Best Contemporary YA Fiction of 2016

I usually post my best young adult fiction list in December, but this year I was moving between sabbaticals in Japan and in the UK with a brief stop at home in Maine for the holidays. I'm finally settled in Oxford with time to catch up on book reviews. Since I write contemporary YA fiction, that's primarily what I read. Although these books were all published in 2016, their themes are all the more relevant for 2017. Reading fiction is also a good escape from the dystopian real world of American politics right now.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon was my favorite young adult novel of 2016. This emotionally resonant story of immigration, assimilation, and deportation is sadly all the more realistic today. We need books that foster empathy and compassion. The immigrant author won a Printz Honor for this perfect book.

Yoon's page-turner story hooked me immediately: On the day Natasha and her Jamaican family are due to be deported, she meets Daniel, a Korean American on his way to a Yale College interview in New York City. Daniel believes in poetry and soulmates but scientific Natasha is skeptical. Her focus is on fighting to stay in the USA. Natasha has no time for love, but what if Daniel is right?

The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone was my favorite debut. The premise was original and poignant: a dying grandmother takes her family on a luxurious world cruise to say goodbye. Gallow humor, a comically dysfunctional family, and a sweet romance offset the sad realism of terminal cancer. Somehow this novel about dying with dignity was one of the most life-affirming books I've ever read.

The story now resonates with me personally as my mother-in-law fights cancer with the hope of traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway with my son this summer. My teenage daughter is finding comfort in this book too. I'll post a more in depth analysis next week for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club.

Up to this Pointe by Jennifer Longo had the best setting: Antarctica. I loved how this novel focused on failure and resilience, a theme lacking in most YA literature. American culture unrealistically claims that anyone can succeed if she/he tries hard enough. In a clever juxtaposition, the world of professional ballet is shown to be as challenging and crazy as reaching the South Pole. After failing her ballet auditions, Harper Scott follows her ancestor's snow tracks to Antarctica. Her heroes haunt her long winter hallucinations as she struggles to find a new path in life. This book is eloquent on science, climate change, and ballet. The only weakness was the ease of romance, but that element provided some light in the darkness. Also there were penguins!

Wrecked by Maria Padian was my favorite issue-driven novel. This chillingly realistic story investigates an alleged date rape on a college campus from three perspectives: the roommate of the victim, the housemate of the accused, and an omniscient narration on the night of the attack. The reader must piece together the clues and draw his/her own conclusion about what really happened. The conflicting versions of the truth becomes the central theme of this engaging book. The setting is rural New England. I'd love to see more YA set at college and with feminist themes. Note the pussy hat pink cover!
Link to my full review of Wrecked.

Although the cover of The Season of You & Me by Robin Constantine looks like a traditional romance novel, what is missing from the photo is a wheelchair. A former surfer, Bryan now cruises his island home in an adapted car. Working at a summer day camp, Bryan befriends mainland Cassie, who is recovering from a painful breakup and adjusting to her dad's new family. Romance builds slowly on this small island off the Jersey shore. The story explores prejudice toward disability and the challenges of sex as a paraplegic, but the central plot is romance. A character does not need to overcome disability to be sexually attractive. It's wonderful to see more inclusive YA romance.
On my Good Summer Books List too.

This is a Story of You by Beth Kephart is a modern parable of the horrors of climate change. When a storm cuts off an island from the Jersey Shore, 17-year-old Mira must fight for survival with only a stray cat for company. Earlier that day, her single mom had driven her disabled brother to the mainland hospital for emergency treatment. As the storm rages and the sea floods their beachside cottage, Mira must decide what to save and how to stay alive. If that weren't scary enough, a mysterious intruder is lurking outside, and without power or cellular service, Mira can't call for help. I fear we'll see more real world examples of this fictional disaster all too soon if the US reverses climate change policy. Read the rest of my review here.

Given the spike in hate crimes in the USA, we need books that show diverse characters as normal teens, not as victims. You Know Me Well is set under the rainbow of San Francisco. Authors David Levithan and Nina LaCour narrate this heartwarming friendship story in alternating chapters: Mark is a hot jock with a secret crush on his closeted best friend, and Kate is a talented artist who is scared of finally meeting the girl of her dreams. The struggles they face are universal: academic expectations, parental pressure, and shifting relationships. Many teens will relate to the feeling of knowing what you want but lacking the self confidence to claim it. A buddy who supports and encourages you makes all the difference. Review continued here.

With Malice by Eileen Cook kept me up way past my bedtime. This Amanda Knox inspired suspense-thriller had intriguing suspects, multiple red herrings, and more twists than the village roads of Tuscany. The unreliable narrator's testimony leaves the reader tossing and turning in bed, ruminating over conflicting versions of the truth. This cynical satire lampoons journalists, social media, lawyers, detectives, and the scandal-hungry public. With Malice is a fitting read for the age of "alternative facts."
My full length review with photos of Italy.

Happy Reading!


Reviewer's Disclosure: Maria Padian is a friend and Beth Kephart is a blog buddy. On my request, publishers sent me ARCs of Wrecked, This Is The Story of You, and With Malice. I purchased all other books myself without compensation. Authors Carrie Firestone and Nina LaCour are represented by my agent.

New Diverse YA Romances: Jenny Han, Becky Albertalli & Nicola Yoon

Yesterday was probably my last swim of the season. This photo of me at Simpson's Point was from two weeks ago.

I have been thinking a lot about diversity in young adult fiction as I revise my work in progress. My YA features a half Chinese American who falls in love with British boys during her junior year abroad. I chose a protagonist of mixed ethnicity to represent a typical American because the USA is a nation built on immigration and assimilation. Eve's story was also inspired by my family's sabbaticals in England.

I'm a product of the melting plot myself: half Lithuanian Jewish and half Swiss/British American. My British husband is a professor of Asian Studies and Government at Bowdoin College, and our extended family is Japanese, Chilean, Italian-Canadian and Mexican American. Many of our friends are raising biracial/hapa children. What will those kids read? Assuming they are still reading books...

I buy YA novels for my Japanese American niece, and it's a challenge finding characters who somewhat resemble her and share her interests. Most novels with diverse protagonists have racial conflict as the central plot. Yes, minorities are frequently victims of prejudice, but they also fall in love, play sports, travel beyond their country of heritage and act like normal teens. Ethnicity can be an important part of character, but it doesn't need to prescribe or to limit the story arc.

Realistic fiction should include diverse characters because the real world is diverse. However, most YAs, especially romances, portray a white world with a few token minorities. That isn't realism. Love comes in many colors and various orientations. This year I was pleased to discover several excellent YA romances with diverse protagonists. I've included three mini-reviews below, but my selection was limited to those books I've read. If you know of others, please note them in the comments.

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han (May, 2015) is the sequel to To All the Boys I Loved Before (2014). Lara Jean is half Korean American and busy acting as a surrogate mom to her nine-year-old sister. Their Korean American mom died several years ago, and their Caucasian dad does his best to cook Korean beef and to keep their maternal culture alive in a predominantly white suburb of Charlottesville, Virginia. These paired books are partly about grief and family, but the central plot is romance. Lara Jean's quiet world of baking at home is upended when her secret love letters are mailed to all her crushes.

These delightful and quite innocent romances would appeal to girls of any ethnicity. The values are traditional, but the world is very up to date with social media scandals. They are a quick and easy read, and both are on the NYT bestseller list. Jenny Han is one of my favorite authors of YA romance. She captures the confused feelings of being a teen in love. Han is great on sibling relationships too; the youngest sister was so adorably funny.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (April, 2015) is a strong debut which is likely to win awards. What makes this novel special is the authentic voice. The straight female author used her experience as a child psychologist to tell a typical coming out story. It's set in the suburbs of Atlanta with racially diverse secondary characters. Simon's secret gay romance is threatened when another boy finds their flirty emails and blackmails him. Simon struggles to protect the privacy of the other closeted boy, whose identity is unknown even to him.

I raced through this book in one day, laughing at Simon's witty observations and eager to uncover the identity of his mystery love. My only criticism is that all the pop culture references will date this novel. Still, this is a marvelous book for gay teens and for readers of all ages. The parents were hilarious. This author clearly knows how to laugh at herself.

Another strong debut is Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon. Released earlier this month, it already tops the NYT bestseller list. This novel has a great premise: a girl allergic to the world is confined to her house and falls in love with the troubled boy next door. Their doomed romance builds slowly through hilarious window pantomimes and soul searching emails. It was encouraging to find a Japanese-African-American protagonist in a bestseller book by a Jamaican American. The illustrator, her husband, is Korean American, and several characters are diverse. The Hispanic nurse was the most well developed and realistic character in the book.

Unfortunately, the protagonist's ethnicity doesn't go beyond physical description. Maddy wears shoes inside, and her third generation Japanese American mom cooks French food for special occasions. They play English word games and their furnishings are generic. I was expecting the author to draw a parallel between Maddy's confinement in a bubble to the Japanese American internment during World War II, but no family history is mentioned on either side. All we know is that her African American dad and biracial brother died in a car crash when Maddy was a sickly baby. More is revealed with the big plot twist at the end, but you'll have to read my Goodreads Review (includes a hidden spoiler) to learn why I was unconvinced by the ending. I was expecting something deeper, but this book is an entertaining read which will appeal to a general audience. I hope Yoon chooses to draw more from her interesting family background in her next book.

There is no rule that authors need to match their characters to their own ethnicities. However, more research is needed if writing beyond personal experience. What teens need are more diverse books, especially in YA romance. Any more suggestions?

Note to authors writing diverse characters: include ethnic details for realism/character building, but don't describe skin color with food. YA author Sarah Ockler offers more advice here: Race in YA Lit: Wake Up & Smell the Coffee-Colored Skin, White Authors!

Reviewer's Disclosure: I bought Han's novels at Bull Moose in Brunswick, Albertalli's novel at Longfellow Books in Portland and Yoon's novel at Harvard Book Store in Massachusetts. I was not compensated for my reviews. I'm a supporting member of We Need Diverse Books.

One Thing Stolen by Beth Kephart

When it's mud season in Maine, I need a literary escape.

The first time I visited Florence, I was a teenager like Nadia Cara, the protagonist of One Thing Stolen by Beth Kephart. This soon to be released young adult novel follows an American family on sabbatical in Italy. Like most of Kephart's literary novels, this book would cross over well to an adult audience.

Nadia isn't sure if she's losing her bearings or her mind in a foreign city. Words are hard to articulate and memories of the past compete with visions of the present. Is the boy with the sunlit hair real? Nadia can't resist the urge to follow Benedetto any more than she can stop herself from stealing beautiful objects. From these stolen things, she weaves artistic nests, which she hides under her bed. She doesn't want to ruin her father's sabbatical.

In this moving story, Beth Kephart gives a lyrical voice to a rare neurological disorder that robs an intelligent teenager of her ability to express herself in coherent words. The reader is taken inside a failing mind and experiences the protagonist's frustrations. The narration is fragmented like verse and integrated with avian imagery. Dialogue lacks quotation marks, and although Nadia's thoughts are intelligible, her speech is harder to understand.

"Long. High. Cool. White. Green. The nave of this church is a huge stone cage of doves and pelicans, angels and eagles. Everything carved. Everything still. The air is cool and unsunned. The wicks in the candles are burning. The pew is hard. The stone birds stretch their wings. I breathe."

The flip side of Nadia's linguistic disability is a new found artistic ability as her damaged brain re-routes. Although Nadia's story is fiction, her disorder is a true illness. This fascinating book offers a profound meditation on the complexity of the brain.

For readers who need clarity and answers, be patient. In the second part, Nadia's best friend, Maggie, takes over the narrative in a lucid voice. Specialists are called to find a cure, and Maggie seeks to return the stolen objects in a reverse treasure hunt. Maggie also searches for the boy, Benedetto, but isn't sure if he's real or not. Nadia's memories sound more like dreams or poetry.

"His lips on mine are fog and birdsong. They are the smell of leather and the raw, quickening of rain. He holds my head with the palm of his hand - all that is broken and hurting."

One This Stolen offers no easy solutions but still leaves the reader with hope. I'd strongly recommend this literary novel to adults and to teenagers who are interested in psychology, art, history and Italy. Kephart does a marvelous job with a difficult topic.

More reviews of Kephart's novels:
Going Over
Small Damages
Dangerous Neighbors & Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent
You Are My Only
Undercover (includes author interview)

Reviewer's Disclosure: Beth Kephart is a blog buddy. Upon my request, I received a free galley from Chronicle Books in exchange for an honest review. There has been some confusion over the release date, but I believe it was pushed to next week. The photos of Maine and Florence are mine.

Jersey Tomatoes are the Best by Maria Padian: mom and daughter review & interview

Don’t let the title put you off: Jersey Tomatoes Are The Best is not about gardening or Snookie. The “Tomatoes” are talented Jersey gals like the author, my friend Maria Padian. Eva attends ballet camp in NYC, and Henry (don’t call her Henriette!) travels to Florida to be coached for junior-circuit tennis. They narrate in alternating chapters with distinct voices, keeping connected via cell phone. Pushy parents, rival peers and demanding schedules plague them to varying extents. This newly released young adult novel shows the sacrifices that come from seeking perfection, especially at a young age.

Henry’s story could stand on its own. My favorite character was her roommate, Yoly, who introduces Henry to Cuban American culture. Tennis superstar David adds romance and shows us the glamorous world of pro tennis. Henry’s nightmare sideline dad-coach provides comic relief. Interestingly, Maria originally intended for Tomatoes to be just Henry’s story.

It was a later decision to break the narrative in half to give Eva her own voice, or rather voices. Maria’s teenaged daughter made this excellent suggestion. Eva’s tale is more inward than Henry’s; it follows the emotional arc into mental illness. The main secondary character in Eva’s story is her horrible inner voice, who tells her she's fat and ugly. Her struggle with anorexia is heart rending due to its realism.

The triumph of Tomatoes is that anorexia does not consume the character. Eva is more than her disease; she’s a talented dancer and a good friend. It was also easier to read about her downward spiral because Henry’s sunny story balanced the darkness. Henry models a healthy attitude toward diet and exercise . . . and she looks like a Victoria Secret model. Good message!

Tomatoes would be an excellent book to share with your children or students for a discussion on body image. My beautiful 13-year-old daughter is both a dancer (shadow photos) and an athlete. She is also a healthy eater with a big appetite for young adult fiction. 

My teenaged daughter's review:

Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best definitely deserves a spot on my bookshelf. There is friendship, horror, romance and humor.  The book is an eye-opener, and I enjoyed the two narrators. Although their parts are drastically different, I thought they counter-parted each other very nicely. Henry’s chapters were light, fun and comical, while Eva’s were very deep, disturbing, passionate, and at times repulsive. Eva’s chapters definitely kept me on the edge of my seat, and they were very different than anything I’ve read before.

Though frightening, I thought Eva’s storyline was real. So many girls out there have eating disorders, but not many people talk about it. This book showed the horrors of anorexia and the true-to-the-bone feelings of Eva, which I thought was very fascinating, riveting and added an edge to the book. Tomatoes is a gripping story of two friends who are always there for each other through the best and the worst. It is a definite must-read.

Our Interview of Maria Padian

Author Maria Padian by Betsy Evans, her tennis teammate.

What’s the story behind your title?

Maria: the title is from a T-shirt I owned when I was young. It’s a play on words, since tomato is slang for girl. So that T-shirt and yes, my title, essentially say Jersey Girls Are the Best. It’s the mantra for my main characters, two teens who feel a tad defensive about being from New Jersey.

But while the setting and the background noise of the novel is largely New Jersey, the book is not about Jersey. Henry and Eva are talented kids facing extraordinary pressures, and the novel is about battling your demons, making healthy, life-affirming choices, and taking ownership of your future.

How did you get from New Jersey to Maine? 

I fell in love with New England when I attended college in Vermont, so while I lived and worked in the south for a while (Virginia, Georgia, Washington D.C.) I always hoped to “settle” north. Maine’s wonderful hiking, canoeing, skiing and camping drew my husband and me to the state, so 20 years ago we found work here and put down roots.

Those woods at left are where Maria and I often meet for walks to talk about books and writing.  Yep, that's what Maine looks like in early March.

How did you research anorexia and what made you write about it?

I have never struggled with an eating disorder myself; however, through high school, college and into my adult years I have known friends and family members who have struggled with eating disorders. They, along with professionals, have shared their stories and insights with me. I have been inside treatment centers and attended counseling sessions. I have wept with anguished parents who fear their daughters will die. I have been brought to my knees, watching helplessly as someone I care for disappears behind the veil of irrationality which is anorexia.

Despite all that is known about this illness and all the strides we have made in combating it, I have been bewildered by our ability to bear witness yet say nothing. Young people skip meals, become achingly thin, retreat from their friends and the rest of the world, and we say … nothing. We claim that we want to “respect their privacy.” We don’t want to “assume.” This situation, which must change, fueled my desire to tell Eva’s story.

The world of junior tennis and of pre-professional ballet in Tomatoes felt very real and detailed. What’s your background in those fields or was it researched?

I play tennis, and still play competitively, although not nearly at Henry’s level! As a result, writing the tennis scenes was easy for me. I also had an opportunity to tour the Evert Tennis Academy in Florida, and speak with a representative there about the work they do with young players. Evert makes a real commitment to helping players maintain a good balance in their lives and stay healthy.

The ballet sections took some real work, because I don’t dance and have never taken a single ballet class. I relied heavily on interviewing young dancers, reading books about ballet, combing through autobiographies of my favorite dancers, and even watching ballet how-to videos. I once tried standing en pointe in some borrowed slippers. That lasted about one excruciating second! Luckily, I’m a big ballet fan so getting up to speed on the dance sections was a real labor of love.

What was the inspiration for the Cuban American character, Yoly?

The inspiration for Yoly came from two places: first, my mother. My mom is Latina and like Yoly, when she speaks Spanish she is one person; when she speaks English she is another. It's something you've got to see to believe! My second inspiration came from visiting Calle Ocho in Miami's "Little Havana" and eating some pretty amazing Cuban food. I grew up eating my mom's arroz con pollo, but it was nothing compared to the roast pork and black beans I found on Calle Ocho. I couldn't resist putting that pork in Tomatoes!

Do you think “write what you know” is good advice?

Write what you know is emotionally true. Write from the place where you can relate to the characters and the situation. For example, I can’t dance. But I do know about performing. I was a classical pianist for many years, and as a teen actually prepared for a piano competition at New York’s Carnegie Hall. I believe that experience enabled me to write Eva’s sections of the book.

That's a yearbook photo of me at age sixteen (at left) near the age of my main characters.  I had just returned from a week at the Jersey Shore . . . that's where I got those pooka beads.

Can you tell us about your next young adult novel?

It’s set in Lewiston, Maine, and the narrator is a 17-year-old boy who befriends a Somali immigrant who plays on his soccer team. Lewiston is a predominantly white, Catholic, Franco, former mill town, which has seen a huge migration of refugees from Somalia and other nations over the last decade.

This is the first time I’ve written from a male point of view, and the first time I’ve set a fictional tale in a real place, against the background of actual events. I feel tremendous pressure to get this “right,” especially because I have been so moved and inspired by the amazing people I’ve met in Lewiston, especially the teenagers. The projected publication date is fall 2012.

Tomatoes' release date: March 8, 2011. Thanks for joining us today, Maria!

More Young Adult Novels on Anorexia:

I’d also recommend two other well-written novels about eating disorders. In Just Listen (2008) by Sarah Dessen the protagonist’s sister is an anorexic model. Dessen does a great job in engaging the reluctant reader, but the eating disorder plot is secondary. Winter Girls (2010) by Laurie Halse Anderson is more grimly realistic and focused, but the protagonist is anorexia, not the girl. "I am the space between my thighs," says Lia. The haunting images of this exquisitely crafted novel terrified me. In both of these books, however, I never got a sense of the characters beyond their afflictions. Eva in Tomatoes felt more real.

Disclosure: I borrowed the Tomatoes ARC from Maria at my request.  I will be buying a finished copy for us.  I also reviewed Maria's debut Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress. The Roseate Spoonbill birds and Alligator photos were taken by Maria in Florida. I borrowed Wintergirls from Maria and bought Just Listen myself. No free products were received for these reviews.

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Baby Watch: congratulations to Denise and David @ The Education of a Pulp Writer on the birth of their first child! Their daughter is called Ava, which is also how you pronounce Eva, one of the MC’s of Tomatoes.

Alternating Point of View

In my current work-in-progress, A MATCH FOR EVE, my narrators are an American girl and a British boy. As an American married to an Englishman, these voices are coming easily to me. The hard part has been figuring out how to split the narrative, especially when both main characters are in a scene together. For guidance I have been reading novels written in the boy/girl point of view.

One Day by David Nicholls (2010) uses alternating point of view to show the complexities of a relationship over time. The narrative follows two Edinburgh University graduates from 1988 to 2007 in London. We connect with them “one day” every year. Both characters are English but from different socio-economic backgrounds. Dexter is a charismatic alcoholic working in television, and Emma is a literary liberal, scrambling to pay the rent. Nichols, writing in the third person, splits every chapter between the male and female perspectives. The voices evolve and converge as the characters age. Unrequited love drives the delightfully haphazard plot.

One Day is a laugh-out-loud satire for the Gen-X generation. The cultural references are spot on, although you will need a firsthand knowledge of the UK to get all the jokes. One problem with alternating voices is that the reader often bonds more to one than the other. I was impressed by how well Nicholls, as a male author, conveyed the female voice and avoided convention. If I had issues with a character it was with Dexter, not Emma. Also, the ending was too abrupt and random. Still, my husband and I really enjoyed this novel.

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (2010) was written for teens, but its cynical humor and off-beat characters would appeal to adults too, especially to fans of J.D. Salinger. The material pushes the envelope as to what is appropriate for younger readers, but I'm letting my 13-year-old daughter read it...soon. She picked it out while we were in NYC, and I stole it from her. Bad mom.

Two bored teens are on their own for Christmas in NYC. Dash told his mom he's with his dad and his dad he's with his mom. Lily's big brother is meant to be looking after her, but he's distracted by his new boyfriend. Lily leaves a moleskin notebook in a used bookstore with clues and a dare for a stranger who fancies J.D. Salinger. Dash picks up the challenge. The dares escalate from braving the Santa line at Macy's to clubbing at 2am for Jewish punk rock. Seriously. I usually find holiday books too schmaltzy, but this one had me laughing so hard I had to put it down.

Rachel Cohn wrote Lily's chapters and David Levithan wrote Dash's. This is the third time these authors have collaborated. They swapped chapters back and forth like the fictional notebook and a wacky but surprisingly cohesive story emerged. Occasionally the chapters fall out of time sequence but mostly the structure worked and was full of surprises. Having 2 authors also facilitated the rendering of gender. However, lonely Lily sounds more like a real teenager than jaded Dash. It's hard to imagine a 16-year-old boy more into words than messing around. For most of the book, the two are apart with parallel narratives, only connecting on the page. Both need to reconcile the Plutonic ideal in the notebook with the real person when they finally meet under the worst circumstances.

Dash: "I was a firm believer in preventive prevarication-in other words, lying early in order to free myself later on."

Lily: "I'm pretty sure my curfew is suspended on holidays. Like alternate side of the street parking rules."

Flipped (2001) by Wendelin Van Draanen is a he-said-she-said story for a younger audience. Every scene is replayed in paired chapters for a dual perspective. I found this construct too repetitive. It was, however, interesting to see which details were important enough to be noticed by each character. Unfortunately, I disliked the boy and found the girl too good to be true. My favorite character was a tree. The narrative is set in eighth grade with flashbacks. Although Flipped is labeled young adult fiction, it would appeal more to tweens than to teens because of its sweet innocence.

Young adult author Simone Elkeles has written several novels in alternating boy/girl POV chapters. Each chapter is labeled by character and narrated in first person. Elkeles uses dual narration effectively to break stereotypes and to show that there are two sides of a story. Her romances are a bit formulaic: good girl falls for bad misunderstood boy.

In Perfect Chemistry (2009) a Hispanic gang member is paired with a popular rich cheerleader as lab partners. I loved Alex but never connected with Brittany. The story about gang warfare was gripping, but the schmaltzy epilogue went too far in tying up all the plot strings. There are two more novels in this trilogy, following Alex’s brothers. Drugs, sex and violence make these novels upper young adult.

In Leaving Paradise (2007), the bad boy has spent a year in juvenile detention after his car hit the girl next door, disabling her. Of the two Elkeles novels that I read, I preferred Leaving Paradise for its plot twists and the unusual relationship between the characters. Elkeles’s approach to disability felt emotionally true and realistic. The sequel  Return to Paradise was released recently.

Having sampled these five books and others, I have settled on the alternating first person narration with labeled chapters because it is easiest for readers to follow. I won’t be replaying scenes in NOT CRICKET, but for pivotal scenes one character will narrate the first half and the other character the second half, a technique Elkeles employs very well.

I actually prefer the writing in One Day and Dash & Lily, but Elkeles's narrative structure would work better for my story because my characters, like hers, are in school together and sharing scenes. I’m aiming to use my dual voices to show that English really is two languages divided between the US and the UK. Structural form can shape the story; it’s the author’s invisible hand at work.

Reviewer's Disclaimer: no free products were received. Flipped was a library book (recommended by  Maria Padian –thanks!) and I purchased the other books. My daughter picked out Lily and Dash with her book allowance. She is reading it now and loving it, although a bit traumatized by my book snatching.

Book Blog Watch for the Holidays:
A List of Books From the House of Edward.
Check out my Gift Book Suggestions from 2010 (posted 2 weeks ago)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

At 3:00 am the line between fact and fiction blurs. Before falling asleep, I had been reading Peace Like A River, a novel by Leif Enger set in the Badlands of North Dakota. The scene was about waking in a trailer that has run out of propane, where breath comes out as smoke and blankets freeze. Outside the wind blows and snow paints the landscape white. I awoke cold. No power. No heat. The sky glowed a murky pink of distant lights.

The trees were white down to the bark, not one branch was spared. Snow was spray-painted onto model trees for a train set or a holiday shop display. Only this winter, my winter, was real and vicious. The wind whipped, pulling one tree’s hair until her whole head snapped off.

An hundred year old white pine’s crown fell, barely missing our tree house. Our little forest had survived the last ice storm only to be wrecked by wet snow and wind. Two trees down; others hold onto lame branches by bark skin only. Maimed and battered, the survivors stand.

Peace Like a River is set in a winter landscape where snow falls by the foot and drifts to eaves. It swallows a man whole. The scale is even greater to a child. The narrator is eleven-year-old Reuben Land, but this is not a children’s book.

Peace Like a River is an adult exploration of family myths, good versus evil and the limits of faith. It is also a Western with an outlaw older brother on a sturdy horse. Our heroine, Swede, is a precocious nine-year-old girl who writes cowboy stories in rhyming verse (ugh!)

The children believe in their older brother and in miracles that will lead them to him. The miracle worker is their father, an ordinary man, a janitor who has lost both his wife and his job. He not only speaks but argues with God. This is a myth told by a child narrator, who worships his father. Reuben is not necessarily a reliable narrator:

You know this is true, and if you don’t it is I the witness who am to blame.

Although it is shelved in adult literary fiction, Peace Like a River reads like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter crossed with C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. These are poor folks in a bleak winter landscape, but there is also magic rich in Biblical allegory.

Violence and crime makes this a story appropriate only for mature teens. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to my 14-year-old son, but it would give his younger sister nightmares. There were a few grizzly passages I had to skim and wished I’d skipped.

There were other passages that I went back to read again and again. Enger’s prose is simple but evocative:

I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.


With the same sparse prose Enger renders complex feelings:

I had a feeling the adults didn’t know we were in the room – a feeling we were getting away with something, and a sadness that it was nothing to be prized.

Enger’s verse can just be plain fun:

Hope is like yeast, you know, rising under warmth.

Here’s another gem:

Anyone can hear her voice was worn to the contours of apology.

There are perfect sentences and perfect passages:

I dropped off for real and dreamed a river of horses flowing along between banks, manes rippling, backs streaming sun. I woke inside a strange calm recognizable as defeat. Light entered the house pink and orange. I straggled outside, leaned against the house and squinted at the backlit hills. The light was expiring; already it was like looking into tea-colored water. I didn’t, in fact, see Davy. But somewhere on the side of the darkening hill a horse lifted its voice to neigh. The sound had the clear distance of history.

Now can you see how someone who has little interest in Westerns and is skeptical of miracles could fall in love with this novel? The true miracle was in the written word.

Enger is a master storyteller. His writing is beautiful and lyrical, and his characters recognizably human if larger than life. I loved that the narrator was a boy plagued by asthma and torn by his loyalties and desires. Reuben and his precocious sister felt more like adult memories of childhood than like actual children. They are storybook characters in a campfire tale.

I cozied up by the woodstove, reading by daylight, and suspended disbelief. I was disappointed to reach the end under the glare of electric lights.

Thank you, Tessa and Bee, for this wonderful book recommendation!

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is being called a "Great American Novel." I imagined the setting of northern Wisconsin would not be that different from Maine.

Wroblewski’s first novel is astonishingly well crafted but not a quick read. The language is lovely and full of evocative images that pull you into the slow paced narrative. This is a book that I started in the fall only to put aside for the long winter nights. It’s the perfect read by the fire. Don’t expect a page turner until the final chapters.


The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a modern Hamlet. The novel it most closely resembles is Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, which reinterpreted King Lear on a farm in Iowa. I enjoy modern takes on Shakespeare, but the downsides are that the suspense is ruined and the book can only fall short of the master.

What is Hamlet without his soliloquies? Perhaps Wroblewski’s decision to make his protagonist mute sprang from this concern. Edgar communicates through sign language which is cleverly portrayed as dialogue without quotation marks. Edgar is a well developed character who is restricted at crucial times by his disability but not overcome by it normally. He is in no way pathetic, but rather an active, strong character.

In a clear nod to Hamlet, Edgar’s mother is Trudy (ie Gertrude from Hamlet) and his diabolical uncle is Claude (ie Claudius.) Wroblewski’s Claude is too evil, almost a cartoon character, and impossible to understand.

My dog with my fourteen-year-old son

Hamlet had Ophelia and friends, but Edgar has only dogs for companionship. His family breeds most unusual dogs that can communicate like no others. Thankfully the dogs don’t talk, and they still act like real dogs or perhaps wolves. Where Wroblewski is at his best is describing rural life and the bond between dog and man. He’s a bit of a modern James Herriot:

She [Trudy] believed in training – that there was nothing in a dog’s character that couldn’t be adapted to useful work. Not changed, but accommodated and, ultimately, transformed. That was what people didn’t understand. Unless they had worked long and hard at it, most people thought training meant forcing their will on a dog. Or that training required some magical gift. Both ideas were wrong. Real training meant watching, listening, diverting a dog’s exuberance, not suppressing it. You couldn’t change a river into a sea, but you could trace a new channel for it to follow.

Edgar Sawtelle is a dog lover’s book but requires a mature reader. Despite having a fourteen-year-old boy as a protagonist, this novel is not young adult fiction. Teenagers live in a world of their peers and passions, but Edgar lives only for his parents and their dogs. We learn that his schoolmates like him and can understand him well enough, so why doesn’t he have any friends at all? Why doesn’t his mother have any girlfriends either?

The isolation of the Sawtelle family makes the story more of a parable. The quality of the writing makes it read like a classic. It should be savored over many nights. You will feel sad when you reach the ending, realizing you have to bid goodbye to Edgar and his wonderful dogs.

You will want to follow them into the woods.

If you crave more Shakespeare, rent the television series Slings and Arrows. It’s a dark comedy about a struggling theater company in Canada. The acting is fabulous and the wry humor brings to mind the best English comedies. In the first season a Hollywood blockbuster star is called in to play Hamlet. It’s laugh out loud funny. Thanks, Charlotte, for the recommendation.


Preview for Slings and Arrows (adult content)