Another brilliant book told in verse (similar to those by Kwame Alexander), Long Way Down takes place in a single elevator ride over 60 seconds. I was doubtful that this could be pulled off successfully, but my god, what Jason Reynolds does here is extraordinarily effective. Will is mourning the sudden shooting death of his brother, Shawn. According to “the rules” of his neighborhood, Will must now plan to take his brother’s gun and shoot the boy who he thinks killed his brother. THE RULES […]
A really sweet YA romance
All Dimple Shah wants is to go to Stanford and become a web developer. She fights against her mother’s expectations of her, that she wear girlier clothes and make-up and find a “nice Indian husband”. When her parents agree to let her attend a web development seminar in San Francisco for the summer, she becomes more optimistic that they may in fact support her career goals. Rishi Patel loves hearing the story about how his parents met and has no problem with the idea of […]
Tugs at your heart
Ghosts is the most recently published of Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels and also the most fantastical. Since I had read and reviewed her other three books earlier this year, it seemed only appropriate to do this one as well. While I didn’t connect to this story the way I did Smile and Drama, I did fall for the characters and the story of family, identity, and death. Cat’s younger sister, Maya, was born with cystic fibrosis, it affects her lungs and digestive system and there is no cure. The […]
What happens when you let the monster in?
Duana Taha (Canadian writer and producer) often says variations of, “Give them what they need, not what they want”. Our Dark Duet, sequel to This Savage Song, seems like it was a case of Victoria Schwab following that advice. I wanted this book to be something else, instead it was the story that needed to be told because of the setting and characters. In my review of This Savage Song I said it, “is an urban fantasy inspired by the classic two houses divided shtick of Romeo and Juliet.” […]
‘Life is happening to us now, just like it’s happening to you’
Mikey is about to graduate from high school and head off to college, escaping his small town and irritating parents, but leaving behind some amazing friends. His anxiety is through the roof, trapping him in loops of hand washing and counting, and that’s before the indie kids start dying. There’s something strange happening in this town. Again. There’s been soul eating ghosts and vampires and gods and now there’s something else lurking in the woods causing the deer to freak out and the police force […]
Everybody makes one another’s terrible mistakes
I read this book too fast. I didn’t intend to. I picked it out as my travel book for a week of work and visiting friends in Boston, thinking I’d chip away a little each day. Then I read most of it on the flight out and finished it the next day because I just. couldn’t. help myself. In writing these reviews for #CBR10, I’m beginning to wonder if the amount of detail I retain is inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes […]
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