Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).
The Unbound by Victoria Schwab
The Unbound is the sequel to Victoria Schwab’s The Archived, which you should read before starting this book. There will be some spoilers for The Archived in this review, so beware.
Summer is over for Mackenzie Bishop, the Keeper whose secret job is to escort the “Histories” of dead people back to their resting place in the Archive. When we met Mac in The Archived,
September 2nd, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Victoria (V.E.) Schwab | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Archived by Victoria Schwab
Mackenzie (Mac) Bishop, a high-school student, has just moved to a new town with her mom and dad. They’re living in an apartment in a renovated old hotel. Her mom is excited about restoring and reopening a once-popular coffee shop in the hotel, but Mac knows that her mom is really just trying to stay focused and busy after the recent death of Mac’s younger brother.
What Mackenzie’s parents don’t know is that Mac is a Keeper, a job she inherited from her now-deceased grandfather.
August 28th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Victoria (V.E.) Schwab | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
Here it is, The Raven King (2016), the fourth and final book in Maggie Stiefvater‘s THE RAVEN CYCLE, which began with The Raven Boys and continued with The Dream Thieves and Blue Lily, Lily Blue. And … it’s hard to know what to say. I’ve had mixed feelings throughout all four of the books, liking certain ideas and characters, but often getting a little fed up with the prose and dialogue,
August 28th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Maggie Stiefvater | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
I’ll admit that the last book in this four-part series, The Dream Thieves, was difficult for me to get through — it wasn’t that I disliked the characters or the storyline, but the pacing was glacially slow and Maggie Stiefvater‘s prose is definitely an acquired taste. However, Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014) was an improvement; I could tell because after each reading session I was surprised by just how many chapters I’d churned through.
August 27th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Maggie Stiefvater | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
The second in Maggie Stiefvater‘s THE RAVEN CYCLE, and a direct sequel to The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves (2013) focuses on the character of Ronan Lynch, a teenage boy who — in the last sentence of the previous book’s final chapter — reveals to his friends that he can pull real objects out of his dreams.
But that’s getting ahead of myself. The gist of this four-part series is that four students of the prestigious Aglionby Academy are on a quest to find the resting place of Welsh king Owen Glendower.
August 26th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Maggie Stiefvater | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Blue is the only non-psychic in a large extended family of psychics in Henrietta, Virginia. Her only unusual ability is that her presence amplifies the psychic powers of others around her, but she herself cannot use these abilities. So it’s a shock when, while sitting vigil in a graveyard with her aunt Neeve, Blue sees the spirit of a boy about her age who is destined to die in the next year. She learns that there are only two possible reasons she was able to see him: either he’s her true love,
August 21st, 2019. Kelly Lasiter and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Maggie Stiefvater | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Temple of Fire by Francis Henry Atkins (Frank Aubrey/Fred Ashley)
As I mentioned in my review of English author Francis Henry Atkins’ third novel, The King of the Dead (1903), this was a writer who chose to hide behind a number of sobriquets, all of which featured the initials “F.A.” Those pen names were Frank Aubrey (which he used for that 1903 novel), Frank Atkins, Fenton Ash and Fred Ashley. I had hugely enjoyed the third novel by this seldom-discussed author,
August 21st, 2019. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Frank Aubrey | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Ink (2018), by Alice Broadway, is the first book in a YA dystopian trilogy with a unique, if gruesome, premise. Everyone in the city of Saintstone has the events of their lives tattooed on their bodies. When a person dies, their skin is removed and made into a book, which is then judged at a ceremony that recalls the Weighing of the Heart in Egyptian mythology. If the person is determined to have lived a good life, the book (and by implication, the person’s soul) is returned to their family to be remembered forever among the ancestors.
August 19th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2 | Alice Broadway | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Shadowhouse Fall by Daniel José Older
Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper was one of the best books of 2015 — not “best YA books” but best books of all categories. It featured an engaging, authentic female hero, an original magical system, mundane issues as well as magical ones, and a distinctive voice and sensibility. 2017’s sequel, Shadowhouse Fall, shows no second-book slump in this series.
Sierra Santiago is mastering her skill as a shadowshaper, an ability that melds spirit contact with art,
August 13th, 2019. Marion Deeds and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Daniel José Older | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
I’ve commented before that I give very few five-star reviews. Usually, I expect a book to somehow change my thinking, or how I see the world, in order to rate it a five-star book. As I sat down to write this review I was going to say something like, “While that didn’t happen with Shadowshaper, by Daniel José Older, I still…” and then I thought more about it, and decided that Shadowshaper (2015) has changed how I think about the world,
August 1st, 2019. Marion Deeds and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Daniel José Older | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Oh, Marion, you say "but dark" as if it were a bad thing! 😂
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Oh...and the men used the name "The Great Northern Expedition" to throw people off as to their actual destination, even…
Oh, it IS, Marion! It is!
Sorry if I mislead you in this detail, Paul...the voyage by ship was only the first leg of the quintet's…