YA novels by Zetta Elliott, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Dia Reeves

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Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

This is a first novel set in 2001-ish Australia, and the author is young enough to have lived through that time as about the same age as her protagonist.  Does My Head Look Big In This? is the story of Muslim teenager Amal, who makes a spiritual decision to wear her hijab ‘full time’ (i.e., to her posh private Australian high school) against the advice of her highly educated, professional parents.  All kinds of crazy ensues, and Amal’s narrative is funny, fast-reading stuff--but it packs its share of punches, too.  Amal and her story squirted me all over with the juice of stereotypes I’d been harbouring.   It filled in some of the massive gaps in my own knowledge of contemporary Muslim life in the West while remaining chatty, entertaining, and ultimately moving as well.  Amal has a great heart, not to mention backbone, and I loved spending time with her.  This author has recently released Where the Streets Have a Name and I’m hoping to get to this one soon.

Push by Sapphire.  Read in one go.  Painful and haunting.  Some of the images and feelings are ineradicable.  Took a several weeks before some of the layers implied in the title began to unpeel. 

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott.  This time-travel fantasy follows contemporary teen Genna to Civil-War Brooklyn and back again.  It’s well worth reading for the historical insights and racial perspectives alone.  As fiction, it stumbles a little at times, but never unforgiveably so—it’s just a little bumpy.  Personally I’d have liked to see a bit more about why this magical event occurred—other than to teach Genna a sort of personal lesson—and I suppose as a genre reader I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more made of the wish of the title, and how Genna’s wishes for a better future set everything about the past in motion here.  The ‘magical’ moment seemed to have something to do with her relationship with her boyfriend, who appears in both historical periods, but was never clear to me.  I had the suspicion that the author knew more than she was letting on about her characters’ motivations and their metaphysical connections, but was playing her cards a bit too close (for my taste, anyway). Then again, there's always the promised sequel.

However, there is a passion, a sincerity (if that isn’t a dirty word—I really hope not) that carries the story.  The historical insights were valuable to me as a forty-something American, and this material would be even more valuable in a school context, I think.  Years ago I taught seventh grade in a NYC alternative school, and one of my colleagues had a class on the history of New York.  He would have been able to do a lot with a book like this in the curriculum.  I could have used it, too, simply as literature and as a springboard for creative writing.  I wish I would have had material like this at the time, and when I read on Zetta Elliott’s blog of the struggles with racism and publishing that have impacted her breaking in, I did not feel good.  

 I really hope that this talented and driven writer will soon come to the attention of a publisher who can get behind her energy, her commitment to kids, and her strong background in American social history.  Zetta Elliott’s voice is important. (Her blog is excellent, btw--found through the Justine Larbalestier's fab blog) I believe she is needed, whether the machinery of commerce knows it or not.  More, please.

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves.  Made this very rare hardcover purchase because of kaz_mahoney , who thought it was better than Justine Larbalestier's Liar.   It may be that her super-enthusiasm blunted my reading, but I didn’t love this quite as much as she did.  I admired it a lot, though.  I find the author extremely cool and interesting, and will definitely watch what she does next.  I think my issue with this one is that it started out so absurdly well that I was almost bound to be disappointed.  The opening chapters are virtuouso.   I actually put it down after a few chapters for sheer jealousy.  Then I picked it up and read it properly.  The problem became one of action overkill, and about 2/3 of the way through there was so much going on that (paradoxically) I started to get bored.  Someone I know has talked of ‘being so drunk I was sober’, and the book was a bit like that after a while.  Mixing up the pace a little bit would have helped, I think. 

I hate to be all critical, though, of an author who has the brains and cojones to go into what my other half calls ‘fuckit gear’ on her first outing.  I think I’m probably also jealous of Reeves’ youth and daring.  The book is wild and woolly.  It mashes up everything from Buffy to Pokemon to Resident Evil and probably a lot more that I’m not even aware of.  It reeks of video games and irony.  It’s dark.  I suspect I’m too old and cranky to receive its full effects—which is as it should be.  YA is not geared for creakies like me, and reading this one I had a definite nose-against-the-glass-of-a-younger-world sensation.

I would love to give away copies of any of these books--leave me a comment in the next couple of weeks letting me know which one you want, and if there's more than one person interested in a book I'll choose somebody at random, OK?  I don't mind where you live.

#3 - Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz (Blue Bloods #2)

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Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz (Hyperion, 2008)

I know it's fluff. I know they're not literature. But gee, I'm enjoying these books. This one probably even more than the previous one, which surprised me in a way, as I wasn't expecting to like this one *more* than the first.

( Angels, vampires and designer dresses )