::tap, tap:: is this thing on?
I’m back from “vacation”; let’s see if we can get this going again.
(I read this in galley, but it came out at the end of May.)
Every once in awhile a book comes along that makes me realize that to enjoy some things, you really have to be 12 years old. [...]

I guess it was okay.
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.
.
What?
Okay, fine. I’ll write more.
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CATCHING FIRE (excluding actual plot points, because even if Scholastic hadn’t asked very, very nicely for us not to spoil the plot, I wouldn’t anyway, because the surprises in this book are so awesome that I can’t imagine ruining them for [...]

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 [...]

When Laurie Halse Anderson is at her very best, there may be no one better, and she’s at her very best in her upcoming teen novel Wintergirls. We’re back in Speak territory here – haunting, powerful, vital. I finished this book over two weeks ago and still can’t stop thinking about it. It’s killed me [...]

If I were handselling this I would say it was a cross between Avi’s Crispin series and The Ranger’s Apprentice series, which would probably have boys taking it from me without question. This would also appeal to girls who like historical fiction/fantasy type crossovers, of course.
It’s leveled for teens but I’m not entirely sure why [...]

I really liked Vivian’s previous book, A LITTLE FRIENDLY ADVICE and I think this one’s even better. 16 year old Emily’s from a well-off South Jersey family and her life is pretty much the same thing every day: school, friends, family. Ever since her best friend got a boyfriend things have been a little off [...]

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 [...]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, right now: I LOVE “nice” books. Books you can read aloud to a class or to your daughter or your niece. Books you can handsell with a huge smile to a grandmother looking for the perfect holiday book for her granddaughter or a mom looking for [...]

I do not think I know how to tell you about this book.
Honestly. Sometimes a book would come along in my bookselling life that I would absolutely love and be absolutely incapable of selling because I couldn’t describe it. Because I would open my mouth to describe it and this excited jumble of…well, crap…would come [...]

I have been trying to write this review for over a week. Man, this longer format is hard to adapt to. I’d only been reviewing books for the shop, and I need to write them more handsell type of reviews – what you would say when you hand someone the book as a purchase suggestion. [...]