keelreads's reviews
249 reviews

The Counselors was a big hit for me. It made me wish I had gone to summer camp and made memories and friends like Goldie did... Minus the murder and scandals that this story was full of.

Goldie always looks forward to summer. The short months that she will spend with friends and other campers at Camp Alpine. This summer is different as she is desperately longing for a reprieve from the town that hates her, to forget all about that for a few months as she begins her first year as a counselor, rather than a camper, with her best friends.

The tension only builds though as a body is found at the lake and it is revealed that those closest to Goldie are holding secrets, some bigger and darker than others.

The Quiet Tenant is a story of a beloved man in the community and the deep dark secret that he has hidden. The community and those closest to him may see a generous and lovable man, but behind doors closed-- even to his daughter-- he is someone else entirely. Aidan is a secretly dark and troubled man, a serial kidnapper, rapist, and murderer with one victim locked away from the world. The Quiet Tenant is told from the perspectives of the three women closest to him, his daughter, one of his victims, and Emily, a girl who has taken a liking to him. After Aidan's wife dies and his in-laws decide to sell the house from under him and his daughter, Celia, they move into a new home. The only problem, Aidan has a woman locked in the shed out back. After creating a story, "Rachel", the woman in the shed, becomes the woman in the house that Aidan is "letting stay" because she needs help. We learn a lot about Rachel, Emily, and Celia and watch as Rachel proves that she is not a victim, she is a survivor.

Typically, point-of-view changes to not work well and I have not read many that include both first- and second-person perspectives but Michallon did a great job of executing these perspectives. This was a great novel that I definitely recommend. Props to Michallon for writing a novel in English which is not her first language!

A family grieves the unexpected death of the eldest daughter and second-born child, the golden girl amongst her parents but outcast amongst her peers as a biracial, Chinese-American girl in a town that doesn't have any Asians other than her family.

We are exposed to the family history and present grief in the years leading up to her death and the fall-out from her disappearance. This is a great novel I highly recommend.

As someone who is not an avid fantasy reader, I loved Damsel!

Damsel follows Elodie as she agrees to an arranged marriage in order to bring much-needed resources to her kingdom of Inophe, a famine kingdom. Elodie and her family set sail to the kingdom of Aurea to wed Prince Henry, but little does Elodie know, this match is too good to be true, as Henry plans to feed Elodie to a dragon to keep the kingdom of Aurea safe from its wrath and to prosper from its magic and vast riches. The only problem?
Elodie is unlike any princess Aurea has ever experienced before.

To correct what I said before, I am not a fantasy reader at all, but Damsel drew me in quickly. The characters were great and there's just something about Elodie that makes her so likable and you will definitely find yourself rooting for her! Plus her relationship with her younger sister is divine and so pure, I love it!

I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would and am so glad that I read it!

Narrated by a ghost, the girl from the well herself, Okiku. Okiku is a vengeful ghost, seeking justice for the souls that met an unfortunate end, those murdered by monsters. She decides fate and enacts her terrible vengeance on the monsters with evil and murder in their heart.

She is a drifter, wandering until she finds her next victim, that is until she meets Tark. Tark is a young boy, a teen with evil trapped just under his skin where the sigils, the tattoos keep the evil at bay in his body. Tark is a vessel, meant to trap a dark evil built by many dark spirits and has been so for a decade. Tark doesn't really know what's going on, just that his mother has tried to kill him, she's "crazy" and he believes that he may be going crazy too.

Okiku knows differently though, she knows that this evil is not Tark's doing. This spiritual vigilante turns great protector as she watches over him. She could fight the evil, kill it before it has the chance to do so to Tark, but if she kills the evil beneath his skin, the same fate will find Tark.

I adore this picture book.
Not only is the message behind this book both important and powerful, but the illustrations are stunning and add so much to the message of the book.

Maya has so many emotions burning so brightly inside her, but when it comes to navigating the anger, sadness, and confusion within herself she struggles. Thanks to her librarian, she gets help and insight from all the women who came before her on using the feelings and dreams inside her to better herself. Maya uses her new-found knowledge to help her friends and neighbors navigate the light inside themselves.

The Lost Library was a quick and fun read that I am so excited about!

The chapters alternate between characters and are action-packed with mystery and... ghosts.
Evan and his best friend Rife live in Martinville and their lives are about to change, not just because they are graduating from elementary school. A mysterious little free library showed up overnight across from the History House in town. No one knows where it came from, but everyone is interested, especially Evan, who stops by and randomly grabs two books.

Rather than just leading to a new fictional adventure in the pages of those books, Evan finds himself asking more questions than he can find answers to. Those questions soon lead to a massive discovery with a nearly unbelievable plot twist.

Heavy is the Head is a beautiful and heavy collection of poetry exploring experiences that are incredibly human.

Enyegue's poetry was charged with so much emotion centering around trauma and healing, mental health, and other topics that way so many people down. I cried while in awe of Enyegue's eloquence with her words when discussing topics such as mental health, sexual assult, and being black. It was like a gut-punch as I realized that though each person's experience is different, the emotions and pain of trauma can be universal.

I cannot wait to get my hands of a physical copy!