Title: Bones of Faerie
Author: Janni Lee Simner
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: Liza’s newborn sister is touched by magic, so her father abandons the baby outside of town. Then her mother disappears, and Liza discovers she might be touched by magic as well. What will her father do to her if he finds out?

Review: I enjoyed the mix of magical and real elements in this story. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, which is right up my alley.

This one’s not for the faint of heart, though. Check out the opening:

I had a sister once. She was a beautiful baby, eyes silver as moonlight off the river at night. From the hour of her birth she was long-limbed and graceful, faerie-pale hair clear as glass from Before, so pale you could almost see through to the soft skin beneath.

My father was a sensible man. He set her out on the hillside that very night, though my mother wept and even old Jayce argued against it. “If the faerie folk want her, let them take her,” Father said. “If not the fault’s theirs for not claiming one of their own.” He left my sister, and he never looked back.

I did. I crept out before dawn to see whether the faeries had really come. They hadn’t, but some wild creature had.

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Audience Pick!

Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: An 18-month-old baby survives a brutal attack on his family by escaping to a nearby graveyard. There, he finds a new family and a new name, and the graveyard becomes his home.

Review: I don’t usually like dark books like this, but this one is so well done I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

How could an opening possibly hook you more than this?

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

Yowza. The book lightens up after that opening scene, but it’s all relative—the boy is living in a graveyard.

If you like dark stories, you’ll love this book.

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Title: Headlong
Author: Kathe Koja
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Lily Noble has always gone to private school. In her sophomore year, a misfit named Hazel shows up and makes Lily rethink the way she’s been doing things her whole life.

Review: The back-and-forth nature of this book took a little time for me to get used to. The chapters alternate between snippets from the beginning of the school year and the end of the year. A few times, I got confused about whether it was a “later” chapter or a “before” chapter, but I chalk that up to my own work-induced lack of sleep during the week I was reading this one.

I liked that this book doesn’t hit you over the head with what Lily’s feeling. You have to work out on your own what’s going on with her.

I also liked how Lily—who’s always just gone with the flow—finally changes course and questions the ways of her affluent world.

Not a standout for me, but still an enjoyable read.

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Title: Nation
Author: Terry Pratchett
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: A tsunami wave washes away an entire island nation, except one boy named Mau. But when much is taken, something is returned. Mau soon discovers he’s not alone on the island.

Review: Confession: This is the first book by Terry Pratchett that I’ve ever read. I know, I know. How can I call myself a YA-nnabe? (By the way, if you have a Pratchett fave, please let me know so I can add it to my to-read list!)

I love me some post-apocalyptic fiction. So I liked this book. It is extremely well-written. Actually, maybe it’s a little too well-written because I felt Mau’s desperation so vividly that every time I got a few minutes to read, I hesitated picking the book up. I didn’t always feel like being completely and utterly transported to that world.

But I think what always kept me coming back is the humor. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but a-quiet-chuckle-and-sometimes-a-groan funny.

Here, some survivors from another island are trying to explain horses to Mau, who’s never seen them before:

“…And the horses! Oh, everyone should see the horses!”

“What are horses?” [said Mau.]

“Well, they’re…well, you know hogs?” said Pilu.

“Better than you can imagine.”

“…Well, they are not like hogs. But if you took a hog and made it bigger and longer, with a longer nose and a tail, that’s a horse. Oh, and much more handsome. And much longer legs.”

“So a horse is not really like a pig at all?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. But it’s got the same number of legs.”

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Title: The Spectacular Now
Author: Tim Tharp
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: It’s senior year, and Sutter Keely is living large with a beautiful girlfriend and an endless supply of whiskey. His girlfriend wants him to do something he can’t quite remember, but why worry about that when you can live in the now?

Review: Sutter’s charm is simultaneously entertaining and heartbreaking. You get the feeling that it’s a front for something, which of course it is.

This is not a feel-good story, but it is a real story. A real snapshot into the life of a young man who drinks morning, noon, and night. Because if he drinks, he can be the life of the party and live in the moment. And if he can live in the moment, he doesn’t have to think about his past or his future.

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