Reading Level: Young Adult

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Vol 2

When Link travels to the Twilight Realm to save Ilia, he is transformed into a wolf and is quickly captured. A Twilight imp named Minda takes a liking to Link and helps him escape. Minda introduces Link to Princess Zelda, who explains how the King of Shadows has cast the kingdom of Hyrule into perpetual twilight. The King of Shadows seeks to rule everything under the light and dark. Princess Zelda is powerless to stop him. She prays every day that the gods will save her people. Is Link the prayed-for hero?

But as a wolf, what can Link do? He can talk to animals in his wolf form, but he cannot communicate with his friends or wield a weapon. As Minda leads Link on a quest, it is unclear to readers and to Link himself whether Minda is helping Link save his people or tricking him for her own gain. While this graphic novel has more action than the first book, video gamers who have played Twilight Princess may become bored, as this graphic novel follows the game so closely that it begins to feel like a recap. For readers unfamiliar with the games, this installment may be more interesting.

Link is a relatable character that readers will root for, but the other characters in the story remain two-dimensional, leaving much to be desired. This story has several battle scenes scattered throughout, but there are only a few violent images where Link is shown slashing monsters with his sword or attacking in his wolf-form. The images are not gory. The theme of Twilight Princess Vol 2 follows Link’s struggle to find his inner strength in order to protect his loved ones.

Twilight Princess Vol 2 is darker than the video game. However, the story will appeal to reluctant readers because the Manga-style illustrations tell the story through pictures and uses a limited amount of words. Each page contains 1-6 simple sentences, which appear in thought bubbles. Similar to the original Batman comics, Twilight Princess’s battle scenes use onomatopoeia words, such as “Bwommm” and “gyaaah.” Overall, Link fans may be better off sticking with the video game and skipping the graphic novels altogether.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A “demon thief” is banished to the Twilight Realm. He is stabbed with a sword, and the flesh melts from his face before he is sucked into the Twilight Realm.
  • When Princess Zelda tells the story of her kingdom being attacked, the illustrations depict an explosion and a monster slowly crushing a guard to death.
  • Link battles a shadow monster and eventually kills it. The fight is illustrated over six pages.
  • A demon monkey lashes out with fire, burning the forest and killing several animals, who are drawn terrified, aflame, and wounded.
  • Link fights the demon monkey. Their first battle takes place over three pages. Their second battle takes place over five pages.
  • Link battles a giant plant monster and slays it. This battle takes place over nine pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Link lives in a world with magic, shadow beasts, and demons. When people from the land of light are engulfed by the Twilight Realm, they turn into lost souls.
  • When Link travels to the Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a giant wolf. While in his wolf form, Link can communicate with animals.
  • Link meets an alpha monkey who “absorbed the power of shadow… He was originally a monkey, but now he’s a demon. He can’t tell friend from foe.”
  • When Link unlocks his instinctive wolf senses, he’s able to see the insects that are “the true form of the shadow demons.” One of the insects is controlling the monkey demon, making him act cruelly.
  • Link finds a boomerang, which speaks to him. It says, “I am the fairy of winds that inhabits the boomerang. You freed me from an evil force, so I can reclaim my true power… Please, use the boomerang in which my power resides.”

Spiritual Content

  • There is a legend that when evil people tried to use magic to take over the land, “the goddesses grew angry at this affront and sent four spirits of light to seal the upstarts’ magical power away in the shadow crystal. Furthermore, the mirror of shadow prevented these wizards from entering the world of light. They were exiled to the twilight realm.”
  • Link meets a light spirit who tells him, “By orders of the gods, I am one of the four spirits of light who protect Hyrule.” The spirit asks Link for his help in saving the land from darkness.

by Morgan Lynn

Tears of a Tiger

After the basketball game, Andy and his friends just wanted to have a little fun. When they pile into Andy’s car and begin drinking beer, they think Andy’s swerving is funny. The fun ends when Andy plows into a wall, killing Rob, Andy’s best friend and the captain of the Hazelwood High Tigers. No one blames Andy for Rob’s death and soon everyone, except Andy, is moving on.

Andy is consumed with guilt. He can’t forget that one horrifying moment or the desperate screams of his friend’s last cries for help. Andy stops doing his school work. He begins acting out, but everyone thinks that Andy is fine – after all, he’s seeing a psychologist. Will Andy be able to move forward or will this one accident claim the futures of not one Tiger, but two?

Andy is consumed by guilt over Rob’s death. Even though he’s in pain, his friends, his family, and his psychologist think he needs to get over the guilt and get on with life. Andy’s psychologist tells him, “the answer is life, Andy, not death.” Andy begins acting out and crying for help. He thinks, “My heart is bloody, and my soul is on ice… Nobody cares.”

Tears of a Tiger tells the heart-wrenching story of Andy and his friends as they deal with Rob’s death. The story unfolds through conversations, English assignments, diary entries, and prayers. While these mediums give a unique perspective, at first the format is confusing. Through various mediums, the readers will come to understand Andy’s guilt, grief, and depression. Even though Andy desperately needs help, no one is there to bolster him up. In the end, the pain of losing Rob causes Andy to commit suicide.

Tears of a Tiger tackles some heavy topics such as death, depression, drinking and driving, as well as racism. The story will resonate with teenagers, especially those who have ever faced a difficult situation. Even though readers will understand the reasons Andy commits suicide, solutions are never discussed, which ends the story with a hopeless tone. The devastation of both Rob’s and Andy’s death will remain with readers for a long time. Tears of a Tiger is an engaging story that will leave readers questioning life and death, and they’ll be wondering if anything could have prevented Andy’s suicide.

Sexual Content

  • Rob brags that colleges will be, “Knockin’ on my door…to instruct the women in the dorms of the finer points of—shall we say—‘scorin’ and to teach skinny little farm boys what it is, what it is!”
  • Andy’s girlfriend calls a friend to ask about Andy. The friend replies, “I bet he’s in the backseat of his car, kissin’ all over some real sexy mama!!”
  • Rhonda writes a letter to her best friend saying, “Girl, that Tyrone can really kiss!!!!! Makes me want to stand up and shout Hallelujah!” In another letter, Rhonda writes about Tyrone, “That boy turns me on!”
  • When Andy gets out of high school, he plans to “use my lips for kissin’ beautiful women, not the soles of some bald-headed white man’s feet.”
  • When Gerald’s English teacher collects a poetry project, Gerald says, “Yeah, just like an English teacher—poetry turns her on.”
  • Andy’s brother goes to Andy’s grave and talks to him. “And how am I ever going to figure out girls? Do you know some girl tried to kiss me for my birthday? Gross!”

Violence

  • Rob was killed in a “fiery automobile accident.” Rob’s feet “stickin’ through the windshield. His legs was cut and bleedin’ really bad.” Rob was “screamin’ and hollerin’, stuck inside.” Rob’s friends tried to get him out of the car, but “The whole car is in flames, and Rob is still stuck inside, and we can hear him screamin’, ‘Andy! Andy! Help me—Help me—Oh God, please don’t let me die like this! Andy!’ He screamed for what seemed like a long time. Then it was real quiet.”
  • On the first day of junior high, Andy asked Rob a question. “He slowly put the pick in his back pocket, slowly looked at me, and then proceeded to beat the snot out of me. We’ve been tight ever since.”
  • Gerald’s stepdad is abusive. Someone says, “My friend Gerald—his dad beats him—he’s got this big scar on his face from when he had to get stitches when his dad knocked him against a radiator.”
  • Andy thinks about jumping off an overpass, but his girlfriend stops him. Afterward, he said, “‘Thanks.’ Then I kissed her real lightly on the lips and went home.”
  • Andy kills himself. Andy’s blood soaked through the ceiling, which caused his mother to run to his room. “Mrs. Jackson went to her son’s bedroom where Andrew’s body was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Before the basketball game, Andy put four six-packs in the trunk of his car.
  • Gerald writes an essay saying he would get rid of five-dollar bills. “With a five-dollar bill, somebody’s stepfather can buy a bottle of whiskey, a nickel bag of pot, or a rock or crack. He smokes it, or drinks it, and goes home and knocks his kids around, or his wife… Andy and the guys bought a six-pack of beer. They ended up buying five dollars worth of death.”
  • Andy says that he and his friends would go into stores and bother the white sales clerk because they thought, “we’re all drug dealers.”

Language

  • Crap is used three times. After the accident, Andy felt like “a piece of crap.”
  • When Keisha finds out about her boyfriend’s accident, she says, “Oh my God, Rhonda, I’ve got to go. I’ll get my mom to drive me to the hospital.”
  • After Andy dies, Gerald writes, “You know what really pisses me off? You! You’re a coward and a sellout!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • After the accident, B.J. prays to God. “Is it my fault that Robbie is dead? I wasn’t drivin’… I don’t sleep at night. I keep seein’ the fire and hearin’ his screams and feelin’ so helpless… Was all this done to teach us kids a lesson?” The prayer is said over two pages.
  • B.J. writes a poem praying to “the lord…to send me a lady—someone to love.” The poem is one page.
  • Tyron writes a letter saying that “we didn’t’ die in that accident for a reason. B.J. says it’s because the Lord needed Robbie up there and he needed us down here.”
  • Keisha writes, “Some people say…that killing yourself is a sin and you’ll go to hell for it because you can never ask for forgiveness for that… I hope God is forgiving. I hope God understands that your heart was good, but your pain was so powerful.”
  • B.J. prays and wonders, “Will stupid keep him (Andy) out of Heaven? He never learned the power and hope that comes from Your forgiveness.” The prayer goes on for one and a half pages.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Hermione Winters doesn’t want people’s prayers. She’s used to the labels: a Palermo Height’s cheerleader, captain of her team, one of the most popular girls at her school, and Leo’s girlfriend. When someone slips something into her drink one night, she also becomes Hermione Winters, “that raped girl.” With her support system, Hermione must wade through the aftermath of her trauma. Exit, Pursued by a Bear presents the aftermath of a rape through the eyes of a leader who learns more about her inner strength and the strength of her friendships in ways she never could have imagined.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear touches upon sensitive topics including rape and abortion. Johnston handles these topics with seriousness and dignity. Hermione’s experiences with these topics are not universal, but Johnston gives Hermione the tools necessary to come out of these situations in the best way possible. Some readers might be troubled by the fact that Hermione’s situation leaves out some of the nastier aspects. The story focuses more on the good people supporting Hermione and her recovery. The negative reactions from the community towards rape victims exist as barriers occasionally, but Hermione overcomes most of these experiences. Because the story focuses on Hermione reclaiming the good in her life after her trauma, some readers may feel this narrative is too light or too feel-good for the content.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear is powerful because it diverges from the standard commentary about the failures of the justice system and the negative reaction of the community when someone is raped. Instead, the story focuses more on the victim’s reclamation of life. Hermione has a strong voice, is an intelligent leader on her cheer team, and her teammates respect her level head. Although she suffers after a terrible event, she runs on an inner monologue of refusal—she will not stop attending class, she will not quit cheerleading, and she will not be beaten down.

Without her incredible support system, Hermione would have encountered more difficulties. Her best friend Polly, her parents, her teammates, and her coach stand by her with unwavering support in all her decisions. When Hermione finds out that she is pregnant as a result of the rape, her parents and Polly help her proceed with an abortion. When Hermione’s triggers threaten to overtake her, Polly is there to give her the help that she needs. Despite the traumas that Hermione faces, her friends and family stand by her and aid Hermione’s slow return to normalcy.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear tells a different type of narrative about a rape victim, and Johnston succeeds in showing Hermione’s recovery process. Although this story may not be a universal experience, it presents a story where life continues, and the heroine isn’t stuck with being “that raped girl.” Hermione Winters, a future university student, will not have anyone’s judgment but her own. Exit, Pursued by a Bear is a must-read because its displays the strength of heart and mind, and the inspirational spirit that encourages Hermione to never give up the fight.

Sexual Content

  • At cheer camp, Leo, Hermione’s boyfriend, “in his esteemed wisdom, has given [her] a box of condoms.”
  • After she was raped, Hermione finds out that she is pregnant and decides to have an abortion. There are descriptions of her going to the clinic and describing the procedure, though it is somewhat vague. Hermione says, “The collection bag isn’t see-through, exactly, but I can tell there’s a mass inside it that wasn’t there before.” The scene is described over several pages.
  • Polly admits that she and Amy, a cheerleader at another school, have been dating. Polly tells Hermione, “We’ve been doing the long-distance thing since camp, mostly, though I went to see her over Thanksgiving.”
  • Of Hermione and Leo’s former relationship, Hermione says that they “hadn’t done much in the way of fooling around.”
  • In a conversation with Hermione, Polly says, “Um, I may have looked up some of [the ‘rules’] when I was wondering if having sex with another girl would mean I wasn’t a virgin anymore.”
  • Hermione starts to have lustful thoughts about Dion, one of her male teammates. After the Halloween dance, Dion helps her out of the gym. Hermione thinks that “awkward thoughts about Dion [are] floating around my head… If I can still feel, then maybe someday I’ll be able to have sex with someone I like and it won’t be a problem.”
  • Dion asks Hermione out, and he then kisses her. She describes the kiss. Dion “kisses me. Not like I’ll break, but not forcefully either… One hand is on my hip and the other is on my neck, tangling my ponytail.”
  • At nationals, Amy wanders into the cheer team’s cabin, and Polly “pulls Amy right down into her lap.”
  • Hermione gives a speech about the “curse” upon Palermo Heights Secondary School. She says, “Every year one of the girls at PHSS gets pregnant.”

Violence

  • At cheer camp, Hermione is drugged, raped, and left in the lake. Twelve hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed. Because the book is from Hermione’s perspective and she has no memory of that night, Polly gives the details to Hermione. While Hermione is in the hospital, Polly tells her, “They found you in the lake… You were still in your dress, but your underwear was gone, and you were up to your waist in water, lying on the rocks… Someone spiked your drink at the dance. And then he got you alone and took you down by the water. And you couldn’t stop him, because the bastard drugged you. And then he raped you.” Hermione mentions that she has bruises and is in pain for some time after. The scene is described over a couple of pages.
  • After she’s raped, Leo treats Hermione like a pariah, and she hears that he’s most likely spreading rumors about her. Weeks later during chemistry class, Hermione finally sees him in person. She walks up to him, “slap[s] him across the face as hard as [she] can, and stalk[s] out of the room.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a dance, someone slips a date-rape drug into Hermione’s drink. She narrates right before she loses consciousness, “There’s something wrong. I wasn’t this tired until right this second… There’s a moment when I know that I should scream. But screaming would be hard. And blackness would be easy. Black picks me.”
  • According to Hermione, the other part of the “curse” upon Palermo Heights is that “Every single class at Palermo Heights since 2006 has lost at least one student to a drunk driver.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes shit, damn, bitch, bastard, hell, and ass.
  • Throughout the book, Hermione’s best friend Polly verbally threatens people, sometimes playfully and sometimes with serious intent. However, she never makes good on her promises. For example, when Hermione and Polly are competing against each other, Polly says playfully, “Damn straight. I’m going to kick your ass all weekend.”
  • When Leo verbally accosts Hermione, Polly says to him, “Get your ass to your cabin before you get caught, and if I ever hear you talk like that about any girl, alive or dead, I will skin you.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Hermione runs into the church she and her dad used to attend and asks Pastor Rob for a favor, saying, “Please don’t ask people to pray for me.”
  • Pastor Robs tells Hermione, “I’ll leave the specifics to God, and pray for your peace of mind.”
  • Pastor Rob and Hermione talk about her abortion. He tells her, “If someone starts throwing around stupid words like ‘It’s a gift,’ or ‘It’s in God’s plan,’ you come right here, and I’ll find you ten ways in which it isn’t.”
  • Hermione says of the nurse in the abortion clinic, “I’m now convinced that God put her on this earth to do exactly this job, and I hope she gets one heck of a karmic payoff for it later.”
  • Several women sit in the recovery room of the abortion clinic. One woman says the fetus “didn’t look like a person. Not even a little bit. Not like those religious people say. I did the right thing.”

by Alli Kestler

I’m Ok

Ok’s life takes a dramatic turn for the worse when his father dies. His mother works three jobs, yet barely makes ends meet. Ok feels that as the man of the house, he should help pay the bills. As a twelve-year-old, he has little opportunity to make money. He hopes he can win the cash prize at the school talent contest, but he can’t sing or dance, and he has no magic up his sleeves. With no talent, he has to come up with another business.

Soon, Ok is braiding hair for the girls at school, but the girls can’t pay him much. His braiding business makes Mickey McDonald notice him. The girl, with a larger-than-life personality, wants to be his friend. Ok is used to being by himself, and he doesn’t want to be friends with Mickey, who will distract him from his mission—making money.

Life gets worse when the pushy deacon at their Korean church starts wooing Ok’s mom. Ok doesn’t want his mom spending time with the deacon. His mom is so caught up in the deacon that she doesn’t even notice Ok anymore. Feeling lost and confused, Ok comes up with an exit strategy. Will being totally alone, give Ok the peace he needs?

I’m Ok deals with the difficult topics of grief, poverty, racism, and friendship. Even though the story highlights the importance of friends, Ok’s story is often dark and depressing. At school, Ok is bullied and made fun of because he’s Korean. He reluctantly becomes friends with Mickey, who is self-assured but also ignored by many of the students. The two team up to win the school talent contest, and Mickey begins teaching Ok to skate. Mickey spends time with Ok, gives him a pair of skates, and is kind to him. Despite this, the only thing Ok cares about is winning the contest’s money. At one point, Ok even steals from Mickey’s mother. While Ok’s homelife is understandably difficult, his negative reaction to all events and his self-centered, mean personality make it difficult to feel compassion for him.

Ok spends time reminiscing about his father, who he clearly misses. Even though Ok grieves for his father, most of Ok’s memories of his father are negative. His father treated both Ok and his mother terribly. For example, Ok’s father would talk under his breath, “loud enough that I could hear, but soft enough so I felt guilty about eavesdropping, ‘When’s this idiot going to be human?’” Ok’s father isn’t shown to have many positive aspects other than financially supporting the family.

I’m Ok shows the difficulties many Korean immigrants face. However, the story’s conclusion leaves several threads untied. Plus for the entire story, the deacon is portrayed in such a negative light that it is difficult to understand why Ok’s mother marries him. Even though Ok and several of the supporting characters are well-developed, readers may have a difficult time relating to Ok, who is often mean to those who care about him. If you’re looking for a book that tackles racism and/or poverty, you may want to leave I’m Ok on the library shelf. However, Katherine Applegate excellently tackles both issues in her books Crenshaw and Wishtree.

Sexual Content

  • While braiding girls’ hair, the girls talk about a lot of different topics. For example, “Jaehnia is in love with Asa, and Asa is not at all interested in her in that way ’cause he’s not into desperate girls… Kym’s parents are getting a divorce… Claudio got caught sneaking around under the back staircase looking up girls’ skirts.”

Violence

  • Several times Ok thinks about his father’s death. When Ok makes a mistake, he thinks his dad would have called him stupid. Ok thinks, “At least I didn’t trip while working on a roof and come tumbling down and land so hard and wrong on concrete that my neck broke.”
  • Ok’s mother accidently “Ran into a parked car, smashing its headlight. My father called her an idiot, yelled at her, took over the wheel, and raced out of there like it was a getaway… He told her to shut up. I crouched on the floor of the backseat, scared my mother would get kicked out of the country.”
  • Asa and Ok wrestle, and Ok “bite[s] his finger, grab[s] his shirt, and stretch[es] it over his face… He punches me in the stomach. I cough and punch him back… We tumble around some more, no longer really hitting each other, holding and rolling disguised as fighting.” A neighbor tells them to stop and they do.
  • Ok steals $10 out of Mickey’s mom’s purse. The next day, Mickey shows up at school with “a bruise on her cheek.” Mickey says, “Ain’t you ever seen a bruise before? If you gotta know, Ma did it.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ok’s father would play cards with his friends and drink beer. Ok thinks back to a time when his father “let me take a sip of his beer. When I grimaced at the taste, he laughed.”
  • Ok’s father often had a Johnnie Walker in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Language

  • After Ok’s father dies, a woman tells him that he will need strength to get through this hard time. “What a senseless mess. Makes you want to kick some idiot’s butt, she says, shaking her head…”
  • Pissed is used five times. When Ok is called to the principal’s office, he tells the principal he has to go to the bathroom and “pressing my knees together and making the I’m going to piss right here, right now face.”
  • A kid in Ok’s class makes fun of him, calling him “Okie Dorkie” and “Wong-chung-chung.”
  • Oh my god is used as an exclamation six times. For example, when Ok tells a girl that he saved a puppy’s life, she says, “Oh my God, you’re the bravest.”
  • Mickey McDonald uses “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ” once and “Oh my Lordy” as an exclamation seven times. For example, Ok accidently goes into the girls’ bathroom. When Mickey McDonald sees him, she says, “Oh my Lord, what on God’s green earth are you doing in the girl’s bathroom?” She then calls Ok a “perv.” Later she calls Ok a “snothead.”
  • A kid calls a girl a moron.
  • Ok calls a kid a jerk; later, he thinks the deacon is a jerk.
  • A kid teases Mickey, calling her “Old McD. White Trish-Trash. Mick the Hick. Mickey Gives Hickeys… Mickey McDonald looks like Miss Piggy and a troll doll had a baby.”
  • Ok thinks the deacon is a jackass.
  • Badass is used once, and hell is used three times. For example, a woman tells Ok, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
  • Ok tells Asa, “Aren’t you glad yo’ mama could spell? Otherwise yo’ name be like Ass… I’m calling you Ass ’cause you look like one, smell like one, and God knows you read and write like one.” Later, Ok calls Asa a butt-face and moron.
  • Ok calls Asa stupid and a nincompoop.
  • Ok tells Mickey that a classmate is a pervert.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Ok and his mother attend the First Korean Full Gospel Church. After a service, some of the women “moan and babble because the Holy Spirit has a hold on them.” Ok wishes “the Holy Spirit would get a hold of me so I could wail my sadness too.”
  • After his father dies, a woman from church tells him “to be good and strong for my mother and have faith in God’s will, because I’m the man of the house now. God works in mysterious ways.”
  • After his father dies, Ok’s mother tells him, “I’m not worried. God will take care of us. We just need to do our part and believe he loves us.”
  • When a classmate is mean to Ok, he “prayed I wouldn’t piss my pants, prayed I wouldn’t get beat up because I looked like one of those kids you couldn’t help but beat up.”
  • During church service, the pastor asks the congregation to pray. Ok closes his eyes and prays, “telling God that I need a talent for the talent show so I can win a hundred dollars…”
  • When a girl sees Ok writing in a library book, Ok “pray[s] hard that she doesn’t walk away and tell on me.”
  • After Ok earns some money, he wonders what to do with it. “I could offer the money to God tomorrow, drop my coins onto the plate… What blessing can $11.68 buy me?”
  • The deacon tells Ok’s mother, “Do not worry. What does the Bible say? Worrying is a waste of your time and energy. It is a sign of your lack of faith. Obey our Lord and don’t worry… All things work for the good of those who have faith in God.”
  • When Ok’s mother hurts her ankle, Ok prayed “that I had nothing to do with my mother slipping on some ice that had spilled out of a tub full of mackerel.” Ok wonders if God allowed his mother to get hurt because he stole something, then he blames God for allowing his mother to get hurt.
  • The deacon tells Ok, “God is in math. Oh sure. The concept of infinity. That is God.”
  • Many of the characters pray. For example, after making kimchi, Ok’s mother prays, “thanking God for her abilities, for our kitchen, and for me… She asks God to bless the kimchi, bless anyone who eats it, make the person strong and good and faithful.”
  • At church, the preacher told the congregation, “if we felt sad, we should count our blessings. Make a list of all the things we were grateful for. Not focus on what we lost.”
  • When the deacon is trying to teach Ok to swim, he says, “The Bible says that if you build a house on sand, that house will collapse, so you must build your house on stone, so it can withstand wind and storms.”
  • When the deacon clears his throat, Ok thinks, “here we go with the sermon about how God created the universe, the moon, and the stars, and how he created me in his image and loves me so much he killed his only son for the forgiveness of sins.”

Running Full Tilt

Summer is ending, which means Leo is about to start at a new high school. His family just moved from a neighborhood to a more secluded house because of his older brother, Caleb. Caleb has autism and cognitive delays, which have gotten him into trouble a few times, like when he broke into his neighbor’s house and started asking them random questions. While Leo’s family’s move may have left the neighbors with more peaceful lives, Leo’s life is anything but serene. Caleb has taken to attacking Leo in the middle of the night, and Leo can’t figure out why. To escape these fits and calm his anger, Leo goes for long runs.

Subsequently, this newfound talent for long-distance running lands Leo a spot on the cross-country team where he meets Curtis, the fastest runner in school. Seeing Leo’s potential, Curtis takes him under his wing. He devises running strategies for each meet, and he and Leo climb to the top of the state ranks. Leo also meets and eventually dates Mary, an artistic girl with piercing green eyes. Throughout the year, Leo’s relationships with Curtis and Mary grow, and they help him appreciate his brother. Caleb even picks up running and, with Leo’s help, runs a half marathon.

One day Leo comes home elated after qualifying for state at a track meet. His celebration is short-lived though, as his parents have tragic news. Caleb drowned in a community pool. Leo can no longer run away from his problems with his brother; he has to find a way to cope.

Running Full Tilt is told in the first person from Leo’s point of view, which will help readers connect with him. Readers will watch Leo grow as a brother, boyfriend, and friend. Although he isn’t always the best boyfriend, Mary teaches him it’s okay to confide in others. Curtis becomes a big brother to Leo, helping him be a stronger runner and person. Curtis, Leo, and Mary are very witty; readers will enjoy reading their playful banter. Runners will appreciate Currinder’s vivid depictions of races, strategies, and maybe even pick up a few tips.

In addition to being an excellent book for runners, Running Full Tilt also deals with the implications of having a family member with cognitive issues. Mary tells Leo she thought Caleb looked “normal,” causing Leo to jump to Caleb’s defense: “Who’s to say what’s normal?” Leo feels guilty for “always being a step ahead” of Caleb when he is the younger brother, which he suspects is the reason for Caleb’s outbursts. Leo’s parents are unhappily married (it’s hinted that both are having an affair) and deal with Caleb’s behavior in different ways. Leo and Caleb have their fights, but Leo learns not to dwell on them and appreciate the good days. Running Full Tilt is a good book if readers want to be invested in the characters. They are flawed yet endearing, and readers will relate to them. It is a fast-paced, entertaining story that will both break and warm readers’ hearts.

Sexual Content

  • Leo hears a guy called Itchy and thinks, “I figured Itchy was probably just some dude from their football team with ringworm or a bad case of jock itch.”
  • Stuper, one of the guys on the track team, was absent because he was at the hospital. His friend Rosenthal explains, “He’s got a bad case of poison ivy… he ducked into the woods to go to the bathroom. He wiped himself with it… At first he wouldn’t tell his parents. He thought it was herpes because he’d just seen pictures of it in health class… we reminded him that the only way you can get herpes is through sexual contact.” The guys laugh, suggesting Stuper has never had any sexual contact.
  • At the end of their first date, Leo and Mary kiss. Leo “slowly leaned toward her and closed my eyes, then felt our lips touch. I felt her hands gently moving up to my biceps… I just couldn’t believe how sweet her skin smelled and how soft her lips felt.” When they get back to Leo’s house they kiss again, but the kiss is not described. Leo thinks, “I probably should have kissed her longer.”
  • Leo sees his mom at the movie theater holding hands with a man who is not his dad. This upsets him because his parents are still married. Mary suggests his mom is having an “emotional affair.” Leo thinks, “I fought hard to block the images forming in my mind.” He asks Mary, “Like friends with benefits friends?” Mary answers, “No, it’s not like that. It’s like having some huge crush on someone but not really acting on it.”
  • At a Halloween party, a guy has “a potato dangling out of his fly from something that resembled a coat hanger.” He explains he is dressed up as a “dicktater.”
  • After Curtis tells Leo to “grow some balls” and rescue Mary from the guy who is flirting with her, Leo says, “screw you.” Curtis replies, “Leo, that’s fine by me. I’m not on that team, but I’m an enlightened individual. I’ve got no problem if you are.”
  • Leo says that he and Mary are “acting like old people, the kind who never get off their porches to do anything. That was, until Mary’s mother began dating some new guy. Then we started getting to know each other in new ways.”
  • Leo talks about how cold it is to run in the winter and how it affects his body. “Winter training included running in temperatures so frigid that even after a warm shower I didn’t see portions of my anatomy that had recently become very important to me for six hours. When I considered Mary in the equation, I wondered if it was all worth it.”
  • After running a race in the sleet, Curtis tells Leo, “If I don’t get under a hot shower soon, there’s a serious chance I’ll never see my testicles again.”
  • Leo’s family goes to the Special Olympics in Ford Leonard Wood. Leo asks his dad why there are so many massage parlors. His dad answers, “There are about ten thousand young men on that military base. And very few women. Do I have to give you a lesson on the birds and the bees, Leo?” Leo assures his dad, “I think I get it.”

Violence

  • Leo describes what it’s like being a distance runner in a race. “They run in packs, with steel spikes sharp as steak knives attached to their feet. Inside a tight pack moving at close to four-minute-mile pace, the spikes like barracuda teeth slashing at calves and shins from front and back, elbows and fists box for position.”
  • Leo witnesses a freshman being bullied. “The ringleader, a burly guy wearing a football jersey with the name Glusker plastered over numbers, had his victim down on his knees, hands behind his back, pushing a tiny peanut across the tile floor with his nose. Glusker guided the kid by nudging his ass with the tip of his Timberland boot along a parade route lined by laughing upperclassmen.”
  • Caleb is angry because Leo gets a higher allowance. Leo notices Caleb is getting agitated, and finally Caleb “smashed into me from behind. I smacked my head against an end table and collided with the wall… He slapped my head with one open hand and started pounding the other side of my face with his fist. Then he grasped my throat with his right hand and started trying to jab his left thumb into my eye… I fought to grab a handful of his hair with one hand and his ear with my other, and I pinched and pulled with everything I had before he finally screamed and released me.”
  • While Leo folds laundry, Caleb attacks. “He took me by surprise when he jumped me, but I managed to pull his hair, knee him in the groin, and take off running.”
  • Caleb attacks Leo in the middle of the night. Caleb “had trouble pinning me with his knees in the darkness, but he managed to slap my head a couple of times before going for my eyes. I got a knee into his crotch, pulled his hair, slipped out from under him.”
  • When Caleb attacks Leo in the middle of the night, Leo usually “smacked him on his back a couple of times [with a Little League bat], he usually rolled off me, and if that didn’t work, I pinched and pulled his ears and hair.”
  • Leo finds Caleb having a seizure. “Caleb was on the floor thrashing and writhing. His eyes were rolled back in the sockets, eyelids fluttering, and he was making this terrible wheezing sound like he couldn’t breathe. Both arms were stiff and extended, and his head lifted and thudded against the tile floor… His lips and face began to turn a strange bluish gray.” Leo and his parents bring Caleb to the hospital, and Caleb is okay a few days later.
  • At a Halloween party, Glusker mistakes Curtis for a guy who is dating his ex-girlfriend and beats him up. “Glusker came barreling across the lawn and blindsided Curtis, rolling him onto his back and pummeling his head with his fists… Curtis’s nose was gushing.”
  • Leo and Curtis are running on a golf course when they see a buck dart out from the forest. “The buck was in mid-stride when it suddenly stopped and fell to its side. The shaft and quill of an arrow were plunged deeply inside its heart… I looked at the fallen buck, its torso still rising and falling slowly, its legs still clawing at the earth as it clung to life.” Two men with bows emerged from the forest, and one “pulled a pistol from his pack, ready to finish off the job.”
  • Caleb was in a bad mood all day, so Leo was ready for him to attack that night. Caleb “came at me quick and had my shoulders pinned with his knees and both hands around my neck in seconds. I thrashed and kicked. He went for my eyes with one hand, pushing two fingers deep into my left socket… I grabbed the baseball bat tucked beside my mattress and smacked his shoulder blades sharply three times before he rolled off me.”

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Leo’s dad comes home late, and “he had a sheepish grin on his face like he’d already had a few.” Leo’s mom is upset with her husband for coming home late and for drinking. To try to make amends, Leo’s dad “grabbed two glasses from the cabinet. He snatched some ice cubes from the freezer and poured some vodka. When he set a glass next to Mom… she nudged it away with the tip of her knife.”
  • Leo goes to a Halloween party, and there is “a birdbath filled with ice and beer in the corner of the yard.” Leo and Curtis don’t drink because they have a race coming up.
  • Leo and his friends watch a guy flirt with a girl, then lead her away from the party. Curtis complains, “Why can’t I do that?” His friend responds, “I think she’s already had a few.”
  • Mary is drinking at a party. Angry with Leo for not calling her, she takes “another sip of liquid courage” and fusses at Leo. She says she waited all week for him to call and even drove past his house a few times. After she confesses this, she is ashamed and says, “I can’t believe I just told you all that crap.”
  • While Leo and Curtis are running on a golf course, they see two hunters “toting a couple of Budweisers.”
  • After visiting Caleb at the hospital, his dad “came into the kitchen, went directly to the cabinet, and poured himself a drink.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: damn, crap, holy crap, ass, jackass, smartass, shit, holy shit, chickenshit, bullshit, shit-eating, dipshit, shitload, shitting, frickin’, freakin’, hell, bitching, pissed, and prick.
  • “Christ,” “for Christ’s sake,” “Jesus,” “God,” and “Geezuz” are frequently used as exclamations.
  • After witnessing some guys bully a school janitor, Leo asks Mary, “Did you see what those morons were doing to the guy?” Mary responds, “What those idiots were doing was wrong on so many levels.”
  • Curtis tells Leo to “sit his butt down” when he calls Mary over to their lunch table.
  • When Leo sees a guy flirting with Mary, Curtis tells him to “grow some balls” and go rescue her. Leo replies, “screw you” and gives him “the one-finger salute.”
  • After Curtis yells at a man for killing a buck, the man tells him, “Why don’t you and your little faggot friend just run along.”
  • Leo’s maternal grandmother and his dad dislike each other. Leo’s grandmother frequently calls his dad “Flat Ass,” and his dad frequently calls her “Bubble Butt.”
  • When the track coach tells the track team they will be practicing inside due to the cold weather, Curtis complains, “Only wusses run indoors.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Caleb keeps talking to Leo even though it’s late, and Leo “wished to God my older brother would stop talking nonsense and just close his eyes and go back to sleep.”
  • Caleb frequently asks Leo riddles that only make sense to himself. Caleb asks Leo what kind of car God drives and when Leo can’t answer, Caleb shouts, “God drive brown Thunderbird Ford!”
  • Every night, Caleb tells Leo, “Good night, Leo. God love you.” Leo wonders what Caleb means. “Did God love me, or him?”
  • After planting a nickel in a bully’s sandwich, Leo feels a hand touch his shoulder. He is scared, but turns around to see it’s a girl. He thinks, “Thank God.”
  • After going for a run, Leo finds Caleb sitting in the grass. Caleb “smiled and laughed as he talked about God and the Thunderbird Ford.”
  • Leo takes Caleb to the pool. In the car ride, Leo “spent the twenty-minute drive listening to Caleb laugh and chatter away about God and rocky road ice cream.”
  • Leo’s mom asks if Leo wants fish sticks or cheese pizza for dinner. He explains, “Our family abandoned the church a couple of years ago, but Mom still harbored some residual Catholic guilt and clung to a few traditions like no meat on Fridays.”
  • Leo invites Curtis over for dinner. Caleb insists they pray before eating dinner. In response, Leo whispers, “Amen!” to himself, and Curtis mouths, “Jesus!”
  • Caleb prays “his unique version” of grace: “Blessed our Lord, for these our gifts, about to receive, from my bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
  • After Caleb attacks Leo, Caleb asks him, “God not punish you?” and, “Jesus love you?” Leo answers no, God will not punish him, and yes, Jesus loves him.
  • Every time Caleb attacks Leo, he asks, “God not punish you, Leo?” Leo wonders what Caleb means and assumes when Caleb says “you,” Caleb means himself. Leo thinks, “‘For some reason he seemed to have a fear of God – even after we stopped attending church. How did someone like Caleb, who often struggled to understand the world around him, become so concerned about God—some abstract, invisible force that we barely mentioned in this house?” Every time, Leo assures Caleb God will not punish him.
  • Caleb’s dad threatens Caleb with committing him to the hospital after finding out Caleb has been attacking Leo at night. His dad gets frustrated and screams, “Jesus!” Caleb yells, “Make God angry!” His dad responds, “You’re making God and me freakin’ angry,” and Caleb apologizes, “Sorry God!”
  • Leo overdid it during track practice. “I spent the next two minutes bent over, clutching my knees, praying I wouldn’t throw up lunch.”
  • While Leo and his mom wait for Caleb in the emergency room, Leo thinks, “I couldn’t tell if her lips were trembling or if she was mumbling prayers.”
  • When Leo and Mary talk on the phone, there is a long silence that is finally broken by Mary. Leo thinks, “Thank God she was the one who finally spoke.”
  • Mary and Leo go to the movie theater but can’t find a parking spot until “the parking gods made a spot miraculously appear right in front of the theater.”
  • During a date, Leo wonders, “how in God’s name I’d scored a date with this girl.”
  • When they arrive at a party, Curtis tells Leo they are not drinking because they have a race coming up. Leo replies, “As you said, we shall treat our bodies as holy temples, Curtis, until our mission is completed next Saturday.”
  • During a race, Leo hopes he will have enough energy to overtake the lead runner. “I opened my stride on the downhill, breathed deeply, and said a quick prayer that I would have enough strength for when it was time to do the real work.”
  • While driving, Mary asks Leo for his life story. Leo thinks, “May the traffic gods be with me.” He hopes they’ll arrive at their destination soon because he doesn’t want to tell her about his life.
  • Leo asks Curtis why he runs, and Curtis responds, “I run to keep my demons at bay.”
  • Before Caleb participates in the Special Olympics race, he tells Leo, “Poke Leo’s eyeballs out middle of the night!” Leo says to not talk about that right now. Caleb says, “Sorry, Leo! What sorry mean?” Leo responds, “Sorry means God not punish you.”
  • When Caleb requests Long John Silver’s for dinner, his dad tells Leo, “Start praying that damn restaurant is still open.” Leo “starts praying.”
  • Mary asks Leo why Caleb makes little piles of grass in their yard. Leo jokes, “Our family belongs to a pagan cult that worships the moles that reside in the underworld. Our winter-solstice ceremony is fast approaching. Caleb has been commissioned by the high priest to create the burial mounds where we will make sacrifices.”
  • Caleb drowns in a swimming pool. Leo’s mom starts to say, “You know, Niles, I was the one who said-” Leo’s dad assumes she is starting to say it’s his fault Caleb drowned, and he explodes: “Oh no, Elise. You think I haven’t thought about letting him go swimming by himself? I hope to God you’re-” He is interrupted by Leo telling his parents to pull themselves together.
  • Leo approaches Caleb in his casket. He whispers to him, “Peace, brother. God love you.”
  • After seeing Caleb in the casket, Leo sobs. He composes himself and “stared blankly at a picture of Christ with his arms raised, thinking about all the times I had assured Caleb that God loved him.”
  • Curtis asks Leo why Caleb’s funeral is open-casket, and Leo says, “I think it’s a Catholic thing.”
  • Leo’s grandfather tells him he’s going to teach him how to play cards. Leo’s grandmother disapproves, saying, “For the love of God, let go of the past, Bernard.”

by Jill Johnson

The Princess and the Fangirl

Everyone knows that Jessica Stone hates everything to do with the beloved sci-fi franchise Starfield. When she signed on to play the beloved Princess Amara, Jess was expecting to use the role as a springboard into bigger and better films. But being an actress in a sci-fi universe comes with an overwhelming amount of criticism. Jess can barely handle the hatred she gets from fans on the internet, and she certainly isn’t looking forward to being surrounded by them at the annual ExcelsiCon.

Starfield fangirl, Imogen Lovelace, practically grew up on the convention floor. Every year her family runs a booth at ExcelsiCon, but this year Imogen has her own mission. She wants to #SaveAmara from being killed off, and she’s got thousands of signatures on an online petition to prove she’s not the only one. When an unfortunate case of mistaken identity leaves Imogen onstage at a panel in Jessica’s place, Imogen takes the opportunity to speak out in favor of saving the Princess.

Jessica is furious, telling Imogen she will ruin her if she even attempts such a thing again. But when an incredibly confidential script to the Starfield sequel leaks online, and Jessica’s script is nowhere to be found, she’s afraid the blame will fall to her. Jess needs to expose the real culprit before the end of the Con or risk losing her career. The solution? Trade places with Imogen so she can scope out the Con herself, a plan that turns out to be much easier said than done.

The Princess and the Fangirl is a modern-day Prince and the Pauper with a fandom twist. Both Jessica and Imogen think they can gain something by stepping into each other’s shoes, but they both end up with an unexpected perspective. Jess is longing for anonymity and an escape from the harsh gaze of the Starfield fandom. She finds herself dropped right into the middle of it all, getting a first-hand look at how the stories she always viewed as inconsequential can bring people together. Meanwhile, Imogen, who is searching for a sense of purpose, is eager to use her newfound influence to right a few wrongs. But her peek behind the scenes reveals a disturbing darker side of Starfield that only Jessica Stone gets to see.

This story is technically a sequel to Geekerella, bringing readers back to ExcelsiCon one year later. There are a few cameos from familiar faces, but Geekerella can still stand on its own. Fans of romance will enjoy the fact that each of the girls has an adorable love interest, while the mystery of the leaked script will keep readers on their toes. Both Jessica and Imogen struggle with self-image issues that teen readers will find very relatable. And, like in Geekerella, Poston’s commentary on fandom is clever and meaningful: behind every Princess, there is a normal girl.

Sexual Content

  • Jess contemplates her role as Princess Amara, thinking about how she’d accepted the role expecting it to launch her career into more meaningful roles that wouldn’t require her to look “hot in a suffocating dress while running in heels.”
  • Imogen makes several sci-fi references, including a mention of “sexy David Tennant,” the actor who played the Tenth Doctor on the television series Doctor Who.
  • While onstage next to Darien, the actor who plays Prince Carmindor in the Starfield movie, Imogen thinks of him as “the love of [her] Tumblr life.”
  • Jess is jealous of how the Starfield fandom has grown to love Darien while they continue to harass her. “Darien sort of got the same blowback when he was announced to play Federation Prince Carmindor—which is how he met his girlfriend, btw—but it died off as the fandom embraced him. Now they write love letters about his inky-black eyelashes and immaculate abs while I get dissertations on how the small mole on the left side of my mouth has ruined the beauty of Princess Amara.”
  • Imogen tosses a #SaveAmara pin to a cosplayer in a “sexy Xenomorph” costume.
  • When one of Imogen’s moms asks the other to put a Captain America figurine on the top shelf of their display, she makes a joke that could be taken sexually. She says, “I could’ve sworn he belonged on the bottom.”
  • Imogen says that her little brother met his boyfriend in the astronomy lab. Although she thinks they probably “spent more time studying each other’s astrological compatibility than learning solar physics.”
  • Imogen doesn’t look like either of her moms. Imogen says, “…although Kathy carried both Milo and me. I look like the sperm donor apparently.”
  • Ethan, Jessica’s best friend, changes his shirt in front of her. Jessica thinks, “Sure he’s pretty cute, but my eyes don’t really linger. He’d be a catch if someone burns all of his nerd shirts and puts him in some jeans that actually show he has a butt.”
  • When Jessica looks through the comments on her social media, they include, “I can tell her where she can put those pretty lips” and “fixed her chest with small kitties lol [censored photo].”
  • Imogen literally runs into Ethan, spilling coffee all over him. Before she recognizes him as Jessica Stone’s rude assistant, she thinks that he’s hot. “He’s very very Hot like I-want-to-be-stuck-in-an-elevator-with-you hot, not we-are-now-mortal-enemies-because-I-just-spilled-my-coffee-on-you-while-not-paying-attention hot.”
  • Before trading places, Jessica makes a list of rules for Imogen to follow. Rule number four is, “Don’t flirt with anyone.”
  • Jessica doesn’t give her number out freely because someone “put it on an unsavory message board.”
  • Imogen thinks that contact lenses feel like “condoms for [her] eyeballs.”
  • Harper, Imogen’s friend, is selling her fan art out of a booth next to someone “hawking sexy pin ups of burly men.”
  • When Jess first sees Harper, her mind blanks because Harper “is very pretty, with delicate features, brown skin, and natural hair pulled into twin puffs on the sides of her head.”
  • Harper’s artwork is displayed on a board in the boot. Jessica describes it as a “copious amount of fan art of Princess Amara in the arms of various characters—men and women.”
  • Actor Vance Reigns is introduced as the villain for the Starfield Imogen finds him very attractive. “He is face meltingly hot. His shoulders and chest are broad, his torso tapers down to thin hips and sturdy legs. I mean, not that his legs wouldn’t be sturdy, but you know the kind of legs where you just know, under the molten-golden trousers, that he can basically smash watermelons between them? Yeah that’s the kind of thighs I’m picturing, and I think my knees have gone numb and dear god he’s too close.”
  • When Jess sees a picture of Princess Amara embracing a female Starfield character, she says, “I can’t help but blush seeing a girl with my likeness kissing the likeness of Fiona Oro who plays Zorine.”
  • Imogen notices that Ethan is wearing Captain America-themed shoes, “And then I’m just thinking of Ethan punching Nazis, and that’s kinda hot, actually.”
  • When Ethan heads off to watch a panel, Imogen says, “Have fun with the tres horny bois.”
  • Imogen thinks she can tell that Ethan likes Jess “by the way I caught him looking at me while I was posing for pictures with a seven-year-old Carmindor, the softness of his gaze, the curl of his lips upward ever so slightly. He must’ve forgotten for a second that I wasn’t the real Jess. Those looks are probably only for her.”
  • At the Stellar party, Jess sees two girls kiss goodbye. She thinks, “I don’t mean to stare but their kiss is so simple and easy, like saying see you later, that I don’t think any thought was put into it, I wish I knew what that was like.”
  • Harper and Jess tell each other about their first kisses. Harper says, “My first kiss was a seven-minutes-in-heaven thing. I was at a birthday party in middle school. It was…terrible.” Jess’s first kiss was on a movie set. Jess says, “He was older and I was, like, fifteen. His stubble was scratchy and it gave me a rash—and he smelled like weed. He’d been smoking all day.”
  • Jess realizes she has feelings for Harper. Jess thinks, “I have a crush on this girl with curly dark hair and ink smudges on her brown fingers and trouble tucked into her maroon-colored lips.”
  • Imogen, overwhelmed by her feelings, jumps on Ethan in the pool. “Turns out he’s a lot heavier than I thought, especially for a beanpole. And his torso is very solid. Are those abs I feel? Oh sweet baby Daleks, please don’t tell me Ethan actually has a nice bod.”
  • While in the pool, Imogen and Ethan are very close. Imogen thinks, “I have to remind myself that I can’t like him, but it’s hard when a droplet of water beads at the end of a lock of raven hair in front of his face, and falls on his cheek, and rolls down his cheek slowly, languidly, like I want to run my finger down his jawline. It’s like there’s no one else but us in the world, and his eyes navigate steadily to my lips.” They almost kiss, but Imogen pulls away at the last second.
  • After having spent the night talking to Harper, Jess thinks, “I am not a serial dater. I simply never cared… I’m not built to take a random person into a bedroom, I’m not wired to want those things, and so it made all those dates and chaste kisses with celebrities so easy.”
  • Jess dislikes the internet because it makes it easy for fans to forget about the people behind the characters. “Your hot take shouldn’t dehumanize me, or tell me that I’m wrong, or that I’m worthless, or a slut who slept on some casting couch for the role.”
  • Imogen’s ex-boyfriend shows up at a meet-and-greet. When they hug, “his hands slip low.”
  • While at dinner with Vance Reign, Imogen (disguised as Jess) discovers Vince has been trying to get the real Jess to go on a publicity date with him for a long time. He tries to kiss her, but she pushes him away.
  • Jess crashes the final Starfield panel. When she starts to leave, the director asks her where she’s going. Jess responds, “The horizon is wide, and I have a girl to kiss.”
  • Jess apologizes to Harper very publicly, and when the two of them are reunited, they kiss. Jessica says, “I give her the Starfield salute—You and I are made of stars—and I hope that’s enough. She smiles and presses her hands to mine in the same pose, and then slowly, finger by finger, they fall together—And she kisses me.” The description of the kiss is about half a page.
  • Imogen kisses Ethan. She takes “his face in my hands and pull him down to kiss me. He tastes like Cheerwine, his hands rising to cup the sides of my face.” The description lasts about half a page.
  • Jess and Harper meet to get coffee and kiss again. Jessica says, “I kiss her in front of the entire world, the first word on the first page of the rest of my life.”

Violence

  • When Jess discovers Imogen has taken her place on stage, she has some murderous thoughts. “I am going to kill her. I don’t even know her name but I don’t need her name to put her in an unmarked grave. I am going to chop her up into so many pieces that when alien archeologists find her bones in a thousand years they won’t even realize she was once human.”
  • Imogen’s younger brother calls her an embarrassing nickname. She tells him, “If you weren’t my brother and I didn’t love you, I’d strangle you with your own jockstrap.”
  • In a leaked scene from the Starfield sequel script, “A group of soldiers push CARMINDOR, tied up and beaten, into the middle of the council. CARMINDOR stumbles and collapses onto the dais. Blood drips from his mouth where he has been punched repeatedly.”
  • Imogen tells Ethan a story. “When I had to debate a guy over women’s reproduction he told me that women are too fragile to have control over their own bodies. I got kicked out of the club for kneeing him in the nards.”
  • Imogen’s ex-boyfriend, Jasper, shows up at a Jessica Stone meet and greet, causing trouble. Ethan steps in to get him to leave. “Jasper whirls around, fists clinched, ready to swing. I don’t have time to shout to Ethan that a punch is coming before he raises a hand and deflects the blow with his lower arm, grabbing Jasper by the shirt and pull-throwing him out through the nearest curtain.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Imogen claims to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like “delivering someone’s homework to a frat party when the cops show up.”
  • Harper invites Jess to join her at the Stellar Party, a space-themed party that her friends throw every year, where they “drink a little, sing some karaoke, stuff like that.”
  • In the hotel room where the Stellar Party is held, “on the kitchenette bar is a wall of liquor bottles and sodas.”
  • There is a drink at the Stellar Party called “Oh No.” Harper says, “Oh No is way more vodka than common sense.”
  • Imogen hugs her brother and notices that he smells like Stellar Party, “vape juice and Oh No.”

Language

  • Imogen uses the phrase “Starflame” in place of curse words frequently. “‘Starflame!’ I curse. ‘I’m so sorry.’”
  • When Imogen and Ethan run into each other a third time, she calls him a “nerfherder,” an insult from the Star Wars “‘He is possibly the worst nerfherder in the—’ I say, while at the same time he says, ‘She’s that monster of a girl I was telling you—’ We both stop mid-sentence.”
  • When Imogen puts on a wig in order to pass as Jess, she thinks “the whole bit about long hair being more feminine is Noxballs.”
  • Ethan gets upset at Imogen and calls her a “Rapscallion look-alike.”
  • After the incident with her ex-boyfriend, Imogen appreciates that the remaining fans in line are decent people, but she thinks, “I hate that some of the dickwads in their midst are not.”
  • Natalia Ford, the actress who originally played Amara, rescues Jess from a crowd of angry fans. Jess notices that she’s wearing a shirt “covered in a pattern of tiny, artistically rendered middle-fingers.”
  • Right before the final panel, the director is looking for Darien, who is busy helping enact the girl’s plan to reveal who stole the script. Imogen tells him, “He went to take a piss.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Imogen runs into her ex-boyfriend, she asks herself, “God why do I feel so horrible?”

by Evalyn Harper

 

The Sorcerer of the North

Will is finally a full-fledged Ranger, who has his own fief to look after. Will is just getting used to the sleepy fief when he is called away on a secret mission. Lord Syron, who is a master of a castle far in the north, is struck down by a mysterious illness. Some believe that Lord Syron has been struck down by an ancient enemy who is using dark magic. One thing is known for sure: many do not respect Lord Syron’s son, Orman. Will Orman be able to guide the fief during his father’s illness?

As Will is trying to determine who is loyal to Lord Syron, Alyss shows up disguised as a noblewoman. The two hope to discover who is to blame for Lord Syron’s illness. As Will battles growing hysteria, traitors, and most of all, time, Alyss is taken hostage and Will is forced to make a desperate choice between his mission and his friend.

The Sorcerer of the North has a slow start as Will travels to his new fief. Unfortunately, Will is called away almost immediately. During the first part of the book, Halt, Alyss, and several other known characters make a short appearance. Even though their appearance sets up the book’s conflict, the action is slow. Readers who have read the previous Ranger’s Apprentice books will continue reading because they are familiar with Will and the other characters; however, those who have not read the previous books in the series will not want to start with this one.

In The Sorcerer of the North, Will spends too much time traveling to meet different people in attempt to learn about Lord Syron’s kingdom. Instead of being interesting, the reader may quickly become bored. Once Will travels to Syron’s castle, he still spends much of his time collecting information. It isn’t until the end of the book that the action picks up, ending in a cliffhanger that will lead readers to pick up the next book in the series, The Siege of Macindaw.

Even though The Sorcerer of the North isn’t as entertaining as the previous books, readers will enjoy seeing Will become more confident as a Ranger. As Will investigates Lord Syron’s fief, he learns that things are not always what they seem. However, the story has few surprises, too little action, and an easily solved mystery. In addition, readers will miss Halt, Horace, and Evenlyn, who were prominently featured in the previous books. Despite this, readers will want to continue to read The Sorcerer of the North because they know that Will’s next exciting adventure is just around the corner.

Sexual Content

  • Will is happy to see Alyss, who “sensed his need for warmth and feminine company and affection and had been more than glad to supply all three. It hadn’t progressed past some tentative embraces and kisses in the moonlight. . .”
  • As Alyss leaves Will’s house, “she leaned forward and her lips touched his—light as butterfly wings and amazingly soft to the touch. They remained so for many seconds, then Alyss finally stepped back.”

Violence

  • Will catches a man spying on him. When the man tries to sneak into Will’s house, “Will moved quickly, grabbing the man by the wrist with his right hand and pivoting to jerk him forward into the room. At the same time, he let the pivot movement throw his left leg across the doorway as a barrier, so the outsider was jerked forward and tripped over the outstretched leg. . .” The man recovers and aims a war spear at Will, “the razor-sharp head weaving slightly as if to mesmerize his enemy.”
  • When the spy, Buttle, sneaks into Will’s house, Alyss tries to help by pointing a dagger toward the man. “Buttle swung instantly toward her, dropping into a defensive crouch, the spear ready to thrust. . . ” Will cuts the tip off of Buttle’s spear. Then, Will “brought the brass pommel of the saxe thudding into his temple.” Buttle is knocked unconscious and sold into slavery.
  • As Will and two other men try to leave the castle, guards shoot at them. “Will saw movement on the battlements ahead of them, and heard a crossbow bolt strike, skidding, on the stones in front of Tug. Without conscious thought, seemingly without aiming, he shot again and a figure tumbled from the parapet into the courtyard, his crossbow clattering on the stones beside him.” The men were able to escape.
  • When men follow Will out of the castle, Will shoots an arrow at one of them. “Instead of striking home into Buttle’s upper body, it came out of nowhere and slammed into his thigh, tearing through the fleshy part of the leg and pinning it to the hard leather of the saddle.”
  • Will tries to get Alyss out of the castle, but he is unable to. When he flees the castle, a sergeant recognizes Will and “lunged clumsily with the halbert. Will’s saxe knife was in his hand and he deflected the heavy ax head to one side. Grabbing the sergeant’s arm, turning and crouching in one movement, he threw him over his shoulder to the flagstone of the courtyard. The sergeant’s head slammed into the hard stone. His helmet rolled on one side and he lay stunned.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Will asks a stranger about an injured dog. The man replies, “John Buttle has a shepherd like that one. And he’d be the kind to injure a dog and leave it that way. Has a nasty temper, John does, particularly when he’s in the drink.”
  • The Scandians needed to raid a fief in order to get supplies, including wine.
  • Will invites the Scandians to a feast. He tells a man, “But don’t try to match them drink for drink. You’ll never manage it.”
  • Will goes into a tavern where the patrons were “tapping their wine mugs on the table” and singing along with a song. One of the songs is about a “drunken witch,” and another song talks about “the drunken king of Angledart.”
  • Will goes into the barracks rooms because he knew “nothing lessened men’s tongues like an evening of music and wine.” He gives the men “a large flagon of apple brandy to help the night along.”
  • Someone poisons Orman. Later, Will finds out the poison was “a particularly nasty toxin called corocore. It’s very obscure—not listed in any of the major texts on herbs and poisons. It takes about a week to take effect, so it was probably slipped into Orman’s food or drink sometime in the last ten days.”
  • Alyss, disguised as a noblewoman, asks for someone to bring her and her guest “the good Gallic white” wine.

Language

  • A man talks about his injured dog. He says, “little bitch tried to bite me so I taught her.”
  • Damn is used occasionally. For example, Will tells a Scandian that a man “made a damn nuisance of himself around here. . .”
  • “My God” is used as an exclamation twice. For example, when someone shows Will a weapon, Will says, “My God.”
  • “Oh God” is used as an exclamation three times. “Good God” is used as an exclamation once.
  • Alyss is working undercover as Lady Gwendolyn. She tells Will, “Now we can talk, while any eavesdroppers will hear the jongleur serenading that stuck-up twit, Lady Gwendolyn.”
  • Hell is used once. Will says, “Then we ride like hell for the gate.”
  • Someone calls a guard an idiot.

Supernatural

  • While in a forest at night, Will sees an apparition. “. . . A giant figure loomed out of the mist, towering high above the mere, seemingly to rise from the black water itself. One moment there was nothing. Then, in the blink of an eye, the figure was there, fully formed. . . This was no mortal figure he knew. This was something from the other side, from the dark world of sorcery and spells.” When the apparition tells Will to leave, Will quickly exits the forest.
  • Alyss is hypnotized.

Spiritual Content

  • As he was walking across the courtyard, Will “Breathed a silent prayer that they wouldn’t encounter Buttle on his way out.”
  • Will’s dog approaches a man. When the man begins petting the dog, Will’s friend says, “Thank God you didn’t shoot him.”

Spin

Spin centers around the murder of Paris Secord, an up-and-coming musician whose stage name was DJ ParSec. After finding fame and fortune on SoundCloud and YouTube, Paris begins to clash with some of the friends who helped her on her way to the top. When Paris is found dead on top of her signature turntables, her childhood best friend Kya and social media guru Fatimah (“Fuse”) find themselves suspects in the investigation. To clear their name, they set out to solve the murder themselves.

Kya and Fuse are the two main narrators of the story, which switches between their first-person perspectives. As Kya and Fuse delve deeper into Paris’s past, they must come to terms with the bitter fallings-out they had with Paris before she died. While Kya and Fuse start as enemies, they soon bond in their shared efforts to bring justice to Paris. As they investigate, the two encounter a conspiracy involving crazed fans who will do anything to prove themselves loyal members of the ParSec Nation. As Kya and Fuse unravel the mystery, some chapters flash back to Paris’s perspective, which reveals crucial details and reveals how she coped with fame.

 Spin is a fast-paced mystery that introduces readers to music industry concepts, such as ill-intentioned managers and nosy journalists. The story honestly portrays contemporary music culture and rabid fandom. While some of this portrayal comes across as well-researched and genuine, other parts feel forced. Readers might find the narrative’s dialects and buzzwords unnatural. For example, the book often shows tweets from rabid fans, but the style and syntax of the tweets is disingenuous and awkward.

Spin succeeds in its earnest portrayal of class tensions. Kya, Fuse, and Paris all must deal with their families’ financial situations and how their circumstances have shaped their worldviews. For example, Paris set up a bank account for her newfound wealth while trying to keep her grandmother from being evicted. “I learned quickly,” Paris says, “that black-folks rich and rich-rich aren’t the same thing.”

Spin delivers no central lesson about racial injustice. However, Spin is a diverse story set across a backdrop that shows readers how black music and culture evolve. From seeing Paris in the studio to seeing her fans’ blogs and bedrooms, readers will get a close-up look of how people of color influence and lead in the music scene. Readers will also see the anxieties Kya and Fuse experience while dealing with the police, because they are wary that, as people of color, they may become victims of police brutality.

Overall, Spin feels fairly one-dimensional, and readers may guess the ending before the murderer is revealed. The story is strongest in its theme of friendship, and readers will enjoy seeing Kya and Fuse bond as they begin to heal from Paris’s death. Equally important is the way art and culture bring people together, even as fame pushes artists to their breaking points.

Sexual Content

  • An internet troll asks Fuse, “If I hooked jumper cables to a car battery and clamped them onto your fingers and toes…would you blow?”
  • In a flashback, Paris narrates how she meets her boyfriend Shameik, who was “a CUTE-cute boy from my grade. Suddenly him invading my personal space wasn’t such a big deal.”
  • Paris’s boyfriend Shameik “kissed my neck again. It tickled, but I didn’t giggle because I liked acting as if those kisses didn’t affect me so he’d keep trying.”
  • Shameik and Fuse kissed once. It isn’t a big deal to Paris and is never described in detail, but the kiss keeps being brought up.
  • A character says, “If you made me leave so [Shameik and Fuse] could make out, I’m going to need some gas money.”

Violence

  • On the night of Paris’s murder, Kya punches Fuse in the face. “Her punch connected with my left eye. A solid POP! A white explosion of pain that washed out the room for a hot second.”
  • While questioning Fuse about the murder, a police officer “holds his hands at chest level, fingers curled, ready to grab” Fuse. Another cop grabs Fuse “so all I could do was kick, then he lifted me so those kicks only hit air.”
  • Fuse remembers finding Paris’s body. “That sheet of sticky, dark blood over half of ParSec’s [Paris’s] face. How she’d been a rag doll, arms spread wide, across the turntables…Her eyes bulged, the right one deep red where white should be, like something in that side of her head had exploded.”
  • A ParSec fan at school shoves Kya into a locker.
  • Fuse says, “Beyoncé could start the Purge with a tweet if she wanted.” (The Purge is a film about an anarchic period of unhinged murder and violence; the saying “The Purge” has become shorthand for such an event.)
  • Dedicated ParSec fans kidnap Kya and Fuse, zip-tie their hands and ankles together, and put them in the back of a van. Kya’s “turned—too late—to see two [people] rushing at me, duct tape stretched and ready. The first strip pressed hard against my lips while one of my assailants wrapped me [Kya] in a bear hug, pinning my arms.” During the attack a person in a mask “slammed a palm into my [Fuse’s] chest, pushing me back against the van wall.”
  • While they are captive in the van, Fuse is “angry enough to tear a chunk out of Kya” and aims “a two-heeled kick towards Kya’s chest.”
  • Someone tells Kya, “You should calm down. You’ll bust a blood vessel.” Kya responds, “I’ll bust your blood vessels!”
  • Devoted ParSec fans threaten to cut off Kya’s pinkie with garden shears. Later, they claim they were joking.
  • When they find the murderer, a group of ParSec fans deliver him to the police, “tied, gagged, and slightly bruised.” The fans have cut off his pinkie. The murderer’s hand “was heavily bandaged. A splotch of red seeped through.”
  • Fuse threatens Paris’s manager with a stun gun, but never uses it.
  • Fuse’s mother had the stun gun because “these days she preferred pepper spray and the spiked keychain her self-defense teacher gave her.”
  • When confronting a suspect, Fuse expects Kya “to kick the door in, snap this woman’s neck like Jessica Jones, and tear [her] out the house through a load-bearing wall.”
  • Paris’s narration reveals that her murder was an accident. She recounts, “His forearm grazed my chin, and I bit into his denim jacket sleeve. There were layers between my teeth and his flesh…I bit down with all the force in my jaws. He howled, tried to fling me off. He succeeded… The stand my laptop sat on was made of heavy aluminum… the corners were sharp… My temple connected with all the force generated from me and [the murderer]’s combined pain. A solid thunk, then my legs wouldn’t work.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A popular rapper smells “strongly of weed and cologne.”
  • Paris’s boyfriend, Shameik, finds beer bottles in Paris’s apartment and says, “Who was over here drinking beer?” Paris admits to sharing beers with a popular rap group. Shameik says, “My girlfriend’s alone with some drunk old guys, and I’m not supposed to be concerned?”

Language

  • “God,” “crap,” and “Jesus” are used infrequently.
  • “God!” and “Jesus!” are used as an exclamation occasionally.
  • Fuse says that ParSec fans view Paris as “their god.”
  • Paris says that Kanye West is “one of the gods.”
  • Paris’s grandmother sometimes says, “Lord.”
  • Paris says, “I promptly lost my ish [sic]” when she gets 8,000 plays on her SoundCloud.
  • Paris’s manager calls Fuse a “strumpet.”
  • Fuse says, “Screw it,” once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Kya’s mother thanks God for Kya’s safety.
  • Kya attends Paris’s funeral and observes that “The Fifth Street Baptist Church choir should’ve been here. That was [Paris’s grandmother]’s church…where Paris got dragged every Sunday before she could call shots. There was no ‘Amazing Grace,’ no ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’”
  • A music journalist finding a lead looks “like someone told him Christmas Eve got rescheduled to today.”

by Caroline Galdi

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

Odo and Eleanor are excited to be knights. The only problem is that nothing ever happens in their sleepy little village. While Odo is happy to wait for some action to come his way, Eleanor is eager to go on the next adventure. Both knights know they are prepared to go on a quest, especially since they have their trusted and talkative enchanted swords.

When bilewolves attack the village, two strangers show up to dispatch the evil creatures. The strangers, Edga, and Hundred, are determined to prevent an unbearable imposter from taking the crown. Odo, Eleanor, and their swords join the quest. They will wander through unfamiliar lands, fight unseen enemies, and prepare for an epic battle.

The second installment of the Have Sword, Will Travel Series loses its humor and lacks a lot of the charm of the first book. When Odo and Eleanor join the quest, they meet two new characters, Edga and Hundred. Unfortunately, neither of these characters is relatable. Years ago Edga abdicated the thrown, and now he believes Kyndryk should be king. However, Kyndryk rarely appears. When he does, none of his actions prove he is worthy of becoming king.

Several new characters appear in book two. However, a bat that has been taught to recite letters in order to deliver messages is the most interesting character. All of the new characters are one-dimensional. Even though their quest is admirable, their personalities do not pop off the page. As the group travels to stop the coronation, the action lags. When the group finally makes it to their destination, a dragon appears, but his appearance is anticlimactic. Instead of adding an interesting element, the dragon does nothing to add to the story’s plot.

Readers who fell in love with Odo and Eleanor in Have Sword, Will Travel will be slightly disappointed in the sequel, Let Sleeping Dragons Lie. The simple plot, the slow pace, and the lack of enchanted sword action all add up to a mediocre sequel. If you’re looking for an excellent fantasy series, the Riders of the Realm Series by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez and the Max Tilt Series by Peter Lerangis both take readers on an adventurous journey full of wonder.

  Sexual Content

  • None

 Violence

  • “Four enormous, shaggy, wolf like creatures, each the size of a small horse” attack two people—Hundred and Edga. The man’s weapon “was a blur, leaping out to punch one bilewolf’s snout, then jab another’s forefoot. The woman was equally as adept, though she wielded a curved sword, the blade moving swiftly…”
  • When Odo and Eleanor see the fighting, they also notice “three villagers lay dead or seriously wounded, their torn and jagged clothes still smoking from the bilewolves’ acid-spewing jaws.”
  • During the battle against the bilewolves, Sir Halfdan rides his warhorse towards a bilewolf. “A bilewolf turned towards the galloping horse and charged, leaping at the last moment to avoid Sir Halfdan’s lowering lance…” Sir Halfdan “flicked the point up, taking the beast in the shoulder, the steel point punching deep. Bilewolf shrieked, the lance snapped, and then horse, knight, and dying bilewolf collided and went flying.” Sir Halfdan dies. Three other villagers are killed, but their deaths are not described.
  • During the battle, a “bilewolf bunched itself to leap up at Odo…but Runnel’s sharp point cut through its leg even as it sprang. It fell sideways, yelping and Biter came down to separate its massive head from its body…” At the end of the battle, all the bilewolves are “slain, one with a crushed skull and the other with a sliced-open throat. All four carcasses lay steaming, the grass beneath them turning black and smoking…” The above battle takes place over six pages.
  • Edga, Hundred, and some of the villagers sneak into the village’s manor house to take some men prisoner. Hundred “brought down the guard with one hand across her mouth and a forearm tight against her throat. The guard struggled for a minute, then fell unconscious.”
  • The group sneaks into the manner when all of the men are sleeping. The group seizes the sleeping men, “swiftly trussing them up like livestock, wrist tied to ankles.”
  • While the group is herding the men out of the manor, “the front door burst in, admitting the single remaining guard… Hundred tripped the guard and Odo fell on him, one knee pinning him to the ground…and they both tied him up.” No one is injured. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Someone uses a craft-fire to have birds attack Edga’s group. “With a furious flapping of wings, a dozen black shapes converged on them from all sides, claws and beaks reaching for their eyes… Edga spun his staff overhead, knocking a raven to the ground. Hundred produced a whip and cracked it twice. Three birds fell dead, instantly slain.” Everyone is able to escape without injury.
  • A hooded figure appears and when he gestures, “tiny darts hissed out of the trees, striking them each in the throat. Odo felt a string of pain, followed by a rushing, clouding sensation as darkness swept over him once more.” Everyone in the group becomes unconscious, but they wake up safely.
  • When traveling into the urthkin’s tunnels, “something moved behind her [Eleanor] and she felt a tiny pinprick at the neck. ‘Move, tall one, and I will spill your lifeblood to the dirt,’ said the urthkin holding the curved knife to her throat.”
  • Someone uses craft-fire to make birds and bugs attack Edga’s group. “An eagle and dozens of sparrows…swarmed from the sky. Scorpion, spiders, and ants issued from cracks in rocks…” The humans were able to run and escape the attack.
  • When trying to stop Edga’s sister from becoming king, Edga’s group “attacked the backs of the watching Instruments. Two fell with throwing knives buried deep in their shoulders. Another two dropped with tendons cut in their ankles.”
  • During the battle, “Odo lowered the shield from his face long enough to block a wicked slash to his ribs from a skinny woman… The blow jarred every joint in the left side of his body.”
  • In order to stop the attacking birds, “Hundred’s blades caught the craft-worker. The bearded man went down with a cry, and his green-flamed torch went out. The animals were instantly released.”
  • Hundred tries to stop Lord Deor. Hundred “threw a knife that glanced off his shoulder without doing any harm… The third bit into his neck, and he turned with a snarl.” The fighting is described over seven and a half pages.
  • Trying to capture Lord Deor, Odo continues the fight. “Blood still flowed freely down his [Odo’s] side, and his smile was looking forced.”
  • The huge rock where the fight took place began to crumble, and Lord Deor “with a cry, he fell into a fiery crack and disappeared. There came a sound like giant jaws crunching and he was gone.”
  • As Edga’s sister tried to run, the dragon caught her and wrapped her in “his lightning-fast tongue. The dragon held her like that for a few seconds, then whipped his tongue back, sending the regents spinning dizzily away until she fell over a stone and lay there, sobbing angrily.”
  • In the epilogue, an enchanted sword “lunged, killing the peasant with a single stab to the throat.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Edga asks Hundred to sing. “Give us a round of ‘Drunk Eyes Fair See What Fair Might Not Be.”
  • While traveling, Edga’s group stops for the night. As they talk to other travelers, they “passed around a flask of warming spirits that made Odo’s eyes water, just sniffing it.”
  • Someone uses poison darts to put Edga’s group “to sleep.”

Language

  • Eleanor calls someone a “slimy cumberwold.”
  • Edga’s sister says he is a “dullard.”
  • Eleanor tells Odo, “don’t be such a lubberwort.”
  • Kyndryk’s grandmother calls him a fool.
  • Edga’s sister says, “You’re supposed to be dead, you old fool!”

Supernatural

  • Biter and his sister sword are enchanted swords that are able to talk and control their movements.
  • Someone uses a craft-fire to deliberately call the bilewolves.
  • Some people believe that “the dead were dead and likely to stay that way—unless talked about too much.”
  • In order to help Edga grieve the loss of his friends, Odo built a grave. Hundred explains, “These are twigs and berries—an old Karnickan ritual, I believe. A stick for the body, a seed for the soul? To put grief to rest and let the happy memories thrive?” The group buries the stick and seed to represent the dead.
  • Urthkin, “pale-skinned, reed-slender demi-humans” that have “paws like a mole’s, with digging claws,” only come out at night because light hurts their eyes. Edga’s group asks for permission to use the Urthkin’s tunnels.
  • Edga and his group are taken to a forge that is able to create enchanted swords. Odo’s sword, Biter, asks a smith to repair a nick in his sword. Biter is “washed in sweet oils, bathed in three fires, hammered by a master smith.” Afterward, Biter’s memory comes back.
  • Kyndryk paints a mural of a dragon. He chants, “Dragon, dragon, heed our call. Come to aid us, one and all. From a cruel and dreadful fate, save us now, ere it’s too late.” After Kyndryk says the chant several times, the dragon comes alive. “But the dragon was flying too low. The broad wings flapped almost carelessly a third and final time. Then, with a soundless crash that somehow made the stone quiver faintly underfoot, it struck the vertical cliff face and became a mural once more.”

Spiritual Content

  • While trying to sneak past sentries, Odo “kept his face carefully neutral, praying his relief was perfectly concealed.”

Like a Love Story

Like a Love Story takes place in New York City in the late 1980s. The AIDS crisis is devastating gay communities, and activists are protesting the government’s reluctance to extend research or support to those affected. The narration rotates between three teenagers: Reza, Art, and Judy.

Reza is new in town, having recently immigrated to New York from Iran, where his family escaped a violent revolution. In the closet with a nearly hypochondriac fear of AIDS, Reza starts at a new school and soon meets Judy and Art, who have been best friends since childhood. Both Judy and Art are committed to gay culture and gay activism under the tutelage of Judy’s uncle Stephen, an AIDS patient and well-known member of the gay community. Art is an out-and-proud gay teenager, who is assertive and upfront about his identity. Brash and unafraid, Art is full of anger at the injustice of the AIDS crisis. Judy, a straight girl who shares Art’s love of Madonna and fashion, supports him in everything and shares his love of fashion and film.

A romance develops between Reza and Judy. But Reza, a closeted gay, knows he can only hold out for so long before his secret comes out. The first two acts of the novel largely concern their false relationship, eventual falling-out, and then the ensuing romance between Reza and Art. Each of the three narrators has a fairly equal stake in the plot, and each brings their own narration, perspective, and personality to the story. Like a Love Story is largely a coming-of-age story, but it is really three coming-of-age stories as each character grapples with their sexuality, their future, and their imminent emergence into the adult world.

Like a Love Story is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn about the AIDS crisis or the origins of the modern gay rights movement. Without preaching or lecturing, the narrative paints a rich and engaging portrait of the political climate through its three narrators. Each character in Like a Love Story has a completely unique voice; readers can open the book to any page and immediately know who is speaking.

Regardless of their own identities, readers will see themselves in the characters because of how authentically they are portrayed. Each character has uncertainty about their place in the world, an imperfect relationship with their parents, a faulty understanding of how the world works, and a yearning to belong—and readers get to see them grow as the story progresses.

 Like a Love Story has some of the most compelling adult figures in a genre where adults are often one-dimensional and cast to the side. The relationship that each teen has with their parents is complicated and imperfect, but masterfully written. It is genuinely heart-wrenching to see Art’s interactions with his homophobic parents, and it is genuinely moving to see Judy’s conversations with her mother evolve throughout the story.

Like a Love Story does not shy away from sexual content and depictions of sex acts, but it’s one of the few books that feels justified in its usage. Characters frequently talk of condoms and bodily fluids. The mechanics of AIDS transmission and the effects of the disease are explained as Uncle Stephen succumbs to infections. Readers who pick up this book in 2020 will already know the ending to some extent. Thanks to modern medicine, many people today can live full lives with HIV and new pharmaceuticals can help prevent transmission. However, the characters don’t know this, and they can only grieve the dead and dying members of their community while fighting for rights and recognition. The story highlights the importance of community, activism, and love.

Sexual Content

  • When asked how he knew he was gay, Art says, “I had a wet dream about Morrisey.”
  • During a make-out session, Judy tries to find out if Reza is aroused. “As nonchalant as I can, I move my hand down, feeling his crotch. I feel something hard. Is it him, or is it his zipper? I can’t even tell. I’ve never felt a hard-on before.”
  • Judy thinks, “Art told me once that the subway was the hottest place in the city, as in sexual heat, not physical temperature. He said that all those bodies rubbing against each other basically made it a clothed, co-ed bathhouse.”
  • Reza sees a naked male mannequin in a store window and thinks, “I look at the mannequin’s body and find myself getting a little hard. I cover my crotch with my hands. I imagine that Art is the mannequin, standing in the store window naked. How sick do you have to be to be turned on by a piece of plastic?”
  • After Reza sees a photo of Art, Reza thinks, “I need to stop thinking about him, and I know there’s only one way to do that. I lie back on my bed, close my eyes, and unzip my pants. I see Bartholomew Emerson Grant VI come to life, enter my room, climb into bed with me. He kisses me, undresses me, tells me not to be scared. But then he’s gone, and all I see are images of dying men with lesions.”
  • A big part of the second half of the plot is Reza’s shame and paranoia surrounding his sexual desires. Stephen teaches Art and Reza about safe sex and about how to use condoms safely. Stephen tells them, “If you want a tutorial, we can go home and practice with bananas. . . Lube is lubricant. Men need it, because we don’t naturally get wet down there . . . the jury is out on whether oral sex is safe or not, but my advice is to use a condom for that too.”
  • Stephen says, “The straight world has defined losing your virginity as intercourse. That’s their thing. But we get to define it for ourselves. And you never, ever have to do anything you don’t want to.”
  • Reza thinks, “I hate those words. Oral. Anal. I hate how graphic they are, how hostile they feel.”
  • In a photography darkroom, Art takes off his clothes for Reza. “There’s only one thing to take off. My boxer briefs. I remove them. I stand in front of him, exposed.” They kiss, but don’t do anything else.
  • Judy has an intimate moment with Reza’s brother, Saadi. As Judy makes out him, “It’s furious. Our tongues explore each other. Then his hands are all over me… his breath is heavy, and his hips are thrusting urgently. I feel what I never felt when Reza and I kissed, an erection. Saadi is so hard. He sits up and takes his polo off.” They don’t go all the way. “He wants to have sex, but I tell him I’m not ready.”
  • Art says, “The first time I read porn, I was twelve. I found my dad’s stash of Penthouse and Playboy magazines in the back of his closet. But Penthouse has these sex stories in them, and they were very hot because there were men in them.”
  • The characters all go to a Madonna performance wherein she masturbates onstage. The act is not described in detail.
  • When Art and Reza finally consummate their relationship, they use condoms and lube. Reza wraps “my legs around him, pulling him closer to me, or deeper into me, because he’s in me now. We thrust and grunt and sweat until we almost fall off the bed.” The scene takes up about three pages, but it is mostly dialogue and doesn’t go into more physical detail.

Violence

  • While attending a protest, Art hears bystanders say, “Hose those faggots down. They like that.”
  • During a protest, police officers “yank Art away and handcuff him.” The other police officer “pushes Reza to the ground.”
  • Some bullies begin to taunt Art, and he reacts violently. “My fingers tense into a fist. Before I know it, I leap out of my seat and tackle Darryl to the ground, taking him down like I’m one of the gorgeous ladies of wrestling. ‘Go to hell, you fucking ASSHOLE!’ I scream as he writhes below me, his scared, beefy body stronger than mine but unable to overpower the force of my rage. ‘Get off me, fag!’ he yells. ‘Not until I give you AIDS,’ I say, and I spit on his face.” Art describes later, “I pull Darryl’s foot toward my face. He pushes his leg up, kicking my chin hard in the process. My teeth hit my lips. My head doubles back, hits the wall with a thud… My eyes flicker with the shock of pain. When I open them, I see blood on my hand and on my shirt.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party with some kids from school, Judy gets “drunk on fruit punch.” Her friend tells her, “You don’t want your parents to see you like this.”
  • When Uncle Stephen is on his deathbed, he asks for a glass of wine. Judy’s mom pours wine for him and a small glass for Judy.
  • Uncle Stephen has been taking morphine for his pain; by the time he dies, his bottle of morphine is empty.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: fuck, shit, hell, ass, and damn.
  • “Oh my God” is often used as an exclamation.
  • Art is determined to reclaim the words “faggot” and “fag,” which is a recurring point throughout the story. Judy’s mom asks Art not to use the word because “I heard that word hissed at my brother like a dagger throughout his childhood, and I don’t want to hear it ever again.” They eventually agree to disagree.
  • After coming out, Reza has “heard every possible word a homosexual could be called . . . Faggot. Pansy. Mary. Butt pirate. Fruit. Turd burglar. Flamer. Nancy. Queen.”

Supernatural

  • Art can see “auras.” Readers might recognize them as a condition called synesthesia, but to Art they take on a spiritual and artistic significance. Art doesn’t “snap a photo unless I see its energy. I know they’re all black-and-white, but they have colors to me. Auras.”

Spiritual Content

  • Art says, “I think that if it weren’t for all the bullshit rules of Catholicism, then there would be no Madonna, because what is she if not a rebellion against all of this?”
  • In a church, Art thinks, “I don’t want to burn this place to the ground. What I want is to make them see that I AM HOLY. These thoughts of me and Reza, they are holy.”
  • A priest’s homily “makes multiple references to protecting ‘the unborn.’” Art thinks, “It’s amazing how gung-ho he is about saving the lives of fetuses, but then he turns a blind eye to all the actual humans DYING right in front of him.”
  • Art lights prayer candles in a church and thinks, “I know that I don’t believe in a God who can grant wishes, but if there’s even a chance that such a God exists, then I have some wishes I’d like granted.” He wishes for AIDS to be cured.

by Caroline Galdi

 

Many Waters

When identical twins Dennis and Sandy accidentally mess with their father’s scientific experiment on faster-than-light travel, they are transported to a desert wasteland. Stranded and confused, the two boys meet the locals—dark-skinned people who are only four feet tall. Between the strange people, the miniature mammoths, unicorns, and manticores, Sandy and Dennis are convinced they’re on a strange planet on the other side of the universe. After nearly dying from heatstroke, they are taken in by Grandfather Lameck. When they meet Grandfather Lameck’s son, Noah, the twins realize they have been thrown back in time and are on Earth in the time right before the Great Flood. But the flood is coming—will the twins find a way home before the rain starts to fall?

To make matters more complicated, humans are not the only intelligent beings to deal with. There are seraphim, a tall and beautiful winged people who know many things—maybe even how to get the twins home—but the seraphim do not like to interfere with the lives of men. Then, there are the nephilim, just as tall and beautiful as the seraphim, but they spend their time seducing women with worldly pleasures and extravagant treasures. The nephilim are suspicious of the twins’ sudden appearance, and they will do anything to find out what they are up to.

Once again, L’Engle spins a magical tale that centers on the battle between good and evil. Yalith and Jephath, two of Noah’s children, are kind people that do all they can to help the twins. But most people who live in the oasis are corrupt and evil, abandoning tradition to pursue pleasure and to get ahead in life. The twins and Yalith are all tempted to give in to worldly pleasures. While conflicted, all three reject temptation in exchange for kindness, unicorns, and listening to the stars.

While there are good and bad characters, several members of Noah’s family and Noah himself are more ambiguous, showing that even godly people are not perfect. While God is mentioned several times as “El,” the story centers more around the twins as they adapt to the time period and try to find a way home. The seraphim and the nephilim are revealed to be angels and fallen angels, respectively. They add intrigue and excitement to the story. Overall, Many Waters is a fun tale with a unique twist on the story of Noah’s Ark that will leave readers satisfied.

Sexual Content

  • In Noah’s time, bothmen and women only wore loincloths. Therefore, Sandy and Dennis see several women’s breasts, but none are described graphically. When meeting Yalith, Sandy notes “the girl, who wore only a loincloth . . . was gently curved, with small rosy breasts.”
  • Yalith kisses Aariel, a seraph, much as a child kisses a parent. “Like a child, she held her face up for a kiss, and Aariel leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers.”
  • Yalith sees her sister with a nephilim. Her sister was “gazing up at him adoringly, leaning against him so that her rosy breasts touched his pale flesh.”
  • Japheth kisses his wife several times. Once, “Japheth leaned to her and kissed her on the lips. Dennis . . . thought that it was a nice kiss. It was the kind of kiss he had seen his father give his mother. A real kiss. If he lived through this, he would like to kiss someone like that.” Another time, Japheth’s wife “bent toward him to kiss him.”
  • A girl from the oasis flirts with Sandy. She “bent closer and brushed her lips against his.” Later, she tries to seduce him. “He was not prepared to have the light suddenly darkened by Tiglah’s face as she pressed her lips against his . . . he knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too; he was ready, but not, despite her gorgeousness, with Tiglah . . . her breathing mingled with his. He knew if he did not break this off, he would not be able to. With a deep inward sigh, he pulled away.”
  • Sandy thinks about taking Yalith to the future with him. Sandy “looked at Yalith’s small and perfect body, barely covered by the loincloth, her breasts delicate and rosy, and had a moment’s absurd vision of her in one of the classrooms at the regional high school.”
  • When saying goodbye, “Yalith nodded, then reached up to Sandy and kissed him on the lips. Then Dennis. Full, long kisses.”

Violence

  • Sandy is kidnapped. “He tried to wriggle out of the clutch of whoever was carrying him, and a fish crashed into his belly, winding him, and something sharp pricked his arm.”
  • When Japheth tries to rescue Sandy, “the older man swooped on him with the spear, and despite Japheth’s quick reflex, the spear cut across his ribs, and a trickle of blood slid down his side.”
  • Japheth comes home with “an ugly bruise on his cheek where an angrily thrown stone had hit him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Noah has the “largest and best vineyards on the oasis . . . the fame of his wine had spread to many other oases round about.”
  • A man is sick from drinking too much. Afterward, “the smell of Ham’s sickness mingled with the smell of wine, of meat form the stewpot, of the skins of the tent.”
  • Yalith remembers how her sister had a wedding with “far too much wine, inferior, at that.”
  • When Noah reconciles with his father, he “handed his father a small wineskin. . . The old man held the wineskin to his lips, then smacked them in appreciation.” Sandy also takes a small sip.

Language

  • When a woman’s family kidnaps him, Sandy thinks, “you slut.”
  • An angry man says, “Auk’s nuts to you.”

Supernatural

  • Sandy and Dennis accidentally mess up their father’s scientific experiment and are sent back in time. “Dennis groped through a pervasive mist, his hands touching nothing. Came a great sonic boom. Then absolute silence.”
  • In the past, there were miniature mammoths. “From behind the outcropping of rock came something grey and sinuous which the twins at first thought was a snake. But it was followed by a head with small, bright, black eyes, and great fans of ears, and a chunky body covered with shaggy grey hair.”
  • There are manticores in the past, which try to eat the mammoths several times. The manticore had a “man’s face with filthy hair. . . From the mat of hair came two horns, curved downward, with sharp points like boar’s teeth. . . The rest of the creature pushed into the tent. The head did not belong to a man’s body but to a lion’s . . . the lion did not have a lion’s tail but a scorpion’s.” The manticores can only say the word “hungry!”
  • There are unicorns that flicker in and out of existence. They can flicker out of existence in one place, then be called into existence miles away instantaneously. “On the horizon to the far left, moving toward them, appeared a creature which shimmered in and out of their vision, silvery in color, as large as a goat or a pony, with light flickering out from its forehead.”
  • There are seraphim (angels) and nephilim (fallen angels). Both have “Great wings. Much long hair. . . The seraphim are golden and the nephilim are white, whiter than sand.”
  • Both the seraphim and the nephilim can turn into animals; each has their own animal they transform into. One of the seraphim is a scarab beetle. “Grandfather Lameck took it on his palm, a scarab beetle, glinting bronze in the lamplight. The old man stroked it gently with a trembling forefinger, and closed his palm. Then came a vivid flash of light, similar to that of the unicorn’s horn, and a tall presence stood in the tent, smiling at the old man…Hair the color of wheat with the sun on it, brightly gold, long, and tied back, falling so that it almost concealed tightly furled wings.” One of the nephilim is a giant desert lizard. “As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly [its] arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple.”
  • Yalith shows Dennis how to listen to the stars. “He listened, listened, focusing on one bright pattern of stars. Closed his eyes. Listened. Seemed to hear a delicate, crystal chiming. Words. Hush. Heal. Rest. Make peace. Fear not. He laughed in excitement. Opened his eyes to twinkling diamonds.”

Spiritual Content

  • A woman tells the twins, “We don’t have any men on the oasis who are as tall and like gods as you are.”
  • The twins discover that Grandfather Lameck’s son is Noah, from the biblical story of Noah and the Arc.
  • Yalith recounts her family lineage, which includes the biblical figures Methuselah and Enoch. “Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years, and then El took him.”
  • The people in Noah’s time call God “El” and El sometimes speaks to them, though his words are never shared directly in the story. Noah says, “Yesterday, when I was working in the vineyard, the Voice spoke to me. El told me that I must find wives for you.”
  • Japheth mentions a curse on the land. “When our forebears had to leave the Garden, they were told, Accursed shall the ground be on your account. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow.”
  • The seraphim mention the pattern. They say the twins “are part of the pattern,” but “the pattern is not set. . . It is fluid, and constantly changing.” They always maintain that the pattern “will be worked out in beauty in the end.”

by Morgan Lynn

New Moon

Bella always knew Edward was too good to be true, and her worst fears come to fruition when he tells her that he is leaving Forks—and he doesn’t want her to come with him. He promises it will be “like he never existed.” But the hold he has on her heart isn’t something that fades with time. As the months stretch out without Edward, Bella succumbs to a mind-numbing depression where time passes, but she doesn’t really live.

Bella doesn’t expect things will ever change until she runs into Jacob, an old friend from the nearby reservation. Jacob becomes her best friend. He is so warm and kind that she begins to think of Jacob as her own personal sun, burning away the dark clouds that have surrounded Bella for so long. Bella knows that Jacob longs for their relationship to move forward, but is her damaged heart even capable of that kind of healing? To make matters worse, there’s a cult on the reservation that’s sucking in many of the teenage boys. When Jacob suddenly vanished from her life and starts hanging around with the very people he had been scared of before, Bella decides she has to help her friend break free. But the bonds that tie Jacob may be deeper and more permanent than Bella could possibly imagine.

In New Moon, Bella struggles to move on after losing her one true love. At first, she wallows in depression, trying to put on a brave face for the world outside, but eventually she learns that she isn’t fooling anyone. Once Jacob enters her life, she begins to heal, but she also clings to the memory of Edward. Her inability to let go of the past prevents her from moving forward as she grapples with questions such as, is it possible to have more than one love in one lifetime? And is it right to give herself to Jacob, when a part of her still mourns for Edward?

The second installment of the Twilight series takes a shocking turn, but it will not disappoint. Readers need not worry that Edward’s absence for most of the novel will detract from its entertainment factor. Bella’s trauma over the loss of Edward, his family, and her life as a vampire keeps that storyline very much alive, as does the reappearance of an old enemy. Jacob, his father Billy, and Jacob’s friends on the reservation breathe life into the story, bringing new, lovable characters into the mix. These characters are well-developed, and Jacob will steal the heart of all but the strongest Edward supporters. The end of New Moon comes in an exhilarating rush that will either leave readers rejoicing or will break their hearts. Either way, make sure to have the next book, Eclipse, nearby!

Sexual Content

  • Bella and Edward kiss several times. “He leaned closer and pressed his icy lips against mine . . . His mouth lingered on mine, cold and smooth and gentle, until I wrapped my arms around his neck and threw myself into the kiss with a little too much enthusiasm.” Another time, “he sighed, and leaned down to touch his lips to mine. I reached up on my toes to make the kiss last longer when he pulled away.”
  • While in bed, Edward and Bella make out. “The kiss began much the same as usual . . . And then something seemed to change. Suddenly his lips became much more urgent, his free hand twisted into my hair and held my face securely to his . . . His body was cold through the thin quilt, but I crushed myself against him eagerly.”

Violence

  • Bella gets pushed into a table and falls into a pile of broken crystal. “Only now did I feel the searing, stinging pain…Dazed and disoriented, I looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of my arm.”
  • When Jacob tells Bella that he helped kill “the bloodsucker who was going to kill you,” he says, “I don’t count that towards the whole murder thing . . . Vampires don’t count as people.”
  • Bella gets injured several times while learning to ride a motorcycle.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Hell is used several times. Once, Bell says, “How the hell did Mike Newton end up in this conversation?”
  • Crap is used several times. Bella says, “I did drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie.”
  • Pissed off and damn are used a few times. While drowning, Bella hears Edward’s voice yell, “Damn it, Bella, keep fighting.”

Supernatural

  • Edward and his family are vampires, though they choose to survive on animal blood rather than human blood. They are super strong, fast, and several of them have special abilities like Edward’s ability to hear peoples’ thoughts.
  • Jacob and his friends can transform into giant wolves. “With another sharp tearing sound, Jacob exploded, too. He burst out of his skin—one second it was Jacob diving into the air, and then it was the gigantic, russet brown wolf—so enormous that I couldn’t make sense of its mass somehow fitting inside Jacob.”

Spiritual Content

  • Carlisle says, “Never, in the nearly four hundred years now since I was born, have I ever seen anything to make me doubt whether God exists in some form or the other.” Meanwhile, Edward thinks “God and heaven exist . . . and so does hell. But he doesn’t believe there is an afterlife” for vampires. “You see, he thinks we’ve lost our souls.”
  • When Jacob agrees to help Bella, she thinks, “Jacob was a gift from the gods.”
  • When Edward sees Bella, who he thinks has died, he thinks he is dead also. “Maybe this is hell. I don’t care.”

by Morgan Lynn

Tumbling

Tumbling takes place over the course of a two-day gymnastics meet, but it’s not just any meet—this meet determines who will represent the United States at the Olympics. The story is told from the perspectives of five different girls, each of whom deals with her own struggles.

Leigh is a closeted lesbian and worries about the implications if her secret gets out. Grace has a distorted view of what a perfect gymnast is and ends up paying the price. Monica is a nobody and feels she isn’t good enough to be there. Wilhelmina’s shot at the Olympics was taken from her four years ago because of a rule change, and now she is determined to prove she deserves to go more than anyone else. Camille was injured four years ago in a car crash and is making a comeback to gymnastics, but she can’t decide if this is what she truly wants. Is the Olympics worth sacrificing her boyfriend and her happiness?

Although each girl’s problem is unique, they all struggle with the complexity of competing against friends. Everyone is paranoid; no one’s words can be trusted. Tumbling explores the enormous pressures that come with gymnastics—on bodies, mental states, friendships, and relationships.

Tumbling is an intense book with routines so detailed that readers will hold their breaths as they read them. Readers will cheer when the girls land their routines perfectly and ache when they make mistakes. Readers who know nothing about gymnastics will be able to understand Tumbling, but there is a glossary in the back of the book to help with the gymnastics terminology if needed. Rather than focusing on the intricacy of the sport, the story focuses more on the girls’ struggles. Readers will relate to the girls’ problems, which include sexuality, eating disorders, confidence, family relationships, and boyfriends.

The characters invoke sympathy, but none of them are truly likable. They are petty and constantly play mind games with each other. Because the story takes place over two days, there isn’t enough time for the girls to develop. The book ends abruptly and leaves the reader with many unanswered questions. Overall, Tumbling is best suited for those looking to read an entertaining book. Readers who want a mix of spots, teenage drama, and intense competition will enjoy Tumbling.

 Sexual Content

  • Leigh has a crush on Camille and fantasizes about her a couple of times. Leigh is distracted at the meet and thinks about “Camille’s cushy lips.” Camille comes to Leigh’s room with the other gymnasts to watch an interview. “It wasn’t going to be like it had been in Leigh’s fantasies last night. When Camille had sat down with Leigh on her bed and told her she was dumping her boyfriend because she’d realized she thought Leigh was so much hotter. And then had laid down next to her and. . . ”
  • After Leigh performs a perfect floor routine, she hugs teammate after teammate until eventually, Camille hugs her. “Camille was hugging her, actually pressed against her body, like Leigh had imagined so many times in the privacy of her own head.”
  • Dylan Patrick, a member of a famous boy band, messages Grace and says she’s “hot.” He, Grace, and Leigh send flirty messages throughout the book, such as, “It means a lot to know someone is watching me. Especially someone as cute as you.”
  • Monica flashes back to when she got waxed “down there.” She describes how “…the wax job from a few days ago had replaced her pubic hair with angry red welts.” She remembers she lay “half-naked” and “her crotch burned like any other fifteen-year-olds.”
  • During the meet, Monica is uncomfortable being “basically naked” and having “every line on her body on display.”
  • A doctor asks Camille, who is sixteen, if she menstruates.
  • Camille lists the things that were different about her before she met her boyfriend. “Different height. Different weight. Different voice. Virgin.”
  • Camille talks about how she has grown since she took a break from gymnastics by saying, “…a woman of five feet and one inch with breasts and hips.”
  • Wilhelmina almost wishes she could be a mean gymnast, someone who would “message Dylan Patrick something suggestive tonight to get under Grace’s skin.”
  • There are several instances of Wilhelmina fantasizing about kissing her boyfriend, such as, “She’d wrap her arms around his and press her lips to his.”
  • Wilhelmina and her boyfriend almost kiss. Wilhelmina’s “lips were just centimeters away from his. She could feel her breath on his mouth.” They don’t kiss because he says he can wait until Wilhelmina is done with the Olympics.
  • Leigh thinks Grace wraps herself in multiple towels because she didn’t want Leigh to see “a bit of skin besides her face and her feet.”

Violence

  • Grace has an eating disorder. She “pared herself down to three hundred or five hundred calories a day just to be a bee to keep up with the skinnies.” She worries Leigh will “see how far my collarbone is sticking out today, afraid you’d notice that my legs are like twigs growing out of the hotel carpet.” She eventually confesses she doesn’t eat to Leigh and Camille, with the intention of confessing to her dad, and promises she will get help.
  • Wilhelmina sees evidence of Grace’s eating disorder a few times throughout the book and is saddened by it, but chooses not to do anything about it. She sees Grace throw away an entire plate of food twice. She notices how skinny her body is a few times. “Wilhelmina swore she could see through Grace’s quadriceps to her femur. Even when Grace was bent over, her hip bones were visible.”
  • In a flashback that takes place four years ago, Camille is ecstatic after making it onto the Olympic team. She is having an out-of-body experience when she gets into a car crash. “…almost like she wasn’t in the car but was instead floating about it, watching and saving the joy for later. And it was good she wasn’t in her body at that moment. Because that’s probably why she didn’t feel her head go through the windshield.” Her doctor says gymnastics caused “‘…the stress fractures in your back that caused it to break in three places during the crash.’”
  • Gymnastics is discussed as being dangerous to your health. Camille’s doctor tells her, “‘It’s gymnastics that almost killed you.’” Camille thinks, “Everyone had some sort of scare when she fell head-first off the bars or whacked her back into the balance beam from three feet in the air.”
  • Grace suggests to the reporters Leigh is a lesbian, and Leigh gets angry. “Leigh was going to slap her. If it weren’t for the cameras still in the vicinity, her hand would be imprinted on Grace’s face.”
  • Grace almost falls off the bar due to her eating disorder. During her routine, “her body almost crumpled off the bar and whacked it before falling 8.2 feet to the floor.”
  • Leigh falls off the beam and gets injured. “A hammer bashed into her forehead just above her right eye. Her body stiffened and her blood was sharp and painful, like razors running through her veins, and her eye was going to fall out and roll on the floor, that floor, which was coming up beneath her limbs much too quickly, and then, thankfully, she blacked out.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Leigh and Grace watch as Monica picks her wedgie. They say she needs to “‘buy better butt glue’” and call her the “Wedgie Queen.” They continue to joke about this a few more times throughout the book.
  • God, Oh God, Oh my God, and For God’s sakes are used frequently as exclamations.
  • Christ is used once as an exclamation.
  • Leigh’s coach calls a reporter an asshole.
  • Leigh worries she is a bitch on the mat.
  • Profanity is used sparingly throughout the book. Profanity includes: shit, bullshit, damn it, damn, badass, freaking, and kick ass.
  • “For the hell of it” is used once.
  • A girl says, “That was some effed-up stuff.”
  • Wilhelmina tells Camille to “cut the crap.”
  • “Get her butt back on the beam” and “Kicking butt” are each used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Grace meditates before her beam routine. “It would look like she was praying, but Grace didn’t pray…It was her own body she counted on, not some Great Unknown Creature in the Sky.”
  • Camille made the Olympic team four years ago, but she had to withdraw due to a car accident. She describes her moment of happiness in the car as “this hoped for, prayed for moment was almost otherworldly, almost like she wasn’t in the car but was instead floating above it, watching and saving the joy for later.”
  • Leigh is tired of being mean during the gymnastics meet, so she promises to be nice and still win the meet. “So when Leigh had closed her eyes last night, she had made a promise to the Gods of Gymnastics or the Universe or whoever was in charge out there. Tomorrow, I will be me, and I will still win. I will win while being nice.”
  • After Leigh falls, Grace says, “I think I accidentally prayed for it.”
  • After Leigh falls, Monica tells Grace and Ted, “You aren’t gods.”

by Jill Johnson

 

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Vol 1

Link is a simple boy in a small, peaceful village. However, he lived a very different life before he came to the village less than two years ago. Before, he had been training with the sword to become a border guard. Then, in a tragic accident, Link’s entire town was sucked into the blackness by a Death God and vanished. Link fled in terror and has been hiding ever since, though he hasn’t been able to escape his guilt.

When monsters invade Link’s safe haven, he springs into action to defend his new home. But these strange creatures are nothing like Link has ever seen before. Will he be able to redeem himself and save his new home? Or is Link doomed to watch another town be swallowed by the darkness?

Link himself is an enjoyable and relatable hero. He has a sense of humor despite his tragic past. He tries to be patient with the children of the village, and when he loses his temper, he regrets it later. However, the other supporting characters in the story are undeveloped caricatures.

There are some mild violent and sexual images, though these do not abound. Specifically, the monsters and Death God may be frightening to younger readers, and parents may not appreciate the bikini-clad princess that appears in the first chapter. However, for the 13+ recommended age range, the images in this graphic novel are much less graphic and sexual than other popular teen graphic novels. Still, the graphic novel is noticeably darker than the video game, such as when the Death God is introduced, Link suffers a gruesome injury.

For fans of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess video game, this graphic novel will be an enjoyable read. Though the graphic novel diverges from the video game, there are enough similarities that gamers will recognize and enjoy. Link is given a different backstory in this graphic novel, which provides enough of a difference that it is not simply a repeat of the game. For readers who have not played the video game and are meeting Link for the first time, they may find that the plot drags. While there is plenty of action at the end, the first half of the book meanders around, introducing characters and aspects of Link’s life from the video game. While interesting enough to gamers, there might not be enough action to hook new readers.

Sexual Content

  • The Twilight Princess, who only appears in chapter one, is dressed in a bikini top and sarong skirt that bares most of her legs.
  • When Link gets rammed by a goat, he thinks, “It’s weird for Ordon goats to be so aggressive. Is it mating season?”

Violence

  • The sorcerer Zant attacks the Twilight Princess. There is a giant explosion as he overpowers her.
  • A village girl is shot in the shoulder with an arrow and then kidnapped.
  • Link fights the monster trying to kidnap a village girl. The fight is depicted over 11 pages. At the end of it, Link’s arm is cut off.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Link lives in a world with magic and monsters.
  • The sorcerer, Zant, turns the people who live in the Twilight Realm into monsters to serve his evil plans.
  • When Link pulls a sword from a stone, his village is sucked into darkness by a terrifying Death God, who appears like a skeleton with glowing eyes.
  • There are drawings of goblins, skeletons, and other monsters that invade the realm and terrify the villagers. Most of this attack is not shown. One of the monsters threatens the people who don’t live in the twilight realm, saying, “I will curse them all.”
  • When Link travels to the Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a giant wolf.

Spiritual Content

  • The villagers speak of the spirits that protect them several times. For instance, a village woman tells Link, “The spirits give strength to all manner of things. They bring light and consciousness to all things.”
  • There is a legend that when evil people tried to use magic to take over the land, “the goddesses grew angry at this affront and sent four spirits of light to seal the upstarts’ magical power away in the shadow crystal. Furthermore, the mirror of shadow prevented these wizards from entering the world of light. They were exiled to the twilight realm.”
  • A spirit of light heals Link’s arm after it is cut off in a battle.

by Morgan Lynn

A Court of Mist and Fury

The story continues in this thrilling sequel. Feyre must heal from her torment and learn to control her newfound power. Feyre has saved Prythian from the evil tyrant Amarantha, and she has been reborn as a faerie. As Feyre adjusts to her new faerie body, she uncovers new powers she has been gifted from the high fae. Feyre struggles to overcome trauma causing her relationship with Tamlin to become increasingly strained. As their relationship deteriorates, Tamlin becomes more controlling. Eventually, Tamlin uses magic to trap Feyre inside their home. When Feyre calls for help, Rhysand, the high lord of the night court, hears her plea and saves her. Rhysand takes Feyre to the night court where her next chapter begins.

While Feyre begins to heal from her broken relationship with Tamlin, she finds an unlikely ally in Rhysand. As Feyre heals, her bond with Rhysand grows stronger; however, she must ready herself for an approaching threat. Dark plans are revealed, and Feyre realizes she might be the key to stopping an imminent war against Hyburn, an ancient land that is plotting a war to take over Prythian and the human lands. Will Feyre ever recover from her trauma? Will she let herself have feelings for the beautiful high lord of the night court? Will Feyre be able to master her new powers in time to save Prythian?

 A Court of Mist and Fury is a stunning sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses. Feyre is a strong female who leads the fighting and demonstrates great powers among the faeries. A Court of Mist and Fury focuses on the inner workings of the night court and introduces new, funny, and vibrant characters. As Feyre’s adventure continues, her new powers begin to make her a target among the high fae. Instead of backing down, she trains to control her powers and to protect herself. Feyre’s powers put a feminist spin on the series because the high lords need Feyre’s help to save Prythian. With this sequel, Maas creates a story that is even better than the first. A Court of Mist and Fury continues to dive into the rich history of the faerie world and the different courts.

Maas develops her characters in a realistic way that allows the readers to relate to her strong characters and fall in love with them. Maas allows her protagonist to have multiple relationships and friendships, showing that a broken heart is not the end of a character’s story. She allows Feyre to have multiple loves, with many highs and lows, to show a more realistic look at what it is to find love. These different love interests and friendships display the true difficulties of relationships and that, ultimately, everyone has to do what is healthiest for themselves when it comes to love. These relationships make the story more genuine and powerful, even though the setting is in a magical world. With Feyre’s heartbreak and her healing from physical trauma, the story touches on her mental health and the effects of depression. While Feyre is healing, she goes through a mourning process and comes out the other side stronger than ever. This novel delves into the raw emotion of heartbreak, depression, and the healing that everyone, human or faerie, must go through in their life.

Sexual Content

  • Feyre and Tamlin have an intimate moment. Feyre “moved on him. Lightning lashed through my veins, and my focus narrowed to his fingers, his mouth, his body on mine. His palm pushed against the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, and I groaned his name as I shattered.” The scene is described over two pages.
  • To distract the court, Rhys and Feyre pretend to be a couple. They put their “show” relationship on display and Rhysand’s “hand slid higher up my thigh, the proprietary touch of a male who knew he owned someone’s body and soul. He’d apologized in advance for it- for this game, these roles we’d have to play. But I leaned into that touch, leaned back into his hard, warm body.” This exchange goes on for three pages.
  • Feyre and Rhysand stay in an inn, and they share a bed. “The fingers he’d spread over my stomach began to make idle, lazy strokes. He swirled one around my navel, and I inched imperceptibly closer, grinding up against him, arching a bit more to give that other hand access to my breasts.” They decide to not go any further sexually, as they are in the beginning stage of their relationship. This intimate moment lasts two pages.
  • Feyre and Rhys’s mating bond snaps into place, and they have sex for the first time. Rhys “deepened the kiss, and I wrapped my legs around his back, hooking him closer. He tore his lips from my mouth to my neck, where he dragged his teeth and tongue down my skin as his hands slid under my sweater and went up, up, to cup my breasts. I arched into the touch and lifted my arms as he peeled away my sweater in one easy motion.” The scene is described over three pages.

Violence

  • Rhys tells the story of how Azriel got his scars on his hands. “For the eleven years that Azriel lived in his father’s keep, she [Azriel’s stepmother] saw to it that he was kept in a cell with no window, no light. When he was eight, his brothers decided it’d be fun to see what would happen when you mix Illyrians quick healing gifts with oil and fire. The warriors heard Azriel’s screaming. But not quick enough to save his hands.”
  • Rhys and Feyre are flying when arrows attacked them. Feyre “felt the impact—felt blinding pain through the bond that ripped through my own mental shields, felt the shudder of the dozen places the arrows struck as they shot from bows hidden beneath the forest canopy.”
  • Feyre attacks a camp of faeries that have taken Rhys hostage. “The others around them shouted as I dragged my ash arrows across their throats, deep and vicious, just like I’d done countless times while hunting. One, two—then they were on the ground, whips limp. Before the guards could attack, I winnowed again to the ones nearest. Blood sprayed. Winnow, strike; winnow, strike.”
  • Valerian is attacked, and Feyre witnesses a woman impaled on a light post. The woman’s “body bent, her back arched on the impact.” As the city is being attacked, Feyre hears “screams, the beating wings, the whoosh and thud of arrows erupted in the sudden silence.”
  • Feyre attacks the Attor, a winged monster, before he can escape the attack on Valerian. The Valerian “shrieked, wings curving as I slammed into it. As I plunged those poisoned ash arrows through each wing . . . the Attor could not break free of my flaming grasp.”
  • Jurian “fires an ash bolt through Azriel’s chest” that almost kills him.
  • Feyre, Rhys, and the rest of his court try to infiltrate Hyburn and nullify the Cauldron before it can be used for evil. When they get to Hyburn, they realize it is a trap. Tamlin has sold them out to the king. The king kidnapped Feyre’s human sisters, who were “gagged and bound.”
  • The king forces Feyre’s sisters to go into the cauldron to be transformed into fairies against their will. “Elain was hoisted up between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the cauldron as if she’d push off it or knock it down. The guards shoved my sister into the cauldron in a single movement.”
  • The king breaks Feyre and Rhys’s bond. “Tamlin gripped my arms as I [Feyre] screamed and screamed at the pain that tore through my chest, my left arm. A crack sounded in my ears. And the world cleaved in two as the bond was broken.”

 Drugs and Alcohol   

  • Feyre mentions drinking wine with most meals.
  • Mor tells Feyre, “come sit with me while the boys drink.”
  • Feyre talks about how Mor “had been out drinking and dancing until the mother knew when.” Feyre eludes that Cassian and Azriel have hangovers, describing them as “grumbling and wincing over breakfast, had looked like they had been run over by wagons.”
  • Feyre goes out to a nightclub with Rhys, Mor, Cassian, and Azriel. She describes “nursing her glass of wine” as Mor and Cassian “danced around the bar.”

 Language

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes: shit, damn, ass, and hell.
  • Rhys and Feyre are having an argument and Rhys says, “I don’t give a damn what I have to do.”

Supernatural

  • Feyre asks Rhysand about his winnowing powers and he says, “Winnowing? Think of it as . . . two different points on a piece of cloth. One point is your current place in the world. The other one across the cloth is where you want to go. Winnowing… it’s like folding that cloth so that two spots align. The magic does the folding and all we do is take a step to get from one place to another.”
  • Feyre meets a water-wraith and describes her as wearing “no clothes. Her long, dark hair hung limp and her massive eyes were wholly black.”
  • Feyre uses her powers unknowingly and goes into the mind of Lucien. She describes it as, “still there, still seeing through my eyes, but only half looking through another angle in the room, another person’s vantage point – his head. I had been inside his head, had slid through his mental walls.”
  • Tamlin and Feyre get into a fight, and he gets so enraged that his power “blasted through the room.” The room is destroyed around Feyre, but she isn’t hurt. When Tamlin tries to come to her, he hits an invisible wall around her. “And I realized that the line, that bubble of protection. . . It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one but a physical one, too.”
  • Feyre starts to feel talons growing on her hands. She describes it as “where my nails were growing, curving. Not into talons of shadow, but claws.” She can also will them away “like blowing out a candle.”
  • Rhysand tells Feyre about her power to look into other people’s minds, which is a power he also shares. “We’re called daemati- those of us who can walk into another person’s mind as if we were going from one room to another. If you were to ever encounter a daemati without those shields up, Feyre, they’d take whatever they wanted.”
  • Feyre describes Amren, one of Rhysand’s inner circle members in the night court, as being an other-worldly being inside a human body. “Her silver eyes were like nothing I had ever seen; a glimpse into the creature that I knew in my bones wasn’t high fae. Or hadn’t been born that way. The silver in Amren’s eyes seemed to swirl like smoke under glass.”
  • Rhys describes the Illyrians, a race of winged faerie warriors, since he is half Illyrian and his closest friends and court members, Cassian and Azriel, are also Illyrian. “The Illyrians are unparalleled warriors, and are rich with stories and traditions. But they are also brutal and backwards.”
  • Rhys and Feyre go to a magical prison inside a rock with “the foulest, most dangerous creatures and criminals you can imagine” to visit a prisoner called the bone carver. The bone carver is a magical creature that may “appear to you as one thing, and I might be standing right beside you and see another.”
  • Feyre sees the weaver, a scary, mythical being. She describes her with “gray skin, wrinkled and sagging and dry. Her lips had withered to nothing but deep, dark lines around a hole full of jagged stumps of teeth.”
  • Amren doesn’t eat human food, and while they are all out to dinner together, the restaurant’s owner brings her “a goblet filled with dark liquid.” After Amren takes a sip, her teeth were “gleaming with blood.”
  • Feyre practices with her water powers by “making water rise from the tub, then shaping little animals and creatures out of it.”
  • The night court celebrates a holiday called Starfall, where stars “cascaded over them filling the world with white and blue light.” Rhys tells her they’re not stars at all, but “spirits on a yearly migration to somewhere. Why they pick this day to appear here, no one knows.”

 Spiritual Content

  • Feyre meets Ianthe, one of the high priestesses of Prythian. “Among the high fae, the priestesses oversaw their ceremonies and rituals, recorded their histories and legends, and advised their lords and ladies in matters great and trivial.”
  • The bone carver tells Feyre about the Cauldron where “all magic was contained inside it and the world was born in it. It could not be destroyed, for it had made all things, and if it were broken, then life would cease to exist.”

by Adeline Garren

Geekerella

Elle Whittimer is living in an impossible universe. Her father died, leaving her with her awful stepfamily. Now her only connection to her father is through Starfield, an old science fiction television show that he loved so much he started a fan convention for it. These days ExcelsiCon is one of the biggest cons in the country, but Elle hasn’t been back since her father died. Instead, she finds her solace in late night Starfield reruns, posting on her blog, Rebelgunner, and dreaming of the day when she can escape to California and become a screenwriter. When a movie reboot of Starfield is announced, Elle is afraid that her favorite story is about to be ruined. But this movie just might be the ticket to her dreams because this year, the first-place prize for ExcelsiCon’s cosplay contest is a chance to attend the premiere in Hollywood. With a little help from her coworker Sage, Elle decides to turn her father’s old costume into a prize-winning cosplay.

Darien Freeman just landed the role of a lifetime: Federation Prince Carmindor in the Starfield movie reboot. However, as a lifelong fan, he’s afraid he won’t be able to do the character justice. There are already fans, like the blogger behind Rebelgunner, who are convinced that casting a teen heartthrob was a terrible idea. The last thing Darien wants to do is surround himself with a bunch of angry, hardcore Starfield fans, which means he really needs to get out of judging the ExcelsiCon’s annual cosplay contest. When Darien sends a text hoping to contact someone at ExcelsiCon, he ends up reaching Elle. After connecting through a mutual love of Starfield, their anonymous friendship begins to grow into something more. But what will happen when their paths cross on the convention floor?

Geekerella is part modern-day Cinderella story and part love letter to fandom culture. Poston does a wonderful job exploring the ways in which art can bring together creators and fans alike – across time and distance. Themes of love and acceptance are an integral part of the story. At the same time, some darker topics are addressed, like Elle’s mistreatment by her stepfamily and how Darien has lost his personal life to overzealous fans and toxic paparazzi.

At its heart, Geekerella is an adorable fairytale. Even if readers are unfamiliar with fandom culture, they can still have fun picking out the parallels to the classic Cinderella story. Elle is a charming heroine, whose wit and determination make her easy to root for, while Darien’s sweet optimism makes him an incredibly endearing character. When these two lonely souls find each other through a mutual love of Starfield, it’s nearly impossible not to hope that their budding romance will overcome all the obstacles thrown in their way.

Sexual Content

  • Darien says he doesn’t want to think about the “creepy google searches” that male fans of his costar Jessica Stone make, implying that they might be sexual in nature.
  • Elle describes Darien’s face as “annoyingly beautiful.”
  • When Darien takes off his shirt on live TV, Elle says, “His abs and chest beam across Catherine’s plasma TV, piercing through [her] sleepy brain like a ray of hope in this godless universe.”
  • A fan jumps on stage and forces herself onto Darien. “Her mouth connects with [Darien’s] with such force that it sends them both tumbling over the sofa.”
  • When Darien discusses the kissing incident with his bodyguard, Darien says he thought he’d “choke on her tongue.”
  • Darien and his co-star Jessica must kiss for a scene. When Jessica asks where Darien learned how to kiss, he jokes that he’s had “two hours of practice by now.” In the same scene, Jessica refers to herself as “the best kisser in Hollywood.”
  • Elle daydreams about what life in a better universe would be like. “And maybe at that midnight release, I’d see a guy across the theatre dressed in a federation uniform, and we’d lock eyes and know that this was the good universe. Maybe a guy with dark hair and chocolate eyes and—for a moment Darien Freeman flashes across my mind.”
  • Darien thinks to himself that when he was kissing Jessica, he was really thinking about Elle. “The truth is, it wasn’t just when we’d kissed that I’d thought about Elle. I’d thought about her during every step of that dance.”
  • During a text conversation with Darien, a.k.a. Carmindor, Elle describes an episode of Starfield as “the one with the other Carmindor being sexy in the shower.” She then panics and adds, “Not that YOU couldn’t be sexy too.”
  • Elle worries about what would happen if she met Carmindor, a.k.a. Darien, in real life and thinks to herself, “I hate that I’m falling for someone I don’t even know.”
  • Darien refers to Elle as “ah’blena” during one of their text conversations, in the universe of Starfield this is a phrase meaning “my heart.”
  • Darien’s handler says that whoever wrote the negative blog posts about him “has a serious crush.”
  • After filming the final scene for the movie, Jessica asks Darien if he’s thinking about “the absolute sadness that we didn’t make out more?”
  • When Elle meets Darien for the first time, she describes him as “beautiful in person,” but thinks that his personality is “the biggest turn off.”
  • When she enters the cosplay ball, Darien is captivated by Elle. Darien watches “the top of the stairs, the girl with glowing red hair stares down at the rest of us from behind a sparkling golden mask. Her bowlike lips are painted the flaming color of a red giant. She’s beautiful.”
  • As Darien watches Elle enter the ball, he compares the moment to a meet-cute from a movie scene. “But this isn’t a movie, and I’ve already missed my meet-cute. The sky doesn’t suddenly crash in around us. The world doesn’t lose sound. Because this isn’t where I fall in love. I fell in love across the cell signals and late-night texts with a girl I barely knew.”
  • A rude stranger at the cosplay ball insinuates that Elle is simply a Darien Freeman fangirl, not an actual Starfield fan, and tells her that she is “too cute to play dumb” when she gets offended.
  • Elle and Darien share a dance at the cosplay ball and start to fall into familiar banter. “We’re so close, I can feel his breath on my lips, and my heart is tugging, telling me to kiss him even though I don’t know him. Even though my heart, battered and bandaged and taped together, is still rattling from the text a few hours before. But there’s something familiar in the cadence of his words, the way he phrases sentences, the way he articulates thoughts, like a voice I’ve heard before.”
  • Realizing she’s stayed too long, Elle rushes out of the cosplay ball. Darien, having realized who she is to him, chases after her. “His mask has fallen off and I can see the shiner on his nose, dark as a rainstorm, and the alarm in his eyes. The kind where you’re afraid you’ll never see someone again. ‘Wait, ah’blena!’ Ah’blena? I stumble and one of Mom’s shoes slips off.”
  • One of Elle’s stepsisters tells her friends that Darien is “way sexier in person.”
  • When Darien shows up at the country club looking for Elle, Chloe throws herself at him. Elle thinks that “flirting comes as natural as breathing” to her stepsister.
  • Darien reflects on seeing the real Elle for the very first time. “I won’t say that she is perfect or that she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, but the moment her gaze finds mine, she’s the best part of the universe. She’s a person I would love to spend a lifetime with on the observation deck of the Prospero.”
  • Elle and Darien share a kiss upon being reunited. “‘Ah’…,’ he begins, enunciating every syllable, raising his hand to my chin, ‘blen…,’ tilts my face up, slowly drawing toward me, like two supernovas about to collide, ‘…a.’ And somehow, in this impossible universe, his lips find mine.”
  • Elle and Darien kiss a second time and she describes it as “the kind of kiss that creates [possibilities].”
  • Sage and her girlfriend are holding hands in the limousine before the Starfield Elle says, “I don’t think they’ve stopped holding hands since that day at the country club.”
  • Sage’s girlfriend says she loves Jessica Stone, to which Sage responds, “Maybe we can share her.”
  • When a reporter asks if Elle and Darien are a couple, he tells her, “I want you, ah’blena. I want to try this thing with you, whatever this is. I want you to be my copilot. And I want to ask you before the movie, in case you really hate it.”
  • Darien kisses Elle on the red carpet. “He bends close, despite the crowds, despite the cameras, despite Franco’s nose-diving into his suit pocket where he’s probably keeping a snack, and kisses me. Around us, the flashes flare like the thrusters of the good ship Prospero, sending my heart rocketing into the farthest reaches of this impossible universe.”

 Violence

  • During a fight, Elle’s stepmother, Catherine, hits her. “With a crack, Catherine’s manicured hand strikes the side of my face.”
  • Darien films a choreographed fight scene. “There’s an explosion behind us—bright lights, the actual effects to be added later—as half the ship blows. Calvin lunges at me. I dodge left, grab his right hook, but he powers through it and sends me careening backward. I slam against the floor, pulling my weight back, scrambling to get my feet under me. He picks me up by the collar; I grab his hand and wrench it away. Quickly, I reach for my gun. Too slow. He rams his shoulder into my chest, and I stumble into the console. The entire structure shakes. He grabs hold of my neck and pretends to squeeze.”
  • Elle accidentally hits Darien in the face with a door, causing his nose to bleed. He describes the blood as leaking “into my mouth and down my chin and onto my favorite T-shirt.”
  • Darien gets into a physical altercation with his former friend, Brian. “If one good thing has happened over the last few months of preproduction and soulless salads and four A.M. workouts with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cousin, it’s that I learned to throw a punch. Thumb out, clench fist—swing. Brian stumbles from the force of it.” The fight scene lasts for three pages.
  • Sage tells a dog, “The next time you jump on me I’ll skin you and wear you as a hat!”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Prior to the beginning of the story, Darien was in an accident that prompted headlines to speculate about his health. When he describes the accident he says, “I wasn’t drunk, or high, or tripping on anything besides my own feet.”
  • Darien describes his former relationship with Brian, a friend who sold him out to the paparazzi, as “shoot-the-shit, drinking beer in the back of pickups friends.”

 Language

  • Elle uses the phrase “Nox’s crack” in place of a curse. The Nox are a race of aliens from the Starfield
  • Anon, the director of the Starfield movie, tells Darien that he has “brass balls” right before he films a stunt sequence.
  • Darien describes one of his lines as a “kiss ass goodbye.”
  • Elle describes sitting inside the food truck on a warm day as “hot as balls.”
  • Sage refers to Elle’s stepsisters as “the hell twins.”
  • Sage describes Princess Amara’s character arc as a “crappy subplot.”
  • When Elle first sees Darien in person, she thinks to herself, “Holy Federation Prince, Batman. It’s Darien effing Freeman.” This is one of three times this phrasing is used as an exclamation.
  • Miss May, one of the people running ExcelsiCon, says that Elle gave Darien “a snowball’s chance in hell.”
  • When Sage enters ExcelsiCon, she says, “Holy shit.”
  • Darien uses the word “fracking” in place of an f-bomb.
  • Darien tells Brian that he’s “not trying to be a dick.”
  • Elle calls the stranger harassing her a “left-testicled Nox.”
  • During his fight with Brian, Darien imagines a headline describing the incident: “DARIEN FIGHTS WITH SLEAZY PAPARAZZO AND MURDERS HIS ASS.”
  • During an argument with his father, Darien asks, “Why the hell insure my abs anyway?”
  • Sage tells Darien that she has been grounded by her mother, adding, “like hell I am.”
  • Elle says that her stepmother got rid of all of her Starfield memorabilia, including “one hella rare Pez dispenser.”
  • Elle tells Darien that she will make his life “a living hell” on her blog if he screws up Carmindor.

 Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Elle describes herself as sending a prayer to “the Lord of Light or Q or whoever is listening.”

by Evalyn Harper

 

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

When Mad Dog Branzillo, a leader of a small South American country, develops nuclear weapons, it seems the end of the world is at hand. Mad Dog is a crazy man full of hate who would be willing—eager even—to destroy the world. When Meg’s family hears this, there seems to be nothing to do but wait for the end of the world. But Mrs. O’Keefe, Meg’s mother-in-law, is suddenly reminded of an old Irish rune that her grandmother taught her about when she was a child. The rune is supposed to have great power, but can only be used in the time of greatest need.

Meg’s little brother Charles Wallace decides to use the rune. When he does so, he is sent a unicorn who can ride the winds of time. The unicorn tells him that history is full of Might-Have-Beens, where a single decision could change the course of history. To save the world, the unicorn takes Charles Wallace back in time and sends him ‘within’ the lives of several people—from the first Native American settlers to the Civil War period. As a passenger in these people, Charles becomes them. He sees what they see and hears what they hear. But he is able, perhaps, to nudge them in a better direction and change the vital Might-Have-Beens that lead to Mad Dog Branzillo.

L’Engle’s book is an allegorical tale that explores the battle of good and evil that started when the fallen angels were banished from heaven. While most of the story is phrased in terms of good and evil, there are points where the unicorn mentions heaven, angels, and other biblical concepts explicitly. In addition, when Charles Wallace visits a settlement in the time of the Salem Witch Trials, God is discussed frequently and scripture is used both by the pastor trying to condemn a woman and by the man defending her.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet is all about the importance of choices, even those that seem small. It explores two family lines: one family who leaned toward violence and hungered for power, and another family who promoted peace and friendship. The two family lines parallel the struggle between good and evil, heaven and darkness. While the story is enjoyable and full of good messages, there are many characters that Charles interacts with throughout history whose many names may become confusing for less advanced readers. For those able to follow the complicated family lines and keep track of the many names, A Swiftly Tilting Planet is yet another fun ride in the Time Quintet.

Sexual Content

  • A pregnant Native American woman uses “birthing flowers” to prepare for her birth. “She knelt and breathed in the fragrance of the blossoms, took them up in her hands, and pressed them against her forehead, her lips, her breasts, against the roundness of her belly.”
  • A boy reports that his sister and the hired hand were “kissing.”

Violence

  • Two brothers fight. The brother who wins holds his brother’s head underwater until his brother promises to leave and never come back. “Madoc forced Gwydyr into the lake, and held him down under the water until rising bubbles told him that his brother was screaming for mercy.”
  • The unicorn is injured. “The entire abdominal area, where the webbed hammock had rubbed, was raw and oozing blood. The water which had flooded from [his] nostrils was pinkish.”
  • When she was an only child, Mrs. O’Keefe’s mother “came to breakfast with a black eye, explaining that she had bumped into a door in the dark.” It’s clear that her new husband abuses her.
  • Mrs. O’Keefe’s stepfather boxed her brother’s ears and pinched her inappropriately as a child. When her grandmother tried to intervene, the man tried to hit her. “Chuck thrust himself between his grandmother and stepfather and took the full force of Mortmain’s blow. Again Breezie screamed, as Chuck fell, fell down the steep stairs in a shower of broken china and glass.”
  • A girl says she saw Jack O’Keefe “take a homeless puppy and kill it by flinging it against the wall of the barn.”
  • A man comes back from war and says, “I saw a man with his face blown off and no mouth to scream with, and yet he screamed and could not die. I saw two brothers, and one was in blue and one was in grey, and I will not tell you which one took his saber and ran it through the other.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Charles Wallace’s family has plum pudding. “Mr. Murry got a bottle of brandy and poured it liberally over the pudding…The brandy burned with a brilliant blue flame . . . Mr. Murry tilted the dish so that all the brandy would burn.”

Language

  • “God” and “Oh God” are used a few times. They are said in devoted ways, not as profane exclamations.
  • A woman says, “Thank God,” when she learns that her son is alive.
  • A man writes a letter describing a Native American who helped the settlers: “God knows he is helpful.”
  • When his friend is giving birth, Brandon prays, “Oh God, God, make Zylle be all right.”

Supernatural

  • Mrs. O’Keefe gives Charles Wallace a rune that her grandmother gave her as a child. It calls upon heaven to stand against the darkness, and Charles uses pieces of the rune when he is in danger. The first time he says, “In this fateful hour I call on all Heaven with its power!” and a unicorn appears to help him. Another time, he says, “And the fire with all the strength it hath,” and the sun causes a pile of flowers to burst into flames.
  • Charles Wallace and his sister Meg know how to kythe, which is a deeper form of telepathy that “was being able to be with someone else, no matter how far away they might be…talking in a language that was deeper than words.” In this way, Meg is able to be with her brother even when he goes on a long journey.
  • Charles Wallace travels in time with a unicorn. “Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light.”
  • Charles Wallace goes back in time to prevent a madman from destroying the world. The unicorn explains, “What we must do is find the Might-Have-Beens which have led to this particular evil. I have seen many Might-Have-Beens. If such and such had been chosen, then this would not have followed. If so and so had been done, then the light would partner the dark instead of being snuffed out. It is possible that you can move into the moment of a Might-Have-Been and change it.”
  • Twice, Charles Wallace is blown into a Projection, which is “a possible future, a future the Echthroi want to make real.” The first time, they arrive in a lava world and see a “monstrous creature with a great blotched body, short stumps for legs, and long arms, with the hands brushing the ground. What was left of the face was scabrous and suppurating.”
  • A Native American says, “When the soothsayer looked into the scrying glass and foretold my father’s death, he saw also that I would live my days far from Gwynedd.”
  • A Native American sees a vision of the future in the reflection of a pond. “He feared the small oval of water which reflected Gwydyr’s face, growing larger and larger, and darker and darker, quivering until it was no longer the face of a man but of a screaming baby.”
  • Brandon, an early North American settler, sees pictures of the future. A Native American tells him, “Among my people you would be known as a Seer, and you would be having the training in prayer and trusting that would keep your gift very close to the gods, from whom the gift comes.”
  • When injured, the unicorn takes Charles Wallace to his planet in order to be healed. There the snow heals them, the unicorn drinks liquid moonlight, and Charles Wallace sees a unicorn hatch from an egg. “A sharp cracking, and a flash of brilliance as the horn thrust up and out into the pearly air, followed by a head with the silver mane clinging damply to neck and forehead. Dark silver-lashed eyes opened slowly, and the baby unicorn looked around.”

Spiritual Content

  • A Swiftly Tilting Planet is an allegorical story about the powers of good and evil, of light and darkness, of heaven’s creation and those who would want to destroy everything. There are many references to this battle throughout the book, beginning with the following description of the Echthros, the enemy of everything good. “The Echthros wanted all the glory for itself, and when that happens the good becomes not good; and others have followed that first Echthros. Wherever the Echthroi go, the shadows follow…There are places where no one has ever heard the ancient harmonies.”
  • Charles meets ancient Native Americans. They have many songs, some of which refer to “Lords of snow and rain and water.” This song eventually becomes a prayer: “Lords of blue and Lords of gold, Lords of winds and waters wild, Lords of time that’s growing old.”
  • When speaking of dead spirits struggling to find peace, a Native American asks, “Are the gods of Gwynedd so weak they cannot care for their own?”
  • A man says, “For brothers to wish to kill each other for the sake of power is to anger the gods.”
  • Ritchie, an early North American settler, says, “I cannot find it in me to believe that God enjoys long faces and scowls at merriment.”
  • When his daughter gives birth, Ritchie reads from the Bible. “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”
  • Charles Wallace visits the time period of the Salem Witch Trials, where there is much talk of witches, of good and evil, and of spirits. For example, one boy says, “My father says there are evil spirits abroad, hardening men’s hearts.” The pastor claims a Native American woman is a witch and it is God’s will that she be killed. The Native American woman’s father-in-law uses scripture to defend her, but the townspeople won’t listen.
  • Mrs. O’Keefe’s grandmother said several times that her dead husband is “waiting for me” before she passed away.
  • A man speaks about the Civil War. “Oh God, it was brother against brother, Cain and Abel all over again. And I was turned into Cain. What would God have to do with a nation where brothers can turn against each other with such brutality?” He later says, “There were many nights during the war when God withdrew from our battle fields. When the songs of men fight against each other in hardness of heart, why should God not withdraw? Slavery is evil, God knows, but war is evil, too, evil, evil.”

by Morgan Lynn

Freshmen

Although initially nervous about making new friends during her university’s Frosh Week, Phoebe quickly befriends her roommate, Negin, and a girl named Frankie. As she settles into college, everything seems to be going smoothly until she bumps into her high school crush, Luke Taylor, at a party. Phoebe’s heart skips a beat as she realizes this is her chance to capture Luke’s heart.

Luke never noticed Phoebe in high school. Now that he’s no longer with his long-term girlfriend, Abby Baker, college has given him a whole new view. Taken in by Phoebe’s amazing smile, curly locks, and naïve optimism, Luke falls hard for Phoebe. Then, the “Wall of Shame” is exposed—a text chain created by Luke’s college soccer team where some of the members take photos of girls they slept with and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 – and Abby unexpectedly comes back into Luke’s life. Is Luke truly the “perfect man” for Phoebe, or is he just another misogynistic jock?

With its cast of crazy characters, Ellen and Ivison create a funny story that addresses many of the problems modern-day teens face, such as cyberbullying, self-doubt, and relationships. As the story develops, both Luke’s and Phoebe’s points of view become relatable and realistic. Readers will understand Luke as he struggles with his feelings for Phoebe and Abby, and will empathize with Phoebe as she struggles to make it through her first year of college.

Along with Luke and Phoebe, Freshmen contains a cast of characters which embody every aspect of college life – there’s Arthur Watling (the pot-smoking roommate), Frankie (the ridiculously tall and funny girl that cannot seem to find a man), Josh (the cake-eating sidekick), and Will (the misogynist jock). Readers will fall in love with these realistic characters and root for them as they live through the many ups and downs of college life.

Freshmen starts off slow and takes its time developing the characters; however, once the plot picks up speed, readers will have a hard time putting it down. Ellen and Ivison push the limits of young adult fiction. During Frosh Week, the characters drink like soldiers and only put down their drinks so they can make out and have sex. They constantly attend classes hungover and live in absolute party pigsties. This book is intended for older readers, those preferably attending college, and has no real moral lesson. Nonetheless, it is a funny book that deals with problems young adults face in college.

 Sexual Content

  • While in the club on the first night of Frosh Week, Will and Phoebe exchange a smile with each other, and “then we were making out with each other. He was a good kisser, but I couldn’t really get into it because I kept wondering if everyone was watching.”
  • After a party, Will takes Phoebe back to his house for tea and some baked goods. The baked goods and tea “weren’t wonders of the main event; they were the reason we both latched onto so we could come here.” Phoebe and Will start kissing as Phoebe gets undressed. Will “reached down and put his hand inside my underwear, and then suddenly he just stopped and moved away.” Will has erectile dysfunction, so they do not have sex.
  • While hanging out, Luke “suddenly couldn’t wait any longer. I [Luke] leaned over and we were kissing again.” Luke and Phoebe kiss.
  • At another party, Phoebe “felt someone’s arms around my waist and a kiss on my cheek.” It was her friend, Frankie, and they kissed again before meeting up with more of their friends.
  • After Luke invited Phoebe back to his dorm, they lay in bed together. Luke put an arm around Phoebe, pulled her in, and kissed her. Phoebe recounts, “We kissed for ages, and then, bit by bit, we were both undressed.” Phoebe wondered if she should give him a blowjob while she kissed his stomach. She “kissed him again and then did it. Just for a few seconds. Long enough to say I had done it but not long enough to mess it up in any way.” She then asked Luke if he had a condom “and then he was inside me. And it actually felt good. Really good. The surrealness resurfaced and I giggled by accident.” This scene lasts for five pages.
  • After seeing Luke with his old girlfriend, Josh took Phoebe home. While they walked, Josh hugged Phoebe and then Phoebe “kissed him on the cheek, gently, near his mouth, and then moved across and kissed him again, closer this time. He cupped my face in his hands and made a sort of quiet, frustrated moan.” Josh pushes her away, not wanting to make out with one of his best friends, and sends her home in a cab.
  • At the college Christmas party, Phoebe and her friends watch all of the successful couples make out. Ed and “Sophie – or Sarah – were kissing, right in the middle of the dance floor” and Phoebe “didn’t recognize him at first without his holey sweater. He looked less philosophical in a tux. But there he was, his tongue down the throat of” Stephanie Stevens.

Violence

  • While talking to Phoebe about a past birthday party, Luke remembers how Chris Isaacs and Alex Paine “pushed Justin Hader on the floor and Chris had grabbed a pair of scissors, telling him they were going to give him a proper haircut. A boy’s haircut.” Phoebe says Luke “pulled Chris off him.”
  • A group of girls protested the soccer team’s “Wall of Shame” and stormed the soccer field during a game. Will looked at Frankie and “then, suddenly booted the ball at her. For a split second, the whole crowd went silent . . . There was just the dull thud of the ball hitting Frankie’s chest, and she strangled sort of half-gasp-half-scream.” Luke and Trev sprint toward Will, intending to take him down, but Ed bolted out of the crowd, “threw himself at Will and just flattened him.” Frankie and Will were not hurt.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • This book takes place in England, where the legal drinking age is 18. Alcohol is mentioned on almost every page. Since many of the college students are 18 or older, they drink excessively. They drink tequila, schnapps, Guinness, Jägerbombs, vodka, beer, cocktails, gin, lagers, and shots.
  • Will’s house “was covered in empty beer cans.”
  • The college students are constantly hungover. In one case, Luke and Phoebe had to help Stephanie Stevens find her way back to her dorm as she vomited.
  • The alcohol-driven college parties can get crazy. Connor, Phoebe’s group leader, creates a booze bath. He’s “pouring out a bottle of wine and a bottle of tequila. Along with everyone else’s contributions, plus two liters of Coke, a bottle of grape juice and the powdered Nesquik…”
  • In another instance, Connor puts a mattress on two skateboards to create the “beer chariot,” which they roll through the hallways as students pour beer on them.
  • Luke’s housemate, Arthur, smokes weed. One time while hanging out and playing video games in Arthur’s room, Luke “had a drag and offered it to Rita.” Rita refuses, saying she does not smoke.

Language

  • Profanity is used in the extreme. All characters cuss, and it is rare to find a page without some sort of slur. Profanity includes fuck, ass, hell, oh God, jerk, dick, twat, and vag.
  • Arthur says the house he was going to live in this year got “fucking condemned.”
  • When Luke breaks up with Abby, she tells him, “You’re being a dick, Luke.”
  • As he pees into the dorm sink, Arthur says, “just ’cause we’re not rich enough to get an ensuite bathroom, like those posh fucks up in Gildas, doesn’t mean we can’t improvise, if you know what I mean.”
  • Frankie shows off her snake-proof jeans and says, “Honestly, these are like Bear Grylls-endorsed leggings. Try to bite these bitches, because you won’t get through.”
  • After Luke missed their quidditch practice, Phoebe knew “he wasn’t coming. Whichever way you looked at it, it was a dick thing to do. I felt like such an idiot.”
  • After Luke Taylor refuses to hook up with a girl, Will says, “But come on, Taylor. You’re a first-year, for fuck’s sake. You can’t not get laid this week.”
  • Frankie thinks Luke is a “self-obsessed ass.”
  • While meeting Luke and Phoebe for their group presentation, Mary looks at her phone and says, “Oh fuckbags, I’m late for band practice.”
  • Luke recalled, “Chris Isaacs and Alex Paine were the biggest assholes in the whole school.”
  • Frankie believed Negin “killed mad amounts of people with her resting bitch face alone.”
  • Phoebe believed her garters were “too long and go right up to my ass.”
  • When Luke calls Phoebe, Frankie snatches the phone right out of Phoebe’s hand and Phoebe screams, “Don’t be a twat, Frankie!”
  • After Frankie explains to her mom over the phone how Phoebe got a condom “stuck up her vag,” Frankie responds with, “Oh Christ.”
  • After Wicks was confronted by the soccer team about the girl he had sex with, he admits her “face was ropey, but trust me, boys, the tits were amazing.”
  • After Luke takes Phoebe back to her dorm, he feels that “full-on lip-kissing always felt way too couple-y in the mornings, so I just went for a kind of half-arsed cheek kiss that morphed uncomfortably into a semi-hug.”
  • After Luke lies about the “Wall of Shame,” Phoebe thinks she is a “clichéd, pathetic dick” for missing him.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Matthew Perkey

Wicked Saints

The war between gods-fearing Kalyazin and heretical Tranavia has gone on for a hundred years. The war began over differing views on the pantheon of gods that once ruled over the two countries: for Kalyazin, the gods are still meant to be revered and feared, while the Tranavia believe they are nothing more than myths or at the very least demons fooling the silly humans that worship them. While the gods and divine magic reign supreme in Kalyazin, blood magic takes hold of Tranavia.

Nadya Lapteva is the last Kalyazin cleric, the last of her kind able to speak with the gods and use their power. When her home is destroyed by Tranavia’s army, she makes it her mission to turn the tide of war and bring the gods back into the heart of Tranavia. Yet she can’t bring the gods back to a heretical country all on her own. Serefin Melesku, High Prince of Tranavia, may have been the one to destroy Nadya’s home and thrust her into a desperate decision, but he has his own part to play in Tranavia’s future. As a general on the war front, Serefin has become renowned for his magical prowess, highlighting his father’s weak abilities. But once the King calls Serefin home to choose a bride, he knows his father is up to something – something that could very well put him in mortal danger.

As Nadya and Serefin contend with the burdens placed on their shoulders, they get closer and closer to changing the world indefinitely. Magic swirls, monsters come out of the shadows, and neither mage will be able to stop what’s coming to shape the world.

Told from a first-person point of view from Nadya’s and Serefin’s separate journeys, the story explores themes of worship, religious skepticism, and hunger for power. Nadya and her companions are constantly debating whether the gods are worth the effort of worship and whether they’re truly gods. The idea of power revolves around this constant discussion; Nadya and Serefin question where their power comes from and why it’s even needed in the first place.

Both Nadya and Serefin are excellent main characters that carry the bulk of the story. Both are believable and relatable. They make decisions that will cause the reader to root for them during their journeys. The overall plot is full of action. While that action can often get bloody, it’s not overly complicated, and it’s full of discourse about the way religion and magic play into both countries. Religion and magic are tied to each other, and when the final twist of the story is revealed, it leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Kalyazin could be easily seen as a picturesque, pagan Russia with its more rigid religious culture. Tranavia could be viewed as inspired by the Polish warrior spirit that fights for its own power and glory. While the book is recommended for ages 13 and up, some younger readers may be disturbed by the many images of blood, whether that blood comes from violent fights or from the simple fact that mages in Tranavia use their own blood to use their magic. However, readers interested in religion and magic will find that Wicked Saints is a great story from start to finish.

Sexual Content

  • During a battle at the monastery where Nadya grew up, her friend Kostya tries to lead her to safety. Once he does, Kostya “kissed her forehead, lips warm, slipping something cold and metallic against her palm.”
  • Serefin, the High Prince of Tranavia, thinks about the old woman that binds his spellbooks. “He could never figure out if she treated him like a long dead son or lover. He was disturbed he couldn’t tell the difference.”
  • Nadya, the main heroine of the novel, meets Malachiasz, who is a runaway Tranavian soldier. Malachiasz “reached down and took Nadya’s hand, pressing it to his lips as if he were a court nobleman and not a renegade blood mage out in the middle of enemy territory.” Later when the two escape, Nadya notices him more. “He had a soft mouth and his nose was stately. His face was lovely, all the feral, unsettling qualities absent when he wasn’t awake. She wasn’t pleased with herself for noticing, especially not now.” Nadya starts to fall in love with Malachiasz. “Why—after being so furious with him—did she find herself desperately yearning to kiss him?”
  • When Serefin is summoned home from the war front, it’s because of the Rawalyk, which is “the ceremony to choose a royal consort.” As Serefin puts it, “I have to go home and get married.” Later when Serefin is waking from a hangover, his friend Kacper tells him, “You promised Felicíja Krywicka the entire western reaches as a wedding gift.”
  • When Nadya admits her love to Malachiasz, despite it being heresy, they make out. Malachiasz’s “hands gripped her waist as he pulled her closer. He broke away, his breath ragged and hot. His pale eyes were dark and dangerous as they searched her face.”

Violence

  • When Nadya is still at the monastery where she grew up, she thinks, “Cannons were a sound every child of Kalyazin knew intimately. It was what they grew up with, their lullabies mixed with firing in the distance.”
  • Nadya’s home, the monastery, is attacked by Serefin’s army. Nadya fights back with her magic, “[catching a soldier’s] arm, but like a poison, the light blackened his flesh at the point of contact. It spread up his arm to his face, choking his eyes with darkness before he toppled over, dead.” Just after that, Nadya is attacked by another mage. “Flames engulfed her, licking underneath her skin, her blood boiling . . . It was like being burned alive from the inside out.”
  • Serefin thinks about how he got his eyepatch. “The assassins had gone for their eyes first. Perhaps blinding the children of the enemy before murdering them was a religious thing.”
  • When Serefin realizes he must torture a prisoner, he thinks, “It didn’t really matter that he was tired of torturing prisoners, tired of this tour.” Just after that, Serefin uses his magic to kill someone. Serefin “tore a third page out of his spellbook and crumpled it in his hands. Ostyia took a step back as the younger boy fell over, dead.”
  • When Nadya attacks a group of Tranavian soldiers, she kills two of them. “She caught up to one of the figures, stabbing her voryen into his skull just underneath his ear.” Later, when Nadya meets Rashid and Parijahan, two assassins, Nadya says, “We have a clear and obvious reason to be killing Tranavians, in general.” Just moments later, when she meets Malachiasz for the first time, Nadya thinks, “She couldn’t put a name to it, but she knew—intrinsically—he would not hesitate to kill her if she made any indication of hostility.”
  • When Nadya talks to her patron god Marzenya, Marzenya says, “You will dispose of him soon, yes?”
  • When talking to Malachiasz, Nadya asks, “And is your destiny worth the torture and mutilation of a century of innocents to reach the means for your magic? Hundreds upon thousands of people.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Serefin, the High Prince of Tranavia and one of the main characters, regularly drinks whatever alcohol he can get his hands on throughout the novel, like wine and ale.
  • After Serefin’s army takes control of a monastery, Serefin tells his friend Kacper, “Perfect. I want to be blind drunk before the night is out. . . The next morning, Serefin woke with a raging hangover and a prisoner to interrogate.” When Serefin is trying to wake up from another hangover, “He turned back, regretting the motion immediately as the room spun. He pressed a hand to his face, slouching against the doorframe.”
  • When traveling, Serefin, while drunk, tries to avoid meeting a nobleman. “It wasn’t until Serefin was on his fourth—maybe fifth? It was hard to keep track—tankard of dzalustek that the uncomfortable meeting he had been so ardently avoiding finally came into being.”
  • Serefin thinks about his hangovers often. For example, “This was worse than any hangover Serefin had ever experienced. And he always kept track of his hangovers and how badly they hurt. He had a list.”

Language

  • Profanity is sometimes used. Profanity includes hell and damn.
  • When Serefin and his friend Ostyia speak, Ostyia says, “Yeah, and leave me to work my ass off, keeping you safe.”
  • When pushing Serefin back to his bedroom, Ostyia tells him, “Well, welcome home, Your Highness, you don’t have a damn choice.”
  • When Malachiasz leads Nadya through the Tranavian palace, Nadya thinks, “he was leading her farther down into hell, a new level with every door he opened.”

Supernatural

  • Magic is a backdrop to the story, and it’s intertwined with religion. Kalyazin’s magic is divine and only clerics are allowed to use the power directly bestowed to them by the gods.
  • Tranavia has blood magic, where a mage will cut themselves to make their blood flow to then use their blood to conjure their magic through a spellbook.
  • When Nadya is running from Serefin, he attacks her with his magic. “Something brushed Nadya’s ear, heat coming off it in waves. It slammed into the curve of the tunnel before her, bursting into a shower of sparks.”
  • Magic can be used to communicate over long distances. For example, “The king generally sent messages via courier instead of with magic in an effort to mask the disappointing reality that he was a less than impressive blood mage.”
  • Tranavian spells come from spellbooks. Serefin “sighed and nodded, picking up the book and riffling through it. He was running out of spells.” When Malachiasz tells Nadya about his Tranavian magic, he says, “I know what you believe about my magic. It’s easy to spread the rumor that blood mages use human sacrifices.”
  • When Nadya uses her holy magic to blot out the stars in the night sky, her friend Anna says, “We’ll be hearing prophesies about the end of the world for the next twenty years now!”
  • Nadya uses her magic by touching specific prayer beads and praying to the various gods. Nadya “yanked her glove off and thumbed at her necklace until she found Zlatek’s bead. The god of silence loathed granting Nadya power; he’d once voiced they should revoke her magic completely.”
  • Only clerics who speak to the gods can use magic in Kalyazin, Nadya’s homeland. “Using [Nadya’s] power was inevitable, and the minute she did, people would know Kalyazin had clerics again after a thirty-year absence.”
  • In Tranavia, there are people known as Vultures that use so much blood magic they transform into monstrous creatures. “Woven into the darkest of Kalyazin nightmares were the Vultures of Tranavia. Blood mages so twisted by their heretical magic they were no longer human, nothing more than violent monsters.”
  • Nadya and Malachiasz fight a few Vultures. “The blood moved as if it had a life of its own until it formed into the shape of a girl, materializing in the center of the room. Iron spikes wove through an auburn braid. A thick black book hung from straps on her hip. Her face was covered by a crimson mask crafted in strips.”

Spiritual Content

  • Religion is a backdrop to the story and intertwined with magic, and the war between the two main nations of Kalyazin and Tranavia. Basically, Kalyazin still believes in the gods, while Tranavia does not. Dozens of gods are worshipped in Kalyazin.
  • Tranavia is viewed as heretical to most, if not all, devout Kalyazins. “The idea of the High Prince anywhere near the monastery made her shiver. He was rumored to be an extremely powerful blood mage, one of the most terrifying in all of Tranavia, a land rife with heretics.”
  • When the monastery where Nadya used to live is attacked, Nadya notes, “blood magic meant Tranavians. For a century a holy war had raged between Kalyazin and Tranavia. Tranavians didn’t care that their blood magic profaned the gods.”
  • Nadya prays to a wide variety of gods during the novel. For example, “She sent a simple prayer to Bozidarka, the goddess of vision. A vivid image took over her sight.”
  • Another god Nadya prays to is “Horz, the god of the heavens and the stars, who had woken her. Horz had a tendency to be obnoxious but generally left Nadya alone, as a rule.”
  • When a Kalyazin priest tells Serefin off, the High Prince responds, “Yes, yes, we’re nasty heretics that need to be eradicated from the earth and you’re just doing what’s right.”

by Jonathan Planman

Legends of the Sky

Milla has heard the dragon legends. She has seen the dragon murals. But everyone says the dragons who used to rule the skies are gone forever.

Servant girl Milla witnesses a murder and finds herself caring for the last four dragon eggs. She tries to keep the eggs’ existence a secret, but soon, the eggs are in Duke Olvar’s possession. When the dragons hatch, Milla and her friends vow to stay with the dragons and protect them from harm. Milla and her friends try to learn how to care for their dragons, but it soon becomes clear that the dragons must belong to the city, not to the Duke.

Tensions in the city are growing due to Duke Olvar’s dislike of anyone who isn’t a Norlander, like him. The Duke wants to control the city and continues to put restrictions on those of Sartolans descent. In order to protect the Norlanders, the Duke decides that “anyone of Norlander descent got to wear a black dragon badge on their clothes—the Duke’s own symbol. Everyone else had to wear a badge in the shape of a ship, to show they were newly arrived.”

Soon Milla and her friends find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Duke’s soldiers and the Sartolans. How can Milla and her friends keep the dragons safe? Should they join the battle or stay safely tucked away in the Duke’s mansion?

Flanagan builds a complicated island city that is under the Duke’s tight control. As Milla learns more about dragons, she also discovers that the Duke will do anything to bond with one. The Duke wants control of the dragons, so he keeps Milla, her three friends, and the dragons in the dragonhall. While under the Duke’s watchful eyes, Milla’s friendships begin to fracture.

Told from Milla’s point of view, readers will fall in love with Milla and her dragons. Milla is a complex character who struggles to do what is right. Milla struggles with her inability to help her Sartolans friends. Readers will understand Milla’s problems with her friends, her hope for the future, and her desire to keep her dragons safe.

Politics, deadly intrigue, and dragons combine to make a fast-paced story where danger hides in the shadows. The story’s complex plot and the violent conclusion make Legends of the Sky the perfect book for confident readers. With shifting loyalties, new friendships, and the struggle for power, The Legends of the Sky explores the topics of power, discrimination, and friendship. Through Milla’s point of view, the reader will come to understand that discrimination hurts everyone. Legends of the Sky is a beautifully written, action-packed story that will leave readers wanting a dragon of their own.

 Sexual Content

  • Tayra is upset when she finds out that her father has arranged her marriage to Vigo. After she gets to know him, the two are playing when Taya “reached up and kissed Vigo.”

Violence

  • Milla is hiding in a tree when she sees a man killed. “A gloved hand pressed a knife against the cloaked man’s throat. . . His knife dug into the flesh of the man’s neck. A thin trickle of blood ran down the blade. . . Afterward, she [Milla] still saw the sudden spray of scarlet against a terracotta pot. She heard the heavy slump as the body hit the ground.”
  • When the dragon eggs begin to hatch, the duke “lifted the egg, and broke it against the surface of polished wood . . . the egg shattered with a damp crunch. The duke pulled it apart, flicking away pieces of shell with his fingers. He lifted up a limp body streaked with blood. . . The dragon didn’t move.”
  • A woman tells a story about the past when “Rufus murdered his cousin Silvano. . .” The murder is not described.
  • An “idiot” soldier accidently started a fire in the prison. The guards flee without trying to help the prisoners escape. Milla and others try to help the prisoners escape. The prison “was ablaze, sending plumes of smoke and fire shooting high into the night sky. . . There were bodies scattered across the dockside. Some were moving. A few were not. . .Six people had died that night.”
  • When a dragon named Heral flies over the city, a soldier shoots an arrow at it. “One arrow buried itself in Heral’s side. He screamed. A plume of fire shot from his open mouth.” The dragon blows fire towards the soldiers. “Now the archers screamed, arms raised in feeble defense. Milla saw bows burning, arrows torched in midair. A man leapt into the sea, ablaze.” Tayra is able to help her dragon. “Tayra pulled the arrow cleanly from the flank: a shallow wound, but a bloody one.”
  • During an argument, the duke “struck his wife across the face.”
  • A riot breaks out. During the fighting, Milla “almost stepped on a dead soldier. A man in the duke’s livery, on his back, staring sightlessly at the gray sky.” Milla takes a shield from a dead soldier. As Milla tries to reach her friends, “A sword crashed down on her shield with such force that she fell, winded, then rolled to avoid the next blow. . . She struck back, catching the soldier low, in his thigh. She slammed her shield in his face and he fell, lost under feet that danced and stamped and leapt to stay alive.” During the fight, the duchess is killed and Milla is injured. The riot is described over three pages.
  • Milla and her friends try to flee the island. Soldiers try to stop them. When Milla got onto the boat, she heard “the clashing of steel, followed by a scream of pain. She twisted to look. One man lay on the floor. Nestan was upright, clutching his sword arm, dark red blood seeping through his fingers.” Another one of Milla’s friends, Simon, “had his wooden staff that he used to parry and block. With a grunt, he twisted it around and landed a hard blow in the man’s gut with one end. . . Simon slammed the broadside into his chin. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.”
  • The book ends with an epic battle. Tayra “let her arrows fly faster than ever. . .” Tayra, her dragon, and Vigo fight side by side. “They cut through the duke’s forces, leaving a trail of ash and black-clad bodies so that Carlo’s army found their way clear.”
  • During the battle, someone grabs Milla, and “her injured ribs burned in agony. . . Black dots danced before her eyes, and she struggled not to pass out.” Milla is able to get away, and she “grabbed a chair and flung it at Richal Finn, aiming for his sword arm. He stumbled but didn’t fall.” Milla’s dragon used his bulk to pin Richal Finn down. Richal Finn fights back and “he kicked out viciously, catching Iggie square on his leg wound. The wound gaped open, right down to the bone: it gleamed palely through, making Milla feel sick.”
  • The duke grabs his sword and threatens to smash the dragon eggs. Isak “threw his whole body weight at Olvar [the duke] and pushed him aside. Duke Olvar pushed Isak away, sending him staggering backward.” In order to protect her eggs, the dragon “blasted Duke Olivar with a massive stream of fire. Olvar caught the worst of it, but Finn’s clothes also burst into flame. He fell to the floor with a hideous shriek.” The battle is described over 13 pages. The duke dies.
  • The story alludes to the fact that the duke used to hit his wife, Serina. After Serina is injured, Milla “watched his [Serina’s son] work, remembering what Serina had said about all the times her son had tended to her injuries. She didn’t ask how Serina had gotten those inures. She didn’t need to.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • An angry boy yells at his father, “You’re not even a soldier, not anymore. We only have your word that you ever were. You probably hurt your leg falling down drunk outside a tavern.”
  • Milla sees a man on his way to teach fighting skills to a girl. She tells him, “I’ll have a skin of ale cooling in the well for you afterward, shall I?”
  • A girl plans to go to a party. She was “planning to borrow a bottle of sweet Sartolan wine from her parents’ stall for the street party.” Later, the girl tells Milla that the wine helped her make some friends.
  • A woman tells Milla a story from the past, when the dragonriders had a disagreement. A dragonrider named Rufus “laced their evening meal with poison: just enough to send Karys and her cousin Silvano into a deep sleep. They awoke in the dragonhall to find themselves in chains.”
  • When Milla goes to visit a friend, the woman poured them “a small measure of sweet Arcosi wine.”
  • Someone gives Milla gifts, which include wine.
  • When Milla is put in jail, her friends poison the guards. “We baked treats for the guards—a special reward for their hard work. . . they’ll sleep all day, sore head tomorrow. Josi knows her poisons. . .”
  • The duke poisoned a dragon, but “the poison wore off after half a day.” However, when the dragon awoke, she was “in chains.”

Language

  • A soldier calls a group of prisoners “Sartolan scum.”
  • A woman calls recent arrivals “filthy dock rats.” Later someone says, “Dock rats! Throw them into the sea.”
  • When the duke orders soldiers to clear the docks of people, Milla yelled, “Where the hell are you going to clear them to?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The duke talks about the past, when his people fled their home country. He says it had been “Fifty years since our prayers were answered and we found Arcosi waiting for us.”
  • Occasionally, Milla sends out a prayer, but she never mentions a specific god. For example, when she sneaks out of the house, she “sent a prayer out into the pale morning. . .” Later Milla “prayed that Nestan would listen to his daughter now.” Milla prays twelve times throughout the story.

Crooked Kingdom

When Jan Van Eck, a member the Merchant Council of Kerch, hired Kaz Brekker and his team to infiltrate the infamous Ice Court to extract the maker of the drug jurda parem, no one believed they really stood a chance. Yet Kaz, Inej, Wylan, Jesper, Matthias and Nina pulled it off, even if it was just barely. They extracted the drug maker’s son, Kuwei Yul-Bo, and were ready to receive the money that would make all their dreams come true. At least, until Van Eck betrayed them all and kidnapped Inej.

And the problems don’t stop there. Ketterdam has become a dangerous city, one that sees old and new enemies stream in to get a hold of Kuwei’s knowledge of jurda parem. To corner Kaz and his team, Van Eck will force the group to test their loyalties and use up all the wit they have to offer. With nowhere to run, there’s only one option available to Kaz: fight back.

While wanted posters display Kaz and his crew, the six are busy planning and plotting to find a way to get everything they’re owed. They’ll save Inej, get Kuwei out of the city, and make Ketterdam theirs again. One way or another, they’ll even the score.

Bardugo’s Crooked Kingdom is just as fun and exciting as the first novel. Building off their trip into the Ice Court, Crooked Kingdom delves deeper into the main conflict between Kaz’s crew and Jan Van Eck. From the very beginning, the claustrophobia of Ketterdam, its sense of despair, and its dwindling hope take center stage, laying the foundation for the story to push the main characters into finding their own way out of the hole they’ve found themselves in.

That’s where the main theme of standing up for yourself comes in. Learning to fight for yourself in a cruel, greedy world comes across easily through Kaz’s determination to see his crew properly rewarded for helping stop the production of jurda parem, the drug that enhances Grisha power. This theme also comes through with the other five main characters, like Inej’s desire to hire a ship and go after slavers or Wylan’s realization that he needs to overcome his father. It’s safe to say that each member of Kaz’s crew is a role model in their own right. Each person grows stronger from the trials they encounter.

Overall, Crooked Kingdom is a wonderful follow-up to Six of Crows. This sequel is definitely a must-read. The book is chock full of action, suspense, and plot twists from beginning to end. The main cast of characters really shine in the hectic moments of the plot. While the pacing can feel relentless at times, that only raises the stakes.

Sexual Content

  • When going over the plan to con Smeet, one of Kaz’s targets, Kaz tells the others, “Smeet never cheats on his wife.” During the job, Wylan thinks when he sees Nina, a member of Kaz’s group, “She was dressed in a sheer lavender gown rigged with some kind of corset that pushed her cleavage to alarming heights, and though she’d lost weight since her battle with parem, there was still plenty of her for Smeet to grab onto.” And, again later on, Smeet “was ogling those guns almost as much as Nina’s cleavage.”
  • When thinking about her past as a working girl, Inej, Kaz’s love interest, thinks, “The man with sharp teeth like a kitten who had bitten at her breast until she’d bled.” Later, when thinking about the worst client she had, Inej thinks, “because when the man who smelled of vanilla had begun to kiss her neck and peel away her silks, she hadn’t been able to leave her body behind.” Finally, when her thoughts stray to Kaz, Inej thinks, “What if he had come to her, laid his gloves aside, drawn her to him, kissed her mouth?”
  • When Inej is attacked by Dunyasha, an assassin, Dunyasha says, “I hear you whored for the Peacock.”
  • When confronted by a group of thugs, Nina tells the leader, “‘I’m fast enough to make sure you never’ —her eyes gave a meaningful slide below his belt buckle—‘raise a flag on West Stave again.’”
  • When thinking about his first few nights in the Barrel, Wylan remembers, “The couple in the room above him were fighting. The couple in the room below him were definitely doing something else.”
  • Later, Wylan remembers how a man told him, “Young dollop of cream like you should be able to make fine coin on West Stave.” When Wylan thinks about getting help from his father, he thinks, “But he would sell himself in the pleasure houses of West Stave before he’d ask for his father’s mercy.”
  • When Wylan first met Jesper, his “first thought was that this boy had the most perfectly shaped lips he’d ever seen.”
  • When waiting to meet Ravkan Grisha, Matthias is alone with Nina and thinks, “It was too easy to imagine himself kneeling like a penitent before her, letting his hands slide up the white curves of her calves, pushing those skirts higher, past her knees to the warm skin of her thighs.”
  • When Jesper meets Wylan in the music room of a hotel, he “moved slowly, deliberately, kept the kiss quiet, the barest brush of his lips, giving Wylan the chance to pull away if he wanted to.” Then later, when Jesper sees Kuwei standing in the doorway, he asks, “Do the Shu not kiss before noon?”

Violence

  • When Retvenko, a Grisha, thinks about his previous employment, he thinks, “After Hoede had died, the Kerch Merchant Council had let Retvenko take on sea voyages to pay his way out of the indenture.” Later on, Retvenko thinks about his role in a former war. “He’d murdered former comrades, civilians, even children.” When Retvenko is later attacked, he “peeked around the desk in time to see the shotgun blast strike the woman directly in the chest.”
  • When thinking about a past conversation with Kaz about a working girl, Wylan remembers that Kaz said, “Tante Heleen beat her to death.” After that, Wylan remembers, “They were the last words he’d spoken. If he’d talked less, he might have lived.”
  • When speaking to a little girl who could give Kaz and Wylan away, Kaz tells her, “Because if you do, I’ll slit your mother’s throat and then your father’s, and then I’ll cut out the hearts of all these sweet slobbering hounds.” Afterwards, Kaz justifies what he said by saying, “It was that or snap her neck and make it look like she fell down the stairs, Wylan.”
  • When Inej is detained by Van Eck, she thinks about her friend Nina “squeezing the life from a man with the flick of a wrist.” Later, Inej is trying to free her wrists “After what seemed like a lifetime of sawing and scraping and bloodying her fingertips on the shard’s edge.” And, when Inej is about to be tortured, Van Eck tells the torturer, “I don’t want it to be a clean break. Use the mallet. Shatter the bone.”
  • When Jesper and Wylan go to meet Colm, Jesper’s father, “A shot rang out against the walls of the courtyard. Jesper shoved his father behind him as a bullet pinged off the stones at their feet, sending up a cloud of dust.” Later, Wylan tells Jesper, “I’ve got two flash bombs and something new I rigged up with a little more, um, wallop.” When someone sees Jesper, Wylan and Colm fleeing through a library, he says, “I won’t go with you! I’ll kill myself first!”
  • When Nina realizes Kaz has the jurda parem, she tells Matthias that Kaz would “slit my throat” if she tried to take some from him. Later, Nina’s Grisha power doesn’t work. After she killed a guard, she says, “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
  • After the panic about a plague, Wylan muses over how “people were bruised and concussed, and Wylan had heard that one woman’s hand had been crushed when she’d gotten knocked to the floor.”
  • When Matthias is confronted by a Fjredan drüskelle warrior, the warrior says, “You killed my friends. In the raid on the Ice Court.” After that same warrior shoots Matthias, he passes away. “The light vanished from his eyes. His chest stilled beneath her hands.”
  • When threatening Pekka Rollins, the former King of the Barrel, Inej tells him, “I left pretty Dunyasha’s brains dashed all over the Ketterdam cobblestones.”
  • When Kaz threatens Pekka Rollins, he says, “‘I buried your son,’ he crooned, savoring the words. ‘I buried him alive, six feet beneath the earth in a field of rocky soil.’” Later Kaz says, “‘Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once.’ He pushed the door open with his cane. ‘he can imagine his death a thousand times.’”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As with the first book, alcohol is mentioned frequently in the novel.
  • Retvenko, a minor character, is drunk at the very start of the book. At a bar in the Barrel, where the thugs and cheats of the city live, Retvenko realized, “The whiskey had failed to warm him.” Later, when speaking to a barman he thinks, “His Kerch wasn’t good to begin with, and it was worse after a few drinks.”
  • Wylan, a member of the Dregs, has to pretend to be a waiter at a gambling hall. When signaled to serve champagne, he thinks, “He at least knew how to pour a proper glass of champagne without it foaming over.”
  • When thinking about Wylan’s change in appearance, Jesper thinks, “It always left him feeling a little off-kilter, like he’d thought he was reaching for a cup of wine and gotten a mouthful of water instead.” Later Jesper says to Wylan, “I mean, just think of the heights of debauchery we could reach if no one kept this city in check. Champagne for breakfast.” When Jesper and Wylan later speak with Jesper’s father, Jesper thinks, “They’d eat. They’d talk. Maybe they’d drink. Please let them drink.”
  • As with the first book, jurda parem, a harmful drug that enhances a Grisha’s (magic user’s) powers, is a main plot device in the story. Kuwei, the son of the creator of jurda parem, says that he can discover “An antidote for parem.”
  • Nina, a member of the Dregs, comments that she could “masquerade as a jurda parem dealer” as a joke when going over Jesper’s role in a job. Later in the story, Nina thinks about the aftereffects of jurda parem on her body. “She’d still been trying to purge the parem from her body, caught in the haze of suffering that had begun on the voyage from Djerholm. She told herself to be grateful for the memory of that misery, every shaking, aching, vomiting minute of it.” Later, she remembers how she acted towards Matthias, her boyfriend, while dealing with the aftereffects. “The shame of Matthias witnessing it all, holding back her hair, dabbing her brow, restraining her as gently as he could as she argued, cajoled, screamed at him for more parem. She made herself remember every terrible thing she’d said, every wild pleasure offered, each insult or accusation she’d hurled at him.”
  • When trying to use her Grisha power, Nina remembers how her jurda parem addiction affected her. “She’d broken into a sweat from the effort, and as soon as the bruised color faded, the hunger for parem hit, a swift, hard kick to her chest. She’d bent double, clutching the sink, her mind filled with breakneck thoughts of how she could get away, who might have a supply, what she could trade.” Later on, when Nina asks Kuwei about whether the drug affects Grisha power, Kuwei responds, “I don’t know. You took the drug only once. You survived the withdrawal. You are a rarity.”
  • When sneaking into someone’s home, “Nina had suggested drugging the dog’s food.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently in the novel. Profanity includes words like: ass, hell, bastards, damn, bitch, and fuck.
  • When telling his team about his plan to con a man named Smeet, Kaz says, “So you all need to do everything you can to keep his ass firmly planted at that table.”
  • When debating with Matthias about whether one of their targets will invite Nina back to her room, Nina says, “Like hell he won’t.” When speaking to Wylan about the Smeet job, Kaz says, “We can’t be here when he gets back or the whole plan goes to hell.”
  • When Kaz is musing over a certain type of lock, he thinks, “They were complicated little bastards.”
  • When Jesper talks to Kuwei, he says, “You have that damn travel pack.” Soon after that Jesper says, “There’s only one way out of the tomb, and we’re on a damn island.”
  • When Nina is attacked by a group of thugs, one of them yells, “They’re coming for the Grisha bitch!”
  • When Nina demanded Matthias get her more jurda parem, she tells him, “Then break the fucking door down, you useless skiv.”

Supernatural

  • The Grisha, AKA the magic users, are an integral part of the world of Crooked Kingdom, just like in Six of Crows.
  • Like in the first book, the Grisha are categorized into groups based on their powers. The Corporalki, also known as the Order of the Living and the Dead, include Heartrenders and Healers. The Etherrealki, who are the Order of the Summoners, include Squallers, Inferni, and Tidemakers. The Materialki, who are the Order of Fabrikators, include Durasts and Alkemi. For instance, “A Corporalki could manipulate the human body, not inorganic matter.”
  • Many Grisha are brought into the city of Ketterdam to work “As a treasured Grisha indenture,” though this is more often than not just a masked form of Grisha slavery. Retvenko, a Squaller, thinks about how dangerous it is to be a Grisha. “But when you were a Grisha, even staying still could mean courting trouble.
  • Retvenko, a Squaller, thinks about how his powers will help his job. He thinks, “so the crew would rely on Retvenko to master the air currents and guide the ship calmly to whatever port they needed to reach.”
  • At one point in the past, there was an army of Grisha that fought for the nation of Ravka, called the Second Army. The “young king was said to be handing out pardons like penny candy, eager to rebuild the Second Army, the Grisha military that had been decimated by war.”
  • The Council of Tides, the ruling council of Grisha in Ketterdam, are a very mysterious group of people. “They were supposedly Grisha, but had they ever lifted a finger to help the other Grisha in the city?”
  • Kuwei, the son of the man who made the drug, jurda parem, says at one point, “My father was a Fabrikator. I am just an Inferni.” When Kuwei asks Kaz to get a Grisha to change his appearance, Kaz says, “The only Tailors powerful enough to make you look like someone else are in Ravka, unless Nina wants to take another dose of parem.”
  • Nina is a Corporalki Grisha. When thinking about her jurda parem addiction, she thinks, “They needed her to be a Corporalki, not an addict with the shakes who wore herself out with the barest bit of tailoring.” Later on, when she needs to use her power, she thinks, “Slow their pulses. Send them quietly into unconsciousness without ever letting an alarm sound.” Immediately after that, Nina’s power doesn’t work, “It was like stumbling blind through the dark…Dimly, she was aware of the suggestion of their frames, a trace of knowing, but that was all.”

Spiritual Content

  • Like in the first book, the most mentioned god in the novel is Ghezen, the God of Commerce in Ketterdam.
  • When Retvenko goes to a work assignment aboard a ship, the first mate says, “Ghezen, Retvenko. Have you been drinking?” When Kaz bumps into one of his targets accidentally, he pretends to be a humble young man saying, “Too kind, sir. Too kind. May Ghezen be as generous.” Later, Van Eck talks about his future fortune by saying, “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor.”
  • When speaking about Van Eck’s illegal practices, Jesper says, “Isn’t not paying your taxes…I don’t know, sacrilegious? I thought he was all about serving Ghezen.”
  • Like in the first book, the Suli Saints are mentioned again. Inej thinks, when she’s still in the villain Van Eck’s custody, “Saints, what if she was in Van Eck’s mansion?” When Inej thinks about her sins, she muses, “Would her Saints sanction such a thing? Could forgiveness come if she killed not to survive but because she burned with a living, luminous hatred?” Just as she’s about to be tortured by Van Eck, Inej thinks, “Saints protect me. Saints protect me.”
  • The Church of Saint Hilde is a famous sight in Ketterdam. When Kaz tells Wylan where the latter can find his mother, he says, “Well, he’s been making donations to the Church of Saint Hilde for the last eight years. If you want to pay respects to your mother, that’s probably the place to start.”
  • On Black Veil, an island full of graves, some of the graves “bore the stamp of Ghezen’s Coins of Favor… A few were watched over by Ravkan Saints in flowing marble robes. There was no sign of Djel or his ash tree.”
  • Djel, the Fjerdan god, is also mentioned a few times in the novel. When Matthias is reflecting over his past actions, he comes to a revelation. “Now he was sure of nothing but his faith in Djel and the vow he’d made to Nina.”
  • Colm tells Kaz, “You haven’t been Alice long enough to rack up your share of sin.”

by Jonathan Planman

The Battle for Skandia

Still far from home after escaping slavery in the icebound land of Skandia, young Will and Evanlyn’s plans to return to Araluen are spoiled when Evanlyn is taken captive. Though still weak, Will employs his Ranger training to locate his friend, he but soon finds himself fatally outnumbered. Will is certain that death is close at hand, that is until Halt and Horace make a daring, last-minute rescue. Their reunion is cut short by the horrifying discovery that Skandia’s borders have been breached by the Temujai army—and Araluen is next in their sights. Only an unlikely union can save the two kingdoms, but can it hold long enough to vanquish a ruthless new enemy?

Readers familiar with the Ranger’s Apprentice series will want to continue Will and Evanlyn’s epic journey through Skandia. The Battle for Skandia brings the four friends together—Halt, Horace, Evanlyn, and Will. In order to help the Skandians defeat the Temujai, Will and his friends join the fight. Unlike the previous books, The Battle for Skandia deals with strategy and tactics as Halt leads the Skandia forces in the fight against the Temujai army. Readers will learn more about the Skandiam’s traditions and bravery as their forces face the Temujai army. The contrast between the Araluens’ culture and the Skandian’s culture is interesting and sometimes humorous.

Unlike the previous books, The Battle for Skandia deals more with politics and preparation for battle, which slows the plot down. The story ends with a very long battle where many men die, including the leaders, the soldiers, and the slaves. Even though Evanlyn is a princess, she also helps to defeat the Temujai army. Throughout the story, the characters show the importance of loyalty and courage. The heartwarming conclusion holds some surprises. The Battle for Skandia highlights the importance of working together for the greater good. Although the story’s flow is choppy as it jumps back and forth between different characters’ perspectives, readers familiar with the series will want to know how Will and Evenlyn escape the dangerous threats that seem to lurk behind every corner.

Sexual Content

  • The commander of the Temujai has a concubine; however, she is only mentioned once.
  • There is a brief mention of Halt’s banishment. Someone explains that Halt was drunk when he said that the king was “the issue of an encounter between your father and a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer.”

Violence

  • When checking her traps, Evanlyn “sensed rather than heard, the movement in the trees behind her and began to turn. Before she could move, she felt an iron grip around her throat, and as she gasped in fright, a fur-gloved hand, smelling vilely of smoke, sweat, and dirt clamped over her mouth and nose, cutting off her cry for help.” When Evanlyn tried to struggle, “her kicks were ineffective as she was dragged backward. Finally, there had been an instant of intense pain, just behind her left ear, and then darkness.” The man takes her back to his camp and ties her to a tree.
  • When Erak was sent to collect taxes, he “opted for a more direct course, which consisted of seizing the person under investigation, ramming a double-headed broadax up under his chin and threatening mayhem if all taxes, every single one of them, were not paid immediately.”
  • Halt and Horace find dead men at a guard post. When they investigate, they find “ten others, all of them killed the same way, with multiple wounds to their torsos and limbs.” The men were “shot. These are arrow wounds. And then the killers collected their arrows from the bodies.”
  • A man prepares to kill Evanlyn. Will comes to her rescue. Will shoots an arrow. “The bow gave a slight twang and the light arrow leapt away, arcing swiftly across the intervening space and burying its point into the soft flesh of the warrior’s wrist.” Horace arrives and “interposed himself between Evanlyn and the man who was trying to kill her and, in a series of flashing sword strokes that bewildered the eye, he drove the other man back away from the girl.” Five men are killed, and one man is taken as a prisoner. The scene is described over four pages.
  • When Halt and Erak spy on the enemy, they are caught and must run. Halt shot his arrow and “the heavy shaft went home. The Tem’uj fell backward in the snow, his own shot half a second too late, sailing high and harmless into the top of the pines.” As they run, Halt continues to shoot arrows, killing a man who “lay in the snow in the center of a widening circle of red.”
  • A slave is dragged in front of a group of Skandian leaders. In order to get her to talk, Slagor “moved quickly, stepping down from the platform and drawing his saxe knife in one smooth movement. He held the razor-sharp blade below the woman’s chin, pressing it into the flesh of her neck with not quite sufficient force to break the skin.” As Slagor yells at the woman, the group notices “angry welts across the woman’s face. Obviously, she had been recently beaten.” When the woman cringes away, “Slagor’s man grabbed a handful of her hair to stop her and she cried out again, in pain as well as fear. He raised the vicious-looking whip over his head, ready to bring it down.”
  • When the Skandians began fighting the Temujai, “Huge axes rose and fell and more horses came down, with tortured screams. Will had to shut his ears to the sound of horses in agony.”
  • When the Temujai attack the Skandians, the Skandians send a “shower of spears, rocks and other missiles from the Skandian line. Most of them fell short of the galloping horseman.” Some of the Temujai horses were stuck by stakes.
  • During the battle, “Will watched as one group of sixty quickly slung their bows, drew sabers, and darted into the Skandian line in a slashing attack, killing a dozen men.”
  • Will directs the archers to shoot towards the enemy. “Men and horses screamed in pain as they crashed to the ground. . . Those who were unhurt by the arrows were confronted by their comrades and their horses tumbling and rolling headlong. And as each stricken man fell, he took another with him, or caused his neighbor to swerve violently. . .” As the fighting, “the archers were exposed to return fire for no more than a few seconds. Even so, under the constant barrage of arrows from the Temujai, they took a few casualties. . . More horses came down, more riders tumbled out of their saddles. . . Haz’Kam’s son, with one arrow through his right thigh and another in the soft flesh between neck and shoulder, lay across the body of his horse.” Haz’Kam’s son is able to deliver a message to his father before he dies.
  • The Temujai try to take out Will’s archers. “Will studied the mass of riders. He had seventy-five archers still standing in the line, several of them lightly wounded. They had lost eleven men, killed by Temujai arrows, and a further fourteen had been wounded too seriously to keep fighting.” Will’s archers fired arrows and “then suddenly, the air around him was alive with the hissing sound of arrows and all along the line his archers were falling, some crying out in pain and shock as others more ominously, silent.”
  • As the Temujai get close to Will’s archers, they fire. “The arrows tore into his men, killing or wounding seven of them.”
  • A Temujai soldier threatens Evanlyn. When Will sees Evanlyn in danger, he grabs his saxe knife and threw it at the enemy. “The big knife took Nit’zak under the left arm just before he began his downward cut. His eyes glazed and he crumpled slowly to one side, lurching against the earth wall of the trench, then sliding down to the hard-packed earthen floor.” The battle is described over 49 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When taken to her kidnapper’s camp, the men ignore Evanlyn. The six men “ate and drank, swigging what was obviously a strong spirit from leather bottles.”
  • Will thinks back to when he was addicted to warmweed.
  • When Halt is talking to Erak, Halt “poured himself a glass of the brilliant red wine and drank deeply.”
  • After the battle, the Skandians have a three-day period of mourning, “which in Skandia, took the form of a lot of drinking and much enthusiastic recounting of the deceased’s prowess in battle. . . The traditions were sacred to Skandians—particularly traditions that involved a lot of drinking and carousing late into the night.”
  • After the Temujai army is defeated, Halt and the Skandians discuss how to keep the Temujai from trying to return. As they talk, Halt “took a sip of the rich Skandian beer.”

Language

  • Damn is used occasionally. For example, when Horace returns home, someone says, “Damn me boy, but you’ve done us all proud.”
  • When Will’s horse acts up, Halt says, “what the devil. . .”
  • “Gorlog’s teeth” is used as an exclamation once.
  • “By the gods” is used as an exclamation.
  • “My god” is used as an exclamation. When Will returns home, someone says, “My god, I thought we’d never see you again!”
  • Hell is used as profanity. For example, Halt plans to go spy on the enemy. When Halt tells Erak to “wait here,” Erak says, “To hell with waiting here.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The Skandian leader “had sworn a blood vow to the Vallas, the trio of savage gods who ruled the Skandian religion, in which he promised death to any relative of the Araluen King.”
  • In the previous book, Halt helps a dying Scandian by giving the man his weapon. “Shandians believe that if a man died without a weapon in his hand, his soul was lost forever.”
  • When he discovers that Erak has arrows, Halt says, “Thank the gods for the Scandian habit of hoarding everything.”
  • During the battle, “Erak breathed a quick prayer to the Vallas.”
  • During the mourning period, one of the Skandians says, “Ragnak died in battle, as a berserker, and that’s a fate that every true Skandian would envy. It gains him instant entry to the highest level of their version of heaven.”

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi

Everyone had forgotten about it. The Americans are fighting the Russians. The British and French are starting to rebuild their countries. The Japanese are experiencing an economic boom. Germany is being split into two. The world had moved on and forgotten the world’s worst genocide—the Holocaust.

At the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the head of operations of the Nazi’s Final Solution, disappeared without a trace. After sending millions of innocent people to their deaths, Eichmann said goodbye to his wife and sons, walked into the German countryside, and vanished. Sixteen years later, an elite team of Israeli spies is sent to Argentina with one goal in mind—capture and secure Eichmann and bring him to trial in Israel.

Faced with an impossible task, a lawyer, a forger, a doctor, a pilot, and a team of Israeli agents risk everything to capture the architect of the Holocaust. If they are caught, the team could face decades of imprisonment or even death by Argentinian Neo-Nazi groups. However, they have to take the risk–they must take Eichmann to Israel to remind the world of the Holocaust’s victims.

The Nazi Hunters will leave readers on the edge of their seats as it tells the thrilling, harrowing, and true tale of how a team of Israeli spies was able to secretly capture one of the top Nazis decades after his disappearance. Complete with photographs, maps, and top-secret documents, Neal Bascomb tells the story in a cinematic light that will engage readers and get them interested in reading nonfiction.

With his nonfiction novel, Bascomb not only shows readers how traumatic and terrible the Holocaust was but also the far-reaching effects of the genocide–affecting not only its Jewish victims but also the Jewish generations to come. After 16 years of silence, Eichmann’s trial highlighted the true nature of the Holocaust and allowed survivors to openly share their experiences in Nazi concentration and work camps.

Even though The Nazi Hunters contains historical information, the story is fast-paced and reads much like a spy novel. The story is exciting, and the pictures that are scattered throughout the story will remind readers that the events and people are real. Descriptions can sometimes be gory, such as with Eichmann’s hanging, but Bascomb uses the violence to show readers how brutal the Holocaust was and to ground the story in reality. With the countless number of names and historical events, young readers may have a difficult time following the story’s main characters. But, The Nazi Hunters is a fantastic book for middle school readers, rounding out their knowledge about the Holocaust by showing its everlasting effect on world politics.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In December of 1959, Nazi sympathizers attacked Jewish synagogues and citizens in West Germany. “In the following days, anti-Semitic attacks and demonstrations broke out across West Germany, and police were stationed outside synagogues and Jewish cemeteries to prevent further desecrations. In total, 685 Jewish locations throughout the country were vandalized. These were more than the isolated actions of a few hooligans, and Jewish leaders in West Germany made it clear that the scene ‘evoked pictures that bring to mind the November days of 1938,’ referring to Kristallnacht.”
  • When initially capturing Eichmann, “Malkin burst forward, one hand reaching out to keep Eichmann’s right arm down in case he had a gun. His momentum, mixed with his target’s retreat, sent them both pitching to the ground. The agent seized Eichmann as they rolled into the shallow, muddy ditch that ran alongside the road.” Malkin and another agent eventually restrain Eichmann, placing a hand over his mouth so he can’t scream. Then, they throw Eichmann into the backseat of their car.
  • After the car is one hundred feet from Eichmann’s Argentinian house, Aharoni warns him, “Sit still and nothing will happen to you. If you resist, we will shoot you. Do you understand?”
  • After finding their father missing, Nick and Dieter bought three guns and “broke into a Jewish synagogue in the city, guns at their sides.” However, their father is not there and they continue searching.
  • While Eichmann was imprisoned and awaiting trial in Israel, “the prison commandant feared not only that Eichmann might commit suicide, but also that there might be an attempt on his life. His food was always tasted before serving, and his guards were carefully selected so that none of them had lost a family member in the Holocaust.”
  • After the news was released of the Israeli spies’ capture of Eichmann, some Argentinian neo-Nazi groups were eager to seek revenge on local Jewish Argentinians. “Some in Argentina were eager. Unable to strike against them directly, right-wing groups took their revenge on the local Jewish. Tacuara carried out the worst of these attacks, beating up several Jewish students at the University of Buenos Aires and chanting, ‘Long live Eichmann. Death to Jews.’ One student was shot, and later in a vicious assault, Tacuara radicals branded a swastika onto the chest of a teenage girl whose father was suspected of having helped the Israelis.”
  • The book describes Eichmann’s 1962 hanging. “The two guards hit their buttons, and the platform opened with a clang. Eichmann fell ten feet into a room below without a sound. The rope went straight, snapped, and then swayed back and forth. A doctor moved into the chamber, took Eichmann’s pulse, and declared the Nazi dead.” After he is hanged, Eichmann is cremated, and his ashes are thrown into the sea so that no shrine or tribute can be made to him.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When leaving Argentina on an airplane, Eichmann has to be sedated in order to not cause trouble. “The doctor slid the needle into a vein and attached a tube. Then he delivered the sedative. Eichmann soon faded, mumbling, ‘No, no. I don’t need it.’”
  • While imprisoned in Argentina and awaiting transport to Israel, “Eichmann had spoken of his love for red wine, and Malkin thought that it wouldn’t do any harm to give him a glass. . . Malkin poured a glass of wine and placed it in Eichmann’s hands. The prisoner drained his glass. Malkin sipped at his wine. He put a record on the turntable and then lit a cigarette for Eichmann. Flamenco music filled the small, stuffy room. Eichmann drew deeply on the cigarette until it was almost at its butt.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Upon capture, Eichmann reveals that he knows a bit of Hebrew. Aharoni stops him from speaking, saying that, “The words were the beginning of the Sh’ma, the holiest prayer in the Jewish religion, recited in the morning and at night by the faithful. It was a prayer spoken at the hour of death, and millions, millions, of Jews had come to utter it because of Adolf Eichmann.”
  • After saying a quick prayer, Eichmann’s last words were, “Gentlemen, we shall meet again soon, so is the fate of all men. I have believed in God all my life, and I die believing in God.”

by Matthew Perkey

Children of Blood and Bone

Children of Blood and Bone takes place in Orïsha, a rich fantasy landscape where magic users are born with white hair, signaling the powers they will inherit at thirteen. However, an evil king has wiped magic from the land in a genocide of all magic users and severed the people’s connection to the gods. The book alternates between the perspectives of the characters Zélie, Amari, and Inan.

Zélie is a seventeen-year-old girl from a small village, who has been called “maggot” most of her life because of her white hair. After her mother was killed in the slaughter of maji, survivors with white hair became second-class citizens. Bitter and stubborn, Zélie has been taking lessons to fight with a staff while trying to care for her ailing father.

Inan and Amari are the king’s children—the prince and princess of Orïsha. Amari sets off the story’s chain of events when she spies on her father, discovering a scroll that has the power to return magic to the land. Determined not to let it fall into her father’s hands, she runs away with it, and meets Zélie and her brother, Tzain. The three soon find themselves hunted by the king’s army, headed by Inan, who is haunted by an inner conflict over whether the king’s cause is just.

The majority of the narrative follows Zélie, Amari, and Tzain’s journey through Orïsha. While evading capture, they also embark on a quest to reunite the scroll with other ancient artifacts. Their goal is to perform a ritual that can restore the magical connection between the gods and the people of Orïsha.

Children of Blood and Bone includes unique worldbuilding and a magic system that proves central to the plot. Although the switches between narrators are almost dizzying, each character has a unique personality that comes alive on the page. Readers will find themselves sympathizing with the gentle Amari, the stubborn Zélie, and the conflicted Inan in equal measure.

The plot takes a few chapters to get off the ground, and the first act contains an unavoidable amount of worldbuilding. Still, it is packed with action, and the pacing will likely keep the attention of even easily bored readers. As the plot progresses, readers slowly get to see Orïshan’s magic firsthand. Each demonstration of magic will leave readers eager for more.

The story contains two central romances: Tzain and Amari, and Zélie and Inan. Both work rather well: their dynamics complement each other, and a decent amount of chemistry builds up between the two couples. In addition, readers will enjoy watching the friendship between Zélie and Amari develop from hatred into a deep mutual respect.

Fans of fantasy and magic will enjoy Children of Blood and Bone. Despite the fresh new look it gives to its magical land and teenage heroes, Children of Blood and Bone relies on the typical structure of a young adult fantasy. Seasoned readers of the genre will likely recognize the tropes of the “evil king,” the “chosen one,” and the “perilous quest.” These tropes are ubiquitous for a reason, though, and many readers won’t mind. The action, suspense, and intensity will make it irresistible.

Sexual Content

  • Amari’s complexion “makes the nobility gossip that [her mother] slept with a servant.”
  • Amari sees Tzain undress and lowers her eyes, thinking, “the last time I saw a boy’s bare body my nannies were giving Inan and me baths.”
  • Zélie and Tzain meet in a dream. Zélie thinks, “My gods, is he even wearing clothes? My eyes comb over his broad chest, the curves of each muscle. But before I catch sight of anything under the water, I jerk my eyes up.”
  • Tzain talks about Inan to Zélie, saying that he “doesn’t care about you, Zél. He just wants to get in between your legs.” A moment later, he calls her “the prince’s whore.”
  • Inan describes kissing Zélie. Inan’s “mouth presses against her neck. She gasps as I run my hands up her back. A small moan escapes her lips. . . Her fingers dig into my back, pulling me closer. Everything in me wants her. Wants this. All the time.”
  • Zélie and Inan kiss. “Inan presses his lips to mine and everything fades. His kiss is tender yet forceful, gently pushing into me. And his lips . . . soft . . . When he finally pulls away, my heart is beating so fast it feels like I’ve just finished a fight.” Before they are interrupted, they intend on going further. Zélie narrates, “I grab his head and force his lips back onto mine. Restraint can wait for tomorrow. Tonight I want him.”
  • Amari watches Zélie and Inan kiss. “The tender way he holds her, the way his hands roam, pulling her into him… an embrace like this is far too intimate to watch.”
  • Some drunken guards make a veiled insinuation that Zélie is a prostitute, and one “wraps his pudgy hands around [her] neck and presses [her] against the wooden wall.” Zélie remarks that it’s against the law for maji and non-magic users “to so much as kiss . . . but it doesn’t keep the guards from pawing at us like animals.” Zélie wants to fight back, but forces herself to remain calm until the guard unhands her.
  • Later Zélie says, “The guards grope me whenever they have a chance,” and refers to them as “rapists.”

Violence

  • During a childhood training session, Amari and Inan’s father (the king) commanded Inan to strike Amari. She still carries around the massive scar.
  • Amari watches her father kill her servant Binta, who was her best friend, after seeing her demonstrate magical ability. “One moment Binta stands. In the next, Father’s sword plunges through her chest.”
  • Zélie watches a man hit a boy with a cane that burns his skin. “The acrid smell of burning flesh hits me as the stocker presses the cane into the boy’s back. Smoke rises from his skin as he struggles to crawl to his knees.”
  • Zélie frequently fights with her staff. She hits a man in the head so hard he collapses. She kicks a man in the jaw. She smashes the bones in a boy’s hand. All of these actions are for survival or self-defense.
  • Inan destroys a village and watches a young child try to revive his dead father. “A small child hurls his body to the ground. His cries out through the night. It’s only then I discover the sand-covered corpse at his feet.”
  • A woman wearing sharp rings on her fingers smacks a servant, and “the rings cut into his skin.”
  • A man is stabbed in the chest, and “his eyes bulge and his mouth falls open. His staff drops from his hand. His blood splatters as it hits the ground.”
  • Zélie, Tzain, and Amari compete in a battle to the death. The arena is flooded, and thirty boats are launched out onto the water. A team cannot win until every other competitor has been killed. Zélie narrates, “Chaos surrounds me, pulsing through every breath and heartbeat. It sings as blood splatters through the air, screams as boats explode into oblivion… My insides lurch as a cannonball rips through the deck of another boat. Injured cries hit my ears like shattered glass. The stench of blood stains the air.”  The competition lasts for twelve pages.
  • Inan accidentally kills a military leader with his magic. “Kaea’s cries of agony grow. Her eyes turn red. Blood trickles from her ears, trailing down her neck . . . A shuddered gasp escapes her lips. Her eyes roll back.”
  • Amari beats someone up. Amari pulls “my fist back, twisting from my hips as my fist collides with her jaw. Her head snaps with a lurch. Her eyes roll before she blacks out.”
  • A mercenary explains the twenty-three scars on his arm. An unspecified enemy “killed one of my crew members in front of me, each time they carved a new one.”
  • When Zélie is captured, the king has the word “maggot” (a hateful slur) carved into her back with a knife.  In the same scene, a physician “cuts a shallow X into Zélie’s neck . . . and pushes a thick, hollowed-out needle into the exposed vein . . . removes a small vial of black liquid and prepares to pour the serum down the needle.”
  • A Burner (maji of fire) demonstrates his powers in battle. “A fire explodes from his skin. Smoldering embers rain from his body. Flames blaze around his form. The fire erupts from every limb, shooting out of his mouth, his arms, his legs.”
  • A Cancer (maji of disease) uses her power in battle. “She leaks dark green energy from her hands, trapping the men in a malignant cloud. The moment it touches the guards, they crumble, skin yellowing as disease rages through them.”
  • Zélie watches a young girl get shot with an arrow. “An arrow pierces through her gut… [she] looks down, small hands gripping the arrow’s shaft.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A mercenary takes “a long drag off a hand-rolled cigarette.”
  • When Zélie encounters a palace guard, “the pungent smell of alcohol wafts into the air with his unwelcome presence.”
  • The characters drink palm wine during a festival. Later, during an intimate moment with Inan, Zélie thinks, “His words make my head spin. His words or the alcohol.”

Language

  • Profanity is used infrequently. Profanity includes: damn and hell.
  • Royals and nobles say “Skies!” as an invective.
  • Characters say, “Gods” or “Oh my gods.”
  • Zélie thinks, “Dammit.”
  • Tzain says, “I don’t give a damn.”
  • Tzain says, “What the hell are you doing?”
  • Amari describes a place as a “hell.”
  • Tzain tells Zélie, “You’re always screwing everything up.”

Supernatural

  • This book tightly blends the supernatural and the spiritual. The magic system in Orïsha encompasses ideas like higher powers, gods, prayer, human souls, and the afterlife.
  • Magic in Orïsha is tied to the Sky Mother, a deity who reigns over all the gods.
  • While sleeping, Zélie and Inan use magic to meet in a “dreamscape.”
  • As a Reaper, Zélie can sense spirits of the dead, and she can summon them in physical form to do her bidding.

Spiritual Content

  • Zélie believes that the gods control her fate. “No matter how much I crave peace, the gods have other plans.”
  • Amari and Inan are from nobility and have different beliefs. Amari thinks, “Gods don’t exist. Everyone in the palace knows that.”
  • The beliefs held by the Orïshan people also play a bigger part in the plot. In one scene, Zélie enlists the help of mercenaries by telling them, “[the gods] have chosen you because they want your help.”
  • Orïshan legend speaks of an afterlife. After a fire in her village claims four lives, Zélie thinks, “If their spirits have ascended to the peace of alâfia, death would be almost a gift. But if they suffered too much before they died . . . If the trauma of their deaths was too much, their spirits won’t rise to the afterlife. They’ll stay in apâdi, an eternal hell, reliving the worst of their pain.”
  • Zélie’s narration often uses the word “pray” interchangeably with “wish” and “hope.”
  • Zélie can sense people’s souls leaving their bodies as they die.
  • Zélie remembers that after the raid, she “cursed the gods for making us this way.”
  • During the climax of the book, Zélie has a near-death experience and sees her dead mother’s spirit. Her mother says, “You are a sister of Oya [a goddess], my love. You know our spirits never die.”

by Caroline Galdi

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