Darkness Becomes Her

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton
Simon Pulse, 2011
288 pages
approximate age level: 13+

Ari hasn’t had an easy life growing up in foster care or being ostracized at school because of her teal eyes and strange silver hair that always regrows every time she tries to cut it. So when she finally graduates high school, Ari doesn’t decide travel or head to college like most teens, but instead tries to find out answers about her past. Her first stop is the mental institution where her mother tragically killed herself when Ari was just a baby and in her mother's small box of possessions, Ari finds a note warning her an unnamed evil is after her and telling her to run. When a strange warrior attacks her with a sword in broad daylight, Ari knows that she needs answers about her past, and fast, and the only place she can find the answers is New 2, a rebuilt New Orleans with its own dark secrets.

Darkness Becomes Her is a fast moving fantasy and draws readers in almost immediately as the main mystery is introduced on the first page – Ari, herself. Ari is a relatable heroine: she's strong-willed, brave, and she can really throw a punch, yet she's not above getting butterflies in her stomach over a handsome guy. We root for her in her quest for the truth about her past and though she makes some decisions that would never be wise in the real world, like heading off alone to a dangerous city, she’s resourceful and self-assured and still a good role model for teen girls.

In addition, New 2 is a captivating setting and Keaton masterfully creates a sense of believable wonder and foreboding. Fans of supernatural romance will enjoy the large cast of mythical characters that appear, as everything from Greek gods to werewolves and vampires enter the plot with various agendas. There’s never a dull moment since whole book takes place in something like a week, but this quick time frame makes the strong relationships that develop between Ari and the kids she meets in New 2 a bit unbelievable.

Darkness Becomes Her ends with a satisfying conclusion, but there are plenty of loose ends left and readers will be anxious for the sequel, A Beautiful Evil, which is set to be released in February, 2012.

Official Book Trailer:

Read-alike Suggestions:

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Welcome to Bordertown edited by Holly Black

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Pretty Dead by Francesca Lia Block

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books, 2011
352 pages
approximate age: 12+

Sixteen year old Jacob is at the point in his life where he's ready to face adulthood, and for him that means at last acknowledging that all the fanciful stories his grandfather told him about his grandfather's adolescence in a orphanage with a group of children that each had extraordinary powers are indeed make-believe. Of course they were just fairy tales -- this is the real world and physics-defying children simply do not exist and believing in them is not rational, not normal, and not cool. But then something terrible happens to Grandpa Portman and Jacob is sure he sees the monster, yes real-life monster, responsible -- a twist of fate that turns all his well-ordered adult logic on its head and leads him back to one question -- what if the stories were real? Only a trip to the small, desolate Welsh island that was once home to Grandpa Portman and the other peculiar orphans may hold the answers Jacob needs to solve the mystery about his grandfather's life once and for all. But Jacob is not the only one hunting Miss Peregrine's Home and its inhabitants, and danger is much closer than Jacob could possibly know.

Miss Peregrine Home for Peculiar Children is a tightly woven fantasy/mystery that combines the whimsical with the delightfully creepy. Peppered throughout the book are photographs of the children and Miss Peregrine, the orphanage's head, and the photos' antiquated appearance along with their frequently bizarre compositions can really send chills up readers' spines. Unbelievably, since the pictures blend-in perfectly with the story, they are all real vintage photographs that Riggs was lent from collectors, which makes them even more thought-provoking and disturbing.

In addition, the elements of the fantastical in the novel blend well with Jacob's regular-guy character. Beginning the book in a familiar setting causes the transition into the strange island of the orphans to be even more magical because it has roots in a world we know all too well. Readers will want to be in Jacob's shoes as he discovers these amazing boys and girls, not stuck in their dull, ordinary lives.

There is also an aura of mystery that spans the entire book. At first readers are curious about Jacob's grandfather's stories. Are they entirely real? Does the grandfather really have something to fear as he believes? And then, when readers find the wonderful orphanage they wonder if the orphans are all they seem -- or is their something dark lurking behind their smiles? Is an unnamed threat really after them? Is it after Jacob, too? Just when readers think they've answered one question, Riggs gives them three more to ponder as they feverishly turn the pages.

Finally, the ending is satisfying, yet open for a much hoped for sequel. With no explicit sexuality or violence, librarians should feel comfortable freely recommending this book to middle and high school students.


Official Book Trailer:



Read-alike suggestions:

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

The Glass Demon by Helen Grant

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Slice of Cherry

Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves
published by Simon Pulse, 2011
512 pages
approximate age range: 15+

Two teenage sisters growing into young women, learning about themselves and each other, discovering love -- it seems like a story told a thousand times before. But, now add in a serial killer father in prison, magic, the ability to transport themselves and others to another dimension, torture, and death -- lots of death -- and you'll find Slice of Cherry is like nothing you've ever read. Sisters Kit and Fancy are outsiders in the town of Portero, a crazy magical place full of portals to other worlds and fearsome monsters. Their father is the notorious Bonesaw Killer who was finally convicted and sentenced after the multiple murders he committed stunned the town. Shunned by their community, Kit and Fancy create their own world, one in which they begin to follow in their father's bloody footsteps, but unlike daddy dearest, they decide to choose victims who are not innocent, people they feel are worthy of death. The sisters also discover that with a special gadget they find in their basement, they can create their own dimension, a place where they are queens and can change anything just by wishing it -- a perfect place to hide the corpses of their victims. Kit and Fancy are an unstoppable team, but when Kit falls hard for a local boy with his own secrets and Fancy feels abandoned, can they survive each other?

Slice of Cherry is not for the faint of heart -- or faint of stomach. Kit and Fancy really learned a lot from their serial killer dad, and Reeves has no problem describing just how much the apples fall near the tree. Their kills are rendered in detail, and not all victims are really worthy of their gruesome deaths. Consequently, Kit and Fancy are not exactly likeable heroines. Though they are interesting, their psychology, especially why they feel inclined to kill, is touched on, but not explored in-depth, and we remain on the surface of their lives rather than inside their heads. The excerpts from Fancy's dream diary that begin each chapter do let us see a little of Fancy's motivations, but it is not a thorough picture and we never get in Kit's head at all. Though Reeves sets high expectations with her unique premise, she does not quite deliver as we never really connect with or understand Fancy and Kit and they continue to feel foreign.

Moreover, there are lots of wonky and disturbing scenes that keep the reader's interest, but many seem to come out of nowhere are are not explained beyond the assertion that anything can happen in Portero (Reeves fans may remember Portero as it is also the setting to her first novel Bleeding Violet). Moreover, though Kit and Fancy grow as characters, their change is tied almost solely to their relationships with boys, which seems like a dubious message to send to young girls.

However, though it has faults, Slice of Cherry is still a fun and intriguing read. Full of humorous moments, in addition to the gore, readers oscillate between gags and laughs. All the Portero weirdness also makes it impossible to guess what will happen next, and ensures Slice of Cherry will be painful to put down. When recommending, note that both sisters engage in sexual relationships that are treated positively and as natural for teenagers, as in Bleeding Violet.


Read-alike suggestions:

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

Lips Touch: Three Times edited by Laini Taylor and Jim DiBartolo

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

House of Many Ways

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
published by Greenwillow Books, 2008
416 pages
approximate age range: 10+

Charmain Baker has led a very proper -- and very dull -- life doing only very proper things with very proper people. Well, up until now, that is. When her imposing great aunt Sempronia asks Charmain to house sit for her Great Uncle William, the royal wizard of High Norland, Charmain realized this is finally her chance to get out from under her mother's thumb and experience a bit more out of life. But Charmain, whose extracurricular activities to date have only involved reading books, has no idea how much her life will change from the moment she walks in the door of Great Uncle William's magical maze of a house, a strange place where one single doorway leads to a vast number of rooms and other places throughout High Norland. From her first day on the job Charmain immediately finds herself doing things she has never done before -- caring for a loveable, but peculiar, stray dog named Waif, attempting to do magic herself, squaring off against an evil beast called a lubbock, preventing an apprentice wizard, Peter, from making a giant mess wit another bad spell, and even -- Charmain can hardly believe it -- washing dishes and doing laundry. Charmain's life gets even more exciting when she is offered an additional position as a library assistant to the king and she is thrown into a nefarious royal intrigue involving a great deal of missing gold and a mysterious elf gift. With the help of Sophie Pendgragon, Wizard Howl, and fire demon Calcifer, who are already on the case, Charmain must discover how the secrets of Great Uncle William's house connect to the mystery at the castle before all of High Norland falls into the hands of something truly evil.

If you've read Howl's Moving Castle or watched the Miyazaki anime of the same name, then you have already met Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer and discovered what sorts of hilarious and exciting adventures they often find themselves in. Yet, even if you haven't a clue what a fire demon even is, Charmain's story works so perfectly as a standalone tale that you won't even realize you're reading a sequel. Wynne Jones really creates a world that you won't want to leave -- one that is both believable and magical, a quirky place where you will alternate from pausing in peals of laughter, to frantically turning pages to see what happens next. Teens will love spunky Charmain and appreciate House's fast pace and short, kookily-titled chapters. The anime tie-in can be a real plus for recruiting hesitant readers, especially if they are manga fans. In addition, audiobook listeners are in for a real treat as reader Jenny Sterlin is so skilled at creating different voices for each character you'll feel like you're listening to a full cast.


Read-alike suggestions:

Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

The Gates by John Connolly

The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin
published by Ballantine Books, 2010

784 pages

approximate age range: 15+

Technically this book contains vampires. Technically. But none of them are named Edward, none of them sparkle, and no one is falling in love with them. Not even a little bit. Spanning almost a hundred years, The Passage is a prodigious epic that takes us through America as it descends into a devastating cataclysm and then follows survivors trying to build lives in a horrifying post-apocalyptic world. At the beginning we meet Amy, a normal 6 year old who is living an impoverished life with her mother who loves her, but does not have the means to care for her. We also meet Wolgast, an FBI agent with nothing to lose since the death of his daughter and his divorce. These two are thrown together when Wolgast is assigned to bring Amy to a secret facility in Colorado where military scientists are working on Project Noah, a series of experiments involving infecting death row inmates with a virus from the jungles of South America in the hopes of making them into the ultimate weapons -- soldiers that have super strength and live forever. Not surprisingly this research does not go according to plan and the unstoppable vampire-like creatures that the scientists have created escape, killing or infecting everyone in their path and bringing forth the demise of an entire nation, and possibly, the entire world.

For teens that like being completely immersed in a world, getting to know a handful of characters, and following them on their journeys, The Passage will be a satisfying and engaging read. While the novel starts off with a lot of action, the pace slows throughout the middle of the work, becoming more of a character study than a thriller. At over 750 pages, this is a long book, and as Cronin has noted, The Passage is the first in a trilogy, so there is much more to come. Consequently, readers who love engrossing themselves in books and have hearty attention spans will enjoy this saga and appreciate Cronin's detailed timeline and attention to creating very realistic and relatable characters.

However, many readers may feel that The Passage is simply too long and would benefit from having a few hundred pages edited out. The middle of the book moves slowly, turning immediately from an adventure tale that takes place during the heart of an apocalypse to a slow story about a town of survivors 90 years later, their thoughts and feelings, and how they formed a society in a drastically different world. It is not until the last third of the work that the action picks up again and re-energizes readers, by which time it may be too late for many teens. Another post-apocalyptic book like Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin would be a better bet for most teens as it contains many of the same scenarios and themes (a town of people alone in a desolate world overrun by monsters, the struggles survivors face daily, how they have formed a new society when the world was destroyed), yet the pacing is much quicker, the action is more frequent, and the dedication needed to finish it is much smaller (Rot and Ruin is only 480 pages).

Still, don't be daunted in recommending this book to interested teens. While the action in The Passage does get a bit bloody at times, not surprising when murderous vampires are on the loose, it never becomes overly graphic. In addition, while sexual relationships are discussed, they also remain more hinted at than explicitly described and though mature themes are brought forth through secondary characters who, for instance, have pasts laced with murder, pedophilia, and rape, for the most part the particulars of these events are not discussed in detail.

Cronin has mentioned in interviews that a sequel is on its way, though his most hopeful estimate of its release date is 2013, so fans who want to learn what happens after The Passage's cliffhanger ending will have a long wait ahead of them.

The Passage has an official website with news, video, and even an I-Phone app: http://enterthepassage.com/

There is also a book trailer:

Read-alike suggestions:

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

The Walking Dead graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Alice in Zombieland

Alice in Zombieland by Nickolas Cook and Lewis Carroll
published by Sourcebooks, 2011
256 pages
approximate age range: 12+

You know this story, of course: once upon a time Alice was dreadfully bored and so followed a talking black rat down an empty grave and ended up in a horrific world where almost everyone was dead, or undead, or on their way to being one or the other. Wait, that doesn't sound quite right, does it? In this tongue in cheek parody of the well-known classic, Nickolas Cook lets his dark imagination run wild while sticking to most of the events of the original, but with a few twists of course -- Lewis Carroll probably never imagined his sweet heroine as a zombie herself with a strong craving for the flesh of Wonderland's inhabitants.

"'... How are you getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.

'Hungry -- I mean as wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone: 'it doesn't seem to dry me at all.'
The Dodo looked her over humorlessly, his little eyes staring at her wilting hair and pale skin.
Alice's brow furrowed in aggravation and she was about to say something, but as she opened her mouth to speak, one of her teeth tumbled from her mouth, and she was so disturbed to see it fall to the ground, she kept her mouth close-lipped from that moment on. Her hair was falling out, and now her teeth, too? Alice felt a chill wash over her that could not be blamed solely on being soaking wet."

Despite having been written over 150 years ago, Alice in Wonderland is still a popular work today, having spawned movies, miniseries, comics, and various re-workings, such as Frank Beddor's Looking Glass Wars series. Teens will enjoy seeing a story they've grown up with mutated into a gross-out zombie parody that still maintains the basic structure of Carroll's tale. The original illustrations by John Tenniel are also slightly, but skillfully, redone, now containing extra gore, insanity, and un-death, making them quite amusing for readers with strong stomachs. While not startling unique, Alice in Zombieland is a fun romp and a quick read that will swing delighted readers from amusement to horror to disgust and back again.

Read-alike suggestions:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith

Breathers: A Zombie's Lament by S. G. Browne

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Pretty Monsters

Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link
published by Viking Juvenile, 2008
400 pages
approximate age range: 13+

What sort of tales would a collection contain if it were written with a sly smile and only during the witching hours of moonless nights? When reading Pretty Monsters, it's easy to imagine author Kelly Link spinning these stories for us from a distant world, like a mischievous fairy godmother crafting the perfect bedtime stories for her beloved, and slightly twisted, charges. For instance, within Pretty Monsters readers will gleefully meet a plethora of intriguing characters such as: a hapless poet who digs up the wrong grave and finds himself unable to escape its curious and lovely undead occupant; sisters who find that their awesome new baby sitter might not be an entirely normal, or living, young woman; a fan of a fantastical tv show who makes a surprising discovery that his favorite fantasy world may not be the imaginative fiction its viewers have believed it to be; and a girl who searches for her late aunt's lost furry handbag that magically holds a demon dog and an entire town.

Though its content may be difficult to briefly describe to prospective readers, Pretty Monsters is an engaging collection of deliciously bizarre, enchanting, and wholly creative short stories that will ensnare anyone who loves magical realism, curious events, and subtle doses of the supernatural. Many stories begin somewhat normally with characters and situations that seem perfectly reasonable, but then Link weaves her spell and each narrative quietly, but surely, turns to something that readers cannot possibly expect, but will delight them just the same. Link's storytelling skills and her use of language are exquisite and though Pretty Monsters is often labeled as teen fiction for its plucky young protagonists, it can easily charm older readers as well.

Read-alike suggestions:

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender

Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories by Diana Wynne Jones