Halloween is right around the corner, and this weekend is the weekend to celebrate. So if you’re participating in this year’s festivities and you don’t have a costume yet, you’re behind. No doubt there will be a handful of Wonder Women (praise be!), a gaggle of Pennywise the Clowns, a couple “Game of Thrones” White Walkers, a gaggle of Blade Runners and most definitely a few “Stranger Things” Elevens roaming the streets. Truth is, these all make excellent costume choices, but if you still need some inspo, click here. Need a super last-minute idea? A witch/warlock (ICYMI: witchery is having a real moment) or a book nerd works, because smart never goes out of style!
It’s no coincidence that the cult horror show of the decade makes its triumphant return on this particular weekend. That’s right, the second season of “Stranger Things” is now available on Netflix. So many of us have been waiting for this day to come since the new series made a serious splash in the binge-worthy TV scene last October. If you aren’t familiar with it, the show is equal parts thriller, science fiction and period piece drama complete with an excellent playlist to match and enough ‘80s paraphernalia (think: Eggos, mixtapes, landlines) to throw any true millennial into a nostalgia spiral. On top of it all, it’s layered with young love at all the various stages of growing up, which is a real treat. Real talk: I couldn’t be more excited about this, I can’t recommend the show enough and it’s a great way to get into the holiday spirit.
If you feel like the horror genre has made quite the comeback recently, you’re not wrong. This has been the biggest year in horror history at the box office. Read more here.
Netflix's MINDHUNTER falls into that category, David Fincher's 1970s psychological thriller about an FBI agent studying the minds and behaviors of famous serial killers. Warning: The show is not for the faint of heart. There are some seriously graphic parts, both visually speaking and in the dialogue. Still, I am o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d and spent the better part of last week binging the first season. The character and plot development is perfectly paced, and the music choices are outstanding. The series is based on a memoir of the same name written by former FBI agent John Douglas. So if that subject matter is up your alley, definitely check out the book and the show.
Netflix is serving up a double whammy today as the much-anticipated Joan Didion documentary, "The Center Will Not Hold," is also finally out. I was lucky enough to get an advance screener, which was really nice considering all the TV that needs to be consumed this weekend. The film includes exclusive, intimate interviews with Joan and celebrity guest appearances by those who have been close to her throughout the years. The documentary is for a true fan who already knows the ins and outs of her story, and for those who are willing to lap up whatever she’s willing to offer. Fun fact: The docu began as a Kickstarter project that raised its funding goal in one day --- to no one's surprise.
Be sure to check out the Teenreads.com 20th Anniversary Special, celebrating 20 years since the site’s inception with its biggest contest yet. Enter now through next Wednesday, November 1st at noon ET for your chance to be the Grand Prize winner, who will win a copy of each of the 20 featured books, or one of five Second Prize winners, who will each win copies of four select titles. Click here to enter and see more details.
If you live in or around Miami, you’re in luck because the Miami Book Fair is coming up! The event will be in Downtown Miami from November 12th to 19th. The week-long fair will host a variety of author talks and readings, opportunities to buy adult and children’s books during the Street Fair weekend, and presentations by comic/graphic novelists. Our very own Carol Fitzgerald, president and co-founder of The Book Report Network, will be in attendance, so if you spot her out and about, say hi! Click here to read more about the fair schedule or scroll down.
If you’re planning to forego Halloween this year and need some reading recs, I got you covered:
THE LAST MRS. PARRISH by Liv Constantine is the story of Amber Patterson, who is tired of being a nobody. She deserves more --- a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted. To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life --- the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards; if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
In THE RELIVE BOX AND OTHER STORIES, T.C. Boyle's sharp wit and rich imagination combine with a penetrating social consciousness to produce raucous, poignant and expansive short stories defined by an inimitable voice. From the collection's title story, featuring a Halcom X1520 Relive Box that allows users to experience anew almost any moment from their past, to "The Five-Pound Burrito," the tale of a man aiming to build the biggest burrito in town, the 12 stories in this collection speak to the humor, the pathos and the struggle that is part of being human while relishing the whimsy of wordplay and the power of a story well told.
If you loved Alice Hoffman’s 1995 PRACTICAL MAGIC, you’ll love her sequel, THE RULES OF MAGIC. For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man. Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the ’60s, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. From the start, she sets down rules for them, the most important of which is to never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City, each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.
Happy Halloween and happy reading!
5 Things To Obsess About This Very Moment, in no particular order:
1. George Saunders takes home the Man Booker prize for LINCOLN IN THE BARDO
2. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's workout is intense
3. Finally, a Twins sequel movie is in the works
4. Leo DiCaprio will play Roosevelt in an upcoming Scorsese biopic
5. Non-ironically, he will also play Leonardo da Vinci in another biopic based on the Walter Isaacson book of the same name
--- Nicole Sherman
Teenreads.com's 20th Anniversary Giveaway!
We're celebrating Teenreads.com's 20th Anniversary in a BIG way. They're giving away 20 books representing a timeline of YA over the last two decades!
They've selected one book from each year, beginning with BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE by Annette Curtis Klause (1997) and ending with last year's TRUTHWITCH by Susan Dennard (2016). Click here to see all the included titles.
Enter now through Wednesday, November 1st at noon ET, for your chance to be the Grand Prize winner, who will win a copy of each of the 20 featured books, or one of five Second Prize winners, who will each win copies of four select titles.
Miami Book Fair Is Coming Up!
The Miami Book Fair, now in its 34th year, is an eight-day event that kicks off Sunday, November 12th with the popular Evenings With… series, featuring six nights of readings and discussions with noted authors from the United States and around the world.
On Friday, November 17th, the Street Fair gets underway. The highlight of the Street Fair is the Festival of Authors, with more than 450 authors reading and discussing their work, including the Latin American and Spanish authors who participate in the IberoAmerican Authors Program. Thousands of South Florida schoolchildren will help kick off the Street Fair, making the trip downtown Friday to hear authors and participate in Children’s Alley activities, including theater, arts-and-crafts, storytelling and readings by children’s book authors. Comics and graphic novels are once again featured, as well as presentations over the weekend by renowned graphic novelists and illustrators.
During Street Fair weekend, November 17-19th, more than 250 publishers and booksellers exhibit and sell books, with special features like the antiquarians, who showcase signed first editions, original manuscripts and other collectibles.
Authors attending the event this year include Megan Abbott, Isabel Allende, Edwidge Danticat, Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Janet Fitch, James Grippando, Carl Hiaasen, Elin Hilderbrand, Ann Hood, Walter Isaacson, Min Jin Lee, Claire Messud, Dan Rather, Salman Rushdie, Will Schwalbe, Lisa See, Colm Tóibín, Scott Turow, and many, many more. Click here for the full list.
Young Adult and Graphic Novel authors in attendance include Kiersten White, S.J. Kincaid, Emmy Laybourne, Nidhi Chanani, Faith Erin Hicks, Robin Benway, Samantha Mabry, Erika L. Sanchez, Tillie Walden, Ibi Zoboi and Gene Luen Yang.
CHILDREN OF THE FLEET by Orson Scott Card (Science Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Stefan Rudnicki and a full cast
Ender Wiggin won the Third Formic war, ending the alien threat to Earth. Afterwards, all the terraformed Formic worlds were open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet became the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships, and colonies. Dabeet Ochoa is a very smart kid. Top of his class in every school. But he doesn’t think he has a chance at Fleet School, because he has no connections to the Fleet. That he knows of. At least until the day that Colonel Graff arrives at his school for an interview. Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard.
DEEP FREEZE: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Eric Conger
Virgil Flowers knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt --- and, as it turned out, homicidal --- local school board, and now the town is back in view with more alarming news: A woman has been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of 20 years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, so Virgil begins to dig into 20 years’ worth of traumas, feuds and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
FEAR by Dirk Kurbjuweit (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by John Glouchevitch
Randolph Tiefenthaler insists he had a normal childhood, though he grew up with a father who kept 30 loaded guns in the house. A modestly successful architect with a wonderful family and a beautiful home, he soon finds his life compromised when his father, a man Randolph loves yet has always feared, is imprisoned for murder. FEAR is the story of the twisted events leading up to his father’s incarceration. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE LAST MRS. PARRISH by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Suzanne Elise Freeman and Meghan Wolf
Amber Patterson is tired of being a nobody. She deserves more --- a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted. To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life --- the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards; if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
ODD CHILD OUT by Gilly Macmillan (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, performed by Peter Noble
Best friends Noah Sadler and Abdi Mahad have always been inseparable. But when Noah is found floating unconscious in Bristol's Feeder Canal, Abdi won’t tell anyone what happened. Just back from a mandatory leave following his last case, Detective Jim Clemo is now assigned to look into this unfortunate accident. But tragedy strikes, and what looked like the simple case of a prank gone wrong soon ignites into a public battle. Noah is British. Abdi is a Somali refugee. And social tensions have been rising rapidly in Bristol. Against this background of fear and fury, two families fight for their sons and for the truth. Reviewed by Dunja Bonacci Skenderović.
PULSE: A Dick Francis Novel by Felix Francis (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, narrated by Clare Corbett
A smartly dressed man has been found unconscious at the local racecourse and is rushed to the hospital, where he subsequently dies. But who is he? Where does he come from? Doctor Chris Rankin, a specialist who treated the deceased --- and who struggles with mental health issues --- is intrigued by the nameless dead man and starts asking questions. However, someone doesn't want the questions answered and will go to any lengths to prevent it, including an attempted murder. But when no one will believe that someone tried to kill Chris, the doctor is left with no option but to discover who the nameless man was and why he died…preferably before following him into an early grave. Reviewed by Jennifer McCord.
THE RELIVE BOX AND OTHER STORIES by T.C. Boyle (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, performed by T.C. Boyle
In THE RELIVE BOX, T.C. Boyle's sharp wit and rich imagination combine with a penetrating social consciousness to produce raucous, poignant and expansive short stories defined by an inimitable voice. From the collection's title story, featuring a Halcom X1520 Relive Box that allows users to experience anew almost any moment from their past, to "The Five-Pound Burrito," the tale of a man aiming to build the biggest burrito in town, the 12 stories in this collection speak to the humor, the pathos and the struggle that is part of being human while relishing the whimsy of wordplay and the power of a story well told. Reviewed by Jana Siciliano.
RIGHTEOUS: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Sullivan Jones
Ten years ago, when Isaiah Quintabe was just a boy, his brother was killed by an unknown assailant. The search for the killer sent Isaiah plunging into despair and nearly destroyed his life. Even with a flourishing career and near-iconic status as a PI in his hometown, he has to begin the hunt again --- or lose his mind. A case takes him and his volatile, dubious sidekick, Dodson, to Vegas, where Chinese gangsters and a terrifying seven-foot loan shark are stalking a DJ and her screwball boyfriend. If Isaiah doesn't find the two first, they'll be murdered. Awaiting the outcome is the love of IQ's life: fail, and he'll lose her. Isaiah's quest will lead him to the mastermind behind his brother's death, Isaiah's own sinister Moriarty. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
THE RULES OF MAGIC by Alice Hoffman (Historical Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Marin Ireland
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man. Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the ’60s, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. From the start, she sets down rules for them, the most important of which is to never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City, each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse. Reviewed by Bianca Ambrosio.
SEVEN DAYS OF US by Francesca Hornak (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Jilly Bond
It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. Even Emma and Andrew’s elder daughter will be joining them at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate. Having just returned from treating an epidemic abroad, Olivia, a doctor, has been told she must stay in quarantine for a week…and so too should her family. For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity and forced into each other’s orbits. In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
SMILE by Roddy Doyle (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Roddy Doyle
While at Donnelly’s for his usual pint, Victor Forde is approached by a man in shorts and a pink shirt. He seems to know Victor’s name and to remember him from secondary school. His name is Fitzpatrick. Victor dislikes him on sight, and also dislikes the memories that Fitzpatrick stirs up of five years being taught by the Christian Brothers. He prompts other memories --- of Rachel, his beautiful wife who became a celebrity, and of Victor’s own small claim to fame, as the man who would say the unsayable on the radio. But it’s the memories of school, and of one particular brother, that Victor cannot control and that eventually threaten to destroy his sanity. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
WHAT WE RECKON by Eryk Pruitt (Hard-boiled Mystery/Humor)
Jack Jordan is a smooth-talking con artist with a penchant for the fast life. He has snuck into Lufkin, Texas, in the dead of night with little more than a beat-up Honda, a hollowed-out King James Bible full of cocaine, and enough emotional baggage to sink a steam ship. Summer Ashton is his partner-in-crime, but lately her mind has begun to slip. They’ve told their fair share of lies, and she’s having a devil of a time remembering what’s the truth. And recently, she’s been hearing voices. Unfortunately for both of them, she’s the brains of the operation. Furthermore, they have begun to tire of one another. For these two career grifters, the sleepy East Texas countryside is but another pit stop on their rampage across the American South. Will it be their last? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
WINTER SOLSTICE by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Erin Bennett
It's been too long since the entire Quinn family has been able to celebrate the holidays under the same roof, but that's about to change. With Bart back safe and sound from Afghanistan, the Quinns are preparing for a holiday more joyous than any they've experienced in years. And Bart's safe return isn't the family's only good news. Kevin is enjoying married life with Isabelle; Patrick is getting back on his feet after paying his debt to society; Ava thinks she's finally found the love of her life; and Kelly is thrilled to see his family reunited at last. But it just wouldn't be a Quinn family gathering if things went smoothly. Reviewed by Vivian Payton.
BEFORE THE DEVIL BREAKS YOU (The Diviners) by Libba Bray (Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magic, Romance, Young Adult 14+)
After battling a supernatural sleeping sickness that early claimed two of their own, the Diviners have had enough of lies. They're more determined than ever to uncover the mystery behind their extraordinary powers, even as they face off against an all-new terror. Out on Ward's Island, far from the city's bustle, sits a mental hospital haunted by the lost souls of people long forgotten --- ghosts who have unusual and dangerous ties to the man in the stovepipe hat, also known as the King of Crows. Reviewed by Melat E., Teen Board Member.
DEAR MARTIN by Nic Stone (Coming of Age, Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Social Issues, Young Adult 13+)
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. 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, 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. Reviewed by Audrey Slater and Dylan C., Teen Board Member.
STARFISH by Akemi Dawn Bowman (Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Social Issues, Young Adult 14+)
Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she’s thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn’t quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin. But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. Reviewed by Taylor F., Teen Board Member.
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