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James Sveck is not happy. And that’s really the least of his worries. After realizing he felt separate, alone as in not a part of this species, life took a bad turn for James.
It all came to a head with the whole America Classroom debacle. He doesn’t like to think about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it. And so for weeks he plays avoidance games, silence games, power games—pretty much any and every game—with his therapist.
His parents are worried. His sister is worried. James is just annoyed.
He doesn’t have much use for people, especially those his own age. Which makes college an extremely daunting proposition. He can’t see any point. He doesn’t want to be in that kind of environment, considers it an appalling waste of money, and would really rather just skip it and learn from books. To him, the idea is brilliant. To his parents, not so much.
And then there’s the whole sexuality debate. Suddenly, both of his parents become keenly curious as to his interests. As if knowing he were gay would suddenly answer all questions, solve something, allow them to help him. As if it were so simple.
And he’s alienated one of his only friends. John, who works at his mother’s gallery, and is one of the few people James feels he can talk to, liked to surf the web at the front desk, and wasn’t so good with covering his tracks. After stumbling upon John’s profile on a dating site, James creates John’s ideal mate. Anyone else would have realized, more than likely, what a bad idea this was, but to James it was just fun. A joke. Not to be taken seriously. To John, when James shows up in place of his date at a party, it’s nearly unspeakable. And it leaves James out of a job; fired by his own mother.
His college, or lack thereof, plans are falling to pieces, no one seems to understand him, everyone is hounding him, and now James has only Nanette (his Grandmother) to turn to. Luckily, Nanette is very good with both listening and advice. And she’s right about John coming around. The very next day James gets his job back. And faced with a pleading mother and sister, he even picks up the phone to speak to his future roommate, unsure what else to do.
There might just be hope after all.
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Nick’s been dumped, and he’s not over it. So the last thing he wants to see at the show is his ex walking in with another guy. When ex and said guy are approaching his location at the bar, he panics, turns to the girl next to him, and asks if she’d like to be his girlfriend for the next five minutes. Norah, who has her own set of issues and recent mishaps running through her mind, answers by kissing him, and thus begins their journey.
Told in alternating chapters from Nick and Norah’s point of view, this story follows the path of their all-over-the-place night, from that first kiss, to their first fight, to the seeming end and then their reunion.
I really liked Nick and Norah as characters. They’re both quite real, and you might find yourself nodding your head to some of the things they go through feeling. Fun book to read.
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Craig Gilner has found himself in an awkward place. After achieving his main goal of getting into Executive Pre-Professional High School, he no longer knows what to do with himself. School isn’t what he expected, his friends seem to populate a different world than he does, and nothing seems to interest him. Concluding he’s depressed, he begins a winding road to recovery, at first hopping from therapist to therapist, before finally happening upon one he likes.
Still, things seem unmanageable. At wits end, Craig eventually starts contemplating a flying leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. Luckily, he calls a suicide hotline instead. Living just a few blocks down from a Hospital, he follows the advice of the counselor on the line and walks down to the ER.
Through good intentions and a minor mis-comphrehension, Craig checks himself in, and becomes a Psychiatric Hospital Patient. He’s disinclined to stay, but they promptly show him the admittance sheet he had his mother sign only minutes before, and he settles down to make the best of it.
Along the way he learns quite a bit about himself, other people, and his so-called friends. He forms relationships, falls back into art, which he lost somewhere along the road of growing up. It takes him some time to realize it, even though it’s right in front of his face, but eventually he comes to understand that a large part of the issue is he hasn’t been on the road he really wanted.
While the subject is certainly not to be taken lightly, it is indeed, as it says, kind of a funny story.
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Witch Baby always felt out of place. With her tangled up hair and purple eyes and anger, she was never as soft and gentle as her almost-mom Weetzie, or her half-sister Cherokee. Only Angel Juan could ever make her feel like she belonged. So when he tells her he’s leaving, that he needs to go to New York and be on his own, she can’t understand, and runs away. When she wakes up and realizes she didn’t get to say goodbye, she decides she’s going to follow and look for him.
When no letters follow his first postcard to her, she becomes even more frantic, and knows she has to go. She asks permission to stay in Charlie Bat’s apartment, and sets off for the city.
Upon arrival she metts Meadows and Mallard, two kindly gentlemen who take care of Charlie’s apartment during the year. They take her to dinner, but as it turns out, they’re Ghost Hunters, and are off to Ireland. Witch Baby would wallow in her aloneness, if not for the appearance of a spectral Charlie.
With his help, Witch Baby wanders the city, usually searching for Angel Juan, sometimes sidetracked by her Ghostly Grandfather, but almost always gaining a new appreciation for life.
In the end, she follows her heart, which leads her to Angel Juan, and to some realizations about the dangers of the way she wants to cling to him and keep him to herself.
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Reason Cansino has been magic her whole life, but she’s only know magic was real for 8 days. In that time she’s moved into Sydney to live with her evil grandmother, her mother’s been committed to a “Loony Bin,” and she’s stepped through a door only to wind up on the other side of the world, in New York City.
And if that’s not bad enough, she gets taken in by stories, only to end up in the clutches of her evil Grandfather, who’s worse than her Grandmother, who has to come through the door after her to save her.
Once back on the other side, in Sydney, there’s a lot to think about. Like how magic means insanity or dying young. Whether to accept lessons from a woman she doesn’t trust. The desire to find a way to change things, so that magic doesn’t have to be a curse. But it seems there’s no time for any of that, as the door begins to take on a life of its own, warping, making horrible noises, spitting out weird little creatures who attack the inhabitants of the house, and eventually, sucking Reason straight through.
Back in New York, Reason is the only one who can actually see what’s happening to the door. Which is an impossibly old, and very magic, man, is trying to get through. But she doesn’t know why, or whose side he’s on. With the help of Jay-Tee’s non-magical brother Danny, she investigates on her side, while Jay-Tee, Tom and her Grandmother, Esmerelda, investigate and keep watch on the door from theirs.
Who is this strange half-phantom, half-man? How can he be so old and yet so strong? How can he be related to Reason, Esmerelda, and her Grandfather too? What is the magic he’s given each of them? Will it help Reason to find a way to save them all?
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