By:
On:
In: Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

It seems a common theme: a young woman, popular, powerful, reckless, driven, and admired; yet underneath, harboring seering secret pain, broken and wracked with guilt over the merciless ways she misuses her power, crumbling under others’ expectations and the pressure to maintain the perfect facade.  And then she snaps and, in the case of  junior Liz Emerson in debut author Amy Zhang‘s Falling Into Place, drives her car off a cliff one snowy January day. Reconstructing Liz’s life –  her rise to be queen bee and her spiral downward – are her two “best friends”, Julia and Kennie.  We also meet a variety of otherRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

On the day when his younger brother, Luke, needed him the most, Matt Turner wasn’t there for him.  Now, after Luke’s suicide, Matt lives in guilt over not being there for his brother both during the bullying that lead to his suicide and on that last day; anger at both his parents for their ineffectual response to the tragedy; disappointed in friends who turned their backs when things got tough; and completely without faith in God and in a future where life “will get better.”  Matt clings to his girlfriend, Hayden, like a drowning man hanging onto a life preserver, even though their relationship isRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

It’s starting again: the loud buzzing in his ears, the crows following him everywhere, the cold sweats and paranoia, and the voice in his head.  Miles had a schizophrenic breakdown  two years ago on the beach near his San Francisco home and he’s blamed himself every day since for the destruction it caused his family.  He’s supposed to be managing his disease with a cocktail of meds and weekly talk therapy, but he knows it isn’t working, and  he’s gotta do something to fix his broken brain and his damaged family: “Sick. Schizo. And it really only feels like a matter of time before theyRead More →

By:
On:
In: Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Gamers often play video games for the thrill of the game, for the confidence-building rewards as they move from level to level, or for the opportunity to act in a heroic role.  Others play for the power, competition, action, and sometimes violence experienced vicariously through the game. Although it is not played online but in real life, BZRK Apocalypse by Michael Grant describes a conflict that resembles a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG).  Grant’s science fiction thriller is the last in the BZRK trilogy, and the stakes in this final battle are high; the fate of BZRK players is death or madness.  Sixteen-year-old Sadie McLure, akaRead More →

By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Multicultural (YA), Realistic Fiction, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

In his last published work,On a Clear Day, Walter Dean Myers imagines a world not too different from the one we live in today: globalization has enabled 8 giant, multi-national corporations to take over every aspect of our lives, entrenching people into rigid socio-economic classes with little hope of upward mobility; millions living on the edge of poverty turn towards racial and class violence as a means of survival; the food supply is heavily regulated and people are starving to death on a daily basis; terrorism is on the rise in all parts of the world; and the global education system has been dismantled in favor ofRead More →

By:
On:
In: Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Realistic Fiction (YA), Sports, Sports (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

John Feinstein puts you in the heart of the game.  Doesn’t matter if it’s the baseball field, the basketball court, or the football field, when you open up the pages of one of his books, you are in the center of the action with the thrill, the agony, and the controlled chaos of sport whirling around you.  Years of sports experience, finely honed descriptive skills, and a gift for storytelling combine to make Feinstein’s young adult novels captivating, action-oriented, and worth reading whenever you can get your hands on one. In The Walk On, out this Fall from Knopf, we meet freshman Alex Myers. His folksRead More →

By:
On:
In: Historical Fiction (YA), Mystery & Suspense (YA), Romance (YA), Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

“i became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” — EDGAR ALLAN POE I love origin stories.  How did the times in which a person lived, the circumstance of their life, their internal demons, weaknesses, and strengths, all collide into make him (or her) into whatever it was he/she became?  The darker, the more enigmatic, the better; and so I was delighted by Jessica Verday’s foray into the youth of a man whose torment we know all too well. It’s a dark and stormy night in Philadelphia in 1826, when Annabel Lee disembarks from a steamer ship that has brought her from Siam to live withRead More →

By:
On:
In: Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Cristina Moracho‘s debut, Althea & Oliver, reads like a bandage is being ripped off your skin.  The wound beneath needs to be exposed to the air, but you’re afraid to see it, and it hurts.  So you pick around the edges, but the bandaid is sticky and clings to your skin, pulling the hair on your arm.  It hurts to try, but you’re desperate to get it off, almost to the point of maddening impatience.  Then, the point of no return is reached and with one painful, sharp tug, you rip off the bandaid and, despite the shock of sharp pain, you can exhale andRead More →

By:
On:
In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Michael Grant excels at taking a reader to the edge (or sometimes beyond) of what frightens you, I mean deeply frightens you, displaying the slippery slope down into the dark recesses, the murky depths that blur the lines between right, wrong, and no-win situations, and of course the madness that’s ready to consume you when looking into the face of your nightmares is too much. With his techno-thriller series BZRK winding down, Grant turns his attention inward to explore the choices and their consequences that we make in our daily lives. Choices that impact others and could be (should be?) judged as good or evil.Read More →