BookPage Teen Top Pick, April 2018

What is the color of grief? When 15-year-old Leigh thinks about the answer to this question after her mother’s suicide, she feels empty—translucent. She’s an artist, and every feeling she experiences has a corresponding color.

There’s so much Leigh is struggling to understand—the depression that lead to her mother’s death, her frustrating romantic feelings for her best friend, her family’s long-buried secrets and her own Taiwanese-American identity. But the most puzzling of all is how her mother turned into a beautiful red crane, and what the bird’s nighttime visits mean. The first message she can interpret urges her to visit her maternal grandmother and grandfather (Waipo and Waigong) in Taiwan, where she can immerse herself in her mother’s world of Mandarin and Taiwanese culture as she’s always longed to do.

The Astonishing Color of After is Emily X.R. Pan’s debut novel, and it gracefully explores the depths of a teen’s trauma without ever feeling overly dramatic or saccharine. The thread of magical realism is woven through this story so skillfully that the reader will join Leigh in accepting it almost immediately. The story is centered on a heart-wrenching mystery (how should Leigh interpret the last line of her mother’s suicide note and her spirit’s puzzling transformation?), yet Pan’s prose is as warm and free-flowing as Waipo’s oolong tea, making this story a surprisingly uplifting one.

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

Centuries before the #MeToo movement entered the cultural landscape, there was Artemisia Gentileschi.

Born in Rome at the turn of the 17th century, Artemisia was introduced to painting by her artist father after she showed more talent than her brothers. She became a masterful Baroque artist in her own right, with paintings that reflected feminist concerns and employed an eye-opening realism during a time when art—like the entire world—was dominated by men. In her debut novel, Blood Water Paint, Joy McCullough recounts in fictionalized free verse a pivotal time in Artemisia’s life.

Set in 1610, the story begins with 17-year-old Artemisia assisting her father in his painting studio. She ponders her own talent (she paints better than her father yet receives no proper credit), her role and identity as a woman, and her sexuality. She soon realizes that women are dismissed as “beauty for consumption.” Artemisia’s most troubling observations are confirmed when her father, in the guise of procuring a high-profile commission, hires fellow artist Agostino Tassi to tutor her. Instead of guiding Artemisia, he rapes her, and although she calls out to the house servant, Tuzia, no one comes to her aid. Despite the strong possibility of being shamed as a result, the teen seeks justice in court. Adding insult to injury, the judge requires Artemisia to undergo humiliating, invasive and tortuous tests to prove she isn’t lying.

With care and precision, McCullough marks how these events shaped Artemisia’s work. Perhaps because Tuzia didn’t respond when she needed her, Artemisia’s paintings emphasize the power of solidarity among women. Her narration, interspersed with prose from the perspective of her older self, draws inspiration from the women of the Bible, such as Judith and Susanna. Most importantly, readers see the teen’s strength as a survivor of sexual assault. Ever resilient, she proclaims, “I am not a thing / to be handed / from one man / to another.”

Although Artemisia lived centuries ago, her story will resonate with modern feminists.

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

Sixteen-year-old Saaket Ferdowsi—but please call him Scott—lacks grit. So while his parents are visiting family in Iran, he hops on a bus to Washington, D.C., in order to visit a Georgetown professor who’s just won the MacArthur Genius Grant for her research on grit. But the friends he makes along the way—Trent, an aspiring U.S. senator, and Fiona, a crossword aficionado—teach him more about “sticktoitiveness” than he ever could have expected.

Arvin Ahmadi’s charming debut, Down and Across, brings a strong new voice to teen literature. Scott’s uncertainty, and his panic over that uncertainty, will resonate with high school readers faced with the impossible task of figuring out what they want to do with their lives. The supporting characters’ efforts to juggle their own aspirations with their unique baggage will feel equally familiar.

Most of all, Scott’s spontaneous trip—and the lessons he learns about grit along the way—will likely help young readers relieve their own anxiety about the next steps in their lives.

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

BookPage Teen Top Pick, February 2018

Only Tareq, his little sister and his father are left after a bomb destroys their home and kills the rest of their close-knit family. In the wake of this unbearable loss, the three plan to leave Syria for the dream of asylum in Europe. The journey is terrible from the start, with desperate refugees packing into overcrowded camps in unsympathetic cities. From Turkey, Tareq decides their best chance is to cross the Aegean Sea, which requires giving all their money to unscrupulous smugglers. This arrangement, along with the dangers of the sea and hostile attacks by the Turkish Coast Guard, is enough to drain Tareq of his humanity. But when his family arrives in Greece, he makes the fortuitous acquaintance of an American volunteer, who encourages him with words from Mr. Rogers: “Look for the helpers.”

Destiny acts as the omniscient narrator of A Land of Permanent Goodbyes, granting insight into the hearts of the characters and a broader overview of the refugee experience. As author Atia Abawi artfully illustrates, refugees are created by circumstances that can happen anywhere. A perfect companion novel to Alan Gratz’s Refugee, this humanizing, often harrowing and sometimes transcendent novel fosters compassion and understanding.

Diane Colson is the Library Director at City College in Gainesville, Florida.

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

In the near-future, vast maguey fields span what’s left of the bone-dry Southwest landscape of Samantha Mabry's All the Wind in the World. Two teens must work themselves to the bone in order to survive, and they con their way through ranches while hoping to save enough money to finally live someplace where they no longer need to keep their love a secret.

Sarah Jac and James have been hopping railcars across the thirsty remnants of the United States for years now, working as maguey-harvesting jimadors and hiding their love by pretending to be cousins. They’ve learned, in the harshest of ways, that any emotional weakness can become someone else’s weapon. So they’ve adopted the mantra of “hard hearts”—all the while preying upon the naivety of their fellow ranch hands in order to avoid being taken advantage of themselves.

But after Sarah Jac accidentally causes the death of an overseer at a ranch in New Mexico, the young couple is forced to escape to The Real Marvelous, a Texas ranch long rumored to be cursed. What they find there, and who they meet, will test the depths of their sanity, their suffering, their trust and, ultimately, their love.

Mabry’s debut novel, A Fierce and Subtle Poison, was named one of the Best YA Books of 2016 by Paste Magazine. And in All the Wind in the World, she continues to craft mesmerizing characters. Most impressive is the way Mabry portrays Sarah Jac and James’ love—subtle, raw, honest, untrivialized—especially considering the direness of their circumstances throughout this modern, post-apocalyptic Western that's filtered through the haze of magical realism.

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