Teen and Staff Reviews

I know that the World is a terrible place, filled with wild animals and evil men and wicked women.

Full disclosure: I'm a middle-aged, married mom who's a teeny, tiny bit obsessed with teen fiction. Not that I'm a creeper or anything. But my teenage angst phase is more like a personality trait. I relate to people who feel uncomfortable and awkward. People who lack confidence and discipline. People who float through life like they haven't got a clue. More often than not, that's not adults. Something about growing up in our society makes people cocky. It changes people. It makes them think they're some kind of authority figure or expert on life. Not me.

What a sad, sick, powerful story. Three runaways desperately attempt to flee from the ugliness they've always known. These kids are both awful and sympathetic. Custis, a homeless boy, narrates most of the story. When strangers ask how old he is, his reply is always just, "old enough". Custis never mentions his parents or any permanent caregivers. He has recently fled a pedophile who, in exchange for “owning” Custis, had been letting him sleep on the floor in a room that smells like dog.

This is the memoir of Aaron Hartzler, a writer and actor currently living in Los Angeles. The story covers his growing up years right here in the Kansas City metro.

There are monsters in the desert. They came from the sea and fought with man, but now they wait, picking off their victims one at a time until they see fit to rage against the world of man once more. 

As Lo-Melkhiin rides the storm into Her (there are no names in the book except for Lo-Melkhiin) village, She knows that he is coming to claim a new bride and her beautiful sister will most likely be his pick. Lo-Melkhiin has had three hundred brides already, and each one has met a swift death.

“I think maybe it’s the things we don’t want to talk about that are the things people most want to hear.” 

Willowdean Dickson is many things. She’s a girl for one. She’s from South Texas. She works in a fast food joint called Harpy’s with an absolute dreamboat of a boy. She and her best friend Ellen are probably the biggest teenage fans of Miss Dolly Parton. She’s absolutely wise beyond her years, and she’s fat. As Willow says, “it’s not a cuss word. It’s not an insult. At least not when I say it.”

In The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves readers were introduced to four wealthy boys of Aglionby Academy: Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah.

I was lucky enough to hear A.S. King speak when she visited our Library in August 2015. Eventually, after much fascinating talk, one of the moderators got around to asking her about her newest book, I Crawl Through It. "What's it about?" We all laughed, as we had earlier established how difficult it can be to neatly summarize a King novel.