Young Adult Archives - Reading Middle Grade

Review | The Color of a Lie

Afoma Umesi — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

When Calvin and his parents move from Chicago to the Levittown suburbs in Pennsylvania, he's torn between leaving his culture and older brother behind in the black neighborhoods and assimilating into the all-white neighborhood. Meeting and falling for the new black girl in his town doesn't help as he finds himself caught up in organizing to get more Black teens into his school. But things quickly turn dangerous for him and his friends as loyalties are tested across the board.

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Review | Snowglobe

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This YA novel is set in a dystopian world where every part of the earth is living with frigid temperatures except for Snowglobe–akin to The Capitol in the Hunger Games. While residents of all the other settlements work hard to generate resources for Snowglobe, its inhabitants live life under the camera lens, their lives fodder for reality TV and controlled by prestigious directors. When the star of one of the most popular shows dies, another girl outside Snowglobe who resembles her eerily is recruited to take her place, opening a can of worms about the unethical misuse of power in Snowglobe.

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Review | Jackpot

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:35:35 +0000

17-year-old Rico has a lot on her plate. She works the afternoon shift at the Gas n Go and spends the rest of her free time looking after her little brother and trying to cushion the effects of her mom’s poor financial decisions on their family. But when the owner of a winning lottery ticket purchased from her doesn’t show up to claim the prize, Rico is forced to partner with her wealthy (and wildly attractive) classmate Zan to track the woman down and maybe get her to split her wins with Rico.

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Review | NerdCrush

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:25:04 +0000

Summary: NerdCrush Ramona is a shy 16-year-old who loves cosplay. After she leaves a picture of her cosplay character with a poem in her crush’s locker, the two start communicating via email. In class, though, she can’t seem to work up the courage to talk to that same crush, Caleb. But when Caleb suddenly starts

Review | Gloria Buenrostro Is Not My Girlfriend

Afoma Umesi — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:53:35 +0000

Summary: Gloria Buenrostro Is Not My Girlfriend Gary Vo is a Vietnamese-American soon-to-be junior high schooler. Gary and his friend Preston have been at the bottom of the social totem pole forever, and Preston is determined that this is the summer they rise up the ranks. So when they’re approached by two popular classmates with

Review | My Sister’s Big Fat Indian Wedding

Afoma Umesi — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 11:08:46 +0000

Zurika Damani plays the violin with a sprinkle of hip-hop and has just been rejected by Julliard. Her current options are to go to college for pre-law or compete in a contest judged by major college scouts (including Julliard scouts). The only problem is that the contest is during her big sister’s week-long Indian wedding. Thankfully, her cousins band together to help her disappear during the ceremony without being discovered. But things get complicated when Zurika finds out that the group's South African cousin is a fellow contestant.

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Review | The Noh Family

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Chloe Chang lives a boring life in Oklahoma -- with her busy single mom and her two best friends -- where she loves watching K-dramas. But when her best friends gift her a 23-and-me test kit for her birthday, things take a dramatic turn. She finds out that her father was a son of the Noh family, a prestigious family in Seoul, South Korea and before she knows it, she's off to meet them for the first time. Unfortunately, she's thrust into a web of lies as she realizes that the family might have ulterior motives for reaching out to her.

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Review | Something More

Afoma Umesi — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 17:01:34 +0000

Jessie is a fifteen-year-old Palestinian-Canadian who’s getting into high school soon after an autism diagnosis. She feels “abnormal,” especially as she doesn’t have a cellphone, but is determined to belong to a friend group and fall in love this school year. However, when she finds herself caught between two very different boys, she realizes that things don’t always go to plan.

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Review | Give Me a Sign

Afoma Umesi — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 17:21:52 +0000

In Give Me a Sign, Lilah is a teen with hearing loss but who isn’t profoundly deaf. So she has always felt caught in the middle -- not deaf enough to be part of the Deaf community and not fully hearing to fit in completely there either. But when she becomes a counselor at a summer camp for deaf and blind kids, her experiences (and the boy she falls in love with) change the way the views her disability.

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Graphic Novel Review | The Faint of Heart

Afoma Umesi — Fri, 05 May 2023 09:34:16 +0000

Faint at Heart is set in a dystopian world where no one but high schooler June has a heart. When a scientist (known simply as The Scientist) discovers that removing your heart takes away negative emotions like heartbreak, sadness, and anxiety, everyone undergoes the procedure. Unfortunately, the procedure also takes away the positive feelings. As June grapples with the loneliness of being the only one with a heart, she discovers a classmate whose heart is now growing back. Both teens work together to find the scientist and get her to reverse the procedure.

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