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Three Books That Didn’t Work for Me

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Michelle of Galleysmith has a phrase she uses to describe some of the books she reviews: “Michelle is from Mars, this book is from Venus.” I think that’s a great way to describe some of the books we read. In each of the books I discuss here, I address exactly why I didn’t care for the book, but I acknowledge that it will certainly hold appeal for another audience. Sometimes that audience will be a small one, or it will be a large audience that is much more forgiving of bad writing and sloppy plotting.

That said, some of the books I discuss in these sort of posts are bad (or mediocre) books, and some are just not to my taste. I think that’s an important distinction to make, and I’ll indicate it in my individual reviews.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
What it’s about: Mara Dyer wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there. She eventually learns that she and two of her friends were in an old building that collapsed. Her friends died, but Mara survived without a scratch. If you thought that the rest of the book would be dedicated to Mara’s investigation into what happened in the building, you’d only be half right. After Mara is released from the hospital, Mara and her family move to a new town, so Mara starts a new school and meets a new boy named Noah Shaw. Noah is good-looking, has an English accent and ridiculous amounts of money, and has slept with almost every other girl in the school. Naturally, he and Mara begin a relationship.

Why it didn’t work for me: The execution. I feel like this could have been a compelling novel with more judicious editing. The pacing is all off, a prominent character is written out of the book partway through for what seems like pure convenience’s sake, and the book has a prologue that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the story at all. The plot jumps all over the place and certain threads are dropped and never picked up again. Despite that, the book could have succeeded as a romance, but I found Noah Shaw so repellent I kept crossing my fingers and hoping for the scene where Mara would publicly tell him off. (It never came.) Example: Noah pursues Mara, who has told him to leave her alone, into the girls’ restroom at the school and tells the other girls in there to leave. They do, of course. I have many, many more examples, but I’ll stop there.

Who might enjoy it: Readers who can overlook messy writing (mostly the plotting) and who are drawn to the type of character that Noah is. I can’t see anyone primarily enjoying the paranormal storyline, but I can see someone enjoying it for the relationship between Mara and Noah. Many girls like to read about a bad boy every now and then, but Noah takes it way past my comfort level.

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
What it’s about: Stephen lives in a world post-Collapse. The US fought a war against China, and the US lost, partly due to the fact that China released a terrible plague upon the Americans (hence the title). Slavers roam freely, violence is rampant, and it’s a daily fight to stay alive. Stephen, his father, and his grandfather are scavengers, trading for what they need and keeping to themselves. Then his grandfather dies and his father is in an accident. Stephen is taken in by a community that calls themselves Settler’s Landing. The people in this community are attempting to rebuild some sort of civilization, complete with school for the children and a form of government. Not everyone in Settler’s Landing is OK with Stephen coming to stay, and Stephen forms a bond with another outcast, Chinese-born Jenny. Then a prank that Stephen and Jenny play upon the residents of Settler’s Landing has unexpected consequences, and violence erupts in the previously peaceful settlement.

Why it didn’t work for me: Oh, dystopias. I know so many of you are terribly mediocre, but I can’t resist your siren call. The main problem I had with the book is that Hirsch had the whole world of horrible (and by that I mean awesome) dystopian tropes at his fingertips, but he chose to tell this particular story. While Hirsch does describe how awful the world is, the book is mostly a story about two teens’ prank gone wrong. The prank has terrible repercussions, but I never felt its magnitude, and I wanted a story on a larger scale. The prank (which is alluded to on the flap copy) also doesn’t occur until about 2/3rds of the way through the book, so there’s too much time spent on Stephen’s acclimation to Settler’s Landing. Additionally, Stephen and Jenny are fairly well-drawn, but the ancillary characters are flat and mostly interchangeable.

Who might enjoy it: There’s definitely an audience for this book. Readers who get tired of dystopias’ fixation on giant wars or major rebellions may enjoy the smaller story recounted here. It’s more about creating community and fitting in than overthrowing corrupt governments. There’s also a dearth of dystopias told from a boy’s perspective, so this fills a gap.

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab
What it’s about: Lexi lives in Near, a small, secluded town whose inhabitants distrust strangers. Then one night, a stranger – a boy Lexi’s age – appears on the moor. His appearance coincides with the disappearance of Near’s children, and the townsfolk are quick to blame the stranger boy, who has been taken in by two old women who live near the outskirts of Near. Lexi doesn’t believe the boy is responsible, and, with his help, she sets out to determine who is actually taking the children. If not the boy, could it be the Near Witch, whom the townsfolk supposedly destroyed years ago?

Why it didn’t work for me: The plot was a bit dull. I thought it was overly predictable and moved at a rather slow pace. Schwab’s writing is gorgeous and atmospheric, but I’ve always been the type of reader who needs a strong plot to stay interested. My ideal book would have both great writing and great plotting, so The Near Witch only partially satisfied me. This is one of those books that was more not to my taste than actually bad.

Who might enjoy it: Readers who value beautiful writing and don’t mind when it’s accompanied by a slow or predictable plot. I do want to emphasize how gorgeous Schwab’s writing is, so if you’re the kind of person who digs that, you might want to give this a shot.

First two books were review copies received from the publisher. Last book checked out from my local library. All books are available now.

The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas

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Shortly after Rose’s mom dies of cancer — a battle she fought for quite a while — Rose discovers in her mom’s closet a brown paper bag labeled “Rose’s Survival Kit.” The bag contains a number of items that she knows have some significant meaning to her. These are items her mom lovingly put together for Rose specifically, but even though Rose knows they’re meant to be comforting, she can’t bring herself to delve into them yet.

For two years, Rose and Chris have been in a steady and strong relationship. But once Rose’s mom dies, the relationship begins to falter. It’s not because of Rose’s loss. It’s just a matter of how these things go. And while Rose mourns the loss of this relationship — one that’s been a steady part of her life, especially while she dealt with the weakening of her mother — she’s found something in Will, her family’s hired yard work help, that has her intrigued. Will has been a constant in her life too, but one she’s been willing to overlook easily. She’s never thought about who Will is beyond the fact he works for her family. She’s missed that he goes to her school, that he has a wealth of interests, including hockey, and that he may understand her much more than she could ever imagine.

Donna Freitas knows how to write a story. She knows how to write characters. And she knows how to deliver whole heartedly on both. The Survival Kit tackles the issue of grief and growth, treading territory so many other contemporary titles in the last few years have done, but there’s something that sets this one just a little bit apart. Aside from a host of fully-fleshed and completely realistic characters who act and feel in ways that teens do, this story fully fleshes out the meaning of faith and belief without treading into spiritual or religious territory. It’s uplifting in a way that many books about grief aren’t.

Rose might be one of my favorite characters in a long time. She’s experienced a tremendous loss in her life, and she allows herself the opportunity to mourn. But rather than give up the entirety of her life to do so, she gives up things. She continues to go to school and continues to socialize and be a part of her friendships, but she gives up listening to music. It depresses her too much. She and boyfriend Chris break up, but she doesn’t swear off the idea of establishing relationships with other characters. In fact, she wants to do so. She’s isolated herself from tangibles in exchange for the intangibles of human connections. It sounds so simple, but what makes this powerful in the context of the story is just how well Freitas rounds out these characters.

It could be easy to make Rose a character to feel sorry for. She’s lost a lot in her life. But as readers, we feel her pain step by step because we care so much for her well being. We want Rose to move forward because she has so much to work toward. The stakes are high, even without there necessarily being huge things ahead for her. She’s average, and there’s something about that averageness that is so important to her. She’s relatable and she’s likable. She doesn’t have to be a superstar or a prodigy for us to feel for her.

Part of what makes Rose so sympathetic, though, is the way she approaches everyone in the story. The way she builds them up in her mind makes her grief almost more aching; where it would be easy to make Chris to be a bad person in the midst of their breakup, instead, she continues to respect him and even love him a bit. What was between them is over, but it’s not. It’s a part of who she is and it’s part of what has shaped her life. When Rose begins to talk with Will and learn his story, she realizes, too, how much his story is part of her story. She embraces him, even admitting to herself that she’s always overlooked what was right in front of her unfairly. She’s never looked down on him, but she’s never sensed the opportunity for connection with him. But the thing is, she makes that connection when she most needs to, and it serves her well in understanding her own grief. I must also give Freitas huge points, too, for not falling into the boy-that-saves-the-girl trope here. Rose figures everything out for herself. Her relationship with Will is merely an extension of understanding her own self and emotions. It’s not the catalyst. Admittedly, I found the romance to be a little convenient (how could it not be?), ultimately, that didn’t matter. Everything else in this story worked so well that the moments of convenience were easy to overlook.

The Survival Kit is pitch perfect in pace, and it mimics Rose’s processing of grief. What made this work was the survival kit Rose finds, addressed to her from her mother. The kit included a number of items, such as an iPod with pre-loaded music, a crystal heart, a box of crayons, and a paper kite, among other things. Each of these carries huge meaning, and as Rose works through the challenges in front of her, she understands the weight of the items. She realizes that the physical, tangibleness of things isn’t what matters — what matters is the meaning and the value within them. That is to say, of course, that while Rose’s mother is no longer a physical being, what her mother meant to her will never be gone. What her mother gave to her in meaning was beyond the tangible. Never once did this feel forced, either; Freitas is careful in implementing the items into the story so that it never becomes meaning upon symbolic meaning. It just is.

This story has really stuck with me since finishing it. There’s respect for the story and characters, matched only by the respect for the readers. Freitas’s writing is very reminiscent of Dana Reinhardt’s, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of my reading experience with The Things a Brother Knows when I finished. Though the topic is so heavy and challenging to read, the feeling of hope that emerges at the end — both for the characters and for the world outside the story — is commendable. This book is its own survival kit.

Hand this one off to those who love realistic fiction, ala Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, and Dana Reinhardt. While it will appeal to a wide range of readers, I think those who enjoy a bit of a challenge with their reading will find much to dig into here. Moreover, I cannot help but also note this book has one of my favorite covers in a long time. It perfectly captures the story, and it has wide appeal to it. There’s much crossover appeal on this book, as I think adults will find this as enjoyable as teens will. I could see this being a fantastic choice for a mother-daughter book discussion, and I don’t mean that in a way to belittle it. It has so much to it and begs its readers to talk and connect with one another.

Advanced reader’s copy received from the publisher. The Survival Kit is available now.

Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King

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Lucky Linderman is experiencing some tough things in his life. He’s always been bullied by Nader McMillan, the school’s resident asshole, but lately Nader has ratcheted it up a notch. His parents notice and care, but they’ve taken a hands-off approach that isn’t working. Lucky’s dad is more absorbed with his obsession over his father – Lucky’s grandfather – who went MIA in Vietnam and was never found. 

Lucky has had vivid dreams about his grandfather since he was a little boy. The dreams are so realistic that Lucky actually wakes up clutching physical items that he has somehow carried back from them. In the dreams, Lucky’s grandfather is a prisoner of war in Laos. Lucky’s belief that these dreams have some effect on real life convince him that he will be able to use the dreams to rescue his grandfather and bring him back home. These attempts are chronicled by number throughout the novel and provide a way for Lucky to work through things in his life with his grandfather, who has developed into his best friend (even if he is imaginary – or is he?).
Lucky’s also begun seeing ants, and not just during his dreams. They’re dancing on the furniture, following him to the grocery store, dressing up and giving him life advice.
After an argument between Lucky’s parents, his mom decides that a vacation with her brother and his wife – without Lucky’s dad – is just what they need. The novel jumps in time between the particularly bad summer preceding the trip, the dreams in Laos, and the visit to Lucky’s aunt and uncle.
The best thing about this novel is Lucky’s voice. He’s a
mess of contradictions. He’s depressed, but he’s maintained a wry sense of
humor. He claims he’s able to keep his head above water, but in reality he’s
floundering. He’s frustrated that his parents don’t seem capable of helping
him, but he doesn’t blame them. He feels sorry for himself, but he doesn’t
wallow. Basically, Lucky is the kind of guy you’d want to be friends with. He’s
the kind of guy you’d want to help – not because he seems pathetic, but because
he’s a good guy who’s struggling.
Though this is Lucky’s story, King does not people it with
flat ancillary characters. Everyone – with perhaps the exception of antagonist
Nader – is a fully-realized person with nuances. The subplot involving Lucky’s
aunt and uncle is a perfect example. At first, Lucky gets along swimmingly with
his uncle and can’t stand his aunt, but Lucky eventually learns a lot about
both people, and it broadens his understanding of them and their situation.
King is a whiz with interesting, meaningful metaphors. By
that I mean she uses devices like Lucky’s dreams and the ants to talk about the
Important Things like depression and bullying, but she also uses them to have
fun. The ants are frequently hilarious and Lucky’s dream-adventures with his
POW grandfather are action-packed and thrilling. It’s literary fiction with
popular appeal.
King is a master at what she does. Unlike many other
books I’ve read lately, there aren’t any rookie mistakes or places that could
have used more judicious editing. The book as a whole is so well done, instead
of putting it down and thinking, “I could do better than that,” I put it down
and thought “I wish I could do that.” Highly recommended, and I hope it gets a little Printz love at awards season.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Everybody Sees the Ants is available now.

Amplified by Tara Kelly

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Jasmine comes from a nice life — she’s had everything she’s ever wanted, and she’s being pressured by her father to take advantage of this. He wants her to go to a good college and make a name for herself, but she doesn’t want to go. She’s adamant about striking it out on her own and building a career in music. So her father does what any loving father does, of course, and kicks her out.

She makes her way to Santa Cruz, the place she dreams of living and making a life for herself, and she soon realizes that achieving her dreams on her own isn’t going to be as easy as she thinks. Sure she has the equipment and the musical know-how, but when she’s pressed to talk about her experiences performing in front of a band she’s trying to get a spot in, she lies. And it might be that lie which ultimately breaks her.

Amplified is Kelly’s second novel, and after Harmonic Feedback, my expectations were quite high. Fortunately, this book not only delivers, but it’s one that takes some of the best elements of Kelly’s writing — her knowledge of music, her well-voiced and true-to-age narrators, and a steady but pulsing pace — and amps them up just a little more. Jasmine is a strong and stubborn main character, and she takes a road in her life that’s scary and treacherous but one that I think so many teen readers will appreciate: she decides to follow her passion, rather than follow the path to college that she’s been told is the only way to success. We need more books that do this.

This book stands out because of Jasmine. She has a well-written voice, but more than that, she’s not a wallower. Never once does Jasmine worry about what she’s going to do when she’s in a city that’s new to her. Despite telling a few creative lies — some of which certainly impact her far worse than others — she’s very much the kind of girl who just takes care of things. When her car breaks down, she doesn’t pity herself. She gets it fixed. When she needs to find a job, she doesn’t worry too much about her pride; she does what she needs to do to make money (working in a boardwalk psychic shop probably wasn’t her ideal job post-high school) and she does what she needs to to make inroads with a local band. At one point in the story, Jasmine has to talk to her father because she’s found herself in an incredibly tough spot, but this kills her. She’d rather do anything that run back to her dad and ask for help, and this anguish really highlights the strength of self she has.

Kelly’s writing is tight, and the pacing in this book is spot-on. The book doesn’t drag, and I credit part of it to Jasmine being such a well-drawn character, but a lot of it has to do, too, with the infusion of beat in the book. Any book about music should have a beat to it, and this one does. It’s a careful balance of pulsing and pushing forward, especially when Jasmine is performing and is lost entirely within her music, with quieter sounds and reflection, which often happens while she is at her job at the psychic shop. The writing about music itself doesn’t weigh down the story but instead enhances it. I could hear Jasmine and C-Side throughout the story. Readers who appreciate music will appreciate the authority and authenticity with which this is written. Likewise, the writing doesn’t get bogged down in trying to be too literary or embellished, which made the story shine through. I’m not a one-sitting reader, but I got through Amplified in one sitting because it was easy to do. I was lost in the story and in Jasmine.

Though this story is about taking care of one’s self and pursuing one’s dreams, it’s also as much a story about relationships. Jasmine does everything for herself because she has to, but she’s not insensitive to those around her who are giving her a leg up when she needs it. There are people looking out for her, even when the truth unravels about her past and her experiences in performance. Where some members of C-Side were ready to kick her out of the band as soon as they discovered she had no performance experience (and doing so meant she’d also lose a place to live), she had an advocate or two on her side. When she needed a way to make a little money, she had someone there to give her the position at the psychic shop. Although this is in no way a message driven book, I think there is a well-delivered message that success is a mix of having the will to follow a dream but also being humble enough to accept help when it’s offered.

Amplified, I think, may be a stronger book than Harmonic Feedback, and I think it might have wider appeal. Fans of gritty, rock and roll style novels will appreciate this one. Jasmine’s probably one of the more realistic teens I’ve read, too, and I think she’ll be easy for many to connect to. This book will work well for your older and more mature middle school students (there aren’t really any situations to be too worried about, but the language is what you’d expect of 18 to 20-something musicians) and high school readers. This is an easy one to give to reluctant readers, but that doesn’t in any way suggest that your big readers won’t love this one. They will. As I mentioned, this is a story about a girl who took a non-traditional path after high school, and I think for many high school readers, these stories are immensely important. I applaud Kelly for tackling that gray area, and without doubt, she is becoming one of my go-to authors for her authenticity.

Review copy picked up at ALA. Amplified will be available October 25.

Nursery Rhyme Comics

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I’m always wary about short story collections. Most of themusually have some very good stuff, but you have to wade through some verymediocre (or often bad) stuff to get to it. In Nursery Rhyme Comics, FirstSecond has pulled together fifty different artists to interpret fifty differentnursery rhymes, and it’s a treat to see which direction the artists go with theirchosen rhyme.

Some of the contributors re-invent the rhymes inparticularly clever ways, and these are the most successful entries. Lucy Knisley has a funny take on There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and James Sturm’s Jack Be Nimble shows the consequences of jumping over candlesticks. Scott Campbells’s Pop Goes the Weasel brings sense to a previously nonsensical rhyme while retaining its liveliness. I also particularly loved Stephanie Yue’s Hickory Dickory Dock. My favorite, however, is the very first entry, Patrick McDonnell’s The Donkey. It’s just so darn cute and is a perfect example of how something a little extra can add a whole new dimension to a well-known rhyme.
Less successful are artists who merely illustrate the rhymeswithout adding anything new or interpreting them in a surprising way. Many of therhymes are silly or nonsensical, and I would have liked to see a few of theartists attempt to bring some kind of sense or meaning to these (although there is certainly something to be said for embracing silliness). Readers who are drawn to the collection more for theillustrations than the rhymes may be satisfied by these serviceable entries,but the book would have been better served by including more unique takes. Thesestraightforward illustrations may also be more illuminating for readers who arenot as familiar with the rhymes, in particular younger readers. Older readerswill require a bit more.
That said, the art is almost universally good, and that issaying something for a book with fifty different illustrators. There’s no denying the artists know theirstuff. I personally would have preferred a little more creativity with the interpretations, but the art is a treat to pore over, particularly in full color.
Overall, Nursery Rhyme Comics is precisely what I wasexpecting – some real standouts, a few duds, and a lot that falls in themiddle. Even the stuff in the middle is worth a read/look, which speaks tothe high quality of the collection.

Review copy received from the publisher. Nursery Rhyme Comics is available now.