The Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire

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Just looking at the covers of these books immediately drew me in. But the stories themselves were so worth staying for. The Wayward Children series of novellas by Seanan McGuire has four books so far: Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, Beneath the Sugar Sky, and In An Absent Dream. I tried to avoid spoilers, but as always, in describing multiple books in a series it is sometimes inevitable.

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In Every Heart a Doorway, we are introduced to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. This is a school for children who have mysteriously disappeared to another world, only to return later and be deemed insane for their stories and desires to return to those worlds. Think falling down a rabbit hole or climbing through a dresser. Each world is the type of world the child is meant to be in, whether that is Nonsense or Logic based, Virtuous or Wicked, and when they return to our world after emerging from their rabbit hole, dresser drawer, etc. all they want to do is go back to where they perfectly fit in. 

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This first story follows Nancy as she gets to know her schoolmates and longs to return to her world, The Halls of the Dead. But when people start turning up dead at the school, the children have to fight to solve the mystery.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones follows twins Jack and Jill, who were prominent characters in the first book. This is almost a prequel of sorts, as the story follows the twins when they first find their world, The Moors. This one was definitely creepy and very dark, as The Moors is a very horror movie-esque world. I think this is my favorite out of the books so far.


Beneath the Sugar Sky takes place in a Nonsense world, Confection, that's basically a huge Candy Land board. This story centers around Rini, Sumi's (a character from the first book) daughter. Rini is on a mission to turn back time and save her land from the Queen of Cakes and enlists the help of the children at Eleanor's. This was my least favorite of the four, but that's really not saying much because I still really enjoyed it! We are introduced to some new characters and worlds in this book as well.

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In An Absent Dream also seemingly functions as a prequel, telling Miss Lundy's story from when she was a child, back in the Goblin Market, and what led her to her strange condition today. I was getting serious Labyrinth vibes from this one!

I am so in love with this series. It has the perfect mix of fantasy and realism. The plots are full of adventure or mystery. The asexual, pansexual, and trans representation in these stories is out of this world. The writing is lyrically beautiful and immersive. I've seen this compared to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but this series is so much more than that. 

These book covers are probably the most beautiful I have ever seen, and each is actually incredibly short, making it a series that is easy to binge-read over and over again! It looks like another book in the Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down, is set for release in 2020, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Every Heart a Doorway Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Down Among the Sticks and Bones Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Beneath the Sugar Sky Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

In An Absent Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Overall Series Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

The Wicked + The Divine Series by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

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I posted this on my Twitter, but I've been in a reading slump lately and have turned to comics and graphic novels in an attempt to overcome it. One series I've picked up recently is The Wicked + The Divine created by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. I've heard a lot of hype about this series and have been intrigued for a while, and now that I've read a couple of volumes I can totally see why!

Even though I have only read the first two collected volumes (The Faust Act and Fandemonium) I can tell this is a series I will continue to enjoy (and as such have bought more of the series to get around to ASAP). The Wicked + The Divine is all about twelve gods (including Lucifer, Baphomet, Amaterasu, and more) who come to earth every 90 years incarnated as humans. But they're not just any humans, they become pop stars. They are both fanatically loved and deeply hated, but in two years or less they die.

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Again, I can only speak to the first two volumes, and I can't say too much without spoiling anything, but I absolutely love the characters so far. Lucifer is phenomenal, with an attitude and swag I can only aspire to have. Laura's loyalty is fierce and unwavering. Baal is just plain hot. I loved seeing the personalities of all the different gods. One thing to note is that there are a LOT of characters, which can sometimes get a little confusing. It does get easier the more you read since you start to see the same characters over and over again and they all get more developed storylines. 

There's a mystery element that begins in the first story, so in addition to learning about the gods and the history of their incarnations, you also get to try to figure out a little whodunnit along the way. I love that there's both internal and external dialogue. And the artwork is just GORGEOUS. It's colorful and vivid and everything I want in a comic. The panels were easy to follow and the font was completely legible. I really like the simplicity of the covers, and the way the chosen images describe just enough about the volume without putting everything out there right on the front. The covers also gradually darken from white through the various shades of gray from volume to volume.

I'll be sure to post continued reviews of this series as I make my way through the various collected volumes. There are 6 currently, with a 7th set to come out this fall.

The Faust Act (Volume 1) Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Fandemonium (Volume 2) Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

The Thousandth Floor Series by Katharine McGee

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If you like Gossip Girl and futuristic societies, boy do I have the series for you! I recently read both books currently available in The Thousandth Floor series by Katharine McGee (The Thousandth Floor and The Dazzling Heights), and loved every minute of them! The story follows a set of teenagers from different backgrounds living in The Tower, which is basically New York City built upward into one building. With one thousand floors, The Tower boasts schools, homes, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and even a "Central Park." Technology is insanely developed, as people now wear contacts that allow them to communicate with one another, and use hovercraft to get from place to place. Movies are now called holos, hair and makeup can be done at the push of a button, and in-home computers can do anything from picking out your outfit to procuring a glass of water for you before bed. 

Main characters include Leda, a formerly poor but now wealthy girl struggling with drugs; Eris, the Serena Van Der Woodson of the group who recently discovered a terrible family secret that turns her life upside down; Rylin, a less-affluent girl who takes a job cleaning the home of one of the hottest boys on the upper levels; Watt, a technology obsessed boy who takes hacking jobs to provide for his family; and Avery, who is as wealthy as they come and lives in the thousandth floor penthouse pining over the one boy she is never allowed to love.

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I loved that both books immediately started off with a death, then flashed back to the story leading up to it. The whole time you were left to wonder who the person was that ends up dead, only finding out at the very end. Each chapter is told focusing on one character or another, allowing the reader further insight into him or her, and showing us how the different social classes interact with and rely on one another. While sometimes this method of storytelling can be confusing, there were no gaps and each character's chapter flowed seamlessly from one to the next. The class relations were realistic, and I loved envisioning the technological playground that these teens called home. McGee paints a very realistic picture of how technology has advanced, and even though so many of these things are still far from reach, it was easy to imagine how they all fit into daily life in 2118.

A third book, The Towering Sky, is coming out this August, and right now this is set to be the last book in the series, but I have my fingers crossed for more! I could definitely see this being adapted into a TV series as well.

The Thousandth Floor Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

The Dazzling Heights Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Shatter Me Series by Tahereh Mafi

Pick a dandelion and close your eyes

make a wish

blow it into the wind.

Watch it

change

the

world.

-From  Juliette's Journal

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Let me start out this review by saying I hate myself for waiting so long to read this series. I've seen it so many times and heard numerous people rave about it, but I just never made an effort to read it. Well I finally ordered it from Amazon and gave it a try, and I DEVOURED these books. I honestly think I read the whole series in a total of less than 24 hours. It was just that fantastic. While many of my reviews don't contain spoilers, this one will have some pseudo-spoilers because it's simply impossible to talk about characters, etc. from the second two books without revealing some of the earlier plot.

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The Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi (so far) consists of Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me, and Unite Me (a collection of two novellas: Destroy me and Fracture Me). This dystopian series follows Juliette, a teenage girl who has a lethal touch. It starts off with Juliette in an asylum, but she is soon taken hostage by the controlling government: The Reestablishment. Her captor Warner hopes to use her as a weapon against resisting rebels, but Juliette wants no part in being anything intentionally hurtful. Luckily Juliette escapes with Adam, a soldier who she knew from school long ago. They find refuge in an underground bunker and discover that there are others with abilities similar to Juliette's: invisibility, powers of healing, psychokinesis, and more. Adam and Juliette fall in love throughout this ordeal, and hope to finally have put the Reestablishment behind them. Unfortunately Warner still wants Juliette, and he sets out to find her. The remainder of the story details what happens when Warner finds her, resulting in rebellion, love, and self-discovery.

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I have so many things to say about this series! First, it got better as it went on. The first book was good, the second was great, and the third one was incredible. Many series just taper off as they go but this one was a surprising exception. I absolutely loved the character development (and the novellas are almost necessary to get some of that...so don't skip them!). Obviously my favorite character was Warner. He was such a deep character and had so much hiding behind his rough exterior. Juliette really annoyed me for the first half of the story, but she grew up and put her big girl panties on and then I really liked her strength and determination. And Adam, well Adam was kind of an ass. He gave me bad vibes from the beginning and I loved saying I told you so when his true colors came out later in the story. Kenji provided outstanding comic relief and was a great sidekick for Juliette, as you could tell he really cared about and supported her but wasn't afraid to be hard on her when he needed to be.

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There was some problematic instalove at the beginning of this story but it was very well explained as the books went on. I'm really glad that the characters were able to recognize that the relationship was unhealthy and more for convenience/out of default than anything else. The writing style was so unique. There was a lot of stream of consciousness from Juliette, and there are lots of thoughts crossed through to show how Juliette was afraid of thinking certain things. While this proved to be a bit of a challenge at first, I easily adjusted to how the story was written and it wasn't a hindrance at all.

The ending of Ignite Me definitely left it open for a sequel, so I'm really happy that Tahereh Mafi decided to write more onto this story. Restore Me comes out March 6th of this year, and you better believe I already preordered it!

Shatter Me Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Unravel Me Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Ignite Me Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Unite Me Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Overall Series Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars