I took the summer off from reading YA lit. Last summer, I read too many novels from this admittedly rich, if bloated, genre of literature. This week I started reading YA again in preparation for the coming school year. 3 books in, I am left wondering if things are as rich as they have been rumored to be.

Going Bovine – Libba Bray

The premise of this book is tempting. A skinny, moody, apathetic teen boy with well intentioned but out of touch parents is diagnosed with Mad Cow Disease. The hallucinations induced by his conditions fuel a madcap road trip featuring a dwarf, a punk-rock angel, a garden gnome. Hi-jinks ensue.

This book has a tremendous following, but it left me wanting. The line between reality and hallucination is not finely drawn and the Cartesian dilemmas that could be be explored are not. Nor, is the character allowed to grow outside the context of his illness. Does he grow and learn to feel or is it just the disease?

A healthy dose of drugs. sex, alcohol and profanity spice up the adventures, but not in any subtle or tremendously useful way. I had hoped for more.

I will save you – Matt de la Pena

Another take on the question of what is real. I do not want to say too much about the plot of this book because it could spoil it. I will say that while Libba Bray stumbles around the question of what is real and what is illusion, Matt de la Pena confronts is head on. Again, I hoped for more subtlety, but maybe that is too much to ask for in today’s YA market.

Graceling – Kristin Cashore

This book was published 1 month prior to the Hunger Games and the two seem derivative of one another in many ways. Not least among these is the feline names of the protagonists. In Graceling, Katsa must decide how she will use her power. This is a classic hero’s journey featuring a strong female character. What I wonder is if violence is always necessary to empower female characters? It seems so prevalent in contemporary media. What I appreciated about Graceling was that the moments that Katsa was most powerful were the moments when she chose not to act violently. True power is restraint?