In this sprawling, emotionally enrapturing and mostly autobiographical tale, a talented lad comes of age in the harsh shadows of Northern England’s shipyards.

Dominic Hall was born in a hovel along the River Tyne in the 1960s. His severe father is still embittered from fighting in World War II, and his kind mother always wanted more for her sweet boy. Readers get key glimpses of Dominic’s growth and maturation over more than a decade as he befriends the two most disparate people his age in town—the artistic, free-spirited Holly Stroud and the tormented, reckless Vincent McAlinden. Dominic, a weaver of words, can’t help but be drawn to Holly’s self-expression and caring—but he can’t seem to suppress the darkness that attracts him to the wildness of Vincent’s uninhibited and dangerous life. When these two worlds inevitably collide, he is faced with making choices no one would ever want to make.

British author David Almond is an immensely gifted storyteller and a receiver of a Hans Christian Andersen Award, a Carnegie Medal and a host of other honors. The Tightrope Walkers is perhaps his most personal work, with so many similarities between the author and Dominic that fiction and reality become indistinguishable from one another. Almond’s phenomenal, philosophical writing balances well with his incisive clarity and arresting narration, making it immensely relatable.

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 April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, April 2015

I promised myself I would write this whole review of Susan Juby’s latest novel without using the word “quirky.” There’s so much more to the author of Alice, I Think than just her knack for writing about eccentric characters and borderline outlandish situations. There is plenty of both in Juby’s latest, but that’s hardly the whole story.

The Truth Commission is (supposedly) a book-length work of creative nonfiction, submitted as part of Normandy Pale’s Spring Special Project at Green Pastures, a prestigious art high school in a small Vancouver town. Normandy starts off by telling the story of how she and her two best friends prompted (or cajoled, or outright pushed) their classmates to tell the truth about themselves.

But all this compulsive truth-telling has Normandy wondering whether it’s time to tell the truth about her own family: Her older sister Keira, Green Pastures’ most notable alum, has built a wildly successful career on a series of graphic novels portraying Keira as a heroine and Normandy and her parents as grotesque losers—and, in many ways, serving as a self-fulfilling prophecy for their real life.

For Normandy, it is a frightening but essential process to force her family to confront the realities of Keira’s brand of “truth”-telling and the damage it has inflicted. Along the way, readers get a lively course in storytelling, the ethics of producing art and how (not) to write creative nonfiction, all delivered in Normandy’s hilarious, heartfelt and (yes) brilliantly quirky voice.

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

Beautiful and rich, 17-year-old Grace Fontaine can charm her way into the midst of any high school clique. But Grace makes friends only to betray them. Her family—Mom, Dad and older brother Parker—comprise a team of con artists, infiltrating the inner circles of the wealthy only to steal their millions. When one job is complete, off they go to a new location, a new mark and a new masquerade.

This time, the Fontaines have arrived in tony Playa Hermanos, a California neighborhood located on a small peninsula. Grace’s role is to befriend Logan Fairchild, teenage son of wealthy Warren Fairchild. Grace, already weary of the endless cons, breaks the Fontaine’s cardinal rule by making real friends at her new school, as well as by falling for the goodhearted Logan. Her family’s downfall is foreshadowed in Grace’s introduction, but there are still surprises in this suspenseful tale of cat and mouse.

Zink, author of The Prophecy of Sisters series, creates an intriguing backstory for Grace and her criminally inclined family. Grace and Parker adopted by the Fontaines in their early adolescence, after each had spent years in foster care. As the story concludes, questions about their past and future remain unresolved. Could there be more adventures to come? A fine blend of teen drama and high-end deception, this novel should appeal to fans of Ally Carter’s Heist Society or Mary Elizabeth Summer’s Trust Me, I’m Lying.

Diane Colson works at the Nashville Public Library. She has long been active in the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Association (YALSA), serving on selection committees such as the Morris Award, the Alex Award and the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award.

In Beth Kephart’s One Thing Stolen, the beauty and history of one of the world’s great cities and the confusion and fear caused by a rare brain disorder combine to produce a fresh, unexpected story.

Seventeen-year-old Nadia Cara and her family are in Florence for her father’s research on the massive 1966 Arno River flood. But something is wrong: For months, her ability to speak has been slipping away. She compulsively steals random objects and weaves strange, beautiful nests out of them. She can’t even find comfort in her new friendship with a mysterious boy named Benedetto, because no one else has seen him. Incapable of expressing her fears or explaining her actions, Nadia is trapped within her untrustworthy mind.

While less plot-driven than most young adult fiction and more focused on the power and limitations of language, One Thing Stolen will entrance readers through the excellently portrayed bond between Nadia and her best friend, Maggie, as well as the lingering question of Benedetto’s existence and the fascinating setting. Kephart captures Florence using all five senses, from the smells of the leather shops to the birdsong in a church courtyard. And like Kephart’s other young adult titles, such as Small Damages and Going Over, the music of language itself propels readers onward.

One Thing Stolen explores themes of destruction and rejuvenation, emphasizing the possibilities and hope found in disaster. This is a unique and engrossing exploration of how characters deal with the pain and beauty of the real world.

High school seniors Peter, Anita, Andy and Eliza—aka the jock, Miss Perfect, the slacker and Miss Promiscuous—join forces in this apocalyptic debut. Peter is a popular basketball player dealing with feelings for Eliza, despite having a girlfriend. Anita seems to have the perfect life, including great grades, but has a lot to hide when it comes to her family life. Andy is skateboarding through high school, getting high and slacking off. And then there’s Eliza—beautiful, mysterious photographer Eliza. She too comes with her own baggage, including an estranged mother and dying father.

Told in alternating chapters between the four main characters, We All Looked Up takes the reader on a typical teen journey, but with a twist. Wallach transforms a high school drama into realistic science fiction, as we discover that Ardor, an asteroid, is scheduled to hit Earth (specifically Seattle, where our characters live) in eight weeks. With this threat looming, each teen must come to terms with their lives as they are now—and to make crucial decisions, despite not knowing if they will live to see the consequences.

Debut author Tommy Wallach successfully gets into the head of each character, nailing their individual attitudes, ideals about sex and abundant use of foul language and recreational drugs. Despite its slow-paced beginning, this exciting debut picks up speed the closer Ardor comes to the Earth. This book is recommended for older teens, but any reader may find a piece of themselves in these characters.

YA novels have been written in the form of letters, diary entries, text messages . . . and now, in a long-anticipated follow-up to John Green and David Levithan’s collaboration Will Grayson, Will Grayson, the script of a musical theater production. In Green and Levithan’s original book, the 16-year-old openly gay, bodily large and ironically named “Tiny” Cooper writes and directs a musical, which fans now have the chance to read in its entirety.

Scenes vary from the outright hilarious (the requisite pun-filled locker room scene) to the amusingly ironic (a literal parade of ex-boyfriends) to the contemplative (Tiny’s father’s struggle with—and ultimate decision to—join him for a Mother-Daughter fashion show). The text, composed predominately of rhymed verse, includes lots of allusions to other musicals, insightful advice about love (a breakup means “you must rearrange your heart / It might feel like the end of the world / but it’s the beginning of your art”) and exactly the sort of easy acceptance that characterizes David Levithan’s work (“You’re gay? / Next you’re gonna tell me the sky is blue / that you use girl shampoo / that critics don't appreciate Blink-182”).

Levithan has accomplished something truly special in this confection of a book. Although its format is its most obviously unique feature, what ultimately stands out is its mixture of over-the-top silliness and deep emotional honesty. Unlike in Levithan’s groundbreaking Boy Meets Boy, there’s no apologetic half-fantasy component here: Hold Me Closer demonstrates loudly and gloriously that contemporary gay-centered YA lit no longer needs such literary crutches to succeed.

Jill Ratzan teaches research rudiments in central New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA lit from her terrific grad students.

Set in the secretive and mysterious Midwestern town of Bone Gap, author and professor Laura Ruby’s eighth novel captures the darkness and light of a small town where seemingly magical occurrences ensnare its citizens.

Bone Gap creates a world unto itself, in which readers slowly unpeel the disparate but simultaneously interconnected stories of the townsfolk who call it home. We hear from such voices as weird high-school senior Finn O’Sullivan—better known as “Moonface” by the townies for his tendency to space out—who is able to read people and offer intimate, uncanny insights into their quiet lives. Sean, Finn’s paramedic older brother and town heartthrob, is loved by nearly all of Bone Gap, even if they choose to acknowledge only part of his story. The brothers live in a sort of hovering stasis with the rest of Bone Gap until the gorgeous, damaged and strong-willed Roza wanders into town and changes everything. But when she is suddenly abducted by an unknown man, and Finn, the only witness, is unable to identify her abductor, all the cracks in Bone Gap start to widen, revealing the truths behind this idyllic small-town life.

Ruby flexes her narrative muscles with Bone Gap, blending mystery, romance and magical realism. Her mixing of styles mirrors the lives of her characters, with parts and pieces of different experiences making up only part of the story’s whole.

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 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Nick was driving the car with her sister, Dara, when they crashed. Months later, Nick (short for Nicole) cannot remember how it happened. All she knows is that the accident irreparably severed their once-close sisterly bond.

Nick’s best guy friend, Parker, has also been unreachable. But when Nick starts working at the local semi-decrepit amusement park called FanLand, she discovers that Parker also works there. Gradually, their friendship starts to seem normal. At the same time, a local girl, Madeline Snow, goes missing. This adds a spooky element to an already uneasy story, as Nick discovers clues that may link Dara with Madeline’s fate.

Readers unfamiliar with author Lauren Oliver’s deft hand may feel there is too much going on: Both Nick and Dara narrate sections before and after the accident, with a jumbled timeline often clarified only by date. At the same time, an “online” commentary traces the investigation of Madeline’s disappearance. However, a patient reading is rewarded with a big twist at the end. This is recommended for fans of the psychological intrigue in E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.

Diane Colson works at the Nashville Public Library. She has long been active in the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Association (YALSA), serving on selection committees such as the Morris Award, the Alex Award and the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award.

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

Jo Knowles’ new novel was apparently inspired by a real-life incident in which the author and her family were given the finger by another driver, even though he was in the wrong. This episode prompted her to think about the aggression, power and even hatred implied by this small gesture.

Read Between the Lines is a series of linked short stories set over the course of a single day. Each chapter focuses on the private life of a student—from cheerleaders and bullies to those they overlook or prey upon—and includes “the finger” in some way. Each can be read and appreciated in isolation, but readers will enjoy piecing together the stories and the accompanying relationships.

The novel’s most profound revelations belong to the final chapter, when one of their teachers shares her own secret stories: “Just like there is more to her than what they see, there is more inside each one of them.” It’s a message that may inspire readers to consider the lives of strangers before rushing to pass judgment—or flipping the bird.

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

It takes a special talent for an author to tap into the mind of a character who is radically different from himself, and first-time novelist David Arnold has uncannily captured the voice of a 16-year-old girl with beauty and style in Mosquitoland.

Mary Iris Malone (or, as she prefers, “Mim”) is an unhappy teenager for many reasons: divorced parents, new stepmother Kathy, no friends at her new school. She is angry with her father for leaving her mother, for making her move from Ohio to Mississippi and for marrying a woman Mim finds ridiculous. When she overhears a conversation about how her mother isn’t feeling well, Mim decides that she needs to go back to Cleveland and see her mom. Without telling anyone, she hops on a Greyhound bus. Although her stepmother keeps calling her, Mim is sure that Kathy is the reason she hasn’t heard from her mom and so she refuses to answer. Mim’s journey is fraught with peril and rife with self-discovery as she questions her own sanity and the trustworthiness of everyone she meets.

Arnold’s prose is delicious as he peels back each of Mim’s layers on her long ride. The characters she encounters along the way and her internal thoughts about life, love, friendships and survival are pitch perfect. As with any teenager, Mim struggles with personal angst, but she is as open to possibilities as she is to the open road.

RELATED CONTENT: Read a Q&A with Arnold for Mosquitoland.

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

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

Almost 15, Adam Ross has outgrown his pants and fallen in love with Robyn Plummer all in the same week. Combine that with navigating his divorced parents, his needy-yet-adorable stepbrother, his mother’s hoarding and his own Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Adam can hardly imagine what a “normal” high school experience would be like. In fact, as all of these things converge, Adam might just be in over his head.

The Governor General's Award-winning novel by Canadian author Teresa Toten is a breathtaking portrayal of the anxiety, confusion and yearning for community that will be familiar to teenage readers—and, for that matter, readers of any age. In this younger, softer Silver Linings Playbook, Adam works hard to be a superhero, protecting his stepbrother and his mother and playing Batman to his newfound love, Robyn. His sheer determination is equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking.

The complex, richly developed teen characters in this novel are all coping with various degrees of OCD, and Toten treats the subject with admirable deftness. At no point is the disorder reduced to a stereotype or to an object of pity. It’s an obstacle and another serious complication in an already-complicated stage of life, but it never defines the characters or becomes the novel’s central focus. Instead, the core of the story is the struggle Adam and his group face to understand themselves and each other, and to navigate their roles in new friendships, evolving families and first loves.

It’s 1932, and Sydney’s slum, nicknamed Razorhurst for the gangsters who wield knives instead of guns, is run by two major crime lords: Mr. Davidson and Gloriana Nelson. Despite the mobs’ truce, no one is truly safe from the violence that disrupts the neighborhood, especially Kelpie, a homeless orphan who depends on the help of ghosts for her daily survival. After a spiteful spirit sends Kelpie into a notorious boarding house, she runs into Dymphna Campbell, Gloriana Nelson’s most valuable girl, who is standing over the dead body of Dymphna’s boyfriend. Dymphna’s been keeping secrets: Not only can she ghosts, too, but she and her boyfriend were conspiring to kill both crime bosses and rule over Razorhurst. Now Dymphna, with Kelpie in tow, is on the run. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know who is out to get her and whom she can trust.

Razorhurst is a dark read filled with violence and poverty. Every character, from a cook to a nuisance ghost, is given the full treatment in brief chapters that are interspersed throughout the central narrative. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of the plot, and the pacing suffers for it. Even the ghosts, while an intriguing hook, only serve to bring Kelpie and Dymphna together. Their back stories, although interesting, are not integral to the plot. Readers may overlook these weaknesses to enjoy Justine Larbalestier’s powerful, descriptive prose.

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