Young Adult – Page 4 – Sneak Peek Books

Ghost Boys

When twelve-year-old Jerome Rogers is shot and killed by a police officer, his ghost watches his family and the world around him shake in the wake of his death. Upset and frustrated, he doesn’t understand why this had to happen–why a police officer would confuse a kid with a toy gun for a grown man, and why no one administered any medical care at the scene. Jerome is mad that this often happens to black folks like him. Then, Jerome meets another ghost boy named Emmett Till, who teaches him about the United States’ long legacy of discrimination against black people, and especially black boys.

Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Ghost Boys is a gripping story about violence, grief, and the devastation caused by systemic racism. Jerome laments about how he’ll never get to grow old, and that he has to leave his family behind. He witnesses the court proceedings deciding the fate of the police officer, and he sees his family’s reaction when the judge decides that there is not enough evidence for a trial. It is wholly unfair, and Jerome struggles with this unfairness throughout much of the novel. It is by Emmett Till’s explanation of history that Jerome learns he can still look after kids who have been wronged and that maybe we can take steps toward change.

A couple of people can see Jerome’s ghost and interact with him. His grandmother has some inkling that he’s there, but Jerome spends most of his time speaking with Sarah, the daughter of the police officer. She grapples with internalized biases, and they help each other understand that they can still create change for the better, even though their worlds are categorically messy. It is through Sarah and Emmett Till that Jerome comes to accept his death and realizes that sharing his story will hopefully help prevent events like this in the future.

Rhodes doesn’t hold back in Ghost Boys. Although this book details violence and tragedy, she does an excellent job using these details to move the plot along and help the characters grow. Her choice to include the historical case of Emmett Till is also well done, and Emmett’s inclusion in the book helps balance out Jerome’s other primary interactions as a ghost.

Ghost Boys is an emotionally difficult book, and the target audience should be middle-grade readers and older readers who find themselves ready for this intensity. The tragedy of this book is not that it is violent, but rather that this is our unfortunate reality. The names of real-life black people killed by the police are scattered throughout the book, reminding us that this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For all the gravitas that Ghost Boys brings, it is an important read for understanding grief and compassion, and by the end, there is still a glimmer of hope that maybe people can change for the better.

There are many great book options for middle-grade readers who want to explore racism in more detail including The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine, A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée, From The Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks, and The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson.

Sexual Content

Jerome dreams about what it would be like for him to be able to grow up. On his list of things he would’ve done, he mentions, “Real is me having a girlfriend. (Maybe.)”

Violence

The protagonist, Jerome, is shot and killed by police officers who mistook his toy gun for a real one. As a ghost watching himself outside his body, Jerome describes his body, saying, “Laid out flat, my stomach touching ground. My right knee bent and my brand-new Nikes stained with blood. I stop and stare at my face, my right cheek flattened on concrete. My eyes are wide open.”
Jerome’s Ma pokes him while emphasizing that she wants him to be educated. Jerome says, “Sometimes the poke hurts a bit. But I get it.”
Jerome is afraid of some bullies at school because they “like to dump [his] backpack. Push [him], pull [his] pants down. Hit [him] upside the head.” This is a common occurrence when Jerome describes his time at school.
Jerome notes that the new kid, Carlos, is going to get a beating from the school bullies. Jerome says, “New students are beat-down magnets.”
The bullies attack Carlos in the school bathroom. Jerome describes, “Mike punches Carlos. He falls backwards. Then, Mike and Snap are both kicking Carlos. In the stomach. The head.” This scene continues for two pages.
Jerome stands up to the bullies on behalf of Carlos, and Carlos pulls a gun on the bullies, surprising everyone. Jerome describes, “We all turn. Carlos has a gun.” It turns out later that it’s a plastic toy, and that’s how Carlos got it past school security.
Jerome doesn’t like seeing his mom upset. He says, “seeing Ma crying makes me want to crush, slam something into the ground.” He does not act on these impulses.
Jerome’s dad is upset over his son’s death at the hands of a policeman. While speaking with the rest of the family about the injustice, Jerome describes, “Pop’s fist slams the wall. The drywall cracks. I’ve never seen Pop violent.”
Many references are made to slavery and violence against black people in the United States. Jerome’s dad says, “Tamir Rice, 2014. He died in Cleveland. Another boy shot just because he’s black . . . No justice. No peace. Since slavery, white men been killing blacks.”
Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, can see Jerome’s ghost. She tells him that she’s sorry, and Jerome thinks, “If she wasn’t a girl, I’d think about hitting her.”
Ever since her dad killed Jerome, Sarah’s parents have been arguing. Jerome and Sarah both hear noise coming from downstairs. “A door slams. Sarah’s mom and dad are shouting. Glass breaks.”
Jerome becomes angry, and in his ghost form his “hand connects. Peter Pan flies across the room. The book hits the wall, drops to the floor.”
Emmett Till died in 1955. He was lynched by a group of men, and the scene lasts for two pages. Jerome watches Emmett’s memories, describing, “The husband fires the gun, sparks fly. Emmett’s spirit rises. With barbed wire, the men lash Emmett’s body to a large wheel. They drag, shove the wheel into the river. Watch it sink. Blood stains the riverbank.”
In one of the final chapters, the reader experiences Jerome’s death in first person. Jerome says, “Pain slams me. Two fire sticks are inside me. Burning, searing my right shoulder and lower back. What happened? What happened to me?” This description goes on for a couple of pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

Jerome says that, “I know Ma will remind [Grandma] to take her blood pressure pill.”
Jerome describes a lot a few blocks away from his home. He says, “A meth lab exploded there and two houses burnt.”
Jerome describes some drug dealers who happen to deal two blocks away from his school. He says, “drug dealers slip powder or pill packets to customers, stuffing cash into their pockets. Pop says, ‘Not enough jobs, but still it’s wrong. Drugs kill.’”
After killing Jerome, Sarah’s dad “drinks, stares at the TV.”

Language

Mild language is used occasionally. Terms included are stupid, dumb, and crazy.

Supernatural

Jerome dies and becomes a ghost, watching over his family for much of the book.
Jerome meets Emmett Till’s ghost, who was a real-life boy who was killed in 1955.
From Sarah’s window, Sarah, Emmett, and Jerome can see “a shadow. Then, another. And another. Another and another. Hundreds, thousands of ghost boys standing, ever still, looking up, through the window into our souls.” It is then clarified that these are the ghosts of thousands of black boys who have been killed.

Spiritual Content

Grandma has “premonitions . . . worries about bad things happening.” She tells Jerome that she receives these premonitions in the form of bad dreams.
Grandma has superstitions, and Jerome states that she likes to do things in threes because it’s “Grandma’s special number.”
Grandma tells Jerome, “Three means All. Optimism. Joy . . . Heaven, Earth, Water. Three means you’re close to the angels.”
For Jerome’s funeral, Reverend Thornton makes an appearance. He says to Jerome’s family, “We should pray.” To this, Jerome’s dad says, “What for? Jerome’s not coming back.”
Grandma expresses her belief in spirits and the afterlife, saying, “Every black person in the South knows it’s true. Dead, living, no matter. Both worlds are close. Spirits aren’t gone.” Her words are dismissed by the reverend and by others as mere superstition.
Emmett Till talks about his mother’s beliefs, saying, “‘Family and faith,’ that’s what mattered, she said.”
Jerome’s grandma has an altar to her late husband. Jerome describes, “Every Sunday, Grandma lights candles and talks to a picture of Grandpa in a sailor’s uniform.”
Carlos tells his dad that he “wants to honor Jerome” on Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead ceremony goes on for a chapter.

Contingency Plan

When Sandra Sinclair, recently widowed and the mother of twelve-year-old Jane, meets wealthy lawyer Joe Gillette, he wins her over with his kind and conscientious attitude. Falling in love faster than she ever thought possible, Sandra agrees to marry him. But soon after they move into their new home, things begin to change, and Joe’s controlling behavior causes Sandra to question her decision. When her new husband becomes seriously abusive, Sandra decides she and Jane must leave.

When Joe makes it clear that he will not just let Sandra walk away, she discovers it’s quite likely Joe arranged his first wife’s death and that Sandra is now part of his “contingency plan.” She soon realizes that even the law is no defense against this meticulous and egotistical man. Fleeing to an old family cabin on a remote lake, mother and daughter prepare to live off the grid. But when Joe tracks them down, Sandra must come up with a contingency plan of her own.

Contingency Plan is part of the Orca family of Rapid Reads books which are intended for a diverse audience, including ESL students, reluctant readers, adults who struggle with literacy, and anyone who wants a high-interest quick read. Since Contingency Plan focuses on Sandra, who was recently widowed, younger readers may have a difficult time connecting to her. While readers will empathize with Sandra’s grief, she is not necessarily a dramatic character that will keep readers’ interest. Much of the story is told in the past tense, which limits the suspense, and the ending of the book is anticlimactic and unsurprising.

Some teen readers may reach for the book because they are interested in Sandra’s daughter. However, Sandra’s daughter rarely plays an active role in the story, which makes it difficult to emotionally invest in her. Plus, Joe has very little interaction with Sandra’s daughter.

Even though Joe is very controlling, his abusive behavior is rarely physical, which may lead some readers to wonder why Sandra feels she cannot stay with him. Unfortunately, Contingency Plan isn’t a compelling story and fails to teach any life lessons. Reluctant readers who are looking for a story that focuses on family and will appeal to teens have many good options, including In Plain Sight by Laura Langston and Tell by Nora McClintock.

Sexual Content

Sandra goes on an overnight trip with Joe. While having dinner, Joe smiles at her and Sandra proclaims, “the chemistry took my breath away. But it was more than sexual attraction.” Later, his “tender mouth nuzzled my ear, sending a tingle to forgotten places. . . We wouldn’t need that second bedroom tonight.”
After being married for a while, Joe says that Sandra treats sex “like a chore.”
Even though Sandra is beginning to hate Joe, she feels that she has to pretend like she loves him. One night, “our lovemaking earned a solid-gold Oscar for me. For him, the usual silver star for excellence. My body responded in spite of itself.”

Violence

Joe gets angry at Sandra. Sandra describes, “he gave me a shake that rattled my teeth. But he didn’t slap me.”
A private detective investigates Joe because while backpacking in the wilderness, Joe’s first wife died. Some people believed Joe intentionally got lost and caused his wife’s death.
Sandra takes her daughter and hides out in an old hunting cabin. Sandra knows Joe is in town asking questions, so she comes up with a plan to kill him. When Sandra hears Joe’s snowmobile, she jumps on her own snowmobile and drives towards a partially frozen lake. Both Sandra and Joe break the ice and fall into the freezing water, but because she is prepared, Sandra is able to make it out. “He bobbed to the top. . . Joe’s gloved hand flipped up his visor and he splashed. ‘Help me! For god’s s-sake, S-sandra,’ he splashed.” Sandra leaves him in the water and thinks, “At 15°C, it wouldn’t take long for the ice to refreeze.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Joe and Sandra drink champagne several times.
After getting married, Joe and Sandra have dinner with the family. One woman gets “tipsy” while “the wine and brandy were making everything a bit unreal.”
After their marriage, Joe often drinks alcohol.
When running from Joe, Sandra stays in a cheap hotel where someone has a drunken party.
On a long trip, Joe takes amphetamines to keep awake.

Language

Hell is used three times. For example, after looking at Sandra’s computer chat history, Joe yells, “What the hell are you doing gossiping on the computer with those bitches?”
Joe tells Sandra, “I have every right to know what my goddamn wife is up to.”
Joe calls Sandra’s car a “shitbox.”
Bullshit is used once.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

After getting married, Joe says, “May God hold you in the palm of his hand.”
After going on her honeymoon, Sandra tells her dead husband, “Thanks for your blessing, Andy.”
Occasionally Sandra prays simple prayers. For example, after lying to Joe, Sandra “prayed that [Joe] couldn’t feel my heart breaking out of my chest.”

Now is the Time for Running

In the poor village of Gutu in Zimbabwe, Deo and his family live in one room. The people of his village are starving and struggling. Deo doesn’t even have a proper soccer ball to play with – just a bag of leather and twine – but this village is the only place he’s called home. When government soldiers destroy Gutu for housing “dissidents” suddenly Deo has lost his family, his home, and his happiness all at once. Deo’s mentally disabled older brother, Innocent, is his only remaining relative. Deo must get Innocent to safety in South Africa, but the journey to a better life is harder than he could ever imagine.

First, Deo and Innocent leave Zimbabwe. As they travel, they see a country torn apart by the government’s purge of dissenters. They narrowly escape run-ins with soldiers and travel through dangerous wilderness to cross the border. They spend some time at a farm, but danger arises when the local workers don’t like that refugees have stolen their jobs. The promise of a better, safer life lies in the city of Johannesburg. Once again, Deo and Innocent uproot themselves and travel to the city.

However, Johannesburg doesn’t turn out to be the haven they heard about. Instead of fighting against the government, the people in South Africa are fighting each other. Groups of radicals are calling for “foreigners” – the refugees from other African nations – to go home or be eradicated. They destroy refugee-owned shops and ruin their homes. During one of these raids, Innocent is killed.

Without his brother, Deo doesn’t know what to feel. In fact, he wants to feel nothing at all. The book resumes almost two years later with Deo addicted to drugs and living on the streets. His life changes by chance when a soccer coach sees Deo’s skill with the ball, and suddenly Deo is given a place to sleep, warm food to eat, and a reason to live: playing soccer.

At first, his team is a far cry from a family. Deo thinks they come from too many different places to understand each other. However, Deo’s coach convinces them that their strength lies their differences. They play successfully at the Street Soccer World Cup, also known as the Homeless World Cup – a competition that brings refugees and street kids together for the chance to change their lives. The story doesn’t reveal how the final match ends, but for Deo, his new life is just beginning.

Inspired by true events, Now is the Time for Running is a journey of displacement through the eyes of a young man. Deo tells it like it is – he doesn’t shy away from the situation in Zimbabwe despite how much pain it causes him. It’s necessary to note that this book does not shy away from the horrors of civil war, poverty, and intolerance. While this book is not for the faint of heart, the lessons and truths it brings to light are meaningful and powerful. As a narrator, Deo goes through more in a few years than many people suffer through in their whole lives, but this doesn’t make him less relatable. Deo wants to protect the people he loves and to be happy – goals that anyone can relate to.

The first lesson of this book is clear: Deo never gives up. His unrelenting goal to protect his brother and escape the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe shows that he is continuously determined to have a better life. Even after Innocent dies and Deo struggles with addiction, he gets back on his feet through the soccer program. Despite great odds, Deo shows that people can always make the choice to persevere towards their goals.

The other main theme of the story is not as apparent, but it’s one of the reasons readers see repeated instances of violence as Deo searches for a new place to call home: The “us vs. them” mentality. While present throughout the whole book, such as when the soldiers massacre the people of Gutu or when Innocent is killed in the anti-refugee riots, this issue comes to a head in Deo’s soccer team. After fighting breaks out amongst the teams, Deo’s coach teaches them that the true strength lies in their differences. The coach says, “Each of you brings something special to this team. Zimbabwe has brought me guts and determination; from Kenya, I get lightness and speed; from Mozambique, superb ball control and agility. . . It is because we are not the same that we are stronger than any other team in this competition! All of you have learned to play soccer in different parts of Africa. Our combined playing style is like no other in the world.” Once the team listens to the stories of their fellow teammates, they understand that they all have suffered, but they can all move forward together.

Now is the Time for Running is a powerful book that teaches that strength does not lie in forcing everyone to be the same; it comes from accepting that everyone’s differences bring something new and unique to the table. Readers who want to learn about history through the eyes of an athlete should also read The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow.

Sexual Content

The guards punish Innocent by taking his clothes away. When Deo rescues him, Innocent throws a fit about being naked, but Deo convinces Innocent to come with him by saying that the soldiers might take both their clothes. “We don’t want the soldiers to come back and take my clothes too. Then we’ll both be naked. . . Can you imagine everyone laughing at our butts and our balls bouncing around?”
One of the women that Deo and Innocent stay with is a sex worker.
Two of the soccer players, T-Jay and Keelan, have a short exchange. When T-Jay says Keelan has a “cute butt,” Keelan gives him the middle finger.
Innocent always carried a condom. Keelan says, “Perhaps your brother knew more about sex than you think.” Deo replies, “Innocent didn’t like girls much. He saw safe-sex ads everywhere, and he thought that condoms would keep him safe from girls.”
During a game, Deo describes, “Keelan. . . scored her third goal and headed straight to me. I was sitting on the bench when she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.”

Violence

Deo punches a kid named Pelo who calls him crazy on the soccer field. “Pelo does not have the chance to finish what he’s saying because he has to deal with my fist in his mouth. . . ” Another kid pulls Deo away before the fight continues.
When Deo sees soldiers carrying guns, he thinks about the damage guns can cause. “I have seen a cow cut in half from a burst from one of those guns.”
Deo knows stories about the violence brought by the soldiers. The soldiers “went to Chipinge when the people were angry from hunger, so angry that some of them were killed. Auntie Aurelia told us that her niece was one of those who were hungry. She did not say how she bled to death.”
Commander Jesus comes to Deo’s village, Gutu, to kill dissenters of the government. Commander Jesus says, “In the back of my jeep there is a drum filled with blood. The blood came from people who voted wrongly. My life is to drink human blood. My supply is running low. I have come here to kill dissidents. . . You are going to eat eggs, after eggs hens, after hens goats, after goats cattle. . . . Then you are going to eat your children. After that you shall eat your wives. Then the men will remain, and because dissidents have guns, they will kill the men and only dissidents will remain. That’s how we will find who they are, and then we will kill them.”
The soldiers and Commander Jesus hurt Grandpa Longdrop. Deo witnesses “an awful crunch and [I] see Grandpa Longdrop collapse in front of me. His eyes look dazed. He tries to get up, and I try to reach him to tell him to stay down, but then Commander Jesus kicks him. He crumples.”
Deo’s mentally disabled brother, Innocent, comes to defend Grandpa Longdrop. “Innocent runs screaming toward Commander Jesus with a stick raised high above his head. He cracks it down on Commander Jesus’s outstretched hands.” The soldiers attack Innocent. “The soldiers beat Innocent with their rifle butts. What is worse than the sound of wood against the bones of your brother?. . . Innocent does not cry. He lies like a baby, curled up, his hands and arms covering his head. . . Innocent is pulled to his knees. His face is crooked, his eyes black balls. Blood trickles from his broken nose.” Innocent later recovers from these injuries.
Commander Jesus has the soldiers beat all the residents of Gutu. “The soldiers beat us as we lie on the ground. . . Useless hands against hard sticks. Elbows cracked. Heads smacked. Screams. Flashes of wood. Soldiers grunting. And pain. Lots of it.”
After the beating, Deo assesses the townspeople’s injuries. “Grandpa Longdrop lies on the ground, his head in my [mother’s] lap. Sometimes he groans, and sometimes he is so quiet that I am afraid that he will never wake up. . . The backs of my legs hurt where the soldiers’ sticks fell, but this is nothing to what others have suffered. One of Lola’s brothers has a broken arm. Bhuku’s [mother] has a split in her head that bleeds and bleeds. Shadrack’s little sister could be dead.”
The soldiers pull a truck driver out of his car and kick him before letting him run away.
The soldiers take Innocent as punishment for hitting Commander Jesus. Deo finds him later. “A naked body is lying in the middle of the [cattle pen]. The man’s wrists are tied to pegs in the ground. His ankles are tied to the end of a log that stretches his legs wide apart. There is a sack over his head. . . I notice ants crawling all over his body. . . There is dried blood at the side of his mouth, his nose is broken, and his eyes are all puffy.” Innocent says the soldiers also peed on him.
The soldiers end up killing everyone in Deo’s village. “Gunshots rat-a-tat-tat across the valley. . .I crawl forward into the noise of people dying. The soldiers are shooting. People are running away. Some are falling. Now the soldiers hold their guns as if they mean business. Their guns bark, come alive in their hands, their bullets rip into the earth, the walls, trees, pots, chairs, and flesh. I watch. I am too afraid to turn away. People scream; their cries are cut in half by bullets.”
Deo finds his mother (or “Amai”) and Grandpa Longdrop among the dead villagers. “Amai is lying face down. Her arms are thrown out in front of her as if she is trying to grab something out of her reach. Her back is covered with a damp patch of blood. . . I find Grandpa Longdrop. He stares up at the sky. His mouth is open. He does not look like Grandpa Longdrop anymore. I find Shadrack. Dead. There is Lola. Blood where her face should be. Her brothers are lying not far away.”
During a soccer game, Deo gets angry and kicks a boy named Aziz. “I charge [Aziz] from behind and deliberately kick his ankles. He falls, and the players on his team shout at me.. . . Aziz gets up, inspects his knee. It’s bloody.”
When crossing the border, two of the men in the group climb an electric fence and are electrocuted. “The two men run ahead, faster than us. They are the first to reach the fence. They start climbing. . . The wire fizzes, crackles, and the men shriek and fall to the ground as the electricity burns them.” The men are dazed but recover.
An anti-refugee gang pulls a shopkeeper named Ahmed from his store and beats him. “Hands grab Ahmed and pull him onto the street. He screams as many sticks fall on him. . . Ahmed’s white robes turn red with blood.” It’s unknown whether he lives or dies.
Deo finds Angel, a sex worker, beaten up by one of her clients. “Angel is covered with blood, beaten. She lies on her bed, curled up in a ball. Her face is swollen. . .” Angel explains that her clients “were tired of paying a kwerekwere [a foreigner]. They wanted it for free.”
Deo finds Innocent’s dead body on the ground during an anti-immigrant raid. “I see the shape of a human head, lying on its side. The shape of an arm and a hand. . . I reach the body of my brother, facedown on the ground, covered with rubble.”
A refugee named Muhammad commits suicide by jumping into the ocean. “Muhammad had had enough of what he called a life without hope and without country. . . so he chose to run to the blue horizon. [The police] sent out a boat to fetch [Muhammad], but they never found him.”
While playing soccer, T-Jay and Deo get in a fight. “T-Jay lashed out at me with his elbow. The blow caught me squarely between the eyes, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall down. But instead of taking me down, it was like a switch that flicked on inside me. My fist found its way up T-Jay’s nose and my knee said hello to his balls. . . he got in quite a few good punches before my nose started bleeding. I stopped kicking T-Jay only when I heard [the] whistle bursting my eardrum.”
Keelan explains how she ended up in South Africa. Soldiers came to her town to punish the people who had voted wrongly. Her father, the community leader, was killed. Keelan says, “they had chopped off his arms with a machete.”
T-Jay shares his story too. His father lost his foot when he stood on a landmine. T-Jay’s father “couldn’t work anymore, so he stayed at home. He beat the crap out of me until the social services took him away.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Captain Washington, a family friend of Deo, drinks after he learns Deo’s mother is dead. Captain Washington “brings back a bottle of booze. He pours himself a drink and swallows it quickly…At least when he drinks, he is no longer crying.”
After his brother dies, Deo gets addicted to sniffing glue, a common addiction for street kids in South Africa. Deo says, “the glue makes everything weightless.” He also calls it the “magic tube.” Deo talks about getting high off glue and the withdrawal symptoms, which include vomiting and muscle aches.
Deo notices that some of the other kids on his South African soccer team are also “glue-tube heads.”
T-Jay’s father was an alcoholic.
T-Jay says it’s too late for him to go back to school because he got into drugs.

Language

The story contains some profanity. Shit is used a few times; damn is used three times.
Deo says fear smells worse than “dog crap.”
A rude man calls Mai Maria, a woman who helps Deo and Innocent cross the border, a “filthy Rasta woman.”
Angel calls someone a “bitch.”
The slur kwerekwere is used occasionally. It is a derogatory term for foreigners or outsiders. It is used by gangs of people who want to expel the refugees from their country.
The guy who sells Deo glue says, “get your ass down here.”

Supernatural

There is a rumor that Mai Maria is a witch who eats children.

Spiritual Content

The Methodist Church is mentioned throughout the story because they sometimes provide food and shelter for refugees or struggling communities. Once, Deo stays in a shelter set up by the Methodist Church.
Deo talks about Spirits. “Grandpa Longdrop says that there are two kinds of people, those who believe in the Spirits and those who don’t. . . I understand the Spirits of the Wind, the Spirits of the Rocks, and the Spirits of the Trees are all those who have died and live on in other ways. I understand that they watch over us, that they can sometimes be angry because we forget them. And it is said that when they are angry, they can sometimes punish us. But this thing of the beating [by the soldiers] is too big to blame on the Spirits. They would not allow such a painful thing to happen. If I believe in Spirits, why would I believe in something that causes such pain? Surely the Spirits had nothing to do with what has happened in our village.”
Deo sings an ancient Spirit song passed down by his family to prompt Innocent into a fit so they can distract a group of soldiers. “It is always terrible to see Innocent when he has one of his fits. . . People are afraid of Innocent when he becomes like this. They think he is possessed. They think that the Spirits have taken over his body.” The lyrics of the song are not included in the story.
One of the items that Innocent carried with him was a pocket Bible with a note inside from their father. The note reads: “To Innocent and Deo, This is not a book of laws but a book of love. It will always be your salvation.”
The soccer team from the Philippines at the Homeless World Cup chants, “For God and for country!”
Bishop Desmond Tutu, who has come to oversee the Homeless World Cup, thanks God and says to the players, “God bless you all!”

All My Rage

In the humble and quiet town of Juniper, California, resides two Pakistani-American teens who are not just best friends, but family as well: Salahudin Malik, an aspiring writer who struggles to take care of the family motel as his mother’s health declines and his father slowly succumbs to alcoholism, and Noor Riaz, an intelligent and logical woman who dreams of becoming a doctor, yet has to hide her ambitions from her controlling uncle, who adopted her when her parents were killed in an earthquake in Pakistan.

However, their friendship is compromised when the Fight breaks out between them, and their individual problems gradually worsen. Sal’s desperate attempts to save the motel and Noor’s determination to go to college lead to unforeseen consequences. Sal and Noor’s friendship rises and falls with each harrowing decision, all the while fending off the monsters that live in their past and the ones that live to this day.

Narrated in dual-POV, both Sal and Noor are engaging and complex—even though they have plenty of flaws. The teens are perfectly portrayed as realistic teenagers who are withstanding difficult lives. While trying to ensure his family motel remains competent, as per his dying mother’s wishes, Sal’s desperation and lack of proper judgment lands him in deep waters; this further compromises his friendship with Noor, who is sacrificing her own happiness to appease her selfish uncle by working at his liquor store. At such a young age, both teens must not only think for themselves, but also for their guardian/family as their living conditions and financial situations are not ideal.

However, the two protagonists shed an inspiring light with their determination—and especially their deep love and care for each other. When Sal finds out a disturbing fact about Noor’s uncle, he takes her out for the evening in order to distract her and ensure she does not undergo her uncle’s wrath anymore. Sal states, “She was always ready to run. Every day, she came to school wondering if this would be the day she had to get out. . . I should have seen. Done something.” He worries for her—just like Noor does for him, as she urges him to prioritize his impressive writing skills and make something out of it, instead of striving to save the motel and sacrificing his own dreams.

Furthermore, Tahir perfectly exacerbates the problems delineated in this novel, such as racism, familial issues, the oppression of religion, and, of course, inner rage—specifically directed toward the unfair circumstances Noor and Sal are both placed in. Their character development is phenomenal, with them being naive and unsure in the beginning, and in the end, they’ve indubitably matured after undergoing numerous ups and downs in their personal and social lives. The plot development is extraordinary because the slow build-up to the climax, which hits the reader hard, perfectly exhibits how one really does not see the worst situation coming. It also depicts the true feeling of rage, and how—sometimes—the universe will compile loads of problems upon someone to no end.

The story is more than enjoyable, what with Tahir’s effective storytelling and proper characterization of the two protagonists and the people they were surrounded by. The underlying message in this story is that home can only feel like home once you fit in. In this case, the two characters struggle indefinitely to do so — undergoing an infinite amount of distress and, eventually, rage as well. From there, the novel covers topics such as drug and alcohol addiction, Islamophobia, mentioning of repressed sexual assault, and death.

This awe-inspiring novel’s message is about the identity crisis that comes with belonging to two different cultures, especially for South Asian teenagers, as they often struggle with balancing their ethnic and nationalistic backgrounds. Someone from a background different from the characters’, or even the same, will learn that there are drawbacks, but also beauties involved in South Asian culture. They’ll also learn just how much these teenagers had to fight—just so they can feel like they belonged somewhere. Not only is this book adorned with a meaningful and captivating premise, but it has an impactful and emotional conclusion that will leave readers, especially those with a South Asian background, with a newfound understanding of young love, forgiveness, and inner growth. There is no doubt that Tahir’s razor-sharp writing and remarkable story will reside in all readers’ hearts from the first line. Readers who want to read another excellent book about teens with complicated family lives should read The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan.

Sexual Content

Noor is at Sal’s house, and he becomes enamored in her presence, thinking about the way she smells, “and the way her body curves beneath her worn The Cure t-shirt…” He also thinks that his “skin is tingling in a good way for once.”
Sal picks up Noor from school and thinks about how, last night on the phone, she made a “comment about impure thoughts . . . which made [him] wonder if she had impure thoughts. About [him].”
Sal takes Noor to the outskirts of Juniper, and she settles herself between his legs, her back against his chest. He thinks: “Too many synapses are firing. Too much of her is touching too much of me. My whole body prickles.” They kiss passionately two times after that, and she “makes a funny sound, between a gasp and a moan.” He also thinks: “Suddenly, I need her, all of her. I need her to be close to me.” This whole interaction lasts about three pages.

Violence

When Sal visits his dying mother in the hospital, his drunk father is there. The police are called because his father was causing a commotion in the waiting room. As Sal pleads for his father to let him take him home, he jerks away from Sal, thus “windmilling” him and smacking him in the face.
Jamie, a bully, yells racist remarks at Noor. Then, Jamie grabs Noor’s arm, but Noor rips away from her grip and swings, meeting “her face with a dense thump” she “knows too well… [Jamie] falls back, screams, grabs her nose.”
Noor has been physically abused by her uncle, but it worsens when he finds out that she has been applying to colleges. He yells at her—right before he kicks her, and she is on the ground, and she curls up and waits “for it to be over.” He continues to kick her, “his tennis shoe [slamming] into [her] ribs.” From there, she pulls herself up to her feet and throws a brass sculpture at him, and he screams at her right before she runs away.

Drugs and Alcohol

Drugs and alcohol are one of the few prominent themes in the story, as Sal’s father is an alcoholic and Sal becomes involved with drug dealing to keep his family’s motel running.
In the very beginning of the book, Sal states, “It’s 6:37 a.m. and my father doesn’t want me to know how drunk he is.” Shortly after, Sal runs into Art, his then-girlfriend’s cousin, who is a drug dealer and deals with someone in the bathroom. He states: “Even though [Art] hangs out with the white-power kids, he gets along with everyone. Probably because he supplies most of Juniper High with narcotics.”
Sal and his alcoholic father share a heart-to-heart about Sal’s mother. Just when Sal thinks of consoling his father, Sal states, “His plate clatters in the sink. A cupboard opens. A glass clinks. I smell it, that sharp stink I’ll never get used to, and his sigh of relief, as his memories slide away, a quiet, merciful forgetting.”

Language

The words bitch, shit, asshole, ass, dumbass, and dick are all used several times. The most common is shit.
The word “fuck” is used very rarely. For example, when Sal’s mother is dying, he recollects himself by thinking, “Not now. I’m not going to fucking weep.”
Sal’s father curses in Punjabi once: “Haramzada kutta!” which directly translates to: Dog of a bastard.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Most of the characters are religious, especially Sal’s mother, who commonly makes references to God to get through tough times. For instance, when Sal, as a young child, gets hurt by a stranger, she prays to God, “Do not let him remember. Punish he who did this. Punish him with pain, God. Punish him as only you can.”
Noor’s uncle refers to God negatively as he looks down upon the practice of Islam in general. For example, he says to Noor, “Do you even understand what they’re saying in Arabic? It’s backward and illogical, Noor . . . ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature. It is the opium of the people.’ Karl Marx.”

Good Girl, Bad Blood

After unearthing her town’s secrets and investigating and solving the murder of Andie Bell and Sal Singh, Pip Fitz-Amobi swears she is not a detective anymore.

Even though Pip has released a viral podcast about her investigation, with the help of her boyfriend Ravi Singh, she has put her investigating days behind her. Pip is still haunted by her past involvement in solving the case. “I almost lost everything,” she explains, “I ended up in the hospital, got my dog killed, put my family in danger, [and] destroyed my best friend’s life.” After seeing the lengths she went to investigate Andie’s and Sal’s murders, the obsessive, reckless, almost selfish person she became, and the damage it caused her and the people she loves, Pip never wants to be pulled back into investigating.

But the morning after the six-year anniversary of the deaths of Sal and Andie, the brother of Pip’s friend Connor, has gone missing. She feels she has no choice but to help find him. This time as Pip looks for Connor’s brother Jamie, she uncovers more of her town’s secrets, and now everyone is listening.

Good Girl, Bad Blood is a fantastic sequel to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Like its predecessor, this book has fantastic twists and turns. Similar to the first book, Good Girl, Bad Blood has an interesting use of storytelling, combining the more traditional third-person narration with interview transcripts, Pip’s notes, images, maps, newspaper clippings, and more.

Picking up where A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder left off, Good Girl, Bad Blood deals directly with the events of the last book. Unlike other books in the murder mystery genre, this book examines the impact of traumatizing events on Pip and her friends and family. After Pip’s world has been turned upside down by uncovering the secrets surrounding Andie and Sal’s deaths, Pip is a changed person. She is more protective of those she loves and more careful with her actions. But Pip is also traumatized and scared, and she is haunted by the events she witnessed. Pip tries to make it seem like she is fine so she can support those around her, but in reality, Pip is lost. She is unsure of who she is and who she is becoming.

In the end, while Pip and her friends rescue Jamie and uncover a larger, more sinister plot in the process, Pip comes to terms with many of her flaws. She is not a “good” girl. “Maybe I’m selfish,” Pip says, “maybe I’m reckless and obsessive and I’m OK with doing bad things when it’s me doing them and maybe I’m a hypocrite, and maybe none of that is good, but it feels good. It feels like me . . .” Pip also recognizes that she needs more time to heal. She accepts that it’s okay to be angry at the injustices in the world, and it’s okay to not have a perfect answer to every problem. As Pip comes to terms with who she is, she is also shattered from witnessing violence and death as she watches someone get shot and then, unfortunately, fails to save them. Although Pip is forced to accept the cruelty of the world and the people in it, she is still traumatized and terrified by her experiences.

Overall, Good Girl, Bad Blood is a great sequel, with a dark, suspenseful story full of twists and turns and a fantastic cast of characters. Pip is strong-minded, courageous, and independent, but she is also flawed and broken. She continues to show readers that one does not have to fit into the perfect model society expects from you. It is okay to be angry at the world and its injustices and to grieve the loss of others, and to also grieve who you once were.

Sexual Content

Ravi picks Pip up for dinner. Ravi is dressed nicely, and Pip “could smell aftershave too, as he stepped towards her, but he stopped short, didn’t kiss her on the forehead nor run a hand through her hair.” The pair begin to talk, and Ravi “[places] one hand on her waist, his warm fingers dancing up her ribs.” The scene cuts out before anything else happens between the two.
The night of Ravi’s brother’s memorial, Ravi greets Pip and “[presses his] words into her forehead with his lips.”
After an argument, Pip confronts Ravi about her feelings, explaining why she has been so distant lately. “She had barely finished speaking, but Ravi’s hand was against her face, cupped around her cheek, his thumb rubbing the rain from her bottom lip. He moved his fingers down to lift her chin and then he kissed her. Long and hard, their faces wet against each other, both trying to fight a smile.”

Violence

Picking up where the first book in the series left off, Good Girl, Bad Blood, references much of the violence of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder including the disappearance and death of Andie Bell, the murder of Sal Singh, and the kidnapping of Isla Jordan. Andie Bell was having an affair with her history teacher Elliot Ward, and when she went over to his house to talk one night, “an argument ensued. Andie tripped, hitting her head against his desk. But as Ward rushed to get a first aid kit, Andie disappeared into the night” and was declared missing.
Thinking Andie must have died from her head injury, Ward killed Sal, Andie’s boyfriend, making “it look like suicide and planted evidence so police would think Sal killed his girlfriend then himself.” Months after this, Elliot Ward found who he thought was Andie on the side of the road, disheveled and incoherent. Ward kidnapped Isla, who he thought was Andie, for five years to continue to cover up his crimes.
Andie was actually not killed directly by Ward, in fact, she was able to make it home that night, only to be confronted by her sister, Becca Bell. Becca had been drugged and sexually assaulted by Max Hastings (who is revealed to be a serial rapist), and later finds out that the drugs Max used were sold to him by her sister. The two “started arguing, pushing, until Andie ended up on the floor, unconscious and vomiting. . . Becca froze . . . watching Andie die, too shocked, too angry to save her sister’s life.” Becca hides Andie’s body “because she was scared no one would believe it was an accident.”
After Pip tells the police about how important it is to look into Jamie’s disappearance, the police say, “We’ve got an actual high-risk case: an eight-year-old abducted from her backyard.” It is later revealed that the abduction was only a domestic dispute.
After publishing the podcast, Pip’s life changed. “The anonymous death and rape threats still came in weekly, comments and tweets calling her an ugly, hateful bitch.” Pip explains internet trolls comment on almost everything Pip posts. These hateful comments continue after she posts about Jamie. Pip gets comments saying “I killed Jamie Reynolds,” “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?” and “I killed Jamie and I’ll kill you too, Pip.”
As Pip goes to the old, abandoned farmhouse on the edge of town in search of Jamie, she remembers this is “the place where Becca Bell had hidden her sister’s body for five and a half years. Andie had been right here all along, decomposing in the septic tank.”
As the investigation into Jamie’s disappearance continues, theories pop up online about what happened. Connor angrily tells Pip about what he is reading. “They think my dad killed Jamie . . . They’re saying [Connor’s dad] took the knife from our house and followed Jamie down Weevil Road. Killed him, cleaned and dumped the knife, and hid his body temporarily. That he was still out when I got home around midnight because I didn’t ‘actually see’ my dad when I got in. And then he was absent last weekend because he was out disposing of Jamie’s body. Motive: my dad hates Jamie because he’s ‘such a fucking disappointment.’”
Six days after Jamie goes missing “a dog walker discovered [a] body at about six a.m. . . . in the trees beside I-95, between Fairview and Stamford.” The radio reports “Officers are still at the scene. The deceased is as yet unidentified but has been described as a white male in his early twenties.” Worried, Pip rushes to Connor’s house to see if the body is Jamie’s, but they find out it is not.
It is revealed that Jamie was kidnapped by Stanley Forbes, who is in the witness protection program because his father was a “serial killer. He killed children. And he made his young son, Child Brunswick [Stanley], help him lure out the victims.” Over the years “six children disappear . . . Their burned remains were later discovered buried along the shore of Lake Ontario, all within one mile of each other. The cause of death in each case was blunt force trauma.”
As Pip questions him, Stanley explains that Jamie confronted him about his identity. Stanley explains, “the next thing I know, Jamie lunges at me with a knife. I managed to get out of the way and knock the knife out of his hands. And then we were fighting, out by those trees beside the house . . . I push Jamie off, into one of the trees, and he hits his head, falls to the ground. I think he lost consciousness for a few seconds and after that he seemed a little dazed, concussed.” Not wanting to have to move again, Stanley kidnapped Jamie because he “just needed time to think about what to do. I was never going to hurt him.”
Charlie, the brother of one of the victims who was killed by Stanley’s father, tricked Jamie into helping him. Charlie made Jamie believe he was a girl who had a stalker “threatening to kill her.” In reality, Charlie is trying to have Jamie kill Child Brunswick (Stanley) for him.
Charlie finds Pip and Stanley talking in the old barn and Charlie pulls a gun on Stanley. Three months after his sister was found, Charlie explains how his “dad hanged himself. I was the one who found him, after school. My mother couldn’t cope and turned to alcohol and drugs to numb everything out. I almost starved. Within a year I was removed from her care and sent from foster family to foster family . . . By seventeen, I was living on the streets.”
As Charlie holds Stanley at gunpoint, Pip steps in front of Stanley, pleading to Charlie, “Please don’t shoot.” To protect Pip, Stanley pushes her away. Pip pleads with Charlie more, but he does not budge. “Charlie looked at [Pip], watched her crying. And then he lowered the gun. [Charlie] took two heavy breaths. . . then Charlie fired. The sound ripped the earth out from under Pip. . . He fired again. And again. And again. Again. Again. Until they were just empty clicks. Pip screamed, watching Stanley stagger back off his feet, falling hard against the floor.” Pip tries to save Stanley by performing CPR and placing pressure on the wounds. As she tries to help him, the building bursts into flames and smoke fills the room. “The smoke was getting lower and darker . . . Pip coughed with every breath. But she didn’t let go of him. She held on and she pulled” Stanley out of the burned building. Outside, on the grass, she continues to perform CPR, trying to save Stanley, but unfortunately, Stanley dies. This scene is rather vivid and lasts over a few pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

On her podcast, Pip recounts the trial of Max Hastings and how he drugged his victims. An “expert witness . . . [talked] about the effects of benzodiazepines like Rohypnol . . . The drug acts like a sedative and can have a depressant effect on the body’s central nervous system . . . It feels almost like being separated from your own body, like it just won’t listen to you, your limbs aren’t connected anymore.” Two women who were assaulted by Max, explained they “both only had one or two alcoholic drinks the nights of the” attacks.
The night after the memorial, Cara, Pip’s best friend, went to a party and “was so drunk she couldn’t speak in full sentences, not even half sentence, or quarter, broken up by cries or hiccups.” Pip picked up a “drunken, sobbing Cara.” The next morning, Cara texts Pip: “Urgh, been throwing up literally all day.”
The night he went missing at a party, Jamie “went outside to have a cigarette.”
People send Pip videos of the party Jamie went to. One video showed two of Pip’s classmates “downing two bottles of beer” and later playing beer pong.
When Pip tells her parents she is investigating Jamie’s disappearance, they are angry. Pip’s mom reminds her, “you ended up in the hospital, Pippa, with an overdose. They had to pump your stomach.”
Another witness tells Pip they saw Jamie after they “went to [their] buddy’s house on Weevil Road for some takeout and beers.”
As Pip stakes out the abandoned barnyard, she encounters three teenagers who regularly hang out there. Pip recognizes one who was “buying drugs from Howie Bowers last year.” She sees all three of them smoking cigarettes. After questioning them, Pip learns that they “carry drugs across state lines” for a local drug dealer and in return get “weed for free.”

Language

Profanity is used often throughout this book. Profanity includes shit, fuck, bitch, and ass.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Dark Blue: Color Me Lonely

Kara Hendricks and Jordan Ferguson have been best friends since kindergarten. By now—sophomore year—they’re more like sisters, really. Jordan has always been the leader in the friendship, but still she’s the perfect friend. That is until Jordan started hanging out with a new “cool” crowd and decided Kara was a popularity liability.

Devastated, Kara feels betrayed and abandoned by everyone—even God. How could Jordan do this? Why did God let this happen? Yet for all the hurt and insecurity, these dark blue days contain a life-changing secret. Now that Jordan is gone, Kara has the chance to discover something about herself that she never knew before. But first, she must learn to trust again. It won’t be easy.

Kara’s story deals with universal themes of self-worth, identity, and loneliness that anyone who has suffered a loss will relate to. However, readers may find it difficult to sympathize with Kara because of her self-pitying attitude. When Jordan starts hanging out with the cheerleaders, she tries to include Kara in her new friend group. However, Kara is so uncomfortable that she begins to avoid Jordan. Since Kara’s insecurities drive much of her action, when the friendship finally ends, Kara turns to daydreaming about scenarios that would hurt Jordan. From the start, the girls’ unhealthy relationship is portrayed in a negative manner, so when the friendship ends there is little emotional impact.

Unfortunately, there is nothing unique about Dark Blue’s plot. Instead, it revolves around the typical stereotypes – a goth girl, a nerd, and an academic high achiever. None of the supporting characters are well developed and Kara begins spending time with some of her new friends, not because she truly likes them, but because she’s so desperate not to be alone. The connection between Kara and her new friends feels forced and unauthentic, especially since so many of their conversations are about their belief in God. But through these lunch time discussions, Kara begins to realize that God is the only best friend she needs.

Another negative aspect of Dark Blue is Kara’s long and tedious inner musings. Most of Kara’s interactions with others are short and do little to develop Kara’s personality. Instead, the story has long passages that focus on Kara’s thought process. Because Kara is so caught up in her misery, it is difficult to relate to her.

Dark Blue reminds readers that God is with us even during difficult times. While it is important to connect with others, only God can fill the emptiness that is inside of us. Once Kara accepts God’s love, she is finally able to look at life in a more positive light. While Dark Blue’s message will resonate with readers, the lack of character development and the typical plot structure are not very memorable. However, readers who are dealing with loss and loneliness will find comfort in the book’s message.

Sexual Content

At school, Kara sees some “couples hanging onto each other like they can’t bear to let go, a few even making out.”

Violence

Edgar’s mom was up for parole, but it was denied so “she hung herself.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Kara’s friend, Amy, smokes cigarettes and is part of the “pot-smoking Goth group.”
When Amy and her friends show up at a school dance, Kara thinks “Some of them are high or drunk or both. Including Amy.” Later, Amy pukes.
Kara’s friend, Edgar, has a father who is a recovering alcoholic and a mother who is in jail for drugs.
While talking about Edgar’s home life, Amy says that she’s “used all kinds of lame excuses to get drunk.”

Language

Freaking, crappy, and crud are used rarely.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

When Jordan becomes part of the cheerleading squad, Kara thinks, “Maybe it’s because I prayed that Jordan did so well. Maybe her success was God’s way of getting even with me for being so hopelessly selfish.”
Kara and her friends often discuss their belief in God. For example, during lunch, some of the kids talk about freedom of religion. A girl says, “I don’t think our government should tell us to pray either. But I don’t think they should tell us that we can’t.” The conversation lasts for a page.
Kara asks her friends, “I mean do you think it’s true that you can really have a close relationship with God?” Two kids in the group discuss their beliefs. A boy who goes to church three days a week says, “God made us all unique people. . . I need to go to church a lot and read a lot and pray a lot.” The conversation lasts for three pages.
Because of Kara’s depression, she thinks about giving “this God-thing a shot.” However, she feels like she wants to make a deal with God so her life will go back to the way it was before Jordan dumped her as a friend. Kara thinks, “And I’ve got to wonder whether it’s worth the risk of blowing it with God just because I think I might be able to swing some sort of deal. . . my life is cruddy enough without going and making it worse by messing with someone like God.” Kara’s inner musings last for a page.
One of Kara’s friends, Edgar, says, “I think God is calling me to be a missionary.” He then explains why he believes this. The conversation lasts for about a page.
When Amy offers to give Edgar a makeover, he says, “I’ve been asking God to do something to change me. I’ve been praying to become the kind of guy that other people will listen to.”
Edgar considers Jesus his best friend.
Kara goes to church with Edgar. The youth pastor discusses how “God designed us to feel lonely” and only God can fill the lonely ache inside of us.
After the pastor speaks, Kara isn’t sure how to ask Jesus into her heart. The pastor explains how she needs to “invite Jesus to come inside of you. And once you’ve done that, your life will never be the same.” The church scene is described over five pages.
Edgar tells Kara that “God wants us to make good choices. . .But most of all I think he just wants us to love him and to let him into all the ordinary and sometimes gory details of our daily life.”

Minecraft: Mob Squad #1

The village of Cornucopia is practically perfect in every way. Plenty of food, cozy homes, and a huge wall to keep everyone safe from the scary world outside. What more could a kid possibly need?

Well, a lot, actually.

Mal, a fearless girl, needs adventure, and her friends are right there with her. There is Lenna, a dreamer whose family underestimates her every day, and Tok and Chug, two brothers who love to build stuff (Tok) and smash stuff (Chug). They’re best friends, and in a town whose grown-ups value safety over bravery and fitting in over standing out, they’re the bad apples.

But when a mysterious mob sneaks past Cornucopia’s defenses, the village is in huge trouble. And nobody knows what to do. Finally faced with the adventure they’ve always wanted, Mal and her friends defy the rules their elders have always followed and set out beyond the wall for the first time.

On their journey across the Overworld, they discover wonders they’ve never dreamed of and dangers they’ve never imagined. To save the day, they’ll have to prove they’re more than bad apples. They’re the Mob Squad!

Minecraft fans will love Mob Squad’s action and adventure. As the four friends venture out into the unknown, they quickly learn that they aren’t “bad apples” like the people of Cornucopia have labeled them. Instead, they begin to understand how their unique talents are perfectly suited for the world outside of Cornucopia’s wall. As they fight mobs, they discover more about the world as well as themselves. Through their experiences, the kids gain confidence and realize being different is what makes them special.

The Mob Squad shows the world of Minecraft from the viewpoint of the four friends. Readers will enjoy seeing aspects of the game through their point of view. Each chapter alternates between the four kids; however, the characters’ voices are not very distinct so readers will need to pay attention to the name that appears at the beginning of each chapter.

Mob Squad’s quick pace will keep readers interested with plenty of action, adventure, and battles against mobs. The battle scenes are suspenseful, but not long or gory. However, what makes The Mob Squad shine is the friendship between the kids. Not only do they learn to survive on their own, but they also learn the importance of teamwork. When the kids save the town, they realize that their destiny doesn’t have to be chosen by their family, but they can choose to do what is best for themselves. Readers will be eager to learn what happens to Mal, Lenna, Tok, and Chug in their next adventure which appears in Mob Squad: Never Say Nether.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

A group of boys corner Tok in an alley. Tok’s brother, Chug, punches the leader of the bullies, Jarro. Then Chug “lands a kick right in Jarro’s backside.”
Tok was running into town when Jarro put his arm out causing him to fall flat on his back. Chug is “just about to give in and woop some rumpus when a shadow looms over us all.” An elder stops the fight.
Once the four friends leave Cornucopia, they fight mobs often; not all fights are listed below. On the first night out of Cornucopia, Tok forgets his cat outside. However, Chug and the others must help because zombies are waiting for them. Chug is “hacking at one monster, but it hits him back, and he grunts in surprise. . .” Lenna shoots arrows and “one of the zombies makes a splattery hiss and flops over dead. . . Lenna aims for the two zombies on the left with her arrows, one after the other, while Chug and Mal hack away at the one with the sword and helmet.”
During the fight, Chug and Mal work together. “Mal swipes at [the Zombie’s] legs with her diamond pickaxe, and the moment it turns to groan angrily at her, Chug deals a massive blow against its back with his sword, and the zombie finally falls over.” The fight is described over three pages.
Skeletons start shooting at Lenna. Lenna describes, “On instinct, I throw the torch at the skeleton and use its moment of distraction to reach into my pocket and prepare my own weapon. I fire off two shots before it returns an arrow.” An arrow hits Lenna in the leg. “It feels hot and dull, and I yank it out and shoot it right back at the skeleton, destroying it.” The scene is described over three pages.
While in the wilderness, zombies attack the Mob Squad. Lenna takes down a zombie. “We’re all feeling confident, right up until someone runs around the corner and hits Mal with an ax.” Mal “stagger[s] back, seeing stars. . . The monster sprints at me again, axe raised, and my arm feels dead. An arrow lodges in the creature’s chest, and then Chug darts forward and gets in a strike with his new diamond sword.”
The kids have to fight evokers, vindicators, and other mobs. When a vex attacks, Lenna takes “it down with two fiery shots. . .I’ve landed two shots on it when Poppy yelps and something slashes at my legs. I look down and see a spectral fang rolling past. My leg burns with pain, and I stumble.” No one is seriously injured.
The story concludes with vexes, vindicators, and other mobs attacking Cornucopia from inside the wall. One of Cornucopia’s members, Krog, is commanding the mobs. As the mobs climb out of an underground cavern, “three vindicators barrel out, axes ready, grunting. Chug and [Mal] engage them, working as a team as Lenna keeps harrying the vexes with flaming arrows. . . More vexes fly out, and one lands a hit on my back before Lenna can nock another arrow. The cry of pain flies out of my mouth before I can stop it.”
During the battle, “more vexes swarm out the door of Krog’s house, followed by their evoker. Ghostly white fangs ripple up from the ground, hitting Dawna [a resident of Cornucopia] in the leg and making her scream. . . Dawna reaches for one of Tok’s swords, takes her first swing at a vex, and incredibly, lands a solid hit.”
As the battle continues, someone grabs Lenna. Lenna “flail[s] and shout[s] . . My elbow catches someone in the face—I feel the pop of their nose at the solid hit, and they grunt and drop me.” Lenna discovers the person is her sister.
Tok is surprised when he hears “a snort and look[s] up to find a huge beast snarling at me. It’s like a cow crossed with the biggest, ugliest rock I’ve ever seen. It paws the ground with an enormous hoof and charges.” Tok runs for his life, leading the beast into a narrow alley. Tok jumps onto the beast’s back. “The creature screams and throws me, and I skid on my back across the cobblestones. It hurts. . . . I look up, and all I see is a ton of stinky beast butt. I raise my sword. . . I stab it.”
When the villain, Krog, begins throwing harmful potions at the Mob Squad, Tok hits him on the head with an iron sword. Krog “topples forward.” In the end, Krog is arrested and the mobs are defeated. The village attack is described over 30 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

A vex puts a potion on all of Cornucopia’s crops, causing them to die.
Chug licks a potion off the floor. Afterwards, he describes how he doesn’t “feel every rib when I breathe. I can do cartwheels again.”
Someone throws a slowness potion at Mal. The potion makes her do everything “super slowly.”
Krog throws a poison at Mal. Once the poison hits her, “her cheeks are sinking in, there are purple hollow pooling made her eyes, her lips are going dry and cracked.” Mal feels “like being sunburned on the inside, like I’m drying out, all my blood turned to ash.” Mal drinks milk which reverses the effects of the potion.
Krog throws a potion of weakness at Chug. Chug’s arms feel like they “are made of noodles. I can barely lift the sword.” When he drinks milk, his strength returns.

Language

Chug insults Jarro by saying, “You’re a thief? You certainly stole all the ugly around town for yourself.”
Because of her imagination, Lenna’s family refers to her as “loony Lenna” and “liar.”
Lenna’s sister calls her an idiot.
The town people call the Mob Squad “Bad Apples.”
An adult calls the Mob Squad kids “rapscallions,” “scalaways,” and “dunderheads.”
Darn is used three times.
Chug tells his brother to “shut your piehole.”
Twice, Chug calls someone a jerk. For example, when thieves steal from Chug and his friends, he calls one of the men a jerk.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Only the Good Spy Young

After the events of last semester, Cammie could use more normal in her life. Well, as normal as the life of a spy-in-training can be. But people are still after Cammie, and she is no closer to finding out why. Even worse, the CIA seems to think Mr. Solomon is working on the side of the enemy. Cammie and her friends struggle to believe it, but true or not, they know it’s long past time for them to find some answers of their own.

With her mother keeping secrets, an unlikeable new teacher, and Mr. Solomon in question, Cammie doesn’t know who to trust. But she has her roommates, Macey, Bex, and Liz, and the four of them will have to be enough. The stakes are higher than ever as the four friends hack into the booby-trapped sublevels, decode a secret journal, and break into the infamous Blackthorne Institute. There is no room for mistakes. At this level, mistakes are deadly.

Only the Good Spy Young ramps up the action in an exciting story packed with twists and turns. This installment deepens the mystery and leaves readers wondering why the Circle is trying to kidnap Cammie, if Mr. Solomon is a friend or a foe, and why Zach keeps appearing every time Cammie is in trouble. Cammie feels as if her world is turned upside down and isn’t sure who can be trusted. While the mystery adds suspense, the highlight of Only the Good Spy Young is the relationship between Cammie and her friends—who always have her back.

Through first-person narration, Carter creates a fun story full of relatable characters and explores teen romance in a wholesome way that is perfect for teens. While the beloved cast is back, this installment gives Zach a prominent role which will leave readers swooning. The moments between Zach and Cammie are adorable. Adding Zach to the spying, action, and danger makes Only the Good Spy Young one of the best books in the series.

With a strong cast of smart girls, a relatable protagonist, and the perfect blend of humor and suspense, Only the Good Spy Young will keep readers flipping the pages until the very end. Make sure you have the next book, Out of Sight, Out of Time, on hand, because this installment ends on a tantalizing cliffhanger.

Sexual Content 

A teacher “accidentally spilled his latest invisibility concoction over Madame Dabney, and her white blouse was becoming more and more invisible by the second . . . At the front of the room, Madame Dabney (who, by the way, wears way sexier bras than anyone would have guessed) started dabbing at the front of her blouse with an antique tablecloth.”
Zach keeps tabs on Cammie, watching her to make sure she is okay. One time he visits her while ice skating and “pressed his lips hard against my forehead for a split second—nothing more—and when he finally let me go and disappeared back into the trees, I thought that I might fall.”
Before a dangerous mission, Cammie and Zach kiss. Cammie “kissed him—longer and deeper than I ever had before . . . we were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last.”
Zach kisses Cammie goodbye at the start of summer vacation. “And then his arms were around me. When he kissed me it was hungrier somehow, as if this moment was all we had, and we had to taste it, drink it, savor it, and not waste a single drop.”

Violence 

When Cammie finds a stranger in her room, she goes on the defense. Cammie “stepped back and grabbed the arm that grabbed at me, spinning, using my attacker’s own momentum to fling him through the open bathroom door and to the other side of our room. He smashed into a dresser and sent a lamp crashing to the floor . . . before he could say a word, a Louis Vuitton suitcase came flying into our room, struck the man squarely on his face, and dropped him to the floor like a stone.” Macey heard the struggle and threw her suitcase at the man, who turns out to be a new teacher at the school. His face is bruised, but he is okay.
When Cammie meets the man responsible for her father’s death, she “brought my hand up along the side of his face—hard. It was just a slap—nothing special. Hardly something they would ever teach in P&E. And yet I felt like doing it again.”

A member of the Circle interrogates Mr. Solomon. “The woman struck Mr. Solomon’s face so hard that blood sprayed across the room.”
Cammie and Zach fight Zach’s mother, the leader of a splinter group of the Circle, and her henchmen. Their struggle takes place over three pages. Cammie describes, “I parried away another of [Zach’s mother’s] blows, and when I countered, I landed a swift punch to her kidney and another to her face . . . Across the room, Zach had taken an old sword from the wall and was fighting two men at once.” Both Zach and Cammie eventually get away, and are okay.

Drugs and Alcohol 

Cammie and her roommates drug an apple with truth serum, then interrogate their teacher/suspect. “It took four seconds for Liz to take the syringe from her bag. Her hands were shaking as I pulled the apple from my tray and held it beneath the table.” After their teacher eats the apple, they ask him some questions.

Language 

None

Supernatural 

None

Spiritual Content 

None

Ride On

Victoria has always loved horses. But riding in competitions is high stakes, high stress, and shockingly expensive. And even though Victoria’s best friend Taylor loves competing, Victoria has lost her taste for it.

After a heartbreaking fight with Taylor, Victoria needs a new start—at a new stable. A place where she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than riding. No competition, no drama, no friends. Just horses.

Edgewood Stables seems ideal. There are plenty of horses to ride, and Victoria is perfectly happy giving the other riders the cold shoulder. But can she truly be happy with no friends?

While Ride On will specifically appeal to horse-loving readers, the graphic novel also has a universal theme of friendship which all readers will be drawn to. Victoria’s past is murky and, although it is slowly revealed, she never explains why she has rejected all her friends including her yearbook friends. Despite the fear of rejection, Victoria slowly warms up to Norrie, Hazel, and Sam; while they all share a love of horses, it’s their love of the sci-fi television series, Beyond the Galaxy, that brings them all together. This adds both an interesting twist and some humor to the story.

Many readers will relate to Victoria’s insecurities as well as her desire to have a well-rounded life that doesn’t completely revolve around horse competitions. In a world where competitive sports are the norm, Ride On reminds readers that they do not need to let one thing consume all their time. Instead, they can love horses, cosplay, and hanging out with friends. Along the way, the story explores the importance of friendship as well as getting over fears. These lessons are wrapped up in a good story with interesting, relatable characters who often struggle with being different. Seeing the characters grow and connect is heartwarming as well as entertaining.

The graphic novel’s artwork uses vivid colors to bring the characters to life. One of the best aspects of the illustrations is the characters’ facial expressions and body language—both of these will help readers understand the characters’ emotions. The horse pictures are wonderful as well. Some pages tell the story only through pictures, while other pages have up to seven sentences per page. This, along with the easy vocabulary, make Ride On accessible to most readers.

Ride On highlights everyone’s need for companionship and validation. The graphic novel is a character-driven story that doesn’t have a lot of exciting conflicts. However, the characters are interesting enough to keep readers hooked. The conclusion holds several surprises that show the true meaning of friendship. Similar to Ride On, the graphic novel series Eagle Rock by Hope Larson is another coming-of-age story that explores the need to find your passion.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

None

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

Crap is used once.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Not That Kind of Girl

Natalie Sterling has made one thing clear: nothing will get in the way of her having a successful senior year of high school. She has big plans, such as applying to colleges and becoming Ross Academy’s student council president. Natalie doesn’t have time for distractions, and she certainly is not like the other girls, who get hung up on boys. But the road to success is not easy. On the first day of school, Natalie takes Spencer under her wing – a girl who has grown up considerably since Natalie used to babysit her long ago. Spencer likes getting attention and she’s not afraid to show it. Meanwhile, Mike Domski, a vulgar football player, is running against Natalie in student council. Still, Natalie stands strong: she is not the kind of girl who gets distracted.

Things start to change after Natalie is elected president. She fights with her best friend Autumn, who despite getting bullied over a failed relationship, still wants to go to parties and talk to guys. Autumn is willing to forgive the people who spread rumors about her, but Natalie can’t understand why her best friend would even associate with those people. Not to mention, Natalie’s caught the eye of one of Mike’s friends, Connor, who kisses her one night after school. Worst of all, Natalie starts to like him in return.

Natalie’s perfect senior year crumbles. She sneaks out to see Connor nightly, letting her grades suffer in exchange for secret kisses. Natalie’s confidence wavers as she thinks about how people would perceive her if they find out. She might have feelings for Connor, but she says that “the realization that other people would judge what I’d done spoiled everything.” Their relationship becomes strained and awkward when Natalie can’t accept Connor outside their private nights. In addition, Natalie doesn’t speak to Autumn for weeks, and constantly butts heads with Spencer over the way she chases male attention. Disaster strikes when a nude photo of Spencer circulates, and Natalie knows that Mike is the culprit. Spencer begs Natalie not to get involved, but in an effort to protect Spencer, Natalie gets Mike in trouble. Retaliation is swift – Mike reveals that Natalie has been seeing Connor, and suddenly the perfect class president is perfect no more.

When Natalie’s whole world crumbles, she decides that her reputation is not as important as her relationships. Natalie has to accept that some part of her does like boys, and that she loved her time with Connor. The book encourages girls to explore their sexuality as long as they’re comfortable and in control of the situation. Natalie learns she’s okay not having perfect grades or being the perfect student council president. She says, “It didn’t matter if I was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her portrait on the wall in the library, or the kind of girl who got into the best college . . . I just needed to be okay with all the kinds of girl I was.” She reconciles with Spencer and Autumn, and even asks Connor out on a real date. Not That Kind of Girl ends with Natalie accepting that she can be focused on her goals while still having a relationship.

This story is narrated in the first person and is an interesting take on high school drama. It can be quite vulgar when the students talk about each other and the things they’ve done, but it is not a complicated read. In fact, Not That Kind of Girl is not the kind of book you’re expecting – the narrator, Natalie, is not the typical “hero-like” narrator. Instead, Natalie is incredibly judgmental about people’s actions and concerned about how she’s perceived, which ruins many of her relationships. While readers may find it hard to stomach Natalie’s harsh criticism, this is a story about a character who learns to be more accepting.

Natalie realizes that she’s been hypocritical and that it’s not possible to know someone by making assumptions. Natalie used to believe getting into a relationship was a girl’s downfall, but she realizes how wonderful it can be. Natalie starts to understand that just because someone likes boys doesn’t mean that they don’t aspire to do other things. Some readers may have trouble relating to Natalie, but a key aspect of the book is learning to accept that everyone has a different idea of success. At the beginning of the story, Natalie believes that a girl can’t have a relationship and be successful, but the events of the story prove her wrong. Readers can learn a lot from Natalie’s willingness to admit her wrongs and her attempts to be more open-minded. Not That Kind of Girl shows how, when confronted with challenges and opportunities that redefine you, you can either run away or face them head-on. Natalie realizes that her fear of how people perceive her is negatively impacting her life. When she accepts the person she always refused to be, Natalie finds freedom and happiness where she least expects it.

Sexual Content

Natalie says guys will have a successful high school experience if they “wear a condom.”
Natalie describes an infamous high school couple as people who “fooled around.” According to Natalie, the girl “took things slow, preferring sweet kisses while walking through piles of crispy autumn leaves over half-naked wrestling matches.”
Natalie describes how two students, Autumn and Chad, almost hooked up in the locker room. “Chad greeted [Autumn] with a grin. A moment later, before they’d even said hello, they were kissing. Which quickly turned into groping. . . Chad tried to convince her with words, with kisses. . . He pleaded with her to stay. After all, she’d barely touched him, and he was so turned on. . . [Autumn] leaned in to kiss [Chad]. A cute peck aimed for the tip of his nose, to make it all okay.” Autumn leaves to go back to class and Chad starts to ignore her.
Natalie says that before this incident with Autumn and Chad, Chad’s “inability to get off with a freshman had become a running joke. . . He’d complain of blue balls after he’d drive [Autumn] home, or hump his locker door in mock frustration after [Autumn] hugged him good morning.” Everyone knew that he was going to hook up with Autumn in the locker room, but when it didn’t happen, he needed an excuse, so he started a rumor that Autumn smells bad. He starts to call Autumn “Fish Sticks” and breaks up with her.
Natalie says everyone forgets about the “Fish Sticks” incident months later, “when a junior supposedly had a three-way in her parent’s shower.”
Spencer bends down in the hallway, accidentally revealing her underwear. Natalie says, “The girl was kneeling on the floor. . . Her pleated uniform skirt tipped forward like a ringing church bell. A small triangle of lavender mesh barely shielded her rear from the entire hallway.”
Natalie tells Spencer that people can see her underwear. “When you bent over before, you could see everything. And a bunch of boys were enjoying the view.” After Natalie leaves, Spencer bends down again, “her butt back on display for everyone. The eyes of the passing football players flitted to the left as if Spencer’s ass gave off a high-pitched noise at a frequency only boys could detect. One of the guys snatched a binder and flapped it furiously toward Spencer’s rear end, trying to make a strong enough breeze so her skirt would flutter up even higher.”
A jock, Mike Domski, runs for student council with a poster “with a cartoon version of [himself], smoking a cigar and flanked by two busty bikini girls.”
Natalie says that one day Mike Domski will marry “a pregnant stripper.”
Mike vandalizes Natalie’s student council campaign poster. Originally the poster said “Vote For Natalie, a Leader with Experience.” Mike “had taken a marker and done some doodling at my expense. He had given me a mustache, drawn two enormous penises (one for each of my hands), and a bunch of question marks hovering over my head. He’d crossed out Leader and written VIRGIN on top of it. And squeezed the word NO in before Experience.”
When Natalie gets mad at Mike, he says, “I have to say Natalie, your level of intensity is pretty hot. . . I’m actually getting a chubby.” When Natalie tells him to stop, Mike says, “I’m only kidding with you. . . You could never give me a hard-on. You’re like. . . dick repellent.”
Natalie drives by a house party where the boys from the football team run out in front of her car drunk. “I tried to inch my car forward, but [it was] pinned by the human roadblock, forced to witness their drunken celebration.”
While the football players surrounded Natalie’s car, “Mike Domski tossed aside a beer can and started humping my hood ornament. . . . ‘I’m trying!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, God, I’m trying!’ After Mike pretended to bring my Honda to orgasm, the laughing boys made their way up the front lawn.”
Spencer says that Natalie and Mike have “sexual tension.”
When Natalie asks Connor to donate wood for a bonfire, Mike says, “Natalie wants your wood. Bad.” Natalie says, “I don’t need anybody’s wood. I can buy my own wood. . . ” She later realizes what she said and “dream[s] about a tragic accident where Mike’s crotch caught fire.”
Spencer and her friends wear inappropriate shirts to school. “Each shirt had a pair of bulbous footballs positioned like pasties over their boobs. And above them, the same single word was printed across the chest, curling in a perfect arch. Rosstitute.” This is a combination of Ross Academy and prostitution. When one of the teachers tells Spencer to change, she takes off her shirt in the hallway. “She took off her shirt, right there, in the middle of the hallway. Her bra was a pink gingham number, with a tiny rosette in the center, underwire working overtime to hoist and enhance a modest amount of cleavage.”
Natalie overhears the football boys talking. Mike says, “I’d like to make that Spencer girl’s titties my business. . . Did you see her dancing? I mean, she’s practically a stripper.” One of the players reminds Mike that Spencer isn’t interested in him because she likes Connor. Mike replies, “You think a girl like her will turn celibate because Connor shuts her down? Trust me, man. The Domski will make it happen. And none of you guys better try and cock block me.”
A football player says, “That skinny blond freshman would be cute if she weren’t totally flat. I might as well feel up my little brother.”
Mike says that Natalie is “the kind of chick who’d cut off your balls in the middle of the night. . . I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear Natalie has a bigger dick than I do.”
Spencer says that girls aren’t permitted to have “sexual needs” in the same way guys are. “I won’t be villainized because I happen to like being sexual. . . Forcing girls to be ashamed for doing the things that come naturally to them – it’s a ridiculous double standard, and we should all, frankly, tell anyone who judges us to screw off.”
During an all-girls meeting, one of the girls admits that she gave a guy a hand job to prove that people treat her differently because she experimented with her sexuality, “My brother found out I gave a hand job to one of his friends, and now he won’t even look at me.” Spencer says, “That’s horrible! Because I bet your brother wishes a girl would give him a hand job. But because you’re his sister, you’re dirty.”
Spencer shows Natalie a picture of “a back-to-school pictorial, where a sexed-up vamp of a teacher stood on her desk in fishnets and stilettos, with schoolboys cowering in a pile on the floor.”
Connor kisses Natalie. Connor “took another step. A big step, closing the gap of air between us. And then he kissed me. He grabbed me and kissed me, and his whole body tensed up. . . When I felt him pull away, I leaned forward and kissed him harder. . . This kiss had heat behind it.”
On Halloween, Spencer dresses as a “slutty construction worker.” The outfit “consisted of a skintight little denim minidress cut to look like a pair of overalls. She had a tight white cami on underneath, and the whole thing fit her like a corset, her boobs bubbling up over the top. The skirt stopped right underneath her butt cheeks, and when she dipped and bent to the music, you got flashes of a pair of electric orange booty shorts. . . She really, truly looked like a stripper.”
At the Halloween dance, Natalie notices Connor looking at another girl. Natalie says, “Of course guys like Connor were going to notice the scantily clad girls dancing in front of them. . . Immunity to booty and boobs did not occur in teenage boys.”
Spencer tells Natalie she looks hot. “Natalie, you have such a good body. Your butt looks totally hot in those pants. Why are you hiding it from everyone?. . . You could get any guy in this room, if you just loosened up a little.”
Connor and Natalie meet secretly in a shed behind Connor’s house, where they kiss. Natalie “leaned in and kissed him fast. . . And then he kissed me. This time with lips parted, as if he was whispering into my mouth. . . His hands moved up to my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. He was warm, hot even. I wrapped my arms around his neck, tucked my fingers down into the back of his collar. My whole body folded into his warmth, and then we both lay down. . . We were moving and pressing and shifting all over each other.” They end the kiss after a while.
Spencer tricks Mike into meeting her at a movie theater. Later, she tells the story to Natalie. Spencer says, “I told Mike to whip it out and have it ready for me. He wrote back, You nasty little girl. . . Anyway, a bunch of girls and I were already hiding in the very last row, and we could see him shimmying and wriggling in his seat. I ducked out and found the manager and let him know that there was a boy with his pants down in theater twelve.”

While Natalie and Connor kiss, he tries to undo her bra. “Connor pulled me on top of him, and his hands slid up my back again. . . His fingers tucked underneath my bra strap, then he pinched the closure, trying to pop the hook open.” Natalie stops him.

Natalie tells Connor that she knows he lost his virginity in eighth grade. She says that everyone knew that Connor had gotten really drunk and had sex with a girl on New Year’s Eve.
Natalie gets a splinter in her rear while in the shed. Connor has to help her pull it out. “Suddenly my left butt cheek burned bad enough for me to gasp. . . I rolled over to my knees and stuck my butt up in the air. . . I unzipped my pants and pulled my jeans down. I’d never been undressed in front of a boy before.”
Natalie looks at herself in the mirror and is unhappy with what she sees. “I wished that I had bigger boobs. . . I turned sideways and stared at the dimpled skin on my upper thigh.” Natalie wondered, “Is this the kind of stuff Connor would see if I let him look at me naked?”
Spencer uses the gesture of wiggling a pinky to make fun of Mike. She says, “I invented a hand gesture to make fun of Mike Domski. It means teeny peeny, and it’s caught on like wildfire.”
Spencer asks if Natalie’s guy is “all good down there” to which Natalie replies that she’s a virgin. Spencer says, “Like a total sex virgin? Or a straight-up intercourse virgin? Because I haven’t had complete sex with anyone before, either, though I’ve done lots of other stuff.”
Natalie and Connor have sex. “I lifted up my T-shirt and shimmied out of my pants. I unhooked my bra and slid down my underwear. . . I took Connor’s clothes off too. . . I rolled on top of him and let gravity press us together. Lips, chest, abdomen, thighs. I wasn’t planning to have sex with him. Only now it was all I wanted. . . The entire world fell away until it was just me and Connor. Finally.”
A naked picture of Spencer starts to circulate at school. Connor shows Natalie the picture. “Nothing could have prepared me for seeing Spencer like this on the tiny pixelated screen. Her curls, her puckered lips, her bare breasts cast forward toward the cameraman.”
Connor gets mad at Natalie for defending Spencer. Natalie says, “Mike takes naked photos of a fourteen-year-old girl and spreads them to the whole school, and I’m the one who did something wrong? . . . I wish that Spencer had kept her freaking boobs covered up… I also wish that the whole school didn’t think I’m a slut.”

Violence

When Mike Domski calls Autumn “Fish Sticks” in the cafeteria, Natalie “reached for the closest object and hurled it at Mike. That turned out to be a slice of my pizza, and it hit him square in the chest.”
Spencer says she wants to cut Autumn’s ex-boyfriend’s balls off because he started the “Fish Sticks” rumor.

Drugs and Alcohol

Natalie says there is a “smoker’s tree” at her school.
Autumn takes Natalie to a party where there are guys smoking and drinking. “We came upon a big boulder. . . A bunch of guys sat on it, drinking beers and blowing smoke into the night sky.”
Natalie says that girls avoid the bathroom by the teacher’s lounge, so they don’t get caught smoking cigarettes.
At the Halloween dance, Natalie smells beer on Connor’s breath.

Language

Curse words like ass, shit, bitch, and damn are used occasionally.
Occasionally, the teens call each other names such as asshole, bitch, boners, sluts, and nympho.
Spencer says, “Mrs. Dockey was just bitching about Principal Hurley not approving her costume budget for the school musical. She actually said that she ‘can’t put on the Wizard of Oz with fucking bedsheets and a burlap sack.’”
A football player calls Connor a “lucky bastard” for getting Spencer’s attention.
Spencer says that she’s “not looking to shack up with some pervert.”
When Natalie tries to host a girls-only event, Mike wants to sign up. He says, “This girl’s night is more of a vaginathon. No dick allowed.” Spencer steps up and says, “That’s right, Mike. No dicks, no dickheads, no cocks, no penises, no wieners, no weewees, no boners, no dongs, no dill weeds, no scrotums allowed. Which, I think, are all adjectives used to describe you.” Mike gives Spencer the middle finger and leaves.
Natalie and Autumn look at Halloween costumes, which Natalie finds too revealing. She says that she’s not going to be “slutting it up” on Halloween. At the Halloween dance, Natalie calls Spencer a “stripper” and calls another girl “Slutty Sherlock Holmes.”
Natalie calls Connor “as big of a dick as Mike Domski.”
“Oh God” or “My God” are both used occasionally.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Natalie thinks about a biblical story when things feel awkward between her and Connor. “I thought about Adam and Eve. How they’d been so happy, playing naked in the garden. And then in one moment, it all turned to shame.”

The Wolves are Waiting

When fifteen-year-old Nora Melchionda wakes up, dizzy and disoriented, half-naked on the town’s golf course, with her underwear hanging from a flagstick, she doesn’t remember a thing. She was drinking a root beer, enjoying the Frat Fair, an annual fundraiser held by the local school fraternities, and the next thing Nora remembers is waking up next to her best friend, Cam, on the putting green. During the time that Nora doesn’t remember, “anything could have happened. Anything.”

Before that night, Nora’s life seemed perfect. She had good grades, she was a star player on the field hockey team, and she had a great circle of friends and a supportive family. Most importantly, Nora always had her father, Rhett Melchionda. Nora’s father was her personal hero and the athletic director of Faber University. He always said his job was to protect her.

But after that night, Nora’s world comes crashing down. What Nora thought was true about the town she grew up in, the university, her father, and her family is all turned upside down. Through searching for the truth of what happened, her friends Cam and Adam Xu and her older brother Asher, uncover the larger truth about the town and university. The teens realize the attempted sexual assault of Nora was not an isolated incident, but part of a decades-long rampage of sexual violence tied to fraternities. To make matters worse, the violence has been swept under the rug.

While this story deals with the difficult topics of sexual assault and harassment, The Wolves are Waiting beautifully tackles this theme from different angles, from examining the prevalence of rape culture to highlighting the experience of survivors of sexual assault and harassment. This book raises important questions about societal beliefs surrounding sexual assault, including the trivialization of sexual assault. It questions why those in power often implicitly trust the word of assailants over victims. For example, when Nora confronts her dad about stories of college athletes sexually assaulting women, he dismisses her, saying “Events can be misinterpreted in the light of day.”

The Wolves are Waiting also raises questions about the culture of victim blaming. Nora and others are continuously asked what they were wearing or what they were drinking or what they said, rather than simply being believed. When repeatedly asked if she had been drinking the night she was assaulted, Nora “flare[s] up with anger.” Nora explains “What difference did it make if she was drunk, or high, or roofied, or sober, or wearing a prairie dress, or a thong, or if she knew the guys, or if she’d never seen them before in her life? . . . Why should she thank [Adam] for believing her? She was telling the truth.” While some of this questioning is highly pointed in the attempt to discredit victims like Nora, The Wolves are Waiting shows how seemingly innocent questions or comments with good intent can actually help perpetuate these problematic social issues. As these questions are raised throughout the novel, it asks both the characters and the audience to reexamine their beliefs surrounding sexual assault and the harmful, yet prevalent stereotypes in society about sexual assault and survivors.

In The Wolves are Waiting, Natasha Friend examines the experience of survivors of sexual assault and their process of healing after trauma. At first, Nora is in disbelief and doesn’t want to talk about what happened that night. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” she keeps telling herself, hoping for it to be true. She also begins to push away her family and her friend Cam, who is hell-bent on finding the perpetrators of Nora’s attack and bringing them to justice. In reality, Nora feels alone, scared, and traumatized by her experience. But with the support of friends and family, she realizes she is not alone in her experience. After realizing her own silence will only perpetuate the problems in her town, Nora speaks out ferociously, “tell[ing] her story . . . own[ing] every word of it . . . set[ting] herself free.”

The Wolves are Waiting is a must-read because it tackles serious societal issues and misconceptions surrounding sexual assault. It considers not only the perspective of survivors of assault but also bystanders, showing how not speaking up makes one complicit in larger systems of abuse. Nora is an incredibly compelling character. She is strong and independent, yet also flawed. She is forced to re-evaluate the world around her. The Wolves are Waiting breaks down harmful stereotypes and misconceptions about sexual assault while also teaching readers the importance of questioning societal beliefs, even ones you hold to be the truth.

Sexual Content

At a party, Cam sees Nora’s brother, Asher. Cam and Asher begin to talk. She tells him that he is not wasting his time pursuing art. “He looked so quintessentially Asher that Cam was overwhelmed by a sudden desire to hug him . . . It was a little awkward. Her nose rammed into his shoulder. She stepped away almost as quickly as she’d stepped toward him. But then. Then. Cam felt something warm on her face. It was . . . Asher’s hand, cupping her cheek . . . He bent down and pressed his lips to hers. Cam was 100 percent sober, but Asher’s kiss was like three slugs of Manischewitz straight from the bottle. When she came up for air, she felt warm and dizzy. ‘Was that okay?’ he said. And she said, ‘Definitely.’ They kissed again. And again.”
Cam and Nora promised “each other, back in sixth grade . . . They had vowed to share every boy-related detail, which was how Cam knew that Nora had tongue-kissed a Jersey boy named Evan Fendelbaum at Becca Bomberg’s bat mitzvah, and Nora knew that Cam had seen Kyle Tenhope’s erection through his swim trunks at the track team’s end-of-season pool party freshman year.”
Nora compares herself to other girls her age. “Nora knew there were girls her age . . . who were already having sex – not just making out with someone in the back row of the movie theater – legit sex. Nora also knew how guys talked. . . Nora never wanted guys to talk about her that way, which was why she never let Adam get very far. There had been kissing, yes. There had been up-the-shirt action, yes. But Nora always drew the line there.”
When Nora’s dad comes home from a game, he grabs Nora’s mother “around the waist and dipped her so low, her hair touched the floor.” Her father and mother kiss. “Nora didn’t love watching her parents make out in the middle of the kitchen, either. It was awkward.”
Outside the gym one day, Adam, Nora’s “kind-of boyfriend,” and Nora see each other. Adam “kissed her, for the first time, by the flagpole in front of the school – and another twenty times after that.” That morning, the two sit together. Adam “leaned in, kissing her lightly on the lips. She pulled away,” feeling uncomfortable. Normally, Adam was irresistible to Nora. “Every time he kissed her, he made her feel all melty inside. But now . . . how to explain? Thinking about his tongue darting inside her mouth made Nora think about other tongues darting inside her mouth, other hands touching her body.”
At school, Adam walks by and “whistle[s] through his teeth” at Nora. Nora explains the boys “made jokes behind her back about what kind of sauce she would taste like . . . and how they’d like to spread her on a sandwich.”
A few days after her assault, a picture of Nora circulates on the internet. “Her back was to the camera, and her head was resting on someone’s shoulder – a big blond guy in a gray hoodie. His arm was wrapped around her waist. A dark-haired guy in a red shirt was on the other side of her, laughing. His hand was on her butt, lifting her skirt.”
Standing outside Nora’s room, Cam and Asher look at each other. Cam imagines what could happen: “One step closer, and his breath would be on her face. One tip of the chin, and his mouth would be on hers. His hands, gripping the back of her head. His lips, his tongue. It took Cam a few seconds to come to her senses.”
After gym class, a group of guys were in the locker room when, “Kevin stood on a bench, held up his phone, and said, ‘Who wants to see some prime FU titties?’ . . . because Kevin had the newest iPhone with the biggest, brightest screen, the photo was right there in HD for everyone to gawk at. A pair of breasts barely contained by a lace white bra, with something black scrawled between them.”
When Cam goes to a fraternity party to do recognizance for Nora’s case, she meets a frat boy. He asks to kiss her. Cam “thought for a moment. She was sober. And he was asking. And maybe kissing him was the way to extract the information she needed. Also, if she was being completely honest with herself, she was curious. She’d only made out with high school guys. There wasn’t anything wrong with a little experiment, was there? A little compare and contrast in the name of science? It’s not like she was planning to have sex with him. The next thing Cam knew, they were kissing . . . Intellectually, she wanted to stop – she did – but her hormones had suddenly taken the wheel, and Malik was a great kisser . . . Malik had definitely more experience. The circles he was making with his tongue. The way his hands were holding her hips, lifting her up to meet him . . . And then he pulled away, breathless.”
After going out for ice cream, Cam and Asher talk outside of Asher’s house about everything that has conspired in the last few days including her going to a frat party and kissing a college boy. While upset, Asher agrees to move past the incident and asks her to the homecoming dance. The two kiss. As Cam walked home “her face was raw from kissing, but she didn’t care. The fact of the matter was, she could have kissed Asher all night.”

Violence

This story surrounds Nora’s attempted sexual assault and rape by three fraternity boys. Adam Xu stumbled across the assault, “one of the figures was holding something in the air. A phone? Another was bent over on the ground.” He heard one of them say, “Dude, she’s completely out” and another was “taking off his pants.” When he scared the three boys off, he found Nora passed out on the ground and texted her best friend Cam to come help her.
Cam found Nora “lying on the ground, spread eagle.” Nora’s underwear was hanging off the flagstick on the golf course. Later at Cam’s house, Cam encourages Nora to inspect her pubic area for “bruises or scratches.” Nora is hesitant, but when she does eventually look, she sees something. “What she had seen up in Cam’s bathroom was a mark, maybe half an inch long, on the skin of her bikini area. Not purple like a bruise. Not red like a cut. Black. . . Up close it was pretty obvious. The black mark wasn’t a birthmark or a scab or an engorged dog tick clinging to her skin. It was the number 9.” The number marked that Nora was the ninth girl to be targeted by her assaulters; as part of the initiation into one of the local frats, new members have to sleep with 18 girls.
Nora and her friends had always heard stories about sexual assault on campus and sayings like “don’t walk by Greek Row alone at night.” There “was a story about a girl who’d graduated from FCS years ago . . . One night after an orchestra concert, she had been walking past the frats on her way home. Some of her brothers from Alpha Psi had been sitting outside on lawn chairs. They’d called her over. The next thing she knew, she woke up on the quad in a Faber football jersey with a Blue Devil tattoo on her boob.” There were other versions of this story, whether it was a toga or a football jersey, or what type of tattoo it was. But nevertheless, it was heavily insinuated she was drugged, assaulted, and branded.
Asher tells Nora and Cam about other instances of sexual violence from frat members and her father’s involvement in the cases. There was a quarterback: “A girl said he raped her behind the Iron Jug. He said it was consensual. Dad helped get him off.” A hockey player, Peyton Mallory, “sexually assaulted a sorority girl at a frat party . . . She filed a report with the university saying he did . . . The guy got off. He was never expelled. He was never even suspended from the team.”
After Nora’s mother finds out about the attempted assault, Nora’s mother tells her about her first college roommate, who had been raped at a frat party. The theme of the party was “King Tuts and Egyptian Sluts . . . They were handing out shots of Goldschlager, with ‘flecks of real gold,’ they told us. Amy and I had one drink. That was our rule: one drink . . . Our other rule was to stick together . . . but at some point I had to go to the bathroom, and Amy was talking to one of the frat brothers about books.”
When Nora’s mother got back from the bathroom, she “looked and looked,” but explained, “I couldn’t find [my roommate] . . . I figured she and the guy she’d been talking to had hit it off. So I went back to the dorm. . . she’d been raped at the party by two of the frat’s brothers. She had no idea who they were because they looked like every other King Tut.”
When they told someone from the sorority, they were dismissed and told “Don’t worry about it.” Nora’s mother took her roommate to the dean. “She told him she had been raped, and he said that was a serious accusation. He asked if she had made a police report. He asked how many drinks she’d had. What was she wearing? Who entered the room first? Did she say no? He asked if she could identify the two guys. When she said she wasn’t sure, all the King Tuts looked the same, he said, ‘Well, if you don’t know who they are, I can’t help you.’”

Drugs and Alcohol

After Cam finds Nora on the night she is assaulted, Cam asks Nora, “What did you drink? Rum? Vodka? . . . Tequila?” Nora replies adamantly, “‘No, Camille.’ Cam knew she didn’t drink alcohol. Ever since that sleepover at Becca Bomberg’s house the last day of ninth grade, when the three of them drank an entire bottle of Manischewitz and Nora projectile-vomited into a potted plant on Becca’s porch.”
Since Nora was found passed out, Cam believes something was put in Nora’s drink. While originally the two think it’s roofies or Rohypnol, Cam has Nora’s hair sample tested and it shows that Nora was in fact drugged with “GHA. Gamma hydroxybutyric acid, otherwise known as liquid ecstasy.”
At a party, “one of the guys would bring out a bottle – whatever they could find in their parent’s liquor cabinets – pass it around. To avoid drawing attention to himself, Adam would take a few sips. Fifteen minutes later- bam. His face would heat up and start to tingle. His eyes would go bloodshot . . . He hated when that happened. . . . The reaction in Adam’s body was the result of an accumulation of acetaldehyde, a metabolic by-product of the catabolic metabolism of alcohol.”
The night Nora was assaulted, Cam was at Kyle Tenhope’s party, “on the Tenhopes’ front stoop, holding a beer and scrolling through her phone . . . everyone inside the house had been well on their way, but Cam had only had two sips of warm keg beer.”
At the party a boy was wearing a yellow construction hat attached to two beer cans and was drinking through a tube. . . They found Kyle in the far corner of the kitchen, pumping beer from a keg.”
After a game one night, Nora’s father comes home after a few “victory beers.”
At a soccer game, the stands are “packed. Nora was aware of all the bodies pressed in around her. At one point, a guy tried to push past her to get to an empty spot. Nora could smell him. Beer. Sweat. For a second, she panicked.”
When Cam goes to a fraternity party to do recognizance, everyone is drunk. She is approached by some guy, who “lifted the cup in his hand, taking a sip of neon green – what? Toxic waste? Battery acid?”
As Adam tries to get access to a private Instagram account, he messages a fraternity member. After a while the fraternity member messages, “I am just drunk enough to give you 10 min” and he allows Adam access.

Language

Profanity is used often. This profanity includes shit, fucking, slut, bitch, and bullshit.
Some of the profanity in the book is only implied, such as the use of “eff’s” or “effing.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

The Astonishing Color of After

After her mother died of suicide, Leigh Chen Sanders is only sure of one thing—when her mother died, she turned into a large, beautiful, red bird.

Days after her mother dies, Leigh feels “colorless, translucent . . . [like] a jellyfish caught up in a tide, forced to go wherever the ocean willed.” She begins sleeping on the downstairs sofa, farthest away from where her mother died. The night before the funeral, Leigh hears a “sharp rap on the front door.” She is greeted by a “red-crowned crane . . . with a long feathery tail” where “every feather [is] a different shade of red, sharp and gleaming.” “Leigh,” the bird cries out, in the voice of her mother. Suddenly, the bird flies away and all Leigh is left with is “a single scarlet feather.”

Leigh tries to explain to her father what she has seen, but he is dismissive of her. After the bird delivers a package and note from Leigh’s maternal grandparents, asking Leigh to visit them in Taiwan, he still doesn’t fully believe her. Eventually, after Leigh’s father is visited by a strange wind and even stranger red feathers, he finally books himself and Leigh two plane tickets to Taiwan.

In Taiwan, Leigh meets her maternal grandparents for the first time. It’s awkward because even though she is half Taiwanese, Leigh does not speak Mandarin Chinese and knows very little about her grandparents. To make matters worse, after an argument with Leigh’s grandparents, her father decides to leave for Hong Kong, leaving Leigh alone with them.

But Leigh decides to take advantage of being in Taiwan. She is determined to find her mother—as the bird—and search for answers about her mother’s death. She asks her grandmother and her grandmother’s friend, Feng, to take her to every place her mother loved, in the hopes of finding traces of her mother and of the bird. On Leigh’s journey, she finds a box of incense. Every time Leigh lights one of the sticks of incense, she is brought through space and time into memories of the past—some are her own memories, but others are her mother’s and grandmother’s memories. As Leigh enters each memory, she learns more about her family history and their secrets, including memories about an aunt that Leigh never knew she had, and memories about her mother’s illness and the pain she went through. Through her search for her mother, Leigh connects with her grandparents and eventually finds comfort in their support and love.

As she grieves, Leigh also comes to terms with her mother’s suicide. While her mother was taking her own life, Leigh was kissing her long-time best friend, Axel. In a way, she not only feels responsible for her mother’s death but also for ruining her friendship with Axel. As Leigh travels through time and memory, she also traces her friendship with Axel, wondering where they went wrong and why their friendship was “crumbling.”

The Astonishing Color of After is a story about loss and grief, but also about love and growing up. In the end, Leigh never truly catches her mother, the bird. Yet as Leigh is grieving, she learns to remember her mother during both her illness and during the happy moments. Leigh realizes that catching the bird will not fix the pain she feels. She learns to accept that, when grieving, it will hurt for a long time.

Since The Astonishing Color of After deals with difficult topics of suicide, depression, and mental health, it is better suited for a high school audience. Leigh explains, “[My mother’s] illness was something I’d been afraid to look at head-on . . . There was also the fiery, lit-up version of my mother. How could a person like her be depressed?” Leigh discusses the stereotypical image she had of a depressed person, that made her “think of this group of kids at school who wore all black and thick eyeliner and listened to angry music and never showed their teeth.” Leigh comes to understand that depression is a disease, and her mother’s illness did not have a singular cause, that no one is to blame for her suicide. Leigh learns, “We can’t change anything about the past. We can only remember. We can only move forward.”

Overall, The Astonishing Color of After is a fantastic book. Though it deals with serious issues, it also works to break down barriers surrounding mental health. Leigh is a great leading character who is a flawed, complex person, who struggles to understand the world around her. But she is also incredibly strong and brave as she works through grief and tragedy. She shows readers that even in one’s darkest times there is hope, not necessarily for things to return to normal, but to move forward. With beautiful prose, terrific characters, and great use of magical realism, The Astonishing Color of After is a must-read.

Sexual Content

Axel, Leigh’s long-time crush and best friend, kisses her. “Instead of bursting into sparks, my body froze.” Then, “Axel’s hands stretched around my back and unlocked me. I was melting, he had released my windup key, and I was kissing back hard, and our lips were everywhere and my body was fluorescent orange – no, royal purple – no. My body was every color in the world, alight.”
Caro, Leigh’s good friend, complains to Leigh about her family’s snowboarding trip. Caro exclaims “My grandparents were killing me . . . half the time they sat in the lodge making out.”
Leigh and Axel join Caro and her girlfriend Cheslin at a photo shoot. “At one point, Cheslin began to shed her clothes. Off came the shorts, the tank. She unhooked her bra–.” While Axel and Leigh are slightly bothered by her actions, Cheslin shrugs saying, “It is, after all, just a body.” Eventually, Axel and Leigh walk away from the photo shoot. They comment on Caro and Cheslin’s intimacy, saying “It was almost like we were watching them have sex or something.”
After almost seeing Axel naked, Leigh is flustered. Thinking about that specific memory, Leigh explains, “My right hand ended up down between my legs and I wondered about sex. I thought of all the skin you saw in R-rated movies and the way bare limbs just slid together like they were made to be entwined. I thought of Axel, imagined us sitting on his couch and taking off our clothes.”
During a school dance, Leigh is talking to a senior. He asked her if she had “ever been kissed” and she replied no. He then leans in and Leigh thinks, “I knew what was coming. His face loomed close, his lips first finding the edges of mine before sliding in toward the center. He was eager with his tongue, and he didn’t taste great.” When he leaned in again, Leigh “moved aside before he could make contact,” and walked quickly away.
When Leigh asks Caro how her relationship is going, Caro confides in her that she and Cheslin have “decided [they’re] ready to . . . y’know. Go all the way.”
After Axel and Leigh discuss their feelings for each other, Leigh does “possibly the bravest thing I’ve ever done: I close the space between us and kiss him hard. He’s surprised for only a fraction of a second. Then my hands are at his face, peeling his glasses up over his head and tossing them on my nightstand. My body, drawing him down onto the bed. His lips, between my teeth. Our legs, sliding against each other.”

Violence

The premise of this book surrounds the topic of suicide, as Leigh’s mother kills herself. The act is not described in great detail, as Leigh “never saw the body up close.” She explains, “All I could see were my mother’s legs on the floor” and a large pool of blood.
Suicidal thoughts are briefly mentioned. In a memory, Leigh sees her mother “rising from her bed in the middle of the night. She walks quietly, slowly avoiding the creaks in the floor. Down in the garage, she slides into the sedan and sits in the driver’s seat, car keys biting into her palm. She’s thinking. Debating. If she turns on the car. If she doesn’t open the garage door. If no one in the house wakes, and she falls asleep at the wheel. The vehicle doesn’t even have to move. She could sleep forever.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Before she dies, Leigh’s mother takes “a bottle of sleeping pills.”
When searching for a note left by her mom, Leigh and her father find “a pile of capsules. . . Mom’s antidepressants” in the garbage; they hadn’t been taken in weeks.
Leigh’s mom was taking medicine for her depression and Leigh often sees her mom with a yellow pill bottle next to her. At one point, Leigh’s dad explains her mom has “tried so many medications. They work well for a lot of people, but they haven’t really worked on her.”
In a memory, Leigh sees her mother “in the basement, holding a bottle of OxyContin and a jug of bleach. She heard once that it takes ten seconds for something swallowed to reach the stomach.” Before Leigh can see more, the memory moves on.
During a school dance, Leigh goes outside for air and sees a senior. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a steel flask, “unscrewed the top and took a swig.” He offers some to Leigh, but she declines.

Language

Profanity is used sparingly. Profanity includes goddamn, shit, and bullshit.

Supernatural

One visit, the bird delivers a box, saying “The box is from your grandparents . . . bring it with you.” The box contains “yellowed letters, neat in a bundle. A stack of worn photographs, most of them black-and-white . . . [and] an intricately carved [jade] cicada” necklace, the necklace Leigh’s “mother wore every single day of her life.” Later, Leigh finds out her “grandparents put this package together [and] they burned it. . . They burned it so that your mother could have these with her on her next journey.”
One night “some strange, unexplainable compulsion makes” Leigh “roll out of bed and walk over to the dresser.” She finds “a curved Winsor red feather. And a slim, rectangular box [she’s] never seen.” Inside are “long sticks smelling of smoke and wreckage and used-up matches . . . incense.” Holding them, Leigh explains, “It’s strangely hot, like it’s been warming in the sun. And then: the whispering. The tiniest, most hushed of voices. It’s coming from the incense.” When lit, “the smoke that rises is inky black, drawing lines through the air . . . The smoke fills the room, until there’s only black.” By lighting each incense stick, Leigh is brought back in time, visiting memories.
One night, as Leigh tries to fall asleep, she begins to see odd things. Leigh explains, “It happens in a flash, in a blink: My eyes close, and when they open again, the room is bright as day, the ceiling so white it’s glowing—except for the inky cracks branching off in all different directions about me. . . The in-between lines so thin, so black – like there’s nothing beyond that layer of ceiling but a gravity-defying abyss.” In the subsequent days, Leigh notices that the cracks on her ceiling are “widening, spreading farther. They’ve stretched across the entire surface and begun fissuring down the walls. An entire corner’s missing, like someone just took out a chunk of it. There’s nothing to be seen there, only oblivion made of the blackest black.”
As Leigh wonders if her mother is a bird, something happens. “It’s as if my thoughts summon some kind of magic. The colors of my room begin to deepen their hues, like flowers blossoming. Crimson in the corners. Cerulean along the southern crack. Indigo by the window. Bioluminescent green tracing the creases of the wall closest to the bed. The things that are already black somehow take on a truer shade, pitch dark and empty.”
At a restaurant with her grandmother, Leigh finds a note stuck to the bottom of a dish, it has a few lines of an Emily Dickinson poem on it. Fred, who is helping Leigh, explains “This came from a ghost.” He sends the note back by burning it. Fred tells Leigh that this poem was burned for the wedding. Leigh questions him asking “what wedding?” Fred replies, “When I married the ghost of Chen Jingling. ” Chen Jingling is Leigh’s aunt. Fred married her aunt because Leigh’s grandparents were “grieving. So they could have peaceful hearts if they know their daughter has a husband.” He continues, “It’s like a normal wedding, but they made, like, a doll for her. Using bamboo and paper. She wears real clothing and jewelry. And afterward, everything was burned. We send it all to the spirit world.” Leigh asks Fred if he’s ever seen her ghost or spirit. Fred responds, “I see and hear and feel enough to know she is there.”
Fred explains that in Jilong, during Ghost Month, the Ghost Festival “is so big it brings the attention of many ghosts. And because of higher concentration of ghosts, they are more noticeable to the living . . . When ghosts come up here, they become more visible.”
When Feng and Leigh are in a park, they see a young child and her mother. “The girl says she sees their grandfather. Her mother’s saying that’s impossible. . . Children know the truth . . . they hadn’t learned to walk around with a veil over their eyes. That’s a habit that comes with adulthood. Kids always know what they see. That’s why ghosts can’t hide from them.”
On the forty-eighth day after her mother dies, Leigh awakens to a weird smell. As she steps into the hall, the “scent gathers . . . [reeling her] in, down the hallway and toward the bathroom . . .” As she opens the shower curtain, Leigh sees “in the bottom of the tub is a thick layer of feathers, dark and drenched, sticky and shining red.” Leigh calls her grandmother, but her grandmother does not see what Leigh is seeing.
After the final memory Leigh sees, she “land[s] on the moon. Not the whole moon, but just a patch of it.” She is greeted by her mother, the bird. Her mother tells Leigh, “Goodbye.” Then, the “bird rises higher and higher. She turns and arcs. [Leigh] watch[es] as she burst[s] into flames . . . She burns like a star.”
Weird things happen to Leigh’s phone. For example, it begins to play music randomly – music Axel made for her. Leigh has been getting emails from Axel, he later explains while he wrote them, he “didn’t send those emails,” but instead kept them in his drafts. But magically they were sent to Leigh, and in their place in his draft inbox is a picture of a bird’s shadow.
Towards the end of the novel, Leigh finds out the true identity of Feng. She was not Leigh’s grandmother’s friend. In fact, no one even remembers Feng’s existence. Feng is revealed to be the ghost of Jingling, Leigh’s aunt. She was there as Leigh’s guide “during the most difficult times,” after Leigh’s mother’s passing.

Spiritual Content

In Taiwan, Leigh, her grandmother, and Feng visit Leigh’s mother’s favorite Taoist temple. Her grandmother explains to Leigh that her mother “would come here when she needed guidance when she was looking for an answer.” In “the heart of the temple, people bow before a crowned statue with a face of black stone, and dressed in imperial reds and gold.”
In the temple, a young man is tossing things into the air. “In Taiwanese they’re called bwabwei. He’s asking his god a question. If one lands faceup and the other lands facedown, the answer is yes. If both land facedown, it means the god doesn’t like what he’s asking. If both land faceup, it means the god is laughing at him.”
Leigh, her grandmother, and Feng also visit a Buddhist temple, where Leigh’s mother spent most of her time and “where her spirit is.” There are hundreds of wooden plaques “painted in the color of marigolds. . . [The] yellow tablets bear the names of the dead,” including Leigh’s mother. There is a ceremony and “after a person’s death, they have forty-nine days to process their karma and let go of the things that make them feel tied to this life—things like people and promises and memories.”

Haze

Bram’s friend Jeremy wants to go public with information about a hazing-related student death. The morning after he tells Bram this, he’s injured in a hit-and-run accident. Now Jeremy is in a coma, and Bram is trying to follow the trail that he left. The trouble is that Abby, Jeremy’s sister, is convinced that Bram’s swimming coach is to blame. Bram knows Coach is innocent, but can he prove it? And what will happen if he’s wrong?

Told from Bram’s point of view, Haze is a well-rounded swim story that highlights the dangers of hazing. Bram, who is trying out for the swim team, has always looked up to Jeremy. When Jeremy warns Bram to stay away from the swim team’s initiation party, Bram wants to understand Jeremy’s strange warning. But before the two can meet, Jeremy falls victim to a hit-and-run resulting in a coma. As Bram begins to investigate, he finds that the swim team is known for dangerous hazing, excessive drinking, and other inappropriate behavior.

Bram’s story will captivate readers from the start because Bram’s desire to fit in is very relatable. In addition, the story quickly increases the danger and suspense. As Bram tries to piece together the clues surrounding Jeremy’s accident, he discovers that no one can be trusted—not the coach or the members of the swim team. The realistic mystery will keep readers guessing until the very end.

As part of the Orca Sports collection, Haze is a fast-paced story that uses easy-to-read language that will appeal to reluctant readers. The high interest topic and the well-written story will entertain most teens. Plus, Bram’s story reminds readers of the dangers of excessive drinking and shows how hazing can quickly become dangerous. While the story revolves around the swim team, the mystery, and suspense will captivate non-athletic readers as well. If you’re part of a swim team and want more swim-related stories, these books are sure to make a splash: Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher and Breath Like Water by Anna Jarzab.

Sexual Content

Bram and his ex-girlfriend, Abby, are at a party. She tells him that they should go into a room. Teasingly, Abby says, “Relax. I’ll leave your virtue intact. It is still intact, isn’t it?”
To get into her brother’s computer, Abby takes it to another student who says, “I warn you. If he has protected files, there’s a ninety-five percent chance they’re porn.”

Violence

The swim team is known for hazing new teammates. The new teammates are called “pond scum” and forced to wear diapers while swimming. Another time, they had to walk across campus in their Speedos.
Jeremy is hit by a car. Later, it is revealed that the driver was trying to kill Jeremy. Jeremy is in a coma for several days before he wakes up.
Someone locks Bram in the sauna. In order to escape, Bram slams his body “against the door. My left cheekbone smashed the window frame, and my arm hung through the broken window. . . Deep cuts burned along my arm. Blood welled up, then started to pour from a gouge along the inside of my forearm.” Coach finds Bram and takes him to the hospital.
In order to silence Bram, two of the swim team members and an adult put Bram in the trunk of a car. The adult “had a handgun pointed” at Bram.
Bram is taken to a boat and a swim team member, Steven, “grabbed my arm and yanked. I fell into the boat face-first, landing half on the floor and half on the rear-facing seats.” Bram is hidden in the boat’s crawl space and, later, Abby is thrown in with Bram. As the boat goes out to sea, Bram and Abby are able to jump into the ocean and swim to shore. Both are hospitalized but recover.

Drugs and Alcohol

Three years ago, after a swim team party, one of the boys “choked on his own vomit and died.”
Bram goes to an off-campus party. When he walks inside, the air is “ripe with beer.” Bram finds a group of swimmers taking shots.
Bram finds a picture of a swim party where the coach was “holding up some kind of a large funnel. Marcus was drinking out of it while Coach poured beer in the top. . . And later that night, Marcus died of alcohol poisoning.”

Language

The new members of the swim team are referred to as “pond scum.”
Pissed is used infrequently.
Damn and hell are both used a few times.
Bastard is used twice. For example, while talking about Jeremy’s accident, the coach says, “If I ever get my hands on the bastard who did this. . .”
The coach uses Jesus as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Centerville

Basketball-crazy Jake Burnett is thrilled to be leaving home to attend prestigious Centerville Prep. It’s an opportunity to pursue his hoop dreams at the highest level. But things aren’t quite as advertised at his new school, and Jake soon finds himself struggling both on and off the court. At first, Jake is determined to play harder and ignore the warning signs. But then he discovers that his new head coach is a scam artist, putting kids at risk for his own gain. Now Jake has a difficult choice to make—advance his basketball career or do the right thing.

When Jakes upends his life to play basketball for Centerville, he soon realizes that Coach Stone wasn’t honest about the school. Despite this, Jake is pumped about being able to play basketball with other elite players. However, Coach Stone yells disparaging remarks at Jake and doesn’t give him any playing time during games. While Jake’s conflict is unique, readers who play sports will relate to Jake’s desire to play for a winning team.

When Bill Jennings, who works for the State Board of Education, starts asking questions, Jake tries to avoid him. Jake doesn’t want to do anything that might hurt the other players. Jake’s struggle to protect his teammates and please his coach is understandable. However, when Jake realizes that Coach Stone’s scheme has the potential to cause serious harm, Jake knows that keeping the coach’s secrets isn’t the right thing to do. In the end, Jake realizes that “basketball was a great game, but it didn’t define us.”

As part of the Orca Sports Series, Centerville is an engaging book written for middle-schoolers and teens. The story has a fast-paced plot and easy-to-read language that is perfect for reluctant readers. While the book is relatively short with 176 pages, Centerville’s plot and character development is well-developed and doesn’t feel rushed.

Centerville is a fast-paced basketball story that has enough play-by-play basketball to keep sports fans entertained. Because the story focuses on Jake, readers will be able to understand his struggles as well as his thinking process; this will allow readers to connect with Jake and empathize with his conflict. While Jake clearly loves basketball, he learns that basketball isn’t “everything. . . There were more important things in life—like being happy, being a good friend, living up to your word and doing the right thing.” Centerville is an easy-to-read story that will entertain as well as teach important lessons about the importance of honesty. The graphic novels The Crossover by Kwame Alexander and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks will also be a slam dunk for basketball fans.

Sexual Content
● None

Violence
● None

Drugs and Alcohol
● Billy, one of Jake’s basketball teammates, tries to commit suicide by drinking alcohol and taking pills. A nurse tells Jake that Billy had “been drinking. And it seems he’s taken a lot of pills.” Billy spends a night in the ICU.

Language
● Pissed is used occasionally.
● Crap and damn are both used once.

Supernatural
● None

Spiritual Content
● None

Dragon Hoops

Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.

But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it’s all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championship.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen in a comic book. He knows he must follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t yet know, is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’ lives but his own life as well.

After meeting the members of the Dragons’ team, readers will quickly get caught up in their desire to win the state championship. Yang interviews the team’s players and coaches, which allows readers to see their unique perspectives. The graphic novel has plenty of play-by-play basketball action that reads like a comic book because of the onomatopoeias which include swish, swirl, and klang. To make it easier to keep track of the book’s events, each chapter has a large illustration and a title that describes the chapter’s events. Even though the book is broken into specific events, the varying topics, number of characters, and school rivals, make Dragon Hoops best suited for strong readers.

Throughout the graphic novel, the history of basketball is explained, including the racism that has affected basketball players. For example, “At the turn of the twentieth century, a ‘scientist’ proclaimed that blacks simply weren’t as fit for athletics as whites.” The scientist believed that blacks “have inferior muscle strength, inferior reasoning power, small lungs, and heavy bones.” These beliefs were proven wrong thanks in part to Marques Haynes and the Harlem Globetrotters. This book also includes interesting information about how basketball was created, women in basketball, and more.

Since Dragon Hoops is a graphic novel, readers may not expect the story to be so complex and dense. However, the story is split between the Dragons’ quest to win a state championship, basketball history, and the author’s professional and family life. Since the story is told from Yang’s point of view, readers will understand how he became a sports fan. However, Yang’s personal struggles do little to advance the plot and could have easily been deleted. In addition, Yang includes his inner conflict when it comes to including Mike Phelps, the Dragons coach, in the book. Instead of including his thoughts on Phelps, Yang could have included more information about why Phelps was a controversial person and how it affected the team.

Dragon Hoops features many dedicated people who went on to shake up the basketball world. However, the focus on Bishop O’Dowd High School’s basketball team allows readers to get a unique perspective and gives them a new understanding of the important history behind basketball. The players had to overcome many obstacles which make their hard work and dedication admirable. In the end, the Dragons finally win the state championship game, but more importantly, because of basketball, they make connections with others. Throughout the story, Yang highlights the players’ willingness to step onto the court because “it isn’t the fewest mistakes that win. Maybe it’s having the courage to take the next step—even at the risk of making a mistake.” Readers who love sports should also read the graphic novel The Crossover by Kwame Alexander and All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat.

Sexual Content

Thirty-six years later, one of the Dragons’ coaches, “Mike Phelps was charged with molesting a student.” At the same time, information about Roman Catholic institutions “allowing and then covering up one horrific child abuse case after another” came out. Phelps’ guilt or innocence is never proven. However, this incident caused the author to wonder if Phelps should be included in the Dragons’ story.

Violence

Protests broke out over the Ferguson decision to acquit white police officers after “an unarmed young African American man was fatally shot by a white police officer.”
In 1947, during a game between the Syracuse Nationals and the Tri-City Blackhawks, two opponents exchanged words and a black player hit a white player. The crowd also began fighting and “the National Guard had to be called out to restore order.” The illustration has one panel that shows the black basketball player punching his opponent while another panel shows the crowd fighting.
When India was broken into sections for Muslims and Hindus, many Sikhs “were forced to relocate to escape persecution. In the process, hundreds of thousands of Sikhs were killed.” While Catholics study Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy on nonviolence, Jeevin Sandh (a Dragons basketball player) views Gandhi differently because Gandhi wanted the “partition of India. . . [which was the] biggest forced migration of all times. All in all, I think between 250,000 and 500,000 Sikhs were murdered.”

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

The book’s profanity is modified with ***. Profanity is used frequently and includes Bullsh**, f***, m*****f***ers, b****, and sh**.
Other profanity is used infrequently. Profanity includes hell, crap, ass, and damn.
Because Jeevin Sandhu’s family is from India, people taunt Jeevin, calling him names such as “F***in’ Arab! Terrorist!” Members of the audience make comments such as “Sandhu Psh. More like San-douchebag” and “Yeah, f*** you, Indian.”

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Before games, one of the players leads a prayer. In one prayer, the player says, “Dear Lord, thank You for this opportunity to come together as a unit. Help us do our best this Saturday.”
One of the boys on the Dragons team, Jeevin Sandhu, practices the Sikh faith. One page explains some basic facts about the religion such as they believe in one god, that “all humans are equal,” and they don’t cut their hair or use a wooden comb.
Before a game, Jeevin Sandh says a prayer: “God is One. His name is True. He is the Creator. . . For He was True when Time Began. He has been True since the Ages. He is still True. Guru Nanak says He will forever be True.”
Before a game, a player prays, “Dear Lord, we thank You for putting us on the stage once again. We ask that You guide us to victory.”

Fly Away

After a member of her competitive cheerleading team is injured during practice, sixteen-year-old Marnie is asked to be a flyer – the most coveted role in cheerleading. The Soar Starlings team has a real shot at the provincial championship, and Marnie has only a few weeks to prepare. But as she scrambles to polish her lifts and throws, Marnie’s personal life begins to unravel. First, her boyfriend of two years breaks up with her, and then her best friend Arielle, captain of the Starlings, disappears during a team trip to Toronto. As Marnie struggles to adjust to being both a flyer and the team’s new captain, she realizes that to be a leader, you have to let go of old alliances to make room in your life for new ones.

While Fly Away is told from Marnie’s point of view, the self-centered protagonist isn’t very likable. When her best friend Arielle disappears, Marnie focuses on how Arielle’s disappearance affects her. Then instead of being honest with the adults around her, Marnie and another cheerleader take off on their own to find Arielle. The two girls discover that Arielle is being taken advantage of by an older man. However, it’s unclear if Marnie reveals Arielle’s whereabouts to those concerned for her wellbeing. Instead, Marnie thinks that keeping Arielle’s activities a secret is what a best friend should do.

Fly Away has a blend of boyfriend drama, cheerleading conflict, and mystery, which will keep the reader engaged until the very end. Plus, Marnie does show personal growth as she takes on the leadership of her cheer squad. At one point, Marnie tells the girls, “Each one of us worries about making a mistake and letting the others down. But that’s a waste of energy. It’s yourself that you need to be accountable to. Do right by you. The rest will take care of itself.”

Fly Away will appeal to readers who are interested in cheerleading. Readers will also relate to Marnie’s desire to fit in with her cheerleading squad and her insecurity when it comes to leadership ability. The story’s high-interest topic is written specifically for teens who are reluctant readers. Because of the brevity of the book, the story leaves some unanswered questions which will frustrate some readers. Despite this, teens will relate to Marnie’s desire to be a good friend and a good leader. Readers who want a strong cheerleading protagonist worthy of cheering for should also read Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston.

Sexual Content 

None

Violence 

Marnie runs from a vicious dog. The dog attacks Marnie and she “punched, blindly, in the animal’s direction, and missed. . . The dog closed its jaw around my wrist, and pain shot up my arm. I swung my leg forward and booted the dog in the throat, and it let me go.” Marnie has to go to the hospital to have the dog bite looked at.

Drugs and Alcohol 

None

Language 

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content 

None

Check Please!

Eric Bittle may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It is nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all, there’s checking (anything that hinders the player with possession of the puck, ranging from a stick check all the way to a physical sweep). And then, there is Jack—the very attractive but moody team captain.

Check Please! is told from Bittle’s point of view, which allows the reader to connect with him and the other hockey players. Bittle is an extremely likable character who unapologetically loves to bake pies, make gift bags, and vlog. Bittle’s vlog helps keep the reader up to date on the events in his life as well as his emotions. As part of the hockey team, Bittle spends a lot of time on the ice. However, the figure skating champion often faints when someone is close to knocking into him. Despite this, the other hockey players encourage Bittle and reassure him that they’ve got his back. And when Bittle makes his first goal during a game, the reader will cheer right along with the other characters.

Through Bittle’s experiences, readers will get an intimate view of a college hockey team. While there are many interesting characters, the team captain, Jack, takes center stage. As the son of a famous hockey player, Jack deals with anxiety and family expectations. When Bittle and Jack become friends, Bittle is conflicted because he has fallen for “a straight boy.” It isn’t until Bittle’s sophomore year that he tells anyone that he is gay. Even though Bittle is worried about his teammate’s reactions, they are unfazed by the revelation.

Each page of the graphic novel has two panels with quote boxes. However, on some pages, there are so many quote boxes that it is difficult to keep track of who is speaking. The illustrations often focus on the “hockey haus,” which is where the hockey team lives and throws parties with lots of alcohol. In addition to the many parties, Check Please! Also has an abundance of profanity and frequent talk of hooking up, which takes away from the reading enjoyment. The story portrays the college experience as one big party with meaningless sex.

Check Please! is an engaging graphic novel that focuses on Bittle’s unique perspective and gives readers a look into the hockey culture. The teammates’ acceptance of Bittle despite his untraditional behavior is refreshing. While the story’s fun tone will appeal to many readers, the unnecessary profanity is often overwhelming and will definitely turn away some readers. Readers looking for more sports-related books should check out Hazelwood High Trilogy by Sharon M. Draper and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks.

Sexual Content 

Two hockey players talk about a girl’s text message. One boy says, “Then it’s chill—emoticons always equal pussy.”
When Bittle goes to the hockey frat house, one of the guys says, “The decisions you will make in this house will be regretful but glorious. The alcohol you drink will be cheap, but plentiful and the loss of virginity you may experience within these walls will range from reassuring to emotionally damaging.”
Bittle goes to a frat party. While there, he asks the guys where Jack is. Someone says, “Poor guy’s probably up in his room getting sucked off by another Zimmermann puck bunny.”
Some of the guys talk about hooking up with a girl. One of the guys tells Bittle, “Holster and I are very well acquainted with Samwell’s female population, if you know what I mean. I do mean sexually.”
Jack kisses Bittle. The kiss is illustrated over three pages.

Violence 

None

Drugs and Alcohol 

When Bittle sees the frat house’s kitchen stove, he says, “I bet no one’s cooked anything but pot brownies in you.”
While at a frat party, some of the hockey team play a drinking game.
After a game, the guys go out to pizza and some of them drink beer.
As part of a hazing ritual, the new members “will crawl onto the shore of manhood naked, blindfolded, and bitch-ass shitfaced. But not alone!” The hazing is shown over two pages, and the new members are in their boxers.
The book uses a fairytale-like story to show Jack, in the past, taking too many anxiety drugs and “nearly los[ing] everything.”

Language 

Profanity is used on almost every page. Profanity includes bitch, damn, dicks, hell, motherfucker, fuck, shit, pussy, and goddammit.
One of the characters is nicknamed “Shitty.”
A fellow hockey player says, “You know what I like about you, Bittle? You’re a dude from the south and you’re not a bigoted dickfaced cockhole!”
A hockey player says that one of his teammates can “turn into a fucking hockey nazi every once in a while.”
While practicing talking tough, Bittle says, “I’m gonna fuck you up like the fucking pussy midget fucker you are.”
Jesus Christ is used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content 

None

Piecing Me Together

Jade Butler, a black teenager in Portland, loves making art and collages. She constantly finds beauty in the mundane, everyday things that surround her.

Jade is an ambitious, intelligent, and determined young woman striving for success. But, too often, Jade feels that in order to find success and “make something of this life, [she has] to leave home, [her] neighborhood, [her] friends.” Jade simply wants to be able to create, expressing her joys and pains, without feeling like she needs to completely change who she is. But it seems like her school, the programs she’s in, and even the world is trying to “fix” her. They want to tear her apart and make a “better” version of her.

At school, Jade often feels like an outsider. It’s not only “because I’m black and almost everyone else is white,” Jade explains, “But because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.” Since Jade has grown up in a poor, single-parent household, her perspective on life is wildly different from her peers, which makes it difficult for her to connect with them. Moreover, Jade feels like she has been labeled the poor black girl, making her everyone’s charity case. While she is happy to accept the opportunities that come her way, Jade wishes she could be treated like the rest of the smart, successful students. She doesn’t want to be part of the mentorship program, where she was chosen because the school wants “to be as proactive as possible, and you know, well, statistics tell us that young people with your set of circumstances, are well, at risk for certain things.”

When Jade meets her mentor, Maxine, she is again disappointed and discouraged. While Maxine is also black, she grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, with successful parents. At times Jade feels that Maxine understands her, and their friendship seems easy. But then Jade thinks, “how quick it is that Maxine reminds me that I am a girl who needs saving. She knows I want out and she has come with a lifeboat. Except I just don’t know if I can trust her hand.” Again, Jade feels like she is not being recognized fully for her successes and talents.

In the end, Jade realizes that her situation will never change if she does not express her thoughts and feelings. “I need to speak up for myself,” Jade explains. “For what I need, for what I want.” If she wants to go on the study abroad trip to Costa Rica, she needs to advocate for her wants. If the mentorship program is upsetting her, she needs to say something about it. Jade confronts Maxine, and they talk about how they both can do better. Jade realizes even “imperfect people have things to teach you.” Furthermore, Jade realizes that she needs to take her future into her own hands and that the power of advocacy goes beyond just helping herself.

Piecing Me Together explores racism, microaggressions, and social issues like police brutality. Throughout the novel, Jade encounters various instances of racially charged microaggressions. For example, when shopping in a store, Jade is singled out and asked to leave because she is “stand[ing] idle.” Afterward, Jade’s friend, who is white, does not understand why Jade is upset. Jade thinks “I don’t know what’s worse. Being mistreated because of the color of your skin, your size, or having to prove that it really happened.” In another instance, when Jade is taken to the opera, the volunteer leading their tour group says, “you know, some folks don’t think they can relate to this kind of music. But let me tell you, all kinds of people have been lovers of the symphony.” After Jade hears this, her “emotions are all mixed up and jumbled inside.” Jade thinks, the tour guide simply “thought we were the kind of kids who wouldn’t appreciate classical music . . . mak[ing] me feel like no matter how dressed up we are, no matter how respectful we are, some people will only see what they want to see.”

Jade is also hyperaware of how other black people are treated. When Natasha Ramsey, a fifteen-year-old black girl, is beaten by the police, Jade cannot stop thinking about what has happened. Jade cannot help but think that Natasha “looks familiar. Like a girl [she] would be friends with.” While Jade hears about “this stuff all the time,” this time it feels personal like it could have been her. Piecing Me Together does not shy away from the realities of racism and police brutality, but it also shows the power of advocacy and community activism. Jade and her friends help organize an art event that creates an outlet for people of color to express their feelings.

Piecing Me Together is a great book and a must-read. Jade is a strong, confident teenager, who is learning to live in the world as a black woman. She also is “discovering what [she is] really capable of.” Though this book contains serious discussions about what it means to be a person of color in America, it is also an exploration of learning how to stand up for yourself. Moreover, it is a story about the power of friends and family, who are the scaffolding that help support Jade through her journey in a world that too often is trying to tear her apart.

Sexual Content 

As Jade is waiting for the bus, a drunk man approaches her. At one point “he leans in as if he’s going to kiss me.” Jade steps back, “tell[s] him to stop” and “walk[s] a few blocks to the next [bus] stop.”
On the bus, a woman walks on with her “shirt [hanging] so low and is so thin, you can see her braless breasts.”
Maxine and her friends tell Jade about a play entitled The Vagina Monologues. They explain “it’s a play that features stories about women . . . and rape, sex, getting your period.”

Violence 

Jade’s uncle, E.J., “and his friends had been shot. E.J. was okay, barely grazed on his arm. Nate was wounded badly, and Alan died at the scene.”
Jade thinks about what it means to grow up and go “out into the world.” She cannot help but “watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over.” She then explains “it’s kind of hard to believe this world is mine.”
An incident in a town near Portland catches Jade’s attention, upsetting her. Police “were called to a house party because neighbors complained about loud music.” A fifteen-year-old girl, Natasha Ramsey, was “manhandle[d]” by the police. While the police claimed she was “being insubordinate,” they “beat her bad, she’s in critical condition . . . [with] fractured ribs and a broken jaw.”

In a poem, Jade’s best friend, Lee Lee, wrote, she says “this black girl tapestry, this black body / that gets dragged out of school desks slammed onto linoleum floor, / tossed about at pool side, pulled over and pushed onto grass, / arrested never to return home, / shot on doorsteps, on sofas while sleeping / and dreaming of our next day.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

Maxine’s ex-boyfriend “got fired because he kept showing up high and late.”
During dinner at Maxine’s parent’s house, a few of the adults are drinking wine.
Jade attends the annual fundraiser for the Woman to Woman organization. Maxine says it will be a cocktail party, but explains to Jade “of course, you won’t be drinking.”

Language 

There is very limited profanity in this book. The word “ass” is used once. However, profanity at points is implied. For instance, at a restaurant, a teenage boy called Jade “every derogatory name a girl could ever be called.”

Supernatural 

None

Spiritual Content 

At a Woman to Woman meeting, the group talks about relationships and dating. Jade notes one of the girls in the group seems like she is an “‘I’m Saving Myself for Marriage’ girl. Right now, Jesus is her boyfriend.”

Jade’s mom explains, “Thanksgiving has always been a day for getting together with family, a day to thank God for my personal blessings.”
Jade encounters a woman on the bus who continuously says, “Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.”
Jade suggests she and her family pray for Natasha Ramsey, the black teenager beaten by the police. E.J., her uncle, responds by saying “what is prayer going to do… prayer ain’t nothing but the poor man’s drug.” E.J. continues saying “poor people are the ones who pray. People who don’t have what they need, who can’t pay their rent, who can’t buy healthy food, who can’t save any of their paycheck because every dollar is already accounted for. Those are the people who pray. They pray for miracles, they pray for signs, they pray for good health. Rich people don’t do that . . . plus, God isn’t the one we need to be talking to. We need to talk to the chief of police, the mayor, and the governor. They’re the ones with the power to make change.”

Medusa

If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next?

Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except for the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal . . . and destiny itself.

Medusa talks directly to the reader in this first-person account of her life. When the book opens, Medusa has secluded herself on a deserted island, but when the handsome Perseus arrives, he awakens a hope in Medusa—the hope that someone can love her despite the fact that she has snakes instead of hair. As Medusa reveals her secrets, the reader is slowly pulled into her life before.

Medusa’s story allows the reader to see the girl Medusa was before being cursed. Much of the story revolves around Medusa as a fourteen-year-old beauty. When Poseidon begins to pursue her, the misogynistic views of society become clear. Despite repeated rejections, Poseidon stalks Medusa. Medusa’s attempts to dissuade Poseidon; however, he appears on land, and Medusa “screamed for him to leave me alone, I called out to Athena, I said, No, no, no! But . . . Poseidon took what I had never wanted to give him. Me.” After Medusa is sexually assaulted, the villagers have no sympathy for Medusa. Even Athena feels no sympathy for Medusa and instead of helping the young girl, Athena curses her.

Much of the story focuses on Medusa sharing the events in her life with Perseus. Although Medusa’s pain is clear, the story has a detached tone that cuts out graphic descriptions. However, Medusa shares the wisdom she’s gained from her experiences. For example, she believes that “remembering’s a blessing and a curse. You can’t erase your bad memories, but a life without regrets is a life unlived.”

Towards the end, Medusa’s personal musings become somewhat tedious; however, her story will leave readers considering if our experiences are determined by our actions, fate, or a combination of both. Medusa also explores the difference between being a monster or a hero; although in Greek mythology Medusa is considered a monster, reading Medusa allows the reader to see her as a complex character who is like all of us—a person who wants to be comfortable in her own skin. Even though Medusa and Perseus bonded, a happy ending could never happen. Medusa realizes that “I had thought [Perseus] was my one true hope. But it turned out my one true hope was me.”

Medusa hits several difficult topics including sexual assault, the curse of being beautiful, and society’s double standards. Medusa’s story highlights the importance of accepting yourself. In the end, Medusa shows readers that the only person that needs to love us is ourselves and that “self-awareness is a great banisher of loneliness.” While Medusa’s storytelling is at times slow, those interested in Greek mythology will enjoy seeing Medusa in a new light. Readers who love delving into the hearts of characters who are usually portrayed as villains should also read Heartless by Marissa Meyer.

Sexual Content 

After Perseus tells Medusa about his girlfriend, Medusa thinks, “Driana had had Perseus’s hand in hers, his mouth on hers!”
Perseus reveals that he is “still a virgin.”
To confront Perseus, Medusa grabs his hand. Then he was “lifting my hand to his lips to kiss it, again and again. My fingers, my wrist, the soft inner skin of my lower arm.”
When Medusa was fourteen, Poseidon began perusing her. When Medusa avoided Poseidon, people began saying that Medusa was “flaunting her curves all right, but won’t give him what he wants. She made a promise, won’t keep it—typical, fickle. . . She’s taunting him.”
Medusa was hiding from Poseidon in Athena’s temple. But Poseidon came for her. “Poseidon didn’t care whose temple he was entering. He just pulled the pillars down. I screamed for him to leave me alone, I called out to Athena, I said, No, no, no! But in the rubble of that night, Poseidon took what I had never wanted to give him. Me.”
After Poseidon raped Medusa, “some people in the village said I should be grateful for the attention.” Later, Athena appears and calls Medusa a “slut.”

Violence 

After Medusa rejects Poseidon’s advances, he sends a tsunami. “Water coming like a mountain. Fish everywhere, mermaids howling in pain as they tumble. Poseidon’s power breaks their backs, their perfect fins sacrificed to his momentum.” Frightened, Medusa promises that she’d do “anything” he asked.
In order to free his mother from a king’s advances, Perseus must bring the king Medusa’s head. In an attempt to do this, Perseus attacks. “The tip of his sword nicked my arm, slicking open my skin. It was a lightning bolt to the blood, and it woke something in me. . . My foot kicked out and struck the edge of his shield.” Perseus falls backward.
In the fight, Medusa grabs the blade of Perseus’s sword. “He tugged back hard, slicking the sword out of my grasp. He swung it sideways . . . and brought it around toward my neck.”
When Perseus looks at Medusa, “his skin went pale as if the gods had made a straw for his veins and sucked. . . His own irises turning milky gray. His pupils vanished, his flesh turned stony, his arms stiff.” Perseus turns to stone.

Drugs and Alcohol 

None

Language 

“Oh Gods” is used as an exclamation occasionally.
“Oh Hades” is used as an exclamation once.
After speaking about Athena’s role in Medusa’s demise, Medusa thinks, “Athena is a bitch.”

Supernatural

Athena curses Medusa by changing her hair into snakes. After being cursed, Medusa realizes “my hair was gone, and in its place was a crown of serpents, sinewy, strong, all colors of the rainbow.”

Spiritual Content 

None

Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover

With Macey’s parents running for president, life at the Gallagher Academy is turned upside-down. First, Cammie and Macey barely escape a kidnapping attempt. Then, the Secret Service follows Macey back to school, threatening their school’s secret heritage. And finally, there is Zach, who has a tendency of showing up at the most suspicious moments.

Cammie fully intended to follow the rules at school this year. However, the Gallagher Academy is a spy school, so following the rules is not always an option—especially when Macey’s safety is at risk. Cammie, Bex, and Liz will take no chances with their friend’s life, even if that means they have to break out of school and follow Macey to personally ensure her safety. However, when Cammie’s Aunt Abbey shows up as part of Macey’s Secret Service detail, breaking the rules becomes much more difficult.

Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover increases the suspense and action from the previous books, ramping up the stakes while bringing back all our favorite characters. The presidential campaign of Macey’s parents adds interest, new settings, and a new boy. Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover both begins and ends with action, keeping readers engaged until the very end.

Despite being a spy, Cammie is a strong protagonist who is relatable to readers. Like most teens, Cammie worries about her friends, has boy trouble, and doesn’t always make wise choices. Cammie is confused by Zach, which adds a fun element to the story. Readers will fall in love with Cammie, who is a well-developed character who is easy to sympathize with. However, what makes the Gallagher Girls Series unforgettable is the friendship factor.

In Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, Cammie spends her time trying to protect her friends. Cammie knows that her friends will always have her back as well. While the story focuses on Cammie, all the characters are well-developed. Each character is unique and given their own chance to show their spy skills. The Gallagher Girls Series brings to life a group of awesome girls who are smart, brave, loyal, and yet, completely baffled by boys.

Through first-person narration, Carter creates a fun story full of relatable characters and explores teen romance in a wholesome way that is perfect for middle-grade readers. While the story has romance, Cammie spends most of her time trying to outsmart secret agents, unravel mysteries, and keep her friends safe. The suspenseful story ends with a cliff hanger that is sure to leave readers hungry for more. You will definitely want to have the next book, Only the Good Spy Young, handy.

Sexual Content 

Aunt Abbey kisses Joe Solomon. Cammie thinks, “None of the spy training in the world prepared me for the sight of my aunt grabbing Joe Solomon by the shirt. And kissing him. On the mouth. For eighty-seven seconds.”

Violence 

Macey and Cammie are attacked in a kidnapping attempt. Cammie “parried the attacker’s first blow [and] took a half-step to my right and landed a kick at one of the masked men’s knees.”
During the kidnapping attempt, a boy “pulled back his free hand and punched the man in the throat. It was a perfect lucky shot.”
Macey’s arm is broken during the kidnapping attempt. “The men lunged for Macey. I heard a sickening snap. I turned and saw my roommate clutch her arm and fall to the ground, howling out in pain.” The fight happens over six pages.
Cammie and Macey escape the kidnappers by diving into a laundry shaft. Cammie jumps in and is “free-falling. I felt my head bang against the metal shaft. Something hot and wet oozed into my eyes.”
When Zach startles Cammie by grabbing her shoulder, Cammie flips him over her shoulder in self-defense. “I forgot all about Mr. Solomon’s assignment as I reached back and grabbed the offending hand, stepped into the move, and swung the guy smoothly through the air, watching him crash onto a red balloon with a pop.”
Cammie is injured during a second kidnapping attempt. Someone attacks her and her “head was on fire. My body was crushed beneath my attacker’s weight. Someone or something must have knocked us both to the ground. . . my roommates [were] battling two men twice their size. Liz clung to the big man’s back while Bex parried away his blows. Macey fought against the second man.” The struggle takes place over six pages.
When one of the kidnappers tries to shoot Macey, Aunt Abbey jumps in the way. Cammie “saw the flash—heard the blast . . . Someone else was lunging through the air in front of Macey and then falling too hard to the dark ground . . . Zach’s jacket had fallen from my shoulders, and Macey held it to the wound in Abby’s chest, trying to stop the blood that spilled onto the dark asphalt.” Aunt Abbey is rushed to surgery and recovers.

Drugs and Alcohol 

Cammie’s mom tells Aunt Abbey that “perhaps the United States Secret Service should consider that it might be unwise to tell Madame Dabney’s eighth graders how to make their own chloroform out of Kleenex and lemon wedges?” To which Abby replies, “Yeah, I couldn’t believe they hadn’t figured out how to do that yet.”
During the second kidnapping attempt, the kidnappers try to drug Cammie. “There was a rag over my mouth—a sick smell. I tried not to breathe as my arms flailed and the world began to spin.”

Language 

None

Supernatural 

None

Spiritual Content 

None

Be A Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters

Be a Changemaker is a how-to guide for young people to change the world through social entrepreneurship – that is, running a business in a profitable yet socially impactful way. The story empowers individuals to find an issue they are passionate about and grow it into a successful charitable venture. These ventures differ from normal businesses because they are not solely for profit, yet they are also not charity organizations because they are not completely not-for-profit. The author believes that combining these two types of businesses leads to the most success.

To encourage others to start their own successful ventures, the author starts at square one: finding a passion. Then, the author walks through the necessary aspects of creating a social change program. Thompson explains the process of solidifying a passion into an idea, naming the social venture, managing a budget, hiring a team, and much more. These steps are reinforced by examples of successful businesses that were started by kids such as Actores de la Prevención, a group of actors using theater to spread awareness about alcohol addiction, and the Youth Ultimate Project, which teaches leadership and perseverance skills to kids in Cambodia through ultimate frisbee programs.

Aside from walking through the steps to turn an idea into a fully-fledged business operation, the book provides resources and helpful links to help children build their ventures, such as grant organizations, information about filing for copyright, and marketing advice. It is full of information that may help a young entrepreneur find their footing in the business world. Ultimately, the aim of this book is to inspire young people to create a business that can sustain itself while still staying true to the goal of helping others.

Be a Changemaker can be a daunting text since it takes you from zero to a hundred by the end of the book. However, the author notes that you should read it at your own pace and you can apply – or not apply – her advice as you deem fit. It is a resource to help you, so use it as much or as little as you’d like.

Although some of the financial lingo and business-forming advice might go over the heads of younger readers, the text is generally accessible to all people and clearly written. Some of the advice even applies to adults! There are passages about networking, discovering your talents and passions, and the effect of social change that can be useful to any reader. This guide does mention social issues and sensitive topics such as feminism, animal rights, minority issues, domestic violence, suicide, and more, but it does not give direct examples or in-depth descriptions of such issues. There are some examples of violence, alcohol consumption, and child labor which are listed below.

Overall, Be a Changemaker is a comprehensive guide that encourages its readers to take action. If you know a young person who wants to help the world but doesn’t know where to begin, this book is a great first step on the path to creating change.

Sexual Content 

None

Violence 

A brief anecdote about the organization Free the Children is included. The passage discusses child labor. Craig Kielburger was flipping through the newspaper in search of comics when he came across the headline, “’Battled Child Labor, Boy, 12, Murdered!’ Because Craig was also twelve, the words grabbed his attention and he stopped to read the article. He soon learned that the boy, Iqbal Masih from Pakistan, had been sold into slavery at the age of four and chained to a carpet loom for nearly six years. After escaping, Iqbal spoke publicly against the common practice of child labor in his country. Many suspected Iqbal’s death was an attempt to silence him and his message.”
A brief anecdote about the organization Team Revolution discusses gang violence. “Divine Bradley was no goody two-shoes. Growing up, he often felt the allure of life on the gang-infested streets of his Brooklyn neighborhood. Then, when Divine was seventeen, a close friend of his was murdered over a basketball game. That was Divine’s wake-up call.”
One of the mentioned organizations, Team aWEAReness, combats domestic and dating violence. No examples are given.
The organization Everybody Dance Now! was formed, in part, due to gang violence. “When [Jackie] also realized that gang violence, obesity, and low self-esteem threatened her Santa Barbara, California neighborhood, Jackie felt compelled to take action.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

A brief anecdote about the organization Actores de la Prevención is included, discussing alcohol addiction and drunk driving. “[A group of students] were studying theater at Argentina’s National University of Cuyo when they got the idea for their venture. ‘We saw that there were a lot of car accidents due to excessive alcohol consumption in young people.’”

Language 

None

Supernatural 

None

Spiritual Content 

None

Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery

When sixteen-year-old Lacy Brink finds herself in the Westminster Cemetery late one night, she is dazed and confused. For, according to the strangers she meets, Lacy is dead.

At first, Lacy is convinced this must be an elaborate prank or one of those game shows, and that the ghosts around her simply are committed actors. But Lacy soon realizes she truly is dead and is stuck in this cemetery with a bunch of constrictive rules: no cussing, return to your grave before daybreak, perform your “job without complaint,” only smile if “you have remarkably fine teeth,” and many, many more. There are over 250 rules that every resident of Westminster Cemetery must follow. If Lacy breaks three rules and earns three strikes, she will be suppressed—that means she will be unable to come aboveground and will be stuck in her grave “every single night and do nothing but listen to the goings-on above.”

While trying to fit into her new surroundings and carefully trying not to gain three strikes, Lacy is also curious why she is here, what happened, and why she is even dead in the first place.

In Westminster Cemetery, famous for being the resting place of the poet Edgar Allan Poe, Lacy meets a funny and interesting cast of characters who help guide her on her journey. This includes Sam, a lonely poet who is constantly looking for company, but “the sad truth is that there is no one in the cemetery [he] would call a friend.” Sam embraces Lacy and finds hope and friendship in her presence.

There’s also Mrs. Steele, a stringent rule follower, who is the pseudo-leader in the cemetery and makes sure everyone is in line with the guidelines. Mrs. Steele sees Lacy as a nuance and a problem that is ruining the cemetery’s order. There are also a pair of star-crossed lovers “suffering from forbidden love,” as one of them is suppressed and the other is in charge of suppressing residents of the cemetery. There’s a doctor who is “dying for stimulation and misses teaching.” Lacy also meets Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Mrs. Clemm. Lacy even meets the Raven who inspired Poe’s famous poem.

While the residents help Lacy come to terms with her death, she helps them realize the potential of the afterlife. Through hosting an open mic night, Lacy creates a space for the residents of the Westminster Cemetery to express themselves and speak about their wants, their regrets, and their hopes. Together the group confronts Mrs. Steele and the strict rules governing them. Lacy, through her constant resistance, inspires the rest of the residents to stand up for themselves and to live their afterlife freely. While the cemetery’s rules try to apply perfection and order amongst the Dead, Lacy and the others realize “we’re all flawed.” The residents would rather embrace these flaws than continue to pretend they are perfect.

Mary Amato has uniquely crafted Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery, blending prose, plays, and poems together. In the introduction, the book is presented as “no ordinary novel,” for it is a “stage play” full of “oddities.” Furthermore, there is an omniscient narrator who often, hilariously, and sarcastically, breaks the fourth wall, talking directly to the audience. For example, during the play’s intermission, the narrator suggests the reader “ponder what you think might happen next or which character you identify with most.” The narrator continues by saying that “you could even discuss the philosophical questions that the work raises thus far with numerous friends and acquaintances and encourage them to purchase copies of their own.”

Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery is a great book and a must-read. Lacy and the other residents highlight the importance of embracing ones flaws and not following constrictive, oppressive rules. Furthermore, they show the importance of found family. While Lacy loses her mother and sister through death, she gains a loving, caring family in the residents of the Westminster Cemetery. With its great messages about found family and embracing one’s flaws, its fantastical worldbuilding and its incredibly unique structure, this book is a must-read.

Sexual Content 

Two of the residents of the cemetery, Owen and Clarissa, love each other and have been separated because of the cemetery’s rules. When given the opportunity to bend these rules, “Owen tiptoes to Clarissa’s grave. She steps out before he can knock . . . Starry-eyed, they kiss.” Virginia, the wife of Edgar Allan Poe, explains in the afterlife “everything I long for is forbidden.” She further says, “I want to laugh too loud and dance too long and make love until inhibition is gone.” Addressing her husband, Virginia says, “I had admired you. But I had never felt that kind of desire for you.”

Violence 

In a dramatic fashion, frustrated about his poetry, Sam “puts his journal back into his satchel, pulls out a knife, and stabs himself in the heart. He staggers around dramatically and then finally falls to the ground near [Edgar Allan Poe’s] monument with a thud.” Because Sam is dead and a ghost “the laws of physics . . . work differently among the Dead,” and stabbing himself did not hurt him in anyway but is rather for dramatic show.
To prove to Lacy that she is really dead, Dr. Hosler “pulls a long surgical knife out of his bag and plunges it into her heart.” Lacy is “shocked, the knife sticking out of her chest, realizing that she feels no pain.” Lacy “removes the knife, feeling nothing. She examines her chest for blood but there is none. She checks to see if the blade is designed to collapse or play a trick.” But it is not. “Lacy hesitates and Dr. Hosler takes her hand with the knife and plunges it into his own chest.” Again Dr. Hosler is trying to prove to Lacy that she really is dead, and this is not a game.
Lacy reminisces about the independence she had in middle school, such as being able to “ride city buses by herself.” With this independence, Lacy explains, she was exposed to “challenging moments” of life, like seeing “creepy guys who would unzip their pants, and once even the stabbing of a man by a woman impaired by opiate consumption.”
In annoyance at the fact that she is dead, Lacy “knocks her head against the marble base. Once. Twice. Three times. LACY: It doesn’t even hurt. She does it again. Once. Twice. Three times.”
Lacy explains to Edgar the theories surrounding his death. Edgar was found “delirious and destitute, wandering around in someone else’s clothing. Lacy says, ‘Some say you were drunk, others say you had been robbed and suffered a beating!’ Lacy continues, “Another theory is that you were kidnapped by a gang to be used as a straw voter in a local election.’” Lacy goes on to explain that Edgar was “taken to the hospital, where you lapsed in and out of consciousness” and later died.
Peter, one of the residents of Westminster Cemetery, reveals he killed himself. Peter says, “I died by my own hand, a knife to my wrist.” To have him buried in the cemetery, his mother lied and said Peter “died by accident while [he was] cleaning fish.”
Henry Steele, Sam’s father, explains his faults and wrongs during the open mic night. Henry says as he “got deeper into debt and deeper into drink . . . it made me do things I didn’t want to do. I beat [my wife, Gertrude] and I beat [my sons].” When Sam was four, Henry explains, “Sam was scared to go to bed, and I wanted him to shut up, so I took him out back with a leather strap. He was like a little fawn, he was so small. Gertrude begged me to stop and I hit her harder than I ever had and told her to shut up . . . I was going to kill him. She could tell. So she did what she had to do. As soon as I felt the blow on the back of my head, I knew.” Mrs. Steele killed her husband, afraid for her son’s life and for her own.
Lacy died in a car crash. “The light was turning red and a blue pick-up truck gunned into the intersection just as a black car turned from the left . . . The truck hit the car . . . and then the car spun and started rushing toward [me].” Lacy explains “at first I had this false sense of security because I wasn’t standing in the street, you know, I was standing on the sidewalk, pretty far from the curb. But then the car jumped the curb, and in that second before impact, I knew I was going to die.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

Sarah, a resident of the cemetery and the President of the Food and Drink Committee, explains, “Mrs. Steele doesn’t allow alcohol.” To which Dr. Hosler points out “is ridiculous since it has no effect on us.”
Olivia, Lacy’s sister, visits Lacy’s grave and shows up “drunk” many times. One night when Olivia comes, she was drunk and had taken a painkiller “she stole out of the medicine cabinet at Zane’s dad’s house.” Olivia explains, “she knows that neither the drug nor the booze will be able to soften the cold, hard shell that now defines her.”
Another night, Olivia arrives with “a bottle in her left hand—not even bothering to hide it—and her right hand is wrapped in a makeshift bandage . . . Half an hour ago she took a second painkiller too close to the first and washed it down with vodka that she sweet-talked an old man into buying for her.” After a while, Olivia’s mom comes to pick her up and takes her home.
Lacy explains to the other residents at Westminster Cemetery that often at an open mic, “tea and coffee or beer and wine” is served.
Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as someone who “drank and gambled.” During the open mic night, Edgar says, “So the drunk keeps drinking / though he wants to be sober. / And the lover keeps cheating / though insisting that it’s over. / And the gambler who has guilt / runs to place another bet / while his family tries to live on / cold soup and regret.”

Language 

Profanity is used often. This includes fuck and ass.

Supernatural 

The premises of this novel is based on the existence of ghosts. The story is set in Westminster Cemetery in Baltimore, where Edgar Allan Poe is buried. At night, many of the residents rise and socialize with each other, “enjoy[ing] appropriate recreation.”
The Dead cannot feel pain and are not affected by mortal needs like eating or sleep. Furthermore, those who are alive cannot see, hear, or feel the ghosts, “so all those ghost stories about spirits knocking on walls and creaking about in attics and blowing curtains and extinguishing lights . . . those aren’t true.”

Spiritual Content 

Sarah, one of the residents of Westminster Cemetery, exclaims, “who says God loves being silent?”

by Mikaela Querido

Expecting

Kaelynn, Yessenia, and Lyric are three very different teenagers. Kaelynn is a country girl who wants to prove that she isn’t like her mother. Yessenia is a rebel who occasionally commits heists with her friends. Lyric is a popular girl who stays out of trouble. But despite their differences, they have one thing in common: they all attend a program for pregnant teens. 

While at the program, the girls deal with the struggles of pregnancy, as well as their own personal hardships. Kaelynn’s mother is addicted to drugs like “coke, meth, and crack,” and Kaelynn lives with her grandmother, who she fights with. Eventually, Kaelynn leaves home and moves in with the father of her child – an older man she met at a party.

Meanwhile, Yessenia does not feel safe being in the same house as her lecherous stepfather, so she lives with her boyfriend’s family instead. But when she catches her boyfriend kissing another girl, she is left homeless. Kaelynn helps her find another home as the story progresses.

Unlike the other girls, Lyric has a seemingly idyllic life. She lives with her mother and has a doting boyfriend who her family adores. But after she gets pregnant, her “doting” boyfriend disappears entirely, leaving her scared and alone. Together, the girls learn to navigate their hurdles and find solace in an unlikely friendship.

A major theme in Expecting is dealing with hardship. Each of the girls is dealing with stressful pregnancies as well as issues unique to them. Although initially skeptical of each other, the three girls grow close and help each other get through their respective issues. Their comradery is especially important in light of their peers’ reactions to their pregnancy. At one point, Lyric remarks on how isolating being a pregnant teen is: “Yeah, you know being pregnant is kind of lonely. My friends call to check on me. They don’t ask me to hang out with them or call to talk about what happened at school.” The novel’s answer to these struggles is friendship, and the three friends learn to lean on each other in order to get through difficult times.

Freemen attempts to reach teens who may be going through some of the same struggles portrayed in Expecting. Readers who are experiencing teen pregnancy, drug addiction, homelessness, or even just a cheating boyfriend may find aspects of the story relatable. However, the girls’ stories feel rushed. At only 99 pages, Expecting is an easy sell for reluctant readers, but it often sacrifices believable character development. That said, the simple writing style and easy vocabulary make Expecting accessible to all readers. Ultimately, Expecting is a simple but highly readable story about issues that many teens find relatable. Occasionally punctuated by informative facts about pregnancy, teens in a similar situation may find the story helpful.

Sexual Content 

While at a friend’s house, Kaelynn flirts with a man. Later that night, she kisses him at a baseball field and it is implied that they have sex. Kaelynn continues a relationship with the man. At several points in the story, she kisses him.

While staring down at a positive pregnancy test, Yessenia recalls that she was reluctant to have sex with her boyfriend, but that she gave in anyway because he said he had “needs.”
Lyric expresses concern about looking “slutty.”
Despite being hesitant to lose her virginity, Lyric agrees to have sex with her boyfriend because he “told her that he loved her.”
Yessenia’s stepfather tells Yessenia that pregnancy “looks good on” her and that she’s “growing in all the right places.” Both Yessenia and Kaelynn are disgusted by this comment.

Violence 

Yessenia acts as a getaway driver while her friends rob a store. Once everyone has reentered the car, a man from the store “point[s] a gun directly at the car’s tires” and attempts to shoot them out. Yessenia swerves to avoid the gunshots.
When Yessenia sees her boyfriend kissing another girl, she “punche[s] him in the mouth.” The other girl pulls a gun on Yessenia, but Yessenia “slap[s] her as hard as she [can] across the face.”
When Lyric’s boyfriend found out she was pregnant, he abandons her. Later, she “slap[s]” her ex-boyfriend “across the face.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

At a party, a group of mostly adults drink beers and pass a blunt around.
Kaelynn asks a man if he wants to smoke a cigarette with her.
Kaelynn insists that she is not like her mother, who does hard drugs such as coke, meth, and crack.
Yessenia joins her friends in a car they are “hotboxing,” a term for smoking weed in a vehicle.
Yessenia drinks a mixture of tequila and Sprite.
When Kaelynn asks Yessenia what drugs she’s done, Yessenia says that she has “tried just about everything.”
Yessenia buys weed while pregnant. 
Kaelynn’s grandmother takes Xanax “to calm her nerves.”
Doctors find marijuana in Yessenia’s urine samples, and she is forced to enter a rehab facility in order to keep her baby.

Language   

Kaelynn’s grandmother tells her to “get [her] ass in here.”
Kaelynn calls her grandmother an “old bat.”
A girl calls Yessenia a “homeless skank.”

Supernatural 

None

Spiritual Content 

Lyric is described as the type of girl whose “family went to church on Sunday.”
Kaelynn jokes that Lyric had “an immaculate conception.” Yessenia replies, “Yeah, right. She’s not the Virgin Mary.”

Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall

When James Bond was still in diapers, Virginia Hall was behind enemy lines, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Hitler’s henchmen. Did she have second thoughts after a terrible accident left her needing a wooden leg? Please. Virginia Hall was the baddest broad in any room she walked into. When the State Department proved to be a sexist boys’ club that wouldn’t let her in, she gave the finger to society’s expectations of women and became a spy for the British. This boss lady helped arm and train the French Resistance and organized sabotage missions. There was just one problem: the Butcher of Lyon, a notorious Gestapo commander, was after her. But, hey—Virginia’s classmates didn’t call her the Fighting Blade for nothing.

So how does a girl who was a pirate in the school play, spent her childhood summers milking goats, and rocked it on the hockey field end up becoming the Gestapo’s most wanted spy? Audacious, irreverent, and fiercely feminist, Code Name Badass is for anyone who doesn’t take no for an answer.

Code Name Badass chronicles Virginia Hall’s fight against societal norms and the Nazis. Hall’s experience highlights the amazing power of perseverance, bravery, and never taking no for an answer. As part of the French Resistance movement, Hall faced constant danger. However, she never stopped fighting.

With historical photos and excerpts from historical documents, Code Name Badass brings the women who helped win World War II to light. A list of other exceptional women spies appears at the back of the book along with a long list of resources that Demetrios utilized. While Hall’s story is motivating, Demetrios’ tone and constant reminders of sexism become a little off-putting. For example, Demetrios writes, “Dindy (Hall’s nickname) had a lot of luck. Buckets of it. She had a lot of bad luck, too, but, with one major exception, that bad luck stemmed only from the fact that she had a vagina.”

Readers who love history, especially World War II history, will find Code Name Badass full of little-known facts. While Hall’s story is interesting, it is not for the weak of heart. The brutality of the Germans is repeatedly described, and many of Hall’s contacts lost their lives because of the Germans’ cruelty. Because of the book’s difficult vocabulary and detailed descriptions, Code Name Badass is not the book for readers looking for a light, entertaining historical fiction book. However, anyone interested in spycraft, World War II, or the women who have impacted our world will find Code Name Badass informative and interesting.

Sexual Content 

While discussing Dindy’s “badassery,” Demetrios writes: “Never take no for an answer. (Unless someone says they don’t want to have sex with you, kiss you, be touched by you, etc. Then no means no.)”

During wartime, women were sexually assaulted and raped as “a key strategy” to breaking down “civilians and combatants alike.”
During the French occupation, Germans visited brothels.
One double agent was known to keep mistresses.
One female agent “got knocked up in the field” by another agent.
Another female agent “drove one agent so batty with love that he literally threw himself into the Danube, intending suicide.” The agent was known to cheat on her husband with “sexy spy guys.”

Violence 

During a hunting expedition, Dindy accidentally shot herself. “The shell ripped into her left foot, tearing past the skin and driving through cartilage and bone. Virginia collapsed, staring down at what had once been called a foot.” Dindy’s foot is amputated.
During the Battle of France, “Bullets started flying, bombs began to drop, and shit got real. . .” Dindy helped by becoming an ambulance driver, who “saw men dying around her every day in the most horrible of ways, the soil once again being soaked with French blood.”

During the battle, roads were bombed, “caring little that the dusty streets and highways and country lanes were filled with refugees who were desperate to get away from the fighting.”
During World War II, “the French government would cut off your head if you had an abortion.”
During the war, William Simpson was “shot down” and sustained “terrible burns and los[t] both hands.”
Resistance fighters “killed a Gestapo agent, then dumped the body on the steps of [the Germans’] headquarters with a note: ‘With the compliments of British Intelligence.’”
Dindy has dinner with Olivier, another spy. The restaurant’s “door crashes open, and a dozen gendarmes swam in, guns, batons, or haughty chins raised. Screams fill the café, and glass shatters as tables are overturned and precious rationed food and drink fall to the floor. . .” With help, both spies escape.
The Gestapo was cruel to prisoners: “Dogs let loose on prisoners, fingernails pried off, prisoners tied up with spiked handcuffs. . . Agents and Resistance fighters were often tortured for information.”
Dindy’s supervisors told Dindy that a “dangerous man” had infiltrated her group. The supervisor told Dindy “she was fully authorized to have him disposed of as neatly as possible.”
Two men put their family on a ship heading to England. “Their parents, wives, and Alfred’s three children all drowned when their ship . . . was torpedoed by the Germans.”
The book mentions people who were killed by the Germans. Most accounts are not graphic. For example, according to Dindy, “the Germans had gotten all ancient Rome on the Resistance, skewering their bodies on iron posts as a warning to all.”
Several agents were “brutally murdered in the Dachau concentration camp. . . all three were shot in the back of the head, then their bodies shoved into the camp’s crematoriums.”
One man refused to do the Germans’ biddings. The man “tried to cut his throat rather than bend his will.”
If Dindy and her crew saw Germans lurking around, they would kill the Germans. “One story has it that Dindy’s boys would drop German bodies in the Lignon River after they’d done away with them.”
One spy was captured and “he was beaten, tortured, and then shipped off to Buchenwald, where he suffocated and died in a cattle car stuffed with more than 150 prisoners.” Another captured spy “had her front teeth knocked out and her arm broken.”
Gestapo agent Klaus Barbie was brutal. “His accusers testified about Barbie raping female inmates in the presence of not only other guards, but also of the Resistance members waiting in the hallway to get tortured . . . Barbie encouraged German shepherds to chase naked women around their cells; each time the women were viciously bitten, Barbie would laugh maniacally. He beat children.”
Spy Odette Sanson “underwent fourteen Gestapo interrogations. . . was held captive by the Germans for two years. . . they branded her back with a hot iron and pulled out all her toenails.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

Occasionally, the book mentions adults drinking alcohol. For example, during prohibition, Dindy traveled to Europe where she could “enjoy oodles of wine.”
After accidentally shooting herself, Dindy was given morphine in the hospital.
Spies were given cyanide pills to use “on themselves or others.”

To help agents’ stamina, they were issued amphetamines. “For Dindy, popping those bitter-tasting blue Benzedrine pills was sometimes the only way she could juggle the revolving door of agents, Resistance workers. . . who knocked on her door, day and night.”
Dindy loved to drink “gin and Italians, a mix of gin and vermouth.”

Language 

Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, bastard, bitch, dumbass, damn, dicked, pussy, fuck, hell, and shit.
When Dindy was nineteen, she “became engaged to a complete douchebag.”
Gaulle was a “total dick when it came to how he treated the foreign agents.”
Klaus Barbie, an evil Gestapo agent, “was a real motherfucker.”

Supernatural