One of my favourite books I read last year was Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s beautiful Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I just fell in love with the soft, intimate voice that Alire Sáenz had, and the story really touched some personal themes from my own life. Consequently, I decided to take a look at some more of his work, but this time in the realm of different subject matter (though I believe all would be considered within the young-adult genre). The first, […]
A Cool New Hero for Young Girls?? I Can Get Behind This
Situated within the Marvel comics universe, comes a new young hero by the name of Lunella, or “Moon Girl”. And boy, is she cool in the nerdiest way possible. At least, I think so, despite the fact that all her classmates think she is a bit of a weirdo. Lunella is a young, genius inventor (not unlike Peter Parker in the “Amazing Spiderman”), but Lunella is terrified that one day she is going to become a mutant like the X-Men, which would make her a […]
That Was Definitely Not What I Thought It Would Be
The progression of this story was pretty unexpected, and not entirely in a good way, to be honest. This YA novel begins in a slow-burning fashion, focusing largely on the main character, Seth, and his memories: very character-driven. Yet about a third of the way in, there is quite a twist, that changes the whole tone of the novel, and ultimately leaves more questions and confusion at the end of everything. There is the sense that Patrick Ness is trying to create an ambiguous ending for the reader […]
What the Kids Might Call #Relatable
That transition into adulthood and finding your way can be a tricky one, and full of random shenanigans. I feel like that’s a common topic for a lot of stories today about finding success and where you want to go in your adult life: I am definitely sitting right in that stage, just trying to figure stuff out and not really sure the best way to go about it. In The Blunder Years, a lot of those fears of failure and feeling lost and adrift […]
This Kind of Read Like Someone’s Recounting of a Wacky Fever-Dream, and I Honestly Kind of Dig It
You know when you’re dreaming and something absurd and surreal happens but your dream self is just like, “yeah, that makes sense”? That’s what the progression of this book and the characters’ reactions felt like to me. They just kind of rolled with everything, despite it being a ridiculous ride of the supernatural and things that don’t entirely make sense. A crossover between our world and another filled with monsters and other strange beings and seemingly arbitrary rules of what is possible and what is […]
Using Uncertainty to Create a Sense of Unease and Eeriness
“It came from the woods. Most strange things do.” You know how horror movies can be super effective when they create a sense of unease just by making you know that something is not quite right? But you can’t determine what that thing that’s not right is, and therefore you have no idea what to do or how to fix the situation? How the idea of a monster is almost scarier than when you actually see what it is, because of the way your imagination […]
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