Summer Reading: One of Us is Lying, Alex Approximately, and Alex and Eliza: a love story

Frequently, writers find inspiration from other artistic representations of a story that they are in essence retelling.  A chapter in my book, "Classic Connections," is devoted to books inspired by classic literature.  The novels I am recommending this month are inspired by dramatic performances.  Alex Approximately by Jenn Bennett (The Anatomical Shape of the Heart) gives a nod to the film You've Got Mail. In the book a New Jersey teen has an online relationship with a California boy based on their shared love of classic film.  When she moves to the West Coast for the summer, she struggles with the decision to meet him in person. One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus was inspired by John Hughes' film The Breakfast Club. In this re-imagining five students from differing social strata show up for detention and one of them ends up dead. Melissa de la Cruz (Something in Between) was motivated to write Alex and Eliza: a love story, when she went to see the musical Hamilton on Broadway. This imagined courtship between Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza Schuyler weaves together fact and fiction for an enchanting read. 

In Alex Approximately, classic movie buff Bailey "Mink" Rydell is heading from the East Coast to California to live with her dad. Throughout her junior year Mink has been involved  in an online relationship with a film geek named Alex, who happens to live in the same surfing town as her dad.  She decides to surreptitiously discover his identity before she reveals herself to him.  Meanwhile she is working at the oddball Cavern Palace Museum, where she is tormented daily by a security guard named Porter Roth.  When they get locked in the museum together one night, Mink begins to look at Porter in a different light and wonders if she should give up her search for Alex and focus on Porter.  What she doesn't know is Porter is actually Alex, approximately. This book is great fun and all the references to classic film are a bonus for movie buffs.

One of Us is Lying turns The Breakfast Club into a murder mystery.  Five students end up in detention, only four survive. Simon, who authors a brutal gossip app containing dirt on kids at his high school, drinks a glass of water laced with peanut oil and dies of anaphylactic shock.  He has damning information about all four remaining detainees: Bronwyn, the brainy good girl; Cooper, the baseball hero; Addy, the girl in her boyfriend's shadow, and Nate, the drug dealer. Now murder suspects, the four team up to find the real killer, upending their lives and finding romance along the way. This fast paced thriller will keep readers guessing, as the pressures of high school and the dangers of social media are explored in alternating chapters from all four suspects' perspectives.

Alex and Eliza, a fictionalized version of the romance between Alexander Hamilton, an aide for General Washington and America's first treasury secretary and Eliza Schuyler, a socially connected young woman, includes some historically accurate information and much imagined. Alex meets Eliza and incurs her wrath, when he delivers news to the family that her father is to be court martialed. He can't forget her fiery nature and two years later pursues her in Morristown, NJ, where she has come to inoculate soldiers against smallpox.  Although he comes from humble beginnings, he ultimately earns her love and rescues her from a disastrous engagement.  The story ends with the wedding of the two, who become a political power couple in the early days of a new nation.  Although many of the characters are real, much of the action, including Eliza's engagement to Henry Livingston and Hamilton uncovering Benedict Arnold's treason,  are fictional embellishments to add pizzazz to the story.  Told from Eliza's perspective, the story sheds some light on the civic minded woman who aided her husband with his political writings throughout his career.  This is an entertaining read for those who enjoy "history light."

Noted authors trying something new: Something in Between, And I Darken, and Kids of Appetite

When choosing books to read, I admit I am tempted to choose books by recognizable authors with a proven track record.  This month I will review new novels by three popular authors, who are trying something different. Melissa de la Cruz, who is well-known for her popular vampire series Blue Bloods, has written Something in Between, a stand alone novel about a Filipino girl who wins a National Scholar Award, only to find out she is undocumented. Kiersten White, who teens will recognize as the author of the Paranormalcy series, has penned And I Darken, the first book in a new historical romance trilogy. Finally, David Arnold, author of the critically acclaimed Mosquitoland, offers Kids of Appetite,  a murder mystery, whose main character is a boy with Moebius syndrome, the inability to move one's facial muscles.

In Something in Between Jasmine de los Santos, who emigrated from the Philippines at age nine, receives the National Scholar Award, complete with a full ride to the college of her choice. Naturally, she thinks her dreams of attending Stanford are within reach.  Expecting her parents to be thrilled, she is shocked when they reveal that they are undocumented immigrants and her accepting the scholarship could jeopardize their freedom.  All her years of striving for success, academically, as well as on an award winning cheerleading team, could go unrewarded.  To complicate matters Jasmine has started dating Royce Blakely, another Stanford hopeful, whose father is a California congressman, who has sponsored an anti-immigrant bill.  As Jasmine's family struggles to obtain visas, so that she can pursue her dreams legally, she searches for a solution through Stanford's need-blind international student program.  The story is semi autobiographical for the author, who attended Columbia on a need-blind scholarship, which she discusses in an author's note.

And I Darken, the first book in a new historical romance series, introduces Lada and Radu, children of Vlad Dracul, prince of Wallachia, who offers them as hostages to the Ottoman Empire, in the  hope of securing his throne.  They befriend Mehmed, the Ottoman heir, and the three grow up together, awaiting Mehmed's ascension to the Ottoman throne.  Homely, but fierce, Lada trains as a warrior, whereas, the beautiful Radu seeks peace and converts to Islam; yet both fall for the charismatic Mehmed.  As political intrigue and changing loyalties abound, the strange love triangle moves toward a denouement, setting up the sequel. This historical romance, set in the Ottoman Empire during the early to mid 1400s, weaves historical fact, including the real-life figure who served as the inspiration for Dracula, into an action-packed tale of war and romance.

In alternating chapters in Kids of Appetite, teens Vic and Madeline are individually questioned by the Hackensack Police Department about a recent murder.   In flashbacks to the days leading up to their interrogations, we meet the Kids of Appetite (KoA), a group of semi-homeless kids, who take in Vic, a boy with facial paralysis known as Moebius Syndrome, after he runs away from home.  Vic's father recently died from cancer, and when his mother's new boyfriend proposes, Vic grabs the urn filled with his dad's ashes and leaves. He is on a mission to scatter his ashes, as per dad's cryptic instructions, around NYC, and the group decides to help him.  Baz, a 27-year-old refugee from the Congo, is the group's father figure.  His mute brother Zuz and snarky 11-year-old Coco take a back seat to Madeline, Vic's love interest.  She is dealing with grief over her parents accidental deaths and abuse at the hands of her uncle, who takes in her and her demented grandmother after the accident. As the group helps Vic with his quest, he begins to feel a sense of belonging, and the stirrings of first love when he experiences his first kiss with Madeline. The solution to the murder mystery is secondary to the story of Vic's healing process, as he shows the KoA what it means to be a "heart thinker."  This is a book for kids who enjoy quirky reads with lots of character development. An added bonus is Madeline's obsession with S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders which she references frequently.