Category Archives: Reviews

Read This!: GENA/FINN by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson

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Gena/FinnGena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz

Summary: The story follows the unlikely friendship of two young women forged via fan fiction and message boards, and is told entirely in texts, chats, and blog posts. Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. Gena’s romantic life is a series of reluctant one-night-stands; Finn is making a go of it with long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they share a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV show with a cult fan following. Gena is a darling of the fangirl scene, keeping a popular blog and writing fan fiction. Finn’s online life is a secret, even from Charlie. The pair spark an unlikely online friendship that deepens quickly (so quickly it scares them both), and as their individual “real” lives begin to fall apart, they increasingly seek shelter online, and with each other.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I was heavily involved in the Harry Potter fandom back in the day. Though the subject of fandom has been addressed in several YA novels in recent years, never had I seen one that I felt accurately depicted the intensity of bonds made online with others who *get it* when it comes to your favorite book, TV show, or movie. Gena and Finn perfectly capture the dynamics of fangirls whose devotion to their favorite show, UP BELOW, lends meaning to their everyday lives in a way that might look, well, a little deranged, to those who have never experienced fandom. No wonder 22-year-old Finn is afraid to tell her live-in boyfriend just how much fanart she has drawn, or how close she has gotten to 18-year-old fanfiction writer Gena through their online chats and emails. The question of what exactly their relationship is provides an source of drama – until Gena suffers a tragedy that renders labels moot and makes it clear that Finn will be there for her no matter what.

GENA/FINN is out now.

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Read This!: THE FRIENDSHIP EXPERIMENT by Erin Teagan

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The Friendship ExperimentThe Friendship Experiment by Erin Teagan

Summary: Future scientist Madeline Little is dreading the start of middle school. Nothing has been right since her grandfather died and her best friend changed schools. Maddie would rather help her father in his research lab or write Standard Operating Procedures in her lab notebook than hang out with a bunch of kids who aren’t even her friends. Despite Maddie’s reluctance, some new friends start coming her way—until they discover what she’s written in that secret notebook. And that’s just part of the trouble. Can this future scientific genius find the formula for straightening out her life?

Madeline Little believes that every problem, from a scientific experiment to navigating friendships, can be addressed with a standard operating procedure. As a scientist, it’s how she imposes order on her world. But her expectations are upended when she has to face middle school without her best friend and without her beloved grandfather. Her family’s life has always been shaped by Von Willebrand disease, the bleeding disorder that she and her sister share, and which her father and grandfather made their life’s work. But now her sister Brooke is displaying worse and worse symptoms, and Maddie’s determination to become a world-famous microbiologist is tempered by the setbacks she faces when she tries to help out in her father’s lab. Teagan paints a painfully accurate picture of a logical, fact-loving girl thrown into the emotional whirl of middle school. I loved the way that the story gives no easy answers, and when Madeline tries to repair her relationships, not everyone comes around. With the help of her family and a few good friends, she is able to find her way back to what matters to her, but it comes with a painful lesson: there is no standard operating procedure for life.

THE FRIENDSHIP EXPERIMENT is out now.

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Read This!: ZERO DAY by Jan Gangsei

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Zero DayZero Day by Jan Gangsei

Summary: Eight years ago Addie Webster was the victim of the most notorious kidnapping of the decade. She vanished-and her high-profile parents were forced to move on. Mark Webster is now president of the United States and fighting to keep the Oval Office after a tumultuous first term. Then the unthinkable happens: the president’s daughter resurfaces. Addie is brought back into the family fold, but who is this sixteen-year-old girl with a quiet, burning intelligence now living in the White House? There are those in the president’s political circle who find her timely return suspicious.When a national security advisor approaches Darrow Fergusson, Addie’s childhood best friend and the son of the president’s chief of staff, he doesn’t know what to think. How could the girl he’s missed for all these years be a threat to national security? Still, at the risk of having his own secrets exposed, Darrow agrees to spy on Addie and soon realizes that his old friend is much more than the traumatized victim of a sick political fringe group. Addie has come with a mission … but will she choose to complete it?

This breathless thriller grabbed me from the first chapter, and the heart-pounding pace doesn’t let up. Gangsei combines the multiple perspectives typical of the political thriller genre with an unerring focus on the two teen protagonists, Addie Webster, the First Daughter who has returned home after being abducted at age eight, and Darrow Fergusson, the best friend she left behind. Addie is at once smart and ruthless and relatable and vulnerable, and the details of both plot and setting make Gangsei’s knowledge of life inside the DC Beltway clear. Reader, prepare to be sucked in. You have been warned.

ZERO DAY is out now.

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Read This!: RIPPLE by Heather Smith Meloche

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RippleRipple by Heather Smith Meloche

Summary: With her impossible-to-please grandmother on her back about college and her disapproving step-dad watching her every move, Tessa would do anything to escape the pressure-cooker she calls home. So she finds a shot of much-needed power and confidence by hooking up with boys, even though it means cheating on her boyfriend. But when she’s finally caught red-handed, she’ll do anything she can to cover up what she’s done.  Jack is a prankster who bucks the system every chance he gets—each transgression getting riskier and riskier. He loves the thrill, and each adventure allows a little release because his smug smile and suave demeanor in the face of authority doesn’t make life at home with his mom any less tough. He tries to take care of her, but the truth is he’s powerless in the face of her fragile mental health. So he copes in his own way, by defacing public property and pulling elaborate pranks, though he knows in the end this’ll only screw up his life even more.  As they both try not to let their self-destructive patterns get the best of them, Tessa and Jack gravitate toward one another, discovering the best parts of themselves in the process. An honest portrayal of the urges that drive us and finding the strength to overcome them.

Tessa and Jack, two teenagers whose lives are spinning out of control, become one another’s unlikely confidants – and maybe more – in this gripping coming-of-age story. Paralyzed by her stepfather’s drunken verbal abuse and her wealthy grandmother’s well-meaning yet myopic plans for her future, Tessa seeks comfort in a series of meaningless hook-ups that she will do anything to hide from her popular boyfriend. Jack is flip and cocky, but also hard working, earnest, and fiercely protective of his brilliant mother even as her mental illness makes her more and more dangerous to herself and others, and his only outlet is the elaborate pranks he pulls to buck the system. When Tessa and Jack meet, the electricity of their connection is more than just romantic – each recognizes the desperation of the other and is able to see through the layers of hurt and artifice to the goodness underneath. Both of their roads to redemption are paved with hard truths and painful confrontations, but in finding the good in each other, they are finally able to see the good in themselves. In alternating first-person narratives, Meloche takes us into the imperfect lives of these imperfect, entirely relatable characters, and shows how good as well as bad can ripple out of human connections.

RIPPLE is out now.

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Read This!: THE READER by Traci Chee

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The Reader (Sea of Ink and Gold, #1)The Reader by Traci Chee

Summary: Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.

We all know that books are magic, but in Sefia’s world, it’s literally so. No wonder literacy is such a forbidden commodity, so coveted that there are those who would die – or kill – for the words on the page. With its twisty narrative and surprising turns, THE READER will keep readers turning the pages till the end, and turning over the big ideas presented long after the story is over.

THE READER is out now.

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