YA New York

The other day I was listening to WNYC, and Leonard Lopate was doing an interview with this Pulitzer Prize-winning author who had just released his first book for teens, and I was like, “Why doesn’t anyone send me books by Pulitzer Prize winners, huh??” Then, like magic, a copy of Oscar Hijuelos’s book, Dark Dude, arrived in the mail.

I just got around to it last night, and in fact I’d been thinking maybe I wasn’t up to the task of reviewing a book by such a formidably literary author. But then I was like, “What? What? Seriously, Sabrina, you have got to be on drugs, because you have read plenty of great books in your life, and you shouldn’t be afraid to tackle something just because it’s got the words “Pulitzer Prize” on freakin’ cover.”

And then I dived in, and I didn’t come up for air until I had read the entire tale of Rico, a teenager in New York City some time in the late sixties or early seventies who gets hassled by everyone because he’s Cuban but looks white. Rico is obsessed with sci fi and comic books, and he lives in a neighborhood where a lot of things can go wrong and a lot of people have a lot of bad luck. And — I swear I’m not spoiling anything here — he eventually decides to ditch New York and run off to Wisconsin in search of a better life.

Okay, once again I’m going to go on a little bit about required pre-reading. You need to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain before you enter into the realm of Dark Dude. You need to because Hijuelos refers to Huck Finn again and again throughout his fantastic novel, and this story is kind of like a modern-day Huck Finn, and you’ll understand why once you’ve read both.

When I was listening to the interview with Hijuelos, and I must admit I didn’t get to hear much of it because I had to turn the radio off about two minutes in, I gathered this much: Hijuelos himself is of Cuban descent, and he was born and bred in New York City. So, while I don’t know how autobiographical this story is, it does seem certain that Hijuelos put some of himself into it, or at least some of his understanding of what it was like to grow up at a certain time, in a certain place, with a certain ethnic background. What I mean is, the story rings true.

It’s also beautifully written, and an enormous pleasure to read. Heartbreaking, as the best stories always are. Short-listed for my “best of 2008″ list — which seems to grow longer by the day. Unique, too. There are no vampires or zombies, there is no hint of chick lit about it, and if you asked me to compare it to another book, the only one I would be able to come up with is the aforementioned Mark Twain masterpiece.

I don’t do ratings here, because I only review books I enjoy, and I recommend them all sincerely. But if I were awarding gold stars here, Hijuelos would have to get all five. Now, stop dawdling on this here website and get to reading, yeah?

Buy Dark Dude from Amazon.com.

It seems this autumn is going to be chock full of glorious books. Yesterday Carol Snow released her first novel for teens, Switch.

Claire Martin is a perfectly normal 15-year-old girl in Sandyland. Except for the fact that her dead grandmother has been lurking in her bedroom since she was an infant. Oh, and also except for the fact that whenever there’s a big thunderstorm she switches into someone else’s body. The thunderstorms are usually at night, and she usually has only to go to sleep to wake back up in her own body.

But one day she finds herself in the body of a gorgeous (but snobby) summer visitor, and she can’t seem to get out.

It’s a fun story, well-told, and most definitely an enjoyable read. Indeed, I remember being quite annoyed when I received the book in May, swallowed it down whole, and then looked to see that the release date was in September. “I’ll never make it to September,” I thought. But here we are — I kept the book in a safe place, and last night I re-read it to refresh my memory. It’s still as much fun now as it was in May.

Oooh. And Carol has another book set in Sandyland coming next year, though from the looks of it, it may not be a sequel. (Question: Where is Sandyland? It’s a sleepy beachside community with no movie theater, but with lots of summer guests. I kept imagining the Jersey shore, but then when I re-read it I thought maybe it was somewhere in California. After you read it, will you tell me where you think this Sandyland place is?)

Buy Switch from Amazon.com.

Dude. I totally forgot the date until now. It is SEPTEMBER NINTH, which means Skinned by Robin Wasserman is out today.

Okay. Hang on a sec. I gotta go grab my copy, because I’ve read like twelve other books since I finished Skinned and I want to get this review totally right.

You need to see this here, from the book:

“Lia Kahn is dead.

Except here’s the thing: I’m not.”

Awesome beginning. Awesome. I am a big advocate of first lines, first paragraphs, first pages, and this definitely does not disappoint on that front.

Basically, Lia, our protagonist, has had a full body transplant. Well, actually no. She hasn’t been transplanted into another person’s body. She’s gotten a sort of robotic body that looks human but isn’t.

And she’s not too happy about it. Neither is anyone else, actually. They all think she’s creepy and weird, and even though her parents are the ones who ordered the procedure, they feel as if they’ve lost their daughter to a robot of some sort.

Problem is, Lia’s brain works just fine. And her new body can be repaired any time. If ever there were irreparable damage, which is unlikely, her parents would just have her brain uploaded to a new body.

Oh yeah. She doesn’t actually have a brain, either. I mean, the brain she has works fine, except that it’s not a brain but a hard drive or something made to emulate her brain.

All of this takes place in some unspecified time in the future, I’d imagine about a hundred years from now. There are some interesting sci fi bits, but what I really love is how Robin gets into the concept of alienation and racism and, most importantly, class … all by creating a world in which a girl can be resurrected in a new body if she dies.

The emotions in this novel are really intense, especially for a girl who supposedly doesn’t actually feel, except through wires that are doing what her neurons would do if she were human. But really, the book is all emotion. It’s all about feelings of exclusion, of powerlessness, of rebellion. It’s all about grief and loss. And it is beautifully written.

Also — and this doesn’t hurt, because it’s why I picked it up in the first place — blurbed by one Scott Westerfeld. Sir Scott has yet to let me down with his blurbs and his recommendations. Scott’s quote on the front of this one says, “A spellbinding story about loss, rebirth, and finding out who we really are inside.” In fact, he pretty much sums it all up.

Look for an interview with Robin on YA New York next week.

Oh, and you can also buy Skinned on Amazon.com.

Okay, I’ve just finished reading Daphne Grab’s debut novel, and the tears still aren’t quite dry. Seriously, I gulped down the entirety of Alive and Well in Prague, New York in a single sitting, and I was crying for pretty much the entire second half.

Which is a good thing. I mean yes, there were some major tearjerker elements (the story is about a high school sophomore, Matisse, whose family moves from Manhattan to a tiny town upstate after her father’s Parkinson’s Disease progresses to the point where he can no longer work) but the novel is also warm and funny and a little romantic. It hurts to read, just a bit, the way a great story often does. But it’s that very pain that means you can’t take your eyes off it.

Alive and Well came out in May, but I didn’t snag a copy of my own until my discovery of the Strand’s YA review copy section. And I’m so glad that someone else parted with this book, because it meant I got to read it.

Which is why I am posting a short and hasty review at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Because it’s so good that I just want you to go out and read it right now. This instant. Yes, at 3 a.m. And hurry back to tell me what you thought. I’ll respond when I’m a bit more coherent and less (a) teary-eyed and (b) bleary-eyed.

Buy Alive and Well in Prague, New York from Amazon.com

When you think of Lauren Myracle, you think cute and sweet, right? She is, after all, the author of TTFN, TTYL and L8R, G8R.

I mean, to me at least, this is what Lauren is like:

She’s cute, and she’s sweet, and she likes Hello Kitty. But it turns out she can write a bone-chillingly spooky novel, too, and that is precisely what she has done with her fourth sixth YA novel, Bliss.

Our heroine is actually named Bliss, because her hippie parents (who raised her on a freakin’ commune) thought it would be a nice name. And to make matters worse, she’s just been transplanted to Atlanta, to live with her grandmother. Let’s just say that the good girls of Atlanta society are nothing like those Bliss grew up around.

The story is set in the 70s, and while Bliss works her way through the school year all she hears about the horrible Manson Family murders. Cleverly juxtaposed with the fact that at home, she is allowed to watch nothing more hair-raising than The Andy Griffith Show.

Okay, if you were born after, I don’t know, 1990, you might want to do a bit of background research. Because if you haven’t seen re-runs of Andy Griffith, you won’t understand how totally awesome the show is, and what Bliss likes about it. So go find something on the internets, or a re-run on the teevee. And also, you need to know about these murders, just a little bit. You could read up on Wikipedia. You’ll find that Lauren condensed things a bit, but it was all for a good cause.

Anyway, back to the topic. I wouldn’t be telling you to do research if this book wasn’t absolutely worth reading. Seriously awesome. Lauren may look cute — and she is — but she’s also got a fantastic imagination for the incredibly creepy.

OH. Also, Lauren has been doing a lead-up to release day on her blog. It’s fun reading, her blog, so go there if you’ve got to wait a few days to start on Bliss. (Ahem. According to Amazon.com, the book hasn’t yet been released. On the other hand, according to Amazon.com, the book has been released. Can someone explain this to me???)

UPDATE: Lauren wrote on her blog that … all the copies of her book were printed in the wrong color. Umm, considering that she seems to have been taken over by some evil creature over the last few weeks, maybe this isn’t true, and maybe the book will come out next week instead of this week. But alas, you’ll just have to keep checking back at her site for more info, I suppose.

Or I could get on the horn first thing in the morning and put on my investigative reporter’s hat. “Hi. Is it true that Bliss isn’t out because the color of the blood on the copies of the bound book were wrong? They were what??? Who has purple blood? That’s totally bizarre. So the book is coming out when? In 2012???? No. No way.” Hmm. Maybe I’ll just wait for an update from the lovely Lauren herself …

(Pre-order?) Bliss from Amazon.com.

After reading Martin Wilson’s debut novel, the one I mentioned earlier, the one David Levithan jokingly said should be called La Quinta Weekend, I have decided Martin’s title is infinitely better.

Alex drank Pine-Sol at a party at the start of the school year. His brother James, one year older, is angry and has taken to ignoring Alex. Actually, so has the rest of the school.

Honestly? I’m one of those gals who generally goes for the underdog, so from the start I thought I’d hate James. But as I got to know him a bit better, and as his character grew, I think I might have become his biggest fan. As for Alex, I wondered (like I’m sure everyone does) why he drank Pine-Sol, and what the big bad was that made him do it at a party. Then again, I felt like I could understand his behavior, being a depressive sort myself.

The whole book takes place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and there’s a strong Southern feel to the story. Not that stereotypical Gone With the Wind Southern thing, and not a suggestion that all Southerners are hicks, either. It’s just, if you’ve ever lived in the Deep South, this book is like a photographic reminder of the people and attitudes there. And it’s a good photograph, sure to make you remember both the good and the bad.

Martin’s book is (a) funny, (b) poignant, and (c) full of unexpected discoveries about the two brothers. And so even if the book boasted the unfortunate title of La Quinta Weekend, I’d have to recommend it. And actually, having read it makes me totally want to hang out with Martin and ask him about a thousand questions. Actually, Martin, if you’re reading this, want to play Twenty Questions with me?

Buy What They Always Tell Us from Amazon.com.

It’s release day, darlings, and I’ve never been more glad. Because not only is Matthew Sweet’s new album, Sunshine Lies out today, but two of my most anticipated books of the year are out as well.

Let’s start with Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin. Meet Jill and her part-time brother (or second identity?), Jack. Jill is a normal high school senior, except that four days a month she … umm … turns into a guy. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lauren McLaughlin conceived this book whilst suffering debilitating menstrual cramps, and she describes Jill’s condition as the “worst case of PMS ever.”

I have to say it: The book was brilliantly written, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it since May, when Scott Westerfeld recommended it after I said, “I’m starting a YA review site.” He said, “You should read Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin.” I dutifully wrote down the details, but only finally got the book last week. Good thing. It’s still fresh in my mind. (Note: This was my one and only convo with Scott Westerfeld. Alas, we are not best buds, though I consider his books to be some of my dearest friends.)

Back to Cycler, Jill is really stunningly normal, and maybe a little bitchy. She “deletes” her other persona each month, and she and her mother have conspired to keep Jack locked inside the house for the entire duration of his existence. Okay, forget bitchy. Maybe a little cruel more like it.

Lauren tells the book from both Jill’s perspective and Jack’s. One chapter is Jill, the next Jack. Weirdly, Jack is the much more interesting character. Much, much more interesting. And more fun. And maybe cooler. But the story itself is also way cool, and really well told, and generally brilliant. Hey, listen. If Scott Westerfeld says it’s good, take his word for it. He is, in my opinion, a far more reliable source than I am.

Oh! But you shouldn’t take his word for it, either, because Lauren has ever so kindly made an excerpt available her website. Go read it, and then go read the whole book.

Next up in our Splendid Splashing Release day edition, Kimberly Pauley’s debut novel, Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (Maybe). It’s got a long title, but can be summed up in just one word: hilarious.

Look, there’s a lot of vampire lit out there right now. Not only do we have Stephenie Meyer setting the bar, but we’ve also got Claudia Gray’s Evernight series and … okay, how’s this for wacky: a series about Upper East Side high schoolers who are rich and beautiful and vampires. Gossip Girl: the vampire version??? Weird, but existent.

Kimberly, however, did something completely different. She wrote a comedy, a slightly angsty coming-of-age story about a girl who attends vampire classes that are something like driver’s ed. And vampires aren’t good, or bad. They’re just people who live forever and drink blood and stuff. And Mina, our heroine, has to decide whether she wants to take the plunge and become a vamp, too. There’s a bit of romance, of course, but mostly it’s just plain funny and awesome and doesn’t have any of the worrying connotations of like, Buffy coming out and kicking some vampire butt. It’s not about that at all, and that’s what I love about Sucks to Be Me. It’s just plain awesome funny fun.

Kimberly, btw, is having an online book release party all this week. So stop by her site to win giveaways and to read posts from her special guest authors.

And of course, you can buy Cycler and Sucks to Be Me from Amazon.com.

Oh, and by the way: This Matthew Sweet album kinda rocks. It’s not as good as Girlfriend or 100% Fun, of course, but it’s still awesome.

I have been searching for this book. Seriously, ever since all the hullabaloo (see this), I have been thinking that I really, really needed to read Cures for Heartbreak. Not just because of Margo Rabb’s piece in the New York Times, but also because Cures sounded like a genuinely awesome book.

And it is. It’s heartbreaking. (Duh.) And it’s extremely well-written. In the NYT piece, Margo says she had been working on this book for eight years, and I understand now why she felt that it was a bit of a slam to be told the book was YA. Don’t get me wrong. It is a wonderful book for teens, but it’s just as wonderful for adults.

The book opens with Mia, our protagonist, her sister Alex, and her father shopping for a coffin for Mia and Alex’s mom, who died twelve days after being diagnosed with cancer. (Margo’s mother died nine days after a cancer diagnosis, so this book is more than a little autobiographical, with an afterword talking about Margo’s own struggle with heartbreak.)

Any of us who lost parents at a young age will identify with Mia. Margo’s book is so very real, you can tell she wrote from a very intimate place. It’s the sort of book that could (and should!) be nominated for major literary kudos, and if the YA categorization hindered that, I’d be hopping mad.

My only quibble, and it’s a little one really, is that Margo wrote this book as fiction in the first place. She has fictionalized the details of losses she really experienced, and while I can see how it would help move the story forward more easily, I also feel like the raw emotion would almost be better suited in a memoir. It’s just so pure that, as a reader, I felt like Margo was taking something away from herself by fictionalizing the story. I could sense, reading the novel, that the emotions weren’t the sort of thing you could just make up, and long before I reached the afterword I knew there was a lot of truth in what I was reading.

Regardless, I am amazed by Margo’s ability to encapsulate grief the way she did, to bring readers along for the ride, and for some of us, to help us move through our emotions and understand them better. That, if anything, is the best reason I can think of for this book being YA. A sixteen-year-old who has lost her mom needs this book more than someone does ten or twenty years after losing a parent at a young age.

And now for a mea culpa: I was wrong. I mean, I wasn’t wrong that YA is awesome, but I was wrong about putting Margo into an anti-YA camp. Still, when all is said and done, I am very, very glad this book was published as young adult fiction, because otherwise I would never have gone looking for it.

It was probably very smart that Suzanne Harper’s publicist sent me two of this fantabulous author’s books. Because without the first, I’d never have gotten to the second.

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney was published last year, but it’s out in paperback now, which means it’s cheaper and so you have no reason not to buy it. Because it’s a lovely novel about a girl who lives in Lily Dale, New York (a real place), where Spiritualists run the game. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Spiritualism, it is a religion centered around the belief that one can speak with the dead. And, boy, can Sparrow speak with the dead. Indeed, dead folks follow her around. And though she usually ignores them, not to mention pretends she has no special powers, one finally convinces her to help him cross over. (You know, to the other side.)

Anyway. Fans of Suzanne’s have been clamoring for a sequel to this novel, and so am I. Suzanne? Are you reading? Please to write a sequel, yes?

Next up was The Juliet Club. This is another novel I picked up and put down, because I read in the first few pages that our heroine, Kate, is a sensible girl who doesn’t believe in love. I have no use for such people.

But then Kate flies off to Verona, Italy for a month to participate in a study-abroad program focusing on Romeo and Juliet. And our sensible heroine turns from a Kate a la The Taming of the Shrew into a star-crossed lover. Actually, it seems everyone in this novel is a star-crossed lover of some sort.

Harper’s writing in both books is delightful, and it took no more than five minutes for me to overcome my antagonism toward Kate in The Juliet Club. In fact, I could do with a sequel to that one, too.

To sum up: I can’t get enough of Suzanne Harper. And I can’t get enough of her books. I want more, and I want it now. I bet you will, too.

Buy The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney and The Juliet Club from Amazon.com.

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, how a gem can be right in front of you for months and months, and you don’t see it at all? This, alas, is what happened to me with A Curse Dark As Gold. It came highly recommended by Sarah Beth Durst (author of Into the Wild and Out of the Wild), and it was one of the first books to land in my mailbox. Yet somehow there were other fluffier things that beckoned. Shiny pink things of no substance.

I must apologize. I mean really, really apologize. Because, you see, today I hit rock bottom. I can now say I have read every single book in this apartment, and it took until today for me to find out that Elizabeth C. Bunce’s work is a frickin’ masterpiece.

All right. Let me back up a bit. Months ago I opened this book, read the first two pages, and yawned. What was this? Some sad tale about a girl whose father has died? No, no, and no. There were all sorts of whimsical books staring me in the face, and this one didn’t make the cut. I set it aside, meaning to catch up on it later. Which of course meant that I lost sight of it and never found it again until … well, until today.

I have spent the entire evening reading, feeling as if I wouldn’t be able to breathe properly until I finished this story. Charlotte Miller is a young woman — probably somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, though we never find out her exact age for sure — when her father dies and leaves her and her sister to fend for themselves. As the proprietors, or should I say, proprietresses, of a mill that has had a long run of bad luck, which doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

And if the concept of a mill sounds ancient, that’s because it is. The book isn’t set in any specific place or time, though I imagined it as England in the early 1800s. But it is most definitely a sort of historical romance, or historical tragedy. (Reminiscent of a not-teen-lit book I read awhile back, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I can’t pay a much higher compliment, because that novel set me reeling for at least a few weeks after I’d finished it.)

Oh! This should have been something I said much earlier: A Curse Dark As Gold is a sort of retelling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Although that really isn’t fair, because Elizabeth has woven a story much deeper and more complex than the Brothers Grimm version you may know. Instead of a simple girl who seems to act without thinking, like the character in the older tale, Charlotte is brave, headstrong, smart, rational, a problem-solver. She’s a natural leader, in a time when women aren’t really allowed to lead anything but a household. And there is, of course, a curse involved, though I won’t divulge too much about that.

Let me just say this: If you had to pick only one — Rumpelstiltskin or A Curse Dark As Gold — to read in your lifetime, I’d advise you to go with the latter. I know this is the second time I’ve done this lately, but this is yet another candidate for my top five books of 2008. I’m thinking it’s a lock-in, in fact, and will probably be in a close race for the top three. It really is that good.

Buy A Curse Dark As Gold from Amazon.com.