Carla Jean Whitley

There’s friendship, and then there’s friendship that borders on obsession. That sort of bond draws two people together as though they’re on a crash course with destiny. They begin to mimic each other’s actions and speech patterns. They dress alike. They exist in a magical world that only they can understand.

That’s what happens when Hannah Dexter finds herself pulled into Lacey Champlain’s orbit.

Lacey is the new girl in Battle Creek, Pennsylvania, a town where teenagers are expected to play by the rules and anything else is unimaginable. After Halloween of 1991, one of Battle Creek’s golden children turns up in the woods, dead by an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. The town’s residents are left asking, what could cause such a popular athlete to do such a thing?

Lacey and Dex—as Hannah’s best friend rechristens her—are curious, but more concerned with the world that’s left. With Nirvana as their soundtrack, the duo wreaks havoc on the small town. Signs of satanic worship unnerved the community even before the teenage suicide, and the girls aren’t afraid to join in the mischief.

Or well, Lacey isn’t. She’s always had something to run from; her mother became pregnant by mistake, and Lacey’s father left the family when she was small. Her mother toted Lacey to concerts—after which Mrs. Champlain would head backstage, toddler in tow, to canoodle with the band. Mrs. Champlain has attempted to straighten up, though, and the move to Battle Creek is part of that. After all, now she’s got a new husband (“the Bastard”) and a son (Bastard Jr.). Lacey is all that’s bringing her down.

The awkward Dex is an eager student, grateful for the connection she’s always lacked. Never mind that she’s not crazy about Kurt Cobain’s voice and that it hadn’t occurred to her to hate the name Hannah. She’ll follow where her soul sister leads, no matter how dark the path.

And indeed, it is dark.

Robin Wasserman’s Girls on Fire proves the young-adult novelist can write tales for adults every bit as powerful as those that have driven her past success. By unveiling the story in alternating perspectives by Lacey and Dex, with interludes from others, Wasserman slowly peels back the layers of teenage friendship. What’s left is a compelling study of the forces that draw people together.

Charlotte’s family is starting over, and she isn’t sure what to make of it. Charlotte and her sister, Callie, have long been considered the weird ones in their Boston neighborhood. They speak in sign language as often as anything, a skill acquired from their mother, Laurel. But now that skill is setting them apart in another way: The Toneybee Institute for Ape Research has hired Laurel to teach sign language to a chimpanzee, Charlie—and the rest of the family is expected to treat him as one of their own. 

The family reacts in different ways, though. Laurel and Charlie easily bond. Callie aims to do the same, but the chimp doesn’t return her affections. He quickly becomes a point of division in Laurel and her husband Charles’ marriage. Charlotte, meanwhile, struggles to understand why her mother is so quick to embrace Charlie.

As Charlotte studies the institute’s past, her feelings grow increasingly conflicted. Seventy years prior to the Freeman family’s arrival, researchers at the Toneybee conducted studies comparing African-American people with apes. Charlotte is determined to reveal the link to her family and unveil the story they may now unwittingly be participating in.

In her debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, Kaitlyn Greenidge addresses race with a knowing, deft hand. And there’s far more at work here, as Charlotte and Callie face their teenage years and wrestle with the line between what their parents want and what they desire for themselves. The result is a story about identity, both self-determined and dictated by outsides sources, and a family’s aim to settle into who they are.

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Lois Lonsdale is an enigma to those around her. The British literature professor is a respected academic, but also something of a threat to others in the department. That’s partly due to the former spelling bee champion’s striking looks, but her publishing success and standoffish nature don’t help. 

Only her best friend in the department, Brad, knows Lois was kidnapped nearly two decades earlier. The kidnapper held Lois and another captive, Carly May Smith, in a cabin in upstate New York. Although the girls weren’t allowed out in daylight, their captor was otherwise more like a benevolent camp counselor. After two months, they returned, visibly unscathed, to their adolescent lives. 

Carly May, who left her Nebraska hometown and pageant titles behind to pursue acting under the name Chloe Savage, is the only one who understands their shared history. And she’s about to play the role of a lifetime—in the movie adaptation of a novel about two girls and the summer they were kidnapped. A novel by Lois Lonsdale.

As they circle back to one another decades after the events that initially bonded them, Lois and Carly May individually contemplate the repercussions of that summer. With their captor’s motives unclear and a lifetime surrounded by people who can’t possibly understand, each woman carries her own baggage and unanswered questions.

In Pretty Is, debut novelist Maggie Mitchell toggles between her main characters’ perspectives and the novel based on their real-life story. As she peels back layers of her protagonists’ lives and memories, Mitchell carries readers through a thrilling, literary psychological adventure that examines how pivotal moments can echo throughout our lives.

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.