December Defies Definition
One of my favorite things about YA lit: its flexibility and willingness to think outside the box. This month I'm focusing on titles that are written in a non-traditional way. One plays with typography and space. One crosses out text to show thought, but not speech. One is written entirely in verse style. Technology continues to provide us with new ways of telling stories, and these are just a few. What is your favorite?
Everything is different without you. It's been a year, your birthday again...
The next day, there's another picture. This time it surprised me. It was of me. I never let anyone take my picture. Except you. I showed it to Jack. He said it was freaky. Freaky. Another after school, nailed to a telephone pole. A picture of a bridge. So I went there, and I found another one. A picture of someone taking a picture. Someone else was there that day...
In my locker, another picture: this time of you. Not shoved between the cracks, but taped up; someone broke in to put this here. But I had never seen this picture. "
The next photograph showed up in Jack's locker. A picture of a grave. Your first kiss with Jack.
More pictures appear holding images of you and someone else. "Sparrow" it says on the back. I'm starting to lose it,
Evan and Jack tried to be everything for Ariel. Evan was her undyingly loyal best friend, and Jack was her boyfriend. The three of them...until Ariel started getting sucked under by mental illness. Can Evan and Jack discover who is playing this sick game on them? Will they ever forgive themselves for their choices?
Written as a series of pictures and words, this novel is a new take on incorporating mixed media. The photographs are powerful, and the style Levithan choses to express emotion and inner voice are too. Highly recommended, a great story for high schoolers about doing the right thing and forgiving yourself.
"5B*Library Link*
I knew you were at the center of it.
This should not have surprised me, since you had always been at the center of things. Nobody would have put you anywhere else. Especially me.
Even now, you refused to bepixelated, forgotten, silenced,erased. Not that I wanted to erase you. The opposite. I wanted the opposite," (Levithan pg. 42, 2011).
If you liked this, check out:
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
Exposed by Kimberly Marcus
Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan
Levithan, David, & Farmer, Jonathan. (2011). Every You, Every Me. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.