Book Review: Dark Water by Laura McNeal

DARK WATER is one of two novels I’m reading and judging (along with Bart’s Bookshelf) as part of Nerds Heart YA.

Pearl never really took note of the migrants that worked her uncle’s avocado farm – until she meets the (mostly) mute Amiel.  Amiel fascinates her, but is warning him of the coming fires worth putting her own life at risk?

First off, I have to say that I really enjoyed McNeal’s use of language.  Here’s a snippet of Pearl reacting to seeing Amiel:

“For a second I couldn't move or breathe. What is it about a person that makes him harmless to others and fatal to you, like a bee sting or a trace of peanut butter?” p 48

Though the crux of the plot relies on Pearl’s growing interest in Amiel, DARK WATER is much more than a romance.  It explores shifting family dynamics, the consequences of misunderstandings and the evolution of friendship – all against the backdrop of an area of Southern California plagued by deadly wildfires.

The scenes in the novel seemed very realistic – that is until the end. Pearl makes some spectacularly bad decisions and I didn’t think the story up to then supported her motivations for making them.

DARK WATER, a National Book Award finalist, is available now.  Find out more about it at the author’s website.  

Book Review: A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

A LOVE STORY STARRING MY BEST FRIEND is one of two novels I’m reading and judging (along with Bart’s Bookshelf) as part of Nerds Heart YA.

Cass is mourning the death of her best friend Julia and deals both by taking a road trip to spread Julia’s ashes (the “then” part of the narrative) and by helping Julia’s boyfriend Oliver and theater geek friends put on a production of a musical Julia wrote called Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad (the “now” part). Her road trip is complicated by having to ride a bike from Chicago to California on school break, and the musical is complicated by her former nemesis Heather getting the lead role.

LOVE STORY is as much about coming to terms with grief as it is about discovering who you are.  Cass is the kind of unreflective character who seems to never have thought about actively defining herself.  She sees herself as “Julia’s best friend” or “girl who people pick on and call a lesbian”.  Because she’s such a “black hole”, I had trouble connecting to her and I felt more like I was being put through the paces of the plot rather than really being touched by it.

But it’s all pleasant enough – and I especially liked the plot and the lyrics of the musical as well as the heartwarming climax to the road trip.

A LOVE STORY STARRING MY BEST FRIEND is available now.  Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Nerds Heart YA: The Final Round Decision. Say the Word by Jeannine Garsee vs Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz

We've come to the end of the Nerds Heart YA road, and two books are still left standing.  Nerds Heart YA is an annual event (in its second year) to showcase the quality gems in YA lit that don't get as much exposure or publicity as other books but are equally deserving of attention. 

SAY THE WORD is a novel that explores family relationships and homophobia.  LAST NIGHT I SANG TO THE MONSTER is about a teen in rehab confronting the monsters of his past.  Neither is a book I would have picked up on my own had it not been for Nerds Heart YA.  Both are amazing books I hope you will consider checking out.  But which one takes the title?

SAY THE WORD features Shawna, a very honest and flawed teen who is angry that her mother dumped her and her father years ago to live with Fran, her lesbian lover.  So angry that she hasn't spoken to her mother in quite some time.  So it comes as a shock when Fran calls and tells Shawna that her mother has had a stroke and is dying.

Shawna's mother's death sets off a whole chain of events that force Shawna to deal with her feelings of betrayal and homophobia. Though Shawna is a sympathetic character for the most part, she does and says some horrible things. Still, Garsee has a light touch, and the story, despite its heavy themes and tragedies, is a very entertaining read.  I really loved probably the first three fourths of this novel, but had a some problems with the ending.  One of the problems had to do with a romantic encounter Shawna had that just completely came out of left field and seemed out of character and out of place.  The other problem had to do with the resolution of the main conflict of the story which was just very unsatisfying to me.  Still, I really, really enjoyed reading this and spending time with the characters.  Find out more about it at the author's website.

LAST NIGHT I SANG TO THE MONSTER features Zach, an alcoholic teen in rehab.  Zach doesn't want to remember what happened to him that landed him in the facility, doesn't want to face the pain in his life.  An unlikely friendship with a 53 year old fellow patient Rafael helps him heal.

LAST NIGHT was a difficult novel to get into.  I did not enjoy the first half very much.  Zach is angry. His fellow patients are angry.  They talk about their monsters and addictions and how they drink and do drugs to avoid feeling anything.  Their stories, when they tell them, are shocking and sad and uncomfortable.

But at the halfway mark comes a passage where Rafael is painting and getting his monsters out onto the canvas.  Zach asks him why he does it, if it hurts so much.  And Rafael answers:

"I've been hurting most of my life. I tried to pretend I wasn't. I even believed my own lie. I've lived my entire life trying to avoid pain, Zach. That's a terrible way to live. I don't care any more if it hurts. (...) If I am working on a painting, and it doesn't hurt, then the painting won't matter. And if it doesn't matter, then it isn't real - then I am not real. (...) I have a new theory," he said, "and the theory is this: if I develop a great capacity for feeling pain, then I am also developing a great capacity for feeling happiness." p 115-116

Isn't that beautiful?  It helped me to see the characters and story in a new light and really root for their redemption.  And when I put the book down at the end, I was deeply touched. Find out more about the book at the author's website.

So which novel should I choose as the winner?  The book that entertained me more? Or the book that touched me more?  My gut feeling tells me to go with the latter.  That means LAST NIGHT I SANG TO THE MONSTER wins.  Congrats!

Nerds Heart YA Decision Time!

Ali and I both read ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK by Daphne Grab and STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE by David Yoo for the Nerds Heart YA tournament (click on the titles to read my reviews). Read Ali's post with reviews of both.

As I mentioned in both of my reviews, these are titles which are solid YA offerings, deserving of a wider audience. But we could only choose one to move on.

Though they might not seem that similar on the surface – ALIVE AND WELL is a sober novel about dealing with a parent’s illness and STOP ME is a comedic look at a doomed first love – they actually have a few things in common. Both are realistic fiction set in small town high schools and poke fun at the high school social order, the minefield which is school lunch, and the sheer absurdity of pep rallies. Both have outsiders as narrators (who are alternately annoying and endearing). And both have some well drawn supporting characters (Hal, Marco, Violet and Matisse’s parents in ALIVE AND WELL and cancer-stricken Ryan, pitch-perfect in his vain villainy, in STOP ME).

I thought ALIVE AND WELL had a much tighter narrative and the predictably of the plot didn’t bother me as it did Ali. I had a hard time choosing a favorite, but if the choice were solely up to me, I’d give ALIVE AND WELL a slight edge just because I thought STOP ME dragged on way too long. Since Ali chose STOP ME as a clear favorite, due to its “excellent voice and characterization, and less predictable plot”, STOP ME will be the one that moves on to be read by My Friend Amy in the second stage of voting (up against FEATHERED by Laura Kasischke).

So far we know that the following books will also move on to the quarterfinal round:

Stephanie will be judging between THE CITY IN THE LAKE by Rachel Neumeier and THE LATENT POWERS OF DYLAN FONTAINE by April Lurie.

Heather will have to choose between MY MOST EXCELLENT YEAR by Steve Kluger and THE LAST EXIT TO NORMAL by Michael Harmon.

Laza will decide if she prefers CRACKED UP TO BE by Courtney Summers or TBD.

Book Review: Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before by David Yoo

Korean-American Albert Kim blames his parents moving him twice in his formative years for his dismal social status. Instead of playing the fitting in game at Bern High, Albert spends his sophomore year intentionally being a loser. So when he has a summer “something” with the school’s reining sweetheart Mia, former half of a power couple, Albert thinks junior year is looking up. But then Mia’s jerk of an ex, Ryan, gets cancer and Al just can’t compete. Is their “something” doomed?

Albert tells us in the prologue that his love story ends badly, admits that he’s done some things wrong, and asks us to try to see the whole picture and try to understand who he is. It’s like an advance apology for the fact that he is about to go off on a lot of detailed (and often tedious) tangents during the following 370 pages. Albert is an unusual narrator – we don’t often get this much insight to the mind of a severe outcast – and he tries his best to put himself in the best possible light because “what is a story, really, but a narrator’s defense?” (p. 4)

So what does a girl like Mia see in a guy like Albert? No one can figure it out, not even Albert. In the microcosm of the summer hotel job, after one of the most painfully funny meeting scenes I think I’ve ever read, they are sweet together. But you know, both instinctually, and because you’re told on the first page, that their kind of “something” can’t last – Albert is just too much of a weirdo to ever successfully maneuver all the intricacies of the high school social scene (integral to the survival of any budding high school relationship). It’s funny – because of the title (a riff on the Smith’s song Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before I’d wager) – I kept thinking about the lyrics of the song whenever Albert (with increasing hysteria and dread) would ask Mia about their relationship status every couple of days:

Nothing's changed I still love you, oh, I still love you ...Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love

In another nod to the song, Ryan has his spleen removed. Good times.

Anyway, the highlight of the novel is the voice. Albert is just so delightfully dorky and immature but so observant and intelligent at the same time. His outsider insights on the ridiculousness of high school were spot-on. Many passages made me laugh out loud – especially the pep rally scene and the town’s overreaction to Ryan’s cancer.

But yeah, I’d say this is at least 100 pages overlong and often veers into outright parody (something like Tom Perrotta’s ELECTION). Still, it’s a nice slice of life love story from a perspective we don’t often see and that alone makes this worthy of a larger audience. Will this one beat ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK in the Nerds Heart YA tournament? Stay tuned!

Book Review: Alive and Well in Prague, New York by Daphne Grab

City girl Matisse is transplanted from Manhattan to small town Prague due to her father’s Parkinson’s disease and she’s none too happy about it. Instead of art galleries and indie films, Prague’s main attractions are the fall hay ride and a very bad tempered goose. But as her father’s symptoms worsen, Matisse’s attempts to ignore the grave situation and to push everyone out of her life come to a head.

This was the first of two books I read for the Nerds Heart YA Tournament (the other being David Yoo’s STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE) and I have to say that I do think it’s very deserving of a bigger audience. The subject matter is not that typical for YA lit and it fills a void in the “living with a sick parent” genre (with emphasis on living since no one dies). It is well written, well researched, and genuinely moving in parts.

Because the story is about Matisse’s journey from denial and rebellion to acceptance of her new life situation it is the kind of book that you know where the story is going from the moment you pick it up. Yes, it’s predictable, but I think it needs to go where you think it’s going to go to be effective.

You could chart Matisse’s journey by the lunches she brought to school over the course of the book. In the beginning she brings spinach salad, French Brie, edamame and other fancy foods as a way of both holding on to her city girl identity and subtly sending a message to her new classmates that she’s above them. By the end, she’s happily eating country vegetables such as summer squash and thinking about just how yummy Prague’s famous apples really are.

But make no mistake, it takes the bulk of the book for Matisse to grow from whiny brat to sympathetic fighter, and although the last few chapters are satisfying and enjoyable to read, you have to go through a lot of hard times with Matisse to get there. It’s great that Author Daphne Grab breaks up some of the heaviness with a few family flashbacks on happier times and comic relief subplots such as rebel without a clue Cranston/Dylan and the aforementioned goose, because otherwise this might feel too much like “required reading”.

Tune in tomorrow when I review STOP ME and Ali and I make our final decision about which book moves on in the tournament.

Friday Fabulous! (12)

Things I am excited about this week:

1. The Nerds Heart YA Tournament: 20 bloggers are charged with picking one of 16 books from 2008 as the underdog title of the year. These are less well-known books that the panel feels deserve more attention. I am co-judging in the first round with Ali from Worducopia and we are reading ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK by Daphne Grab and STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE by David Yoo (ummm..yeah...we got two of the longest titles). Look for reviews and our decision on Sunday. For more info including links to all the panelists' blogs and a judging bracket with all 16 titles, see Becky's fab post.


2. ChickLitTeens let me know that Shannon Greenland is offering up the 5th book in her SPECIALISTS series FIGHT TO THE FINISH for free on her website. Every Monday, she'll post a new chapter (so far, the prologue and first two chapters are up). I really enjoyed the first four books which I read last summer, and I think I can manage reading a chapter a week online.


3. Natasha of Maw Books Blog is hosting the Bloggiesta this weekend, a challenge to bloggers to catch up on their blogs. I can't participate because I am woefully behind on my "required" reading, but I've done some of the mini-challenges and plan to do some more.


4. I got a big box of books from Penguin this week to weigh down my sagging bookshelves even more. This gives me an extra push to get started on my First Chapter Challenge - so be on the lookout for that soon.


5. Ok, now the new kitty's name choices have been narrowed down to Sawyer or Finn. Finn is way ahead in the Facebook voting, but considering how his favorite new activity is chewing on all my books, I'd say either literary name is appropriate. Vote for your choice in the comments!


6. The Depeche Mode and All American Rejects concerts were both tons of fun. Depeche Mode played the Commerzbank Arena to a sold out crowd and my friend Tracy were on the 50 yard line so to speak. So we what we saw looked liked ants dancing, but energy was high.


All American Rejects played The Batschkapp, an intimate venue with a capacity of 700. Lead singer Tyson Ritter said it had been a long time since they had been so close to their fans (I was in the 3rd row - very, very close). As you can see from this picture, Tyson is hot, sweaty, and sweet (letting his fangirls hold his hand!). They didn't play a long set, but were very talkative and playful. Tyson even crowdsurfed.

Your turn! What are you excited about this week?