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I love smart, irreverent narrators, and Kiriel is one of my new favorites.  In A. M. Jenkins’  2010 Grand Canyon Reader Nominee Repossessed, we meet a bored, unappreciated know-it-all, Kiriel.  The thing is, he’s not your average suburban American teenager, he just took possession of one to experience physical existence.  And don’t call him a demon, which carries way too much negative baggage; he prefers Fallen Angel. As he puts it, the main difference between him and the Unfallen Angels is that he “wondered, questioned, confronted, eventually demanded, and in general pushed the edges of the envelope till the envelope burst.”  Perfect spirit to inhabitRead More →

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In Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award 2010 Nominee The Rules of Survival , Nancy Werlin tackles the topic of child abuse.  18-year-old Matt writes a letter to his youngest sister, Emmy, in an effort to come to terms with the childhood of fear they lived at the hands of their unpredictable, insane mother.  Matt insists that “fear isn’t actually a bad thing . . . . It warns you to pay attention, because you’re in danger. It tells you to do something, to act, to save yourself.”  Throughout the short, riveting chapters, Matt recounts his memories of growing up, and his terror is palpable, but so is hisRead More →

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Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival is a sharp, fun, and quick read.  Newton Starker always knew he would most likely die from a lightning strike. It would all happen in the blink of an eye – Zap! One fried 14-year old Newton, the last heir of the Starker line. Two years after his mother was killed by a lightning strike (as has every other member of the Starker family for generations), Newton is starting a new life at a survival school in the Canadian prairie.  He’s got challenges ahead – having lived most of his life indoors,  sheltered from the menace of the weather,Read More →

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Michael Harmon’s new novel is aptly titled Brutal.  Poe Holly has a razor sharp tongue, enough anger to burn down a town, and the guts to speak her mind no matter how brutal the truth may be. 16-year-old Poe’s mom has dumped her with her long-estranged father in a quiet, well-to-do California wine country town where everything is absolutely perfect on the surface.  Poe’s punk look, anti-establishment attitude and anger issues mean right away she won’t fit in to the status quo.  And she finds out quickly enough that lurking behind the perfect exterior of this town and its perfect high school is a painfulRead More →

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The Forest and Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan’s debut novel, begins seven generations after the Return, an undead plague that has ended civilization as we know it. The novel’s heroine, Mary, lives in a village surrounded by one last vestige of industrial technology: a chain-link fence, beyond which is a vast forest full of shambling, eternally ravenous zombies –the forest of hands and teeth. No villager ever goes outside this fence, unless they want to die, or worse, be infected and become one of the undead. Mary’s world is bounded not only by the fence but by the archaic traditions of her people, which are dictated by aRead More →

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In Jillian Cantor’s first novel, The September Sisters, we watch a family fall apart.  One summer night, 11 year old Becky goes missing from her suburban home.  Left behind are her parents and 13 year old sister, Abby, the narrator of this aching story.  The mother retreats into depression, the father focuses on finding Becky and maintaining normalcy, and Abby is left adrift in her confusion and loss.  The majority of the story focuses on the year following the kidnapping as the family unravels as each person tries to deal with (or escape from ) the horrible pain and anguish caused by Becky’s disappearance.  Abby’s emotionsRead More →

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Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest novel for young adults, Wintergirls, due out in March 2009, is the haunting, gut-wrenching story of 18 year old Lia who is losing her battle with the demons of anorexia.   Her estranged best friend Cassie has died suddenly, and Lia is lost in a world of her own making as she is failing to cope with her family life, school, and Cassie’s death. Lia’s relationships with everyone around her – mother, father, stepmother, sister, therapist, guy she meets at hotel where Cassie died – take the back seat to the ghosts that plague her. Their appeals to her to eat, to save herself, fall on ears thatRead More →

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Gaby Triana’s latest novel, The Temptress Four, is a light and flirty cruise through the last days of high school.  Four longtime girlfriends, Fiona, Killian, Alma & Yoli have been fast friends all through school and on the day after high school graduation they embark on a week-long Caribbean cruise to celebrate their past, enjoy their present, and seal their friendship for the future. Just before leaving, however, they have a spooky Tarot card reading full of warnings about strife, storms and the premonition that one of them won’t be coming home. Typical conventions of high school girl novels abound, and while an enjoyable read,Read More →

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Woodson’s story is set in 1994, when the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself. They become close and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the their friendship as they search together for their “Big Purpose.”  The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, and out of the narrator’s and Neeka’s lives forever. After Tupac & D Foster delicately unfolds issues about race and socialRead More →