New YA: May 1-7.

Good braiderHoly cow, I haven't read ANY of these yet. How embarrassing.

New hardbacks:

The Peculiars, by Maureen McQuerry:

I suspect that Lena will give some readers trouble, as she's got a bad case of self-loathing (understandably, given her upbringing), and she has a tendency to ignore her gut instinct (also understandable, given her insecurity) which leads her to make some big, big mistakes. Like I said, both of those aspects of her personality make sense, but they also make her company a bit difficult to enjoy wholeheartedly.

The Good Braider, by Terry Farish

Wrecked, by Anna Davies

When You Were Mine, by Rebecca Serle

Wentworth Hall, by Abby Grahame

Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe, by Shelley Coriell

Silence (Queen of the Dead), by Michelle Sagara

Stone Mage Wars, Book 1: Journey To the Fringe, by Kelli Swofford Nielsen

This Is So Not Happening (He's So/She's So Trilogy), by Kieran Scott

The Vicious Deep, by Zoraida Cordova

Waiting (Paula Wiseman Books), by Carol Lynch Williams

PeculiarsWanted, by Heidi Ayarbe

Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever, by Lisi Harrison

Numbers Book 3: Infinity, by Rachel Ward

Revived, by Cat Patrick

The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, Book 3), by Rick Riordan

Shine, by Jeri Smith-Ready

Insurgent (Divergent), by Veronica Roth

The Last Princess, by Galaxy Craze

The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to their Younger Selves, by Sarah Moon and James Lecesne

Crazy Dangerous, by Andrew Klavan

Destined (Wings), by Aprilynne Pike

The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Being Friends with Boys, by Terra Elan McVoy

Bitterblue (Graceling), by Kristin Cashore

Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires, by Rachel Caine

Body & Soul (A Ghost and the Goth Novel), by Stacey Kade

NewgirlNew paperbacks (that I've reviewed):

Starcrossed, by Josephine Angelini:

Would I recommend this wholeheartedly to Twilight fans? Yes. It's got the similarity in set-up, of course, with a girl and her single dad, a beauteous family moving in and the "Oh noes! We want to be together but we can't! storyline, though in this case, SPOILER it's more a "Oh noes! We want to be together but we can't A) because we want to kill each other, and B) because it would End the World, and C) because of a twist that fans of Cassandra Clare will be familiar with!" END SPOILER storyline, and so on.

New Girl, by Paige Harbison:

Ultimately, she did make some big changes. BIG changes. One of the most major (that I can mention without Huge Spoilers) is that the narrative follows both girls, the narrator and Becca. That’s fun on two levels. First, because mysteries that alternate between past and present views are Good Stuff, and second, because it forces the reader to think about du Maurier’s Rebecca as a real person with actual feelings, rather than purely as a sociopathic hell-beast. 

New BooksLeila RoyComment