Michaela's Musings

  Hello everyone!  Today, I will be reviewing Tashie Bhuiyan's debut novel, Counting Down with You .  Here is the synopsis: Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules—even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything. Karina is my girlfriend. Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right—he brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books (a  week ) if she goes along with his fake-dating facade. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back. T-minus twenty-eight days until everything returns to normal—but what if Karina no longer wants it to? Counting ...

  Trigger Warnings: Death of a  parent; generational trauma (depictions of slavery, abuse, rape); gore; possession; demons; racism and micro-aggressions Hello everyone!  Today, I'll be reviewing Legendborn by Tracy Deonn.   Here's the synopsis: After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Briana Matthews (Bree) wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home.  To escape her guilt and sorrow, she attends a residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill.  That is, until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.  During the attack, she encounters a  mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.   The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital.  Now that Bree knows there’s more to...