First, let me say that my 3-star rating is me as an adult reader. For its actual intended audience it's probably higher.

Second, let me say that recently I have had multiple conversations with adults about how every Boxcar Children book after the 1st one was BS because they no longer lived in a boxcar. The first Boxcar Children book was awesome because it was about homeless children who lived in an abandoned boxcar among woodland creatures. Any Boxcar Children book where they live in a HOUSE is BS, and that includes this one, Patricia MacLachlan!!!

Ahem.

Anyway, it was weird reading this because the kids are as wholesome and happy as ever, but you just KNOW that a shoe is going to drop soon. (No spoiler: the entire series is based on the premise that they are orphans, okay?) Kids who like the original Boxcar Children books will probably like this. Adults seeking some Boxcar Children nostalgia would be better off reading the one single non-BS Boxcar Children book, which is Boxcar Children #1.

I mean I don't know much about Hulk & Iron Man comics except they were my faves from the Avengers movie. Shit got real high tech here and Bruce Banner's face was literally a sad emoticon :( Anyway it was a pretty fun read.

As a part-time comics geek & recovering history major, I have to admit that a lot of this book covered familiar territory for me. But still--I didn't know all of it, and it's written in a very compelling style, alternating between the history of Superman & the history of the KKK, until the 2 intersect.

I think I liked this more than Divergent because it started answering some questions I had about Divergent. Like... I was kind of wondering when someone would start to question the entire premise of their society, which does not make a lot of sense to me.

On the other hand I was a little more annoyed by Tris in this one... but she's had a rough run of things so I'll cut her a break. I'll definitely read the third one when it comes out but I continue to be resistant of applying the "next Hunger Games" label to these books.

OH GOD THIS BOOK WAS SO PERFECT. By the end of it I was messy crying but not even because it was sad but just because it was... perfect?

I put off reading this for a while because like, the idea of a 7th grade boy reading Shakespeare and ~having it open up his eyes~ or whatever sounded really cliche. But it's not, okay? It's perfect. Read this. Bye.

Gorgeous art and an awesome character backstory. The plot was mildly confusing since this was the first Batwoman story I've read, but that's what Wikipedia is for.

MORE CRYING FOREVER, JFC

I wasn't sure what it meant that this was in the same "world" as The Wednesday Wars, since it's not like the Wednesday Wars was sci-fi or anything, but the protagonist of this was a minor character in the Wednesday Wars whose family moved to another town, so there aren't any other overlaps with The Wednesday Wars. Just FYI.

Anyway this book had about a million plot elements that would have been horrible cliches in the hands of a lesser author (abusive father, wise old librarian who teaches Doug about art, wise old rich man who teaches Doug to play horseshoes, grumpy rich lady who turns out to have a heart of gold, traumatized Vietnam vet older brother, ETC) but they're in the hands of a great author and they will just make you cry for sadness and then for the beauty of the human existence and then maybe for sadness a little bit more. Also it's funny? Anyway you should read it.

I didn't really want to read this. It didn't sound appealing to me at all, but a lot of my regular library teens are way into it and the third one comes out next month, so I figured I should grit my teeth and check this out so I can join in their conversations.

Anyway, I didn't hate it. It was very fast faced & I read it all in one night. I didn't love it, either. It kind of felt like Ally Condie put a bunch of other dystopian novels in a blender and poured them out into Matched. It's kinda like if the Giver and the Handmaid's Tale had a baby and that baby had a love triangle.

My favorite element was that in the future they have pared down human culture to 100 Poems and 100 Songs and 100 Paintings because everything got too complicated. (Spoiler, pretty much all the 100 Poems seem to be from Western culture.) But there are black market Archivists who have UNAUTHORIZED POETRY. As a librarian I enjoyed this very much because it makes reading Dylan Thomas seem like a completely badass act. Anyway, in spite of myself I'm intrigued enough that I put myself on the list for Crossed.

Oh. Wow. This book came pretty highly recommended so I'm not surprised I liked it, but I guess I didn't really know what it was about? I was surprised by how... ultimately grim I found it? It's a very, very smart book and Frankie is a great character and it's very well-done but I think maybe only a select type of teenager would enjoy it. Hmm. I need to think about this book a bit more I think.

OK. A Wrinkle in Time is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS. When I heard Hope Larson was adapting it into a GN I was very optimistic because it seemed very fitting for her style, and guess what I was RIGHT.

I thought the black/white/blue color palette was great, very understated. And just... to me, perfectly captured the other planets/worlds/weirdnesses a long with the human drama of the Murry family (+ Calvin). <3