Don’t start Our Crooked Hearts unless you have time to finish it. It’s such a wonderful, spooky, thrilling story that it’s hard to put down. It’s a book about imperfect parents, teenage dissatisfaction, and female empowerment and it unfolds beautifully. It’s also a remarkable ghost story. While this book has horror elements to it, it wasn’t especially scary and would be appropriate for a teen. I do want to warn readers about some violence to … Continue reading Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert →
I love modern-day witches. I love queer romance. I love mysteries. I’m not typically a huge YA reader, but I like the first three things enough to give queer YA witch romance mystery These Witches Don’t Burn a try. While this book was not without its flaws, there was something quite fresh-feeling about These Witches Don’t Burn that I appreciated. It took a lot of common YA tropes, such as “I’m trying to be a … Continue reading These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling →
This YA graphic novel is very sweet and perfect for fall. I’m not sure that much about it will stay with me, but it was a good use of a leisurely autumn lunch break. Mooncakes tells the story of Nova, a teen witch, and her childhood friend Tam, a werewolf, who is back in town after a several-year absence. Tam is trying to defeat a local demon who has possessed a horse (unlike most of … Continue reading Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu →
I really struggled with how to grade this book, mostly because I appreciated what it was trying to do even if I think it did not succeed. I mean, a lot of the ingredients are there: a teenage babysitter’s club that’s actually a coven of witches is a bomb-ass premise, the secondary characters were intriguing, and there were some genuinely funny jokes. So what’s the problem? The primary issue, craft-wise, was that this was a … Continue reading The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams →
