Unpregnant by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan

Posted on by

Veronica Clarke is living the perfect life – a “perfect” high school student, first in line to be valedictorian, a “perfect” boyfriend, part of the most popular clique in high school with “perfect” friends. She’s never failed a test in her life, and has always been the “Golden Girl” everyone loves and adores. But life can’t be that fair now, can it…
When her so-called “perfect” boyfriend pokes holes in his condom to get her pregnant and prevent her from moving away for college (creepy, I know), her pregnancy test coming out positive is probably the first test she wishes she failed. She knows she has to get an abortion, and the only option is in a clinic 994 miles away in Albuquerque, NM.
Fearing everyone’s reaction and the notion of her image being destroyed, she can’t let anyone know what she’s about to do. And she has no way of getting to the clinic. With no other option, she turns to the last person she’d ever ask for help from – Baily Butler. Her ex-best friend and the weird girl in school who everyone keeps away from. What started off as a simple road trip to execute a simple plan, ends up becoming a once-in-a-lifetime mad adventure.
While tackling various important topics (teenage pregnancy, abortion, abandonment, religion), the book never loses its hilarious and fun charm, keeping the reader hooked to its pages, while also acknowledging the problems of today. What I liked about it was that it addressed the issue
of misogyny and control over women’s bodies in a very real manner, while also beautifully commenting on women’s rights and how far we’ve come in claiming what’s ours.
With all the sarcastic comedy, insanely dramatic characters, two ex-BFFs who are poles apart, and one grand escapade – you won’t be getting bored anytime soon!

Get Unpregnant here!

Suggested Reading by Dave Connis

Posted on by

Clara’s entire life has been defined by books. She can count the changes in her life by the stories that caused them, and define her achievements by her role as a reader. So when on the first day of her senior year at Lupton Academy, she discovers that the school plans to ban a list of fifty books, many of which have changed her life, she is understandably angry. Said anger grows when the school librarian tells her that this is not the first time, and that the school will simply make the books disappear from the shelves without telling the students. So Clara does what any bookworm worth her salt would do: convinces the librarian to let her deal with the books (technically she tells him that she will redistribute the “bannies” to little libraries in the area, but you know, details). And then she starts up an underground library (UnLib) in her locker.
UnLib takes off in ways she wasn’t expecting; in ways that a southern girl just trying to get through her senior year is definitely not prepared for. Soon enough she is meeting patrons of her library every day, between every class, in every free period, even giving up her lunch just to keep the UnLib functioning. And as the UnLib starts to draw new people into her orbit, people she has barely spoken to, like the resident rich kid clique the star-stars, her best friend and Student President LiQui’s Student Cabinet (StuCab) and even the very adults trying to ban her beloved books, Clara finds her world changing in ways she never could have anticipated. Not all are bad though, and Clara soon finds herself making friendships that she never would have thought possible, and learning, along with the rest of her school, just how much books really can change you— for better and for worse.
In the end, Suggested Reading is about understanding. It is about how we make assumptions and interpretations of things and people based on our own limited knowledge, and how the conclusions we draw are not always right, or the same ones that somebody else, somebody with a different history and perspective might in our place. It is about accepting those differences and using them to create discussion and narratives that expand our own understanding of the world, and how books influence us.

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Posted on by


Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw is a blizzard of cold magic and wicked woods. Secrets fill the air, suffocating every breath. Lies and betrayal run deep into the bottomless lake. One boy is missing. One boy is dead.
Nora Walker has lived her whole life in the town of Fir Haven. It is where she was born, it is where she will die. Just like every other Walker before, she was born with nightshade in her blood and shares a strong connection with the woods surrounding her little town. Woods that some say are magical. Cursed, even. Rumored to be a witch and feared by many around her, she finds solace in the woods and the teachings of her ancestors.
During one of her ventures through the woods, she comes upon Oliver Huntsman, the boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago – and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but he’s alive with no memory of the time he’s been missing. But something’s not right, and Nora knows it. Oliver is hiding something, something that could eventually destroy the feelings she’s come to develop for this mysterious boy. And why is there an uneasy shift in the woods at his presence?
When she discovers that a boy died the same night Oliver went missing, Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind what happened that unfaithful night. With every person
holding secrets of their own, she doesn’t know if anyone is worth trusting. And just how far will someone go to keep their secrets buried…
Ernshaw’s personification of the woods is possibly the best character in the book, the true villain of the story. This book is truly an atmospheric novel. From the spooky forest to the ominous snowstorms – no amount of closing the book will make you feel safe. Readers, be ready to be frightened and try to unravel this mystery that will leave you second-guessing till the very last chapter!

The Guinevere Deception by Kierstan White

Posted on by

Kierstan White has done it again. She never fails to write a book that doesn’t have you completely indulged. Her usage of old myths and folktales with a twist, has readers diving into a world that is all too familiar, yet refreshing as well. The Guinevere Deception is nothing less, being a continuation of the Arthurian legends after King Arthur defeats the Dark Queen.
Princess Guinevere has come to marry the charismatic, savior of Camelot, King Arthur. However, she’s not there to play wife, but protect him from the dark magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, and from those who want to see his idyllic city fail – a plan conjured by the great wizard Merlin, who has been banished from Camelot.
However, Guinevere isn’t who everyone thinks of her to be. She’s a changeling, a girl/ witch who has given up everything – even her name, her true identity – to protect Camelot. She has to play the role of Queen, navigating her way through court, and be the woman everyone expects her to be – look pretty and gossip around with all the other ladies. While that sounds fun, she has some bigger problems – such as “how do you use magic to protect the King?” in a city that has banished and eradicated any form of magic. The only other person who knows her true identity and the reason for her arrival is her husband, King Arthur. Throughout her stay in the castle, and everyday a step closer to figuring out who the enemy is, Guinevere ends up forming allies, allies that steer the plot forward. Each character we are introduced to have secrets of their own, intensifying the suspense and the plot.
Filled with magic – good and evil; strong females – who’ve got the beauty and the brains; kings and knights – who are all loyally swoon-worthy; and a battle in which the enemy is the person you’d least expect. This book doesn’t leave any stone unturned, leaving you feeling restless for the next book, and asking one question…When is the next book going to be published???

 

Crown of Feathers by Nicki Paupreto

Posted on by

Crown of Feathers by Nicki Paupreto is perfect for those who love fantasy and mystery and suspense. About how even those closest to you might not have the best intentions, and how secrets are sometimes better left untold. Fans of Embers in the Ashes and Three Dark Crowns will love it. A rare fantasy book without romance. In this dystopian world exists people with the power to control and communicate with animals. When two sisters are separated, not just by distance but by emotional connections. When the two sisters find a pair of phoenix eggs and nurse them. But, when it comes time for them to hatch, only one survives and in her anger the older sister kill the phoenix. The younger sister distraught with grief runs away to the resistance. A group of phoenix riders. She disguises herself as a boy and becomes a servant. All while more and more people attempt to overthrow the corrupt government.

Sherwood by Megan Spooner

Posted on by
Reply

Sherwood by Megan Spooner is a story for fans of Scarlet and Robin Hood. It is an amazing fantasy book about the struggles of moving on after a loss. How you don’t need to fill the spot in your heart where they lived, just treasure them and honor them for the life they lived. When Robin died in the crusades, his fiancée, Maid Marian does not know how to go on. So she honors his spirit by dressing up as his ghost and stealing from the rich to give to the poor.It is the classic gender-bent Robin Hood story, except for the fact that she is not the real Robin Hood. During her crusade of helping the poor, she makes some unlikely friends and some not so unlikely enemies. As her battle with the Sheriff of Nottingham continues, she finds that honoring Robins memory might just be the best way to handle her grief. This is a perfect book about feminism and grief.

The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Posted on by

Walking Dead meets The Black Cauldron in this epic fantasy novel, involving a grave-digger with an ax, a map-maker with no family name, and lots of dead people. The perfect mix to brew a troublesome adventure.
Colbren is a small town on the outskirts of a mysteriously enchanted forest that is home to magical creatures and a cauldron that holds the power of bringing the dead back to life. But those are all just stories. One that only the older generations of the village believe in – guarding their village and houses with iron fences and knowing not to go into the forest of sundown. Granted that no creature of any sort has treaded past the forest edge (or that anyone’s seen) in a long time. But that slowly starts to change…
Adryn a.k.a Ryn is a grave-digger like her father, who lives with her younger siblings – Gareth and Cerridwen. Their parents are both dead but have an uncle, their caretaker, who is mysteriously missing. Ryn’s never been afraid of the forest, believing the folktales, and having encountered her first bone house (the animated dead) at the age of six – she knows what resides in it and that they never leave the forest, only awakening after dark. However, she starts to grow anxious when they start venturing closer and closer to the edge – until one day, they cross it. Vowing to protect her family from danger, she decides to destroy the very root of all these problems – the cauldron, even if it means going beyond the forest.
Meanwhile, Ellis, a mapmaker, has traveled to the village, aiming to draw a map, detailing all that is beyond the forest, where many few (actually none) dare to venture. But there’s
something else – he’s hiding something, something he doesn’t want anyone to know about. And what is with the excruciatingly chronic pain in his left arm? While camping in the forest, a bone house attacks him, and Ryn ends up saving his life.
Needing Ryn’s help on his journey, the pair form an unusual alliance – both having ulterior motives, with wanting to find the legendary castle that houses the magical cauldron.
Told in alternating narratives, the book immediately dives into a world of death, family, love and magic from the very first page. What I loved about the characters is that there is no character development. It’s more of Ryn and Ellis coming to understand and respect each other’s characteristics, admiring traits of one another they (and often others) consider a flaw. There’s a sweet slow-burning romance, but it all comes together in the end.
The lush and gorgeous, fast-paced writing with a fun, humorous, folklore vibe will have you finishing the book in one sitting. Anyone who likes strong female fantasy characters and Welsh settings should pick up THE BONE HOUSES when it comes out

A Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

Posted on by

Haidee and Arjun live in a land of perpetual light. Haidee, daughter of the goddess-queen of the golden city, is expected to take her mother’s place when she is old enough. She is expected to wed and have daughters and rule and, in the meantime, obey. But Haidee knows there is a better way to rule than her mother’s method of shutting out everyone but their own and hoarding their world’s swiftly dwindling resources for their city alone. She also knows that the answers to her questions about what happened to her world and how she can fix it, lie in her family’s past. But her mother is cagey about her past, and refuses to tell Haidee what happened the day the world split in half, much less what befell the sister and father she never knew. So, Haidee does the responsible, sensible thing: runs off on her own, without telling anyone, looking for the end of the world.
Arjun belongs to one of the nomadic groups that sprung up in the wake of the world’s Breaking, salvaging and scavenging what they can to survive. He has no love of the goddesses who tore their world apart, but when he meets Haidee, things get a bit more complicated. It’s easy to hate a goddess responsible for his family’s struggle. It is less easy to hate a rainbow-haired girl who makes friends with dolugongs, and who is terrible at making sensible plans but incredible with machinery. She is smart and strange and he has no idea how she is still alive, but they are traveling together now and are, if only grudgingly, friends. So as near as he can figure out, it is more or less his duty to keep her that way.
Odessa and Tianlan live shrouded in shadow, their dying city caught between the danger of the icy sea and the ravenous creatures within on one side, and the treacherous and uncharted wildlands on the other. Tianlan of the Catseye, former ranger of the wildlands, never wants to return to the place that killed her friends. Unfortunately, when monsters not seen in decades appear at the shore and speak to the Princess Odessa, Asteria, the queen, sends Lan and a ship full of other powerful spellcasters to find the Rift where the world broke— and find a way to fix it. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Odessa, intent on following the monsters who spoke to her of powers beyond imagining and the trials she must face to gain them, sneaks aboard.
As the four teens draw closer to each other and the Rift, danger grows. Dark things lurk in the past of Odessa and Haidee’s family, and soon both princesses will need to take terrible steps to protect those they love.
I went into this book with high expectations. I have read Rin Chupeco’s other books and loved all of them. A Never Tilting World did not disappoint me. Chupeco is an expert at the first person narrative, which can too easily become tiresome to read, and all four characters have a distinct voice and personality that work well with the story. The world is stark and colorful and unique, while still managing to invoke farmiliar fears of dwindling resources and uninhabitable homelands that are all too real in our world. I highly recommend A Never Tilting World to anyone who loves fantasy with vast magical powers, monsters, dystopias and grand romances.

The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina

Posted on by
Reply

The Things She’s Seen, by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, is a beautiful story about grief and moving on. It’s about a young girl named Beth and her detective father Michael, who is the only one able to see and hear Beth after the horrible incident that killed her. Beth is here to help her father heal. Michael gets assigned to an ‘easy’ case to help him get back into
the swing of things, but something about the case doesn’t feel so easy. There is a bit of oddness surrounding the storyline and the characters in this crime. Michael (and Beth, of course) interview a strange witness who goes by Catching, and she tells them a story. Her story. The story is full of magic and fantasy, but always has a truthful meaning hiding underneath. Fishy and lovable characters riddle the pages of this riveting book.

The Kwaymullina siblings write with such amazing imagery when telling Catching’s story, and letting the reader easily picture Beth’s strange surroundings in this small town. An amazing book for anyone dealing with loss, going through hard times, or just a mystery fan in general. Neverending crimes and plot twists keep this short book mysterious, emotional, and hard to put down.

 

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Posted on by
Reply

Spin the Dawn, by Elizabeth Lim, is an extraordinary fantasy novel about defeating gender stereotypes, the importance of your craft, and the power of love. Lim tells a beautiful story about Maia, the only daughter of a previously esteemed tailor now living in a small town, who disguises herself
as a boy to compete in a trial to become the next tailor for the emperor.

It is the opportunity of a lifetime, and she attends in disguise, knowing the lethal consequences if her secret gets out. The final challenge is the hardest one, sewing the three gowns made for the goddess Amana: one from the laughter of the sun, one from the tears of the moon, and one from the blood of the stars. Maia always thought these dresses were just a myth, but when she meets some mysterious new characters throughout the trial, her
mind changes. Can she succeed in sewing the three magical dresses and achieve her dream of becoming the best tailor in the land?

Lim crafts a truly amazing story, filled with every element needed for captivating interest throughout the whole thing. With strong themes of magic, adventure, and love, Spin the Dawn is incredibly difficult to put down. Interesting characters, impossible tasks, and blooming romances litter the magical pages. Recommended for anyone who loves sewing, magic, or an amazing story to get attached to. Lim’s sequel to Spin the Dawn will be highly awaited.