In Echo After Echo, Zara’s dream is coming true. She’s only a junior in high school, yet she is cast in her dream role, playing Echo in the Greek Tragedy, Echo & Ariston, on Broadway at the infamous Aurelia theater being directed by the notorious Leopold Henneman. When she gets to New York, her first stop is the theater. She’s so excited to get started she doesn’t even go by her new apartment. It’s weird that the back door to the theater is open but she goes in anyway. The Aurelia is deserted. Except for the dead man in the orchestra pit. It’s the lighting director. The police rule it an accident but the people of the theater know better. The Aurelia is cursed and when death comes,
Yep, I knew I was going to like this one before read a single page when I saw a quote from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s famous “Love is love is love” speech he made the night after the Orlando nightclub shooting, as one of the opening quotes. That made my heart happy, and so did this story of Tanner and Sebastian. Feels. I have lots of them in the afterglow of this book. Having read a handful of Christina Lauren’s ‘new adult’ genre books, I was intrigued to see how they would translate to the young adult audience. Success! Tanner Scott knows he’s bisexual, it’s not a passing phase but kissing boys isn’t something he’s had a whole lot of experience with either. Although his family is beyond support
Finally! A new John Green book! John Green fans, rejoice! It’s been since 2012 since we’ve had new JG material. I must warn you, though, don’t expect this new novel to have the same tone as TFIOS which featured teens dying of cancer in a really beautiful, poetic, sweet, often-funny, and tragic way. Turtles All the Way Down is the exact opposite of TFIOS. It’s a raw, gritty, painful, often-difficult to read, brutal look at the reality of anxiety and OCD and the thought spirals that go along with these disorders. Although the plot includes a love interest, there is nothing romantic about this book. Aza is 16, still grieving over the father who died years ago, basically has only one frien
Wild Beauty is a gorgeous book, saturated in every color imaginable with lush flowers and beautiful gardens as the backdrop to this story of the Nomeolvide daughters. The writing is fluid, imaginative, gorgeous, and seemingly effortless. For over a hundred years, the Nomeolvide girls have been living on La Pradera land, owned by the wealthy Briar family, making the land come to life with their gift of growing flowers in exchange for letting them live on the land. They make these flowers grow from their own hands. But this gift comes with a price. For generations, the woman of this family suffers love. The men and women they love never stay- some die, some disappear, and some just leave. When
The horror genre for teens is a bit lacking. I constantly recommend the Rot and Ruin series, Anna Dressed in Blood, the Monstrumologist series, Ten by Gretchen McNeil, and Sweet by Emmy Laybourne, but after readers get through those, I’m pretty much out of excellent YA Horror. When I found out the favorite YA romance author, Stephanie Perkins, was writing a horror novel, I was intrigued and cautiously optimistic. I am thrilled to report that I was not disappointed. One year ago, Makani’s parents forced her to leave her beautiful Hawaiian home and move in with her grandmother in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska. They say it was because of their bitter divorce, but Makani knows it was reall
Flynn’s life is about to change and not necessarily in a good way. He’s had a bit of a week, realizing that he probably is gay and therefore, not attracted to his girlfriend, January. Not that it matters since she broke up with him a few weeks ago and he hasn’t heard from her since then. The last time Flynn saw her was at the barn on her new stepfather's estate. Now, coming home for the night, he is greeted by the police asking if he knows where January is. She didn’t come home the night before and might be missing. Knowing January has a flair for the dramatic, Flynn thinks maybe she just ran away. She hates her new life- the elite private school she switched to, the dinner parties where sh
“Super hero icons meet megastar authors” is the tagline from the publishers of a new set of YA novels and Leigh Bardugo, of Six of Crows and Grisha fame, has the honor of being the first one published. Any self-respecting underoos wearing adult, as a child, of course, has fallen under the spell of the blockbuster movie of the same title, Wonder Woman. Bardugo allays any fear of needing to see the movie before reading her book, but I was glad I did just the same. Any background information I can get before diving into a new world can never hurt. Diana is just like any other normal teenager living under the microscopic view of her mother, seeming never to be quite good enough to gain her ev
