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Have you ever wondered what Team Epic Reads talks about behind the scenes? Which books we read, and which made us cry immediately before we recommended them to each other? Well, if so, you’re in luck! We wanted to give you a front-row seat to our first ever round table, in which we discuss the last books that made us cry. Most members of the team have incredibly different tastes, so hopefully this will give you a peek at some of the readers and writers behind the curtain!

Also, Tyler would like to add that since taking part in this piece, he has read Kingdom of Ash and teared up over Chapter 89, because he is not a monster.

And with that established, scroll down, meet the team, and add to your ever-growing TBR!

 

Team Epic Reads Reveals:

THE LAST BOOKS THAT MADE THEM CRY

 

Jane: So who should go first? Who wants to go first and reveal their pick?

Audrey: I can go first, but I don’t know if my pick is going to draw a lot of conversation.

Tyler: What is it?

Audrey: Should I just say it?

Audrey: So, my pick is The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth.

Nicole: That’s the sort-of Chronicles of Narnia inspired one, right?

Audrey: It’s the Chronicles of Narnia one, but basically one sister wants to be in the real world, and one sister doesn’t. And it’s about whether like, well, when you meet them, their relationship is very fractured, and you don’t know if they’re going to be able to work it out. And then the one sister who wants to be back in the Woodlands goes missing, and the other sister has to go find her.

Tyler: Ugh, it was so good.

Audrey: Right? And I don’t know. It just, it’s all the sister feels. If you ever, like, had a sibling that you ever loved, but—

Jane: They’re driving you insane…

Audrey: You don’t see eye to eye. Yeah! It’s got that. It’s also Britain during and after World War II, so… happy times.

Jane: This is the one that we have an Explains for, right?

Audrey: It is the one we have an Explains for! But yeah—plot aside, it’s like I said. All the sister feels.

Jane: All right Michael, you’re up next in this round table.

Michael: The table goes in two directions, Jane.

Shannon: Okay, well.

Jane: You can spin it off if you want.

Michael: My pick is—no, I’m okay—my pick isn’t the last book that made me cry, but it would be They Both Die at the End, by Adam Silvera. There’s a picture of me on Twitter somewhere crying having read that book, which is something I regret posting online, yes.

Audrey: Tyler?

Jane:  And we’re definitely linking that.

Michael: No, we are not linking that. No, it’s bad. It’s bad.

Audrey: Can we get it on the screen behind us?

Nicole:  We need to look at it right now.

Michael: It’s really bad!

Jane: No, no, no, we need to look it up right now.

Michael: No, you’re going to have to scroll through my whole Twitter. It’s going to take a long time. You’re going to see a lot of weird pictures along the way.

Shannon: Or you could go to the advanced search and do your username and then—

Audrey: Oh, you’re not the only one!

Nicole: Wow, there were so many people crying.

Tyler: This is a lot of effort to find.

Jane: Fine, Michael, you’re off the hook for now. But for our listeners…

Michael: Great. Yeah, and the title itself, it gives you a feeling it’s going to be sad, but I still had hope. And not to spoil anything, but I did cry at the end.

Michael: They Both Cry at the End.

Nicole: Wow… that’s really…

Jane: We All Cry at the End.

Audrey: Yeah, I was going to say, it’s more than both.

[All talking over each other]

Jane: [Laughing]

Audrey: And I think the people who clung to hope were mad!

Michael: And there was a time right before it came out where Adam was like, “I’m not going to tell you,” and—wait, Tyler, stop!

Nicole: Oh my god, is this it?

Michael: Tyler, stop!

Michael: Tyler, stop!!

Jane: [Laughing more]

Tyler: When did it come out, September?

Michael: I don’t like this!

Audrey: Oh my god, he found it.

Michael: There it is! We’re done!

Nicole: Oh my god, that’s him really crying.

Tyler:  That’s it!

Jane: Awww!

Tyler: Okay, but that’s so good.

Michael: I’ll karate chop everyone in this room!

Audrey: All right, Michael has provided proof.

Shannon: Tyler has provided Michael’s proof.

Jane: Receipts, guys.

Michael: I guess what they say about the internet is true.

Jane: Be careful what you say.

Nicole: That’s why I don’t use social media!

Michael: It lives on forever.

Tyler: Unlike the boys in They Both Die at the End.

Michael: TOO SOON.

Michael: Sorry, that was aggressive.

Jane: All right, Shannon, you’re in the hot seat now.

[Silence]

Shannon: I forgot all the books I read, ever.

Nicole: Oh no.

Jane: It’s fine, we can skip. We can come back.

Shannon: Literally any time anyone asks me anything about a book, I forget everything that I’ve ever read.

Audrey: Yep.

Tyler: Ugh, same.

Shannon: Bess asked me what I was reading recently and I panicked, forgot, and told her I was watching a lot of Netflix.

[Everyone laughing]

Audrey: That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Shannon: I wanted to leap out of my desk.

Tyler: [Laughing]

Tyler: Did you ever remember?

Shannon: No, yeah, well, I told her one thing and that I wasn’t loving it. And then she asked what else I was reading, and I wasn’t reading anything else! And of course I forgot everything else I had read previously, so I’m like, “I don’t know, The Blacklist?” I’m so sorry.

Audrey: Do not be sorry.

Shannon: Anyway, as you were.

Nicole: I guess I’ll go next. I just finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz. That was—

Tyler: Oh.

Nicole: A very sad—

Audrey: Sounds like it’s going to be sad!

Nicole: Yeah, it’s one of our books, it’s an adult book. It’s about these two who fall in love when this guy becomes a tattooist, and the girl is getting tattooed, and he calms her down in the moment, and then he falls in love with her immediately, and they find each other throughout the camp. And he’s able to have special privileges, he gets food and stuff, and brings it to the girls. So it’s really intense, and really emotional.

Nicole: It’s kind of hopeful in a sad and dark story.

Jane: Oh, I’ve heard about this.

Audrey: But he’s also a prisoner?

Nicole: He’s also a prisoner, yes.

Tyler: Okay, I was going to say.

Nicole: No, he’s not like…

Michael: If he was like, killing people!

Nicole: No, he was saved by a man who was the original tattooist, and then that man goes missing and so he becomes the main tattooist. And then he ends up saving someone else and they work together throughout the whole book. It was pretty good. Overall, it wasn’t super sad, but there were moments in it that were like, okay, I’m on the bus and there are people around, and I need to not look like I’m crying.

Shannon: That subway read.

Nicole: Yeah.

Shannon: Take comfort in the fact that it’s definitely not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened on a bus.

[All laughing]

Nicole: Definitely not.

Jane: Tell us more.

Tyler: Do we want to hear more?

Jane: No, maybe not.

Audrey: 100% not.

Michael: I cry on the subway a lot.

[Silence]

Nicole: [Laughing]

Audrey: Thank you, Michael.

Michael: Someone else say they do too!

Jane: No, well, kind of! If I’m reading like a sad—

Michael: I just cry like, three times a week.

Audrey: We actually discussed earlier this week after Dumplin’  that I have a very strict ‘no crying on the subway’ policy.

Michael: Really?

Audrey: Yeah, because I was like, I’m not, like…

Michael: I’ll just like, be in the mood where anything will make me cry.

Audrey: [Under her breath] No crying on the subway.

Nicole: There was one time I was crying at the bus stop, and no joke, not one person looked at me weird, or helped, or asked if I was okay.

Jane: I feel like it’s pretty common to see someone crying in the city!

Audrey: No, yeah, you definitely just walk by people when they’re crying. Unless they look like they’re waiting to ask them about it, but most people are just on their phone crying about something.

Tyler: I was rewatching The Office again and it was the one when Pam failed art school, and she’s just like, crying on a bench as everyone walks by. And I’m like, this is New York.

Audrey: Yep.

Jane: Yeah.

Tyler: It’s, they nailed it.

Michael: What you have to avoid when you’re crying on a subway is if you’re standing right across from someone sitting down, like, if they’re sitting there—

Audrey: Are they going to give you their seat?

Michael: No. They just get very uncomfortable.

Audrey: I was about to be like, now that’s a move.

Jane: While the tears are just—

Michael: No, they’re just like, this is their face.

Michael: [Grimacing]

Audrey: I worry about that with like, iced coffee.

Nicole: That’s so considerate of you.

Audrey: Well if, when you watch it, it’s super awkward. If you watch it drip, and you’re like, that spot right there, courtesy of me!

Shannon: There was a guy, I got on the train and I was standing and he gets up, and he’s like, “sit!” No, no, I’m totally fine, but he was like, “No, sit! Sit!” And I was like, okay, I guess I’m going to sit. And then he had a Coke, and he kept spilling it on me! I could’ve been standing at least four feet away.

Audrey: What container was this in that it was spilling so easily?!

Shannon: It was a glass bottle, and he wasn’t like, pouring it on me, but he would be drinking it, and—

Audrey: That’s so much worse than what I was imagining, which was like…

Jane: The condensation!

[Pause]

Michael: Wait, you’re recording this?!

Nicole: I hate my voice.

Michael: Remind me not to speak again.

Tyler: Well, I regret pitching this round table concept because I don’t cry reading books.

Audrey: Ever?!

Nicole: Not even one time?

Tyler: I just like, don’t cry. I teared up watching Dumplin’, but I like, can’t. I looked through all my Goodreads books, and I thought I was going to cry during Autoboyography—I had to put it down because I thought it was going to end badly.

Audrey: Mhm…

Tyler: But then I just went back to it and kept reading.

Jane: I cry during everything. I cry during horror movies.

Tyler: She cried during The Ring II.

Shannon: I cried during The Ring I because I was terrified.

Audrey: I feel like if I was that scared I would leave! No?

Jane: It wasn’t like a scared thing!

Tyler: She was sad.

Jane: I was sad!

Nicole: You were sad about The Ring?

Jane: Listen, the mom had to like—

Audrey: You don’t even have time to get attached to anybody in The Ring.

Jane: So, the little boy, Samara had possessed him, right. And the mom could only get rid of the girl by drowning her son! And it was really sad.

Shannon: Good god.

Nicole: Just take your son and go somewhere else!

Audrey: Why are you drowning your son?! Just raise them both together.

Jane: He needs to be exorcised!

Nicole: Who cares?!

Nicole: I’m taking my son and leaving. I’m not drowning my son!

Jane: But the demon is inside him!

Audrey: This derailed.

Michael: Wait, but guys, The Ring came back.

Tyler: Yeah, Rings.

Jane: I never watched it.

Michael: Jane, you never gave your pick.

Jane: Oh yeah, so, besides scary movies, happy books also make me cry.

Nicole: My god.

Jane: I cry over everything, but it’s going to officially be The Way You Make Me Feel, by Maurene Goo, which is like, a rom-com, it’s a funny book! But there’s this great parent daughter relationship with the girl, and I get really weepy when it comes to family relationships.

Audrey: I’ll just tell you that Jane pitched this book to me for a happy books roundup not that long ago! And now—

Jane: It made me cry, okay.

Nicole: Was it a happy cry?

Jane: [Shakes head]

Nicole: Oh. It was a sad cry.

Jane: Yeah, I totally cried, because she gets in a fight with her dad who raised her and then she’s like, I want to go to the fun parent! And then the fun parent disappoints her. And she goes back to her dad and apologizes, and there’s just like, lots of feels. I was happy and sad. But, you know. Tyler doesn’t feel anything so I have to feel everything for us.

Audrey: … Really, nothing? Nothing has made you cry?

Tyler: I don’t think so!

Nicole: Nothing?

Tyler: Just like…

Nicole: No character’s that like—

Jane: He’s the black heart emoji.

Tyler: Yeah, no, I was trying to think of books, and like—

Audrey: I’m trying to think of the character who I’ve been the most upset when they died.

Jane: Marley and Me.

Everyone: Awe.

Michael: Spoilers!

Audrey: If you spoil that for somebody then like, that’s on them.

Shannon: Honestly though, after I read that when I was little, I just sobbed violently in my bed for like four hours straight.

Audrey: I will always cry when a dog dies.

Nicole: That’s because dogs don’t deserve to die.

Michael: History Is All You Left Me?

Tyler: History Is All You Left Me like, depressed me and left me empty inside, but I didn’t cry. I just stared at the wall for five minutes, and was like, okay.

Jane: Okay, I feel like that is your crying! Staring at the wall for a couple hours.

Tyler: [Shrugs]

Jane: Well, I’m putting Shannon back in the hot seat while Tyler thinks of something.

Tyler: Oh yeah, go back.

Shannon: I think one of the last books that made me cry was Now Is Everything. It’s about this teenage girl and it’s set in two different—I don’t want to say time periods, because they’re within a year of each other, but two different settings, which I’m discovering I really love reading.

Jane: Before and after.

Shannon: Yeah, that’s a better way to put it. 2016, and 2016 plus six months.

Shannon: But it’s about this girl who is horribly abused by her horrendous father, and she does everything she can to keep her younger sister from, first of all, experiencing it, but also even knowing what’s going on, which is really powerful to read. Because she’s been trying so hard at the expense of… kind of everything else in her life to protect her younger sister. And her mother is also abused and has kind of internalized it, and then it’s just like…

Jane: It’s like an endless cycle.

Shannon: Exactly, yeah. Because the mother isn’t really a great mother, but you know that it’s a product of the abuse she faced from her husband, but it’s also that you don’t like her anyway. Which is kind of troubling to think like that, because you’re like, I understand you, but I still kind of hate you a little bit.

Jane: It’s like you wish they could rise above what happened to them to at least save their children.

Shannon: Exactly, yeah, and then the whole plane crash thing that unravels—

Audrey: Yes! I did read this! I was like, does this open with a plane crash, but that’s a weird question to insert into a conversation.

Shannon: Yeah, and the whole… this whole thing is really sad. I cried a lot.

Shannon: But I mean, it turned out I really loved it. It was such beautiful writing, and I liked it a lot.

Jane: I sense a theme, at least for you, me, and Audrey. We all picked books that have family themes that we cried over.

Michael: Did you cry over ?

Nicole: [Gasps]

Tyler: No, because I listened to the audiobook after I saw the movie. I knew what was coming.

Shannon: I still haven’t read the book, but the movie just like, put me in my feelings for a solid week.

Michael: The book is better.

Audrey: I feel like an audiobook wouldn’t make me cry though. Because it’s somebody just like, telling you to cry. Like, no.

Audrey: No I will not, Armie Hammer.

Shannon: I watched that movie with my friend, and then like five minutes later—

Michael: The Wolf by Wolf series. Sorry.

Shannon: That’s okay.

Michael: I’m still trying to make him cry.

Audrey: Blood for Blood was very emotional.

Michael: Crooked Kingdom?

Tyler: I liked Six of Crows better.

Shannon: All right, well.

Michael: What about Carry On?

Jane: I don’t know, I loved it but I didn’t even cry with that one.

Audrey: Wait, what is Sabrina’s favorite?

Tyler: I’ll Give You the Sun.

[Silence]

Jane: Emotionless.

Audrey: The Serpent King? Did you read The Serpent King?

Tyler: I did, I love The Serpent King. But no.

Audrey: Wow. You said it with such conviction.

Jane: Like, no! Definitely not!

Tyler: I didn’t cry, because I didn’t see it coming! I was like, what? I had to go back and reread it because I think I was in shock. It’s like how I was with the end of Lord of Shadows too! Something very emotional and traumatic happened but I didn’t see it coming, so instead of being like, properly emotionally wrecked by it, I’m just like, what?!

Audrey: What about the fourth Harry Potter at the end? Or book six?

Nicole: Or any of them.

Audrey: Anything after book three.

Shannon: Did you never cry reading Harry Potter? When Dobby died, I lost my ever loving mind.

Tyler: I mean, I don’t remember? But probably not.

Jane: It was so sad!

Michael: Wow, another spoiler!

Shannon: It’s not a spoiler. It can’t—

Michael: I know, I’m kidding. I just never read them.

[All talking at once]

Audrey: I cried so much for Cedric Diggory. And I just never, I didn’t even know who this was. But I was very upset that people could die in this world, so it was just like, how dare you?

Nicole: Now they just kill people off.

Audrey: Now everyone’s at risk.

Michael: I’m just going through my old things to see what made me cry.

Shannon: Yeah, same.

Jane: Do you guys have a list of books that made you cry?

Shannon: Oh no, Goodreads.

Audrey: When in doubt, consult Goodreads.

Michael: What about the last Hunger Games? Mockingjay?

Tyler: I don’t want to talk about Mockingjay.

Nicole: I think it was my least favorite, but also I think that about every series.

Tyler: You just don’t like series.

Nicole: Yeah, I’m not really a big series person.

Jane: But there are some sequels that are better than the first!

Nicole: True.

Michael: No.

Jane: Yes!

Nicole: I’m still waiting for the fourth book to come out so I can read Two Dark Reigns.

Audrey: I need time to process the end of the third.

Michael: Still?

Audrey: When I stop to think about it, I just get upset again.

Jane: I still have conspiracy theories.

Nicole: Don’t tell me, don’t tell me.

Audrey: Are we both hanging on to the same hope?

Tyler: Yeah.

Jane: Yeah, that Tyler keeps telling us no!

Audrey: We won’t spoil it.

Jane: All right, I think this is where we end this round table discussion.

Tyler: Should we like, say something?

Audrey: Wait, this is a video?

Nicole: Don’t worry, it was down the whole time.

Jane: It’s just the ceiling.

Michael: Delete your account.

Add The Light Between Worlds to your Goodreads shelf
Add They Both Die at the End to your Goodreads shelf
Add The Tattooist of Auschwitz to your Goodreads shelf
Add Autoboyography to your Goodreads shelf
Add The Way You Make Me Feel to your Goodreads shelf
Add Now Is Everything to your Goodreads shelf

The post Team Epic Reads Reveals the Last Books That Made Them Cry appeared first on Epic Reads.

Some of our favorite book titles are carefully curated and truly adhere to the spirit and soul of the book—but that being said, they can also lend themselves to sounding a bit ridiculous out of context. We get it! But instead of shying away from that fact or trying to explain the books and themselves, why not lean into it the other way? Why not see if you can guess which of these funny book titles are actual book titles?

And let it be said now: Every real book included below is a super enjoyable book. Highly recommend. And every fake book… well… we would totally read them. So scroll down, take our title challenge, and see just how well you know your LOL-worthy, out of context reads!

 

Are These Funny Book Titles Real or Fake?

The post Can You Guess If These Funny Book Titles Are Real or Fake? appeared first on Epic Reads.

In this turbulent world, it can be lovely to use books as an escape, to read about a different world with different problems, and maybe forget about your own for a while. But, it’s also equally cathartic and important to read books that reflect our own realities—books that take what we’re going through, what we’re feeling, and put them down on a page so we can see ourselves mirrored. Y’know, those books that you just KNOW is going to break your heart—but you kind of need them to?

YA is AMAZING at this, as we all know. There have been an influx of books lately that respond to today’s major issues, like racism and police brutality, socioeconomic insecurity, or gun violence—like That Night, which beautifully explores the aftermath of a mass shooting through the lens of two teenage survivors.

These books can make you laugh. They will certainly make you cry. And above all, they make you think, help you process, and ultimately, maybe, can help you move on. So here’s our roundup of fourteen YA books that deal with real issues.

 

14 Life-Changing Books

THAT DEAL WITH IMPORTANT SOCIAL ISSUES

 

1. That Night by Amy Giles

The year since a mass shooting shook their Queens neighborhood has played out differently for Jess and Lucas, both of whom were affected by that night in eerily similar and deeply personal ways.

As Jess struggles to take care of her depressed mother and Lucas takes up boxing under the ever-watchful eye of his overprotective parents, their paths converge. They slowly become friends and then something more, learning to heal and move forward together.

But what does it mean to love after an unspeakable tragedy?

Find out more about That Night
Add That Night to your Goodreads shelf

 

2. The Deepest Roots by Miranda Asebedo

Cottonwood Hollow, Kansas, is a strange place. For the past century, every girl has been born with a special talent, like the ability to Fix any object, Heal any wound, or Find what is missing.

To best friends Rome, Lux, and Mercy, their abilities often feel more like a curse. Rome may be able to Fix anything she touches, but that won’t help her mom pay rent. Lux’s ability to attract any man with a smile has always meant danger. And although Mercy can make Enough of whatever is needed, even that won’t help when her friendship with Rome and Lux is tested.

Follow three best friends in this enchanting debut novel as they discover that friendship is stronger than curses, that trust is worth the risk, and sometimes, what you’ve been looking for has been under your feet the whole time.

Find out more about The Deepest Roots
Add The Deepest Roots to your Goodreads shelf

 

3. A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped.

Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments—even the physical violence—she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother.

But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.

Find out more about A Very Large Expanse of Sea
Add A Very Large Expanse of Sea to your Goodreads shelf

 

4. Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.

When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

Find out more about Monday’s Not Coming
Add Monday’s Not Coming to your Goodreads shelf

 

5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Find out more about The Hate U Give
Add The Hate U Give to your Goodreads shelf

 

6. Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband—these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren’t too far out of reach.

But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told. Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life—her future—is hers to fight for.

Find out more about Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
Add Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree to your Goodreads shelf

 

7. The Opposite of Innocent by Sonya Sones

Luke has been away for two endless years, but he’s finally returning today. Lily was only twelve when he left. But now, at fourteen, she feels transformed. She can’t wait to see how Luke will react when he sees the new her. And when her mother tells her that Luke will be staying with them for a while, in the bedroom right next to hers, her heart nearly stops.

Having Luke back is better than Lily could have ever dreamed. His lingering looks set Lily on fire. Is she just imagining them? But then, when they’re alone, he kisses her. Then he kisses her again. Lily’s friends think anyone his age who wants to be with a fourteen-year-old must be really messed up. Maybe even dangerous. But Luke would never do anything to hurt her…would he?

In this powerful tale of a terrifying leap into young adulthood, readers will accompany Lily on her harrowing journey from hopelessness to hope.

Find out more about The Opposite of Innocent
Add The Opposite of Innocent to your Goodreads shelf

 

8. Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she’s isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (as well as her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself—or worse.

Add Little & Lion to your Goodreads shelf

 

9. Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.

But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

In a timely update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, critically acclaimed author Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic.

Find out more about Pride
Add Pride to your Goodreads shelf

 

10. The Other Side of Lost by Jessi Kirby

Mari Turner’s life is perfect. That is, at least, to her thousands of followers who have helped her become an internet starlet.

But when she breaks down and posts a video confessing she’s been living a lie—that she isn’t the happy, in love, inspirational online personality she’s been trying so hard to portray—it goes viral and she receives a major backlash.

To get away from it all, she makes an impulsive decision: to hike the entire John Muir Trail. Mari and her late cousin Bri were supposed to do it together, to celebrate their shared eighteenth birthday. But that was before Mari got so wrapped up in her online world that she shut anyone out who questioned its worth—like Bri.

With Bri’s boots and trail diary, a heart full of regret, and a group of strangers that she meets along the way, Mari tries to navigate the difficult terrain of the hike. But the true challenge lies within, as she searches for the way back from to the girl she fears may be too lost to find: herself.

Find out more about The Other Side of Lost
Add The Other Side of Lost to your Goodreads shelf

 

11. This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow

Who cares that the prize for the Sun City Originals contest is fifteen grand? Not Dia, that’s for sure. Because Dia knows that without a band, she hasn’t got a shot at winning. Because ever since Hanna’s drinking took over her life, Dia and Jules haven’t been in it. And because ever since Hanna left—well, there hasn’t been a band.

It used to be the three of them, Dia, Jules, and Hanna, messing around and making music and planning for the future. But that was then, and this is now—and now means a baby, a failed relationship, a stint in rehab, all kinds of off beats that have interrupted the rhythm of their friendship.

But like the lyrics of a song you used to play on repeat, there’s no forgetting a best friend. And for Dia, Jules, and Hanna, this impossible challenge—to ignore the past, in order to jump start the future—will only become possible if they finally make peace with the girls they once were, and the girls they are finally letting themselves be.

Find out more about This Is What It Feels Like
Add This Is What It Feels Like to your Goodreads shelf

 

12. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Add Turtles All the Way Down to your Goodreads shelf

 

13. Four Three Two One by Courtney Stevens

Golden “Go” Jennings wasn’t supposed to be on Bus 21 the day it blew up in New York City. Neither was her boyfriend, Chandler. But they were. And so was Rudy, a cute stranger Go shared a connection with the night before. And Caroline, a girl whose silence ended up costing nineteen people their lives.

Though it’s been a year since the bombing, Go isn’t any closer to getting over what happened. With Chan completely closed off to even talking about it, Go makes an impulsive decision: round up the rest of the survivors and head to New York City. There they will board an art installation made of the charred remnants of Bus 21 and hopefully reach some sort of resolution.

But things are never easy when it comes to rehashing the past. Uniting the four stirs up conflicting feelings of anger and forgiveness, and shows them that, although they all survived, they may still need saving.

Find out more about Four Three Two One
Add Four Three Two One to your Goodreads shelf

 

14. Calling My Name by Liara Tamani

This unforgettable novel tells a universal coming-of-age story about Taja Brown, a young African American girl growing up in Houston, Texas, and deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose.

Told in fifty-three short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school. Literary and noteworthy, this is a beauty of a novel that captures the multifaceted struggle of finding where you belong and why you matter.

The post 14 Life-Changing Books That Deal With Important Social Issues appeared first on Epic Reads.

Disney’s The Nutcracker and The Four Realms is officially out and we are OBSESSED! From the glittering costumes to the magical worlds, and of course (and maybe especially) the beautiful ballet that features Misty Copeland front and center! Simply put, this Nutcracker retelling is a dream. So, now that we’ve watched and loved the movie, you know you can’t blame us for wanting to dive deeper and stay in the world of ballet even longer.

Solution: More books based on The Nutcracker, other ballets, and the dark corners of the dance world! Scroll through for a list of stories that all cover different aspects of ballet and dance.

 

13 Dance Books to Read

AFTER THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS

 

1. The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz

This book is a combination of a dark suspense story with hints of a fairy tale we know you’ll love.

When the music stops, the dance begins.

Seventeen-year-old Penny is a lead dancer at the Grande Teatro, a finishing school where she and eleven other young women are training to become the finest ballerinas in Italy. Tucked deep into the woods, the school is overseen by the mysterious and handsome young Master who keeps the girls ensconced in the estate – and in the only life Penny has never known.

But when flashes of memories, memories of a life very different from the one she thinks she’s been leading, start to appear, Penny begins to question the Grand Teatro and the motivations of the Master. With a kind and attractive kitchen boy, Cricket, at her side, Penny vows to escape the confines of her school and the strict rules that dictate every step she takes. But at every turn, the Master finds a way to stop her, and Penny must find a way to escape the school and uncover the secrets of her past before it’s too late.

Add The Midnight Dance to your Goodreads shelf

 

2. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

If you loved Misty Copeland in the movie, then you will fall in love with her inspiring autobiography!

As the only African American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland has made history. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, anxious thirteen-year-old to become a ground-breaking ballerina.

When she discovered ballet, Misty was living in a shabby motel room, struggling with her five siblings for a place to sleep on the floor. A true prodigy, she was dancing en pointe within three months of taking her first dance class and performing professionally in just over a year: a feat unheard of for any classical dancer. But when Misty became caught between the control and comfort she found in the world of ballet and the harsh realities of her own life (culminating in a highly publicized custody battle), she had to choose to embrace both her identity and her dreams, and find the courage to be one of a kind.

Add Life in Motion to your Goodreads shelf

 

3. Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton

The world of ballet is never easy, and this drama filled story embraces the life of students in a prestigious Manhattan ballet school while acknowledging how beautiful the art of it is.

Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette’s desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.

When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.

Learn more about Tiny Pretty Things
Add Tiny Pretty Things to your Goodreads shelf

 

4. Winterspell by Claire Legrand

This Nutcracker retelling is set in a magical New York City in 1899 that is as intriguing as any of the Four Realms.

New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor’s ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother’s murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.

Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed, her father abducted—by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they’re to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets—and a need she can’t define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed—if she leaves at all.

Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.

Add Winterspell to your Goodreads shelf

 

5. Dark Breaks the Dawn by Sara B. Larson

This fantasy duology is a must-read for fans of the ballet Swan Lake!

On her eighteenth birthday, Princess Evelayn of Eadrolan, the Light Kingdom, can finally access the full range of her magical powers. The light looks brighter, the air is sharper, and the energy she can draw when fighting feels almost limitless.

But while her mother, the queen, remains busy at the war front, in the Dark Kingdom of Dorjhalon, the corrupt king is plotting. King Bain wants control of both kingdoms, and his plan will fling Evelayn onto the throne much sooner than she expected.

In order to defeat Bain and his sons, Evelayn will quickly have to come into her ability to shapeshift, and rely on the alluring Lord Tanvir. But not everyone is what they seem, and the balance between the Light and Dark comes at a steep price.

Add Dark Breaks the Dawn to your Goodreads shelf

 

6. Pointe by Brandy Colbert

Ballet, drama, and more complex, compelling, and lovable characters by Brandy Colbert? Obviously sign us up.

Theo is better now.

She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.

Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Add Pointe to your Goodreads shelf

 

7. Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Like so many other books on this list show us, ballet, despite its beauty, has a much darker side. And Bunheads explores all the ups and downs of its prestigious world.

As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet Company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances and complicated backstage relationships. Up until now, Hannah has happily devoted her entire life to ballet.

But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah’s universe begins to change, and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other “bunheads” in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?

Add Bunheads to your Goodreads shelf

 

8. The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

This book is perfect for fans of the ballets Scheherazade and La Bayadere in this One Thousand and One Nights retelling.

In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad’s dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror once and for all.

Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she’d imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It’s an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid’s life as retribution for the many lives he’s stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

Add The Wrath & the Dawn to your Goodreads shelf

 

9. Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire

This Nutcracker retelling is much darker than the ballet, and questions who exactly Clara’s Godfather Drosselmeier was…

Hiddensee: An island of white sandy beaches, salt marshes, steep cliffs, and pine forests north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, an island that is an enchanting bohemian retreat and home to a large artists’ colony—a wellspring of inspiration for the Romantic imagination . . .

Having brought his legions of devoted readers to Oz in Wicked and to Wonderland in After Alice, Maguire now takes us to the realms of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann—the enchanted Black Forest of Bavaria and the salons of Munich. Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann’s mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier—the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet—who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter.

But Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults—a fascination with death and the afterlife—and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless?

Add Hiddensee to your Goodreads shelf

 

10. The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan

One of the most famous artists of ballet dancers was Edgar Degas, but who were the dancers behind the paintings and statues? Buchanen brings the beloved artwork to life in this historical fiction story.

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.

Add The Painted Girls to your Goodreads shelf

 

11. A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas

Rhiannon Thomas’ book is perfect for fans of the Sleeping Beauty ballet! This fairy tale retelling questions everything that happens after Aurora wakes…

One hundred years after falling asleep, Princess Aurora wakes up to the kiss of a handsome prince and a broken kingdom that has been dreaming of her return. All the books say that she should be living happily ever after. But as Aurora understands all too well, the truth is nothing like the fairy tale.

Her family is long dead. Her “true love” is a kind stranger. And her whole life has been planned out by political foes while she slept.

As Aurora struggles to make sense of her new world, she begins to fear that the curse has left its mark on her, a fiery and dangerous thing that might be as wicked as the witch who once ensnared her. With her wedding day drawing near, Aurora must make the ultimate decision on how to save her kingdom: marry the prince or run.

Learn more about A Wicked Thing
Add A Wicked Thing to your Goodreads shelf

 

12. Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer

A very different retelling inspired by Sleeping Beauty, Lexa Hillyer’s lyrical writing style will transport you into a scene as dark and dazzling as your favorite dance!

Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king’s headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close.

And then everything changes, with a single drop of Aurora’s blood, a Faerie Queen who is preparing for war, a strange and enchanting dream realm—and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken.

Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo, Spindle Fire is a tour-de-force fantasy set in the dwindling, deliciously corrupt world of the fae and featuring two truly unforgettable heroines.

Learn more about Spindle Fire
Add Spindle Fire to your Goodreads shelf

 

13. The Looking Glass by Janet McNally

A story of sisterhood, main character Sylvie is trying to carry on her sister’s legacy at the National Ballet Theatre Academy. It intertwines fairy tales, mysteries, and the emotions that only the best executed dances can convey.

That’s what Sylvie Blake’s older sister Julia renamed their favorite fairy tale book, way back when they were just girls themselves. Now Julia has disappeared—and no one knows for sure if she wants to be away, or if she’s the one in trouble.

Then a copy of their old storybook arrives with a mysterious list inside, and Sylvie begins to see signs of her sister, and their favorite fairy tales, everywhere she goes.

With the help of her best friend’s enigmatic brother and his beat-up car, Sylvie sets out to follow the strange signs right to Julia and return to New York with her in tow. But trouble comes in lots of forms—and Sylvie soon learns that the damsel in distress is often the only one who can save herself.

Learn more about The Looking Glass
Add The Looking Glass to your Goodreads shelf

The post 13 Dance Books to Read After Being Dazzled by ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ appeared first on Epic Reads.

If you weren’t aware, pretty much every show on the CW has a lot in common with our fave YA books. Whether it be the intimate yet mysterious small town setting, the coming-of-age, coming-into-power parallel, or something as straightforward as a legitimate adaptation (we miss you, The Carrie Diaries!), it seems foolish not to say that these two mediums are thematically linked.

And just like with all our OTPs, we are here to stan.

CW shows also have a habit of being incredibly dramatic, so we thought it might be fun to build one of our own! Put together the foundations for your very own series and find out just which YA character we believe to be your soulmate. True love might be lurking on your shelves!

 

Build a CW Show to Find Your YA Soulmate

 

Learn more about the books included:

Everless by Sara Holland
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
Warcross by Marie Lu
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

The post Build Your Own CW Show and We’ll Reveal Your YA Soulmate appeared first on Epic Reads.

Before we get into the exact details of why, let’s break it down. YA author/powerhouse Adam Silvera recently tweeted this, and we want to retweet a hundred times over:

Note on blurbs: I'm ONLY blurbing books with queer main characters from now on.

Welcome back, book nerds, to another round of stellar book recommendations from Heidi Heilig, superstar author and stylist of stunning bookish outfits! If this is your first time tuning in, then we have a treat for you.

It’s clear to see from For a Muse of Fire and The Girl From Everywhere that Heidi is an expert when it comes to adventure, rebellion, representation, drama, lovable characters—and just about anything else you’d want from a YA book. So it only seemed natural to bring to our epic readers for even more TBR help! This time, inspired by the recent elections and everything else the country’s been facing lately, Heidi’s book recs are all centered on one theme: revolution. Speaking up, speaking out, and making a change.

So, without further ado, let’s get to these epic books!

 

Books For the Revolution | Rec’d by Heidi Heilig

 

Find the books recommended in the video above!

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Want by Cindy Pon
Enchantée by Gita Trelease
The Spy With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

 

More Revolution Books | For your TBRs

 

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Learn more about The Hate U Give
Add The Reader to your Goodreads shelf

 

2. Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

Six years ago, Moss Jefferies’ father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media’s vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks.

Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals by their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration.

When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

Add Anger Is a Gift to your Goodreads shelf

 

3. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball in Tokyo.

Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year’s only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele twin’s brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael’s every move.

But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

Add Wolf by Wolf to your Goodreads shelf

 

4. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations. But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Find out more about Dread Nation
Add Dread Nation to your Goodreads shelf

 

5. The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn’t feel bad about it.

Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence.

While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other people. Not with Jack, the star athlete who wants to really know her but still feels guilty over the role he played the night Anna’s body was discovered. And not with Peekay, the preacher’s kid with a defiant streak who befriends Alex while they volunteer at an animal shelter. Not anyone.

As their senior year unfolds, Alex’s darker nature breaks out, setting these three teens on a collision course that will change their lives forever.

Find out more about The Female of the Species
Add The Female of the Species to your Goodreads shelf

 

6. Want by Cindy Pon

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits that protect them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city’s corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

With the help of his friends, Zhou infiltrates the lives of the wealthy in hopes of destroying the international Jin Corporation from within. Jin Corp not only manufactures the special suits the rich rely on, but they may also be manufacturing the pollution that makes them necessary.

Yet the deeper Zhou delves into this new world of excess and wealth, the more muddled his plans become. And against his better judgment, Zhou finds himself falling for Daiyu, the daughter of Jin Corp’s CEO. Can Zhou save his city without compromising who he is or destroying his own heart?

Add Want to your Goodreads shelf

 

7. These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch

Adeluna is a soldier. Five years ago, she helped the magic-rich island of Grace Loray overthrow its oppressor, Agrid, a country ruled by religion. But adjusting to postwar life has not been easy. When an Argridian delegate vanishes during peace talks with Grace Loray’s new Council, Argrid demands brutal justice—but Lu suspects something dangerous is at work.

Devereux is a pirate. As one of the stream raiders who run rampant on Grace Loray, he scavenges the island’s magic plants and sells them on the black market. But after Argrid accuses raiders of the diplomat’s abduction, Vex becomes a target. An expert navigator, he agrees to help Lu find the Argridian—but the truth they uncover could be deadlier than any war.

Benat is a heretic. The crown prince of Argrid, he harbors a secret obsession with Grace Loray’s forbidden magic. When Ben’s father, the king, gives him the shocking task of reversing Argrid’s fear of magic, Ben has to decide if one prince can change a devout country—or if he’s building his own pyre.

As conspiracies arise, Lu, Vex, and Ben will have to decide who they really are… and what they are willing to become for peace.

Find out more about These Rebel Waves
Add These Rebel Waves to your Goodreads shelf

 

8. Enchantée by Gita Trelease

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie ordinaire—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

With dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. There, she gambles at cards, desperate to have enough to keep herself and her sister safe. Yet the longer she stays at court, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile her resentment of the nobles with the enchantments of Versailles. And when she returns to Paris, Camille meets a handsome young balloonist—who dares her to hope that love and liberty may both be possible.

But la magie has its costs. And when Camille loses control of her secrets, the game she’s playing turns deadly. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, freedom or magic—before Paris burns…

Add Enchantée to your Goodreads shelf

 

9. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

Add Children of Blood and Bone to your Goodreads shelf

 

10. The Spy With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Siblings Ilse and Wolf hide a deep secret in their blood: with it, they can work magic. And the government just found out. Blackmailed into service during World War II, Ilse lends her magic to America’s newest weapon, the atom bomb, while Wolf goes behind enemy lines to sabotage Germany’s nuclear program. It’s a dangerous mission, but if Hitler were to create the bomb first, the results would be catastrophic.

When Wolf’s plane is shot down, his entire mission is thrown into jeopardy. Wolf needs Ilse’s help to develop the magic that will keep him alive, but with a spy afoot in Ilse’s laboratory, the letters she sends to Wolf begin to look treasonous. Can Ilse prove her loyalty—and find a way to help her brother—before their time runs out?

Add The Spy With the Red Balloon to your Goodreads shelf

The post Books to Motivate You Through the Revolution! | Book Recs from Heidi Heilig appeared first on Epic Reads.

All break ups are awful—but break ups with your best friend? Those are by far the worst. So what if the only shot you had at winning the prize of your dreams was reunite with an ex-BFF? That’s the premise of Rebecca Barrow’s latest novel This Is What It Feels Like!

It follows three girls and former bandmates who called off their musical dreams and friendship when drummer Hana’s struggle with addiction took over her life. Since then, all three girls have managed to deal with personal issues and rebuild their lives—but their friendship never recovered. So when the contest of a lifetime comes along, the girls know their only shot to win is to reunite the band, but can they put the past aside in order to move forward?

This story has laughs, tears and romance—which we love, obviously—but what really shines here is the friendship story that takes center stage. All three main characters are flawed, confident, talented, strong female leads, and it’s so refreshing to have a realistic book about these types of characters where love lives take a backseat to the relationship they have with each other. We couldn’t help but root for all three as they struggle to fight not just for the prize, but for their reunion. It struck super close to home, and we think you’ll all love it too!

The best part? We have a sneak peek at the first five chapters of This Is What It Feels Like!

 

It’s hot the second the doors open. The kind of air that leaves you sticky straightaway, sweat trickling along your spine, and you almost can’t wait for the sweet relief of the cold shower awaiting you at the end of the night.

The stage is empty; music thumps out of hidden speakers instead, electro Biggie and Blondie covers and sometimes Aaliyah, because of course Aaliyah.

A light-copper-skinned girl in hacked shorts and a Bikini Kill tee cuts through the crowd, holding tight to the wrist of another girl with hair bleached whiter than her pale skin. The first girl, natural curly hair blown out to wild proportions, hoists herself onto the stage. A third girl appears from the wings, the lights setting a sheen of purplish-pink on her deep-brown skin, and holds a hand out to the blonde.

All three duck back into the wings together, grabbing guitars, picks, drumsticks, courage. Then the music cuts, and the purple-green-red lights flash down, and a person with lime-green lipstick and a buzz cut squeezes past them. “Ready?” they say.

The blonde nods. “Always.”

The buzz cut person walks out on the tiny stage, takes a position at the mic stand to cheers from the raucous crowd. “All right, everybody! Make some fucking noise for Fairground!”

The girl with the curls slouches up to the mic, a pick between her teeth. She tugs her shorts up on her hips and takes the pick from her mouth. She doesn’t bother introducing herself or the others, but hits a jarring chord and runs into their first song at breakneck speed, the blonde banging hell out of her drums and the bassist kicking into frenetic rhythm, sweat slicking away from her basketball jersey.

They only have fifteen minutes, but it’s fifteen minutes more than they used to have. They speed through their short set list, and the crowd cheers, raises their hands, and gives in to the weird mix of punk and grunge and R&B.

They sing themselves hoarse in that short time, and when it’s over—too fast, too soon—they leave the stage, clutching their guitars and drumsticks like precious jewels. The next band will start soon, replace them in the crowd’s memory, but it doesn’t matter. They did what they came to do.

Sometimes they stay to listen to the other bands and dance themselves silly, but tonight they’re forty minutes from home and they have a curfew. Out in the parking lot an older girl with lilies inked on her upper arm and locs to the middle of her back waits by a beat-up van. “Good set,” she says, and pulls out keys so they can load the drums into the back. “Dia, your turn to choose. McDonald’s or Dairy Queen?”

“DQ,” the curly-haired girl says. She craves a Blizzard.

The one in the jersey lifts it to wipe the sweat from her neck, sticky from in there. “They know us now, a little,” she said. “Hanna, get up.”

The blonde stands up from her crouch, unsteady. “You’re not my mom, Jules,” she says.

It’s late and dark, and Dia opens her red-painted mouth wide and yells a note out into the California night, a release of residual energy.

Their tattooed chauffeur laughs at the echo. “Come on, we gotta go.”

Jules rolls her eyes but doesn’t mean it. “Yes, Ciara.”

They pile into the front of the van, legs and arms and guitars. The blonde—Hanna—turns the radio to the nineties station and they wind the windows down and sing along to Mariah Carey as they peel off into the night.

 

Hanna kicked her locker, the noise echoing down the empty hall. “Useless piece of shit,” she said under her breath. “Open.”

She gave it a final wrench and it opened, finally, the mess inside spilling out. Perfect.

She only needed her paper for last period, the last assignment she had to turn in before officially being done, d-o-n-e, with high school. Hanna found it, folded it in two, and put it in her backpack. Then she gathered everything else—old notebooks, candy bar wrappers, letters she’d never given to her parents—and carried it down the hall, where she dropped it all into a trash can. It made a satisfying thud as it landed, and Hanna smiled to herself.

Four hundred and seven.

She took her lunch outside, found an empty table, and ate her lukewarm slice of pizza while she watched her classmates whirl around without her. Everybody was so excited: all week long she’d kept seeing people hugging each other and bursting into fake noisy crying, everybody taking a thousand selfies everywhere she looked. Like now—Ali Siberski and Priscilla Nguyen posing by the vending machine, faces pressed together as they snapped away. Michael Brewer signing some skinny guy’s yearbook. Gloria Vazquez sitting on the lap of some kid from the basketball team—Hanna couldn’t remember his name. She couldn’t remember a lot of people’s names, actually, and yet still she felt a tug of sadness that this was the last time she’d see most of them.

She rested her chin in her hands and watched. They all probably knew her name, for the wrong reasons. But they wouldn’t miss her after graduation. She wouldn’t actually miss them, either.

Hanna tipped her face up to the sun. Five days till graduation. Four hundred and seven days since she’d given up drinking.

Given up drinking. That made it sound so much easier than it had been. It didn’t take into account the blackouts and fallouts, the repeated attempts and failures to quit. The night her little sister had found Hanna in her bedroom in the middle of the night, not breathing, and called the ambulance all on her own. The night when Hanna had to be treated for alcohol poisoning for the second time, when she woke up from the blur of the past couple of years and finally realized that her only options were complete self-destruction or sobriety. The pleading from her parents, and the promising from herself, and the ending up in a rehab facility four hours away.

Four hundred and seven days. How long it had been since she’d realized that no one would be surprised if she drank herself to oblivion.

At least she had one thing to be proud of.

Hanna sat there until the bell rang, listening to her classmates’ chatter, screams of laughter, plans for some “major prank” that Hanna was sure was most definitely not going to be good. When they all started to stream out, on their way to their last few classes, she joined them, let herself be carried back into the building and through the halls. And on the stairs up to her English class, she passed them.

Dia Valentine and Jules Everett. The two people who really weren’t going to miss her after graduation.

Whatever, Hanna thought. Who even cares anymore?

They were gone in an instant, disappeared in a flash of long braids and ripped jeans, and Hanna kept on to class, shaking her head as she slipped into her seat and slammed her bag down.

“Good afternoon, Miss Adler.” Mr. Matthews looked at her pointedly. “If you could try not to destroy my classroom before the end of the year, that would be great.”

Hanna rolled her eyes as she sat down, looking up to see the teacher still watching her with this expression that was equal parts Can you believe this girl is actually graduating? and How soon can I get her out of my class? It was the same expression she’d seen on pretty much every teacher’s face this week, with the exception of the few who’d actually helped her get back on track last year.

Well, sorry, she wanted to say to Mr. Matthews right now. Sorry I’m not giving you one last thing to hold against me! And really, really sorry for not being the complete train wreck you expected me to be! You must be so sad to miss out on telling everyone how right you were.

Hanna bit her tongue. That kind of stuff got filed away in the Don’t Say This Out Loud folder in her head, the one where she put everything that would get her in more trouble than she needed.

“Sure,” was what she said instead. “I’ll try.”

A few people snickered at that but Hanna ignored them, searching for a pen as Mr. Matthews walked up and down, handing out their final exam papers. “You have forty-five minutes,” he said. “Once you’re done, you can go, but make sure to hand your papers in on the way out. Okay?”

Hanna flipped to the first question: Compare and contrast the presentation of loneliness in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Easy.

 

“Dia Gabrielle Valentine!”

Dia rubbed her red-painted lips together before fixing a smile on her face and marching across the stage to meet Principal Cho.

Finally, she thought. Four years of one-a.m. assignments and sleep-deprived morning classes, Jesse explaining math to her and panic-inducing finals, all over now.

All ceremony long the clapping had been constant, punctured by an occasional cheer or ear-splitting whistle. Now it warmed Dia and sent a zip of staticky excitement down her spine, because everybody out there was clapping for her. She’d done it. She’d actually graduated.

How’s that for a Fuck You?

Dia shook Principal Cho’s hand, the last time she’d ever be face-to-face with her, probably, and the principal gave her this wide smile.

“Congratulations, Dia,” she said, and the unending applause played a perfect backing track to her words. “You’ve earned it.”

“Thank you,” Dia said, and as she wrapped her fingers around the diploma she smiled hard enough to hurt.

She looked out into the rows and rows of families: Jules’s parents and her brother, Danny, were right up front, and the sun hit right in her eyes as Dia searched farther back. She had to squint but there they were—her parents, cheering and standing up so Alexa could be hoisted high in the air.

She waved as she moved on, praying she didn’t trip in her heels, and then she was down the steps and in line with the rest of her class. And then they were tossing caps in the air and everyone was yelling and Dia turned her face to the open blue sky and finally, finally, finally.

 

Once the ceremony was done, the formality fell away. Families and graduates mingled together, a singular mass on the field normally reserved for the girls’ soccer team. Dia found Jules quickly, and they ducked out of the way of somebody’s family photo session. “Can you believe it?” Dia laughed. “We’re free! We’re actually free.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jules said. “So free. Until we have to go to work tomorrow.”

Dia waved her off. “Work, shmurk. At least work doesn’t involve ten-page papers on Congress or constant fill-in-the-bubble tests.”

“No,” Jules said. “Just getting yelled at by people who think they’re better than us and a hideous amount of polyester.”

Dia almost tripped as her heels sank into the grass, a last-second grab for Jules’s arm the only thing stopping her from face planting. “These shoes, I swear.”

“This everything,” Jules said, shaking her head so her box braids snaked over her shoulders. “I can’t wait to get out of this gown.”

“I can’t wait to get out of this dress,” Dia said, tugging at the stretchy green fabric that clung a little too much to her every in and out. “I feel like any second could be a nip slip.”

“The Valentine tits,” Jules said, cracking a smile and raising her voice. “They will not be denied!”

“Shut up!” Dia swatted at Jules, but she was laughing too much to get her aim right. She should have bought something new, but it seemed like a waste to spend money on a fancy dress she’d wear only once when there was so much else she needed.

“Okay, I have to go find my parents,” Jules said, sounding less than enthused. “You should hear my dad today. ‘It’s your graduation! It’s a big deal! You’re going to college!’ And I’m like, ‘Dad, I’m going to community college. The college that you teach at. I’ll still be tripping over your shoes every morning. Calm down.’”

“Don’t get down on us,” Dia said, narrowing her eyes at her friend. “This is a big deal. Hello, we are no longer high school students. We are college students. Sure, we’re still going to live at home and we’ll see your dad on campus, but we did it. We got ourselves here, so stop shitting on it.”

Jules rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “It could be worse. But it could be better, too.”

Dia gave her a warning look. “Don’t,” she said. “Didn’t we agree not to play this game anymore?” The game where they fantasized about the life they could maybe have now, if things hadn’t fallen apart so spectacularly. The life where they were leaving for LA tomorrow, instead of looking forward to a summer of working their minimum-wage jobs and warming milk at three a.m.

It used to be fun to imagine that life, but now it was depressing, and so Dia had said they couldn’t do it anymore.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jules said. “Am I not allowed to dream?”

“Only for today,” Dia conceded. “And then we go back to reality.”

“Fine,” Jules said. “Are we still going to the party?”

Dia nodded. “Come over before so I can do your makeup.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jules gave a mock salute. “Later.”

Dia watched her walk away, and then she heard her name being called and turned to the sound. Her mom and dad, Nina and Max, waved, Alexa propped up on her mom’s hip. “Over here!”

Dia steeled herself to cross the grass in her heels again, and began walking over. Alexa squirmed out of Nina’s grip, straining toward Dia as she approached. Her mom lowered the toddler to the ground and Alexa took a second to find her balance before breaking into a run. “Mama!”

“Hi, baby.” Dia crouched, holding her hands out toward her daughter. “C’mere!”

She ran into Dia’s arms, and Dia swept her up before peppering her apple cheeks with kisses. “Did you see me, Lex?”

The little girl nodded. “And I saw Juju,” she said before jamming her thumb into her mouth. Dia caught her smile before it really started—she knew that habit needed to be broken before it became a real problem, but god, if it didn’t look cute. “No, no,” she said gently, and eased Lex’s hand from her face. “We don’t do that.”

“Oh, leave her be,” her dad said. “It’s not going to kill her.”

“No,” Dia said. “But it is going to mess with her teeth, and in ten years I’ll be paying for braces.”

“She’s right, Max,” her mom said, smoothing down her cropped, relaxed, jet-black hair.

“Point taken,” he said with an easy smile. That was how it always went: her mom laid down the law and her dad gave in to whatever her mom said, too easy-going to ever want to cause an argument. Her mom the engineer, former military, sharp and strong, and her dad the musician, now EMT: an opposites-attract pair, always had been, always would be.

Her dad took out his phone. “Now, smile nice for me, both of you. Lala, say cheese.”

“Cheese!” Lex yelled, and Dia laughed.

“Okay, okay,” she said. Dia shifted the baby onto her hip and straightened the bow around her curls. She put on her brightest smile as her dad snapped picture after picture, hoping that her boobs weren’t spilling out and that there wasn’t lipstick on her teeth and that she didn’t look too much like she was about to cry.

Because she really had done it. Graduated! Two years ago, no one had believed she could. Or, not no one: Jules had been behind her all the way, and her parents, and Jesse. Principal Cho, too, pulling strings and signing off on extra credits and making sure Dia got her chance. Without them, I wouldn’t be here, she thought.

But everybody else? People she’d called her friends, teachers she’d liked, her mom’s coworkers? They’d rolled their eyes when Dia had said she was still going to graduate and go to college. When she insisted that yeah, she had a baby, but that didn’t mean those things were completely impossible.

You have no idea, people said. Having a baby changes everything. She imagined them thinking, You’re going to end up on welfare anyway, why put it off? And Stupid slut. Way to ruin your life.

“Dia!” her mom called. “Look happy, huh? It’s your big day!”

Alexa laid her head on Dia’s chest, and Dia raised her chin, her skin almost vibrating with all the love she had for this little girl. Yeah, having Lex had made things more difficult, and yeah, she could have made a different choice, but in the haze of everything back then, this was what she’d decided on. And when she looked into her daughter’s big, brown eyes, she knew that she wouldn’t change the way things were. Not for anything.

Eventually Dia’s cheeks began to ache from all the smiling, and Alexa began to fuss, her irritable I’m hungry and I could use my words but I don’t want to whimper. “Are you done?” Dia said through her rictus smile. “Is ten thousand pictures enough, or do you need more?”

“Don’t be smart,” Max said, but he put his phone away and held up his hands. “I’m done, okay? Forgive me for wanting to preserve this momentous occasion.”

Dia tipped her head back to feel the sun, warm on her face. The rubbing of her shoes, her too-tight dress; the slippery gown and crisp diploma; the scent of cut grass in the air—she didn’t need a photograph to remember any of it.

 

Jules rang the bell only as a formality, and then walked right in, announcing her presence as she opened the refrigerator. “I’m getting a soda,” she called out.

“Jules!” Dia’s dad came into the kitchen, a look of mild annoyance on his face. “You treat my house like a hotel.”

Jules gave her best impression of an apologetic smile. “Only because you said I could.”

“Hmm,” Max said. “I might start regretting that.” But then he laughed. “I didn’t get to say congratulations earlier, to my second-favorite graduate.”

“It’s okay, Dia’s not here,” Jules said, pulling her mass of braids over her shoulder. “You can be honest.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “I remember when you were a kid and actually showed me some respect,” he said. “Where did it all go wrong?”

“Ask Dia.”

He shook his head. “You hungry?”

“I’m good,” Jules said. “We had a ton of food at the house. Thanks, though.” Her mom had been cooking the whole day before: stewed chicken and rice and curry goat, mac pie and roast lamb, a true Barbados feast in California. They’d crowded around the kitchen table and Jules had eaten her body weight in all of it while her parents got all teary-eyed and started reminiscing about Jules’s birth. That always led into the story of how they met, and then they’d started dancing around the kitchen, and Danny had rolled his eyes, but Jules loved to watch her parents’ love.

Perfect celebration.

“All right,” she said. “I guess I better go get ready for this party.”

“At least act excited,” Max said. “It’s your graduation night. You only get one.”

“It’ll be the same as every other party we’ve ever been to,” Jules said, shrugging.

“Go anyway,” Max said, running a hand over his locs. “Take Dia and make her have fun, for once.”

“Fine,” Jules said, grabbing her soda and heading toward the stairs. “I’ll try!”

Jules didn’t knock before entering Dia’s bedroom either, her friend at her computer, her honorary niece scribbling on the floor. Dia looked up at her, immediate annoyance on her face. “I have nothing to wear.”

“Juju!” Alexa stretched her arms up toward Jules, hands grabbing at the air. “Up!”

Jules did as she was commanded, scooping Lex up from the floor and settling the baby’s weight on her hip. “Hi, sweet one,” she said, nuzzling her nose against Lex’s cheek. Then she looked at Dia. “Don’t even start with me.”

Dia stood. “Have you seen that show with the two girls and they’re dating, but one of them’s a spy?”

Jules arched one eyebrow. “I’m an eighteen-year-old lesbian with internet access. I’ve seen everything that even hints at two girls being into each other. The GIFs are imprinted on my eyelids.”

“Okay, well, in one episode the tall one has this amazing red jumpsuit. That’s what I want to wear.”

“Let’s start with something you actually own,” Jules said.

Dia made a face. “I don’t know if I even want to go to this thing anymore.”

“Me neither,” Jules said, sitting on the edge of Dia’s bed. She let Alexa loose on the comforter and shrugged her backpack off. “But we promised.”

“Who?”

“Each other.” In the cafeteria, two weeks ago, looking at the text invite on Dia’s phone. When do we ever go anywhere? Dia had said. Me with Lex, you working all the time. This’ll be our last high school party ever.

I’m so sick of folding jeans, Jules said. Bagging people’s groceries. One day I’m going to do something different.

Of course you are.

Okay, Jules said. So let’s go to this fucking party.

Dia steepled her fingers underneath her chin, and then nodded. “Okay. We’ll go. And if it sucks, we get to leave after an hour. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Right,” Dia said. “Now let me work my magic.”

They set up the way they always did—or always had, Jules amended, back when they used to party and go to shows and roll around the streets of their town without a care in the world. Electro remixes and old-school punk playing through the speakers, Dia’s makeup spread across the bed, a bag of chips within easy reach. Dia eased Jules’s braids—fresh for graduation, the ten hours and numb ass and hypnotic click-click-click of Stephy’s acrylics whipping through her hair oh-so-worth it—into a high pony, then started on Jules’s makeup. Moments like these were what made Jules glad that they were both staying home for college: being apart, being without her best friend, the girl she’d loved since preschool? It would have felt like losing a part of herself.

Jules examined her face in the mirror when Dia was done: a simple flick of black liner on each eye and her thick brows framing them, clear lip gloss, and something shiny gold on her deep-brown cheeks. She got dressed in black jeans from her mall job, hacked at with a razor to make them look like the expensive ones from the store three doors down, and a gray shirt with the sleeves cut off, dipping low enough beneath each armpit to flash her black bra.

She played with Alexa while Dia painted her own eyelids deep blue and her lips a bright, shiny red. “I heard High and Mighty Kallas are playing at Revelry tonight,” Jules said, making a polka-dotted lion dance with a robot as Lex clapped her hands. “If we get out of this party early enough, we could catch them. I haven’t been to a show in forever.” She sighed with longing. Cheap beer and sweaty dancing and pounding, punky music? It was so good and she missed it so much. The music scene was real in Golden Grove; Jules and Dia had been going to backyard shows and all-ages clubs for years before they’d picked up their own instruments and become part of it.

(Jules made herself stop. That was before, and this was now. They had no band. They had no Hanna. It made Jules ache thinking about it all.)

“HMK are completely unoriginal and you know it,” Dia said. “They’re the worst Glory Alabama rip-off.”

Jules snorted. Anyone could be, and often was, labeled a GA rip-off by them—when your town had an amazing band that actually broke out, headlined every big festival in the US and overseas, played with legends like Sleater-Kinney and Melissa Auf der Maur, featured on the cover of not only Rolling Stone but fucking Vogue, too, there was a certain loyalty. Jules smiled, ready to drop a bomb on Dia. “You know they’re touring soon, right?”

“What? Glory Alabama?” Dia said, and her voice jumped an octave. “Shut up. Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?”

“First tour in five years,” Jules said. “First time back here in almost ten.”

Dia widened her eyes. “Oh my god, we’re going,” she said. “Oh my god, we’re going to get to see them? I don’t care how much tickets are, I will work a month straight of morning shifts, whatever. We need to be there.”

“I thought you might like that,” Jules said with a laugh, and Lex laughed with her. “We can be the creeper fans who wait outside their tour bus, if you want.”

“That is my dream,” Dia said. She got up and opened her closet, taking out a plain white shirt, which she looked at for a second before putting back. “Is a dress too much?” she asked. “I have no idea anymore. But I want to look hot. Not like a mom.”

“You are a mom,” Jules said, glancing over. “A hot mom.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Wear whatever you want,” Jules said, and she sat up. “Y’know, it’s really only going to be people from school at this party.”

“Okay.” Dia stepped out of her shorts and held a blue-and-white vintage-ish dress in front of herself. “What about this?”

“Yeah, great,” Jules said impatiently. “I’m only saying, if you were maybe trying to look especially good for a certain specific somebody—”

Dia pulled the dress over her head, coming up laughing. “I’m not.”

“And,” Jules continued, “if that certain somebody happened to be one Jesse Mackenzie . . .”

“I already said I’m not.” Dia smoothed her hands over the striped skirt of the dress. “Juliana, a person can want to put on nice makeup and dress up and look good for reasons other than wanting to impress somebody,” Dia said. “A person can want to put on nice makeup and dress up and look good solely for themselves.”

Jules held up her hands. “All right, I take it back.”

“You should.” Dia turned her attention to Alexa, her entire face suddenly beaming. “What do you say, Lex? Is Mommy good to go?”

Lex opened her mouth in a big yawn, a squeak her only response. “You and me both, kid,” Dia said with a laugh, and Jules reached over to tickle the baby until she was giggling wildly, too, all three of them exited and happy.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jules said eventually, breathless. “One last time, right?”

 

The bus dropped them off on the edge of a wide cul-de-sac lined with tall trees, branches still in the warm night, and Jules stared up at them. This was the Nice Side of Town, the side of Golden Grove where the big houses had glittering blue pools and cutesy mailboxes. The cars on the drive were shiny, brilliant, brand new; the lawns were green and dotted with flowers.

It made Jules feel small sometimes, how awed she was by these things, but wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in your pretty house, and look out at your beautiful yard, and feel proud?

That was what she really wanted. That was what she secretly feared she’d never have.

A pretty, happy, shiny life.

Dia was already walking down the street, and Jules took several long strides to catch up with her, bouncing in her fresh Nikes. “I changed my mind,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go to the show. It’ll be so much better than this.”

“We’re already here!” Dia whirled around, the skirt of her dress spinning, and she looked like some fifties movie star. “We made a deal! It’s going to be fine.”

“It’s going to be annoying.” Jules slowed as they approached the house with the music pounding out from the open front door. “But whatever. You want your party, you get your party.”

“Attagirl.” Dia hooked her arm through Jules’s. “Chin up, kid,” she said, an impression of the old stars she looked like tonight. “Let’s have fun.”

Fun, Jules thought. I can do that.

Once they were inside it didn’t take long for Jules to remember that yeah, parties were annoying—people spilled drinks on you and yelled way too loud in your ear—but they were also loose, wild, open. In the big living room two guys—one on drums, one behind a synth—made loud, bass-heavy music, impossible not to nod your head to.

Jules watched them play. She recognized them from around town, even disconnected as she was right now. They’d won the Sun City Originals contest last year, too, the contest that she and Dia and Hanna had always planned to enter, before everything. It was like a rite of passage around town and beyond to at least try to win. Not for the prize—five hundred dollars and your song on the station playlist was cool, but it was more about bragging rights. So that one day in the future, when you were selling out tours, you could say that was where you got your start and Look at Us Now.

“Jules.” Dia was at her elbow. “I’m getting a drink. What do you want?”

Jules pulled her attention away from the music and raised her voice. “Whatever,” she said. “And lots of it.”

Because Dia was right: this was their last-ever high school party, the last time they’d see some of these people, and didn’t they deserve to have a good time?

Yes, Jules decided, and so she let the girl she’d sat next to in freshman English spin her around the living room to that slick electronica. She took the shot offered by Oscar Rush and followed him out onto the deck. She watched Oscar and his buddies as they threw themselves fully clothed into the pool, and she stepped closer to the edge. She considered jumping herself, and thought about what it would be like to hit the cool water and disappear under the surface, how long she could swim around down there before her lungs began to ache.

Jules crouched down and dipped her hand into the blue. Oscar was dunking some kid under, water splashing everywhere, and Jules laughed. She looked up, searching for Dia. But the gaze she found was not Dia’s.

It was Hanna Adler’s.

They stared at each other.

Jules hadn’t thought she would be here. Wasn’t sure why she had thought that, because it used to be that Hanna was the life of any and every party. Why would that be different? Just because Jules wasn’t at those parties anymore didn’t mean that Hanna wasn’t.

Jules stood and hitched up her jeans. Her skin was hot to the touch and her mouth had that sour-sweet nervous taste. How do I look to her? she thought. To Jules, Hanna looked . . . like Hanna. An inch of dark roots in her blond hair, dark circles beneath her eyes, the same way she looked every time Jules glimpsed her in the packed hallway at school. Well—that wouldn’t happen anymore. Maybe this was it: maybe Hanna was one of those people Jules would never see again. That didn’t stop the twitch in the back of her mind, the reminder that this girl used to be her friend.

But tonight wasn’t meant for her to fixate on things from the past that she couldn’t change. Or people, who wouldn’t change.

A touch on her shoulder, and Jules turned away from Hanna’s empty stare. “Hey.” Dia handed her a cup filled to overflowing with a pinky-orange liquid. “What are you doing?”

“I—” Jules started to say I saw Hanna, she’s here, but she stopped herself. What was the point? That was all so old now, the three of them. Forget it. “Nothing. Waiting.”

Dia tipped her head to the side, her eyes so shiny and excited. “For what?”

Jules knocked her cup against Dia’s and downed the contents—too warm, sticky, and syrupy but with enough sting to perk her up—before smiling at Dia. “Isn’t that the question?”

 

Elliot has no idea who this house belongs to.

He has no idea whose party this is.

But he knows he’s having a good time.

“Nolan,” he says—or yells, maybe—“what time is it?”

Nolan checks his phone. “Ten fifteen.”

“Okay!” Elliot has to be home by eleven, according to his dad, and midnight, according to his mom. He’ll roll in sometime between the two, probably, and if he’s lucky he won’t get grounded.

He wanders outside, sipping the punch that stings as it goes down. It’s packed out here, all these people crowding a makeshift stage where a band plays. He might not know where he is but these parties are all the same: music outside, drinks in the kitchen, a circle of stoners in an off-limits bedroom.

A punch hits his arm and he swears. “Kwame, you asshole.”

Kwame salutes. “I’m out, man. Early shift in the morning. You coming to Mike’s tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

He’s left alone again, and pulls a hand through his curls as he gets closer to the band. It’s these three girls going hell for leather up there, and the music’s good, but what catches Elliot right away is the girl in the front, singing.

It’s not just that she’s hot—though she is. Short and curvy and in these skin-tight jeans that make Elliot think about pulling them off and—

He shifts. Calm down.

She’s up there, playing her red guitar like she wants to hurt it, and singing in this raspy voice, and winding her body like no one’s watching her. But Elliot is.

Then he looks around and realizes: so is everyone else.

 

Later.

Elliot’s trying to ignore Nolan arguing with him over their last baseball game, the mistakes Elliot apparently made that cost them the win, his tendency to freeze. He’s trying to ignore Nolan, because on the other side of the yard the girl from the band stands right in his eye line.

“Uh-huh,” he says, nodding without looking at Nolan. “What-

ever.”

He can’t hear the girl talking, but she’s using her hands to tell a story, drawing swooping circles in the air, and the other band members are watching her intently. She looks like the kind of person you have to listen to, he thinks. If it was him standing in front of her, watching those dizzying hands, he’d be listening.

Go over, he thinks. Say hello. Ask her name.

Is that an asshole move? Butting in while she’s busy talking? Or is it okay? He won’t know her if he doesn’t talk to her. But if he talks to her she might not want to know him.

Elliot cuts Nolan off. “I’m getting a drink,” he says. “You want one?”

“I’m good.”

In this stranger’s kitchen he grabs a half-empty bottle of rum, then puts it back. The clock on the microwave says 11:20.

Hi, he practices in his head. You were really good.

I like your band.

I like your band? What is he, twelve?

Hi. Good set.

Better?

Hi. I’m Elliot.

A coppery-brown hand reaches for the stack of cups at the same time Elliot does and he looks up to see the band girl right there. “Sorry,” she says with a shake of her head, and the tight spirals of her curls fan around her face. “You go.”

“No,” Elliot says, his mouth dry. “After you.”

She smiles at him, creases appearing around her eyes. “Thanks.”

Silence.

Well, not silence: the noise of other people coming for drinks, more music outside. But silence from Elliot, his closed mouth.

“You know you’re on the wrong coast.”

“What?”

The girl finishes filling her cup and then points at Elliot’s chest. “Biggie,” she says, and he looks down at his shirt, The Notorious B.I.G. in his chains and crown, and for a moment Elliot thinks she’s being serious, her face is dead serious, but then she cracks. “It’s a joke.”

Elliot manages a laugh and pulls a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he can’t stop doing tonight. “Right,” he says. “It’s my mom’s fault. She’s from New York.”

“I guess you get a pass,” the girl says, and then she sees something over his shoulder and her face clouds over. “God, that was fast.”

Elliot turns right as a white girl in supershort shorts stumbles into the kitchen. “There you are!” the girl sings, swaying slightly. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Hanna, what are you doing?” The band girl has forgotten about Elliot entirely, he can tell, as she hurries to the girl he now recognizes as the drummer from earlier. “Whoa! Okay, it’s time to call Ciara. You’re going home.”

They’re gone in a second and Elliot’s left kicking himself. He should’ve taken his chance.

This is exactly what Nolan means when he says Elliot freezes.

 

It’s 12:17, according to Elliot’s phone. He’s definitely going to be grounded.

He waits outside for Nolan, still in the house flirting with this guy with two sharp bars through his eyebrow. It’s a hot night, the kind where you wake up in a layer of your own stale sweat, and Elliot holds his hand out into the empty air.

“We need rain.” The voice comes from somewhere to his left, and then the band girl steps into his sight. “California’s thirsty.”

“Right,” Elliot says, and winces. Is he capable of saying anything multisyllabic to this girl? He clears his throats, shoves his hands in his pockets. “Is your friend okay?”

The girl makes a face that Elliot can only describe as Over It. “Yeah,” she says. “Too much to drink. She does it all the time. It’s fine.” The way she says It’s fine tells Elliot it’s anything but.

“You played tonight, right?” he says next. “You were good.”

She shoots him a look, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I know.”

Confident. Elliot decides to match her. “I’m Elliot,” he says. “What’s your name?”

She looks him up and down like she’s vetting him, deciding whether to trust him or not. Eventually she smiles and looks right at him, these deep, dark eyes, and Elliot feels like she’s laid him open right there on the street. “Hi, Elliot,” she says. “I’m Dia.”

 

Hanna matched her steps to the beat of the frenetic drums pounding in her headphones, stepping on every crack and flattened piece of gum. Bad luck couldn’t hurt her any more than it already had.

Four hundred and twelve days, she thought. No; it was after midnight now. So four hundred and thirteen.

Hanna ducked into the alley, which was dark enough to make her clutch her keys between her fingers. It had been a complete waste of time, that party, and Hanna had known it even before she’d walked in to the sight of Oscar Rush dancing shirtless on his parents’ dining table. She had only gone because everybody else was going, and did she really want to remember her graduation as another night she spent alone at home in her bedroom?

In hindsight: yes.

The moon was a skinny sliver above Hanna’s head, whatever light it gave off masked by neon streetlights. She skipped through track after track as she walked, sometimes letting no more than three seconds elapse before moving on, searching for something to set her nerves alight. On Hayworth Boulevard she let Brody Dalle scream about underworlds and ghost towns, and the perpetual itch that crawled up and down her spine felt satisfied, for three short minutes. But then the song was over and the yearning flooded back and she stopped, to wonder, to stare up at that crescent moon.

If she’d known Jules and Dia were going to be there, she definitely wouldn’t have gone. But from now on, she wouldn’t have to see them, would she? At school it had been hard to avoid them, even though she tried; there were only so many places to go, and she couldn’t miss them walking the halls together. And as much as she pretended it didn’t, it hurt—hurt deep, far down, in the place she stored those shattered pieces of her heart, next to the guilt. Because it used to be the three of them, always. Sharing fries and going to watch the BMXers pulling tricks after school. Sleeping three to a bed and switching clothes and rolling into places like they were the most important people in the entire world. Singing themselves hoarse, throats raw, on makeshift stages in people’s backyards. Those were their moments, Hanna and Dia and Jules, always.

Until they weren’t.

For four hundred and thirteen days, she’d been sober. For all that time, plus eight months more, they had not been friends. Things had changed, fissures and cracks becoming an all-out chasm so quietly and slowly that Hanna almost missed it. And when she’d realized, it had been too late. Nothing she could fix.

And she was alone.

Hanna sped up as she started down the long hill that eventually turned into her street. That was then and this was now, and now she was free. She didn’t have to see them anymore, as long as she avoided their parts of town. And in September she’d start working full time, doing admin at a medical company, and she’d save all the money she made, and in a few years she’d be able to leave. And leave so much behind—her ex-friends, her mom’s constant criticism, this whole town.

The music in her ears sped up, some discofied girl band, and Hanna matched her pace to it. She was almost running when she passed the Dempseys’ place with its front yard of wildflowers, the biggest burst of color on the block. Finally her key slipped soundlessly into the lock of her own house and Hanna stepped inside.

It was still and quiet, and Hanna exhaled into the comfort of it. “You are okay,” she whispered out loud, fast breaths. “You are here. You are okay.”

She waited until her heart had slowed to its normal rhythm before climbing the stairs. She bypassed her bedroom and eased open the door plastered in pretty flower cutouts.

Molly’s eyes flickered open as Hanna entered, as she slipped off her shoes and stole under the covers into her little sister’s bed. “Hey, birdy.”

“Hey, birdbrain.”

Hanna flicked Molly’s arm. “Shut up.”

Molly’s laugh turned into a yawn, her tongue peeking out catlike. Molly hated all that, Hanna knew—the nicknames and being told how adorable she was—now that she was thirteen. But being annoying was Hanna’s prerogative as big sister, right?

“Did you have a good time?” Molly whispered, her eyes shining bright in the dark. “Were there cute boys there? Or cute girls? Did anyone get in a fight?”

“Parties aren’t like they show them on TV, Moll.” Hanna tucked her hands under her armpits and screwed up her face. “Trust me, you’ll understand once you get to high school. They’re another ridiculous way for people to decide who’s cool and who isn’t, and to get drunk so they can do things they don’t have the courage for otherwise.”

Molly’s eyes searched her face, cautious trust in that look. “You didn’t, right?” she asked, and her voice held the fear that her face did not. “Get drunk?”

See, she might be thirteen, but sometimes she sounded thirty. “No,” Hanna said, and god, the crushing wave of guilt that broke with Molly’s words, it could have drowned her. She wasn’t really asking, Hanna knew; Molly knew her drunk. She wouldn’t have to ask. It was more like she was checking, making sure, that she could really believe the sister in front of her eyes. And Hanna knew that was nobody’s fault but her own. That was what happened when you let your little sister find you unconscious among empty bottles. “No, I didn’t. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Molly said. “Just wondering.” She rolled onto her back, blond hair mussed around her face, and did her trademark shoulder-shrug-eye-roll combo. “If you don’t have anything good to tell me, then why did you wake me up?”

“It’s my right as a big sister.” Hanna smacked a kiss on Molly’s cheek before slipping out of the twin bed. “It’s late,” she said. “Go to sleep, okay? I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Will you go with me to the bookstore tomorrow?” Molly widened her eyes. “Please?”

“After work, sure,” Hanna said. “Whatever you want. Now go to sleep.”

She left the room and pulled the door almost closed, and then she stood there watching through the gap as Molly fell asleep, a ball beneath the covers. Only when Hanna was satisfied that her sister was absolutely asleep did she go to her own room. She stripped to her underwear, put on an old shirt, and climbed into bed.

What she’d told Molly was true: parties weren’t like they were on TV. Hanna used to love them—they’d been fun for her. Not so much for everyone around her, having to hold her hair back and pick her up off the floor and rescue her from her whirlwind of destruction. But being drunk made her feel invincible, gave her cover for so many things. She said whatever she wanted, she did anything and everything that she got the urge to, and when she fucked up (often, and in big ways), she’d brush it off: “I was drunk! It’s no big deal.”

Until it was a big deal, a rubber tube down her throat, no-oxygen-to-her-brain kind of big deal.

Hanna had thought that getting sober would make everything better. Turn her into this shiny, new Hanna. But she’d realized pretty quickly that the girl who said every little thing that came into her head, who did whatever she wanted without thinking, who was careless and said and did things that really hurt the people around her—that wasn’t because of the drinking. It was her, the way she was wired.

She’d thought she’d be happy sober. But her problems didn’t

go away; they shifted. Now she was always working out how to keep herself in check, to not say those awful things, to not act out.

How to rewire herself so her instinct was not complete and utter self-destruction. How to not let the guilt and resentment and anger sweep her up and carry her to the point of giving up, giving in, letting herself drink again because at least then she could forget about it all.

Hanna sighed into the dark. Every night now this happened to her—no sleep, thoughts racing. So she did what she usually did: got out of bed and crouched to yank open the bottom drawer of her nightstand. Inside, thin black notebooks stacked up, some battered and creased, some shiny-new.

Hanna pulled out one with the spine cracked but not yet falling apart, and a pen that always leaked black ink all over her fingers. This was the best way she had to combat the self-loathing—well, the best that wasn’t relapsing. She sat with her back against her bed and flicked to a clean page, past all the words that sometimes felt like poetry, sometimes self-indulgent ramblings, but in the end, were always songs.

She and Dia and Jules weren’t friends anymore, no. They didn’t make music anymore, no. But they did not own her writing; the lyrics that came from her brain and heart and pit of her stomach were Hanna’s and Hanna’s alone.

Without thinking too much about it, she scratched out a first line.

She wears your face—I’ve seen her.

Add This Is What It Feels Like to your Goodreads shelf!

 

The post Friendship Reigns Supreme in This Exclusive Excerpt of ‘This Is What It Feels Like’ appeared first on Epic Reads.

Hey Epic Readers. Raise your hand if your favorite thing about a new month is the pile of new books headed your way. Are everyone’s hands raised? Good. Because we’ve got both hands up.

Now that it’s November, it’s time to start compiling the epic wish list of books you’d love to get for the holidays. As always, we’ve got you covered over here at Epic Reads. After the one thousand and one books that came out in October, November is a bit of a lighter month, but it’s still an exciting time as far as reading is concerned. Check out the video below where Michael walking us through this month’s new releases!

 

Watch our November book haul!

 

Find the books featured in this haul!

Dear Evan Hansen  by Val Emmich, with Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul
Glass Sword Collectors Edition  by Victoria Aveyard
Dumplin’ Movie Tie-In Edition  by Julie Murphy
This Splintered Silence  by Kayla Olson
Four Three Two One  by Courtney Stevens
This Is What It Feels Like  by Rebecca Barrow
Your Own Worst Enemy by Gordon Jack
The Resolutions by Mia Garcia
Frozen Reign  by Kathryn Purdie
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

The post Watch Our November Book Haul! appeared first on Epic Reads.

Listen, the Red Queen books are an emotional roller coaster that we never wanted to end.

From the start of book one, straight through the end of War Storm, we experienced more feelings than we could keep track of. And it’s not just Mare’s journey into self-trust and -belief and knowing that she’s the badass heroine we’ve identified with from the start. So many other characters had chances to shine—Cal’s realization, Evangeline’s redemption… and so many more. We experienced so many feelings in fact, that there are some we didn’t even know existed until we read this action-packed series. So, we wanted to see if you all felt the same!

Below is our list of feelings you’ll only understand if you’ve read this electrifying series.

 

*EXTREME SPOILER WARNING*

 

19 Feelings You’ll Only Understand If You’ve Read the Red Queen Series

 

1. Genuinely not knowing how to feel about Maven

He’s a villain who’s done some atrocious things, so we should hate him. But we’re also lowkey obsessed with him?

 

2. Wishing you could have every power (and outfit) that showed up on page

We don’t know what we want more—Evangeline’s magnetron powers or the razored white feather and silver dress she wears after being cast aside by Maven.

 

3. The utter shock at Maven’s betrayal as things went from bad to unbelievably worse

The reveal! The beheading! The battle of the bones!

 

4. The wide-eyed horror when Mare found Maven’s first note

Just when we thought we’d have a break from the devastation Red Queen‘s ending wrought, we get this?!

 

5. Stanning #MareCal even when things looked bleak

Mare and Cal’s relationship didn’t always look endgame, but that didn’t stop us from hoping for the best!

 

6. Knowing that not everyone could survive… but still reading with all of your fingers crossed

We really should have known after the first book, but the end of Glass Sword still caught us off guard…

 

7. That hybrid-cheer-slash-sigh-of-relief you released when Mare ends Queen Elara

Sure it’s dark but we couldn’t help it, Queen Elara was a nightmare. Though our momentary joy was quickly eclipsed by the fear for what would come next.

 

8. Simultaneously wanting to happy and sad cry when thinking about Farley’s baby

Happy cry because Clara is a moment of happiness and light during such a dark time but sad cry because you know who won’t be there to see her grow up!

 

9. Getting annoyed at Mare’s imprisonment… and then getting annoyed at yourself for getting annoyed, because she was really suffering

We couldn’t help but silently beg Mare to escape and end her own imprisonment, but every time we’d just be like, okay, you know what? She wants it to end too!

 

10. Being confused in the best way when you first found yourself rooting for Evangeline

Getting to read from her perspective was a revelation, honestly!

 

11. Being completely thrilled when Evangeline helped Mare escape during the wedding

And this was the exact moment that we felt validated in wanting to root for her all along.

 

12. The total jaw drop when Cal’s grandma showed up

We’ll never forget the moment Nanabel stepped on the scene.

 

13. The gasp you definitely took when Mare chose rebellion over romance

“You’re not alone, you have your crown,” is permanently seared into our memory.

 

14. Trying to de-stress during battles by remembering when Cal taught Mare how to dance

Considering your favorite Red Queen moments, we know we’re not alone with this one…

 

15. Total pride in our fave, Evangeline, when she stood up to her parents

And though we’ll never fully forgive Ptolemus for Shade, this was a step in the right direction.

 

16. Embracing your book nerd giddiness when you found shout outs to other YA books

Remember Caz and Brecker? Here’s everything else you might’ve missed!

 

17. Embarrassment every time you remember Kilorn… and realize you forgot he existed again

WE’RE SORRY KILORN WE PROMISE WE REALLY DO LOVE YOU!

 

18. But then absolute relief when he managed to survive the war

That one battle was WAY TOO CLOSE for comfort.

 

19. The strange, bittersweet peace you had immediately after finishing the series

At least we have Broken Throne to look forward to?

The post 19 Feelings You’ll Only Understand If You’ve Read the Red Queen Series appeared first on Epic Reads.