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A Few Cybils Reads – Part IV

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Burn Out by Kristi Helvig
Part of the reason I love SFF so much – and always have – is how fun it can be. Authors can really let their creativity fly and not worry so much about trivial things like “Could this actually happen?” Burn Out is probably the most fun Cybils nominee I’ve read so far. It’s set 300 years in our future, after an asteroid that was heading for Earth was deflected and hit the sun instead, causing it to advance much more rapidly through its life cycle. It’s now a red giant, all the oceans on the planet have dried up, it’s too hot to go outside for more than a minute or two at a time, and most humans live underground or in protected pods, using a machine to drag the last bit of moisture out of the air in order to survive. (You could ask me if this could actually happen and I could honestly say I don’t know, but my first guess would be “probably not.”) Tora lives underground, alone, after her mother and sister were killed by the sun and her father was murdered by the people he worked for after he refused to hand over the powerful weapons he built for them.

Tora has resigned herself to probably ending her own life eventually. The air soon won’t have enough water left in it and she figures it will be less painful to overdose on pain pills than die of dehydration. Then an old family “friend,” Markus, comes knocking on her door. He says the Earth’s leaders have found another planet where humanity can live. He can take her there. The price is her dad’s weapons, left in Tora’s safekeeping. Tora knows they were made to be used on other humans, which is why her father refused to give them up in the end. Tora says no. Markus leaves, but he returns, and he brings friends. Not the nice kind.

This is an action-packed story, told in Tora’s funny, sarcastic voice that kept me flipping through the pages. The plot has a hole big enough to drive a truck through, but that didn’t dampen my enjoyment. The setting is unique and the futuristic concepts are interesting, including a gun that can be keyed to a person’s particular vibrations, allowing only that person to use it. Each of the characters have ulterior motives, and Helvig teases these out over the course of the story, providing the plot with plenty of twists and turns. Some questions are answered by the end, and some aren’t, clearly leaving an opening for a sequel. You can bet I’ll be reading it.

The Truth Against the World by Sarah Jamila Stevenson
Olwen Nia Evans, Wyn for short, is moving with her family for a few weeks to Wales, to a little town called Cwm Tawel. The trip is her great-grandmother’s dying wish. She grew up in Cwm Tawel and wants to die there, among the peaceful scenery and familiar surroundings. Before the move, Wyn starts to have strange dreams of her great-gran and a little girl, which she blogs about. Another boy, an English boy with his own family ties to Cwm Tawel, stumbles across Wyn’s blog after a recent visit to his great-grandfather in Wales, where he found a headstone bearing Olwen’s name – and had his own run-in with a strange little girl. The two eventually meet up in Cwm Tawel and set about solving the mystery of the ghost Olwen Nia Evans, which involves digging up painful family history that some residents of the town would prefer stayed buried.

Stevenson’s book is unique for its setting; Wales doesn’t get a lot of love in the YA world, especially compared to its UK counterparts. I can easily see the descriptions of the country’s natural beauty encouraging readers to seek out more information or dreaming about visiting themselves. This is a gentle story, perhaps too gentle, as the stakes never seem very high. The solution to ghost Olwen’s mystery is too simple and will be easily deciphered by readers familiar with ghost stories. This would be a good pick for younger, patient readers who may not guess the connection between the ghost and Wyn’s great-grandmother from the start. (A pronunciation guide would have also been helpful for the nerdy readers.)

Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant
Grant’s latest is a series opener, though it stands on its own easily. Mara wakes up without any knowledge of who she is, other than her name. (Yes, it’s another amnesia book.) She’s greeted by someone who tells her he is the Messenger of Fear, and that before she lost her memories, she agreed to be his apprentice. Their duty is to confront those who have done wrong and present them with a choice: play a game, win it, and go free; or refuse or lose the game and face their worst fear. Messenger starts by showing Mara a teenage girl’s suicide, then rewinds time and shows her the events leading up to it. None of the events can be changed, but they must learn from what happened in order to present an appropriate game – and mete out the appropriate punishment if the wicked person loses.

This is not as much of a horror novel as the title or the cover would have you believe, despite a scene where a person is burned alive (described in detail). Fear is not really its goal. Instead, it’s more of an exploration of guilt and atonement, of the choices we make and how – if – we can make reparations. The idea behind the Messenger is to restore balance to the universe. Those who have not been punished by a human court must suffer a visit from the Messenger of Fear, in hopes of preventing the wicked from committing the same actions in the future. The situations Mara and Messenger view are realistic and presented with shades of grey. More often than not, multiple people are at fault rather than a single individual. It is left up to the reader to determine if the wrongdoer’s interactions with Mara and Messenger have set the balance right – if such punishment is justice or if it’s merely cruelty.

There’s a twist to the story that sharp readers will see coming, though the hints sprinkled throughout start light and grow heavier as the story progresses. It will take a truly eagle-eyed reader to spot the truth from the beginning, keeping tension high through most of the novel. Picking out the twist before the end isn’t always a bad thing, provided it doesn’t happen too soon (as I think it would in the book above). There’s a certain satisfaction in putting the pieces together yourself over several chapters and then learning you were right in the end. At times gruesome, the book is also thought-provoking and smoothly written, easily absorbed in an afternoon.

Review & Giveaway: Loop by Karen Akins

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Bree Bennis attends a school for Shifters, those who were born with the ability to travel backwards in time. Her goal at the book’s opening is to travel to the 21st century, complete her midterm, and carry out a little side project that will earn her the money to ensure her sick mother is able to get the care she needs. It should be doable, except that Bree runs into a bratty kid named Finn and accidentally takes him hostage while trying to complete her tasks. Oops.

She eventually escapes the 21st century and goes back to her home time, the 23rd century, knowing she’ll have to return to the 21st to somehow convince Finn not to talk about her little visit. Only when she does return, she lands three years later, and Finn is no longer a bratty kid. He’s her age, he’s pretty hot, and he claims to have been in a relationship with her for some time. It doesn’t take long to figure out he means a future version of Bree. Of course, he can’t tell her about her own future, for fear of disrupting the timeline. (Picture River Song saying “Spoilers” to the Doctor here.) In true Bree fashion, in trying to extricate herself from this situation, she accidentally brings Finn along with her to the 23rd century, something that shouldn’t even be possible. Oops again.

Now Bree must unravel not only how to return Finn to his own time without anyone the wiser, but also how exactly he came to know future Bree so well, and what it all has to do with the strange things going on in her boarding school.

Karen Akins’ debut Loop really embraces how fun time travel can be. This is a time travel book for readers who love time travel. Do you have certain websites bookmarked whose sole purpose is to speculate on the possibility of time travel? This book is for you. This is a true speculative novel, one that continuously asks what if. What if we could time travel? What would the rules be? What would the consequences be? For readers who love those kinds of questions, this is a gem. For readers who get headaches thinking about it, it might be best to pick up a different book.

It’s not just the time travel that makes this book so much fun. Bree and Finn have great snarky chemistry, and there’s a slew of futuristic 23rd century technology that is fascinating to read about. The 23rd century feels real, chock full of fun little details and new slang terms. The plot itself is fast-paced and complicated, but makes sense in the end, as good time travel books should. Often when I read a book with multiple moving plot parts, I’m a little hesitant to reach the end; I’ve been burned with unresolved subplots and details left dangling before (seemingly unintentionally). This is especially true for time travel stories, which can be more complicated than most. Trust in Akins – it all comes together in a satisfying way.

St. Martin’s Press is giving away a finished copy of Loop to one lucky reader (US residents only). Enter using the form below. The giveaway closes November 14.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part III

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The Glass Casket by McCormick Templeman
Rowan Rose has grown up relatively happy in her small town where not much happens. Then a few of the king’s men, visiting for unknown reasons, are found dead in what appear to be brutal animal attacks; at the same time, another young girl, Fiona Eira, moves to the town with her stepmother and her stepmother’s new husband. Fiona has a connection to Rowan beyond what she is told. When Rowan’s best friend falls in love with Fiona, it sets in motion a violent chain of events that will change Rowan’s life forever.

This one was on my radar long before the Cybils got underway. The cover is eerily beautiful and the story is a re-working of a few different fairy tales, though in a more suggestive than literal way. Even without the nod to Snow White via the title, the story feels very much like a fairy tale, albeit much closer to the darker original versions than the more lighthearted Disney versions. And despite the fairy tale aspect, the story – and the way everything unfolds – is unique. Templeman creates an atmospheric mood with her writing. It’s not horrifying, per se, but it is somewhat chilling, buoyed by the fact that she does not shy away from describing some of the more grotesque things that happen. The story is a little rough around the edges at points, but overall thoroughly engrossing. I look forward to what Templeman does next.

A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn
Marni is half-human, half-dragon. Her mother, once a princess of the kingdom, ran away to live in the magical woods and took up with a dragon who could change into the shape of a man. Marni was the result. Her mother then left the dragon, taking Marni with her. When the woods start to encroach upon the kingdom, Marni’s uncle, the prince, hunts down her mother, thinking her the cause – the dragon trying to reclaim her. In order to save Marni’s life, Marni’s grandfather – the king – abdicates to his son, but not before Marni’s mother is killed.

Now a young woman, Marni constantly feels the pull of the woods, though she knows its danger. She lives with her grandfather, and when he dies, she journeys to the castle, hoping the king will take her in, despite his propensity to murder her family members. Still, the woods call to her, and they soon start to move in on the town once again. It’s only a matter of time before Marni answers the call.

Hahn’s writing, much like Templeman’s, is dreamlike. She uses her words to paint a picture for you, and it’s easy to feel sucked into the rich settings of her book. I’ve read reviews that call her writing poetic, and that’s a fair assessment. But what I often find missing from a book of poetic writing is a strong plot, and that’s the situation here. It doesn’t feel like much happens. In fact, just when it appears that something exciting might happen, the thread of that particular plot point kind of fades away. You could call the story “character-driven,” or you could simply say it doesn’t have much substance. I tend to go with the latter. Best for readers who don’t mind lovely language at the expense of plot.

Pandemic by Yvonne Ventresca
This is a standard modern-day disease story that focuses on a very specific regional area – teenage Lil’s hometown in New Jersey. The pandemic of the title is a flu-like disease that spreads rapidly across the globe. Unlike most flus, this one is most fatal to younger adults, who soon start dying, leaving the old and the young (including people Lil’s age) without caretakers.

Ventresca doesn’t really do anything new with the idea, but she does throw in some details that keep interest up throughout the book. Both of Lil’s parents are out of town when the worst of the pandemic hits, meaning she has to handle everything that happens mostly on her own. This includes the care of an infant whose parents have both died. She gets together with other teenagers to organize assistance for those who can’t help themselves. She has to learn how to get food for herself and contend with looters. She also has to deal with a teacher who sexually assaulted her several months before and now has greater access to her due to the breakdown of the town’s governance. It’s certainly not a bad story, and would be fine for those eager for more along the lines of Amber Kizer’s A Matter of Days – both are relatively gentle books where the stakes never seem very high (even when they should). Ventresca’s writing is a bit amateurish, weakening what could have been a devastating story and keeping it from being entirely satisfying.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quinetero

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Sometimes, you read the book you didn’t know you needed to read when you read it. Enter Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, A Girl in Pieces.

Mexican American Gabi is a senior this year, and the book picks up in the months leading up to her final year in high school. It jumps in immediately, as this is a diary-style novel, and we’re quickly introduced to Gabi’s best friend Cindy and Sebastian. Cindy just discovered she’s pregnant and Sebastian, who Gabi has known to be gay for a while, just came out to his family. Those two revelations set off the string of events to follow — Cindy’s pregnancy, as Gabi is by her side through the entirety of it and Sebastian’s coming out, as Gabi helps him find a stable place to live after he’s kicked out of his own home.

But this isn’t the story of what happens to Gabi’s friends.

Gabi’s own home life is imperfect, as is her love life. Her father is an addict, and he’s more unreliable than he is reliable and stable. Gabi’s upset and hurting by it, but because it’s such a normal part of her life, she depicts it as such.

She’s interested in a number of boys, but she has no idea whether they’re interested, and she certainly has no idea how to kiss them, were that opportunity to arise. But as the months roll on, we see Gabi test out relationships with a number of guys throughout, and she offers her keen insight into what she did or did not like about each one . . . and whether her final choice was the right one for her. There is keen, positive depictions of sexuality and Gabi’s understanding of her limits, as well as discussion of consent. Her aunt taught her the phrase “eyes open, legs closed,” which is a theme that runs throughout her diary, but it’s a phrase in which he can’t always agree — especially as more unravels about Cindy’s pregnancy and the pregnancy of another of Gabi’s classmates. Oh, and there’s the surprise pregnancy her mother has, too.

Because we get Gabi unfiltered, we see the pregnancies through her eyes without any glossing over. We know what it was like to be in the delivery room with Cindy and we know what it’s like when someone has to go to an abortion clinic and all of the steps and secrecy involved in that.

One of the biggest challenges Gabi faces in the story is that she’s torn between going away to college and remaining at home with her family. She’s stuck in that space between pursuing her own dreams as an American girl and the traditional role she has in staying home and helping with the family, as children in Mexican families often do. She applies to schools, including some big name universities, and ultimately gets accepted to her dream school. The wrestling she does about her future is complicated and thoughtfully approached, but it’s made even more challenging when she does something at school that gets her in trouble. Huge trouble.

And it’s here where Quintero’s good debut novel becomes an outstanding novel.

Although this is a diary of Gabi’s life, it’s a deep exploration of sexuality and more specifically, it’s also an exploration of “dude culture.” That is, why do we allow “boys to be boys” but we don’t offer protection to girls from boys? Or more accurately, why do we allow “boys to be boys” anyway? What does it say when boys are allowed to do what they want to and it’s permitted, where a girl has to suffer the consequences not just of her own actions but of the things acted upon her? Gabi won’t stand for it, and she keeps turning her mind back to that phrase “eyes open, legs closed.” It becomes almost a tool of power for her when she begins working through the anger and frustration she has, even though that wasn’t the intended purpose for her aunt telling it to her.

Gabi is also a fat girl. But she’s not just a fat girl in a YA novel. She’s a fat girl in a YA novel who loves to eat, who loves to talk about eating, and yet, she’s brutally honest about what being fat means in her life. She’s regularly teased and she’s given a lot of grief at home about it, and she herself admits to wishing she could be thinner. Trying on clothes is a pain, among other things. But what Quintero does not do in this book is make Gabi any less of a full, exceptionally-realized, dream-seeking main character. Her fat does not hold her back. It becomes a thing she talks about in a way that is another part of who she is, even if it’s something she feels like other people judge her much more harshly for than she does. Gabi’s body is not the whole story. Gabi’s body does not make her unable to live her life to the fullest. It does not make her unattractive to boys. It does not isolate her from her friends. It does not make her depressed or sullen or fearful of food. Her body is just that: her body. This is an amazing and affirming message to see in a book, and I think it will resonate deeply with readers.

This is a story that also includes positive female friendship, positive male-female friendship, laugh-out-loud moments of awkward interactions with boys, and really heart-warming scenes. There are some really tough parts to read, as Gabi’s family does suffer a major blow, but those are tempered with moments that make you cheer for Gabi, too. The diary format for Gabi, A Girl in Pieces was the absolute right choice for telling the story because it allowed both immediacy and distance from events (Gabi has to reflect on what happens after the fact, when she’s writing, rather than in the immediacy as it’s happening) and because it is exceedingly rare to see a “year in the life” diary of a character of color. Gabi owns every bit of this story.

Gabi is an empowered teen girl from the start, but it’s not something she entirely realized. It’s through this year she comes to discover that about herself — and those moments of getting it are rich for the reader.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces has garnered five starred reviews so far from the trade journals, but I have seen virtually no discussion of this book and I think that may be because this is from a smaller press. But this is a book with huge teen appeal that I hope people pick up, give a chance, and then talk about. Quintero’s writing style and story telling reminded me a lot of Amy Spalding. Fans of Sara Zarr, Susan Vaught, or Siobhan Vivian’s novels will do well with this book, too. Readers looking for serious books that are infused with good moments of humor and honesty, as well as depictions of awkward teen relationships, dynamic families, the challenges of pursuing your own interests while also respecting and being part of a host of cultural traditions, and great female leads will find a lot to enjoy here.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces is available now. Review copy from the publisher.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part II

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The public nomination period for the Cybils closed last week. I have 32 print books and 4 e-books checked out from the library currently scattered at various parts throughout my house (well, I guess the e-books aren’t really scattered), in addition to the books I already own (easily another dozen or so). You’d think that a kitchen table would be for eating things, but right now it’s pretty much just serving as a surface upon which to sort books – this stack I’ve read, this stack I haven’t, and so on.

Here are a few more brief reviews from the stack I’ve read.

Strange Sweet Song by Adi Rule
This book lives up to its title. It is very strange, almost too strange, for most of its existence, and then it hits you with some sweetness near the end that makes for a very satisfying resolution. Sing da Navelli is the daughter of a famous soprano, a woman who made a name for herself in opera – not only because of her voice, but also because she died in the middle of an aria. When Sing starts at Dunhammond Academy, a boarding school for musicians, she feels the weight of her father’s expectations as well as the public’s. As luck (good or ill) would have it, the school is performing Angelique this year, the opera that Sing’s mother died singing.

Parts of the story are told from Sing’s point of view as she tries to gain the lead role in the opera, make friends, date the cute boy, deal with rude teachers, and so on. Other parts are told from the point of view of the Maestro of the school in his youth, his young apprentice, and a strange being called the Felix who inhabits the woods outside the school. The Felix – which kills almost everyone it meets, but grants wishes to a select few – is itself a part of the opera, used as inspiration by the opera’s composer long ago. Its life is tied inextricably to the history of the school. At times the school story and the mythical story exist uneasily side by side. It takes a patient reader to push through all the parts and learn how they join together, but the payoff is lovely and rewarding, very fairy tale-esque with a sweet romance and interesting magic. The writing is lovely, too, giving the book a dreamlike quality. This would be a good pick for readers fascinated with the opera, the lives of classical musicians, and the magic that music can create.

Amity by Micol Ostow
Ostow has written a seriously creepy horror novel that most readers could probably finish in a single sitting. It tells two parallel stories both set in a house called Amity, but separated in time by ten years. Connor’s story is the past story; Gwen’s is the present. Each story begins with the teens’ families moving into Amity and noticing that something is a bit off with the house. In Connor’s case, he develops an affinity for Amity; the house gives him a sort of power. He feeds off of it and vice versa. In Gwen’s case, the house frightens her; it starts to do strange things to her brother, and she becomes more and more disturbed as she learns more about what happened ten years ago with Connor’s family.

Each teen tells their own story, and both teens at first seem fairly normal, but it quickly becomes apparent that Connor brought his own disease with him to Amity, a disease that Amity recognizes and exploits. Gwen suffers from a disease, too, but of a different kind. Eventually, Connor’s and Gwen’s stories combine. The switches in perspective are frequent, chapters are short, and there’s a lot of white space. These stylistic choices create an urgency to the story, which is perfectly paced (if perhaps just a touch too short). I know next to nothing about the actual Amityville events, so I can’t tell you how much of the book pulls from them and how much springs completely from Ostow’s imagination. What I can tell you is that Ostow excels at creating a haunting mood, one that isn’t driven by gore or things that jump out at you. It’s a slow burn, and by the end, most readers should be deliciously scared. Keep the lights on.

The In-Between by Barbara Stewart
The voice is what makes this book stand out from other is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-ghost stories. Ellie is fourteen, depressed, and on her way to a new town with her parents to make a fresh start. On the way there, her family’s car is involved in a crash which kills one of her parents and her cat. Ellie herself is seriously injured, but she pulls through. In her new home, she meets Madeline, a beautiful, perfect girl who quickly becomes her best friend. But then Madeline is gone, and Ellie finds herself adrift without her, struggling once again to put together the broken pieces of her life – and mostly failing.

Ellie’s story is difficult to read sometimes – she’s in such pain, and her voice is so achingly fourteen. It would take a hard heart not to be transported back to one’s own adolescence while reading this. Though I didn’t experience the same exact problems as Ellie, Stewart’s writing made me acutely aware of just how everything felt at that time in my life. Fourteen year olds experience things differently than adults. Sometimes it hurts to remember that. This is a first person story, told through Ellie’s journals (though it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like an epistolary novel) and we are close, so very close, to Ellie as narrator. It’s possible she’s unreliable. What’s more likely, at least to me, is that Ellie just doesn’t know what’s going on. She can’t trust her own experiences, so we as readers can’t either. This is a short, intense read that should resonate with a lot of teens, many of whom will see themselves in Ellie.