Book Review: A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and TomorrowLaura Taylor Namey Have you been looking for a gentle book that feels like your favorite mug, warm in your hands and a hug for your heart all wrapped in one? If you haven’t been looking, I hope you’ll take the time for this enchanting, grounded contemporary teen…

Book Review: Arsenic and Adobo

Arsenic and AdoboMia P. Manansala If you’re the type of person who gets hungry while reading about delicious foods, make sure you have some snacks nearby while you read this excellently paced cozy mystery that enjoys poking the right amount of fun at its own melodrama while offering up a literary culinary feast the likes…

Book Review: The Downstairs Girl

The Downstairs GirlStacey Lee The one thing I can always trust when it comes to YA historical fiction is a well crafted novel. Stacey Lee absolutely delivered in this heartwarming (yes, heartwarming) southern Gilded Age drama with a Chinese protagonist. “Niche” subject matter is absolutely at play here, but that’s also what makes it good….

Manga Review: That Blue Sky Feeling

That Blue Sky Feeling Okura|Coma Hashii That Blue Sky Feeling is a gentle slice of life manga centering on the lives of two high school boys: Dai Noshiro and Kou Sanada. The title of the manga isn’t self-explanatory like other titles I’ve seen, and lets readers take from it what they want to experience, much like the…

Blume, Burgess, and Beyond: Why Teen Sexuality in Literature is Still “A Thing” for Adults

“Contemporary realistic fiction in young adult literature presents fictionalized manifestations of real experiences for teens. But controversy arises in those realistic novels that depict teens as sexual beings”  (Kurtz and Schuelke, 2011, p228). Escapism narratives and the opportunity for teens to try on different identities are important elements of successful teen literature. So why doesn’t…