Political Thrillers for Teens: A Booklist

August 17, 2016 |

When I was a teen, the idea of a young adult political thriller was unknown to me. That genre belonged squarely in adult fiction, in the realm of books by people like Tom Clancy who wrote about old (read: anyone over 35) men traveling across the world to wrangle dictators or stop submarines from launching missiles. Of course, Ellen Emerson White’s series The President’s Daughter was around, but my teenage years fell squarely between the release of the third and fourth books, so they just weren’t on my radar.

In recent years, though, I’ve seen an uptick in political thrillers for the YA market. I suspect it has a bit to do with Scandal, though I’m unsure how many teens actually watch that show. Several of the books below have been marketed as “Scandal for teens.” But today’s teens are also perhaps more politically aware, at least on a surface level, than previous generations thanks to the saturation of social media, where political memes are legion and a willing audience exists for the discussion of any and every political ideology.

I’m speculating about the reasons for the rise in these sorts of novels, but I’m certain that the books on this list (four of which I’ve read myself) are treats for politically-minded teens. Though none of the protagonists are of voting age, they all find themselves involved in national or international politics in some way – their parents are diplomats or politicians, or they find themselves accidentally in possession of a dangerous piece of information. Most touch on current political events broadly (terrorism, corruption, inequality, globalization), though they also tend to stay away from more specific details, which gives them a more perennial shelf life.

Descriptions are via Worldcat.

Diplomatic Immunity by Brodi Ashton

A seventeen-year-old aspiring reporter decides to write a scathing exposé on an elite Washington, D.C., private school, but her life changes when her subject comes to her for help

The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

When her grandfather develops dementia, sixteen-year-old Tess, who has been keeping his Montana ranch going, is whisked away to Washington, D.C., by a sister she barely knows and thrown into a world of politics, power, wealth, love triangles, and family secrets. | Sequel: The Long Game | Kimberly’s reviews

All Fall Down by Ally Carter

There are many powerful people along Embassy Row who want Grace to block out all her unpretty thoughts. But Grace will not stop until she finds out who killed her mother and make the killer pay. | Sequel: See How They Run | Kimberly’s reviews

Zero Day by Jan Gangsei

Eight years after being kidnapped Addie Webster, now sixteen, resurfaces under mysterious circumstances, significantly changed, and her childhood best friend, Darrow Fergusson, is asked by a national security advisor to spy on her to uncover whether she is a threat to her father’s Presidency or the nation.

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

When sixteen-year-old Avery West learns her family is part of a powerful and dangerous secret society, and that her own life is in danger, she must follow a trail of clues across Europe. | Sequel: Map of Fates

Sekret by Lindsay Smith

Follows a group of psychic teenagers in 1960s Soviet Russia who are forced to use their powers to spy for the KGB. | Sequel: Skandal | Kimberly’s review

Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh

August 10, 2016 |

Prehistoric fiction is hard to come by, even in the adult world. If you go looking for it in the YA world, it’s like digging for mammoth bones – not easy to unearth. My induction into the world of Jean M. Auel as a high schooler thanks to my local library’s used book sale has guaranteed that whenever a novel set in prehistoric times pops up, it shoots to the top of my to-read list. Enter Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh.

The marketing material says Eshbaugh’s story is based on Pride and Prejudice, and it is – loosely. Like any good re-telling, the reader doesn’t need to know the source material to enjoy this prehistoric take, though it is fun to puzzle out who is the analog of whom while reading (it’s mostly gender-swapped, for starters, which is a fun change). In the end, though, the correlation is so superficial that you’ll do yourself a disservice by expecting Ivory and Bone to be a true riff of Austen. It’s not.

The precise moment in prehistory is never stated, though we’re given clues: mammoths and ice are both growing scarcer, and the wiser human clans have started supplementing their leaner meat diets with the new plants that are growing in greater abundance. The people use stone tools, spears, and kayaks and wear animal skins. There are no Neanderthals like in Auel’s books. These clues place Ivory and Bone in the Neolithic period at the end of the Stone Age, though I couldn’t ever pinpoint where exactly on Earth the characters were supposed to be. (I’m sure a more attentive reader than me could figure it out!)

Kol, our protagonist and narrator, lives in this long-ago world, where survival is hard and meeting someone outside your own clan is rare. That latter bit is especially important for Kol and his younger siblings, since there are no other young people in their clan and their parents worry they won’t be able to find mates, the only way to ensure the continuation of the clan. Then Mya, her sister, and her brother – the leader of a separate clan – come to speak with leaders of Kol’s clan. Something happened between Mya’s clan and Kol’s clan a couple of years ago, and Kol doesn’t know the details, but it seems Mya’s brother wants to make amends. The circumstances have made Mya very cold to Kol, though Mya’s sister and Kol’s brother hit it off immediately. For a bit, it seems like the two clans might have formed an alliance.

Until Lo, a girl from another clan, arrives. From the start, it’s clear that Lo and Mya have their own history. Kol can’t help but be drawn to Lo, who has a magnetic sort of personality and an undeniable ability to make people follow her lead. Readers who know the basics of Pride and Prejudice will recognize Lo as Mr. Wickham, so it’s not difficult to figure out that Lo is up to no good, but the exact circumstances of her estrangement from Mya and her plans for Kol’s clan remain mysterious up until about 2/3rds of the way through the novel, where it begins to really diverge from its source material.

Part of the reason I love prehistoric novels so much is that we know so little about that time. It gives the writer a lot of free reign, if they have the imagination for it. So while the first part of the book doesn’t have much action, it reads very quickly. Like Pride and Prejudice, much is said with looks and pauses, and much is misinterpreted. During Mya and Kol’s not-quite-courtship, Eshbaugh expands upon Kol’s Stone Age world, giving us those little details that fans of historical fiction crave: what family structures were like, what people ate, how people hunted, what people slept on, what was considered an appropriate gift, and so on. It’s all worked into the story of Kol and Mya getting to know each other – or forming incorrect opinions about what they think the other is like. And when Lo enters the story, the novel changes tone, and we’re given action and not a little amount of blood.

Eshbaugh took a risk with how she chose to tell her story: the majority is second-person POV, with Kol narrating to Mya. So instead of saying “Mya did this,” he says “You did this,” which I found jarring. This technique isn’t quite successful; it took me out of the story a lot and interrupted the smoothness of the narrative when I read “you” instead of “she” or “Mya.” I got accustomed to it a bit by the end of the book, but not entirely. Still, I admire the choice to try something fresh, and it does add another layer to Kol’s and Mya’s relationship that would not be there with a more traditional narrative style.

Eshbaugh’s writing is simple, but in the way poetry can be, revealing more in what it doesn’t say. It also feels true to Kol’s, who is a teenager without the benefit of a written language, since such a thing did not exist yet (at least as far as we’ve been able to discover). The story is completely immersive, taking the reader fully into this world that Eshbaugh has created from a combination of her own extensive research and her imagination. It’s fascinating and unlike almost anything else currently published for teens, both in terms of its story and its narrative techniques. Hand this one to teens looking for something different, whether it’s a fresh take on an old tale, a time period we don’t often read about, or a writing style that tries something new. Highly recommended.

Fun & Full of Girl Love: Cherry by Lindsey Rosin

August 8, 2016 |

I’ve stepped back from reviewing this year, in part because it’s such a time-consuming aspect of blogging, and in part because I want to spend the time talking about books that really resonate and that might not otherwise see much attention in the book world. My book piles are growing at a monstrous rate at home, with piles upon piles of ARCs and finished copies and purchased books beside the basket of library books I’ve been working my way through. After what felt like six months of slow reading and a disinterest in reading all together, I’ve been flying through books at a speed I haven’t in a long, long time.

In part because I’ve been reading so many fantastic books.

I spent July reading backlist titles, plowing through a huge number of reads (for me — it’s all relative so the number itself isn’t important). And now with August here, I’ve started incorporating new and forthcoming titles back into my stacks.

And I’m so glad that Cherry by Lindsey Rosin was one that I picked up sooner, rather than later.

When was the last time you picked up a YA book that was not only wildly sex positive but also fun, engaging, funny, and featured an entire case of female characters who love, support, and encourage one another? Cherry could best be described as a contemporary American Pie but with female characters, with a twist of The To-Do List.

Told in third-person, Rosin offers up a story about four girls who’ve been best friends since first grade. There are fewer than 200 days between the time the story begins and their graduation, wherein they’ll be going to far-flung places around the world; while this sort of fear of separation lingers in their world, it’s not the thrust of their story nor their friendship. They’re tight, but they aren’t controlling of one another. They’ve accepted the reality, even if it’s one that they’re not necessarily looking forward to experiencing.

The book opens at Bigg Chill, the frozen yogurt shop that the four girls spend every weekend at in person. It’s their time to catch up and hang out, talk about important and not important things. Layla, a girl who likes to make lists and accomplish the things on that list, tells the rest of the crew that she has three things in mind to accomplish before graduation: she wants to get blonde highlights, she wants to raise one of her grades in an AP class to an A, and she wants to finally have sex with her long-time boyfriend Logan. Her friends consider this and offer up some perspective on the idea of including sex on her to-do list. Isn’t it odd to have that on a list of tasks to accomplish? Shouldn’t it be more than that?

After a long discussion of this — including some wildly realistic discussions of what sex is and isn’t, what masturbation is and isn’t, and who has/has not done things — the girls decide that they’ll make a sex pact. Together, but not together-together, they’ll all have sex before graduation. There is a mix of emotions surrounding this, from fear to excitement and to the nervous feeling that one girl gets when she realizes that her friends think she’s the only non-virgin and the truth is, she’s never actually had sex.

And then we get to sex.

Cherry follows all four of the girls through the ups and downs of learning about their bodies, as well as learning about what it is they want from a sexual relationship. There is wonderful and frank discussion of masturbation — not just who is and isn’t masturbating, but how one could figure out what it is they like sexually — and there is open and honest discussion of contraception and protection.

But most importantly, and the part that made me realize this book wasn’t just a fun romp (though it is!), is that it showcases a variety of sexual interests and sexualities among the girls. We have straight sex as well as lesbian sex and it is on the page. From the moment that Emma meets Savannah, I hoped that something would spark, and I was pleased at the first kiss. Then the second. Then the fireworks. It was refreshing and truthful and powerful to see lesbian sexual interest right there on the page, presented in a way that was natural and fun and exciting, for both the girls and the readers who will pick this up.

What Rosin smartly does, in addition to highlighting sexual variety in this story, is not offer the easy ways in and out for the girls. There are ups and downs. What seems like the obvious partnerships aren’t necessarily the stories that see a happy ending. And the stories that we’ve come to see as unhappy ending tropes don’t end up that way.

Perhaps, though, the thing that made this book go from a fun, sexually empowering book, was how much it emphasizes and celebrates female friendship. Layla, Alex, Zoe, and Emma are tight, and even though there are realistic ups and downs in their relationships, they always come back to one another. There are boys (and a girl!) and there is sex, but there is not envy among them. They aren’t fighting for the same guys, and when they see a guy of interest being terrible, they tell their friends. They are not arguing over who gets what partner; they’re ensuring that the girls are finding the best, most respectful, most caring partners for them. Other girls who aren’t part of the core are rendered as important and fully-fleshed people worthy of respect as well. Though there is tension, the way that the girls describe other girls is done in a way that doesn’t demean or belittle them or call them any terribly sexist name in the book. In other words, it’s realistic that they don’t like every girl, but they don’t see the need to put that girl down using names or descriptions that belittle them.

Cherry is a fun read, and while it certainly tackles big, important topics, it’s refreshing in offering up a fun story about girls interested in and curious about sex. We regularly see this with males in YA fiction but rarely do we see it with girls. The cast of characters are all different, and they’re not all white, either — the book being set in Los Angeles feels authentic to the setting and to the demographics and to the sorts of relationships that would occur between teenagers there. The coming out scene with Emma is a small note in the story and it’s handled with care and love.

Though this will certainly see a fair amount of criticism — including this review by a male bookseller that I keep reading — it’s important to consider nuance. This is a book about girls who are curious about and who like sex. This is normal teenage girl behavior and thinking. The problem is that socially and culturally, we do not get to see or hear these stories. But we are allowed these same stories, often called “hilarious coming-of-age stories,” when they feature a male protagonist. Cherry absolutely tackles protection and pregnancy, and it absolutely talks about the fact not everyone is having sex. It also explores why and how people choose to engage in intercourse, and it discusses masturbation in a powerful, non-judgmental capacity. These are things we do not see in YA fiction.

I’ve spent a long time doing research on this and have written about it extensively on STACKED, as well as in the book The V-Word. The closest book to this one in recent memory is Julie Halpern’s The F-It List, which you may remember also caused some review controversy. While neither Halpern’s novel nor Rosin’s novel are perfect, both are doing something that needs to be considered thoughtfully and with extreme nuance. Rushing through books like this and announcing that they “don’t do” a thing or that they do a thing “too much” is denouncing the realities of female sexuality. No where does Rosin suggest all girls need to have sex and get it over. This is a story about four girls and their juggling of emotional, psychological, and physical desires in a world that constantly tells them to suppress those things while cheering on their male contemporaries for those very same things. Rosin tackles this, too, in the relationship between Layla and Logan.

Cherry is a necessary addition to the YA world, especially when it comes to fun fiction featuring a realistic female cast. Readers who love books by Amy Spalding will be delighted by this one, as will readers who are aching for a fun story ala movies like American Pie but with girls at the forefront.

It’s also a read for those eager for a solid story about friendship, girl gangs, and the power of female allies.

Cherry hits shelves August 16. Finished copy received from the publisher.

Debut YA Novels: July 2016

August 1, 2016 |

Welcome to August! This month you’ll be treated to two debut YA novel round-ups, since I didn’t post July’s during July.

Like always, this round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from WorldCat or Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts out in July from traditional publishers — and I should note that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. Get ready to get reading.

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee

Seventeen-year-old conjoined twins Clara and Hailey have lived in the same small town their entire lives—no one stares at them anymore. But there are cracks in their quiet existence, and they’re slowly becoming more apparent. Clara and Hailey are at a crossroads. Clara wants to stay close to home, avoid all attention, and study the night sky. Hailey wants to travel the world, learn from great artists, and dance with mysterious boys. As high school graduation approaches, each twin must untangle her dreams from her sister’s, and figure out what it means to be her own person.

How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather

Samantha Mather has just moved to Salem, Massachusetts from New York City in the wake of her father’s mysterious illness. But Mathers have lived in Salem for centuries and Sam is the ancestor of Cotton Mather—one of the architects of the Salem Witch Trials. Her name precedes her, and comes with too many stigmas. Before long, Sam finds herself at odds with The Descendants, a powerful group of girls who also have ties to the trials; only their ancestors were on the other end of the noose.
Before long, Sam realizes she is at the center of a centuries old curse that is tying her fate, as well as her father’s, to her new enemies. Can she overcome her family’s past and break the cycle of unexplained deaths or will she discover just how easy it can be to hang a witch?

The Killer in Me by Margot Harrison

Seventeen-year-old Nina Barrows knows all about the Thief. She’s intimately familiar with his hunting methods: how he stalks and kills at random, how he disposes of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mine in the deepest, most desolate part of a desert.

Now, for the first time, Nina has the chance to do something about the serial killer that no one else knows exists. With the help of her former best friend, Warren, she tracks the Thief two thousand miles, to his home turf—the deserts of New Mexico.

But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?

Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy

An asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. A big, bad one. Yuri, a physicist prodigy from Russia, has been called to NASA as they calculate a plan to avoid disaster. He knows how to stop the asteroid: his research in antimatter will probably win him a Nobel prize–if there’s ever another Nobel prize awarded. But Yuri’s 17, and having a hard time making older, stodgy physicists listen to him. Then he meets Dovie, who lives like a normal teenager, oblivious to the impending doom. Being with her, on the adventures she plans when he’s not at NASA, Yuri catches a glimpse of what it means to save the world and save a life worth living.

Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies by Lauren Stampler

Harper Anderson always believed she belonged somewhere more glamorous than her sleepy Northern California suburb. After all, how many water polo matches and lame parties in Bobby McKittrick’s backyard can one girl take? That’s why Harper is beyond ecstatic when she lands her dream internship as a dating blogger at the elite teen magazine Shift. Getting to spend the summer in New York City to live her dream of becoming a writer? Harper’s totally in.

There’s just one teeny, tiny, infinitesimal problem: Apart from some dance floor make-outs, Harper doesn’t have a lot of – or, really, any – dating expertise. In fact, she might have sort of stolen her best friend’s experiences as her own on her Shiftapplication. But she can learn on the job…right?

From awkward run-ins with the cute neighborhood dog-walker to terrifying encounters with her crazed editor, from Brooklyn gallery openings to weekends in the Hamptons, Harper finds out what it takes to make it in the Big City–and as the writer of her own destiny.

Remake by Ilima Todd

Nine is the ninth female born in her batch of ten females and ten males. By design, her life in Freedom Province is without complications or consequences. However, such freedom comes with a price. The Prime Maker is determined to keep that price a secret from the new batches of citizens that are born, nurtured, and raised androgynously.

But Nine isn’t like every other batcher. She harbors indecision
and worries about her upcoming Remake Day — her seventeenth birthday, the age when batchers fly to the Remake facility and have the freedom to choose who and what they’ll be.

When Nine discovers the truth about life outside of Freedom Province, including the secret plan of the Prime Maker, she is pulled between two worlds and two lives. Her decisions will test her courage, her heart, and her beliefs. Who can she trust? Who does she love? And most importantly, who will she decide to be?

**Worth noting this book looks like it was published by Shadow Mountain in 2014, though this refers to the Simon Pulse edition from this month.

Riverkeep by Martin Stewart

The Danék is a wild, treacherous river, and the Fobisher family has tended it for generations—clearing it of ice and weed, making sure boats can get through, and fishing corpses from its bleak depths. Wulliam’s father, the current Riverkeep, is proud of this work. Wull dreads it. And in one week, when he comes of age, he will have to take over.

Then the unthinkable happens. While recovering a drowned man, Wull’s father is pulled under—and when he emerges, he is no longer himself. A dark spirit possesses him, devouring him from the inside. In an instant, Wull is Riverkeep. And he must care for his father, too.

When he hears that a cure for his father lurks in the belly of a great sea-dwelling beast known as the mormorach, he embarks on an epic journey down the river that his family has so long protected—but never explored. Along the way, he faces death in any number of ways, meets people and creatures touched by magic and madness and alchemy, and finds courage he never knew he possessed.

The Season by Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer

Megan McKnight is a soccer star with Olympic dreams, but she’s not a girly girl. So when her Southern belle mother secretly enters her in the 2016 Dallas debutante season, she’s furious—and has no idea what she’s in for. When Megan’s attitude gets her on probation with the mother hen of the debs, she’s got a month to prove she can ballroom dance, display impeccable manners, and curtsey like a proper Texas lady or she’ll get the boot and disgrace her family. The perk of being a debutante, of course, is going to parties, and it’s at one of these lavish affairs where Megan gets swept off her feet by the debonair and down-to-earth Hank Waterhouse. If only she didn’t have to contend with a backstabbing blonde and her handsome but surly billionaire boyfriend, Megan thinks, being a deb might not be so bad after all. But that’s before she humiliates herself in front of a room full of ten-year-olds, becomes embroiled in a media-frenzy scandal, and gets punched in the face by another girl.

The season has officially begun…but the drama is just getting started.

Signs of You by Emily France

Since sixteen-year-old Riley Strout lost her mother two years ago, her saving grace has been her quirky little family in the grief support group she joined as a freshman. Jay, Kate, and Noah understand her pain; each lost a loved one, and they’ve stuck together in spite of their differences, united by tragedies only they understand.

When Riley thinks she spots her mother shopping in a grocery store, she fears she is suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress. Then Jay and Kate report similar experiences. Only Noah hasn’t had some kind of vision, which is perhaps why he’s become so skeptical and distant.

When Noah disappears, Riley fears she’s lost another loved one. As they frantically search for him, she, Kate, and Jay are drawn into the mystery surrounding a relic that belonged to Jay’s dead father and contains clues about the afterlife. Riley finds herself wrestling with her feelings for both Noah and Jay—which have become clear only in Noah’s absence. If Riley is to help those she loves, and herself, she must set things right with the one she’s lost.

Songs About A Girl by Chris Russell

Charlie Bloom never wanted to be ‘with the band’. She’s happiest out of the spotlight, behind her camera, unseen and unnoticed. But when she’s asked to take backstage photos for hot new boy band Fire&Lights, she can’t pass up the chance.

Catapulted into a world of paparazzi and backstage bickering, Charlie soon becomes caught between gorgeous but damaged frontman, Gabriel West, and his boy-next-door bandmate Olly Samson. Then, as the boys’ rivalry threatens to tear the band apart, Charlie stumbles upon a mind-blowing secret, hidden in the lyrics of their songs.

*This book appears to be a UK release, so it might not yet bet available in the US/Canada.

Reflections on DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS by Naomi Klein

July 27, 2016 |

“I mean, doing good is so dreary. At least doing bad is inventive.”

I hadn’t had the chance to read any of the Lizzie Skurnick reissues since she began the project a few years back. I’d purchased Domestic Arrangements last fall, though, in hopes of doing that and now, deep into a month of reading nothing but backlist, I had the chance to sink in.

And this book was a knock-out.

Norma Klein wrote fiction for young readers beginning in 1972 and she wrote through her death in 1989. Prior to reading the introduction written by Judy Blume in the Skurnick edition of the book, I didn’t realize she was a contemporary of Blume’s, nor, to be fair, did I know anything about her or her work. Klein, though, was a trailblazer in young reader fiction. She wrote about complicated families, as well as empowered and mature teenagers navigating the tricky, confusing, and difficult terrain of adolescence. Worth noting that at least in this book, those empowered and mature teenagers are privileged and white. This isn’t surprising nor problematic given the time this was published.

Domestic Arrangements, in my initial thinking, would be “like Blume” in terms of exploring a teen girl’s sexuality. In many ways, it certainly was; however, what really struck me about this particular book was how absolutely frank main character Rusty is about her interest and participation in sex.

This slice-of-life fiction follows 14-year-old Tatiana (nicknamed Rusty because of her long red hair) in the immediate after of filming her first movie. Her mother had been in the business for a long time, and it was sort of by luck and chance Rusty scored a role in a film. She wasn’t an actress nor was she particularly interested in acting. But she landed this role and played the part of a teen girl who serves as an object of lust and fascination to an older man (who, by marriage, becomes a relative). Though her upbringing in New York City and as the daughter of a well-known actress made her turn on the screen not a huge deal in her world, it was the nude scene she did in the film that garnered her so much attention — both warranted and unwarranted.

On the surface, it’s a story about Rusty navigating those seas. Does she want to pursue a future in acting? Or does she want to let it go all together?

But deeper down, this is a larger metaphor, of course, for growing up and learning how to traverse the tricky space between being a child who complies with her parents and standing up for one’s own choices and decisions in order to become an adult.

Domestic Arrangements is not in any way a shy book. The opening chapter takes us into this immediately; Rusty has gotten in trouble because her father caught her and her boyfriend Joshua having sex in the bathtub. The entire scene is wonderful in how it lays out exactly who these characters are. We know that Rusty is not ashamed of being sexually active and indeed, she’s pretty open, especially with her parents, about how she enjoys having sex with her boyfriend and doesn’t plan on stopping. There is a great deal of page time given to Rusty discussing the options of birth control, too — and with the aid of her mother, Rusty begins using a diaphragm.

While it sounds incredibly mature in terms of how Rusty handles being sexually active, Klein gives us real depth and teenage-ness to Rusty because of how she then uses this privilege in irresponsible, yet realistic, ways. When her boyfriend makes her angry, Rusty cuts up the diaphragm; this action sends guilt through her not because of what it means for her relationship, but because she knows how much that cost her mother to acquire and how she’ll need to keep this action a secret. There is a smart push-and-tug in the exploration of growing up and the ways in which being an adolescent is about making stupid, irrational decisions.

Klein’s depiction of a family is excellent, raw, and really boundary pushing for 1982. Though it’s not clear early on, Rusty’s family situation isn’t a smooth, happy one. Her mother and her father aren’t in love the way they once were, and that manifests in not only cheating (her mother and her father both take on new partners in the story), but also in how they choose to parent both Rusty and her sister Cordelia (Deel — yes, both girls are named after Shakespeare characters). The way Rusty and Deel talk about their parents and think about the implications of their extramarital relationships is real and somewhat painful. But perhaps what’s most interesting and authentic about it is that, while both girls hate seeing their parents hurt each other, both also understand that their parents’ relationship is imperfect and might not last. I only wish that we’d gotten a richer exploration of the relationship between Rusty and Deel; at times, it felt like a great relationships and at other times, it felt like Rusty was a downright witch toward her sister. The book description notes that Deel is envious of her sister and her new-found fame, but I never quite got that feeling. I could have gone for even more of that, especially knowing this book is meant to be from Rusty’s point of view.

What really made this book a fun read for me was that it’s the sort of idealistic, dreamy fantasy realistic world that teens, especially younger teens like Rusty, believe of being a teenager. There’s the fame, the starring role in a mature film for adults, and the hot boyfriend who is always available for sex. As readers — and perhaps this is a product of how much YA has exploded in the last decade or so — it’s obvious that this isn’t 100% realistic but instead, more like a Hollywood depiction of adolescence. Teenagers believe in possibility and dream all of the big, heavy dreams; this allows readers to be part of those dreams and see how, despite the gloss, those dreams aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. Beneath the surface of Rusty’s perfect life are cracks, are truths, and are the harsh realities of being caught between being a kid and being an adult.

The longer I’ve been away from Klein’s book, the more I’ve thought about how boundary pushing it was for 1982. But more, it’s boundary pushing by today’s YA standards. The language, the topics, and the unabashed discussion of sex and sexuality — both on the teen level and on the adults-having-affairs level — is so respectful toward readers. Klein doesn’t hold back, and she respects her readers enough to know that they’re thinking about and seeing and living through these realities. Putting them on paper shouldn’t shy away from the truths, even if they’re hard or ugly or even really damn great. Rusty talks about having great sex and it’s really outstanding to see a girl say such a thing, especially when so much of what we do have in YA about sexuality rarely allows female autonomy, let alone female pleasure and interest.

It’s obvious how much influence Klein and Blume had on one another, and it’s really damn unfortunate that Klein died at such a young age. I can only image the sort of powerful pieces we’d see from both of them, together and apart, about the changing landscape of YA fiction and more, the sort of love and reverence both have for and toward teenagers (especially teenage girls!). Domestic Arrangements is certainly dated in places, but the story itself has resonance and would absolutely be a book teenagers today would find interesting, challenging, and compelling. I’d especially pass this along to fans of Judy Blume, particularly those taken with Forever . . . which might be many, many, many teens, and especially teen girls on the younger end of teenhood.

Without doubt, this book would Cause A Stir on today’s shelves. And that is one reason why it’s so good.

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Since I wanted to do this post as sort of a reflection, as well as a review, I thought it would be fun to round up some of the book’s covers through the years. It came out in 1982, so it got the nice 80s touch to it.

Let’s start with today’s reissue edition from Lizzie Skurnick:

This cover is so moody and captures the essence of Rusty perfectly. There’s the long red hair, as well as a real movie star-esque vibe to the whole thing. This teenage girl looks like an any girl, but with something a little bit more dreamy about her.

This cover, for one of the original editions, features Rusty in a still from the film that made her famous. It’s interesting to me how her hair in this one is curly and big, which is opposite of the cover girl’s red hair in the Skurnick reissue. Clearly a reflection of the style and trends. I really love the two hands on this one, with no clear indication of who they belong to. They could as easily be Rusty and Joshua’s hands as they could be Rusty’s parents. It is an interesting message, though, that it would be Rusty’s role in the film tearing apart either — or both! — of those relationships.

“She learned about sex too soon — Now she has to learn about love.” What a tag line. I’m not sure she learns about sex too soon, but the fact she has to figure out what love is IS a central thread through Rusty’s story. But this cover! Talk about taking the cover to a level that makes it clear this book tackles sex.

However…

Where is Rusty’s red hair? The girl in the cover, from what it looks like, has curly brown hair. Rusty got her nickname, after all, from her trademark hair. It seems like the girl here misses that mark. But man, the 80s fashion here is pretty outstanding.

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Have you read Domestic Arrangements? What did you think? More, if I were to read another Norma Klein book, what should it be? I’m eager to look at what else she’s written because this book was a real surprise for me.