Tag: Young Adult

Kate’s Review: “Good Girl, Bad Blood”

Book: “Good Girl, Bad Blood”(A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #2) by Holly Jackson

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, March 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: The highly anticipated sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder! More dark secrets are exposed in this addictive, true-crime fueled mystery.

Pip is not a detective anymore. With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.

But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared, on the very same night the town hosted a memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh. The police won’t do anything about it. And if they won’t look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town’s dark secrets along the way… and this time everyone is listening. But will she find him before it’s too late?

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

Perhaps you remember that last year I greatly enjoyed the YA mystery “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” by Holly Jackson, and it even made my Top Ten Books of 2020. I also mentioned in that review that I was super stoked for the sequel. Well folks, the time has arrived. “Good Girl, Bad Blood” is here.

My first highly anticipated thriller book of the year! (source)

We pick up not to far after we left off in “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder”. Pip is no longer actively seeking out mysteries to solve, instead working on a podcast about the Andie Bell/Sal Singh case, and attending the trial of serial rapist Max Hastings. Pip, however, is drawn into helping her friend Connor, whose brother has gone missing, and dedicates a new season of her podcast to her investigation. What I liked most about “Good Girl, Bad Blood” is that while Jackson could have set Pip up to be a modern day Nancy Drew who is just going to solve cases and move on to the next, instead we get a front seat at the physical, mental, and emotional labor that she has to endure to help those she cares about. Well, and to give her that purpose that she felt she had in the first book. It’s an angle that may seem obvious, but Jackson does it in a way that makes you really start to wonder how much of this is all worth it as Pip gets sucked into another case, and risks her safety in trying to solve it. I didn’t expect it to go in this direction, and I was happy that it did. Jackson also takes this time to examine the weaknesses in our current law and order systems, as the police in town aren’t really taking Jamie’s missing status seriously, and the rape trial of Max Hastings follows a lot of the same ‘he said, she said’ injustices we see in real life. All of these things combine that leaves Pip in some pretty bleak places as the story goes on, and since there is going to be another book in the series, I want to see how Jackson tackles this for our imperfect heroine.

In terms of the plot itself, “Good Girl, Bad Blood” has a lot of the same strengths as the first book. I still really like Pip, and I loved seeing her relationship with Ravi Singh evolve and flourish (cutest couple ever). I also liked getting to know some of her other friends a little bit better, like Connor. As to the mystery, once again we got a taut and suspenseful thriller, and we get to see everything laid out in a cohesive way through podcast transcripts and Pip’s notes. It’s a much better way to keep everything organized without making any of the characters seem like they’re reciting facts in a robotic way, and I really enjoy it. I will say that there were a couple of trip ups for me, however. The first was that a couple of red herrings tossed out there didn’t really get resolved as red herrings or not. Like, I think that they were? But it felt a little too touched upon in the narrative to just be left behind without explanation. That’s nitpicky. The other issue isn’t as such, in that one of the big puzzle pieces that ties everything together wasn’t even hinted at until well into the last fourth of the book. It felt sort of like a deus ex machine, but for a plot point. But that said, I was pretty much kept guessing until the end. And what an ending it was. It has set us up for the next book in the series. And now, once again, I am waiting anxiously to see where Pip can go next.

“Good Girl, Bad Blood” continues a fun series that is on my must read list going forward. If you haven’t tried these books yet and like a good YA mystery/thriller, you absolutely need to pick them up.

Rating 8: A twisty and suspenseful sequel, “Good Girl, Bad Blood” has a couple of stumbles, but is overall a great follow up to a runaway hit!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Good Girl, Bad Blood” is included on the Goodreads lists “Young Adult Crime/Murder Mysteries”, and “Fiction Books Featuring Podcasts”.

Find “Good Girl, Bad Blood” at your library using WorldCat, or a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!

Previously Reviewed: “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder”

Serena’s Review: “The Ask and the Answer”

Book: “The Ask and the Answer” by Patrick Ness

Publishing Info: Candlewick, May 2009

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: We were in the square, in the square where I’d run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her – But there weren’t no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men…

Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss. Immediately separated from Viola and imprisoned, Todd is forced to learn the ways of the Mayor’s new order. But what secrets are hiding just outside of town? And where is Viola? Is she even still alive? And who are the mysterious Answer? And then, one day, the bombs begin to explode…

Previously Reviewed: “The Knife of Never Letting Go”

Review: Keeping on my read of Patrick Ness’s “Chaos Walking” trilogy, I was eager to pick up this next book after the massive cliffhanger we were left with in the first book! Warning, there will be spoilers for the first book in this review as it’s almost impossible to talk about this book without revealing some of the reveals we had there.

After desperately fleeing the Mayor and his growing army, Todd and a grievously injured Viola finally reach Haven to discover it is really nothing of the sort. Without even putting up a fight, the people of Haven have already surrendered to the Mayor, and it is he who now controls the town and Todd and Viola’s fate. The division between men and women, with men’s Noise and women’s lack of Noise at the heart of it, grows daily. Like all of the other men and women, Todd and Viola are separated and life is very different under the control of the Mayor (now the President.) But a resistance quickly emerges calling itself the Answer and waging a terrifying guerilla war against the Mayor and his men. No one knows when the next bomb will go off or how the Answer is even doing what its doing. Todd and Viola separately with the cruel decisions put before them, desperately trying to find their way back to one another at the same time.

I feel like this series is systematically expanding a central thought at its core: is violence ever justified? In the first book, we see Todd’s struggles with what he has been told makes a man, the ability to kill. Again and again he fails to kill even when it would spare his life. But then in a fit of anger and fear, he kills a Spackle violently and suddenly. And then we see this decision haunt him throughout the remainder of the book. By the end, Todd has come to his own decisions about what does and does not make a man and cold-blooded murder decidedly does not.

Here, however, the question of violence is expanded outwards. On one hand, we have the Mayor who insists that his army and tactics are necessary for dealing with the rising threat of the Spackle and to create a unified force for when Viola’s people arrive in their ships. The Answer, on the other hand, violently opposes the Mayor’s brutal tactics and cruel treatment of women and Spackle. For them, the “answer” is to fight back with everything they have, waging a terrorist bombing campaign against the town itself. They try to avoid casualties, but any accidental hits are simply put down to necessary losses in the grander scheme. And from a third perspective, Viola, who spends much of the first half of the book in a House of Healing, meets a healer woman who’s firm line that saving a life must always come first demonstrates just how hard this approach is, watching cruelty unfold but not responding other than to treat those who are injured, both friend and foe alike.

There is no clear “right” choice in any of it, other than the Mayor himself who is pretty clearly bad. Viola and Todd each have to tackle incredibly challenging situations that really make the reader stop and think about what they would do if presented these options in the circumstances. I was never really sure, other than to be glad I was reading about it and not experiencing it myself. But I find this type of story that really challenges its readers to be the best kind. It’s definitely not an easy book. There’s darkness throughout and some really terrible things happen, but it’s also one that shows the resilience of the spirit to go on through even the most impossible feeling events.

For his part, the Mayor is an excellent villain. Ness doesn’t overplay his hand here with any mustache-twirling or silly excess. Instead, the Mayor’s oozing manipulation is all to easy to understand. We see how even Todd can be influenced by it, a young many who has tackled more than many of the other men who fall under the Mayor’s sway. I also really liked that we got to see more from Davy, the Mayor’s son. His character is really rounded out here and shines a different light on the Mayor as well.

The narrative is also now split between chapters from Todd’s perspective and Viola’s. This is, of course, necessary to tell each of their stories as they spend so much of the book apart. But it’s also great to finally see into Viola’s head. In the first book, it was clear that even though Todd has grown up on this planet, he still had very little understanding of his own people’s history. But Viola is coming from a completely different life experience. She grew up on a colony ship with this planet as its destination. And then to be suddenly thrust into this situation after her parents die in the crash…It’s inevitable that she would see the decisions before her and the events around her through a very different lens than Todd.

I really enjoyed this book. Like I said, it’s not a light, fluffy read, but it’s darkness and challenge is what makes it stand-out. Ness doesn’t pull any punches when pushing his reader to tackle these tough topics. If you enjoyed the first book, I’m sure this is already on your radar (again, that ending!) So rest assured that while the pedal might have felt like it was to the metal in the first book, this is where it really gets started!

Rating 9: Tackling some really tough questions about violence and the rights and wrongs therein, this book is kept from being too dark by its incredibly compelling two main leads.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ask and the Answer” is on these Goodreads lists: Fast-paced books with Redeeming social value to read in one-sitting and Deep Underrated YA.

Find “The Ask and the Answer” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “The Initial Insult”

Book: “The Initial Insult” by Mindy McGinnis

Publishing Info: Katherine Tegen Books, February 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: Welcome to Amontillado, Ohio, where your last name is worth more than money, and secrets can be kept… for a price. Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things.

Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is… only that she can’t look at Tress without having a panic attack.

But she’ll have to. Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity – brick by brick – as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. With a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl, Tress will have her answers – or settle for revenge.

In the first book of this duology, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis draws inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and masterfully delivers a dark, propulsive mystery in alternating points of view that unravels a friendship . . . forevermore.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

As I’ve mentioned before, I really enjoyed Edgar Allan Poe and his poems and short stories. From the sad to the dream like to the macabre, the guy always has something that is going to connect with me. It’s been a long time since I read “The Cask of Amontillado”, the short story in which a man slowly seals up his rival into a tomb brick by brick, but I do remember how much it unsettled me the first time I read it back in middle school. When I head that Mindy McGinnis had written a new YA novel that took that story and updated it to be between two teenage girls, I was interested, but wondered how it could be done! But I was absolutely game to give it a try.

Taking a story like “The Cask of Amontillado” and turning it into a thriller/horror about two teenage girls whose friendship has gone bad is a lofty goal to set for oneself, but McGinnis rises to the occasion and has created a creepy and suspenseful story. We get the perspectives of both Tress, the one with the bricks, and Felicity, the one in the chains, and see how their relationship has gotten to this point. I really enjoyed both voices of each girl, and McGinnis was very careful to show that each of them had their own roles to play in the disintegration of their friendship. She doesn’t really give either of them a pass, but is also very empathetic to each of them in their struggles. It made it easy to both feel for them, and hate them, depending on the moment of the story. But it was the third perspective that I didn’t expect that kind of worked the best for me, and that is of the Panther that Tress’s grandfather Cecil owns, who has escaped from the exotic zoo. It’s this element that makes “The Black Cat” our other most prominent Poe work, and I thought it upped the ante, but also added an experimental and all knowing third perspective to bring in other, dreamy elements.

I WILL say, and I never thought I’d ever say this given how much I like Poe, that there was a little too much Poe stuffed into this book. It’s one thing when you are throwing references with names, vague similarities between the source content and the interpretation, and a main plot that’s paying homage. But McGinnis put a few too many plot points in that were a bit overwhelming. If it had just been “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Black Cat” with a few other nods I think it would have been fine. But we also get a whole “The Mask of Red Death” subplot which feels underexplored because there is so much else going on, and some plot points from “Hop Frog” thrown in as well that are also superfluous. It just made things seem a bit more bloated than they needed to be, especially since there is, indeed, going to be another book in the series. Could these things have been saved for that? Or will there be even MORE underutilized opportunities with some great source material?

But yes, having said that, “The Initial Insult” was a lot of fun, and while I’m curious about how a sequel is going to work (given that things seemed pretty final in some regards), I have a couple of theories as to what McGinnis may be up to. And even if those theories don’t pan out, I’m definitely anticipating what comes next.

Rating 8: A creative modern day interpretation of an Edgar Allan Poe classic, “The Initial Insult” sometimes does too much, but is entertaining and suspenseful nonetheless.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Initial Insult” is included on the Goodreads list “Books Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe”.

Find “The Initial Insult” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!

Serena’s Review: “The Knife of Never Letting Go”

Book: “The Knife of Never Letting Go” by Patrick Ness

Publishing Info: Walker, May 2008

Where Did I Get this Book: own it

Book Description: Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee—whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not—stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden—a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

Review: I read this book way back when it first came out, but given that the movie adaptation, “Chaos Walking,” is coming out soon, I thought now was the perfect time for a revisit. As it has been over ten years since my first read, I only remembered a few very basic things about the overall plot and style of the book. So really, it was almost like an entirely new experience this go around! One thing stayed the same, however: I really like this book.

Todd’s world is one filled with Noise. Where animals speak their simple animal words and men project their every thought in blasts of emotion, there is no escape from the barrage. But so has life always been for Todd, the youngest member of a town of settlers who came to this planet hoping for a new life. Instead, what they found was tragedy and challenge. Or so Todd has been told. But only weeks before Todd is set to become a man and join the rest of the town as a full-fledged adult, he discovers something that shouldn’t exist: a spot of silence in a chaotic world. And with that discovery, his entire understanding of his world, his people, and his history is blown wide open, and he finds himself running for his life.

The first thing that stands out when reading this book is the style of writing. It’s first person perspective, which is unique enough, though less so in YA. But more notably, the narration is very much written in a stream of conscience style. Todd’s thoughts are hectic, incomplete, with short bursts of feeling, sprinkled with hints of description only when needed. It’s definitely the sort of style that takes a bit of time to get used to. By necessity, the world-building and history of the story comes out in small tidbits seemingly dropped in at random. Todd’s habit of often starting sentences only to stop them can be frustrating at times. But this also all adds to the tension and chaos that is inherent to this world. All on its own, this style of writing does more to convey what life would be like on this strange planet where men’s thoughts are projected out for all to see than any elaborate description ever could.

The short, quick style of writing also effectively illustrates the tension and drive that is at the heart of this story. Todd spends the majority of the book fleeing, and the hectic style of the sentences almost makes it read as if he is panting out these lines as he tries to catch his breath while running, always running. The story is a fast read, though, and I blew through the entire thing in almost a day.

It’s hard to talk about much in this book without revealing one secret or another. There are a few reveals that I think were projected well-enough that many readers will pick up on them. But there were others that served as legitimate surprises. By the end, there also seemed to be a decent about of history and reveals that were simply left to be discussed in the next book. Ness really doesn’t make much of an effort to even pretend that this book could be read as a standalone story, and it definitely ends on a big cliffhanger, so be warned that if you start it, you’re pretty much committing to the entire trilogy!

Todd is an excellent character in his own right. He can be just as frustrating as he is endearingly naïve. And alongside the reactions to extraordinary circumstances, we also see the fact that he’s just a teenage boy, with all of the conflicting motivations and emotions that come with that. Much of Todd’s narration is fixated on the fact that he will become a man, according to the traditions of his colony, in about a month’s time. So, too, then the story is focused on the messy, painful process of Todd actually making this transition in the story.

As I said, this story is definitely written as the first in a trilogy. It’s a fast read, full of action and heart-break, and I already have the next two books purchased and downloaded onto my Kindle. I’m also really excited to see what the movie version has to offer, and I think Tom Holland is perfectly cast (though what isn’t he amazing in??)

Rating 9: A deceptively action-packed story hides a emotional wallop behind its unique style of writing.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Knife of Never Letting Go” is on these Goodreads lists Books that should get more attention and Teenagers . . . IN SPACE!

Find “The Knife of Never Letting Go” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “What She Found in the Woods”

Book: “What She Found in the Woods” by Josephine Angelini

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, December 2020

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: Running from a scandal at her New York private school, Magdalena heads to her family home to recover under the radar.

Over-medicated and under-confident, she’s fearful she’ll never escape her past.

Until she meets Bo out hiking. Wild, gorgeous and free, he makes her believe she might finally be able to move on.

But when a mutilated body is discovered in the woods, Magdalena realises she can’t trust anyone. Not even herself.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

In a moment of ‘why did no one tell me this’, last November I was looking at my Highlights list for December, only to discover that one of the books I had highlighted had been postponed until Spring of this year. So I needed to go looking for a new title that I could highlight, and hit a bunch of lists for December publications. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I panic! But I was happy when I saw “What She Found in the Woods” by Josephine Angelini, as the description was checking off a LOT of my boxes. A privileged girl running from a private school scandal, a strange boy who may be hiding something, and dead bodies popping up in the wilderness, my gosh, what a treasure trove! I was lucky enough to get a copy via NetGalley, and dove in hoping for a fun read. But sadly, checked boxes or no, “What She Found in the Woods” ended up not gelling for me.

While it certainly has a promising premise and it did have some moments of tension because of a solid build up, “What She Found in the Woods” just didn’t thrill me the way that I wanted it to. The first issue I had was the characters themselves. Magdalena, our protagonist, had a well plotted slow burn of a reveal to her past, but I feel like there was too much piled on once we got past the first initial ‘bad thing’ that was revealed just to make it ‘extra bad’. We really didn’t need the additional issues after the first one (being vague as best as I can here), as it felt like too much to me. There was also a huge reliance on mental health problems as plot progression, or being used as potential foreshadowing, which doesn’t really count as character development, and is a bit problematic as it’s seen as a weakness or potential for violent behavior. And then there is Bo, the mysterious Wild Boy who lives in the wilderness with his family. I thought that Angelini did address how his social skills may not be up to par, though he felt a little manic pixie dream boy for a good amount of the time. There was also a glossed over ‘oh he’s going to go to college’ aspect to his storyline which didn’t feel very thought out, as how? How is he going to go to college? There are so many hoops that he would have to jump through within the context of him going that just saying ‘oh he’s going to’ doesn’t really cut it.

On top of that, the story itself wasn’t too thrilling for me. I wasn’t invested in who was maybe killing people in the woods, as to whether it was Bo or a mysterious entity known as Dr. Goodnight. The commentary on addiction and poverty was interesting enough, but ultimately it barely scratched the surface and the bigger priority was whether or not the instalove between Magdalena and Bo was going to work out, either because of her mental issues, or his potential for having a role in what was happening in the woods. By the time we got to the big climax, I just kind of wanted to be done for the sake of being done.

I’d been really struggling with if I wanted to go into spoilers for this review, just because those who may want to read it should go in without having to worry about having aspects of the mystery ruined. But one of my biggest gripes outside of ‘it just didn’t thrill me’ is tangled with a pretty big spoiler. But I think that I need to address it, so, as always, here is your

(source)

So, one of the big questions in this mystery is why Bo and his family have been living in the woods off the grid, and why they are so paranoid about Bo being discovered, and why he has to pretty much say goodbye to them once he leaves the woods for a college life. It is eventually revealed that Bo’s father Ray was an anesthesiologist who started doing a Dr. Kevorkian kind of service, where people who were dying and in agony wanted him to euthanize them to end their suffering. I actually liked that this book brought up issues of euthanasia and bodily autonomy, and whether or not people should have the right to decide when they end their life with the assistance of those who can make it painless and with dignity. This is the worst thing that he has done in this book (so this is the big spoiler: he is NOT Dr. Goodnight), a string of acts that are illegal, but seen as a huge grey area depending on whom you speak to. SO THAT SAID, since he is eventually shown as a medical professional who was participating in illegal, but morally complicated, acts, and wasn’t actively seeking out to cause pain and suffering to others, it felt COMPLETELY incongruous when in the story he encourages Magdalena to go off her very complex prescription regimen when that is SO dangerous to do. When it was possible that he was doing that as a sadist, I was thinking ‘okay, maybe’, but when it’s revealed that no, he’s NOT a sadist, that whole aspect just felt like either a lazy red herring (which IS incredibly damaging, as even though Magdalena eventually gets back on medication that she needs, it’s mentioned in passing, which doesn’t stand out), or a complete disservice to the character in that it just doesn’t mesh with who we eventually see him as.

“What She Found in the Woods” really had potential on paper, but just didn’t live up to it. I think that if I knew someone was just starting to dabble in unreliable narrator tropes in their stories I could see myself recommending it, but there are many that are better executed.

Rating 4: A promising concept to be sure, but a ho hum and at times uneven execution.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What She Found in the Woods” isn’t on many specific Goodreads lists, but I think that it would fit in on “YA Involving Mental Health Issues (2000-Present)”.

Find “What She Found in the Woods” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!

Serena’s Review: “We are the Fire”

Book: “We are the Fire” by Sam Taylor

Publishing Info: Swoon Reads, February 2021

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Book Description: In the cold, treacherous land of Vesimaa, children are stolen from their families by a cruel emperor, forced to undergo a horrific transformative procedure, and serve in the army as magical fire-wielding soldiers. Pran and Oksana―both taken from their homeland at a young age―only have each other to hold onto in this heartless place.

Pran dreams of one day rebelling against their oppressors and destroying the empire; Oksana only dreams of returning home and creating a peaceful life for them both.

When they discover the emperor has a new, more terrible mission than ever for their kind, Pran and Oksana vow to escape his tyranny once and for all. But their methods and ideals differ drastically, driving a wedge between them. Worse still, they both soon find that the only way to defeat the monsters that subjugated them may be to become monsters themselves.

Review: Two books in a row that I requested based on intriguing covers! Plus a bunch of other things of course: fire magic, a central romance, and whatever those antlers are that they’re wearing in the cover art! This is the first book for this author, so it’s also always nice to support a new voice to the genre. While I did have some criticisms of the story in the end, overall, this was a fun, fast read.

Pran and Oksana share the same tragic story as most of their fellow soldiers: forcibly stolen from their families at a young age and then experimented on and trained to be fire warriors. Not only are the experiments that give them their abilities painful and cruel, there’s no guarantee they’ll even survive their training, all for the privilege of fighting for a nation that has invaded their own lands. But Pran and Oksana aren’t content to simply survive; they want to do away with the entire system. The struggle that follows will test their individual abilities and strengths as well as the heart of their relationship itself.

To start off, this book was very readable. A weird bit of praise for a book that is mean to be, you know, read, but it’s something that more than enough books still fail at anyways. The writing was perhaps simple, but it moved at a quick pace and I found myself blowing through the story in only a day or two. The story of two soldiers forced into battle and working against a tyrannical system and ruler is compelling and the action is tense. The story also doesn’t shy away from the brutality of the world it has built. I originally started questioning whether the book was actually going to demonstrate how bad things were (our hero and heroine escape horrible situations a few times too many to be entirely plausible), but the author really goes there about half way through with a pretty dark scene. It’s a weird thing to say, but I think this book might have benefited from leaning even more into this darker aspect of the story.

Like I alluded to earlier, Pran and Oksana, as interesting as they are as characters, did seem to have pretty obvious plot armor throughout the story. All main characters have this to some extent, but it depends on an author’s ability how well this fact can be masked. Here, it was less so. But simply as characters, Pran and Oksana do well enough. We see how the way they were forced into service has impacted all of their decisions going forward, for better and for worse. Their various relationships with the idea of family and the homes that they left behind drive them each to imagine a better life but direct them down very different paths to accomplish it.

I also liked the fact that the romance is already established at the beginning of the book. Yes, drama is added to give an arc to this relationship, but a story built around the challenges found in a previously strong romance is definitely unique among so many others that focus only on the beginnings. I could have used a bit more fleshing out, here, however. The story refers back to a few scenes that build up how these two came together, but perhaps a extending these into actual flashbacks might have helped make the romance feel more fully fleshed out as a whole.

My main criticism of the story is a bit hard to put my finger on. I think what it comes down to was that everything was a bit too simply described. There are the broad strokes of a world. The broad strokes of a magic system. The broad strokes of characters and their motivations. But I never felt like I was getting any details. I couldn’t describe the fort in which they lived. I couldn’t tell you what any characters looked like other than Pran and Oksana (and even there all I really knew for sure was that Oksana had red hair and what we see on the cover). I didn’t have a good sense of scope of the nations they each came from. It felt a bit like the author was writing a “just the fun bits” type of novel. I have read and liked a good number of fan fiction pieces, so I don’t say this as a heavy ding, but it kind of felt like those stories can: a bit simplistic with an over emphasis on the main characters’ inner thoughts and feelings at the detriment of fleshing out the world and story itself.

But like I said, this was a fun, fast read, if not fully realized. Fans of romantic fantasy who don’t require much deep world-building or intricacy to their magic systems will likely enjoy this book. Also, fans of the show “The 100″…the cover art looks bizarrely like Bellamy and Clarke, I think. A ship that I followed until it crashed and burned, so this was a bit like fan fiction in that sense too: wish fulfillment.

Right?! You see it too!

Rating 7: A sweet romance if a bit unsupported in other aspects of the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We are the Fire” is on these Goodreads lists: Monsters and Magic Society and YA Fantasy Standalone Books.

Find “We are the Fire” at your library using WorldCat!

Serena’s Review: “Fireheart Tiger”

Book: “Fireheart Tiger” by Aliette De Bodard

Publishing Info: Tor.com, February 2021

Where Did I get this Book: Edelweiss+

Book Description: Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate—and her own?

Review: I’ll admit that this was another book that pulled me in on the strength of the cover art alone. I mean, that’s just a gorgeous cover, and there’s no second opinion about it! The description comparing it to “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “The Goblin Emperor” couldn’t help but add more intrigue. Plus, it’s a novella, which I haven’t read one of for quite a while. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to all of those expectations!

Life as a political hostage is not easy, but then no one ever expects it to be. More surprising for Thanh, a princess returning home at long last, is that her homecoming proves to have its own set of challenges. Haunted by a first love now thrown back in her path who sees her own path forward, Thanh begins to understand that she will need to evolve. As a passive hostage, her life had been simple. But as princess, wielding great power and responsibility, she has choices, some of which could impact the future of her entire country.

While I can think of several good examples of novellas that I’ve read in the past (Seanan McGuire’s entire “Wayward Children” series, for example), unfortunately, this book highlights much of how to do them wrong. With the strict word count limit imposed on writing a shorter story, the author has to be incredibly efficient with world-building and character development. And even then, you can’t spend too much time on it, necessitating that both the world, story, and character are fairly interesting and compelling on their own from the very start. And in these key areas, this book fails the test.

Particularly, Thanh herself is a fairly paper-thin character. She doesn’t stand out in any bad ways, but she’s also not very interesting and lacks the charisma needed to drive a short story like this. Her lack of a strong voice makes the necessary info-dumping portions of the story stand out more than they should. Beyond that, I found the character to be a bit unlikable, seeming to wallow in self-pity more often than not and easily distracted by her own personal dramas over the larger state of affairs going on around her.

I also was very uninvested in the love interest and romance of this story. We simply aren’t given enough here to care. Ephteria’s attraction is almost entirely contained in the author’s telling rather than showing style. She has blue eyes…that’s about all we get. But Thanh spends pages upon pages obsessing over her, and the readers are stuck there with her, just not understanding why. The thin depiction of this relationship is mirrored in Thanh’s other relationships as well, with her mother, and with another young girl she befriends.

Beyond this, the writing didn’t work for me. I found it often to be jarring and uninspired, pulling out cliches when you’d most expect them and not helping to build any tension as the story worked its way through its plot points. The dialogue was at times particularly egregious, with some of the villains just one mustache-twirl away from being comical.

There may have been a good story here somewhere if the author had had more word-count to work on. But I’m also not convinced that the characters, world, or overall plot could have supported an increased page count. It’s kind of a chicken or the egg thing: did the page count limit the creativity of the characters and flow of the writing, or were these aspects weak on their own and would have just struggled more in a full-length novel?

Rating 6: Pretty disappointing overall. Though the cover is still one of the best I’ve seen in a while.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Fireheart Tiger” is a new title so it isn’t on too many Goodreads list, but it is on Upcoming 2021 SFF Books With Female Leads or Co-Leads.

Find “Fireheart Tiger” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “Revenge of the Sluts”

Book: “Revenge of the Sluts” by Natalie Walton

Publishing Info: Wattpad Books, February 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: Double standards are about to get singled out.

In this stunning debut, author Natalie Walton tackles privacy and relationships in the digital age.

As a lead reporter for The Warrior Weekly, Eden has covered her fair share of stories at St. Joseph’s High School. And when intimate pictures of seven female students are anonymously emailed to the entire school, Eden is determined to get to the bottom of it.

In tracking down leads, Eden is shocked to discover not everyone agrees the students are victims. Some people feel the girls “brought it on themselves.” Even worse, the school’s administration seems more concerned about protecting its reputation than its students.

With the anonymous sender threatening more emails, Eden finds an unlikely ally: the seven young women themselves. Banding together to find the perpetrator, the tables are about to be turned. The Slut Squad is fighting back!

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I thank my lucky stars that I got out of high school before social media became a huge thing, because my GOD I don’t know if I would have survived it all. I went to a prestigious and rigorous prep school, and as someone who was a bit of a weirdo who, for some time, bore the brunt of my meaner classmates, I can’t even imagine what might have happened if Snapchat, Tik Tok, or the like were available (I’m old, are those still popular with the youths?). “Revenge of the Sluts” by Natalie Walton addresses a number of the things that make my heart hurt when it comes to stories of teenage bullying and cruelty, specifically that of girls who send nudes to people they think they can trust, only to find their trust broken and their bodies exposed for laughs, revenge, or what have you. When I saw this book on NetGalley, I knew that I had to read it.

“The Revenge of the Sluts” is a VERY fast read that kept me interested, as I pretty much read it in one day during a long weekend. The mystery of who leaked the nudes of seven high school girls is technically the heart of this book, but it felt more like an examination of the difficulties of high school life for girls in modern society. I really enjoyed Eden, our protagonist and intrepid student reporter who is investigating the invasive and cruel leak of nude selfies of seven of her classmates. While Eden wasn’t a target herself, she and co-journalist/editor in chief Ronnie not only see a huge story, but a number of girls who deserve justice and deserve to have their voices heard. Eden has a few more layers to it as well, as she too has sent nude photos of herself in the past to her ex boyfriend, and while he never shared them so that they could potentially be leaked, she knows that she was just as vulnerable.

I liked that Walton brings up all of the complicated messy issues about teen dating and sex. Such things include the pressures that some may feel do do things that they may not want to do, and the self autonomy that others have to be comfortable in their sexuality which can lead to stigma and punishment from others when that is put on display. The victims are a wide variety, with some enjoying casual hook ups and sexual exploration, and others being in monogamous relationships with people they are supposed to be able to trust. Walton never frames any of these girls as anything but victims, and I really liked that we get to explore double standards when it comes to boy vs girl sexuality and the expectations that is foisted on the two, many times unfairly. I also liked the frustrating but probably pretty realistic subplot of the mishandling of the scandal by the school and the greater community, as the girls are treated less as victims and more as, well, ‘sluts’, like in the title.

Therein, however, lies some of the weaknesses in this book as well. These messages and themes are absolutely important, especially for teen readers who may have to navigate such things in their lives. But some of the lessons were presented in really awkward and clunky ways. Many times we would have these teachable moments with characters going into long lectures or diatribes about consent, bodily autonomy, double standards, and misogyny which felt like they were lifted from educational or resource materials. There would be debates between characters that go the way that one would expect from an after school special as opposed to an actual conversation between classmates or friends. It ended up making things feel a bit canned and packaged, and while I know that the YA audience may like things a bit more straight forward, I think that authors need to give teens a little more credit in how they can process the messages being conveyed.

All in all, I thought that “Revenge of the Sluts” had a few hiccups here and there in execution, but the themes and statements behind that are too important for me to write it off completely. It’s quick and engaging, and I hope that it can help people who may be going through the bad things it addresses.

Rating 7: A quick and entertaining read that often treads towards clunky monologues and lecturing, “Revenge of the Sluts” has good messages about bodily autonomy, consent, and rape culture, even if it felt a little canned.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Revenge of the Sluts” is included on the Goodreads lists “YA Girls Take on the Patriarchy”, and “Best Books to Read When You Need a Reminder of Why Feminism Is Important”.

Find “Revenge of the Sluts” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!

Kate’s Review: “The Witch Hunt”

Book: “The Witch Hunt” (Jonny Roberts #3) by Alexander Lound

Publishing Info: Self Published, February 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the author.

Book Description: Two months on from the tragedy of the burned house, and Jonny has spent most of the long summer days in bed, hiding from the miserable rain. Ghost-hunting is in his past. After all, it has proved to be little more than a curse.

However, when his dad reaches out to him after an eighteen-month absence, Jonny can’t hide his fury. He also can’t say no when his father asks him to stay at his new home in the quaint, little village of Peene. Maybe it will heal the hurt between them. At the very least, it will take his mind off Grantford, and his haunting nightmares.

But, when he realizes ‒ feels ‒ that all isn’t quite right with his dad’s new partner, Bella, he has no choice but to turn back to his ability. To uncover a grisly murder of years past. Even if it means risking another date with death…

Review: Thank you to Alexander Lound for approaching our blog and sending me an eARC of this book!

It’s always a nice day when I get a notification from an author I’ve highlighted in the past that they have a new book coming out. Earlier this year it was “Atonement”, which saw the end of the Cerenia Chronicles, and now we finally get a new story from Alexander Lound’s Jonny Roberts Series, “The Witch Hunt”. I was already thoroughly invested in the stories about teenage medium Jonny, and when you throw the mere idea of witches into that, well, you officially have me snared.

I will never not be super interested in all things witch. (source)

When we left Jonny at the end of “The Burned House”, things had taken a turn for the worse for our teenage medium. His best friend Stephen was dead, his girlfriend Cassy had broken up with him because of the dangers of his ghost talking abilities, and Jonny was all around feeling lost. “The Witch Hunt” doesn’t walk any of that back, and in fact puts him in an even more precarious place in that his father, who abandoned him and his mother a year and a half prior, now wants Jonny to come visit him and his new lady friend, Bella. What is supposed to be an awkward reunion turns into another supernatural adventure, as it becomes clear that there is something wrong with Bella and the local historic site that was the location of witch hunts and burnings centuries ago may have a key. I liked getting Jonny out of his usual routine for this book, as it gave him more space to explore and a different approach, given that now the case is actually personal to him. Another change is that Lound doesn’t walk back the separation from Cassy, at least not yet. I was wondering if we were going to have a tug of war of feelings, and then just a reconciliation to get things back to ‘normal’, but it’s not as simple as all that, as it is made clear that Cassy’s hesitancy and fear is perfectly understandable. This also gives Jonny a little leeway to just be on his own for this story (well, outside of his mentor/friend Aaron, who does come in, which is fine by me because I really like Aaron!), and not have to continue an complex teen relationship on top of everything else.

I also didn’t expect, but really enjoyed, the approach that was taken towards Jonny’s father’s new partner, Bella. I think that it would have been super easy for her to be the unlikable home wrecker trope. I mean, I probably would have accepted that without any questions. But instead she is a very likable person who you care about, especially when it’s clear that something is very wrong with her that is putting her, and her loved ones, in danger. While I DO think that there could have been a little more ‘responsibility’ taken on her part when it comes to getting involved with a married man, just insomuch that it’s definitely mostly on Jonny’s Dad, Bella did have a part to play in a lot of pain caused to Jonny and his mother. But that said, I liked that she wasn’t what I expected her to be, and that she was, in fact, overall a decent person.

As for the mystery itself about what is ailing Bella and where the Witch Hunt site comes into it, it was pretty solid. I don’t want to give too much away, but Lound takes the opportunity to explore misogyny, violence towards women, and makes connections between the medieval witch hunts and modern day victims of what people think women should be, and what women owe men. And while it may be true that witches as characters weren’t really a part of this as much as I had hoped, the themes of witches and witchcraft and what they have represented throughout history is definitely a HUGE piece of the story. And I really liked that.

“The Witch Hunt” is another fun ghost story from Alexander Lound! I’m so happy this series has continued and cannot wait to see where it goes next!

Rating 8: Another tense and suspenseful YA paranormal thriller from Alexander Lound, and a new focus for teenage medium Jonny Roberts.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Burned House” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but I think that it would fit in on “YA Novels and Psychic Abilities”, and “Young Adult Ghost Stories”.

“The Burned House” isn’t available on WorldCat as of now, but it will be available for purchase this week. For more information, go to Alexander Lound’s WEBSITE.

Previously Reviewed:

Kate’s Review: “The Project”

Book: “The Project” by Courtney Summers

Publishing Info: Wednesday Books, February 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it.

“The Unity Project murdered my son.”

When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its charismatic and mysterious leader, Lev Warren, he proposes a deal: if she can prove the worst of her suspicions about The Unity Project, she may expose them. If she can’t, she must finally leave them alone.

But as Lo delves deeper into The Project, the lives of its members, and spends more time with Lev, it upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her—to the point she can no longer tell what’s real or true. Lo never thought she could afford to believe in Lev Warren . . . but now she doesn’t know if she can afford not to.

Welcome to The Unity Project.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

Given how much I loved Courtney Summers’s previous novel “Sadie”, when I saw that her next book was going to be about a cult I was freakin’ stoked. The dark grittiness of “Sadie” kept me unsettled and on edge for a long while after finishing that book, and I figured that “The Project” would be almost darker, if only because of the root of the conflict (and because it sounded like it took a lot of inspiration from NXIVM from the summary, which is all kinds of yikes as more and more details come out about that group).

Once again we have a sister relationship that serves as the beating heart of this novel, a theme that Summers has used before and done very well. I had been a bit worried we’d get a bit more of the same because of it, but the relationship between Lo and Bea is very different from what I had imagined. I thought that Summers did a fantastic job of capturing the trauma and regret of both women, be it of Bea, who left her younger sister in a time of need, or Lo, who has resented the hole that Bea left behind but is also obsessed with finding her. You get both sisters perspectives, it it Lo’s journey as she goes deeper and deeper into The Unity Project, or Bea as she too finds herself drawn in more and more in a different time than Lo. The complexities of their relationship are there, and while we don’t see much interaction between them be it in the present or in flashbacks, you do get a good solid sense for the love and pain they share through their memories and feelings towards each other. It is also interesting seeing them take similar journeys when it comes to the mysterious, and perhaps deeply malevolent, Unity Project, and how they both parallel and yet invert each other. The suspense builds as Lo learns more and more about Bea’s time with Lev and other members, and by the time Lo is making some pretty drastic decisions (some of which I don’t think were QUITE built up to enough, but that’s all I will say because we’re keeping this generally spoiler free), you have been turned about and messed with as a reader about as much as she has as a character because she’s so easy to connect to. And while Bea is more mysterious, you still get a pretty good sense about other aspects of her personality, and how she could get caught up in something like The Project. While you know that things won’t be happily ever after for these sisters by the time the book is done, Summers still makes you ache for both of them on the journeys they are taking in trying to find, or trying to run from, each other.

Now let’s talk about The Project itself. As touched upon above, we are given so much information about them from inside sources, outside sources, and reliable and unreliable threads, that Summers effectively binds a reader up in becoming disoriented. I will say that given that I could see the NXIVM influences (the upstate New York setting, the beverage heiress who is a high ranking member, some of the more violent aspects of the group), there wasn’t really much question in my mind about what this group was ultimately going to be like, but had I not had that context I do think that Summers throws in a lot of things that could question that. She does a good job of showing how predatory cult leaders slowly lull their members into a sense of security, love, and faith, and then twist them and meld them into doing some really disturbing things. Lev is one of the more unsettling antagonists that I’ve encountered in YA literature in awhile, as his charisma and visage of kindness is rarely cracked as the book goes on, unless you know what to look for, just like psychopathic cult leaders in real life. There are Raniere influences here, but also shades of David Koresh and Charles Dederich, though Lev still stands on his own without being too much of a stand in for any one cult leader.

“The Project” is definitely a tragic and unsettling book, but it’s another strong narrative from an author who isn’t afraid to go dark. And it also has little bright spots of potential hope that are much appreciated in tales like this. Summers has a knack for balancing all of this out, and I think this will be another hit for her.

Rating 8: Intense, tragic, and unsettling as heck, “The Project” gets into the cult mentality and shows the power a charismatic leader can have.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Project” is included on the Goodreads lists “Cults and Communes in Fiction”, and “Cults, Mind Control, and Spiritual Abuse”.

Find “The Project” at your library using WorldCat, or a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!