STACKED

books

Manifest by Artist Arthur

|

Paranormal and supernatural books are the ones I struggle with the most. I have a hard time with some fantasy titles, too. For me, falling into a completely different worlds — ones with rules that don’t work likes ours — is hard. I like my fiction quite real, maybe even a little magical, and the paranormal/supernatural world is hard for me to connect with. But for many readers, as we know, this is ideal reading: slipping away from our world is what they crave, and I have to say, I’m a little envious of that!

Manifest, by Artist Arthur, is a the first in a new Harlequin Teen paranormal series. Krystal Bentley is new in town: after a bitter divorce between her mom and dad, she was ripped from her home in New York City and forced to move to boring Lincoln, Connecticut. She’s angry and frustrated, and she has a lot of pent up frustration toward her mother and soon-to-be stepfather. But that’s not all that causes her to be angry and frustrated. Quite the contrary — it’s the fact that she’s perhaps found the ideal guy to be with. . . but he’s not real. No, he’s a voice she hears in her head and a voice that asks her to avenge his death since he cannot do it himself.

But why Krystal? What does she have that sets her apart from those who have lived in Lincoln forever and know the back story of Ricky’s death? It’s the glowing array of freckles that form an “M” on her neck, and it’s not long before she discovers two others at Lincoln with this distinguishable marking, too: Sasha and Jake. But they don’t hear voices like she does. Sasha can make herself disappear and Jake can move things with a little mental concentration. And when they come together, things happen. Strange things, that is.

Manifest begins with an interesting premise, and while I think that further volumes in this series will give the readers more to work with, I felt a little let down as a reader. I never got to know what brought these three together as well as I’d like to, beyond a chilling message from Jake’s senile grandfather that mentioned the mutual births of the trio’s mothers during a rough storm. Krystal tries to unravel the mystery but never quite does so in this volume.

Further, I was left wanting to know a heck of a lot more about Ricky and why he sought out Krystal. We never get a resolution (as we wouldn’t in the first novel of a series) but I felt like I didn’t get enough back story to fall completely into the book.

Krystal, as annoying as she is, is a memorable character. She has a lot of bitterness and resentment — sometimes justifiable and sometimes not — but it makes her believable and real to teenagers, I think. She won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she will be the perfect manifestation of feelings and actions for many readers. Likewise, Krystal is of mixed race, which added flavor to the story, too, and again, this will resonate with many readers. I don’t think there are enough non-white leads in teen books as it is and even less-so in paranormal titles…especially playing the good role!

Although Manifest didn’t live up to my expectations, this is a good book to hand to your readers of the other titles in Harlequin Teen’s paranormal lines (Rachel Vincent’s “Soul Screamers” series or Gena Showalter’s “Intertwined” series). I think as this series progresses, it’ll draw in more readers as we learn the back stories of not only Krystal, but her kindred spirits in Jake and Sasha. Oh, and that pesky ghost Ricky. This is a fast read, as readers are plunked into the story immediately and we find strange things happening right away.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

|

When I was in 5th grade, I had my first trip to the orthodontist, and it would not be the last. From then through my sophomore year of high school, I saddled up into the orthodontist’s chair for the works: I had an expander on the top of my mouth to make the roof of my mouth wider; I needed braces to straighten my teeth; and I had to have the bottom row of my teeth pulled together to create 2 “front teeth,” since I had ever only gotten one. It was, in a word, miserable.

While reading Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, I was momentarily transported back to those times. This graphic novel follows Raina as she prepares to go to her first trip to the orthodontist. But it won’t be that simple: just days beforehand, she and a friend were racing in her yard, and she fell, knocking out her two front teeth. From there, Raina will need false front teeth, then braces, then headgear, then periodontic work, and finally, like me, will have a much-desired result at the end.

This graphic novel, besides being utterly relatable to anyone who has been through the braces experience, also delves into the issues of fitting in and being “cool” at school. Raina was very afraid to be who she truly was throughout the story, but when she finally hits high school, she throws herself into her passion of art, and she finds that she can make real friends. She doesn’t need to pretend to be someone she isn’t in order to fit in.

The art in Smile is sweet and has huge appeal for middle schoolers, particularly those who may never have tried a graphic novel before. Telgemeier is the artist behind the graphic novel adaptations of Ann M. Martin’s The Babysitter’s Club, and her fun, colorful, and somewhat fluffy style is highly appealing. This story translates very well to the graphic form, much more than I think it could have in a traditional novel format.

I would hand this book off to middle schoolers who are looking for someone to relate to, especially those who will begin the milestone years known as the brace-face years. Likewise, this is the sort of book I would hand to older readers, too, who can relive those years and be able to remember those days (fondly or not). There’s just enough lesson in here to make a point, and I never felt it came off as didactic. Rather, this was a candid and humorous look at one of the sweet little deals that come with growing up. This quick read left me eager to dig into more of Telgemeier’s books.

You Wish by Mandy Hubbard

|

What would you do if you woke up the morning after your birthday — let’s say your 16th birthday — and outside your window was a giant pink My Little Pony? Or what if the next day your former favorite toy, Raggedy Ann, suddenly was life size and became your constant companion? If gumballs took over your room?

Or maybe the worst: what if you thought you would be the reason you lost your best friend?

You Wish begins just before Kayla’s 16th birthday, which her mother — party planner extraordinaire — will inevitably mess up. When Kayla blows the candles out of her big pink cake, she is disappointed: this wasn’t the party she wanted, and her best friend Nicole is too busy with her new boyfriend (and Kayla’s long-time crush) Ben. That is when things get crazy in her life. Literally. We’ll watch as each of her former birthday wishes come true, leaving her more and more worried about what will happen when her biggest secret wish, kissing Ben, comes true.

Mandy Hubbard’s new title will please younger teen readers: it is sweet, a little sassy, and full of mortifying (…and hilarious) moments. The book is squeaky clean and would be an excellent book to recommend to fans of Lisa Greenwald’s My Life in Pink and Green, a title that my patrons adore. Kayla is a typical teenager who wants to fit in, keep her best friend, become girlfriend of her biggest crush since elementary school, avoid her crazy mother, and to have the most memorable 16th birthday. Fortunately, she’ll achieve many of those things, despite the presence of an overly doting Ken, the magical dirt bike, and spotlight stealing Ann.

I must admit, though, this wasn’t my favorite book. I never was quite convinced of Kayla’s persona: she was a little too scattered for me, and a lot of the things she comes to realize about who she is never quite made sense to me. That is, I never felt she was rebellious at school, which is something that will be rectified at the end of the story. I struggled, too, with Kayla’s maturity: for a 16-year-old, she acted much more like a 12-year-old, making me believe that had she been written younger, this book would have a readership MADE for middle schoolers. I think her being 16, though, might turn off some librarians, parents, and younger readers from picking up this title and enjoying it. Additionally, Kayla’s relationship with her mother never came together at the end for me; I felt there was some missed potential to give us a stronger mom figure or a stronger reason to dislike mom, but instead, she was more of a tool than a fully fleshed character. And finally, I never got resolution of or understanding why things ever happened. We know it has to do with a birthday cake, but the time frames, the events, and the ingredients never coalesced for me. But perhaps that’s all a part of the suspension of belief.

What I loved about this book, aside from its total clean factor, was its magical realism. I don’t think there are enough books for this age group that are willing to be a little silly. We have an overwhelming number of issues books, covering everything from suicide, to hoarding, to eating disorders, to abusive parents. While we have genre fiction (besides vampires), but there really is little that spans a little of both the real world and the magical world. I’m glad Hubbard tackled this sort of story, and I think that alone will give it some staying power.

This is a quick moving story once you pass the first couple of chapters. I anticipated the strange to happen, and making it through the first few chapters was challenging, since it was primarily setting up our characters. But for most readers, this won’t be difficult because as soon as the action begins rolling, the story flies.

You Wish will work for fans of Greenwald’s previously mentioned book, but I think it’ll also be a nice title for fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, Wendy Mass’s 11 Birthdays and Finally, and even Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series.

You Wish will be available August 5 from Razorbill.

*Review copy provided by publisher

AudioSynced: I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson

|

So, I might have spotted a theme in my audiobook listening: talking animals. When I heard that Pet Nelson’s I Thought You Were Dead featured a talking dog, I was sold, thinking it would be similar to The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I loved. Although these make for wonderful read alikes, they are ultimately different and touch on different topics (though, I’ll say this up front: the dog will inevitably die and I, as a listener, may have cried more than once while listening).

Paul Gustavson divorced a few years ago and his inadequacies linger in the back of his mind when he is engaged in a relationship with Tamsen. But his relationship with her is not exclusive: she is also seeing another man, an arrangement that all three parties are okay with. Paul’s not wild about diving into the dating pool whole heartedly and he’s not quite sure how much he feels for Tamsen yet.

Meanwhile, Paul’s father has a horrible stroke, and Paul must travel back to his family’s home just outside Minneapolis (he’s in the northeast). Paul blames himself for the stroke, too, believing that because he didn’t get back to his father about the ideal snow blower that the stress his father exerted in shoveling the snow caused the stroke. He cannot win and lives in a state of beating himself up over everything in his life that is not entirely of his control.

Enter Stella.

Stella is Paul’s golden, well on in her years. has seen him at his best and at his worst. She’s his best friend, and he dotes on her. Although she’s the voice behind some of his decisions, particularly when it comes to Tamsen, she is more of a reflection of Paul himself: we see through her Paul’s growth and realization of self throughout the novel. She’s well used and not overused, as she doesn’t have a particularly large role in the story. But simultaneously, she is the story.

Over the course of the book, we will see more than one relationship end, and we will see the blossoming of other relationships. There are some weighty themes introduced in the story, stemming from family history. I literally found myself at points laughing and at other points crying. Listening to this book took a while for me, simply because I didn’t want to spend my morning drive in the car getting misty-eyed.

I Thought You Were Dead is a story about relationships, both those you make yourself and those that are made for you. Moreover, it’s a story of one’s relationship with oneself. I found Paul to be a really likeable guy, despite some of the things he did and decisions he made. Paul has a big issue underlying a lot of what has happened in his life, and he is ultra competitive with his rich, perfect brother. Throughout the story, I found myself pulling for Paul endlessly.

The story unravels slowly at first, as each character is well-fleshed; however, once the story reaches the end (discs 5 and 6, the last two), it felt a bit rushed. I wish Nelson had spent a little more time with his characters and how their stories came back together. Paul’s father drops a bombshell that explained a lot of Paul’s life and I wish more clues could have been dropped earlier on.

That said, I thought Stella served a good purpose, and I quite liked Tamsen as a character, despite not seeing her too much. She wasn’t afraid to tell Paul to get himself together, and she was patient and loving with him, even though he had what he believed to be a Major Issue that impacted all of his intimate relationships.

I owe thanks to Josh Clark, the narrator of this audio, for making me care about Paul. Clark’s reading had an innocent undertone to it, and I was immediately interested in Paul and why he acted as he did. Although I’m not generally a fan of male renditions of females, I liked his husky rendition for Tamsen and I thought he did a good job of portraying Stella. His voice was pleasant to listen to; I don’t know if I would have made it through this sort of story if I had read it on the page. Instead, Clark got me engaged. You can hear a clip of his reading here. His even and steady tone worked.

While I Thought You Were Dead will not be everyone’s cup of tea, I thought it was one of the better adult fiction titles I’ve read lately. It will make an excellent read alike to The Art of Racing in the Rain, minus the philosophical dog. Stella’s a little blue collar, if you will, but the story of relationships and how we live among one another will resonate with readers.

Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams

|

I have a love-hate relationship with verse novels. Despite knowing how hard of a format it is to do successfully, sometimes it seems to me the easy way out of writing a novel. This is the feeling I struggled with when I began Carol Lynch Williams’s new title Glimpse: the verse made little sense to me initially, but fortunately, it begins to make complete sense as the story forges forward.

Hope walked in on her sister Lizzie holding a gun and threatening to shoot herself, and it is that scene that causes Lizzie to be sent away to a mental health facility for the summer. This summer drags long for Hope, as she and Lizzie had always been close. Not only that, but dad was gone and mom’s new job forced Hope to leave the comforts of her home quite often. Mom had to make money some how, and her method of choice involved a new man every night.

When Hope and her mother visit Lizzie, she is extremely strange around her mother. But with Hope, she tries to act normally. Hope is on to something — she knows there is something much deeper going on with Lizzie than she or her mother will let on.

It’s the diary that will tell it all. But just how will Hope be able to track down Lizzie’s diary in the house her mother made them abandon?

Glimpse is a fast-paced story that, despite its pacing, requires a slow reading to pick up on the clues of who Hope and Lizzie really are. Although I didn’t predict the ending, it was foreshadowed quite a bit throughout the text.

The verse format’s sparseness is perfect for the story telling, as the clues to Lizzie’s breakdown and desire to kill herself are pepper throughout but only, well, sparsely. The haunting and mysterious tone of those novel mirror that, as well. As a reader, I feel at once removed from the situation and entirely close to it — but never close enough to put my finger on it. The reader is really Hope, pulling together the broken pieces.

Our narrator here is reliable because of this. I initially didn’t feel much for Hope, but as things began getting stranger with her mother and Lizzie, I began to really sympathize with Hope. The powerful ending made me want to remove Hope from the entire situation, and it made me feel a lot for Lizzie, who I initially saw as selfish.

Glimpse is a powerful book to follow Williams’s prior title, The Chosen One. She has a powerful eye for crafting realistic characters and gripping situations, and I think that Glimpse is a title we’ll be hearing about come awards time. This will appeal to fans of Thalia Chaltas’s Because I am Furniture, though I don’t know quite how much Ellen Hopkins fans will find this satisfying — it’s got some grit, but it is not in the same category as Hopkins’s titles. It’ll also work well for fans of Julie Ann Peters and for fans of the realistic fiction (but not necessarily “issue” driven) titles.