Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon: An Instant Fave

The Hating Game meets Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by way of Morgan Matson in this unforgettable romantic comedy about two rival overachievers whose relationship completely transforms over the course of twenty-four hours.

Today, she hates him.

It’s the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests. While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she’d love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.

Tonight, she puts up with him.

When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they’re the last players left—and then they’ll destroy each other.

As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he’s much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she’s sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams.

Tomorrow…maybe she’s already fallen for him.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

From Stonewall and Lambda Award-winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle….

But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.

Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert: A Perfect Mix of Romance and Realness

 

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And… do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…

Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills: An Absolute Delight

When Claudia accidentally eavesdrops on the epic breakup of Paige and Iris, the it-couple at her school, she finds herself in hot water with prickly, difficult Iris. Thrown together against their will in the class production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, along with the goofiest, cutest boy Claudia has ever known, Iris and Claudia are in for an eye-opening senior year.

Smart, funny, and thoroughly, wonderfully flawed, Claudia navigates a world of intense friendships and tentative romance in Foolish Hearts, a YA novel about expanding your horizons, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and accepting–and loving–people for who they really are.

A contemporary young adult novel by Emma Mills about a girl whose high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream leads her to new friends–and maybe even new love.

8 Reasons to Read Sick Kids In Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It’s easier–
It’s safer–
It’s better–
–for the other person.
She’s got issues. She’s got secrets. She’s got rheumatoid arthritis.
But then she meets another sick kid.
He’s got a chronic illness Isabel’s never heard of, something she can’t even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father who’s a doctor.
He’s gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her.
Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It’s complicated–
It’s dangerous–
It’s never felt better–
–to consider breaking that rule for him.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The best praise I can give Sick Kids in Love is a simple anecdote from my own life: I got this book for Christmas and had completely devoured it by the end of the next day. It’s one of those books I enjoyed so much that it’s honestly hard to write a coherent review that isn’t just GO READ THIS BOOK. So instead, I’m going to try and write a more coherent version of that statement.

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake: Devastatingly Perfect

The Larkin family isn’t just lucky—they persevere. At least that’s what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn’t drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer.

But wrecks seem to run in the family. Tall, funny, musical Violet can’t stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.

Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family’s missing piece – the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century.

She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes-and the bridges she builds along the way-may be the start of something like survival.

Book Review: The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Revenge
When Eugenides, the Thief of Eddis, stole Hamiathes’s Gift, the Queen of Attolia lost more than a mythical relic. She lost face. Everyone knew that Eugenides had outwitted and escaped her. To restore her reputation and reassert her power, the Queen of Attolia will go to any length and accept any help that is offered…she will risk her country to execute the perfect revenge.

…but
Eugenides can steal anything. And he taunts the Queen of Attolia, moving through her strongholds seemingly at will. So Attolia waits, secure in the knowledge that the Thief will slip, that he will haunt her palace one too many times.

…at what price?
When Eugenides finds his small mountain country at war with Attolia, he must steal a man, he must steal a queen, he must steal peace. But his greatest triumph, and his greatest loss, comes in capturing something that the Queen of Attolia thought she had sacrificed long ago…

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am SERIOUSLY kicking myself for not reading this earlier! I read The Thief last year but kept putting off reading the sequel because I was sad to see it didn’t have Gen’s first-person POV anymore. I finally packed the sequel when I went on vacation, hoping I’d be able to get into it despite that…and ended up getting so absorbed in The Queen of Attolia that I read it for most of my flight home and stayed up even later despite my exhaustion just to finish reading it because I NEEDED to know how it ended.

Look. The Thief was a pretty fun 90s fantasy inspired by the ancient Mediterranean with an amusing narrator and some nice twists–enjoyable for what I knew it was it was going to be. The Queen of Attolia is the kind of book that had me clutching the pages and making tormented faces because I was so desperate to find out what would happen next.

Following the events at the end of the first book, Gen is back home in Eddis in his role as a royal thief, but tensions between countries are still simmering. The scale of this book is a lot more epic and the political intrigue is layered and complex, delivering on what was set-up in the first book. The very first chapter makes it clear that this isn’t going to be a story where Gen is gleefully several steps ahead of everyone else, but rather a big-picture story of war. 

While I was initially kind of sad to miss out on Gen’s first-person snarky narration from the first book, the insights into other characters given totally made up for it. And by “other characters” I mean the titular character of the Queen of Attolia. She’s a ruthless, surprisingly sympathetic character who’s desperately trying to hold onto her power in a culture that thinks she’s owed none.

Being less directly inside of Gen’s head also gives the reader a chance to see him as a less idealized version of himself as he deals with a sudden loss and his importance in the brewing world war. He’s clever and flawed, a mess and a genius.

It’s not a perfect book–in the beginning there’s a lot of political intrigue than can be difficult to keep straight or be invested in and it’s true the romance sort of comes out of nowhere (though I am SO curious about where it goes). But honestly, I just had a lot of fun reading this and trying to predict where it would go while knowing I couldn’t.

Diversity notes: Left-hand amputee representation (there’s a plotline about acquiring and adjusting to a disability). I *think* Eddisians are described as brown-skinned, but I’m not sure.
Author/ownvoices notes: N/A.

Book Review: This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow

It doesn’t matter what the prize for the Sun City Originals contest is this year.

Who cares that’s it’s fifteen grand? Who cares about a gig opening for one of the greatest bands to ever play this town?

Not Dia, that’s for sure. Because Dia knows that without a band, she hasn’t got a shot at winning Sun City. Because ever since Hanna’s drinking took over her life, Dia and Jules haven’t been in it. And ever since Hanna left — well, there hasn’t been a band.

It used to be the three of them, Dia, Jules, and Hanna, messing around and making music and planning for the future. But that was then, and this is now — and now means a baby, a failed relationship, a stint in rehab, all kinds of off beats that have interrupted the rhythm of their friendship. No contest can change that. Right?

But like the lyrics of a song you used to play on repeat, there’s no forgetting a best friend. And for Dia, Jules, and Hanna, this impossible challenge — to ignore the past, in order to jumpstart the future — will only become possible if they finally make peace with the girls they once were, and the girls they are finally letting themselves be.

Rebecca Barrow’s tender story of friendship, music, and ferocious love asks — what will you fight for, if not yourself?

⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐

“She played for the girls they used to be and the ones they were now, and all their fallen-apart pieces that had gotten lost or ruined or discarded along the way.”

This Is What It Feels Like is a strong YA contemporary about the complexities of female friendship and recovery. It follows a trio of ex-best friends bandmates who reunite for one last music competition:

→ Dia: A teen mom recovering from tragedy who’s finding it hard to let new people after a past tragedy.

→ Jules: A hopelessly romantic lesbian who just got out of an emotionally unhealthy relationship and is questioning whether real love is out there.

→ Hanna: A recovering alcoholic who’s trying to figure out who she really is when she’s sober and earn back her family’s trust.

All three of the girls are fantastically complex characters–messy, loveable, and realistic–and I absolutely loved reading about their relationships with each other. I’m on the constant lookout for YA books that have a strong emphasis on friendship instead of romance and I was happy to find this here! Dia, Jules, and Hanna were best friends and bandmates until a year of tragedy, addiction, and irreversible change caused a schism between them. When they decide to reform their band the summer after high school, there’s a lot of bitterness, regret, and tangled emotions to sort through. How did they go from sharing everything to never talking? And can they ever regain what they had?

I loved that This Is What It Feels Like is a story about recovery. From tragedy. From unhealthy relationships. From addiction. There are a lot of YA novels about those immediate things, but not a lot about the recovery, so I thought it was nice to see that. Each of the girls is working through her past, learning that healing isn’t always linear but you have to try anyway. Even though it deals with some serious issues like alcoholism and teen parenthood, it never feels preachy or overstuffed. Rather, it’s a hopeful story about characters healing and forging a better future.

As well as sensitively handling some heavier issues, This Is What It Feels Like also has some great cheerful stuff about romance and the power of music. There are two really sweet romances–on M/F and one F/F–that were the perfect combination of cute and emotional (especially Jules’s). Rebecca Barrow is also great at writing band scenes and the chemistry the three girls have as a band leaps of the page. 

Other awesome things this book contains:

→ A dog named Waffles

→ Rainbow baked goods

→ Kacey Musgraves references

→ An epilogue done right

Overall, I’d highly recommend This Is What It Feels Like to any fans of YA contemporary who love music and complex female friendships!

 

Diversity notes: Dia is African American. Jules is Afro-Barbadian American and a lesbian. Hanna is a recovering alcoholic. Jules’s love interest is sapphic (she’s unsure of her specific orientation) and described as curvy. Dia’s love interest is African American.

Author/ownvoices notes: Rebecca Barrow is a bisexual, Black British woman.

Five Reasons You Need to Read The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

1. It’s a strong, unique retelling of a classic. Frankenstein was one of the first classic novels I ever read, it’s the hundredth anniversary of publication, and I recently reread it for school, so I was primed to read a good retelling of it this fall. And seriously, it did not disappoint. Rather than focusing on Victor or his creation, it’s about Elizabeth, Victor’s adopted cousin/wife-to-be (it’s complicated). When Victor doesn’t come home from his studies at college, Elizabeth follows him to Ingolstadt, determined to hunt him down and bring him home, only to be drawn into a dark world of life and death, survival and resurrection. This point-of-view shift allows for a completely different look at the world and story of Frankenstein, with different stakes and themes. It’s no longer about science and consequences, but also about escaping abusive relationships and the act shaping yourself into something else in order to survive.

Kiersten White was also good at knowing what parts of the original source should be dropped to streamline the story and which needed to be expanded on. Some questions are answered (like where exactly Victor got those body parts to experiment on) and new light is shed on on unexplored parts of the world. There’s also enough divergence from the original plot and unique spin on events that already knowing the plot didn’t decrease my enjoyment and actually added to it. (For those wondering, I would really recommend reading Frankenstein before reading this. While you could probably read, understand, and enjoy Dark Descent without having read the source material, Frankenstein has been distorted by pop culture and there’s a lot of clever references to the original story that would make reading it worthwhile because you’ll get more out of it.)

 

 

2. It’s feminist. A huge part of the novel’s appeal to me was that it was a retelling centering on a woman (aka my JAM) and it delivered. While Frankenstein was written by a woman, it is very much a story about men, featuring only side female characters. Dark Descent, however, centers Elizabeth and makes her relationships with other women an important part of the novel. Retelling a story about the very nature of humanity from a female point of view instead of the traditional male one means that everything is seen in a whole new light and it’s just so good.

 

 

3. Elizabeth is such a good main character. The way Elizabeth is written is this book is really interesting (and the author’s note on inspiration is absolutely worth reading). Taken in by the Frankensteins at a young age (after living with an abusive foster family), she becomes a companion to obsessive, strange Victor Frankenstein, relying on her ability to understand and calm and please him in order to have a place in the family. Her story is very much one about molding herself to be a supporting character in Victor’s life, but in this story she’s the central character with agency and development and her development is learning not to stand aside in her own life. I rooted for her the whole time, even when her actions were questionable, because it was impossible not to hope she’d escape the Frankensteins and make her own place in the world. I really found myself deep inside her head and riveted by her journey throughout the book.

 

 

4. The writing is strong. Kiersten White really strikes a good balance with this book. It’s not modern enough to sound jarring, but it’s not old-fashioned enough as to be confusing. I think it’s a great example of how to write a retelling in the original setting. It captures the gothic, psychological tone of Frankenstein while still being more straightforward and fairly fast-paced.

 

 

5. It’s a perfectly dark, messed-up read. Dark Descent is really a great fall/winter read with it’s gothic atmosphere and morally questionable (or just plain wrong) characters. If you’re looking for a read to bring back some of the Halloween spook, this couldn’t be a better place. It really delves into dark parts of Frankenstein–an innocent woman sentenced to death, a boy stitching together body parts in an attempt to play God–but also isn’t hopelessly bleak. I really do think you have to be in a perfect mood to read this, though, because it is a little slow-paced at the beginning. Once I got in the right mood, I was hooked.

 

OVERALL

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein is a strong retelling that puts a unique spin on a old story than any fan of Frankenstein, feminism, or dark, gothic stories.

 

Diversity notes: Though the book does strongly focus on female characters and features an examination of abus and the aftermath, all characters seem to be straight & white, which seemed like a missed opportunity to me.

Author/own voices notes: N/A