We’ll be back next week to our regular programming. For now, we’ll be hitting the books, reading, and relaxing as the long holiday weekend winds down.
This Week at Book Riot
After being out of town much of last week, I let the weekly round-up of pieces at Book Riot slip my mind. So here’s this week *and* last week at Book Riot:
- A round-up of queer YA stories that aren’t tragic reads
- Last week’s “3 on a YA Theme” was a massive, way-more-than-three look at YA books with pink covers. Y’all, this collage is neat.
- Libraries and booksellers helped me put together this incredible collection of YA Pride displays from around the world. Check it out.
Conjoined Twins: A (Brief) Reading List for Teens
Two books about conjoined twins in two years isn’t a trend, but it does make me take notice. In 2015, Sarah Crossan’s One was published, and this year at TLA, I spotted Sonya Mukherjee’s Gemini. Both books are about teenage conjoined twin girls, and both are about the sisters contemplating surgery to separate them. I wondered how many other books for teens have been written about conjoined twins, so I went looking. Answer: not many. There are a few other novels from the past 10 years, but all nonfiction written for teens (I expanded my search to include tweens as well) that touch specifically on conjoined twins are over 10 years old and out of print. I even looked for books on twins in general, hoping I’d find something that addressed conjoined twins in a chapter or a few paragraphs, but I found nothing in print. It’s possible your library may still have some of the titles. It’s a shame there aren’t more recent and in print titles, though, since I expect both of these novels will lead teens to seek out factual information on the topic. There are a few adult nonfiction titles that may suffice, but it’s always much nicer to direct teen patrons to books written for their own age group.
If your teens want to read more about conjoined twins, here’s a brief list of books that feature them in some way or another. I can’t speak to the way each author treats the conjoined characters since I haven’t read any of them yet, though all have received good critical reviews and Kelly reviewed One positively. Synopses are from Worldcat unless indicated otherwise.
Fiction
One by Sarah Crossan (2015)
Despite problems at home, sixteen-year-old conjoined twins Tippi and Grace are loving going to school for the first time and making real friends when they learn that a cardiac problem will force them to have separation surgery, which they have never before considered.
BZRK by Michael Grant (2012)
Set in the near future, BZRK is the story of a war for control of the human mind. Charles and Benjamin Armstrong, conjoined twins and owners of the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation, have a goal: to turn the world into their vision of utopia. No wars, no conflict, no hunger. And no free will. Opposing them is a guerrilla group of teens, code name BZRK, who are fighting to protect the right to be messed up, to be human. This is no ordinary war, though. Weapons are deployed on the nano-level. The battleground is the human brain. And there are no stalemates here: It’s victory… or madness.
Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee (July 26)
In a small town, as high school graduation approaches, two conjoined sisters must weigh the importance of their dreams as individuals against the risk inherent in the surgery that has the potential to separate them forever.
The Secret Twin by Denise Orenstein (2007)
Born a conjoined twin, thirteen-year-old Noah bears the secret guilt of being the only survivor, and now finds himself in the care of a stranger with a secret of her own.
Under Shifting Glass by Nicky Singer (2013)
Jess is grieving for her beloved aunt, and when she finds a mysterious flask hidden in a antique bureau that belonged to Aunt Edie on the same day that her conjoined twin brothers are born, she begins to believe that the flask is magic and that their survival depends on it.
Nonfiction
Eng and Chang: The Original Siamese Twins by David R. Collins (1994, out of print)
Born near Bangkok but ethnically Chinese, Siamese twins Eng and Chang acquired U.S. citizenship in 1839 and assumed the surname Bunker. They not only survived for 63 years attached by a five-inch long ligament, but also led versatile and fulfilling lives. Collins presents a lively portrait of these unique brothers who traveled throughout the world, met heads of state, settled down as farmers in North Carolina, married sisters, fathered a total of 21 children, and even worked for P.T. Barnum. – School Library Journal
Twin Tales: The Magic and Mystery of Multiple Births by Donna Jackson (2001, out of print)
Twins: they’re miracles of nature, sharing the most intimate of bonds. Scientists have captured them on sonograms hugging, kissing, and reaching out to each other in the womb. What makes twins so fascinating? Find out as you read about real-life twins such as: Kyrie Jackson, the preemie who saved her twin sister’s life soon after birth; Eng and Chang Bunker, the world’s most famous conjoined twins; and Eva and Miriam Mozes, twin sisters whose special bond saved their lives at Auschwitz. – Goodreads
Double Take: The Story of Twins by Daniel Jussim (2001, out of print)
An in-depth introduction to the lives of twins, multiples, and conjoined twins. Readers will learn why twinning takes place and meet five sets of twins. They will read amazing stories about twins who were separated at birth only to meet years later, stories about twins who marry twins, and profiles of families with bigger broods, including the famous McCaughey Septuplets and the Dionne Quintuplets. Readers also have the special opportunity to meet a set of conjoined twins, Brittany and Abigail Hensel, who, despite a rare and challenging condition, have developed into down-to-earth and very happy young ladies. – Goodreads
June Debut YA Novels
It’s time for another round-up of debut YA novels of the month. Like always, this round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.
All descriptions are from WorldCat or Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts out in June from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.
As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. Get ready to get reading.
All The Feels by Danika Stone
College freshman Liv is more than just a fangirl: The Starveil movies are her life… So, when her favorite character, Captain Matt Spartan, is killed off at the end of the last movie, Liv Just. Can’t. Deal.
Tired of sitting in her room sobbing, Liv decides to launch an online campaign to bring her beloved hero back to life. With the help of her best friend, Xander, actor and steampunk cosplayer extraordinaire, she creates #SpartanSurvived, a campaign to ignite the fandom. But as her online life succeeds beyond her wildest dreams, Liv is forced to balance that with the pressures of school, her mother’s disapproval, and her (mostly nonexistent and entirely traumatic) romantic life. A trip to DragonCon with Xander might be exactly what she needs to figure out what she really wants.
American Girls by Alison Umminger
She was looking for a place to land.
Anna is a fifteen-year-old girl slouching toward adulthood, and she’s had it with her life at home. So Anna “borrows” her stepmom’s credit card an runs away to Los Angeles, where her half-sister takes her in. But LA isn’t quite the glamorous escape Anna had imagined.
As Anna spends her days on TV and movie sets, she engrosses herself in a project researching the murderous Manson girls—and although the violence in her own life isn’t the kind that leaves physical scars, she begins to notice the parallels between herself and the lost girls of LA, and of America, past and present.
The Cresswell Plot by Eliza Wass
Castella Cresswell and her five siblings—Hannan, Caspar, Mortimer, Delvive, and Jerusalem—know what it’s like to be different. For years, their world has been confined to their ramshackle family home deep in the woods of upstate New York. They abide by the strict rule of God, whose messages come directly from their father.
Slowly, Castley and her siblings start to test the boundaries of the laws that bind them. But, at school, they’re still the freaks they’ve always been to the outside world. Marked by their plain clothing. Unexplained bruising. Utter isolation from their classmates. That is, until Castley is forced to partner with the totally irritating, totally normal George Gray, who offers her a glimpse of a life filled with freedom and choice.
Castley’s world rapidly expands beyond the woods she knows so well and the beliefs she once thought were the only truths. There is a future waiting for her if she can escape her father’s grasp, but Castley refuses to leave her siblings behind. Just as she begins to form a plan, her father makes a chilling announcement: the Cresswells will soon return to their home in heaven. With time running out on all of their lives, Castley must expose the depth of her father’s lies. The forest has buried the truth in darkness for far too long. Castley might be their last hope for salvation.
Cure for the Common Universe by Christian McKay Heidicker
Sixteen-year-old Jaxon is being committed to video game rehab . . .
ten minutes after he met a girl. A living, breathing girl named Serena, who not only laughed at his jokes but actually kinda sorta seemed excited when she agreed to go out with him.
Jaxon’s first date. Ever.
In rehab, he can’t blast his way through galaxies to reach her. He can’t slash through armies to kiss her sweet lips. Instead, he has just four days to earn one million points by learning real-life skills. And he’ll do whatever it takes—lie, cheat, steal, even learn how to cross-stitch—in order to make it to his date.
If all else fails, Jaxon will have to bare his soul to the other teens in treatment, confront his mother’s absence, and maybe admit that it’s more than video games that stand in the way of a real connection.
Prepare to be cured.
Frayed by Kara Terzis
Dear Kesley,
My therapist tells me I should write you a letter. Like flushing all my thoughts and feelings out of my system and onto paper. I tell her it’s a stupid idea.
But here I am, writing a letter to a dead girl. Where do I start? Where did our story begin? From the moment you were born…or died?
I’ll start with the moment I found out the truth about you. Your lies and my pain. Because it always begins and ends with you.
And that end began when Rafe Lawrence came back to town…
Ava Hale will do anything to find her sister’s killer…although she’ll wish she hadn’t. Because the harder Ava looks, the more secrets she uncovers about Kesley, and the more she begins to think that the girl she called sister was a liar. A sneak. A stranger.
And Kesley’s murderer could be much closer than she thought…
How It Ends by Catherine Lo
There are two sides to every story.
It’s friends-at-first-sight for Jessie and Annie, proving the old adage that opposites attract. Shy, anxious Jessie would give anything to have Annie’s beauty and confidence. And Annie thinks Jessie has the perfect life, with her close-knit family and killer grades. They’re BFFs…until suddenly they’re not.
Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh
Hunting, gathering, and keeping his family safe—that’s the life seventeen-year-old Kol knows. Then bold, enigmatic Mya arrives from the south with her family, and Kol is captivated. He wants her to like and trust him, but any hopes of impressing her are ruined when he makes a careless—and nearly grave—mistake. However, there’s something more to Mya’s cool disdain…a history wrought with loss that comes to light when another clan arrives. With them is Lo, an enemy from Mya’s past who Mya swears has ulterior motives.
As Kol gets to know Lo, tensions between Mya and Lo escalate until violence erupts. Faced with shattering losses, Kol is forced to question every person he’s trusted. One thing is for sure: this was a war that Mya or Lo—Kol doesn’t know which—had been planning all along.
Life Before by Michele Bacon
Seventeen years is a long time to keep secrets, so Xander Fife is very good at it: everyone believes he has a normal family. If he can just get through this summer, he’ll start his real life in college with a clean slate–no risk, no drama, no fear.
Xander’s summer plans include pick-up soccer, regular hijinks with friends, an epic road trip, and—quite possibly— the company of his ideal girlfriend, the amazing Gretchen Taylor.
Instead of kicking off what had promised to be an amazing summer, however, graduation day brings terror. His family’s secrets are thrust out into the open, forcing Xander to confront his greatest fear. Or run from it.
Armed with a fake ID, cash, and a knife, Xander skips town and assumes a new identity. In danger hundreds of miles from home, one thing is clear: Xander’s real life is already in progress and just getting through it isn’t enough.
The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone
Seventeen-year-old Maddie O’Neill Levine lives a charmed life, and is primed to spend the perfect pre-college summer with her best friends and young-at-heart socialite grandmother (also Maddie’s closest confidante), tying up high school loose ends. Maddie’s plans change the instant Gram announces that she is terminally ill and has booked the family on a secret “death with dignity” cruise ship so that she can leave the world in her own unconventional way – and give the O’Neill clan an unforgettable summer of dreams-come-true in the process.
Soon, Maddie is on the trip of a lifetime with her over-the-top family. As they travel the globe, Maddie bonds with other passengers and falls for Enzo, who is processing his own grief. But despite the laughter, headiness of first love, and excitement of glamorous destinations, Maddie knows she is on the brink of losing Gram. She struggles to find the strength to say good-bye in a whirlwind summer shaped by love, loss, and the power of forgiveness.
Lucky Few by Kathryn Ormsbee (note: not a debut, since she wrote a middle grade under her initials — but that took a little figuring out!)
Stevie, Max, and Sanger: keeping Austin weird.
Stevie Hart is homeschooled, but don’t hold that against her. Sure, she and her best (okay, only) friend, Sanger, will never be prom queens, but that’s just because the Central Austin Homeschool Cooperative doesn’t believe in proms. Or dancing. Still, Stevie and Sanger know how to create their own brand of fun.
Enter Max Garza, the new boy next door. After a near-fatal accident, Max is determined to defy mortality with a checklist: 23 Ways to Fake My Death Without Dying. Dead set on carrying out fabricated demises ranging from impalement to spontaneous combustion, Max charms Stevie and Sanger into helping him with this two-month macabre mission. But as Stevie finds herself falling for Max, it becomes increasingly difficult to draw a line between his make-believe deaths and her real life.
The Marked Girl by Lindsey Klingele
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Los Angeles)…
When Cedric, crowned prince of Caelum, and his fellow royal friends (including his betrothed, Kat) find themselves stranded in modern-day L.A. via a magical portal and an evil traitor named Malquin, all they want to do is get home to Caelum—soon. Then they meet Liv, a filmmaker foster girl who just wants to get out of the system and on with her life. As she and Cedric bond, they’ll discover that she’s more connected to his world than they ever could’ve imagined…and that finding home is no easy task.
Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana
For Tara Krishnan, navigating Brierly, the academically rigorous prep school she attends on scholarship, feels overwhelming and impossible. Her junior year begins in the wake of a startling discovery: A message from an alternate Earth, light years away, is intercepted by NASA. This means that on another planet, there is another version of Tara, a Tara who could be living better, burning brighter, because of tiny differences in her choices.
As the world lights up with the knowledge of Terra Nova, the mirror planet, Tara’s life on Earth begins to change. At first, small shifts happen, like attention from Nick Osterman, the most popular guy at Brierly, and her mother playing hooky from work to watch the news all day. But eventually those small shifts swell, the discovery of Terra Nova like a black hole, bending all the light around it.
As a new era of scientific history dawns and Tara’s life at Brierly continues its orbit, only one thing is clear: Nothing on Earth–and for Tara–will ever be the same again.
Never Ever by Sara Saedi
When Wylie encounters Phinn—confident, mature, and devastatingly handsome—at a party the night before her brother goes to juvie, she can’t believe how fast she falls for him. And that’s before he shows her how to fly.
Soon Wylie and her brothers find themselves whisked away to a mysterious tropical island off the coast of New York City where nobody ages beyond seventeen and life is a constant party. Wylie’s in heaven: now her brother won’t go to jail and she can escape her over-scheduled life with all its woes and responsibilities—permanently.
But the deeper Wylie falls for Phinn, the more she begins to discover has been kept from her and her brothers. Somebody on the island has been lying to her, but the truth can’t stay hidden forever.
The Way to Game the Walk of Shame by Jenn P. Nguyen
Taylor Simmons is screwed.
Things were hard enough when her single-minded dedication to her studies earned her the reputation of being an Ice Queen, but after getting drunk at a party and waking up next to bad boy surfer Evan McKinley, the entire school seems intent on tearing Taylor down with mockery and gossip.
Desperate to salvage her reputation, Taylor persuades Evan to pretend they’re in a serious romantic relationship. After all, it’s better to be the girl who tames the wild surfer than just another notch on his surfboard.
True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan
If you asked anyone in his small Vermont town, they’d tell you the facts: James Liddell, star athlete, decent student and sort-of boyfriend to cute, peppy Theresa, is a happy, funny, carefree guy.
But whenever James sits down at his desk to write, he tells a different story. As he fills his drawers with letters to the people in his world–letters he never intends to send–he spills the truth: he’s trying hard, but he just isn’t into Theresa. It’s a boy who lingers in his thoughts.
He feels trapped by his parents, his teammates, and the lies they’ve helped him tell, and he has no idea how to escape. Is he destined to live a life of fiction?
The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich
After reading Amy Lukavics’ excellent Daughters Unto Devils (Kelly has a brief review here), I was craving more good horror reads. I liked the concept of Dawn Kurtagich’s The Dead House, which is told in a found footage style via journal entries, video transcripts, therapy recordings, and other notes. The dead house of the title is a teenage girl’s mind, so this is not a haunted house story – rather, it’s a mishmash of psychological horror with a nice sprinkling of demonology and a dash of gore (just a couple scenes). I can’t watch horror movies because I’m sensitive to blood on the screen as well as the “make you jump” trick so many filmmakers pull, but I can handle most YA horror novels. I wouldn’t recommend this one to the more squeamish readers, but it’s not the most disturbing horror novel I’ve ever read either.
It centers around two identical twin sisters living in a single body – at least that’s how they describe it. Carly is awake during the day and Kaitlyn lives during the night. Their therapist, Dr. Lansing, has diagnosed them with dissociative identity disorder, frequently called multiple personality disorder, and says that Carly is the true personality and Kaitlyn is the alter. Dr. Lansing believes the split happened when Carly’s parents died in a horrible car accident as a way for Carly to cope with the trauma. But Kaitlyn has always been there, even before the accident, and there’s much more going on with the two girls than Dr. Lansing could imagine.
The story begins in a psychiatric facility and then moves to a boarding school that doubles as a transitional home for mentally ill teens who are re-acclimating to normal life. One of the first things we learn is that a terrible fire destroyed this school over ten years ago, and the students all claimed a girl named Kaitlyn Johnson was responsible – though no Kaitlyn Johnson was ever enrolled, of course. The rest of the book is a flashback leading up to those events. Most of the story is told via Kaitlyn’s diary, and through it we get a very intense look at this troubled teenager. It’s never clear to the reader whether Kaitlyn is “real” or not, as she insists, and as the story progresses, Kaitlyn herself even begins to doubt. When Carly’s personality disappears and Kaitlyn is conscious 24 hours of the day, Kaitlyn’s mental health deteriorates even further and she searches in desperation for any way to bring back her sister. It’s at this point that The Dead House really begins to blur the lines between psychological horror and supernatural horror.
Because we get such a close look at Kaitlyn’s mind, both through her diary entries as well as analysis from her doctor and others who come into contact with her, her hallucinations (or are they real?) and paranoia (is it paranoia if it’s true?) come across as exceptionally creepy. Carly’s best friend, Naida, eventually learns about Kaitlyn and tries to help bring Carly back – she’s fully on board with the idea of Carly and Kaitlyn inhabiting the same body. Naida’s methods involve black magic and she believes Kaitlyn is inhabited by a demon…which may or may not be true. Everything is moving along nicely, with a delicious creepiness, as bit by bit Kurtagich enhances the horror. The first truly gruesome scene involves someone cutting off their own tongue with a knife after a misguided exorcism-type attempt, and it’s at that point that readers will realize they’ve left the intro to horror far behind. From then on, it’s a bloodbath, with Kaitlyn driven to violence by the demons (or her own mind?) and eventually realizing an awful truth about someone she loves. Everything comes to a head the day of the fire, culminating in a violent, out of control conclusion that brings the story full circle.
By the end of the book, the reader is unsure whether Kaitlyn/Carly’s illness was responsible for what happened, or whether something supernatural actually had a hand in it. The answer is probably a little bit of both; it’s meant to be ambiguous and isn’t unsatisfying left so.
Kurtagich’s debut novel is ambitious and succeeds on many levels: as a character study of a fascinating and troubled teenage girl; as a horror novel that may keep you up at night; as an interesting way to tell a complicated story. I thought the supernatural aspects were a little weak; the mythology behind it was somewhat muddled and I found Kaitlyn’s mind much more interesting. But for the most part, the elements all work together in harmony. The creativity on display is impressive. I listened to this on audio, and Charlotte Parry, who reads Kaitlyn’s parts, does such a good job of bringing Kaitlyn to life. She draws sympathy even as she terrifies. Highly recommended for horror fans.
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