Katzenjammer

Dark, twisty, and filled with trippy illustrations; this young adult book will stay with you. Cat is stuck in hell, or at least she imagines what hell would be. She's trapped in a living, breathing high school and she and the other students are slowly being transformed into monsters. If that wasn't bad enough something is roaming the halls and killing students. None of the teens have any memory of how they got there or what life was like before, but they are all desperate to escape. As Cat tries to find out who is killing her friends she starts to get flashbacks from her old life. Her life where she was an artist and her best friend was Jeremy. Are these memories a clue to how she got here? Are they clues on how to escape. The whole book is so weird and I had no idea where it was going until the very end. Inventive and unique storytelling. No spoilers, but it's pretty heartbreaking. 

Greymist Fair

LOVED this book so hard! This is my favorite Zappia novel to date. I loved this village and all the people in it. The storytelling was beautiful - if the characters aged up, this would easily read as an adult novel. This is one book that I plan on keeping and re-reading. Greymist Fair is a little village in the middle of the woods, some people never make it there and the villagers never leave. They know to stay out of the forests, for death lurks within. Each tale is a retelling of old Grim fairy tales and they all connect to the town. The Grim tales that are "retold" aren't necessarily the common ones and most children would never know them. I myself didn't know a few. The storytelling is beautiful, the setting is beautiful, the characters are complicated and interesting.  

Made You Up

There aren't many teen novels that deal with mental illness in a positive, educational way which makes this book even more important. The book centers around Alex, a high school senior suffering from schizophrenia. Having been kicked out of her last school for defacing the gym she is sent to a new high school and as part of her punishment she has to join an after school athletic club. Alex finds herself making friends but more often than not she's not always sure what is real and what is a figment of her imagination. Are these friendships real or are they fake? Miles, the head of the club soon becomes one of her fixations. Does he really have a German accent? Why do people call him a Nazi? Can she trust him? A hopeful, honest read about mental illness and the power of friendship.