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Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

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This summer, Kiri’s parents are on an extended vacation, leaving her to her own devices at home. She’s poised to spend it hanging out with best friend/bandmate/crush Lukas making music and competing in battle of the bands. She’s also made plans to practice piano because she’s quiet accomplished and only wants to get better and better. Really, not that awful a summer.

But it’s a phone call from a stranger who changes everything. He says he has some of her dead sister’s things. 

The sister who died years ago. From an accident. But it wasn’t an accident like Kiri was told it was. Sukey died under more mysterious circumstances.

When Kiri goes out of her way to pick up those things, she learns it’s not about the things her sister left behind. It’s about the people who she runs into on the trip to pick up those things and the people who help her work through the grief she thought she’d packed away so many years ago. 

Wild Awake, Smith’s debut novel is fresh, alive, and has a helluva voice. Though at heart this is an exploration of grief, it never once falls into feeling like a “grief novel” (arguably nothing does, but I use this phrase to suggest this isn’t a sad story). Kiri is a little bit off kilter, driven not only by wild hormones, but she’s driven by freedom. Together, she tries things and acts in odd, erratic, but completely believable ways. She’s consistently inconsistent, as anyone grieving would be. She dabbles with drugs and alcohol, which helps her remove herself from her time and place as it is. When she’s had the rug pulled out from under her, it’s the way she can best cope. All the years of thinking she’s processed her sister’s death are now up for questioning. Was she lied to? Was her sister hiding something deeper? Why did her parents shield the truth? 

Moreover, Kiri suffers from mania — it’s impossible to diagnose her mental illness because she doesn’t diagnose it herself, but she goes through periods of intense highs with intermittent lows, though they’re not low lows. The drugs aid in leveling her in many ways, too. 

Even though she believes it to be the case at the beginning of summer, it’s not Lukas who ends up capturing Kiri’s heart. It’s Skunk, the guy who fixed Kiri’s bike on that first trip downtown to collect Sukey’s things. When she thinks nothing of him then, it’s through getting to know him better she discovers he has depths to him that speak to her deeply. He’s passionate, he’s into music, and he’s mentally unstable. The love and acceptance Kiri has for someone like him, who could break at any moment, speaks volumes not only about Kiri and Skunk, but also about the importance of relationships and the things that keep them growing and thriving. Even though the two of them don’t bond over their mental states, there is a connection between them relating to this anyway. And maybe that connection is less than the two of them each suffers, but instead, that everyone in the world suffers from something — for Kiri, it’s both grief and it’s her mania. Skunk suffers through his illness, in addition to other things. 

In other words, this book is about how there’s no singular element that can define and thereby reduce a person into a thing.

Of course, this relates right back to Sukey and what happened to her, as well as what happened to the things that made her who she was when she was alive. 

There is a real beat and infusion of sound to this novel. It’s pulsing and bright and alive. This isn’t a mystery and it’s not a story with great Depth and Seriousness. But because it’s none of those things, it speaks volumes about the human experience, about living and loving, and about being present in the moment. In many ways, Kiri reminded me of Felton Reinstein of Stupid Fast — they’ve both been thrown for a big loop, they’re both navigating change without ever being a Lesson in the values of Change, and they’re both alive and active by bike, at night, and through their respective talents. And at the end of the day, both are also about the importance of relationships, whatever way they come. 

I usually don’t share quotes from books, but this one had me marking a number of them because they were so good, and they speak to the story: 

“Every disaster, every whim, every seemingly random decision came together to make this night happen. There are no mistakes — just detours whose significance only become clear when you see the whole picture at once.”

“It’s amazing how well you can get to know a person if you actually pay attention. People are like cities: we all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.”

“The universe, I realize, is full of little torches. Sometimes, for some reason, it’s your turn to carry one out of the fire — because the world needed it, or your family needed it, or you needed it to keep your soul from twisting into a shape that’s entirely wrong.”

Wild Awake tackles so much and does so while maintaining a real voice and perspective that feels new and exciting. When I finished the book, I felt refreshed and happy. Sure, there’s heavy stuff here, but Kiri’s likable, even if it’s imperfect. In fact, I’d argue her imperfections and her willingness to work with those imperfections are what make her so likable. The romance here is sweet and doesn’t feel shoehorned in. While there are elements of the story that require suspension of disbelief — like Kiri’s family leaving her alone for the summer when they know she’s not entirely stable — it’s okay. There is far more to enjoy here than to nit pick, and Smith’s writing stands on its own. 

In terms of voice and style, Kiri reminded me a lot of Juno from the movie Juno, and I think readers will see many similarities with Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere as the stories pertain to grief — though Smith’s novel is a bit lighter in tone. Wild Awake is contemporary, but it contains elements of mystery, with a strong elements about music, about sibling relationships, mental illness, and what can happen over the course of a single summer in a teen’s life. 

Review copy received from the publisher, via the editor. Wild Awake is available today.

Mini-trend: Amnesia in YA

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Current YA seems to be full of girls who can’t remember who they are. Or perhaps if they can remember who they are, they don’t remember the past five years, or five weeks, or five hours. Usually, someone is trying to kill them, and the clue to who and why lies in the lost memories.

After reading The Testing and The Program in quick succession, I realized that amnesia is a pretty huge topic right now in YA fiction. I can see the appeal – it adds automatic suspense and a sense of the mysterious. At the same time, it can be a bit of a cheat (memories come rushing back and all problems are solved!), and it often leads to a disappointing reveal.

Below are just a smattering of titles published within the last twelve months, plus a few upcoming ones we’ll get later in 2013. I think it’s pretty remarkable there are so many in just a little over a calendar year. If I extended the date range to two or three years, there’d be even more (such as Cat Patrick’s Forgotten or Elizabeth Scott’s As I Wake). So many! Descriptions come from Worldcat.

Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon (August 2012)
After waking up on an operating table with no memory of how she got
there, Noa must team up with computer hacker Peter to stop a corrupt
corporation with a deadly secret. Kimberly’s review

All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen (December 2012)
Following a car accident, Liv comes out of a coma with no memory of her
past and two distinct, warring voices inside her head. As she stumbles
through her junior year, the voices get louder until Liv meets Spencer,
whose own mysterious past also has him on the fringe.

Hysteria by Megan Miranda (February 2013)
After stabbing and killing her boyfriend, sixteen-year-old Mallory, who
has no memory of the event, is sent away to a boarding school to escape
the gossip and threats, but someone or something is following her.

Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley (March 2013)
Sixteen-year-old Angie finds herself in her neighborhood with no
recollection of her abduction or the three years that have passed since,
until alternate personalities start telling her their stories through
letters and recordings. Kelly’s review

Unremembered by Jessica Brody (March 2013)
A girl, estimated to be sixteen, awakens with amnesia in the wreckage of
a plane crash she should not have survived and taken into foster care,
and the only clue to her identity is a mysterious boy who claims she was
part of a top-secret science experiment. Kimberly’s review

The Program by Suzanne Young (April 2013)
When suicide becomes a worldwide epidemic, the only known cure is The
Program, a treatment in which painful memories are erased, a fate worse
than death to seventeen-year-old Sloane who knows that The Program will
steal memories of her dead brother and boyfriend.

Arclight by Josin L. McQuein (April 2013)

The first person to cross the barrier that protects Arclight from the
Fade, teenaged Marina has no memory when she is rescued but when one of
the Fade infiltrates Arclight, she recognizes it and begins to unlock
secrets she never knew she had.
 
Nothing But Blue by Lisa Jahn-Clough (May 2013)
Aided by a mysterious, possibly magical dog named Shadow and by various
strangers, a seventeen-year-old with acute memory loss who calls herself
Blue makes a 500-mile trek to her childhood home, unaware of what she
has left behind.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau (June 2013)
Sixteen-year-old Malencia (Cia) Vale is chosen to participate in The
Testing to attend the University; however, Cia is fearful when she
figures out her friends who do not pass The Testing are disappearing. Kimberly’s review

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry (June 2013)
She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All
she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two
men arguing over whether or not to kill her. And that she must run.
Follow Cady and Ty (her accidental savior turned companion), as they
race against the clock to stay alive.

Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn (June 2013)
A year after vanishing from a party, screaming and drenched in blood,
seventeen-year-old Annaliese Rose Gordon appears hundreds of miles from
home with no memory, but a haunting certainty that she is actually
another girl trapped in Annaliese’s body.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

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Cia lives in Five Lakes colony, the region of the country that used to be the Great Lakes, but is now a blighted region thanks to the Seven Stages War, a terrible conflict that killed millions and left most of the world environmentally destroyed. The United Commonwealth is now focused on revitalizing the country, clearing out the deadly toxins from the water and forcing the Earth to grow food again. 
To do this, the country needs leaders. When they graduate from school at 16, all children become eligible for the Testing, a series of rigorous tests that determine entry into the the country’s (apparently only) college. Cia is one of the select few chosen to compete. She has no choice in the matter, but she’s happy to go; she knows it’s the only way to get into college and she’s eager to help lead the healing of the Earth.
But the Testing is not what it seems. Before she leaves, Cia’s father – who participated in the Testing – tells her that though all participants’ minds are wiped of memories of the Testing to ensure no inside information can be given to others, he’s been plagued by disturbing half-memories. He remembers violence, death, terrible things children did to each other. He warns Cia not to trust anyone. He tells her that most people who go to the Testing – the ones who don’t pass – aren’t ever seen again.
So, does this synopsis sound familiar to you? It should – it’s basically the Hunger Games. And I don’t mean that in the way Divergent or Legend are like the Hunger Games. Those two books certainly have strong similarities, but The Testing takes it to a whole new level. The bulk of the book involves, unsurprisingly, an arena-like test where the teens must make it from one part of the blighted country (human-made obstacles included) to another, and only a certain number who make it will be admitted. They quickly learn that it’s to their advantage to thin the herd. There’s also another boy from her colony who Cia may or may not have a crush on, but can she trust him? Is his affection just a clever ruse?
I think it’s interesting that Kirkus (usually the more unforgiving of review journals) claims that Charbonneau “successfully makes her story her own.” I don’t agree with that statement completely. It’s not a carbon copy, but the aspects that are similar are eerily similar, in a way that seems to verge worryingly close to theft. I realize this is a pretty strong statement, and I thought a long time about how I’d remark on it. I felt it was important to share, though, so there you have it.
Despite all of that, though, this is a fantastic book. I know. If the Hunger Games didn’t exist and I’d never read it, I’d be shouting this book’s praises all over the place. But the Hunger Games does exist, I have read it, and The Testing owes so much to it (including its very existence, most likely). We don’t read in a vacuum, and I can’t and shouldn’t pretend that we do. But I also feel it’s important to judge a book on its own merits without necessarily comparing it to something else, and on its own, this book is fantastic.
Actually, I liked it more than the Hunger Games, which I enjoyed but didn’t love immediately. I found the premise of the Hunger Games a little harder to believe and its depiction of the terrible things adults force upon the children in their care a bit heavy-handed. The Testing couches its violence in something that I think is more immediately relatable to teens – the competition for admittance to college – and shows the consequences of what we do to our children (intentionally or not) in a slightly more nuanced way.
Enough with the Hunger Games comparisons, though. The Testing affected me in a visceral way, and I can honestly say that no other book in recent memory has gotten my heart rate going quite like this one has. I resented having to go to work in the morning because all I wanted to do was read this book. Charbonneau is a master of suspense, of creating tension so taut that it hurts to keep reading but hurts just as much to stop. I wanted to turn the pages faster, faster, but at the same time I had to force myself to slow down because I didn’t want to miss a single word. This is the kind of book that makes readers bite their fingernails until their fingers bleed, tug bits of hair out, shout at their significant others to leave them alone because goddammit they are reading, can’t you see?
Beyond that aspect, there are some truly creative things going on here. I found the tests prior to the main survival round hugely interesting and quite unique in their own right, particularly the third round one involving teamwork. It’s a great example of some creative plotting as well as character-building, and is the first real opportunity we get to see how ruthless children can be. The way Charbonneau gradually moves the tests from completely innocuous to more and more sinister is masterfully done.
The Testing does have its weaknesses. Cia isn’t a hugely memorable character (though neither is she flat). There’s not much background about the Seven Stages War, which is something that frustrates me in any dystopia I read. Some elements of the plot are easy to see coming – betrayals, alliances, deaths. Still, Charbonneau throws in enough twists to keep readers thoroughly engrossed, and like I mentioned before, it’s nearly impossible to stop reading it once you start.
So, obviously, this is a perfect book for your fans of the Hunger Games and other action-packed dystopias. I’d love to discuss it with other readers and get their views on its similarities. This is one I see people having very strong reactions to one way or the other. For myself, I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
Review copy received from the publisher. The Testing will be published June 4.

Secret Historical Societies of Teenage Girls: A Brief List

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I don’t know if I can fairly call this a mini-trend, since it seems like something that’s been ongoing since I was a teen, but it’s one I love: historical girls who join all-female secret groups or societies to carry out dangerous but important activities. Usually the secret group has an innocent, innocuous, and thoroughly gender-appropriate cover – it’s a finishing school or a nunnery; the girls learn to be lady’s maids or governesses. In reality, though, the girls learn how to spy, how to kill, how to be physically and intellectually powerful in a world where otherwise they would have had almost no agency of their own.

Women and girls in the time periods highlighted in these books generally would have had very little power in any of the traditional roles, and I think this is a fun way to subvert that. Y. S. Lee, who writes the excellent Agency series, states as much in her author’s note, which I return to again and again:

Women’s
choices were grim in those days, even for the clever. If a top secret
women’s detective agency existed in Victorian England, it left no
evidence – just as well, since that would cast serious doubt on its
competence. The Agency is a totally unrealistic, completely fictitious
antidote to the fate that would otherwise swallow a girl like Mary
Quinn.

The title of her series is a nod to this as well, I think.

Complicating these stories is the fact that in many of them, the girls are forced against their will into these secret societies. What does that say about the power they have – or don’t have – within the group compared to the world at large?

I have always been drawn to these sorts of stories. As a girl, it was a
way for me to have my cake and eat it too: I could escape to another
time while also not encounter all the strictures of that historical
period most girls would have endured. A lot of what I read as a teenager
was a way for me to read about girls with power (magical and
otherwise), since I felt I had so very little of it myself. I think this
is a major reason these stories continue to be popular today.

I’ve collected just a smattering of recent titles that explore this concept below. Each book is the start of a series, and all descriptions come from Worldcat. I’ve linked each title to either Goodreads or my review.

Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan

In 1559 England, Meg, an orphaned thief, is pressed into service and
trained as a member of the Maids of Honor, Queen Elizabeth I’s secret
all-female guard, but her loyalty is tested when she falls in love with a
Spanish courtier who may be a threat.

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old
Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the
sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god
of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts–and a violent destiny.

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
Sophronia, a fourteen-year-old tomboy, has been enrolled in a finishing
school to improve her manners. But the school is not quite what her
mother was expecting — here young girls learn to finish…everything.
As well as the finer arts of dress, dance and etiquette, they also learn
how to deal out death, diversion and espionage.

The Agency by Y. S. Lee
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary
Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls where she
is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The
Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant’s home in
hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.

Have I missed any biggies published for teens within the past few years? I’m looking specifically for historical titles, so stories about girls training at a secret school to be spies in modern times aren’t the target (though I do love those sorts of books, they are not quite the same). Do you read and love these books as much as I do?

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks

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I have two descriptions that sum up what Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks’s graphic novel Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is about: robots and high school politics.

Charlie is captain of the basketball team and the boyfriend of superhot popular cheerleader Holly. Nate is Charlie’s unlikely best friend, president of the robotics team. The story begins when Charlie’s been dumped by his girlfriend and Nate drops the news that the student activities funding, which will decide whether to spend their money on a national robotics event for the robotics team or on new uniforms for the cheerleaders, is being left to the student council. 

Nate decides he’s running for student council president so he can delegate the money to the cause he thinks deserves it more: his own.

The hitch in the plan is that Holly now wants to use Charlie to further her own cause for the cheerleaders. Yeah, they’re broken up now, but Holly could bring Charlie’s popularity down faster than anything if he doesn’t listen to her. And her plan is simple, too: Charlie’s going to run against Nate for student council president.

Enter a funny political battle. Except as funny as it is, it’s also painful for Charlie and Nate, as their long-standing friendship is tested. 

But when the principal gets wind of the backstabbing and the shenanigans going on in the election (because of course there is plenty of that — we’re talking social politics here of geeks vs. cool kids, of cheerleaders vs. robotics team members), he decides that the funding won’t be left to the student council. Now both Charlie and Nate scramble to figure out what to do next.

That’s where this story turns to robots! When there’s a robotics competition with a grand prize of $10,000 — enough money to cover both the new cheerleading outfits and the robotics event — the two sides pitch in to build the strongest, baddest robot in order to win. But do they even have a chance on such a national level?

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong was a fast-paced, fun story and both Nate and Charlie are well-developed. Charlie has a nice backstory going on with his family that didn’t feel tacked on. Even though he’s posited as the “popular” boy, there’s a lot more to him than that; his parents aren’t talking, and they haven’t in a long time. His mom hasn’t been in his life in a long time, and now she’s sprung a new marriage on him. He’s struggling with that and being the “nice guy” who has been strung along with Holly’s plans and quest for popularity and superiority on the cheerleading squad. Nate, who on the surface looks like a quintessential geek, is more than that, too. It makes sense why these two are friends, and there are little moments in the illustrations that highlight it so well — like when both boys are under Charlie’s bed during a party-gone-wild at Charlie’s parentless home. Even though this could tread the easy territory of also being a story about how cheerleaders are bad, Shen and Hicks avoid that stereotype, too, as is seen when they join in for the robotics competition and maybe even enjoy themselves while they’re at it. 

Shen’s story is relatable for teen readers, and it’s fun. The robot competition is a blast to watch unfold, and I love the subtle gender threads sprinkled through the story — girls can kick ass in the science and robotics world, even if it’s stereotypically boy-land. Hick’s illustrations are appealing and enhance the story, rather than detract from it. The balance of story and paneling is done well: there’s enough to pick up in both when they stand alone or when they’re paired. The attention to details such as offering a diverse cast of characters was great, too. It’s clear that Shen and Hicks worked well together.

Readers who enjoyed Raina Telgemeier’s books and who are ready to read something at a little bit of a higher level will love this. It’s a contemporary story with male friendship at the core. Also, did I mention there are robots? Because there are robots. 

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is available now.

Review copy received from the publisher. Stop back tomorrow for a guest post about the collaborative process from Shen and Hicks themselves.