FLY by Alison Hughes

Fourteen-year-old Felix Landon Yarrow, known as FLY "to anyone and everyone in a ten-mile radius" is on a quest of Don Quixote proportions. FLY lives with his mother who works as a caretaker: his father passed away when he was only three years old.

FLY has cerebral palsy and is wheel-chair bound,  his gangly body "arms and legs, hands and fingers flex-locked in cramped, crumpled contortions." He's hard to understand if you don't listen carefully because of his clenched teeth and wayward tongue. He carries around a copy of Don Quixote to remind people that there is more to him than meets the eye.

Because he's confined to a wheelchair, FLY has an aide named Levi, an eccentric young man who wears purple pants and tells FLY everything. Levi is always trying to help him make new friends but FLY isn't very interested. He feels that he goes mostly unnoticed by his fellow students, the exception being Daria. She noticed FLY when his book fell and she picked it up. Unlike others who don't see him, Daria looked into his eyes and smiled. That's when FLY developed a huge crush on her and began watching her.

But in watching Daria, FLY has noticed a group of boys who seem to be rude and are focused on her. FLY notices one boy, Carter, a boy "who walks like he owns the world" and who seems to be center of attention and now seems to be focused on Daria. So for three months FLY watches Carter, invisible to him. FLY has heard Carter boast about cheating on exams and stealing. FLY has a plan to bring down Carter. But plans don't always go as expected and FLY's plan most certainly does not!

Discussion

FLY is a short novel, done in verse, that explores the theme of living with a disability and making assumptions about people without really knowing them. Felix, confined to a wheel chair as a result of cerebral palsy, struggles because people often don't see past his disability. He refers to himself as "Nobody" because he feels he is invisible, a nobody who's not noticed. Sitting in his wheelchair in the hallway, is like being a fixture, a piece of furniture. His disability elicits pity and low expectations. 

 

People assume because his body doesn't work, his mind mustn't either. To counter this he carries a copy of the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes which he refers to as "DQ".
"I take old
DQ everywhere,
like a good luck charm -
physical proof
to ignorant people
that there's a
mind
in this
body of mine."

"Can you blame me?
So many people
make false
connections
projections,
and assume that
because my
body malfunctions,

my mind must,

too."

Felix doesn't like the word "awesome" because it seems to be used in a way that is demeaning.
"Awesome.
It's the kind of praise
surprised people give me
for the smallest 
accomplishment

when they see

my body doesn't work
like theirs does,

and assume
my brain doesn't 
work at all."

He also knows he is not someone to be pitied.
"I am not a poor boy

I'm a smart one,

with talents

only a few will ever discover."

Felix knows that he goes unnoticed and he feels invisible, like a FLY on the wall. He knows people look past him in his wheelchair.

As with the character Don Quixote, Felix sees himself as a chivalrous knight out to save his classmate, Daria from bad boy Carter. In his misguided quest, Felix begins stalking Carter (and Daria) at school. Felix doesn't tell anyone what he suspects about Carter because he sees this quest as giving him purpose. This escalates to sending email messages online to Carter and warning messages to Daria. Sending the messages anonymously, online gives Felix a new sense of power which he enjoys. Felix considers that Daria is innocent and unaware of the type of person Carter is. He considers protecting her from Carter is a matter of fairness and justice. Believing he has the evidence Carter is dealing in drugs, Felix sets out to confront him at school, but that meeting doesn't go down as planned, with Levi getting injured. And his actions don't have the desired effect for Daria either. 

Although things don't work out as planned, the ensuing brawl makes Felix feel alive and that people like Constable Mah are finally listening to him. Even when Daria angrily confronts him, Felix still feels some exhilaration because she is talking and looking at him, even though she's not grateful. Daria tells Felix, 
"A person is more than
how they look.
Talk to them.
Have a
conversation."

This makes Felix realize he has been hypocritical, doing to Daria exactly what he doesn't want people to do to him:
"How many times
have I thought 

the same thing?
Wished the same thing?

That people would
talk to me,

understand me,

not glance and

judge

without a word..."

Felix begins to understand that when he finally reaches out to talk with Daria, he will learn what she is really like, not the damsel in distress as he imagined her to be. He realizes there are many things he doesn't know and now he wants to be open to new ideas and experiences. By the end of the novel Felix is questioning the possibility of giving Carter a second chance, of trying to find out the source of his bus driver Vic's crabbiness and maybe even trying to learn to ride a horse!

FLY is another addition to the juvenile fiction canon that includes Wonder and many other books, exploring life with a disability, and how people with a physical disability are challenged by other people's perceptions. Done as a novel in verse, Hughes succinctly portrays Felix's frame of mind, his experiences, how others relate to him and the events that occur because of his plan. Well-written, engaging, with lots of themes to explore.

Book Details:

FLY by Alison Hughes
Toronto: Kids Can Press    2022
197 pp.

The Way I Used To Be by Amber Smith

"...It's the first day back from winter break. And I'm trying so hard to just go back to my life. The way it used to be. The way I used to be."

The Way I Used To Be is a gritty telling of a young girl's struggles to deal with her rape . The novel follows her over a four year time period, from when the rape occurs in her freshman year to the end of her senior year.

Fourteen-year-old Eden (Edy) McCrorey is raped one night on the Christmas break by her older brother Caelin's friend, Kevin Armstrong. She is taken by surprise in her bed in the middle of the night and told that if she tells anyone he will harm her family. The next morning Eden finds herself bruised all over, her underwear on the floor and her bed sheets, comforter and nightgown bloodied. When her mother enters, she immediately assumes Eden has been caught unawares by her monthly period. Busy and caught up in her own world Eden's mother doesn't given her the chance to tell her what has happened.

After scrubbing herself clean numerous times in the shower, Eden heads to breakfast where she must face her family AND her rapist, Kevin. Although Eden acts differently no one picks up that something serious is amiss. Instead her mother thinks that Eden is mad at Caelin for not spending enough time with her and she suggests she make new friends. Later on Eden begs Caelin not to return to school but he tells her to stop her school-girl crush on Kevin.  Left alone to deal with what has happened, Eden locks her bedroom door that night and cries herself to sleep.

After Christmas break Eden has difficulty when she returns to school. When she and her friends, Mari and Stephen Reinheiser are bullied in the cafeteria, she runs to the library. Unable to stay there without a pass, the school librarian, Miss Sullivan is sympathetic and suggests to Eden she's going to start up a book club. The first meeting is attended by Eden, Mara, Stephen, a new boy named Cameron who has blue hair and piercings and two other girls. Mara is especially excited because she finds herself attracted to Cameron. On their walk home that night, they pass by Kevin's house and Eden remembers that the Armstrongs moved here because of something that had happened between Mr. Armstrong's brother and Kevin. The following week Eden wants to meet up with Mara at her house to tell her what happened with Kevin but this doesn't happen.

At the beginning of her sophomore year, Edy makes herself over in an attempt to look like she is older and in charge of her life. She ignores her friend Stephen from last year, spends her time smiling and in study hall meets the boy who ran into her in the hall at the end of freshman year. That boy is Joshua Miller, a senior and a star basketball player who repeatedly tracks Edy down, eventually convincing her to go out with him. The morning of the day she's is to meet Josh, Edy arrives at school early only to discover that Kevin Armstrong's younger sister, Amanda and her friends are writing nasty graffitti on the bathroom walls about her. Edy meets Josh after school but refuses to go see a movie or get something to eat. Instead she asks to go to his house and they end up in his bedroom. Edy feels afraid that she might not ever want to have sex after the rape so she decides that she will use Josh to make sure that won't happen. Although she tries to go through with this with Josh it doesn't work out as she freezes up.

The following week Josh smuggles her into his house, night after night. Edy lies to him about her age, telling him she's sixteen and eventually they have sex. However,  Edy is strangely detached, which Josh notices immediately, leading to questions and an argument. Edy has a fight with her parents and ends up at Joshua's home several nights later. During her stay with Josh, he reveals that his father is a drug addict and an alcoholic who is struggling to stay clean. But Edy is unable to tell him anything about herself and lies about her middle name.

Eddy drops band and stops attending the book club she helped found. Josh finally meets Mara but is puzzled as to why Edy seems to be keeping him a secret from people at school, her friends and her family. He soon discovers that Edy has lied about her age when he sees the "Happy 15th Birthday" banner on her locker at school. Furious, Josh tells her that he could be charged with statutory rape. Edy tells him it doesn't matter, Josh tries to impress upon her that this is a criminal charge that could seriously mess up his life. When he questions Edy if she even cares about him, she tells him no and they break up.

On Christmas Eve, Caelin and Kevin arrive home for the break. Left alone in the kitchen, Kevin sexually assaults Eden, touching her inappropriately and leaving her feeling shaken and vulnerable. Early Christmas morning, Caelin comes to Edy's room and asks whether she knows Joshua Miller. Edy tells him she does and Caelin reveals that he was told terrible things about her by the seniors. Eden brushes him off, telling her brother that it might just be her who is using the guys. Caelin asks her to be careful because he's concerned, but Edy's response is cynical, "Wow, well isn't this just a great time to start worrying about me...Thanks a lot, but that really doesn't do me any good now!" Later on during his break, Caelin gets into a fight with Josh at a New Years party, making things worse for Edy at school.

In her junior year, Eden's life continues to spiral downward as she and Mara drink, meet guys and smoke pot and attend more and more parties, during which Edy hooks up with random guys. It's not long before she has a reputation as "that girl" who will have sex with anyone. Each party offers Eden a chance to lose herself, to disconnect but Eden risks losing everything, her friends, her family and her chance to make a life for herself. Until someone steps forward and contacts the police regarding Kevin Armstrong. Will Eden be brave enough to tell her story so she can begin the journey towards self-acceptance and healing?

Discussion

The Way I Used To Be explores the devastating effects of rape on the lives of girls and their families and the cost of staying silent and not telling anyone what happened. Rape is a crime of control. Men who rape do so because they sense the girl or woman they are about to attack is vulnerable in some way - she is intoxicated, she has a bad reputation, she's socially isolated and has no family or friends to protect her or she won't be heard because she's unlikely to tell someone what happened.

In The Way I Used To Be Smith suggests that this is exactly what happens to fourteen year old Eden McCrorey. Eden's family life revolved around older brother Caelin's basketball. Family interactions all involved Caelin's latest exploits in sports. So when he leaves for college the fall Eden enters high school, Eden remembers that they did not know anymore how to be a family."The truth is, none of us knows how to act around one another without Caelin here. It's like we've become strangers all of a sudden. Caelin was the glue. He gave us purpose -- a reason, a way to be together. Because what are we supposed to do with each other if we're not cheering him on at his basketball games anymore?" The family dynamic is such that Eden is the quiet, good one who's nickname is "Minnie" after Minnie Mouse.She lives her life in the background.

This family dynamic and Eden's personality have an immediate impact on what happens to Eden the morning after the rape, when Eden attempts to tell her mother what has happened to her. Her mother isn't perceptive enough to realize that something has happened to her daughter and  she doesn't give Eden the time to speak and doesn't listen to her. "Clearly, it was time for me to get going so she could deal with this mess. And clearly, nobody was going to hear me. Nobody was going to see me - he knew that. He had been around long enough to know how things work here." Because her family doesn't communicate well, her mother doesn't pick up on Eden's strange behaviour over the holidays and doesn't notice "the one thing that's different or wrong or off or dangerous."

On her return to school, Eden is unable to contend with the usual bullying in the cafeteria, because it reminds her of how she was not able to defend herself at home or at school. Eden begs Miss Sullivan to allow her to say in the library. She won't tell her why, "...the truth is that it's humiliating. It's too humiliating to be in lunch anymore, to have to hide and still get food thrown at you anyway, and not be able to do anything about it, and your friends are too afraid to stand up for you, or themselves. Especially when you just got attacked in your own house -- in your own bed -- and you can't even stand up for yourself there, either, the one place you're supposed to be safe."

Eden is so distraught that she is unable to walk past Kevin's house to spend time after school with Mara. Instead she runs home, crying and is nauseous. Her parents mistakenly believe she is sick. But for Eden, she feels changed. "I feel like I've gone off somewhere else, like I've just sort of slipped into this other realm. ..This alternate reality where I'm not quite in my body, not quite in my mind, either -- it's a place where all I do is think about one thing and one thing only. " Eden feels "Like I"m raw and exposed, and it almost hurts to even be brushed up against." When a boy collides with her in the hallway, Eden is shocked that she feels such rage inside, "In this moment, I am nothing but rage."


Eden's friend Mara begins to change, partly because she's struggling to cope with her parents' divorce and partly because she doesn't want to be bullied anymore. She quits band, gets contacts, begins smoking and has Eden cut and colour her hair. Mara tells Eden that she should get contacts and cut her hair too, that she should stop hiding.  When her parents refuse her request for contacts, Eden pushes back. "...I let them push me around just like I let everyone push me around. I let them a make me into a person who doesn't know when to speak the hell up, a person who gives up control over her life, over her body, over everything. I do what they tell me to do, what everyone tells me to do. Why didn't they ever teach me to stand up for myself ?

Eden blames her parents for what happened to her and hates her parents, Caelin and even herself. "Even though they don't know what happened, what he did to me, they helped to create the situation. In a way, they allowed it. They let it happen by allowing him to be here and making me believe that everyone else in the entire world knows what's good for me better than I do....Most of that hate, though, I save for me. No matter what anyone else did or didn't do, it was ultimately me who gave them permission. I'm the one who's lying, The coward too afraid to stop pretending."

This all leads Eden to try to take control of her life, to make her own decisions, especially about her body. However, because she has not dealt with the rape, Eden's choices gradually become more and more destructive. In her sophomore year Eden initially makes some outward changes. She gets contacts, dresses differently, wears makeup and smiles more. She tries to act normal, even though she's not sure exactly what that entails,  in the hopes that people will starting treating her that way. However graffiti in the bathrooms at school proclaims her a "slutty whore".

Eden begins a relationship with a senior, Joshua Miller and lies to him about her age. She becomes sexually involved with Josh initially because she's afraid that she won't ever be able to have sex again. However, after having sex with Josh, Eden finds that it doesn't help her - she's still sad and angry. In an effort to demonstrate that she is the one in control of the relationship, she tells him she doesn't want to be his girlfriend, but soon she is having sex almost every night with him. When this relationship breaks down, Eden sinks deeper into alcohol and promiscuity.

By the time Eden enters her final year she has hooked up with fifteen different guys. She's a month away from turning seventeen and Eden admits "there isn't the slightest trace left of the frizzy-haired, freckle-faced, clarinet-playing, scared-silent little girl. And her big secret is really not such a huge deal anymore."  As Eden becomes more and more disconnected from her parents she begins referring to them by their names, Vanessa and Conner rather than as Mom and Dad. Her destructive behaviour finally alienates Steve and Mara. When she looks through her ninth grade yearbook, Eden see the "ghost of the girl I used to be." Thinking back on the past three years, Eden realizes "...that things went terribly awry, this wasn't the plan. The plan was to get better, to feel better, by any means. But I don't feel better, I feel empty, empty and broken, still." Neither the drinking nor the hooking up can take away the pain of that night. "...I still feel like I'm back there, always back in my heart I'm still that girl."

Although initially Eden wanted to tell her mother and then her best friend Mara what happened to her, when she is confronted by Caelin about her relationship with Joshua, Eden remains silent. "I'm really beginning to like the silence. It's become my ally. Things happen in silence. If you don't let it get to you, it can make you stronger; it can be your shield, impenetrable." But Eden soon discovers the price of silence. When Kevin's ex-girlfriend accuses him of rape Eden realizes that although she's not the girl she used to be, in one way she still is - she is still silent , she's still the mouse who won't speak up. When she does tell, the first person to learn what happened is Josh. Eden realizes that telling what happened does not destroy her world. " The Earth is still intact. I"m still alive. The floor didn't open up and swallow me whole...I don't know what I thought would happen if I told, if I let that one word exist..." Josh, by believing Eden and telling her the police will believe her too, encourages Eden to report her rape. When she tells her brother Caelin, he is devastated and Eden realizes that her rape has affected more than just herself but also her family. "It touches everyone."

Although the novel ends on a hopeful note - Kevin is charged in the rape of his ex-girlfriend and Edy is able to come forward and finally report her rape,Smith's conclusion to the novel felt rushed and incomplete. As is often the case in rape, once an allegation is made, things move quickly. When Kevin's ex-girlfriend reports the rape, Kevin's family is interviewed and his sister Amanda tells police they should talk to Eden. Finally the catalyst for Eden's rebellious behaviour throughout high school is revealed to the other characters in the novel. However, readers deserved and would have benefited from an Epilogue that detailed what happened to Kevin and perhaps had Edy state how she was doing several years out of high school. In this way readers would have been provided with more closure, especially with regard to Edy's life.

The Way I Used To Be is a powerful novel exploring how a brutal rape changes an innocent, trusting young girl  into someone filled with anger and self-loathing at her inability to tell anyone what happened, to defend herself or standup for herself.Her anger leads to isolation, alienation and some very harmful and dangerous behaviours. The price of silence is high for both herself and those around her. The novel is painful to read but Amber Smith's message comes across: silence is not the answer, tell someone. You deserve to be heard.


Book Details:

The Way I Used To Be by Amber Smith
New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books       2016
367 pp.

Take The Fall by Emily Hainsworth

Take The Fall seeks to solve the murder of Gretchen Meyer. Sonia Feldman finds herself running for her life after being attacked in the woods near her house while walking home from her best friend Gretchen Meyer's house. Frantic, out of breath and terrified, she stumbles into her Uncle's diner where her mother and her Aunt Dina are finishing up for the day. Soon Sheriff Woods and Deputy Amir Rashid are there questioning Sonia. Not long after Deputy Robson gets the call - Gretchen has been found dead.

Over the course of the next few weeks Sonia struggles to come to terms with her best friend's death while at the same time trying to figure out who killed her. Sonia lives in the town of Hidden Falls where she attends Hurlburt High School. Her best friends are Gretchen Meyer, Haley Jacobs and Aisha Wallace who have known each other since kindergarten. However, sometime in middle school Gretchen became much closer to Sonia; they often had sleepovers and took Sonia on family vacations. Gretchen is the daughter of Carlton Meyer, the wealthy owner of a tech company.

Gretchen's latest ex-boyfriend, Marcus Perez is brought in for questioning. Gretchen's car is missing and the police have found signs of a struggle at the falls. Marcus is released as he has an alibi. Sonia tells Sheriff Wood that she drove Gretchen home from Brianne Prashad's party at around 11 pm. During the party, Gretchen fought with her younger sister Kirsten but Sonia doesn't know what caused the fight. They left Kirsten drunk at the party. Sonia tells Wood that they did not talk during the short drive home, something Wood finds surprising considering the two girls are best friends. When Wood tells Sonia that Gretchen called her home at 11:04pm, Sonia tells him no call was made from the car. After parking the car, Sonia ran into Haley Jacobs walking her dog. She saw Gretchen go into her house and then she started through the park to her home.

On the following Monday, Sonia returns to school against the wishes of her mother. She wants to go back to school so she can begin forming a suspect list. She learns that Gretchen's parents surprised an intruder in her room before she was listed as missing and that Carlton Meyer is offering a fifty thousand dollar reward for any information leading to the arrest of the person who murdered Gretchen. Marcus shows up at Sonia's Uncle Noah's diner after school but is thrown out. He tells her that he wants to help her find whoever killed Gretchen because he believes the police are still trying to pin her murder on him. Sonia is conflicted over helping Marcus because she has Gretchen's SD card which shows Marcus furious and wishing she was dead. At school the next day, Marcus confronts Sonia begging her to hear him out, but he ends up getting into a fight with Kip, another Gretchen ex-boyfriend. The day does not end well for Sonia either as someone places a picture of her and Gretchen into her locker with Sonia's scratched out.  She decides to confront Marcus over the picture but when she does he denies having anything to do with this. Instead Marcus works at trying to convince Sonia to help him search for Gretchen's killer so that he can clear his name. He admits that his alibi isn't any good because his grandmother was asleep when he arrived home but she lied to the sheriff. Sonia decides to work with Marcus, to compare their lists of potential suspects. But as Sonia talks to classmates she reveals just how manipulative Gretchen was and that any one of them could have been responsible.  But she also reveals to Marcus the true identity of Gretchen's killer forcing Sonia to make the most important decision of her life.


Discussion

Take The Fall is a murder mystery that opens with a punch. It seems that Sonia Feldman has been attacked by the same person who also murdered her best friend Gretchen Meyer. This is the assumption made at the beginning of the book by all the characters. A second assumption, that the ex-boyfriend, Marcus Perez whose parents are addicts is the killer is also made.  However, close reading reveals that all is not as it seems. The biggest clue offered is the flawed timeline given by Sonia to Sheriff Wood who never seems to catch on. Sheriff Wood never seems to question Sonia much other than interviewing her the night of the murder and the next day. But the facts should make him at the very least curious and they don't. Sonia drops Gretchen off at her house, giving her friend the car keys and proceeds to walk through the park towards her home. In her account, Sonia is accosted at the bridge by someone but manages to escape out of the park. By her own admission she arrives at the diner only minutes after dropping Gretchen off, bruised and scratched. Gretchen's body is found shortly afterwards in the water beneath Hidden Falls. But according to Sonia's timeline there are twenty-five minutes unaccounted for. Their houses are on opposite sides of the park, not close enough to be seen without the leaves on the trees but likely not axtwenty-five minute walk.

With no clear suspect, Wood never turns his attention back to Sonia. When all the potential suspects can produce alibis, Wood never comes back to question Sonia who was the only person in the park at that time, who has evidence of being in some kind of struggle and who has no alibi. Added to this are several serious weaknesses in the story:  Gretchen's body is never tested for DNA evidence (at least it's never brought up in the story) and there is no mention of an autopsy. Sonia who has been in some kind of altercation with an unknown person also never undergoes any forensic exam such testing for DNA on her arms and under her fingernails. In fact Sheriff Wood seems perpetually reluctant to undertake ANY forensic testing. It is Sonia who requests that he check the fingerprint on the mysterious postcard she's received in her locker. This lack of forensic evidence seriously hampers Wood's investigation but is successful in creating suspense and mystery in the story.

Sonia's "investigation" into her friend's death reveals that Gretchen Meyer was a controlling sociopath bent on wrecking the lives of all those around her. She's the stereotypical rich bad girl. As Sonia builds a list of possible suspects, the reality of Gretchen's relationships with those around her are exposed. While Sonia knew of Gretchen's cruelty to her younger sister Kirsten, she discovers that Gretchen's reach also extended to Marcus whom she was giving money to and that Gretchen destroyed all his artwork leading to him wishing Gretchen were dead. Eventually the true nature of Sonia and Gretchen's relationship is revealed. Sonia tells Marcus, "Whenever she was up to something, she made sure I played a part...I was afraid of her, afraid what she might do to me. I didn't want any part of it, but I went along with everything she did. I"m no one to admire." Marcus realizes that Sonia's situation was worse than anyone else. "How long did it take her to get you right where she wanted you?...What would she have done if you said no to her? When was the last time you tried?"  The extent of Gretchen's control over Sonia is only revealed when Sonia learns that the fake website they created for an assignment was made live on the internet, possibly jeopardizing Sonia's scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania. Gretchen's parents had offered to pay for Sonia's tuition if she attended Stanford with her. But attending Penn offered Sonia a chance to escape from Gretchen's control, one Gretchen was determined not to allow to happen. This sets the stage for the motive of the confrontation between the two girls.

Hainsworth certainly keeps her readers guessing; Gretchen's many enemies means there are numerous potential suspects who would have liked revenge and the use of Sonia as an unreliable narrator keeps the reader guessing as to what's really happened. For example Sonia frequently mentions how Kirsten is remarkably like Gretchen, casting suspicion towards Kirsten. Sonia's description of Kirsten notes this similarity.  "Kirsten Myer, Gretchen's younger sister, walks down the steps towards me. She's a natural blonde, but I'd forgotten she experimented with dyeing her hair a couple of weeks ago. At the time, Gretchen was annoyed, remarking that she'd never match her own vibrant red, but it's startling - no, disturbing how much Kirsten looks like her now."  Later on she notes, "I almost drop my phone. Kirsten stands next to me, holding a brown paper lunch bag. Her voice sounds so much like Gretchen's it's a minute before I'm breathing normally again." 

Take The Fall has a romantic subplot between Marcus and Sonia. The reader has the understanding that the two would have had a relationship if it were not for Gretchen and her manipulation of Marcus. While Sonia believed that Marcus hated her she learns after Gretchen's murder that in fact he was attracted to her but had to pretend to dislike her so as to protect her from Gretchen.

Take The Fall is typical teen fare, full of teen drama and a few stereotypical high school teens including a manipulative, rich bad girl who could have been killed by an one of her classmates. What the novel could have used was a map outlining the location of Sonia and Gretchen's homes in relation to the park and Hidden Falls and an epilogue that gave readers a satisfying conclusion to the story. Overall though an interesting read for teens who like high school murder mysteries.

Book Details:

Take The Fall by Emily Hainsworth
New York:  Balzer & Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers    2016
356 pp.

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee

Gemini is a very unique novel that tackles a very different reality, that of conjoined twins. Hailey and Clara are two seventeen year olds who share the lower end of their spinal column as well as their intestinal tract. They are "two complete, full-size people, with two normal, fully functioning brains" who share sensation in the lower half of their bodies. While they may share the lower part of their bodies, Hailey and Clara are very different persons. Hailey is outgoing, with pink hair, a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, edgy black eye makeup and is determined to become an artist. Clara is shy, dressing blandly to avoid being noticed and fascinated by astronomy. Hailey is opinionated but Clara who by her own accounts has "sharp" opinions keeps them to herself.

Hailey and Clara live with their parents in Bear Pass, a small (fictitious) town in California. Their family moved to the town to avoid the stares and curiosity of strangers.  Their parents teach at Sutter College, a private four-year college where their father is a tenured professor in literary theory and British poetry, and their mother is a lecturer. The small town means that most people know them and leave them alone.

When they hear that a new guy is coming to Bear Pass the twins are anxious but in different ways; Clara worries how they will be perceived and Hailey just wants someone interesting. The new guy, Max first appears in their AP English class. He's tall with blond hair, and has moved to Bear Pass from Los Angeles. While Hailey is not interested, Clara most definitely is. The twins learn from Bridget that Max appears to have an interest in astronomy so they along with best friend Juanita scheme to arrange a trip to the Sutter College observatory with Max. Their school is having a Sadie Hawkins dance and Juanita believes an outing to the observatory will give Clara a chance to ask Max to the dance. Meanwhile in art class, which Clara hates, Hailey talks to fellow art student Alek Drivakis whom she finds attractive. Like Hailey, Alek has a bit of an edge; he likes to wear black and his artwork frequently features corpses or fires.

At the Sandwich Shack, Juanita reveals that one of the teachers is pressuring her to apply to Stanford and other high level colleges. However because of costs and her mother's fears and reservations, Juanita plans to attend college locally despite being an excellent student. For Hailey this seems wrong because while she and Clara are stuck attending Sutter College which has about 500 students, she knows that Juanita will be able to obtain a full scholarship at Stanford. Even Hailey is not happy attending Sutter because it means her ambition to attend a good art school will not be realized. While the three are discussing their future plans along with another friend Bridget, Max arrives. Max tells the group that he has moved to Bear Pass from Santa Monica in his senior year because of circumstances involving his father. When Hailey asks Max to join them at the Sutter observatory so Clara can show him the stars, Max clams up and ends up leaving the café in anger.

At home the twins find their mother upset over American conjoined twins undergoing separation surgery in San Francisco. Clara and Hailey's mother believes the parents and the doctors are taking unnecessary risks in order for the twins to live independently. As with her own twins she believes the surgery is wrong. While Clara and Hailey's mother is opposed to them undergoing separation surgery, leaving Bear Pass or even doing day trips, their father is more open and encouraging, offering to take them to San Francisco.  Clara becomes angry at her mother over this, indicating that separating twins is not always wrong. Her confrontation with their mother surprises Hailey who decides that she is asking Alek to the Sadie Hawkins dance and she tells Carla that she should ask Max.

At lunch hour the next day they meet Alek who tells Hailey that he is applying for a summer program at  Golden Gate Arts in San Francisco. It's a three week intensive working with real artists. Alek encourages Hailey to apply and to plan to stay in the dorms. With Alek seeming very comfortable around her, Hailey asks Alek to the dance and he accepts. When Clara meets Max a few minutes later, she decides to make it difficult for him and tells him that Friday is his last chance to come with her to the observatory. Max reluctantly agrees to meet Clara but it turns out that he had planned to watch the Orionid meteor shower at his home. So Max turns the invitation around and invites Clara to his house as well as their friends.

Hailey manages to convince Clara to let her apply for the summer art intensive that Alek mentioned and at least go for the interview. Their meteor-watching get-together which includes Max's friends Josh and Gavin as well as Clara and Hailey's friend, Juanita initially goes well until Lindsey, Vanessa and Jasmine arrive. As Lindsey makes a move on Max and attempts to get rid of Hailey and Clara, Max becomes angry and his mom sends everyone home.

The next event Hailey and Clara attend is Amber's Halloween party which sees Hailey dress up as Galinda while Clara is the Wicked Witch. Max is at the party as the Tin Man and he and Clara make arrangements to go to the observatory at Sutter. Max explains to Clara what happened at his house telling her he was once a special-ed kid and that he has a major stuttering problem. Alek crashes Amber's party to question Hailey about applying to the summer art program. He offers to take her for an interview or to take her portfolio. Like the other social situations, Amber's Halloween party ends badly for the twins. Alek shows Hailey something on his phone that deeply upsets her and Clara overhears a conversation between Max and his friends about the twins that disgusts her.

These events begin to affect how Hailey and Clara view themselves and result in them reconsidering the future they have planned. They embark on a journey of self-discovery that leads them to several momentous decisions.

Discussion

Gemini is a novel about two teens with an unusual disability who struggle to take control of their future and to define themselves outside of their disability. Clara and Hailey are pygopagus twins joined at the base of the spine and sharing their gastrointestinal organs. Their parents, specifically their mother refused to allow them to be separated when they were young, although it appears their father did not completely agree with her decision and still has some doubts. Otherwise Clara and Hailey are physically healthy and thriving. Their family moved to a small town so that they could be protected from people who might want to take advantage of their unusual situation. But this isolation is beginning to bother the more extroverted twin, Hailey who is a gifted artist and who wants to study art at a good university, to travel and experience life more fully. Her quieter sister, Clara, finds Bear Paw just fine and is reluctant to travel anywhere where they might have to deal with many new people or situations. However Clara also finds her situation restrictive as she argues with their mother about how she has made assumptions about what life after separation might be like.

As the twins approach adulthood they must face the reality that friends and school mates will move on from the small town of Bear Pass. They come up against the reality of their situation, something they feel their parents have pretended doesn't exist. Both Clara and Hailey chafe at their parents efforts to portray them as "normal" because they know this is not really true. Carla tells Hailey, "I'm sure it's perfectly normal to have to share the job of putting out silverware because we can't be in two separate parts of the same room...I'm sure it's perfectly normal to always balance off the side of the toilet while your sister is peeing...I'm sure its perfectly normal...to have to spend your entire life in the world's smallest rural community so that no one will stare and point and laugh at you when you go out in public and see actual strangers." 

Hailey also dislikes how they pretend that they are normal but she recognizes why their parents do this because it is the simplest way to cope. "Normal, normal, normal. It's this idiotic mantra around our house. We claim we're normal. We build our lives around that lie. It's why we can't go anywhere, or do much of anything. If we did, we'd come up against the truth." But Hailey, even as a child knew they were not normal. "We were not like anyone else. Who besides us had two minds that understood each other perfectly? That worked in such perfect synchrony that they could operate their four legs and four arms in unison without discussion, giving them twice the strength of a regular child? Not to mention twice the imagination and bargaining power...We weren't normal. We were magical."

Beginning to face the reality that they are two people with different interests and goals in life but joined together leads them to experience some serious conflicts which is new as they usually "just work things out, often with very little discussion." Hailey accuses Clara of not caring about how she might feel about staying in Bear Pass and attending Sutter College which doesn't have the program she needs to further her art studies. "...your head is so crammed with your own problems, if you tried to make room for mine, your brain would burst open at the seams." This leads Clara to reconsider their choices and their future plans. She asks their parents to allow them to travel to San Francisco so that Hailey can interview for the art intensive. Clara does this because she believes that although she's satisfied with their lives and the plan for them, maybe Hailey is not. "All this time I'd been holding onto the idea that the life we'd planned -- or rather, the life our parents had planned for us, and that we'd accepted -- was the best that either of us could hope for. But maybe that wasn't true for Hailey. Maybe it was true only for me."

Hailey believes that it is wrong for their mother to limit their choices in life but she also knows she must work together with Clara to figure out their future. Hailey believes that art school and leaving Bear Pass likely won't happen but she knows there must be a change in their lives. So she decides to do what Clara has suggested and apply to film school at Sutter while hoping that she and Clara can live in a house or in a dorm at the college rather than at home. 

In addition to struggling with making their own decisions about their lives, both girls must now confront how their conjoinedness will affect their ability to date and to marry. Both girls meet boys they are attracted to but struggle with how those boys view them. Clara struggles with her attraction to Max and the fact that he doesn't feel the same.  She wonders how Max really views her and whether it matters. Clara also feels disgusted at herself. "It was me. I was disgusting. A mutant. Had I really forgotten that?" She remembers how her mother has explained they were to think about themselves. "The way we view ourselves has to come from the inside, not from the reflection that we see in other people's eyes." But Clara questions this advice. "But sometimes it seems to me that reflections are all we have. Without them, we could never see ourselves at all. "

At the same time Hailey is also very attracted to Alek. The situation reaches a turning point when the twins begin to assert some control over their lives by insisting that they be allowed to attend the Sadie Hawkins dance. Their mother at first refuses but then relents. Hailey wonders what their mother really believes about them. "Our mom was always carrying on about how normal we were and what normal lives we could lead, but I think we both began to understand that she didn't actually believe this. Or maybe in some ways she did, but not in others."

All of this plus the fact that Hailey wants to attend art school leads Clara to contact a surgeon about their situation and the possibility of separation. Hailey points out to Clara the lengthy recovery time from surgery as well as the possibility that one of them will die. But Clara admits that she is afraid she will be lonely once separated. She tells Hailey that she wants a chance at love and she wants freedom too. But Hailey tells her she isn't giving them a chance to see what they can accomplish.
"You're willing to die for that, Clara? We're only seventeen. We haven't really started our lives yet. We don't know what we can have and what we can make happen. Are we not going to give ourselves a chance?...I mean a chance at life as ourselves, Clara, without tearing ourselves apart."

It is Alek who shows the twins the way forward. From the beginning he tells the twins that he considers them special and he tells Hailey: "Though to be honest, I always thought it must be kind of cool, too. Like, how many people can say there's another person who understands everything about them?" When Hailey asks him if he really wants to be seen with them - two girls joined together and face the possibility that he will be called a freak, as Matt was,  he tells them "...I'd rather be a freak than a coward...What I mean is, I'd rather do what I really want to do, no matter what anyone thinks. And that's exactly what I'm doing."

Hailey's kiss with Alek makes Clara realize that she wants a full(er) life and not just a kiss from a boy. "...I wanted those things, but also a thousand other impossible things, and maybe a few possible ones too...All this wanting inside me was not going to go away. I couldn't turn it off. Something had been flickering to life inside me for years now, and it was growing steadier, and hotter too. If I tried to keep it buried much longer, I was going to go up in flames." What Clara has been wishing for all these years is being separated from Hailey - that she wants to escape Hailey. But Clara comes to realize that her fear of  how others will view them and what will be said is what is holding her back from leaving Bear Pass. Hailey explains to her that their conjoinedness is part of who they are and that they need to accept it and embrace it. That it can be part part of their strength.

Daisy and Violet Hilton

Overall, Mukherjee's novel was a very interesting exploration of an unusual medical condition and the ethical, social and personal issues involved. Her characters felt realistic and the situations the conjoined twins experienced, plausible. The title, Gemini, is a reference to the third astrological sign in the zodiac and refers to the twins Castor and Pollux.

Conjoined twins are a very rare medical condition. While most conjoined twins die in utero or shortly after birth, there have been several famous twins. One set of conjoined twins Mukherjee mentions in her novel, Daisy and Violet Hilton, were pygopagus twins born in 1908. They were abandoned by their single mother. The twins were bought by Mary Hilton who employed their mother, Kate Skinner. Mary Hilton and her husband trained the two girls as dancers and singers and then made them tour as sideshow performers. The twins were well known entertainers for many years starring in vaudeville and burlesque shows but their lives were strictly controlled and their earnings stolen from them.  Recently a documentary Bound by Flesh was made about the Hilton twins.

It's probable that in today's world, Violet and Daisy would have been separated as they were joined at the hip and spine and shared no major organs. Sadly Violet and Daisy died impoverished from the Hong Kong flu in 1969.

Gemini is an interesting novel, well done and will appeal to those who enjoy stories that focus on social and medical issues.

image credit: https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/06/18/the-original-hilton-sisters/

Book Details:

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee
New York: Simon & Schuster     2016
326 pp.

The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

The Start of Me and You is a story about a young girl struggling to come to terms with the death of a friend while learning to live again. At its heart is a tender story, well told of a friendship blossoming unexpectedly into a first love.

Paige Hancock lives in Oakhurst, Indiana with her mother and her younger sister, Cameron. A year earlier, Paige's first ever boyfriend, Aaron Rosenthal, whom she dated for a grand total of two months, died in a swimming accident. Paige has spent the last year attempting to come to terms with his death. In her school where everyone is defined by something, she is known as "the Girl Whose Boyfriend Died".

Paige encounters Ryan Chase, a boy she has had a crush on since forever, in Alcott's Books and Beans. She realizes that he understands what she's been going through because his sister was sick with cancer. They discover they share a class in Honors English.

Paige has just finished her therapy and she now has to cope on her own. With summer holidays coming to an end, she decides to plan out a great year, hoping that she can fake her way "through every step until things were truly good again." Her best friend Tessa McMahon suggests that Paige try to rejoin some of the groups she was a part of in freshman year. After talking with her Grammy who is suffering from short term memory loss, Paige is inspired to draw up a list that includes 1. Parties/social events, 2.New group, 3.Date, 4. Travel and 5. Swim. The last item on the list, Paige is certain she never wants to do again.

Paige's junior year starts with her learning from her friend Morgan Sullivan that Ryan broke up with girlfriend Leanne Woods over the summer. In Honors English, Ryan is there with his cousin, Max Watson who had been attending a private school, Coventry School. The new teacher, Ms. Pepper seats Ryan just behind Paige, making her very happy to be so near her crush. However, the seating arrangement doesn't last long, before Ms. Pepper has Max switch seats with Ryan who has spent too much time talking with his buddy, Tyler. Ms. Pepper informs the class that they need one more person for the Oakhurst Quizbowl team. Paige decides to join the team, believing it will help her move forward and is surprised to learn that Max is the team captain.

Meanwhile Paige is stunned to learn from her parents who are divorced, that they are dating - each other. This makes her very uncomfortable but her sister Cameron is more accepting. Her parents have been divorced for over five years and Paige is shocked that they have been dating for the past four months. It was Aaron's death that brought them together again. 

At Maggie Brennan's party, Paige learns that Tessa now has lunch with Ryan, making her just a bit jealous. But Tessa isn't interested at all in Ryan. Paige encounters Max sitting in a room at the party by himself reading and later by Ryan's car as she is leaving. Paige decides to stay and talk with Max, in the hopes of meeting Ryan. The night ends with Paige altering her list of things to do, scratching out attending parties and amending number three to specifically dating Ryan Chase.

In English class, Paige and Max are paired together for an exercise, leading them to learn a few details about each other. When Paige tells Max that she has the middle name of Elizabeth for the character in Pride and Prejudice, Max tells her that he thinks she's more a Jane Bennet who doesn't judge people, who is under-appreciated and quiet and kind. He nicknames her "Janie".  Max invites Paige to his house to meet the QuizBowl team and prepare for their first match. Paige meets his mom, who is a pediatrician,  and also meets QuizBowl team members, Malcolm and Lauren. When Max drives her home, Paige tells him about her family and her parents dating. Max listens patiently and then encourages Paige to look at what is happening from a different perspective.

At this point, Paige continues to be focused on Ryan and how she can spend time with him. When Max tells her about Ryan's break-up with Leanne and how he disliked her, Paige feels validated because she obviously doesn't like Leanne either. She feels that being friends with Max gives her a better chance of getting to know her crush, Ryan.

The first Quizbowl match is terrifying for Paige but she makes her way through it with Max's calm reassurances. Paige's life continues to intertwine with Max's. She and Max walk together on their way to lunch and to math class. At the movie theatre, when Tessa and the group decide to stay for a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Paige must leave to meet her mother's curfew, Max offers to drive her home. It is Max who drives Paige to the hospital when she learns that her Grammy has suffered a stroke, He tells Tessa what happened so she can be there for her.

Things become complicated when Ryan drives Paige to a get-together at Alcott's and they kiss in his jeep, leaving Paige wondering just what the kiss means. During the winter he asks her to hang with him, while Max and Tessa go to see a band. During their time together, Paige helps Ryan plan a surprise party for Max and learns that he's still not over his ex-girlfriend Leanne. It takes a silly game at Max's birthday party, where Max and Paige spend seven minutes locked in a closet, for Paige to realize that she has feelings for Max. And those feelings have seriously thrown her plan for recovering her life into chaos.

Discussion

The Start of Me and You is one the best young adult novels of 2015, with its positive portrayal of teen friendships, caring teen characters who grow through the story, and light romance. At the center is a strong female character, and excellent cast of supporting characters

Paige Hancock is a strong female character, demonstrating courage and fortitude. Having spent a year grieving over the loss of her friend Aaron, she decides to take control of her life,doing things that will challenge her. This leads her to join the Quizbowl club, where she comes to know Max Watson. But Paige isn`t focused on Max, she`s focused on attracting Ryan Chase who is her longtime crush. Paige uses his cousin Max in the hopes of gaining opportunities to be with Ryan and maybe become his girlfriend. However, Paige realizes several things; that Ryan is not quite over Leanne and that he is interested in her best friend Tessa. And while she`s been focusing on Ryan, she hasn`t recognized the reality of her relationship with Max. "Ryan was more an idea in my mind, and Max was a person -- my person. Sure, I daydreamed about Ryan,imagined being his girlfriend and what that would be like. But it was Max who remembered everything I ever told him, Max who looked perpetually delighted when I made him laugh...When had I learned him so completely?...It all played like a montage in my mind; Max by my side all these months...How had not seen him?"

Paige begins to realize that she's changed and that has affected her relationships. "Maybe my feelings for Max had been there the whole time, obscured by the rubble of the Ryan Chase crush I'd somehow outgrown. I'd been focusing on rebuilding the debris of my former life when instead I should have been clearing myself a path out. And that path led straight to Max." All this leads Paige to edit her list once again, crossing out Ryan and simply set the goal of dating. She'd liked Ryan in very superficial way that an eighth grader would, but Paige is no longer in eighth grade. Max is real and present in a way Ryan is not.

Max is a brilliant character, kind, intuitive and resilient. He also challenges Paige, recognizing that she's always preparing for something that is most likely to happen instead of working towards something she wants to happen. Max tries to get Paige to confront her fear of swimming but she's resistant and angry at him for trying to fix her. When Paige learns that Max has probably seen her list which has the intention to date Ryan Chase, she finally accepts that at first she used Max as a way to try to be with Ryan. While Max is initially deeply hurt by what Paige has done, his love for her allows him to forgive her. 
 
One of the more delightful characters in The Start of Me and You is Paige's grandmother whom she affectionately calls Grammy. Paige frequently visits her Grammy and is patient and kind towards her. often telling her about her life. Likewise Grammy is sensitive and able to recognize when her granddaughter is troubled. Despite having Alzheimer's and even after having a serious stroke, Grammy is able to impart her wisdom that comes from a long life. For example, when Paige tells her about her parents dating, Grammy tells her that her parents were very happy when they were first married, something Paige would not necessarily know. Grammy tells her "Things change. There are so many outside forces coming at marriage; finances and jobs and houses and children. You can lose each other if you're not careful. It doesn't mean it was all a wash." Just before her death, Grammy advises Paige to "love extra, even if it means you hurt extra, too." Grammy wisely tells her to "Just live your life."

One of the strongest themes in The Start of Me and You is that of positive female friendships. Paige, Tessa, Morgan and Kayleigh all help each other when they experience tough moments. When Tessa's parents miss their dinner date for her seventeenth birthday because they are stuck in China, Paige organizes a dessert buffet at Tessa's home.  When Morgan and Kayleigh have a falling out over Kayleigh's focus on her boyfriend Eric, Paige is able to smooth over the disagreement.  When Paige's grandmother has a stroke, Tessa leaves the Rocky Horror Show and comes to the hospital to provide emotional support for Paige and drives her home. Paige rescues Kayleigh when she is stranded after a party is raided by the cops. Reflecting on friendship, Paige believes that friends do favours without expecting anything in return. "In friendship, we are all debtors. We all owe each other for a thousand small kindnesses, for little moments of grace in the chaos...Because with true friends, no one is keeping score. But it still feels good to repay them --even in the tiniest increments." It is this portrayal of strong female friendships that is so refreshing and so unusual in young adult literature. There are no mean girls in this novel.

The Start of Me and You also portrays parents in a positive and realistic way. Paige's parents have been divorced for five years but are now attempting to reconcile. Paige's father admits that the divorce was mostly his fault and that he's been going to therapy so that he won't make the same mistakes. He doesn't know if they will remarry, but "Nothing is more important to me than doing right by you and your mom." He's forthright and responsible. Both parents are portrayed as caring and involved in their children's lives. When Paige and Max's relationship collapses after the pool incident, Paige's mother takes the time to talk the her about what happened and to counsel her. Paige recognizes her mother's efforts. "...I felt grateful for my mom in a way that I never had before. She made an honest effort to hear me and to understand where I was coming from. " 

Lord uses foreshadowing in an interesting way. The Start of Me and You uses a familiar trope of a girl out to capture the cute high school athlete but who falls in love with the sensitive, nerdy geek. In a way it's fairly predictable but the author has a message for her readers and she uses Max to deliver it.  Paige tells Max she's upset about her parents dating because she knows how it will end. When Max is helping Paige to reconsider her parents dating, he uses the example of people rereading books in which they know the ending.  "In books, sometimes the foreshadowing is so obvious that you know what's going to happen. But knowing what happens isn't the same as know how it happens. Getting there is the best part."  And that is exactly the case with The Start of Me and You. All the characters in the book realize that Paige loves Max. Even Max knows she loves him. The reader too, begins to suspect early on that Paige is going to fall for Max. However Paige does not realize she loves Max until the very end. It's how she gets to that point that makes this novel so enjoyable. And along the way she too comes to realize that "Knowing what happens is different from knowing how it happens."

The Start of Me and You is a great summer read, but also a wonderful story about the power of friendship and the determination to move forward in life. The positive portrayals of female friendship, two parents attempting to recover their marriage, and relationships between the sexes make this an excellent novel. 

Book Details:

The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord
New York: Bloomsbury Children's Books    2015
373 pp.

Galgorithm by Aaron Karo

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."

Galgorithm is a romantic comedy about a high school student who spends his senior year as a dating coach only to see it backfire in a way he never expected.

On the outside seventeen year old Shane Chambliss is a typical senior at Kingsview High School in Los Angeles. But on the inside he's much more; he's a guy who knows how girls think and act. He's spent the last few years carefully studying interactions between the guys and girls in his high school and has come up with a system to help guys succeed in the dating game. He calls his formula, which outlines the laws of attraction as the Galgorithm because Shane's father refers to women as "gals". The Galgorithm is top secret.

Shane's best friend is a black girl, Jennifer Annabelle Kalkland, better known as Jak whom he's known her since they were young enough to share a bath. Their moms are best friends.  Jak knows that Shane helps a few guys get dates with girls but she does not know about the Galgorithm because Shane is scared she will judge him. They have both been accepted for college in the fall but will be a thousand miles away from each other, something that causes Shane to be anxious about. "I probably won't miss all her antics when we go away to school, but I'll definitely miss her Jakness - her quick draw with a joke, her oddly endearing anxieties, her energy."

One of Shane's clients is Reed Wannamaker, a skinny junior whose desperate to date Marisol Cuellar. Shane encourages Reed to follow through on his initial contact with Marisol. Reed decided that in order to follow the first of Shane's rules which is to be different, he would hit Marisol with a tennis ball during gym class, providing him with the chance to go up and talk to her. This worked better than he anticipated because Harrison Fisk, a senior who is the starting pitcher for the baseball team punched Reed in the face. Marisol accepted Reed's friend request.

One of Shane's success stories is Anthony McGuinness and Brooke Nast, also known as Hedgehog and Balloon. They've been dating for six months after Shane helped Anthony who had been crushing on Brooke since fifth grade to finally get together with her. Now they want to set up Shane with Tristan Kellog, the It girl from the junior class. But Shane is still recovering from his break-up with a girl two years older than himself whom he calls Voldemort.

However Shane finds himself advising Mr. Kimbrough, the grade ten math teacher. In his early thirties, Kimbrough tells Shane he's heard that he is an expert in dating and romance and that he's noticed Shane advising Adam Foster. Shane in fact did help Adam start to date Olivia Reyes. He also tells Shane he's heard about an algorithm. While Shane tells Mr. Kimbrough he's not a dating expert he does agree to help him.Kimbrough indicates that he is crushing on Deb Solomon, a history teacher, whom he considers to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Shane advised Mr. Kimbrough to trick Miss Solomon into believing he is asking numerous teachers if they want to attend a Civil War exhibit.

Shane tells Jak about Hedgehog and Balloon setting him up with Tristen Kellog and she agrees that he should date Tristen. His initial impression of Tristen who's very pretty is that she might not have much substance to her. But he quickly discovers that she's leading a Habitat for Humanity trip to the Midwest to build homes for those who lost them due to tornadoes.

While Shane continues to advise Mr. Kimbrough and Reed and help Adam deal with being dumped by Olivia, he also struggles to cope with dating Tristen. In order to  help Adam out of his funk, Shane tells Adam to "find that girl you have a crush on, go right up to her, and do your thing."  However, one day when Shane and Jak are at lunch, Shane is stunned to see Adam making a move on Jak. He realizes that Adam is using the galgorithm on his best friend. Although he tries to seem noncommittal, Shane tries "to push any uneasiness...deep, deep down, as far as it will go."

The next day Shane runs into Adam at Perkin's Beanery waiting for Jak to show up. It turns out both guys are waiting to meet Jak and Shane realizes that Jak asked him to show up later in case she needed to bail from her date with Adam. Shane is peeved that Adam didn't tell him about crushing on Jak but he behaves diplomatically and leaves the two of them However, he does recognize Jak's disappointment while he realizes that Adam is a lucky guy dating Jak. Even though Shane and Tristen are now an "item" Shane can't quite get used to his best friend seeing another guy. It isn't until Shane rescues a very drunk Jak from her first keg party that he begins to realize that he has "feelings" for her.

Discussion

Galgorithm is a fun summer read about the hazards of friendship, dating and falling in love. The focus is on the main character, Shane Chambliss who fancies himself as a sort of expert in interactions between guys and gals,"the Robin Hood of romance" who evens "the playing field between the jocks and the have-nots." In order to give teen guys a dose of confidence he tells them he has worked out an algorithm that predicts the behaviour of girls. In fact, the "galgorithm" as he calls it, is fictitious, as he reveals later on in the novel. His system seems to be working until Mr. Kimbrough publishes his own "galgorithm" on his blog and it is discovered by one of the students. The resulting chaos sees relationships crash as the female half of all the couples believe they have been manipulated. Eventually though some of the couples like Hedgehog and Balloon come to realize that it's not so much about how they got together but that they are together. It's the message Shane's parents were trying to impart to him when they finally told him the truth about how they met. They met in an unromantic way and felt they had to create a different story for how they fell in love. It's a lesson Shane himself will soon experience with Jak.

Set against Shane's sometimes hilarious narration is his gradual realization that he has fallen for his best friend. This realization brings both terror and dismay because of Jak's response after his break up with Faith years ago made Jak insist they would never get involved romantically. "In the wake of Voldemort, Jak told me explicitly that this was a line she would not cross. We will never be more than friends. She's been consistent about that point ever since."

This leaves Shane deeply conflicted especially after his feelings for Jak persist even when she's at her worst, vomiting on him in the bathtub after the keg party. "I thought that maybe I just had a moment of weakness in the bathtub. Maybe I was just a little buzzed. But when I woke up the next morning, my feelings for Jak, whatever they are, were still there. I don't really know what they mean and I don't even know if they're real." Compounding his confusion is his relationship with Tristen, who is very understanding and finds Shane to be "sweet" and "loyal". Shane knows after his break-up with Faith that he's been guarding his heart but now he wonders, "But what if, in the course of protecting myself, in the course of finding other people their soul mates, I miss the real thing?"

It takes other people to confirm to Shane what he feels - his ex-girlfriend, Faith who tells him he was so obviously in love with Jak, Adam who recognized that Shane loved Jak and backed off, and Reed who tells him "I've never seen two 'friends' who more obviously want to hook up." Shane is only certain of his feelings after he is in danger of losing Jak for good. Reed who decides to take over Shane's role as dating coach, gives Shane a dose of his own advice, be different, notice her, tell her.

Galgorithm is appealing because it's a story about a group of high school students trying to navigate the treacherously fickle world of teenage dating. Karo describes the high school scene with a certain flair, making it realistic in some ways yet over the top in others. (How many teachers come to a senior guy for dating advice?)  There is a whole cast of very different characters in the novel from Shane the sensitive, caring guy, Jak the irreverant witty best friend,  Harrison the jock struggling to cope with the bullying his two moms have experienced, Tristen the gorgeous, sexy junior who actually does have a personality, timid Mr. Kimbrough the bumbling math teacher who has the hots for Miss Solomon and Reed the skinny Dungeons and Dragons geek.The typical teenage boy humour will have readers laughing out loud while leaving them groaning at Mr. Kimbrough's math jokes.

Galgorithm is Karo's second young adult novel. Besides being an author and screenwriter, it comes as no surprise that Karo is also a comedian.


Book Details:

Galgorithm by Aaron Karo
New York: Simon Pulse 2015
310 pp.

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

Accomplished author Sarah Dessen has written an outstanding novel about a young girl who must deal with the aftermath of a tragedy while trying to assert her own identity.

The story opens with sixteen year old Sydney Stanford attending the trial of her older brother, Peyton, who has just been sentenced to seventeen months in jail for impaired driving. Driving drunk, Peyton hit fifteen year old David Ibarra who was riding his bike home at one in the morning. The accident left Ibarra with the use of his arms but unable to walk.

It seems that Sydney's family has always revolved around Peyton, the oldest child and only son, who is three years older than Sydney. Sydney always idolized her older brother who seemed fearless and bold. But when Peyton moved to the upper campus of Perkins Day, a private school they both attended, things began to go wrong. Peyton began skipping school and by tenth grade was arrested for smoking pot. After doing his community service, three months later her was arrested for breaking and entering. This soon became a pattern; he would get arrested for drugs, shoplifting or reckless driving, do his punishment and simply revert back to his old ways. After his first shoplifting offense during which he was found in possession of pot, Peyton was sent to rehab. But the problems continued until finally he was forced to withdraw from Perkins Day. A break-in at the largest home in their wealthy neighbourhood, the Arbors, resulted in Peyton being sentenced to three months. It was during this time that Ames, a guy Peyton had met in Narcotics Anonymous, became a fixture around their home. Even while Peyton served seven weeks at the county jail. For Sydney, Ames made her uncomfortable mainly because of his constant watchfulness and the way he was always finding a way to touch her.

When Sydney entered grade ten at Perkins Day, she and her best friend Jenn, made friends with Meredith who was a petite competitive gymnast. Things seemed to have settled down. Peyton had graduated the previous June and was taking hospitality classes with Ames at Lakeview Tech while working as a valet at a nearby hotel. The day after Valentine's Day, Peyton left work and after spending time with a friend drinking, he drove home drunk, hitting David Ibarra and seriously injuring him.

After the trial and the start of the new school year, Sydney is now attending Jackson High School while Peyton is serving his time at the Lincoln Correctional Facility. On her way home from school after the first day, Sydney decides to pull into Seaside Pizza. At Seaside, Sydney orders a slice of pizza and meets a girl, Layla, whose family runs the business. Sydney doesn't return to Seaside right away, but she does encounter Layla at Jackson along with Layla's former boyfriend, Eric, who is determined to break into the music industry. Layla invites Sydney to join her at a club on Friday evening where Eric and her brother Mac's band are performing. At Bendo she meets Layla`s mother, Tricia Chatham who has MS and is in a wheelchair as well as older sister, Rosie and is introduced to Mac. She learns that Rosie was a former figure skater who has been busted for drugs. As Sydney leaves so she can be home in time for her curfew, Layla invites her to drop by their house anytime.

Sydney`s mother is planning for them to go see Peyton on Family Day at Lincoln Correctional Facility. This is not something Sydney wants to do especially since Peyton doesn`t want her to come either. Deeply distressed when her mother forces her to agree to attend, Sydney is questioned at school by Layla and tells her what Peyton did. Layla admits that she never forgets a face and saw Sydney that day in the courthouse when Peyton was being sentenced. She also shares with Sydney what happened to Rosie. Worried that Layla's knowledge about Peyton will change their friendship she is happy to see that this is not the case. "I was the sister of the neighborhood delinquent, drug addict, and now drunk driver. It didn't matter that I'd done none of these things. With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts."

Gradually Sydney finds herself part of Layla's group at school which includes Eric, her brother Mac and Irving Fearrington a big black fellow who loves to eat. At home her father manages to convince her mother to go away with him for the weekend to the St. Ivy Islands. Not trusting Sydney to be alone, they arrange. against Sydney's objections, for Ames and his girlfriend, Marla, to stay the weekend. But Sydney knows she cannot be left alone with Ames, whom she finds extremely creepy. Her concerns are validated when she arrives home after school to find Ames alone and candles on the dining room table. Freaked out, Sydney calls Seaside Pizza where she eventually speaks to Layla and asks her if she can stay the night. Relieved that Layla is coming over, Sydney has to deal with Ames who sees that she has thwarted whatever plans he had for them. When Layla shows up with Mac, Ames is his creepy self, and clearly irritated he tries to intimidate Sydney by telling her he will be letting her parents know about Layla visiting. When her mother calls, Layla manages to get herself invited over for the night, thus breaking Ames attempt to bully Sydney.

Sydney becomes more and more involved in the Chathams life, spending almost every afternoon at Seaside. She helps take Rosie to a skating session and learns that Mac was once very heavy but has lost a great deal of weight. At home the Family Day at Lincoln never happens because Peyton loses his visiting privileges, leaving Sydney's mother distraught and overly involved in Peyton's situation,  against the advice of their lawyer. In an attempt to convince her mother that Layla's family is suitable and that she is a good friend, she brings her mother to Seaside Pizza. This works and Sydney is allowed to spend a Saturday night with Layla and her family. The evening is a wonderful mixture of family and friends, music and camaraderie. A walk into the woods with Mac, Layla, Irv and Eric leads to Sydney learning about the abandoned carousel. The night ends happily for Sydney with Mac sharing his room with Sydney and Layla.

Meanwhile Layla gets the idea that she and Sydney could starting delivering pizza's together. At first Mac dismisses the idea but Layla's father allows them to give it a try. On one of the deliveries, Layla meets a rich guy, Mason Albert Spencer who ends up becoming her boyfriend and a bad choice. When Layla eventually ditches Sydney for time with Spence, Sydney starts helping Mac with the deliveries. This time allows the two of them to begin to form a strong friendship and eventually love begins to blossom.

But on the home front trouble is brewing. When Peyton finishes his first "course" at Lincoln, Sydney's mother announces that they will all be going down for his "graduation". However this is not what Peyton wants and when the visit is nixed by Peyton, a family crisis ensues that turns Sydney's world upside down.


Discussion

Anyone who hasn't read a Sarah Dessen novel should definitely consider doing so. Dessen writes in an realistic way about the struggles that young people encounter in life. Saint Anything is engaging because of the believable characters that populate this story with its themes of forgiveness, acceptance and the struggle to develop one's own identity.

One of the more interesting characters is Dessen`s novel is Sydney`s mother, Julie. Julie Stanford appears to be a mother who believes she is a good parent by continuing to rescue her son instead of letting him face the consequences of his actions. Dessen shows the reader immediately that the Stanford family revolves around Peyton with Sydney's description of how his portrait hangs "directly across from the huge glass door, right about the wood credenza and the Chinese vase..." Julie has what might be considered a typical upper middle class mother's reaction to her son`s run-ins with the police; she can`t believe he`s guilty. Unable to confront the reality of Peyton`s situation she deflects, focusing on things that don`t matter. When he was caught running away from police after being caught with pot and gets scraped up, Julie tries to convince Sydney`s dad that they have a police brutality case. `The more Peyton got into trouble, the more my mom seemed desperate to blame anyone and everyone else. the school was out to get him. The cops were too rough. But my brother was no innocent: all you had to do was look at the facts." After hearing her mother blame David Ibarra for being out riding his bike at two in the morning, Sydney realizes that her "mom would never be able to really hold Peyton responsible for what he'd done. Their bond was too tight, too tangled, for her to see reason. "

Julie continues to be enmeshed with Peyton despite his being in prison. Their lawyer, Sawyer is surprised when Julie takes the unusual step of contacting the warden and tells Julie that the best thing for Peyton is to leave him to serve his sentence "with as little interference as possible" However, Julie, supported by both Michelle and Ames, insists that it's important for Peyton to know his family cares and to be involved.

Sydney's mother's inability to face the reality of Peyton's situation causes Sydney to feel as though she has to carry the guilt for her family. "For the first time, I wondered if this was the reason I was so obsessed with David Ibarra and his aftermath and story. Someone had to carry the guilt. If my parents couldn't -- or wouldn't -- it was left to me."

As the main character in the novel, Sydney struggles to find her place in a family totally consumed with her brother Peyton. Sydney struggles on two fronts with her parents. First she wants to be truly seen by them as a person in her own right. "I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn't shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and dynamic like my friends. That's the thing though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are."

When Sydney is with Mac on a delivery she tells him that her brother's big personality and troubles have made her "invisible" to her parents. She tells Mac, that when her brother's "around, he fills the view. You can't look anywhere else..." It is gentle Mac, who is very protective of Sydney who gradually makes her feel noticed as they begin texting one another about the deliveries Mac makes. Mac is the first person who truly "sees" Sydney.

Secondly, Sydney wants to be trusted by them and for them to realize Peyton's mistakes are not hers.
They also believe that she will behave just as Peyton has. When Sydney attempts to convince her parents to leave her home unsupervised, her mother states "I think we all know well what a lack of supervision can lead to." This deeply hurts Sydney. "The last thing I deserved was to have the same old assumptions applied, but clearly, this wasn't about me." Sydney wants to tell her mother that she finds Ames creepy and hopes that her mother will see that she's distressed about Ames by actually seeing her for once but she has no luck.

When her mother catches Sydney in a compromising situation, she never allows Sydney the chance to really explain herself and never actually listens to her. Instead, her response is to tie Sydney down so tight that she has nothing except school and studying. It takes the crisis with Ames and Mac's mother to force Sydney's mother to finally "see" her. Her mother admits that she drove to the hospital with every attempt to drag her home, but then she admits,
" 'I saw you,' she said simply.
Me, surrounded by people I cared about. Me, being a good person, a good friend, all the things she prided herself on having taught me. After so many months of looking at me only in the context of my brother, finally, in that bright institutional light, my mother had glimpsed me simply as Sydney, with no precedent or comparison."
Without Peyton to colour her view, Sydney's mother was able to see her and recognize that she is a different person from Peyton.

One aspect of this novel that was especially appealing was how Dessen used Mac and Sydney's pizza deliveries as a window to the lives of ordinary people. Sydney tells Mac that she likes doing deliveries because "It's something about seeing all these people in their separate places. Like little snapshots of the whole world as it's happening simultaneously..." Sydney becomes very adept at predicting the kind of people who order based on what's on their pizza's. For Sydney she later realizes that helping Mac has helped her see the reality of life. "Working with Mac like this, I'd caught brief glimpses of so many lives, tiny bits of a million stories..."

Saint Anything is a beautifully crafted, honest novel about how becoming an adult is never an easy task. Each one of the young characters in Saint Anything has their problems whether it be Mac who doesn't want to take over his father's pizza business, or Eric struggling to become a musician, or Layla who keeps picking the bad boy, or Peyton who needs to grow up and accept responsibility for his mistakes. Despite all these difficulties, Dessen's message at the end is one of hope as her characters gradually work through their problems and move on to happier times. There's a dose of realism too as Dessen reminds her young readers that life can't always be happy.

Saint Anything is simply a wonderful summer read for teens and those who love young adult literature!!

Book Details:

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
New York: Viking       2015
417 pp.

The Queen of Bright And Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre

Sage Czinski describes herself as the "Queen of Bright and Shiny Things", a girl who goes around putting sticky notes on the lockers of kids who are having a bad day. The goths call her Princess Post-it but this doesn't bother Sage. All she hopes is that a bit of kindness balances out the bad in high school. Sage lives with her dad's half sister, her Aunt Gabby who she says has taught her "how to stop being angry about things I can't control." and attends JFK high school. She, who describes herself as someone who fits in with the "crunchy granola do-gooders" crowd belongs to the eco-awareness club.

Sage's best friend is Ryan McKenna, a six foot tall dork who befriended her three years ago when she first arrived at JFK. They've been best friends since then. Most people assume that she and Ryan are dating especially since he walks around with his arm on Sage's shoulder. But Ryan has never asked Sage out In Sage's math class, a new kid, Shane Cavendish, arrives. Almost immediately Shane draws negative attention from the jocks like Dylan Smith who shove him into lockers. After school, Sage runs into Shane in the conference room at the local public library where her eco group, Green World meets. She invites Shane to stay.

The next day Ryan tries to figure out Sage's relationship with Shane. She is shocked to hear Ryan make many assumptions about Shane based on his appearance. Sage learns that there are rumours going around about Shane from Dylan's mother. This leads her to question Ryan as to whether he's jealous. Shane continues to be bullied throughout the day by the jock squad. Sage knows she can't really leave a sticky note on his locker to support him but when she hears him making beautiful music in the music room this gives her a reason for a sticky note of support. The sticky note however makes her late for math class and gives her detention where she meets up with Shane. His black eye is proof that he's been sent there for fighting. He tells her that she knows nothing about living through bad times when Sage tells him that before her life with Aunt Gaby, life was not good.  Sage realizes that both of them have the same need; to be acknowledged and to have someone who cares.

When Sage and Ryan get together one evening for a movie, Ryan admits to Sage that he has been hooking up with a much older girl who is college age. Shocked and attempting to keep her anger in check, Sage questions Ryan as to why he did this and why he lets people believe they are a couple when he's been secretly with someone else. She tells Ryan that they are finished for now, although she doesn't rule out the possibility of being friends again some day. The next day at school, people are shocked at their "break-up".

With Ryan out of her life for the time being, Sage decides to pursue loner, Shane. At the same time, Lila Tremaine, the goth-like girl who has a locker near her, wants to be her friend. Lila used to be Dylan Smith's girlfriend but she broke up with him when he began to spread rumours about her.  Meanwhile Dylan begins spreading rumours that Sage is a lesbian. When Shane doesn't show up for classes, Sage decides to get his schedule so she can take his assignments to his house. After sneakily discovering where he lives, Sage rides out to his house which turns out to be a run down trailer bringing him his assignments and some food. Shane tells Sage that his mother became sick with cancer when he was twelve and that his father left when he was fourteen, unable to cope with her illness. After his mother's death Shane lived with a friend of his mother's but got into lots of trouble, enough that he risked being sent into juvie. Shane avoided going into foster care by having his father purchase the trailer home for him in exchange for Shane taking care of himself. Sage leaves feeling disappointed because Shane tells her he needs a friend and she want to be more than just a friend to him.

Shane joins Sage at her lunch table with her new friends since her break-up with Ryan. He also becomes involved in the eco group, helping to clean up an abandoned lot. In school Sage begins working harder, participating more in chemistry rather than letting Ryan do all the work and her marks begin to improve in geometry because of Shane's tutoring. She also begins inviting Lila over to her Aunt Gabby's which makes her aunt happy to see that she is beginning to socialize more. Aunt Gabby encourages Sage to forgive Ryan after she learns what happened between the two of them.

Shane and Sage's relationship continues to develop. On a tip from Sage's Aunt Gabby, Shane gets a job at P&K, he moves his stuff into her locker, and they go out on their first date which ends with them spending the night at Sage's house. On a date at the Coffee House, Shane fills in for an injured musician and his set is so good that he is offered an ongoing gig once per week. However when Sage tries to micro-manage Shane's life, he gets mad and this leads Sage to reconsider how she treats him. He shows up at the Curly Q, where Sage works part time and apologizes, telling her she is "the only person in the world who gives a shit about me,"

At a party at "the Barn", Dylan confronts Lila, leading Sage to intercede on her friend's behalf. She tells him and his jock friends to stay away from Lila, threatening to expose his mother's affair with Principal Warick. Lila warns Sage that Dylan has a reputation for not letting anything go unchallenged. Lila proves to be right when a few days later Dylan runs Sage off the road with his pickup truck and threatens her. Sage discovers that Dylan has been dealing with his mother's hook-up behaviour since he was thirteen. This makes her realize that he's trying to protect his mother. Dylan tells her that if she backs off he won't harrass her. He tells her that he has to be a scary bully at school so that kids won't mess with his mother. When Sage refuses his offer, Dylan tells her he will start digging to uncover her secrets. Little does Sage know she has set in motion events that will change all their lives irrevocably.


Discussion

The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things will appeal to those who love novels about high school life and particularly ones filled with plenty of drama and romance. The novel can be divided into three sections; the first part sets the stage and presents the reader with the main characters while foreshadowing the future conflict between Sage and Dylan, the second part develops Sage and Shane's relationship as Sage begins to blossom after cutting ties with Ryan while the third section features the inevitable showdown between Sage and Dylan and the changes that brings about.

Readers are drawn into the story by the hints Sage drops about her past. She frequently mentions that she keeps a tight rein on her alter-ego, "Shadow Sage" who is the angry version of the eco-warrior, queen of positive-thinking Sage. As her story unfolds, it parallels that of Shane's. Both lost parents they were close to, both ended up in group homes after the remaining parent neglected to act responsibly and both have anger problems. But both characters are also trying to rehabilitate their lives and change for the better. It is this journey that appeals to readers.

Sage undergoes two transformations. In the beginning of the novel Sage has a very limited life; she's Ryan's "friend" and really has no other friends. When she moved to her aunt's home three years ago and began attending JFK, she was frightened and lonely. Ryan immediately came to her rescue for reasons Sage is not sure of. Although everyone assumes they are a couple, Ryan has never asked Sage out. In chemistry class Ryan is her partner and Sage coasts, taking notes but not really participating in the experiments. Although she participates in the eco club which Ryan too is a part of, it is her unhealthy reliance on him that prevents Sage from developing her own life. Once they break up however, Sage begins to reach out and it is Shane's situation and her concern for him that helps her do so. Without Ryan hovering around her constantly she makes a new friend in Lila Tremaine, who is the very opposite type of girl Sage would normally hang out with. She begins participating in chemistry class,taking the initiative in the labs, something noticed by her teacher. She begins bringing friends home much to her aunt's delight.

The second transformation involves Sage dealing with her past and the anger she has carried around with her for years. The basis for Sage's deep-rooted anger is eventually revealed bit by bit throughout the novel. Sage is afraid people will learn about her past and that their opinion of her will change. Afraid she will be defined by her anger she repeatedly tells herself to keep "Shadow Sage" under control. To achieve this, Sage makes a point of putting a sticky note on at least one person's locker during the day. Initially she brought sticky notes to school to help her get through the day but when she offered encouragement to a girl one day through a sticky note, Sage loved the good feeling this gave her. Her Aunt Gabby has told her "if you put positivity out into the world, it will come back to you tenfold." Sage doesn't know if this is true but in the end the support she gets from friends and all the people she cheered up through her sticky notes does come back to ease her pain when Dylan wreaks havoc on her and Shane's lives.

Sage also struggles to keep her anger, personified by Shadow Sage in check and this struggle is featured throughout her narrative. When Ryan puts down Shane during lunch with Sage, making sweeping assumptions about him. "I almost get mad at Ryan then, but that -- no. For a few seconds, I'm woozy and scared; this can't happen. So I take four deep breaths..." Sage who has been taken in by her father's half sister, feels she must constantly put on a positive front and control her anger for fear of being sent back to the group home. "...she doesn't realize how tough it is not to backslide after a bad day. I keep my temper under lock and key and, mostly, I'm okay. I treat rage like an alien that hides in a corner of my brain...If I lose it, even once, I'll have to go back, which is why I take such care never to lose my temper."

When Dylan Smith begins harassing her friend, Sage begins to allow her anger to rise. "Shadow Sage surges to the front of my brain, all darkness and destruction. She knows exactly how to break this little shit, and for the first time in three years, I'm going to let her." At this point Sage believes that she is still the person she was years ago when she was responsible for her mother's death. Readers don't learn about what really happened to Sage until later in the novel but at this point she states, "...I'm only playing the role of nice girl; I've spent a portion of my life as something else entirely."

But when the harassment continues, Sage with the help of Lila decides to retaliate in a way that does not hurt Dylan's mom but shows Dylan they are not going to let him get away with his bad behaviour.This demonstrates that Sage is not the out of control angry person she believed herself to be. And in fact after the actions of Sage, Shane and Dylan have played out, Sage is able to forgive Dylan enough to allow him to help with the garden planning. And she even leaves a post-it note on his locker telling him things will get better. "Since he offered an olive branch at Green World's garden day, I can, too. Maybe if the rest of the school see that I can forgive him, they'll move on."

This novel is filled with many themes; forgiveness, identity, and acceptance. It's wonderful to see Sage and Shane care for one another. Sage and Shane recognize their brokenness but love one another anyways. Shane's unconditional love for Sage gives her the strength to continue on in the wake of Dylan's revelations and Shane's arrest.

The Queen of Bright and Shiny is a great summer read complete with a heady romance, two characters with interesting back stories and a villain who ends up redeemed at the end. Readers will love Shane, the cute boyfriend who plays guitar and has that brooding inner strength that makes him appealing.

Book Details:

The Queen of Bright and Shiny by Ann Aguirre
New York: A Fiewel and Friends Book         2015
328 pp.