Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2023) Featured Review of The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
Heartdrum/HarperCollins
May 10, 2022
ISBN: 9780063086166

The summer after she graduates high school, Lou is working at her family’s ice-cream shack, waiting to head off for university in the fall.

Lou is Metis, and lives with her mother in farmland in small-town Alberta. While she knows her mother’s family, who are Indigenous, she knows nothing for certain about her white father or his family. 

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Amazing Audiobooks (#AA2023) Featured Review of The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson 

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

Narrated by JD Jackson, Sarah Mollo-Christensen, Joy Nash, Christopher Salazar, Karen Malina White

Imprint / Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books | HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Publication Date: 9/6/2022

ISBN: 9780063029170

Prom ended in flames and chaos. All the few survivors could say was “Maddy did it.” But how? Why? Despite being bullied by her classmates her entire life, Maddy believed she had a second chance at happiness once everyone knew her closely-kept secret – that she is biracial- and was looking forward to going to prom. But, her dream quickly turned into a nightmare when some of her classmates saw the school’s first integrated prom as a chance to further humiliate Maddy. Little did they know, Maddy had another secret she’d been hiding-one that would change the small town of Springville, Georgia forever. 

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Mirror Season Cover Art

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore
Macmillan / Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1250624123

Latinx teen Graciela attends a party and is sexually assaulted along with a white boy she’s never met before. The boy has been drugged, so Ciela drops him off at the hospital before heading home, vowing to herself that she’ll forget everything that happened that night. Unfortunately, it turns out that forgetting the incident will prove to be difficult as Ciela discovers she has lost her talent for identifying which type of pan dolce the customers at her tia’s pasteleria want before they even know – the talent that earned her the nickname “La Bruja de los Pasteles.” She’s also noticing that objects around her are turning into mirrors, neighborhood trees are disappearing and the annual Santa Ana winds are conspicuously missing this year. To make matters worse, the boy Ciela took to the hospital is her school’s newest student and helping him might be the only way Ciela can start to get her life back.

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Amazing Audiobooks (#AA2022) Featured Review of The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project by Courtney Summers; narrated by Emily Shaffer and Therese Plummer
Publisher: Macmillian Audio
Publication Date: February 2, 2021
ISBN: 9781250760630

After Lo’s parents died in a car accident her big sister Bea joined the secretive religious group The Unity Project looking for a renewed sense of hope. The sisters used to be very close, but haven’t seen each other in years. Lo is convinced The Unity Project is a cult and responsible for why the sisters have been kept apart. She begins investigating The Project and plans to expose the group and finally see her sister. But as Lo digs deeper into the Project and it’s charismatic leader Lev, she uncovers dark secrets and shameful actions from both her family and The Project, that threaten to unravel her delicate sense of truth and justice.

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Nominations Round-Up, Spring

Each quarter, the Selected Lists teams compile the titles that have been officially nominated to date. These books have been suggested by the team or through the title suggestion form, read by multiple members of the team, and received approval to be designated an official nomination. At the end of the year, the final list of nominations and each Selected List’s Top Ten will be chosen from these titles.


The Awakening of Malcolm X. By Ilyasah Shabazz and Tiffany D. Jackson. Macmillan/Farrar, Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers. $17.99 (9780374313296). 

While serving a sentence in Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little is introduced to the teachings of Islam and begins to correspond with Elijah Mohammad. As he struggles to process his anger and his past, he begins to solidify his beliefs and become the man known as Malcolm X. 

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite

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One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite
Inkyard Press / Harlequin
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1335145802

Happi is still mourning the loss of her sister, Kezi, who died in police custody after attending a protest. Kezi, who was Black, was “one of the good ones” — a bright student, activist, and educational YouTuber with a dedicated following. Reluctantly, Happi agrees to join her older sister Genny, Kezi’s former girlfriend, and a friend on the graduation road trip Kezi never got to take, using the route Kezi planned on Route 66 based on her passionate research of the Negro Motorist Green Book, the book that helped Black drivers navigate trips through the Jim Crow South.

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe

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The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House
Publication Date: January 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0593353806

Nora O’Malley is a seventeen-year-old trying to have a normal life in a small town with her older sister, a private detective. Nobody knows that she spent her childhood helping her mother con wealthy men all over the country and is in hiding from the worst of them all – the dangerous man her mother attempted to con and wound up marrying. When an awkward morning at the bank with her ex-boyfriend Wes and current girlfriend Iris is interrupted by a bank heist going terribly wrong, Nora will have to use her skills from her past life to get herself and others out alive.

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#BFYA2019 Nominees Round Up, November 30 Edition

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa
Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: October 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1335145161 

Yumeko has spent her whole life in the Silent Winds temple, isolated from the rest of the world and using her Kitsune (half-human, half-fox) nature to cause mischief. All that time she was unaware of the treasure protected by the monks in the temple. Not gold or riches, but one piece of a scroll that can summon the great Kami Dragon. When the temple is attacked, Yumeko must flee with the scroll in order to keep it safe.

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#QP2019 Nominees Round Up, September 4 Edition

The Opposite of Innocent by Sonya Sones
HarperCollins / HarperTEEN
Publication Date: September 4, 2018
ISBN: 9780062370316

Fourteen-year-old Lily is in love with a man twice her age.

Content warning: rape, abuse, and pedophilia.

It’s been over two years since Lily’s family friend, Luke, left for Africa. Lily cannot be more thrilled to have Luke back as she has been crushing on him for years. So when Luke begins seeing Lily as a woman and not the child he left, she feels as if her dreams have come true. Now, Lily’s once innocent relationship with Luke has become one full of fear and abuse from a predator.

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Books to Read Based on Your Divergent Faction

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that Veronica Roth’s new book, Carve the Mark, has been released and fans are super excited! For new fans, this book might bring them to Veronica’s original phenomenon, Divergent.

In honor of this I have compiled a list of what books you should read based on your Divergent faction. Don’t know your faction? Take a quiz here!

Get your pens and papers or Goodreads account ready, here are some books you’ll love (hopefully!) based on your faction. And if you’re divergent, your list will be even longer!

Erudite: The Intelligent

  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

11-year-old Flavia de Luce, who dreams of being a chemist and has a passion for poison, must clear her father’s name in a murder case. By gathering clues, Flavia is able to tie two deaths together and investigate new suspects. This book is perfect for an Erudite because Flavia is tenacious and smart and uses her incredible depth of knowledge to crack the case.

Six unlikely outcasts band together, with the brilliant criminal Kaz leading the way. They must break into a fortress that is known to be impenetrable, without their pasts getting in the way. Six of Crows is great for an Erudite reader as all six characters have to use their smarts and skills to pull off the heist of a lifetime.

Kestrel’s Commander father wants her to join the military or get married, but she has other plans. When she saves the life of a slave, she discovers he is much more than he seems and her new path is set in motion. Kestrel, just like an Erudite, uses her wits and strategic planning to find her way out of difficult situations. Continue reading Books to Read Based on Your Divergent Faction