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From Twinkle, With Love — Sandhya Menon (ARC Review)

TITLE: From Twinkle, With Love AUTHOR: Sandhya Menon RELEASES: May 22nd, 2018; Simon Pulse GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it...

LIFEL1K3 — Jay Kristoff (ARC Review)

TITLE: LIFEL1K3 AUTHOR: Jay Kristoff SERIES: Lifelike, #1 RELEASES: May 29th, 2018; Knopf Books for Young Readers GENRE: Sci-fi/Dystopian AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap. Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost...

Bad Romance — Heather Demetrios

TITLE: Bad Romance AUTHOR: Heather Demetrios RELEASED: June 13th, 2017; Henry Holt and Company GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Grace wants out. Out of her house, where her stepfather wields fear like a weapon and her mother makes her scrub imaginary dirt off the floors. Out of her California town, too small to contain her big city dreams. Out of her life, and into the role of Parisian artist, New York director—anything but scared and alone. Enter Gavin: charming, talented, adored. Controlling. Dangerous....

Emergency Contact — Mary H.K. Choi

TITLE: Emergency Contact AUTHOR: Mary H.K. Choi RELEASED: March 27th, 2018; Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA/NA SYNOPSIS: For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she...

Fresh Ink — Lamar Giles (ARC/Anthology Review)

TITLE: Fresh Ink EDITOR: Lamar Giles RELEASES: August 14th, 2018; Crown Books for Young Readers GENRE: Contemporary, Sci-fi, Anthology AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Careful–you are holding fresh ink. And not hot-off-the-press, still-drying-in-your-hands ink. Instead, you are holding twelve stories with endings that are still being written–whose next chapters are up to you. Because these stories are meant to be read. And shared. Thirteen of the most accomplished YA authors deliver a label-defying anthology that includes ten short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play....

The Way You Make Me Feel — Maurene Goo (ARC Review)

TITLE: The Way You Make Me Feel AUTHOR: Maurene Goo RELEASES: May 8th, 2018; Farrar, Straus and Giroux GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn’t so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute....

White Rabbit — Caleb Roehrig (ARC Review)

TITLE: White Rabbit AUTHOR: Caleb Roehrig RELEASES: April 24th, 2018; Feiwel & Friends GENRE: Thriller AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian—the guy who stomped his heart out like a spent cigarette. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to “talk.” Things couldn’t get much worse, right? But then Rufus gets a call from his sister...

What I Leave Behind — Alison McGhee (ARC Review)

TITLE: What I Leave Behind AUTHOR: Alison McGhee RELEASES: May 15th, 2018; Atheneum GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: After his dad commits suicide, Will tries to overcome his own misery by secretly helping the people around him in this story made up of one hundred chapters of one hundred words each. Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles....

Gray Wolf Island — Tracey Neithercott (ARC Review)

TITLE: Gray Wolf Island AUTHOR: Tracey Neithercott RELEASED: October 10th, 2017; Knopf Books for Young Readers GENRE: Contemporary/Mystery/Magical Realism AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Right before Sadie died, she begged her sister, Ruby, to do the one thing she could never do herself: Find the treasure on Gray Wolf Island. With just a mysterious treasure map as a guide, Ruby reluctantly allows some friends to join her on the hunt, each of whom is touched by magic: a boy allegedly born to a virgin, a...

More Than We Can Tell — Brigid Kemmerer (ARC Review)

TITLE: More Than We Can Tell AUTHOR: Brigid Kemmerer RELEASES: March 6th, 2018; Bloomsbury Children’s GENRE: Contemporary AGE RANGE: YA SYNOPSIS: Rev Fletcher is battling the demons of his past. But with loving adoptive parents by his side, he’s managed to keep them at bay…until he gets a letter from his abusive father and the trauma of his childhood comes hurtling back. Emma Blue spends her time perfecting the computer game she built from scratch, rather than facing her parents’ crumbling marriage. She can solve any...