There has been a lot of flap recently about how violent and dark YA novels are. While those books do exist and are wonderful—I read many of them, there are also plenty of authors writing stories with out a dystopia or post-apocalyptic setting in sight. Keris Stainton is one of them. Her debut novel, Della Says:…

Most of you probably recognize the author’s name from her  Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame. Despite being a contributor to a YA blog, I have to confess that I decidedly did not make that connection when I purchased this book, seeing that I’ve never read the series. I have, however, read her other novel,…

I read Once a Witch awhile ago. It feels like YEARS ago, but I can still remember that amazing feeling I had upon reading it. It was one of those books I felt had been written for me. Once a witch was exactly what I wanted to read and at the end I was pretty…

Another exciting month for book lovers. And, of course the book I want the most doesn’t come out until the very end of the month. Sigh. July 4th Lost Voices by Sarah Porter Fourteen-year-old Luce has had a tough life, but she reaches the depths of despair when she is assaulted and left on the…

I’ve always been a sucker for a good ghost story. I love the feeling of being terrified, heart pounding, hair raising, skin prickling-you know, generally being scared out of my wits. When I called dibs on reviewing The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab, because I had heard only good things about it, Christine was quick…

Three sips to mind the dead… Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn’t a funeral that Maylene didn’t attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: She took three sips from…

I love Susane Colsanti’s books for the sole reason that they take me back to what it was like to be in high school without having to, you know, actually be in high school. Her books really capture the realities of being a teenager without making them completely shallow, which I’ve really appreciated because it…

So, we wanted to do something spectacular for the release of Legacy. Cayla is a super awesome person, we love her book, she loves…well, she  likes our podcast at the very least. And Legacy was a fantastic book. And Cayla said she’d do something on our blog, so we just had to come up with…

Dictionary.com defines satire as “a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.” Beauty Queens most certainly falls into this category. Delicious, delicious satire, but with just the right amount of bite to be palatable to the YA genre. Survival. Of the fittest….

It’s bad, people. It’s real bad. I’m going to have to come down with Mono somehow and just read for a month. The spine you can’t read is Gayle Forman’s “If I Stay” See what I mean? And that’s just my YA, I have two shelves of adult reads that I fear I’ll never get…