Skip to main content

Review: Unstuck

Image
By
By Barbara Dee
New York: Aladdin, 2024. Fiction. 272 pages.

12-year-old Lyla Benjamin is used to being overshadowed by her basically perfect older sister, Dahlia. Lyla feels like the town-wide writing contest is finally her time to shine -- Dahlia may be better at school, but Lyla is definitely a better fantasy writer. After all, she's been planning her epic fantasy novel for basically ever. There's just one hiccup, she hasn't actually written anything yet. The more desperate Lyla is to prove herself as a writer, the more paralyzed she gets by writer's block. It doesn't help that her best friend, Rania, now goes to a different middle school and is surrounded by a new group of friends who don't seem to like Lyla. Bogged down at home by family drama, and at school by new friend drama, Lyla isn't sure she'll ever get unstuck.

This novel is a heartfelt and character-driven story for any reader who has ever felt trapped by big expectations and their own great ideas. Lyla's voice is realistic, filled with all the earnestness and anxiety of a tween girl figuring out her way through big changes. Side characters complete the story, including Lyla's Language Arts teacher who helps her find ways through her quagmire. A note that the back matter includes a list of "Twenty-Five Ways to Get Unstuck" that will appeal to aspiring young authors. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

By
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Amazing Generation

By
The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World Written by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price  Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Informational. 226 pages.  In a kid-friendly adaptation of his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt teams up with Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone , to bring the power of good information directly to the hands of those that this issue affects most directly — kids on the cusp of getting their own smartphones. The book presents information about the drawbacks of having a smartphone and social media too soon in clear and easy-to-understand language, with eye-catching graphics and pop-outs. Throughout the book, quotes from real teens and young adults, called screen "rebels" by the authors, emphasize the points the authors are trying to make. Fictional characters are featured throughout in a graphic novel story, which further emphasizes the po...
Post a Comment
Read more