Rachel Reads & Reviews

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  • Summer Anthologies

    If you could live inside one Taylor Swift song for a day, which would you pick? In this shimmering anthology, thirteen best-selling and acclaimed authors do just that, reimagining some of Taylor’s most iconic songs as love stories.  Whether you’re in an era of fairy lights and folktales or diss tracks and dance floors, here’s…

  • Jenny Pausacker Interview

    Jenny Pausacker is one of Australia’s most prolific children’s authors, academic and essayist. From 1975 to 2007, she wrote 72 books in almost every genre. She graciously took the time to answer my question about her boundary-breaking books, queer literature and what she’s currently doing in her retirement. Enjoy! I’d been telling stories from early…

  • Summer Books

    New Crush by Cassandra Calin Lia is finally feeling settled into her new life. Her friends are amazing, her French is improving, and her periods… ugh, those are still terrible. But Lia’s crush, Julien, is noticing her. Lia thinks he likes her, but she can’t tell for sure. And while she’s obsessing over him, Lia’s not noticing…

  • Action Presidents

    Author, Fred Van Lente and illustrator, Ryan Dunlavey’s Action Presidents are condensed illustrated biographies of four major presidents. Informative, with some very bad humor (bad quality, not crass), Van Lente shows the triumphs and failures of Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and JFK, and to an extent the American experiment. Van Lente connects how each president…

  • Against the Darkness Review

    For generations, the Slayer was supposed to be the chosen, the one girl in all the world with the power to stand against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness. When Willow used the scythe to call up all the potential slayers at once, it changed everything. For years, the slayers have been working and…

  • One Girl in All the World Review

    Into every generation, a slayer is born. One girl in all the world . . . sort of. Frankie Rosenberg is the world’s first slayer-witch, but she doesn’t have that slay-life balance figured out just yet. She’s still reeling from the deadly explosion at the anual slayer retreat—and new evidence that some slayers may have…

  • In Every Generation Review

    Frankie Rosenberg wasn’t yet alive when her mom, Willow, her aunt Buffy, and the original Scooby Gang destroyed the Hellmouth and saved the world from the First Evil. These days, life in New Sunnydale is blissfully quiet. Frankie is just trying to survive her sophomore year at the rebuilt high school and use her budding…

  • Xena: Warrior Princess Double Review

    Popular question in the 90s, are you Buffy or Xena? And while one show may have made more of a lasting cultural impact (cough cough Buffy because it was thematically epic), I like them both. Xena is just so aspirational because you could never hope to do kung fu in the air in leather chainmail…

  • Book of the Month: Six of Crows

    Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone… A convict with a…

  • Capturing the Devil Review

    Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell have landed in America, a bold, brash land unlike the genteel streets of London they knew. But like London, the city of Chicago hides its dark secrets well. When the two attend the spectacular World’s Fair, they find the once-in-a-lifetime event tainted with reports of missing people and unsolved…