What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli (HarperTeen, October 9)

This was a sweet, charming love story about two boys who meet by chance at a  post office in New York City, have an epic time trying to find each other again (after failing to exchange any info at the post office), and then share a lot of tender and awkward moments as they start...

The Bees by Laline Paull

The Bees is one of the most beautiful and creative books I've read in some time. The premise is straightforward: it's the story of Flora 717, one of thousands of sanitation worker bees tasked with cleaning up all the waste the hive generates. Flora isn't a typical bee, though--she's not quite content to "accept, obey,...

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

This book has been sitting on my shelf since last summer, when I got it in my Book of the Month box. People have been raving about it ever since then, and now that I've finally gotten around to reading it, I can add my voice to the chorus: The Heart's Invisible Furies is definitely...

Hurricane Child by Kheryn Callender

I really wanted to love this middle-grade novel about twelve year old Caroline, set on Water Island and St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. And while I thought it was quite good in many ways, and touched on many important themes and subjects, in the end, I couldn't really connect with it. The plot...

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

This was such a gorgeous, quiet book. Told in two distinct sections, it tells the story of Michael and Ellis, two childhood friends who remain close into adulthood, until Michael eventually drifts out of Ellis's life. I loved everything about this book. I inhaled it one sitting. It was perfectly structured, and the whole thing unfolded...

There There by Tommy Orange

Wow. What a gutting and beautiful novel. It's a book about twelve Native Americans whose lives converge (or don't) at the Big Oakland Powwow. It's a book about urban Indians (as the characters in the book often label themselves). It is a sprawling, moving, and vitally urgent book about the urban Native American experience, which,...

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon

Reading this book reminded me that at least some of what makes a book wildly popular is totally random. Happenstance, luck, a bizarre confluence of events--whatever it is, it is definitely a mystery. The Shadow of the Wind has been popping up everywhere for a few years now, one of those books that people keep...

The Diviners by Libba Bray

I absolutely loved this glittering, creepy, magical romp through 1920s New York. It centers on Evie O'Neil, who is sent to live with her uncle in Manhattan after causing trouble in her Ohio hometown, thanks to her ability to read people's secrets from objects belonging to them. Evie is a sixteen year old in search...

Anger Is A Gift by Mark Oshiro

Anger Is a Gift is devastating and spectacular. This one literally took my breath away. It made me cry, but it also filled my heart right up. The fact that it did both of these things--that it was often painful to read, but that just as often, it was filled with warmth and love and...

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush

The sheer beauty of this book took my breath away, especially given its subject matter: climate change, and the destruction it is wrecking on coastal communities, both human and non-human, throughout the US. In a series of connected essays, Rush explores rising sea level and its effect on tidal salt marshes, migratory birds, and the...