The F*** It List

High School Fiction

G/M  Halpern, Julie.  The F*** It List.  Feiwel, 2013.  247p.  978-1-250-02565-4.  16.99.

It’s Alex’s senior year of high school and after a rough summer where her father died and her best friend slept with her boyfriend, she’s ready to forgive and forget. But on the first day of school, she finds out that Becca (the best friend) has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Becca convinces Alex to help her fulfill her bucket list, since she won’t be able to complete everything on it herself. The whole year turns into doing crazy things off the bucket list, falling in love with a boy and dealing with a sick best friend all while coping with the major loss in her own family. Not a lot happens in this novel, but the major messages of learning to grieve, coping with the unexpected and first love make it a decent realistic fiction option. The multiple pop culture references, bad language and graphic sexuality make this book for older teens only. Loren Spector, LAPL, Memorial Branch Library

White Hot Kiss by Jennifer L. Armentrout

White Hot Kiss by Jennifer L. Armentrout

High School Fiction

G/A. Armentrout, Jennifer L. White Hot Kiss. HarlequinTEEN, 2014. 382p. 978-0-373-21110-4. $9.99.

Layla is half demon and half gargoyle.  She feels as though she doesn't fit in anywhere. Her human friends don't know that she's really not human.  She can't shape shift like the other gargoyles or Wardens. And she constantly has to deal with her demon half that craves the stealing of souls.  She's lived in relative safety all her life with an adopted Warden family, but now that she's seventeen, the number of demons coming topside has skyrocketed and too many have been hunting Layla. She meets Roth, a high level demon who claims he's there to protect her.  Layla doesn't believe him; demons are the enemy after all.  Yet he's saved her life more than once.  Roth challenges her perception of demons in general and gets her to take a closer look at them, at herself, and even at him.  Roth is nothing like Zayne, the Warden she's been in love with forever, but who only looks at her as just a younger sister.  While Roth may be a vain and sarcastic demon, he's not evil.  There's more to him than what she initially assumed, and as her distrust of him lessens, her feelings and attraction to Roth grows.  With the demon threat against her life growing, Layla decides that she can't just stay at home.  She and Roth strike a bargain to work together discover the demon who's after her and maybe together they can stop what is sure to be the coming apocalypse if they fail.