House of Salt and Sorrows was incredibly hyped pre-publication. While I’m hesitant to get too excited for a book nowadays, I was looking forward to this one. This had all the makings of the twisted tales I like, but there […]
What an infuriating book. I liked it a lot. This was my first Moira Fowley-Doyle novel and if this is the type of story she promises, I have to read her previous works immediately. All the Bad Apples manages to […]
There Will Come a Darkness was one of my past Can’t Wait Wednesday picks; when I saw the publisher was giving away ARCs at Comic-Con, I was all over it. I haven’t seen anything like the plot before: it’s end […]
Spin the Dawn feels like a dream come true. With the surge of diverse books, it still makes my heart soar when I see a book with an Asian main character. It also helps that Spin the Dawn is a […]
Don’t let the pastel colored cover fool you. The Kingdom is a dark, twisted look at several things: human perception of what makes something real or not, abuse of power, and making fantasy reality. This is Ana’s world. ***Minor Spoilers […]
Wilder Girls is a quiet book, until it’s not. Part horror story, part mystery, this is a look at what happens when an island boarding school is affected by the “Tox,” an unknown illness or force that makes the Raxter […]
I was swept up with Margaret Rogerson’s debut novel back in 2016, so I was desperate for her next book. It was worth the wait. She has stepped up her game with this book, my first five star review of […]
I’ve been gushing about this book for months but I never reviewed it here, so let’s fix that. I had no interest in reading The Diviners series. Then my YA book club chose this for our February title. Cut to me […]
Stepsister is marketed as a feminist revision of Cinderella, with the incredible tagline of, “Don’t just fracture the fairy tale. Shatter it.” And it does. Delightfully. Ella is always seen as the beautiful, kind kitchen girl with mice for friends […]
The first time I read this book, it was just the third draft and I was merely a beta reader. But even then I loved it to pieces. Sam, Avery, Moxie, Jeremy, Jack, Mr De Lainey,… every single character had […]
There will never be enough retellings of Beauty and the Beast for me. When I saw Brigid Kemmerer, author of Letters to the Lost and More Than We Can Tell, was writing a retelling of it, I was on board. […]
Roshani Chokshi’s books are all exquisitely written, offering worlds not often explored. The Gilded Wolves was one of my most-anticipated reads of 2019. It’s a romp through 1800s Paris featuring a diverse cast of characters. There’s hijinks, schemes, snark, and […]
I wasn’t very familiar with Baba Yaga, the witch of Russian folklore who lives in a house that walks on chicken feet, has iron teeth, and a kinship with wild, independent girls. After meeting her in the Winternight trilogy, I […]
I’ve been waiting for this book since Siege and Storm. From the moment Nikolai Lantsov graced the page with his wit and swagger, I was in love and desperate for the continuation of his story. While King of Scars expands on […]
What a surprise The Astonishing Color of After was. It’s a beautiful look at family, mental health, identity, love, and forgiveness. I’m glad I read this book when I did; it’s stayed on my mind since I turned the last page. […]
A Very Large Expanse of Sea spoke to me. This is a very personal story; Mafi says this is inspired by her own adolescence. There are times when it gets more “tell and no show” to make up for time, which is […]
Dear Holly Black, I adored The Cruel Prince, so I was on pins and needles for The Wicked King. You deliver dark, twisty fairy tales featuring morally ambiguous characters I can’t help but like. You prove there’s no second-in-a-series slump here. […]
I admire this new wave of unapologetic YA. Strange Grace is the latest addition to the trend, presenting the paranormal while also pushing at and addressing issues of gender. The book is presented in what I think of as a […]