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books

Teenage Criminals

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Interested in reading stories about teens who routinely break the law and get away with it? There’s something really compelling about these kinds of books. The teens have to be pretty smart to keep up the criminal lifestyle; often the teens are a lot smarter than the adults in the book. What teen doesn’t love reading about stupid adults who get their comeuppance served to them from someone under 20? Not only that, the teens beat the system (usually an unjust one) with their shenanigans, which is even more major. I still find it pretty sweet to read about, even though I’m now on the adult end of it.

Today I have a list of books for you featuring teens who are criminals in some way or another (assassins, spies, mobsters, thieves, and the like). Some of the teens are coerced into the criminal lifestyle and would rather just be normal kids; others relish the opportunity and embrace the fact that they can do what a lot of others can’t. Descriptions are from Worldcat. Have any others to add? Please let me know in the comments.

First up are a group of books featuring law-breaking teens with superpowers. Let’s look at this realistically: if you had superpowers, would you only use them to save lives and other boring things like that? Or would you actually use them to rob banks? Be honest.

Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
After a vaccine accidentally creates superpowers in a small percentage
of the population, seventeen-year-old Ciere, an illusionist, teams up
with a group of fellow high-class, super-powered thieves to steal the
vaccine’s formula while staying one step ahead of mobsters and deadly
government agents. Kimberly’s review

White Cat by Holly Black
When Cassel Sharpe discovers that his older brothers have used him to
carry out their criminal schemes and then stolen his memories, he
figures out a way to turn their evil machinations against them. Kimberly’s review | Sequels: Red Glove, Black Heart

Sekret by Lindsay Smith
Follows a group of psychic teenagers in 1960s Soviet Russia who are forced to use their powers to spy for the KGB. Kimberly’s review

Mind Games by Kiersten White
Seventeen-year-old Fia and her sister, Annie, are trapped in a school
that uses young female psychics and mind readers as tools for corporate
espionage–and if Fia doesn’t play by the rules of their deadly game,
Annie will be killed. Kimberly’s review

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae
escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of
the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has
blessed her with dangerous gifts–and a violent destiny. Kimberly’s review | Sequels: Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared
skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own
horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young
fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Ostracized or incarcerated her whole life, seventeen-year-old Juliette
is freed on the condition that she use her horrific abilities in support
of The Reestablishment, a postapocalyptic dictatorship, but Adam, the
only person ever to show her affection, offers hope of a better future. Sequels: Unravel Me, Ignite Me

Burn Mark by Laura Powell
In an alternate London, England, the lives of a fifteen-year-old girl
eagerly awaiting the development of her “fae,” or witch abilities, and
the son of a man who sentences witches to death by burning, intersect
when the son makes a startling discovery. Sequel: Witch Fire

If books about people with regular abilities (smart, but not super-smart; intuitive, but not mind-readers) are more your speed, check these out.

All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin
In a future where chocolate and caffeine are contraband, teenage
cellphone use is illegal, and water and paper are carefully rationed,
sixteen-year-old Anya Balanchine finds herself thrust unwillingly into
the spotlight as heir apparent to an important New York City crime
family. Kimberly’s review | Sequels: Because it is My Blood, In the Age of Love and Chocolate

Heist Society by Ally Carter
A group of teenagers uses their combined talents to re-steal several
priceless paintings and save fifteen-year-old Kat Bishop’s father,
himself an international art thief, from a vengeful collector. Sequels: Uncommon Criminals, Perfect Scoundrels

Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon
After waking up on an operating table with no memory of how she got
there, Noa must team up with computer hacker Peter to stop a corrupt
corporation with a deadly secret.

Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn
After a high-profile art heist of three van Gogh drawings in her home
town of Seattle, sixteen-year-old Violet Rossi finds herself in Japan
with her artist father, searching for the related van Gogh painting.

Money Run by Jack Heath
Fifteen-year-olds Ashley and Benjamin are planning the heist of a
lifetime, but they are not counting on a hit man who has plans of his
own.

Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig
High school sophomore Willa and her artist mother move to Arizona where
Willa starts attending an elite prep school after her mother finally
sells some paintings, and Willa attempts to even things out by stealing
from the rich students and giving to the poor ones. Sequels: Pretty Sly, Pretty Wanted

I Am the Weapon (previously Boy Nobody) by Allen Zadoff
Sixteen-year-old Boy Nobody, an assassin controlled by a shadowy
government organization, The Program, considers sabotaging his latest
mission because his target reminds him of the normal life he craves. Sequel: I Am the Mission

The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew

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I don’t think Gene Yang has written a book yet that I haven’t liked. His latest, The Shadow Hero, is an ambitious project, one that should instantly establish itself as part of the comics canon. He’s taken an obscure character from the 1940s, possibly the first-ever Asian American superhero, and written an origin story for him that is fresh, timely, and fun.

The Green Turtle was a short-lived hero from the Golden Age of comics. His face was almost always obscured, which some argue was done in order to allow the creator to make him an Asian-American hero as opposed to the white American that the publisher wanted. Yang and Liew have pulled this character from the footnotes of comics history and made him into an interesting and fully-formed superhero, the son of Chinese immigrants experiencing his teenage years through the lenses of his heritage as well as his unconventional ability.

Like much of Yang’s other work, this is a story about growing up as a Chinese-American, but it also feels very much like a classic superhero story. Hank’s parents were both born in China and came to America separately, for different reasons. Hank’s mother felt like she settled for Hank’s father, and she doesn’t have the life she always dreamed of. This contributes to her desire to make something of her son, and she sets about trying to figure out a way for Hank to get real superpowers, much like the Anchor of Justice, a real superhero in this book’s world (set just before the second world war). Hank isn’t into it at first, but as you might expect, something eventually does happen and Hank becomes the Green Turtle.

Yang takes a lot of tropes (a nicer word for cliches in this case) from 40s comics and incorporates them into Hank’s story. The book includes things like a detective named Lawful, gangsters as villains, freak accidents that imbue people with powers, and so on. Rather than feeling lazy or derivative, these choices feel deliberate, especially when accompanied by a hero protagonist who is pointedly Chinese-American as his inspiration was never allowed to be. The book feels like a homage to Chu Hing (the creator of the Green Turtle from the 40s) as well as a corrective – in a small way – to decades of comics history that never allowed stories like these featuring characters like Hank and his family to be told.

The book also functions really well as a straight-up superhero comic, no context needed to enjoy it. The story is interesting, the art is crisp and expressive, the characters are nicely rounded. The plot also has some unique mythology behind it, tying it back to Hank’s heritage, lending Hank and his nemesis extra depth and adding some much-needed layers to the story.

I love superhero origin stories featuring teenagers; they’re such perfect metaphors for the teenage experience. I see this as a great readalike for fans of the new Ms. Marvel, someone who is also struggling to grow up as part of a cultural minority in America while simultaneously grappling with new abilities that are both amazing and terrifying.

The author’s note at the end gives context on the original comic and reproduces an issue in full. It’s a must-read, enhancing the significance of Yang and Liew’s own work. Highly recommended.

Finished copy provided by the publisher. The Shadow Hero is available now (so no excuses).

Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

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When I was a teen, I really liked reading about teenage criminals. There was something very heady about a teen who deliberately broke the law – sometimes for a selfless reason, sometimes not – and got away with it, over and over again. Putting something over on adults is a time-honored tradition for teens in literature, and I’m happy to report that Emily Lloyd-Jones’ debut, Illusive, is a a terrific addition to this noble genre.

There is perhaps no better “meet” marketing pitch than the one for this book: X-Men meets Ocean’s Eleven. Unlike many others, this one actually works. It’s about a group of teens with special powers who carry out heists. Their powers derive from a vaccine that cured a deadly illness. In a small percentage of the population, the vaccine caused peculiar side effects. Our protagonist, Ciere, found herself with the ability to create illusions – including the ability to make herself nearly invisible. Drawing a firmer parallel with the X-Men, the world Ciere finds herself in is one where people like her are hunted, recruited, and imprisoned. The only way to be free is to hide who you are – if that can be called freedom at all.

In the tradition of Divergent, Illusive is a bit of a vocabulary lesson. The vaccine created seven distinct categories of superhumans: illusive (create illusions), mentalist (read minds), eidos (perfect recall), eludere (sharper senses), levitas (levitation), dauthus (physical power), and dominus (mind-control by way of hypnosis). A dominus is rare, and when one appears on the page, it’s intense. A few select portions from the POV of Daniel, who has been captured by the dominus and placed under his control, are chilling.

Like any good heist novel, the book is full of red herrings and surprise twists. The main thrust of the story involves Ciere and her crew (led by a Fagan-type named Kit Copperfield) running a job to steal a dead woman’s will from a lawyer’s office. What precisely the will contains and why their client wants it in the first place are teased out over the course of the novel. Naturally, the will is much more than it seems, and their client isn’t the only one who wants it. Add to that the fact that a mobster is after Ciere for robbing a bank in his territory, and you’ve got an exciting, high-stakes ride.

The writing here is smooth, despite the fact that it’s written in third person present tense. (I know I talk about how much I love third person, but paired with the present tense, it’s so awkward. I still sort of wish the book were written in first person, or maybe past tense instead, but only sort of. It works.)

Particularly well-done is the experience of Ciere witnessing someone being killed. Often in stories like these, the tone is light and people are always cracking wise, even when they’re killing people or being shot at. There’s plenty of wisecracking here, but it was nice (if you can call a scene like this nice) to see that Ciere reacted viscerally, unpleasantly, realistically to a man being stabbed before her eyes. It adds a bit of seriousness to what is, after all, a serious situation. I also appreciated that there are a couple of f-bombs thrown in (not an overwhelming amount, but two or three). It makes sense that teen criminals would curse occasionally (or even, dare I say, frequently…).

I’m of the opinion that there just aren’t enough YA heist novels out there, so I’m glad to see another join the ranks. This should satisfy fans of series like Heist Society (though it’s a bit more intense) who don’t mind the added sci-fi element. I can imagine that for many readers, the sci-fi element would only sweeten the pot. It may also appeal to fans of Mind Games by Kiersten White or Sekret by Lindsay Smith, also books about teenage criminals with superpowers (I feel a book list forming). 

Review copy received from the author. Illusive is available today.