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Display This: Sibling Stories

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Over the last year or so, there have been an exceptional number of YA stories about siblings published (or ones that will be published soon). Besides just stories of brother-sister, brother-brother, and sister-sister relationships, there have also been a number of stories about twins published/to be pubbed soon. What makes these stories engaging is that, despite tackling sometimes similar subject matter, they still show the differing dynamics that occur within these family bonds. These sorts of stories fascinate me to no end because I didn’t grow up with my siblings so these are stories about experiences I’ve never had nor never will have.

The bulk of these stories explore somewhat standard sibling relationships, so I would love any suggestions you might have of stories about siblings which aren’t as common. I’d love stories about step/half siblings, about sibling bonds that don’t necessarily form naturally or smoothly. Some of these books tackle the sibling relationship as the plot while others make use of that relationship as a major subplot — it’s more than just a relationship that exists but one that advances both the character and the story in some way. All descriptions are from WorldCat and all of these are titles published/publishing in 2011 and 2011 (I snuck in a couple late 2010 titles, too). These are YA titles only, as I think the sibling relationship trend is much less prominent in YA than it is in middle grade or younger titles. I know I’m missing a bunch, so as always, feel free to add any others you can think of in the comments.

For extra fun, I’ve starred titles that feature twins.

Irises by Francisco X Stork: Kate, eighteen, and Mary, sixteen, must make some adult decisions about the course their lives should take when their loving but old-fashioned father dies suddenly, leaving them with their mother, who has been in a persistant vegetative state since an accident four years earlier.

Sisters of Glass by Stephanie Hemphill: When a new glassblower arrives to help in the family business, the attraction Maria feels for him causes a web of conflicting emotions to grow even more tangled.

Split by Swati Avasthi: A teenaged boy thrown out of his house by his abusive father goes to live with his older brother, who ran away from home years ago to escape the abuse.

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma: Two years after sixteen-year-old Chloe discovered classmate London’s dead body floating in a Hudson Valley reservoir, she returns home to be with her devoted older sister Ruby, a town favorite, and finds that London is alive and well, and that Ruby may somehow have brought her back to life and persuaded everyone that nothing is amiss. (Review)

The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt: Although they have never gotten along well, seventeen-year-old Levi follows his older brother Boaz, an ex-Marine, on a walking trip from Boston to Washington, D.C. in hopes of learning why Boaz is completely withdrawn. (Review)

Never Enough by Denise Jaden (July 2012): Sixteen-year-old Loann admires and envies her older sister Claire’s strength, popularity, and beauty, but as Loann begins to open up to new possibilities in herself, she discovers that Claire’s all-consuming quest for perfection comes at a dangerous price.

*All These Lives by Sarah Wylie (June 2012): Convinced that she has nine lives after cheating death twice as a child, sixteen-year-old Dani tries to forfeit her remaining lives in hopes of saving her twin sister, Jena, whose leukemia is consuming their family.

Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown (July 2012): Seventeen-year-old Kendra, living in the shadow of her brother’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, takes a life-changing road trip with him.

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John: Sixteen-year-old Luke Dorsey is sent on a cross-country tour to promote his bestselling spiritual self-help guide accompanied by his agnostic older brother and former girlfriend Fran, from whom he learns some things about salvation. (Review)

* Happy Families by Tanita S. Davis (May 2012): In alternating chapters, sixteen-year-old twins Ysabel and Justin share their conflicted feelings as they struggle to come to terms with their father’s decision to dress as a woman.

* Bumped by Megan McCafferty: In 2036 New Jersey, when teens are expected to become fanatically religious wives and mothers or high-priced Surrogettes for couples made infertile by a widespread virus, sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony find in one another the courage to believe they have choices. See also Thumped. (Review)

Brother/Sister by Sean Olin: Told in alternating perspectives, Will and Asheley relate the events of the summer and explain how their lives became violently out of control.

Rock On by Denise Vega: High school sophomore Ori Taylor, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter in a nameless rock band, has always been known as the easily-overlooked younger brother of Del, a high school sports star, but when Del suddenly returns home from college just as Ori is starting to gain some confidence in himself, Del expects everything to return to the way it used to be.

Stick by Andrew Smith: Thirteen-year-old Stark “Stick” McClellan’s brother has always defended him against those who tease him for his thinness and facial deformity, so when Bosten, having admitted he is gay, must leave home and their abusive parents, Stick sets out to find him.

Without Tess by Marcella Pixley: Fifteen-year-old Lizzie Cohen recalls what it was like growing up with her imaginative but disturbed older sister Tess, and how she is striving to reclaim her own life since Tess died. (Review)

Zen and Xander Undone by Amy Kathleen Ryan: Two teenaged sisters try to come to terms with the death of their mother in very different ways.

* Pretty Bad Things by CJ Skuse: When they were six years old, twins Beau and Paisley were famous for surviving on their own after their mother died of a drug overdose, and now, at sixteen, they escape from their abusive grandmother to look for their father, who is out of prison and, unbeknownst to them, has been writing them letters since he was put away.

Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser: Four teenagers from two families–sisters Katie and Julie and brothers Alex and Kyle–meet every summer at a lakeside community in upstate New York, where they escape their everyday lives and hide disturbing secrets. (Review)

Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott: When her older, “perfect” sister Tess has a car accident that puts her in a coma, seventeen-year-old Abby, who has always felt unseen in Tess’s shadow, plans to bring her back with the help of Eli, a gorgeous boy she has met at the hospital, but her plans go awry when she learns some secrets about both Tess and Eli, enabling her to make some decisions about her own life.

The Space Between Us by Jessica Martinez (October 2012): Seventeen-year-old Amelia feels like her life might be getting back on track after a bad break-up when her younger sister’s pregnancy gets them both banished to Canada, where new relationships are forged, giving Amelia a new perspective.

Personal Effects by EM Kokie (September 2012): Ever since his brother, T.J., was killed in Iraq, seventeen-year-old Matt Foster feels like he’s been sleepwalking through life — failing classes, getting into fights, and avoiding his dad’s lectures about following in his brother’s footsteps. T.J.’s gone, and the worst part is, there’s nothing left of him to hold on to. Matt can’t shake the feeling that if only he could get his hands on T.J.’s stuff from Iraq, he’d be able to make sense of his death.

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma: Sixteen-year-old Maya and seventeen-year-old Lochan tell, in their separate voices, of their confusion and longing as they fall in love with one another after years of functioning as parents to three younger siblings due to their alcoholic mother’s neglect. (Review)

I’m Not Her by Janet Gurtler: Brainy Tess Smith is the younger sibling of the beautiful, popular, volleyball-scholarship-bound Kristina. When Kristina is diagnosed with bone cancer, it drastically changes both sisters’ lives. Sometimes the things that annoy us the most about our siblings are the ones we’d miss the most if we lost them.

Then I Met My Sister by Christine Hurley Deriso: Summer Stetson has always lived in the shadow of her dead sister, knowing she can never measure up in any way, but on her seventeenth birthday her aunt gives her Shannon’s diary, which reveals painful but liberating truths about Summer’s family and herself.

Sass & Serendipity by Jennifer Ziegler: Unlike her romantic sister, Gabby is down-to-earth and does not put her trust in relationships, but when the richest boy in school befriends her, she discovers that emotional barriers might actually be getting in the way of her happiness.

Saving June by Hannah Harrington: After her sister’s suicide, Harper Scott takes off for California with her best friend Laney to scatter her sister’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean.

The Summer of Firsts and Lasts by Tera Elsa McVoy: When teenaged sisters Daisy, Violet, and Calla spend their last summer together at Camp Callanwolde, the decisions they make–both good and bad–bring challenges to their relationship as well as opportunities to demonstrate their devotion to one another.

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks: After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and three older brothers, Maggie enrolls in public high school, where interacting with her peers is complicated by the melancholy ghost that has followed her throughout her entire life.

* Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan:  When their parents announce they are taking in a fellow student for a month, 16-year-old twins Kyle and Judy sit up and take notice. Kyle has just come out of the closet to his family and fears he’ll never know what it is like to date a guy. Judy is pretending to be born-again to attract a boy who heads a Bible study group. And Garret Johnson is new in town– a mysterious loner who claims to be a vampire. Both twins are intrigued.

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood: In an alternate New England of 1900, where the Brotherhood dominates and controls society, sixteen-year-old Cate Cahill has struggled since her mother’s death to keep secret that she and her younger sisters are witches, but when a governess arrives from the Sisterhood, everything changes.

* Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman (August 2012): Eighteen-year-old identical twins Alice and Rachel have always shared a very special bond, so when one is abducted the other uses their connection to try to locate her.

Three debut reviews

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I made it a goal to read 35 debut novels this year, and as of the time I’m writing this post, I’ve already finished 23. Rather than settle on reading my favorite genre, though, I’ve been pushing myself to read outside my comfort zone with debut novels. Here are three of the recent debuts I’ve read and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about. All three of these novels also share an element of government conspiracy to them.

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock is a paranormal featuring werewolves — something way outside my usual fare. But this story is so much more than a paranormal werewolf novel; it’s a mystery full of heart, with a great main character who doesn’t fall into the trappings I find to be too-common in these sorts of stories.

Mac’s best friend Amy died, and it’s believed her death is related to the outbreak of the werewolf disease hitting the town of Hemlock. The town’s under surveillance, and even though Amy wasn’t the first to die, the circumstances relating to her death are suspicious enough that the government wants to get to the bottom of the disease. They want to protect their citizens and put an end to the fear once and for all.

Kyle and Jason are Mac’s other two friends — Kyle had always been her closest friend, the one everyone thought she should get together with romantically and Jason is the guy who had been dating Amy before she died. There is a love triangle developing, but the way Peacock handles this is fantastic. Never once is Mac the girl figuring out which guy she should be with. Instead, this is a story where the male leads are the vulnerable ones, where their feelings are the ones we have to sort out. Mac has great agency and a brain in her head; this allows her to pursue things as she wants to pursue them. All three of these characters are flawed, and when the mystery surrounding Amy’s death amps up, with Mac at the helm, these flaws become more apparent.

Maybe what I appreciated most about this, aside from the mystery woven through the werewolf lore, was that these characters have no super powers. These are your average teenagers, and because of that, they’re so limited in how they can behave and act. They aren’t going to solve the mystery easily and part of that is because the truth is there is a political conspiracy afoot.

The biggest weakness to Hemlock for me was that the secondary characters were challenging to keep apart and when one of them ended up playing a pretty significant role in the story, I kinda had forgotten who he was. Hand this one off to readers who like paranormal stories but are looking for something fresh, as well as those readers who are looking for a different kind of mystery. Obviously, this one will also go over well with your werewolf fans. I give Peacock some major props for sliding a great reference to Ginger Snaps into the book too. Hemlock is available now.

SD Crockett’s After the Snow hooked me with the dialog, which reminded me a lot of Moira Young’s Blood Red Road (which I really liked) but ultimately, this post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel left me somewhat unsatisfied.

Willo, a half-wild, nature-driven teen, comes home after a day of trapping to discover his father and his father’s wife have disappeared. They’ve resided deep in the wilderness, far away from the city where the government has strapped down control and power over the citizens. The entire world is very, very cold (figuratively and literally). Willo wants to find his family so bad, and so he takes off on a journey away from his home, in hopes of tracking them down. Along the way, he stops at another home, where he finds Mary, and together, they are going to survive and find their families.

Of course it’s not that easy, and they end up being transported right into the city where the government has taken control. They’re lucky to make it inside, since they don’t have papers to identify them. Once there, though, Willo ditches Mary in hopes of being able to seek out his father (he’s gotta look out for number one). People here are not nice, and they all want to steal the coat off his back because it’s a luxury none of them have seen in a long time. But he’s taken in by an older man and woman who put his creation skills to the test, and they’re able to sell apparel with his talent. The woman who has been buying his creations, though, knows where his father is and when she begins to tell him how he can get to safety, all hell breaks loose.

The problems with this story were two-fold: Willo as a character was very hard to follow. His dialect isn’t problematic because it gives us a great sense of his education, his class, and his wildness. He’s very much nature-driven and very much about the survivalist method employed by wild animals. Except his heart is driven in finding his father and that’s where it becomes challenging to connect with him or understand what he’s doing. We don’t get a sense of what’s going on in Willo’s mind, and when he makes choices, they aren’t logical to us as readers. This in and of itself wouldn’t be a challenge, except it is made that way because readers are not given a sense of what is at stake in the city. It’s never clear what the government is doing that’s so bad. We’re never clear why Willo or anyone should be fearful. We don’t know what it is they need to escape from. Part of this has to do with Willo’s lack of knowledge, since the story’s from his perspective, except since we don’t know much about Willo, the tactic falls flat. It leaves the reader confused and unable to emotionally connect with him.

The ending was also unsatisfying. It was too obvious from the beginning and made the journey — the long and frustration journey — even more a question of why? Why did we follow it?

That said, After the Snow has earned three starred reviews from readers who figured out the world much more than I did, but browsing non-professional journals, it appears many others had the same challenges I did. Hand this over to readers who are ready for a challenging read that’s more about style than about world-building. It’s at heart a survival story. After the Snow is available now.

Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14 is another post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel and it hooked me from the premise alone: 14 kids, ranging in age from elementary school students all the way through high school students, are on their way to school when the sky opens up and starts destroying everything. They have to take refuge in the nearest safe place, which is the Greenway store (think big box, like Walmart). The employees from the store have died because they went outside and were crushed by the massive hail. Their bus driver — arguably the most interesting character in the story — goes out and never comes back. Now they’ve got to fend for themselves in a world that is falling apart before their own eyes.

All of these kids are trapped in what is probably the best place to be stuck during a catastrophe. They’ve got everything they could possibly need all in front of them. They have things they can sleep on. They have food they can eat. They have electricity (which they have to conserve). I guess it stunk they didn’t have water, but they did have it in bottles, and they figured out how to handle the bathroom situation (in far too much detail, I think). They can’t communicate with the outside world because the Network is down.

Apparently, there is some sort of government conspiracy going on in this story, too, but it is never explained. There are snatches of it — the knowledge that something being released into the system causes people to exhibit certain physical problems, based on their blood type — but it is so minimal. The story focuses much more on the minutia of life inside this store. That’s to say there’s no apparent external threat in this story. For a moment, there’s a crazy guy outside who wants to get in, and when the kids choose to allow two men come in from the outside, there are small moments of wondering what could go wrong. But otherwise, Monument 14 suffers from being boring because there’s not really anything worth worrying about. Likewise, this is also a future world, but never once did it feel like that was the case because that plot line was never explored.

More than that, though, what Laybourne’s story doesn’t offer us is any good character development. There are 14 characters, and most of them get little to no page time. The teen characters get a little more time, as they should, but they offer us no reason to worry about them. Two of the main female characters are depicted in very problematic ways, too: one is given the reputation and storyline of being a slut (and it’s done in a very disturbing manner, in a scene that made me very, very uncomfortable to read because it objectified her terribly) and then she’s raped later on in the story but the characters don’t necessarily buy this from her because of her reputation; the other girl, who we get to meet in a very intimate moment (one where she ends up hurting a boy pretty bad) we find out is expecting a baby. There is a third girl, but she’s given so little time it’s hard not to walk away wondering what the message about females and males was in this story.

Monument 14 is the first in a series, and I am pretty certain I won’t be picking up the next title. This one didn’t offer me any reason to because it didn’t offer me compelling characters or a world worth caring about. The ending is very much first-in-a-series in terms of being a cliffhanger, but it was more disappointing than hooking. If characters in the story aren’t going at this with their whole heart, I can’t either. I left this one feeling bored, disinterested, and deeply unsatisfied as a reader. Other books have taken this concept of teens trapped together and offered up not only strong characters, but also great external threats. Monument 14 will be available June 5.

Review copies provided by the publishers.

The Princesses of Iowa by M Molly Backes

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At the end of last school year, Paige Sheridan, along with her two best friends Nicky and Lacey, were in an accident after a late night drinking party. Because Paige’s mother is obsessed with keeping her daughter’s reputation flawless, she ships Paige overseas to au pair for the summer, thinking that by the time summer’s over, the accident will be out of the minds of everyone in their small Iowa town. Paige has to maintain her image as one of the popular, pretty, perfect girls.

When she gets back from her summer away, Paige is ready to see her boyfriend Jake and she’s eager to see Nicky and Lacey. The time apart was meant to heal their wounds, except when Paige returns, things are anything but peachy. Nicky and Lacey aren’t interested in being kind to Paige and Jake, who promised to take a creative writing class with Paige, has suddenly changed his schedule to take a film class with Lacey instead. Now Paige is alone and has to figure out who she is and where she now fits in at the school where she’d once reigned supreme. Thankfully, she’s got a lot of time to do it and a lot of opportunities to figure herself out via this creative writing class she hates being in.

Princesses of Iowa has all of the elements of a book I love: complicated characters, complicated situations, and a lot of unrest and insecurity between the two. There’s also great voice in this novel.

First and foremost, we’re dropped into the story at the beginning of the new school year. We aren’t forced through the car accident that created the rift between the girls, and we’re not forced through the summer after. Instead, we’re left to figure things out right along with Paige. And she has a lot to wade through. Where we should have some sort of sympathy for her, especially because it seems everyone has turned against her, Paige is not at all easy to like nor is she all that sympathetic. She’s very much a princess, and she’s egged on by her mother to be so. Paige has made a ton of mistakes in her past, including the drunk driving accident (easily forgotten, given the story’s set up) and she doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse for how she’s behaved. Moreover, she has further made unlikable because of her affluence — it’s not just that she’s wealthy in an area where wealth isn’t all that common, but it’s that she unabashedly flaunts it. She’s really had everything handed to her in life, and she’s not afraid to talk about it. There’s a scene in the story where she runs into Ethan — a new kid in town who has been the source of some relentless teasing — and he’s working at the local coffee shop. Paige even says to him that she can’t believe he has to work while he’s in school because, well, she’s never had to. She’s above him in this moment, and this interaction is just one of the many moments when she pivots herself as better than her peers because of her privilege.

Paige doesn’t act much better at home, and in fact, it’s probably her family and home life that contribute directly to her being the less-than-pleasant girl she is. Her mother is obsessed with maintaining an image of perfection, both for herself and for Paige. Without doubt, her mother uses Paige as a way to achieve the vapid glories she, too, longs for. Then there’s Miranda — Mirror — who is the younger sister and with whom Paige hasn’t necessarily had the greatest relationship. Mirror is envious of the attention her mother gives to her sister, and I think it’s fairly telling that she prefers to be called Mirror. Then there’s the father in the story, and even though he and mom are married, dad is never around. I suspect had he been around a lot more, we’d have an entirely different mother. It’s pretty obvious from the start that mom is bored and restless with her own life and she uses Paige as her way to find excitement and meaning. She’s lonely, much like Paige is. Need I mention her sister prefers to be called Mirror?

Nicky and Lacey are characters who are hurting a lot, but they also don’t garner a whole lot of sympathy. Nicky has taken on the role of advocate for an anti-drinking and driving campaign at school, right before Homecoming and she’s recruiting others to help her push the case. Lacey is dealing with being physically injured from the car accident, and while her pains are real, she uses them as a way to get attention and sympathy. Although we’re getting that reading of her behavior from Paige, I don’t doubt it’s true. Jake, who used to be involved with Paige, has essentially dumped her in order to “help Lacey out.” As much as it sounds like it’s out of the goodness of his heart, I don’t for a second believe it. He’s in it for the attention it brings him. For the honor of being close to tragedy.

Although the heft of storytelling falls in developing characters who are really unlikable and rather terrible people — my favorite kind to read about — one of the biggest plot points is about Paige’s journey of self-discovery through creative writing. She takes the class because she thinks it will be easy and because Jake will be in it with her. But when he chooses to take a different class with Lacey instead, Paige is left on her own. And this writing class isn’t easy at all. Paige doesn’t have anything she believes to be worth writing about. More than that, though, the classroom is a battlefield of everything she’s ever fought against. She has to deal with people who are different than her and who challenge her reputation of perfection. It’s in this class she first meets Ethan (the coffee shop boy) and has to confront the notion of what she’s been led to believe about a person isn’t necessarily the truth about that person. Along the same lines, Paige has to figure out how to work with her teacher, Mr. Tremont. Rumor is he’s gay and being gay in a place like small town Iowa isn’t cool. It’s scary and makes Paige uncomfortable when she buys into the rumor. . . and maybe spreads the rumor herself.

This creative writing class not only helps Paige learn about other people and how it’s okay to be different, but it helps her discover who she is. It forces her to confront all of the ugliness she carries and use it in more meaningful ways. Although it’s effective in the story and at times it’s great to read (because when you read or when you write, you confront those very same things about yourself and getting that affirmation via reading is always neat), I felt like it sometimes bordered on didactic.

The Princesses of Iowa is a long book, and when I was reading it, I felt the length more than once. That’s not to say this isn’t well-paced or well-written because it is. There is certainly great character development and I appreciated watching these terrible characters get what they deserve, but because of the length, the power of the creative writing element made me question whether the characters were really great characters or whether they were props supporting this Great and Meaningful Message about the way writing can change your life. That’s not to say I ever believed that was the purpose of the story or the characters, but it felt like a little too much. Combined with a few plot points that felt over-the-top and slight (including a scene where the anti-gay coalition shows up at the high school to protest their hiring of a teacher who may or may not be homosexual which was over and done in just a couple of pages, despite being a huge and important thing worth digging into), the story became heavy within itself. It took on more than it could support when it had so much going for it already. A little less could have made this even stronger.

Backes’s book reads like a love letter to writing, and the real story behind it here is that of how writing can change a person. Paige definitely has an ah ha moment in the book, but I think she got off much too easily. For being as terrible a person as she was, she comes to some hard and fast realizations through making new friends and through realizing that opening her mouth when she shouldn’t isn’t always the smart thing or the right thing to do. She works through 450 pages of story and walks away way more unscathed than she should. I’m a big believer in terrible characters getting their fair share so it was a little bit of a letdown.

Princesses of Iowa will have nice appeal to teen readers who are interested in writing themselves, and I think it’ll appeal to readers who like stories with complex and downright unlikeable characters. This book is set in small town Iowa, so it’ll appeal particularly to readers who want stories in a rural setting. There were a lot of interesting cross-over themes between Backes’s story and Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast, particularly in terms of social class, small-town life, social norms, and the whole host of -isms which box and label people, and I could see those who liked Herbach’s story liking this one, too. Fans of Catherine Gilbert Murdoch’s Dairy Queen series who are looking for something a little more mature will likely appreciate this one as well.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Princesses of Iowa releases today.

Madapple by Christina Meldrum

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I’ve written about Madapple a bit before, but I actually just finished it a couple of days ago. (My commute is all of five minutes, so it can take a while to get through an audiobook.) The listening experience was a positive one, although I found myself murmuring “This is such a weird book” more and more as the story progressed.
Aslaug lives with her mother in a rural area of Maine. Her mother has told Aslaug for years that she was conceived of a virgin birth, but Aslaug isn’t quite sure she believes that. In fact, Aslaug’s whole upbringing is strange: she’s kept isolated on the land with no interaction with other people, and her mother seems obsessed with religions (all of them) while claiming to ascribe to none of them. Her mother also teaches Aslaug about the wild plants that grow around their home and how they can be used – for good or ill.
When Aslaug’s mother dies, she goes to live with her mother’s sister, Sara, and things get even stranger there. Sara is a preacher with two children – Susanne and Rune. Aslaug grows close to them both, and they examine her mother’s old papers and explore the possibility of Aslaug’s virgin birth. Things soon take a turn for the worse – the relationships grow twisted, Sara begins drinking, and Aslaug’s stay with them culminates in an act of violence – maybe.
Interspersed with Aslaug’s first-person present-tense narration are excerpts from a court transcript set a few years later. We learn quickly that Aslaug is on trial for something, and the nature of the trial is revealed as Aslaug tells her story.
This is a heavy book, despite the dreamlike quality of its writing. It’s a novel that explores, among other things, teen pregnancy, incest, child abuse, and the nature of religious belief and miracles. It’s full of very messed up people who do very messed up things. Aslaug is caught up in all of it, and Meldrum does a tremendous job of portraying these events through her eyes. Throughout the novel, Aslaug is unsure if what has happened is real or a dream, and as readers, we are unsure too. I think part of what makes the novel so strange is Aslaug’s reaction to it all: we expect her to either lash out or withdraw, and she does neither. Instead, she seeks to understand the meaning behind it.
The writing is very, very good. I don’t think many readers would dispute that. That said, Madapple is not a book with wide appeal. To enjoy it, a reader must appreciate thoughtful, dark, and somewhat twisted stories. I’m no stranger to bizarre things in my genre fiction, but this is realistic fiction, and it’s bizarre in a completely different way. I think it might appeal to fantasy readers as long as they’re aware that this is not a fantasy, since the writing lends itself to an otherworldly feeling. In fact, it’s been shelved as fantasy on Goodreads by many people, which I find pretty amusing. 
If you’re looking for something a bit different and don’t mind a leisurely-paced book with more than a shake of darkness, you might enjoy Madapple. It’s a book that makes you think the entire time you read it, and long after too. I would definitely recommend it on audio; Kirsten Potter’s narration was excellent throughout and enhanced that otherworldly feeling that was so essential to the tone of the novel.

Dual Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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*Warning: Spoilers for Divergent included*

At the end of Divergent, the faction system was in shambles. Erudite had launched an attack on Abnegation and the Dauntless had been forced into becoming unwilling accomplices via a simulation. Tris, a Divergent and therefore immune to the simulation serum, and Four barely escaped with their lives. Insurgent picks up right where Divergent left off, with Tris fighting to find a safe haven and learn more about Erudite’s plans. She, Four, and other possible allies bounce between Amity, Candor, the old Dauntless compound, and even the factionless safehouses in their quest to salvage what’s left of their society. They also search for the reason behind the Divergents’ immunity to the simulation serum and uncover a shocking truth about the nature of the faction system.

Jen:

Insurgent was, by far, my most anticipated book of 2012. I whizzed through Divergent and was amazed at the uniqueness of Roth’s world in a sea of derivative dystopias. And while Insurgent was definitely a solid, fast-paced, and compelling read, I found that it paled a bit in the shadow of its predecessor. Perhaps part of this is due to the inevitably difficult role of the middle book in a trilogy, which has to continue the narrative of the first book while bridging the gap to the conclusion–all the while not simply serving as a filler journey but actually having some meat of its own. However, beyond that, a few issues still bothered me.

Perhaps it is a result of reading so many books, but I tend to forget some details about books after I’ve finished them, especially when a year has passed since I’ve read them. As a result, I was utterly confused when I first picked up Insurgent and, apart from Tris and Four, couldn’t quite remember who a lot of the characters were. After re-reading Divergent, I was absolutely fine, but the reader should definitely be aware going in that there is no recap, and that the book basically picks off right where Divergent left off. This isn’t necessarily a downfall of the book, but it is a choice that pulled me out of the reading experience right off the bat.
However, when I did start reading, I was impressed all over again with the strength of Roth’s writing and her ability to describe the five different factions, all of which are given distinct ‘personalities’ and whose environments are vividly brought to life. The supposed peacefulness of the Amity compound, the destroyed wreckage of the Dauntless bunker, the modernity of the Erudite building–all stand solid and distinct from one another. I also loved how Roth introduced the world of the Factionless, and how its members, more numerous and significant than previously believed, are now making their way into the story.
One of the most impressive parts of Insurgent is Tris’ emotions in the wake of both her parents’ and Will’s deaths. Drowning in her feelings of loss and culpability, Tris seems to be struggling with a combination of loss, survivor’s guilt, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and Roth portrays her emotions masterfully. Tris’ emotions are not wrapped up in a set period of time, but keep recurring over and over. Her guilt, especially over Will’s death, also interferes with her relationships with Christina and Four, and I was quite impressed by the ensuing complexity of these relationships and the characters’ interactions with each other, especially as Christina deals with the horror of having become a Dauntless ‘soldier’ and Four deals with the presence of his father.

Perhaps it is because of the emotional conflicts that clouded Tris and Four’s relationship in this book, but I didn’t feel a lot of chemistry or connection between the two, and it even seemed like theirs was a relationship that wouldn’t last through the trilogy’s conclusion. After building up Tris and Four’s connection so much in Divergent, the lack of sparks was a bit of a let-down. I could be proven wrong, however, and this is by no means a criticism of this choice–after all, in a war zone, with lives on the line, there is not much opportunity for wooing with candlelight and roses.

However, despite these qualms, Insurgent is ultimately a great read because of the characters and the plot. The book has characters with realistic emotions and a plot filled with twists and turns. It has characters who do not turn out who we thought they were and an ending that completely reverses the tone and direction of the trilogy. While I’m still a bit doubtful about the ending–though intriguing, it seems to come out of nowhere and similar events have been seen before in other books–I am eager to see more from Veronica Roth.

Kimberly:

Like Jen, I felt that Insurgent suffered from middle volume-itis. There’s a lot of action, but it all seems to be just a very, very long lead-up to an ending that didn’t particularly satisfy me or (I think) make total sense. I’ll be interested to see how Roth builds upon and explains the twist at the end. As it stands at the end of the book, it’s a bit muddled. Perhaps that’s intentional – Tris and her companions must certainly be feeling confused as well.

I’ll touch on a few things I really enjoyed about Insurgent (and there are certainly a few!). Firstly, I enjoyed seeing the factionless as the large group that I knew they must be. I liked seeing a few familiar faces among the factionless and realizing they could be a serious power in the story. I loved getting to know the other factions as well – their strengths and their foibles. I also appreciated that Roth hasn’t lost her ruthless touch. Terrible things happen to people we care about, and those same people often have to make terrible choices. I think the choices that Tris made – while perhaps not the wisest – were believable for her character. Too often, choices will be made for the convenience of the plot, but I didn’t see that happen here.

Like Jen mentioned, the first parts of the book can be confusing if you haven’t read Divergent recently (which I hadn’t). I welcomed a brief bit after the first few chapters when Tris and Tobias go under truth serum and are forced to recount what happened at the end of Divergent to a crowd of Candor. It was interesting character development and it helped remind me of those events. Still, I’d recommend re-reading or at least refreshing your knowledge of Divergent before you dive in to the sequel.

When I read Divergent, I was so engaged the entire time. When I set it down, I wanted to pick it up again immediately. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that same feeling while reading Insurgent, despite its quick pace and action-packed pages. I think that’s pretty telling. Of course, I’m not trying to indicate that it wasn’t a good book, but it didn’t hook me like I wanted it to. It was a bit more uneven: some parts were thoroughly engrossing and others not so much. It’s not that these sections were slow, precisely – it was more that I didn’t see what purpose they served. I think some parts just needed to be tightened up a bit. Still, for fans of the first novel, this is a must-read, and I’m sure its concluding volume will be too.