The only sort of risk 18-year-old Laila Piedra enjoys in Final Draft is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories: epic sci-fi worlds full of quests, forbidden love, and robots. Her creative writing teacher has always told her she has a special talent. But three months before her graduation, he’s suddenly replaced—by Nadiya Nazarenko,…
Lou Bulosan-Nelson is going to build her dream in The House that Lou Built. She shares a room with her mom in her grandmother’s house in San Francisco, and longs for a place of her own where she can escape her lovable but large extended Filipino family. Lou has a talent for woodshop class and…
Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to meet the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her, even if her friends won’t admit it now. As for Jonah, well—Miri knows in All of This Is…
There are lots of stories about the children of gods. But what about those cursed by the gods, and their descendants… El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, known as the Order. Forced from her…
After a shout-out from one of the Internet’s superstar vloggers, Natasha “Tash” Zelenka finds herself and her obscure, amateur web series, Unhappy Families, thrust into the limelight: She’s gone viral in Tash Hearts Tolstoy. Her show is a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina—written by Tash’s literary love Count Lev Nikolayevich “Leo” Tolstoy. Tash is a fan of…
All seventeen year-old Grace Glasser wants in How to Make A Wish is her own life. A normal life in which she sleeps in the same bed for longer than three months and doesn’t have to scrounge for spare change to make sure the electric bill is paid. Emotionally trapped by her unreliable mother, Maggie, and…
It’s the start of Jordan Sun’s junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts in Noteworthy. Unfortunately, she’s an Alto 2, which—in the musical theatre world—is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody’s falling over themselves to express their appreciation. So…
In Girl Out of Water, Anise Sawyer plans to spend every minute of summer with her friends: surfing, chowing down on fish tacos drizzled with wasabi balsamic vinegar, and throwing bonfires that blaze until dawn. But when a serious car wreck leaves her aunt, a single mother of three, with two broken legs, it forces…
Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: The Summer That Melted Everything the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil. Sal seems to appear out of nowhere – a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss,…
Pretty in Pink comes to the South Bronx in The Education of Margot Sanchez, a bold and romantic coming-of-age novel about dysfunctional families, good and bad choices, and finding the courage to question everything you ever thought you wanted—from debut author Lilliam Rivera. THINGS/PEOPLE MARGOT HATES: Mami, for destroying my social life Papi, for allowing…
Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris–until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne…
I’m not really a rebel, most of the time. I like to follow the rules, unless they’re stupid or I absolutely can’t. In the case of National Novel Writing Month, there’s just absolutely no way that I can actually write 50,000 words of a novel and still do my job (which is writing for a…
Please be aware that This is Where It Ends is about a school shooting. If this is something that will upset you, I’d recommend not reading this review and probably not this book. 10:00 a.m. The principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and…
In Tempting Isabel, Wedding planner Isabel Ruiz is cursed. Her hometown of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico agrees, considering her tragic track record. Alone and loveless, she creates fairy-tale weddings for others. Her only distraction? The occasional anonymous fling. So to avoid further tragedy, her rule, one–night–only, is never broken… Until Zack. Self-made millionaire Zack James is…
I received a copy of Root, Petal, Thorn as an eARC from the publisher, Kensington Books, and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Root, Petal, Thorn follows the stories of five women who lived in the same house on Downington Avenue in Salt Lake City over the years since it was built, telling the stories that…