Crossover Review

Hello, everyone, from Scotland! I have a review of Siobhan Dowd's latest (last?) novel, Solace of the Road, up over at Crossover.

The Elephant in the Room

Good morning! If you have a moment and some opinions on the Twilight series, I am seeking your help over at Crossover.

Crossover Book Review: Tamar, by Mal Peet

Usually when I write a review of a crossover book, I'm reviewing an adult book I think children ages twelve and up will like. This time, however, I am reviewing a book marketed to teens that adults will appreciate--Tamar, by Mal Peet. (Tamar won the 2005 Carnegie in the U.K.)

To be honest, I am not sure why Tamar is a Young Adult novel. Some sections of the book are narrated by a fifteen-year-old girl, but the vast majority of passages concern adult resistance workers in World War II. To miss Tamar, subtitled A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal, because it's located in the Young Adult section is a betrayal, indeed.

Tamar opens with a conversation between a father--William Hyde--and his adult son. The son's wife is expecting and the father has an usual request: If the child is a girl, will his son please name her Tamar? The father gives no reasons for the request, but the son likes the name and agrees.

The reader then travels back in time to when the father (and soon-to-be-grandfather) is working for the British Secret Service with the Dutch Resistance in a small town in the Netherlands. He is one of two men working under assumed names: Tamar, the resistance organizer, or Dart, his code transmitter. Both men love the same woman, Marijke, whose house serves as a base for the young resistance workers, but only Tamar has a relationship with her.* Two men in love with the same woman, fear, starvation, and a rogue resistance worker, who rebels in spectacular fashion against Tamar's command, lead to ultimate betrayal and loss for World War II-era Tamar, Dart, and Marijke.

Interspersed with accounts of Tamar, Marijke, and Dart's lives in Nazi-occupied Netherlands are passages in which modern-day Tamar, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of "William Hyde," tries to understand why her grandfather committed suicide just months before, when already an old man. He leaves her a box of clues--clues that will lead to the truth about his past.

Tamar is a detective story and a meditation on the meaning of truth. It's a great novel for children, sure, but it's also an important story for adult readers as well. And, good news: A little research tells me the paperback edition is out in the U.S. on September 9.
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* Yes, Tamar is biologically young Tamar's grandfather. The question is, who was William Hyde, the grandfather Tamar knew and loved in 1990s England.

Crossover Book Review: What Was Lost, by Catherine O'Flynn

Recently I complained about the adult fiction I've been reading. I kvetched about my weariness with the 20th century anti-hero. In brief, I'm tired of the over-educated, New York-living male hero who is alienated from his family and from the world.* Susan, of Chicken Spaghetti, recommended What Was Lost, a first novel by Catherine O'Flynn, and not only did I find What Was Lost a fantastic and restorative read, but I also think it is a book teenagers will enjoy as well.

What Was Lost is a novel no less ambitious than any of the top-10 New York Times reviewed novels of 2007 or 2008. Catherine O'Flynn uses many protagonists to tell her tale, most prominent among them a 10-year-old girl and two mall employees--all from Birmingham.# The novel opens in the voice of Kate Meany, 10-year-old girl detective. Kate is an orphan and she spends her days watching people in the shops and at Green Oaks--a new shopping center. She's sure she's about to catch a criminal in the act when she disappears.

The narration then skips forward twenty five years and is primarily in the voices of Kurt, a Green Oaks security guard, and Lisa, a manager at the mall's music store. Lisa has a connection to Kate: Her elder brother Adrian was a friend and mentor to Kate at the time Kate disappeared. Kate's disappearance leads, of course, to Adrian's own hiding, even though he was innocent. Kurt also has a connection to Kate, although he doesn't remember it at first. He saw Kate, on her last day in Birmingham, when he was about her own age. Kurt doesn't remember his sighting until a series of hallucinations visit him when working at the mall in the middle of the night.

What Was Lost is ostensibly a mystery--how and why did Kate Meany disappear? But it's also the story of finding your way when you're a young adult stuck in the soulless world of a suburban mall. Will Lisa be able to dump her manager's job at Your Music and her even lamer boyfriend Eric? Will Kurt be able to come to terms with his father--who hated the mall, but worked there as a janitor because there were no other jobs left for him in the city--and move on? These are real questions ninety percent of the reading public face and Catherine O'Flynn presents them with humor, grace, and intelligence.

But let's not forget our heroine who opens the story. Kate Meany, girl detective, is quite possibly the most authentic 10-year-old girl I've read in years. She's smart, vulnerable, naive, and believes in truth and justice, even in her run-down neighborhood in Birmingham. Children like Kate, who have nothing, always have hope--hope Kurt and Lisa have lost, but must find again in order to remake their lives.

I highly recommend What Was Lost to all readers ages twelve and up. Tweens and teens will be drawn to Kate's story, and the multiple points of view will challenge them. Anyone who has ever worked a dead-end job in a mall will recognize Kate's world. What Was Lost is a not-to-be-missed novel.

Thank you, Catherine O'Flynn, for restoring my faith in the "literary" novel.
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* Seriously, novelists: Stop this.
# Did you hear me? TWO MALL EMPLOYEES. They have lives too! Who would have known?

Crossover Book Review: In the Woods

I'm always in the market for a good mystery, so when Tana French's In the Woods won a 2008 Edgar Award for best first novel by an American author, I ordered it right away from audible.* From the first pages I knew In the Woods is a novel teen readers will love as well.

Rob Ryan is a young detective on the Dublin murder squad. When the body of a 12-year-old girl is found in the woods outside Dublin, he's called to investigate. The situation is eerily familiar to Ryan: When he was twelve he also disappeared in the same woods with two friends. When he was found, he was covered in blood and had no memory of what happened. His two friends never returned.

Now, obviously, Ryan should have removed himself from this case, but finds he can't. He begs his partner--the wonderful Cassie Maddox--to keep his secret in the hopes that his past will help them to solve the case. While investigating Ryan is haunted by partial memories, neighbors from his past, and faulty judgment. As a reader, you don't trust Ryan, who narrates In the Woods, from the very beginning. You do, however, find his motivations and story undeniably compelling.

Dark fairy tale themes and the unreliability of childhood memories haunt Ryan and In the Woods, making this a mystery teens will love. The detectives are young and live young lives--solving cases together while eating and drinking well into the night. Ryan's partner, Maddox, is a kickass heroine--smart, hardworking, and tough. And the victim, a young ballerina, and her family will appeal to young readers, especially when compared to our hopelessly unreliable narrator.

Best of all? I thought I had In the Woods all figured out by the time I was halfway through reading. But I wanted to finish this mystery anyway because of the interesting characters and narration. The bonus? I was completely wrong in my armchair sleuthing. In the Woods is highly recommended for readers ages fourteen and up.
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*What is going on with audible and audiobooks these days? None of the new books I want are coming up on audible or on iTunes. No new Rick Riordan for the little one and I have a list of about 15 books recently released I want to read and not one of them is available. Where is that reader's bill of rights? I want to choose audio or text format for each and every book I buy. I mean it.
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And, Tana...if you ever stumble upon this post...I hope your next book will star Cassie Maddox on the domestic abuse squad.

Book Review: Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

Imagine you were thirty five years old and suddenly discovered you had an identical twin. That's what happened to Elyse Schein, a filmmaker living in Paris. Elyse had always known she was adopted, but when she decided to search for her birthmother, she learned instead she was born one of two identical twins.

Despite her initial shock upon discovering she's a twin, Elyse is thrilled to discover she has a sister. She's always felt someone or something was missing and learning she's one of two makes complete sense to her. When the adoption agency locates Elyse's twin sister, however, she--Paula Bernstein--is more ambivalent about being found.

Told in alternating first-person accounts, Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited is a fascinating exploration of twinship, adoption, and identity. Elyse and Paula discover they share much in common, despite the fact they were raised separately without any knowledge of the other's existence. They both write about film, they love the same movies, they both suffered from depression in college. What the reader learns when considering Paula and Elyse's stories is how truly different they are from one other. Elyse is more adventurous and open than her twin. But, Elyse, who has suffered more loss (the death of her adoptive mother, for example), seems needier than Paula. Paula is cagier than Elyse and protective of the life she has forged as a journalist, wife, and mother. Their unique voices and personalities demonstrate that identical DNA at birth only means so much. Nature vs. nurture? More like nature and nurture.

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited is also a detective story. Paula and Elyse not only attempt to learn more about their birthmother, but they also take on the adoption agency in the hopes of discovering why they were separated and adopted out to separate families. The truth--a psychological "study"--is difficult for Paula, Elyse, and the reader to accept.

Identical Strangers is a compelling read and one teens might enjoy given its necessary focus on identity, adoption, and family.
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For more on Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein's memoir, check out this episode of Talk of the Nation.

Review: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

Koren Zailckas's Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood was released last year amidst a great deal of noise and fanfare. A memoir that chronicles Zailckas's adventures with alcohol from age 14 to young adulthood, Smashed necessarily inspired endless "lifestyle" stories about girls drinking to excess in the nation's newspapers. I am happy I waited a year to read it, because I now could appreciate Smashed as an individual title and its worth as a crossover title for the Young Adult market.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood begins with Zailckas's first drinking episode and continues to cover each successive bender in mortifying and depressing detail. An early drinking bout ends in alcohol poisoning, another in, perhaps, unintended sexual intercourse. Zailckas describes a youth devoted to and obliterated by drinking. And, she shows she's not alone. Her friends--in high school, in college, and after--live similar lives and together they share friendships forged from and cemented with alcohol.

Zailckas blames her alcohol abuse on deep feelings of insecurity and social anxiety. She also claims she was not an alcoholic, but, rather, an alcohol abuser. I am sure more than a few addiction specialists would disagree with her, but, in the end, her definitions are not that important to her story. What is important is that Zailckas writes well enough to tell a compelling tale, one you follow even when you want to smack the storyteller and tell her to grow up. Zailckas's prose is, in fact, so elegant, so poetic, that I hope she turns to fiction in the future. (Zailckas is a dab hand at the unexpected and beautiful metaphor.)

Zailckas's conclusion to Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood is particularly successful. (Though quite a few Amazon reviewers disagree with me.) She links girlhood drinking to feminist concerns, including and not limited to deceptive and sexist advertising campaigns, frat boy behavior, and, most importantly, girls' tendency to swallow their anger instead of expressing it openly. It's a worthy and lucid feminist rant, one that had me shouting "sing it, sister!" from the beginning.

So, is Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood a crossover title? Is it suitable for teen readers? Definitely. In fact, I'd recommend Smashed to teens ages 14 and up. It's a cautionary tale, though, so I'd leave it lying around the house instead of handing it over them directly. The cover alone is enough to attract their attention.