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Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences by Brian Yansky

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I saw Brian Yansky speak on a panel with three other fantasy/SF writers for children and teens at the Texas Book Festival. At one point, the four writers discussed the first line of their respective books, and Yansky’s hooked me: “It takes less time for them to conquer the world than it takes me to brush my teeth.  That’s pretty disappointing.”
It’s a great beginning for a book titled Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences and sets the mood perfectly.  Jesse, our narrator, is in the middle of class when an alien race called the Sanginians take over Earth.  They do it via telepathy: all humans are turned into slaves in a matter of minutes by the power of the Sanginians’ minds.  A few humans with latent telepathic powers are considered superior to the other humans and taken to serve as slaves in the home of the alien commander.  The rest of the book chronicles Jesse’s attempts to deal with what’s happened to the world and potentially fight back (alongside a few friends made along the way).
I absolutely loved The True Meaning of Smekday, and I hoped that Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences would be a good readalike. In many ways, I was not disappointed. Alien Invasion has a lot of humor in the same vein as Smekday – the “Our entire planet has just been taken over by hostile aliens but I’m going to crack wry jokes anyway” type. It’s also got a likable narrator, albeit a bit older. I definitely enjoyed the reading experience.
However.
It’s no Smekday. I never struggled to read it, but I wanted more out of the experience. Everything about the book was slight: character, plot, setting, relationships, backstory. It all felt underdeveloped, like it needed more substance. It was over much too quickly, and not in the “oh my goodness get me the sequel” way (although if there were a sequel, I’d probably read it – like I said, I thought it was an enjoyable book).
I feel like so often young adult writers tend to sacrifice background or character development in favor of a fast-moving plot, and sometimes it works, but more often it just weakens the entire book. Part of the thrill of reading a science fiction novel featuring aliens, for me, is learning about the alien culture. We get a little of that in Alien Invasion, but not nearly enough. I know much more about the Boov in Smekday than I know about the Sanginians in Alien Invasion.
I could also tell that Yansky really wanted us to get a sense of the relationships between the four main characters (a couple romantic entanglements, a deep friendship between the two boys), and we get a skeleton sense of it, but it’s never fully fleshed out. When our protagonist refers to another boy as his “best friend” near the end of the book, we know that’s what the author was going for, but it still seems like we needed to be told – it wasn’t apparent enough from the story. I so often feel like today’s young adult books are bloated with 100+ pages that really don’t need to be there, but Alien Invasion could have benefited from another hundred, I think.
I think one of the main weaknesses is that there are really no side stories in the book. There’s a little romantic tension going on between a few of the main characters, but it’s never really elaborated upon. Additionally, one of the female survivors, Catlin, is kept as a mistress by the alien commander, but it’s only alluded to a few times. We meet aliens who seem sympathetic to the Earthlings and their plight, but their reasons why are explained away in a couple of sentences. Development of any of these subplots would have strengthened the book significantly. It would have allowed the reader to not only laugh at the funny bits but also feel the gravitas and impact of the very serious situation the characters find themselves in.
That said, Yansky made a good choice to include letters from the alien commander on Earth to his father on the alien home planet. These letters gave me a taste of the alien culture that I felt most of the book lacked, but they’re not enough to really make the book feel complete. Overall, Alien Invasion reads like a well-written outline for a fun novel – additional development in all areas would have pushed it from pretty good to fantastic.

The Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

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When Piper gets to school one day, Dumb is playing their set out front, and quite a crowd has gathered. She’s a little disgusted and a little intrigued. But what can she tell, exactly, about a band that’s won a couple of studio sessions and generated a little buzz at the high school? She’s deaf.

But Piper doesn’t let her deafness get in the way of offering them a challenge. She claims she can get them a paying gig — not just something they’ve won. Dumb takes the challenge, not taking too much stock in it. Really, what does a deaf girl know about managing a band when she can’t even hear what they sound like anyway?

Antony John’s Five Flavors of Dumb is a refreshing work about the challenges most teenagers will both understand and never understanding: fitting in. Piper and her best friend Marissa used to attend a special program for deaf students, but when funding got cut for the program, Piper was mainstreamed and Marissa’s family chose to move from the Seattle area down to San Francisco. Piper’s got to fit in now and she’ll have to do so without the support of her best friend.

This book, without a doubt, has massive teen appeal. There is rock and roll and there is the dream of making it big in that scene. Dumb is the most well-known school band in the area, and they’ve even earned the nod from a local recording exec from a talent content. We’ll leave out the part that there was little competition of which to speak. And Piper wants to challenge them and herself more by stepping up to manage the band and while doing this, she’ll learn a lot about rock music and success and the band will learn a lot about what it means when someone is deaf.

Adding to the extremely appealing social aspects of the novel is the family aspect. Piper’s got a bit of a rough family situation, too. See, when Piper was born deaf, there were no real cures or aids to help deaf people her better. But her baby sister, born not too long ago, has had the chance to get cochlear implants, and her hearing will be as close to normal as possible. Because of the expense of the surgery, Piper’s folks have raided her college fund and are unable to pay for the surgery for her. Instead, she’ll wear hearing aids for life and depend on her abilities to sign and read lips. Her brother, a bit of a trouble maker, IS able to hear but he’s also able to sign, which has made Piper’s life of communicating a little easier, considering dad has never bothered trying to sign and her mom hates to do it.

Piper is a real teen, too. Throughout the book, I found myself loving her and hating her. She did good things and she did annoying things, but what made her most noteworthy was her strong sense of determination: she wanted to make money for the band (and subsequently herself). She also knew what her parents did to her money was wrong, and she wants to show them how responsible she is in earning some money back. In addition, we see Piper’s friendships change. Although we know Marissa has moved away, Piper still considers her a best friend, even if Marissa is less enthusiastic as the story goes on. She’s not too keen on Piper’s management and quite frankly, has little faith in her ability to do it. But as success seems to happen, even if it is microscopic, Marissa sees that this isn’t just a passing interest of Piper’s. She’s quite serious and determined.

While reading this book, I could not help but compare it to Tara Kelly’s Harmonic Feedback, reviewed here. In both stories, we have a main character who has a big physical challenge, as well as a theme of the importance of music, and a setting in the pacific northwest. I think these two books would be fantastic to pair together. Teachers or librarians looking for book units could work these two together perfectly.

What stood out to me most about this book, though, was the use of a deaf character. I work in an area with a large deaf population, and to read something like this for teens really spoke to me. This is the kind of stuff we need to see more of: teens who have physical obstacles in their life. Not only that, but teens who have them and yet are still teens. I commend Antony for doing this, and I am excited to highlight this book at work for our community. This is what it means to be contemporary ya fiction.

Oh, and the cover? Need I mention the appeal for teens here? You won’t even need to sell the story since the cover not only sells it, but it tells it. I think readers will love the other issues that come up, too. Check out these three posts at thatcovergirl and Melissa Walker’s fabulous cover story for even more insight into the design and appeal of the cover.

A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley

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Charlie Daskin spends her summers away from the city, in a small town where she’s an outsider and in her many summers there, she’s never been able to fit in. She’s Charlie Dorkin to the neighbor kids Rose, Luke, and Dave, and now that Year 10 is over, she’s ready for the same old summer.

Rose, who lives in the small town, fears she’ll live the life of her mother: she’ll be stuck there forever. She wants nothing more than to live in the city, and when she passes an exam that would let her spend Years 11 and 12 at a big school in the city, she knows she’ll need to find a way to convince her mother that it’s the right path for her. Perhaps she should use Charlie as her way out of this town and into the big city.

A Little Wanting Song, in a word, is nice. Crowley’s writing style is pleasant, and the Australian slang and expressions are fun to read (and never distracting from the story line). This book is told in alternating voices, starting with Charlie and continuing on with Rose. Both girls are well drawn, with Charlie trying to find her way away from her home and through the grief over the loss of her mother and grandmother and Rose trying to find a way to get out of her town and into the big city.

Charlie is a musician, and throughout the book, her songs make appearances between chapters. There is a serious sense of wanting, both from Charlie and Rose, and the music draws together the girls who are otherwise quite opposite of one another. Beyond the obvious wanting here, there is a wanting on the part of the reader for the characters, too: while reading, I couldn’t help but feel horrible for Charlie, who was being blatantly used by Rose for her own purposes. But I couldn’t feel too bad because I also felt for Rose, who feared becoming her mother. I couldn’t quite blame her for wanting to do what she could to change her life’s situation.

Of course, there’s also a little romance in this book, and it is fun. Luke and Rose have always been an on again off again item, and now with Charlie being “accepted” into the group of friends, Dave and her have burgeoning feelings, as well. This truly is a life changing summer for each of the characters, who learn a lot about one another and themselves. This is the sort of book that teens anywhere will relate to, as everyone has been a Charlie or a Rose or a Dave or a Luke. Crowley’s ability to capture the teen experience was done quite well.

While the book picks up its pace as the story moves along, be prepared for a little bit of a slow start. Part of this comes from the fact that Charlie’s story meanders in its setting: it’s set in the present, but there are instances of flashbacks, so it’s essential to read this one carefully or it’d be easy to believe things are happening at the present when they’re really moments of the past being recalled. The pacing of this book reminded me of a Sarah Dessen novel; it’s a little slow as we learn about the characters but as we become more comfortable, the story picks up and ends before we know it. This is a book to hand to your Dessen fans, for sure.

I’m eager to track down more Crowley works in the future, as I’m also excited to tackle some of the other Australian titles on the Cybils list this year. The setting, while foreign, is quite familiar, and the expressions are enjoyable (even the characters seem to get a kick out of it: in Australia, underwear is referred to as “jocks” and Dave and Luke get a real kick out of talking about what a funny expression “jocks” is). The music in this book really sets the tone, and that will resonate loudly with readers who will easily find themselves understanding Charlie or Rose because they’re there or have been there before.

Books that didn’t capture me

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In the midst of my wild streak of Cybils reading, I’ve picked up more than one book that, unfortunately, I’ve stopped at the 75 page mark. Here’s just a sample of some of the ones that didn’t work for me and why — and why they might just work for other readers.

The Julian Game by Adele Griffin: This book’s premise is that two girls create a phony identity for themselves on Facebook in order to get payback on a cute boy who did them wrong. There is certainly appeal here in the contemporary setting, the use of technology, and the use of cliques and insider/outsider feelings therein. But as a reader, I felt distanced from the characters, never quite feeling that they were realistic enough. The slang didn’t click for me either, unfortunately, and I needed to give it up. Fans of Johnny Tucker Must Die will eat this up, as will fans of other stories of revenge and redemption. I bet, too, that the language in this book will appeal to many readers, even though it didn’t work for me — that alone sets it apart from the crowd.

The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel: What initially was the huge appeal of this book for me was the fact it’s a family story; there’s going to be a little romance and a little bit about friendships, but the bulk of it centers on family dynamics and growing up in a huge family. This is precisely what became the downfall for me, though. There were too many characters with the same voice (or no voice) for me to keep up with. For many readers, though, this will be the appeal factor: it’s relatable to those who grew up in large families. Pass this light hearted read to your fans of stories that aren’t the norm for contemporary reads. It’s different enough that it’ll hold shelf life for quite a while, and many readers will think this is their story.

The Not-So-Great Depression by Amy Goldman Koss: Premise-wise, this book held so much promise for me. It’s the story of what happens to a teen who’s mother loses her job because of the economy (and her dad is in the same situation, but he’s living back at home with his mom since her parents are divorced). However, the tone of this book was much too light hearted for me, as was the cover. I think this one had such possibility to be strong and powerful, but the execution didn’t work for me as a reader. I didn’t get the character development I anticipated, either. But, for fans of contemporary stories that do take a lighter approach or fans of books with a humorous tone, this is a great choice. The main character, in my mind, was a perfect rendering of a high school freshman: a little lost in her world but enjoying every minute of it in her naivety.

Jump by Elisa Carbone: P.K. is a runaway and her partner in crime, Critter, has just escaped from a mental institution. The two of them head west, away from their former shared town, in order to forge a new life based on climbing. This book sounded so great: it had athleticism in a different way and it would feature fresh characters. For me, though, I couldn’t get to the whys of either character within the first 75 pages. This is a relatively short book, and I hadn’t gained either sympathy or empathy for either character and I had yet to have any climbing experiences described. I was a little bummed, as I wanted the adrenaline and the excitement of climbing sooner. I think this is one that’s a super easy sell to teens, though: the alternating points of view are distinct and very short, making this a fast paced read. Likewise, the rock climbing theme will resonate with many, and those who are more patient than me will likely be quite rewarded.

Have you read any of these and loved them? Share your thoughts in the comments! Sell ’em to me again.

I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zuzak (audiobook)

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Ed Kennedy is nineteen years old, one year too young for the cab driver job that fills up his directionless life. His life consists of being nagged by his mother and playing card games with his best friends, Marv (who drags Ed along to his rugby games and hoards money, yet drives a falling apart car), Ritchie (real name Dave Sanchez, but nicknamed after the tattoo of Jimi Hendrix on his arm that suspiciously resembles Richard Pryor), and Audrey (the blonde beauty and fellow cabdriver whom Ed is hopelessly in love with). Once content to drift through life, Ed’s world is shaken up when he is stuck inside a bank during a robbery, surprising both himself and others when he thwarts the criminal, picking up the criminal’s dropped gun and shattering the window of Marv’s car, which luckily refuses to start for the fleeing criminal.

Suddenly lauded as a hero, Ed’s face is splashed across the newspapers…And that’s when the first ace shows up in his mailbox. Three addresses are scribbled on the playing card, and Ed soon discovers that he has been called upon for a mission. He is expected to make a difference in the lives of the people at these addresses, to get to know these individuals and find out how he can better them, whether in small or big ways. From the Ace of Diamonds through the Ace of Hearts, Ed travels throughout his run-down town, deciphering the code of the playing cards and finding out more about both himself and the people around him.

I Am the Messenger was absolutely astounding. While Zuzak’s The Book Thief is one of my favorite books, I had somehow held off on reading this for a few years. I am incredibly glad that I chose to experience it in audiobook form, as the narrator, Marc Aden Gray, brought Ed to life perfectly. His voice was a perfect mixture of grave, familiar, concerned, determined, and caring.

The power of Zuzak’s story lies not only in the character of Ed, who undergoes a complete transformation within these pages, as the messages lead him to finally care about both others and about the direction of his own life, but also in the supporting characters whose names and addresses appear on the Aces. There’s Sophie, the beautiful blonde girl who runs like the wind, and whose innocence and determination inspire Ed forward. There’s Milla, the elderly woman who still grieves her lost love Jimmy, sixty years after his WWII death. There’s Father O’Reilly, whose only wish is to revive and renew his diminished congregation. And there’s Marv, whose rapidly increasing bank account is hiding a deep secret.

While the middle two Ace’s characters aren’t quite as well-developed as the first and last Aces, Zuzak maintains a steady narrative momentum throughout I Am the Messenger, leading up to the final revelation of who is actually sending Ed these playing cards. While I was a bit disappointed with the ending (I actually preferred my guess), Zuzak’s conclusion does make sense for the book, and sends a solid message home with the reader. Any book that sends home the message that “Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of” without being preachy is accomplishing something huge.

This goes on my list of favorite reads of all time.