When Books Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Real

BOOK REPORT for You Look Different In Real Life by Jennifer Castle

Cover Story: Depressed Big Face
BFF Charm: Eventually
Swoonworthy Scale: 5
Talky Talk: Dessen Disciple
Bonus Factors: The Up Series, Diversity
Relationship Status: I'm Here To Make Friends

Cover Story: Depressed Big Face

Hey there, Big Face. Look, I'm sure you're exhausted from all of the covers you've graced, and it's easy to feel low when you're tired. But that's no reason to give up hope! Maybe one day soon, a publisher will decided to zoom out and include your whole ...

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Witchcraft, Family Secrets, and a Great Historical Heroine

July 1778, Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania: A group of American militiamen—one of them carrying a heavy leather satchel—is captured by British soldiers. The satchel-bearer escapes and leaves the rest of his regiment behind, since the mission he’s been entrusted with trumps everything else. Unfortunately for him, one of his compatriots is considerably less honorable: Sergeant Anders is stabbed and left for dead in a miserable swamp, and Private Silas Clayton makes off with the satchel, which is never seen again....

June 1867, Catawissa, Pennsylvania: 17-year-old Verity Boone returns to her hometown after her mother’s death 15 years ...

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The Only ‘Rules of Summer’ You Need: Love, Fun and Friendship

BOOK REPORT for Rules of Summer by Joanna Philbin

Graded By: Mandy Wan

Cover Story: Baby Got Back

BFF Charm: Stuart Smalley and Yay

Swoonworthy Scale: 6

Talky Talk: Easy Breezy Senses Working Overtime

Bonus Factors: Odd Couple, Friendship, Crazy Rich People

Relationship Status: This Just Can’t Be Summer Love

Cover Story: Baby Got Back

That is...quite the flourish on that title. And I guess that’s supposed to be Rory, though I don’t recall her ever just lounging on the beach. But is this a thing now—messy haired reverse big face? Anyway, this cover is ...

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The Teenagers' 'Really Awesome Mess' of Life

Emmy, on how she found herself at Heartland Academy: I was told I could return to school once seven days was up and I issued an apology to me so horny-singing Danny Schwartz. Naturally, I declined. So then they declined to let me back in.

Of ...

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Reviewing Humility

Book Expo America, which was held last week in New York City, was a typically kaleidoscopic event for me. I shook hands with Jerry Pinkney, Caldecott-winning illustrator of The Lion & the Mouse, and then, starstruck, lost all powers of speech. I chatted with Printz winner Paolo Bacigalupi, author of Ship Breaker, about a couple of essays he wrote for Kirkus last year about “The Invisible Dystopia” and “Straight-Laced Dystopias,” on the absence of LGBTQ characters in the current glut of dystopian romances. I listened to a fascinating conversation between distinguished illustrators Paul O. Zelinsky and Étienne Delessert about Maurice Sendak ...

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'In Too Deep' Maybe Not Deep Enough

Fifteen-year-old Annie Fleet is the daughter of a high school teacher and the owner of a dive shop, and she is only able to attend the prestigious (and expensive) Pinedale Academy—the population of which runs more to the rich and beautiful than the salty and sun-bleached—because her father is a member of the faculty.

She started using a metal detector at a young age, and since she’s been diving for practically as long, it only makes sense that she’d have the treasure bug. Which is how she ends up on a school trip to Mexico: Sure ...

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Sarah Dessen Gives Us Some Summer Lovin'

BOOK REPORT for The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Cover Story: Tampon Ad

BFF Charm: Eventually

Swoonworthy Scale: 6

Talky Talk: Dessentastic

Bonus Factors: Colby, Real Characters

Relationship Status: Summer Lovin'

Cover Story: Tampon Ad

When it comes to book covers, Sarah Dessen has suffered through more than her fair share of soft pastels and headless girls. After her publisher repackaged all of her books last year, I was relieved to see that none of them looked like brochures on "Your Changing Body." Things in the artwork department seemed to be improving...until I saw this cover.

"Want the ...

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YA With Real Science

At the risk of bringing unwelcome attention to just how very little I paid attention in my high school science classes*, one of my favorite things about Christian Schoon’s Zenn Scarlett is that it—like John Barnes’ Losers in Space, which I also enjoyed immensely—is another entry on the short-but-rapidly-growing list of YA science fiction that reads like it is based in somewhat believable science, rather than in magic disguised as science. Meaning that Schoon makes a real effort to have the details of his title character’s life on Mars sound scientifically plausible.

Or at least plausible ...

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Throw Out Every Other Angel Book You've Read

BOOK REPORT for Outcast by Adrienne Kress

Cover Story: Leader Of The Pack

BFF Charm: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

Swoonworthy Scale: 9

Talky Talk: 2 Legit 2 Quit

Bonus Factors: The Bayou, Scoobies, Cliff Huxtable Award For Awesome Parenting, MLD

Relationship Status: Head Over Heels

Cover Story: Leader Of The Pack

Okay, so the angel wings are a little too girly for my taste, but the fact that they're outlined in the stars is pretty cool. Plus there's the Spanish Moss, and the couple on the motorcycle had me singing The Shangri-Las. Vroom-vroom.

The Deal:

The ...

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Star-Crossed Instalovers

Last week at Bookshelves of Doom, I wrote about Elizabeth Richards’ Black City, a sci-fi/paranormal dystopian that reads like a mash-up of Legend, Twilight, The Hunger Games and the Blood of Eden series: Two teenagers, one of the vampire variety, fall in instalove (Twilight) but their love is tragically star-crossed because they’re on opposing sides in an ongoing political conflict. The girl realizes that she’s on the wrong side, however, so she joins the resistance with her guy and they alternate narration to tell the story of how (Legend) one of them becomes the symbol of the ...

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Capital-B Belief

I was raised by an atheist so staunch that I didn’t pick up on the Christian allegory in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books until I re-read them in college. So for me, Aaron Hartzler’s memoir Rapture Practice was—pardon the pun—a revelation*.

I’m not exaggerating, though: Capital-b Belief is something that I have immense respect for, but I’ve never felt like I’ve succeeded in completely wrapping my mind around it. Maybe it’s one of those You Know It If You Feel It things? But this book, despite the vastly different life experience that ...

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Forever YA: Teenage Hormones and 'September Girls'

BOOK REPORT for September Girls by Bennett Madison

Cover Story: Gorgeous

BFF Charm: Eventually

Swoonworthy Scale: 3

Talky Talk: Subversive

Bonus Factors: Mermaids, Beach Summer

Relationship Status: Honeymoon Stage

Cover Story: Gorgeous

This is an underwater cover I can totally get behind. It's spooky and dark, and the murky light shining up from the deep rather than down from the surface is sinister, rather than hopeful. One figure in the kiss is reaching out to the other, and it could be romantic, or just a little bit scary.

The Deal:

The summer after Sam's mom takes off to ...

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A Debut with a Flair for the Grotesque

Although I write about YA books almost exclusively in this column, I do, extremely occasionally—the last time was in 2011, for David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary—branch out. As I’m a huge sucker for stories about boarding schools for prodigies—geniuses, criminals, musicians, you name it—I’m making one of my rare exceptions for M. M. Vaughan’s middle-grade debut.

According to The Ability, 12-year-olds have a special gift: They can use 100% of their brain, which allows for accelerated learning and, in some very special cases, abilities like telekinesis and telepathy. During World War ...

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There Will Be Blood…and Aliens

Any notion of friendly alien encounters is chucked to the fire with Rick Yancey’s new young-adult sci-fi thriller, The 5th Wave. A looming spaceship appears in the sky. It sits; it waits. Humans sit; they wait. Nothing much happens—no Others asking to be taken to our leader, just eerie quiet. Then, through four waves of extermination (elimination of electricity; tsunamis; plague; snipers), the Others strategically annihilate their only threat: humans. It becomes clear that these aliens aren’t on a close-encounter tour of goodwill; they mean to claim Earth as their own. As the Others hasten toward victory ...

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Forever YA: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your…Oh, Never Mind

BOOK REPORT for Towering by Alex Flinn

Cover Story: Fancy Dress Returns

BFF Charm: A World of No

Swoonworthy Scale: 0? I guess?

Talky Talk: Insufferable

Bonus Factor: Drug Rings

Anti-Bonus Factor: Literally Everything About This Book

Relationship Status: It’s Not Me; It’s You

Cover Story: Fancy Dress Returns

Oh, hey, Fancy Dress. I saw you everywhere I looked in 2012, but this is the first time I have seen your face in 2013. I was hoping that the New Year would bring about more book cover options, but I was clearly a sweet summer child. Fancy Dress ...

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YA Paranormal, Angst Free

When Isobel Brannick’s mother gives her her first solo assignment, Izzy can’t help feeling a bit insulted: After all, she’s a BRANNICK. As the youngest in a long line of monster hunters, she’s had training, training and more training, and she’s capable of dealing with stuff WAY MORE HARDCORE than a measly haunted high school. Sure, she recently almost got drained by a vampire, but there TOTALLY were extenuating circumstances! It wasn’t HER fault that he read her mind and distracted her by talking about the mysterious disappearance of her older sister! That would ...

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Young Emily Dickinson, Mystery Solver

I’m nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody too?

Fifteen-year-old Emily is only somewhat embarrassed when a handsome young stranger finds her lying in a field of wildflowers trying to convince a bee to land on her nose. He quickly sets her at her ease, though, and while they never exchange names—they call each other Mr. and Miss Nobody—it’s quite clear from the first moment that they are kindred spirits, and she very much looks forward to seeing him again soon.

A few days later, he is found dead in a nearby pond.

So begins Michaela ...

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A Close Encounter of the Awesome Kind

BOOK REPORT for The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Cover Story: Airport Thriller
BFF Charm: Double Trouble
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
Talky Talk: She Said, He Said EXTREME!
Bonus Factors: Aliens, The Apocalypse, Trust No One
Relationship Status: You Shook Me All Night Long

Cover Story: Airport Thriller

There is nothing embarrassing about this cover (which, in the YA genre, is something to celebrate), but there's nothing spectacular about it either. It looks exactly like any number of thrillers you might find in an airport newsstand, and that's a shame, because this cover should scream, "PICK ME! I AM ...

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'The Eternity Cure's Vampire Apocalypse

Since delivering her human companions to the only known safe haven for humans, vampire Allison Sekemoto has been traveling solo, searching for her sire and the sadistic creature who is holding him captive. As it has the same strengths and weaknesses of its predecessor, Julie Kagawa’s The Eternity Cure—book two in her Blood of Eden series, after The Immortal Rules—isn’t likely to win over any detractors, but it will very definitely please fans of the original.

Things that work:

The cinematic action. Kagawa’s wicked flair for this is evident from the very first scene, in ...

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Holy Shift

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