Review of She Is a Haunting, by Trang Thanh Tran

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

She Is a Haunting

by Trang Thanh Tran
read by Emi Ray

Bloomsbury, 2023. 9 hours, 41 minutes.
Review written March 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #9 Teen Speculative Fiction

Okay, let’s start with some honesty: I did not enjoy listening to this audiobook.

But the reason I listened to the whole thing is that I’m on the Morris Award committee. And the reason I didn’t enjoy it was that I don’t enjoy reading horror, and this book creeped me out. Once I’m done, I have to admit that this book was really well-written. So I’m writing up my thoughts *before* any discussion with the committee to see if I can articulate what was good about it. (I am pretty sure that others in the committee, who actually like horror, will probably find even more things than I do, but I want to be clear that I’m writing this before any discussion, so these are my initial impressions only.) I’ll also say that I listened to this one for the sake of time, but if it is a contender, I’ll be reading it in print form as well. But all this is to say that if you read Sonderbooks because your reading preferences match mine, think twice about this one. It is really well-written, though.

And also to be honest, by the time I was done with it, I’m glad to have read it.

[Note: Yes, this was one of our Finalists, and I read it again in print form. I enjoyed it more the second time, knowing what to expect. And wow, the way she gradually builds the creepiness and dread and works in themes of colonialism… It’s just so good.]

Okay, here’s the set up: Jade Nguyen is in Vietnam for five weeks in a deal to get her long-estranged father to pay for her first year of college.

He left them years ago, and Jade didn’t want anything to do with him. But her mother is working too hard already, and she turned to Ba for tuition money. He used that as leverage to get her to spend time with him in the decrepit French colonial house he’s renovating to be a bed and breakfast. He also requires her to work on the website for the house, along with Florence, the niece of his business partner. Ba wants Jade to be friends with Florence, and she resists, but then when she finds herself attracted thinks that’s one more thing her parents could hold against her. Jade’s sister Lily is there with them, too. Lily is actually happy to be with their father. And their father reveals that his grandmother was once a servant in this very house. Their ancestors planted the hydrangeas that abundantly bloom to this day.

The horror builds gradually. First there are piles of dead bugs in her bedroom and some kind of insect leg in her mouth when she awakes. Then she begins having dreams – and waking up paralyzed, still seeing awful things, unable to move.

Jade meets a white couple who are investing in the house, thrilled about the Frenchwoman who once lived here while her husband was in the army.

That gives Jade a name to the red-haired ghost she’s been seeing. But there’s another ghost, a beautiful young Vietnamese woman, who begins sharing her memories with Jade. The Frenchwoman called all Vietnamese people parasites – and parasites are a theme in the house. The Vietnamese ghost warns Jade not to eat anything in the house, but can she really keep the parasites at bay?

I liked that Jade had a reason to stay – she needs the money for college. And when that motivation is not enough, she needs to try to protect her sister. The horror builds gradually and the house becomes harder and harder to escape.

I also liked that themes were naturally built into the story rather than spelled out. For example, once when out doing things with Florence, Jade gets upset with herself that she doesn’t speak fluent Vietnamese. It’s a natural way to show us how she feels torn between the two cultures. This author is good at subtleties like that.

So if you like well-written books and can handle some horror, this book is one you shouldn’t miss. I’m not sure if this book will end up getting honored by our committee, but it’s a strong debut. [Added later: This was one of the earliest books I’d read. At the end of the year, it still stood out.]

Trangthanhtran.com
Bloomsbury.com

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Review of Rez Ball, by Byron Graves

Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Rez Ball

by Byron Graves

Heartdrum (HarperCollins), 2023. 357 pages.
Review written September 29, 2023, from my own copy, sent from the publisher.
Starred Review
2024 William C. Morris Debut Award Winner
2024 American Indian Youth Literature Award Winner, Best Young Adult Book
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 More Teen Fiction

I read this book because it’s eligible for the 2024 William Morris Award for best young adult debut book, so I’m writing this review before I’ve discussed it with the committee in order to guarantee this is only my opinion and I’m not giving any information about what the committee thinks.

Note: This was written after my first time through the book. I read it twice in print and then listened to it as an audiobook, and my appreciation only grew.

Rez Ball is a sports novel. I don’t generally love sports novels, but this one hooked me into a couple late nights turning pages.

It’s the story of Tre Brun, a sophomore at Red Lake Indian Reservation high school, hoping to play varsity basketball. His big brother Jaxon had been the star of the team last year. But Jaxon died in a car accident, and his team just missed going on to the state championships for the first time ever.

Now the same starters are back, but is there a place for Tre? And he and everyone else know that he’s not the same ball player as his brother. Is he good enough?

I thought Tre came across as an authentic sophomore boy who’s big and tall and has fame suddenly thrust upon him. He’s awkward with girls, feels like he needs to prove himself at parties, and has a lot to live up to in the shadow of his big brother. I love the way the author winds all that into Tre with believability and likeability, and you feel his thrill when the whole rez is cheering for him, but also the weight of those expectations.

The team does come up against some ugly racism in spots, and Tre has some friendship issues to untangle. And every part of the story makes it feel all the more true.

This is a sports novel that made me want to give the protagonist a great big hug. It was a lovely combination of showing his insecurities along with the pride and thrill of playing ball with excellence. A sports novel to love – even if you don’t particularly like sports novels.

epicreads.com

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Review of The Merciful Crow, by Margaret Owen

Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Merciful Crow

by Margaret Owen
read by Amy Landon

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2019. 12 hours, 58 minutes.
Review written January 2, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #7 Teen Speculative Fiction

I’ve become a big fan of Margaret Owen’s work after Little Thieves was my favorite book read in 2022, and the sequel Painted Devils was one of my favorites in 2023. So I was happy to find her debut book available as an eaudiobook on Libby.

As in the other series, The Merciful Crow features a girl who’s a scrappy underdog. In this case, she’s part of the caste of Crows — the very lowest and most despised caste in the kingdom of Sabor. There are twelve castes altogether, all named after birds. Each caste has a certain number of witches with an inherited magic for their caste. The ruling family of Phoenixes, for example, can manipulate fire.

Crows don’t have a specific magic of their own — but if they have teeth from someone of another caste, living or dead, they can manipulate that person’s magic. And fortunately, the Crows have access to teeth, because they are the caste that deals with bodies. Crows are immune to the Sinner’s Plague – so when a village lights a Plague Beacon, Crows go in and give the person with the plague a merciful killing, then remove the bodies from the village and burn them.

Fie is the daughter of a chief of the Crows, and she’s training to use the magic of teeth and become a chief herself. As the book opens, they’ve been called to the palace for the first time in 500 years. Fie’s Pa goes in and brings out the shrouded bodies of Prince Jasimir and his bodyguard Tavin. And then they negotiate for payment.

But after they get out of the royal city, it turns out the prince and his companion aren’t dead. It was a ruse to escape from the Queen, who is trying to kill him. Now he wants to travel with the Crows to get to his allies before he shows up as miraculously recovered from the Plague.

But things begin to go wrong. Due to treachery, after their next stop, Fie ends up traveling with the prince and Tavin on her own, with her whole family held hostage. She has a string of teeth, including Phoenix teeth, she has a charge from her father, and she has determination to look after her own. She’ll help the prince to save her family.

The journey is long and difficult, and there are twists and turns all along the way. As they travel, the prince and Tavin are surprised to learn how badly Crows are treated. Fie doesn’t know if she can ever trust the prince to treat them like people, as he’s promised. On the other hand, the Queen intends to allow vigilantes to attack Crows in broad daylight instead of only at night like they do now.

Using caste in a fantasy world was an interesting way to talk about racism in the real world and treating all people as people of worth. This book held magic, romance, adventure, and the story of a girl learning to be a leader.

Research shows this is the first of a duology (but it does stop at a good stopping place), so the advantage of reading it years after publication is that I can start the next book right away.

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Review of Divine Rivals, by Rebecca Ross

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Divine Rivals

by Rebecca Ross
read by Rebecca Norfolk and Alex Wingfield

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2023. 10 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written December 28, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Teen Speculative Fiction
2023 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Okay, before I start talking about this awesome book, I need to digress because I was reminded of how much I love stories where a couple falls in love via letters.

The example most people know about is the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” but one of my favorite Young Adult Fantasy novels, Crown Duel, has a similar set-up in a fantasy kingdom. I like this kind of romance so much, I have an unfinished novel fragment where I attempted to retell “You’ve Got Mail”/Pride and Prejudice with the letters happening in a fantasy kingdom by way of a magical diary.

Well, Rebecca Ross pulls off this plot much more effectively, expertly connecting our main characters through letters typed on magical typewriters. Like the other books, we start with an enemies-to-lovers trope. Like the others, the guy knows before the girl whom he’s corresponding with and tries to change that “enemy” perspective, because he’s figured out he’s falling in love with the friend he’s writing to.

And yes, the slow-burn romance is exquisite! I’m convinced that a part of why I love this scenario is that as an INFJ, I dislike small talk, love the written word, and love how with letters you can really get to know people. Iris, our main character in Divine Rivals, mentions that we all clothe ourselves in armor, but with letters, we can take off small pieces of that armor and share our hearts.

Iris has been working in a newspaper office, competing with her rival, Roman Kitt, to win the position of columnist and be able to put away the obituaries for good. But when her mother dies, she misses a deadline and loses the columnist job. Iris decides there’s nothing more for her in the city, and she signs up to become a war correspondent – hoping to find her brother Forrest, who went off to fight for the goddess Enva and promised to write, but never did. Iris had begun her magical correspondence with Roman by typing letters to Forrest and putting them in her wardrobe.

This fantasy world is expertly drawn. Without a slog of back story, we listen to the two characters writing to each other about the god and goddess who woke up after hundreds of years and plunged the human world into war. The war is carried out with the technology of World War I from our world — think trenches and poison gas. Refreshingly, some social factors are not like our world, with Iris encountering two women married to each other and soldiers who are women, and she finds that unremarkable.

A lot of the action takes place at the front. It reads like a historical novel of World War I with our heroes falling in love during wartime.

And, oh, the romance! There’s a meeting of minds before the meeting of hearts and bodies, and that always wins me over. In fact, I’ve had to come to terms with realizing that’s my own private fantasy – to some day fall in love via letters (possibly in electronic form). I’m sure it was being influenced by this book that motivated me the day after I’d finished it to *not* shut down a stranger who slid into my direct messages on Twitter, asking me three times in two days how I was doing. Well, I very quickly saw that was a major mistake. But the fact remains that I have many dear friends in my life, both men and women, whom I have gotten close to through the written word, from letter-writing to my friend who moved away as a kid to emailing now. In this book’s case, it was lovely to enjoy an example where the close friendship built in letters went hand-in-hand with romantic compatibility. I’m well aware that doesn’t always happen, but so much fun to read a story where it does.

Now, a word of caution. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the cliffhanger ending. But there’s where I lucked out! And if you haven’t read this book yet, you too can luck out! You see, the sequel, Ruthless Vows was published two days after I finished reading the book. (And it’s said to be a duology, so the sequel should not have a cliffhanger ending.) Even better, I order books for our public library system. The audio version of the sequel had 49 Notify Me tags in Libby (the ebook had 81), and so of course I ordered it. But my big score was as soon as it got ordered, I went to my own Libby account and checked out a copy! I don’t often take advantage of this insider knowledge, but this time it made me very happy.

And yes, the audiobook version is wonderful, so I’m happy to get to listen to the next book, too. They have British accents and are a delight to the ear. I’m not sure if I will get the sequel finished before 2023 ends, but either way I have no doubt it will be a Sonderbooks Stand-out — either for 2023 or 2024.

I picked up this book because every week since it’s been published, we needed more ecopies at the library because of all the holds. Once I finished reading for the Morris awards, I decided to find out what the fuss was all about. I’m so glad I did!

rebeccarossauthor.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of An Echo in the City, by K. X. Song

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

An Echo in the City

by K. X. Song
read by Christina Ho and Ewan Chung

Hachette Audio, 2023. 9 hours, 13 minutes.
Review written September 13, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

An Echo in the City surprised me with how powerful it was. We begin in Hong Kong in 2019 with Phoenix, a junior in high school, whose mother is pressuring her to study to retake the SAT so she can get into Yale and leave Hong Kong. Phoenix lived in North Carolina when she was little, but her wealthy family took her back to Hong Kong for the opportunities. With her parents’ recent divorce, she feels like they hardly notice her except to complain about her grades.

But then she starts talking with her goof-off older brother’s new girlfriend Suki, who is involved in the student protest movement. The government had introduced a bill to allow extraditions to mainland China, and they feel this would allow anyone to be arrested who did anything China didn’t like – such as protest. Suki’s uncle has run a bookstore for years that sells books banned in China, and he is now on the blacklist.

As Phoenix gets more and more involved in the movement, she meets Kai, a handsome seventeen-year-old who has recently moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai after his mother’s death. What Phoenix doesn’t know is that Kai’s father is a police officer, and Kai has enrolled in the police academy to please him. So Phoenix doesn’t realize that Kai is on the opposite side of what turns out to be more and more like a war.

I appreciated the conflict in this book – it didn’t feel contrived. Each teen has a back story such that their reactions make sense. Their romance is lovely – while you know that there’s going to be conflicting emotions, and are just waiting for Kai to get found out.

I also had known nothing about the student protests in Hong Kong, and hearing about them from both the perspective of a student and the perspective of police was eye-opening.

Both characters grow in this book, with both of them realizing that they need to think about how they want their own lives to go and not just what their parents want for them. A story of star-crossed lovers that also teaches you about recent history.

kxsong.com

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

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bonesmith

by Nicki Pau Preto
read by Molly Hanson

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 14 hours, 43 minutes.
Review written December 5, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.

Bonesmith is an epic fantasy tale in a world where smiths are born with magic and affinity for working with certain materials, and Wren is a Bonesmith, able to sense and manipulate the bones of the dead. (The living have too much flesh around their bones, protecting them.) As the book opens, she is ready for her trial in the Bonewood, and successful navigation of its obstacles will win her an official position as a valkyr, who fights the undead with weapons made of bone.

But Wren’s cockiness leads to her downfall — and a position at the outskirts of the Dominions next to the border wall. On the other side of the border are the Haunted Lands and the Breach which was caused when the ironsmiths dug too far. Before Wren was born, they orchestrated the Uprising because they didn’t like being left on the other side of the wall. Fighting in that was how Wren’s war hero uncle was killed. With his death, her father became heir to the House of Bone, but he (and Wren) can never please her grandmother like the fallen hero did.

Okay, the author does a much, much better job of explaining all this and smoothly building the world than I just did here. Let me say this: Wren ends up traveling with her supposed enemy, an Ironsmith, straight through the heart of the Haunted Territories and trying to cross the Breach itself, all while trying to fight off undead revenants and rescue a prince of the Dominions, but revealing more plots as they go.

I loved listening to every minute of this. The narrator has a British accent, and her voice is delightful to listen to. I wasn’t completely sure why Wren and her father have what I think is a Scottish accent, but maybe it was to show that even though they are nobility, they’re not as posh as the prince or even the Ironsmith.

The plotting was a little clunky in places. There was a big reveal toward the end that I saw coming a mile away, but still felt somewhat coincidental. Even worse was a climactic scene that Wren witnessed that I really had trouble believing she could have watched without getting spotted herself. And in that climactic scene, all of the big reveal was conveniently spoken for her to hear. (Kind of like the bad guy in the old Batman series always explaining how he did it when he thinks he has Batman trapped.) And then she conveniently had time to grab something that helped her escape. And I should stop, because I don’t actually want to give a spoiler.

So, I wasn’t crazy about the plotting — but I loved the characters. Wren’s a delight, and so are the two companions on her journey. The sexual/romantic tension is well-done. The whole enemies-to-lovers trope doesn’t yet come to fruition in this volume, but it’s off to a perfect start with legit misunderstandings and lack of trust between them.

And yes, that reminds me that the story is only beginning. The book stops at a good stopping point, but we definitely need to find out what happens next. I will make it clear that my reservations are only minor reservations when I say that I am going to make sure I read the next volume when it comes out next August.

nickipaupreto.com

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Review of Those Pink Mountain Nights, by Jen Ferguson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Those Pink Mountain Nights

by Jen Ferguson
read by Julie Lumsden, Aaliya Warbus, Kimberly Woods, and Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Heartdrum, 2023. 9 hours, 15 minutes.
Review written November 27, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’ve just this past weekend finished reading for the 2024 William Morris Award for best young adult debut, so it’s fitting that I listened to the second book of an author whose debut was a finalist for last year’s William Morris Award, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet. That one was about Canadian indigenous teens working in an ice cream shop, and this one is about Canadian Indigenous teens working in a pizza shop, and both are completely beautiful.

In this book, we’re following the perspectives of three teens who all work at Pink Mountain Pizza, in a ski town. Each viewpoint character gets their own narrator. A girl named Berlin is central, and the other two, Cam and Jessie, both have a bit of a crush on her. Berlin has been feeling numb lately, and her best friend has suddenly completely ostracized her, not telling her what is wrong. On top of that, they learn that Joe, the Black owner of Pink Mountain Pizza, is selling the shop to a corporation. Berlin knows things won’t be the same. What she doesn’t know is that the head of the shady corporation buying Joe out is Jessie’s father.

And then one night, Berlin thinks she sees Kiki across the street from the shop. Kiki is a Black and Indigenous teen who went missing six months ago, and she’s Cam’s cousin. But was Berlin somehow dreaming? She couldn’t really have seen Kiki? When she tells Cam, some things start in motion that shake up their lives.

This book has themes woven through it of depression, friendship, discrimination, racism, activism, and especially the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women. The message is powerful, and it’s all wrapped up in a story of clever and creative teens you can’t help caring about. And amazing pizza recipes! This book won my heart. A fabulous follow-up to an amazing debut.

jenfergusonwrites.com

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Review of The Grimoire of Grave Fates, created by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Grimoire of Grave Fates

created by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen
read by January LaVoy and Nicky Endres

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours, 27 minutes.
Review written November 11, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.

I made sure to check out The Grimoire of Grave Fates because I love Margaret Owen’s writing so much. It turns out this is a compilation from many fantasy authors. The story is set in a magical school — a school with a highly diverse population. The most hated professor — a professor who despised the diverse population — has been found dead, and it’s clearly murder.

The book gives a different student’s perspective for every hour of the day his body is found, beginning at 2:00 am and finishing at 8:00 pm, when the mystery is solved. Each student’s story is told by a different author. And really, it’s kind of amazing that this method works — the clues students turn up at the beginning do affect things later, and the mystery unfolds.

It’s fun how the eighteen students featured all have different magical specialties. I’m not completely sure how that would work in one school, but it kept this book interesting. I think this is an example where I would have done better to read the book rather than listening to the audiobook, because I would have referred back to the explanation at the beginning of the different houses of the school and it would have helped me keep the characters straight. As it was, it was looking at the Table of Contents for the eaudiobook that helped me realize there was one student each hour and a different author for each student.

These are the authors who wrote the chapters: (I’ve only read a few of them before, and need to fix that.) Marieke Nijkamp, Randy Ribay, Kwame Mbalia, Darcie Little Badger, Cam Montgomery, Preeti Chhibber, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, L. L. McKinney, Hafsah Faizal, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Mason Deaver, Victoria Lee, Yamile Saied Mendez, Jessica Lewis, and Natasha Diaz. I assume that Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen were responsible for the overall story and what major plot points each author would hit.

As a mystery, this book was nothing special, but as a window into diverse magical students — it was delightful. I enjoyed each student who was featured and the look into their type of magic. These authors are people with imagination and empathy, and I’m going to look for more of their work.

penguinrandomhouse.com

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Review of Royal Blood, by Aimée Carter, read by Kristen Sieh

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Mystery, Teen Fiction Review 0

Royal Blood

by Aimée Carter
read by Kristen Sieh

Listening Library, 2023. 10 hours, 21 minutes.
Review written October 25, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.

Royal Blood is a contemporary mystery about an American girl who is secretly the illegitimate daughter of the King of England. No, not Charles — this book looks at a modern world where King Edward VIII didn’t abdicate for Wallis Simpson and lived out his reign with a queen his family approved of. Now in 2023, Alexander, son of Edward IX, is on the throne.

Evangeline Bright has never met her father — that she can remember. But he’s been supporting her since she was eleven years old and her grandma died. Evan’s mother has schizophrenia, but it’s under control with medication. Evan keeps getting herself kicked out of boarding schools, hoping she’ll get to go home to her mother. But when this book opens, her attempt to burn the school’s grade book got out of control, and at almost eighteen years old, she’s got a potential felony pending. So when Jenkins, the liaison with her father, comes to help, he decides it’s time for her to get out of the country and go to England.

Her half-sister Maisie, the heir to the throne, isn’t thrilled to meet her, but Queen Helene even less so. And that’s nothing to what happens when the press gets wind of her existence.

However, that’s all just the beginning. The real trouble ensues when a charming rich boy attempts to sexually assault her at a party — and ends up dead. Did Evan kill him? She’s not even sure because the details of that night are hazy. But if she didn’t, then who did?

This story could get tawdry, but it’s told with heart, as Evan thinks about what makes a family and learns more about what makes her famous one. The book doesn’t feel like a gossip rag, but a novel of a teen in an extraordinary situation where she doesn’t know whom she can trust.

It turns out there’s a set-up to make this the start of a series. Yes, I find that I’m looking forward to spending more time with this American girl who’s finding her place in the British royal family.

aimeecarter.com

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Gleanings, by Neal Shusterman

Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Gleanings

Stories from the Arc of a Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

Simon & Schuster, 2022. 426 pages.
Review written February 15, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

Gleanings is a collection of stories that all take place in the world created for the Arc of a Scythe trilogy. Most are written by Neal Shusterman, but some with co-authors.

It’s fabulous that Neal Shusterman has done this — the world of the Scythes is so rich, and so full of philosophical implications. This book explores those implications more fully, with some taking place before the books of the trilogy, some after, and some during the same time period. Characters we are familiar with appear or are mentioned in most of the stories. And we’ve got origin stories of a couple of imposing figures from the trilogy.

Just to review, these books take place in our world — but humanity has overcome death. Instead of governments, the world is governed by the Thunderhead — the result of what happened when “the Cloud” became sentient. The Thunderhead is a benevolent ruler, but since there is no more death (memories and personalities can be downloaded by the Thunderhead), the earth will become overpopulated if nothing is done. Humans decided not to give that responsibility to the Thunderhead, but created a class of Scythes responsible for gleaning a certain percentage of the population. These stories explore what that kind of society would be like, looking at how it would impact individuals — which is somewhat different from the big-picture story of the trilogy.

You won’t want to read these stories as your first introduction to the post-mortal age. If you haven’t read the books yet, check out Scythe immediately. If you have read the trilogy, you’ll be as delighted as I was to explore the world of the Scythes further.

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