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With the writing of her debut novel, We Set the Dark on Fire, Tehlor Kay Mejia set out to begin an answer to some questions: What do we lose when we are forced to subjugate our desires for our drive?  How long can we keep ourselves in the cages in which society is so fond of locking us?  As she chips away at the answers, she actually asks more questions, as all good research will do.  The promised second book in the duology will certainly answer and ask more.  This daring and romantic fantasy will likely be appreciated by fans of The Handmaid’s Tale byRead More →

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Fluent in the language of vectors and the laws of physics, Rukhsana Ali dreams of one day working at NASA and plans to attend Caltech when she graduates from high school.  She also can’t wait to escape her home in Seattle where her Muslim parents believe that daughters and sons are not the same. In her mother’s mind, Rukshana’s worth in the marriage market is directly proportionate to her culinary prowess.  Therefore, she has to know how to prepare chai, goat vindaloo, and roti  in order to impress a potential mother-in-law.  But Rukshana isn’t a traditional Muslim, and she’s more interested in Ariana’s sweet-nothings whisperedRead More →

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At age sixteen, Elle Zoellner is just a young adult, but the adults in her life want her to be understanding of their addictions and their shortcomings when all she wants is to be understood.  When her mother is consumed by the Beast of addiction to prescription drugs and gets sentenced to Jessup Correctional Institute in Maryland, Elle—whose absent father has only been sarcastically called Mr. Tokyo—ends up in the foster care system where she encounters lice, bedbugs, and overlords who restrict her showers to one per week.  Pairing those hygiene challenges with her initials and her mixed-race status makes Elle an EZ target forRead More →

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Hoping to be the next great foreign correspondent, Viola Wynne Li plans to attend New York University Abu Dhabi when she graduates from Liberty Prep School in Seattle.  Intent on being a voice for the powerless and the homeless, Viola envisions herself as a truth-teller in a conflict zone, one who covers “the forgotten issues, the ones more convenient to ignore” (117). Also passionate about comics, Viola especially loves Firefly, and considers her own super power to be researching.  Not only does knowledge empower, but data prepares a person to make a good decision in difficult circumstances.  She and her friends Aminta and Caresse areRead More →

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Sheltered on a remote island and taught to think that the rest of the world has been destroyed by swelling tides and rising temperatures due to the effects of global warming and selfish, greedy people, Moss lives a nearly idyllic existence with her Pa and their dogs, Jess and Adder. On Flower Island, Pa experiments with magic since the storm-flowers that grow there have healing properties and their petals are capable of engendering a buzz of relaxation, happiness, and queasy-strange feelings—even hallucinations.  When Pa is “flower-struck,” his thinking buzzed, he dances and tells stories.  In this hopeful and happy state, he pushes healing pollen toRead More →

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Weighed down by her parents’ rules, paranoia, fears, and three years of betrayal after her sister Rachel’s death, Elizabeth Jones wants to escape the noose and have some fun.  Because of the constraint Beth feels, she yearns to “bust windows, get drunk, and have sex with as many people as possible” (136).  So, before summer ends and her senior year begins, Beth attends a party and hooks up with Chase, a blond hottie with an aura of controlled calm. “But it didn’t take very long for . . . the thrill of doing something new and exciting and rebellious [as losing her virginity] to beRead More →

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Five hundred years ago when Jack was only a boy, he negotiated a deal with a pirate from the Otherworld who separated his body from his soul and sentenced him to the life of a lantern.  As a lantern, Jack straddles the world of the living and the dead and guards the crossroads between the mortal world and the Otherworld. In his fairly monotonous job, Jack maintains a sense of balance between the two realms.  Although most of the time he lives a sleepy existence, he has done everything from exporting entire herds of gremlins to clearing caves full of werewolves.  Once, he even single-handedlyRead More →

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As its title conveys, Smoke in the Sun by Renée Ahdieh swirls with mystery and pulses with energy in equal measure.  A sequel to Flame in the Mist, this companion novel completes the stories of Yumi and Mariko, fiercely independent and competent women with formidable intelligence in a world that expects its females to be submissive, obedient, and coy. Set in Japan at a time when samurai, daiyo, and shōguns defended with honor, this fantasy-adventure focuses not only on the shifting allegiances and political intrigue of the Emperor’s court, but also on other social issues troubling the kingdom.   As a member of the BlackRead More →

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At seventeen years old, the protagonist in The Fall of Grace by Amy Fellner Dominy, Grace Marie Pierce, is living the life of a privileged girl, the pure embodiment of the American dream with money, security, friends, and hope for a golden future.  Hardly ever angry, Grace has been sheltered by wealth and fame as the daughter of Janelle Pierce, an investment broker who swaddles herself in luxury: exotic travel, expensive clothes, and other unlimited material comforts.  Janelle occasionally escapes the heat of Phoenix, Arizona, and the stress of the financial world by visiting her favorite place, Blue Lakes in Ridgway, Colorado, where the serenity and theRead More →