By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure (YA), Mystery & Suspense (YA), On the Edge, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

When people drive by an accident, or a house fire, or some other horror that routinely befalls our fellow human beings, we’re compelled to look. To stare. To seek out signs of lost normalcy, the life that was, the people as they were “before.”  It’s an uncontrollable urge to peer in, despite the fact that we’re aware of the suffering and pain wrapped up in the debris.  Andrew Smith‘s The Marbury Lens is one of those horrors that you can’t look away from, no matter how much you want to, no matter how gruesome the detail, no matter the pain twisting in your gut asRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

The bond between brothers is at the heart of Michael Harmon‘s latest, Under the Bridge.  Tate’s younger brother, Indy, is probably the best skateboarder in Spokane.  The guys in the crew, Indy, Tate, Pipe and Sid, are tight like brothers and they live to ride.  Their neighborhood is on the fringe of the seedy underbelly of the city where drugs and crime are rampant and murder happens almost every day, and just last year they lost one of their own to an overdose.  Tate’s the crew’s unofficial leader and he feels an obligation to protect his brothers as much as he can.  And its notRead More →

By:
On:
In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), On the Edge, Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

The voices in Ry Burke’s head have been quiet for nearly nine years following the trauma he suffered in the Black Glade forest which grows beside his family’s farm. During this time, he and his family has been able to return to a resemblance of normalcy, escaping Marvin Burke, the abusive father Ry helped to put in prison. But, with the oncoming of a meteor shower, Ry hears the voices of his “friends” rising to the surface again just as his family is informed of an explosion at the nearby prison. As the meteors begin to fall and the threat of Marvin’s return looms, theRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

This book is not for the fainthearted.  It’s also not for people who get frustrated by what is either poor structure and editing or a purposeful writing strategy that is at best confusing and at worst, amateur.  I figured from the beginning I was in for a rough emotional ride, but from someone as accomplished as Joyce Carol Oates, I had expected a finer hand at what could have been a powerful, if not entirely original, story. Tink d**d in the spring of junior year, and pretty much everyone is convinced she k****d herself, but no one knows for sure.  Her closest friends, the girls whoRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

I know when a book is good because it’s full of check-marks, underlining and dog-eared pages.  And the latest from one of my favorite authors, A.S. King, Ask the Passengers, has 14 page corners that I turned down and boatloads of check-marks and underlining throughout.  It’s full of funny quips, true-to-life sarcasm, poignant revelations, and emotional truths that kicked me in the gut. With an emotionally vacant set of parents (workaholic rarely-leaves-the-house mother and a pot-smoking dad), a younger sister who is a mystery to her, friends who have a secret life Astrid has sworn to protect, a rampant small-town rumor mill, and secret yearningsRead More →

By:
On:
In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), On the Edge, Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

I don’t think it matters who you are or where you come from, no one wants to turn into their parents.  But for Jasper “Jazz” Dent, the 17 year old protagonist in Barry Lyga‘s I Hunt Killers, the stakes are a lot higher than for most of us: his dad, Billy Dent, is the nation’s most notorious serial killer.  And Billy took great care to “train” his son to follow in his footsteps, from meticiously describing his murders, to teaching Jazz the fine art of conning his prospects, and ultimately bringing him along on his killing sprees.  Jazz is haunted by nightmares of Billy’s trophies,Read More →

By:
On:
In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), On the Edge, Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 1 Comment

Penelope “Lo” Marin isn’t the kind of girl who makes friends easily; her family has moved almost every year she’s been in school, having stayed in Cleveland for almost 2 years is a remarkable occurrence; she’s socially awkward, shy, and nervous; she has obsessive-compulsive disorder that she tries desperately to hide; and since her beloved brother, Oren’s, death last year, she’s fallen into a pit of near-madness and despair.  Isolated within her family – her dad has become a work-aholic, and her mom never gets out of bed – Lo has taken to riding the Cleveland transit system, getting off at random spots and wandering. Read More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

From the moment it started, Min and Ed’s romance was doomed to failure. For six brief weeks their relationship was intense, all consuming, and fated to burn bright, hot, and fast.  When the co-captain of the basketball team, notorious playboy, and school’s hottest guy and a quirky, “arty”, cinema-hound girl collide one night at a Bittersweet 16 party for Min’s best friend Al, the gravitational pull overwhelms them but it also creates a black hole from which Min, at least, can’t escape.   Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up explores the idea of opposites attracting, the tug of war between their disparate worlds, and the casualties that result from twoRead More →

By:
On:
In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

This was a tough one. Catherine Atkins’ The File on Angelyn Starkis gritty, intense, and unsettling. Its deceptively simple, succinct prose, short chapters, and sparse dialogue make it a quick read, but that comes at a price; this is a chilling story of a teen girl who is scarred by the sexual abuse she suffered at hands of her stepfather.  Being swept up in the train wreck that is Angelyn’s life is not really someplace that I enjoyed being, and I could hardly imagine living it day to day.  Angelyn’s boyfriend always wants to go further than she does; sometimes its easier to give in than toRead More →