Holly Goldberg Sloan is a screenwriter/director (Angels in the Outfield, Made in America) and maybe that’s the problem with her debut novel, I’ll Be There. It’s the story of Emily and Sam who lock eyes in a church where Emily is singing, badly, her first solo, The Jackson Five’s hit I’ll Be There.

Emily is the daughter of Tim, a music professor, and Debbie, an ER nurse. Her younger brother is Jared. She leads a nice life. She believes in order and destiny.

Emily’s interest in personal histories made her accessible to people’s deepest emotions. It was as if she had some kind of magnet that pulled at someone’s soul, often when he or she least expected it.

And that same magnet, which had to have been shaped like a horseshoe, allowed someone to look at her and feel the need to share a burden.

Hers was a gift that didn’t have a name.

Even she didn’t understand what it all meant.

Emily just knew that the grocery store clerk’s cousin had slipped on a bathmat and fallen out a second-story window only to be saved because the woman landed on a discarded mattress.

But what interested Emily the most about the incident was how the cousin had subsequently met a man in physical therapy who introduced her to his half brother who she ended up marrying and then running over with her car a year later after a heated argument. And that man, it was discovered, had been the one to dump the mattress in her yard.

He’d saved her so that she could later cripple him.

Emily found that not ironic but intriguing.

Because everything, she believed, was connected.

I quote this passage because it’s a great example of how Sloan’s omnipotent narrator does the work for the reader. This character is like this; here is a story to illustrate that.

Sam is the son of Clarence,  a  psychotic criminal. Sam’s brother, Riddle, is somewhere on the autism  spectrum. He is also plagued with constant colds. Sam and Riddle have been on the run with their father for the last ten years. They sleep in their truck or in run-down houses. Sam looks after Riddle as best he can. They don’t go to school; they don’t eat properly. Everything they know they’ve learned from books they’ve found. Riddle is artistic. He draws intricate mechanical drawings in a phone book. Sam is a self-taught musical genius. He’s also beautiful, selfless and perfect.

So, Emily and Sam’s eyes meet and that sets off a chain of events which propels the novel forward. Not everyone gets what Emily sees in Sam. Yes, he’s good-looking and polite, but he’s not forthcoming with details about his life and that’s worrying to Emily’s parents. Until Tim hears Sam play the guitar and then all bets are off. Suddenly Sam and Riddle are pulled into the Bell’s warm and welcoming circle and it’s unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. So, clearly, it can’t last.

There are reasons to like I’ll Be there. Riddle is a terrific character and the relationship between the brothers is lovely. The narrative moves along quickly, perhaps because it’s written in short little scenes. But that happens to be one of the book’s weaknesses for me. The omniscient narrator doesn’t take the trouble to develop any one character particularly well. The novel is like a bunch of soundbites strung together. Worse, even minor characters (the hairdresser who cuts Sam’s hair; an old lady who finds Clarence’s stash of stolen goods; the guy who buys his stolen penny collection) get their moment in the sun. Do I really need to know how their stories pan out? I guess I do if I want to wholeheartedly buy into Ms. Sloan’s over-arching theme of destiny.

The tone of the novel is off-kilter for me, too. It careens from swoony romanticism to lives-in-peril to  slap-stick comedy.

Will young adults enjoy this novel? Probably. It’s easy to read and Sloan does most of the work for you – right down to putting white hats on the heroes and tying the whole thing with a pink bow.

Oh, wait, that’s just destiny.

The dystopian landscape is popular in young adult fiction. If it’s not vampires and werewolves, angels or fairies – it’s likely some future version of our world where society has run amok and children are often left to fend for themselves. The most famous recent example is likely Suzanne Collins’ beloved book,  The Hunger Games. Veronica Roth’s popular novel Divergent has gained its own rabid fans and while I understand the book’s appeal, I didn’t like it as much as The Hunger Games.

Beatrice is sixteen. When you turn sixteen you must choose a faction: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peaceful harmony), Candor (frankness, honesty), Erudite (seeking knowledge) or Dauntless( fearless). Beatrice has grown up in an Abnegation household with her parents and older brother (by just a few months, so  her brother, Caleb, must also choose a faction), but she has never felt like she belonged. Selflessness doesn’t come easily to Beatrice.

When I look at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I think it’s beautiful. When I watch my family move in harmony; when we go to dinner parties and everyone cleans together afterward without having to be asked; when I see Caleb help strangers carry their groceries, I fall in love with this life all over again. It’s only when I try to live it myself that I have trouble. It never feels genuine.

So when it comes time to choose a faction, Beatrice chooses Dauntless. Most of Divergent is concerned with Beatrice’s (renamed Tris) training at the Dauntless compound. It’s a bit like a reality show: candidates are put through a series of tests and the best man (or woman) wins. Those who don’t make it – because they either quit or fail – suffer worse fates. You can’t go home again so you’re factionless, left to scrounge for food or do the most menial jobs available.

Tris is smart, no question, but what was missing for me was the back story which Katniss Everdeen had in spades. Katniss is a beautifully written character, someone I rooted for and understood. Tris, despite her upbringing, adapts relatively easily to her new faction – learning how to fight and lie with relative ease. Perhaps Roth was thinking of the nature versus nurture debate: how much of what we are is because of environment and how much is because of biology?

My issues with the book are minor quibbles, though. Despite being almost 500 pages long, I breezed through it. Sometimes I felt like the plot was being served rather than unraveled in a meaningful and organic way. Characters turned up conveniently and were dispensed with equally trouble-free. I know many will argue that Divergent offers lots of talking points, but I didn’t leave that shattered Chicago landscape feeling all that inclined to revisit.

All that said, I know there will be students in my class who will enjoy the novel and I would have no trouble recommending it – even if only as a way to talk about characterization: it’s difficult to mourn for people you don’t feel you know.

For anyone who has lost their mother, Beth Kephart’s YA novel, Nothing But Ghosts is a gift. In it, 16 year-old Katie navigates the lonely and traumatic days after her mother dies of cancer by solving the mystery of what happened to Miss Martine, the shut-in who lives in the estate down the road. When Katie is hired to help dig a spot for a new gazebo at the estate, the experience draws her out in the present – even as she investigates the past.

Kephart’s novel is beautifully written and Katie is a thoughtful and likeable character. Kephart expertly weaves a story that casts a light on several characters who have been broken by  events in the past. Katie’s own story, and that of her parents, is told through her memories of a family trip to Spain. In remembering she thinks:

She’d kept her secret the whole trip long. She stood in the strange, chill mist, alone, alive, but knowing what would come. History is never absolute truth. It isn’t just the thing that was. It’s the thing that could have been.

Her father, a brilliant art restorer, is drowning in his own grief. The librarian who helps Katie dig into the history of Miss Martine’s life has had her own heartache. Even Sammy, the little boy who lives across the street has had his share of disappointments.

Nothing But Ghosts is a story about loss, but it is also a story about love and rebirth and hope. Katie must travel the road to acceptance on her own, but she does it with a grace that belies her age.

I very much enjoyed this book.