Category Archives: Young Adult/Teen 12-18

Review: Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,
Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove
Rati Mehrotra
Wednesday Books
Published October 18, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove

To learn what she can become, she must first discover who she is.

Katyani’s role in the kingdom of Chandela has always been clear: becoming an advisor and protector of the crown prince, Ayan, when he ascends to the throne. Bound to the Queen of Chandela through a forbidden soul bond that saved her when she was a child, Katyani has grown up in the royal family and become the best guardswoman the Garuda has ever seen.

But when a series of assassination attempts threatens the royals, the queen ships Katyani off to the gurukul of the famous Acharya Mahavir as an escort to Ayan and his cousin, Bhairav, to protect them as they hone the skills needed to be the next leaders of the kingdom. Nothing could annoy Katyani more than being stuck in a monastic school in the middle of a forest, except her run-ins with Daksh, the Acharya’s son, who can’t stop going on about the rules and whose gaze makes her feel like he can see into her soul.

But when the queen hurriedly summons Katyani and the princes back to Chandela before their training is complete, tragedy strikes, tearing Katyani from the only life she has ever known. Alone and betrayed in a land infested by monsters, Katyani must find answers from her past to save all she loves and forge her own destiny. Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.

My Review

Okay, I stayed up WAY too late reading this book and then finished it the next morning as soon as I had a second to sit down. It’s a super immersive story packed with magic and intrigue. I loved the characters, especially Katyani and Daksh.

Outspoken and fierce, Katyani had me from the first page. I loved the complex relationship she shares with the royal family and of course with Daksh and the way so many things change as the story unravels. The plot moves quickly with high stakes– definitely the thing that kept me reading. That and the romantic tension between Katyani and her love. I really invested in that thread of the plot, and couldn’t stop until I knew how it resolved.

I’m seeing a lot of reviewers on Goodreads calling the setting of this book an alternate medieval India, which makes sense. The story world felt rich and easy to lose myself in.

I think readers who enjoyed THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN by Roshani Chokshi will love this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Characters are described as having brown skin and are Indian-coded.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
References to the Goddess. Some characters have spirit energy and magical ability. Characters battle monster or ghost-like enemies.

Violent Content
Situations of peril, battle scenes, and some brief torture.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of NIGHT OF THE RAVEN, DAWN OF THE DOVE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

Cemetery Boys
Aiden Thomas
Swoon Reads
Published September 1, 2020

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Cemetery Boys

Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.

My Review

CEMETERY BOYS is another one of the books that’s been on my To Be Read list for a while. I wasn’t able to get a pre-release copy, but I did order a copy when it released. Yay! Recently, a friend gifted me an audiobook version, so I listened to that version and loved it.

I loved Yadriel’s character and especially his friendship with Maritza. I tend to love characters who say the thing that everyone is thinking, even if it’s a hard truth, so Maritza was pretty much guaranteed to be a favorite with me.

It took me a little bit to fall in love with Julian, though. At the beginning of the story, he keeps himself closed off and it takes a while for him to thaw. So I felt braced not to like him, but as he opened up, I found that I loved his strength and loyalty to the people he loves.

I liked the way the story explored Maritza’s veganism and how it impacted her place among her people and her relationship with magic. It brought up some interesting things and was cool to see a vegan represented in a YA story. I haven’t seen that very often.

In terms of the plot, I felt like it moved along at a really good pace. I liked where the story went and the speed at which things unfolded. It definitely kept me reading.

All in all, I enjoyed reading CEMETARY BOYS and I would love to read the next book in the series and/or other books by Aiden Thomas.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Yadriel is Mexican and Cuban American. Julian is Colombian American.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys. In one scene, a girl comments on the fact that boys are wearing hospital gowns which are open in back and she can see their butts.

Spiritual Content
Yadriel is part of a community of magic wielders who have the ability to heal or interact with spirits of the dead. Those roles are decided by gender and both involve the use of animal blood in order to complete the magic. In a special ceremony at fifteen, boys or girls are welcomed into their new abilities by Lady Death, the goddess who governs their magic. Spirits who linger may at first have the personalities they had in life, but the longer they remain, the more they risk becoming corrupted and turning violent and evil if they’re not released.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to murder. Rituals involving the use of blood. In one scene, a character finds a boy with a knife in his chest, slowly bleeding out. One man loses his life to a ritual gone awry.

Drug Content
Yadriel and Julian go to a beach party where kids are drinking alcohol, but they leave after a short while when police break up the gathering.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.

Review: If You Could See the Sun by Anna Liang

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

If You Could See the Sun
Anna Liang
Inkyard Press
Published October 11, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About If You Could See the Sun

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible.

When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.

But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

In this genre-bending YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets.

My Review

I think one of my favorite things about this book is actually that Alice never learns to control or perfectly predict her ability to become invisible. She knows about how frequently it happens, so she can kind of hope and loosely plan, but that extra tension made every job she took risky because she couldn’t guarantee she’d become or stay invisible when she needed to.

In other teens-with-superpowers books that I’ve read, I’m pretty sure all of them learn to control their ability at least to a certain degree, so I also liked that Alice never having dominance over her ability set this book apart and made me feel like it added a new type of story to the supernatural ability book list.

Alice is driven and smart, but not in a prodigious way. I liked that though she is used to keeping to herself, her ability and decisions about it forced her to open herself up to others in a way she hadn’t before. It made her realize how lonely she’d been and that people weren’t always who she initially thought them to be. I really liked Henry and Chanel, and I was glad that she formed bonds with them.

IF YOU COULD SEE THE SUN explored a lot of themes that resonated with me, including friendship and family. I’m super glad I read it. I think readers who enjoyed HOW WE FALL APART by Katie Zhao or BOYS I KNOW by Anna Gracia definitely need to read this one.

Content Notes for If You Could See the Sun

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Main characters are Chinese.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Alice follows a man accused of having an affair to find out if he’s meeting another woman. Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Alice has an uncontrollable ability to turn invisible.

Violent Content
One student plots harm against another student and requests Alice’s help. A man injures a student.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of IF YOU COULD SEE THE SUN in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Dark Room Etiquette
Robin Roe
HarperTeen
Published October 11, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Dark Room Etiquette

Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything—until he’s kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he’s been living is based on a lie.

Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he’s been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.

But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape . . . before he loses himself.

My Review

My feelings about this book range from strong to very strong. At the beginning, Sayers isn’t a very likeable guy. Sure, he’s not the one actively tormenting another boy in his class. He’s just the one standing by, watching it happen. He’s spoiled, rude, and unaffected by other people’s pain. We get to know this version of him over the first quarter or so of the book.

Then he gets kidnapped by someone who seems to be deeply unwell. At first Sayers refuses to cooperate with his abductor. But as time goes on and escape continues to be an impossibility, he does what he must in order to survive.

The book feels like an exploration of what trauma does to someone. Both in the way it breaks someone down, and in the way that it leaves permanent marks on that person’s life, even after the traumatic event is over.

I’m not at all an expert on trauma or how it affects anyone. I’ve watched someone close to me grapple with past trauma, and some of the things Sayers does and says were familiar to me because of that experience. I liked that the whole story wasn’t an exploration of the trauma itself. I liked that Sayers formed different relationships and that his relationships operated differently as he began to piece things back together. He valued different things. He wanted different things. But he also wasn’t capable of some of the things he’d been capable of before.

So there were lots of things I liked, but it was a hard book to read. I think the hardest part was witnessing the breakdown Sayers endures during his captivity.

Readers who enjoyed A LIST OF CAGES will enjoy DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE. I think fans of WHAT UNBREAKABLE LOOKS LIKE by Kate McLaughlin should check this one out.

Content Notes

Content warning for drug use, bullying, torture, assault, murder, suicide, and references to sexual assault.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
One significant minor character is Latine. Sayers’ best friend is bisexual.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex.

Spiritual Content
A classmate discusses her faith openly. Later, Sayers prays with a girl.

Violent Content
Sayers witnesses a boy bullying another student. A boy takes another boy into the woods, clearly intending to harm him. Sayers’ abductor hits him and keeps him chained or locked up, sometimes starving him and another person. Sayers discovers bodies of boys who were murdered. He witnesses someone die by suicide. He learns that someone sexually assaulted another person.

Drug Content
At the beginning of the book, Sayers prefers drugs that will make him feel amped up. Late in the story, he smokes weed, using it to calm himself down.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , ,

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
Crystal Maldonado
Holiday House
Published February 2, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. And be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

My Review

I have so many thoughts, and I’ve had days to try to organize them, but I’m still sifting. I feel like that’s always a good sign with a book. Sometimes simple books that don’t require thought afterward are fun, but I definitely prefer books that leave me with things to think about or emotions to process.

First, the relationships in this book. Wow. Charlie has a complex relationship with her mom. Her mom says gross and deeply critical-slash-toxic things to her about her body and her habits. It feels like she’s regurgitating the harmful things she’s been told about being fat, which is both wrong and terrible, but also made me hurt for her. The story isn’t about her, but that underlying hurt made Charlie’s mom a complicated character and helped us see why Charlie had big feelings about her mom.

Relationships Make the Book

Charlie’s relationship with Amelia. Also wow. I loved Amelia, and I loved some of the components of Charlie and Amelia’s friendship. I loved that as different things happened in the book, I felt like I got to observe them and see not just Charlie’s perspective, but I felt like there were subtle cues about when she was wrong, too. That balance is really difficult– if things are too subtle, they’ll go unnoticed, but if they’re too bold, the story feels forced. So I think the balance there was expertly managed.

Additionally, I loved the first love component of FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA, too. The heartbreak. The challenges to trust. Charlie’s moments of self-reflection. Also, Charlie’s experience of falling in love for the first time, and having to figure out how to navigate all those first-love challenges herself.

All in all, I think this one will stick with me a long time. I loved so many moments in the story, and I think the character relationships are absolutely amazing. Readers looking for a first love story, add this one to your list. Fans of PRETTY FUNNY FOR A GIRL by Rebecca Elliot should check this one out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Charlie is Puerto Rican and plus-sized. Her best friend Amelia is Black and pansexual.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between a boy and girl. References to touching over clothes. Charlie’s friend Amelia makes plans to have sex with her boyfriend. He breaks up with her when she decides she can’t go through with it.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Charlie and Amelia drink alcohol in one scene.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Mordizan by Alyssa Roat

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Mordizan (Wraithwood #2)
Alyssa Roat
Mountain Brook Fire
Published March 15, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Mordizan

The bane of Mordred, the son of Mordizan, and a millennia-old prophecy—together they may provide what Brinnie needs to defeat the world of magic’s greatest threat.

More than a year has passed since Brinnie left Wraithwood, never expecting to see it again. But when Mordred captures her sister, she is thrust back into the world of magic. She flees to Wraithwood, where she learns of a prophecy located in the dark wizard capital of Mordizan that reveals the identity of “Mordred’s bane,” something that could destroy Mordred for good.

Brinnie agrees to a rendezvous with Mordred to exchange herself for her sister, going undercover at Mordizan as a spy to find the prophecy and Mordred’s bane. There, she weaves a complicated web of secrets, lies, and tenuous friendships. She makes an unexpected ally in Marcus Vorath, son of the Master of Mordizan, who fears the implications of Mordred’s growing power. But in Mordizan, friends and foes may be one and the same.

In the midst of court intrigue, battle, ominous new depths to her power, and searching for Mordred’s bane, Brinnie struggles to draw the lines. How far is she willing to go to destroy Mordred? And how much of herself is she willing to give up along the way?

My Review

The pacing of MORDIZAN picks up a lot as Brinnie gets closer to learning Mordred’s plan and what she needs to do to stop him. I got caught up in the unfolding of the story and especially in Brinnie’s relationships with Marcus and Lana.

Marcus is an interesting character. I couldn’t decide whether to trust him or not for a long time through the story. Sometimes he seemed too interested or too good? At other times he made strange choices. Like, when he knew he and Brinnie were being followed, he took her to see his mother’s grave. Which, yes, showed Brinnie’s closeness to him, but since his mother had been caught trying to help prisoners escape, she was branded as a traitor. So he took her to the grave of a “traitor” while he knew he was being followed? Seemed like a bad choice, so I was confused by that.

Another thing I loved, though, were some of the things that got revealed in this book. Connections between characters that I didn’t see coming. Items of power that I couldn’t ever have predicted. There were so many moments where I sat straight up while I was reading because I was so into the book as things unfolded.

I am really excited about reading the final book in this trilogy, which I think comes out next March. I’m hoping for a little bit of romance and an epic showdown between Brinnie and her allies and Mordred.

I think readers who like Arthurian or Arthurian-adjacent stories will really enjoy this fresh spin on the legend. Great for fans of CITY OF BONES by Cassandra Clare.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Brinnie’s mentor encourages her to give herself over to forces of darkness. Brinnie recognizes those as evil entities and refuses to connect herself to them. She has some nightmares in which she has apparently surrendered to those dark forces.

Violent Content
References to torture. One scene briefly shows a man being cut by a captor in an attempt to coerce Brinnie to agree to do what Mordred wants.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of MORDIZAN in exchange for my honest review.