YA Books To Buy For Your Graduation Gifts

I’m away from the Somewhat United States at the moment, ceilidh dancing in Edinburgh and haunting my old haunts in St Andrews, but high school students all over America are getting ready to graduate within the next few weeks.  Congratulations to you all, especially to the young adults who are regulars at my bookshop.  I’m

Book Review: The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

(img source: goodreads) Star Ratings: Characters: ***** (5 stars) Character Development: **** (4 stars) Plot: *** (3 stars) Writing: **** (4 stars) Overall: **** (4 stars) Age range recommendation: 12 and up. (Dark but not scary, though there’s some troubling emotional and domestic abuse.) Be it known that I read an ARC of this book,

The Darkest Part Of The Forest is out today! Here’s why I love it.

I am a foolish mortal.*  When I read (and re-read) the galley of The Darkest Part Of The Forest a couple of months ago, I was full to bursting with things to say about it.  The effort it took to not wildly bang my keyboard with exclamation point and dreadful heart symbols may have caused

Book Review: Beware The Wild by Natalie C. Parker (coming out soon!)

Star Ratings: Characters: **** (4 stars) Character Development: **** (4 stars) Plot: *** (3 stars) Writing: **** (3 stars) Overall: **** (4 stars) Age range recommendation: 12 -18 I read an ARC of Beware The Wild and some details may change before publication! I seriously dig swamp magic.  I mucked around writing half a novel

Book Review: 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith

Toot-tootle-oo! (That’s that medieval trumpet sound of oh-hey-big-news, but you’ll have to imagine it sounding more impressive than the phonetic sounds I just typed out…)  The National Book Award’s long list for Young People’s Literature has been announced!  I’ve read three of the books already: Skink – No Surrender, Brown Girl Dreaming (I reviewed it here), and 100 Sideways Miles.  I really

Book Review: The Young World by Chris Weitz

I intended to review The Young World a month ago, but it seems to have slipped my mind.  Oops!  Then, last night I went to see The Purge 2: Anarchy. I must say that it was a surprisingly enjoyable film.  Lots of violence and a scary concept, but there wasn’t too much gore and it

Book Review: Conversion by Katherine Howe

Star Ratings for Conversion: Characters: **** (4 stars) Character Development: **** (4 stars) Plot: **** (4 stars) Writing: ***** (5 stars) Overall: **** (4 stars) Age range recommendation: 12 and up This YA novel by Catherine Howe (author of The Physick Book Of Deliverance Dane) is about quite a few subjects I like. Catholic school! Teenage

Summer Camp Rec: Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern (if you liked The Fault In Our Stars)

Oh, right, summer camp is a thing… And the season is upon us! All of a sudden, school is out and young people are being shipped off to learn how to despise teamwork, or shoot arrows at hay bales, or bathe in bugspray to no avail. At least, that’s what I remember about my own

Book Review: Talker 25 by Joshua McCune

Star Ratings (out of 5): Characters: *** (3 stars) Character development: *** (3 stars) Plot: ***1/2 (3 1/2 stars) Writing: **1/2 (2 1/2 stars) Overall: *** (3 stars) Age range recommendation: 12 and up In the not-too-distant future, America has a dragon problem.  No one knows how or why they arrived, but the enormous creatures

High School Books Part III: The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

Star Ratings Characters: ***** (5 stars) Character Development: **** (4 stars) Plot: **** (4 stars) Writing: ***** (5 stars) Overall: ***** (5 stars) Age recommendation: 16+ The Basic Eight was definitely my favorite of the three high school books I read last week.  In fact, I think it might be my favorite novel set in a high