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The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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The Darkest Part of the ForestThe Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The tiny town of Fairfold teeters right on the border between the human and faerie worlds, and its inhabitants know it. On one side of this border are the local public high school, the general store, the partying teenagers, the clueless tourists; on the other side are vicious monsters made of twigs and dirt, goblins who bathe in human blood, and a horned prince lying dormant in the middle of the woods. Not your typical story-book creatures, these faeries, but, as long as they’re not provoked, they’re willing to live in a fragile balance with their human neighbors—until local teenager Hazel and her brother Ben, wishful monster hunters extraordinaire, upset that balance beyond repair. Holly Black’s masterful world-building is on display in the court of the faerie king (modeled off the legendary German Erlkönig) and on the ominous small-town streets of Fairfold, but the novel’s real creativity lies in the intersection between the two worlds. The border separating the humans and faeries, it becomes clear, is frighteningly porous, and the influence of faerie magic in Fairfold is stronger than its inhabitants would like to admit… Black never relinquishes nuance in her characters in favor of plot, and as a result the novel feels neither simplistic nor rushed. Here is YA fantasy at its best: a world that seems as real as, or realer than, our own.

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Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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Hold Tight, Don't Let Go: A Novel of HaitiHold Tight, Don’t Let Go: A Novel of Haiti by Laura Rose Wagner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go begins with a strangely subdued account of the catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 100,000 Haitians on January 12, 2010. Over the course of a few pages, the teenage narrator, Magdalie, witnesses the almost instantaneous leveling of the city of her childhood. But the reader can’t comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy until, months later, Magdalie forces herself to sit down and pour her memories onto the page, even as she admits that, “It doesn’t change anything if I write it down or not … It doesn’t change a thing.” Only here does the reader stop and say, Oh—she is upset, she is scarred, this is a tragedy. It hurts to read the passage: we feel Magdalie’s pain. The rest of the novel follows a similar trajectory. Intense emotion is the most important element of a story that deals with a disaster on this scale, and while that emotion is very often deferred by stumbling plot-lines and flat characters, it’s never forgotten. Sooner or later, the author’s point hits home, and we can’t help but feel empathy for Magdalie and the hundreds of thousands of real-life Haitians in her situation. In that respect, at least, Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go is a success.

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In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders (review by Shannon H. ’16)

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In Persuasion NationIn Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was almost addicted, inhaling this collection of dark short stories at an alarmingly fast pace. George Saunders creates a world in which advertising and persuasion overcome rational thought – his stories read like television commercials, slowly convincing the reader that the grotesque and brutal scenes are real. One short story begins with a polar bear lamenting his doomed existence to repeat the same patterns each day (he lives in a advertising scene). Each day he steals Cheetos from an igloo and is subsequently caught; afterwards, the owner of the igloo swings an ax to the polar bear’s head, and the day ends. Unsurprisingly, the polar bear engages in existential discussion and falls down the wormhole of philosophy. What a brilliant mix of realism and complete absurdism, and of course, it’s great satire. Would highly recommend to anyone looking for some grim reality mixed with a dosage of humor and science fiction.

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Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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Love MedicineLove Medicine by Louise Erdrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, a sort of novel-in-stories that unflinchingly paints a portrait of Native American life in the modern world, opens with a beautifully elaborate family tree: the names get progressively more Catholic, the adoptions and marriages and remarriages more convoluted, as the generations pass. It’s a fitting way to begin this collection. Almost every person on the tree is featured either as a narrator or as a protagonist of one of the stories, but in my mind the three members of the oldest generation mentioned are the real heroes of Love Medicine. The lives of Nector Kashpaw (introduced in “Wild Geese” as a brash young tribesman), his future wife Marie Lazarre (still a teenager in “Saint Marie”), and their sometime ally Lulu Lamartine (who comes of age in “The Island”) are chronicled in full, from adolescence to old age, and it’s their obsessions and fatal flaws that ultimately give the book wings. Love Medicine has a rocky start: its younger characters, not nearly as complex or engaging as their grandparents, open the collection in a less-than-impressive introductory sequence. But the later stories are beautifully enough rendered to do their subject, the Ojibwe nation, proud.

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Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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Bone GapBone Gap by Laura Ruby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap, while almost effortlessly unique in its setting and characters, too often gets bogged down in the tropes of other genres—especially star-crossed romance and magical realism—to feel entirely convincing or satisfying by the last page. The rural Illinois town that protagonists Finn and Roza inhabit is summed up in consistent, symbolic motifs, which Ruby invokes whenever possible: bees, cornfields, gossip, and (most effectively) the “gaps” of the title. As successful as these images are, other aspects of the novel fall flat, ultimately distracting readers from the complexity of the setting. Classic scenes of teenage social cruelty, for instance, feel painfully out-of-sync with a rural setting that is otherwise frozen in the past, and incessant references to Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Blankets quickly grow stale—especially since Ruby seems oddly reluctant to refer to that novel by name. Perhaps most disappointing are the author’s halfhearted attempts at magical realism in certain scenes, which more frequently reek of coincidence than true enchantment. Roza and Finn’s shared story has plenty to commend it, especially to fans of less traditional YA fiction, but its restless shifting between disjunct genres rendered it difficult both to follow and to enjoy. – Andrew R. ’17

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Good Enough by Paula Yoo (review by Melissa K. ’18)

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Good EnoughGood Enough by Paula Yoo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

High school students can relate to Patti Yoon, a high school senior juggling six AP classes, SAT boot camp, and college applications. At her Korean church youth group, overachieving is the norm and everyone has their own unique “hook” into the Ivy Leagues: Lisa Kang is a nationally ranked fencer; Isaac Rhee is the captain of the academic decathlon team at his high school; Sally Kim is a Siemens Competition winner. Patti’s “hook” into college is her violin. As a B-tier violin prodigy, she is the concertmaster of her youth orchestra and considered one of the best violinists in Connecticut.

However, Patti’s seemingly predetermined life takes a turn when she meets Ben Wheeler, a trumpet player who invites her over for jamming sessions, takes her to a punk concert, and encourages her to apply to Juilliard even though her parents think that a career in music is too risky. Sprinkled with Spam recipes, SAT tips, and lists of ways to “Make Your Korean Parents Happy,” Good Enough is a candid and surprisingly funny take on the pressures facing today’s high school students. – Melissa K. ’18

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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I Know Why the Caged Bird SingsI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Maya Angelou, the beloved and decorated author who passed away just under a year ago, is known equally well as a poet and a memoirist, but reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has left no doubt in my mind as to which part of her legacy is more accurate. Dr. Angelou was a poet. Yes, Caged Bird is a prose memoir, one that spans Angelou’s adoption by her grandmother (at age three) to the birth of her first child (at age 17), but the book is written like no autobiography I have ever encountered: the language possesses a lyricism and a flow that very little poetry, much less prose, can lay claim to. In fact, Caged Bird often felt like a long, simple poem, free of the intimidating erudition that so often accompanies book-length verse. Although Angelou writes in the voice of maturity, her narrative convincingly portrays the confusion of a young black child in the Deep South—and the portrait of racism that results is painful and jarring. Caged Bird is more than the sum of its parts: it’s not a poetic memoir or an autobiographical poem, but a beautiful and frightening vision of our country’s past. – Andrew R.’17

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World and Town by Gish Jen (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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World and TownWorld and Town by Gish Jen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gish Jen is a wittier Amy Tan: her novels and stories, usually told through the perspective of first- or second-generation Chinese immigrants to America, fearlessly tackle religious issues, the mystery of death, and the folly of American culture, all without forsaken the signature lightness and incisiveness of her prose. World and Town is split into five narrative sections. One follows Sophy Chung, the daughter of Cambodian immigrants, who takes refuge in fundamentalist Christianity to escape her past sins; another follows Everett, the scorned and scornful backwoods lover of a born-again evangelist. The majority of the book, though, is from the perspective of Hattie (Hăi dì) Kong, an aging immigrant whose existence in the Southern town of Riverlake is somehow more American than any of its native inhabitants. As Hattie struggles with her religion and heritage (and messes with those of her neighbors—she can’t help herself), Riverlake becomes so vivid and complex that it feels as real as life to the reader, and sometimes realer. While Sophy’s and Everett’s narrative voices were not always convincing, World and Town was as a whole engaging, even addictive. Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy having their beliefs challenged and their prejudices called out. – Andrew R. ’17

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The Third Gate by Lincoln Child (review by Mr. Silk, Harker teacher)

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The Third GateThe Third Gate by Lincoln Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not quite “page turner” status, The Third Gate is a decent thriller that takes place in the Sudd (a swamp) of Egypt where a vast team of archaeologists are searching for the remains of Narmer, the Pharaoh that unified the country. To help discover this long lost tomb a doctor who specializes in “near death experiences” is enlisted. Unfortunately, when one “crosses over,” in the neighborhood of tombs with curses on them, bad things are bound to happen, and they do. While the history is interesting (although not all true), and paced pretty well, there really are not enough surprises here to make the book reach its potential to be either truly scary or truly exciting. But it is fun enough for a day on the beach, and definitely for anyone who is a fan of “The Mummy” or similar stories in this genre. – Mr. Silk, Harker teacher

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The Crystal Fountain and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker (review by Andrew R. ’17)

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The Crystal Fountain & Other StoriesThe Crystal Fountain & Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes being forgotten is almost an honor in the literary world. It’s an invitation to be rediscovered decades after one’s death, then to enjoy revival as a cult favorite before breaking triumphantly back out into the mainstream market. When I read my first Malachi Whitaker short story, “Landlord of the Crystal Fountain,” I was sure I’d stumbled upon one of these forgotten masters: despite the near-impossibility of finding any of her work, which hasn’t been collected since the mid-1980s, the story’s flowing language (not to mention its intriguing title) indicated that Whitaker’s work deserves much more attention than it’s been given. The Crystal Fountain and Other Stories is one of very few collections by Whitaker that’s still in circulation, so I sought it out and devoured all its stories over the course of a few days, searching for the quality that had made the title story so appealing. What a disappointment to discover that the other stories were nearly indistinguishable in their plots: rural Britain, lonely working-class woman, innocent dreams developed for several pages then suddenly crushed. That’s not to say the stories weren’t enjoyable, but, unlike “Landlord of the Crystal Fountain,” they weren’t quite worth the effort taken to procure them. – Andrew R. ’17

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