The Undertakers

Title: The Undertakers: Rise of the Corpses
Author: Ty Drago
ISBN: 9781402247859
Pages: 465 pages
Publisher/Date: Sourcebooks, Inc., c2011.

Pratt was the neighborhood grouch. Somewhere in his seventies, he lived alone, kept to himself, and got pissed off more often and with less reason than anyone I’d ever met.
“I’m talking to you, Ritter!”
I tried to speak–I really did–but no sound came out. When you turn around expecting to see something familiar–not particularly pleasant but familiar–and instead see something else altogether, it takes a little while for your brain to catch up with your eyes. Some people might call it shock. I call it the holy crap factor.
Ernie Pratt was dead–very dead–which didn’t make much sense because as far as I knew, dead men didn’t get pissed.
He was wearing what he usually wore in the mornings: a white terry-cloth robe and slippers, except the skin inside the slippers had gone as dry as old paper. His face was gray and pulled tight around his skull. One of his eyes was hanging out of its socket, dangling by a short length of thick, corded tissue. The other one, looking milky and sightless, nevertheless stared at me. His lips were gone, receded, revealing a black-gummed mouth with only half the teeth it should have had, and even those were as yellow as old eggs.
Which is also how he smelled. (4-5)

Twelve year old Will Ritter wakes up one morning and realizes that his next-door neighbor has become a walking corpse. His day unfortunately goes from bad to worse when Will escapes on the school bus, only to realize when he gets to school that his assistant principal and math teacher are less than alive as well. After being rescued by classmate Helene (pronounced like it has three a’s) , Will becomes involved in a secret organization of kids called the Undertakers who are among the few people able to identify these Corpses. Will is less than pleased about being drafted into their organization, but soon realizes that there are few other options. As the organization is forced to consider switching their tactics from defensive to offensive, Will just might be the recruit they need to tip the scales in humanity’s favor.

My coworker and I were very intrigued when this book came in to see a zombie book for middle schoolers. How many other zombie books are out there for this age group? The cover is appropriately creepy and blood-red toned, which definitely adds to the appeal in my opinion.

The story itself rises to the occasion as well. The zombies–excuse me, Corpses–are described in gruesome detail. In the dedication, the author thanks his son “who read it and offered helpful (and often profound) insight into the realities of his age, his culture, and his mysterious language.” It definitely shows, with the text riddled with mild cussing (crap, hell, pissed, etc.) that is definitely warranted and rings true to the horrific, scary, and adventurous outings that the teens experience. Will’s pleas for his mom at one point is also unique, because so many times in children’s books the main character is just thrust in their world saving position and blindly accepts their new role. Will doesn’t, and is really reluctant to joining this group and getting involved, and his actions realistically reflect what some scared tweens would be feeling. I really appreciated that aspect of the story. Another realistic aspect of the book: people die. Books where no one dies in an end of the world preservation fight really annoy me, and the fact that the characters were affected and mourned the loss of their fellow fighters is even more authentic. The fighters solve their problems with ingenuity, technology, physical confrontations, and a little bit of luck. Okay, in some cases a LOT of luck, with people coming to the rescue just in the nick of time on more than one occasion. But Ty Drago (even the author’s name is cool!) does an admirable job explaining these last-minute saves, and it works without any trepidation crossing your mind as you’re reading.

It’s a fast paced, high energy novel that should get readers invested in the story. I could definitely see myself book talking this title to tweens and teens, especially around Halloween. There are twists and turns that readers don’t see coming, and although the ending is satisfying, it’s also open-ended enough to leave people excited about the sequel, Undertakers: Queen of the Dead which is coming out in October 1st (perfect again for Halloween!) AND there’s apparently a third one in the works too!

UPDATE: I did book talk this to fifth and sixth graders during my summer reading visits, and they wanted to get their hands on it immediately, especially the boys.

A Monster Calls

Title: A Monster Calls
Author: Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea by Siobhan Dowd
Illustrator: Jim Kay
Narrator: Jason Isaacs
ISBN: 9780763655594
Pages: 205 pages
CD/Discs: 4 CDs, 4 hours 1 minute plus a bonus disc of illustrations from the book.
Publisher/Date: Candlewick Press, c2011.

I have come to get you, Conor O’Malley, the monster said, pushing against the house, shaking the pictures off Conor’s wall, sending books and electronic gadgets and an old stuffed toy rhino tumbling to the floor. [...]
“So come and get me then,” he said. [...]
The monster paused for a moment, and then with a roar it pounded two fists against the house. Conor’s ceiling buckled under the blows, and huge cracks appeared in the walls. Wind filled the room, the air thundering with the monster’s angry bellows.
“Shout all you want,” Conor shrugged, barely raising his voice. “I’ve seen worse.” [...]
You really aren’t afraid, are you?
“No,” Conor said. “Not of you, anyway.”
The monster narrowed its eyes.
You will be, it said. Before the end.
And the last thing Conor remembered was the monster’s mouth roaring open to eat him alive. (8-9)

Conor O’Malley has been struggling with a nightmare ever since his mother started cancer treatments. So when a real and ancient monster appears demanding the truth from Conor, Conor is still more terrified of the monsters in his dreams. Telling this monster his darkest fears isn’t high on his priority list, especially since everyone except the bully is avoiding him at school, his father has finally escaped his new family in America to visit, and Conor has been forced to live with his grandmother while his mom is in the hospital again. But maybe Conor is right. Maybe the monster outside his room isn’t the thing he’s supposed to fear the most.

There are those books that come into your life at a time when you need them the most, and because of that fact they affect you more than they normally would. This is one of those books. A week after finishing the audiobook, my grandmother passed away after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Just like Conor is watching his mother struggle, I’d been trying to come to grips with my grandmother’s own struggle, and this book in a strange way brought me comfort at the thought that she knew how much we all cared about her.

Jason Isaacs is someone who could give Jim Dale a run for his money. In the interview following the audiobook version, Isaacs reveals that Ness asked him to be unsentimental, with Ness stressing that there is a difference behind sentiment and emotion and he wanted the emotion to work without added sentiment. (You can hear the interview and a portion of the audiobook here.) Isaacs didn’t have to add emotion. He lets the text speak for itself and instead focuses on the inflection and tone and the power of the words that he’s given. It’s an amazing experience to listen to this man bring Conor’s story to life. The gravely monster roars and expresses outrage, and Conor’s every emotion is palatable, from disdain towards the monster’s stories to rage against the bully and fear of the nightmare disturbing his sleep. It’s the fear that Isaacs conveys the best in my opinion, through cracking voice and tenuous gasps of breath which stay with you even after the last disc has come to an end.

The artwork is equally impressive, with Jim Kay providing striking black, gray and white illustrations to accompany the text. They look to be made with those black etching boards that they hand out in middle school art classes, where students scratch off the black to reveal the white underneath. It’s appropriately dark and stark and the noticeably hashes present throughout the drawings lends a stormy, almost ghostly quality. Some of the drawings are so minimalist that you wonder how he could leave them that way, when compared to the imposing double page spreads. But then you realize that the drawings in the margins bracket those double page spreads, leaving the impression that they (and the accompanying subject matter, which is Conor’s nightmare and the monster) were just too big for two pages and had to bleed over to the accompanying areas.

The irony of the plot of the story is not lost on me. The novel was written by Patrick Ness because Siobhan Dowd succumbed to an early death from cancer and could not finish the work herself. Connor’s mother is also fighting a loosing battle with cancer. Maybe meant as a parting gift to those she left behind, Ness and Dowd are well paired, even though Ness says in the author’s note that they never met each other. I don’t envy his task of bringing someone else’s world to life, but I think Dowd would be pleased.

Although it didn’t win the Printz or Odyssey award, I think it must have been a strong contender for both and deserves a place in all libraries. I’ll definitely be adding both Dowd’s and Ness’s other works to my to-be-read list.

Clarity

Title: Clarity
Author: Kim Harrington
ISBN: 9780545230506
Pages: 246 pages
Publisher/Date: Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., c2011.

“You don’t want to kill me,” I said.
“Of course I don’t, Clare. But I have to.”
If I wasn’t already bleeding, with the room tilting and swaying, I would have slapped myself. I never saw this coming. I had let my personal feelings cloud my judgment. And now I was looking down the barrel of a gun. (1)

Clarity “Clare” Fern is a psychic who receives visions from touching objects. She, her mother, and her brother are all involved in the family business of giving psychic readings, with her brother Perry able to talk to ghosts and her mother able to read people’s minds (to Clare and Perry’s constant annoyance). Clare hopes that her powers can come in handy when she’s called upon to assist in the murder of a tourist in their small town. She has more than one reason to say no, especially when the mayor’s son is her cheating ex-boyfriend (“It was a mistake” — HA not likely) and the new detective in town’s son is a non-believer. But that’s before her brother becomes the prime suspect for the crime. Now, not knowing who she can trust or turn to, Clare is forced to question who people she’s known her whole life really are.

I LIKED this book, and it was a joy to finish off 2011 with this book. It was the perfect combination of mystery and romance and action. You have an escalating body count as people connected to the initial murder go missing and/or turn up dead. There are multiple suspects and multiple motives examined, all with (pardon the pun) clarity and realism. And you have the ever popular love triangle that is much more believable than some of the other ones I’ve seen recently. And it all comes to a riveting climax that keeps you on the edge of your seat and reading until the very end. It’s an enjoyable roller coaster ride.

Clarity was a clearly developed, multifaceted character, and so were the rest of the people in her life. Perry is scared out of his wits, and Clarity’s loyalty to her brother, although understandably called into question, never falters completely. Her confused and torn feelings toward both her ex-boyfriend Justin and the new detective’s hot son Gabriel are relatable. At the same time she’s trying to forgive Justin’s one drunken mistake, she’s also trying to decide if she can forgive Gabriel’s skepticism about her gift. It’s the known vs the unknown, and I for one have a good feeling about where her heart is heading at the end of the book.

There’s never a good way to say this without making me sound like a prude, but although the book references sexual acts and drinking, Clarity doesn’t partake in it and only hears about it second-hand. But there’s still enough suspense and action that you don’t miss the more controversial elements that teen fiction has become famous in having. Bravo!

This debut novel is a great first book, and while the ending comes to a satisfying conclusion, I’m hoping for a sequel. Clare is only sixteen in this summer mystery, and I’m hoping for at least one more book where we can see her in school and interact with more classmates that might or might not care for her special powers. Plus, maybe I’ll showcase my own psychic abilities and predict correctly whether Clare choses Justin or Gabe.

Wings

Title: Wings
Author: Aprilynne Pike
ISBN: 9780061668050
Pages: 294
Publisher/Date: HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins, c2009.

Her fingers walked over her shoulder and her eyes flew open wide. She bit off a shriek as her other hand joined the first, trying to confirm what she was feeling.
The bump was gone. But something else had replaced it. Something long and cool.
And much bigger than the bump had been. (44-45)

Laurel has just moved to a new house and started at a public high school after years of homeschooling by her adoptive parents. She’s trying to fit in, but her homeschooling history, vegetarian eating habits and unusual dress and looks are making it difficult. Laurel realizes that she had it easy though when what she thought was a zit on her back turns into wings in the shape of flower petals. Enlisting the help of biology classmate David, Laurel realizes that there is a reason for her differences, and not only her family but also an entire race might be relying on her to keep them safe.

Laurel’s character is I think what brought the story to life for me. She’s catapulted into this live triangle with David and Tamani. She has different reasons for being with each guy. David becomes her first friend and the guy who doesn’t freak out when the plot starts to take a turn for the worst. Tamani knows her past, and is able to educate her in things that she can’t learn from anyone else. With both guys, she struggles to determine whether or not her feelings are more than just gratitude for their different forms of assistance and support. Personally, I’m cheering for David.

Aside from her relationships, Laurel also acts realistically when encountered with new situations, whether it’s public school or the wings on her back. I was thrilled that she gets the chance to “flaunt them if you’ve got them” at the Halloween Dance, because if you had wings you’d want to show off too. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. It’s also refreshing to find loving parents in teen fiction, as Laurel’s mother and father, however briefly they appear in the book, seem like pretty supportive. Her mother even offers to resume homeschooling Laurel if she still hates it after trying it for a few months.

There is a sequel, called Spells and a third book titled Illusions (apparently called Wild on UK Amazon) if readers want to continue the story. If you’d like more information about the author, the series, or the upcoming fourth and final book, check out her website: http://www.aprilynnepike.com/

I Am Number Four

Title: I Am Number Four
Series: Book one of the Lorien Legacies
Author: Pittacus Lore
ISBN: 9780061969553
Pages: 440 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: August 3, 2010

In the beginning we were a group of nine.
Three are gone, dead.
There are six of us left.
They are hunting us, and they won’t stop until they’ve killed us all.
I am Number Four.
I know that I am next. (9)

John one of nine Loriens that traveled to Earth with their caregivers, and after a scar on his right ankle appears, he knows that he is next on the list to be hunted down and killed by the same enemies that attacked their home world almost ten years ago. A charm on each of the nine guarantees that as long as they stay apart, they can only be killed in numerical order. John and his caretaker Henri try to hide in a small town in Ohio, waiting for John’s abilities to develop that will help keep him safe. Finally making friends — and a possible girlfriend — John isn’t looking forward to their next move. He doesn’t want to leave behind the people he’s begun to care about. But every day they are getting closer, and John might not be able to keep his secret, or himself, safe for much longer.

I had heard some horrible reviews of both the movie and the book, so I was a little hesitant to pick this one up. Other reviewers had talked about it being an unedited piece. And yes, there is one glaring typo on page 5, where “a soft wind bxlew” instead of blew. And something that is supposed to be invisible is suddenly visible with no explanation later in the book. But overall, I didn’t find that many typos that interfered with my reading pleasure.

I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. John is a likeable character who is struggling with the constant moving because he sees what he’s missing. He wants a normal life, instead of moving from small town to small town, loosing track of how many small towns he’s passed through in an effort to stay unnoticed. I liked the romance that blossomed between him and Sarah, their real estate agent’s daughter who happens to be in some of his classes. I liked Sam, another classmate who is obsessed with aliens and conspiracy theories for his own reasons.

I was reading along fine and was engrossed in the book until the battle scenes, which, to be honest, is when I started losing interest. Maybe I was just too tired at that point, since I’d been reading for a couple of hours. More than likely though, it was the numerous improbable saves that occur, where John is ALMOST killed, and then not, and the he’s almost killed again, but someone or something comes to his rescue at the last second every single time. Once or twice, maybe, but I think he was saved from death four or five times. I honestly lost track. I don’t feel bad revealing that he’s not killed, since there’s a sequel coming out on August 23, 2011 titled The Power of Six that according to different website stars Number Seven, but something does happen during the fight at the end of I Am Number Four that might affect readers.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and while I’m shocked that the movie rights were picked up for the book before it was even published (according to Wikipedia, the rights were purchased in June 2009), I don’t doubt that there was interest in the story as it was being written. It’s an interesting story, even if the aliens with special abilities hidden among us plot has been done before. While I might pass on the movie, I might pick up the next book after the die-hard fans get their chance at the library’s copies.

Keeper

Title: Keeper
Author: Kathi Appelt
ISBN: 9781416950608
Pages: 399 pages
Publisher/Date: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2010.

“Come on, moon,” she implored. Didn’t it know she was in a hurry? As soon as she said the word “moon,” she chewed on her bottom lip. So much had depended upon tonight’s moon, a blue moon, second full moon of the month.
First, Signe’s gumbo.
Then, Dogie’s two-word song.
Finally, Mr. Beauchamp’s night-blooming cyrus.
All three of those things had depended upon the blue moon, and all of them, every one, had been ruined.
Ruined by . . . CRABS!
Keeper never wanted to see another crab in her entire life! Never, never, never!
And now she needed the moon to turn the tide around and pull her out of the pond, through the channel, and into the breakers until she got to the sandbar.
That was the plan . . . or at least the first part of the plan. (2-3)

Ten-year-old Keeper has lived along the shore of Texas since her mermaid mother abandoned her at age three. After what was supposed to be a perfect day goes horribly wrong, Keeper knows that her mother will make things better. She sets off to find her mother, relying on the belief that a blue moon calls mermaids to the sandbar. But her plan looks a lot better on paper, and after boarding a neighbor’s boat with her dog BD, Keeper realizes that this might not have been the best idea. Will her mermaid mother come to her rescue before she gets swept out to sea?

Kathi Appelt’s shifting point of view between flashbacks of Keeper’s life with her caretaker Signe and the current happenings as she struggles to make her way to the sandbar keeps readers on their toes. The slow, seductive reveal of the details tugs at your heart-strings. Keeper has had the worst day possible, in her opinion, and you realize just how badly things have gone. This girl is trying to make things right, and while her naive hope is shattered by the end of the book, it’s still a happy ending as she learns to appreciate her life. Readers can still maintain their belief that there might be some magic in the world, and the slight touches of fantasy prove endearing.

Keeper isn’t the only one with a storied past. Signe has put her life on hold while caring for Keeper, who she unofficially adopted when her mother left. Dogie is a surf shop owner who served in the army and came back with a stutter. And then there’s Mr. Beauchamp, who’s growing illness makes it difficult for him to enjoy anything besides his roses that Keeper has taken to tending. All three of them have a reason to celebrate the blue moon, and all three are affected by Keeper’s actions. They all engage readers, and Appelt’s sparse, at times poetic prose makes them all the more real as these characters come together to help each other.

I would probably recommend this to When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, because it has the same themes of family, multiple story lines, and a faint hint of “magical realism.”

The Dead Boys

Title: The Dead Boys
Author: Royce Buckingham
ISBN: 9780399252228
Pages: 201 pages
Publisher/Date: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, c2010.

“Hours later, Teddy awoke to the rapping sound of tree branches clawing at the house. He blinked in the darkness and looked around, bleary-eyed. He almost reached out from under the covers for the bedside lamp, but then he noticed the open window. He could have sworn he’d closed it.
Could the wind have somehow blown it open? he wondered. But even half asleep in the middle of the night he knew that didn’t make any sense. [...]
It was then that he heard the scratching sound, like something with claws dragging itself across the new brown carpet. Teddy sucked in a breath–it was coming from under his bed.” (26-27)

Twelve-year-old Teddy Mathews has moved to the remote town of Richland, Washington so his mom can work as a chemist at the local nuclear plant. The same nuclear plant used to dump water into the nearby Columbia River, but Teddy’s mother swears they stopped doing that years ago. Looking for some new friends, Teddy runs across several twelve-year-old boys in the neighborhood, but each have something odd about them, and mysteriously disappear after his encounter. Doing some research on these boys that no one seems to know, Teddy stumbles across a town secret involving a large sycamore tree in the abandoned house next door. Could the tree be hiding more in its leafy shadow than anyone can predict?

This book is a good introduction to the horror genre for elementary school readers. Paying attention to the graphics at the top of each chapter, readers get a foreboding sense of what is going to happen with Teddy. The branches reach farther and farther out towards the figure of Teddy, who’s obviously fleeing from their grasp. There isn’t a lot of tension or build-up, because Buckingham tips his hat halfway through the book, letting readers know about the demonic tree, in case they hadn’t gleaned that information from the cover or the jacket. The second half of the story is Teddy trying to escape from the tree and save the previously captured boys in the process.

While the tension is there in the beginning, as an adult it’s the ending that has some loose ends that are solved fairly simplistically. I don’t want to ruin the ending, but the way adults suddenly come to terms with what happens is suspicious, and there’s no elaboration of how events are explained to others who are involved. Also, speaking as an adult I’m shocked that the pattern wasn’t discovered sooner, since a new comer with no investigative experience can solve a case that has baffled authorities for so many years. It begs a huge suspension of beliefs. The other boys are almost interchangeable, making it difficult to distinguish from one to another when you finally do encounter them all. The tree being the most memorable part of the book, it reminds me of Little Shop of Horrors or a scarier version of the children’s book The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks.

Librarians and teachers might want to hold off on giving it to younger readers who are prone to nightmares.

Hunger

Title: Hunger
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
ISBN: 9780547341248
Pages: 177 pages
Publisher/Date: Graphia, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, c2010.

Lisabeth Lewis didn’t mean to become Famine. She had a love affair with food, and she’d never liked horses (never mind the time she asked for a pony when she was eight; that was just a girl thing). If she’d been asked which Horseman of the Apocalypse she would most likely be, she would have probably replied, “War.” And if you’d heard her and her boyfriend, James, fighting, you would have agreed. Lisa wasn’t a Famine person, despite her eating disorder.
And yet there she was, Lisabeth Lewis, seventeen and no longer thinking about killing herself, holding the Scales of office. Famine, apparently, had scales–an old-fashioned balancing device made of brass or bronze or some other metal. What she was supposed to do with the Scales, she had no idea. Then again, the whole “Thou art the Black Rider; go thee out unto the world” thing hadn’t really sunk in yet. (1)

After a failed suicide attempt, Lisa is visited by Death and recruited to become the new Famine. Lisa’s not so sure about this new role, at first thinking it was all a dream. It’s a little difficult though to continue to ignore the horse in the front yard, waiting for her rider, or the call of power that begs Lisa to eat. When Lisa realizes the results of her actions, she’s appalled. But can she really fight the need to feed?

Cool cover and premise for a story that I felt ultimately was a big morality tale. Don’t get me wrong, there are things that I liked about this story. Lisa’s friends show genuine concern about her anorexia, and they don’t let it slide or just simply not talk about it after broaching the subject with her. I liked Lisa’s ultimate mastery of her powers, and her initial trepidation and disbelief of her position make her reaction more realistic. I understand the need for books about eating disorders for teens, I really do. But I don’t think this one is really the best of the bunch. By the end of the novel, I thought Kessler had really over played her hand, and it felt like an extended chastising by a parent. “You should be eating your food because there are starving people all over the world who are dying to eat your food.” And what it is about anorexic and bulimic people pairing up? First in Wintergirls, now in Hunger? Is this a trend or a coincidence?

However, I’m not against giving credit where credit is due. While I have never suffered from an eating disorder, I think this is the most graphic and accurate description of a bulimic purge that I’ve read so far. Kessler is just as unflinching when addressing the ravages of hunger. Here’s an example, and there’s more where that came from:

Tammy, oblivious to her body’s reactions, reached down, heaved. A large mass of solid food flooded out her mouth. Both of her hands grasped the bowl as her body rippled with spasms. Chips and cupcakes and chocolate splattered in the toilet. Brown globs splashed up and sprayed Tammy’s face, flicking against her lashes. She flushed again, wiping her eyelids and nose.” (110)

It sounds like this might become a series, with a second book focused on the rider War in the works according to the back cover. We’ll have to see how the series pans out, and if all of the books will be as moralistic. I do think some readers might respond to the fantasy element added to a very real disease.

The Prince of Mist

Title: The Prince of Mist
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Translator: Lucia Graves
Narrator: Jonathan Davis
ISBN: 9781607883722
CD/Discs: 5 CDs, about 5 hours
Pages: 214 pages
Publisher/Date: Little, Brown, and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. c2010. (Original copyright 1993)

Just then, something made him turn around and look again at the blackened face of the ancient station clock. He examined it carefully. Something about it didn’t add up. Max remembered perfectly well that when they reached the station the clock had said half past midday. Now, the hands pointed at ten minutes to twelve.
“Max!” his father called from the van. “We’re leaving!”
“Coming,” Max said to himself, his eyes still riveted to the clock.
The clock was not slow; it worked perfectly but with one peculiarity: It went backward. (13)

Max Carver moves to a beach house with his parents and two sisters, Irina and Alicia, in an effort to escape from the war. Immediately upon their arrival, strange things begin happening, including moving statues, the appearance of a cat, and Irina’s sudden injury landing her in the hospital. Tales of the drowning death of the previous owners’ son led Max to believe that the ghost might be haunted. Meeting up with a local teen named Roland, they begin to suspect that a mysterious magician called the Prince of the Mist might not have reached the watery grave with the sunken ship like Roland’s grandfather believed. Has the Prince of the Mist returned to finish what he started so long ago?

Jonathan Davis narration is simply seductive! Readers are pulled into this realm of intrigue and secrets, emphasizing the mysterious while slowly building suspense. I’ll be honest, I probably could have fallen in love with Alicia with how she’s described, and by her brother! YIKES! While Roland’s and Alicia’s budding romance is still safe for younger teens, Davis’ voice makes you feel like you’re intimately involved in this relationship.

On the shore, about twenty meters from where Max was standing, Alicia was lying on the sand. Leaning over her was Roland, his fingertips slowly caressing the pale skin of her belly. He drew closer to Alicia and kissed her on the lips. Alicia rolled onto her side then climbed on top of Roland, her hands pinning his against the sand. On her lips was a smile Max had never seen before. [...]
He could hear their laughter and see that Roland’s hands were moving shyly over Alicia’s body. Exploring. From the way his hands were shaking, Max deduced that this was, if not the first time, then at most the second time Roland had found himself in such a momentous situation. He wondered whether it was also the first time for Alicia. (135-136)

It helps that the narration is supported by overly dramatic music that you can’t avoid but be influenced by while listening. The clash of thunder and the splatter of rain brings to mind the immortal words “It was a dark and stormy night.” Yes at times it is corny and overdone, but it’s like the Jaws theme: it resonates in your core and you can’t help but be swept away by it.

This would make a great Halloween read or listen, as Carlos Ruiz Zafon takes us back in time and describes not only the immediate threat that Max, Alicia, and Roland have to face, but also Roland’s uncle’s first encounter with the Prince of Mist. The suspense is palatable, and the slow build-up is just right for this book, although I think the conclusion is a little obvious. My only complaint is that I wish Irina had a bigger role. It seems like her sole purpose was to get injured and force the parents out of the house, therefore allowing Max and Alicia to wander unsupervised. Otherwise, I think the narrator really enhanced the story, and I don’t think I would have been as engaged in the reading with the book alone.

The Marbury Lens

Title: The Marbury Lens
Author: Andrew Smith
ISBN: 9780312613426
Pages: 358 pages
Publisher/Date: Feiwel and Friends (an imprint of Macmillan), c2010.

I guess in the old days, in other places, boys like me usually ended up twisting and kicking in the empty air beneath gallows. It’s no wonder I became a monster, too.
I mean, what would you expect, anyway?
An all the guys I know — all the guys I ever knew — can look at their lives and point to the one defining moment that made them who they were, no question about it. Usually those moments involved things like hitting baseballs, or their dads showing them how to gap spark plugs or bait a hook. Stuff like that.
My defining moment came last summer, when I was sixteen.
That’s when I got kidnapped. (3)

Sixteen year old John “Jack” Whitmore gets really, really drunk at his friend Conner’s party. So drunk, he passes out at a local park bench while trying to walk home. After being kidnapped and narrowly escaping, he refuses to tell anyone and takes revenge at Conner’s urgings. Conner hopes that jetting away on a planned trip to London for summer break will clear Jack’s guilty conscience. Instead, another stranger hands him a strange set of glasses and involves him in a war in another world, called Marbury. Jack thinks he’s going crazy as his trips to Marbury go unnoticed by anyone, including a possible London love interest named Nicole. But when Conner gets involved in the war, will Jack and Conner be able to return to their world? And when there are two worlds with two histories, which one is the real deal?

Andrew Smith’s newest novel packs a punch. You’re barely introduced to Jack and Conner when Jack gets kidnapped. He has a very brief interaction with his kidnapper, but I think it effectively portrays the lasting impact that this incident — and it’s aftermath — had on Jack. Jack’s isolation in London before Conner joins him also contributes to his uncertainty of what is real and what… isn’t. Is he dreaming? Hallucinating? Or just plain drugged up and crazy?

The unpredictability of his trips to Marbury also keeps readers on their toes. The comparison of times is variable, so one Marbury day might last three days in reality, or it might be the other way around. Time doesn’t stop, and he continues to function in both worlds regardless of where his attention is focused. There are also aspects of both his lives that seem to cross over, most notably a ghost named Seth who tries to help Jack as best he can. But then other aspects, like injuries, don’t travel from world to world. If you’re killed in Marbury, you can’t use the lenses to travel there, and the glasses seem to be only a one-way portal, with Jack and Conner traveling back to their “real” world sporadically and traumatically.

This fast paced novel is part post-apocalyptic, part science-fiction, with some nitty-gritty events in both worlds that would probably get some librarians in trouble recommending to younger teens. If you want to read a book that asks more questions then it answers and does a number on your brain, then this is a book for you.