Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

Most of a work in progress solves the adult problem by having the narrator face age-appropriate problems. Only when she gets to be an adult does she face adult problems.

Except --

She's going on a trip where she has to witness something nasty and do something about it, even though it's past her skill set and rather hard at her age. And while I've set up reasons for the adults to fail -- they have to deal with something worse -- I still have to work out this one.

sigh

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

In a future world, Tyler, though the top of his class, misses his chance to pick the best team by being absent, rescuing a young woman, Aurora, from a shipwreck lost in the Fold (interstellar FTL travel place).

( Read more... )

Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Book 3. Serious spoilers ahead.

This is the capstone of the trilogy. Unlike Gemina, which did not need Illuminae absolutely, this needs both of the first.

( Read more... )

Schooled in Magic by Christopher G. Nuttall

Emily is going home from the library when she's abducted into another world by a necromancer who wants to sacrifice a "Child of Destiny" who has yet to master magic.
( Read more... )

Frogkisser! by Garth Nix

The adventures of Anya, a second princess, out to disenchant the prince whom her sister Morven had been in love with, until her stepstepfather had not only turned this prince into a frog, but produced another prince to lure Morven's heart away. (Not that that's too difficult.)

( Read more... )

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

A far future tale of a desperate flight from a merciless foe. Told in epistolary form. Indeed, with an explanation of how the documents were gathered.
( Read more... )

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Opens with a prologue wherein a man has to save his newborn daughter from death -- and a necromancer.  And then to the girl herself, about to graduate from school on the other side of the Wall, out of the Old Kingdom and where the magic is weaker (though strong enough .  She is considering what to do after when a dark shadow appears -- carrying a sack.  It came from her father.  It brings the sword and the bells, all magical, he uses in his role as the Abhorsen, to combat necromancers and the Dead.  He must have been in great danger.

( Read more... )

Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis

Liddi is home alone when, owing to not following her usual schedule, she realizes that armed men are breaking into the mansion.  She flees.  And learns that her eight older brothers, all extraordinary inventors, can not be contacted, and have not been in contact for several days.

( Read more... )

Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

One of Heinlein's juveniles. Though you've got to notice that it starts with a college course that has a final of being dropped on some planet -- and surviving. And bright kids can take it in high school.

( Read more... )

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Aboard the starship Icarus, the war hero Tarver Merendsen must attend a party with the upper crust -- expected after all his decorations -- and sees a lovely girl, without actually managing to recognize her as Lilac LaRoux, the daughter (and only child) of the richest man in the universe.  She lets herself talk to him, but soon after, when he tries to talk to her again, she remembers how her father would react and repulses him.

( Read more... )