When Cheryl Strayed was twenty-six, she found herself essentially orphaned, divorced and struggling with a potential heroin addiction. Mourning the recent death of her mother, she decided that the best cure for her crippling depression was to hike the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail, a professional level mountain hiking trail that starts at the Mexican border, winds through the entire state of California and ends near Mount Hood in Oregon. Cheryl was not an experienced hiker, but through the kindness of strangers and her own iron will, she slowly and painfully became one, one blackened and lost toenail at a time. Her boots were too small, her pack too big and her knowledge of hiking limited to The Pacific Crest Trail guides, volumes 1 & 2. She quickly tired of her dehydrated meals and purified water, and began obsessively dreaming of the Snapple lemonade bottles that she could rarely afford on her limited budget stocked at each trail stop: “…there was both yellow and pink. They were like diamonds or pornography. I could look, but I couldn’t touch.†Besides Snapple emergencies, there were also bears, rattlesnakes, dangerous snowy passages and a few lecherous male hikers. But Cheryl powered through, the thought of her tough, cool, loving mom always spurring her on: “Where was my mother? I wondered. I’d carried her so long, staggering beneath her weight. On the other side of the river, I let myself think. And something inside me released.†Both humorous and incredibly touching, this soulful journey of self-discovery may be one of the best coming of age stories I have ever read. Strayed’s writing is luminous and accessible–whether you’re twenty-six, sixteen or sixty, you will be able to relate to some aspect of her inspiring account. I became so immersed in Cheryl’s story that I couldn’t stop talking about it to anyone who would listen—and neither will you when you get your hands on this terrific memoir from your nearest library, bookstore or e-reader.
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
Mahalia and Mouse are “war maggots,†children orphaned by the violent and ever changing civil war that has ravaged the bleak futuristic landscape of the United States eastern coast, and caused the Chinese peacekeepers to cut their losses and flee. They find temporary safety and shelter with Doctor Mahfouz, a kind physician who works hard helping their small village of civilian survivors stay alive. But when the United Patriot Front, a ragged gang of young men and child soldiers, invade Banyan Town while on the hunt for an escaped genetically engineered canine soldier named Tool (one of my all-time favorite characters), Mahalia and Mouse are dragged back into the danger and chaos of the civil war that destroyed their families and took Mahalia’s hand. In this dark companion novel to the Printz award- winning Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi paints a terrifying picture of a future that looks frighteningly similar to recent conflicts involving child soldiers in countries like Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Though Bacigalupi’s precise, crisp prose and masterful plotting was as excellent as expected, I had a very hard time finishing this book because Mahalia and Mouse’s situation is so grim, the violence they endure is so pervasive, and any hope they find is brutally snatched away. But I know my reaction is no doubt what the author intended. Because if the readers of this book, and others that chronicle the real lives of child soldiers, are inspired to take action as a result of what they have read, then maybe someday the global epidemic of war and violence against children will end. A piercing, powerful book that will sear itself on your heart and soul.
Supergirl Mixtapes by Meagan Brothers
Maria was born in New York City, but she hasn’t been back since her parents split and she ended up living with her dad in Georgia. Her family has always warned her that her mom Victoria, a free spirited artist living in Greenwich Village, is not exactly parent material. But now that she’s practically an adult, Maria is ready to find out for herself, and convinces her grandmother and dad to let her live with her mom and go to school in NYC for her junior year. Armed with the Supergirl Mixtapes of bad ass female singers that her best friend Dory made for her, Maria feels prepared to take on the creativity and chaos of New York and her downtown artist mom. Except that from the minute she sets foot in the Big Apple, Maria is beset with problems. First of all, she hates her new school, where mean girls quickly label her a Southern hick. Then there’s the issue of her mother’s live-in boyfriend Travis, who’s hot, rides a motorcycle, and is only six years older than Maria. Finally there’s unreliable Victoria herself, who is constantly racing off to rock shows with her friends and acts and dresses like she’s still sixteen years old. What makes matters worse is when Maria finds a baggie of suspicious white powder in her mom’s bathroom. Who do the drugs belong to? Maria begins to wonder if she can trust her mom to tell her the truth. Will Maria end up back in Georgia listening to her dad say, “I told you so” after all? Or will she find it in herself to conquer the city that never sleeps while forcing her mom to act like a grown-up? This heartfelt novel is a bit of a love note to a New York of not-so-long-ago, one where you could still catch a show at CBGBs, or look up and figure out where you were by your proximity to the World Trade Towers. Meagan Brothers does a lovely job of capturing that moment in time by referencing bands and artists from both the 90’s and New York’s historically rich downtown music scene. The music of Nirvana
Chopsticks: a novel by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral
Seventeen-year-old Gloria Fleming is a beautiful young piano prodigy who’s still mourning the death of her mother when she was ten and chafes under her widowed father’s strict rules. Frank Mendoza is the impetuous young artist who moves in next door and sweeps Gloria off her feet with his sensuous drawings, paintings of flowers and romantic mix discs. When Gloria’s father forces her to go on a European concert tour, the two are devastated, and Gloria rebels the only one she knows how–by turning each classic composition into a version of Chopsticks. Gloria and Frank correspond throughout the disastarous tour with IM and postcards, while Gloria’s performances continue to deteriorate. Finally Gloria’s frustrated father is forced to bring her home, and the star crossed pair can’t wait to be reunited. But Gloria’s homecoming isn’t at all what she imagined. Teetering on the edge of madness, Gloria must finally face the fact she hasn’t been entirely truthful to herself about the role Frank has played in her life and his fate in her uncertain future. A romantic mystery told entirely in objects, photos, IM’s and handwritten notes, CHOPSTICKS will remind readers of a certain generation (that would be X) of an awesome little book called Griffin & Sabine
Sea Hearts (Australia) or The Brides of Rollrock Island (UK, US) by Margo Lanagan
On Rollrock island, all the mams look alike—tall and slender, with big dark eyes and long dark hair. They sing strange songs and they line their windowsills with shells and sea grass. Their anxious husbands and sons do everything they can to distract them from the melancholy that rises up within them whenever they stand at the edge of the sea, but they can never fully erase the pain that fills their women’s deep dark eyes as they gaze longingly out at the waves. Even as a little girl, Misskaella was never really accepted by the rest of the Rollrock folk with her odd features and power to see behind reality’s thin veil. So when she discovers her ability to convert the seals that gather on Rollrock’s shore into beautiful women, she quickly utilizes it to bring the village men to their knees. Bewitched by the seal maids, the fishermen are powerless to resist their passive charms, and under their enchantment, the men eventually abandon or drive away all the strong-willed, decisive “land†women from the tiny island community. Only mad Misskeella is left, knitting the mams seaweed blankets and perversely enjoying the wretched society she has created where no one who truly understands the sacrifice the mams are making for their families is happy. But one boy can bear the sadness no longer. And his actions cause another quiet revolution on Rollrock that will alter the island yet again in ways that not even the witch Misskaella can control.
Master fantasy author Margo Lanagan takes the legend of the selkie and uses it to adroitly illuminate the darkest corners of the human heart. Rich themes of loyalty, acceptance, betrayal and revenge emerge from her exquisite prose that is itself a dazzling wonder. Each section is voiced by a different player in this tragedy, and uncovers another layer in a story that is less a romance and more about mother love. The sons of Rollrock broke my heart. When you are born with one foot on land and one in the sea, how do you decide your destiny? Which parent do you stand by when to help one will destroy the other? Once the boys know the secret sorrow of their mams’ cast-off seal skins, they can’t unknow it, and it kills them: “They were not costumes; they were peeled-off parts of our mothers; without them, how could our mams be themselves, their real selves, their under-sea selves, the selves they were born into? They walked about on land with no protection, from the cold or from our dads falling in love with them, or from us boys needing them morning and night.” Like Misskaella’s magic, Lanagan’s elegant prose is transformative–I promise you will be a different person after having experienced it. When I look back at her body of work, the consistency of her genius is stunning, and each title that comes out is my new favorite. Sea Hearts is no exception. Put this sublimely sad tome on your must-read list NOW. Coming to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you September 2012. (But if you simply can’t wait, this book has already been published in Australia and the UK.)
Starters by Lissa Price
“It had been a long time since I’d been happy. A long time since life was just lip gloss and music and silly girlfriends. A long time since my biggest concerns were whether there would be a test or if I’d forgotten my homework. I was aiming for more like safe, free and alive.” Since the Spore Wars killed her parents and all the other healthiest members of the population, leaving only teens (Starters) and elderly people with extended life spans (Enders) to form an uneasy alliance, Callie is trying to keep herself and her little brother Tyler alive. The new world is hostile to Starters without family. They fight each other for food, live illegally in abandoned buildings, and are thrown into forced work camps if they are unlucky enough to run into Marshals on the street. Without an Ender sponsor, most Starters die of starvation or disease. The only way Starters can escape this wretched existence is to loan themselves to Prime Destinations, a shady technology company that allows wealthy Enders to “rent” the nubile young bodies of Starters. After being forced out of her squat and losing the few possessions she has left, Callie decides she has no choice but to rent her body in order to make enough money to get her and Tyler off the streets. Though she’s assured that her body will be unharmed and there is no S-E-X allowed during her rental, Callie is still worried about the chip that must be implanted in her head in order for the procedure to take place. Callie goes to sleep as planned, and all seems to be well. But when she wakes up on the sticky floor of a dance club several days before her rental is supposed to end, it is clear something has gone terribly wrong. What has happened to her renter? And why is suddenly able to hear voices in her head? This dystopian thriller is a page turner of the highest level that once you start, you won’t be able to put down. The premise feels frighteningly real, and debut author author Lissa Price keeps you guessing at the end of every cliffhanging chapter. You won’t be able to help looking down at your own bod and wondering what it would feel like if someone else was driving!
Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bauman
Knockout Angel is a laid back Jersey girl who lives in the moment and isn’t ashamed of the number of guys she’s hooked up with: “From where I stand I count three guys in the bleachers I slept with, another leaning on the fence. Then I count Joey and…two more guys on the field…Then I lose count.†She enjoys the attention she gets from boys for her killer curves and long dark hair. Her mother is a flirtatious serial dater, while her divorced dad is “…basically a nice guy but he’s remarried, with two little girls, and the truth is I don’t quite fit in.†She has a hard time staying in a relationship with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Joey because there are always so many other temptations: “I guess I like my freedom too much…I like possibilities. But after a time-out, I’m always ready to come back.†This time, Joey tells Angel there will be no more time-outs, they’re done for good. Alone and restless during the hot summer months, Angel falls into a dangerous relationship with a boy who is off limits. “Am I bad person? It doesn’t feel bad. Not really. It’s separate…And it doesn’t mean anything.†Now Angel is coasting into senior year. Everyone else is getting ready for college, while she’s trying to keep her increasingly complicated love life under wraps and figure out a plan for her future. Angel just wants to hang out and have fun. But life can’t always be one long summer at the Jersey Shore. I thought this book was divinely different, with a unlikely heroine who owns her sexuality and is frank with herself about her strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone has to or will go to college, and it’s refreshing to have an author acknowledge that through a character who knows she could have done better in school but was too busy enjoying herself to care, and now must honestly assess the other options open to her. Whether you’re a Snookie or a Carrie, I think you’ll enjoy meeting Angel Cassonetti.
Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
High school freshman Maggie rules as the only girl in a house full of dudes. Her father is the local police chief and he has his hands full with Maggie and her three raucous siblings—eldest brother theater geek Daniel and squabbling twins Zander and Lloyd. Up until this year, Maggie had been home-schooled by her mom. But her mom has recently abandoned the family, and along with being super sad about THAT, Maggie also has to deal with attending public school for the first time. School would be scary enough on it’s own, but Maggie has one more horror to manage—a ghost. Yep, Maggie’s been followed around by a silent, see-thru woman since she was a tot, and the aggravating thing is, she has no idea why. The ghost either can’t or won’t say what her problem is, so all Maggie can do is hope and pray no one else can see her. Just when she thinks she’ll never fit in, Maggie meets Lucy and Alistair, a sister and brother duo who don’t seem to care what anyone thinks of them. Bolstered by their combined confidence, Maggie finally starts to relax in the hallowed halls of grade nine. But Alistair is not who he seems, and soon Maggie is caught up in the high school politics of hard choices, painful secrets and elusive popularity. And surprisingly, her ghost just might have something to say about that…this insightful, smart GN by the illustrator of Brain Camp does a great job of not only telling the real deal about high school but also sensitively exploring the interesting dynamics of  sibling relationships and how brothers and sisters can be your best friends—if you let them. FWB started out as a web comic, so click here to check out Faith Erin Hicks quirky cool art and get a little taste, but I highly recommend nabbing on the paper version and reading the whole thing in one go!
Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson
Laurel used to have it all—a top spot on the cheerleading team, a loving father and brother who doted on her and T-Boom, the cute co-captain of the basketball team as her Friday night date. But now Laurel doesn’t care about pom poms, basketball or even her family. Because T-Boom introduced her to a new friend—powdery, chalky meth, which Laurel calls moon. And there’s no room for anything else in Laurel’s life now that she has moon. Even T-Boom has become little more than her dealer. Laurel loves how the moon makes her forget how much she misses her mom and grandmother, who died in a hurricane when she was eleven. Alone and living in the back room of an abandoned hardware store, Laurel gets high and writes poems on  paper bags, just marking time until she can get more moon. Then she meets Moses, a gay street artist who specializes in memorial paintings of kids who died young. Moses tries to help Laurel, but the moon’s pull is strong. Will Laurel end up being his next subject? This beautifully rendered tome is vintage Woodson, full of bittersweet images of first love, heartache and what it is like to want a drug more than anything else: “Moon smoke so thick around me, like a blanket, like an arm…and me there on the ground in the bright morning, staring out through it—not knowing anything else anymore but this new thing, this wanting nothing, needing nothing, feeling nothing…but moon.â€
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
“Boys do not have a monopoly on the Staring Business, after all. So I looked him over…and soon it was a staring contest. After a while the boy smiled, and then finally his blue eyes glanced away. When he looked back at me, I flicked my eyebrows up to say, I win.” So begins the tragic comedy of Hazel and Augustus’s love affair. He is seventeen and in remission from osteosarcoma and has a prosthetic to show for it. She is sixteen and terminal, diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer “…three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.” They meet sort of cute in a support group, after being introduced by a mutual friend whose cancer will soon render him blind. Though between them they are missing a leg and a great deal of lung capacity, their humor is still intact. Hazel: “I looked down my blouse at my chest. ‘Keep your shit together,’ I whispered to my lungs.” Augustus: “I didn’t cut this fella off for the sheer unadulterated pleasure of it, although it is an excellent weight loss strategy. Legs are heavy!” Though they are very different, they bond over their shared love of cancer perks,(“little things cancer kids get that regular kids don’t: basketballs signed by sports heroes, free passes on late homework, unearned driver’s licenses, etc.”) impromptu picnics and an abruptly ending novel by a crazy private author who lives in Amsterdam. Hazel doesn’t want to be the “grenade” that destroys Augustus’s life when she goes. But his gallows humor, big blue eyes and lanky, one leg frame are impossible to resist. And when Augustus plans a wild trip that will fulfill one of Hazel’s life long dreams, she finally gives in to her feelings. Hazel know that her future is short, and she thinks she’s prepared for what comes next. But it turns out that loving Augustus is more painful than any life-sucking tumor. Friends, I was undone by this novel. I had the pleasure of being on the Printz Committee that chose Looking for Alaska as the best YA title of 2005, and I have a been a raving fan of John Green’s work ever since. He understands how smart teens are, and never condescends to you in his fiction. (I mean, the man actually mentions Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in this book, a concept I wasn’t familiar with until my college freshman Intro. to Psychology class.) But I was not ready for the sweet, simple power of this story that is more about life, love and the pursuit of awesomeness than it is about cancer. I was not ready for the zen, steady eddie-ness that is Hazel or the articulate, video-game obsessed whirlwind that is Augustus. And once having met them, traveled with them and cried with them, I certainly wasn’t ready to let them go. My one regret about this book is that I read it too fast. I can read it again, but it won’t be like the first time. Hazel, despite her acceptance of her fate, “liked being a person. I wanted to keep at it.” Thankfully, she always will within the pages of this exquisitely painful and painfully funny novel. Read it soon–just not too fast.
What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman
Serious Lita and easy going Adam have been BFFs forever. But that doesn’t mean that they agree about stuff, especially when it comes to girl/boy stuff. They each have very different opinions about the best way to go about currying the favor of the opposite sex. So when Adam decides he’s going to write a self-help book for girls that gives them the secret scoop on what boys are really thinking, Lita is more than a little annoyed because a) Adam has NO idea what he’s talking about and b) Lita DOES know what she’s talking about because she advises clueless teens though her anonymous blog, “Ask Miz Fitz.†But she can’t tell Adam that because, well…it’s an anonymous blog. So she continues to fume while Adam continues to write and have no idea why Lita is so angry with him. Meanwhile, Adam develops a crush on a “skank”, while Lita starts dreaming about a “grease monkey” mechanic, but neither one of them is about to ask the other for dating advice. Finally, when Lita discovers that Adam’s research for his book has been collected in questionable ways and that his skank knows her grease monkey, the self-help really hits the fan. This rollicking read by one of my favorite authors reads like the teen version of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Pete Hautman writes some of the sharpest, funniest teen dialogue around, and this title is no exception. Think you know what boys really want? Think you have any idea what goes on in girls’ heads? Think again!
2011 Top Ten
Please note that there has been absolutely no attempt to balance this list by age, gender or genre. These are just my “from-the-gut†favorites of the books I read this year. (While I love all my Top Ten books the same, I just might love WHERE THINGS COME BACK a tiny bit more:) Click on the title to go right to the review.
Bray, Libba. Beauty Queens.
Griffin, Adele. Tighter.
King, A.S. Everybody Sees the Ants.
Oppel, Kenneth. This Dark Endeavor.
Reeve, Philip. A Web of Air.
Scieszka, Casey & Steven Weinberg. To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story.
Stiefvater, Maggie. The Scorpio Races.
Taylor, Laini. Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
Whaley, John Corey. Where Things Come Back.
Yancey, Rick. The Monstrumologist: Isle of Blood.
White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick
Rebecca’s summer is sucking–hard. She and her police officer dad have rented a vacation house in an attempt to escape the crowds of London and her father’s work troubles. Except the gloomy little village of Winterfold is full of suspicious locals and is itself in danger of disappearing as more and more of it falls into the sea that is slowly washing it away. Bored, Rebecca spends most of her time reading the same shabby paperbacks over and over or dialing her ex-boyfriend and hanging up. Then one day she meets reckless goth girl Ferelith who introduces Rebecca to all of  Winterfold’s dark secrets–including the strange chair with manacled armrests in the basement of abandoned Winterfold Hall. Who knows what horrors occurred there? The title, which refers to a quote by psychologist and philosopher William James about the possibility of an after life, gives some clue: “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn’t seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.” No one has ever returned from the dead to tell us if there is an afterlife or not, so logic says there probably isn’t. But what if there was one soul, one “white crow” that could prove that logic wrong? Rebecca’s about to find out–because Ferelith has some dark secrets of her own. Told in three distinct voices (Rebecca’s, Ferelith’s and that of a shady church rector who witnessed the basement atrocities back in 1798) this gruesome page turner will keep you up way past your bedtime. I read it all on one gulp one rainy afternoon and had a case of creepies all evening.
Mush: Sled Dogs With Issues by Glenn Eichler & Joe Infurnari
Dogs have always been known as man’s best friend, but maybe they’re more like men (and women) than we thought! That’s the premise of this hilarious graphic novel that reads like a canine version of The Office by Glenn Eichler, a current writer on the Cobert Report and former producer of one of my fav old animated series, Daria. Dolly is the lead dog of a group of neurotic sled dogs who live with a reclusive trapper and his wife somewhere in the far, far North. Lately she’s been questioning what it actually means to lead, and starts to wonder if she really wants the responsibility of keeping everyone on track. This causes jealous Guy to start angling for Dolly’s job by growling rumors and lies to the other dogs. Meanwhile, dim-witted Buddy keeps trying to have a ‘relationship’ with sleek Venus just because they were mated a few times. Venus couldn’t be less interested, and decides she is NOT going to just be a puppy making machine for the rest of her life. Purebred Winston puts on airs which drives everyone nuts, while sly Fiddler keeps the pack guessing who’s side he’s really on. It all comes to a head when Guy finally challenges Dolly for the lead, and the humans, who are having some serious issues of their own, have to get involved. When it comes to resolving conflict, we can be just like dogs–or maybe dogs are just like us. Joe Infurnari’s sketchy artwork is quirky and expressive–each dog looks and sounds suspiciously like someone you might know, while the often pastel color palette sets readers right down into a cold Northern lanscape with pink and blue sunsets and snow covered pine trees. Surprisingly philosophical, this witty GN uses a rag tag pack of quarreling sled dogs to demonstrate how utterly wacky, banal and complex the human race can be.
Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
It’s already hard enough for Russian American Anya to fit in at her preppy private school with a last name no one can pronounce (“Borzakovskayaâ€), a clueless mom and a booty that makes her regulation plaid skit a bit too snug. But after she takes a tumble down an abandoned well and discovers the skeleton of a long dead girl, life gets even more complicated. When Anya is finally rescued, she finds that she has brought home a little souvenir of her accident—Emily, the skeleton’s lonely ghost. At first Anya is annoyed with having to explain the modern world to Emily, who died ninety years ago. But soon she sees how having an invisible friend helps when it comes to cheating on tests or sneaking a smoke on school grounds. However, Emily begins wanting more and more of Anya’s attention, and Anya realizes that if she actually wants to make some living, breathing friends, Emily’s got to go. Except Emily has other plans… This gray-scale graphic novel is the kind of creepy treat I revere—a genuinely scary ghost story with a minimum of gore, a few well-placed frights and a bit of humor that turns gasps into giggles. Debut author and illustrator Vera Brosgol’s crisply drawn details convey Anya’s mood and characterization perfectly—down to the Belle and Sebastian and Weezer posters in moody, sarcastic Anya’s room. Besides being a classic ghost yarn and a realistic portrayal of the horror of high school, this is also a terrific story of being true to yourself and your culture while learning how to fit in on your own terms. After whetting your goulish appetite with Anya, try Hope Larson’s Mercury for more good ghostly, teen angst fun.