​Turtle Under Ice is styled a novel by its author, but I’d audaciously argue that it is more a novella, due to its length. I finished it cover to cover in 90 minutes. The work is laid out as if written in verse, giving it quite an artistic, poetic look and feel. Regardless of what it is or isn’t, I found it an intriguing read and worth the hour and half it took out of my Sunday afternoon.
 
To avoid spoilers, I’ll only say it turns out to be much different from what it starts out to be, or what it is represented to be by its marketing plugs. Be that as it may, it pulls off the change without betrayal, not as a bait and switch but as a device to drive home its purpose.

Book review for The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
(Balzer + Bray, February 28, 2017)
 
Black, white, or brown—read this because it’s a fantastic book. It’s a compelling story with wonderful, fully-developed characters and a page-turning narrative. Protagonist 16-year-old Starr is easy to care about and root for, even in the midst of her fear and indecision, and her self-perceived cowardice. She straddles life between her low-income black neighborhood and her mostly-white choice-in suburban high school. Unidentified witness to the murder of her friend, Starr has a life-altering decision to make that will define who she is for the rest of her life.

​Book review for Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
(The Dial Press January 6, 2020)

​Dear Edward is a story inspired by the real-life tragedy of the ten-year-old Dutch boy, Ruben van Assouw, who was the sole survivor of a plane crash in Lybia in 2010. All other 103 souls aboard the plane perished. This novel’s protagonist is twelve-year-old Edward, a boy who loses his parents and cherished older brother in this tale’s crash. His aunt and uncle, who suffer from infertility and have no children of their own, take him home to try to piece together a new life in a new town.