A loose sequel to the transcendent The First Part Last, with Bobby and Feather as supporting characters in a story about 14-year-old Marley, whose life in idyllic Heaven, Ohio falls apart when she finds out that she was adopted. I am happy to report that, in a story in which all the characters are African-American, the cover depicts a black girl ( Read more... )

A touching YA novel about Sophy, a fourteen-year-old dancer, and her older sister Nicole, who is schizophrenic. Nicole's illness emerged when she was fourteen, and Sophy is terrified that she too will have her life swept away by mental illness ( Read more... )

Help me prioritize my to-read stacks! Please comment to tell me which I should read first and why, and if there's anything I should avoid and why.

Note: This is just the first poll.

Other note: I have already read and enjoyed other books by Butler, Myers, Johnson, and Liu.

Poll The 50 Books POC poll

oyceter recommended this book, so I BookMooched it. Unfortunately, by the time it arrived, I had forgotten why I requested it. The back cover made it sound like an Afterschool Special on teen pregnancy, so I put it aside and only picked it up again due to beginning the 50books_poc challenge. (The author and all the characters are African-American ( Read more... )