Jocelyn's Reviews

Justin A. Reynolds has created a lovely modern- day fairy tale of friendship and family and finding the most perfect moments in life in the midst of grief. With the same real-world heart as those of Nicola Yoon, Reynolds’ characters are real and likeable, as are their connections, which evoke the friendships of John Green’s books. The brilliant days they create for each other in the face of loss filled me with the same fun and joy the characters themselves embrace.  — Jocelyn

This wonderful middle-grade novel perfectly captures what it means and feels like to watch the friends you grew up with start to change and drift away. Serena is a vibrant and engaging protagonist, and I loved watching her grow past jealousy and shyness into herself both at school and in her videos. Great for any kid who might be facing a tough transition time or is just looking for a story about relatable, creative kids and their friends.
— Jocelyn
 

This delightful, highly illustrated chapter book is perfect for early readers who love animals and dream of adventures where they get to save the day. Auxier introduces readers to a cast of fascinating characters and creatures, chief among them Auggie, the young caretaker of the Fabled Stables. Demidova’s colorful illustrations move you through the story, and are playful when things are light-hearted and exciting during action sequences. A great start to a wonderful new series. — Jocelyn

This #OwnVoices story immediately made me smile, with its depiction of a lovely family finding a solution for their trans daughter’s need to feel like herself. Twink’s vibrant illustrations partner perfectly with the Neals’s prose, welcoming us into the household’s warm embrace by giving us an immediate sense of connection to the family’s kids and their adorable pet pig. Perfect for anyone looking for a feel-good family story and a reminder to kids about how good it can feel to be themselves. — Jocelyn

San Francisco is one of the US cities most alive in the collective public imagination, and Gary Kamiya (Cool Gray City of Love) and Paul Madonna (All Over Coffee) know it well. Now they have come together to illustrate (figuratively and literally) some of the lesser-known true stories from the city’s bones. Taking cues from architecture, locations, and ruins, they guide the reader through a pantheon of characters, economics, and culture from the 18th century on. For aficionados of small bites of history and of the City itself. — Jocelyn

Naomi Novik is a literary chameleon and here she slides effortlessly into the magic school genre, making it brilliantly her own. If you like characters defying their tropes, intriguing magic systems, deadly libraries, stories of friendship and staying true to yourself—amidst magical monsters and backstabbing high school cliques—but with just a little more snark and murder, pick this up. I loved this book, and can’t wait to find everyone else who will love it too. 
— Jocelyn
 

Bea Koch, coproprietor of LA’s The Ripped Bodice, uses the lens of romance to focus on the entertaining microhistory of the under-known royalty, artists, mistresses, and scientists, who, white and black, straight and queer—and more—shaped the culture and history of the British Regency. Koch gives delicious tastes of these women’s complex lives and historical context, and includes lists of further (factual and fictional) reading and viewing. A great read for any armchair historian, especially those also denizens of Romancelandia. — Jocelyn

This #OwnVoices debut takes the tropes and beats of classic noir and crime and brings them to new life on the South Dakota Rosebud Reservation. Virgil Wounded Horse, with rage in his heart and a teenager at home, metes out brutal justice for crimes the broken system won’t touch. Pulled into an investigation of drugs and conspiracy, this is an engrossing mystery and thriller and a look into the modern-day Sicangu Lakota that is especially vivid for those not of the Nation. — Jocelyn

Sydney Green’s vibrant childhood brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood comes to life, threatened as it is by rising rents, predatory developers, and new white residents threatening to call the cops on neighbors. Sydney begins to realize she’s not just being paranoid as people, and even the bodega, start disappearing overnight, while she herself is threatened at every turn—and not just to sell her mother’s home. Alyssa Cole’s debut mystery is a genuinely bone-chilling thriller with real, relatable characters facing an almost unbelievable conspiracy whose dangers are all too real. — Jocelyn

David Byrne is a quixotic and irrepressible creator, not limited by convention but not afraid to draw inspiration from it. Such leads to Broadway’s American Utopia, originally a kind of live concert album with a curtain by Maira Kalman, now a documentary by Spike Lee, and here a book of Kalman’s mobile illustrations, themselves illustrated by fragments of Byrne’s lines and lyrics. Like the show-concert-documentary, the book evokes feeling versus story and is meant to be experienced more than read. It is a bright spark within a darker year. — Jocelyn