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Young Adult Fiction

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

354 pages | Balzer + Bray | Contemporary | Release Date: 5/5/2020

Felix’s last name is Love but he’s never been in it. And he desperately wants to be. Even though society makes him feel unworthy of love because he is queer, trans and Black.

When a transphobic art gallery targeting Felix goes up at his prestigious NYC art school he thinks he knows exactly who did it—his best friend’s ex, Declan Keane. Taking revenge into his own hands, Felix initiates a catfishing scheme and…nothing goes as planned. 

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Audiobook Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

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320 pages | Titan Books | Historical Fantasy | 11 Hours 56 mins

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

What if instead of The South rising…the dead did? More than a decade after the zombies or “shamblers” began to roam, Black slaves and Native Americans have been forced from the fields and into battle schools to become protectors or Attendants for whites.

Justina Ireland’s re-imagined history is a unique concept that combines historical fiction with action, adventure and light horror as her battle-tested heroine Jane stops fighting to save white people and starts fighting to save herself. At first, I  had a hard time with this book because I went in expecting this to be a book about an alternate-universe antebellum zombie apocalypse, but really this is just the setting as the shamblers are the “new normal”. Once I was able to adjust my expectations and our main character is taken from the world she knows and dropped into the untamed wild west, I found this to be a solid read. …

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Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

15 Hours 54 Minutes | Hachette Audio | YA Fantasy  | 10/02/2018

Laini Taylor is one of those authors who reminds me why I love books and reading. She weaves these sweepingly romantic epic fantasies that I can’t imagine working in any other medium. I have officially reached book hangover territory. 

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Book Review: Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon

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Unrated | 384 pages | Simon Pulse | Contemporary | Release Date: 2/18/2020

Of Curses and Kisses is an introspective slow cooker ( I saw this term on Twitter and I couldn’t wait to use it !) of a romance about Jaya,  a reserved modern-day princess at St. Rosetta’s International Academy. She’s on a mission to take down a rival family’s heir, Grey Emmerson, for a slight against her sister. It’s a lofty goal, but Jaya discovers instead of being a fierce rival, Grey Emerson is a broody, introverted outcast.

We follow Jaya as she is entrenched in Rosemont drama, this book is genre-savvy and Emerson sees through Jaya’s start-a-fake-relationship-and-dump-him plan so the initial premise of the book is dropped pretty quickly. The book is a lot of Jaya and Emerson working through their emotions and coming to terms with who they want to be versus who their families expect them to be.

Book Review: The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

 399 Pages | Knopf | AU Historical Fiction  | Release Date: 06/02/2020 

The Court of Miracles is a Les Miserables retelling that re-imagines discarded daughter Eponine “Nina” Thenadier as a thief in the underground Parisian criminal network known as The Miracle Court. When a powerful member of the Miracle Court threatens to enslave Nina’s sister Ettie (aka Cosette)  she makes moves to bring him down. All while the June Revolution is stirring. 

Am I the only one who thought this was a fantasy ? Because it isn’t and I’m trying not to let my review be clouded by what I expected to be.

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Book Review : Salty, Bitter, Sweet by Mayra Cuevas

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Rating: Unrated | 320 pages | Blink YA | Contemporary | Release Date: 03/03/20

Mayra Cuevas debut is a coming of age novel for fans of decadent food and charming European cities. Seventeen-year-old Isa has a passion for French cooking, which has kept her afloat now that she has left Chicago for the scenic coastal city of Nantes, France with her father and his new wife–the woman he cheated on her mom with.

The situation is a little awkward but it’s all worth it when Isa is accepted into a cutthroat culinary program where failure is not an option. She is determined to keep her focus– even if her family’s new charming young house guest proves to be a bit of a distraction.

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