BookPage Teen Top Pick, November 2018

Cutthroat. Ruthless. Unpredictable. That’s modern politics, but it’s also modern high school. In Gordon Jack’s satirical novel, Your Own Worst Enemy, three candidates fight dirty to be Lincoln High’s next student-body president.

Stacey Wynn was supposed to have this in the bag. She’s running unopposed, and after all, who has done more for this California high school than she? She champions all the clubs, attends all the spirit rallies, and she hands out free cupcakes—off school grounds and in accordance with the state’s strict nutritional policy, of course.

With her best friend and campaign advisor, Brian, by her side, Stacey thinks that all she needs to do is rehearse her acceptance speech—until Julia Romero, a new student and French-Canadian immigrant, shows up and throws her hat into the ring. The race gets even more complicated when Chinese-American Tony Guo, a stoner and slacker, is manipulated by a Steve Bannon-esque freshman into running on a populist platform.

What should have been a quiet election turns into a circus of misinformation, fake news and low-down tactics. Will the best candidate for the job win?

Jack succeeds in using the microcosm of high school to explore the complexities of race, privilege and class as it relates to the American political process. And through multiple points of view (the three candidates, Brian and his troubled brother), readers get a sense of the personal stakes involved for everyone in the political arena. While the current political landscape is polarized, Your Own Worst Enemy reminds us that hope lies with the younger generations.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Leanne “Lee” Bauer is ready to set the record straight. It has been three years since her high school’s mass shooting led to the deaths of 9 students (10 if you count the shooter himself) and 2 teachers. The shooting also left one student paralyzed and the others severely traumatized. Lee was in the bathroom holding hands with her best friend, Sarah, as the shooter aimed and fired at Sarah. Everyone believes that Sarah died while proclaiming her religious faith, but only Lee and one other survivor know the truth of what really happened in the bathroom that day.

When Sarah’s family decides to publish a book about their daughter and the massacre, Lee decides it’s time to reveal what actually happened, because all of the survivors deserve to have a voice.

Keplinger (The Duff) pens an extremely powerful, mind-blowing and chilling account of what it is like to be on the inside of a high school shooting and how details and facts can become misconstrued as a result of trauma. In chapters that deserve a trigger warning, Lee and the other survivors recount the massacre as they experienced it. Featuring a cast of diverse characters, and unique narration that includes poetry and letters,    Keplinger shows she’s up to snuff with this heavy hitting that is unfortunately trending. Reminiscent of Marieke Nijkamp’s This Is Where It Ends (2016), this novel would make an excellent springboard for parents or teachers who want to open a discussion about gun violence with their teens.

The truth is out there and Penny wants to find it. The “real” truth, of course, and not that garbage her paranormal conspiracy-theory touting father feeds the readers of his publication, Strange World. In Lindsey Klingele ’s The Truth Lies Here, Penny is determined to get accepted into Northwestern’s school of journalism, even if that means returning to her tiny hometown of Bone Lake to write the article that will get her there. What Penny finds, however, is much more than she bargained for.

Things seem immediately amiss, as Penny’s father doesn’t pick her up from the airport, and, in fact, seems to be missing. Couple that with the fact the people keep repeating the same phrase to her over and over, strange men are wandering around town and burned bodies keep showing up in the woods, and Penny has to rethink her stance on the paranormal. She decides to take matters into her own hands and begins to search for her father with the help of Dex, her closest childhood friend, and Micah, the high-school quarterback (and Penny’s hidden crush). This search leads all of them to discover that things in Bone Lake are much stranger than they believed.

Ideal for fans of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” The Truth Lies Here brilliantly keeps readers second-guessing. Multiple, complex plot lines are woven together with rich, thoughtful characters, and an eerie and unsettling mood hangs over every page. This is the kind of book that keeps you up at night. You won’t want to stop reading until you reach the deeply satisfying and somewhat disturbing conclusion.

The youngest dancer in the Atlanta Ballet Conservatory, Cason Martin is one of the best ballerinas in the country. Her very first memories are of ballet, and she’s well on her way to a successful career on the stage. But when a strain in her leg turns into her worst nightmare, she knows she may never perform again. While Cason is learning to give up control of her life, Davis Channing—a cancer survivor and recovering drug addict—is regaining control of his by volunteering in the oncology department that saved him once before. As the two teens get to know each other at the hospital, they discover that, together, they may just be brave enough to reinvent their dreams.

Kati Garnder’s debut novel, Brave Enough, is in many ways a frothy, fun teenage romance, but the author—a childhood cancer survivor and amputee herself—tackles tough subjects with a masterful nuance that is both candid and compassionate. The emotions Gardner’s characters experience as they swing through hope and grief and back again feel raw, real and deserved, and each is well developed and complex. Whether they can always see it or not, Gardner has made sure Cason, Davis and their friends are much more than their afflictions.

Though the plot is somewhat predictable, Gardner’s strong storytelling skills and her knack for dealing with subject matter that is so often relegated to hushed whispers make her debut novel a powerful one.

In Markus Zusak’s first release since the publication of his number one New York Times bestseller The Book Thief, he weaves a modern epic of great love, wrenching loss and the sustaining power of familial bonds.

The world of the five Dunbar boys is one of love and blasphemy, fists and forgiveness. It is a world marked by tragedy—first by the untimely death of their mother and then by their father’s abrupt abandonment. Each of the boys deals with grief in their own way, but Clay, the fourth boy, holds a secret. And when their father suddenly reappears with a strange request, it is Clay who answers his plea. But in doing so, he must face the wrath and confusion of his brothers and ultimately help them piece together the full truth of their family legacy.

With fully developed characters and intricate depictions of both adolescence and adulthood, this book straddles the line between young adult and adult fiction. Either way, Bridge of Clay is Zusak at his best. To read a novel by this masterful author is to embark on an immersive journey that challenges readers to expand their understanding of what it is to be human. In this tale, Zusak explores how the intricate tapestries of our lives are woven not just by the decisions we make but also by those of the people closest to us, creating an interconnectedness from which no one, for better or worse, can ever completely extract themselves.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

A year after 9/11, 16-year-old Shirin is starting yet another first day of school at her third high school in two years, and she’s over it. Having grown used to the misconceptions, name-calling and outright racism hurled her way for wearing a hijab, Muslim-American Shirin has developed a tough exterior and an even tougher interior. The one place she feels comfortable is in the dance studio with her brother and his break-dancing team. When Shirin joins in and perfects her power moves like crab walks and head spins, she becomes someone else—someone who isn’t afraid of being hurt. But when Shirin is paired with Ocean James in biology class, he slowly begins to chip away at the walls Shirin has constructed.

Tahereh Mafi, best known for her Shatter Me series, has stepped away from fantasy to pen this incredibly realistic novel based on her own experiences. While immersing themselves in gorgeous prose, readers will feel for Shirin as she stands up for her beliefs in the midst of hurtful words and violence, and they’ll cheer as she experiences first love and laugh-out-loud moments. Intense, emotional and resonant, A Very Large Expanse of Sea is a riptide that pulls readers in.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In this sequel to Mackenzi Lee’s Stonewall Honor-winning novel, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Monty’s younger sister, the prickly and ambitious Felicity Montague, embarks on her own adventure.

After being denied entrance to numerous medical colleges in London because she’s a woman, Felicity hatches a plan to crash her ex-best friend Johanna Hoffman’s wedding in Germany along with the help of Simmaa “Sim” Aldajah—a black Muslim girl with access to a ship. Once there, Felicity will plead her case to the groom-to-be, the renowned Dr. Alexander Platt, in hopes she can study under him on his next expedition. But when the bride ditches the wedding, Felicity and Sim chase her to Zurich. They discover that Johanna’s deceased mother, a naturalist, was working toward a discovery that most men would kill for, including Dr. Platt.

Felicity and Johanna team up with Sim, who admits she’s actually a pirate from northern Africa, and the trio travels to the Mediterranean coast, where they encounter rival pirate fleets, ruthless Englishmen and fantastical beasts. How are they ever to get out of this alive?

Fans of this novel’s predecessor will be delighted to know that Monty and Percy do make cameos in A Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, but they are not the focus of the book, nor should they be. Felicity’s story is a feminist feast that challenges societal norms and forgoes all romance, which is unconventional, albeit refreshing, in young adult literature. Readers will do themselves a disservice if they don’t explore the author’s note, as they’ll learn how women such as Felicity have always contributed to scientific exploration through their inexhaustible persistence and spirit.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, October 2018

Haunted by the tragedy that upended her life last year—and the source of her trauma, whom she refers to as the Taker—Annabelle takes off running from her hometown in Seattle. Her destination: Washington, D.C. Why? She’s not going to think about that. For now, all she can do is run. But with the support of her grandfather, who follows her in his RV, and her brother and best friends back home, Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist. As her feet bring her closer to her destination, Annabelle begins to hope that someday she’ll be able to shake her guilt and shame over what happened.

National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti (Honey, Baby, Sweetheart) makes readers wait until the end to find out why Annabelle is running 2,794 miles, but from the very first page, she tackles issues that will be painfully familiar to teen readers, including the constant, simmering fear of assault, the recurring realization that leaders—in school or in D.C.—are unable or unwilling to protect them, and the infuriating internal tug of war between being kind and being vigilant.

Written in driving prose that conveys a powerful sense of urgency and with loving characterizations of Annabelle and her family and friends in all their flawed, tender glory, A Heart in a Body in the World delivers a powerful look at love, loss and guilt as readers follow Annabelle’s cross-country journey to self-forgiveness.

Equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful, A Heart in a Body in the World reads like a battle cry for young women in the #MeToo era.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There’s no shortage of Jane Austen retellings. But it’s safe to say that none of them are quite like Ibi Zoboi’s modern-day reimagining of Pride and Prejudice. Zoboi, whose prior novel, American Street, was a finalist for the National Book Award, continues her exploration of the complexities of American neighborhoods through a love story worthy of the legacy of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.

Zoboi’s novel is set in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood whose residents—like narrator Zuri Benitez and her family—are largely working-class African-Americans and Latinos who have lived there for decades. But Bushwick appears next in line for gentrification, and Zuri’s not sure she likes the changes. Her concerns come to a head when the Darcys, a wealthy black family, move across the street, completely changing her street’s culture. Zuri can’t deny that the younger Darcy brother, Darius, is fine—but she can’t get over her resentment of what the Darcys stand for, nor can she forgive Darius’ own prejudices about the Benitez family’s very different lifestyle.

Pride is not a connect-the-dots retelling, and that’s what makes it so compelling. Zoboi utilizes Pride and Prejudice’s dramatic potential to set the stage, but Zuri and Darius’ story stands on its own. Likewise, Zoboi’s treatment of race, class and gentrification will effectively open some readers’ eyes while also resonating deeply with those who see these issues playing out in their own lives.

This article was originally published in the September 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.