Fishtailing

October 15, 2010
Four teens fall in and out of longing, love and violence: Kyle, the motorcycle-riding musician, Miguel, the unpredictable poet haunted by a violent past, Natalie, a mischief-making cutter, and Tricia, a biracial teen uncomfortable in her own skin. Told in minimalist free-verse vignettes, their lives crash, simmer and smolder together in the science lab, on the soccer field, at the coffee house and more.  Phillips adeptly spins complex, provocative, sharp-imaged lines of poetry in this first novel that is mostly told by the four main characters with some well-intended but pandering commentary by the school faculty, including their English teacher, who assigned them to write many of the poems for class. Though fully realized in structure, tonality and word choice, several poems lack voice, particularly those written by male characters. Readers can identify the speaker because the author has assigned names to stanzas, but any sense that the characters could be living, breathing, talking teenagers stops there. However, although much of the climatic action happens offstage, there are enough razor blades, lust, jealousy and revenge to keep readers breathlessly hooked until the very end. (Verse novel. 14 & up)

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October 15, 2010
Grades 7-12 Canadian author Phillips first novel is told in free verse and features the perspectives of four different high-school students. Two (Tricia and Kyle) are traditionally troubled and vulnerable teens; one (Miguel) is a political refugee; and the fourth (Natalie, the obligatory new girl in school) is trouble. Having been bounced from school to school, Natalie is a schemer who delights in manipulating the lives of others, regardless of the cost. All four teens tell their own stories in their first-person voices. Added to these are the voices of two teachers: Ms. Nishi, a sympathetic guidance counselor, and Mrs. Farr, a burned-out English teacher whose assignments are the catalyst for many of the kids poems. Theres not much thats new here, but the free-verse voices are all nicely handled; the teens are engagingthough occasionally one-dimensionalcharacters; and Natalies machinations are compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)