Mercury by Hope Larson

What You Need to Know: This is a beautifully drawn, historical romance with a modern twist, that might be a hard sell for some teens.

Summary:  Tara is returning to school, following a fire that destroyed her home, a family farm, forcing her (odd) mother to move away for work.  A strange necklace found in a box unwittingly connects her to Josie, a distant relative of Tara's from 1859.  Josie lives on the same farm, and like Tara, watches over her high-strung mother.  A stranger finds gold on the family farm, but can he be trusted with the gold, much less Josie's heart?  And, hundreds of years later, how can Tara keep her mother from uprooting her and loosing their heritage? 

What Worked: Larson is an amazing artist, and this black and white novel is beautifully illustrated, with expressive characters and a quiet charisma.  Josie's love story is charmingly told, bittersweet and poignant.  Larson also does a great job of involving you in Josie's story -- you desperately want everything to work out for her.  This book also has one of the most arresting and unique covers that I have ever seen.  It becomes more and more interesting the longer that you look at it.  

What Didn't:  Larson counts on the parallel structure to do a lot of heavy lifting for her.  We don't ever see Tara's mom, she's just a voice on the phone, and an offhand comment from others.  We see a lot of Josie's mother though, and can extrapolate from there about Tara's mom.  I admire an author who trusts her audience enough to let them connect the dots; however, I'm not sure that it worked as well as it could have.  Tara's romance is a little more obtuse, and didn't add much to the story.  Also, the more overt supernatural elements in this book -- such as the animal spirits --  felt slightly out of place, and a little tacked on.  

However: My tolerance for supernatural flourishes is very low.  Your mileage may vary.  

Who Would I Give This Book To?  Teens looking for a different sort of paranormal romance, and those who like their historical fiction with a twist. 

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

* Note:  I'm trying a new format for the reviews, so this may look a little different.

What You Need to Know:  Revolution is a historical fiction book with a twist.  This is the story of a very modern, very screwed up girl who finds inspiration and hope in the diary of a girl who lived and died during the French Revolution.  Beautifully written and engrossing, I consider this one of the best books of 2010. 

Summary: Following the death of her little brother, Andi's life has fallen apart.  Her dad has split, her mom's gone crazy and Andi only survives due to medication and her music.  When Andi's mom is hospitalized, Andi is forced to go to Paris with her dad.  There she finds the diary of Alexandrine, a girl who lived during the French Revolution.  Alexandrine was a performer, who was a special companion of the Dauphin, the heir to the throne of France.  When the Revolution comes, and Louis-Charles is imprisoned, Alexandrine risks everything to give him what comfort she can.  As Andi becomes more engrossed in Alexandrine's story, the two girls' lives begin to converge in surprising ways.

What Worked:  Donnelly has a special gift, for instructing her reader with out lecturing them.  Although I had a pretty good background in the French Revolution, I learned without realizing it, as the information is seamlessly integrated into the story, not dumped in big chunks of exposition.   Donnelly also humanizes her historical characters, so that they are just as flawed and sympathetic as the characters she creates, not dusty cardboard cutouts.  Those two things -- history lessons disguised as narrative and stock characters  -- are two of my biggest beefs with historical fiction, and both are avoided here.

The amount of craft in this book is truly amazing, so many different threads -- the fate of Alexandrine, the implosion of Andi's family, the causes of the Revolution, musical DNA, the Paris catacombs, depression, survivor's guilt, art, The Divine Comedy -- all come together to weave a compelling and engrossing story.  Yes, at 500 pages, there is a lot of book here, but it doesn't feel overlong or padded.  The length is necessary for the complex tale.

What Didn't:  Personally, I could have lived without the love story angle.  I know from interviews that Donnelly took a lot of inspiration from The Divine Comedy and wanted to show an artist traveling through their version of hell with a guide.  Andi's Virgil is so smoking hot and wonderful, how could she not fall in love with him?  However, I'm not sure it worked.  I also felt like Donnelly was trying to make some paralells between the climate during the Revolution and the treatment of refugees in modern Paris that never really came off.  

However: These are quibbles, overall there wasn't much wrong here.

Who I Would Give this Book to:  Kids who share Andi's love of music.  Girls who like historical fiction.  Boys who would be intersted in the bloody Revolution.