Category Archives: Y.A.

Chosen Ones, by Veronica Roth

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(Above synopsis provided by the publisher.)

“Sometimes Sloan wondered if the world had been worth saving.”

Sloan’s character really was the redeeming factor for this novel. She was coated in an assortment of layers and I was never exactly sure what she would do next.

The storyline progressed like a herd of turtles. Once one thing was over the group of Chosen Ones would move on to something else while meandering about their day to day business. I wasn’t exactly sure the direction the story was going until after halfway through.

Part One (p.1-121): Since the beginning picks up in the aftermath of events that are (at this point) unknown to the reader, a lot of the beginning was a little confusing about exactly what had happened. You pick up pieces here and there throughout Part One about what happened to them 10 years when they defeated the Dark One. Other than trying to figure out what happened 10 years ago, it’s mainly about their lives and relationships with each other since defeating the Dark One a decade ago. Part 2 (p.123-284): Something happens, and it’s exciting. But halfway through, it gets back to that slow crawl again. Part 3 (p.285-419): Stays at a moderate pace until the twist. Can’t tell you the rest.

I was happy with the ending, which is set up nicely for a sequel. The ending did answer a lot of my questions. Things started to come together, but getting there in a reasonable and timely fashion was backbreaking.

Though marketed as an adult novel, this is a YA book through and through. I enjoy YA novels, but this one wasn’t for me. Without Sloan’s character, I would have thrown in the towel. While the characters are supposed to be adults, they talk and act like teenagers. This will still be popular with a certain YA crowd though.

Check out this EW article to read an excerpt from Chosen Ones.

Watch this video Veronica Roth has shared on her Facebook where she explains some of the research she did for the magic used in Chosen Ones.

Read The Nerd Daily’s review for Chosen Ones.

Veronica Roth is the author of the bestselling series Divergent. Visit her website to view more of her books.

Read Publisher’s Weekly interview with Veronica Roth.

Follow Veronica Roth on Instagram.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an advance print copy. Opinions are my own.

|Purchase on Amazon| Goodreads Review |

Lakewood, by Megan Giddings

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“You give yourself to make your country a better place. You give yourself to keep us safe.”

After her grandmother passes, Lena searches for financial comfort since her mother is medically unwell. She receives a letter offering more than enough to provide the comfort she needs if she moves to Lakewood and submits herself to the Lakewood Project. Accepting, Lena finds herself as part of a human experiment group.

“Why do you think they’re doing these experiments? What do you think they’re trying to learn?”

I enjoyed this debut young adult novel. It was a quick and easy read with a dark atmosphere. Lena’s race and socioeconomic status were rightfully featured as doormat for the government’s testing purposes. I kept wondering what was going to happen to Lena and the others that were part of the experiment group. There are a lot of unanswered questions for the greater half of the novel that build the readers suspense.

But at times it felt repetitive, and I just wanted the story to get on with it and progress. For example, the experiment group would do something they were told and the observers would watch what happened; this seemed to cycle around regularly for several chapters. The ending felt rushed for me. I didn’t feel complete closure for the full character of Lena. It skipped over a lot of the emotional and intellectual depth that was disclosed at the beginning.

Various though-provoking topics and questions surfaced throughout the story as a result of Lena’s background. What boundaries do humans have, and how do we set those boundaries? What are we willing to do to ensure the survival of our family and health insurance for ourselves and/or our loved ones? How do we justify the monetary value placed on someone else’s life?

Lakewood is Megan Giddings debut novel. Visit her website.

Read Boston Globe’s book review for Lakewood.

Read LA Times book review for Lakewood.

Follow Megan Giddings on Twitter.

Learn more about government experimentation by reading about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Operation Sea-Spray, Project Artichoke, or the San Quentin prison experiments.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy. Opinions are my own.

|Purchase on Amazon| Goodreads Review|

We Are All His Creatures: Tales of P.T. Barnum, by Deborah Noyes

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Many know P.T. Barnum, but the voices that surrounded him have been lost and his exploitation of others is largely overlooked. Those closest to him, including his two daughters, are given the center stage in We Are All His Creatures. Living in the shadow of P.T. Barnum, this novel centers on his family and his performers who worker closely with him through a collection of stories.

I would describe this book as a boring take on what is often considered an exciting time with a group of interesting characters. The interlinked short stories were directionless. Some I would describe as pointless since I’m not sure what the end goal was.

Sadly, this book might cause teens and young readers to become disinterested in the subject because the stories are not captivating and the characters feel lifeless.

I was excited to read this, but after reading the first few stories I quickly lost that excitement and considered not finishing this many times.

I liked the photographs and quotes that were included before each story. And, though I really did not care for the book overall, I thought the portrayal of P.T. Barnum was refreshing. To see him through others eyes.

Visit Deborah Noyes website.

Read Publishers Weekly Review for We Are All His Creatures.

Deborah Noyes is also the author of Plague in the Mirror and Red Butterfly.

Visit her author page on Scholastic to see more books.

Follow Deborah Noyes on Twitter.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy. Opinions are my own.

|Purchase on Amazon | Goodreads Review|

The Missing Sister, by Elle Marr

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Shayna goes to Paris after her sister is found dead. While visiting her sisters apartment to pack up her belongings, she reads a message in their secret twin language that she is really alive so she decides to retrace the steps of her sisters last days to try and find her. She trusts no one and tells no one that her sister is really alive. Why is her sister hiding? Who tried to kill her?

Overall, this story was hard for me to get through. It was underdeveloped and the mystery was short lived. The ending was predictable and it was slow to get there. There is little to no build up for the suspense; I was continuously bored and just wanted to just flip to the last few pages because everything in between was so pointless. The whole thing was just a poor quality mystery/suspense novel. Meanwhile, the entire prose was absolutely ridiculous.

The main character, Shayna, is a pre-med student who is described as very intelligent in the beginning. Her character doesn’t seem to maintain this intellectual trait throughout the mystery though.

I kept reading hoping there might be a major surprise and revelation towards or in the end but there wasn’t. It was under 300 pages though, so I suffered through.

The Missing Sister is Elle Marr’s debut novel. Visit her website here.

Read Publisher Weekly’s review for The Missing Sister.

Learn more about her debut novel.

The Missing Sister was selected as one of PopSugar’s 31 new thriller and mystery books to look out for in 2020.

Follow Elle Marr on Facebook or Twitter.

|Purchase on Amazon|Goodreads Review|

In an Instant, by Suzanne Redfearn

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A tight-nit family along with a few friends go on their annual trip to a secluded cabin that has been passed down for generations. Along the way, they swerve to miss hitting a deer. This instant changes their lives forever and their camper falls below the guardrails on the side of a mountain into the snow. Finn, a sixteen year old, is immediately dead, but does not pass through to her next world. She continues to watch her family through survival, rescue, guilt, and grief.

The chapters are short and there are a total of 94 chapters. The first 14% (ch.1-5) of the story were the days leading up to their trip before the accident occurs. When the accident hit, it really picked up. I couldn’t read fast enough. There is a huge “omg” moment that happens while they are fighting for survival. I was astounded, angry, and my jaw dropped when this happened.

At 38 % the rescue takes place but not all survive. (Meaning only 14-38% or ch. 6-35 of the novel was their survival story, the rest is what happens after they get back home.) From this point on the family is drowning in blame, grief, and hate. Guilt radiates the life and relationships of those who survived and a secret is kept about that fateful night. This is the bulk and focus of the story; so for most of the story it is not very happy.

Paranormal aspect- The narrator is dead and narrates all of the story for the family/characters. She watches them while lingering in limbo. (They cannot see her, but she talks to them in their dreams.) Towards the end this narration style got repetitive.

There is some minor mundane stuff that happens like watching baseball games, rescuing kittens…to help them with their grief. There is cussing and sex, but not the sexy details. Overall, I enjoyed it though I would definitely classify this as a young adult novel.

The ending Author’s Note is a must read which explains the real story that inspired this fictional novel.

Author Suzanne RedFearn’s has written two other novels called Hush Little Baby and No Ordinary Life.

Visit Suzanne RedFearn’s website or follow her on Twitter.

Suzanne Redfearn, author of In An Instant.

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Nothing More Dangerous, by Allen Eskens

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“Boady, the men who beat and murdered those people for all those years, do you think they simply disappeared because someone passed a law?”

A colored, divorced woman, Lida Poe, goes missing in the small town of Jessup, Missouri in the 70’s. The town is painted in racism and composed of prejudice beliefs. Growing up in Jessup, teenage Boady Sanden considers himself an average young man and doesn’t realize the segregation and discrimination until he befriends his new neighbors and sees the reaction from certain town members. Boady begins to recognize his own racial thoughts while he and his new friend, Thomas, get pulled into the middle of the Lida Poe murder case. Was there more to her murder case than what was being disclosed?

“You’ll never change what a person thinks in their head or what they feel in their heart by passing a law. If a man doesn’t want to look at who he is deep down, he’s not going to much care what the law says about it.”

I really loved the setting of the novel and watching Boady purge the racial stigmas that he had grown up hearing and believing. The friendship he creates with Thomas, his neighbor, was my favorite part of the novel. While the book obviously centers on overcoming prejudices in the 1970’s, the target for the reader is identifying and conquering our own prejudices, even including predispositions, whatever those might be.

The focus of the story isn’t the murder of Lida Poe, but her murder is used in the growth of the plot and character development. The story centers around Boady and his surroundings; like his peers in school who are blinded by racism and let those feelings drive their actions.

**There is a lot of racial slander in this novel. Violence and hate crimes occur.**

Pictured below is the face of young Emmett Till who is mentioned in the book a few times during the dialogue. Beaten, drowned, and then burned alive, read about the murder of Emmett Till here.

Allen Eskens is the author of award-winning book The Life We Bury.

He is a best-selling author. Nothing More Dangerous is his sixth book. To view all of his books, and the order to read them in, click here.

Follow Allen Eskens on Facebook.

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Regretting You, by Colleen Hoover

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I went into this novel not knowing much about it except having read the basic description of the book, and I recommend doing the same…knowing little as possible!!! I really loved it and couldn’t put it down. It is very character driven and the dialogue is sharp.

Thirty-four year old Morgan begins to see her life as predictable and struggles with her identity as a housewife. Her teenage daughter, Clara, feels like she is treated with too many rules but respects her parents wishes. That is, until an unexpected event occurs leaving their family in shock. How can they be honest with each other when the trust has already been broken? Can they find redemption and heal their relationship?

Chapters alternate between the mother, Morgan, and her her daughter, Clara. It starts off at Morgans high school graduation party and reveals Morgan’s realization that she is pregnant. After this first chapter, everything takes place during Morgan’s life as 34 year-old -mother and Clara’s life as a 16 year-old on the brink of 17 years old.

Topics include- underage drinking, marijuana usage, teen pregnancy, teen sex

Visit her website to view all of Colleen Hoover’s books.

Follow Colleen Hoover on Twitter.




Colleen Hoover talks about her novel Without Merit:

|Purchase on Amazon | Goodreads Review|

The Speed of Falling Objects, by Nancy Richardson Fischer

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Danny, sixteen about to be seventeen, lives with her mom. Her dad is famous but she has little to no relationship with him because he is too busy as a survivalist TV star; her relationship with him consists of watching all of his shows on TV. When her dad calls to invite her to be on his next survivalist show, she hastily accepts. But, the plane crashes, lives are lost, and they are faced with the true wilderness. Danny begins to see her dad for who he truly is, but can she forgive him? Sacrifices are made in order to survive, but does that mean sacrificing human decency? While the group struggles to survive in the Amazon wild, they also struggle to cope with each other.

Family resentment and forgiveness is celebrated through Danny’s tale of survival. She battles the ghosts of her parents decisions: Did her mom keep her from having a relationship with her dad? Why didn’t her dad try harder to see her and form a meaningful relationship with her?

Overall thoughts: The beginning is mostly about the background relationship between Danny, her mom, and her dad until 24%. Because of this, the beginning was slow. Danny’s dad had little to no redeeming qualities throughout the entire story. Danny wants to be part of his life so bad, and wants to be accepted by him for who she is. Manipulative and egotistical, I did not like him and he is a major character. Without him though, Danny could not experience the growth she had in the end. I did enjoy the constant reminder of how manipulated the world we live in is; the insurmountable negation of our natural world even to the state of death itself is echoed in this novel.

Image above taken from the author’s website. Visit here to learn more.

Read Hypable’s article interviewing author Nancy Richardson Fischer’s firsthand account with fear.

To view all of Nancy Richardson’s book, click here.

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Where the World Ends, by Geraldine McCaughrean

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CILIP Carnegie Medal Winner

This book is true to the blurb. Set in 1727, a group of boys from Hirta go hunting on a sea stac in St. Kilda. No one comes to pick them up as they normally do and they become stranded for many months.

Most of the time, the story dragged. It’s mostly about their day-to-day mundane happenings and a lot of birds. Here and there something of interest happens though. For the most part though, I felt bored and disengaged. Though the dark atmosphere and setting were painted remarkably, the story itself was tedious. There were 2-3 points where I was wanting to know what was going to happen, but they were short-lived moments.

I think middle grade students would find this uninteresting and I think they would also get confused. This is quite possible true for upper grade levels as well. It says this is for ages 10 & up. I do not agree that this is on a 10 year old reading level. This should say 13-14 year old & up because of the vernacular and literary skills necessary.

The novel is very loosely based on a true story. Revealed in the end by the author, the only true part of the story is that in the 1700’s a group of young men did get stranded for 9 months and survive. That is literally all that is known. No other details survive about the true account as to how they survived, etc. The premise for this book, because of the true story, is interesting. But this novel, which details their time being stranded on the sea stac, left me feeling bored except for a a few parts.

I didn’t like the story, but I didn’t completely hate it. It was okay. I received an advanced copy from Netgalley and the publisher. Opinions are my own.

Sea stac at Armin. Visit The Guardian’s photo gallery to view more photos of St. Kilda.

Read praise for Where the World Ends is by Undiscovered Scotland.

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Patron Saints of Nothing, by Randy Ribay

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Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature

This is a YA novel with a powerful message spanning across several thematic thresholds. What is the truth worth? Who is accountable for the lives of the lost? Can we hold ourselves responsible for acts of inhumanity if we are not actively speaking up? If we don’t, then who will?

“If we are to be more than what we have been, there’s so much more that we need to say.”

“I am not truly Filipino, so I don’t understand the Philippines. But isn’t this deeper than that, doesn’t this transcend nationality? Isn’t there some sense of right and wrong about how human beings should be treated that applies no matter where you live, no matter what language you speak?”

Jay, an eighteen-year-old half-Filipino half-American, travels back to the Philippines from Michigan during his senior year in high school after learning about the death of his cousin, Yun, to drugs. No one will answer his questions concerning his cousin’s death, so he chooses to find the answers himself by travelling to the Philippines to visit with his and Yun’s family concerning the mysterious death. While seeking answers in the Philippines, Jay finds a homeland that he no longer recognizes. Jay struggles to identify with a culture that he has forgotten and finds conflict not only within the country, but within his Filipino family. Why isn’t anyone mourning the death of Yun? What really happened, and why won’t anyone tell him the truth?

“It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history.”

Throughout his trip staying with family members and searching for answers, the reader is taken on a cultural journey. I learned a lot from this piece of fiction, especially about policies enforced by President Duterte, and plan to read some of the nonfiction articles in the “Recommended Reading” section provided by Randy Ribay in the back of this book.

This is a great book for YA readers, and I recommend it.
Topics include: drugs, sensationalism, trafficking, nationalism, injustice, existence, family, poverty, political thought/policies

This is taken from the book, Patron Saints of Nothing.

Visit Randy Ribay‘s site to learn more and see upcoming events.

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