Description: Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.  Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.
 Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.

Review: In Nic Stone's ambitious and timely debut novel, Dear Martin, the reader is placed in the shoes of an African American boy confronting racial inequality and establishing his own identity in our world. Dear Martin is a coming of age novel that feels more like a series of vignettes. Stone presents several hard hitting topics ranging from affirmative action, identifying masculine identity within the African American culture, and also tackling racial stereotypes of African Americans in different episodes of Justyce's life and provides no easy answers.    Justyce is an African American teen caught between two worlds. He is too 'white' for his black friends. His private school education, honor roll GPA, outstanding test scores set Justyce apart. To his white friends, Justyce is an outlier and despite his academic success from his own hard work, some of his classmates believe his race gets an unfair advantage over them. Through a series of journal entries, Justyce attempts to figure out his place in the world by exploring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. Stone goes a great job in depicting what it means to be an African American male in today's time. She explores privilege and race relations while also tackling the 'thug' representation and the victims of social injustice. The story's climax comes when a violent altercation between a retired white police officer and his best friend that puts Justyce in the spotlight.
  Dear Martin is a slim book that is well written and fast paced without sacrificing depth which makes it a great read for both reluctant and advanced readers. While the book offers a lot of different paths Justyce can take to become a man, there is a serious absence of the voice of African American women in this story. I wished Justyce's mother and his girlfriend were as three dimensional as the male characters. Overall Dear Martin is a powerful read that will make you think long after you finished it. 

Rating: 4 stars


Words of Caution: There is some strong language, including racial slurs, underage drinking and drug use in the book. Recommended for Grades 9 and up.

If you like this book try: All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Description: A new Iron Age begins! From the violent streets of Chicago, an armored hero rises! Clad in her own Iron Man suit, Riri Williams is ready to show the world what she can do as the self-made hero of tomorrow. Her technology just might change the world forever — if she survives that long! But is she ready for all the problems that come with stepping into Iron Man’s jet boots? Problems like her first big villain. And the other guy running around as shell-head. And the laundry list of criminals looking to destroy Tony Stark’s legacy. Oh, and all the super-teams out to recruit her! As Riri’s adventures go viral, it’s time to claim an alter ego of her own — welcome to the Marvel Universe, Ironheart!

Review: I have mixed feelings for Ironheart. I enjoyed reading it and was thoroughly entertained but I still wanted more. Ironheart continues the trend of having diverse characters in the Marvel Universe. Riri Williams is an incredibly intelligent, funny heroine who is from the South Side of Chicago. I loved her spunk and personality though I felt her origin story wasn't strong enough and that's mainly due to Riri's lack of page time in the comic. We don't see much of Riri as a regular teen before she is Ironheart. Bendis uses the old comic trope of a violent incident sparking the hero, or in this case, the heroine to become a superhero. Riri's stepfather and her best friend are killed in a drive-by shooting. While the murderers are harrowing, it didn't make sense to me as to why Riri would be more devastated by losing her best friend rather than her stepfather and again I think this due to the lack of development of these relationships with Riri. I would have also liked more scenes with Riri and her mother.
  The graphic novel's structure also felt disjointed. There were many flashbacks woven into the story that did not transition well into the overall story arc. I also felt some of the flashbacks were unnecessary. I haven't been keeping up with the Marvel Universe via graphic novels so I'm not sure where Ironheart is located on the world's timeline but in this graphic novel Tony Start is dead though his hologram which he programed himself is very much alive. I wasn't quite sure how this hologram worked since he felt more human. Despite playing the role of a mentor, Tony took over the graphic novel leaving Riri to play the supporting character.
 Despite these flaws in Ironheart, I thought the artwork in the graphic novel were excellent. The great drawings and color make the graphic novel pop and so eye catching. I was also pleasantly surprised by Pepper Potts having a stronger role rather than just being Stark's love interest and coworker. I would have loved to see more of her in the graphic novel. Overall Ironheart was an entertaining graphic novel but my expectations for it were much higher.


Rating: 3 stars


Words of Caution: There is some language and PG-13 violence in the graphic novel. Recommended for Grades 8 and up.


If you like this book try: Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spiderman collection by Brian Michael Bendis

Description: Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida, makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss, a beloved, admired, successful, and very married Congressman, and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late-night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labeled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight on politics in general.
   How does one go on after this? In Aviva’s case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. She tries to start over as a wedding planner, to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident. But when, at the urging of others, decides to run for public office herself, that long-ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet A. For our age, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everyone you've done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity.

Description: When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.
   But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse

Review: Little and Lion is one of my most anticipated books of this year mainly due to the exploration of various forms of identity: race, religion, and sexuality. Colbert delves into each of these forms while also centering on the relationship and bond between siblings.  
    Suzette was sent to boarding school when her bookish older brother, Lionel, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Suzette, whose nickname is Little, is now back in Los Angeles for the summer and hopes to strengthen her distant relationship with Lionel. With Suzette back home, Lionel confides in her that he’s going off his medication. Fearing that to divulge his secret will ruin any chance of rebuilding their bond, Suzette promises to stay loyal to her brother even though she knows he is making the wrong decision and feels responsible for her brother’s well-being. 
  I really liked Suzette and Lionel's modern family. Suzette and her mom are African Americans who have converted to Judaism while Lionel and his dad are white and Jewish. These cast of characters, especially Suzette, often show how hard it is for anyone to be perfectly labeled and put into a neat box. Through sporadic flash backs interspersed between the present tense, we see how Lionel and Suzette were always close before Lionel’s diagnosis and the turning point in their relationship.
   While the book's main focus is Suzette dealing with the dilemma of her brother's mental health, Suzette is also trying to figure herself out. She is conflicted in expressing herself especially at her boarding school where she is not only grappling with a homophobic act that exposed her relationship with her roommate named Iris and made their relationship status as complicated, but also hiding the fact that she is Jewish. Now at home her identity is further complicated as she is attracted to Emil Choi, a warm, biracial (black/Korean) boy and family friend with Ménière’s disease, and a crush on Rafaela, a pansexual Latina—whom, unexpectedly, Lionel is also falling for. While I thought Suzette's relationship with Emil was sweet and well developed, I was not a fan of the potential love triangle with Rafela. In my opinion Rafela didn't really add much to the story besides being a plot device. I was hoping Suzette's bisexuality would be explored without having/teasing a love triangle trope.
   Lionel's mental health is well addressed without any sugar coating, romanticized, or miraculously solved by being romantically involved with someone. Colbert does show Lionel's frightening behavior pre- and post diagnosis as well as how mental health affect not only those battling with the disease but also others around them. 


Rating: 4 stars


Words of Caution: There are some strong language, underage drinking and drug use, and a couple of fade to black sex scenes in the book.


If you like this book try: Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Description: Meet Eleanor Oliphant. She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully time-tabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.       Then everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living--and it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Review: I wanted to pick up Gail Honeyman's debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, when journals began to make it a readalike suggestion for A Man Called Ove which I read and enjoyed over the summer. This is one of the rare times when a readalike suggestion is actually accurate. Like A Man Called Ove, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine has the knack to make you laugh and cry all at the same moment.
  Eleanor Oliphant has built routine in her utterly solitary life that mostly works. During the week, she works, eats pizza, and drinks booze. While this may seem banal and repetitive it is Eleanor's inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, incredibly observant, and irresistible that makes this book a pleasure to read. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything- from commuting on the train, getting a manicure, and associating getting a makeover in a story with surgery. I loved Eleanor's voice from the start. Sure, she can be a curmudgeon but I suspected there was serious trauma that occurred in her life given the various clues sprinkled throughout the book and the chilling phone calls with her mother which caused her to act this way.
  While her social awkwardness makes her the butt of jokes for her colleagues and alienates herself, Eleanor's life begins to change when she is genuinely befriended by Raymond, a lanky, easy going guy from her IT department. It is through her friendship with Raymond that we get to see Eleanor's vulnerable side and her craving for human contact (not just physically). Eleanor attempts to change her solitary life in order to pursue a romantic crush on a local musician. Though the crush is unrealistic, unrequited, and heartbreaking to watch, it finally tips Eleanor over to seek help for her mental illness and trauma as she realizes she's never had anyone to care for her in life. We watch her dangerously collect painkillers and tries to poison herself with alcohol. Thankfully she does seek help with Raymond's help. We also discover what happened in her childhood that shaped her this way. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is funny, heartwarming, and heartbreaking in equal measure and I would definitely recommend it.

Rating: 4 stars

Words of Caution: There are some strong language and allusions to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in the book. Recommended for mature teens and adults.

If you like this book try: A Man Called Ove by Frederick Brackman,