Developmentally disabled teens Biddy and Quincy have just graduated from high school. Biddy’s been living with her grandmother, and Quincy with various foster families, but now they need jobs and new living arrangements. A team of counselors arranges for the two graduates to share an apartment above a local widow’s garage. At first, Quincy and Biddy resent each other’s company, and mixed-race Quincy isn’t sure how she feels about interacting with a white landlady. But their strengths and weaknesses complement each other, and soon all three discover a sense of family and belonging that’s long eluded them.

Like other books in the emerging “new adult” category, Girls Like Us tackles issues like transitioning from school to work, paying bills for the first time and negotiating chores and boundaries with roommates. (There’s no consensual sex, although characters grapple with the lasting effects of sexual assault.) In alternating first-person narrations inspired by author Gail Giles’ longtime work with special-education students, Biddy and Quincy talk openly about their feelings, fears and daily struggles and triumphs. Sections are short (sometimes as brief as a paragraph or a single sentence), and the girls’ language is realistically simple.

This highly readable story is a welcome addition to a growing literature about teens with mental and physical challenges. Echoing the characters in John Green’s seminal YA novel The Fault in Our Stars, these two newly independent teens know that their disabilities aren’t their fault—and aren’t the only factors that define who they are.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Jill Ratzan reviews for School Library Journal and works as a school librarian at a small independent school in New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA literature from her terrific graduate students.

Nell Golden has been waiting for this moment for two years. She’s finally about to start high school with her beautiful older sister, Layla. Nell and Layla have always been close, and Nell is sure their bond will only grow deeper once they attend the same high school parties and play on the school’s varsity soccer team. But as soon as the school year starts, Nell feels Layla pulling away. She has some suspicions about what’s going on with her older sister, but she can’t talk about them with anyone, especially not the one person she needs the most—Layla herself.

As Nell makes her way (and sometimes stumbles) through her freshman year, she feels as if she’s missing the mentor and guide she assumed Layla would be. Meanwhile, she is dogged by her fears for Layla and haunted by the memories of two brothers who were destroyed by their own secrets. Ultimately, Nell must decide what would be the bigger betrayal: revealing Layla’s secret or keeping it.

Dana Reinhardt excels at creating complex, realistic family relationships and placing strong, provocative themes in the midst of engaging coming-of-age stories. We Are the Goldens is no exception; it’s a superbly crafted story that feels emotionally honest and expansive despite its tightly written style.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Set on the beaches and back alleys of Los Angeles, The Prince of Venice Beach is the tale of a homeless runaway who lives an easy life off the grid—until his only means of income turns morally complex.

Seventeen-year-old Robert “Cali” Callahan ran away from an endless cycle of foster homes when he turned 14. Over the years, he has remained under the radar while learning about the people, locales and vibes of Venice Beach, as well as offering his help to anyone who needs it. So when a private investigator shows up at his regular pickup basketball game, Cali plays it cool enough to land a well-paying gig helping the PI find another runaway in the area. Cali goes on to get two more PI jobs, but he ends up falling for the subject of his third search—the mysterious, elusive Reese Abernathy. Cali wants to help Reese, but with rumors swirling about her mental instability and the true cause of her mother’s death, he faces tough decisions in the face of ethical ambiguity.

The Prince of Venice Beach reveals the savagery and humanity of life on the streets, and provides insights into homelessness that few are able to capture.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

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

BookPage Teen Top Pick, June 2014

At just 18, Emi has parlayed a Hollywood internship into work as a production designer, a job for which she has natural talent. While prop shopping at an estate sale, she finds a letter from a deceased movie star that sends her and her best friend, Charlotte, on a quest to find the actor’s troubled granddaughter, Ava.

Fate, love and vintage furniture collide in Everything Leads to You. Nina LaCour, author of The Disenchantments, has a true knack for pacing, moving the story along while incorporating generous pauses to allow the characters to watch one another and see how they live. That theme comes to the forefront here, as designer Emi’s idealized movie-set worlds crash into the reality of Ava’s homelessness. People often project a story onto others based upon what they initially see; Emi loses sight of that and almost misses out on true love in the bargain. Her plan is to craft a happy ending for Ava, who goes almost literally from rags to riches. Instead Emi realizes, “She was never something waiting to be solved. All she is—all she’s ever been—is a person trying to live a life.”

Everything Leads to You has fairy-tale qualities—the letter, the quest it inspires and, of course, the glitter-coated world of Hollywood. But it’s a fairy tale made up of the magic inherent to each of us: discovering what you’re good at and pursuing it doggedly; keeping friends and family close whenever it’s feasible; and trusting your heart to lead you where you need to go. Sometimes abandoning your vision of a happy ending is the key to having one after all.

Heather Seggel reads too much and writes all about it in Northern California.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Hannah loves the game of seduction. She dresses to tease and unabashedly enjoys the pleasure of sex. Her one unassailable prohibition is no sex without a condom. So Hannah is shocked when she discovers that she’s pregnant, not only because of the impending scandal, but because the only person who could be the father is the one person Hannah cannot name. More than one guy at Hannah’s high school is sweating things out when Aaron Tyler, new transfer student, announces that Hannah’s baby belongs to him.

Investigative busybodies at school have no trouble figuring out that Aaron arrived in town too late to have fathered the child. So who is Hannah protecting? And why would Aaron needlessly accept such a huge responsibility? Debut novelist Pratt slips in well-placed hints that allow readers to gradually discover answers to these questions. The very British narration alternates between Hannah and Aaron, and from Aaron’s earliest words readers find him awash in grief and remorse. It becomes clear that Aaron believes that he must atone for his past, and that helping Hannah would be that “meaningful” redemption he craves. For Hannah, the pregnancy brings her own family’s dysfunction to the forefront.

The pacing may feel slow to some readers, as Pratt allows plenty of room for her characters to grow and change. The result is a moving story about friendship and responsibility, comparable in tone to the works of Laurie Halse Anderson.

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

The first book in a new series from 19-year-old author Lucy Saxon, Take Back the Skies offers readers an incredibly fast-paced mixture of fantasy and steampunk. It’s full of twists and turns that will shock even the most ardent fantasy fan.

Fourteen-year-old Cat Hunter has lived a privileged, sheltered life on Tellus, a world where children approaching adolescence are “collected” to fight in a far-off war. Cat’s father, Nathaniel, is a high-ranking government official, so, unlike the commoners, their family escapes all of the hardships that come with living in a war-torn country. Her life isn’t all champagne and caviar, however. Nathaniel is a cruel, sometimes abusive father, and has promised Cat’s hand in marriage to a boy she finds loathsome. To free herself from the oppressive environment, Cat disguises herself as a boy and becomes a stowaway on the skyship Stormdancer.

After she boards the ship, nothing prepares her for what she learns about her home country and her father. And then there’s Fox, a fiery redhead with a personality she loves to hate. Soon Cat must choose between saving her father and saving the world. Will her new skyship family embrace her and go along with her insane scheme, or will they leave her in the far-flung country of Siberene?

With action on every page, Take Back the Skies is great for fans of Scott Westerfeld and Cherie Priest. With five more books to come in the series, readers won’t have to wait long to read more about this fascinating world.

If Meg Cabot wrote an episode of “Downton Abbey,” it might end up being this delightful debut novel in which two teenage girls inadvertently switch roles at an English estate in 1938.

Hannah Morgenstern is a Jewish cabaret singer who performs nightly at her parent’s club in Berlin. A chatty girl with an operatic voice, she is the darling of the Nazi customers until Kristallnacht destroys her parents’ club and her safety. Hannah’s mother sends her to live with some distant relatives at Starkers, an English estate, but there’s a mix-up and Hannah is assumed to be the new kitchen maid rather than family. Hannah, having been warned of her relatives’ odd behavior, takes it all in stride. She dons the uniform and tries her best, even as she commits every conceivable service faux pas.

Meanwhile, Anna Morgan arrives to Starkers as a spy for her Nazi-sympathizing father. She’s sent as the kitchen maid, but with her charming good looks and diplomatic airs, she’s mistaken as the German cousin. Anna may not know German, but she can use her good looks to snag the interest of the wealthy heir, Teddy. Anna does catch Teddy’s eye, but it’s Hannah who he meets nightly in the yews for meaningful conversations in German. Except, in the dark, Teddy thinks he’s speaking to his cousin and not the spritely kitchen maid.

Readers have to suspend their belief, as the major plot twist can easily be cleared up if Hannah would just come out of the dark yews so Teddy can see her in the light. The cast of characters is a charming, oddball lot, and the tension of World War II is eased with the silliness of the situations at hand. Happy endings all around make this novel a fun read in dark times.

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

BookPage Teen Top Pick, May 2014

When 16-year-old Laureth receives an email stating that her writer father’s notebook (which he’s never without) has been found in New York, rather than in Switzerland or Austria (where she thought he was), she suspects that something very bad has happened to her dad. Her mother doesn’t seem to care about the missing notebook, or about her father’s inability to return voicemails. So Laureth takes matters into her own hands, enlisting her 7-year-old brother Benjamin (and his inseparable stuffed raven named Stan) to help her travel from London to New York in search of their father.

Why does she need her younger brother’s help? Because Laureth is blind, and although she can quite capably navigate the landmarks of her home, school and neighborhood, she knows she can’t negotiate international travel on her own without seeming helpless or vulnerable—the very last things she wants to be.

Soon Laureth and Benjamin are involved in a tense and risky search. Even after they find their dad’s notebook, which is filled with increasingly cryptic and disordered notes about the power and limits of coincidence, they can’t find the man himself—and it appears they may not be the only ones trying to track down his trail.

Sedgwick’s remarkable novel is reminiscent of Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery in its sensitive and perceptive portrayal of difference, as well as its recognition that all kinds of people can investigate mysteries and solve problems. The narration from Laureth’s point of view manages to be rich and detailed without relying on visual descriptions. Most importantly, Laureth is depicted as a complex and vibrant character quite apart from her blindness, a fully realized person for whom courage is a daily decision rather than an extraordinary virtue. She Is Not Invisible is not only a compelling thriller; it’s also a portrayal of disability that is neither patronizing nor aggrandizing, but rather exquisitely sympathetic and true.

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In 1951, adopted teenager Lily’s Chinese features attract the wrong kind of attention from classmates at her Kansas City high school. The United States is at war, defending South Korea from the invasion of Chinese Communists via North Korea. Propaganda designed to gain American support for the war features evil, slanted-eyed Commies eager to destroy any nation that blocks its path to supremacy, including the U.S. Lily wonders why her Chinese birth mother, whom she now thinks of as “Gone Mom,” could have abandoned her daughter to this fate of ethnic isolation.

In today’s world, Chinese daughters thrive all over the U.S. But in Lily’s time, the rules of segregation reign. Mr. Howard, a black man who works as a janitor at Lily’s school, witnesses her anguish and steps in as a mentor, helping her cope with prejudice. Author Barbara Stuber captures Lily’s isolation beautifully: “I am a Chinese character without a plot.” Lily’s white parents seem shallow, concerned only with appearances, but her half-brother Ralph, with his jug ears and stinking feet, comes alive as Lily’s one true ally. A subplot involving a potential romance with an artist named Elliot pales in comparison to Ralph’s exuberant love for his sister.

Girl in Reverse is a worthy follow-up to Stuber’s 2010 debut, Crossing the Tracks, a finalist for the William C. Morris Debut Award. There are many pieces that must come together to reveal Lily’s past: a box in the attic containing things left by Gone Mom; Elliot’s perceptive artwork; the owners of a Chinese restaurant; and the recollections of Sister Evangeline from the orphanage. The integration of all these pieces strains the story’s pace and requires near-magical coincidences, but it is in keeping with Sister Evangeline’s comment, “A complicated past is best understood a bit at a time.”

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

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.