LJ Best YA Lit for Adults 2010, Pt. 1
By Angelina Benedetti Dec 16, 2010This is my third best-of-the-year list for this column, and every year is just as difficult as the last. How do you choose a handful of works from a year of great publishing?
My approach is completely unscientific and emphasizes books that will delight adult readers—not focusing in the least on teen appeal, although some of these have found a reasonable teen audience as well. And once again I am choosing my favorites in some eclectic categories.
With so many great books to highlight, I am splitting the list between this installment and the next (see the Jan. 6, 2011, issue of BookSmack!; see also Patricia McKillip's "Best Adult Books 4 Teens, 2010"). Here, we tackle series, sf, and difficult endings.
Best Fourth Books in a Series
Pratchett, Terry. I Shall Wear Midnight. HarperCollins. 2010. 368p. ISBN 9780061433047. $16.99.
This is the final book to star Sir Pratchett's feisty witch, Tiffany Aching, and her wee, free, misbehaving faerie friends, the Nac Mac Feegle. As the story begins, Tiffany is the full-fledged Witch of the Chalk, an undersung hero in her rural community. Then a wicked energy called the Cunning Man turns her people against her. One of the great strengths of this series is Tiffany's responses to adversity. She can no longer whap her enemies with a frying pan, as she did in The Wee Free Men (2004). She must guard her heart and move past the bitter rejection from her people and from Roland (a onetime flirtation who is now engaged to another). All this, and the Nac Mac Feegle are just as profane as ever. A thoughtful conclusion to a series that is as wise as it is funny.
Turner, Megan Whalen. A Conspiracy of Kings. Greenwillow. 2010. 336p. ISBN 9780061870934. $16.99.
With The Thief (1996), readers were first introduced to Eugenides, a cunning thief who bragged that he could steal anything. Over another two books, he proved his boast by stealing the heart of the queen of Attolia and becoming its king. Now, Sophos (his traveling companion in that first book) is appealing to him for aid, despite the uncomfortable reality that he, too, is now king...of a nation at war with Attolia. I have long held that Eugenides is the sexiest and smartest man in teen fiction. Here he takes a backseat to Sophos, whose good heart leaves him vulnerable to the cruelty of high-stakes politics. These royals are young but adults nonetheless, and with each new installment, I find myself rereading the series to watch them grow into their authority. I can only hope this installment is not my last opportunity to do so.
Best Cannibals
Gill, David Macinnis. Black Hole Sun. HarperTeen: HarperCollins. 2010. 340p. ISBN 9780061673047. $16.99.
You read that right. Cannibals made their way into many books for teens and adults this past year. Gill's cannibals-the Dræu-are on Mars, led by an evil queen with her own bloody appetites. These beasties plague an outcrop of miners who seek aid from Durango, the chief of a small crew of disgraced Regulators, now working as mercenaries for hire. The snappy wit of Durango and his sexy second-in-command, Vienne, paired with the bloodthirsty joy with which the Dræu go about their work makes for delightful reading-so much so that it can be easy to overlook Gill's masterly world-building.
Smith, Andrew. The Marbury Lens. Feiwel & Friends. 2010. 358p. ISBN 9780312613426. $17.99.
When Jack survives being kidnapped and nearly raped by a serial killer, he and his best friend, Connor, take revenge on the perpetrator and retreat to London for summer vacation. Before Connor arrives, Jack is gifted with a pair of glasses from a troubled stranger that transports him to Marbury, another plane of existence. There, he fights for survival in a postapocalyptic hell-and Connor is a crazed cannibal trying to kill him. Marbury becomes Jack's addiction, straining his grasp on this reality and ruining a new love relationship. Connor wonders if he has lost his marbles until he also takes a journey through the lenses. The book is a treat for any reader seeking a mind trip. Is Marbury real or a figment of Jack's traumatized psyche? The ending is ambiguous, opening as many new questions as it answers.
Best Books with Plums (and Troubling Last Pages)
Hartnett, Sonya. Butterfly. Candlewick, 2010. 240p. ISBN 9780763647605. $16.99.
Hartnett focuses her considerable talent on the growing pains of 14-year-old Plum, who loathes her friends, her family, and the very skin she is in. Maureen, a lonely next-door neighbor, supports Plum in her angst, encouraging her to take control of her body and her life. Eventually, it dawns on Plum that Maureen's interest is not for her own sake but a ploy to further entwine her older brother Justin in an affair. When all is revealed, Plum's inner mean girl breaks free and leaves a desperate Maureen alone and reeling. The unsettling last page will leave you wondering, "Did she really just do that?"
Teller, Janne. Nothing. Atheneum. 2010. 227p. ISBN 9781416985792. $16.99.
In the beginning of this Danish import, Pierre Anthon climbs a tree and begins pelting his fellow Grade 7 classmates with plums and existential philosophy. "Life isn't worth the bother!" he tells them. Narrator Agnes and her friends vow to change his mind, whatever the cost. In an abandoned sawmill, they build a "heap of meaning," piling on the things that are important to them-a fishing pole, a pair of green sandals. Soon the game grows grisly, with each participant raising the stakes. As an allegory for the loss of meaning in modern society, the apocalyptic ending works on many levels.
Best Post-Industrial Futures
Bacigalupi, Paolo. Ship Breaker. Little, Brown for Young Readers. 2010. 326p. ISBN 9780316056212. $17.99.
After Katrina and Deep Water Horizon, it is not difficult to imagine a future Gulf Coast beset by Category Six hurricanes ("City Killers") and littered with beached oil tankers. Nailer is on a Breaker crew. He'll survive as long as he is small enough and lucky enough to navigate the beached ships' ductwork and pull his daily quota of copper wire. Then his luck changes. A storm wrecks a wealthy clipper ship onto the reef, along with its sole surviving passenger, the high-toned daughter of one of the world's last remaining industrial families. Will he kill her for her gold or risk reuniting her with her father? Themes upon themes are layered in this first-rate adventure-rich vs. poor, conservation vs. consumption, and smarts vs. luck, to name just a few. What makes it a best for me is Bacigalupi's watery world. Whether pitting his heroes against a hidden oil tank, a sinking ship, or the sunken remains of New Orleans, his descriptions force you to smell and taste the world we are building.
Reeve, Philip. Fever Crumb. Scholastic. 2010. 325p. ISBN 9780545207195. $17.99.
Fever Crumb exists in another future entirely. Many hundreds of years from now, a bloody genocide has wiped out the last of a genetically mutated race. The impact is that anyone who stands out is accused of having "Scrivener" blood. Teenaged Fever is as unusual as they come, with two different-colored eyes and a shaved head. It is the style of the cloistered Order of Engineers, by whom she has been raised, and now it is time for her first real assignment on the outside. This prequel to Reeve's "Traction City Chronicles" paints a world where the intelligent are suspect and technology is more object of worship than a means to an end. It is here that Fever discovers her origins and begins the journey that will take her through the rest of the series.
Next installment: Best of 2010, Part II
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