Disney’s adaptation of Madeline L’Engle’s classic young adult novel is a mixed bag at best. The story’ ideas aren’t realised on the screen very well, but there is some nice talk about quantum physics, physics, and science as spiritualism throughout the film that I really enjoyed. Director DuVernay, best known for her documentary work, in…
Tag: Young Adult
A Monster Calls (2011) – Patrick Ness
It’s been a long time since a book has reduced me to tears, but Ness’ powerful, and beautiful young adult books, A Monster Calls has done just that. Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd who passed before she could tell it herself, the story is a singular experience that is heartbreaking in its truth…
Gemina: The Illuminae Files 02 (2016) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
The second volume in the Illuminae Files, Gemina, is not only an excellent follow-up instalment in this vibrant and exciting Young Adult series, it is also highly entertaining science fiction and space opera. The first book, told through IM and audio transcripts, descriptions of video surveillance, was brilliant, fun, and probably a game-changer in the…
Maximum Ride (2016) -Jay Martin
James Patterson’s young adult novel series, Maximum Ride, takes flight cimematically this week from Paramount Pictures. I read the first book when it came out in 2005. It was fun, engaging. Patterson is a very entertaining and imaginative writer, and Max seemed perfectly suited for exploration in other media. The downside to this big screen…
The Dining and Social Club for Time Travellers: Book One – Divine Intervention (2016) – Elyse Kishimoto
Word On The Street, here in Toronto is a wonderful book festival that highlights authors, publishing companies, and smaller book stores, and when it took over the Harbour Front for its event last weekend, I was eager to see what they had in store for me this year. Amongst the young adult readers I found a…
Prodigy (2013) – Marie Lu
It’s back to the realm of Legend, as I dive into the second book of the young adult trilogy by Marie Lu. The dystopian world Lu creates, brings me back to a torn United States, divided almost in two by the Republic and the Colonies, it plunges me back into the lives of Day…
Star Wars: Tales From a Galaxy Far, Far Away – Aliens Volume 1 (2016)- Landry Q. Walker
More new canon for Star Wars via this young adult book that collects six tales from creatures that inhabit that galaxy far, far away, and were seen or hinted at in The Force Awakens. Penned by Landry Q. Walker with some nice art by Tyler Scarlet the stories are all exciting, fun, and have…
Star Wars: Bloodline (2016) – Claudia Gray
Claudia Gray who wowed me with her young adult Star Wars novel, Lost Stars, returns to that galaxy, far, far away, this time centering on a story about Princess Leia Organa. Set twenty years after the destruction of the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor, and ten years before the events of…
Legend (2011) – Marie Lu
Thanks to my Sweetie, Amanda, this book found it’s way into my hands, and I was more than happy to dig into it, I do love a good book, and as always there seems to be lots of fun storytelling going on in the ‘young adult’ genre. Legend takes us to the future, a…
Star Wars: Before The Awakening (2015) – Greg Rucka
More and more Star Wars, I haven’t been this giddy about the subject since I was a kid, and at that time, everything was Star Wars, Star Trek, and then Indiana Jones. It’s like being a kid all over again, and I was quite happy to jump into this Young Adult book to find…
The Mind Reels 