A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin Bantam, 1975 (originally published 1968) [Challenge # 49: A book you loved as a child.] Oh Earthsea, Earthsea, how little I knew thee! For my childhood revisit read for this years’ challenge, I chose Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. I had read it way back …
Tag: YA
Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/24/19: Madeline L’Engle
Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote a heckuvalotta novels. In addition to the Wrinkle in Time (or the Kairos series as she called it) books pictured above, she also wrote a second generation series about the same family, plus the Chronos series about the Austin family, the Katherine Forrester series, and the Camilla Dickinson series. One thing …
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
[Reading Challenge 2019]
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle Dell Yearling, 1978 [Challenge # 4: A children’s book, middle grade or younger.] A Swiftly Turning Planet is a hot mess of a book, but not without its rewards. The third installment of the Murry family saga that began with A Wrinkle in Time, it features the insufferable …
Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/28/18: YA Novels
Why write a whole YA book when you can query by title alone? Feel free to nab any of these. Evocative YA Titles The First and Darkest Throne Above Clouds of Illusion A Pure Sea of Dragons Haunted Breath Godsmoke Unlike Promises of Glass The Fangling Starflame A Mortal Yet Heavenly Prince Among the …
Every Heart a Doorway [Review]
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Tor Books, 2016 Every Heart a Doorway is a book that spans genres. It’s part YA, part horror, part old-timey Portal fantasy, and part magical boarding school fantasy, with a dollop of LGBTQ. It’s disturbing, in ways both unintentional and obvious. It won a Nebula award, yet could …
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian [Reading Challenge 2018]
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Little, Brown & Co., 2017 (10th Anniversary Edition) [Challenge # 5: A book by a local author.] The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a semi-mythic coming of age story of a Native American boy’s freshman year. Arnold Spirit Jr. lives on …
Red Queen [Book Review]
The following book review is condensed from and elaborated on from an earlier post. by Victoria Aveyard HarperTeen, 2015 Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, is one of those dystopias that appears to take its high concept to the max. Mare, a teenage girl on the cusp of turning 18 and being drafted into the army, …
Americus [Review]
Americus by M. K. Reed and Jonathan Hill First Second, 2011 Dragons make an appearance in this graphic novel about the dangers of censorship in that the book-in-a-book under fire features a “wytch” protagonist who is half-dragon… leading to cries of bestiality from the Christian far right! Americus is based on a controversy of some …
Exo [Review]
Exo by Fonda Lee Scholastic, 2017 Of all the YA science fiction I’ve read so far (and keep in mind it hasn’t been a lot) Fonda Lee’s Exo is the only one I’d call true SF. That is, an out-there premise is given and the author extrapolates from it, showing us the effects it has …
Fangirl [Review]
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell St. Martin’s Press, 2013 I had high hopes for Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl when I bought it, but because of disappointments with other YA books, I tempered my expectations. But it turns out I didn’t need to. I enjoyed Fangirl every bit as much as I’d hoped I would, and then some. …