Cassidy Blake Series by Victoria Schwab

 Part of the reason for my renewed interest in reading YA is that I've had a lot of requests lately for genres that I just didn't have a lot of ideas for. The two big ones causing difficulty are horror and mystery. For many of my kids, I have no problem handing them a non-YA if it's in their interest area, but I don't feel as comfortable doing that with either Horror or Mystery.  It's probably already obvious, but both those genres tend to have disturbing or graphic scenes. (There can also be a surprising amount of sex.) Classic authors are a little safer than contemporary ones, but getting a kid to read something described as classic has its own pitfalls. 

In any case, I'm delighted when I find something good that meets my needs. I've been a fan of V.E. Schwab for a while, but this is my first foray into her YA material. I just finished the Cassidy Blake series and I really hope that she's planning to write more (although I suspect she's done with this one.) Cassidy is a 12 year old who had a nearly tragic accident the year before the beginning of the series. She fell into an icy river and temporarily died. She was saved by a ghost named Jacob who is now tangled up with her and is, in effect, haunting her. Additionally, she can now cross the veil and interact with ghosts.

Cassidy's parents are co-authors of a series of books about ghosts. Their books get optioned for a television series, so Cassidy gets to go on a whirlwind tour of the most haunted cities in the world. Of course, this turns into a problem since A-it turns out that Cassidy is supposed to be doing something with the ghosts and B-not all ghosts are friendly.

City of Ghosts - set in Edinburgh. Cassidy meets a fellow veil-walker and encounters a murderous ghost. In this volume Cassidy transitions from a miserable pre-teen to a young woman with a purpose. It's a solid self-discovery story with a seriously creepy opponent.

Tunnel of Bones - set in Paris. After the events of the previous book, Cassidy has to work to regain the trust of her parents while dealing with a violent poltergeist she accidently attracted. None of the methods she learned in the previous book seem to be working. In this volume, Cassidy solidifies her abilities and gains confidence.

Bridge of Souls - set in New Orleans. Maybe the end of the series...maybe not. This one's all about relationships. Cassidy must work to save both Jacob (her ghost) and Lara (the other veil-walker from the first book) after she attracts the attention of an Emissary of Death. 

Overall, it's an excellent series with a lot of good character growth for Cassidy. I'm really pleased to add them to my classroom library.

Machine Man by Max Berry

I'm a sucker for a weird romance and it doesn't get much weirder than this one. Max Berry is a master of the unexpected love story but they don't always appear in his stories which makes them all the more satisfying when they appear. Berry is really more of a science or speculative fiction satirist. His stories always take some element of society or social trend and twists it. In the case of Machine Man, he's playing with people's obsession with technology and body modification to create a story firmly seated in transhumanist philosophy. The whole idea of it is to used science and technology to become something more than just human. It's not a new idea. The term 'transhuman' was coined in the fifties and I've read several stories and novels that feature it in the plot. Many of those stories are hard to immerse in. While it's an intriguing idea to leave behind messy biology, we do tend to be pretty attached to our bodies. Characters who do so willingly are often hard to relate to.

Charles Neumann is a scientist or an engineer (it's never entirely clear which) who starts thinking about how to improve human functionality after losing a leg in an industrial accident. The (somewhat sinister) company he works for gives him carte blanche to tinker with advanced prosthetics and a massive team to assist. It isn't long before he starts to view the synthetic limbs as superior to the biological ones. It goes from there as one would expect. What's unexpected is the strange little love story that crops up between Charles and his prosthetist, Lola.

The love story is odd for a couple reasons. First, Charles Neumann is incredibly detached about his biological body and ridiculously cut off from other people. It's amazing that Berry gets us to connect with him in the first place and it's quite the feat that he makes it believable that he would fall in love at all. Second, Lola is perhaps an even stranger character. At first, she doesn't seem all that odd. She's a softer, more emotional character. It's tempting to see her as hapless or swept along by Charles, but in reality, it's pretty clear that she knows what he's up to pretty early in the story. She's not swept along, she's a willing, even eager, participant in Charles schemes.

It all should be a little horrifying, and it is on some level, but there is also something sweet and tender in the relationship between Charles and Lola. I think the love story humanizes the two characters and helps us relate to two otherwise alien characters.

I greatly enjoyed the read. I always marvel at Berry's characters.