Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

I find the nature of friendship fascinating--not unlike new love. There's the giddy beginnings when all the things you have in common with another seem an endless discovery and you want to spend every waking minute getting to know the other as you would yourself. There's the supremely delicate moments a friendship balances on, the ones you don't recognize while they're happening, but that will determine whether this will be a life-long bond of kindred spirits, a casual connection destined to fade, or a love-hate case of friends turned enemies.

The novel Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer explores this topic of friendship with great skill. Seniors Kathryn and Brooke are both talented singers preparing to compete in a prestigious competitition for fame, fortune, and a ticket out of their small town. In chapters alternating between the two girls' perspectives we learn that the bitter rivalry they share began as a friendship during junior year, and through a series of flashbacks the mystery of what went wrong is slowly revealed. On the surface, the girls are remarkably different. Kathryn is tiny and shy and drowning in stress as she tries to please her parents, scrape together money for college, and deal with constant bullying while Brooke is larger than life, popular without effort, searching for the attention of her distant but beloved father and for something more meaningful than the shallowness that is high school.

What I loved best about this book (and there were many things to love) was the depth of the characters. The author makes it impossible to take sides because you hear both girls' versions of what happened and see that they both behave badly, make poor decisions, and misunderstand--as do we all. I also found the ending richly satisfying, nicely balanced between sweet and realistic.

All told, a wonderfully timely tale that has a ripped from the headlines feel with its subjects of music competitions and female bullying (think Glee and Mean Girls for classical music). A great beginning for Sara Bennett Wealer--here's hoping for many more to come!

You can follow Sara Bennett Wealer on Twitter at @sbennettwealer or at her blog: http://sbennettwealer.livejournal.com/.

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

Andrew Zansky is a big guy. At fifteen years old, he weighs 306.4 pounds. And unfortunately, this is all anybody seems to see in Andrew. Nobody cares that he is funny and smart, and nobody notices that he is a good writer or that he is devasted by his dad's decision to leave his mom. That's what it is to be big in this society. Every moment of every day, Andrew thinks about his weight--whether his jeans will fit in the morning when he gets dressed, whether he will fit between the desk and the chair, whether he can go to his locker without being body checked into his locker by a bully. His pain, his humilitation, his worry--they're all visceral and they make the reader cringe for him.

Enter O. Douglas--that constant of every high school, "the popular quarterback." When O. Douglas takes notice of Andrew and rescues him from a beating, Andrew's life takes a dramatic turn. Without consciously meaning to, Andrew finds himself trying out for the football team--maybe to get in shape, maybe to get popular, maybe to get the girl of his dreams. Even Andrew isn't sure. What he is sure of is that something in his life has to change...the question is will Andrew be able to live with the consequences of change?

I loved the self-deprecating, witty protagonist of this book and found his emotions and situation realistic and touching. A couple of unexpected twists keep the "teenage makeover" plot fresh, and there are laugh-out-loud funny moments sprinkled throughout. This was author Allen Zadoff's first novel, and, based on its quality, this reader can't wait to read is next one out in May.

Gone by Lisa McMann

Gone by Lisa McMann is the third and final installment of the creepy, minimalist Wake trilogy. If you haven't read the first two, start there, as this review has spoilers. Main character Janie has the ability, or really, is compelled to enter other people's dreams. In the previous two books, Janie discovers she is not alone in this power and that being able to enter people's dreams has its rewards--she can help people find peace by guiding them in the dream and she can uncover crimes and abuse by observing dreams. Unfortunately, she has also discovered using her "gift" will eventually debilitate her hands into useless claws and cause her to go blind.

In Gone, Janie must make an impossible choice a "Morton's Fork"--either stay in her relationship with her love Cabel and keep using her gift as it cripples her or completely isolate herself from the world and all the joy of love, the way her long-lost father did.

As always, McMann writes in a spare, poetic style rich with emotion and depth. Fans of realism and modernism will like McMann's no-nonsense, life is too complicated for a happy ending approach. Though it certainly involves fantastic elements I would classify it more as contemporary, than fantasy. Gone uses more adult language than the previous two books in the series, but it is authentic to the characters' ages and experiences.
Over all, a very enjoyable series, and I know I'll be standing in line to read her next book, Cryer's Cross in 2011.

Love and Peaches

In this, the third and final book of the Peaches series, author Jodi Lynn Anderson brings Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie back to the Darlington Orchard for one more summer of exploration, adventure, and romance before bringing their stories to a close. Wild Murphy cut all ties with Bridgewater, Georgia when she moved to New York City after high school, including those with boyfriend and all-around great guy Rex. Deciding to return home for the summer means facing him again and facing some truths about her emotional hangups. Beautiful, perfectionist Leeda has found love with a perfect new boyfriend at Columbia University, and his love gives her an instant identity complete with a circle of new friends. When she returns to Bridgewater and receives a most unusual inheritance from her eccentric grandmother, Leeda may finally have to confront who she is and what she wants. Meanwhile Birdie had planned to stay in Mexico where she has been studying abroad and where she and Enrico have grown even closer...perhaps too close since Birdie shows up at the orchard unexpectedly at the start of the peach picking season. Birdie finds that her father has plans for the orchard and the house that may destroy her dreams. Now Birdie must decide whether she really wants what she thought she wants and figure out how to follow her true heart.

The writing is a little uneven on this installment, but the characters are richer and those who've read the first two will enjoy seeing where life is heading for the three girls. A sweet story of love and growing up. If you loved the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, you'll want to grab this series too.

Madapple

Madapple, also known as "rank-smelling, rash-causing, poisonous jimsonweed...green dragon and stinkwort and angel's-trumpet" is also the title of the strange and intriguing first novel by Christina Meldrum. Meldrum took to the old addage to "write what you know," spinning a tale that taps her knowledge and interest in nature and religion and her experience with the juidicial system. It is the story of Aslaug Hellig, a young woman raised in almost complete isolation by her mother in rural Maine. Her mother, Maren, has encyclopedic knowledge of science and philosophy, and, scorning the education the local school would give her daughter, educates Aslaug herself. Aslaug grows in academic knowledge but remains ignorant of the outside world or how to socialize with the people in it. Aslaug also has no knowledge of who her father is, as Maren refuses to give Aslaug any details about her family and relatives. Aslaug feels this ignorance, and resents her mother for keeping her insulated from the world even though she also loves her mother in a worshipful sort of way.

The chapters following Aslaug are filled with a lyrical beauty, which contrasts deeply with the interspersed chapters covering Aslaug's trial for the murder of her mother, aunt, and cousin (I warned you this was a strange book). These pages read like transcripts and allow the reader to judge Aslaug's story like a juror, hearing the events and circumstances of Aslaug's life through the eyes of coroners, police detectives, and forensic pathologists. This is a powerful technique when mixed with Aslaug's telling of events, one that builds suspense and a feeling of horror as you begin to put together the truth and suspect that justice may not be done in this case.

All told, an extremely well-written book full of mystery and suspense, one that technically fits the young adult label since the main narrator is a young adult but is definitely meant for more mature audiences since it deals with deep philosophical questions and issues like incest and drug use.


"I remember wanting the madapple to carry me away, to take me to that place again. And I wonder, If I go, will I find Mother there?"

Living Dead Girl

I write this post still feeling emotionally devastated by the experience of reading Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl. This terrifying novel is the account of 15-year old "Alice," a young woman who has been in the clutches of a sexual predator since he kidnapped her at age 10. Ray has named her Alice...the same name he gave his last victim. Now Alice is nearing the age when Ray tired of the previous girl, and despite the fact that he starves her to keep her looking like a child, Ray grows angrier with her every day. She longs for the release of death, but Ray has something much more sinister, much more sadistic in mind.

The prose in this novel is so sparse and lyrical it feels like poetry. The author convincingly portrays not only the physical but the psychological damage Ray inflicts on Alice; Alice seems barely human at times, incapable of any but the basest instincts.

I usually avoid this type of book, put off by the "movie of the week" feel of the plot description, but this one just drew me in despite (or maybe because of) my intense feeling of horror on reading the inside cover. I feel wrung out having finished this novel, and still slightly nauseated...but I can't deny it was a powerful reading experience. Certainly a must read for those who liked The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

Wake

Have you ever had a dream so powerful you found it hard to wake from? Janie has...in fact Janie does, quite frequently, only the dreams are not her own. Since Janie was 8 years old she has been pulled into the dreams of people who sleep in close proximity to her. She simply falls asleep in the midst of what she is doing and watches the dreams--the secret dreams of the girl at the sleepover, the humilitating dreams of the kid in study hall, the distorted dreams of her alcoholic mother. She sees her best friend's reoccurring nightmare and the frightening, horror-filled dreams of a strange boy she hardly knows. She fights to gain control and fears this affliction will destroy her life--how can she possibly go to college or have a relationship if she can't be near people who sleep?

The novel is written in short chapters over time and dated like diary entries, giving the story much drive and suspense. A couple plot elements are a little far-fetched, but the struggles of kids with rough home lives is portrayed sensitively and realistically, as is the touching romance in the story. Overall I enjoyed this quick read, realistic with some sci-fi-ish elements, and I'm super excited for the sequel, Fade which arrives February 10. Lisa McMann is an author with a lot of talent, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

Here's a book trailer I stumbled upon for Wake--it takes a different angle on the book than I would have, but it's interesting none the less.

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Story of a Girl

Sara Zarr's debut novel is an emotional and realistic book about a girl whose life is not what she planned. In the novel's opening lines, Deanna, the narrator, tells us: "I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy's Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren."

Deanna is now sixteen and regretting the choices she has made. Her father hasn't really spoken to her since that night, and Tommy has ruined her reputation by telling his friends what they did. At school her only protection from the slurs and inuendo are her best friends Jason and Lee, who are now dating because she set them up. This development has left her feeling jealous and even more isolated. Her consolation is her older brother, who still lives at home with his girlfriend and their baby April. When she is with them, Deanna feels needed and loved and she formulates a plan to earn money so they can all move out of their parents' depressing, loveless home. Toward this end, she finds a job, but what she doesn't count on is getting a job where she'll have to see Tommy every day.

Going into this book, I expected it to be sort of a sappy, after-school special kind of story. But I am happy to report this novel is nothing of the sort; it is honest and moving and a compelling look at the effects of physical and emotional abuse on a young girl.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

On a recent road trip to Chicago, I read Sherman Alexie's National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian. As my husband can attest, I laughed out loud throughout the book, frequently turning off his book-on-CD to make him listen to particularly funny passages. But this is not the stupid-funny, throw away-funny that rules in our modern culture. Like Alexie's previous books for adults (e.g. Flight, Reservation Blues), this young adult novel's humor is part healing mechanism, part coping mechanism, and part means of looking at the world. The first-person narrator, Arnold Spirit, Jr., is a member of the Welpinit tribe on the Spokane Indian reservation. "Junior" is an outcast with loads of medical issues due to being born hydrocephalic. His scrawny body and love of reading and drawing comics make him "a natural for the black eye of the month club." But in some ways, he is like most of classmates--poor, hungry, a child of alcoholic parents with no chance of escaping this fate if he stays on the reservation. Unlike his friends and parents and most all of the tribe, Junior has hope and ambition and commitment. And with these traits he decides to transfer to the off-rez high school 22 miles away. Doing so makes him the enemy of his best friend and a traitor to his tribe. Doing so means he must be the lone Indian in a school full of affluent white kids. His courage, his faith and his hopes are tested over and over by heartbreaking tragedies. And though some of the book's message is bittersweet, there is a sweet, pure joy in Junior's strength of character and his victories. This is a great book.