By: Blakelee M.,
on 9/9/2013
Paper Towns starts with a dead man that two children find in the park and picks up speed from there. When his childhood best friend, Margo, goes AWOL, Quentin must put together some cryptic clues to find her. John Green has impressed me again with his natural wit and engaging story line. Books mentioned in [...]
By: Kate B.,
on 9/9/2013
This book is so good! The story is narrated by lonely, motherless, 10-year-old Opal. It all begins when she adopts a stray dog and names him Winn-Dixie. It's a book full of charmingly flawed characters struggling to come to terms with how in life "the sweet and the sad are all mixed up together and [...]
By: Dianah,
on 2/19/2013
This tiny little novella tells the very big story of Cat, a former military medic who lost his foot when he stepped on a landmine during combat. Cat's military service is long over, but he begins to realize that "it was a good foot and we parted so hurriedly..." Leaving his wife and sons, Cat returns to [...]
By: Julianna Baggott,
on 2/18/2013
Describe your latest book. Fuse is the second installment in the Pure Trilogy, which follows a group of characters in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. In the first novel, Pressia, a 16-year-old girl with a doll head fused to her fist, is surviving in this detonated, ash-choked world, and Partridge has survived inside of a protective [...]
By: Gail Carriger,
on 2/4/2013
Describe your latest work: My new young adult Finishing School series, set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate only 25 years earlier, features a lady's seminary located in a giant caterpillar-like dirigible floating over Dartmoor in which young ladies are taught to finish everything — and everyone — as needed. There will be [...]
By: Kathy H,
on 12/27/2012
In this tale of friendship, war, and early women's aeronautics, "Verity" has been captured by the Nazis while attempting espionage in France during World War II. This story is her confession. She swears she is telling the truth, but she also admits that she is a very good liar. Code Name Verity is totally engrossing. [...]
By: Mary Jo,
on 12/26/2012
The Diviners is a deliciously creepy supernatural thriller set in 1920s New York. Bray does a masterful job creating memorable characters and setting the stage for the second book in the series. An impressive amount of research went into this novel, but Bray never overwhelms the reader with historical detail. Fifty pages in, I was [...]
By: Jordan,
on 12/25/2012
Did you really think YA was all vamps and other fantastical, supernatural... stuff? Well, you'd be wrong. Very wrong. 'Cause John Green exists. And his book The Fault in Our Stars tackles the subject of teens and cancer. But it's not a "cancer story" in the sappy, Lifetime-movie sense. Sure, you'll cry, but you'll also [...]
By: Kate B.,
on 12/24/2012
I get choked up every time I read The Quiet Place by Sarah Stewart. David Small's drawings are gorgeous, and they perfectly capture the feelings of loneliness and insecurity young Isabel experiences after moving to the United States from Mexico. The story is cleverly told through letters Isabel sends to her aunt back home — [...]
By: Melissa M.,
on 12/22/2012
Starting with Cinder, Marissa Meyer has created a new world where a cyborg mechanic, Cinder, meets Prince Kai, who would like her to fix his bot. Cinder becomes embroiled in passing along deadly information and trying to discover her true background. This is a fun start to a great series. Scarlet comes out in 2013 [...]
By: Brandon W.,
on 12/21/2012
Gabe is a teen transboy music geek with a new late-night public-access radio show. He's trying to become a full-time radio DJ while at the same time coming out as trans, and navigating fans and crushes. This book has a wonderful blend of music references and characters you can easily identify with. Books mentioned in [...]
By: Kara,
on 12/20/2012
Imagine... a vividly crafted world in which dragons and the veneration of saints figure prominently. Tight, evocative prose. A stoic, thoughtful, and wise heroine who just wants to make music, torn between the world of humans and the world of dragons. Now imagine that this story has been marketed to the young-adult crowd. Surprised? So [...]
By: Erin C.,
on 12/15/2012
What's so remarkable about Cinder is how well Marissa Meyer translated this very old fairy tale into modern and futuristic terms. She takes a character that is often pigeonholed as being too compliant, too nice, and makes her into a fiery heroine who you can love and cheer for. Even the romance — typically clichéd [...]
By: Dianah,
on 9/6/2012
John Green has so cleanly sidestepped anything precious, sentimental, and heart-warming in The Fault in Our Stars, it's a wonder he was even able to write about two teenagers diagnosed with cancer. These are some fertile fields for tweeness, indeed. Oh, but he can write — and wonderfully! His characters are so true to life, I [...]
By: Emily Winfield Martin,
on 2/2/2012
Describe your new book/project/work. Oddfellow's Orphanage is a series of stories/vignettes that tell the tale of the newest arrival to a curious orphanage, a mute girl named Delia. Through her eyes, we meet the orphanage itself, as well as the kind, but unusual family that calls Oddfellow's home. This is all nestled into the form [...]
