Bleeding Violet

December 21, 2009
In Reeves's dark and stylish first novel, 16-year-old Hanna arrives in the Texas town of Portero seeking Rosalee, the mother she's never known, and fleeing her aunt, who wants her back in a mental institution (Hanna is manic-depressive and has conversations with her deceased father). But Hanna soon learns that Portero has doors to other worlds, allowing ghoulish creatures such as “lures,” who can turn people to glass, to wreak havoc. A group called the Mortmaine keeps the population safe, and when Hanna helps a member named Wyatt defeat the lures, she finally earns acceptance in the unfriendly town. Hanna's sassy voice reflects her freewheeling, unstable personality (“back in Dallas, I decided to sleep with all the boys in my class in alphabetical order”). Even as Rosalee slowly warms to her daughter, walls remain, at one point driving Hanna to attempt suicide. Reeves writes surely and with flair, though readers should be prepared for gore (Hanna slices flesh from Wyatt's father's leg to defeat a demon) and other disturbing moments, as when a naked Hanna and Rosalee torture a boy. Not for the faint of heart. Ages 14–up.

March 1, 2010
Gr 8 Up-Hanna Jarvinen, 16, is biracial, bicultural, and bipolar. She makes her own clothes, all of which are purple. After the death of her Finnish father, Hanna goes to Portero, TX, to reunite with her unsuspecting and unwelcoming mother, Rosalee. Demons, spirits, and monsters of every variety populate the town. The ghost of Hanna's father haunts her even when she takes her meds. She takes up with Wyatt, one of Portero's designated monster hunters, to free her mother of a notorious evil spirit. The town lore is jumbled and confusing, and the vast and gruesome variety of ghouls seems completely random. Everything in "Bleeding Violet" is overwrought. Hanna describes her sexual encounters in bodice-ripping detail, yet she and Wyatt have zero chemistry. Their paranormal interactions are nonsensically gross instead of legitimately scary. Hanna and Rosalee's conversations are an odd combination of wooden exposition and shrieking melodrama. The gross-outs come fast and often, but fail to move the story along. Rosalee's possession, in the last third of the book, seems like a cheap device to resolve an otherwise aimless plot. Hanna's wacky quirks may irritate teens, and though earnest and occasionally witty, she never engages readers."Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2009
Grades 10-1 After her fathers death, 16-year-old Hanna hitchhikes to Portero, Texas, the home of her mother, Rosalee, who abandoned her. Hanna is desperate for Rosalee to love and accept her, and Rosalee reluctantly makes a bargain: Hanna has two weeks to make friends and fit in at her school or she won't be allowed to stay. Hanna has never fit in anywhere, though. Struggling with manic depression, she hears voices and hallucinates, wears only purple dresses, and has a history of violence. Portero is no ordinary town, though, and Hanna learns that it is haunted by doors to other dimensions and plagued by dangerous creatures from those realms. Wyatt, a powerful young initiate in the Mortmaine, a demon-hunting organization, recruits Hanna, and together they struggle to deal with an ancient evil that threatens the town and Hannas future. With plenty of sex and violence, this is a book for mature teens, who will find Portero to be an intriguing world and biracial Hanna a startlingly unusual heroine with a poignant, memorable voice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)