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Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John

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Imagine being 16 and writing a best-selling novel and having your publishing house send you on a cross-country tour to promote the book. Sounds a little bit like a dream, but that’s what happens to Luke in Antony John’s Thou Shalt Not Road Trip.

Luke’s penned an inspirational novel about faith titled Hallelujah, and his tour kicks off in California, half a country away from his home town of St Louis, Missouri. Fortunately, he’s not going on tour alone — his older brother Matt is acting as his chauffeur. At his first tour stop, Luke is overwhelmed by the reception he and his book have received from so many people — what he thought of as simply a book about his journey toward understanding faith and coming to terms with his spirituality as a 16-year-old has touched the lives of many people, and they want him to know.

Oh, and then there’s Fran. Fran is Luke’s former best friend/crush/maybe former girlfriend. They haven’t talked in a long time. Things between them haven’t been peachy for a while. But surprise — she shows up to see him on tour and he finds out that she’ll be joining them on the tour, what looked like a fun experience has turned into a bit of a nightmare for Luke.

Maybe it’s unfair of me, but I was worried about reading this book. It tackles a topic I don’t care to read a whole lot about, which is spirituality and belief. That’s not to say it’s not an important topic, but it’s one I prefer not to spend a lot of time with. However, I was so wrong. What John did in this novel is far better than offer up a story about an enlightened teenager spreading his word about belief and faith. He’s written a novel about a teen boy who thinks he knows the meaning of faith and conviction, when in fact, he hasn’t the slightest clue. Not only that, but this book does a great job of balancing the serious issues with a lot of humor.

Luke’s a believable 16-year-old boy, aside from the mega book deal — but that’s where the humor is. The situation is outlandishly funny, as Luke’s sent on this publicity tour without as much as a publicist or a parent; instead, his college-age brother will be helping him along the way. Sure he can call his publicist, but he nor the publicist seem particularly interested in keeping in contact through a lot of the story. His spiritual memoir’s in its 5th printing, and he’s getting prominent display space in New York City book stores as further promotion. Although we know what his book is about, as readers, we’re on the outside of understanding who Luke is and where his beliefs really lie. That is, we know a lot about what makes him well-liked and respected, but we don’t get to experience it first-hand. This technique works quite well initially, as it allows us to discover that Luke’s not as put together as he seems. He’s imperfect.

When Fran enters the story, we learn from Luke that she’s a different person than she was the year before. Back then, she was on the straight and narrow, and she was the kind of girl who blended in at school. That’s what made Luke like her so much — she didn’t try to stand out or try to be anyone she wasn’t. But this last year, she’s dyed her hair a funky color and she’s become much different than she was before. It makes him uncomfortable, and his prejudice against her appearance causes him to drop Fran as a friend, leaving her without the sort of support system she needed. The sort of support that would have helped her feel good about herself when she needed it. And it’s in this break time that Luke pens his book and earns his acclaim.

Except Fran knows he’s a phony.

That’s the precise reason she’s decided to seek him out on his tour. Fran wants to confront him about what he did to her, how he abandoned her, and how it makes her feel. As much as this is a story about Fran seeking solace in what happened to them, it’s also a story about Luke’s continued feelings for her. As much as he dropped her, part of the reason he did it was because he was afraid to like someone so different from himself. Someone who wasn’t as spiritually enlightened as he believed himself to be. During the course of their cross-country trip, Luke learns there’s something much darker about Fran, too: she’s got a drinking problem. At this point, it’s clear how different their paths are and how far apart they’ve grown. But this trip? It’s much more than Luke’s publicity tour. It’s a chance for them to patch things up.

Dialog rings true to character and age in the book, though I had a bit of a hangup with back story. While we get the opportunity to know Luke and Fran in the current day, I didn’t feel like I got a good grasp on what caused the rift in their relationship earlier. There is a lot of unpacking baggage and coming to terms with the notions of faith and conviction, but because it’s set against what their relationship once was, I hoped to get a stronger sense of how the relationship once was. It’s there, but had it been sussed out a bit more, the payoff at the end of the story (as well as the moments of watching Fran break down) would have been more powerful.

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip will appeal to a lot of readers — the road trip aspect will work for readers who love those stories, but readers who like a good male lead character will find Luke authentic and easy to relate to, even with the mega best seller thrown in. This one will work really well for readers who do like stories about faith and spiritual belief, as it’s both about testing those convictions and coming to understand the implications and meanings behind them. Readers who have hit every book in Christian fiction or who want a story that traverses some of those themes without being a certain type of Christian story will find there is much to be enjoyed here. I hesitated in writing a recommendation like that because John skillfully writes a story that will work for those who have absolutely no interest in that kind of story, too — there’s a lot to be enjoyed in the relationship between two brothers in the book, as well, and I don’t think there are a whole lot of strong brother stories out there. It’s a book that’s easy to hand to a wide array of readers.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Thou Shalt Not Road Trip will be available April 12.

The Traitor in the Tunnel by Y. S. Lee

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I’ve looked forward to the new Agency book for some time now. Good historical mystery series are legion in the adult realm, but harder to find in YA. Mary Quinn and her exploits definitely fit the bill. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the third entry, The Traitor in the Tunnel, it was ultimately a bit of a letdown. Overall, it’s a good book and certainly worth a read, but it’s the least satisfying entry so far.
The reason for my disappointment is the mystery aspect of the novel. The writing is still excellent, Mary is a great character, and her relationships with various other ancillary characters are further developed (in particular with James Easton). But most of the story centers around Mary’s relationship with a man who may or may not be her long-dead father, and there wasn’t much surprising or interesting to that portion.
The actual mystery of the book starts out very small: Mary has been assigned to Buckingham Palace as a parlor maid to investigate a series of petty thefts there. Soon, Mary stumbles across a larger mystery, which could send the entire royal family into scandal: the Prince of Wales was involved in a drunken altercation, and his friend was killed by a Lascar. The Lascar – an opium addict – has the same name as Mary’s father, and Mary is determined to find out what happened that night and clear her maybe-father’s name, if she can, as well as develop some sort of relationship with him.
Then there’s a little to-do with the underground sewers needing repair, and James Easton’s company has been hired to do the job. Here’s where the real problem lies. The solutions to the mysteries I mentioned above (the thefts and the altercation with the Lascar) are pedestrian and not really mysteries at all. Telling you the solution would be spoiling it, but really, there’s nothing to spoil. What could have been interesting was the mystery in the sewers, but it’s not explored until very late in the book, and the climax follows within a few dozen pages of it being introduced.
The last thing I’ll mention is actually a spoiler, so if you plan to read this book and haven’t yet, stop reading now. Near the end of the book, the Agency splits up. Its two managers, Anne Treleaven and Felicity Frame, had been having divergent ideas about how the Agency should be run: Felicity wanted to involve men and take cases on a larger scale, whereas Anne wanted to keep it strictly women-only and keep the cases small and unobtrusive. At the end of the Traitor in the Tunnel, the Agency has been dissolved and Mary is left to decide which person she will follow, or to strike out on her own. 
I really wasn’t a huge fan of this turn of events – the series is called “The Agency” after all, and part of what drew me to the books is that they were about an all-female spy agency. When that’s taken away, it doesn’t seem nearly as interesting. I’ll still read the other books, but I’m curious to see what direction Lee plans to takes the series now that the Agency is apparently out of the picture.
Although the mysteries were a letdown, I did really like Mary’s interactions with James Easton (pretty swoony, I must admit). Octavius Jones also makes a return, and the scenes he shares with Mary are pretty darn funny. I also have to give major credit to Lee for the subplot involving Mary and the Prince of Wales. Mary contemplates doing something pretty major, and the way it’s described reminded me that I was reading a book about a woman who was now twenty years old – no longer a teenager. It also reminded me that spies in Mary’s situation really do have to contemplate doing some pretty major stuff, despite how unrealistic the idea of The Agency actually is.
Book borrowed from my local library.

Why I’m giving up on YA

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I’ve been sifting through a number of really heavy thoughts lately. My life’s changed a lot in the last year, and my priorities and goals professionally and personally have shifted pretty dramatically. I guess you could say that I’ve found everything moving a little too fast and that there’s been way too much pressure to stay on top of everything.

It’s really challenging to keep up on reading, and it’s even more challenging to make sure I’m writing thoughtful reviews on every book that comes into my house. I realize my privilege in receiving books for review, especially when they’re books so many people are clamoring for.

Part of what makes blogging and reading and reviewing challenging for me is that I am one half perfectionist and I’m one half incredibly laid back. So, it’s tough to rectify the first part — my perfectionism — with the second part. I want my blog posts and my reviews to be perfect, but I also don’t want them to come off as too try-hardy. I struggle regularly with this personality quirk, and it’s something that’s led me to do a lot of thinking and a lot of reading about finding a sense of balance. Because right now, balance is something I so sorely need in my life.

Fortunately, over the last week, I’ve read a couple of things that have hit home the truth of the matter in a way I didn’t think about before. Probably because it’s so, so scary and so life changing for me. Thinking about this has been hard, but actually putting this out there, publicly, on the blog I love writing so much, is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.

I’m giving up reading and reviewing YA books.

Cold turkey.

I was really grateful to stumble across this article because it really nailed what I’ve been struggling with lately. Reading all of these YA books at breakneck speed and racing through my piles of review books has led me to forgetting the real joy in reading. In sitting back and having a book challenge my perspectives and in sitting back and having a book force me to confront the gross things in my life. I can’t recall the last YA book I read that begged me to look at the world differently or pushed me to really think about characters or their struggles. Moreover, I don’t remember the last YA book I read that actually STUCK with me. YA books are like candy. As soon as I finish one, I move on to the next one and forget completely about what the last one was about (vampires, right?).

So while I lingered over what Maura Kelly said in that piece, I was alerted to another piece that only further solidified my decision. Stein does an excellent job in this article, and for once, I feel like he gets to the heart of my own problem with YA lit: there isn’t depth to the language and certainly, there’s not depth to the characters. Racing through all of these books leaves me feeling empty and sad because I cannot connect to these teenagers. They’re all so shallow. So one-dimensional. And the writing itself always leaves something to be desired because it’s stilted, hollow, and lacks inspiration.

In short, I’m not learning anything from reading YA.

It’s time for me to walk away and not turn back because I have better books waiting for me. The kind that are slow burns. The kind with real depth of character, with thoughtful and intelligent use of language. The kind of books that get to the heart of matters and make me evaluate my own life and my own beliefs. I want a book that makes me cry because it so perfectly captures what it feels like to go through something Important and Life Changing. Because I struggle so much with my own perfectionism/laid back attitude, I need to read books that help me better refine those two characteristics so that I do not struggle with writing a review. Because I only want to review the books that demand a review. By taking a step back from what I’m doing now and slowing down, focusing hard on just the things that are good for me, maybe I will quit feeling like I’m never doing this right. Our time here is limited, right? And since everything on the internet is so fast-moving, so ephemeral and flash in the pan, I should only be writing about the things that truly Matter.

It’s a good thing no YA book has ever made me think about or relate to what it’s like to grow up with an absent father, or what it means to survive when you feel you have nothing left to live for, or heck, what it’s like to grow up embracing your imperfections in a world where everyone expects you to do or be a certain and acceptable way. None of the books in YA have ever shed light into how I could think about my own challenges or how I could look at a problem in a new way. Or how I could relate to someone who maybe had a similar experience as I did.

I’m only going to find that in quality Literature.

It only took three years of blogging to figure this out, but better late than never, right?

Happy April Fool’s Day to all of the fools out there thinking that YA lit is nothing but the bottom of the barrel in the book world. You make it a more enjoyable place for those of us who love it and want nothing more than to talk about how it relates to us all because adolescence is a universal human experience.

Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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