Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026-27 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

I'd like to preface how emotional this review is about to be by clarifying that my younger sibling is autistic and has dealt with sensory processing issues their entire life. Now, with that out of the way:

This book made me cry so hard shut up. Literally WEEPING at my desk this morning at 10 am like a little baby. Obviously I am not my sibling so I can't say that I relate to a lot of this from personal experience, but I can say that watching Ruby and Willa's relationship develop as both sisters AND friends made me cry. Seeing how the people in Willa's life interacted with her and gave her grace and seeing how Willa grew to understand and ACCEPT herself by the end made me cry. It all made me cry because these are such parallels to conversations that I watched my mom and my sibling have growing up, and it's so beautiful to see them portrayed so well in fiction. Highly highly recommend, for children with these disabilities and also siblings of children with these disabilities and also PARENTS of children with these disabilities: just a highly empathetic and beautiful book.

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026-27 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

This was EXCEPTIONALLY sweet and as an eldest child it hurt me very much (in a good way). Unfortunately it's far too short with far too little substance for me to be able to write 60-80 questions about it, so I doubt I'll think about it ever again, but still it was adorable and I'd recommend especially for kids who are growing into becoming older siblings.

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026-27 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

Hey so um I'm sobbing. Actually crying real tears. I am a 23 year old grown adult woman and I cried real tears over this graphic novel for children. I loved this so much I'm planning to order myself a copy for my house with my next paycheck. Shannon Hale I am billing you for my therapy right now.

Seriously though, this is a book that I wish that I'd had at that age. It's so sweet and real and was a spectacular portrayal of what it's like trying to navigate growing up as somebody who tends to feel everything so much more than everybody around you. I would highly recommend for literally anyone this was so good.

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

This book presented an extremely simplified view of racism in 1700s America, but also this book was less than 150 pages long and written for children. So I'm not really sure what I expected.

It was fast to read. The kids liked it. It was pretty easy to write questions for. That's all I really cared about honestly, I don't think I'll ever consider this again but at least I can say I read an "I Survived" book past the age of 10 that's fun.

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

With peace and love and the understanding that I am not within the target audience (I am a 23 year old woman, not a 5th grade boy): this book sucked and I hated it. All I will say on the matter is, you should not be allowed to insert author's notes into the lines of published novels. What is this, AO3??

But literally ALL of our students loved it, so at the end of the day what do I know?

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

This book gets a buff if only for the fact that it taught me about something extremely cool that I had no idea existed. And then it turns out that two of my coworkers actually Lion Dance, so I got to see them perform and the moral of the story is I really loved learning about everything that this story shared!! Not sure if it'll really stick with me too much going forward, but I thought that it was such a good story for the students and was a great representation of teamwork and cultural tradition.

Read for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026 (I work there I am not a 5th grader with a laptop).

I genuinely really enjoyed this!! There were definitely points where you could tell that it was a journalistic piece turned into a children's book, but honestly as somebody who studied journalism in college and therefore has read my fair share of journalistic writing all that really did was make me want to read the original adult version. I thought that William Kamkwamba's ingenuity was so inspirational, and it really was a bummer that this was made into a movie therefore prompting all of our students to say "well I watched the movie, so that should count" even though it clearly doesn't. Great book either way!!

I read this for my public library's Battle Of The Books 2026 (I work there, I am not a 5th grader with a laptop I promise) and it was SO CUTE!! It didn't rank super high because realistically I don't think I'll think about this ever again now that I'm done quizzing children on it every week, but it was still really sweet and a fun book for this age group.

Also I got a chance to interview the author for our program and she was a genuinely wonderful person. She was so kind and willing to answer all of our students' questions, and that absolutely does boost the book in my mind because you know you're reading something by somebody who is clearly very dedicated to her craft and her audience. We love Lindsay Currie!!

I picked this up from a Little Free Library thinking that it would be bad but in a silly way and turns out it was ACTUALLY GOOD?? LIKE REALLY GOOD??? But still in a silly way - I've seen a lot of reviews of people complaining that it's more romance than espionage and I absolutely agree but the thing is I went in with SUCH low expectations that the only thing it had to do to get above 3 stars from me is be even slightly interesting and not only was this propulsive but it was also well-written.

Honestly I had a spectacular time and I'd highly recommend if you want something you can dramatically recap to your friends and that will make you gasp aloud multiple times. Also discovered through reading this that perhaps reading wartime novels makes me feel very comforted right now (April of 2026) as we enter wartime so. That's nice I guess. Things are shit but at least I have silly little WW2 spy novels to remind me about the existence of Captain America: The First Avenger (as if I could forget. Best movie ever.)

I wrote this review slightly drunk and I think it shows. Read this it's fun.

Was this book absolute garbage? Yes, very very few redeeming qualities other than that I like Sadie MUCH better than I liked Alexis (from this author's newest series). However, have my best friend and I been buddy-reading the entire trilogy because it's so overwhelmingly silly goofy that we can't stop giggling? Yes. It's so silly guys it's so unserious I cannot.

Everybody is so horny all the time it's ridiculous and also nothing makes sense and also I am 1000% sure this author was forged in the fires of Fanfiction.net and yet. AND YET. I am halfway through the next book as I write this I plan on making a YouTube video because this is just so insane that I need to talk about it.

There's sex pollen in this one I CANNOT

CUTE. CUTE. I LOVED my mom is an environmental scientist and I WILL be passing this on to her as soon as I see her next. This was very very sweet and while the ending was somewhat underwhelming I think that's likely because it's a series, I just don't know if I'm going to read book 2 because I don't think I cared that much about it besides the overwhelmingly beautiful energy of the whole thing.

This book was just 500 or so pages of the MC being tortured in new and fun ways. She wasn't even an interesting character. The men weren't even hot. Nothing about this was compelling and the only reason I picked it up was because of how overwhelmingly goofy the description was.

I read this for work (I work at a public library) but it was actually SO SWEET I really loved it. My grandma and I both read One For The Murphy's by the same author and loved it a lot, so I've been trying to encourage her to read Hunt's other books and I figured I should do the same. Probably won't think about it a lot again after this but it was so cute!!