Review of The Music Inside Us, written by James Howe, illustrated by Jack Wong

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Music Inside Us

Yo-Yo Ma and His Gifts to the World

written by James Howe
illustrated by Jack Wong

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. 48 pages.
Review written March 24, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

The Music Inside Us is a picture book biography of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, which makes it a wonderful book even if it were an ordinary one.

Yo-Yo Ma began playing the cello as a four-year-old in Paris. The book shows him playfully enjoying music even as a small child. His family moved to New York City when he was seven and got him world-class teachers. He and his sister performed for large audiences even when they were very young.

But this book is special because it goes deeper. It talks about his quest to learn technique to make his cello sing. It talks about his questions of identity as a teen when he wondered if he was really meant to be a cellist.

In college, Yo-Yo studied anthropology and discovered that every group of people in the world makes music.

Yo-Yo decided that he would spend his life not only performing for others,
but learning from others about their musical traditions
and finding ways to bring cultures together through the music they make.

The book shows him connecting with people from all over the world, as well as with children.

I like the way the book finishes up with questions for the reader:

We are all born with gifts inside us,
our own music inside us.

And we can all ask the same kinds of questions
Yo-Yo Ma has never stopped asking.

Who am I?
Who are we?

How can we use the gifts inside us
to bring people harmony and joy
and make the world a better place
because we have been here?

jameshowe.com
jackwong.ca
abramsbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/music_inside_us.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Librarians, by Sherry Thomas

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery, Suspense 0

The Librarians

by Sherry Thomas
read by Louisa Zhu

Books on Tape, 2025. 13 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 24, 2026, from a library book.

Can I resist a book with this title and a picture of a smoking gun (with a face in the smoke) on the cover? No, I cannot.

Yes, this is a thriller with the main location being a small branch library in Austin, Texas. When two of the library’s patrons turn up dead on the same night as a library board game program, four of the library workers are embroiled in the mystery. No, not all of those four workers are actual librarians with a master’s in library science, but someone blithely states early on that it’s all the same to the public.

Usually when I read a book set in a library among librarians, I quickly notice many strange details. This one wasn’t too bad that way except for how much people blithely showed up to work when they weren’t scheduled. (Who does that?) They also didn’t seem to have any volunteers or Friends of the Library groups. Honey, that’s who should deal with piles of book donations, not library staff – and absolutely not on their time off.

But that didn’t bother my enjoyment of the book. Maybe they just weren’t good at using volunteers. The prologue shows us a man who’d embezzled millions of dollars going through books in this same library, and hints that his widow will turn up there. Then we flash to the present day and meet the four featured library workers.

Sophie is the branch manager. She’s Black and the single mother of an accomplished teen and she holds herself apart from her coworkers. Jonathan is a gay man who’s big and sturdy and a great help to the other library staff with his solid presence. He grew up in Austin. Blonde Astrid speaks with a Swedish accent. Six months ago, she had a fling with a library patron who then ghosted her, and she’s still sore over it. And Hazel is brand-new to the library. She came to live with her grandmother, whose health isn’t what it once was, but her grandmother urged her to get a job so she wouldn’t be in her hair at all hours.

We quickly learn that all four of these people are keeping secrets. The author consistently uses flashbacks all the way through the book to tell us about those secrets and other relevant developments. When two patrons turn up dead the same night the library hosted a board games program, it turns out that all four featured library staff were embroiled in some way with the victims or with the suspects of the crimes.

And that’s where the believability was strained for me. The connections between them mount, and it seems like that would require some big huge coincidences. Yes, some of them being in Austin are directly because of that embezzled money – but not all, and that doesn’t cover all of the interconnections.

Also, neither of the dead patrons was killed with a gun, but I assure you that the promise of the cover picture is fulfilled – at least one gun goes off before the end of the book.

So, yes, the book strained believability, but it was still a whole lot of fun. I liked the characters, I enjoyed their love interests, and it was fun reading about the secrets in their pasts. The murder mystery was solved with a thrilling conclusion. Of course, it then took two more hours of the audiobook to wrap up the details – but it was still a fun ride.

sherrythomas.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/librarians.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

48-Hour Book Challenge Starting Line!

48-Hour Book Challenge 0

It’s time for a 48-Hour Book Challenge!

I’ve been rereading old blog posts in honor of #Sonderbooks25, my 25th anniversary of writing Sonderbooks. I’m currently reading posts from 2009 – and it turns out that was when I did my first 48-Hour Book Challenge. And it’s time for another one!

The first one was the brainstorm of Pam Coughlan, who blogged at Mother Reader, and years later in 2020 started working in the same library as me. At the beginning she revved up the whole large kidlit blogging community (the Kidlitosphere) to get involved. The idea: Take a 48-Hour period and see how much of it you can spend reading.

2009 was before I had been on any award committees, but wanted to be. And spending hours reading still felt like a guilty pleasure. Doing the 48-Hour Book Challenge helped me shed any guilt – because that was what I *should* be doing for 24 hours.

In 2026? I no longer ever have any guilt for spending hours reading. But I do have a much too large TBR (To Be Read) pile(s). And besides, I went to Wild Goose Festival over Labor Day weekend and have otherwise been busy – and I want a concentrated time to read. And besides all that, Columbus Day used to be one of my favorite holidays of the year simply because the weather tends to be wonderful and it’s a good time for a break. We lost that day off when we were given Juneteenth (which is also a wonderful time to be off) – so I’m giving myself a long weekend for Indigenous People’s Day and taking both Friday and Monday off. My plan is to read for Friday and Saturday, have a regular Sunday with choir and church and tabletop games, and then try to do some much-needed home decluttering on Monday.

I’ve been doing my own 48-Hour Book Challenges ever since Mother Reader stopped. So I get to make my own rules. What I’m keeping is that the goal is time. How much time can I spend reading and blogging during the 48 hours from 9:50 pm tonight (Thursday) to 9:50 pm on Saturday?

I will allow myself to count listening to audiobooks when I’m doing things like preparing food or doing laundry. (I got off to a late start because I did my Friday night bill-paying tonight instead, plus my usual Thursday night grocery shopping.)

I’m going to allow blogging (like this), and writing and posting reviews. I want to write reviews of any books I finish that I like well enough. (Just finished an audiobook that I don’t like well enough. It does happen.) I will also count posting to Sonderquotes and working on #Sonderbooks25. I’m almost ready to post the summary post for 2009!

As of today, I may allow one other activity – writing. Today I got another very kind rejection for my book, Praying with the Psalmists, which my agent is submitting to publishers. We got the feedback we’ve gotten before – too much memoir for what that publisher does. So for a while now, I’ve been planning to write a proposal for a series of books looking at how you can use patterns from Psalms in prayer, but without so much memoir. They’d be a series of devotional books, featuring two types of Psalms in each book, beginning with Laments for Lent. They’d be a great follow-up to my original book. But they might work on their own if I can’t sell the original book.

All that is to say, I’m going to allow myself some writing time in there.

But my plan is to spend at least half the time reading. So after tonight – when I do want to do my usual postings – I’m going to try to never do more time at the computer than I have already done reading.

I am thinking that I’ll still try to sleep late the next two days, and I hope to also go for walks. But I’m hoping even with that, I can get a nice chunk of time reading.

Oh, and that picture at the top of this post? That’s the t-shirt I’m planning to wear tomorrow – the one full day of reading in the middle of the 48 hours.

And no matter how many hours I check off, I am sure that I will achieve the main goal – a wonderful 48 hours doing lots of reading! What a treat!

Review of The Duck Can’t Sleep, by E. B. White, art by Melissa Sweet

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Duck Can’t Sleep

by E. B. White
foreword by Martha White
art by Melissa Sweet

Quill Tree Books, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written October 5, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This little picture book is published for children, and I think children will like it, but in many ways its true audience is thoughtful adults who have ever experienced insomnia.

The text of the book is a poem that E. B. White published in The New Yorker when he was a young writer living in the city. His granddaughter writes in the foreword that he often went for a walk around the Central Park reservoir when he had something to think through.

This book tells about one of those strolls that happened at midnight – when he also found a duck awake and swimming around.

He has fun thinking about why the duck is up and about so late.

I wondered if he’d left his kind
Because of something on his mind.
A midnight sail to clear his vision
And help him reach some duck decision.

Eventually, he concludes that the duck simply can’t sleep. But the fun is in getting there.

And the illustrations by Melissa Sweet are what make this book pop. She’s poured love into them (see her picture book biography of E. B. White, Some Writer!), and each page is a beautiful work of art. The poem is simple and basically in a single setting, but she puts different angles and backgrounds on each page. I like the way you can tell it’s happening at night, but the subjects (duck and man) are lit up.

Will kids love it as much as I do? Try it out on your kids and tell me in the comments!

melissasweet.net

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/duck_cant_sleep.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Secure, by Amir Levine

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

Secure

The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life

by Amir Levine, MD

Tarcher, 2026. 264 pages.
Review written August 30, 2026, from a library book.

I’m a little ambivalent about this book. When I read Attached, back in 2012, I thought Aha! That’s what went wrong in my marriage! I have an Anxious attachment style and he had an Avoidant one.

But hold on. At the end of our relationship, my husband was having an affair. So yes, I was Anxious about our relationship. Yes, I noticed all kinds of little clues that something was wrong. And yes, he was avoiding closeness. He was trying to keep me from finding out the truth. This doesn’t mean it’s an enduring truth about me.

I’ve had two short-term boyfriends since getting divorced. With the first one, I was, honestly, looking for a new husband and a little quick to conclude maybe I’d found one. In that scenario, is it any wonder he came across as Avoidant, and I came across as Anxious?

But funny thing, in the next relationship, I was never completely sure we were a good match (and ultimately was the one who decided we were not) – and I had absolutely no trouble at all with Anxious behaviors. You could say it’s because I didn’t really Attach, but through the whole thing I felt Secure. I enjoyed the time we had together, but I wasn’t overly concerned whether it was going to continue or not.

In this book, they admit right off the bat that different relationships will have different levels of security. They’ve got a little test to rate yourself on different relationships. They do have a general test of your attachment style – and not being in a relationship at all, I came out as Secure, by that measure.

So I guess I’m trying to say that conclusions you may have made about yourself based on the original book about Attachment Theory really may depend on the situation.

This book is about helping make your attachments more secure.

Interesting to me, as part of #Sonderbooks25 celebrating 25 years of writing Sonderbooks, I’ve been reading quotes I posted on my Sonderquotes blog in 2008. Many of those quotes were from Codepent No More, by Melody Beattie, and The Little Book of Letting Go, by Hugh Prather – and the general drift of so many of the quotes that struck me when I was in the midst of healing from being cheated on were similar to the advice here about becoming more secure if you have a tendency to be anxious.

So it’s not bad advice. There are good nuggets here. With the distance of years, I’m thinking that at times there are reasons your attachment may become insecure that aren’t a reflection on your “attachment style.”

The fundamentals of a Secure life that he presents are surrounding yourself with people who are CARRP – Consistent, Available, Responsive, Reliable, and Predictable. So I think what I’m trying to say is that if you are attached to someone who suddenly stops being those things (like a cheating husband), your attachment to them will stop being secure. This book helps you feel more secure in yourself and helps you know when to let go as well as when to be willing to attach (for those tending toward avoidance).

He’s got some more detailed ways to help you adjust in different situations, and tips to help keep out of pitfalls for the different attachment styles. There are several situations presented, and I did well on the little quizzes, so maybe I have learned to be secure.

So this book goes a little further into attachment styles. It doesn’t merely diagnose, but also gives ideas and strategies for becoming more secure. I think I might have found it more helpful if I were currently in a romantic relationship.

amirlevinemd.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/secure.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore, by Diana Peterfreund

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ellen Poe

The Forgotten Lore

by Diana Peterfreund
read by Marli Watson

Hachette Audio, 2026. 7 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written September 11, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.

I love Diana Peterfreund’s books, especially For Darkness Shows the Stars, so I was happy when the library got this new series on audio. This book begins the story of teen Ellen Poe Reynolds. Her family claims that they are descendants of Edgar Allan Poe and a maid he had a fling with before his death.

Ellen and her father have always been skeptical of the stories. But now Ellen is living with her aunt in the family home in Poe-obsessed Baltimore, while her dad is out west trying to earn some money for a place of their own. Aunt Marie is trying to turn the old family home into a Poe-themed Bed and Breakfast, so Ellen has to put up with things like a stuffed raven in her bedroom.

Is it any wonder she has nightmares? But when one of the dead people in her recurring dreams shows up as a new kid at her high school, her exclamation, “You’re dead!” gets badly misinterpreted. However, the boy is intrigued, because he recently died but was revived. How did she know?

At the same time this is going on, in the clutter of boxes, Ellen finds an old journal with the initials E. A. Poe. When she takes it to school, she starts seeing the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe following her. He talks to her – but only using lines from his writing.

The journal is in code, but when Ellen decodes it using a decryption website, she finds what may be unpublished poems of Edgar Allan Poe. If she can prove it, their money troubles will be over. At the same time, the poems contain clues that lead her to the middle of some kind of treasure hunt involving a mysterious group in the city.

And while she’s working on that, it turns out the dreams may be warning of danger.

This is a fun story with code-breaking and puzzles to solve, with lots of Poe trivia on the side. Ellen’s a likable character in the tricky situation of seeing a ghost who isn’t visible to anyone else. I’m pleased that the next book in the series is coming out in October.

dianapeterfreund.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ellen_poe.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Ready for Autumn Reading

Book Talking with Sondy 2

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book.  It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

— Juliet Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

#Sonderbooks25

As it happens, as part of #Sonderbooks25, I’m listening to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and it’s proving every bit as delightful as I found it when I wrote the review in 2009.

This last month, I did finish rereading reviews and other posts from 2008 and wrote up those reflections.  And I am very close to finishing 2009.  I also reread (via audio) Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card, and with it, too, loved it every bit as much as when I made it a Stand-out after first reading it.

And so this project is making the list of books I want to reread much longer and unmanageable.  I will probably mostly get around to the ones that our library has as eaudiobooks.  If you see me walking around with a little smile on my face, it may have to do with immersing myself in a truly great book that is also an old friend.

And reading the old blog posts reminded me that 2009 was when I attended my first KidLitCon and participated in my first 48-Hour Book Challenge.  And as I happen to be behind in my reading – I’m taking a day off to do another one next weekend!

Wild Goose Festival

But September was also the month I went to Wild Goose Festival!  I got to talk about my book and met several progressive Christian authors whose books I love, and I wrote about it – and the storm that interrupted my session – on my Sonderjourneys blog.

Library Insider Info

I’m getting excited about the second-grade field trips.  I’d heard about them last month, but was thinking more of what a lot of work library staff will have to do to make them a success.  Now, having been to a virtual session with the planners, I’m impressed by how well they’ve planned it and the resources available to branch staff – a complete script for visits and planning checklists.

Here’s the background: The plan between our county schools and library is that every second grade class will attend a field trip to a public library.  Each student will check out one book on their special-access library card.

I heard some numbers.  There are over 11,000 second graders in this county, and 535 second grade classrooms.  They are thinking they can make it happen with 304 field trips.  (With more than one class coming at a time.)  So it is an ambitious project!

I work at Technical Operations, on the back side of a regional library.  We saw a school bus in the parking lot, so I chose that moment to walk to the branch and return a couple books.  I saw one group of second graders in a meeting room listening to the Youth Services Manager (on his last day before retirement), and then in the library itself, a line of second graders were all holding a book each to check out.

What made my heart truly happy was seeing the chairs across from the circulation all filled with second graders happily reading.  They didn’t pay any attention to me because they were all looking at their books.

Now, my professional worry is that some of the smaller branches will run out of the books that appeal to second graders.  But I saw a list of books checked out on those special cards on the first day of field trips – and they cover a complete range: picture books, graphic novels, chapter books, beginning readers, and nonfiction.  So because they have a wide range of interests, and we offer a wide range of materials, I think that even by the last field trip, they will be able to find books they are excited about.  (And I will keep an eye on those lists as the year progresses.)

A report from one of the second grade teachers is that the kids couldn’t wait, and they were all reading in the bus on the way back to school!

Reviews to Check Out

I posted 19 reviews in September, and wrote 17 new reviews – so a little less backlog.  🙂  I currently have far too many interesting nonfiction I’m working on – so I’m reading a little bit at a time for a bunch of them, and it’s all taking longer.

But let me draw your attention to some especially good books I posted about last month:

In the order they were posted:

The Neverfear, by Katherine Rundell.  This is the third book in the Impossible Creatures series, and I will go so far as to say I think it is the best fantasy series for kids I’ve read in a long time.

Translation State, by Ann Leckie.  Another brilliant science fiction novel in a mind-bending world, this time a thriller as well.

Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest, by James Martin, SJ.  An entertaining memoir about the very wide variety of jobs he’s had in his life.

The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray.  I’m trying to catch up on this series, where the children of Jane Austen characters solve mysteries involving other Jane Austen characters.  Super fun! [And check out my Austenalia page if you like Jane Austen knock-offs.]

Holloway, by Elana K. Arnold, features an autistic teen from 2021 time-traveling back to 1946 France and getting put in an asylum which is surprisingly an actual refuge.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.  I heard this author speak at Wild Goose Festival, and I have already begun her new book, Live Laugh Love, about white Christian women.  This earlier book is a history of white evangelical culture and how it got all tangled up with rugged masculinity and led to supporting Donald Trump and ideas like those in Project 2025.

There are plenty more reviews for all ages on Sonderbooks.com!  And don’t forget you can subscribe to the blog to get daily, weekly, or monthly reviews.  (This post is the monthly version.)

And I finished off September by attending Patapsco Literary Festival in Ellicott City, Maryland.  I didn’t attend very many sessions, but unlike the National Book Festival, it was not crowded and it was lovely.  I bought some books from the authors I heard, and plan to get there earlier next year.

How about you?  Read anything good lately?

Thanks again, so much, for your support!

As always, Happy Reading!

Sondy

Sonderbooks.com

Review of Who Is Amy Schneider? by Amy Schneider

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Who Is Amy Schneider?

Questions on Growing Up, Being Curious, and Winning It Big on Jeopardy!

by Amy Schneider

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 150 pages.
Review written June 1, 2026, from a library book.

Who Is Amy Schneider? is the Jeopardy! champion’s autobiography, adapted for young readers from her adult book, In the Form of a Question.

Yes, the book explains what it takes to win on Jeopardy! – growing up a curious kid and doing lots of practice tests, among other things. But this book is especially good for a simple story of what it felt like for Amy to come out as transgender. She was an adult when she did that, but she does talk about difficulty as a child being the boy she was expected to be.

Fun fact: I once tried out for Jeopardy! That was when they went around the country doing in-person tests. I didn’t get past the test phase. Now they have the tests online, and it turns out, Amy Schneider didn’t pass her first online test either. But she kept trying.

This is a chapter book, written at a level for elementary school or middle school kids. It shows readers that curious kids can end up going far.

simonandschuster.com/kids

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/who_is_amy_schneider.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Thornhedge

by T. Kingfisher
read by Jennifer Blom

Macmillan Audio, 2023. 3 hours, 43 minutes.
Review written April 28, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 Hugo Award Winner
2024 Locus Award Winner

What if the beautiful princess sleeping in the tower absolutely should not be woken?

This delightful and immersive novella is narrated by Toadling. Toadling was born human, a princess even, but when she was only an hour old, fairies stole her from her crib and replaced her with a changeling. She was brought up by loving water sprites. She learned magic from them, took on many of their characteristics, and can turn into a toad at will.

We first meet her watching over a tower for hundreds of years, hoping against hope that humans have stopped telling stories about it and that the thick thorn hedge and the brambles she set about it will keep all humans away.

But then, after years of quiet, a poor rundown Muslim knight comes and camps near the thorn hedge. He has read about a princess in the tower, and his curiosity compels him to find out if it’s true. But then he meets Toadling and becomes the first person to speak to her in hundreds of years – and he won’t be warned away.

As Toadling deals with this unexpected and hard-to-dissuade intruder, we learn more about her story and why she’s guarding the tower. And we, too, come to hope that the princess will not be woken.

Yes, there’s some danger and darkness in the middle of this tale, but we come to love the characters and the way it wraps up in the end is absolutely perfect. This is a tale to treasure.

redwombatstudio.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/thornhedge.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of You and Me on Repeat, by Mary Shyne

Award Winners, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

You and Me on Repeat

by Mary Shyne

Henry Holt and Company, 2025. 220 pages.
Review written February 17, 2026, from a library book.
2026 Morris Award Finalist

It’s graduation day… again. Yes, this is a time loop graphic novel. It won me over on the first page when, instead of going through the process of the main character figuring out they’re in a time loop, the book starts on Loop 20.

Chris is convinced he’ll get out of the loop if he manages his first kiss with his girlfriend that he was trying to orchestrate at the party after graduation – that keeps getting interrupted in every loop.

But Chris admits that someone else was in the loop first. Alicia, whom he’d been friends with before high school, is the one who pulled him into the time loop. She volunteers to help him get that perfect kiss, though she doesn’t think it’s going to work out.

And it’s just a fun story. They try to divert themselves in various entertaining ways as they repeat graduation day over and over. And when there’s only one person who remembers what you did the day before, you’re going to grow closer.

This book does attach the time loop to physics and even goes for a pseudo-explanation. I don’t buy time loops at all if my mind gets involved – but they’re still lots of fun to read about and just let the explanation go.

maryshyne.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/you_and_me_on_repeat.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?