4 stars

American Panda by Gloria Chao

April 25, 2018 Leave a Comment

7 hours 32 mins | Simon & Schuster Audio | Contemporary YA | 02/06/2018

I’ll admit I didn’t mean to read this book. I was listening to audiobook samples on Scribd, trying to find something to listen to when I accidentally clicked on American Panda. By the time I started driving I couldn’t change it and before I was home… I was really into it.

At seventeen years old, Mei Lu is starting her first year at MIT. She is just a few steps away from completing her parent’s plans for her to become a doctor, marry a good Taiwanese man and have Taiwanese babies. But now that she is on her own Mei is starting to feel the tension between the Taiwanese and American cultures she straddles. She starts to question the things she’s always believed and to make things worse she’s falling for a spiky-haired Japanese co-ed named Darrin.

American Panda is a story about family, empathy and discovering who you are; it’s perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen, especially because of how the romance and mother/daughter storyline evolves. Darrin even has a little “manic pixie dream dude” in him. I have always struggled with YA romances but this one was perfectly executed.

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Audiobook Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

March 5, 2018 Leave a Comment

8 hours 39 minutes| Hachette Audio | Fantasy | 1/02/18

Jude and her twin sister Taryn were taken from the mortal world as children by their mother’s vindictive ex-husband and raised within the gentry of the Faerie world, where they have always been seen as outsiders especially by Cardan–youngest prince of Faerie–who delights in torturing them. Jude has had enough of being a victim and is ready to show she deserves a place in the Faerie courts. Her ambition gets her mixed up in a world of espionage, power plays, violence and oh so many plot twists.

I just ate this story up, which is saying something because I am def not the ideal reader for a book like this. I have always struggled with fantasy and have no base for Faerie mythology, but Holly Black draws the world so vividly I was able to put most of it together and quickly learn the rules of Faerie, If you like lush descriptions of fantastical beasts, clothes and greenery this is your book.

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The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice and Virture by Mackenzi Lee

December 30, 2017 Leave a Comment

10 hours 47 minutes | Harper Audio | Historical/Fantasy | 06/27/2017

In The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice and Virtue an all around scoundrel is about to embark on a dangerous high stakes road trip to self discovery. It’s hard out there for a YA historical to top the YA bestseller list (I mean except for Ruta Sepetys and just reading the synopsis of her books makes me sad) and I think what helps this book stand out is it’s outstanding originality,

The book is primarily told in a semi-anarchistic self deprecating tone that emanates from our narrator, Henry “Monty” Montague. Monty is about to embark on his Grand Tour, where he plans to spend the year drinking and partying, all while trying to keep the fact that he is madly in love with his best friend a secret.

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Audiobook Review: Gem and Dixie by Sara Zaar

September 10, 2017 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 04/04/17 | Contemporary | 5 hours 45 minutes | Balzer + Bray

I’ve had this book on my radar since I saw Sarah Dessen was just gushing out it on Twitter late last year. It’s the 7th book from veteran YA author Sara Zaar and tells the story of the titular Seattle sisters who grew up with neglectful parents that never wanted to grow up. The sisters have always looked out for each other but when Dixie, the younger, more social sister, enters high school with Gem, the introverted, quiet sister it brings a new strain to their relationships.

This is a short, slice of life novel that I think is what the cool kids call quiet YA. It reminded me a lot of the early 90’s contemporary YA I used to read in high school. While there is a game changer plot point about 50% and they go on an adventure for most of the book you’re just kind of along for the ride, watching their life play out as they manage their mother and responsibilities.

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Audiobook Review: This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

July 11, 2017 Leave a Comment

Release Date: July 5, 2016
Audiobook Length: 10 hours 9 minutes
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins)

V-City exists in an alternate America where acts of violence physically manifest as beast like monsters. The Sunai are a rare form of monster, created from events of mass violence. Sunai look and act human but must feed on human souls to survive.

August Flynn is one of only three known Sunai, he lives in the south side of V-City with Henry Flynn, the head of a militaristic taskforce. On the north side of V-City is the autocratic Callum Harker who keeps his citizens safe via extortion Harker and Flynn have been enemies for a long time but have called a truce after a brutal civil war.

But when August is sent undercover to spy on Harkar’s estranged daughter Kate everything starts to change.

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Audiobook Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

June 11, 2017 Leave a Comment

Release Date: September 9th 2014

Audiobook Hours: 10 hours and 41 minutes
Genre: Literary….Science Fiction ?
Publisher: Random House Audio

I feel like three years ago you couldn’t trip anywhere in the book-sphere without falling into this book. Station Eleven is the fascinating and deeply haunting story of what happens after a flu epidemic kills 99% of the Earth’s population and infrastructure collapses.

Everything I knew about this book happens in the first 20 pages; An actor in a production of King Lear dies on stage in front of child actor Kirsten Raymonde. Jump cut to 20 years later where Kirsten is part of a traveling symphony, a theater troupe that performs Shakespeare in the small towns dotting the the desolate and often dangerous North American landscape.

I am seriously in awe of the narrative structure of this book. The novel moves back and forth through time, telling stories of people who were in the theater that night with Kirsten. Mandel effortlessly weaves her characters fates through and around each other. There is also kind of a twist, I’m not sure how soon you’re supposed to see it, but it took me by surprise.

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