Month: April 2025

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 4/7/25

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
For readers of all ages

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop we host which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts.

We encourage you to write your own post sharing what you’re reading, link up below, leave a comment, and support other IMWAYR bloggers by visiting and commenting on at least three of the other linked blogs.

Happy reading!

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Thursday: Sofia’s YA Book Nook: How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

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Kellee

Here is what I’ve read since March 10th:

Middle Grade

Young Adult

  • Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets by Chelsea Ichaso: When Piper jumps from “Suicide Point,” her sister, Savannah, at first blames herself, but after finding a strange note in her sister’s locker, she begins to notice that something isn’t right with the whole situation. Savannah then inserts herself into Piper’s old life in hopes of finding out the truth, and man, the truth is more twisted than you’ll even guess–the book was hard to put down, full of twists, and quite surprising.
  • All Better Now by Neal Shusterman: Neal Shusterman does it again. His concepts are always so brilliant. This one is about a COVID-esque type illness that leads to pure contentment if you survive. But is contentment really the best for humans? That is one of the questions that Shusterman asks as we follow characters who are on very different sides of the coin: someone who wants to spread the illness to everyone and someone who is willing to anything to stop it. Another 5 stars for Shusterman!
  • She’s Gone by David Bell: Hunter wakes up in the hospital after homecoming to learn that he has been in an accident and his girlfriend, Chloe, disappeared from the car. Hunter doesn’t remember the night at all, but everyone suspects that he killed Chloe; however, Hunter knows that he would never do that. This leads to a deadly investigation that leads to the surprising truth. (I do need to make one note that this author did have a side story of my least favorite trope which makes me like the book less than I would have if he’d stayed away from it…)
  • You’re Dead to Me by Amy Christine Parker: When Ruby sees the ghost of herself, she knows that she is going to die on prom night, and with her whole town turned against her, it could be any number of people who kill her; however, she is going to do everything in her power to save herself. Parker did such a great job of mixing paranormal into this murder mystery–it is something that could have gone extremely wrong, but instead if added tension to this already intense book, elevating it and making it unique. I loved how the book was crafted, the characters in the book, the ending… everything. It was truly a rollercoaster read!
  • Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection by John Green: John Green is brilliant. He has taken tuberculosis, a topic that many of his readers may not have been interested in, and humanized it in a way that no reader can ignore. The book is a mixture of a story of Henry, a young TB patient that John met on a visit to Sierra Leone; the history of TB and how it has shaped the history of the world; and a call for equity and equality in so many different ways. This book is fantastic and everyone should read it. It will change how you think of the world.

You can always learn more about any of the books I’ve been reading by checking out my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

This is my week off; see you next week!

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Kellee

  • Reading: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
  • Listening: Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World by Yuval Noah Harari, Illustrator: Ricard Zaplana Ruiz

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Tuesday: George O’Connor’s Visit to Kellee’s Middle School

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Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

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Sofia’s YA Book Nook: Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine

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Sofia is a 13-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select weeks, Sofia shares her favorite books with other young people her age! She is one of the most well-read youth that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

 

Dear readers,

Hello and welcome to another book review! This time, I am excited to present… Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine! This is a page-turner! I am pretty into YA mysteries right now and when I saw it, I knew I had to read it! I have also already read How to Survive Your Murder and I was super excited when I saw this book come out! I must say, I was not at all disappointed! It has many twists and turns and though I tried to figure out the murderer, I only knew a little before it ended. I must also say that this could be a nice rainy day book because it is more on the gloomy side. Additionally, there are a TON of characters which I found quite hard to keep track of (especially) for the first quarter of the book and found that it was just better if I read it all pretty much in one go. This is also a book with three perspectives which I also found aided in the storyline. Two of the points of view were people and the other one was essentially a time capsule back to when the murders happened.

Goodreads Summary

From the author of How to Survive Your Murder comes a propulsive thriller about two teens who return to the site of the famous murder case that sealed their fates. Most people’s births aren’t immortalized in a police report-but Olivia was born during the infamous Camp Lost Lake murders. Seventeen years later, Olivia’s life looks pretty perfect… until she discovers the man she calls dad is not her biological father. Now she wants answers about her bloodline, and the only place she knows to look is Camp Lost Lake. Most people don’t spend their formative years on the run with an alleged murderer-but Reagan did. In the court of public opinion, her mom was found guilty of the deaths at Camp Lost Lake, and both of them have been in hiding ever since. But Reagan believes in her mother’s innocence and is determined to clear her name. Luckily for Olivia and Reagan, Camp Lost Lake is finally reopening, providing the perfect opportunity to find answers. But someone else is dead set on keeping the past hidden, even if it means committing murder.

My Thoughts

I loved this book! It was super thrilling and I literally COULDN’T put it down! I was immediately drawn to it by the author (and cover) and am happy I was. I found it interesting that one of the perspectives was from the daughter of the camp director and that the other one was the daughter of the accused murderer. I also love that there was a perspective that took you back in time so you could gradually gather more information about the case, instead of it all being dumped on you at some point in the book. Since this was so fast paced, I would recommend this as a book to get a “non-reader” more interested in reading! I read this mostly on a sunny day which was nice but I, again, think that the atmosphere would have been better on a rainy day since it is darker, but not the night, because that would feel too spooky for me! Overall, I think this is a page-turning YA book with horror and mystery. Enjoy!

On Amazon, most of the reviewers were people buying it for people 14+. I would agree with this since it was pretty frightening in some scenes, especially the ones with the murderer! It was also a little hard to follow the characters since there are so many, and a lot of them with similar sounding names and little backstories you need to remember. Otherwise, I think if you or the person you are getting this for can handle those things, then I would let them read it!

**Thanks so much, Sofia!**