Tag Archives: Missing Person

Review: Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston

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Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston cover shows a girl with a hand extended over a glowing ball. Swirls of light extend out from the ball, circling around her, lifting her hair.

Amari and the Night Brothers (Supernatural Investigations #1)
B. B. Alston
Balzer + Bray
Published January 19, 2021

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About Amari and the Night Brothers

Quinton Peters was the golden boy of the Rosewood low-income housing projects, receiving full scholarship offers to two different Ivy League schools. When he mysteriously goes missing, his little sister, 13-year-old Amari Peters, can’t understand why it’s not a bigger deal. Why isn’t his story all over the news? And why do the police automatically assume he was into something illegal?

Then Amari discovers a ticking briefcase in her brother’s old closet. A briefcase meant for her eyes only. There was far more to Quinton, it seems, than she ever knew. He’s left her a nomination for a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is certain the answer to finding out what happened to him lies somewhere inside, if only she can get her head around the idea of mermaids, dwarves, yetis and magicians all being real things, something she has to instantly confront when she is given a weredragon as a roommate.

If that all wasn’t enough, every Bureau trainee has a talent enhanced to supernatural levels to help them do their jobs – but Amari is given an illegal ability. As if she needed something else to make her stand out.

With an evil magician threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

My Review

I remember hearing about this book before it came out, and my calendar was too full to fit in a release date review– which I have since regretted! Finally, I was able to read it, though.

From the very beginning, this book hooked me right in. I felt Amari’s pain at her brother’s disappearance. And her wonder at discovering the supernatural world. I loved the exploration of human rights and equality through the way that people saw her as a magician. As soon as people learned she was a magician, they made assumptions about her values and character. Being a magician wasn’t something she could control, but it also did not dictate her beliefs or her behavior.

There were a few moments in this book that reminded me so much of the movie MEN IN BLACK. When Amari did her training session where she had to identify which monsters/situations were a threat, that reminded me so much of Will Smith’s character’s similar experience in the movie, and I definitely grinned at that.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters, especially Amari’s roommate Elsie and Agents Fiona and Magnus. All in all, this was a really fun book to read, and a great start to the series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Amari is Black and a born magician. In the supernatural world, being a magician, meaning someone has a high percentage of magic in their blood, is illegal.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
An Irish character says a British swear word a couple times.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Amari has the ability to create illusions. A friend has the ability to manipulate technology with magic.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Brief battle scenes. Some descriptions of injuries from monsters called hybrids, which are part animal and part human.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

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The Ones We’re Meant to Find
Joan He
Roaring Book
Published May 4, 2021

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Ones We’re Meant to Find

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.

My Review

Sisters and secrets– two of my favorite things in a book! I had been hearing about this book online for a long time, and could not resist reading it. The story, like the back cover copy suggests, gives each sister’s point of view. In Kasey’s point of view, we see the past, things that happened months before Cee begins telling her story.

I loved both girls’ characters so much. I also loved U-me, the dictionary and questionnaire rating robot. It might not seem like a bot that follows Cee around defining words and rating her declarative statements on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree would add a huge amount to the story, but it really does! U-me is the best.

As the description promises, this is a story with twists and turns, the kind where you have to keep going back and reevaluating things you took for granted earlier in the book. Where new information changes your perception of what’s already happened. I love stories like that. It’s also a story that explores relationships and secrets and how some secrets can destroy a relationship if you let them.

I really enjoyed THE ONES WE’RE MEANT TO FIND. I loves its layers and the pull between the two sisters. Readers who enjoyed WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart or FRAGILE REMEDY by Maria Ingrande Mora should check this one out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Both main characters are Asian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some nudity. Kissing between boy and girl. Two scenes give brief descriptions of sex.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A boy stops a thief by attacking him. A girl gets injured in the episode. A boy tries to choke someone. References to a terrorist attack.

Drug Content
Some descriptions of drinking and using drugs (though they appear to be legal drugs) at a bar and party.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog. I received a free copy of THE ONES WE’RE MEANT TO FIND in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

Two Can Keep a Secret
Karen McManus
Delacorte Press
January 8, 2019

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | Book Depository

About TWO CAN KEEP A SECRET

Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery’s never been there, but she’s heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.

The town is picture-perfect, but it’s hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone’s declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.

Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she’s in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous–and most people aren’t good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it’s safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

My Review

After reading ONE OF US IS LYING, I was really eager to read TWO CAN KEEP A SECRET. They’re not related stories, even though the titles have a cool thing going on. They’re both murder mysteries.

I liked the characters, both Ellery and Malcolm, right away. Malcolm gives his point-of-view as someone whose family has been tangled up with a murdered girl, since his older brother was accused, but not convicted, of killing her. Ellery sees her time in Echo Ridge as a chance to learn more about her missing aunt, the twin sister her mom never talks about.

The only really confusing element to the story, for me, was the timeline. I had a hard time piecing together the way all the characters related since they were varying ages and there were two girls whose lives ended tragically. Sadie’s sister is one generation back from Ellery and Malcolm. A family friend’s daughter is the homecoming queen who was murdered. For some reason I just had a hard time keeping track of all the timelines: the sister who disappeared and events surrounding her disappearance, the murdered homecoming queen and all the events surrounding her disappearance, and the present unfolding of the story. Could have just been me, though.

I did not guess who the murderer ended up being. I had some ideas along the way, but none of them turned out to be the right ones, which is always fun in a book like this. I think one of the best unexpected surprises was the way Ellery began to bond with her grandmother. She clearly didn’t expect it, and maybe her grandma didn’t either, but it was this sweet surprise, and I loved it.

If you like books about small towns packed with secrets, this is definitely the book for you.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Ellery’s twin brother is gay. Two minor characters are Korean.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used regularly but not super frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between girl and boy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A mysterious person leaves threatening messages involving mangled dolls. Someone holds two people at gunpoint.

Drug Content 
Scenes include teens drinking alcohol. In one scene, a girl drinks so much she vomits.

Note: This post contains affiliate links which cost you nothing but which help support this blog.

Review: Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem

Book Review and Content, Historical, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy (The Bolshoi Saga #1)
Elizabeth Kiem
Soho Teen
Published on August 13, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy
Marya is a ballet dancer born of privilege; her mother, Sveta, is the most popular ballet dancer in the Soviet Union and its glamorous face to the West.

When Sveta disappears, Marya and her father suspect their own lives are in danger and arrange a harrowing defection. Marya is certain that her father is doomed to be murdered at their new home in Brighton Beach, where his closest friends are unapologetic criminals . . . she’s “seen” him die.

Soon she’s drawn into web of intrigue that ultimately reveals the truth about her gift of foresight, her mother’s disappearance, and a boy she cannot bring herself to trust.

My Review
Things that drew me to this book: the 80s setting, the ballet elements, the Russian characters, and the intrigue/mystery about her mom. Reading about the 80s was super fun. I loved the conversations Marya has with Ben about music and some of the descriptions of fashion. That part of the story was a lot of fun to read. As a former ballet dancer myself, I love reading books that feature ballerina characters. It definitely makes me miss dancing but also gives me a chance to celebrate that part of my life again.

Truthfully, I was a little nervous once I read the author’s note about characters being referred to by multiple names as they would be in Russian culture because I have a harder time keeping track of a lot of names in a novel anyway. But actually, I had no trouble. There are only a few characters with multiple names, and most often it’s Marya who’s referred to by different names, and even those were easy to keep track of.

Solving the mystery of her mother’s disappearance drives Marya’s story forward. Just like Marya, her mother has a supernatural gift that gets her into trouble. In Sveta’s case, it’s the ability to see past events which she has no personal knowledge of. Things like a secret government experiment. While I really enjoyed the mysterious, suspenseful feel of the story, I felt like the supernatural gifts didn’t really fit. It seemed to me like they were really shortcuts so things could happen in the plot without needing realistic explanation. Marya could discover something via her gift rather than uncovering clues leading her to the conclusion.

The plot of the story focused more on the relationships between characters than on the mystery/suspense elements. I didn’t mind this as a reader, but it wasn’t what I was expecting based on the title of the book, which sounded like a reference to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. All in all, I enjoyed reading it. Not sure the series is really for me, though. 80s fans or readers interested in Russian culture will definitely want to get a copy of this one, though.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are Russian and several are referred to by more than one name (the author explains this is the way they’d be used in Russian culture.). I thought that would be really confusing, but actually I had no problem keeping the characters straight. The story contains some phrases and words in Russian, too.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Rumors about Sveta and the ballet director, who’s said to be in love with her.

Spiritual Content
Marya and her mother have unusual gifts. Marya’s mother can see the past and has visions of things she has no real way to know. Marya has visions that foretell the future.

Violent Content
Marya worries that her mother may be tortured or killed. She has a vision of a person with a gun preparing to shoot her friends. She sees some members of the Russian mafia and hears some rumors about how they operate. She stumbles into a crime scene in which a man has been shot.

Drug Content
Some scenes show characters drinking alcohol or getting drunk. (Mostly these are adults.) At one point, Marya pours out a bottle of vodka because she doesn’t want her dad and uncle to drink it.

Review: If You’re Gone by Brittany Goodwin

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

If You’re Gone
Brittany Goodwin
Edge of 22
Published on June 20, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About If You’re Gone
Lillian White was planning for the perfect summer- spending every waking minute at the lake with her heartthrob boyfriend, Brad Lee. But her world is shattered when Brad mysteriously disappears the night of his graduation ceremony- the same night he tells her he loves her for the first time. After law enforcement dismisses the case, classifying Brad as voluntarily missing, Lillian becomes desperate to prove that he couldn’t have just walked away. Not from his family. Not from his friends. Not from her.

Heartbroken but determined to find answers, Lillian begins to uncover secrets from Brad’s past that force her to question everything she thought she knew about him and their relationship. Will the truth lead her to him? Or are Brad’s lies just the beginning of the mystery?

My Review
I liked that this story explores a different side of a missing person case. While Lil believes only something terrible would keep her boyfriend Brad from coming home, she can’t help but be concerned about the things he kept from her. She believes he must be out there somewhere, which only makes it harder for her to find her way through her grief process—something she struggles to communicate to her family and friends.

Her mom’s response to Brad’s disappearance frustrated me. I felt like there were several characters all hitting the same flat note where they had used up all their patience and compassion and sort of wanted Lil to snap out of her depression and worry. I’m sure that’s a realistic experience, but I guess some of the similarities in response made some of the scenes and characters feel repetitive or two-dimensional.

The end definitely wasn’t what I expected, which I also found appealing in concept. What was harder, though, was that there are several things that happen in close succession near the end which feel like sharp turns, and I felt like I didn’t always understand the abrupt changes in Lil or the people around her. It felt like there should have been more explanation or a slower progression or some additional development to better anchor those changes into the story.

Overall, though, If You’re Gone is a quick read with an unusual take on a popular YA theme. If you’re into missing person stories, put this one on your list.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Few race/cultural details. Most characters seem to be white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Lil prays sometimes, usually in the desperate way of someone overwhelmed and longing for God to ease burdens. She and her family attend church regularly, and church values are a significant part of Lil’s life.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Lil celebrates with friends, sharing a bottle of champagne with them.

 

Review: Here Lies Daniel Tate by Cristin Terrill

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

Here Lies Daniel Tate
Cristin Terrill
Simon & Schuster
Published on June 6, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Here Lies Daniel Tate
When ten-year-old Daniel Tate went missing from one of California’s most elite communities, he left no trace. He simply vanished.

Six years later, when he resurfaces on a snowy street in Vancouver, he’s no longer the same boy. His sandy hair is darker, the freckles are gone, and he’s initially too traumatized to speak, but he’s alive. His overjoyed family brings him home to a world of luxury and comfort he can barely remember. In time, they assure him, he’ll recover his memories; all that matters now is they’re together again.

It’s perfect. A miracle. Except for one thing.

He isn’t Daniel Tate.

He’s a petty con artist who accidentally stumbled into the scam of a lifetime, and he soon learns he’s not the only one in the Tate household with something to hide. The family has as many secrets as they have millions in the bank, and one of them might be ready to kill to keep the worst one buried.

My Review
The premise of this book pretty much hooked me before I even had a chance to read a word. I’d read another book a little bit like this, but not from the point-of-view of the kidnapping victim, so I was really interested to see a story told from inside that person’s mind, as Daniel’s is.

Daniel warns us right off the bat that he’s a liar, and yet I kept getting sucked into believing everything he said. I felt like the tug-of-war balance between those two ideas made this one of the most unique books I’ve ever read. I love unreliable narrators, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything where the narrator leads so point-blank with the fact that he’s a liar.

I liked the way the story messed with his emotions, too. In the beginning, he only wants to survive, but as he gets to know the family, he finds himself invested in relationships with them and even contemplating staying long-term and living as Daniel.

The end was strange. I won’t give it away, and I feel like considering the premise, I shouldn’t have been as surprised by it. I don’t know. I liked that it left a lot of questions unanswered—Daniel’s character seemed incapable of anything else—but it also confused me. Did the family ever get any kind of justice? It seemed like the party most responsible kind of got off without consequence.

On the whole, I’m really glad I read the book. I loved Terrill’s debut, All Our Yesterdays, and was really excited about another suspenseful story from her. I got a lot of what I hoped for, even if the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I wished for.

If you liked The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride or Lost and Found by Cat Clarke, you will want to grab a copy of Here Lies Daniel Tate.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Daniel and his family are a white, upper class group. He meets and is attracted to an Asian girl at school named Ren. Daniel’s brother Nicholas is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used frequently. I think because of the emotional intensity of some of the scenes, the swearing feels a little more prevalent than it actually is.

Romance/Sexual Content
A couple instances of kissing between a boy and girl. In one scene it’s unclear how far the romance progresses—it begins with kissing and jumps to later, when the couple is curled in bed watching a movie (apparently still clothed).

A couple scenes show Nicholas and his boyfriend briefly kiss on the mouth.

A reference to an incest relationship.

Spiritual Content
The closest instance is the fact that the protagonist, who poses as Daniel, sometimes feels guilty thinking about how the actual Daniel, who is likely dead, might feel about the imposter taking over his life.

Violent Content
Daniel learns that one member of his family has a violent past. He ends up in a violent altercation with one family member. Someone is shot, perhaps fatally.

Drug Content
Jessica Tate is an alcoholic who sometimes drives drunk. Lex drinks wine and has a history of addiction to pills. Ren tells Daniel about her cousin’s pot-smoking habit. He also hears rumors that Patrick used to sell pot at school.

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