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Review: Seven Percent of Ro Devereux

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Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O'Clover

Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
Ellen O’Clover
HarperTeen
Published January 17, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Seven Percent of Ro Devereux

A clever, charming, and poignant debut novel about a girl who must decide whether to pursue her dreams or preserve her relationships, including a budding romance with her ex-best friend, when an app she created goes viral.

Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.

Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soul mates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.

Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company—and the world—that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soul mate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago. Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams.

Fans of Emma Lord and Alex Light will love this stand-alone contemporary novel with a masterful slow-burn romance at its core.

My Review

Okay, yes: I totally see the comparison to Emma Lord’s books with this one. It’s got big emotions, deep characters, and swoony love. All things I’ve experienced in Lord’s books, too.

And all things I loved about SEVEN PERCENT OF RO DEVEREUX.

It’s another book that made me absolutely weep. Ro grieves over the loss of a friend. She’s in anguish over the rift between her and her childhood bestie. (This is a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers story.)

I loved Ro’s relationship with her dad. They definitely do not see eye to eye on how she should proceed with the MASH app and even with her life after high school, but though he has to make some hard parenting decisions, he clearly loves and supports Ro through it all, even when he’s trying to warn her of bumps in the road he sees ahead for her.

I also loved Ro’s relationships with her friends, Maren and Miller. Her memories from her childhood and the transition to the present pulled me deep into the story and had me so invested in her relationship with Miller. And I couldn’t help loving Maren. She’s awesome, too.

All in all, I’d say this one was a big win for me. It’s a debut, so an author I’d never read before, and it’ll be a strong contender for favorite of the year, I believe.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Ro’s best friend Maren starts dating a girl.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Ro remembers a boy assaulting and attempting to rape her. Kissing between two girls. Kissing between boy and girl. A boy and girl spend a night together.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A violent crowd injures a boy.

Drug Content
At 15, Ro drank alcohol at a party.

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 SEVEN PERCENT OF RO DEVEREUX in exchange for my honest review.


The Minus One Club by Kekla Magoon

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The Minus One Club
Kekla Magoon
MacMillan
Published January 17, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Minus One Club

From the Coretta Scott King and Printz Honor-winning author of HOW IT WENT DOWN, LIGHT IT UP, and REVOLUTION IN OUR TIME comes a moving contemporary YA novel about the bonds between a group of teens whose lives have been upended by tragedy.

Fifteen-year-old Kermit Sanders knows grief and its all-encompassing shadows. After losing his beloved older sister in a tragic car accident, nothing quite punctures through the feelings of loss. Everywhere Kermit goes, he is reminded of her.

But then Kermit finds a mysterious invitation in his locker, signed anonymously with “-1.” He has no idea what he’s in for, but he shows up to find out. Dubbed the “Minus-One Club,” a group of his schoolmates has banded together as a form of moral support. The members have just one thing in common—they have all suffered the tragic loss of someone they loved.

The usual dividing lines between high school classes and cliques don’t apply inside the Minus-One Club, and Kermit’s secret crush, the handsome and happy-go-lucky Matt (and only out gay student at school), is also a part of the group. Slowly, Matt’s positive headstrong approach to life helps relieve Kermit of his constant despair.

But as Kermit grows closer to Matt, the light of his new life begins to show the cracks beneath the surface. When Matt puts himself in danger by avoiding his feelings, Kermit must find the strength to not only lift himself back up but to help the rest of the group from falling apart.

“This evocative exploration of grief, sexual identity, and personal spirituality will be a boon to any teen grappling with these issues.” –Horn Book

My Review

It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Kekla Magoon (I reviewed REIGN OF OUTLAWS in 2017), so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I love stories about grief and self-discovery, especially characters wrestling with their faith, and this one ticks all those boxes for sure.

The characterization in this book felt totally spot on to me. Each character had a distinct voice, and specific connections and relationships with Kermit. I especially loved his relationship with his sister, who we meet in memories, dreams, and through her voice in Kermit’s head.

I also loved Matt, though he scared me with his drinking and some other things. He’s absolutely charming. It was easy to believe everything he said and just immediately adore him.

THE MINUS ONE CLUB is a complex story about grief, which is exactly what I expected from the title and book summary. The club didn’t feature in the book as much as I thought it might. The story really centers on Kermit and Matt and their relationship and how each of them are processing their grief.

All in all, I truly enjoyed reading this book. I couldn’t put it down. The chapters are really short, and the story seems to move quickly, so I read this one in a single sitting. It only took a couple of hours, too. I definitely recommend the book to readers who like stories about processing grief or about identity and first love.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Kermit and his sister are biracial. Kermit and another character are gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly infrequently. Kermit and Matt play a game where everything they say has double meanings.

Several scenes contain homophobic statements, especially from Kermit’s Baptist church and even from his parents.

Romance/Sexual Content
At a party, boys encourage Kermit’s best friend to get his girlfriend drunk so that she will be more willing to have sex. He finds this appalling.

Kissing between two boys. References to sexual touching.

Kermit remembers his dad talking to him about sex and how to use a condom, even though he expects Kermit to practice abstinence. His dad says some misogynistic and toxic ideas about sex, which Kermit’s sister calls out as such.

Brief description of sexual harassment.

Spiritual Content
Kermit used to be deeply committed to his faith. After his sister’s death, and as he comes to terms with his identity, his faith falters. Another boy encourages him to visit a different church where his identity would be accepted.

Violent Content
Brief description of sexual harassment in a locker room at school. Kermit also witnesses what he thinks could be bullying.

One character talks about committing suicide.

Drug Content
Kermit doesn’t drink alcohol, partly because of his faith and partly because his sister was killed by a drunk driver. His friends do drink, though. One friend uses alcohol to cope with grief. One abuses prescription medicine 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 THE MINUS ONE CLUB in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

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The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukranian Famine
Katherine Marsh
MacMillan
Published January 17, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Lost Year

From the author of Nowhere Boy – called “a resistance novel for our times” by The New York Times – comes a brilliant middle-grade survival story that traces a harrowing family secret back to the Holodomor, a terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor – the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

An incredibly timely, page-turning story of family, survival, and sacrifice, inspired by Marsh’s own family history, The Lost Year is perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray and Alan Gratz’s Refugee.

My Review

Stories with alternating timelines are hit or miss for me, but Katherine Marsh is an author whose books have been on my To Be Read list for a long time. That plus the Kyiv setting and rarely explored place/time in history made this book too good to pass up.

It took me a couple chapters to feel like I found my footing in the story. Matthew, our present-day main character, is chafing at the isolation and boredom of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because his family cares for his 100-year-old great grandmother, they stay isolated from the community.

He ends up tasked with helping his great grandmother (GG) sort through some old papers and files. Through this, he discovers a family history he’d known nothing about. Two point-of-view characters from the past, cousins Mila and Helen, reveal the story of the Holodomor, the terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine.

From there, I felt like the pacing of the story picked up, and the connections between the past and present helped to fuel the forward momentum of the story. Matthew’s dad is a journalist reporting on the pandemic from France. He and Matthew discuss the (awful) power of misinformation. They talk about how people can continue to believe falsehoods even as their friends and neighbors experience tragedy.

Just as in the past, Mila at first refuses to believe that her country is experiencing a preventable famine that has already killed thousands.

Conclusion

I thought the way Matthew’s relationship with GG develops and his budding interest in history and writing were really cool elements of the story. I loved that even in that, he shared a connection with Helen, his great-great-great-aunt(??) from the 1930s.

Altogether, I felt like the past and present timeline intersected at just the right moments. It shared themes that built on each other in powerful ways. I loved the introduction to a part of history that isn’t frequently explored, and the connection to the battle against misinformation we still face today.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Helen was born in America after her father emigrated here from Ukraine as a young man. Mila and Nadiya are Ukrainian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
References to celebrating Christian Orthodox holidays. Reference to the fact that religion has been outlawed in Soviet Ukraine.

Violent Content
Someone delivers a sealed envelope containing live lice to a family in an attempt to infect them with Typhus. Boys attack another boy on the playground. An older girl fights them off. Some descriptions of starvation and death. References to a man being shot.

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 LOST YEAR in exchange for my honest review.

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2023

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Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2023

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is a really great one– bookish goals for 2023!

Every year I intend to do a post about this, but most years I don’t manage it. This year I’m being smart(er): I’m not waiting until the holidays get underway to begin thinking about my goals for the new year. As I’m starting this post, it’s October. It will take several sittings to complete the whole post, but my goal is that I won’t be sitting down to a blank screen in January when it’s time to get this queued up to share.

Bookish Goals for 2023

Reading Goals

  • Read at least 150 books. Last year I read over 200, so this is probably a conservative goal, which doesn’t bother me. A lot of my other goals are more ambitious, so it balances out in the end.
  • Say no when my calendar is full. I’m having a really hard time managing my blog calendar lately. There are too many great books out there that I want to read and talk about. For a long time, using a Google Calendar worked to help keep me from overcommitting. I may need a new strategy this year.

Backlist Reading Goals

  • Read and review a 3-5 classics that either are very timely, (hello, FAHRENHEIT 451 and THE FIRE NEXT TIME!) are by BIPOC authors, or are frequently challenged/banned books.
  • Read and review 3-5 backlist nonfiction titles, specifically history/social commentary/relevant self-help books. STAMPED and RADIUM GIRLS are both on this list for me.
  • Read and review 10-12 fiction titles that have been sitting on my shelves for way too long!

Book List Post Goals

  • Participate in 3-4 Top Ten Tuesday posts each quarter. This is a bit of a challenge, since I really agonize over TTT posts and sometimes the topics are just too hard for me to figure out. (I’m horrible at coming up with a list of warm fuzzy bookish moments, for example. I try and my mind goes utterly blank.)
  • Continue posting seasonal most-anticipated lists and wrap-up lists with my favorites from my reading list. These posts are a lot of fun and actually help keep me organized. They also get more engagement than a review post, which makes them super fun.
  • Post reading lists for monthly celebrations like Black History, Women’s History, AAPI Heritage, Pride, etc. This also requires that I’m reading books in those categories. I don’t want to talk the talk without walking the walk.

Retail and Goodreads Reviews

  • Keep up with retail and Goodreads reviews this year. Amazon made this UNBELIEVABLY HARD for me this past year, and I ended up kind of just giving up, which stinks since I know those reviews really help authors.
  • Create a reliable system for posting retail/Goodreads reviews, including when to write those reviews. I work best when I have a set point in my day or week when it’s time to do a task like this.

Work on My Own Bookish Projects

  • Publish a second e-book for indie authors. Years ago I published a short e-book called “Reviews Wanted” with a goal of publishing two more books in the blogger/author relationship vein. This year, I want to complete the second e-book. I’ve already got it outlined and a couple sections written, so I hope to finish that by the end of February.
  • Finish writing a young adult contemporary novel of my own. There’s a project that I’ve left mid-process for a long time that I really want to finish and send out into the world. My goal is to get that done this year after my blogger e-book is done.

What are your bookish goals for 2023?

Do you have any bookish goals for this year or New Year’s resolutions that you’d like to share?

Leave a comment and let me know what goals or resolutions you’ve set for yourself. I’d love to hear about them.

Review: The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield

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The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz: A True Story Retold for Young Readers
Jeremy Dronfield
Quill Tree Books
Published January 17, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz: A True Story Retold for Young Readers

In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality.

Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz–and certain death.

For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow.

Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future.

Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, THE BOY WHO FOLLOWED HIS FATHER INTO AUSCHWITZ is Gustav and Fritz’s story–an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable.

My Review

One of the things that caught my attention with this book is the way it follows the separate journeys of two brothers, Kurt and Fritz. The narrative stays with one brother for a few chapters and then switches to the other. Somehow putting those stories side by side made the whole even more moving than I think it would have been to tell them individually.

In any case, I got completely swept away by this book. Fritz’s father– oh my gosh. He seemed like such an incredible person. He kept hopeful in the face of some truly horrifying experiences. His relationship with Fritz was so cool, too. And Kurt, living in the US. I loved getting the window into his story, too.

Some wild things happened to those guys, too. I’ve read other stories about WWII before, so some things I was already a little bit familiar with, like Kristallnacht. (Familiarity did not lessen the heartbreak, though.) But other things, like what happened when the camp inspector demanded that no Jewish prisoners be in specialized positions in the camp, were things I’d never read about before.

The back of the book has a lot of additional resources for readers who want to know more. I loved reading through that timeline and looking at the other sources, too.

The only thing I’d say negatively about the book is that there are a few places where I feel like the author talks down to readers a little bit. It’s not often or overly much, so I think the great parts of the story far outweigh that issue, but I did notice it as I read.

On the whole, I think readers looking to learn more about what happened to Jewish families during World War II should check this one out. Readers who enjoyed THE BOY FROM BUCHENWALD by Robbie Waisman should add this one to their reading lists.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
The story follows Kurt and Fritz, two Austrian Jewish boys.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to marriage.

Spiritual Content
Kurt sings in the choir at his synagogue. His family celebrates Shabbos together. References to other Jewish holy days.

Violent Content
Mentions of terrorism and vandalism. People destroy Jewish businesses and places of worship. Nazis send Fritz and his father to a concentration camp. Mentions of many dying of disease or being overworked or put to death. References to and brief descriptions of soldiers treating prisoners cruelly. References to a resistance movement within the camp and their quest to acquire guns.

Drug Content
Prisoners trade cigarettes for food and favors.

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 BOY WHO FOLLOWED HIS FATHER INTO AUSCHWITZ in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Science of Being Angry by Nicole Melleby

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The Science of Being Angry
Nicole Melleby
Algonquin Young Readers
Published May 10, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Science of Being Angry

Eleven-year-old Joey is angry. All the time. And she doesn’t understand why. She has two loving moms, a supportive older half brother, and, as a triplet, she’s never without company. Her life is good. But sometimes she loses her temper and lashes out, like the time she threw a soccer ball—hard—at a boy in gym class and bruised his collarbone. Or when jealousy made her push her (former) best friend (and crush), Layla, a little bit too roughly.

After a meltdown at Joey’s apartment building leads to her family’s eviction, Joey is desperate to figure out why she’s so mad. A new unit in science class makes her wonder if the reason is genetics. Does she lose control because of something she inherited from the donor her mothers chose?

My Review

THE SCIENCE OF BEING ANGRY is the third book by Nicole Melleby that I’ve read. Her books, so far, tend to address identity issues as well as some complex mental health challenges that kids face, and I love them for that. All three books point up how confusing it can be to have big feelings, whether anger, depression, or grief. They also show parents grappling with their own fears and worries without letting those things intrude into the story and take center stage.

Joey has a lot of big feelings and a really hard time articulating them. Even though no one specifically articulates what’s happening, I felt like, as a reader, watching her, I could start to see patterns in some of the things that set off her anger. I loved that those clues were there, even though the story isn’t specifically about discovering why she feels the way she feels. The story focuses on recognizing the ways in which her behavior is hurting others and also the journey she and her family face to deciding it’s time for professional support for Joey and her family.

In my own experiences with mental health, we often neglect to think about the part of the journey that THE SCIENCE OF BEING ANGRY brings into the light. We want quick fixes. Or we want to ignore an issue, hoping it will resolve on its own (sometimes they do, so that impulse isn’t always wrong). Someone’s parents can be trying as hard as they can to find the right path forward, and it can still be a messy and painful and confusing process. I feel like this book perfectly nails that experience.

And it also brings readers a lot of hope. Loving someone and continuing to look for solutions matters. Loving someone and continuing to build communication and trust matters. Without being preachy, the book points up a lot of those great strengths that a family can bring. It also addresses the importance of counseling and the positives that can come from that kind of help.

Over all, THE SCIENCE OF BEING ANGRY is another great book by an author I can’t get enough of. I’m so glad I had the chance to read it, and I hope it finds its way into the hands of all the readers who need the hope and encouragement it brings.

If you want to know more about Nicole Melleby’s books, check out my reviews of HURRICANE SEASON and HOW TO BECOME A PLANET.

Content Notes for The Science of Being Angry

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Joey has two moms and likes girls romantically.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Two girls kiss. Some descriptions of affection between Joey’s moms.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Joey pushes, shoves, and sometimes hits other kids, and her Mama.

A boy shoves a girl, hits her in the face with a piece of pizza, and calls her a rude nickname.

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 SCIENCE OF BEING ANGRY in exchange for my honest review.