I read 99 books in 2020. With my own book coming out in 2021, I made a concerted effort to seek out and support 2020 debuts. Some of these were also fellow 2017 PitchWars mentees–bonus! And later in the year, I added another goal: I sought out books by Black authors for both myself and my kids….
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My Favorite Reads of 2020
I read so many fantastic books in 2020, it’s really hard to narrow down favorites. As I was reading back through my reviews from the year to decide, one of my major determining factors was the book’s unputtdownable factor (I guess that’s not a word, but oh well). So you’ll see how quickly I read…
INSTANT KARMA and A Few Other Books You Should Read
Happy December, friends! I expect this will be my last review roundup of 2020, but I will still have some other fun reading features before the end of the year. As always, I plan to feature my favorite reads of 2020 the last week of year–although I have no idea how I’m going to choose….
TRACKER220 and A Few Other Books You Should Read
I normally do review roundups on Mondays, but today is special because it’s the book birthday for my friend Jamie Krakover’s YA debut, TRACKER220! I didn’t want to let the day pass without celebrating with her, and while I’m at it, I might as well tell you about a few other books I’ve been reading…
MOST LIKELY and A Few Other Books You Should Read
For the second year in a row, I completed author Jessica Brody’s 30 Books in 3 Months summer reading challenge on Instagram. You can see all of the books I read over the summer in the image below, and I already posted mini-reviews on a few of them. Keep reading for a few more, but…
OPPOSITE OF ALWAYS and A Few Other Books You Should Read
I have quite a mix of books in today’s review roundup–YA time travel, adult dual timeline, contemporary middle grade, YA historical fiction, and YA contemporary. So that should offer a little bit of something for everyone! As soon as I finished OPPOSITE OF ALWAYS by Justin A. Reynolds, I knew it would be one of…
10 Story Elements That Always Hook Me
As I was going through all the old posts on my blog to clean up the categories, I noticed it had been quite a while since I did a general reading post that wasn’t a review. I also noticed a number of my reviews included statements like “any book that includes _____ has my immediate…
TRULY MADLY ROYALLY and a Few Other Books You Should Read
It’s time for another roundup of mini-reviews! In light of recent events, I took a hard look at my reading habits and realized that while I certainly wasn’t reading all white authors, I wasn’t making a concerted effort to read and support Black authors–or to bring those books to my kids’ attention. So as a…
MMGM: EPOCA THE TREE OF ECROF by Kobe Bryant and Ivy Claire (a middle schooler review)
A couple of weeks ago, MMGM host Greg Pattridge at Always in the Middle informed me I was one of the winners of a box of 10 middle grade books for his 1,000th post giveaway. Since my son has been doing the MG reviews lately, I suggested he address the box to him, and today…
MMGM: THE UNWANTEDS: ISLAND OF SILENCE by Lisa McMann (a middle grader review)
As promised, my middle grader has moved on to book two in THE UNWANTEDS series this week. As of now, he says he’s going to continue reviewing the rest of the series. However, I know he already finished re-reading all of them, so we’ll see if he decides to switch to something else he loves…
MMGM: THE UNWANTEDS by Lisa McMann (a middle schooler review)
While my son has read the entire Unwanteds series by Lisa McMann–including the spin-off books–several times, today he decided to focus on the first book for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday. The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann was a great story. It’s so good that I’ve read this series four times. There are seven books in the…
MMGM: The Jack Blank Series by Matt Myklusch (a middle schooler review)
My son read another whole series this week! I’ve actually read this one too, and it’s fantastic. Let’s see what he has to say. So now that I know how to actually do a series review, I don’t think I’m going to do mini reviews. Last week it took me 4 hours to do the…
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