Someone Else’s Shoes by Ellen Wittlinger

Someone Else’s Shoes by Ellen Wittlinger
Charlesbridge, 2018

Everything is out of joint for 12 year old Izzy Shepherd: her father, who now lives with his new wife in Boston, doesn’t seem to pay any attention to her anymore, and her uncle and his 10-year-old son Oliver are staying with her and her mother after Aunt Felicia killed herself. Now the reputedly mean 16-year-old Ben Gustino is staying in their basement while his father, her mother’s new boyfriend, is out of town and his mother has left them in live in California.

Initially Izzy is a bit of a pill about this, as you might expect any tween to be – all the changes imposed on her and out of her control are upsetting. It’s only when Uncle Henderson disappears, and she, Ben, and Oliver run away to search for him, that she starts to develop empathy for the situations of the other two and realizes that though her life is tough, Ben and Oliver have it much worse. As she and Ben bristle at each other, they bond over their shared desire to lessen the load for Oliver and realize that they have much more in common than was apparent.

At the start, Izzy (who is white as are all the other main characters) is trying out new identities as she feels herself becoming invisible to her friends who are suddenly much more interested in boys and clothes. She buys some silver shoes that are too small for her. Without overflogging the metaphor, Wittlinger uses shoes to show that you have to be both comfortable with yourself and that walking in someone’s else’s shoes is a gift. By the end of their roadtrip, Izzy has new sneakers and realizes “What a great thing it was to have shoes, finally, that fit”

Izzy is an aspiring comedian and as she relaxes more with her new family, her gift shows and she finds the power to make people laugh can be cathartic, though her touchpoints of Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen Degeneres feel a little dated (And as a Brit I have to tell you that Jerry Seinfeld is also just not very funny).

The adults are realistically shown as broken by the loss or separation from their spouses and can be selfish, make mistakes, and fail to understand what is going on with their children, though ultimately (and don’t forget that this is a middle grade book) their hearts are in the right place. Izzy’s mother, in particular, seems a bit clueless, not realizing the burden her daughter is under or the troubles that Oliver is having at school. Her expectations seem unreasonable to Izzy and maybe even to us – why is she so much more sympathetic to Oliver and Ben? It’s only the kids who appear to understand the weight they are all carrying and that the face people present to the world may not be who they really are.

This is a decent book about loss and empathy that will appeal to middle grade readers who enjoy sad realistic stories with (not necessarily entirely credible) happy endings.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White
Delacorte Press, September 2018.

Mary Shelley’s 200-year-old gothic horror Frankenstein story is given a YA feminist update in this stirring retelling from the point of view of 17-year-old Elizabeth Lavenza, a minor character in the original tale. White (And I Darken series) largely hews to the original tale, albeit told through a lens in which smart women are suppressed and trapped by contemporary norms, but deftly twists the ending to bring a whole new light to our understanding of the characters.

At the age of five the orphan Elizabeth is brought into the Frankenstein household to befriend and, it emerges, to help socialize the out of control genius Victor. Elizabeth sees this as a way of assuring a safe future for herself and makes herself look “fragile and sweet, incapable of harm and deceit” while chafing at being forced into this subservient and dependent role. Years later when Victor cuts off all contact with them while he is studying at Ingolstadt, Elizabeth pursues him there, scared that he has abandoned her, but is horrified at what she discovers.

Elizabeth reveals far more perception, emotion, and intelligence than her society allows her and her narration has the elegant formality of the 19th century while flowing swiftly, moving between the past and present. Though the reader will probably be aware of the monstrous experiments that Victor is undertaking, Elizabeth’s dawning realization is artfully drawn.

This novel happily stands alone for those who have never read the original; however, those who have read Mary Shelley’s masterpiece (or have read the Wikipedia précis like I did) will thrill to the subtle and profound changes the author has made.

Reviewed from an ARC.

Art Boss by Kayla Cagan

Art Boss by Kayla Cagan
Piper Perish; bk. 2
Chronicle, October 2018.

Perky young artist Piper Perish has left Houston and made it to New York: She’s scored a job with former Warhol protégé Carlyle McCoy and is putting some of her artwork into his first ever fashion show. She’ll be able to start at art school if she can just get the finances sorted out and love is looming on the horizon with her student mentor, Silas.

Told through Piper’s journal entries and #NYSeen ink sketches, this is an upbeat story of a determined young woman who wants to make art that matters and be in control of her own present and future. Though she chafes at the way Carlyle seems to feel he owns her, she finds her artistic vision blossoming as she finds her way around the city.

This is a sequel to Piper Perish (2017), which I haven’t read, and it took quite a bit of time for me to sort out what was going on and what had happened in Houston. However, most of the characters from that book have been shuffled aside for a new close knit and supportive group of friends to replace the ones Piper left behind in Texas (all main characters are white with the exception of Joe, a fellow student, who has “honey-brown” skin).

Other than her featured NY paintings, I found it hard to get a handle on Piper’s artwork, though perhaps that is intentional to allow the reader to visualize if for themselves. Similarly, her new best friend Grace is a poet but we never actually see any of her poetry (perhaps for the best, it can often be a bit cringey when novelists write young adult poetry) but we do get to hear her philosophy.

Piper’s time in New York is something of a contemporary fairytale stripped of most of the urban grit of the real city, but features many real places giving the narration authenticity. As she hurtles her way through her first few months in the city gulping in all the new experiences, it is easy to root for someone who is so committed and open, and who ends up with a plan for her next adventure.

Reviewed from an ARC.

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017.

In 2013, agender white high school senior Sasha fell asleep on the bus on their way home from school in Oakland. Black teen Richard was also on the bus, and, egged on by friends, used his lighter to set fire to Sasha’s skirt. Dashka Slater’s enormously thoughtful and well-written book (staring life as an article in the NY Times Magazine) looks at the before and after for both victim and perpetrator.

Short chapters move between Sasha and Richard and move between narrative and background information. Starting with the two young men’s backgrounds, the author shows that though both teens have loving families and close supportive friends in common, their differences are stark: Sasha’s family is comfortably off, he attends an independent school and has Asperger’s; Richard comes from a poor family and has lost many loved ones to murder.

It is never clear why Richard committed this terrible act – he tells the police it’s because he’s homophobic, but it’s not clear if he actually is or if he even understands what it means. Many people in the book put it down to him being a 16 year-old boy and all the lack of foresight that goes with that. It certainly appears that he had no thought of the implications or seriousness of his act.

Slater creates empathy for both her lead protagonists, though I found myself more engaged by Richard’s story than Sasha’s. Sasha, apart from the obvious physical trauma of being set alight and the pain of recovery, appears to be relatively unscathed by the attack and takes a sanguine and rational attitude as he heads off to MIT where he seems to settle in socially and intellectually. Richard, on the other hand, is tried as an adult  for committing a hate crime, though is able to serve his time in a juvenile facility. In fact it is likely that he will be released this year, having been a model inmate and used the time to study.

Ms Slater gives illuminating chapters on such contextual topics as the vocabulary of gender, sexuality, and romantic inclinations, and she explains clearly and concisely the judicial system including a sympathetic section on restorative justice. Her journalistic background shows in her exemplary use of sources including interviews, video, public records, and Richard’s two heart-twisting letters of apology that were not given to Sasha’s parents until fourteen months after they were written.

This is a short book and a quick read but provides rich material for thought, discussion, and even action.