There’s no shortage of young adult books on the shelves this summer. Here are some suggestions:
- Saints of the Household
By Ari Tison
Art, identity and the ripple effects of family violence form the heart of a debut novel by Minneapolis writer Tison. Brothers Jay and Max live a tightly controlled life in tiny Deer Creek, Minn., trying to protect their mom from their dad’s physical abuse. But when a confrontation with their school’s star soccer player spins out of control, the brothers’ futures and college dreams are at risk. In alternating chapters that capture Max’s visual interest through experimental poetry forms and Jay’s exploration of Bribri Indigenous storytelling patterns, Tison weaves a compelling, morally complex debut. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 320 pages.)
Reviewed by Trisha Collopy, Star Tribune
- She Is a Haunting
By Trang Thanh Tran
A haunted house in the southern Vietnamese highlands has a voice in this debut thriller. Jade Nguyen is about to start college in Philadelphia, where she’ll finally be able to carve out her own identity and meet the girl (or boy) of her dreams. But first she must survive summer with her estranged dad in the French colonial mansion he’s renovating for tourists in Da Lat. As Jade is haunted by increasingly disturbing dreams, she and friend-maybe-more Florence try to turn the tables on a hungry ghost and reckon with the legacy of Vietnam’s brutalized past. Sharp, sexy and well-paced. (Bloomsbury, 352 pages.)
Reviewed by Trisha Collopy, Star Tribune
- Star Splitter
By Matthew J. Kirby
What makes us human? Our consciousness? Our bodies? What happens if the two diverge? In 2199, Jessica Mathers steps into a teleportation machine, then wakes up in a crashed lander with the ship’s crew buried nearby and her scientist parents nowhere in sight. As she stumbles toward safety, the limits of her understanding of science are tested by encounters with three survivors — one haunted, one sane and one monstrous — and the unexpectedly diverse life on a supposedly barren planet. In this space thriller, Kirby probes the human need to, as Robert Frost wrote, “satisfy a lifelong curiosity/About our place among the infinities.” (Dutton, 320 pages.)