Plot Summary:  When her veterinarian dad dies, 16 year old Iris goes to live with her Aunt Sue and Cousin Book  she has never really met.  They don’t understand Iris, a vegetarian and animal lover.  When Iris sets two baby goats free to prevent their slaughter, her aunt forces her cousin to beat Iris to teach her a lesson.  Sue and Book go to jail and Iris enters the foster care system, but she’ll risk anything to make sure the animals at her aunt’s are being cared for.

Critical Analysis:  This is a solemn, unrelenting, even dark book made darker by the fact that the author got the idea from an actual newspaper article about a girl who had been beaten.  It begins from a place of grief and goes down from there.  Iris is the focus, so we don’t get to really know what might be the motivation behind her aunt or cousin’s behavior, but we know that there is no excuse for what they end up doing.  I really identified with Iris, she tried so hard to make the best of  a bad situation, and she bonds with her aunt’s goats and dog, and manages to connect with a few students at her school.  Her aunt and cousin seem to make no effort to understand her.  Perhaps that is why the beating seems even more brutal,  because there is such a disconnect.  The author does not shy away from realistically portraying the beating of a baby goat or Iris, so this book may not be for everyone.  However, readers who stick with Iris will rejoice when she works from her foster home to find a way to continue to take care the goats when her aunt is in jail.

Review Excerpts: “Watkins displays his expertise as he creates a heroine who is broken and yet refuses to stay down. Secondary characters are equally well-developed and engaging. Beautifully written, this story is an unflinching look at the cruelty of life as well as the resilience of the human spirit.”–Kirkus Reviews

“The story moves at a gentle pace, slowly pulling readers into Iris’s cheerless world. The teen is realistically emotional and stubborn, and the secondary characters are well developed. Give this one to teens who enjoy dramatic plots with rays of hope at the end.”–School Library Journal

“Details about farm life, softball, goats, and cheese making, as well as high school (some underage drinking, pot smoking, and bullying), hold the reader’s interest, but Iris’s detachment keeps the reader—and the people who try to befriend her—at a distance.”–VOYA

“…a story of hope and self-knowledge, speaks to all teens….The reader, with Iris, grows in empathy and self-knowledge through this book.”–Children’s Literature

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Plot Summary:  Fifteen year old Sienna is being forced to face her fears by her father when he insists she accompany his disaster relief team to tsunami wracked Indonesia.  She hasn’t been on a plane or near the ocean since her mother died flying a plane over the ocean on a similar trip several years before.

Critical Analysis:  It always sounds a little strange to me when I say it, but one of the kinds of books I enjoy reading are those where a character is dealing with grief.  I don’t think that makes me morbid, because what I really mean is that I enjoy reading books that deal with the most raw and real human condition.

This book is overflowing with themes about being human and dealing with what life gives you.  While I can see the point of the Kirkus review, that from one perspective there is something almost demeaning, writing about a well off American relief team waltzing in for two weeks to save the day before leaving to go back their comfortable homes; I can also see the truth in this story, that tragic disastrous events, whether  small and personal or overwhelming and still personal, have a way of making everything more intense and immediate.  You can’t wait to be with the person you have feelings for both because you have already suffered so much loss and also because the next wave that comes might carry them away.

So for me, this is what Kling gets so right.  And that’s why Deni and Sienna both do stupid or dangerous things, they each see in the other something of what they feel.  I think that many teens and young adults have had similar experiences and will be moved by this book because it is so true to life in that way.

Readalikes: While reading this book, I was reminded of Thief Eyes by Janni Lee Simner.  Thief Eyes is also about a teenage girl traveling to a strange country while trying to come to terms with the loss of her mother and discovering romance and even a little danger.

Review Excerpts: “[C]aptures the innocence and heartbreak of first romance superbly in this tender love story….This page turner is evokes the harshness of disaster as well as the beauty of the young soul….Sure to be a hit with romance readers, this book is perfect to present as a summer beach read.”–VOYA

“Their relationship develops quickly and leads to actions and decisions that are ill-considered and dangerous—both in a Muslim culture and during a state of civil unrest. Sienna loses her fears much faster than one would expect, and her return home to a friendship that is evolving into a romance, so soon after she was in love with another boy whose life was filled with tragedy, makes her seem emotionally shallow. Teens who like relationship novels will overlook these flaws, but the book is definitely an additional purchase.”–School Library Journal

“Disaster tourism masquerading as romance….If only she can help Deni-and squeeze in a few secret alleyway makeout sessions-Sienna will be happy. Convenient resolution brings healing to Sienna and family to Deni, returning each to his and her God-given lot in life. Well-meaning, but ultimately about slumming in disaster zones for a summer’s recuperative fun.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Plot Summary:  Hoping to figure out what happened, sixteen year old Haley forced her father to bring her to the exact spot in Iceland where her mother disappeared a year ago.  Instead of her mother, Haley finds an ancient magic coin and is swept up in a centuries old spell.  With the help of Ari, a boy whom she just met, and several creatures from nature and mythology, Haley fights to break the enchantment without destroying herself or the earth.

Critical Analysis:  It is refreshing to read a paranormal romance that doesn’t feature vampires or werewolves.  There is something mesmerizing about the Icelandic setting and the earthquakes and springs combining with the mythologic creatures and deep old magic that seems to come from the earth itself.

Haley is very likeable, and by telling the story through her “thief eyes” the reader is there, experiencing the strangeness and newness of everything.  It is a credit to Simner that she carries the book, as for large part of the story she is lost with Ari trying to find her way back.  Based on Norse myths, I also see echoes of the Norwegian fairy tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon which also features a beserker.

If I have a quibble, it is that it all seems a little too easy, Haley and Ari’s journey back to their world and their families.  Even the climax seemed preordained although for a second I was hoping Simner would defy reader expectations by making a bold choice, she didn’t.  I suppose I can’t fault her for not writing the book as I would have liked, especially since what is there is eminently readable and enjoyable.

Connections:  To Iceland, Norse mythology, Icelandic animals and Icelandic geology, especially earthquakes and volcanoes.  In her author’s note, Simner talks about the Norse mythology that she used in writing Thief Eyes.  She has even more information linked on her blog: http://www.simner.com/thiefeyes/links.html

Readalikes:  The Northern Frights series by Arthur Slade.  While only The Loki Wolf is set in Iceland, each entry in this horror series for teens is based on Icelandic and Norse myths and legends.  (And they’re scary!)

East by Edith Pattou is a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, the story of which Thief Eyes reminded me in part.

While not a fantasy, Sea by Heidi Kling has similar themes, a teenage girl traveling to an exotic country with her father to try and come to terms with her mother’s disappearance and finding not her mother but herself with a little romance thrown in for good measure.

Review Excerpts: “Adopting figures from Icelandic sagas, Simner (Bones of Faerie) creates a captivating modern odyssey. Incorporating references to Star Wars and Norse myth alike, Simner is poetic whether writing about magic and sorcery or simply getting inside her characters’ heads…. An endnote includes information about the sagas Simner studied while writing this story—the well-crafted result may encourage readers to do the same.”–Publisher’s Weekly

“Simner has done her homework. This appealing novel centers around and embellishes Icelandic legend—specifically Njal’s Saga. Simner takes the old stories and brings them into the 21st century in this cyclical novel about the powerful relationship between mothers and daughters.”–School Library Journal

“Simner’s second book, a fantasy set in modern times but rooted in ancient Icelandic sagas, has great reader appeal. The plot is compelling-a page-turner that catapults Haley and Ari, an attractive Icelandic berserker, from crisis to crisis….The climax is a humdinger, and while the resolution is bittersweet, it makes sense and is consistent with the magical rules of the book….Light, romantic fiction with an engaging fantasy punch.”–Kirkus Reviews

Bibliography

Review: When I think about telling someone about the kinds of stories I like to read, I always wonder if inside they would be shaking their head:  Always knew she was a little strange.  I really enjoy books about people experiencing the most basic and most genuine human predicaments and emotions.  So for example, I like to read about war and apocalyptic science fiction and survival stories because when faced with extreme circumstances, the truest actions and emotions are revealed.  And I like to read about grief.  Not the sappy Lurlene McDaniels story, but the kind of true fiction that sometimes is produced by the perfect combination of characters and events and words and emotions and even a little humor or wit.

Twenty Boy Summer is one of those books.  (No, not the apocalyptic/war/survival kind.  The coming to terms with the death of someone you loved, who mattered, who was taken away too soon.)  Anna lives next door to sister and brother Frankie and Matt, and she figures she has known them basically her whole life.  They are inseparable.   At her 15th birthday party, Anna makes a wish for Matt to kiss her.  (Somewhere along the way she fell in love with him.)  When the kiss happens later that day, they are both swept awaybut worried.  What will Frankie think?  Matt knows he needs to be the one to tell her, but it has to be when the moment is right.  Until then, their relationship exists of midnight meetings and stolen moments and kisses.  Unfortunately, the talk never takes place.  Driving back together from getting ice cream, an undiscovered hole in Matt’s heart made itself known.  He died of a broken heart, Anna thought.

A hard year follows, the threesome is now a twosome.  Anna is there for Frankie, but decides she can’t tell her about Matt, that thir relationship has to be kept a secret forever.  When Anna is invited to come along on the Frankie’s annual family vacation, she agrees, but wonders about Frankie’s plan for the absolutely best summer ever:  hooking up with 20 boys in 20 days.  She wants to tell Frankie about Matt, about their feelings for each other, but she can’t.  So she goes along with the plan and realizes that she has room in her heart for someone else.

There are many things I loved about this story.  First, the protrayal of the grieving process is shown in several ways through the different characters.  Frankie is a little rebellious, she has started smoking and acting out a little bit.  She really just wants her parents to pay attention to her.  Anna is outwardly grieving with Frankie, but has her own silent pain on the inside.  Frankie’s mom keeps redoing the house over and over again, and longs for perfect meals and family events as the sign that everything is all right.  The second is that there are many beautiful moments, beautifully written and simply told.  Making sand angels on the beach, talking on the porch in the middle of the night and realizing someone knows your secret, stealing away with a boy under the stars and coming to realize you can love again, getting caught in the rain with your best friend after the last bus has left for the night.  This is a book about grief, a book about love, a book about moving forward and figuring out who you are when you’ve lost someone and something that you weren’t even quite sure what it was.

Readalikes:

The first book I really remember reading about grief, and one of the few young adult books I read in high school was Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver.  Morgan must face life on her own when best friend Jimmy is killed by a drunk driver.  Deals with the immediate grief and emotions that follow his death.

A book that had me both crying and laughing was Good Grief by Lolly Winston.  This is young widow Sophie’s story of trying to fathom life as a widow.  She does many crazy things in her grief, driving her car through the garage door, buying and forgetting Thanksgiving pies in the trunk of her car, showing up to work in her bathrobe.  Her boss tells her she needs a break, and break she does, all the way to another life with her best friend in the Pacific Northwest.

When Betta Nolan’s husband John dies, she honors the promise she made to him to carry out the plans they had for the rest of their lives on her own.  She sells their house, packs up the car and drives across the country until she finds a small town that feels right.  In The Year of Pleasures, Berg challenges that there are rules or norms of behavior for how someone has to grieve.