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YOU ARE NOT HERE

Name: YOU ARE NOT HERE
Author: Samantha Schutz
ISBN: 970-0-545-16911-0

by Samantha Schutz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2010

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“Death is a period / at the end of a sentence,” concludes Annaleah, the 16-year-old protagonist of Schutz’s captivating fictional follow-up to her verse memoir (I Don’t Want To Be Crazy, 2006). And much like the resolute finality fixed in that tiny dot, Annaleah spends a great deal of this free-verse novel stuck contemplating the harsh reality that her sometime boyfriend, Brian—a seemingly healthy, dark-haired, cloudy-blue–eyed 17-year-old—has just dropped dead on the basketball court. Reeling from both physical loss and lack of closure to the meaning of their clandestine relationship, Annaleah finds herself routinely visiting and addressing the deceased Brian, until a chance graveside encounter yields advice that finally begins to hit home: “Nothing grows here,” says Brian’s grandmother, “besides grass.” At first blush appearing to pull out all the melodramatic stops in classic teen fashion, these refreshingly spare lines tackle tough relational issues—intimacy, risk, abandonment—with aplomb, making for a moving tale that also effectively shows teens how life can go on. (Fiction/poetry. 14 & up)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010

ISBN: 970-0-545-16911-0

Page Count: 304

Publisher: PUSH/Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE MEPHISTO COVENANT

by Trinity Faegen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2011

The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates

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Debut author Faegen’s paranormal romance impels a celestial girl toward a dark paramour who embodies a purpose and a partner for all eternity.

Seeking her father’s killer, Sasha entertains the notion of joining a cultish secret society that mysteriously grants the wishes of initiates. It turns out renouncing God and pledging fealty to Eryx, a relation of the devil, is not in store for Sasha. In some inventive takes on the eternal good-versus-evil dichotomy, Sasha is part-angel, and Eryx has a troupe of brothers who nobly seek to thwart him, though they are also sons of Hell. Big, strong, long-haired and immortal, Jax is the brother who is fated to shack up with Sasha, should she forsake her mortality and enlist with the brothers in their mission. Much of what drives the story comes across as just plain arbitrary. Early on, Sasha’s mother is deported to Russia, and Sasha has to move to Colorado, where Jax lives, to reside with evil relations. It turns out Sasha is an adopted child with no clue who her real parents are, and by the time she agrees to sacrifice normalcy to join Jax forever, she has nothing to lose and no one to fall back on anyway. The dialogue partakes of an aggressively teen vernacular—"… major bummer that her aunt isn't just a lost soul, but a crazy-bitch lost soul"—but the narration seems to have a hard time finding its rhythm.

The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates . (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-60684-170-9

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Egmont USA

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE VISION

by Jen Nadol ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2011

Seventeen-year-old Cassie has accepted her ability to see impending death; she is a descendent of the mythological Fates....

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This dark, thoughtful sequel to The Mark (2010) eventually subverts practically every paranormal-romance cliché.

Seventeen-year-old Cassie has accepted her ability to see impending death; she is a descendent of the mythological Fates. Seeking guidance on this "gift," she leaves her small-town home and friends to immerse herself in a study of death, working at a funeral home, researching different spiritual traditions and visiting a young woman committed to psychiatric care after seeing the "Angel of Death." She also becomes involved with the supremely arrogant (and dangerously magnetic) Zander, who claims to have the answers about Cassie's purpose and destiny. Cassie is both mature and sensitive, ever conscious of the feelings of others and agonizingly aware of the consequences of her own choices, while retaining all the foibles and yearnings of a realistic teenager. If her school life and the multicultural Chicago setting are given short shrift, and most of the secondary characters remain opaque, that's because so much depth is given to Cassie's interior struggles. While it may frustrate some readers that her ethical quandary never receives a clear solution and so many plot threads remain dangling, others will respect her eventual acceptance of uncertainty.