Review: Crank by Ellen Hopkins

McElderry; Original edition, 2004 ISBN-13: 978-0689865190 Available: New and  Used Crank is Ellen Hopkins’ controversial, and sorely needed, verse novel. Kristina Snow’s life changes forever when her father and the boy she’s crushing introduce her to meth. Unlike Impulse, which is raw and shredding in its emotion, Crank is almost cold at times, brutally showing a girl on […]

Book Review: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Viking Juvenile, 2009 ISBN: 067001110X Available: New and Used     Cassie was Lia’s best friend. Her body was found in a hotel room, alone. The two girls hadn’t spoken in months, so Lia didn’t answer her cell when Cassie called on the night she died… thirty three times. It’s one more guilty secret in a […]

Happy (?) Banned Books Week!

  Do you know which books are the most frequently challenged in this century and why? How about a timeline of banned books? This year the ALA and Banned Books Week movement celebrates banned comics! What’s your favorite? Tweet

Book Review: Elphame’s Choice by P.C. Cast

Elphame,  the Chosen of the Goddess Epona, is half-centaur and half-human. She leaves the luxury of home, and her mother, the Goddess Incarnate, to travel to a crumbling castle. Elphame is determined to revive the site, once the scene of slaughter, and find her place in the world. When she arrives, she finds the half-breed descendants of the Fomorians, […]

Book Review: Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

Floored, that’s how readers will feel even when they are only part of the way into this breathtaking tale of three teens admitted to a mental care center after each has attempted suicide. While the book is large, 666 pages, it’s written in poetry form, so it’s a fast read. The terrible story of how […]

Hunted by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast

As a stand alone book, Hunted is quite lacking. The fifth book of the House of Night series Hunted is the kind of book that wraps up some story lines, introduces others and does little else. A place holder book Hunted has some major irks, but not nearly as much eye-rolling author intrusion as the […]

Untamed by P.C. Cast & Kristen Cast

If Chosen is one of my favorite books in the House of Night series Untamed is my other favorite. In the last book original mean girl Aphrodite not only became the only safe person for super chosen one Zoey to be close to, she also gave up the one thing she probably loved more than […]

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

In Fallout, the third book in the series that started with Crank, centered on meth addict Kristina Snow, Hopkins moves on to show the effect Kristina’s selfish ways still have on her children, and covers a wide spectrum of emotional and psychological problems. Fallout is told through three narrators: Hunter, Kristina’s first child, born of […]

Glass by Ellen Hopkins

Glass is the direct follow up to Crank. Glass continues the story of Kristina Snow after she’s had her baby, and kicked meth and nicotine, shortly before her eighteenth birthday. It follows her relapse in her struggle with the meth monster and goes farther than Crank imagined. Sharp and painful, Glass is hard to read. […]

Guide to YA Novels with GLBTQ Characters

I want to give a shout out to this blog from YALSA’s The Hub. Make sure to read the comments too for more titles. Mostly, though, I want to add in the Weetzie Bat books by Francesca Lia Block as well. I HIGHLY recommend them. Tweet