Last Bus to Everland

Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron

At home in Edinburgh, Brody is overlooked and bullied.

Everything about his life is difficult. Then, Nico shows Brody the door to Everland: a magical door that only opens at 11:21 on Thursday nights. Inside Everland, Brody is able to embrace all of his dreams, but most of all, Everland is full of people who understand Brody--unlike the real world, where nobody understands anything.

Brody and Nico and their friends explore the wonders of Everland, playing music, attending parties, and wearing outrageous costumes. It seems like a place where they could stay forever--and like Peter Pan's Neverland, it might be a place where they never need to grow up.

Then, the doors out of Everland start disappearing, and Brody needs to make a choice: stay in Everland with Nico, or return to his home and his family.

A diverse cast of main and supporting characters make this compelling story even more wonderful.

Highly recommended for ages 12 to adult, especially those who are still waiting for a Hogwarts letter, sometimes check the back of the wardrobe for doors, and always leave the window open, just in case.

The Winter of the Witch

The Winter of the Witch  by Katherine Arden (Winternight Trilogy #3)

In book #1 The Bear and the Nightingale, Vasilisa (Vasya) is a child in a small Russian village, listening to her nurse's stories of Vasilisa the Brave, one of the most famous heroes in northern folklore.  Things go terribly wrong, but at least she got a magical talking horse in the process.

In book #2 The Girl in the Tower, the action moves to Moscow, where Vasya and the horse Solovey try to protect the royal family and citizens of the city from evil magic.  Things go terribly wrong again, but at least the winter-demon teaches Vasya some useful magic in the process.

In book #3, The Winter of the Witch, things go terribly wrong and get terribly wrong-er.  Vasya loses her allies, she loses her family, and Russia itself is nearly lost to the invading Tatar army.  But Vasya is stubborn, clever, and just a little bit lucky, so with the help of magical friends (mostly familiar figures from Russian fairy tales), she brings new power to the decisive Battle of Kulikovo.  

The author twines historical Russian events with traditional Russian folklore to create a fabulous, magical series of novels, perfect for reading on cold winter nights.  Highly recommended for readers who enjoy fairy tale retellings with a strong female character.  

Dread Nation

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Y'all need to understand that I am a coward, a complete chicken pants. I can't watch scary movies and I definitely can't read scary books...

...which makes Dread Nation something special.

It's the story of a young woman, Jane McKeene, born just two days before the dead at the Battle of Gettysburg began to rise up and attack the living. Now Jane is at a required school, where black girls are trained to kill the undead... and Jane has serious zombie-slaying skills.

Part suspense, part mystery, part adventure, and a big part social commentary, this book kept me turning pages from beginning to end. It's not too scary...but there are a lot of zombies. And they aren't all, um, dead yet.

Book #1 in a series but this one stands alone while offering a nice setup for book #2. Mild cussing, some kissing and other sexual situations, a bucket ton of racism, plus zombies. 

Highly recommended for ages 12 and up.

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World  by Ashley Herring Blake

Ivy is 12 years old (almost 13!), and feeling adrift following the birth of baby twins in the family.  Her friends are just starting to think and talk about boys, but Ivy is starting to think about girls.  Then, Ivy's world literally flies apart:  a tornado flattens her house and leaves her family homeless.  

Ivy is a smart, talented, and creative protagonist who finds more than a little help from friends--new friends and familiar friends.  

This is a beautiful, sweet middle-grade book about Ivy and her family and friends, and their attempts to find their own places in the world.  Highly recommended for readers ages 10 and up.

What Goes Up

What Goes Up  by Katie Kennedy

200 teen scientists vie for two positions with NASA's Interworlds Agency.  The tests cover math, science, problem-solving...and a lot more.  Rosa Hayashi is an obvious choice.  Eddie Toivonen is not.

Then gravity flutters, which it definitely should not do.  Immediately after, alternate-dimension aliens show up, and they look human.  In fact, the alternate-dimension aliens look exactly like the astronauts who just left Earth, only these astronauts are carrying a very dangerous cargo.

What could possibly go wrong?

Part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part Ender's Game and part literary roller coaster.  Put it all together for a fast-moving, fun book with an intriguing premise and appealing characters who make nerdy the new cool.  Highly recommended!

Ages 12 to adult.  Some cussing, some kissing and some unbelievably corny knock-knock jokes.

Turtles All the Way Down

Turtles All the Way Down  by John Green

16-year-old Aza has a problem.  It's not school--she gets good grades.  It's not friends--her best friend Daisy is the Best and Most Fearless Friend Ever. It isn't money--though Aza's family isn't rich, they have enough for food, housing, transportation, and relatively up-to-date technology.  It's not even her mom--though her mom doesn't always understand Aza, she definitely loves her daughter.

Aza's problem is her mind:  sometimes she can control her anxieties, but sometimes the worries spiral in tighter and tighter until Aza is almost strangled by them.  

When Aza and Daisy decide to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a friend's dad (who happens to be a billionaire), nothing goes according to plan.  Aza wants to be involved closely with Davis, but every time they kiss, her anxiety kicks into high gear.  

This is not a simple book to read.  Aza's intrusive thoughts are nearly crippling at times, and those who love her aren't having much fun either.  But, as storyteller/author Elizabeth Ellis observed in her book Inviting the Wolf In: 

"Perhaps that is the greatest disrespect we can pay anyone: 

to be unwilling to look at their pain.  

If they could live it, I could look at it.  

Perhaps it was the very least I could do."

Author John Green didn't just research obsessive compulsive disorder in order to write this book; rather, he lives with it.  His expertise, painfully acquired, shines through.  It's painful to read, but not nearly as painful as it is to live.  The least we can do is to look, and learn.

Highly recommended.

The Girl in the Tower

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

Sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale, this story takes up where the first book ended: Vasya has left her family and her village. Together, she and her marvelous horse (with some help from Morozko, the frost demon) journey towards Moscow, and (of course) things go terribly wrong along the way.

Familiarity with Russian folklore will definitely aid in understanding and enjoying this dense, dark tale. Vasilisa and Morozko figure in many traditional stories, as do...oh, but that would be a spoiler.

If you know the stories, you may recognize characters along the way; otherwise, you will be as surprised as Vasya herself when true identities are revealed.

Some kissing, some bloodshed, some nekkidness, some demons and devils, and quite a lot of magic. This is second in a trilogy, but does not end on a cliffhanger.

Highly recommended reading for cold, blustery nights when the fire is ticking in the stove, and winter is just on the other side of the wall. Ages 12 to adult.

Dress Codes for Small Towns

Dress Codes for Small Towns by Courtney Stevens

*Dress Codes for Small Towns* starts with the night that Billie McCaffrey and her best friends accidentally burn down the church youth room. That sentence leads you to think some things about Billie and her friends, and those thoughts would probably be inaccurate. Preacher's kid Billie has a good relationship with God, a strained relationship with her dad, a rocky relationship with the church people, and a confusing relationship with her friends.

Billie's friend Janie Lee might be in love with their other friend Woods, which is confusing because Billie might also be in love with Woods...or with Janie Lee. Or maybe Davey? She really isn't sure. But she's pretty sure what the church people think of her.

She might be wrong.

All the stereotypes of small-town Kentucky that you've ever seen in books are not in this book--at least, not the way you've seen them before. The characters are dimensional and lovely, and almost nobody does what you think they might do. And yet, the story makes sense, beautifully, from beginning to end.  I was especially pleased that, in this book, "church" and "belief" and "religion" are not weapons used to clobber non-conforming kids.  May it be ever so in the real world.

This may be the best book I've read in 2018.  Highly recommended for readers ages 12 to adult. Some kissing and cussing on the page. Also some praying, some square dancing, a broken bone, and Batman.

Dress Codes for Small Towns

Dress Codes for Small Towns  by Courtney Stevens

The story starts with the night that Billie McCaffrey and her best friends accidentally burn down the church youth room. 

That sentence leads you to think some things about Billie and her friends, and those thoughts would probably be inaccurate. Preacher's kid Billie has a good relationship with God, a strained relationship with her dad, a rocky relationship with the church people, and a confusing relationship with her friends.

Billie's friend Janie Lee might be in love with their other friend Woods, which is confusing because Billie might also be in love with Woods...or with Janie Lee. Or maybe Davey? She really isn't sure. But she's pretty sure what the church people think of her.

She might be wrong.

All the stereotypes of small-town Kentucky that you've ever seen in books are not in this book--at least, not the way you've seen them before. The characters are dimensional and lovely, and almost nobody does what you think they might do. And yet, the story makes sense, beautifully, from beginning to end.

This may be the best book I've read all year. Highly recommended for readers ages 12 to adult. Some kissing and cussing on the page. Also some praying, some square dancing, a broken bone, and Batman.

The Pearl Thief

The Pearl Thief  by Elizabeth Wein

15 year old Julia Beaufort-Stuart knows that her life is about to change in many ways:  the family estate has been sold to pay debts.  This will be the family's last summer spent at the old castle--and they will be surrounded by workers and strangers busily changing over the traditional home into a boarding school.

Even so, Julie never expected to get banged on the head and left for dead by the side of the river.

Part coming-of-age story, part murder mystery, part historical tale, part exploration of the culture of Scottish Travellers ("gypsies" is an impolite term), this book is a page turner from beginning to end.  It is also, astute readers will note, a prequel to this author's award-winning Code Name Verity, and many of the scenes in Pearl Thief add light to scenes and situations in the other book.  

Highly, highly recommended.  I am perishing to hear the audio version.

The Girl From Everywhere

The Girl from Everywhere  by Heidi Heilig

I'm one of those readers who always skips over the maps embedded in books.  But to skip the maps in this book would be a big mistake.  The maps aren't just illustrations:  they are part of the story.

Nix was born in Honolulu around 1868 but she has spent her life on board her father's sailing ship Temptation, sailing across the world, across time, and across mythology itself.  She has seen magic and collected mythical artifacts like the caladrius bird that can cure any illness, sky herring from the clouds above legendary Skandia, and a bottomless bag that will carry anything, of any size.  

As long as the captain has a map for it, he can sail the ship to any place or time, real or imagined.

However, the combination of the captain's opium addiction and his obsession with Nix's dead mother are bound to take the Temptation into trouble.  If he succeeds with his goal of revisiting Hawaii before Lin's death, he might even erase Nix's entire life.

With a strong female narrator, a terrific premise, and a fabulous setting ("everywhere!"), this story is sure to be a hit with readers who enjoy a ripping adventure through mythology and history.  With a little less action (and much less blood) than either Bloody Jack (L.A. Meyer) or Pirates (Celia Rees), this book will still appeal to fans of both. There are a few intimate scenes but no body parts on stage--is there Star Trek Sex or not?  If so, it's pretty subtle. The reader will have to decide.

The audiobook, adeptly read by Kim Mai Guest, kept me in the truck and making excuses to drive places so I could listen.

Highly recommended.

Learning to Swear in America

Learning to Swear in America  by Katie Kennedy

Apparently, it's difficult to calculate how much stuff from space lands on Earth in an average year.  But in Learning to Swear in America, there's only one object that anybody worries about. 

Asteroid BR1019 is a big one.  Not kill-the-dinosaurs big, (probably), but destroy-the-West-Coast-of-America big (possibly).  That's why NASA has borrowed Russian teen physics prodigy Yuri Strelnikov:  in the hope that Yuri can save California with math.

Yuri's research in antimatter will win the next Nobel Prize (presumably), but he is still a seventeen-year-old boy and the NASA scientists are disinclined to listen to him.  That's enough to drive Yuri to use obscenities, if only he knew how.

With help from hippie-girl Dovie (who declines his offer of quick sex before the world goes cold) and her brother Lennon (who sees the world clearly from his seat in a wheelchair), Yuri learns how to swear.  

And then, Yuri (maybe) has a chance to save the world (or at least, California).

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  An excellent pair for The Martian by Andy Weir with (significantly) fewer cuss words.

Reckless (series)

Reckless  by Cornelia Funke

Jacob Reckless is 12 years old when he discovers the secret in his father's abandoned study:  a mirror that can transport him into a magical world of fairies, witches, dwarves and shapeshifters.  He spends  twelve years exploring and exploiting the magic, and thinks less and less often of his sickly mother and lonely younger brother...until the day that younger brother Will finds the mirror portal and immediately falls into trouble in the Mirrorworld.

German author Cornelia Funke's skillful blend of traditional magic tropes (child-eating witches, enchanted apples, princesses spelled to sleep until kissed awake) and fantastically horrible original creatures fills the quest to save Will from certain doom with a dark (very dark) charm.  

This series was originally cataloged and shelved with the children's collection at KCLS; on review, the series will be shifted to the teen collection due to adult characters, somber themes, blood and violence, and references to sexual situations in later volumes.  It is much darker and more violent than this author's Inkheart series...and it is possibly a stronger story because of the darkness.

Highly recommended for ages 12 to adult.  

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl  by Jesse Andrews

Senior Greg Gaines has planned out his last year at Benson High School:  he's going to keep an insanely low profile, make lousy films, and survive until June.

It's good to have a plan.  A plan makes excellent traction when you crumple it up and drive over it.

And that is, essentially, what happens Greg's plan.  His mom greets him at the end of Senior Year Day 1 and tells him that Rachel has cancer, and that he, Greg, will go and befriend her.

If this was a regular book about cancer, Greg and his friends and family would learn a touching lesson about the sweetness of life and the bitterness of death.  If this was a book by John Green you would need three boxes of tissues just to face the world after the final page.

But it isn't.  Here are a few lines from the final chapter, just to give you a taste of the narrative voice:

...doesn't mean I'll be making a film out of this book.  There is no way in hell that is going to happen.  When you convert a good book to a film, stupid things happen.  God only knows what would happen if you tried to convert this unstoppable barf-fest into a film.  The FBI would probably have to get involved.  There's a chance you could consider it an act of terrorism....

Greg's sarcastic, self-deprecating voice throughout the story rings true to anyone who has ever been a teen--or even spoken to a teen lately.  However, Earl nearly steals the show several times.  I won't quote any lines from Earl, partly because I don't want to spoil the fun of reading Earl in context, and partly because he cusses so much that every other word would be bleeped.  And that is absolutely all I will say about Earl, except maybe this:

Great story, great characters, buckets of cussing and talking about sexual situations, but no bare skin except sometimes the bald head of Rachel, which looks (according to Greg and Earl) like Darth Vader when he takes his helmet off:  "insanely white, like it had been boiled, and sort of veiny and lumpy."  Not exactly an erotic image, but hey:  cancer isn't very pretty.

Oh, and by the way:  there is a movie. 

 And according to folks at Sundance, the movie didn't totally suck.

Carry On

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

• A boy magician, identified at age 11 as "the Chosen One" and taken away to a magical British school
• A series of books about the boy and his friends as they battle the enemy of all Wizard-kind
• Lots of magic, magical creatures, action, adventure, mystery, and good vs evil

You know the boy I'm talking about, right?  Yes!  It's Simon Snow!

Wait.  What?

Simon Snow's evil roommate Baz says that Simon is probably the worst Chosen One ever chosen, and he's probably right.  Most of the time Simon doesn't know what his magic is going to do...if it does anything.  His magic wand is a hand-me-down, his spell casting is capricious, and although the Sword of Mages comes to his hand sometimes when he needs it, it's never reliable.

And then there's Baz:  rich.  pale.  mysterious.  wicked.  and a vampire.

Wait.  What?

The reader joins Simon and Baz mid-story, after they have already survived adventures in six other books fighting chimeras, goblins, bone-teeth hunters...and each other.  Unlike that other series of books about a boy magician in a magical school, this series has never been written.  And Carry On isn't the series itself either, it's a fan-fiction novel.

Keep up, will you?

Only Rainbow Rowell could write a fanfic salute to a series that she invented as a "prop" for a different novel...and only Rainbow Rowell would start by writing the end of the story but not the beginning!

And just wait until you get to the romance between Simon and XXXXXXXX    ....oops.  Sorry, no spoilers here.

Fast-paced adventure and a flawed hero with flawed friends, awesome love story and terrific world-building.  

Highly recommended.

The Nightingale

The Nightingale  by Kristin Hannah

WWII is on, the Nazis have invaded, and France is occupied.  Elder sister Vianne is committed to surviving and to keeping her daughter safe.  Younger sister Isabelle is outraged, and determined to join the Résistance and beat the Germans.  The siblings rarely agree and are separated by time and politics for almost the entire duration of the conflict.

The point is made several times during the story that "war stories" are almost always about (and told by) men, and that the Nazis often overlooked the role of women in warfare, sometimes to the tremendous detriment of the Third Reich. 

Not everything goes well, of course.  Some of the wrong people are taken away, some of the characters that readers attach to come to grievous harm.  Very few of the characters would be objectively considered "good people"...and yet, the details of their lives are so compelling that the book is difficult to put down.

Written for adult audiences but with plenty of teen appeal, especially for readers of Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire.  Sexual situations are mostly off-page, but some of the violence (and torture) is not.

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult, and especially for book discussion groups.

Mechanica

Mechanica  by Betsy Cornwell

Nicolette is an inventor of amazing tools and toys, just like her mother before her.  

Oppressed by her selfish "Steps," she spends days cooking, cleaning and sewing, and spends her evenings in the magical hidden workshop left behind by her mother, where she builds gadgets to help her with the daily tasks.  But when the king announces a spectacular Exposition and Gala (with accompanying ball to seek a prospective wife for the Prince), Nicolette emerges from her sooty basement to grasp at the opportunity.

This recasting of the traditional Cinderella story is delightfully constructed, with nods to a fairy godmother, a magical coach, and the essential glass slipper...but with an unexpected twist.  And perhaps a sequel?  We can hope!

Fans of Cinder will demand this similar but unique tale.  And they will join us in demanding a second book. 

Recommended for ages 12 to adult.

The Martian

The Martian  by Andy Weir

audiobook ready by  R.C. Bray

Everybody figured that Mark Watney was dead.  The Martian astronaut's space suit was pierced by a flying piece of equipment during a sandstorm.  The suit erroneously reported that his vital signs were flat, and nobody could figure out where his body had fallen.  So the crew of Aries III left the Red Planet without him.

But Mark isn't dead.  Not yet.  He might die of starvation, or of carbon dioxide poisoning.  He might get lost on the surface with no way to find his way back to the equipment that will help him survive.  He might even die of loneliness or despair.

But he isn't dead yet.  

Apollo 13 meets MacGyver meets Robinson Crusoe in a fast-paced and believable survival story.  The audiobook read by R.C. Bray skillfully portrays the voices of a widely diverse cast of character--not just Mark Watney on Mars, but also the Aries III crew, the politicians at home in Washington, the team leaders at NASA, the orbital science geeks at JPL, and more.

Be aware that the narrative contains a sh*tload of cussing. If you were stranded alone on Mars, you'd probably cuss too.  

Highly recommended.  This book is not written for teen readers but will have lots of teen appeal, especially when the film starring Matt Damon is released in October 2015.

Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park  by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor is "that kid" -- the girl with the weird clothes, the weird hair, the weird family.  She will never, ever fit it to the crowd at her 1986 Nebraska high school.

The first day on the bus, the only seat available is next to Park--the only "Asian kid" she's ever known.  And he won't talk to her.

Inevitably, perhaps, the two fall in love.  Deeply, beautifully, and star-crossedly in love.

John Green, author of Fault in Our Stars​ gave the book a dazzling review.  A few parents in the Anoka-Hennepin district (Minnesota) called it dangerously obscene.  

Read it for yourself.  It's not a fast-moving, explosive, car chasing love story.  

It's the other kind.

I hope you like it as much as I did.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven  by Emily St. John Mandel

On an ordinary, snowy Toronto night, 8-year-old Kirsten Raymonde is onstage watching a famous actor playing King Lear die of a heart attack.

Three weeks later, almost everyone else present in the theatre that night is dead of a virulent mutant Swine Flu.

Four weeks later, almost everyone else in the world is dead of the virus.

Fifteen years later, the Earth is only sparsely populated by survivors of the virus and the social collapse that followed.

Kirsten is one of the survivors.  Twenty years after the flu epidemic, Kirsten is a member of the Traveling Symphony, a ragtag group of musicians and actors on a never-ending tour of the surviving settlements, performing Bach, Beethoven, and Shakespeare because, as the motto written on the first caravan says, "Survival is insufficient"  (a quote borrowed from "Star Trek: Voyager)

This is not a gentle apocalypse.  Some survivors have banded together in peaceful villages.  Others are drawn to Doomsday cults.  Some cling desperately to the glorious history of humanity, telling whispered tales of flying machines, air conditioning, and antibiotics.  Others eschew the past, wanting to spare their children the ugliness of the now-gone world.

The tale bounces back and forth along the timeline, from pre-apocalypse to various points in the collapse, which might be confusing but isn't.  Throughout the novel, the lasting power of art and literature lend small amounts of grace and strength to the characters. From Sartre's "Hell is other people" to Miranda's "Brave new world, that has such people in’t," this novel will deeply affect the way readers view their technology-enhanced world...and each other.

Although written and marketed as a book for adults, this story is highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  Sexual situations are tactfully off-stage, violence is on-stage but not gory.