4 YA Fantasies to Read

So I’ve been on a bit of a fantasy kick, which has nothing to do with working like crazy and wanting an escape from real life.

Almost nothing.

Anyway, I assume your to-be-read list is like mine—tall and mocking. Nothing says fun like a teetering tower of books. Here are four more to add to your pile:

AVAILABLE NOW

The Wrath & the Dawn was one of my favorite books last year, and I count its sequel, The Rose & the Dagger, as one of my top books of 2016. The world was just as lush, the characters just as layered, and the prose just as evocative as the first. What I loved so much about this book was that Ahdieh doesn’t pointlessly complicate Shahrzad and Khalid’s romance with misunderstandings or wavering feelings. These two never falter in their love for and faith in one another, and it made me love them (and the romance) all the more. On top of that, the book is fast paced and exciting—there’s war, betrayal, magical carpets, and flying serpents. It’s exactly the story I was hoping for in this series conclusion. Renee Ahdieh is now and auto-buy author for me.

COMING SOON

This book surprised me in the best way possible. I knew it was about a girl and a boy and a book. I didn’t expect it to be such an experience. We have the main story—Sefia is in search of her aunt, using a mysterious object (a book) to guide her way. But that’s only the most basic plot. There’s a story about the past, a book within a book, a monster boy with big heart, and a pirate you’ll adore. Here’s where it gets even more fun: the pages of The Reader are marked up in the same way Sefia’s book is. (Don’t miss the hidden messages by the page numbers!)

The Reader is a love letter to language and reading. It’s no surprise, then, that Chee’s prose is beautiful—the kind you highlight and come back to again and again.

I’m currently dying for the sequel. Like, I’m pretty sure that’s why I have a headache and stuffed-up nose. This is an actual medical thing. 

Cool fact: I’ll be posting an interview with author Traci Chee next month on The Swanky Seventeens blog, and a longer version here. Stay tuned.

COMING IN 2017

There are so many reasons I adored The Daughter of the Pirate King, not the least of which is that it’s set on the high seas and is about a bunch of pirates. (I mean, PIRATES, guys!) But even more than that, I loved Alosa. 

Raised by the Pirate King, Alosa is ruthless and driven, staging a kidnapping to get to a legendary treasure. 

Slight spoiler (highlight to read): I really liked how Levenseller lets Alosa be ruthless, killing people purposefully and without remorse. I was worried she’d be softened to be more likable, but this felt like a realistic pirate girl bent on making her father proud. Besides, there were plenty of other things that softened me to Alosa.

She’s smart, she’s calculating—but she’s also spirited and funny and exactly the kind of heroine I want to hang out with for 320 pages. I loved watching her play the role of the outsmarted damsel … then outthink her captors time and time again.

And then there’s Riden, the first mate who’s smart and kind and, yes, totally swoonworthy. Their romance was slow building and so entertaining—it’s a battle of wits between them, which I adored.

Daughter of the Pirate King has a quick, cinematic quality (think Pirates of the Caribbean minus Johnny Depp), which made the book fly by. I read this in one sitting—it’s that exciting and fast paced.

I will now commence impatiently waiting for a sequel. 

It’s no wonder the film rights to Caraval have been sold: Reading this book was like watching a film—gorgeous set pieces, splashes of color all over the place, and a world unlike any I’ve ever read about. (In my mind, it took on the same quality as Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.) The world of Caraval is beautiful and bone-chilling, the sort of place you want to get to know and never visit.

Garber’s story has been compared to The Hunger Games, which isn’t exactly accurate, unless you count the fact that both have a game. But Caraval felt more like a mystery, a puzzle: Follow the clues to win the game.

Of course, nothing is as it seems at Caraval, and Garber kept me guessing. Who is Legend? Where is Scarlett’s sister? Is Julian good or bad? Will everyone make it out alive?

It was easy to like Scarlett—she’s practical and cautious (to a fault, as she learns throughout the story), but her hesitancies felt real. Above all that, she’s fiercely protective of her sister.

That’s what I love so much about Scarlett: There’s a super hot guy she’s pretty sure she’s falling for, but everything she does is to save her sister. (Though let’s be serious, I loved the romance between her and Julian and was ready for them to JUST KISS ALREADY from the moment they arrived at Caraval.)

I’m so excited there’s a sequel so we get more of Scarlett and Tella. If you’re looking for a fantasy in a wholly new and originally world, this is it.

What have you been reading?

Book Report: 3 to Read

I’ve been slacking on my book reviews. I do have a reason, though: I’ve been lazy.

(I said nothing about that reason being a particularly good one.)

But I want to be better, like those on-the-ball women who have kids and jobs and still manage to polish their nails before Instagramming pics of their coffee mugs.

So here’s what I’ve been reading—and you should be, too:

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items - but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear. 

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

I held off on reading The Accident Season for a while because I was a loser who judged the book by the cover, and the cover said horror (who knows where I got that idea) and I wasn’t in the mood. But I read a review that made me insta-buy this book.

It’s the mystery that first got me reading—why does the accident season happen? Can they ever overcome it? But Fowley-Doyle’s prose is what really sucked me in. It’s beautiful and atmospheric. There’s a bit of magic to the story, and it’s not always clear what’s real and what’s not. You won’t get all the answers, but for me that was okay. This book is meant to be experienced and the writing savored.

Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help? 

It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son. 

In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?

I’ll admit I was drawn to this book out of hunger. But waffles! And then when I heard Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda comparisons, well, I was sold.

Like Simon, Tell Me Three Things has an email romance between the main character and a mystery admirer. I guessed the identity of the mystery guy (called Somebody Nobody), immediately, but that’s okay. The book is more about Jessie coming to terms with her new life, making friends—and, yes, guessing who Somebody Nobody is.

The romance is great, but what really makes the story is Jessie growing into her new life. That, and the great cast of characters—especially Jessie’s new step-brother and Somebody Nobody.

Smart. Responsible. That’s seventeen-year-old Breanna’s role in her large family, and heaven forbid she put a toe out of line. Until one night of shockingly un-Breanna-like behavior puts her into a vicious cyber-bully's line of fire—and brings fellow senior Thomas “Razor” Turner into her life. 

Razor lives for the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, and good girls like Breanna just don’t belong. But when he learns she’s being blackmailed over a compromising picture of the two of them—a picture that turns one unexpected and beautiful moment into ugliness—he knows it’s time to step outside the rules. 

And so they make a pact: he’ll help her track down her blackmailer, and in return she’ll help him seek answers to the mystery that’s haunted him—one that not even his club brothers have been willing to discuss. But the more time they spend together, the more their feelings grow. And suddenly they’re both walking the edge of discovering who they really are, what they want, and where they're going from here.

I’m such a sucker for Katie McGarry books. If they’re somewhat predictable—two characters with Big Issues fall in love and there are Major Complications—it’s in the best way possible. I know what I’m going to get, and it’s going to be good.

Here, we have a boy raised in a motocycle club just trying to get through each day and a girl whose family either ignores her or treats her as a surrogate mother for her many brothers and sisters. My heart broke for her, but it was Razor who really tugged my heartstrings. He tries so hard to be good, to do the right thing—man can McGarry write a bad boy who’s not really so bad.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Katie McGarry book without romance, and I was totally on board with this one. It’s at times sweet, at times steamy, and truly full of heart.

What have you read (and loved) recently?

The Dream Thieves, According to The Man

Sometimes I like to recommend books I love to The Man, and sometimes he reads them even though they don’t all have fighting scenes or superheroes or sports.

I asked him to read The Raven Boys.

“Yeah, it was good,” he said like that’s it. Good.

I bullied him into reading suggested he read The Dream Thieves.

“It was good,” he said.

“Better than good,” I said, thinking of the strain between Adam and Ronan, Adam and Gansey, Adam and everyone.

“I felt bad for Adam,” he said. “Like, his dad beats him, then he goes to see Blue, who won’t kiss him. So he’s like, ‘Why won’t you kiss me?’ And she’s like, ‘If I kiss my true love he’ll die.’ And he’s like, ‘Oh.’ And she’s like, ‘But the real reason is because I know it’s not you.’ And then she scampers up the hill with Gansey where they, like, rub faces.”

He shrugged.

“But I like the cars.”

Review: The One Thing

Today marks the release of Marci Lyn Curtis’s The One Thing, which not only features a feisty heroine, a cute boy, and a bit of magic, but the best little kid ever. Here’s why you should read it:

Maggie Sanders is my kind of heroine. We’d never be friends because our personalities are basically the same and we’d get in some stupid fight because we’re both quick to anger, then we’d never speak again because we’re both terrible at apologies. It’d be sad.  

Anyway, I loved being in her head because she basically reacted to things in the same way I would. Well, okay, I’d probably tell more people about the being able to see thing since, you know, she’s blind and then—BOOM—partial vision. But I loved that she went off on Mason when he was being a broody, mean jackwad. And I loved that she went off on her mom because the woman deserved it. She stood up for herself, which I respected.

She’s also a terrible friend, and even with Ben’s cloud of light, she’s blind to the fact that relationships make dealing with adversity stronger. I was dying for her to get over her frustration and embarrassment enough to embrace her friends, so I was super excited to see the relationship between her and Clarissa grow. In fact, Maggie’s resistance and then reluctant friendship with Clarissa was my one of my favorite parts of the story.

But let’s be serious: The shining spot in this book is Ben. The precocious 10-year-old is super smart, sort of a perv, and totally adorable. He’s no stranger to disability (he has spina bifida) and is exactly what Maggie needs in her life—a tiny dude in early-stage Augustus Watersdom. 

As the blurb mentions, there’s romance between Maggie and Ben’s older brother, Mason, who happens to be the singer of an on-the-rise band. It’s dislike at first sight—and, yes, Maggie can see Mason, provided he’s in the bubble of light Ben emits. But while the romance is usually my favorite part of contemporary stories, I didn’t love it as much as I loved the Maggie-Ben friendship, which was basically the best thing ever.

I also loved the ending. Highlight the following spoiler-filled white type at your own peril:

I’ll be honest: I might have felt Maggie-level anger at Marci Lyn Curtis when I thought Ben was going to die. Well, anger mixed with don’t-do-this-to-me tears. It wasn’t pretty. I’m a sucker for a happy ending, and this one was perfect.

If you’re looking for a book with a great voice, a touch of magic, and disabled characters who are strong despite their disabilities, this is a great pick.

* I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Which you just read.