Weekend Reads

Very in Pieces by Megan Frazer Blakemore

Veronica (aka Very) Sayles-Woodruff is the dependable one in all of her relationships. Her mother calls her "Smart One" (and never anything else) and relies on her to be constant, her sister is flighty and wild and her boyfriend takes her good nature for granted. On top of this, she is losing her Nonnie, the grandmother who was bright and rebellious. As Very enters her senior year, she wants to finally shake things up and stop doing the "shoulds" and start doing the things she wants to. Very is an admirable character and this realistic fiction novel speaks to anyone who wants to be more than what they seem or what they are expected to be.

Find it in Fiction under F BLA

Breakaway by Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan was on the soccer field starting at age five. By age eight, she decided that soccer was what she wanted to commit the rest of her life to. She was a driven and talented young lady, and those qualities led her through a successful high school, college and beyond. One part memoir and one part advice column, Morgan describes her life and journey but also suggests how to use some of the things she learned along the way as well. Morgan fought hard to achieve her dreams, and experienced some set backs along the way; her story might be one that resonates most with young athletes, but can be inspiring for young people who have dreams that lie outside of practice fields and stadiums as well.

Find it in Biographies under B MORGAN

Half Bad by Sally Green

Sally Green introduces us to Nathan, the main character of the Half Bad trilogy, in a very dark and twisted setting. Nathan is, for reasons we do not yet understand, in a cage and essentially being tortured. Green's use of the second person helps to establish sympathy for this character who is clearly perceived without sympathy by the other people in his world. Green switches between first and second person throughout Half Bad, and as she does so we learn about who Nathan is and the circumstances that led him to his cage. Half Bad is set in an England that is home to witches. These witches are either White or Black; Nathan is a "half code" or the son of a White Witch mother and a Black Witch father. Nathan's father isn't just any Black Witch - he is the most powerful and feared Black Witch of them all. Although Nathan is raised by his White Witch family to believe that Black Witches are bad, his experiences lead him to believe otherwise.

This novel has some very difficult moments, but I especially love how Green uses Nathan to force readers to consider the in-between. It would be easy to paint one group as "good" and one group as "bad" but Green really shades her characters in gray. No one (not even Nathan) is just good or just bad, and the evil things that they do aren't justified but they are contextualized, which is a refreshing position to see in the YA world.

Find it in Fiction under F GRE