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My Beating Teenage Heart by CK Kelly Martin

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Sometimes you read a book that just leaves you a little breathless. One that you go into expecting something and leave having taken a lot more than you thought you would. That was the experience in reading CK Kelly Martin’s latest, My Beating Teenage Heart.

From the beginning of the story, we’re kept distant. We know we’re being talked to by Ashlyn, who is unsure of who she is or where she is. She feels like she’s falling from the atmosphere, but she has no sense of her body or her purpose, but she immediately latches onto Breckon. He’s lying in bed, broken, and she knows that she needs to see his story. For some reason, Ashlyn believes her story is also part of his story, and for her to understand this place she’s in, she needs to follow Breckon.

At this point — after only a couple of chapters — I began envisioning a story much like Amy Huntley’s The Everafter. It’s a similar premise from the beginning, but Martin’s story telling led me to believe she’d take me something different, new and unexplored, and she did.

Ashlyn begins revealing more and more about herself as she begins to see more about Breckon. He’s just lost his sister, but as readers, we’re not savvy as to how she died. He’s in deep mourning, and he blames himself for the loss. Through this blame, Ashlyn experiences moments of complete recollection about her own life. As readers, we learn she’s been through something horrible, something unimaginable. But it’s been so removed from her in this afterlife that she experiences the pain again both within herself and as she begins to understand and sympathize with what Breckon experiences with his sister.

My Beating Teenage Heart is not a straight up contemporary novel, nor is it a strict fantasy. It’s more speculative, and it treads the lines between the two genres. Going into the book is a little overwhelming, but it has to be. Since Ashlyn’s the initial narrator, and since she’s suspended in a place she doesn’t understand, we don’t get a completely clear sense of story from the beginning. But that’s what drives the novel. The topics covered in the story are incredibly emotional, and as readers, we’re able to easily trust Martin to tackle these things gracefully.

I bring up the trust issue because that’s an essential element to making this story work. I’ve read many books with this idea before — where someone begins to piece together their life in the afterlife — but because Ashlyn is easy to immediately connect with and because she so strongly develops an interest in Breckon, who is alive and yet suffering from something earth shattering, I knew the story would travel to somewhere unexpected. And it did. Breckon and Ashlyn have a connection to one another, but it was a completely unexpected and effectively executed.

Martin’s writing style is fluid, and even though we’re given both the voices of Breckon and of Ashlyn, both are believable and dynamic enough to differentiate their stories. I mourned with Breckon, and I mourned with Ashlyn, too. The unraveling of her story in particular is smooth and the suspense building well played. I cared deeply about both of these characters and their stories. Voice is always my biggest power tool in a good book — I can get into any genre if there’s a powerful voice behind the story, and without doubt, My Beating Teenage Heart captures two incredible voices. Even if the story had fallen apart or taken me somewhere I’d been before, I could have forgiven it based on this element alone. Fortunately, we get a story here, too.

Here’s the only spoiler I will give about the book: you’ll need a kleenex or two for the last chapter. The way it comes together is not only powerful, but the language, the sentences, the words — they’re all the big players here. Many readers and writers believe that a lot of writing is itself about the act of writing, and it’s here that Martin really puts the message out there. It’s a hopeful ending, too, though not necessarily one that’s rock solid. It’s a little messy, leaving the reader a bit suspended at the end as well.

Pass this along to your fans of contemporary stories like If I Stay or Before I Die, as well as those who have enjoyed books like Huntley’s The Everafter, Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, and Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere. This book is powerful and intense, and it is frank in sexual situations, as well as in other difficult to read topics (I won’t mention in detail since they’re all key to the unraveling of the story). Death is a heavy topic here, not a light one, but Martin’s storytelling will satisfy readers. I think this is an easy sell to not only teens, but adult readers, too. My Beating Teenage Heart is easily at the top of my 2011 favorites list.

Review copy received from publisher. My Beating Teenage Heart will be available September 27. Check back Friday for a chance to win a copy here!

All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin

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It’s the year 2083 in New York City, and Anya Balanchine’s life is about to implode. Her father, a big-time mafia boss who dealt in illegal chocolate, has died, leaving her to take care of her younger sister Natty and her older mentally-handicapped brother Leo. Their legal guardian is their grandmother, who is so ill she is confined to her bed. This leaves Anya the de facto caregiver to everyone.

Additionally, Anya’s mafia family is exerting pressure on her to become involved in the business. She resists, and she’s especially put out when they try and involve Leo in their shady dealings. She worries that the family might expect her to step up to the plate and occupy the position her father held.

But things don’t completely suck for Anya until she breaks up with her jerk boyfriend. He comes over late one night to beg her for a piece of the contraband chocolate, and she gives in just to get him to go away. Then he lands in the hospital, poisoned, and the source is that piece of chocolate.

Suddenly Anya becomes embroiled in everything she tried so hard to avoid – the legal system, chocolate dealing, her mafia family, and even the son of the district attorney (although she didn’t really want to avoid him…). Anya must find a way to protect herself and her family, as well as determine who is really poisoning the Balanchine chocolate.

Anya lives in a unique dystopian New York. The city is full of crime (even more so than today) and the people have chosen to scapegoat chocolate and caffeine. At one point, an older character compares the prohibition of chocolate and caffeine to the Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s – it’s ineffective and causes more problems than it prevents.

There are also indications of widespread destruction. The Statue of Liberty is only a memory and Liberty Island now houses a massive prison. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been mostly destroyed, and what’s left has been turned into a club called Little Egypt (for the Egyptian artifacts that remain).

Unlike most dystopias, however, the dystopian environment does not take center stage, and the primary struggle is not against the dystopian elements. This could have been a book about the modern-day mafia and been almost the same story. It’s refreshing but also a little disappointing. As an avid dystopia reader, I love learning about all of those awful little details that make up the horrible future world, and I didn’t get a whole lot of that in All These Things I’ve Done. I thought the chocolate mafia was an interesting detail, but it wasn’t developed enough and left me a little dissatisfied.

Anya’s voice, however, is terrific. She’s a little wry, a little sarcastic, a little world-weary, and clearly cares deeply about her siblings and her grandmother. She’s just the right combination of smart and naive to be believable as the daughter of a mafia boss with a lot of responsibility but also a teenager.

Unfortunately, I was not as enamored of Leo as a character. I always dread it when authors include a mentally handicapped character in their books because I worry that he will be used a device rather than a person. Need a way to make trouble for the main character? No problem – just have her mentally handicapped brother do something unwise, she’ll try to protect him, and she’ll be in a world of hurt. It came as no surprise that this is exactly what Leo does, on more than one occasion. It got to the point where I didn’t want to read about him because I knew he would be used in this way. I think it’s kind of a cheap tactic and one I’ve seen used too often.

That said, I did enjoy All These Things I’ve Done. Zevin’s writing is solid, the voice she’s created for Anya is engrossing, her plot is fast-paced, and her world-building is interesting (albeit underdeveloped for my tastes). I look forward to the second installment, just not with bated breath.

Review copy provided by the publisher. All These Things I’ve Done hits shelves September 6.

The Shattering by Karen Healey

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Keri’s beloved older brother Jake has just committed suicide. Jake had always seemed like a happy young man, and the suicide is both unexpected and traumatizing for Keri and her family. Because of Jake’s suicide, Keri reconnects with her old friend Janna, whose brother had also committed suicide some years ago.

Only Janna doesn’t believe the deaths were suicides. She introduces Keri to her friend Sione, whose brother had also committed suicide recently. Janna and Sione have been researching the suicides that occurred in their New Zealand town of Summerton, and they determined that there was one suicide per year, always around the same time. They are also curious about the fact that Summerton is always prosperous, always sunny at the turn of the year, and no one ever really seems to leave. The two girls and the boy investigate the suicides and it slowly becomes apparent – to Janna at least – that magic is at work. Keri and Sione are less sure, but all three follow the clues to determine what is really going on. Danger, heartache, and a little bit of romance ensue.

One element I really enjoyed about The Shattering was the diversity in the cast. Both Keri and Sione are at least part Maori. With Sione, who looks lily white but has a Maori name, this tends to be a problem. With Keri, it’s not as much of an issue. I like that Healey handled it this way. She is able to simultaneously show that non-white characters in teen fiction can be in a story that is not mainly about their race, as well as show the reality that race does matter.

The Shattering is told from Keri, Janna, and Sione’s perspectives in alternating chapters, although only Keri’s is first-person. While this may seem like an odd choice, it works. Keri is clearly the protagonist and we identify and sympathize with her the most, but Janna and Sione are also well-drawn, fully-fleshed characters with believable flaws that don’t prevent them from being likable. It can be difficult to portray three grief-stricken teenagers in such a way that they all clearly have their own voice, but Healey pulls it off admirably.

I normally avoid mysteries that have a magic or supernatural flavor. Since I like to try to puzzle out the solution myself as I read, I need to know that the laws of physics will be followed: the culprit isn’t invisible, doesn’t have superpowers, and can’t stop time. If magic is on the table, then it’s almost impossible to know the rules and therefore impossible to deduce the answer. Really, it could be anything.

Usually, that’s no fun. Not so with The Shattering. Healey is honest with her use of magic and doesn’t spring magical elements on the reader as a cheat or deus ex machina. She presents the reader with a set of rules, albeit not the rules we usually find in the real world, and she does it believably by showing how the main characters eventually transition from being deniers to believers. That way, when the characters (in particular Keri) buy into it, the reader does too.

The end of The Shattering is what lifted this book from a four star to a five star for me. Obviously I can’t say much about it, but even after the main thrust of the book has been resolved, Healey has more to say about life and love and death and grief. It’s moving, and despite the fantasy elements of the novel, it’s also true.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Shattering hits shelves September 5.

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

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Zombies are people, too. Or at least, they were.

That’s the lesson Benny Imura learns the first time he goes out zombie hunting with his older brother Tom. Tom’s a zombie bounty hunter (he prefers to call himself a “closure specialist”) and has agreed to take Benny on as an apprentice when Benny’s other attempts at holding down a job fail. Benny’s just turned fifteen, and in the post-apocalyptic world he inhabits, where zombies outnumber humans, all fifteen year olds must work a part-time job or have their rations cut in half.

Tom’s a different sort of zombie hunter who eschews the violent tendencies of the other big-name hunters and takes his job seriously. What exactly it is that Tom does when he goes hunting will surprise you, so I won’t share it here – you’ll have to read the book to find out. It’s one of the many surprisingly moving moments in this terrific book that is equal parts humor and heart.

Of course, hunting zombies (zoms for short) isn’t all Rot and Ruin is about. While the zoms provide plenty of action, the real conflict is with other living, non-rotting humans. Benny practically hero-worships the big-name zombie hunters – Charlie Matthias and the Motor City Hammer, for example – and looks down on his older brother, who he sees as weak and cowardly. Part of that feeling stems from the fact that when the zombie apocalypse occurred, Tom swooped up Benny (who was a toddler at the time) and ran away, leaving his mother to be turned by his already zombified father.

So things are tense between the brothers. Then Benny’s friend (and potential girlfriend) Nix Riley is abducted by Charlie and the Hammer, and Benny and Tom venture out into the great Rot and Ruin to rescue her from a pretty awful fate. They must battle zombies, contend with the murderous bounty hunters, and hopefully find the mysterious Lost Girl, who may be the key to rescuing Nix.

The first sections of Rot and Ruin are pretty hilarious. They chronicle Benny’s attempts – with his friend Chong – to land a part-time job. This might have been tedious reading in a world not overrun by zombies, but the zombie apocalypse has created a plethora of new jobs that are a riot to read about. For example: Benny interviews to assist an artist who specializes in erosion portraits – zombified images of family members that people pay for. Benny and Chong also try their hand at being pit throwers (unloading dead zombies from the backs of trucks and throwing them into the fire), carpet coat salesmen (literally, selling coats made out of carpets so zombies can’t bite you), and locksmith apprentices (to keep the zombies out of your home in case they break through the fence).

While the first portion of the book is definitely the funniest, Benny’s narrative voice keeps the funny going in bits and pieces throughout, despite the serious turn the story takes when Nix is abducted. I can count on one hand the books I’ve read that are this successful at combining laugh out loud humor with true poignancy (The True Meaning of Smekday is another one that does it). Rot and Ruin is so successful, in fact, that my eyes welled up at the end. (Yours will too, trust me.)

Maberry is an old hat at zombies in the adult fiction market, and it shows here. He’s created a fantastically detailed and believable world. In Rot and Ruin, the zombie apocalypse is more than just a punchline or a device to creep you out, and that’s something I really appreciated.

The main criticism I have of Rot and Ruin is with Tom: he’s just too perfect. Sure, Benny resents him, but we know from the get-go that his resentment is misplaced. Tom not only has a heart of gold, he’s a badass fighter, a father-figure stand-in, and exemplifies the qualities of compassion and mercy. He’s the ultimate boy scout. He’s someone to look up to, to be sure, but he’s also someone who’s a little annoying because of it.

Of course this is a minor quibble in an overall fantastic book. There’s a sequel out August 30, but don’t take that to mean Rot and Ruin isn’t a complete book – it is, thank goodness. It just means that Maberry has more stories to tell about Benny and his world, for which I am very grateful.

Lie by Caroline Bock

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As a reader of and advocate for contemporary literature, it always excites me when a topic comes up that I haven’t read before. Caroline Bock’s debut Lie tackles a hate crime, which was something I haven’t read before and which excited me to read. More than that though, this book handles the topic in a unique matter, giving perspectives from more than one narrator and delving into issues of not only race, but also of class and status.

Skylar’s boyfriend Jimmy’s been accused of brutally attacking two Latino immigrants in a neighboring town. Skyler’s being asked about it because she was the only witness there that night, but she has kept a vow of silence about everything she’s seen. She wants to protect Jimmy, but the more she thinks about the crime and the more she delves into the greater meaning of everything, the more she wonders if keeping her silence is the best thing she should be doing. It’s not just Skylar at the helm of the story, though. Jimmy’s best friend Sean is also debating whether or not he played a role in the assault and whether or not he needs to face the music himself.

Lie is a slower paced book, and it’s one that requires paying a lot of attention. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, but rather, this isn’t a book you will breeze through. When I started the book, I expected it to be a bit of a louder read because the topic at hand seemed like it would call for that. I was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t because it forced me to listen to what all of the different characters were telling me. In listening, I, too, was forced to think about the moral issues the characters debated.

This is a book that tackles multiple points of view, and I believe Bock does a pretty good job nailing them all. We’re given the perspective of Skylar and what she’s going through as a witness to a crime. We believe in her mental anguish, and we want her to do the right thing. Sean’s voice is given to us next, and all we know is that he’s sitting in jail for the crime. He makes bail eventually, and this is one of those details I drop in the review because it does play a larger role in one of the secondary story lines. Then we hear from Lisa Marie, who is Skylar’s best friend and one of those people in her life who helps her realize she plays her own part in the crime and she needs to do something about it. We also get the chance to meet Skylar’s father, who is an EMT. Of all the characters in the book, he has the most distinct voice, and it’s one that begins in denial. He’s convinced his daughter knows nothing and while he feels bad for the kids who were beat, he also thinks it’s ridiculous his daughter is being punished for it.

Continuing the story are the principal at the high school that Skylar, Jimmy, and Sean attend. Her role is much less about telling the story than it is about setting the backdrop for where and what these come from. I liked this about her character, and I appreciated that she isn’t introduced to readers immediately. Her first appearance is about 1/3 of the way through the book, which gives readers enough time to meet the main players in the story and build confidence or disbelief in who they are before getting further back story. Along with the principal, we meet coach Martinez, who oversaw both Jimmy and Sean on the ball field. He, like the principal, plays less a role in the story as a character and more as a voice to offer back story and development for Jimmy and Sean.

Finally, two characters who also chime into the story are probably the ones that spoke to me the most and really made the story flourish: Gloria Cortez, the mother of the two boys who were brutally attacked, and Carlos Cortez, the boy who was attacked and didn’t require lengthy hospitalization. With Gloria, we learn why and how her sons Carlos and Arturo made it to America and why she wanted them to be here. When she learns of the attack, she makes arrangements to get back and pray Arturo, who was still quite injured in the hospital, back to health.

It sounds like a lot of characters and a lot to keep track of, but in all honesty, it’s well done. I believed every voice, and I felt like each of them contributed something greater to the plot than any one character telling the story alone could. Moreover, I thought it did a lot of favors that the description of the book didn’t. The book depicts Skylar as a devoted girlfriend to Jimmy because he saved her. I’m not sure what that even means, and while reading, I kind of anticipated some sort of romantic subplot that would detract from the greater importance of the story. However, the romance here is really not a big part of the story, and never once did I get the feeling from Skylar that she was a love drunk girl who needed to be rescued by a boy. Instead, I bought a girl who was terrified to turn in someone she cared about, and she would have been in that position no matter who the person she was with was. Although information dumps in stories can be tiresome, Bock does a great job of using her characters to do the information dropping in a way that’s not simply convenient nor flat. I get a full sense of who both the principal and the coach are, even if their roles are smaller than many of the other characters.

One of the things that really worked for me in this book was the setting. It takes place on Long Island, and the characters really feel authentic to the place. They’re from a variety of backgrounds and statuses, and that’s sort of the key. These characters range from middle class (which is something that the principal talks about) to lower class and immigrant. The disparity is palpable, and it creates tension in the story that amplifies the severity of the hate crime that happened. Readers are put into the same position as Skylar, as we do develop a sympathy for both the victims and the perpetrators of the crime. We know what’s right and wrong, and we have our expectations and beliefs validated when Gloria and Carlos have their chance to talk in the story, but we still have a sense of understanding to Jimmy and Sean. For me, the story was less about the hate crime and more about the realities and hardships faced by different classes and social statuses.

This was far from a perfect book, as it did take quite a while for the storyline to pick up. There are a few big reveals that don’t come until 2/3 of the way through the book, and given the slower pacing of the story, it felt like a long time to wait. I also never bought the depth and devotion in the romantic sense between Skylar and Jimmy, and it’s really unfortunate that that plays such a big part in the book’s description. It doesn’t need to. The story is about whether to tell the truth or to lie, and it’s about the millions of things in one’s life that makes doing something that seems so simple so challenging.

Lie would make for a fantastic book discussion book, as I think that it’s relatable and understandable to readers on many levels. This is the kind of book you give to those who like their stories with depth and with slower pacing. Bock’s book strikes me as the kind of story with potential to be considered for awards as well because it is genuine and it is well-written. It doesn’t fall into a lot of the traps books like this can that tackle a serious issue and do so with more than one voice. It’s also a shorter book, clocking in at 224 pages; the story is tightly edited and after reading a ton of books that went on just a little too long, I appreciated this. It’s also a paperback release, for those of you who purchase with a tight budget.

If I may, one of the things I think I like a lot more about this book than I should is the title. Lie sounds simple, but in the context of the book, it holds a lot more meaning. I think it’s probably one of the smartest titles in a while.

Review copy picked up at ALA. Lie will be available August 30.