When Sloane’s family moves from New York to Florida before her senior year, she doesn’t feel she’s left much behind. A party brings her within the gravitational field of Vera, a social media starlet, and Gabe, her intensely serious twin brother with a justice complex. Without meaning to, Sloane falls into twins’ social circle, and ever deeper into their lives. When a beloved painting by their late mother goes missing, Sloane makes secret plans to bring it back. This is a problem she can fix, she knows it.
At home, Sloane’s family begins to feel more and more fractured, and finding the painting, freeing the twins from their grief, becomes an all-consuming project for Sloane. Too soon she’s forced to ask the question she can’t bear to face. What happens if she can’t bring the painting home?
Earlier this year I read First & Then by Emma Mills, which totally charmed me. I still like it, and I was nervous but also excited about reading another book by this author, because once you have those high expectations, it can be really awful if the story doesn’t live up, you know?
Well. This one blew me away. I laughed. I bawled. I sneaked out of my room in the middle of the night (after my husband was like omg, would you please go to sleep??) because I could NOT rest until I knew the ending of the book.
This book is like a list of my favorite things. Witty dialogue. An emo boy (I know, but it’s really a thing.) A deep and surprising emotional journey. True friendships from unexpected places.
I love it with all the sweat of all the babies. (Nevermind. Just read it. You’ll understand.)
Cultural Elements
Vera and Gabe’s mom is from the Dominican Republic. One of their friends is Indian. Vera and her girlfriend are lesbians.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently.
Romance/Sexual Content Sloane stops a bully from picking on another boy and makes a comment about him belonging at home masturbating alone. A couple boy-girl kisses. Vera dates a girl named Tash. The vampire TV show Sloane’s dad is obsessed with features two boys who are star-crossed lovers. Sloane reads a bit of racy fan fic. No details.
Spiritual Content Sloane’s dad becomes obsessed with writing fan fic based on a TV show featuring vampires.
Violent Content Boys get into a fist fight.
Drug Content
In the opening scene, Sloane is at a party where teens drink alcohol. Later, a drunk friend asks her to pick him up and give him a ride home.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Lottie struggles to learn how to use her gift of healing so she can save her best friend Eliot. She must hurry, because the longer Eliot stays in the land of Limn, the sicker he’ll become. When her hosts in the South make a bargain with the elusive Rebel Gem of the Northerly Kingdom, Lottie and her friends must travel north instead of returning Eliot home. A treacherous king’s servant, a powerful shape-shifter named Iolanthe pursues them, sending assassins after Lottie. To protect her, Lottie’s companions must make a dangerous journey to find the one weapon that will stop the evil king.
My favorite thing about The Doorway and the Deep was the fun cast of characters. Each one is very different, and each enjoyable. I loved Oliver’s poetry and Fife’s mischievous antics and the brief unexpected romance that blossomed between a couple characters. Lottie is clever and complex, definitely the kind of heroine I enjoy reading about.
I had a little trouble following some of the elements of the tale more deeply embedded in the storyworld—probably because I haven’t read the first book, in which all that setup was explained. It didn’t prevent me from enjoying the story, but I think I’d have gotten more out of it had I read the first book before this one.
The Doorway and the Deep ends with a pretty powerful hook. I definitely didn’t see that coming. I feel like that can be a big risk because it can feel a little gimmicky sometimes. This was okay. I liked the characters enough that I’d be interested in continuing the series.
Cultural Elements
Most of the characters are wisps or fairies. I don’t think there were racial descriptions. Most of the characters feel a little bit British to me, but I’m not 100% sure why.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Characters say things like, “Sweet Titania” or “For Oberon’s sake.”
Romance/Sexual Content A couple of brief m/f kisses.
Spiritual Content Lottie and her friends train to better use their magical abilities. Each has one specific ability, for instance, Lottie’s ability to heal. Fife can float. Adelaide can hear over long distances.
Violent Content Oliver’s gift causes physical harm. A powerful shape-shifter sends assassins after Lottie. Brief battles injure more than one character.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I’m today’s stop on the Swan Riders Blog Tour with Irish Banana Blog Tours. Yay! Check out my review of The Swan Riders, learn about author Erin Bow and stick around for the giveaway information so you can enter to win one of three copies of the book!
The Swan Riders Erin Bow
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Available September 20,2016
Greta Stuart had always known her future: die young. She was her country’s crown princess, and also its hostage, destined to be the first casualty in an inevitable war. But when the war came it broke all the rules, and Greta forged a different path.
She is no longer princess. No longer hostage. No longer human. Greta Stuart has become an AI.
If she can survive the transition, Greta will earn a place alongside Talis, the AI who rules the world. Talis is a big believer in peace through superior firepower. But some problems are too personal to obliterate from orbit, and for those there are the Swan Riders: a small band of humans who serve the AIs as part army, part cult.
Now two of the Swan Riders are escorting Talis and Greta across post-apocalyptic Saskatchewan. But Greta’s fate has stirred her nation into open rebellion, and the dry grassland may hide insurgents who want to rescue her – or see her killed. Including Elian, the boy she saved—the boy who wants to change the world, with a knife if necessary. Even the infinitely loyal Swan Riders may not be everything they seem.
Greta’s fate—and the fate of her world—are balanced on the edge of a knife in this smart, sly, electrifying adventure.
My Review
As soon as I finished The Scorpion Rules (book one in the series) I wanted to read this book. I loved the sweeping view of the world and its complex politics and advanced science. Totally different spin on what-if-AI-ruled-the-world? I loved it.
In the first book, the Swan Riders are these terrifying warriors-slash-messengers. Now that Greta has become AI, the Swan Riders are her soldiers, too. The fact that she had such a complex past with them made her journey with them really intense, too. This is definitely one of those books with lots of layers, and with such tight storytelling that every time I thought I knew how things were going to go, some new conflict entered the picture, ratcheting the stakes up even higher.
Just as in the first book, the writing is deep and often poetic. Love is often star-crossed at best. The story explores the question of what makes us human, and are those qualities assets or liabilities? As one character faces death, others rally to show love and support. It’s such a powerful, human moment. What is more human than to gather with a loved one and do what you can to ease their transition into death and grieve for them? Powerful stuff, and well-incorporated into the story.
The technology elements are well-developed, too, and play an important role in the story. I wouldn’t call this light sci-fi. But it has vibrant characters and a lot of action as well, so I’d venture to say even readers who aren’t super keen on sci-fi would still find plenty about it to enjoy.
Cultural Elements
Characters represent diverse backgrounds. Greta herself is white. Her lover, Xie, is Asian. Greta and her lover are lesbians. She has African and Asian companions.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild, used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content Greta dreams about her experiences with Xie, a girl she left behind in her old life. The dreams are vague but sexual. It’s clear she’s still in love with her. There’s a girl/girl kiss later in the story. Two of the Swan Riders have been in a relationship. One, a girl named Rachel, spends the bulk of the story being controlled by Talis, an AI who was once a man. So some of the pronouns get a little confusing there. Usually the pronoun represents who’s speaking, without regard to the gender of the vessel or body that the AI is using.
Spiritual Content Xie is considered a goddess by her people.
Violent Content Brief battle scenes. A boy stabs a Swan Rider. Greta remembers being tortured with an apple press. There are other threats of torture. At one point, a Rider who is terminally ill asks another Rider to end her life in a ceremonial way.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Hi! My name is Erin Bow — physicist turned poet turned author of young adult novels that will make you cry on the bus. I’m a white girl, forty-something, feminist, geeky enough to do the Vulcan salute with both hands — in public. I live in Canada. I love to cook, hate to clean, and yes, I do own a cat.
In the beginning, I was a city girl from farm country—born in Des Moines and raised in Omaha—where I was fond of tromping through wood lots and reading books by flashlight. In high school I captained the debate team, founded the math club, and didn’t date much.
In university I studied particle physics, and worked briefly at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. Physics was awesome, but graduate school kind of sucked, and at some point I remembered that I wanted to write books.
Books: I have six of them — three novels, and two volumes of poetry and a memoir (the poetry under my maiden name, Erin Noteboom). My poetry has won the CBC Canadian Literary Award, and several other awards. My two novels, Plain Kate and Sorrow’s Knot, also have a fistful of awards, including Canada’s top award for children’s literature, the TD. The third novel, The Scorpion Rules, still faces its award season. No one read the memoir.
Right now I’m looking forward to the publication of my fourth novel, a companion piece to The Scorpion Rules called The Swan Riders, which will be out September 20 from Simon & Schuster. I’m at work on an new an entirely different novel, and a book of poetry about science.
Did you notice I got to Canada in there somewhere? Yeah, that was true love. I’m married to a Canadian boy, James Bow, who also writes young adult novels. We have two small daughters, both of whom want to be scientists.
Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea Sunju Lee and Susan Elizabeth McClelland Amulet Books Published September 13, 2016
EVERY FALLING STAR, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly re-creates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his “brothers”; to be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist.
My Review
Intense is a great word for this book. I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about North Korea, but nothing is more personal and moving than the story of someone who lived there. Sungju describes his early life in Pyongyang and the fierce national pride he felt for his country. His beliefs are challenged when his family is forced to leave the capital for a small impoverished city where food shortages cause many people to risk trips into China—an offense punishable by execution if they’re caught.
While EVERY FALLING STAR is a difficult story, Sungju shares so much hope. Ultimately it’s a story about the bonds of love, both within family and between close friends, and redemption. To read the end of the tale and learn what the author has accomplished can’t help but be inspiring, and to make us grateful for the freedoms we have, and the ability to share them with others.
I highly recommend this book. EVERY FALLING STAR was so good, would read it again. It would make a great resource for a current events class or a world cultures class.
Cultural Elements Most characters are North Korean.
Profanity/Crude Language Content None.
Romance/Sexual Content At one point, the boys work as runners for a brothel, helping recruit customers.
Spiritual Content A few references to Chilseong, a deity and shan-shin-ryong-nim, good spirits thought to live in rocks and mountains. Sungju’s family shared these beliefs with him and they bring him comfort during his life as a street boy.
Violent Content Sungju and his schoolmates have to attend public executions. Sungju describes them briefly. Later, his gang must battle other street boys for the right to stay in a particular city.
Drug Content The boys in the street gang drink alcohol and smoke.
Note: This post contains affiliate links which do not cost you anything to use but which help support my blog. I received a free copy of EVERY FALLING STAR in exchange for my honest review.
In the midst of Haley’s recovery from a concussion, she learns her roommate has been raped. As Jenny wrestles with the aftermath of the trauma, she’s faced with a lot of decisions: should she report the incident to the college? Should she go to the police? She depends on Haley for support, a burden which Haley isn’t sure she’s capable of shouldering. Especially when a group of aggressive feminists rally around Jenny to support her and convince her to respond the way they believe is best.
In this midst of all this, Haley meets Richard, a handsome fellow student and math tutor. Just when it seems she may have, for the first time, found someone special, she learns that Richard lives in the same house with the boy who raped Jenny. Worse still, he recently dated the gorgeous lead feminist. (She dumped him for his chauvinistic attitudes, another fact that makes Haley nervous.)
The two struggle to navigate the new relationship in the midst of the crisis, and it’s not easy. Rumors, distrust and scandal show up at every turn. If there’s any hope of a future for them, Haley and Richard will have to find out the truth about what happened to Jenny and resolve for themselves what constitutes sexual consent.
This was a tough read. (I feel like I’m saying that a lot lately.) I liked that rather than the story being from the point-of-view of the victim and perpetrator, it’s told from the perspective of bystanders. There’s a lot of hope in the development of Haley and Richard’s relationship, and a lot of opportunity for healing.
Wrecked brings a lot of great moments offering discussion on consent. It sheds light on the process a rape victim might go through as she reports the incident and the information becomes relatively public. It shows how an entitled college kid could take advantage of a girl almost without realizing it.
He should have realized it. That’s kind of the point. But honestly, isn’t this another reason that getting drunk at a party like this is a terrible idea? Would he have realized, had he been sober, that this girl was in no position to give him her consent, and that she in fact was only barely conscious? Because that’s another conversation we need to be having.
His inebriation doesn’t excuse him anymore than it would if he’d chosen to get behind the wheel of a car. But I’m not sure we’re doing a great job educating kids about this either. As a culture, don’t we sort of treat college drinking—sometimes even teen drinking—like some kind of rite of passage? At any rate, I’d have liked to see that connection between drinking and making bad—criminal, in this case—decisions more clearly drawn in Wrecked, but even without it, the focus on the consent issue was very well-done.
More and more I’m convinced that consent is a conversation we need to have and aren’t having enough. I think Padian presented a wide array of responses to the topic in Wrecked, from the uber-politically-correct feminists to the creepazoid guy who spearheads a slander campaign against Jenny on social media. If this isn’t a conversation-starter, I don’t know what is.
Cultural Elements
Most characters appear to be white middle- or upper-class. One character is African-American.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used moderately throughout the book.
Romance/Sexual Content – TRIGGER WARNING We learn Jenny’s account of her experience through what she says in a hearing as well as in a real-time scene describing what happens to her. A boy has sex with her while she’s just in and out of consciousness. It’s described explicitly.
Richard reflects on his relationship with Carrie, and at one point begins to tell her that he enjoyed how assertive she was with him the night before. (That’s pretty much as explicit as he gets.) Later, another girl interested in him laments her status as a virgin. She worries that the fact that he has sexual experience will mean that he’s not interested in her or won’t respect her boundaries. She doesn’t feel committed to her virginity, she’s just inexperienced thus far.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content See sexual content. The rape isn’t violent in terms of the boy doesn’t attack her, though it’s no less wrong or traumatic.
Drug Content
College students drink alcohol at parties and beforehand. Rumors state that one boy who mixed drinks for a party may have added drugs to them.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Pax was only a kit when his family was killed, and “his boy” Peter rescued him from abandonment and certain death. Now the war front approaches, and when Peter’s father enlists, Peter has to move in with his grandpa. Far worse than being forced to leave home is the fact that Pax can’t go. Peter listens to his stern father—as he usually does—and throws Pax’s favorite toy soldier into the woods. When the fox runs to retrieve it, Peter and his dad get back in the car and leave him there—alone. But before Peter makes it through even one night under his grandfather’s roof, regret and duty spur him to action; he packs for a trek to get his best friend back and sneaks into the night. This is the story of Peter, Pax, and their independent struggles to return to one another against all odds. Told from the alternating viewpoints of Peter and Pax.
My Review
This book, to me, was like Disney’s The Fox and the Hound meets John Boyne’s Stay Where You Are and Then Leave. Well, it was all the things I loved about those stories. Pax was the cutest thing ever, and my heart totally broke for him as he got left behind. I loved Peter, too, for his devotion and loyalty to his fox. I wasn’t totally sure about Vola at first. I sort of expected her to be a brief presence in the story, but she stayed around, and actually, I came to love her, too. There’s one moment where she places her hands on Peter’s head, and it’s this really tender gesture, especially since Peter has been so starved for affection since his mom’s death. I totally bawled. It’s so sweet.
The illustrations also added a lot to the story. I loved the style of the drawings. It made me really want to give the book as a gift for Christmas. And I just might do that!
Some of the descriptions of war are a bit harsh, so this story definitely has some grit to it. In some ways, that only strengthened the power of the other themes about love and the value of a life, any life. If you liked Be Light Like a Bird by Monika Schröder, you will want to check this one out.
Cultural Elements
Vola describes herself as part Creole, part Italian among other things. Peter describes her as someone who used to speak another language that sounded like a song.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Vola swears, saying “dyeableman.” At one we’re told Peter swears. (What he actually says doesn’t appear.)
Romance/Sexual Content None.
Spiritual Content Peter describes his connection with Pax as feeling a mental or spiritual connection. Vola tells him about the Buddhist concept of oneness—“two but not two.”
Violent Content Land mines explode, killing and injuring animals. Vola lost her leg in a similar explosion. Pax learns to hunt and kill prey. He and the other foxes eat mice, etc.
