Title:   Full Flight
Author:   Ashley Schumacher
Genre:   YA
Rating:  3.5

Everyone else in the tiny town of Enfield, Texas calls fall football season, but for the forty-three members of the Fighting Enfield Marching Band, it’s contest season. And for new saxophonist Anna James, it’s her first chance to prove herself as the great musician she’s trying hard to be.

 When she’s assigned a duet with mellophone player Weston Ryan, the boy her small-minded town thinks of as nothing but trouble, she’s equal parts thrilled and intimidated. But as he helps her with the duet, and she sees the smile he seems to save just for her, she can’t help but feel like she’s helping him with something too.

 After her strict parents find out she’s been secretly seeing him and keep them apart, together they learn what it truly means to fight for something they love. With the marching contest nearing, and the two falling hard for one another, the unthinkable happens, and Anna is left grappling for a way forward without Weston.

Solid writing in this, and I enjoyed the story, until tragedy occurred. Up until that point, this was a light, fun YA read. The tragedy felt pointless and completely unnecessary. It accomplished nothing in the storyline, as people’s perceptions had already been changed before it happened. And…the story ends shortly after it happens, so it’s not liked the reader gets to see Anna finding her way forward. The story just ends. Sorry, but this just didn’t work for me. It felt forced and manipulative, not believable.

Ashley Schumacher lives in Dallas. Full Flight is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Title:   One True Loves
Author:   Elise Bryant
Genre:   YA
Rating:  4 out of 5

Lenore Bennett has always been a force. A star artist and style icon at her high school, she’s a master in the subtle art of not giving a . . . well, you know what. But now that graduation is here, she’s a little less sure.

 She’s heading to NYU in the fall with a scarlet U (for “undeclared”) written across her chest. Her parents always remind her that Black kids don’t have the luxury of figuring it out as they go—they have to be 110 percent prepared. But it’s a lot of pressure to be her ancestors’ wildest dreams when Lenore’s not even sure what her dreams are yet.

 When her family embarks on a post-graduation Mediterranean cruise, her friend Tessa is sure Lenore’s in for a whirlwind romance. But Lenore knows that doesn’t happen in real life. At least not to girls like her.

 Then she meets Alex Lee. After their parents bond over the Cupid Shuffle, she ends up stuck with him for the remainder of the cruise. He’s a hopeless romantic and a golden boy with a ten-year plan. In short, he’s irritating as hell.

 But as they get to know each other during the picturesque stops across Europe, he may be able to help her find something else she’s been looking for, even if she doesn’t want to admit it to herself: love.

I enjoyed this read! Lenore was a bit over-the-top at first, with her brashness and in-your-face attitude, but when she tamped it down a bit, she was much more relatable. She’s under a lot of pressure from her family, and I felt sorry for her in that respect. It was good to see some character growth from her, as she slowly started to figure out who she is and what she wants from life.

Elise Bryant is from California. One True Loves is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.)

Title:   At the End of Everything
Author:   Marieke Nijkamp
Genre:   YA
Rating:  4 out of 5

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist.

 Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day…they don’t show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they’re stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place.

I enjoyed this kind of dark, kind of hopeful read. Some of the teenagers have done some truly awful things, some have just done thing the adults don’t understand, but they’re all there in need of rehabilitation. When the plague starts, they’re abandoned and left to fend for themselves.

The story is told in three main viewpoints, which gives a much more well-rounded perspective than a single main character would have done. There were moments of fear, panic, and pain mixed with the hope and determination, and this was a solid, entertaining read.

Marieke Nijkamp is a bestselling author. At the End of Everything is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.)

Title:  Bad Girls Never Say Die
Author:   Jennifer Mathieu
Genre:   YA
Rating:  4 out of 5

1964. Houston, Texas.

 Evie Barnes is a bad girl. So are all her friends. They’re the sort who wear bold makeup, laugh too loud, and run around with boys. Most of all, they protect their own against the world. So when Evie is saved from a sinister encounter by a good girl from the “right” side of the tracks, every rule she’s always lived by is called into question. Now she must redefine what it means to be a bad girl and rethink everything she knew about loyalty.

I loved The Outsiders, so I was excited to read this. I found it to be a solid read, even if not on the level of The Outsiders (of course). I loved how all the girls had their idea of the “other” girls totally flipped as they realized their similarities. It’s always difficult to read things set in the past when women had fewer options, but I liked how Evie comes to realize she does have choices, she’s not forced to live with society’s expectations.

Jennifer Mathieu lives in Texas. Bad Girls Never Say Die is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group/Roaring Brook Press in exchange for an honest review.)