STACKED

books

Covers Change the Story: More Hardcover-Paperback Swaps

|

Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time thinking about cover art on books than reading the books themselves. But then I look over at my to-review pile and remind myself it’s all part of the process. Covers are so important to selling books — especially YA books — I can’t help think about how and why they change when they go from their hardcover originals to their paperback incarnations. Here’s a bunch of recent and forthcoming cover changes. Some are good, some are bad, and some don’t elicit much from me at all in terms of being good or bad.

I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan is getting a makeover. The original hardcover is on the left and the paperback (due out June 12) is on the right. I think both of these covers are pretty good — the original is illustrated, which is a rare thing to find in a YA cover, and it works well. I’ve read this book, and it’s a quieter novel, and the original cover fits the tone, without overshadowing or overselling the quiet nature of the story. One of the other things I like about this cover is that because it’s illustrated, rather than a stock photo, it will appeal to younger YA readers, and it’s a story that would be appropriate for those just starting in YA books. That’s not to say it’s a gentle or easy read, but rather, it’s inviting.

As much as I like the hardcover, I really like the paperback. It’s a photograph, but there’s something in the muted blue tone that works and makes it stand out. I like the sense of isolation and loneliness the pair of boots has, and it’s nicely contrasted with the monarch butterfly by not only the spot of color, but also the sense of hope it symbolizes. I’m also a fan of the font for the title and author.

Both of the covers for Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray are quiet, muted, and almost too easy to look at, since the book is anything but easy to read. I find it interesting that neither of these covers screams historical fiction — they’re both very contemporary looking, and I can’t decide whether that’s a strength (wider readership) or a weakness (missing target readership). The original hardcover (left) is the one I prefer to the paperback for a number of reasons. First, and maybe most importantly, it’s not a photograph of a person. Because this story is so much about human nature, I think the fact it’s a faceless cover is important and a chilling contrast. Not to mention, the nature here fits the setting inside the book. I dig the font treatment on the title and author byline, though her name almost gets lost in the snow on the ground.

I’m not feeling the paperback cover because it features the face on it. Not just any face, but a very pale, very perfect face. More than that, though. there’s something about the way the snowflakes are caught in the girl’s eyelash that bothers me. What I do like about this treatment is the font for the title and the fact the author’s name is bigger and not fading into the image itself. In fact, I think the title font might be smaller than the author’s name even (though it’s a slight difference). It’s interesting that the paperback includes a tag line to it that the hard cover does not that reads “One girl’s voice breaks the silence of history.” I can’t say it’s the greatest or catchiest. For me, the hardcover wins this round.

Kimberly Marcus’s 2011 debut novel-in-verse Exposed does it so much better in hardcover, even though I find the hardcover pretty unmemorable itself. I’ve reviewed this book before and one of the elements running through the story is photography. So as much as I don’t care for the hard cover on the left, it fits the story pretty well, and it’s a nice play on the title. I do appreciate the title font on the hardcover, and how it is spaced out and, well, exposed.

The paperback cover is a downgrade, though. First, it’s a close up of a girl’s face, which tells absolutely nothing about the story. It’s nice it’s a close up of a girl with freckles, since there aren’t a lot of those, but that still tells nothing of the story. But worse: these covers of a close up of a girl’s face all look exactly the same. Maybe it’s helpful in a sense for reader’s advisory or it could be an interesting book display, but I tend to think it’s a little insulting to readers AND the the authors. It’s giving readers the same thing over and over and it’s making the author’s work blend into everything else that’s out there. With the paperback, there was a font change on the title and it’s probably my least-favorite font choice. It’s weak and looks cheap. And maybe the thing that’s most interesting about the change, though it certainly isn’t telling of much, is that the girl on the hardcover version has long, dark hair and the girl in the paperback has blond hair. I guess both girls do have their eyes shut.

Nomansland by Lesley Hauge came out in 2010 in hardcover, and it just released in paperback a couple of months ago, with a cover change. This is an interesting one to look at because both of the covers are really similar — they use the same color palette and both appear to have the same artistic technique of using a stock image and illustrating on top of it (to be fair, I’m not sure if that’s the case or if these are actual illustrations, but I believe it’s the first). In the hardcover on the left, we have the girl shooting her bow and arrow away from the reader. We’ve got no sense of what she’s thinking, though we can tell from her stance she’s strong and determined. The girl is in control of the situation, and it’s clear in the image that the horse is just a tool (and I like that). My one complaint in the girl is that she’s almost made a little too sexy with the way her clothes are sticking/fluttering on her body. That’s not to say she can’t be that way, but it almost feels a little over the top to me, given how much power there is in her stance and in her aim. Note, too, her hair is flying in her face.

In the paperback version, we have the girl facing the reader, and we can read intent in her eyes perfectly. We don’t have a body to judge, but we have a set of eyes and a gaze that gives the same feeling of determination and badassery that the first cover gives. It’s interesting this girl’s hair is flying out of her face, rather than in it, giving the reader an even stronger view of her expression. It’s sort of a refreshing change of pace from the covers with the windswept hair (especially where you know the girl is strong and powerful). I like the font treatment on the paperback cover and I appreciate how the red pops against the otherwise gray and toneless background. I don’t have a favorite between these two covers, but I do think they’re in an interesting conversation with one another.

The cover change on Susane Colasanti’s So Much Closer baffles me beyond words. The hardcover (left) nails the story perfectly. This is a book about a girl who decides she’s giving up her life in New Jersey to move to New York City in hopes of getting with a boy who just moved there himself. It’s very much a New York City novel — the hardcover captures it perfectly, and I think it does a great job of giving a sense of what kind of girl Brooke is. She’s wearing something that screams NYC to me, and seeing that her goal is to be an NYC kind of chick, well, this gets it. More than that, I appreciate the body language going on between the girl and the guy. There’s a hunt of something, the potential for romance to bloom, but there is not a  guarantee. If anything, it sort of illustrates the fact the girl is more interested than the guy (she is, after all, leaning into him and her leg is close to his). I like the font, and I like that the cover is consistent with other Colasanti covers in that her name is bigger and more prominent than the title. This isn’t a knock on the book, but rather, a smart move on the designer’s part, since Colasanti readers often read her books because they’re written by her. Titles are less important than the author.

The paperback cover gives a totally different impression of Brooke than the hardcover: in this instance, she is very much a girly girl. It’s not only because of her dress (which I think makes her look pregnant with the way it’s flying up in the front), but it’s through her entire body language — there’s the stance with her legs, and there’s the way her hair hangs, and maybe the thing standing out to me the most, which is her hands. This cover also plays up the romance much more than it plays up the NYC aspect. I can’t put my finger on what does this — maybe the font of the title and the way it’s laid out — but this cover looks much more like it’s targeting an adult readership than a teen readership. The paperback also features a tag line that reads “Follow your heart . . . No matter where it takes you,” and it fits the theme of the story. I don’t quite get the purpose in changing this cover, though it tells a much different story and gives the book a different slant than the hardcover does. But more importantly, and something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now: who is holding up the umbrella? From the way her hand is positioned on the boy’s shoulder, there is no way the girl is holding it, unless she has Gumby arms, and from the guy’s position, the same deal holds. Isn’t his head being whacked on the inside by the way it’s positioned? Is there an invisible hand here? An invisible arm? Inquiring minds want to understand the physics behind this one.

Sidekicks by Dan Santat

|

I normally stay away from stories about animals. Even as a kid, they never really did anything for me. BUT. Dan Santat’s comic about pets as superhero sidekicks had been calling out to me for a while, mostly because of the artwork, and it’s definitely a worthwhile read.
Captain Amazing, superhero extraordinaire, has been getting older, and he’s decided it’s time for him to get a sidekick. His pets – Fluffy the hamster, Roscoe the dog, and Shifty the chameleon – are all eager for the job, but Captain Amazing (Harry to his pets) is completely oblivious to this. He’s also oblivious to the fact that his pets have already begun to develop superpowers – powers that will come in handy when Harry gets into a spot of trouble himself with his old nemesis Dr. Havoc.
In many ways, this is a fairly standard superhero story. The pets are the underdogs who must move past their bickering and learn to work together to save Captain Amazing. Will they emerge victorious? If you’re at all in doubt, you haven’t read a single graphic novel in your life. 
But Santat makes the book unique enough in other ways to keep it enjoyable. For starters, it’s funny, and most of its funny moments come from the art (in glorious, bold full colors). Santat gets a lot of mileage out of Fluffy’s buck teeth and bulging eyes (often mismatched in size for greatest impact) and Shifty’s changing skin. Facial expressions are frequently hysterical, particularly when a gust of wind (or a sneeze) blows past the animals. Plus, the pets are just plain adorable, and I am a sucker for adorable. The book also benefits from Santat’s ability to create distinctions between the pets in personality as well as appearance. Naturally, this makes the story more engaging, even if the reader is never in doubt of its ending. And he includes a couple nice side stories and a clever bit at the end that make the book just that much better.
Fluffy is my favorite. Isn’t he adorable?
Sidekicks is solid middle grade entertainment, and it seems like it would have wide appeal to that age group. It feels a little bit like the Incredibles with pets instead of kids, and the outcome is the same. It’s got a heartwarming, but not heavy-handed, message about making sure to spend time with the ones you love – not a bad takeaway at all.

Hunger Games of the Hunger Games

|

I saw The Hunger Games this weekend, along with however many other hundreds of thousands of people, and I’m still processing it. I’m not going to post a review of it because I think Kimberly’s review is entirely spot on and perfect.

Instead, I thought I’d talk about the response to the movie I’ve been reading and been thinking a lot about. Two constant criticisms popping up that have rubbed me wrong on so many levels fall squarely on Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of Katniss. Both are perfect examples of the sorts of criticism people heft onto female actresses, especially in leading performances.

Right before the movie released on Friday, this article popped up via a (male) friend’s Facebook page. He asked everyone if they believed Hunger Games was really the first female-lead driven, huge movie, and their responses to the question were interesting. Most said this is probably the biggest wide release film with a female lead, but they pointed out other film/film series that featured female leads, including Twilight (which female commenters in the thread were quick to dismiss since “Bella’s worthless”), Tomb Raider, Underworld, and Kill Bill. I think it says a lot there IS a discussion and there ARE articles trying to ferret out which movies were the first to star a female. Because we cannot get past gender.

But more disturbing to me are reviews like this one. I get the reviewers weren’t fans of the film, and that’s everyone’s right to have. I also get the humor they’re going for in this review, and it’s spot on in being more about the authors than about the film. But the line that struck me was this: “Natasha: Like, I needed a bitch to EMOTE and pretend like her tummy was a little rumbly.” 

Let me start with the first part and work into the second part. 

For what it’s worth, I thought Jennifer Lawrence was spot-on in her portrayal of Katniss. See, as much as this film was about a desperate situation, it was also a game being televised for everyone to watch. She knew that. Playing into her emotions would be playing into precisely what the Capitol would want. More importantly, though, Katniss isn’t an emoter. Katniss is a thinker. She’s critically assessing her situations and making strategic decisions about which moves to make and not make. Even in that scene with Rue — the one where I shed a couple of tears — she’s not emotionally wrought. She’s holding back and she’s acting with steelness because she has to. Because that is who she is. If you’ll remember back to the scenes prior to Katniss’s going into the arena, particularly when she is saying her goodbyes to Prim, her mother, and Gale, she’s tough. She has no emotional blatant emotional response because she’s in a state of utter shock and disbelief, and this response doesn’t change when she’s fighting, either. It wouldn’t. 

Lawrence, as Kimberly pointed out, “frequently remain[s] silent but able to communicate a lot through her face and body language without making it seem like she’s emoting.” This is where I found Katniss to be most believable and most authentic to everything she was to herself. Had Lawrence emoted or worn her feelings in more visible ways (breaking down in tears, shredding things in anguish, and so forth), she’d be playing the game and losing sight of the end goal (getting out of there, getting home). More than that, though, it’d be playing into what the audience expects from her.

Which takes me to this point: we expect females to emote, don’t we? We expect the emotional response and we’re almost uncomfortable when it’s not there. Like it’s not right. I needed a bitch to EMOTE. I probably don’t need to go into the connotation there, do I? Bitches need to show their emotions or they’re not valid. Remember the earlier comments about Twilight?

The second part of the comment above that got me was about Katniss needing to portray her hunger a little more. Don’t worry, this one’s been covered, too. Why is it a woman’s body is always open for discussion? Why is it when a woman’s body IS discussed, it’s always leveraged with a subtle jab at any other body type? This article does it, too, intentionally or not, right here: “Her body type may differ ever so slightly from the Hollywood norm—her thighs appear functional rather than merely decorative—but she’s still leaner than the vast majority of the American population.”

So your thighs are either functional or they’re not, depending on the size? So, very thin people have non-functional thighs? I wholeheartedly agree with what Anderson’s trying to say in the piece, but the way it’s presented is a little problematic for me because it invariably pits “right” bodies from “not-right” bodies. We ARE fixated on this, and we continue to fixate by making these kind of distinctions.

But back to the point: we realize that Lawrence is tiny, right? That her body is thinner than average, but she’s got curves. She’s got breasts and she’s got a butt. Guess what? Females come in all shapes and sizes, and even if Lawrence is “bigger” than the average model, why does it matter in this role? To be entirely honest, I thought the fact she WAS curvy made her an even more inspired choice for the role. It hammered home the desperation and the hunger. While I will admit to the film not necessarily capturing the back story to the Hunger Games particularly well, Lawrence’s “average” body didn’t make her need any less valid or less believable. The anguish and hunger? It was written on her face. It was written in the way she moved her body, the pacing with which she advanced and retreated in each scene. It was also right there on the faces and in the actions of every other tribute.

Since when does one need to be emaciated to prove they’re hungry? And since when does there need to be audible grumbling? We expect certain things because they’re what we’ve come to accept as the right way for things to be. We expect hunger to manifest in moaning and in weakness. If it’s presented any other way, it’s up for easy criticism. For easy mockery. If our main heroine in a story like The Hunger Games isn’t teeny tiny, isn’t crying or breaking at the drop of a hat, and if her stomach isn’t growling, then she’s wrong.

She’s wrong.

I’ve avoided a lot of review reading of the movie because what I have read has presented judgment of Lawrence’s performance in a way that’s made an assumption of the role a female — a female teen, no less — should play. Viewers are spending more time critiquing what is acceptable emotion and body shape against our believed societal norms, rather than analyzing her performance by critiquing it in terms of story. In terms of the world she’s been put in. In terms of who Katniss is.

It’s become almost a Hunger Games in itself, hasn’t it?

Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole

|

Anna and Kat just graduated high school and the world looks totally open to them. Kat suggests that she and Anna take a cross-country road trip and keep the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums as their guide — as a way for them to sort of find the meaning of their lives and their purpose.

It sounds like fairly straight forward premise, but it’s actually a lot deeper than that. Anna has experienced a huge loss in her life. Multiple losses, actually. Her mother died a year ago and her father’s given up all in a higher power, despite having been a pastor prior to his wife’s death. She has a lot of mental unpacking to do now that she’s free from school, and despite thinking Anna has a fun idea in a road trip, she’s a little reluctant. All of this time with Kat has her a little worried — not just about having to confront what her next plans are and not just about what has happened in her past. Anna’s going to have to come to terms with the fact she might be a little in love with Kat, too.

Kiss the Morning Star had so many elements I like in a story: there’s a road trip with a solid premise behind it, the potential for a good romance, and Anna’s going to have to deal with a lot of emotional baggage from the many changes that have taken place in her life over the last year. Without doubt, the book delivered on a few of these things, but I found the writing and execution of the story to be somewhat weak.

The characters in Hoole’s story were great. Anna is a reluctant participant in this road trip, much as she’s a reluctant participant in the romance between her and Kat. And her reluctance makes sense. We know from the start something happened to her family, and we know her mother’s dead. It’s never quite clear why, but loss is heavy on her mind. As the story unfolds and the girls find themselves in some pretty tight spots — their car breaks down and needs a repair that’ll take a couple days, they meet a pair of girls who aren’t as kind as they seem, Anna has her wallet stolen, and then there’s a near-death incident on a missionary bus trip, just to name a few things — Anna reveals more about what happened to her mother and her father. The loss was an unexpected one, and Anna’s emotions and reactions to thinking about her mother’s death were authentic and honest. She’s not a hugely emotional girl, and she prefers to keep her thoughts about these things inside herself. Anna also wrestles with the notion of religion and God; her life had a healthy does of spiritual belief in it before her mother’s death, given her father’s career, but now that she’s experienced loss and she’s dealing with grief, she’s not so sure anymore what, if anything, she believes. This trip causes her to open up more and come to grips with her feelings.

Kat, on the other hand, is wilder. She had the idea for the trip and for the pursuit of all things dharma bum, and she pushes Anna into joining her. She’s in control of the vehicle for a good chunk of the story, and she’s the one who makes suggestions about wild adventures, then pursues them. She pushes Anna into joining on a missionary trip to Mexico, she pushes Anna into camping in the wilderness, and ultimately, she steers Anna into pursuing a relationship with her. As much as Kat is an enabler and a little pushy, she’s not perfect. She’s broken inside, and Anna catches those moments more than once. And it’s in those instances that Kat becomes more attractive to Anna. She’s vulnerable, too. Kat’s got a tough exterior, but she’s not all concrete.

Hoole develops a great romantic relationship between Anna and Kat. It’s sweet while also maintaining a sultry element to it. For both girls, it’s not a big deal, despite the fact Anna does question whether or not she’s actually a lesbian. She questions the term more than the thing itself, and it’s Kat who reminds her the words don’t matter. The feelings do. Of course, the relationship isn’t perfect, and it’s sort of because Anna gets caught up in the newness of it and in the act of defining it, rather than experiencing it.

That’s sort of the biggest element of the story worth talking about — one of the most obvious characteristics Anna has is that she obsesses over definition. Of being sort of removed from everything about her, rather than experiencing it as it happens. She worries a lot about what things mean rather than letting herself take it at face value and appreciating it as that. This ties into the Kerouac aspect of the story, and for that, I applaud Hoole. It’s smart and subtle.

Writing-wise, I felt this could have been stronger. I found the use of Anna’s internalization at the beginning of each chapter a little jarring and out of context. While there’s a difference between the internal and external growth (see the previous paragraph), it didn’t work being so separated in the story. Maybe my biggest problem was that the story begins very bumpy; the girls are already in the midst of their trip where we pick up, and there is little time to get to know who the characters are, despite being given an internal moment from Anna immediately. I had a hard time sinking into the story because I didn’t get a chance to meet the characters nor the set up in the first couple of chapters. Once I figured the two girls out, the pacing was better, and I was able to suspend belief for some of the more ridiculous moments that occur in the story.

I’m usually a fan of road trip stories, but this one tread close to using the idea as a plot convenience than a hearty, fully-fleshed aspect of the book. I found myself thinking this as the story moved further west, particularly when the girls head to Victoria for a palm reading. There was a big chunk of time that went missing between Wyoming/Colorado and being near the ocean. It was less an issue of pacing and more one of the trip itself being forgotten. In addition to the road trip being sort of lost in the second half of the book, I found the religious aspect of the plot falls out of the story about the same time — maybe about the point the girls realize being on a missionary bus trip to Mexico wasn’t a good idea — and I don’t know if either girl ever came to terms with that struggle. I don’t expect clean resolutions in my stories, but I prefer when the elements making up a story do come together at some point or have some sort of closure, even if it’s open ended.

The other issue I had will sound a little contradictory with what I talked about enjoying in the story, and that’s Anna and Kat’s relationship. They go through a lot of wild adventures together, and they’re respectful toward one another, despite pointing out one another’s flaws periodically. However, I felt that Kat was a bit condescending throughout their relationship, and I do not believe this was at all intentional. The reason I read this into the story, though, was because she continuously (obnoxiously, even) addresses Anna as “Anna babe.” The way she uses it and the context she uses it in almost degrades Anna a bit, furthering Anna’s swallowing back her emotions. Just when it feels like Anna is making progress toward figuring herself out, Kat calls her by her pet name. It rubbed me wrong, and while I don’t necessarily think it impacted Anna, it impacted me and made me question the power dynamics of their relationship.

Kiss the Morning Star will appeal to fans of road trip books. Even with my skepticism of the trip, it succeeds in propelling a story about growth and change forward. Hoole’s story does a good job of balancing light-hearted adventure with heavier issues, and the relationship between Anna and Kat is real and intense. Likewise, readers who like stories about teens who are figuring out what to do after high school will find this will fit the bill well.

Review copy received from the publisher. Kiss the Morning Star will be available April 1.

So You Want to Read YA?: Guest Post from Liz Burns

|

This week’s “So You Want To Read YA?” post comes from one of my favorite bloggers, Liz Burns. Here’s how she defines herself:
I blog about young adult books, TV, and other things that capture my fancy at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy over at School Library Journal. My favorite book is Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta and my favorite TV series is Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I have also been known to enjoy House Hunters International (what’s with the granite countertop obsession?) and live-tweeting shows like Toddlers & Tiaras and 19 Kids & Counting. Liz tweets @LizB. 

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }
“There weren’t any YA books when I was growing up!”
Yes, there were.
Maybe your local library didn’t have the books, or didn’t shelve them in a way that was easy to find.
Maybe your bookstore didn’t carry the title.
But they were there.
For those who want to take a look at what some of those books may have been, start with Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. I’d also point out two personal favorite authors: Ellen Emerson White and Norma Johnston.
What’s different about today’s YA books? There are more. They are easier to find. There is less shaming with reading YA (that is, less people telling thirteen year olds, implicitly or explicitly, that smart kids skip to adult books and don’t read those YA books). It’s easier to find YA books for older teens. Publishers are more aware that the over-sixteen crowd, in addition to reading adult books that show the world they are part of, also want books that reflect their lives and fears, hopes and dreams. 
 
So, where to start with YA? To be honest, the books I recommend may be ones that you read and then say, “wait, what? That’s YA? But, well, that’s just a good book that happens to have a teenager as a main character.” Exactly; trying to define YA is actually pretty difficult. Name any factor – teen main character, character growth, coming of age – and you’ll also be able to name an adult book with those factors, also. Name any factor exclusive to adult books – sex, drugs, rock’n’roll – and you’ll quickly find a YA book about those things. It may be a bit of a cop out, but my definition right now is a YA book is a book that has been published YA. Once that simple matter of publication classification is out of the way, does it really matter? What matters is, is it a good story? Is it one I’ll like? Is there something in there I’ll connect with?
So here are the top books and authors I recommend starting with:
Sometimes a good book into YA is one with older characters: try The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta. Marchetta is brilliant at writing about real life: messy lives, the complications of family, the love between family and friends. Tom has dropped out of university, disconnected from old friends, ignored his family. When he has no place else to go, he moves in with his Aunt Georgie, who has her own problems to deal with. Tom and Georgie’s world was ripped apart by the death of Tom’s Uncle Joe, Georgie’s younger brother. In the years since his death, both spiraled into isolation and grief, and now, together, they are ready to accept that they can have a future with happiness and not betray the loss they suffered.
OK. Sounds like all YA is serious stuff. Hardly! Spend some time with Ruby Oliver, introduced in Ruby Oliver was first introduced to the world in The Boyfriend List (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, Ruby Oliver) by E. Lockhart. Ruby is trying to manage high school, boyfriends, best friends, ex-best friends, ex-boyfriends (and the complication of ex-best friends dating ex-boyfriends) and panic attacks brought on by the stress of it all. Ruby is funny, wry, smart, and OK, maybe a bit boy crazy at times, but hey, who hasn’t been?
Another way into YA is to read present day YA set in a time when the reader was a teen. One of this year’s best books is The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth. It’s a coming of age story set in the late 1980s/early 1990s in Montana. Cameron’s parents died the same day she kissed a girl, and those two things become linked; she explores her sexuality in a time and a place where being gay is neither cool nor popular nor accepted, and when her religious aunt finds out about Cam she sends Cam to a religious school to be “fixed.”
Sometimes, YA is called a “genre” and I’m not a fan of that term because I tend to think of genre as things like mystery, horror, or fantasy. YA includes all those genres, and what better way to get into YA than to find something in a genre you already read?
 
If you like fantasy (especially that of the Games of Thrones variety), read Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief series, starting with The Thief. Gen is a master thief, in prison not because he was caught stealing the King’s seal but because he was arrogant enough to boast about it publicly. Now he’s offered a deal: help the King’s Magus steal something valuable from another country, get out of jail. Gen says yes, trying to figure out how to make this unlikely offer work for him. Gen finds himself in the middle of three countries on the edge of war; this series is full of politics, fights, battles, and, best of all, The Thief, Gen who is exactly what he says he is – and nothing like he says he is. Once you’ve read through this series, turn to Melina Marchetta’s Lumatere books, starting with Finnikin of the Rock, about exiles trying to recover their country in a world with few allies and fewer resources.
What about horror? Look no further than the Monstrumologist series by Rick Yancey. The Monstrumologist is about horror without vampires or werewolves; it’s set in the 19th century and follows young Will Henry and his mentor/guardian, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a “monstrumologist” who seriously studies those creatures others call “monsters”. The problem with studying monsters is, well, they are monsters: the bodies pile up and it’s not pretty. The Monstrumologist series is Stephen King by way of H.P. Lovecraft, and after reading these books you’ll be sleeping with the doors locked and the lights on.
Some like their horror to have more of a supernatural thrill; try Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma. Chloe left town two years ago, following the accidental drowning of a classmate. Chloe’s older sister, the irresistible Ruby, convinces Chloe to return home. Guess who shows up at a party? How can a dead girl still be alive? Does Ruby know? What is going on?
More a fan of literary fiction? YA has that, also. Each year, YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Assocation) awards the Michael L. Printz Award to the best book written for teens. The entire basis for this award is literary merit. This year, the Printz went to Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley. Some things don’t come back; like Cullen’s cousin Oslo, dead from an overdose. Some things may come back, like the woodpecker that people believed was extinct until one self-important and pr-savvy professor came to town. In the town of Lily, Arkansas, eager, dream filled teens leave town, sure of bigger and better things that await them, and return because of heart break or sick parents or accidents. Lily, where things come back . . . . sometimes. Will Cullen’s missing younger brother be one of those things that come back?
Disclaimer: a few years back, I was on the Printz committee. The book we selected? Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. It is a brilliant book, with multiple narratives, heartbreak, hope, and love. I’ll share the blurb the committee put together for it: “Haunted by the past,Taylor Markham reluctantly leads the students of the Jellicoe School in their secret territory wars against the Townies and the Cadets. Marchetta’s lyrical writing evokes the Australian landscape in a suspenseful tale of raw emotion, romance, humor and tragedy.”
I would go on and on, but I suspect Kelly is already saying “enough! We don’t want a tl:dr post!” But trust me… once you try out these books, you’ll want more!