Jul 30 2021
I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this charming, body positive tale of a 16 year-old at an inflection point in her life, trying to figure out what’s going on with her parents, her best friend, her sister, the boy she thinks she loves and the boy she most definitely does not love, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/07/30/what-i-like-about-me-by-jenna-guillaume/
Jun 09 2021
What if Thelma and Louise were scared teenagers in love with one another? That’s the intriguing premise of this book as best friends Trixie and Lux set out for a quick getaway from their stifling lives in Blue Bottle, West Virginia, only to find themselves on the run after Trixie stabs a guy who tries …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/09/trouble-girls-by-julia-lynn-rubin/
May 14 2021
On the one hand, this is a thoroughly lived-in YA romance with two bisexual leads, at least one of whom is struggling with her identity as someone who isn’t strictly heterosexual. Lara Bogdan was your typical mousy high schooler, with a clique of awesome friends and a raging crush on handsome, sweet Chase Harding, football …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/14/cool-for-the-summer-by-dahlia-adler/
Apr 27 2021
I found this book shockingly, uncomfortably relatable, and would fight anyone to defend its heroine, the precocious 15 year-old Gracie Welles. I, too, was sent to a “prestigious” boarding school at that age by a well-meaning dad who didn’t really understand the realities of what I needed to survive it, and I too spent countless …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/27/slingshot-by-mercedes-helnwein/
Mar 31 2021
And here I thought I’d broken my streak of being grumpy with the science in speculative fiction novels! Granted, my last read, Oliver K Langmead’s terrific Birds Of Paradise, never pretended at being scientific, to its credit. But here I am reviewing another novel with half-baked scientific ideas that could have just been hand-waved entirely …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/31/down-world-by-rebecca-phelps/
Mar 25 2021
Thank God for Katherine! I was pretty fond of her in the first novel of the series too, and am so, so glad she gets entire viewpoint chapters in this novel, alternating with Jane’s. Deathless Divide begins with the girls fleeing Summerland and trying to figure out, with their small band of survivors, where to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/25/deathless-divide-dread-nation-2-by-justina-ireland/
Mar 22 2021
Deeeeeep sigh. So I was sent this book without having read the first one, and when I went to read Fable to get myself up to speed, I was Not Impressed. That was a book that romanticized immature people making irrational choices. This sequel has the dubious virtue of being utterly consistent with its predecessor. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/22/namesake-fable-2-by-adrienne-young/
Mar 09 2021
This might be one of my favorite romance novels ever, never mind a YA romance. And that’s even with hating the guy around the beginning: he gets (a lot) better, and I’m really hoping the devil’s advocate nonsense is something he grows out of because, you know, he’s a teenager and it’s understandable, if certainly …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/09/perfect-on-paper-by-sophie-gonzales/
Mar 04 2021
To give you an idea of how much I hated the heroine, the first time she’s in mortal peril, I was hoping she wouldn’t survive. When she unfortunately does escape the potentially fatal consequences of the (self-inflicted) accident only to be later gravely wounded by a villain, I literally shouted with laughter because I was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/04/down-comes-the-night-by-allison-saft/
Feb 15 2021
Honestly, this reads like J. D. Salinger fanfic. But, y’know, I didn’t think I’d like Joanna Rakoff’s My Salinger Year either, especially with its dreadful prologue, and I’ve since taken to evangelizing that excellent memoir and hoping the upcoming movie does it justice. Ashley Schumacher’s Amelia Unabridged shares a tendency towards gorgeous writing with Ms …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/02/15/amelia-unabridged-by-ashley-schumacher/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire