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Brilliance in YA can take many forms. Some characters must master the latent magical powers within themselves; others employ cunning, making plans and protecting their younger siblings while seeking a just world for immigrants. The teens in each book are set against near impossible odds, but manage to use cunning, strength, and heart to keep fighting. Read on to learn about eight brilliant 2020 YA releases that feature characters who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color as they face down the world....

The series was renewed for a second season, but apparently it takes time to write scripts, shoot the episodes, edit them, etc., and I am not a patient person. On the assumption that you aren’t, either, I have compiled a list of books that will appeal to fans of The Bear, ranging from memoirs by chefs and stories about Chicago to fiction about family, food, and more. There is something for everyone (I hope!...

I remember dreading these 15 minutes more than having my yearly finger prick at the pediatrician’s office. As my mom flipped through the cards and I struggled with remembering the difference between where and were and was and saw, I longed to be doing anything else. By the end of first grade, I could fly through the pack of sight words and could even tell the different between they’re, there, and their....

Why? Because humans are creatures of habits. We tend to do the same things over and over again, so if you want to make any lasting change in a particular area of your life, take a look at your habits. A good place to turn to for help is books. Books about habits are pretty mainstream in the self help genre, from Atomic Habits to Year of Yes, The Power of Habit, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People....

A triumphant, genre-bending breakout novel from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary fiction. According to Wikipedia, gothic fiction “is a genre of literature and film that covers horror, death and at times romance. It is said to derive from the English author Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled A Gothic Story.” Some of the most famous examples of gothic fiction include Dracula by Bram Stoker, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier....

If you are looking for more scares, make sure to check some more short story collections out there or this list of horror listens for on the go!

Comics have a wealth of wisdom despite or maybe because of their brevity of prose. Here are nine such examples of things I’ve learned from comic books. #1 Doctors Don’t Tell You Everything Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley My OB lied to me, and I didn’t realize until reading Kid Gloves. This graphic memoir begins with Lucy Knisley’s difficult experience conceiving and then her subsequent pregnancy and traumatic birth of her son....

Very Practical Beginnings In the 4th Millennium BCE, with agricultural prosperity and increasing complexity of social structures, urban centers started developing in Mesopotamia and an unknown individual changed the course of human history by using some squiggles on clay to represent a goat and an ox. There, at the birth of the concept of writing – the representation of spoken sounds using visual signs – its inseparable twin, the art of reading, was also born....

Obviously, the following year we signed up for one of their reading retreats the moment it was available. We were very much looking forward to it but, the year was 2020 and, well, it was not to be. Nor was it to be in 2021. So that’s when I decided to take things into my own hands and create my own DIY reading retreat in the comfort of my home....

Of course, we all know Jonathan Franzen wants us to understand that “serious readers” should only want paper books (and especially his paper books), which seemed to kick the term “serious reader” into high gear. We employ the phrase “serious reader” here at BookRiot pretty often, I guess to distinguish from “silly readers.” (Jeff once used the phrase twice in the first sentence of a post.) It seems to be a phrase designed to create community around people who like a certain kind of book and treat reading in a certain kind of way: people who take reading seriously, I suppose....

Origins As related in his debut appearance in Daredevil #5, Manuel Eloganto was once Spain’s most infamous bullfighter. After stopping in the middle of a bullfight to lash out at the audience, he was gored and hospitalized. (This being the ’60s, it is a strangely bloodless injury.) By the time he got out, he’d made up his mind to become a criminal. Mostly, he just threw his cape at people, blinding them long enough to allow him to get away with whatever he was doing....

Fiction and nonfiction have always shared techniques and approaches. Many novelists do extensive research to recreate a place or a time in the pages of their novels, and this enables them to create intricately detailed scenes, which help draw the reader in. Even speculative fiction narratives that operate in their own worlds conceived by the writers’ imagination often draw from the real world, and from the works of writers before them....

People have wondered why you exist. They wonder if the embiggening of a beloved friend, the mass market, is the beginning of the end for pocket sized books. But I see you, and I hold you, and I love you. I hope you stick around for me to have plenty of series in your size on my shelves, and that you give my poor hands and wrists a break from that twistifying grasp your predecessor had on them....

Most people know you from your bestselling book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and its chilling, heartbreaking film adaptation. You have name recognition and many people respect your ability to write gut-wrenching stories. Therefore, when you chose to write a book about a cisgender boy and his transgender sister, you took on a certain amount of responsibility. Transgender people are a community vulnerable to all kinds of violence. Whenever someone produces mainstream representation of them and their stories, it should be done with a great amount of care....

She was still acting into her 90s, including many bookish roles. She appeared in Disney’s animated Beauty and the Beast, The Picture of Dorian Gray, National Velvet, PBS’s Little Women miniseries, Mame, the 2018 Mary Poppins Returns, among other book-to-movie or -stage adaptations. While most of her early roles were what she called “bitches on wheels and people’s mothers,” her experience with Murder, She Wrote was different: “What appealed to me about Jessica Fletcher is that I could do what I do best and have little chance to play — a sincere, down-to-earth woman....

It is in this excited state that I present: your curated queer TBR for spring! Are you hoping to read a bunch of new queer books coming out this month? I’ve got you covered. Did you know queer ancestors Harvey Milk and Adrienne Rich have spring birthdays? Well, they do, and I’ve got some books for you that celebrate their legacies. Ramadan starts in April, so I’ve added some fantastic queer Muslim books to the list....

The 217 cats Katie is babysitting for so she can earn enough money to meet her best friend at sleep away camp. Cats who make tea. Know when you need to put your feet up. Can use the toilet because that many litter boxes…ugh. Cute tricks but hey, any animal can be trained if you start early enough, right? Ms. Lang offers Katie $30 an hour to make sure they keep out of trouble....

Never a company to be left behind, Marvel has included some lesser known names in their screen projects (The Runaways, Cloak and Dagger) though they’ve tended, primarily, to garner attention for their second tier characters by giving them face time in the print universe either by including said folx in large crossover events such as Civil War II and Secret Wars or adding them to big name teams like the Avengers, alongside such luminaries as Captain America and Thor....

1 star: Did not like it 2 stars: It was okay 3 stars: Liked it 4 stars: Really liked it 5 stars: It was amazing But that is too broad! We need in-between ratings, Goodreads! Many users create their own shelves for ratings, including half-stars for those books that were between okay and liked, or between really liked and amazing. But then how does one decide whether to round that half star up or down for the official rating?...

Welcome to Finale, the final book in Stephanie Garber’s #1 New York Times bestselling Caraval series! It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist. Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend. After uncovering a secret, Scarlett will need to do the impossible....