Young Adult Archives - Reading Middle Grade

Review | Top Heavy

Afoma Umesi — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 15:39:53 +0000

High school sophomore Esme has a lot going on. She's recently been accepted into the Elite dance group with her best friend Mia, and her family is navigating some challenges. Her father's back was severely hurt in a work accident, and because he's out of work, money is tight for them. Most pressing to Esme, however, is the physical and emotional weight of her large bust and the obstacle it is to dancing -- not to mention the leering she receives from uncouth men. To add to it, she's being bullied by a girl on the dance team who doesn't want sophomores there; her best friend is becoming increasingly distant from her, and finally, she's being harassed during an outing. Can she figure out a way to bear the heavy weight of being a teen girl who just wants to dance?

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Review | All the Noise at Once

Afoma Umesi — Wed, 28 May 2025 21:25:34 +0000

Aiden has always relied on his popular, football-star brother, Brandon, to smooth the edges of a neurotypical world for him. But when Aiden gets in a fight that leads to Brandon getting arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer, their family gets thrown into a media frenzy, and suddenly, Aiden is watching his brother's achievements go down the drain. Even though he's always had fewer expectations because of his autism, can Aiden step up now to help Brandon?

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Review | It’s You Every Time

Afoma Umesi — Thu, 15 May 2025 04:10:15 +0000

It's just an ordinary September 24th, and teens Sydney and Marcus have what is probably the cutest meet-cute at a Dunkin's. They both skip school to spend the day together, and everything seems great until they part ways abruptly in the evening and wake up on September 24... again. Throughout the book, they keep meeting on the same day over 20 times until they can figure out why it's happening, how to break the cycle, and if they even want to break the cycle.

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Review | I Am Not Jessica Chen

Afoma Umesi — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:10:37 +0000

Jenna Chen is tired of living in her perfect cousin Jessica’s life, and when Jessica gets into Havard, and Jenna doesn’t, Jenna wishes she could be Jessica. In an insane twist, she wakes up in Jessica’s body. Worse still, Jenna’s body has ceased to exist. As she begins anew in Jessica’s body, Jenna quickly realizes that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, but can she get her life back?

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Review | Dungeons and Drama

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 12:24:41 +0000

Theater nerd Riley Morris is in hot water. Her parents found out that she drove her friend to her concert (without a driver's permit), and now she's grounded and forced to work at her father's game store. During an uncomfortable encounter with her ex, she gets caught up in proving that she's moved on and claims to be dating her schoolmate and one of her dad's employees, Nathan. Both teens make a fake dating plan to help them reach their own goals, but along the way as they support each other's interests and spend time together, real feelings begin to develop.

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Review | Silent Sister

Afoma Umesi — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:32:58 +0000

When two sisters camp in the woods for their class sleepover and only one comes out alive with no memory of what happened to her sister, all eyes are on her. It doesn’t help that her friends are suddenly acting weird toward her, and no one seems trustworthy. As law enforcement investigates and the surviving sister digs through her memories for the truth, the reveal is shocking.

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Review | This Is Our Story

Afoma Umesi — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 18:27:23 +0000

Five private school teen boys go target shooting, and one of them ends up dead, shot by his own gun -- with the fingerprints of all four friends on the gun. All the boys claim they don't know what happened. The story is told from two perspectives: that of the unknown killer and that of a schoolmate in the new public school the boys attend. Kate also happened to be regularly texting the boy who was killed and works at the DA's office, where she's helping the DA with his investigation since he has very poor eyesight. As things progress, it seems nothing is as it seems, both with Kate and with the boys in question, and Kate gets more involved as the stakes get higher in finding the killer.

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Review | The Color of a Lie

Afoma Umesi — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

When Calvin and his parents move from Chicago to the Levittown suburbs in Pennsylvania, he's torn between leaving his culture and older brother behind in the black neighborhoods and assimilating into the all-white neighborhood. Meeting and falling for the new black girl in his town doesn't help as he finds himself caught up in organizing to get more Black teens into his school. But things quickly turn dangerous for him and his friends as loyalties are tested across the board.

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Review | Snowglobe

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This YA novel is set in a dystopian world where every part of the earth is living with frigid temperatures except for Snowglobe–akin to The Capitol in the Hunger Games. While residents of all the other settlements work hard to generate resources for Snowglobe, its inhabitants live life under the camera lens, their lives fodder for reality TV and controlled by prestigious directors. When the star of one of the most popular shows dies, another girl outside Snowglobe who resembles her eerily is recruited to take her place, opening a can of worms about the unethical misuse of power in Snowglobe.

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Review | Jackpot

Afoma Umesi — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:35:35 +0000

17-year-old Rico has a lot on her plate. She works the afternoon shift at the Gas n Go and spends the rest of her free time looking after her little brother and trying to cushion the effects of her mom’s poor financial decisions on their family. But when the owner of a winning lottery ticket purchased from her doesn’t show up to claim the prize, Rico is forced to partner with her wealthy (and wildly attractive) classmate Zan to track the woman down and maybe get her to split her wins with Rico.

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