Kate Spofford, author

Category: books

  • Review: Croak

    Croak by Gina Damico Summary: Lex used to be a straight-A student, but in the past couple of years she began randomly attacking classmates and in general causing a lot of trouble for her parents, who decide to send her away for the summer to her Uncle Mort’s farm out in the little community of…

  • Review: Darkhouse

    Darkhouse by Karina Halle Summary: One night, when Perry is visiting her uncle and cousins, she goes to explore the old lighthouse on their property, and runs into Dex Foray, who is there filming for an internet TV show. Together they both film some ghostly happenings before barely escaping with their lives. After Perry’s video…

  • Review: 172 Hours on the Moon

    172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad When a librarian on the YALSA listserv said this was too scary for them to read, I knew I immediately would have to read it… luckily I had an ARC from the publisher in my stash! Summary: It’s the year 2019, and the powers that be want…

  • Review: Sweethearts

    Sweethearts by Sara Zarr Summary: Ever since Jennifer’s best (and only) friend Cameron disappeared in fifth grade, she’s been driven to make herself over so no one will bully her anymore. That meant losing a ton of weight, doing her own laundry, learning social skills, and eventually changing her name to Jenna after her mother…

  • Review: Questions Young People Ask

    At the library, we get many book donations.  Some are great and add to our collection or bring in money from the book sales.  Other donations, however, are in a class of their own.  (If you have ever read the blog Awful Library Books, you’ll have some idea of what you’re in for.) As the…

  • Review: The Lifeguard

    The Lifeguard by Deborah Blumenthal I read this ARC via Netgalley. Summary: Sirena’s been sent to live with her aunt this summer while her parents work out their divorce. On one of her first days, she swims out too far and comes face to face with the lifeguard. She is drawn to Pilot, more so…

  • Review: The Dead Boys

    The Dead Boys by Royce Buckingham Teddy just moved to a new town, where his mother will be starting a job at the nuclear power plant. Next door to his house there’s a tree that years ago sucked up some toxic waste, then developed a taste for 12-year-old boys. Teddy keeps meeting kids his age,…

  • Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

    Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor Karou is living a double life: one as a student at a Czech art school, and the other in a mysterious world filled with chimera (creatures that are part human, part animal). This other life is so mysterious that Karou does not even know what the teeth…

  • Review: Where She Went

    Where She Went by Gayle Forman Three years after Mia decided to stay (you should definitely read If I Stay before this), Adam is still grieving. Mia may have recovered, but when she left for Juilliard, she left Adam too. That left Adam to use his feeling to write a hit album with his band Shooting…

  • Review: Chime

    Chime by Franny Billingsley The plot as I could figure: Briony is a witch. She lives on the edge of the swamp with her twin, Rose, and their pastor father, ever since Briony called up a swamp spirit to flood the house and injured her stepmother. When Eldrich moves into town, Briony is a bit…