The Line by Teri Hall

Title: The Line

Author: Teri Hall

Publisher: Dial

Release Date: March 4, 2010

Date Read: June 23 - 26, 2011

Rating: 2.5/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

An invisible, uncrossable physical barrier encloses the Unified States. The Line is the part of the border that lopped off part of the country, dooming the inhabitants to an unknown fate when the enemy used a banned weapon. It's said that bizarre creatures and superhumans live on the other side, in Away. Nobody except tough old Ms. Moore would ever live next to the Line.


Nobody but Rachel and her mother, who went to live there after Rachel's dad died in the last war. It's a safe, quiet life. Until Rachel finds a mysterious recorded message that can only have come from Away. The voice is asking for help.


Who sent the message? Why is her mother so protective? And to what lengths is Rachel willing to go in order to do what she thinks is right?

Review

I've been captivated by The Line's cover since it was released in early 2010 and have been waiting to get my hands on it for ages. I had such high expectations especially after receiving several recommendations from other bloggers. While I did enjoy the book, I was mainly disappointed with the characters and young reading level.


I am hesitant to categorize The Line as a middle-grade read. While Rachel's age was never stated I gathered from her language and thought process that she'd be around 12-13. I was really thrown off when chapters would alternate with Vivian, her mother. To me YA is a perspective not a reading level, so to read a YA novel with an adult and a middle-grade perspective was very odd. 


Many of the characters seemed stereotypical and cliched rather than original and refreshing. The silent old man in the greenhouse, the strict old lady in the mansion, the Mom with secrets, the rebellious daughter. I felt like I'd already read this book before I even finished the first few chapters. Most of the dialogue between the characters seemed forced, especially when the plot history was conveyed in "history lessons" rather than in thoughts, explanations, or memories.


I absolutely loved the premise of The Line. Novels with such a rich history especially a focus on political strife are favourites on my bookshelf. This book had such promise with a totally realistic plot about military action, a pinch of supernatural/paranormal activity, and an old fashioned mystery. Unfortunately, tied with the overdramatic characters and unrealistic plot line I didn't really connect to the story as a whole. I found the pacing too fast, then too slow, too focused on history, then too focused on irrelevant characteristics. I found the ending very abrupt and sudden. I was finally invested in the plot and intrigued to see where it would lead when it just ended. Hopefully the sequel will pick up exactly where The Line left off. 


Constructive criticism aside, I am eager to read the sequel to see if the plot improves and see what becomes of Rachel. 

Favourite Quote: Couldn't find one!

Recommended: The Giver (Lois Lowry), The Declaration (Gemma Malley), The Compound (S.A. Bodeen), Among the Hidden (Margaret Peterson Haddix)

Something Wicked by Lesley Anne Cowan

Title: Something Wicked

Author: Lesley Anne Cowan

Publisher: Puffin Canada

Release Date: June 1, 2010

Date Read: June 19 - 22, 2011

Rating: 3/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

Melissa’s most recent troubles stem from a secret: her 28-year-old boyfriend, Michael, has just broken up with her. Melissa clings to the memories, riding a relentless wave of hope and disappointment. Meaningless sexual escapades, drunken nights, and drug-induced blackouts help her cope with heartbreak, but her pain goes much deeper than unrequited teenage love. Her insight, sense of humour, optimism, and sheer determination prove to be saving graces, as is her ability to find solace in the Greek myths she’s learned about in grade ten English class. And in the end, it is Melissa’s mother who proves to be the real victim, and Melissa who must save her.

Review

I found Something Wicked at my local library and was intrigued by the awesome cover and the Canadian author sticker. I love Canadian authors, especially forgotten ones like Lesley Anne Cowan. I had no idea what to expect out of the book and was caught completely off guard by it's dark plot and characters. 


Melissa was such an interesting character to read about. While I sympathized with her plight to define herself separate from her negative home environment and previous history I was also frustrated with the choices she made about her education, sexual experience, friends, and substance abuse habits. I loved how the novel wasn't about one central "thing" that happened to her but rather a conglomeration of her ADD, poverty, breakup, and home life. Rather than focusing on one issue Lesley Anne Cowan made Melissa as real as possible because we each face multiple problems and roadblocks in our every day life that shape the person we become. 


As I struggled to empathize with Melissa I was shocked by her comparison to Greek mythological characters. She identified as both Echo and Sisyphus, doomed forever to repeat both her actions and words. Her beautiful descriptions of her thoughts and experiences turned her from a trashy lost teenager to a scared young woman in my mind. 


As someone who has never tried drugs before I am very uncomfortable reading stories where characters are obsessive or regular users. Seeing how it controls their lives and changes them is a "birth control" on drug usage for me. However I'm glad that substance abuse novels are written because they can be awesome tools and resources for youth trying to overcome their own vices. In the recent #yasaves/WSJ incident it was mentioned that teens need literature that mirror their own lives to give them hope. I'm really glad that all of Melissa's actions had serious and realistic repercussions to show other teenagers that you can't get a "free ride" in life, that there are consequences for poor or illegal behaviour. 

Favourite Quote: "I'm somewhere between being in love and having my heart destroyed. I'm trapped in a waiting room, not permitted to feel bliss or misery. It's like knowing you won the lottery but not having the ticket in your hand. Or being given a death sentence by a doctor but forgetting to ask just how long you have left."

Recommended: Crank (Ellen Hopkins), Not Like You (Deborah Davis), Get Well Soon (Julie Halpern), The Freak Observer (Blythe Woolston)

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

Title: Prom

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Publisher: Puffin

Release Date: March 3, 2005

Date Read: June 8 - 16, 2011

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

High school senior Ashley Hannigan doesn't care about prom, but she's the exception. It's pretty much the only good thing at her urban Philadelphia high school, and everyone plans to make the most of it—especially Ash's best friend, Natalia, who's the head of the committee. Then the faculty advisor is busted for taking the prom money, and Ash suddenly finds herself roped into putting together a gala dance out of absolutely nada. But she has help—from her large and loving (if exasperating!) family, from Nat's eccentric grandmother, from her fellow classmates. And in putting the prom together, Ash learns that she has choices about her life after high school. 

Review

In honour of my high school prom last week I decided to read a prom-related novel. I'd heard that Laurie Halse Anderson wrote on and assumed it would be depressing (as most of her novels have controversial content) but decided to read it anyways because I love all her novels. As I thought, I loved it and it wasn't sad, it was hilarious!


I presume most prom novels are about hyped up teenage girls who freak out the week before the event about their date, their dress, etc. Not Ashley Hannigan. She hates prom. Which made me love her unconditionally. In the mess of my hectic prom plans, Ashley's narration was a calm strong character to hold me character. I loved how she wasn't a goody-two-shoes, wasn't passing all her courses, hated authority, came from a less-than-functional family, but was still a hilarious and lovable character. Usually I sigh and groan about trashy or lazy characters but instead I thought it made Ashley all the more realistic and fun. 


If you love Jaclyn Moriarty, you'll love this quirky and insane cast of characters. From Ashley's Mom who's about to birth yet another child to Nat's Russian Grandma next door you'll either be giggling with pleasure or wishing you were hanging out with them. I wish I'd had a group of friends as fun as Ashley's to bum around town with. I liked how the adult characters weren't all stereotypical and had important roles in the novel rather than "be home on time!" I appreciated how Laurie Halse Anderson started with a romantic interest already established rather than focusing the whole book on "Oh, he's so dreamy!" and wrote him as flawed as can be rather than the typical Prince Charming we see so often. 


Fun aside, Laurie Halse Anderson wrote Prom as she does all of her novels: full of run-on sentences of teen angst. She has such a unique writing style than effectively describes the teenage mindset and writes her narrator's thoughts as we would think, not how we should be grammatically written in a novel. Her realistic characters, dialogue, and settings are what define her as a YA author and I'm really glad that she branched out from contemporary realism to an equally realistic comedy.

Quote: "Catholics don't dunk. We dab. But wait, your grandma went swimming in the baptismal pool?" "Wrong. She is still swimming in the baptismal pool. She won't get out."

Recommended: Prom Crashers (Erin Downing), Wintergirls (Laurie Halse Anderson), The Year of Secret Assignments (Jaclyn Moriarty)

The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers

Title: The Murderer's Daughters

Author: Randy Susan Meyers

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Release Date: January 19, 2010

Date Read: June 16 - 18, 2011

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

Lulu and Merry’s childhood was never ideal, but on the day before Lulu’s tenth birthday their father drives them into a nightmare. He’s always hungered for the love of the girl’s self-obsessed mother; after she throws him out, their troubles turn deadly.

Lulu’s mother warned her to never let him in, but when he shows up, he’s impossible to ignore. He bullies his way past ten-year-old Lulu, who obeys her father’s instructions to open the door, then listens in horror as her parents struggle. She runs for help and discovers upon her return that he’s murdered her mother, stabbed her sister, and tried to kill himself.

For thirty years, the sisters try to make sense of what happened. Their imprisoned father is a specter in both their lives, shadowing every choice they make. Though one spends her life pretending he’s dead, while the other feels compelled to help him, both fear that someday their imprisoned father’s attempts to win parole may meet success.

Review
Wow! I received The Murderer's Daughters to review from St. Martin's Press under the pretence of appealing to young adult readers, though it is technically an adult novel. This is Randy Susan Meyer's debut novel and I was blown away with how rich and beautiful her story was. Based on the phrase "Do the sons bear the sins of the father?", the novel is a wonderful analysis of guilt and how it can affect every part of our lives. Rather than being a story about domestic violence The Murderer's Daughters is about how we are extensions, not products, of our parents yet should not feel owned by their actions. 


I absolutely loved The Murderer's Daughters mainly for its character development. Lulu, asked to save her mother from her father, is haunted by the guilt of her mother's death. She removes herself from her father's life in prison and creates an identity separate from her childhood yet never fully escapes her past, struggling to be a good mother to her own children. Always questioning why she was stabbed, Merry becomes her father's keeper in jail and can't escape his presence in her life. Merry becomes shrapnel in the aftershock of the event and can't quite piece herself back together as she grows from a frightened child to a wild teenager and finally a lost adult. I appreciated how flawed Merry, Lulu, Aunt Cilla, and Joey were as characters: rather than being strong, healed, perfect humans Randy Susan Meyers wrote them as the realistic, broken people they would have been.


A discussion question at the back of the book made me reflect on the concept of identity and it's role in this novel. Merry and Lulu never quiet escape their identity as "the murderer's daughters" which is a homage to how single events can leave lasting impacts, yet the problem goes deeper. Lulu especially tries to rid herself of being labelled by becoming as successful, loving mother to cancel out the bad karma from her childhood but her past continues to catch up with her. It raised the question "As humans, are we obligated to reject the role society gives us as an  attempt to create our own identity, even though we know we will fail?" and left readers wondering how any of us create a life mirroring our expectations rather than as an extension of our past.


I would recommend The Murderer's Daughters to older teens as the novel does deal with mature content such as sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence. If you are a fan of any Alex Award nominees or have never read a crossover title before, you would greatly enjoy this book. 

Favourite Quote: "Adults should be able to offer themselves up for adoption. I'd find a family that gathered at every holiday ever invented - quick, get out the Columbus Day tree! - offering ourselves immeasurable occasions to use our in-family jokes and us-only references. A family that celebrated birthdays in some way other than sending homemade birthday cards from prison....Adopting adults should be as desirable as rescuing beautiful little Chinese girls."

Recommended: Breathe My Name (R.A. Nelson), Nineteen Minutes (Jodi Picoult)

My Heartbeat by Garret Freymann-Weyr

Title: My Heartbeat

Author: Garret Freymann-Weyr

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Release Date: April 29, 2002

Date Read: June 4 - 7, 2011

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

Ellen loves Link and James. Her older brother and his best friend are the only company she ever wants. She knows they fight, but she makes it a policy never to take sides. She loves her brother, the math genius and track star. She is totally, madly in love with James, his long eyelashes and hidden smiles. “When you grow out of it,” James teases her, “you will break my heart.”


Then someone at school asks if Link and James might be in love with each other. A simple question. But the answer is far from simple, and its repercussions affect their entire lives. 

Review

Wow. Have you ever read a book where no matter how long you think about it, you'll never be able to accurately articulate how the book you made you feel? My Heartbeat is one of those titles. I originally borrowed this from the library because of it's cover. Yup, it was the most atrocious cover on the shelf. I really enjoyed Garret Freymann-Weyr's After the Moment last year and thought that maybe this earlier novel would be nothing in comparison. Boy, was I wrong!

My Heartbeat is a young adult novel about a very young teenager, Ellen, who falls in love with her older brother's best friend, James. Typical Disney plotline, right? Wrong. Ellen realizes that James is very much so in love with her brother but as a young person in the early 2000s, doesn't know what gay is or why society would be prejudiced against it. This is one of the few YA novels I've read with an LGBTQ main character without the novel being about them "coming out" but rather about what it means to be homosexual in general. I loved how Garret Freymann-Weyr chose to embrace bisexuality in a very pansexual "love who you love" way rather than as a promiscuous love addict as some modern media chooses to portray it.

Beyond homosexuality, My Heartbeat also touches on teenage sex, transitions from adolescence to adulthood, the evolution of relationships, parent-teenager relations, and the poginancy of art in a secular society. Garret Freymann-Weyr used such rich metaphors and truthful descriptions that I was swept away in her world of words yet was amazed at how much the dialogue and train of thought mirrored my own. I think older teenagers would appreciate this novel more than younger YA readers, as the novel is probably marketed to, because it's incredibly moving and nostalgic to look back on a time when things were either black or white, when you could see things for the first time. It's rare to find such a pure and honest character as Ellen in most YA literature where characters are meant to mirror the harsh realities some teenagers face and I was completely enamored with her the whole novel.

I absolutely hate the cover. It misrepresents the deep emotional themes of the novel and turns it into a juvenile cartoon. I also think the title, while an important line, doesn't market the novel very well to an older young adult audience. If I was an average teenager looking for a book at the library I would probably have skipped right over My Heartbeat.

Quote: "Of the five of us - James, the other men, and me - who are waiting it is Douglas Peters, whom I have never met or seen, who looks more like a person. He is the only one with an expression. The only one whose mouth I got just right so that his face is full of sorrow instead of merely frozen, the way my fingers still are I try to draw what I see."

Recommended: After the Moment (Garret Freymann-Weyr), Keeping You a Secret (Julie Anne Peters), Geography Club (Brent Hartinger)

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black

Title: The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

Author: Holly Black

Publisher: Big Mouth House

Release Date: February 9, 2010

Date Read: June 2 - 4, 2011

Rating: 3/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

Poisonous girls whose kisses will kill. A fateful eating contest with the devil. Faeries who return to Ironside, searching for love. A junior prom turned bacchanalia. In twelve short stories, eerie and brimming with suspense and unexpected humor, Holly Black twists the fantastical creatures you thought you knew in ways you’ll never expect.

Review

Wow! I've never read a Holly Black novel before so I figured The Poison Eaters would be a great introduction to her writing style. I'm really excited to read her other novels now and see how she's progressed as an author over the years. Rather than reviewing each story individually I've chosen two favourites and three least favourites.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is my favourite short story of the collection, an amazing tale of a modern day vampire epidemic and how the world is coping. I was immediately drawn into the harsh almost post-apocalyptic world and Matilda's struggle to overcome her vampirism. I deeply wish that Holly Black had not included this in her collection, however, and had chosen to write it as a full-length novel. There was so much potential for character development, and in a literature world where vampires are the "hottest commodity" finding an original interpretation is hard to come by and therefore should be celebrated.

Paper Cuts is my second favourite story about a girl who puts herself into a novel and how her boyfriend copes with her departure. This is the perfect story for a book lover to read as many of us aspire to be a part of the novels and worlds we read about. I loved the simplicity of the story, how it was one of the sweetest and lightest tales in the collection, yet still portrayed the sadness of someone left behind. 

A Reversal of Fortune, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and The Land of Heart's Desire were my three least favourite stories. I didn't connect to any of the characters and the plots were either unoriginal or too simple. I understand that less popular stories needed to be included in the collection to provide a variety of reading levels/ages, cultural ethnicities, and worlds but these didn't seem to match the intensity of the other stories. Fortunately in a short story collection there is a story for everyone so hopefully another reader connected to and appreciated one of these.

As a whole I appreciated the effort Holly Black took to ensure that the stories weren't too similar or too different by choosing an overall theme to tie everything together: the dark side of fantasy. Too often in YA literature the fantasy world is portrayed as light or a "safe" darkness, but in The Poison Eaters the stories reflected the ugly side of love and fantasy realms. I also liked how there was a variety of characters and settings, from heterosexual werewolves to homosexual fairies, from children to adults, from paranormal to urban fantasy, from modern day to historical fiction. 

Quote: "Books were something that happened to readers. Readers were the victims of books."

Recommended: Tithe (Holly Black), The Rose and Beast (Francesca Lia Block), Gothic (Deborah Noyes)

Stay by Deb Caletti

Title: Stay
Author: Deb Caletti

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Release Date: April 5, 2011

Date Read: May 31 - June 1, 2011

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Goodreads

Summary

Clara's relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it's almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he's willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won't let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough....

Review

Deb Caletti does it again! After reading some of her earlier novels and seeing her progression to the mature author she is today, I was anxious to read her latest novel. 

Stay will be considered this year's best summer contemporary romance, but for different reasons than most YA novels. Rather than showing an amazing relationship or cute couple, Stay  portrays Clara and Christian's terrifying and ugly love. Too often we see a "insta-love" where people meet, fall in love, and everything works out; for Clara and Christian we see the realistic ending when they don't live happily ever after. It's also one of the few YA novels that looks at the negative impacts of passionate obsessive love and how it can destroy relationships. I really liked how none of Clara's relationships in the novel are textbook "perfect" as each character has faults and each relationship is not necessarily based on the best values or expectations. 

I really enjoyed how much attention Deb Caletti paid to small details, such as the alternating chapters, subtle references to the climax, the perspectives of situations, and describing Daniel in bits and pieces. She has such a great concept of how teenagers think, act, and speak that all of her characters were incredibly realistic. I especially liked her reference to how long it can take for certain songs, places, or events to no longer remind you of a person as Clara struggles to become a separate person from who she was with Christian yet is still plagued by memories they shared together.

My pet peeve with Stay actually has nothing to do with the content at all. It's the cover. First of all, it shows the wrong setting and the girl is too skinny to be Clara. Then there's the summary: atrocious! I never would have read this if I'd seen such a cheesy and melodramatic synopsis. I'm really glad that I'm not reading summaries this year to remain more objective about the books I read and this one will be a shining example.

In light of the recent article about the "darkness" of young adult literature I thought it would be appropriate for me to point out how Stay would be an excellent example of a "dark" novel that teenagers should read. As I previously stated too often YA novels focus on first loves, best-friends-that-become-boyfriends, and the happy aspects of love. None of these prepare or inform teenagers of the downside of love, that it doesn't always end in happiness and people can get hurt. Stay cracked me wide open with its amazing metaphors and characters but in the end it was the plot, a story of a girl and her boyfriend-turned-stalker, that will stick with me long after I write this review. While some may argue that it was inappropriate of Deb Caletti to include sexual, self-injury, or suicidal references in her novel, I found them all to be realistic and relevant to the scenario posed and they helped make the novel into the masterpiece it is.

Quote: "It's strange, isn't it, how the idea of belonging to someone can sound so great? It can be comforting, the way it makes things decided. We like the thought of being held, until it's too tight. We like that certainty, until it means there's no way out. And we like being his, until we realize we're not ours anymore."

Recommended: Wild Roses (Deb Caletti), Dreamland (Sarah Dessen), Just Listen (Sarah Dessen), Bitter End (Jennifer Brown)