Scarlet (A.C. Gaughen)

Title: Scarlet

Author: A.C. Gaughen

Publisher: Walker & Company (Bloomsbury)

Length: 292 pages

Rating: 5/5

Will Scarlet is Robin Hood’s greatest thief, a necessary asset as they struggle to protect the people of Nottingham from the evil sheriff. When the sheriff hires the thief taker Gisbourne to hunt them down, Scarlet’s deepest secrets are threatened to be exposed. Not only is she secretly a girl, but she also has a past with the evil Gisbourne, and he’ll stop at nothing to take her, and Robin Hood, down.

It took me a couple chapters to really get into this book, but once I did, I didn’t want to put it down. Scarlet is everything you want in a kick-butt heroine: smart, quick, good with daggers, full of secrets, and hopelessly bad at romance. She gets struck by arrows, fists, and mean words, and while her first instinct might be to run away, she always gets back up, no matter how bruised she might be.

As someone who loves the Robin Hood story, I thought this was a very clever retelling. While the gist of the legend is the same, it made me think of all of the characters in new and unexpected ways.

While it was written to be a stand-alone book, I was excited to hear that there will be a sequel coming in 2014. I can’t wait!

Every Day (David Levithan)

Title: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Length: 322 pages

Rating: 4.5/5

Imagine waking up each day in a new body, getting to experience new things, but never having a chance at a future with the people you meet. This is A’s life, and to survive such a strange existence A has made certain guidelines: don’t get too attached, don’t interfere, and don’t get noticed. When A wakes up in Justin’s body and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon, everything changes. As A falls in love with Rhiannon and begins changing all the rules to spend more time with her, A comes dangerously close to exposing A’s secret existence.

This book’s premise is brilliant and completely unique. It will make you question what it means to be human, mind and body separate but all in one. What is the importance of the vessel that carries your personality? What if you could experience living in every type of body, if boy or girl, fat or skinny, that person for the day was you? I know I took a good look at my own automatic judgment of people based on their looks. This book challenged me to think about gender differently too. It was extremely difficult to write the book summary without using gendered pronoun (and I admit it’s still awkward!). But all of this led to the expanded importance of the first person narrator being and knowing exactly who they are, despite changing all the time..

This book also brings up the question of what it means to truly love someone every day. I felt for Rhiannon as much as I did for A, because they both have such tough decisions to make.

Every Day is YA fiction on the next level; and I love the way it challenges and stretches the norm. 

The Dark Divine (Bree Despain)

Title: The Dark Divine

Author: Bree Despain

Publisher: Egmont USA

Length: 372 pages

Rating: 3.5/5

Daniel Kalbi is back in town, and the pastor’s daughter, Grace Divine, is told to stay away from the boy who was once like a brother to her. But Grace is determined to find out what caused Daniel’s disappearance, and to make it right for her brother who was scared by the mysterious incident. But her growing attraction to Daniel estranges her from her brother, and her love for both of them may not be enough to save them from Daniel’s deadly secret.

This cover is beautiful…but I have no idea what it has to do with the book.

Grace is the pastor’s daughter. Could be boring and perfect, but we like her. She’s a good person and has a lot to live up to with the name Grace Divine. But she’s also bossy, spunky, and she learns to be more rebellious through the novel. Yes, there are a lot of biblical undertones- think story of the prodigal son- and there are mythological undertones as well. The biblical parts were woven in much more neatly than the author-created mythology, which was just a little too convenient for the story.

Daniel is a bad boy. We like bad boys, especially ones who have a soft side and a history with our heroine. Grace tries to make Daniel a hero, but history has a way of coming back and biting characters, and as it resurfaces through flashbacks, we learn that things are more complicated than Grace realizes. It’s quite the twisted road.