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These are mostly YA. I was on a kick, I think because I read some snippy review of a YA book somewhere that was all 'This is really, really good for a YA NOVEL,' as if there's no dreck in srs grown-up literature.
First, a partial review in form of a confession:
I gave up on The Spellbook of Listen Taylor (& Secrets of the Family Zing) by Jaclyn Moriarty, not because it wasn't good, but because it's a very specific flavor, like Parma Violets. I bought some Parma Violets in the UK once and brought them home. They sat in my desk drawer for a year, because roughly once a year I thought, "Ooh, a hard purple candy that tastes sort of like soap and grass. Yum." Then I realized it was going to take me the rest of my life to finish the packet, and I threw it out. Soap and grass and purple candy are all wonderful things, and I might, on rare occasions, even enjoy their wonder combined. But not today, not lately, not anytime in the last few weeks or months. The library due date approached, so I took Listen Taylor and the rest of them back to the library today.
But, to sum up, The Spellbook of Listen Taylor (& Secrets of the Family Zing), which was released in the UK as I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes, is a quirky volume of whimsy and whatnot that involves a fairly large ensemble cast of mostly adults. It is mysteriously marketed in the US as a YA novel, despite the fact that there are no real YA's in it, and in Canada/UK it's considered an adult novel. It appears to be magic realism, not fantasy, although as I said, I didn't finish it, and I didn't find out the Zing Family Secret. We'll save that for the next time I'm after a Parma Violet.
Listen & the Zings is not the only YA book I read recently that didn't seem YA to me. I did finish The Secret Twin - by Denise Gosliner Orenstein. In The Secret Twin, 13 year-old Noah, the survivor of a pair of conjoined twins, lives at home with his eccentric (okay, actually, she's severely mentally ill) grandmother, whom he calls, at her insistence, Mademoiselle. Noah feels guilty for being the surviving twin, and constantly thinks about his brother, half-imagining that he survived the operation that separated them. When Mademoiselle goes into the hospital to have a face-lift (I SAID mental problems), Nurse Grace, a young woman from the hospital comes to care for Noah. At the same time, a series of murders take place in the neighborhood.
This is a beautifully written book. Orenstein uses rich, brilliant language to paint a portrait of Noah, of Mademoiselle, Nurse Grace, and of the Invisible Boy, Noah's imagined twin. The story is told from two perspectives, Noah's, in the first person, and Nurse Grace's, in the third person limited, and the alternating perspectives give the story fullness and flavor, rather than being jarring.
My very personal objections and observations are as follows (highlight for spoilers):
Point Number One: the book jacket is vaguely misleading. It says: "Noah was born conjoined, sharing a heart with his twin brother, but only he has survived. Thirteen years later, when his grandmother undergoes painful surgery, Noah finds himself in the care of Nurse Grace, who has a secret of her own. And when another stranger, a mysterious sniper, begins to terrorize their city, Noah and Grace must confront the extraordinary circumstances of their present lives and the possibilities of the unknown beyond."
Technically, all of that is completely true. However, rereading it, I think I am not entirely to blame for thinking that a)Nurse Grace knew something about Noah's conjoined twin and b)the sniper was somehow related. Noah thinks the sniper is his brother, and that because of his brother, he will go to prison. Unfortunately, you are never going to meet the Secret, Possibly Evil Twin, because he is totally, completely dead. The sniper(s) are a thoroughly unrelated mother-daughter pair whose horrific backstory is sidelined into a couple of paragraphs.
Which brings me to Point Number Two: it's quite a dark book: Nurse Grace's backstory is sad, and Noah's childhood is something from a nightmare, and it's an articulate, clearly outlined nightmare. I would give this a potential trigger warning for child abuse, although if I had read this as a teenager, I might not have recognized the signs, and I might have had more sympathy for Mademoiselle. Which brings me back to why is this a YA novel? It doesn't feel like a YA novel. Nurse Grace is in her twenties, but she behaves like a generic adult, she has no particularly youthful traits. Noah is like a miniature adult. This doesn't make it inappropriate for young adults, just not exclusively appropriate for them.
The Forest of Hands and Teeth:
I am a sucker for Zombie Apocalypses. This has the added bonus of being set in the Aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse, or, in the parlance of the book, after the Return of the Unconsecrated. Mary lives in a small village surrounded by a giant chain-link fence, one of the few vestiges of the time before the Return On every side is the Forest, and in the Forest are the Unconsecrated. Mary's father is behind the fence, wandering in the forest. Ever since Mary was a little girl, her mother has told her unbelievable stories of the ocean, water which just goes on and on.
I enjoyed it immensely, but I also had some serious complaints.
Here are the Good Things. They contain no serious spoilers.
1. There are Evil Nuns.
2. The Unconsecrated are disturbingly realistic. I could hear them the whole time. It was somewhat nervewracking, actually. In the event of a real zombie apocalypse, you will need earplugs to block out the noise of millions of zombies moaning, shuffling, and slamming against the chain-link fence.
3. Mary is just becoming aware of herself sexually, and this is quite nicely done.
Here are the things I was less crazy about, which are very spoilery and long-winded, and consequently must be highlighted if you want to read them:
[To clarify. There WERE three paragraphs of irritation here, mostly to do with the relationships in the book. But they were much too spoilery, and anyway, you may LOVE the relationships in the book! They don't really detract from its gory awesomeness.]
After three paragraphs of obvious irritation, however, I would like to change tunes and say none of my complaints should put you off reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. It is an admirably written zombie novel. These are first class zombies, and the survival stuff is gritty, and dirty, and hard-hitting. There is a lot of bloody violence, and there is a lot of loss. There is a particularly nice moment with a zombie baby. Despite my feelings for Mary, it gave me chills.
Finally, I read Devilish, by Maureen Johnson. I have nothing spoilery to say about it. It involves demons and highschool girls and is very funny. Unlike some of the books described here, it is very clearly a YA novel, although I think anyone who enjoyed demons and humor might get a kick out of it. Light stuff, but yummy, not unlike the cupcake on the cover.
First, a partial review in form of a confession:
I gave up on The Spellbook of Listen Taylor (& Secrets of the Family Zing) by Jaclyn Moriarty, not because it wasn't good, but because it's a very specific flavor, like Parma Violets. I bought some Parma Violets in the UK once and brought them home. They sat in my desk drawer for a year, because roughly once a year I thought, "Ooh, a hard purple candy that tastes sort of like soap and grass. Yum." Then I realized it was going to take me the rest of my life to finish the packet, and I threw it out. Soap and grass and purple candy are all wonderful things, and I might, on rare occasions, even enjoy their wonder combined. But not today, not lately, not anytime in the last few weeks or months. The library due date approached, so I took Listen Taylor and the rest of them back to the library today.
But, to sum up, The Spellbook of Listen Taylor (& Secrets of the Family Zing), which was released in the UK as I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes, is a quirky volume of whimsy and whatnot that involves a fairly large ensemble cast of mostly adults. It is mysteriously marketed in the US as a YA novel, despite the fact that there are no real YA's in it, and in Canada/UK it's considered an adult novel. It appears to be magic realism, not fantasy, although as I said, I didn't finish it, and I didn't find out the Zing Family Secret. We'll save that for the next time I'm after a Parma Violet.
Listen & the Zings is not the only YA book I read recently that didn't seem YA to me. I did finish The Secret Twin - by Denise Gosliner Orenstein. In The Secret Twin, 13 year-old Noah, the survivor of a pair of conjoined twins, lives at home with his eccentric (okay, actually, she's severely mentally ill) grandmother, whom he calls, at her insistence, Mademoiselle. Noah feels guilty for being the surviving twin, and constantly thinks about his brother, half-imagining that he survived the operation that separated them. When Mademoiselle goes into the hospital to have a face-lift (I SAID mental problems), Nurse Grace, a young woman from the hospital comes to care for Noah. At the same time, a series of murders take place in the neighborhood.
This is a beautifully written book. Orenstein uses rich, brilliant language to paint a portrait of Noah, of Mademoiselle, Nurse Grace, and of the Invisible Boy, Noah's imagined twin. The story is told from two perspectives, Noah's, in the first person, and Nurse Grace's, in the third person limited, and the alternating perspectives give the story fullness and flavor, rather than being jarring.
My very personal objections and observations are as follows (highlight for spoilers):
Point Number One: the book jacket is vaguely misleading. It says: "Noah was born conjoined, sharing a heart with his twin brother, but only he has survived. Thirteen years later, when his grandmother undergoes painful surgery, Noah finds himself in the care of Nurse Grace, who has a secret of her own. And when another stranger, a mysterious sniper, begins to terrorize their city, Noah and Grace must confront the extraordinary circumstances of their present lives and the possibilities of the unknown beyond."
Technically, all of that is completely true. However, rereading it, I think I am not entirely to blame for thinking that a)Nurse Grace knew something about Noah's conjoined twin and b)the sniper was somehow related. Noah thinks the sniper is his brother, and that because of his brother, he will go to prison. Unfortunately, you are never going to meet the Secret, Possibly Evil Twin, because he is totally, completely dead. The sniper(s) are a thoroughly unrelated mother-daughter pair whose horrific backstory is sidelined into a couple of paragraphs.
Which brings me to Point Number Two: it's quite a dark book: Nurse Grace's backstory is sad, and Noah's childhood is something from a nightmare, and it's an articulate, clearly outlined nightmare. I would give this a potential trigger warning for child abuse, although if I had read this as a teenager, I might not have recognized the signs, and I might have had more sympathy for Mademoiselle. Which brings me back to why is this a YA novel? It doesn't feel like a YA novel. Nurse Grace is in her twenties, but she behaves like a generic adult, she has no particularly youthful traits. Noah is like a miniature adult. This doesn't make it inappropriate for young adults, just not exclusively appropriate for them.
The Forest of Hands and Teeth:
I am a sucker for Zombie Apocalypses. This has the added bonus of being set in the Aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse, or, in the parlance of the book, after the Return of the Unconsecrated. Mary lives in a small village surrounded by a giant chain-link fence, one of the few vestiges of the time before the Return On every side is the Forest, and in the Forest are the Unconsecrated. Mary's father is behind the fence, wandering in the forest. Ever since Mary was a little girl, her mother has told her unbelievable stories of the ocean, water which just goes on and on.
I enjoyed it immensely, but I also had some serious complaints.
Here are the Good Things. They contain no serious spoilers.
1. There are Evil Nuns.
2. The Unconsecrated are disturbingly realistic. I could hear them the whole time. It was somewhat nervewracking, actually. In the event of a real zombie apocalypse, you will need earplugs to block out the noise of millions of zombies moaning, shuffling, and slamming against the chain-link fence.
3. Mary is just becoming aware of herself sexually, and this is quite nicely done.
Here are the things I was less crazy about, which are very spoilery and long-winded, and consequently must be highlighted if you want to read them:
[To clarify. There WERE three paragraphs of irritation here, mostly to do with the relationships in the book. But they were much too spoilery, and anyway, you may LOVE the relationships in the book! They don't really detract from its gory awesomeness.]
After three paragraphs of obvious irritation, however, I would like to change tunes and say none of my complaints should put you off reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. It is an admirably written zombie novel. These are first class zombies, and the survival stuff is gritty, and dirty, and hard-hitting. There is a lot of bloody violence, and there is a lot of loss. There is a particularly nice moment with a zombie baby. Despite my feelings for Mary, it gave me chills.
Finally, I read Devilish, by Maureen Johnson. I have nothing spoilery to say about it. It involves demons and highschool girls and is very funny. Unlike some of the books described here, it is very clearly a YA novel, although I think anyone who enjoyed demons and humor might get a kick out of it. Light stuff, but yummy, not unlike the cupcake on the cover.
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