(2) YA Jemima serves with the Senior Triumvirate at her ­tradition-steeped prep school, and though she's invested in her role, she's also eager to shake up some of the school's more outdated customs. Promposals create a power imbalance, so she devises a dating ­­app–like system to replace them. A well-connected student is running unopposed for next year's school chairperson position, so she tries to rustle up an ­opponent. But her failure to notice a perfect (­non-white, non-male) candidate, and then a major mishap with the prom date–matching system, lead the self-professed "feminist before it was trendy" Jemima to see some of her own failings. The witty first-person narration's frankness extends from Jemima's thoughts on the people around her ("Everyone qualified as Old and White and Dude") to honest description of sexual encounters ("I hate it when movies fade out...They make you think you'll feel different during the whatevering, like the light will get soft and your sensations will too, but you're still a body, you know?"). Via its flawed protagonist's growth, this entertaining, thoughtful, smash-the-patriarchy comedy sheds light on some of the ways feminism, and feminists, can be ­complicated.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020

(4) 4-6 Soren Skaar never thought he'd retire from being the best prankster in Camelot, Minnesota--until his best friend/partner-in-crime moved away. Now, Soren is stuck spending sixth grade with his well-behaved, green tea–drinking hipster cousin, Flynn, who's visiting from Brooklyn for the year. An irrepressible little brother and an irascible rooster play into this lively comedy about a prankster learning to take life a little more seriously.

Reviewer: Lisa Catherine Findlay

(2) YA After eighteen-year-old Jesse Serrano dies, the five young adults closest to him attempt to track down his long-gone mother. They follow her trail from Frankfurt to Rome on a quest that's by turns poignant, humorous, tense, and joyful. Interspersed with Jesse's meditative journal entries, the chapters shift point of view among the travelers, conveying their various (and very different) experiences of grief and healing.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2016

(2) YA When teen reality show For Art's Sake comes to Ethan's bohemian high school, his charismatic best friend Luke proposes a "folk uprising": a scathing long poem, inspired by Ezra Pound, distributed to the student body through guerilla tactics. But the poem lands Luke a spot on the show (his apparent objective all along). Ethan's self-deprecating and witty voice makes him an appealing narrator.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2014