This is a compelling look at the aftermath of a tour of duty in a war zone. The nervous awkwardness his family feels around him makes sense—he left them as a high school graduate and returns as a war-hardened Marine. While the relationship between him and Harper is meant to be the story’s focus, it is Travis’s relationship with his mom that gives depth to his character. His annoyance at her nervous chatter as they leave the airport evolves into real appreciation for her vigilance during his tour of duty and seething anger at his father for his disrespectful treatment of his mom.

And it got me thinking about other great familiar relationships in YA. So often parents or siblings are just foils for the main characters, someone for them to act out against, or argue with, or fight with, that it’s a real breath of fresh air to find a relationship between family members that feels loving. I think Scarlett and Spencer Martin in Maureen Johnson‘s Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever are another great example, and to call out a non-client, the entire Casson family in any of Hilary McKay’s Series about them, including Indigo’s Star and Saffy’s Angel. What are some of your favorite family relationships in YA or MG?

Amazing. You will smile and sob and when you finish, you will walk away a better you. READ THIS BOOK NOW.

Then, from Kirkus:

An affecting look at the experience of one teen soldier’s experience on leave from Afghanistan.

Travis is trying hard to pretend everything is normal, but there’s nothing normal about this little chunk of life at his former home in Florida. His girlfriend is now sleeping with his little brother, a smug, self-interested bastard. His friends don’t understand why he can’t just slide back into his stupid pre-Afghanistan life. His mother worries nonstop. The only thing that’s normal is that his father, an ex–football player who bullied Travis mercilessly into playing the game, still seems to hate his guts. At least when he was with his unit, they all understood how their shared hellish experience has affected them. An unlikely encounter with Harper, a girl he humiliated in middle school, gives him a sense that, maybe, a normal life might be something he can shoot for. Travis’ present-tense narration puts readers directly into his uneasy psyche; he only gradually reveals to himself as well as readers the extent of the damage he has taken in the desert. If the growing relationship between Travis and Harper seems too good to last and the sudden stiffening of his mother’s spine unlikely, readers will be so invested in Travis’ poor, shattered soul they will forgive narrative convenience.

At its heart, this too-timely novel is purely honest.

And finally, a very nice review from the Horn Book’s upcoming May/June issue:

Travis Stephenson’s life has become a “quilt of horror,” a patchwork of nightmares, hallucinations, and flashbacks after just one year in Afghanistan. He had joined the Marines to escape his disapproving, belittling father, but now the war has followed Travis back home. His parents are splitting up, his girlfriend has dumped him for his brother Ryan, and he’ll always be a “disrespectful little punk” to his father. Doller’s debut novel effectively captures the haunted and hallucinatory feeling of a damaged soldier returning home, a nineteen-year-old who says he’s “having trouble even picturing a future with me in it.” Travis is a likable guide to his personal hell, and the characters in his orbit are well drawn and believable. His voice is strong, even when his belief in himself is not. When Travis reunites with Harper Gray, a girl who has hated him since he started an ugly rumor in middle school that ruined her reputation, he is drawn to her, “all green eyes and tousled hair,” and the tentative relationship that ensues may just ensure some kind of a new normal for Travis. Her support and shy love, including nudging him to see a therapist, may help Travis to feel a bit more whole and stop feeling like a “Travis Stephenson-shaped space that needs to be filled in.”

Trish and I are super excited to introduce Travis to the world this summer, but I’m thrilled to give one lucky reader and early opportunity to meet and fall in love with him.

Trish’s tumblr is filled with gorgeous photos of boys and girls, and couples she’s tagged “Together.” I’d love to help her add to it! Add a link in the comments to an image you think would fit well with the others on her blog, and I’ll pick one to receive a galley of Something Like Normal. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Cliques, dating, and the school social scene are the focus of this Australian import. Midge, 16, is embarrassed to be lagging behind her friend Tahni in the boyfriend department, so she invents one on the spot. Her imaginary guy is an Englishman named Ben and before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s created a whole backstory for him. By complete chance, a transfer student matching this description arrives at school. The real Ben agrees to play along, blackmailing Midge in exchange for homework help. Midge is lovably nerdy—each chapter opens with a dictionary definition, and she obsesses about proper grammar. Über-geek George might seem to be a better match for her, but even she can’t lower her standards enough to date a live-action role-player. Her parents’ possible divorce amps up the stress before everything is pleasantly resolved. This is a surprisingly lighthearted, funny book, peppered with Australian slang. Teen drinking (legal in Australia) is handled as routine. Fans of Louise Rennison’s “Confessions of Georgia Nicolson” series (HarperTeen) or Carolyn Mackler’s The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (Candlewick, 2003) will find a lot to like in this frothy offering.

Note: The NY Office is not actually located in the Flatiron Building (pictured above), it’s just my favorite building in NYC.

Two young New Yorkers from different eras unite to save the world from an invasion of zombies led by an elegant, corpse-wearing darkling. Shuttling among worlds, times, and points of view, Cody chronicles the recruitment of Tommy, a street urchin from 1901, into a wormhole-traveling Explorer’s Society menaced by the powerful and mysterious Dead Gentleman. Guided by a device that can peer through time, Tommy contacts 12-year-old Jezebel a century into his future and tasks her with protecting an enigmatic clockwork bird that holds the key to the Gentleman’s ability to conquer our planet. Despite all the quick changes and fortuitous coincidences, readers will enjoy watching the two quarreling protagonists take on zombies and other creepy-crawlies on the way to a fiery, if inconclusive, air battle over the Hudson River. Chucking in elements of steampunk, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs along with vampires, three-armed aliens, inscrutable monks, closet monsters, and even dinosaurs, Cody pays tribute to classic adventure authors and genres here as he dishes up an exciting time-travel tale.

I’d love to share a personally autographed copy of The Dead Gentleman with one of you. For a chance to win, just leave a comment below with a brief description of where you would go if you could travel anywhere in time (past, present, or future) or space (alternate worlds, ahoy!). I’ll pick one winner on Monday after I return from ALA Midwinter.

EDITED TO ADD: As per his comment below, Matt’s upped the stakes and offered to sign the winner’s copy!

When 17-year-old Dylan Mahoney naively engages in “sexting,” she becomes an Internet phenomenon and a social pariah. Isolated from her friends and family, she retreats into the blogosphere, where she happens upon an online community of home-schooled teenage girls who write about their conservative Christian faith and document the blissful domesticity of their lives. Against her better judgment, she joins this community under false pretenses and develops a special friendship with a blogger named Abigail. The extraordinary set of events that ensue are at once outlandish and absolutely believable, thanks to Bloss’s compelling, down-to-earth prose. Conservative Christian characters who could easily be caricatured are multi-dimensional and complicated, and the lessons Dylan learns through her experiences with them are equally nuanced. Bloss somehow manages utter frankness and great generosity in her portrayal not only of Christian separatists, but also of typical modern families such as Dylan’s. Rather than promoting or demonizing any lifestyle, the novel illustrates how profoundly teenagers who seem to have nothing in common can connect and support each other, even as they choose very different paths.

Hooray! This is a truly exceptional novel, and I’m thrilled that PW picked up on the careful nuances of it.

There’s also more news for The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson! Another fun fan trailer, plus a great review from the Horn Book (UPDATE: It’s their Online Review of the Week!):

Upon arriving in London from Louisiana for the school year, high-school senior Rory is told that someone “pulled a Jack the Ripper” the night before. She assumes the phrase is some quaint British colloquialism she has yet to learn, not an actual reference to a gruesome murder committed on the same date—August 31—and in the same location. The smart, breezy, self-deprecating narration and textured boarding school atmosphere provide easy entrance to this increasingly eerie murder mystery in which the only sure thing is the schedule—Jack’s. On September 8, the anniversary of the Ripper’s second strike, police find another body near Wexford, Rory’s school. Johnson raises the stakes even further after Rory has a near-death experience, starts seeing people her classmates don’t, and falls in with a ragtag undercover group investigating the possibility that the murders have a paranormal explanation. Suspenseful and utterly absorbing, this first book in the Shades of London series will leave readers glad that Johnson, like her copycat killer, plans to return to the scene of the crime.

And that’s not all! We just learned this morning that Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris has been nominated and is in consideration for the Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers 2012 list! Woot!

What’s going on in your lives? Any good news to share? Let’s celebrate in the comments!

Seventeen-year-old Lola lives with her two fathers in San Francisco. An aspiring costume designer, she has an extreme style and a penchant for outlandish outfits, sequins, and wigs and no longer cares what anyone else thinks about her exotic outfits. She also dreams of a future with her boyfriend, Max, as he pursues his rock-and-roll career. But life rarely follows a plan, and Lola’s seems to be falling apart. Her parents don’t like Max, who is 22, and seem to go out of their way to express their displeasure (not that the restrictions have stopped Max and Lola’s more amorous activities). Then Cricket Bell, the guy who broke Lola’s heart two years earlier, and his twin sister move back into the house next door, and Lola’s unstable birth mother moves in until she can find a new place to live. As everything begins to come apart at the seams, she learns that, like fabric, life’s pieces can be sewn back together to create something better than what was originally designed. Perkins’s novel goes a bit deeper than standard chick-lit fare, and Lola is a sympathetic protagonist even when readers disagree with her decisions. Her shaken certainties and the obstacles that are thrown in her path give her maturity and depth and, ultimately, settle her more firmly into her dreams with a greater confidence. Secondary characters are well developed and lend believability to the novel. Step back–it’s going to fly off the shelves.

You heard ‘em — watch your fingers for papercuts as these books fly off the shelves!

Hamilton’s debut gracefully mixes fantasy, Dickensian London, and a dash of romance. Orphaned and forced to flee her predatory uncle, 16-year-old Tiki has been squatting near Charing Cross Station and picking pockets to feed herself and her collected family of unwanted children. When a beautiful bauble falls within her reach, Tiki grabs it and runs, only to learn the ring belongs to Queen Victoria and its loss has set off a dangerous chain of events. The ring is the key to peace with the faeries, and if the truce is broken, the fey will be free to hunt and drive out the humans who are encroaching on their land. Tiki wants to return the ring and collect the reward so she and her friends can leave the streets, but she is being hunted by faeries while a handsome and secretive thief tries to protect her. Hamilton wears her literary inspirations (Oliver Twist; Cinderella) on her sleeve as she melds disparate elements into a cohesive whole. Although the story ends abruptly (a series is planned), Tiki is an admirable heroine in an enjoyable tale.

As they might say in Victorian England, “jolly good, old chap!” (Don’t kill me, English people.)

A clever, scary, little-bit-sexy beginning to a series that takes Louisiana teen Rory to London.

Rory’s parents are teaching for a year at the University of Bristol, so she gets to spend senior year at Wexford, a London boarding school. She recounts her story, from mining her colorful relatives for stories to wow her English classmates, coming to grips with heavier course loads and making a couple of fairly adorable friends. But London is soon caught up in fear, as a copycat killer has begun recreating Jack the Ripper’s bloody murders in gruesome detail. Johnson fearlessly takes readers from what seems like a cool innocent-abroad-with-iPod story to supernatural thriller, when Rory sees a man no one else does on campus the night of one of those murders. Enter a trio of young folks who are ghost hunters of a very specific sort. The tension ramps up exquisitely among cups of tea, library visits and the London Underground. The explosive ending is genuinely terrifying but never loses the wit, verve and humor that Rory carries with her throughout. While this tale does conclude, it does so with a complicated revelation that will have readers madly eager for the next installment.

Nice touches about friendship, kissing, research and the way a boy’s curls might touch his collar fully integrate with a clear-eyed look at a pitiless killer.

And have you seen the official trailer for The Name of the Star? Check it out!

And speaking of MJ’s new book, I promised a galley to one of the many fabulous commenters on my post last week, didn’t I? Let’s see who random.org thinks should win it… Congrats, Rebecca Enzor! Rebecca, email me with your mailing address, and I’ll send you your galley!

Speaking of contests, do stop by Kiki’s site for a chance to win The Faerie Ring as well as two other September releases, including Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Friend of the Blog and all-around fabulous person Laini Taylor. This one is tops on my TBR pile, for certain!

Rory, 17, leaves rural Louisiana and enrolls in a British boarding school. Her arrival coincides with the emergence of a new terror in London: a murderer mimicking the 1888 grisly killings by Jack the Ripper. As she reports to officials her knowledge of events leading up to these gruesome deaths, she reaches the startling realization the she can see individuals not observed by others or picked up with electronic surveillance: Rory can see ghosts. She recognizes the one who poses as a modern-day Ripper and who is responsible for the horrific murders spreading across London. His plan intensifies and Rory becomes his target, with an announcement that the killings will continue until she surrenders to him. Employing a terminus, a device used to eliminate lingering ghosts, and a few friends who, like Rory, possess “the sight,” she goes deep into the London underground to “terminate” this modern-day Ripper. While she is successful, there is obviously more to tell in this planned trilogy. This savvy teen, who uses her considerable smarts and powers against the ghosts, will return to battle all who haunt her world. Johnson uses a deft hand, applying the right amount of romance and teen snarkiness to relieve the story’s building tension. Departing from her previous works, she turns paranormal on its head, mocking vampires and werewolves while creating ghosts that are both realistic and creepy. A real page-turner.

And from Booklist:

Flip-flop-wearing, Cheez Whiz–eating 18-year-old Rory has left her Louisiana home to spend her senior year at London’s esteemed school, Wexner. Her arrival, though, is met by a series of grisly murders precisely mirroring the 1888 killings of Jack the Ripper—and Wexner is right in the center of Saucy Jack’s stomping grounds. After a near-death experience, Rory finds herself with the ability to see “the shades,” ghosts drifting about London. This ability brings her to the attention of a squad of young people with similar talents who are working with the authorities to sniff out the copycat killer before the final murder takes place. Johnson proves again that she has the perfect brisk pitch for YA literature, never overplaying (or underplaying) the various elements of tension, romance, and attitude. The mechanics of the squad’s ghost busting are a little goofy, but, otherwise, this is a cut above most paranormal titles, with a refreshing amount of space given to character building. What’s that coming through the fog? Yes, it’s more volumes in the Shades of London series headed our way.

Squee!

In 1871 London, a ragged girl pickpocket steals a ring that enforces a truce between the British Crown and the Faery world, setting off a struggle between the realms.

Tiki supports her adopted “family” of orphans by using her uncanny ability to steal. When she stumbles into Buckingham Palace, she finds a ring and takes it. However, she learns that the ring is enchanted, and that dangerous faeries want it. Helping her (or is he?), the handsome Rieker also roams the streets of London as a thief, and he claims to know much about the faeries. Tiki tries to ransom the ring and fend off two menacing faeries, but when one kidnaps her little charge Clara, she faces a life-or-death situation. And, just how close is Tiki herself to the faery world? [...] The faeries convince readers of their magic and their danger, the humans of their individuality. The story keeps suspense high with one crisis after another, until it escalates into a final exciting showdown.

An entertaining magical-historical adventure.

Congrats to Kiki! There’ve also been scads of great online reviews from book bloggers — do check out Kiki’s site for the full rundown!