Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow I knew Erin Bow was a masterful writer after reading her last book, Plain Kate, so I was excited when I saw Sorrow’s Knot on NetGalley. Erin Bow is one of the most talented writers I’ve read. Her writing is lyrical and magical; every word sings a perfect note. I was captivated by this book from the very first chapter and if I’d only had the time to read the whole thing straight through, I would have. The story is about a young girl named Otter who ha

The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal This book reads as an exploration of the brutal truth behind fairy tales. The novel is violent and fascinating, brutal and heart-rending, engrossing and, well, just plain gross. The story is told from several points-of-view, including a young aspiring seamstress, an African nursemaid, and the Queen herself, though much of the book is also written in an omniscient third person. It sounds confusing, and it is occasionally, but it wor

I’m very excited to have Kathryn Lasky on my blog today! Kathryn Lasky is a prolific author, having written everything from fiction to nonfiction for people of all ages. She has won numerous awards and has even had a book turned into a movie (Legends of the Guardians based on the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series). So you can bet I was excited to receive an email asking if I’d like to take part in the blog tour for her newest book, The Extra. Here’s the synopsis from the publisher

The first fifty pages or so read like a post-apocalyptic survival story, mixed with the main character’s memories of his relationships with his friends and family. At first, I was really worried this would turn out to be some kind of boring literary experiment, and the third person present tense definitely adds to that feeling. And while at times it did read as a literary experiment, it definitely wasn’t boring. Once things started to happen and plot twists started showing up

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler is a YA memoir about the author’s struggles as a teenager to find his place in his conservative religious family. This is an absolutely stunning book. Every page is so vivid and realistic, it’s almost like the author actually had his teenaged self write this book. Even though I am not white, male, Christian, or gay, (and let’s face it, I’m definitely not a teenager anymore) I found this book so heartfelt, engaging, and most of all relatable.

The Diviners by Libba Bray is about a group of teenagers with psychic powers that are emerging in response to an evil, supernatural presence in 1920s Manhattan. It’s part X-Men, part serial killer murder mystery, part Da Vinci Code, part ghost story, and part historical fiction all mixed together with Libba Bray’s experienced authorial hand. If that sounds weird and crazy, that’s because it is. But, you know, in a good way! I’m not a scary book fan, but wait, I guess I am now

I’m excited to be part of Cheryl’s Rainfield’s Cover Reveal blog tour! Book Description: In this heart-wrenching and suspenseful teen thriller, sixteen-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for “normal.” Born with a port-wine stain covering half her face, all her life she’s been plagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust. But when she’s abducted on the way home from school, Sarah is forced to uncover the courage she never knew she had, become a hero rather than a victim, and l

It’s that time again! Every year I choose my favorite kids’ books, and this year instead of making my millions of excuses about how it’s hard to choose only one, I decided to pick one book per category. So here we go. Drumroll, please: My Favorite Young Adult (YA) book This was a difficult choice since I also read and loved Bitterblue, The Girl of Fire and Thorns (my review), and The Fault in Our Stars (my review) this year (all AMAZING!), but the one I ultimately chose was:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is YA historical fiction at its very best. The story takes place in World War II and is told from the viewpoint of a female spy who has been captured and tortured for information. She has been instructed to write down everything she knows and in the process, she tells the story of her remarkable friendship with a talented female pilot. I am so completely in awe of this novel. It is at once exciting, heart wrenching, and compelling. The begin

I knew The Fault in Our Stars would be a great book just because it was by John Green, co-author of the amazingly fabulous Will Grayson^2 and I was NOT disappointed. I glanced at the first page as soon as I got it from the library, and I knew I’d have to wait until I had a large chunk of time to read it because the main character Hazel’s voice is so compelling.  Admittedly, Hazel and her friends are all very well-read and their conversations often seem a little too quippy and

Through the story, Taylor struggles to unravel the secrets about her family and about the strange dreams she’s been having. She’s helped along the way by numerous people, even people she thought were her enemies. All the characters’ stories come together in a very cool way at the end. My only complaint is that there were just too many heavy themes introduced. There’s child abandonment, drug abuse/alcoholism, prostitution, child abuse, child pornography, murder, several suicid

Last week my writing group was discussing our group’s book-of-the-month, The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart. We were going around, generally talking about the book and I mentioned how I’d really liked it but hadn’t loved it enough to pick up the next book in the series, while someone else had liked it too, but had read all the books in the series. “But wait a second,” she said. “Isn’t that book on your favorites list on your blog?” (How she managed to link to my post while spe

Out of all the kid’s books I read this year, these are my favorites. I attempted to order them by author and by reading level (YA, followed by MG, followed by PB). Note that these are not necessarily newly published books, just books I finally got around to reading this year. And a few are old favorites :) Don’t forget to scroll to the second page! Since I’ve added picture books this year, I wasn’t able to get the whole list on one screen of the widget. <a HREF="http://ws.ama

The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness is a YA dystopia series about a planet where men’s thoughts can be heard out loud by everyone due to an alien virus. This series is amazing. The strangeness of the premise (and the obvious statement about our information-overloaded society), the break-neck pacing, and the violence made it hard for me to connect all the way with the main character, Todd, in the first book–but by the end of the third book, I loved the series even more t

I won a writing award! Okay–to be more accurate, I received a “Letter of Merit” (sort of like honorable mention) from the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for their annual Work-In-Progress grant. I am really excited about this! I feel like I won the grand prize! This was actually my third time applying for the grant and my second time applying with this novel (Necklace of Tears), so I almost didn’t bother this year. But I guess third time’s a charm! Funny

In many other respects, this book was better than the first book. For example, in Shiver, I felt a few of the side characters weren’t well drawn out whereas in this book, Stiefvater has four POV characters and thoroughly fleshes out each one. While this may sound confusing, it actually worked really well, since two of them were our two old friends, lovebirds Grace and Sam (or should I say lovedogs?). Interestingly it is the two new POV characters–Isabelle and Cole–that reall

But Shiver isn’t without it’s flaws. Grace’s best friends feel rather thin as characters and I often found I had trouble caring about them. Also, the voices of the two narrators (the aforementioned Grace and werewolf Sam) were a little too similar for me. We are told quite often by many characters that Grace is a type-A personality, but from her word choice to her metaphors, her voice was just too similar to artsy-emo Sam for me to believe this. I was often confused about wh

Really enjoyed this character driven book about a teenaged girl named Ruby who was abandoned by her mother and was forced by social services to live with her estranged sister. Sarah Dessen does a wonderful job filling in the story with a well-rounded, kooky, yet realistic cast of side characters. I picked this book up because I was looking for a contemporary YA romance to help with some scenes I had been writing in my current novel and had been recommended to Sarah Dessen as

But in the end (or rather from the very beginning) I was completely blown away by this book–by its authenticity, by its courage, and yes, by its heart. The characters felt like real teenagers and the characters were all meaty and interesting. I should summarize a little bit–basically the book is about a straight boy named Will  Grayson who has a gay best friend (a huge guy named Tiny–and yes, hilarity ensues) who happens to meet another boy named Will Grayson, a depressed tee

Here are my favorite new-to-me children’s books this year, in order by author. Last year, I used Indiebound for this list, but for some unknown reason they deleted my account (?). Since then, I’ve been using Amazon Marketplace. <a HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmonpoo-20%2F8001%2F9d0925b2-beb8-4095-9761-ae69f3e5cb1b&#038;Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</a> (Interesting that four of the authors h