I like Downham but was a little hesitant about this one because I thought the premise sounded stressful. But I’d put it on my reading list for this MFA semester, so I cracked it open last week.

Mikey’s 15-year-old sister Karyn has been raped just before the book opening and he’s upset but not sure what to do about it. Ellie’s brother Tom is the accused rapist and she’s defended him with her statement to the police, because she was the only other one home the night it happened. It’s clear from the back cover copy that Mikey and Ellie are going to meet and the implication is there of a relationship.

They come from different worlds. Mikey’s mom’s life is largely ruled by alcohol and the family is on benefits while Ellie’s family is wealthy. Mikey left school after not doing well and 16-year-old Ellie is dutifully studying for her exams. Tom is a typical entitled rich white guy, used to getting what he wants. Ellie is very timid, though, with an overbearing father who favors Tom heavily and a mother who does, as well.

The book opens with Mikey going to Tom’s house to beat him up, but he’s not home. However, the family is throwing a huge party to celebrate him getting out on bail. When Mikey knocks on the door, it’s Ellie who answers and he convinces her he’s one of Tom’s friends so he gets invited to the party. Mikey and his friend go with the intent of beating Tom up, but instead Mikey accidentally befriends Ellie and decides to run with it—he can mine her for info about Tom. The problem with that is that he actually likes her, and she likes him. Things progress sort of like you’d expect, but not exactly, which makes it work.

The subject matter is handled with care and we don’t know what really happened until quite a ways into the story. There are hints but Ellie, Tom, and Karyn are all sticking to their stories. Still, the book is very well-plotted with reveals coming right as they’re needed and not before. The characters are great. Ellie is sort of spineless in the beginning but grows one, Mikey’s not the greatest guy (kind of a player) but he gets believably nicer, and Karyn also seems to finally be recovering from the assault by the end. I should mention that it’s a quiet story that makes you think throughout and might seem a little slow to some, but it didn’t bother me. As I mentioned above, I thought pacing was good.

There are lots of YA books about rape out there, but this one is different because we never get the victim’s perspective. I enjoyed it more than I thought I might, so I’d recommend it even if you’re not a fan of issue books (it doesn’t feel like one to me). And the seaside English town setting will provide a certain exoticism for American readers.

I first read Just Listen a few years ago and I loved it, mostly for Owen, the male lead. Not because he was swoonworthy or whatever in the typical sense. No, it was because he was hilarious (as was his sister and his relationship with her). Also, I could relate to him and his frustrations with Annabel (I had the same frustrations). I recently reread the novel for my MFA and found it just as good as I remembered. I was still frustrated with Annabel and glad to see her change by the end, and I was still very fond of Owen and his anger management issues (doesn’t sound particularly funny, but it’s all in the way he and his sister talk about it).

It’s not too surprising that I couldn’t relate too much to Annabel, who’s working as a model on the local scene. Fortunately, she’s not one of those uber-skinny, unhealthy girls. Body image is actually really important to the story, as Annabel’s sister Whitney suffers from anorexia and much of the book revolves around this. Fortunately, Annabel herself has a fairly healthy view of herself and actually eats like a normal person.

The book is told entirely from Annabel’s perspective and it starts at the beginning of the school year (junior year, if I remember correctly). And Annabel’s got a big problem. Something happened at the end of the last school year that cost her her friendship with Sophie—and her entire social standing. This is noteworthy for a couple reasons: we don’t know what happened and Annabel doesn’t tell us until close to the end; and Sophie is a horrible bitch to everyone so it doesn’t reflect well on Annabel that she was friends with Sophie for as long as she was. Still, the point is that at the beginning of the year, Annabel doesn’t have any friends.

We learn pretty quick that Annabel can’t speak her mind. She’s a consummate people-pleaser. She has two older sisters both of whom have pretty distinct personalities, whereas Annabel gets kind of lost. We get the sense that her family doesn’t know her that well. We almost get the sense that she doesn’t even have a personality (that’s kind of how it felt to me, anyway). She’s just so nice.

She eats lunch on a wall outside the school vaguely near Owen, a big guy most people are scared of because of the time he punched this really obnoxious guy the previous year (Annabel even saw it happen). After something happens that gets them to speak for the first time, they strike up a very unlikely friendship which grows slowly over the course of the book.

As I mentioned, I loved this book. Still, it’s quiet and even slow-moving because we get lots of flashbacks along the way. I didn’t notice that the first time I read it because I was too busy wanting to see where their relationship goes and what actually happened at that party that pissed Sophie off. But this time, I found it interesting because normally that is a bad thing to do (stop the forward motion of the story by looking back) but for me it totally worked here because I was so invested in Annabel and I knew the past was the key to unlocking what happened. And as it turns out, what happened was a big deal and by the end Annabel is finally able to deal with it because of her growth that comes at least partially as a result of Owen’s influence.

So I enthusiastically recommend this to fans of contemporary YA. It’s deep and moving and entertaining all at the same time.

It’s not often that you get a YA novel that deals with both poetry and romance novels. Rabb does a great job with this book. It’s cute and funny even while touching on some sad subjects.

Eva is sixteen and she’s still trying to get over the death of her father in a plane crash two years earlier. And deal with the fact that her mom doesn’t seem to care and has done everything in her power to erase Eva’s father’s memory from their lives. For whatever reason, after he died, Eva found comfort in romance novels. They certainly can be comforting, as they always end how you want them to. There’s no risk of something going really wrong. But it’s also got Eva believing in love a little more than her mom would like.

Eva’s had a crush on Will, a senior swimmer at their school. When she’s lucky enough to get him assigned to her tutoring session, she thinks she’s got a chance. But when a parade of girlfriends come by to pick him up afterward, she doesn’t have a lot of hope. But still, they get to know each other over the weeks and when he breaks up with his last girlfriend, Eva’s dream comes true. His kiss is as great as she imagined and they end up spending a (chaste) night together in a garden on top of their school. But then Will drops a bombshell: he’s moving across the country.

Eva’s distraught, but she’s so convinced of their perfection as a couple that she’s not really worried. Still, she needs to be able to see him again, and she figures out a way to make that happen. She convinces her best friend Annie to compete in a game show in LA to win a bunch of money for college. Then she manages to convince her skeptical mom to let her ride across the country on a bus (no planes for Eva). Adventures and heartache ensue.

Where does the poetry come in? you ask. Eva used to be a poet. She’d write with her dad, who she was very close to, but since his death she hasn’t been able to write. Will convinces her to write a poem, which she does even though she thinks it’s crap. But then she’s stuck again. It isn’t until the end that she’s starting to get over that. But poetry is still important to her, and each chapter starts with a quote from a poem.

I liked this book. I specifically listened to the audio book, which was well done and I’d recommend it to fans of contemporary. Eva’s likable and relatable even if she’s a tad naive (who isn’t at 16…).

As I think I’ve mentioned earlier, I wasn’t a huge Judy Blume fan growing up, although I did read most of her stuff for younger readers. My MFA course instructor wanted me to read several of Blume’s books for this semester and Tiger Eyes was one I picked. It was first published in 1981 and I have to say it holds the test of time pretty well, with a couple exceptions I’ll mention below.

New Jersey teenager Davey’s father has just been killed in a robbery/murder at his 7-Eleven store, leaving her, her mom, and her 7-year-old brother, Jason, all behind. Davey’s mom is not coping at all, and Davey isn’t doing so well, herself. She has panic attacks at school and passes out more than once. Davey’s aunt (her dad’s sister) and uncle visited for the funeral and left an open invitation to visit them in New Mexico if they need to. After Davey’s fainting spells, that’s what her mom decides to do.

So the three of them head off to Los Alamos and stay with Bitsy and Walter. At first, Walter insists on showing them around like they’re happy tourists and Davey is soon bored to death. She pushes back and takes off on Bitsy’s bike to explore a little, escaping to the nearby canyon, where she also meets the elusive Wolf.

Bitsy clearly relishes her new role a mother hen while Davey’s mom stands by basically catatonic. They’re there long enough that the two kids have to enroll in school. Davey fights it but loses and soon starts at the local high school, where she is befriended by Jane. Things develop from there in ways I really didn’t expect. I thought this was going to be a love story, but it’s not. It’s deeper than that and goes into healing after a trauma and just dealing with relationships and the unexpected turns they sometimes take.

I mentioned there were a couple of aspects of the book that made it not age as well as it could have. Davey is overall a pretty decent kid who you could imagine in modern novel. Her best friend is a black girl who can’t stand basketball and loves science. Wolf’s Hispanic and she definitely likes him. But at one point when she’s frustrated at her brother for making baking his new hobby, she walks in on him preparing cookies and calls his apron “faggy.” I mean, uh. But even worse is the overt racism that Davey’s friend Jane displays toward all Hispanics. Davey doesn’t get it because she definitely doesn’t feel the same, but Jane is still a major secondary character and it’s pretty unpleasant (although it doesn’t get mentioned very often, to be fair—maybe three times—but it’s a stain). I know that this is painting an accurate picture of the town/gown divide in Los Alamos because of the national lab there (at least at the time; I don’t know if it’s still like that), where all the lab scientists are white and all the laborers are Hispanic. But still.

With those caveats, I can honestly say I really enjoyed the story. Davey’s a really sympathetic character and we see her standing up for herself and her family when she needs to. It might be Blume’s best book.

I first read Looking for Alaska two or three years ago, and reread it recently for the MFA. I enjoyed it the second time around, too. Of course, I was “reading as a writer” so the experience was a little different. Still, it’s a good story told well.

Miles Halter is a studious and mostly friendless 16-year-old in Florida when the book opens, but he’s fine with his situation. He does want more out of life and is seeking the “Great Perhaps,” a journey he’s starting by heading off to an Alabama boarding school—where he’s won a scholarship. Once there, he befriends his roommate, nicknamed “the Colonel”, who introduces him to other friends, especially a girl named Alaska. An evening conversation with her is all it takes for Miles to fall in love (she’s, of course, hot). But she’s also wild and has a boyfriend. She’s the quintessential manic pixie dream girl.

The Colonel and Alaska introduce Miles to cigarettes and drinking, and Miles takes to his new social life like a champ. Suddenly he’s a major rule-breaker along with the rest of them. Then, in some ways not a lot else happens until the major event a little past halfway through the book. Miles hangs out with them and continues to be smitten by Alaska. Another girl, Lara, has a bit of a crush on him and he sort of starts seeing her (he doesn’t mind getting his first BJ from her at all). But then the Big Event happens. And like the back of the book says, nothing is ever the same.

Except it kind of is, and Miles has to come to terms with that. Life is full of major events and they’re not all pleasant. Feeling a little guilty about their role in the Big Event, he and the Colonel embark on a mission to find out what happened, ultimately realizing that they can’t really know.

It’s cool to see Miles develop over the second half, actually. Because he’s not really very nice to the people around him, especially Lara. He’s a believable, fairly self-absorbed boy. But by the end he has grown and I think he’s on his way to being a nicer guy.

Miles’s voice in the book is great—intelligent and a little sarcastic (not too much). And the novel is funny. Miles says:

You can say a lot of bad things about Alabama, but you can’t say that Alabamans as a people are unduly afraid of deep fryers.

Green has a way with words and pulls you into all the characters. Alaska is the most elusive of the major characters, but that’s by design.

So if you want to see a realistic portrayal of a teen boy going through his first real crush and having to deal with his first real tragedy, this is a good book for it. But if you can’t handle kids behaving badly, you might not like it. Because they do a lot of getting up to no good.

Eleanor & Park is one of my favorite books because it’s a wonderful emotional roller coaster-ride. Rowell is probably my favorite author because of what she can do with details. Who knew hand-holding could be as intense as she makes it?

This book was Rowell’s first foray into the YA space (she’d published other books for the adult market), but they weren’t originally sure if they were going to market it to teens or adults. I think they chose wisely, as she’s followed up with a couple other successful YA books. 

Eleanor & Park is about—surprise!—Eleanor and Park. Eleanor’s new to town and her living circumstances are terrible so she has to scrounge for clothes. Even taking a bath is a huge and risky ordeal because there’s no door to the area where the bathtub is. The list of problems really goes on and on, but suffice it to say that her biggest one is her asshole of a stepfather. 

Park, on the other hand, is a fairly normal middle-class kid with one exception—his mom’s Korean and that’s just not regular in their town. 

The book opens in Park’s point of view when he deals with some of his racist classmates and then watches with everyone else as Eleanor appears on the bus for the first time, wearing a crazy combination of clothes. She’s desperate to find a place to sit and eventually Park slides over so she can sit next to him. It’s a risky move for him because now he’ll be associated with the freak who’s already been made fun of by all the kids on the bus. But he soon changes his mind about her and it marks the beginning of a slow-build relationship that readers (including me) love. 

They don’t speak at first, but Park notices she’s reading over his shoulder on the bus (he reads comics), so he brings some for her to borrow. They still don’t speak much. Then he starts to share his music, even giving her a Walkman and batteries since she doesn’t have such things. Park is clueless about her troubles at home because she does her best to hide them, but they get closer and closer and eventually she starts spending most afternoons at his house. 

But of course, the stepdad finds out and all hell breaks loose. This leads to a heartbreaking decision for both of them, even though the book (by most people’s reading) ends on an up note. 

Really, I just adore this book. It so captures the intensity of first love. But it’s also a great story about a tough girl  who manages to get through some really horrible circumstances and eventually come out ahead. It’s kind of interesting, because in some ways I felt closer to Park while reading than to Eleanor, but this is fitting because of how closed off she is even with him. Rowell’s such an amazing author. I can’t recommend this book enough (for readers 15+, I guess).

Jellicoe Road is a layered contemporary with a carefully-woven-in mystery. It’s beautifully written. But I have to admit, it’s also just the kind of book that makes me feel a little dumb, because I regularly felt like I didn’t fully understand everything that was going on (especially in the beginning). This can happen with complex books—I am often a lazy reader and don’t always pick up on very subtle nuances, which abound in this book. Still, that doesn’t make it a bad book and I did enjoy it (things made sense for me by the end).

Taylor Markham is 17 and she’s now the leader of all the houses at her boarding school outside a small town in Australia. She’s kind of an unlikely leader and isn’t overly confident in her abilities, but she’s stubborn enough to want to try. She’s had to learn to be kind of tough, as her mom abandoned her at a 7-11 when she was 11.

There’s an alternating storyline that takes place 20 years earlier about five kids around the same age as Taylor. Three of them survived a terrible car wreck on Jellicoe Road and ended up at the school, with the others being a local and a cadet. It’s not clear how this relates to Taylor, though naturally you suspect it must in some way.

Being the leader matters for Taylor because one of the main focuses of the book is the “war“ fought between the Jellicoe School kids, the “Cadets” (city kids who camp out for 6 weeks at the beginning of the school year for some outdoor experience), and the “Townies” (self-explanatory). The war is really about territory, thought there being teen boys involved, there’s also a spatter of physical violence. Who has what territory limits the areas the different groups can go. The first quarter to third of the book is full of complicated negotiations for territory and hostages.

Taylor’s main adult confidante is Hannah (who’s more of a friend than anything—and the one who found her at the 7-11). Hannah lives at a house very close to the school and is in the process of writing a book that Taylor’s curious about but has never read—at least not until Hannah mysteriously disappears near the beginning. The disappearance is very distressing for Taylor, but Hannah’s book ties into the history of the kids from the car wreck.

Things do come together very nicely at the end, and although it felt inevitable (as all good endings do), it wasn’t really predictable. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’m not going to say any more about the story, but if you enjoy nuanced and lovely storytelling you could very well love this book.