Are you looking for a new book to read?
Lucky you, I have some here for you to read up on!
Every Friday I recap what I’ve read during the week.
I post the picture of the book
that I took when I finished reading it,
and underneath, my thoughts.
I read a ton on books this week,
but got pretty bad photos (hence the yellowish light!)
For the life of me I could not take photos during the daytime!
Most days I get home when it’s nearly dark,
so I can see why.
Bad photos aside, get ready or learn about some new books!
I also realized I read only ARCs this week,
but most of them are out as real books,
don’t worry.
NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN
By Kathleen Hale
This is a sequel to NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU. Kippy is back but still a bit stressed out by the events from the first book. Her best friend is still dead. (That’s not a spoiler for the first book; it’s about the murder!) She’s trying to deal with the flashbacks and pain of discovering out who the killer was and trying to lead a normal life. She has her boyfriend, friends, her Dad, her Dad’s girlfriend, and her doctor, but things are still getting weird.
And then something happens to her boyfriend. Something that looks like an attempted suicide but she’s sure it’s not. Suddenly Kippy is back on the case, trying to figure out who she can trust in this tiny town and who may have it out for her.
I read the first book a while ago for book club, so it took me a little bit to remember the characters. I liked how the mystery drove the book along, and it felt impossible that someone was behind the whole thing, because there are so few characters! (Small town!) the first person I suspected was the one who it ended up being. I usually don’t like mysteries, but enjoyed this one. It felt like a very light read, different from my normal reads.
SPACE DUMPLINS
By Craig Thompson
Violet loves her family and loves her life in space, even if they don’t live in the most posh space trailer/ship. Her Mom works at the fabric factory and her Dad has some sort of dangerous job involving the space whales (giant space creatures capable of eating entire planets. Their poo is harvested and used as an energy source!)
Her Mom gets a transfer to work at a fancy space station and Violet applies to go to school there but doesn’t make it in thanks to something coming up on her dad’s background check. While she’s at the fancy station, there’s a toxic spill in her space city and suddenly her Dad is missing.
Violet calls on a new friend, and old friend, her space ship flying skills, and a lot of luck to try and find her Dad.
I thought this was awesome! It’s a great story about friendship, family, and environmentalism! I’ve read some of Craig’s stuff for older readers, and I’m so happy he’s doing something for the middle grade crowd. This is a story that stuck with me. The illustrations were awesome too! I loved all the aliens, planets, and vehicles. I didn’t even read most of it on color (it’s an ARC) and still thought it was great. Check this one out! Lots of adventure and heart!
INFINITE IN BETWEEN
By Carolyn Mackler
This book is SO COOL.
It follows five teenagers over the course of their four high school years. They meet in a freshman orientation group and decide to write letters to their future selves, and meet after graduation again to read them.
Zoe just moved to town. Her movie star mother is in rehab again; she’s living with her aunt and not sure if she should get comfortable, since she may be leaving back to California.
Jake is torn up about something he says to his best friend over the summer; maybe he shouldn’t have revealed how he felt? He’s dealing with coming out to his parents too.
Mia is great at observing everyone, but not sure what or who she wants to end up being, except she knows she wants out of this town.
Whitney is the popular girl who’s always nice and surrounded by a group of equally attractive friends, always laughing and having fun, but she’s not sure if it will always stay that way.
Gregor falls in love at first sight, and decides he’s going to try to be more than a band geek in high school.
The chapters are short and alternate between their five points of view. We see short snippets of their lives each year, and how they sometimes knowingly or unknowingly interact with each other. There’s love, heartbreak, uncertainty, friendships, growing, loss, and so much more throughout the four years.
I thought this was expertly done. I felt like I got to know all the characters and saw growth in each of them. Carrying their stories side by side while reading was not hard either. They were all different but also very similar, which I think is important for teens to see; even someone you think is nothing like you has something in common with you.
This felt like such a fun adventure. A great read.
HAMSTER PRINCESS: HARRIET THE INVINCIBLE
By Ursula Vernon
Harriet is a princess, though she doesn’t like traditional princess things. She’d much rather have adventures. But there’s this curse on her; she’s going to prick her finger on a hamster wheel when she turns twelve and fall into a sleep that only a prince can wake her from.
When Harriet hears about it, she’s so excited, because if that curse has to happen, then she has to be ALIVE at 12, which means she’s invincible until then!
She takes this info and, against her parents’ wishes, heads off to fight ogres and cliff dive. When she turns twelve, the curse does happen, but with unexpected results and new problems she has to solve.
Oh man, Harriet is great! So feisty and sassy and strong! What a great character! The book has short chapters with illustrations thought and lots of purple.
I only wish there wasn’t so much glitter on the cover; I know boys will love these books too! It’s not that they can’t read books with glitter on the cover; I’m just worried they may be less likely to pick it up. That just means I’ll have to do my part and give these to boys!
This is going to be a series and it’s AWESOME! What a fun new book!
HAMSTER PRINCESS: OF MICE AND MAGIC
By Ursula Vernon
Harriet is back, this time solving a mystery. There are twelve dancing mice princesses who are cursed to dance every night, and they want out of the curse. If Harriet can figure it out, she gets half the kingdom as a reward. If she doesn’t, something vaguely bad will happen to her family in the future. (She knows it’s true because a fairy rodent told her!)
She’s surprised to find Wilbur, her pal from book one, working at the castle the princesses live in, and sets to work trying to crack the mystery.
I loved this book too! Funny, charming, great illustrations and funny and difficult problems to solve. I liked the new characters that were introduced, and the “power” that Harriet gained in the end. So excited for this series to continue! (This one’s not out until March, but the first one that I just reviewed is already out!)
Have you read any of these?
I’d love to hear what you thought of them!
See you next Friday with more books!
Bye for now,
KE
P.S. Full disclosure: The links above go to Indiebound and are affiliate links. If you buy at Indiebound, I’ll get a little kick back. That would of course be nice, but really I’m happy to be linking to an Indie site 
