It’s the last day of school for thirteen-year-old Leah, who lives with her mom and dad in Ormewood Park, a suburb of Atlanta where neighbors frequently gather together for cookouts and observe community traditions that date back years and years…. Read More ›
Young Adult Fiction Reviews
All-American Muslim Girl
Allie Abraham is the almost-16-year-old daughter of an academic father and a psychologist mom. Her dad is of Muslim heritage but not practicing; her mom was raised Catholic but converted to Islam when she married. As Allie’s father has pursued… 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 ›
All the Bad Apples
Deena is a teenage girl being raised by her elder sister Rachel in Dublin. There is a 17-year gap in their ages, Deena having been a “bonus baby” when her mother was 50. Deena’s mom died of an aneurysm when… 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 ›
The Speed of Falling Objects
Danger (yes, that is her given first name) Danielle Warren, aka Danny, is turning 17 and has lived with her nurse mom in a two-bedroom/one-bath apartment for almost a decade, since her parents divorced and her father went off to… 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 ›
Past Perfect Life
Ally (Allison) Smith is a high school senior living in the small town of Valley Falls WI. It’s always been just she and her dad, since (she was told) her mother died of cancer when she was only three years… Read More ›
The Tenth Girl
Mavi is the teenage daughter of a South American political activist who is eventually rounded up by the police and hauled off to who-knows-where. Knowing that she herself is in danger and urged on by her mother just before the… Read More ›
Before You Buy YA 