(3) 4-6 Cats vs. Robots series. Illustrated by Kay Peterson. You don't have to be a cat person to enjoy the lighthearted chaos that ensues when the warring Feline Empire and Robot Federation bring their ongoing battle to Earth, where human twins Max and Min get swept up in the wacky drama. A silly plot, clever wordplay, a robotics competition, and diverse representation--as well as some surprising emotional weight--make this a sci-fi standout.

Reviewer: Rebecca Kirshenbaum

(4) YA Bentley Royce and her family star in a TV show à la Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The book opens with Bentley and her sister Porsche's fiancé presumed dead from a car crash; the remainder relates the events that got them there. The humor often falls flat, but fans of "reality" TV franchises may be fascinated by the details that suggest they're anything but real.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA Black Widow, along with her sidekick "sister" Ana (whom she met in Black Widow: Forever Red), returns to protect S.H.I.E.L.D. while battling the evil Red Room and the mind-control drug it has created. There is plenty of action, seemingly to get readers quickly to the next installment. Marvel superfans may be irked by deviations from the Marvel universe; casual readers should be entertained.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(4) YA In this follow-up to Dangerous Creatures, Link and his friends set out to rescue Link's girlfriend, Ridley, who's been kidnapped and experimented upon by the evil Silas Ravenwood. Nox, who's also in love with Ridley, does the same. Without much action until the end, this installment does little more than set up the next one, though this won't bother series fans.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(3) YA When former assassin Natasha Romanoff--a.k.a. Black Widow, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.--learns of a rash of international missing children, she suspects her former teacher and tormentor, Ivan Somodorov, is involved. But in order to catch Ivan, she must delve into a past she's tried to forget. The high-octane plot is fueled by the snappy dialogue typical of comic-book-based characters.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(4) YA In this Beautiful Creatures series spinoff, Ridley and her sort-of ex-boyfriend Link head to New York City. Ridley gets Link a gig as a drummer in a Caster band in order to settle a debt--then realizes that both of them are in danger. A good-at-heart bad girl, Ridley deserved her own book; an abrupt cliffhanger ending guarantees she'll get more.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA With one Icon destroyed, Doloria and her fellow Icon Children embark on a journey to "save the world" from the aliens who've taken over. In search of a fifth Icon Child Dol has seen in her dreams, they travel across an ocean to the SEA Colonies. Interspersed investigation notes add dramatic irony to this tense, if overblown, sequel to Icons.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(3) YA On "The Day," aliens killed a billion people with massive, energy-producing "Icons." Mysteriously, Dol lived; seventeen years later, she and her best friend Ro meet two more so-called "Icon Children" who can also resist the Icons' power. Who these teens are, where they come from, and what they are capable of form the core of this tense and ominous novel.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA Ethan (who died in Beautiful Chaos) wakes up in the Otherworld to find that his demise can be reversed. With help from friends and family both alive and dead, Ethan embarks on an odyssey to return to the world of the living and his beloved Lena. This volume occasionally stalls but brings the atmospheric and original series to a fitting end.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA After Lena's Claiming as Light and Dark, the Mortal and Caster worlds are in turmoil. Someone must be sacrificed to make things right, and Ethan, the Wayward, must figure out who. Like its predecessors (Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness), this volume is too long. But it intriguingly blurs the lines between good and evil and culminates in an ambiguous ending that invites discussion.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA Lena, grieving the loss of her uncle, Macon, disappears into the mysterious Caster tunnels with a just-as-mysterious supernatural guy. On his (extremely dangerous) quest to rescue her, Ethan learns secrets about his deceased mother, Macon, and himself. Like Beautiful Creatures, the story ends in an exciting Dark vs. Light face-off, but not enough questions are answered to make this volume entirely satisfying.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(3) YA Nothing ever happens in Ethan's small town of Gatlin, South Carolina, until he meets Lena. Lena, along with her eccentric family, is a Caster (like a witch), and Ethan falls in love with her despite the danger she represents (there's a curse involved). Patient readers are rewarded with a multifaceted Southern gothic saga that culminates in a dramatic good-versus-evil showdown.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith