How to Hang a Witch

Finished August 9

How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather

This is a great teen novel. The author is a descendent of Cotton Mather, on of the players in the Salem witch trials and uses that historical event to bring a current issue to a new level.

Samantha Mather has just moved to Salem with her stepmother Vivian, following her father's illness and hospitalization. Her father had always refused to return to this town, and Samantha doesn't remember her grandmother, whose house she is now living in, at all. 

While she is welcomed by her nearest neighbour Mrs. Meriwether and her son, Jaxon, she is still unhappy about being so far from her dad, who will be transferred from the hospital in New York City to a nearby city soon. 

The following day, at her new high school, is even more difficult as she is made to feel very unwelcome by a group of teenagers who are direct descendents of the women who were burned as witches in the 1600s. Samantha herself is a direct descendent of Cotton Mather, who played a large role in the historical event. 

As Samantha finds odd things happening around her and to people in town, she learns that her grandmother Charlotte had been studying similar happenings around descendents of the various players in the witch trials before her own death. 

Assisted by a resident ghost in her home, Samantha digs deeper into research, using her grandmother's notes and trying to reach out to the girls who have made her feel unwelcome. 

The parallels between to the past and the present highlight similarities that related to modern day bullying and scapegoating and show that we haven't come as far as we think in society. 

Samantha's efforts show ways to deal with real life issues even though she exists in a world where magic, superstition, and ghosts are a reality. 

This was a really interesting read, and is the first in a series of books. 

Smashed

Finished March 28
Smashed by Lisa Luedeke

This teen novel follows Katie Martin in her senior year of high school. She's a star on her field hockey team and hoping for a scholarship to be able to attend university. She's also dealing with a recently broken family.
After an argument between her parents, her father drives off, and never returns. Her mom is a nurse in nearby Portland, Maine, and working as many shifts as she can to make ends meet. The novel starts in the summer, and Katie is working as a swim instructor at the nearby lake in the mornings, and at the local ice cream place later in the day. Her best friend Cassie is away in Europe for the summer, and her other friend Matt is also busy working.
When the football star, Alec, from school shows up to work nearby and starts to show an interest in Katie, she isn't sure what to think. He seems a lot nicer than he was in school, and interested in what she has to say, but what is his real motive in doing her favours?
Katie resents that her mother is never home, often staying at her boyfriend's place in town rather than drive home late at night after work. Katie's little brother Will is a good kid, and he and Katie get along well, but her commitments mean that he spends a lot of time at his best friend's place.
In trying to escape her problems, Katie makes a few bad decisions and finds herself owing Alec and bigger favour than she is comfortable with, especially when the costs of that favour start coming due.
When school starts up, Katie throws herself into her practices, working hard to do well enough to get the attention of university coaches. But her struggles continue, as do her bad choices, and this time she may not be able to avoid the costs.
A novel that deals with a lot of teen issues, and a great first novel.

The Party

Finished December 9
The Party by Robyn Harding

This book takes inside a family faced with a crisis. Jeff and Kim and their two teenage children live in a upscale San Francisco neighborhood. Jeff is a tech executive and Kim has been slowly getting back into the PR career she stepped away from when they had children. Their oldest child Hannah is turning sixteen, and they've given her permission to have a few friends over to celebrate. When things go horribly wrong and one of the girls is badly injured, we begin to learn what's under the perfect facade that others see.
From Jeff's flirtation with microdosing to Kim's flirtation with another man, the relationship between these two parents isn't as good as it seems. And Hannah is facing social choices at school as she tries to be accepted by the more popular crowd.
Everyone has secrets, secrets that are only gradually revealed as the facade unravels.
An interesting look at moral lapses, betrayals small and large, and the negative effects of peer pressure.

Asking For It

Finished May 9
Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

This teen novel is set in the Irish town of Ballinatoom, where Emma O'Donovan is a young woman who uses her beauty and popularity to get what she wants, or at least what she thinks she wants. She is the dominant one in a group of 4 girls, with the others being Jamie, Maggie, and Ali. She values her reputation, but still is willing to use her body to get the boy that she wants. She doesn't want to be seen as afraid of trying things, even though she really is. She counsels her friends to deal with bad things that happen to them quietly, and not make a fuss. So when she goes out to a party when her parents are away overnight, and they find her on the doorstep the next day in very bad shape, she works to protect her reputation. She doesn't remember exactly what happened anyway, and despite knowing inwardly some of what she happened is not what she would choose, she tries to move forward as if nothing had happened, but when it turns out that pictures were taken and circulated, she doesn't know what to do, or how to react.
This is a story of peer pressure, of a culture of risky behaviour, and of bad choices. This is not the book I expected as I began it, and yet it is a book that speaks to the realities of some young women.

Reconstructing Amelia

Finished January 18
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

This is an amazing novel about a subject that is very "in the news" right now, bullying and its effect on teens. Kate is a lawyer and single mother. Her daughter Amelia is 15 and goes to a private school with a good reputation. The two have a pretty good relationship despite Kate's long hours and the time they spend together is very much quality time.
But one day Kate gets a call from the school that Amelia is suspended and she rushes to the school. But by the time she gets there, Amelia is dead, seemingly having jumped from the school's roof. Following her initial grief, Kate struggles for answers and despite the police's initial investigation, doesn't believe Amelia killed herself. It is an anonymous text message that says simply "Amelia didn't jump" that triggers her to step back from her grief and look for what was going on in Amelia's life. Tracking her email, text messages, Facebook interactions and other clues, Kate finds that she missed a lot of what was going on in Amelia's life recently.
This book really shows how the online world and the anonymity that it can create allows bullying in a different form than what existed when I was young. This book is sad and shocking, but reads like something that actually happened. By the end, I was weeping.