Author: laceline

In the article “Does YA Mean Anything Anymore?: Genre in a Digitized World, written by John Green, the idea of YA novels being taken too seriously seems to be thrown around.

Green talks about childhood; the books you read, the lands you escape to in your mind. He explains how illuminating the act of reading YA novels can be for both children, teenagers, and adults. Even though the genre is called “young” adult, the books found within are enjoyed by all groups of the population.

Green makes some interesting comments about how reading itself creates empathy within people. When you get sad reading about how your favorite character’s father died, you’re showing empathy for a fictional character. We take perspective from the characters, seeing things through their eyes and the way that they live. We begin to feel how they feel.

He also talks about how librarians are a huge part of keeping paperback media alive. Without librarians, there wouldn’t be libraries, and without libraries I believe that paperback media would disappear. Librarians also keep students engaged in reading, even if it’s not for a class. Students, from my experience, stop reading once they reach high school because they seem to not have the spare time for it. Librarians give that little reading engine a kick-start to get moving again.

I think that there is a big risk of paperback media disappearing in the future. It’s obvious that buying a book on your phone or iPad is easier and faster than going to the library or bookstore, but it’s also so unauthentic. Holding a device rather than a book while sitting down on my dock in the summer breeze just seems… miserable. Even if I’m reading, even if it was my favorite book on that screen, I couldn’t possibly truly appreciate it.

This novel by Andrea Portes follows a young girl named Daffodil who is trying to escape her past. Without giving any context for the first half of the story, the reader knows that something happened to Daffodil that previous spring; something she refuses to even think about.

As she’s trying to get away from this incident and the people she left in Nebraska, she decides to head to college early. Somewhere along the train ride to Bryn Mawr, she gets off the train. In the middle of nowhere in the countryside, Daffodil meets a professor who lives in a massive mansion. It just so happens that this professor is leaving for the summer… and he needs someone to stay at the house to oversee the renovation project in the backyard.

Considering Daffodil has no way to pay for her first semester room and board, she jumps on this opportunity. A huge mansion all to herself- and she gets a ridiculous stipend for it… almost too much money, it seems.

It doesn’t take long for Daffodil to discover there’s something odd about the house. She’s lured outside the first night, where she stands out in the field and can feel someone- or something- watching her from inside the house. She couldn’t not go back inside, though, so she just reminded herself that the working crew would be there in the morning and she would only be alone for a few more hours.

But then a few weeks go by and the crew who has been working in the backyard, building a guesthouse, hasn’t made any progress. They’ve had the same hole in the ground. No foundation laid, no housing materials to be seen. Daffodil brushes it off saying that she doesn’t know anything about construction, and doesn’t want to be rude by questioning the boss, Dave.

While there’s ghosts messing with her at night and a loud yet slow working crew around during the day, she has another concern. The odd old English lady named Penelope who claimed to be the professor’s friend, who he asked to keep an eye on Daffodil for the summer, shows up unannounced and unwelcome. The professor had never mentioned this woman, yet Daffodil never had a reason to not trust her.

Until one night where she has a dream that the woman tries to kill her- but Daffodil pushes her down the grand staircase of the mansion. It had all seemed so real in Daffodil’s mind, but when she woke up everything was perfectly okay and Penelope came back that morning to check on her.

Finally, as Daffodil begins to believe she’s going crazy, things begin to unravel. Daffodil’s past comes back in flashes, letting us know exactly what she left behind in Nebraska; her dead boyfriend.

Zander Haaf was the school’s golden boy, that is, until he died in a car crash while drunk driving- with Daffodil in the passenger seat.

Ten by Gretchen McNeil is a young adult thriller/mystery novel. The story follows teenager Meg and her best friend Minnie as they navigate a weekend full of horrors they’d never have imagined.

Meg and Minnie were invited to a party on a remote island by the school’s It Girl, Jessica. When the two arrive off the ferry, Meg is greeted by the last person she wanted to see that weekend; T.J.. T.J. is the boy that Minnie had been in love with for years… but he’s also the boy who is in love with Meg. Earlier that year, Meg had rejected T.J.’s invitation to the Homecoming dance for Minnie- even though she doesn’t know about it.

Once the girls arrived at the party house they were met by five people they didn’t really know- and Minnie’s ex, Gunner, but something else was missing. Jessica and the cheerleading team.

T.J. informs Meg that due to the storm raging outside, the cheerleaders couldn’t make it onto a ferry after their meet that night. This raises Meg’s nerves, but she kind of just brushes it off. Jessica and the girls would be arriving in the morning; it was nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong. Just as the ten teenagers are sitting down for dinner, Ben, a blonde boy from the rival school, who Minnie had quickly become infatuated with, begun to choke. Meg took action immediately, realizing he was having an allergic reaction to something. She pulled his epipen from his pocket and saved his life- but they had bigger problems.

Someone had put nuts in the salad- the salad that Meg had made herself and T.J. carried to the table. Those who don’t know Meg begin to accuse her of adding the nuts while T.J. and Ben defend her. But if it wasn’t T.J. or Meg who added the nuts… who did?

The night continues on and things get scary really, really fast. As bodies begin to drop and the storm outside refuses to let up, the teens are pit against each other and Minnie’s lost her anti-anxiety medication, turning her into a hostile, unpredictable ball of nerves with a questionable anger towards Meg.

When the storm finally lets up and the weekend has ended, there are only two survivors on the island waiting for the rescue helicopter. The story ends pretty abruptly, just stating the two survivors had made it home. The novel would have been a lot better if it had gone into more detail about what their lives were like after the tragedies of that weekend.

The novel was really engaging the entire way through, keeping readers on the edge of their seat at each turn of the page. You never knew when they would discover something new, when someone would die, or who would turn against who. It’s a thriller all the way through and shows the meaning of having trust in those you care for, not trusting everything you see- even if there’s evidence, and definitely tells you not to always trust a paper invitation from a girl who doesn’t even like you.

Alina Starkov, the main protagonist of the book by Leigh Bardugo, was raised in an orphanage alongside her best friend Mal Orostev. The two friends both enlist in their country, Ravka’s, First Army. They fight alongside each other for a long time… until they are tasked with entering the Shadow Fold- a long stretch of darkness dividing Ravka’s lands which has flying monsters that kill anyone who tries to pass through.

Alina and Mal’s unit gets caught up with the Volcra (flying monsters) and Mal is severely injured. When Alina sees him being attacked, she’s overcome with power she didn’t know existed.

The Grisha are the King of Ravka’s Second Army. They are a large group of individuals who are gifted with the abilities to manipulate the elements. At a young age, each Ravkan child is tested to see if they are Grisha. Alina was not Grisha- or so she thought.

As it turns out, Alina Starkov is the Sun Summoner; the only one of her kind. The only one who can destroy the Shadow Fold.

She is taken from her regimen and brought to the Little Palace in Os Alta, the capital of Ravka. She is trained in everything Grisha and is meant to work alongside a man who goes by ”the Darkling”, who is feared by people all across Ravka.

Though, soon after arriving, she notices the Little Palace and its people are full of secrets and lies. When Alina unravels all the manipulation she’s been put through, she realizes what she needs to do- and how she can destroy the Shadow Fold without the help of the Darkling.

Bardugo’s writing puts the story into a clear perspective where the reader takes Alina’s side, putting twists and turns along the way and hinting to the lies fed to her by the Grisha. The reader can decipher these hints if they are paying close attention as they read, but for some, it’s just another sentence on a page. She writes the book so it can be read and enjoyed by any person of any reading level.