Janet Tashjian: "For What It's Worth"

Title: For What It's Worth [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Janet Tashjian [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Contemporary with a Twist
Year: 2012
Age: 12+
Stars: 3.5/5
Pros: Nice coming-of-age story with authentic teenage voice and a classic rock soundtrack.
Cons: While middle-graders/younger teens are the best audience for this one, they're likely not to be familiar with most of the music featured, unless their parents (or grandparents?) exposed them to it.
Will appeal to: Youngsters dealing with first loves, complicated family dynamics and making sense of the world. Youngsters who can relate to loving music on a deep level. Adults who grew up with classic rock and are willing to read a well-crafted slice of teenage life set in the era.

Blurb: The year is 1971 and the place is Laurel Canyon, California. Quinn, a fourteen-year-old music "encyclopedia," writes a music column called "For What It's Worth" for his school paper. But Quinn's world is about to change when he is faced with helping a war dodger and must make some tough decisions. When he starts receiving cryptic Ouija board messages from Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix (all members of the 27 Club), he knows he is in over his head. Fortunately for Quinn, his new girlfriend Caroline helps him get a grip and channel his inner self. (Amazon)

Review: This one is a bit of an odd fish, since it crosses the boundary between MG and YA, and yet it would be better appreciated by an adult with a basic knowledge of the music involved. I think it was what influenced my rating the most, because FWIW has a lot going for it. Also, please note: this particular review has been split in two parts only (instead of the usual three) because it would have been redundant to do otherwise. FWIW is a coming-of-age story as much as it's a story fueled by music, and those are the two aspects my review will focus on.

KEEPING IT REAL

I love how authentic Quinn's voice is. He's fourteen, never been kissed, passionate about music in a way that - alas - only a kid who grew up before the digital age can be. And self-absorbed (or lacking social awareness) in a way that rings completely true for a teen his age. He has an older female sibling with whom he entertains your classic love-hate relationship, but still leaning on the love side (though he probably would never admit it if not under torture). He's oblivious to what boils under his unbalanced family dynamic. And he's equally oblivious to the changes occurring around him, what with the Vietnam War seeping more and more into his idyllic suburban life. During the course of a few months though, all these things are about to change, for better or worse. As a coming-of-age story, Quinn's is well-executed and relatable, and the best thing is, it doesn't change the core of what he is (which would be an improbable feat, but it doesn't mean that a less skilled writer wouldn't have gone there). He makes mistakes and learns from them and becomes a better person, and this is the realest thing you can ask from a character. [...]

Ilsa J. Bick: "Dark Passages" (Series Review)

Hardcover and Kindle

Paperback

Title: White Space [on Amazon | on Goodreads]

Series: Dark Passages (1st of 2 books)

Author: Ilsa J. Bick [Site | Goodreads]

Genres: Metafiction, Multiverse, Horror, Supernatural

Year: 2014

Age: 14+

Stars: 5/5

Pros: Different, exciting, engrossing - an outrageous kick in the butt of "regular" fiction, which is, at the same time, a love letter to it.

Cons: May sound confusing to some. Truncated chapter endings and suspense may drive the reader a little mad sometimes.

WARNING! High level of gore and horror (also of the psychological kind).

Will appeal to: Metafiction and multiverse enthusiasts. Patient, fearless readers, ready to engage with a nonlinear story.

Hardcover, Kindle and paperback (this is an edit. Paperback came out in 2017)

Title: The Dickens Mirror [on Amazon | on Goodreads]

Series: Dark Passages (2nd of 2 books)

Author: Ilsa J. Bick [Site | Goodreads]

Genres: Metafiction, Multiverse, Horror, Supernatural

Year: 2015

Age: 14+

Stars: 5/5

Pros: Different, exciting, engrossing - an outrageous kick in the butt of "regular" fiction, which is, at the same time, a love letter to it.

Cons: May sound confusing to some. Truncated chapter endings and suspense may drive the reader a little mad sometimes. All the different versions of the same characters and/or characters at different age stages may frustrate those who like step-by-step narrative.

WARNING! High level of gore and horror (also of the psychological kind).

Will appeal to: Metafiction and multiverse enthusiasts. Patient, fearless readers, ready to engage with a nonlinear story. Readers who like alternative history and steampunk (though I'm using the term in an oblique way here).

Christopher Pike: "Remember Me 3: The Last Story"

Title: Remember Me 3: The Last Story [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Remember Me (3rd of 3 books)
Author: Christopher Pike [Facebook | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural 
Year: 1995
Age: 12+
Stars: 3/5
Pros: Well-established female lead. Story gets closure.
Cons: More no-real-mystery (see RM 2). More clichés. More new age blurbs (again, if you're not into it). Moderate sex references. Some seriously out-of-character moments.
Will appeal to: Those who still need more Shari Cooper.

Blurb: Shari Cooper had died once, and then returned to Earth as a Wanderer. Shari has regained her memory of her previous life. She has realized her purpose in returning to mortal life - to write stories for young people to help them understand the immortal life that is to follow. And it is not long before Shari and her books are known all over the world. Then one special night a story comes to her. An ancient tale that speaks of the origin of mankind and the purpose of human life. Shari begins to write it down, sure that it is nothing more than a wonderful fable. But what Shari doesn't know is that her new book is true - a mystical blueprint that warns of a great danger to humanity from creatures who despise all human beings, but who have a unique and terrifying hatred for Wanderers. Creatures who will go to any length to stop Shari's story from being published. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: Given the above blurb, you may wonder why I didn't apply a "Mystery" label to this book. There's a simple explanation: this is not a mystery. There are only a couple of possible suspects in this book, and once one of them is gone, the math is consequential. Also, don't be fooled - this is not a story about Shari trying to uncover the culprit of a murder plan against herself. Only at the end of the book we do realize someone has been wanting her dead all along. And she with us.
RM 3 opens three years after the ongoings in the previous book. Shari-Jean (see RM 2) is now a famous writer, living with a still crippled, sexually incapable Peter (this is crucial to the development of the story). She is also plagued by strong headaches, courtesy of Jean's fall from Lenny's balcony. She's still surrounded by her old friends - Jim, Jo - but seems to have neglected her (or Jean's) Hispanic roots. Also, she was supposed to write inspirational stories for the young, telling them that death is not what it seems and they shouldn't be afraid of it and we really are all one and blah blah, but apparently, she tends to write the same kind of horror high-school stuff Pike more than often delivers. Notable exception: Shari did write a book called Remember Me, the story of her own death and rebirth. [...]

Christopher Pike: "Remember Me 2: The Return"

Title: Remember Me 2: The Return [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Remember Me (2nd of 3 books)
Author: Christopher Pike [Facebook | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural
Year: 1994
Age: 12+
Stars: 3/5
Pros: Well-established female lead (well, part of the time, that is). A sweet siblings reunion.
Cons: Very small action. No real mystery. Some clichés. Some new age blurbs (if you're not into it). Weird and abrupt ending.
WARNING! Moderate sex references (though a not deliberately induced miscarriage is mentioned).
Will appeal to: Those who need more Shari Cooper.

Blurb: Shari Cooper is dead, the victim of a murderous attack. She is on the other side, but she is given a rare offer. To return to Earth into the body of a depressed teenage girl. Shari is given a chance to be a Wanderer, and to do a great service for humanity. It is an offer she gladly accepts. At first she recalls nothing of the afterlife. Perhaps it is just as well. Not everybody on Earth welcomes Wanderers. Of the few who know of their existence, some want them dead. And others, the truly evil ones, wish them much worse than that. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: When you reach perfection, you'd better not tamper with it. Most of the time, it doesn't work (very well).
There's no denying I was excited when I found out that there was more to Shari's story. And, to Pike's credit, it wasn't a three-or-four-books-deal era back when he wrote this. Nowadays, most books are born with a sequel, often two or three, already attached. Remember Me was originally a standalone book, till - after five long years - Pike was struck with inspiration (ahem, not sure) *, or maybe Shari possessed him too, after her brother (see RM, I mean book 1). So Remember Me 2: The Return came to life - and Shari with it. In the sense that she was actually back, flesh and all. Only, she wasn't really Shari anymore.
OK, first off, the blurbs about this book are deceiving. There's no conspiracy against the Wanderers in RM 2. Now, onto the actual review. Let's start from where RM finished (if you haven't read the book yet...spoiler alert!).

Amanda was Jimmy's real sister. Amanda killed Shari. Shari solved the mystery of her own murder. Shari and Peter are now in the light.

RM 2 opens a year after Shari's death, with a total different story about a total different character. Poor, Hispanic, can-see-no-future girl as opposed to rich, all-American, eager-to-live one. Wrong side of town, wrong boyfriend. We follow Jean to a disastrous birthday party (history repeating), at the end of which something happens to her - we're not sure of what. It seems it all turned right in the end though, because after the accident (?) Jean is apparently able to recover (while her bf Lenny, also involved, is crippled for life).
In the meantime, we also follow Shari (and later on, Peter) in the afterlife, chatting with a superior entity called the Rishi, a lot of new age blurb really - though I can't say I was annoyed by that. We learn that Shari can go back in someone else's body, if she agrees - and Peter too, but in his case, because he injured his previous body by purposely ending up his own life, he can't go back in a healthy body, but must suffer a disadvantage of sorts. Guess whose body will Shari wear? and Peter? [...]

Christopher Pike: "Remember Me"

Title: Remember Me [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Remember Me (1st of 3 books)
Author: Christopher Pike [Facebook | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery 
Year: 1989
Age: 12+
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Likeable lead. Interesting set of characters. Emotions ring true. Story sucks you in.
Cons: Not the glamorous, imaginative afterlife you find in nowadays novels, since lead still walks the Earth. Very little action (if you prefer a faster pace).
WARNING! Moderate sex references (if they upset you at all).
Will appeal to: Everyone who doesn't care for very fast-paced books or romance-centered ones.

Blurb: When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. Then the call came from the hospital. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital. There she found herself lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The police said that it was suicide. Shari knew she had been murdered. Making a vow to herself to find her killer, Shari embarks on the strangest of all criminal investigations: one in which she spies on her friends, and even enters their dreams - where she comes face-to-face with a nightmare from beyond the grave. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: My first review had to be about the book that introduced me again to YA Lit in my adult age...
First off, I mean to remind you that RM came out long before "dead girl books" became all the rage. Shari's story may sound simpler and less glamorous than the most recent ones about girls in the same predicament as hers. There's no fancy afterlife scenery - you could say there's no real afterlife scenery at all. Like most dead girls in YA Lit, Shari was beautiful, popular and rich in life - but the narration doesn't really dwell upon that. She doesn't come across like a spoiled little brat with a lesson to learn...on the contrary, she's a lively, likeable, lifelike character (OK, I didn't plan on describe her with an alliteration and a bunch of parent words, but it sounds clever on my part, doesn't it? LOL just kidding). She has a truth to unveil though: how she ended up dead. She feels compelled to know, despite her fellow ghost-friend Peter's efforts to steer her toward the Light. Can you blame her?
Pondering about it, the real magic of this book is not in the story itself. The final denouement may surprise you (it did surprise me, though it's not that unpredictable. I probably let the book suck me in to the point where I couldn't see the killer's imprints anymore!), but it's not like Pike came out with a highly original scenario. It's simply a new twist of one of the oldest themes in literature. So, you know, the real magic in the book comes out of Shari. You gotta love her. You follow her and see the world through her eyes, like you were in her shoes. You care for her, dead or alive. You love her brother Jim through her. And so on. [...]