Source: NetGalley

Feb 15

Bite-Sized Reviews of A Curse So Dark and Lonely, The Simple Art of Flying, and The Language Inside

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 7

I’ve got three reviews for you today: a YA fantasy retelling, a MG contemporary(ish), and a YA novel in verse. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! This book! So much perfection! Lately I’ve honestly been slogging through a lot of my reading. I’ve been tired and unmotivated and most of the books I’ve read have felt really long. I don’t think it’s been the books’ fault—it’s just the state of mind I’m in. And then I picked up this book. And I flew through it. Every time I put the book down, I was just waiting for the moment I could pick it back up. It was pure magic. It’s hard to imagine a fresh take on the Beauty and the Beast story, but this one has so many nuances: First off, there’s the heroine with cerebral palsy whose condition doesn’t define her in any way–it’s just a fact about… Read more »

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Jan 29

One-Third Nerd by Gennifer Choldenko: Review & Giveaway

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Current Giveaways, Reviews 16 ★★★½

One-Third Nerd is a heartwarming middle grade story about a typically atypical family just trying to get by. I say typically atypical because, let’s face it, in today’s world very few families fit the standard nuclear family mold. Liam’s parents are divorced and they struggle financially. His youngest sister has Down’s Syndrome and his other little sis is brilliant (but maybe a bit of a handful). I think that Chodenko captured the family dynamic well. None of them are perfect, but they love each other and they’re doing their best. Liam is sometimes self-conscious about his apartment and his brainy sister’s antics (she’s 100% nerd—perfect for her, but not great as far as Liam’s concerned). He’s especially concerned about how he looks to the new kid, Moses, who he thinks has it all together (especially since Moses is a superstar at tennis, Liam’s sport). To top everything off, the family… Read more »

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Jan 27

Only a Breath Apart by Katie McGarry: Review & $50 Giveaway

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Current Giveaways, Reviews 12 ★★★★½

Oh, how I love Katie McGarry. In anyone else’s hands, I think this book would have been overdramatic and overwrought—a teenage boy with a tragic past who has always loved the girl next door, who’s dealing with abuse in her family. There’s a lot of angst here. But McGarry draws me in to her characters and makes me relate to them in such intimate ways. She makes sure that the pain in these two lives feels real, and doesn’t just feel like drama. Anyway, on to my more specific review… What Fed My Addiction: Abuse depicted realistically. The relationship between Scarlett and her father is complicated. While Scarlett hates her father’s actions and she fears him, she also has good memories of him, and those sometimes cloud her thinking. Plus, everyone else in her family seems to forgive him, so she wonders why she can’t seem to do the same—and if… Read more »

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Dec 06

Bite-Sized Reviews of After the Fire, Watersnakes, Into the Bright Unknown and House Arrest

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 14 ★★★★

I’ve got four reviews for you today: a YA contemp, a YA historical fantasy, a graphic novel, and a MG contemp in verse. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! If, like me, you’re fascinated by stories about cults, this book will be just what you’ve been searching for. It explores what happens to people after they leave a cult environment—in this case, unwillingly. I love that the book looks at all sides of the life that Moonbeam (the MC) led while she was a member. There were horrors, but she has fond memories of some aspects of her early life too. And I loved seeing the world from her perspective and understanding why she thought some of the things that happened to her were normal or acceptable (when they definitely weren’t). As the story progresses, she has to come to terms with how her belief systems… Read more »

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Nov 10

Bite-Sized Reviews of Umbertouched, Meet the Sky, Furyborn, and Reclaiming Shilo Snow

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 10 ★★★★

I’ve got four YA reviews for you today, two fantasy, one sci-fi and a contemporary. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! This book is the high-stakes conclusion to the Rosemarked non-magical fantasy duology. This second book in the duology felt very different from the first, mostly because it focuses on the aftermath of the choices that Zivah and Dineas made in book one and on the battles that ensue. My favorite part of this book was seeing Dineas deal with the repercussions of his dual life—he’s now an outsider to both his own people and the Amparans. He sees the Amparans as the enemy, but he also knows some of them as friends and he understands them in ways he hadn’t before. His own people look at him with distrust and sometimes outright hostility. His struggle to come to terms with these things… Read more »

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Oct 26

Lulu the Broadway Mouse by Jenna Gavigan: Review & Giveaway

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Giveaways (Ended), Reviews 0 ★★★★

This book is just plain cute. Since I was a theatre major in college, I loved all the references to how Broadway and theatre in general work. I think any little kid with dreams of being on the stage would really enjoy this story (and learn a lot from it too). The style is sort of interesting because it’s really pretty much a contemporary MG set in a Broadway theatre—except the MC happens to be a mouse. I was expecting a bit more fantasy elements or something, but honestly, Lulu could have been a little girl and the story wouldn’t have been all that different. I’m not sure if that’s a positive or a negative about the book, it’s just a fact. I’m not sure how much the book will appeal to kids who aren’t already interested in the theatre since it’s not super plot-heavy, but if you know any kids who… Read more »

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Oct 10

Star-Crossed by Pintip Dunn: Review & Giveaway

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Giveaways (Ended), Reviews 10 ★★★★

This book has such a unique concept. In a futuristic sci-fi world where food is scarce, scientists have come up with an interesting solution: a genetic modification that will allow a person to process food more efficiently, and then the nutrients that the person extracts can be used to create a nutrition pill that will feed the masses. My favorite aspect about this book is the moral quandaries that are created by the scarcity of food. Everyone in this society has to make sacrifices: Some people sacrifice years of their life, others must give up the pleasures of eating real food, and a few give up life while still in their prime in order to sustain the life of the king. The people and the government have to make tough choices—in some ways it reminded me of (a slightly less brutal) The 100 in that way. There are no easy answers,… Read more »

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Sep 27

Bite-Sized Reviews of Shadow of the Fox, The Talon Series, Misfits, and Drama

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 20 ★★★★

I’ve got four reviews for you today: two YA fantasies, a MG fantasy, and a YA/MG graphic novel. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! Steeped in Japanese folklore, Shadow of the Fox is sure to please anyone who’s a fan of anime or manga or any reader who loves fantastical stories based on traditional lore. The book is dual-narrated: First we have Yumeko, who is half kitsune and is constantly trying to balance her human and yokai sides. Her yokai brethren encourage her to shed her humanity, something she is loathe to do, but she also fears how humans will react if they know about her kitsune heritage. Then there’s the mysterious samurai, Tatsumi. His powerful sword that is infused with an angry and bloodthirsty demon killer who constantly threatens to overcome Tatsumi and turn him into a senseless killing machine. When these… Read more »

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Aug 25

Bite-Sized Reviews of The Thing About Jellyfish, Unwritten, and The Girl with More than One Heart

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Middle Grade, Reviews 12 ★★★★½

I’ve got three middle grade reviews for you today: two contemporaries and a contemporary fantasy. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! This book is really interesting because it’s written from the POV of a character who seems like she’s probably on the autism spectrum (but it’s never explicitly said, and she might not even be diagnosed as such). I actually sort of love this because I have a kid with a similar background—often in life you don’t get a definitive “this is the label that your kid has and it makes so much sense and everyone needs to know this label and act accordingly.” I’ve found raising kids to be a lot more complicated than that. Anyway, this book deals with the death of Suzy’s best friend, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Early on, we learn that something happened between Suzy and Franny—you… Read more »

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Aug 23

Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson: A Spectacular Spin-Off!

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 16 ★★★★½

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that Pearson was revisiting the Remnant Chronicles universe! This book takes place several years after the conclusion of the original series. You definitely don’t have to have read the original series to understand what’s going on in this one, but I LOVED it, so I highly recommend reading it for the background history. Some of the characters make appearances in this book. What Fed My Addiction: Thief turned warrior. Kazi is an accomplished thief who crosses the queen. I love that, instead of punishing her, the queen sees Kazi’s potential and puts her into her elite royal guard. Kazi has a tragic backstory that we learn as the story unfolds. Her sense of loyalty to the queen combined with her own search for vengeance against the man who sent her tragic story into motion—and anyone who would take advantage of the weak—make her… Read more »

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