This month on the YA Diversity Book Club, we aren’t featuring just one book but our picks for some of the most anticipated diverse reads of 2016. Between Lucy at The Reading Date, Kristan at We Heart YA and us at Teen Lit Rocks, we hope you’ll find a comprehensive list of books featuring diverse themes,…
Top Ten Highlights of YALLFest
Last weekend, we once again attended YALLFest in Charleston, SC. My 18-year-old daughter and I drove up from Florida and Sandie drove down from Maryland, and we met up in Charleston within minutes of one another. After the initial excitement of our sisterly reunion, we did what any person should do in Charleston — eat!…
January Book Club: Return to Me by Justina Chen Headley
After reading our TLR friend Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s Odyssean adventure “Summer of the Mariposas” in December, we took a short break to recoup, consider our favorite books of 2012, and only then did we pick our January read. We chose “Return to Me” by Justina Chen Headley based on “North of Beautiful,” which I read…
Happy and Sweet Fast Reads Anyone?
This weekend has been full of tears. The Connecticut school shooting rendered my husband and me a weeping mess this weekend. At one point, my husband was on the verge of crying from that Sleepy’s mattress commercial that features “In My Life.” My older two kids had a scheduled sleepover after attending a children’s ministry…
Book Club Day: Skinny by Donna Cooner
“Skinny” by Donna Cooner Release Date: Oct. 1, 2012 | Publisher: Scholastic, 272 pages About the book: Find your voice. Hopeless. Freak. Elephant. Pitiful. These are the words of Skinny, the vicious voice that lives inside fifteen-year-old Ever Davies’s head. Skinny tells Ever all the dark thoughts her classmates have about her. Ever knows she…
Confessions of a YA Junkie: Kristina
Our little “Casting Call” feature has allowed us to get to know five other YA lovers and chat with them about everything from what books they’re reading to the importance of watching “Friday Night Lights.” Kiki is, hands down, our most take-charge member. She’s smart and focused and can whip up a spreadsheet like it’s an…
Book Club Day: ‘The Stone Girl’ by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
About the book: She feels like a creature out of a fairy tale; a girl who discovers that her bones are really made out of stone, that her skin is really as thin as glass, that her hair is brittle as straw, that her tears have dried up so that she cries only salt. Maybe…
Editor’s Pick: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
One of the highlights of my summer was vacationing for ten days in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I spent a few days with just my family in the Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil Hills area and then joined Sandie and her family for a week on Ocracoke Island. That was so much fun, and we…
Editor’s Pick: The Fine Art of Truth or Dare by Melissa Jensen
“The Fine Art of Truth or Dare” by Melissa Jensen Release date: Feb. 16, 2012 Publisher: Penguin, 272 pages Ella is nearly invisible at the Willing School, and that’s just fine by her. She’s got her friends – the fabulous Frankie and their sweet cohort Sadie. She’s got her art – and her idol,…
Favorite BFFs: Zuzana from “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor
Most of the time, Sandie and I discuss the books we’re reading with each other. So it was quite a surprise, one day last year, when we discovered that we were both reading “Daughter of Smoke and Bone”. What’s even funnier is that a couple of days later we both finished the book within minutes…