Oral histories from World War II come to life in Monica Hesse’s historical fiction debut.

In 1943 German-occupied Amsterdam, 18-year-old Hanneke Bakker busily goes about delivering black market goods until she gets to Mrs. Janssen’s home. The old woman insists that Hanneke help find Mirjam, the Jewish girl she’s kept hidden in her home until she recently vanished. Hanneke’s unsuccessful search at Mirjam’s school leads to a chain of events, including a run-in with a resistance group. Hanneke learns that Mirjam has gone to the infamous Hollandsche Schouwburg, an old theater house turned into a deportation center, and develops an escape plan. But when she tries to come to Mirjam’s rescue, Hanneke discovers that there is more to the mysterious teen than her mere disappearance.

Replete with a well-defined fictional cast, Girl in the Blue Coat is heavily laced with locations and events in the Netherlands from this dark period in history. Inspired by oral histories of people affiliated with the theater, Hesse’s first-person tale captures the inner turmoil of one young adult desperately trying to make sense of her irrational environs. Keeping to a continually flowing storyline, Hesse weaves in various subplots that, taken as a whole, give a glimpse into “small betrayals in the middle of a big war” and aptly fulfills Hesse’s goal of illustrating “the split-second decisions we make of moral courage and cowardice, and how we are all heroes and villains.”

This is a stunning literary work as well as a wonderful addition to WWII and Holocaust collections.

Kurt Dinan’s action-packed debut, Don’t Get Caught, is a terrific pick for readers who prefer fiction with a twist of suspense. There’s nothing remarkable about the novel’s protagonist, Max Cobb. With lackluster grades and a nonexistent social life, Max doesn’t attract much attention in the halls of Asheville High. So he’s surprised to get an invitation from the Chaos Club, an anonymous group of tricksters with a long tradition of enraging school administrators through acts of mischief, from stacking tires up the campus flagpole to hacking the district’s website. To Max, who’s itching for a way to shed his humdrum reputation, this seems like pretty cool stuff.

But Max is wary about the invitation, and he soon learns that he isn’t the only one to be singled out. Four other students received a summons from the club, including his longtime crush, Ellie Wick. When the gang, following the club’s instructions, climbs to the top of the school’s freshly graffitied water tower only to get nabbed by security, they realize they’re nothing more than fall guys. Using tips picked up from his favorite caper flicks (The Fast and the Furious; Ocean’s Eleven), Max goes after the Chaos Club—and proves he can prank like a pro.

Dinan—a high school English teacher—infuses Max’s adventures with sly humor, convincing detail and just the right level of tension. From start to finish, this is a brisk and engaging debut.

Six months ago, Quinn Roberts had big plans: Inspired by the Coens and the Wachowskis, he was writing screenplays that his older sister helped to direct. But after his sister dies in a car accident, Quinn and his mom are mired in grief; she eats her feelings while he sleeps through his. When Quinn’s friend Geoff drags him to a college party and he meets a hot, older guy, things begin to shift. The Great American Whatever finds humor in life’s darkest moments.

Teenage Quinn is a delight, observant to a fault in service to his art and often hilarious. People from Quinn’s past resurface and are not what he remembers them to be, and his relationship with his best friend contains a whopping secret that nearly destroys it—yet both things help him to work through his sadness. (The hot guy doesn’t hurt, either.) 

Author Tim Federle (Better Nate Than Ever) has a fantastic ear for the in-jokes that develop between friends. His YA debut is a genuinely great American novel, with a love of cinema worn on its sleeve.

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

Mira Banul has lived all her life on the six-mile long, half-mile wide island called Haven, and she’s seen everything. Every kind of storm, every kind of family tragedy. And she and her friends have weathered it all. But when a superstorm devastates Haven, leaving her mom and brother stranded on the mainland, her best friend missing and every home destroyed, Mira has to dig deep inside herself to find the strength to move forward.

This Is the Story of You, the latest from National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart, is a beautiful rendering of a terrifying event. If the novel’s pacing is a little awkward at times—slowing in the middle and rushing through climactic twists—Kephart’s liquid prose drives the story, fueling the reader’s own emotional turmoil and rendering Mira and her friends brave and loyal despite their fear. Kephart’s worldbuilding is meticulous and vivid, with details that make Haven feel like a place out of time.

This smart, poignant novel is an absolute pleasure to read.

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

“The way Mads and Billy Youngwolf Floyd met was horrible, hideous.” While starting the day with a swim in a Seattle Lake, Madison Murray bumps against the body of a woman who ended her life by jumping off a bridge. After such a horrifying moment, how could anything get better? Just hang on for the beautiful parts, beseeches the omniscient narrator in the eloquently crafted Essential Maps for the Lost.

Mads shouldn’t even be at the lake. She should be hanging out with friends back home instead of finishing up high school early, living with relatives and taking real estate courses to take over her narcissistic mother’s business. When she discovers that the body belongs to Billy’s mother, Mads has a new focus: finding out about this depressed woman and following her son.

Billy, who plays his life like the video game “Night Worlds,” has his own secrets, such as carrying the map from the children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which his mother used to read to him. Together, Mads and Billy try to navigate through their losses—and, eventually, first love. But even love is hard when there isn’t a map.

This seemingly quiet story becomes increasingly nuanced as Mads and Billy’s lives run parallel and intersect in shared dreams. This look at uncharted territories of the heart is a real find.

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

BookPage Teen Top Pick, April 2016

In the town of Palermo Heights, the cheerleading squad is the high school’s most successful team. Cheer captain Hermione Winters is determined to fill her senior year with more victories. She’s hard at work at preseason training camp when the unthinkable happens: She wakes up in a hospital to learn that she was drugged and raped, and soon finds out she was also impregnated. With her memory blank and the evidence compromised, there is little hope of finding Hermione’s attacker. 

While some rape narratives might focus on lurid details, the whodunit aspect and the protagonist’s downward spiral, E.K. Johnston’s latest novel works on more nuanced ground. Hermione is surrounded by a great support system, which allows her to keep cheering, stay in school and stand strong. Her best friend, Polly, is a case study in how to lend support to someone who has suffered an assault. But there are small changes to confront as well. Hermione feels a strange mix of pride and resentment as she watches friends find their own strength because of her circumstances, and she navigates fear and uncertainty as her memories begin to resurface. Johnston avoids unrealistic clichés by exploring Hermione’s emotions in vivid detail.

It may be pointed out that Hermione is too perfect a victim, one whose narrative undermines more complicated assault scenarios. However, Johnston’s carefully crafted novel makes this simplicity work, thanks to its focus on how strongly Hermione advocates for herself after the fact. Should a young reader ever need guidance following an assault, she could do much worse than to emulate Hermione Winters.

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

Before I begin the review of A Study in Charlotte, let me disclose that I am a Holmesian in the true definition of the word: I have read the canon, studied Victorian literature (and, in particular, the advent of the detective novel genre) and am a thoughtful critic of many “post-Doyle” productions, literary or otherwise. That being said, I was more than pleased to find another great modern model of the beloved classics.

Brittany Cavallaro’s first young adult novel hits all the right notes, bringing us the full flavor of a Holmes/Watson adventure with new characters. The story is told from the perspective of John Watson’s descendant, a 21st-century high school student named Jamie Watson. As in the original, the reader’s introduction to (and understanding of) the enigmatic Charlotte Holmes is filtered through Jamie’s own experience. Their unique relationship has the added spark of attraction, although the friendship remains the key connection.

Having both been packed off to a boarding school in America, the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that threatens their lives. As the danger mounts, Charlotte uses her powers of observation and deduction inherited from her great-plus-grandfather, while Jamie strives to protect her as only a Watson can. The pace keeps you turning the pages, but Cavallaro’s depiction of the characters and their development brings you deep into the moment. A Study in Charlotte as a title is not only a reference to Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, it is what it states: an examination of an intriguing Holmes inheritor. It’s also a bloody good read.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through 8th level Catholic school.

Cat Winters (In the Shadow of Blackbirds) offers a suspenseful Hamlet retelling, made all the more haunting by the rich and troubling historical time period.

It’s 1923, and Hanalee Denney’s black father has been killed by a drunk driver, and her white mother has remarried a prominent doctor from their rural Oregon town. When her father’s killer, Joe, a 17-year-old who spent nearly two years in a rough prison, is released, Hanalee is consumed by thoughts of revenge. But then Joe insists that the doctor murdered her father. Conflicted and unsure of whom to trust, Hanalee confronts the one person who can tell her the truth—her father’s ghost, who corroborates Joe’s story.

Surrounded by a potentially murderous stepfather, bootleggers, unscrupulous lawmen and junior members of the Ku Klux Klan, Hanalee isn’t sure where to turn for help. Both Hanalee and Joe’s lives are in constant danger, not just because of what they know, but because of who they are.

Winters stands apart as a unique YA literature storyteller. She deftly uses the occult to hook readers into examining tough historical topics such as racism, eugenics and violence, while exploring themes of injustice and forgiveness. The Steep and Thorny Way will provoke thought about how far we’ve come as a society and how far we have yet to go.

Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.

Just before teenage Samuel’s mother died, she told him to go to the Brazilian town of Candeia, to find his estranged family and light a candle at the feet of the statue of St. Anthony. When Samuel arrives in the dilapidated town, circumstances lead him to take up residence in the statue’s head, long separated from its body. Inside the head, Samuel hears voices of women praying to the saint for husbands . . . and a mysterious voice singing sad but lovely songs. Playing matchmaker helps Samuel revitalize the town (and earn a tidy profit), but as happy couples flock to the church, secrets from the past begin to weigh on the present. Why did Candeia become all but a ghost town? Why isn’t St. Anthony’s head attached to his body? Who is the mysterious singer, and why does she sing such sad songs? Like the advice Samuel gives out in the name of the saint, Samuel’s mother’s last requests have implications far beyond their surface meanings.

This slim YA novel exemplifies the best of magical realism—as it should. Brazilian author Socorro Acioli had the opportunity to workshop the manuscript that would become The Head of the Saint with renowned Latin American author Gabriel García Márquez. If you like Márquez's work—or more contemporary multigenerational tales with a touch of magic (like Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender)—you’ll also like The Head of the Saint.

Jill Ratzan matches readers with books in a small library in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Julia knows more than anyone that things don’t always go as planned. She wasn’t supposed to be the one Jessup captured in the woods. When Julia and Liv are attacked, Julia refuses to allow Liv to be abducted. She saves her and unintentionally takes her place.

A year later, when Julia starts having PTSD flashbacks, she logs keywords, thoughts and bits of remembered events in her notebook. Her psychiatrist wants to hypnotize her, but she’s figuring things out herself, with research, investigative journaling and the understanding that only friendship brings. Liv also hasn’t been the same since after the woods, even though Julia was the one held captive.

And then, inconceivably, more tragedy: A dead teenager is discovered in the same wild patch, where locals go to escape reality, the place Julia fears above all else. A TV reporter focuses her coverage on failed police procedure and charges probation officers with accountability for this new body and for Julia’s attack. The town is a circus, yet things get even stranger.

Superbly written for a young adult audience, After the Woods is darkly alluring, a compelling read with mystery, romance, drama and twists. Psychological explorations and questions of motivation drive character growth: Why does an abductor pull a knife, tie hands and refuse to let go? Why does a girl reach out to a complete stranger? What are these compulsions?

This well-paced mystery will compel readers to read hungrily, quickly, in pursuit of answers to these many questions.

When his father died five years ago, Parker Santé lost his ability to speak. He’s not that interested in talking to anyone, anyway. Instead, he spends most days loitering in hotel lobbies, picking the occasional pocket and filling journals with stories—until one afternoon at the Palace Hotel, when he steals a wad of cash from a silver-haired girl who claims to be 246 years old. When mysterious Zelda catches him in the act and offers to strike a deal, Parker begins to see that there might be some things in life worth paying attention to.

Tommy Wallach offers a sweet coming-of-age novel about a young man learning to overcome loss. Presented as a comically long college application essay, Parker’s narrative is brash and appropriately childish, yet attentive and at times profound. Though the framing device is a bit far-fetched, and Zelda leans a bit too far toward Manic Pixie Dream Girl, there’s a lot to love about the poignant, lighthearted Thanks for the Trouble.

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

Enveloping us in the tropical forests and cacao farms of Africa, The Bitter Side of Sweet keenly inspires empathy in readers through a tale of abusive child labor and the resilience of the human spirit.

When 15-year-old Amadou and his 8-year-old brother, Seydou, left their home in Mali to harvest cacao plants in Ivory Coast, they assumed they would return after a season. But working as child slaves for the past two years has broken their bodies and their spirits. That is, until 13-year-old Khadija, the first girl they’ve ever seen on the farm, bursts into their lives with such ferocity that Amadou nicknames her “the wildcat.” 

Khadija attempts to escape on her first day, and when she’s caught, Amadou is blamed and beaten for it. But when Seydou is severely injured in the fields, Khadija keeps him alive after Amadou is dragged back to harvest. Amadou finally realizes the masters don’t care about his brother—they only care about his ability to work for them—and so he sets in motion a desperate plan for escape.

Tara Sullivan’s latest novel is heart-wrenching, with the power to leave a bitter taste of memory with every bite of chocolate.

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

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