The Returners

The Returners by Gemma Malley
Published March 2010 by Bloomsbury USA
Source: the high school library

Teenager Will Hodges is a pretty miserable kid.  His mother is dead; he remembers seeing her dead in the water but can't remember anything about what happened.  His father has become radically political and heavily involved with a man whose political leanings are so nationalist that he seems he will stop at nothing to convict Will's old friend of murder just because he's not a native citizen.  His friends won't have anything to do with him, he's having terrible headaches and nightmares about concentration camps are waking him up almost nightly.  But most disturbing to Will are the people he keeps seeing who look familiar to him until he gets closer; then he realizes he doesn't know them but most certainly seem to know him.

More and more these people, these "freaks," start showing up...at school, on the street and even in Will's yard.  Then one day Will decides that it's time to confront one of these people and is surprised to find that they have been waiting for him to recognize them and they know him from another time in history.  They are the Returners and Will, they say, is one of them. Now Will has to a decision to make: will he follow what they say is his destiny or will he choose to break the cycle and do what he knows is the right thing. 

Although the first 150 pages of the book are a little slow moving, the story really picks up once Will meets the Returns and discovers what they know about his past and what they say is his destiny.  Then all of the build up starts to come together as Will is has to decide if there is really such a thing as free will or if all of us are pre-destined to follow a certain path.  I don't want to give away too much of the story; it will have to suffice to say that being a Returner is not a pleasant destiny and yet they all seem perfectly willing to stay on the path they have been following for thousands of years.

The book is marketed as being for 12-year-olds and up but I think someone that young would not really get the messages this book delivers.  My daughter read it in sophomore English and I think that 15- to 16-year-olds would be able to have a terrific discussion of the themes in this story.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
272 pages
Published April 2008 by Henry Holt & Co.
Source: my daughter checked it out from the school library

**review contains possible spoilers**

Jenna, 17, has just awoken from the coma that she has been in for more than a year following a terrible accident. She has no memory of the mother and grandmother that she is living with or the father who made his fortune in biotechnology and who spends most of his time across the country. Fortunately, Jenna was a treasured child and much of her life has been preserved on video discs; there's a disc for every year of her life. But Jenna has no recollection of any of the events on the discs and has no connection to the girl in videos with the same name.

Gradually memories begin to return. Most of them are very detailed memories of very small parts of her life. But there are also memories of friends that are no longer in her life. And the memories begin to create more questions than they do answers. For one thing, why can she remember whole passages from Thoreau but not remember what her old room looked like? And why can she remember being in her mother's womb? Jenna's also trying to figure out why her grandmother does seem to like her (something she's sure wasn't the case before the accident), why her parents won't allow her to return to school and why her room and clothes seem so impersonal. The answers will come from everyone and everything around her.

Set in the not too distant future, California has experienced the "big one" and much of that state has fallen into the ocean, leaving what's left badly damaged. Planting of non-native species of plants has resulted in the extinction of many native species of trees, shrubs and flowers. Overuse of antibiotics as resulted in super viruses that cannot be contained by any medication. A world-wide virus has killed millions of people. Because of this, an ethics board has been set up that is in charge of governing medical technology and to set up a point system for all lifesaving technology. The reader is asked again and again to question the choices that mankind has made.

This is the first true YA novel that I have read since I was regularly reading YA novels in my youth. It did take me a while to adjust to that level of storytelling. But this is definitely not a book that talks down to young people or that would strictly appeal to young people. It deals with the very grownup issues of ethics and what constitutes a "soul." It asks the question, how far would you go to save someone you love?

This book does contain some plotting issues that bothered me. For one thing, why does Jenna enroll in school under her own name if her family is so well known and she's supposed to be in hiding? Also, there's a neighborhood boy who is also a schoolmate of Jenna's that poses a threat which is never resolved. But the pacing and writing are so well done, that I was able to overlook these things. Midway through the book, Pearson reveals the big truth about Jenna. What, I thought, is she doing? Why would I want to keep reading now that I know this? The answer is because Pearson is not done with the reader yet. Knowing the "what" does not reveal the"why" and only serves to make Jenna's situation appear all the more perilous.

I highly recommend this book for anyone high-school aged or older.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

The Curous Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
226 pages
Published May 2004 by Vintage

Late one night, 15-yr-old Christopher Boone discovers, on a late night walk, that his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, has been impaled with a garden fork. This sets Christopher, who is a first accused of killing the dog, off on a detective mission to find the real killer. The complication for Christopher is that he is autistic...and that his father has forbidden him from looking into the matter. But Christopher, who always follows the rules...literally, continues his search for the truth. But the truth he finds is a much bigger surprise and leads Christopher to embark on a journey that would seem impossible for a person with his limitations.

This book is entirely written from Christopher's point of view which makes it quite unique. Christopher is very honest about his quirks (he does not like the color yellow or being touched) and open about his hopes (he is a mathematics genius). When Christopher sets off on his journey, the story does get a little long; but seeing how he is able to navigate his way around is quite interesting. The relationship between Christopher and his father is very touching; his father even goes out of his way to prepare meals for Christopher that meet his very stringent color requirements. There are some big issues for Christopher to deal with in this book and Haddon gets him through through them very believably. This story is told without pity or condescension.