Category Archives: Read This

Read This!: PHANTOM LIMBS by Paula Garner

Read This, Reviews,

Phantom LimbsPhantom Limbs by Paula Garner

Summary: Otis and Meg were inseparable until her family abruptly moved away after the terrible accident that left Otis’s little brother dead and both of their families changed forever. Since then, it’s been three years of radio silence, during which time Otis has become the unlikely protégé of eighteen-year-old Dara—part drill sergeant, part friend—who’s hell-bent on transforming Otis into the Olympic swimmer she can no longer be. But when Otis learns that Meg is coming back to town, he must face some difficult truths about the girl he’s never forgotten and the brother he’s never stopped grieving. As it becomes achingly clear that he and Meg are not the same people they were, Otis must decide what to hold on to and what to leave behind. Quietly affecting, this compulsively readable debut novel captures all the confusion, heartbreak, and fragile hope of three teens struggling to accept profound absences in their lives.

How do you bear the unbearable? That’s the question that plagues the characters in this sensitive, searing novel, as they all grapple with huge losses. Otis, the narrator, lost his little brother in a tragic accident, only to lose Meg, his best friend and first love, not long after. Only when Meg returns four years later does he begin to see how much Meg had suffered too, and how blind his own grief made him to hers. Fortunately, Otis has his smart-mouthed and prickly swimming mentor/best friend Dara, herself suffering literal phantom pains from the loss of her arm, to keep him grounded. Part sweet romance, part coming of age story, this is an immersive tale of redemption and emotional survival.

PHANTOM LIMBS is out now.

View all my reviews

Read This!: LAST SEEN LEAVING by Caleb Roehrig

Read This, Reviews,

Last Seen LeavingLast Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig

Summary: Flynn’s girlfriend has disappeared. How can he uncover her secrets without revealing his own? Flynn’s girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking questions he can’t answer, and her friends are telling stories that don’t add up. All eyes are on Flynn—as January’s boyfriend, he must know something. But Flynn has a secret of his own. And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January’s disappearance, he must also face the truth about himself.

This is a thrilling page-turner of a mystery, and the question of what happened to January McConville is only part of it. As Flynn pokes into the parts of her life that January kept from him – her new school, the troubles in her family, the workplace she never let him visit – the discovery of the conflicting realities she has constructed in different parts of her life make him question his own understanding of her. Flynn is a likeable and conflicted protagonist, and uncovering the truths about January also forces him to confront his own long-held secret. Where this thriller really shines is in the romance between Flynn and Kaz, simultaneously tentative due to the extreme circumstances under which they meet and made braver because of them. What could have been lurid sensationalism, given the genre, becomes a sensitive story of a young man struggling to live authentically.

LAST SEEN LEAVING is out now.

View all my reviews

Read This!: GIRLS IN THE MOON by Janet McNally

Read This, Reviews,

Girls in the MoonGirls in the Moon by Janet McNally

Summary: Everyone in Phoebe Ferris’s life tells a different version of the truth. Her mother, Meg, ex–rock star and professional question evader, shares only the end of the story—the post-fame calm that Phoebe’s always known. Her sister, Luna, indie-rock darling of Brooklyn, preaches a stormy truth of her own making, selectively ignoring the facts she doesn’t like. And her father, Kieran, the cofounder of Meg’s beloved band, hasn’t said anything at all since he stopped calling three years ago. But Phoebe, a budding poet in search of an identity to call her own, is tired of half-truths and vague explanations. When she visits Luna in New York, she’s determined to find out how she fits in to this family of storytellers, and to maybe even continue her own tale—the one with the musician boy she’s been secretly writing for months. Told in alternating chapters, Phoebe’s first adventure flows as the story of Meg and Kieran’s romance ebbs, leaving behind only a time-worn, precious pearl of truth about her family’s past—and leaving Phoebe to take a leap into her own unknown future.

On the surface this is the story of Phoebe’s trip to New York to visit her sister Luna, who has just dropped out of college to tour with her band. The shadow of their parents’ past looms large, as Luna seems to be making the same choices as her mother at every turn, even as she resents the musician father who walked out on them. But as Phoebe confronts her sister and the secrets she has kept, she also comes to learn truths about her parents and their past, and gains the clarity to make her own choices, despite her fear of repeating their mistakes. As Phoebe comes to understand emotional truths about her parents’ relationship, it is fitting that her mother’s story unfolds in reverse between the chapters of Phoebe’s story, taking us a little further back in time with each appearance, until we see her mother where Phoebe is now, a young woman choosing between fear and hope. A compelling and lyrical exploration of female relationships and choices.

GIRLS IN THE MOON is out now.

View all my reviews

Read This!: DISENCHANTED: THE TRIALS OF CINDERELLA by Megan Morrison

Read This, Reviews,

Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella (Tyme, #2)Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella by Megan Morrison

Summary: Ella Coach has one wish: revolution. Her mother died working in a sweatshop, and Ella wants every laborer in the Blue Kingdom to receive fairer treatment. But to make that happen, she’ll need some high-level support . . .

Prince Dash Charming has one wish: evolution. The Charming Curse forced generations of Charming men to lie, cheat, and break hearts — but with the witch Envearia’s death, the curse has ended. Now Dash wants to be a better person, but he doesn’t know where to start . . .

Serge can grant any wish — and has: As an executive fairy godfather, he’s catered to the wildest whims of spoiled teenagers from the richest, most entitled families in Blue. But now a new name has come up on his list, someone nobody’s ever heard of . . . Ella Coach.

I just love this book. I read an early version of it, and that was incredible, but now I have just read the final version and I am even more blown away. This is one of those books that I just want to shove at people and say, “READ IT and you’ll understand!”, but I will try to be coherent here in explaining why.

The land of Tyme is the most fully-fleshed out setting I have ever read in a fairy tale retelling. Seriously, there is so much going at every level, large and small, and all of it adds up to a place that feel more real than most stories set in the real world. Then there are the characters: Ella is smart and fierce and determined and funny and flawed – a heroine at once relatable and aspirational. We should all strive to be as awesome as Ella. Watching Prince Dash Charming stumble through the aftermath of the broken curse – and the uncomfortable realization of his own privilege – is at once painful and inspiring. And he and Ella together are just lovely. There are also tons of other incredibly well developed female characters in the story: Sharlyn, the prickly stepmother who shows herself to be one of Ella’s staunchest defenders; Queen Maud, whose moral compass holds more sway over her husband and son than she knows; Jules, the fairy with ulterior motives; and Lady Lariat Jacquard, a villain on par with Dolores Umbridge for pure bile.

Morrison is not afraid to take on big topics from the real world and present them in a way that makes sense to young readers. No one can come away from this story without a deeper understanding of privilege, economic systems, and the importance of fair labor regulations. Morrison takes the central themes of the Cinderella story – rags-to-riches, deceiving appearances – and spins them out into a tale about examining what lies beneath our assumptions about others and developing empathy. And how did I get so far without mentioning Serge and Jasper? The additional layers of story created by Serge’s burgeoning realization that cause to which he has dedicated his life has been corrupted, and by his relationship with Jasper, take this far beyond a typical fairy tale retelling. No series has combined whimsy with compelling issues from the real world as seamlessly as this since Harry Potter.

DISENCHANTED: THE TRIALS OF CINDERELLA is out now.

View all my reviews

Read This!: THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE by Heidi Heilig

Read This, Reviews,

The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere, #1)The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Summary: Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination. As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix. But the end to it all looms closer every day. Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence. For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters. She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love. Or she could disappear.

Oh, this book! It’s definitely one of my favorites of 2016. This is exactly the kind of thinking person’s fantasy that I love best. It’s strange that it took me so long to get to it; I’d been looking forward to it so much that I preordered it in 2015, but then my copy got buried under a pile of library books and borrowed Advanced Reading Copies with due dates. I suppose I could have squeezed it in sooner and rushed through it, but I am so glad I didn’t. This is a book to savor, a world to dive into and hang out in, and even though I wanted to find out what happened next, I didn’t want to leave the spell of the Temptation and her inhabitants. Every character feels like a friend, revealed in all their flawed yet compelling glory. My favorites were Kashmir, who is so much more than just the charming thief he appears on the surface, and Nix herself, whose strength goes far beyond the usual fantasy heroine tropes. This story will stay with me for a long time. And the best part about having waited so long to read this? I won’t have to wait very long for the sequel!

THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE is out now.

View all my reviews