The perfect timing of A Blind Spot for Boys by Justina Chen

Sometimes a book just comes into your life at the perfect time. A Blind Spot for Boys is possibly the oddest occurrence of this phenomenon for me.

Since her traumatic relationship with Dom ended Shana Wilde has earned a rep as a heartbreaker. Finally she’s decided to take a moratorium on boys until she can sort out her feelings. Which, of course, is when she meets Quattro, a cute, smart, and stylish boy, as she’s capturing a photo of Seattle’s Gum Wall. Before she can explore even the possibility of their potential relationship her home life explodes: Her father learns that he’s losing his sight. The family decides to take one last epic adventure while he has some vision remaining. Shana and her parents will start with a Dreamwalk, hiking the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, then she’ll fly home and each of her brothers will take another leg of the adventure with their parents. It will be the trip of a lifetime.

But in Peru Shana’s parents turn into people she doesn’t know. Her mother becomes indecisive and hovers protectively around her grouchy, petulant, standoffish husband. Meanwhile Shana runs into Quattro and his father, who are doing their own Inca Trail hike. Quattro is blowing hot and cold, one minute flirtatious and the next obviously keeping his distance. Shana, confused and hurt, decides to keep their relationship at a friendship. But a lot can happen on a days-long hike through the wilderness, especially when a flash flood and mudslide strip away the hikers’ outer veneer of civility.

A Blind Spot for Boys is a realistic, romantic fiction novel for teens with multiple plotlines. On one hand a teenage girl is recovering from an abusive relationship and learning lessons about life and love from the people around her. On the other, a family tragedy forces a couple and their children deal with an uncertain future. For me this novel also had a third plot – the Inca Trail whittled these trekkers down to the essence of themselves and made them confront who they really were. Some were strengthened by the experience. Others were broken by it.

And here’s where we come to why this novel was so opportune: just weeks before reading this book my husband and I tentatively planned an Inca Trail hike of our own. Now I’m even more excited about our upcoming trip. I just wish Stesha could be our guide.

Chen, Jennifer. A Blind Spot for Boys. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. 4 stars.

Spy novels aren't just for adults

Author Ally Carter's newest series is the culmination of her writing career (so far). The wit of Gallagher Girls, the intrigue of Heist Society, and the plots of both are combined with a whole lot of action and great characters. The result is perfect for Carter's current fans and teens who just like good stories. 

The Gallagher Girls series was a well-written, very funny series about teenage girls who go to a special boarding school. It looks like any other expensive boarding school, but really it’s a school for spies. Carter combined the insanity of being a teenager with the idea of teaching those same girls 24 ways to kill a man (one of which involves uncooked spaghetti) and then gave them mysteries to solve. The resulting plots and hijinks were riveting and hysterical. 

The Heist Society upped the stakes. In this series a teenage girl just wants to be normal, but gets pulled back into a life of high-stakes crime when her father disappears. Carter’s writing style matured and so did the plotline.

All Fall Down is the first book in Carter’s new series, Embassy Row. Grace, our main character, witnessed her mother’s death three years ago. Everyone says it was just an accident, but Grace knows her mother was murdered. After three years of psych evaluations and medication and people telling her she was wrong (i.e. crazy), she has learned to keep her thoughts to herself. 

When her military father is posted to a base that isn’t safe for families 16-year-old Grace is sent to live with her grandfather, the U.S. Ambassador to Adria. Adria could have been a new beginning, with new friends and the potential for romance. It might have been just that, too, if Grace hadn’t caught a glimpse of the very man who killed her mother; the man with the scar down the left side of his face. Now she’s lying to her friends, following a trained assassin through ancient tunnels, and generally risking her life to not only prove she isn’t crazy, but to stop the Scarred Man from murdering someone else. 

All Fall Down is skillfully written and plotted. Grace is a likable, intelligent, and witty character. Her new friends, Noah, Rosie, and Megan, are intriguing and I can’t wait to get to know them better. As for Alexi, well, WE know he isn’t just watching over Grace as a favor to her brother, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. And those plot twists at the end have me ready for book two NOW. Full of teenage drama and high emotion (hey, I'd be upset, too, if everyone thought I was crazy), this book is a must read for teens who like mysteries.

Carter, Ally. All Fall Down. New York: Scholastic Press, 2015. 5 Stars.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions expressed in the review are mine alone. 

Finding friendship...in a cemetery

Leigh was her older sister’s nurse during Kai’s battle with cancer. Her “secret friend” during that time died tragically while Leigh was at her grandparents’ for the summer. Her family, who didn’t even realize Leigh knew Emily, is oblivious to Leigh’s heartache. Now Leigh deals with grief-stricken families on a daily basis, trying desperately not to let their pain and sorrow get to her. She is surrounded by sadness, and gravedigger Dario’s insistence that her birthday, November 1st, makes her the queen of death seems all too plausible. She is afraid to make friends and holds herself apart, even as she longs to return the friendship of quirky, kindhearted Elanor, who reminds Leigh just a little too much of her Emily.

Leigh’s story is realistic fiction told with wit and insight. Leigh begins the book as a passive character, lost, drifting, and reluctantly allowing decisions to be made for her. Under the influence of Dario and Eleanor she begins to find herself, the person she was before her sister’s illness. She begins to make decisions for herself, and to let go of the survivor's guilt that has plagued her since Emily's death. 

Despite the thread of death running throughout, this is not a gloomy or sorrowful novel. Leigh is smart and her observations are humorous. Though she is depressed and inspires the reader's empathy, she is never becomes a depressing, passive character. Her emotional growth over the course of the novel is authentic, and readers will cheer as she finds her voice. 

Longo, Jennifer. Six Feet Over It. New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2014. 4 stars. Projected publication date: August 2014.

[Note: This review is based on the Advance Reader's Copy.]

A new favorite author (tears my heart out)

In the fall of 1986 I was a freshman in high school. I had braces, acne, insanely humongous glasses, and went to school decked out in horrid fashion choices (though to be fair, we all did. The 80’s are not known for their fab clothing styles). Regardless, I wasn't unhappy. I got good grades, I had a few good friends, and I had fun. Though not popular, I was liked (or at least tolerated). I remember being teased to a small degree, but I had learned by ninth grade to either make a joke of it or let it slide off my back like it didn't bother me, because most bullies bullied most when they got a big reaction. If I gave them nothing and they got bored. Sometimes they even laughed with me instead of at me. By 1986 all that was water under the bridge and I was on friendly terms with most of my class of 201 peers.

Eleanor’s experience at her new high school in 1986 is quite different. Eleanor lives in the Flats, a poor section of town where generations of families have marked their territory with dilapidated houses and rusting cars up on blocks in yards. As a newcomer, Eleanor would have stood out no matter what, but with her large bosom and larger red hair, coming to school dressed in men’s shirts and ties (often wrapped around her ponytail or wrist), Eleanor doesn't look like anyone else in the Flats. She tries to keep her head down, but she’s noticed. And one of the students who notices her is Park.

Park also lives in the Flats. He’s Korean American, which confuses most of the dimwits he goes to school with, who can’t tell the difference between Korean and Chinese. Park reads Sandman and X-Men comics, listens to The Smiths, and wishes the new girl hadn't sat next to him on the bus. But there wasn't anyone else who would give her a seat - not when seating had been set since the first day of the year. Not when she was new, and strange, and so...big. At least she’s quiet and doesn't try to talk to him. That would just be...awkward.

As the days pass, Eleanor continues to sit next to Park to and from school and slowly, ever so slowly, something begins to develop.

Eleanor doesn't want Park to know what goes on behind her front door. She wants to keep him separate from that - she wants Park to be a place she can escape from the rest of her life, even if it’s just for a few minutes or only in a Park-shaped space in her head. Park wants to know all of Eleanor. He wants to protect her from whoever is secretly leaving the raunchy, violently sexual suggestions on the covers of her schoolbooks. The notes that leave Eleanor shaking as she scribbles them out. Eleanor suspects Tina, the ringleader of popular girls who keep bullying her in gym and in the school hallways. Park insists Tina isn't like that. Park doesn't know what people are like when his back is turned. That’s why Eleanor doesn't turn her back on anyone.

I read this incredible novel on audiobook, and the readers truly brought this story to life for me. The novel is both beautiful and frightening. The first sentence put me on tenterhooks, purposefully setting an underlying unsettling tone for the rest of the novel. The development of Eleanor and Park’s relationship is slow and tentative and sweet in the middle of Eleanor’s abusive home life. Rowell has captured both the romance and the fear, evoking the emotions in the reader and making this a wonderful and difficult book to read. I highly recommend this book to adults and older teens. (Mature language; sexual content)

Rowell, Rainbow. Eleanor & Park. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013. Audiobook read by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra. Teen fiction.