Tag: Young Adult

6 Books I’d Love to See as Television Series

Published on by Makayla AysienLeave a comment

It is not often that I find myself thinking “I’d like to see that on the screen!” Most of the books I have read fit into three categories: so good that the film would mess it up; so important that transforming into film would be unethical; or so terrible that no money, time, or effort should be wasted on this story. Occasionally, however, a story takes on a unique, colorful, and euphoric sort of life in my mind and I quickly fall into the belief that creating this visual experience in film would be a thing of cathartic beauty which would leave viewers breathless—and in this breathlessness, they would examine their own lives and improve upon them. That might be a bit idealistic, so, at the very least, I am talking about my own self-improvement. The following six books are the handful that I would watch as a television series in a heartbeat.

Cemetery Boys—Aiden Thomas. Cemetery Boys follows Yadriel, a young transgender boy born into a Latinx family of the brujx community in East Los Angeles. Brujx is the all-encompassing word for a community of brujos and brujas, which is a Spanish word generally translated as a sorcerer. When young brujos and brujas in the community come of age, they perform a ritual to gain their powers, which differentiate based upon gender. Yadriel, who was assigned the biological sex of female at birth, wants to prove that he is actually a young man by performing this ritual. After this, Yadriel goes to find the ghost that murdered his cousin, but in the process, he accidentally summons the spirit of Julian Diaz, one of his classmates. As the novel unfolds, the characters work to solve a mystery, an adorable love story takes place, and we grapple with the question of what a family truly is. 

This entire book is set to the backdrop of magic and colorful imagery, which I imagine people in the film industry would trip over to create. There are far too many neutral tones and darkness in television, but this book would take something that could be darkly lit and place pops of color and life everywhere. Besides that fact that it would be visually appealing, this book has LGBTQ+ representation written literally everywhere. It isn’t the kind of story that awkwardly sticks a gay best friend in the corner as an afterthought. The author of Cemetery Boys and all of the main characters are a part of the LGBTQ+ community, so the audience is made aware of real issues that far too many of them face, including homelessness and rejection by their family. What I especially love about this book, however, isn’t simply that the author raises these issues, but that they show a possible world where they find people who love them and those who were previously opposed grow to become accepting. This is the kind of sweet magic we should be putting on our screens.

Girls Save the World in This One—Ash Parsons. June has been obsessed with zombie films her whole life, especially a zombie apocalypse show called Human Wasteland and its dreamy lead character. When she and her two best friends head to ZombieCon to meet him and other prominent actors from zombie-themed films, she is ecstatic. When they arrive, however, some of the fans are acting a bit off. Before they know it, chaos breaks out and June discovers that it’s because real zombies are taking over ZombieCon. June must do everything she can to save her and her friends from the zombies, relying on the skills she has learned as such an avid fan. Along the way, she meets the star of Human Wasteland, and she learns what it means to be a leader in an unlikely situation. 

This is exactly the kind of hilarious, light nonsense I would love to see as a limited series. None of that Marvel-women-coming-together-in-one-scene-as-a-forced-show-of-feminism nonsense. The prospect of this show is giving off the vibes of Netflix’s new show “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window”. It’s the perfect satire of those popular zombie shows, while also being powerful, sweet, and relatable (at least in the sense that an avid fan has wished for something like this to actually happen).

Macbeth—William Shakespeare. This play follows the titular character Macbeth on his quest to amass more power and take over as Scotland’s ruler. Persuaded by his wife, Lady Macbeth—and his own ambition—he sets out to obtain this position by any means necessary. Interwoven into the story are themes of love, murder, prophecy, and paranoia, as well as questions about proper gender dynamics, what it takes to be a good leader, why we seek power, and how we should seek power. 

Like many other Shakespeare plays, Macbeth has made it to the big screen many times, the most recent being at the end of 2021 with Denzel Washington playing Macbeth. Call me critical or filled with hubris, but I believe that we should give Macbeth more than a two hour movie. At the very least, it deserves to be a limited series so that we can properly explore the intricacies of this play. There is so much to unpack, and I haven’t seen a single rendition that fully encompasses this story. They’re either lacking the philosophical questions Shakespeare poses about how power corrupts and how a good ruler is made, or they play too far into modern notions of entertainment: blood, drama, sex, and violence (which is ironic because that is exactly what Macbeth covers in the play). Macbeth shouldn’t simply serve as entertainment. It should shock people so deeply that they begin to understand how malleable human nature is and undertake a strengthening of their own character. 

Ash Princess—Laura Sebastian. Ash Princess, which is now a finished trilogy, follows Theodosia, a young woman whose country was taken over when she was a child. She is forced to live among her captors, enduring abuse and ridicule. That is, until a series of events forces her to choose between continuing this life and fighting to regain her and her country’s freedom. This story raises themes of imperialism, colonization, and slavery. In typical Young Adult Fantasy fashion, these characters have powers, Theodosia herself having her own unique force. 

I thought the book series was excellent, but I did think there could have been more detailed storylines. In my vision of a television series adaptation, this story would not stay so much in the Young Adult genre. It would expand on the effects of colonization, and Theodosia would be less whiny. The books spend far too much time on her love triangle, and they don’t adequately show the strength that someone in her position and making those choices would require. In at least five seasons, I can see this story being the next Game of Thrones. 

Second First Impressions—Sally Thorne. Ruthie Midona likes to play it safe. She has a stable job, and her appearance is an absolute paradox—she is a young woman, but she dresses as if she were an elderly lady. Moreover, she works at a retirement villa called Providence. When Teddy Prescott enters her life, he is everything she is not: a motorcycle-riding, tattooed young man who has trouble committing to much of anything. He is everything she wants, though. When Teddy’s father, the owner of Providence, has him live on site with Ruthie and the other residents, Ruthie tries her best to avoid falling in love with him. He’ll be gone soon enough anyway. However, Teddy’s charm and persistence makes her efforts impossible. Every single character, not just Ruthie and Teddy, has a unique and quirky personality that everyone is sure to enjoy. 

When I imagine the setting of this novel, it brings me great peace. In my mind, the cottages of Providence are sporadically placed amid a giant garden-like plot of land. A staple of the novel is also the tiny, endangered turtles that wander around the grounds. This beautiful setting, as well as the eccentric characters that fill the novel, would create a fabulous limited series of absolute hilarity and romance. 

We Were Liars—E. Lockhart. This book follows Cadence, a member of the wealthy Sinclair family who spends their summer vacations on a private island with large estates, one for each little family. When Cadence is fifteen, she suffers a head injury, but doesn’t quite know how this happened to her. Over the next few years, she receives little communication from her two cousins and friend, who she normally spends the summers with. When she finally returns to the island, everyone seems a bit off, and she is pushed to uncover what actually happened to her when she was fifteen. This novel is filled with mystery and frustration over unnecessary wealth and class differences. In a shocking twist at the end (one that had me screaming in my car because I was listening to the audiobook), we are forced to think about how our actions can have severe consequences, even when they begin from someplace righteous. 

This would make an excellent limited series. It’s energetic, exciting, and traumatizing. The setting of a private island during summer would give us so many beautiful scenes. Most of all, I want to see this on the screen because it calls attention to wealth and class disparities, how money can corrupt our personalities, and how it can misguide even the best of our intentions. This is the kind of story humanity needs in order to see the true effect of our actions and become more conscious of our choices. 

An Exploration of Trauma Through YA Novels

Published on by Makayla AysienLeave a comment

“My stars shine darkly over me. The malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours. Therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.”

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 2.1.3–7

Content Warning: This article contains descriptions of domestic abuse, trauma, and suicide. Please continue reading with caution, and take care of yourselves.

People often talk about each other’s pain and trauma in the simplistic language of platitudes and clichés. Sometimes it’s because they don’t understand what another is going through, and other times they simply want another to feel better. Verbalizing assurance and love and thoughtfulness toward someone in this sort of situation is incredibly difficult, and it rarely helps to the degree which we intend. The truth is that most of us don’t possess the emotional tools to help others fix their lives or reframe how they perceive reality, and regardless of if we’ve endured something similar ourselves, we can never fully understand each other’s trauma. Sometimes, whether we are the person impacted by some trauma or the outsider watching its impact, we have to sit in our own misery, because there is nothing else we can do.

In this article, I will discuss two Young Adult books that examine trauma in the lives of two young women. The first, Sparrow, by Mary Cecilia Jackson, tells the story of the lives of the titular character Sparrow and her friend Lucas, before and after she experiences a brutal domestic attack by the hands of her boyfriend Tristan. The second, And We Stay, by Jenny Hubbard, intertwines the present experiences of the narrator Emily Beam with flashbacks of her life mere months before when a series of events led to the death of her boyfriend Paul. In considering these two books, we situate trauma amid the lives of two teenage girls and observe how each deals with her circumstances. As such, we see both the loneliness of pain and the delicate, slow inner strength that emerges from each of them. The quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which Sparrow also quotes, helps reflect the unique tones of these books. 

Sparrow is split into the perspectives of Savannah Darcy Rose—or Sparrow, as everyone calls her—and her friend Lucas before and after she is attacked, which depicts both someone enduring trauma and a loved one watching this pain fundamentally change the life of someone they deeply care about. Sparrow and Lucas are two talented ballet dancers who are made pas de deux partners for an upcoming performance of Swan Lake. I stumbled into this novel after searching “YA Romance” in a library database. This was one of the results, and I quickly checked it out without reading the description after I saw the tutu on the cover and my obsession with ballet got the best of me. Boy, was I shocked.

Sparrow begins a romance with Tristan, a popular boy in her class. He sweeps her off her feet with his gentleness and sweetness. She feels seen for the first time, and this is only intensified by the fact that Tristan enjoys great popularity among their peers. She quickly falls in love with him, and other people and commitments begin to slowly fade into the background.

When Lucas discovers this, he tries to tell Sparrow that Tristan isn’t the kind of person she thinks he is. He is mean and violent and gets away with anything he pleases because he has a rich and powerful father. Sparrow, newly in love, takes his warnings as signs of jealousy, but it quickly becomes apparent that Tristan is everything Lucas depicted him as, if not worse. He becomes dominating toward Sparrow, behavior that soon devolves into possessiveness and verbal abuse toward her. Not long after that, he starts physically abusing her.

Sparrow hides the truth from everybody. She lies to her family and friends, even when her injuries are obvious. She persuades herself that Tristan loves her; he can’t control his temper, and it was her fault for enabling it. She cuts herself off from everyone who truly loves her, until, one night, after suggesting to Tristan that they take a break from their relationship to focus on preparing for important upcoming events—her Swan Lake performance and his college applications—he becomes angrier than he has ever been with Sparrow. He takes her to a deserted location, hurts her until she is nearly dead, then deserts her. 

Sparrow is found and taken to the hospital, where she begins a long road to recovery. Her physical state is so damaged that even after months, she looks like a completely different person. Her mental state is even worse. She won’t speak to anybody. When her family takes her to see a therapist, she won’t even speak with her. 

Lucas is forced to stay on the sidelines as he watches Sparrow’s entire life fall apart. He cares for her deeply and wants to help fix her life, but he finds himself restrained by her refusal to speak with him and prove that Tristan was the one that attacked her. He begins his own self-destructive path that forces him to confront his own capacities for bringing about justice. 

After much time passes, Sparrow begins to open up to her therapist. Sparrow had prided herself as not being the girl who tells about the personal demons of others, but she learns that we don’t have to hold ourselves responsible for protecting those who hurt us. Our trauma is our trauma, and we deserve to treat ourselves with that recognition. In being honest with others, we can open ourselves up to being honest with ourselves. We don’t have to hide behind the experiences of other people because our reality is not less important than another’s.

And We Stay takes a slightly different perspective in focusing on the perspective of only one character: Emily Beam. Emily lives in a small town with her family, and her and her boyfriend Paul are coming to the end of their high school experience. Their lives are lightly infused with Christianity, though it becomes clear that both Emily and Paul have troubles with faith. Emily unexpectedly becomes pregnant, but she doesn’t want to keep the baby. She has dreams of attending Harvard, and having a baby would end those ambitions.

Paul, on the other hand, wants her to keep the baby. He thinks having an abortion is wrong and selfish. When Emily decides to break up with Paul, he is devastated. He tries to convince her to get back together—that they should even get married and start a family together. In a desperate attempt to change the situation, Paul brings a gun to school. Throughout the entire book, each character who knew Paul, even Emily, held the belief that Paul had never intended to hurt anybody. He had simply wanted things to go back to the way they were. In a panic, Paul used the gun to commit suicide.

After witnessing this, Emily’s parents pull her out of school. They help her get an abortion, then send her off to a boarding school. Emily meets a few nice people—her roommate K.T. and her French teacher Madame Colche. Her closest companions, however, are Emily Dickinson and her poetry, our Emily’s own poetry, and herself. Emily Beam, who had not written much in the way of poetry in the past, finds herself filled with words that she must form into poems. She writes poetry about Paul, her abortion, and her new life at boarding school. 

What is especially striking about And We Stay is the odd way that the reader feels like they are watching a story unfold through foggy glass. We see the remnants of what happened to Emily, and we hear memories of her past, but it reads exactly as one might recall a memory: short, dark, and undetailed. We don’t know a great deal about her emotional states, which makes me wonder if the author has forced the audience to feel like Lucas in Sparrow: the helpless friend who can guess what is going on in their friend’s mind, but isn’t privy to their entire reality. 

I spent the entire novel wondering why Jenny Hubbard named it And We Stay. The reasons are undoubtedly multifaceted, but one that I came away with is the dual nature of “staying,” both concerning people who have endured trauma and those who know someone who has endured trauma. Emily had people around her who stayed: her parents, her friends, her teachers, and Paul’s family. Some of these people were just around Emily, unaware of her past, but nonetheless loving and kind. While they did not step in and actively fix Emily’s life, their presence helped Emily live through her trauma. However, despite their assistance, in many ways Emily was the only person to help herself. She was the one who had to live with these experiences, who had replayed them over and over in her mind, who had to rebuild some semblance of herself and move on to live. In her own way, consciously or unconsciously, Emily decided to stay. 

While Sparrow and And We Stay depict traumatic events, they do so in such a light and gentle way that the entire experience felt like watching a feather float slowly downward. That might speak to the YA genre, but I would also argue that it speaks to the common and persistent nature of trauma. Trauma doesn’t go away easily, if ever. It lives with us, and we are forced to shape our lives and personalities around it. Moreover, I chose these books to discuss because I wanted to recognize that trauma doesn’t always need to be confronted with a loud voice or a show of having overcome such an event. As cathartic as that may be, we must also recognize that we can and more often confront trauma internally, silently, or alone. Strength doesn’t only emerge from brute force. Sometimes, we are the only ones who know about our own strength, and sometimes, we are the only person who decides to stay for ourself. I think human relationships are absolutely beautiful, but in no way can I deny that the most important relationship from which all other relational beauty emerges is the one we keep with ourself.

5 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for YA Lovers

Published on by Paul StantonLeave a comment

Of all genres, science fiction and fantasy most closely match the wild exuberance and sense of wonder that makes young adult fiction so enjoyable. But when new readers are introduced to these genres, they are often recommended the first 600 page tome in a series written by an old white guy with a beard. And while there’s nothing wrong with those epics (if that’s your thing), they are certainly not the only books these genres have to offer.

Here is a list of science fiction and fantasy titles that explore the themes of self-discovery and growing up YA readers will find comfortingly familiar, but feature styles, ideas, and worlds that YA readers will find enticingly novel.

These are some of my very favorites, and I hope you enjoy them!

Spinning Silver—Naomi Novik. The winters in Lithvas are getting longer, the harvests poorer. But Miryem Mandelstam, despite her youth, is keeping her family fed, clothed, and sheltered. She has taken over her father’s failing moneylending business and rebuilt it. But one day, proud of her success, she unwisely brags that she can “turn silver into gold.” Word of this brag reaches the Staryk—the strange and cruel winter fae who inhabit Lithvas’ woods. They take her brag literally, and show up at her doorstep with fairy silver, expecting gold in return. If she fails this impossible task, Miryem knows the Staryk will kill her, but even if she succeeds, the strange kindnesses of the fae may be more terrible than their wrath.

A new take on a classic fairy story, Spinning Silver is equal parts clever, romantic, and terrifying.

Trigger Warning(s): This book is written from a Jewish perspective and deals frankly with the history of antisemitism in Eastern Europe.

Parable of the Sower—Octavia E. Butler. In a future United States ravaged by climate change and capitalism (not too dissimilar from our current reality), teenaged Lauren Oya Olamina keeps a journal of her life. She had been blessed (cursed?) with the ability of hyper-empathy, which forces her to share the sensations of people around her. Hyper-empathy can be quite deadly to those who suffer from it in this violence-plagued world. Lauren must struggle to survive and grow, always seeking a place where she and her loved ones can be safe.

A decade before dystopian novels would become a trope of YA fiction, Parable of the Sower invented many of the conventions that would later become staples of the subgenre.

Trigger Warning(s): This book depicts a collapsing society. It contains depictions of violence, including racist and sexual violence.

Trail of Lightning—Rebecca Roanhorse. After a great flood, most of the world is underwater, but Dinétah—traditional homeland of the Diné (Navajo) bordered by four sacred mountains—has survived, becoming an independent nation in the post-apocalyptic world. The flood that obliterated most of the world brought back magic with it, and monsters. On Maggie Hoskie’s sixteenth birthday her grandmother is murdered and her home destroyed by a witch. This traumatic event activates her magic powers, inherited from her ancestral clans. Her magic attracts the attention of the demigod monster-slayer Neizghání, who agrees to train her in his craft. Filled with sorrow and a lust for vengeance, Maggie sets out on a quest to defend the people of Dinétah from monsters, by any means necessary.

A bold work of fantasy that blends tropes from the mythic and urban subgenres in a way I’ve ever seen before, Trail of Lightning is unputdownable.

Trigger Warning(s): This book deals frankly with violence and its aftereffects, including PTSD.

An Unkindness of Ghosts—Rivers Solomon. The survivors of Earth set out many years ago on the colossal spaceship Matilda towards a new planet. In the generations since its launch, society in the Matilda has stratified into a racial caste system reminiscent of an antebellum Southern plantation. Aster Gray is a healer born into a life of slavery on the lower decks. From her secret laboratory in a long abandoned part of the ship, she researches the journals her mother left behind before her death 25 years ago. Hidden in their pages may lie the secret to understanding her own history and how it entwines with the future of this broken ark. Or perhaps all she will find are ghosts.

A bleak, lyrical meditation on intergenerational trauma and claiming life amidst a system of racial oppression, An Unkindness of Ghosts is heavy and rewarding.

Trigger Warning(s): This book examines a system of slavery much like Southern chattel slavery of Black Americans. It contains depictions of the racial and sexual violence and the consequences of said violence.

Assassin’s Apprentice—Robin Hobb. FitzChivalry is a bastard. That’s what his name means: Prince Chivalry’s bastard. Royal bastards are considered dangerous in Buckkeep Castle—left unchecked they could become rivals to the true princes for the throne. Accordingly, royal bastards are never allowed independent lives, but are kept as servants and wards of the crown. They are trained as diplomats, magicians, and even assassins. Assassin’s Apprentice chronicles the childhood and young adulthood of a lonely boy caught up against his will in a political system much bigger than him. He is passed from faux father figure to tutor to liege lord, searching for an identity of his own and people who love him for more than the power he represents.

A tender, character-driven fantasy, Assassin’s Apprentice has the most memorable characters of any book I’ve ever read and a hero you can’t help but root for despite his flaws.

Trigger Warning(s): A dog dies in this book.

Book Review

Published on by Lauren KuhmanLeave a comment

Better Together by Christine Riccio

Publisher: Wednesday Books
Genre: Young Adult, Coming of Age
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Buy Local
My Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary

If you’re looking for an extraordinarily unique, dark twist on a classic story, look no further than Christine Riccio’s Better Together. Jamie and Siri are sisters separated at a young age and completely devoid of contact for over a decade due to their parents’ nasty divorce.

In a twist of luck (or fate) the two sisters are reunited at the same “rediscover yourself” retreat and hatch a devious plan: the two will switch places and confront their respective parents.

However, not everything goes as planned, and it’s going to take a lot more than switching places to understand each other, find themselves, and ultimately face the complexities of family.

Thoughts

It has been almost a year since my very first post with The Spellbinding Shelf where I discussed one of my favorite young adult novels, Again but Better by Christine Riccio. Now, coming full circle, I decided to review her newly released second novel, Better Together. While very witty, I have to admit that initially I was not completely sold on the plot—mostly because it wasn’t my usual type of young adult novel. The whimsical magic reminiscent of The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday are classically engaging, but I was not as enthused with those themes. Perhaps due to my hesitancy, I ended up being disengaged, and the combination of short and rather uneventful chapters left me searching for more.

Despite some of these shortcomings, I was pleasantly surprised with Riccio’s capability to take a traditionally lighthearted storyline and investigate the twisted, dark, and traumatizing difficulties of divorce, dysfunctional families, and the impact of parents’ choices on their children. Indeed, there were moments in the book where, while I was craving more action, I couldn’t ignore the insight and attention to how both Jamie and Siri processed their emotional baggage. Riccio does an amazing job detailing the struggles of both characters who have completely different personalities and means of handling their past to move towards their future. There were multiple times in which I had to underline prominent messages or found myself laughing at the page as Riccio nicely combined comedy, romance, and sardonic tones with the seriousness of her overall topic.

Most importantly, Better Together was primarily written during the pandemic—a heaviness that is translated in its pages as the reader slowly feels the suffocation and eventual release of tension most everyone has felt over the past year. In this manner, I appreciated Better Together not only because of its mix of tragedy and comedy, but also its overall feeling of angst and the eventual, much needed, feeling of relief.

4 Books to Dive Into This Summer

Published on by Roxanne BinghamLeave a comment

Summer is just around the corner and, for me, there is nothing better than lying in a hammock with a good book. While it is arguable that most any book will work in this scenario, some books just scream “summer” more than others. After some thought, I have compiled a list of books that I think are perfect for diving into summer.

The Summer I Turned Pretty—Jenny Han. Starting off the list is a novel from the author of the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series. It follows the story of Belly, who looks forward to the summer all year. Each year, her family spends the season in the small town of Cousins where they join the Fishers, whose sons Jeremiah and Conrad have grown up with Belly. It’s a story of first love, heartbreak, and the summer sun. I used to read this book every year—it’s the perfect YA summer love story. If you’re looking to get into the summer mood, then I highly recommend giving this novel a chance. If you like it, it’s part of a three book series!

Red White & Royal Blue—Casey McQuiston. It wouldn’t be a summer reads list without this fan favorite. This novel tells the story of Alex Claremont-Diaz, whose mom is the President of the United States. When the tabloids get a hold of a physical altercation between him and the Prince of Wales, a variety of problems arise. In the efforts between the two countries to mend the relationship comes a heart-warming and unlikely love story. There’s a reason this novel is so popular, and as summer rolls around I find myself gravitating towards it again.

It Had to Be You—Georgia Clark. This is a newer release—it came out about two weeks ago—but I have a feeling it is going to be the novel of the summer. Told in a style similar to Love Actually, this novel tells the story of Liv Goldenhorn, who is not only dealing with the death of her husband, but also the fact that he left half of their business to his mistress, Savannah. For obvious reasons, Liv isn’t happy about this, and when Savannah comes to work with her, they don’t exactly mesh right away. However, long nights and deep conversations have a way of revealing hidden depths about people, and both Savannah and Liv find that not everything is what meets the eye. It’s a witty, heartwarming story that perfectly captures that summer feeling.

The Girl from Widow Hills—Megan Miranda. I read this novel at the beginning of last summer and as I was thinking of novels for this post that were less romance-y but still summer-y, and this one immediately popped into my head. This novel follows Arden Maynor, who now goes by Olivia Meyer, 20 years after she was found in a storm drain in the small town of Widow Hills. She has spent her life trying to distance herself from her past, but it always has a way of catching up. This novel is shocking and thrilling while still maintaining that summer feeling. If summer romances aren’t as much your thing, I highly recommend checking this novel out.