Tag Archives: Brandy Colbert

Review: Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise
Edited by Laura Silverman
Algonquin Young Readers
Published July 13, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Up All Night

When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible.

It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself.

Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours.

Full contributor list: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Laura Silverman, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia.

My Review

I’ve read stories by about a third of the authors with stories in this book. Lots more of them have been on my TBR list for a long time, so I was excited to read this collection in order to sample some of those authors and some new ones, too. Here’s what I thought about some of my favorites from UP ALL NIGHT:

“Under Our Masks” by Julian Winters

This is the first time I’ve read anything by Julian Winters, and I feel like I’ve been missing out. I loved this casual super hero story. In just a few pages, I felt like I knew the characters and had a sense of the city where they were. I also loved the anticipation as it built up toward the end of the story.

“Missing” by Kathleen Glasgow

I feel like I’m kind of on a roll with Kathleen Glasgow’s storytelling. I just finished THE AGATHAS, which I loved, and YOU’D BE HOME NOW tore out my heart in the best possible ways. So my expectations for her work were really high, and this story absolutely delivered for me. It’s intense, creepy, and powerful. I think it’s my favorite from the whole collection.

“Old Rifts and Snowdrifts” by Kayla Whaley

This story took advantage of some of my favorite romance tropes and centered them around a wheelchair-bound character. I loved the aching romance and the swirling snowstorm blanketing the world outside the flower shop. Also, it was a perfect nighttime, snowed-in-together story.

“The Ghost of Goon Creek” by Francesca Zappia

This is another one that had expert setup, so that in just a few words, I felt like I knew the main character and could understand how she felt about a troop of outsiders stomping through a grief-bound tradition of hers. And yet… I loved watching the relationships morph and change, and seeing her realize she had an opportunity for new friendships, and to wrestle with how to move into that. Great stuff. I loved this one, too. Francesca Zappia is another author that I am new to, but now really want to read more of.

I liked lots of the other stories in this collection, too. The first couple were the weakest for me in terms of hooking me into reading, but there are so many really good ones here. I’m super glad I had a chance to read UP ALL NIGHT.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Rep varies per story, but the collection is pretty diverse, featuring LGBT+, black, Latinx, and disabled characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Varies per story. Extreme profanity appears in some stories, used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kiss between boy and girl. Kiss between two boys.

Spiritual Content
One story features ghosts. Another features legends about a ghost.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. In one story, girls explore an abandoned mental institution and face danger and harm.

Drug Content
Teens drink alcohol in at least one story.

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 this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

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

Little & Lion
Brandy Colbert
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published August 8, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Little & Lion

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself–or worse.

My Review

My favorite thing about this book has to be the relationship between Suzette and her stepbrother, Lionel. My household is a blended family, and we spend a lot of time talking about how family isn’t always only people related to you by blood. Sometimes life puts other people into your path and they become part of your family, too. I’ve read lots of young adult and middle grade books about the difficulty of transitioning to a blended family home and how hard it can be to develop those relationships. Those stories are important, too, but it’s nice to see books that present other parts of the family journey. So reading a book in which the family had already forged those complex bonds with step-members was awesome.

I liked and appreciated the diversity in the story. Little & Lion creates a community with members across varied orientations and has characters with physical and mental health issues. It could be said that perhaps some of the handling of Lionel’s illness gets a little stereotypical in that he decides to throw out his medication at one point. (I’m not sure I can think of a story about someone with bipolar disorder which doesn’t involve throwing out meds.) But it’s not the focus of the story, and Lionel never felt defined by his illness, especially not to Suzette, who longs for the kind of close relationship they had before she left for boarding school.

On the whole, I thought the storytelling and the writing were strong. I found it easy to connect with the characters emotionally. I struggled with some of the casual attitudes about teen drinking and some of the sexual content. See the content notes below for more specifics.

Readers who liked Jess, Chunk and the Road Trip to Infinity will enjoy Suzette’s journey toward self-understanding and the diverse cast of characters.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Very diverse cast of characters. Suzette is bisexual. Her best friend is a lesbian. Her brother has bipolar disorder. Her mom is black, her stepdad and brother white. They are also Jewish. Suzette begins dating a boy who’s black and Korean and diagnosed with Meniere’s disease.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some references and brief descriptions of sexual situations—making out and touching. In one scene a boy and girl have sex. Other scenes reference two girls in a sexual exchange.

Spiritual Content
Suzette meets a girl whose mother kicked her out of her home for religious reasons when she got an abortion.

Violent Content
A couple of boys get into a fist fight.

Drug Content
Teens drinking alcohol. Suzette worries about her brother drinking because she feels he doesn’t know his limits. Both are underage.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.