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With his brilliant debut, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, Adib Khorram has given us one of the most compelling and humorous teen narrators in recent memory.

Darius Kellner is half Persian, half white and constantly out of his depth. With no friends, a penchant for “dietary indiscretions” and a titanic sense of insufficiency, Darius is not OK.

When his Iranian grandfather gets sick, the family jumps aboard a plane to Iran, and Darius finds a whole new world waiting for him—along with all his same old problems. With more knowledge of Klingon than Farsi, Darius once again finds himself on the outside looking in. But after a lifetime of playing the odd man out, Darius finds his first true friend—and perhaps his first true love—and begins to accept that not being OK might be OK after all.

With a host of perfectly imperfect characters and more “Star Trek” and J.R.R. Tolkien references than you’ll likely find outside of a Comic-Con, Khorram takes on a host of weighty topics with uncanny lightness and care. Whether depicting Darius’ depression, his budding romance or his struggle to unravel his cultural, familial and sexual identities, Khorram approaches his narrative with a rare mix of humor, respect and deep sympathy.

Equally entertaining and endearing, Darius the Great Is Not Okay is a must-read if you’ve ever felt out of place or insufficient.

 

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

With his brilliant debut, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, Adib Khorram has given us one of the most compelling and humorous teen narrators in recent memory.

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BookPage Teen Top Pick, September 2018

When Sadie was 6 years old, her sister Mattie’s arrival provided her life with purpose. So when Mattie is found dead 13 years later, Sadie is destroyed—and determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice, no matter the cost. Sadie’s car is soon found abandoned, and her surrogate grandmother, having given up on the authorities, begs investigative radio reporter West McCray to look into her granddaughter’s case. While West is reluctant to get involved with Sadie’s story (“Girls go missing all the time,” he says), he soon becomes obsessed with finding the 19-year-old and wants to help bring her home before it’s too late.

In the highly anticipated Sadie, Courtney Summers delivers a hard-hitting look at the depth of a sister’s love. Summers confronts drug abuse, abandonment and child sexual abuse head-on as she tells the dark story of Sadie’s desperate attempt to avenge her sister and West’s desperate attempt to find her.

Summers’ narrative alternates between Sadie’s first-person perspective of her journey and the script of West’s “Serial”-like podcast as he traces her steps, and both are riveting. Summers’ sharp prose—filled with raw emotion, gritty detail and almost-tangible suspense—will break readers’ hearts over and over for Sadie and just about everyone she encounters on her mission.

Sadie is a gripping, visceral thriller that is at once difficult to fathom and impossible to put down.

 

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

When Sadie was 6 years old, her sister Mattie’s arrival provided her life with purpose. So when Mattie is found dead 13 years later, Sadie is destroyed—and determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice, no matter the cost.

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Life in the Seventh District is difficult. At the back of a fleet of starships that is currently ferrying humanity through space, Aisha Un-Haad doggedly shields her younger siblings from the hardships of the lower class. But when her brother contracts a brutal illness, Aisha knows her janitor’s salary won’t pay for quality treatment. So she makes the harrowing choice to “take the metal”—to become Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier whose sole purpose is to take orders from the General Body and protect the fleet during its search for a habitable world.

After surgery, Aisha joins a crew of young Scela who are adjusting to life as something more—or less—than human. Among them is Key Tanaka, a privileged girl from First District. While Scela are supposed to retain their human memories, Key has only vague recollections of her life before, and a disturbing blank space instead of the memory of why she elected to take the metal. Aisha and Key share strong wills and fierce emotion, but not much else, making it hard for them to mesh as a Scela unit. But their unit’s success becomes the least of their worries when they find themselves at the center of a simmering conflict between the General Body and a rebellious faction. Not everything is what it seems, and Aisha, Key and their unit may be the only Scela who can change the course of the fleet’s history.

Emily Skrutskie (The Abyss Surrounds Us) makes excellent use of dual narrators to highlight the nuances of Aisha and Key’s arguments and their gradual gain of respect for one another. Inventive, exciting and often moving, Skrutskie’s novel portrays realistic conflict between young women, centered on their values and personalities, rather than a superficial rivalry.

Inventive, exciting and often moving, Emily Skrutskie’s sci-fi novel portrays realistic conflict between young women, centered on their values and personalities, rather than a superficial rivalry.

Kit Frick’s debut YA novel, See All the Stars, is part love story, part thriller, part coming-of-age story—and definitely a book to be devoured all in one sitting. Frick, who is also a poet and poetry editor, has a love of words (and, as she puts it, “putting complicated characters in impossible situations”) that is clearly on display in this story about the relationships among four high school students.

Ellory, the narrator, begins the story in June following her sophomore year. She calls it “then.” Then, she was best friends with Bex, Jenni and Ret. To Ellory, her friends are the stars and planets of the solar system. Ret is the bright center sun, and Ellory sees herself as “the moon, dark and cold without the sun’s light. Ellory Holland—constant satellite.” So, when Ret wants to go to a party, Ellory follows. At the party, she meets and falls in love with Matthias Cole—a beautiful but complex boy with plenty of secrets.

See All the Stars shifts between these past events and now—Ellory’s senior year. Now, Ellory is attemping to brave out the school year by hiding in metalwork class and trying to focus on her dream of going to art school in Portland.

Frick deftly keeps the suspense and mystery of what happened “then” just out of reach until the very end, when the pieces fall into place and we can see all the stars—and understand the full nature of the gulf between then and now. Frick’s debut will especially be a treat for fans of E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.

Kit Frick’s debut YA novel See All the Stars is part love story, part thriller, part coming-of-age story—and definitely a book to be devoured all in one sitting.

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Evie has never fit in. The local fisherfolk scorn her as uppity because her two best friends, Prince Nik and Anna, have royal blood in their veins. But even with her friends, Evie feels like an outsider—and not because she lacks a royal title. Evie has a secret: She’s a witch.

Evie’s sense of estrangement only increases when she challenges Anna to a race, and Anna drowns in the rough ocean waves. Awash in grief, shame and uncertainty, there is nothing in the world Evie wants more than for her friend to be back beside her, breathing and alive.

Desire and delusion conspire so that when a mysterious girl shows up on Evie’s doorstep, looking very much like Anna and bearing the strikingly similar name of Annemette, Evie is convinced her friend has returned. Evie’s confidence cannot be shaken, even when she learns Annemette is a mermaid.

Annemette has just four days to gain a kiss of true love from Prince Nik, or she will dissolve back into the ocean like sea foam. Sounds familiar, right? But Annemette is not the pure-hearted Little Mermaid we know so well, and she is harboring secrets of her own.

Journalist Sarah Henning’s compulsively readable reimagining of The Little Mermaid is a cleverly plotted tale of love, loss and revenge. While familiarity with either Hans Christian Anderson’s original or the Disney adaptation will add layers of meaning and pleasure, you need not be a Little Mermaid fan to enjoy Sea Witch.

Journalist Sarah Henning’s compulsively readable reimagining of The Little Mermaid is a cleverly plotted tale of love, loss and revenge. While familiarity with either Hans Christian Anderson’s original or the Disney adaptation will add layers of meaning and pleasure, you need not be a Little Mermaid fan to enjoy Sea Witch.

Five years ago, in a sleepy Long Island town, five cheerleaders died within one month’s time. Two were killed in a car accident, two were murdered and one killed herself. Tragic coincidence or a planned attack? That’s what 16-year-old Monica Rayburn is trying to uncover. Her sister, Jen, was the cheerleader who died by suicide.

And on the anniversary of the girls’ deaths, Monica feels like her own life is unraveling. She’s recovering from an abortion, and the man she had been sleeping with is now a coach at her high school. But when she learns that her police officer stepfather is hiding crucial evidence regarding the murders, she begins to wonder if the wrong person went down for the crime.

When Monica discovers Jen’s old cellphone locked in her stepfather’s desk drawer, she begins an investigation of her own. Just as Monica fiercely guards her secrets, so did the cheerleaders. But which secret got them killed?

Unanswered questions and lingering doubts regarding Jen’s death propel Monica to follow all leads like a seasoned private investigator, but she still juggles typical teen concerns such as dance team, friend squabbles and an understandably tense home life. Author Kara Thomas (The Darkest Corners) is adept at crafting satisfyingly dark YA thrillers. While the cover art feels campy, the story within is packed with complex characters, tightly plotted threads and last-page twists. Readers won’t be disappointed.

Five years ago, in a sleepy Long Island town, five cheerleaders died within one month’s time. Two were killed in a car accident, two were murdered and one committed suicide. Tragic coincidence or a planned attack? That’s what 16-year-old Monica Rayburn is trying to uncover.

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“Heretics are usually true believers. The only thing more dangerous than someone who doesn’t care about the rules is someone who does—and wants to break them anyway.”

So begins 16-year-old Michael’s introduction to a secret underground club at St. Clare’s—his exclusive new Catholic school—known as Heretics Anonymous. Michael’s career-driven father has recently uprooted the family yet again—thus breaking his promise to Michael and his younger sister, Sophia—and has insisted on sending Michael to St. Clare’s for his junior year. As an avowed atheist, Michael has a bumpy start at the school as he tries to navigate Catholic traditions, but he fits in well with the other misfits in the club: a Jewish kid, a Wiccan and a girl named Lucy who wants to become a Catholic priest.

At first, Heretics Anonymous meetings serve as a place for the teens to complain about St. Clare’s restrictive rules. But at Michael’s urging, the club begins to take on an activist role. The Heretics secretly interrupt the annual abstinence assembly with a video that contains facts about sexual health, and later they encourage their fellow students to creatively interpret the school’s dress code.

The Heretics’ high jinks provide Michael with a distraction from his home life: His father is perpetually away on business, and when he is home, he and Michael are constantly at odds, and his mother’s attempts to keep her family together grate on Michael. In the meantime, the Heretics attend their share of awkward teen parties, and Michael and Lucy begin to act on their simmering attraction to one another.

But soon the club starts to get out of hand. At what point do the Heretics’ protests do more harm than good? And has Michael been drawing the wrong conclusions about his father all along?

Debut author Katie Henry writes with a deep respect for the religious beliefs her characters simultaneously adore and eschew. Lucy’s devotion to a tradition that will never meet her expectations is particularly sensitively drawn. Pick up this funny yet thoughtful young adult novel if you’re ready to question your own assumptions about family, friendship and faith.

 

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

“Heretics are usually true believers. The only thing more dangerous than someone who doesn’t care about the rules is someone who does—and wants to break them anyway.”

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BookPage Teen Top Pick, August 2018

If you ask me, there’s no better time to read a good old-fashioned survival story than at the height of summer, when long, lazy days and warm nights might make readers long for some heart-pounding humans-versus-wilderness drama.

Kate Alice Marshall’s I Am Still Alive certainly fits the bill, though there’s really nothing old-fashioned about it, since its themes and structures are boldly contemporary. The novel’s first half is divided into alternating sections titled “Before” and “After,” as 16-year-old Jess Cooper recounts how and why she came to live in a remote area of Canada with her estranged father, and how she’s been surviving in the days since his sudden murder and the destruction of everything that had been keeping her small family alive in this beautiful but unforgiving place.

By the time these two timelines merge midway through the novel, readers are bound to be thoroughly invested in Jess’ survival, made even more harrowing due to a painful disability that forces Jess to work twice as hard—and be at least twice as smart—as someone with two fully functioning legs. I Am Still Alive is full of the kinds of backcountry details that will intrigue fans of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet and its ilk, from finding and killing food to making shelter, and there’s plenty of high-stakes conflict with humans and animals alike. But Marshall’s thrilling tale is also a deeply moving story about coming to terms with imperfections (both in oneself and in others) and about finding true resourcefulness and inner strength.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Kate Alice Marshall about I Am Still Alive.
 

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

 

If you ask me, there’s no better time to read a good old-fashioned survival story than at the height of summer, when long, lazy days and warm nights might make readers long for some heart-pounding humans-versus-wilderness drama.

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Tim Wynne-Jones’ intense new book, The Ruinous Sweep, opens with a car crash, in which teenager Donovan Turner is tossed from a vehicle in the middle of nowhere. Then the narration fast-forwards to a hospital, where a near unconscious Donovan receives treatment following the hit-and-run and his girlfriend, Bee, holds watch and tries to decipher his urgent mumbles.

Shortly after Donovan’s car accident, police inform Bee that her boyfriend is also suspected of murdering his alcoholic father, whose badly beaten body was found lying next to Donovan’s baseball bat. The story’s timeline then begins to alternate between Donovan’s accident and the mystery of his father’s murder, which Bee sets out to investigate. Wynne-Jones introduces a bevy of dark characters and chilling scenarios designed to lead readers to piece together the two puzzles, but while the eerie paths may thrill some, the winding narrative may prove confusing at points.

The Ruinous Sweep is a trip into an underworld filled with drugs, murder and dysfunctional families. Fans of thrillers will find plenty of suspense in this story with vague echoes of Dante’s Inferno. The plot requires a fair amount of heavy lifting and focus, but fans of Wynne-Jones’ previous books and his talent for fabulism may find it worthwhile.

 

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

Tim Wynne-Jones’ intense new book, The Ruinous Sweep, opens with a car crash, in which teenager Donovan Turner is tossed from a vehicle in the middle of nowhere. Then the narration fast-forwards to a hospital, where a near unconscious Donovan receives treatment following the hit-and-run and his girlfriend, Bee, holds watch and tries to decipher his urgent mumbles.

The year is 2067, and 16-year-old Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew member aboard the Infinity, a NASA spaceship sent to colonize an Earth-like planet.

For the past five years, Romy has been commanding and piloting the Infinity alone after her parents and all of the other astronauts on board died from a mechanical malfunction. Romy’s only human contact is via the audio messages she receives from Molly, a NASA psychiatrist, but those stop when war erupts back home.

Another spaceship, the Eternity, has been dispatched to aid the Infinity. The commander on board the Eternity is a young man simply known as J. As J and Romy begin to exchange emails, a romance slowly blooms between them. For a girl who has never even had a friend, Romy clings to this budding relationship with the fervent hope that she won’t always be as lonely as she is now. But a shady system update on her ship and J’s too-good-to-be-true persona make Romy wonder if she’s being saved or sabotaged.

Despite Romy being singularly tasked with saving humanity, she is an incredibly relatable heroine. She obsesses over her favorite television show and writes fan fiction. She understands complicated physics problems but is overwhelmed by the expectations placed on her. She crushes hard on J but is insecure about his feelings for her. Romy is an Everygirl alone in deep space, but it’s her zesty narration that drives the momentum in British author Lauren James’ The Loneliest Girl in the Universe. The plot reaches warp speed once Romy and J make face-to-face contact—prepare for some rapid page-turning.

 

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

The year is 2067, and 16-year-old Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew member aboard the Infinity, a NASA spaceship sent to colonize an Earth-like planet.

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In Erin Callahan’s The Art of Escaping, escapology is defined as the art of breaking free from locks, chains, straitjackets and water tanks along with dodging sharp arrows aimed at your heart. For some teens, there’s no better metaphor for high school.

For 17-year-old Mattie, it isn’t a metaphor. The summer before her senior year, Mattie convinces Miyu Miyake, the reclusive adult daughter of a famous Japanese escape artist, to teach her the practice made famous by Harry Houdini and Dorothy Dietrich. All summer long, Miyu instructs Mattie in how to pick locks, how to hold her breath underwater and how to conquer her fear of the spotlight. But while Mattie is bending hairpins and training in ponds, she is also learning how to be herself. With her best (and only) friend, Stella, away at nerd camp, Mattie soon finds herself in an unexpected friendship with fellow misfit Will, who, unlike Mattie, doesn’t outwardly seem like a misfit at all.

Both Mattie and Will—and later Frankie, a third friend who joins their wayward band—love the sights, sounds and even textures of the 1920s, and their story is peppered with the slang of the era, jazz music, vintage dresses and speak-easies populated by bohemian audiences. Yet even as these historical references are celebrated and romanticized, they’re simultaneously critiqued as Mattie enrolls in a history class designed to question the nature of how history is discussed. In the end, metaphor blends with reality, text blends with interpretation, and Mattie, Will and those around them just might escape from the restraints that are holding them back from being their true selves.

 

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

In Erin Callahan’s The Art of Escaping, escapology is defined as the art of breaking free from locks, chains, straitjackets and water tanks along with dodging sharp arrows aimed at your heart. For some teens, there’s no better metaphor for high school.

Review by

As a collection of Asian myths and legends, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings could be required reading for any classroom. Fifteen acclaimed Asian and Asian-American authors breathe fresh life into 15 popular Asian folktales and myths, elevating this anthology to a higher level.

Editors Ellen Oh (YA author and co-founder of the nonprofit organization We Need Diverse Books) and Elsie Chapman (a fellow author and member of the same nonprofit) have compiled these diverse narratives to represent the stories and cultures of East and South Asian peoples, who are all too often disregarded in modern media and publishing.

Fifteen popular Asian legends are given new life in this collection.

Spanning Chinese, Filipino, Gujarati, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Punjabi and Vietnamese cultures, authors such as Renée Ahdieh (The Wrath and the Dawn), E.C. Myers (Fair Coin) and Aisha Saeed (Written in the Stars) have reimagined the stories of their ancestors from their own viewpoints, crafting layered tales with nuance and cultural wherewithal. For example, in Ahdieh’s “Nothing into All,” a brother and sister try to lift themselves out of poverty by using the magic of forest goblins to transform common objects into gold, but the dueling good and evil in their natures result in twisted desires and irreversible consequences.

The retooled stories included here fall into many categories—fantasy, science fiction, romance—and each gives the reader newfound insight into Asian culture and history. As a welcome bonus, each author has penned an educational essay chronicling the historical origins of their chosen tale.

By giving these bestselling and award-winning authors an opportunity to freely explore their histories and identities, Oh and Chapman have created a work that celebrates Asian storytelling. It should fill the authors and editors with pride and the reader with wonder.

 

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

As a collection of Asian myths and legends, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings could be required reading for any classroom. Fifteen acclaimed Asian and Asian-American authors breathe fresh life into 15 popular Asian folktales and myths, elevating this anthology to a higher level.

Review by

Miranda and Syd have been best friends for as long as they can remember. Both abandoned by their mothers, they swore an oath that they would be each other’s person forever. So when Syd runs away midway through senior year, Miranda is left anchorless. As she tries to discover where Syd went and why—all while navigating college decisions and her first love with Nick, the boy she’s had a crush on for ages—she realizes it’s time to step out of her best friend’s shadow and figure out who she is on her own.

I’m Not Missing is a powerful debut novel about a young girl dealing with devastating loss and ultimately finding herself. An award-winning poet, author Carrie Fountain has a knack for crisp prose, which is evident in her vivid depictions of the New Mexico landscape. But her biggest strength is the realism of her characters and their relationships with one another. Miranda’s budding romance with Nick will feel utterly relatable to any reader who’s bumbled through first love, and the evolution of Miranda’s friendship with Syd is equal parts heartwarming and painful in the way only a changing friendship can be. Fountain also explores drastically different family relationships in Miranda’s, Syd’s and Nick’s home lives. Readers will see themselves or people they know on every page.

I’m Not Missing is a must-read for any teen who’s felt the pain of lost friendship and the challenge of finding herself.

 

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

Miranda and Syd have been best friends for as long as they can remember. Both abandoned by their mothers, they swore an oath that they would be each other’s person forever. So when Syd runs away midway through senior year, Miranda is left anchorless. As she tries to discover where Syd went and why—all while navigating college decisions and her first love with Nick, the boy she’s had a crush on for ages—she realizes it’s time to step out of her best friend’s shadow and figure out who she is on her own.

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