Off the Shelf – December 22

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Christie

Some people make grocery lists, I make book lists. Students recommend things, other blogs and traditional reviews, good looking covers. If I don’t buy it immediately, I write it down. This is also the time of year when publishers start to promote new books and I am always on the lookout for the next great book.

Huffington Post recently published an article by young adult book blogger Lisa Parkin about the four next great young adult book trends. According to the article we’ll be seeing less dystopian and “sick lit” in the coming year and readers can be on the lookout for these trends.

Crimes and Cons: stories about characters on the wrong side of the law
Retellings: fairy tales with a YA twist…this isn’t a new trend exactly, but these types of stories are picking up traction
Quirky and moving: these are novels that feature memorable characters in unusual (but not out-of-this-world) situations
Dealing with loss: these are stories of teens dealing with loss of loved ones

You can read Parkin’s article and see her recommendations in each category here.

I could stay in my house and read non-stop for the next five years and still not finish all the physical books on my tbr pile, but that won’t stop me from adding these titles to the line-up.

All the Bright Places – Jennifer Niven

So, this book would fit into the “dealing with loss” category. It’s the story of Violet and Theodore who are both struggling with life when they meet on the edge of the bell tower at their school. And they end up saving each other. I’m really looking forward to this one.

A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me – Jason Schmidt, memoir

This book sounds intense. It’s the true story of a boy who has, from the sounds of things, grown up in a world of chaos and has known, from a very young age that what happens in his house must stay a secret. How does a good kid overcome a bad childhood – that’s the question this book asks and answers.

Playlist for the Dead – Michelle Falkoff

So a couple years ago Jay Asher’s novel 13 Reasons Why was a big hit and early reviews are saying that this is even better. I wasn’t actually a huge fan of Asher’s novel, but most of the teens I know who read it loved it and so I suspect this will be a big hit, too. It’s the story of a teenage boy named Sam who tried to understand why his best friend killed himself by listening to the playlist of songs he left behind.

Mosquitoland – David Arnold

So, this book is getting some serious buzz and was chosen as one of the American Booksellers Association’s Indies New Voices novels. It’s a road-trip story and everyone knows road trips are fertile literary ground. This one is about a girl who takes a bus from Mississippi to Ohio and meets some quirky characters and learns a lot about herself on the way. Sounds great.

It’s so important that young adults are able to see themselves in the characters of the books they read. Not everyone is beautiful or athletic or brilliant – some of us are mortal and have human failings and frailties. If books can show teens that there is hope and happiness and humour to be found, let’s let them find it.

What books, YA or otherwise, are you looking forward to reading in 2015?

Heading Out to Wonderful – Robert Goolrick

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Christie

I was a big fan of Robert Goolrick’s novel, A Reliable Wife, but I turned the last page of his second novel, Heading Out to Wonderful, this morning with le sigh. And not a good sigh.

Brownsburg, Virginia, 1948 is the setting of Goolrick’s novel. It was

the kind of town that existed in the years right after the war, where the terrible American wanting hadn’t touched yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they couldn’t have

Into this town comes Charlie Beale. He arrived in “a beat-up old pickup truck. On the seat beside him were two suitcases. One was thin cardboard and had seen a lot of wear and in it were all of Charlie Beale’s clothes and a set of butcher knives as sharp as razors.” The other suitcase is full of money.

Turns out that Charlie is not as dicey as he sounds, though. He quickly gets a job at the town butcher shop and soon ingratiated himself with the people of Brownsburg.

He cut the meat and charmed the ladies, one by one, but, more than charm, he treated every one, black and white, from the richest to the shoeless poorest, from dollars and dimes, with the same deference and shy kindness, and he won their hearts…

He makes good friends with Will, the man who owns the butcher shop, and Will’s wife, Alma, a school teacher. He becomes especially close to Will and Alma’s five-year-old son, Sam.

Charlie tells Will that he is ready to settle down, that he has been looking for “something wonderful.” Brownsburg, apparently, is it.

Or maybe the something wonderful is Sylvan. She’s the young wife of the town’s richest man, Boaty Glass. Sylvan is an uneducated girl who comes from the country (the reader will eventually find out how the repulsive Boaty landed such a beautiful wife) and dreams of being a movie star.

…she looked as though she had stepped into the shop from another part of the world…Her lips were a crimson slash, her hair pulled up in gleaming blonde waves on top of her head, held with tortoise-shell combs studded with rhinestones. Se wore dark sunglasses, a thing no other woman in town even thought to own, and espadrilles, tied with grosgrain ribbons around her ankles…

None of the other women speak to her, but Charlie can’t take her eyes off her and “she went off in his head and his heart like a firecracker.”

It is Charlie’s illicit relationship with Sylvan that makes up the bulk of the story. Sam, although only a child, plays a pivotal role.

Heading Out to Wonderful should work. I can’t quite figure out why it doesn’t. Perhaps it is because I never really felt like I understood either Charlie or Sylvan. The reader is never privy to Charlie’s past and so never clearly understands what motivates him. Where did all his money come from, for example? Why does he prefer to sleep outside on the ground?

Sylvan is, I think, something of a cold fish. Her only friend is Claudie, a black seamstress in town. Sure, I could chalk up her behavior to youth, but I just didn’t like her and so it was hard to root for the relationship between her and Charlie.

Goolrick is a great writer and for that reason, Heading Out to Wonderful was easy enough to read, but lots of things about this book irked me (Charlie’s younger brother turning up out of the blue, for example) and so I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it. Loads of other people/critics loved it, though.

Kiss Crush Collide – Christina Meredith

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Christie

kisscrushcollide Just once I’d like to see a girl go on a journey of self-discovery that isn’t instigated by the boy she meets. But essentially that’s what happens to Leah Johnson, youngest of a trio of golden girls in Christina Meredith’s YA novel Kiss Crush Collide. These are girls whose futures have all been mapped out by a cliché of a mother and a doting but passive father. Yorke, the eldest, is in college and planning a wedding to her boyfriend, Roger; Freddie is graduating from high school and heading off for a year in France; Leah is about to start her last high school summer before she, too, becomes (like her sisters before her) valedictorian and then on to bigger and better things.

But that all changes when Leah meets Porter at her family’s country club (yes, they’re that kind of family; they go to the country club on Friday night).

When he wrapped his fingers around mine, a warm current of electricity flowed through me. I felt suddenly solid, as if my world had been rolling past me and it had stopped right now, amazingly sharp and in focus as if I had just taken off my roller skates. I didn’t want to let go.

That’s the boy: green eyes, beautiful brown hair, penchant for stealing cars. He pushes/pulls Leah in ways that Shane (her perfect high school boyfriend) never has, so of course she wants him. She sneaks off with him on the very night she meets him and then can’t stop thinking about him.

I suspect that lots of girls in my class will like Kiss Crush Collide and that’s okay. There are lots of girl meets boy books out there, and this one sits pretty much in the middle of the pack. What has Leah learned from her seventeenth summer? How to drive her car (finally) and her life. Too bad it was a boy who taught her how to do both.

Silent to the Bone – e.l.konigsburg

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Christie

When thirteen-year-old Branwell’s baby sister ends up in a coma, Branwell stops talking and it’s up to his best friend, Connor, to figure out what really happened the day Nikki was hurt. That’s pretty much the plot of e.l. konigsburg’s YA novel, Silent to the Bone. Luckily, in konigsburg’s skillful hands, this story ends up being so much more than the sum of its parts.

I cannot explain why Branwell and I became friends. I don’t think there is a why for friendship, and if I try to come up with reasons why we should be friends, I can come up with as many reasons why we should not be. …Friendship depends on interlocking time, place and state of mind.

Connor is, in fact, a true-blue friend to Branwell. After Nikki is hurt, Branwell is sent to the Behavioral Center for observation. Connor visits him frequently and despite Branwell’s silence, Connor knows in his heart of hearts that Branwell did not hurt his baby sister.

Connor devises a genius way of communicating with Branwell based, in part, on Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In that book, a paralyzed man dictates his life story by blinking his left eye. Connor creates a series of flash cards using words he thinks might trigger a reaction. Slowly the true story of what happened to Nikki is revealed.

Silent to the Bone ended up on just about everyone’s “best” list including the ALA, New York Times and School Library Journal. One of the reasons, I think, is that the book is layered. There’s the central mystery of what happened to Nikki; there’s the complicated blended family relationships, there’s the love and petty jealousies that mark any solid friendship.

Branwell and Connor are believable characters. Connor’s older sister (from his father’s first marriage) helps Connor disseminate all the information he gathers from his visits with Connor. Connor is only a kid, sure, but he’s tenacious and smart and he is determined to figure out what really happened.

This is a great book for thoughtful readers.

A bookish alphabet…a to zed

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Christie

A. Author You’ve Read The Most Books From:

I am cheating a bit here and naming two authors. I read Stephen King voraciously as a teen and young adult…and then didn’t read anything by him for a couple decades until I picked up Joyland, which reminded me of why I read him in the first place: he’s awesome. I am looking forward to reading Revival, which sounds terrific. Carolyn Slaughter is probably the other author whose work I’ve tracked down relentlessly over the years based on her novel The Banquet, which remains one of my all-time favourite reads.

Stephen King: Joyland; Misery; Bag of Bones, On Writing; Cujo; It; ‘Salem’s Lot; Christine; The Shining; Firestarter; The Talisman; Carrie; Nightshift; Pet Sematary; Needful Things; The Dead Zone; Rose Madder; The Dark Half; Dolores Claiborne; Skeleton Crew; Danse Macabre; Gerald’s Game; Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Carolyn Slaughter: Story of the Weasel; Magdalene; Dreams of the Kalahari; The Banquet; A Perfect Woman; Before the Knife: Memories of an African Childhood

B. Best Sequel Ever:

ask and answer

I am brutal for starting series and not finishing them, except when it came to Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking series, which begins with the book The Knife of Never Letting Go. and continues with The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men, both of which I devoured in short order.

C. Currently Reading:

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes; When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

D. Drink of Choice While Reading: Tea

E. E-Reader or Physical Books:

Oh please. Physical books. My brother gave me a Kobo a couple Christmases ago and I still haven’t figured out how to work it.

F. Fictional Character You Would Have Dated In High School:

Some bad boy who is really good beneath the tough exterior. (I have a type; don’t judge me.) Lucas from Easy comes to mind.

G. Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

The Book Thief I know, it seems ridiculous considering how much I love this book but in the beginning…not so much.

H. Hidden Gem Book:

It’s amazing how many books get published each year to little or no fanfare. I don’t know enough about the publishing world to understand why mediocre books get all the bells and whistles and books like Lauren B. Davis’s riveting novel Our Daily Bread, despite being shortlisted for the Giller, barely made a blip on the literary landscape. I only discovered it by accident and I am so glad I did. Read this book!

I. Important Moments of Your Reading Life:

I find the moments that I bond with my students over books the most meaningful. I love it when they discover books because of my recommendations. I also love it when they offer suggestions to me – although it doesn’t always work out. (John Dies at the End!)

J. Just Finished:
Love Remains by Glen Duncan

K. Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:
Straight up Science Fiction.

L. Longest Book You’ve Read:
Probably Stephen King’s It, which clocks in at over 1000 pages and I loved every single moment I spent with those characters.

M. Major Book Hangover Because Of:

I don’t know what this means. Does it mean books that I can’t stop thinking about? Or books that drove me crazy? I dunno.

N. Number of Bookcases You Own:

lr shelves

I have beautiful built ins thanks to my brother, Tom. He also built me a nice set of shelves for behind my couch. Plus, let’s not forget the TBR shelf, which you can see in this post. I have a really nice IKEA bookshelf, too, but it is currently being used for a non-book purpose.

O. One Book That You Have Read Multiple Times:

I have read Kristin McCloy’s novel Velocity multiple times. I bought the book at the Strand in NYC probably the summer of 1984 and I’ve read it every couple of years since. Maybe it’s time to revisit and write a review, since I talk about it so much.

P. Preferred Place to Read:

Reading is the last thing I do before I turn off my light – so in bed. But I’ll read just about anywhere, though maybe not as comfortably.

Q. Quote From A Book That Inspires You:

“Imagine the sense of peace that comes from knowing you’re in control of your life.” Gail Vaz-Oxlade, Debt-Free Forever

R. Reading Regret:

I don’t really have too many reading regrets – maybe that I don’t have all my childhood books. Or maybe that sometimes I do other pointless stuff when I should be reading.

S. Series You Started and Need to Finish:
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins…seriously. Also Ilsa Bick’s Ashes and Kelley Creagh’s Nevermore

T. Three Of Your All-Time Favourite Books:

This is like asking a mother to choose her favourite child, you know that, right?

Velocity – Kristin McCloy

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

A Little Princess – France Hodgson Burnett

U. Unapologetic Fangirl For:

Ryan Gosling. Enuf said. (Oh, okay, an actual writer – John Green. Love him and everything he stands for.)

V. Very Excited For This Release More Than Any Other:

This is not something I follow because I don’t run out and buy books as soon as they come out.

W. Worst Bookish Habit:
Buying way more books than I can possibly read in the time left in my hourglass.

X. Marks The Spot (Start On Your Bookshelf And Count to the 27th Book):
(I used my tbr shelf for this instead of my books read shelf) – Best Friends by Thomas Berger

Y. Your Latest Book Purchase:
The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes…let’s not talk about the box of YA books I received via Bookoutlet this week.

Z. ZZZ-Snatcher (last book that kept you up WAY late):

Probably The Fault in Our Stars I was bawling into my pillow at 3 a.m. On a school night!

Living Dead Girl – Elizabeth Scott

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Christie

Elizabeth Scott’s 2008 YA novel Living Dead Girl garnered a lot of praise when it was published. Voted Best Book by the American Library Association, Voya Editor’s Choice and Teen Reads Best book in 2008, among others, Living Dead Girl seemed to be on everyone’s radar when it came out. In 2008 I was just returning to teaching after many years doing other stuff. I wasn’t reading a lot of teen fiction and I’d never heard of the book. Now that I am back in the classroom I spend a lot of time researching YA fiction in an effort to stock my classroom library with books that will appeal to my students. At just 170 pages, this riveting novel will certainly appeal to mature readers.

Alice was abducted by Ray just before her tenth birthday. For five years he has held her captive, physically, sexually and mentally abusing her.

Once upon a time, I did not live in Shady Pines.

Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I did not know how lucky I was.

Alice is fifteen now. She has been Ray’s prisoner for so long she no longer even dreams of escape even though she is left alone all day while Ray goes to work. She has been taught from a young age that if she does run away, Ray will return to Alice’s home and kill her parents. Even though Alice can barely remember the girl she was before, she know that she has no choice but to protect her parents. She knows what happened to the Alice before her.

…I keep waiting for Ray to tire of me. I am no longer short with dimpled knees and frightened eyes…I am 15 and stretched out, no more than 100 pounds. I can never weigh more than that. It keeps my breasts tiny, my hips narrow, my thighs the size Ray likes.

Half starved (she seems to live on yogurt), Alice’s days consist cleaning and watching soap operas as she waits for Ray to get home. Although the abuse is not described in detail, enough is alluded that readers will be left feeling very uncomfortable.

The thing is, you can get used to anything. You think you can’t, you want to die, but you don’t. You won’t. You just are.

Living Dead Girl is almost relentlessly grim, but it’s the kind of book that you just can’t put down. I doubt I will forget Alice anytime soon.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Christie

Thank goodness for Holly Black — she’s put the bite back into vampire fiction. If you’ve been playing the home game, you’ll know that Stephenie Meyer pretty much took fangs and sex out of the vampire equation with her hugely popular Twilight series. I didn’t hate the first book, but it went downhill fast afterwards. I loved The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. The prose sparkles, but the vampires don’t, so it’s win-win for lovers of vampire fiction.

Tana woke lying in a bathtub.

It doesn’t take very long for Tana and the reader to realize that something just isn’t right. Tana had been attending a sundown party and had locked herself in the bathroom to avoid her ex boyfriend, Aidan. Exiting the bathroom the morning after, Tana is aware of the quiet.

She’d been to plenty [of sundown parties], and the mornings were always full of shouting and showers, boiling coffee and trying to hack together breakfast from a couple of eggs and scraps of toast.

What Tana finds instead, as she moves through the house which smells of spilled beer and “something metallic and charnel-sweet,” are the bodies of her classmates “their bodies pale and cold, their eyes staring like rows of dolls in a shop window.” And we’re only on page five, people!

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown takes the best parts of standard vampire mythology and ups the ante. The vampires in this book are rock stars, revered and coveted. Black builds a mythology that is believable. Patient zero in Black’s world is Caspar Morales, a vampire who decided that he wouldn’t kill his victims, he’d infect them instead. Essentially, you’re bitten by a vampire, you’re infected, or Cold.

If one of the people who’d gone Cold drank human blood, the infection mutated. It killed the host and then raised them back up again, Colder than before. Cold through and through, forever and ever.

Pretty soon, the government has no choice but to barricade the infected people (and the wannabes) in places called Coldtowns. People who suspect that they are infected must, by law, turn themselves in. And once you’re in a Coldtown, there’s no getting out.

As Tana comes to terms with the fact that her friends are dead, she discovers that Aidan is, in fact, not. He’s been bungee corded to a bed and chained beside him is a vampire boy, a boy who “must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was.”

This is Gavriel. He is everything a vampire should be: dangerous, cunning, tortured and impossible to resist. (Okay, maybe I am just a little bit fixated on my personal notion of a vampire here, but Gavriel ticks all the vampire ticky boxes for me. )

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is so good. Tana is smart and resourceful and brave. The book builds a world that is believable and terrifying. It is a world that just is. The book isn’t scary, but it is definitely a page-turner. The descriptions of vampirism are bloody and sensual (without being over-the-top, so there’s nothing sexually graphic).

I raced to the end, concerned for all the characters and their fates. Should there be a sequel? Black had this to say on her website:

Coldest Girl in Coldtown was written as a stand-alone. That said, I know what happens next, and maybe someday you will too. Right now, as with Curse Workers, I’m happy with where I left everyone. I’m sure they’ll be fine. Right?

I’m good with that.

Highly recommended.

Off the Shelf – CBC Radio

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Christie

So I did my second book column on CBC Radio this morning.

Listen to it here.

Here’s what I prepared for the talk about scary books.

Literary historian J. A. Cuddon defines the horror story as “a piece of fiction which creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is usually supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.” One of the first horror novels was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, 1764 – probably not going to get too many young people reading that one today.

R.L. Stine is probably the best known writer of horror novels for the middle grader. He’s the author of all the Goosebumps books and then went on to write Fear Street, a series of over 150 titles for older teens. To date he’s sold over 400 million books, so I guess the proof is in the gloopy pudding.

Teenagers love to be scared. No one knows that better than Stephen King, who’s made a career out of scaring us. King said: “horror stories allow us to safely vent our “uncivilized emotions…lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath. In addition, for some young people, reading a scary story can be a rite of passage, a way of earning bragging rights: “That didn’t scare me!”

Heart-pounding, palms-sweating, doors locked, lights on – who doesn’t love a good scare? It’s like riding a rollercoaster, thrilling, scary, but ultimately safe. A really good book can creep you out way more than a movie – where the scary stuff is often in your face and you become desensitized. A good scary book can be way more unsettling.

So – in honour of Halloween, here’s a list of my favourite scary books.

I’m going to talk about some of the books in the genre geared for Young Adults – plus one.

First off – here’s a quick guide:

If you want to read a book about vampires – definitely check out Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Cold Town.

If you want to read a book about werewolves, check out NB writer Kathleen Peacock’s novel Hemlock.

If you want to read a book about zombies, I highly recommend Ilsa J Bick’s series, Ashes.

If you want to read a book about a ghost hunter, check out Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Now for a closer look at some of my recent scary reads.

Nevermore – Kelly Creagh

It sounds like your typical good girl, bad boy set up…but this book is awesome and super creepy. Isobel is a popular cheerleader who gets partnered up with Varen the goth kid (of course he’s a goth kid with a name like that!) to work on a project about Edgar Allan Poe. There’s your clue right there that things are going to take a seriously gothic turn and they do. I mean Poe’s the granddaddy of creepy and Creagh makes good use of his personal story. Fans of Poe will eat this book up, but even if you’re not a fan or know very much about him, you’ll get gooseflesh reading about the truly nightmarish world and Pinfeathers, the character who inhabits it. There’s a sequel, too, called Enshadowed.

Through the Woods – Emily Carroll

I just read this one last week. It’s a collection of short stories written by Canadian author and illustrator, Emily Carroll. I don’t know anything about art, but I can say that the art in this book is really striking, the colours are kind of menacing. Can you say that about a colour? Anyway – these are stories about dark places and strangers and people who are not whom they seem. The first story is about three girls who live with their father in the woods and one day he leaves them to go hunting and tells them, if I’m not back in three days, head to the neighbours. Of course he doesn’t come back, and then the narrator’s two sisters disappear and the ending will just give you goose bumps. You could certainly read the five stories contained in this volume in one sitting, but I think it’s the sort of book you’ll want to revisit again and again – especially at this time of year.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

Fifteen-year-old Jake Portman has a special relationship with his grandfather, who has always been a teller of tales. Thing is, his tales are pretty fantastic and concern children who could fly or make themselves invisible. When his grandfather is killed, Jake goes to Wales to visit the orphanage that his grandfather was sent to during the war and finds out the stories might actually be true. The book is full of pretty dang creepy pictures culled from private collections, but the story itself is magical with a side of monsters.

Plus one.

I had a student a couple of years ago who insisted he’d never been frightened by a book. I promised him that I could remedy that and gave him Stephen King’s novel, It. Okay, anyone around in the 1970s will remember the miniseries starring Richard Thomas aka John Boy Walton and that clown, Pennywise. “They all float down here.” Stephen King is the king (pun intended) of making everyday things scary. He’s also really excellent at tapping into childhood fears – something all great horror fiction does – and nobody captures adolescence quite like he does. I don’t love everything King has written, but I loved It and so did my student.

Read something scary for Halloween. With the lights on, of course!

The Blessings – Elise Juska

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Christie

We welcomed a new member into our book club last year and she hosted the first meeting after our summer hiatus. Elise Juska’s novel The Blessings was Margo’s selection and our discussion of the book – which I didn’t particularly enjoy while I was reading it – was certainly elevated by her superior hostessing skills. Oh, and okay, listening to the other women in my group talk about the book did soften me towards it. A bit.

The Blessings is the story of a large Irish-Catholic family in Philadelphia. You’d need a chart to untangle the siblings and cousins, the spouses and parents. There’s Gran and Pop; their children, John, Margie, Ann and Patrick and then the kids. Their story – played out over twenty years – isn’t really follow a linear narrative. Instead, Juska unfolds the story, or parts of the story, by allowing us to ‘visit’ with some of the family members.

For example, when the novel opens, eighteen-year-old Abby (daughter of Ann and Dave) is home from college for Thanksgiving. Through her eyes we see her aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins. She reflects that “most people did not have families like hers.” I would counter that everyone has a variation on a family like hers. Nevertheless,

If every family has a certain kind of music, Abby’s is the murmur of sympathy around a dining room table. It starts in the pause after dinner and before dessert, when the men migrate to the living room and turn on sports, and the women surround the wreckage, spilled crumbs and crumpled napkins and stained wineglasses. They pinch lids from sugar bowls and dip teabags in hot water, break cookies in half and chew slowly. They trade stories of other people’s hardships. This is the melody, the measure , of her family: the response to sad things.

The novel moves in and out of people’s lives, allowing us glimpses of failed relationships, eating disorders, love affairs, and deaths. For me, the narrative was too broken up to allow me to feel connected to any one of the characters. Just when I settled into the rhythm of their story, the chapter would end and we’d be on to the next person. Sometimes what had been happening would be alluded to later on, but we’d be hearing about the event from a completely different perspective. The Blessings was like reading a series of connected short stories.

Matriarch Helen (Gran) sums it up best:

The truth is that life in the end – even a long life – amounts to a handful of a very few things. The longer you live, the shorter the story.

The Blessings is a quiet story about family and if you’ve got one, you can probably relate to this book in some way.

Dare Me – Megan Abbott

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Christie

We have cheerleaders at the high school where I teach, but they’re sure as hell not like the cheerleaders in Megan Abbott’s compelling YA novel, Dare Me. These girls are vicious.

Addy Hanlon is the narrator of this sordid tale.

There I am, Addy Hanlon, sixteen years old, hair like a long taffy pull and skin tight as a rubber band. I am on the gym floor, my girl Beth beside me, our cherried smiles and spray-tanned legs, ponytails bobbing in sync.

Her ‘girl’ is Beth Cassidy, an acerbic teen who spits out insults like bullets. Beth and Addy have been besties since they were young enough to “hang on the monkey bars, hooking [their] legs round each other.” Now they rule their school, part of a cheer squad that makes boys go weak in the knees and girls run for cover when they swagger down the hall, an impenetrable mass of venom.

Ages fourteen to eighteen, a girl needs something to kill all that time, that endless itchy waiting, every hour, every day for something – anything – to happen.

The social order of things is thrown into disarray, though, when the squad gets a new coach.

The New Coach. Did she look at us that first week and see past the glossed hair and shiny legs, our glittered brow bones and girl bravado? See past all the that to everything beneath, all our miseries, the way we all hated ourselves but much more everyone else? Could she see past all that to something else, something quivering and real, something poised to be transformed, turned out, made? See that she could make us, stick her hands in our glitter-gritted insides and build us into magnificent teen gladiators.

Colette French is demanding. On the second day she “takes a piece of Emily’s flab in her fingers” and tells her to “fix it.” The girls discover they can’t fluster her, that she is already bored with their nonsense. Then, Coach dismisses Beth as captain, saying that she doesn’t “see any need for a captain.”

Addy knows Beth’s response, when it comes, will change everything, and it does.

Dare Me is a riveting look at the world of girls on the cusp of adulthood and the woman who allows them a glimpse of what waits for them on the other side. There are no parents here, no sane adults to pull back the reins. Even Coach, who seems dazzling and perfect to the cheerleaders, is soon revealed as damaged and flawed. Addy is particularly taken with Coach and as their relationship morphs into something more intimate, Addy realizes she’s been “waiting forever, my palm raised. Waiting for someone to take my girl body and turn it out.”

I can’t express how terrific this book is. The writing is dazzling; it was like a mouth full of pop-rocks, you know that candy that fizzes in your mouth? Watching Addy try to navigate her sixteenth year, despite the fact that the world of cheer-leading is totally alien to me, was a thing of horrible beauty.