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YA

A Dreamy Adventure

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

What an incredible novel. Laini Taylor’s writing is so beautiful and dreamy and adventurous, which makes this book so much fun. All a reader needs to know about the plot going into it is that it follows a boy named Lazlo Strange who has an obsession for this city referred to as Weep, the real name of which has been lost. Someone from Weep comes to find people who can help the city out of trouble, and Lazlo finally gets to visit this city of his dreams and discover what it truly means to be a dreamer.

Readers make discoveries alongside Lazlo; see the beauty of Weep and what it could be, as well as the horrible things that have happened there; and learn about the past of all the characters. We truly get to know these characters and care for all of them, even the “bad guys,” creating such a roller coaster of emotion and wonder and longing for all of it to be real. Every single aspect of this book was mind blowing and I absolutely cannot wait to read the sequel!

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. Little, Brown and Company, March 2017.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Inside the Night Circus

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

All I can say is wow. The amount of whimsy and magic in this book blew my mind. It follows a girl named Celia and a boy named Marco who are forced to fight each other in a magical competition which they are bound to until someone wins. Here’s the catch: neither of them are told any rules or boundaries and this competition takes place in a circus which travels all around the world, and is only open at night. This circus is so magical and mysterious that it captures the attention of all who are introduced to it, making them want to revisit it as much as possible, including the reader.

The way Morgenstern describes every little detail brings this world to life so much, and I couldn’t help but wish it were real. Even the simplest things are described as so mysterious and fascinating that this book is impossible to put down. And the relationships between some of these characters are very eye-opening and make you question the morals and intentions of those around you, while others are just flat out wholesome and amazing. Everything about this book was beautiful, stunning, captivating, and I fell in love with it. Definitely a 5-star read, and every fantasy-lover should pick it up.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Anchor Books, 2021.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

A Mystery that Only the Dead Can Solve

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Guest Post by Heather McCardell.

Elatsoe (pronounced el-at-so-ay) by Darcie Little Badger follows Ellie Bride, a Lipan Apache teenager, as she, her ghost dog Kirby, mom, and best friend Jay seek to uncover the truth about the night her cousin was found in a single car crash. This hunt takes them to the little town of Willowbee, where Ellie discovers a town secret that haunts her more than the dead she can wake. In this riveting debut novel, Little Badger crafts a world where magic is the norm and passed down through family lines – Ellie can wake the dead, passed down through her Great-Six Grandmother, and Jay is a direct descendent from the fairy king Oberon – and weaves a tale about family, allies and advocacy, and the ongoing colonization of Indigenous peoples. Little Badger handles the topic of colonization with delicacy, approaching it through character dialogue and entwining it with the ending revelation.

One thing I adored about this book was the oral storytelling culture that appears throughout, especially in the tales of Great-Six. These act as teaching moments for both Ellie and the reader, and provide readers a deeper look into Ellie’s family history and relations. At the heart of this novel is a story about a young girl who will do what she can to get justice, and allies who believe and support her and her family when they rightfully claim that her cousin’s death was no accident. In between the detective work, Ellie continues to work on her skill of waking the dead, much to the concern of her mom, but there is one rule passed down with this magic that Ellie plans to abide by: never wake a human ghost. With Dr. Abe Allerton as a suspect, Ellie senses a conspiracy that involves her cousin’s murder, and this is one secret she won’t let stay buried.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Levine Querido, August 2020.

Reviewer bio: Heather McCardell is a graduate student at the University of Windsor, studying English Literature and Creative Writing. When not writing essays, she enjoys writing poetry and hiking.

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Explorations of Identity

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

This was a really weird book, but in a good way. It follows a girl named Jenna Fox who was in a car accident and woke up from a coma with no memories at all. She has to build a new life for herself while also trying to find out about her past.

There are some sci-fi elements in the medical parts of this story as well which made for some really shocking plot twists, and the way that Jenna’s new life is shaped because of those things is so much different than normal people’s lives.

This book also brings up identity and what it means to be yourself and have your own personality and I really enjoyed that part of it. I also liked the whimsical way the story was told. There were parts where I felt like I was reading poetry because the writing is so pretty, but it was really easy to understand, even the more scientific parts.

If you really enjoy stories about medical miracles, or utopian stories, this is a great book to pick up.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. Square Fish. 2009.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

A Departure from the Everyday Love Story

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Guest Post by Aramide Salako.

Love it. I reckon this to be the best Romance/Young Adult fiction ever. All love stories, fiction and nonfiction, are each unique manifestations unlike none other. But here, the story of love takes a clear departure from your everyday love story. What makes this book a brilliant read is the simple presentation of the power and shortcoming of love in the face of mortality.

Humans have a life to live, and the love to share wholeheartedly with another is the blessedness of being human. That humans will ultimately die, leaving the one bereaved of such felt assurance and aliveness that only the other half could provide, is the nemesis of being human.

Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters, bound with the affliction of cancer and then again bound by the Cupid arrow, grapple with the reality of their fate stoically, braving the odds stacked against them. They experience, enjoy, and embrace love, but death, that Grim Reaper, of course, has the final say.

The Fault In Our Stars is a fictitious narration of a story of our lives. Life is transient—a mere finite number within infinity.

We shall not have all the time in the world to experience the profundity of companionship, mirth, eros, and all of the fine attributes accompanied by love. But in that brief expanse of time—cancer-ridden, poverty-ridden, crisis-ridden, virus-ridden—love endures and triumphs over all human vagaries and the finitude of time.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Penguin Group, April 2014.

Reviewer bio: My name is Aramide Salako from Nigeria. I enjoy reading classics and bestsellers. I’ve read some classics that linger in memory, both fiction and nonfiction. I self-published my first book this year: Thoughts in Traffic; 243 Quick-fire Notes to Aid Your Outlook on Self, Life and the Afterlife.

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Chaos Walking Conclusion

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness is the conclusion to the Chaos Walking trilogy. Like the second book, this story follows Todd and Viola as they fight to be together, only this time, there is a war between the people and the spackle. We also get to read about the thoughts of a spackle and see their motives and their lives which adds a lot to the story.

The Ask and Answer are still not exactly in agreement, but their fight was put on pause to focus on the spackle. This was quite a bit different from the other two books because most people seemed to actually want peace, instead of just wanting to rule over everyone else. It’s wild how every single character is so trustworthy and suspicious at the same time, and just when you start to actually believe someone’s intentions, they do some significantly bad thing out of nowhere.

Like the other books, there were some parts that were confusing and sections where I just didn’t care what was happening, but there were also parts that were really good and I had to know how things turned out. Ness did a good job of tying up all of the loose ends and giving everyone the ending that suited them in one way or another. If you liked the other books, you’ll like this one too.

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness. Candlewick Press, 2014.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

A Gripping YA Sequel

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

This sequel to Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi was quite gripping as we learned what happened after Zélie brought magic back to the people of Orïsha.

When two groups of people have been fighting for decades, it seems nothing can unite them, even if peace is ultimately what they both claim to want. It is so easy to see how these characters can become so confused by their morals and so easily fooled because of their trust, but it’s very frustrating at the same time. As the reader I just wanted the best for all of these characters at all times but it seemed that something bad awaited them at every corner.

I cannot wait to see how the author ties up these loose ends in the conclusion when it comes out.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi. Pan Macmillan, March 2020.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

A Portrait of Perspective

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Guest Post by Padmaja Reddy.

Safia Elhillo’s Home is Not a Country is a novel in verse with beautiful poems about Nima, her mama, her baba she has never seen, and the better and beautiful version of herself.

She opens with talking about the photographs in a lifetime before her and when her parents were not yet parents. She knows about her father through the photographs everywhere in their house including the one in her mama’s wallet.

Her verse captivates in narrating her life in suburban America, the land still foreign to her mama, her only friend Haitham, her school, Arabic classes.

Her name is supposed to be ‘Yasmeen’ not ‘Nima’ which means grace. And she believes she is not a graceful girl quite contrary to her name.

She echoes her mama’s grief over the loss of her father and a lost world where she would be happier.

I miss him too          my father            though we never met

I miss the country that I’ve never seen the cousins

& aunts & grandparents I miss the help

They could have offered

When she is bullied and called a terrorist, she questions mama: ‘why did you bring us here? they hate us’ and spills the desire to have her baba or someone to protect her, a common notion shared by all immigrant children about their parent’s decision to migrate leaving homeland.

Elhillo’s poetry elegantly captures how the questions about where we come from can take over our life. It’s a portrait of perspective, which holds up a mirror to show that ultimately, we are telling our own stories, and we can choose to see them differently.

Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo. Make Me a World, March 2021.

Reviewer bio: Padmaja Reddy, originally from India, lives in Connecticut. She received an MA in English Literature from SK University. Former journalist and she published poetry and book reviews in various publications like Yale Review of Books, NewPages.

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“The Wide, Wide Sea” by Patrick Ness

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

Patrick Ness’s “The Wide, Wide Sea” is a short story from the Chaos Walking series that takes place before the start of the first book, but is meant to be read between the second and third.

I am a sucker for a good forbidden love story and this one did not disappoint. The main character is a human who has fallen in love with a spackle, and they have such a wholesome story in such a gruesome place. Realistically, I don’t think any of the plot twists were super unpredictable, but I personally did not see any of them coming and that was such a roller coaster of events coming out of nowhere. Not to mention how loveable the characters were despite the fact that the story was less than 40 pages long.

This was an extremely enjoyable story and I gave it 4.75 out of 5 stars.

“The Wide, Wide Sea” by Patrick Ness. Walker Books, 2018.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Ness’s “The New World”

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

“The New World” is a short story and prequel to the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. It follows Viola as she first travels from her beloved home ship in space to the new planet where her people are trying to find a new place to call home as their old planet is being slowly destroyed.

It was definitely very strange to read about this being described as such a big opportunity for all of these people, but for Viola to be so against the idea of being the first one to go to this place because of the risks it involved. Her negative attitude throughout the whole story was very obnoxious but relatable at the same time, and the ending made me question my judgement of her throughout the story even more.

This was quite a fun read, and I enjoyed learning about some of Viola’s background. I gave this one 3.75 out of 5 stars.

“The New World” by Patrick Ness. Candlewick Press, September 2010.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

A Grade-A Sequel

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

This sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go literally made me gasp and have to pause the audiobook to process all of my life decisions on multiple occasions. At the start of this book Viola and Todd have just made it to Haven, and based on the recent events that occurred at the end of the previous book, they are expecting a war, but that is not what happens at all. The town doesn’t try to fight at all, and they are overtaken by Mayor Prentiss as he tries to completely change the ways that all of these people live.

It was really cool that we got to read from both Viola’s and Todd’s perspectives as we watched them be repeatedly separated and reunited. Their romance is their main motivation for all of their actions without completely taking over the story and it’s such a great balance.

The concept of corrupt leaders and having to choose sides is so interesting to read in this book because both options seem terrible and everyone seems to be hurting people and only trying to make the situation even worse than it already is. This gave me major Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and The Maze Runner by James Dashner vibes so if you enjoyed either of those, I think you’ll definitely like this. Like the first book, I also gave this one 4 stars.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. Candlewick Press, July 2014.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.