Kate Mester

Sweet and thoughtful. Didn't particularly love the conceit of the side history for every supporting character or time itself, but realize the purpose to the theme. Fully developed characters and well written. Definitely appealing YA but it didn't land with me in any significant way.

The romance was sweet, but so many points off for the insensitive “twist” and treating medical issues as casual plot devices. Her second book was better.

Very accessible story on the Lost Boys and longstanding war in Sudan, told in 2 interwoven timelines. Handles the violence & tragedy at an appropriate level for older elementary and up. Would be good paired with The Red Pencil or War Brothers, or as a starter for more complex and graphic content like Soldier Boy or A Long Way Gone.

Just as weird and witty and hilarious as Going Bovine, but sometimes it felt like she was trying too hard for the jokes and the obvious message (girl empowerment). Still, loved it and would happily recommend it to 8th grade and high school girls and the right boys

Pacing started off relatively slowly but really crammed lots of action in at the end. Appreciate that the ended the story in 2 books and she didn't try to drag out the story just to create an unneeded trilogy. I enjoyed Shahrzad as a character, and the retelling of Arabian Nights was fun. Like the first book, the descriptions drag on far too long, so gloss over all of those. I listened to the audio book at 1.75x because the narrator was a tiresomely slow reader.

Sanderson does the lazy, offensive, and othering white-as-default writing style that ONLY describes a character's skin tone if they are non-white. Examples - a character's “Asian features” (what does that even mean?) or a character's “dark skin and somewhat French accent”. Beyond the offensive writing, this book is also needlessly and graphically violent for the intended age group. One battle scene describes a character getting his head smashed until his eyes are squeezed out and there are many depictions of execution style shootings. Also, there's essentially 1 1/2 women in this book and they're only seen through a relatively misogynistic and leering male gaze. I know many kids that love this but I'm too critical to like anything that's happening here.

I think 4th/5th grade me would have really enjoyed this. Can see some 4-6th graders liking it, though the librarian-ness was too heavy handed. I did really like the constant references to other great kids books. I know some kids will seek out some of those titles.

I was ambivalent about Vera and just kept wanting more from the book. It was ok, but after In Darkness and Code Name Verity, I think I was expecting more from a Printz Honor winner. However, the book trailer is good and has successfully sold the book to a good few of my high schoolers.

I liked the slow, foreshadowed build to the inevitable reveal of the horrors in the last bit of the book. McNeal took his time reveling in the creepiness and building the mood. I didn't understand the choice to set the plot in small town, current USA. Whenever the narrator mentioned something about this being present day America, I was thrown.

Realistic and well written, kids will definitely be hooked once the action picks up and doesn't stop. It is very realistically violent, so when I booktalk it I always give kids a heads-up on the violence level. Would be a good pairing with Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone.

I'm a barely casual basketball fan and knew basically nothing about him going into this book, but I really enjoyed the audiobook read by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar himself. The arc of the story is his academic and spiritual journey that lead him to claim his own name and the coaches (parents, teachers, actual sports coaches) that help him along the way. There's so much for teens to dig into here, even if they're not into sports, particularly his growing activism and spiritual/personal questioning. I know teen-me would have loved this book when I was on that journey myself. Will definitely be book talking this one!

2.5 Much less action than the first book, though when it did get there it was pretty gory, and an amped up romance. Still pretty fun, if we all agree that putting 21st century ideals on 19th people is ridiculous. Listening to audio at 1.4 speed feels right for this series

Exactly the otherworldly fantasy escape I needed right now. I forgot how enjoyable Taylor's writing is, and though it was sometimes overwrought and in need of editing in her first series, it feels lush and precise here, and at 525 pages I didn't feel bored once. The audiobook, performed by Steve West, is ear-dessert, just so well done. I toggled between the book/audio and always heard what I was reading in his voice. Will definitely be adding Part 2 to the top of my to-read pile.

Appreciated the look at the process & inner-workings of on the ground journalism and what it takes to get a story. Also liked learning more about some of the early roots of BLM, as Lowery saw it. Don't know if the experience would be different reading rather than listening, but though the book is arranged in thematic chapters around the major horrific killings he covered, he veers all around in his thoughts and stories within each chapter, making for a very inchohesive and scattershot listening experience. Perhaps that's the the reporting work style, but it seemed disjointed and lost the arc of the storypower and then seemed to end randomly.

3.5 Enjoyable semi-compelling mystery with some true goriness in the mix. Not a lot of character development or motive outside of pretty and Victorian (for both Audrey Rose and Thomas, they were equally written in broad strokes) and some parts dragged a bit but overall pretty fun to listen to. Not the fault of this book, but very similar to Madman's Daughter, which is also on BOB list - I guess making for really hard-to-distinguish questions!

Love Sean Beaudoin for being snarky and funny and truthful and capturing the agony/ecstasy of teendom. This book has hooked a few of my boys into becoming readers and sharing books with one another

I was really excited to devote some time over break to reading an adult book that was one every top 10 list of the year, but alas, it was not as I had hoped. The first 100 pages of the book were zippy, witty, and interesting, but the middle 300-400 truly plodded on. The last 20 pages zipped along again, but by that point I was too annoyed that I had invested that much time for 1/4 of a good book.

I have loved the Diviners series, written by one of the best YA writers in the game, until this concluding book. I frequently book-talk the first book and it's such a great sell - super creepy horror, hilarious 20's slang & bustling NY setting, great diverse characters with modern parallels - and each book in the series has gotten better despite getting longer, but sadly not today, Satan. Bray is bogged down by hammering home the important parallels of our racist/xenophobic/homophobia/etc phobic/founding original sins as a county to our modern political climate...repetitively for 550 small-fonted pages. It doesn't zip, the characters don't feel as vital as they once did, and the creeping horror is revealed to be....literally nothing. Nothing much happens other than some too-convenient setups to move characters around the country to get together to fight in the final scenes. Though her writing alone almost earns this bloat, I wish her editors had truly cut this down to a tight 300 or so and pushed her for some plot/character rethinks. I'm a loving audience for this book AND an emotional reader and even I wasn't moved by some of the tragedy, where normally I would have been sobbing. With love, I'm disappointed.

Good for her for getting a book written and published by 18, but it was just ok. The plot was pretty formulaic, and the sex scenes were really graphic for YA. Definitely for high school readers.

A slow start but upon reflection I think I liked it even better than the first book of the series.

Solid 4 1\2. A few parts dragged, but overall engrossing and worth the time investment. I'd happily take a Boris spinoff!

Enjoyed Felicity's voice as much as Monty's, and though a different narrator, the audio book was equally as hilarious, with some great laugh-snort moments. I appreciate the sense of fun and adventure that Lee brings to historical fiction.

Received this as a present from an awesome librarian friend, who said I would love it. Other than her great recommendation, I hadn't heard of Manson before, so didn't have expectations. His writing is of the moment and funny, and I enjoyed his Buddhism-light meets philosophy meets pop-culture advice. Nothing new but wrapped in a clever and concise package. Enjoyable and definitely recommend as book for discussing with a partner/friend/book group.

Cheeky and fun with some genuine laughs from the audiobook narration. Loved both Monty and Felicity, though Percy felt less well drawn. Good humerous historical (with many liberties) fiction that's also delightfully queer.

If you ignore the love triangle (why do all YA authors of genre pieces feel forced to do this?!) the rest of the story builds interestingly, with some good twists and turns along the way. I like that this is based on Island of Dr. Moreau and that the 2 sequels will be based on Jekyll & Hyde and Frankenstein. These are fun retellings/new plays on old classic tales. Feeling like I might skim through 2 & 3 to see who comes back from the first book.