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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Read This!: OF FIRE AND STARS by Audrey Coulthurst

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Of Fire and StarsOf Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

Summary: Betrothed since childhood to the prince of Mynaria, Princess Dennaleia has always known what her future holds. Her marriage will seal the alliance between Mynaria and her homeland, protecting her people from other hostile lands. But Denna has a secret. She possesses an Affinity for fire—a dangerous gift for the future queen of a kingdom where magic is forbidden. Now, Denna must learn the ways of her new home while trying to hide her growing magic. To make matters worse, she must learn to ride Mynaria’s formidable warhorses before her coronation—and her teacher is the person who intimidates her most, the prickly and unconventional Princess Amaranthine (called Mare), sister of her betrothed. When a shocking assassination leaves the kingdom reeling, Mare and Denna reluctantly join forces to search for the culprit. Soon their friendship is threatening to blossom into something more. But with dangerous conflict brewing that makes the alliance more important than ever, acting on their feelings could be deadly. Forced to choose between their duty and their hearts, Mare and Denna must find a way to save their kingdoms—and each other.

What can I say about this book? It broke my heart, then put it back together, then broke it again. Denna and Mare are two strong, smart young woman, on different tracks in life but equally determined to do right by the people they care about. Denna has trained all her life to be a queen, and is determined to be a good one, but is frustrated when no one in the Mynarian court appreciates her politically astute intelligence – no one, that is, except her fiance’s sister and Denna’s riding instructor, Mare. Headstrong, independent Mare struggles to find her place – and she is more surprised than anyone to find that where she truly belongs is at Denna’s side. When these two princesses fall in love, it’s fire and stars and romance and political turmoil, all wrapped up in the dangers of Denna’s hidden magical gifts spiraling out of her control. I loved this story, and I can’t wait to read Coulthurst’s next book – I might even have forgiven her for the heartbreaking death of one of my favorite characters by the time it comes out.

OF FIRE AND STARS is out now.

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Read This!: EMERGE by Tobie Easton

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EmergeEmerge by Tobie Easton

Summary: Lia Nautilus may be a Mermaid but she’s never lived in the ocean. War has ravaged the seven seas ever since the infamous Little Mermaid unleashed a curse that stripped Mer of their immortality. Lia has grown up in a secret community of land-dwelling Mer hidden among Malibu’s seaside mansions. Her biggest problems are surviving P.E. and keeping her feelings for Clay Ericson in check. Sure, he’s gorgeous in that cocky, leather jacket sort of way and makes her feel like there’s a school of fish swimming in her stomach, but getting involved with a human could put Lia’s entire community at risk. So it’s for the best that he’s dating that new girl, right? That is, until Lia finds out she isn’t the only one at school keeping a potentially deadly secret. And this new girl? Her eyes are dead set on Clay, who doesn’t realize the danger he’s in. If Lia hopes to save him, she’ll have to get closer to Clay. Lia’s parents would totally flip if they found out she was falling for a human boy, but the more time she spends with him, the harder it is for her to deny her feelings. After making a horrible mistake, Lia will risk everything to stop Clay from falling in love with the wrong girl.  

What a delicious, swoony, sparkle of a book! Lia Nautilus may seem like a typical high school student, but she is actually part of a community of land-dwelling Mer, who attempt to cope with the mortality the Little Mermaid’s actions cursed them with by living among humans. Lia knows she has to stay away from Clay, the human boy she’s been crushing on, but when he falls victim to an ancient magic, Lia finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into forbidden magic to protect him. The worldbuilding here is spot-on, with thrilling details always moving the story forward, from the dynamic Mer anatomy (legs appear at adolescence – can you guess what they are used for?) to Mer record-keeping (Mer who hold shells to their ears hear not the ocean, but recorded books). Though this is the first book in a trilogy, there is no cliffhanger ending – I suspect that most readers will be sighing in contentment on the final page and excited to find out what happens next for this strong, loving, fierce and feminine heroine.

EMERGE is out now.

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