I thought I’d look back at an old review this week, and found this one on a very good YA book I ought to reread!  A fascinating premise with such good characters, I’ve read it several times and always found it engaging!

Have you ever felt that you’re not quite like anyone else around you?  I’m guessing most people have felt that way at some time or another–and that feeling is at the center of The Ashwater Experiment by Amy Goldman Koss.

Hillary wonders if she’s the only person who’s real.  You can hardly blame her for feeling disconnected from the people around her.  She and her parents wander the country in their RV, selling trinkets at craft fairs and never staying anywhere long.  By seventh grade, Hillary has been to seventeen different schools and is firmly settled in her pattern of never making ties to anyone.  So when she finds out her parents plan to stay in Ashwater for nine months–longer than they’ve ever stayed anywhere–Hillary feels trapped.  That’s when she comes up with the Watchers.

What if she’s really the center of an experiment?  Part holodeck and part Truman Show, she imagines that the world she experiences is really created just for her, with nothing existing outside of what she can see in that moment.  At first it’s easy to imagine–everywhere she goes has always seemed to have a pattern, with the same kind of people at every school.  As she stays longer in Ashwater, though, people start to seem more real than ever.

I’ve read this book before, and in the past I think it was Hillary’s imaginary (but sometimes so real-feeling) game about the Watchers that struck me.  This time, that seemed more like a sidenote.  It’s a very interesting sidenote–but the heart of the story for me on this read was Hillary’s feeling of being different, and of her gradually increasing understanding for the people around her.

When she first meets the kids at her school, she easily classifies them and easily sees them as stock characters.  As she gets to know them, she finds unexpected depth to Cassie the bookworm, Serena the society queen, and Brian the class clown.  Even the more minor characters, like Serena’s mother or Cassie’s grandmother, the nasty girl who resents Hillary and even Hillary’s own parents and grandparents, are eventually revealed to have their own problems and motives and complexities.  No one is simple.  And we all feel different sometimes–paradoxically, it’s a feeling we often have in common.

This is another one of those books that reminds me just how good and how deep a YA book can be.  It definitely is YA (or even Juvenile), appropriate for young readers and focused on young adults.  Hillary is in seventh grade, and she has seventh grader concerns: whether the girls at school like her, how well she’ll do on the math competition, whether her parents are weird.  But the larger feelings Hillary struggles with are really universal, and there’s a depth that makes this appealing–even though seventh grade was a long time ago for me.

Author’s Site: http://www.amygoldmankoss.net/

I’ve recently been rereading the eight-book Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery, for the fourth (fifth? sixth?) time.  As always with Montgomery’s work, I love reading her fiction as informed by her journals (and her journals as informed by her fiction…it’s cyclical).  I recently finished book six, Anne of Ingleside, and had…a LOT of thoughts.  I reread Montgomery’s journals quite recently, and there was a lot that came to bear in this book.

The last time I read Anne of Ingleside, it was my favorite of the series, though I couldn’t have told you why.  On this read, I’m not sure it still is—but I know why it was.  This changed significantly in the several years since I last visited it.

Anne has grown up by now, and is the happy mistress of gracious Ingleside, with her successful doctor husband Gilbert, five children (number six on the way at the beginning), faithful maid (and surrogate co-parent) Susan Baker, and a respected place in society.  The stories mostly revolve around Anne’s children, their little adventures and childhood heartbreaks.

I realized for the first time in this reread that two completely different worldviews are at odds in this book.  The setting and framework is optimistic and idyllic; the episodic stories are grim and disillusioned. Even though this is book six of eight, this is the very last novel Montgomery ever wrote, and her later journals show her deeply struggling with depression and dissatisfaction with aspects of her life.  Anne of Ingleside is a war between Montgomery’s optimism and pessimism. Continue reading “Book Review: Anne of Ingleside” →

I don’t find very many books at random anymore—I’ve become a “request and pick up” reader rather than a library browser, mostly.  But…sometimes I’m short on books and that requesting does take time.  And sometimes I find a gem just by picking it up.  Such is how I found Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven, a troubled teen story with teens with unusual troubles.

Jack has face-blindness—he can’t recognize anyone, even his mother or two brothers.  He navigates through life by remembering key details (his brother is skinny with big ears, his girlfriend has a very helpful fake beauty mark), hiding his challenge from everyone.  Libby went viral in an online video in the worst possible way—as a morbidly obese teen who had to be cut out of her house.  Since then she’s lost weight but remains large (and feels comfortable at her current size), and is now facing a return to high school.  When the two end up thrown together, they each see the other in unique ways.

This was a fascinating book.  I don’t like troubled teen books as a rule, but this was not your run-of-the-mill troubles.  I’m so intrigued by Jack’s face-blindness.  His particular situation is extreme, but it’s a real thing that a surprising number of people have (and surprising people: Jane Goodall!  Brad Pitt!)  The book is in alternating POV, and I loved seeing the world through Jack’s eyes as he navigates a world that is always full of strangers.

Libby may be a contender in nine months for my favorite character of the year.  She’s done a lot of hard work in the last few years, losing weight of course but also (and more to the point) work on self-image and self-confidence.  Her over-eating was brought on by her mother’s death and bullying, so that’s hard issues right there.  As she returns to high school, she is simultaneously totally confident in herself, and totally afraid of trying to be that self out in the world. Continue reading “Book Review: Holding Up the Universe” →