Posts Tagged ‘teen’

Jill MacLean’s new novel is coming in 15 days. To whet your appetite in the meantime, check out the teaser trailer. You can also visit Jill’s website or “Like” her on Facebook. We’re counting down the days. Are you?

“I enjoy the succinct nature of novels in verse. The format does, however, require careful and evocative word choices. The author must say a lot with a little, or the reader is left with too many gaps to fill and too little direction to make sense from. Jill MacLean successfully meets the challenges of the […]

“…Nix’s story is one of transformation. Nix is an introvert. He finds relationships difficult, and is more at home expressing himself through the things he makes. A connection he does form his to his neighbour’s neglected (and possibly abused) dog, whom he arranges to start walking every day. With Twig, Nix can do what he […]

Novels written in verse are difficult to execute well. On one hand they have a tendency toward melodrama; on the other they showcase poetry’s inherent ability to communicate flashes of thought, emotion, and experience. For YA novels in which the protagonists are often dealing with difficult situations, balance comes from allowing the characters to emerge […]

“Still experiencing the hurt from a recent breakup, Emily also has to contend with her grandfather’s death and the ensuing family drama that occurs soon after his funeral. Helping her cope is a new friendship with Leo, who, though dismissive and aloof at first, allows her into his life. Plot elements abound. Leo has anger […]

When I was a kid I loved libraries and bookstores.  I could walk in, find the shelves of juvenile fiction, and pull off a dozen books I wanted to read. Just like that.  It’s harder these days. I don’t know if it’s my age, or the literary snobbiness I contracted during my undergraduate studies, or […]

After being dumped by her boyfriend, an emotionally shaken 17-year-old high school senior makes friends with an angry young man and discovers that the secure family she always considered rock-solid is riddled with lies and secrets. This is a story about familial ties-ties of blood, ties of love, ties that bind. It’s also about family […]

I love books that remind me exactly what it felt like to be a teenager.  And books where guys and girls have relationships that aren’t about the luuuurve.  And books that have so much real-life drama that they don’t need magic and vampires and the end of the world (although I love those too).   […]

This intelligent mystery is a complete 180 from the author’s leprosy-in-India tale, No Ordinary Day (2011), but is similar in how its impact sneaks up on you…The unreliability of Jess’ first-person account becomes increasingly obvious as we learn the depths of Jess’ jealousy and the dubiousness of her morals. The mystery here is not just […]

Ellis explores the courage it takes to stand up for a friend in a town shattered by a murder. Jess’s best friend, Casey White, has ambition and passion. A budding entomologist, she seeks an adventurous life outside their small town. So when Casey is inexplicably arrested for the murder of a girl at a camp […]