The House of One Thousand Eyes

Written by Michelle Barker

Annick Press

978-1-77321-071-1

354 pp.

Ages 14+

2018

The House of One Thousand Eyes is a dark book but 1980s East Berlin was a dark time and place. It was a time of the Berlin Wall and the Stasi (the State Security Service) and repression of thought, opportunity and interaction. It was a time of oppression and control and secret-keeping. It was dark and even more so for seventeen-year-old Lena Altmann.

When she lost her parents in a factory explosion, Lena was sent to an asylum. After three years of treatment, she was released into the care of her aunt, a Party member, who treats Lena as a simpleton in need of direction to prevent her readmission to the hospital.

... but Auntie was a good citizen, and goodness was rewarded.
     Badness, however, got you a one-way ticket to smartening up ... (pg. 57)

Unfortunately, her Uncle Erich, whom she adores and visits weekly, is a writer and a man of opinions and insight. 

Paper could get a person in trouble. When you wrote something down, you gave it life and made it yours. (pg. 22)

When she witnesses the removal of his things from his flat and finds a new tenant in place who tells her he has lived there for five years, Lena wonders whether she is delusional. She is told by all that she has no uncle. She cannot locate any of his books at the bookstores or library (her own have disappeared as have her photos of him) and is told there is no birth record of such person.

Working as a night cleaner at Stasi headquarters, also know as the House of One Thousand Eyes, Lena tries to determine what happened to her uncle and cut through the deceit and illusion that all is right in the "Better Berlin." But will the wall she has built up in her own mind continue to protect her from harmful thoughts and brutality such as that she suffers nightly at the hands of one Stasi officer? Or is it like the real Berlin Wall, still in place in 1983, doing more harm than good or in danger of crumbling?

The House of One Thousand Eyes is a brilliant novel of historical fiction. The setting may only have been thirty-six years ago, still in my lifetime, but it's of a time and place so inaccessible, concealed in the propaganda disseminated by those in power and perpetuated by those choosing to survive at all costs, that it will seem far more distant.  It is a hard and dark time for East Berliners who had to choose whether to deceive themselves about the inequities perpetrated by a corrupt regime or to suffer the consequences, as does Lena's uncle, for free thought and disapproval. Just as Uncle Erich knows about veiling one story in another, Michelle Barker's subtext about mental health, social inequalities and the freedom of expression is never lost in the story of Lena as she searches for her uncle and tries to make sense of a world that often made no sense at all. But Michelle Barker builds up Lena's worlds, real and "schrullig," into a monument that honours lives lived with courage and conviction, never blocking the light of truth, and she does so with strength of words and greatness of style.

Sadie

Written by Courtney Summers

Wednesday Books

978-1-250-10571-4

308 pp.

Ages 14+

September 2018

If you notice that the book cover is larger than I usually post, it's because Sadie, the book and the girl, should not be relegated to the back or to a corner to be forgotten. In her life, Sadie was neglected and abused and she may have felt insignificant, but she is courageous and responsible, and she deserves to be noticed–and not because of her stuttering–and her extraordinary efforts appreciated.

Sadie begins with the murder of Sadie's thirteen-year-old sister, Mattie Southern, after she'd left their home in Cold Creek, Colorado, ostensibly to search out their mother Claire, who'd left 3 years earlier. Mattie had never given up hope on her mother, an addict who'd showered her meagre love and limited attention on her youngest daughter and essentially ignored or was hostile to her eldest.

I can't even put into words what it's like to swallow down a moment like that, but I can tell you exactly how bitter it tastes. (pg. 55-6)

Sadie had given all of herself to her baby sister and mothered Mattie even more, when at 16, it was just the two of them, abandoned and living in a trailer park run by their surrogate grandmother, May Beth Foster.  When Sadie disappears eight months after her sister's murder and her car found abandoned the next month, May Beth contacts WNRK New York to get some media attention and help. So begins a serialized podcast, The Girls, by producer West McCray, who pursues Sadie's story and consequently Mattie's as well.

The Girls explores what happens when a devastating crime reveals a deeply unsettling mystery. It's a story about family, about sisters, and the untold lives lived in small-town America. It's about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love. . . and the high price we pay when we can't. (pg. 1)

Sadie alternates between The Girls podcast and Sadie's telling of her pursuit of justice for her sister. West's podcast includes narration and interviews with persons of interest as he tries to locate Sadie, all the while unravelling her story. There's May Beth Foster who acts as his home base for information and clarification, and then the people Sadie meets along her journey. The chapters based on Sadie's pursuit of Mattie's murderer begin at an out-of-town diner where Sadie suggests she's looking for her father, always showing a photo of her family with Claire's ex, Keith. From that starting point, she gets one lead after another, desperate to locate the man she is convinced is responsible for Mattie's death. Mixed with reminiscences, many unsettling, as triggered by those she meets, Sadie must uncover Keith's story, told from the points of view of those who considered him a good guy and those who won't reveal much from the cloak of shame and trauma. Regardless, she pursues and inevitably helps in ways she might never know.

Courtney Summers always tells bold stories, whether based on zombies (This is Not a Test, 2012; Please Remain Calm, 2014), on sexual assault and shame (All the Rage, 2015), on bullying (Some Girls Are, 2010) or self-destruction (Cracked Up to Be, 2008). They immerse the reader in tense situations of agonizing brutality, emotional and physical, that rarely have happy endings. But that's reality. Life is not neat and it's not fair. It's raw and real and not for the faint of heart. Courtney Summers sugarcoats nothing. Nothing at all. Even as West McCray speaks to witnesses or persons of interest, they spin Sadie's story with an effort to make themselves look better. It's not honest but it's real. Take Claire, for instance. This woman cared more for the child who looked like her than the one who didn't (and blames that on her youth, her mother's death and May Beth); neglected her children in favour of her addiction; sends an abuser packing only when she suspects he might have attacked her favourite; abandons her children for years; and blames West McCray when he can't find Sadie. Yikes. Sadie's story is gut-wrenching in itself: bullied for her stuttering, neglected by her mother, abused by her mother's boyfriend, abandoned, becoming a surrogate parent to a resentful child, and grief-stricken for her beloved sister. Her story is almost too much to take.

Don't look for a happy ending in Sadie, and it's not because Courtney Summers ends Sadie with another tragedy. It's just hard to tell what kind of an ending Courtney Summers has given readers. While there is justice, Courtney Summers also leaves a gaping hole in Sadie's story that readers will need to fill, either with hope for a new story for Sadie or with another tragedy to complete her original one. Read Sadie and let me know what you think happened to this fierce young woman because her story is far too important to let her be forgotten.

Finding Hope: Blog tour and online book launch

Written by Colleen Nelson

Dundurn Press

978-1-45973-245-2

224 pp.

Ages 14+

March 2016

I am so pleased to be part of Dundurn's blog tour for Colleen Nelson's newest young adult book, Finding Hope.  If you've followed CanLit for LittleCanadians, you'll know that I've previously reviewed her The Fall (Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013) and 250 Hours (Coteau, 2015) and appreciated her compelling reads about tough issues like death, guilt, bullying and discrimination.  Finding Hope is no less than what I would expect from Colleen Nelson: a gripping novel about the tragedy of shame and the faith that somehow, some way things will right themselves.

Told in the alternating voices of fifteen-year-old Hope and her older brother Eric, Finding Hope examines the sibling relationship and the direction it takes when Eric becomes addicted to meth.  But the story is so much more than that because of a monumental concept called shame and all it entails for both young people.

The story starts in late August just as Hope learns she’ll be leaving their small town of Lumsville and heading to a private school named Ravenhurst School for Girls.  This is something her mother really wants for Hope; in fact, she wanted it for Eric too, pushing him to succeed in hockey, hopeful that it would be his ticket out of Lumsville.  He was good at hockey.  Very good.  So good that he became a “special” mentee for his coach, a relationship that leads to the shame that sets Eric on the meth-addled path to “make it all go away.” (pg. 10)

Shame isn’t a weight or something that gets worn.  It’s elastic, stretching and strangling anything in its reach. (pg. 222)

After Eric's progression through drugs leads him to stop going to school and start doing meth, his mom and step-dad, Hope’s father, kick him out of the house.  But that doesn’t stop Hope from leaving him money and food and whatever else he needs.  Sadly, because of his drug use and the paranoia and anxiety that results, their relationship becomes one of Hope enabling Eric: she feeling guilt for the life she has and he feeling that drugs is the only way to live with his secret shame of sexual abuse by his coach.

But after Eric breaks into a pharmacy, he’s on the run and heading to the same city where Hope is now going to school.  Both are now looking for the means to survive on their own in new environs where unexpected threats continue to arise and for which they are both unprepared.  For Eric, it’s finding the basics of life, like food and shelter, and feeding his addiction.  For Hope, it’s finding a friend, even a boyfriend, with whom she can be herself.  The saving grace for Eric is a discarded puppy he finds, whom he names Storm, and for Hope it’s her ability to put her feelings into poetry. Neither one really knows how to help themselves or each other but somehow that’s what they manage.

Finding Hope is a tragic story of looking for something better, and Colleen Nelson tells it with such beauty and poetry. For Eric and Hope, hope–the concept–is not wishful thinking.  It is an appropriate expectation that the world should right itself.

Broken,
My brother sits beside me
Twisted and used, both of us.
Tangled together
We will find a way
Jumping over
Remnants of our lives,
Making a new path
Together.
(pg. 219)

Online book launch

Tired of never being able to attend book launches?  

Then enjoy the online book launch for Finding Hope.

Visit Colleen Nelson's website at colleennelsonauthor.com to participate in the online book launch for Finding Hope.  If you purchase a copy of the book today from Amazon.ca, you can redeem bonus 'gifts' (all downloadable) including a $1 donation to Pink Shirt Day, an organization that raises funds to support anti-bullying initiatives and awareness.

Touch

Written by Kim Firmston
James Lorimer & Co. Ltd.
978-1-4594-0371-0 (epub)
978-1-4594-0369-7 (pb)
101 pp.
Ages 13-18
2013

Most people would see having the magic touch -- finesse -- as a positive attribute, especially if used for charitable or beneficial needs.  If used to manipulate and sway others to your preferences, that same touch can be undesirable or shameful.

But sixteen-year-old Ethan is honestly impressed by his dad's talent to persuade everyone, whether at his IT security workplace or at home.  In fact, Ethan is eager to impress his father with his own skills in hacking, tech and engineering, hoping to emulate his father's success at age 19 winning a robotic competition.  He even tries to manipulate his girlfriend Maddie into cozying up to their competition, Antoine, to get a look at his plans.  Needless to say, Ethan soon learns he doesn't always demonstrate his dad's proficiency at enticing others to his will.

Though close to his father, Ethan is comfortable with his father's new wife and younger step-sister, Haley, and considers them his family.  But when Haley's attention-grabbing antics (e.g., cutting her long hair and dying it black with red tips; going Goth; having meltdowns) eclipse his successes and accolade-grabbing stunts, Ethan is less than compassionate about what may be troubling Haley.  Not surprising that when Haley tells her mother that Ethan's dad has been touching her inappropriately, Ethan does not believe her.

After his dad moves out without letting Ethan know, Ethan's confusion is exacerbated, having him wondering about his own place in the family and where his loyalty and trust should lie.  With his dad continuing to manipulate him to keep tabs on Haley and Mom, Ethan begins to see how control is not everything, especially when compassion, cooperation and compromise can achieve so much more.

Part of Lorimer's SideStreets series, Touch offers a contemporary story line, based on the issue of sexual abuse, in a hi-lo format i.e., high interest, low vocabulary.  While it is too predictable from the title and opening scenes that Haley is being sexually abused, Ethan's responses offer the perplexity needed to deepen the story.  While dealing with his own disbelief and conviction of his father's innocence, Ethan comes to see his father's manipulative techniques as selfish and detached, not admirable or effective.  With that change in perspective, Ethan is able to redirect the skills he was using to impress his father to expose him instead.  That twist in his purpose saves Ethan from his own narcissistic path and unexpectedly has him becoming a real big brother to Haley, protecting her as much as he can.

While the hi-lo format can restrict the story development and expression of characters, a good writer can augment the base story elements with enough details, secrets and innuendo to take a story from ordinary.  Personally I would have appreciated more evidence that Ethan could develop a change of heart, but Kim Firmston has a good solid plot here in Touch, adding Ethan's finesse with technology, to provide readers with greater substance on which to focus our story demands. 

A Troublesome Boy

by Paul Vasey
Groundwood Books/House of Anasi
978-1-55498-155-7
225 pp.
Ages 14+
2012

Usually, alongside my review, I like to place the book cover art in some context that plays with the book's theme or plot.  For A Troublesome Boy by Paul Vasey, this is completely unnecessary.  The shadow of a young child, the crucifix, the dark cross of window frames against some light, the title echoing as a shadow parallel to the lines of the frames - the cover is complete and perfect.  Sadly.

A Troublesome Boy of the title is fourteen-year-old Teddy Clemson who is shipped off to St. Ignatius Academy for Boys in August 1959, courtesy of his mother's verbally-abusive boyfriend, Henry, who concurs with the school's assessment of Teddy as problematic.  So begins a new phase in Teddy's life, beyond a childhood of fond family memories and then one of oblivion, after his dad took off and his mom took up with Henry.  This newest chapter of his life is the story of A Troublesome Boy.

After being introduced, by the principal, Father Stewart, to the school's expectations for respect, courtesy and hard work as well as to the punishing time-out room (an unlit broom closet with a straight-backed chair and no inside handle), Teddy meets Tim Cooper, a bespectacled fourteen-year-old with a history of break-and-enter, foster care and a passion for Wordsworth's poetry.  Known as Cooper to all, Tim is soon seen as a heroic rebel, questioning everything and everyone and constantly getting detentions and extensive periods in the time-out room.  While Teddy breaks a few of the rules himself, like going to the boiler room (the domain of Rozey, the simple handyman) to have a cigarette, he quickly recognizes and becomes heedful of the relentless and punitive nature of several of the fathers, particularly the violent English teacher Father Sullivan, and Father Prince who regularly watches the boys while they shower and routinely coaxes Cooper away from the dorm in the middle of the night.

When Saturday free times come around, Teddy and then Cooper join Rozey for drives, discussions, cribbage, often at his old farm house, and fishing, giving Cooper "the best day I ever had" (pg. 118). While enduring and questioning his role in the sexual abuse perpetrated by Father Prince, Cooper finds salvation in the boys' weekly visits with Rozey, who shares stories from his life, giving Cooper and Teddy some understanding about relationships, particularly family.  Giving Cooper his first real experience with comfort and concern, he proclaims of Rozey,  

"...where's he been all my life?  How come I got to be fourteen before someone actually went out of his way to do things for me?...What I wouldn't give to be his son.  I could've been a great son if I'd ever had the chance." (pg.160)

For the boys, St. Iggy's becomes an endurance test as they consider the possibility of running away to the beaches of British Columbia.  But, the continued abuse by the priests and Cooper's escalating distress, including for Teddy who is invited to "talk" with Father Prince too, takes the story through unimaginable tragedies, relieved only by the occasional driblet of compassion from Rozey and those outside the Catholic residential school system.

Paul Vasey's admission in his About the Author notes that he is a boarding-school survivor, as well as a board member for a mental health facility for youth, may reveal the source of A Troublesome Boy's legitimacy and poignancy.  The profanity of the boys' words and lives will be blasphemous to some readers, perhaps repulsed by the potent indecency of it all, but Paul Vasey pens their story with a light craft, emphasizing the constructs of their emotions rather than detailed accounts of the abuse.  This story should leave the reader physically repulsed by the crimes committed under the guise of reform and support while emotionally sobbing for those who have been forsaken and know it.

Voiceless

by Caroline Wissing

Thistledown Press

978-1-897235-98-0

241 pp.

Ages 14+

2012

Even before Annabel becomes voiceless, her life is tenuous, though virtually tethered to the very mother who causes its deficiencies.  Abandonning Annabel at age 5 for a boyfriend, leaving her to be rescued by the police and to move in with Granny, Annabel's mother pops in intermittently, always with ephemeral cheer and a new boyfriend and the promise to return for her daughter.  Unfortunately, the last time Annabel sees her mother, during the Christmas holidays of her Grade 7 year, is the night Mama and new beau Julian ransack Granny's apartment looking for money and Granny is murdered.

Voiceless now, Annabel goes into foster care and is placed at the Noble Spirit Farm and Horse Sanctuary of Mary and Bobby Gervais.  While becoming a foster child can be the beginning of more transience, Annabel's placement provides her with some comfort, especially with a rescued horse, Jett.  Now being called Ghost, Annabel joins other foster children at the farm: Tully, a teen boy with dwarfism; Char, a street-wise young prostitute; and Big Jerome, an Ojibwa teen whose little brother killed himself with a rifle carelessly stored by his negligent, alcoholic parents. But the arrival of Graydon Fox (whose history is unclear) and the sexual relationship he and Ghost form leads Ghost away from the farm, into the savage, drink- or drug-addled world of Graydon's acquaintance, Cooper.

Annabel/Ghost's world is gritty and dangerous, evoked well by Caroline Wissing's text.  Profanities, alcohol, drugs, sex, prostitution, rape, theft, abuse and arson are all part of the fabric of Annabel/Ghost's life.

"The room was abuzz with people going about the individual business, everyone with their drunk or drugged out tunnel vision, caring only about themselves." (pg. 151)

Imagine believing that "Going to a dance felt like suicide to me" (pg. 121) or that "I felt like I was walking around in a prison full of dead eyes" (pg. 100).  The few tender instances are so fleeting that it's unbelievable that Ghost has only lost her voice, not her essence.  But that essence is still always present, knowing and doing the right thing instinctively though problematic.  Annabel/Ghost finds a way to get the police involved in investigating Cooper, without involving herself.  Moreover, while others around her were using drugs, Ghost will not use them, afraid of becoming her mother.  And when Francine, an unpleasant girl sleeping with Cooper becomes pregnant and Cooper performs an ad hoc abortion, Ghost finds a way to get Francine to the hospital. 

Voiceless is not an easy read.  It's not a coming of age story in which a girl learns who she is and develops into that person, although that does essentially happen for Annabel.  But Voiceless provides greater messages, offering the reader the evidence that voicelessness (or blindness or paraplegia or any other disability) is not in itself the tragedy. The tragedy is in the context.  Ghost may be voiceless but she is substantive and never stronger than when she is voiceless.  Annabel finds the means to communicate and right wrongs without the spoken word, ultimately letting her voicelessness propel her to a future in which she has a say, guaranteeing her a happier life, finally.

The Taming

by Eric Walters and Teresa Toten

Doubleday Canada
978-0-385-67658-8
229 pp.
Ages 13-17
2012

If all the world's a stage, then high school provides the acting classes for life. Few teens have the confidence or wherewithal to be themselves; most take on roles they believe will make them popular or celebrated or conspicuous.  Not Katie.  She's happy being relatively invisible, enjoying the company of her two friends: brilliant, rich and nonconformist Lisa, and emo-boy, goth-looking Travis.  But everything changes when Katie gets the lead role in her drama class' production of  The Taming of the Shrew.  Not only does Katie enjoy the acting, but guys are starting to notice an attractive spark in her when on-stage. In fact, a dashing new student, Evan, whose familiarity with the play earns him the role of Petruchio, sees something captivating in Katie, asking her out.

The Taming's chapters alternate between Katie's voice and that of Evan, sharing different perspectives of their relationship. Living in subsidized housing with a single mother whose goal it is to capture a man, Katie has enjoyed anonymity, only sharing herself with Lisa and Travis.  But now, enjoying Evan's avid attention and her first dating experience, Katie has difficulties balancing her former life and friends with Evan's wishes.  It is evident, from Evan's entries, that he left his last school under negative circumstances, that he abhors his father, a jet-setting businessman, and that he carefully calculates every move involving Katie.  How their two lives intertwine is neither unexpected nor universal.

In a twisted contemporary version of The Taming of the Shrew, Katie is neither a shrew nor in need of being tamed.  However, Evan's knowledge of relationships is highly influenced by his parents' and his father's words and actions, whether he consciously chooses to follow them or not.  As such, although he seems to truly care for Katie, Evan's actions are focused on manipulating her to think and act according to his wishes, ultimately forcing her to make dangerous choices that threaten her sense of self.

Those readers who choose to read this book solely for its romance will not see the subtext that exists for most relationships.  Eric Walters and Teresa Toten meld their writing to bring the personal nature of any liaison with the challenges of understanding and relating to others.  Juxtaposing Shakespeare's tale of a strong woman subjugated by a suitor with Katie and Evan's contemporary dating situation, Eric Walters and Teresa Toten demonstrate that relationships through the ages may differ in context but the bases are essentially the same.  Relationships can be grounded in respect, trust and caring, or in false impressions, abuse and inequality.  The hope is that those who find themselves in superficial romances with private abuses find the strength and support to choose different roles as Katie is fortunate to do.

Charlie's Key

Written by Rob Mills
Orca Books
978-1-55469-872-1
254 pp.
Ages 12+
2011 

The cover art of Charlie's Key may suggest a dark and eerie, spine-tingling story but the suspense here is much more common and sadly relates to Plato's question: "Who will watch the watchmen?"

Charlie Sykes, 13, and his father, Michael, leave Fort McMurray, Alberta, for Newfoundland shortly after his father gets a troubling phone call.  A car accident with a moose (very common in Newfoundland) leaves Charlie an orphan but not before his father slips him an unfamiliar key.

Under the watchful eyes of the police, who seem to react to the Sykes name, Charlie is shunted from the hospital to "The Hollow", a juvenile facility, until a foster placement becomes available for him.  At the school, an older, nasty kid, nicknamed Flarehead, targets Charlie, physically abusing him whenever Frankie Walsh, another teen, isn't around to stand up for Charlie.  Frankie, a tough guy, takes an interest in Charlie upon learning his last name, and helps protect him in exchange for completing a reading proficiency test that Frankie repeatedly fails but needs to pass in order to be released from The Hollow. Another significant contact Charlie makes here is with Clare Dalton, a teen at the adjacent girls' rehab facility, who does some on-line research about the Sykes family.  Charlie learns of his uncle Nick, his father's brother, who has recently been released from prison where he'd been incarcerated for murder. His victim had been Brother Sullivan, one of the monks in charge of Cliffside, the orphanage at which Nick and Michael stayed after their parents' deaths in a fire.  A second murder in prison added more time to Nick's sentence.

When Frankie is released the same day that Charlie is to attend the memorial service for his father, he helps Charlie get away from the police (Sergeant Grimes, a.k.a. Tubby) and Child Services people (including his advocate, Dez) but not before Charlie meets his uncle.  Even when Frankie and his preppie friend, Gerald, take Charlie to a party at Clare's house (Clare, now out of rehab though still using Oxy (i.e., oxycodone), is a friend of Gerald's), Nick finds him and threatens him to get the key. But, it is only with several more encounters between Nick and Charlie, as well as other key characters, that the full story is revealed.

Rob Mills' writing seamlessly brings together the pathos of Charlie's situation with the coarseness of Frankie's and Nick's circumstances.  Their worlds, choked by alcoholism, intense anger and/or societal limitations may be difficult to comprehend for some, especially with the crude language used (particularly in references to women or to the abuse), but their realities are just that.  However, although Charlie's reality moves from one of naiveté and relative safety to one interconnected with Frankie and Nick, he is able to adjust well, applying his past to new experiences to help him make appropriate and ultimately self-sustaining decisions.  Beyond Rob Mills' strong characterizations is the suspenseful plot of Charlie's Key, which spends little time focusing on the mystery of the key itself but rather on the balance and merger of the past and the present.  The cliff hangers, beyond those of its setting, repeatedly lead the reader to anticipate but instead surprise, just the way a great thriller should.