I continue to enjoy how Shannon has built this story over these first three installments. She has taken the plot and characters quite far from the original setting of book one and has done so in a believable way. Sometimes when the plot transforms over the course of a series it can feel like a bait and switch. Other times, like in this series, it feels natural, organic. After finishing, the only negative thing that I can say about this installment is
that I wanted more. It’s the shortest of the series that I’ve read thus far.
I really enjoyed this backstory/origin retelling of the Muses from Disney’s Hercules. The narrative shifts seamlessly between the perspectives which include the five Muses, their mother, and Hades. This story sticks closely to the Disney version of the Greek myths rather than other popular interpretations like Lore Olympus and Percy Jackson that came long after the movie’s original release. In my opinion, that made
this interpretation feel fresh and intriguing. It also made me interested in picking up other works by Rochon.
This book had potential but fell flat. In this narrative, the main character and her family have to evacuate their house in the middle of the night due to flooding caused by overflow at the nearby dam. This flooding causes significant damage to many of the homes in that area including that of the main character and a neighbor/quasi friend. Somehow this leads to fallout among her friend group at her private school which includes a popular,
mean girl which, along with the financial troubles brought on by the flood and lack of flood insurance propels the main character to leave the private school for public school. That friendship fall out never receives adequate resolution. The main character also spends most of the novel attempting to arrange a fundraiser to help flood victims after seeing worrying mortgage notices for both her house and her neighbor friend. While I find the main character’s desire to do this believable, I find the logistics, or rather the absence of realistic logistics – for pulling something like this off quite concerning. I will spare any review readers from a list of grievances. I, unfortunately, do not recommend this book.
This narrative rotates between three points of view, two best friends and one visitor and is centered around the auction house of one of the main characters. She has to deal with the sudden reappearance of her mom after a disappearance half a year prior and the fear that she might do something wrong that will cause her mom to leave again. The other best friend, a quirky boy who lives with his
grandma, is dealing with the relatively recent loss of his grandpa as well as how that has completely unmoored his grandma. He believes that he has recently gained the ability to hear/talk to spirits after hearing his grandpa say something about grapes in chicken salad while attending his grandpa’s funeral. The third perspective, the visitor, desperately wants to go home after spending weeks away, cooped up in a camper with her mom after a hurricane destroyed their home in Florida. After realizing that her mom has no intention of returning home, she stages various protests, like refusing to speak to to her mom, to try to convince her mom to go home instead of staying parked in the parking lot of the aforementioned auction house. Stout does a fairly good job weaving these storylines together and building a believable story. While it did not excel, it did keep me engaged and I think some middle schoolers might find it interesting.
In this story, the main character experiences the world through synesthesia. Although exceptionally gifted in the violin, she has recently started a strike of sorts and has stopped playing, not because she dislikes the violin but because she longs to know if there’s more to her than just her extraordinary talent. her parents have little to no patience for this but their focus shifts for the summer because her maternal
grandmother has entered the late stages of dementia so the main character and her mom travel to her grandparents’ home so that her mom can help with her grandmother’s care. While there, the main character discovers that she can enter a shed on the property and somehow interact with her mom from the 90s when she was the same age as the main character. The main character longs to rectify the mom she’s always known with the seemingly completely different 12 year old version. I really enjoyed the story even though it leaned more into magical realism than some middle school age brains can deal with develop mentally, that might pose a stumbling block for some but those capable of abstract thought would likely find themselves as engaged in the narrative as I was.
I loved this series opener. Onyeka lives with her mother in London but her world gets turned upside down when a fun swimming day with her best friend goes wrong and somehow her hair acts completely on its own to save her best friend from drowning. She then learns from her mother that she’s not exactly human – she’s Solari – and they have to return to Nigeria to find her father and to get Onyeka the help that she needs. Once there,
Onyeka discovers a whole school of Solari just like her – although their powers manifest differently – as well as how the Solari came to be, a fact that I consider more sci-fi a la superheroes than fantastical. I love how Okagwu built and evolved the plot and every character she added. I cannot wait to continue.
Coal, the main character, has lived in the foster system all his life but for the past three years has had an excellent, loving home with Tom until a sudden, unexplained mental breakdown for Tom endangers Coal’s safety and prompts a new placement. Coal hopes for a temporary placement but actually really likes this new family. One evening, shortly after moving in with them, Coal goes out to make a street art memorial in chalk to a
woman recently shot and killed by police. He then has his own encounter with an old white guy that terrifies him and eventually reveals something even more unsettling; Coal can turn invisible aka his ski camouflages to his surroundings. His search to find out what’s happening to him leads him to discover way more about the world around him and that certain relationships were not as random as public bureaucracy in the form of foster care would have you believe. I really enjoyed how Baptiste took the superhero trope and used it to explore deeper societal truths. I will definitely pick up the sequel upon release.
This book was just fine. I hoped for more based on the title and cover and unfortunately ended up a little bit disappointed. In this story, Cruzita has her summer plans upended because of the stress her family is under to try to save the family bakery and her grandmother’s insistence that she learn the violin at a mariachi school. Cruzita wants nothing to do with mariachi,
feeling almost fake because she doesn’t really speak Spanish. Granillo had a strong premise but for a reason that I cannot really put my finger on, I could not engage with the characters and become immersed in the plot. I think this was a decent book but for some reason it did not work for me as well as I wanted.
This narrative focuses on the absurd with plenty of slapstick comedy. Evanovich created quite an enjoyable world in which certain people have gifts that some use for villainy so much so that different chapters of villains exist with each member having a talent and a code name associated with that talent. Keeper ends up getting recruited with another boy named Toby but unknown to Keeper, another person does not want him to
join and sends his daughter to stop him. I could attempt to try to explain more of the parts of the plot but the review would end up descending into inanity. Picture Saturday morning cartoon villains a la Pinky and the Brain. This narrative does not go deep at all; not ever book needs to. This was a fun romp.
