YA

Mental health is a topic of prime concern these days, especially for kids and teens who may have spent much of the last year in isolation, cut off from peers and in-person school. Reading a book with a protagonist struggling…

If you’re a fan of twists, turns, and things that go bump in the night, you’ll love these #ownvoices mysteries and thrillers that take place everywhere from a Mexican mansion in the 1950s to 1800s Korea. Whether your tastes trend…

Fantasy and science fiction are two broad categories that span everything from high fantasy, to alternate steampunk histories, to outer space adventures. Often though, these stories, and in particular fantasy, tend to slant toward basing their mythologies and histories in…

I’ve been reading but haven’t had time to write “real” reviews lately, so here are a few mini ones! Have you read any of these? Please let me know what you thought in the comments! American War This book was…

Andy Weir’s sophomore novel, Artemis, was released at the end of 2017, following his critically acclaimed The Martian which was published in 2012 with the movie quickly following on its heels. He also is responsible for the four page e-book…

Annie, another LQ contributor, works for a publishing company in Minneapolis and asked if one of us would be interested in reviewing the YA novel Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield. Everyone else wrote back and said they’re not fans of…

There’s considerable buzz around Angie Thomas’s debut young adult novel, The Hate U Give. The Times (UK) reviewer says that it could very well be the YA book of the decade, and The Atlantic calls it “incisive and engrossing.” This is a novel…

Why: I spend quite a bit of time in my car. My evening commute in particular can be quite lengthy and irritating. Admittedly, I was a skeptic of audiobooks. I started seeing Kathleen post some reviews on here and I…

In 1911, fourteen year-old Joan Skraggs finds herself trapped at home on a run-down farm, working tirelessly for her cruel father. He pulls her from school and requires her, “an ox of a girl” and “ugly” in his estimation, to mend,…

School’s out (at least in my neck of the woods) and summer reading season is upon us!  As I loaded my 6th grade students up with top picks, I grabbed a few middle-grade novels for myself.  My stack included a prime…