Book of the Month: March- Bone Gap

By: Laura Ruby

Gossip reigns high in the small farm town of Bone Gap, USA. In a town where everyone knows everyone else's business (or at least thinks they do), Finn is laden with guilt over the misconceptions of his peers. Roza, a beautiful Polish woman who recently appeared in Bone Gap under mysterious circumstances was kidnapped and he was the last person to see her. No one believes it was a kidnapping, not the police, not the townsfolk, not even Finn’s older brother Sean. Determined to set things straight, Finn sets out to find Roza, no matter the cost. Jumping from past to present, the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap are woven together in a beautiful, heartbreaking tale.  

This book was particularly interesting because it was hard to tell if it was a piece of true life fiction or a supernatural tale: you're left guessing until the very end.  I found that factor gave the story a compelling edge.  Finn and Roza are both well written characters with a lot of realistic characteristics. Roza, a recent immigrant to the USA, suffers untold horrors as a beautiful young woman far from the protection of her home and family. The flash backs outlining her circumstances are both enthralling and poignant. These well developed characters and their engaging backstory make for a complex and slightly eerie read!

Warning:  For older teens due to sexual content and instances of domestic abuse.

Other Magical Realism Books: Life of Pi, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, The Leaving

Other Similar Books on Social Injustice: How it Went Down , The Alex Crow, Out of Darkness 

The Court of Fives

By Kate Elliot

As a child of mixed-race, Jessamy is torn between her duty as a Patron and her longing for the freedom of the Commoners. In particular, Jessamy is determined to compete in The Court of Fives, a dangerous multilevel competition. Through the Fives, Jessamy achieves that sense of freedom and begins making friends such as Kai, a highborn Patron boy. Soon outside forces interfere and Jessamy’s secret activities begin to demand a terrible price as choices of loyalty, love, and honor alter the course of her and her family’s lives and lead her to question everything she once believed in.

The Court of Fives is an entertaining and refreshing novel with an exciting plot and an easy style of writing that makes it smooth and relatively quick to read. Kate Elliot has challenged many of the tired clichés we’ve all come to expect from a dystopian teen novel and created a plot-driven Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel where honor and competition take priority over romance, a subtle touch of magic is intertwined with religious elements, and the unlikely heroine is at times thoughtless, selfish, and overly ambitious. I was hooked almost immediately and I found the plot twists to be genuinely unexpected and emotionally charged.

On the negative side, I have seen better world-building. Some places, traditions, and events are described with a confusing amount of detail, while others are barely explained at all. However, I have always cared more about characters than setting, and Elliot’s characters are believable, if not always admirable, so I stayed interested and invested despite skimming through the occasional paragraph. I am also looking forward to seeing how the series might develop as I anticipate that it will pull back a little from Jessamy’s rather narrow world and to begin to address, and even combat, the brokenness and injustice of her society as a whole.

A few minor flaws aside, The Court of Fives is definitely worth a read, especially for die-hard dystopian fans who have been searching for a new favorite since The Hunger Games. This one will still give you that strong, flawed female lead as well as plenty of action and intrigue, but everything else will keep you guessing.

Book of the Month - February - Paper Hearts

by Meg Wiviott

A birthday card. Something simple, a sign of affection and love that we take for granted.  But for a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz in 1944, a birthday card is so much more – an act of defiance, a statement of hope, a crime punishable by death.  Zlatka knew this as she stole and bartered for the supplies needed to make a card for her best friend Fania.

Based on true events, Paper Hearts is a Holocaust story told in verse.  Fania and Zlatka are two Jewish teens who have lost everything – family, home, possessions.  Brought together during the horrors of the Second World War, they become best friends.  Their friendship and refusal to become victims help them both survive.

The story covers quite a bit of ground – from the early days of the occupation, families crammed together in ghettos;  to the disbelief that people felt as the ghettos were cleared and people were transported away; the terror and fear as families are separated, people packed into cattle cars to be transported to concentration camps; the selection process once at the camps, where the sick and weak were culled out right away;  the day-to-day horrors of living in the camp and working at a munitions factory as slave labour, making bullets and bombs that will help kill people who are fighting against the people imprisoning you; to the grueling death march before liberation.

This is a quick, but heartbreaking read.  Be sure to have your tissue box handy.    

Fania managed to hide the card that her friends made for her, and it is on display at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre.

Other World War II stories: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyle; The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz.

Other realistic stories in verse: The Crossover by Alexander Kwame; October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newan; The Gospel Truth by Caroline Pignat.

Dangerous Girls

By: Abigail Haas

I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up Dangerous Girls, but needless to say I was blown away. If you're looking for a thriller that will mess with your head, make you feel all the feels and leave you in a traumatized state wondering what just happened - look no further.

This is a story of a group of friends who have planned a luxurious, unsupervised and scandalous Spring Break trip to Aruba. Anna and her best friend Elise are especially excited for the trip. A couple of days in and everyone is having a blast, engrossed in non-stop fun and debachery fueled partying.

However, the trip is cut short when Elise is found brutally murdered in their rental condo. Best friend Anna, along with her boyfriend Tate, are the only friends in the group without an alibi and are subsequently accused of murder. Following the arrest, Anna must try to fight the charges and prove her innocence in a country far from home. 

I can't say much more about this; it's just too good. Be warned, this is a mature read with some disturbing elements, and not for the faint of heart. If you like murder mysteries full of suspense, anguish and mind-bending twists, check this one out.

Abigail Haas is a pseudonym for Abby McDonald, author of some other teen books that are much more light hearted.

A Taste for Monsters

A Taste for Monsters

By Matthew J. Kirby

"I woke up next to a dead woman. A black fly rested on her open left eye, straddling her lashes ..." With an opening like that how could I resist? I am a fan of history, strong female leads and horror; A Taste for Monsters has it all.

Set in 1888 London our lead, Evelyn, is out of work and on the streets after becoming disfigured in a fire at the matchstick factory where she worked. Looking for a place to hide from the cruel streets she gets a job working at a hospital as the caregiver for Joseph Merrick, otherwise known as the Elephant man. While most people turn from her disfigurement in disgust, Evelyn finds a kindred spirit in Mr. Merrick. 

A combination of historical fiction, horror and mystery this tale of a young woman in the late 1800's intertwines historical facts with spirits and haunting that bring the unlikely pair into the folds of the Jack the Ripper murders.

This story does not shy away from the harsh realities of London's White Chapel district in the late 1800's; prostitution, desperation and death are all on display in the streets. Kirby describes the plight of a woman without position and the cruel treatment of a man with a life threatening disfigurement. As these themes lend themselves to a dark and layered story, this book is not for the faint at heart.

Author Matthew J. Kirby is the winner of the PEN Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature and the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery.

Book of the Month: January -- Saving Red

by Sonya Sones

Fourteen-year-old Molly has to finish her volunteer community service hours.  Now.  Really.  The assignment is due tomorrow morning.  Which is how she finds herself in the company of Feather and Eden, doing Santa Monica's annual count of homeless people.  When Molly finds a teenage girl in the grip of a nightmare sleeping on a park bench, she can't forget the girl with the blazing red hair.  After a couple of chance encounters with Red, Molly vows to reunite Red with her family for Christmas.

It turns out to be a lot more difficult than Molly imagines.

Molly's dealing with her own problems at home.  Something tragic happened, but Molly won't say it aloud, and neither will her parents.  So her mother copes by smoking pot and buying one of everything from the Home Shopping Network, and her father deals with it all by working so much he's hardly ever home.  Molly's so traumatized by this event, that she's prone to panic attacks, and has a preternaturally wise service dog named Pixel.  

And Red?

Red hears voices.  Sometimes they tell her to do helpful things.  Other times, their instructions are destructive to both Red and her family.  Plus, Red isn't the slightest bit interested in getting help.

Throw in Cristo, the boy she meets on the Ferris wheel at the Pacific Park pier, and Molly has quite the jam-packed winter break from school.

Technically, this is a "verse novel," or a novel written entirely in poetry.  But this isn't you're grandmother's poetry, or even your mother's poetry.  Sones writes stunning, moving inner monologues, where the placement of a single word can pack more of a visceral emotional punch than pages of text.  You also still get the experience of reading a novel, but without the edge-to-edge text of a traditional novel.  Don't let the size of the book intimidate you!  It's a quick read.  I found myself eagerly turning the page to find out what happened next.  Sones also doesn't trivialize mental illness.  She delves into the impact it can have on the person struggling with an illness and their families.  Even though Sones manages to neatly wrap up the novel at the end, it's obvious that there are still lots of unanswered questions.

Sones also wrote What My Mother Doesn't Know and What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know.  Other verse novels you might want to try are Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhhai Lai or the Crank series by Ellen Hopkins.

There are several novels that also deal with mental illness, but you might want to read Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork or Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman.  

The Truth Commision

The Truth Commission 

by Susan Juby

There is a saying that the truth will set you free, but sometimes that truth comes with a price. Normandy, Neil and Dusk (who's real name is Dawn) are art students at the Green Pastures Academy in Nanaimo, BC and they decide to ask their classmates some truth seeking questions. 

As they probe their peers, they uncover truths that they may not have been expecting, not only about their targets, but also about themselves. All of this truth seeking starts a domino effect throughout the school and  the student body comes clean in different ways with both positive and negative results. 

The hardest truth to uncover is about what happened to Normandy's famous sister, Keira. Keira, a published graphic novelist has mysteriously returned from college and has shut herself away from everyone. It doesn't help that Normandy's parents are in denial about any issues that Keira's novels have wrought upon the family - the graphic novel characters bear a striking, yet unflattering resemblance to Normandy and her parents. In trying to uncover what has happened to Keira, Normandy is forced to face some unpleasant truths of her own, but with the support of Neil, Dusk, and some unlikely allies, she develops the strength needed to carry on.

The writing style is engaging, written in Normandy's voice, in the format of her final project for class. The tales of the truth commission are dotted with Normandy's own wit and observations, often in the form of amusing footnotes to her teacher. Juby pulls you right into the story and you find yourself caring for and rooting for the characters as they find out truths about themselves and each other.