Author Rachel Cohn populates her novels with realistic teenagers dealing with complicated families. She crafts characters with just the right mix of sincerity and snarkiness. I've read all of her books to date and look forward to future releases.

The Gingerbread Trilogy

Her award-winning trilogy for teens features a bold and brassy young woman named after movie star Cyd Charisse. The books ought to be read in the proper order: Gingerbread, Shrimp, and Cupcake.

CC was very young when her parents got divorced. She has only one memory of her father: meeting him in an airport, where he gave her gingerbread and bough her a doll. She promptly named the doll Gingerbread and carried it everywhere.

Now a teenager, she still has the doll, as well as the yearning to see her father. Her mother has remarried, and though she gets along well enough with her stepfather and adores her younger half-siblings, she feels out of place - and feels the need to get out of that place.

She finally gets the chance to visit her father, going across the continent to the other coast, only to find that she doesn't quite fit there either. Her father is distant and their relationship is awkward. She has half-siblings on her father's side, but they are older, grown, pushing her into the unfamiliar role of the younger sister. Luckily, she hits it off with her extremely lovable half-brother Danny, who is easily my favorite supporting character in the series.

While in NYC, CC becomes homesick. She misses her family and friends in San Francisco, especially her boyfriend, Shrimp. On top of all that, something heavy is weighing on her mind - something she hasn't told many people - something she shouldn't have to deal with alone.

Shrimp, the sequel to Gingerbread, was released in 2005. As the title implies, the focus is on CC's love for surfer boy Shrimp. Now that she's back in San Francisco, their on-again, off-again relationship is on-again. Like the waves he loves, things can be smooth sailing one moment, then crash down the next.

Love isn't the only thing on her mind. So is school, what with it being her senior year. CC's mom wants her to go to college, but CC doesn't know where she wants to go or what she wants to do just yet. When CC's mom leaves her college brochures, CC tosses them in the recycling bin. The two headstrong women crash more than once, but their arguments are born of frustration, of differences, of love, never of hate.

Then Shrimp's hippie parents decide to move to New Zealand. What will CC do if Shrimp decides to go with them?

The third and final CC book, Cupcake, was released in February 2007. Now eighteen and a high school graduate, Cyd Charisse is ready to move on - or at least pretend that she is. Though she loves her family and her home in San Francisco, CC can't wait to live it up in New York with her fantastic older half-brother Danny. She just knows life in the city will be great. After all, what could be better to distract her from Shrimp-missage than the larger-than-life Big Apple?

I enjoyed Cupcake so much that I wrote a separate entry dedicated solely to it.

The Steps

Cohn's novels for younger readers, The Steps and Two Steps Forward, also deal with extended and estranged families. I noted The Steps book in an earlier column for The Edge of the Forest and have included it on many of my booklists.

The person who connects all of The Steps is Annabel, twelve "going on thirteen with a vengeance." Like CC, she is the feisty child of divorced parents. Unlike CC, Annabel spent the first nine years of her life with both parents. When her dad remarries and moves from New York to Australia, the distance seems incredible. Luckily, they reconnect when she visits him Down Under. Her stepmother and step-siblings grow on her, especially her stepsister Lucy.

Two Steps Forward splits the narration between Annabel and three of her peers: Lucy, her stepsister from her father's second marriage; Wheaties, Annabel's stepbrother from her mother's second marriage, and Ben, Annabel's Australian crush. The story brings the stepfamilies to Los Angeles, where nearly everyone feels like fish out of water. With so many kids and adults on one shared trip, personalities are bound to clash. Even when Annabel fights to change her appearance and sulks at the dinner table, she's still likable.

More Novels for Teens

For readers older than Annabel but slightly younger than CC, there's Wonder, the star of Pop Princess. Pretty young thing Lucky strikes it big as a pop singer. She becomes America's little darling, and the eyes of the world watch her star rise. One day, she is accidentally killed by a car while crossing the street. A freak accident. A fallen star.

Two years later, her manager hears Lucky's younger sister Wonder singing while slaving away at a Dairy Queen and offers her a record deal. The novel follows Wonder's ride up and down the fame rollercoaster. At first, Wonder does not particularly want to be famous, but she goes along for the ride. When Wonder's Pop Princess tiara becomes too heavy to wear, she realize what she does (and doesn't) want to do with her life and her talent. No matter what she decides to do, even if she doesn't fill her sister's shoes, she can be herself.

This book is featured on my But I Don't Want to Be Famous! booklist.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, her 2006 collaboration with David Levithan, was a hit with older teens and adults. It takes the typical boy meets girl storyline and makes it anything but typical. Over the course of one night, two perfect strangers fall in and out of love with life, music, friends, cars, food, the city, and maybe - just maybe - each other. Read my full-length review of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Prior to the release of Playlist, I had the opportunity to interview Cohn and Levithan together. They were friendly and forthcoming while discussing their books and their careers.

I interviewed them again the following year about their next collaborative effort, Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List. Also set in New York City, this No Kiss List isn't a boy meets girl story, nor a boy vs. girl story. It's just about a boy and a girl, two close friends who keep falling in and out of love with other people. Naomi's a little bit in love with Ely. Ely just might have kissed Naomi's boyfriend. Needless to say, Naomi & Ely have a complicated relationship, but it makes for a good read.

You Know Where to Find Me, Cohn's stand-alone novel of March 2008, is intense, to say the least. Two cousins grew up like sisters, and though their life wasn't ideal, it was bearable because they were together. Then Laura commits suicide, and Miles, the girl left behind, falters.

With this novel, Cohn definitely challenges readers. If she gets just one person to reevaluate what could be the ultimate decision . . . wow. While detailing Laura's death and Miles' downward spiral, Cohn doesn't soft-pedal anything. The fallout is intense without being overwhelming.

One of the many things I enjoyed about Find Me was the search. I didn't know exactly what Miles would do next or where she would end up. I didn't predict the ending. I didn't need to. And with this, with her, I wished for peace and hope. Also, for something she could call her own.

Whether writing for ten year olds or twenty year olds, whether setting her tale on the West Coast, East Coast, or Gold Coast, Rachel Cohn has a knack for telling stories that make readers find hope.

Visit her official website and MySpace page.

The original version of this piece was published in the February 2007 issue of The Edge of the Forest.

When asked to name her favorite books of the year, author Rachel Cohn replied:

"My reading was sadly remiss this year, but of the books I did read, my absolute favorite (quickly vaulting into my all-time favorites list, not just of the year) was Jaclyn Moriarty's I HAVE A BED MADE OF BUTTERMILK PANCAKES, the Canadian/Australian edition of the book that was published as a YA in the U.S. this year as THE SPELL BOOK OF LISTEN TAYLOR."

I must say I like the original title. Mmm, pancakes!

Find out what others have read and loved this year.

For more author picks, visit Bildungsroman every weekday for the rest of the month!

Read a new interview with Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

Last year, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's collaborative novel, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, found a home with readers of all ages. The book was quite successful, both in sales and in praise. It won the first-ever Cybils award in the category of Young Adult Fiction and is being made into a major motion picture starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings.

This year, the second LeviCohn collaboration hit the shelves: Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List. Though the two novels have similar tones and are both set in New York, they depict very different types of relationships. While Nick & Norah split narrative duties equally in their Playlist, the No Kiss List has a longer list of narrators. While Nick & Norah knew each other for one night, Naomi & Ely have been best friends since childhood. However, I think each delightful pair would enjoy the other's stories - and I'm certain fans of one book will enjoy the other.

I interviewed the authors in 2006, then had the pleasure of catching up with them again in 2007.

Did you start writing Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List before or after the sale or publication of Nick & Norah? Did you feel (or ignore) any pressure (or worries) to write something similar to N&N?

DAVID: We started before, and of course there was pressure (although not as much as there would have been after it came out). We had such an amazing time writing N&N that we knew it was impossible for lightning to strike in the same way twice. So we decided to approach the lightning in a different way.

RACHEL: The experience of writing N&N had been so much fun that I don't think there was any doubt we'd give it another go. We were well on our way with N&E long before N&N was released.

Do you plan to write more novels set in your New York?

( Read more... )

Thanks again to David and Rachel for chatting with me. Happy holidays!

This just in: Middle school is HARD. It's bad enough that you have to deal with changing classrooms, let alone changing for P.E. in the locker room in front of classmates. You have to navigate your way between classes and through the cafeteria without losing your cool or your lunch. You have more schoolwork and homework to do than you did in elementary school. Your moods may suddenly shift, and your friends, siblings, and parents might suddenly seem like foreign life forms.

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff by Jennifer L. Holm, with artwork and illustrations by Elicia Castaldi, is a unique look at one girl's seventh grade experience. It relays all of the fears and concerns of a typical middle school student, but in a very cool format. It really is told through Ginny's stuff: her to-do lists (she likes scratching out tasks as she completes them), her tests and essays, notes to and from her mom, her grandfather, and her teachers, her older brother's hand-drawn comics, even her report cards and bank statements (she makes money baby-sitting, then spends it and ends up with the same balance every month).

The concept is executed wonderfully. Holm and Castaldi have given Ginny a definite life and personality, just through her stuff. Castaldi's artwork is beautiful. News clippings, greetings cards, and store receipts all look authentic. It brought to mind The Baby-Sitters Club Chain Letter book from many years ago. Though the BSC book actually had letters you could unfold, cards you could open, and other trinkets readers could keep, I liked that Middle School was all right here on the page, so nothing could get torn or out of place.

Every single thing written, drawn, or otherwise included on the page is a part of the story. When Ginny dyes her hair against her mom's wishes, we see the receipt from the store where she bought the dye and other items, then the receipt from the hair salon where Ginny's mother takes her to fix her hair. When her mother remarries, a newspaper clipping describes the affair. When Ginny's older brother gets in trouble, he draws her comic strips to show what he did and to express his remorse. The comics are rendered by Holm's real-life brother, Matthew, who also works with her on the fun graphic novel series Babymouse.

A complete story is told here, just through one girl's stuff. Not only is this contemporary and appealing to kids currently in middle school, but it won't feel dated in five years because it is based on fairly timeless themes. It's not about having stuff - meaning it's not about the desire to have material items - but rather it's what your stuff says about you.

If you haven't seen this book, please go find it. Get Holm's previous works while you're at it!

Read my interview with Jennifer L. Holm.

Once upon a time, there were five little girls. These little girls were very different, but they still became friends. Best friends forever . . . or so they thought. One night in middle school, after a slumber party, one little girl - Alison, the most manipulative and controlling of the group - disappeared, and the four girls who were left behind - Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer - became Pretty Little Liars.

Three years later, the girls are no longer close. Everyone still knows everyone else's business, of course, that's how their suburb operates, but they don't socialize. Each girl excels at something, be it art, athletics, or fashion. Each girl looks to be leading a happy, healthy life, but she is hiding something from her family - something she thinks no one else knows.

Then messages start appearing on cell phones or computer screens, short notes threatening to spill their precious little secrets. All of the messages are signed by "A." But who is it? Is it one of them, or is Alison back? How does whoever it is know all that's going on behind closed doors?

These books are addictive. Really addictive. After the original book, every following book in the line has had a one-word title, but they could also be titled I Know What You Did Last Summer, Gossip Girl. Seriously. Lying, cheating, murder, shoplifting, eating disorders - these books have it all. Each of the girls has a distinct look and personality (and it should be noted the books' covers fit them perfectly) but they are not cookie-cutter rich girls. Author Sara Shepard has taken what could be yet another story about superficial girls and twisted it, making it into a darker story, a mystery saturated with guilty pleasures that will intrigue older teens and adult readers.

The books should be read in order:

Pretty Little Liars
Flawless
Perfect
Unbelievable
Wicked (December 2008)

Read my interview with the author.

Pretty Little Liars are pretty darn addictive. (Read my book review.)

I spoke to author Sara Shepard at length about her posh and predatory mystery series.

You've said that the series was inspired by your own hometown - Philadelphia's Main Line. I am hoping it was mostly the setting, and not so much the murder and backstabbing.

Yes, it's mostly the setting. Although I really liked the idea of everything looking perfect on the outside -- manicured lawns, massive estates, idyllic scenes of girls riding horses down the road ( Read more... )

Learn more about the series at prettylittleliars.com and prettylittleliarsbooks.com