Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
Knopf, June, 2017.

My stars! It’s another white heterosexual teen two-hander and yet, even as I roll my eyes at the format, I really enjoyed this Australian romance with a little edge.

Our narrators are Henry, who thinks he’s in love with the self-centered Amy but we know that he isn’t really, and Rachel, who left town three years ago thinking that Henry was in love with Amy and had rejected her declaration of love. A year ago, Rachel’s beloved younger brother, Cal, drowned and she is still getting over it when her Aunt suggests she comes back to Melbourne. And guess where her aunt has got her a job – at Henry’s family’s bookstore. The romance is utterly predictable though charming and funny.

There are some elements, however, that lift this novel above run of the mill romances. Rachel’s grieving over her brother doesn’t just go away and I felt the weight of his death on her. And then there is the Letter Library in the bookstore, where people are encouraged to leave each other notes in books that are not for sale or for borrowing. It’s a lovely idea and fits with one of the themes of missed connections. And it allows the author to show off a bit of erudition and introduce us to some books that we might not have come across otherwise – both modern and classic.

I warmed to the characters starting with the star-crossed narrators themselves, Henry and Rachel, who are endearing, smart, and (mostly) credible and the requisite quirky friends and siblings are all likable, if of a type.

It’s a book about letting go and moving on, and all the main characters do that in some shape or form, and it is a bit of a weepy. However, not everything turns out entirely perfectly, so the author can’t be accused of glossing over everything.

I do have a couple of quibbles. Henry and Rachel are meant to be recently graduated high schoolers but they felt older to me – as though the author had written this about an early to mid-20’s couple but then realized she’d do better with a YA audience so just changed their ages. Also, I assume the Internet works the same in Australia as it does here, so I found Rachel’s ability to keep her brother’s death a secret a bit hard to believe.

Nonetheless, a reader looking out for an easy reading romance that isn’t too syrupy could happily end up with Words in Deep Blue.

Thanks to Knopf for the review copy.

Save

Save

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas
Delacorte, July 2017

Kara Thomas’s second psychological mystery builds on all the good things from her debut, The Darkest Corners (2016), and resolves all the issues I had with that book. In short, it’s a thrillingly menacing and atmospheric chiller in which none of the characters are quite who they seem to be.

High school senior Kacey has only recently arrived in Broken Falls, Wisconsin, moving in with her dad and his blended family after one too many blow-ups with her single mom’s endless stream of boyfriends. She makes friends and becomes the third leg of “BaileyandJade and Kacey.” All in all, she can’t quite believe how easygoing her new life is.

But then one night Bailey goes missing and at first the local police show little interest – just another teenage runaway. But Kacey and Jade start digging up evidence that points to a local boy with a grudge against Bailey.

Once again Ms Thomas brilliantly evokes the milieu of a white working class town: Most of the highschoolers have no escape and are trapped there for the rest of their lives, the lucky few can’t wait to get out. The heavy snows adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere, and the local tall tale about a murdered family piles on the eeriness.

The plot is perfectly paced; layers are gradually peeled off the emotional lives of the characters exposing the depths of their pain and desperation, gradually leading to a wildly twisty (and for me, unpredictable) denouement.

Ideal for teens who like a side of creepy with their mysteries.

Thanks to Delacorte/Random House for the review copy.

Save

Save

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Balzer + Bray, 2017.

Angie Thomas’s much buzzed about debut novel is an absolute tour de force.

16 year-old African American Starr Carter lives in a black neighborhood and codeswitches when she goes to her mostly white high school. But when she witnesses her best friend Khalil being killed by the police, she realizes she needs to be the real Starr.

The author has given Starr a voice that shows her intelligence, her humanity, and her awareness of her position in two camps, not wholly accepted in either. As the only witness to the shooting, Starr has to go through a lot in terms of legal proceedings and she also grows personally when she realizes what her actions mean to the neighborhood and to her friends, both at home and school, as she searches for justice for Khalil and all the other “hashtags” like him.

The author skillfully and meticulously paints a portrait of a neighborhood that is economically run down, riddled with gangs and drugs, but still is a loving and supportive community. Even better than that, she draws characters that are wholly human – complex, conflicted, and ambiguous.

Despite the obvious temptations to make this a black and white (no pun intended) ‘issue’ novel, the author lets none of the characters, black or white, off the hook for their actions or attitudes. Khalil is a drug dealer, but the author also looks at the economic and social disadvantages that lead to drugs and gangs. Similarly, she exposes some of Starr’s white schoolfriends for their deep-rooted racism, but her white boyfriend is an ally. She explores the intensely paradoxical feelings that Starr’s parents have – they want to be part of their community, but also want their children to be safe and have the educational advantage that their school gives them.

The book title comes from Tupac, and refers to the harvest that racism reaps, both for black and white communities. My only minor grumble is the novel slips a little into didacticism for a couple of pages when Starr’s dad lectures her on her inheritance as a black person, but it just about stays in character.

Sometimes I feel a little cynical about hot books on hot topics but I believe The Hate U Give genuinely transcends any category and is an extraordinarily good novel. I think teens (and adults) will find it thought-provoking, insightful, and stunningly of the moment.

Save

Save

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
Dutton, 2017.

This quiet and delicate realistic YA novel about grief and family, is something of a change in direction for Ms LaCour, more character-driven with little in the way of plot, and with an exquisitely textured setting.

A freshman in college in New York state, narrator Marin is staying by herself in the snow-bound dorms over the long Christmas break. Her best friend from San Francisco, Mexican-American Mabel, is visiting her for a few days, but she has little else planned. Over the course of Mabel’s visit, the events of the previous summer are gently unfolded, and the reasons for Marin’s isolation and despair are poignantly revealed.

Slight but powerful, the novel centers on the subtly drawn Marin and Mabel. The young women were once lovers but now are struggling even to communicate. Initially their conversations are strained, staccato, and awkward but gradually start to flow as they relax back into their friendship. Interspersed are flashbacks to vignettes of Marin’s homelife with her grandfather and memories of her dead mother.

While keeping the reader drawn in, the author is in no rush for Marin to tell her story, and allows her to move slowly and organically out of the dark towards the light.

(Slightly grumbling note. The high school that Marin and Mabel go to is the one my daughter actually goes to – Convent in San Francisco. However, all their teachers are nuns, which is not the case at all. Why use the real name of a school if you’re going to make stuff up, why not just make up a name too?)

Save

Save

Save