YA Fiction

The Sirens of Titan- Kurt Vonnegut

| cgkinnett

When a good friend recommends a good read, I jump at the chance to see for myself what caught their eye and held it. In the case of The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, I was definitely not let down and by the end of the book I had so many feels and so many threads of thought. This is what a great piece of work does. It branches and fractures your thoughts well beyond the pages of the book.

That being said, let’s dive into this journey. From the start of the book we are given a somewhat reliable path that our main character will be taking; we are given the dots but they are by no means connected. And as X, Y and Z come to pass, we are taken on a journey whose settings exist from the Sun to Betelgeuse. As the scenery changes, so do the characters. This book contains probably the biggest evolution of a character I have had the pleasure of encountering.  Malachi Constant is one of our mains; beginning his journey with his full name, which is incredibly important to him. His name is his birthright and his claim to millions. As his situation changes, including but not limited to, the planet on which his story continues, he becomes Unk, a man stripped of everything from names to memories. He next becomes the Space Wanderer, nameless, planetless, helpless. He is stuck in his story, a pawn of something far greater.

This becomes a bigger and more important question as the novel progresses. Is something greater occurring? Who is pulling these strings and orchestrating all life on Earth? We think we know. In fact you’re entirely sure you know for the course of the whole work. Except you don’t, not even a little bit. The fact that someone/something could be pulling the strings your/our/my whole life is an intimidating thought. But what if this puppet master has a puppet master of his own? Being omniscient allows you to be all and see all, yes, but why does that become an inherent right? And how do this omni know whether what they are seeing and doing is not an orchestration all its own?

This is what made reading this book so much fun! Despite the fact that fairly close to the inception of the story, we are given a map, there are so many unbelievable twists and shocking turns that I challenge you to plot this course and get it completely right. Vonnegut’s whimsical voice creates a fantastically beautiful narrative. His descriptions of the world are abstractly and concretely breathtaking. .

If you need a read that is both quick and thought provoking, pick up The Sirens of Titan here

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Menagerie- Rachel Vincent

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Former English teacher and YA goddess Rachel Vincent is back with a new story and man is it compelling. Menagerie takes place in a world in which cryptids are out in the open and known to humans. They do not however coexist. Seen as less than human, shifters, succubi,minotaurs and others have less than no rights and are either captured and exploited or captured and hunted on game reservations. They are treated as animals. The vein of capture and exploitation is the one which we explore alongside Delilah Marlow who has grown up her whole life believing she was human. On the night of her birthday, Marlow and friends visit the famous Metzger’s Menagerie and things go horribly, devastatingly wrong. What follows is an expose of sorts on the mistreatment of these “creatures” and the lives afforded to them as subhumans.

Vincent has a real knack for combining detail and emotion, causing the reader to become incredibly invested in Marlow’s plight. We root for her and mourn with her and applaud her bravery. The way Vincent writes is so compelling. Her characters have a true depth to them that will tug on even the hardest of heartstrings. Menagerie puts a spotlight on creature cruelty in a very upfront way as these creatures are capable of shifting into their human forms, putting a face to the cryptid and a soul to the character.

While the storyline occurs in the near present with all the trappings of reality (cell phones, the Internet and YouTube), the feel of the world is very old timey and the story progresses the menagerie itself becomes a character. Like traveling ciruses and freak shows of the past, Metzger’s is all glitz and glam on the outside with loud music churning through speakers and brightly lit bulbs strung from tent to tent. We as readers though, know the whole story. And man is it twisted.

Upon looking Menagerie up on Amazon, it has a parenthetical detailing The Menagerie Series Book 1 and that made me so excited to know that we will get to continue to journey alongside Delilah Marlow who is such a strong and independent female lead. Alas, as I am not an oracle, I will have to wait alongside my fellow mortals to see what the future holds for the Menagerie. 

Four out of five books to Mrs. Vincent. You can get a copy of Menagerie for yourself here.

The Ghost Network- Catie Disabato

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Found footage, or rather found manuscript, is the style of Catie Disabato’s The Ghost Network. Disabato herself is our narrator, using footnotes to communicate with the reader as she pieces together the manuscript which was left to her after the world’s biggest pop star (like Taylor Swift big) vanishes without a trace. What follows is a mystery that unravels at a good pace and leaves no stone left unturned. The premise of the story is incredibly layered and well written and only gets muddy on a couple occasions.

While Molly Metropolis is a fictional pop star, the story is interspersed with references to real events and people like the MTV Awards and Britney Spears (Tay is not mentioned). Additionally, the New Situationists (the Illuminati like group at the heart of the novel) are also a real entity. The story is steeped with the sects history and infused with mystery when it is discovered that Molly herself was obsessed with the super secret organization. The question is, is her disappearance related to the group? Disabato races to track down the sources used in the manuscript to do interviews of her own and as she does so, we as readers are taken along for the ride.

The basis of the New Situationists beliefs is, essentially, that all art has already been created and the only way to make something new is to improve upon something that already exists. Molly’s goal, in keeping with the NS’s beliefs, is to become the world’s biggest pop star (ambitious little tyke) and in so doing she shape the current track of pop culture (think Lady Gaga with all her little Monsters).

As the mystery of what happens to Molly is unraveled we learn that maybe things aren’t as clear as they could be, providing us not with an unreliable narrator but with unreliable sources and witnesses who twist information to suite their needs. This element heightens the mystery as we as readers truly do not know whom to trust as true.

There are many twists and turns in this book and they make for a really good story with many facets. The use of footnotes to incorporate the narrators thoughts was well done. There were no gaping holes in the plot of the mystery however everything is not neatly tied in a bow at the close of the story which is what I was hoping would be the case…because who wants a neat bow?

I award four out of five books to The Ghost Network for a job well done on unraveling a mystery that could have been much more rambling.

The Ghost Network can be purchased on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Network-Novel-Catie-Disabato/dp/1612194346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443558849&sr=1-1&keywords=the+ghost+network

The Unwanteds: Island of Silence- Lisa McMann

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Where many an author goes wrong in a series is not being able to find the perfect balance of recap and new details, Island of Silence by Lisa McMann however does this seamlessly. The second book in The Unwanteds series welcomes back readers without heavily burdening them with synopsis while at the same time clues in readers that maybe didn’t read book one (though shame on you for skipping around).

Book two picks up very soon after the events of of book one and we are shown almost immediately how those from Quill are reacting to the information that all the Unwanteds are alive and well; some take to this new world easily while others wish that everyone had in fact been thrown in to the lake of burning oil. It is really interesting to see how these new revelations have defined with even greater detail the class system that has been in effect for all 50 years of Quills existence. Those who had been Necessary had been relegated to doing tasks such as farming all the food and picking up everyone’s trash for years and once Mr. Today extended an open invitation for anyone and everyone to come to Artimè, who could blame them for shirking their duties. However if one were a part of the Wanteds, the upper class and highest echelon, one is at a loss as to why these people would desert Quill. This, coupled with the death of his idol and leader Justine, is what drives Aaron Stowe to begin plotting and scheming and soon a war begins.

As if his evil twins’ dastardly plans weren’t enough to worry about, Alex has been chosen by Mr. Today to begin learning how to take over for the mage should he want to go on something called a “vacation”  or “retire.” There is so much to keeping Artimè ticking that Alex is unsure of his ability to lead. Additionally, two children appear one day on the beach having floated up on a dilapidated raft. As if this weren’t strange enough, the two have wire collars with thorns embeded around their necks, rendering them silent.

The story begins to be more complex in Island of Silence in regards to exposition and new plot points, weird feelings emerge (like how Samheed keeps looking strangely at Meg) and alliances are tested. McMann’s second tale in The Unwanteds saga is rich in scenery as we explore new places like the Island of Silence and takes us deep into the emotions of our main characters. It is especially interesting to see how Alex and Aaron mirror each other in their opposition. One is so entirely good and the other [seems to be so] entirely evil. I think there is more than meets the eye to these two and I can’t wait to see how they continue to shape the courses of Artimè and Quill. As their powers grow and their leadership roles increase, is one island big enough for the two?

I give this tale five out of five books for rarely is a sequel even more compelling than the first.

The Unwanteds- Lisa McMann

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At my internship there is a whole wall made up of a bookshelf with a sign that says, “the perks of being an intern.” We are encouraged to take books home for our reading pleasure and of course I immediately went to the YAL section of said shelf whereupon my eye was instantly drawn to book one in the self titled series The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann.

It could be the future, it could be an alternate world where we’ve never existed, but the people of Quill would never know the difference because there is a wall around Quill and no one has been on the other side of it, unless they were condemned as Unwanted. And really, who would want to leave Quill? There is order and structure and everyone knows their place. Every year all thirteen year old children are Purged and sorted (sound familiar?) into Wanteds, Necessaries and Unwanteds. The Wanteds go to University to study and better the future of Quill, the Necessaries do manual labor that consists of anything and everything the Wanteds won’t do. The Unwanteds, the creative type who show possibilities of thinking outside of the proverbial box, are taken to the  Lake of Burning Oil and disposed of. It is shameful to have an Unwanted child and to have two means you can never have another child.

Alex and Aaron Stowe are twins and it is their year to be purged. Aaron is called forth and deemed Wanted. Alex on the other hand has been caught drawing more than once and there is no question that he is Unwanted. After the Purge the Unwanteds are bused to their death without a word to their loved ones because they have no loved ones. What they find on the other side of the wall is not a burning lake but an oasis that is full of amazing creatures like beavops and squirrelicorns and platyprots; there is a jungle and an ocean and people smiling. Artimè is a magical place that literally thrives on creativity. There is so much to learn in this new world and we journey with Alex as he and his friends discover that there is much more to life than being Unwanted and that their creativity is something that should be explored and expanded upon.

For fifty years Artimè has existed peacefully without the knowledge of those in Quill; but Utopias cannot exist and the inevitable begins.

McMann creates such a vivid world with characters whose outlooks on life are vastly contrasted and it is interesting to see these contrasts illustrated through identical twins. Despite being YAL and despite the growing trend of children being sorted, there are twists and turns in this story that are not template young adult lit. This is something that made me even more intrigued to pick up book two. There is much more to Quill and Artimè than one might expect as Alex and Aaron find out for themselves as they take their own seperate and individual paths. After all, you can’t make an individual; they are created.

This is a story to which I give four and a half books.

Thirteen Reasons Why- Jay Asher

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“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of others,” Hannah Baker tells us as we listen along with Clay Jenkins to the cassette tapes he found on his front porch upon his arrival home from school. The reader, along with Clay, is intrigued at first. What do these mystery tapes contain? The answer to this question is immediately revealed once the first tape is popped in.

What follows is Hannah’s side to stories and rumors and how they all culminate in her decision to end her life. They are a snowball effect as she calls them.

I was hooked to this book from the start of Cassette One- Side A and after that first side I thought, word for word, the above quote. It was chilling when I read Hannah’s same thought. This book took me back to high school; to reputations and rumors and how those effect not just the person they are about but those who hear it, their perception of you.

Hearing Hannah’s reasons and Clay’s reactions makes for quite an emotional rollercoaster which caused me to tear up more than once. It was amazing to see things unravel into a perfectly tangled web and learn person by person the reasons why she had made this decision which won’t be able to be undone.

The way the book is written allows the reader to hear the tapes along with Clay, while simultaneously hearing his stream of consciousness. We piece together events as he does, silently realizing the degree of separation at their high school is a lot smaller than he ever imagined.

This is a book that shows how easy it is to shatter someone without meaning to or knowing that you’ve done it and how it is even easier to do so intentionally. 13 Reasons Why addresses this issue head on. Without ever straying from the subject. Jay Asher paints such a vivid picture of suffering for us that it is quite easy to feel for Hannah as she connects events that take place both at school and outside of it. The pain is evident.

This is a story that will make you think twice before you speak and act. This is a story that will make you aware of those around you. This is a story that will stay with you for quite some time.

This is a story to which I give five out of five books.