Category: Young Adult

The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall

First of all, the No-Girlfriend Rule is bullshit. If you’re new to role-playing games and are told that your partner’s group doesn’t allow girlfriends, I don’t want you to have to spend time reading this (excellent) book to learn that that “rule” is manifest garbage, and you either need to find a new partner or …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/03/15/the-no-girlfriend-rule-by-christen-randall/

Diary Of A Confused Feminist by Kate Weston

You know you’re getting old when British YA diary novels are no longer compared to Sue Townsend’s or even Helen Fielding’s oeuvre. For all that I am now an old, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of Kat Evans, the fifteen year-old girl who wants to be a good feminist even as she worries about friendships, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/29/diary-of-a-confused-feminist-by-kate-weston/

Confetti Realms by Nadia Shammas, Karnessa, Hackto Oshiro & Micah Meyers

This somehow slipped through the cracks for me at Halloween, but it’s a really tremendous read for the end of the year — or any time of year if you’re struggling with your emotions, and especially if you’re LGBTQ+, teenager or otherwise. Confetti Realms starts in a diner on Halloween, with three high-school-age friends making …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/12/confetti-realms-by-nadia-shammas-karnessa-hackto-oshiro-micah-meyers/

Sea Serpent’s Heir, Book Two: Black Wave by Mairghread Scott & Pablo Túnica

What a vast and welcome improvement on the tepid first volume! In fairness, that compliment applies strictly to the story, as Pablo Tunica’s art has been excellent from the very beginning. His illustrations are as consistently kinetic and majestic and grotesque as the sea and its inhabitants, truly leaning in to the weird, hardscrabble nature …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/21/sea-serpents-heir-book-two-black-wave-by-mairghread-scott-pablo-tunica/

Rana Joon And The One And Only Now by Shideh Etaat

It’s been almost a year since Rana’s best friend died, inexplicably going too fast in a car that he typically drove over-cautiously. Louie was smart, sensitive and accepting of Rana’s struggles as a closeted Iranian American Muslim lesbian with a difficult home life. Her dad works back in the Middle East while his family stays …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/03/rana-joon-and-the-one-and-only-now-by-shideh-etaat/

The Love Report by BeKa & Maya

Secondary schoolgirls Grace and Lola are bffs, united by many things but, most recently, by an utter bafflement as to the meaning, if not outright point, of love. In an effort to figure it all out, they begin a project called The Love Report, filling out a notebook with observations of people in love at …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/20/the-love-report-by-beka-maya/

The Nightmare Brigade #3: Finding Alice by Franck Thilliez, Yomgui Dumont & Drac

I really admire how well each of the books in this engrossing urban fantasy series lead in to one another. In this volume, Esteban, Tristan and Sarah, a.k.a the intrepid explorers of the Nightmare Brigade, are finally ready to plunge into the sleeping mind of Leonard, one of the Clinic’s most difficult patients. They’re going …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/16/the-nightmare-brigade-3-finding-alice-by-franck-thilliez-yomgui-dumont-drac/

Constellations by Kate Glasheen

My only regret is that the ARC I received of this wasn’t completely in color. This is understandable — graphic novels ain’t cheap! — but I was so in love in with the illustrations on the few pages that were full-color glossy that I know I lost a little bit of the story’s impact by …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/13/constellations-by-kate-glasheen/

I Have Something To Tell You―For Young Adults: A Memoir by Chasten Glezman Buttigieg

I’d never had any interest in reading the memoirs of a political spouse till after I picked up this book. It’s an adaptation of Chasten Glezman Buttigieg’s 2021 autobiography, originally written for adults, but with a message that’s so, so necessary for younger readers, too. I mean, even for a grown person like myself who …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/26/i-have-something-to-tell-you%e2%80%95for-young-adults-a-memoir-by-chasten-glezman-buttigieg/

Outpost Zero by Sean Kelley McKeever & Alexandre Tefenkgi

Collecting the entire fourteen issue run of the sci-fi comic book title. So this book has an interesting perspective on the living-in-space genre. Outpost Zero is all that remains of a generation ship that left Earth centuries ago. The survivors have adopted something of a small town mentality, focusing on keeping their outpost alive and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/25/outpost-zero-by-sean-kelley-mckeever-alexandre-tefenkgi/