Book Review: "Wish I Were Here" by Melissa Wiesner

Growing up with a father who was happiest when juggling or making people laugh, Catherine was the serious, focused one. She made sure the rent got paid on time (or packed up their things when they got evicted) and she always took care of her dad. But it gets exhausting being the one who always keeps it together.

She’s about to start work as a tenure-track mathematics professor. But all of her careful preparations go awry when the university says they have no record of Catherine existing. Even though she has all of her documentation, no one seems to think it’s real. Her job, her future, her identity are all in jeopardy.

With the assistance of Luca, the handsome doorman of her apartment building, she digs deeper into the whole situation. She discovers she never had her original birth certificate, which apparently her mother has. But she never met her mother, and her father refuses to tell Catherine anything about her.

Luca tries to help Catherine focus on the lighter side of life. As he helps her track her mother down, he also introduces her to a motley crew of the building’s residents, mostly elderly people. And it’s no secret their feelings for one another are much more than tenant-doorman.

This is a sweet love story, with a surprising touch of magical realism thrown in. I really enjoyed many of the characters, and the way the book handled both the lighter and more emotional moments.

I’ve read one of Melissa Wiesner’s previous books, and she’s the type of writer whose stories find their way into your heart and your mind. Definitely a feel-good book!

Book Review: "The Rules of Royalty" by Cale Dietrich

This is a sweet story that reminds me of the show Young Royals with a dash or two of The Princess Diaries. I feel those comparisons are much closer than Red White & Royal Blue, which it’s also being compared to.

Jamie is pretty happy with his life. He is close with his mother and stepdad, has a great group of friends, and can’t really imagine anything different. Yet on his 17th birthday, his mother tells him a long-kept secret: his father is King Alexander of Mitanor, a European country near France and Spain. Jamie’s mother, who adopted him, promised her best friend she’d not reveal the secret until Jamie was old enough to choose his own path.

When the King reaches out to Jamie, he invites him and his parents to spend the summer in Mitanor. He also shares with him the contact info for Prince Erik of Sunstad, who, like Jamie is also gay, and understands what it’s like to be a teenage prince.

Jamie and Erik hit it off, and the King invites Erik to Mitanor to help Jamie learn the etiquette and other aspects of being a prince. At the same time, Erik is getting pressure from his family to begin dating a suitable man—and Jamie isn’t their choice.

As Jamie deals with the responsibilities and publicity of his new life, he has to navigate issues with his friends back home, and control his attraction to Erik. He doesn’t understand why Erik can’t do what he wants, and as Erik sees Jamie making a difference in Mitanor after only a short time, he decides he might need to fight for what he wants.

Jamie and Erik are adorable characters, and I loved the way their relationship unfolded. Even though there is some friction in the book, it’s devoid of the typical melodrama, which I really appreciated. I’d love a sequel someday!

Thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the advance copy. The book publishes 12/10.

Book Review: "Time of Our Lives" by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Time of Our Lives, the newest novel from husband-and-wife writing duo Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, is a thought-provoking YA romance with surprising emotional depth.

“Do you think a guy who dreads forgetting the past and a girl who’s focused on the future could, you know, be friends?”

Juniper is immensely smart, driven, a total planner. The oldest child in a large, tight-knit family, she’s always the one people depend on, and she can’t wait to spread her wings and experience college on her own. But how willingly will her family let her go?

On the other hand, Fitz knows exactly what he wants—to go to college close to home so he can care for his mother, who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. But she is determined that he experience life away from home and her, so she plans a week-long tour of colleges on the East Coast he’ll take with his older brother, a college student with whom Fitz hasn’t seen eye-to-eye in a while.

Fitz encounters Juniper while she’s on a college tour of her own. They couldn’t be more at odds with each other’s goals, yet they immediately feel a connection—which Juniper is determined to keep platonic since she’s touring colleges with her boyfriend. But as the two keep running into each other, they start to realize the impact they’re having on one another, far beyond the physical attraction they feel.

Time of Our Lives is such a gripping story about how easy it can be to live your life for someone else rather than yourself, and how hard it can be not to feel guilty about wanting to take your own path. It’s also a moving commentary about what makes memories.

Emily and Austin are a fantastic writing team. The book feels seamless, not like two people wrote it. Their books are really enjoyable, but I loved this one, and stayed up late to devour it. And even hours later, I'm still thinking about it.

Book Review: "The Au Pair" by Emma Rous

Seraphine and Danny Mayes are twins, born at Summerbourne, their family's estate on the English coast. Not long after their birth, their troubled mother, Ruth, leapt off the cliffs and fell to her death.

And as if that tragedy wasn't enough chaos for one day, the family's young au pair, Laura, also fled Summerbourne, never to be heard from again. While the twins were raised by their father and their fiercely protective maternal grandmother, the local townspeople never ceased whispering about the events of that day, talking about family curses, sprites that steal babies, and other dark magic.

Years later, the twins' father has died in an accident and Seraphine is in mourning at Summerbourne. While going through her father's possessions, she finds a photo that intrigues her. The photo is of their parents and their older brother, Edwin, and in the photo her parents look blissfully happy. But what's mysterious about the photo is their mother is only holding one baby, and it was taken the day they were born, just before their mother's suicide.

Who is the baby in the picture, Seraphine or Danny? Why isn't the other baby in the picture? Seraphine has always felt that her grandmother treated her differently than Danny—does she know something about her parentage? What caused Laura to run away all those years ago? And why, on what seemed to be one of the happiest days of her life, would their mother commit suicide after giving birth to both of them?

With no real information except the photo she found and a copy of Laura's au pair contract, Seraphine decides to try and figure out what happened that day. She wants to determine the truth of who she is, and why everything went so awry that day. Little does she know that there's someone determined to keep those secrets secret, and the more she digs, the more she puts herself—and others in her family—in danger.

The Au Pair is full of family drama and intrigue. I just can't get enough of novels about family secrets, and you throw in a little mystery and I'm totally there. Emma Rous throws in lots of twists and turns—so many that at one point I had to re-read a section to be sure I was clear on what was happening—and while there might not be many surprises (if any), she created a compelling enough story to keep me flying through it.

The story shifts back and forth between Seraphine's attempts to figure out the secrets around the day she and Danny were born, and Laura's time as an au pair, until everything comes to a climax. If you're like me, you'll suspect practically everyone, and even wonder if there was a little of the supernatural involved as town legend would have it.

If you like your mysteries with a healthy dose of family melodrama, pick up The Au Pair. It's a fascinating read, and it feels like it would be a terrific made for television movie. Read it before it gets adapted!

Book Review: "Paris Trance" by Geoff Dyer

"People talk about love at first sight, about the way that men and women fall for each other immediately, but there is also such a thing as friendship at first sight."

Luke is an Englishman in his mid-20s who decides to move to Paris in order to write a book. But when he arrives, he quickly realizes the city, and his life there, aren't what he imagined.

He's renting a decrepit apartment in the wrong neighborhood, he barely speaks or understands French, and he can't seem to meet anyone, especially a woman, no matter how hard he tries. He's considering moving back to England but knows that would be admitting failure and taking a step backward.

Then he meets Alex when he begins work at the same warehouse. Alex is a fellow English expatriate, and the two quickly find the rhythm of an intense friendship. With Alex in his life, things begin picking up for Luke—he finds a better apartment, and he begins playing soccer with his other colleagues. These victories bring his bravado back, and it's not long before he meets Nicole, a beautiful Serbian woman, with whom he falls completely in love.

"Even when we recall with photographic exactness the way in which someone first presented themselves to us, that likeness is touched by every trace of emotion we have felt up to—and including—the moment when we are recalling the scene."

As Luke and Nicole's relationship intensifies, Alex meets Sahra, a brilliant interpreter, and the two couples become inseparable, sharing meals, drinks, countless films, activities, travel—even the occasional drugs. Nicole and Luke's relationship is the more passionate and mercurial one, buoyed by wild sex, periodic arguments, and Luke's unending desire for fulfillment. Alex and Sahra are more stable—while their relationship might not reach the same levels of passion, their love is a steady one, which seems key to its future.

Paris Trance follows the four through more than a year of their relationships, the ups and the downs, and how the differences between the two couples—and the two men—become more evident as time carries on. The book also gives a glimpse into the future, and what happens to each of the couples, how some can change with the curves that life throws at you while some cannot.

This story is a beautifully compelling look at friendship and love, how some can enjoy the present while preparing for the future while others can only focus on what is in front of them. The book conveys the flush of relationships, the bonds of friendship, the insecurity of love so well, and captures both the tumultuous moments and the quiet ones. The banter between Luke and Alex, and at times, the four of them, is really enjoyable.

I really enjoyed this book, although I definitely enjoyed Alex and Sahra's characters more than Luke and Nicole's. The story has a poignancy at times, while other times it moves with a frenzy. The one thing I didn't quite understand is the periodic shifts in narration between first and third person. There is also some graphic, borderline kinky sex in the book which some may find awkward or unnecessary.

While elements of the plot of Paris Trance may seem familiar, in Geoff Dyer's hands the book feels unique. The book may not be perfect, but I'll remember it for a long while as a book that touched my emotions.

Book Review: "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

Wow. Mind totally blown by this one.

In a future world, mortality, war, illness, hunger have all been eradicated. Injuries are quickly healed by the body's own (amped-up) healing properties. Even aging is something you can counter—when you're tired of being your age, you can "turn" yourself into someone younger—over and over and over again.

The only way to control the population is through gleaning—killings of seemingly random people—and they are carried out by scythes, individuals commanded to commit these gleanings. Scythes are revered and feared within society, and while each scythe has their own methods of choosing whom to glean and how, they follow a strict code of behavior and have specific quotas as to the number of people they are to glean each year. It is a necessary evil, and death is no longer feared or worried about.

"The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor."

After each has an encounter with a scythe, teenagers Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to one of the area's most respected scythes, Honorable Scythe Faraday. This is a role neither wants, for although their families will get immunity from gleaning for as long as they live if they are chosen to become scythes, their lives will be relatively solitary and austere, for they must spend most of their days gleaning or preparing to glean. Who would seek out such a life?

As Citra and Rowan learn from Scythe Faraday, they realize the nobility of the role, the conflicted emotions with which many scythes approach their responsibilities, and the physical, mental, and intellectual skills needed to become a good scythe. While the two are drawn to each other, they know that only one of them will become a scythe at the end of the year, and that competition confuses and motivates them. At the same time, they are forbidden from romantic entanglements with each other, so they channel their feelings into their preparation.

But the world of scythedom is in the midst of its own upheaval, and suddenly Rowan and Citra are pitted against each other, being trained by different scythes. Citra becomes apprentice to Scythe Curie, one of the most famous of the early scythes, while Rowan is an apprentice to Scythe Goddard, one of the bold new scythes, who believes more in his celebrity and presence, and challenges the customs of the traditional scythes. It is Goddard who sets a challenge in motion: whichever apprentice is chosen to become a full-fledged scythe will automatically be expected to glean the other.

This is an utterly fascinating, thought-provoking, exceptionally written book that I could not get enough of. Scythe is a compelling meditation on a world without mortality, and how those tasked with culling the population live their lives and approach those they choose to glean. It's a study in conscience, in guilt, in friendship, and in finding nobility in such a disturbing task.

I have never read any of Neal Shusterman's books, but I'll definitely be reading the second book in this series soon (I'm trying to be patient and not devour it immediately) as well as more of his work. He created such a fascinating world I wanted to know more about (I've not made any mention of the Thunderhead, which is the benevolent ruling entity in the world, and that's intriguing in and of itself), not to mention tremendously complex and distinct characters I couldn't get enough of.

I know that YA isn't a genre for everyone, and this book might sound a little out there for some, but this is really a fantastic book. It's better written than many YA books, and it actually makes you think, and invests you in the plot. Give this one a shot.