I finally read a few more young adult books last year, so I don't have to combine my late middle-grade and young adult books! I loved all these books, three of which are by writers I've read before. I highly recommend these books for ages 13+! Spin I am not usually a fan of mythological retellings, but what a gorgeous book Spin by Rebecca Caprara was! It was part of the required reading for a course I did on revising a verse novel and it was my favourite on the list. Full of powerful imagery, this sapphic young adult verse novel blew me away with its story as well as its storytelling. It's splendid! Book review The Poet X I read Elizabeth Acevedo's less famous Clap When You Land some time ago and I loved it. The Poet X is, in some ways, even more powerful. It's such a moving story, and the verse form is the perfect way … [Read more...]
Spin
What if the gods didn't bless Arachne after all? What if, like all mortals, she had to toil, ignored by the gods until she, through her own hard work, achieved a kind of immortality, the only kind that is granted to us?Spin by Rebecca Caprara is the second book I read because it’s on the required reading list for an online workshop on revising your verse novel that I will be attending later this year. I would never have enrolled for this workshop if I had not received the Highlights Foundation scholarship, and I might then never have read this stunning book!Modern and feminist without ever being anachronistic, Spin shows us how power is wielded by those who tell stories. When Persephone is snatched into the Underworld, her own father Zeus is complicit. Helios, the sun, pretends he saw nothing. It is Hecate, goddess of the night, who is relentless in her search for … [Read more...]