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Joanna Gordon is a high school senior, who is looking forward to her last year with her best friend Dana. Joanna and Dana have experienced a lot together; both girls came out of the closet and have stuck by one another when faced with issues regarding their sexuality. Even Joanna’s father accepts who she is, which means a lot because he is an evangelist with his own radio show. However, Joanna is not the only woman in her dad’s life anymore. Elizabeth Gordon, or as Joanna likes to call her, “Three”, is her dad’s new wife. (She’s his third wife, hence her nickname.) Joanna does not mindRead More →

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Love isn’t all emotion; it is also biology and chemistry, and according to Krystal Sutherland in her debut novel, Our Chemical Hearts, “all love is equal in the brain” (287).  Like hunger and thirst, love drives us to act, and satisfying that craving becomes a goal.  Although we tend to identify love most often with euphoria, that is hardly the only emotion we feel when under its influence. Ecstasy, compassion, surprise, anxiety, anger, jealousy, and despair, all play a role as the brain releases chemicals like pheromones, dopamine, and serotonin. Sutherland’s seventeen-year-old protagonist, Henry Isaac Page experiences these emotions as he swings between highs and lows,Read More →

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There are many, many, many adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in this world and only a few are capable of standing on their own. The Season by spouses Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer is the newest adaptation of Austen’s classic story, one that, while a bit cliché, is a memorable version of a beloved tale. Megan McKnight fills the role of Elizabeth Bennet as a soccer player in her early twenties, someone who is definitely not a girly-girl. It’s her sister, Julia, who likes dresses and makeup and dances. When their mom enrolls them in the super exclusive Bluebonnet Club’s 2016 Dallas DebutanteRead More →

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Twelve Reasons to Read (and Enjoy) The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily Rachel Cohn’s and David Levithan’s novel Is a “mittens and hot chocolate and snow angels that lifted from the ground and danced in the air” (3) romance, until it’s not. Confirms that some people together are toxic. Shares multiple definitions of love, including a piece of exquisite pattern prose on pages 28-29, and explores the paradox: “The people you know the most, the people you love the most—you’re also going to feel the parts of them you don’t know the most” (80). Shows why “trying too hard plus good intentions does notRead More →

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The Crown’s Game is a story about a woman named Vika, who has to decide between honor or love. She has a duty to her country to win the Crown’s Game, but she also wants to experience love and life. Vika encounters Pasha and Nikolai, who will have a great impact on the decision that will affect the rest of her life. Vika will soon know the meaning of love through the encounters that she has with Nikolai and Pasha as the games continues. The Crown’s Game reveals that magic can be found in all forms of the characters whether is performed or felt. AsRead More →

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In this final installment of Kelley Armstrong’s the Age of Legends trilogy, Forest of Ruin features twin sisters Moria and Ashyn as they face complications, conflicts, and epic decisions with the potential to save or imperil the empire. This book picks up the trilogy plot after Shadow Stalkers have massacred the village that Moria and Ashyn called home.   As a result, Moria’s sister and the children of her village are missing, her father has been murdered, her emperor is handing her over as a traitor, and two of her friends may not be the people she thought.  The thoughtful and subdued Gavril Kitsune and theRead More →

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We humans are all broken, broken by life’s trials and tribulations, undone by love, fragmented by bullies who shoot holes in our confidence, or traumatized by loss—whether a consequence of death, divorce, or some other life-altering trauma.  These truths unfold  from the beginning line—“Life is bullshit”—of We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, a novel that explores both the absurdity of and the grand scheme of the cosmos and of human existence. Ever since he was 13 years old, Henry Jerome Denton has been abducted by aliens, whom he calls sluggers.  The abductions always begin with shadows and end with his being deposited—often naked—far fromRead More →

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Set in Ireland, Moira Fowley-Doyle’s debut young adult novel bumps up against the difficult topic of abuse: sexual, self-imposed, child, and partner.  But The Accident Season stops short of really tackling the topic—perhaps to reflect the reality of trying to protect a terrible secret or to tread with sensitivity, given the YA audience.  Regardless of its somewhat nebulous approach, The Accident Season provides a rich opportunity for wrestling with a difficult topic and for examining life from some of its shadowy angles.  It invites conversations about abusive behaviors—its perpetrators, victims, by-standers, enablers, and allies. Known since childhood for having a big imagination, Cara Morris isRead More →

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For a debut novel, Renée Ahdieh writes a tale that captivates, intrigues, and fascinates in equal measure.  With threads of romance, fantasy, mystery, and adventure, she weaves a story with deftly drawn characters and colorful imagery. The female star, Shahrzad al-Khaysuran has been brave, loyal, stubborn, and unyielding for her sixteen years of life.  A measure of arrogance allows her to attempt the impossible, to break a cycle of human sacrifice.  She will avenge the murder of her best friend Shiva by volunteering to marry Khalid Ibn al-Rashid, the King of Rey, Khorasan.   As his bride, Shazi will find and exploit the king’s weakness andRead More →