Category Archives: Reviews

Read This!: GIRLS IN THE MOON by Janet McNally

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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.

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

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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.

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Read This!: THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE by Heidi Heilig

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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.

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Read This!: GIRL IN PIECES by Kathleen Glasgow

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Girl in PiecesGirl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

Summary: Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.
   Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.
  A deeply moving portrait of a teenage girl on the verge of losing herself and the journey she must take to survive in her own skin, Kathleen Glasgow’s debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from.

Raw, heartfelt, and at times difficult to read, this story draws readers into Charlie’s world of pain, desperation, and finally, hope. The first section unfolds in a series of snippets, short bursts of sensation that reflect both Charlie’s overwhelmed state as she adjusts to life at a treatment center and her refusal to speak to anyone. It’s a brilliant opening, because the reader comes to care deeply about Charlie, and when the extent of the horrors she has been through come out, you can’t look away. When she is released from the treatment center and abandoned by her mother and has to scrape by on her earnings from a part-time dishwashing job, she has to fight to keep from the self-harming behaviors that give her temporary solace. It’s easy to see why, with every day a struggle not to set a sharp object against her skin, she makes dubious choices and is so desperate to be loved that she falls in with a guy who is even less together than she is. In the end, though, Charlie’s story is one of perseverance and learning to accept help.

GIRL IN PIECES is out now.

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Read This!: TELL ME THREE THINGS by Julie Buxbaum

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Tell Me Three ThingsTell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Summary: Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help? It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son. In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved? 

Figuring out Somebody/Nobody’s identity may be the hook for the story, but what really drew me in was Jessie’s all-too-real struggle to recover from the shock of her mother’s death and navigate a new life in a new place. With each new person she met, the question of whether he or she was the anonymous emailer lingered, until I wanted it to be a certain person as badly as Jessie did. The characters and relationships are so sharply drawn, from Jessie’s dad, lost in his own world of grief and healing, to Theo, the flamboyant step-brother who only reluctantly becomes an ally, to Scarlett, the best friend left behind in Chicago who also has to find her way when Jessie leaves, to Ethan, the enigmatic study partner with ghosts of his own. I listened to the book on audio, and Jorjeana Marie’s gorgeous narration was a pitch-perfect match to the wry, understated emotion of the book. This is a story that will suck you in and steal your heart.

TELL ME THREE THINGS is out now.

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