Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak
by Adi Alsaid
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Publication Date: April 30, 2019
BRIEF CHRONICLE OF ANOTHER STUPID HEARTBREAK tells the tale of Lu, a teen writer who is struggling with writer's block after being dumped by her senior boyfriend. When she finds a couple she may be able to write about, it makes her question the meaning of her own relationships and what might be worth saving. This book was very cute, and it was exciting to be on Lu’s journey alongside her.
Life Sucks
by Michael I. Bennett and Sarah Bennett
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Publication Date: April 9, 2019
LIFE SUCKS is not a story, but more of a (slightly comedic) guide to life. It goes into detail on many common problems one may have in their life, from home to family to friends and more. This book gives advice on how to deal with many issues, understanding these issues, and how what you need to do might differ from what you think you need to do. But my favorite section of this book is “What your parents say to try to help," “...and why it isn’t helpful at all." These sections are fairly self explanatory.
As someone who felt his life sucked for the past year, I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like their life sucks or is struggling with any of the mentioned topics. However, I would recommend this book even more to the parents of kids who are struggling.
Eleanor & Park
by Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Love stories are the hardest stories to write. The pitfalls are common, deadly, and all too easy for authors to stumble into: clichés, unrealistic dialogues, two-dimensional characters. Rainbow Rowell’s ELEANOR AND PARK is a love story of the highest order, and not just because she avoids the pitfalls. She succeeds because she draws characters so realistic that by the end you not only understand why they love each other—you love them too.
Eleanor is poor, heavyset, from a broken family, and “weird”—the kind of girl who was destined to be unpopular from the moment she stepped into the bus on her first day of tenth grade. Park is half-Korean, half-white, and at war with himself. It’s no surprise to any reader that they rescue each other; what’s by turns sweet, beautiful, and tragic is how they do it. The book is not about what happens to them, it’s about them.
What I like most about ELEANOR AND PARK is that it’s no fairytale. It’s about 16-year-olds with adult problems. It’s gritty and at times vulgar. It’s real.
The Meaning of Birds
by Jaye Robin Brown
Publisher: Harperteen
Publication Date: April 16, 2019
From the moment they met, Jess and Vivi were inseparable. Vivi helped Jess with her anger and taught her to channel it into art. Jess’s whole future was planned with Vivi. But in their senior year of high school, that all fell apart when Vivi suddenly died. Jess is lost in her grief and anger and falls into self-destructive patterns. She can’t turn to art, because it reminds her of Vivi. All that comes out is anger and pain. Luckily, Jess meets a mentor who helps her find a new outlet for her emotions. THE MEANING OF BIRDS tells Jess’s story in the present peppered with flashbacks to her past with Vivi in an emotional journey of grief and healing.
Jess has anger issues and doesn’t always make smart choices, which is exacerbated by losing her girlfriend. This is nicely juxtaposed with scenes of how Vivi helped her with those flaws, which helps the reader empathize with Jess’s loss. Their relationship was really cute and sweet, although Vivi’s character seems a little flat to me. I like Jess’s stylish and fierce best friend Cheyanne, but it bothered me how Jess doesn’t always respect her disinterest in dating. After Jess pushes Cheyanne away in anger, Jess starts to hang out with their mutual friend Levi more. He’s nice and helps her with some issues, but his character annoys me. I don’t like how Jess knowingly leads him on, but after Vivi’s death, she makes some really stupid mistakes. Overall, I did enjoy reading this. I like Brown’s writing style and the pacing of the book. THE MEANING OF BIRDS is a sad but lovely story about grief, love, and ultimately, healing.
The Thousandth Floor
by Katharine McGee
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
THE THOUSANDTH FLOOR is the breathtaking tale of five teenagers living in the dazzling thousand-floor tower of 2118 Manhattan. In this tower of futuristic technology where everything you dream of is within reach, everyone has something they want, and everyone has something to lose. Take Leda Cole for example, the high floor girl whose flawless exterior hides a deadly addiction, or Eris Dodd-Radson, a beautiful it-girl whose life is ripped apart when a betrayal tears her family apart. And what about Rylin Myers, whose new job as a high-floor maid fills her life with a romance that she never imagined, or Watt Bakradi, the tech genius whose simple task to spy for an upper floor girl turns out to be anything but. Above all sits Avery Fuller on the thousandth floor, a girl designed to be perfect and to have it all… except the one thing she can’t have.
Though some might say that the opening of this was slow, it definitely did not feel like that the whole way through. McGee’s writing felt electric as she took the plot into newer places with each chapter. I loved this about her writing because you never know what would happen next. Another thing that McGee did was overlap her individual characters' storylines. While this sort of thing doesn’t always work out, McGee found a way to make it work perfectly. An example of this is when one character goes to VR laser tag and at the same time meets another character. This might seem like something that happens frequently in books but in reality, the author is putting in two different character perspectives from different chapters. And as she does this, she is creating more room for surprises and plot twists as characters who might seem unconnected actually are, forming a web of interactions throughout the book. This leads me to another aspect of the book, the characters.
Though each character seemed to stem from a particular stereotype, each grew over the course of the book. Eris, for example, who started out as just your basic rich girl without a care in the world, actually transforms into a character who some might sympathize with during her fall from grace. Though McGee did seem to be not the best at creating deep side characters in this first book, I can tell that these side characters will turn out to be better developed in the second or third books.
Lastly, I really enjoyed the setting of this book. The idea of all of Manhattan in one giant glittering tower is one that really intrigued me and made me want to keep reading. I was constantly wondering how people lived in the monstrosity of a giant tower like that, so I was constantly interested in every mention the author made of it. I loved the technologies the author filled the tower with, especially all the futuristic restaurants and places to visit inside the tower. This novel was a great example of world building at its finest, because McGee did not at all rely on previous ideas such as fairies or superheroes, but instead came out with an original setting for a dystopian novel without a complete government meltdown or radioactive monsters. She also made sure to ground this tower to reality by mentioning things such as the SAT or Model United Nations, something that made me feel like I can relate more to the book.
Overall, I would recommend this book to fans of GOSSIP GIRL or ONE OF US IS LYING because of its intricate web of lives and ulterior motives fueled by hidden secrets that each character has.
Through the White Wood
by Jessica Leake
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 9, 2019
THROUGH THE WHITE WOOD takes place in a world similar to our own recent past with a few key differences: superpowers and occasional magic. When Katya’s powers intensify beyond her control, she is outcast by her village and turned over to the Prince, who has an evil reputation. Katya befriends others with powers, and they help her try to gain control over her own. I really enjoyed this book. As one who loves reading about people with superpowers, the plot was not too shocking and was a bit predictable, but it was still a really enjoyable story.
The Red Scrolls of Magic
by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication Date: April 9, 2019
Set between the events of CITY OF GLASS and CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS, THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC follows the warlock Magnus Bane and his Shadowhunter boyfriend Alec Lightwood through their trip across Europe. Finally together despite the odds, all Magnus wants is to treat Alec to the vacation he deserves. But when rumors begin to circulate that Magnus founded the demon-worshipping cult the Crimson Hand, Magnus and Alec must leave their vacation behind to track down the cult before they can cause any damage. As demons follow their every step and deadly secrets are revealed, both Magnus and Alec must find a way to dismantle the cult before they destroy the world—and their relationship—for good.
I can’t think of a single thing that I did not like about this book. Starting with the obvious, this book was a welcome return to one of The Mortal Instruments’ power couples, Magnus and Alec. After the original series ended, many readers assumed that CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE would be the last we saw of the two of them together, but this book proves that wrong. Giving each of the boys their own point of view, the authors make sure to not only continue with what the original story has created, but to also reestablish their relationship and character traits in a way that doesn’t jolt readers who haven’t picked up the series for a while. One of the main ways the authors did this was by providing enough details to keep readers unconfused while recharacterizing both Magnus and Alec through various quirks in their internal dialogue, and by having them do/say certain things. I really appreciated this as I myself haven’t read any of the The Mortal Instruments books in a while and was afraid that I would be confused. But through the authors’ recharacterization and description, they avoided any confusion that a reader could possibly have.
THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC also marked the return of one of my favorite things about Clare’s writing: her plot. Paced not too fast and not too slow, I loved how Clare and Chu included just the right amount of fun and seriousness to make this book shine. What I mean by this is that books often contain a multitude of jokes to keep with the lightheadedness of some of their characters. But what often happens with this is the author can get too heavy-handed with the jokes and the book can lose its seriousness. I’ve seen this happen many times, and yet never has this happened in any of Clare’s work. Though she does have a lovable cast of always joking characters, the most obvious in this book being Magnus Bane, she still masterfully creates an atmosphere of tense joking throughout the book. Readers will be impressed with how she manages to maintain this through her serious plot to keep readers both invested in the action and mystery of the book, but not bored from lack of fun.
Overall, THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC is a book that no Shadowhunter Chronicles fan should miss out on. THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC will keep fans both old and new entertained for hours on end.
White Rose
by Kip Wilson
Publisher: Versify
Publication Date: April 2, 2019
Author Kip Wilson has created a beautiful portrait of resistance in the face of grave danger with WHITE ROSE. Written in verse, this novel is a brilliant retelling of the boldness displayed by a young group of German students who put their lives on the line in order to fight for what they believed in. Told from the point of view of Sophie Scholl, the only known girl in the White Rose Nazi resistance group, the novel explores the concept of freedom and what the consequences of passivity are.
If you couldn’t already tell, I loved this book. While I am typically wary of books that are not in prose form, I could not have been more pleased with the way WHITE ROSE was written. The poetry and negative space lend themselves so well to the telling of this story that, at times, I forgot I was reading poetry at all. Not only is WHITE ROSE a heartbreaking true story, the message it conveys also feels eerily modern. Sophie is constantly preaching the importance of standing out in the face of injustice. I was both deeply moved and deeply disturbed by this novel, and sincerely encourage any reader to give it a chance. After all, you might just finish it feeling inspired to spark change - much like Sophie Scholl.
The Devouring Gray
by Christine Lynn Herman
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication Date: April 2, 2019
While I was initially unsure due to the ridiculous name and the fairly standard cover of the book, THE DEVOURING GRAY by Christine Lynn Herman has impressed me beyond belief. Set in “Four Paths, New York,” the book follows three people from each of the town’s four founding families as they deal with “the Gray” 一a dimension that not only gives the founders their power but also imprisons a terrible monster一 and with a web of secrets and lies that will affect both their families and the entire town. Almost every aspect of the book is superb; the characters, with the exception being the terrifying presence of "the Beast" 一 the unseen creature trapped in the Gray一 all feel human, flawed yet unforgettable. The book's small town setting feels fully fleshed out, and in combination with the plot and the excellent writing, leaves you hungry for more. The writing does this the best of all, however, and the book never once left me bored. On the whole, I can’t recommend THE DEVOURING GRAY enough, and I’m eager to see not only a sequel, but also what Christine Lynn Herman writes after this amazing debut.
From the moment they met, Jess and Vivi were inseparable. Vivi helped Jess with her anger and taught her to channel it into art. Jess’s whole future was planned with Vivi. But in their senior year of high school, that all fell apart when Vivi suddenly died. Jess is lost in her grief and anger and falls into self-destructive patterns. She can’t turn to art, because it reminds her of Vivi. All that comes out is anger and pain. Luckily, Jess meets a mentor who helps her find a new outlet for her emotions. THE MEANING OF BIRDS tells Jess’s story in the present peppered with flashbacks to her past with Vivi in an emotional journey of grief and healing. 
THE THOUSANDTH FLOOR is the breathtaking tale of five teenagers living in the dazzling thousand-floor tower of 2118 Manhattan. In this tower of futuristic technology where everything you dream of is within reach, everyone has something they want, and everyone has something to lose. Take Leda Cole for example, the high floor girl whose flawless exterior hides a deadly addiction, or Eris Dodd-Radson, a beautiful it-girl whose life is ripped apart when a betrayal tears her family apart. And what about Rylin Myers, whose new job as a high-floor maid fills her life with a romance that she never imagined, or Watt Bakradi, the tech genius whose simple task to spy for an upper floor girl turns out to be anything but. Above all sits Avery Fuller on the thousandth floor, a girl designed to be perfect and to have it all… except the one thing she can’t have.
THROUGH THE WHITE WOOD takes place in a world similar to our own recent past with a few key differences: superpowers and occasional magic. When Katya’s powers intensify beyond her control, she is outcast by her village and turned over to the Prince, who has an evil reputation. Katya befriends others with powers, and they help her try to gain control over her own. I really enjoyed this book. As one who loves reading about people with superpowers, the plot was not too shocking and was a bit predictable, but it was still a really enjoyable story. 
Set between the events of CITY OF GLASS and CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS, THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC follows the warlock Magnus Bane and his Shadowhunter boyfriend Alec Lightwood through their trip across Europe. Finally together despite the odds, all Magnus wants is to treat Alec to the vacation he deserves. But when rumors begin to circulate that Magnus founded the demon-worshipping cult the Crimson Hand, Magnus and Alec must leave their vacation behind to track down the cult before they can cause any damage. As demons follow their every step and deadly secrets are revealed, both Magnus and Alec must find a way to dismantle the cult before they destroy the world—and their relationship—for good.
Author Kip Wilson has created a beautiful portrait of resistance in the face of grave danger with WHITE ROSE. Written in verse, this novel is a brilliant retelling of the boldness displayed by a young group of German students who put their lives on the line in order to fight for what they believed in. Told from the point of view of Sophie Scholl, the only known girl in the White Rose Nazi resistance group, the novel explores the concept of freedom and what the consequences of passivity are. 
While I was initially unsure due to the ridiculous name and the fairly standard cover of the book, THE DEVOURING GRAY by Christine Lynn Herman has impressed me beyond belief. Set in “Four Paths, New York,” the book follows three people from each of the town’s four founding families as they deal with “the Gray” 一a dimension that not only gives the founders their power but also imprisons a terrible monster一 and with a web of secrets and lies that will affect both their families and the entire town. Almost every aspect of the book is superb; the characters, with the exception being the terrifying presence of "the Beast" 一 the unseen creature trapped in the Gray一 all feel human, flawed yet unforgettable. The book's small town setting feels fully fleshed out, and in combination with the plot and the excellent writing, leaves you hungry for more. The writing does this the best of all, however, and the book never once left me bored. On the whole, I can’t recommend THE DEVOURING GRAY enough, and I’m eager to see not only a sequel, but also what Christine Lynn Herman writes after this amazing debut.