Loa suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But it’s not from one thing; it’s from her life in general. Loa lives in rural Montana and over the course of her young life, she’s seen a lot. The younger sister she loved and cared for died young due to a horrible genetic disorder that caused her to never really “grow up.” Loa’s friend Esther was killed in a freak accident that now haunts her because she was there when it happened. Oh, and when Corey decides to befriend her, he may or may not be backstabbing her when he moves away, on to “bigger and better things.” On top of that, dad’s lost his job and the family’s got no insurance to cover their medical bills.

Loa’s got potential and quite a lot of it. She’s a math and science genius; the concepts fascinate her, and when she’s given the opportunity to catch up on some classwork by her physics teacher, she’s eager to discover what he means when he asks her to describe the Freak Observer.

The Freak Observer, despite being a short book, is a powerful one. This is the sort of thing that needs to be read alone, in quiet. Woolston’s packed a lot into this book, and a lot of it isn’t necessarily easy to read or easy to understand. Loa’s story starts with tragedy, but the story isn’t told linearly. Rather, the story unravels through moments in the past to moments in the present, and there is use of dreams throughout to tie some things together. Loa is mentally unstable, and as we watch her unpack her life, we begin to understand why she is the way she is.

What I liked about this book was the setting and the contemporary reality that pours from it. Woolston’s given the character a believable rural life, right down to how her mother and father met. I can feel the desolation and the challenges that come with the setting and I can imagine the difficulties Loa has because of it. Loa couldn’t order pizza for delivery, a novelty so many don’t think twice about. Obviously, the difficulties were much deeper than that, but those moments ground the story in the setting. Likewise, the issues brought up with the loss of a job and the loss of insurance were incredibly real, and I thought the reactions Loa had to it were authentic. I felt her bitterness and resentment.

While reading this book, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Susan Shaw’s One of the Survivors. The age groups these are written for are quite different (and the maturity one needs for The Freak Observer is higher than that of the Shaw title) but the exposition was similar: the reader goes in knowing something horrible has happened to the main character, and it is through the character reliving and reflecting upon their experiences that we as readers begin to not only “get” the story, but we also “get” the character. Joey Campbell and Loa Lindgren would probably have gotten along well had they been the same age.

At the end of the book, Loa’s life changes dramatically, and because of the character-driven nature of this story, readers will be relieved. For me, this book was draining to read — emotionally dense and at times physically exhausting. There was so much to grasp at and the pacing felt slow, given the technique of shifting time sequences. While these works, it makes the narrative decelerate; there is a lot to get here. Draining, though, isn’t an insult here. It’s an essential aspect to experiencing the story.

I have to admit there were things in this book I just didn’t get. There’s a lot of discussion of math and physics here that were beyond me, but I think that in and of itself will be a huge draw for many readers. It’s rare we get a strong book written with those themes.

Hand this one off to readers of edgy, realistic books. There is a lot of language to consider, and the challenges Loa must overcome are not light. The slower pacing and the writing style will not be every teen’s cup of tea, but this is the kind of book that when in the right hands, will mean a lot. Give it to fans of One of the Survivors, but maybe give it a shot to your stronger readers and graduates of Ellen Hopkins and Gail Giles. Fans of Steve Brezenoff’s Absolute Value of -1 will dig this one, too.

This was a very interesting debut novel — perhaps the one that made me stop and reflect the most — and suffice to say, I’m eager to see where Woolston takes me next.

Eighteen-year-old Bronwen Oliver is convinced she was taken home by the wrong parents; she’s nothing like the daughter of her mother’s dreams, the perky blond go-getting cheerleader. She’s gone as far as to make a fake identity for herself, pretending to be Phoebe Lilywhite.

But when she starts hanging out with Jared, a college guy and former friend of her brother, maybe she learns things aren’t so bad being Bronwen — he’s a good guy, and their relationship is rock solid. He’s respectful of her, listening to her wishes to remain a virgin until marriage. Things just click with them, and as the school year progresses, so does the depth of their romance; he pops her the big marriage question and she says yes. The two of them plan out her post-high school lives together, but, as you’d expect, things don’t necessarily work out as planned. This might be precisely what makes Bronwen realize that being herself is the most important thing and that life as Phoebe Lilywhite might not be anything more special.

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else was a breath of fresh air for me amid a lot of depressing reading (and not that depressing reading is bad). Bronwen is a memorable character and one that takes quite a different path through her life than most high school girls do. She’s ready to get married young, and she has the blessing of her friends and family. It’s just herself that may cause her to rethink this decision and other big things in her future.

The pacing in McCahan’s book is spot on. I never found it to lag, even when there were many opportunities for it to do so. The exploration of self and character here is done cleanly and respectfully to the reader — it never feels like there is a big lesson to be learned or that the decisions Bronwen makes are right or wrong. The reader has to decide for herself. The dialog in this book, both that between the teen characters and that between the teens and parents, felt authentic. The arguments between Bronwen and her mother were realistic, and as a reader, it was easy to see both sides of the argument (despite, of course, pulling for Bronwen to come out ahead in them).

What probably stood out most to me, as I alluded to earlier, was the different paths Bronwen chooses as a character. She’s pretty militant about her decision to remain a virgin until marriage, and she doesn’t do it because of a religious reason. She’s just decided that is what she wants to do, and that belief helps guide her out of a relationship that wasn’t working for her (and one that, in the end, will come back in a different way). Likewise, Bronwen is also ready to get married right after high school, a plot point that will strike most readers who are set on the path to go to college immediately after high school and then do the marriage thing later in life.

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else will resonate with readers because everyone has felt like an alien in their own skin and family. Many may find themselves a little teary eyed after reading, too, so be prepared for that. Though there is frank discussion of sex in this one, it’s through the eyes of Bronwen’s decision of not participating in it, and the language here can best be described as your typical teenager’s tongue. Hand it off to fans of realistic fiction more along the lines of Sarah Dessen than Ellen Hopkins. I think this book, since it does straddle the line between high school and college life, will have large appeal for the older YA set, including college students and those in their twenties. The points of instability inside Bronwen are relatable to anyone in the stages of making big life-altering decisions and taking the step from childhood to adulthood. There are few books that capture this so accurately.

This excellent debut leaves me excited to see what McCahan will offer next.

After reading and really liking Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl, I went into her 2009 title, Same Difference, with high expectations. And while it wasn’t as knock-out as Not That Kind of Girl, I have to say that I am extremely impressed with Vivian’s ability to craft three-dimensional, realistic main characters.

Emily’s plans for the summer always revolved around hanging out with her best friend Meg in their suburban town of Cherry Grove. They’d spend their time talking about boys, doing their hair and makeup, laying by the pool, and other lazy activities that best friends forever do. But this year, Emily’s taking a bit of a different route. Thanks to an art teacher who thinks she has extreme potential, she’s enrolling in a summer program at an arts college in downtown Philadelphia where she’ll learn how to draw and make art in ways she never will in her home town.

This will be a summer of extreme change: she’ll no longer be a big fish in a small pond. Emily’s going into the biggest pond of her life, by herself, and she’ll be challenged by another student in her program, Fiona. Fiona’s an Artist and lives her life that way. At least, that’s what Emily believes as she watches Fiona gain the attention and admiration of other students in the program. When Fiona takes a shine to Emily, though, Emily will begin to turn her back on everything she is and has been. Can she fit in with the cool, artsy crowd or will she always be Emily from Cherry Grove?

What stood out most to me in this novel was Emily. She is a fantastic character because she is one of the most real teen characters I’ve read in a while. She’s secure in who she is and at the same is completely insecure in herself. Taking her out of her comfort zone makes her rethink everything she knows about herself, and put in a world of talented artists, she suddenly feels like she has no confidence and no skill. Emily is every teen girl I’ve known — she struggles with figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. She’s debating between being best friends with someone with whom she’s comfortable and befriending someone wildly different from her who demands she see something different inside herself. There’s a clash within her, and the book’s thrust comes from Emily’s internal struggles and their external manifestation. It’s done incredibly well.

I found Meg and Fiona to both be dynamic characters in their own right. Meg’s a laid back but reliable friend who’s life has changed a little since getting a boyfriend. Fortunately, the boyfriend doesn’t make Meg forget about her best friend, and in fact, she goes out of her way to include Emily in everything she does. Fiona is the exact opposite of Meg: she’s exclusive, and she herself is completely insecure in who she is. Fiona’s made up a lot of the stories she’s told Emily, so a lot of what we “know” about her is through the biased perspective of Emily.

The pacing in this book is spot on, as it never feels like it drags nor rushes. It it set over the course of June through the beginning of September, and the experiences that Emily has and the realizations she comes to are realistic in the time frame. Emily’s a reliable, though understandably biased, narrator. Were the story not told from her point of view, the pacing wouldn’t have worked as well.

What I liked most about this book is that there is a lesson to be picked up, but it never feels like the kind of book written to prove a lesson. Instead, this is the kind of book that so many readers will identify with, and many will find themselves seeing that how Emily acts can help them, too. In addition to the theme of identity and finding oneself, we’ll see some romance and the value of discovering passion in one’s talents. Emily was a great character to read and compare against Natalie in Not That Kind of Girl. I think it’d be safe to say that I don’t think Emily would have gotten along particularly well with Natalie.

Pass this book on to fans of Vivian’s other titles, as well as fans of strong contemporary fiction. Well-drawn characters will work for fans of Sarah Dessen, as well.