Category: Contemporary

Title: Jackpot
Author: Nic Stone
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Crown Books
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 15, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Dear Martin–which Angie Thomas, the bestselling author of The Hate U Give, called “a must read”–comes a pitch-perfect romance that examines class, privilege, and how a stroke of good luck can change an entire life. 

Meet Rico: high school senior and afternoon-shift cashier at the Gas ‘n’ Go, who after school and work races home to take care of her younger brother. Every. Single. Day. When Rico sells a jackpot-winning lotto ticket, she thinks maybe her luck will finally change, but only if she–with some assistance from her popular and wildly rich classmate Zan–can find the ticket holder who hasn’t claimed the prize. But what happens when have and have-nots collide? Will this investigative duo unite…or divide?

Nic Stone, the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martinand Odd One Out, creates two unforgettable characters in one hard-hitting story about class, money–both too little and too much–and how you make your own luck in the world. 

Review:

This book was heartbreaking and beautiful.

There was so much tension throughout the story. I kept holding my breath, waiting for Rico to find the ticket. I hoped she hoped she would find it every step of the way. There was the added tension of Rico’s family’s hardships. Their finances were stuck in a downward spiral, and the only way out appeared to be the lottery jackpot.

There were some lighter parts of the story too. The main narrative was narrated by Rico, but there were brief passages narrated by inanimate objects, such as hundred dollar bills or a wood stove. These little interludes were a funny break from the serious story.

This is another great book from Nic Stone! I loved it!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Jackpot? What did you think of it?

Title: Our Wayward Fate
Author: Gloria Chao
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: October 15, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Ali Chu knows that as the only Asian person at her school in middle-of-nowhere Indiana, she must be bland as white toast to survive. This means swapping her congee lunch for PB&Js, ignoring the clueless racism from her classmates and teachers, and keeping her mouth shut when people wrongly call her Allie instead of her actual name, pronounced Āh-lěe, after the mountain in Taiwan.

Her autopilot existence is disrupted when she finds out that Chase Yu, the new kid in school, is also Taiwanese. Despite some initial resistance due to the “they belong together” whispers, Ali and Chase soon spark a chemistry rooted in competitive martial arts, joking in two languages, and, most importantly, pushing back against the discrimination they face.

But when Ali’s mom finds out about the relationship, she forces Ali to end it. As Ali covertly digs into the why behind her mother’s disapproval, she uncovers secrets about her family and Chase that force her to question everything she thought she knew about life, love, and her unknowable future.

Snippets of a love story from nineteenth-century China (a retelling of the Chinese folktale The Butterfly Lovers) are interspersed with Ali’s narrative and intertwined with her fate.

Review:

This is an amazing second novel from Gloria Chao!

Ali had to deal with a ton of racism, living in a predominantly “white” town. I couldn’t believe the way that her peers and teachers would talk to her, including commenting on how good she must be at math and putting on a Chinese accent in front of her. She was born in America so she was just as much of an American as them. These racist people also assumed that she must date the new Asian boy in the school. It was heartbreaking to read the way people spoke to her.

I learned a lot about Chinese culture in this book. There was a Chinese folktale that was threaded throughout the story and united with the main plot in the end. It had to do with Ali’s mother’s secrets, which was another amazing and suspenseful subplot!

I liked that the Mandarin words weren’t translated directly into English. It brings the reader into Ali’s position of being on the outside of the culture she lives in. I could figure out what most of the words meant from the context, but I liked that it kept Ali’s culture prevalent in the story.

I loved this book!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Have you read Our Wayward Fate? What did you think of it?

Title: SLAY
Author: Brittney Morris
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: September 24, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

Review:

I love video games so I was super excited to read this book! I kept my gaming side a secret when I was younger, because my friends didn’t like playing games. I could relate to Kiera, since she had to keep that part of her life a secret too. However, she had the even bigger secret that she actually created the popular game that she plays!

Race was a huge issue in this book. Kiera created the game as a place for black gamers to celebrate themselves in a game. The cards in the game were named after references to black culture or famous black figures in history. The game became controversial when a boy was killed for playing the game. Then, Kiera had to face the possibility of real life consequences for creating this game.

One thing that the critics of this game in the book often said was that the game excluded people of other races because you had to be black to be invited. It wasn’t created as an exclusionary game, but instead as a safe place for gamers to play a game where they wouldn’t be attacked due to their appearance. Kiera walked a fine line when her game was analyzed by the news, but it’s important for everyone to have a safe space to do what they love.

I loved this book so much!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Have you read SLAY? What did you think of it?

Title: Six Goodbyes We Never Said
Author: Candace Ganger
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: September 24, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her. 

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It’s causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects. 

Candace Ganger’s Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye. 

Review:

This was a beautiful story about grieving.

There was some great representation of mental health in this book. Dew has anxiety and panic attacks. Naima has anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. I really liked the way her OCD was represented in the repetition of words and sentences. It showed the way she repeated actions and words right on the page.

Though both Dew and Naima were orphans, they had very different experiences. Dew had been adopted by his foster parents, and had a new family. Naima had just lost her father and couldn’t reconcile her final goodbye to him, when she ignored him. They had some things in common, but they dealt with their problems differently.

I loved this book!

Thank you Wednesday Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Have you read Six Goodbyes We Never Said? What did you think of it?

Title: American Royals
Author: Katharine McGee
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Random House
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: September 3, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

What if America had a royal family? If you can’t get enough of Harry and Meghan or Kate and William, meet American princesses Beatrice and Samantha.

Two princesses vying for the ultimate crown. 
Two girls vying for the prince’s heart. 
This is the story of the American royals.

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. Like most royal families, the Washingtons have an heir and a spare. A future monarch and a backup battery. Each child knows exactly what is expected of them. But these aren’t just any royals. They’re American. And their country was born of rebellion.

As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling. Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her. And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.

The duty. The intrigue. The Crown. New York Times bestselling author Katharine McGee imagines an alternate version of the modern world, one where the glittering age of monarchies has not yet faded–and where love is still powerful enough to change the course of history.

Review:

This book definitely lived up to the hype!

I loved this reimagining of America. It shows what it would have been like if the United States had a monarchy instead of the government. It was a unique revision of history.

There were four different narratives of girls who are part of the royal family. Two narratives were of the princesses, Beatrice and Samantha. The other two narratives were about girls who were on the outside of the royal family but were very close friends of the family, Nina and Daphne. All of these perspectives gave a complete picture of the life of the royal family.

The only thing that bothered me about this story was how boy crazy the girls were. They were all strong, independent women, yet they spent all of their time worrying about the boys they liked. The multiple relationships made for some intense scenes, because no one was ending up with the person they loved. However, I wished the women were able to live without depending on those men.

I loved this book! I hope the story continues because it left on quite a cliffhanger!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read American Royals? What did you think of it?

Title: Permanent Record
Author: Mary H.K. Choi
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: September 3, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Emergency Contact, which Rainbow Rowell called “smart and funny,” comes an unforgettable new romance about how social media influences relationships every day.

On paper, college dropout Pablo Rind doesn’t have a whole lot going for him. His graveyard shift at a twenty-four-hour deli in Brooklyn is a struggle. Plus, he’s up to his eyeballs in credit card debt. Never mind the state of his student loans.

Pop juggernaut Leanna Smart has enough social media followers to populate whole continents. The brand is unstoppable. She graduated from child stardom to become an international icon and her adult life is a queasy blur of private planes, step-and-repeats, aspirational hotel rooms, and strangers screaming for her just to notice them.

When Leanna and Pablo meet at 5:00 a.m. at the bodega in the dead of winter it’s absurd to think they’d be A Thing. But as they discover who they are, who they want to be, and how to defy the deafening expectations of everyone else, Lee and Pab turn to each other. Which, of course, is when things get properly complicated. 

Review:

I really enjoyed this new novel.

Pablo straddles two different cultures, Korean and Pakistani. Since he is part of two different backgrounds, he doesn’t really feel accepted by either one. He hasn’t even travelled to either of his parents’ birthplaces, making him feel even more left out. This affects the rest of his life, leaving him unable to finish school and even abandoning his job.

I loved how realistic this book felt. It felt like I was reading about someone’s real life. Pablo has a pretty ordinary and unexciting life until he meets a pop star and they begin a relationship. Even though this extraordinary event happens to him, he is drawn back to his real life. The ending was perfect for this ordinary boy.

This is a great young adult novel!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Permanent Record? What did you think of it?

Title: Dear Haiti, Love Alaine
Author: Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: September 3, 2019
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Co-written by sisters Maika and Maritza Moulite, and told in epistolary style through letters, articles, emails, and diary entries, this exceptional debut novel captures a sparkling new voice and irrepressible heroine in a celebration of storytelling sure to thrill fans of Nicola Yoon, Ibi Zoboi and Jenna Evans Welch!

When a school presentation goes very wrong, Alaine Beauparlant finds herself suspended, shipped off to Haiti and writing the report of a lifetime…

You might ask the obvious question: What do I, a seventeen-year-old Haitian American from Miami with way too little life experience, have to say about anything?

Actually, a lot.

Thanks to “the incident” (don’t ask), I’m spending the next two months doing what my school is calling a “spring volunteer immersion project.” It’s definitely no vacation. I’m toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle at her new nonprofit. And my lean-in queen of a mother is even here to make sure I do things right. Or she might just be lying low to dodge the media sharks after a much more public incident of her own…and to hide a rather devastating secret.

All things considered, there are some pretty nice perks…like flirting with Tati’s distractingly cute intern, getting actual face time with my mom and experiencing Haiti for the first time. I’m even exploring my family’s history—which happens to be loaded with betrayals, superstitions and possibly even a family curse.

You know, typical drama. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.

Review:

This story had it all! It had romance, mystery, drama, and a little bit of magic. Each of these parts worked seamlessly together.

I fell in love with Alaine immediately. She was hilarious and confident. I loved that she would go to extremes to get her point across, even when it backfired on her. I got so comfortable with her character that I was as shocked as her when she received some devastating news at about a quarter of the way through the book. I had a hard time putting this book down because I needed to know how it ended!

Another thing I loved about this story is that it was told using various different forms of writing. There were letters, texts, emails, and diary entries. I love stories that are told through many forms like this because it gives different perspectives of events.

This was a fabulous book! I can’t wait to read what the Moulite sisters write next!

Thank you HarperCollins Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Dear Haiti, Love Alaine? What did you think of it?

Title: Fan the Fame
Author: Anna Priemaza
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Indigo Fall Preview
Format: Paperback
Release Date: August 20, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Equal parts Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl and Jennifer Mathieu’s Moxie, this fiercely crafted feminist YA novel takes on fandom, accountability, and doing the right thing. Even when it hurts.

Lainey wouldn’t mind lugging a camera around a video game convention for her brother, aka YouTube superstar Codemeister, except for one big problem. He’s funny and charming online, but behind closed doors, Cody is a sexist jerk.

SamTheBrave came to this year’s con with one mission: meeting Codemeister—because getting his idol’s attention could be the big break Sam needs.

ShadowWillow is already a successful streamer. But when her fans start shipping her with Code, Shadow concocts a plan to turn the rumors to her advantage.

The three teens’ paths collide when Lainey records one of Cody’s hateful rants on video. Because she’s determined to spill the truth to her brother’s fans—even if that means putting Sam and Shadow in the crosshairs.

Told through three relatable voices and arriving on the heels of the author’s widely praised debut novel, Kat and Meg Conquer the World, this sophomore novel is a nuanced and timely story about followers, fame, and fighting for what’s right.

Review:

This was a great story!

This story drew a lot of attention to problems in the online gaming community. Lainey wanted to take her brother down from his high position in the community by proving that he is a misogynist and a racist. At the same time, ShadowWillow has to fight for her position in the community even harder just because she is a woman. ShadowWillow even comments on how the panel of all girls at the convention was in the morning, at the least popular time slot.

The character SamTheBrave had a disorder that caused him to pick at his skin. He was bullied because people couldn’t understand his disorder. Even his family bullied him about it. Even if a disorder doesn’t have a “pretty” image, it is important for it to be present in fiction, because it is present in real life. I really liked that Sam had this uncommon disorder, to bring awareness to it.

One thing that would have made this story much more effective was if there were people of colour and LGBTQ characters represented in this story. People of colour in the gaming community were mentioned briefly and there were some very minor LGBTQ characters, but I think there should have been some more representation because they are also part of the community.

I really loved this story!

Thank you Chapters Indigo for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Fan the Fame? What did you think of it?