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Fierce, determined, proud, and furious, Leto wants to be remembered as extraordinary. Instead, at seventeen years old, she becomes one of the twelve girls sacrificed to appease the raging sea and to abate Poseidon’s wrath so that others in Ithaca can prosper. Only, Leto doesn’t die. She washes up on the shores of the island Pandou where Melantho introduces her to a mission: In order to break the curse and to save other girls from the annual hanging ritual, the Prince of Ithaca—who gives the orders for the deaths—must die. However, once Leto and Melantho reach the shores of Itaca under a ruse, they discoverRead More →

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A talented seamstress and crafter, Sonia Patil loves creating and consuming cosplay and the comics that inspire it. She also has a crush on James Cooper. While faint and staggering from a medical condition, James stumbles into a western New York canal. Dressed in a super-hero inspired costume she has sewn herself, Sonia jumps in and drags James to safety, then runs before the cops arrive because she fears drawing attention to her family who are undocumented immigrants from India. Although Sonia is a U.S. citizen, her mother has already been deported, and her sister Kareena needs the state provided healthcare to treat her currentlyRead More →

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An Earl’s daughter, Lady Ela Dalvi doesn’t fall from grace; she is shoved by her former best friend, Poppy Landers who concocts a tale that sullies Ela’s reputation. Vowing to get revenge, Ela invents a new personality and becomes Miss Lyra Whitley, an enigmatic heiress who plans to infiltrate the glittering ballrooms of London, 1817. After all, “money has a way of opening the tightest, most elite circles” (10), and the recipe for high society female accomplishment in the United Kingdom during the late Regency era and later were fortune, connections, beauty, and virtue. On this defiant journey across class boundaries, Lyra’s disguise seeks position,Read More →

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Readers of I Kick and I Fly by Ruchira Gupta will be inspired by the strong female characters as well as horrified by the novel’s sex trafficking theme. Set in northern India in a town called Forbesganj located in the state of Bihar, Gupta’s book reveals the story of fourteen-year-old Heera who intimately knows both hunger and homelessness. A member of the nomadic Nat tribe, Heera and her family are members of an oppressed caste. Her people used to be wrestlers and performers, but “overnight [they] were told [they] couldn’t do those things anymore, that [their] entire way of life was illegal” (283). Seeking toRead More →

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Readers of Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling will likely enjoy Angie Thomas’ new fantasy series for middle grade readers, The Manifestor Prophecy. In its first installment, Nic Blake and the Remarkables, readers will meet Nichole Blake, Alex DuForte, and Joshua Paul Williams (JP).  Each member of this dynamic trio has idiosyncrasies with which readers will identify and appreciate. Just as the Harry Potter books has muggles and wizards, the Nic Blake books feature Remarkables and Unremarkables, manifestors and monsters. When she was just a baby, Nic’s Dad kidnaps her, so the two have been living on the run—something Nic only learns later, along with aRead More →

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Although the two main characters in Deborah Crossland’s newest novel, The Quiet Part Out Loud are a baseball pitcher and a cheerleader, this is not your typical “athlete gets the girl” romance. This is a book about mental, emotional, and spiritual wholeness as much as it is about how relationships involve opening worlds for one another and experiencing those worlds together. It confirms that love is an action verb. More than just feeling, love is doing; it is serving the needs of others. Set in San Francisco, the story follows the lives of Alfie Thanasis and Mia Clementine. Determined to find beauty in people andRead More →

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Wren Warren and Derek Pewter-Flores ae both sixteen-year-old members of the four founding families in Hollow’s End. Wren’s family grows wheat, and Derek’s grows melons. The the pair hopes to build on their families’ 150-year-legacy, marry, and have children someday, but Wren has overheard her parents arguing about money, so she takes measures to help increase the farm’s production. Soon after, a blight appears, one with devastating effects on the soil, crops, animals, and people—one with the power to fracture not only a family but a future. Believing herself responsible, Wren takes matters into her own hands, and what she discovers rocks her core. WhenRead More →

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Cam Cordes, Harper Jeffries, and Effie Galanos are planning to enjoy their final year of high school at Mill City High in Minnesota. As this trio of young women navigate their senior year, they realize the bitter-sweetness in so many moments—from school dances to lunches off-campus. Wondering how she will survive without her typical support systems at college, Effie especially frets for her future since she is a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy. Determined to enroll at a university with a reputable Mass Media and Society Department, Effie wants to help minorities, specifically people who are differently abled, be more visible in mass media,Read More →

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E. Lockhart pens a haunting story in Family of Liars. She not only shares how unearned privilege can lead to “terrible things on top of terrible things” but how those with resources often get a pass: “They assume that girls like us—educated girls from a ‘good family’—they assume we are telling the truth. We get the benefit of the doubt, the assumption of innocence, conferred by our family name” (277). Tucked in the telling, though, Lockhart also shares how messy and miserable that “pretending, lying, trying to have a good time” (219) can become. Because Carrie Sinclair is depressed and suffering, dealing with issues ofRead More →