When a shopping trip with her best friend and best friend’s boyfriend ends in an arrest for shoplifting, Tatum tries to convince her parents of her innocence. But instead of understanding that Tatum did nothing wrong, that it was all the creepy boyfriend’s fault, Tatum’s dad leaves her under the strict rule of her stepmother. Yay for summer house arrest.
As part of her punishment, Tatum works community service, where a friend challenges her to start her own business doing graphic design. As Tatum explores the possibility, she meets a charming boy looking for a website, and learns she and her stepsister may have something in common after all.
I liked spunky Tatum and the charming and mysterious boy she communicates with via email. The way the relationship unfolded drew me even further into the story. I liked that she ends up with a community of friends around her. I also liked the exploration of the relationship between Tatum and her stepmother. As a member of a blended family, I felt like that relationship read pretty true. Though she eventually comes to respect her stepmom, Tatum is pretty rude at different points in the story. She does regret her behavior later.
I thought it was cool to feature a character with interest in graphic design, especially one as entrepreneurial as Tatum. It added an interesting flavor to the story. Overall, this is a clean book and a light read. Fans of A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody will appreciate Tatum’s quirkiness and wild attempts to fix things. The story might also appeal to readers who enjoyed That’s Not Hay in My Hair by Juliette Turner.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Most characters are straight and white. Tatum’s step-family (mom, sister, grandmother) are Chilean.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Brief kissing between boy and girl.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Prom serves as an important tradition for youth in America today. This book explores the history of the social event as well as its evolving trends while giving a spotlight to students and community members who worked hard to create integrated proms which protect and encourage LGBT student participation. Adults reflect on their prom experiences, some dating back to the Great Depression, and share tips and memories for today’s Prom attendees. Current trends like “promposals” and dress registries get a nod as well as some creative prom dress-making challenges and programs to provide dresses for girls who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend the dance.
While the history of Prom contains a lot of fascinating details, the book feels low on other elements. The section containing tips and memories from former attendees is organized so that each responder gets a section. This made the section more personal, but also sort of muddied the information. A clear bulleted list or chapter detailing safety tips, ideas for saving money, or clever ways to make the dance more fun might have made this section more dynamic. Overall, though, it makes a nice overview. This book will probably be most useful to middle school and early high school students who are curious about what they have to look forward to when they have a chance to attend Prom.
Recommended for Ages 12 to 16.
Cultural Elements
The book discusses battles fought by African American and Caucasian students to have integrated proms.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content The author encourages attendees not to feel sexual pressure on prom night. Other contributors reflect back on prom experiences, one describing a friend who ended up in a scary situation. Her date treated her like he expected her to have sex with him, and she ended up needing help and protection from others to stay safe.
Spiritual Content There are a couple of references to Christian schools which would not allow students to bring same gender dates, and a girl who wanted to bring a transgender boy as her date.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
The author and contributors also encourage teens not to feel pressure to drink alcohol or use drugs on prom night. One contributor states that it’s a smaller group of people who actually drink than you think it is. One girl recalls being sent home after drug paraphernalia was found in her boyfriend’s bag.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
About Spark
Brenna James wants three things for her sixteenth birthday: to find her history notes
before the test, to have her mother return from her business trip, and to stop creating fire
with her bare hands. Yeah, that’s so not happening. Unfortunately.
When Brenna learns her mother is missing in an alternate reality called Linneah, she
travels through a portal to find her. Against her will. Who knew portals even existed? But
Brenna’s arrival in Linneah begins the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, including a royal
murder and the theft of Linneah’s most powerful relic: the Sacred Veil. Hold up. Can
everything just slow down for a sec?
Unwilling yet left with no other choice, Brenna and her new friend Baldwin (Um, hello,
Hottie!) pursue the thief into the dangerous woods of Silvastamen and beyond. Exactly
what Brenna wanted to do for her sixteenth birthday. Exactly. When they spy an army
marching toward Linneah, Brenna is horrified. Can she find the veil, save her mother, and
warn Linneah in time? And more importantly, why on earth doesn’t this alternity have
Belgian waffles?
My Review Spark is a peppy, fun read perfect for fans of Sara Ella’s Unblemished. I enjoyed the cast of characters and found each one really different from others. Anna might have been my favorite, simply because she was so silly. The romance between Baldwin and Brenna is sweet and perfect for readers just beginning to read romance.
The Christian themes in the story are pretty straightforward without being preachy. Brenna faces choices surrounding a prophecy which seems to indicate that she’ll play a major role in the land of Linneah, a role she is more than a little hesitant to accept. As she struggles with how to embrace her destiny, she finds great allies and keeps readers entertained with her spunky observations and longing for ordinary breakfast food. I enjoyed Spark and found it to be a pretty quick read.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Human characters are white. Other characters, like fauns and shapeshifters face some prejudice from humans.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Brief kissing.
Spiritual Content Brenna must make a choice to serve Elyon (God) or opposing forces. Various characters possess God-given gifts like the ability to command fire, sense emotions, stop time, and see visions.
Violent Content Brief battle violence.
Drug Content
Prince Rune (who opposes Elyon) uses an addictive substance that promises power to those to follow him.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
J.M. Hackman has held many positions: assistant librarian, office assistant, office manager,
substitute teacher, writer, wife, and mother. She still holds the last three. And loves it. She
received a degree in Elementary Education from Pennsylvania State University and now
spends her days writing stories, consuming massive quantities of chocolate, and looking for
portals to other worlds.
About The Lost and the Found THE LOST
When six-year-old Laurel Logan was abducted, the only witness was her younger sister, Faith. Since then, Faith’s childhood has revolved around her sister’s disappearance—from her parents’ broken marriage and the constant media attention, to dealing with so-called friends who only ever want to talk about her missing sister.
THE FOUND
Now, thirteen years later, a young woman is found in the front yard of the Logans’ old house, disoriented and clutching the teddy bear Laurel was last seen with. Can her sister finally be back? Faith always dreamed of her sister coming home; she just never believed it would happen. But soon a disturbing series of events leaves Faith increasingly isolated from her family and paranoid about her sister’s motives. Before long, Faith begins to wonder if it’s the abduction that’s changed her sister, or if it’s something else. . . .
My Review
I feel like it’s going to be difficult to talk about this book without spoilers because so many of the things that made it really fascinating were the twists I didn’t see coming. There’s a creepy element that has absolutely nothing to do with Laurel’s past, which I thought was not only really well-executed in terms of how eerie it was, but also how unexpected and yet it made sense.
It took me a couple of chapters to really decide I liked Faith. On the whole she’s the good girl who has been largely invisible to her family since her sister’s disappearance. Which in and of itself was an interesting paradox, right? I loved her relationship with her almost-step-dad Michel. He seemed to really get her and had the capacity to draw her out. In some ways it seemed like they were both outsiders watching people they loved caught up in the grief of losing a daughter.
Toward the end, Faith makes a difficult decision that I really struggled to accept. I felt like it was deeply unhealthy and didn’t agree at all with her methods of justifying it to herself. She wanted to believe she was ultimately doing a kinder thing, but I felt like she should realize what a lie it was based on her perceptions of the rest of her family members. I know that’s vague. I don’t want to give the story away. But that was kind of disappointing to me. I prefer to think that eventually she changed her mind and came forward with the truth.
I’ve read a couple of other “abducted child returns” stories before– The Tension of Opposites, The Deep End of the Ocean, Aftermath, and the duo Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie?— and I think this one is the most unique in its exploration of what it’d be like to experience a long-lost sister return. If you like any of the books I listed above, you will want to check this one out as well.
You can also find my interview with author Cat Clarke here.
Recommended for Ages 16 up.
Cultural Elements
Faith and her family are white. Her dad is bisexual and after he and Faith’s mom divorced, he began a relationship with a Frenchman.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.
Romance/Sexual Content Kisses between Faith and her boyfriend as well as some displays of affection between Faith’s dad and his boyfriend. Faith had sex with her boyfriend for the first time the night before the story begins. She reflects on it a couple of times during the story and has sex with him again in her room while her parents are out. It’s briefly described—largely because her mind is elsewhere, so it’s kind of this weird experience for her.
She comments early in the book that having sex with her boyfriend was “the right thing” because she loves him.
Though Laurel doesn’t graphically describe her experiences in captivity, it’s clear she was sexually abused. It’s mostly hinted at and not explicitly described, but especially sensitive readers may find even these references too much.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content References to physical and sexual abuse.
Drug Content
Faith attends a birthday party where she and a friend sneak drinks of wine until fairly intoxicated.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
After her boyfriend’s death, Frankie Devereaux spirals. A drunk-driving conviction lands her at her dad’s house, responsible for community service and public school for the first time. As she fights vicious flashbacks to Noah’s death, Frankie desperately tries to remember the face of the man who killed him. The last thing Frankie needs is Marco Leone, a dangerous racer with a larger-than-life reputation. Frankie resists the pull she feels, but when she learns who Marco truly is, she knows she can’t simply walk away from him. She’s left with a terrible choice which could destroy them both—or save them.
The rich-girl-meets-bad-boy story has been told again and again, but never has it featured a heroine as complex as Frankie. Her PTSD drives Frankie deeper into anger, depression, and risk-taking behaviors, but her new situation at school teaches her about friendship, trust, and forgiveness. Though ultimately, this is a love story about a girl recovering from trauma and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, it’s also about finding courage to face fear, to stand up for others, and to believe in the value of life and love.
The title comes from a song written by Frankie’s best friend’s dad, a rock star whose life ended in a tragic drug overdose. I liked the way it pulled together Frankie and Marco’s story but also the things her best friend Abel was experiencing in the wake of his father’s unexpected death.
The Lovely Reckless deals with a lot of heavy things. Sometimes Frankie seems really negative, but considering all she’d been through, I felt like this fit her character. It also showed the transformation she began to experience as she got to know Marco and Cruz, another driver at school, and had to decide whether to open herself up to them. Side note: Cruz might have been my favorite character. I loved her frankness and loyalty. Everyone needs a best friend like Cruz!
In some ways, I feel like this book is perfect for fans of The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. It has that same sort of us versus them setting in the way Garcia describes the Heights and the Downs. It has some of the same sense of romance and desperation. So I guess it’d be more like if The Outsiders was told from the point-of-view of Cherry Valance. Okay, probably not many people will follow me there. That’s okay. Cherry was the up-town girl the boys talked with who seemed pretty all right.
Recommended for Ages 16 up.
Cultural Elements
Frankie, Lex, and Abel are Caucasian. Frankie falls for Marco, a Latino street racer, and befriends Cruz, a Latina racer.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.
Romance/Sexual Content Frankie has some brief memories of her relationship with her former boyfriend—kissing him and how he never pressured her for more than she was comfortable with.
She shares some passionate kisses with a boy. In one scene, she removes her top. In another, it seems like they might have sex, but she asks him to stop.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content Frankie suffers flashbacks to the night she saw her boyfriend beaten to death. The descriptions are pretty short, but graphic.
She witnesses two boys fighting at school.
Drug Content
Frankie gets pulled over for drunk driving. She ends up with community service and a suspended license. Later, she goes to a party and gets very drunk before wandering into the street in a dangerous part of town. Marco comes to school drunk and ready to pick a fight. Frankie’s best friend Abel’s dad died of a drug overdose and his mom is addicted to prescription drugs.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
About Shadow and Thorn An exiled king.
An elusive thief.
And the treasure they would give their lives to possess…
Alexei is returning to his homeland after more than twenty years in hiding. His kingdom is destroyed, his people dead or enslaved. His only hope to provide sanctuary for those few who remain is the uncertain word of a traitor, a broken man who claims to know the hiding place of Erath’s greatest treasure. To find it, Alexei will have to return to the place where Erath fell, and brave the shadowed halls of a castle that echoes with the ghosts of his past.
Zara is a woman without a future—a treasure hunter, and a thief who hates to steal. Trapped by fate in an abandoned castle, she encounters a destiny she could never have predicted, and uncovers a treasure far greater than she ever imagined.
When their paths collide, Alexei and Zara may both have a chance to atone for past mistakes… unless they kill each other first. Brought together by enemies both expected and unexpected, they will plumb the depths of an unimaginable betrayal and forge the foundations of a love they would risk anything to keep.
My Review Confession: The characters’ ages make this technically adult fiction, which I almost never review here. I’m making an exception for two (kind of flimsy) reasons. One is that I LOVE this series, and the other is that earlier books fit the young adult genre a lot better, so YA readers who’ve been along for the earlier books may want to know what I have to say about this one.
The only hiccup for me was the opening scene. I was kind of confused by what was happening and I wasn’t sure if I should be able to place it with something from a previous book. Once I got a few chapters in, I realized exactly what was happening in that opening scene, and I appreciated it a lot more.
I remembered Alexei from the third book in the series, and I definitely remember thinking I wanted to know more about him. So finding him at the center of this book was really exciting. I also liked Zara a LOT. She’s spunky and good, which you don’t often see paired together. I was a fan from the moment she walked on scene.
Shadow and Thorn is a re-imagining of the story of Beauty and the Beast, but it’s possibly the most clever re-imagining of that story I’ve ever read (and I do NOT say that lightly because Robin McKinley’s Beauty is easily in my top twenty-five favorite books ever.) because while it retells the story in a different way, it also becomes an origin story. I know that’s vague. I don’t want to give too much away, but there were so many moments as I read the story where things suddenly clicked and I was like, OHHHHHHH! I see what’s happening here! And that made reading it so much fun.
I also liked that Alexei has a team of allies–sort of the way the Beast has his servants in the castle who are loyal and often see things he doesn’t. It rounded out the cast of characters really nicely. The castle appears as a character, too, and I thought that was really imaginatively done. She is ancient and inhuman, and it definitely came across in her actions and desires and added some real complexity to the tale.
I feel like fans of Leah Cypess need to read the Andari books. Seriously. Something about this story reminded me of her debut, Mistwood. If you’re a fan of fairy tales re-imagined, you need to put this series at the top of your reading list. Kenley Davidson has published four books so far, and I’ve loved every one of them. If you’ve never heard of the Andari Chronicles before, check out my review of the first book, Traitor’s Masque here .
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
The Andari Chronicles feel rich with varied cultures. This story focuses mostly on one culture, which had previously been enslaved because of their magical abilities.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content Brief kissing between a boy and girl.
Spiritual Content Magical abilities allow some people to do amazing things—manipulate crystals, predict the future, heal others, or control them.
Magical ability can also be used to form an unbreakable bond with someone. When someone shares a bond with someone else, they must stay near each other or risk death if they become too distanced from one another. Also, if one member of the bond dies, the other will follow.
Violent Content Brief battles. Some soldiers become wounded.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
