Staff Picks

Some people kickbox, some people eat their feelings. Sadie Wen writes scathing emails but never sends them, and everything is perfect. Until it's not. Fans of Jenny Han and Mindy Kaling will eat up this story of academic rivals and clamor for more.

 

Publisher's description:

Sadie Wen is perfect on paper: school captain, valedictorian, and a "pleasure to have in class." It's not easy, but she has a trick to keep her model-student smile plastered on her face at all times: she channels all her frustrations into her email drafts. She'd never send them of course--she'd rather die than hurt anyone's feelings--but it's a relief to let loose on her power-hungry English teacher or a freeloading classmate taking credit for Sadie's work. All her most vehemently worded emails are directed at her infuriating cocaptain, Julius Gong, whose arrogance and competitive streak have irked Sadie since they were kids. "You're attention starved and self-obsessed and unbearably vain ... I really hope your comb breaks and you run out of whatever expensive hair products you've been using to make your hair appear deceptively soft ..." Sadie doesn't have to hold back in her emails, because nobody will ever read them ... that is, until they're accidentally sent out. Overnight, Sadie's carefully crafted, conflict-free life is turned upside down. It's her worst nightmare--now everyone at school knows what she really thinks of them, and they're not afraid to tell her what they really think of her either. But amidst the chaos, there's one person growing to appreciate the "real" Sadie -- Julius, the only boy she's sworn to hate ...

 

Through her early childhood, adolescence and up through her famous appearance on Saturday Night Live, then into her later life, Sinéad O'Connor shares her life story with raw honesty, compassion, grit, and charm. An insightful read, with lots of musical references--I read it with YouTube at hand and watched moments, music videos, and performances as they came up in the book for a full featured multimedia reading experience!

 

Publisher's description:

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous -- living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s 'Nothing Compares 2U.' Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

 

This is a love letter to books and the power they have over us.

 

Publisher's description:

Yeongju is burned out. She did everything she was supposed to: go to school, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. In a leap of faith, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighborhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster-and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju -- they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live.

 

I absolutely LOVED These Violent Delights and it's sequel, Our Violent Ends. Based off of Romeo and Juliet (but with gangs), it's a great historical enemies-to-lovers romance set in 1920's Shanghai. I loved the strong female main character and engaging plot, as well as the political elements that are sprinkled throughout. It was incredibly well written, and still managed to have surprising plot twists, despite it being a retelling. I'll definitely be reading it again sometime soon.

 

Publisher's description:

In 1926 Shanghai, eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, heir of the Scarlet Gang, and her first love-turned-rival Roma Montagov, leader of the White Flowers, must work together when mysterious deaths threaten their city.

 

On the surface, this is a kid's-eye-view of a neighborhood, with maps highlighting neighbors' houses, the school, library, and beloved places - and the interior of the narrator's house. At the end, it becomes clear this is a generous gesture from someone who has moved away so that whoever is moving into the house can already begin to know the heart of the neighborhood. The playful illustration style and bright colors draw the reader in, and notes on the maps detail what makes the places special.

 

A young cartographer leaves a one-of-a-kind gift behind for the kid moving into his old house. He’s drawn and annotated maps of all the neighborhood places of interest—no playground, reading nook, or chicken coop left uncharted. During a big move, a child can feel a lot of pressure to be excited for the future, to open their heart to the place they’re headed. But the roads they’ve been down hundreds of times, the familiar faces, and the house where they know every noisy pipe and leaky faucet all deserve care, too. A Book of Maps for You honors the homes we leave behind and the ones we haven’t met yet, reminding us that they may just be two sides of the same coin. Lourdes Heuer’s attentive text speaks volumes in each word, and Maxwell Eaton III’s signature detail-rich illustrations call for re-reads to drink in and explore every page

 

This blew me away. Incredible world building and character development. And the romance! So good! If you've read A Court of Thorns and Roses and don't know what to read next, pick this up!

 

Publisher's description:

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate. Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone. When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

 

Beautiful book, but most definitely not for the faint of heart, it describes the struggles of the Jewish children living in Vienna in 1936 when Nazi influence was on the rise. When the World was Ours is a great way to get an in depth perspective on each child’s experience. Absolutely love this book, it was my favorite for quite a while, but I wouldn’t recommend it to younger people, or anyone with sensitivities towards violence and child abuse. This book is pretty dark and has some heavy subjects like death and Nazis, but I do feel it’s important that youths read it.

 

Publisher's description:

Vienna. 1936. Three young friends—Leo, Elsa, and Max—spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending into a growing darkness and that they will soon be cruelly ripped apart from one another. With their lives taking them across Europe—to Germany, England, Prague, and Poland—will they ever find their way back to one another? Will they want to?

 

This sci-fi alternate history of the Soviet Afghanistan War is one of those works of art that feels like it can barely contain itself. It switches between art styles and page formats multiple times per issue and is dense with ideas concerning the weight of history, the ideals of communism, and the horror of U.S. imperialism. Despite these topics, it never becomes ponderous or leaden and is consistently entertaining and beautiful to look at. Fans of Alan Moore's work will find a lot to enjoy.

 

Publisher description:

At the end of the 20th Century, superheroes, geniuses, madmen and activists rush towards WWIII! A Soviet "iron" hero; a super-powered American President; an insane cyborg soldier; an Afghan woman hellbent on building a better life for her people-these strange yet familiar beings collide in a story that mixes history, politics, and comic book mythology into something totally new. Welcome to 20th CENTURY MEN, where the edges of our reality and fiction touch, then explode.

 

Very clever and funny story that ties together rhyming, creativity, and finding a new way of collaborating among siblings.

 

A boy begrudgingly composes a sometimes-rhyming adventure with his precocious little sister.'