May 2013
9 posts
3 tags
Daughter of the Centaurs by Kate Klimo
Official Summary: “A new character joins the ranks of powerful, kick-ass heroines such as those written by Tamora Pierce, Kristin Cashore, Esther Freisner, and Robin McKinley—Malora Ironbound. A great read also for anyone who loves horses and the Greek myths.
Malora knows what she was born to be: a horse wrangler and a hunter, just like her father. But when her people are massacred by...
4 tags
This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith
Official Summary: “If fate sent you an email, would you answer?
When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O’Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.
Then Graham finds out that Ellie’s Maine...
4 tags
The Summer I Became A Nerd by Leah Rae Miller
Official Summary: “On the outside, seventeen-year-old Madelyne Summers looks like your typical blond cheerleader—perky, popular, and dating the star quarterback. But inside, Maddie spends more time agonizing over what will happen in the next issue of her favorite comic book than planning pep rallies with her squad. That she’s a nerd hiding in a popular girl’s body isn’t just unknown,...
5 tags
Kiss and Spell by Shanna Swendson
Official Summary: “With great power comes great danger…
When a freak accident leaves Katie Chandler with magical powers, it seems like a wish come true for the former magical immune. But it also means she’s vulnerable to magic, just when the dangerous Elf Lord is cooking up another scheme in his bid for power. Anyone who gets in his way disappears—including Katie and her wizard...
4 tags
Winger by Andrew Smith
Official Summary: “A teen at boarding school grapples with life, love, and rugby in a heartbreakingly funny novel.
Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little...
4 tags
Lucid by Michael McMillian
Official Summary: “Lucid is an action-packed, pop-fantasy series that draws inspiration from the spy genre, Arthurian legend, and 21st-century folklore! Dark forces are conspiring to prevent humankind from reaching its true potential. Thankfully, as newly appointed “Protector of the Realm,” Agent Matthew Dee uses his skills as a covert spy and Combat Mage to ensure...
4 tags
His Majesty's Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal
Official Summary: “For fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Laurie R. King, and Anne Perry, whip-smart heroine Maggie Hope returns to embark on a clandestine mission behind enemy lines where no one can be trusted, and even the smallest indiscretion can be deadly.
World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker...
Elvis and the Underdogs by Jenny Lee
Official Summary: “In the tradition of funny and heartwarming bestsellers like Wonder and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, this is the story of a sickly boy whose life is turned upside down when he gets a therapy dog…who can talk!
Benji Wendell Barnsworth is a small ten-year-old boy with a big personality. Born premature, Benji is sickly, accident prone, and at the hospital so often he even...
4 tags
Invisibility by Andrea Cremer & David Levithan
Official Summary: “A magical romance between a boy cursed with invisibility and the one girl who can see him, by New York Times bestselling authors Andrea Cremer and David Levithan.
Stephen is used to invisibility. He was born that way. Invisible. Cursed. Elizabeth sometimes wishes for invisibility. When you’re invisible, no one can hurt you. So when her mother decides to move the family to...
April 2013
13 posts
4 tags
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen and...
Official Summary: “You wouldn’t expect Nate and Charlie to be friends. Charlie’s the laid-back captain of the basketball team, and Nate is the neurotic, scheming president of the robotics club. But they are friends, however unlikely—until Nate declares war on the cheerleaders. At stake is funding that will either cover a robotics competition or new cheerleading uniforms—but not both.
...
2 tags
Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes by Matt...
Official Summary: “Welcome to the city of Red Wheelbarrow, where the world’s greatest detective has yet to meet the crime he can’t solve—every criminal in Red Wheelbarrow is caught and convicted thanks to Detective Gould’s brilliant mind and cutting-edge spy technology.
But lately there has been a rash of crimes so eccentric and random that even Detective Gould is stumped....
4 tags
The World's Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne
Official Summary: “An inspiring story of how a Mormon kid with Tourette’s found salvation in books and weight-lifting
Josh Hanagarne couldn’t be invisible if he tried. Although he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time...
2 tags
One + One = Blue by MJ Auch
Official Summary: “Twelve year-old Basil knows he’s special—he’s been associating numbers with colors since he was a kid. His gift (or curse) has turned him into somewhat of a loner, but his world begins to change when he meets Tenzie, the new girl in school who has similar freakisms. She, too, has synesthesia (a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another). At...
5 tags
How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True by...
Official Summary: “Like Meg Cabot, Sarah Strohmeyer has a gift for creating smart, funny girls teen readers love. She’s done it again with Zoe, heroine of her latest romcom.
In YA novel How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True, Zoe learns there is a dark core under the glittering façade of the fairy-tale themed amusement park (cough, Disneyland, cough) where she’s a summer intern. For...
3 tags
Dial H by China Mieville
Official Summary: “Hugo Award-winning novelist China Mieville breathes new life into a classic DC Comics series as part of the second wave of DC Comics—The New 52.
In the small run-down town of Littleville, CO, a troubled young man stumbles upon the lost H-Dial and all of the secrets and power it possesses. It has been many years since the H-Dial has been seen, though legions of villains...
4 tags
The Elite by Kiera Cass
Official Summary: “Kiera Cass’s The Elite is a must-read for fans of dystopian fiction, fairy tales, and reality TV. This sequel to The Selection will enchant teens who love Divergent and The Bachelor.
In America Singer’s world, a bride is chosen for the prince through an elaborate televised competition. In the second book of the Selection series, America is one of only six girls left in...
5 tags
The Selection by Kiera Cass
Official Summary: “For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.
But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love...
5 tags
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Official Summary: “A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil.
The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something...
3 tags
Jerusalem: A Family Portrait by Boaz Yakin and...
Official Summary: “Jerusalem is a sweeping, epic work that follows a single family—three generations and fifteen very different people—as they are swept up in chaos, war, and nation-making from 1940-1948. Faith, family, and politics are the heady mix that fuel this ambitious, cinematic graphic novel.
With Jerusalem, author-filmmaker Boaz Yakin turns his finely-honed storytelling skills to a...
4 tags
Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon
Official Summary: “17-year-old Sophie lies on her deathbed in California, awaiting the inevitable loss of her battle with cancer… 17-year-old Declan stares down two armed thugs in a back alley in Galway, Ireland…
17-year-old Anat attempts to traverse a booby-trapped tunnel between Israel and Egypt… All three strangers should have died at the exact same moment, thousands of miles apart....
5 tags
Spellbinding by Maya Gold
Official Summary: “There’s more than one way to be powerful …
It is during a routine school project that Abby Silva—sixteen and nearly friendless—makes a startling discovery: She is descended from women who were accused of witchcraft back in 1600s Salem. And when Abby visits nearby Salem, strange, inexplicable events start to unfold. Objects move when she wills them...
7 tags
Money Run by Jack Heath
Official Summary: “When a heist goes wrong, teen thief Ash finds herself in a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse.
Ashley “Ash” Arthur is a teen thief. Motivated by the thrills as much as the money, she’s pulled off some amazing heists with the help of her childhood friend Benjamin, who acts as tech support. Now she’s got the world’s richest man in her sights,...
March 2013
14 posts
3 tags
The Sweetest Dark by Shana Abé
Official Summary: “For fans of Lauren Kate and Libba Bray, The Sweetest Dark is filled with thrilling romance, exciting adventure, and ancient magic. Shana Abé brilliantly captures the drama of post-Victorian England, while unfolding a passionate love story that defies time.
“With every fiber of my being, I yearned to be normal. To glide through my days at Iverson without incident. But I’d...
6 tags
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Official Summary: “What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also...
3 tags
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Official Summary: “Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe—many...
3 tags
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the...
Official Summary: “At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians—many of them young women from small towns across the South—were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept...
3 tags
Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt
Official Summary: “When Mallory discovers that her boyfriend, Jeremy, is cheating on her with an online girlfriend, she swears off boys. She also swears off modern technology. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in 1962, Mallory decides to “go vintage” and return to a simpler time (when boyfriends couldn’t cheat on you online). She sets out to complete...
3 tags
What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam
Official Summary: “In this incandescent novel, a family’s superpowers bestow not instant salvation but the miracle of accepting who they are.
“Okay, tell me which you want,” Alek asks his cousin at the outset of What the Family Needed. “To be able to fly or to be invisible.” And soon Giordana, a teenager suffering the bitter fallout of her parents’ divorce, finds that she can, at will,...
3 tags
Tempestuous by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes
Official Summary: “After a mistake with big financial consequences topples her throne, former it girl” Miranda Prospero is bitter: she finds herself stranded in a crazed new world, holding court among geeks and misfits at a mall Hot Dog Kabob stand. Then, she gets her chance for revenge. When the storm of the decade snows in the mall workers and last-minute shopaholics for a long...
1 tag
Check Out My Posts on The Hub!
This week I wrote not one but two posts for YALSA’s The Hub blog. First, yesterday I posted a list of math-related books in honor of Pi Day. Today I posted on Great Apps for Readers in honor of Teen Tech Week. You can check out these and my other posts, including those on Frankenstein and this year’s Schneider Family Award winner on The Hub.
4 tags
Poison by Bridget Zinn
Official Summary: “Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.
But, for the first time ever, her poisoned...
3 tags
Escape Theory by Margaux Froley
Official Summary: “Sixteen-year-old Devon Mackintosh has always felt like an outsider at Keaton, the prestigious California boarding school perched above the Pacific. As long as she’s not fitting in, Devon figures she might as well pad her application to Stanford’s psych program. So junior year, she decides to become a peer counselor, a de facto therapist for students in crisis. At first, it...
3 tags
A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz
Official Summary: “LEAVE IT TO CHANCE. Eleanor “Elle” Chance, that is—the intrepid heroine of this edgy new series that transforms elements of urban fantasy, historical adventure, and paranormal romance into pure storytelling gold.
In a Golden Age where spark reactors power the airways, and creatures of Light and Shadow walk openly among us, a deadly game of Alchemists and Warlocks has...
4 tags
The Goddess Inheritance by Aimée Carter
Official Summary: “Love or life. Henry or their child. The end of her family or the end of the world.
Kate must choose.
During nine months of captivity, Kate Winters has survived a jealous goddess, a vengeful Titan and a pregnancy she never asked for. Now the Queen of the Gods wants her unborn child, and Kate can’t stop her—until Cronus offers a deal.
In exchange for her loyalty and...
3 tags
When We Wuz Famous by Greg Takoudes
Official Summary: “Francisco Ortiz, a handsome straight-A student and gifted basketball player from the barrio, wins a full scholarship to an elite boarding school. His future seems promising. But soon after Francisco moves into the dorm, his new classmates assume the worst of him: they pepper him with questions about drugs and gangs. It’s all so confusing, made even more complicated when...
5 tags
The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett
Official Summary: “Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.
Literally.
Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot,...
February 2013
12 posts
4 tags
The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
Official Summary: “After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Devereaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends. But Rory’s brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she’s become a human terminus, with the...
2 tags
Garden of Stone by Sophie Littlefield
Official Summary: “In the dark days of war, a mother makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Lucy Takeda is just fourteen years old, living in Los Angeles, when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are ripped from their home, rounded up—along with thousands of other innocent Japanese-Americans—and taken to the Manzanar prison camp.
Buffeted by blistering...
2 tags
Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of...
Official Summary: “Being a teenager has never been easy, but in recent years, with the rise of the Internet and social media, it has become exponentially more challenging. Bullying, once thought of as the province of queen bees and goons, has taken on new, complex, and insidious forms, as parents and educators know all too well.
No writer is better poised to explore this territory than...
4 tags
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Official Summary: “Bono met his wife in high school, Park says. So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers. I’m not kidding, he says. You should be, she says, we’re 16. What about Romeo and Juliet? Shallow, confused, then dead. I love you, Park says. Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers. I’m not kidding, he says. You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story...
4 tags
Also Known As by Robin Benway
Official Summary: “Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the...
3 tags
How To Lead A Life Of Crime by Kirsten Miller
Official Summary: “A Meth Dealer. A Prostitute. A Serial Killer.
Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear. Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class. But...
3 tags
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Official Summary: “It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan to get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an...
4 tags
The Odd Squad: Bully Bait by Michael Fry
Official Summary: “Nick is the shortest seventh-grader in the history of the world (he’s pretty sure), doesn’t fit in with any groups or clubs (who needs ’em?), and spends more time inside than outside his locker (they’re roomier than you’d think).
Things only get worse when a well-intentioned guidance counselor forces Nick to join the school’s lamest club—along with fellow misfits Molly...
5 tags
The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding
Official Summary: “Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
1. She graduated from New York University. 2. She lives in or near Los Angeles. 3. Since her first novel was released, she’s been on the New York Times bestseller list every week. 4. She likes strong coffee and bourbon. 5. She’s my mother. Devan knows very little about Reece Malcolm, until the day her father dies and she’s shipped off to...
3 tags
A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady...
Official Summary: “You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one’s life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten… .
All the world, from Scirland to the...
5 tags
The Damnation Affair by Lilith Saintcrow
Official Summary: “The West is a wild place, where the poison wind blows and the dead walk. But there is gold, and whiskey, and enough room for a man to forget what he once was—until he no longer can.
Jack Gabriel’s been the sheriff in Damnation almost since the town grew out of the dust and the mud. He keeps the peace—sort of—and rides the circuit every dawn and...
3 tags
Pantomime by Laura Lam
Official Summary: “R.H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic is the greatest circus of Ellada. Nestled among the glowing blue Penglass – remnants of a mysterious civilisation long gone – are wonders beyond the wildest imagination. It’s a place where anything seems possible, where if you close your eyes you can believe that the magic and knowledge of the vanished Chimeras is still there. It’s a place...
January 2013
13 posts
3 tags
Prodigy by Marie Lu
Official Summary: “June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request—June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.
It’s their chance to...
3 tags
Legend by Marie Lu
Official Summary: “What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s...
