Tag Archives: sisters

Review: The City Beyond the Stars by Zohra Nabi

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The City Beyond the Stars by Zohra Nabi

The City Beyond the Stars
Zohra Nabi
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published May 14, 2024

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About The City Beyond the Stars

The captivating sequel to “perfect for fans of Philip Pullman and Tahereh Mafi” ( Booklist ) The Kingdom Over the Sea follows Yara and her friends as they change the fate of the kingdom and their magic forever.

Yara may have stopped the magical plague spreading its way through her new home, but to do so, she had to leave her mother in the hands of the sinister alchemists.

Now Yara longs to return to Zehaira and free her mother from her prison. Yet when her mother’s familiar arrives, close to death and bearing a message, Yara must put aside her plans to rescue her and instead set off with her friends to the official residence of the Grand High Sorceress, convinced it holds magic powerful enough to defeat the alchemists.

After a treacherous journey, Yara finds her mother’s house, and in it, a girl claiming to be the daughter of the Grand High Sorceress—a sister Yara didn’t know she had. Meanwhile, the alchemists are circling ever closer, and the magic that Yara’s mother was working threatens the foundations of their world.

Yara is unsure if her newfound sister can be trusted, but she is going to need all the help she can get if she wants to save their mother and take back Zehaira from the alchemists’ rule.

My Review

Another sister story! <3 One of my favorite things. In this one, the sisters are so estranged. Their relationship is fraught and tenuous, and I love it. It’s a different and still realistic kind of story about two sisters. Aaliyah has a lot of attitude, which I appreciate. She makes demands. She takes charge. Sometimes, she says the opposite of what she means. I like her character a whole lot.

Throughout this book, Yara, Rafi, and Mehnoor remain close friends. They question Yara’s impulsive decisions, prompt her with facts and ideas, and offer their support no matter what happens.

At one point in the book, Yara speaks to someone who’s making destructive choices and points out that what this person needs isn’t more power but more community. I love that she phrases it that way. She talks about how powerful it is to have a team of people who can come together and support one another and how division and isolation weaken us all. This is another message I profoundly agree with.

I’m not sure if this is the conclusion to a duology or a second book in a trilogy. The ending feels pretty final and doesn’t open a new problem for the characters to immediately pursue, but I haven’t seen references to this series being a duology, so I’m not sure. I would love to read more adventures of Yara and her friends. Maybe a future book will be a spinoff and follow one of the other characters? That could be really cool.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the relationships and the intersection between magic and the need for building trust and community in this book. I think fans of the first book will love getting to revisit the world of Zehaira and its familiar characters and magical landscape. Fantasy readers will enjoy the interesting magical system and centering of three young sorcerers who must save their world.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Middle-Eastern coded characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have the ability to perform magic. The ability is available to anyone but requires intense study. Other characters use the science of alchemy to control magic.

The story delves into a bit of time travel and skirts around some butterfly effect-type theory.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to torture. One scene shows a person being magically tortured. Viewers see no blood or gore, but the person appears to be in incredible pain. References to battle sequences. A room collapses, killing someone and fatally injuring another person.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Worst Perfect Moment Shivaun Plozza

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

The Worst Perfect Moment
Shivaun Plozza
Holiday House
Published May 14, 2024

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About The Worst Perfect Moment

Equal parts tender and edgy, this inventive queer romance imagines what it might feel like to come of age in the afterlife.

Tegan Masters is dead.

She’s sixteen and she’s dead and she’s standing in the parking lot of the Marybelle Motor Lodge, the single most depressing motel in all of New Jersey and the place where Tegan spent what she remembers as the worst weekend of her life.

In the front office, she meets Zelda, a cute and sarcastic girl Tegan’s age who is, in fact, an angel (wings and all). According to Zelda, Tegan is officially in heaven, where every person inhabits an exact replica of their happiest memory. For Tegan, Zelda insists, that place is the Marybelle—creepy minigolf course, revolting breakfast buffet, broken TV, and all.

Tegan has a few complaints about this.

As Zelda takes Tegan on a whirlwind tour through Tegan’s past to help her understand what mattered most to her in life, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If Zelda fails to convince Tegan that the Marybelle was the site of Tegan’s perfect moment, both girls face eternal consequences too dire to consider. But if she succeeds…they just might get their happily-ever-afterlife.

Full of humor and heartbreak, The Worst Perfect Moment asks what it means to be truly happy.

My Review

First of all, what a fantastic opening line. I love it. This book starts off with a bang, for sure. I like Tegan, too. She’s sparky, but so wounded and vulnerable underneath, and even when she doesn’t mean to let readers into that, she does. Her character easily kept me reading the book.

Zelda, the angel who designed Tegan’s personal heaven, grew on me a little. She’s very Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which I love seeing in a female-female romance, but isn’t my favorite trope, so I struggled with that. She’s goofy and fun, but determinedly crude, which, again, is not my favorite. Too many “butt-face” comments for me.

The scenes that revisit Tegan’s past and show what actually happened, especially the moments she doesn’t want to remember, hit hard. They showed how complex trauma and grief can be. Each one built up emotionally so that by the time I hit the final flashback, it hit hard. That was so well done.

Readers looking for a new spin on the Manic Pixie trope and who enjoy no-holds-barred humor will probably enjoy this one a lot.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Tegan and a few other girl characters are romantically interested in girls..

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Lots of crude comments. Lots of swearing. A few f-bombs.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two girls.

Spiritual Content
Tegan wakes up in the afterlife, in which heaven is supposed to be living at the site of your best memory forever. Purgatory is for people who die with too much unresolved trauma, and means people watch memories of their lives and have the emotions they experienced painfully scrubbed away. Hell, of course, is eternal torture.

Angels are assigned different jobs. There are guardian angels and angels who design a heaven scenario for someone. Tegan visits a counselor, someone who helps her process her death.

Tegan attended Catholic school for a part of her education. There are some references to sins and Catholic doctrines like purgatory, but very little reference to God or faith practices.

Violent Content
References to a girl on a bike being hit by a car, which killed her.

Tegan remembers arguments between her parents, which seem scary and chaotic to her. She sees her dad lose it and kick a door repeatedly. The story deals with abandonment by a parent.

Drug Content
Tegan’s aunt gets drunk and tells her something cruel.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler

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Code Name Kingfisher
Liz Kessler
Aladdin Books
Published May 7, 2024

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About Code Name Kingfisher

When Liv finds a secret box from her grandmother’s childhood she uncovers an extraordinary war-time story of bravery, betrayal and daring defiance. A story that will change Liv and her family forever…
 
Holland, 1942. The world is at war and as the Nazis’ power grows, Jewish families are in terrible danger. Twelve-year-old Mila and her older sister Hannie are sent to live with a family in another city with new identities and the strict instruction not to tell anyone that they are Jewish.
 
Hannie, determined to fight back, is swept into the Dutch resistance as an undercover agent Code Name Kingfisher.  And though Mila does her best to make friends and keep out of trouble, there is danger at every turn and the sisters are soon left questioning who they can trust…

My Review

I can’t remember if I had this book on my radar for May earlier this year, but when I received a copy from the publisher, I was pretty excited about it. I love the bright colors of the cover and the way it incorporates a kingfisher bird into the image. It also shows the personality of both Mila and Hannie, the sisters at the center of the story.

The book follows four different points of view. It begins with Liv, a girl living in modern-day England who discovers the person she considered her best friend isn’t such a great friend. We also meet Mila, a Jewish girl forced into hiding by the Nazi occupation of Holland. We meet her sister Hannie through the letters she writes to her family about her work with the Dutch resistance movement. Mila’s friend Willem narrates a handful of chapters at some critical moments in the story.

As Liv struggles to deal with the shift in social connections and bullying at school, she discovers some papers in her grandmother’s attic that hint at her grandmother’s past, which she has refused to talk about to anyone. To Liv’s surprise, her grandmother begins to open up to her.

I love the sweet relationship between Liv and her grandmother and the surprising way that it unfolds. I also love the alternating viewpoints and the way Hannie’s, Mila’s, and Willem’s chapters reveal information from the past.

Code Name Kingfisher is perfect for historical fiction fans, especially those looking for more stories about World War II. The contemporary sections will appeal to those readers, too, and I think there’s enough story taking place in the present to keep contemporary readers engaged.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Mila and Hannie are Jewish. Liv is Jewish on her dad’s side of the family.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
A teenage girl has a crush on a teen boy. It’s pretty peripheral to the story.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to oppressive laws passed against Jews by the Nazis. References to arrests and deportations to work camps. Hannie believes her parents are probably dead. Characters experiences heightened fear when faced with Nazi soldiers, but salute and greet them as part of undercover identities.

In one scene late in the book, a boy hears a soldier shoot someone. He sees the person’s body afterward.

Drug Content
Characters, including teenagers, smoke cigarettes.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Burning Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

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

Burning Crowns (Twin Crowns #3)
Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Balzer + Bray
Published April 25, 2024

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About Burning Crowns

Twin queens Rose & Wren survived the Battle for Anadawn and brought back magic to their kingdom. But danger lurks in Eana’s shadows.

Wren is troubled. Ever since she performed the blood spell on Prince Ansel, her magic has become unruly. Worse, the spell created a link between Wren and the very man she’s trying to forget: Icy King Alarik of Gevra. A curse is eating away at both of them. To fix it they must journey to the northern mountains—under the watchful guard of Captain Tor Iversen—to consult with the Healer on High.

Rose is haunted. Waking one night to find her undead ancestor Oonagh Starcrest by her bed, she receives a warning: surrender the throne—or face a war that will destroy Eana. With nowhere to turn and desperate to find a weapon to defeat Oonagh, Rose seeks help from Shen-Lo in the Sunkissed Kingdom, but what she finds there may break her heart.

As Oonagh threatens all Rose and Wren hold dear, it will take everything they have to save Eana–including a sacrifice they may not be prepared to make.

My Review

I’ve followed this trilogy since the beginning, so I’m really excited to have had a chance to read the conclusion. What a wild ride it was!

Wren and Rose share a connection, but they’re really different as people. I liked the way they related to one another but yet had their own values and approaches to ruling Anadawn. Each sister has her own romance underway from previous books, and those progress here, too. I’m not gonna lie, I kind of hoped one sister would make a different choice than she did, but I felt like the ending was satisfying nonetheless.

The romantic plot contains some of the most mature elements of the story. It does fade to black before characters go further than undressing, but the characters definitely have some lusty thoughts and desires. The rest of the story feels solidly young adult. Rose and Wren are both still figuring out how to step into their adult roles as queens. They’re falling in love for the first time. I felt like those components really anchored the story as a young adult fantasy.

Wren and Rose and their relationship stands at the center of the story. In this particular book, they face a threat from their shared ancestry, one they can only vanquish together.

All in all, I enjoyed the series, and I’m glad I read all the way to the end. I think readers who are just outgrowing Disney fairytales would like the Twin Crowns series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Minor characters with brown skin. Two minor female characters are in a romantic relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In two scenes, characters undress one another, and the scene fades to black.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have magic. Wren and Alarik performed forbidden blood magic in an earlier book, which bound them together under a curse. A cruel past queen raises humans and animals from the dead, creating an undead army.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Battle scenes. References to torture. Descriptions of desecrated graves.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

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

A Crane Among Wolves
June Hur
Feiwel & Friends
Published May 14, 2024

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About A Crane Among Wolves

June Hur, bestselling author of The Red Palace, crafts a devastating and pulse-pounding tale that will feel all-too-relevant in today’s world, based on a true story from Korean history.

Hope is dangerous. Love is deadly.

1506, Joseon. The people suffer under the cruel reign of the tyrant King Yeonsan, powerless to stop him from commandeering their land for his recreational use, banning and burning books, and kidnapping and horrifically abusing women and girls as his personal playthings.

Seventeen-year-old Iseul has lived a sheltered, privileged life despite the kingdom’s turmoil. When her older sister, Suyeon, becomes the king’s latest prey, Iseul leaves the relative safety of her village, traveling through forbidden territory to reach the capital in hopes of stealing her sister back. But she soon discovers the king’s power is absolute, and to challenge his rule is to court certain death.

Prince Daehyun has lived his whole life in the terrifying shadow of his despicable half-brother, the king. Forced to watch King Yeonsan flaunt his predation through executions and rampant abuse of the common folk, Daehyun aches to find a way to dethrone his half-brother once and for all. When staging a coup, failure is fatal, and he’ll need help to pull it off—but there’s no way to know who he can trust.

When Iseul’s and Daehyun’s fates collide, their contempt for each other is transcended only by their mutual hate for the king. Armed with Iseul’s family connections and Daehyun’s royal access, they reluctantly join forces to launch the riskiest gamble the kingdom has ever

Save her sister. Free the people. Destroy a tyrant.

My Review

I enjoyed this book a lot. The story balances the character relationships and the larger political plot with its murder investigation and coup preparations really well. I felt like I truly got to know Prince Daehyun and Iseul, so it was easy to root for them to achieve their goals.

I love sister stories, so I couldn’t help investing in Iseul’s desperate mission to rescue her sister. Though the girls weren’t close before her sister was kidnapped, losing her made Iseul realize how much she appreciates and needs her sister. It makes her realize how much her sister protected her, and she wants to protect her sister now, too. I love that.

Another thing I really enjoyed is the enemies-to-lovers slow-burn romance between Iseul and Daehyun. I giggled through the moments where they would be like, hmmm, I can’t stop thinking about [the other person] for some reason.

The author’s note at the end clarifies some of the story elements that depart from the historical account and why those changes were made. This is the first book by June Hur that I’ve ever read, but I definitely want to read more. I liked this a lot. Readers who enjoyed Descendant of the Crane by Joan He should check this one out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Characters are Korean.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A few instances of mild profanity. One f-bomb.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to rape (not depicted on scene). Some men (minor characters) treat women like property to be traded or collected.

A girl who was sent to the king (for sex) appears dissociated and traumatized afterward.

Spiritual Content
Someone predicted that the prince would die in the year the story takes place.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Some brief battle scenes. References to rape and suicide (not depicted). Some descriptions of murder scenes. The king uses his position to force people to do cruel, terrible things, such as kill others. He beats and abuses people. He kidnaps women.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of A Crane Among Wolves in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray by Christine Calella

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

The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray
Christine Calella
Page Street Press
Published April 9, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray

Storms and pirates are nothing compared to the evil within men’s hearts.

After a lifetime of abuse at the hands of superstitious townsfolk, Ophelia Young, a bastard child of the notorious pirate queen, is tired of paying for the sins of her mother. Despite playing by the rules her whole life, she’s earned nothing but spite and suspicion. So when a naval officer saves her from the jeering crowd at her mother’s hanging, Ophelia hatches a new hope of enlisting in the navy to escape her mother’s legacy and redeem her own reputation for good. But Ophelia soon discovers that a life at sea isn’t as honorable as she hoped.

Betsy Young is as different as she could be from her half-sister Ophelia. She’s a nervous homebody who wants to keep her family safe and longs to be in love. So naturally, she’s devastated when the son of their family’s business partner rejects her hand in marriage and her sister joins the navy. But when her father contracts a life-threatening illness as well, Betsy has to bring Ophelia home to save the family business.

Unfortunately for the Young sisters, Betsy trying to get Ophelia recalled reveals that Ophelia enlisted fraudulently under Betsy’s name, a secret which Ophelia struggles to keep from crewmates who would kill her if they knew she was the pirate queen’s daughter. To save Ophelia from the naval authorities, Betsy will have to board a ship during hurricane season and brave all the dangers of the sea to get them both home safe.

My Review

Is it weird to say that I found it refreshing to read about pirates as the villains in this book? Ha. Actually, I liked a lot of things about this book. The relationship between Betsy and Ophelia, of course, drew me into the story. They are half-sisters nearly the same age but with very different personalities. Despite their differences, these two girls have each other’s back in everything but this: Betsy’s crippling anxiety keeps her mostly at home, and Ophelia longs for a life at sea in the Navy.

While I really appreciate that Betsy has anxiety, I felt like the representation in the story was uneven. At the beginning, Betsy’s anxiety pretty much runs her life. She has decided to stay home where she feels safe, and she can barely speak when someone outside her family tries to talk to her. When she faces boarding a ship and making the journey to find Ophelia, she doesn’t make that decision lightly or without her anxiety spiking. As the story progresses, though, her anxiety sort of evaporates? She experiences life-threatening situations and eloquently advocates for herself and others. She grieves and feels fear, but I felt like the symptoms the story used to define her anxiety faded away.

I don’t know. I guess it made me a little bit uncomfortable because it implied that all she needed to do to conquer her anxiety was get out there and be brave, and that’s not really how clinical anxiety works? Maybe this wasn’t supposed to be representative of clinical anxiety, though.

At any rate. I really appreciated the relationship between the sisters and the representation of the pirates in the story. It was nice to read something that didn’t totally romanticize piracy. The plot was pretty evenly paced, and I loved the twists and turns the story took.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Betsy has anxiety. Ophelia is asexual/aromantic. Minor characters are lesbian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
In one scene, a boy kisses a girl without her consent. She breaks off the kiss and makes it clear it isn’t what she wants. He stops, but is unhappy. Later, a girl welcomes kisses from a boy. In another scene, a boy coerces a girl to kiss him, and she bites his mouth.

Spiritual Content
Betsy and her mother believe in some spiritual things, like bad vibes and curses. Ophelia wrestles with whether she believes in anything like that. The people of her town seem to believe her mother’s blood is cursed, and they treat her terribly because of it. Later, some inexplicable things happen, and Ophelia isn’t sure what to make of them. She seems to finally believe in some spiritual happenings, whether it’s her mother’s spirit guiding her from beyond or some other benevolent force.

Violent Content
Betsy and Ophelia attend a hanging. The person’s face is covered, but they watch until she dies. The crowd abuses Ophelia, pushing her, pulling her hair, and nearly trampling her. Ophelia makes it clear this kind of treatment from her neighbors is pretty common.

Sailors are whipped as punishment. They battle those on enemy ships.

Pirates attack a ship, shooting some on board and brutalizing others. Some graphic descriptions of violence, including brief torture and dismemberment. A sailor wraps chains around a girl’s neck to mimic a hanging. Sailors battle for control of a ship, stabbing and shooting each other as they can.

Drug Content
Characters have wine with dinner. A fellow sailor passes Ophelia a bottle of whisky, which she takes a small sip from. Three girls drink rum together. One drinks until very drunk.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.