NYC stories: The Falconer,The Poet X, and Hope and Other Punchlines

Frequently, in novels set in NYC, the city becomes a character that enhances the story-line. This month I'm recommending three new YA novels where this is the case.  The Falconer by Dana Czapnik follows Lucy Adler, a basketball player who is passionate about the game, her unrequited crush Percy, and NYC.  The Poet X, a novel-in-verse by Elizabeth Acevedo, is about an Afro-Latino poet living in Harlem and struggling with family expectations. Hope and Other Punchlines by Julie Buxbaum takes on the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, following "Baby Hope" who was immortalized when a photographer took a picture of her being carried out of her day care at the World Trade Center, as the first tower collapsed in the background.

In The Falconer:A Novel,  17-yer-old Lucy Adler, a smart, talented  basketball player at Pendleton Academy in NYC, calls herself a "Pizza Bagel" - an Italian, Jewish mutt.  Written from Lucy's first-person point of view, the rhythm of the story is like that of a sports commentator, which is not surprising as the author is a sports journalist.  Lucy spends a great deal of time on the basketball court playing pickup games with her best guy friend and unrequited love interest, Percy Abney, an ultra-rich boy trying to resist his blue-blood fate. She watches despondently,  as he has flings with and discards one girl after another, oblivious to Lucy's being in love with him. She also wanders NYC with her best girlfriend and teammate Alexis Feliz, waxing poetic about the city's wonders, and hangs out with her cousin Violet, a bohemian artist who lives with her girlfriend Max in Soho. Max's claim to fame is her pop-art installation of an American flag made of dildos, which was shown at the Whitney Biennial.  The girls talk endlessly about love, sexism, and art vs capitalism. Attending an Art vs Kmart demonstration, Lucy wonders, "Does art always win? If it did, the world would be a very different place."  The lyrical descriptions of NYC and the spot-on accounts of Lucy's basketball games will keep the reader eagerly turning the pages.  Even as Lucy suffers one humiliation after another, I had faith that she would ultimately land on her feet.  This coming-of-age in Manhattan story is being compared to Catcher in the Rye.

The Michael L. Printz and Pura Bellpre award winner, The Poet X, introduces Xiomara Patista, a girl living in a Dominican community in Harlem. She is frustrated by her inability to defend herself against her mother's hyper-religious demands, as well as unwanted male attention now that she has developed curves. Her twin brother Xavier, who attends a "genius school" is little support, as he is struggling with challenges of his own.  She pours her passion into her poetry, which she writes in a leather notebook.  When she and her lab partner Aman begin a sweet flirtation, she decides to skip confirmation classes, which have been dictated by her mother, to spend time sharing her poetry with him.  When her mother finds out, all hell breaks loose and Xiomara's only outlet is her poetry, writing "It almost feels like the more I bruise the page, the quicker something inside me heals."  Her English teacher prompts her to join the poetry club and enter a slam poetry competition.  Through her poetry she finds the strength to stand up to her mother and express who she really is. This novel-in-verse by an award winning slam poet also won the National Book Award and the Golden Kite Honor and is a must read for anyone who loves poetry.

Hope and Other Punchlines opens 16 years after Abbi Hope Goldstein became the poster child for hope, when she was photographed wearing a birthday crown, while escaping the collapse of the first tower at the World Trade Center. She is beginning to exhibit signs of 9/11 syndrome, including a bloody cough, which she is hiding from her parents.  She takes a job as a camp counselor a few towns away, hoping for some anonymity one last summer before she thinks she will die.  Unfortunately, a co-worker, Noah Stern, recognizes her from school and blackmails her into helping him interview other people who were in the infamous picture. One of them was his deceased father, whom he wants to learn more about.  Told from alternating points of view, the story illuminates the impact the tragedy had on survivors, as well as tells a tale of first love and resilience in the face of adversity.  Although this emotional journey is laced with quick-witted banter, the novel is ultimately a fairly serious examination of the aftermath of the infamous terrorist attack in NYC.