Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke Pages : 276 Genre : Mystery, Horror Stand alone My Rating : 4/5 About the Book  : On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens, the fragments of a nightmare—something so important that she must write it down—floating on the edge of her consciousness. Something had followed them from Russia! It was thirteen years ago that she and her husband, Eric, went to Siberia to adopt the sweet,...

Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff Pages : 304 Genre : YA, Horror Stand alone My Rating : 3.5/5 About the Book  : The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls. For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just...

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan Pages : 528 Genre : Fiction Stand alone My Rating : 5/5 About the Book  : For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of women arrive at the family’s beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her...

Sophomore Year is Greek to Me by Meredith Zeitlin Pages : 336 Genre : YA, Contemporary Stand alone My Rating : 4/5 About the Book  : High school sophomore Zona Lowell has lived in New York City her whole life, and plans to follow in the footsteps of her renowned-journalist father. But when he announces they’re moving to Athens for six months so he can work on an important new story, she’s devastated— he must have...

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga Pages : 302 Genre : YA, Contemporary Stand alone My Rating : 3.5/5 About the Book  : Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness. There’s...

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen Pages : 435 Genre : YA, Contemporary Stand alone My Rating : 4/5 About the Book  : Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough. Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary...

An audiobook narrator can easily make or break a story, and in the case of these two audiobooks this is exactly what I experienced, though in different ways. One narrator made an okay story pure pleasure, while the other almost had me quitting the book. * * * The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West Narrated by : Shannon McManus Pages/Time : 352/6h37 Genre : YA, Romance Stand alone My Rating : 3.5/5 About the Book  : When Gia...

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews Pages : 295 Genre : YA Stand alone My Rating : 4/5 About the Book  : It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely...