I’ve come to realize that I can either write lengthy reviews and read fewer books or I can read more books and post fewer reviews. I don’t think I have to choose one over the other. I’ve found there’s a need to just strike some good balance between the two, meaning that when I’m in the mood to just read, then I need to do that and when I’m in the mood to really dig into the books I’m reading, then I need to just do that.

I’m putting together a couple of review round-up posts for recent reads to talk up some of the things I have been reading. There’s nothing thematically similar about these books, other than they’re all titles I’ve read recently and are worth talking at least a little bit about.

My experience with Andrew Smith’s books are a mixed bag. Sometimes, I love them and sometimes, they’re really not my thing at all. I found Grasshopper Jungle to fall into the “not my thing at all” category this year, especially as I felt that the way females were depicted in the story was problematic. I don’t expect a book that’s through the eyes of a teen boy to always be perfectly respectful to female characters — that’s unrealistic — but when every female in the story has some kind of problem or is depicted as merely there as a side item, it starts to grate on me.

Enter 100 Sideways Miles.

The story centers on Finn and his experience as an epileptic. Or, well, it’s less about his experience as an epileptic as his experience being a teen boy trying to figure out what’s next in his life. It so happens he has epilepsy, due to a bizarre accident involving a horse that subsequently killed his mother. Finn’s goal at the end of this school year is to travel outside California with his best friend Cade. They want to check out a potential college in Oklahoma together.

In the interim, a new girl moves to town and quite literally meets Finn as he’s in the midst of a seizure. It’s completely embarrassing to him to have the new girl — who he can’t help but have his eyes on out of curiosity, if not more — walk in on him like that. But Julia isn’t fazed by it. In fact, it’s that event that brings them together and forges a satisfying relationship between the two of them. Smith offers up a solid female character in Julia, but more than that, he shows a really great romantic relationship between the two that feels real and more, feels real to who Finn is.

But this isn’t really about the romance. This is a book about guy friendship and about figuring out the questions of “what’s next” in life. I’d call this a straight up adventure story, especially in the second half, and it’s the kind of adventure story that seems to be lacking in YA. It’s two guys, on the road, figuring out not just who they are, but how they can solve big problems outside themselves while they’re on the road. 100 Sideways Miles also features what readers have come to expect out of Smith’s writing: it’s not necessarily straightforward and there are plenty of straight-up weird and bizarre plot elements. But those are part of the story and make sense within it. This is a much more accessible and, I think, enjoyable read than Grasshopper Jungle was this year. It features a diverse cast and a really authentic look at male friendship.

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel is Sara Farizan’s sophomore novel, and it repeats some of the same writing-related things that I found didn’t work for me in her first book, If You Could Be Mine. In Tell Me Again, main character Leila — who is Iranian — has never had a crush before. It’s something she is almost a little proud of, or at least it’s something she’d be more proud of if it weren’t for the fact this is because she’s a lesbian. Her parents, who are strict and religious, can’t know about this, as they have very high expectations of her to follow the straight-and-narrow in the same way her older sister is. Leila feels the pressure, even if she doesn’t necessarily pursue it.

When new girl Saskia comes to Leila’s school, though, suddenly, she finds herself falling. Saskia is gorgeous and she appears to be very open and honest about her feelings. Leila can’t believe that someone as attractive and cool as Saskia could be the kind of girl she’d be able to call a girlfriend. Between their getting together after school, their intimate moments in a dressing room, and their shared kisses, it feels all but certain Leila now has her first real girlfriend. How will she tell her friends? Can she tell them? And what about her parents?

It’s not what it seems though, and Saskia isn’t the cool girl or girlfriend Leila thought her to be. She’s taken huge advantage of Leila and her naivety, leaving her hurt and confused. But when a long-time friend reenters the picture, perhaps things aren’t as bad as Leila thinks they are. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to come out to her parents.

The writing in this one drags a bit and there are times where info dumps not only slow the pacing but they also sometimes seem to contradict themselves. We don’t get a super clear picture of any of the characters — including Leila — though Farizan does an outstanding job rendering Saskia as a toxic, manipulative girl who uses others for her own gain. At times, little to nothing happens in the story, and I felt like this moments deserved some higher stakes, both for the plot and for the characters so they could be more rounded and clearly depicted. I also wish there’d been a little more economic diversity within the story; this was a book featuring a lot of privileged characters and after a while, reading that got to be a little too much.


Tell Me Again reads younger than a lot of YA out there, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While there’s talk of sex and there’s drinking, I think this would be an okay book to hand to more mature middle school readers, as well as younger high schoolers.

If you’re looking for a book that’s a hard look at “dude culture” — something perhaps not explored as much as it should be in YA — then Eric Devine’s Press Play should fit pretty well.

Greg Dunsmore has earned the nickname “Dun the Ton” because he’s a big guy. A very big guy. But he’s using this as an opportunity to develop a film to gain him admission into a top film school. His plan is to film himself through intense weight-loss workouts, as well as the sort of bullying and teasing he gets for his body.

When he’s doing his workout in the weight room after school, he accidentally overhears and oversees something going on with the lacrosse team. It looks and sounds like bullying and hazing on a level he can’t stomach. He doesn’t have quite the solid proof that he’d like to to turn this into something bigger, but Greg knows now he has to pursue what it is he thinks is going on in order to shed light into the brutal hazing culture at his school. It’s not easy, and he’s not above seeing further bullying for what he’s trying to do, but Greg understands this is beyond him . . . even if he is also aware this could be an opportunity for his own future, too.

Devine’s book is a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled book along the lines of Joshua Cohen’s Leverage. While there’s not a lot new offered to the fat kid being bullied angle in the story, Greg is authentic and honest in a way that many of these kinds of stories don’t allow their main characters to be. He’s not a perfect character, and his flaws are what make him a character worth following. Because he’s sometimes unlikable, stubborn, and frustrating to readers and to those who care about him, he’s almost the exact right person to be attempting to out the hazing going on with the lacrosse team. He doesn’t start out with an agenda, and when he decides he does have to pursue this, his dedication to it becomes something that both impresses and annoys those around him.

At times, Press Play went a little long and it could have maintained its intensity with a little tighter editing, but this is the kind of realistic YA that should appeal to both teen boys and teen girls who are interested in unflinching, stomach-twisting looks at the underbelly of high school and high school athletic culture. It’s a story that’s exceptionally timely and, unfortunately, exceptionally timeless.