The Delta Anomaly by Rick Barba

Sometimes I feel like I need a whole ‘nother set of review criteria for licensed novels. Books like Rick Barba’s The Delta Anomaly are great examples of why. If you’re into Star Trek, specifically the 2009 reboot, and if you want to subsume yourself in more of the same, then you’ll adore The Delta Anomaly. But of course, non-Trekkies should probably look elsewhere.

The Delta Anomaly is one of several stories offered in this series about Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and McCoy’s pre-movie Starfleet careers. A lot happens in this slim volume. There’s a serial killer. And a budding romance. And a pre-Kobayashi-Maru simulation exam. And a cloud of nanomachines or six. This is a busy book for one so slim, and while the action scenes are well-written and the pacing perky, it also felt a bit scatter-shot, a touch schizophrenic.

But really, who reads licensed novels for the plots? Not me. I’m in it for the snappy dialogue and continuing evolution of familiar characters, and you find that in spades here. The characters are accurate–the most important quality in any licensed novel. Particularly nice is the slow-burn, growing romance between Uhura and Spock, a romance that is communicated entirely through innuendo. Their chemistry was fun in the movie (despite my own initial fangirly objections), and the tension between them in The Delta Anomaly really holds the novel together. Their scenes were easily the most satisfying of the entire book.

Barba also manages to pull in some general Trek lore from other incarnations, and mostly to very good effect. I only spotted one misstep (warning: super nerdy pedantry ahead) when he mentions a Ferengi in the 23rd century, and, worse, a Ferengi owning slaves. Quark would be so disappointed! But I don’t think that even most Trekkies would be as bothered by this as I was. Because, you know, I’m a huge dork.

This was mostly a very solid Trek novel, and an interesting book for teen readers. With its focus on college-aged protagonists, the content is a tad more adult than some YA of a comparable length, but the drinking and flirting are relatively fluffy and really pretty fun. Basically, if you want to read about your favorite Trek characters as college kids, you could do worse than to read this book.

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First review of the new year! Keep an eye out for an upcoming group post on The Interrobangs site for more discussion on Matched!
Matched by Ally Condie

Matched is yet another YA-hype magnet. Because of the seven-figure deal the novel netted author Allie Condie, it was almost impossible to go in without preconceptions (and I’m not generally one to avoid spoilers, anyway). I’d heard Condie read prettily-written snippets on NPR; I’d also perused reviews on GoodReads decrying it as a derivative spin on YA-dystopic classics like The Giver.

But the truth is a bit more complex than that. Its taken me a few weeks to mull over my reaction to Matched, the story of Cassia Reyes (don’t let the name fool you; she’s written white as toast), whose faith in her structured, near-future society is shaken when she discovers that her arranged marriage to her neighbor, Xander, was not as perfectly plotted as she thought. On the day following her MatchBanquet, a sort of dystopian prom where her future nuptials to Xander are announced publicly, Cassia finds that she may have been meant for someone else, another neighbor, the supposedly broodalicious loner Ky.

I was really impressed by the opening of the novel, despite my reservations. It’s in the first seventy pages or so that Condie’s prose really shines. Though stylistically sparse, her writing is surprisingly rich with sensory details. The Match Banquet was particularly well realized–you can practically feel the rough texture of the green dress she wears, and though the emotional relevance and richness flags a bit when we’re returned to her bland suburbs, Condie eventually works us up to a grandparent death scene that had me openly weeping. We’re talking poignant, emotionally accurate stuff. I was surprised, and had trouble understanding the level of haterade I’d encountered.

Then I read the rest of the novel, and began to understand.

It’s not that Matched is particularly bad–it is, in fact, not particularly anything. Though the dystopian world building here is far sounder and more seamless than the glaringly problematic world of the similar, upcoming Delirium by Lauren Oliver, they suffer from what is essentially the same problem: a chronic lack of passion.

Cassia is sweet, but bland. Her two potential matches, Xander, and Ky, are sweet, but bland, and quiet, but bland, respectively. Her parents are good people that I could hardly be roused to care about. The most compelling characters–Cassia’s grandfather, who bites it in the first hundred pages, and her younger brother, who hardly figures into the plot–aren’t quite well-drawn enough to feel real. The Society that rules Cassia’s world is never threatening enough to seem truly dangerous, and the supporting characters are essentially interchangeable. A few scant weeks after reading, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you why or how any of them belonged here.

There are hints of complexity, but these are introduced almost as an afterthought. Cassia has one friend who suffers from panic attacks, and whom her betrothed, Xander, treats with surprising sympathy. This sympathy is promising (my first thought is that there might have been a love relationship between the two), but is ultimately meaningless. There are suggestions that Xander and Ky may have shared a long history of friendly rivalry and perhaps just plain friendship–but this is insufficiently developed, too.

Rather than fleshing out these points of fascinating character conflict, Condie gives us, instead, a repetitive and plodding story. Cassia and Ky climb a mountain over and over again and exchange bland poetry and something akin to boring indie comics. They share chaste kisses and hold hands. Their affair has none of the heat of genuine teen love, or even the unfulfilled promise and pain that we got in, say, Twilight. This isn’t just passion put off for later. It’s a relationship that might as well be between asexuals.

Condie’s writing holds more potential than many YA writers who write books I didn’t care about: I know she’s capable of being affecting, and, though, yeah, her world is derivative, at least it’s not gratingly irritating. I can see picking up the second book, but if it remains as bland and inoffensive and just plain boring as this, I can’t imagine reading the series through to the end.

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Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just a warning: I’m about to get hyperbolic and all sorts of excited about a YA paranormal romance about angels.

For those who know me, that might seem odd. I tend to be really, really picky about paranormal romance for teens unless it’s bad-ass and clearly Buffy-inspired (we’re talking Diana Peterfreund’s killer unicorn books, or L. J. Smith’s Night World series). And generally, angels are just conceptually too fluffy for me. What’s more, I’m not even vaguely Christian—at best, I’m a Jew, but really I’m more of a Godless agnostic. And so you might guess that fantasy firmly grounded in Christian mythology would miss the mark for me.

You’d be wrong.

The truth is, part of me has been waiting for a long time for a good angel book. Blame my pre-teen K-mart book habit. When I was eleven or twelve, my mom picked me up a copy of a book by Jahnna N. Malcolm and Laura Young called Rebel Angels. I don’t really remember anything about the book itself, but I do remember the cover—the neon sunset, the rebel-jacket-clad angel boy on the front and how the image sparked some note of excitement in my pubescent little brain. I was also a weirdly big fan of the mostly-terrible John Travolta flick, Michael. So, despite my areligious leanings, the same part of myself that would love an old Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper for nostalgia’s sake (do you know how hard they are to find?!) has been waiting for a really juicy angel book.

I didn’t find it with Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush. I didn’t find it with Lauren Kate’s Fallen (which I didn’t even finish). But Cynthia Hand’s debut Unearthly finally delivered.

I’ll admit, the premise is silly in places. Teen girl Clara learned she was a quarter-angel a few years ago and has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her “purpose” ever since. When it finally comes, it’s in the form of a vision: she’s supposed to save a boy in Wyoming from a forest fire. Her family—Clara, her half-angel mom, and her brother—up and leave their California home for more mountainous pastures. There, she deals with integrating into a new school; getting to know Christian, the boy she’s destined to save; and her growing awareness of the war between the good fallen angels (whose wings are white) and the evil, black-winged Black Wings.

Sigh. I know, guys, I know—it’s totally simplistic and cheesy to color-code your characters’ morality like that. But this is a book about angels, anyway—I hope you weren’t expecting a total lack of cheesiness, because I’d be disappointed if this book took itself completely seriously. And I’m telling you, it’s worth it to look past the silliness here because Unearthly manages to rise above it and present a truly compelling read, with really well-done characters.

Clara is believable as a teenage girl with a purpose. She’s not always likable—in fact, she’s a bit self-centered and short-sighted—but she truly is empathetic. You feel for her when she talks about how she misses her father, or how she feels bad about the unfair advantages her super powers give her, or how hard it is to choose between the boy she loves and the boy she’s supposed to save.

That’s right—there’s a love triangle here. Clara’s supposed to save cute, popular, rich-kid Christian, but instead ends up falling for cute, popular, poor-kid Tucker, her best friend’s brother. And both of these relationships are handled in a complex and interesting way. I can’t even say who I was really rooting for—either choice would be good; both have their problems. Two well-rendered boys who seem to be an equally appealing and equally flawed? To the point where it’s not easy to pick and choose a simple “team” to emblazon on your t-shirt? Why, it’s almost unheard of these days in YA.

It’s also awesome.

Hand doesn’t futz up her relationships between women, either. Clara has two best friends: half-angel Angela, and human Wendy. And while there are sometimes arguments and tensions between the girls, these relationships are still stunningly real, complex, and supportive. I expected one of them to be turned into a slutty stereotype or a villain or a catty mean girl, but they’re not—and even the school’s queen bee character is somewhat likable and fairly sympathetic. And Clara’s relationship with her mother—who teaches her how to be an angel, and supports her in finding her purpose, but still doesn’t quite understand her or respect her as an equal—is one of the most believable mother-daughter relationships I’ve seen in a long time.

And speaking of realism, while this isn’t a Christian novel per se, it’s the first YA angel book I’ve read that actually acknowledges the existence of religion and Christianity beyond an appropriation of mythology and tropes. It’s done in a subtle, but realistic way, and the book is better for the acknowledgement of the religious questions that teens–particularly supernatural angel teens–face in their daily lives.

Finally, amidst all of this, Hand’s writing is crisp, efficient, and uncluttered. Unearthly is written in present tense; I’m not usually a fan of present-tense novels, but she renders Clara’s narration in an effortless, unobtrusive way. The writing is at times pretty, but never overwritten, and there’s none of the adverbial mess you find with less capable writers of YA paranormal.

In sum, Unearthly is the accomplished and compelling story of a girl coming into her powers as a woman, written respectfully, and well. For any reader who has been longing for an angel story that satisfies without reservation (and really, who hasn’t been longing for that?), I’d highly recommend it.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from netgalley.com.

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Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished Lauren Strasnick’s first novel, Nothing Like You at 4 a.m., with a lump in my throat the size of a fist. This was strange because her book didn’t contain any of the usual tear-jerker tropes for me: dead grandparents, dead dogs. It is, of course, a story of loss—but that loss (of the narrator Holly’s mother) happens off-screen before our story even begins. Nothing Like You is in fact the story of how Holly attempts, and largely fails, to deal with her mother’s death. It opens with Holly losing her virginity to Paul, a boy she hardly knows and mostly doesn’t even like. I think it was mostly the tone of the book—sparse and melancholy—that hit deep. The raw emotional honesty is clear in passages like these:

”She’s my girlfriend, Holly. I have to kiss her.” But he didn’t have to kiss her. He didn’t have to date her or love her or run his fingers through her hair. It’s a choice, love. Even if she were threatening pills or razorblades, blackmailing him into loving her, the least he could do was look miserable loving her back.

I mean, ouch.

But the plot is accurate and affecting, too. As Holly becomes involved with Paul, a preppy teen whose girlfriend she also ends up befriending, we learn about the complexities of her world: her best friend, Nils, who everyone assumes is her boyfriend; her father, Jeff, who Holly frets over; the psychic she considers visiting to gain some closure over the loss of her mom to cancer. There’s nothing particularly unusual about Holly’s situation, but it’s the accuracy of the details—the clubhouse she shares with Nils, and the records they listen to; her memories of her New Age mom’s crystal conventions; the small connections she makes to a drama teacher who once knew her mom—that make this novel exceptional. Though the language is very contemporary (there is an occasional text-speak aside or instance of multiple exclamation point, though these are dropped naturally and do not seem intrusive or gimmicky), Holly’s situation rang true for me. Though I ended my high school career in 2002, I couldn’t help but feel like I knew Holly, or girls very much like her.

Hell, there were times when even I was a Holly—when I made stupid, selfish choices, believing them to be justified or even romantic, because I wanted an escape from my suburban life. Holly’s California suburbs are a world apart from the universe of my New Jersey adolescence, but her experiences are no less universal. That she can’t see, for example, how she’s being manipulated by Paul—their relationship has an almost-violent and certainly-threatening undercurrent—makes her sadly accurate, though sometimes a little pitiable. I’ve seen some reviews online that decry the poor choices Holly makes, but I can’t help but wonder, in response, if those reviewers were ever teenagers who lived in the shadow of grief.

That’s how I can’t help but feel about most complaints about Strasnick’s debut. Yes, Holly makes poor choices. Yes, she has to live with some really miserable ramifications. No, this story does not give you an easy, neat, or morally clean ending.

But it’s real. It’s so very, very real.

I can’t help but draw comparisons between Nothing Like You and Kody Keplinger’s 2010 debut, The DUFF. They both involve girls who use sex to escape their bigger real-life problems. However, where Keplinger faltered was in the accuracy of the situation—in the rosy ending, and the way everything tied together perfectly. And that’s where Strasnick excels. If Keplinger’s book is something akin to a pretty good movie about high school–Pretty in Pink, maybe—then Strasnick’s book is high school. And though the ending is sad, complex, and emotionally messy, there’s also a note of bitter sweetness there, one that will likely seem truer to older readers and one which makes fewer saccharine promises to younger ones. Though Holly’s future will be as complicated as her past, as she embarks on it we know that, though it might not always be easy, it really will be okay.

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