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Showing posts with label young adults. Show all posts
Showing posts with label young adults. Show all posts

Saturday, June 20, 2015

If I Fall, If Die by Michael Christie

In this high-octane novel, a boy learns to abolish his fears and live his life fully.


Will has lived an extremely sheltered life--he's lived indoors from age 7 to 11 because his mother is fearful. Her phobias were too numerous to count. She is afraid of, "lightning, fire, electricity, water, accidents, vehicles, animals, the Outside, people." 


After someone pipe bombs their house, Will surprises her one day by deciding to take a walk in the terrifying Outside. For the first time, he meets other kids and begins doing what he calls "destructivity" experiments.


As Will explores the outside world, he begins to discern the racial tensions in Thunder Bay--the disconnect between whites and Natives. Because of his isolation, Will can identify with the nearly silent, Jonah, and enter his world. 

Will finds himself becoming addicted to dangerous activities like skateboarding and investigating a native boy's disappearance. Fearful that she is losing control of her son, Diane tells Will he has a medical condition--an inexcusable lie.

While searching for clues about the disappearance, Will is starting to unravel the secret of his own family's tragic past. He questions the "wheezing man" aka Titus about Marcus. Oddly, Will finds Titus' fingerprints in his own house.

Michael Christie describes a woman's mental illness and her claustrophobic hold on her son perfectly. Will knows his mother's problems as the Black Lagoon:

"When the Black Lagoon came, when its bear trap was sprung upon her heart, her eyes went swimmy and blotted with white nose like channel zero on TV."

He also describes Titus' mental illness in a way that feels genuine. Titus' dialog, which is indecipherable at first, gradually begins to make sense in its own twisted way. 

Though readers know the relationship between the Cardiels and Titus fairly early, the novel's central mystery is still compelling. This novel is wonderful for adults and may possibly interest mature young adults.


Michael Christie's latest novel, Greenwood, explores the lives of a multi-generational family and their relationship with the forest of the Pacific Northwest.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Certain Slant of Light

A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb.


Whitcomb begins with an intriguing premise. What if, after you died, your spirit continues to linger among those living on earth for years to come? What if one of the ones called Light found a recently abandoned body and decided to inhabit it?

After a boy overdoses on drugs, James enters Billy's body. Though James is far older than a teenager, he becomes "Billy" to all those around him. As Billy, James can "see" Helen in his high school classroom, even though no one else can.

Helen is a first flustered and then delighted to be able to communicate with someone. For 130 years, she has simply lived as Light, haunting people she calls Hosts. Her last host was Billy's teacher, Mr. Brown, but everything changes after Billy/James can see her.

Helen and James become romantically involved, with James urging Helen to borrow a body, too. Though she has qualms about it, she borrows the body of a teenage girl. With their borrowed bodies each of them begins to have memories of their previous lives. James had been a soldier and Helen had been a mother of a two-year-old.

Helen and James both know they cannot keep the bodies they inhabit, so they devise a way to help the departed return.

This a young adult novel with a lot to offer to adults and teenagers. Characters, especially James, are well-developed and believable. The premise, though far-fetched, is one that intrigues and, in the end, delights.





Thursday, April 14, 2011

Deborah Noyes' The Ghosts of Kerfol


 

Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes
The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes.


Don't miss Deborah Noyes fascinating tribute to Edith Wharton's short story "Kerfol." The cursed house, Kerfol, figures prominently in each short story. When a lonely wife, Anne de Barrigan comforts herself with pet dogs, her husband, Yves de Cornault, retaliates by killing them. A chambermaid, Perrette, narrates what happens when the ghosts of her mistress' dogs exact revenge. The rest of the stories move forward and backwards in time as characters of various decades enter the house as owners, tourists, and restorers.


"These Heads Would Speak" is set shortly after the French Revolution when a recently impoverished nobleman, Victor, is set to inherit Kerfol. Victor, an artist at heart, has no idea why the servants vacate the house on a certain day, the anniversary of a particularly gruesome death. In "The Figure Under the Sheet," an American man and his spoiled daughter have inherited Kerfol. Noyes interweaves a Breton folktale, a rich king and his ungrateful daughter, that oddly mirror Kerfol's most recent owners.


Tourists in the 1980s story "When I Love You Best" learn about the murder of Suze, the young woman who dies under mysterious circumstances in "The Figure Under the Sheet." The house and its ghosts continue to haunt new inhabitants in the final story where a deaf boy hears ghosts speak.  Anyone interested Ghosts of Kerfol may also be interested in Edith Wharton's
Collected Stories, 1917-1937.
Collected Stories 1917-1937
For more books by Deborah Noyes please see her official site,
http://www.deborahnoyes.com/books.html

Penni Russon's Undine

Undine by Penni Russon.
Undine has many features one would expect to find in a coming-of-age story: a confused heroine who battles with authority figures as she journeys toward self-understanding. Undine, for instance, finds herself at odds with Lou, her mother, who tries to shield Undine from the strange man who claims to be her father. Undine’s life is a lot more confusing, however, than an ordinary teenager’s. Not only must Undine deal with dreary Tuesdays, messy love triangles, and an overprotective mother, Undine must also deal the growing sense the she has powers—powers to control the weather and, quite possibly, alter the past and future.
Undine’s sleepy existence in Hobbart, Tasmania, comes to a halt when she hears a voice calling her “home.” Soon afterwards, a strange fish appears at her doorstep along with a note from a shadowy figure calling himself Prospero. Not having read The Tempest, Undine turns to her confidant, Trout. The two of them try to decipher the mystery until Undine begins dating Trout’s older brother, Richard. Trout, who has always loved Undine, becomes painfully estranged from both Undine and Richard when he learns of their involvement.
Because of their rift, Undine answers the call to meet Prospero alone at his house at Tasmania’s Bay of Angels where her magic is strongest. When Prospero reveals how he plans to misuse Undine’s magic, however, Undine creates a destructive tempest that nearly destroys the world. In a climactic scene, Undine and her father each make a life-altering sacrifice—one that Russon explores further in the next two novels, Breathe and Drift.
 Should Undine have answered Prospero’s call? Should she have accepted the gift of magic which leads to her discovery of other, alternate worlds? The magic is a gift but it results in ethical conundrums. In the final novel, Drift, for instance, Undine must decide if she should save a four-year-old if it would obliterate a young man’s existence in another parallel world. Undine also has a showdown with a street performer named Phoenix and an enigmatic creature that insists on calling her a “sister.” Russon’s thrilling and thought-provoking trilogy, about friendship, longing, transience, choices and sacrifice, is not to be missed.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Chris Wooding's Storm Thief

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Storm Thief by Chris Wooding
Two teenagers steal an artifact that is of valuable importance in this futuristic coming-of-age novel. Rail and Moa are restricted to a ghetto–they are tattooed and are not allowed to leave without a pass–yet their stolen artifact literally opens doors for them. With assassins and the secret police on their trail, the pair cannot afford to attract attention. Against Rail’s wishes, good-hearted Moa decides to protect an enormous, deformed golem with surprising consequences. Wooding’s novel travels at breakneck speed as the teenagers face further dangers–probability storms and ghost-like vampires called revenants–in this wonderful YA novel about risking everything for freedom.

Eva Hoffman's The Secret


The Secret by Eva Hoffman
In the near future a young girl, Iris Surrey, has always been plagued by a feeling that she is not normal.  Battling the Wierdness, as she calls it, has left Iris bitter, confused, and alienated.  These feelings are only exacerbated when she learns the painful truth: that she is a clone.  The truth sets you free, but in Iris’ case it compounds her misery.  She runs away to New York where she tries to establish a separate identity from her mother who created her by cloning her cells in a laboratory.  Iris frequently refers to herself as a “monster” and “facsimile,” even stating that whe is not sure she has a soul:  “Did my mother steal my soul, my very self?”

Breaking into her Aunt’s electronic mailbox, Iris tracks down her grandparents, only to face their rejection.  She tries to reunite with her stepfather who treats her as a sexual object – as the living embodiment of his ex-lover, Iris’ mother.  Iris feels condemned to walk the earth as a “mimetic being” until she falls in love with Robert who accepts her condition.  Even so, in the end, Iris is still not convinced she has a soul.
Written by a Holocaust historian, this book will resonate with anyone who has ever felt betrayed or marginalized.  It raises questions about self-determination, identity, and medical ethics.

Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier. Review by Chantal Walvoord


For a delightful break from reality, read Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier. This coming-of-age fantasy will interest young adults and adults alike. Marillier captures all of the wonder and horror that abounds in the original fey stories, yet she gives her heroines problems that anyone could identify with. Is it better to be safe or to take a risk? Is it better to control or to let go and trust your instincts? In chasing monsters (and seeking revenge) do we become what we chase?

Wildwood Dancing opens with a line that piques the reader’s interest, “I heard it said that girls can’t keep secrets. That’s wrong: we’ve proved it.” Every full moon four sisters, who live in a Transylvanian castle, lock their bedroom door and pretend to fall asleep. Then, they step into a portal that takes them into the Other Kingdom--the fairy realm of Wildwood forest—where they enjoy a night of dancing on the green.

After their father’s health deteriorates, the girls must deal with their ambitious, narrow-minded cousin, Cezar, who takes away their home and family business. The girls’ father, a textiles merchant, has left Jena in charge of the business, yet Cezar seizes it. Cezar also threatens to fell the woods surrounding the castle and promises to destroy the fairy realm that offends his sense of propriety.

Loosely based on Grimm’s “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and “The Frog Prince,” Marillier breaks new ground with this young adult novel. More than anything this is a novel about consequences. “Nothing comes without a price,” the old crone tells Jena and her two cousins when they, as children, make the mistake of playing “King of the Lake” in the Dead Wash. The consequences of that forbidden game will have far-reaching effects—altering Cezar, Costi, and Jena’s lives while also binding them together.

Wildwood Dancing is also about impossible love, betrayal, and forgiveness. Fans of the Twilight series may enjoy the “doomed love” plot involving Tatiana and Sorrow. Sorrow is one of the Night People, who finds temporary refuge in Ileana’s glade. In addition to dealing with the supernatural elements from the Other Kingdom--an otherworldly frog, a witch who rides a white fox, the strange Night people--Jena must also deal with the desire to find love, independence, and self-fulfillment in her own world.

Wildwood Dancing won an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2006) and is a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults (2007).

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