Home of innovative and original Young Adult fiction
Title: How It All Blew UpAuthor: Arvin Ahmadi Edition: Kindle (ARC)Rating: 4/5 A clever take on a coming-out story, How It All Blew Up follows eighteen-year-old Amir as he comes to terms with his sexuality, and wonders how to tell his Iranian-American Muslim family that he’s gay. He’s very careful to hide his high-school hook ups …
Title: EverlessAuthor: Sara HollandEdition: PaperbackRating: 4/5 In Sempera, time is magically bound to the blood of every person, and payment is made in the form of blood iron – days, hours, and years. The rich amass centuries of life while the poor struggle to survive, bleeding themselves to pay for rent and food. Jules and …
Title: CampAuthor: L. C. RosenEdition: PaperbackRating: 4/5 The second YA novel from the author of Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) is another sex-positive story of LBGTQ+ teens as they negotiate life, love, and sex for the first time. Randy has been attending Camp Outland every summer for years. It’s the only place where he …
Title: Vicious RumerAuthor: Joshua WinningEdition: KindleRating: 4/5 This book should probably come with a violence warning – it begins with a torture scene, narrated by the person doing the torturing, and it’s an amazing setup for an uncompromising story and a fascinating character. I was hooked from the first line. Rumer grew up in a …
Title: The Black FlamingoAuthor: Dean AttaEdition: PaperbackRating: 5/5 This is a beautiful book. Yes, it has a gorgeous cover and lovely illustrations – but the beauty is in the language, the characters, and the story. When I picked it up I didn’t realise it was written in verse, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. …
Title: Unite Me / Find MeAuthor: Tahereh MafiEdition: PaperbackRating: 3/5 / 4/5 Unite Me (3/5)This is an tiny, expensive paperback featuring two short stories that link to the first three books of the Shatter Me series, along with the contents of Juliette’s journal. While it was interesting to read sections of the story with Warner …
Title: Imagine MeAuthor: Tahereh MafiEdition: PaperbackRating: 3/5 The final book in the Shatter Me series is fast paced and action packed, as expected. The narration is split between Juliette and Kenji, which allows different characters to follow different paths through the story, and again gives the reader an outsider’s view of Juliette and Warner. It’s …
Title: Defy MeAuthor: Tahereh MafiEdition: PaperbackRating: 4/5 I was pleased to discover that the sequel to ‘Restore Me’ picks up the story from the final scene of the previous book, and introduces Juliette’s best friend Kenji as a third narrator. The three viewpoints allow the complexities of the plot to be explored while the characters …
Title: Restore MeAuthor: Tahereh MafiEdition: PaperbackRating: 4/5 The first book of the second trilogy in the Shatter Me Series only covers a few days of action, but – wow – it’s an intense few days! Juliette is the new ruler of The Reestablishment, and she’s learning how hard it is to be a leader. Her …
Title: We Are Not Yet EqualAuthor: Carol Anderson and Tonya BoldenEdition: KindleRating: 5/5 For our first non-fiction book-club read, we chose the YA adaptation of White Rage by Carol Anderson. We Are Not Yet Equal takes Anderson’s interpretation of the causes of systemic racism in the USA and makes it accessible to a teenage audience …