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Set in Boston where LifeCorp promises “everything you’d ever want if you’re willing to work for it” (93), The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew tells the story of the Lowers who toil for the privileged Uppers as mindless zombies hunting for their next fix of Mean. Brainwashed to believe that working hard and increasing their productivity scores will ensure “a world of value,” the Lowers find their escape in the Arcades where their brains are “seduced with oversaturated snippets to distract them from their monotonous realities” (80). Enter eighteen-year-old Liv Newman who serves as an EmoProxy, a technological oddity with the ability to record emotionalRead More →

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S.K. Ali writes a powerful story with her science fiction fantasy Fledgling. Told in eleven parts, this first book in a promised duology is about colonization, oppression, rebellions, and politics. However, it isn’t didactic, as Ali entices readers by sharing just enough to lure them in as they form their own opinions about pervasive attempts to manipulate minds with propaganda and as they form attachments to intriguing characters. Thematically, Ali develops ideas similar to George Orwell’s Thought Police and Aldous Huxley’s class system and lab-controlled intelligence while weaving in tropes from M.T. Anderson’s Feed to reveal how thinking threatens those in power and how technologyRead More →

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The writing life is one focus for Francisco X. Stork in his recent novel One Last Chance to Live. It tells the story of Nico Kardos who wishes to be a great writer. However, Stork’s book is also a murder mystery that explores the purpose of life. Seventeen-year-old Nico is finishing his senior year at Stonebridge Charter School in Hunts Point, New York, and his writing teacher Mr. Cortazar has assigned the class the task of writing 500 words per day in their journals. The practice is intended to teach self-knowledge, which “will make you a better person and a better writer” (18), according toRead More →

Cover for book Heir

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Fans of Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series will love this spinoff duology. Full of all the elements which Tahir’s fans are used to (stunning prose, enthralling mythology, and deeply relatable characters) this book easily grabs the readers’ attention and holds on to it. Set 20 years after the conclusion of the Ember series, this novel follows Quil (the baby Ember fans saw born in that quartet) now as a grown man ready to take the throne of the Martial Empire. A series of events force Quil and his best friends Arelia and Sufiyan (another descendant of characters from the last series) to travelRead More →

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Seventeen-year-old Sal Amani lives in a haunted house, and everyone at Holden High knows it. However, Sal is keeping secrets, and his sister Asha—who is a talented writer with dreams of attending university and becoming a journalist—has put her life on hold while their mother deals with the loss of her husband. When the house keeps Sal awake, he runs. Sal’s good friend Dirk Madden tries to help, but he’s worried about social capital. Then, there’s Elsie, who has wrongly been labelled a slut.  When Pax Delaney moves to town, he claims he’s good with ghosts. Although weird and unbalanced is Pax’s normal, Sal isRead More →

Cover image for the book Please Be My Star

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Please Be My Star by Victoria Grace Elliot captures the uncertainty of first love and the awkwardness of being a teenager in a beautifully illustrated graphic novel.  Erika’s status as a new student at school is awkward enough without her awareness that she is a ‘creep.’ Erika is aware that her tendency to draw cute boys she doesn’t know and to fantasize about boys that she does makes her more than a little weird. Something that is constantly being told to her by her imaginary inner self who looks like a vampiric alter ego. This alter ego is Erika’s most opinionated critic, verbalizing all ofRead More →

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Set in 1994 in the United Kingdom, Boy Like Me by Simon James Green tells the story of high school junior Jamie Hampton who grew up in a time when thoughts of cuddling a same sex partner were considered a perversion. In fact, from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales, Section 28 made homosexuality a crime. At sixteen years old, Jamie is dealing with issues of identity and self-discovery. Although he wants to be unique, Jamie is a straight-A student, a writer, an organizer, and somewhat of a book nerd. Better to fly under the radar andRead More →

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Love Off the Record by Samantha Markum is a romantic comedy to rival the best beach books.  Although the book is mostly cotton candy fluff with palpable romantic tension, it gives a serious nod to all readers who have insecurities (all of us, am I right?), especially those who are weight conscious or who struggle with body image issues. Nathaniel Wellborn III (aka Three) and Éowyn Evans (aka Wyn) are freshmen at Ohio State University. Competitive adversaries, the pair share the ambition of securing the next position as a reporter for the college newspaper, Torch, on their way to someday being editor-in-chief. Preferring investigative journalismRead More →

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Readers of Tracy Wolff and Ava Reid will likely appreciate Jennifer Donnelly’s fascinating twist on a fairy tale, Beastly Beauty.  In her version, Donnelly flips the script by creating a handsome man and a beast of a woman. Thrust together by fate or magic, these two young people have complicated pasts, so they carry heavy emotional pain. In a foreword, Donnelly tells readers that her story “isn’t for the heroes, shining knights, and princesses but for the screw-ups, for those who never get it right. The ones who say too much, or not enough. . . . It’s a story of hardship. And heart. AndRead More →