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Published in 2015, V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic is a young adult fantasy novel and the first installment of the Shades of Magic trilogy. Kell Maresh, one of the last Antari magicians, possesses the rare ability to travel between parallel worlds. When a dangerous artifact from a forbidden realm falls into Kell’s possession, he and a thief named Lila Bard become entangled in a perilous adventure. The novel, which received a Goodreads... Read A Darker Shade of Magic Summary

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All the Bright Places is a young adult novel written by Jennifer Niven that deals with the topic of teen suicide. The book was winner of the Goodreads Choice award in 2015, the same year it was first published. Niven tells the story from two different voices, those of high school students Theodore Finch (who goes by “Finch”) and Violet Markey. The characters first meet at the top of their high school bell tower, where both... Read All The Bright Places Summary

A sprawling historical novel, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, explores the overarching theme of lost and redeemed humanity during the waning days of World War II. Told in chapters that alternate between the lives of Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig, each section, or group of chapters, also alternates between these characters’ past lives and the unfolding siege of Saint-Malo by Allied forces in August 1944. Plot SummaryMarie-Laure grows up in Paris... Read All the Light We Cannot See Summary

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill, 2015) is the first in the An Ember in the Ashes series, followed by A Torch Against the Night. This young adult fantasy novel follows an elite warrior and a peasant girl as they find what it means to be free in a brutal world. An Ember in the Ashes debuted at number two on the young adult New York Times bestsellers list and was also... Read An Ember in the Ashes Summary

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is a young adult fiction novel published in 2012. The novel won a Lambda Literary Award, a Pura Belpre Award, and a Stonewall Book Award. It was also named a Printz Honor Book. Told from a first-person point of view, the book is a work of realistic fiction set in El Paso, Texas, in the late 1980s.Plot SummaryAristotle “Ari” Mendoza is the... Read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Summary

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a 2007 novel by Afghan-born Khaled Hosseini, is the story of Mariam and Laila, two women married to the same man, Rasheed. Born in 1959 near Herat, Afghanistan, Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy man, Jalil, and his one-time housekeeper, Nana. For the first fifteen years of her life, Mariam lives a secluded life with Nana in a kolba (shack), situated in a clearing away from the main town. As... Read A Thousand Splendid Suns Summary

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Published in 2018, Circe retells the story of the eponymous Greek mythological figure. Although traditionally viewed as a heartless, savagely beautiful witch who lures sailors to their deaths, the Circe of Madeline Miller’s imagining is quite different. This Circe is a multidimensional, flawed, and empathetic character struggling to find meaning and worth in her immortal life. Through Miller’s detailed and honest first-person narrative, which takes place over thousands of years, the evil witch becomes relatable.The... Read Circe Summary

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Darius the Great Is Not Okay is a coming-of-age novel by Iranian American writer Adib Khorram. Originally published in 2018 by Dial Books, the novel echoes Khorram’s experiences growing up in a multiethnic family with a history of mental illnesses. The book, which is Khorram’s first, won the William C. Morris YA Debut Award in 2019. A sequel entitled Darius the Great Deserves Better was published in August 2020. Plot SummaryDarius Kellner is a high school... Read Darius the Great Is Not Okay Summary

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Heartless, first published in 2016, is a contemporary fantasy Young Adult novel by Marissa Meyer. Meyer is best known for her dystopian sci-fi YA series The Lunar Chronicles, inspired by fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White. Set in a fantasy world, Heartless imagines the backstory of Lewis Carroll’s iconic character the Queen of Hearts from the 1876 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This guide utilizes the Feiwel and Friends hardcover edition, published in... Read Heartless Summary

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Monday’s Not Coming (2018) is a young adult novel by Tiffany D. Jackson. She employs a nonlinear narrative to explore issues of race, mental illness, and media bias. Claudia Coleman narrates the story of how her best friend, Monday Charles, disappeared for a year, and no one but Claudia seemed to notice or care. Published by Harper Collins, Monday’s Not Coming earned Jackson the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe award for new talent. It was also... Read Monday's Not Coming Summary

Ninth House is a 2019 contemporary occult fantasy novel by American writer Leigh Bardugo. Inspired by the author’s undergraduate experiences at Yale University, Ninth House is part of the Alex Stern series with the next book planned for release in 2021. The story is set in a macabre version of the real world and focuses on the occult culture fostered by a set of Yale secret societies, which seek power and wealth through death-related magic... Read Ninth House Summary

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One of Us is Lying is a 2017 young-adult thriller by Karen McManus that revolves around the suspicious death of Bayview High School senior Simon Kelleher, author of a gossip app called About That. The story is told from the alternating first person perspectives of four students who served detention with Simon when he died: Bronwyn, Cooper, Nate, and Addy. It explores themes about the corrosive impact of stereotyping and gossip, the value of empathy... Read One of Us is Lying Summary

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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir about Satrapi’s experiences growing up in Tehran, Iran before and after the revolution in 1979. Originally published in France to critical acclaim in four volumes between 2000-2003, it was translated into English in two volumes in 2003 and 2004. Named a New York Times Notable Book as well as a Time Magazine “Best Comix of the Year,” the book was a San... Read Persepolis Summary

Published anonymously in 1813 by English author Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice is an example of a “novel of manners,” which presents a realistic picture of society through the customs and manners of everyday life. By depicting complex relationships between landowners and tradesmen, those with old money and the nouveaux riche, and men and women, Pride and Prejudice offers a glimpse into the social structures of early 19th-century England. The novel’s primary focus is marriage... Read Pride and Prejudice Summary

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Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (Harper Teen, 2015) is the first book in the Red Queen series, which follows one girl’s battle to bring equality to her people in a dystopian fantasy world where the power hungry Silvers oppress the lower Red class. The book won the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Goodreads Author and was nominated for the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. New York Times bestselling... Read Red Queen Summary

Red, White & Royal Blue is the debut novel of author Casey McQuiston. When first published in May of 2019, it created an immediate sensation and rose to the top of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and earned awards from NPR, Kirkus, Library Journal, and others.Red, White & Royal Blue is the story of a gay romance between FSOTUS (First Son of the United States) Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry, a... Read Red, White, and Royal Blue Summary

Salt to the Sea,a young adult novel set during World War II,begins in January 1945, as the Third Reich is beginning to collapse. The Russians are gaining ground in East Prussia where Operation Hannibal, the largest evacuation by sea in history, is underway.Thousands of terrified refugees from the Baltic regionare migrating to the port of Gotenhafen, Prussia (now Gydnia, Poland) to escape the encroaching Russians. There, they plan to board the Wilhelm Gustloff, a massive... Read Salt to the Sea Summary

Neal Shusterman’s 2016 science fantasy novel, Scythe, tells an unsettling story of two teenagers in the near dystopian future who live in a world where death has literally been defeated. Weighty existential and philosophical questions abound in this first entry of the Arc of the Scythe Series, which has been highly praised for its insight and compulsive readability. The second book, Thunderhead, was released in 2018.In the year 2042, the world’s artificial intelligences become sentient... Read Scythe Summary

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