Books. Cats. Nonsense.
Royals by Rachel Hawkins Publisher: Scholastic Publication date: 03 May 2018 Genre: Contemporary YA Page count: 304 pages Rating: 1 out of 5 stars This review is spoiler-free Although I don’t often read contemporary YA, I was looking for something a little different after reading some hard sci-fi and picked up Royals from the … Continue reading Book Review: Royals by Rachel Hawkins
I loved Geekerella back in 2017, so I was thrilled to see that it was getting a companion novel. Although I’m not a huge fan of contemporary YA books, Poston's convention romances are such fun reads and love letters to geek culture.
I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately and needed something totally different to help claw my way out -- enter My So-Called Bollywood Life, a debut novel I learned about at an showcase event held by the publisher earlier this year. I don’t have a huge amount of experience with Bollywood films, although I absolutely love the four or five that I have seen (and am obsessed with the soundtracks of some I haven't seen), but I was incredibly curious to pick up this because it sounded so amazing. It turns out the My So-Called Bollywood Life was exactly what I needed to rediscover the joys of reading.
Welcome to my stop on the Kick the Moon blog tour! I was so excited to hear about this book, as I absolutely adore Muhammad Khan's spectacular debut I Am Thunder. Today, I'm sharing an extract from his new contemporary YA novel. He gives such an incredible voice to modern teens, and I couldn't recommend his books more highly.
I rarely read contemporary YA -- in fact, I have only read five contemporary YA books this year -- but somtimes one really catches my eye. This was the case with A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Tahereh Mafi’s semi-autobiographical novel of life as an American Muslim teen one year after 9/11. Having read and loved books like The Hate U Give and I Am Thunder, I know that my interest in contemporary YA tends to lean toward books that deal with social issues and let you walk in another person’s shoes.
I must confess that I initially ignored the hype surrounding After the Fire. It is listed as a contemporary YA novel, a genre I don’t tend to enjoy, and I knew nothing about it but the hype. When I spotted it at YALC this year and actually bothered to read the back, I realised that After the Fire is the exact kind of book I love! It’s a book that, like The Book Thief, truly transcends age ranges and is suitable for readers of all ages, particularly adults.
I’m fairly new to the YA genre and am still trying to pin down the type of book I like versus the ones that just don’t do it for me. I have recently loved a couple of contemporary YA books, so I decided to take on Flight of a Starling by Lisa Heathfield. She’s a big name in the genre, so I had high hopes.
