Four-Star Books Read in 2016: Children and Young Adult

Children:

Timmy Failure #1: Mistakes Were Made by Stephen Pastis: Meet "detective" Timmy Failure, star of the kids’ comedy of the year. Created by New York Times best-selling cartoonist Stephan Pastis.
Take eleven-year-old Timmy Failure — the clueless, comically self-confident CEO of the best detective agency in town, perhaps even the nation. Add his impressively lazy business partner, a very large polar bear named Total. Throw in the Failuremobile — Timmy’s mom’s Segway — and what you have is Total Failure, Inc., a global enterprise destined to make Timmy so rich his mother won’t have to stress out about the bills anymore. Of course, Timmy’s plan does not include the four-foot-tall female whose name shall not be uttered. And it doesn’t include Rollo Tookus, who is so obsessed with getting into "Stanfurd" that he can’t carry out a no-brainer spy mission. From the offbeat creator of Pearls Before Swine comes an endearingly bumbling hero in a caper whose peerless hilarity is accompanied by a whodunit twist. With perfectly paced visual humor, Stephan Pastis gets you snorting with laughter, then slyly carries the joke a beat further — or sweetens it with an unexpected poignant moment — making this a comics-inspired story (the first in a new series) that truly stands apart from the pack. 

I was in love with the title and cover art of this before I read it on break at the school library during my placement. It's awesome. I gave it to my nephew for Christmas.

Speechless by Jennifer Mook-Sang: Jelly is as surprised as anyone when he decides that he’s going to win the annual sixth grade speech contest.
Just like that, Joe Alton Miles, better known as Jelly (because his initials are J.A.M. and his best friend’s are P.B.), is faced with overcoming not only his terror of being in the spotlight, but also the wrath of smart, popular Victoria, who believes that the prize (like all prizes) is rightfully hers. At first, Jelly only cares about winning the awesome prize (a new tablet), but as Victoria escalates her campaign against him, Jelly begins to realize that it’s not only the prize that’s at stake, but also his reputation, his self-respect and the friendship he values most. Jelly must dig deep inside himself to find out if he’s strong enough to stand up to Victoria and show everyone what he’s really capable of.
Hilariously funny and just as poignant, Speechless is about finding out who your friends are, giving back, standing up to bullying and finding your own unique voice.

Borrowed this from the elementary school library where I worked out of the Silver Birch Awards box. It's insanely readable and a really great story. The bully is more of a nuanced character than is sometimes the case, the relationships are very realistic and I was just as incandescent with rage at the perceived injustices as I would have been in grade six. Loved it.

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan: Will anyone take on Jake Semple?
Jake Semple is notorious. Rumor has it he burned down his old school and got kicked out of every school in his home state.
Only one place will take him now, and that's a home school run by the Applewhites, a chaotic and hilarious family of artists. The only one who doesn't fit the Applewhite mold is E.D.—a smart, sensible girl who immediately clashes with the unruly Jake.
Jake thinks surviving this one will be a breeze . . . but is he really as tough or as bad as he seems?

Another one I read after shelving it multiple times at my kids' old elementary school. I rarely read children's books that don't involve magic of some kind, but this sounded interesting.  It's probably a little simplistic to suggest that all bad kids just need someone to assume they can handle responsibility and give it to them and whoa, look at them straighten right up, but it's not the worst place in in the world to start. It was a total feel-good read. 

The Time Paradox (Artemis Fowl #6) by Eoin Colfer: After disappearing for three years, Artemis Fowl has returned to a life different from the one he left. Now he's a big brother, and spends his days teaching his twin siblings the important things in life, such as how to properly summon a waiter at a French restaurant.
But when Artemis Fowl's mother contracts a life-threatening illness, his world is turned upside down. The only hope for a cure lies in the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur. Unfortunately, the animal is extinct due to a heartless bargain Artemis himself made as a younger boy. 
Though the odds are stacked against him, Artemis is not willing to give up. With the help of his fairy friends, the young genius travels back in time to save the lemur and bring it back to the present. But to do so, Artemis will have to defeat a maniacal poacher, who has set his sights on new prey: Holly Short. 
The rules of time travel are far from simple, but to save his mother, Artemis will have to break them all.and outsmart his most cunning adversary yet: Artemis Fowl, age ten.

This series rarely disappoints. Fast and fun, with great relationships between Artemis and the other characters. 

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu: Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. They had been best friends since they were six, spending hot Minneapolis summers and cold Minneapolis winters together, dreaming of Hogwarts and Oz, superheroes and baseball. Now that they were eleven, it was weird for a boy and a girl to be best friends. But they couldn't help it - Hazel and Jack fit, in that way you only read about in books. And they didn't fit anywhere else. 
And then, one day, it was over. Jack just stopped talking to Hazel. And while her mom tried to tell her that this sometimes happens to boys and girls at this age, Hazel had read enough stories to know that it's never that simple. And it turns out, she was right. Jack's heart had been frozen, and he was taken into the woods by a woman dressed in white to live in a palace made of ice. Now, it's up to Hazel to venture into the woods after him. Hazel finds, however, that these woods are nothing like what she's read about, and the Jack that Hazel went in to save isn't the same Jack that will emerge. Or even the same Hazel.
Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," Breadcrumbs is a story of the struggle to hold on, and the things we leave behind.

I'm always up for a good retelling of The Snow Queen. This was a Red Maple or Green Oak or some kind of designated good book  in the library last year, and there's a lot of great stuff in it. Some of it dips into the darker side, and there are times when the rendering of Hazel's isolation in the midst of completely uncomprehending adults is uncomfortably intense and painful. The resolution feels honestly won and lacks any sentimentality. 

The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham: The Luck Uglies is the first in a tween fantasy-adventure trilogy brimming with legends come to life, a charming wit, and a fantastic cast of characters-and is imbued throughout with the magic of storytelling.
Strange things are happening in Village Drowning, and a terrifying encounter has Rye O'Chanter convinced that the monstrous, supposedly extinct Bog Noblins have returned.
Now Rye's only hope is an exiled secret society so notorious its name can't be spoken aloud: the Luck Uglies. As Rye dives into Village Drowning's maze of secrets, rules, and lies, she'll discover the truth behind the village's legends of outlaws and beasts...and that it may take a villain to save them from the monsters.
The first in a series, The Luck Uglies is an altogether irresistible cross of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, Stefan Bachmann's The Peculiar, and Chris Healy's The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, overflowing with adventure, secrets, friendship, and magic.
 

Sweet, clever and imaginative, much like its plucky and resourceful and entirely enchanting young female protagonist. I don't know that I feel the need to keep reading the series, but this was great.

The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm: Galileo. Newton. Salk. Oppenheimer.
Science can change the world . . . but can it go too far?
Eleven-year-old Ellie has never liked change. She misses fifth grade. She misses her old best friend. She even misses her dearly departed goldfish. Then one day a strange boy shows up. He’s bossy. He’s cranky. And weirdly enough . . . he looks a lot like Ellie’s grandfather, a scientist who’s always been slightly obsessed with immortality. Could this pimply boy really be Grandpa Melvin? Has he finally found the secret to eternal youth?

I'd never heard of this, but ended up sticking it on an Indigo order to get free shipping (as one does), and it was great fun. The publication date is 2014, but it somehow reads to me like something from an older, slightly more innocent time, although I can't quite say why and generally hate it when people insinuate that there was an older, more innocent time, so never mind. It interleaves science facts seamlessly with the story to great effect, and the dynamic between Ellie's mother and young grandfather is spot-on. I would love to see this become a classic shelved with The Westing Game and A Wrinkle in Time. 

Young Adult:

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge: In Caverna, lies are an art — and everyone's an artist. In the underground city of Caverna the world's most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare. They create wines that can remove memories, cheeses that can make you hallucinate and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer even as they slit your throat. The people of Caverna are more ordinary, but for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned. Only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to show (or fake) joy, despair or fear — at a price.
Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a little girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. For Neverfell's emotions are as obvious on her face as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, though entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed.

It's become sort of a tradition (I did it two years in a row, shut up, it counts) for me to start the year with a Frances Hardinge book, but since I now find myself yearning to buy and read everything she's written immediately, it might be hard to keep up the tradition next year. I think she might be the Peter S. Beagle of her generation. Incredible world-building, wonderful characters, flights of imaginative fancy that are utterly original and yet seem completely logical and right once you are immersed in them. If I had a slight quibble with this book, it would be that it was a little difficult to visualize the faces of the Cavernans, and sometimes it seemed like their emotions did leak through to their expressions, which wasn't supposed to be possible. But the setting, and the story, and the political machinations, and the magical Perfume and temperamental Cheeses and murderous Wines? Blissfully strange and wonderful.

Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty: A #1 Bestseller in Australia and Book Sense 76 Pick
Life is pretty complicated for Elizabeth Clarry. Her best friend Celia keeps disappearing, her absent father suddenly reappears, and her communication with her mother consists entirely of wacky notes left on the fridge. On top of everything else, because her English teacher wants to rekindle the "Joy of the Envelope," a Complete and Utter Stranger knows more about Elizabeth than anyone else.
But Elizabeth is on the verge of some major changes. She may lose her best friend, find a wonderful new friend, kiss the sexiest guy alive, and run in a marathon. 
So much can happen in the time it takes to write a letter...
A #1 bestseller in Australia, this fabulous debut is a funny, touching, revealing story written entirely in the form of letters, messages, postcards—and bizarre missives from imaginary organizations like The Cold Hard Truth Association.
Feeling Sorry for Celia captures, with rare acuity, female friendship and the bonding and parting that occurs as we grow. Jaclyn Moriarty's hilariously candid novel shows that the roller coaster ride of being a teenager is every bit as fun as we remember—and every bit as harrowing.

I just love Jaclyn Moriarty's writing so much. She has a light, deft, slightly skewed voice and a gracious perspective on adolescent humanity. I will follow her anywhere.

The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones: There's been an accident!
Something's wrong!She doesn't know who she is, and doesn't know why she's invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken -- and learns she is their only hope against a deadly danger.

Have I read anything else by Diana Wynne Jones? Let me check. I have Howl's Moving Castle on my bedside table but haven't read it yet. Oh yes, I read Fire and Hemlock, but don't seem to have reviewed it, and I'm sure I read one of the Chrestomanci books but don't seem to have recorded it, And Enchanted Glass. Okay, so I don't know, clearly I like Diana Wynne Jones, and this was really good, but deeply weird and unsettling. Apparently the situation of the four sisters vis-a-vis parental neglect and running feral (oh, HI SUE) which led many readers to plead inability to suspend belief was actually autobiographical and Wynne Jones had to TONE IT DOWN lest it beggar ALL belief, which, whoa. The narrator not knowing which of the sisters she is while being tasked with saving all of them puts the reader in a prolonged state of vertigo. Rich and dark and strange.

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex: It all starts with a school essay.
When twelve-year-old Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is assigned to write five pages on “The True Meaning of Smekday” for the National Time Capsule contest, she’s not sure where to begin. When her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended on the Earth and the aliens – called Boov – abducted her mother? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it “Smekland” (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod?
In any case, Gratuity’s story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo.; a futile journey south to find Gratuity’s mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion.
Fully illustrated with “photos,” drawings, newspaper clippings, and comics sequences, this is a hilarious, perceptive, genre-bending novel by a remarkable new talent. the planet from a really big catastrophe.

Thank-you, Sharon. So glad I didn't wait any longer to read this. I laughed out loud. I cried a little. It's warm and intelligent and goofy and kind-spirited and wonderful (sort of like you, I think). I gave it to my other nephew for Christmas.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: “There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

I love Maggie Stiefvater. I like how this starts out unapologetically on the weird side of things, as opposed to introducing weird things to people who start out thinking they're normal. Some readers objected to how the four Aglionby boys are such types, but it didn't bother me. I also do have some time for the fact that being rich doesn't automatically mean your life is wonderful, although that's not the same as having patience for unawareness of privilege. It took me a while to pick this one up after buying it, but after reading it I ordered the other three. 

Timebound (The Chronos Files #1) by Rysa Walker: When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.
Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and Kate’s genetic ability to time-travel makes her the only one who can stop him. Risking everything, she travels to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the killing and the chain of events that follows.
Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost, however—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does she have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?
 

I just liked this. I'm not sure I have an adequate defence for that, and as I've already written, the following two books didn't really bear out this one's promise. I love time travel stories, with bonus points if there's some deep dark family mystery in the mix. It was well-paced and fun and a spin on the genre I didn't feel had been done to death, although I didn't really buy any of the romance wholeheartedly. 

Change Places With Me by Lois Metzger: Rose has changed. She still lives in the same neighborhood and goes to the same high school with the same group of kids, but when she woke up today, something was a little different. Her clothes and hair don’t suit her anymore. The dogs who live upstairs are no longer a terror. She wants to throw a party—this from a girl who hardly ever spoke to her classmates before. There’s no more sadness in her life; she’s bursting with happiness.
But something still feels wrong to Rose. Because until very recently, she was an entirely different person—a person who’s still there inside her, just beneath the thinnest layer of skin.

One Goodreads reviewer said she was afraid this book would struggle to find readers, and I share that concern, so please consider reading it. This was terribly, terribly sad and also very lovely. I really admired how the author was willing to allow the bad stuff to go on for such a long, long time, like real life time instead of novel-or-movie time. I don't want to say much about the plot (as if I ever do) because it would be impossible without giving it all away, but it addresses a very important question about grief and loss, and I thought it did it in an exemplary fashion.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston: Veronica Mars meets William Shakespeare in E.K. Johnston’s latest brave and unforgettable heroine. 
Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of…she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.
In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale.

This is gutsy and smart, and the cover is so beautiful. I have a lot of sympathy for the readers whose experience was very different and thought this was an overly rosy view of the aftermath of rape, or a suggestion that anyone should just be able to control their narrative well enough not to suffer PTSD or have their life fall apart. But as one story, I appreciated it, especially the best friend character who was badass and brilliant and who I can imagine people in my life emulating. 

Fall Line by Tudor Robins: Everything’s forward.
Those are fifteen-year-old Chris Myers’ words for the year.
The next gate, the next race, his spot on the district ski team; they’re all his for the taking.
Except training is such hard work. And then there’s Jenna – the very opposite of hard work – gorgeous, curvy, and into partying. Into Chris.
Instead of moving forward, Chris is sliding back. Slower times, worse results, and his best friend, Tilly, drifting away.
“The thing you want is right in front of you,” Tilly said. Now Chris just has to figure out what that thing is – and how to get it – before it’s too late.
Fast-paced, fun, and intense, Fall Line is a refreshing read from start gate to finish line.

I'm always afraid to read an author's work once I know them and like them - what if I don't like it? What if I have to lie? I'm a pretty good liar, admittedly, but it's hard to lie about liking a book and make it convincing, and Tudor is a friend of a friend and I've talked online with her and had lunch with her and imbibed the sacred elixir with her (Diet Coke), so it was a risk. Happily, this is really good YA. The dialogue is letter-perfect, the inner life of the main character is completely convincing, and the whole thing is very realistic, especially to someone with a kid in a competitive sport. I generally prefer my YA with a vampire or ancient curse in the mix, but this is a refreshing slice-of-life example of the genre. 

Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas: Finalist for the 2016 William C. Morris Award
An Indie Next List selection
In a stunning literary debut, two boys on opposite ends of the world begin an unlikely friendship that will change their lives forever.
Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.
A story of impossible friendship and hope under strange circumstances, this debut is powerful, dark and humorous in equal measure. These extraordinary voices bring readers into the hearts and minds of two special boys who, like many teens, are just waiting for their moment to shine.

This is a bold and cheerful fuck-you to the notion that realism and sci-fi or fantasy should be clearly defined. When I read the synopsis I was worried about whether the author could do the plot justice, and I feel like she succeeded in spades. This struck a chord with me particularly as someone who considers many people I might never meet to be friends in every sense of the word. The keen longing and misery that is often a large part of adolescence, compounded by the isolation brought about by disability, is captured really well, as is the soaring joy of making a real connection.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black: Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

OH MY GOD I loved this. Magical realism in perfect balance, wonderful characters, rich and satisfying story. The brother-sister dynamic is a nice change from the typical isolated heroine thing, and the parallel romances (NOT both hetero-normative) are extremely smile-inducing. Why didn't I give it five stars? I remember it as one of my favourites as the year. I should have given it five stars. I'm going back and giving it five stars. Now should I take it out of this post and put it in the five-star post? Nah, I'll leave it here. 

The Love that Split the World by Emily Henry: Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves. 
Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start... until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.
That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.
Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Even though I'm not a hundred percent sure I know how it all turned out, I really liked this. I love the whole parallel worlds/mysterious prophecy thing, and it's written so well here. The sense of place is strong and the Aboriginal stories are lovely. I also love the illustration of the fact that (and this is why I kind of hated the end of How I Met Your Mother) we all have to learn that you can't ever have everything; every major life choice means giving something up, and sacrifice is a huge part of life and love.

The Rosemary Spell by Virginia Zimmerman: Best friends Rosie and Adam find an old book with blank pages that fill with handwriting before their eyes. Something about this magical book has the power to make people vanish, even from memory. The power lies in a poem—a spell. When Adam's older sister, Shelby, disappears, they struggle to retain their memories of her as they race against time to bring her back from the void, risking their own lives in the process.

LOVED this. A girl and boy who are best friends, bonded by reading and geekdom. The evolution of friendships through childhood into adolescence. Shakespearean mystery. A forgetting curse. Magic, mystery and melancholy. *rapturous sigh*

Julia Vanishes by Catherine Egan: Julia has the unusual ability to be . . . unseen. Not invisible, exactly. Just beyond most people's senses. 
It's a dangerous trait in a city that has banned all forms of magic and drowns witches in public Cleansings. But it's a useful trait for a thief and a spy. And Julia has learned--crime pays.
Her latest job is paying very well indeed. Julia is posing as a housemaid in the grand house of Mrs. Och, where an odd assortment of characters live and work: A disgraced professor who sends her to fetch parcels containing bullets, spiders, and poison. An aristocratic houseguest who is locked in the basement each night. And a mysterious young woman who is clearly in hiding--though from what or whom?
Worse, Julia suspects that there's a connection between these people and the killer leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city.
The more she learns, the more she wants to be done with this unnatural job. To go back to the safety of her friends and fellow thieves. But Julia is entangled in a struggle between forces more powerful than she'd ever imagined. Escape will come at a terrible price.

Won this in a Goodreads giveaway. Wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a very pleasant surprise, although I think the title could be tweaked. Julia is a wonderful character - intelligent, level-headed and strong. The issue of magic works very well literally as well as metaphorically (extrapolated to other marginalized and vilified sections of the population). The plot has elements that are frequently seen in fantasy fiction, but doesn't feel stale or derivative. There are genuine moral dilemmas, real relationships, witches and giant spiders, so it's pretty much the total package. I look forward to the next entry in the series.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik: “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”
Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.
Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

I read a few pages of this and felt kind of weary at the thought of another plot involving an irascible older male and a frightened younger female and felt like it was kind of predictable how things were going to go. Then I got over myself. I read a lot. It's inevitable that certain tropes, themes, devices and relationships are going to show up multiple times. What matters is what's done with them. So I kept reading. What was done with them was really freaking good. I question the designation of this as YA a bit - there's a lot of horrible death, the sex is a little graphic - but I loved the book. I love the Polish setting and mythology, the way magic is explained was concrete and beautiful, the way the plot unfolds with several climactic points that then lead to new challenges is very skillful, and the relationship between Agnieszka and The Dragon is quite satisfying.

Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff: For fans of Lauren Oliver and E. Lockhart, here is a dreamy love story set in the dark halls of contemporary high school, from New York Times bestselling author Brenna Yovanoff.
Waverly Camdenmar spends her nights running until she can’t even think. Then the sun comes up, life goes on, and Waverly goes back to her perfectly hateful best friend, her perfectly dull classes, and the tiny, nagging suspicion that there’s more to life than student council and GPAs.
Marshall Holt is a loser. He drinks on school nights and gets stoned in the park. He is at risk of not graduating, he does not care, he is no one. He is not even close to being in Waverly’s world.
But then one night Waverly falls asleep and dreams herself into Marshall’s bedroom—and when the sun comes up, nothing in her life can ever be the same. In Waverly’s dreams, the rules have changed. But in her days, she’ll have to decide if it’s worth losing everything for a boy who barely exists.

After a bit of a bobble with Fiendish (which I forgave her readily), Yovanoff is back in fine form. Her characters are types that are often seen in YA literature, and yet she always seems to make them a little more vivid, a little more rounded, a little more engaging than many. And her romances always seem to grow organically and be eminently believable. And then there's a little something deliciously weird that gets thrown in the mix, and it's all very enjoyable. 

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness: What if you aren’t the Chosen One?
The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.
Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.

Well this was just wonderful. It's slightly disingenuous to say this is about the normal kids living on the fringes of a universe where the superhero kids are constantly saving the day, because they're not all totally normal, but as a conceit it's brilliant and works marvellously. I especially love the chapter preludes where what's going on in the centre of the universe with the Buffies and Katnisses (the indie kids, this book calls them, and they all have names like Satchel and Slingblade and half a dozen of them are named Finn, and this joke just never gets old) is detailed in point form before we get back to the meat of the story, which is the kids with normal problems - alcoholic fathers, politician mothers, eating disorders, OCD, being in love with someone who isn't in love with you, etc. Oh, except one of them is actually a half-god. And the tone and dialogue is letter-perfect. I liked the Chaos Walking Trilogy, but I feel like Ness has really hit his stride with this one.

Comments

Well, crap. How will I ever find the time to add all of these to my TBR list? I can't believe I've only read Timmy Failure on this list (loved it) though a couple more of these are already on that list, I feel I need to add most of the rest to it too. I'll just have to hole up and ignore everyone for awhile. Obviously.
Mary Lynn said…
I recommended The Rest of Us Just Live Here to my daughter based on your review in Goodreads, since she was looking for "a book with a good story line and not too much love crap" and it seemed like it would fit the bill. She actually started it today and is already 1/3 of the way through. LOVES it. Totally has her sense of humour.
StephLove said…
Westing Game and Wrinkle in Time are pretty good company. I'll have to give that one a look.

I enjoyed reading the Artemis Fowl series with Noah, though it took me a couple books to get into it, once Artemis was a little more humanized. I don't mind unsympathetic protagonists in adult books but they rub me wrong it kids' books.
Helen Abbott said…
That's it. I have to quit my job. Books away. Thank you so much Allison... you haven't steered me wrong yet, and I'm so looking forward to putting these on the list for me & Nathan & Joelle!
Nicole said…
I feel like I've read Timmy Failure to the boys, but after reading the synopsis I'm not sure that I actually have. Well, it's a while since I read them anything out loud, so maybe.

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