Review of Clean

Title: Clean
Author: Amy Reed
Genre: Young adult contemporary fiction
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: July 19th, 2011

When I was growing up, my family moved a lot. Like, a lot. By the time I was 14 I was living in my third state in five years and attending my fifth school. That's when I discovered the library.

I'm not sure if it was just the tiny library in upstate New York, or the general state of YA literature back then, but there was a lot of British YA about drug addicts and delinquent kids. I read everything I could get my hands on, reading as many as 7 or 8 books a week in the summer. So I know about rehab books. And this is not your average rehab book.

CLEAN revolves around five teenagers, each of whom is in recovery from different things and for different reasons. The main narrators are Kelly and Christopher, although we get transcripts from group therapy and excerpts from the teens' entry essays to fill in the blanks. Their stories are surprisingly accessible. I've never had a drug problem but I found myself almost empathizing with Kelly and Christopher. Their voices are so vivid. Their stories get inside of you and live there for a while.

My favorite thing, though, was the transcripts from Group. As a teacher, I'm very sensitive to realistic dialogue. There's nothing I hate more than a good YA book with dialogue that sounds like an adult's idea of what The Kids say to each other. This is not one of those. Amy Reed somehow packs a world of nuance, back story, and group dynamics into Group sessions characterized by the monosyllabic, evasive responses to questions posed by the Group leader.

I loved this book. I'm going to read BEAUTIFUL next, and then eagerly await whatever Amy Reed is working on now.

Review of Anna Dressed in Blood

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author: Kendare Blake
Genre: Young Adult paranormal fiction
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication date: August 30th, 2011

I don't read a whole lot of paranormal fiction, and ghosts are not my thing. Something else that's not my thing: buying hardcovers. However, when I heard all the raves about ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD, I threw all my "usuallys" out the window and bought it.

Holy crap.

So, if you are squeamish about corpses, ghosts dripping blood, ghosts with no eyes, basements full of dead bodies, etc, then this book is going to FREAK YOU OUT. In a kind of awesome way.

If you are a fan of badass male narrators, aloof cats, mean girls who are actually nice, and homicidal spirits, then you should go buy this book.

Cas is a ghost hunter, just like his father was. He spends a few months here and few months there, following the call of the kill. He moves to a small town in Canada for his senior year of high school, because the town is haunted by an especially prolific murderer: Anna Dressed in Blood, a young girl who was killed several decades ago. Everything seems to be going as normal until Cas actually meets Anna--and discovers that, for the first time, he is in over his head.

It's rare that I ever identify with a male narrator in YA. Cas is one of the few that I almost understand. He's angry. He's isolated. He doesn't know how to relate to people his own age after everything he's seen. And like Cassel Sharpe in Holly Black's WHITE CAT, he is still coming of age despite missing out on his childhood.

Although the plot is well-developed and interesting, the character development is what I love most about ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD. I can't wait for the second book, which is due out at the end of next year.

Review of Drink, Slay, Love

Title: Drink, Slay, Love
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication date: September 13th, 2011

Synopsis from Goodreads.com:

Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire... fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil... until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops.

Her family thinks she was attacked by a vampire hunter (because, obviously, unicorns don't exist), and they're shocked she survived. They're even more shocked when Pearl discovers she can now withstand the sun. But they quickly find a way to make use of her new talent. The Vampire King of New England has chosen Pearl's family to host his feast. If Pearl enrolls in high school, she can make lots of human friends and lure them to the King's feast -- as the entrees.

The only problem? Pearl's starting to feel the twinges of a conscience. How can she serve up her new friends—especially the cute guy who makes her fangs ache—to be slaughtered? Then again, she's definitely dead if she lets down her family. What's a sunlight-loving vamp to do?

My take:

I am so tired of vampire novels, but this doesn't quite qualify. Durst spends as much time making fun of vampire novels as she does writing one. I mean, the main character gets staked by a UNICORN in the first 20 pages. Hilarious.

Honestly, though? My favorite thing about this book was Zeke and Matt, a.k.a. Tall and Chubby. They're Buffy enthusiasts, amateur slayers, and pretty much nerds personified. Their dialogue had me cracking up. Don't get me wrong, I liked the other zany characters, but Zeke and Matt are my brothers in nerdery.

I think that vampire fans will like this, but so will readers who are tired of vampires. Either way, you should probably read it.

Review of Liesl and Po

Title: Liesl and Po
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: October 4th, 2011

Ever since I read a galley of BEFORE I FALL, I've been a fan of Lauren Oliver. She sucks you in with an inventive plot, but you stay for the writing. And in LIESL AND PO, her first middle grade novel, the writing is Oliver's best yet.

Before the story starts, there's an author's note. Lauren Oliver wrote this book in a place of profound sadness after the death of her best friend. The story is such an elegant, eloquent expression of her grief--it's sad, funny, angry, lonely, touching, and redemptive all in the right proportions.

LIESL AND PO is like a cross between THE GRAVEYARD BOOK and THE SECRET GARDEN. It's on the darker side, although it's got bits of heartwarming humor. The world is one that hasn't seen the sun in over a thousand days. Nothing thrives. Add to that the fact that Liesl has been locked in the attic for weeks and just lost her father, and you've got the makings of a real downer. When Po and Bundle arrive, however, things start to look up.

In the weeks after my own best friend's death, I think I would have found Oliver's descriptions of the Other Side comforting. Although this is a middle grade novel, it addresses timeless feelings, and it does so beautifully. I will happily--and sadly--read this book again.

Review: Under the Never Sky

Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: January 3rd 2012

In Veronica Rossi's version of the future, the world is fraught with deadly electrical storms and the human race has been split in two. Half, the Dwellers, have retreated into insular communities called Pods. In the Pods, food is genetically altered, body processes are carefully regulated, and most people spend their waking moments in the Realms, a series of virtual worlds that are "Better Than Real." Outside, humans have reverted to basic survival methods to outrun the Aether storms. They live by their wits and rely on Blood Lords to unite and protect them.

After many generations, the two groups have begun to evolve apart.

Aria is a Dweller, living in Reverie. Her mother, Lumina, is doing research in another Pod when the link suddenly goes down. In an effort to reach her mother, Aria tricks a consul's son into taking her into an abandoned Ag pod. Her plan goes awry and she is banished from Reverie and abandoned in the Outside.

There she meets Peregrine, another outcast.

At first I wasn't sold on this book. It seemed like yet another somewhat hard-to-swallow dystopian landscape, full of inexplicable rules and a heroine who breaks free of blah blah blah and etc. etc. Around the time that we meet Peregrine, though, things start to look up. It's not often that I identify more with a male narrator than a female one, especially when the male narrator is written by a female author. In UNDER THE NEVER SKY, however, I found myself waiting for Perry's chapters to come up. The way Rossi links scent and emotion is so evocative, I found myself wondering if she has synesthesia. I found myself wondering if I have synesthesia, too--that's how good her descriptions are.

Also: not enough male heroes have blond dreadlocks and tattoos. Hot.

Rossi builds her world with a combination of imagination and science, creating a landscape that is both real and magical. Although the story is a little predictable, I highly recommend it to fans of MATCHED, DELIRIUM, BUMPED, and GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS.

Review of Reamde

Title: Reamde
Author: Neal Stephenson
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: September 20th, 2011

REAMDE begins with Richard Forthrast: draft dodger, marijuana smuggler, Iowa farmboy, and most recently, CEO of Corporation 9592, which created the online world of T'Rain. He's a workaholic making a halfhearted attempt at retirement when a virus called REAMDE wreaks havoc among the T'Rain community. Caught up in the drama is Richard's niece Zula. The story skips and weaves among the many characters whose lives tangle together in the wake of REAMDE.

Reading this book isn't the normal reading experience, in which one sits down and finds out what is going to happen next. You don't read REAMDE, you inhabit it. During the days I spent reading it, I would wake up and ask myself, "I wonder what Zula is doing right now." Because, while I was inside the world of REAMDE, the characters were as real as anyone else I encountered throughout the day. Even when I wasn't reading, they were there, eating and sleeping and living right alongside me. That's Neal Stephenson's particular brand of genius.

I read the Advance Reader's Edition of this book, which is 981 pages long. Every single one of those pages is riveting. I don't know how he did it, but Stephenson somehow wrote a thriller that's packed with nonstop action for almost a thousand pages. Reading it is exhausting and exhilarating.

Neal Stephenson's cult following will love this, but I think it will also earn him some new fans. I for one will be recommending it to everyone.

Review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Little, Brown
Publication date: September 27th, 2011

Although I originally wrote this review in July, my feelings about the book have only intensified. At the time I read it, I didn't know that I would no longer be a bookseller when the book was released--but you better believe I'm going to be at the closest independent bookstore on pub date, handing the book to everyone who walks in the door.

Original review:

Whenever I try to put my feelings about this book into words, they all crowd to the front at once and get tangled up. I'm not sure I can do it justice without a paintbrush and some interpretive dance to express the more visual and kinesthetic ways that I love this book. I'm very, very sad that I will never get to read it for the first time again. This is the jacket copy:

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Karou.

Karou. She is so awesome. From the moment I met her, I wanted to be her. She's so badass, with a side of lonely and vulnerable. She doesn't always make the best choices. She's definitely not perfect. But I wouldn't have wanted to read about her if she was.

Much of the story takes place in Prague, which is magical even without Karou and her cronies. Laini Taylor has infused the city with sparkle dust, making it somewhere that every reader is going to want to go. It's mysterious, welcoming, layered, and alive.

I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it, but let me just say that you better clear your schedule if you're going to read this book. On the other hand, you might want to drag it out as long as possible so you don't have to come to the end.

In conclusion, September can't come soon enough. I can't wait to share this book with everyone.