FINISHED:
Johnson, Maureen. (2018). Truly Devious. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Wang, Jen. (2018). The Prince and the Dressmaker. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Larson, Hope. (2017). Goldie Vance: Volume Two. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

STARTED:
Westerfeld, Scott. (2017). Spill Zone. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED:

Larson, Hope. (2016). Goldie Vance: Volume One. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

STARTED:
Larson, Hope. (2017). Goldie Vance: Volume Two. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Pullman, Philip. (2017). The Book of Dust: Volume One: La Belle Sauvage. New York: Knopf.

[.]

STARTED:
Meloy, Colin. (2017). The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Neuvel, Sylvain. (2016). Sleeping Giants [The Themis Files: Book 1]. New York: Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Neuvel, Sylvain. (2017). Waking Gods [The Themis Files: Book 2]. New York: Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

[Another adult book!  (It's a sequel to the last one...)]

*

FINISHED: 
Smith, Ronald L. (2017). The Mesmerist. New York: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[In Victorian England, 13-year-old, white Jessamine helps her mother in swindling those who wish to contact the dead, and comes to discover that her parents were members of the League of Ravens, a group of folk with special abilities who protected England from an evil necromancer named Mephisto.  When Jess figures out that she, too, has an ability (to read people’s memories) she goes to live with Balthazar, the old head of the League of Ravens, and two other young people with special powers, and the three of them take it upon themselves to banish Mephisto forever when it appears that he has returned and is spreading disease throughout London.  Smith’s follow up to his eerie Hoodoo (Clarion, 2015) is equally creepy, dripping with mood and a heavy sense of foreboding, with tense, claustrophobic battle sequences against ghouls in the newly constructed London Underground, and the repeated use of the rhyme/song “Ring Around the Rosie” that will elicit chills.  When London becomes overrun by a mysterious disease (caused by Mephisto) and townspeople look for a scapegoat, ultimately settling on immigrants (“Foreigners out of our England!”), one can’t help but call to mind Brexit, the “Muslim Ban”, and other similar events in the current tide of nationalism.  This is one that more mature scary story fans should thoroughly enjoy.]

STARTED:
Wolk, Lauren. (2017). Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Dutton/Penguin Random House.

[Newbery buzz...]

*

FINISHED:
Westerfeld, Scott. (2017). Horizon [Horizon Book 1]. New York: Scholastic.

[A group of kids find themselves stranded on a strange "island" after their plane crashes, with all of the other passengers having mysteriously disappeared.  They find a strange device that can mess with gravity, are attacked by vines and odd birds, and can't figure out where they are... there are two moons in the sky... could it be they are on a different planet?  Just looked at his blog, and Westerfeld describes it as LOST meets HATCHET meets LORD OF THE FLIES, which is kind of accurate.  For some reason, it just didn't completely click with me... and it should have been right up my alley.]

STARTED:
Crowder, Melanie. (2017). Three Pennies. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[Looking forward to this one!  AUDACITY and A NEARER MOON were two of my absolute favorites from 2015.]

*

FINISHED:
Wood, Maryrose. (2015). The Unmapped Sea (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #5). New York: Batzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Goldberg, Susan. (2017). Gender Revolution [Special Issue]. Journal of the National Geographic Society, 231(1).

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Wegelius, Jakob. (2017). The Murderer's Ape. New York: Delacorte/Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Yoon, Nicola. (2016). The Sun is Also a Star. New York: Delacorte/Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Nesbet, Anne. (2016). Cloud and Wallfish. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

STARTED:
Gemeinhart, Dan. (2017). Scar Island. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
McMann, Lisa. (2016). Going Wild. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Reynolds, Jason. (2016). Ghost. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Dashner, James. (2016). The Fever Code. New York: Delacorte/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Lin, Grace. (2016). When the Sea Turned to Silver. New York: Little Brown.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Barnhill, Kelly. (2016). The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Young Readers.

[It is the annual practice of the Protectorate to leave the youngest child of the village in the woods as a sacrifice to appease a rumored witch who lives there, but that witch, Xan, actually rescues these children and delivers them to be raised in another town.  One year it is Luna whom she saves, and in doing so accidentally lets the young girl drink so much moonlight that it imbues her with magical powers, powers that Xan suppresses in Luna until her 13^th birthday when she may be more ready to deal with them.  Barnhill’s tight, thoroughly-realized fairy tale features a number of strong and determined characters including Luna, whose mission it is to find out who she is and where she came from; Antain, a young man whose mission is to find and expose the truth about the Protectorate; and a woman, deemed mad, whose mission is to prove her sanity and find the daughter that was taken from her.  Side characters Glerk, a bog creature, and Fyrian, a minute dragon, ground the story and provide much needed comic relief, respectively, and though the second quarter of the book stalls a bit, at midpoint it picks up steam again when a number of the seemingly disparate stories begin to intertwine and then doesn’t let up until the last page.  There’s a cautionary message to be gleaned here about discovering what – or who – the real evil is when one is kept in the dark with regard to the truth, especially when it is used as a means of control.  As Antain’s wife, Ethyne, says, “Knowledge is powerful, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.  Today, knowledge is for everyone.”]

STARTED:
Bayard, Louis. (2016).  Lucky Strikes.  New York: Henry Holt.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Alexander, Michelle. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

[To be fair, I only read the Introduction and one of the chapters... because that is what we were asked to do as part of a book discussion group that I'm now a part of!  When I have time to engage in something that I don't need to review, I'll likely give it full read because it seems like required reading.]

STARTED:
Gidwitz, Adam. (2016). The Inquisitor's Tale. New York: Dutton/Penguin/Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Oliver, Lauren, and H.C. Chester. (2016). Curiosity House: The Screaming Statue. New York: HarperCollins.

[All exhibiting remarkable abilities (mentalism, super-strength, bendability, etc.) Thomas, Pippa, Sam, and Max are tweens living in, and performing with, Dumfrey’s Dime Museum which is falling on hard times.  In an effort to draw crowds, the owner, Mr. Dumfrey, begins using mannequins to stage grisly tableaux of recent murders (which involve people the protagonists know), that seem to be connected to bad-man-on-the-loose Rattigan who “created” the tweens (and may still be after them).  Presumably catching the reader up on the events of Book 1 early on, it wouldn’t be entirely necessary to have read the previous installment to understand what is going on, but is probably a good idea.  Slow to get moving after slogging through a number of false starts, this second episode features intriguing, somewhat fleshed-out characters with nothing much to do.  Only really necessary where the first book is already on shelves.]

STARTED:
Grunberg, Greg, and Lucas Turnbloom. (2016). Dream Jumper: Book 1: Nightmare Escape. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 

Stewart, Trenton Lee. (2016). The Secretkeepers. New York: Little, Brown.

[.]

STARTED:
Wolff, Jana. (1997). Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother. Honolulu, HI: Vista Communications.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Thorne, Jack. (2016). Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Turner, Pamela S. (2016). Samurai Rising. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Fitzgerald, Laura Marx. (2016). The Gallery. New York: Dial/Penguin.

[.]

STARTED:
Avi. (2016). School of the Dead. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Hardinge, Frances. (2016). The Lie Tree. New York: Amulet/Abrams.

[Took me awhile to finish this one...  True, I read The BFG in between, but although I found The Lie Tree just as remarkable as the hype, it was still a bit of a slog for me.]

STARTED:
DiCamillo, Kate. (2016).  Raymie Nightingale.  Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[We finally got copies in!  I can now see what all of the chatter is about!]

*

FINISHED:
Cossanteli, Veronica. (2016). The Extincts. New York: Henry Holt/MacMillan.

[Hoping to help his single mother out financially, George answers an ad for help at a local farm, only finding out when he gets there that its owner is taking care of a menagerie of extinct and mythological creatures.  With the help of a girl named Prudence, George is on a mission to find a basilisk from the farm who is on the loose and turning the town’s animals (and a few humans) to stone, hoping to catch it before it can fall into the hands of Prudence’s taxidermist stepmother.  Dry humor abounds, and George learns that “real men aren’t afraid of pink” and that it’s ok to be friends with a girl, though Prudence’s evil, taxidermist stepmother and her henchmen come across as villainous caricatures.  Originally published in the UK, there are a few “British-isms” that may confound some (Mum, redundancy money, rugby tackle, cherry stone, fancy-dress party), but shrewd readers should be able to discern their meaning through context clues.  Digitally-created, spot illustrations that read somewhat flat are scattered throughout, while a glossary at the end provides a bit of information about some of the creatures featured in the story.  Readers eager for a more sophisticated story about a sanctuary for fanciful creatures are best to try out Brandon Mull’s far superior Fablehaven series (Shadow Mountain, 2006-).  Review based on ARC.]

STARTED:
Joyce, William. (2016). Ollie's Odyssey. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[New William Joyce!  New William Joyce!  And it's an illustrated novel!]

*