Stacked Shelves

I tell myself all the time that I really don’t like YA books. So much emotion. So much angst. So many vampires. The book reviews often get me, however, and I’ll take a YA novel home, start to read, and then regret it. There are two – and now three – exceptions to this: Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boy series and E. K.   Johnson’s The Story of Owen and its sequel (though I tweeted to E.K. that after reading the sequel I couldn’t read another book ever again (I was being dramatic)). Now I have to add Patrick Ness to that list. I’ve been meaning to read his Chaos Walking series for a long time, but just haven’t had the opportunity. I’m so terribly glad, though, that I picked up his latest book, The Rest of Us Just Live Here . The main part of this story is about four teens looking forward to the prom, graduation, and the rest of their lives. They’ve got problems – serious ones, actually. Mel is anorexic and nearly died from not eating. Her brother Mike suffers from severe anxiety a

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin is at top of many lists as a contender for the next Newbery award. That’s understandable. It is, at times, a very good book. But there is something about the tale that seems a bit off to me. It’s as if it’s the author tried to write two stories in one. Warning: Spoilers ahead! The book alternates between the present time and the past. Almost from the get-go we know that Suzy’s former best friend Franny has drowned over the summer vacation. And Suzy’s grief seems to have made her selectively mute.  Suzy and Franny were friends since preschool days and guppy swimming lessons. Both were outsiders and often got teased. So they stuck together and vowed never to be like the popular mean kids. But then Franny starts to change (puberty! boys!). Suzy, meanwhile, basically stays the same. Note that this a common plot development in tween lit. One nerdy girl becomes one of the cool kids and her dear old friend doesn’t. Make no mistake, S