What We’re Reading

Deadline | Chris Crutcher

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When Ben Wolf goes for his yearly physical prior to Cross-Country season, he gets some rather unexpected news. the worst sort of unexpected news really. But Ben has always felt that he wasn’t meant for a nice, long life on this earth, and takes the news about as in stride as anyone can. His doctor is none to pleased, dragging him to a specialist, and swearing him to twice weekly therapy for his silence and pass on the physical. Ben, being 18, knows the decision is his, and threatens legal action should his family find out.

Instead of returning to Cross-Country, where he’s a shoe-in for the State Title, Ben turns out for football, much to the amusement of the other players, and bemusement of the Coach. For a pint-sized guy, he’s quite the surprise as it turns out. And for a large part of the season, he’s their best-kept secret. The Horseshoe Bend game, which will surely go down in Trout History gives him one of the best moments of his life.

Meanwhile, outside school, he’s somehow landed the girl of his dreams. A thing he’d never conceived as a possibility. But dying made him bold. And is now tearing him to pieces. Not only does she like him, she forsees a future with him. One he won’t be there for. She tells him so secrets so huge he knows he should reciprocate, and yet by that time it seems too late.

The more the year progresses, the more Ben finds that attempting normalcy when the reality is anything but really wasn’t a good idea. And they tried to tell him. The doctor, the therapist, the next therapist, Hey-Soos. heck, even town drunk Rudy McCoy has confided an earth-shattering secret in him, and he still can’t get the guts to come clean.

He does though. Starting with Rudy, as it happens. And then Coach. And Cody.

Sometimes it goes much better than he could hoped. Sometimes it’s about the worst thing ever. Dying aside. Worse than that, even.

While it would seem that this would be a sad tale and a depressing read, it was uplifting throughout and largely funny, with its supremely serious interludes thrown in at just the right junctures. Definitely a recommended read for all.

Wicked Lovely | Melissa Marr

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Aislinn has had the Sight all her life, and it’s always been something she’s feared. But when the glowing Keenan approaches her, in full glamour, in a place most faeries can’t enter, her fear achieves a whole new level. Overhearing the deathly-looking girl outside tell her to run while she can didn’t do much to help either, since she wasn’t supposed to be able to hear it anyway. When the fey start treading ground on her safe places, following her, showing up at school, at the train yard, leaving her no safe haven, she knows she can’t take it any more. Her Grams, always protective, is going to lock her in the house at the rate things are progressing, but she can’t hide the truth forever either. Still, she’s determined to try it her own way first.

While originally repulsed by Keenan when he first approached her, she was also inexplicably drawn to him, and it’s become clear he isn’t going to go away. Inside school or out, he’s a constant presence, and the effort to ignore him, not to touch him, is becoming too much. Time to change the rules a little. Try it a new way. Try playing friendly and find out what they want. So long as her Sight stays hidden, she can even spy for herself, eavesdropping on invisible faeries who assume they can’t be seen or heard.

Unable to go it alone, Aislinn has confided in Seth. Afraid she’d lose him, that he wouldn’t be able to believe her, she was much relieved when he took the news in stride. Still newly aware of this other world, Seth, her best friend (and more if she were to be honest with herself) is not entirely keen on her plan, but agrees to go along. So long as part of the plan is attempting to get him the Sight as well, so he can better assist.

Unfortunately, as well as Ash’s plan works, or seems to, it also changes everything. While pretending to give Keenan what he wants, she is giving him what he wants. From the moment she was chosen, her mortality began to slip away, and after a night of fey revelry and good, she can no longer pretend she doesn’t see it. How she’s becoming like him.

Desperate to find a way to undo it, Ash turns to Donia, the Winter Girl, hoping for an answer she knows doesn’t exist. And Donia can only confirm her worst fears. She has only two choices. Summer Girl, or Summer Queen. And she’s begun to feel it. She knows she’s her. So how to coexist? How to be what Keenan needs, and not lose everything she loves?

The stakes grow even more dire when the Winter Queen takes Seth captive. When Ash learns that her mother had also been chosen by Keenan, and rather than face the choice, made an even more drastic decision. A decision she knows won’t save her. All she can do is accept who she is, and make the best of it. Do what no girl before has. Meet Keenan half way. Bring her own demands to the table. As a job, Summer Queen seems feasible. Overwhelming, but potentially even fun.

This is a really interesting new twist on the Faery Tale, and I really enjoyed reading it, even with all the heart-wrenching, not knowing what would become of Aislinn and Seth when all was said and done. Highly recommended.

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The Night my Sister went Missing | Carol Plum-Ucci

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It was just another dune party on a slow night in Mystic…until Casey Carmody went missing off the side of the pier and no one was sure whether she’d been shot or not. Suddenly everything was a question and all the gossip was hot.

Stuck at the Police Station waiting for his parents’ flight to get in, Kurt Carmody was helpless. So he did the only thing he could: eavesdropped with his best friend on the statements given by their friends. An experience that turned out to be more eye-opening than he’d expected…and not in the ways he’d expected.

By the end of the night, his sister’s story had become hopelessly entangled with that of Stacy Kearney, another Island girl, and Kurt didn’t know if he’d be able to save either of them. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

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