Category Archives for Books

Murphy, Julie. Dumplin

Sixteen-year-old Willowdean wants to prove to everyone in her small Texas town that she is more than just a fat girl, so, while grappling with her feelings for a co-worker who is clearly attracted to her, Will and some other misfits prepare to compete in the beauty pageant her mother runs.

This is a realistic and engaging story that touches on the humorous side of real teen problems without being to preachy. If you like John Green and Rainbow Rowell books you surely will love this book.

Aveyard,Victoria. Red Queen

In a world divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities--seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red, discovers she has an ability of her own. To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. But Mare risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard --a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction.

Kristoff, Jay. Illimunae.

The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship's artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all.Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

Almond, David. Song for Ella Grey.

Claire witnesses a love so dramatic it is as if Ella Grey has been captured and taken from her, but the loss of her best friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world in this modern take on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in Northern England. A powerful and emotional deep read with typical teens in love. It is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Woolston, Blythe. MARTians

In a near-future consumer dystopia, Zoë Zindleman must choose from limited, bleak housing options, including a converted strip-mall refuge that offers safety and proximity to her new place of work, ALLMART. A book that makes you look at the futuristic world of three young people trying to make sense of their place in society.

Tired of reading the same authors all the time?

Try something different!

10 books for adults that are getting some buzz right now:

1. The Clasp. Sloane Crosley

The first novel from Crosley, a writer whom comic David Sedaris calls "perfectly, relentlessly funny"… a few old friends search for a necklace (in the present day) that went missing during the Nazi occupation of France.

2. Fates and Furies. Lauren Groff

A literary masterpiece, nominated for the National Book Award…. two viewpoints - one from the wife, one from the husband – in the same marriage.

3. Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates

Written in the form of a letter to a black teenage boy - Coates’ own 15-year-old son - the author tries to make sense of the blatant racial injustice that still exists in America.

4. City on Fire. Garth Risk Hallberg

This novel will throw you into the swirling mayhem of 1970s New York City, reaching a crashing crescendo during the blackout of July 13, 1977.

5. I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives.

Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

The letters of two penpals, Caitlin and Martin, that began in 1997. It’s two kids from two different worlds, a 12-year-old girl in America, and a 14-year-old boy in Zimbabwe.

6. Did You Ever Have a Family. Bill Clegg

A first novel, long listed for the Man Booker Prize, about the repercussions of a kitchen disaster in a big house in Connecticut on the night before a wedding.

7. My Brilliant Friend. (1^st of the 4 Neapolitan novels) Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante is the pen-name for an Italian novelist whose true identity is unknown. Her Neapolitan novels - series about two perceptive and intelligent girls from Naples trying to create lives for themselves within a violent and stultifying culture - are producing an almost “cult-like” following!

8. Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War. Svetlana Aleksievich

Svetlana Alexievich is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. This work of nonfiction is about the Soviet dead who were shipped back in sealed zinc coffins (hence the term “Zinky Boys”), while the state denied the very existence of the conflict.

9. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things. Jenny Lawson

The author explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. It’s an “hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety.”

10. Submission. by Michel Houellebecq

An award-winning novelist explores the theme of Islam in current French society in this satirical novel. “A comic masterpiece.”