1980s

This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki – Book Recommendation

| Tasha

This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux

  • Publisher: Abrams Fanfare
  • Publication Date: August 19, 2025
  • Reviewed from library copy.
  • ISBN: 9781419768460

Abby is a new transfer student at Wilberton Academy, a high school boarding school for girls. She’s struggled to make friends, especially seeming to antagonize her roommate no matter what she does. In a time before cell phones, Abby spends her time listening to her walkman as she walks the crowded halls. When she sits with one of the theater girls after a school party, she picks up the script that the girl leaves behind. The next morning, that girl is found dead in the woods near the school. Abby refuses to accept that she committed suicide, becoming a target herself for others to accuse. 

A murder mystery nests with a boarding school tale nests with an ode to the 80s nests with a critical look at what being a lesbian meant in that time. This graphic novel deeply explores loneliness, queerness and abuse. It is a layered book, accomplishing so much thanks to the skill used in the graphic format, using the limitations of the time period to create isolation, and a strong main character that readers will adore.

A masterpiece of a teen graphic novel. Appropriate for ages 13-18.

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly

| Tasha

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly (9780062747303)

Welcome to 1986, the year of the Challenger disaster and a year when all three of the Thomas children find themselves in seventh grade together. Fitch and Bird are twins and used to be very close. Bird loves science and exploring how things are made. As the Challenger nears its launch, she finds herself spellbound by the potential it represents for women in space and for her own future. Fitch meanwhile is struggling to deal with the anger that rises inside of him constantly, filling his days playing Major Havoc in the local arcade. Cash has been held back a grade and no longer plays basketball, which he misses desperately. He finds himself wondering if he is actually good at anything at all in life. The three siblings grow up in a family that is filled with anger, regular arguments and verbal abuse. As the three grow apart, circumstances including the Challenger disaster pull them back together, just in time to allow them all to find a potential way forward.

Kelly is a Newbery Medalist and this book shows her skill and superb understanding of the minds of youth. Using the setting of the mid-1980’s, she invites readers to see that while some things are different, much of the emotions, family tensions and life was the same as today. The Challenger disaster provides the ideal unifying factor in each of the sibling’s stories which are told from their own points of view. Yet Kelly does not overplay that element, never drawing the lines starkly but allowing readers to connect elements themselves.

The three siblings are quite different from one another and yet their shared upbringing and lack of safety at home create a unified experience that they all emerge from in different ways. Bird, the smart one, who takes things apart and does well at school, wonders if she is disappearing. Fitch burns with an anger he can’t explain, lashing out at others. Cash too is frustrated but he takes it out on himself and struggles internally.

A deep and magnificent middle-grade novel. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Greenwillow Books.