Tag Archives: small town

Review: The Summer We Found the Baby by Amy Hest

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The Summer We Found the Baby by Amy Hest

The Summer We Found the Baby
Amy Hest
Candlewick Press
Published August 4, 2020

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About The Summer We Found the Baby

On the morning of the dedication of the new children’s library in Belle Beach, Long Island, eleven-year-old Julie Sweet and her six-year-old sister, Martha, find a baby in a basket on the library steps. At the same time, twelve-year-old Bruno Ben-Eli is on his way to the train station to catch the 9:15 train into New York City. He is on an important errand for his brother, who is a soldier overseas in World War II. But when Bruno spies Julie, the same Julie who hasn’t spoken to him for sixteen days, heading away from the library with a baby in her arms, he has to follow her. Holy everything, he thinks. Julie Sweet is a kidnapper.

Of course, the truth is much more complicated than the children know in this heartwarming and beautifully textured family story by award-winning author Amy Hest. Told in three distinct voices, each with a different take on events, the novel captures the moments and emotions of a life-changing summer — a summer in which a baby gives a family hope and brings a community together.

Set during World War II, this poignant, briskly paced historical novel relays the events of one extraordinary summer from three engaging points of view.

My Review

THE SUMMER WE FOUND THE BABY is one of those books where what’s not said on the page is as important as what is. A girl and her sister find a baby. A boy follows them. How they’re connected and why the girls feel drawn to the baby changes tells a moving story that I know I won’t soon forget.

One point-of-view is from Martha Sweet, the younger sister of Julie, who first finds the baby. Martha is sweet, enthusiastic, and energetic. She doesn’t always understand what’s going on around her, but she loves the people in her little community.

Julie also tells part of the story, and in her sections, we see a girl trying to be so much more than she is, and determined to do it perfectly. She cares for her little sister while their dad works, possibly interviewing soldiers at a local military base. And then there’s Bruno, a boy whose older brother has gone to war, leaving him behind.

The story begins with the three finding the baby and loops backward, to tell us how they came to be on the steps of the library that morning and why the baby was there.

It’s such a sweet, heartfelt story. I love that what’s on the page hints at so many things that aren’t there, things that the narrators probably wouldn’t have pieced together. It’s a really quick read, too– I think I read it in a little over an hour.

I think fans of STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE by John Boynton or PAX by Sarah Pennypacker will enjoy this book– though it’s a bit less dark than those stories.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Bruno’s family is Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Hints at a romance between Bruno’s older brother and a girl.

Spiritual Content
At one point, Bruno’s parents touch the place where they believe his brother’s battalion to be on a map and say, “God bless.”

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of THE SUMMER WE FOUND THE BABY in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston

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Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)
Ashley Poston
Quirk Books
Published August 4, 2020

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About Bookish and the Beast

In the third book in Ashley Poston’s Once Upon a Con series, Beauty and the Beast is retold in the beloved Starfield universe.

Rosie Thorne is feeling stuck—on her college application essays, in her small town, and on that mysterious General Sond cosplayer she met at ExcelsiCon. Most of all, she’s stuck in her grief over her mother’s death. Her only solace was her late mother’s library of rare Starfield novels, but even that disappeared when they sold it to pay off hospital bills.

On the other hand, Vance Reigns has been Hollywood royalty for as long as he can remember—with all the privilege and scrutiny that entails. When a tabloid scandal catches up to him, he’s forced to hide out somewhere the paparazzi would never expect to find him: Small Town USA. At least there’s a library in the house. Too bad he doesn’t read.

When Rosie and Vance’s paths collide and a rare book is accidentally destroyed, Rosie finds herself working to repay the debt. And while most Starfield superfans would jump at the chance to work in close proximity to the Vance Reigns, Rosie has discovered something about Vance: he’s a jerk, and she can’t stand him. The feeling is mutual.

But as Vance and Rosie begrudgingly get to know each other, their careful masks come off—and they may just find that there’s more risk in shutting each other out than in opening their hearts.

My Review

I’ve been really looking forward to reading this book, and it did NOT disappoint! Just like I did in GEEKERELLA, I love the quirky, nerdiness of the characters and their obsession with Starfield in BOOKISH AND THE BEAST. I love the banter between Rosie and Vance. And I love her best friends and the enthusiasm they put into everything from teasing her about her dad to Quinn’s quest to become Homecoming Overlord.

There was one tiniest bump in my reading road. At the beginning, of course, Vance is a total jerk. It makes complete sense because this IS a Beauty and the Beast retelling. I can tell you now, it’s so worth those early scenes to watch the cracks in his armor form. To watch his heart change and know how big that is.

Another thing that I loved were the references to Beauty and the Beast. There are a couple of places where there references to minor lines in the Disney version of the movie, and some other references to the story as a whole that were too fun for me to spoil them here.

If you’re looking for a pick-me-up book, something light to take your mind off reality for a bit, look no further! I highly recommend reading BOOKISH AND THE BEAST.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Rosie and Vance are both white. Rosie’s best friend Quinn is nonbinary.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used very infrequently. A couple crude comments.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Some reference to feelings of attraction between two men.

Spiritual Content
Rosie thinks of her mother, who has died, and repeatedly notes that she no longer exists.

Violent Content
Reference to a car accident. Two boys get into a fist fight. A girl punches a boy.

Drug Content
References to Vance getting drunk in the past.

Note: I received a free copy of BOOKISH AND THE BEAST in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Finally, Something Mysterious by Doug Cornett

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Finally, Something Mysterious
Doug Cornett
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published April 14, 2020

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About Finally, Something Mysterious

Paul Marconi has always thought that Bellwood was a strange town, but also a bit of a boring one. Not much for an 11 year old to do. Fires are burning nearby, Paul’s parents are obsessed with winning a bratwurst contest, his best friend, one of the founding members of their only-sibling detective club, The One and Onlys, is about to have a younger sister, sort of undoing their whole reason for existing. But then! Hundreds of rubber duckies have appeared on the lawn of poor Mr. Babbage without any explanation. Finally! There is something that Paul and his friends can actually investigate.

In the face of all these strange occurences, Paul is convinced that solving who put the duckies on that lawn will finally bring some sense to what has become an upside down world. Soon the three friends have a long list of suspects, all with their own motives, but no clear culprit. When everything comes to a head at the town’s annual Bellwood Bratwurst Bonanza, Paul discovers some that some things don’t have an easy explanation and not everything can be solved.

A perfect summer story about friends, amateur sleuthing and a whole lot of rubber duckies.

My Review

You can probably guess from the title that FINALLY, SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS is going to be a funny book, and you’re right! These three friends won’t back down in the face of weird alibis, scary teachers, or midnight tuba solos. I had so much fun reading this book. I loved the friendship between Paul and the One and Onlys. His small town is packed with quirky people sharing interesting connections.

I love that the mystery they’re solving involves loads of rubber ducks. It’s random and strange and a great representation of the kind of goofy humor that fills the pages of the story. If you’re looking for a good laugh, this book delivers.

It reminded me a little bit of THREE TIMES LUCKY by Sheila Turnage and Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions series. If you liked either of those, or you just need a good laugh, you’ll want to check out FINALLY, SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
I think all three main characters are white kids.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Hope is a Dangerous Place by Jim Baton

Book Review and Content, Christian World-View, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, , , , , , ,

Hope is a Dangerous Place
Jim Baton
Published February 5, 2020

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About Hope is a Dangerous Place

Seventy-five years ago, fifteen-year-old Hope McCormick disappeared. To remember her, the newly incorporated town was named “Hope.” When high school friends Kelsey and Harmonie begin looking into this unsolved mystery, they discover that someone will do anything to make sure the town’s secrets never come to light. Which neighbors are allies, and which face masks a violent enemy? And what will it take for their struggling town to fulfill its original destiny of hope?

My Review

The thing that drew me to HOPE IS A DANGEROUS PLACE was the idea that the town is named Hope and the whole mystery of her disappearance and its affect on the town so many years later. I think I was looking for a kind of ON THE JELLICOE ROAD-slash-THE HUNDRED LIES OF LIZZIE LOVETT kind of story? Or maybe, on the spiritual side, something reminiscent of Frank Peretti’s THIS PRESENT DARKNESS?

I liked that the story has multiple narrators that tell some of the things happening behind the scenes. Lots of the narrators are adults, though, and many times those characters take the actions that cause major events in the story to happen. The teen characters– Kelsey and Harmonie– often stay interested but passive players in the story that’s unfolding around them.

The town is interesting– it definitely has that closed-circle, small-town feel that reminded me of Ashton in THIS PRESENT DARKNESS. I thought the pursuit of the missing girl helped to keep the story moving forward, but sometimes things unfolded in a weird way. At one point a character discovers a death in her family while taking a walk past a relative’s house– I guess that could happen, it just seemed weird the way it played out. Sometimes deeply sad things would happen and it didn’t seem like they really had a lasting effect on the characters, which made them feel shallow to me.

The cast is fairly diverse, which was really nice to see. I don’t really have any expertise on representation being good or bad, but something felt weird to me in some moments. Like there are a couple moments where the black characters kind of stop everything and have this big gratitude response to the white characters. I don’t know. Something about it just felt… icky… to me.

Like, one girl discovers that in the town’s past, a white man broke up a lynch mob gathering to murder a black man, and then the black community starts gifting food to the grandson of the guy and talking about how they owe him a debt of gratitude. Breaking up a lynch mob definitely sounds like a brave thing to do, but it’s also the right thing? The response of the people seemed a little over the top. I don’t know. Again, I’m no expert on representation, but it felt weird to me.

I don’t think the author meant to create disparity between the white and black or white and Latino communities in the story, but I felt like there were some unequal relationships and situations. It made me wonder if the author had had black or Latino sensitivity readers? Maybe so, and maybe I’m off in my perceptions. I can only speak to how it affected me.

I wouldn’t really say that HOPE IS A DANGEROUS PLACE is young adult fiction, even though there are a couple of teen narrators. I think this is really adult lit. It’s got a lot of Christian content but some swearing and drinking, so I imagine it’s hard to put it solidly into one genre or another.

On the whole, there were some things I enjoyed about the story and some things I found problematic.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Harmonie is black. Kelsey and Harmonie’s teacher is Latina. Other minor characters are Latino and black.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to a man who solicits a woman thinking she’s a prostitute.

Spiritual Content
Characters attend church and prayer services. Those scenes often relate the sermon being preached. Some discussions about the presence of angels and demons. One minor character offers to contact a dead spirit and comments on a girl’s aura.

Violent Content
Some references to abuse by a parent and by a law officer. An unknown person makes a creepy threat to the girls using a doll. Someone starts a fire in a building the girls are in. References to a lynch mob and a police officer who shot a man after claiming he tried to escape custody.

Drug Content
More than one adult in the story drinks a lot of alcohol. One character is a recovered alcoholic.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of HOPE IS A DANGEROUS PLACE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

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

Wild and Crooked
Leah Thomas
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
June 4, 2019

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About WILD AND CROOKED

In Samsboro, Kentucky, Kalyn Spence’s name is inseparable from the brutal murder her father committed when he was a teenager. Forced to return to town, Kalyn must attend school under a pseudonym . . . or face the lingering anger of Samsboro’s citizens, who refuse to forget the crime.

Gus Peake has never had the luxury of redefining himself. A Samsboro native, he’s either known as the “disabled kid” because of his cerebral palsy, or as the kid whose dad was murdered. Gus just wants to be known as himself.

When Gus meets Kalyn, her frankness is refreshing, and they form a deep friendship. Until their families’ pasts emerge. And when the accepted version of the truth is questioned, Kalyn and Gus are caught in the center of a national uproar. Can they break free from a legacy of inherited lies and chart their own paths forward?

My Review

I’m a huge fan of Leah Thomas, specifically the way she writes these deep, complex, unusual characters. I’m always drawn in and fascinated by the way she gets me to love people that at first I’m not sure if I can like.

Kalyn was tough for me. I tend to struggle with characters who use crude language or gratuitous swearing. Or in this case, both. And that was definitely a struggle for me. Lots of times I feel like authors use language like that to show that a character is a bad kid or is cool, and it gets redundant and feels lazy to me. Like, there are other ways to get that point across.

In this case, I felt like a lot of the word choices were really deliberate. They were meant to make us uncomfortable and remind us that Kalyn and Gus live in entirely different worlds, even though they’re in the same small town. It called sharp attention to the difference in the way her family and Gus’s family were treated by the town.

She also does learn that people will treat her differently when she acts differently. It’s a bit of a mixed message, because she feels like she’s not being true to herself when she acts all sugar and no spice. But it created an interesting moment when she stopped to realize that. It’s kind of one of those growing up moments, right? We want the world to be a place where we don’t get judged based on the way we dress or talk, but the truth is it doesn’t work that way most of the time. (Which doesn’t make it right.)

Anyway, WILD AND CROOKED gave me a lot to think about. I got invested in solving the mystery of what really happened to Gus’s dad and why. And I think the story really nailed it on the lesson that even when people use profanity and crude language, they still have the same value as anyone else. I want to pretend I didn’t need that reminder, but the truth is, I think I did.

If you like Leah Thomas books, you’ll find the same complex, great cast of characters and LGBT+ representation in WILD AND CROOKED. I think fans of LAST SEEN LEAVING by Caleb Roehrig may also enjoy this book for its murder-solving elements. The tone is different, but it has some of the same intensity.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Gus has Cerebral Palsy and struggles with finding the right word as well as some physical handicaps. Gus identifies as pansexual. Kalyn comes from a poor family and identifies as lesbian. Gus’s best friend believes he has no empathy resulting from a brain injury. Gus has two moms.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity and some crude language used often throughout the book.

Romance/Sexual Content
Two girls kissing. References to sex. One character references memories of conversion therapy camp in which a priest made her look at pornographic images of a man and woman together.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A teenager shoots and kills someone. Another teen brutally attacks someone with no feelings of remorse.

Drug Content 
Scenes include teens smoking cigarettes.

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

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.