Every Single Lie – Rachel Vincent

Beckett Bergen’s life is about to get a whole lot more complicated -and it was pretty complicated to begin with. For starters, she just dumped her boyfriend, super-hot-star-baseball player, Jake, because she’s convinced that he’s cheating on her. He insists it’s not true, but there’s definitely something he is not telling her.

Then there’s her complicated home life. Her mom, Julie, is a detective on the teensy police force in their small Tennessee town, and she’s barely at home – meaning that Beckett and her older brother, Penn, are responsible for looking out for their younger sister, Landry, 13. Beckett’s dad died several months ago, and it turns out there’s lots Beckett and her siblings don’t know about the circumstances of his death.

But Rachel Vincent’s YA novel Every Single Lie really kicks off when Beckett makes a shocking discovery in the locker room at her school.

There’s something sticking up out of the open duffel. I step closer, then I stumble to a shocked halt.

It’s a hand. A tiny, tiny little red hand.

And it isn’t moving

This discovery sends shock waves through Beckett’s small town and without really quite knowing how, she finds herself at the center of a lot of attention. Rumours start spreading like wildfire – many of which are spread by an anonymous Twitter account, Crimson Cryer, which asserts that perhaps Beckett is more closely linked to this baby than just being the person who discovers the body.

I really liked Beckett and her tenacity. She is determined to find out who this baby belongs to, even though the rumour mill is making it very difficult, and potentially dangerous, for her to do so. There are lots of clues which lead her to some very surprising places, but this book is more than just a solid page-turning mystery. This is also a book about grief, secrets and the damage social media can do.

Lock the Doors – Vincent Ralph

Sixteen-year-old Tom’s mother has had a string of bad luck with men, but now she is married to Jay, who is exactly who he says he is – a nice guy – and they have recently moved into a brand new house. Not everything is perfect. Jay’s daughter, Nia, is also living with them. She’s a year older and clearly hates Tom. And although the house is Tom’s mom’s dream come true, Tom soon makes an odd discovery. It looks like someone had installed locks on the outside of two of the bedroom doors. Weird, right?

At school, Tom is tagged to show new girl, Amy, around and although Tom is slightly awkward and not all that good with the ladies, he and Amy sort of hit it off. Then Tom discovers that Amy used to live in his old house. As bits and pieces of Amy’s life are revealed Tom starts to think that things just don’t add up. But the more he pushes Amy, the stranger things get. When Tom meets Amy’s family, June and Chris and Amy’s younger brother, Will, and makes some new discoveries in his new home, well – it all makes for page-turning fun.

Tom is a clever and likeable character who suffers from OCD.

I’m worse when I’m worried. On good days, I can touch everything once and sleep like a baby. On the worst days, I check everything twenty or thirty times and only make it halfway up the stairs before doing it all again. I know it’s silly, I know it’s irrational. But it’s part of me, and it’s not going anywhere.

It is perhaps partly his OCD that makes Tom so dogged when it comes to figuring out the truth. It might also be, in part, because of the horrors his mother faced prior to meeting Jay. What if Amy is in trouble? Tom can’t imagine not helping her even if it means getting himself into some scrapes.

Of course, it all comes together perhaps a tad too easily in the end, but I had a good time reading and I think teens who like mysteries will really enjoy this one.

Everything We Never Said – Sloan Harlow

Ella’s senior year of high school is complicated. For one thing, she has to make her way through the days without her bestie, Hayley, by her side. Hayley died in a car accident and Ella is still trying to process her grief and her guilt -she was at the wheel when the car crashed, although she remembers virtually nothing about the accident.

Then there’s the problem of Sawyer, Hayley’s over-the-top hot boyfriend. The three had always been together, but since Hayley’s death she can feel the waves of anger and hate coming off Sawyer and she knows it’s all directed at her. And yet – there’s something else smoldering underneath and pretty soon Ella and Sawyer can’t keep their hands off each other. Of course, they are both aware of the optics of this development, and the fact that they are meeting secretly only heightens their feelings for each other.

But then, plot twist, Hayley’s mother asks Ella to come clean out Hayley’s room – a task she can’t bear to do. It is there she finds Hayley’s diary and although she does deliberate about whether or not she is doing the right thing, Ella gives in to her curiosity and starts to read. What she discovers throws another wrench into her growing feelings for Sawyer and also puts her in danger.

Sloan Harlow’s debut novel Everything We Never Said attempts a lot and succeeds on many levels. I thought I had it figured out early on; there are plenty of red herrings. The book does make some attempt at tackling the topic of domestic violence. It also looks at grief and friendship. Sometimes the characters seem a bit shrill and other times way too passive. I found the sex scenes a bit much – not that I don’t believe that seventeen-year-olds are intimate, but I found some of the dialogue a little cringe-y. The last third moves at a quick pace, with one or two surprises in store.

It’s a solid debut.

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White

Andrew Joseph White claims his debut novel Hell Followed With Us was written because he was angry. On his website, we’re told “His work focuses on the intersection of transgender and autistic identity through the lens of horror, monstrosity, violence, and rage.” Got that right.

Benji is on the run. His father has just been killed and the Angels and their Graces are hunting him down, except that there is not really any place to go. That’s because these people – part of the cult that raised Benji – have unleased Armageddon via The Flood, decimating the world’s population.

The hellscape of the world White imagines is unlike anything I have ever read before. This is a world devoid of humanity, where goods are bartered with the exchange of human ears, where the monsters are

made of corpses and the Flood – sharpened ribs lining its back in a row of spines, eyeballs blinking between sinew, muscles so swollen they split the skin

At the beginning of the novel, when Benji is recaptured by the Angels, it is not so they can kill him: he’s important to the cult because he is a Seraph, or about to become one anyway. He has the power to control the Graces and The Flood and also, his mother is kind of a big deal at New Nazareth. Before they can get Benji back to New Nazareth, though, he is rescued by a ragtag group of teen resistors from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre (ALC). It is his relationship with these people, specifically the handsome sharp-shooter, Nick, that propels Benji on a dangerous mission to take down New Nazareth once and for all.

Hell Followed With Us is an allegorical tale. Before Benji was Benji, he was Esther, betrothed to Theo. At their engagement ceremony, Benji’s mother tries to find a passage about marriage, something that would “hammer home” Benji’s role as a wife, something that could “beat the boy” out of him. Throughout the novel, Benji struggles to find acceptance and while the monsters might be dreamt from Whites very scary imagination, the big ideas- of acceptance, or personal autonomy, of the dangers of blindly following are anything but fiction.

Great read.

Suffer Love – Ashley Herring Blake

When his parents separate, and his father moves to Boston, Sam’s mother takes Sam and his younger sister, Olivia, to Woodmont, a suburb of Nashville to regroup. Sam just wants to get on with life, play baseball, and graduate.

Hadley St. Claire has been looking for love in all the wrong places ever since she found out that her father cheated on her mother. Now her parents are barely speaking to each other and she can’t stand to look at her father. Her most meaningful relationship is with her bestie, Kat. That is, until she and the new kid get paired together to rewrite an act from one of Shakespeare’s plays. (And, no, they don’t choose Romeo and Juliet.)

Sam and Hadley connect almost immediately. Perhaps they sense in each other that deep well of hurt, but Sam knows something that Hadley doesn’t and so he does his level best to keep his distance.

I want her to come with me and I want her eyes on mine and her words to fill up the space in my car. There are a million voices in my head right now, screaming about what a delusional idiot I am, but with her standing right in front of me, her lashes fanning her pink cheeks, they’re easy to ignore.

And, as is the way of books like this, these two can’t stay away from each other – try as they might.

Suffer Love is a book about messy family relationships, forgiveness and first love. Sam and Hadley are both likeable characters just trying to figure it all out. The book is a little bit sweet and a little bit angsty and I appreciated that Ashley Herring Blake didn’t try to go for a happily ever after, even though you really hope these two young people actually manage to get theirs.

Darkmere – Helen Maslin

I love a ghost story, especially if it takes place in a creepy castle on a windswept British coastline. Helen Maslin’s YA novel Darkmere offers readers two stories, one more successful than the other.

Seventeen-year-old Kate has been invited to Darkmere for the summer holidays by Leo, the boy she has a bit of a crush on. Darkmere is a castle he’s inherited, although he suggests “it isn’t a posh castle. It’ll be in a shit state because no one’s lived there for years. But it’s still a castle. And best of all it’s supposed to be haunted.”

Kate agrees to join Leo and his friends Beano, Hat-Man Dan and his girlfriend Lucie (who is only allowed to go if there will be another girl) and Jackson. The castle turns out to be remote and without any modern comforts or access to the Internet.

Darkmere Castle was built in 1825 by George Francis St Cloud as a wedding present for his young bride, Elinor. Tragically, Elinor took her own life during the second year of her marriage, and local legend has it that she died cursing her husband and his male heirs.

It is Elinor’s story that makes up the other part of the story. We learn about how she comes to be St Cloud’s bride and what her life is like when she arrives at Darkmere. As we learn more about her story – and it’s definitely the more interesting of the two narratives – things start to go sideways for the teens in the modern setting.

Maslin’s story, while not particularly scary, is atmospheric and filled with the requisite secret passages, strange sightings, and things that go bump in the night. I could have done without Kate’s story, really, although I guess without her arrival things at Darkmere would never have been stirred up.

Seventeenth Summer – Maureen Daly

Published in 1942, Seventeenth Summer was written while Maureen Daly was still in college. Although S.E. Hinton’s debut The Outsiders is often considered to be the first work of Young Adult fiction, a case can be made for Daly’s book as it has all the hallmarks of the genre.

Angie Morrow lives with her parents and sisters in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. As the summer begins, she locks eyes with Jack Duluth at McKnight’s, a drug store/soda bar, and thus begins a romantic summer.

I remember just how it was. I was standing by the drug counter waiting for the clerk. The sides of the booths in McKnight’s are rather high and in one, near the back, I could just see the top of someone’s head with a short crew cut sticking up. He must have been having a Coke, for he tore the wrapping off the end of his straws and blew in them so that the paper covering shot over the side of the booth. Then he stood up to see where it had landed. It was Jack. He looked over at me, smiled, and then sat down again.

Although Seventeenth Summer is tame by today’s standards, the young people in this book drink and smoke (pipes!) and make out, but there is something blissfully innocent about Angie’s account as she navigates her feelings for Jack, a handsome basketball player. Angie doesn’t think that’s she’s pretty enough or clever enough for Jack, but despite his initial swagger, Jack proves himself to be sweet and sincere.

Daly’s book is a sweet look at a time past, but it will surely resonate with anyone who has ever been young and in love.

Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things – Margie Fuston

I was pretty sure Margie Fuston’s YA novel Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things would be right down my dark alley. First of all, she quotes Buffy the Vampire Slayer right out of the gate (crypt?) and anyone who knows me knows that Buffy and I are tight. I like vampires in general; they are my favourite fantasy creature (except for the sparkly ones).

Eighteen-year-old Victoria, the novel’s first person narrator, and her father have long-shared a love of vampires and have been planning a trip to New Orleans to try to find a real one because apparently they are real. About a decade ago a vampire proved his existence on national television for all the world to see, but then disappeared, and people have been looking for proof ever since.

Victoria’s dad won’t be going to New Orleans or anywhere for that matter because he has cancer and when the novel opens Victoria and her mother and sister learn that there is nothing more science can do for him. That’s when Victoria gets the crazy idea that she will travel to NOLA to find a vampire, convince him to turn her so that she can go home and turn her father so that he will live forever. As far as plans go it’s nuts, but we’ll park that.

Victoria doesn’t go alone. Her former best friend (and maybe something more if they hadn’t both freaked out a little) Henry tags along. Victoria has all the research done, so she at least has a plan and sooner than you can say Count Dracula, they have met Nicholas, who promises her eternal life if she completes a series of tasks designed to test whether she really wants to live forever.

Nicholas is enigmatic – and also hot – and Victoria risks her friendship (and maybe something more with Henry) by playing Nicholas’s game, but she is desperate to save her father. He’s her person.

There’s lots to like about this book. I loved the setting. New Orleans, famous haunt of vampires thanks, in part, to Anne Rice, is a place I have always wanted to visit. Vampires? Win win. For the me the problem is with Victoria herself. I get that she is trying to hold in all of her emotions; I understand the lengths she will go to to potentially save her father. I even forgive the wild emotional outbursts. But I often found her selfish and shrill and by the end she was really getting on my nerves. That said, I think anyone who has ever lost a loved one will totally feel the emotional punch in the gut this book offers.

Ultimately, Victoria learns Buffy’s most important lesson: “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live.” 

The Serpent King – Jeff Zentner

The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner has been in my classroom library for ages, but a friend on Litsy recommended I read it based on some other recent books I have read and enjoyed (Shiner, Midnight is the Darkest Hour).

No question – The Serpent King will be in my Top Ten books of the year. It’s a five-star read.

Dill, Travis and Lydia live in Forrestville, Tennessee – a backwater, Bible belt town near Nashville. In their senior year of high school, the three are each other’s besties. Actually, they are each other’s only friends.

Dill Early is the son of a disgraced preacher, currently serving time for possessing child pornography. He and his mother live in abject poverty, buried under the weight of the debts which have piled up due to the senior Early’s incarceration and a car accident which has left Dill’s mother suffering from chronic pain. Dill worries constantly about his faith, his future, and his unrequited feelings for Lydia.

Travis Bohannon is a 6’6″ dork. He “wore a necklace with a chintzy pewter dragon gripping a purple crystal ball” and often carried a staff and a battered copy of a book from the Bloodfall series. He belonged to the same church as Dill – back before Early sr. was arrested – and that’s where the two became friends. Travis’s older brother Matthew had been killed in the Middle East and the loss of his older brother had soured Travis’s father even more towards Travis. He is a truly odious human.

Lydia Blankenship runs a successful fashion blog called Dollywould, named after one of her sheroes, Dolly Parton. She takes crap from no one, but she is often the target of the school bullies, who poke at her for everything from her appearance to her Internet success. Every time she claps back against the asshats in her school, I just wanted to high-five her. Lydia is different from Dill and Travis though in that she lives in a nice house (her father is the town dentist) and her parents support her dreams. Her parents are also two of the only adults in this novel I actually didn’t want to run over with my car. Lydia speaks her mind and she wants more for her friends, particularly Dill.

So, it’s their last year of high school. Time to start thinking about the future. Lydia’s life is planned. She has a list of schools she’s gunning for; NYU at the top of the list. Travis intends to stay in Forrestville and work at the family lumber yard. Dill’s mother wants him to work full time at the grocery store and help pay off the family debt. In fact, she’d be just as happy if he quit school now and went straight to work.

I cannot tell you how much I loved these three teenagers. Their dreams (or lack thereof), their insecurities, their successes, their complicated family dynamics and, most of all, their love for each other. These characters are so heartbreakingly human that when tragedy strikes, it rips your heart out.

When I think about the qualities of a five star book, I am looking for a great story, great writing, realistic characters. Icing on the cake is a book that makes me laugh – which I did. Sometimes these characters, particularly Lydia, say amusing, quippy things. The needle goes up a notch – don’t ask me why – if a book makes me cry. The Serpent King definitely made me cry.

Growing up is hard enough without having all the cards stacked against you. I have never hoped for the wellbeing of characters, particularly Dill and Travis, more than I did in this book. That this is Zentner’s debut is astounding. It’s a knockout.

Highly times a thousand recommended.

In the Path of Falling Objects -Andrew Smith

Jonah, 16, and Simon, 14, have left their home and are heading to Arizona to find their older brother, Matt, whom they hope will have returned from the Vietnam War and will be waiting for them. They’ve got nothing but the clothes on their backs, a crumpled ten dollar bill, Matt’s letters to Jonah, Jonah’s notebook, and a loaded pistol.

The brothers are at odds with each other, but that’s because Jonah is trying to honour Matt’s wishes that he look after Simon and Simon clearly doesn’t want to be looked after. They have a brother’s code though and it turns out, they’re going to need it.

When the1940 black Lincoln Cabriolet passes them, Jonah knew “It was as out of place in the dessert as a sailboat would have been, and it was the kind of car you knew had to carry stories with it, but I had no intention of finding out what those stories told.”

The driver, Mitch, and his passenger, Lilly, stop for the boys and thus begins their nightmare.

I felt like I was being swept along by something that had already gone too far. I knew I didn’t like Mitch from the moment I saw him, but there was something about that girl…

From the moment the boys get in the car, it is clear that Mitch is nuts. (Well, readers will know that from the book’s very first page.) The novel is almost unbearably suspenseful as we are swept along across the desert. Is Lilly Mitch’s girlfriend? Prisoner? Is she manipulating Mitch or the boys? I was so concerned for their safety.

Interspersed with their “adventure”, we read Matt’s letters to Jonah, which are filled with the horrors he is experiencing in Vietnam, a notoriously brutal and unforgiving conflict.

Andrew Smith has written a compelling, brutal, nail-biting story about survival, brothers and the horrors to be found at war and right here at home. I loved it.