We're an Open Book
15 Hours 54 Minutes | Hachette Audio | YA Fantasy | 10/02/2018
There is just no way Laini Taylor’s brain works the way everyone else does. Her vibrant and expansive imagination allows her to dive into fantasy worlds that are beautiful, mystifying and devastating.
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447 pages | Contemporary | Balzer & Bray | Release Date: 2/5/2019
I don’t know what this says about me but when a book or author has a lot of hype I tend not to read it until it quiets down. Angie Thomas was an author like that. I’d been following her ever since she announced her deal on Twitter and I’m happy to see the success she’s gained. I’ve still yet to read The Hate U Give because I’m not in a place to read Black trauma stories but when I was taking a bus trip I saw this on Overdrive and picked it up.
Now, this book exists in the same place as The Hate U Give and does spoil some of the outcomes of that book so be warned if you haven’t read it.
In On The Come Up 16-year-old Brianna “Bri” Jackson is an aspiring rapper from the hood who lives in the shadow of her deceased father’s rap fame. She’s ready to have her come up but injustice, poverty, and complicated family dynamics stand in her way.
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10 hours 32 mins | Simon & Schuster | Sci-Fi/Dystopian | 11/22/2016
I picked up Scythe when it was a daily deal on Audible. I didn’t know too much about it, I didn’t even know it was a YA book, I thought it was a middle-grade book or a graphic novel.When I dived in I found another one of Shusterman’s expansive worlds dealing with ethical and moral issues in an unconventional way.
Scythe takes place in a world much like our own…except everyone is immortal. With natural death a thing of the past, death now must be dealt out by the hands of a select few highly-trained individuals known as Scythes. It’s a daunting task because even though death comes in human form, fundamentals of death are still intact. When a Scythe comes for you it is swift, resolute and inescapable.
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Hachette Audio | Fantasy | 3/28/17
*Trigger Warning : Infanticide, and Sexual Assault
If you read Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bones series and said “I want more GIVE IT TO ME NOW”—well here you go ! In this duology Taylor pits science against imagination and an impossible future against centuries of pain.
Strange The Dreamer is the unusual tale of young librarian Lazlo Strange and how a mysterious city without a name becomes his great adventure. Strange The Dreamer roots itself in many of the same themes from the Smoke and Bone series; there arevividly imagined characters woven out of tragic histories, blinding hope and dreams… .literally on that last one. In a way it’s a love letter to fiction and the power of stories.
Lazlo Strange’s world appears to have a tenuous connection to the world of Smoke and Bone.
Laini Taylor’s imagination is just plain interesting, seriously what goes on in her head? Is it the pink hair? Her brand of YA fantasy is so immersive and her worlds are complicated and beautiful.
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Release Date: 05/30/17 | Contemporary | 385 pages | Buy Now !
At school, Eliza Mirk is the weird girl with no friends who never talks. At home she’s the black sheep among her athletic-obsessed family. She doesn’t think anyone can truly understand her until she meets the new boy in school, Wallace Warland. They bond over their love of Monstrous Sea, a popular fantasy webcomic. He’s the first person who gets what it means to have internet friends and be apart of an active online fandom–Wallace and his friends are BNF fan creators in the Monstrous Sea fan community. But what Wallace doesn’t know is that she’s not just any fan, she’s LadyConstellation–the anonymous creator of Monstrous Sea.
This book absolutely captivated me, I devoured the whole thing in in one day and I haven’t done that in years. Zappia (who I believe used to be a book blogger) has this amazing handle on the importance of online friendship, what it means to negotiate your online self with your IRL self, the inner workings of rabid online fandoms while also incorporating important themes about mental illness and self care for creative people.
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Release Date: 06/27/17 | Historical | 10 hours 47 minutes | Harper Audio
It’s Georgian London ya’ll and Henry “Monty” Montague, the rouge18-year-old Viscount of Disley, is all set for his year long Grand Tour of the European continent–where he hopes to attend to some general rakish-ness. Along for the tour is his annoying younger sister Felicity and his best friend Percy–who he also happens to be madly in love with. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong ?
I think this should be one of those books that the less you know going in the better. This book gets talked about as a road trip novel, but to me it is less road trip and more Hero’s Journey with a sprinkling of Dan Brown intrigue and like a pinch of Southern Gothic tropes. I’ve never read anything quite like it before and it was amazing.
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