The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas deserves all the hype and awards. The story centers around teenager Starr Carter who lives in the African-American community of Garden Heights while attending an expensive private school on the posh side of town. She has two sides of her life, two faces she shows each environment. Her white boyfriend Chris has never met her Dad. Her friend Kenya, who she shares a half-brother with has never met any of her high school friends. The two worlds collide after […]
A Memoir constructed from poetry
I’m a sucker for award-winning, young-adult novels. So, I can’t remember how it came to be there now, but it’s not too surprising that I had Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) by Jacqueline Woodson on my wait list at the library. From my diligent research before borrowing this book [reading the title], I assumed that it was the coming-of-age story of a young, black girl. On the one hand, I was right,Brown Girl Dreaming is a coming-of-age story. However, where I was expecting a fictional novel; this turned out […]
I think it might be quite emotionally exhausting to be a twin
Did you miss me, guys? I’m going to try to finally tackle the massive backlog of reviews I have (more than a quarter Cannonball at this rate), so expect much more from me in the days to come. Jude and Noah are twins and have always been very close, to the point where they seem able to communicate without words, reading each other’s minds. During the summer when they are thirteen, things are changing. Getting ready to apply to a creative arts high school, Noah […]
Best Book I’ve Read This Year
I’ve had Code Name Verity (2012) by Elizabeth Wein in my library queue for months. I think at least twice it came up, but I either forgot to check it out in time or ran out of time to read it. Part of the problem was I couldn’t remember why I’d chosen to read it. I vaguely remembered that it was a young adult novel set during World War II that had something to do with women spies. I was imagining some kind of Disney-fied […]