 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Penguin Books for the digital ARC of Melissa de la Cruz's Sibylline.
Melissa de la Cruz’s dark-academia, YA novel Sibylline is about magic and friendship and love. The central trio consists of best friends Atticus, Raven, and Dorian. Atticus, who can read others’ thoughts, loves Dorian; Raven, who can read and translate languages instantaneously, loves Atticus; and Dorian, who can read the history of objects and people with a touch, loves Raven. Yes, it’s a lot. The three friends have long dreamed of all attending Sibylline College, the preeminent institution in the country—it’s the Ivy League of magic schools—of nurturing their magic and learning to truly control it. Unfortunately, all three are rejected. Determined to persevere and to hone their skills, they make a pact to get jobs on Sibylline’s campus and to absorb what they can from sheer proximity. They also hope to make an impression upon those who might be able to help them gain admission. As the narrative shifts between each character’s point of view, de la Cruz reveals the distinctions between the three. Raven is the only one from a wealthy family, and she’s more hungry than the others to master the power of magic. Dorian had an early trauma associated with inadvertently touching a person that resulted in him avoiding elements of his talent, a barrier he hopes to overcome. Atticus is quickly overwhelmed by others’ thoughts—particularly in large groups—and finds security in small interactions. While working on campus, the teens quickly recognize Sibylline’s tendency to keep secrets, and they vow to get at the core of some conspiracies, which draws them into danger and risk as they learn more about the long history of darkness at the center of Sibylline’s successes. They’re also constantly navigating the conflicts that arise from their romantic entanglements, from the fact that they are—as one of them says—arrows each pointed in the wrong direction. Sibylline kept my attention with its compelling plot, but I found myself wishing for more true development of the characters. While I hesitate to wish that a standalone book had been a series, in this case, I think that might have been helpful, both allowing de la Cruz to nourish each character’s arc and to make the conclusion feel more earned. I can’t say more here without spoilers, but what finally happens should have felt like a culmination but instead struck me as being rushed. I’d give this one 3.5 stars.
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 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Random House for the digital ARC of Trung Le Nguyen’s Angelica and the Bear Prince. The book will be published tomorrow!
The Magic Fish, a graphic novel by Trung Le Nguyen, was one of my absolute favorite reads last year. The author’s new book, Angelica and the Bear Prince, has a similar rootedness in fairytales, though they’re less of a presence through the book as a whole. The book centers on a high school student named Angelica who became over involved and experienced the near-inevitable burnout as a result. Now, she’s trying to ease back in to extracurriculars by working backstage at a local theater. The theater’s mascot is a bear . . . and the bear has a social media account. Angelica has struck up a correspondence with said bear but doesn’t know who actually brings the mascot to life, though she is intrigued. Woven through the story is the story of a Bear Prince with a secret of his own. While I didn’t find Angelica and the Bear Prince to be quite as captivating as The Magic Fish, it’s a lovely story that will feel relatable to so many YA (and adult!) readers. Who among us hasn’t felt the need to take a step back from life, to recenter ourselves on what matters? And finding the right supporters along the way is key to actually feeling different. The relationships here are beautifully developed, and Nguyen highlights the ways that Angelica interacts with her parents, her best friend, and—of course—the person behind the bear. The art is beautiful and tells the story expressively, with an emphasis on emotions. Nguyen is now an auto-read author for me!  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the digital ARC of Angeline Boulley’s Sisters in the Wind.
Sisters in the Wind is the third book in Angeline Boulley’s loosely connected YA trilogy, which includes Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed. Each focuses on a different teenager from the same Ojibwe community, though Lucy Smith, the protagonist of Sisters in the Wind, begins the book unaware of her heritage. Lucy was raised by her white father who told her that her mother relinquished all parental rights when she was young. He told her the bare minimum about her mother, and so, after her father dies, and Lucy is left with only her cold, uncaring stepmother, she’s adrift. Eventually, after a definitive break with her stepmother, Lucy navigates the foster system on her own. The novel opens with Lucy working in a diner and on her own—she feels safer without close relationships, and so she has tried to keep herself at a distance from everyone. If someone gets too close, she leaves. When an attorney shows up at the diner with what seems to be a random offer of help, Lucy is immediately suspicious and starts planning her escape, ready to pack up and leave to keep herself safe. And then something happens that keeps her firmly in place. Sisters in the Wind is set between Boulley’s previous books, and it was lovely to revisit characters from those novels. Lucy is a compelling protagonist, and her journey to finding the truth about her identity and the support of the community that she’s never known is a powerful one. I greatly appreciated the information woven through the book about the Indian Child Welfare Act, and how it should have protected Lucy from the lack of connection that has plagued her. As in Firekeeper’s Daughter and, particularly, Warrior Girl Unearthed, there’s also a sort of mystery/thriller plot that propels the story, and I didn’t find it to be quite as seamless as I’d hoped, though I certainly wanted to know how everything would resolve. Despite that caveat, I’m a big fan of Boulley’s work, and I’ll definitely be eager to read whatever she writes next. I’ll absolutely be including this one in my classroom library.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the digital ARC of Shea Ernshaw’s The Beautiful Maddening, which is available for purchase!
I can always depend on Shea Ernshaw to build an incredibly atmospheric novel—her books are gothic and drenched in foreboding and full of complicated characters. Ernshaw’s newest book, The Beautiful Maddening, fits right into the stack of Ernshaw’s previous YA novels on my (virtual) shelf. The story of Lark Goode and a family curse and the boy who—maybe—can break it captured my imagination. Lark and her twin brother live alone in a crumbling house on a creek in the very small town of Cutwater. Every year, when their tulips bloom, the curse that began with their ancestor flares to life, and they become irresistible until the tulips die again. For Lark’s brother, this yearly ritual seems uncomplicated: he can revel in the attention, get what he can out of the situation, and then move back to his normal, attractive-but-resistible state. Lark feels differently. She’s desperate to get her high school diploma and then to leave Cutwater, to wrest free from the tulips and the curse that has plagued the love stories of every one of her Goode ancestors. This year, her senior year, the tulips bloom with one week left of school, so Lark steels herself to make it through the laser focus of her classmates so that she can graduate and then escape. And then two things change. First, some of the other students seem to have fallen under the tulips’ curse: they are just as enticing as Lark. And, second, there’s a new boy at school . . . and he’s not falling for her. Ernshaw weaves this story patiently, adding layer after layer of family history, town lore, and mystery. While I didn’t always love the tulips, I was captivated by Lark’s attempts to define her own identity, doing her best to resist the fate that everyone—her parents, her brother, her town—insist is inescapable.  Thanks so much to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Audio for the ALC of Jason Reynolds's Soundtrack. This audio-only novel was just the book I needed at the perfect moment.
Reynolds's story, read by an amazing full cast, centers on Stuy who has always lived alone with his mom, who raised him to love music—especially the drums—as much as she does. She and his dad were founding members of The Bed-Stuy Magic Dusters, but when he found out she was pregnant with Stuy, he left for California. Stuy has never met his dad . . . but he also hasn't missed him much. His mom is nurturing and encourages Stuy to follow his passion for music. All of that changes when she starts dating (for the first time in Stuy's life) and the guy, eventually, moves in. Things become unbearable, so Stuy moves in with his uncle and meets Dunks, who is just as passionate about music as Stuy is. Dunks and Stuy go on the hunt for other members to fill out their band, and they find Alexis (bass), Keith (trumpet), and Frankie (TBD). As the group works to find their identity, together and separately, a gorgeous soundtrack helps to tell their story. Reynolds, as always, has such a gift for teenage voices, and I came to love these characters so much. The novel has twists and turns that I enjoyed, but the music is always at the center. This would be a perfect addition to anyone's summer TBR!  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Macmillan for the digital ARC of Libba Bray’s Under the Same Stars, which will be published on February 4.
I’m a long-time fan of Libba Bray’s work, of the way she’s able to shift between fantasy and historical fiction, incisive cultural and societal commentary and truly hilarious comedy, gorgeous romance and thrilling action. When I saw a promo for her new YA novel Under the Same Stars, I requested it without even reading the synopsis. It was the right decision. Under the Same Stars is historical fiction that weaves between three time periods, three protagonists. First is Sophie, a teenager in 1940s Germany. Sophie and her best friend Hanna are more focused on love and friendship than on the war that increasingly encroaches on their village. They write romantic letters to mysterious pen pals, leaving their notes in the Bridegroom’s Oak that lies in the nearby forest, checking back frequently for responses. Soon, though, they are unable to deny the threats among them and have to decide how they will react to the injustice they see. The second story takes place in West Germany in 1980. The Berlin Wall runs through the city where Jenny Campbell and her family move because of her father’s promotion. Jenny hasn’t been satisfied with herself or her life for a while, but this major change opens up possibilities for her as she happens upon the underground punk scene and, in particular, Lena, who seems to embody all that Jenny wants for herself. As Jenny is drawn into Lena’s world—and drawn to Lena herself—she struggles with the expectations of her parents, her vision for herself, and the demands of her new friends in the face of the wall that looms over them all. Finally, there’s Miles in New York City, at the beginning of the COVID lockdown, during Miles’s senior year of high school. Miles is living alone—one of his mothers was traveling when the lockdown happened, and the other is a nurse who is self-isolating to keep Miles safe. Miles is even more lonely because he and his best friend Chloe hadn’t talked for months, and now the lockdown makes it seem as if they’ll never talk again…until she reaches out for her help unraveling a mystery. Chloe’s grandmother suffered from a stroke and is now in an assisted living home, unable to communicate. But she sent a mysterious package to Chloe with details about her youth in Germany. Miles has taken three years of Germany and, like Chloe, is a huge fan of an investigative podcast, which has inspired Chloe to look into her grandmother’s history . . . with Miles’s help. From here, Bray orchestrates a gorgeous balancing act, one that navigates each teenager’s coming of age, the upheaval of their unique eras, and the decisions they must make for who they want to be in the changing worlds around them. Because there’s always just a little magic in Bray’s books, there’s also a beautiful fairytale that is told and re-told through the novel, transforming as truths emerge and come into focus. Under the Same Stars is a stunning novel that shows, through these characters, how important it has always been to stand up for what is right and to take hold of who they truly are.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Emma Lord’s The Rival, which will be published on January 21.
Emma Lord has such a talent for writing YA romances with compelling premises that don’t fall victim to oversimplification. (It’s why she’s one of my auto-read authors.) With her newest novel The Rival, she tells a sort of enemies-to-lovers romance that confronts the challenges of being a college freshman and the best way to stand up for a cause we believe in. Sadie earned her high school’s single, coveted spot at Maple Ride University, winning out over her family friend—and secret, long-time rival—Seb, who’s attending a different, prestigious school. Sadie is determined to make her mark at Maple Ride and to earn the one staff position for a freshman at the college’s zine Newsbag, all as a way of setting up her comedy career. There’s a twist, of course. Seb, who was waitlisted, has shown up on campus. And he also wants to join the Newsbag staff. Sadie had looked forward to escaping the constant challenges of her rivalry with Seb but also of establishing a new, true college identity, the one she had never been able to live out when she was with our family. With them? Well, they’re A. LOT. And Sadie always finds herself in the role of mediator, smoothing things over, evening out everyone’s emotions. Now? She may want to be a lot, too. That’s the initial setup. Add in a budget controversy in which the college is pulling money away from extracurriculars like Newsbag to fund their sports teams, and there’s the perfect recipe for a compelling, complicated, wonderful YA novel. The romance is at the center of the book here, but it’s not the only focus. There are wonderful conversations about Sadie and Seb’s challenges as they leave their families—they’re excited to be on their own, homesick for their families, ready to carve out new identities, but not quite prepared to leave who they were behind. There are great considerations of friendship, of how to be an advocate and an ally without dismissing the concerns of those who may be affected by change. There’s a fantastic subplot about romantic relationships—Sadie is completely inexperienced and, now that she’s in college, is having a hard time moving past the feeling that she is the ONLY one who is in her same position. That may sound like too much, but Emma Lord makes it work. The Rival navigates these various threads easily, with humor and empathy and swoony romance. It epitomizes everything I love about Lord’s writing.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Amanda Quain’s Dashed. The book will be published on July 16!
I have great, great affection for Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and I thoroughly enjoyed Amanda Quain’s Ghosted, a retelling of Northanger Abbey. That made Dashed, Quain’s retelling/modern continuation of Sense and Sensibility an easy pick for my TBR. Dashed focuses on Margaret Dashwood, the youngest sister in her family. In Austen’s book, she’s a sort of afterthought to Elinor and Marianne (the “sense” and “sensibility” of the title); here, she’s the center. During her childhood, she was more like Marianne—she was impulsive and extroverted and emotional. After Marianne’s yearning for a man she couldn’t have ended in tragedy for Marianne and Margaret, she vowed to be more like Elinor: controlled and independent and organized. That meant putting mental space between her and Marianne. Now, Margaret has graduated from high school and has planned to spend her summer on a cruise ship with Elinor and Elinor’s husband Edward, the chaplain on the ship. Her plans change rapidly when Marianne shows up, boards with the family, and drops the news that Brandon broke up with her. And she’s spending the summer with Elinor and Margaret. Immediately, Margaret panics, convinced that she’s going to fall back into a Marianne pattern . . . unless Margaret can find a new match for Marianne who will distract her and keep her on an even keel. (After all, she thinks, it’s only romantic attachments that anchor Marianne.) In the meantime, Marianne has her own plans for Margaret, who has never succumbed to love after seeing the turmoil it wrought with her sister. Marianne will go along with Margaret’s plans IF Margaret goes on some blind dates of her own. Fortunately, Margaret made a quick—friends-only, she says—connection with Gabe, who runs the soundboard for the ship’s entertainment. He’ll be the perfect, decoy blind date. She just has to convince herself that friendship is all she feels. Dashed is a fun update/retelling that makes full use of Austen’s beautifully developed characters in a modern setting. While I did feel that the polarity of Elinor and Marianne was a bit much—Margaret continually told herself she had to choose between these two models, and I felt she was just too smart to fall into the sort of dichotomy that steers much of the plot—and Margaret’s denial of her feelings for Gabe cycled a bit too long, I still thoroughly enjoyed the time devoted to the youngest member of the Dashwood family. I appreciated the ways that she explored the ways that Margaret would have experienced the love stories of Elinor and Edward, of Marianne and Brandon, and the ways that might have affected a young, impressionable sister. I did feel, however, that it took too long for the book to lean into the complexities that lie beneath the easy characterizations that Austen ultimately resists. There’s great humor in Margaret’s reality show-style attempts to find a match for Marianne, and I loved seeing Elinor and Edward years into a sweet, stable marriage. Gabe is also a fantastic romantic interest, and his years on the cruise ship lead him to be a wonderful tour guide for Margaret. The various stops make for a wonderful setting. Overall, I recommend Dashed to Austen fans and to YA romance readers, and I look forward to reading the next installment in Quain’s series of modern Austen retellings.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Molly Morris's Annie LeBlanc Is Not Dead Yet. The book will be published tomorrow!
I knew from the first page that I was going to love Molly Morris’s Annie LeBlanc Is Not Dead Yet. It’s quirky and original and just totally captivating. Here’s the premise: Wilson Moss is a high school senior, and she’s completely alone. She’s been alone since both of her best friends abandoned her, just as they were moving into their junior years. Ryan cut her off completely (though they—awkwardly—still work together at Ryan’s mom’s restaurant). Wilson’s mom left Wil’s long-time stepfather, the adult who provided the most stability in her and her younger half-sister’s life. Her friend Annie? She not only transferred to the local private school but also ended their friendship. And then, she died. Wil’s not exactly sure what happened, though she has some ideas. So, she takes a chance on her town’s unique contest, a once-every-decade anomaly. Any resident of Lennon can throw their name in the hat for a chance to bring back someone dead . . . for 30 days. Shockingly, Wil wins the contest, which means she has 30 days to (temporarily) resurrect her friendship and to figure out just what makes her so unlovable. The whole situation is complicated. Ryan had begun making small forays into friendship again, but Wil’s choice makes Ryan beyond angry since the first fissures in their friendship began with Annie and Ryan. And Wil isn’t content with 30 days, so when she picks up on a loophole from Ruth Fish (the seemingly immortal being who’s in charge of the town, and the contest) Wilson vows to mend the trio’s friendship and—hopefully—make this a real chance at life again for Annie, and a real chance at friendship again for her. This book has so many layers. I love the magical realism, the strangeness of the contest and the matter-of-fact way that everyone in the town accepts it. The world building is just fantastic. I love the complexity of Wilson’s character, the way she’s so valiantly trying to gain some control over the areas of her life that she lost, searching for love and friendship and family. The secondary characters here are incredibly vivid, too, and I could feel the ways that they’re struggling for so many of the same things that Wilson is hoping for, each existing as fully realized people in the same way that Wil is. After finishing Annie LeBlanc Is Not Dead Yet, I found out that Morris has one previous YA novel—I’ll be picking it up soon. Do yourself a favor, and put this one on your TBR.  Thanks to partner NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Ashley Schumacher’s In the Orbit of You. The book will be published tomorrow!
Ashley Schumacher excels at writing books that tug at my heartstrings, that make me ugly cry. Starting with Amelia Unabridged, which had me full-out sobbing, Schumacher’s YA novels his emotional beats that are authentic and rooted in well-developed, deeply felt characters. Her newest novel, In the Orbit of You, starts with a childhood friendship between Nova Evans and Sam Jordan. They were neighbors, and best friends, reigning over Snailopolis, an imaginary world that served as an escape from ugliness and abuse. Their friendship brings both of them comfort, until Sam is removed from his home, but they promise solemnly to find each other again, when they’re grown up, when they’re 18. Flash forward. Nova is . . . well, she’s 17, and it’s her first day at the umpteenth new school she has entered as she follows her mother’s career from one location to the next. This time, Nova promises herself that she won’t fall into whatever persona seems to make things easiest. Instead, she’s going to figure out who she really is, the identity that fits her best. And then she sees Sam. Nova recognizes him almost right away. He . . . doesn’t recognize her. He’s got a girlfriend, a best friend, amazing parents, a promising future as a football star. But he’s not happy, and Nova quickly sees that unhappiness. And then Sam recognizes her. From there, the book enters a cycle: the promise of reunion, of friendship, and of a new attraction exerts a powerful pull. But Sam has an established life, and Nova knows that they’re moving in just two months, so throwing caution to the wind and entering a state of upheaval and chaos on the off chance that they have something real just doesn’t seem worth it. Or does it? As with all of Schumacher’s books, In the Orbit of You shows a deep understanding of its characters, and I truly loved both Nova and Sam. I did get a little weary of the cyclical nature of their surrender to their feelings and the subsequent denial of them, but the story is still a powerful one, and Schumacher is still an auto-read author for me. |
AuthorI'm Jen Moyers, co-host of the Unabridged Podcast and an English teacher. Archives
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