Andye Reads

THE MUSEUM OF US by Tara Wilson Redd Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (June 26, 2018) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon Secrets are con artists: they trick you into letting them out.  Sadie loves her rocker boyfriend Henry and her running partner and best friend Lucie, but no one can measure up to her truest love and hero, the dazzling and passionate George. George, her secret.  When something goes wrong and Sadie is taken to the hospital calling out for George, her hidden life may be exposed. Now she must confront the truth of the past, and protect a world she is terrified to lose. Mental health is a serious issue that, thanks to books like Museum of Us , is coming into a whole new light. Everyone copes in their own way. Scrolling through social media, diving into a book, or maybe throwing yourself into your sport. The way Sadie copes is through her mind. She completely encompasses herself inside fantasies. The writing of this book is beauti...

AFTERMATH by Kelley Armstrong Age Range: 12 - 17 years Grade Level: 7 - 9 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers (May 22, 2018) Goodreads | Amazon Three years after losing her brother Luka in a school shooting, Skye Gilchrist is moving home. But there's no sympathy for Skye and her family because Luka wasn't a victim; he was a shooter. Jesse Mandal knows all too well that the scars of the past don't heal easily. The shooting cost Jesse his brother and his best friend--Skye. Ripped apart by tragedy, Jesse and Skye can't resist reopening the mysteries of their past. But old wounds hide darker secrets. And the closer Skye and Jesse get to the truth of what happened that day, the closer they get to a new killer. DISCLAIMER: Aftermath is a book that is crucial in this current world. It shows a new perspective on these horrible school shootings, the family of someone who participated in a school shooting. The main character is the sister, an...

Review by Sara Thanks to Disney for sending a copy, and for providing a prize pack! A LIST OF CAGES by Robin Roe Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Disney-Hyperion (January 10, 2017) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he's got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn't easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can't complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discovers that the boy is Julian--the foster brother he hasn't seen in five years. Adam is ecstatic to be reunited. At first, Julian seems like the boy he once knew. He's still kind hearted. He still writes stories and loves picture books meant for little kids. But as they spend more time together, Adam realizes that Julian is keeping secrets, like where he...

Review by Jackie THE LOVELY RECKLESS by Kami Garcia Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Imprint (October 4, 2016) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon From #1 New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia, a contemporary romance full of loss, love and redemption… Seventeen year-old Frankie Devereux would do anything to forget the past. Haunted by the memory of her boyfriend’s death, she lives her life by one dangerous rule: nothing matters. At least, that’s what Frankie tells herself after a reckless mistake forces her to leave her privileged life in the Heights to move in with her dad―an undercover cop. She transfers to public school in the Downs, where fistfights in the halls don’t faze anyone and illegal street racing is more popular than football. Marco Leone is the fastest street racer in the Downs. Tough, sexy, and hypnotic, he makes it impossible for Frankie to ignore him . . . and how he makes her feel. But the risks Marco takes for his family could have devas...

Review by Kaitlin AMY CHELSEA STACIE DEE by Mary G. Thompson Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (October 11, 2016) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon A bittersweet homecoming holds dark secrets in this heart-wrenching story of loss, love, and survival for readers of Room When sixteen-year-old Amy returns home, she can't tell her family what’s happened to her. She can’t tell them where she’s been since she and her best friend, her cousin Dee, were kidnapped six years ago—who stole them from their families or what’s become of Dee. She has to stay silent because she's afraid of what might happen next, and she’s desperate to protect her secrets at any cost. Amy tries to readjust to life at “home,” but nothing she does feels right. She’s a stranger in her own family, and the guilt that she’s the one who returned is insurmountable. Amy soon realizes that keeping secrets won’t change what's happened, and they may end up hurti...

Review by Krista PEARL by Deirdre Riordan Hall Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Skyscape (March 1, 2016) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon Run fast and run far, unless you’re fearless. Unless you’re courageous. I’m not, but I’d like to be. Pearl Jaeger is seventeen and homeless after drugs, poverty, and addiction unraveled the life she shared with JJ, her formerly glamorous rock star mother. This moment of happiness is fleeting; someone will take it from me. When tragedy brings a chance to start over at an elite boarding school, she doesn’t hesitate. Yet the only salvation comes from an art teacher as troubled as Pearl, and she faces the stark reality that what she thought she wanted isn’t straightforward. I trace the outline of my reflection in a window. I am no more than a replica of my mother. This is not the self-portrait I want to paint. Through the friendships she forms at school—especially with Grant, a boy who shows Pearl what it means to trust and forgive—she...

Review by Jennifer FRAYED by Kara Terzis Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (June 7, 2016) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon Dear Kesley, My therapist tells me I should write you a letter. Like flushing all my thoughts and feelings out of my system and onto paper. I tell her it's a stupid idea. But here I am, writing a letter to a dead girl. Where do I start? Where did our story begin? From the moment you were born...or died?  I'll start with the moment I found out the truth about you. Your lies and my pain. Because it always begins and ends with you. And that end began when Rafe Lawrence came back to town... Ava Hale will do anything to find her sister's killer...although she'll wish she hadn't. Because the harder Ava looks, the more secrets she uncovers about Kesley, and the more she begins to think that the girl she called sister was a liar. A sneak. A stranger. And Kesley's murderer could be much closer than she t...

Review by Sara... RULES FOR 50/50 CHANCES By Kate McGovern Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 24, 2015) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon   A heartrending but ultimately uplifting debut novel about learning to accept life's uncertainties; a perfect fit for the current trend in contemporary realistic novels that confront issues about life, death, and love. Seventeen-year-old Rose Levenson has a decision to make: Does she want to know how she's going to die? Because when Rose turns eighteen, she can take the test that tells her if she carries the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease, the degenerative condition that is slowly killing her mother. With a fifty-fifty shot at inheriting her family's genetic curse, Rose is skeptical about pursuing anything that presumes she'll live to be a healthy adult-including her dream career in ballet and the possibility of falling in love. But when she meets a boy from a similarly ...

Review by Jackie  THE WAY I USED TO BE By Amber Smith Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (March 22, 2016) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon In the tradition of  Speak , this extraordinary debut novel shares the unforgettable story of a young woman as she struggles to find strength in the aftermath of an assault. Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be. Told in four parts—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year—this provocative debut reveals the deep cuts of trauma. But it also demonstrates one young woman’s st...

Review by Krista The Good Sister by Jamie Kain Hardcover, 304 pages Published October 7th 2014  by St. Martin's Griffin   Goodreads | Amazon The Kinsey sisters live in an unconventional world. Their parents are former flower-children who still don’t believe in rules. Their small, Northern California town is filled with free spirits and damaged souls seeking refuge from the real world. Without the anchor of authority, the three girls are adrift and have only each other to rely on. Rachel is wild. Asha is lost. Sarah, the good sister, is the glue that holds them together. But the forces of a mysterious fate have taken Sarah’s life in a sudden and puzzling accident, sending her already fractured family into a tailspin of grief and confusion. Asha has questions. Rachel has secrets. And Sarah, waking up in the afterlife, must piece together how she got there. I am the first to admit that I shy away from contemporary books. Mostly the books I have read do not resona...

Review by Sara RULES FOR 50/50 CHANCES Age Range: 12 - 18 years Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (November 24, 2015) Goodreads | Amazon Seventeen-year-old Rose Levenson has a decision to make: Does she want to know how she's going to die? Because when Rose turns eighteen, she can take the test that tells her if she carries the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease, the degenerative condition that is slowly killing her mother. With a fifty-fifty shot at inheriting her family's genetic curse, Rose is skeptical about pursuing anything that presumes she'll live to be a healthy adult-including her dream career in ballet and the possibility of falling in love. But when she meets a boy from a similarly flawed genetic pool and gets an audition for a dance scholarship across the country, Rose begins to question her carefully laid rules. I have not been as conflicted about a book as I am about Rules for 50/50 Chances. My conflict was ...

Review by Jackie THIS RAGING LIGHT by Estelle Laure PUB: January 2015 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers (December 22, 2015) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon Can the best thing happen at the worst time? Her dad went crazy. Her mom left town. She has bills to pay and a little sister to look after. Now is not the time for level-headed seventeen-year-old Lucille to fall in love. But love—messy, inconvenient love—is what she’s about to experience when she falls for Digby Jones, her best friend’s brother. With blazing longing that builds to a fever pitch, Estelle Laure’s soulful debut will keep readers hooked and hoping until the very last page. Breaking, broken, and raging, raging, raging. Her dad went crazy. Her mom left town. She has to care for her younger sister. And she’s terribly in love with the most inconvenient of boys. This book wracked my being with sadness. Pretty much this entire book was me feeling like this girl need...

Review by Jackie NOT IF I SEE YOUR FIRST Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Poppy (December 1, 2015) Language: English Goodreads | Amazon The Rules: Don't deceive me. Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public. Don't help me unless I ask. Otherwise you're just getting in my way or bothering me. Don't be weird. Seriously, other than having my eyes closed all the time, I'm just like you only smarter. Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react-shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but ...