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books

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a lot of books lately. I don’t know why I set the bar low for these particular books – maybe it’s because I had come off a rash of mediocrity and just expected more of the same – but I am always glad to be proven wrong in this respect.
In Mike Mullin’s debut Ashfall, the supervolcano at Yellowstone has erupted. Teenage Alex is home alone when it occurs. His parents and sister have gone to visit family 100 miles away – not such a long way if you have a car and plenty of gasoline, but quite a ways when you’re on foot and have to deal with hostile people prone to violence, ash coming down in sheets, and the onset of an early, and perhaps neverending, winter. Still, Alex is determined to find them, hoping they survived where so many others didn’t. It’s not an easy journey, obviously, but it is a gripping one. The book is long and the pages fly by.
Ashfall is best described as a survival story. I’d also categorize it as an apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) tale, at least on a small scale – there are hints of worldwide catastrophe as a result of the eruption, but the bad stuff is mostly kept to the United States – but it’s not a dystopia. I think that’s an important distinction to make for this book. While there’s widespread chaos and many people act horribly, there’s no repressive society at work here. And that’s a strength. Often the dystopian societies that form in books such as these – sometimes following a natural catastrophe – are chilling but unbelievable. The fact that no such society forms here makes the book, in my mind, more genuine. Couple that with the fact that many scientists do say the supervolcano at Yellowstone is “overdue” for an eruption, and you have a pretty darn believable story. And it’s all the more engaging for it.
I loved reading about survival during the ashfall from a boy’s point of view. I also loved that Alex’s survival wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of Darla, an extremely capable and non-traditional girl he meets partway through the book. Darla’s a farmer and knows how to skin rabbits and jimmy farm equipment. She’s abrasive and not always pleasant to be around, but she’s got a good heart and isn’t always the strong one. She’s also a bit older than Alex, and watching their relationship develop is quite interesting.
I never thought anything would make me say this, but I enjoyed Ashfall so much that it’s making me want to go back and re-read that classic survival story for kids, Hatchet, a book I never liked as a child. I wonder if my reading tastes have changed enough in the ~15 years since I last read it that I would like it now. I haven’t ever bothered going back and re-reading books I disliked as a youth, always assuming I’d dislike them now, but Ashfall makes me wonder.

Book borrowed from my local library.

Crazy by Amy Reed

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Connor and Isabel (Izzy) met at camp, and when the summer comes to a close, they promise to keep in touch with one another via email. They’re good friends — though perhaps “friend” is a term Connor wouldn’t quite use. He’s definitely more interested in Izzy romantically, but he’s not the kind of guy to say that.

Over the course of the following school year, they exchange emails regularly, updating one another on what’s going on in their lives. Connor lives on one of the islands outside Seattle and Izzy lives in Seattle proper, so they’re not too far apart from one another. They just seem to not get the opportunity to see each other in person.

As these two characters exchange regular messages with one another, not only do we see Connor becoming more infatuated with Izzy, but we see Izzy spiraling into depression big time. It’s not pretty nor elegant. It’s downright ugly. We see it coming through in each of those emails she writes (or doesn’t write), as does Connor. But what will it take for either one of them to get her help?

Crazy is Reed’s third book, and I think it might feature her most fully-developed characters so far. Connor is a romantic kind of guy, but never once does he fall into the idealized male character many male leads can fall into. His life looks pretty good all around, too. His father’s not in the picture, but he’s got a mother who takes care of him and begs him to give back to his community. He’s happy, for the most part. Izzy, on the other hand, isn’t as happy. She goes to a good school (of the hippie granola variety), but she feels like she’s an outcast. Even in her small school, she doesn’t feel like she has any friends. Her parents and her siblings aren’t anything worth bragging about, and mostly, she feels like she just doesn’t belong anywhere.

When the story starts off, we get to see Connor and Izzy in their immediate buzzing post-camp state of minds. They’re funny and raunchy in their initial email exchanges, but even in the laugh out loud humorous moments, there’s something slightly off in the tone with which Izzy writes. In fact, she’s almost mean to Connor. But he takes it. He plays off it. Eventually, though, Connor gets tired of letting her treat him that way, and he dishes it right back at her. Their relationship — which I reiterate is all via email — is dynamic and painfully realistic. It’s a good and a bad thing for both of them, as they treat one another as best friends and confidants, then as bitter enemies. They’re loving and destructive toward one another.

Reed is smart in setting up the book with dual narrators and offering not physical interaction. We’re forced to understand Izzy and Connor as individuals and as a pair through only their words. As a reader, I was immediately drawn to Connor, and it was because I thought Izzy used him. She’d made it clear she was lonely, and Connor was an easy person to turn to. But she makes fun of him and she doesn’t really talk to him. She talks at him about her problems and doesn’t ask how he feels. As the story progressed, though, and as I saw Izzy unraveling mentally, my heart really went out to her and to Connor. It’s brilliant because I became Connor in a sense, since I never quite believed Izzy’s stories after being mistreated; but when she hits her complete breaking point, suddenly her entire storyline made perfect sense to me. I was now everyone she’d been complaining about, and I was Connor, feeling like I had been a terrible friend in ignoring her cries for help. Moreover, the set up also helps us see why Izzy would feel comfortable telling Connor what she does and why she would feel he really wasn’t an ally to her. Aside from the skewed perspective she has because of her mental illness, she’s also aware of the screen divide. She’s comfortable treating him as she does because there’s not a physical repercussion.

There is no shying away from the details of bipolar disorder in Crazy, so don’t expect something watered down. That’s what made this book so powerful. Reed isn’t afraid to give an honest picture of how consuming this mental disorder is, and anyone who has suffered from depression or knows someone who has will see this hits very close to home. When Izzy hit her lowest points, I found myself choking up, not only because of what she was going through mentally, but also because I had misjudged her the entire time. I felt like I did to her exactly what she said everyone else did to her. I was so, so happy she had someone like Connor in her life at those moments, and since I don’t want to spoil it, I’ll just say that at the end, those characters got exactly what they needed and deserved. I think Connor and Izzy may be two of my favorite characters in a long time.

Crazy is a fast-paced read, due in part to the alternative format. It was an uncomfortable book to read, and it was effective because of that. I was never quite sure whether I should be laughing when I was or crying when I was. The emotional tone shifted frequently and needed to. Reed writes with a frankness and honesty, and she’s authentic. It’s easy to make a comparison to Ellen Hopkins, as fans of Hopkins’s storytelling will no doubt find Reed’s books appealing, but I think Reed is really carving a niche for herself. Her work appeals to both more reluctant readers because of her set up, execution of story, and pacing, but she also appeals to those who like having something to dig into because of those same reasons. Crazy will appeal to contemporary fans, particularly those who are fascinated with or have experienced depression.

Previously:
Review of Amy Reed’s Beautiful
Review of Amy Reed’s Clean 

Review copy received from the publisher. Crazy will be available June 12, and you will get a chance to hear from Amy herself that week as part of our Twitterview series and the summer blog blast coordinated by Colleen Mondor.

Cracked by K.M. Walton

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Bull doesn’t let up on Victor. As his name might suggest, Bull is the bully here and Victor is his target. It’s been this way since elementary school: Bull lets out his aggression and Victor lets him. Doesn’t fight back. Although KM Walton’s debut Cracked sounds like a standard story of bullying, readers learn there is a lot more going on beneath the surfaces of both boys. That both Bull and Victor are the bully and the bullied in their own ways.

Bull comes from a poor family, with parents who are angry and abusive toward him. When I say he’s poor, I mean, he’s poor. Unlike many books that try to portray poor characters through simply calling them poor (something which bothers me to no end), Walton actually depicts a boy who is growing up in a lower income bracket. I don’t know if I’d characterize him as living in poverty, but his home is infested with insects, there is hardly any food at home for him, and he really has nothing. All of this, along with his award-winning parents who regularly remind him that he was an unwanted child, cause him to seek out a way to feel better about himself. From very early on in his life, Victor was an easy target. Everything that Bull has pent up from home he lets loose on Victor who, rather than fight back, takes it. Because of this, Bull continues being a bully because, well, it helps him feel like he has some sort of power and control in his life.

Victor is almost the complete opposite of Bull — or at least, that’s what we’re lead to believe about him. Victor comes from a home where there is money. Both of his parents work hard and he lives in a big house and has everything he could possibly want at his fingertips. Of course, that’s all superficial; his parents are never home and his parents aren’t happy he exists at all. He’s a burden to them. Victor’s lonely and frustrated and while he never wants to be the victim of bullying, it offers him a kind of attention he’s not getting anywhere else. There’s not a suggestion bullying is good for him because it’s not, but as readers, it’s easy to see why he doesn’t fight back. Aside from being afraid, of course, it’s just part of the reality he’s accepted and it feels like something he thinks he deserves, given everything else in his life. There is one good thing in Victor’s life, though, is his mother’s dog Jazzer. But Jazz is really old and, well, I won’t spoil what happens, even though it’s obvious.

Cracked is written from the perspective of both boys, with alternating chapters. In setting up the story this way, Walton shows us that despite the external differences between Bull and Victor, they’re actually very similar. They’re both hurting and aching, and they’re both seeking some sort of validation that their lives are worth something because neither feels like it is. In fact, both boys are so down on their lives that they each end up attempting suicide — even if it’s not through the same means or with the same goals in mind (one is much more direct in his attempt while the other goes about it as a way to protect himself from other harm). When the boys wake up from their hospital treatment, they find themselves in the same room. In the same psych ward. And now, they have to face one another and face their own demons at the same time.

While both boys are now forced together in space and in time, they do a great job of avoiding talking to one another, even when they’re in the same group therapy session. Bull has physical injuries that limit his mobility, and Victor, well, he just hides. Although they do eventually talk and find out the things about one another that we as readers figured out long before, I had a little trouble with the believability here. The therapy/recovery period is very short — four days — and in that time, both boys seem to make pretty hard turnarounds. Moreover, and maybe the only real troubling part for me as a reader, is that both boys in the story are “saved” by girls they meet in therapy. The message here about love and sharing love is excellent, and it’s what the boys both needed; however, the place from which it’s coming — others who were in the same short treatment/therapy group — didn’t work for me. I didn’t quite buy that those girls had themselves gained as much wisdom as they did from such a short recovery period (given they, too, were assumed to be in this psych ward because they, too, had hit rock bottom like Bull and Victor). I hoped for a little more between Victor and Bull, too. The girls almost got in the way of that.

What I did like, though, was another character who shows up and supports Bull in a way he wasn’t expecting. There was another person looking out for him for a long time, and when he realizes who it was, his outlook on life changes a lot. The same could be said for Victor, who has a family member step in and offer him the sort of love he was missing out on from his parents (who, I should note, went on a European vacation and when they heard Victor had tried to kill himself, continued their trip anyway). Although this felt almost a little too happy-ending, particularly when it came to Bull’s after-care recovery needs, because I wanted a good ending for both of these boys, I accepted it.

Cracked is fast-paced, and both boys have great, believable voices. The alternating perspectives work here, and Walton offers up two distinct characters. Even though a lot of their personalities shine through their differences in class and in experience, internally, they’re struggling with their own problems in a way that makes them individuals. Walton’s novel came out earlier this year and didn’t get a whole lot of attention, but I think it’s one that deserves a lot more. It doesn’t necessarily tread anywhere entirely new, but what it does cover is well-written and engaging and will be a great read alike to a number of other strong contemporary titles (and more stories with authentic male voices never hurt). I was reminded quite a bit of Swati Avasthi’s Split, as well as Andrew Smith’s Stick. I also think fans of Amy Reed’s books — particularly Clean and her forthcoming Crazy, both of which depict teens struggling with recovery and with pain and mental illness — will want to check this one out. Walton’s debut impressed me, and I’m really looking forward to her sophomore effort, Empty (January 2013), which also explores bullying.

Finished copy purchased for me from Lenore. Cracked is available now.

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie

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Dani and Jena are fraternal twins, and they spent most of their lives pretty close to one another. When Jena is diagnosed with cancer, her life is turned upside down, right along with Dani’s. Dani finds it unfair her sister has to suffer with endless rounds of chemotherapy, with losing her sense of self, with the possibility of losing her life all together. See, Dani feels like she’s been granted 9 lives, given that she herself has survived near-death experiences more than once. It’s unfair — beyond unfair — her sisters one life might end so soon before she’s had the chance to live it.

So Dani makes it her mission to die so her sister doesn’t have to suffer.

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie is the kind of cancer novel I appreciate because this isn’t a book about cancer as a disease. It’s not a novel about the things cancer does to a body. It’s a novel instead about how cancer can be a means for people to find a reason to live and to survive.

Dani’s a sarcastic narrator, and she’s hurting deeply because of her sister’s illness. At times it feels like she may be a tiny bit envious of her sister because she’s getting so much attention and special treatment because she’s sick, but the truth is, Dani is grieving heavily. For her, sarcasm, coldness, and distancing herself from the present help her cope with what her sister is going through. She doesn’t want to remain close to anyone because she’s struggling with guilt in being the sister who is okay. The one who isn’t sick. More than that, though, Dani feels like she’s been unfairly blessed with the ability to keep on living, despite numerous brushes with death.

Throughout the book, Dani attempts more than once to die — having survived more than one near-death experience, Dani believes she’s been blessed with nine lives, rather than just one. She sees her own death as her way of letting her sister live. Because they’re twins, she believes they have a special sort of connection to one another and by giving up one of her lives, Jena can live. The problem, of course, is that in Dani’s attempts to end her life, she only hurts herself more, not to mention she hurts her family more than she could imagine. It would be easy to call what she’s doing selfish, but it’s not. Dani aches, and this is her release. Each time she made an attempt to die, I hurt for her because she was doing what she thought was good and right. As the reader on the outside, you know it’s not the case, but she is unable — not unwilling, but unable — to realize that. At least immediately.

Although this is a novel about Jena’s cancer, never once did it feel like a drawn out book about an illness. In fact, very little page time is devoted to the illness and what it was doing to Jena. Instead, the book focused more on what cancer did to the sister who didn’t have it. I felt this made the issue of illness more powerful than had the story focused on Jena. Cancer stories have a way of being manipulative sometimes because they put the onus of emotion on the reader, who always brings their own experience to the story. While writing this story from the perspective of the sister dealing with someone else’s cancer certainly will pull upon the reader’s own experiences, Wylie successfully develops a whole story without requiring the reader to face the cancer and implications head on. We’re not forced to feel sympathetic toward a character because they’re battling a disease they have no power over. We’re allowed instead to develop sympathy toward a complex character who may or may not be all that likable. She’s more than a disease. This is a book where illness plays a role in the story, rather than the story playing a role in the illness.

All These Lives is literary, and the story and characters never falter beneath the prose. They work together, and in doing so, the pace stays steady throughout. But more than being literary, what I loved was the message Dani and the reader walked away with — that living is the greatest thing you can ever do for someone else. It’s a realization that emerges after one of the close brushes with death Dani has, and when she has that moment, I understood just how much pain and grief she’d been dealing with and how heavy it truly weighed on her. It was almost easy to believe Dani’s defensiveness and believe that she was sarcastic through and through. The truth was, it was her way of letting herself be dead. That wasn’t what Jena would want from her at all. Some of the lines made me a little teary eyed, as Dani wrestled with the pain of knowing how she’d behaved and the pain of knowing it wasn’t at all what she should be doing to support her sister.

This paragraph’s spoiler-ridden, so proceed with caution. Maybe the thing I appreciated most about this book was that no one dies, but there’s also no miracle cure. Instead, once Dani wakes up and decides she needs to live and to love to the best of her capability, the story comes to a satisfying ending. We’re not made to suffer as Jena’s life withers, nor are we forced to believe that she’s suddenly all better. For me, this was the way a story like this is best handled because it really wasn’t Jena’s story. It was Dani’s through and through.

All These Lives will appeal to readers who are looking for a good sibling story, and even though this is fully contemporary, I think it’ll appeal to readers who loved Imaginary Girls for the sibling relationship aspect. Readers who liked Before I Die or Gayle Forman’s If I Stay will find the same emotionally connection with Dani as they did with Tessa and Mia in those two stories. Writing-wise, this one reminded me of Ilsa J. Bick’s Drowning Instinct, and despite being less edgy (even though Wylie’s book is certainly edgy), All These Lives should appeal to fans of Bick’s novel.

Wylie’s debut impressed me more than I thought it would, and I’m eager to see where she goes next. She’s earned my trust and respect as a reader by taking a subject and twisting my expectations. I also give bonus points to this book for developing a story without a romance in it, which is a rare find, and I think the story is stronger because of that choice.

One of the trends I’m noticing in YA this year is that of survival, of living despite feeling like there’s reason not to, and it’s been fascinating to see how this theme plays out across genres. I’m thinking there’s a great potential book list sometime in the future on this very topic.

Review copy received from the publisher. All These Lives will be available June 5.

Black Heart by Holly Black

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Holly Black’s Curse Workers series is such fun. I love stories about cons and I love stories about magic, and these books have both of those things, plus a narrator with such an engaging, unique voice it should make other writers envious. Because I’m reviewing Black Heart, the third book in the series, there will be spoilers for the first two here.
At the end of Red Glove, Cassel had teamed up with the federal government to use his powers as a transformation worker in the legal way. Since he’s still a minor, he’s supposed to shadow his older brother, Barron, who has also gone over to the government side. There are a few problems with this: Barron is still a sociopath, conning comes as easy as breathing to Cassel, and Cassel isn’t quite sure what the government is asking him to do won’t get him arrested or killed.
Meanwhile, Lila starts to be drawn further and further into the life of crime as her father prepares her to take over the family business one day. Cassel still carries a major torch for her, naturally, but if he let her know what side he was working for now, it would be the end of him. 
There’s a lot going on in Black Heart, and I’m very impressed by the way Black handles it all. In fact, all of this stuff – including two pretty major subplots – is a big reason I enjoyed the book so much. Aside from the job the Feds have for Cassel, he also has to deal with a vengeful mob boss and his threats against his mother, a female classmate who needs his help getting out of a blackmail plot, and the tension between his two best friends since it was revealed Daneca is a worker. Frequently in stories like this, where the author juggles multiple plotlines, they all tie together in some way, but that’s not necessarily the case here. I appreciated that – it made for a more complex read. Furthermore, all of the plotlines were compelling. I didn’t want to skim past any of them to get to the good stuff.
Like Red Glove, Black Heart builds upon the events of its predecessors. Cassel’s actions have consequences here, and not always good ones. The characters also grow based on their previous experiences, and not always in a good way. All of this may make the book difficult as a standalone, but again, it makes for some very satisfying reading