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Justin Barisich

YA FictionYAHistorical Fiction

Heroine of her own life

Review by Justin Barisich

BookPage Teen Top Pick, September 2015

In the town of Steeple Chase, Pennsylvania, there’s not much for a poor farm girl other than a life of looming drudgery. And this is why, in The Hired Girl, the farmer’s daughter wises up and escapes the farm toil, striking out on her own to push back against the societal, cultural and patriarchal confines that threaten the rest of her days.

At only 14 years old, Joan Skraggs abandons her miserable life to forge a new one in the big city. She tried for years to live under her vicious father’s tyranny, but after her mother’s death, he became too uncaring and unbearable. So in the summer of 1911, yearning for adventures similar to those of her favorite literary heroines, Joan boards a train to Baltimore with the money her deceased mother once hid away for her only daughter. Assuming the “ladylike” name of Janet Lovelace and dressing to pass for 18 and old enough to find work, Joan is kindly hired by a wealthy Jewish family in high-society Baltimore. As she lives with and works for the Rosenbachs, she learns the hard way just what is required of her if she hopes to climb the social ladder.

Using Joan’s diary as the narrative vehicle, Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz (Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!) gives the reader a rare view of how the other half lived in early 20th-century America. By providing a hard line into Joan’s (sometimes naïve) interior thoughts, Schlitz engenders a loving and comedic exploration of feminism, work ethic, cultural persecution and religious differences.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In the town of Steeple Chase, Pennsylvania, there’s not much for a poor farm girl other than a life of looming drudgery. And this is why, in The Hired Girl, the farmer’s daughter wises up and escapes the farm toil, striking out on her own to push back against the societal, cultural and patriarchal confines that threaten the rest of her days.
YA FictionYA

Young love in the midst of a city’s big issues

Review by Justin Barisich

Set in the urban slice of fictional East Bridge, Bright Lights, Dark Nights is a charismatic tale of two teens wrapped up in the innocence of first love while reluctantly fighting racial tensions and parental overprotection.

High school senior Walter Wilcox is an average kid, growing up in the suburbs until his parents divorce and he moves with his police officer father to a part of the city known as the Basement. When his friend Jason Mills invites him over for dinner, Walter meets Naomi, Jason’s awkward and adorable sister. Walter feels a thump in his chest that he can’t easily ignore, but there are a number of problems: Walter is white and Naomi is black; they live in a city suffering from the adverse effects of gentrification; and Walter’s father is currently under public scrutiny and internal review for being accused of racially profiling a teen thief—and all these complexities are further exacerbated by the Internet. 

Tackling a number of social, racial and political issues—all within the microcosm of a young, inward-facing relationship—author and artist Stephen Emond has his thumb on the pulse of contemporary young adult life, showing how the intersection of race and love has the power to challenge and change the physical and digital landscapes of American cities.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Set in the urban slice of fictional East Bridge, Bright Lights, Dark Nights is a charismatic tale of two teens wrapped up in the innocence of first love while reluctantly fighting racial tensions and parental overprotection.
YA NonfictionYA

A notorious weapon’s history

Review by Justin Barisich

Following the slow rise and eventual demise of the world’s first submachine gun, Tommy is the story of one man’s dream to help his country on the battlefield and the unfortunate ways his dream became a national nightmare.

Retired Colonel John Thompson dedicated his life to developing a lightweight, handheld, automatic rifle that soldiers could use in advanced warfare. After failing to convince the Army to develop one in-house, Thompson created the private company Auto-Ordnance. On November 11, 1918—World War I’s Armistice Day—the company realized their goal, but with the Great War now over, the new challenge was to find a market for “the most dangerous small arm in the world.” As the company struggled to secure sales, the fearsome “Tommy gun” fell into the wrong hands and appeared at the center of many Prohibition-era America’s crime scenes and gang-related activities. 

Karen Blumenthal puts her prodigious journalistic skills to great use, revealing how the gun played a significant role in a pivotal moment in America’s history—as well as the invention’s unintended political and social ripple effects.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Following the slow rise and eventual demise of the world’s first submachine gun, Tommy is the story of one man’s dream to help his country on the battlefield and the unfortunate ways his dream became a national nightmare.
YA NonfictionYA

A seed of resistance

Review by Justin Barisich

Set during the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler is the true account of a group of righteously rebellious Danish teens who dared to defy their own government, as well as their deadly captors, to defend their endangered beliefs in humanity and freedom.

Early in the war, 15-year old Knud Pedersen heard the echoes of combat nearby. He’d read in the newspaper that Nazi soldiers had attacked and invaded his neighboring country of Norway, but while the Norwegians were fighting, his own politicians in the Danish capitol were busy appeasing the Germans. Disgusted by his country’s stance, Knud decides to take matters into his own hands and assembles a group of underground schoolboy rebels to do anything they can to deter and delay the Germans. They call themselves The Churchill Club, after Great Britain’s fiery leader, and carry out most of their guerrilla attacks—destroying signs, stealing weapons, disabling cars—in broad daylight and aboard bicycles, because they have family curfews and school the next morning. But as the war grows more intense, how long can Knud and the boys evade capture? Will all their work make any difference in the grand scheme of the war? And how far will they take their sabotage?

Widely acclaimed author Phillip Hoose has written eight novels, including the National Book Award-winning Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, and he often turns his attention to historical events. He extracted the true tale of The Boys Who Challenged Hitler from 25 hours of interviews and nearly 1,000 email exchanges with Knud himself. Hoose’s unique eye for storytelling frames these immensely complex and monolithic issues through the lens of a young person’s perspective, making them interesting, relevant and fathomable.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

Set during the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler is the true account of a group of righteously rebellious Danish teens who dared to defy their own government, as well as their deadly captors, to defend their endangered beliefs in humanity and freedom.

YA FictionYA

A challenge of love and death

Review by Justin Barisich

Set within the historical Persian empire of Khorasan, The Wrath and the Dawn is an enrapturing tale of love, loss, loyalties and longing—and the stakes couldn't be higher.

When 16-year-old Shazi offers herself up as the next wife to Khalid, the 18-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, many are baffled by her sacrifice. The caliph’s cruelty is known throughout the land, as he repeatedly marries beautiful young women and then murders them the mornings after their wedding nights. But Shazi is determined to exact revenge upon the caliph, whose most recently murdered wife was her childhood best friend. Yet something strange happens when Shazi lives past the first dawn: She begins to see the humanity of the monster king, and as her hate starts to subside, her fierce loyalties to her family and friends also waver, and all dare to question her love.

The Wrath and the Dawn is Renée Ahdieh’s second novel and the first in a forthcoming trilogy that will follow Shazi’s adventures across Khorasan. The author draws inspiration from centuries of collected tales in One Thousand and One Nights to weave this engrossing tale of dire straits in an ancient empire. Strong, emotional Shazi proves to be an immensely captivating, smart, beautiful and blunt character who has come to know herself, even at such a young age. She is fearless in all her pursuits, regardless of however impossible they may seem.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

Set within the historical Persian empire of Khorasan, The Wrath and the Dawn is an enrapturing tale of love, loss, loyalties and longing—and the stakes couldn't be higher.

YA FictionYA

Finding balance

Review by Justin Barisich

In this sprawling, emotionally enrapturing and mostly autobiographical tale, a talented lad comes of age in the harsh shadows of Northern England’s shipyards.

Dominic Hall was born in a hovel along the River Tyne in the 1960s. His severe father is still embittered from fighting in World War II, and his kind mother always wanted more for her sweet boy. Readers get key glimpses of Dominic’s growth and maturation over more than a decade as he befriends the two most disparate people his age in town—the artistic, free-spirited Holly Stroud and the tormented, reckless Vincent McAlinden. Dominic, a weaver of words, can’t help but be drawn to Holly’s self-expression and caring—but he can’t seem to suppress the darkness that attracts him to the wildness of Vincent’s uninhibited and dangerous life. When these two worlds inevitably collide, he is faced with making choices no one would ever want to make.

British author David Almond is an immensely gifted storyteller and a receiver of a Hans Christian Andersen Award, a Carnegie Medal and a host of other honors. The Tightrope Walkers is perhaps his most personal work, with so many similarities between the author and Dominic that fiction and reality become indistinguishable from one another. Almond’s phenomenal, philosophical writing balances well with his incisive clarity and arresting narration, making it immensely relatable.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In this sprawling, emotionally enrapturing and mostly autobiographical tale, a talented lad comes of age in the harsh shadows of Northern England’s shipyards.
YA FictionYA

Mystery in the Midwest

Review by Justin Barisich

Set in the secretive and mysterious Midwestern town of Bone Gap, author and professor Laura Ruby’s eighth novel captures the darkness and light of a small town where seemingly magical occurrences ensnare its citizens.

Bone Gap creates a world unto itself, in which readers slowly unpeel the disparate but simultaneously interconnected stories of the townsfolk who call it home. We hear from such voices as weird high-school senior Finn O’Sullivan—better known as “Moonface” by the townies for his tendency to space out—who is able to read people and offer intimate, uncanny insights into their quiet lives. Sean, Finn’s paramedic older brother and town heartthrob, is loved by nearly all of Bone Gap, even if they choose to acknowledge only part of his story. The brothers live in a sort of hovering stasis with the rest of Bone Gap until the gorgeous, damaged and strong-willed Roza wanders into town and changes everything. But when she is suddenly abducted by an unknown man, and Finn, the only witness, is unable to identify her abductor, all the cracks in Bone Gap start to widen, revealing the truths behind this idyllic small-town life.

Ruby flexes her narrative muscles with Bone Gap, blending mystery, romance and magical realism. Her mixing of styles mirrors the lives of her characters, with parts and pieces of different experiences making up only part of the story’s whole.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Set in the secretive and mysterious Midwestern town of Bone Gap, author and professor Laura Ruby’s eighth novel captures the darkness and light of a small town where seemingly magical occurrences ensnare its citizens.
YA FictionYAFantasy

Hierarchy of blood

Review by Justin Barisich

In the magical, feuding lands of Norta, a poor young woman is thrust into the center of an elite world where she must hide her true self and discover her inner strength and power to survive.

Seventeen-year-old street thief Mare Barrow has always understood the blood-based hierarchy of her nation: Unremarkable Reds serve the Silvers, who possess supernatural abilities to control metal, fire, minds and more. But when Mare, a Red, discovers that she possesses one of these superhuman abilities, she turns the entire social system on its head and must become someone she never thought she could be just to stay alive.

Author Victoria Aveyard’s debut novel builds a world that’s rife with classism, political jostling and unfathomable power. Red Queen is the first in a trilogy, and with Aveyard’s steady, masterful reveal of this world’s dark inner workings, readers will have much to devour.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the February 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In the magical, feuding lands of Norta, a poor young woman is thrust into the center of an elite world where she must hide her true self and discover her inner strength and power to survive.
YA FictionYA

Twists and turns through dreams and mythology

Review by Justin Barisich

In There Will Be Lies, a young girl and her mother are on the run from an untrustworthy past filled with unsavory characters, all the while protecting themselves from everything and everyone under a freshly woven blanket of lies.

Shelby Jane Cooper is 17 years old and knows nearly nobody in her home of Phoenix, Arizona. Since she is homeschooled by her uber-protective, overweight, painfully shy mother who’s scared of everything—especially men—Shelby doesn’t get out much, or even have the chance to talk with other people. But this has been her life for so long that it doesn’t even seem unusual to her. That is, until she gets struck by a car after leaving the library one afternoon. While lying on the hot pavement, Shelby has a vision of a coyote—considered cosmically dangerous and ominous by the local Navajo tradition—trot up to her and tell her, “There will be two lies. Then there will be the truth. And that will be the hardest of all.” As soon as Shelby can be released from the hospital, her mother uncharacteristically rushes her into a rental car packed with all their belongings. As they put some ground between them and Phoenix, Shelby’s mom finally begins to reveal what may be the truth about her father: He’s not dead after all, and he may be coming after them at this very moment.

Nick Lake is a publishing director by day and a Printz Award-winning YA novelist by night. In this emotionally charged thrill ride, he honors the existential through his masterful storytelling to remind us that life is what we make of it, and that it is meant to be lived fully, regardless of how terrifying it may at first seem.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

In There Will Be Lies, a young girl and her mother are on the run from an untrustworthy past filled with unsavory characters, all the while protecting themselves from everything and everyone under a freshly woven blanket of lies.

YA FictionYA

A teen determined to see through the spin

Review by Justin Barisich

Set in the wealthy fictional town of Haverport, New York, The Doubt Factory is the story of one teen’s determination to fight society’s most overlooked evil—the public relations industry that covers up and spins corporate atrocities, even if the worst firm happens to be headed by her own father.

Alix Banks attends the prestigious and exclusive Seitz Academy, where affluent parents pay to have their children taught by the best and to be insulated from the evils of the outside world. However, the school’s charade of security comes crashing to the ground when Moses Cruz, the leader of a radical crew of teen activists, assaults the principal and vandalizes a school building. During the fray, Moses grabs Alix and suggests that her father is much more than he appears. When Alix starts monitoring her father’s behavior, she is confronted by the darkest sides of Big Brother, the radicals who fight the unseen Man, conspiracy theories and the illusions of safety and privacy in a country that claims to uphold and protect the inalienable right of free speech.

In this incredible thriller, unexpected plot twists occur as often as every page turn, and morality and rightness oscillate within a gray area. National Book Award finalist Paolo Bacigalupi’s smart and honest approach to critiquing the PR industry is rare and refreshing.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Set in the wealthy fictional town of Haverport, New York, The Doubt Factory is the story of one teen’s determination to fight society’s most overlooked evil—the public relations industry that covers up and spins corporate atrocities, even if the worst firm happens to be headed by her own father.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

There’s magic here

Review by Justin Barisich

Set in a small village separated from a once-powerful kingdom by a mystical, moving forest, The Witch’s Boy is a fable filled with unlikely friendships, creatures and humans dealing with loss, rulers struggling for power and the world’s last remaining bit of real magic.

Ned and Tam, the inseparable twin sons of the woman known only as Sister Witch and her woodsman husband, live on the edge of their small—and small-minded—village. One fateful day, the boys decide to build a raft and float down the nearby Great River to the sea. But when their raft crumbles in the river’s rapids, their father only has enough time to save Ned from the deathly currents. Sister Witch tries to revive her son, but she knows this is a lost cause and is unwilling to bear losing both her children. Instead, she uses her magic to bind Tam’s soul to the fading Ned. But the magic is dangerous and not without consequences.

Elsewhere in the woods, the fire-haired Bandit King longs to reclaim the world’s lost magic and use it for his own gain. When he discovers that Sister Witch possesses the last bit of it, he attempts to take it by force. But when Ned tries to stop him by binding the magic to his own body, he gets swept up in an adventure that has him crossing paths with the smart and self-sufficient Áine of the woods and a young wolf that seems to understand much more than it should.

In The Witch’s Boy, Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner Kelly Barnhill sucks the reader into a moving and expansive story she started crafting accidentally on a walk in the woods with her young son. As her fable unfolds, we learn from her cast of characters that the magic and powers we all possess can manifest in any number of unexpected ways.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

Set in a small village separated from a once-powerful kingdom by a mystical, moving forest, The Witch’s Boy is a fable filled with unlikely friendships, creatures and humans dealing with loss, rulers struggling for power and the world’s last remaining bit of real magic.

YA FictionYA

On our loop around the sun

Review by Justin Barisich

BookPage Teen Top Pick, September 2014

Set near the San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, 100 Sideways Miles is the coming-of-age tale of one teen who learns to live with the tragedies and oddities of his life using his own unique type of mathematical coping.

Finn Easton is 16 years old, suffers from sporadic epileptic seizures, and is the inspiration for the main character in his father’s best-selling novel The Lazarus Door—though his father vehemently denies it. Finn lost his mother in a freak accident that involved a truck, which was carrying a dead horse destined for the knackery, overturning on a bridge and spilling its cargo onto Finn and his mother, who were idly climbing in the creek below.

Ever since that tragic day, Finn has been calculating time by way of space. Believing that the distance between things is far more important than the time between them, Finn figures time in miles rather than minutes, as they are easier for him to mentally grasp whenever he comes back from “blanking out” during one of his seizures. And when Julia Bishop, the intriguing new girl in town and Finn’s first crush, finds him passed out on his den floor in a puddle of his own urine, he wants nothing more than to distance himself from her. But Julia has enjoyed sharing Finn’s time and space, and she is determined to invade both so that he can understand true closeness.

100 Sideways Miles is Andrew Smith’s ninth young adult novel, and it’s filled with the type of offbeat hilarity and superbly memorable characters found in his previous books, such as Winger and Grasshopper Jungle. Finn’s honest, natural voice reveals a young man learning to handle health issues, death and unwanted attention during a time when every action and reaction is measured by its social significance.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, September 2014

Set near the San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, 100 Sideways Miles is the coming-of-age tale of one teen who learns to live with the tragedies and oddities of his life using his own unique type of mathematical coping.

YA FictionYA

One girl’s journey to the Northern Lights

Review by Justin Barisich

Crisscrossing the American landscape, Let’s Get Lost is an insider’s view of one girl’s epic journey to witness the Northern Lights and the stories of the lives she selflessly changes along the way.

Our sneak peek into Leila’s adventures begins with her car tune-up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she meets Hudson, the auto mechanic’s son. Their attraction is instant, but when their short fling turns from sweet to sour, she resumes her journey north without exchanging phone numbers. As we meet new people along Leila’s wandering road trip, we jump feet-first into their trials while getting only elusive snippets of Leila’s story. She reveals a bit about the curious scar on her neck to hitchhiking Bree near Kansas City; a few vague truths from her less-than-perfect love life to Elliot in Minneapolis; and shares her “I’ve been there, too” strength in Hope, British Columbia, with guilt-stricken Sonia, who’s found new love so soon after a large loss. But it’s not until Leila is in Fairbanks, Alaska, and lying under the Northern Lights that we learn the true reason for her life-affirming excursion.

Adi Alsaid weaves together the distant and disparate stories of his multiple characters, using Leila as the bright red thread to sew the patchwork quilt of their lives. The final product is beautiful, moving—and nothing like it would have been if kept separate.

 

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Crisscrossing the American landscape, Let’s Get Lost is an insider’s view of one girl’s epic journey to witness the Northern Lights and the stories of the lives she selflessly changes along the way.

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