Review of Lunar New Year Love Story, by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham

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

Lunar New Year Love Story

written by Gene Luen Yang
art by LeUyen Pham

First Second, 2024. 350 pages.
Review written March 27, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This graphic novel is sweet and wonderful. Last night, I intended to just dip into it for a few minutes — and came up for air about an hour later, when I’d finished it.

It’s the story of Valentina, a junior in high school. She loved Valentine’s Day when she was a kid and made elaborate valentines with the spirit only she can see, Saint V. But back when she was a freshman, she had a disastrous Valentine’s Day. After that horrible and memorable day, she changed her feelings about Valentine’s Day, and Saint V stopped appearing to her as a sweet cherub, and more like a frightening ghost.

Now Saint V has given her one year to find true love – until next Valentine’s Day. He’s asking for her heart — if she gives her heart only to the old spirit, she can escape her family’s curse of suffering with love.

She finds a wonderful boy when she joins a group of Lion Dancers. But why won’t he call her his girlfriend? There’s a lot going on as she looks for love, and it’s tied together with her own family history, with lion dancing, with friends who have different attitudes toward love, with spirits, and with Val choosing her own path.

I really enjoyed seeing LeUyen Pham draw older characters than what I’m used to. I can still recognize her basic style, but it’s softened, and the result is truly beautiful images. In graphic novels, I like to be able to tell the characters apart, and she achieved that well.

I did not at all begrudge my unplanned hour reading this book, and closed it with a smile. A truly lovely graphic novel.

geneluenyang.com
leuyenpham.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/lunar_new_year_love_story.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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss, by Amy Noelle Parks

Contemporary, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss

by Amy Noelle Parks

Amulet Books, 2020. 361 pages.
Review written August 27, 2021, from a book purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review
2022 Mathical Book Prize Honor Book, Grades 9-12

An adorable teen romance about a girl who’s a math genius, which always scores points for me.

Caleb has almost kissed his best friend Evie Beckham fourteen times. One of those times, when they were thirteen, he told her what he wanted to do, and she was not onboard. So he has been careful ever since not to let her know.

Almost four years ago, Evie talked him into applying to Newton Academy, a selective math and science boarding school. Caleb was surprised when he was accepted, but knew it was the right place for Evie. At Newton, he has watched guys try to ask Evie out, while she has shown no interest whatsoever.

But in their senior year, a new kid named Leo has come to Newton Academy. He gets Evie’s attention by being nearly as good at physics as she is, and Caleb is horrified when they start dating.

Caleb is still Evie’s best friend, though, and he knows how to help when she has an attack of social anxiety. Last year, Evie wasn’t able to cope with giving a presentation when her paper was accepted to the Frontier awards. So this year, she plans to do a project with Caleb. She’ll do the math, and he’ll do the coding.

This book maintains a wonderful balance of describing their high-level project while keeping the reader interested in the relationships. We alternate between Evie’s and Caleb’s perspectives and wonder if she’ll ever wake up to how her best friend feels about her.

The author is an associate professor of mathematics and I love that she can write such a relatable teen romance. I also appreciate that it’s the heroine who’s the star math student. The book does show many underestimating her because she’s female. There’s also some stereotyping of the mentally ill math genius, but since Evie is fighting against that stereotype – even coming from her own mother, it adds to the story instead of detracting. Evie takes her mental health into her own hands and throughout the book, we see her coping with her social anxiety in positive and helpful ways.

I confess – this book kept me reading into the small hours of the morning. Too much fun to stop!

amynoelleparks.com
piquebeyond.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/quantum_weirdness_of_the_almost_kiss.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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Concrete Rose, by Angie Thomas

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

Concrete Rose

by Angie Thomas
performed by Dion Graham

HarperAudio, 2021. 8.25 hours on 7 compact discs.
Review written August 26, 2021, from a library audiobook

Concrete Rose tells the story of seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter. As the son of a legendary gang member, now in prison, he follows in his father’s footsteps in the King Lords gang. As the book opens, he learns that a one-time incident when he and his girlfriend were on a break means that he is now a father. The same day the paternity test comes back, his baby’s mother takes off and leaves the baby with Maverick.

The rest of the book shows us Maverick figuring out what it means to be a good father. He wants to provide for his kid, so that means selling drugs with the gang, right? The owner of the store where he works after school doesn’t think so. But he doesn’t understand what Maverick is up against.

Things get more and more complicated for Maverick, and he makes some not-so-great decisions along the way, but I love the way Angie Thomas brings us along with him, not judging him, understanding how tough he has it. I also love the way she winds things up with hope at the end.

The narrator did a great job with this book. He takes on the street dialect smoothly and naturally in a way I couldn’t have necessarily reproduced reading print. Maverick tells the story in his own voice, and I felt like the kid was talking to me.

angiethomas.com
harperaudio.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of The Faithless Hawk, by Margaret Owen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Faithless Hawk

by Margaret Owen
read by Amy Landon

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2020. 12 hours, 29 minutes.
Review written January 21, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Faithless Hawk concludes the duology begun in The Merciful Crow, and although the first gives a satisfying story on its own, you won’t want to read the second without it. And if you’ve read the first, you’ll want to read on — so I count myself lucky that I didn’t discover this author until this duology was finished, so I could read them only a couple weeks apart.

I was nervous about the title. Because our hero Fie from the Crow caste is in love with a boy from the Hawk caste. They have to go separate ways at the end of the first book, and the title worried me.

And yes, in the first book, Fie has to attempt to get Prince Jasimir and his cousin and body double to their allies. In this book, they need to get ready to take on the evil queen herself. And when they hear the king has died of the plague, they know she will be making her move.

Well, the queen is more powerful than they ever imagined, and it looks like they’re doomed. It’s going to take desperate measures to defeat her — and it looks like the one Fie loves has made a bad choice.

This book goes much deeper into this world and the castes and the dead gods reborn and the ways the magic works. There are twelve castes, each with their own birthright. Except the crows, who seem to have none, but can commndeer any other caste’s birthright if they have a tooth from someone of that caste. But one thing leads to another, and Fie is told that their birthright was stolen, and if she keeps an ages-old covenant, she can get it back.

It’s all wonderfully done, with several places where I thought I was just going to have to accept a terrible ending and other places where information I’d been given before produced a moment of recognition where I realized how something would work. And okay, there were some other places where I was completely surprised by the turn things took.

But it all adds up to another wonderful book by one of my new favorite authors — and deep sadness that now I’ve read all of her books and the next one doesn’t come out until 2025. (Here’s hoping Amazon got that wrong and really it’s sooner.)

margaret-owen.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

What did you think of this book?

Review of Check and Mate, by Ali Hazelwood, read by Karissa Vacker

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Check & Mate

by Ali Hazelwood
read by Karissa Vacker

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written March 13, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I decided to read this book to find out what all the fuss was about, because since the day it was published, it has been high on the list of most holds for young adult books for our library in Overdrive’s Libby. I was enchanted. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it’s about a young woman taking on competitive chess.

As the book opens, Mallory is 18 years old and it’s the summer after high school. Her friends are getting ready to head off to faraway places to go to college. But Mallory’s staying home, working as a mechanic at a garage that used to be her uncle’s. Her mother has rheumatoid arthritis and she and her two younger sisters need Mallory to stick around and get the mortgage paid. Their dad is long gone — and it had to do with chess, which Mallory decided to completely give up four years ago when her dad left.

But now Mallory’s best friend cajoles Mallory into playing chess in a charity tournament. Once there, much to Mallory’s surprise, she defeats Nolan Sawyer, the reigning world champion — someone she idolized back when she was playing chess, and who also happens to be incredibly handsome.

After that, Mallory gets offered a year-long fellowship at a chess club that wants to increase women’s participation in competitive chess. She doesn’t intend to take it, but bills need to be paid, and she sees no other choice. Then she tells herself that she can just treat it as a job and stop thinking about chess when she clocks out. Oh, and she doesn’t tell her family, because she doesn’t want to hurt her mother by talking about chess, which will make her think of Mallory’s dad.

So that’s how the fun begins. The reader will not be surprised when Mallory has more and more encounters with Nolan Sawyer. And she has a lot of natural talent, and the chess club training is helping her develop that.

The book also makes a strong point about misogyny in the world of competitive chess. The author’s note says that a real study was done, and women playing online who were told they were playing men did worse against the same opponents as when they were not told gender or were told they were playing against women. Mallory is the only woman in the tournaments where she competes and has several microaggressions to navigate. But through it all — what does she think of Nolan Sawyer? The interaction between them is beautifully portrayed, with each having some past baggage and some obstacles to navigate.

Since young adult novels have changed so much since I started writing reviews, I will mention that at the start of the book in particular, Mallory has recreational sex with both men and women. She doesn’t want to get close to anyone she has sex with, because that can get messy. The sex isn’t described in detail on the page, but it is talked about a lot. Actually in very open ways. Later when it turns out that Nolan is a virgin, they talk about both ways of being in the world without judgment. (But at the start I was thrown for a loop by how freely Mallory talked about having sex and how frequently she seemed to be doing it. Like I said, young adult novels have changed a lot in the last 24 years.)

But the romance here! Exquisite! I honestly think the fact that this was a story of falling in love over chess was especially what made me love it. And a brilliantly smart heroine! Falling in love with an incredibly smart guy! No shade whatsoever on nerdiness. And it reminded me of being in high school back in the early 1980s. I had learned that if we went on a bus trip (with choir or with my church group) — if I brought along my magnetic chess set and asked if anyone wanted to play chess — it was a sure-fire way to get to sit with an attractive guy on the bus! (Because smart guys who could play chess were the most attractive to me, anyway.) I did feel like I messed this up a little by usually beating them. But falling for someone over a chessboard? Oh yes, it gives me all the feels. And in the book, the guy is a worthy opponent who fully appreciates Mallory’s intelligence and likes her better because she can give him a challenge. Yes!

Now, I’ve never played competitive chess. I was never interested in memorizing openings and gambits and defenses, preferring games where you have to figure it out at the time. As an adult, I like games that make you think, but preferably with some small element of luck so that the same person (even if it’s me) doesn’t win all the time. I’m not completely sure her descriptions of chess play were authentic or if a talented player could suddenly do so well after time away from the game. But I wanted to believe, and it was plausible enough for me. Speaking against misogyny in chess was a bonus.

I don’t think you have to like chess to enjoy this book. But I love this story of two highly intelligent people falling in love and treating each other as equals. Beautifully done.

alihazelwood.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

What did you think of this book?

Review of Call Down the Hawk, by Maggie Stiefvater

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Call Down the Hawk

by Maggie Stiefvater
read by Will Patton

Scholastic Audiobooks, 2019. 13 hours, 47 minutes, on 12 compact discs.
Review written December 14, 2020, from a library audiobook

Call Down the Hawk is billed as the first book in The Dreamer Trilogy, but I think readers will appreciate it more who have read the four books in The Raven Cycle, beginning with The Raven Boys. That series starts out being about Blue and Gansey, but is almost taken over by Ronan Lynch and his brothers. This new trilogy is about Ronan.

So if you already know the background, it won’t take as much getting up to speed. Ronan is a Dreamer – when he dreams at night, he brings back objects from his dreams. They don’t have to be possible objects – they don’t have to actually exist in reality. If he can dream it, he can wake up to find it real. One problem with this is that if Ronan goes too long without dreaming, he starts weeping a black fluid which will eventually kill him.

In this book, we meet some other Dreamers, notably a girl named Hennessy. Every time she dreams, she brings back a copy of herself, and another flower tattoo appears on her neck. The girls live together and specialize in forging art. They can easily pose as Hennessy herself. But they all know that when Hennessy runs out of room for flower tattoos, she’s going to die.

We also meet some Moderators and Visionaries. Visionaries dream what’s going to happen in the future. And all the Visionaries are saying that the world will be destroyed – because of something a Dreamer is going to bring into reality. The obvious solution? Kill all Dreamers. We follow along with one Moderator and the teen Visionary she monitors in order for him to lead her to more Dreamers.

There’s a lot more that’s going on in this book, and it quickly draws you in with the strangeness and the fascinatingly mind-bending scenarios. Things do not resolve by the end, though some of the threads do come together.

The reader of this book has a gravelly voice I didn’t find attractive, but the more I listened, the more I felt thought an unusual voice fits this particularly unusual book.

As with The Raven Cycle, there are many unpleasant things that happen in this book, but they are so unusual and so mind-bending, that I’m going to have to read on and find out what happens next as soon as I get the chance.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

What did you think of this book?

Review of All the Days Past, All the Days To Come, by Mildred D. Taylor

Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

Viking, 2020. 483 pages.
Review written November 12, 2020, from a library book

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come continues the story of Cassie Logan and her family that Mildred Taylor wrote about in her previous books, including the Newbery winner Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It’s been awhile since I read that one, and that’s the only one of her books I’d read, but she gives enough information so I didn’t feel lost.

This book covers Cassie’s start into adulthood. In fact, I think the only real reason this book is in the YA section is because the earlier books were for kids and teens, and this is the same family. The book has a Prologue in March 1944, and then covers 1945 through 1963. Many members of the family, including Cassie, move to Toledo, Ohio. From there, she spends some years in Los Angeles (I enjoyed that I knew the area that part described much better.) and also in Boston. Throughout the book, they go back to Mississippi where their family has land.

And everywhere they go, throughout the book, they encounter discrimination and segregation. Relentlessly and repeatedly, even in the north. By writing this as a sweeping family story over years, I felt the pain of that more than when it’s simply described to me. They never were able to escape it. The fifties and sixties brought some particular fights, with some victories but also some losses.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was pulled into the story. At the same time, it was depressing and discouraging. Regarding the incidences of racial discrimination, I think that discouragement shows that the book pulled me into the story. However, I was also disappointed that the author didn’t give Cassie a happier life! She had some terrible losses that seemingly happened at random. And the book doesn’t really come to a place of resolution at the end, simply stopping at a place where their struggle continues.

They’d been fighting voter suppression and do end with an Epilogue about going to the inauguration of Barack Obama. For me as a reader knowing who got elected eight years later, that’s not quite as triumphant as I would wish.

This is a powerful story, and it does stir the reader up about injustices based on skin color. So it’s probably appropriate if it feels a little depressing. I’m also sure that readers who have read the earlier books will be excited to find out how Cassie’s adult life starts out.

penguinrandomhouse.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of The Prisoner’s Throne, by Holly Black

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Prisoner’s Throne

A Novel of Elfhame

by Holly Black
read by Barrett Leddy

Hachette Audio, 2024. 11 hours, 58 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Okay, I confess. We don’t order ebooks or eaudiobooks until the day they’re published (because they don’t require physical processing), and I used my insider knowledge to check out this eaudiobook from our library the same day it came out. I didn’t do as I was tempted and stop my previous audiobook in the middle, but as soon as I started listening to this one, it was every bit as good as I’d expected after reading The Stolen Heir.

And yes! This sequence is only a duology! So no more suspense — the story is finished. (Though there are hints at where we might find drama for the next book.) And wow.

Yes, you should read The Stolen Heir first. And while you’re at it, you should read the entire trilogy that introduced us to Elfhame that begins with The Cruel Prince. I probably should have used this as an excuse to do some rereading, especially to remember side characters and how the different enchantments work, but it didn’t take long to feel like I at least generally knew what was going on.

I don’t want to tell any plot points, because that would give away things from earlier books. So let me talk about what I like in this book and in this series.

In the series in general, I like the romance, but I also like the politics. Which doesn’t sound like as much complete fun as you’ll find here, so let me reword that — I like the court intrigue. It works out to plots and counterplots and trying to figure out whom to trust. There’s a whole lot of that going on in this duology, as Oak is the heir to the High King of Elfhame, and Wren is heir to the Court of Teeth — which was supposedly defeated. In this book, we learn that Prince Oak has been cultivating people who are conspiring against the High King in order to thwart their plans — but he neglected to tell the king and his sister the queen what he was doing. So any little amount they find out makes him look treacherous.

I like that The Stolen Heir was told from Wren’s perspective, and The Prisoner’s Throne from Oak’s perspective. I also like that we can’t be sure for either title exactly which main character the title refers to. Wren has been a prisoner before, and Oak is a prisoner as the book opens. Both are heirs to a throne, and there’s a sense where you could say each is stolen away.

I like the romance in this book, building on the previous book. I like the way it’s based on who they are and what they’ve learned about each other — even when appearances don’t look good for them.

And I like that I don’t have to wait impatiently for the next book — although I very much hope there will be one, about some different characters. But I like that Oak and Wren’s story was resolved.

This series has shaped up into an amazing saga, spanning the mortal world and the world of faerie and how it all works. There is a lot of death and destruction, but you appreciate that Oak and Wren are both trying to do the right thing in this violent world. They both want to find someone who sees them, knows them, and loves them.

If you haven’t started the series yet, I highly recommend it.

blackholly.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

What did you think of this book?

Review of Return of the Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner, read by Steve West

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Return of the Thief

by Megan Whalen Turner
read by Steve West

Blackstone Audio, 2020. 11 hours, 22 minutes.
Review written April 19, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

I once heard Megan Whalen Turner say that she feels she has failed if people only read her books once. It is now true that I have not read any of her books only once. The plotting is so intricate, reading them again gives you new appreciation of things you missed the first time. And listening to Steve West read is always a treat. His voice is wonderful to listen to, and when he’s reading my favorite book from 2020, all the more so.

The beginning books in the Queen’s Thief series have stunning reversals at the end. This last book is more a series of clever, small twists. This is the culmination of the series, so I won’t give away what happens except to say that the Medes finally invade, and the three kingdoms of the peninsula must work together to stop them, which is a challenge in itself.

The only thing better than reading this book is listening to Steve West read it.

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Isles of the Gods, by Amie Kaufman

Adventure, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Isles of the Gods

by Amie Kaufman
read by Nikki Patel, Homer Todiwala, Donnabella Mortel, Vidish Athavale, and Steve West

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours, 49 minutes.
Review written February 14, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
2023 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
Starred Review

I listened to this book because it was a Cybils Award Finalist (even though I’m not on the panel this year), and I was mesmerized. In the first place, the production is very well done, with one of my favorite narrators, Steve West, reading a large portion. The book has five viewpoint characters, with a narrator for each one. This enhanced the experience and made it easier to realize when a different character was telling the story.

Our main character, though, is Selly. She’s a merchant’s daughter and has grown up on ships. Now, she’s gotten the disappointing news that her father isn’t coming back for her after a year apart. So she plans to sneak aboard the last boat heading north before winter. She plans to get her things off her assigned ship and go in the night. But before she can get off the ship, her captain tells her the whole ship is leaving quietly in the night. The prince, whom everyone thought was leading a procession of ships to various allies, is actually traveling undercover on their ship.

Every twenty-five years, the royal family of Alinor must make a sacrifice at the isle of their goddess, the Sentinel. Well, Prince Leander has been putting it off, and now he’s a year late — and war is brewing. He’s a powerful magician, but for this one important task, he’s been a slacker.

And it turns out there are people and powers who want to stop Leander so that Alinor’s goddess will not have power, and their own god can awaken and they can start a war.

Two of the five narrators are among the group trying to stop Leander. Let’s just say that the voyage does not go smoothly. There is plenty of danger, plenty of tension, and high stakes.

Because of the high body count in the other Amie Kaufman book I’ve read, Illuminae, I was not surprised that there’s also plenty of death in this book. Don’t get too attached to any character, because all lives are in danger and those who want to stop Prince Leander are ruthless.

I must admit, at the start I rolled my eyes a little, thinking it highly unlikely that our two main characters, Selly and Prince Leander, could fall in love with such dramatically different backgrounds. I wasn’t rolling my eyes at all by the end. Amie Kaufman pulls off a tender slow-burn romance based in character, and it’s exquisitely done.

Now, I’m not completely sure I wanted to know all the motivations of the people working to thwart Prince Leander, and maybe five different viewpoint characters wasn’t entirely necessary. But the other characters had short segments so I was never impatient to get back to the main story, and it did add depth to my understanding of the politics of the two countries and how much was at stake.

Though this book stops at a good place, there are some big loose ends that are not tied up, so I will be waiting impatiently for July’s release of the next book, The Heart of the World. It is already on a list to order for the library.

amiekaufman.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

What did you think of this book?