Happy holidays, teen peeps! In the better late than never category, here is my top ten list, delivered like a present to your email, Twitter or Pinterest right on December 25th. 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 I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN a tiny bit more:) Click on the title to go right to the review.
Jude and Noah are fraternal twins, and so close that they can practically read each other’s minds. Both are artists (Noah draws, Jude sews and sculpts) and in his mind, Noah knows exactly what their joined spirit looks like: “Jude and me have one soul between us that we have to share: a tree with its leaves on fire.” They know each other’s thoughts, they keep each other safe. “We were keeping each other company when we didn’t have any eyes or hands. Before our soul even got delivered.” They even facetiously divide up the world between them, trading sun, flowers and trees back and forth for favors like they are the only two people on the planet. And then the unthinkable happens. Their beautiful, kind mother, a friend and mentor to both, dies in a car accident. And just like that, according to Jude, “our twin-telepathy is long gone. When Mom died, he hung up on me. And now, because of everything that’s happened, we avoid each other–worse, repel each other.” Now gentle, oddball Noah has become shiny, brittle and popular while bright and sunny Jude has become gray and withdrawn. Then Jude finds an artist mentor with a mysterious connection to her family that just might allow her to finally truly grieve her mother’s death and find her way back to her brother.
Oh, friends, this book! This book! I’ll Give You the Sun is the most delicious, word-juicy tome I have ever read. I underlined so many gorgeous sentences and passages that the pages of my copy are practically phosphorescent with highlighter. You’ll want to squeeze it like an orange in order to get every golden effervescent drop into your brain. The paragraphs sing with marvelous descriptions of the joy of making art and the disappointment of missed connections. Jandy Nelson hasn’t just given lucky readers the sun, but an ENTIRE UNIVERSE in 300+ pages. Read it, weep, and then read it again. A simply spectacular book that you absolutely must not miss for all the sun, stars, oceans and trees in the world!
“Reeve was the most special thing that every happened to me. Now I’m just an apathetic, long-haired girl who doesn’t care about anything but my own grief.” Jam Gallahue loved a boy named Reeve. Now he’s gone and Jam can’t figure out how to live her life without him. So her parents have sent her to the Wooden Barn in Vermont, a boarding school for “emotionally fragile, highly intelligent teenagers,” in hopes that a new environment will shake Jam out of her depression. But Jam isn’t very optimistic. “…supposedly a combination of the Vermont air, maple syrup, no psychiatric medication, and no Internet will cure me. But I’m not curable.” Then Jam attends her first Special Topics in English class, an exclusive elective with only five members taught by the mysterious Mrs. Quenell. She learns they are going to study Sylvia Plath, another long haired girl who suffered from depression and wrote a now classic book about her experience called The Bell Jar. She learns that each student is required to keep a special journal that the must turn in to Mrs. Q by the end of the semester. The last thing Jam wants to do is record her misery. But when she opens the pages and begins to write, she finds the process to be transformative…in more ways than one. She discovers her classmates are having the same experience, that the journals have become portals to another world where they can fix the issue that brought them to the Wooden Barn and in that moment, forget their current problems. But one by one, they each painfully come to understand that it is impossible to live in the past if they ever want to move forward. Jam is the last one to learn this lesson, and when she finally faces her fear and loss, the results are both devastating and enlightening. Critically acclaimed adult author Meg Wolitizer has penned a strong, spare, magically real YA novel about the power words and books can have over despair that will no doubt inspire a wave of new interest in the prose and poetry of Sylvia Plath.
“A little more of me, leaking on the floor, on bedsheets, on this table, till I am vacant as an empty house. My roof is caving in.” Michelle is only fourteen years old but she’s losing herself bit by bit as the newest member of Devon’s “family.” After running away from a drug addicted mother who accused her of seducing her boyfriend, Michelle is picked up by Devon, a good looking well-dressed young man who promises her food, clothing and a place to stay–for a price. Michelle, now known as “Peach,” must join Baby and Kat in selling her body for sex in exchange for Devon’s dubious “protection.” At first Michelle is just thankful to be off the street. But soon she sees that what Devon is asking them to do is slowly killing them from the inside out. Baby sleeps all the time to avoid reality, while Kat uses anger to hide her fear. She tells Michelle to give up thinking that anyone cares about them:”‘You only missin’ if somebody looking for you…Understand? We ain’t missin’, Peach. We just gone.'” Does Michelle dare to go outside the “family” for help, or will she become like one of the skinny, addicted women who wander the Coney Island boardwalk just like her mother? According to author Peggy Kern‘s note at the book’s end, “the average age of entry into prostitution is thirteen years old. In the New York City area, an estimated two thousand young girls are being sold for sex.” This frightening statistic comes to heartbreaking life through Michelle, who is by turns confused, sad, angry and hopeful. In other words, a real teen. Her voice is unforgettable, her story a call to action. This devastating read reminded me of the work of one of my all-time favorite writers, E.R. Frank, and I can’t wait to see what Peggy Kern does next. For more stories of teens in crisis, check out E.R Frank’s Life is Funny and America. To read more about teen sex trafficking and what you can do to help (or get help), check out LOVE146 and WomensLaw.org Little Peach is coming to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you March 2015.
