Gateway Reviews

MY KILLER FAMILY REUNION Jayshree has always felt invisible in her own family, and she's (mostly) okay with that. She doesn't get invited to hang out with the cousins in the basement during the family reunion, but she also doesn't get annoying aunts and uncles asking her questions she doesn't want to answer. The only one who pays attention to her, really pays attention to her, is Grand Mom. Everybody loves Grand Mom. They have to. As the wealthy matriarch of the family, keeping in Grand Mom's good graces is vital. There's an inheritance on the line. Grand Mom may be unkillable (or so she always jokes), but she isn't exactly getting any younger. But this year's family reunion comes with a special announcement: Grand Mom's changed the will. It's not an even division between her children of her expensive properties in India. She's naming three specific heirs, and she needs Jayshree's help to vet the can...

THE SECRET TO BELONGING You have always been invisible in your own family. Quieter, milder, and more level-headed than your drug addict brother. Your parents have never had to worry about you, so they haven't. They haven't worried about your struggles. Your hopes and dreams. Your plans for the future. Anything for your brother, and you are nothing but an afterthought (if even that). When your parents spend the college fund your grandfather left you on more drug rehab and legal bills for your brother, you decide you have to get out, whatever way possible. And if that means a scholarship for exchange students to a remote part of Norway, so be it. Even life in a frozen land above the Artic Circle, where you don't speak the language or know the customs, will be better than this. Anything will be better than being nothing. THOUGHTS This book is hard. It hurts. It...

THE SEASON OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS Ten years. That's how long Ellie was meant to be asleep. Ellie and her brother and her mother and her father. Kept in a cryogenic stasis to escape the tyrannical anti-science regime that has taken over the United States and threatened the lives of every scientific-minded individual in the U.S. People like doctors, nurses, researchers. People like Ellie's grandmother, who invented a vaccine for the common cold. People like Ellie's father, who has a lab at the nearby university. Ten years was supposed to be enough time for the country to sort itself out, but here Ellie is, awake. Awake, early and alone. Only three years have passed since she froze, and while the government "saved" her from her cryogenic slumber, her family wasn't so lucky. Which means she's all alone facing ReAdmittance into proper society... THOUGHTS ...

ALEX, BY PROXY Sixteen-year-old Alex is used to being stared at. That's what being chronically ill as long as you can remember will get you. Seizures, hallucinations, lots of missed school, tons of neighborly sympathy: that's always been Alex's life. And Alex's life has always been a lie. One that his mother perpetuated. Alex is a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, made systematically ill by his mother all his childhood. And a recent hospitalization and coma brought the truth to life. With his mother behind bars, Alex is preparing his testimony now as he's awaiting the trial. And it's hard. Really hard, putting into words what was done to him. So when some classmates decide to start a true crime podcast about their own local true crime story (AKA Alex's own life history), he decides he has to help. No more excuses, and no more hiding: the truth has to come out. THOUGHTS ...