Hysteria – Megan Miranda (Review)

Hardcover, 336 pages
Published February 5th 2013 by Walker Childrens
Source: ARC from ALA

Synopsis:
Mallory killed her boyfriend, Brian. She can’t remember the details of that night but everyone knows it was self-defense, so she isn’t charged. But Mallory still feels Brian’s presence in her life. Is it all in her head? Or is it something more? In desperate need of a fresh start, Mallory is sent to Monroe, a fancy prep school where no one knows her . . . or anything about her past.But the feeling follows her, as do her secrets. Then, one of her new classmates turns up dead. As suspicion falls on Mallory, she must find a way to remember the details of both deadly nights so she can prove her innocence-to herself and others.

In another riveting tale of life and death, Megan Miranda’s masterful storytelling brings readers along for a ride to the edge of sanity and back again.

Review

So in case you didn’t know, I love Fracture by Megan Miranda. I thought it was brilliant and when I heard that there is going to be a sequel, I did a happy, nerdy dance. I picked up a copy of the ARC of Hysteria from ALA and I am part of the blog tour. Hopefully, I will remember to list the tour stops at the end of the review but just ask me in case I don’t.

Anyway, moving on to the novel.

To be completely honest with you, I am still a bit uncertain about how I feel. This book is compulsively readable – Miranda’s prose still has the ability to suck me in and keep me reading. The novel is relatively short and I managed to finish it in three hours. But then again, I read inordinately fast where aesthetic reading is concerned. Heh. The pacing of the novel is very fast, perhaps too fast, and I think there were moments when the novel would have benefited from a slower pace and a bit more detail.

Mallory has killed her boyfriend. That much we know. The details of the night are purposefully left blank and it is only as the novel progresses that we become aware that there is more to the story. (Obviously.) The thing is, the more I found out about Mallory, the more I disliked her. Or rather, if not an active dislike, I felt indifferent to her. It became difficult for me to sympathize and/or even empathize with her. There are two distinct narratives taking place. The whole boyfriend killing and the boarding school drama. There are characters introduced but their motivations remain blurry. They are not as individuated as I would have liked.

Why Mallory is sent away from her parents when she needs them most gave me pause. Why isn’t she seeing a shrink – would the court not make that mandatory? Wouldn’t that be good parenting? I mean, I was convinced by Mallory’s perceptions of her parent’s rejection – that was well done but I still think the premise would have made more sense had there been a longer period of time between the boyfriend killing and the boarding school attending.

The romance doesn’t impress me too much here which is too bad because Decker from Fracture was kind of awesome. I think the problem here is that there were too many boys. The narrative began reaching for a crucial problem but then would falter and introduce another factor. It also seemed ridiculous to me that Mallory would make the moves on a guy at his father’s funeral and then be hurt when she is pushed away. I mean, come on now, his dad had just died! There were more things on his mind that a relationship, ya know? The ending is also a tad confused and seems a bit cobbled together though this just may be because I was reading the ARC copy. I wasn’t satisfied by the whole resolution to the boyfriend killing mystery either – it just seemed a bit antic-climactic after all the building up it had received.

I think the best thing about this novel was the friendship between Mallory and her best friend. It was heartwarming and satisfied all my yearnings for true portrayal of sisterhood in YA novels. There was actual friendship and the best friend wasn’t used as a willing ear to hear the many problems of the protagonist and I appreciated that.

In conclusion, this is a mixed bag of nuts, you guys. Some of you may appreciate it more than others. I was entertained by this novel but I cannot in good conscience say I was swept away by it. I think you’ll have to make up own your mind about this one as I am truly conflicted about my own feelings. However, I can safely assert that Miranda’s writing style is fresh and engaging and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next (other than the sequel to Fracture!).

The Night She Disappeared – April Henry (A Review!)

Hardcover, 240 pages
Expected publication: March 13th 2012 by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:

Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.

 

Review:

So…the rating itself should alert you to the fact that whatever I have to say about this book is good. Moving on from there, let me just say that one of the first things that attracted me about this novel is the scarcity of its genre or rather sub-genre. This is a thriller, a contemporary thriller, and we don’t get too many of those in the YA genre. Or at least I haven’t read many of them.

Anyway.

The Night She Disappeared is an amazing novel. During many instances in the course of the narrative, your heart moves from your chest and decides to reside in your throat so it can jump out at any tense moment and flee for its life. The book is told in three different perspectives and usually, this doesn’t work for me. I find stories told in alternating perspectives jarring but somehow, Henry makes it work and makes it work really well.

I’m taking this Lit class at the moment and the theme for this particular class is actual real-life murders/murderers as portrayed in literature. As such I have been reading lots of, hmm how do I word this, fictionalized versions of actual crimes. For example Grace Marks by Margaret Atwood etc. The Night She Disappeared reminded me of The Death of Donna Whalen by Michael Winter because it sort of had the same style, a documentary style of story telling though Henry’s novel is more entertainment oriented than Winter’s is. But that’s the only similarity there is.

There’s no displacement between the characters and the reader, as in Winter’s novel, and I am very thankful for that. I liked that you get to see from the eyes and feel the emotions of all three main characters. The same incident viewed twice, sometimes thrice, gives the event more depth and complicates things in a way that makes the reading experience more enjoyable. The writing style is succinct without tension and momentum being lost by unnecessary detailing. Henry places you in the middle of a place and expects you to provide the scenery and I really liked that. I also liked how she includes perspectives of people involved in the search and gives a glimpse of how stereotypes and biased investigation can lead to disaster (again, this echoes Donna Whalen almost eerily).

I also really appreciated that she doesn’t demonize or um…angelize? (it’s a new word I just made up) any of the characters, even ones who would typically be painted by the media as more a mythical demon than a normal person with a tremendous capacity for evil. This, in turn, served to make the villain more frightening than if he had been given horns and all. The plotting was well done as was the pace. I particularly liked how she slowed and then sped up the narrative in parts as warrants the action in the novel.

But what got me most about this novel was how Henry situates this narrative in the context of all those missing children who will never be found, all those families who will never get any disclosure, and all those those bastards out there who will continue to do the shit they do. Unhindered. The faces on the milk cartons, the flyers on the supermarket boards, all the innocence lost to some evil – this book felt like an ode to them. I felt like the book was telling me to look closer at the faces, to be more aware of things and people and any book that makes me think beyond the story has achieved what a book should. Therefore, I must insist that you read this book. Really.

The Vanishing Game – Kate Kae Meyers

Hardcover, 353 pages
Expected publication: February 14th 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:

Jocelyn’s twin brother Jack was the only family she had growing up in a world of foster homes-and now he’s dead, and she has nothing. Then she gets a cryptic letter from “Jason December”-the code name her brother used to use when they were children at Seale House, a terrifying foster home that they believed had dark powers. Only one other person knows about Jason December: Noah, Jocelyn’s childhood crush and their only real friend among the troubled children at Seale House.

But when Jocelyn returns to Seale House and the city where she last saw Noah, she gets more than she bargained for. Turns out the house’s powers weren’t just a figment of a childish imagination. And someone is following Jocelyn. Is Jack still alive? And if he is, what kind of trouble is he in? The answer is revealed in a shocking twist that turns this story on its head and will send readers straight back to page 1 to read the book in a whole new light.

Review:

You know, I went into The Vanishing Game expecting very different things than I found there. Is that a satisfactorily ambiguous comment or should I try again?

(Aside: I keep on thinking how much I want to see more of Miyazaki’s works while I’m trying to write this.)

I found it difficult to get into the book initially. Major obstacles came in the form of awkward characterizations. One of the notes I took while reading is: “It’s strange that Jocelyn uses “I” when saying “I was ten” since she is talking about her brother (her twin) and it would seem natural for her to say “we were ten.”" Maybe this just indicates my picky nature as a reader but it was little details like that that detracted from my reading experience. There is also a fair bit of pathos and telling instead of showing. I’d say the first quarter of the book goes on in this manner.

But then somehow the pace picks up and things start looking better. It might be that I am a sucker for mysteries but I really liked the sense of adventure, tension and intrigue colouring the latter half of the novel. The urgency in the wild goose chase, the clues and then the little flashbacks to the lives the main characters led as foster kids in the care of a very careless foster parent. (Careless might be a lenient adjective. Cruel and malicious, abusive amongst other descriptors might serve better.)

The culmination of the novel is very, very interesting. I wasn’t expecting it but at the same time, I didn’t feel that the novel prepped enough or gave enough clues to pull it off in a satisfactory manner. It was very intriguing, I will give you that. And once the awkward parts in the characters are smoothed out, they make for compelling people but, at the same time, maybe it is because I’m reading an ARC, I felt that some other details could be reworked to make the novel stronger than it is.

The author’s forte is in the snippets she writes that give glimpses of other peoples’ lives. She can say a lot with few words and I look forward to watching her grow as a writer.

Oh right, would I recommend this novel? Certainly. It’s not a paranormal but a thriller and I do so appreciate a thriller once in a while. We have too few of them around in the YA genre.