Such a Pretty Girl isn’t a long book, but it packs a lot in a little package. The back cover copy makes it sound like a dark and disturbing story—fifteen-year-old Meredith’s father is being released from prison after serving just three years of his eight-year sentence—and it is a dark and disturbing tale. Her father’s coming home, putting her in great danger. We don’t know exactly why, but we get a sense that something is very wrong. (Actually, kudos to the back cover-writer, because it actually really triggers your curiosity without revealing much, all while managing to remain wholly true to the book.)

Meredith’s father went to prison for abusing several boys in the neighborhood, and everyone hates her for it. She’s a pariah. But it’s even worse than that, because he also assaulted her. And she knows she’s not going to be safe when he returns.

Now, technically, he isn’t moving back into Meredith’s apartment with her and her mom. Because he’s not supposed to be alone with Meredith. No, but he’s got an apartment in the same complex. Officially, he’s reformed and being let out for that and good behavior. But she’s not a naive twelve-year-old anymore and she knows he’s going to come after her again. After all, there were no kids in his prison, so of course he behaved.

Meredith’s mom is a serious piece of work. She is infatuated with Meredith’s father, who she’s been with since she was twelve and he was sixteen. She is basically an overgrown child herself, unwilling to share him. It’s hard to tell if she simply doesn’t believe what he did to Meredith or if she’s only jealous. She doesn’t take the law seriously, either—Meredith’s father is over at their apartment all the time, and she leaves him there while Meredith is home. When Meredith confronts her about this, her response is the classy, “You won’t let it go, will you?” Some people might find it hard to believe a mom could be like this, but it’s realistic—there really are women out there like that. I went to school with a girl who had a mom like that.

One of the obvious questions is, why doesn’t the law do more to protect Meredith? Well, this is one of the problems with the law, really. It’s pretty rubbish at protecting people. People don’t get arrested just for having the potential for violence (which is right, of course). But sometimes the threat of violence is so great that you really do know it’s inevitable, yet still nothing can be done. In Meredith’s case, her mother definitely could do more to protect her, but she is so addicted to him that she doesn’t care. And definitely the people responsible for the conditions of his release could have made them far more restrictive, but the authorities aren’t always on the victim’s side. For instance, a woman with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence told me about a case where a man drove over his wife’s legs with the car—he was trying to kill her but missed. What happened to him? He was offered and plead guilty to driving with a revoked license. That was it. So although it’s unlikely Meredith would have been left so completely unprotected, it is feasible.

Fortunately, Meredith does have some allies in the complex. One is her boyfriend, Andy, and the other is a former cop (the one who arrested her father) named Nigel. Andy was one of Meredith’s father’s early victims, and his mother is out to get him for it. Andy wants to help protect her from her father, but he has his own life to live and sort of abandons her right after her father arrives. Nigel helps her figure out her options. She also has a grandma in town, but she’s not exactly aggressive in trying to ensure Meredith’s protected. It’s a little odd that she doesn’t try harder, but again, totally feasible. Not all families are functional.

In the end, Meredith solves the problem herself. The book wasn’t exactly a joy to read, but it was very satisfying to watch a girl deal with a bad situation. After you finish it, you will want to wash your hands. The subject matter is icky.

Before I Die (also called Now Is Good, though I prefer the former) is really a remarkable book. I’ve never read another one like it. It’s definitely the kind of story that stays with you. There are other books about teenagers who are dying, but this one feels different.

Tessa is sixteen and she has terminal leukemia. She has months left to live and is struggling with what to do with herself in her time left. She makes a list of things she wants to experience before she dies. They are pretty reasonable to me, given her age, even if some seem silly: to have sex, say yes to everything one day, break the law, be famous, drive, get her parents back together, and finally experience love. She’s a very level-headed girl and knows that the last is impossible in her situation, but a last bit of bittersweet luck allows her to meet a boy who does fall for her.

We’re dropped right into Tessa’s world. She’s been dealing with the cancer for four years and she’s sullen and feeling a little sorry for herself, but who wouldn’t be? She feels cheated and is having a hard time dealing with it. When she starts focusing on carrying out the items on the list, she finds they don’t bring her the satisfaction she hopes for. She starts paying attention to other things and notices little details about the world that most of us miss, imbuing them with personal importance. A bird flying in a straight line across the sky; light bursting through a hole in a cloud.

One of my favorite things about the book is her dad. He’s so sweet despite the fact that he is heartbroken. He really listens to Tessa in a way I think many parents would struggle to do in the same circumstances. She can say one thing and he knows that she really means something else. He’s trying to still parent her even while giving her a great deal of autonomy since they all know there’s no point in teaching her things about life since she’s not going to get to live it. He sets rules, she disobeys him, and he forgives her. The other characters are also good. There’s her insensitive eleven-year-old brother who alternates between telling her horrible things and expressing his love for her in his awkward way. Her friend Zoey isn’t the nicest person, but she’s a friend and she’s got a lot going on in her own life. Tessa’s mom is never going to win mother of the year, but she is believable and finally sort of comes through in the end. Then there’s Adam. The one weakness in the book to me was that I didn’t quite see why he fell in love with Tessa, but if you just accept that that sometimes happens, it works and he’s a good guy.

There was a quietness to the writing itself that made the experience of reading it more powerful. Through the book, Tessa experiences several rages and if you aren’t paying attention you would miss the intensity of them. But if you are paying attention, they are heartbreaking. The book will definitely take you on an emotional ride. It’s the kind of thing that makes you cry when you’re reading it, then makes you cry again later when you accidentally think about it.

If I had to sum this book up in one word, it would be ‘devastating.’ I reviewed O’Neill’s first book (Only Ever Yours) earlier and her second book is even harder-hitting. Seriously, Asking for It is a wonderfully well-executed novel with a very important message, but it is agony to read because the story is so depressing. And real.

In the beginning, Emma is a fairly popular and pretty 18-year-old girl in an Irish town. She’s also quite vain and not particularly likable, which makes the book all the more interesting, I think. Her life is grand, full of parties and fun. And one night she does something stupid that alienates her own friends. Then some of the town’s best-loved boys carry out a nightmare assault on her while she’s unconscious. In our woman-hating society, her one bad choice becomes more important to everyone than all the boys’ documented horrific (and quite illegal) behavior.

Really, it’s hard to say too much more because I think it’s important to experience the story as it unfolds. I truly believe virtually everyone should read it (though to be fair, some people will need some guidance to understand the real significance, because they are idiots—not because the book isn’t perfect, which I think it is). The only people who don’t need to read it are those who already fully understand that victim-blaming is bullshit. Anyway, reading it is uncomfortable and will make you queasy because it’s so true. And truth often hurts.

Buy Asking for It on Amazon US

Jersey Angel is different from most YA books because, frankly, there’s a lot of sex in it. It looks like a fun summer read, with a girl in a bikini at the beach on the cover. But it isn’t that, really. It’s definitely not for everybody, because the protagonist isn’t a super sympathetic character. Seventeen-year-old Angel is promiscuous and not a very good friend at all. But it’s raw and true to some teens’ experiences.

Angel has a couple of younger half-siblings she’s close with and her chill mom gives her way more freedom than a lot of teens have. She sort of has her own house, after all, except during the summer when her family rents it out to tourists. She also has two half-sisters on her dad’s side and strained relationship with her stepmom. She works occasionally but spends most of her free time at the beach and riding her bike around to hang with her various friends.

Angel lives for pleasure and barely bats an eye when her best friend’s boyfriend surprises her one night with a kiss. She enjoys sex and doesn’t want anything more than that out of a relationship, even though her semi-boyfriend Joey wants to make their relationship official. She finds it baffling that he’s called things off because she won’t. I get the feeling that him breaking up with her is the first hit her confidence has taken. Still, she’s oblivious to how shallow she really is. When she takes up with her friend’s boyfriend for real but in secret, she does feel bad, but it doesn’t stop her. Angel does grow over the next few months, but the novel doesn’t go where you’d expect it to. It’s just a nice little portrait of real life, bad choices and all.

Bauman does a great job of making a not-very-likable girl who’s about as different from me as possible into someone I at least find interesting to read about. The dialogue is spot-on—Bauman really nails Angel’s voice, as well as the other characters’. There are also all the little details that make her world real (Joey’s new interest in fancy cheese made me laugh).

Buy Jersey Angel on Amazon US

I stumbled across Dark River at Half Price Books and knew nothing about it, but it sounded interesting. The cover asked, What deadly secrets does the river hold?

Ronnie’s parents move her to a small, rural-ish town in Oregon so they can run a country inn. Her dad is a former attorney who doesn’t miss it, and Ronnie is a former city girl who does. Her mom cooks exotic stuff to make people feel better, being a former TV cooking show star. Ronnie’s a little lonely and has just one friend who works at the inn, Gretchen, and a guy at school she has a crush on, though that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. She also befriends a young girl named Karen, who she babysits.

The river is basically a moody character in the story, setting the entire tone of the book. Ronnie is a little fascinated by it, as well as the rest of nature that she’s getting acquainted with. She watches everything during her long runs out on the country roads.  But her comfortable world is rocked when she finds Karen’s body at the river while on one of her runs. At first, it seems not surprising that the volatile river would take a life.

But things get more complicated when it turns out that Karen didn’t drown accidentally. And a warning from the sheriff to Ronnie about Gretchen seems like nothing but eventually turns out to be a harbinger of some really dreadful things. The world is not as Ronnie sees it—it’s much darker and she has to come face to face with it.

She sense of foreboding is there throughout the novel so that you know something is going to happen, but I for one had no idea what it was going to be. And it’s interesting and relevant. Overall, a good read, and relatively short if you’re not in the mood for a something lengthy (though it’s emotionally hefty, for sure).

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Carrie Pilby offers an interesting portrait of an unusual girl, one I can sort of relate to, though she’s way smarter and way more well-balanced at her age than I was.

Carrie is 19 and she’s recently graduated with a degree from Harvard because she’s very, very smart. But she’s also become a bit of a hermit. Her only family is her father, and he’s in Europe. He does support her, though, and she has a decent apartment to hide out in. Because that’s what she’s doing. She spends most of her time lounging in bed in her apartment. She’s obviously got low-grade depression (possibly dysthymia) but it seems to come mostly from being isolated.

And why is she isolated? Well, she’s a little socially awkward, it’s true. But the reader can easily see that the real problem is her worldview. She’s very cynical and sees almost everyone around her as hypocrites (sex-obsessed ones at that). She’s fairly judgmental and holds everyone else up to her own high standard. If they’re not as smart as she is, they’re stupid. If they don’t hold themselves to the same moral standards, they’re horrible. And so on.

So in some ways, she’s not the most likable person. But like every good New Yorker, she has a therapist. Hers challenges her to change her life by doing a few smallish things, and she finally relents and gives it a shot. He’s told her to list 10 things she likes, join a group, go on a date, tell someone she cares, and celebrate New Year’s. For most people, this wouldn’t be hard, but it is for Carrie because she has to change her outlook to make it all happen. So the book is suddenly about dismantling her worldview a piece at a time. Not too far into the book, she finally gets a job that makes her interact with other humans and we start to see her walls shrink a little. Her quest to finish the list takes her a lot of unexpected places and we watch her grow and finally learn how to live a little more happily.

Oh, and it’s funny, too. Self-aware social misfits often are.

You can buy Carrie Pilby: A hilarious and charming story on Amazon