Experiencing tragedy is an inevitable fact of being alive. Relationships fail, loved ones die, jobs are lost, and lives are irrevocably altered every moment of every day. Often, the tragedy itself feels like an ending; whether slow and creeping or abrupt and violent, the tragic event becomes the demarcation between "before" and "after".

The "before" and "after" for Ezra Faulkner, the protagonist in Robyn Schneider's YA novel The Beginning of Everything, is separated by the car accident that crushed his leg and ended any hopes he had for a tennis scholarship or someday joining the pro tennis circuit. At the same time he lost his dream of tennis stardom, he also lost his girlfriend and most of his popularity. Ezra, who has always defined himself by what he was able to do, suddenly doesn't know who he is if he can't do those things anymore. Who is he supposed to be now that he isn't the star athlete and likely prospect for homecoming king?

But the tragedy that Ezra thinks is such an ending is really a new beginning. Into his life comes new girl Cassidy, someone who never knew Ezra as the golden boy tennis star. She represents a blank slate for Ezra, someone he can try out his new personality and way of being with. Between his relationship with Cassidy, and the support of new friends on the debate team, Ezra is able to come to terms with the his own personal tragedy and find a new self-confidence that can help him keep moving forward into his new life. But Cassidy has experienced tragedy, too, and her tragedy threatens everything about their relationship

I really liked the characters in this book. Smart, witty, with just enough quirk to make them interesting but not so much to make them weird, Ezra and his friends are the cool intellectual kids I'd want to hang out with. Schneider does fall back on some pretty played out stereotypes about jocks and popular kids when describing Ezra's pre-accident friends, but the story only really works if Ezra's old group of partying popular kids are as selfish and inconsiderate as those types of students are often portrayed. While this yet another coming-of-age/teen romance story, there are twists to the story that add a layer of complexity that makes the story more thought-provoking. For a debut novel, Schneider gets the balance of exposition and action right, and she manages to create a character in Ezra who is self-pitying without being annoying. And the ending did not disappoint-at least, I wasn't disappointed. Let's just say it was not the pat ending that readers of YA love stories may have come to expect.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, Gabrielle Zevin

So you know how on soap operas, anytime they want to shake things up they do something like bring someone back from the dead or give someone amnesia? And how that always feels contrived and unbelievable and lazy? Yeah, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is the OPPOSITE of that.

Naomi was your average high school student-editor of the school paper, tennis star, popular girl. She was an average high school student, that is, until she fell down the stairs and gave herself amnesia. She remembers nothing about her life for the past four years. She doesn't remember why her best friend calls her "Chief". She doesn't remember her father's fiance or her mother's new family-in fact she doesn't remember them getting divorced. She doesn't remember her boyfriend Ace, and she certainly can't remember why she fell in love with him in the first place. The first thing she remembers since the accident is the face of a boy named James, who pretended to be her boyfriend to get into the hospital to see her. Naomi struggles to regain her old life, but the more she learns about it, the more she wonders if she wants it all back. Will she still be the same person when and if her memory does return?

Zevin manages to make the whole amnesia thing feel new and fresh, despite the many, many, MANY times it's been used in literature, TV, and movies. The new Naomi is such a different person in some ways than the pre-amnesia Naomi that I found myself wondering if I would like her as much if Zevin had started the story with her old self instead of her new one. While there is a romance component, the parts I found more compelling was the relationship between Naomi and her best friend Will. In regards to the age-old question of whether men and women can ever just be friends, I'm much more a Sally than a Harry (When Harry Met Sally? You know? Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal? Of course, Sally ends up getting together with her best friend in the end, which sort of negates my point. OK, then I'm a 'beginning of the movie" Sally). I always appreciate when an author or film-maker presents straight characters of different genders who are just friends. Of course, despite that, this story is a love story, albeit one that is told through a very inventive plot.

All the Bright Places, Jennifer Niven

Boy meets girl-on a ledge. Violet was considering throwing herself off, but then Finch, who is no
stranger to suicidal thoughts himself, convinces her not to. Thus begins the love story of Violet and Finch, two smart, troubled teenagers living in small-town Indiana. Finch has lived with the darkness for a long time. He's basically been bullied by everyone in his life, starting with his father, for as long as he can remember. Living with a physically abusive parent doesn't exactly make for a rosy childhood. Violet has recently descended into the dark places Finch knows so well. Her sister was killed in a car accident, and it seems like everyone and everything she loved before is meaningless to her now. She and her sister hosted a blog together, which means that even writing, which used to be an escape for her, is tainted. Because of a school project, Finch and Violet end up spending a lot of time together, and before long they are deeply in love. But sometimes, love isn't enough to keep the darkness at bay.

Without going into too much more detail, let's just say this book is tragic. Like, "ugly-cry" tragic. Finch and Violet are both excellently written as characters, and you root for them to overcome their issues. Finch especially seems almost too good to be true. He is pretty consistently more considerate and kind than I'd expect most anyone to be, but especially a mentally ill 17 year-old boy. Finch really helps Violet see that to go on living is the only way to honor her sister, and that rather than withdrawing from the world until she can escape her small town and its painful memories, she should focus on living each day to the fullest. For her part, Violet helps draw Finch out of himself, getting him out of his own head and back into the world of the living. Sounds great, right? It is-for a while (cue ugly-crying).

This YA novel deals with some pretty heavy adult issues, namely mental illness and suicide, but Niven makes them understandable for younger readers. And really, as recent studies have shown, more and more teenagers are dealing with exactly the kind of depression and anxiety disorders that plague Finch and Violet. The story is a testament to anyone who has ever felt despair and overwhelming desperation. It also shows that even when you love someone, that person is ultimately responsible for their own choices. I think one of the messages Niven is sending to young people is that it is not your job to fix someone else, and that some problems are too big for one person, no matter how deeply they love the other, to deal with on their own. One of our protagonists learned this lesson a little too late, but because of a message left behind, they are able to let go of some of the guilt they'd been holding onto. While there is not a happy ending, Niven does leave us with a sense that, at least for one of the characters, things will eventually be OK.

The Life She Was Given, Ellen Marie Wiseman

Who hasn't dreamed of running away with the circus? Well, actually, I'm not sure anyone dreams of this anymore, but it's become such a cliche for our desire to escape the everyday world of chores and responsibilities that it feels almost universal. But for some circus performers, running away with the circus was less about escape and more about survival, and for others, the choice to join the circus wasn't even theirs to make.

The history of the circus freak show is long and full of both heroes and villains. The public's fascination with medical oddities has probably always existed, but it came to prominence most strongly during the Victorian era. From small traveling carnivals to huge circuses like Barnum and Bailey, freak shows provided an experience designed to shock the mind and boggle the senses. Many of the sideshow acts were faked, but others capitalized on (and/or exploited) people who suffered from rare medical conditions, or who somehow looked different than the norm (think bearded lady or tattooed man). Depending on which shows and which circus owners you're talking about, freak shows either provided a safe place and a community for people who had been rejected by society, or unending slavery for people who were often sold to the shows by the family who rejected them.

The Life She Was Given tells the second kind of story. Eleven-year-old Lilly has spent her entire life in her attic bedroom, forbidden from exploring the house where she lives, Blackwood Manor, or the gardens and fields surrounding it. Her mother says it's for her own protection; that if people saw her, they would be afraid of her and might hurt her. One night, Lilly sees the lights of a circus in the distance. That night, for the first time, her mother takes her outside-and sells her to the circus sideshow.

A couple of decades later, young Julia Blackwood inherits Blackwood Manor, the strict childhood home she left behind after her father died, fleeing the lonely silence and strict rules of the big old house. When she returns after her mother's death, she hopes to find a way to exorcise the demons of her lonely childhood and bring light into the house, but what she discovers in her explorations of the old manor leads her deep into the mystery of the child who lived in the attic.

I will admit to getting totally sucked into this book. It is a quick read, and much of the story is not hard to predict. It reminded me a lot of Water for Elephants, as an elephant and its trainer have a prominent place in the story. I will say, though, that while I had a pretty good idea that something tragic would happen, the form that tragedy took was not what I expected. The descriptions of circus life are similar to other novels with circus settings that I've read, and Wiseman manages to fit in not one but two love stories, though one is much better developed than the other. Both main characters are well-written, and the story definitely has a strong emotional impact on the reader.

One word of warning: If you are someone who is squeamish about or sensitive to violence against animals, there's a section you might want to skip. You'll know it when you get there. Suffice it to say it turns out for the animal in question the way you'd expect based on what else has happened in the story. Wiseman does not shy away from putting her characters, even the animal ones, through some pretty awful stuff.