Read Game Craft

Title: The Sun Is Also A Star  Author: Nicola Yoon Publisher: Delacorte Press Release Date: November 1, 2016 My Rating: 4.5/5 Natasha:  I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story. Daniel:  I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe:  Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?  The main thing I have to say about this book is how absolut...

I received a lot of books from both my mom and grandmother for Christmas and I couldn't be happier about it. I haven't been able to read any of these books yet, but I thought I'd share them with you anyway. I also got a Books A Million gift card and a Barnes and Noble gift card which I am so excited to use. Let me know in the comments which books I should buy. Here's a quick picture of the books I got for Christmas: One of them didn't fit in the box nicely, although since taking this picture I've stacked some extra books on top of the  ones in the box. I got 15 books along with a boxset of six graphic novels. This is the one that didn't fit.  And this is the box I put them in. It's from Target and you can find it in the home section, but I can't find it online. This was a Christmas gift from my boyfriend and I've decided to use it to hold my reading list because I'm running out of shelf space in my dorm room. Here's...

Title: Lies We Tell Ourselves Author: Robin Talley Publisher: Harlequin Teen Release Date: September 30th 2014 I'd heard about this book online a lot and had wanted to pick it up for a while and finally did once I had enough money.  Synopsis: In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another. Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning ...

Title: Tell the Wind and Fire Author: Sarah Rees Brennan Publisher: Clarion Books Release Date: April 5, 2016 I received an early copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis:  In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets.  Lucie Manette was born in the Dark half of the city, but careful manipulations won her a home in the Light, celebrity status, and a rich, loving boyfriend. Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men’s deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth. Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herse...

Title: Passenger Author: Alexandra Bracken Publisher: Hyperion Review: I just finished Passenger —as in, two minutes ago just. Normally it can take me a while to write a review but with Passenger I just couldn’t wait. In my opinion, it was the best of Alexandra Bracken’s books so far—which is how it should be. I really love being able to see an author grow. Passenger was fast-paced and incredibly engaging with characters you fall in love with from the very first page. At the beginning, I found Passenger a bit hard to follow but part of that could have come from the fact that being an e-galley made the formatting a bit wonky. After the first chapter or two, I found my rhythm in it and from then I loved it until the very last page. Even if you don’t find time travel particularly interesting, you should read it all the same. Passenger has the best aspects of multiple genres and mixing them all beautifully. Alexandra Bracken combines time travel, action, historical fic...

I'm always looking to see depictions of things we don't usually see in YA literature - or literature in general, really. Whether that's other races, genders, or sexualities, I'm interested in all of it. I'm also interested in areas that get even less press than the ones I've already listed. Mental illness, for example. It's not only mental illness that we need more to be written about. We also need to be able to find more books about neurodivergence in general so if you have any in that area to recommend, let me know in the comments. A few weeks ago, I found myself having an unusual reading experience: I read two books featuring mentall illness back to back. I don't think that's ever happened to me. And I'm not talking about books that feature depression, which I've seen before. While I appreciate accurate depictions of depression and believe they're entirely necessary, I think it's just as important to portray the mental illnesses ...