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Bad Island by Doug TenNapel

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Reese’s dad is forcing his family to go on a boating trip together. This is the last thing Reese wants to do. In fact, Reese has been so upset with his family lately that he’s planning on running away. Now that his dad is dragging him on the family vacation, his plans have to be postponed.

Despite a forecast of clear skies, the sea is choppy and unfriendly. The family’s boat is wrecked, leaving Reese, his parents, and his little sister stranded on a strange island. Luckily, Reese’s father made sure they were prepared for something like this, so they have the supplies to survive, but they still need to find a way off the island. Oh, and they need to somehow avoid being killed by the strange creatures that are hunting them – creatures no one in the family has ever seen before, in real life or in pictures. Accomplishing these goals requires that the four of them work together, not such an easy task for a bickering family.

I appreciated two things most about Bad Island: the creative story and Reese’s family. The narrative is actually divided into two alternating parts. One part follows Reese and his family’s adventures on the island, and the other involves a robot-like creature, his rebellion against his own father, and a possible war against invaders. The two stories are, of course, connected. When all is revealed near the end, I was surprised and gratified by TenNapel’s bizarre and interesting explanation.

It should come as no surprise that Reese and his family do figure out how to work together to save themselves from the island’s creatures and find a way off the island. TenNapel portrays this emotional journey in a moving way, but he doesn’t hit you over the head with it. Best of all, both Reese and his father grow throughout the course of the story. Character growth shouldn’t be just the province of the young protagonist, and it’s nice to see the two contentious family members come together and grow in respect for each other.

I’ve read TenNapel’s other graphic novel for kids, Ghostopolis, and enjoyed it, although I wasn’t especially impressed. Bad Island is a distinct improvement. Ghostopolis was full of gross-out humor that didn’t necessarily add to the story. Bad Island keeps some of that humor that TenNapel (and his readers, no doubt) are so fond of, but it’s toned down slightly and seems much less random.

For example, a thread TenNapel carries throughout Bad Island involves Reese’s sister’s pet snake, which meets an unhappy end during the shipwreck and which she insists on keeping around, despite its growing stench. TenNapel very funnily illustrates this snake with exes for eyes and brown smoke around its body to illustrate the smell – but it’s not just a running gag. The snake, despite being dead, has a part to play in the story.

The art here is wonderful. It’s just the kind of art I love to see in graphic novels – firm lines, bold colors, clear facial expressions, and well-executed action full of energy. The natural environment of the island is a feast for the eyes and the various creatures pulled from TenNapel’s imagination are a delight to pore over. This is a winner.

Copy borrowed from my local library.

Display This: Food!

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I finished reading a graphic novel last week that Kim and I plan on reviewing shortly, and it left me thinking about books that feature food, be it because a character is obsessed with a certain type of food or because they work in the food business. Sometimes that food is sweet, and other times, it’s more of an odd trait to the character that makes them just a little different. I know book lists like this have been done before, but I’ve included recent titles to update prior lists, and I hope you toss out any titles you can think of that fit the theme, too. All descriptions come from WorldCat.

Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes by Lisa Greenwald: When a snowstorm keeps thirteen-year-old best friends Olivia, Kate, and Georgia inside their Brooklyn, New York, apartment building on Valentine’s Day, they connect with their neighbors by distributing homemade fortune cookies and uncover one another’s secrets along the way.

The Girls by Tucker Shaw: An elite Aspen prep school sets the stage for jealousy and intrigue as the lives of many girls intertwine and tangle into a wickedly fun mess (in which no boys ever appear). This one features a girl who is a barista.

The Sweet Life of Stella Madison by Lara Zeises: Seventeen-year-old Stella struggles with the separation of her renowned chef parents, writing a food column for the local paper even though she is a junk food addict, and having a boyfriend but being attracted to another.

The Summer I Learned to Fly by Dana Reinhardt: Thirteen-year-old Drew starts the summer of 1986 helping in her mother’s cheese shop and dreaming about co-worker Nick, but when her widowed mother begins dating, Drew’s father’s book of lists, her pet rat, and Emmett, a boy on a quest, help her cope.

Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland: In a small New Jersey beach town, twelve-year-old Polly Madassa, who speaks like a character in her two favorite novels, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Anne of Green Gables,” spends the summer making deliveries for her parents’ bakery and playing matchmaker, with disastrous results.

Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman: Sixteen-year-olds Geena, Hero, and Amber spend the summer working at a Sonoma, California coffee shop, where they experience romance, identity crises, and new found friendships.

Donut Days by Lara Zielin: During a camp-out promoting the opening of a donut shop in a small Minnesota town, sixteen-year-old Emma, an aspiring journalist, begins to connect an ongoing pollution investigation with the turmoil in the evangelical Christian church where her parents are pastors.

The Espressologist by Kristina Springer: While working part-time as a barista in a Chicago coffee bar, high school senior Jane dabbles in matchmaking after observing the coffee preferences of her customers.

Coffeehouse Angel by Suzanne Selfors: Sixteen-year-old Katrina’s kindness to a man she finds sleeping behind her grandmother’s coffeehouse leads to a strange reward as Malcolm, who is actually a teenage guardian angel, insists on rewarding her by granting her deepest wish.

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen: The summer following her father’s death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.

Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor: While working as summer employees in a local pizza parlor, three teenagers are recruited by an underground organization of monster hunters.

Close to Famous by Joan Bauer: Twelve-year-old Foster McFee and her mother escape from her mother’s abusive boyfriend and end up in the small town of Culpepper, West Virginia, where they use their strengths and challenge themselves to build a new life, with the help of the friends they make there.

The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler: While longing to return to life in New York City, thirteen-year-old Penny helps her mother and grandmother run a cupcake bakery in Hog’s Hollow, tries to avoid the beastly popular girls, to be a good friend to quirky Tally, and to catch the eye of enigmatic Marcus.

Crush du Jour by Micol Ostow: When Laine decides to teach a cooking class at her local community center, she meets Seth, her sexy co-teacher, and when he offers her a job at his family restaurant, Laine cannot resist, but soon discovers that Callie, another waitress, is planning to steal Seth for herself.

Recipe for Disaster by Maureen Fergus: Francie’s life is almost perfect before new girl Darlene shows up. She has her own business as a weekend baker, a best friend named Holly, and a crush on Tate Jarvis. But Darlene thinks Francie’s obsession with baking is weird, she acts like Holly is her best friend, and she’s somehow managed to steal Tate’s attention away. Just as Francie’s pastry-filled dreams are starting to slide, she gets a chance to meet celebrity baker Lorenzo LaRue. Francie is sure that if Lorenzo could only see how passionate she is about baking, he would help launch her career and possibly marry her.

Black Box by Julie Schumacher: When her sixteen-year-old sister is hospitalized for depression and her parents want to keep it a secret, fourteen-year-old Elena tries to cope with her own anxiety and feelings of guilt that she is determined to conceal from outsiders. Elena’s neighbor/friend is an amateur chef.

The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaefer: Fourteen-year-old Annie, along with her two best friends, tries desperately to save her grandmother’s beloved, old-fashioned teashop in Madison, Wisconsin, while she also learns to accept the inevitability of change in life. Includes proverbs, quotations, and brief stories about tea, as well as recipes.

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury

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The year is 1815, and Agnes Wilkins, a young woman about to make her debut in high-class London society, is attending an unwrapping party. She’s not there to unwrap presents. Rather, she and the other attendees are there to witness – and participate in – the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy, purchased by a moneyed aristocrat in Egypt and brought back to England to entertain guests.

Agnes is more than a little horrified at the prospect of viewing this, but her mother insists that she attend, since it’s hosted by the season’s most eligible bachelor, Lord Showalter, and she hopes Agnes will catch his eye. She assures her daughter that she need not actually participate in the unwrapping itself, but of course Agnes is forced to when Lord Showalter asks her to be among the first to do so.

Agnes complies, and she discovers an Egyptian artifact hidden within the wrappings. While no one is looking, she secrets the artifact in her dress – Lord Showalter had told her the artifacts found within the mummy could be kept, after all. But when Showalter tells everyone that they got the wrong mummy by mistake, that this one was actually supposed to go to the British Museum and therefore all artifacts needed to be returned, Agnes keeps the trinket.

This sets in a motion a dangerous adventure, since the artifact is not truly an artifact – it’s a false modern-day item made to look as if it were ancient Egyptian. It’s inscribed with French words that indicate it’s a message for a spy – a spy working for Napoleon. Agnes, working with a young employee of the British Museum named Caedmon (whom she quickly falls for, despite being courted by Showalter), deciphers the message and attempts to thwart the spy’s actions – actions that, if successful, could enable Napoleon to conquer all of Europe.

Wrapped is best likened to an adult historical romance/mystery, of which there are legions. In fact, it’s a great teen readalike for the Lady Julia Grey mystery series, which I’m working my way through right now. I had just finished Silent on the Moor before picking up Wrapped, and both coincidentally involve mummies and references to unwrappings as major plot points. I believe Lady Julia would have approved wholeheartedly of Agnes’ adventures.

Wrapped is also a good readalike for Y. S. Lee’s The Agency series (which I love and hope the next volume will be out soon). They’ve both got an intelligent teenage heroine, a well-realized historical setting (although Wrapped takes place mostly in rich London while The Agency delves into the seedier side), a fair amount of danger, and some exciting espionage. They also both require a similar level of suspension of disbelief.

The end of Wrapped indicates that there may be sequels forthcoming, which I would welcome. Agnes is a great character (she taught herself how to speak ten languages), with real faults that complement her almost unbelievable talents (she’s more than a little naïve, which gets her into trouble).

Unfortunately, Wrapped succumbs to the failing of many adult historical mystery/romances: the culprit is a foregone conclusion. It’s such a foregone conclusion that Bradbury doesn’t really bother presenting the reader with more than one possibility in the first place. While detrimental, this doesn’t kill the book. The focus is much more on adventure and the budding romance between Agnes and Caedmon, as well as some fascinating history. Because of this, it’s weaker as a mystery than I would have liked, but enjoyable nonetheless.

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

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It’s Bren whose lips are on Rosalinda’s when she wakes from her 62 year sleep. But it wasn’t an ordinary sleep; this was a stasis sleep, one which she was put into under suspect reasons and left in for far longer than she should have been.

That 62 years means many things have changed, and it means that Rose slept through the Dark Times. Now she’s learning about it in her history class and needs to know more than just the events she’s slept through. Where are her parents? Why was she left to sleep that long? Where is her long time love Xavier? And what does Bren have to do with all of this? Why was it his kiss that awoke her from this sleep?

A Long Long Sleep was one of the strongest books I’ve read in a while, and it’s so different from my usual reading fare. This story is science fiction with a melding of fantasy, as it’s a bit of a retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty. It’s one that’s a little bit slower paced, but that’s because there is so much revealing to happen, both for the readers and for the main character, that that speed is necessary. It works well, and the writing itself is strong enough to sustain the pace and the plot.

As readers, we’re immediately dropped into Rose’s world right along with her. We aren’t familiar with the place she’s at, though there are certain elements that make sense and certain elements that emerge that are realistic. There’s big corporations and the role they place in society, pitted against ideas of science and nature, as well as the deep down love story at play between Rose and Xavier — and it’s this love story that really kept me reading.

We know from the beginning that when Rose entered her long stasis, she was in love with a boy named Xavier. We know there was a little bit of an age difference between the two of them, but each time Rose talks about Xavier, the age issue changes slightly, as does her perception of what they were and what they could have been had they had the chance. Bren, the boy who wakes Rose, becomes her close friend during the course of their time together, but she knows that he can never be a replacement for Xavier, and she tells him as much (and regularly). But as readers, we know there is something deeper going on with Bren, and we know he has to play a larger role in Rose’s life than she thinks. It’s both predictable and a twist when his role in the story is revealed.

As I alluded to earlier, the strongest part of this story is that we’re dropped into the story right where Rose is, and we learn everything about her world along with her. Sheehan’s decision to develop her story this way means that there are a lot of questions to be answered, and we’re left wondering if what we predict to be true really is or if we’re going to be surprised. For me, there were a lot of surprises, especially when it came to understanding why Rose underwent stasis in the first place and what experiences her parents had during the Dark Times. I was completely absorbed in this world. I wanted to know more, and with each piece of the story coming into place, I felt like I understood and sympathized with Rose more and more.

The politics in this book are worth noting as well: much like the recent XVI by Julia Karr, there is a lot of discussion of corporate control and power in this book. Some of these passages were among the most interesting for me, simply because I wanted to know where Rose stood on the issue as the person who is at the center of this corporation. I can’t say much more without spoiling that aspect of the story, but she wakes into a world where she is both powerless and all powerful, and Sheehan offers us a chance to watch Rose navigate this gulf.

Of course, there were some weaknesses in plotting and story telling here. Part of the challenge in this book was that Sheehan tries to incorporate a few too many elements into an already complex and interesting story. Though the story is told mostly in traditional language, she does offer up a few new words in the language of this society and it doesn’t work particularly well. It could have been left out entirely, and as readers, we would have still understood the futuristic world setting. Moreover, a few other plot holes emerged through the course of unraveling the storyline, and a lot of them felt a little too convenient for me as a reader (this is naturally the downside of a book where you learn the story along with the character). That said, these aspects of the story did not make the book weak, given the strength of the writing and the uniqueness of Rose and the world as a whole.

A Long, Long Sleep will appeal to fans of fairy tale retellings with a twist, as well as fans of science fiction with a little bit of a dystopian swing to it, like Karr’s XVI. It’s an engaging world, and through the way the story builds, this is the kind of book that could appeal to traditional non-genre readers, as well. It bends through a few different genres and twists expectations.

Book received from the publisher. A Long, Long Sleep publishes today.

Empire State by Jason Shiga

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Jason Shiga’s graphic novel for kids, Meanwhile, is a genius piece of comic wizardry. If you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you really should. The best way to describe it is a “choose your own adventure” comic, but it’s so cleverly done that it eclipses all of those cheesy stories you read as a kid yourself. 
But this post isn’t about Meanwhile. It’s about Empire State, Shiga’s graphic novel for adults, which I picked up solely due to my love for Meanwhile.
Jimmy is a twenty-five year old library assistant living in Oakland. He lives with his mom, signs over all of his paychecks to her, and has aspirations to being a web designer. The bright spot in his life is his best friend Sara. She’s forthright, sarcastic, funny, and has dreams of her own. Namely, she wants to be a part of the publishing world in New York City.
Sara decides to follow her dream, haring off to the Big Apple and leaving Jimmy behind. Jimmy, who has harbored a not so secret crush on Sara for ages, writes her a letter describing his feelings and suggesting a rendezvous at the top of the Empire State Building. Without waiting for a reply, he tells his mother he’s going to apply for a job at Google and buys a bus ticket to NYC.
The highlight of Empire State for me was the dialogue between Jimmy and Sara. This is a witty book, but it’s subtle. Jimmy and Sara talk about how she finds boyfriends on JDate and makes out with the fat ones out of pity, how ridiculous hipsters are, how Jimmy has no idea what all the different words mean when ordering coffee. In order to pick up on all of the nuances of the dialogue, re-reading is necessary, because some things can be missed in the course of a normal conversation between the two. 
When Jimmy gets to New York and meets up with Sara, things don’t happen as he hoped – but they don’t happen as I expected, either. It’s all very understated and much quieter than comics normally are. It works.
Empire State alternates between the present (Jimmy’s trip to NYC and the meeting that ensues) and the past (Jimmy and Sara’s friendship in Oakland and his decision to pursue her when she leaves). Shiga uses blue shades for the present and pinks for the past. It gives the book kind of a dreamy quality. If you don’t know this right off the bat, the story can be a bit confusing at first, but perseverance pays off.
Empire State is semi-autobiographical, inspired by a by a cross-country bus trip Shiga himself took from California to New York. The bus trip is actually a very small part of the story (it is pretty funny, though, since it involves a couple of newly-released prison inmates as Jimmy’s co-riders). The emphasis is on the relationship – romance? friendship? something else? – between Jimmy and Sara, and the story shines most when both occupy the page together.
Copy borrowed from my local library.