Before We Were Yours is a heart-breaking story of children being stolen from their families, about abuse and danger, but also about hope and love and the feeling of belonging. It’s a captivating and emotional novel that tells a horrible story in a beautiful way.

This novel has two parallel storylines; one in 1939 and one is present day. In 1939, Rill Foss and her younger siblings are stolen from their poor Mississippi Shanty boat and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director Georgia Tann, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. In present days Avery, the daughter of a prominent Senator, returns home to help her father through a health crisis, when a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history. From here, the two storylines slowly unravel and come together.

The narrative switches back and forth between Rill and Avery, telling the story from their different angles and giving us pieces to what happened to Rill and her siblings both in a linear way via Rill’s parts, but also in hindsight via the discoveries that Avery does in her parts. Both storylines pull on the heartstrings, but I loved Rill’s parts the most. I think the part of the story taking place in modern day had a bit too much of chick lit romance in it to truly be my cup of tea, but it still added so much to the story with the mystery plot.

Before We Were Yours is an important story about a real-life scandal that needs to be told, but it’s also a wonderful novel on its own merits. It’s a bittersweet book that pulls on your heartstrings, with a lot of sadness and terrible things happening, as well as a story about hope, love and survival and about the strength in family bonds that cannot be broken, no matter what. I highly recommend this novel!

Rating:
4 stars

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Lisa Wingate

This is such an adorable, sweet and quirky feel-good YA romance! I flew through the pages of this cute chic-lit love story, not able to put it down until I’ve read it all. Lara Jean is a new favorite character, and I absolutely love the Song family dynamics. This book is just as much about family bonding as it is about teenage crushes.

Lara Jean Song Covey is the middle girl of three in a half-Korean family, where the mother died about ten years ago. To deal with heartbreak and to get over her crushes, she writes love letters to all the boys she’s loved, then hides the letters in her hatbox. Until the box goes missing, and suddenly the boys, including her sister’s ex boyfriend Josh and the school hottie Peter Kavinsky, which sets in motion a chain of event that will change Lara Jean’s life.

Lara Jean feels like a real person in so many ways. She’s quiet, shy and loves to stay at home, but yet she’s the opposite of boring! She’s funny and witty and curious and comes up with so many snarky comments you laugh straight out at times. Especially in the bickering conversations with Peter.

I also totally adored the whole Song Covey family. Lara Jean’s dad is amazing, I love the relationship he has with each of his daughters and how he makes sure their mother is still included as a vital part of the family even though she’s been gone for so long. One of my absolute favorites though is Kitty, the feisty little sister. She’s hilarious and adorable, and a total brat at times. I love her frankness and smartness and how she is just completely in her own skin all the time. I did not bond as much with Margot, the oldest sister, but she added a good mix to the family dynamics. So while this novel is also a romance, I felt that it focused on family more, which I truly appreciated. It is very rare in YA that the family gets this much focus, often the family is more or less left out. But here it was at the core of the story.
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I didn’t like Lara Jean’s love interests Peter and Josh as much though. But all in all, this book is super sweet, with more emotions than expected. The dialogue is great. It really feels realistic and like the characters in this series talk like real teenagers would. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for an adorable and quirky coming-of-age story with a cute romance and heartwarming family ties.

Rating:
4.5 quirky stars rounding up to 5

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Jenny Han

Salt to the Sea will make you cry and will haunt you forever, in the best possible way. It’s a master piece, a gripping and beautiful story of hardship, humanity, loss, love and survival during WWII. This book is both heart-breakingly sad and hopeful at the same time, showing both the best and worst of humanity, and with so many wonderful characters you immediately fall in love with and want to rescue from the brutality and horror surrounding them.

The book takes place during the Winter of 1945 when four persons paths converge as they try to escape the horrors and survive the war and all the terrible things they have experienced. Joana is a Lithuanian nurse who struggles with demons for leaving her family behind, Florian is a German with secrets of his own and revenge on his mind, Emilia is a Polish teenager running from the betrayal and abuse she has suffered at the relatives who were supposed to keep her safe, and Alfred is a Nazi soldier with something to prove and a mind that works in a not completely sane way. There is also the sweet “shoe poet” Opi and the boy Klaus and other lovable persons in the small group of refugees travelling together, trying to reach the coast and get passage aboard a ship to safety and freedom.

The four main characters alternate in telling the story from their point of view, thereby sharing their secrets, backgrounds, hopes and dreams with us, if not to each other. The different POVs really add to the story and brings an extra dimension to story, spinning it around in all angles, and revealing the ever-changing dynamics between them. Three of the characters, and the side-characters, are lovely and make your heart go out for them and their hardship. I felt so so much for them and their struggles it kept me on needles to find out what would happen to them all. (The fourth, Alfred, is an idiot. Even if he can justify his actions to himself, no one else can. That’s all I have to say about him.)

The book is based on a true story, the sea evacuation Operation Hannibal and the sinking of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff. This is the deadliest disaster in maritime history, with Soviet torpedoes destroying and sinking the ship carrying nine thousand people, the majority being civilians (of which, about five thousand were children). The losses dwarf the death tolls of famous ships like Titanic, but yet, this disaster is almost unknown. Ruta Sepetys surely will make that change now. You can tell how much research and thought she has put into this story to inform people about this devastating tragedy.

The writing is exquisite in the face of such brutality. The way Ruta Sepetys told the story was just beautiful, how she created this weave through the different POVs and slowly, slowly revealing their secrets and reasons for their actions.
I finished the book crying my eyes out and my heart aching for the characters in the story, as well as the real lives they mirrored. It is a pretty intense book for being YA, but I cannot recommend it enough! This is one of the best books I’ve read and definitely the best historical fiction ever! Just be prepared to cry and to be hit by a tornado of emotions.

​Rating:
5 stars

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Ruta Sepetys

Love & Gelato and is a fun and cute book with gorgeous Summer vibes and a beautiful setting in Italy. It’s something of a romantic mystery story following Lina, an American girl who loses her mother to cancer and gets sent to Italy to live with her until then unknown father, Howard.

When Lina arrives in Italy though, she finds her mother’s old diary that talks about a secret relationship with a man only mentioned with an “X”. Soon Lina realizes that “X” might not be Howard and there is a reason why her mother never told her who her father was.

The mystery, the setting in Italy and the romantic troubles with next door boy Ren and his friend Thomas adds something extra to this light and fast read. The main characters are heart-warming and the diary plot draws you in. And even though it was not that difficult to see the plot twists coming, I’m very happy about the ending. 

Rating:
4 stars

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Jenna Evans Welch

P.S. I Like You is a supercute, fast and addictive read, with a quirky, lovable main character and a big chaotic but wonderful family. It also has my favorite bookish trope, enemies-to-lovers, and beautifully written letters.

The main character Lily scrabbles song lyrics on her desk during Chemistry class one day. The next day, she finds that someone has added to the song. Thereafter she and her mystery song writer start to write long letters to each other, telling each other secrets they’d never told anyone else. But who is he?
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I really loved the way the story was told, even though it really wasn’t hard to figure out who the mysterious pen pal was, and that there was some depth in it, but yet nothing too heavy.

Overall, an enjoyable read that is perfect when you are in need of something light and fluffy to cheer you up.

Rating:
3.5 joyous stars rounding up to 4

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Kasie West

The Red Scrolls of Magic is such an adorable book! I had this happy, goofy, smile all over my face reading it. I love Magnus and Alec together and it was such a bonus pleasure to get a whole book just focusing on the two of them.

Before reading this book, I actually thought I was ready to leave the Shadowhunter realm, but oh no, this book sure drew me right back in again. It’s an additional book to the Mortal Instruments series telling the swash-buckling romantic adventures of Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood on the vacation mentioned in City of Fallen Angels (the 4th book in the series).
 
When Cassandra Clare originally wrote The Mortal Instruments she had to hold back on love scenes between Magnus and Alec to not risk getting the books be considered ”inappropriate”, which I now realize in hindsight is why the relationship between them felt a bit thin and not so engaging at times. But not in this book! I’m so glad I decided to read this gem! Even though the romance is constantly getting interrupted by demon attacks (very frustrating!), the romance is definitely not thin anymore! I love the way you could follow how their relationship deepens and how Alec is worried about his lack of experience, but still NEEDS to take things further. He shows so much vulnerability and there are so many amazing softer scenes. Like kissing, cuddling, getting to know each other without any pretend or acts. The book was so adorable and queer and so fun and fast-paced. It I absolutely loved it!

And an extra adorable bonus was the meeting between Helen and Aline! Knowing from The Mortal Instruments series that they would become a couple it was so amazing to read here about their first meeting.
 
So, if you’re the slightest fan of the Shadowhunter world, or if you ship Malec, or even if you know nothing about the Shadowhunters but are just really wanting to read a LGBTQ+-led romantic story for once, this is the book for you! I truly recommend it, it’s a gem not to be missed! 

Rating:
5 stars

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Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters​