies, despite not necessarily knowing that or acknowledging it after everything plays out. Both are fully fleshed characters, and Cohen gives them distinct personalities and voices. In fact, they’re so distinct, I noticed when there was an error in the ARC where one chapter heading was swapped with another (that is, one of them was labeled Danny when it was really Kurt and vice versa). Both characters are sympathetic, and their growth is well developed. As readers, we get to know the bulk of Danny’s story upfront; we know what he’s all about and what his motivation and drive is. Kurt, on the other hand, we don’t. Since he’s the new guy, we learn very little about him except that he’s got some real stories to tell. There’s something about him that aches, and we want to know what it is because it will play a huge role in how he reacts to his teammates and their actions. The way these details come together is smart, and it gives the same insight into Kurt’s character that Danny has. This technique lets us play along with Danny and dares us to draw conclusions alongside him. We have to learn to trust that his actions will be self-guided and not guided by the actions of his team.

Leverage is an important book about athleticism, about sportsmanship, and about the cruel truths that happen in a setting that involves extreme competition, alpha male syndrome, and most importantly, steroids. The football coach has let his athletes partake in the use of supplements to make themselves bigger, stronger, and more intimidating; worse though is that the coach supplies these supplements to his players. This lengthy book — over 400 pages — clips along at a rapid pace because there is so much going on, and as readers, we can’t help but hope for some sort of justice in the story. Danny and Kurt make us care. And we want to know what will happen to the coach, to the team leaders who ruin lives.

While I was emotionally invested and knew what was going on was about as real and honest as it could be (and I know this not as someone who has experienced this personally but who spent a lot of time with a guy in high school who quit the football team because of the bullying), I felt that the ending was a bit of a let down. It was the easy way out. Too obvious.

I kept comparing this book to Courtney Summers’s Some Girls Are and I think these two books are excellent (unfortunate, even) readalikes. The grit and honesty, as well as the unflinching look at power dynamics among teenagers is brutal. The biggest difference, I think, is that despite a couple of things that Danny and Kurt do that make them unlikeable, they are ultimately likeable characters. They come out ahead, and they have redeeming qualities.

Cohen’s Leverage will have appeal to boys who are and aren’t athletes, as I think a lot of the experiences in here will ring true in more ways than presented. This is a book for the boys; while girls will surely enjoy it, there is little doubt that boys will get this. There is a real sense of emotion here without it being an emotional story. The emotions are manifested physically, which is true to how guys process the big events in their lives. And I don’t think anyone will be intimidated by the length because it speeds along. There were times I had to put it down because the events were that powerful, but the lapse in time was short. I wanted to see the redemption, the reaction, the way the rest of the story would play out.

Don’t go in with expectations, since they’ll all be tossed. I had an event spoiled for me (by choice) but that didn’t even bother me. There were enough other shocking events in the story to keep me surprised.

Paranoid Park by Blake Nelson

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Imagine being the person who did something really, really horrible. Imagine knowing you did it and admitting to yourself you did it but maybe not entirely understanding why you did it. Imagine walking around for weeks and month afterward wondering if you are ever going to get caught and if people know but are leading you on in believing they don’t know.

Welcome to the life of our anonymous main character. On Saturday, September 17, his life changes in one move. When Jared ditches him for a girl — dropping their plans to finally skate in Paranoid Park — our main character decides to strike out on his own and observe the park’s regulars. That’s when he meets Scratch. That’s when he and Scratch run.

That’s when he does the horrible thing that will never go away.

Paranoid Park might be on my list of all-time favorite reads. The main character is immediately engaging, and his voice is authentic. This is a book with power to grab the reader and keep them glued to the story without a single break.

We know just a few pages in what happens and what our narrator has done, but we’re not given a completely clear vision of where the story is going. Instead, we must ride along, feeling the same sense of dread, paranoia, and fear that permeates the every movement of the character. We’re confronted, too, with conflicted feelings of whether we have sympathy or not for the main character — since we’re in his head and know precisely why he did what he did, we want to feel sorry for him. But because we know what he did was SO WRONG, we can’t help but also feel like he needs to be punished.

Backing up a second, let me bring up the fact we also know something big has happened in the space of time between the September 17 event and when the story begins. The story is told in the form of letters to someone anonymous, and the first letter’s date is January 3. That’s three and a half months of time we’re going to learn about in the span of a relatively short book. Besides being inside the main character’s head and experiencing his exact thoughts and emotions, we’re also outside of it, trying to piece together what happens in this time. And there is a heck of a lot packed into those pages.

Oh, also, there’s a girl involved. And the relationship between our main character and the girl is so well done. It’s a real teen guy/girl relationship and in the end might be one of the sweetest or creepiest ones I’ve read in a long time. I’m still unsure. But that all goes back to Nelson’s ability to put me both inside and outside of this character’s head.

Days after finishing this one, I’m still thinking about it and trying to decide how I feel about what happened. I really liked the main character, but at the same time, I feel wrong feeling that way about someone who did something as criminal as he did. Even if it wasn’t premeditated.

This book reminded me quite a bit of Mark Shulman’s Scrawl in set up and execution, but if I were to be honest, I found Nelson’s voice and story thrust much more compelling and engaging. Paranoid Park is a book with massive guy appeal, with particular appeal to those who like stories that involve the underground kids (the ones here are skateboarders). It’s a fast paced read, so it will work well for reluctant readers, too. Anyone who wants a book that will creep into their bones and unsettle their minds will appreciate this noir story.