Matt would be a basketball standout, Best friend Tabby would know that he loved her, and the accident would never have happened.
But life isn’t scripted, and Matt has to somehow get through his junior year without redheaded, Nerds-fanatic Tabby right next door or being called up to the varsity basketball team…
How do you react when life goes off-script? **kmm
Book info: A Short History of the Girl Next Door / Jared Reck. Alfred A. Knopf Books, hardcover 2017, Ember paperback 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
“So talented!” “Derivative and unimaginative.” Did both read the same short story?!
Mr. Madison has told Laila all through high school to be proud of her writing style, but now a renowned novelist substitute teaching that creative writing class says the New York City teen’s work is more sci-fi fanfic than true storytelling. Ouch.
Urged by Nazarenko to get out of her comfort zone, Laila timidly goes to a club with her friends for the first time, meets lovely Hannah, and tries flirting, kissing, escaping her Ecuadorian father’s curfew demands.
Laila’s admission to Bowdoin’s prestigious writing program hinges on this final creative writing grade. May inspiration from Hannah and the city night sky be enough!
When have you decided to move from draft to publicly seen work? **kmm
Book info: Final Draft / Riley Redgate. Amulet Books, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Thankful for Jamie coming back into her life and taking her far, far away from the chaos…Kiko has to find her place and make her art.
Family drama sent you on a new path? **kmm
Book info: Starfish / Akemi Dawn Bowman. Simon Pulse, hardcover 2017, paperback 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Starting her life anew at Prism will take Kiko far from disdainful Mom and abusive Uncle Max in Nebraska, but the New York art school’s rejection shatters her plans.
When long-lost childhood friend Jamie offers to take her to California to tour art schools, she jumps at the chance to be with her brother’s friend whom she’s adored for years…and to get away from Uncle Max.
Half-Japanese and all confused.
Self-absorbed Mom sucks all the joy out of life for Kiko and her brothers.
Away, away, just get away and make her art…
“We all start at the same place, but you’re completely in charge of where you finish,” says noted artist Hiroshi when Kiko visits his art gallery with Jamie (p. 191) – and he wants to see her portfolio, maybe write a recommendation for someday-art-school!
From nice house to shabby apartment, apartment to terrible foster homes, foster care to luxury hotel?!
Elle is stunned when ‘Uncle’ Masa arrives at her latest foster home (showers allowed once a week) with her new passport and an invitation from her biological father in Japan – happy 16th birthday after all.
Being so obviously hafu (half-Japanese) and gaijin (foreigner) is no big deal at her prestigious new school attended by kids of diplomats and business people from all over the world, but utterly scandalous to Elle’s new grandmother (no wonder Kenji was forbidden to marry her Native American/ African American mom).
Book info: My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life / Rachel Cohn. Disney Book Group, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy from the library; cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Swept from foster care in Maryland to a Tokyo highrise, sixteen-year-old Elle must figure out where she fits in her biological father’s family and the social order at an elite international school.
Once the painkillers hooked Mom after that car wreck, drugs took their house, Elle’s security, and put Mom in jail.
When her never-seen dad offers Elle a home in Japan with him, she’s wary but goes along – to an amazing apartment in his skyscraper hotel with 24-hour room service…and his displeased mother and sister nearby.
Elle has to work hard at school to catch up, wondering why fellow swimmer Ryuu is shunned by the popular Ex-Brat crowd who inexplicably adopted her.
Will she always see her father by appointment only? Can her new grandmother accept Elle’s mixed-race maternal heritage? What happens if things don’t work out with her family in Tokyo?
As Elle and Ryuu get to know each other at swim practice, some Ex-Brats go beyond pushy, and business pressures are affecting her dad, badly.
Evacuation means leaving the place. Mandatory means that it must be done. She knows this, he doesn’t even care.
After the accident, her sister’s rehab was long and arduous, her dad abandoned them, and Sophie concentrated on helping mom with their stables and preparing to become a veterinarian.
Then Finn walked back into her life like he’d never stood her up at the dance, like he didn’t remember how close they had been before, like he hadn’t disappeared without a trace, without even a phone call…
And now the hurricane grows more powerful than predicted as the teens are stuck on the barrier island, trying to stay alive!
Go back to coastal North Carolina with the author of The Thing With Feathers, which I recommended here.
Checked your emergency preparedness skills and supplies lately? **kmm
Book info: Meet the Sky / McCall Hoyle. Blink YA, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: As a ferocious hurricane approaches North Carolina, Sophie is stranded on her Outer Banks island with Finn, guaranteed to break her heart again, if they survive the storm.
Did Mom and Mere and the horses get to the mainland safely?
What brought Finn back to the island?
Surfing during a hurricane evacuation is just like class clown Finn, delaying their journey through the increasing wind to safety.
Too close to the shore, Sophie and Finn fight through lancing rain and wind-borne debris to find shelter. Too late?
From Ohio to Egypt, Far from friends and soccer camp, To an old land and new understandings.
At least Carrie has time to get adjusted to life in Cairo before school starts, with the help of Adam who drives and explains customs and culture and religion and is distractingly cute.
Moving for a parent’s job (story of my life) can be challenging, rewarding, frustrating, amazing, and temporary – just like Carrie and Adam’s friendship?
Also by this author: Where the Stars Still Shine, which I featured in another A2Z year here.
What unexpected joy have you found in a new place? **kmm
Book info: In a Perfect World / Trish Dollar. Simon Pulse, 2017. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: In Egypt for Mom’s new job, Carrie decides that exploring Cairo will ease her homesickness for Ohio, but cultural expectations collide when their driver’s teen son must take the wheel.
Adam must give up his restaurant job when his father falls ill, now driving Carrie around her new city in the summer before her senior year – so much for her to see and learn…with such a nice young man.
The charity eye clinic must hire a male doctor to assist Mom because most Egyptian men won’t allow her to treat them.
Carrie is Catholic, Adam is Muslim. He’s Egyptian, she’s American. She’s in Cairo for a year, he’ll probably never leave. Tourism fuels both their hometowns, but foreigners aren’t welcome.
Their budding relationship? Haram, forbidden – but in a perfect world…
But that’s when teens who are Changers wake up to their fourth transformation into a completely new identity – gender, race, sexuality, talents, every physical characteristic is likely to be different from who they appeared to be as a junior or sophomore or freshman.
And before graduation, they must decide which of those four Versions to keep for the rest of their lives!
This is a bang-up ending to the series and could be read solo, but do yourself a favor and go through the whole journey with this Changer teen’s personas of Drew (book 1 recommended here), Oryon (book 2 review), and Kim (book 3 notes) first!
How much can you change yourself to become more yourself? **kmm
Book info: Changers: Book Four – Forever / T Cooper & Allison Glock-Cooper. Black Sheep/ Akashic Books, 2018. [T Cooper site] [Allison site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Junior year at Kim’s Tennessee high school brought new friendships and old conflicts renewed. One more identity to experience as a senior – and it’s the person seen in earlier visions as cause of a tragic death!
Being transformed on the first day of school each year into another body is wild. Keeping the same inner identity without giving that away is really hard. Maintaining the secrecy of the world’s Changers when attacked by Abiders is near-impossible!
Four Versions, four options – which choice will be their one body forever?
Preceded by Changers Book One: Drew, Book Two: Oryon, and Book Three: Kim.
The band everyone loves! Lead singer leaves? Oh, no! Now the world is doomed… really.
Music reaches into our very souls at times, and this boy band will use their songs to control as many teen souls as they can – unless rather unmusical Sam can infiltrate Apocalips and stop them!
At least that’s what the prophecy says…
Another fun British import brought to the US by Kane Miller Publishing – and yes, the second book is available now: Boy Band of the Apocalypse: Washed Up.
Book info: Boy Band of the Apocalypse (Boy Band of the Apocalypse, book 1) / Tom Nicoll, illustrated by David O’Connell. Kane Miller/EDC Publishing, 2019. [author site] [artist site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Witnessing the world’s most popular boy band secretly murder their lead singer puts Sam in a tough spot as the British thirteen year old is tapped to stop Apocalips from destroying the world!
After reluctantly attending the concert with her best friend, Sam’s feisty little sister is suddenly a total Apocalips fan, like those bullying Heatherstone quadruplets in Sam’s class… very out of character.
Now that Sam knows Apocalips is intent on conquering the world with a new lead singer, he is forced to audition despite his shaky voice and bad dancing. Genius pal Milo’s invention will help with the singing, and Sam’s boring accountant parents will help with the dancing – really?!
Fame and fortune are his – if Sam can survive the weirdest audition ever and find the secret of Apocalips’ mind-control before it’s too late for everyone!
A missing painting, a mystic mirror, two tweens in a time-swap!
Welcome to the first day of 2019’s April AtoZ Challenge! (you can sign up your blog to participate until 5 April)
The lovely Newport mansion was Maggie’s summer residence in early 1900s, Hannah’s home today (Dad is The Elms‘ full-time caretaker), and both are intrigued by the disappearance of Maggie’s portrait, painted by Mary Cassatt who would later gain great fame as an artist.
If you were suddenly flipped into another time, would you have enough background knowledge to cope? **kmm
Book info: The Art of the Swap / Kristine Asselin & Jen Malone. Aladdin, hardcover 2018, paperback 2019. [Kristine’s site] [Jen’s site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Stepping through a mirror, Hannah and Maggie switch centuries in the Rhode Island mansion that both call home, and the twelve year olds take advantage of this miracle to solve a mystery.
Swept back in time, Hannah is determined to discover who stole Maggie’s portrait just before it was unveiled in 1905.
Whooshed into today, Maggie will make the most of running and pizza and Hannah’s other freedoms.
The girls talk to each other through the mirror as often as they can – how long will this amazing time travel last?
How can Hannah discover who stole the painting when Maggie’s aunt insists on ladylike behavior?
Alternating chapters spin the twin timeline stories as Hannah copes with corsets and treating servants like servants, Maggie finds soccer to be harder than it looks and talking to a boy (unchaperoned!) even more difficult, and the hours before the painting’s unveiling quickly tick by.
Safe from crime and anger, Far above the plagued world… Protected or controlled?
The Intercept records all their emotions and keeps them in check, allowing the luckiest humans to live peacefully in the tight quarters of New Earth, away from the ravaged world below.
When Violet meets Danny, whose late brother invented the Intercept, she begins to wonder if her emotions should belong to her instead and why Danny keeps returning to Old Earth’s dangers.
How much of your freedom would you sacrifice for safety? **kmm
Book info: The Dark Intercept (Dark Intercept, book 1) / Julia Keller. Tor Teen, hardcover 2017, paperback 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: As the all-encompassing Intercept collects every emotion from each human, sixteen-year-old Violet uncovers a rebellion on New Earth and must decide which side is telling the truth about its powers.
Violet’s father founded New Earth a generation ago, ensuring that the best and brightest escaped there from the disease and destruction on Old Earth.
Now the Intercept can monitor everyone on both Earths, crime is down everywhere, yet policeman Danny (brother of the Intercept inventor) insists on returning often to patrol Old Earth – is he looking for something?
As cameras monitor the safety of people on missions down to Old Earth, Violet sees the dire poverty there – why does New Earth only allow a few immigrations up every year?
Rumors swirl about a way to bypass the Intercept, to keep thoughts and emotions out of the New Earth government computers – what are the Rebels of Light planning?
Violet and Danny find themselves together more and more, but what the Intercept can record, the Intercept can repeat…
