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In her book House of Hearts, Skyla Arndt cleverly uses naming as a form of allusion and symbolism. This strategy emerges most obviously in names like Oleander and Violet. Arndt’s most often used word, however, is splayed. And after the death of her best friend Emoree Hale, Violet Harper’s grief is the most on display. Violet has “always lived in a black-and-white word, worshipped at the altar of knowledge, and kept [her] heart in a box under lock and key” (225); her bestie was the ray of sunshine to Violet’s own Eeyore mood. Both young women are from trailer park homes, but Em wanted moreRead More →

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Written by Kate Marchant and illustrated by CJ Joaquin, Float is a humorous graphic novel about teen drama. Float’s protagonist is Waverly Lyons, who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, but is visiting her Aunt Rachel in Florida. According to Waverly, Aunt Rachel is a “weird, colorful, not super put together . . . but charming” artist (15). Waverly, who considers herself “bad at most things,” describes herself as “the anxious offspring of two brilliant scientists who could never agree on anything” (13). Eventually, her parents divorce, and for the past ten years, Waverly has felt like deadweight being tossed between the two. Florida might just provideRead More →

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Molly X. Chang’s The Nightblood Prince features a royal love triangle complicated by a prophecy and politics. Set in a world inspired by ancient China and predicating a sequel, the novel explores gender roles, the reasons for war, and the process of identity formation.   Now seventeen, Fei Lifeng is destined to be the future Empress of Rong. Betrothed to Siwang and feeling like nothing more than a pawn in a quest for power, she hungers for choice, control, and freedom. Fei hopes that if she can kill a Beiying tiger during the season’s first imperial hunt, the emperor will be obligated to grant herRead More →

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Written in verse, Under the Neon Lights is Arriel Vinson’s debut young adult novel. Set in a suburb of Indianapolis, the story follows Jaelyn Coleman, her bestie Noelle, and a new boy in town: Trey. Central to the plot is the WestSide Roll skating rink, a place to “shake sorrows loose.” But as the neighborhood changes and Mr. Mike ages, he decides to retire and sell the rink. Although sad about giving up “his baby, a place to get the community together, get young folk off the street [and] old folks out [of] a funk” (71), Mr. Mike accepts that change is inevitable. Sixteen-year-old JaelynRead More →

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Ann Liang writes an intriguing, genre-blending novel in Never Thought I’d End Up Here. Part romantic-comedy, part realistic fiction, and part self-help, this novel addresses multiple teen issues. These include topics such as self-acceptance, coming-of-age, and the power of choice. It also bumps up against matters of cultural diversity. Seventeen-year-old Leah Zhang has lived in Los Angeles all her life, and while she knows a small amount about her Chinese roots and a few words of Mandarin, she feels no need for greater cultural immersion until she embarrasses herself at her cousin’s wedding. After Leah mixes up the Mandarin blessing she attempts to deliver toRead More →

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Shea Ernshaw pursues the fairly typical topic of love in her recent novel The Beautiful Maddening, but she does so with an unusual approach. To ask her questions about the strange and beautiful paradox of love, she creates the Goode family. Odd and unordinary, the Goodes are best avoided since they can supposedly bewitch someone into loving them with their magical tulips, which are “responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened in the [Goode] family” (26). Seventeen-year-old Archer is self-assured and lives loudly. His twin sister Lark prefers the shade of invisibility. A talented sketch artist who also believes that “music drowns outRead More →

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Sabina Khan writes her novel Meet Me in Mumbai in two parts. Part I focuses on the life of Ayesha Hameed, a Muslim teen from India who is finishing high school in the United States so as to maximize her future potential. Here, she meets Suresh Khanna, a Hindu teen also from Mubai who is an exotic stranger but who totally “gets her.” As fellow Mubaiites, the pair share common rituals, foods, and similar backstories. Eventually, they fall in love, and after a glorious weekend together over the Thanksgiving holiday, Ayesha discovers she is pregnant. All of Ayesha’s lies and subterfuge have turned her intoRead More →

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Mikki Daughtry explores a philosophical question in her novel Time After Time. As she weaves two stories: that of Elizabeth Post and Patricia Murphy from 1925 and that of Libby Monroe and Tish O’Connell in the present, she asks: Is every life a cycle with no real end, where “time after time,” we come back reincarnated to try again, “to grow, evolve, get new chances . . . to do things better. To do things right” (246)? Daughtry takes readers on her wondering spree, which begins in the past but threads into the present. A Victorian style house on Mulberry Lane is the lynch pinRead More →

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The Education of Kia Greer by Alanna Bennett is a story of agency and identity. Although some readers will not be able to relate to Kia’s privilege, fame, and socioeconomic status, they will still be able to relate to the issues of power, pressure, desire for belonging, and search for identity that Kia endures. Bennett’s novel is also a love story, but under the influence of Bennett’s pen, we realize that love isn’t always enough. Although the people we encounter throughout life can transform us, as well as encourage and support us, ultimately, we have to dive headfirst into the life that’s meant for usRead More →