I loved this book, and I think it’s mostly been missed. I am fairly sure it hasn’t been reviewed on any other blog, and I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere.  It’s one of those quiet little books that often slips through the cracks – just the kind of book that an independent bookseller will [...]

When I got this ARC I figured from the cover that it was middle-grade. Nope, teen, according to the age range listed on the cover. When I finished the book, I REALLY wished it was middle-grade (no adult content and the cover really doesn’t have teen appeal). I expressed this wish to the author, who [...]

Don’t do what I did. Don’t read this and WINTERGIRLS back to back. The heart isn’t meant to take so much. There’s only so much room inside your brain and your heart to hurt with these characters, and both of these books – well, they make you hurt. Not in a bad way, you [...]

Savannah’s finally met the guy of her dreams, but it seems like the world is conspiring against them. Savannah’s asthma has her in and out of the hospital, and her mother’s refusal to tell her bosses about it has their family in and out of poverty. Jackson’s father died, and his mother expects him to [...]

One of the best things about Rick Riordan’s PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS series being such a massive hit (beyond the fact that they’re just great books) is that now there are lots of other Greek mythology-based books, too. I enjoyed last year’s THE NIGHT TOURIST, based on the Orpheus myth – the story of [...]

This is very much like Trixie Belden meets THE WESTING GAME. I should also tell you up front that this book is full of math and I HATE math and I enjoyed this book tremendously. I even read the math parts. In fact, it could have been mathier (tm Joss Whedon) and I don’t think [...]

Two things kept running through my head while I was reading this.
1. This is what it must be like to be inside a teenage boy’s head.
2. Teenage boys are jackasses. Hilarious, predictable, often meaning well but totally failing jackasses.
Will Carter is 14 and entering his freshman year of high school, and he is totally desperate [...]

(I’m reading spring books now for my old bookstore, so a lot of the upcoming entries will be for books that aren’t coming out for a looooooooong while.)
12 year old Libby Ryan comes from beef stock – her family owns a cattle farm in Nowhere, Indiana, breeding and raising cows for the beef market. Libby’s [...]