The Impossible Knife of Memory, Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson never disappoints with her work, and this novel, due out in January, is no exception

From the Publisher: For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own. Will being back home help Andy's PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.

Pros: This book is full of suspense and tragedy, but it's so well balanced, that you sometimes forget how precarious everything is for Hailey and her father, and you hope that Hailey can forget it for a few minutes at a time herself. LHA is a master of character development, I think that's what draws me into her work more than anything. I cared about these characters deeply and quickly. These characters became real to me, in part, I'm sure, because I know there really are Hayleys and Andys out there in the world, but also in large part because LHA crafts their characters through actions and inactions as well as she does through words. We need more books that play out the consequences of war and the hidden collateral damage done to families of many who survive.

Cons: I thought Finn's family issues were glossed over a bit and the story might have been a little better without that sideline because it didn't seem to move the story along much, just make Finn a little more empathetic. I think she could have done that in a different way and still had it be just as effective. I also wasn't impressed with the school in this story.  I would hope that when it was so clear that there were issues in a home, a school would do more, but that's not really about the book itself, now is it. That's me in my Pollyanna glasses on my soapbox.

High school collections will definitely want to purchase this book.

I read an e-ARC of this book.

Twisted - Laurie Halse Anderson

I'd read some reviews for this book and was excited to see that a young adult author whose work I really enjoy had a new book coming out, particularly one from the male point of view, so I was happy when it finally came to my turn on the library hold list. I was not disappointed, and this book will definitely appeal to both girls and boys.

Tyler Miller has never been a popular boy, and so he creates a plan that he thinks will turn him around...a little graffiti painting on the school ought to do the trick. That is, unless you drop your wallet at the crime scene and are apprehended and assigned to community service the judge. Oops.

There is a bright side to his manual labor, however. Tyler turns into a pretty studly lookin' senior with lots o' muscles. Enter Bethany Milbury. She's cute, popular, and the girl of Tyler's dreams. And she's diggin' him. things are going well for Tyler. Until he makes a big mistake and shows up at a party where there is a lot of drinking and other bad things happening, and he gets accused of a crime that happened there. He did NOT do it, but it's difficult to get other people to believe that. This is an important lesson in how one bad choice can follow you around for a long time and make things pretty miserable for you in ways you never imagined. In making a choice about how to deal with everything that's happening, Tyler considers suicide as one of his options.

This is a book for mature, older readers because of the content, but it is another book from this author that really makes readers think about many important issues, and I appreciate that there is someone out there addressing these things for young adults.