Category: book review

Book review: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

Balzer + Bray, 2016

Seventeen-year-old Imogene Scott sets out around New England scouring for clues to find her mystery writer father with depression and bipolar disorder who recently disappeared on Valentine’s Day, and the mother (troubled waters) that abandoned her when she was just two years old. She does so using clues and tips from her father’s detective books as well as other mystery writers, scouring hospital records, and neighbor interviews. All Imogene knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child.

The Noir like tone of this YA novel matches the backdrop of cold, harsh, New England winters. This engaging, suspenseful mystery bears testament to loyalty, perseverance, and love despite learning that the stories about her parents are fictional just like Joshua Scott’s medical mysteries. While she has little in the way of clues, between her wits and the assistance of her best friend Jessa she starts out on a path that will impact her life forever.

The masterful weaving of mental illness, resiliency, precise plotting, unexpected twists, dynamic characters, and a sensitive treatment of mental illness makes this YA novel shine.

Book review: Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes

Harperteen, 2016

Paula Stokes YA novel, Girl Against the Universe is a fresh, informative, and powerful look at PTSD, grieving, and the rollercoaster of falling in love when your world is imploding. In this book we follow the protagonist, high school junior Maguire Kelly, who believes she makes bad things happen. After all her father, brother, and uncle died in a car crash that Maguire walked away from, a tennis mishap with Jordy, an unfortunate fall by his sister, or the neighbor’s house catching fire. There was even a time when a rollercoaster went off its tracks injuring her two friends leaving her thinking she’s a jinx.

So, what does Maguire do about it? She buys good luck charms and performs rituals, compulsive behaviors, so bad things don’t happen when she’s around. What she doesn’t do is listen to the logical explanation by her therapist. Instead, Maguire shields herself and hides away in her bedroom. That is so no one else can get hurt. What changes? Maguire meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star who enlists in helping her break her unlucky streak. They’re supportive of each other both in and out of therapy. It’s a very realistic, contemporary romantic tale about young love, therapy, and family relationships at a time when the character believes the whole world is against her.

Book review: I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Henry Holt and Company, 2015

The protagonist, Skylar lives in a dusty California named Creek View where so far she’s beaten the odds of being a Creek View girl with a baby, in a mobile home, with no future. In a piddly three months Skylar can escape to fulfill her dreams. She has an art scholarship and is focused on moving. Just as she is about to leave, her mother loses her job and stays in bed all day, kicking off a chain of bad things.

Then she reconnects with Josh, a nineteen-year-old wounded warrior who escaped the only other way possible, joining the military. But Josh loses a leg in Afghanistan, and his jerklike attitude, and is also isolated in evolving ways that only Skylar may understand. They find each other at their seedy place of work, the Paradise Motel which becomes more of a home than his real home. Skylar also works at the motel, but spends her time dreaming about escaping the town.

These pained characters ultimately tell the hopeful tale of swimming against the tide in a tired town and of relationships that are complex and flawed. It’s a heartfelt, complicated, realistic look at love amidst poverty, PTSD, and depression.

Book review: Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2016

This story about first love is not only heartwarming, but also raw and emotional. It follows Henry Page, a bookish high school senior that has never had a girlfriend, is unexpectedly attracted to new student Grace Town, who brooding and mysterious, enters the school with a conspicuous limp, unwashed and unkempt, and wearing boys’ clothes that are obviously too big for her. After they end up co-editing the school newspaper, an attraction ignites.

Henry becomes quite enamored with Grace as she seems to be hiding a very broken part of herself. But Grace sends mixed signals and has a mysterious upbringing and when grief and love mix together, the outcome is unpredictable. It’s a roller coaster of emotion, and an inside look at how a teen might deal with grief after losing a loved one. It’s a bittersweet, believable look at unrequited love because as their romance blossoms, secrets about Grace’s past, and more importantly her present circumstances are revealed. Is she beyond his help?

This book has teen angst for days. I think what I did like about this teen love story is it was very messy. Young and everlasting love isn’t realistic, and this book touches on even if that is the case, an individual can still impact you immensely. The diverse characters with realistic motivations including endearing friendships and family relationships really make this YA romantic tearjerker that much more enjoyable.

Book review: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Viking, 2009

Wintergirls is a harrowing novel that follows eighteen-year-old Lia Overbrook as she comes to terms with her best friend’s death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder. This gripping novel about the eating disorders that make them compete to be the skinniest is a painful, powerful story that is ultimately about recovery.

After the news of her friend’s death, Lia begins to spiral into her eating disorder, doing her best to hide it from her father and stepmother. Throughout this, Lia is haunted by the ghost of Cassie. This book is very intense as it deals with difficult themes to understand and read.

This book was both a harmful and beautiful experience to read. It is definitely triggering, but also offers a sense of grounding in knowing that you’re not the only one out there who has these deathly demons.

It doesn’t embellish upon the thoughts that run through one’s mind, instead reveals the inability to process that the disorder really is as dark and disturbing. Laurie Halse Anderson did a good job capturing the terror and internal battle one has to deal with when faced with a deathly disorder, and I was also engrossed at how it brings the competitiveness of such disorders to light. In addition, the writing and stylistic choices are interesting and add to the theme.