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The Geography Of Me And You, Aylea Stephens
The Geography Of Me And You, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Lucy and Owen might never have talked if the city hadn’t experienced a long blackout, leaving them stuck together between the tenth and eleventh floors of their apartment building. After they are rescued, they wander the dark streets together until the power comes back on. Shortly after the blackout, Lucy moves to Edinburgh with her parents and Owen moves to the West. They both find other people they are interested in, but they still miss each other. They keep in touch with postcards and emails as they travel to different places around the world, waiting for the day when their …
The Lone City #1: The Jewel, Corie Darrington
The Lone City #1: The Jewel, Corie Darrington
Children's Book and Media Review
The Jewel is the first book in Amy Ewing’s The Lone City series. Violet is a young teenage girl who has been groomed to serve a specific purpose. Violet, and many other girls like her are sold off to be surrogates for royalty. These girls are chosen because they possess a specific power called the auguries. The auguries allow the girls to change or create something--like a child. Violet is bought by the Duchess of the Lake who wants Violet to use her strength in the augury of growth to create a child in record time. Meanwhile, Violet is struggling …
The Mediator #2: Ninth Key, Whitney Troxel
The Mediator #2: Ninth Key, Whitney Troxel
Children's Book and Media Review
Suze is finally adjusting to life in California with her new step-family. She’s even developed a friendship with Jesse, the ghost haunting her room, although Suze suspects her feelings for him may be a little more than friendship. But another ghost has taken to haunting Suze’s room recently. This ghost is desperate to get a message to Red, but before Suze can ask the ghost anything else she vanishes. Assuming the ghost means Red Beaumont--a wealthy business man with an extremely attractive son, Tad--Suze sets out to deliver the ghost’s message. Suze quickly discovers that something is not right in …
Fairytale Retellings #4: Cold Spell, Aylea Stephens
Fairytale Retellings #4: Cold Spell, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Kai and Ginny were best friends for most of their lives, but now they are more than friends, in love, and have every intention of running away together. One night, however, Kai goes off with a stranger named Mora. Ginny discovers that Mora is the Snow Queen through the help of Kai’s grandmother who had an encounter with her when she was a teenager. Ginny decides to do whatever it takes to go after Kai and get him back, but she soon realizes that even in the United States there is a world of monsters and villains that she never …
Something Real, Aylea Stephens
Something Real, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Bonnie™ Baker grew up on TV with her twelve siblings on the hit reality show Baker’s Dozen. Since the show was cancelled four years ago, she changed her name to Chloe and started a normal life not in the spotlight. She loves having friends and a potential boyfriend, but finding out that Baker’s Dozen is going back on the air soon might ruin all of that for her. Four years ago the show was partly cancelled after she swallowed too many pills and nearly died. Now with the show back on air, those past events are coming back to haunt …
The Impostor Queen, Abigail Packard
The Impostor Queen, Abigail Packard
Children's Book and Media Review
The Impostor Queen follows the story of Elli, the Saadella waiting to inherit the throne from the current Valtia of Kupari. When a Valtia dies, her magic, a perfect balance of fire and ice, is passed on to the Saadella who then rules in her stead. However, when the current Valtia dies Elli does not inherit the magic. Instead, her life is thrown upside down and put in mortal danger. She flees the city and the elders who wish to kill her quietly and find the real Valtia. Elli is rescued by Oskar who lives in the Outlands. Through an …
Red Queen, Jess Verzello
Red Queen, Jess Verzello
Children's Book and Media Review
Mare Barrow is a Red—part of the common, ungifted half of society that is ruled over by the Silver elite. The Silvers have abilities (manipulating elements, controlling minds, superhuman strength) and use them to enforce their rule. For the first seventeen years of her life, Mare thought she was no one special—doomed to conscription in the Silver’s bloody war on her eighteenth birthday. Until in a twist of events she unlocks a power—a power she shouldn’t even possess as a Red—that turns her life to anything but ordinary. In order to take advantage of her new found gift, the king …
Lunar Chronicles #1: Cinder, Aylea Stephens
Lunar Chronicles #1: Cinder, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
As the best mechanic in New Beijing, Cinder knows how to build and fix almost everything—except how to stop more people from finding out that she is actually a cyborg and has very few rights and privileges under the law. When Prince Kai comes to ask for her help in repairing an android who has secret information that could solve earth’s political problems with the Lunars, she is thrown into a world where she is trying to help solve a diplomatic crisis, prevent the prince from finding out that she is a cyborg, and is used as an experiment to …
Mila 2.0: Redemption, Liz Kazandzhy
Mila 2.0: Redemption, Liz Kazandzhy
Children's Book and Media Review
MILA 2.0 begins as a story of a seemingly typical 16-year-old girl named Mila. She struggles with the recent death of her father, deals with high school drama, and quickly falls for a new boy in town named Hunter. However, she soon discovers that she is actually a recently-created robot designed by the government for espionage purposes, and her “mom” is actually one of her designers who broke her out of the government facility because she recognized the uniquely human qualities in Mila. While trying to escape together to a foreign county, Mila and her mom outrun one group of …
Just Flirt, Aylea Stephens
Just Flirt, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Dee Barton wants to spend the summer being a Superflirt with her Nine Rules of Flirting and the guys that come to stay at her family’s campground. Sabrina wants to spend the summer being popular and being the perfect girlfriend to Blaine, Dee’s ex-boyfriend. Both girls dislike the other. When a secret blog gets them both involved in a lawsuit that could change their lives, Dee and Sabrina realize that they are not as different as they thought as they team up to stop the people who want to use them to further their own ambitions. They manage to stop …
Struck, Shelley Darrington
Struck, Shelley Darrington
Children's Book and Media Review
Felicity Walker didn’t know what she was expecting when she got a job at a matchmaking agency, but it wasn’t that she would become an actual cupid. Armed with a hot pink PDA, she’s given a quota of matches to complete and set loose on her high school. When she decides that two people would make a good couple, all she has to do is send matching emails and both fall under a love spell for two weeks. Throughout the three books, Stupid Cupid, Flirting with Disaster, and Pucker Up (combined as one in Struck), Felicity struggles with making matches …
Eleanor And Park, Katelyn Osborn
Eleanor And Park, Katelyn Osborn
Children's Book and Media Review
When Park sees the chubby new girl with the oversized clothes and a big frizzy red mop of hair looking for a seat on the bus, he knows what his friends are thinking and what he would usually think – stay FAR away. But inexplicably, he moves over so she can sit down next to him. Thus begins the unlikely relationship that is “Eleanor and Park”. What starts as an innocent friendship founded on comic books and punk music turns into something more, something they’ve never felt before, something that makes Eleanor feel like the incessant bullying at school and …
A Little Something Different, Aylea Stephens
A Little Something Different, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Lea and Gabe don’t talk to each other, but everyone thinks they are destined to be together. A squirrel, a bench, a Chinese food delivery man, a bus driver, a creative writing teacher, and other side characters describe shy Gabe and his terror of talking to Lea and Lea and how she’s confused by how Gabe acts sometimes. They’re in the same creative writing class, have the same order of Chinese food, and show up to the same places, but their terror and confusion about what the other one is thinking keeps preventing them from getting together. When Gabe decides …
Geek Girl, Aylea Stephens
Geek Girl, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Harriet Manners is a geek and perfectly happy that way. Her best friend, Nat, however, wants to be a model. When they go on a field trip to a fashion convention, it is not Nat but Harriet who is spotted by a top model agent. Soon Harriet is flying to Russia for a modeling shoot, even though it means Nat is upset at her, the school bully, Alexa, has more things to mock her for, she has no idea how to handle the world of fashion, and the list of people who hate her keeps growing. On top of everything …
Famous Last Words, Aylea Stephens
Famous Last Words, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Samantha D’angelo thinks about death quite a lot, but it’s mostly because her summer job is writing obituaries at her local newspaper. Life at the newspaper keeps her busy. Although her best friend wants Sam to be spending her time going to parties and beaches, Sam discovers that she prefers to spend time with the people at the paper, especially another intern, AJ, and Michael, whose story on the mayor stirs her curiosity. Sam learns to do some investigative research on her own to learn about what the mayor is hiding while she’s dealing with how she feels about some …
The Leveller, Aylea Stephens
The Leveller, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Nixy Bauer’s job is going into a virtual reality game and dragging her classmates back to the real world. Normally it’s a great way to earn money, but when the game’s developer contacts her to fetch his son from the game, called the MEEP, Nixy has a bigger challenge than she has ever had before. Soon she discovers that her target, Wyn Salvador, doesn’t want to be found. He’s left a suicide note and challenges that are almost impossible to beat. When she fights her way through the game to retrieve him, she discovers that Wyn is being kept there …
Hellhole, Aylea Stephens
Hellhole, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Max starts his life of crime when he impulsively steals a cat knickknack for his mother who is dying of heart failure. Unfortunately for Max, this means that he’s opened himself to the influence of the devil. Or, one devil specifically (one of the 666 devils and is the Associate Imp of Salty Snacks) that he digs up when he’s looking for fossils. The devil’s name is Burgundy Cluttermuck, but he goes by Burg and promises to heal Max’s mother if Max can find him a house. Max learns that making deals with a devil is going to create bad …
Between The Notes, Katelyn Osborn
Between The Notes, Katelyn Osborn
Children's Book and Media Review
Ivy Emerson has a nice, predictable life. She has a close group of friends, her piano, and her loving family, including her disabled brother, Brady. Despite her intense stage fright, her life is perfect. That is, until her parents break the news that that life no longer exists. Before she knows it, her family has sold most of their possessions and moved out of their large, beautiful home and she ends up in Lakeside, the poor neighborhood in town no one likes. Between adjusting to her new lifestyle, keeping up appearances with her judgmental friends, enjoying the attention of the …
The School For Good And Evil #2: A World Without Princes, Aylea Stephens
The School For Good And Evil #2: A World Without Princes, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Agatha and Sophie are sent back to the School for Good and Evil when Sophie makes a wish for a different happy ending. However, because Agatha chose Sophie instead of her prince, the school is no longer how they knew it. Instead of good vs. evil, it is now boys vs. girls as the girls have decided that they no longer need princes, and the princes are forced to live in the forest instead of the school. The girls can now dress as they want and are taught how to be strong and self-sufficient, but also are taught that all …
Made You Up, Aylea Stephens
Made You Up, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Alex can’t tell what is real and what is not. She suffers from paranoia and schizophrenia. She takes pictures of everything so later she can tell what is real and what isn’t and checks her food for poison. She was first diagnosed after an incident with a boy that everyone says didn’t really happen, but when she meets a boy that reminds her of him she keeps wondering how much is real and how much isn’t. What she wants is to be normal, but she doesn’t really know how to get there. Alex navigates her senior year of high school …
Love Fortunes And Other Disasters, Aylea Stephens
Love Fortunes And Other Disasters, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Fallon Dupree is excited to go to high school because she knows that when she is in the town of Grimbaud she’ll be able to follow a love fortune that is 100% accurate. When her fortune tells her that she will never find love, she is surprised and devastated. Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible fortune, however. She becomes part of a rebellion that wants to overthrow the power of Zita’s famous love charms to give everyone a chance at love. She works with Sebastian, a boy known as the ultimate heartbreaker, to discover the secret’s behind Zita’s …
All The Bright Places, Aylea Stephens
All The Bright Places, Aylea Stephens
Children's Book and Media Review
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he spends a lot of time thinking about ways that he might kill himself and if it is a good day to die. He meets Violet Markey on the ledge of the bell tower at school. They talk to each other enough to prevent either from jumping off, and later Finch requests that Violet be his partner for a project to discover the natural wonders of the state. Finch helps Violet deal with the recent death of her sister, and the two of them come together with their mutual difficulties. As Violet begins …
Mila 2.0 #2: Renegade
Children's Book and Media Review
After the murder of her mother, the girl android Mila follows a lead with the hope of discovering who she really is. She is joined by Hunter, the boy she met in her hometown just weeks earlier, and together they travel around the eastern U.S. searching for answers. Because of her own insecurities and the desire to protect Hunter, Mila struggles to be honest with him, and this causes rifts in their relationship as Hunter slowly realizes that Mila and her life are far from ordinary. After making their way from one lead to another, all the while running from …
Mila 2.0
Children's Book and Media Review
MILA 2.0 begins as a story of a seemingly typical 16-year-old girl named Mila. She struggles with the recent death of her father, deals with high school drama, and quickly falls for a new boy in town named Hunter. However, she soon discovers that she is actually a recently-created robot designed by the government for espionage purposes, and her “mom” is actually one of her designers who broke her out of the government facility because she recognized the uniquely human qualities in Mila. While trying to escape together to a foreign county, Mila and her mom outrun one group of …
Undertow
Children's Book and Media Review
Three years ago, an aquatic race called the Alphas came to the beach at Coney Island and set up camp, forever changing the world for the people who lived there. Many humans want to do whatever it takes to get rid of the Alphas. Lyric Walker’s mother was one of the original Alphas sent to integrate with and spy on the humans. If anyone finds out who she is, her family could lose their lives or disappear along with the other original Alphas. When a law is passed that requires Alpha students to attend human school, violence and tension escalate. …