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The Celestial Seas / T.A. Chan / Book Review

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THE CELESTIAL SEAS Ishara Ming shouldn't be alive, and yet here she is. She's the sole survivor of the Essex , a spacefaring whaler that was destroyed by a legend. Nobody else believes in the Ballena, the great white whale of the stars, one of the last rogue Mech-Operated Bio-Integrated Spacecrafts in space. But she saw it with her own eyes, right before it claimed the lives of her twenty-three crewmates aboard the Essex . Now Ishara runs her own whaler crew, but hers isn't the sleek operation of the Essex that raised her. Nobody of that caliber is willing to sell themselves into her wild-goose-chase service. But the crew she has is as top-tier as they come among the outcasts of the stars, at least at her price point. They make a steady profit... most of the time. But when Augustus, a ship mech with a shady past, joins her crew, things start to change. The memories of her life before the destruction of the Essex that Ishara thought wer...
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The Faraway Inn / Sarah Beth Durst / Book Review

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THE FARAWAY INN When Calisa catches her boyfriend with his hands up another girl's shirt, her perfect summer goes out the window. Desperate to escape the city and all the plans she had this summer, she hops on a bus to go visit her great aunt at the B&B she runs in Vermont. Time and space away will help heal the wound. Plus her great-aunt is old. Like, old old. No doubt she could use some help this summer. But when Calisa arrives at the inn, she find it more rundown than she anticipated. And it turns out her Auntie Zee doesn't want her there. Not all summer. Not even for the day, though Calisa talks her into letting her stay for three. With only three days to convince Auntie Zee that she can be useful, Calisa sets to work. But there's a lot to be done at the Faraway Inn to get it back in working order. The garden's overgrown. The sitting room is full of dust dusty. The roof and front porch are ready to cave in. Worse, the...
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Heiress of Nowhere / Stacey Lee / Book Review

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HEIRESS OF NOWHERE It's 1918, and Nowhere is all Lucy has ever known. An expansive estate on Orcas Island, Washington, many would say Lucy's lucky to have grown up here. And she recognizes that she is lucky. Not everyone would have taken in an orphan girl like her. But that doesn't mean she can't dream of more. And more, for Lucy, means leaving Nowhere. It means setting out for college. It means seeing what the world has to hold But just days from when she plans to leave the island for good, her benefactor, the eccentric shipbuilder who founded Nowhere, dies. Worse, Lucy's the one who finds the body... or part of it. With just his severed head washed ashore, rumors swirl about dark sea spirits, hungry sea wolves. But Lucy knows the answer is simpler than that: murder. What Lucy isn't prepared for is being implicated. When little Lucy Nowhere is named heiress to the estate, it stirs up all new rumors. And with a murder...
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The Oks Are Not OK / Grace K. Shim / Book Review

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THE OKS ARE NOT OK This summer will set Elena Ok free. She's got sponsored brand deals and public appearances lined up for her lifestyle brand all summer long, enough that she should be able to break away from her family and live how she wants.  Unfortunately, all of that falls through when her family's fast fashion brand It's OK! gets caught in an investor's scandal. Think Ponzi scheme. Think bankruptcy. Think full IRS audit. With deals dropping, paparazzi swarming, and the family mansion part of the whole audit thing, there's really only one option: Blaire, California. The piece of land her parents bought there years ago used to be worth something, but since Blaire was declared a National Radio Quiet zone, that worth has all but vanished. It's only temporary, of course. That's what Elena has to tell herself. But being untethered from her social media, the very thing that's given her a leg up in life, isn't ea...
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Erase Me / Josh Silver / Book Review

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ERASE ME Eli is fine. That's what he keeps telling everyone. His parents. His brother. His therapist. He's fine. Sure, he's been numb inside for the past year, since the traumatic car accident that took months of his memory. But other than that, he's perfectly fine. He would like to feel something again, though. Even if that means doing something extreme. Even if that means Traumaland. Eli didn't mean to stumble upon this illicit establishment, where VR headsets allow people to pay to experience trauma by the minute. But it sure does the trick. High octane trauma has a way of making even the numbest individuals feel something. But as much as they assured him these scenes were acted out by, you know, paid actors, something feels off... And when Eli stumbles upon a scene where he himself is the star of the trauma, he knows there's something darker, something much more dangerous, happening here than he ever imagined. An...
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The Danger of Small Things / Caryl Lewis / Book Review

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THE DANGER OF SMALL THINGS The unthinkable has happened: the bees are gone. The pollinators have vanished, and the balance of the planet has shifted. Famine and fighting break out. Resources are scarce. What we have, we have to hoard for our survival. Jess doesn't remember a time when there were bees. She doesn't remember the world before scarcity. She hardly remembers life before she was taken from her home, conscripted by the government like every other young girl to pollinate crops by hand. It's hard work, in the beating sun, and she doesn't even get to see the (literal) fruit of her labor. Anything good is reserved for trade and bargaining, not for girls like her. But despite everything, Jess is her mother's daughter. The years her mother hid her instilled in her hope, a sense of rebellion, and even the harshest punishments of this government camp can't quell that. Plus, she has something the others don't have...
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This Wretched Beauty: A Dorian Gray Remix / Elle Grenier / Book Review

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THIS WRETCHED BEAUTY: A DORIAN GRAY REMIX It's 1867, and Lord Dorian Gray is everything his grandfather taught him to be: an honorable, straightlaced, and charming member of the nobility. Estranged from his less-than-noble father and given a place in his grandfather's home after his mother passed, Dorian is a shining example of what a young lord should be. But when the eyes aren't looking, things are... different. When he can sneak away under the cover of darkness, Dorian Gray is somebody entirely different. Drawn into a world of artists and free expression and molly houses in the seedier parts of London, Dorian falls in with a young artist named Basil and his friends. Acting as Basil's model and his newest muse, Dorian agrees to have a portrait done, a portrait that shows... everything. Everything that Dorian wants to be and his grandfather could allow. Enamored with this spritely vision of himself, Dorian makes a bargain, the kin...
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