I liked reading The State of Grace. Usually I find books under 300 pages sacrifice depth of characters. For this book, the lower page count wasn’t an issue at all. Rachael Lucas knew exactly what her story was and knew exactly where she was going with it. I found The State of Grace to be focussed and intentional in telling Grace’s story. It’s a book that embraces neurodiversity — something that I’ve not come across all that much in YA fiction.
A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER by Sara Barnard
Before A Quiet Kind of Thunder, I had never read a book involving a character with selective mutism, nor a character who is deaf. It didn’t occur to me previously that I hadn’t until I had the opportunity to review this book. I was a little unsure if I would like it because it’s primarily a romance novel. On the flip side, Sara Barnard wrote this and I really enjoyed her debut, Beautiful Broken Things, so I was still curious.
HEARTLESS by Marissa Meyer
Before reading Heartless, I made sure to read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. After all, Marissa Meyer sought to pen a prequel, imagining the tale of the young Queen of Hearts. Growing up, I didn’t read those classics. Like many, I watched movies and TV adaptations. With this retelling on the horizon, however, I decided it was finally time to read the books.
TONIGHT THE STREETS ARE OURS by Leila Sales
Tonight the Streets Are Ours was such a fun read! I enjoyed it tremendously, even though the characters were far from perfect. They each had their flaws and made questionable decisions. I liked that because that’s precisely what made them so relatable. The realism in the book mirrored the craziness of real life and for that I adored it.
THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
The Square Root of Summer is such a quirky book. It contains little illustrations and while it starts off like a contemporary read, it plunges into science fiction through time travel. Time travel in this case doesn’t pertain to fantastical notions of visiting another era. Here things are grounded a bit more in physics, incorporating discussions of the space-time continuum, the speed of light and the effect of gravity on one’s ageing process. If there’s one thing to be said, the main character is exceedingly smart and prides herself in her intelligence.
