YA

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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This was so much fun!!  While also being really dark.  It’s a hard balance tSix-of-Crowso create a criminal group who are…actually criminals.  I love Kaz desperately, but there is no doubt in my mind that dude is bad news.  But the great thing is that as horrible as he is, Inej can totally handle him, so I feel okay wanting them to be in love.  But I’m rambling too quickly without any background.

Set in Bardugo’s world from her Grisha trilogy, we get to explore Ketterdam and Fjerda.  And our cast of six characters are from all over the world – I really appreciate a woman who creates a fictional world and still manages to have racially diverse characters.  I mean, honestly, Bardugo is genius at world building.  She’s created five nations with distinct people, values, languages, and cultures.  Throwing them all together in one criminal gang and watching them hate and love each other is so much fun!   Continue reading →

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

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A new Rick Riordan series: rejoice!

Seriously, will I ever tire of reading his modern-age mythologies?  I honestly don’t think so, especially when he can get me interested in Norse mythology (of which I know very little other than that I am attracted to Tom Hiddleston’s Loki).  Speaking of which, it was fun to see Loki on the page, as well as Thor, and to see how they compare to their Marvel counterparts.

But Riordan’s talent proves that he didn’t need to lean on the popularity of Marvel’s Norse gods to make a really fun book. I’m still getting the hang of Norse mythology, but I like Freya and her cats, and the Nine Worlds provided a lot of really fun settings for our characters to explore.   Continue reading →

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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I’ve JUST finished the book, like two seconds ago, and I LOVED IT.  I expected to like it, an a sort of ironic “Isn’t this odd, reading a pseudo Harry Potter fanfiction that was excerpted in Rowell’s Fangirl?” And for a while, I was mostly interested in assigning every character to their HP equivalent, but that quickly turned into genuine investment.

I LOVE Simon!  I love Baz!  I love Penelope!  I even love Agatha, although for a while she was a useless wet blanket (but then she acknowledges her role as a useless wet blanket, only meant to further someone else’s story, and when she said “peace out!” I adored her for it).  I love the magical world in Carry On, how they have phones and computers and are simply just like Normals, but with magic.  That makes more sense to me than Harry Potter’s culturally-backwards wizarding world.  But!  I’m not comparing!  (Okay, it’s impossible not to compare.)   Continue reading →

The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

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I loved Rutkoski’s Kronos Chronicles series, and her ability to create a believable fantasy world holds true.  Can you sense the “but” coming?  But….I thought The Winner’s Curse indulged in YA romance tropes, when I know she can do more interesting things with relationships.  Kestrel and Arin have a definite Romeo-and-Juliet vibe going on, since he is her purchased slave, but their feelings for each other felt too inevitable.  Is that a weird complaint?  Neither of them seemed to really care about the social implications of their feelings for the enemy, even if their internal dialogue begs to differ.   Continue reading →

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

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I can’t say I liked this book, but I’m so glad I read it and I want everyone in the world to read More Happy Than Not.  I read the entire thing in one night: it was wholly engrossing, and then the plot kicked me upside the head and I learned a new kind of desperation for MUST READ.  This is not a feel-good book, but it might leave you feeling….no I can’t do the cheesy “more happy than not” line.  Because honestly, I closed the book feeling more UNhappy than not.  I tend to expect my YA books to have happily ever after endings, and this one was serious is a wonderful but disconcerting way.   Continue reading →

The Illyrian Adventure by Lloyd Alexander

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There has never been a better opening paragraph than this one:

Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master.  She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them.  She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head.  She does not hesitate to risk life and limb–mine as well as her own.  No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered.  I hope not.

Now that is a heroine.  From the first page (and every page thereafter) I was completely enthralled by Vesper’s persuasive wit.  Added to the fantastic characters was a really fun plot–an Indiana Jones-type treasure-seeking adventure.  The book is short, and its brevity quickens the novel’s pace.  Where modern YA books might describe long treks through the jungle or every detail of a banquet, Alexander bypasses these scenes with clever paragraphs that add to the dry humor of the story.

I really enjoyed reading about Vesper and Brinnie’s adventures, and I will definitely be on the lookout for more in the series in future. Continue reading →

Butter by Erin Jade Lange

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It’s been way too long since I’ve read a book of fiction, so when I got Butter, I devoured it (hah) in one evening.  This was not just because of my fiction-fast, but because the book is really good.  I loved the themes of popularity desperation, the nuanced portrayal of bullying, and the dissection of eating disorders and obesity.

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a YA book from the perspective of an obese teenager.  I liked that Butter was a typical teenage boy in a lot of ways – crushing on the cute girl, making friends at summer camp, desperate for attention.  I also liked that he’s a saxophone player (like I was!), and that his musical talent is central to the plot.  Butter’s relationship with the kids at school is where the big drama is, but we also get to see the way his obesity affects his family, his teachers, and his doctors.  Lange doesn’t blame Butter for his weight, but she also doesn’t hold back from showing the consequences of being young and overweight.

I can see this book being hugely influential for those who read it.  There has been an uptick in discussion on fat shaming culturally, and I hope books like Butter encourage readers to be empathetic toward overweight people.  And I hope it encourages readers who are overweight, that they will feel understood, validated, and inspired.   Continue reading →

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern

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I have mixed feelings about this book.  On the one hand, I really liked the juxtaposition between physical and mental disorders.  I liked that both were treated with respect and acknowledged the unfair stigmas attached to each.  And I liked that the romance felt genuine and earned–it’s tricky to have a relationship develop between an able-bodied person and a disabled person and never once think there is a power imbalance.

On the other hand, the pace of the book felt very strange.  Sometimes we got to see all day, every day.  Other times we skipped months at a time.  Sometimes the scenes evenly alternated between Amy and Matthew, and sometimes they skewed toward one more than the other.  The plot seemed to be following a particular route, but then there was a twist.  Which is cool!  But the last third of the book felt uneven and disjointed.  Subplots were tacked on without the development they might have been given earlier in the book.

Still, I’m glad this book exists.  It’s always good to read about the stories of people that, sad to say, I often ignore.  It’s a good reminder that people have so much more going on inside of them than we can ever know from the outside.  And–this is so basic, but so important–it’s great to have books that loudly and confidently remind readers that nonverbal men and women in wheelchairs are people too.  I mean, of course they are.  But how often do we get to read about their story?   Continue reading →

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

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I haven’t read Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, but after Finding Audrey, I think I need to!  I loved Kinsella’s humor, inclusion of pop culture, and honest portrayal of mental disorders.

Audrey suffers from a host of anxiety disorders after a (presumably) horrendous bullying experience.  Although I understand the right of a person to not have to share why they struggle, it’s a book!  I want to know why!  This was the one thing I didn’t like about the story.  I can only assume Kinsella thought that no matter her description of bullying, some reader would scoff that it wasn’t that bad.  As it is, our imaginations are free to run wild.

While Kinsella doesn’t tell us exactly what caused Audrey’s panic attacks and anxiety, she does a phenomenal job showing how these disorders play out in her life.  Kinsella doesn’t glamorize her anxiety, nor does she make Audrey into a caricature of a human being.  Instead, she honestly describes the fear, growth, and healing that comes in a person working through their issues with the help of a loving family and a knowledgeable counselor.  And a cute boy.  Because it is a YA novel, and cute boys never hurt.  Continue reading →

Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

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Emmy & Oliver manages to combine the contentment of best-friends-falling-in-love with the passion of strangers-falling-in-love.  How?  By having Oliver kidnapped by his dad at age seven and returned to Emmy’s life ten years later.  It’s a little ridiculous, their lifelong love enduring through such chaos, but I loved it!

Although this is an unapologetically romantic book, I loved the psychological details revolving around Oliver’s conflicted feelings toward his dad and the overprotective reactions of Emmy’s parents.  In fact, I really liked her realistic relationship with her parents as they struggled to let her grow up.  I also loved her friendship with Caro and Drew, especially as they worked through the changes Oliver’s return makes in their relationships.

But mostly it’s a romance!  And a really good one.  Emmy and Oliver are so sweet with each other, weird and supportive and healthy in a way that YA novels often ignore.  More stories where romance begins with friendship…and continues to be a friendship, even when the kissing starts!  Continue reading →