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Ann Aguirre, Grimspace: Sirantha Jax is a jumper with the special gene that lets her travel through grimspace, guiding spaceships across vast distances—at least for a while; grimspace eventually kills all jumpers. She wakes up having lost her pilot, who was psychically bonded to her, and blamed for a crash that killed everyone else on board with her for her last jump. Then she’s rescued by a mysterious man with a hidden agenda, and there her troubles begin. There was worldbuilding, adventure, romance, and political intrigue, including some neat alien races, and yet for some reason I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe it was the soulbond stuff.
Holly Black, White Cat: Cassel is the only member of his family who isn’t a curse worker (able to manipulate luck, memory, emotion, or other things). Curse workers are feared and discriminated against—massacred, in other countries—and Cassel’s going to private school to get away from his family and their involvement in a major crime syndicate. But when he wakes up from sleepwalking on the roof of his school, chasing a white cat, he finds that he can’t run away from his family or from working. Really interesting worldbuilding, with various political and scientific machinations in the background (if there’s a test for working, can we make everyone take it?) but family drama foregrounded. Cassel came off as an overdramatic teen in a dramatic situation; he was realistically attracted to two very different girls his age; and the book presented working as legitimately horrifying in its implications. I’m looking forward to the next book, where Cassel seems likely to have gotten out of the frying pan by jumping straight into the blue-white heart of the fire.
Sherman Alexie (with art by Ellen Forney), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: A 14-year-old on the Spokane Indian reservation writes about loss, love, going to a white school, basketball, best friends and other enemies, and so on. The entries are short; the drawings are fun; I teared up twice and probably would have enjoyed the book even more if I’d read it as a YA, but the standard tactics for generating emotional engagement are standard because they work and having a 14-year-old narrator allows you to write very on the nose about poverty, race, and lusting after girls.
Holly Black, White Cat: Cassel is the only member of his family who isn’t a curse worker (able to manipulate luck, memory, emotion, or other things). Curse workers are feared and discriminated against—massacred, in other countries—and Cassel’s going to private school to get away from his family and their involvement in a major crime syndicate. But when he wakes up from sleepwalking on the roof of his school, chasing a white cat, he finds that he can’t run away from his family or from working. Really interesting worldbuilding, with various political and scientific machinations in the background (if there’s a test for working, can we make everyone take it?) but family drama foregrounded. Cassel came off as an overdramatic teen in a dramatic situation; he was realistically attracted to two very different girls his age; and the book presented working as legitimately horrifying in its implications. I’m looking forward to the next book, where Cassel seems likely to have gotten out of the frying pan by jumping straight into the blue-white heart of the fire.
Sherman Alexie (with art by Ellen Forney), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: A 14-year-old on the Spokane Indian reservation writes about loss, love, going to a white school, basketball, best friends and other enemies, and so on. The entries are short; the drawings are fun; I teared up twice and probably would have enjoyed the book even more if I’d read it as a YA, but the standard tactics for generating emotional engagement are standard because they work and having a 14-year-old narrator allows you to write very on the nose about poverty, race, and lusting after girls.
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