Thank you to Libro.fm and Randomhouse for the free educator ALC! 

This is an excellent middle grade novel-in-verse about a Puerto Rican-American fencer who is facing changes in body, identity, and friendships after an accident. It is incredible and honestly I knew it would be because it is Andrea Beatriz Arango. Valentina is such a powerful character with a strong unapologetic voice. Her questions around her identity, specifically about whether she is or isn’t an athlete, disabled, queer, are dealt with nuance. I love Arango’s books for so many reasons, including that they are very middle school friendly, and this might be the best one yet. I can’t wait to share it with my students. 

Also, audiobook narration by the iconic Vico Ortiz? A dream. Sign me up for more of that! 

A very solid creepy middle grade with layers of loneliness, moving, Chinese-American identity and a rich historical element. 

I devoured this in two days despite very little interest in sports or the time period. This book was just so well done that it was hard to put down. The information was just enough to be clear without slowing the pace. The connections to today were not dwelt on but were strong and unsettling. I would read whatever the author writes next. 

Not all of this worked and I debated on a rating for a bit, but ultimately it kept my interest and was very smart. Some aspects of it gave me the ick but I don’t think that was necessarily unintentional so 4 stars

I devoured this in a couple days. I mostly really enjoyed it but was put off by a couple things:

1) the toxicity of the romance. I didn’t mind Roe and Maeve as characters themselves. I love a flawed character. And I loved how much Maeve supported and was delighted by Roe’s gender expression and how Roe defied even nonbinary stereotypes and was just himself. But together they just seemed to mistreat each other and have a lot of problems that went unaddressed. 2) I felt the themes of suicide/self-harm toward the end were not dealt with responsibly in a YA book. The thing that eventually brought Lily back was Maeve (and Roe’s) self harm and willingness to kill themselves? No m’am. We can do better in books for teens.

All that being said I loved the witchy vibes, the tarot, the writing style, the feminist and queer themes, and the Irish setting. Will probably still attempt book two but on audio bc accents.