I was lucky enough to hear A.S. King speak when she visited our Library in August 2015. Eventually, after much fascinating talk, one of the moderators got around to asking her about her newest book, I Crawl Through It. "What's it about?" We all laughed, as we had earlier established how difficult it can be to neatly summarize a King novel.
Seventeen year old Twylla lives in the palace. She is betrothed to the prince, but no one looks at her, they don't dare to touch her. Twylla is the executioner. As the Goddess embodied, Twylla instantly kills anyone she touches. No one can ever love her, a girl with murder in her veins. Not even the prince, whose bloodline supposedly makes him immune to the her fatal touch, avoids Twylla. Then a new guard arrives, and sees past the executioner robes and see Twylla for herself.
When Alix's girlfriend, Swanee dies, she feels like nothing can get any worse. Until one afternoon, she stumbles upon Swanee's phone, and discovers text messages from a strange number. Alix decides to take initiative and meet with her. It turns out, Swanee was living a secret life with another girl named Liana. Both of them will come together to find peace in her death, and also love.
Not knowing how her family has landed in witness protection is driving seventeen year old "Meg" crazy. But she knows the two rules of being in witness protection... be invisible and don't make friends. Easier said than done, and after six placements in the last year she is bound and determined to make this placement stick as the constant moving and stress of learning new identities and back stories is tearing her family apart.
Quentin Jacobsen has always been hopelessly in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman for as long as he can remember. When she shows up at his window telling of a night of adventure he is sure to say yes. But the day after she disappears and appears to have left behind clues as to her whereabouts and Q is determined to find her. A paper town for a paper girl.
The two narrators alternate chapters telling the story of the splinters of their individual families melding into a new one. Eighth-grader Stewart and Ninth-grader Ashley are on their way to becoming step-siblings, with Stewart and his widower dad moving in with Ashley and her divorced mom--though Ashley's recently out-of-the-closet dad is still living in their backyard laneway house. They are a complete contrast of personalities and styles. As Stewart describes:
Elena has been struggling since a young age, shutting people out and retreating into herself. By 17, she is diagnosed with anorexia and is continually in and out of treatment centers. This is about her journey, the ups and the downs of her eating disorder.
The America that we know is gone - destroyed by war and a biological disaster. The country is split in two. The dangerous East is full of human survivors riddled by mutation. Lane has always lived in the West, behind a giant wall meant to keep her safe from the feral, mutated creatures of the East. She soon learns that her father is a fetch -- hired to travel into the Feral Zone and retrieve valuable art. When he doesn't return she is forced to go into the feral zone to save him and also finish his mission -- retrieve something of value for a high-ranking official.
Eleanor and Park at first glance seem to be two different people, but after Park saves Eleanor from the horrors of the bus one day, they discover how much they complete each other. They find themselves in love, knowing that it probably won't last, but hoping beyond reason that it will.
