Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys

In 1945, the German passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff was targeted by Russian torpedoes, resulting in the deaths of thousands.  It's not a well-known story from WWII, but Ruta Sepetys made a name for herself in the previous novel Between Shades of Gray by exploring those stories that need to be told.  Needless to say, one doesn't open this book expecting a happy ending; we all know what's going to happen.  But we don't know who will survive or who will perish, and because Sepetys is so skilled at making us invested in her characters, you'll find yourself desperately flipping the final pages of the book to find out what happens.

Salt to the Sea begins with a road trip on foot.  A group of ragtag refugees is journeying in the cold to the sea, hoping to find passage out of western Germany before Russia overtakes them.  Sepetys switches between four perspectives: Florian, a German soldier on the run, harboring a secret; Joana, a nurse from Lithuania; Emilia, an unmarried, pregnant Polish girl; and Alfred, a young Nazi sailor working the Wilhelm Gustloff.

I will admit that it took me a while to warm up to this novel.  I personally am not a fan of novels that employ multiple narrators, and Sepetys keeps each chapter incredibly short.  At the beginning of the book, I found this to be irritating.  It's hard to form connections with the characters when we aren't given much time to invest in them.  However, patient readers will be rewarded, as Septetys slowly pulls back the layers on each character.  Everyone has secrets, and everyone is more complicated than they initially let on.

I suppose Salt to the Sea could be seen as a companion book to Between Shades of Gray - Joana is cousin to Gray's Lina - but it stands on its own.  Another success for Ruta Sepetys.

Need by Joelle Charbonneau

High school teenagers begin getting invitations to join a social network site.  They have to, in turn, invite five other friends to join.  When they do, the site - NEED - will fulfill a request, seemingly free of charge ("What do you NEED?").  Of course, nothing is ever really free, and soon NEED members are being asked to perform small tasks in exchange for something they request.  But when the tasks get more dangerous and begin to have real consequences, the teens must begin to question their ethics and sense of right and wrong.  Are those concert tickets really worth it?  How far would you be willing to go?

I liked the premise of this book.  In today's social media age, it's not so far-fetched to imagine a scenario like this in real life.  What ultimately turned me off from this book was the explanation at the end of who/what was behind NEED.  I won't spoil it here, but I didn't buy it.  If this book was more dystopian/science fiction, then maybe.  But this is firmly realistic mystery fiction and I didn't believe the "big reveal."  Too bad, because this one had potential.

This is Where it Ends, by Marieke Nijkamp

Where to begin with this book?  I'm writing this review as the flags fly half-staff for the school shootings in Oregon.  Reading This is Where it Ends was obviously highly unsettling and uncomfortable.  We all know this story.  We know this story because it keeps appearing on the news.  It's happened before and sadly, will probably keep happening again.  I realize author Marieke Nijkamp didn't write this book hoping for something like Oregon to happen to give her story a sense of urgency.  Still, the timing will make this title fly off the shelves.

This is Where it Ends begins on an ordinary morning in Opportunity, Alabama.  The author uses multiple narrators who are all in different locations around the school: Autumn, a ballerina, and her girlfriend, Sylvia, are in the school auditorium for morning assembly.  Sylvia's brother, Tomás, and his friend Fareed, are using the fact that the entire school staff is at the assembly to break into the principal's office.  Claire has track practice and isn't at assembly either, although her brother Matt is.

Nijkamp switches between these characters, their perspectives interspersed with social media posts and text messages from other individuals inside and outside of the school.  The five main characters in particular are all connected by a relationship to Tyler, Autumn's brother.  When Tyler locks the students and staff in the auditorium and begins shooting, the scenario becomes all too real. 

The story unfolds over less than an hour's time, but somehow it feels longer.  I understand why the author would want to tell this story from multiple points of view.  After all, when something like this happens in real life, the news and social media seems quick to point fingers at who's to blame.  How could no one see this coming? How did no one stop it before it got too far?  The reality, of course, is that there are no easy answers.

Here's the thing.  I didn't really like this book very much.  It wasn't the violence, although that was certainly upsetting.  I just found parts of it to be highly unbelievable.  Tyler begins shooting at 10:05 a.m.  The police and SWAT team don't arrive on scene until about 30 minutes later.  REALLY???? When the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary occurred, police were on scene four minutes after the 911 call.  I do not believe that it would take police half an hour to respond to a school emergency. 

Secondly, when the book opens, Tomás and Fareed are able to break into the principal's office because the entire faculty and staff is at the principal's assembly.  ON WHAT PLANET is the front office of a school left sitting empty for someone to just waltz in? 

Finally, near the end, three characters escape from the auditorium.  However, for reasons that are murky and incomprehensible, they don't run outside. They think that the only means of escape is to go upstairs to a classroom that has a window leading onto the roof.  I didn't understand this either.  Despite the fact that dozens of students have managed to slip away from the auditorium before them, why did this group feel like they had to make this choice? 

Such glaring issues keep me from fully recommending this title.  Jennifer Brown's Hate List and Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes have already addressed this topic.  I don't feel that This is Where it Ends brings much more to the table, other than having a cast of diverse characters.  I am all for diversity in YA lit, by the way.  But it has to feel natural to the story and the setting.  I felt like the author was trying a little too hard to check off all the diversity boxes.

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

 I can't think of too many books this year that have been met with as much advanced buzz as Everything, Everything, the debut from Nicola Yoon.  Ever since the wild success of The Fault in our Stars back in 2012, publishers and audiences have been clamoring for the next romance with a "hook," which this title delivers: 18-year-old Madeline lives a life of solitude.  She's never been to school, never learned to drive, never taken a vacation.  Maddie suffers from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, also known as "bubble boy disease."  Because any small element outside of her sterilized environment could trigger a massive attack or illness, she spends all her time indoors with her mother and her nurse. 
Maddie spends lots of time looking out her window at the house next door, eventually catching the attention of her cute neighbor, Ollie.  He writes his email address on the window pane, and soon the two begin emailing and instant messaging.  When that doesn't become enough, Maddie's nurse, Carla, begins sneaking Ollie inside the house (after going through decontamination) for short visits in person.

One thing I liked about Everything, Everything is the format; it's not just straight prose, but includes diary entries, IM chat transcripts, sketches, and so forth.  It makes for a very quick, accessible read.  Madeline and Ollie are both sweet, likeable characters, even though you know their relationship will only spell trouble in the end.  My biggest complaint, however, was the unlikely "twist" at the end.  It defied credulity and was something of a let down for me.  The ending felt rushed and a little too tidy.  Nevertheless, this title should find a big audience with teens.

The Great American Whatever, by Tim Federle

The Great American Whatever marks author Tim Federle's debut in YA fiction.  Federle is also the author of the middle grade novels Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate!.  (He's also written cocktail books for adults, one of which is called Tequila Mockingbird which wins for best punny title).  In his few published works thus far, Federle writes what he knows.  In the Nate books, he used his own experiences on Broadway to write about a boy who wants to make in on the Big White Way.  In this newest work, we follow the journey of seventeen-year-old Quinn, a closeted movie buff from Pittsburgh (Federle's home town).  I give this little bit of backstory because as much as I wanted to embrace The Great American Whatever, it felt a little distant for me.  I never found Quinn's voice to be fully authentic.  It sounded too much like adult-Tim in the guise of a teenager.  (In the acknowledgements at the end, Federle says that the book was initially written with the characters about ten years older.)

The Great American Whatever follows the first summer Quinn spends without his sister, Annabeth, who died in a texting-related car crash six months earlier.  Quinn and Annabeth were a filmmaking team; he wrote the screenplays and his sister directed.  Without her, Quinn feels desperately empty and lost.  He also feels responsible for the wreck that took her life, since he was the one she was texting.  Slowly, Quinn crawls out of his grief thanks to his best friend, Geoff, and a cute older boy he meets at a college party.  Peppered throughout the novel are sample screenplay directions, as Quinn imagines his life the way a filmmaker would:

EXT. GEOFF'S PERFECT LAWN - NIGHT

Quinn takes Geoff by the lapels and flings him onto the lawn.  He straddles Geoff and digs his knee right between Geoff's ribs.

QUINN

Seriously.  Explain yourself so that I don't freak out.

Again, as much as I wanted to really love this book, it was only ok for me.  I think Federle needs a little more time to really find his voice in YA fiction.  This is a perfectly solid debut for older teens, but similar themes have been done explored elsewhere and with greater resonance in YA lit.

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

After finishing Dumplin', I felt like my normally nonexistent Texas accent was just a little stronger.  I might have started droppin' some gs from the ends of words and speakin' just a little more slowly.   From the nuances of small-town Texas life, to our obnoxious Homecoming traditions of mums so big they're liable to swallow you whole, to the unspoken serenity that comes with settlin' down on a hot day with a large glass of iced tea, author Julie Murphy gets it right.  She also gets right the creation of her main character, the overweight Willowdean Dickson, whose outward confidence masks deep insecurities. 

Willowdean is a Dolly Parton-loving high schooler, still reeling a year later from the death of her beloved aunt.  Her mother heads up the annual Texas Blue Bonnet Beauty Pageant, something Willowdean has always stayed as far away from as possible.  However, hurt that her mother has never once suggested that Willowdean might consider entering the pageant, she decides on a whim to enter.  What she doesn't expect is for her best friend and three other girls (who all suffer ridicule from their classmates for various reasons) to sign up as well.

Let me just say here y'all: I love to hate me some beauty pageants.  I think they are, really, The Worst.  But I would LOVE for a girl like Willowdean to show up just once, curves and all.  People throughout the book tell Willowdean that she's brave for entering the pageant.  "I don't want it to be brave," she says.  "I just want it to be normal."

Added to the mix are a couple of scenes where Willowdean and her oddball fellow contestants seek pageant tips from a local drag queen (a plot twist that is funny and sweet, but also a bit unrealistic.  I mean, out of the middle of west Texas is a gay bar that just happens to put on a Dolly Parton drag show?  Sure...). 

So much of Willowdean's journey was authentic and should resonate with teen readers.  Although mostly comfortable in her own skin, she still feels insecure about her body when it comes to boys and intimacy.  Even when presented with the chance to have it all with the boy she really likes, Willowdean nearly throws it all away because she can't imagine going to school every day and facing the other students.  Because no one would ever believe that a hot guy like that would possibly go for a girl like her, right?

Dumplin's a winner.  Toss your head back and throw your arms to the sky for this one.

Another Day by David Levithan

I don't think I've been looking forward to a new release all year like I have been for Another Day, the long-awaited companion book to Levithan's Every Day from 2012.  I ADORED Every Day and I recommend it to students all the time.  Seriously, Levithan should send me flowers and gifts to thank me for all the kids out there that have gone out and purchased his book because I've talked about it so much.  Every Day is about 'A', a soul without a body.  A is genderless because every morning A wakes up and is in someone else's body.  It's a fabulous novel that asks us think about identity and how we define ourselves.  It also asks us to consider if we could ever learn to love someone whose face and gender changes every day.

Naturally, I was thrilled when I got the email from NetGalley: "Your request to view Another Day has been approved."  (*Insert Homer Simpson cheering noise here*)

Another Day is not a sequel, so fans wanting to know what happened to A at the end of Every Day will be disappointed.  Another Day retells the story, but this time from Rhiannon's point of view.  At first I wasn't sure if this was even necessary, and truthfully, I still have some doubts.  In Every Day, A falls in love with Rhiannon and manages to convince her that A's unique situation is true, and she in turn begins to fall in love with A.  I felt like a large chunk of Another Day offered little that was new, since we've read a lot of this before.  However, Rhiannon's point of view is unique because she has to struggle with her own ideas of love and relationships, even before she meets A.  Her doubts and insecurities are real and should ring true with teen readers. 

And yet, by the end of Another Day, we still don't know what's to come of A and Rhiannon, as the book ends pretty much exactly where Every Day does.  We'll have to keep waiting and wondering if they'll ever have a happy ending.