I have thoughts on this book I would like to share, however, I will be withholding my review for this title in solidarity with the St. Martin's Press Boycott. 

The book community is demanding three (3) things of St. Martin's:

1. Address and denounce the Islamophobia and racism from their employee.
2. Offer tangible steps for how they're going to mitigate the harm this employee caused.
3. Address how moving forward, they will support and protect their Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab readers, influencers, and authors in addition to their BIPOC readers, influencers, and authors.

This boycott is a media boycott asking influencers not to promote books from St. Martin's Press. If you are interested in supporting the authors, please still buy/borrow and read their books, just please do not promote those books on socials. 

Check out the following influencer to learn more about the boycott: @vivafalstinleen

A penguin pet who loves to care  for his sometimes-almost-always-spacey-kind-of-rude owner? Like cook and clean and bring him lunch. The owner was annoying yes, but Pen is the absolute best and deserves the world. 

It is slice-of-life which isn’t my favorite because I like to connect more with characters and watch their development grow, however, it was still such a fun read, and I will likely continue on with the next volume. 

This is a fine Sleeping Beauty retelling. There is a lot of telling instead of showing which tended to leave me with questions and feeling like not a lot happened during the 400 pages. 

Finger snaps for our platonic partnership between the main characters. Their dynamics, though unique at times, were fun to navigate and their banter was fun. 

I enjoyed the gender-bent retelling, but I wish our main characters had more opportunities to showcase their awesomeness and not get so tangled up in the romance and the traveling to save the kingdom. 

This is a fine book. I was really excited to dive into a thrilling world of alchemy and magic, but I think I had different expectations than what this book really is - that’s on me, though, I should have read the description better. 

The overall story of this book is intriguing, and I enjoyed the action scenes that were full of detail and imagery. I loved the characters and reading such a queerly diverse cast! (Again, this is me not reading the description well enough) I often felt that the romance took over the fantasy/alchemy plot and really placed those on the back burner. I would have liked to learn more about alchemy in New Anglia. 

Overall, this book is fine. I think it will be enjoyed by readers who like heavy romance mixed with their fantasy plots. I will also say that some of this book’s romance scenes skirt the line between young adult and new adult, so if you are someone who is planning to recommend this book to readers, I would definitely keep that in mind. 

This was a beautifully fun graphic memoir of a young Mexican-American boy and his family as they roadtrip to bring their abuelito back from Mexico. 

The audiobook was filled with a full cast and perfectly used background sounds and music. I laughed, I empathized, and I cheered. This graphic novel is great for readers of all shapes, and I will be looking forward to recommending it in the future! 

What a fun book! After an incident during a job leaves Ross without her mother, she decides to join the Thieves’ Gambit - a high-stakes competition that pits the worlds best teen thieves against one another to determine the best. 

I was entertained thought out most of the book and always eager to see what the next challenge was going to be. Some parts felt a bit dragged out, but I think the excitement and action of the heist scenes keep the plot moving along. 

A cute read about a stray kitten taken in by an ex-gangster. This story is funny and quick-paced as we get perspectives from both the human and animal characters. 

Readers will be left in a state of shock and horror (in all the best ways) after finishing Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington. This is a fast-paced novel that is packed with thrills and chills, and readers won’t even begin to imagine the terrors that will unfold within its pages.

There are so many amazing strengths to consider when talking about this book. Two (2) of the biggest things that stood out to me were the brilliant world-building and meticulous character development. All of the characters in this book are used with purpose. Some of the side characters we do not see much of, but when you do read about them, you know they have been placed with thought and intention. Readers will also be able to see the world of this book unfold as they read as if they were watching a movie. The Remington Estate, the clothes, the expressions on the characters' faces. Everything is painted so vividly and clearly through Wellington’s alluring prose.  

Another aspect of this book that Wellington handles so well is the impact that classism and racism have on the characters and society that run rampant through the upper-class New England community where the prestigious Edgewater Academy resides. There are many barriers that Adina faces throughout the book - barriers built from the materials of systemic racism and classism. This book is set in a fictional New England world, however, readers will likely be able to see connections to socioeconomic and racial injustices that are happening in our world today. This is definitely a heavy read, but it is also a read that is packed with traditional horror characteristics and creates a modern twist on the “final girl” trope.  

It was difficult to pinpoint a weakness in this well-crafted punch of a novel. One thing I would say is that readers might be a bit off-put by the quick-developing attraction from the female characters to the male characters, Pierce and Graham. It’s clear from the beginning of the competition that the money and power the Remington family carries has a lot to do with the motivation for many of the girls’ attraction to Pierce, but the attraction between Adina and Graham seems to develop within a page or two, making more of a quick-combustion attraction that does not have much backing. 

Their Vicious Games is a book that I would highly recommend to readers who enjoy fast-paced thrillers that leave them feeling utterly shocked, especially if they like books that intricately weave together themes of race and class with classical horror tropes. I would likely recommend this book to older teen readers due to the fact that some of the content in this book is fairly intense and there is strong language used throughout. 

This was a fun, unique YA rom-com (with a dino on the cover, so of course I had to read it)! 

I thought that the Borrow a Boyfriend Club, also known as the Football and Lamburgini Appreciation Club, was hilarious and A+. This book hit so many rom-com aspects perfectly, being slightly outrageous and perfectly funny. 

There are many queer-positive relationships (platonic and romantic) throughout this book that help support the main character as he works through past traumas to discover himself, his identity, and who he can be at this new school. I am excited to recommend this book to folks!