Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).
Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Megan Whalen Turner’s QUEEN’S THIEF young adult fantasy series, a masterwork of twisting plots, deceptive plans, and occasional divine interventions from the first book to the last, winds to a close with Return of the Thief (2020), twenty-four years after the publication of The Thief. Return of the Thief introduces us to a new narrator, Pheris, oldest grandson and nominally the heir of Baron Erondites,
October 6th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Megan Whalen Turner | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Note: This review contains spoilers for Six of Crows, the first book in this duology.
Crooked Kingdom (2016) picks up the story begun in Six of Crows and takes off like ― well, there are no freight trains in this world, so ― a runaway Grisha on jurda parem. In Six of Crows, teenage crime lord Kaz Brekker and his handpicked group of five pulled off a near-impossible heist,
September 25th, 2020. Tadiana Jones, Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Leigh Bardugo | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Leigh Bardugo, best known for her GRISHA young adult magical fantasy trilogy, explores a different corner of the Grisha world in her new young adult novel, Six of Crows. In the city of Ketterdam, an analog for Amsterdam, criminal gangs control the waterfront, and the surrounding area is a den of iniquity where everything can be bought and sold, including people. One of the gangs, appropriately called the Dregs, is led by 17 year old Kaz Brekker,
September 23rd, 2020. Tadiana Jones, Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Leigh Bardugo | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena
Hunted by the Sky (2020) is the first book in Tanaz Bhathena’s YA fantasy duology THE WRATH OF AMBAR. Bhathena is an award-winning YA author, and Hunted by the Sky is her first foray into YA fantasy. Set in an alternate world based on medieval India, the story held my interest with its magic, suspense, and the conflicts the two main characters face. The descriptions of settings delighted me.
Gul has spent her life in hiding and on the run,
September 17th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Tanaz Bhathena | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hex Hall (2010) is Rachel Hawkins’s debut novel, a young adult paranormal boarding school story.
Sophie Mercer is half-witch and half-mortal, but lives alone with her single human mother and knows little about her magical father. After wrecking her high school prom with a disastrous spell, Sophie is sent to Hecate (nicknamed Hex) Hall, a school for delinquent magical beings.
In her human school, Sophie was outcast for her witchy powers. At Hex Hall, her magic is not at all unusual,
August 21st, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Rachel Hawkins | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
G. Willow Wilson’s 2019 YA Novel The Bird King is a wonderful read: an exciting adventure with a complicated female protagonist, set in a time and place that may be unfamiliar to many of us. Magic is woven throughout the book, as young Fatima wrestles with the concepts of faith, freedom and leadership.
Fatima is the Sultan’s concubine in the last Islamic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. She holds a precarious place in the palace hierarchy.
August 20th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | G. Willow Wilson | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Damned (2020) is the sequel to Renée Ahdieh’s The Beautiful, a young adult vampire novel set in 19th century New Orleans. You’ll need to read The Beautiful first, and this review will have a few spoilers for that novel.
The Damned begins where The Beautiful left off. (Spoilers for The Beautiful are starting here!) Sébastien Saint Germain had been betrayed and murdered by his friend.
August 11th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Renee Ahdieh | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It’s 1872 and Celine Rousseau, who’s seventeen years old, has just arrived in New Orleans with several other girls who will work in a convent until they can make matches with respectable young men in the city. Celine is from Paris, where she made gowns for the upper class. She had to flee Paris, and her father, after a tragic event that she won’t talk about.
The work at the convent is boring, but Celine has found a new best friend — Pippa from England — and she’s fascinated by the sultry city of New Orleans,
August 4th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Renee Ahdieh | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Red Mantle by Maria Turtschaninoff
Maria Turtschaninoff’s Maresi told the story of the Red Abbey — a feminist, goddess-worshipping sanctuary for women — and the young novice whose special powers helped her save it from invaders. The sequel, Naondel, was really a prequel, going back to the founders of the Abbey and explaining how they came together to form it. Red Mantle (2018), the conclusion of the RED ABBEY CHRONICLES series, returns to Maresi,
July 30th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Maria Turtschaninoff | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Jay Kristoff’s TRUEL1F3 (2020) wraps up his YA dystopian LIFELIKE trilogy with a long buildup to an epic battle, set in a nuclear-blasted future version of the “Yousay.” Some humans have (presumably due to radiation-induced mutations) developed superpowers and are often treated as deviants by normal humans; most of our main characters, like Lemon Fresh (named after the detergent box she was found abandoned in as a baby) are in this group. Intelligent robots are everywhere and are bound by Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics … other than a rebel group of advanced “Lifelike”
July 27th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Jay Kristoff | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.