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Even though I’ve been out of school for ages and ages, there is something about September that says new beginnings. Here are five Fall titles I’m eager to read ... Read the rest of this post

Jacket description:
"Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School’s most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed.


Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didn’t answer the phone call she made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can’t get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind.


Audrey: She’s the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton’s fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it—especially since she’s convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is.


As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton’s dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldn’t save."
 
What a fantastic debut! It's so rare that a first time novelist really gets it, but Anna Jarzab obviously gets it. She knows the audience she's writing for and dives right into the YA mystery genre with an incredibly compelling story, well-written characters, and a plot that will keep your fingers flipping those pages as fast as you can.

The mystery portion of the book was done well enough that I had no idea how it was going to pan out (though once I did, I was kicking myself that it took me that long). All of the characters, though especially Audrey, were written realistically and in a manner that led me to really see how invested in her writing Jarzab was. You really want to know what happens to all of these teens and how their story plays out.
My one, teensy, criticism is about the last couple of pages. I don't want to give anything away, since that's the "big bang" of an ending, but I didn't quite believe in that part. It seemed a little rushed...the rest of the book had been slow to build (though in a good way) and the ending just happened so quickly, it seemed out of place. Other than that, loved it.


Overall rating: 4 out of 5
Hand this to just about any teen...boy or girl...and they'll enjoy it.

All Unquiet Things
Anna Jarzab
352 pages
Young Adult Fiction
Delacorte Press
9780385738354
January 2010
Review copy received from publisher

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All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab. Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House. 2010. Review copy from publisher.

The Plot: It's been a year since Neily's ex-girlfriend Carly was murdered. One year; and now that senior year has started, it should be behind him. Someone was arrested, a trial was held, the murderer is in jail. Neily is still conflicted about his feelings about Carly, their time together, their breakup, her murder, so when Carly's cousin Audrey approaches him with her belief that the real murderer is still out there, he's not sure what to do.

The Good: Pure brilliance. A wonderful mystery.

Sometimes Neily tells the story; sometimes, Audrey. With both, the story switches from the present, senior year, to the past, when Neily, Carly, and Audrey first met. Neily tells a sweet, tender story of meeting his best friend, Carly, in 8th grade on his first day at private school, and how that friendship became one of two young teens in love and then unraveled so disastrously that the entire school witnessed their break up as Carly moved on to becoming friends with the edgy, popular, social, cool kids.

There is the mystery of Carly's murder, but also the mystery of shifting friendships and loves and personalities in high school. Why is a good girl attracted to the bad boy? What does an endless party scene offer that quiet days of reading books does not?

As with any mystery, for me to tell details about the crime -- the murder of Carly -- would result in the reader not having the pleasure of discovering it themselves.

What I will say: Like Brick and Veronica Mars, Jarzab uses high school as a microcosm of the real world. So it's not so much saying, "here is the dark underside of High School" as saying "here is the dark underside of life." High School just conveniently lowers the number of suspects and the people and places to investigate.

Jarzab does something that is quite daring for a book: she makes characters unlikable. There is no "OMG I LUV THIS PERSON," a reaction that is sometimes seen on blogs (and, truth be told, I've done it, too.) Neily can come across as a bit of prude, and yes, a bit stalkerish and obsessed about Carly. Carly cruelly hurts Neily. Audrey brings Carly into the cool, dangerous crowd. And yet, it is because they each are at times unlikeable that the book is so strong. They are not perfect; they are human; they have failings. Failings that we all have, every day, yet we aren't murdered; our friends aren't murdered. It makes Neily, Carly and Audrey identifiable, perhaps uncomfortably so. Woul