Genre: Tough Topics

A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti | ARC Review

Posted December 24, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 3 Comments

As the year comes to a close, my biggest question of 2018 is: How is it that everyone isn’t raving about this book? A Heart in a Body in a World snuck up on me and is quite possibly my favorite book of 2018. The novel is heartbreak and activism and politics and grief all wrapped up in a story that manages to capture a tragedy in such a deeply visceral and personal way that the media and news cannot. The novel follows Annabelle, a teenager who has suffered a terrible tragedy and decides to run from Seattle to Washington […]

Aftercare Instructions by Bonnie Pipkin | Review

Posted January 29, 2018 in Reviews / 10 Comments

Aftercare Instructions is the book we need in YA. It’s an honest, vulnerable, frank, and succinct story about family, relationships, and yes, abortion. But it’s not an issue book about abortion. It’s a book about the aftermath, or aftercare, about the thousands of decisions that happen in a family, in a friendship, in a relationship that lead to a single moment or pivotal point. It’s about a person being made of so much more than one action that defines them. It’s a true coming of age novel that’s somehow extremely quick yet tells an extremely in depth story. The story […]

It Ends With Us.

Posted August 8, 2016 in Reviews / 15 Comments

“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.” Please note that this review will contain spoilers. Major plot spoilers. This book is too important to talk about without them. I’ve had my fair share of book hangovers. Books that have been sad, books that I’ve swooned over, books that I’ve been obsessed with and can’t stop rereading. However, I think It Ends With Us is the first book that I’ve read that gave me a hangover because I so completely crawled inside of it, lived it, cried and feared with it. I’m not hungover, I’m haunted. I […]

When Tragedy Becomes Incredibly Important: Violent Ends by Shaun David Hutchinson | ARC Review

Posted September 14, 2015 in Five Star Reads, Reviews / 4 Comments

My Review When I was at ALA this summer, I was pitched this book by an editor at Simon & Schuster when I asked specifically for heavier contemporary recommendations. The editor had worked on the collection himself and was SO excited about it, and it’s one of those instances in which I’m seriously glad that I asked for recommendations because it may not have been a title I would have picked up myself. I’m so glad that I spoke with that editor at ALA because this book is so intense and so bold in what it does: it doesn’t essentialize […]

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen | Review

Posted June 16, 2015 in Reviews / 3 Comments

“There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.” *Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for the review copy! I’m no stranger to Sarah Dessen novels. Back in my much younger teen years, I devoured Sarah’s first seven novels, chronically checking them out from my local library every summer. The release of Saint Anything had me nostalgic for Sarah’s quietly profound contemporaries, and within one week I aquired three of her novels, fully intending to make my way through as […]

Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler | ARC Review

Posted May 29, 2015 in Reviews / 16 Comments

* Thanks so much to Penguin Young Readers for this review copy! The synopsis for Immaculate is evocative, instantly grabbing readers’ attention with its contradictory premise- a pregnant virgin- and its undeniable mystery. From the instant I came across the synopsis I knew I had to read it, despite a hesitation about how the topic of immaculate conception would be handled. Would it be preachy? Would it be a religious book, or rather a mystery to uncover a scientific explanation by the end? Would it be an “issue” book about the hardships and stigmas of teen pregnancy? Immaculate draws bits […]

Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider | ARC Review

Posted May 26, 2015 in Reviews / 0 Comments

*Thanks so much to HarperCollins and Epic Reads for this review copy! “It’s strange how we can lose things that are still right there. How a barrier can go up at any moment, trapping you on the other side, keeping you from what you want. How the things that hurt the most are things we once had.” I’ll be the first to admit that the “sick lit” trend is not one that generally appeals to me. After The Fault in Our Stars really underwhelmed me, I have tended to stay away from terminally ill teens in literature. Yet when I […]

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell- Review

Posted January 22, 2015 in Books, Five Star Reads, Reviews / 25 Comments

“…you look like a protagonist…You look like the person who wins in the end.” Eleanor & Park was the last Rainbow Rowell book I had left to read. I had devoured and loved all of her other novels, yet Eleanor & Park was the most hyped of her works, and with hype always comes the potential for disappointment. I decided to take the plunge and read it after picking up a signed and special edition copy as well as seeing it featured as the January 2015 book of the month at She Reads A Lot. I was 110% not […]