1) "The Stranger" by Max Frei
If Harry Potter smoked cigarettes and took a certain matter-of-fact pleasure in administering tough justice, he might like Max Frei, the protagonist of this fantasy novel.
Author Frei is a Russian whose books have been bestsellers in his homeland for the last dozen years. Frei, this novel’s protagonist, is something of a dissolute slacker who once spent his nights smoking, eating and loafing, his days sleeping. When Sir Juffin Hully (who looks like Rutger Hauer’s older brother, though, Frei suggests, “try to augment his striking image with a pair of light, slightly slanting eyes”) comes into Frei’s life, he acquires a new sense of purpose. Frei has always been a dreamer, and now he has reason to wander between Worlds and see what kind of mischief he can find. Hully is a masterpiece of Potterian eccentricity, and then some, and the tone of the book often has a Potterian charm, though there’s an undercurrent of post–Cold War espionage in the mix; indeed, Frei, a onetime resident of the backwaters of empire transposed to the Heart of the World, reminds us that the barren borderlands house “the most diverse, sometimes extraordinarily powerful people, and not just wild barbarians,” which seems a very Russian thing to inject into the proceedings. Inspired by such characters as the Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Lives, a survivor of the Troubled Times, a habitué of places like the Murky Market and the House by the Bridge, and familiar with the deleterious effects the Elixir of Kaxar has on his countrymen, Frei does his bit to keep the world safe from malevolent magicians and conspiratorial spirits. And if the book is more talk than action, that talk is reliably entertaining, frequently double-edged and nicely idiosyncratic (“I’m off to do something meaningless, as you suggest. That’s what I do best”).
Well-written, well-paced grown-up fantasy with a strong dose of reality.
2) "Charm & Strange" by Stephanie Kuehn
From his opening announcement, “I don’t feel the presence of God here,” Andrew Winston Winters pulls readers into his story, alternating between his desperate life at an upscale Vermont boarding school and his grim, shadowed Virginia childhood.
Present-day Win is smart, competitive and untrusting, estranged from his former roommate, Lex, his one ally and defender. The reasons for Win’s self-loathing and keyed-up anxiety won’t be fully revealed until story’s end. What exactly does he expect to happen during the full moon? Why has he fallen out with Lex? Win’s privileged childhood, when he was known as Drew, is another mystery. A violent child prone to motion sickness, his unvarnished self-portrait contains big gaps. What’s happened to Keith, Win’s gentle older brother, and Siobhan, their beloved younger sister? Kuehn unwinds her story like a cat toy, teasing readers. Only when all the pieces are fit into the puzzle will the mystery at its heart become clear. How the horrific secrets Win’s been hoarding have shaped his past and explain his present crisis dominates the narrative. Timing—why he’s experiencing his crisis and the choices flowing from it, now—gets less attention, leaving unanswered questions.
A high-powered voice rich in charismatic style and emotional intensity illuminates this ambitious debut that doesn’t quite live up to its potential. (Fiction. 13 & up)
3) "The Way of the Warrior" by Chris Bradford
4) "Mythago Wood" by Robert Holdstock
5) "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by John Green
6) "Attachments" by Rainbow Rowell
Can love survive in the information age? It can when a newspaper’s IT guy begins reading the e-mails of the film critic.
Set long ago in 1999, when people still cared about privacy, Beth, a film critic at a Nebraska paper and Jennifer, a copy editor across the room, trade daily e-mails when boredom strikes at work. What they don’t suspect is that Lincoln, working the graveyard shift, reads their highly personal missives as part of his job, monitoring flagged e-mails for inappropriate material. He could stop (they’re neither gambling, browsing porn nor harassing co-workers), but he doesn’t want to—Beth and Jennifer are funny and friendly and have a life—something Lincoln desperately wants for himself. Handsome and addicted to college—he just finished his second master’s degree—Lincoln is also awkward, heartbroken from his cheating girlfriend, happy to count D&D as a social life, and has just moved back in with his counter-culture mother. Somehow, reading Beth and Jennifer’s e-mails make him feel normal. And he gets an eyeful of their normal: Jennifer is obsessed with pregnancy and how to avoid it, even though good guy husband Mitch wants nothing more than to start a family. Beth wishes she was as secure in her relationship with musician Chris, but he’s hardly the type to settle down. As the two trade emails, Lincoln feels increasingly like a cyber-stalker, but then something funny happens: Beth begins confessing a crush on a mystery man at work. Her cute guy eats dinner in the break room with old Doris, helps Jennifer change a flat and sounds an awful lot like Lincoln to Lincoln. He thinks he may be falling in love (even though he’s never seen Beth), but what about Chris? All's well that ends well in this romance that switches from the women’s e-mails to Lincoln’s narrative of his slow rise from sad sack to confident boyfriend material.
A certain light charm pervades the novel—a Spring Break kind of book.
7) "Paper Towns" by John Green
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