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Book Review : Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova

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  • Release Date: May 1st 2012
  • Pages: 384
  • Genre: Mermaid/Urban Fantasy
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis: For Tristan Hart, everything changes with one crashing wave. He was gone for three days. Sucked out to sea in a tidal wave and spit back ashore at Coney Island with no memory of what happened. Now his dreams are haunted by a terrifying silver mermaid with razor-sharp teeth. His best friend Layla is convinced something is wrong. But how can he explain he can sense emotion like never before? How can he explain he’s heir to a kingdom he never knew existed? That he’s suddenly a pawn in a battle as ancient as the gods. Something happened to him in those three days. He was claimed by the sea…and now it wants him back.

I have to admit when I saw mermaids making a splash (l know, I know ) on the YA book circuit, I was doubtful. I just always kind of felt like Hans Christian Anderson and Disney had already told the best mermaid story there is; young mermaid falls in love with a human and sacrifices everything. 

But, I’ve been proven wrong as many YA authors put their bold, new and modern twists on the mermaid genre.

Debut author, Zoraida Cordova brings out her spin on the tale with The Vicious Deep, the story of Tristan Hart, a 16-year-old Coney Island lifeguard who discovers he is a merman. But Tristan isn’t just any merman–he is the heir to the Sea King, and to rightfully claim his throne Tristan will have to win the championship for the trident, an epic quest for the pieces of the trident against other merman.


Tristan is popular at school and with his friends, which is an unexpected change from the more common outcast, loner YA protagonist. His first-person narrative is filled with snark and a little bit arrogance as he discovers what his past.…

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Book Review: Fingerprints of You by Kristen-Paige Madonia

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  • Release Date: August 7th 2012
  • Page Number: 256
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Simon and Schuster for Young Readers

Synopsis: Lemon grew up with Stella, a single mom who wasn’t exactly maternal. Stella always had a drink in her hand and a new boyfriend every few months, and when things got out of hand, she would whisk Lemon off to a new town for a fresh beginning. Now, just as they are moving yet again, Lemon discovers that she is pregnant from a reckless encounter—with a guy Stella had been flirting with.On the verge of revisiting her mother’s mistakes, Lemon struggles to cope with the idea of herself as a young unmarried mother, as well as the fact that she’s never met her own father. Determined to have at least one big adventure before she has the baby, Lemon sets off on a cross-country road trip, intending not only to meet her father, but to figure out who she wants to be.


Kristen-Paige Madonia just happens to be a Virginia author and I was fortunate enough to meet her at Fountain Bookstore in August. While there, Madonia discussed was how she did not write this book to be a YA, she just wrote a novel with a teenage protagonist and it was decided it would sell best as a YA. I love this idea, because by not being written as a YA, Fingerprints of You  avoids a lot of the tropes and cliches associated with the genre.

17-year-old Lemon’s whole life has been her and her mother, Stella, against the world. Living in suitcases and moving every few years, Lemon describes her mother as a

“…restless woman who yanked us from town to town, an impulsive mother bound by bitterness, a woman boarded in  by secrets and regrets.”

When Lemon discovers she is pregnant, by a man forgotten in another state, she decides to take a journey of her own. With her friend, Emmy she travels west to San Francisco to find her father and possibly roots of her own.

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Book Review: Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally

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  • Release Date: October 1st 2012
  • Pages: 245
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis: Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.
Now Parker wants a new life.
So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?
But how far is too far before she loses herself completely.

Parker Shelton was always a good Christian girl.With good Christian friends and a clean reputation. That is until her mother comes out as a lesbian and runs away with the church’s secretary. Like the tagline says, one strike– to her facade of a perfect life that is– and she’s out. Parker loses her grip on who she is, to become the person she believes everyone needs her to be.

Stealing Parker is the follow up to Kenneally’s Catching Jordan. Like Catching Jordan this novel is sports-themed however Stealing Parker is less about the sport and more about the characters.

Parker is your average self-conscious snarky teenager. She is so concerned with what everyone thinks and things never seem to turn out the way they should for her. She loses weight, stops playing softball and starts making out with more boys just to confirm to everyone she is not a lesbian like her mom.

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Audiobook Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

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  • Published : August 31st 2010
  • Publisher : HarperTeen
  • Genre : Paranormal/Romance
  • Audiobook Length : 8 hours 40 minutes

Synopsis:Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.
But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal.


Evie, the heroine ofParanormalcy has spent most of her life working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, a government
organization  chasing after and  “bagging and tagging” dangerous Paranormals; using nothing but her skills to see through glamours and her Taser.  Evie is painted as your average strong who can fend for herself against some pretty scary creatures

Oh, and she likes pink.

For some reason her preference for a pink taser and pink leather boots seemed to go hand in
hand with Claudia Gray’s “I’m Not Like Other Girls post.

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Book Review: What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang

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  • Release Date: September 18th 2012
  • Pages: 352
  • Genre: Alternate Universe
  • Publisher: HarperCollins

 

Synopsis: Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .
For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything



What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang has to be one of the most hotly anticipated YA novels of 2012. This book has been on Books and Sensibility’s radar since we featured Zhang in our 25 Under 25 feature and the young author does not disappoint with her debut YA novel.

In the world of What’s Left of Me, everyone is born with two souls and in early childhood the dominate soul takes over and the recessive one fades away. It’s completely natural, normal and expected. Only, in the case of Eva and Addie, Eva is a recessive soul that never settles. She refuses to fade away and when doctors declare only Addie to be left, Eva’s exostence becomes a secret only Addie know. Being a hybrid, having two souls is illegal and considered dangerous so the sisters work together to keep their closely guarded secret. But, when Addie meets Halley, the new girl in school the girls learn that they are not the only hiding hybrids, but this knowledge may cost them everything.

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Book Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

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  • Release Date: September 18th 2012
  • Pages: 408 pages
  • Publisher: Scholastic Press
  • Genre: Fantasy

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble

Opening with an Edgar Allen Poe epigraph, I immediately connect The Raven Boys with the Southern Gothic literature movement. Characterized by its broken characters, social realism and fantasy elements I’ve always felt this genre fits perfectly within the YA spectrum. In The Raven Boys, New York Times Bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater has cleverly combined the Southern Gothic tradition with vivid characterization and a modern edge to create a novel that is unlike anything I’ve read this year.

The plot develops nicely throughout novel in an observant third-person point of view. There is a level of maturity and complexity in Stiefvater’s writing. Each word is carefully crafted to form a coherent mood and image. 

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