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A Izenson lives in a world where transgender youth are an unwelcome anomaly. Although assigned female at birth, fourteen-year-old A is nonbinary. Because his parents think he is gender confused, they force him to attend Save our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD) meetings, where a type of conversion therapy takes place through counseling for “temporary emotional issues.”  A’s parents not only want their daughter back, they want to see legislation passed to prevent estrogen or testosterone treatments that might support youth who wish to transition during puberty and to put an end to “this transgender craze.” At SOSAD, he meets Yarrow, an agender teen who doesn’tRead More →

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S.K. Ali writes a powerful story with her science fiction fantasy Fledgling. Told in eleven parts, this first book in a promised duology is about colonization, oppression, rebellions, and politics. However, it isn’t didactic, as Ali entices readers by sharing just enough to lure them in as they form their own opinions about pervasive attempts to manipulate minds with propaganda and as they form attachments to intriguing characters. Thematically, Ali develops ideas similar to George Orwell’s Thought Police and Aldous Huxley’s class system and lab-controlled intelligence while weaving in tropes from M.T. Anderson’s Feed to reveal how thinking threatens those in power and how technologyRead More →

Cover for book Heir

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Fans of Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series will love this spinoff duology. Full of all the elements which Tahir’s fans are used to (stunning prose, enthralling mythology, and deeply relatable characters) this book easily grabs the readers’ attention and holds on to it. Set 20 years after the conclusion of the Ember series, this novel follows Quil (the baby Ember fans saw born in that quartet) now as a grown man ready to take the throne of the Martial Empire. A series of events force Quil and his best friends Arelia and Sufiyan (another descendant of characters from the last series) to travelRead More →

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A.A. Vora has written a clever and creative allegory with her novel Spin of Fate. Vora bases her fantasy on Indian philosophy and lore, including a glossary “Of Language and Nomenclature” to assist readers. She also tackles some relevant social topics like borders, poverty, bigotry, prejudice, and religion. In this first installment of what promises to be a series, readers meet sixteen-year-old Aina, who lives in Malin until—against all odds—she inexplicably ascends to Mayana. “Mayana is an idyllic realm, free of Malin’s monsters and violence and corruption. Free from the tyranny of Kaldrav’s reign, from being hunted by his soldiers. It is a realm protectedRead 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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Set in the early 1800s, Sail Me Away Home by Ann Clare LeZotte tells the story of Mary Elizabeth Lambert. Mary, a deaf-mute living in Chilmark, Massachusetts, travels to Paris to return with ideas for starting a school in the Americas for the non-speaking deaf population. Like a bee pollinating flowers, Mary hopes to return with methods that will enable the languages of the deaf and the speaking to converge. Born with hereditary deafness, something that was not an anomaly in Martha’s Vineyard from 1740 to the late 1800s, Mary is determined “to treat all—no matter their dress, parentage, or how many acres their familyRead More →

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Set in Melbourne, Australia, I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang features Sadie Wen and Julius Gong, two teens who are on a trajectory to future success. Having researched the highest-paying job and the most in-demand degrees, Julius plans to be a lawyer and Sadie a data analyst. Both young people attend Woodvale Academy, a selective high school for gifted students and populated predominantly by other young Asians. At Woodvale, “dreams, [like astronaut, playwright, and artist] are shattered and hobbies are traded for more stable, lucrative, practical careers” (130). Sadie has perfect grades and is the MVP in every sports team she isRead More →

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Any reader who enjoys genre bending and a good mystery will likely appreciate Artifice by Sharon Cameron. Set in Amsterdam in 1943-1946, the novel is most clearly a historical fiction piece about the Holocaust, but it’s not “just another Holocaust story.” In this account, Cameron focuses on the efforts of Resistance workers who set out to save the children. An estimated 600 Jewish toddlers and babies were saved from death in the concentration camps. It is also a story about art. Isa De Smit lives in a home that houses Gallery De Smit, a place that is “full of art and artists. Lessons in herRead More →