Tag Archives: young adult
Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats by Cylita Guy
Read April 2022 Recommended for junior high libraries ★ ★ ★ Stellar, top notch idea that seems less than expertly executed to this adult reader. Written by Cylita Guy, illustrated by Cornelia Li, and apparently assembled by committee, Chasing Bats … Continue reading
Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stiefvater
Read April 2022 Recommended for magical animal-lovers ★ ★ ★ ★ In kindergarten, I wanted to be a veternarian. So I have some empathy for Pip, the main character in a series by Pearce and Stiefvater, who is fascinated … Continue reading
Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
Read March 2022 Recommended ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Continuing my streak in above-average teen-adult books, I’m going to have to relax my genre prejudices. Really, I shouldn’t have them; I grew up female, after all, and found a great … Continue reading
Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
Recommended for fans of gentle YA fantasy Read October 2021 ★ ★ 1/2 I grew up reading Brooks’ Shannara series, soon followed by Eddings’ Belgarion. The format is always the same, likely all based on Tolkien or Jung or someone; … Continue reading
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Recommended for: fans YA UF, Pride reads Read in August 2021 ★ ★ ★ Oh, I knew what I was getting into. You should too. Cemetery Boys is definitely young adult, young teenage level with angst on the level … Continue reading
European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss
Read June 2021★ ★ 1/2 To be blunt, this was a chore. Though the premise was intriguing–the female children of some of book-history’s most villainous men come together as a Society–the execution made it an exercise in perseverance. But that … Continue reading
Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow
Read March 2021 Recommended for ★ 1/2 I stalled. Why? Because it contains one trope I hate,¹ a character type I dislike,² and a plot choice I dislike³ with what is looking to be a fairly predictable story that’s lingering in the … Continue reading
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
A really fabulous idea, lots of potential but awkward execution. For a book that is ostensibly about Tavia, a young woman recently relocated from LA to Portland, and her bestie, Effie, there’s an awful lot here that has nothing to … Continue reading
Three Times Lucky by Shiela Turnage
Read December 2020 Recommended for fans of plucky young detectives ★ ★ ★ ★ Occasionally I dip my toe into the waters of middle-grade fiction, hoping for that playful feeling of reading The Size of the Truth … Continue reading
The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani
Read September 2020 Recommended for seriously hetronorms ★ No one knows a girls’ friendship like a guy, amIrite? Just kidding, totally sexist of me, just like this entire hetronormative mess of a Hogwarts derivative with more contradictory messaging … Continue reading
book reviews forevermore 