Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles #1) by Angelina Allsop TCK Publishing, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1631610646 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook Fourteen year old Peter Green wakes up on the floor of a hotel lobby wearing only pajamas and a silk tie, and discovers he is dead, has no memories […]
Category: YA books
Book Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
June 13, 2019Dread Nation by Justina Ireland Balzer + Bray, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-0062570604 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD Editor’s note: Due to its topic and content, Dread Nation contains racial slurs and outdated language. I’m using “Negro” in this review as it is the term used throughout the book. In this alternate history, the Civil War […]
The Night Weaver (Shadow Grove, Vol. 1) by Monique Snyman Gigi Publishing, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1643163031 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition Seventeen-year-old Rachel Cleary lives in the isolated community of Shadow Grove (it’s unclear how isolated, or how large, it actually is, as it has suburbs, a trendy downtown, three grocery stores, multiple chain stores, and a […]
Book Review: Broken Lands by Jonathan Maberry
June 9, 2019Broken Lands by Jonathan Maberry Simon and Schuster, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1534406377 Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook I will be honest, I am not a fan of zombie fiction. As a reviewer, I am putting my feelings about the genre as a whole to the side to review Broken Lands because it is on the final ballot for […]
Book Review: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand
June 7, 2019Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand Katherine Tegen Books, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-0062696601 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD My previous experience with Claire Legrand’s work was with her extremely creepy middle-grade book The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls. I could see just from the cover and inside flap of this book that her YA work […]
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White Delacorte, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-0525577942 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD Elizabeth Lavenza is the ultimate example of the “cool girl” described by Amy Dunne in Gone Girl: she is never herself, always what someone else (usually a man) needs her to be. An orphan purchased […]
Review: Crank by Ellen Hopkins
March 7, 2019McElderry; 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 […]
Blast From the Past Review: Slumber Party by Christopher Pike
February 21, 2019Scholastic Paperbacks, Reissue edition, 2004 ISBN: 0590430149 Available: New and Used Years after a slumber party that left one of their group or friends dead and one disfigured, Lara, Nell, Rachael, Mindy, Dana, and a new friend Celeste come together for a fun ski trip to get together and catch up. Disturbing events make […]
Illuminae (The Illuminae Files: 01) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2015 ISBN-13: 978-0553499117 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD Ezra thought his day had started out badly when his hacker girlfriend Kady dumped him, but then invading warships from a competing megacorporation destroyed his home, an illegal […]
Long story short, while in the review copy/arc phase debut YA author Amélie Wen Zhao first delayed, then cancelled the publication of her first novel (which was a major deal–that is one described as gaining an advance of at least $500,000) Blood Heir. Publishers Weekly covers the controversy here. And Tablet Magazine updates it here. Personally, […]