By Kristin Cashore
Read: Feb/Mar 2010
Rating: Worthy
Graceling was a gift, from someone who swore it was excellent. It should be, it has the endorsement of Tamora Pierce. It is a good book, with a good world, and enough momentum to keep one reading. I won’t say I adored it, but it was very enjoyable.
In the world [...]

By Holly Black
Read: February 2010
Rating: REAL
As someone who tends toward fantasy, I’ve heard over and over again that in order to make the fantastic seem believable, you have to ground it in the real. I never expected to find a book, any book, that would seem to mimic my own life so closely.
Kaye is a [...]

Once upon a time, I discovered a wonderful, wonderful book. Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted is immerses you in Ella’s world, giving you a best friend as well as an adventure.
Then Hollywood got their hands on it. And THEY RAPED IT.
Below is an off-the-cuff rant I wrote in 2004, before the movie was even released. [...]

By Margaret Sacks
Read: February 2010
Rating: Hmm
I want to talk about this book in two capacities–as a story, and as a representation of South Africa. My bestie gave it to me for Xmas, and it looks like a pretty rare find to me. I had no idea there were kids books about SA in 1989, when [...]

By Marni Bates
HCI Teens
Louder Than Words is a series aimed at teenagers about teenage experiences. Atypically, the volumes are also written by teenagers. It may seem bizarre to ask teenagers to write memoirs—as Marni says, her siblings laughed—but Louder Than Words is dedicated to “reinforce[ing] the message that the experiences of teenagers and their perceptions [...]

Reviewed for the Feminist Review
By Alaya Dawn Johnson
Bolden
Racing the Dark is unique among fantasy books. The world draws upon Pacific Island and East Asian cultures to create a rich blend very different from fantasy canon—an island nation with an animist religion centering on sacrifice and binding. Though a young adult novel, Johnson is unafraid [...]

By Hergé
Read: September 2009
Rating:
This was the very first Tintin book I ever got my hands on. So there’s nostalgic attachment to it.
Published in 1936, the squabbling countries make speeches to… The League of Nations! Funnily enough, there’s not mention of communism, at all. But I suppose that wasn’t so much on the public radar until [...]

By Hergé
Read: September 2009
Rating: Transitional
One can definitely feel the transitional quality of this volume. It FEELS like a Tintin book, but the story is quite choppy, and for good reason–originally, it was running as a serial. There is a consistent story arc, but it’s not like later books where everything is geared toward that one [...]

By E.L. Konigsburg
Read: July 2009
Rating: Excelsior
Ok, this was bloody good. There’s only one thing that bothered me at all, and the rest was really good.
Our narrator’s best friend, Branwell, is witness to–or perpetrator of–a horrible crime. He is so deeply affected by it that he cannot speak. The crime is the near-killing of his baby [...]

By Sharon Shinn
Read : June 2009
Rating: Ho hum?
Well, it wasn’t terrible. There were some good points, but it certainly wasn’t Shinn’s best. (It’s feeling a little redundant saying that…)
Essentially, it’s a story of imperialism, told for a young adult audience with a penchant for romance. Averie’s father is a general in what is a (thinly [...]

By Nancy Werlin
Read: June 2009
Rating: Excellent
There must have been some great turnover in the AuthorSphere. Newer YA writers–ie., books published after I stopped reading them (around age… 13?)–are clearly onto something. I mean, really, really onto something. It’s not just The Disreputable History. It’s How I Live Now and Libba Bray and Impossible. Cuz this [...]

By E. Lockhart
Read: May 2009
Rating: Brilliant
Wow. This is one of the coolest books I’ve picked up in quite a while. Somehow a hardcover wound up on the Bargain table at Borders, and when I learned that A) Frankie was a girl, B) She was leading the Loyal Order of Basset Hounds, and C) She was [...]

By Amy Mebberson
Status: On Hiatus, Storylines Complete
http://www.mimisgrotto.com/thorn
It took a little while for me to notice that my RSS feed had stopped updating… and that Thorn really had gone on hiatus/retired. Thorn was a labor of love for its artist, an attempt to get syndicated, and I really wish it had. Now that it’s over, I [...]

By Faith Erin Hicks
Read: April 2009
Rating: Squee
Not as good as Demonology 101, but by no means awful. It’s very rare to find someone who has a natural talent for very long works, but Faith Erin Hicks is one of them. Her long projects, like D101, are fantastic. This book is 156 pages, and it just doesn’t [...]

By Tamora Pierce
Read: First time in 6th grade? Multiple re-readings thereafter. January 2009.
Rating: Immortal.
I love Alanna. I love, love, love, love, LOVE her. I think I was about 12… possibly 10 or 11… when I found In The Hand of the Goddess at the public library. It was exactly what I had been craving. A [...]

By Donna Jo Napoli
Read: 1998, October 2008
Rating: Provocative
I still remember seeing Sirena on display at our school library, when it first came out. I was perhaps in 6th grade. It was on a special shelf, for the library’s special reader program–those readers got first pick of the new titles and were supposed to review them. [...]

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Disappointing
Gentle readers, it is a sad day for my bookshelf. I am usually very good about finishing the books I pick up, I hate stopping partway, unless they’re really trash. Even when something becomes mediocre, I see it through, if only to see how bad it gets. I got 2/3 [...]

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Intense
I totally missed the boat on this one. It’s a real shame, because I think I would have quite liked it at the time it was published, and I was just ten years old. At 22, I’m much more critical of some things, and less easy to impress in other [...]

by Robert C. O’Brien
Read: Middle school?, July 2008
Rating: J’adore
If you have never read about Mrs. Frisby, you are missing are a wonderful, crucial piece of childhood. I was given the movie, The Secret of NIMH (also reviewed below, when I was really, really young. Both my parents enjoyed watching it with me, and it was [...]

By Ann Pilling
Out of print.
Read: Initially, age 8/9. Reread Jan 2008.
Rating: Humn.
Once upon a time, when I was eight, we went on a trip to our homeland, South Africa. And there we went to a used bookstore (of course, this is MY family we’re talking about), and there I bought some comics (Perishers!) and this [...]

By Dan Hess
Books at Lulu.com
WWW: http://www.venisproductions.com/angelmoxie/
Read: February 2007
Rating: Qute
Genre: Magical Girl, Parody, Humor
Format: Four panels
Style: Grayscale
Published: In 3 volumes, or a compilation (link above)
If you always thought Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura were too saccharine, look no further. AM is not your typical Magical Girl comic. In fact, it’s a parody. Dan Hess took some [...]

By Jaclyn Moriarty
Read: January 2007
Rating: Wonderful
I was wandering around Strand, in desperate need of something to replace The Captain’s Caress (blech), and just when I’d given up hope, I found this. Somebody up in the Big Library of Time And Space loves me.
Elizabeth Clarrey lives in Sydney with her mother, and has a special relationship [...]

By Susan May Warren
Read: November-December 2006
Rating: Surprisingly Enjoyable (woah, 2 words!)
Again, school project, the same as Lambert’s Pride. I discovered that Harlequin has, in fact, been publishing evangelical Christian Chick Lit! Yes, Chick Lit! How’s that to make your head spin?
Josey has accepted Christ into her heart, but she has yet to find a man [...]

By Karen Cushman
Read: September 2006
Rating: Wundebar!
I haven’t reread this is years, but I’m so glad I did. Birdy is the most amazing heroine! She’s like Georgia Nicholson living in 1291! Because that’s what this is: it’s the diary of a fourteen year old girl living in the late 1200s. She is smart, snarky, and rebellious–and [...]

By Meg Rosoff
Read: August 2006, December 2009 (review stands)
Rating: Awesome
I loved this book. I finished it within a day because it was so good. It was recommended to me by my good friend Sreya and she was so right.
The novel is narrated by Daisy, a girl who grew up in New York under inauspicious circumstances. [...]

These books are huge. Undeniably huge. This is my most popular post, and I am just as excited as everyone else for The Sweet Far Thing (Book #3!) to be released on December 26th. I’ve pre-ordered as an Xmas gift for my mom.
A film is also in production, and you can get [...]

Since time and interest don’t allow for every book to get its own lengthy review, I’m going to do some mini-reviews. Clod save us all.
This install comes from the 2006 50 Book Challenge, which is going great guns, thanks. Books 1-20 were read during this time period. This mini review includes:

Yentl’s Revenge (Essays on Judaism [...]