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 (“Borzakovskaya”), 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.
Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
11.15
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
11.05
Let’s be clear: Lucky Linderman is NOT lucky. First of all, he’s named after his grandfather, a Vietnam POW who’s presumed dead. Also, because of an ill-worded homework survey intended to liven up the social studies curriculum (“If you were going to commit suicide, what method would you choose?”) he’s on wrist-slashing watch by the assorted powers and teachers-that-be. He’s being seriously bullied by Neanderthal-in-training Nader McMillan, whose blood pressure doesn’t even rise when grinds Lucky’s face into the pavement. And did I mention that his distant parents are too involved in their own middle-aged misery to notice how wretched he is? Lucky hasn’t smiled in over six months, and so far nothing’s tempted him to start up again. The only place where Lucky doesn’t suck is his dreamscape, a humid jungle full of danger where he heroically rescues his grandfather over and over. But he can’t keep hiding in his dreams forever, and when Nader finally goes too far, Lucky begins seeing the ants—tiny heralds who tell him the hard truth about what he needs to do to get his life back. There’s only one problem—Lucky’s not sure he wants it. This darkly humorous book may be one of the best I’ve ever read about how it feels to be relentlessly, aggressively bullied and how adults don’t do nearly enough to protect teens who are being targeted. Lucky’s story is raw, ragged, honest and true and quite possibly happening to you or someone you know. The way to make it end is both the easiest and hardest thing to do—act. Tell. Help. Read. And don’t stop until you see a change.
A Web of Air by Philip Reeve
10.25
It’s been two years since Fever Crumb fled post-apocalyptic London and the Order of Engineers after finding out she had some dubious memories rolling around in her head that weren’t hers. But don’t let’s spoil that story, which starts here. In this second volume of the Fever Crumb series, Fever has taken a job with Persimmon’s Electric Lyceum, a mobile theater that desperately needs her lighting expertise and has provided a safe haven for Ruan and Fern, the two orphan children that she took under her rational wing. When the Lyceum stops over in the temperate vacation city of Mayda-at-the-World’s-End to stage a performance, Fever discovers quite by accident a mad young inventor named Arlo Thursday who claims to have rediscovered the ancient secret of heavier-than-air travel. But in world where big cities like London are becoming mobile military fortresses, with the only possible threats coming from above, such ideas are dangerous. Nevertheless, Fever’s engineering brain can’t help but fall in love with Arlo’s brilliant plans, and maybe even a little bit with Arlo. But when she uncovers a London-based plot to suppress air travel at all costs, Fever must decide whether to listen to her logical head or her traitorous heart when it comes to deciding Arlo’s fate. Upon finishing this book in one breathless evening, I have to ask: How do you do it, Philip Reeve? How do you write such inspired, edge of your seat adventure stories with exceptional world building that just seems to happen in throw away descriptions (Mayda is a city of funiculars, houses built on the side of cliffs that move up and down on rails using water ballasts–LOVE) and original characters that I’m deeply concerned for by page 10 that are less than 300 pages long? HOW? Start with Fever Crumb
Habibi by Craig Thompson
10.16
One of my favorite books of all time is Craig Thompson’s transcendent adolescent love story Blankets. I feel as though I have preached the gospel of that gorgeous graphic novel to thousands of friends, colleagues and students–probably until they were sick of hearing about it! Thompson’s latest opus is also about love, a fervent love between a girl and a boy that morphs several times during their lifetimes. When Dodola and Zam first meet in a slave market as children in a fantastical Middle Eastern world that includes both oil pipelines and medieval camel caravans, they are lost and afraid. After escaping the slavers and fleeing to the desert, they lead a charmed but lonely existence on a boat that has been mysteriously beached on miles of sand, where Dodola entertains Zam with stories of queens, heroes and warriors from the Quran and the Bible. At first Dodola acts as a mother to toddler Zam, though she is little more than a child herself. But as Zam grows, their relationship becomes more like that of squabbling siblings. Until the day that Zam witnesses the terrible thing that Dodola must trade away in exchange for their food from the brutish men in the caravans. He cannot forget what he has seen, and soon his feelings for Dodola begin to change into something lustful and wild that he doesn’t understand. So he runs away to the bustling city, searching for a way to relieve his forbidden thoughts, while Dodola is left frantically searching for him before she is stolen away by bandits and forced to become a member of the Sultan’s harem. Through their mutual trials and struggles, they never forget their life on the little boat and never stop looking for each other in the faces of strangers that pass by. It is many years before they meet again, and they each have been drastically changed by their circumstances. Will their hearts recognize each other? Is there a possibility that their love can survive under the harsh laws of a judgmental society that condemns them both? This lushly illustrated and deeply felt graphic novel is both hard to read and hard to stop reading. Thompson is clearly in love with Arabic script and design, which dance sinuously through the panels, and his interweaving of Christian and Arabic mythology, showing their ultimate similarities instead of their often harped upon differences is masterful. The story and art took Thompson six years to complete, and it shows on every dazzlingly detailed page. But while it is a beautifully rendered story of love, faith and perseverance, it is also a sad story of sexual abuse, dominance, misogyny and guilt that is probably best for older teens and the adults in their lives. Extraordinary.
Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
10.06
Future Project Runway contestant Lola Nolan has a pretty sweet life. She lives in a mint green Victorian house with two dads who adore her in the swank Castro district of San Francisco. She has her sewing machine, a lovable dog named Heavens to Betsy and an older rock star boyfriend named Max who makes her heart go pitter pat. But when her childhood nemesis and hot shot figure skater Calliope Bell moves back next door, Lola’s sweet life turns sour. Calliope and her nasty attitude are bad enough, but it’s her fraternal twin Cricket who really breaks Lola’s heart. Back in the day, Lola and Cricket almost hooked up. But something terrible happened, something Lola still doesn’t completely understand, and now she can’t even look at Cricket without feeling her stomach sink. Unfortunately, Cricket doesn’t seem to be getting the memo that Lola is so over him, because he keeps chatting her up through their parallel bedroom windows just like old times. Soon Lola has to face the fact that the reason Cricket isn’t getting the message is because she may be sending him mixed signals. To make matters worse, Max starts making jealous noises over Cricket just as Lola’s birth mom, a homeless fortune teller, shows up one day at the front door demanding help. What’s a budding fashionista to do? Lola tries to ignore her troubles by burying herself in her latest creation, a Marie Antoinette-like dress, complete with bird cage wig and old fashioned stays. But her latent feelings for Cricket can’t be denied, and before she knows it, Lola is knee-deep in all kinds of drama-rama. Stephanie Perkins’ trademark effervescent dialogue carries her second novel along on waves of witty banter that a good friend of mine compared to a John Hughes movie. I couldn’t agree more, and look forward to more from this too cool, blue-hued, former librarian author.
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
09.25
Bad luck seems to be dogging Mara Dyer wherever she goes. First, she loses her best friend, boyfriend and his sister in a freak building collapse that she alone survives. Then, after her family moves to Miami to help Mara’s post-traumatic stress over the accident, she attracts the unwanted attention of her new school’s alpha bee-yatch, Anna, who is furious that gorgeous alterna-boy candy Noah has focused his laser lover eyes on Mara instead of her. In addition, Mara is seeing lots of scary things that aren’t really there, like the gray face of her dead boyfriend, who actually wasn’t all that nice. Oh, and did I mention that people she doesn’t like are also starting to drop dead around her? What’s happening to Mara? Is she really going crazy, like her psychologist mom believes? Or is there something, shall we say, more supernatural at work? It’s only when Mara and Noah begin to dig deep into the horror movie that has become her life that Mara discovers that the personal destruction that surrounds her is springing from a place that is disturbingly close to home. Unfortunately, just as all is revealed, the book ends on an abrupt cliffhanger. There had better be a sequel, or heads are going to roll! Though this thriller was a little too long for me, newbie author Michelle Hodkin’s prose is ridiculously addictive and I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. Plus, I have to say, Noah is biggest dreamboat since Romeo. I was seriously swooning on every page -*fans self* And if you want to swoon too, order up this hot chiller at your local library, bookstore or e-reader pronto!
Orcs: Forged for War by Stan Nicholls and Joe Flood
09.14
Oh, poor orcs. That Tolkien sure sealed their reputation as some of the biggest baddies of all time. But what if orcs aren’t actually that awful? What if they’ve just been…misunderstood all these years? Stan Nicholls has created a world called Maras-Dantia where warlike orcs may crack a few skulls and slice off a few appendages, but they do so only when they’ve been hired for a job. This time the big green guys, led by Captain Stryke, have been ordered to accompany a caravan of goblins who are on a secret mission concerning a mysterious new weapon for the bloodthirsty half-human, half-nyadd Queen Jennesta. However, they don’t get far before the orcs begin to smell something rotten in the state of Maras-Dantia. The goblins refuse to tell the orcs where they’re headed, they force them to do hard manual labor that is beneath them, and they put the orc troop in danger more than once buy ignoring blatant signs of trouble. Soon Stryke begins to suspect a double cross, but he’s bound to follow Jennesta’s command or suffer terrible consequences. The only thing left to do is fight like orcs, and keep each other safe from the goblins’ horrific secret weapon. This incredibly gory GN is an adaptation of Stan Nicholl’s Orcs
Pearl by Jo Knowles
09.05
Pearl aka Bean, has never felt close to her mother Lexie, who had Bean when she was a teenager. Grandpa Gus has always been the one to take her fishing, teach her how to cook and tell her stories about her grandmother, who died before Bean was born. All her mother does is work, argue with Gus, and go to the bar with her best bud Claire, which doesn’t leave much time in her life to be a mom. So Bean depends on her soulmate Henry and his mom Sally for comfort when the fights between Lexie and Gus get to be too much. When Gus dies suddenly, Bean is completely bereft. Strangely, she seems to be the only one. She knows Lexie and Gus didn’t get along, but Lexie seems almost happy that Gus has passed away, drinking and giggling with Claire in the days after the funeral. What is going on? Bean becomes determined to find out the reasons behind Lexie and Gus’s troubled relationship, and her mother’s strange euphoria now that Gus is gone. But when the truth comes out, it’s even more shocking and painful than the most melodramatic storyline on the daytime soaps that Bean and Henry watch with Sally. Though it hurts to fully understand the reality of her family’s past, it also helps Bean finally become the Pearl she was always meant to be. Jo Knowles has deftly taken what could have been a soap opera scenario and instead written a poignant story about the definition of family, the importance of honesty and the power of change. Lovely and spare, it is the perfect antidote to all that dystopian fiction you’ve been reading…