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One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

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Carley doesn’t want to be a foster child. Even though her life in Las Vegas with her mother wasn’t perfect, with her mother staying out all the time and bouncing from boyfriend to husband, it was what she had always known. But after what happened with her mother’s new husband Dennis, she couldn’t go back to her mother even if she wanted to. But for a girl who hasn’t exactly known unconditional love, the Murphy’s, the family in which she is placed, are way too perfect. Julie, the mother, is perky all the time, and doesn’t back off, no matter how much Carley pushes her away. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are actually in love, and their two younger sons are adorable, giving Carley a sense of family and adoration that she hasn’t ever felt. She just doesn’t feel like she deserves all this love, especially after the way she’s been treated her whole life, alternately doted upon and then ignored. Carley has never been given a room all her own, never been taken back-to-school shopping to get an entire new wardrobe. She’s never been cared about so much that when she pushes, she isn’t then pushed away. She’s more used to the way Daniel, the suspicious older son, treats her, with jealousy and angry frustration, and to the way Toni, an offbeat girl at her new school, immediately rejects her because of her wardrobe. But over time, the Murphy’s slowly make their way into Carley’s life and into her heart. But when her mother re-enters the picture, Carley must come to terms with the fact that the family she has grown into may not be her happily ever after.

One for the Murphys, though a fairly straightforward and predictable read, was a heartwarming book that portrayed the growth of both one very lost girl and the family that reached out to her. Carley is a winning heroine, whose snarky and sarcastic sense of humor covers up her genuine hurt and pain. Lynda Mullaly Hunt does a wonderful job of showing Carley’s growth throughout the novel by her interaction with the other characters: Carley’s increasing closeness to Mrs. Murphy, both emotionally and physically, Carley’s evolving relationship with Daniel as they realize they have basketball in common, and Carley’s new friendship with Toni once they realize they are both outsiders. I also really enjoyed the way that Hunt melded the storyline of the musical Wicked into Carley’s evolution.

While I obviously didn’t love the storyline with her mother and Dennis (I’m being vague to avoid spoilers), the ultimate discovery that her mother wasn’t to blame for what happened almost seemed to arise too suddenly, which negated the absolute horror that I felt at the beginning of the book. This quick shift jarred me a bit, and gave me a bit of disconnect from the feeling that I knew I should have at One for the Murphys‘ conclusion: that Carley would be okay.

And one more minor quibble: I realize that Hunt was trying to impart a sense of place with her regional dialect and her characterization of Mr. Murphy as a Red Sox fan, but the family’s use of “wicked” was a bit over the top, especially for residents of Connecticut. I’ve lived in Massachusetts my entire life, and we don’t even use the word that much!

Regardless, I fully admit that I teared up at the ending of One for the Murphys. A lovely, heartfelt middle grade read.

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

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Jasper “Jazz” Dent is the son of the world’s most famous serial killer, Billy Dent. Since Jazz was a little boy, Billy had been training Jazz in the family business. Billy himself is a true sociopath, and he killed far and wide in gruesome ways. He killed well over 100 people before he made a mistake and was eventually caught and given a life sentence.
Jazz was sent to live with his grandmother, Billy’s mother, who is senile, which means he pretty much takes care of himself. Despite being Billy’s son, Jazz himself had not yet committed murder and can pass himself off as a “normal” teen boy. He’s got a best friend and a girlfriend and is in the school play. But being the son of Billy Dent did a number on him, and he knows how to manipulate people, how to hurt them and get away with it, and he’s haunted by the voice of his Dear Old Dad that seems to always be telling him that other people don’t matter, that they exist only for his enjoyment.
When a young woman turns up dead in Jazz’s town, he’s convinced it’s another serial killer. The sheriff isn’t so sure, so Jazz sets out to prove it to him. As it becomes increasingly clear that this new killer has connections to Billy Dent, Jazz is even more determined to hunt him down and prove that he himself will not turn out like his father.
Let’s get the inevitable comparison out of the way: Yes, this is a lot like Dexter for teens. It’s not just a marketing phrase. I haven’t read any of Jeff Lindsay’s books, but I have watched a bit of the television show, and there are certainly a lot of similarities.
That said, what made I Hunt Killers an enjoyable read for me is how it diverges from Dexter. Jazz was raised to be a killer by his father and it’s a constant struggle for him to not act on impulses that have been hammered into him for years. He feels guilt over his actions (particularly when he manipulates people to get what he wants), and he’s horrified by his more violent thoughts. He doesn’t want to be a sociopath with no regard for others’ feelings or right to life. And this is the marked difference between the two characters: Dexter knows he is this way; Jazz fears he is this way. While Dexter as a character was engaging in a creepy way, Jazz as a character is engaging in a human way.
He’s also a character with a great voice. This story doesn’t sound like it was narrated by just anyone, and I thought Jazz came across as very authentically teen boy.
So, I like the way Lyga wrote his protagonist, but I also like the way Lyga writes, period. He’s clearly a pro. There are no awkward sentences, no stumbles, no rookie mistakes. I
don’t dislike debut novels, but sometimes it’s nice to read a book by
someone who’s done this before. It really shows here.
The mystery itself is enjoyable, if a bit predictable. Lyga doesn’t present the reader with a huge host of suspects, so it’s not hard to figure out the culprit. But the journey there is a thrill ride, and Lyga includes enough subplots to keep even the most perceptive reader’s interest.
Mysteries can run the gamut from pretty tame to pretty explicit, even when the subject is murder. I Hunt Killers is, probably unsurprisingly, on the more explicit end. The acts of violence are described in detail, and they are pretty twisted (the word “flayed” is used more than once). There’s also a fair amount of description of sexual assault. Dear Old Dad did pretty much anything you could think of to his victims, who were almost exclusively female. It’s certainly appropriate for a teen audience, but it won’t be for every teen. 
I Hunt Killers does what mysteries do best at the end: wrap up the current mystery and present us with other character-centric mysteries to solve in forthcoming novels. There’s closure AND there’s the desire to read more. I look forward to potential sequels, but I’ll have to space them out with some less brutal reads.
Review copy received from the publisher. I Hunt Killers is available now.

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

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Elliot North is a Luddite, a member of the land-owning aristocratic class that has sat at society’s peak since the Reduction crippled humanity. Thought to be the result of over-reliance on technology and scientific experimentation, the Reduction caused a large portion of the population to give birth to mentally deficient babies, a condition that persisted for generations.
The Luddites outlawed technology and have since then ruled over the “Reduced” (those with reduced mental capabilities) and the “Posts” (children of the Reduced born without mental deficiencies) who live on Luddite land and serve them in much the same way indentured laborers or slaves did in the American South. Posts are actually fairly new – for many generations, children of Reduced people were Reduced themselves. 
Kai is a Post. He grew up on Elliot’s father’s land, and the two became friends as children, despite the huge social gulf between them. And they eventually fell in love. When Kai decided to make a better life for himself, far away from a place that kept him a prisoner, he asked Elliot to come with him. 
She said no, choosing loyalty to her family over Kai. Now it’s four years later, and Kai has returned with a new name, a new job, and a secret. He and his group of explorer Posts have rented land from Elliot’s family in order to build a ship, which brings Kai into almost daily contact with Elliot. There’s tension and longing and restraint and recriminations and all the other good things you find in a really delicious romance.
For Darkness Shows the Stars is more like Austen than some other modern or SF/fantasy re-tellings in that Peterfreund concentrates a lot on the society and the complexities of her two leads and not as much on the plot. That’s not to say that there isn’t a plot, but this is certainly a character-driven story. Readers looking for a more “traditional” dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel that features plenty of action and shocking plot revelations will be disappointed. 
Readers looking for a steamy romance will also be disappointed – Elliot and Kai barely even touch. But it’s swoon-worthy all the same, for the same reason modern readers still find Austen’s original works swoon-worthy: mature, lovely writing that connects us so closely to Elliot and Kai that we feel each misunderstanding, each look, each unspoken sentiment keenly. It makes for a pretty intense read, and it’s a testament to Peterfreund’s writing that she’s made a book with almost zero physical contact so romantic.
I was pleased with the way she wrote the society as well. It’s an impressive feat of world-building, with plenty of detail that unfolds naturally over the course of the story. Unlike many stories that feature a blighted future society, this one makes sense in the context of the story’s events. It’s also not sensationalized. The Reduction is a terrible thing, and what the Luddites did to the Reduced and the Posts since then is also terrible, but I never felt that it was done to shock. And for all that this setting is so very different from that of today and is so vital to the story, it’s still just the setting. The real story is about Elliot and Kai’s relationship, and Peterfreund doesn’t make their desire to investigate the Reduction the primary plot point. Their relationship and their own growth as individuals are what she is most concerned with.
For Darkness Shows the Stars was a real breath of fresh air for me. It’s a dystopia and a romance and an Austen re-telling, but it’s a unique story and not a carbon copy of anything else. Plus the writing is excellent. Highly recommended.
Book borrowed from my local library.

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

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The Book of Blood and Shadow is the first book I read where reading the review copy actually impinged significantly on my enjoyment of the story. All review copies are going to have some mistakes, and they usually don’t bug me. They’re occasionally jarring, but don’t interrupt the flow of the story or draw my attention away from some really good writing.
Unfortunately, this review copy (with a plain black cover and red text) was riddled with errors. I started reading it well before the book was published, set it down, and then came back to it several months later when the hardcover was already out. I really should have traded it in for the finished copy at that point, but the arc was too handy. It was certainly a lesson to me.
I mention all this before I get into the nitty gritty of the review because the errors greatly influenced my reading experience. I’ve a feeling a lot of my problems were due to my reading the unfinished version.
There’s no doubt the plot is intriguing (it’s what drew me to the book in the first place). Nora is working on a special project for a professor at the local university, alongside her best friend Chris and Chris’ roommate Max. While Chris and Max (both college students) work closely with the professor in his attempt to decipher the famous Voynich manuscript – a book full of secrets, written in code – Nora (a senior in high school) is given a series of related letters to translate from Latin into modern English. Nora and Max eventually start dating, and Wasserman excels at making this romance sweet and believable.
But then Chris is murdered, and his girlfriend (and Nora’s friend) Adriane is found kneeling over his body, covered in blood and catatonic. Max is nowhere to be found, and he quickly shoots to the top of the suspect list. Convinced that Max is innocent, Nora and Adriane (once she recovers) set out to discover who killed Chris, and why. This journey takes them to Prague, where they’re pulled deep into a dangerous conspiracy involving a device that people say could link them to God – and the letters Nora was translating, written by a young woman named Elizabeth Weston, hold the key.
There’s an incredible amount of danger here, and it’s real danger – Wasserman doesn’t skimp on the violence. It’s kind of harrowing to think about, really. Here are these two kids, completely alone in a foreign land where nobody really speaks their language, and they’re being pursued by at least two different groups who intend them serious harm. Add to that the fact that they soon discover no one can be trusted, and the sense of paranoia reaches epic proportions.
So, I liked this book. But I didn’t love it. What bothered me most is that the story seemed choppy. Sometimes I had to read a few paragraphs over to determine what precisely had happened. Occasionally a reference would be missing or a pronoun incorrect. Since the book also included frequent typos and grammatical errors, I feel sure that the choppiness was fixed in final edits. Ultimately, it stopped me from becoming fully immersed in the story.
A lot of what didn’t work for me I can write off as a matter of taste. Nora begins by trusting her friends and boyfriend completely, and that trust is put to the test time and again throughout the story. Almost all of the people close to Nora morph into thoroughly unlikeable people, and by the end of the story, it just made me feel depressed. I do like some books that are quite dark, but this one rubbed me the wrong way. I’m being purposely vague here so as not to spoil anything, but I can say that there’s a difference between a book that kills off the protagonist’s loved ones and a book that robs the protagonist of her loved ones in other ways. I just felt awful for Nora and thankful her story wasn’t real. (Did I mention that Nora’s younger brother died in a drunk driving accident a few years ago? Girl cannot catch a break.)
Despite my issues with it, the book should have high appeal. It’s got a great hook, the pace is quick, the mood is spot on, and it’s different enough from the usual fare to spark interest. It’s a smart, mature book that should appeal to anyone who’s ever been interested in any of history’s famous mysteries (Stonehenge, Easter Island, the Shroud of Turin, etc.). Nora’s voice also comes through nice and strong, something I always appreciate. 
Review copy received from the publisher. The Book of Blood and Shadow is available now.

Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier

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Gwen’s snotty cousin Charlotte has been groomed her entire life to be the final piece of the time-traveling “Circle of Twelve,” the so-called “Ruby” who will complete the Circle and cause an as-yet unnamed secret to be revealed. However, in Gier’s previous book, Ruby Red, Gwen discovered that she, in fact, was the Ruby, a discovery that flipped her once normal life upside down. Unlike Charlotte, who has been trained since birth for future time travel missions, learning deportment, ballroom dancing, and history, Gwen is just your typical London teenager, happier to hang out with her best friend Lesley and make fun of their teachers than to study up on the fashions of England in the early 1900s.

But Gwen is quickly pulled into this new life, especially when she discovers that it is now her responsibility to gather blood from four other Circle members in order to power the chronograph, the device that will ultimately cause the Circle to close. Along with Gideon, the 11th Circle member (and a really cute guy, to boot), she must figure out whether fellow time travelers Paul and Lucy are really traitors, what her part actually is in all of this, and what is going on with Gideon’s fickle moods (first he kisses her in an abandoned church, then he ignores her completely!). Oh yeah, and then there’s the matter of the ghosts and demons that she keeps seeing…

Kim reviewed Ruby Red last year, and while she had some issues, I really enjoyed the first novel in this trilogy, especially for its mix of a solid backstory, intelligently explained time-travel rules, and a thoroughly modern heroine. I enjoyed Sapphire Blue, as well, just not as much. Honestly, I’m not even sure why. It just didn’t seem to have much of an impact. While Gwen and Gideon did time travel a few times, nothing really happened in this book. The bad guy from the previous book was given a bit of a sympathetic backstory and a new bad guy was introduced, but nothing was revealed to illuminate the details behind the Circle of Twelve. Gwen also seemed, well, a bit stupid to me. I understand that Gier wanted to emphasize that she wasn’t as ‘trained’ as Charlotte, but some of the basic facts and word definitions that she didn’t understand were a bit jarring. As a whole, though, this was a quick, entertaining read, and I’ll be looking forward to how Gier wraps up her story.

Disclosure: Sapphire Blue will be released in the U.S. on October 30, 2012. Review copy received from publisher.