Calling the Circus Home

I never daydreamed about running off to join the circus. I’d like to say it was because I was too practical and even-keeled, but truth be told, it’s because I was too lazy. (Still am.) Even daydreaming about doing anything that could be termed “exercise”—the trapeze, the tightrope, shoveling elephant manure—was (is still) wholly unattractive to me. Reading about someone else doing it, though, is more than completely fine, so reading J. J. Howard’s debut That Time I Joined the Circus was an entirely enjoyable experience.

When Lexi Ryan’s father dies suddenly, she has ...

Read the full post >

'17 & Gone': An Elegy to All Who Are Lost

Going into Nova Ren Suma’s 17 & Gone, all I knew—beyond the basic premise, which sounded to me like Meg Cabot’s 1-800-Where-R-U series as imagined by Lisa McMann—was that it had been enjoying a decent of buzz. Buzz, in and of itself, doesn’t necessarily mean one thing or another: It can be born of genuine enthusiasm, but it can also be created by publicists. (For the former, see Grave Mercy; for the latter, the Theodore Boone series.)

The story begins with a missing person poster. Seventeen-year-old Lauren Woodman reads it, sees Abby Sinclair’s face, her ...

Read the full post >

Forever YA: Can You Paint with All the Colors of Madeleine?

BOOK REPORT for A Corner of White (The Colors of Madeleine: Book 1) by Jaclyn Moriarty

Cover Story: Sixth Doctor

BFF Charm: Eventually

Swoonworthy Scale: 2

Talky Talk: Music Video

Bonus Factors: The Lakehouse, Transcending Genres

Anti-Bonus Factor: Trilogy

Relationship Status: Sid and Nancy

Cover Story: Sixth Doctor

Well, at least this cover relates to the actual contents of the novel, which is more than I can say about many YA book covers. But man, if Madeleine doesn’t have a touch of the Sixth Doctor about her:

How is possible that she looks more insane than Colin Baker? But ...

Read the full post >

'The Holders': Paranormal Fare from Promising Teen Imprint

Earlier this year, I wrote about Soho’s new Teen imprint and how excited it has me. And my excitement continues! I’ve read two of their three titles—so far they’re batting a thousand—and I’m very much looking forward to next month’s Strangelets. (Blurbed by Robin Wasserman, no less: Be still, my heart!)

Soho Teen isn’t the only new teen imprint that has me doing a happy dance, though: Last September, Angry Robot launched Strange Chemistry, which is dedicated to “modern young-adult science fiction, fantasy and everything in between.” Like Soho Teen, they’re ...

Read the full post >

Forever YA: Life Doesn't Suck So Much

BOOK REPORT for Dear Life, You Suck by Scott Blagden

Cover Story: Totally Acceptable

Adoption Certificate: Heck Yes

Swoonworthy Scale: 5

Talky Talk: Splendiferous

Bonus Factors: Non-cloistered Nuns, Caretaker, The Little Ones

Relationship Status: A Surprisingly Awesome Date

Cover Story:  Totally Acceptable

It’s simple; it’s bold; it’s fun. This cover is definitely more on the Y scale of YA, but since it doesn’t feature two people kissing, a giant face, a giant eye, or anything that looks like a tampon ad in Seventeen magazine, it’s a damn miracle to me.

Plus, reading a book like ...

Read the full post >

'Being Henry David': A Search for Lost Identity at Walden Pond

Never in a zillion years would I have guessed that a novel that quoted heavily from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden would—could, even—be fast-paced. But, here I am, writing about Cal Armistead’s Being Henry David after reading the entire thing in a single sitting.

“The last thing I remember is now,” it begins. Which is a great hook, as well as being a completely accurate description of the narrator’s predicament: He opens his eyes, and he doesn’t know where he is, why he’s there, and most disturbing of all, who he is. Until he ...

Read the full post >

Future Past Perfect

Karen Healey's vision of the future in her third book for young adult readers, When We Wake, is a pretty depressing one. Houses built half underground, strict water rationing, the collection of human feces for compost (humanure) – these are all realities for the population of Australia in 2128. As is strident immigration control and rampant xenophobia. Habitable land is shrinking and people are anxious to maintain their share.

This is the world 16-year-old Tegan Oglietti wakes up to after 100 years of cryonic sleep. “I wanted to write a modern sleeping beauty story,” Healey says from her home in ...

Read the full post >

The Introspective Narrator from 'Under Shifting Glass'

When was the last time you read a book that reminded you of David Almond’s Skellig*? Pretty much never, right? Well, let me introduce you to Under Shifting Glass by Nicky Singer.

Jess Walton—no one calls her “Jessica” unless she’s in trouble—is about to go from only child to oldest sibling, from step-daughter to half-sister. She’s terrified, and not only because of her understandable-but-prosaic fears about how her family’s dynamics will change: She’s scared because, 19 weeks into her mother’s pregnancy, the doctors realized that the twin boys were conjoined. Since Jess ...

Read the full post >

Forever YA: 'Spellcaster' Cast Its Spell on Me

Read the full post >

The Entertaining Mystery at the Heart of 'Escape Theory'

Remember when Veronica Mars planted a bugged stapler in her school counselor’s office and then spent the rest of the episode listening in on all of the supposedly private sessions of her various suspects? That’s pretty much Margaux Froley’s Escape Theory in a nutshell, except that in Froley’s book, 16-year-old Devon Mackintosh is actually sitting in the counselor’s chair.

The book opens with the obituary of one Jason “Hutch” Hutchins, an (apparently) universally beloved young man who died of an (apparently) deliberate drug overdose.

The problem is, anyone who knew Hutch knows that both suicide ...

Read the full post >

The Queen of Quirk

Gail Carriger is the queen of quirk, if by quirky you mean highly imaginative, boldly authentic and deliciously unconventional. She holds master’s degrees in anthropology and archaeology and, until a few years ago, spent months at a time working as an excavator in places like Italy and Peru. Carriger is also the New York Times best-selling author of the genre-bending Parasol Protectorate series, books that place the words “steampunk,” “paranormal” and “romance” in the same breath.

Though some may consider her mix of genres peculiar, Carriger sees it as a logical progression that reflects where she’s been. “When ...

Read the full post >

Forever YA: 'Requiem' Gives Love a Bad Name

BOOK REPORT for Requiem (Delirium Book 3) by Lauren Oliver

Cover Story: The Garden of BIG FACE Will Not Die
BFF Charm: Platinum Downgrade
Swoonworthy Scale: -10/6
Talky Talk: She Said, She Said
Bonus Factors: Quest, Revolution
(Anti) Bonus Factor: Love Triangle
Relationship Status: Mild Case of Deliria

Cover Story: The Garden of Big Face Will Not Die

I can't believe I've found myself in the Garden of Big Face AGAIN. After encountering it on the cover of Pandemonium, I felt sure that the publisher would realize that this eyesore needed a total landscape overhaul. But no ...

Read the full post >

A Hero? Maybe. Role Model? Definitely.

One of the most inspiring stories to emerge from the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords on January 8, 2011 grew somewhat slowly in the national consciousness, about one of her young staff members named Daniel Hernandez who bravely helped Giffords survive the immediate aftermath of the attack. The story eventually emerged that Hernandez is gay and had had health and other problems he had to overcome already in his young life. Hernandez’s new young adult memoir, They Call Me a Hero: A Memoir of My Youth, was clearly created as a way for young people to find a role ...

Read the full post >

Bookshelves of Doom: 'Dualed' to the Death

If you’re looking for an upbeat, happy-go-lucky sort of read, you aren’t going to find it in Elsie Chapman’s Dualed. The cover art alone should make that abundantly clear, but if not, the first few pages will: It’s generally not a good sign when a 15-year-old’s funeral attire is well-worn. Or when she introduces herself by saying, “I’ve buried nearly everyone I love.”

Our heroine, West, lives in the walled city of Kersh. It’s lauded as the last “war-free zone” on the planet, but that’s not entirely true. Every resident has an ...

Read the full post >

Strange Shipwreck

I’ve had a copy of Gordon Dahlquist’s The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters on my To Be Read shelf for years. Literally. I haven’t been actively avoiding it—it sounds, after all, completely bananas in a super-fun way—but...you know how it is. There’s always something new and shiny to look at, and sometimes books get unfairly relegated to the Also Ran pile. When I saw that he’d written The Different Girl, a book for the teen audience, though, I snapped it right up.

For as long as she can remember, our narrator ...

Read the full post >

All the While the Slime Was Under the Building

BOOK REPORT for The Madness Underneath (Shades of London #2)  by Maureen Johnson

Cover Story: A For Effort
BFF Charm: Roger Murtaugh
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: Straight Up With a Twist
Bonus Factors: Ghosts, London, Creepy Old Insane Asylum
Relationship Status: Rebound

Cover Story: A For Effort

We love to complain about the horrendous covers that plague the YA genre, so when a publisher actually makes some progress, we give them their due credit. Congrats, Putnam! You have managed to completely surpass the artwork on the first Shades of London novel, which isn't saying much, but still, we ...

Read the full post >

'Shades of Earth': A Worthy Finale to a Smart Space Opera

A few weeks back, I mentioned how happy it made me that the second book in Beth Revis’ Across the Universe trilogy was just as good—if not better, actually—than the first. Now, after reading the last book in the trilogy, Shades of Earth, I can unreservedly state three things:

1. A Million Suns is still my favorite book in the series.

2. Even though it didn’t quite reach the heights of A Million Suns, Shades of Earth is a totally worthy finale to a space opera that is smart and thoughtful, fabulously entertaining and completely engrossing.

3 ...

Read the full post >

'How to Lead a Life of Crime' Is Dangerously Entertaining

BOOK REPORT for How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller

Cover Story: Step Up 2 This Cover

BFF Charm: Love

Swoonworthy Scale: 7

Talky Talk: Crafty

Bonus Factors: Mysterious Loner Dude, Boarding School, Battle Royale, The Illuminati

Relationship Status: Whirlwind Romance

Cover Story: Step Up 2 This Cover

Why yes, I AM referencing the greatest dance film of all time, Step Up 2: The Streets. The graffiti style and bright colors are straight out of the film's closing credits, which I may or may not have seen approximately 50 times. But dance movie comparisons aside, this ...

Read the full post >

Never Say Die!

Gregory Galloway’s The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand is not an easy book. I almost gave up on it a third of the way through, and as I’ve said, that’s a rarity for me. Despite the high-interest hook of the premise—16-year-old Adam Strand kills himself again and again, but keeps coming back to life—some readers will be put off by Adam himself. For almost a full 100 pages, Adam reads like a humorless nihilist, a person so disconnected with and disinterested in life that he makes Holden Caulfield look happy-go-lucky. While his voice might be ...

Read the full post >

All the Wrong Words

“This is an uncorrected proof. Reviewers are requested to check all quotations against the published edition.”

This or similar boilerplate appears in virtually all the books Kirkus Reviews works on. We—and many other media outlets—typically receive limited-run, prepublication advance copies of books that may still be in the copy-editing process. Reviewers know this, and we tend to read past obvious errors and typos, confident that they will be eliminated in the finished book.

I recall one book that for some reason doubled “St.” and rendered the historic capitol of Russia as “St. St. Petersburg.” Another was a British ...

Read the full post >