Category Archives: Young Adult/Teen 12-18

Review: For the Good of All by M. B. Dahl

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For the Good of All by M. B. Dahl

For the Good of All
M. B. Dahl
Elk Lake Publishing
Published August 8, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About For the Good of All

“For the good of all, we give ourselves.”

At least that’s how the mantra goes. Everyone knows the refrain. Everyone responds to it. But Ren seriously doubts how killing off people who are different is good for anyone, especially when she’s hiding her own difference.

Just graduated, Ren follows her friend Bala’s advice, “blend in.” Being overlooked isn’t a problem until a cute guy asks her out. Owen’s handsome, funny, and sees her. He treats her like an equal, not a problem. But he has his own secrets.

His issues aren’t like hers, though. Aberrant with a strange ability even she doesn’t understand, Ren must choose to embrace her differences or run before she becomes the next one sacrificed for the good of all.

My Review

I like that this book is told in multiple perspectives. We follow Ren, a girl born with a gift that, if discovered, will mean her death; Owen, a boy with grand aspirations within the Protectorate, shadowed by the guilt of a terrible secret; and Dart, a girl who lives among lots of people with gifts, but whose own ability hasn’t presented itself yet. She worries the Leader has forgotten her or cast her aside.

This is a dystopian story and has some THE GIVER vibes. People who either aren’t thriving within the society or break the rules are “accomplished,” or removed from society and secretly put to death. Unlike THE GIVER, the land is ruled by a powerful man who preaches doing things “for the good of all,” but rules with an iron hand, and his own self-serving values.

The story reminded me a little bit of the series THE UGLIES by Scott Westerfeld, with its sort of starry-eyed people within the society, and the free-spirited, wilderness groups living outside.

FOR THE GOOD OF ALL is a little different, though, in that it’s really centered around a spiritual message. Tatief governs his people with the mantra, “For the good of all we give ourselves,” but that doesn’t actually play out in a way that fosters the community-minded, loving people that it implies. Instead, the group living in the woods who have been gathered by the Leader and his messengers, are the ones who love and care for one another.

All in all, it’s a cool story that explores deep themes about love versus control or fear. I enjoyed reading it. I think fans of Scott Westerfeld or of dystopian fiction might enjoy this one, too.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are described as having white or tanned skin.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
There are a couple of made up curses used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
There is some clear romantic attraction between characters.

Spiritual Content
Two characters are messengers on behalf of the Leader, who is a Jesus-like character.

Violent Content
Some situations of peril and brief graphic battle violence and violence against unarmed citizens.

Drug Content
One character uses poisons to manipulate and control others.

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 FOR THE GOOD OF ALL in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller

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Blade of Secrets (Bladesmith #1)
Tricia Levenseller
Feiwel & Friends
Published May 4, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Blade of Secrets

Eighteen-year-old Ziva prefers metal to people. She spends her days tucked away in her forge, safe from society and the anxiety it causes her, using her magical gift to craft unique weapons imbued with power.

Then Ziva receives a commission from a powerful warlord, and the result is a sword capable of stealing its victims’ secrets. A sword that can cut far deeper than the length of its blade. A sword with the strength to topple kingdoms. When Ziva learns of the warlord’s intentions to use the weapon to enslave all the world under her rule, she takes her sister and flees.

Joined by a distractingly handsome mercenary and a young scholar with extensive knowledge of the world’s known magics, Ziva and her sister set out on a quest to keep the sword safe until they can find a worthy wielder or a way to destroy it entirely.

A teenage blacksmith with social anxiety accepts a commission from the wrong person and is forced to go on the run to protect the world from the most powerful magical sword she’s ever made.

My Review

Sisters! A magical sword! Unlikely allies! Those were the reasons I started reading this book. All things I absolutely love about it. I also loved the way it explored Ziva’s anxiety and her need for order and space. I loved the way her relationships developed as even her traveling companions learned to navigate her needs and communicate with her about them.

There were definitely some moments in the book that surprised me. Places I didn’t expect it to go or things that went differently than I thought they would. Additionally, I kind of liked that it over and over explored different types of family relationships. Some were really close and built on a strong foundation, like Ziva and her sister. Others showed what can happen when a new trust is broken or when someone proves to be untrustworthy ongoingly. It also celebrated found family in the team that formed and continued to find reasons to stay together.

I’m super excited to read the sequel to this book and last half of the duology, MASTER OF IRON. I’ve already requested a copy for review since it comes out later this year. Hopefully I’ll get it, but we’ll see. This is the first book by Tricia Levenseller that I’ve ever read, though I do own DAUGHTER OF THE PIRATE KING, and now I REALLY want to read it.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
The culture worships sister goddesses. Some believe those born with magic are an abomination and need to be destroyed. This is an older, fading prejudice which was once more dominant.

Violent Content
Battle scenes and some brief graphic descriptions battles.

Drug Content
One character gets drunk at a bar. Another talks about frequenting different bars and drinking socially. Though she’s sixteen, it’s implied that she’s legally allowed to drink alcohol.

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 BLADE OF SECRETS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp

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At the End of Everything
Marieke Nijkamp
Sourcebooks Fire
Published on January 25, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About At the End of Everything

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS comes another heartbreaking, emotional and timely page-turner that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist.

Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day…they don’t show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they’re stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place.

My Review

I requested this book because both of the other books by Marieke Nijkamp (THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS and BEFORE I LET GO) have been powerfully told stories and really well written– and this one is no exception. I wish I had been in a different place when I picked up this book to read it. Like, I loved the characters, and it’s such a heart-wrenching story. I wish I’d had more emotional bandwidth as I was reading the book, which isn’t the author’s fault at all. I think I just happened to read it when my emotional gas tank was almost empty.

But. All that aside.

So the story follows three points of view: Logan, who communicates via a sign language she and her twin sister developed between them; Emerson, a new resident of Hope who’s also nonbinary; and Grace, a girl with some big anger issues who winds up reluctantly in charge of the group.

I loved the balance of those three points of view. They all have different feelings and ideas about what’s happening and how to go forward in the best way. Each of them contribute critical things to the survival of the group, but in really different ways. I think the whole story could have been told from any one of those perspectives, but I think choosing all three added so much to the depth and breadth of the book.

The plot is pretty simple– a deadly plague disrupts every aspect of life as they know it– but it brings really high stakes. The characters literally face life and death decisions at every turn. I read this book in two days, and I couldn’t not do that. I was absolutely drawn into AT THE END OF EVERYTHING and what would happen to each of the characters in it.

Conclusion

Something about the book reminded me of AWAY WAY WE GO by Emile Ostrovski. It’s a bit darker than that one is, but I guess it has a similar feel in terms of this small, collapsing world inside a culture faced with a global pandemic. I think fans of edgy fiction will like AT THE END OF EVERYTHING.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main characters are white. One is mute. Another is Ace. The other is nonbinary.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing.

Spiritual Content
One character was raised as a Catholic, but when they came out as nonbinary, they were rejected from their church. They have a lot of (understandable) feelings of anger and hurt, but at one point they express longing to have the certainty of faith in their life again. Sometimes they pray or ask St. Jude to pray for them.

Violent Content – trigger warning for sexual assault, transphobia, and ableism.
A group of kids surround another kid and beat them up. Soldiers shoot and kill a boy who does not follow their commands. A girl sees a boy sexually assaulting another girl and beats him up. Two girls light a warehouse on fire that they thought was empty and nearly kill someone in the fire.

Emerson (the nonbinary character) faces situations in which they’re misgendered or harmed for their identity. Their parents threw them out and their friends abandoned them when they came out as nonbinary.

Several other characters belittle or talk down to Logan because she communicates with sign language and they assume she’s less intelligent or less capable than they are. Those behaviors are clearly addressed and called out as wrong and harmful.

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 AT THE END OF EVERYTHING in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Exiles by Katherine Barger

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

The Exiles (Exiled Trilogy #2)
Katherine Barger
Anaiah Press
Published November 2, 2021

Amazon  | Goodreads

About The Exiles

Nothing could have prepared Nyssa Ardelone for the treachery that lurks inside Fortune’s Fall. What began as a joyful reunion with her family soon plunges into chaos, with Nyssa at the center of misplaced accusations that could be catastrophic for everyone. Confused and still grief-stricken over the friends she’s lost, Nyssa begins to question whether her journey to Fortune’s Fall was worth the cost.

When she learns that President Omri has arrested the exiles and plans to send them to the most notorious prison in America, Nyssa’s convinced Omri’s punishing them for her sins, and she sinks into even deeper despair. But there might be a way to save them, and Nyssa jumps at the chance to remedy what she feels is her fault.

The task is dangerous, though, and if she fails, she’ll lose everything. If she succeeds, the people of Fortune’s Fall will embrace her at last, and the path will open for their ultimate return to Maren—the home Omri stole from them fifteen years ago. With the help of family and a few unlikely allies, Nyssa sets out to make things right. But the stakes are higher than before, and her newfound faith has grown shaky. When the mission doesn’t go as planned, Nyssa faces a choice unlike any she’s ever had: press on despite her doubts, or give up and leave the exiles—and everyone she loves—to their fate.

My Review

I think one of the things I liked about this book is that it balances Nyssa’s youth with her power, if that makes sense. Like, I had no trouble believing in her being a teenager. Sometimes when I read YA the characters feel really adult, and even though Nyssa’s an independent person who has been on her own for a long time, she still felt like a teenager. She still wrestled with a lot of becoming-an-adult types of things. While sometimes she took on a leadership role, other times, she was still kind of treated like a kid. That felt pretty true to what I’d imagine a teen in her position would experience.

I liked the moments when she took ownership of her situation and was the person coming up with the plan or idea. Sometimes that role went to other characters– her brother or other friends– and I wish I’d had a chance to see her in the driver’s seat more often.

Based on the way THE EXILES ends, I feel like Nyssa will have a lot more opportunity to be assertive and own her story in the last book in the trilogy. I’m interested to see how all that plays out.

This book hits a lot of the right notes with its dystopian story world and high stakes plot. I think fans of dystopian stories like The Safe Lands series by Jill Williamson or HEARTLESS HEIRS by MarcyCate Connolly will like this series. If you haven’t read FORTUNE’S FALL, the first book in the series, I would recommend starting with that one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Main characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kiss between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Main characters believe in God even though it opposes the culture and rule of the country’s president.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Some scenes showing 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 THE EXILES in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder

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The Bone Spindle
Leslie Vedder
Razorbill
January 11, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About the Bone Spindle

Fi is a bookish treasure hunter with a knack for ruins and riddles, who definitely doesn’t believe in true love.

Shane is a tough-as-dirt girl warrior from the north who likes cracking skulls, pretty girls, and doing things her own way.

Briar Rose is a prince under a sleeping curse, who’s been waiting a hundred years for the kiss that will wake him.

Cursed princes are nothing but ancient history to Fi–until she pricks her finger on a bone spindle while exploring a long-lost ruin. Now she’s stuck with the spirit of Briar Rose until she and Shane can break the century-old curse on his kingdom.

Dark magic, Witch Hunters, and bad exes all stand in her way–not to mention a mysterious witch who might wind up stealing Shane’s heart, along with whatever else she’s after. But nothing scares Fi more than the possibility of falling in love with Briar Rose.

Set in a lush world inspired by beloved fairytales, The Bone Spindle is a fast-paced young adult fantasy full of adventure, romance, found family, and snark.

Sleeping Beauty meets Indiana Jones in this thrilling fairytale retelling for fans of Sorcery of Thorns and All the Stars and Teeth.

My Review

I’m always up for a good fairy tale retelling, especially a gender-flipped story or one that completely reimagines the world in which the fairy tale takes place. So, I couldn’t resist reading THE BONE SPINDLE once I knew it had all those elements. I also loved SORCERY OF THORNS, so, that’s even more points in favor.

Now that I’ve read it, I can honestly say that if I had a time machine, I’d end up being one of those people who seriously annoy my husband on Reddit, the people who would choose to use great power for oddball things. I’d definitely use my time machine to go into the future to read THE BONE SPINDLE’s sequel right now. (And then after that, you know, saving humanity, world peace, all that stuff.)

Favorite Things

I loved the characters in this book. Fi is smart, savvy, adorable and so bookish. I thought for sure she’d have to be my favorite. Then Shane had me with her fierce determination to protect the people she loves, and to do what’s right no matter how hard it is. And then Red with her quick wits and ability to slip in and out of trouble. And Briar with his charm and innocence and humor. They were all my favorites.

One of the fresh elements in this retelling that I couldn’t get enough of is that it takes a character (the sleeping princess, here a prince) who is traditionally a passive character, and turns them into an active supporting character in the story. We mostly follow Fi, who has been chosen to wake the prince, and Shane, her treasure-hunting, warrior partner. But Briar, the prince, visits Fi along the journey using his abilities as a light witch.

Through those visits, they become friends and feel the pull of love, but he also intervenes sometimes in battles (though the girls hold their own plenty of times). I loved that it showed a relationship developing between Fi and Briar and made him a living character rather than a prince waiting to wake up.

Sometimes the first book in a series like this will drop off a cliff at the end, and leave you feeling like you read a whole book only to get cheated out of a real ending– BUT– this book does not do that. It both had a very satisfying ending and also a great setup for the next book in the series.

Conclusion

Honestly, I can’t think of anything about this book that I didn’t like. It’s a completely fresh take on the fairytale, but it has all the elements I love about the original story. For me, this one was a total win. I absolutely recommend it to fantasy lovers and readers who love reimagined fairy tales.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Shane is a lesbian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between a boy and girl. Kissing between two girls.

Spiritual Content
A powerful witch has placed a curse on the kingdom of Andar. Other powerful witches gave their lives to transform the curse into something that could be broken. Other witches with magic ability still live among the other kingdoms.

Violent Content
Battle violence and situations of peril.

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 THE BONE SPINDLE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long

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Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves
Meg Long
Wednesday Books
Published January 11, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves

After angering a local gangster, seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen must flee with her prize fighting wolf, Iska, in tow. A team of scientists offer to pay her way off her frozen planet on one condition: she gets them to the finish line of the planet’s infamous sled race. Though Sena always swore she’d never race after it claimed both her mothers’ lives, it’s now her only option.

But the tundra is a treacherous place, and as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She must discover whether she’s strong enough to survive the wild – whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.

A captivating debut about survival, found family, and the bond between a girl and a wolf that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories and frontier myths.

My Review

I liked this book from the beginning, and then Remy, one of the minor characters that’s part of a scientific expedition visiting Sena’s planet, entered the scene. She’s spunky and teasing and I loved her so much. She really added a lot of light and balance to Sena’s serious and sometimes moody personality. I felt like the story picked up a lot as soon as Remy walked into it, which was maybe 20% in?

I also loved the relationship between Iska and Sena. I’ve had the experience where an animal chooses you as their family. It was much less dramatic than a fighting wolf, but still, it’s an amazing thing, and I felt like COLD THE NIGHT captured that really well.

The planet where Sena lives is this rough, gritty icy place. Think Wild West meets Arctic tundra. It seemed exactly like the kind of place that Captain Mal and his crew from Firefly would end up at some point. Those gritty elements really worked to create high stakes and desperate characters, which definitely kept me engaged in the story.

All in all, I thought this one would make a great addition to the YA sci-fi shelves. I think readers who enjoy books by Claudia Gray or Hayley Stone will love this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Sena was raised by two mothers.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Some scenes briefly show wolves being forced to fight each other. Animals attack people in several scenes. Goblins attack people in a couple scenes. Some of these scenes show some graphic violence and fatality.

Drug Content
Some characters drink alcohol.

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 COLD THE NIGHT, FAST THE WOLVES in exchange for my honest review.