Book Review of York: The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby

Since I read Bone Gap, I've added Laura Ruby to my list of must-read authors, so I was very excited when I received an arc of The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby in the mail, free from the publisher for the purpose of this review. Unlike Bone Gap, however, The Shadow Cipher is a middle grade book, and the cover says it is geared toward kids ages 8-12 or grades 3-7. The Shadow Cipher serves an underserved audience: younger, more advanced readers, with higher critical reading abilities and higher lexile scores. From working in a bookstore for several years, I know that kids in that demographic are hungry for longer books (this one clocks in at 448 pages) that have content their parents or teachers will deem age-appropriate, that don't condescend to them, and have a more advanced plot with plenty of twists and turns to keep them on their toes as they read. I was just such a kid, and having to choose between books teachers might have frowned upon me reading because of their "inappropriate" content, and books that I zipped right through because they were short and too easy to read was a constant problem. Ah, if only The Shadow Cipher had been around for me! And, the best part? The Shadow Cipher is the first book in the York series, so there will be more to come.

I must say, though, I'm not a fan of the cover. While it does accurately depict the three main characters, it doesn't represent the setting well. Most of the book is set in the mysterious and wondrous Morningstarr apartment building, and a cover featuring either the interior or exterior of that all-important structure would've been much more effective.

I am ultra picky about MG titles. I have my favorite authors in that reading level (E. L. Konigsberg, Kirsten Miller, Lois Lowry, Blue Balliett), and I've found many other reading ventures to be disappointing. The Shadow Cipher felt like a mix of Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller and Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, which is a huge compliment coming from me, and it also reminded me of another beloved title: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

Ultra-intelligent and observant Tess and Theo Biedermann, fraternal twins, and their resourceful and charming friend and neighbor Jaime Cruz (all three seventh-graders) are trying to save their beloved Morningstarr apartment building from an evil real estate developer by solving the infamous centuries-old Old York Cipher, an encoded puzzle built into the very fabric of this alternate reality version of New York city by Tess and Theodore Morningstarr (after whom the Bidermann twins were named). Though many tourists and puzzle mavens alike have attempted to solve the cipher, none have succeeded in claiming the promised treasure awaiting the victor at the end of the riddles. Can three seventh-graders do what countless adults have failed to accomplish, and also save their beloved home?

The characters and story were so engaging that reading this book in one sitting was a total breeze--I didn't want to put it down! Two of my favorite characters are some of the most unexpected personalities to appear in the book. Six-year-old Zelda "Cricket" Moran pairs ballet tutus with skull and snake bedecked t-shirts and bridal gowns accessorized with gas masks... or, maybe it was scuba gear? Clueless adults might pass over her quirky ensembles as those of a child merely playing dress-up, but Cricket is always costuming herself for a part... sometimes, a role so obvious someone who didn't know her would miss it completely. She trafficks in the highly-prized commodity of secrets, and has the powers of observation only a child frequently ignored by those who assume they're more important than she could possess without attracting notice. Cricket also busts out SAT words like there's no tomorrow, and she uses them correctly and sincerely, which made me smile every time.

The Biedermann twins' Aunt Esther is introduced when she presents them with a large spotted cat, and says, "I have brought you an animal. This animal is called Nine Eighty-Seven. I have also brought you some Fig Newtons. But not for the animal." From there, both her eccentricity and her keen awareness of what matters most to her young relatives and her treatment of those priorities as sacrosanct reign supreme in her ultimately witty and endearing characterization.

Pleasingly for this diverse book reviewer, Shadow Cipher is rife with diversity. Of the main characters, Jaime Cruz's grandmother actually emigrated to the US from her native Cuba, and the Bidermanns are Jewish--Ruby incorporates plenty of Cuban and Jewish cultural references and Yiddish words, and all of the Jewish references are completely on-point and were delightful, appropriate, and enjoyable to me as a Jewish reader. Also, Tess seems to have some sort of unspecified anxiety disorder, resulting in her having a service animal--the cat, Nine Eighty-Seven. Though her disorder is referenced (respectfully and consistently), it is never explained explicitly. Ruby seems to go out of her way not to call things or people "crazy" or "insane," instead using words like "bananas" is sometimes used to describe strange or unbelievable situations, thus making The Shadow Cipher very sensitive in terms of neurodiversity.

My one complaint about this book is the HUGE cliffhanger of an ending and the fact that I can't find the release date of book two anywhere. Highly recommended.

Book Review of Antisocial by Jillian Blake

Antisocial by Jillian Blake is another ARC I received from the First In Line VIP program of an upcoming YA release (May 16th), which, like One Of Us Is Lying, is a mystery/suspense story that prominently features misuse of technology in a high school setting. They also have similar covers--in this case, it is a single girl's face that's obscured. The girl is Anna, Antisocial's protagonist. Though I like the rainbow effect of the cover background, I can't decide which I find more distracting: the hashtag slashing through Anna's face, or the fact that the girl who is supposed to depict Anna (a character of Colombian descent, who is frequently compared to Sofia Vergara in appearance), but I can tell you which one upsets me.

While covering Anna's eyes is an artistic choice, misrepresenting her as a white girl is a racist one made by marketing department employees who decided a white girl would sell more books. This crap happens all the time in YA (and publishing in general). I can't say how Jillian Blake feels about this issue, but I can say that, if I'd gone to all of the trouble she did to include details about how guys think calling Anna South American while hitting on her will get them points, and how people who aren't Colombian seem to believe all people of Colombian descent look the same and then my publisher slapped a white girl on the front of my book instead of one who actually resembled my protagonist of Colombian descent, well, I'd be pissed.

By the way, The US cover is on the left, and the UK cover is on the right. I guess the marketing department thinks YA readers in the UK are less racist? I addition to the US cover being a diversity representation fail and yet another victim of whitewashing, the UK cover also depicts an actual plot point from the book, as well as conveying the mood of the story much more effectively than the US cover.

Anna is returning to school after Winter Break of her Senior Year--a break during which her longtime boyfriend dumped her without explanation. Suddenly, the social life she built around her dating relationship crumbles, and her Social Anxiety Disorder rears its ugly head. While Anna was busy trying to fit in with the ultra popular crowd where her boyfriend's buddies sat during lunch, she neglected and betrayed her actual friends. Upon her return to school, she finds herself boyfriendless, friendless, and drowning in a sea of anxiety-related symptoms. This isn't the best position to be in under normal circumstances, but then kids' phones start getting hacked around school, and their darkest secrets are revealed. The popular students (friends of Anna's ex) are the targets, and nobody can figure out who the hacker might be, because so many different kids stand to gain from unseating the popular kids from their thrones. Everyone has something to hide, and to lose... including Anna.

While Blake's representation of someone with Social Anxiety Disorder was solid, I found it super distracting that she constantly referred to it as SAD. I've always known SAD to stand for Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I kept having to stop and remind myself that isn't what Blake was talking about when the acronym appeared, which took me out of the story again and again. This is a small detail that made a big difference in my reading experience (for the negative). If Blake was looking for a shorter or less clunky way to refer to Anna's Social Anxiety Disorder, I wish she would've just said anxiety. Since Blake carefully described Anna's diagnosis and symptoms early on, I don't think using a general term like that would've taken away from the story like using SAD did. 

Speaking of Social Anxiety Disorder, Antisocial begins slowly, with an opening that feels like it was ripped out of one of those middle school speeches starting with a dictionary definition of a word. The whole first chapter felt like a backstory and information dump, making it difficult to get into the story and develop empathy for the characters or anticipation about the mystery plot. Unfortunately, the whole book failed to build the excitement it should have. As the story progressed, my interest decreased with every chapter. If I wasn't writing a review, I would've put the book down well before the halfway mark and not picked it back up. 

Since Antisocial deals with cell phones, hacking, and quite a bit of social media, there are lots of little excerpts and quoted sections from those sources. However, the way they're presented is frustrating an annoying, rather than creative and amusing, so I found myself wanting to skip them, even though I knew they could contain important clues as to the hacker's identity. Some of the characters (even the secondary characters) were well-written, but there were far too many to keep track of, and there were several kids (at the lunch table, for example), who didn't need to be named and described as if the reader was supposed to remember who they were, because they hardly factored in later, if at all. 

Ultimately, Antisocial suffers from a slow-to-develop plot that feels boring, clunky inclusion of social media, and a whitewashed cover. It had every opportunity to get me interested, and it fell flat each time. If you're looking for a new YA release with elements of mystery and suspense that involves lots of technology, check out One Of Us Is Lying. Antisocial is definitely one to skip.

Book Review of One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus is an ARC I received from the First In Line VIP program. I was excited to read it as soon as I heard the story compared to The Breakfast Club, Gossip Girl, and PLL. Though I'm not sure I agree with all of those comparisons--it certainly doesn't have the wit or self-awareness of Gossip Girl, or the level of highly-stylized suspense of PLL--I will say that there's plenty to recommend this intricately-plotted novel. ...perhaps nothing more than the fact that this line from the cover is completely true, "Pay close attention and you might solve this." I will say that I'd describe it as Death Joins The Breakfast Club. There were some points where the pacing lagged, and others where things didn't make sense because a question was asked in dialogue right after it was answered in action or narration. But, for all of McManus' shortfalls, she does engage in one of the most difficult things a mystery and suspense writer can achieve: she delivers 100% on the cover's promise of fair play while spinning a compelling yarn.

Speaking of the cover, while I like the general idea for the concept, I hate the (pardon the pun) execution of it. Bronwyn is supposed to be half Colombian, and she looks just like any other white girl with dark hair, which is a super frustrating example of yet again even more cover whitewashing in YA specifically (and publishing, in general). I wonder how McManus feels about such a design choice, considering all of the ultra-aware content she included in the book regarding Bronwyn's racial background and ignorant reactions of people she encounters. As an important sidenote, I was quite impressed with the way Bronwyn's character was written with regard to race. McManus dealt simply with issues of racism and ignorance, and used a light touch while still sending a strong message that these behaviors aren't okay.

Also, the book constantly refers to how perfect Addy's hair is, and its stringy, disheveled appearance bothers me here because it doesn't fit with that description. I think having the suspects' faces covered with notebook paper cutouts is more distracting than it is provocative or chilling (or whatever the cover design team was going for here). And I would've liked to see Simon's picture on the cover as well, especially since he was included in the list of five characters on the back.

The premise of One Of Us Is Lying is simple: five kids (Bronwyn the brain, Addy the beauty, Nate the criminal, Cooper the athlete, and Simon the outcast) are sent to detention after mysterious (and forbidden) burner cells are found in their backpacks during school. While in detention with a Luddite Science teacher who notoriously despises technology, Simon helps himself to a drink of water, and then drops dead. Because Simon maintains an app curating and disseminating the latest gossip about his fellow students, each of the other students has a motive for wanting him dead. The four other students quickly become suspects, and the rest of the book unfolds as they react to Simon's death, and to the investigation regarding who might have caused it, and why.

As regular readers of my blog will probably recall, I'm notorious for guessing the endings of books, and this was no exception. However, McManus did have me hedging my bets with two suspects for the first third of the story. Still, the fact that I was able to accurately guess who killed Simon means that McManus (for all of the plot twists and turns, and red herrings she included... and there were many), played fair, and I also doubt that the ending would be easy for other readers to predict.

Simon was found to have died from exposure to peanut oil, as he had a severe anaphylactic allergy to peanuts. As someone who has several anaphylactic allergies and has to carry EPI pens everywhere, I appreciated the realism with which McManus included details about this plot point. (So often, when authors include a plot point about a medical problem I share, I'm distracted because they got the details blatantly wrong!) For example, she accounted for the EPI pens in Simon's bag and in the Nurse's office. She also explained the type of peanut oil that would've had to have been in Simon's water, and how someone would know what kind to use. Obviously, though, since Simon's death is the inciting incident for the book, readers don't get to see much about his allergies from his perspective.

Speaking of perspective, one of the most interesting things about One Of Us Is Lying was the narrative style. The narration rotated amongst Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper, giving readers four pleasingly unique perspectives on the story, and allowing for more clues to be dropped without being obvious or absurd.

One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus comes out May 30th, and is currently available for preorder. Though I recommend this book to those who love to read mysteries and play along in an attempt to solve them, I caution book buyers that this is a story they may only find enjoyable once, so borrowing it from the library may be a wiser choice than making a purchase in this case.