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Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

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I’ve written before about how I’m tired of young adult science fiction that is only capable of imagining a future where women are treated in awful ways (usually explicit or de facto sexual slavery). Often, these sorts of hypothetical societies seem done more for shock value than to serve the story and its characters, and they frequently do not take a hard look at where certain Earth societies are now and postulate a logical future for them. So you can imagine my trepidation going into Salvage by Alexandra Duncan.

The story begins on a space ship where grown men take multiple teenage girls as wives. Women and girls are not allowed to set foot on Earth (though men are), and the culture’s mythology prevents them from doing something as basic as singing, much less making repairs to the ship or anything else besides child-rearing.

Ava was born into this society, aboard a trading ship called the Parastrata. She is sixteen and has been told she is to become a wife to a man aboard the Aether. When it appears that Luck, the captain’s son and her friend and sweetheart of sorts, is to be that man, she is overjoyed. But Ava and Luck make a terrible mistake based on faulty information, and Ava finds herself on the run from her family and the crews of both the Parastrata and the Aether.

What I’ve mentioned above is actually a fairly small portion of the book. Most of Ava’s story takes place on Earth. She initially escapes to the Gyre, a continent-sized trash heap in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She’s taken in by a scarred (physically and metaphorically) but kind woman and her pre-teen daughter, who teach Ava how to fly a ship. Afterward, Ava finds herself in Mumbai, seeking her mother’s sister. These two settings are wildly different (one completely fabricated), but equally well-realized.

This is a slower-paced book, not as chock-full of action as, say, Beth Revis’ Across the Universe or Amy Kathleen Ryan’s Glow, which it’s been compared to (though it still reads very quickly). Duncan takes time to immerse the reader in each place she creates, whether that place is space, the Pacific Ocean, or India. Everything is told through Ava’s eyes, so the wonder and mystery and strangeness of all these settings is made very clear. That’s one thing I really loved about this book: it highlights just how overwhelming it is to find yourself in a place where no one understands you. And the place where Ava is understood, at least to a degree – the Parastrata – does make sense in the context of the story. Duncan’s writing never makes what happens aboard the ship seem salacious. The fact that the ships are so isolated from Earth, free of any regulation but their own, in a harsh environment, does make it more likely that they’d develop a society that adheres to a very rigid set of rules that benefits those already in power. This is addressed in more depth near the end of the book.

It’s clear that future Earth is wildly different from present-day Earth, but we don’t get an infodump that explains how it got that way. Instead, we discover on our own. Duncan lets the reader infer from what Ava sees: the trash in the middle of the ocean, the difference in living conditions between different classes of people in Mumbai, and so on. When done right, world-building is a discovery, and I feel like Duncan nailed it.

There’s a lot that Duncan packs into her novel, theme-wise: the meaning of family, the ethics of objectively studying another human culture, class privilege, gender and sexuality. Furthermore, the cast is multi-racial and multi-cultural, so important and so rare in mainstream YA SF. And if that weren’t enough to entice you to pick this one up, Ava is also good at math and mechanical repairs – in fact, she taught herself how to do sums! I’ll be the first to say I dislike math, but it is so very nice to read about a girl who loves it and excels at it.

Readers who aren’t big fans of science fiction may initially shy away from Ava’s narration, as her speech patterns are a bit odd. She uses some words in different ways than we do; it takes some getting used to. I really appreciate when an author does this. Again, there’s no explanation for the oddness in speech – we figure out what it means along the way. It’s just another way Duncan brings us into Ava’s world.

YA books set in space are trendy right now. This one is more thoughtful and less plot-driven than the others, more like a classic coming-of-age story, different but no worse than thrillers like Glow or Across the Universe. Salvage is a good book for more patient teens who will appreciate reading about a sheltered girl who comes into her own as a young woman in a wild, sometimes-scary, often-beautiful world.

Review copy provided by my librarian book twin and Angie (@misskubelik). Salvage is available now.

Pointe by Brandy Colbert

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Theo, an elite ballerina, walks late into dance class only to see the usual accompanist has been replaced by Hosea — the guy she kind of  knows from school, who is dating a girl she kind of knows. But what she really knows is Hosea is one of the big suppliers of the pot she and her friends are able to score when they need it.

As much Pointe by Brandy Colbert is a story about a relationship that develops between Theo and Hosea, it’s also not a story about their relationship.

This is a story about what happens when Donovan, Theo’s neighbor and best friend, suddenly comes back home four years after being kidnapped. When he won’t talk to anyone.

When Donovan won’t talk to anyone.

Because this book is complex and encompasses a lot of story within it — and successfully so — this review is full of spoilers. There’s a lot I want to talk about, and avoiding the big issues in the sake of avoiding talking about a big plot issue won’t work for me. Proceed at your own caution.

Colbert’s debut novel tackles a huge array of topics within it, but it does so by carefully braiding together threads of Theo’s past with the reality and immediacy of the present. There are balls in the air for her, including the return of Donovan, the future of gaining admission to another level of ballet that would set her on the track to big stages and a career in the art, and the budding romance with Hosea. Theo’s juggling time with her close friends, as well: she’s a girl who is social and who would never be seen as a wallflower nor the kind of person who would stay home at night, rather than go to the school dance or a party. Though it might be in her better interests not to.

In the midst of juggling the responsibilities of now, particularly the emerging romance between her and Hosea, flashbacks to life four years ago begin popping up. Slowly, Theo remembers the relationship she had with an older boy named Trent. He loved to have sex with her, and sometimes she liked it, while other times, she felt like she was being used. But Trent being eighteen and she being much younger, she went along with it. That relationship — secret to her friends and her family — made her feel good and wanted. It made her feel powerful. An older boy who physically showed her he was interested in her.

That relationship with Trent, though, wasn’t entirely a secret to Donovan. Theo met Trent when she was hanging out with Donovan. He knew they had something going on, though the extent to which he knew remains in the air.

Backpedalling a bit, though: what about those four interim years between the time Donovan disappeared and when he returned? That’s where things become really interesting, and the memories that bubble up from Theo serve as a means of giving us as readers a true sense of not just who she was, but who she’s become now. We know she’s a dancer. We know she has a future ahead of her. But we also know losing her best friend and losing the first boyfriend of her life and the stress of being a dancer couldn’t be easy. Theo spent many of those interim years struggling with an eating disorder, one she held secret until she blacked out at the mall with one of her friends. The eating disorder was her means of holding control over something completely on her own. It ultimately got her institutionalized, and it’s something from which she never quite recovered. Donovan’s return home also retriggers the eating disorder. But not because of his presence; it’s because of what his return brings up in Theo’s past.

When Theo learns that the name of the man who kidnapped Donovan is Chris, things unhinge. When Theo puts the pieces together and realizes her Trent was never the person he said he was. He was never eighteen. He was in his twenties. And his name wasn’t Trent.

It was Chris. The same Chris who pled not guilty to kidnapping Donovan and the same Chris against whom Theo will have to testify in order to seek justice for Donovan.

The same Chris who raped Theo. Who took advantage of her being underage and naive. The same Chris who raped Theo no one knows about until that very trial.

Colbert weaves in an array of “issues” within Pointe, and while it could have become easily overwhelming, Theo’s amazing development as a character keeps them all together smoothly. Theo is a tough girl who doesn’t take crap from anyone, but she’s also a character who doesn’t quite know how to trust that instinct about her. She’s tentative internally as much as she appears steadfast and confident externally. Much of it is probably due to her being a ballerina and needing to exude that confidence on stage and shove down anything that might take away from the part she’s playing while performing. But part of it comes from being a black girl in a mostly-white suburb outside Chicago, as well as being a black girl in a mostly-white artistic/athletic sphere.

Within the story, Theo’s race plays a role in the experiences she has in and out of the classroom in ways that are painful to read but which also give immense insight into what that experience of being a minority might feel like. I can’t ever know personally, but through Theo’s actions and reactions, through the way she talks through these experiences internally, it was easy to understand where some of the external face she puts on comes from. She has to be strong, she has to be brave, and she has to stand up and fight harder than an average person would simply because of the color of her skin. It’s unfair, and that unfairness shines through.

Though it looked and felt like a good thing in the moment, Theo’s relationship with Hosea turns out to be a disaster. She and he are both aware that he’s dating someone, but it doesn’t stop either one of them from reciprocating the physical and emotional (at least her emotional) actions toward one another. Part of their relationship happens because Theo needs someone to be with her, now that the memories she’d tamped down are coming back up again with Donovan’s return. She wants to feel that physical closeness. She wants to be wanted. But when Hosea and Theo are close to having sex in the science classroom and his girlfriend sees what happens, things end. Fortunately for Theo, the only thing Hosea ever got out of her was physical. He wasn’t privy to her experiences with Chris nor how they related to Donovan.

In fact, the only person who ever knew what happened in Theo’s past was a female friend of hers, and it came out almost by accident. That friend revealed something about her own life, and Theo reciprocated by talking about how she’d dated an older guy. And then revealed more and more, until the friend managed to convince Theo what had happened was rape. It was in this moment that Pointe went from being good to being really good — not because Theo was forced to reconsider what happened, but because that reconsideration came through talking it out with another girlfriend. Not with Hosea. Not with a counselor. Not with anyone except a female friend. There is no one who saves Theo in the story except Theo herself. The boy who looked like he would be the hero falters, and it’s she who gets to walk away, knowing that it was a mistake but a mistake from which she can learn.

But it got even better when, seated to testify at the trial, Theo reveals the rape to the courtroom. When she finally owns what happened to her those years ago. When she releases Donovan, too, because her testimony ultimately sends Chris to jail for kidnapping and a slew of other charges.

That reveal wasn’t the only one she made. Theo also admits to her parents she isn’t over her eating disorder. That she’s not “okay.” That she needs help. And with that, she chooses to check herself into the same clinic she attended before but didn’t find helpful. This time, the story feels more promising, especially as she severs ties she really needs to and works to strengthen others. Going away means putting the ballet dreams on hold — but she knows, too, they’ll be there waiting for her when she’s ready  and healthy enough to visit them again.

Theo is one of my favorite characters in a long time. She makes a lot of dumb mistakes, and she’s unwilling to trust herself, even when her gut instincts tell her what she’s thinking or feeling are right. She’s not weak, but she’s also not “strong.” She’s imperfect and rough and misguided but ultimately, she wants to do what’s right. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to do that without continuing to hurt herself in the process — which she does anyway, but in recognizing that, she grows. Theo learns about trusting herself, as well as trusting others in the process.

At the end of Pointe, nothing is perfect. Theo will still make dumb mistakes. That she’ll still stumble and fall. She’ll still likely go out and party when it might be smarter not to. But we also know she’s figured out that she has the capability to own her story and work with it, rather than always work against it. To recognize that being a human being means being imperfect, and that the best relationships are the ones that take work. Especially the relationship one has with herself.

Pass Brandy Colbert’s Pointe to readers who love Sara Zarr or Siobhan Vivian. Those readers who love a complex female character and a book that’s tightly written with an authentic and memorable voice will find much to love here. Readers who want a story that features a character passionate about her art — dancers especially — will enjoy Theo’s dedication and Colbert’s ability to write about it with authority. Although there is a lot of plot, ultimately Pointe is a character-driven novel, and one that will resonate with readers who are eager for solid, memorable, smart, damn good contemporary YA fiction. Colbert creates real teen characters in situations that allow them to be teenagers without offering judgment for the choices that they do and do not make, regardless of how smart those choices may or may not be.

Pointe will be available April 10. Review copy received from the publisher. Tomorrow, we’ll have an interview with Colbert, along with a giveaway. 

Girls Across Borders: Reviews from the Outstanding Books for the College Bound List

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To round out women’s history month and continue talking about some of the amazing titles on this year’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound list (OBCB), I thought I’d dive into the books on the list that talk about girls across borders. This is a longer roundup of titles, as there were a number of really great titles that would fall under this umbrella. Some of the borders these girls move across are physical, some are mental, and some are socially-constructed boundaries. I’ve pulled the titles from across the five categories of the OBCB list, so there’s a little literature, a little social science, and a little bit of arts and humanities covered here.

Sold by Patricia McCormick

This isn’t a new title, and it’s not one that hasn’t gone unnoticed or not earned accolades. That’s for good reason. This is a powerful novel in verse about human trafficking and prostitution.

Thirteen year old Lakshmi lives in Nepal, and when a devastating
monsoon destroys her family’s crops, her step-father informs her that her duty is to help the family recover from this tragedy. While she’s under the impression that she’s being sent to do work a a maid, the truth is, she’s being sold into prostitution in India.

It’s a harsh, cruel, and brutal world, but Lakshmi does what she can to endure. She’s able to at least try to foster friendships with the other girls in the brothel.

Sold is horrifying and heart-wrenching, and it’s not necessarily the kind of story with a happy ending to it. What’s left unsaid because of the verse style of the novel is as painful as those things which are said and described. Likewise, despite being a fictional novel, it’s clear that McCormick has done her research on the truth behind stories like Lakshmi’s, and she’s unflinching in what she presents as the truth of her experiences as a child sold into prostitution.

Though not a personal favorite read of mine, it’s one that I am still thinking about months later. It’s powerful, and it’s the kind of story any reader curious about the ongoings in other parts of the world should read. But, of course, they shouldn’t read it for just that. Because as much as we want to believe this is an issue “in other places,” it still happens in the places with which we have great familiarity.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

So what can be done about oppression and the horrific abuses women suffer around the world? Kristof and WuDunn delve into what we can do and how we can do it in their work.

I should note before diving into this a bit more than this book didn’t work for me. It’s really brutal, even more so than Sold, and I had a problem more specifically with how these women’s stories of being hurt and broken and abused were coaxed out of them in a way that I felt took the power away from the victim and instead gave it to Kristof and WuDunn. But I note that this was my personal bias in the reading and it came up because this book is PACKED with these sorts of stories — it’s not an easy read nor is it a gentle one and it’s not meant to be either of those things.

That said, this is the kind of book any reader interested in social justice, particularly on a global scale, should pick up. It gives a broad perspective of practical things that can be done to help make the world a little bit of a safer place for women who endure brutality. It puts a real face and story to the ones told by McCormick in Sold. I should be fair in stating, too, that alongside the really tough reads are stories about how many women recovered from their positions and situations. Those are, of course, meant to be a call to action.

Factory Girls: Voices from the Heart of Modern China by Leslie T. Chang

When you think of China, what do you think? What about those stickers littering your clothes or on toys that proclaim “made in China?”

Chang enters into migrant China and follows two girls through their “careers” in the factory/migrant world. Min and Chunming represent the girls who leave their village homes and seek work in the cities inside factories that run them dry, pay them little, and “own” them. But what’s most fascinating is how Chang doesn’t necessarily look at this as a negative thing in and of itself; these girls see these jobs as upward mobility in China. This exploration of China’s social situations and work/personal lives is fascinating, heartbreaking, and — surprisingly — somewhat hopeful. Although I found Chang’s personal history in here boring (I skimmed those few chapters), I see how they relate and tie into the greater story. 
A great book for considering not just the social world of China, but how China’s changed and evolved in the last few decades, how the population has adapted to this, what promise and hope look like for young women who aren’t attending colleges/universities, and it’s also a means of reflecting upon our own choices in what we purchase and use product-wise in America. We consume the goods these girls take part in making; how does and should this impact us here, knowing what those jobs there might mean?

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Going back to fiction and back to the US momentarily, Kwok’s novel focuses on the double life which immigrants to this country can sometimes lead.

Kimberly Chang and her mother arrived in Brooklyn from Hong Kong poor but eager to get away from their home country. They’re set up in an apartment of squalor. During the day, Kimberly is an immensely talented and eager school girl. From that, it would appear she’s living the American Dream, but it’s far from that.

At night, Kimberly works in the factories and hopes to help supplement the income her mother has in order for them to stay afloat in their new home. She’s obligated to help, and in the process of this work, Kimberly comes to a number of realizations about how much responsibility falls on her to help make life in this country possible. There is a romance that emerges in the story, as well, and it’s in these scenes where readers get a real sense of the challenges faced — no matter which decision or opportunities Kimberly pursues, she’s going to have to work hard and make significant sacrifices.

What happens, too, when someone finds out about your real home life and it doesn’t match the face you present in the classroom?

Girl in Translation makes for a really interesting read against Factory Girls. While they’re set in entirely different worlds, what these girls do and don’t do reflect the realities of their worlds in ways that make them almost more similar than they make them different. 

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Guene

If I had to pick a single book I read over the course of OBCB work that stood out to me the most, it would be Guene’s novel. I’d put it off for quite a while because I had no idea what it was about (the title and the cover didn’t attract me) but when I picked it up, I read it in a single sitting.

What a little gem of a book. This was published adult but has mega YA appeal, as it’s about a 15-year-old Doria growing up in the projects about half an hour from Paris. While we have our romantic notions of what Paris is like, that notion is best left to what Paris is — not the suburban landscape. 

Doria’s dealing with her father ditching her and her mother, who is illiterate, as he heads back to Morocco in order to attempt marrying a woman who can sire him a son (that’s all that matters in his culture). It deals with urban issues in a way that’s cross-cultural, about the challenges of growing up between cultures, and what it means to figure out who you are and what you do when your world’s been blown apart. It looks at what happens when the people you’ve come to know and rely on for certain things — their always being there, their always NOT being there — change and mold into their own lives and new paths, too. 

Doria’s voice is amazing: it’s funny, but also deeply hurting and that hurt comes in those really funny moments, making them even more searing. Doria’s not one of those girls who is a miracle, and I think that’s what made it resonate so much. She’s NOT good at school and she doesn’t care. But it doesn’t at all make her worthless or driftless. She’s 15 and only trying to figure it out as best she can. Even when the school reassigns her to a trade she doesn’t care about, Doria’s actions and reactions are real and authentic to who she was. 

The reason this particular novel was one we talked about and thought was worthwhile for including on OBCB was not just the voice, but that it showcased a girl whose cultural identity is one we don’t often see. She’s poor, she’s part French and part Moroccan, and she lives on the outskirts of one of the most romanticized, lauded cities in the world. 

Three other female-lead and female-centric titles that fit within this idea of girls across borders include the following:

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

There’s not much I need to say about why this book fits not only on the OBCB list (it’s in the literature and languages category) nor about why it fits within this post about girls across borders. Frankie’s a girl who takes charge, gets things done, and does so despite what stands in her way. While fictional and the stakes that exist in the real-life stories discussed above aren’t as high, this is the type of book that fits into the conversation, if it’s not a gateway to the larger conversation about social constructs, gender, and about girls breaking down borders.


Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal

Blumenthal’s non-fiction title, which skews much younger than the other titles on this list, is a carry over from the 2009 list. It’s an excellent look at how Title IX came to be and how women earned their rightful place in sports and athletic history. Here is how girls spoke up and out, despite the challenges standing before them. What keeps this book particularly interesting is how well the photos and sidebars are used and placed throughout.

Rookie Yearbook One edited by Tavi Gevinson

I nominated this title not having read it and wondering if maybe I’d nominated something that had no chance or place on our list. But I was wrong. This book, which is on the arts and humanities list, is such a fantastic guide to pop culture, to counter pop culture, to fashion, and to music. More than that — and I think why this is such a perfect fit for the OBCB list, as well as for this roundup of titles in particular — is that it explores “big issues” that teen girls face. It tackles figuring out what you want to do with your life, how to begin and end friendships, as well as sexuality, dating, and more. Tavi and her fellow writers have their fingers on the pulse of being a teen girl, and while things like makeup tips or fashion photo shoots won’t capture the interest of all girls who pick up this title, there are powerful pieces in here that will speak to them. This isn’t a book you sit and read cover to cover; it’s more a book you pick up and read when you feel like you need to talk to someone who will get you and offer you some really worthwhile advice or food for thought on life stuff. A big thumbs up, too, for this book featuring models of many colors and more than one shape.

Earlier title roundups of books on the Outstanding Books for the College Bound list I’ve talked include titles tackling music and musicality, football and football culture, and religion and spirituality.

Recent YA Reads

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I’m in the midst of a reading slump. It’s not surprising me or frustrating me much, though, because I know it’s related to having finished a year of non-stop reading, and I know it’s also related to what happens when I find myself wanting to blog and write a lot more. Sometimes, my energy can only go so far, and when I’ve put in hours of writing, reading isn’t always the most appealing to me after.

That said, I have gotten a few reads in recently, and I’ve been rearranging my to-read pile so I can get excited again when the time comes. Here’s a look at two books I read recently that didn’t wow me but I also didn’t dislike entirely, which I guess makes this post two “eh, they’re okay” reviews. 

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith — available now

I didn’t love this book. In fact, I’m not sure I enjoyed the reading experience at all. But I kept reading it and finished it because it’s kind of like abstract art: you look at it to appreciate how it comes together but that doesn’t mean you have to appreciate it beyond the way it was constructed. There’s a story about bisexuality here, and it’s woven into a story about the end of the world, about world history, about local history, and about family history. There are also giant grasshoppers and there is non-stop talk from Austin about how horny he is and how everything turns him on.

Is it well-written? Yes. Is it weird and different? Yes.

The thing is, beyond the fact this story tackles so much — and it does tackle some hugely important issues — I didn’t necessarily think it was all that risky or interesting. Austin being a boy allowed him to do and say and act upon a lot of things that, were Austin a female character, would have never happened and would have been a lot more risky and interesting to me as a reader. That’s not to undermine the really powerful story of sexuality here. But I couldn’t help thinking about the fact no female character could have Austin’s story, either. A girl who would dare talk about her physical needs this much wouldn’t be embraced in the same way Austin is. Perhaps this was an unfair thought to keep having, but I also don’t think it’s a thought unmerited by the story itself. A lot of what Austin does and says and observes about the females in this book made me uncomfortable. They were true to his voice, but the fact there is not one girl in the story who isn’t either a middle age woman on drugs to make her happy OR an object of sexual fascination to him left me feeling a little cold and tired. Not to mention she had no agency herself. I know it’s Austin’s perspective and how skewed that is, but I really wanted more of Shann than I got. 

There were also times when author voice insert became too obvious for me. Austin was smart and funny, but I had a hard time buying Austin would so remove himself from his situation to make observations that certain names were “very Iowa.” That was author humor over character humor and those moments pulled me out of the story a bit.


The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu — available June 3

This review contains spoilers, and I know that reviewing this early out isn’t always the most helpful thing in the world. But again, reading slump, and I picked this one up because it was a shorter read. Feel free to skip this and come back since it’ll spoil much of the book.

This is a book about how Alice was branded a slut because a few nasty people in small town Healy, Texas decided to spread rumors to save themselves and their own reputation. It’s all done without giving Alice a voice, which is effective in being a he said-she said story. But it’s all telling with little showing. Yes, you see cruelty (like when Kelsie, Alice’s former best friend, chooses to sharpie the walls of a bathroom stall calling Alice a variety of names), but you are also told repeatedly things that would be better serviced by stronger writing, more development of characters, and deeper investment in the story in and of itself. Because in every chapter, rather than seeing how Healy was a small town, we were reminded that Healy was a small town. You could walk from x place to y place. Healy was a small town. This person knew this person. While fine and great, actually reading it on the page, with some detail, would have actually shown the reader this sufficiently enough not to need to be reminded. And I think part of the dependence upon that was because there wasn’t a whole lot of story here to be told. 

Is this effective in showing how awful people are? Absolutely. It does to the reader pretty much what happened to Alice. She has no voice and no control, and we as readers see no voice and have no control over what happens. 

But why do I CARE about Alice? I do because other people are awful and that’s it. Because Kurt, the nerdy boy who wants to get close to Alice because of a long-time crush, is the only okay character in the story. But because his interest in her is romantic, and unabashedly so, I’m still not keen on his motivations or his own character. In the end, when the revelation is that Alice kept seeing him for tutoring and forgave him for keeping a secret from her emerges, we’re supposed to buy that this is meant to be a new, fresh friendship for her. But I don’t buy it: Kurt was in it from the start because of romantic feelings. So as much as it looks like it’s FRIENDSHIP in the end, Alice’s lack of voice throughout and Kurt’s lack of voice following her one opportunity to talk, I still see it as a boy saving a girl in a way that’s cast as romantic. It’s a trope that appears again and again, and it’s not fresh here.

Also, the abortion storyline with Alice’s former best friend didn’t work for me. It actually painted Alice in a poor light, since she is the reason Kelsie tells us she decided to sleep with that boy one time and wound up pregnant in that one sexual encounter. But again — Alice’s lack of voice lets this happen. There was also a weird message there with the pregnancy/abortion storyline and how it butts up against Kelsie’s mother’s devotion to faith.

There are better bullying books. There are better books about girls shamed for their sexuality. There are better books about small towns and rumors. At times the writing feels a little too adult-trying-to-write-teens and at times when the writing is just…Kurt uses the phrase “rear end” to describe a part of Alice’s body which even for someone as nerdy and intelligent as he tells us he is, I have a hard time thinking a 16 or 17 year old boy with a raging crush on her would say.

Had Alice had a voice in this book, it would have been more compelling, with more depth, and probably could have gone from an okay read to a great one. But in many ways, as much as it’s often smart to have the reader’s experience mirror Alice’s, it also feels a little manipulative and co-opts her story here. 

Review copies received from the publisher. 

Enders by Lissa Price

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You may recall that I really enjoyed Lissa Price’s debut Starters. It’s a fast-paced, well-plotted, and exciting futuristic story that takes a lot of liberties with science, but is fun nonetheless. I looked forward to reading its sequel (it’s a duology, so this book is the final in the series), Enders, for quite some time.

Alas, Enders is a mess. While it thankfully addresses the fact that all people over 60 in this world where people live to be 200+ are not, in fact, called enders (some of them are called middles), that’s about the only satisfying aspect I found.

The plot involves Callie trying to rescue a number of other teens who were at the body bank and have chips implanted in their heads. The Old Man has found a way to control these teens (called Metals) via the chips – he can actually speak to Callie in her mind by using her chip as well as control her body movements at times. Callie isn’t sure what the Old Man’s end game is, but she’s found an ally in his son, Hyden (no, not Hayden. Hyden, and yes, he does seem to just appear out of nowhere), plus her friend Michael.

The main issue is that Enders just doesn’t seem to know what exactly it should be doing. Where Starters was tightly-plotted, Enders just meanders. Action isn’t driven by character or plot. The characters themselves seem to just sort of wander around too, until they finally all come together in a skeezy climax that is only mildly interesting. It also involves two major pieces of wish-fulfillment that are difficult to believe.

Readers of Starters will recall that the Old Man was a creepy, deliciously villainous bad guy. Without spoiling anything, I can say that the way his character is developed in Enders feels like a giant cheat – like Price was trying to have her cake and eat it too. As a result, there is a huge disconnect between his character in the first book and his character in the second book. They may as well be different people. It feels a bit like a retcon of the first book, actually.

Furthermore, I was never quite sure what Callie and her group of Metals
intended to do once they all got together, and I don’t think Callie knew
either. Motivations are so murky, the character of Hyden is so forced (and contradictory),
and other ancillary characters are so underdeveloped as to be forgotten. (What was Michael doing the duration of the story? I couldn’t even recall most of the time whether he was with Callie or away babysitting Tyler.) The difference between Starters and Enders is like night and day.

Diehard fans of the first book will want to pick this up, but otherwise, you can give it a miss.

(I don’t often disagree this strongly with major review publications. I suppose you may like to know that both Booklist and Kirkus gave this book fairly positive reviews. This mainly just makes me think “Huh.” To each their own.)

Review copy provided by the publisher. Enders is available now.