This gorgeously illustrated graphic novel deftly weaves traditional fairy tales into the life of a young, gay teen just trying to figure everything out.
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, (List Price: $17.99, Random House Graphic, 9781984851598, October 2020)
Reviewed by Shauna Sinyard, Park Road Books in Charlotte, North Carolina
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I wanted to tell the story of a woman who sometimes wasn’t even the main character of her own life. I think it’s an idea that might resonate with other women of color: We live in a society that values men over women, children over mothers, and white people over people of color. Through fiction, I wanted to explore how that sort of hierarchy devalues women of color and how that shapes a life.
― Ursula Villarreal-Moura, Interview
What booksellers are saying about Like Happiness
About Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Ursula Villarreal-Moura was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling, a flash fiction collection. Like Happiness is her first novel.
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A searing debut that deftly explores the effects of an unhealthy relationship between a predatory male writer and a young woman on the cusp of adulthood – I couldn’t stop reading it! The characters in this story are all too real, and post #MeToo we see Tatum grappling to understand her story and the abuse she suffered from the toxic man she viewed as her superior for far too long.
Like Happiness by Ursula Villarreal-Moura, (List Price: $28, Celadon Books, 9781250882837, March 2024)
Reviewed by Maggie Robe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Like Happiness is an incisive and blistering coming of age novel that emanates a quiet and methodical rage. Through Tatum, Ursula Villarreal-Moura explores power imbalance, hero worship, and emotional exploitation in a way that keeps the pages turning, while also grappling deftly with sexuality and race. A searing portrait of a young woman trying to understand herself and the older man who irrefutably tangles her identity with his.
Like Happiness by Ursula Villarreal-Moura, (List Price: 28, Celadon Books, 9781250882837, March 2024)
Reviewed by Gaby Iori, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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What a labyrinthine book this is – over 600 pages for a very simple premise: four people return from the dead, but only two can stay. To do so, they must compete and win magical challenges. That’s the pitch, but the reality of the book is much simpler. It’s about grief and coming of age – of finding one’s place as an adult in a world that keeps trucking on despite your pain and hesitancy. I loved this book because it reminded me of all my favorite fairy tales mashed into one: it’s whimsical, funny, heart-breaking, and gorgeously written. It takes a long time to get going, but I loved every moment of subtle character work that Link did as she set up the players of this story. Fans of whimsical tales such as any of Neil Gaiman’s work or Susanna Clarke’s novels will likely find a lot to enjoy here, as I did.
Reviewed by Whitney Sheppard, The Snail On the Wall in Huntsville, Alabama
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An on-again, off-again relationship that haunts the characters as well as the reader in sparse prose and minute detail. Every element, from word choice to mannerism to subtle gesture, is wrung out of each character’s social interactions and placed on the page with precision. Rooney excels at charting the characters’ thoughts and subsequent actions without stating them outright; she conveys the near-misses, the blips in conversation that could fix everything if only they didn’t consistently go unsaid, with a nuance that is relatable rather than manufactured. This is a book for everyone who over-thinks and replays their own interactions with other people, with unextraordinary, and oftentimes infuriatingly normal, people. Similar: White Fur by Jardine Libaire Pair it with: Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh
Normal People by Sally Rooney, (List Price: $17, Hogarth, 9781984822185, February 2020)
Reviewed by Miranda Sanchez, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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The coast of Turkey was the perfect backdrop for this tragic coming of age story. It was refreshing to see the older man/young woman trope from the young woman’s perspective as well as the complexities of growing up, finding one’s place, and cultivating relationships with the people around you. This was a refreshing look at an age old theme.
Holiday Country by Inci Atrek, (List Price: $28.99, , 9781250889461, January 2024)
Reviewed by Sara Putman, Bookish: An Indie Shop For Folks Who Read in Fort Smith, Arkansas
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A delicate coming-of-age story that is both elegiac and an ode to craftwork, womanhood, and friendship. Much like the characters in Cross-Stitch, Barrera and translator MacSweeny have yet again come together to craft another gift to treasure. One of my favorite reads of the year.
Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera, (List Price: $24, Two Lines Press, 9781949641530, November 2023)
Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
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I feel very fortunate to have had read this beautiful book. Autism is so hard and not having anyone in my family with it, I only know what I hear. When these 3 characters come together to help build a boat they bond and learn so much about themselves and each other. People are afraid of what they don’t understand and autism is one of those things we just don’t know enough about. It’s hard enough to be a freshman in high school, compound that with being different. This is a love story for the 3 generations involved. I guarantee you will see the world a bit differently after.
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney, (List Price: $17.95, Biblioasis, 9781771965859, November 2023)
Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina
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I read and write young adult fiction for the same reason people go to high school reunions — there’s something about figuring out how to be a person that begs us to return. Fiction is a natural place to explore those beautiful themes.
The first time we loved, lost, were heartbroken, broke hearts, made mistakes, had success, won trophies, came in last, found freedom, felt contained by adults, broke rules, were punished, got away with something, cared about people, cared about the world, etc. The first time. That’s the key. You don’t have to read young adult to know that formative experiences are vital understanding humanity on the whole and self-identity. We don’t ask people about the third or fourth time they fell in love. We ask them about the first time so we’ll understand their starting point. If every person is a road map with a marked journey; we want to put a pin in the place they began. Young adult fiction is that pin.
― Court Stevens, Interview, Musings, Parnassus Books
What booksellers are saying about Last Girl Breathing
About Court Stevens
Court Stevens grew up among rivers, cornfields, churches, and gossip in the small-town South. She is a former adjunct professor, youth minister, and Olympic torchbearer. These days she writes coming-of-truth fiction and is the director of Warren County Public Library in Kentucky. She has a pet whale named Herman, a bandsaw named Rex, and several novels with her name on the spine: The June Boys, Faking Normal, The Lies About Truth, the e-novella The Blue-Haired Boy, Dress Codes for Small Towns, and Four Three Two One. Find Court online at CourtneyCStevens.com; Instagram: @quartland; Facebook: @CourtneyCStevens; Twitter: @quartland.
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The Berry Pickers is the debut novel from indigenous author Amanda Peters. When four-year-old Ruthie goes missing, the youngest of five in a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia, her older brother Joe is despondent and the loss of Ruthie haunts the family for fifty years. Meanwhile, a white family in Maine is raising a child named Norma with overbearing and almost suffocating familial love. Norma’s faint memories and dreams of her missing life are confusing until they almost vanish. The Berry Pickers considers lost lives, second chances, and the power of forgiveness.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, (List Price: $27.99, Catapult, 9781646221950, October 2023)
Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
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Usually for me, the first thing that comes in a story is the characters, and then the story weaves itself around them. With Sword Catcher, for the first time the people and the place came at the same time, in a sort of burst of images and color…from the beginning of my working on it, Sword Catcher has been a story about adults rather than about teenagers, so it was always going to be an adult fantasy.
The big difference to me is that in YA, your characters are working on problems of identity: What kind of person am I? What are my values? What does it mean to love someone new? But the characters in Sword Catcher are in their early twenties, and they’re facing a different question: What does it mean to take on the responsibilities of adulthood?
― Cassandra Clare, Interview, Paste Magazine
What booksellers are saying about Sword Catcher
About Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the coauthor of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium with Holly Black. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.
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An October Read This Next! Book
There are two things I expect from a Bryan Washington narrative: food rendered so exquisitely I could lick the page and an emotional excavation so expansive it swallows the book and me with it. Family Meal delivered on these expectations and more. It’s propulsive and harrowing, the brittle edges of its characters encapsulating a world and giving way to its perfectly tender center.
Family Meal by Bryan Washington, (List Price: 28, Riverhead Books, 9780593421093, October 2023)
Reviewed by Miranda Sanchez, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Incredibly earnest, honest account (in graphic novel form!) of a teenage theatre kid navigating the move to public high school from an unschooling/homeschool education in a smallish city in the Pacific NorthWest. I love Phoebe Wahl’s art and children’s books (she illustrates and writes), and I adored her peek into the boy-obsessed, music-loving, art-driven world she creates from her own teenage diaries. I laughed out loud, cringed, cried, and cheered. If you loved Judy Blume’s Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, you’ll love Phoebe’s Diary.
Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl, (List Price: 19.99, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 9780316363563, September 2023)
Reviewed by Adah Fitzgerald, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina
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All the Fighting Parts is a much needed book. The verse format makes it a quick read, but it spares no punches, delving deep into the heart of one sexual assault survivor’s journey through grief, guilt, resistance, and reclamation. Healing is a journey through, not a journey’s end; and while the powers of her local church are stacked against her, her loved ones (whom she withdraws from in the aftermath) learn how to support her through every step. It’s poignant and oh-so relevant. Amina’s story is unlike anything I’ve read before, and I hope with all my might that All the Fighting Parts falls into the hands of those who need it most.
All the Fighting Parts by Hannah V. Sawyerr, (List Price: $19.99, Amulet Books, 9781419762611, September 2023)
Reviewed by Isabel Agajanian, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida
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