Tag Archives: Marieke Nijkamp

Review: Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise
Edited by Laura Silverman
Algonquin Young Readers
Published July 13, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Up All Night

When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible.

It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself.

Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours.

Full contributor list: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Laura Silverman, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia.

My Review

I’ve read stories by about a third of the authors with stories in this book. Lots more of them have been on my TBR list for a long time, so I was excited to read this collection in order to sample some of those authors and some new ones, too. Here’s what I thought about some of my favorites from UP ALL NIGHT:

“Under Our Masks” by Julian Winters

This is the first time I’ve read anything by Julian Winters, and I feel like I’ve been missing out. I loved this casual super hero story. In just a few pages, I felt like I knew the characters and had a sense of the city where they were. I also loved the anticipation as it built up toward the end of the story.

“Missing” by Kathleen Glasgow

I feel like I’m kind of on a roll with Kathleen Glasgow’s storytelling. I just finished THE AGATHAS, which I loved, and YOU’D BE HOME NOW tore out my heart in the best possible ways. So my expectations for her work were really high, and this story absolutely delivered for me. It’s intense, creepy, and powerful. I think it’s my favorite from the whole collection.

“Old Rifts and Snowdrifts” by Kayla Whaley

This story took advantage of some of my favorite romance tropes and centered them around a wheelchair-bound character. I loved the aching romance and the swirling snowstorm blanketing the world outside the flower shop. Also, it was a perfect nighttime, snowed-in-together story.

“The Ghost of Goon Creek” by Francesca Zappia

This is another one that had expert setup, so that in just a few words, I felt like I knew the main character and could understand how she felt about a troop of outsiders stomping through a grief-bound tradition of hers. And yet… I loved watching the relationships morph and change, and seeing her realize she had an opportunity for new friendships, and to wrestle with how to move into that. Great stuff. I loved this one, too. Francesca Zappia is another author that I am new to, but now really want to read more of.

I liked lots of the other stories in this collection, too. The first couple were the weakest for me in terms of hooking me into reading, but there are so many really good ones here. I’m super glad I had a chance to read UP ALL NIGHT.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Rep varies per story, but the collection is pretty diverse, featuring LGBT+, black, Latinx, and disabled characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Varies per story. Extreme profanity appears in some stories, used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kiss between boy and girl. Kiss between two boys.

Spiritual Content
One story features ghosts. Another features legends about a ghost.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. In one story, girls explore an abandoned mental institution and face danger and harm.

Drug Content
Teens drink alcohol in at least one story.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp

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At the End of Everything
Marieke Nijkamp
Sourcebooks Fire
Published on January 25, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About At the End of Everything

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS comes another heartbreaking, emotional and timely page-turner that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist.

Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day…they don’t show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they’re stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place.

My Review

I requested this book because both of the other books by Marieke Nijkamp (THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS and BEFORE I LET GO) have been powerfully told stories and really well written– and this one is no exception. I wish I had been in a different place when I picked up this book to read it. Like, I loved the characters, and it’s such a heart-wrenching story. I wish I’d had more emotional bandwidth as I was reading the book, which isn’t the author’s fault at all. I think I just happened to read it when my emotional gas tank was almost empty.

But. All that aside.

So the story follows three points of view: Logan, who communicates via a sign language she and her twin sister developed between them; Emerson, a new resident of Hope who’s also nonbinary; and Grace, a girl with some big anger issues who winds up reluctantly in charge of the group.

I loved the balance of those three points of view. They all have different feelings and ideas about what’s happening and how to go forward in the best way. Each of them contribute critical things to the survival of the group, but in really different ways. I think the whole story could have been told from any one of those perspectives, but I think choosing all three added so much to the depth and breadth of the book.

The plot is pretty simple– a deadly plague disrupts every aspect of life as they know it– but it brings really high stakes. The characters literally face life and death decisions at every turn. I read this book in two days, and I couldn’t not do that. I was absolutely drawn into AT THE END OF EVERYTHING and what would happen to each of the characters in it.

Conclusion

Something about the book reminded me of AWAY WAY WE GO by Emile Ostrovski. It’s a bit darker than that one is, but I guess it has a similar feel in terms of this small, collapsing world inside a culture faced with a global pandemic. I think fans of edgy fiction will like AT THE END OF EVERYTHING.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main characters are white. One is mute. Another is Ace. The other is nonbinary.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing.

Spiritual Content
One character was raised as a Catholic, but when they came out as nonbinary, they were rejected from their church. They have a lot of (understandable) feelings of anger and hurt, but at one point they express longing to have the certainty of faith in their life again. Sometimes they pray or ask St. Jude to pray for them.

Violent Content – trigger warning for sexual assault, transphobia, and ableism.
A group of kids surround another kid and beat them up. Soldiers shoot and kill a boy who does not follow their commands. A girl sees a boy sexually assaulting another girl and beats him up. Two girls light a warehouse on fire that they thought was empty and nearly kill someone in the fire.

Emerson (the nonbinary character) faces situations in which they’re misgendered or harmed for their identity. Their parents threw them out and their friends abandoned them when they came out as nonbinary.

Several other characters belittle or talk down to Logan because she communicates with sign language and they assume she’s less intelligent or less capable than they are. Those behaviors are clearly addressed and called out as wrong and harmful.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of AT THE END OF EVERYTHING in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Before I Let Go
Marieke Nijkamp
Sourcebooks Fire
Published on January 2, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Before I Let Go
Best friends Corey and Kyra were inseparable in their snow-covered town of Lost Creek, Alaska. When Corey moves away, she makes Kyra promise to stay strong during the long, dark winter, and wait for her return.

Just days before Corey is to return home to visit, Kyra dies. Corey is devastated―and confused. The entire Lost community speaks in hushed tones about the town’s lost daughter, saying her death was meant to be. And they push Corey away like she’s a stranger.

Corey knows something is wrong. With every hour, her suspicion grows. Lost is keeping secrets―chilling secrets. But piecing together the truth about what happened to her best friend may prove as difficult as lighting the sky in an Alaskan winter…

My Review
I feel like Nijkamp’s true strength in storytelling comes from her way of taking a single situation or moment and crafting a story that shows a 360 degree view of the relationships around that situation. In her debut novel, she did this with a school shooting and the view into all the relationships surrounding the shooter. In Before I Let Go, we circle the unexpected death of a young girl in a small, close-knit community which never accepted her. Events unravel in a way both suspenseful and almost magical.

Because of the elements of magical realism, I often had no idea where the story would go. It felt like anything was possible. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kyra showed up somehow. The way the town which Corey called home until seven months earlier becomes more and more sinister and strange kept me eagerly turning pages. Sometimes a simple, seemingly harmless thing twisted into something sinister and cult-ish. I liked Corey’s character and the way the story juxtaposed her interest in stars with Kyra’s passion for stories.

Before I Let Go is a great pick for readers who liked Bone Gap by Laura Ruby or The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Corey is asexual and her best friend Kyra pansexual. Corey learns that two of the boys in town are gay and a couple. Kyra is bipolar.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Romance/Sexual Content
Two girls share a kiss. Corey sees two boys sleeping in the same bed.

Spiritual Content
Corey finds paintings which seem to predict the future. Others seem to have embraced the idea of the paintings being prophetic and have an almost ritualistic response to them. Some possibly magical things happen. Flowers appear in various places without any explanation, and a garden grows plants out of season.

Violent Content
A sudden fire nearly kills a girl. A man attacks a teen boy and a girl in the woods.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

Review: This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

This Is Where It Ends
Marieke Nijkamp
Publisher

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

It begins with the closing of the principal’s speech at Opportunity High. Confusion rustles through the auditorium as students discover the locked doors. Then one door opens, and a boy enters. A boy with a gun.

Four alternating viewpoints, each a student with a connection to the shooter, relate this tense, heartbreaking tale about a community ripped apart by violence. The story spans fifty-four minutes.

This Is Where It Ends includes a diverse body of characters across lines of race, religion, and sexual preference. As a YA reader and reviewer, I’ve commented before that I wish there were more stories featuring Muslim characters in which they or their family members aren’t portrayed as terrorists. I think especially right now, we need those voices. We need those stories. Fareed was probably my favorite character. He was kind, smart, patient, and loyal, but he got things done, too. I loved that he wasn’t defeated by other people’s prejudices.

I really liked that each chapter began with a timestamp. The story unfolds so rapidly, and there’s a lot of chaos and panic, and that minute-by-minute unraveling of the timeline kept things feeling critical. I feel like that high-tension plot is the real strength of the story.

In reading the different points-of-view, I often felt like I wasn’t getting as deep as I wanted to, especially early on in the story. It’s a really tough balance to strike to give enough slow insight into the characters versus keeping the narrative moving to avoid letting the tension slack off, so I think it could just be that I’m used to those slower-paced, more cerebral narratives, or prefer them.

There’s a heroic moment in which one character basically gives their life for another character. I love that gesture and how brave it was, but I felt like because of how it unfolded in the plot, it didn’t have to happen and was kind of just this little pause for, “okay, then this person we like dies, and moving on again.” I wanted it to mean more. However, the truth is, that in situations like this, there often isn’t a big moment that means something for each casualty, you know? I think because of who this character is, I expected it to mean more.

There’s never a good time to read a tragic story, but it is always the right time to be reminded of courage.

It is early December as I write this review. It’s always difficult to review a story about a situation like this in the wake of a real life event like what happened in San Bernandino. I was reading Black Helicopters, a story about a terrorist bombing, when the bombing happened in Boston in 2013. I’ve had This Is Where It Ends in my review queue for some time, but there hasn’t seemed a good time to read it.

I can only say that we need to be reminded that people of good heart, of moral courage come from every background, despite what other voices and what our own fears would have us believe. We need to hold on to the truth that we are all created equal, all worthy of love, all valuable. And Marieke Nijkamp’s brave story, though cloaked in the senseless tragedy of a school shooting, reminds us of these critically important beliefs.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
We learn that a girl was raped, but no details about the incident. Two girls have a romantic relationship. They hold hands and kiss.

Spiritual Content
Sylvia prays occasionally through the story, and remembers sharing in spiritual traditions of her Mexican family. Fareed whispers prayers as well (he is a Muslim.) At the end of the story, survivors gather at a candlelight vigil and pray according to their faiths.

Violence
A teenage boy shoots students, teachers and staff at his high school. One person is killed by asphyxiation. An abusive man beats his children, leaving them bruised. Some of these scenes are extremely violent and some of the descriptions quite graphic. I’d say this one isn’t for the faint of heart or the very sensitive.

Drug Content
Autumn and Tyler’s dad is an abusive alcoholic.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.