280 reviews found
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Oh my this book made me angry. I started Some Girls Are during lunch on Friday, got about 24 pages in (I know this because the bookmark is still at that spot), then read the rest in one big gulp on Saturday night. Want to talk about page-turners? I kept telling myself I should stop, go to bed, finish the rest with a clear head in the morning—but I literally could not turn those…
Books should help us be our best selves, and I think A Quiet Kind of Thunder hits that mark with room to spare.
This is a quick read, and a bit of a light read and a fluffy read in some senses—yet Sara Barnard delivers characters with such compassion and compelling personalities that I was loath to tear myself away. There is a heartwarming quality to this book that would be dull if it weren’t…
Tfw you’re too lazy to write a review because Julie’s is literally word-perfect.
I’m actually just going to quote stuff I like from her review and add a few thoughts of my own in order to pretend I’m doing work here and justify counting this as a “review” of my own….
Ax's characterisation is pitch-perfect
So much yes! Ax is a fun narrator because of his alien perspective, but in the wrong hands that…
I picked up Trickster Drift when it came out, but I knew I wanted to re-read Son of a Trickster to refresh my memory before I started the sequel. I’m really glad I did. It has given more an extended visit to Jared’s world, and what an interesting world this is.
I really love this book, and re-reading it has only increased my appreciation for its depth and the skill…
Is there a name for the situation where you keep thinking you like a certain genre, but you’re almost unfailingly critical of every book in that genre you read? That’s me and the superhero novel. I want to like superhero novels, desperately. Superheroes fascinate me. But most superhero novels I’ve read don’t quite capture whatever ineffable quality of superheroics that I’m looking for. (To be fair, I also don’t read superhero comics or watch much…
My friend Julie’s review pretty much nails why #37: The Weakness is, coincidentally, so weak. I’m just going to pile on with a few more observations.
This is Rachel’s chance to lead while Jake is away. She bungles it, but not as badly as the ghostwriter of this book (Elise Smith) bungles Rachel’s characterization. Her portrayal as an insecure megalomaniac gives me flashbacks, as it did Julie, to aggressive Rachel from #32: The Separation;…
Update: Since reading If I Was Your Girl and reviewing it, I have learned about allegations of abuse against the author. For this reason, I no longer recommend this book. However, I stand by the review below.
This review contains minor spoilers regarding some characterization but nothing about the end of the book itself.
Moving to a new school, for any reason, in one’s senior year can be tough, especially when that school is in…
I am officially whelmed by this book. Exoveterinary studies sounds like a cool field, and all the strange animal descriptions reminded me of Animorphs, which I guess is always a good thing. Zenn Scarlett is a very whelming book, however: it is competent in every technical respect, but it does not inspire me or grab me. Christian Schoon’s imagination is rich, but his rendering of it on the page leaves something to be desired.
…
I suppose I should start with one of those disclaimers about how I received a free electronic copy of this from NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers. However, I also preordered two hard copies with my own money (OK, someone else’s money in gift card form) even before that request was approved. But why wait a whole three weeks when I could read it earlier than that? That’s how excited I am for Here We Are:…
Last year I picked up my first Holly Bourne book with Am I Normal Yet?. I had been hearing so much about Bourne and her Spinster Club trilogy from people I follow on Twitter and YouTube that I ordered all of her books—yes, all of them—on faith. I deliberately deferred her debut, Soulmates. Not only did I want to see what all the fuss around the Spinster Club was about, but I know…
Full disclosure: I received this book for free because I won a Twitter contest run by Courtney Summers. But wait! If you want to send me free books, you don’t have to get me to retweet anything at all. You can just do it! Contact me for more details.
Fuller disclosure: Michelle Krys is from Thunder Bay, my hometown and place of residence, so that does give her bonus points.
Fullest disclosure: (I actually have…
These “Chronicles” special volumes are always a delight. Visser is the story of Visser One, aka Edriss 562, whose host body is also Marco’s mom. Visser One is on trial by the Council of Thirteen, the ultimate governing body of the Yeerks, subject only to the whims of the Yeerk Emperor, whose identity is known only to the council members. Visser Three is prosecuting the trial, and his rivalry with Visser One is a major…
I want to teach high school because I want to stay young forever. Seriously. There is nothing like spending your day around teenagers, feeling their energy and their enthusiasm, being exposed to their perspectives in the world. At the moment my teaching career has shifted sideways, and I’m working with adults who need their high school diplomas (and that has its own rewards). Even then, I can still stay young by reading YA.
I started…
It’s almost too easy to write a vampire YA romance. Real authors tackle the hard romances, like mummies. How does a clumsy teenage girl fall for a thousands-year-old mummified but reanimated corpse? You’ll have to read Unwrap My Heart to find out.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book because I am a Meat Buddy, i.e., I have pledged a small amount of money every month to Read It and Weep, the…
OK, been a while since I’ve dropped one of these into the rotation. The Mutation is the first Jake-narrated book since #31: The Conspiracy. Whereas the previous book focused heavily on the tough decisions Jake must make as a leader, The Mutation instead explores more broadly the toughness required of all the Animorphs. This book is like a bizarre mash-up of James Bond and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
The Animorphs discover that…
Maybe it’s just because I picked this up after a long day of failing to strip wallpaper from my bathroom, but White Cat was really gripping. Aside from a Supernatural-infused dinner break with my dad, I didn’t put it down and ripped through it in a single night. That’s not a feat—it’s YA and not particularly long—but it’s a mark of how much Holly Black made me want to stay in her world and…
Somebody’s getting married!
It’s not Marco. That would be weird. Applegate has a lot of messed up stuff in Animorphs, including child soldiers, but not child brides (or grooms).
No, Marco’s dad has a new love interest, and it’s serious. Marco doesn’t know how he feels about this, what with his mother still being alive but playing host to an evil alien bent on killing or subjugating all humans. Unfortunately, the Animorphs have a…
I had to dive into the children’s section of my library to get this one. I haven’t been in there for ages. There were short people around! And all the shelves are much shorter! Still, it was worth it. The Story of Cirrus Flux is an interesting attempt to set a children’s adventure novel in Georgian Britain. Matthew Skelton’s breadth of imagination makes for some entertaining characters and rambunctious action scenes. Nevertheless, the plotting is…
I love protagonists who screw up. Perfect protagonists are boring! In particular, I love protagonists who acknowledge their flaws and the fact they will make mistakes before they make them. I also love books that talk so explicitly about feminism and position their protagonists as feminists. Am I Normal Yet? is Holly Bourne’s sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always compassionate portrayal of a girl trying to live with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Evie is a flawed…
Oh, I liked Graceling, but I want to like it a whole lot more. I want to like … perform surgery on this book to remove a bunch of stuff and graft new limbs to it in a kind of Frankensteiny horror show way and then it would be so much better. Kristin Cashore has an interesting idea here and provides all the requisite basics, but she never quite takes the story or the…
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