Set in New Jersey in 1991, this novel’s action is almost entirely confined to the local mall. This is a clever idea, and the author surprisingly is able to realize it nicely. Cassie Worthy is a new high school graduate… Read More ›
Offensive Language in YA Literature
I Killed Zoe Spanos
Anna Cicconi is a new high school graduate filling the summer before college matriculation by working as a nanny in the Hamptons. Her mom is generally caring but works two jobs and so doesn’t have a whole lotta time and… Read More ›
Conjure Women
Rue and her mother May Belle are newly-freed residents of a southern plantation immediately following the Civil War. The big plantation home has been burned to the ground, their master shot himself, the northern armies have come rampaging through, and… Read More ›
Agnes at the End of the World
Agnes is a teenager living with her younger sister Beth and other even-younger siblings in a crowded mobile home in Red Creek, a fundamentalist Christian settlement in the desert Southwest modeled somewhat after that described in Carolyn Jessop’s memoir ESCAPED…. Read More ›
This Is How I Lied
Eve is a 15-yr-old girl living with her mother Charlotte and 13-year-old sister Nola in small-town Grotto, Iowa. They don’t have much. Her mother works but doesn’t bring in a lot, and she is one cranky, self-centered mom. Like in… Read More ›
American Royals
Author Katharine McGee had a clever idea for this book, imagining that George Washington did NOT decline to be made king after the American Revolution but instead founded an American dynasty. Fast forward to today, where we have the House… Read More ›
The Children’s Bible: A Novel
The bare bones of this story: Eve/Evie is a high school girl with a 9-year-old brother, Jack. Her family goes in with several other families of long-friendship-duration to rent a large, historic estate on the East Coast for a summer… Read More ›
crave
Grace Foster is a high school girl living in San Diego whose parents die suddenly. She is shipped off to a remote part of Alaska where her Uncle Finn runs a boarding school and her cousin Macy is a student…. Read More ›
Rules for Being a Girl
Long-time best friends Marin Lospato and Chloe Niarchos are high school seniors who also are co-editors of their school newspaper. They seem like typical teens with the usual interests, with a good social circle of friends, supportive families, and realistic… Read More ›
What I Like About You
Halle Levitt is spending her senior year with her brother at her grandfather’s home in Middleton, Connecticut instead of traveling abroad with her documentary-producing parents, who, after six previous Academy Award nominations but no win, are still pursuing the prize…. Read More ›
Before You Buy YA 