Reviews written by Renae M

Heist Society is a book written for readers in search of a good time. This novel about teenage thieves and their global adventures is far from serious—and far from realistic. Author Ally Carter writes in a style that’s appropriate for younger audiences, in the vein of the Spy Kids films....

The highly anticipated conclusion to Beth Revis’s debut trilogy was…well, not what I was expecting. A Million Suns ended in a manner that left things very open-ended, but I figured that even so, Shades of Earth was going to follow the basic outline I’d constructed in my head. It didn’t....

Sangu Mandanna’s YA debut is a quiet, contemplative piece of science fiction. Obviously inspired by Frankenstein, it deals mostly with identity—the book’s protagonist is out to prove that she can be her own person in spite of her status as a “thing” and not a human. In many ways, The...

Sloane Margaret “Maggie” Jameson is a glamorous up-and-coming actress in New York City. Sloane Margaret Jameson is also a straight-A student living in small town Connecticut. At night, the two girls, Maggie and Sloane, dream of each other’s lives. For each of them, their life is reality and the dreams...

The final book in a series comes with a lot of pressure. This is especially the case with Boundless. As the third installment in Cynthia Hand’s (almost) universally-loved trilogy, I can’t think of a reader who wasn’t anxiously waiting for the answer to the big, pressing question—will Clara choose Christian...

Charmed Thirds is basically what this “new adult” business is trying so hard to be, but hasn’t quite achieved. This book portrays the four years of Jessica Darling’s college existence, and it does it in an honest, uncomplicated way. Yes, she has sex—a lot of it, to be quite honest,...

By and large, Second Helpings was a massive improvement over Sloppy Firsts. Where in the first book I found Jessica Darling to be needlessly rude and judgmental, in this sequel I was instead charmed by her ridiculous sense of humor and pleased by her obvious character growth from her sophomore...

At 16, Jessica feels like her parents don’t even know her, hates her friends, feels like a “loser”, and makes up for her feelings of inadequacy by judging (especially slut-shaming) everyone she comes into contact with. Jessica is not a perfect person, and though she doesn’t make monumental mistakes, she...

Recently, I’ve decided that while I’m not a big fan of YA dystopian, I really like post-apocalyptic novels. Orleans is yet another example of that trend. This is a strong, moving book that grabbed me at the start and held me to the end. Mostly, I was totally impressed by...

I sat down, right before dinner, meaning to read a few of the poems in Burned, just see what Ellen Hopkins was all about. Two hours later I was still reading, captivated by Pattyn von Stratten’s voice, her situation, her timid yet strengthening rebellions. 300 pages were gone, and I’d...

It’s always rewarding, when I have massive expectations for a book and they’re met. I wish it happened more often, but with me it’s something of a rarity. However, I’ve been intensely interested in The Ruining ever since I first read the jacket blurb, and, looking back, I rather wish...

When We Wake is, in my opinion, futuristic science fiction done well. (I haven’t read much of it, sure, but I found very little wrong with this novel.) Tegan Oglietti wakes up in the year 2128, a hundred years after her last memory, only to discover she’s part of a...

Road trip novels, especially in the YA age-range, have become a sort of bookish sub-culture. There are funny ones, gloomy ones, in-between ones. There’s a lot you can do with a group of kids driving across America in a car. I’m not enthralled with the typical road-trip plot, but I...

Mary Casanova’s Frozen is a very unique book. The main themes aren’t anything new to me, but the setting and much of the execution were very different from anything I’ve ever read before. Frozen was definitely a very interesting book. The story follows Sadie Rose, the daughter...

In my experience, a lot historical fiction covers too-familiar topics. Tudors, WWII, American Pioneers. In this genre, there are standard go-to locations and time periods. So imagine how excited I was when I found a novel that covered a time and place I’ve never seen written about before. A wannabe-warrior...