Teen

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

| Tasha

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon (9781524718961)

Evie has always been a romantic, hooked on reading spicy romance novels. So when her parents divorce, she is left reeling even though her mother and sister seem to handling it in stride. When Evie donates her stack of romance novels, she meets a woman who gives her the power to witness a couple kissing and then see the beginning, middle and end of their relationship. All of them go to prove to Evie that relationships end with a broken heart. Evie is also directed to a small dance studio where she finds herself asked to join a competition for ballroom dancing. She is paired with X, a young man who has the policy of saying yes to everything in life and taking risks, the exact opposite of Evie. As the two of them dance together and get to know one another, romance sparks between them, but Evie may not be ready to risk heart break thanks to her visions and her parents.

Yoon fills this book with Black joy and with swoony characters straight out of Evie’s romances. At the same time, her characters are deliciously human and struggling with weighty issues that impact them on a variety of levels. It is this grounding of her characters that makes this romance so much more than fluff, instead speaking directly to the risk of falling in love, the depths of loss, and how to continue after being hurt by life.

Yoon also fills her book with marvelous dancing and the gorgeous setting of Los Angeles with all of its diversity, talent and magic. Her writing soars with dialogue between characters, sounding wonderfully human and real. Her touches of magic in everyday life add to the fun.

A winner of a teen romance just right for those looking to be swept off their feet. Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from copy provided by Delacorte Press.

One Great Lie by Deb Caletti

| Tasha

One Great Lie by Deb Caletti (9781534463172)

When Charlotte wins a scholarship to an elite writing workshop given by her favorite author, Luca Bruni, she is thrilled. The workshop takes her to Venice, Italy and a summer spent on a private island with a small group of other college students and Bruni himself. The trip also gives Charlotte a chance to investigate a family legend that one of her female ancestors actually wrote a very famous poem. As Charlotte explore her heritage, looking for clues to a woman who has disappeared into history, she meets Dante, a college student working at the library who works to save flood-ravaged pages. As Charlotte falls for both Venice and Dante, the attentions of Bruni begin to become more problematic. After one girl leaves the program and another has clearly been hurt, Charlotte gains his unwanted attentions and finds herself alone with him. Charlotte must now face her own powerful mentor and decide whether to keep his secrets or not, just as her ancestor and so many women have done before her.

Award-winning author Caletti has created a book that shows exactly why we see music, poetry, painting and more as male dominated throughout history. She highlights real female poets and artists from the 1400s-1600s at the beginning of each chapter, showing how they were quickly either muted, disparaged or killed. She uses these women and the warning signs of Bruni’s behavior throughout the book to foreshadow what is about to happen to Charlotte. It’s terrible to wait for the predator to turn his attentions to her and then strike.

The darkness throughout the book is broken by the accomplishments of some of the historical female figures and also with Charlotte finding her own voice and demanding change. Nothing though is done without cost and loss, there is nothing simple in this novel, no easy way out. The writing is exquisite, dark and rich, with room for a good man like Dante to emerge as a worthy partner for Charlotte.

Feminist, ferocious and full of fight. Appropriate for ages 16-19.

Reviewed from copy provided by Atheneum.

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean

| Tasha
Cover image for Tokyo Ever After.

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean (9781250766601)

Izumi has never felt that she was either Japanese enough or American enough. She is caught in between. It doesn’t help that her father is an unknown and unnamed person. When one of Izzy’s friends discovers a clue in Izzy’s mother’s room, they soon discover that Izzy is the illegitimate daughter of the Crown Prince of Japan. After Izzy reaches out to him, she is soon whisked off to spend time with him in Japan. But being a princess isn’t what Izumi pictured. Her life is suddenly full of rules to follow, language lessons, etiquette lessons and strict schedules. Even ducking into a bathroom when she lands in Japan creates a schedule crisis and makes the tabloid news. Izumi is surrounded by jealous cousins, a bossy handmaiden, and a hot bodyguard. But finding true love isn’t easy when you are a princess and the world is watching.

It would be easy to dismiss this book as a Japanese remake of the Princess Diaries, but this novel is much more than that. Readers are on a journey to Japan along with Izzy. They will learn about traditions, folk tales, the royal family and more. The settings are beautifully described and Jean brings both Tokyo and Kyoto to full realization with her writing. Izzy’s search for where she belongs is complicated and very personal.

Izzy is a marvelous character. She’s a girl more comfortable in t-shirts, hoodies and leggings than in fitted dresses selected by her handmaiden. Surrounded by a new life, she struggles to figure out where she fits even though she suddenly looks like everyone else around her. As she learns Japanese language and customs, she retains her snarky attitude, much to the dismay of some of her handlers while also learning when to hold her tongue to have the impact she wants.

A fairy tale grounded in Japanese culture and identity with a sequel on the way. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Flatiron Books.

The Power of Style by Christian Allaire

| Tasha
Cover image for The Power of Style.

The Power of Style by Christian Allaire (9781773214900)

This nonfiction book explores the importance of fashion as a way to pay homage to heritage, culture and identity. The book looks at the work of designers who are incorporating their own Indigenous heritage into their work, such as ribbon work. The book moves on to hair styles and the importance of embracing natural hair, keeping long hair as a connection to culture, and the art of braiding. Cosplay comes next focusing on size acceptance within the cosplay community and the people who are forcing more inclusivity. Modest fashion and hijabs and head scarves are explored next with a focus on style and individuality. Then the book moves on to talk about high heels for men and the importance of standing tall for LGBTQIA+ rights. The final section is about makeup, both as a way to express yourself and as a way to see yourself included as modern makeup embraces more skin tones.

Each turn of the page in this book shows people of color, different cultures and religions, various gender and sexual identities, a wide range of sizes, and it embraces all of them as valid and beautiful. Written by an Ojibwe author who is the Fashion and Style Writer for Vogue, this book represents so many movements in the fashion world to be seen and accepted. Allaire’s writing is friendly and fresh, inviting readers to explore the pages, showing what allyship looks like, and giving real space to these new ideas and designs.

The book is full of photographs, making it a visual delight to read. Allaire has clearly carefully selected the photographs to show the fashion and also the figures who make the fashion come alive. They are bright, beautiful and truly speak to the diversity he is highlighting.

A gorgeous and enticing book about fashion that will broaden definitions and embraces inclusion. Appropriate for ages 12-16.

Reviewed from ARC provided by Annick Press.

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

| Tasha
Cover image for The Mirror Season.

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore (9781250624123)

Ciela rescued a boy who had been drugged and assaulted at a party. At the same time the boy was assaulted, so was Ciela. After dropping him at the ER, Ciela thought she’d never see him again, until he turned up at her school that fall. As the people responsible for their assaults begin to bully Lock, Ciela starts a friendship with him without telling him what she knows. After the assault, Ciela’s world started to change. She could no longer look at a person and know what pan dulce will help them. She also saw mirrored glass everywhere, filling in puddles, replacing leaves and branches, draining the color from the world. As Ciela becomes better friends with Lock, her pan dulce powers start to return, something she thought she had lost forever. But there is still that secret between them, that Ciela knows what happened to him because she was there too. With silence all that is protecting her and Lock, how can she start to speak about what happened?

This harrowing and hauntingly gorgeous novel is so powerful. Its depiction of assault and its aftermath is filled with metaphor but also firmly grounded in what trauma does to someone. The writing is fierce and funny, insistent that the reader not look away. It’s a novel that gets into your heart, rather like a piece of mirrored glass, that burrows there and tears at you. Readers will not be surprised to read in the author’s note that McLemore has personally experience sexual assault, since the experience here is so raw and honest.

The two characters at the center of this novel are amazing. Written with truth and grit, they are both remarkable. Ciela is a brown girl who has lived unapologetically. She is queer and pansexual, making her even more of a target. Her experience is spoken about frankly in the book, the experience of a queer Latinx woman and how it is to live in America. Lock would seem to be her opposite in so many ways. A heterosexual white boy, he is just as interesting as she is somehow, even with her pan dulce magic. Lock is a tree-stealing, finger-biting boy who has been torn apart by trauma and is piecing his life back together, one crocheted mushroom at a time.

Unique characters face a shared assault in this book of trauma, friendship and a dash of magic. Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue

| Tasha
Cover image for All Our Hidden Gifts.

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue (9781536213942)

When Maeve finds a deck of tarot cards while clearing out a closet at school during her suspension, she soon realizes that she has a talent for telling people’s fortunes. Maeve isn’t talented in general, not musical or good at school. As she starts to tell everyone’s fortunes secretly at school, she becomes friends with Fiona, perhaps her first real friend after she pushed Lili away. But when she tells Lili’s fortune reluctantly and wishes Lili would disappear, a frightening Housekeeper card appears and soon after, Lili vanishes. Considered a witch by all the students at school, Maeve tries to figure out what happened to Lili and if she is the one who made her leave. Meanwhile, Maeve is growing closer to Lili’s older brother, Roe, who is honest with Lili about being genderqueer. As they try to solve the mystery of Lili’s disappearance, a malevolent force emerges, one who is putting people Maeve loves in direct danger. With growing desperation, Maeve must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to fix the imbalance she may have created.

Looking for a fantasy book for teens about witches and tarot that is legitimately creepy and not trite in the least? This is the book for you! Free of tropes that plague this sort of teen novel, this Irish read is a dark delight of a novel. Add in the modern issues of women’s rights, racism, hate crimes and the threats against LGBTQ people and this is also a book that looks deeply at our world and insists that Maeve acknowledges her own privilege and bias without scolding.

The three main characters are a marvel. Maeve is the best mixture of lack of self-esteem, witchcraft power and sarcasm. Roe is at first shy and near silent and steadily reveals himself to Maeve and to the reader. The hot kisses are marvelous, particularly as they involve an unapologetic and genderqueer character. Fiona is a talented actress with almost no friends, a huge extended family and a desire to be something more than what society is always assigning to her as a Filipina girl. This is not a cast you see often in teen novels about witchcraft.

Haunting witchcraft with social justice and feminism. Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Walker Books.

18 June YA Books to Wake Your Brain Cells

| Tasha

Here are 18 of the YA books released in June that are garnering a lot of attention and starred reviews. Enjoy!

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue

An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi

Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk and Nicola Yoon

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Eat Your Heart Out by Kelly deVos

The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

Girls at the Edge of the World by Laura Brooke Robson

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows

One Great Lie by Deb Caletti

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons

Strange Creatures by Phoebe North

Violet Ghosts by Leah Thomas

We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman

The Witch King by H. E. Edgmon

2020 Bram Stoker Award Winners

| Tasha

The Horror Writers Association has announced the winners of the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards. The awards have one category that is for young adult novels. Here is the winner, followed by the finalist titles:

WINNER

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

FINALISTS

Bent Heavens by Daniel Kraus

The Bone Carver by Monique Snyman

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

| Tasha
Cover image for The Girl from the Sea.

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag (9781338540581)

Fifteen-year-old Morgan has a plan. She just needs to survive high school and then she can leave her small island and become the real person she keeps secret from everyone. She has a group of friends, but she’s different from them. Her family has fallen apart with her father leaving, her mother sad and her little brother raging. Morgan is about to have another huge secret to keep. When Morgan meets Keltie, she rediscovers someone she met as a child. With a kiss, Morgan allows Keltie to take on a human form and leave her seal form behind. The two become close friends, but Morgan is worried about people seeing them touching or together at all. Keltie though has something she hasn’t told Morgan either. As the secrets pile up, Morgan has to see if she has the courage to live as the person she truly is before it’s too late.

From the author of The Witch Boy trilogy comes this magical sea breeze of a graphic novel that is just right for summer beach reading. The twist on a traditional selkie tale is lovingly created, offering moments of real connection, beauty and pain. Morgan is closeted and pretending to be everything she is not. It’s great to see that as she moves into her truth, she becomes better connected with her family as she shares things with them. The setting of the novel is a large part of the story with the seaside, the island and the seal nursery just offshore.

The illustrations show that setting with detail, inviting readers down to the beaches, out to the seals, deep underwater, and onto the rocks. They are drenched in summer sun, tantalizing moonlight, and the blue greens of the sea.

Beautiful, aching and full of LGBTQIA magical fantasy romance. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC provided by Scholastic.