Category Archives: Read This

Read This!: SOUTH OF SUNSHINE by Dana Elmendorf

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South of SunshineSouth of Sunshine by Dana Elmendorf

Summary: In Sunshine, Tennessee, the main event in town is Friday night football, the biggest party of the year is held in a field filled with pickup trucks, and church attendance is mandatory. For Kaycee Jean McCoy, life in Sunshine means dating guys she has no interest in, saying only “yes, ma’am” when the local bigots gossip at her mom’s cosmetics salon, and avoiding certain girls at all costs. Girls like Bren Dawson. Unlike Kaycee, Bren doesn’t really conceal who she is. But as the cool, worldly new girl, nobody at school seems to give her any trouble. Maybe there’s no harm if Kaycee gets closer to her too, as long as she can keep that part of her life a secret, especially from her family and her best friend. But the more serious things get with Bren, the harder it is to hide from everyone else. Kaycee knows Sunshine has a darker side for people like her, and she’s risking everything for the chance to truly be herself

Kaycee is such a likeable, relatable, realistic character. She wants to survive high school in a small Southern town, she wants to keep her friends and her place as a relatively popular senior…but when the new girl, Bren, starts flirting with her, she can no longer deny that what she wants more than anything is to finally, unashamedly, be herself. Elmendorf populates Sunshine, Tennessee with an intriguing variety of folks of all stripes – far beyond the usual stereotypes – from the eccentric newspaper editor who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement, to the homophobic jock out to sabotage anyone different from himself, to an array of characters willing to step out of their comfort zones to support Kaycee once her secret is out. My favorite character is Van, Kaycee’s best male friend, who despite his flamboyant style and lectures about being proud of who you are, gets by with his Johnny Depp obsession and secret boyfriends by carefully staying within the lines the small town creates for him. Kaycee’s determination to not only live her life out loud, but to make it easier for other gay teens to do so, shines through. Readers will be pulling not only for Kaycee to come through her struggles and find herself, but also for Kaycee and Bren’s sizzling romance.

SOUTH OF SUNSHINE is out now.

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Read This!: DIG TOO DEEP by Amy Allgeyer

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Dig Too DeepDig Too Deep by Amy Allgeyer

Summary: With her mother facing prison time for a violent political protest, seventeen-year-old Liberty Briscoe has no choice but to leave her Washington, DC, apartment and take a bus to Ebbottsville, Kentucky, to live with her granny. There she can finish high school and put some distance between herself and her mother– her ‘former’ mother, as she calls her. But Ebbottsville isn’t the same as Liberty remembers, and it’s not just because the top of Tanner’s Peak has been blown away to mine for coal. Half the county is out of work, an awful lot of people in town seem to be sick, and the tap water is bright orange–the same water that officials claim is safe to drink. When Granny’s lingering cold turns out to be something much worse, Liberty is convinced the mine is to blame, and starts an investigation that quickly plunges her into a world of secrets, lies, threats, and danger. Liberty isn’t deterred by any of it, but as all her searches turn into dead ends, she comes to a difficult decision: turn to violence like her former mother or give up her quest for good.

This is the story of Liberty, a teenage girl sent off to live with her grandmother in rural Kentucky while her activist mother faces criminal charges for a protest gone wrong. Two idioms come to mind when I think about Liberty’s story:

1) Fish out of water: That’s what this girl, far from her Washington DC prep school, is. Liberty doesn’t look down on her new home; on the contrary, she loves the mountain and her grandmother and just wants to find a place, as far away from her neglectful mother as she can. But finding acceptance is complicated by the fact that…

2) The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Much as she rails against her mother’s focus on causes instead of her daughter, Liberty shares that stubborn resistance to injustice and willingness to stand up for what she believes in. So when it becomes clear that her grandmother and many other residents are being poisoned by runoff from the local Mountaintop Removal Mining facility, Liberty is determined to do something. With the whole town scared to go up against the wealthy mine owner for fear of losing their jobs or even their lives, Liberty faces an uphill battle.

This book will stay with me for a long time. Liberty is such a believable, passionate character, and the descriptions of her experiences in Appalachia are absolutely visceral. The forces she was up against were so great, I wasn’t sure a satisfying ending was going to be possible. How could she hold to her nonviolent principles when she was literally going up against a murderer? But she cleverly finds a way, and, like most struggles against injustice, it is not complete, but it’s a step in the right direction.

DIG TOO DEEP is out now.

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Read This!: THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE OF THE PB&J SOCIETY by Janet Sumner Johnson

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The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J SocietyThe Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society by Janet Sumner Johnson

Summary: Some things are better together. Like peanut butter and jelly. Or Annie and Jason. So when her best friend’s house is threatened with foreclosure, Annie Jenkins is bursting with ideas to save Jason’s home. She could sell her appendix on eBay. (Why not?) Win the lottery. (It’s worth a shot!). Face the evil bankers herself. (She’s one tough cookie, after all.) Or hunt down an elusive (and questionably real) pirate treasure. Whatever the plan, it has to work, or this is undoubtedly THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE OF THE PB&J SOCIETY.

Ten-year-old Annie is big-hearted and impulsive, so it’s a good thing she’s got her best friend Jason to keep her grounded – he’s the peanut butter to her jelly. When Jason’s father loses his job and his family’s house is threatened with foreclosure, Annie knows she has to do something to help. A series of wacky plans ranging from the ridiculous (“win a radio contest”) to the surprising successful (organizing a neighborhood-wide anonymous food donation program) ensue, but through it all Annie and Jason find themselves up against the unwelcome idea that change in their lives is inevitable. One such change is the newly friendly attitude of their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Schuster, who regales them with tales of unlikely pirate treasure buried in their Utah neighborhood. From the hilariously funny opening, where Annie and Jason perform a ritual burial of a smushed PB&J, to the bittersweet, hopeful ending, this winning tale will have you rooting for these two loyal, likable protagonists and their deep friendship.

THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE OF THE PB&J SOCIETY is out now.

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Read This!: BEYOND THE RED by Ava Jae

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Beyond the RedBeyond the Red by Ava Jae

Summary: Alien queen Kora has a problem as vast as the endless crimson deserts. She’s the first female ruler of her territory in generations, but her people are rioting and call for her violent younger twin brother to take the throne. Despite assassination attempts, a mounting uprising of nomadic human rebels, and pressure to find a mate to help her rule, she’s determined to protect her people from her brother’s would-be tyrannical rule. Eros is a rebel soldier hated by aliens and human alike for being a half-blood. Yet that doesn’t stop him from defending his people, at least until Kora’s soldiers raze his camp and take him captive. He’s given an ultimatum: be an enslaved bodyguard to Kora, or be executed for his true identity—a secret kept even from him. When Kora and Eros are framed for the attempted assassination of her betrothed, they flee. Their only chance of survival is to turn themselves in to the high court, where revealing Eros’s secret could mean a swift public execution. But when they uncover a violent plot to end the human insurgency, they must find a way to work together to prevent genocide.

In science fiction stories, we often see tales of aliens invading Earth. But what if the humans attempted to invade another planet? And what if they failed? Ava Jae offers a tale set generations later, on a world where the humans left behind are either enslaved or living as nomadic rebels. This book has my favorite opening scene I have read in some time. Ava Jae is a master of worldbuilding through action and dialogue, and the plot was thrilling and delightfully unpredictable. I was immediately taken with Eros, the half-blood rebel who becomes a slave, and Kora, the teenage queen he comes to serve. Their alternating voices are compelling, pulling the story along and creating a nuanced picture of the conflict from both sides. Eros is both the last person Kora can trust, and the only person she can. The forbidden attraction between them practically smokes off the pages. Be warned: there is a short period of glorious kissing. And then there isn’t. And you will want there to be. Long story short: I want the next book in the series, like, yesterday.

BEYOND THE RED is out now.
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Read This!: SEVEN WAYS WE LIE by Riley Redgate

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Seven Ways We LieSeven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate

Summary: Paloma High School is ordinary by anyone’s standards. It’s got the same cliques, the same prejudices, the same suspect cafeteria food. And like every high school, every student has something to hide—whether it’s Kat, the thespian who conceals her trust issues onstage; or Valentine, the neurotic genius who’s planted the seed of a school scandal. When that scandal bubbles over, and rumors of a teacher-student affair surface, everyone starts hunting for someone to blame. For the unlikely allies at the heart of it all, the collision of their seven ordinary-seeming lives results in extraordinary change.

Seven teens. Seven flaws. One secret that binds them together and pulls them apart.
I loved the variety of voices in this book: Olivia, the girl called a “slut” for being unapologetically sexual; her distant, angry sister Kat; her best friend Juniper, who seems to have it all together but is falling apart inside; her other best friend Claire, who wears her insecurities and grudges like armor; Matt, the stoner who finally finds something worth giving a damn about; Lucas, the golden-boy swimmer hiding his pansexuality in their small Kansas town; Valentine, the Sheldon Cooper-like misanthrope that Lucas can’t get enough of. My favorite character was Valentine; despite the fact that he flat-out admits that he finds most people boring and distasteful, his morality guides everything he does. When he learns that a teacher and student at the school are involved in a relationship, he reports it anonymously. But when he figures out who the student is, he is determined to confront her and get the facts before he does undue damage, and when her secret gets out to the others, he convinces them to consider all the consequences before proceeding. Redgate uses the multiple points of view beautifully to build the story, showing the reader the same characters through multiple lenses and highlighting the complexities of individuals and relationships.

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