Okay, so… WOW! I was completely enthralled by Smith’s THE ROAD TO WINTER almost from the first page. The gritty feel of the world he created is palpable. Recently, I have been super into Australian YA, and if you haven’t yet been introduced, now is the time – start with this one. Finn is a…
Review: The Truth About Happily Ever After
The Truth About Happily Ever After is kind of a hard one for me. I loved Cozzo’s previous book How To Keep Rolling After A Fall – LOVED, sooo much. But, I struggled with the main character in this one. Here, we meet Alyssa, and honestly I didn’t find her super likeable at first. She…
Review: This Is My Brain on Boys by Sarah Strohmeyer
In THIS IS MY BRAIN ON BOYS by Sarah Strohmeyer, Addie Emerson doesn’t believe in love. She believes in the chemicals that create feelings of love, and she believes that those chemicals alter a person’s thoughts and actions and brain chemistry, but that’s not the same thing as believing in love. Especially when Addie has…
Editor’s Pick: When We Collided by Emery Lord
Emery Lord’s WHEN WE COLLIDED, which won the 2017 Schneider Family Book Award for representation of disability, is excellently titled. Collision, in all its forms, is somehow inherently violent. It is something that is abrupt, disorienting, life-altering. It is a moment after which nothing is the same.”When we collided” is therefore a very apt description…
Editor’s Pick: Chasing Stars by Helen Douglas
I’ll start with a confession: I haven’t read After Eden, the book that precedes Chasing Stars. As far as world building and plot goes, that doesn’t really matter. Despite the sometimes clunky dialogue, Douglas did a bang up job getting us newbies into the loop. Even though the story can get bogged down in the…
Review: Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss
Everything changed because of a slap. Thomas had a plan but then Mallory slapped her boyfriend Will on graduation night. It shouldn’t have affected Thomas at all since Thomas and Mallory haven’t been best friends or even really talked to each other since before seventh grade. But it did because she bee lined for Thomas…
Review: Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake
The title of this book, SUFFER LOVE, is taken from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” wherein Benedick and Beatrice fall in love despite or in spite of themselves. Though the play is a comedy – and this book does have some humorous lines – the book is by and far not a comedy. The parallel…
Editor’s Pick: With Malice by Eileen Cook
In WITH MALICE, Jill Charron wakes up battered, broken and wanted for the murder of her best friend. The trouble is, she has a serious case of retrograde amnesia. I know what you’re thinking, amnesia? Isn’t that a little Days of Our Lives? In this case, no. Cook gives us an out—no one believes her….
Blog Tour: Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff
The same week I listened to the audiobook of PLACES NO ONE KNOWS by Brenna Yovanoff, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the book’s blog tour. That’s what I call perfect timing. How could I say no, when I had enjoyed the book so much I wouldn’t get out of the car…
Editor’s Pick: This Raging Light by Estelle Laure
THIS RAGING LIGHT by Estelle Laure Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2015 | HMH Books, 288 pages | Amazon~IndieBound Can the best thing happen at the worst time? Her dad went crazy. Her mom left town. She has bills to pay and a little sister to look after. Now is not the time for level-headed seventeen-year-old Lucille to fall…