Young adult roundup
“Monday’s Not Coming” by Tiffany D. Jackson, Tegen, 448 pages, $17.99, ages 14 and up
“Monday’s Not Coming” challenges readers on multiple levels. Chapters shift in time, given enigmatic labels, such as “The Before” or “The After.” The narrator, Claudia, is in a similar state of disorientation. Before the start of eighth grade, she came home to D.C. from spending the summer in Georgia, excited to reconnect with her best friend Monday. But Monday was — and still is — nowhere to be found. Even more puzzling, no one else seems disturbed by the conflicting stories offered to explain Monday’s absence: that she went to live with her father, no, with her aunt; that she’s holed up in her apartment and doesn’t want to see anyone. Claudia begins to suspect that she didn’t know Monday as well as she thought. But, in her view, that doesn’t make it OK for her best friend to be erased.
The most fundamental challenge in Tiffany D. Jackson’s novel is leveled at a society that purports to value children while allowing untold numbers of them, particularly poor children and children of color, to fall through the cracks. It’s a challenge laid out in the book’s very first paragraph: “This is the story of how my best friend disappeared. How nobody noticed she was gone except me. And how nobody cared until they found her … one year later.” “The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik” by David Arnold, Viking Books for Young Readers, 432 pages, $18.99, ages 14 and up
At a party, 16-year-old Noah Oakman is warned that drinking four Hurricanes could be “catastrophic.” He presses on to five, and, as foretold, suffers consequences: embarrassment, puke and — last but not least — the subtle, perhaps permanent alteration of reality as he knows it.
David Arnold’s third novel is a Vonnegut-esque examination of identity, friendship and forgiveness. Among Noah’s “strange fascinations” is David Bowie, whom he worships for his authenticity. Yet Noah himself has been perpetuating a lie. A decorated but discontented high school swimmer, he’s been faking a back injury so he can sit out the swim season and avoid having to tell his parents that he wants to quit. Post-party, he notices changes in his friends and family that throw his own equilibrium further out of whack. What, if anything, does it mean when his friend Alan, always a DC Comics fan, claims a lifelong devotion to Marvel? When his mother suddenly has a scar on her cheek that everyone else seems to take for granted? And who is the dripping wet figure in his recurring dream? Noah’s personal space oddity is the journey of a boy trying to figure out what matters while floating in a most peculiar way. “From Twinkle, With Love” by Sandhya Menon, Pulse, 336 pages, $18.99, ages 12 and up
Aspiring Indian-American filmmaker Twinkle Mehra, a high school junior, has a collection of T-shirts that pay tribute to female directors, including one with a Sofia Coppola quote: “I’m always a sucker for a love story.” Sandhya Menon’s first young adult novel, “When Dimple Met Rishi,” gave readers who share Coppola’s preference reason to fall hard. Menon follows that with another comedy about how hard it can be to make the right choices in life and love.
Twinkle’s journal provides the space for her to work through her plan to raise her social status. Her former best friend Maddie now hangs out with the clique-ish “silk-feathered hats,” part of the analogy Twinkle uses to compare her school’s social hierarchy to that of a theater audience in Shakespeare’s day. Attracting the attention of popular Neil Roy could advance Twinkle to front-row royalty. But then Neil’s twin brother invites her to make a movie with him, and she becomes torn between holding on to her ideal relationship and surrendering to one that seems to be unfolding naturally.
Christine Heppermann is the author of two books for young adults and co-author of the “Backyard Witch” chapter book series for younger readers.