Category Archives: YA fiction

The Monday Book: THE ODD SEA by Frederick Reiken

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This was an odd little book – little in that it is short. Odd in that it is about a disappearance that remains unsolved. Rather than taking the thriller resolution or the Doris Day film happy reunion ending, it just…. stops.

Philip’s older brother Ethan disappears, on a random day doing some normal activities. And the rest of the book is about piecing together what the rest of the family can of their lives. And there’s a lot of Catcher in the Rye coming of age bits about sex, too. Ethan was having sex with his girlfriend and a local artist, and both of these things figure prominently in his diary–which his oldest sister, Amy the Angry, finds. She keeps it from the police and press, but Philip traces his brother’s footsteps–almost literally, as he kind of falls for the one girl and is fallen for by the other.

The book explores the darkness inside all of us, but across the surface. It’s more about how Philip deals with all the things he can’t explain around him–including his brother’s disappearance and his emerging manhood.

And the title is one of the best parts; it comes from the youngest daughter demanding that the father distract them all by telling stories to the family on the porch. And he tells them the adventures of the Beaver King and Queen and their son, all through the long hot summer. It isn’t until years later that Philip realizes his dad has beaverized The Odyssey – and done a good job of it. And he begins to think of their lives and Ethan’s disappearance as The Odd Sea.

This is a quiet book, a gentle one, not given to tension so much as exploration. It’s the kind of novel adults like to read about high school times. Two beaver tails up.

GIRL IN TRANSLATION by Jean Kwok – THE MONDAY BOOK

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Our December shopsitter Jennifer wrote a shelf review of this novel (something she started and we’ve kept up since) for this book, and I picked it up on her recommendation. It’s a fast read, perhaps slightly predictable, but Kwok’s writing is powerful in the way she constructs it. There are few surprises in this book, just the pleasure of that fast, confident writing.

The narrator is an immigrant from China with a very rough life, and the juxtaposition of her intellectual prowess at an Ivy League prep school against the work she does with her mother at a clothing factory gives the novel much of its power. It’s also autobiographical, and at the points where it gets most realistic, it pulls back. She expresses fury at her mother for being a doormat, then never mentions it again. That kind of thing.  The reader is left to ignore or fill in blanks.

This doesn’t really take away from the interest in reading, but it does make you feel rather voyeuristic; this book has a similar fascination to Random Family, but perhaps less direct impact. It’s fiction, based on real life, but fiction. Some stuff is nicer than real life, although I doubt much of it is worse.

The love triangle element is one of the most developed subplots of the book, making this a great bathtub or airplane read. It’s got some lovely teen angst moments that everyone can identify with.

If you’re intrigued by the hardness of big city life on families facing hardship to begin with, if Chinese culture in general fascinates you, if you like stories of overcoming, you’ll like this one. It’s almost fairy tale-esque in its ending. Honestly, it’s how well Kwok writes that saves this story from falling through the cracks. She has a lovely way with words, keeping them simple but strong.