Cover image for the book Please Be My Star

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Please Be My Star by Victoria Grace Elliot captures the uncertainty of first love and the awkwardness of being a teenager in a beautifully illustrated graphic novel.  Erika’s status as a new student at school is awkward enough without her awareness that she is a ‘creep.’ Erika is aware that her tendency to draw cute boys she doesn’t know and to fantasize about boys that she does makes her more than a little weird. Something that is constantly being told to her by her imaginary inner self who looks like a vampiric alter ego. This alter ego is Erika’s most opinionated critic, verbalizing all ofRead More →

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Set in 1955 in Levittown, Pennsylvania, The Color of a Lie by Kim Johnson explores a tumultuous period in our country’s history. During this time when school integration was new and Jim Crow Laws were still in effect, Levitt and Sons were mass-producing homes under the guise that they were helping to create affordable housing, especially for veterans. That housing, however, was for white families only, creating a deeply discriminatory practice. After serving as a soldier in World War II, Williams Greene is determined to provide access to the American Dream for his family. He is tired of the race riots in the big city,Read More →

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Set in both New York and Pennsylvania prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stepping Off by Jordan Sonnenblick tells a story of human relationship dynamics. The novel’s primary characters are three sixteen-year-old youth who navigate issues like parental death, divorce, and friendship challenges. Ava Green, Chloe Conti, and Jesse Dienstag are best friends whose parents own summer homes in Pennsylvania where the official motto of the vacation-home community is “The Real World Isn’t Real.” Tall Pines Landing provides an escape from the crowds, traffic, pollution, endless noise, and pressures of school and jobs in New York. Although she has a tendency toward a pricklyRead More →

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Set in 1994 in the United Kingdom, Boy Like Me by Simon James Green tells the story of high school junior Jamie Hampton who grew up in a time when thoughts of cuddling a same sex partner were considered a perversion. In fact, from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales, Section 28 made homosexuality a crime. At sixteen years old, Jamie is dealing with issues of identity and self-discovery. Although he wants to be unique, Jamie is a straight-A student, a writer, an organizer, and somewhat of a book nerd. Better to fly under the radar andRead More →

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Love Off the Record by Samantha Markum is a romantic comedy to rival the best beach books.  Although the book is mostly cotton candy fluff with palpable romantic tension, it gives a serious nod to all readers who have insecurities (all of us, am I right?), especially those who are weight conscious or who struggle with body image issues. Nathaniel Wellborn III (aka Three) and Éowyn Evans (aka Wyn) are freshmen at Ohio State University. Competitive adversaries, the pair share the ambition of securing the next position as a reporter for the college newspaper, Torch, on their way to someday being editor-in-chief. Preferring investigative journalismRead More →

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A novel in verse, Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle is dedicated to scientists and future scientists. It features two Cuban American youth: Leandro and Ana Tanamá, who take inspiration from Jane Goodall and other conservationists to protect the planet by rewilding. Rewilding efforts attempt to restore biodiversity. Seventeen-year-old Leandro fled Cuba at the age of seven with his family. His father drowned saving his son, so Leandro blames himself and has suffered from  uncontrollable attacks of dizzy panic ever since. His service animal, Cielo is a blue merle dog who shares her perspective intermittently in the novel. After living in Florida for a time, theRead More →

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Enrolled at Riverstone High School (RHS) in Ohio, Jasmine and Jackson Ghasnavi are the mixed race (half White, half Iranian) children of doctors. Jasmine is a senior who loves pottery, and Jackson’s passion is theatre. When their parents divorce, Jackson develops abandonment issues and Jasmine struggles to find a lasting relationship. Jackson helps his sister cope with her breakups by constructing breakup lists. At the recommendation of his therapist, Jackson also uses lists to cope with his own anxiety. These lists and teen relationship drama form the plot for Adib Khorram’s novel The Breakup Lists. As a former “theatre kid” himself, Khorram infuses his novelRead More →

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Because Where Was Goodbye? is a story about navigating grief, loss, and the search for answers about suicide, Janice Lynn Mather provides a trigger warning at the beginning of her novel. Although suicide is central to Mather’s writing, Where Was Goodbye? also indicates the importance of support systems, coping mechanisms, friendship, and unconditional love. Having an eye for color and creation, Karmen Wallace is a maker of soft things. Despite her ability to knit, her family is broken, and Karmen is struggling to make sense of the tragic loss of her brother Julian who takes his life by suicide. Although Karmen’s best friend, Layla, isRead More →

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For her debut young adult novel, former stand-up comedian Kate Weston writes Diary of a Confused Feminist to serve several purposes: to create humor, to profile the feminist adventure from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Katarina Evans (a.k.a. Kat), and to shine a light on mental health, especially for those who endure anxiety and depression. If it can be said of humor, some of the lines spoken and thoughts pondered by the novel’s protagonist seemed a bit outside the realm of normal. But Weston herself admits that normal might not exist, given that every individual varies in that regard. In any case, the focus on sex,Read More →