Week 39 Review: Feral Youth

From Goodreads:

At Zeppelin Bend, an outdoor education program designed to teach troubled youth the value of hard work, cooperation, and compassion, ten teens are left alone in the wild. The teens are a diverse group who come from all walks of life, and they were all sent to Zeppelin Bend as a last chance to get them to turn their lives around. They've just spent nearly two weeks learning to survive in the wilderness, and now their instructors have dropped them off eighteen miles from camp with no food, no water, and only their packs, and they'll have to struggle to overcome their vast differences if they hope to survive.

Inspired by The Canterbury Tales, Feral Youth features characters, each complex and damaged in their own ways, who are enticed to tell a story (or two) with the promise of a cash prize. The stories range from noir-inspired revenge tales to mythological stories of fierce heroines and angry gods. And while few of the stories are claimed to be based in truth, they ultimately reveal more about the teller than the truth ever could.

My Review:


Authors: Shaun David Hutchinson, E.C. Myers, Robin Talley, Tim Floreen, Stephanie Kuehn, Susanne Young, Marieke Nijkamp, Justina Ireland, Brandy Colbert, Alaya Dawn Johnson
Read: September 25th, 2025  
Source: Own 
Reason Why: Love these authors, and it's a SAC 2025 Book!  
Publisher: Simon Pulse 
Published: September 15th 2017

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 2 Review: A Phoenix First Must Burn

From Goodreads:

Sixteen tales by bestselling and award-winning authors that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic.

Evoking Beyoncé's Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler's heirs, have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that centers Black women and gender nonconforming individuals. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters in which you cannot help but see yourself reflected. Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels: the heroines of A Phoenix First Must Burn shine brightly. You will never forget them.

Authors include Elizabeth Acevedo, Amerie, Dhonielle Clayton, Jalissa Corrie, Somaiya Daud, Charlotte Davis, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Justina Ireland, Danny Lore, L.L. McKinney, Danielle Paige, Rebecca Roanhorse, Karen Strong, Ashley Woodfolk, and Ibi Zoboi. 

My Review:
I had a really great time reading this anthology! I've read from some of these authors before, though most of them were new to me, and I had a great time, this was such a great collection of Black Girl Magic, from historical to sci fi to fantasy, and I really enjoyed it! 

Of these stories, the ones that really stood out to me were Melie, The Goddess Provides, and The Actress. I loved the worlds, the voices of these stories, and the stories themselves, they were all so fantastic to read! 

Melie was so fantastic, loved that she was trying to become an apprentice of this magician, and she gets along quite well with these various magical creatures, but not with the magician himself. Loved that story and how it turned out! The Goddess Provides, it was a great story of religion and belief, and of injustice and facing it, and I loved that ending! The Actress, I loved they cast her, her magic, and her relationship with Rand, it worked really well for me! 

There are a few stories that I would love a full length novel from, and that'd be Melie and The Goddess Provides because there were both so fantastic. And there were a few that I wish were, instead of a short story here, and that'd be When Life Hands You a Lemonfruit Bomb and A Hagiography of Starlight, because these concepts just didn't get explored enough for me, and I was left a bit confused! 

This was such a great read, and I'm really hoping that we might get some full length stories from some of these worlds! 

Authors:  Patrice Caldwell, Elizabeth Acevedo, Amerie, Dhonielle Clayton, Jalissa Corrie, Somaiya Daud, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Justina Ireland, Danny Lore, L.L. McKinney, Danielle Paige, Rebecca Roanhorse, Karen Strong, Ashley Woodfolk, Ibi Zoboi  
Read: January 10th, 2022
Source: Library
Reason Why: Love these authors and this collection sounded really great, and it's a SAC 2022 Book! 
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Published: March 10th 2020

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 48 Review: Love is the Drug

From Goodreads:
From the author of THE SUMMER PRINCE, a novel that's John Grisham's THE PELICAN BRIEF meets Michael Crichton's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN set at an elite Washington D.C. prep school.

Emily Bird was raised not to ask questions. She has perfect hair, the perfect boyfriend, and a perfect Ivy-League future. But a chance meeting with Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent, at a party for Washington DC's elite leads to Bird waking up in a hospital, days later, with no memory of the end of the night.

Meanwhile, the world has fallen apart: A deadly flu virus is sweeping the nation, forcing quarantines, curfews, even martial law. And Roosevelt is certain that Bird knows something. Something about the virus--something about her parents' top secret scientific work--something she shouldn't know.

The only one Bird can trust is Coffee, a quiet, outsider genius who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. And he believes in Bird. But as Bird and Coffee dig deeper into what really happened that night, Bird finds that she might know more than she remembers. And what she knows could unleash the biggest government scandal in US history.

My Review:
I loved reading this book! An outbreak that means quarantine-of Washington, D.C., that's something that's important! And I loved the mystery of what happened to her that night, why the one dude and her ex treat her like she knows a secret. So interesting! 

This book was a bit disjointed. There were this asides that added to the story, but they were jarring. It made it harder to read and to enjoy this book, but it didn't outweigh the positives! They were little asides, and while I'm glad that they were there, because it gave some needed info, well, yeah, jarring!

I really enjoyed Coffee and Bird together. They both have their issues-he's a ambassador's kid, and Bird's mom has a firm idea of who Bird should be, and Bird has tried to change herself to be that person. They were quickly, and fit well together!

This is a throwaway paragraph, but as a book lover and as someone trained to be a library technician, shame on Bird for defacing a library book! Worse than bending a corner as a bookmark, she tore a page out of a book! Gasp!

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was really great to read!

Author: Alaya Dawn Johnson
Read: November 25th, 2017
Source: Edelweiss
Reason Why: Sounded really good! And it's a 2017 Dystopia Book and a SAC 2017 Book.
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Published: September 30th 2014

5/5 Hearts

4/5 Books

4/5 Stars

Alaya Dawn Johnson Author Page

The Story: I got Love is the Drug from Edelweiss, and it sounded really fantastic! So I just have to read it!

Website

Stand Alone's: Love is the Drug and my review, The Summer Prince and my review.

Anthologies: A Phoenix First Must Burn and my review, Feral Youth and my review.