Amanda’s Top 14 of 2014

One of the best/worst things about the end of the year are the many “best books” lists that appear. This is one of the best things because my TBR list grows in leaps and bounds. This is one of the worst things because my TBR list grows in leaps and bounds. It’s always fun to see which books show up repeatedly, which books make surprising appearances, and which books make me scratch my head in puzzlement.

There’s not really much I enjoy more than making a good list, so here are my top 14 books of 2014. I’ve read 151 books this year and reviewed a very large percentage of that number. My list here consists only of the top 14 books that I have reviewed somewhere (for TLT, my own blog, Cite Something, Horn Book, VOYA, or School Library Journal). Not ranking them in any sort of order, either, because I liked them all in different ways and for different reasons (and I kinda cheated and lumped two books together, so technically these are my favorite 15 books. Oh, and these are the top books I reviewed, regardless of pub date, so a 2015 book sneaks into the list). I know–stop explaining, MacGregor, and get on with it. Follow the links at the end of the reviews to see the full review. All brief summaries from WorldCat. Read some of these titles? Tell us what you think in the comments or over on Twitter (@TLT16 for all of us and I’m @CiteSomething).

 

 Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

ISBN-13: 9780763656119

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Publication date: 2/11/2014

Summary: Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

From my review:

The teenagers tell stories of pain, joy, bullying, abuse, acceptance, love, and confusion. They identify as male, female, neither, both, and intersex. They come from varied backgrounds and experience different levels of support. They are racially, economically, and culturally diverse. Their stories are complicated and at times painful.

A review can’t capture the power of this book. I can’t overemphasize the importance of this title. I hope it finds a home in every library and I especially hope that the kids who might need this most, the kids looking for reflections of their own experience, are able to find it.  Complete review here. 

 

Words and Their Meanings by Kate Bassett 

ISBN-13: 9780738740294

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.

Publication date: 9/8/2014

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Anna O’Mally is a gifted writer but for the past year, since her beloved uncle Joe died, she has been wrapped in grief that seems impenetrable until a strange email suggests she did not know Joe as well as she thought–and he was not the saint she believed he was.

From my review: 

I was absolutely blown away by this book. Here are some places I cried while reading it: my kitchen table, my bedroom, my car, and the pharmacy. Anna’s uncle Joe died last year, at age 19. Joe was more like a brother to Anna (who is 17), as his parents died when he was a toddler and Anna’s family (her father is Joe’s brother) raised him. Early on Anna tells the reader that “Joe is a dead person because of me.” We see that Anna carries some secret and heavy guilt about Joe’s death, but we don’t understand why for a very long time. Now that her one year mourning period is up (one year seeming like enough time to shut down and not deal, according to her parents and her therapists), Anna is supposed to try to get back to normal. It’s either that or be shipped off to Hell–no really, Hell, Michigan–to a boarding school for “the afflicted, suicidal, and otherwise broken tween and teenage souls.” Complete review here.

 

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

ISBN-13: 9780525426035

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

Publication date: 2/11/2014

Summary: Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.

From my review:

Austin weaves together the stories of his genealogy, his thoughts on his sexuality, the history of his town, and the insect armageddon in a breathlessly verbose, meandering, hyper-intellectual (and swear word-laden) narrative. This funny, crass, and deeply weird book won’t appeal to everyone, but those who give it a shot will be rewarded with one hell of an entertaining (and deeply weird–did I mention this book is weird?) read. You may find yourself exclaiming “Excrementum Sanctum” over and over as you read this one. Complete review here. 

 

Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff 

ISBN-13: 9780062266835

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication date: 5/27/2014

Summary: It is Labor Day weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and boy and girl collide on a dark street at two thirty in the morning: Lesh, who wears black, listens to metal, and plays MMOs; Svetlana, who embroiders her skirts, listens to Bjork and Berlioz, and dungeon masters her own RPG. They should pick themselves up, continue on their way, and never talk to each other again. But they don’t.

From my review:

Main characters Lesh and Svetlana do not exactly meet cute. In fact, they meet kind of messy. While Lesh is stumbling home drunk one night in St. Paul, he collides with Svetlana on her bike, knocking her off and causing her notebooks to tumble out of her bag. One of them drops into a puddle of questionable origin, and when Lesh retrieves it for her, he sees an elaborate fantasy scene inked on the cover. Little does he know that Svetlana is a gamer, and a dungeon master, and she spent all summer creating that notebook. He’s immediately intrigued by this girl, but for now the main gamer in his life is Greg, his best friend, who’s addicted to playing MMORPG games. Lesh isn’t into them, but after he finds himself grounded, he begins to play the one Greg is into. He creates a character, then secretly creates another–an elf named Svvetlana. Thus begins an unforgettable look at gender, expectations, identity, and the many roles we all play. Complete review here. 

 

Perfectly Good White Boy by Carrie Mesrobian

ISBN-13: 9781467734806

Publisher:Lerner Publishing Group

Publication date: 10/28/2014

Summary: After losing his virginity to an older girl who dumps him at the end of summer, Sean decides to join the Marines, but first he must get through his senior year of high school.

From my review:

There’s no huge plot, just as a warning for people who need Big Things happen to keep them reading. Though, really, what are bigger things than losing your virginity, having/screwing up/figuring out relationships, graduating high school, deciding what to do after high school, and so on. Complete review here.

 

Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King 

ISBN-13: 9780316222723

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication date: 10/14/2014

Summary: As her high school graduation draws near, Glory O’Brien begins having powerful and terrifying visions of the future as she struggles with her long-buried grief over her mother’s suicide

From my review:
Characters: Glory is kind of a mess—in a completely and excellently believable, realistic, and sympathetic way. She’s thoughtful, curious, artistic, weird, and pretty much hates all of the bullshit around her. I’m a little bit in love with her. She seemed to be complicated before drinking the mummified bat’s ashes (I know–what?!), but her ability to now see the past and the future makes her even more introspective and curious. I also really loved her mother, who we only know through small recounted stories and the photo books she leaves behind. I think she and I would have been friends in the 90s, cutting out pictures from magazines and writing feminist commentary of them together. Complete review here.

 

Play Me Backwards by Adam Selzer

ISBN-13: 9781481401029

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Publication date:  8/26/2014

Summary: A promising and popular student in middle school, Leon Harris has become a committed “slacker” but with graduation approaching and his middle school girlfriend possibly returning to town, Leon’s best friend Stan, who claims to be Satan, helps him get back on the right track–for a price.

From my review:
You know what I really liked in here? The sex stuff. I know—you’re shocked. Here’s why: Leon is self-conscious. He’s awkward. He has major performance anxiety issues. Before Paige, Leon has had sex with two girls, Brenda and Mindy. Leon has sex with Brenda after a few weeks of making out. “For one thing, it took me forever to get hard,” he says. The experience is pretty cringe-worthy. They’re in a dirty basement room, Brenda is exasperated by Leon, and everything about the experience is awkward. It’s pretty awful. But you know what? THANK YOU ADAM SELZER FOR WRITING THIS AWKWARD SEX SCENE. We don’t see enough of that. We also don’t see enough depictions of boys angsting over sex. Girl #2, Mindy, likes to constantly remind Leon that he doesn’t exactly measure up, anatomically speaking, to her ex-boyfriend. “You’d probably be fine for most girls. I just kind of got spoiled by Darren,” she says. OUCH. He’s embarrassed. He talks about not being good at it and feeling like shit. And when he gets together with Paige, they have lots of semi-clothed sex (eventually—he’s hesitant and nervous), most of it in his car tucked away in what appears to be an alcove for a dumpster behind a store. Complete review here.

 

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour 

ISBN-13: 9780525425885

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

Publication date: 5/15/204

Summary:While working as a film production designer in Los Angeles, Emi finds a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend which leads Emi to Ava who is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

From my review:
In many ways, it’s easy to forget that Emi and Charlotte are teenagers–their jobs sound sophisticated and they have a lot of freedom (as they spend most of their summer living in Emi’s brother’s apartment). But they are teenagers–they’re flawed, they make mistakes, they lose their cool, they’re short-sighted, and they have big feelings about many things. Once Ava and Jamal join the story, we see another side of teenage life, as both are living in a shelter and have had much less privileged lives than Emi and Charlotte have led. Jamal is an excellent example of how to write a non-white secondary character and not have that character feel like a token. He’s a great friend to Ava, is working hard to get his life where he wants it to be headed, and has no problem challenging Emi to think hard about her life and her privilege (in a way that comes off as totally organic and not Jamal teaching Emi some life lesson). Complete review here.

 

 Pointe by Brandy Colbert

ISBN-13: 9780399160349

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

Publication date: 4/10/2014

Summary: Four years after Theo’s best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

From my review:

It is not just a ballet book. Theo’s story is about ballet, anorexia, kidnapping, rape, secrets, trust, lies, and strength. That sounds like a lot of heavy stuff for one plot, and it is. In less skilled hands, it would be an overwhelming mix of issues that would weigh a story down. In Colbert’s hands, she masterfully balances all of the pieces of the story and ties them together, but they never get in the way of the true center of the story, Theo. Theo is a talented ballerina whose world is rocked when her neighbor and former best friend, Donovan, returns home four years after he was kidnapped. Suddenly, everything Theo thought she’s known about the past few years of her life is thrown into question. While she’s struggling to deal with new revelations about her past, she’s also trying to focus on her future in ballet as well as figure out a burgeoning relationship with a boy who wants to keep their relationship a secret. Complete review here. 

 

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero 

ISBN-13:  9781935955948

Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press

Publication date: 10/14/2014

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy’s pregnancy, friend Sebastian’s coming out, her father’s meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.

From my review:

In Gabi, we have a protagonist who challenges expectations, thinks for herself, and isn’t afraid of putting herself out there or making mistakes. I can’t rave enough about how wonderful this book is. Not only does Quintero unflinchingly address important issues, she’s created multifaceted characters who leap off the page. Gabi and her friends became so real to me that I often forgot this was fiction—it truly felt like reading a real teenager’s diary. I finished the book feeling honored to have watched Gabi grow as a poet and a young woman. I set the book down when I was done wishing I could read books of Gabi’s diaries from the high school years prior to this one, or to see a diary of what her life will hold now that she’s heading off to college. An all-around brilliant and outstanding look at one ordinary year in the life of an extraordinary teenage girl. Complete review here. 

 

Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition by Katie Rain Hill

Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen by Arin Andrews

ISBN-13: 9781481418232 and 9781481416757

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Publication date: 9/30/2014

 Summary for Rethinking Normal: In her unique, generous, and affecting voice, nineteen-year-old Katie Hill shares her personal journey of undergoing gender reassignment.

Summary for Some Assembly Required: Seventeen-year-old Arin Andrews shares all the hilarious, painful, and poignant details of undergoing gender reassignment as a high school student in this winning teen memoir.

From my review:

When Arin and Katie met, they felt an immediate connection. It wasn’t just that they each thought the other was cute (though they did), but it was more that they understood each other in a way that not many other people they knew could understand them. Katie, born Luke, and Arin, born Emerald, are both transgender, and they met at an Oklahoma support group for trans teens. Their memoirs tell their individual stories of growing up and transitioning, as well as their story as a couple. Complete review here.

 

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley 

ISBN-13: 9780373211333

Publisher: Harlequin

Publication date: 9/30/2014

Summary: In 1959 Virginia, Sarah, a black student who is one of the first to attend a newly integrated school, forces Linda, a white integration opponent’s daughter, to confront harsh truths when they work together on a school project.

From my review:

To call this novel powerful is an understatement. Told in alternate narration, the views Sarah and Linda give of this time in history are poignant. The unrelenting racism and violence is difficult to read, which is hardly surprising. The story is just as much Linda’s as it is Sarah’s. Both extremely stubborn girls confront their many preconceived notions. Both learn, change, and grow. Neither seems there simply to “teach” the other about the opposing side. Talley does an excellent job of showing how two young women do what they think they are supposed to do and act how they think they are supposed to act, only to discover that carving out their own futures might be possible. This book is an essential read. Talley tackles a lot in this novel, combining history, diversity, intersectionality, GLBTQ characters, family dynamics, and so much more. In less skilled hands, it would have been overwhelming. In Talley’s hands, it’s just masterfully knit together and moving. Complete review here. 

 

Greenglass House by Kate Milford

ISBN-13: 9780544052703

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication date: 8/26/204

Summary: At Greenglass House, a smuggler’s inn, twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his winter holidays relaxing but soon guests are arriving with strange stories about the house sending Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, on an adventure.

From my review (originally in VOYA, August 2014):

Milo’s alias, Negret, blends in, is athletic, and can cope with unexpected situations. This bit of role-playing helps him work through some thoughts he has been having about being adopted and his curiosity about his birth family. Together, they explore the house and investigate the guests, trying to figure out if the visitors are really all strangers or just pretending to be. Milo hopes to learn what their connection may be to the house and to each other. As he works to uncover treasures and secrets, he finds confidence in pretending to be someone other than himself. This well-paced mystery maintains suspense as new details are slowly revealed about each guest. A plot twist near the end will leave readers anxious to reread the story to see how they could have missed major details. The intricately woven connections, large cast of memorable characters, and beautifully detailed writing come together to make this exceptionally engaging story leap off the page.  Complete review here. 

 

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz 

ISBN-13: 9781481405966

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication date: 3/3/2015

Summary: Auditioning for a New York City performing arts high school could help Etta escape from her Nebraska all-girl school, where she is not gay enough for her former friends, not sick enough for her eating disorders group, and not thin enough for ballet, but it may also mean real friendships.

More info: Yes, this one comes out in 2015. Consider this your sneak peek at what will be on lots of best of the year books next year.  A bonus title on this list. The fun of reviewing work is the weird time warps that happen. I read this book earlier in the fall, the review just came out, but the book doesn’t come out for months yet. It’s all a blur. I’m also happy to sneak this 2015 book onto my list here because I want to see it have a HUGE audience. My review of this book can be found in the December issue of School Library Journal or you can click on through to here and find it under “editorial reviews.”  

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