Genre: Verse

Bite-Sized Reviews of Cybils Nominees: Red, White, and Whole; Muted; Dear Ugly Sisters; and Rez Dogs

As my regular readers know, I’m a round-one judge for the Cybils Awards in the Poetry category. Because of that, I’ve been reading tons of verse lately! I’m not allowed to share any details about our process for choosing the finalists, but I am allowed (and encouraged) to review the books as I read, so I figured I’d share four of them with you today. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed […]

Posted December 30, 2021 in Cybils, Reviews / 8 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Cybils Nominees: I Wish I Had a Wookie; Reckless, Glorious, Girl; My Thoughts Are Clouds; and For Every Little Thing

Posted December 13, 2021 in Cybils, Reviews / 11 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Cybils Nominees: When We Make It, The One Thing You’d Save, Starfish, and The Dirt Book

Posted December 9, 2021 in Cybils, Reviews / 12 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Cybils Nominees: Unsettled, Amber & Clay, Legacy, and Hello, Earth!

Posted November 17, 2021 in Cybils, Reviews / 10 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Cybils Nominees: The Seventh Raven, Chlorine Sky, Me (Moth), and Ice! Poems About Polar Life

Posted November 11, 2021 in Cybils, Reviews / 13 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Violets Are Blue, Rewritten, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and Closer to Nowhere

Today, I have a MG contemp, a MG contemporary fantasy, a YA dystopian, and a MG contemporary in verse. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! Violets Are Blue is an incredibly realistic middle-grade depiction of a child dealing with a recent divorce and a mother’s downward spiral into depression and addiction. I think what I loved most about this book is how believable Wren’s thoughts and feelings are. […]

Posted November 4, 2021 in Reviews / 14 Comments

The Lost Language by Claudia Mills: Review & Giveaway

Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD The Lost Language is a heartfelt story of evolving friendships, complicated family relationships, and learning independence (even in the face of strong personalities). Betsy has always considered herself part of a pair, her and her best friend Lizard. Sure, Lizard tends to always manage to get her way, but usually Betsy doesn’t mind taking a back seat to her headstrong friend (usually). She just wishes her overly-busy mom would give Lizard more of […]

Posted October 27, 2021 in Giveaways (Ended), Reviews / 5 Comments

National Poetry Month Feature: Reviews of Your Heart My Sky & Turtle Under Ice

Since April is National Poetry Month, I thought I’d feature reviews of a couple of recent YA verse novels. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! Your Heart My Sky highlights a time in Cuba’s history that many people don’t know about: “The special period in times of peace.” Sounds wonderful, right? Well, I suppose that’s how the government wanted people to see it, but many people in Cuba […]

Posted April 17, 2021 in Reviews / 3 Comments

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds and Danica Novgorodoff

As my regular readers know, I make an effort to feature POC authors on the blog regularly. Still, since this month is Black History Month, I figure there’s no harm in putting a little extra spotlight on some recent books by Black authors. Here’s the first feature: a review of the graphic novel version of Long Way Down, which I was very excited to get my hands on! I absolutely loved Long Way Down when I read […]

Posted February 9, 2021 in Black History Month, Reviews / 11 Comments

Bite-Sized Reviews of Admission, Meow or Never, The Canyon’s Edge, and You Have a Match

I still have some more Cybils reviews to post, but I’m taking a little time off from that to post some newer releases. (Though I will be coming back to some of my favorite Cybils books still). Today, I have two YA contemps and two MG contemps (one in verse!) I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! Let’s face it, we were all more than a little fascinated when […]

Posted January 21, 2021 in Reviews / 11 Comments