Review: Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

• Why I read it: Author and series I love, three cheers for emo boys, musicians FTW
• Disclosure: Bought a copy at my local indie. Huzzah!

It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.
Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other.
Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance. 

If you had told me a year or so ago, just as I was drying my eyes after finishing If I Stay, that there would be a sequel? I would have probably dismissed it. Maybe even laughed. A book like If I Stay doesn't need a sequel, I would have thought. I like leaving endings open. I liked imagining any number of things happening to Adam and Mia after the final page; I liked keeping that story in my head.

So imagine my surprise when I started hearing the word on the book blogger street that there were ARCs of Where She Went out there somewhere. And that they were actually pretty good. Better, even, than If I Stay. Imagine my even greater surprise when, after the book was released, I lost sleep over it. When I anticipate reading a book to the point of insomnia, I know it's one I have to at least give a shot.

And am I ever fantastically happy I did. Like If I Stay, I finished this book in a bit of a daze, and with almost as many tears. I wasn't sure if I'd liked it. In fact, I was pretty sure I hated it. Until I turned around and re-read it again, cover to cover.

It's supremely difficult to review books like these, where the experience trumps the story. I have never read a writer quite like Gayle Forman, who manages to make internal conflict interesting where it could just sound whiny. Outside of an initial, external event - the car crash in If I Stay, and Adam and Mia's meeting here in Where She Went - nothing much happens but reflections and flashbacks. And yet I am riveted again and again, because Adam and Mia are actually interesting. I care. They're good people. I've revisited this book easily a dozen times since I finished reading it, and I fall in love a little more every time.

Perhaps the best and most unusual thing about Where She Went for me that made it even more memorable than If I Stay was the age of its characters, in the in-between place between the typical age of YA protagonists and the realm of literary and mainstream adult fiction. Adam's voice - disillusioned, emo-core-sensitive, often snarky to the point of asshattery - was a perfect rendering of the twenty-somethings I know, and as a teen edging into adulthood myself, it was so fantastic and rare to read it.

I do have criticisms of this book. There were things I didn't entirely buy. Occasionally the melodrama was painful. Those are frequent criticisms for me to have of any book, though, and Where She Went was too excellent in other ways for me to really give a flying you-know-what about what's wrong with it. Gayle Forman is a YA treasure, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. Five out of five stars.

Guest post: Ashley Hope Pérez

Today I'm lucky enough to be hosting a guest post by Ashley Hope Pérez, author of one of my favorite debuts this year, What Can(t) Wait (which you can read my review of here). Her next novel, The Knife and the Butterfly, releases sometime in spring 2012. Can anyone say pre-order?

For this post, I put my academic hat on and asked Ashley what she thought of "the hows and whys of the issue book and contemporary genre, especially as it relates to multicultural stories." And boy, did she deliver!

Here's what she said (along with some awesome pictures):

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I never thought of What Can’t Wait as an issue book until I read Maggie’s review a few weeks ago. She described it as “an issue book that gives me exactly what I want out of an issue book while never really feeling like an issue book.”

I really liked the praise that followed this statement, so I was pretty keen on figuring out what kind of issue my novel was about. So I thought back to why I wrote it in the first place: because my students told me that many books about urban, Hispanic teens didn’t ring true to them. Certainly, I wanted to address an issue, but that issue would be best described as a what-the-heck-is-on-the-bookshelf issue (as opposed to issues in a book like anorexia, cutting, divorce, homelessness).

B&NPasadena: These are two of my former students from Chavez. Hector, on the left, was a finalist for an Alley Theatre young playwrights program for a play he wrote in my class. Baltazar, on the right, had my class for three years and fought me all the way when it came to reading. Now, though, he's become a reader and updates me on what he thinks of my novels.

If there were an “issue” in What Can’t Wait, I guess it would be to show why getting to college—even with financial help and special programs—is not so simple for some teens. (And I’m glad my book isn’t “just” an issue novel, because this sounds pretty lame even to me!) 

But what teens am I talking about? Let’s say teens whose academic goals are not valued in their family and community. The protag, Marisa, isn’t struggling because her family culture is so different from the dominant culture of her community. Rather, the dominant local culture reflects her folks’ skepticism and wariness about her aspirations.

To drag myself down from these clouds of abstraction, here’s an example. Marisa’s dad dismisses her math ambitions, a reaction that is reinforced by her manager at work, who doesn’t get why she’d go in for tutoring rather than take on extra hours. Her sister disregards the value of Marisa’s education every time she cons her into babysitting during school hours, and her brother is no better. Even Marisa’s friends have trouble relating to her desire to venture out beyond Houston.

Cassandra Flores: Cassandra is another former student. You'll notice that she's holding a stack of papers. That's actually the original manuscript of my first novel, which she (and a lot of other students) read in draft form while I was still teaching.

Now, don’t get me wrong: some of my students had tons of support for their educational goals from their families. But plenty of them faced challenges like Marisa’s. I wanted to draw readers into the drama of those challenges.

For readers who share this experience, I hope What Can’t Wait offers the relief of “I’m not alone.” For readers who don’t, I hope that the novel gives them a taste of a different world.

For ALL my readers, I hope they find an engrossing story that they can’t read fast enough. Because that’s every novelist’s most important job.

LECJ7: Here I am doing a school visit with a group of sophomores at LECJ, a high school in Houston. I'm pretty goofy, but I think everybody had fun. That day I also got to do an interview in Spanish for the local news on Houston's Univision. Lots of fun!

P.S. Maggie mentioned that she liked how What Can’t Wait contains Spanish without an instant paraphrase following. When we were chatting about this post, I said I’d try to work something in about the Spanish. Since I failed to do that, here’s a P.S. on the subject.

My main rationale for not “explaining” every bit of Spanish or offering a glossary is simple: most of my students wouldn’t need a glossary. To include a glossary would have been to say, “Actually, this book is meant as a barrio tour for gringos. See? It comes with a travel guide…” I wrote about this and more in a Diversityin YA post a couple of months ago.

Basic Spanish will get most readers through the smattering of Spanish in the novel. And readers who don’t speak Spanish are still super-invited to journey into the book. I try to make sure that readers won’t “miss” anything just for not knowing a Spanish phrase. And wordreference.com is just a few keystrokes or taps away on any number of mobile devices.

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For those who can(t) wait for The Knife and the Butterfly's release (ha! I love bad book title puns), you can follow Ashley at her blog or on Twitter. And if you haven't already, go out and buy What Can(t) Wait! It's perfect for both the Debut Author Challenge and the PoC Reading Challenge, and I hope you'll love it as much as I did.

Thank you so much, Ashley!

Mini-reviews: Facing Demons and Happy Birthday to Me

I'll be frank: I strongly disliked both of these. And in an effort to keep the negative to a minimum, when this kind of distaste happens with back-to-back reads, I'll try to keep it to mini-reviews from here on out. So, to start:

Facing Demons by Ashley Sanders
Goodreads | Author website

• Why I read it: I don't even know.
• Disclosure: Received a review copy from the publicist. Thanks!

Summary:

Out September 2011, YA fiction novel FACING DEMONS follows the journeys of four individuals as they tackle their problems whilst at the Anchor Beach Rehabilitation Clinic. The facilitator, Blake Solomon has succeeded in his own battle with cancer and feels obliged to pass on this second chance to those who deserve it.
The first person views of each of the four main characters - Felicity, Jason, Matthew and Rebecca - gives vital insight into their developing minds and conflicting ideals. One by one they are each able to tell their heart-wrenching stories of lives tainted by drugs, alcohol, self-harm, abuse, gangs, child prostitution and homelessness. Reaching beyond the depths of despair, where all hope seems lost, the four teenagers attempt to find ways to face their demons.

This was the kind of book where I wanted to take the author aside, give him a big hug for trying, and then strongly suggest he never write YA fiction again. It meant well, it really did - the issues Sanders tackles are very real and very heartbreaking. But it was so remarkably, ridiculously out of touch with reality I could have cried at the hour and a half of my life I spent reading it. Some advice, Mr. Sanders: Talk to some real live teens. Learn about the things that matter to them beyond what you read in self-help books. Learn voice. And then get back to me.


As hard as I've tried looking, there were seriously...no redeeming features to this. At all. Just a lot of reader pain on my part. One and a half out of five stars.  

Facing Demons releases in September 2011.

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Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

• Why I read it: boys can narrate too, quirky premise
• Disclosure: Received a review copy from the author. Thanks!

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Cameron Martin has a huge problem: he’s aging a whole year of his life with each passing day!
High school is hard enough; imagine rapidly aging from seventeen to seventy in a matter of weeks, with no logical explanation, and with prom, graduation, and the state championship basketball game all on the horizon. That’s what happens to Cameron, a popular pretty boy who's never had to face a day looking anything but perfect.
All Cameron wants to do is go back to normal, but no one, not even the best doctors, can diagnose his condition. When he finds love with a mysterious young woman, however, he realizes his only hope for survival might be with the one person who started his condition in the first place...

The bad news: this book features the creepiest almost-sex-scene I have ever read, in YA or otherwise. It features a librarian, and that's...all you need to know. Seriously, if you're squeamish, spare yourself. Really. The good news: despite the bad sex, some formulaic plot points, and odd writing, it was not nearly the epic train wreck Facing Demons was. So, there's that.

Rowe has an unusual style that I think could do a lot for YA when it's polished up. There's a lot of potential here. It just needs...polishing up. A lot. And right on the heels of Facing Demons, I was not in the mood for something that read like a manuscript. Still, while I doubt I'll be coming back to this series, I think there's a lot here for people less picky than me to love, and it certainly combats the argument that there's no such thing as paranormal romance for boys very effectively. I'll be interested to see what the author comes back with next. Three out of five stars.

So, what do you think? Is my bitter blogger vitriol easier to swallow in mini-review format? I'm making some changes here at the Bookshelf, so I'd love some feedback in the comments!

Review: Forever

Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
Goodreads | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

• Why I read it: series I love, Minnesota, teen angst, Maggie Stiefvater fan club
• Disclosure: Received an ARC for review from the author. I may or may not have had a heart attack when this happened. Thanks!

The thrilling conclusion to #1 bestselling Shiver trilogy from Maggie Stiefvater
then.
When Sam met Grace, he was a wolf and she was a girl. Eventually he found a way to become a boy, and their love moved from a curious distance to the intense closeness of shared lives.
now.
That should have been the end of their story. But Grace was not meant to stay human. Now she is the wolf. And the wolves of Mercy Falls are about to be killed in one final, spectacular hunt.
forever.
Sam would do anything for Grace. But can one boy and one love really change a hostile, predatory world? The past, the present, and the future are about to collide in one pure moment - a moment of death or life, farewell or forever.

In my reviews of both Shiver and Linger, I tried very, very hard to hold on to my hipster uber-reviewer voice. "Head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd," I said. "I don't really like paranormal romance," was heavily implied, "but, you know, this one is cool. For a snowy afternoon. Yeah."

For my review of Forever, I leave pretense behind: warts and all, The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy has been one of my favorite YA love affairs of all time, and I cried when it ended. Like, really cried. A little part of myself is lost between these pages, from the same place I lost myself in Harry Potter. And His Dark Materials. And the Underland Chronicles. And The Hunger Games. These books grew with me, as all the best books do, and Forever is one of the few books I've ever been tempted to call a tour de force.

The funniest part is that I'm still not sure exactly why. While the writing is excellent, it's not earth-shattering. Characters don't always ring true. Emotion borders on melodrama. While the flavor of the Mercy Falls setting has improved over time (it's based on Ely, MN, one of my favorite places to visit in my state and home of - unsurprisingly - the International Wolf Center), it still can't hold a candle to places like Hogwarts. And Lyra's Oxford. And the Underland. And District 12.

But, in a way, it doesn't need to be any of those things. I like this quote from my review of Shiver, and think it applies even better to Forever: "And the best thing about it, in my opinion, was that the focus was not on the supernatural, but rather on the humanity—and the choices that shape us." That, in my humble bibliophiliac opinion, is Stiefvater's gift - the nuanced way she writes about human teens, even while she's writing about, er, werewolf teens. I said the characters don't always ring true. People don't always ring true. It's not a great work of literature, but in it's own, quirky way, it's a great work of journalism of the teen experience. And I love it. Love it.

I realize I haven't said much about Forever itself in this review, and it's partially because I'm terrified of spoiling it. There will be NO SPOILERS, I promise (except for that one thing on page *spoiler* that *spoiler* *spoilered*, of course). It's also because I don't feel I need to say much - this book is basically the essence of what made Shiver and Linger great, only streamlined and made even better. It's a natural progression of where the story was headed. Just as the ending is a natural progression of where this book was always headed; open-ended, ambiguous, maddening, perfect.

Apologies for the cliche melodramatic pun thing, but I'm saying this anyway: I shivered; it lingered; these books will stay with me forever. Even if they don't seem like you're thing - and trust me, they didn't seem like mine - just read them. I hope you'll be as enthralled as I was. Forever is an astonishing climax to a fantastic trilogy, and I'm so very sad this is goodbye. Five out of five stars.

Middle Grade Monday (Belatedly): A Single Shard

Due to unforeseen circumstances that involved moving and summer camp and also me being a lazy blogger, Middle Grade Monday did not get posted yesterday. Thankfully, Ellie is not here to chew me out heckle me wonder why she hasn't gotten any comments yet, so I'm going to go ahead and post it now and cross my fingers she doesn't notice when she gets home that the date was wrong. Whoever rats me out gets books thrown at them, okay?

Right. Anyway. Middle Grade Monday is a whenever I get my act together weekly feature here at Maggie's Bookshelf, featuring the opinions of my real live middle grade sister on middle grade lit, both the classics and new releases. This week, Ellie chose to review one of her new favorites: A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park.

Take it away, Ellie!

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A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Find it at a local indie!

Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters’ village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the potter’s craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is elated–until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min’s irascible temper, and his own ignorance. But Tree-ear is determined to prove himself–even if it means taking a long, solitary journey on foot to present Min’s work in the hope of a royal commission . . . even if it means arriving at the royal court with nothing to show but a single celadon shard. 

This book amazed and pleased me. At one time it would make me laugh and at another it would make me cry. Park goes into detail about every piece of pottery but keeps it brief. But at first it was a slow read. It took me ages to finish it, and action does not happen till near the end. And it was tough to read because bad thing after bad thing happened to the main. But those were the only down sides to this book. I loved the detail Park went into about the landscape it made me feel like I was there. And the characters felt like family to me, but in moments they could be unlikable. Four out of five stars.            

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I told her she didn't have to take away a whole star just for being slow and for not liking the characters all the time. She told me to mind my own business. Sisterly love is a beautiful thing, folks. Anyway, thanks, Ellie, and see you next week!