Review of Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear, by Robin Wasley

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear

by Robin Wasley

Simon & Schuster, 2024. 405 pages.
Review written October 2, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Given the title, I wasn’t surprised when this turned out to be a zombie book. I was, however, surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Sid Spencer is an adopted American teen girl who lives in a town on a fault line – but not an earthquake fault line so much as a magical fault line. It’s not the only such town in the world by any means, but tourists come from all over the world to see the magic seeping up from the cracks like rainbow mist. Among the townsfolk, eight people are Guardians, but no one knows who they are. Each Guardian has a magical power, but also a Key made of bone that secures a segment of the fault line.

And then, one segment of the fault line comes open – and besides earthquakes and a magical forest taking over, zombies come out of the fault, attracted to living people and able to kill them with their bare hands. When it hits, Sid is alone at home and manages to trap a zombie in the basement after she sees it kill a neighbor. When Brian, a friend of her brother’s, breaks into her house, Sid tasers him before she realizes who he is. He tells Sid that he’s a Guardian, and so is her brother Matty. And the reason the fault line came open was that one of the other Guardians is dead. The man who killed him stole that Guardian’s key, but he was able to pass his power to Matty before he died, so no one can use the key but Matty. Oh, and the dead Guardian also put a magical wall around the town, so everybody on the outside is safe (including the rest of Sid’s family), but no help is coming to save them.

So the mission is to somehow navigate the town full of zombies, get the key from the bad guy – who turns out to be invulnerable to magical or physical attacks – and get it to Matty, whom no one has seen since before the breach. This is not an easy mission, as besides his own magic powers, the bad guy has teams of thugs with guns doing his bidding. He knows who all the Guardians are, and he wants all their powers and all their keys.

Thus, a saga begins. The task is daunting. But along the way, magic is leaking out of the breach, and ordinary people are developing magical powers, with each one unique to them.

Sid’s magic power ends up involving connecting with people. And that’s also the power of the book. The magic for me was a little muddled and confusing in spots, and yes, there was plenty of death and gore, but the story of found family and connections and working together against all odds – was powerful and moving. There was also a theme about friendship and forgiveness – for the past months Sid had been estranged from her best friend and her boyfriend because of something that happened – but the disaster puts all that in perspective.

This isn’t a relaxing book to read. The zombies are scary and strong, but the human villains are even worse, and the task seems impossible at times. But joining in Sid’s adventure just felt so warm and human. She’s a flawed teenage girl trying to survive – but also to help the people she loves – and even new people she meets. It turns out that disaster makes her shine, and it felt like a privilege to witness that.

robinwasley.com

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Review of This Golden State, by Marit Weisenberg

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

This Golden State

by Marit Weisenberg

Flatiron Books, 2022. 384 pages.
Review written September 17, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

The prologue of this book shows Poppy, almost eighteen years old, putting a DNA test in the mail. Then Chapter One begins one month earlier and as the book unfolds, we find out why she’d want to find out about her own ancestry.

Because one month earlier, Poppy was called Katie. Her friends were urging her to complete her application for the science fair with the project they’d worked on together. But instead, after school, her family picked her up in a minivan and they destroyed her SIM card and drove away without saying goodbye.

They drive to California, as the title suggests. And things are different from all the other safe houses where they’ve lived during Poppy’s life. Poppy realizes her mother has lived in this neighborhood before. Her father is uptight. And her little sister is pouting about not getting to have real friends.

Poppy doesn’t know what her parents are running from, but she knows that they are hiding from someone. All her life, her priority has been her family, but will things change now that she’s coming up on her eighteenth birthday?

Because they want Poppy to have a normal life, her parents sign her up for a summer class in advanced math, taught by a Stanford professor. She sits near a guy who’s obviously a big deal, and later she sees him at the country club pool where she gets an under-the-table babysitting job. But doing well in the class puts some interest on her. Seeing more of this guy means she starts keeping secrets from her parents. And then she gets tired of all the secrets they’re keeping from her. So she submits that DNA test. And she’s not quite ready for what she finds out when she does.

This book had me reading avidly, wanting to find out what the big secret was, as well as what would happen next. I went out on my balcony to read it for a half-hour, and instead decided to spend my afternoon that way. A thoroughly enjoyable book!

maritweisenberg.com

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Review of Skater Boy, by Anthony Nerada

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

Skater Boy

by Anthony Nerada
narrated by Michael Crouch

Recorded Books, 2024. 8 hours, 17 minutes.
Review written September 17, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

Skater Boy is a surprisingly sweet YA novel about self-described “punk” Wes “Big Mac” Mackenzie, who’s a senior in high school and not even sure he’s going to graduate, let alone go to college. He’s got anger under the surface always threatening to come out, and everybody at his high school, students and teachers both, think the worst of him. Of course, it doesn’t help that he’s pushed his classmates around all the years he’s known them.

All except his two best friends, who have a tough reputation like his. They egg each other on with pranks, ditching school, and extorting lunch money from other kids.

But then Wes’s mom drags him to a performance of The Nutcracker Ballet. And the boy dancing as the Nutcracker stuns Wes with his beauty and power. Wes’s feelings develop into a full-blown crush. But how can a punk get together with a rich kid who dances ballet? Wes has never dared tell anyone in his life that he’s gay. But how can he be with someone if he can’t even tell anyone about him?

Without giving away the plot, let’s just say that things get much, much worse for Wes before they get better. But we do get a happy ending, and I couldn’t be happier for Wes. Okay, it did feel a little pat – things had gotten so bad, it was a little hard to believe it could all work out. But on the other hand, that’s what the reader wants for Wes, so we do end up cheering.

This is a debut novel, which makes it all the more of an achievement. Since I was never a girl who liked bad boys, the fact that the author completely won me over to Wes shows skill in portraying relatable characters. The book makes you want to look beyond tough exteriors and give everyone a chance.

anthonynerada.com

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Review of Heartless Hunter, by Kristen Ciccarelli, read by Grace Gray

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Heartless Hunter

by Kristen Ciccarelli
read by Grace Gray

Listening Library, 2024. 12 hours, 9 minutes.
Review written September 23, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Heartless Hunter is an example of masterfully written young adult Romantasy. We’ve got the enemies-to-lovers trope, but nothing about this book felt stereotypical.

The beginning reminded me of a beloved classic, The Scarlet Pimpernel, with our first viewpoint character, Rune Winters, posing as an airheaded socialite interested only in fashion – but in secret rescuing witches from the new regime that would execute them. Rune showed her loyalty to the new regime by turning in her own adopted grandmother. Nobody but Rune knows she did that at the strong request of Nan herself, who knew they’d been betrayed – and didn’t want to see Rune killed alongside her. It was after Nan’s death that Rune discovered she, too, was a witch, which gave her extra resources and incentive in her quest to save Nan’s friends and fellow witches. Now Rune’s best friend and helper has suggested it’s time for Rune to accept one of her suitors, the better to get inside information on what the government is planning next.

The signature left behind by Rune’s magic is a small crimson moth. And Gideon Sharpe, captain of the witch hunters, has been trying to catch the witch who is the Crimson Moth for the two years that she’s been helping witches escape his clutches. And now there have been brutal murders of members of the Guard as well. When he learns that a magic signature was seen on one of Rune’s ships, it’s suggested that if he were to court Rune and join her high society suitors, he could learn if she’s the Crimson Moth.

Gideon knows that his brother Alex has long been in love with Rune. So she should be off limits. But Gideon decides he should find out if Rune is the Crimson Moth and save Alex from marrying a witch. He’ll stand down if he discovers she’s innocent. Or so he tells himself.

As for Rune – when Gideon begins to show interest, she reasons that no one could give her better inside information than the captain of the witch hunters. But can she keep him underestimating her?

To add to the fun, witch’s need blood to cast spells. And when they use their own blood to cast spells, the scars turn silver. In the old days, intricate silver scars were a badge of honor, but now they are all that’s needed to convict a witch.

Rune came into her power after the fall of the witch queens, so she hasn’t dared to cut herself. Instead, she stores the blood from her monthly cycle to cast spells, so she has no scars on her body. So – when Gideon finds excuses to see her naked, she has nothing to hide.

And yes, that gets as steamy as you might imagine. Yes, there’s a descriptive sex scene in this book, and lots of smoldering tension leading up to that scene. But it’s carried off far more subtly and compellingly than my description makes it sound. There are narrow escapes, misunderstandings, and misdirection – but there are also vulnerable moments. I appreciated learning that in this world, it’s not a simple case of witches are good and non-witches are bad to want to kill them. And that came from learning about Gideon’s back story.

And there’s a love triangle as well. Gideon’s brother Alex has indeed been in love with Rune for years, and she’s appreciated him as a true friend who knows her secrets. The author makes the choice Rune is faced with exceptionally difficult.

Oh, and did I mention the narrow escapes? The clever misdirection? The reversals and reveals?

The description says this is a duology, and it did leave me anxiously waiting for the sequel.

kristenciccarelli.com

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Review of Bright Red Fruit, by Safia Elhillo, read by the Author

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bright Red Fruit

by Safia Elhillo
read by the Author

Listening Library, 2024. 7 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written September 16, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This book reminds me of The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo. In both books, we’ve got a young poet author writing about a teen poet growing as a poet and learning to perform her poetry – but also in conflict with her mother about a relationship.

In this book, our teen poet is Samira, whose family moved to DC from Somalia. Through no fault of her own, Samira has a reputation with the aunties as a Bad Girl, and she’s tired of her mother not sticking up for her. But when a poet in his twenties shows an interest in Samira and in her work, she feels like here’s finally someone she can talk with about things that matter.

As Samira gets close to Horus online, her girlfriends don’t understand how much he’s come to mean to her. Meanwhile, her aunt encourages Samira’s interest in poetry, but doesn’t know that Samira is using an open mic to meet Horus in person.

There are lots of red flags in the relationship, but we understand why Samira has pulled away from the people who would have helped her see that. I do like the way the book navigates the situation when trouble comes.

All along in the book, there’s a metaphor about Persephone. Persephone doesn’t have a whole lot of agency in the myth and is fooled into eating the bright red fruit of the underworld that dooms her. But the story is told as a struggle between Persephone’s mother and Hades. I like the way this book – and this poet – explores more deeply what it might have been like from Persephone’s perspective.

If I haven’t made it clear, even though I listened to the audiobook version, I could tell that the book is beautifully written in verse. This is one it would probably be worth reading in print form as well as the audiobook to better appreciate the art of the poetry.

safia-mafia.com

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Review of One of Us Is Lying, by Karen M. McManus

Contemporary, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

One of Us Is Lying

by Karen M. McManus
read by Kim Mai Guest, MacLeod Andrews, Shannon McManus, and Robbie Daymond

Listening Library, 2017. 10 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written June 9, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

So — I finally got this wildly popular teen thriller read after hearing an interview with the author about her 2024 book, Such Charming Liars. I enjoyed this one tremendously.

The set-up is that five high school students get detention with the notoriously technophobic teacher at the school because someone planted a phone in their backpack – all five of them.

And then one of the students has a fatal allergic reaction after drinking water. They try to save him, but his epi-pen is missing, and all the epi-pens have been removed from the nurse’s office. It turns out there was peanut oil in the cup.

All four of the remaining students are suspects. It turns out that they, along with many other students at the high school, had strong motives for killing Simon. He ran a gossip website that was always accurate — and all four of them had secrets queued up on his admin site, ready to post.

There are four narrators to this audiobook because all four of the teens get to give their perspective. Their secrets have repercussions, and the pressures of the school finding out those secrets affect their lives beyond the murder investigation. And of course, there’s a murder investigation going on, too. The four kids include the girl who gets good grades and has her plans for Yale under control, the jock who’s getting recruited to play baseball, the rich girl who runs in the popular crowd, and the social outcast who’s already on probation for drug dealing. Because they’re all viewpoint characters, they all get our sympathy, and we become invested in the question of which one is the murderer.

This is an excellent thriller about interesting characters, and I’m happy to see it ended up being the start of a series, so I’ve got more books on my list immediately.

karenmcmanus.com

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Review of Hearts That Cut, by Kika Hatzopoulou, read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Hearts That Cut

by Kika Hatzopoulou
read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Listening Library, 2024. 12 hours, 20 minutes.
Review written June 27, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Let me start out by saying that I love the recent trend of fantasy duologies instead of trilogies. Honestly, I’m probably more delighted with it because I’d gotten used to trilogies, so every time I pick up a second book expecting a dark middle act and instead get a triumphant ending and don’t have to wait for more – I’m almost giddy with delight.

I’ve also found that books where I had reservations about the first one in the series, especially world-building details (How would that really work?) – I forget about those reservations when I read the second book probably because I’ve gotten used to the ideas and am now ready to treat them as underlying assumptions. This happened recently with Ghostsmith and happened again with Hearts That Cut. I don’t think this is a flaw in the authors’ world-building. I think it’s my tendency to be highly critical of world-building when it’s first presented to me. In the case of this book’s predecessor, Threads That Bind, it was hard for me to get on board with a world where invisible threads connect people with everything they love. Our heroine, Io, has the ability to see those threads – and cut them. All I could think about was how hopelessly tangled those threads would get. But in this book, I’d already accepted the idea and the magic governing it, and wasn’t worried about that.

Another quibble with the original is the existence of the Otherborn – descendants of gods with specific powers. First off, there are just a multitude of different types of Otherborn, all with a different color shining in their eyes when they exercise their powers, and how would anyone remember them all? But more unrealistic is that certain Otherborn – such as Io’s family – always have a certain number of siblings. And it’s not like Io and her sisters were triplets. What if their parents hadn’t actually wanted to have three kids? Would Io’s older siblings not have gotten their powers? And how are there so many different Otherborn with specific numbers of siblings? Like the nine Muse sisters, for crying out loud? How does that work out?

But I actually didn’t think much about all that when I was listening to this book. (I thought about it again when I went to write this review. Probably shouldn’t have!) And I ended up loving this book. There’s some time manipulation involved in the plot (because of specific powers by certain individuals), and I usually don’t like that – but in this case it was handled well, as a problem to be solved, and I loved how it all came together.

As the book opens, Io is traveling through the Wastelands with Bianca, the former Mob Queen of Alante, who has been turned into a wraith with a severed life thread. She’s trying to track down the gods who ordered the deaths at the end of the last book, and she has hold of a gold thread leading her in that direction. But that plan gets stymied.

She’s left behind Edei, the young man she’s connected to with a Fate thread, and worries that the thread is fraying. Does Edei not want to be with her? And does he feel manipulated into loving her?

I like the way the plot progresses – though I don’t want to give away anything from the first book. I like the community spirit in the Wastelands that Io and Bianca find among people fleeing the many natural disasters gripping their continent. And I like the scrappy band of folks who eventually assemble and who try to make things right against all odds.

So whatever you may think about the likelihood of a world featuring fabulously gifted descendants of the gods in a post-apocalyptic landscape – Kika Hatzopoulou gives us plenty of depth and insights about such a world. I was a bit ambivalent after the first book, but I’m so glad I read on, because now I’m convinced the two make a magnificent story about the resilience of humanity itself.

kikahatzopoulou.com

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Review of Escaping Mr. Rochester, by L. L. McKinney

Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Escaping Mr. Rochester

by L. L. McKinney

HarperTeen, 2024. 337 pages.
Review written September 4, 2024, from a library book.

If you’ve read my reviews for very long, you probably know that I love retellings and reimaginings. My favorites are the ones where you think, “Oh! That could be what *really* happened!” — telling the same events from a different perspective that casts things in a whole new light.

Now, I also have to confess that as a teen, Jane Eyre was one of my all-time favorite novels. Yes, as a romance. Coming back to it as an adult, especially with the help of retellings, I’m a little horrified by that opinion.

Escaping Mr. Rochester was a reimagining of Jane Eyre, not a retelling. A whole lot of details were changed, but the skeleton of the story was the same. Our main character is Jane Eyre, coming to be a governess to the young ward of Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Unbeknownst to Jane, Mr. Rochester has locked up his wife Bertha, and is keeping her in the attic, with the help of an elderly servant tending her. Jane hears strange noises that everyone else denies.

All that big picture is the same as in Jane Eyre, but very few of the details match. The Mr. Rochester of this book is simply a villain, through and through. And something of a cardboard one. His motivation for everything he does is to pay gambling debts. Jane is repulsed from the moment she sees him. She finds out about Bertha fairly early on, and the two of them manage to spend time together, lay plans (to escape, of course) – and fall in love. Of course, plans in a house ruled by such a villain don’t always run smoothly.

Don’t get me wrong – the story is a whole lot of fun. I would have enjoyed a few more nods to original. Like meeting Mr. Rochester when he falls from his horse. And him being somewhat more charming to Jane to start, maybe. Of course, I admire in this Jane that she’s not in a hurry to cozy up to her employer and has a great concept of what’s appropriate in that situation. But part of the power of the original is that you really can see how a sheltered Jane would fall for him. This Mr. Rochester was pretty one-dimensional in his evil. Adele, too, in this version didn’t consistently act or talk like a child.

So this book is not up there with my absolute favorite Jane Eyre spin-off, Reader, I Murdered Him, which has the events of the book all happen as portrayed, but show us Adele after she’s grown up and sent to boarding school. And that one shows a more subtly sinister Mr. Rochester.

However, all that said – this was a fun story, using the basic skeleton of Jane Eyre to show us Jane and Bertha outwitting an evil and contemptible Mr. Rochester and ultimately triumphing over him. And yes, there’s an appropriate use of fire.

llmckinney.com
epicreads.com

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Review of Ghostsmith, by Nicki Pau Preto, read by Molly Hanson

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ghostsmith

by Nicki Pau Preto
read by Molly Hanson

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 13 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written August 30, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I am delighted to report that this epic fantasy series from Nicki Pau Preto ended up being a duology, not a trilogy, so I have happily finished the complete story.

I enjoyed the second volume even more than the first. The plot is still a bit convoluted. There are betrayals and reversals, but it felt organic to the story. She doesn’t do a whole lot of catch-up, and it was almost a year since I read Bonesmith, so basically I took what they said was happening at face value and pretty much gave up trying to fully understand how the magic worked. And it did feel like it was hanging together more than before – maybe because there was less need to explain things in the second book, and the characters understood how the magic works and used it.

I also had gotten over the coincidences from the first book – mainly that our main character Wren is dealing with long-lost family. I was reminded of one unlikely thing when another character listened and watched at the very same door where Wren had gotten her earth-shaking revelations and this character also didn’t get caught. But this character didn’t learn as crucial information, so the unlikelihood didn’t bother me nearly as much.

The story itself had me listening eagerly the whole way, wondering how in the world our crew was going to come out on top. In fact, there was only about an hour left before I figured out that this wasn’t, in fact, a trilogy, where everything would be terrible by the end of the second book. (Hence my joy in learning it’s a duology.)

Wren’s trained all her life as a Bonesmith, but learned in the first book that she inherited from her mother the powers of the Ghostsmiths. Bonesmiths can manipulate the bones of the dead, but Ghostsmiths can manipulate their ghosts. In the first book, Wren and her companions learned what had gone wrong in the world and in the Breachlands and that there were powerful people (coincidentally related to them) trying to get even more control. In this second book, they’re trying to shut down the source of leaking magic and thwart those who want to take power. But there are not many resisting with them. And those they are fighting have an incredible amount of power.

It all ended up being a wonderful yarn with a satisfying ending. The snarky and scrappy win out!

nickipaupreto.com

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Review of Nine Liars, by Maureen Johnson

Audiobooks, Mystery, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Nine Liars

by Maureen Johnson
read by Kate Rudd

Katherine Tegen Books, 2022. 11 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written August 3, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’m happy that I’m caught up reading Maureen Johnson’s Stevie Bell books. They began with a trilogy, and teenager Stevie Bell looking into a long-ago mystery at Ellingham Academy, the elite private school she was attending in Vermont – with more people turning up dead in the present. After solving that mystery, Stevie has become internet famous as a detective. In The Box in the Woods, she solves another cold case at a camp over the summer – with new deaths, of course, and in this book there’s yet another cold case for Stevie to solve.

This time the mystery happened in England in 1995. In the present day, it’s November, and Stevie’s in school in Vermont, trying to keep a long distance relationship going with David, who is studying in London. Then he pulls strings to get Stevie and their friends a week in London in a custom study abroad program. No surprise that Stevie gets pulled into a cold case – this time it’s because of David’s English friend’s aunt. Also no surprise that not everyone involved in the present day investigation will stay alive.

I enjoyed the way the mystery was presented – with plenty of chapters taking us back to 1995 and the group of nine theater students who’d just graduated from Cambridge having a house party at a manor house – and having a wild time until two were found dead.

I know that Maureen Johnson has spent a lot of time in London, and her writing about the students in London brought me right back to London myself. I like the way she gives intriguing mysteries to these distinctive characters we’ve come to care about. So while you could read this book on its own – the mystery is self-contained – why would you want to tackle it without enjoying all the history of Stevie and David and their friends?

maureenjohnsonbooks.com

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