For the inhabitants of the frozen planet Tundar, survival is a daily struggle. Powerful corporations and crime syndicates rule through greed and fear, and everything from the weather to the wildlife can kill you in an instant. The only resource the desolate planet can offer the interstellar economy is exocarbon, a rare metal that can only be mined during Tundar’s annual sled race in which would-be miners drive teams of genetically engineered vonenwolves across hundreds of miles of deadly wilderness to reach the dig site first. With fame and fortune on the line, racers are just as likely to be killed by another team as they are by Tundar’s giant osak bears and blizzards.
Sena Korhosen knows this all too well: Five years ago, both of her mothers died in the race. Since then, Sena has sworn off all things race-related. When circumstances force her to rescue Iska, a wounded fighting wolf, and enter the competition she despises, Sena must use everything her mothers taught her and more in order to survive to the finish line.
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves makes full use of its perilous setting. Debut author Meg Long spends a significant amount of time familiarizing readers with the culture and creatures of Tundar, as well as exploring Sena’s reluctance to race, which effectively builds a sense of danger and dread for the looming competition. While some readers might find such methodical world building a little slow out of the gate, particularly for a story about racing, the novel’s third act will reward patient readers with all the brutal, fast-paced survival action they could ever want.
Sena’s grief over the loss of her mothers and her deepening connection with Iska form a quiet emotional counterpoint to the novel’s harsh setting. Sena’s memories of her mothers are a source of pain, love, protection and strength, all of which she finds mirrored in the wounded wolf she’s tasked with healing. Whether Iska is helping Sena cross a frozen wasteland or melting her frozen heart, the bond between girl and wolf is lovely and touching. Readers will root for them as they’re swept along on their wild ride.
This sci-fi survival story makes full use of its perilous setting, to which its hero’s bond with a wounded wolf forms a quiet emotional counterpoint.
Cas, the younger lord of the Oliveran fortress city of Palmerin, is no stranger to death. Mysteriously abducted near the Oliveran border in the midst of war with the neighboring kingdom of Brisas, he watched from afar for three long years as thousands fell to brutal violence and thousands more to a pestilence that ravaged the land. The plague’s only mercy is that it allowed Cas to escape his cruel captors. All Cas wants now is to return home, reunite with his older brother, Ventillas, and make up for the years he’s lost—but death still stalks the younger lord of Palmerin.
When he finally arrives in Palmerin, Cas—who was presumed dead—is met with chaos. A slippery assassin threatens the lives of the Oliveran royal family, who have fled the plague-ridden capital and taken up residence in the Palmerin Keep. As he enlists the help of Lena, a court historian and half-sister to the king, Cas realizes that the only path to tranquility will be to find the would-be killer.
Makiia Lucier’s fourth novel, Year of the Reaper, is a fast-paced, fantastical mystery that’s rife with courtly intrigue and twisty secrets and rooted in nuanced depictions of personal and societal trauma. As Cas and Lena work together to identify the assassin, a wellspring of secrets begins to burble forth, engendering mistrust among the characters and threatening to break the tenuous peace between kingdoms. Lucier’s nimble plotting creates an ever-widening spiral of doubt that drives the story irresistibly forward.
Set in a fictional land inspired by Spain in the late Middle Ages, the novel resists getting bogged down in overly expository world building, which can easily become dry. Instead, Lucier spends time refining small details such as local delicacies, colorful textiles and scents that give dimension to the kingdom of Oliveras and enrich the plot. War and plague have left deep scars, but the people of Oliveras are lively and engaging despite the terrible things they’ve endured.
Lucier is particularly adept at portraying relationships. Cas and Ventillas’ brotherhood is complex; love and trust are foundational to the pair’s conversations, but resentment and suspicion seep in slowly through invisible cracks. Similarly, Cas and Lena’s budding romance is believable because of their genuine friendship, which Lucier develops through harrowing adventures and intimate, convincing dialogue.
Year of the Reaper is quick to enthrall, with enough of an echo of the COVID-19 pandemic to be frightening. Seasoned fantasy readers will be beguiled by its unusual setting and Lucier’s graceful sidestepping of cliches common to the genre. Though its conclusion leaves some threads untied and may not satisfy readers who prefer to have all their questions answered by the end of a book, Year of the Reaper is an emotionally immersive and consistently compelling read.
Year of the Reaper is a fast-paced, fantastical mystery that’s rife with courtly intrigue and rooted in nuanced depictions of personal and societal trauma.
What if the events in the fairy tales you heard as a child didn’t really happen that way at all? This is the question posed by Martha Brockenbrough’s Into the Bloodred Woods , a savage spin on happily ever after.
The novel takes place in a mythical kingdom ruled by a king, his gold-spinning queen and their twin children, Ursula and Albrecht. Ursula, a serious and thoughtful princess, can transform into a bear, which gives her tremendous physical strength. She dreams of the day that she will become queen and can free other shape-shifters from the oppressive rules that limit their freedom. Cruel Albrecht fancies himself an inventor, but his horrifying creations often involve unwilling test subjects. When the king dies, his kingdom is divided between the twins until Albrecht invades Ursula’s half, usurping his sister’s land. To save her people and protect herself, Ursula must destroy her brother or die trying.
Brockenbrough offers a thoroughly feminist novel that reimagines many well-known fairy tales. In her versions, Little Red Riding Hood falls in love with the wolf, while Hansel and Gretel are kidnapped by Albrecht and forced into servitude. Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella and the Pied Piper are also referenced, but Brockenbrough reconfigures their stories so that they’re far less Disney and far more Grimm.
Toward the end of the novel, a character muses, “Why was it a crime to be more than one thing? Why could people not be exactly who they chose to be in the world? Who was harmed when people lived their own truths?” It’s a striking moment that will resonate with teens who have asked themselves similar questions about their own world. As potent an allegory as the fantastical stories upon which it draws, Into the Bloodred Woods reminds readers of the power such stories hold—and of their own power to rewrite them.
This savage spin on happily ever after offers a thoroughly feminist allegory as potent as anything the Brothers Grimm dreamed up.
Delight the teenager on your holiday list with a fabulous graphic novel or gripping true story guaranteed to make them swoon, giggle or gasp.
The Girl From the Sea
For the reader who longs to be carried away on the waves of a fantastical story
In The Girl From the Sea, author-illustrator Molly Knox Ostertag blends myth and realism to create a story about the things we’d rather keep submerged—and what happens when they surface with a splash.
Morgan Kwon is 15 and part of a power clique at her high school that serves as a frothy diversion from her unhappy family life. She’s just biding her time until she can move away from her small island town and finally come out as gay.
One rainy night at the rocky seaside cliffs that are her favorite place to sit and think, Morgan slips on the wet stones and falls into the water. She’s rescued by a mysterious girl named Keltie, who is kind of cute, really, and an awfully powerful swimmer, but the instant connection between them threatens all the secrets that Morgan’s been carefully concealing from her friends and family.
Ostertag (The Witch Boy) is an expert at conveying complex emotions and subtly shifting the mood from one panel to the next. Morgan is part of a group text message thread with her friends, which includes numerous invitations that Morgan declines, at first because of her feelings of loneliness and depression, and later because Keltie is clearly not welcome among the group, even as she and Morgan are tentatively falling for each other. Ostertag initially depicts Morgan’s home life with her stressed mom and angry little brother in stark, silent scenes, but as secrets come to light and Morgan’s family reach out to one another, there’s a warmth to their time together that lifts off the page.
This graphic novel’s narrative flows so smoothly that you might find yourself reading it in one big gulp, and its resolution is bittersweet but hopeful. The Girl From the Sea is a wistful romance that will catch readers by the heart.
—Heather Seggel
Passport
For the reader who has always suspected there was more to their parents than meets the eye
“¿Qué está pasando?” Early in her graphic memoir, Passport, author-illustrator Sophia Glock writes that this phrase—which means “what is going on?”—is her mantra at the Spanish-language immersion high school she attends in Central America. The phrase is a lifeline as Glock navigates the usual challenges of teenage life, but it takes on another meaning when Glock discovers that she is the daughter of CIA agents who have been keeping her in the dark.
Growing up, Glock lived all over the world because of her parents’ ambiguous “work.” What work is that, exactly? She has no idea. The more questions she asks, the fewer answers she receives. Just keep your head down, her parents tell her. Stay safe, and if you can, why don’t you let us know what your friends’ parents do for a living?
When Glock reads a letter that her older sister, away at college, wrote to their parents, the blanks in her life begin to fill in, though she is too afraid to confront her parents directly. Instead, like any frustrated teen, she exercises her autonomy and starts telling lies of her own. Boys, girls, drinking and partying abound while Glock travels through the gauntlet of adolescence and the tension between her ever-accumulating little lies versus her parents’ one big lie threatens to boil over.
Glock’s depictions of quiet yet consequential moments, such as when she ponders the choices her parents have made, are especially spellbinding. Her sparse, restrained art style evokes the feeling of a memory play, a recollection both real and ethereal. She renders the entire book in only three colors: shades of a reddish pink, a cold blue and white. Her characters aren’t always easily distinguishable from one another, and while that can cause some confusion in the story, the overall effect is satisfying. After all, how much does Glock really know about the people around her? ¿Qué está pasando? In her author’s note, Glock concedes as much. ”These stories are as true as I remember them,” she writes. The CIA’s publication review board nixed some of the particulars of Passport before it was published, which makes the details that did end up in the book all the more dramatic.
A deceptively spare graphic novel chock-full of depth and beauty, Passport is an unusual coming-of-age memoir that’s totally worth the trip.
—Luis G. Rendon
★ The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor
For the reader who loves spooky castles and fears no gothic terror, not even marauding zombie bunnies
Haley is so exuberantly dedicated to gothic romances that her exasperated teacher orders her to stop writing book reports on Wuthering Heights (and no, she cannot do an interpretive dance about it instead!). After school, Haley sets out for home in the rain, and lo! As she stands on a bridge, dramatically sighing, she sees a man struggling in the dark waters below. She dives in to rescue the floundering fellow, conks out after her exertions and awakens abed in Willowweep Manor, attended by a dour housekeeper named Wilhelmina. Have Haley’s period-piece dreams come true?
Turns out, Haley has indeed been inadvertently catapulted into a world much like those in her beloved books. There’s a castle (complete with “baleful catacombs” and an on-site ghost) and verdant moors, as well as three handsome brothers—stoic Laurence, brooding Montague and vacuous Cuthbert—who took her in after she saved Montague from drowning.
But Haley soon discovers another side to Willowweep. It’s a gasket universe, a liminal space between Earth and an evil dimension laden with a substance called bile that destroys everything in its globby, neon green path. Can Haley help the brothers fend off the encroaching forces of darkness before it’s too late?
The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor is a hoot right from the get-go, but when everyone bands together to defend the manor, author Shaenon K. Garrity’s tale becomes ever more hilarious and exciting. Humorous metafictional quips fly hither and yon as the characters take up arms, squabble over strategy and realize they’ve got to break a few rules (and defy a few tropes) if they want to prevail.
Christopher Baldwin’s art is full-bore appealing. He has an excellent command of color: Brooding browns underlie characters’ stress while sky blues highlight Haley’s growing confidence. Facial expressions are little comedies unto themselves, including horses who side-eye Cuthbert’s silliness, and slack-faced bile-addled bunnies who adorably chant “Destroy.”
The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor celebrates and satirizes a beloved genre while encouraging readers to defy the rules and become the heroes of their own stories.
Kate Sweeney’s debut YA novel, Catch the Light, is a moving story of healing through art and opening yourself up to a new life after suffering a great loss. Sweeney graciously shares a heartfelt look into her experiences of grief and loss, which inspired the story of her protagonist, Marigold “Mary” Sullivan.
Tell us a little bit about Marigold and what’s happened in her life when we first meet her. Marigold is a white, middle class, cisgender, heterosexual 17-year-old who is about to start her senior year of high school. She has just moved from Los Angeles to rural upstate New York with her mom and little sister. Her father died nine months before the book starts, and she’s also just lost so many other parts of her life—her friends, her boyfriend, her home. She’s grieving and feeling out of control but also trying to keep things together for her family. On top of that, she’s grappling with the fact that she’s forgetting her father.
How did this book begin for you? This book felt like it came to me all at once. I think part of that is because so much of the emotional territory is familiar to me. I experienced a lot of Marigold’s journey in my own life. When I started Catch the Light, I hadn’t written a word of prose in over 10 years, I was a new mom and a full-time public school teacher, and I was feeling totally underwater, like I was losing myself. And then suddenly I got this feeling like I needed to write this story. It felt kind of like I was bringing myself back from the edge.
“When I lost my father, there was a lot of shame in feeling like I was doing it wrong, that I wasn’t feeling enough or showing enough. But it’s not something that we really have control over; the only thing to do is just to make space for it however you can.”
You started writing when you were 16, five years after your father died. How much did you revisit your own experiences as you worked on this book? The amazing part of writing this book was getting to relive a moment that, in many ways, shaped my whole life, as an adult person and a parent. I had this dual perspective on the experience: I could be myself and my dad at the same time. I could understand the tension of being an artist and a parent, of wanting to lose myself in my work and forget the world, even as I remembered the feeling of being forgotten. There was a lot of peace in that for me.
Marigold’s grief is complex and mutable, and she feels alone in her sadness a lot of the time. What did you hope readers will take away from this aspect of her story? I think the biggest message in Catch the Light is that grief is messy. When I lost my father, there was a lot of shame in feeling like I was doing it wrong, that I wasn’t feeling enough or showing enough. But it’s not something that we really have control over; the only thing to do is just to make space for it however you can. I hope that readers can feel validated in whatever their own experiences might be, no matter how imperfect.
There are more than a few secrets bubbling around in Catch the Light, which makes for some delicious suspense and dramatic conflict. What drew you to exploring the consequences of secrecy in this story? This is actually pretty funny, because I really hate this kind of suspense! Often when I’m reading a book and the main character keeps making bad decisions and telling lies that are going to ruin everything, I can’t even finish it. I think it’s because I’m a huge perfectionist and grew up really afraid to ever do the wrong thing. But maybe this book is a wish for my younger self, that when everything fell apart in my own family, I would have just been able to mess things up like that. I think there’s something healthy about making huge mistakes, especially as part of the grieving process.
Marigold has to adapt to not only a new home but also new ground and sky. You did a wonderful job conveying what it was like for Marigold to long for beautiful “pollution-bright sunsets” even as she grows to appreciate a sky that’s “inky black and covered in stars.” How did you work to craft such grounded senses of place in Marigold’s story? Growing up, I lived in a lot of different places: Athens, Georgia; Los Angeles; Cambridge, New York; Salt Lake City; and New York City. In a way, it always felt like I was longing for somewhere I’d left behind. The idea of place became very important to me, especially in all of the physical sensations that make a place what it is. I’m always thinking about what the air felt like somewhere or what color the flowers were. I’m just incredibly nostalgic in that way, so when I was writing Catch the Light, I wanted to convey the feeling of longing that I’d always felt.
“There are so many fascinating connections and parallels between photographs and memory, from our desperation to capture moments as they happen to the way we obsess over photographs when someone leaves us.”
Marigold’s long-distance sorta-boyfriend Bennett is a kind, hunky California surfer she’s known forever—and then she meets sensitive, dreamy New York photographer Jesse, with whom she feels an instant connection. What was most fun about writing those romantic storylines? While many parts of this book were biographical, the boyfriend part was definitely not. I was not cool in high school and people did not want to date me. I didn’t have a real relationship with reciprocated feelings until I was in my 20s.
I’m also a huge romantic. When I’m out in public and I see two people who might be on a date, I can’t help but make up a whole story in my head about what’s happening there. I just love romance, so creating romantic characters and storylines is one of my favorite parts of writing.
The level of detail about film photography you included was impressive and fascinating, from technical considerations to the characters’ favorite shutterbugs. Did you research that element of the book? Are you perhaps also a photographer yourself? In my early 20s, I was an avid film photographer. When I was writing Catch the Light, I wanted Marigold to be a photographer too, because of what’s happening with her memory. There are so many fascinating connections and parallels between photographs and memory, from our desperation to capture moments as they happen to the way we obsess over photographs when someone leaves us. My older sister, Sarah, is a digital media artist, and her work has really inspired me to think about the ways that images can help us remember while simultaneously degrading the lived experience of our pasts.
You’ve been writing songs, singing and playing music with your band, Magic Magic Roses, for the past 10 years. What is it like for you to transition between creating songs to writing a novel? Do Kate the musician and Kate the author have a lot in common? Songwriting and novel writing are very similar experiences for me. There is a lot of self-discipline involved for both: You have to keep showing up, day after day. I’m an early riser and a compulsive journaler, and I wrote both my music and Catch the Light by making use of tiny scraps of time I found in between working, being a partner and taking care of a small child.
For me, the other secret to both is a certain level of truth telling. You have to be willing to put it all out there, to embarrass yourself a little. In my songs and stories, I tell things about myself that I would never reveal to a person that I know in real life.
I love the playlist on your website with songs and artists mentioned in the book. Can you share a little bit about a few of them and why they’re special to the characters—and to you? A lot of the music in the book is from my own childhood. My dad really loved bands like Talking Heads and the Doors, so mentioning those felt like they were for him. The Violent Femmes makes me think of my sister and her roller-coaster teen years, of how amazingly honest and authentic she’s always been.
In general, when I think of memories from being young, music is always at the forefront. It’s what keeps me feeling connected to that time and those people.
As you’re answering these questions, there’s a month to go before Catch the Light will be published. How do you feel? What’s something you hope for this book as it makes its way into the world and into the hands and hearts of readers? How do you hope you’ll feel a year from now? At this moment, everything feels very surreal. I’m new to publishing, so it’s all a little mystifying. My hopes are very basic. Even just how you describe it, that the book “makes its way into the world and into the hands and hearts of readers,” is such an exciting idea and really all I hope for.
I have another book that I’m editing now and a baby book that I’m working on a little bit every day, and so a year from now, I hope I can just keep feeling this push to create and the magic of getting to share my books with the world.
Claudie Durand is 18 years old and knows that she will never marry. She will be useful and dependable, but nothing more. Her father decided this when Claudie was young, after her mother abandoned their family to join a religious order. Claudie’s beautiful younger sister, Mathilde, will marry and begin her own life, while Claudie will take over running the family inn. But when the French Revolution finally reaches the northwestern region of Brittany and the revolutionary army destroys Claudie’s village, both Claudie’s and Mathilde’s plans for the future disappear in the smoke.
The two sisters, the sole survivors of their village, are thrust into the resistance efforts of a group called the Legion. Together, Claudie and Mathilde make their way toward the Breton capital of Rennes and then to England, joining forces along the way with a resistance leader known only as the Rooster of Rennes. Claudie’s intelligence and capability propels them forward, and as she grows closer to the cause—and to the Rooster himself—Claudie finally begins to recognize her worth.
In The Diamond Keeper, Jeannie Mobley (The Jewel Thief) thrusts readers into the midst of the French Revolution, vividly illustrating the horrors of war. Claudie is an appealing protagonist who brings historical events to life for readers as they follow her journey from France to England and her transformation from indifference and insecurity to passion and confidence. Claudie’s romance with the Rooster of Rennes is endearing, if a bit predictable, and it’s enjoyable to see Claudie discover her own strength as she repeatedly saves the day, not to mention the Rooster’s life.
More poignant is the evolution of Claudie’s relationship with Mathilde. Claudie has served as a maternal figure for Mathilde since both girls were very young. Mathilde, it seems, recognized Claudie’s potential long before Claudie ever did, and as Claudie’s emotions toward Mathilde shift from resentment and envy to respect and even admiration, readers will be moved by the new and more mature bond of sisterhood that forms between them.
The backdrop of the French Revolution will pique the interest of young history buffs, and Claudie’s leadership will make the book a hit with readers who’ve questioned their self-worth, their purpose or their path.
This adventurous tale, set during the French Revolution, is grounded by an appealing protagonist and a touching portrayal of sisterhood.
On the rocky cliffs near their cottage in the Scottish Highlands, Rowenna witnesses her mother Mairead’s death at the hands of a gruesome sea creature. Afterward, she mourns not only the loss of her mother but also her only chance to learn how to master and control the magical craft they share. But the morning after Rowenna rescues a stranger named Gawen from a storm, Mairead miraculously returns, rosy-cheeked and claiming to have rejected her craft entirely.
Although her grasp of the craft is merely rudimentary, Rowenna can tell that whatever has come back from the sea is not her mother; it’s not even human. The monster steals Rowenna’s voice and curses her brothers and Gawen, transforming them into swans. To break the curse, Rowenna sets off for the city of Inverness, where she’s heard of a wise woman who might be able to help her before the monster’s curse becomes permanent and her whole village succumbs to its malevolence.
Laura E. Weymouth’s A Rush of Wings is an immersive retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Wild Swans.” Weymouth’s writing is rich with sensory details, lush descriptions and prose that often feels like poetry. She creates a beautiful world that straddles the line between the real and the unreal. Here, the sea teems with otherworldly creatures, the wind speaks to women, and magic seems truly possible. Although Weymouth’s story has plenty of high stakes and horrifying villains, she tells it in an unhurried, intimate way, balancing heart-pumping battles with hushed, hopeful conversations.
Rowenna is an unusual fairy-tale hero who is curious about the limits of her abilities yet hesitates to use their full potential when doing so would harm others. She recognizes that her lack of control makes her weak but also fears what could happen should she become more powerful. Some characters believe her to be naive, while others accuse her of deceit, but Rowenna recognizes the complicated, contradictory aspects of her own identity and longs to bring them into balance.
It’s easy to lose track of time while reading A Rush of Wings. It’s a mesmerizing story with wonderful ambiance that asks readers to question their preconceived notions of heroes and villains. Readers looking for something both fresh and familiar are sure to enjoy this powerful retelling.
In the world of this lush, poetic retelling of “The Wild Swans,” the sea teems with otherworldly creatures, the wind speaks to women and magic seems truly possible.
Before her dad died, Marigold “Mary” Sullivan lived 10 blocks from the beach in California. There, she basked in the bright yellow sun while her boyfriend, Bennett, surfed and she and her BFF, Nora, excitedly made plans to attend college together at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But nine months after her dad died, Marigold’s mom moved their family from California to the cool green woods of upstate New York.
As Kate Sweeney’s lyrical and empathetic debut novel, Catch the Light, opens, Marigold is disoriented and lonely in her grief, “feeling like I’m inside a mirage” in which nothing is solid or certain and nobody understands her. Her mom is immersed in work; her younger sister, Bea, is bristling with unresolved anger; and her older sister, Hannah, is away at college.
But although she’s contending with an avalanche of change, Marigold understands that life continues apace, so she sets about orienting herself in her new town. She tours her soon-to-be school and shops at the grocery co-op, where she has a heart-fluttering meet cute with dreamy, sensitive local guy Jesse over a tube of beeswax lip balm.
The prospect of new romance is thrilling, but Marigold hasn’t resolved things with Bennett, and her efforts to parse his cryptic texts while guiltily swooning over Jesse add a nice frisson of tension to the book. So, too, does Marigold’s uncertainty about college in California and her reluctance to come clean about it to Nora. And then there’s her biggest secret, which is that she’s beginning to forget her father: “I don’t remember his smell or the feeling of his skin, and my memories curve around the empty spaces where he would have stood or spoken.”
Marigold tries to forget the forgetting, to carry on despite the increasing weight of things unspoken. Thankfully, Jesse inspires her to revisit photography, which ultimately serves as a form of salvation. Indeed, healing through art is a theme to which Sweeney, who is also a singer-songwriter, does beautiful justice. Her expressive prose renders quotable lines on nearly every page of Catch the Light as Marigold opens herself up to inhabiting the new life she’s forging after—and despite—her great loss.
Catch the Light is an affecting and affirming case for the painful, transformative inevitability of hope in the face of heartache.
The best young adult books of the year offer nothing less than revolution—revolutionary ways of seeing, of writing, of imagining, of moving through the world. They’ve kindled our hearts and filled them with warmth and hope when we’ve needed it most.
Like the contrasting flavors in a strawberry basil pie, Capetta’s frothy confection melds a journey of self-discovery with a quest to repair broken hearts.
Williams-Garcia’s mesmerizing portrait of slavery in antebellum Louisiana is a multigenerational saga that brilliantly depicts the rotting heart of Southern plantation life.
Gilbert captures the intensity and electricity of the end of adolescence in this astonishing book that expands what the entire category of YA literature can be.
As she explores the spectrum between isolation and connection in this deeply personal novel, King creates an unsettling but emotional resonant tale for our own unsettling times.
In Bad Girls Never Say Die, author and teacher Jennifer Mathieu reimagines S.E. Hinton’s groundbreaking 1967 YA novel, The Outsiders. She spoke with BookPage about “good girls,” “bad girls” and writing stories that help teens see beyond those labels.
Tell us about your relationship to The Outsiders before you started working on Bad Girls Never Say Die. It was the book of my heart as a young girl. I read it in one night in the sixth grade instead of studying for a science test. I did poorly on the test, but I’ve never regretted that life choice. I was captivated by this book that was all heart but also packed with action. The characters became so real in my mind.
Many years later, I had the experience of teaching the novel to my middle schoolers, and I discovered the book still has enormous staying power. Kids today love the emotion and the story just as much as I did.
Which elements of The Outsiders were you excited to explore and preserve in your book? Which elements did you hope to challenge or reenvision? I wanted to preserve the intensity, emotion and fast-paced plot of the original novel. As a teacher, I have seen how The Outsiders works magic on young reluctant readers, and it’s my hope that Bad Girls Never Say Die will have the same effect.
As for what I wanted to reenvision, by centering the female experience, I wanted to broaden the reader’s understanding of the unique challenges and obstacles facing young women of that time period. I wanted to push the reader to see that while some things have changed for the better, there are many parallels to be drawn between contemporary life and 1964, the year in which I’ve set my novel. Certainly this is true with a novel set in Texas, my home state, which continues to enact legislation that oppresses women and girls.
In this book, you explore themes that readers will recognize from your earlier work—especially, as the title suggests, what it means to be a “bad girl” versus a “good girl.” Can you introduce us to Evie and Diane and how these notions play out in and are challenged by their stories? Evie, our main character, is a girl from a working-class neighborhood. Her father is absent from her life, and she has chosen to align herself with girls who wear too much makeup, cut class and hang out with boys. She is seen as a “bad girl” for all these reasons. Evie’s mother’s biggest hope is that Evie will find and marry a good man who will support her; she believes it’s the best chance for Evie to improve her life, even if Evie sees this as limiting.
Diane is a stranger to Evie at the start of the novel. She’s recently moved to Evie’s neighborhood from the wealthiest part of Houston, and she’s keeping a secret. For much of her life, Diane has been considered a “good girl” because she dresses neatly, lives with both parents and is polite. That said, if Diane’s secret were to be revealed, she would be seen as transgressive and bad by most people.
While Evie and Diane seem different at the start and on the surface—in fact, Evie is at first quite suspicious of Diane because of where she comes from—the girls soon discover that they are both “bad girls” because they want to follow their hearts, speak their mind, and stand up for themselves.
Without giving too much away, it’s also my hope that through Diane’s story, we can understand how often girls and women are shamed for being sexual beings, and how this common practice is so devastating to women and girls. Ultimately, I hope the reader is able to reflect on how we continue to label women and girls as “bad” and “good” based on stereotypes and sexist thinking.
“When I was a teenager, I was beginning to quietly question much of what was happening around me and reflect on the expectations put on me as a young woman.”
You’ve mentioned that Evie is a character with whom you personally identify. How so? In many ways, my life was very different from Evie’s. I grew up with both parents, I was the oldest sibling (Evie is the youngest), and I was a rule follower who earned excellent grades. That said, when I was a teenager, I was beginning to quietly question much of what was happening around me and reflect on the expectations put on me as a young woman. While I was seen as a “good girl,” my growing interest in feminism and women’s rights made me suspicious in the eyes of some adults in my life, including teachers at my very conservative high school. I sensed a growing inner conflict as I began to really question some of the rules and systems around me, even if I couldn’t always articulate my thoughts.
Much in the same way, Evie senses something is not right in her world. What has happened to Diane is not right. What has happened to Evie’s older sister is not right. Evie’s mother’s limited plans for her are not right. Through the events of the novel, Evie begins to question all of that. By the end of the story, I think she is primed to act and make change. I think I felt much the same way as I headed off to college, found myself liberated by the environment there and fully embraced the label of feminist.
In The Outsiders, rival gangs of young men are always raring to fight, spitting at one another, switchblades at the ready. Who or what occupies the role of the antagonist in Bad Girls Never Say Die? Why was this reframing important to you? Oh, I love this question! While violence between the social classes is touched on in my book like it is in Hinton’s, I would say the antagonist in The Outsiders is the pressures the characters are under and the misconceptions they have about one another. In Bad Girls, I think the antagonist is, similarly, the sexist system in which the characters live, a system that oppresses and represses them. In addition, the misconceptions Evie and her friends have about girls like Diane at the start of the story reflect what often happens in contemporary life. Instead of seeking solidarity in order to fight back against a suffocating patriarchy, women fall victim to that same patriarchy’s message that we should judge and shame each other, which only limits our collective power.
One of the ways that Bad Girls Never Say Die departs from The Outsiders is how you not only highlight socioeconomic divisions between groups of teens but also touch on the history of integration and the unique challenges facing Mexican American students who, like Evie, live on the wrong side of town. The character and story of Juanita, one of Evie’s best friends, is a great example of how you did this. Can you talk about how and why you included this perspective in the novel? I loved researching this novel, and I definitely felt my former reporter muscles kick in as I got to work on it. I spent the summer of 2019 taking several older people here in Houston out to lunch to discuss memories of their teenage years. I also spent hours in the downtown library paging through old yearbooks and newspaper clippings. (Shoutout to librarians!) As a proud Houstonian for over 20 years, I am grateful for the opportunity to live in one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities in the nation. I teach at the most racially diverse high school in the city. We are not a perfect city, of course, and while I’m proud of many elements of my hometown, I also wanted to be honest about it in this book.
Set in 1964, Bad Girls Never Say Die reflects the reality that Houston, like much of this country, has a history of segregation that is quite complicated and painful. The school system in Houston was still racially segregated until the late ’60s and early ’70s. Black Houstonians attended different schools and lived under a racist legal system that oppressed them and still has ripple effects today, even if certain laws regarding public transportation, schools and restaurants have changed.
Since it is relatively close to Mexico, Houston also has a large population of people with Mexican roots. As I researched, I learned that although Houstonians of Mexican heritage were classified as “legally white” and attended school with white Houstonians, they were often subjected to discrimination. For example, their names were often Anglicized without their consent. In one of my interviews, a man with Mexican heritage shared with me that his teacher suspected him of cheating because he was Mexican. This informed the character of Juanita, Evie’s neighbor and dear friend.
At the same time, in 1964, the world was changing rapidly. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed just a few months before the events of this novel. Evie is a white girl, but like most teenagers of her day, she is aware of the events going on around her and has thoughts about them. While I could not write a fully racially integrated school like the one I work at now because it would not have existed at the time of the novel, I wanted to make sure that I crafted a world that was authentic and reflected the reality of the city and the country at that time.
I would be remiss not to mention the book Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City by Dr. Tyina Steptoe. Dr. Steptoe’s book about Houston’s complex racial and ethnic history was instrumental as I crafted this novel, and I’m grateful not just for her work but also for her time on the phone and via email.
Did you learn anything about Houston’s history that surprised you or that made you see the place you live in a new way? Something that made me laugh was the fact that so many of our city’s highways had not been built yet in 1964. Houston is a very freeway-centric city, and it sort of blew my mind to hear interviewees reminisce about a time when you went everywhere on surface roads. It’s almost hard to imagine!
You’re a high school English teacher. Do your students influence your work as a writer for teens? I am currently in my 17th year in the classroom. My job as a teacher keeps me around the rhythm of adolescence and reminds me daily that young people deserve good stories that treat them like the nuanced, complex human beings they are. My students sometimes want to know if they are in my novels, and I have to honestly tell them that the characters are fictional, but the energy, hope, rage, frustration, joy and confusion that surrounds me daily certainly makes its way into my work.
What’s the best or most rewarding thing about writing for teens? The best part is how sincere teenagers are and how enthusiastic they are. If they like your work, they REALLY like your work, and they share that with you. There’s no artifice with teenagers. Young people are the best fans because what they love, they love deeply.
What kinds of teens do you hope find their way to Bad Girls Never Say Die? What do you hope the book offers them? As an English teacher, I hope this book makes it into the hands of reluctant readers. Its short chapters and fast-paced plot will hopefully hook some of them. I’m a big believer that everyone is a reader, but sometimes we just haven’t discovered the books that work for us.
I also hope this book empowers young women to make connections to their own lives and draw parallels between the past and the present in terms of how women and girls are treated. I think it offers them a way to understand that, to borrow a phrase from Faulkner, the past is never dead. Bad Girls is historical fiction, but I also hope it’s a call to arms for modern-day girls to stand up for themselves and follow their hearts.
If Vivian, the protagonist of your novel Moxie (which was set in the present day when it was published in 2017), and Evie somehow found themselves at the same lunch table, what do you think they’d talk about? Are there things you think they’d be surprised to hear the other say? Another amazing question! Certainly there would be a few laughs as Evie learns about social media and modern music, and Vivian might be fascinated by Evie’s eye makeup and clothing, but I sense the girls would be fast friends because they would recognize in each other what I see in the young women I teach every day: a fighting spirit that seeks out joy, validation, love and liberation in a world that constantly wants to tell them they need to shut up, sit down and be quiet. Evie and Vivian refuse to listen to that message, and it’s my hope that the young women who read my work learn they can refuse it, too.
The author and teacher discusses her reinterpretation of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.
In Carly Heath’s debut YA novel, set on a small Norwegian island in 1904, a trio of young people reject their community’s traditional values and strive to live together.
Asta Hedstrom, who is deaf in one ear, must either marry or face a future as an impoverished spinster. She has resigned herself to marrying Nils Tennfjord, a boy she does not love. Her friend Gunnar Fuglestad has just survived a horrific accident that killed his mother, concussed his brother and required that Gunnar’s arm be amputated. His family’s farm will also soon be lost because of unpaid taxes. Meanwhile, Gunnar’s boyfriend, Erlend Fournier, has been kicked out of his wealthy home for refusing to abandon Gunnar.
After a violent altercation leaves Gunnar with a spinal injury and unable to move his legs, Erlend purchases a cabin for the two of them to live in. With little money of her own and no employable skills, Asta rejects Nils’ proposal and joins them, deciding that she’ll learn the blacksmithing trade with Gunnar’s brother. The trio’s best chance at survival is to win a local horse race and its hefty cash prize, but they’ll have to go up against the best and most dangerous thoroughbreds in the region.
Alternating between Asta’s and Erlend’s points of view, The Reckless Kind explores the bravery and brutality required to carve out unconventional paths in a time in which otherness was shunned and people were rejected to the fringes of society because of their sexuality, mental illness, religious beliefs or disabilities. Heath takes great care in conveying Asta and Erlend’s optimism in spite of Gunnar’s harrowing physical challenges, even reassuring readers in an author’s note, “No tragic ending here.”
Readers who enjoyed the equestrian culture of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races will enjoy the heart-pounding horse race in the final act, but Heath’s thoughtful portrayal of headstrong teenagers who successfully defy the expectations of their time has broad appeal.
In this thoughtful tale, set on a Norwegian island in 1904, a trio of young people reject their community’s traditional values and strive to live together.
It’s the 15th century, and the grim shadows of Portuguese slave ships loom over the Atlantic Ocean. The divine orisa Yemoja, prevented from destroying the ships by ancient magical law, instead uses her power to transform seven humans into mermaidlike beings called Mami Wata. They are tasked with collecting the souls of enslaved people who die at sea—whether by jumping overboard or being murdered by their enslavers—so they can be blessed on their journey home to Olodumare, the Supreme Creator.
Simidele is proud to serve Yemoja as Mami Wata, but she still feels an irresistible pull toward the wisps of memories she can recall from her former life as a human. When Simi chooses to save the life of a boy thrown overboard from one of the ships, she sparks a conflict between powerful orisas. The only way Simi can save herself, Yemoja and the other Mami Wata is by finding two magic rings and petitioning Olodumare for forgiveness. Adekola, the boy Simi rescued, offers to help her find the rings, but her fondness for him holds dangers of its own. Yemoja warns her that if she ever acts on her love for Adekola or any other human, Simi will dissolve into seafoam.
Skin of the Sea is an inspired take on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” that blends West African religion and history in an immersive adventure. Simi travels across sun-soaked sands and into cold ocean depths, through dense forests and into harsh volcanic strongholds. In luscious prose, debut author Natasha Bowen beautifully paints sensory details that often trigger Simi’s returning memories. Past and present lace together in these flashbacks, sparked by the familiar color of someone’s eyes or the scent of a homemade meal. Bowen’s rich descriptions are also well suited to conveying the breathtaking grandeur of the many gods, goddesses, spirits and creatures whom Simi and Kola encounter on their quest.
From the outset, the stakes are high for both Simi and Kola. Each new challenge highlights the heroes’ courage in fighting for the ones they love even as they also work to heal from the cruelty and trauma inflicted upon them by enslavers aboard the deadly ships. Skin of the Sea painfully entwines love and sacrifice to create a story as powerful and majestic as the sea itself.
This inspired take on “The Little Mermaid” blends West African religion and history in a story as powerful and majestic as the sea.
One hot summer day, Syd storms into work at the Proud Muffin—the best queer-owned bakery in Austin, Texas—full of breakup woe and ready to channel it into baking delicious treats, including a spur-of-the-moment special, Syd’s Unexpected Brownies. To Syd’s horror, everyone who eats the sorrow-laden sweets soon finds their love lives in disarray. So Syd and Harley, the bakery’s bicycle delivery worker, embark on a mission to serve everyone who ate the brownies an antidote, like a piece of Very Sorry Cake or a slice of Honest Pie. Getting the right treats into the right mouths turns out to be more complicated than Syd thought, and then Harley begins to look awfully cute in their (or sometimes his; pins on Harley’s messenger bag signal Harley’s pronouns that day) bike shorts and Western boots.
In The Heartbreak Bakery, author A.R. Capetta describes both baking and the excitement of first love in luscious, sensuous detail. The book’s sumptuous recipes combine real directions with Syd’s colorful commentary; the first ingredient in Breakup Brownies is “4 oz unsweetened chocolate, broken up (I mean, it’s right there, how did I not see this coming?).” Plus, Capetta folds in food metaphors throughout: An awkward situation feels like a crumbling sheet of pastry dough, and at one point Syd’s heart “wobbles like an underbaked custard.”
Syd, who is agender, is an expertly constructed protagonist and a notable step forward in representing the full spectrum of gender identities in YA fiction. Syd’s earnest musings about gender, bodies, performance and identity are likely to resonate deeply with teens who’ve shared those thoughts and experiences, while offering cisgender teens an approachable lens through which to begin to understand their peers. The Proud Muffin’s welcoming atmosphere provides Syd a home away from home. Among its customers, a range of identities and relationships are modeled and celebrated. Capetta offers a multitude of ways to use and share one’s pronouns, as well as techniques for avoiding pronouns altogether.
Like the contrasting flavors in a peach strawberry basil pie, Syd’s journey of self-discovery melds perfectly with the quest to find and repair the brownies’ damage. Suspend your disbelief in everyday magic and enjoy this frothy, fulfilling confection with a lemon ginger scone and a tall, chilled glass of iced green tea
Like the contrasting flavors in a peach strawberry basil pie, this frothy confection melds a journey of self-discovery with a quest to repair broken hearts.
Sign Up
Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.
Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
Anna Montague’s empathic debut novel, How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?, follows a woman entering her 70s and coming to terms with the loss of a friend through the twists and turns of a summer road trip.
