Young Adult Fiction

Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

December 19, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 05/8/18 | Urban Fantasy | 376 Pages | HMH BFYR

The servants bound to the home of the Parisian witch Mada Vittora may appear human but are in fact beasties–animals enchanted into humans. When Mada Vittora is mysteriously murdered Anouk, her newest beastie and the other servants find themselves on a high stakes adventure across Paris to discover the truth of their origins and find a way to stay human before time runs out.

I went into this book knowing literally nothing and was completely sucked in to this unique and thrilling urban fantasy. I think magic systems are so key to how believable a story is and Shepherd builds a complex and imaginative magic system with steep consequences and rules.

This book does the thing that I really like in YA fantasy where a girl gets hero jounrey’d, discovers she has more power than she thought possible and takes a level in badassalong the way. I appreciate that Shepherd is able to write a female-centered fantasy without a lot of violence. One thing that has turned me off some YA fantasies lately is just all the sexual violence and abuse heaped on the (particularly female) characters before they can gain power. It’s one of the reasons Ember in The Ashes didn’t work for me and almost turned me off the genre.

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Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert

December 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | 288 pages | Little Brown For Young Readers| Contemporary | 8/07/2018

Finding Yvonne is a small slice-of-life story of a formerly ambitious and passionate violinist who has lost her spark for music. Losing her passion is a big struggle for Yvonne because to her father– a successful chef /restaurateur–and Warren, her potential boyfriend/ father’s sous chef, passion is everything. Then a fateful meeting with a pair of talented eclectic street musicians in Venice Beach sends Yvonne spiraling down a path that leads to inspiration, heartache, and possibly love.

My first thought on this book was that this was totally a book teenage me would have liked. Yvonne is a black middle-class girl who is learning to bake and loves food. I’ve been reading a lot of books with black girl protagonists from all sort of background and it’s made me realize just how limited the options were back when I was a teen.

One of my biggest pet peeves in YA is what I call the Jerk!Dad, where the Dad is a jerk for no apparent reason. Yvonne’s father manages to straddle the line and I’m glad we are starting to see more nuance in the YA dad department. Yvonne’s father is successful and supportive but he uses pot and work to keep barriers up between him and Yvonne.

Colbert does an amazing job of building the specific world and community her characters live with less than 300 pages.

Check out the audiobook review on AudioFile !

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

November 12, 2018 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | Swoon Reads | Contemporary New Adult | Release Date: 1/23/2018

Let’s Talk About Love is an upbeat, modern romance-y novel that feels way more like millennial (Gen Z ?) women’s fiction than like a true romance.

Alice loves a pleasing aesthetic, her best friends and herself–asexuality and all. When she meets her new co-worker the sweet, generous and soon-to-be teacher Takumi she finds herself on a journey to balances her smoldering attraction with her identity as asexual.

I think I basically agree with Carrie’s review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this book has a lot of drama and angst that comes from characters not talking to each other but I also like following them around as they try to tackle this whole adulting thing.

Alice was recognizable as a young person today, she loves Tumblr, fandom, bingeing tv and making memories with her friends.

I personally had a hard time seeing this book as a romance because Takumi felt–to use a term Kat uses a lot–unknowable to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to romances where we get into the other characters but he never felt like a real person to me. He was just a little too perfect.

We’ll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss

October 29, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 05/8/18 | Contemporary YA | 8 hours 49 minutes | Harper Audio

Toby, an academic wisecracking high school senior and his best friend Luke–a dedicated star wrestler are an unlikely pair. The two survived their abusive and impoverished home lives together and with Luke’s college wrestling scholarship locked down, they were prepared to head into the next chapter of their lives together.

But now Luke is on death row.

Told partially in Luke’s letters from death row and partially in a close omniscient third person, Bliss crafts a story of friendship, coming-of-age and poverty that manages to deliver a gut punch at the end–even though you know where Luke is going to end up from page one.

I really liked the way this book is set up with Luke’s letters opening the book and then having it slowly build to the precipitating event. It reminded me of Big Little Lies and it adds so much tension to every scene because you keep thinking is this it? Is this the thing he did? With that in mind though the book moves at a slower pace.

I picked up this book because James Fouhey did the audio, I’ve enjoyed his narration in other things and his performance in this book is one of the best I’ve heard. He takes on each character perfectly with a nuanced and intentional performance. I think he could have easily done stereotypical Southern accents but he avoids that completely while still making the characters sound authentic. Needless to say Fouhey has remained on my auto-buy audiobook narrator list.

Between this and Jeff Zetner books I’m really starting to think any YA book by a straight white dude will be sad AF.

The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas

September 23, 2018 Leave a Comment

310 pages | Swoon Reads | Sci-Fi YA | 07/10/2018

Crime rates have skyrocketed in Abby Hamilton’s town of Morristown, but luckily their local superhero, Red Comet (who is also secretly Abby’s brother), is always around to save the day. Abby is content just being a theater kid and leaving the saving to her super-powered brother, but when a new super teen known as Iron Phantom starts causing trouble Abby finds herself tangled up with Morristown’s first supervillain–who may not be so villainous after all.

Does anyone remember the movie Sky High? This book gave me a lot of those same vibes as that movie. The Supervillain and Me supers aren’t the angsty complex heroes of Marvel and DC films. The teens in tights are kind of treated like boy bands with their adoring fans, public signings, merch and thriving fanfiction communities–which I guess is a good time to note that although this is a debut novel, Danielle Banas is a prominent Wattpad author.

Also fair warning, despite being from the Swoon Reads imprint there are a lot more super saves than super swoons.

Mini Reviews : Women To Watch Out For

August 14, 2018 Leave a Comment

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