Starcrossed

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini (NY: HarperTeen, 2011).

Shy Helen Hamilton leads an isolated life on Nantucket with her dad. She keeps to herself except for her long-time friend Claire and a few others--the ones who don't think she's weird. She feels weird most of the time, too tall, too strong, too everything. She just wants to hide. Then a new family moves onto the island and suddenly things get even weirder. Helen is having vivid dreams about blood-weeping crones out in a desert and is hearing incessant murmurs and noise. Worse, she makes a fool of herself at school when she tries to strangle new boy Lucas Delos, and she can't even explain why she hates him so much since she had never set eyes on him. Her usual defenses are breaking down and her isolated life no longer seems possible as she has to decipher the meaning of the dreams and Lucas's crucial role in her destiny, a destiny she had no idea she would have to face so soon.

Angelini spins an excellent tale, rife with romance of epic proportions. There are a few loose ends that bothered me, however. First, Helen has no clue that she's beautiful, which seems pretty impossible. She's supposed to have the most beautiful face in the world, yet she needs Lucas (among others) to point it out. And she thinks the other kids at her school consider her ugly? Nonsensical. Second, Helen and Lucas solve the issue of the muttering fates a bit too readily, to the point where the decree of the Fates seems too easily dismissed. Hello, Fate is supposed to be unavoidable, as in not something that can be changed. Helen and Lucas can't get around some of their fate, but once they manage the first bit, it seems more likely they'll find another loophole (in the sequel, no doubt). Third, Helen has a necklace given to her by her mother that she's worn all her life, and all of a sudden she notices that everyone sees it as something different. Unlikely! There are some details about Helen's mother that are irksome as well, but for the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into them. In any event, they didn't spoil the novel for me; I enjoyed the story a lot, especially the romance between Helen and Lucas. Yes, it's somewhat cliched, but it's still a thrill ride, and they have to battle all sorts of obstacles. This is an excellent choice for fans of Riordan's Percy Jackson series who want their mythology mixed with a bit more love and lust. Recommended for ages 13 & up.

Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman (NY: Dutton, 2011).

It's been three years since Mia broke up with Adam, and he's still suffering. She has fully recovered from the accident that killed her whole family and nearly killed her, too. Adam begged her to wake up from her post-accident coma (as documented in the gripping If I Stay), even promising to let her go if that's what she wants. They're an unlikely couple to begin with--she's a classical cellist on her way to Julliard, he's a heavy metal guitarist in an up-and-coming rock band. He helps her recover, but then she drops him without explanation right after she moves to New York. At first Adam retreats from everything, but then he channels his pain into a bunch of songs that rocket him and his band into the rock-and-roll stratosphere. Despite his instafame, and all the accouterments, Adam feels cut off and alone, often lashing out at his manager and bandmates, or even strangers, like reporters who want the inside scoop on his wild life with his celebrity girlfriend. By chance, Adam is in New York the night of Mia's first concert in Carnegie Hall. They're both about to launch huge tours, but they have one night to settle things. Can Adam get the closure he needs? Or does he need something different? And what will Mia have to say? Together, Adam and Mia travel around New York on an emotional odyssey.

Forman's sequel to If I Stay hums with raw emotion. Adam's grief is palpable in his every word and action. Forman deftly shows how close to the edge of self-destruction Adam is dwelling after the break-up and even three years later. This is easily the high point of the novel, its truly powerful foundation. Adam has tried to avoid his pain to an extent through sex, drugs, and antisocial behavior. Yes, he has a girlfriend, but even he recognizes that it's more about his public image than a true connection. He still misses Mia every single day. Since the novel is more about Adam than Mia, it's somewhat understandable that Mia is less developed in this novel, but this makes the second half of the novel somewhat lacking, especially compared to the power of the first half. In the end, every reader will have to judge for him or herself if Mia's reasons for her actions are adequate for the amount of grief she caused Adam. I'm still not sure, but this novel is definitely worth reading. Recommended for older teens. Sex, drugs, alcohol, language.

S'Mother

S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed to Him by Adam Chester (NY: Abrams Image, 2011). Reviewed from Kindle ARC and e-galley, both provided by publisher via netgalley.com.

This hilarious memoir is kind of the mom version of $#*! My Dad Says, in that Adam Chester preserves the crazy letters his mother has sent him since he moved away to go to college. Chester's mom, Joan, happens to be a lot less vulgar than Halpern's dad, but just as funny! There are non sequiturs galore, and the Chester's book includes plenty of scans of the letters--in case you can't believe some of the stuff she's written, or just to showcase the wackiness of some of the letters. (As a side note, the scans were not readable on my Kindle!)

Chester lost his dad at age 8, and as he says in his Foreword, his mom should've come with a warning label about her crazy-making potential. This is true. It's easy to laugh at Joan's insane missives, but hard to imagine living with this deluge of madness. This memoir is largely restricted to her letters and their immediate context, but there must be some wacky stories, too, about Joan's interference in Adam's life when he was a kid, beyond the few completely hilarious tales provided in the foreword. After his dad died, Chester and his mother moved to Florida. Joan cut Adam off from all his paternal relatives, saying they hated her and were crazy. She also gave him dire warnings about her own relatives, like her mother and half-brother Michael (also deemed crazy). She starts writing letters to him after he moves to California for college. The topics range all over the place, but Joan has a few themes. One of them is death, specifically her death, and associated topics, like life insurance policies. She has some off-the-wall pet names for Adam, too, including poppy-seed, pussy cat, and dolly poo-poo.

One of my favorite non sequiturs appears in two points appended to a letter about miscellaneous financial and personal issues. "1. Don't drink rain-water. 2. There's a resistant form of gonorrhea going around--Use a condom" (p. 56). Yikes! Can you imagine getting letters like that? Chester claims he has hundreds. He stopped reading them, but saved them all.

Despite the crazy-making potential, Chester clearly loves his mother dearly, and she's very much a part of his life. She has to be considering that she lives only 20 minutes away from him, but even aside from that--she's still writing letters! Chester includes a few of his own musical career highlights, but keeps the focus on his mother's engaging, if wacko, letters. Highly recommended for adult audiences!

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (NY: Lerner Publishing Group, 2011); reviewed from Kindle e-galley supplied by publisher via netgalley.com.

In one of 16-year-old Alison's first memories, she's begging her mother to keep making the pretty gold stars, for that is what Alison sees when her mother is clanking utensils together in the kitchen. Her mother's horrified response and admonition to never, ever tell anyone what she sees, lets Alison know that there's something wrong with her, something she can't reveal to anyone else. She can see colors for numbers, objects, and noises, and experiences tastes for shapes and names. Lately, she can sense a bitterness when someone is lying to her. Worse, if she herself lies, she becomes violently nauseated. And when she wakes up in a psychiatric ward, she initially encounters some lies, or at least half-truths, about the tough time she's had the past couple of weeks that she's been there. Not that she remembers. But the police thinks she should remember something about a missing girl, Tori Beauregard. Apparently, before her mental breakdown, she confessed to killing Tori. But how could that be? Alison had little if anything to do with the popular kids at school, and Tori was one of the most popular girls in her class.

As Alison's memory slowly returns, she recalls talking to Tori on the afternoon of her disappearance. But all she remembers is that Tori suddenly disintegrated before her very eyes. Which is impossible. So impossible she must've driven herself crazy enough to confess to a murder and land herself in the loony bin. She doesn't want to talk to her shrink about any of this, not Tori, not the extraordinary colors and sounds that fill her world. Then a different psychiatrist, Sebastian Faraday, shows up who gives a name to her condition--synesthesia--and tells her that she's not crazy or a freak, she's a gifted person who can help him.

Ultraviolet is a highly unusual novel--it starts out paranormal but then veers into science fiction and fantasy. Allison's journey is developed skillfully, and her time in the mental hospital is particularly well developed with an interesting cast of characters. Anderson does a wonderful job of describing Allison's sensory condition of seeing, hearing, and even tasting ordinary objects so that it sounds both beautiful and frightening. The same is true for the psychiatric hospital, itself both interesting and terrifying with its group of troubled teens. Allison's relationships with her mother, best friend, fellow inmates, and psychiatrists are realistic and well done. Particularly interesting is the quasiromance between herself and Sebastian. Once the science fiction aspect of the story takes over, there's plenty of action, so this really is a novel with something for everyone! Recommended for ages 14 & up. Intense and sexual situations.

Hereafter

Hereafter by Tara Hudson (NY: HarperCollins, 2011); reviewed from Kindle e-galley supplied by publisher via netgalley.com.

Eighteen-year-old Amelia has meandered aimlessly for a long time. She remembers the dark waters and has relived her horrible death regularly. She recognizes the general environs of the Oklahoma town but not much else. She can see and hear people, but they can't see or hear her. It's not what she expected from the afterlife. Not at all. Periodically she loses consciousness and has the drowning nightmare, then wakes up in a graveyard to being her wanderings again. Until something different happens. She's in the water, but she sees a boy. He's been thrown from his car into the river while she's there. She screams and tries to wake him. She can even hear his heart slowly petering out. A final scream and he miraculously opens his eyes, and even more amazingly he can see her and touch her. Awake, he struggles to the surface as she hovers near him, silently urging him on. Suddenly her afterlife is changed. She hears the boy's name, Joshua, and he later comes to find her, unflinchingly accepting what she is and his ability to see and hear her.

Hereafter is a ghost story, so it's haunting, but hauntingly sad and lovely because it's also a love story, as unlikely as that sounds. Amelia is an interesting character who wakes up from her lethargic wanderings with the help of a boy who not only sees her but risks loving her. Together they solve the mystery of Amelia's life and death and then have to start thinking about what the future holds for their seemingly untenable union. Recommended for ages 14 & up. Intense & sexual situations, alcohol, language.

After

After by Amy Efaw (NY: Viking, 2009).

This is an absolutely gripping story about what happens to a girl who dumps her newborn baby in the trash. We've all read that story in the paper and wondered how anyone could do that to a baby. Efaw's novel gives one highly plausible answer.

Fifteen-year-old Devon didn't even know she was pregnant. That may seem hard to believe, but the story makes it clear that she truly did not know and makes her denial seem realistic. All of a sudden she's violently ill and gripped by horrendous pain. Then the blood starts flowing and after endless hours of suffering, out comes a Thing. And it's still attached to her. She gets it off. With nail clippers. It looks like a blob of bloody white rubber, but then it starts making noise. Devon needs it to be quiet. She wraps up all the bloody mess of her ordeal, puts everything in a trash bag, and carries it to a dumpster. Then she wraps herself in a blanket and retreats to the sofa, drifting in and out of consciousness, knowing that she's missing school, but also knowing there's no way she can go today. Her mother comes home from work and finds her, but just keeps talking. Something about a cute cop out in the alley. A knock on the door and soon Devon is being arrested, but taken to the hospital for treatment first before being locked up at a juvenile detention center.

In addition to all these shocking details, there's background about Devon's life before: her mad skills as a soccer goalkeeper, her excellent grades, her coaching, her babysitting. There's also her flighty mother who's constantly involved with low-life guys, herself a teen mom who managed to get a GED and now works at a grocery store and a bar--mainly night shifts. Devon has been taking care of herself for years, and she has her sights set on a better future for herself. A soccer scholarship at a Division I school. How could she have ended up in juvie? And worse, looking at the possibility of being tried for attempted murder as an adult? How?

Yes, there are gruesome details, but there's also a great story here about a girl who's trying so hard she can't see what's right in front of her eyes. Efaw convinces the reader that it really is possible to deny a pregnancy and hide it from everyone. In the end, Devon is wholly sympathetic and her tragic story is rendered in a manner that's completely believable. Highly recommended for teens, ages 14 & up.

Inside Out

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (NY: Harlequin Teen, 2010).

Seventeen-year-old Trella is a scrub, aka a lower, which means she spends her ten-hour shifts cleaning the pipes and ducts of all four levels of the insular world she inhabits. She hates the crowded space allotted to scrubs on the lower two levels of Inside, so she's the "Queen of the Pipes," and spends most of her time, including her off-hours, crawling around the shafts. She's skeptical when her only friend, Cog, takes her to listen to yet another prophet proclaiming there's a better place Outside. But then Trella gets involved in locating some disks the prophet has hidden in the ducts above his room in his upper level dwelling before he was beaten and paralyzed by the Pop Cops and dumped in the lower levels. Trella starts out thinking she'll disprove the prophet, but ends up leading a rebellion that involves all the scrubs fighting against the ruthless uppers and their domination of the lower levels through brute force and propaganda.

Snyder has fashioned a fascinating dystopia, and Trella is a great character. While it lacks the outlandish displays of power that make Hunger Games so memorable, Inside Out has plenty of action that keeps the plot moving along. Trella has to grow as a character and learn to trust others. She also has to overcome her resistance to the leadership role that has been thrust upon her. There's a bit of romance, as Trella becomes involved with an upper named Riley, but it's fairly muted, so the novel will appeal to both boys and girls. Recommended for ages 12 & up.