Evan Owens (who has to be Welsh, with a name like that!) is in his senior year of high school, a highly-motivated straight-A student whose parents are determined that he make all decisions with the goal of getting into an Ivy League college. His best friend from childhood, Lucy Brown, now lives in Atlanta, Georgia,…
Category Archives: High School
Dark of the Moon
Dark of the Moon manages to be historic fiction as well as a retelling of a well-known myth, and as such, it’s extremely well-done. Ariadne, the Goddess-Who-Will-Be, is in many ways a normal 15 year old girl, insecure in some ways, chafing against the life she’s always known while at the same time embracing impending…
The Name of the Star
The Name of the Star is Maureen Johnson’s latest YA book. The ONLY reason I got this audiobook was because it was by Maureen Johnson, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed her Suite Scarlett books. The blurb of this book said it was funny, so I trusted that somehow Jack the Ripper and foggy ghostly looking covers…
YA Books for Boys, with giveaway
There has been big push in recent years to get boys more interested in reading. Jon Scieszka’s Guys Read collection is a good start, but his lists are geared toward middle grade boys, and rightfully so, since that’s when boys who like reading start to lose interest. But there’s still a pretty big gap in…
First Day on Earth
As my oldest child gets closer and closer to his teenage years, I find myself trying to read a bit more YA fiction in anticipation of what he’ll be reading soon enough. Not being very well-versed in this age bracket of reading, I sometimes have difficulty differentiating between YA fare and more sophisticated middle grade…
The Iron Knight
My 13-year-old daughter and I have been enjoying Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series since we first were exposed to The Iron King last summer. Please check out my review of that book for an indication of the inventive and adventure-filled world that Julie Kagawa has created. The Iron Knight is the 4th installment in the…
All Men of Genius
It’s Victorian England, and Violet Adams is a frustrated young scientist. Her biggest wish is to go to Illyria University, famed world-wide for its exclusive focus on science, but they do not admit women. Her twin brother Ashton, meanwhile, wants nothing more than to patronize London’s exclusive clubs and meet other like-minded young men. When…
All These Things I’ve Done
All These Things I’ve Done epitomizes everything I love about Young Adult literature. It’s told in a first-person introspective POV by 16-year-old Anya Balanchine. She tells the story in real-time, blow by blow, but there are phrases that indicate that she’s looking back, like “If I had known what was to come” etc. It also…
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is described as a sort of quirky genre-busting novel, which are among my favorite to read — when they work. I’m not sure how genre-busting it is, but this book did work for me. Immediately, this novel felt like the popular dystopian genre that is so prevalent in YA literature…
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Jennifer Donovan
Managing Editor
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