Jennifer Hubert's Blog, page 26

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

In 1872, a swoony nature boy falls for a winsome water girl–who just happens to have a dolphin’s tail. Though they long to be together, they are separated by their deeply different circumstances and mobility issues. Then the winsome water girl comes up with a particularly gruesome solution to their problem, and for a while [...]

Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel

There are handful of authors who never disappoint me, and Kenneth Oppel is one of them. This splendid sequel to This Dark Endeavor proved to be just as satisfying, if not even a bit more so, than its predecessor. Victor’s twin Konrad is barely cold in his grave before the young Frankenstein is trying to [...]

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Sometimes you read a book and you say, “That’s my book.” It seems like the author wrote it just for you, that everything in it was created for your amusement and suspense and pleasure. It is intimate and wonderful and you want to tell everyone you know about it and keep it all to yourself [...]

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

In 1485 Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae is rescued from an arranged marriage to a brutish pig farmer by a hedge witch who recognizes Ismae for who she is: a daughter of Mortain, god of Death. She is bundled off to the convent of St. Mortain, where is she trained by killer nuns to become a first [...]

The Girl in the Park by Mariah Fredericks

Rain has no problem hanging at the back of the crowd in her posh Manhattan private school. Though she has had extensive speech therapy to overcome the cleft palate she was born with, she’s still insecure about her “mushmouthed and nasal” sounding voice.  But when her former best friend and notorious party girl Wendy is [...]

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

Mousy Nora can’t believe her luck when super cute Chris and his equally shiny girlfriend Adriane adopt her into their exclusive circle at Chapman prep. Even though she sometimes feels like a third wheel, it’s worth it to be able to call Chris her best friend. Then after graduation, Chris scores a cool after school [...]

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

When Cheryl Strayed was twenty-six, she found herself essentially orphaned, divorced and struggling with a potential heroin addiction. Mourning the recent death of her mother, she decided that the best cure for her crippling depression was to hike the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail, a professional level mountain hiking trail that starts at the Mexican border, [...]

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Mahalia and Mouse are "war maggots," children orphaned by the violent and ever changing civil war that has ravaged the bleak futuristic landscape of the United States eastern coast, and caused the Chinese peacekeepers to cut their losses and flee. They find temporary safety and shelter with Doctor Mahfouz, a kind physician who works hard [...]

Supergirl Mixtapes by Meagan Brothers

Maria was born in New York City, but she hasn't been back since her parents split and she ended up living with her dad in Georgia. Her family has always warned her that her mom Victoria, a free spirited artist living in Greenwich Village, is not exactly parent material. But now that she's practically an [...]

Chopsticks: a novel by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral

Seventeen-year-old Gloria Fleming is a beautiful young piano prodigy who's still mourning the death of her mother when she was ten and chafes under her widowed father's strict rules. Frank Mendoza is the impetuous young artist who moves in next door and sweeps Gloria off her feet with his sensuous drawings, paintings of flowers and [...]