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

A mixture of myths, legends, and folklore, Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef is an amazing book! A tapestry of James Herriot’s veterinarian expertise and Sherlock Holmes’ sleuthing, the book is simultaneously a fantasy and then a truth-telling narrative that reveals deeply philosophical truths. The leading lady in this drama is Marjan Dastani, an Iranian/American fifteen-year-old whose father is a veterinarian. Jamsheed Dastani, “a man of education and wisdom, a man of compassion, a man you’d trust with your pet” (12) is much more than the sum of those visible parts. This mysterious and haunted man is weighed down by secrets and a mission thatRead More →

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

With their book The Agathas, Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson present a spectacular mystery with a multitude of rich allusions to Agatha Christie. Told from the point of view of both Iris Adams and Alice Ogilvie, the novel is set in Castle Cove, California, a cozy coastal town where a person is either the served or the server and where the town seems curse with missing girls. Iris, who prefers to fly under-the-radar and has a “keep-to-myself-policy,” resents people like Alice–those who walk around like they live in a golden bubble. But after Alice stole an idea from one of her favorite mystery stories, disappearedRead More →

By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure (YA), General Book Reviews, Multicultural (YA), Mystery & Suspense (YA), Romance (YA), Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Dedicated to all readers who “stagger beneath the weight of expectations and emotions, The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley tells two parallel stories. One reveals the ambitions of the Warnou family; the other shares the reality of the Anders family. As much as this is a story about those who are born into wealth versus those who are not, it is also about the impact of power and privilege. It reveals the consequences of knowing and embracing one’s identity. Born the eldest in the royal family, Princess Elodie Warnou has been raised to be strong, calculating, and regal. Her mother taught her not only toRead More →

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

Lydia Chass is not averse to pulling strings or to cracking the patina of politeness. But such behavior is frowned upon in Henley, Ohio, where kindness is a social contract. On the path to getting out of small-town Henley and into a prestigious journalism school, Lydia has always aimed high and never made a secret of it. However, that ambition gets derailed when she learns that she doesn’t have the history credits required to graduate, an oversight that Mr. Benson, Henley High School’s Guidance Counsellor, didn’t realize because he’s overly fond of Jim Beam and pill-popping. Now, Lydia has an independent study project “of appropriateRead More →

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

Charlene Allen’s debut novel, Play the Game is one rich with riddles and layered with mystery. It tells the story of Ed Hennessey, a fifteen-year-old game designer with a brain that works like that of a scientist. A Black teenager, Ed is a lover of rebus puzzles, fart jokes, and imagined worlds. In the Ed-i-verse, Ed has created mutants and monsters to make-up for what isn’t working in his life. Sadly, he is tragically shot in the parking lot of Yard restaurant by Phillip Singer, a White huckster of stolen goods. Now, a year later, Singer has been shot, and Victor (aka VZ) Gleason’s friendRead More →

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

Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe should be required reading for any student of psychology. Set in Texas, this is a powerful book about the aftermath of a traumatic event and illustrates how the human mind is a total mystery. Roe tells the story of two years in the life of Sayers Wayte (Saye), a sixteen-year-old who turns eighteen in the course of the novel. As the story opens, Saye is basking in his status as a junior eligible for Homecoming Court at Laurel High School, as a popular young man with friends and a girlfriend, and as a member of the upper class whoseRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction (YA), Mystery & Suspense (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Written in a fashion similar to that of a fractured fairy tale, Pride and Premeditation is a tongue-in-cheek retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Although Tirzah Price employs many of the same characters and even opens with a play on Austen’s original line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a brilliant idea, conceived and executed by a clever young woman, must be claimed by a man” (1), she takes other liberties. While Price makes an effort to stay true to the etiquette and customs of the early nineteenth century, Lizzie Bennet’s ambitions to become a barrister—or even a solicitor—would have been out ofRead More →

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

An avid fan of the hunch, Natalie Temple is interested in true crime. Despite her mother’s admonition, that murder is “not entertainment,” Natalie forges her mother’s signature on the form to join East Ferry High School’s True Crime Club. She also pores over book about murderers like the Golden State Killer and the Zodiac, spends hours on true-crime message boards where she trades theories with faceless strangers, and produces a “blood-drenched” podcast called Killing Time with her best friend and technical genius, Katie Lugo. Under the influence of the club’s advisor, Mrs. Lynn Halsey, Natalie learns that the world is not “some soulless hellscape,” thatRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

With multiple allusions to film noir and with some genre blending, Katie Henry writes a humorous story—Gideon Green in Black and White—about Gideon’s serious approach to being a detective and solving mysteries. Dressing the part, sixteen-year-old Gideon wears a trench coat and a fedora and lives his life in the shadows. Using his difference to put distance between himself and others, Gideon makes his life mission one of truth-telling: “That’s a detective’s job. Telling the world what’s real, even if people don’t want to hear it” (12). For him, life is black and white and facts are facts. However, as time goes on, Gideon realizesRead More →