Review of A Bright Heart, by Kate Chenli

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Bright Heart

by Kate Chenli

Union Square & Co., October 17, 2023. 331 pages.
Review written May 29, 2023, from an advance reader copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

As this book opens, Mingshin is being tortured and killed by her betrothed, Prince Ren, the man she funded and strategized with so he would become king. He tells her that he will marry her cousin, the one he always loved anyway, and no king would marry a commoner like her.

But as she lies dying, she begs heaven for a second chance – and something happens. She wakes up two years earlier, before she met Ren, soon after they moved to the capital city and the king announced that there would be a competition among his sons as to who would succeed him.

Now Mingshin knows that Prince Ren, as well as her uncle and cousin, cannot be trusted. Can she save her mother from her terrible death in the other timeline as well as their loyal servants and protectors? Can she keep the fortune they inherited from her father? And more importantly, can she keep the cruel Ren from winning the throne and stay alive?

But after being so horribly betrayed, when Prince Jieh shows an interest in Mingshin, she is afraid to trust him, either. After all, no royal would truly be interested in a commoner, would he? And when things start happening differently in this timeline, she’s not sure what course to take.

There’s magic involved in this story, and how it works is a bit murky at times, but we find out along with Mingshin, so that didn’t bother me too much. I like her cleverness and her determination to set things right.

Although this book comes to a resolution, there are many ongoing details, so I will look forward to the continuation of this story. A strong debut novel, with promise of more to come.

katechenli.com
unionsquareandco.com

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Review of Rebellion 1776, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Rebellion 1776

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2025. 416 pages.
Review written June 18, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Here’s a side of the American Revolution I had never heard. We’ve got Elspeth, an ordinary girl living in Boston in 1776 and working as a maid. Her mother and brothers had died of smallpox in Philadelphia, so her father took the two of them to Boston, and he found her a position as a maid. The book opens as cannons are firing from both the British, under siege in Boston, and from the Patriots, trying to dislodge them.

The British and Loyalists are driven out, and Pappa plans to evacuate at the same time. Elspeth doesn’t want to go, so she hides overnight – but Pappa never shows up! Did he leave without her? Did something happen to him? While she’s trying to find him, to get in touch with him, Elspeth works for the family that replaced the loyalist judge she’d been serving. But her position is precarious as a girl without her father there to vouch for her.

And then smallpox comes to Boston. Elspeth has had it, but now folks are being inoculated – given a light dose of the disease – which is still a dose of the disease. And still takes months to run its course! (And I thought being sick for a day after a vaccination was bad.) And her good friend wants to enlist as a soldier. And the 16-year-old ward of the family she serves has independent ideas. And there are nefarious characters making use of wartime to enrich themselves.

The whole tale pulled me in and made me think about ordinary people during wartime – and how most folks simply want to live their lives. But world events can make that difficult.

It was a delight to read about Elspeth’s resourcefulness and courage as she holds on when it seems like she’s alone in the world.

madwomanintheforest.com

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Review of Worth Fighting For, by John Pavlovitz

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Worth Fighting For

Finding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty Is Trending

by John Pavlovitz

Westminster John Knox Press, 2024. 154 pages.
Review written June 10, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I think of John Pavlovitz as someone who comes across as angry. However, even though this book features a picture of boxing gloves, it’s ultimately a book about making compassion our primary characteristic as Christians. And he indeed makes a strong case that this is worth fighting for.

The sections in this book are short, so it made an easy morning read to read one section. I found myself talking about what I’d read with other Christians, especially this passage:

What we believe about faith and God and the afterlife is not as fixed as we often like to think. It is rather an ever-shifting point in space and time. Very likely, you believe quite differently than you did ten years ago in both subtle and substantial ways, and ten years from now the same will almost certainly be true. In this way I like to think of theology as a place – as the specific location where you are right at this moment.

This is important as you interact with others, because it helps you recognize your limitations and potential. You cannot make someone be where you are. It’s not your job or your right to forcibly pull someone to your faith perspective, to make them see as you see or agree to the givens you’ve established in your mind. Your responsibility is to openly describe the view from where you stand and hope that something in that is helpful or encouraging or challenging to people. I never feel I need to convince someone to believe what I believe, only to let them know where I am and ask them to meet me there in relationship.

I love that perspective, because I hadn’t stopped to think about it, but, yes, my beliefs are quite different than they were ten years ago, in many ways. I think sometimes we feel like we’ve seen the light and been set straight in one particular area – so we want to set everyone else straight, too. But why would someone else have to follow the same path as me? John Pavlovitz comes at faith with a deep respect for each person’s journey with God – even of those who berate him.

Yes, John Pavlovitz often comes across as angry, but that seems to be coming from a place of compassion, for those who try to exclude others from the table.

He doesn’t pretend that it’s easy to be inclusive and welcoming. But compassion is worth fighting for.

Love is still the greatest weapon we have in the face of fear. It is still the antidote to all that afflicts us. No, opposing hatred isn’t hateful. Opposing hatred is how we embody love.

And he’s absolutely right that hatred and exclusion are becoming more and more common in our society. In the chapter “The Future We Want,” he includes a section on “The America Worth Fighting For” and encourages us to help make a future America that stands against white supremacy and defends the vulnerable. He encourages us all to use our own abilities to do what we can to make a better future.

Affirm life, speak truth, defend the vulnerable, call out injustices – and gladly brave the criticisms and the wounds you sustain in doing it, knowing that they are a small price to pay for the nation that could be if you speak – or the one that will be if you do not.

So that gives you an idea of what you’ll find in this book – encouragement to stand up and be more compassionate. Here’s another passage I marked:

Compassion is what defines the community we feel called into.

In this shared desire to care for one another and for this planet, we who are a disparate assembly find an affinity that transcends the other boxes. It is the bigger table we are building, the expansive community we are forming.

And this is the side we choose regardless of the other boxes: the side of empathy and equality and benevolence and diversity. These don’t come with a prerequisite doctrinal statement or political affiliation, nor with any condition regarding race or orientation or pigmentation. No group has a market cornered on such selflessness and decency.

The powerful thread knitting together this new chosen family in these days is humanity that gives a damn about other humanity. This is the place where like-hearted people can all find belonging and live fully and heal wounds and fix broken things.

And this compassionate coalition of those who give a damn is what will save the world.

johnpavlovitz.com

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Review of Brownstone, by Samuel Teer & Mar Julia

Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Brownstone

by Samuel Teer & Mar Julia

Versify (HarperCollins), 2024. 318 pages.
Review written February 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Printz Award Winner
2025 Cybils Award Winner, Young Adult Graphic Novels

Brownstone is a graphic novel about an almost-fifteen-year-old girl named Almudena sent to spend the summer in New York City with the Guatemalan father she’s never met while her dancer mother does a European tour.

Almudena’s not happy about it. Her father doesn’t speak much English, and she doesn’t speak much Spanish. So the neighbor lady comes over to translate. Almudena’s not sure how she feels about that. The address is a brownstone that looks beautiful on the outside – but on the inside, her father is in the midst of renovating it.

This is a story of Almudena getting to know the neighborhood and the neighbors and learning about her Guatemalan heritage. She also bumps against some prejudice when she befriends a lesbian who runs the local bodega, and learns about gentrification when some of those neighbors have to move because of rising rent.

It’s all lovingly told, and I enjoyed getting to know Almudena’s new family, too.

We end up with social commentary in readable, interesting graphic novel form.

marjulia.com

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Review of Suddenly a Murder, by Lauren Muñoz

Contemporary, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Suddenly a Murder

by Lauren Muñoz
read by Diana Bustelo

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written October 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Suddenly a Murder is a murder mystery (no surprise there!) set in the stately home of Ashwood Manor on an island, where seven recent high school graduates are spending a week immersed in the 1920s.

We find out right at the beginning that Izzy brought a gold knife to the party and took it into Blaine’s bedroom not long before he was stabbed to death there. We also know she feels guilty. And doesn’t want the detectives to learn about any of those things.

Izzy’s the only one not from a wealthy family. She attended the private school because her mother is a teacher there. Since their Freshman year, she’s been best friends with Cassidy, who took her under her wing with a fierce loyalty. The party is Cassidy’s gift to Izzy, because both of them love the old murder mystery movie that was filmed in Ashwood Manor long ago. Cassidy makes sure that everyone gives up their cellphones and modern clothes, and she’s equipped all their bedrooms with 1920s costumes – as if they’re going back in time to an actual 1920s house party.

But naturally, murder wasn’t part of the plan. It’s Cassidy’s boyfriend who turns up dead. As the evidence comes out (with Izzy listening to police interviews from a hidden passage), we also get flashback chapters and find out that all the friends on the island had some motive or other to kill Blaine. But which one will the detectives decide is guilty?

I was a bit impatient starting out with these spoiled rich kids and their interpersonal drama, I’m afraid. But as the mystery went on, I did get pulled in, wanting to hear the denouement, which did, in fact, surprise me.

I like a nice cozy locked room (or isolated on an island) mystery, and this one’s fun because the suspects are all teens. This is a debut, and I very much hope the author will give us more well-crafted mysteries to enjoy.

laurenmunozbooks.com

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Review of Beyond the Limit, by Joan Spicci

Fiction Review, Mathematical, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Beyond the Limit

The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya

by Joan Spicci

Tom Doherty Associates (Forge), 2002. 490 pages.
Review written June 8, 2025, from my own copy.
Originial review written September 1, 2003.
Starred Review

I’m celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks with #Sonderbooks25. My plan was to reread one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs and post about the process. Well, things got complicated because I couldn’t confine myself to that – but the fact remains that Beyond the Limit was the one book I chose from my 2003 Sonderbooks Stand-outs to reread. And I’m writing a new review, not because that one isn’t still valid, but to include a blog post and have a review in the new phone-friendly format, while reflecting on the book after a reread.

This is still my absolutely favorite novel about a mathematician. Okay, I haven’t read a lot of novels about mathematicians – but it’s still the book I bring up any time anyone asks about mathematical books for adults, and it’s always been included on my Sondermath page.

The crazy thing about this historical novel is that it’s all true. Joan Spicci learned Russian and translated books and letters by Sofya Kovalevskaya before writing this book – and then she put what she learned into a novel. And okay, it’s not a work of nonfiction and we can’t promise she got everybody’s motivations and words correct – but oh my goodness, it’s a compelling story. And checking the Wikipedia page suggests that all the big dramatic events of the story actually happened.

The story tells the quest of Sofya Kovalevskaya to be the first woman to get a doctorate in Math. She was born in 1850, and the book begins with her a teen in Russia, studying with tutors, but not allowed to go to university at all in Russia. And she can’t leave the country without permission from her father or a husband. So her sister and a group of friends start looking for a man who will enter into a fictitious marriage with one of them, intending to sponsor the other friends as well. They find Vladimir Kovalevsky, and he agrees to enter into such a marriage with Sofya – but realizing that a fictitious marriage was considered criminal sacrilege in Russia at the time. Vladimir himself was a scientist and a publisher, having published Darwin’s books in Russian.

And then the novel shows Sofya and Vladimir falling in love. But she doesn’t dare live as his actual wife, because if she were to get pregnant, that would end any chance for studying at a university. And she faces all kinds of prejudice anyway, eventually finding a mentor who has to tutor her privately in her PhD work.

But along the way, the historical backdrop is amazing. She goes with Vladimir to London and meets Darwin and his wife. And later, her sister gets involved in the Paris commune portrayed in Victor Hugo’s work, and Sofya herself gets involved working in the hospital in besieged Paris – and her sister and her husband get arrested. This was another thing that, if it were known, could have ended her academic career.

On this second reading, I got pretty annoyed with her sister. She scorned any idea of Sofya falling in love with Vladimir – and then later married a man for love herself. But the whole novel shows us Sofya trying to please her sister, no matter how her sister treats her.

The whole story is gripping and makes me appreciate my own education much more fully – and gets you cheering for Sofya and the many obstacles she faced simply to get to exercise her brilliant mind and do mathematics. I still highly recommend this amazing historical novel.

joanspicci.com

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Review of When Alexander Graced the Table, by Alexander Smalls and Denene Millner, art by Frank Morrison

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

When Alexander Graced the Table

by Alexander Smalls and Denene Millner
with art by Frank Morrison

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 36 pages.
Review written June 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a gorgeous picture book telling about when chef Alexander Smalls made his first pie for his family’s Sunday dinner.

Every spread is lavishly illustrated, and we start out with a view of the hustle and bustle around Sunday dinners – the highlight of Alexander’s whole life.

His Mom and Dad and sisters and Papa and Grandma and Auntie and Uncle and cousins would all gather and enjoy them together.

The week may have been long and a little tough, but Sunday dinners meant family was there for you. They gave faith in tomorrow.

And then, one Saturday night, Alexander’s Mom gives him permission to make his own franks and beans – and they turn out delicious! But his father didn’t want any.

So – Alexander makes something special for Sunday dinner – especially to please his father. He uses graham crackers, sugar, butter, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and lots and lots of lemons, fresh off the tree.

And then we have a wonderful figurative drum roll when Alexander graces the table with a pie he made all by himself.

There’s a close-up of his father’s face for the moment of truth.

The recipe is at the back of the book – with a note that it’s the first pie the chef ever made. Clearly the joy of making people happy led Alexander to his life’s work.

And this window on that inspiration will make you feel like you’re there.

alexandersmalls.com
denenemillner.com
morrisongraphics.com

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Review of The Moonlit Vine, by Elizabeth Santiago

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Moonlit Vine

by Elizabeth Santiago

Tu Books (Lee & Low), 2023. 360 pages.
Review written November 6, 2023, from a book sent by the publisher
Starred Review

The Moonlit Vine is a contemporary story of Taína, a 14-year-old descendant of Taíno women from Puerto Rico, combined with the story of those ancestors and a touch of magical realism with an amulet and zemi they handed down to her.

In the present, Taína’s older brother was recently in trouble for fighting and has been sent to live with their father, who has been living apart from them since he was sent to jail a few years ago. Her mother is working hard, leaving it to Taína to care for her younger brother, 7-year-old Luis, and watch over their abuela with Alzheimer’s.

And then Taína gets in trouble herself at school when she speaks up for herself a little too forcefully. On top of that, there’s gang activity in her neighborhood and she can’t get a straight answer from her brother what happened between him and the friend she has a crush on.

Taína’s modern-day problems are interwoven with stories of the women who went before her, starting with a great cacique of the Taíno people, Anacaona, who welcomed Columbus and worked to protect her people. Anacaona was the one who created the contents of the box that has been handed down all the way to Taína’s abuela.

The story is beautifully done, pulling in themes of community and family and standing together for change. The light touch of magical realism gives us an image of her foremothers standing with Taína. There’s an impressive amount of back matter about the Taíno people, who are definitely not extinct. This author did her research!

leeandlow.com

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Review of Candle Island, by Lauren Wolk

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Candle Island

by Lauren Wolk

Dutton Children’s Books (Penguin Random House), 2025. 340 pages.
Review written June 12, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Wow. Lauren Wolk has done it again – a powerful middle grade novel that gives you all the feels. It turned out it was the perfect length to read on a flight from Virginia to Portland, Oregon – and it left me in awe. (I’m going to leave it behind with one of my nieces in Oregon – they’re in for a treat!)

This is a novel about secrets. We get a list in the Prologue:

Six mysteries waited for me on Candle Island.

One involved a bird.

The second, a hidden room.

A song the third.

A poet the fourth.

A cat fifth.

A fire sixth.

Each of them exciting in its own way.

But none more interesting than the mystery I took with me.

The book opens as Lucretia Sanderson and her mother arrive on Candle Island in Maine. They’re coming in summertime, but they’re not summer people – they’ve bought a furnished house, and they’re planning to stay.

They’d left their home in Vermont after Lucretia’s father died in a car accident, hoping to get some distance from painful memories. But they also left to get away from journalists who have been hounding her artist mother after a New York gallery sold a Sanderson painting to the First Lady, and it’s hanging in the White House.

The first mystery – finding an abandoned baby bird not in a nest and figuring out what kind it is – is the simplest, and gets Lucretia exploring the island. They find lots of tension between the summer people and the island kids – and the island kids are pretty skeptical of Lucretia and her Mom. It doesn’t help that they’ve moved into the house of a girl who lived there three years ago and whose parents died after she moved out.

We do find out about Lucretia’s secret about halfway through the book, and it’s indeed the most interesting, and the most momentous one. Can she keep her secret? Can she make new friends if she does? And what about the secrets other people are keeping?

So this is a book about mysteries and secrets and knowing whom to trust – and feeling safe enough to share your secrets with people who have earned that trust.

And bottom line, this is a beautiful book set on a beautiful island off the coast of Maine. It will linger in your heart.

laurenwolk.com

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Review of Everything Is Tuberculosis, by John Green

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

Crash Course Books (Penguin Random House), 2025. 198 pages.
Review written June 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I am a fan of John Green’s turning to writing nonfiction. He thinks long and hard about so many aspects of his topic. The catch is that it’s hard to decide where to put this review. History? It’s full of that, but I put most adult History nonfiction in “True Stories” – which it also has. Musings? There’s plenty of thinking about what tuberculosis means to us humans and how things got that way. But I think I’ll settle for “Current Issues” – because ultimately the whole book shows us that we can choose to fight tuberculosis – or let it mutate and get more drug resistant and increase the number of people it kills every year.

I was a little bit familiar with the problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis spreading in poor communities because of having read Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, an amazing book that John Green refers to multiple times. This book is in that tradition – but honestly more readable and digestible. My theory is that John Green being a young adult novelist first is how that happened. The result is a compelling history of tuberculosis and humans’ relationship with it in a book that never lags.

John Green goes back in history – tuberculosis has plagued humans for thousands of years and has killed more people than any other disease – and shows us how attitudes toward the disease have changed, and tells us about the quest for a cure. Along the way, he interweaves the story of Henry, a teen in Sierra Leone who had been suffering from tuberculosis for years.

And yes, the story of tuberculosis is the story of prejudice. In years before the cure, many believed that non-white people didn’t get tuberculosis.

In Europe and the U.S., most white doctors believed that phthisis – as it was inherited by those with great sensitivity and intelligence – could only affect white people, and it was sometimes known as “The White Man’s Plague.” One American doctor, for instance, called it, “a disease of the master race not of the slave race.”. . .

Acknowledging that consumption was common among enslaved, colonized, and marginalized people would have undermined not just a theory of disease, but also the project of colonialism itself.

Now, though, tuberculosis is much more of a problem where there is poverty. Inflated drug prices keep poorer countries from using the most effective medication – which results in more drug resistant strains of tuberculosis, and may one day be everyone’s undoing.

My summary, though, isn’t nearly as interesting as John Green’s narratives, showing how everything is interrelated, and how tuberculosis has affected every aspect of human civilization. In the present, millions still die from tuberculosis every year – even though we have effective cures. This book explores all the sides of why that happens and gives us ideas for helping to stop it and eradicate TB once and for all.

johngreenbooks.com
tbfighters.org
youtube.com/@Tuberculosis-l1jSurvivorHenry

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