This book is a collection of six short stories by science-fiction writer Veronica Roth that focuses on brief episodes in the lives of characters in different worlds and times. As I read them, I frankly saw them more or less… Read More ›
Mental Health
Every Stolen Breath
Lia (short for Amelia) Finch is the surviving asthmatic twin of a sister who died in very early infancy. She lives in comfortable circumstances with her widowed mother in Chicago. Her father, a successful prosecuting attorney, was murdered in a… Read More ›
The Best Lies
Katherine Remy Tsai is a 16-year-old with battling professional parents who love her perfect older brother better, so much so that his schoolmates don’t even realize he has a sister. Things have been mighty stressful at home for many years,… Read More ›
All Our Broken Pieces
Lennon (yes, you can easily guess where the name came from) is a young woman living with her divorced mother in Maine. She is beautiful, talented and creative (in sewing cosplay-type stuff), and she has OCD. In fact, she blames… Read More ›
How It Feels to Float
Having moved from place to place in Australia with her mom and her twin half-siblings after the death of her father and after her mother’s remarriage then divorce, Biz seems on the surface to be keeping things together. She makes… Read More ›
Six Goodbyes We Never Said
There are two protagonists in this book: Naima Rodriguez, whose mother died at her birth and whose Marine father has been killed during a sixth tour of duty overseas; and Dew Brickman, who lost both parents at the same time… Read More ›
Saving Everest
Beverly is the only Black girl in her high school. She lives with her alcoholic, needy, and not-always-responsible mom in a ratty apartment. She takes care of her mom more than vice versa. She has an “aunt” who parties hard… Read More ›
The Undoing of Thistle Tate
Seventeen-year-old Thistle Tate is known as the author of runaway best-selling YA series LEMONADE SKIES, the story of a teenage girl who’s discovered a portal into the Afterworld that she hopes will lead to a reunion with her mother, who… Read More ›
Let’s Call It A Doomsday
Ellis is a 16.5-year-old growing up in a Mormon family in Berkeley CA. She has one younger sister and a regular home life, though as with all imperfect people everywhere her parents, especially her mother, have made some missteps with… Read More ›
Suggested Reading
Clara Evans, graduating senior at the private Lupton Academy, lives, eats and breathes books–fiction books, in particular. Although her best friend, LiQui, is student council president and, through her, Clara associates with non-book-fanatic people (going to Friday night football games… Read More ›
Before You Buy YA 