Category Archives: Read This

Read This!: ARROWS by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

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ArrowsArrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

Summary: Aaryn, son of Cupid, was supposed to shoot both Karma and Danny but found out too late that the other arrow in his pack was useless. And with that, Karma’s life changed forever. One pregnancy confirmed. One ballet scholarship lost. And dream after dream tossed to the wind.  A clueless Karma doesn’t know that her toxic relationship is Aaryn’s fault . . . but he’s going to get a chance to make things right. He’s here to convince Danny to man up and be there for Karma. But what if this god from Mount Olympus finds himself falling in love with a beautiful dancer from Wisconsin who can never love him in return?

Things I predict will happen when you read this book:

1) You will want to punch Danny. Often. Seriously, rarely have I felt so violent toward a fictional character. He is a detestable and unfortunately entirely realistic villain.

2) You will be pulling for Karma to wake up and realize what an abusive relationship she’s in.

3) You will recognize the dynamics of Karma and Danny’s relationship and be reminded uncomfortably of that one friend who just can’t be convinced that he’s wrong for her.

4) You’ll experience a strange craving for cheese curds.

5) You’ll call into question the entire bureaucracy of Eros and his arrows. Oh, wait, that’s Aaryn, son of Eros. But I bet you’ll dig him too.

6) You may be tempted to write fanfiction due to how much you want to see Karma punch Danny in the face.

ARROWS is a fun and fresh take on Greek mythology and teen romance.  And it’s out now!

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Read This!: PAPER WISHES by Lois Sepahban

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Paper WishesPaper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

Summary: Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family’s life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It’s 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert. Manami is sad to go, but even worse is that they are going to have to give her dog, Yujiin, to a neighbor to take care of. Manami decides to sneak Yujiin under her coat, but she is caught and forced to abandon him. She is devastated but clings to the hope that somehow Yujiin will find his way to the camp and make her family whole again. It isn’t until she finds a way to let go of her guilt that Manami can accept all that has happened to her family.

How could you possibly handle the subject of the relocation camps that imprisoned thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II in a way that children can understand, without it become bleak or hopeless?

Yet Sepahban manages it with quiet grace, giving us the story of Manami, a 10-year-old girl who is imprisoned with her family in the California desert. Traumatized by the experience and fiercely missing the dog she was forced to leave behind, Manami refuses to speak, grieving even as her family members find a place in the society of the camp. Sepahan doesn’t focus on politics or wars – the only details of that are in her concise and informative author’s note – but Manami’s narration, so lithe and lyrical that it stops just short of verse, places the reader in the camp beside her, offering a visceral sense of place and time that all the facts in the world could not convey.

This is a beautiful book that sheds light on a shameful part of America’s past.

PAPER WISHES is out now.

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Read This!: THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z by Natalie Blitt

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The Distance from A to ZThe Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt

Summary: Seventeen-year old Abby has only one goal for her summer: to make sure she is fluent in French—well, that, and to get as far away from baseball and her Cubs-obsessed family as possible. A summer of culture and language, with no sports in sight.  That turns out to be impossible, though, because her French partner is the exact kind of boy she was hoping to avoid. Eight weeks. 120 hours of class. 80 hours of conversation practice with someone who seems to exclusively wear baseball caps and jerseys.  But Zeke in French is a different person than Zeke in English. And Abby can’t help but fall for him, hard. As Abby begins to suspect that Zeke is hiding something, she has to decide if bridging the gap between the distance between who she is and who he is, is worth the risk.

I pretty much mainlined this book in two days because I could. not. put. it. down. If you are a fan of the sweet and swoony, but sometimes steamy, teen romance, if you love the Anna/Lola/Isla books of Stephanie Perkins, then drop everything else immediately and get your hands on this book. It was absolutely made for you.

Abby grew up in a family of baseball fanatics, and she used to enjoy baseball herself – until she started to feel like a changeling child for daring to think that something else might be more interesting. For her, that’s French – she loves everything French, and wants nothing more than to immerse herself in the French language so that she can spend her last semester of high school in Paris and attend university there. To that end, she enrolls in an 8-week intensive summer program at a quaint New Hampshire college, where she meets kindred spirit/roommate Alice (theirs is one of my favorite YA friendships ever) and handsome athlete Zeke. Abby’s had her share of bad experiences dating athletes, so she puts off his flirting from day one – but he is in the same intensive French course she is, and, as the only two high school students, they are forced to pair up. What follows might have been predictable, fluffy rom-com fare in less competent hands, but Blitt builds up a believable and tense push-and-pull between Abby and Zeke as both try to balance their own fears and secrets with the undeniable passion growing between them. Their romance blossoms in French, finally translates to English, and will take root in your heart.

THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z is out now.

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Read This!: THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS by Marieke Nijkamp

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This Is Where It EndsThis Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

Summary: Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

This was a difficult, heartbreaking read, with a horrifying topic handled with spare grace. It took me a couple of days to recover! I love the way the author shows multiple perspectives of the shooting, drawing us in to the intertwining stories of a diverse group of students undergoing a terrifying ordeal. Sometimes it’s through straightforward narration, sometimes through tweets and texts and blog posts. Hard to read, but rewarding in its reaffirmation of the humanity that ties us all together.

THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS is out now.

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Read This!: FIRSTS by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

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FirstsFirsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.  Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.  When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up

This book reminded me a bit of THE DUFF by Kody Keplinger – both books take a frank, unvarnished look at teenage sexuality, both feature likeable protagonists who struggle with real intimacy, and both are populated by winning characters that suck you right into the story.

Mercedes is a flawed, relatable girl whose unconventional response to her own sexual trauma is to devote herself to making the first time better for other girls – by training their boyfriends in secret. Her own relationships spin wildly out of her control – with Zach, the one guy she really cares about but can’t bear to get close to; with Angela, the naïve best friend who has no idea about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities; with Faye, the new girl who challenges Mercedes’ ideas about herself; with her mother, who long ago stopped trying to be any kind of maternal figure. And Mercedes tries to exert control through her secret sexual life. Of course, in the age of social media and rampant slut shaming, her lessons can never stay secret, but when it all falls apart, Mercedes finally learns the most important lesson of all – that she has people in her life who love her, and that she is worthy of that love.

FIRSTS is available now.

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