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Girls Across Borders: Reviews from the Outstanding Books for the College Bound List

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To round out women’s history month and continue talking about some of the amazing titles on this year’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound list (OBCB), I thought I’d dive into the books on the list that talk about girls across borders. This is a longer roundup of titles, as there were a number of really great titles that would fall under this umbrella. Some of the borders these girls move across are physical, some are mental, and some are socially-constructed boundaries. I’ve pulled the titles from across the five categories of the OBCB list, so there’s a little literature, a little social science, and a little bit of arts and humanities covered here.

Sold by Patricia McCormick

This isn’t a new title, and it’s not one that hasn’t gone unnoticed or not earned accolades. That’s for good reason. This is a powerful novel in verse about human trafficking and prostitution.

Thirteen year old Lakshmi lives in Nepal, and when a devastating
monsoon destroys her family’s crops, her step-father informs her that her duty is to help the family recover from this tragedy. While she’s under the impression that she’s being sent to do work a a maid, the truth is, she’s being sold into prostitution in India.

It’s a harsh, cruel, and brutal world, but Lakshmi does what she can to endure. She’s able to at least try to foster friendships with the other girls in the brothel.

Sold is horrifying and heart-wrenching, and it’s not necessarily the kind of story with a happy ending to it. What’s left unsaid because of the verse style of the novel is as painful as those things which are said and described. Likewise, despite being a fictional novel, it’s clear that McCormick has done her research on the truth behind stories like Lakshmi’s, and she’s unflinching in what she presents as the truth of her experiences as a child sold into prostitution.

Though not a personal favorite read of mine, it’s one that I am still thinking about months later. It’s powerful, and it’s the kind of story any reader curious about the ongoings in other parts of the world should read. But, of course, they shouldn’t read it for just that. Because as much as we want to believe this is an issue “in other places,” it still happens in the places with which we have great familiarity.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

So what can be done about oppression and the horrific abuses women suffer around the world? Kristof and WuDunn delve into what we can do and how we can do it in their work.

I should note before diving into this a bit more than this book didn’t work for me. It’s really brutal, even more so than Sold, and I had a problem more specifically with how these women’s stories of being hurt and broken and abused were coaxed out of them in a way that I felt took the power away from the victim and instead gave it to Kristof and WuDunn. But I note that this was my personal bias in the reading and it came up because this book is PACKED with these sorts of stories — it’s not an easy read nor is it a gentle one and it’s not meant to be either of those things.

That said, this is the kind of book any reader interested in social justice, particularly on a global scale, should pick up. It gives a broad perspective of practical things that can be done to help make the world a little bit of a safer place for women who endure brutality. It puts a real face and story to the ones told by McCormick in Sold. I should be fair in stating, too, that alongside the really tough reads are stories about how many women recovered from their positions and situations. Those are, of course, meant to be a call to action.

Factory Girls: Voices from the Heart of Modern China by Leslie T. Chang

When you think of China, what do you think? What about those stickers littering your clothes or on toys that proclaim “made in China?”

Chang enters into migrant China and follows two girls through their “careers” in the factory/migrant world. Min and Chunming represent the girls who leave their village homes and seek work in the cities inside factories that run them dry, pay them little, and “own” them. But what’s most fascinating is how Chang doesn’t necessarily look at this as a negative thing in and of itself; these girls see these jobs as upward mobility in China. This exploration of China’s social situations and work/personal lives is fascinating, heartbreaking, and — surprisingly — somewhat hopeful. Although I found Chang’s personal history in here boring (I skimmed those few chapters), I see how they relate and tie into the greater story. 
A great book for considering not just the social world of China, but how China’s changed and evolved in the last few decades, how the population has adapted to this, what promise and hope look like for young women who aren’t attending colleges/universities, and it’s also a means of reflecting upon our own choices in what we purchase and use product-wise in America. We consume the goods these girls take part in making; how does and should this impact us here, knowing what those jobs there might mean?

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Going back to fiction and back to the US momentarily, Kwok’s novel focuses on the double life which immigrants to this country can sometimes lead.

Kimberly Chang and her mother arrived in Brooklyn from Hong Kong poor but eager to get away from their home country. They’re set up in an apartment of squalor. During the day, Kimberly is an immensely talented and eager school girl. From that, it would appear she’s living the American Dream, but it’s far from that.

At night, Kimberly works in the factories and hopes to help supplement the income her mother has in order for them to stay afloat in their new home. She’s obligated to help, and in the process of this work, Kimberly comes to a number of realizations about how much responsibility falls on her to help make life in this country possible. There is a romance that emerges in the story, as well, and it’s in these scenes where readers get a real sense of the challenges faced — no matter which decision or opportunities Kimberly pursues, she’s going to have to work hard and make significant sacrifices.

What happens, too, when someone finds out about your real home life and it doesn’t match the face you present in the classroom?

Girl in Translation makes for a really interesting read against Factory Girls. While they’re set in entirely different worlds, what these girls do and don’t do reflect the realities of their worlds in ways that make them almost more similar than they make them different. 

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Guene

If I had to pick a single book I read over the course of OBCB work that stood out to me the most, it would be Guene’s novel. I’d put it off for quite a while because I had no idea what it was about (the title and the cover didn’t attract me) but when I picked it up, I read it in a single sitting.

What a little gem of a book. This was published adult but has mega YA appeal, as it’s about a 15-year-old Doria growing up in the projects about half an hour from Paris. While we have our romantic notions of what Paris is like, that notion is best left to what Paris is — not the suburban landscape. 

Doria’s dealing with her father ditching her and her mother, who is illiterate, as he heads back to Morocco in order to attempt marrying a woman who can sire him a son (that’s all that matters in his culture). It deals with urban issues in a way that’s cross-cultural, about the challenges of growing up between cultures, and what it means to figure out who you are and what you do when your world’s been blown apart. It looks at what happens when the people you’ve come to know and rely on for certain things — their always being there, their always NOT being there — change and mold into their own lives and new paths, too. 

Doria’s voice is amazing: it’s funny, but also deeply hurting and that hurt comes in those really funny moments, making them even more searing. Doria’s not one of those girls who is a miracle, and I think that’s what made it resonate so much. She’s NOT good at school and she doesn’t care. But it doesn’t at all make her worthless or driftless. She’s 15 and only trying to figure it out as best she can. Even when the school reassigns her to a trade she doesn’t care about, Doria’s actions and reactions are real and authentic to who she was. 

The reason this particular novel was one we talked about and thought was worthwhile for including on OBCB was not just the voice, but that it showcased a girl whose cultural identity is one we don’t often see. She’s poor, she’s part French and part Moroccan, and she lives on the outskirts of one of the most romanticized, lauded cities in the world. 

Three other female-lead and female-centric titles that fit within this idea of girls across borders include the following:

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

There’s not much I need to say about why this book fits not only on the OBCB list (it’s in the literature and languages category) nor about why it fits within this post about girls across borders. Frankie’s a girl who takes charge, gets things done, and does so despite what stands in her way. While fictional and the stakes that exist in the real-life stories discussed above aren’t as high, this is the type of book that fits into the conversation, if it’s not a gateway to the larger conversation about social constructs, gender, and about girls breaking down borders.


Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal

Blumenthal’s non-fiction title, which skews much younger than the other titles on this list, is a carry over from the 2009 list. It’s an excellent look at how Title IX came to be and how women earned their rightful place in sports and athletic history. Here is how girls spoke up and out, despite the challenges standing before them. What keeps this book particularly interesting is how well the photos and sidebars are used and placed throughout.

Rookie Yearbook One edited by Tavi Gevinson

I nominated this title not having read it and wondering if maybe I’d nominated something that had no chance or place on our list. But I was wrong. This book, which is on the arts and humanities list, is such a fantastic guide to pop culture, to counter pop culture, to fashion, and to music. More than that — and I think why this is such a perfect fit for the OBCB list, as well as for this roundup of titles in particular — is that it explores “big issues” that teen girls face. It tackles figuring out what you want to do with your life, how to begin and end friendships, as well as sexuality, dating, and more. Tavi and her fellow writers have their fingers on the pulse of being a teen girl, and while things like makeup tips or fashion photo shoots won’t capture the interest of all girls who pick up this title, there are powerful pieces in here that will speak to them. This isn’t a book you sit and read cover to cover; it’s more a book you pick up and read when you feel like you need to talk to someone who will get you and offer you some really worthwhile advice or food for thought on life stuff. A big thumbs up, too, for this book featuring models of many colors and more than one shape.

Earlier title roundups of books on the Outstanding Books for the College Bound list I’ve talked include titles tackling music and musicality, football and football culture, and religion and spirituality.

March Debut YA Novels

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It’s that time again to roundup the debut novels out this month. As we get into the new few months, prepare your to-be-read piles to explode, as more debuts will be popping up over the next three or four months. I define debut as I have in the past: the author has not published another novel before, so this YA title is their first across any category or genre. 

I’m pretty sure I’ll miss something, so feel free to let me know of other traditionally published debut novels out in March in the comments. All descriptions come from WorldCat.

Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano: A math-whiz from a trailer park discovers she’s the only student capable of unravelling complex clues left by a serial killer who’s systematically getting rid of her classmates. 

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy: Alice is ready to go out in a blaze of glory, but then she discovers she’s in remission from cancer and she must deal with all of the mistakes she’s made and the people she’s hurt. 

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton: Born with bird wings, Ava Lavender is well aware that love has long made fools of her family. When pious Nathaniel Sorrows mistakes her bird wings for angel wings, 16-year-old Ava faces the man’s growing obsession, which comes to a head with the rain and feathers that fly through the air during a nighttime summer solstice celebration.

ACID by Emma Pass: 2113. In Jenna Strong’s world, ACID – the most brutal, controlling police force in history – rule supreme. No throwaway comment or muttered dissent goes unnoticed – or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for life, for a bloody crime she struggles to remember. The only female inmate in a violent high-security prison, Jenna has learned to survive by any means necessary. And when a mysterious rebel group breaks her out, she must use her strength, speed and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID – and to uncover the truth about what really happened on that dark night two years ago. 

Liv, Forever by Amy Talkington: Soon after an art scholarship gets Liv a place at prestigious Wickham Hall, she becomes the latest victim of a dark conspiracy spanning 150 years, but her ghost, aided by friend Gabe and boyfriend Malcolm, tries to put a stop to the killing.

Nil by Lynne Matson: Transported through a “gate” to the mysterious island of Nil, seventeen-year-old Charley has 365 days to escape–or she will die.

A Death-Struck Year by Makiia Lucier: When the Spanish influenza epidemic reaches Portland, Oregon, in 1918, seventeen-year-old Cleo leaves behind the comfort of her boarding school to work for the Red Cross.

Half Bad by Sally Green:In modern-day England, where witches live alongside humans, Nathan, son of a White witch and the most powerful Black witch, must escape captivity before his seventeenth birthday and receive the gifts that will determine his future.

The Story of Owen by E. K. Johnston: In an alternate world where industrialization has caused many species of carbon-eating dragons to thrive, Owen, a slayer being trained by his famous father and aunt, and Siobahn, his bard, face a dragon infestation near their small town in Canada.

The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare by M. G. Buehrlen: For as long as Alex Wayfare can remember, she has had visions of the past. Vivid visions that make her feel like she’s really on a ship bound for America, or riding the original Ferris wheel at the World’s Fair. It isn’t until she meets Porter, a stranger who knows more than should be possible about her, that she learns the truth; her visions aren’t really visions. Alex is a Descender — capable of traveling back in time to her past lives. But the more she descends, the more it becomes apparent that someone doesn’t want Alex to travel again. And they will stop at nothing to make this life, her fifty-seventh, her last.

Ask Again Later by Liz Czukas: Instead of a “No Drama Prom-a” with a group of friends, seventeen-year-old Heart LaCoeur must choose between two boys with good reasons for asking her, but a flip of a coin leads not to one date but two complete–and very different–prom nights.

Gilded by Christina Farley: Sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa Lee is a Korean-American girl with a black belt, a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows, and a chip on her shoulder the size of Korea itself. When her widowed dad uproots her to Seoul from her home in L.A., Jae thinks her biggest challenges will be fitting into a new school and dealing with her dismissive Korean grandfather. Then she discovers that a Korean demi-god, Haemosu, has been stealing the soul of the oldest daughter of each generation in her family for centuries. And she’s next.

The Other Way Around by Sashi Kaufman: To escape his offbeat family at Thanksgiving, Andrew West accepts a ride from a band of street performers who get their food and clothing from dumpsters, but as he learns more about these “Freegans” he sees that one cannot outrun the past.

The Secret Side of Empty by Maria E. Andreu: M.T. is a high-achieving high school student, who hiding the fact that she’s an undocumented immigrant in the United States.

The Violet Hour by Whitney A. Miller: Seventeen-year-old Harlow Wintergreen, plagued by mental voices and visions while traveling through Asia, must confront the evil sources of them when the hallucinations start bleeding into reality. 

The Hazards of Book to Film Adaptations: Further Reflections on Attempted Rape in Divergent

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Shailene Woodley and Theo James in a still from Divergent, courtesy of Summit.

I wrote about the Divergent movie last week and touched only briefly upon the problematic attempted rape scene that was inserted into Tris’ final fear landscape. Since then, many more people have seen the film and weighed in on this scene. Some, like Beth Lalonde at Medium, found the scene empowering. Lalonde’s piece is extremely personal, and because of that, it’s impossible to write off her reaction as “wrong.” But the piece is problematic since it doesn’t put the scene in context with its source material – the book.

As readers, we have to be careful about how we judge movies made from the books we love. The movie is not the book, nor should it be. They’re different mediums and communicate in different ways. I think book fans are often too quick to denigrate film adaptations for simply deviating from the source material that they love. A film must deviate from the book, and sometimes these deviations must be major ones in order for the film to work as a film.

That said, we cannot look at a film completely on its own. As viewers, we have the right – perhaps even the responsibility – to compare the two and decide whether the changes the filmmakers decided upon worked, whether they served the story and its characters.

It would appear Lalonde hasn’t read the book, which is fine. The movie wouldn’t be successful if it only attracted readers of the novel. But when I consider the fact that there is no such scene in the book, I must then ask “Why did the filmmakers feel it was necessary to put this in there?”

From there, I speculate. Maybe one day an interviewer will ask the screenwriter or the director or whoever was responsible for the scene about its inclusion, but until then, speculate is all I can do.

The kindest answer to my question may be that the filmmakers thought it would be too difficult to communicate Tris’ fear of sexual intimacy – or just affection in general – on the big screen. The book is told in first-person, making insights into Tris’ mind natural and easy. Here’s an excerpt:

My fear is being with him. I have been wary of affection all my life, but I didn’t know how deep that wariness went.

But this obstacle doesn’t feel the same as the others. It is a different kind of fear – nervous panic rather than blind terror.

He slides his hands down my arms and then squeezes my hips, his fingers sliding over the skin just above my belt, and I shiver.

I gently push him back and press my hands to my forehead. I have been attacked by crows and men with grotesque faces; I have been set on fire by the boy who almost threw me off a ledge; I have almost drowned – twice – and this is what I can’t cope with? This is the fear I have no solutions for – a boy I like, who wants to…have sex with me?

Simulation Tobias kisses my neck.

I try to think. I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.

I look Simulation Tobias in the eyes and say sternly, “I am not going to sleep with you in a hallucination. Okay?”

Perhaps the filmmakers thought that showing the beginning of a consensual sexual act – which is stopped by words, not violence – would be confusing for viewers without this narration, that viewers would be left wondering why on earth Tris fears something that looks so nice.

I think this is probably the most likely explanation, but it’s also confusing to me as a reader, a viewer, and someone who used to be a teenager. There may be nothing more terrifying than having sex for the first time, even with someone who respects your boundaries, as Four clearly does with Tris (both in the book and in the movie). Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s not also scary; the two are not mutually exclusive.

This fear would have come across just fine on the screen, had the filmmakers given it a shot. Woodley is a fine actress, and this fear is so nearly universal, it would be easy for viewers to relate to it and understand it. After all, we already know that it’s Tris’ fear landscape, which means we already know that the things in it are meant to be frightening. It wouldn’t take a great logical leap to conclude that Tris is afraid of sexual intimacy.

Rather than simply omitting this scene, which the filmmakers may have deemed too difficult to convey on film, they chose to make it into something else. Perhaps they did not intend to explicitly tell readers and viewers that they felt Tris’ fear of sexual intimacy was equivalent to fear of rape, but by making the choice to exclude the book’s scene and create the attempted rape scene, that’s exactly what they have done.

The less charitable part of me has another answer to my question: that the scene was created to heighten the drama, to show how tough Tris can be, because rape is, as we’ve all been told over and over, the worst thing that could happen to a girl or woman. Therefore, we may conclude, this is the ultimate test of a female Dauntless. The Four in the movie simulation even says something to that effect, taunting Tris, “Aren’t you a Dauntless?”

If this is the reason, it’s lazy. It fails to dig deep into the characters and show us a fear – a really scary one – that Tris may have based upon her unique personality and situation. This is not a change that serves the characters or their story. What’s more, it doesn’t function well even when considered separately from the book. There’s no precedent for Four committing sexual violence given to us in the film. He willingly backs off when Tris asks him to. He puts no pressure on her to take it further than she wants. Perhaps the filmmakers assumed that all girls innately fear rape, but then why wasn’t it perpetrated by Peter or one of the masked attackers assisting Al? She certainly has reason to fear those people, though again, their violence did not have sexual overtones previously in the film. (Note that I don’t think this is what the filmmakers should have done either, but it would have been truer to the characters as they were portrayed on the screen.)

Melissa Montovani at YA Bookshelf writes about this in her three-part series focusing on this scene. It’s a thorough and respectful piece, which both responds to Lalonde and expounds upon the many different ways this added scene is problematic. She talks a lot about how it actually reinforces rape culture, teaching girls and women that they should be afraid of a boy or man with whom they previously felt safe, as well as putting the onus of not getting raped on the victim. It’s well worth a read and adds the necessary context that Lalonde’s piece is missing.

I know there will be a lot more discussion of this in the coming weeks. If you have thoughts or opinions, I’d like to read them in the comments.

Crossing the Line: Adult-Teen Relationships in YA Fiction and Beyond

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In Saturday’s Links of Note roundup, I pulled together some of the posts making rounds regarding the sexual misconduct scandal within DFTBA records. If you aren’t completely up on what’s going on — and I have to admit, I’m not entirely clear on everything happening either — here’s a piece that’ll give the rundown as it started. This is a story that has many layers to it, and I think that Jeanne has done a pretty good job breaking some more of them down in her post (and the subsequent update she’s linked to). Read this, as well as the comments. Her background is within the fandom perspective, which is an arena I know little about. 

But what’s stood out to me over the course of this is less the allegations of sexual abuse — which isn’t to say that’s not important because it certainly is — but instead, I’ve found myself fascinated by an organization which is run primarily (entirely?) by men who serve a primarily teen audience and fan base. There is nothing wrong with that, but it leads to a lot of questions about how those who are older than eighteen can or should interact with their underage audiences. This isn’t only about DFTBA; it’s about any situation where adults work with or for or come in contact with teens in some capacity. 

I was a teen girl once. I was a teen girl who loved male acoustic singers, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to a lot of concerts growing up. I lived close enough to Chicago to make this a reality, and I’d earned enough trust to go, whether with an adult or by myself/with a group of friends. I never thought a whole lot about the fact that I was under 18 and going and seeing these men who were in their late 20s and 30s performing. Many times because of my working for the high school newspaper, I was able to get in touch with these artists and set up either web-based or in-person interviews. 

I never found it weird to talk with them after a show or ask for an autograph or ask a few questions or even approach them for a hug. It never occurred to me that that could be uncomfortable. I was a teen girl and expressing my interest and my passion for music and the art someone else was making. 

One night after a show, I’d had such a good time and had a chance to talk with the singer afterwards, mentioning that I was really bummed I couldn’t go to his show the next night since it was a 21 and older only spot. I’d been there with my mom, and rather than invite me to come to the show anyway, he talked with my mom and said if she was willing to come with me, he’d sneak me in to sell merch for the show that night. 

But this was after he talked with my mom. 

Of course then it didn’t seem like a big deal to me, but in thinking about that moment now, it was exactly the right thing for him to do. Rather than invite me personally or offer to sneak me in, he asked my mom for approval and asked if she would come with me to do so. He didn’t lead me on and he didn’t try to make promises for me. He set up some clear boundaries and expectations immediately in order to protect not just himself but to protect me, as well. 

Barry Lyga wrote two really great posts last week talking about being in the sort of position where he’s regularly interacting with teenagers. The first, which you should read here, set off a lot of questions and discussion. Was he being too strict in having a “no hugs” policy? He followed up with a response to the things people asked or said to him — primarily to those who thought his approach was far too rigid and strict — in this post. The golden piece is this quote: “Why do we presume men are guilty? Dunno, but here’s the thing: until it changes, I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t changed. Change comes first —then hugs.” 

What Lyga speaks to isn’t the presumption of guilt. He’s not calling men the problem. He’s instead pointing out that we do live in a world where bad things happen and rather than contribute to that, his policy is simply hands off. Does it mean sometimes a teen doesn’t get what he or she wants? Something that could make his or her day or week or year? Certainly. 

In his own words: “A part of respect in a relationship between an adult and a minor is acknowledging the power imbalance and setting reasonable boundaries. We can quibble about the nature and tone of those boundaries, but I don’t think we should quibble about their necessity.”

This is where I find myself most fascinated by the DFTBA community and the events going on within it right now. There is a power imbalance. While we’re most familiar with imbalances that put someone in a position to hold their power over the heads of others, what is going on here is a power imbalance that’s never been considered: those who have power don’t see themselves in that way. It’s not that they should feel guilty or bad for what happened. It’s that the possibility of what could happen in such a position wasn’t at the forefront and wasn’t considered.

There was no blanket manner of dealing with issues that could arise because the idea that they could arise wasn’t something that they thought about. 

No matter how cool a 15 year old might be, a 22 year old shouldn’t be anything more than a 22 year old adult with that person. Gender does and doesn’t matter here. It matters because there’s certainly additional power imbalances when it’s a sexually-charged relationship, but it doesn’t matter because there is a clear line of legality regardless of the type of relationship being pursued. It can go either or both ways — older men or older women and/or younger boy or younger girl. 

What’s interesting in this particular instance is the language used to describe the teenager. She is not a teenager, nor is she a girl. She’s a young woman. There is a power construct in the word choice, whether intentional or not. Regardless of how cool or polished she comes off, she’s still a teenager. When I think about when I was a teenager, I was fueled by my feelings, especially in regards to how I was being talked to and treated by “cool” adults. I loved that respect and attention. 

But it didn’t change the fact I was a teenager and not a young woman. 

In thinking about relationships between adults and teenagers, I thought rather than try to deconstruct this further, it’d be worthwhile to build a short reading list of books that explore these relationships. In some instances, the imbalance is clear and the lines of right and wrong are crisp. In others, it’s not as clear. Descriptions come from WorldCat, and I’ve elaborated a little bit, too, about why these books are worthwhile reading and discussion fodder, especially in light of what’s happening in the DFTBA community. 

Please feel free to offer up other titles that showcase adult-teen relationships and the power (im)balances within them. I’d love to have a nice resource list because I think that this is a topic that doesn’t get talked about much but offers a lot of places for empowering not just teenagers, but adults, as well. 

This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters, who dreams of becoming a writer, is thrilled to be selected to take a college fiction seminar taught by her idol, Father Mark, but when the priest’s enthusiasm for her writing develops into something more, Olivia shifts from wonder to confusion to despair.

In Freitas’s novel, Olivia wants the approval of her idol so bad, she’ll go to the ends of the Earth to earn it. The problem is that Father Mark takes complete advantage of her desires and manipulates Olivia in the worst possible ways. Olivia is and is not entirely on to what’s going on. She believes that in order to achieve, she has to listen and follow with the instructions she’s given, even if it feels weird or creepy or wrong. What complicates the matter further is how well respected Father Mark is not just in the community, but in Olivia’s family in particular. 

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

Sixteen-year-old San Franciscan Lucy Beck-Moreau once had a promising future as a concert pianist. Her chance at a career has passed, and she decides to help her ten-year-old piano prodigy brother, Gus, map out his own future, even as she explores why she enjoyed piano in the first place.

Zarr’s novel doesn’t seem like it would have this element to it, but it does. Lucy’s become a little bit smitten with one of her teachers, and there is a clear exploration of what the lines of appropriate and inappropriate are as it comes to their relationship. What I think is most noteworthy here is how much Lucy seeks that approval and admiration from an older male. He’s cool and she loves the attention he can give her. That desire in her is, at times, hard to separate from the fact she’s 16. 

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

A fifteen-year-old Australian girl gets her first job and first crush on her unattainable university-aged co-worker, as both search for meaning in their lives.

What Buzo’s novel does is offer us the perspective of both the boy and the girl. We have a fifteen year old girl who is enamored by her coworker, who is in his early 20s and who enjoys hanging out and talking with her. But he understands clearly where the lines are in their relationship. He isn’t interested in her beyond talking and being friendly. He won’t pursue a deeper relationship with her and he certainly isn’t interested in leading her on nor holding his power over her head. He thinks she’s cool and she’s very smart, but he’s well attune to their age difference. 

Pointe by Brandy Colbert (available April 10)

Four years after Theo’s best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

I’ll have a lengthy, spoiler-laden review of Colbert’s novel next week, but it’s a title that fits within this list and does so in a bit of a different way. While we see the emotional tolls that happen in Freitas’s and Zarr’s novels, what happens in Colbert’s novel is not only emotional, it’s physical too. It takes Theo the entire novel to understand what happened to her and what ripple effects it had not only on her own well-being, but on the well-being of her best friend. 

Though not for teen readers, Alissa Nutting’s Tampa is another novel worth reading that delves into wildly inappropriate adult-teen relationships. I mention this title in conjunction with the YA ones because I think it gets at an aspect that I haven’t talked too much about, which is gender. While the other novels have an older male at the forefront, Nutting’s flips the script and has an older woman pursuing completely inappropriate relationships with teen boys. This is a challenging and squick-inducing read. 

What other titles would you add to the list? While I think there’s a lot worth exploring on the sexual abuse end (Pointe and Tampa fit there), I’d be particularly interested in titles where the power dynamic is on burgeoning non-sexual relationships. 

Pantomime by Laura Lam

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Pantomime, Laura Lam’s debut novel, was a Cybil finalist in the YA speculative fiction category this year. Despite the fact that it features a circus rather prominently (which I tend to avoid), I really enjoyed it. It felt fresh and starred a protagonist with a standout voice.

In order to discuss the book in any meaningful way, I do need to share something about it that some may consider a spoiler. You’ve been warned.

Micah is an intersex teen who was once called Gene (short for Iphigenia, a girl’s name). This information is not given in the official blurb, which paints Micah and Gene as two separate people. This is quite possibly the most deliberately misleading jacket copy I’ve ever read in my entire reading life. It’s not quite a spoiler, though, since this is revealed fairly early on in the story, and the basic point of the story is Micah coming to terms with his body and learning how he self-identifies. (There’s magic, too, which makes it a lot more fun.)

The book flips back and forth between the present day, when Micah is a member of R.H. Ragona’s traveling circus, and the past, when Micah still went by Gene. We learn what prompted Gene to run away to the circus and become Micah – and in so doing, we learn a lot about this place called Ellada, where magic resides in ancient artifacts of monsters long gone. While the immediate story focuses on Micah settling into circus life and learning who he wants to be, the larger mythology involves these artifacts and Micah’s special ability with them. This mythology isn’t overwhelming; it’s more of a tease, really, and there’s a promise of more in-depth examination of it in the sequel.

The circus functions well as a home for outcasts, though Micah still passes himself off as a cisgender boy and fears the other performers discovering his secret. (I’m using male pronouns for Micah as that’s how he describes himself for most of the book.) He must navigate some initial hazing, then the politics of the circus once he’s allowed to become a semi-permanent member. He also has to avoid being found by those looking for him, since his family is rather well-known with quite a bit of money. And there’s some romance, a bit of a love triangle, which is resolved in a surprising way.

What keeps the story moving is the skillful interweaving of Micah’s life at the circus (which has its own conflicts) with his slow realization that the artifacts react to him in a special way – particularly the strange Penglass, a remnant of some ancient civilization. There are multiple conflicts, which keeps interest from lagging, despite some pacing issues: there’s an actual pantomime near the end that is described in excruciating, unnecessary detail.

I wish I could have learned more about the artifacts and the Penglass and the lost civilizations and what they have to do with Micah before the (cliffhanger) ending. Many readers have praised the book’s world-building, but I found the world outside of the circus to be a bit lacking. The circus is delightfully strange and peopled with many shades-of-gray characters; the outside world is sketchier. I’m not quite sure what exactly the artifacts are, in particular the Penglass. And while I know they have something to do with Micah, I really don’t know what. Perhaps we’re meant to be left in the dark, but I found it frustrating.

This is to my knowledge the only traditionally-published YA book featuring an intersex protagonist. (If you know of others, please let me know; I couldn’t find any in a search.) It’s notable for that, but it’s also notable because it’s just a good story. Laura Lam expounded a bit on Micah and her inspiration for the character and his story at this post at Gay YA.