Biography YuMin Ye is a freelance writer with a B.A. in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University. Her short story “Team Bonding” won Honorable Mention in the 2007 Seventeen Magazine Fiction Contest, and she won a Finalist Award from the St. Louis Publishers Association for her manuscript, Oil in the Wok. She is the Columbia Young Adult Fiction Examiner for Examiner.com. The information comes from:...

This one’s on me. I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the message, and I enjoyed the illustrations. But overall I think I went in with too high of an expectation for a Newbery Medal winner. I did not study Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson in school, but I had always heard of it. A few years ago I even saw the movie. I normally enjoy a book more than its movie version, but this is one time where I enjoyed the movie version more than the book. The writing is good in its own way, but the style is not for me. I appreciate the message. I really do. It’s truly traumatizing for anyone to go through a loss like Jesse does at any age, let alone for a 10-year-old boy. But some people come into your life and they change it forever, like Leslie did for Jesse. It’s also a very mature move on Jesse’s part to be able to grasp the lesson that Leslie left him the gift of imagination that allowed him to escape his world and go into another one, while at the same time move on from his loss. That is something we all need every once in a while at any age. I need to find better timing and better time commitment to classics like this one so I can truly absorb it all in....

I have finally finished this trilogy. I must admit it’s been a long time since I reviewed the first two books in this trilogy so I don’t remember everything that happened before, but I do know I enjoyed this trilogy as a whole. It was my first steampunk read and honestly I can say it captures you like a mystery and makes you browse the jewelry. The adventure aspect of it mixed in with the steampunk aspect of it and searching for a lost twin brother made it a fast, fun read to enjoy in the moment. It may not be a story I think about 10 years from now, but it will be a story that provided me with some entertainment for a little while. I’m just glad I got through book#3 because I don’t like the feeling of starting a trilogy or series and not finishing. I don’t like the feeling of starting a book and not finishing it either. Even if I’m not enjoying the story too much, if I start a book, I feel like I have to finish it. I don’t have any steampunk pieces yet, but one day I know I’ll be browsing and want to get a pair of earrings or something and this is the trilogy I’ll be thinking...

I have been the Duff. You have been the Duff. But no one has to stay the Duff forever, according to Kody Keplinger’s The Duff. In fact, Bianca Piper didn’t know she was the Designated Ugly Fat Friend until man-whore Wesley Rush with the perfect “Greek god body” informs her while her best friends, Casey and Jessica, “shake their asses like dancers in a rap video” at The Nest. Apparently, talking to her makes him seem more approachable and gets him better access to her “hot” friends, thus increasing his chances of getting laid. Wesley Rush does not chase girls. Girls chase Wesley Rush. Bianca absolutely cannot imagine being with Wesley for any reason until everything on her mind needed to be not on her mind. Her ex, Jake, who also happens to be Jessica’s big brother, is coming back in town with his fiancé and her mom sucker-punching a divorce on her once alcoholic dad right before dropping by for a visit after being away for months giving speeches on her self- help book are just a couple of the things on her mind. Not to mention there’s her crush, Toby Tucker, whom she’s liked forever and just found out he’s already taken. Maybe it was all the Cherry Cokes she was drinking that clouded her judgment, but she ends up using the exact man-whore she absolutely despises for sex as an escape from all her problems. Wesley, of course, is cool with this arrangement, that is, until the escape causes a brand new problem of its own, one Bianca could never have predicted and threatens Wesley to break the only rule he follows. I like that this book dives in head-first onto the topic of labels. The main character, Bianca, learns at the end that there is no point in labelling anyone because she doesn’t really know each person that well to label them one thing in the first place. There are so many sides to a person it’s wrong to judge them on one thing. I like that this book introduces a label I had never heard of before, but now that I have, I know I can relate to it and have been that label...

The book is not always better than the movie, but in this case it is. I found out about Shrinking Violet after watching Radio Rebel and when I looked up what “shrinking violet” means, I was hooked immediately. Growing up I was definitely a shrinking violet, but then I really came out of my shell in college. Teresa Adams is an extremely shy high school senior by day who is secretly by night, Sweet T, a DJ at SLAM FM, her stepfather’s radio station in North Miami. She is the quietly funny one while her mom is the girly girl one who has never been to prom due to giving birth to Tere and wants Tere to go to prom so badly she is letting creepy sleazy Derek, the DJ Tere interns for at SLAM FM put Tere through a win Sweet T as a prom date contest. Entrants must submit an original song for Sweet T to pick out and their song will get radio airplay time. Meanwhile Tere’s best friend Audrey tries to guide Tere through liking Gavin, the cute guitar-playing guy in Tere’s English class who happens to have the same taste in music as Tere and listens to Sweet T. Competing against herself for Gavin’s attention is not something Tere ever imagined she’d be doing, even in her wildest dreams. Danielle Joseph writes with a voice that makes you laugh throughout the whole novel. Her sense of humor is spot-on to that of a teenaged girl who doesn’t exactly fit the mold of other teenaged girls. Seriously, I have parts underlined or bracketed or side-noted with “Ha!” all the way through. The page numbers are so faint on the page they keep with the theme. All of Tere’s issues are real and relatable it’s like being back in high school again (if you’re not there now). I like that in the book there’s a group project where Tere learns all about Helen Keller and grows as a person as a result. This element was not in Radio Rebel, where she’s paired up with the mean girl and Gavin to run lines together for a Shakespeare scene and then she’s locked in the janitor’s closet the...

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. You know that hand gesture you make over your head when something is well, over your head? That is how I felt while reading Harriet Reuter Hapgood’s The Square Root of Summer. I was drawn to the title because I’m a nerd like that and thought a nerdy YA would be interesting and fun. I was so wrong. This girl’s not out of high school yet and thinks and talks like a math major. You really have to love math to enjoy this book. I mean I like the element of magic realism to it, but it’s so confusing I never know when anything is taking place. This book makes me feel dumb. Am I really that dumb? (Don’t answer that.) I don’t know how accurate the math is in here because again, I am not familiar with all the principles quoted in here. Bah, humbug! I do, however, understand the love parts, surprise, surprise. I understand getting your heart broken over a boy who doesn’t invest enough in you and breaking a boy’s heart who you don’t invest enough into. I understand growing apart from a best girl friend, but not growing up without a mother. I don’t understand having a laid back father who would allow such an epic party while he was away and not do anything to her, just let her brother take responsibility. There’s a lot of German words in here and I don’t know what they all mean. I like the idea of being able to time travel, but I’m not sure I’ll actually like it since it will be hard for me to figure out where I’ve gone...