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

[.]

STARTED:
Tynion IV, James. (2017). The Backstagers: Volume 1: Rebels Without Applause. Los Angeles: BOOM! Box.

[.]

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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:
Ruby, Laura. (2017). The Shadow Cipher [York: Book 1]. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

[Seventh grade, white twins Tess and Theo live in the eccentric Morningstarr Tower with its zig-zagging elevators in a modern - though “alternate” - New York City, the building having been constructed over 150 years ago by the Morningstarr family who helped to develop the city with steampunk-y technologies.  When a real estate magnate buys their building with the intention of knocking it down to redevelop, the twins, along with their Latino neighbor Jaime, spurred on by a mysterious letter, hatch a plan to solve the 160-year-old Old York Cipher created by the Morningstarr family, hoping that in doing so their building will be deemed too important to destroy.  The alternate-New York setting, with its vaguely steampunk feel, keeps the reader on their toes, going along in a familiar world until mention of someone with a gene-spliced raccoon or big cat for a pet, some mechanical spiders in a woman’s purse, solar-powered cars, and a robot servant who brings breakfast.  Chapters alternate being told from the perspective of each of the three main kids, with a break-neck pace that has them running around New York following obscure clues found in cleverly obscure places such as etched on the underside of a heating stove, behind paint in a gallery painting, and one puzzle that is solved by noting the locations of tokens scattered around the apartments in their building.  Though this puzzle-driven book doesn’t allow the reader to try to solve along with the protagonists, this first book in a new series – with a doozy of a cliffhanger – is briskly paced with thoroughly vivid settings to draw one right into the action.]

STARTED:
Springstubb, Tricia. (2017). Cody and the Rules of Life. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

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: 
Brown, Peter. (2016). The Wild Robot. New York: Little, Brown.

[.]

STARTED:
Albertalli, Becky. (2015). Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[.]

*