There’s a slogan in London regarding their mass transit system that has become something of a rallying cry for various causes: Mind the Gap. In London’s Underground this means make sure you pay attention when you’re disembarking. It is this slogan that kept running through my mind when reading Laura Ruby’s masterful young adult novel…
Yes. Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking right now. Yes. It’s a broody, brilliant teenage Sherlock Holmes solving mysteries and sharing kisses alongside the troubled teenage genius Miss James “Mori” Moriarty. I am guessing that your reaction is probably similar to mine the first time I heard about this book and then saw the delightful…
I honestly can’t think of anyone in YA who does what Marcus Sedgwick does. Perhaps this is why I am so entranced by everything he’s ever written. Sedgwick won the Printz Award last year (that is the highest honor in young adult literature) for Midwinterblood, which remains one of the most atmospheric and overwhelming YA books…
I think there’s something primal about fairy tale re-tellings. I really do. And I think that they are a staple of YA because of this very thing, because they say to teen readers: you can pull the sword from the stone, you can evade the evil step-parent, you can save the day. And, yes, you…
A few weeks ago there was a longform article in the New York Times about scientific studies being done with the goal of proving that bisexuality exists. I suppose it was interesting enough, reading about the motivations of the researchers, hearing about the history behind studies like this. And yet. And yet at the same time…
“Give me some genuine emotion. Challenge yourself to be honest instead of merely clever.” I read Wise Young Fool for the first time months and months ago. I have read many and many books since now and then. And yet. And yet Wise Young Fool has stuck with me through all that. And yet Wise Young Fool is…
They’re coming for us. All of us. “You’re going to keep reading that book even though it gave you a nightmare last night?” My boyfriend teased as I rolled over and reached out for The Fifth Wave. I’d just finished briefing him on the intense, very scary nightmare I’d had thanks to The Fifth Wave, the book…
“You are not the future I wanted. I can’t believe the same stupid shit is still happening. I wanted you to be better! Be better!” I wait for it, you know. I wait for that minute, that second, when I will become tired of dystopias. And sometimes it comes to me in a flash. Sometimes…
Lush. If I had to pick just one word to describe Laini Taylor’s startlingly original new novel Daughter of Smoke and Bone that word would be: lush. Lush in every definition of the word – full of sensory detail, a world that you can sink right into and be totally immersed. If you follow YA…
There comes a moment when you’re reading Harry Potter when you stop thinking about Quidditch, about quaffles and beaters and chasers and bludgers, and you just know it. Which is not to say that, suddenly, you have every single rule figured out and know exactly what’s happening in every second. It’s that you just accept…
