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Harlequin teen

Tiffany Sly Lives Here by Dana L Davis

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Rating: unrated | 334 pages | Harlequin Teen Inknyard Press ?  | Contemporary | 05/01/2018

 I was really excited to read this book after hearing about it on the  Hey, YA podcast.  I firmly remember actress Dana L. Davis in the 2000s for being “that black lady” who showed up on TV shows in the early 2000s.  I was also interested in a book that deals with respectability politics and all the shades of the black experience.

Tiffany Sly has had it rough. After losing her mother to cancer this music-loving rocker girl is headed from Chicago to the mansions and private school of Simi Valley, California; to live with the wealthy and successful father she’s never met. Anthony Stone (get it ? Sly…Stone ? Get it ?)

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Book Review : Ink by Amanda Sun

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“When the ink stopped being ink and started being. . . well, something else.”

– Ink, Amanda Sun

 

  • Release Date : June 25th 2013
  • Genre : Urban Fanstasy
  • Page Number : 377
  • Publisher : Harlequin Teen

. . . And then the girl in the drawing turned her head, and her inky eyes glared straight into mine. 
 Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn’t know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can’t seem to get the hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building.
Then there’s gorgeous but aloof Tomohiro, star of the school’s kendo team. How did he really get the scar on his arm? Katie isn’t prepared for the answer. But when she sees the things he draws start moving, there’s no denying the truth: Tomo has a connection to the ancient gods of Japan, and being near Katie is causing his abilities to spiral out of control. . .Katie never wanted to move to Japan—now she may not make it out of the country alive

At first glance Ink is your basic YA formula; teen girl in a new environment and a chance encounter finds her inexplicably drawn to the jerk whose personality changes could give you whiplash.

However, Sun freshens up the usual YA status quo by setting the story in Japan, giving the story a nice bout of culture and diversity. The setting gives readers a glimpse into how other people live without being “showcase-y” about it. There isn’t an attempt to spoon-feed the reader, meaning Sun doesn’t attempt to explain every nuance about Japanese life to the readers.

The first chapter of this novel will without a doubt pull you in. American Katie Green is an outsider living in Shizuoka, Japan with her aunt after the death of her mother. All she has to do is keep her head down until she can move in with her grandparents in Canada. 

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