“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up…What those rich people don’t always know is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods were first built out of love.” So begins Ibi Zoboi’s inventive, wildly entertaining “remix” of Jane Austen‘s classic Pride and Prejudice. In this contemporary take on the British Regency classic comedy of manners, the five Haitian-Dominican, working class Benitez sisters (Janae, Zuri, Marisol, Layla and Kayla) are crazy curious when their new, rich black neighbors, the Darcy brothers (Darius and Ainsley) move into the renovated brownstone across the street. Second eldest sister Zuri is especially suspicious, since she considers any and all changes to her beloved Bushwick, Brooklyn neighborhood as nefarious attempts at gentrification. While Zuri initially manages to resist the prickly charms of Darius, her romantic older sister Janae falls head over heels for Ainsley. But when Ainsley breaks Janae’s heart, Zuri unleashes the full force of her righteous sister rage on the Darcys, freezing them out of her family and neighborhood. It’s only when Zuri accidentally runs into Darius while on a campus tour of Howard University that she begins to see a different side of the youngest Darcy brother. Maybe a “bougie” black boy and a self-proclaimed “hood rat” can find some common ground after all. Maybe they can even fall in love…
Zuri and Darius’s heated discussions over being “bougie,” “ghetto” or “not black enough” are reflective of conversations being had all over this country by black and brown teens trying to define their identity instead of having it defined for them by a prevailing white, Western culture. The streets of Bushwick come alive through the sounds and smells of Mama Benitez’s cooking, the colorful cast of neighbors who live on the block, and the lyrical lines from Zuri’s poetry journal. Zoboi’s newfangled version of an old fashioned story of love and class and race is stunningly unique and utterly timeless, all at once. Don’t miss it! (And for more Ibi Zoboi awesomeness, read her debut, American Street, which was one of my top 5 YA books of 2017)
Remember those good old days of summer before you got roped into horrific high school summer projects/jobs/chores? It was just you, your best friend, a couple of bikes and two months of do-nothing stretching out to the horizon.That’s how it always was for Bina. She couldn’t wait until June so she and her best friend Austin could hang at the pool and add points to their Summer Fun Index (scientifically based on number of video games played, movies watched and stray cats petted, of course). But the summer after seventh grade, Austin has traded the Summer Fun Index for soccer camp, and Bina is convinced that her summer is gonna suck–hard. When her parents lock her out of their Netflix account because she’s “watched a summer’s worth of TV in a week,” Bina is forced to hunt down entertainment elsewhere. Oddly enough, without Austin around, Bina discovers that there’s a whole other world out there of cool older girls, indie music and her own untapped inner talents. This utterly endearing, oh-so-true graphic novel about one rising eighth grader’s summer adventures in babysitting, mean-girl-taming and indie-band-watching will make you feel so nostalgic for middle school that I bet you go dig up your 
and find an old notebook to doodle in. A terrifically un-taxing summer read that you’ll finish in an afternoon and think about the rest of the week!
Near the end of Beatrice’s senior year at posh boarding school Darrow-Harker, her talented, funny boyfriend Jim was found floating facedown in the local reservoir. Ultimately ruled a suicide, the tragic death and devastating aftermath busted up Beatrice and her tribe of besties: cunning Whitley, brainy Martha, cavalier Kipling and master hacker Cannon. Without Jim, they all drifted apart freshman year of college. Now, over a year later, Whitley has called them all back for a birthday bash at her family’s posh mansion. Against her better judgement, Beatrice decides to go, even though she knows it’s bound to stir up old memories and open new wounds. But she can’t help herself. Maybe together they can finally figure out what really happened to Jim that last night. EXCEPT…(and no spoilers here, this all happens in the first 50 pages and is mentioned on the back cover) they drink too much, get in a terrible car accident and die. THE END? Not quite. Turns out they have all landed in a bizarre time loop called the Neverworld Wake, stuck between life and death. Only one of them is allowed back into the land of the breathing, but how can they make that impossible decision? While they argue and flounder, living the same day over and over, Beatrice sees a chance to discover what really happened to Jim once and for all. But she just might have to die in order to finally know the truth. FRIENDS, this wild book is a offbeat, out-of-the-box mind bender that surprised and delighted me at every turn of the twisty plot. It’s both sci-fi and a mystery, a romantic tragedy and a tragic romance. Perhaps that’s to be expected from the 
, but I couldn’t finish that book despite my best efforts, while this one=MIND BLOWN. If you are looking for something fresh to shake up your reading routine, YOU’RE WELCOME. (And if you’re so inclined, please come back and tell me what you thought about it in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.)
Monday Charles and Claudia Coleman are the best of besties. They dress alike, dance alike, and since their names alphabetically come one right after the other on class lists, even always sit together in classes at their 
Oh my gosh, do I love a good survival story! I mean, real life-and-death kind of stakes where scrappy, puny humans fight against a totally uncaring landscape full of sharp, cold, wet or poisonous obstacles that are either passively or actively trying to kill them. But let’s be clear–I have no desire to start a fire with sticks and moss or skin a squirrel myself. I just want to read about it from the warm coziness of my couch while drinking tea and munching Cheetos. And it’s totally possible I chomped my way through an entire bag of toxic orange goodness while breathlessly turning the pages of 
or Scott O’Dell’s 
, I Am Still Alive marries unrelenting suspense with surprisingly compelling tips on ice-fishing and bad-man-trap setting. I was completely hooked, and you will be too when Alive comes to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you July 2018.
Do you know who the powerful Chinese empress 
Three star-crossed teens find their way back to love, family and acceptance in 
Lots of people have had bad childhoods, but Jude’s takes the cake: when she was seven years old, a green skinned stranger with big teeth showed up at her front door, murdered her parents and then kidnapped her, her twin sister Taryn and older sister Vivi. Turns out the stranger was her human mom’s jilted fairy husband Madoc, who came to retrieve his true child, Vivi, and ended up taking all three sisters back to his castle. Now a teen, Jude lives a weird sort of half life as a human in the land of Faerie. She is never fully accepted by the Folk, but far too steeped in the ways of the Fay to ever live happily in the mortal world. She spends her days training to be a knight and trying to escape the unwelcome attentions of Cardan, a spoiled fairy prince who finds Jude’s very existence offensive. But when a massive betrayal goes down in the royal family, Jude is given the impossible choice to either cut and run, or stay and fight for her place in Faerie. Holly Black deftly handles a huge cast of characters, all of whom Jude must carefully evaluate to decide if they are for or against her. Because if she trusts the wrong person, she may end up paying for for it with her life. Full of intrigue, romance, politics, and enchanting descriptions of fairy food, clothes and weapons, this sumptuous tome will delight both fans of fairies and mud bound mortals. The first book in a planned series, The Cruel Prince left me desperately wishing I could conjure up the sequel!
Two eerie tales intertwine in this gorgeously illustrated gem. Mary’s story unfolds through the pages of her diary, dated the spring and summer of 1982. An orphan, Mary lives with several other girls and their caretakers at the Thornhill Institute, where she is terrorized by another girl so malicious that she won’t even write her name in her journal. Mary avoids her tormentor by escaping to her room, where she reads voraciously and makes jointed dolls out of cloth and clay. But when the bullying crosses over into cruelty, Mary finally stands up for herself, with tragic results. Meanwhile, Ella’s story, told entirely in pictures and set in 2017, presents her move into a new house, where her bedroom window gives her a direct view into the overgrown back garden of the old, condemned Thornhill Institute. After seeing the figure of a girl in the trees, Ella sneaks over the barbed wire wall to try and find her. Instead, she finds a series of broken dolls, that slowly lead her to an attic room in crumbling Thornhill where she uncovers the terrible secret of what happened to Mary all those years ago. This creepy-cool take on a traditional ghost story will give you chills even on the hottest days of summer, and is perfect for fans of