Me on Blanca & Roja

Title: Blanca & Roja
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Release Date: October 9, 2018
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan imprint)

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they're also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan. But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans' spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them.

Blanca & Roja is a magical, mysterious tale of sisters and swans, of secrets, of devotion and plans and good intentions. It's fear and sweetness and wonder all at the same time.

Blanca and Roja have always knows that, one day, the swans will come to take one of them. Because that's what's always happened to sisters in their family. That one day two will become one, when only one sister remains while the other becomes a swan, joins all the past del Cisne girls who were taken to become swans. They figure they know what will happen, that the sweet Blanca will be left behind while the swans take Roja with all her sharp edges, but that doesn't stop them from trying to save each other. Then a bear wanders through the woods, then the girls find a cignet, and two locals are drawn in, intrigued by the girls and running from their own lives. Hiding from hard truths.

This is yet another Anna-Marie McLemore book that explores young women and queerness and family and love through a Latinx fairy tale retelling. It's a book about complicated family dynamics and figuring out who you are and hope and pain and confrontation and, in the end, hopefully living freely. It's a book about girls with sharp edges and dreams of the future, about boys with gentle hearts looking for places to belong. It's magic and reality all rolled into one, unable to see the separation between the two. If you're a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore's books, you'll continue to be a fan after this one.

(I received an advance copy of this title from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft

Title: Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft
Authors: Tess Sharpe, Jessica Spotswood, Brandy Colbert, Zoraida C­órdova, Andrea Cremer, Kate Hart, Emery Lord, Elizabeth May, Anna-Marie McLemore, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Lindsay Smith, Nova Ren Suma, Robin Talley, Shveta Thakrar, & Brenna Yovanoff
Edited by: Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe
Release Date: August 28, 2018
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Glinda the Good Witch. Elphaba the Wicked Witch. Willow. Sabrina. Gemma Doyle. The Mayfair Witches. Ursula the Sea Witch. Morgan le Fey. The three weird sisters from Macbeth. History tells us women accused of witchcraft were often outsiders: educated, independent, unmarried, unwilling to fall in line with traditional societal expectations. Bold. Powerful. Rebellious. A bruja's traditional love spell has unexpected results. A witch's healing hands begin to take life instead of giving it when she ignores her attraction to a fellow witch. In a terrifying future, women are captured by a cabal of men crying witchcraft and the one true witch among them must fight to free them all. In a desolate past, three orphaned sisters prophesize for a murderous king. Somewhere in the present, a teen girl just wants to kiss a boy without causing a hurricane. From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely--has long frightened society, to the point that women's rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft is full of magic and wonder, of strengths and weaknesses, of love and fear and despair and power. It's a collection of stories highlighting young women and their abilities, be they accepted or hidden, honoured or feared, as they live their lives freely or in secret.

Sometimes it's a little hard to review anthologies because in an anthology there are usually two or three stories I really like, two or three that I don't, and the rest are okay. In this anthology I, at the very least, liked all of them. It's so much fun, reading all the different stories about everyone's different versions or adaptations of young women being witches or practicing some kind of witchcraft. Whether it was an inate power or something from a Goddess or passed down through families. Whether it was set in the past or in the present. Stories full of complicated politics, star-crossed lovers, moments between sisters, and young women rising up against the men that fear them. Stories about star signs, fear, faith, and fate. There are a few I love more than the others, the ones by Tess Sharpe, Zoraida Córdova, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Emery Lord, but all the stories are magical and powerful. They all speak to the power of young women, whether it be magic or determination or an indestructible combination of the two. It was such a joy to read this anthology and I hope there will be more like it in the future.

(I received an e-galley of this title from Harlequin Teen through NetGalley.)

Me on All the Crooked Saints

Title: All the Crooked Saints
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: October 10, 2017
Publisher: Scholastic Press

Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.

All the Crooked Saints is a heavy book, full of the weight of all the characters and what makes them up. Their wants and their fears. Their secrets. The important things left unspoken.

It's hard to describe this book, like it is whenever I read a Maggie Stiefvater book. This seems so much like a book about people and their interpersonal relationships as opposed to a magical realism story about people and their interpersonal relationships. The magical realism is still there, the priest with a coyote's head and the twins tied together by a large snake, but to me it felt weighted down by the characters and their decisions. After The Raven Cycle, a series I found to be full of magic coursing through winds and whispers and trees, this felt far different. Slow. Heavy with shadow. Unfortunately for me, for my reading tastes, I didn't enjoy it as much as her previous books, but I imagine others might feel different.

(I received an advance copy of this title from Scholastic Canada.)

Me on Wild Beauty

Title: Wild Beauty
Author: AnnaMarie McLemore
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan imprint)

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They've also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens. The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he's even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.

Wild Beauty is magical, a story of flowers, family, and despair. It's the story of an inescapable curse and the young women who so desperately want to break it, the story of the strange boy they find in their gardens. The story of the land that is La Pradera and all the secrets it holds.

Estrella and her cousins are the youngest Nomeolvides girls, the latest in a family of women who live and work the grounds of La Pradera. Women who make flowers appear when they slip their hands into the ground. Women who can love so hard their lovers will vanish. Estrella and her cousins know who they are, who came before them, and they try so hard to keep their loves small and secret. To keep it unspoken. But secrets never last.

From the depths of the gardens comes Fel, a young man with a missing past. A young man that, presumably, was once loved by a Nomeolvides woman and captured by the garden. But why was he returned? Where did he come from? What's hiding in his lost memories? As time goes on in the house full of Nomeolvides women, the worried cousins and the curious mothers and the compassionate grandmothers, Fel wonders what this place is, why he was brought there. Why they ask questions about things he doesn't want to talk about.

This melancholy, heart-wrenching creature of a book. It's so layered, so complicated. It's a story about family, about the ways we love and hate and protect. It's a story of immigration, of those who leave their homes, those without names or papers or anything official, and somehow find a place that will keep them without asking questions. It's a story about consequences, about mistakes made and lived with, about aches and pains and regrets. It's a story about love, about what it does to us, what it gives and what it takes, what it pulls from our hearts. Like previous Anna-Marie McLemore books, this is gorgeously written and imagined, lush with description, emotion, and sorrow. Rich with impossible magic. A must-read.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Spellbook of the Lost and Found

Title: Spellbook of the Lost and Found
Author: Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Release Date: August 8, 2017
Publisher: Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin imprint)

One stormy Irish summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hairclips and jewelry, but soon it's clear that Rose has lost something much bigger, something she won't talk about, and Olive thinks her best friend is slipping away. Then seductive diary pages written by a girl named Laurel begin to appear all over town. And Olive meets three mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel, and her twin brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in an abandoned housing estate. The trio are wild and alluring, but they seem lost too—and like Rose, they're holding tight to painful secrets. When they discover the spellbook, it changes everything. Damp, tattered and ancient, it's full of hand-inked charms to conjure back things that have been lost. And it just might be their chance to find what they each need to set everything back to rights. Unless it's leading them toward things that were never meant to be found...

Spellbook of the Lost and Found is all mystery and magic, sweetness and sorrow. All about the lost and the found, be they things or people, trinkets or trash. All about the little things that connect us together, whether we realize it or not.

Olive and Rose are best friends. Supportive and bold, arms bright with message written to each other. They're so close they're almost family. But one night after a big party with alcohol and dancing and missing memories, Olive wakes up missing a few things. Like a hairclip and a shoe. Like Rose. Rose is there the next day they're at school, but something's different. Rose is missing something, but she's not so sure about telling Olive what it was. Laurel's diary went missing, as did her friends Holly and Ash. Looking all around for the missing pages, one of the three find a secret book. Hazel is hiding out in an abandoned building with her brother Rowan and their friend Ivy. Hazel's a little rough and a little cautious. Not wanting to mess anything up, not wanting to be noticed. Not wanting to think about the past. Misplacing a few things here and these. One day in the rain she meets Olive, which in turn leads her to meeting Rose, and Olive meeting Rowan and Ivy, and the five of them searching around. Which leads them to a book that could help them find their missing pieces.

There's something magical and eerie about this book, similar to The Accident Season. It raises questions about the seemingly impossible, about the magic in ordinary things, about connections and ties to things and people that we never expect but are right there waiting to be uncovered. About what we're looking for and what we're hoping stays lost. About lost things that should stay lost, that only serve to disrupt and ruin when they're found. This book is bold and open, rather frank and honest in its discussion of teens and sex and sexuality. I would certainly recommend this to those who enjoy finding moments of magic in real life, to those who enjoyed the author's previous book as well as possibly those who enjoyed AnnaMarie McLemore's books.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Penguin Canada.)

Me on The Gallery of Unfinished Girls

Title: The Gallery of Unfinished Girls
Author: Lauren Karcz
Release Date: July 25, 2017
Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins imprint)

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings. Despite Mercedes's creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the abandoned Red Mangrove Estate. At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn't ever before. But Mercedes can't take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can't live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls is an exploration, a look at how far we go and the people we meet on journeys of self-discovery. It's a look at creativity, what drives us and what happens when we lose that drive, the passion and the joy and the sense of loss.

Mercedes is bright and creative, an artist to the core, but not right now. Inspiration has left her, leading to her being afraid that she'll never paint anything worthwhile again. Maybe it's because she has a lot weighing her down right now. Like how her abuela is in a coma in San Juan and the doctors aren't sure if she'll ever wake up. Like how she has no idea where she'll be going to college in the fall. Like how she's in love with her best friend Victoria but is scared to tell her, scared she'll ruin their friendship. Until her new neighbour takes her to the Estate. Until Mercedes finally feels free enough to paint.

So much of this book is about Mercedes figuring herself out, what she wants and how she sees the world. What she wants to express of herself in her art, how much of herself that she's willing to express, to show to other people. She keeps her affection secret from Victoria and it settles in her, like a hard lump in her chest, leaving her unable to express herself. It's the holding in of all these worries that blocks her, and only at the Estate, where anything is possible, does she feel free. All Mercedes has to do is take that impossibly hard first step and say out loud what she's feeling, but how can she when it's so hard, so impossible for her?

This book is honest and rough, nailing those end of high school uncertainties so well. What next? How can I tell someone the truth? What if I never paint again? What if she dies? What am I supposed to do? There's an honest vulnerability to Mercedes, her unsure feelings of the future and her hope that she can stagnate in the present. That she can be free to paint and creative and live at the Estate, even when a small part of her knows she can't. This is a book that's mysteriously magical, similar to AnnaMarie McLemore's books can be. If you're a fan of magical realism, books like McLemore's or Nova Ren Suma's, you might want to check this out.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this title from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (326)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Wild Beauty
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan imprint)

From Goodreads:

Love grows such strange things.

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.

More magical, complicated books by Anna-Marie McLemore! I rather like the way she weaves together stories, the piecing together of magical realism and characters and mystery and romance.

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (320)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Spellbook of the Lost and Found
Author: Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Release Date: August 8, 2017
Publisher: Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin imprint)

From Goodreads:

The highly anticipated second book from the acclaimed author of The Accident Season is a gorgeous, twisty story about things gone missing, things returned from the past, and a group of friends who might need to give up more than they bargained for—unless they already have. 

Olive, Rose, Laurel, Ivy, Hazel, Rowan.
Six teenagers, connected in ways they could never have imagined.

After the town’s summer bonfire party, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hairclips and jewelry, but soon it’s clear that Rose has lost something much bigger, something she won’t talk about, and Olive can’t stop feeling that her best friend is slipping away.

Then lost things start appearing. Fields are filled with odd treasures; the lake sparkles with trinkets; seductive diary pages written by a girl named Laurel show up all over town. And Olive finds Ivy, Hazel, and her brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in the nearby abandoned housing development. Hazel and Rowan are wild and alluring, but they seem lost too, and like Rose, are holding tight to their secrets. 

It’s the damp, tattered spellbook that changes everything. Full of mysterious hand-inked charms to make things go missing and to conjure back others, it might be their chance to find what they need to set everything back to rights. Unless it’s leading them toward secrets that were never meant to be found . . .

Yesssssss. I loved The Accident Season, it was different and sad and curious. I'm so intrigued by where this might go with the missing things and the different characters and the spellbook.

Me on When the Moon Was Ours

Title: When the Moon Was Ours
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Release Date: October 4, 2016
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (Macmillan imprint)

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel's wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel's skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they're willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

When the Moon Was Ours is haunting and magical, a look at identity and secrets, at wanting to keep the things we love close so no one can steal them away.

This is one of those impossible to describe books for me. Reading this book hurt. Like my heart was instantly tied to Sam's, to Miel's, and I was helpless against their pull. Against their struggles, against their joy and fear and sorrow. Against their love, against their secrets that tear them apart. This book hurts in so many ways, in exquisite ways. Like roses and thorns, the scent lush and heady and the pricks sharp and painful. It was so easy for me to feel for Sam and Miel, to want their secrets kept secret, to want them to just be. But it's never that easy. They have to face the things that hurt them, that scare them.

At the end, when I finished, this book hurt so much I wanted to cry. Cry for boys like Sam, for girls like Miel, for girls like Ivy Bonner. This story is a lyrical and mesmerizing gathering of identity, cultural practices and customs, family, magic and impossibility, and love. Because they love, they want. Because they love, they protect. A glorious, heart-breaking fairy tale of a story. A must-read.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Wink Poppy Midnight

Title: Wink Poppy Midnight
Author: April Genevieve Tucholke
Release Date: March 22, 2016
Publisher: Dial Books (Penguin imprint)

Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous. What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying.

Wink Poppy Midnight is whimsical and complicated, a book about people, about how we see them and how they see the world.

Poppy is beautiful, popular, and ruthless. Everything she wants soon becomes hers. Including people. There's an apathy that runs deep in her, that stems from being denied by someone she wanted to matter to and being ignored by her parents. Midnight is a lonely boy, missing his mother and older brother, worried about his quiet father. But he's thrilled to have escaped Poppy in a sudden move to the edge of town. Once foolishly in love with her, he soon saw she didn't care in the same way. That she was only using him, lying to him. Wink is the dreamer, the girl who lives in books, in fables and tales. Who sees into the hearts of people. Because of who they are, because of what they think and what they do, it's hard to find any of them reliable characters, especially Wink, or likable characters, especially Penny. But those flaws make them realistic.

This is one of those hard to describe books. One of those whimsical and lyrical and imaginative books that don't shy away from the darker side of people. From the needy side and the obsessive side. The angry side. It also doesn't hide the magical side, the sides where summers are about picking strawberries and lazing about in haylofts and seeing stories and fantasies in real life. It's a book where I can't say if I liked it or not. But would I recommend it? Definitely. If you're a reader looking for something different, for something contemporary mixed with something magical. Something featuring three very different voices. Something that makes you question who is the hero and who is the villain.

(I borrowed a copy of this book from the library.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (293)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Journey's End
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Release Date: October 25, 2016
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (Penguin imprint)

From Goodreads:

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins brings us a riveting middle grade fantasy-adventure, perfect for fans of Lisa Graff.

The town of Journey's End may not literally be at the end of the world, but it sure feels like it to Nolie Stanhope. Spending the summer with her scientist father in the tiny Scottish village isn't exactly Nolie's idea of a good time, but she soon finds a friend: native Journey's Ender Bel McKissick. 

While Nolie's father came to Journey's End to study the Boundary--a mysterious fog bank offshore--Bel's family  can’t afford to consider it a threat.  The McKissick’s livelihood depends on the tourists drawn by legends of a curse. Still, whether you believe in magic or science, going into the Boundary means you'll never come back. 

…Unless you do. Albert Etheridge, a boy who disappeared into the Boundary in 1914, suddenly returns--without having aged a day and with no memory of the past hundred years. Then the Boundary starts creeping closer to the town, threatening to consume everyone within.

While Nolie's father wants to have the village evacuated, Bel's parents lead the charge to stay in Journey's End. Meanwhile, Albert and the girls look for ways to stop the encroaching boundary, coming across an ancient Scottish spell that requires magic, a quest, and a sacrifice.

Oh, magical, fantastical middle grade. How I love you. This sounds super sweet, too. I love the idea here, the little Scottish village and the fog bank and the mystery surrounding it.

Me on Places No One Knows

Title: Places No One Knows
Author: Brenna Yovanoff
Release Date: May 17, 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press (Random House imprint)

Waverly Camdenmar is perfect. She is straight As, most likely to take over the world. She has the best cross-country times, the most popular friends. And she hasn't slept in days. She spends her nights running until she can't even think. Then the sun comes up, life goes on, and Waverly goes back to her perfectly hateful best friend, her perfectly dull classes, and the tune, nagging sensation that there's more to life that student council and GPAs. Marshall Holt is a loser. He drinks on school nights and gets stoned in the park. He is at risk of not graduating, he is does not care, he is no one. He is not even close to being in Waverly's world. But then one night Waverly falls asleep and dreams herself into Marshall's bedroom—and when the sun comes up, nothing in her life can ever be the same. In Waverly's dreams, the rules have changed. But in her days, she'll have to decide if it's worth losing everything for a boy who barely exists, in a place no one knows.

Places No One Knows is honest, raw, and emotional. It's a realistic look at the thoughts teens have, the worries and stresses that they mask with smiles and bury in recreational drug use. The pieces of themselves that they keep secret, the pieces that they wish they could reveal to someone.

Waverly is driven, focused, and intelligent. She keeps her life in order, follows a set plan. Goes to school, hangs out with friends, does homework, competes in cross-country. Wonders why she's friends with Maribeth. Says yes to an invitation to the dance because it was easier than saying no. Runs through the night when she can't sleep. She lives a life of lies, pretending she cares about what Maribeth says about anything, pretending that she's completely normal instead of a trainwreck with a great mask on. Then the dreams start. Marshall is lost and alone, on the edge of giving up. He's sick of school, sick of the unspoken words that circle his parents in their home, sick of escaping by getting drunk or high at his brother's place. He's withdrawn, mulling things over in his head so much, not caring about much of anything. Then Waverly appears next to him.

I do think this book is about the places no one knows, the secret places inside ourselves. The raw, fragile, meaningful places that we keep hidden because we know they'll be trampled on the second someone looking for a weakness finds it. They're tucked away, in pockets and shoes, in closets and lockers, so we can both keep them safe and ignore them. But they do appear from time to time. In secret messages on bathroom walls. In unsigned notes. In dreams.

This book wasn't what I expected. Did I like it, enjoy it? Yes. As with past Brenna Yovanoff books, it delivers an emotional punch. An honest look at what we put ourselves through, what we lie about to ourselves and to others, and what we wish we could say out loud. Both Waverly and Marshall hide from the world, hide the parts that have been hurt and scarred, covering them with masks and scarves in order to appear normal. But what is normal? Being normal is being insecure, is being worried and uncomfortable. Being normal is doing what you want and not what your friend constantly nags you into doing. Being normal is being you, flaws and all. Revealing those hidden places when you find someone willing to share theirs with you. This is the harsh reality of high school, of being human, and somehow surviving.

(I borrowed a copy of this book from the library.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (283)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: When the Moon was Ours
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Release Date: October 4, 2016
Publisher: Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Griffin (Macmillan imprint)

From Goodreads:

When the Moon Was Ours follows two characters through a story that has multicultural elements and magical realism, but also has central LGBT themes—a transgender boy, the best friend he’s falling in love with, and both of them deciding how they want to define themselves.

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. 

But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

Yet another fall book that a piece of my reader's soul craves. Magical realism? YES. Queer characters? YES. Multicultural diversity? YES. And I'm so intrigued by the plot, by Miel and Sam, by the magic and the implications and the motives of the Bonner girls. Every time I see this cover I'm reminded of how much I want to read this and that I still need to read Anna-Marie's first book.

Me on The Raven King

Title: The Raven King
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: April 26, 2016
Publisher: Scholastic Press

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

The Raven King is the end of a journey.

This is a bit of a non-traditional review from me, mostly because I don't want to give anything away in terms of the plot.

I can't speak on what the series is about, what the author intended with these books (but I can link to this post where Maggie says it's "a series about what makes a hero and about wanting more"). I can really only speak on what I think (emphasis intended) this book, this series, this book, is about. How it's about magic and long dead Welsh kings. About angry boys and lonely girls. About dreamers and searchers, psychics and sleepers. About finding lost things in secret places. About seeing the magic in everyday things and places. About living in the now and fearing the future. About mortality and immortality. About what makes a person a parent. About being lost and being found. About being in love. About what makes a group of people a family.

But the thing about this series, this thing that struck me the hardest, is that the story isn't over. The books are just glimpses, moments in time. After the last word is read, after the last page is turned, the story continues. Time moves forward. And wondering what happens after the book ends, where the characters go? That's the fun part. That's where my mind went, wandering over mountains and between the trees.

On a personal note, I love this series. I love being enchanted by this series, by these characters and these circumstances, by this magic and wonder and impossibilities made possible. And so I was ready for the ride this book was bound to take me on, wondering what I'd see along the way and, at the end, where I'd be left behind.

(I purchased a copy of this title.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (276)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Vassa in the Night
Author: Sarah Porter
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Publisher: Tor Teen

From Goodreads:

In the enchanted kingdom of Brooklyn, the fashionable people put on cute shoes, go to parties in warehouses, drink on rooftops at sunset, and tell themselves they've arrived. A whole lot of Brooklyn is like that now—but not Vassa's working-class neighborhood.

In Vassa's neighborhood, where she lives with her stepmother and bickering stepsisters, one might stumble onto magic, but stumbling out again could become an issue. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters—and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. So when Vassa's stepsister sends her out for light bulbs in the middle of night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission.

But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and a ferocious cunning. With Erg's help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch's curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won't be playing fair. . . .

Inspired by the Russian folktale Vassilissa the Beautiful and Sarah Porter's years of experience teaching creative writing to New York City students, Vassa in the Night weaves a dark yet hopeful tale about a young girl's search for home, love, and belonging.

Ooooooooo. This sounds interesting. I'm often all-in when it comes to magic things in a real world setting. It makes life just a bit more interesting. This sounds magical and also really creepy.

Me on A Fierce and Subtle Poison

Title: A Fierce and Subtle Prison
Author: Samantha Mabry
Release Date: April 12, 2016
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Everyone knows the legends about the cursed girl--the one the señoras whisper about. They say she has green skin and grass for hair, and she feeds on the poisonous plants that fill her family's Caribbean island garden. Some say she can grant wishes; some say her touch can kill. Seventeen-year-old Lucas lives on the mainland most of the year but spends summers with his hotel-developer father in Puerto Rico. He's grown up hearing stories about the cursed girl, and he wants to believe in her and her magic. When letters begin mysteriously appearing in his room the same day his new girlfriend disappears, Lucas turns to her for answers--and finds himself lured into her strange and enchanted world. But time is running out for the girl filled with poison, and the more entangled Lucas becomes with her, the less certain he is of escaping with his own life.

A Fierce and Subtle Poison is a dark and mysterious tale filled with secrets, a mixture of superstition and some very real, very serious, disappearances all wrapped up in tense, beautiful prose. Is there really a ghost in the house at the end of Calle Sol? Is there a witch who will grant wishes? Or is something far more sinister hiding behind its walls, behind the leaves?

Lucas is caught up between worlds, between his life is Houston and his summers in Puerto Rico. Between the opulence and money grubbing of his white father and the love and later abandonment from his Dominican mother. Between listening to the stories and legends of the señoras, the tales of heartsick nuns and cursed girls and a house that birds refuse to fly over, and thinking about the practical things he could do with his future. He doesn't understand his father's motives, his need to build fancy, pretentious hotels for rich people to stay in while the locals can only hope to work there, but he knows that it's his father's money that lets him go there in the summers, hang out with his local friends and get drunk almost every night. It's like he's in limbo, until he swears he sees the girl with green skin and grass for hair. Until the letters come. Until his wish is returned to him. Until he falls head first into poisoned plants and a poisonous girl.

The setting also brings this book to life. The warmth of the sun and the rage of the storms, the lashing wind and the pounding rain. The mosquitoes, the lush greenery that entices while hiding poison in its leaves. The very clear divide between the rich white hotel guests and the Puerto Ricans struggling to make enough money to leave. The stories mixed in with Lucas's words, the secrets and the ghosts and the hidden magics of the islands. The tucked away things that are kept alive by those who believe in the unknown and the impossible.

There's something about this book that might stick to you like honey or sap from a tree, dark and syrup-like. Something that seeps into you and lingers. Because of the stories and legends that race through the streets, because of the scientist's work, you're never quite sure of what Lucas sees, what's happening. Is the girl poison because of a curse? Or is it because of an experiment? Does Lucas hallucinate because of the poison, or is he seeing the truth behind the stories? I wanted to believe in the magic of this book, I really did. I love books that fiddle with truth and perception like that, books like this and The Walls Around Us and The Accident Season. A must-read for those looking for magical realism, for those looking for something a little different, a little dark and dangerous.

(I received an e-galley of this book to review from Algonquin through NetGalley.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (273)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: The Shadow Hour
Author: Melissa Grey
Release Date: July 12, 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press (Random House imprint)

From Goodreads:

Everything in Echo's life changed in a blinding flash when she learned the startling truth: she is the firebird, the creature of light that is said to bring peace.

The firebird has come into the world, but it has not come alone. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and Echo can feel a great and terrible darkness rising in the distance. Cosmic forces threaten to tear the world apart.

Echo has already lost her home, her family, and her boyfriend. Now, as the firebird, her path is filled with even greater dangers than the ones she's already overcome.

She knows the Dragon Prince will not fall without a fight.

Echo must decide: can she wield the power of her true nature--or will it prove too strong for her, and burn what's left of her world to the ground?

Welcome to the shadow hour.

I'm so excited for this. I remember reading the first one last year and finding it full of magic and secrets in ways that reminded me of Daughter of Smoke & Bone and I didn't want it to end. I wanted to know more about the characters, wanted to follow them on more hunts and chases and adventures. :)

Me on Tell the Wind and Fire

Title: Tell the Wind and Fire
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan
Release Date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt imprint)

In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets. Lucie Manette was born in the Dark half of the city, but careful manipulations won her a home in the Light, celebrity status, and a rich, loving boyfriend. Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men's deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth. Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herself?

Tell the Wind and Fire is a battle between the light and the dark, the privileged and the downtrodden. This is the story of a girl struggling with what she knows and wondering how strong she'll have to be in order to save those she loves.

Lucie is a girl living a lie, living the high life in the Light after leaving behind a childhood in the Dark. But is she really better off? She knows bits and pieces of the truths that hide on both sides, that because of lies and omissions she was able to leave the Dark for the Light, that she has Light magic in her. The only nice piece of her life is her boyfriend Ethan, the affection and the support he gives her. But then circumstances change, then someone appears who both throws a wrench into plans and saves the day for a short time. Then everything changes and Lucie is left questioning, worrying, scrambling. By the end, she's running and risking her life, ready to face off against anyone who would try and stop her.

Not having read A Tale of Two Cities but knowing the basic storyline, I could see the similarities. The ideas carried through both books. There's a lot said about the divide between the rich and the poor, emphasized by the creation of the Light magic and the Dark magic. Of the mistakes made by some and the secrets held by Lucie's boyfriend, the events that have created and impacted the stranger that suddenly appears in their lives. I was intrigued by this magical world created in the guise of New York City, the Light and the Dark parts that rose up and split it in two.

This book takes some turns, some complicated and confusing turns, and then some dark turns that I wasn't expecting. I thought this would be similar to the author's previous books but it's far more serious. Far more deadly. I was intrigued, yes, as to where it would go. How similar it would be to Dickens' original work. It started off a bit slow, a bit confusing as there's some surprising plot before some backstory, but the pace really picked up in the later half. If you were already interested in reading this, then go right ahead, but if you were expecting the quirky humour of the author's previous series, then know that this book is far more serious. But then how could it not be when we're talking about an uprising?

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt through NetGalley.)

Me on The Pharos Gate

Title: The Pharos Gate
Author/artist: Nick Bantock
Release Date: March 22, 2016
Publisher: Chronicle Books

A love story for the ages, the tale of Griffin and Sabine is an international sensation that spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and continues to beguile readers 25 years after its original publication. Here to celebrate that anniversary is the final volume in Griffin and Sabine's story—a book that can be enjoyed as a singular reading experience or in conjunction with the series as a whole. The Pharos Gate rejoices in the book as physical object, weaving together word and image in beautifully illustrated postcards and removable letters that reveal a sensual and metaphysical romance, one full of mystery and intrigue. Published simultaneously with the 25th-anniversary edition of Griffin & Sabine, The Pharos Gate finally shares what happened to the lovers in a gorgeous volume that will surely delight Griffin and Sabine's longtime fans and a new generation of readers.

The Pharos Gate is magical, a return to the impossible and inescapable magic of the previous books. A return to a couple separated by land and sea but connected by the depth of their love for each other, connected by happenstance. By letters and postcards.

The first three books enchanted me as a child. The gorgeous and sometimes abstract artwork of the postcards. The curved lines of Sabine's handwriting. The nervousness and hesitation in Griffin's first few messages, the panic at the end of the first book. The intensity of their journey. The way this story is told in few words, the finite number of words that can fit on the back of a postcard, but conveys enough emotion and determination as any thousand page book can.

Here is the last stretch for Sabine and Griffin. After corresponding for more than a year, after travelling around the world, after a failed attempt at being together, they are ready to leave their homes and their lives behind. They've shared secrets, shared artwork and ideas, shared the depth of their love for each other and the joy and sorrow that sprang up from it, like seedlings in the spring. They're ready to be together. But it's not so simple. Their first encounter was by chance, Sabine somehow, in the South Pacific, being able to see into Griffin's London studio. It was impossible. Improbable. And here are those in the world that will not allow them to meet.

There's an extra something in this book, an extra poignancy that's currently lost in the digital age, in the age of technology and immediacy. Time passes so slowly here. The longing, the waiting. The yearning to find a card in the mailbox, to see the familiar handwriting. This is what I remember when reading those first three books so many years ago. The desperation in Griffin and Sabine's words. Their desire to finally be face to face, to finally be together without fear or anger or distance in their way. Without the rules of the world in their way. They defy their hunter, defy the idea that "the pragmatic and the ethereal" should never meet, never marry. This is their choice. No matter what the rules of the world are, what some say. Their connection is stronger than that, goes deeper than that, and they will not be kept apart any longer.

I wonder if these books are where it started, my love of the mundane combined with the extraordinary. With storytelling. With epic love stories and connections. This is a definite must-read for those who fell in love with the earlier books, for those who've always wondered what happened between The Golden Mean and The Gryphon. For those looking for a piece of the impossible.

(I received a finished copy of this book to review from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Behold the Bones

Title: Behold the Bones
Author: Natalie C. Parker
Release Date: February 23, 2016
Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins imprint)

Candace "Candy" Pickens has been obsessed with the swamp lore of her tiny Louisiana town for... forever. Name any ghostly swamp figure and Candy will recite the entire tale in a way that will curl your toes and send chills up your spine. That doesn't mean Candy's a believer, however. Even though she and her friends entered the swamp at the start of summer and left it changed, Candy's the only one who can't see or feel the magical swamp Shine. She's also the only one who can't see the ghosts that have been showing up and spooking everyone in town ever since. So Candy concentrates on other things—real things. Like fighting with her mother and plotting her escape from her crazy town. But ghosts aren't the only newcomers in Sticks, Louisiana. The King family arrives like a hurricane: in a blur and unwanted—at least by Candy. Mr. King is intent on filming the rumored ghostly activity for his hit TV show, Local Haunts. And while Candy can't ignore how attracted she is to eighteen-year-old Gage King and how much his sister, Nova, wants to be friends, she's still suspicious of the King family. As Candy tries to figure out why the Kings are really in town and why the swamp that had previously cast her aside now seems to be invading every crack in her logical, cynical mind, she stumbles across the one piece of swamp lore she didn't know. It's a tale that's more truth than myth, and may have all the answers... and its roots are in Candy's own family tree.

Behold the Bones is a haunting tale. The smell of the swamp is thick in the nose, the swamp mist creeps up and over between the words on the page, and the mysteries are rich and begging to be uncovered.

Candy is brash and sharp with a quick tongue and quicker one-liners. She doesn't see what the fuss is about the Shine or any of the rare and random ghosts that happen to pop up in Sticks because she can't. Because the Shine doesn't affect her. Which is fine, even if it makes her feel left out when Sterling and Abigail do see something. It's when her mother tries to sit her down to talk about her lack of a period and infertility that she gets angry over someone wanting to make decisions about her body. It's when Sterling and Abigail lean on her and she leans on them that you see that this book is also about friendship. It's when the King family comes to town that she gets suspicious. Suspicious of their ghost hunting TV show plans. Suspicious of the new teens in town, Nova and Gage. Suspicious of the voice in her head, calling out to her. Singing to her.

Fixing and being fixed. Being whole and being broken. Candy doesn't see herself as a failure when it come to her never having a period, but she can see something in her mother's eyes. In her expression. When the talks of doctors and therapists come up over and over, Candy sees disappointment and fear coating the love and support of her parents. She doesn't see herself as broken, as someone who needs fixing. As a young woman who won't feel complete until she has children. It's not something that's as important to her as it is to her mother. What is important to Candy? Discovering the truth behind the Kings. Behind the sing-song voice.

The swampy southern setting drips from the page. The heaviness in the air pushing down, compressing, magnifying the summer's heat. The sounds and sights of the swamp, the mud and the grass. The eternally flowering cherry tree.

This book brings up at a number of things that don't often appear in YA. It discusses teen girls menstruating without shame and not behind closed doors. It pushes at friendships and relationships. It highlights a small town full of guns and moonshine without derision. Many of the people of Sticks are conservative, wary, old-fashioned, but they're not stereotypical clichés. Enjoy the previously released companion Beware the Wild? Looking for a different kind of ghost story? Then by all means, give this a read.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this title from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)