Book Review - How to say goodbye in robot

How did I miss this one?  Oh right, it was checked out from my library all the time back in the fall/early winter.  Not surprising, since it has a rad cover and, oh yeah, it name-checks robots.  This is exactly the kind of book I would have looooved as a teenager - a la Chbosky's The Perks of Being A Wallflower - which means that as an adult, I also pretty much loved it.  Mysterious depressed boy?  Check.  Teens with weird film interests (John Waters)?  Check.  Close friendship that's so intense it's more intense than a romance?  Check!

Natalie Standiford's literary YA debut (she also wrote The Dating Game series) had me from the very beginning:

"I turned a corner and came to a small church.  There was a headstone near the path leading to the church's wooden doors.  I stepped closer to read the headstone.  It said FOR THE UNICORN CHILD.  That is so cool, I thought.  What a funky town this was.  I imagined a neighborhood Legend of the Unicorn Child, about a one-horned little boy who'd died tragically, hit by a car or shot by a mugger or maybe poisoned by lawn pesticides.  The story of the Unicorn Child was so real to these people they'd erected a stone in his memory.  Then I read it again.  The stone didn't say FOR THE UNICORN CHILD.  It said FOR THE UNBORN CHILD" (p. 9).

Bea, the narrator, was just the right amount quirky.  Something about her and Ghost Boy's relationship/friendship, at least to me, conjured up Daniel Clowe's Ghost World.  But what I loved about this book was that it wasn't just quirky for the sake of being quirky.  It managed coming-of-age realizations, captured those senior year feeling so well, and squeezed in an interesting mystery too.

I don't know about anyone else out there (okay, I guess I do, since this book had several starred reviews and was a BBYA selection), but I can't wait to see what else Standiford has up her sleeve.

Nerd break

I took a break from reading upcoming and current year YA to read one of last year's BBYA books, Julie Halpern's Into the Wild Nerd Yonder.  And I'm so glad I did.  I met Julie at a conference a few years ago when her first book, Get Well Soon, was just hitting the shelves.  I enjoyed meeting her so much that I bought her book at the conference for myself and read it in one sitting that night.  It was smart and sad and still humorous in moments.  It flew off the shelf at my library and so I was completely excited to get an ARC of her latest book.  But then somehow, I got bogged down in other reading and it got lost in my bookshelf until it was time to move, which is when I found it and put it in my suitcase.

And I'm super glad I did.  I have never really enjoyed a book the way I enjoyed this one.  What I loved most about it was the way it achieved so many things, all in one book.  Moments where I am cracking up so hard I almost pee my pants?  Check.  Touching older brother - younger sister moments?  Check.  Awesome skirt making?  Check.  Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy like everything is right in the world?  Check.

It was such an endearing story with characters that will stick with me for a long time.  I can't believe I didn't read the ARC last summer when I got it, but then I'm so happy I found it so that I could, for one day, just really, really enjoy what I'm reading.  With BFYA picking up steam, it was great to take a break for one day and remind myself what best books for teens are like.  And I've found one of my new favorite YA books to recommend.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled reading.