Parenthetical

A friend and I just saw Young Adult, a movie in which Charlize Theron plays Mavis, the alcoholic ghostwriter of a popular YA series called Waverly Prep (Gossip Girls, more or less, with less brand name-dropping). Her life is miserable and empty, so she decides to return to her hometown to get her high school [...]

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Cammy is a “loser” in typical high school novel style: she’s awkward, shy, the butt of jokes, and only has one friend — Gerdi, the perpetual Danish exchange student. When she starts receiving mysterious texts promising to help her get revenge on her popular classmates, she does what the texts say, of course. Before she [...]

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The bones of this story are pretty standard YA. Unable to deal with a baby, Hope’s mom Deena dumps her with Deena’s big sister Addie. Addie is a transient diner cook, so Hope grows up working in restaurants up and down the east coast. At the beginning of the book, Hope and Addie are about [...]

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3 out of 5 You know the drill: Veronica is friendless at school, ignored by her mom, quirky and unappreciated, etc. She cultivates a wacky vintage style, with as many ruffled skirts and bowling shoes as she can get her hands on. Her love of the clothes lands her the perfect summer job: sorting consignments [...]

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This autobio-graphic novel chronicles the toothy trials of Raina’s adolescence, during which she basically had her entire mouth reconstructed. I loved it! She gets middle school girl relationships perfectly, the way a group of friends chooses one to pick on. They don’t even know they’re doing it, necessarily, but enough “just kidding!”s really hurt. Not [...]

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It’s the end of 8th grade, and Annie and her BFFs-4-eva Genna and Zoe appear to be growing apart. They’ve always hung out in Annie’s grandma’s tea shop, the Steeping Leaf, where Annie works after school. Since they were little they’ve called themselves the Teashop Girls. But Genna and Zoe never seem to be around [...]

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In 1942 India, Vidya is primarily concerned with convincing her parents not to marry her off until she can go to college. Those hopes die when her father is seriously injured at an independence march and Vidya, her parents, and her brother move to Madras to live with her father’s far more conservative extended family. [...]

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Callie Tate lives on a wealthy farm of pecan trees and too many brothers in turn-of-the-century Texas. One day she gathers the courage to ask her intimidating grandfather about the two different kinds of grasshoppers she sees in the fields, and he tells her to figure it out herself. From her eureka moment — they’re [...]

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Naomi and her little brother Owen are content living with their great-grandmother in a trailer park — Naomi carves soap into animal shapes, hangs out with the (clearly flaming, even though the text doesn’t say so explicitly) librarian at school, and watches Wheel of Fortune every night with Gram and her best friend Fabiola. But [...]

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Another very complicated story by the author of one of my recent favorites, Jellicoe Road. She’s trying out fantasy this time: when Finnikin, son of the captain of the guard of Lumatere, is a child, the ruling family is murdered and the city occupied. It’s also sealed off, Sleeping Beauty-style, by the dying curse of [...]

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