One day twenty-year-old loner and weirdo Kyle Paxson sends texts to five of his former classmates at Midland High School asking them to meet with him. Only one replies, and she ends up raped, beaten and murdered with a crowbar… Read More ›
Near-Death Experiences in YA Fiction
Fresh Ink
This book is an anthology of twelve stories by assorted YA authors. (I say stories, but to me they read more like vignettes.) The collection is designed to bring together diverse characters underrepresented in mainstream YA literature. We’ve got your… Read More ›
Toaff’s Way
On the book jacket, we read, “Sometimes Toaff wondered if he was the only squirrel on the whole farm who had questions. He hoped he wasn’t.” With that invitation, I delightfully read about the adventures and insights of a grey squirrel as… Read More ›
Nine
NINE sets the story with this opener: “In the summer of 1808, in a world parallel to our own, the sun flared, the sky turned orange, and the clouds gathered. It rained torrentially for months straight. After this “summer of… Read More ›
Little Do We Know
In this book two neighbors, besties and high school seniors, Hannah and Emory, have had a profound falling out, the cause of which we don’t discover until very late in the book. Hannah is the daughter of a preacher man… Read More ›
Before You Buy YA 