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books

Son by Lois Lowry

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I put off reading Son for a long time. The Giver is one of those book that holds a special, partly sentimental, place in my heart. I was just the right age for it when I first read it – right around Jonas’ age – and it was a revelation for me. It was the first dystopia I ever read. I was entranced. I still am. As an adult, I can see the plot holes, and if I had not read it first as a child, I most likely would not be as forgiving of its faults. But that doesn’t matter. This is a book that speaks to kids first and foremost. Each time I pick it up and dive in, I remember what it was like to be 12 years old and read that book for the very first time. It’s something akin to a feeling of transcendence.

Reading sequels to books like that as an adult can be challenging. I remember finding Gathering Blue as a young teenager and loving the discovery I made, all on my own, that it was connected loosely to The Giver. I felt that sense of wonder again, though not as deeply. As an older teen, soon after graduation from high school, I picked up Messenger, knowing it was the third in that set of books. Alas, I was disappointed with it. I wonder if I had grown too old for this very particular kind of story, or if the book simply wasn’t as strong. Possibly both.

All that long introduction is to say that I’m of two minds about Son. While reading it, I had flashes of those transcendent moments I felt as a child, but I also felt disappointment and, at times, tedium.

It’s divided into three sections: Before, Between, and Beyond. The first part focuses on Claire, a child who has been assigned to be a birth mother in the same community Jonas lived in. This is the section most similar to The Giver, and it is by far the strongest. The second part follows Claire to another place reminiscent of Kira’s community in Gathering Blue. The third and final part follows her to the setting of Messenger. As the final volume in the series, Son’s structure functions as a very literal way of tying everything together. Unfortunately, drawing such close parallels between Claire’s story and Kira’s in the second part and Matty’s in the third part also subjects it to the same criticisms of those stories. This is especially true for the last third, which suffers from multiple weaknesses I also felt were present in Messenger. If anything, the third part actually builds upon those weaknesses, diving too far headlong into strictly metaphorical territory and sacrificing a logical plot with concrete explanations.

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about Son from adults, but not much from kids. The book isn’t wildly popular in my library, though it’s not a shelf-sitter either. I wonder how kids who have read the other books feel about it. If you’ve gotten feedback from kids, I’d love to read about it in the comments.

Like in all the previous books, the language is beautiful and strange at at the same time. It’s the type of writing that is simply stated but resonates more strongly because of its simplicity. I expect it is divisive among adult readers who had differing interpretations of the ambiguous ending of The Giver. I expect it is also divisive simply because it is not The Giver, and I’m not sure anything can be. It’s still lovely and different and certainly worthy of acclaim. It’s imperfectly done, but we should all be glad it exists.

Finished copy borrowed from the library.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

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One day, as humanity is going about its routine existence, an alien spaceship appears in the sky. While no one ever sees the aliens, it quickly becomes apparent that they are not friendly. In quick succession, they unleash a series of attacks that kill off over 90% of the world’s human population. Billions of people.

The 1st wave: an EMP that knocks out all electricity
The 2nd wave: manufactured earthquakes
The 3rd wave: a deadly disease carried by bird droppings
The 4th wave: surviving humans are picked off
The 5th wave: to be determined

Cassie lost her mother to the 3rd wave, but her father and little brother Sammy miraculously survived. By now, people have long abandoned the idea that the aliens hoped to coexist and they now recognize that humanity is being wiped off the planet systematically and purposefully, most likely to make way for an alien colonization.

Cassie’s family finds their way to a place they call Camp Ashpit, which is basically a tent city where survivors have huddled together, waiting for what is going to happen next. When official-looking people in uniforms with humvees show up, they think it’s the answer to their prayers. The uniformed people take all the children up to age 13 or so (including Cassie’s brother) away in a school bus to a refugee camp where, according to them, they’ll be “perfectly safe.” They say they’ll be back to pick up the teenagers and adults, and they leave a few soldiers behind to look after them.

I’m sure you know where this is going. Cassie quickly learns that the soldiers don’t necessarily have their best interests in mind. She survives the subsequent events, and she fears for her brother’s life. He’s only five, and he’s all she has left. Though she now believes that the aliens have somehow found a way to inhabit the bodies of humans, she’s determined to rescue Sammy. She sets out across alien-infested terrain toward the refugee camp.

This is a Book for Me. I love sweeping stories about the end of the world, and it’s extra special if the end is brought about by aliens. This is the kind of book that is filled with what I loving describe as “crushing despair.” (And hey, it doesn’t involve rape! At all! Imagine that.) It’s nearly as awesome as I wanted it to be.

As with any acclaimed novel, there are a number of readers who gave this a vehemently negative review. Most cite the writing, which is strange for me. It’s not a straightforward narrative; it’s told in a slightly more conversational style with a great deal more fragments and run-ons than you’d find in the average book. It’s nothing close to stream of consciousness, but I suppose this type of writing doesn’t suit everyone. Still, I’d hardly call it bad writing, in an objective sense.

Yancey excels at making readers second-guess what they already know. Very early on, Cassie is rescued from certain death by a human boy who says his name is Evan. Evan has a secret, of course, and we know what it is. Cassie only suspects, but we know. And yet, over the course of many pages, Yancey sows a seed of doubt in our minds. How do we know, really? Isn’t it possible that Evan is exactly who he says he is? Isn’t it likely? This line of thought shows the strength in Yancey’s writing: despite the fact that he’s shared everything we need to know beyond a doubt, we still do doubt, because Cassie does. The book is full of plot points like this, and it’s part of what makes the story so engaging.

The romance between Cassie and Evan is a little hard to buy – a blip on
an otherwise stellar book. Cassie is suspicious of him from the
beginning, and Yancey relies too heavily on her falling for him due to
his rescue of her. The problem is, it doesn’t seem in Cassie’s nature to
do this. By now, she’s jaded, she doesn’t trust anyone, and she’s
gotten pretty good at taking care of herself. It’s possible she may not
want to kill him, but romance is another thing entirely.

Only half of the book follows Cassie. The other half shows us events from Ben Parish’s perspective, and his situation is much different, though their stories do converge by the end. He’s at a refugee camp, being trained by surviving adults to fight back. They don’t think they can win, but they plan to take down as many aliens as possible when they go. As with Cassie, things are not what they seem, and Ben’s struggle to sift truth from lies propels the story forward.

The pacing is a little strange. It’s not all breakneck, and at times it does start to drag…except just as I began to think “Hm, this may be getting a bit slow,” Yancey threw something completely new at me that had me fully engaged once more. Consequently, though the book has over 500 pages, it never seems long.

Cassie’s fear is palpable, but so is her drive to survive, particularly when she sets her mind on rescuing her brother. She and Ben both waver between hope and despair, between the need to seek safety and the need to exact revenge. They both witness and perpetrate horrific things. They doubt the humanity of others, quite literally, but they also doubt their own humanity in a more metaphorical sense by the end.

If you’re looking for a happy book, this is not for you. But it should have huge appeal for fans of apocalyptic or alien invasion stories, particularly those readers looking for a different kind of alien, a type that doesn’t necessarily look or act like us. Highly recommended and deserving of its accolades.

Finished copy borrowed from the library.

Review Roundup: Recent Reads

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Because I’ve gotten a bit behind in writing lengthier reviews, rather than skip out on writing about a few books I’ve read lately, I thought it’d be worthwhile to write up a few shorter reviews. There’s no theme or connection among any of these books except that I read them all around the same time. 

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky originally published in Australia a couple of years ago, and it’s out in the US from Candlewick now. This is a slight novel at under 200 pages, and the primary action of the story happens with the main characters being not-yet teens. 

Eleven girls went to the park with their teacher, but eleven girls came back from the park without their teacher. What happened to Miss Renshaw? Did Morgan, a guy who was avoiding the war and lived in the park and with whom Miss Renshaw was wildly smitten, kill her? Or did they run off together into the vast lands of Australia? 

Why do the girls share collective silence over what they did or did not see that day in the cave? Why does it take eight years for them to talk about that day together again and share something which they may have constructed entirely for themselves? And is something automatically true if it’s been written down? Or do we get to write down what we want the truth to be?

This is a heck of a little book. The story seems quite straight forward, but it’s rich with depth, and the writing is strong. The main characters are very young — late elementary or early middle school — and the story thus reads through that lens. There is loss of innocence here and it’s particularly tough watching that pain happen to the characters as an adult. But I suspect it is precisely at the right level FOR middle grade readers. That’s not to say there’s not good appeal here for YA readers, but I suspect it might be one of those books advanced middle grade readers would appreciate very much. 

The historical setting works — Australia during the Vietnam War — and makes sense, even as an American. I was struck especially by what it was Icara hid from her peers — Cubby especially, who she saw as a “friend” — because it really felt perfectly in the time period and perfectly what someone her age would do. 

I keep thinking, too, about what Miss Renshaw said to Icara. She was “too practical” and wasn’t enough of a dreamer, and her father’s career as a judge also made her resented by Renshaw. This was yet another layer upon a complex line of questions, particularly about truth, innocence, and the imagination.

The Golden Day explores the idea of history and the idea of collective memory and experience. There’s not a solid answer to this story, nor does there need to be. In fact, part of what makes this book so good is that it leaves more questions than answers. Those are the take aways: what happened and what did we make up? Ultimately, do the answers matter? I think Duborsarsky’s novel is one to keep an eye on for potential awards early next year. It’s a dark horse that I hope more people pick up and experience. 

Dead Ends by Erin Jade Lange (available September 3) will feature plenty of spoilers in the review below, so be prepared. This book left me feeling less-than-enthusiastic, and I want to lay out exactly why that is. 

Dane’s a bully. He has no friends, a long-gone father, and he and his mom are poor. She’s an expert at winning the lotto but she doesn’t ever cash in the tickets. She frames them on the wall. But her luck might be running out as her job teaching yoga classes continues to be cut back due to low class participation. Worth noting, too, she had him as a teenager and everything since then has been hard times.

Billy is the new kid in town. He just moved in next to Dane, and on the way to school, he follows Dane. Eventually, he makes Dane talk to him. Eventually, he’s the reason Dane has another chance at school after yet another fight sends him to the principal’s office. 

Because Dane has standards — not hitting girls or people with disabilities — he’s been “kind” to Billy. And that kindness is now an obligation, as the principal declares that in order to keep in school and not be suspended or expelled, Dane has to be Billy’s ambassador to his new school. Billy has Down Syndrome, and he fears he might get beat up regularly (a lie, kind of) and Dane can prevent this from happening. Oh, and Dane also has to agree to doing one thing that Billy asks of him. 

So what is that one thing? 

Dane has to help Billy find his father. The father who disappeared. Who made a “goodbye” gift of a map of strange-named towns scattered throughout the US. Billy wants to help Dane find his dad, too, even though Dane wants nothing to do with finding that man. He’d rather get Billy reconnected with his dad and put it all to bed. Oh also, Billy wants Dane to teach him how to fight, so they practice in the park every week. 

Then there’s Seely. She’s the girl who bumps into them, who wears her hair short and proud, and who is the daughter of two gay men (non-biological daughter — she had surrogate parents). She wants to help both boys out in her own way.

If you’re counting up the issues in this book, you’ve likely lost track at this point: there’s the bully; there’s the social class situation; there’s the forced companionship between Dane and a boy with Downs Syndrome; there’s the romance; there’s the two-boys-missing-fathers; there’s the boy who wants to find his dad; there’s the girl who is herself a story and a half. But wait, there’s more! Billy is a LIAR. He makes up stories. He’s mislead Dane time and time again about why his parents split. His father was abusive and a hitter and that is why his parents split and his mother moved him away from dad. But don’t worry — there will be misadventures as they seek out this father, and when Billy finally gets in touch with his dad, then he has to move again. Not to mention at the end of the story, Dane finds his dad, too, happy and with another family.

There’s too much packed into this novel, and much of the middle sags beneath the idea of the story. For much of the time, I felt like Billy was depicted as very juvenile. He has Down Syndrome, and he’s high functioning. The problem was that Dane talked to him and treated him like a child — and through Dane’s “bully” lens, it makes sense. However, this felt so much like a cliche: the bully befriends someone who is Different and therefore becomes a better person because of it. There’s very little depth to their relationship, even as it progresses towards the ultimate revelation of what happened to Billy’s dad. The depth comes later, when it is revealed that Billy isn’t reliable or forthright, and then in that moment, he’s suddenly got more depth to both the reader and to Dane. Which is a weird, uncomfortable way for his character to be fleshed out — I wanted to actually know this boy. I wanted him to be a real person. Instead, he is flat, one-dimensional, and only ever comes to life when it’s revealed he’s lying. Isn’t there more to him?

And maybe it wouldn’t have been so frustrating as a reader for that to be the big character development moment if the story wasn’t set up in the somewhat cliched ideal that a bad person can be made a better person by being forced to spend time with someone who is “different.” Because in this instance, Billy’s “differentness” is what makes Dane a better person. It’s what forces him to reconsider his bullying tactics and what forces him to reconsider the power of actual, meaningful human relationships (that comes in the form of Seely). Which Seely herself is also flat and underdeveloped. 

I get it — Dane would see these people that way. But it felt like a cheap way to prove a point, by offering up two very Unique characters. They felt shoehorned into a bigger story about bullying that was itself unsatisfying. I wanted Billy to be a full character, rather than a tool. And he is a tool, since the story begins with his first arriving at the school and it ends with him being whisked away — all within a matter of weeks.

Where Lange wrote an incredible story of bullying in Butter, here that thread gets short shrift to the missing father/social class issues. And it’s weird, too, how social class is depicted. Dane is very bitter that he can’t have a car like everyone else at school because everyone knows all sixteen year olds get cars (not true in the least, but I buy his hyperbole since he is a 16 year old boy). Poor in Columbia is the trailer park. He is one stop away from there in terms of financial issues at home. And if that is the case, then it makes no sense why his mother is as she is. She works an unsteady job (okay, could buy it, since it’s likely her passion) but the lottery tickets she buys, ends up winning, then hangs on the wall rather than cash in? She’s SELFISH. It’s not a sign of economic struggle; it’s a sign of SELFISHNESS. It may be worded as pride, but that pride here evolves into sheer selfishness. In many ways, this is the weakest plot point in the story, and it’s what Dane’s character and story really hinge on: he bullies because he’s jealous. He calls it that eventually, and he owns it — which I commend — but I never found myself sympathizing for his situation or WANTING to sympathize, either. Maybe I don’t need to, but given how much emphasis he places on social class, it should have actually made a bigger impact than it did. The show of class here was superficial.

In many ways, this felt rushed. It could have been stronger with a few more rounds of editing, with some tougher questions being pursued and explored, and richer characterization of both Dane and Billy beyond their “labels” as bully and boy with a disability who then turns out to be a liar.

The Color Master by Aimee Bender (available now) was a book I looked forward to for a while because I love Aimee Bender’s signature style (The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is in my top ten all-time favorite books). 

These short stories are glimpses into worlds so different from our own and yet completely, utterly our own. They are all very sad and very aching. As soon as one ends, it lingers in your chest. These are heavy, meaty stories, even though they feel as though they are not. They are about loss and loneliness, about death and never connecting, never relating to the world and those within it. Of course because these are fairy tales for adults, many — most — involve sex and the mythical and mystical power of the act and what it may or may not mean. “On a Saturday Afternoon” perfectly encapsulates this. 

Most of the stories in here are excellent, though I felt the lead story “Appleless” was by far the weakest. I was also less impressed with “A State of Variance” (I skimmed the last portion of the story). My favorites were “The Red Ribbon,” “Tiger Mending” (perhaps my favorite, with the killer lines Bender is so careful at weaving in that just cut to your core — “That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in.”), “The Color Master” (which depicted feelings — chest-pounding anger and frustration — in such an honest way), and “Lemonade.” 

And this is one of my favorite scenes in one of the stories because it captures precisely what it is what Bender does that makes her work so, so good: “But just beyond his sandwich, and the four TV shows he watched back to back, and his teeth brushing, and his face washing, and his nighttime reading of a magazine, and his light switching off, just the faint realization that there were many ways to live a life and some people were living a life that was very different than his, and the way they lived was beyond him and also didn’t interest him and yet he could sense it.” — The Doctor and the Rabbi.

Readers who love magical realism and are okay with heavy sexuality in their short stories will appreciate Bender’s collection. I wouldn’t necessarily hand it over to a teen reader, though there will be teen readers who appreciate and love The Color Master. It’s the kind of book you give to those with a deep appreciation for the way that language works both with a story and on its own separate from the story at hand. 

The Fallout by S. A. Bodeen

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Delayed sequels are interesting, particularly if they’re for teens. Presumably, the primary audience for the first book has aged out of the target group for the second. If the first book is still being read widely, though, that’s a different story.

It would appear that The Compound belongs to this category. It still circulates fairly well in my public library, and this post on Bodeen’s website shows that the teens at my library are not alone. It’s still making recommended reading lists as recently as 2012, so librarians and other gatekeepers recognize there’s still a teen readership for it as well.

As sequels go, this one is perhaps not “necessary.” By that I mean that the plot points of The Compound were all wrapped up fairly well, with no glaring loose ends or cliffhangers. That said, I can certainly see how teens would wonder how Eli and his family recovered from their ordeal. And that story is told in The Fallout. (I love this punny title. It’s the best.)

The Fallout is not just about recovery, though that’s a good part of it. There’s also a conspiracy involving Eli’s dad’s company, which he is set to inherit, and a very shady businessman who is trying to keep control of the company at all costs. Naturally, this very shady businessman is working with some very shady science – dangerous as well as lucrative, and Eli and his family are involved in his plans.

The story works well as a fast-paced thriller, in much the same way that The Compound did. What this shady businessman has in store for Eli and his family is gradually revealed, and it’s horrifying. (Though it’s not as horrifying as what Eli’s dad had in store in the first book. But then again, what could be as horrifying as that? Nothing.) It’s also interesting to see how Eli and his family adjust to living outside of the compound. They’re famous for all the wrong reasons, recognizable wherever they go, so a “normal” life is out of the question. They have their own set of stalkers, with websites dedicated to spotting them. They don’t know who to trust, and everything is foreign to them – from Costco to a football game.

What doesn’t work so well is the development of the relationship between Eli and his twin brother Eddy, whom Eli assumed had died in the first book. What the boys’ father did to their family is front-page news. Most of the awful details are very public. Therefore, it’s very hard for me to buy Eddy’s continued defense of his father. I get that Eddy could resent the return of these family members whom he barely knows (or doesn’t know at all, in the case of the youngest siblings). What I don’t get is Eddy’s envy of Eli for spending so much time with their dad. It’s not just a matter of not having the whole story, though there are some bits he’s still ignorant of. He knows enough of the truth to know better. I get that Bodeen was trying to instill some tension between the two, and it’s necessary for the plot, but it’s a weak link.

The science, too, is shaky, but I can forgive this a bit more (I’m being deliberately vague about what science is involved, as it’s quite spoilery). I may be ridiculed by hardcore SF fans for saying this, but shaky science doesn’t bug me much. If it gets me to wonder “what if,” then it’s done what I want it to do.

Faults aside, fans of the first will gobble this up. It’s intense, twisty, and should be catnip for reluctant readers.

Review copy received by the publisher. The Fallout will be published September 24.

The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle

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Wren Gray has always lived to please her parents. She’s a good girl. She got good grades, she didn’t do crazy things while in school, and she’s set up on a great path for college and a career thereafter. Everything seems pretty much picture book perfect and there’s no question that Wren’s privileged in having this.

Except, she’s not happy.

This isn’t what she really wants.

The Infinite Moment of Us is a story set over the summer between high school and college that follows as Wren chooses to diverge from the path that looked so straight before her. Because Wren isn’t happy — everything up until this moment has been about pleasing her parents and following through with what they expected of her. Rather than go to college, Wren has asked for a deferment and wants instead to spend a year in Guatemala doing volunteer service. She wants to do this not only because it’s a cause she’s interested in (I’d hesitate to say it’s a cause she’s passionate about because the truth is Wren doesn’t know her passions) and because it’ll give her an entire year to sort out what it is she wants from her life. Now that she’s 18, out of high school, and able to make her own life choices for herself, Wren is ready to stand up and do just those things.

If she can tell her parents of her plan, that is. Because as of now, they’re still thinking she’s going to Emory in the fall.

Enter Charlie. He’s always been a guy on Wren’s mind — just a little — but she’s never pursued relationships before seriously. She had other things she had to do, and she always had it in the back of her mind that a serious romance would mar the image her parents held of her. He’s kind of a mystery, but this summer, Wren finally has the chance to get to know Charlie. He’s not what he appears on the outside at all. Sure, he’s sweet and charming, but he’s got a much deeper personal life than Wren ever expected. He’s a foster child, and his brother Dev is disabled. Charlie also has a friend named Starrla who he cares deeply about — they had been in a relationship before — and she’s regularly needing his time and attention.

Over the course of the summer, Wren and Charlie become very close. Their relationship is one of compassion, care, and intimacy. In fact, it’s easiest to maybe suggest this book’s theme is that of intimacy: what does it mean to know someone, both in an emotionally raw manner and in a physically raw manner? We know Wren’s course of action from the start is she wants a change. She wants to take complete ownership of her life and follow through on things that she wants to do, without regard to what her parents want for her. Charlie fears he’s stuck in his situation because of his background. As much as the two of them fall for one another, Wren regularly holds back, and she regularly reassess who she is in relation to Charlie. Can someone with the privilege and future she has before her possibly have a reason to complain to Charlie, who is helping take care of his brother? Who hasn’t had a charmed child or teen hood like she has?

This is where Lauren Myracle gets fantastic.

Of course Wren has the right to do this, and Charlie encourages and supports Wren through her deeply internal struggles. Where her “problems” are about wanting to separate her own desires from those her parents have hoisted upon her, Charlie reminds her that her problems aren’t silly. That just because his situation is different from hers doesn’t mean that her situation isn’t problematic or challenging or doesn’t merit the sort of time and consideration she’s given to it. Where she wants to regularly “rise above” her problems, Charlie reminds her that it’s okay not to. That it’s okay to feel as she does and that she is, in fact, making changes, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel or seem like it to her.

The Infinite Moment of Us deals with female sexuality — with teen sexuality more broadly — in a very straight-forward, honest manner. This book doesn’t pull punches. Wren and Charlie are intimate, and it doesn’t black out on the page. Myracle instead offers readers truth about what happens between two people who engage in sex, and she’s forthright in expressing what happens to a female body when arousal happens. But what puts this book squarely in the camp of empowering female sexuality (which I’ve written in detail about before) is how unashamed Wren is about what happens to her body. It’s not gross. It’s not embarrassing. It’s just what it is — “Heat spread up her body. Her nipples hardened and her breathing changed, and when she imagined not just his eyes on her, but his hands, his mouth, she grew suddenly, undeniably wet. It embarrassed her, but she didn’t want to be embarrassed. Should she be embarrassed? No. She should be . . . She should be excited, which she was, and thrilled and aroused. Her body’s response to the boy she loved was a good thing. It was bodies being bodies.”

Not only was this reflective of what happens during physical intimacy, but it mirrored precisely what Wren experienced internally about her future, too. It was hers. She could do with it what she wanted. She could be embarrassed about it, or she could react with excitement and thrill and understand she had ownership of it for herself.

As much as there’s physical intimacy, there is emotional intimacy as well. That’s reflected in how Wren takes the things in her life and considers them, but more so, it’s reflected in how she considers her relationship with Charlie. In one moment, when she’s feeling the need to talk out her thoughts and problems with him (of course, a moment where she feels she’s being silly and that her problems are microscopic and “first world”), Charlie tells her that he is always here for her. She notes that that single line was one of the most intimate things a person can say to another person — and it’s also proof to her that she has the right to feel what it is she does and share it how she needs to.

This book isn’t perfect, though. As much as it’s powerful in what it portrays in terms of intimacy, sexuality, independence, and the right to pursue one’s dreams on one’s own, the secondary characters are fairly flat. Wren’s best friend is good for sex advice for Charlie (and I loved her for that and I loved Charlie for thinking to talk to Tessa in the first place) but beyond that, she’s more prop than full character. More problematic, though, was the Starrla storyline. We know she and Charlie had a challenging relationship and that he still holds her well-being high on his list of cares. But when she tracks him down and pulls out all the stops to regain his attention, I found myself more annoyed than anything. I get that that was the point — and it’s the point Wren walks away with, too, since Starrla is what creates a rift and change in dynamics in her relationship with Charlie — but I think it needed to be pushed a little further elsewhere in the book to have really made the impact it could have made.

I also took issue with the end of the story. Because it’s spoiler, I won’t share what happened, but I’ll say I felt it was the easy way out of the story for both Charlie and Wren. Many readers will find it satisfying and I totally get that.

By now you’ve figured out this book deals with sex and is not shy about that. This isn’t a book for your younger teens — unless they’re ready for it (and many will be). There is an author’s note at the beginning of the book detailing why the choices were made to be forthright in depicting teen sex in the novel, and I think it’s as important a read as the book itself. Teens have sex. These two teens in particular have discovered the power and value of intimacy and they are unashamed in expressing and sharing that with one another. This isn’t about titillation, though it would be naive to say that teens who read this might not find it to be so — and you know, I think that’s okay. It’s presented in a very safe manner, and while the goal from the story perspective certainly isn’t about that (and as an adult I can read the story through that lens and not find it sexy at all), it’s impossible to project how teens will read it. In other words, it’s clear the sex isn’t in there to be sexy; it’s in there because it’s true to Charlie and Wren.

Myracle’s book is empowering and feminist. I’d go so far as to say that it’s this generation’s update of Judy Blume’s classic Forever. As I read the book, I couldn’t help thinking that this is the kind of book I wish I’d had during my high school years. I would have felt less alone in some of the things I was thinking and feeling, and I know I certainly would have appreciated the honesty with which Myracle portrayed sexuality and what is a completely normal function of a body. Charlie is easy to like, but he’s not without flaws. Wren is the same way — though she may be a little tougher to like from the start than Charlie, she’s real and dynamic as a result. Myracle’s story is written in third person, distancing readers from the intimacy while managing to bring the intimacy even closer to the reader. This is a fast-paced read and one that will linger.

Pass The Infinite Moment of Us along to readers who want a strong romantic storyline, compelling characters, and who crave emotional rawness to their books. Give it to teen readers who enjoy feminist stories or who are skeptical of how YA authors treat their readers — Myracle respects them as complex, intellectual people who can make choices for themselves, and there is never a doubt about that in the story.

This is one of my favorite reads this year. And please don’t call it “new adult” just because it’s set in the summer after high school or deals with sexuality. The Infinite Moment of Us is a YA novel through and through.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Infinite Moment of Us is available August 27.