Active Voice

By Adam Rex [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Scottish Play Doe (please just call him Scott) has always been a little weird, what with his migraines that make him see really strange things, but everything in his life gets a lot weirder when his family moves to Goodborough (home of the GoodCo Cereal Company) and one of his hallucinations steals his backpack. And then it turns out he hasn’t been hallucinating at all: he can see things no one else can, and oh yeah, that includes cereal mascots that might actually be faeries… and they’re all on the run from GoodCo itself.

With the help of his new friends Erno and Emily (who have their own weird connection to GoodCo), plus Mick the leprechaun, Harvey the rabbit man, and a suspiciously hairy housekeeper named Biggs, Scott has to figure out what’s really going on at GoodCo… and how to save the world from one seriously sinister cereal company.

(Mild spoilers within.)
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By Karen Healey [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Summerton is the most beautiful resort town in New Zealand, but since Keri’s older brother killed himself unexpectedly, she’s been even less enchanted with the town than usual. Then she talks to Janna and Sione, whose older brothers also killed themselves – without warning and without leaving a note. Sensing a pattern, the three of them start looking for a serial killer, but Summerton’s secrets may just be darker – and more supernatural – than they think.

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By Michael Scott [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle have lived nearly seven hundred years, thanks to Nicholas’s possession of the Codex, a book full of magical secrets like the elixir of life, the spell to turn base metals to gold…and the key to bringing back the old gods and destroying the human race. When Nicholas is attacked by his almost-as-ancient enemy, Dr. John Dee, and the book and Perenelle are both taken, Nicholas knows he doesn’t have long before the human race is wiped out by Dee’s masters, the Dark Elders. All Nicholas has on his side are Josh and Sophie, ordinary 15-year-old twins who didn’t mean to get mixed up in all this. But Nicholas suspects they may be the twins prophesied in the Codex, who may save the world…or destroy it.

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By Pseudonymous Bosch [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Cassandra prides herself on being ready for anything, but she’s not ready for the Symphony of Smells – a strange chest full of vials that once belonged to a magician, and that appears one day at her grandfathers’ antique shop. With her new friend Max-Ernest, Cass investigates the magician’s disappearance – and finds herself battling an ancient society, the Midnight Sun, that is seeking the key to immortality. Soon Cass and Max-Ernest join the benevolent Terces Society along with their new friend Yo-Yoji, but the plots of the Midnight Sun grow ever more diabolical, and the mysteries surrounding our heroes grow ever more complex.

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By Edward Eager [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

It’s shaping up to be a perfectly boring summer for Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha, until they find a strange coin on the sidewalk that grants wishes…sort of. The coin grants half wishes, so you must wish for twice as much as you want, lest you end up with half a talking cat or half a safe journey home. Figuring out how to double most wishes is simple, but when it comes to finding a happy ending for themselves and their mother, the siblings need something more than just a little arithmetic.

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By Dia Reeves [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

All Hanna wants is for her mom to love her. Never mind that she’s never met her mom, never mind that she’s got a slew of mental health problems and even more pills, never mind that she still hears her dead father’s voice. She forces herself into her mom’s small-town life — only to find that Portero, the town, is even crazier than she is. But somehow, a town full of missing persons signs, hidden doors, and killer monsters is exactly what Hanna needs to fit in, because Portero might be crazy, but Hanna is crazier.

(FYI: “crazy” is the book’s word, not mine. A lot of this review is about ableism and mental health, so I wanted to make that clear up front.)

Mild spoilers uncovered beneath the cut. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joanne Dahme [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

[Sometimes we come across books that even we can’t finish. But how can we give them a rating if we haven’t finished them? Thus we have the Unfinished/Unrated category, for those times when we want to talk about a book we didn’t finish – and why.]

From the back cover copy: “In order to fit in at her new school, Jessie accepts a dare to spend one night in a local cemetery. Once inside the heavy iron entrance gate, she encounters a handsome young boy named Paul. He tells her that she is just in time to watch the rehearsal of Tombstone Tea, a memorial for those buried in the cemetery in which actors impersonate the deceased. But Jessie notices that there is something strange about these actors – something deadly.”

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By Cate Tiernan [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Immortal Nastasya has been a party girl for over four centuries, numbing her feelings in an effort to forget the tragedies she’s seen – and caused – in an endless lifetime. But when she realizes the shallow callousness of her friends, she turns her back on them and seeks refuge at River’s Edge, a haven for immortals seeking to turn over a new leaf. There she struggles with her own fears and dark memories – not to mention her attraction to the handsomest, jerkiest immortal she’s ever met – and comes to terms with her birthright, her power, and herself.

I couldn’t discuss the biggest problem with the book without spoiling part of the end, so be warned: uncovered spoilers lie behind the cut.

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By Annie Barrows [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Miri is stuck in the middle between twin brothers and twin sisters, and feels totally alone, especially when they move to a big old house in the middle of the country. But when she finds a mysterious piece of glass in her room, she looks through it and finds herself transported to 1935, where she meets a girl just her age named Molly, who begs Miri to save her. Now Miri’s got to figure out how to get both of them back to the present – and it might just be a matter of life and death.

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By Sarah Rees Brennan [LibraryThing - GoodReads]

Mae’s life has changed forever now that she knows about magic — about demons and magicians — but now that her magic-wielding brother Jamie is safe, she thought they were done with that world forever. Then she sees Jamie cavorting with Gerald, the magician who took over the Circle trying to kill them, and she has to call the brothers Alan and Nick again. Except they’ve changed: Nick’s new powers are limitless, and there’s some kind of wedge between him and Alan now. Now, Mae has to figure out what the magicians are up to, how to get Jamie away from them, and how to save Nick from the magicians too — and save Nick from himself.

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