From Goodreads: In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When the Richardsons’ friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family – and Mia’s.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of long-held secrets and the ferocious pull of motherhood-and the danger of believing that planning and following the rules can avert disaster, or heartbreak.

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Oh man. Wow. This novel. I was swept up and away with Ng’s storyline and characters as she brought them to life through the pages of this novel. I felt so much anger and rage as I read, towards Elena for her intrusiveness, towards Mia and her secretiveness, and even towards the McCulloughs for not understanding Bebe Chow, and Bebe Chow for her own plight… but I also felt heartache for each in tow as I read, and part of that stems from Ng’s ability to create a realistic and vivid portrayal of the human soul, and partly because being adopted myself, and not knowing my birth family, helped me to feel this one on a personal level.

Like the child in question, May Ling Chow, I was given up for adoption to a loving family who wanted me more than life itself, and they gave me an amazing life that I wouldn’t have had otherwise had. I was blessed; I love my mom and dad more than I could ever express, and the McCullough’s are very much like my parents. So when it came to the great debate within this novel, whether or not Chinese-American May Ling should stay with her adoptive wealthy family or go back to her mother, a woman who admittedly could not care for May Ling, hence handing her over to the fire department, I immediately took the side of the McCulloughs, just like the Richardson’s do. But you know it’s not so black and white, and as Ng personified both sides of the case and showed just how much love Bebe Chow had in order to give up her own child so she could survive, it became clear to me that Bebe, now in a better position to care for her daughter, May Ling, should indeed have her, and I found myself now leaning towards Mia Warren’s side.  But how do you take away a child from her adopted family after a year of living with them? I became torn, so torn, and Ng’s masterpiece definitely jerked me around and made me question everything, including my own lack of desire to know anything about my biological family, and I’m just so glad I’m not the judge who had to make the ultimate decision for May Ling’s fate, one that would either crush the MuCulloughs or Bebe Chow. How can anyone make that choice?

The characters and the plight of them all were so real in Ng’s beautifully written novel… they touched my soul, and I am absolutely impressed with this story, especially the multiple revelations that crop up throughout concerning who the characters really are, and the secrets they keep. This one just blew me away; a must-read for sure! Five stars.

I initially borrowed this novel from the library, but then bought it for my own personal library, as it is a must for my shelves.

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From Goodreads: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

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Holy… holy…. wow. I don’t even have words right now for how absolutely phenomenal this novel is. The very first sentence pulls you in, and by the time you get to the end… whoa.

When I read, and re-read the opening two sentences of this novel, I knew it would be amazing: “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrel shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there.” And as I started to read, I found myself suddenly in the small town of Beartown, not unlike the small town I grew up in so long ago, and as Backman begins his exquisite exposition, I suddenly could see these characters, hear these characters, feel their feelings, understand their thoughts, and the world of Beartown became my world as well. Now, I’m not a sports fan. I have never watched an iced-hockey game, and I’m sure the games we played in gym class certainly don’t count. I don’t care for football, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the men’s or women’s team that’s playing… I don’t generally watch. So I did approach this novel with some trepidation, because if I don’t care for sports, and I know nothing of iced-hockey, will I really enjoy the novel? For me, the answer was a resounding YES, and I believe that has solely to do with the fact that Backman is a master storyteller. Had he not had that gift, I am sure this novel wouldn’t have been for me, but all that aside, this is definitely a novel for me, and I think, honestly, it’s a novel for all teens and beyond. As a 36-year-old female, this novel resonated with me because it brings to life the characters across all age groups–from the 11-year-old brother to the 70 something-year-old coach–and it’s attention to detail and real-life love, hate, and betrayal make it a poignant read.

With the fate of the town riding on the backs of the junior hockey team, we meet a plethora of characters who all have a stake in the upcoming semi-final match, and the true beauty of friendship, loyalty, and the tenuous strings that connect us all are tested beyond measure as Maya, the young, beautiful 15-year-old daughter of Peter, the general manager of the Beartown hockey club, is brutally and savagely raped by the #1 hockey star favored to bring home the championship title–a title the entire town needs to breathe life back into it and create jobs for the many who find themselves laid off, and the divide between the haves and the have-nots growing larger year after year. Because the novel does deal with rape and the after-effects on the main characters and the town, I wanted to point that out specifically, because it could be a trigger for some perspective readers, and it is also the catalyst that drives the entire novel from around the 50% mark all the way to the end. The first half of the novel, I’d say, is more so exposition so that Backman has time to really portray the town and its people, fleshing them out and making them real, with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and the difficult choices they must make in order to live both with themselves and those around them; we all know people like Amat, Benji, Maya, Peter, Sune, and Kevin, just to name a few of the key characters in the novel; there are many more. But Backman does such an amazing job creating the many characters that I did not have trouble keeping them all straight, and their stories wove together to create this beautiful tale of humanity and how far we’ll go to help others and do what is right, even when that means our own lives, wants, and needs may be damaged beyond repair.

And the ending, well, let me just say I was playing detective throughout the entire novel trying to figure out which teenager would take the double-barreled shotgun into the forest late in March, who’s forehead he/she would place it against, and his/her reasoning for pulling the trigger, because nothing is cut and dry in this novel, and all of the characters can, and do, have a reason to pull that trigger. I was on pins and needles as the ending approached, especially once I pinpointed the who and why. This is a beautiful, raw look into the heart of small-town America and a world where sports can and will drive people to do the despicable to protect themselves and what they love, but it’s also a world where people will give up everything they’ve ever yearned for in order to do what is right, and that, right there, is the crux of what it means to be human. Five amazing stars.

I initially borrowed this novel from the library, but then bought it for my own personal library, as it is a must for my shelves.

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From Goodreads: Jacqueline Woodson, one of today’s finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

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I’ve never read a novel that was written in poetic free verse before, but let me tell you, this was wonderful! Woodson paints pictures in the reader’s mind that allows us to see and feel alongside her in ways prose wouldn’t do it justice, and I was enamored by Woodson’s story as she pieced it together for us. It’s a quick read, one that details Woodson’s early life living in both Greenville, SC and Brooklyn, NY. The beautiful descriptions made me feel like I was there, smelling the cooking, sitting on the steps, turning the earth with “Daddy,” smelling the dirt, catching the fireflies, clamoring around the telephone to hear mother speak, visiting the jail… I believe this is one novel that all need to read; it’s accessible from middle grade onward, and will touch both child and adult alike, and to give yourself a real treat, listen to the audio version, which Woodson reads herself, to really feel at one with the author and her world. Four stars.

I borrowed the audiobook of this novel from the library.

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From Goodreads: Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.

So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.

A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

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This is the type of novel that makes me scared of being a parent, but at the same time, shows me a lot of what not to do–pushing my own agenda onto them, playing favorites, etc., though it’s possible to do that unawares, as Marilyn and James do. This novel chronicles the lives of all the Lee’s, seamlessly switching between the before and after, and it is both poignant and heartbreaking. I feel for them all, and I want to smack them, too, but it’s always easier to judge from the outside looking in, isn’t it? Why is it so often that parents try to live vicariously through their children, and why don’t people feel empowered enough to say what they mean? Obviously, humans have many deep layers and experiences that create their waking selves. This is a rich text, one you can really dive into psychologically. Mystery novel, however, it is not, and I see a lot of people had the same idea that I had when going into it, probably from the first line of the synopsis on the back of the book. While the question of how/why Lydia died is one woven throughout, the majority of the novel focuses on the development and characterization of the Lees, and not so much trying to figure out what happened that fateful night, but what lead up to it.

Told through a series of flashbacks, readers intimately get to know each of the Lees, learning their secrets and fears, and ultimately, laying bear the struggles of life in the racially charged and discriminatory time period of the United States from the 50s to the late 70s. Lydia, her older brother Nath, and their younger sister Hannah are Chinese Americans struggling to fit into society, with a Chinese American father and a Caucasian mother. As both parents, James and Marilyn have their own deep-seated resentments against the world and each other, they subconsciously apply pressures to their children that even the strongest of wills would find overbearing. Nath looks for solace in the fact that he’ll be leaving home for Harvard in the fall, Lydia’s fear of losing her only confidant pushes her into the arms of the neighborhood “bad boy” Jack, and quiet Hannah silently watches on, wishing someone, anyone, would pay attention to her.

This novel is a study is psychology, and it’s a very poignant tale of love and betrayal, one that I found to be extremely real and riveting, although bleak and heartbreaking. Four stars.

I borrowed the audible of this novel from the library.

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From Goodreads: From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.

Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.

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With the amount of rave reviews this novel has, I really thought I was going to love it… gosh, was I dissappointed. I was so bored reading this novel that I nearly put it down multiple times, but decided to continue on to see, just to see, if some big revelation came and my opinion would change. It didn’t, though. From the get go, it’s pretty obvious who these characters are, what Hailsham is, and that the great “edge-of-your-seat mystery” touted by the back cover and publishing company is non-existent. I don’t even know that there’s a real climax in this book. What I found, instead, is that this novel is a reminisce of growing up at the school, as told by the now grown-up Kathy, and her revelations are all rather tepid.

I think what really got me is that, once I knew what the “mystery” was in this novel, my irritation came from the fact that no one in the story cares about it. No one laments, no one fights back… in fact, most are just so accepting and don’t ask any questions, just moving through the motions that I failed to see how this was realistic in any way, but perhaps this is where the critical acclaim stems from–a novel of this magnitude that doesn’t follow reader expectations of human reactions from the characters… characters that are just awful to each other, from Ruth’s constant vindictivness to Kathy’s rudeness, perhaps shows the true hollowness that people can decend into. Perhaps it’s the eeriness and non-humaness of it that makes people find it so wonderful? I can actually see that as being a truth in a way, but… I hated the characters and the fact that really, nothing happens in this novel, and my inability to make any connections with any character definitely put a damper on my ability to enjoy it. 

Literally, the characters just accept everything and never fuss or contemplate how or why, or if it’s legal or why it’s legal, and we’re given so little background information about the “real world” surrounding the school in order to make Hailsham have any merit, so… I feel like I just read a whole book about nothing but reminiscing, and I did not care for it. I wonder if the movie is any better… but I honestly have no desire to see it, so, I have to chalk it all up to this novel just not being for me. One star.

I borrowed the audible version of this novel from the library.

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From Goodreads: The Sandcastle Girls is a sweeping historical love story steeped in Chris Bohjalian’s Armenian heritage.

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The year is 1915 and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo and travels south into Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.

Fast forward to the present day, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed “The Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss – and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

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The first book of Chris Bohjalian’s that I read was Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, and it was an absolutely amazing novel–5 stars, no questions, so I knew that Sandcastle Girls was going to be just as wonderful, if not more so, and I was right. Sandcastle Girls is powerful, detailing “the slaughter you know next to nothing about”… and it’s just breathtaking. My father went on sabbatical to Armenia in the early 2000s to study the Armenian Genocide, but that was the first I’d ever heard of it, and I daresay, many people of today’s generation know nothing about it. With 1 million dead, I wonder why this genocide isn’t taught in schools, though the fact that it’s denied by many as ever happening, regardless of the accounts and evidence that shows that it indeed did happen, may be one of the reasons.

Bohjalian tells this story of genocide through the lens of two settings, one from 1st person present day Laura, researching her ancestry in order to understand her Armenian grandfather and American grandmother better, and the other from a 3rd person omniscient narrator set in 1915, the onset of the war against Armenians, ravaged by the Turks. This is a heartwrenching novel, but Bohjalian offsets the atrocities of the genocide by continually bringing us back to the present to breathe as we follow Laura’s research and begin to unearth her family secrets, and I found this a wonderful way to tell so delicate a story without overwhelming the reader to the point of no return.

A story of betrayal, death, and heartbreak, but also one of love and new beginnings, the characters, though fictional, brought a realness to the true story of so many people who didn’t live to tell their own. In the end, all kept secrets, and the revelation of such made this novel so poignant that I was unable to put it down as the characters came to life right off the page. Though ultimately a sad tale, it resonates with me, a story I won’t soon forget, and one that everyone needs to read. Five stars.

I borrowed the audible of this novel from the library, but loved it so much that I purchased a copy for my father and one for myself as well, because this novel is so powerful that it’s one for my shelves as well!

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From Goodreads: There is more than one way to drown.

Coral has always been different, standing out from her mermaid sisters in a society where blending in is key. Worse yet, she fears she has been afflicted with the dreaded Disease, said to be carried by humans—emotions. Can she face the darkness long enough to surface in the light?

Above the sea, Brooke has nothing left to give. Depression and anxiety have left her feeling isolated. Forgotten. The only thing she can rely on is the numbness she finds within the cool and comforting ocean waves. If only she weren’t stuck at Fathoms—a new group therapy home that promises a second chance at life. But what’s the point of living if her soul is destined to bleed?

Merrick may be San Francisco’s golden boy, but he wants nothing more than to escape his controlling father. When his younger sister’s suicide attempt sends Merrick to his breaking point, escape becomes the only option. If he can find their mom, everything will be made right again—right?

When their worlds collide, all three will do whatever it takes to survive, and Coral might even catch a prince in the process. But what—and who—must they leave behind for life to finally begin?

Taking a new twist on Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved—yet tragic—fairy tale, Coral explores mental health from multiple perspectives, questioning what it means to be human in a world where humanity often seems lost.

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Sara Ella’s Coral is a novel that deals heavily with mental health, and all of her characters are touched by it in some way, shape, or form. Ella’s descriptions of depression, anxiety, and suicide are brutal, and so she’s placed a trigger warning at the beginning of the novel, one I didn’t note when I was eagerly flipping through to the start of the story, and I regretted it. So, since Ella has published her trigger warning note on Goodreads as well as in the beginning of her novel, I’m also posting it below, because it’s powerful, and you need to know about it before you start this novel:

“Trigger Warning & A Note to My Readers: For my friends who have experienced trauma, a warning—this story may be triggering. I have done my best to approach the mental health topics addressed in this book in the most sensitive and caring way possible. But even all the research and sensitivity readers in the world would never make it so I could approach every aspect of mental health from every perspective. Your experience is unique to you.

Potential triggers include suicide, self-harm, emotional abuse, anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and unwanted/non-consensual advances.

With that said, while some of what I have written comes from research and some from the caring eyes of sensitivity readers who have lived through many of these experiences, other pieces come from my own personal experience with emotional trauma. If you have lost a loved one, I’m with you. If you face depression or anxiety, my heart aches with you in a truly personal way. If you have ever felt misunderstood for these things or simply wanted to escape altogether—I understand.

For the girl who is not okay. For the boy who wonders if it will ever get better. This story is for you.

My hope is that Coral’s tale may be a small pinprick of light in your darkness—a reminder that you are seen. You are loved. You are not alone. You are not nothing, my friend. And neither am I.

Sincerely,

Sara Ella”

I think if I’d read that trigger warning before starting this novel, I would have approached it in an entirely different light, and that is on me, and also why I need all potential readers to be ready for it. This is not a lighthearted tale, even though it deals with mermaids, and readers might think it’s going to be specifically a retelling of “The Little Mermaid.” It’s not. It’s not really a mermaid story at all, but rather an in-depth gritty look at characters who are emotionally broken, who are truly hurting for a multitude of reasons. I’ve read a number of books that tout that they deal with tragedy and mental health, but then find that the author sugar coats it all to create a happy ending. But this is not that story, and Ella does not sugarcoat anything.

I also think that had I read the trigger warning, I would have understood what was happening within the novel much quicker than I did, though the foreshadowing and hints are woven throughout.

What I mean is, Ella does not clearly connect the stories and points of view together for a very long time, which she is doing on purpose, but it is also frustrating for the reader, especially because she continually mentions happenings and starts down a pathway for the story and then just leaves the loose ends hanging for a majority of the novel… so long, in fact, that I nearly put this novel on my “did not finish” pile a number of times, because even at the halfway mark, I was still wondering what the purpose of the story was, and when the exposition would end and the rising action would begin.

The novel starts by introducing us to Coral, “the littlest mermaid” as she readies to turn 16 and take her place within her family. However, the Red Tide is coming for her oldest sister, and it’s bad… and that’s about all we initially know. Throughout the whole novel, we’re given many tidbits of information, but nothing concrete enough to really know what’s going on or what has happened in the past to these characters for us to make much sense of it all, or to begin making the connections needed. And while I think this was done in order to drive suspense, I think for me, it did the opposite, and confused me more than anything else. We jump from Coral to Brooke without much connection, then to Merrick, and round it goes, until suddenly, the mermaid world is no longer discussed and everything takes place on land. It’s here that I began to suspect what Ella was attempting to do with the story, yet the information we’re given is so halted that I felt like I always had more questions than answers as I read. It’s not until near the end that Ella confirmed my suspicions about who these characters are and how they’re all connected, and while I think it was a great plot twist idea, the execution of it fell a bit flat as it took so long and there was so much confusion prior, that it almost just fizzled out for me.

And yet, it works. While I did spend a majority of this novel thinking, “what is happening” and feeling like too much was glossed over and not fleshed out enough, when the plot twist was finally revealed, I felt validated—and this is when the real emotion of the novel hit me. That, and then another part towards the end, which I’m sorry to post about, as it’s a tiny spoiler, but one I feel potential readers need to know about because it is beyond tragic: a child commits suicide. That broke me. I was hanging on pretty well up until that point, but that is something that I did not expect and it really triggered me based on my own personal life, and I just… well, like I said, Ella does not sugarcoat, and she shouldn’t if she’s going to do a book on mental illness that hits home.

And this brings me to my conclusion—all this to say that this is a good book, although confusing and perpetually dark. Three stars.

I recieved an ARC of this novel, which releases today, from Thomas Nelson Publishing through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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From Goodreads: Allie Abraham has it all going for her—she’s a straight-A student, with good friends and a close-knit family, and she’s dating cute, popular, and sweet Wells Henderson. One problem: Wells’s father is Jack Henderson, America’s most famous conservative shock jock…and Allie hasn’t told Wells that her family is Muslim. It’s not like Allie’s religion is a secret, exactly. It’s just that her parents don’t practice and raised her to keep her Islamic heritage to herself. But as Allie witnesses ever-growing Islamophobia in her small town and across the nation, she begins to embrace her faith—studying it, practicing it, and facing hatred and misunderstanding for it. Who is Allie, if she sheds the façade of the “perfect” all-American girl? What does it mean to be a “Good Muslim?” And can a Muslim girl in America ever truly fit in?

ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL is a relevant, relatable story of being caught between two worlds, and the struggles and hard-won joys of finding your place.

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The premise for this novel is great, and I firmly believe we need more YA literature that tackles topics like this one, especially in the times we currently live. The beginning of the novel jumps right into the thick of Islamophobia, and it had me absolutely raging right alongside Allie, though whereas she keeps herself in check in order to help diffuse the situation (which she’s used to because she deals with racial bias all the time), as a reader removed from the story, I was able to spout all my feelings at the novel and the characters involved as I read, and I think it angered me even more that Allie has to keep her cool, and she is used to this treatment… no one should ever have to be used to this treatment!!!

Allie is a fair-skinned, redish haired sixteen-year-old who easily passes for not being Muslim due to her “looks” and the fact that she and her family are non-practicing, as she states throughout the novel. But Allie does start to practice, and I loved how she takes us on her journey with her as she begins exploring her heritage and religion, learning Arabic to begin speaking with her grandmother, studying the Qur’an, learning to pray, standing up for herself and her community, and ultimately finding herself in this coming-of-age story, even though she must defy her father in the process. As a non-Muslim myself, I learned a lot about the religion and its beauty, while also identifying with Allie and her friends, because people are people, regardless of religion or looks. I enjoyed that this novel focuses so much on Allie’s characterization and her thought-process and experiences as she struggles to make her choices and wonders if she’s doing the right thing because, as stated earlier, her father doesn’t want her to practice (due to both his own personal issues and the fact that he deems it unsafe in the today’s society), her boyfriend’s father is extremely racist, and Allie herself struggles with feelings of inadequacy, constantly wondering if she is “good enough” in her practice. Overall, I think Courtney did a great job dealing with a difficult topic, shedding light on it as well as giving it a voice, and I think more novels like this need to be written. Four stars.

I received an ARC of this novel from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

All-American Muslim Girl releases in two days, on Tuesday, November 11.

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From Goodreads: Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

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What if the world as we know it ended? This question has been asked many a time, but I’ve never read nor seen a story quite like this one. While the premise is one we’ve all heard before, one in which an illness wipes out over 90% of the world’s population, every man is for himself, factions appear, prophets and cults immerge, and the roads are not safe, Mandel throws a curve ball into the mix by adding Shakespeare. Perhaps every English literature and theater buffs dream, this dystopian world follows a troupe of actors and musicians who travel up and down the east coast bringing merriment to the small groupings of people that make up little towns, as it were.  I found this group, the Traveling Symphony, to be quite an interesting idea, and it made me start wondering if humanity’s love of the arts would indeed survive if the world as we know it was decimated… and how something so taken for granted in today’s society–music and theater–could and would prevail, bringing joy in the darkest of times.

While a strange premise, I appreaciated Mandel’s decision to follow the actors, and yet, I found this novel to be a tad boring. Following five different people, the portion of the novel that I found the most interesting detailed life before the decimation of the world, one in which we learn about the famous hollywood actor who eventually dies onstage at the opening of the novel (and the others–though they didn’t do much for me). Life after the collapse was, in my opinion, rather boring and somewhat too cookie cutter, as the troupe mostly just marches around, and the danger, while expected, is quickly resolved and glossed over repeatedly, almost too hurried for me to enjoy it. But I did enjoy how Mandel brought the five key characters all together, and being able to pinpoint how the characters were related was fun for me, though I really felt that the climax of the story left much to be desired. However, while some aspects of the novel I felt were hurried and lacking, the premise of the novel was quite intriguing, and Mandel’s prose is beautiful to read. Three stars.

I borrowed the audible version of this novel from the library.

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From Goodreads: A girl searches for a killer on an island where deadly sirens lurk just beneath the waves in this gripping, atmospheric debut novel.

The sea holds many secrets.

Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he’s one of the sirens’ victims. Moira isn’t so sure.

Certain that someone has framed the boy’s death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it’s too late—for humans and sirens alike.

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Powell’s debut novel, Songs from the Deep, is a fascinating “whodunit” that intertwines magical realism with every day island life, creating an almost gothic atmosphere that I thoroughly enjoyed! Moira Alexander, the strong willed protagonist of the story, and her beau Jude Osric, are an amazing pair to watch as they deal with not only the death of a young 12-year-old boy, but also the secrets that lie between them, the police that attempt to deter them, their own personal losses, and an island where everyone knows everything about one another. I loved Moira; she’s a strong-willed girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t sugarcoat it, refusing to back down and give in to anyone, regardless of who they are. While she can easily come across as rude, especially to her own mother and the other adults that populate this novel, since she’s technically only a 16-year-old girl, one must remember that this story takes place on a fictional island where life differs vastly from the world that the reader inhabits, and as the population of the island is relatively small and tightly knit, members of the island interact much differently with one another.

The people on the island have seen and dealt with more death and sorrow than most, as their waters are inhabited by sirens, creatures who not only inhabit water, but can also walk and survive on land. The sirens in this novel are seen relatively often, but the story itself is not about them per se; there is actually little interaction between the sirens and the characters, and Powell does not attempt to humanize the creatures in any way. I liked this, because sirens are a sea dwelling entity that entice their human prey through their melodious songs, and drags them to their deaths, and giving them a voice in this murder mystery would have defeintely changed the entire vibe Powell worked so hard to create.

This novel employs much foreshadowing, some of which will easily lead savvy readers to the truth of the mysteries much quicker than I would have liked, however, the way the novel comes together, and the ultimate end, made it all worth it to me. I really enjoyed this novel, and I think Powell is an author to watch as she continues to create compelling stories in the future. Four stars.

I recevied an ARC of this novel from Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Songs from the Deep releases in two day, Novemebr 5, 2019.

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