reading lately: teen spirit

I love a good YA read, but I admit they've all been running together in my mind a bit lately given the popular formula of quirky misfit characters and a strong “this is my big turning point to shape the rest of my life” kind of teenage coming-of-age theme. But that’s what I think makes them such enjoyable reads, so I keep picking up more... Here are the teen-centric reads I've breezed through in the last few months:

Fangirl
Parts of this book felt like a little bit of that teenage oh my beating heart stuff that I sometimes roll my eyes at, but I just was having too much fun reading to mind at all. I love Rainbow Rowell's characters, and how could I not especially love an English major one. I loved Cath’s college world - perhaps because she was a lot like me starting out, timid about moving into a dorm and about putting herself out there, preferring instead to lose herself in her work (and eat granola bars rather than risk getting lost trying to find the cafeteria) - and I also loved the world-within-a-world Rainbow Rowell created with the Harry Potter-like series for which Cath is an avid and very popular fan fiction writer. I loved the friends she makes and how they help her come into her own, and I loved how the structure of racing toward the end of the semester and to the publication of the last book in the fantasy series pull the story along. It’s sweet and funny and super addicting reading.

My rating: 4/5 stars


The Beginning of Everything
The theme of this one is the tragedy in everyone's life that everything after will hinge on - their life-changing moment. Ezra's is the car accident that takes him from star varsity tennis player to high school misfit and debate team member - along with a renewed friendship with grade school buddy Toby (whose life-changing event was a head landing in his lap in a freak roller coaster decapitation incident in middle school). Ezra spends much of the story figuring out what his new friend Cassidy's secret tragedy was and trying to help her come to terms with it. So it's a high school coming-of-age self-discovery/re-invention kind of story starring the quirky, smart, and funny misfit crowd that you just end up wanting to be with as they’re infinitely better than the "cool" crowd. If you like John Green's books you'll enjoy this one.

My rating: 3.5/5 stars


Anatomy of a Misfit
As with a lot of YA reads, this book explores the ins and outs of fitting in for high schoolers, with such a great, funny, incisive narrating voice that just draws you in to the story. Here it's Anika, who is the third-most popular girl in her class, teetering on being on the outs, especially when she falls for outcast Logan. She has to decide what to do about her feelings, since following them would mean losing her social status, but along with it is coming some extra twinges of social conscience. This reminded me quite a bit of Eleanor and Park with the unlikely relationship/tough home situation, and of Mean Girls with the sort of side switching/playing aspect. Not my favorite of the bunch, but pretty good.

My rating: 3/5 stars


Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
All of these books deal with serious events in the life of high schoolers, but given that the majority of this particular story is about a day in which Leonard takes a gun to school, planning to kill his tormenter and then himself, it really feels a bit heavier. You've still got the quirky character (he's a Humphrey Bogart-obsessed kid who carries on whole conversations in movie lines with his emphysemic elderly neighbor) and the smart dialogue that I like about these YA selections, but the character felt so hopeless that much of it was a downer to read. Despite all the sad situations and mean people in Leonard’s life, there are some redeeming characters and relationships, so you feel it can come round in the end, if only Leonard can have that hope himself. I loved Matthew Quick's The Good Luck of Right Now so much that I thought I'd be guaranteed to love a young adult book by him (between Good Luck and Silver Linings Playbook I think he's the king of mentally ill and quirky yet very endearing progatonists), but this one just didn't quite do it for me overall unfortunately.

My rating: 3/5 stars


Looking for Alaska
Miles' life up to age 16, when he goes off to a boarding school in Alabama, is nothing special - no challenges, not many friends or Friday night plans to speak of - but there he enters a whole new world with new rules, new challenges, and great new friends. Here's another YA narrator I just loved: smart and funny, a bit insecure but figures out how to come into his own. Partly because of Miles, I liked this book even more than John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. It has the same kind of crisp dialogue and smart, funny character vibes, along with some serious teenage tragedy. But the big group of misfit, go-your-own-way friends, like in The Beginning of Everything, just made me fall in love with the little boarding school world (which actually feels a little more like a summer camp setting where people go to school). But while that's fun, the ambiguity about some characters and decisions about how they should deal with their struggles makes it feel real-world. Definitely recommend this for a quick read - you’ll get your fill of funny and sad and redemption and inspiration here.

My rating: 4.5/5 stars


Side note: is high school really this terrible for people as most of these books portray? I'm sure there were some mean girls and some drama in my high school, but I don’t remember anything so overtly vicious as some of the rumor starting, etc. that happens in some of these books. Maybe I was just lucky to fly under the radar? Or just so naïve that I missed it all? (Quite possible.) Either way, no way I'd ever go back to high school...

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