Reviews written by Patrick Hodges, Staff Reviewer

The story: Despite living a life of privilege, sixteen-year-old Emma Rothchild has known her share of tragedy. She lost her mother several years before, and more recently, her father. Determined to solve the mystery behind the mysterious plane crash that claimed her father’s life, she soon finds...

The story: Jeannie Kynde has had it bad the last few years. The tragic drowning death of her mother, coupled with a partial hearing loss as a result of a sports-related accident, has made her the brunt of her father’s anger. When she hits her eighteenth birthday,...

Most YA stories worth reading have at their center a strong, worthy heroine. They usually possess a character trait or a perspective that is unique, and because of that, she ends up changing the world around her for the better. Claire Luana's Kai is just such...

The story: In a society where time travel exists but is strictly relegated, eighteen-year-old Brooke decides to use her one allotted trip to save her beloved brother Branson, who died of a mysterious illness. When she “jumps” into the body of her younger self with the purpose...

I have, this year, become a huge fan of YA Dystopian stories. I have been fortunate to read some gems in the last few months, including T.D. Shields' "Into Shadow" and Kayla Howarth's "Institute" series. This past week I tackled Michelle Bryan's "Awaken", and I enjoyed it immensely. ...

In Visions, I was introduced to the character of Heather Reiner, a vulnerable but brave teenage girl with the power of clairvoyance. Using this gift, and with the help of her friends, she is able to overcome her fears and help the local authorities crack the ten-year-old unsolved homicide of...

In Emerge: The Awakening, we meet Allie, a diminutive teenage girl with fiery red hair and a snarky attitude. She has been on the run, moving from place to place, her entire life, and she's had nary a clue as to why. But that changes when she...

With the verbal brush-strokes of a Renaissance artist, T.D. Shields crafts a vivid picture of a world two centuries in the future. Thousands of books are given such a setting, but it takes a skilled author to immerse us in that world without weighing the story down in descriptions. ...

Joining strong YA dystopian heroines like Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior is Kayla Howarth's Allira Daniels, who lives in a world whose population has been devastated. The governments of the world have sealed their borders, and they maintain that the greatest threat to humanity are "defectives", people born with supernatural...

In Visions, I was introduced to the character of Heather Reiner, a vulnerable but brave teenage girl with the power of clairvoyance. Using this gift, and with the help of her friends, she is able to overcome her fears and help the local authorities crack the ten-year-old unsolved homicide of...

What do you do if you're a teenage girl with the ability to see things that others can't, disturbing, haunting images that are revealed at the slightest touch? If you're seventeen-year-old Hether Reiner, you seek solitude, avoiding friends and any kind of social life. When her mother...

It is the future, and the world ain't what it once was. Britain is ruled under military occupation, and all attempts of sedition are quelled violently, and criminals are sent to the colonies - the former United States - for the merest of infractions. ...

In this fast-paced debut from Rebecca Jaycox, we meet 17-year-old Reggie Lang, a teenage girl with an alcoholic mother and an unusual ability: the power to bring dead creatures back to life. Visited in her dreams by a mysterious character named Rhys, Reggie soon finds her life turned upside-down, as...

Reviewed by Kim Anisi for Readers' Favorite Joshua's Island by Patrick Hodges is the story of Joshua and Eve, two 13-year-old kids who face something many kids have to deal with in real life, too: bullying. And not just verbal bullying, but bullying that includes physical violence....