Older Readers
Beneath These Cursed Stars.
By Lexi Ryan.
July 2024. 432p. HarperTeen, $19.99 (9780063311909). Gr. 9–12.
Ryan is adept at mixing the perfect blend of romance and fantasy, telling stories with tension and romance that are peopled with strong characters. In her latest, set in the same realm as These Hollow Vows (2021), she immerses readers in an ethereal world, where fearless Princess Jasalyn is on a mission of revenge, using a poison kiss to kill those who wronged her. Meanwhile, brave shape-shifter Felicity is simultaneously seeking her own kind of revenge after having spent her life moving from place to place in an attempt to escape a dark fate in which she might have to murder her own father. When rumors swirl of the return of the evil, destructive fae Moredeus, the girls decide to swap places, and they embark on risky parallel adventures. The story really takes off when each one finds a companion for her quest—Jasalyn joins up with handsome, charming adventurer Kendrick, while Felicity’s path pairs her with the strongheaded Wild Fae king, Misha—and they find themselves potentially risking their own hearts in the process. Apart from the glittering magical world, Ryan powerfully explores the dynamics of relationships, the struggle to be true to oneself, and the importance of being brave enough to open up to others. Banter, romance, and a complex plotline seamlessly come together in the hands of a powerhouse fantasy author. —Aurora Dominguez
Better Must Come.
By Desmond Hall.
June 2024. 336p. Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy, $19.99 (9781534460744). Gr. 9–12.
While out fishing, Deja comes across a dying man who charges her with delivering half a million American dollars to a person she’s never met. Deja is a “barrel girl,” one of Jamaica’s lucky few who receive barrels of provisions, courtesy of her mother, who immigrated to the U.S. to afford a better life for her three children. But despite the aid, Deja still can’t make ends meet. So she takes the opportunity and sets forth to make the delivery for a promised reward. On the other side of town, Gabriel, a young member of a street posse, is tasked with investigating the disappearance of two fellow posse members who were supposed to exchange drugs for money—the same money Deja now has in her possession. Fate has set them on a collision course that will leave both of them forever changed. Hall showcases a Jamaica beset by poverty and corruption, a place where many try to escape their situations through crime and drug abuse. His gritty descriptions create the perfect backdrop for this tense thriller, creating a foreboding atmosphere where very few can be trusted and violence can erupt at any time. Yet he also makes sure to show it as a place where family and community are strong, instilling young people like Deja and Gabriel with intelligence and compassion. A well-plotted, taut page-turner. —Reinhardt Suarez
The Blonde Dies First.
By Joelle Wellington.
July 2024. 336p. Simon & Schuster, $19.99 (9781665922456). Gr. 9–12.
A tight-knit crew of Brooklyn teens uses horror-movie rules to survive a demon in Wellington’s entertaining, genre-savvy thriller. When Black 17-year-old Devon learns her genius twin sister, Drew, is heading off to college a year early, she panics. They’ve been growing apart, and this summer is Devon’s last chance to reconnect. The first step in Devon’s “Best Summer Ever” plan, for which she recruits their four best friends from the block, is to make nice with Drew’s rich, private-school friends, even when they produce a Ouija board at a house party. Despite the neighborhood group’s dislike of “demonic white shit,” they think nothing of it until Devon is attacked at work by a shadowy figure, who kills her coworker instead when she eludes it. When their friend Malachi is attacked next, the group realizes that the “knockoff Slenderman” is following slasher movie conventions, meaning Yaya (Devon’s secret crush) must be the Final Girl. Wellington both pays homage to and subverts horror-movie tropes, cheekily name-dropping Scream as the initial model but referencing plenty more. As self-aware as the horror is, the story feels authentic in the details of the Brooklyn neighborhood and its slow gentrification and in the complex relationships among the diverse group––particularly Devon’s and Drew’s tumultuous but loving dynamic. A gory good time with heart. —Krista Hutley
Break to You.
By Neal Shusterman and others.
July 2024. 432p. HarperCollins/Quill Tree, $19.99 (9780062875761). Gr. 8–12.
Adriana, part Moroccan and a high-school junior, enters Compass Juvenile Detention Center for a seven-month sentence. She is angry and anxious and needs every instinct she possesses to survive and figure out whom to trust. During library time, she accidentally leaves her journal behind. When it reappears days later (shelved next to The Book Thief), a boy has added an anonymous entry. Adriana replies, incensed, and leaves the journal in place. So begins a correspondence, sometimes in prose, often in poetry from slam to lyrical to power ballad. Jon, 17 and Black, has been incarcerated for years. Both seek second chances, but if they manage to course correct, it won’t be thanks to the manipulative psychologist or racist guards at Compass. Gradually, they fall in love. But the facility is segregated; how can they meet? Each recruits their closest allies to the heist-like effort, a thrilling chance to outsmart the system. Late tonal shifts and one-dimensional adults mar the narrative, but this smoothly plotted, suspenseful, heartrending novel deftly portrays time inside high-security juvenile detention. —Angela Carstensen
The Breakup Artists.
By Adriana Mather.
June 2024. 368p. Blackstone, $19.99 (9798212417525). Gr. 8–12.
Seventeen-year-old best friends August and Valentine run a secret summer business in their vacation-centered New England town. At the behest of concerned friends or family, their Summer Love, Inc. breaks up bad relationships. The two friends themselves don’t fall in love or date—that is, until Ella changes everything. As he breaks down the wall he’s built since his sister’s death, August finds that Ella is their most challenging case yet; meanwhile, Valentine is starting to see the boy next door in a new light. This summer-before-college novel highlights the scary feelings of change and growing up. August and Valentine are being pulled in different directions, and while they may have their disagreements, their strong platonic friendship is a highlight of the novel, as is August’s journey of opening himself up after a loss. Wrapped up in a summer romance is a story of grief, loss, and growing up, making this a perfect read for fans of Jenny Han and Kathleen Glasgow. —Sarah Bean Thompson
Castle of the Cursed.
By Romina Garber.
July 2024. 304p. St. Martin’s/Wednesday, $21 (9781250863898); e-book, $11.99 (9781250863904). Gr. 9–12.
The closest thing Estela has to a home is her family, but when a mysterious accident on a subway car kills all 25 of the other passengers, including Estela’s parents, her home vanishes. For more than six months, she’s housed by the government in a mental-health facility, convinced that she hallucinated the black smoke that filled the subway car just before disaster struck. It’s not until Estela gets a letter from an aunt she’s never heard of that she learns she was born in Spain at her family’s ancestral home—Castle Brálaga, nicknamed La Sombra, or the Shadow, by locals. But something about the castle—and the way the villagers worship it—feels off to Estela. She doesn’t trust her new home or her cold and scheming aunt, but if she leaves La Sombra, she may never learn the truth about what happened to her family. Garber (Lobizona, 2020) manages to pack an enormous amount of material into this romantasy, some of it wildly original. While the book struggles with plot holes and inconsistent characterization, paranormal-romance readers will fall for this bloody Spanish gothic novel. —Ana Cackley
Crashing into You.
By Rocky Callen.
June 2024. 272p. Holt, $20.99 (9781250861894). Gr. 9–12.
Leti Rivera grows up rebuilding cars and learning to race by her brother, Santos’, side. Their mother’s death, from before Leti can remember, left their father too bereft to parent. Leti fully believes that with Sombra, her beloved Civic, she has the skills to win races like the upcoming Underground—if she can just be taken seriously. When a (literal) run-in with classmate Jacob brings to light the reason for his recent absence—his father’s death, a grief Leti is all too familiar with—her heart begins to open in a way she thought would never happen. Soon, though, a race gone horribly wrong results in an unexpected tragedy. Leti feels like sheplot for a powerful emotional payoff about the consequences of losing oneself. —
