Things We Know By Heart, by Jessi Kirby

In the opening moments of Things We Know By Heart, teenager Quinn wakes up to the distant sounds of sirens, and somehow she just knows they are for her boyfriend, Trent.  Skip ahead to over a year later, where Quinn is still deep in grief, not only over Trent's death, but over the future they will never have together.  A year later, and Quinn refuses to let herself move on or let go of Trent.  However, she writes donor letters to those people who received his organs, and she's heard back from all but one - the one who got Trent's heart.

Relentless and a bit obsessive, Quinn uses her best Internet sleuthing skills and figures out the recipient is a boy named Colton, about her age and living nearby.  Crossing all lines of acceptable behavior, Quinn goes to see him, intending to confront him, but she chickens out.  Instead, she befriends Colton and soon the two start spending more and more time together.  All the while, Quinn can't bring herself to tell Colton the truth.  Obviously, we as readers know everything will come out eventually, and it won't be pretty.

As YA romances go, I felt that Things We Know By Heart was pretty lightweight.  Colton is too much the Perfect Teenage Boyfriend.  He's cute, sensitive, outdoorsy... other than the fact that he still has to stop and take medication for his heart, Colton has few flaws.

There are many four star reviews for this book over on Goodreads, which completely baffles me.  It's hard for me to review books like this not from a grown-up point of view.  The adult in me just Really.Disliked.Quinn.  I know her boyfriend died tragically, and that's a sad thing.  But they weren't married.  They didn't have kids or a family together.  They were juniors in high school.  And although I'm sorry Quinn won't get to go to her prom with Trent or celebrate graduation with him, I just didn't feel very sympathetic toward her decision to just shut down and refuse to move on.  I think part of the problem is that we, as readers, don't get to know Trent as a character.  We just know a few fleeting details: he was an athlete, he once brought Quinn a huge sunflower.  I think if we had been invested more in their relationship, I would have cared about Quinn more. 

Colton, on the other hand, is the more interesting character, but Kirby makes this Quinn's story.  As Quinn begins to fall for Colton, she begins to heal emotionally and starts to move on with her life.

I'm sure there are plenty of teenage girls out there who will eat this up.  I think it would be an additional purchase for libraries, but not a necessary one.

Review given in exchange for an ARC from Edelweiss.  Book will be published in April.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

I started reading Challenger Deep with little idea of what the book was about.  As soon as I saw that an ARC was available of the newest Neal Shusterman title, I was all GIMMEGIMMEGIMME *makes grabby hand motions*

And then I plunged right in.  That being said, I was then thoroughly confused for the first part of the book.  We begin by following two storylines involving a boy named Caden.  In one, he is a normal high school boy who likes art and drawing.  In the other story, he is a crew member on board a pirate ship with a captain, a navigator, and a talking parrot.

What is happening?  I'm so lost!  But of course I stuck with it, and very slowly the pieces began to fall into place. You realize that it's Shusterman's intentions to throw you into this confusing narrative, because that's how jumbled it feels in Caden's head.  He begins to struggle in school and starts slipping away from his friends and family.  His parents finally realize he needs help that they cannot give him and Caden is checked into a psychiatric institution for teens.  It is heartbreaking.

However, through the fog of Caden's mind, the reader realizes the pirate ship scenario is Caden's way of trying to make sense of his illness and the people around him at the institution.  How far into the abyss will he go?

An author's note at the end tells us that Challenger Deep was inspired by the similar journey of his son, Brendan, who supplies the illustrations in the novel.  Such personal insight makes Caden's story feel authentic and we are pulled in tightly to his struggle.  I found this book to be a surprising change of pace for Shusterman, who mostly traffics in sci-fi and fantasy, but I loved it.  Shusterman never disappoints.

Review given in exchange for a digital ARC from Edelweiss.  Book will be published in April 2015.

Jackaby by William Ritter

I feel the need to state off the bat that I came into this book highly biased.  Jackaby has been touted by booksellers as "A cross between Sherlock and Doctor Who."  Now, anyone who's met me knows that I'm a freak for these shows.  My office is filled with Doctor Who things.  I have a sonic screwdriver.  (A student once asked me, "What is that?  A lightsaber?")  I have this cover from Entertainment Weekly up on my office wall.  I wore this t-shirt to school on Halloween. 
So, a book that's called a mash up of these two shows?  Um, yeah.  I'm all over it.

Jackaby is a paranormal mystery set in New England, 1892.  Abigail Rook arrives in town with no money, no job, and no husband, but with a healthy sense of adventure.  She answers an ad for "Investigated Services: Assistant Wanted."  The man who placed the ad is R.F. Jackaby, a private investigator who happens to be able to see spirits and inhuman creatures, and also wears a long, expensive coat and scarf.  Soon The Doctor and Clara Sherlock and Watson Jackaby and Abigail are investigating a string of grisly murders. 

For all the hype surrounding this book, I ultimately found Jackaby to be... fine.  I brought it home over Christmas break, and it sat on my coffee table for close to 2 weeks before I forced myself to finish it.  The "who done it" part of the mystery was not so hard to guess, although the paranormal aspect of it came out of slightly-left field.  Jackaby himself is certainly very Sherlock-ish.  He's an odd duck with a keen sense of observation that endears him few friends.  Abigail is given little to do other than to follow Jackaby around, although she has some skill at paying attention to details that eventually earns Jackaby's trust.

This book would be fine for middle school or high school, and at only 300 pages, is relatively short compared to many books coming out these days.  There's a good bit of odd humor (Jackaby's former assistant has been magically turned into a duck, for instance, thanks to a spell gone wrong), but I just wish it was more suspenseful.