Review by Laura Anne Harris
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is one joyous beam of light that takes the reader on a truly transformative journey during which empathy wins. This instant classic is exciting, mysterious, and a deeply emotional novel that, “will remake the world.” … More I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Review by Lauren Maguire
Space battles, sword fights, heroes, villains, epic quests, evil corporations, and magical fireworks: Once and Future has them all. Unknown to her, teenage Ari Helix is the forty-second reincarnation of King Arthur and, after finding Excalibur on the ruins of Old Earth, she is sought out by a backward-aging, teenage Merlin whose mission is to prepare her for the dangers to come. … More Once and Future by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy
Review by Ahmad Danny Ramadan
Abdi Nazemian wants to canonize his characters; he wants to give them their rightful status as saints. What’s a saint without suffering, though? How can you be a saint if you did not levitate over the pains of your existence towards a higher power? … More Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
Review by Shyamala Parthasarathy
“…English came with the colonizers, but its literature is part of our heritage too, as is pre-partition writing.” I snort at these lines, appearing somewhere close to one-third of the way through Soniah Kamal’s Unmarraigeable, with its tagline of being a Pakistani Pride and Prejudice—which was what drew me to pick up the book in the first place. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a darkened film theater, watching Aishwarya Rai coo the soft sounds of Kandukondain Kandukondain, the Tamil adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, in her beautiful white ballgown. I remember being enthralled by the settings and the color and the desert dances in the dream-sequence music that is so typical of Indian cinema. I remember the laughter and the tears. And I remember, years later, picking up the original Jane Austen book and feeling completely let down, because Regency Romances were too white, too classist and too inaccessible for me, as a brown preteen, to fully enjoy. … More Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal
Review by Tze Liew
The moon, la Luna, means so many things to eleven-year-old Celi Rivera. A dancer in the night. A goddess pulling on the tides of her heart. Her first menstruation cycle, which will wax and wane with the month. … More The Moon Within by Aida Salazar
Review by Peter Takach
Imagine if you were twelve years old and had to live in a van on the streets of Vancouver with your mother and your pet gerbil. Starting seventh grade at a new school would be hard enough without having to constantly lie to teachers, police, and your new best friends about your living situation. … More No Fixed Address by Susin Nielsen
Review by Valeria De La Vega
It is said that sometimes, if you answer the right questions, you can fall in love with someone in just one day. People make life changing decisions in a matter of minutes that alter the course of your life; however, not all problems can be solved in less than 24 hours, can they? … More The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
