Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).
Daybreak – 2250 A.D. (aka Star Man’s Son) by Andre Norton
It’s 2250 A.D., two hundred years after a nuclear holocaust destroyed most life, knowledge, history, and civilization on Earth. Fors, a young man with a mutation that renders his hair silver and his hearing and sight extra keen, is a descendent of a group of scientists who used to do nuclear research before it all went wrong. Fors desperately wants to become a Star Man like his father who died on a quest ten years ago.
January 10th, 2024. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Andre Norton | Audio, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
UnWholly (2012) is the second book in Neal Shusterman’s UNWIND DYSTOLOGY. You’ll need to read the first novel, Unwind, first, so I’ll assume you have. This review will contain minor spoilers for that book.
Connor, Risa, and Lev have each escaped being unwound, are hiding from the juvenile authority, and are determined to stop the evil practice of unwinding that their society has embraced. The plot splits into a few subplots as each teenager has their own dangerous road to travel in this installment.
January 5th, 2024. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Neal Shusterman | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In the near future, after a long bloody war between pro-life and pro-choice armies, the United States amended the constitution to ban abortion but allow parents to “retroactively abort” a child between 13 and 18 years old as long as the child was “unwound” in a process that allows the child’s parts to be given to others, like organ donations. In this way, the child isn’t actually killed, but lives on, a technicality that appeases both sides.
You’d think that few parents would opt to unwind their child,
November 8th, 2023. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Neal Shusterman | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Reposting to include Brad’s new review.
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker (writer), Wendy Xu (illustrator), & Joamette Gil (letterer)
Mooncakes (2019) is the story of Nova and Tam, two young people who are exploring their connections to magic. They are both, in their own way, deeply connected to the magical world and must decide what that means to them. Their relationships — with the people around them and each other — fuel the emotional core of this whimsical, down-to-earth, LGBTQ+ narrative.
I was delighted by Mooncakes.
October 21st, 2023. Skye Walker and Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix
Garth Nix’s The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (2023) is the follow-up to 2020’s fantasy novel, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. Both books are set in the 1980s, or, as Nix calls it, “a somewhat alternative 1980s.”
We reunite with familiar characters; siblings Merlin and Vivien St. Jacques, both of whom have magic, and Susan, the young art student whose father is an Ancient Sovereign, an old and powerfully magical being.
August 15th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Garth Nix | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn (2020), the first book in her LEGENDBORN CYCLE, wasn’t on my radar until I saw it on the Locus Awards finalists list for Best Young Adult novel. I grabbed the audiobook and one of the YAs that lives in my house (Tali, my 18-year-old daughter) and we listened to Legendborn together as we worked a jigsaw puzzle. We agreed to give Legendborn a rating of 3.5 which is quite a bit lower than the book currently rates at both Amazon and GoodReads,
January 12th, 2023. Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Tracy Deonn | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Some Faraway Place by Lauren Shippen
Rose is a normal girl, and that’s a problem because everyone else in her family – her parents, her brother – are atypical.
I had some hope that returning to the approximate 2016 timeframe and another late-teen protagonist who isn’t an outright villain would be a boon for the BRIGHT SESSIONS series. Unfortunately, I had more issues with Some Faraway Place (2021) than either of its predecessors, The Infinite Noise and A Neon Darkness.
December 27th, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 0.5 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
A Neon Darkness by Lauren Shippen
A Neon Darkness (2020), the second book in Lauren Shippen‘s THE BRIGHT SESSIONS trilogy, is only very tangentially related to the first book, The Infinite Noise. It centers on a group of atypicals (the in-world word for people with powers) a full decade before the first book occurs.
Robert Gorham is 18-going-on-19 when he arrives in L.A. for reasons unclear to the reader until much later. His power makes him able to effortlessly manipulate people into doing what he wants,
December 9th, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 1 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen
THE BRIGHT SESSIONS is a trilogy of spinoff novels set in the world of the podcast of the same name, both media written by Lauren Shippen. I am generally a fiction podcast fan, so when the third book in the trilogy – Some Faraway Place – hit my radar, something about it sounded familiar. Turns out, on a long road trip a few years ago, I had listened to several episodes of the podcast. I remembered liking it so I wanted to give the books a try.
December 2nd, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 3 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Nightland Express by J.M. Lee
The Nightland Express (2022) by J.M. Lee is a solid YA fantasy that has its moments but also doesn’t quite reach its full potential due to several issues. It also suffers a bit perhaps from trying to take on too much, where a more streamlined approach might have allowed for more full development of its issues as well as a more tense narrative. A minor spoiler follows, one revealed quite early in the book and one whose “reveal” doesn’t really impact the reading experience,
November 4th, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | J.M. Lee | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…