It’s that time of the year again where we prep for another year of reading by making our list (and checking it twice!) of books we want to read in the new year.
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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
15 hrs 4 min | Henry Holt & Co. | YA Fantasy | Release Date: 9/29/2015
Ya’ll remember this book? I can’t believe it came out almost 4 years ago! I am the queen of reading popular YA stuff super late so here I am. I picked up Bardugo’s debut Shadow and Bonewhen it first came out and never got into it. I actually criticized it for not having enough “political nuances, rich detail, and brutality.” Well, let me tell you she stepped her storytelling game up because that pretty much sums up all of Six of Crows. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about how this book is violent AF.
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Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd
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
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 !
New Cover, Who Dis ?!
AudioFile’s 2018 Best Young Adult Audiobooks
It’s that time of year again to share AudioFile Magazine’s 2018 Best Young Adult Audiobooks. Click the links to read the reviews. Visit the Audiofile Ezine to check out the rest of AudioFile Magazine’s 2018 Best Audiobooks.
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