Camp Quiltbag

Camp Quiltbag by Nicole Melleby and A.J. Sass

Algonquin Young Readers, 9781643752662

Abigail (she/her/hers) has had a rough year since coming out to her family and the classmates she thought were her friends. She’s excited to attend Camp Quiltbag, a summer camp for LGBTQ+ kiddos…but also, too embarrassed to tell Stacey and the other girls where she’s going. Kai (e/em/eir) has had an even rougher year, but e would rather stay home and practice parkour and hang out with friends e knows e can trust. The two make a pact to help each other, which seems like a great idea…until it sort of backfires.

This is a sweet summer story of crushes, queer identity exploration and friendship. Recommended for middle grader readers.

Bullying, diversity, friendship, gay friends, gender diversity, homophobia, kissing, neurodivergence, no sex, parents, rainbow+, religion, sports, Star Trek sex, straight friends, teachers.

Heartstopper

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (graphic novel)

Graphix, 9781338617436

Charlie is skinny and gay (he was outed last year, and then bullied as a result).  Nick is a big rugby player with a kind heart.  They become friends…and then more.  There is a lot of confusion as both boys try to sort out what labels they want to claim, and who they will allow to influence them.  Their affection grows stronger throughout the story, even when things go completely sideways.  Best of all: even when they doubt themselves they are both adorable.

Oseman’s art is friendly and accessible, depicting the emotions of characters beautifully.  Be ready to have volume 2 in the series ready to read, because the first book ends on a cliff hanger!  Highly recommended for ages 12 to adult.

bullying, cussing, cussing (mild), friendship, gay friends, gender diversity, graphic novel, high school, homophobia, kissing, mental health, off-page intimacy, parents, rainbow+, sports, Star Trek sex, straight friends

How Not to Fall in Love

 

How Not to Fall in Love  by Jacqueine Firkins

Clarion Books, 9780358467144

After years of watching Bridezillas parade through her mom’s wedding shop, Harper is pretty convinced that “love” is something invented to sell stuff.  She wants nothing to do with it.  This is exactly opposite to the feelings of her neighbor and best friend, Theo, who falls in love on each first date.  The two offer to trade tips:  Theo will help Harper ace the ACT vocabulary test, and Harper will teach Theo how to avoid falling in love.  The vocabulary part goes well.  The rest…not so much.

Predictable but sweet boy-next-door romance made MUCH BETTER because the characters–including supporting characters–engage in honest, heartfelt conversations about self-care, birth control, and what they want (or think they want) from relationships.  Sweet and tactful sexual situations on the page.  

Birth control, friendship, high school, kissing, mental health, neurodivergence, off-page intimacy, on-page sex,  parents, rainbow+, Star Trek sex, straight friends

Plan A

 

Plan A by Deb Caletti

Labyrinth Road, 9780593485545

16-year old Ivy is strong, independent, opinionated…and pregnant.  She has plans and hopes and dreams for her future, and that future does not involve a child originating from sexual assault.  

Unfortunately for Ivy, she lives in contemporary Texas, which has some of the most restrictive women’s health laws in the country.  Ivy doesn’t realize that she is pregnant until she has passed the 6-week mark, after which an abortion is illegal in her home state.  Fortunately for Ivy, she is not alone:  her mother, grandmother, and a host of other women (and men) are willing to prioritize her choices, and so begins what Ivy and her adorable boyfriend Lorenzo call their “abortion road trip love story.”  

This book is serious and funny, timeless and timely.  It will absolutely be banned and challenged, and should absolutely be available for any reader who wants it–because these choices are important, and stories about these choices are possibly even more important. Highly recommended for ages 14 to adult.

Abortion, birth control, bullying, cussing, diversity, friendship, high school, kissing, parents, pregnancy, rainbow+, religion, sexual assault (on-page), Star Trek sex

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy

 

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy by Faith Erin Hicks (graphic novel)

First Second, 9781250838728

Alix loves playing hockey so much that she is willing to put up with bullying from the team captain. But after one snide comment too many, Alix’s temper snaps and she punches Lindsay in the face in front of the whole team. Now her recommendation to hockey camp is in jeopardy, her mom is mad, and Alix doesn’t know what to do. Then, she sees “gay drama boy” Ezra (he’s really bi, not gay, this is important) being bullied (by Lindsay’s boyfriend, because real life does work that way) but responding in a healthier way.

So, Alix does what any other other socially awkward, probably spectrum-y person would do: she asks Ezra to teach her to chill out. The resulting friends-to-lovers story is sweet in all the possible ways. Heaps of emotional growth for everyone–except Lindsay, of course. Evocative drawings by the author and plenty of Canadian references. Alix and Ezra hold hands, kiss, and spend a night together in the front seat of a broken-down pickup truck–any sexual activity beyond that is tactfully off-page. Recommended for ages 12 to adult, especially readers who love the stage, hockey games, or both.

Bullying, diversity, friendship, gay friends, graphic novel, high school, homophobia, kissing, mental health, neurodivergence, off-page intimacy, rainbow+, sports, Star Trek sex, straight friends.

Reign the Earth *and* Imprison the Sky (The Elementae #1 and #2)

Reign the Earth by A. C. Gaughen
This is a series of at least four books:  earth, sky, fire, water. 

Reign the Earth begins  the series with the desert people.   Shalia, daughter of the chief, has volunteered to marry the King of the Tri-Kingdom to bring peace to the earth.  She is prepared to make concessions, have a child, even endure his abuse.  Until she realizes that she is an Elementa, a magic-worker who can control any pure earth product:  trees, rocks, gems, etc… And Calix, the Tri-King, is hunting and destroying the Elementae.  

There is also the prophecy:  the king will be destroyed by an Elementa – and - the king will not live to see his child.  There is of course, the brother to whom Shalia is attracted….

This is a fast read with surprises along the way.  You will find yourself cheering for Shalia as she tries to save her family and the earth.


Book #2: Imprison the Sky takes over with Aspasia, a wind element, who is a pirate, captain of her ship.  We saw her first in Reign the Earth when her ship sailed through the air to crash into the tower that was the slave quarters.  She both rescues slaves and takes slaves on her ship to sell and trade.  She briefly met Shalia there.  

Asp is also one gutsy complex heroine.  All the characters are complex in this second of the series.  Shalia’s brother, Kairos, joins the pirate ship.  It is also becoming obvious that they will need to fight the Tri-king, Calix.  Yes, Calix is still hunting down Shalia, who is now pregnant. And we find that there is a 5th kind of Elementa….and this one is a game-changer.

Another fast-paced novel that leaves you waiting for the third….

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 and up.

My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen

My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen  by David Clawson

17-year-old Chris is the undervalued stepson in the socially-prominent (but financially bereft) Fontaine family.  He does all the cooking and cleaning, and keeps his step-siblings well-dressed and his step-mother comfortably numb.  When J.J. Kennerly, "The Most Eligible Bachelor in America," publicly announces that he will be attending the prestigious Autumnal Ball, the household goes nuts--and Chris gets left behind. 

Will Chris be cut off from happiness forever, or will his new friend Coco Chanel Jones work her fabulous fashion magic and bring about true love between Chris and J.J.? 

This Cinderella-reboot has a lot of cute elements and some laugh-out-loud moments, but tries a little too hard to rock the gender boat.   And then there's the ending, which involves a shoe and an unexpected coming-out that should have been satisfying but felt forced instead.

A quick and fun read for ages 12 to adult.

Once and For All

Once and For All  by Sarah Dessen

Louna is a high school senior set to graduate in a few weeks.  Her summer job is (as always) helping with her mom's wedding planning business.  Her college plans are set, her best friend is in place, and there is no romance for Louna on the horizon--which is just as well.  She has survived being in love with the perfect boy, but recovering from that wasn't easy and she's not eager to do it again.

Then Louna meets Ambrose:  trouble-making brother of the bride, always late, always fidgeting, always irreverent, always flirting with every girl he meets.  Louna wants nothing to do with Ambrose.

Because this is a Sarah Dessen novel, readers totally know where the story is going and where all the characters will end up.  The journey is familiar and relatively predictable, but it's still kinda fun.  Behind-the-scenes details of wedding planning are amusing, the banter between characters is catchy and cute.  There are some poignant details scattered gently into the story, but this is essentially a rom-com that should have starred Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks when they were both 17 years old.

Gold star for the appropriate mention of a condom, but no body parts on the page.  

Suffer Love

Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake

Told from the point of view of two teens, Hadley and Sam, in alternating chapters, we learn of two dysfunctional families.  Hadley’s parents are trying to piece their marriage back together after her father’s affair.  Sam has just moved into town with his mom and sister after mom’s affair.  Seems like a match.  Except that it was Sam’s mother who had the affair with Hadley’s father. 

While the teens’ struggles with their families is painful, it is also unreal.  This is the usual “teens are more mature than their dysfunctional parents” novel.  Not diminishing the stress the teens feel within their relationship, it is a titch unrealistic.  Sam and his sister know the truth of Hadley’s father and their mother, but Hadley does not.  In fact, Hadley deals with her father’s mess by drinking to get drunk, and going to bed with anyone who crooks their finger.  She treats Sam awfully just to keep him from getting too close. 

Throughout the novel, we wait for the “big reveal” and its aftermath.  Will the teens’ relationship survive?  The tension in the novel is the hook, and it works.

Peppered with Shakespeare references throughout lending an interesting quality to the novel.  But first, you have to buy into the premise.  Or not.  Teens will grab the story and not bother about the implausible story line.

Recommended for ages 14 and up

The Girl From Everywhere

The Girl from Everywhere  by Heidi Heilig

I'm one of those readers who always skips over the maps embedded in books.  But to skip the maps in this book would be a big mistake.  The maps aren't just illustrations:  they are part of the story.

Nix was born in Honolulu around 1868 but she has spent her life on board her father's sailing ship Temptation, sailing across the world, across time, and across mythology itself.  She has seen magic and collected mythical artifacts like the caladrius bird that can cure any illness, sky herring from the clouds above legendary Skandia, and a bottomless bag that will carry anything, of any size.  

As long as the captain has a map for it, he can sail the ship to any place or time, real or imagined.

However, the combination of the captain's opium addiction and his obsession with Nix's dead mother are bound to take the Temptation into trouble.  If he succeeds with his goal of revisiting Hawaii before Lin's death, he might even erase Nix's entire life.

With a strong female narrator, a terrific premise, and a fabulous setting ("everywhere!"), this story is sure to be a hit with readers who enjoy a ripping adventure through mythology and history.  With a little less action (and much less blood) than either Bloody Jack (L.A. Meyer) or Pirates (Celia Rees), this book will still appeal to fans of both. There are a few intimate scenes but no body parts on stage--is there Star Trek Sex or not?  If so, it's pretty subtle. The reader will have to decide.

The audiobook, adeptly read by Kim Mai Guest, kept me in the truck and making excuses to drive places so I could listen.

Highly recommended.

The Stars Never Rise

The Stars Never Rise    by Rachel Vincent  

Delacorte Press, 2015.  978-0-385-74417-1.  $17.99.  359p

Sixteen-year-old Nina and her sister Melanie struggle to survive while their mother is strung out on drugs sleeping all day.  

In this dystopian world, the Church rules everyone through the fear of demons, purity, and people who must die to “gift” their soul to a new baby (all born without a soul.) 

Nina is an exorcist and must try to save her sister, now pregnant without consent of the church, and without being married.  And of course, save herself since all “real” exorcists are rogue. Including the really cute boy with amazing green eyes.  

This wild ride of a novel is the first in a series, which might be good, since the book raises more questions than it answers.  Woven in through the novel are people who inhabit dual bodies, sexual situations, lots of innocent dead bodies, and of course, demons.  

Because of the world setting, there was a lot of information to get across, and some of that bogged the story down.  The twists are nicely done, and your nerves will be raw by the end.

Recommended 14 up

Dark Shimmer

Dark Shimmer by Napoli, Donna Jo

Wendy Lamb books, 2015.  978-0385746557.  $16.99.  369p.

Dolce (Sweet) is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives as a “giant” among a race of dwarves on the island of Torcello outside Venice during the Middle Ages.  

Most babies born who are not dwarves are taken from the parents.  Dolce’s mother could not stand to do that, but when her mother dies, Dolce leaves the island, finding refuge on a neighboring island inhabited by monks- and a family visiting there.  The father, a widower, falls in love and marries Dolce, who becomes a loving mother to his daughter, Bianca.  (White) This is the story of how Snow White’s stepmother became the wicked witch.

 On Torcello, Dolce learned how to make mirrors, and does so in Venice, first to become accepted in society, and later to purchase and free any dwarf who has become a slave.  The problem is, of course, that the quicksilver used in mirrors  caused one to descend into madness. 

While Dolce is a sympathetic character, she quickly becomes so stereotyped that we are reduced to a reader of any fairy tale book.  Bianca is not well developed, and Marin, the husband, barely exists.  His sister Angnola becomes the most interesting character in the book. 

The story follows the original fairy tale, and we turn pages only because we want to see how Napoli will play out the tale we know, not because we are invested in the characters.  The story reads as an impersonal fairy tale:  still a good tale, just a forgettable one.  Napoli has turned many fairy tales into novels, some of which have been well done (Sirena, Breath, Beast [both versions.])

Recommended 12 up

99 Days

99 Days by Cotugno, Katie

Balzer & Bray, 2015.  978-0-06-221638-0.  $17.99  372p.  $17.99.

Molly Barlow has returned from her senior year, spent at a boarding school.  She left because of an incident involving two brothers:  one she was dating (the twin of her best friend) and one with whom she had sex.  Understandably she lost her best friend and her boyfriend.   Not understandably, her author mom used the incident to create a best-selling book so now the entire (small) town knows.  

Molly has come home to simply survive the summer before going to college.  However, the town will not let the incident rest.

Molly is hired by a newcomer who is renovating the local resort, and finds that she has a talent for this possible career.   She also finds that Patrick, her former boyfriend, has a new girlfriend, now working at the resort.  Gabe, the older brother, seems to want to befriend her, possibly being more.  Molly, needing a friend, wanting love, is pulled emotionally by both boys- again- all the while knowing it could end in disaster.

Molly is a great flawed character.  She is an intriguing, strong-willed, normal teenager.  As she alternately pulls herself into a new life and falls back into the old one, she grows as a person.  The “why” of having sex with Gabe to begin with is shrugged off, never fully explained, and remains a flaw in the story.  The character of Patrick also did not ring true, and could have been more developed. Nevertheless, we the reader develop from feeling sorry for, but not sympathetic to Molly, to cheering for her in the unexpected ending!

Recommended 8^th up.

Falling From Horses

Falling From Horses  by Molly Gloss

In 1938, 19-year-old Bud Frazer leaves behind his parents and the Oregon ranch life he has always known, climbs on a southbound Greyhound bus headed for Hollywood, and meets Lily Shaw, who will be his friend for life.

Bud is determined to be movie stunt rider, and quickly learns that horses and stunt riders are considered cheap and disposable by movie folks.  There are always more horses that can be chased off a cliff or tripped up by wires, or ridden to exhaustion, and there are always more movie-cowboy-wannabees dumb enough to carry out the deeds for a few bucks and a chance to be seen on the silver screen.

Meanwhile, Lily experiences another side of the Hollywood scene:  the seedy side of screen writing.  Lily is determined to write, and write well...and for many reasons, she doesn't fit in with the mostly-male writers of the time.

Bud's narrative voice is strong, calm, and believable.  His account of his year in Hollywood--and the time before that, back in Oregon--reads like a memoir.  Although the story is fiction, the characters and situations are carefully researched.  The accounts of horrific abuse of horses for the amusement of moviegoers are based on true events, and these abuses continued until 1940.

Bud, however, leaves the action much sooner.

The story is quietly told, despite the hair-raising stunts performed by human and animal actors.  Bud's grief (which precedes the first page, and is revealed in flashback chapters) carries the narrative without dragging it down.  Bud's naive encounters with women add flashes of humor, but it is his fondness for Lily that keeps the sometimes-grim story from becoming overwhelmingly dismal.

Falling From Horses is the 2015 "Everyone READS" choice for Shoreline, Richmond Beach, and Lake Forest Park WA.  The book lends itself to discussion, and is recommended for teen and adult readers.

All Our Yesterdays

All Our Yesterdays  by Cristin Terrill

Em awakens (again) in a prison cell, and can't stop thinking about the tiny drain in the floor.  She makes a tool from a stolen spoon, and pries up the drain cover...and finds, hidden inside, a list of fourteen items.  Thirteen have already been crossed off.  At the bottom, in her own handwriting, Em reads the final line:  You have to kill him.

In another place, in another time, Marina is quietly in love with her next-door-neighbor, James.  James is gorgeous, brilliant...and about to make a discovery that will change everything.  And everything is just about to become much, much worse.

All the loops and potential paradoxes of time travel, plus suspenseful chasing around in the dark, romance, betrayal, torture, and a very thin hope for redemption.  This fast-moving narrative kept me up way past my bedtime.

Recommended for ages 12 to adult.  

Prairie Fire

Prairie Fire  by E.K. Johnston

​Listen!  For the Song of Owen has a second--and final--verse.

Owen Thorskard ​, Dragonslayer of Trondheim and his bard Siobhen barely survived the extermination of the dragon hatchery, and Siobhen's hands were severely damaged in the fire.  She still hears music in the world around her, but she can no longer play most of her instruments, and she can't even write the music down anymore.

And yet, she and Owen have officially joined the Oil Watch. 

Instead of being posted in a new and exotic locale, the team falls victim to political corruption and in-fighting, and are stationed in Alberta.  However, it turns out that in Alberta there are dragons everywhere.  Really nasty dragons.

A solid companion to The Story of Owen, this book does not stand alone easily.  Romances are kindled, and some go a bit further than that, but all intimacy beyond flirtation is taken tactfully off-page.  However, the dragon-killing action (and evisceration for disposal after) sweats, slashes, oozes, stinks and explodes right on the page.  Especially in the final chapters...

Recommended for readers ages 14 and up.  

I really wish somebody would produce an audiobook edition of this, it would be fabulous.

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club  by Genevieve Valentine

Jo and her sisters are known to the dancers and musicians and club owners and bartenders only as "Princess."  

They don't disclose their names to anyone, they reveal no details about themselves or their lives outside of the speakeasies.  And at the end of a night of dancing, with their shoes wearing thin, the twelve dancing princesses slip away together, disappearing into the anonymous darkness.  

With a nod to the Grimm's version of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," twelve sisters escape imprisonment by a domineering father to the freedom of the dance halls.  Even with a fairy tale as a root story, these characters are firmly rooted in Prohibition-era New York City, and are heavily influenced by the fast-changing social landscape for women in America of the 1920's.  

Readers will keep pages turning to discover what happens to the "princesses" when their secret is discovered!

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  The audiobook, deftly read by Susie Berneis, is also recommended.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven  by Emily St. John Mandel

On an ordinary, snowy Toronto night, 8-year-old Kirsten Raymonde is onstage watching a famous actor playing King Lear die of a heart attack.

Three weeks later, almost everyone else present in the theatre that night is dead of a virulent mutant Swine Flu.

Four weeks later, almost everyone else in the world is dead of the virus.

Fifteen years later, the Earth is only sparsely populated by survivors of the virus and the social collapse that followed.

Kirsten is one of the survivors.  Twenty years after the flu epidemic, Kirsten is a member of the Traveling Symphony, a ragtag group of musicians and actors on a never-ending tour of the surviving settlements, performing Bach, Beethoven, and Shakespeare because, as the motto written on the first caravan says, "Survival is insufficient"  (a quote borrowed from "Star Trek: Voyager)

This is not a gentle apocalypse.  Some survivors have banded together in peaceful villages.  Others are drawn to Doomsday cults.  Some cling desperately to the glorious history of humanity, telling whispered tales of flying machines, air conditioning, and antibiotics.  Others eschew the past, wanting to spare their children the ugliness of the now-gone world.

The tale bounces back and forth along the timeline, from pre-apocalypse to various points in the collapse, which might be confusing but isn't.  Throughout the novel, the lasting power of art and literature lend small amounts of grace and strength to the characters. From Sartre's "Hell is other people" to Miranda's "Brave new world, that has such people in’t," this novel will deeply affect the way readers view their technology-enhanced world...and each other.

Although written and marketed as a book for adults, this story is highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  Sexual situations are tactfully off-stage, violence is on-stage but not gory.

The Undertaking of Lily Chen

The Undertaking of Lily Chen  by Danica Novgorodoff

When Deshi's older brother Wei dies accidentally, his parents send Deshi on a quest to bring back a "corpse bride" so that their eldest son will not be alone in the afterlife.  With cash in hand, Deshi seeks out a grave robber...but the search is, ultimately, much more complicated than just digging up some bones to be buried along with Wei.

This story of modern China is full of fascinating, flawed characters.  Deshi and Wei are hardly ideal, upstanding citizens:  Wei is a drunk, a gambler, and a jerk.  Deshi is now working as a security guard having messed up as an army pilot.  Lily is pretty, but is also pretty annoying at times.   The supporting cast is equally dinged-up, and this makes the story much more interesting, and makes the ending much more satisfying.

Beautiful romantically-washed watercolor landscapes juxtaposed with wobbly line-drawn human figures allow the reader's eyes to travel quickly through the book, and the quickly moving narrative suites the illustrations.   

Recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.  The characters are all adults, but the family dysfunction issues will appeal to teens.  No cussing, some (cartoon) blood, the on-page sex scene is tactfully masked with blankets and black ink.

Wild Rover No More

Wild Rover No More  by L.A. Meyer

eagerly-awaited audiobook narrated by Katherine Kellgren

The cover illustration shows Jacky facing a noose once again, and the subtitle is "Being the Last Recorded Account of the Life & Times of Jacky Faber."  Has Jacky come to her untimely-but-not-unforeseen end at last?  

Well, certainly not before she disguises herself as a governess, runs away with the circus, and involves nearly all her friends in a desperate escape plan.  And even then, how could the authorities hang our merry lass?

Jacky's full-tilt adventures are brought to a quick conclusion in this twelfth and final novel in the Bloody Jack Series.  There is a distinct air of abruptness to the last third of the narrative; the author made no secret of his plan to pre-write the final chapters in the series so that they could be clipped on to the existing storyline at almost any point if he became unable to continue writing the story, and that is clearly the case with this book.  Still, the story is fast, fun, and satisfying, and a recommended read for those who love the series and newcomers seeking a ripping good adventure story.

RIP, L.A. Meyer, you did well.  

Ages 13 to adult; some minor cussing, kissing and bloodshed, but all sexual situations are off-page.