Mary Oliver once asked, "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"  After reading Your Perfect Year, I found myself asking the same question.  While I originally thought this was going to be a lighter contemporary fiction read, there were several moments that left me thinking about what I'm doing to hold myself back from my "perfect" life.  Am I spending my time doing what I enjoy?  If I could create my perfect calendar, what would I put in it?  Your Perfect Year explores just that with a hint of romance and a roller coaster of emotions.   

A book that explores the many forms of grief that comes with unexpected loss, The Beauty That Remains follows three teens at they learn that life can still be beautiful in the midst of the hard.  The book flips between the three narrators, and a little over half-way through you see the threads that connects their stories. This book examines more than just grief, though. Targeting the YA audience, it tackles coming-of-age, LGBTQ themes, love, guilt, anger, and passion.  This would be a great story to pass along to a young person that may be struggling with a major loss, just so they can see their thoughts reflected on the page. I know I would have loved to read this one after I lost several loved ones in high school. This one does have trigger warnings for suicide, biphobia, drug use, grief, death, car accidents, leukaemia, and physical and mental abuse, which made the book seem pretty heavy at times.  Overall, a solid three star read to pass along.

Kate Bailey isn’t an extrovert.  Instead of hanging out with friends like a “normal” teenager she’d rather be on her family’s lake, alone with her thoughts, the sun, and the water.  Kate finds herself pushed out of her comfort zone when she is chosen to co-host the school’s podcast so she can give advice to her fellow students. Kate is hesitant at first, but finds that she’s pretty good at both listening and giving thoughtful advice, that is until an anonymous caller asks about a topic she has little experience in: love.  Kate thinks she knows the caller interested in her best friend, Alana, and the more time Kate spends with who she thinks is the caller, the more she herself falls for him.  I loved this fun summer romance, and I think you will too! 

If you were a fan of Nancy Drew but thought the only thing missing was a bit more adventure-look no further than Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold!  Kitty is a brave young pilot with the desire to prove herself. She leaves her small Canadian fishing village to spend the summer in Alaska studying humpback whales from her plane high above.  Little does Kitty know she will encounter more than whales! She faces a motley crew of criminals, stolen gold, and maybe a real-life curse! Kitty’s adventure is full of history, action, and mystery-a perfect combination for any age.  

Pigeon-Blood Red takes readers into the world of heists, adultery, and double-crossers.  Written as a high-intensity crime thriller, this was totally unfamiliar territory for my reading tastes.  I was excited to see where hitman “Rico” Sanders would take me-and what he would do to whoever got in his way.  Filled with quick-tempers, each character finds themselves in the middle of a con gone wrong.  Ed Duncan writes a story that could easily be set in the early 1900’s rather than the early 2000’s, showing that some stories can stand the test of time.  This would be a good read for anyone who is a fan of the Bourne trilogy. There's action, adventure, shootouts, and crime-everything a thriller could ask for! You can see what I thought of the characters and the plot with the full review!

Love, Hate, and Other Filters is a recent release by Samira Ahmed that I absolutely devoured.  This coming of age story of a Muslim girl who just wants to experience the world through her own lens rather than the filter of her parents’ Indian heritage is poignant, clever, and just plain wonderful. It starts off as a tale of forbidden love but quickly shifts into a discussion of Islamophobia.  Ahmed creates a strong female protagonist, Maya Aziz, to handle all of the topics from the romance to the real-world issues we face today.  In her struggle to figure out where she’s headed in life after high school, she learns to rely on her own strength and to trust in herself.  All of my reads so far in 2018 have been heavy, but this is the kind of breath-of-fresh-air writing my reading slump needed.  I highly recommend you check it out (along with my full five star review below)!

I have to admit, I was more than hesitant to pick up Celeste Ng’s sophomore novel, Little Fires Everywhere.  Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, left a bad taste in my mouth with the narrative style, the characters without redeeming qualities, and just the plot as a whole.  When my in-person book club chose it as the November pick, I begrudgingly picked up a copy to read.  I even put off reading it until the day of the book club, but by the time I was through the first chapter I was kicking myself for waiting so long.  Little Fires Everywhere shines everywhere I felt Ng’s first novel fell flat.  I’m not usually a fan of complicated family novels, but this is one I truly enjoyed.  There’s at least one character in here for everyone, and the plot was built for discussions.  It only took me 24 hours to read this book, and it’s going to be in my top ten of 2017 at least.  I’m going to spoil my review and tell you that I’m giving it 4.5 stars, but you can check out the full review to see why.