YA or STFU

Kasischke, Laura (2008). Feathered. NY: HarperTeen. 272 pages.

I enjoyed Laura Kasischke's first young adult novel, Boy Heaven (the author has also published collections of poetry and a couple of novels for adults), so much that I was psyched to see a new title by the author on the new book shelves at my library. While the back matter and brief plot summary on the jacket flap seemed to indicate that Feathered would mine similar topical territory as the urban-legend inspired Boy Heaven, it soon became clear that the newer novel would combine fantasy, legend, and real life in a dark and feminist way.

Alternating between the first person voice of Ann, an eighteen-year-old traveling to Mexico to spend spring break with her friends, and the third person account of the experiences of Michelle, Ann's best friend and fellow spring break traveler, the narrative is descriptive but not overwritten. Like Francesca Lia Block, who manages to squeeze in a sensory overload of descriptive information in relatively few pages (and with what would seem to be great ease), and, like Joyce Carol Oates, who infuses her narratives with a dark creepiness that is somehow uncanny, Kasischke has produced a mood piece cum mystery cum horror story that, in spite of the pervasive avian imagery, doesn't hit you over the head with literary device.

When Ann, Michelle and their friend Terri take a trip to Mexico for spring break, the three girls look forward to a few days of sun, swimming, drinking, and maybe a little hooking up. When they arrive at their hotel, it seems clear that Ann and Michelle aren't really the spring break type. Unlike Terri, who immediately dons a bikini and joins the suntan oiled, drunken crowd, Ann and Michelle sit awkwardly at the bar and strike up conversation with an older stranger. The older stranger offers to act as a tour guide for the pair and the two reluctantly (Ann) and eagerly (Michelle) accompany him on a trip to some Mayan ruins. The trip is a transformative experience for Michelle; however, Ann, wary of the stranger and his creepy interest in the ruins and the ritual sacrifices of the Mayans, encourages Michelle to part ways with the stranger and arranges for a separate ride back to their hotel. Tragedy strikes and Michelle is lost and what seems like a setup for a fictionalized account of Natalee Holloway takes a turn for the mystical and symbolic.

I loved this book and totally raced through it; however, my eagerness did not keep me from experiencing surprise at the twists in the novel, especially the central surprise that should have been a no-brainer. Kasischke's use of imagery as she subtly compares the "savage" Mayans and the drunken spring breakers is sharp but subtle (she's not hitting you over the head with moralism here) and the feminist critique of Ann and Michelle's situation is omnipresent as the narrative asks us to question some of those ingrained rules of female safety.

Posted by Amy P. at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Waters, Daniel (2008). Generation Dead. NY: Hyperion. 392 pages.

Dead teenagers are coming back to life and trying to exist among the living. The undead or, as the politically correct would have it, "differently biotic," are not the most welcome new additions to the population. For one thing, they look dead--think pale skin and silver eyes--for another, not all of them returned to "normal." Many of the undead are shells of their former selves, speak slowly and haltingly and with a flat affect. One school, Oakvale High, has become something of a mecca for dead teens; as one of few schools with an undead mainstreaming program, it, and the town in which it is situated, has attracted a number of dead kids and their families. When (living) goth Phoebe Kendall develops a crush on one of the dead, a boy named Tommy, and Tommy decides to try out for the school football team, conflict ensues. With one of Phoebe's best friends, a jock named Adam, on Tommy's side on the team, threats made by some of his meathead teammates never get completely out of hand; however, most of the town (not to mention society) remains hostile towards the zombies.

It would be easy to read Generation Dead as something of an allegory for any kind of institutionalized or social bigotry; details of the zombie's lack of citizenship, the mandatory conscription requirements, and their random murders by townspeople are reminiscent of American racism and homophobia. That the party being discriminated against consists of the reanimated dead complicates the metaphor. Can we really draw a parallel between the undead and the (living) victims of hate? Would that parallel inevitably lead to questions about the validity or even "naturalness" of life on either side?

I'd like to have seen the book go a bit deeper into the experiences of the dead and begin to feel out questions of "biotics" and existence (at an existential level, of course, har har); however, the jabs at consumerism were enough of a beginning for me. Interestingly, the author has set up a "live" extension of the novel in the form of a blog, "My So Called Death," featuring the thoughts of Tommy who, coincidentally, maintains a blog of the same name in the book. Visit "Tommy's" blog here. I've visited once and found myself more interested in the readers' comments than in Tommy's musings. While many of the blog's readers have clearly read the novel, I wonder if all of them are completely in on the dissemblance.

Posted by Amy P. at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shan, Darren (2007 [2008, US]). Demon Apocalyspe (Book 6 in the Demonata series). NY: Hachette (Little, Brown). 200 pages.

The first two sentences of Darren Shan's sixth book in the "Demonata" series pretty much exemplify the entire installment: "A demon shaped like a giant scorpion digs its stinger into a woman's eyes. As they pop, it spits eggs into the bloody sockets, then watches with its almost human face as the eggs hatch and wriggling maggots feast on her flesh" (2007/2008, p. 3). Yes! This scorpion creature thankfully makes a few more appearances in the story and, lucky for us, performs that little maggot-hatching trick more than once. Some folks might judge Shan's latest series to be gratuitously violent, but I think it's totally hysterical.

Those who have been following the "Demonata" know that the series revolves around the mythic war between humans and demons, each of whom live in alternate worlds. While demons seem to live in a variety of created non-human worlds, the latest demon plot involves sneaking into the human realm and taking over. Enter Grubbs Grady, the primary hero of the series, who has become embroiled in the counter-plot to stop the demons, led by the evil demonmaster Lord Loss. I have to admit, I hadn't read book 5, so I was a little lost at first when I entered book 6; however, the primary conflict here follows much of what anyone who's read more than one of the previous novels understands as one of the series' main struggles: namely, the "good" guys want to stop the "bad" guys from opening a gate between Lord Loss's demon world and the human one.

Interestingly, though this book seems to conclude and resolve some major issues, Shan has indicated (via his website) that this is not the end of the series, but the beginning of what he considered the series' major plotline. At any rate, Demon Apocalypse delivers much of what we've come to expect from the series' installments: the sixth book sets up the battle to be fought in this episode and describes it and its results in grisly detail.

As I mentioned earlier, I think some folks might consider the series to be overly gory; however, I think that it is this aspect of the series that really distinguishes it in a rather hysterical way. For one, the creative descriptions of the demons and their attack patterns (e.g. the scorpion dude) are actually so over-the-top as to be morbidly funny. There were so many passages that could be read as either horror or lampoon and that, to me, is one of the attractions of the books. That Shan includes this level of detail (and really, the book's aren't that descriptive in terms of pain and suffering, just in terms of action) shows, in my opinion, a level of respect for readers that you don't often see in a middle-grade horror novel. Yes, there is a lot of what some might call violence, but I don't really consider "violent," per se. It's more like gross-out description that titillates in the same way that violence in standard (adult) horror novels does, but that excuses its readers from really suffering along with the fictional victims. At any rate, I think the series is hilarious, and I have no doubt that others find it so as well.

Posted by Amy P. at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hurley, Tonya (2008). Ghostgirl. NY: Little, Brown. 326 pages.

The tag lines for a story like this just write themselves (and, of course, are used to death in Hurley's Ghostgirl): Dying to be popular? Feeling invisible? What if you did die and could become invisible? High school nobody Charlotte Usher arrives on the first day of school with a plan to become popular and to attract her crush, the best-looking boy at school and known paramour of the most popular girl. When an accident involving a gummi bear causes Charlotte to depart the land of the living, she continues to occupy the Earthly plane and uses her ghostly advantages to get close to the boy she was denied in death.

The book started well and, really, could have gone two ways. The first chapter set-up led me to predict either a metaphoric death for Charlotte or a real one; in either case, the slightly snarky exegetic narration seemed like a good fit. When Charlotte really did die in the novel, it all went downhill for me. The character's sudden introduction to "ghost school," known as "Dead Ed.," the fact that ghost-Charlotte could be seen by the most popular girl at school's sister, the willingness of said sister to allow Charlotte to posses her body while the sister flew around the spiritual plane (what?), and the lack of consistent rules related to the physical and the ghost worlds really blew this whole thing out of the water for me. I'm all for a good, smart-alecky, horror spoof, but this one didn't even adhere to the rules of the genre it attempted to spoof.

Good design and brief nineteenth-century chapter prefaces were not enough to save this novel from itself. I think that, really, this book is intended to promote a movie of the same name and scope, itself written and possibly directed by the book's author. See Ghostgirl for more information.

Posted by Amy P. at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Burgess, Melvin (2007). Sara's Face. NY: Simon and Schuster. 272 pages.

I'm not totally sold on Melvin Burgess (I don't think anyone is); however, I admire the risks he takes with content and form and, with this long view, find his latest novel, Sara's Face, an intriguing addition to his oeuvre as well as the contemporary YA scene. Seventeen-year-old Sara is fascinated with the concept of fame and celebrity and has spent most of her adolescent life trying on personae and "performing" for her friends and schoolmates. When a burn accident lands her in the hospital, she meets Michael Heat, a svengali like Michael Jackson-esque singer and celebrity, who invites her to live at his estate and promises her reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Heat is something of legend in Britain (and the world): a popular singer turned philanthropist, Heat made his name and endured in the public eye by constantly changing both his image and appearance through increasingly drastic cosmetic surgery. Now sporting a Michael Heat mask that he wears to hide his collapsed face, Heat retains his influence; scores of young people wear similar masks that cover and change their entire visage (s?). Once installed at Heat's mansion, Sara becomes convinced that Heat and his surgeon intend to "steal" her face during her cosmetic surgery and graft her youthful and beautiful face onto the ruined skull of Heat.

Told in the form of an investigative/true crime novel, the "narrator" of the story is the author, Burgess in the guise of Ann Rule. This is an intriguing conceit, as it forces us, as readers, to maintain a distance from the characters whose thoughts and actions are related third-hand. While this technique has not garnered the novel any praise--and, I admit, it is a bit clunky for what is, essentially, a novel--this is an especially appropriate way to handle the novel's main themes related to fame and celebrity. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed by the ending and the failure to resolve all of what seem to be deliberate allusions (to Bluebeard, to Frankenstein); however, the premise of the story kept me reading and the sketchy conclusion made me linger a bit more over the novel than I might have otherwise.

Posted by Amy P. at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Flinn, Alex (2007). Beastly. NY: HarperTeen (Harper Collins). 300 pages.

The ninth-grade son of a famous (and wealthy) New York newscaster, Kyle is, simply put, an asshole. He's rich, he's good looking, and he knows it. Which is probably why he's so mean to kids who aren't in his "league" and definitely why he hatches a plan to humiliate the kind of nerdy, semi-goth-y, girl at school who challenges him. After he makes plans to meet this girl at the big school dance (where he is a shoe-in to be crowned ninth grade prince), he publicly shames her by showing up with his sexy girlfriend and announcing that he had never intended to escort her at all. Turns out, this girl--Kendra--is actually a witch, and she exacts revenge by putting a transformation curse on Kyle, changing his appearance from studly teen to hairy beast. The one cure for this spell: Kyle must find a girl to love him--beastly appearance and all--within two years; otherwise, he'll spend the rest of his life a monster.

Because Kyle's father can't handle Kyle's make-under (and because Kyle's father, like the pre-beast Kyle, is an appearance-obsessed ass), Kyle is sent to live in Brooklyn where he stays indoors and is tutored by a blind man. He does, however, discover a passion for growing roses in his walled backyard. Can you see where this is going? With Beastly, Flinn tells the "Beauty and the Beast" story from the point of view of the beast and sets it in contemporary NYC to boot.

Flinn's novel is mostly successful and Kyle's first-person description of life as a beast--albeit a rich beast--is surprisingly sympathetic. The only problem: I had a hard time believing in the Kyle we meet at the beginning of the story. The rich, good-looking asshole who sets up the school outcast, Carrie-style, is just a little too common. I'd rather read a more subtle portrayal of teen jerkiness; however, because the story is really about the internal transformation effected after the physical one, this trope can be excused. The chat-room excerpts that pepper the novel in which other contemporary "victims" of fairy-tale curses vent about their uncommon plights are less excusable. The whole novel would benefit without these secondary characters' input.

That said, the 300 page novel moves quickly and, in spite of the fact that the bones of the story are familiar, manages to change things up enough to keep the heart of the tale fresh and even incorporate some surprises.

Posted by Amy P. at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shan, Darren (2006, 2007 [US]). Bec (Book 4 in the Demonata series). NY: Little, Brown. 235 pages.

If you're going to read a series out of order, progressing from Book 2 to Book 4 in Shan's Demonata series is the way to go. Book 4, Bec, takes us back in time to the first emergence of the demons of the Demonata, way back in very early Christian Europe. Told from the point of view of Bec, a young priestess foundling living in a primitive rath, the story follows her on a journey to close the gate opened between the human and demon worlds. After a mysterious and seemingly simple boy visits Bec's rath, Bec joins a small band of her people as they follow him in hopes of joining force with another small clan and to beat the demons who terrorize their homes every night. Along the way, the band meets a druid who encourages them to follow him to the gate between worlds, where the group may be able to close the gate and die heroes.

The story unfolds at the fast clip characteristic of Shan's work and is full of the usual blood and gore. Steaming entrails aside, the historical story held greater appeal than the contemporary installments of the this series; I had long been curious about the emergence of the demons and found the pre-pre-modern setting of this volume intriguingly described. During Bec's travels, she and the group witness the druid's play with a primitive chessboard, a set piece that should figure prominently in later installments. While this series is not as much about character development as it is about telling a swift but powerful (and gorey) tale, I've found the installments that I read satisfying in themselves and effectively suspenseful. An appearance of Lord Loss, a demon leader whose power and general evilness has been well established in earlier books, was just the icing on the cake. Of course I'm going to read the next one and maybe even backtrack to book 3. After all this investment, how could I not?

Posted by Amy P. at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shan, Darren (2007). The Demon Thief (Book 2 in the "Demonata" series). NY: Little, Brown. 256 pages.

Darren Shan, author of the "Vampire Saga" series, is at it again. This time, his focus is the demon world and the ways in which this world intersects with our own. The first book in the series (Lord Loss) establishes the character of Lord Loss, a powerful demon ruler who makes an appearance in The Demon Thief. Interestingly (and according to the notes on Shan's website, [click here]), this second novel is set 30 years before the first book and is meant to aid in the establishment of the history of the demonata.

Cornelius "Kernel" Fleck is an ordinary kid who doesn't seem to fit in with any of the other kids at school. Even though he dresses cool, watches the same TV shows and listens to the same music as all the other kids, they (and, to be honest, even Kernel) senses something different about Kernel. Since he can remember, Kernel has been seeing lights--glowing shapes that hover in the environment that he can manipulate into patterns with his mind. One night, when he's playing with the lights (sounds like a euphamism for something dirty, doesn't it?), he opens what seems to be a window through which he catches a glimpse of the demon we've come to know as Lord Loss. Kernel steps through the passage and awakens five days later, clutching his baby brother in his arms and with no memory of what had transpired. The bulk of the novel is given over to his search for answers.

As gorey as a Stephen King but absent the pathos, the second book in Shan's new series is a fast and fun read. In spite of the fact that folks are, literally, exploding and getting their limbs ripped off right and left, there are some pretty hysterical moments (most notably when 35 kids "crap their pants" all at once when they witness the appearance of an evil demon called Cadaver). While I am an admitted sucker for series fiction, I do have some standards and, I have to say, Shan's horror series have R.L. Stine's "Fear Street" beat. Beneath the blood, guts, and mayhem, Shan's characters are dealing with real feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. The end of this installment packs an intriguing surprise as Kernel faces the real consequences of his own lonely desperation.

Posted by Amy P. at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

de la Cruz, Melissa (2007). Masquerade (a Blue Bloods novel). NY: Hyperion. 320 pages

The second book in de la Cruz's series about the vampire elite finds the key teen characters coming into their vampire powers. In the first book, Blue Bloods, primary character Schuyler Van Alen (who is described in a way that brings an Olsen twin to mind) discovers she is a half-vampire in a Manhattan controlled primarily by "Blue Bloods" (vampires) who live among the "Red Bloods" (humans). In the second book, Schulyer is searching for her estranged grandfather, whom she believes can help her determine if "Silver Bloods," evil vampires who hunger for power over other vampires, have infiltrated their Blue Blood society. Additionally, Schuyler is struggling with her strong romantic feelings for fellow vampire Jack Force and her confusion over whether her relationship with her human best friend will be ruined by all the vampire business.

De la Cruz is a former magazine writer whose forays into young adult literature include the "Au Pairs" series. This latest vampire series is very much of the same ilk and features light horror mixed with indulgent descriptions of the lifestyles of the rich and (literally) bloodthirsty. Of course, I love it: the gothicized New York setting, the teen soap opera sub-plots and the brand name-dropping--it's all there. Yum.

Posted by Amy P. at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clement-Moore, Rosemary (2007). Prom Dates from Hell. NY: Delacorte Press. 308 pages.

Soon-to-graduate high school senior Maggie has made a career out of avoiding the popular crowd and living on the fringes of her high school's social world, at least, as far as her jobs at the school newspaper and yearbook will allow. When Maggie notices some odd accidents at her school--made odder by the paranormal goo left at the scenes of said accidents--she becomes convinced that someone has placed a revenge curse on select members of the student body. Fortunately, Maggie has a bit of "The Sight" and an "in" with a local paranormal-studies college student to help her get to the root of the problem.

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's like every young adult novel that deals with a ghost-fighting female teen has to have an ironically hip and sarcastic narrative (yes, I'm talking about you, Meg Cabot and your "Mediator" series, and you, Jennifer Barnes and your "Platinum" books). Prom Dates is no exception. The plot is a bit more complex than your average story of this ilk and, I have to say, the ending was a bit of a surprise. This type of novel would not be complete without a glimmer of love interest and the torn-between-two-potential-lovers plotline is not unsatisfying, though a bit rote.

Posted by Amy P. at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)