YA: Speak No Evil by Liana Gardner

YA: Speak No Evil by Liana Gardner

Cover courtesy of Vesuvian Books

Award-winning author, Liana Gardner is the brains behind such young adult hits as 7th Grade Revolution, the Journal of Angela Ashby and the Misfit McCabe series. Her latest, Speak No Evil, will be released on October 1, 2019.

Speak No Evil
Liana Gardner
Vesuvian Books
ISBN-10: 1944109366
ISBN-13: 978-1944109363.

Melody Fisher has been charged with stabbing a fellow high school student who is also a football star. But she is no criminal. Through her court-mandated therapy sessions, the reader discovers that Melody, a mixed race teen with a gift for song and a love of nature, has faced plenty of trauma in her life. After her mother dies and her father disappears, Melody lives through a series of horrible foster homes. None, however, is as treacherous as the last, at the home of the aptly named Hatchett family. The accumulated tragedy in her life has made Melody mute.

The author has used a psychiatrist, Dr. Kane, as a plot device to tease out Melody’s past trauma. Kane coaxes Melody to talk by having her play music from her MP3 player to reveal her feelings through the lyrics and music she selects. The music theme that runs throughout is quite enjoyable. As Melody makes progress, the psychiatrist has her sing her answers to his questions in order to bring her a step closer to speaking. His questions trigger first-person recollections taking the reader back to earlier times in Melody’s life. This device works relatively well for a good part of the book, but the constant back and forth in time later saps the story’s tension, and at times makes it difficult to determine the order of events.

Melody is a wonderful, convincing character. In addition to her beautiful singing voice, she is able to see a personified manifestation of death that follows people who will soon die. Quatie Raincrow, a foster mother who really cares for Melody, is also a seer. She helps Melody understand her gift and make sense of her feelings. The teen is also able to calm both people and things with her singing, snakes in particular. The author writes with compelling skill about snake attacks and snake handling that will captivate readers. The passages where Melody cares for a blistered snake are gruesome and well executed.

Speak No Evil is a very ambitious book with many minor characters, too many in fact, especially at the end. Readers could have done without James and Vince, a love interest and a friend who wants to be more to Melody. Neither is particularly memorable. There are really two books here: a pre-teen with special gifts who loses her parents and ends up in foster care and a story about a teen in foster care who negotiates daily life in the midst of lurking predators. In both scenarios, there is enough trauma to render someone mute and in need of a good therapist.

In the end, there is too much going on in this book, which detracts from its strengths: Melody’s character and gifts, the theme of music and the initial use of the psychiatrist plot device.

This review has been cross-posted at Cyn's Workshop.

Other reviews of YA fiction

The Courage of Elfina by André Jacob

Lily and Taylor by Elise Moser

The Trouble with Marlene by Billy Livingston

Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin

Read more »

Review: The Trouble With Marlene by Billie Livingston

Review: The Trouble With Marlene by Billie Livingston

Annick Press was kind enough to send me another little gem from its YA Single Voice series: The Trouble with Marlene by Billie Livingston. I will also have a few words to say about Film Studies by Caroline Adderson, the flipside of this book, which I think was a great pairing.

The Trouble With Marlene by Billie Livingston
 
Samantha is a teen living with her pill-popping, wine-swilling mother, who openly expresses her desire to take her own life. Her parents were small-time hustlers until her father was caught and thrown in jail. Although he has apparently been released, he has yet to contact his daughter. Her mother, Marlene, botched a robbery attempt two years before and was severely beaten. As a result, she is psychologically unstable and has developed a dependence on alcohol and drugs.

The various men Marlene drags home, her yelling at the landlady, the immature arguments with her daughter, a home without food and often without a mom or any indication of her whereabouts are just some of the details of Sammie's unsettling life. She has Drew whom she met at a welfare-funded Christian summer camp. Although Sammie needs Drew, she's unsure of her feelings for him and is reluctant to let anyone see her real life. But Marlene's increasing instability leaves poor Sammie with little choice. Marlene's repeated desire to die leads poor Sammie to actually contemplate giving her mother what she wants--her own death. Then at least, she would have some peace in her life, which she so desperately needs.

Livingston has crafted a fast-moving and intensely dark story that makes the reader extremely sympathetic to Sammie's plight and desperation. Told entirely from the 16-year-old's point of view, the story gives the reader a very realistic and chilling account of what it might be like to be Sammie. Unlike her mother, Sammie is resourceful enough to use a clever trick to buy food and has the good sense to reach out to Drew when she really needs help. Marlene is the one who is completely helpless. Livingston did a great job of creating an immature and needy Marlene, who is too ill-equipped to look after herself, let alone a teenage daughter.

Kudos to Livingston for shedding light on a very dysfunctional situation that we all know exists, but refuse to acknowledge. Maybe now both parents and teens will look at that young panhandler on the corner a little differently.

Film Studies by Caroline Adderson is the story of 16-year-old Cassandra who also has a very needy, depressive mother and an absent father who is a film-maker. Cassandra like Samantha has to be a parent to her faltering mother, calling in sick for her and consoling her after she is dumped by a string of "inappropriate men." Seemingly oblivious to Cassandra's feelings, her mother briefly reconciles with Cassandra's father without telling her.

The 16-year-old, who puts on a cool "Ice Queen" exterior to keep her classmates at a distance, is enrolled in film studies in an attempt to better understand her father and his art. In a film project, she pushes her performance with her new boyfriend a little too far in an attention-seeking ploy to exact revenge on her parents, who are too self-involved to think about their daughter's feelings.

Film Studies was a great match for Livingston's The Trouble With Marlene. FS is not as dark, but it mirrors the situation of a daughter parenting her mother, a situation that is more common than we think. In Film Studies, many teens will find some validation for their contradictory feelings towards their parents.

Psst...Billie Livingston has agreed to answer some of my questions about The Trouble with Marlene. I'm thrilled to have a chance to speak with this original author who gives a voice to so many women without one in mainstream culture.

Other reviews:
The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century
Greedy Little Eyes by Billie Livingston
Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin
The Social Media Survival Guide by Deltina Hay
The Birth House by Ami McKay
The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
Unless by Carol Shields
Essex County by Jeff Lemire


.

Read more »

Interview: Christy Ann Conlin Author of Dead Time

Interview: Christy Ann Conlin Author of Dead Time

A few weeks ago, I started to look at Young Adult (YA) novels with my daughter in mind. Adolescence is still a few years off, but I'd like to know what types of books are available now. What I discovered is that there are a lot more books for the 14 to 21 age group than when I was a teen.

Most of you will recall The Outsiders, That Was Then This is Now, and Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton, or the classic coming of age novels, such as the Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies, all of which pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable behaviour in their day. The S. E. Hinton novels gave us a look at the darker side of the teenage years, but the one that left me gobsmacked and terrified about drugs, particularly LSD, was Go Ask Alice.

What was your favourite coming of age novel? I have quite a few, but I think that my all time favourite was the Diary of Anne Frank

Pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour is still very much a part of the YA literary landscape. Young protagonists continue to confront social issues and situations, addressing edgy themes such as sexuality in all of its various manifestations, drugs, alcohol, peer pressure, crime, pregnancy, abortion, psychological, verbal and physical abuse, cutting, suicide and yes, love.

I've just finished my third YA novel, and I must admit that it's a good exercise to help you remember how intense teenage emotions can be. The frighteningly realistic Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin may convince you to start spending more quality time with your kids.

In this novella, we meet Isabella, the 15-year-old protagonist, who has been abandoned by her mother and left with her busy, important father, who is rarely home. Despite her family's wealth, Isabella is acutely insecure and extremely angry. This volatile mixture along with some help from her shiftless boyfriend, Sergei, results in murder. (For the full review click here.)

In addition, to Dead Time, Christy Ann Conlin is the author of the bestseller Heave, which was chosen as one of the top 40 novels of the decade by the CBC's Canada Reads in 2010. Her soon-to-be-released novel Listening to the Island links back to Heave through the character of Fancy Mosher.

Christy Ann was kind enough to answer a few questions about Dead Time and tell us her thoughts on YA literature. 

What made you decide to try your hand at YA?

CA: Well, I was asked to write a book the Single Voice series published by Annick Press.  I was dying, no pun intended, to work with the editor on that series, Melanie Little. She's now at House of Anansi. She's both a uniquely talented editor and writer and I knew working with her would be extraordinary, which it was.  I already had an idea in mind for a novel and so I just wrote that. I would say I didn't write it as YA specifically -- it just happens to work as a YA book, and an adult book.  It's what we could call "cross genre" in its broad appeal to different ages of readers.


Where did you find your inspiration for the character of Isabella?

CA: That's always such a hard question for writers. It's a compendium of factors, I suppose.  The Stephanie Rengel murder in Toronto was really what inspired the book, the tragedy of her slaying, and the horror of the murderers being teens.  I was fascinated with how a young woman, at an age we see as so innocent, could be capable of such violence and horror.  Isabella appeared for me like a fairy tale character, a very dark fairy tale. 

What would you say fuels Isabella's rage and jealousy?

CA:A childhood of extreme neglect. Extreme narcissism and lack of empathy. She's a psychopath.


What YA novel affected you the most as a teen and why?

CA: Harriet the Spy. Her solitude, both the peace of it, and the loneliness of it, are so easy to relate to.  I could so relate to her loss of innocence when she discovered how cruel her peers could be, and her pain on realizing how messed up adults are. But there is such optimism in the book, as Harriet finds her way, and redefines her friendships with her peers, and adults.  It's so moving. Plus, I've always been obsessed with New York and so it was fun to read that book with a map handy, dreaming of the big city when I was stuck in rural Nova Scotia.  I also loved Catcher in the Rye, for the same reason, that it really crystalized that sense of dismay we feel transitioning into the imperfect adult world, where our heros fall off the pedestal.  I find it so interesting how often kids are fed all kinds of ideals, and sheltered from so much, and somehow we expect them to just transition seamlessly into adulthood.  Books like these can be lifesavers, honestly!

Thanks so much Christy Ann! I look forward to reading Listening to the Island.


.

Read more »

Review: The Orphan Rescue

Review: The Orphan Rescue

The Orphan Rescue
Anne Dublin
Second Story Press

The Orphan Rescue opens with 12-year-old Miriam and her grandfather taking her younger brother David to an orphanage in the late spring of 1937 in Sosnowiec, Poland. Miriam's grandparents have no other choice. The Depression has been a financially trying time for everyone, and when Miriam’s locksmith grandfather injures his hand and can no longer work, the grandparents are faced with a difficult decision. Young Miriam is pulled from school to work as a butcher’s assistant, while David must go and live at an orphanage, headed by the beady-eyed, vulture-like director, Mr. Reznitsky. After already losing her parents, Miriam is devastated to say good-bye to her brother and vows to bring him home, one way or another.

The Orphan Rescue offers the pre-teen reader a strong girl character in Miriam, who is true to her word and perseveres until she fulfills her promise, even when it requires her to tell lies and transgress the rules. In the book’s afterword, we learn that this is in fact the true story of Miriam and Alter Chaim, the author’s cousins. Dublin also shares in this section that she wanted today’s children to know that poverty throughout the world still forces families to send their children to orphanages and take them out of school to work.

Although this book was intended for pre-teens, I decided to read it to my 8-year-old daughter. She thought that Miriam had done the right thing because she believed that brothers and sisters had an obligation to protect one another; however,“That was a long time ago,” she said. “They don’t have orphanages today.” I told her that these types of institutions didn’t exist in our country but that we still had foster homes. This led to a fairly lengthy conversation about the few alternatives some parents have when they lose their jobs or become ill and have no immediate family to help them out.

As a former teacher, I can see that The Orphan Rescue would make a good class reader, as the subject matter would hold the interest of strong readers, while the book is easy and short enough to accommodate those with lower reading skills. The book also provides teachers with numerous areas of discussion and starting points to explore other areas, such as European Geography, World Religions, the Depression, Genealogy and Child Labour.

Another idea might be to create a second version of this book for stronger or older readers. Its beginning and first few chapters are very dramatic and could have been fleshed out with more period details to hold the attention and draw the reader further into the story. 

Overall, this was a rich story and all the more compelling because it was true.

Other reviews:
Dead Time by Christy Ann Conlin
The Social Media Survival Guide by Deltina Hay
The Birth House by Ami McKay
The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
Unless by Carol Shields
Essex County by Jeff Lemire


.







.

Read more »