O is for OREAD.

What do you call a silica-based life form that looks exactly like a human being? No, seriously. This isn't a joke; what do you call it? Well, if you're Verity Price, you call it "Marcy," and you let it take the difficult tables during the lunch shift.

The evolution of oreads is heavily debated among cryptozoological circles, as they really do seem to be silica-based, rather than carbon-based, although dissections are somewhat hampered by the need to use a rock hammer. Modern laser technology may help clear up some of the many, many linger questions, as soon as someone with the desire to dissect an oread learns how to use a laser, and gets hold of a dead oread (not easy).

Oreads appear all over the world, but are commonly named from the Greek, simply because those were the first ones most Western cryptozoologists encountered. They have human-level intelligence, and will generally self-identify as the common name for their race.

Some people regard oreads as a bit slow. They're not. They just don't see any reason to hurry things for you.

My "to be read" pile is notoriously huge, to the point that I will not allow myself to configure the Kindle that The Agent gave me for our anniversary until the stack of physical books waiting to be read weighs less than I do (this might happen faster if I stopped buying books). I have no system for going through it; I basically dig until I find something that looks interesting and fits what I want to read right now, and then go.

Yesterday morning, I decided to go for some YA fiction, and grabbed Giving Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe, a contemporary paranormal about bullying, loss, grief, true friendship, and a girl who can talk to dead people. I enjoyed it quite a bit; enough that I looked up the author to see if she had anything else I could buy (like maybe a sequel). What I discovered was that her second book, The Way We Fall, had just been released. I made a note to look for it...

...and then last night, when I found it displayed on the "New Releases" shelf at Barnes and Noble, I picked it up. I am weak. And I am glad to be weak, because this book is awesome.

Told in diary entry format, The Way We Fall is the story of Kaelyn, a sixteen year old girl living in an unidentified island community somewhere off the coast of Canada. She's writing a journal of letters to her best friend, Leo, first because she wants to reestablish their friendship, and then because she wants him to know what happened while he was gone. She wants him to know how they all died.

Because see, a strange disease hits the island. Airborne, with a long latency, and a period of increased sociability during what should be considered the most infectious stage. So when you're at your sickest, that's when you want to hug the neighbors and tell them how much you've always appreciated them. And then you die. It starts slow, and gets steadily worse, as diseases of this type usually do.

Kaelyn is not a doctor; not a scientist; not a virologist; she's a teenage girl, and her view on the outbreak is both moving and unique. She just wants to protect her family, herself, and her friends. She wants answers. She doesn't get them—not all of them, not enough of them. Crewe has done enough research to put together a plausible progression and set of symptoms, without actually needing to pin down her virus and walk herself into bad science territory. Instead, she has real people, in a bad place, and she lets them deal with their circumstances as best they can.

Kaelyn is a strong, smart, believable female protagonist in an tense YA novel that focuses on character and situation, rather than romance. Her losses are genuine, and painful. Better yet, there is an excellent level of diversity in the characters. Kaelyn and her older brother are mixed-race, with a black mother and a white father, both of whom appear quite a bit. Kaelyn's niece, who is central to the story, is black. Her best friend was born in Korea. And her brother is gay without being a stereotype or defined purely by his sexuality.

I really can't recommend this highly enough. I'm excited to know that there's a sequel coming, because not everything was answered at the end...but then again, not everything needed to be. It's a beautiful book.

You should check it out.