Kelly Jensen's Blog, page 10

This Week at Book Riot (and More!)

 

I had every intention of writing a regular post here at STACKED this week and even had a few half-written drafts. Alas, the cosmos didn’t align, but things will be back to normal next week.

In the mean time, I’ve had a lot of writing elsewhere to share!

 

As I’ve been building my daughter’s bookshelves, I found such a gaping hole in available books: where are the board books featuring disabled people? I had a few great suggestions for more titles over on Instagram for anyone else looking.

 

This was a fun one: stickers for library lovers.

 

This week’s episode of Hey YA: Extra Credit is a must-listen. Author Tiffany Schmidt and I book clubbed the recently re-released Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith and discussed the idea of YA books for younger teens being a missing part of the conversation. They aren’t — but they definitely struggle with marketing. Tune in here!

 

I completely forgot to share this piece from last week but better late than never. As you may or may not know, I live in the town where the film Groundhog Day was filmed, and every year, the town goes all out for celebrations on February 2. It really and truly is up there with Halloween on my favorite holidays list.

Apartment Therapy asked me to write a walking guide to the sites of Groundhog Day, and this was such a joy. I got to pair writing, my passion for rodent day, and photography into a fun piece.

This Week at Book Riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

 

#OwnVoices YA Black history books.

 

A roundup of really great bookish gifts for kids.

 

This story about a library grant to buy books and host discussions on voting rights being denied by the library board for not representing “both sides” of voting history is a reminder how much work there is to be done.

 

These were the top romance books on Amazon last year.

 

Great YA nonfiction on audio.

 

A look at Native and Indigenous YA nonfiction.

 

There is also a new episode of Hey YA this week! Hannah and I talked about the ALA Youth Media Awards and then dug into the “what’s your YA book title” meme, shared some of ours, as well as what books they reminded us of — or what the plots of those books might be, were they real. Tune in here.

His Dark Materials TV Adaptation

If your favorite book series is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, as it is mine, you’re pretty lucky. It’s been adapted into many different formats (a radio play, a stage play, a movie), its audiobook production is one of the best I’ve ever read (full cast with Pullman reading the non-dialogue parts), it’s got tons of wonderful variants and foreign language editions for the collector (I myself have several, including a French version of The Amber Spyglass which I picked up in Paris as a 16 year old), there are now three companion novellas with fun extras, and there’s a whole new trilogy that, while published as YA, seems well suited for now-adult fans who grew up with the books.

And now, of course, there is a TV adaptation.

I watched the first season last year, and just finished the second a couple of weeks ago. There will be a third and final season sometime next year. For the most part, each season parallels a book in the trilogy, with one big change: Will is introduced in season 1. It works perfectly well, since Will’s initial adventures from book 2 actually do overlap in time with some of Lyra’s adventures in book 1. We get to see more of Will’s backstory than is shown in the book, which is nice, and the actor is good. It also helps ground the story in something more familiar for the newbies.

While I enjoyed the first season, I didn’t really love it. Most critics have praised Dafne Keen’s performance, but I thought her acting was often awkward, and not in the “I’m a preteen so I’m always awkward” way. It’s a huge and challenging role for a child to carry – she’s in nearly every shot – so no knock on her ability, it just didn’t 100% work for me. Everything else was solid: armored bears, the performances of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, the extremely creepy facility in the North.

Season 2, though, really stepped things up. The Subtle Knife is my least favorite book of the three, but the television season was pretty impressive. Keen’s performance is markedly better, and she and Will grow more comfortable with each other as the episodes pass. Her delivery feels more natural and the way she reacts to Will – initially alarmed by his lack of daemon, then viewing him with wariness, then friendship, and finally as a person whose goals she must help achieve or die trying – feels gradual but also momentous. The witches get some good screen time, as does Mrs. Coulter, who is perhaps the most interesting character in the show, as well as the best-acted. And that scene with Lee – you know the one – is lovingly done and will certainly make you cry.

Season 2 also introduces us to Mary Malone, who is by far my favorite character as an adult. While I loved Lyra’s courage and unselfconscious attitude as a kid, Mary Malone’s life, research, and decisions resonate with me strongly as an adult woman. I’m really excited to see her interact more with Lyra in season 3.

Settings, costumes, and special effects are all pretty perfect. Perhaps my favorite special effect is actually the title sequence, which shows various artistic shots of Lyra’s world and then shots from others that eventually coalesce into a depiction of all parallel worlds, thinly placed one on top of the other, as if you could walk across them all without any effort at all. Cleverly, Lyra’s world is the last focused upon in Season 1, and Cittagazze is the last in season 2.

This is the best screen adaptation for fans yet, and the best we’re likely to see for a while. It’s not perfect, but it does the source material justice, not backing away from the trilogy’s big and more controversial themes. I’m especially curious to see how they deal with those themes in season 3 – do they portray them as the book did, or will the creators modify events and characters’ actions somewhat to avoid generating too much pushback? I’m looking forward to finding out.

The Year of YA Peter Pan Retellings

I love discovering a good micro-trend. These are trends within a book genre or category that, on the surface, are pretty coincidental but are neat to think about. A micro-trend would not be, for example, a wave of dystopian books following the success of a title like The Hunger Games, but instead, would be like what’s being highlighted today.

While doing some research for a roundup of YA retellings for Book Riot’s “What’s Up in YA” newsletter, I found more than one YA book this year that’s revisioning/retelling/bringing a twist to Peter Pan. Retellings and revisionings are always popular, especially in YA, but this specific title being one that emerges more than once is the perfect example of a micro-trend. Perhaps it has to do with the live action adaptation coming or the Peter and Wendy store on tap for sometime in the next couple of years. Perhaps it’s simply serendipitous.

I’ve pulled together this year’s and last year’s takes on Peter Pan, and then I’ve included a few back list titles for readers who love the idea of seeing twists on this classic. Descriptions are from Goodreads. Note that these lists are fairly white. One of the best parts of seeing new takes on Peter Pan is that they’re far more inclusive and burst in creativity — may this continue and this list grow with more books by authors of color, as well as queer authors.

 

2020 and 2021 YA Peter Pan Retellings/Revisionings

 

Darling by K. Ancrum (June 22)

On Wendy Darling’s first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He’s dizzying, captivating, beautiful―so she agrees to join him for a night on the town.

Wendy thinks they’re heading to a party, but instead they’re soon running in the city’s underground. She makes friends―a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies―the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister secrets start coming to light. Can Wendy find the courage to survive this night―and make sure everyone else does, too?

 

Dust by Kara Swanson

Claire Kenton believes the world is too dark for magic to be real–since her twin brother was stolen away as a child. Now Claire’s desperate search points to London… and a boy who shouldn’t exist.

Peter Pan is having a beastly time getting back to Neverland. Grounded in London and hunted by his own Lost Boys, Peter searches for the last hope of restoring his crumbling island: a lass with magic in her veins.

The girl who fears her own destiny is on a collision course with the boy who never wanted to grow up. The truth behind this fairy tale is about to unravel everything Claire thought she knew about Peter Pan–and herself.

 

 

 

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas (March 23)

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road…

Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, asks for Wendy’s help to rescue the missing kids. But, in order to find them, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.

 

Neverland by Meagan Spooner (2021)

Weirdly, I can’t find a description for this one, though it’s up on Goodreads and a number of bloggers cite it being published in January (it wasn’t). If this is a book to be published, it’d be a stand alone in the world of Peter Pan, akin to her books Sherwood and Hunted.

 

Straight On Till Morning by Liz Braswell

What if Wendy first traveled to Neverland… with Captain Hook?

Sixteen-year-old Wendy Darling’s life is not what she imagined it would be. The doldrums of an empty house after her brothers have gone to school, the dull parties where everyone thinks she talks too much, and the fact that her parents have decided to send her away to Ireland as a governess-it all makes her wish things could be different.

Wendy’s only real escape is in writing down tales of Never Land. After nearly meeting her hero, Peter Pan, four years earlier, she still holds on to the childhood hope that his magical home truly exists. She also holds on to his shadow.

So when an opportunity to travel to Never Land via pirate ship presents itself, Wendy makes a deal with the devil. But Never Land isn’t quite the place she imagined it would be. Unexpected dangers and strange foes pop up at every turn, and a little pixie named Tinker Bell seems less than willing to help.

But when Captain Hook reveals some rather permanent and evil plans for Never Land, it’s up to the two of them to save Peter Pan-and his world.

 

 

Backlist YA Peter Pan Retellings/Revisionings

 

Everland by Wendy Spinale

The only way to grow up is to survive.

London has been destroyed in a blitz of bombs and disease. The only ones who have survived the destruction and the outbreak of a deadly virus are children, among them sixteen-year-old Gwen Darling and her younger siblings, Joanna and Mikey. They spend their nights scavenging and their days avoiding the deadly Marauders—the German army led by the cutthroat Captain Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer.

Unsure if the virus has spread past England’s borders but desperate to leave, Captain Hook is on the hunt for a cure, which he thinks can be found in one of the surviving children. He and his Marauders stalk the streets snatching children for experimentation. None ever return.

Until one day when they grab Joanna. Gwen will stop at nothing to get her sister back, but as she sets out, she crosses paths with a daredevil named Pete. Pete offers the assistance of his gang of Lost Boys and the fierce sharpshooter Bella, who have all been living in a city hidden underground. But in a place where help has a steep price and every promise is bound by blood, it might cost Gwen more than she bargained for. And are Gwen, Pete, the Lost Boys, and Bella enough to outsmart the ruthless Captain Hook?

 

Never Ever by Sara Saedi

Wylie Dalton didn’t believe in fairy tales or love at first sight.

Then she met a real-life Peter Pan.

When Wylie encounters Phinn—confident, mature, and devastatingly handsome—at a party the night before her brother goes to juvie, she can’t believe how fast she falls for him. And that’s before he shows her how to fly.

Soon Wylie and her brothers find themselves whisked away to a mysterious tropical island off the coast of New York City where nobody ages beyond seventeen and life is a constant party. Wylie’s in heaven: now her brother won’t go to jail and she can escape her over-scheduled life with all its woes and responsibilities—permanently.

But the deeper Wylie falls for Phinn, the more she begins to discover has been kept from her and her brothers. Somebody on the island has been lying to her, but the truth can’t stay hidden forever.

 

Never Never by Brianna Shrum

James Hook is a child who only wants to grow up. When he meets Peter Pan, a boy who loves to pretend and is intent on never becoming a man, James decides he could try being a child – at least briefly. James joins Peter Pan on a holiday to Neverland, a place of adventure created by children’s dreams, but Neverland is not for the faint of heart. Soon James finds himself longing for home, determined that he is destined to be a man. But Peter refuses to take him back, leaving James trapped in a world just beyond the one he loves. A world where children are to never grow up. But grow up he does. And thus begins the epic adventure of a Lost Boy and a Pirate. This story isn’t about Peter Pan; it’s about the boy whose life he stole. It’s about a man in a world that hates men. It’s about the feared Captain James Hook and his passionate quest to kill the Pan, an impossible feat in a magical land where everyone loves Peter Pan. Except one.

 

 

 

Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete’s nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she’s falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up–and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

 

 

 

 

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair…

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn’t believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she’s ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland’s inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she’s always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it’s the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who’s everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

 

Unhooked by Lisa Maxwell

For as long as she can remember, Gwendolyn Allister has never had a place to call home—all because her mother believes that monsters are hunting them. Now these delusions have brought them to London, far from the life Gwen had finally started to build for herself. The only saving grace is her best friend, Olivia, who’s coming with them for the summer.

But when Gwen and Olivia are kidnapped by shadowy creatures and taken to a world of flesh-eating sea hags and dangerous Fey, Gwen realizes her mom might have been sane all along.

The world Gwen finds herself in is called Neverland, yet it’s nothing like the stories. Here, good and evil lose their meaning and memories slip like water through her fingers. As Gwen struggles to remember where she came from and find a way home, she must choose between trusting the charming fairy-tale hero who says all the right things and the roguish young pirate who promises to keep her safe.

With time running out and her enemies closing in, Gwen is forced to face the truths she’s been hiding from all along. But will she be able to save Neverland without losing herself?

 

Wendy Darling by Colleen Oakes

Wendy Darling has a perfectly agreeable life with her parents and brothers in wealthy London, as well as a budding romance with Booth, the neighborhood bookseller’s son. But while their parents are at a ball, the charmingly beautiful Peter Pan comes to the Darling children’s nursery and—dazzled by this flying boy with god-like powers—they follow him out of the window and straight on to morning, to Neverland, an intoxicating island of feral freedom.

As time passes in Neverland, Wendy realizes that this Lost Boys’ paradise of turquoise seas, mermaids, and pirates holds terrible secrets rooted in blood and greed. As Peter’s grasp on her heart tightens, she struggles to remember where she came from—and begins to suspect that this island of dreams, and the boy who desires her, have the potential to transform into an everlasting nightmare.

 

This Week at Book Riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week……

 

An A to Z guide to the parts of a book.

 

A giant roundup of children’s book illustrators who sell their art on Etsy and Society6.

 

Great YA nonfiction hitting shelves this year.

 

YA books set in the 1970s.

2021 Repeating Titles 2021 Repeating Titles 2021 Repeating Titles

Remember a couple of years ago there was a trend for book cover design where the title repeated itself over and over? If I were a big GIF user, I’d insert the one from Twin Peaks saying “It’s happening again.” Because in 2021, the repeating title trend carries on after a small break for 2020.

Obviously, not every 2021 book cover has yet to be shared, so chances are we may see more leaning into this trend. I’ve included adult and YA book titles that have crossed my screen — if you can think of other 2021 repeating titles, I’d love to hear about them in the comments. Descriptions come from Goodreads.

 

Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria (8/17)

Elite white women have branded feminism, promising an apolitical individual empowerment along with sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity. As Rafia Zakaria expertly argues, those promises have been proven empty and white feminists have leant on their racial privilege and sense of cultural superiority. Drawing on her own experiences as an American Muslim woman, as well as an attorney working on behalf of immigrant women, Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism that forges true solidarity by bringing Black and brown voices and goals to the fore.

Ranging from the savior complex of British feminist imperialists to the condescension of the white feminist–led “development industrial complex” and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment,” Zakaria presents an eye-opening indictment of how whiteness has contributed to a feminist movement that solely serves the interests of upper middle-class white women.

 

 

The Brittanys by Brittany Ackerman (6/15)

They’re not the most popular freshmen at their Florida prep school, but at least everyone knows their name(s). The Brittanys.

Brittany Rosenberg: drives her golf cart around her subdivision to meet boys.

Brittany Gottlieb: insists you can’t lose your virginity if you haven’t gotten your period. (She heard it somewhere!)

Brittany Tomassi: is from New York.

Brittany Jensen: once threw her tampon into a stranger’s swimming pool. A brash, bold, unapologetic tomboy. And the greatest person in the whole wide world.

At least as far as the fifth Brittany–our narrator–is concerned. Even within their friend group, she and Jensen are a duo: with their matching JanSport backpacks, Tiffany chokers, and Victoria’s Secret push-up bras, they are unstoppable. And now that they’re finally growing up, they’re going to do everything: dye their hair, attend no-parent parties, try pot . . . maybe even lose their virginities. 2004 is totally going to be their year!

Except Jensen’s interests may be diverging from her friends’. And within our narrator’s own family–in the lives of her exhausted mother and beloved, genius older brother–life-changing events may be taking shape. Events that only years later, looking back, she has the perspective to see.

 

Girlhood by Melissa Febos (3/30)

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

 

Making Hearts by Jack Getze

Interrupting the Soria family’s Christmas Eve feast, childish teenager Emily requires the hospital emergency room for an apparent attack of appendicitis. But a blunt nurse explains the truth: Emily is giving birth. The seventeen-year-old has tricked her mind and body into believing she isn’t pregnant, when—in a rare but not unheard-of occurrence—the baby is full term and already being born.

A life-affirming, feel-good story of love, family and the special way Christmas can inspire, Making Hearts introduces a character readers will strongly care about and root for. Noelle wins the hearts of all with her loving enthusiasm for life, her wit, and by personally defeating the villain’s lowdown scheme in an astonishing climax readers will never forget.

 

 

 

Muted by Tami Charles (2/2)

For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.

So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean “Mercury” Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights — plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.

Until they’re not.

Denver begins to realize that she’s trapped in Merc’s world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.

Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl’s dreams can be used against her — and what it takes to fight back.

 

 

White Magic by Elissa Washuta (4/27)

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, “starter witch kits” of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning. In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life—Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham—to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.

This Week at Book Riot

Over on Book Riot this week…

 

The ultimate guide to literary greeting cards for almost any occasion.

 

Over 30 of the best Untamed by Glennon Doyle quotes.

 

The most commonly assigned books in US colleges.

 

There’s also a brand-new episode of Hey YA, wherein Hannah and I talk about books set in short time frames, as well as YA books about the apocalypse. Tune in!

January 2021 Debut YA Novels

Things may feel pretty much the same in 2021 as they did in 2020, but one thing is for sure: we can get excited about new books. January 2021 debut YA novels are here and there are so many great reads among them.

 

 

This round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts that came out in these last two months from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. List is arranged alphabetically by title and publication month. Starred titles are the beginning of a new series.

 

Debut YA Novels: January 2021

 

11 Paper Hearts by Kelsey Hartwell (1/5)

Ella’s life was picture perfect. She had a circle of close friends, a jam-packed social life, and an amazing boyfriend. But then something completely unexpected happened: a car accident after a Valentine’s Day dance. When Ella woke up in the hospital, she couldn’t remember the accident . . . or anything about the weeks before it, including the reason she broke up with her boyfriend.

Now, a year later, she begins receiving paper hearts from a mysterious admirer who seems to have the answers she craves. Ella is intrigued. The hearts contain clues to help Ella remember her life before . . . and take her on a journey she never imagined. Following the paper hearts is the most spontaneous thing Ella has ever done . . . but will she find love?

 

 

 

*Cast in Firelight by Dana Swift (1/19)

Adraa is the royal heir of Belwar, a talented witch on the cusp of taking her royal ceremony test, and a girl who just wants to prove her worth to her people.

Jatin is the royal heir to Naupure, a competitive wizard who’s mastered all nine colors of magic, and a boy anxious to return home for the first time since he was a child.

Together, their arranged marriage will unite two of Wickery’s most powerful kingdoms. But after years of rivalry from afar, Adraa and Jatin only agree on one thing: their reunion will be anything but sweet.

Only, destiny has other plans and with the criminal underbelly of Belwar suddenly making a move for control, their paths cross…and neither realizes who the other is, adopting separate secret identities instead.

Between dodging deathly spells and keeping their true selves hidden, the pair must learn to put their trust in the other if either is to uncover the real threat. Now Wickery’s fate is in the hands of rivals..? Fiancées..? Partners..? Whatever they are, it’s complicated and bound for greatness or destruction.

 

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne (1/12)

A novel-in-verse about a young girl coming-of-age and stepping out of the shadow of her former best friend. Perfect for readers of Elizabeth Acevedo and Nikki Grimes.

She looks me hard in my eyes
& my knees lock into tree trunks
My eyes don’t dance like my heartbeat racing
They stare straight back hot daggers.
I remember things will never be the same.
I remember things.

With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, Mahogany L. Browne delivers a novel-in-verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and when growing up means growing apart from your best friend.

 

 

Glimpsed by G. F. Miller (1/5)

Charity is a fairy godmother. She doesn’t wear a poofy dress or go around waving a wand, but she does make sure the deepest desires of the student population at Jack London High School come true. And she knows what they want even better than they do because she can glimpse their perfect futures.

But when Charity fulfills a glimpse that gets Vibha crowned homecoming queen, it ends in disaster. Suddenly, every wish Charity has ever granted is called into question. Has she really been helping people? Where do these glimpses come from, anyway? What if she’s not getting the whole picture?

Making this existential crisis way worse is Noah—the adorkable and (in Charity’s opinion) diabolical ex of one of her past clients—who blames her for sabotaging his prom plans and claims her interventions are doing more harm than good. He demands that she stop granting wishes and help him get his girl back. At first, Charity has no choice but to play along. But soon, Noah becomes an unexpected ally in getting to the bottom of the glimpses. Before long, Charity dares to call him her friend…and even starts to wish he were something more. But can the fairy godmother ever get the happily ever after?

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant (1/5)

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.

When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first workshop, the words are just…gone. Fortunately, Caroline has a solution: Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she’s ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. Nico, the brooding artist who looks like he walked out of one of Tessa’s stories, is cast as the perfect Prince Charming.

But as Tessa checks off each item off Caroline’s list, she gets further and further away from herself. She risks losing everything she cares about—including the surprising bond she develops with sweet Sam, who lives across the street. She’s well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?

 

The Meet-Cute Project by Rhiannon Richardson (1/12)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets Save the Date in this sweet and hijinks-filled rom-com about a teen girl who will do whatever it takes to find a date for her sister’s wedding.

Mia’s friends love rom-coms. Mia hates them. They’re silly, contrived, and not at all realistic. Besides, there are more important things to worry about—like how to handle living with her bridezilla sister, Sam, who’s never appreciated Mia, and surviving junior year juggling every school club offered and acing all of her classes.

So when Mia is tasked with finding a date to her sister’s wedding, her options are practically nonexistent.

Mia’s friends, however, have an idea. It’s a little crazy, a little out there, and a lot inspired by the movies they love that Mia begrudgingly watches too.

Mia just needs a meet-cute.

 

Monsters Among Us by Monica Rodden (1/5)

When Catherine Ellers returns home after her first semester at college, she is seeking refuge from a night she can barely piece together, dreads remembering, and refuses to talk about. She tries to get back to normal, but just days later the murder of someone close to her tears away any illusion of safety.

Catherine feels driven to face both violent events head on in hopes of finding the perpetrators and bringing them to justice with the help of her childhood friend, Henry. Then a stranger from college arrives with her lost coat, missing driver’s license–and details to help fill in the gaps in her memory that could be the key to solving both mysteries. But who is Andrew Worthington and why is he offering to help her? And what other dangerous obsessions is her sleepy town hiding?

Surrounded by secrets and lies, Catherine must unravel the truth–before this wolf in sheep’s clothing strikes again.

 

The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks (1/5)

Seventeen-year-old Evie Beckham has never been interested in dating. She’s been fully occupied by her love of mathematics and her frequent battles with anxiety (and besides, she’s always found the idea of kissing to be a little bit icky). But with the help of her best friend and her therapist, Evie’s feeling braver. Maybe even brave enough to enter a prestigious physics competition and to say yes to the new boy who’s been flirting with her.

Caleb Covic knows Evie isn’t ready for romance but assumes that when she is, she will choose him. So Caleb is horrified when he is forced to witness Evie’s meet cute with a floppy-haired, mathematically gifted transfer student. Because Caleb knows the girl never falls for the funny best friend when there’s a mysterious stranger around, he decides to use an online forum to capture Evie’s interest. Now, he’s got Evie wondering if it’s possible to fall in love with a boy she’s never met.

Told in the alternating voices of Evie and Caleb, THE QUANTUM WEIRDNESS OF THE ALMOST KISS is a YA romantic comedy, sure to satisfy fans of Jenny Han, Rainbow Rowell and Stephanie Perkins.

 

*Rise of the Red Hand by Olivia Chadha (1/19)

The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs.

Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children.

When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.

 

When You Look Like Us by Pamela N. Harris (1/5)

When you look like us—brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades—people think you’re trouble. No one looks twice at a missing black girl from the projects because she must’ve brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister, Nicole, got too caught up with her boyfriend—a drug dealer—and his friends.

But she’s been gone too long now.

If I hadn’t hung up on her that night, she’d be spending time with our grandma. If I was a better brother, she’d be finishing senior year instead of being another name on a missing persons list. It’s time to step up and do what the Newport News police department won’t.

Nic, I’m bringing you home.

 

Wider Than The Sky by Katherine Rothschild (1/19)

Sixteen-year-old Sabine Braxton doesn’t have much in common with her identical twin, Blythe. When their father dies from an unexpected illness, each copes with the loss in her own way—Sabine by “poeting” (an uncontrollable quirk of bursting into poetry at inappropriate moments) and Blythe by obsessing over getting into MIT, their father’s alma mater. Neither can offer each other much support . . . at least not until their emotionally detached mother moves them into a ramshackle Bay Area mansion owned by a stranger named Charlie.

Soon, the sisters unite in a mission to figure out who Charlie is and why he seems to know everything about them. They quickly make a life-changing discovery: their father died of an HIV- related infection, Charlie was his lover, and their mother knows the whole story. The revelation unravels Sabine’s world, while practical Blythe seems to take everything in stride. Once again at odds with her sister, Sabine chooses to learn all she can about the father she never knew. Ultimately, she must decide if she can embrace his last wish for their family legacy—along with forgiveness.

 

*Wings of Ebony by J.Elle (1/26)

“Make a way out of no way” is just the way of life for Rue. But when her mother is shot dead on her doorstep, life for her and her younger sister changes forever. Rue’s taken from her neighborhood by the father she never knew, forced to leave her little sister behind, and whisked away to Ghizon—a hidden island of magic wielders.

Rue is the only half-god, half-human there, where leaders protect their magical powers at all costs and thrive on human suffering. Miserable and desperate to see her sister on the anniversary of their mother’s death, Rue breaks Ghizon’s sacred Do Not Leave Law and returns to Houston, only to discover that Black kids are being forced into crime and violence. And her sister, Tasha, is in danger of falling sway to the very forces that claimed their mother’s life.

Worse still, evidence mounts that the evil plaguing East Row is the same one that lurks in Ghizon—an evil that will stop at nothing until it has stolen everything from her and everyone she loves. Rue must embrace her true identity and wield the full magnitude of her ancestors’ power to save her neighborhood before the gods burn it to the ground.

 

Your Corner Dark by Desmond Hall (1/19)

Things can change in a second:

The second Frankie Green gets that scholarship letter, he has his ticket out of Jamaica.

The second his longtime crush, Leah, asks him on a date, he’s in trouble.

The second his father gets shot, suddenly nothing else matters.

And the second Frankie joins his uncle’s gang in exchange for paying for his father’s medical bills, there’s no going back…or is there?

As Frankie does things he never thought he’d be capable of, he’s forced to confront the truth of the family and future he was born into—and the ones he wants to build for himself.

 

This Week at Book Riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

 

Sweet ereader cases that look like books.

 

One of my favorite roundups in a while: here are 40+ YA book cover artists and designers on Instagram.

Cybils 2020 – Update

In case you missed it, the Cybils finalists were announced January 1! I’m excited to be judging round 2 of graphic novels this year, which means I get to help select TWO winners – one for Elementary/Middle Grade and one for YA. I haven’t read any of the finalists this year (due to having basically read Nothing last year), so I’m excited to dive into these great books. For a look at the graphic novel finalists only, go here.

While I and my fellow judges read and discuss the finalists, we have to be pretty hush hush about our thoughts on them, though I hope to have reviews of them up here after the winners are announced February 14. But I can talk all I want to about the finalists in other categories.

I’m particularly pleased to see that Yasmin the Gardener by Saadia Faruqi is a finalist in the Easy Reader category. We love Yasmin at my library, and this series is one I recommend to early readers all the time. The same goes for Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business in the Early Chapter Book category; Lyla Lee’s series is one that’s consistently good and a great pick for kids just getting into chapters.

I’ve been a frequent panelist or judge in the Young Adult Speculative Fiction category, so I was especially curious to see what books the panelists chose this year. While I haven’t read any of them yet, many of them are on my to read list: Burn by Patrick Ness, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, and Legendborn by Tracy Deonn.

I actually think the announcement of the finalists is more exciting than the winner – the seven books chosen as finalists are always a surprise, and they’re often under the radar titles that deserve more acclaim. My to read list always grows after the announcement; I hope yours does too.