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From the prologue:

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.

I counted.

It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, “What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?” and my father said, “Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,” and that was the last thing he ever said.

As with Undone, I don’t want to give too much away about Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road. If you’re feeling adventurous, I recommend just diving into the book without reading the jacket copy or looking for more information about it. (In other words, don’t expect much plot summary in this review. Shocking, I know! ) I will say that this is not a book for everyone. I can easily see teens picking this up and loving it, and I can also see teens giving up, even if you warn them that it’s tough going for a while. Myself, I loved this book. Right now, it’s my favorite book of the year. It’s a great book to hand to adults—both those familiar and unfamiliar with contemporary YA fiction—and, I have to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if this at least gets a Printz Honor, assuming it’s eligible for the award. (Although, after this past year’s winner and honor books, what do I know about how these committees think?)

Jellicoe Road is a book that demands a second reading. Partly because the characters and story were so indelibly created that I wanted to continue reading about them, but also because of how the story is structured. Beyond the prologue, which is only two pages long, we’re given no background info about anything. Not about the characters, not about the setting, not about the events that will take place. We read about the various characters and the school and events that play a role in the story, but are in the dark as to their importance, history, and relationships.

The first half of the book is difficult to comprehend because of this. We’re thrown into the middle of, well, something, with no explanation of what’s going on. The various characters aren’t so much introduced as they are captured in the midst of the action, and what background information is given early on about everyone and everything is not contextualized. Things happen, a lot of things, but Marchetta doesn’t place special emphasis on what is essential for readers to pick up on or explain the connections between the various elements. Instead, she gracefully and subtly fills in the blanks as the story goes on, and it’s left to the reader to put everything together. Little by little, as Taylor (the narrator) begins to learn more about the past and about herself, things start to make sense.

I’m a bit afraid I may have made Jellicoe Road seem a bit scary or intimidating. And it does, to be honest, require some effort on the part of the reader, but I also think that there is enough promise of a story, a reason to keep on reading, underlying everything that readers will become aware of, even if they pick the book up on their own with no assurance that it will start to make sense.

I’ve been thinking of the story as a jigsaw puzzle. At first, it’s confusing and perhaps more than a bit overwhelming. Gradually, we start putting the pieces together, in segments that start off small and may not be connected to each other, until we reach the point that we can join everything together, with only a few final pieces left to be put in place. And this, more than anything, is why I feel that it demands rereading. Because as much as I came to love the book the first time around, reading it again, with awareness and foreknowledge of who is who and what happened and why it’s so important, made the story so much richer. And it made me appreciate everything about the book even more: the structure, which was intricate yet seemed so effortlessly done; the prose, which was at times heartbreakingly beautiful, but also deceptively simple; the story, which is about friendship and family and love and loss and forgiveness and connections and learning to live and so much more, since I haven’t discussed the story at all here; and the characters, with all their complications and sorrow and hope, whom I continue to think about.

This is, in a sense, a book that sucks you in right away. I mean, remember the prologue? How could I not finish a book that begins this way? But it’s also a book that requires patience and trust, believing that everything confusing will fall into place and that the time and effort spent reading will be worth it. For me, it more than was.

Jellicoe Road is a Cybils YA Fiction nominee and has also been reviewed by Becky and Jocelyn.

Now this is one of the reasons I love being a Cybils panelist. If Undone hadn’t been nominated, I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have read it. Which definitely would have been a shame. Because the flap copy and Library of Congress description make the book seem so much drier, so much less than the book really is. Not to mention that they also make the book seem a lot more sentimental and much tamer than it really is. (Translation: drinking, drugs, smoking, and references to sex included.) They are accurate, broadly speaking, but they just don’t convey the, I don’t know, power? rawness? altogether awesomeness? of what actually comprises Brooke Taylor’s Undone.

Much like Nancy Crocker’s Billie Standish Was Here (one of last years would-have-bypassed-it-but-was-a-Cybils-nominee-so-I-read-it-and-OMG-freaking-loved-it books), this is a book I’m hesitant to describe in detail, plot-wise. First, because I don’t want to give anything away. Second, because I don’t think I’d do it justice. Because as with Billie Standish, what I liked about Undone was not so much the plot. It was the characters. The relationships. The emotions. The voice. Anthony Beck. Plus, the visceral sense of chemistry between Serena and Becks.

So here’s my one-sentence plot teaser for Undone: Serena doesn’t know why Kori Kitzler, newly transformed into the school bad girl, befriended her two years ago, but her life hasn’t been the same since.

I don’t love Undone anywhere near as much as I love Billie Standish. For one thing, I think it was a bit too long and would have been more powerful if it was a little shorter and some of the subplots cut. Also, ** spoiler! spoiler! highlight if you want to read ** I don’t understand why it was so important that we know about Serena’s computer hacking skills, since it added nothing to the plot and actually made no sense in the context of the story. I mean, if Serena’s got such mad hacking skillz, why couldn’t she do some hacking to discover who shaym was? or find out where Kori was the summer before 8th grade? Okay, the latter would be a huge invasion of privacy, but after Kori was dead? Easily something a friend could be driven to do. ** end spoilers ** Flaws aside, though, Undone was so much more than I was expecting, and I can’t wait to see what Brooke Taylor’s next book will be like. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of Jay Asher or a fan of Melissa Marr and don’t mind if there are no faeries, you need to give this one a try.

This book is a Cybils YA Fiction nominee and has been reviewed by Leila (whose review made me ignore the flap copy and just start reading the book. So, thanks!)

Having very much enjoyed Carrie Jones’ Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend, I had no plans to read Love (and other uses for duct tape) prior to the latter book being nominated for the Cybils this year. I just didn’t want to face the possibility that my enjoyment of Tips would be ruined by whatever might happen in Love. *cough* Charmed Thirds *cough* But while I was pleased that Love did not, in fact, lessen my enjoyment of Tips, I also thought it was not as good a book as Tips.

It’s now May of Belle’s senior year of high school. She’s still dating Tom, still best friends with Em (who’s still dating Shawn), still friendly with Dylan (who’s still dating Bob). But she wants more. With Tom, at least. She wants to have sex with Tom. She loves him, he turns her on, and if she had sex with her gay ex-boyfriend, why isn’t she having sex with her decidedly straight new guy? Plus Belle, who’s epileptic, has an unexplained seizure, which she worries will affect Tom’s feelings toward her, and must help Em deal with unexpected news.

I liked that Belle has sexual desires and wants to have sex with her boyfriend and that it’s presented so naturally. For this alone, I would recommend this book. But there were times I felt like Belle was confusing Tom’s willingness (or lack thereof) to have sex with her with his love for her, in a “We’re not having sex, so he must not love me” kind of way. I also found it annoying that, for most of the book, every time Belle referred to Dylan, it was in conjunction with the “gay ex-boyfriend” label. People who’ve read Tips know that already, and folks who haven’t read Tips don’t need to be told that Dylan is her gay ex-boyfriend every time he’s mentioned. Once or twice would have been just fine.

So why don’t I think Love is as good as Tips? Good question! Ultimately, I guess it was the accumulation of minor things, like the above complaints, which, individually, I do consider to be pretty minor. I think fans of Tips will also enjoy Love, and it stands alone well enough for people who haven’t read Tips. But Love never seemed to move beyond Tips, by which I mean it never distinguished itself from Tips. I’m sure this will make it even more enjoyable to some readers, and I kind of feel that this bothers me a lot more than it will bother teens. Who, after all, are the actual audience for this book. Love retains the same compressed time frame (everything takes place in less than a week), and the chemistry between Belle and Tom, and the small town atmosphere, and basically everything else that made Tips so enjoyable. But for me, it also made things a little stale this time around. This time, it seemed like there was too much going on in too little time. This time, things were perhaps a little too familiar. So maybe it’s not exactly that Love isn’t as good as Tips, but that it never created an identity of its own to separate itself in my mind from Tips. And since Tips is the book I read first, it’s the book I have stronger feelings toward.

This book is a Cybils YA Fiction nominee and was also reviewed by Becky.

There are a couple of ways I know a novel has worked for me. One of them is being so caught up in the story and invested in the characters that I don’t notice any of its flaws or question any of its plot points until after I’ve finished the book. And even then, these problems don’t end up detracting from my enjoyment of the book. Matt de la Peña’s Mexican WhiteBoy is a perfect example of such a book.

Danny knows he sticks out in National City, where he’s spending the summer. Half white and half Mexican, his skin is lighter than everyone else’s, he gets good grades at the pricey private school he attends, and he speaks no Spanish. Not that he speaks much to begin with. Ever since his father left, he hasn’t spoken much at all. Danny is sure he’s the reason his father decided to leave, that he’s too white and too much of a disappointment to his Spanish-speaking Mexico-born father. He’d looked up to his father as a kid, still looks up to him although he’s gone, even became a pitcher because of him.

When Danny was a kid, his father told him being a great pitcher is better than being a great hitter. The guy on the mound controls the entire game, he’d said. Controls the pace. Who sees what pitch. Who has to dive out of the way to avoid taking one in the back. And then he dropped it. Never brought it up again. But Danny always remembered. That night he put down the bat down and decided to become a pitcher, what he is today.

Secretly, though, it still makes him feel alive to crush something with a bat. Almost as much as striking somebody out. (p. 19)

The guys in National City are shocked when they see Danny, dressed like a surfer and never talking trash—never talking, period—play ball. Especially Uno, whose African-American father wants Uno to join him and his new family in Oxnard. But Uno needs to earn some money first, and the $30 and $40 pots from the neighborhood home run derby competitions may no longer be his to win now that Danny’s around. Still, though, Uno can’t help becoming friends with the guy. And maybe there’s a way for Uno to make the $500 he needs, after all, now that he’s seen the way Danny can pitch.

Overall, I really liked Mexican WhiteBoy. I liked the way the story flowed, how everything and almost everyone seemed so real. The relationships and Danny’s growth felt unforced and natural, and I could practically hear the characters speaking as I read. That said, there were some unresolved plot points and I had more than a few questions after finishing the book. Take Leucadia Prep, the school Danny attends, for example. In spite of his natural pitching ability, Danny has control problems when he’s facing batters, which is why he was cut from his school’s baseball team. The way I read the book, he didn’t play baseball at all for his school, which later struck me as odd, because I would have thought Danny would at least have been offered a spot on the JV team. Did the school not have a JV team? (I’d think they would, since the school is in Southern California and one of the top high school players in the country was on the team.) Did Danny not make the JV team, assuming there was such a team? (But the coach told him he had “great stuff,” and wouldn’t JV be a good place to work on his control?) Did Danny choose not to play on the JV team, assuming, again, there was a JV team? (Always possible, but not mentioned at all.)

Does this matter? Well, maybe it will to some. And I will acknowledge that if I am judging Mexican WhiteBoy not by how much I liked it but on less subjective criteria, then, yes, the flaws do matter. But I also have a feeling that this book and Danny and Uno are going to stick with me far longer than books that may be technically “better.”

This book is a Cybils YA Fiction nominee and was also reviewed by Abby.

[cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire]

Chris and Win have been best friends for years, less because of anything they had in common than for the simple reason that neither one had any other friends. And while Win’s antics sometimes aggravate Chris, their friendship lasts through their senior year of high school, when they set off on a post-graduation bike trip across the country.

Chris’ mother was afraid of what might happen to Chris on the trip; Win’s parent’s frankly didn’t care. None of them expected that when Chris returned home at the end of the summer, it would be without Win, who ditched Chris with no explanation just short of Seattle, their final destination.

As Chris starts his freshman year at Georgia Tech, he learns that Win didn’t just ditch him, he’s disappeared. Win’s wealthy and powerful father, who never seemed to approve of anything Win did, is now desperate to find him. And since Chris, as far as anyone knows, was the last person to have seen Win, Chris is the one under pressure—or is that suspicion?—in the form of questioning by an FBI agent and not-so-subtle threats from Win’s father, to discover what exactly happened to Win.

After a bumpy first couple of pages, I really enjoyed Shift, Jennifer Bradbury’s debut novel. Bradbury’s author bio notes that “she and her husband took a two-month long bicycling trek from Charleston, South Carolina, to Los Angeles, California,” and you definitely get a sense of this in the book, from the people and small towns Chris and Win encounter, to the technical details of planning and actually completing such a trip. The story is told by Chris, but the time frame alternates with each chapter, switching back and forth from Chris’ current perspective, as he learns that Win never returned home and attempts to find out what happened, and flashbacks covering the events of the bike trip. And it’s all told in such a way that unfolds smoothly, that never left me feeling cheated or upset that certain information was (or was not) withheld. Instead, I was drawn into the story and invested in the characters.

Plus, I’ll admit that it was very refreshing to read a book about the friendship between two teenaged boys and growing up, with no wars, no trying to hook up with a love interest, and no spying involved.

Shift is a Cybils YA Fiction nominee.