Molly Horan

Cy Williams is not a slave, but his life is far from his own. Growing up in Georgia in the 1890s, he knows that the cruel white plantation owner his father works for could throw him in jail or even kill him in a second.

When a tragic accident leaves the plantation owner’s son—and Cy’s best friend—dead, the blame falls on Cy. Still mourning, Cy finds himself bound and blindfolded, on the way to a chain gang where he’ll work, shackled to a line of other boys who dared to make a white man angry. Four years spent working under the threat of a whip breaks Cy’s spirit and drains him of all hope that he’ll ever see his father again. But when his father appears with clean clothes and a plan, Cy dares to believe there might be freedom in his future.

Cy in Chains is a difficult, painful novel, but it’s an important one. Cy quickly morphs from a kind, compassionate boy, looking out for his friend before the accident, to a young man who’s been broken by a life of hard work and cruelty, and who comes to see compassion as a weakness he can’t afford.

His transformation is shown in sharp contrast from another boy on the chain gang, Jess, whose deep faith keeps him hopeful and who takes care of the younger, weaker boys. Jess’ sense of responsibility to help those who can’t stand up for themselves highlights Cy’s every-man-for-himself attitude, as well as exposing the cracks in it. It’s a prerogative Cy adopted to survive, not a true representation of his character.

The details of the horrors Cy and the other boys suffer at the hands of the men who run the chain gang are vivid and varied, from sexual abuse to physical abuse, to neglect so severe their lives are in danger. Each new punishment is more horrible than the last.

Cy in Chains is a book for those who love historical fiction and don’t want the horrors of the past sugar-coated.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School

Felix’s last season of high school football is all that matters. When he’s out on the field, he can forget about his older brother who never came back from the war, his mother who disappeared inside her own mind after losing her oldest son, and the mining town that seems to be crumbling around him. If he can just lead the Muckers team to victory, he knows everything will be all right.

But even as the Muckers win more games, it’s hard to ignore everything that’s going wrong in his small Texas town. The threat of communism has everyone on edge, and race relations in the multiethnic immigrant community are near a boiling point. One of his best friends is heading off to the Korean War to prove himself, and the town will never accept the fact that Felix is white and the only girl he wants to kiss is Mexican.

Muckers is a strong piece of young adult historical fiction that manages to touch on many topics without seeming disjointed. The frame of a local newspaper helps to add some extra historical content without forcing it into the dialogue.

The novel is strongest when it gets inside Felix’s head off the football field, when he’s forced to think about not only his painful past, but his future. His desire to honor his parents and brother is strong, but what makes him a truly compelling protagonist is his thirst to prove his worth to himself, and his determination to avoid a life in the mines.

Muckers will entertain anyone interested in 1950s America, but it will especially capture the attention of football fans and anyone who’s ever felt hometown pride.

All Danielle wanted was a quiet, peaceful summer, and her babysitting job provided her with just that. Five-year-old Humphrey was adorable, funny and better company than the friends from whom she seemed to be growing apart. And then came the accident, a split second during their walk home from the park: Humphrey ran into the road and was hit and killed by a passing car, and Danielle can’t help but feel responsible.

A devastating accident leaves a girl scrambling for answers.

Guilt and grief consume Danielle as she tries to remember the good times with Humphrey, the afternoons of make-believe and nights of Popsicles, but in the aftermath of the accident, her sleepy neighborhood buzzes with controversy. Some members of the community think a lack of streetlights caused the crash and lobby for improvement, while others are hung up on the fact that the driver of the car was an illegal immigrant. What no one wants to talk about, Danielle realizes, is the smart little boy who was lost that night.

When her parents put her in therapy to deal with the loss, Danielle begins to realize that she was having problems long before the accident, and if she wants to get past them and honor Humphrey's memory, she's going to have to speak her mind in the neighborhood’s debates.

Author Debbie Levy’s depiction of loss in Imperfect Spiral is powerful, and equally as compelling are her frequent flashbacks of Danielle and Humphrey’s time together. Levy has created an incredibly nuanced relationship between the two, showing that the most important relationships can form outside traditional boundaries like age groups and family ties. Within these memories she also explores Humphrey’s family and the complicated mix of a parent’s love and expectations.

The novel sometimes lags under the weight of all the issues it attempts to address. Danielle deals not only with her panic attacks and feelings of loss, but also her feelings on illegal immigration and the strain between her parents and brother, and the story becomes exhausting for both her and the reader. Likewise, the addition of a love interest feels squeezed in, and while the relationship’s development is genuine, it also feels rushed.

Despite its flaws, Imperfect Spiral is a powerful book that stays with you long after you’ve read the final page. It’s a story of love and loss that distinguishes itself from the flood of YA books tackling those topics by challenging how we define family and who you can count among your friends.

Eleanore has no memory of who she was before she was found wandering the streets of London in the early 1900s. Placed in an orphanage, she would have easily blended in with the other lost children if she hadn't spoken aloud the secret she carried: She hears music when there is none, sweet songs vibrating from the metal around her. Locked in a mental institution, she learns to tune out the songs, but just when she is to be released, the First World War breaks out. Eleanore is then sent to the country and given the charity spot at a prestigious all-girls school.

The Iverson School for Girls proves to be a cold, unwelcoming place, but soon Eleanore finds reasons to be happy, like the handsome groundskeeper Jesse, with whom she seems to have an instant connection. But things become complicated when her benefactor’s son, Armand, also takes an interest in her.

Jesse reveals that he knows why she hears music others don't: She’s a Drakon—but what that means, she does not know. Eleanore learns she can transform into shimmering smoke at will, but to become who she truly is meant to be, she must work toward an even more dramatic transformation.

An orphan girl with a strange secret discovers her own ancient magic.

First introduced in her adult Drakon series, Shaba Abé’s new dragon mythology creates a unique world for Eleanore to explore. The book’s greatest strength is its strong-willed protagonist who never lets herself be made to feel inferior. She owns her powers, but it’s not her powers alone that give her courage—it’s her own sense of self-worth.

The novel can drag where too much focus is given to the day-to-day drudgery that Eleanore must endure at school, but the questions that are left unanswered until almost the very end about Drakons and Eleanore's heritage keep the reader engaged. The romance between Eleanore and Jesse, as well as the tension between Eleanore and Armand, are also compelling as their feelings become parts of their destinies.

The Sweetest Dark is a novel that borrows from many genres, from historical fiction to fantasy to romance. What pulls the book together is the well-drawn characters that are easy for almost any reader to connect to.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School.

Eighteen-year-old Scarlet was happy with her quiet life as an outsider, working on her beloved grandmother’s farm and ignoring the whispers about her eccentricities. But when her grandmother is kidnapped and the police refuse to believe she was taken by force, Scarlet sets out to find her with the help of a handsome stranger called Wolf.

Meanwhile, 16-year-old cyborg Cinder—still reeling from the news that she’s actually Princess Selene, Lunar Queen Levana’s own niece—manages to escape from her prison cell and certain death at the hands of the Queen. Cinder begins to develop her newfound power of mind control while coming to terms with her new identity, and her conflicting feelings about the morality of using her powers of manipulation are well portrayed.

Marissa Meyer has created a rich, unique, yet accessible fantasy world. While the technology of half-machine girls plants the story firmly outside the reader’s reality, the constant presence of portscreens and “comms” seems no different from the ubiquity of present-day smartphones and texts.

Scarlet doesn’t try to recreate the fairy tales it borrows from, but instead takes their most interesting characters and gives them new purposes that expose emotions never revealed in the original tales.

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Read our interview with Marissa Meyer for Scarlet.

Willo lives in a future in which the planet has been plunged into a near-constant, bitter winter. The government controls the scarce electricity and food for most people, but Willo lives with his family on a snow-covered mountain, catching what food they can, waiting for the short spring thaws to come. Willo doesn’t mind their harsh life; he’s proud of his hunting skills and pays no mind when his dad talks about the comforts of the past or the hope he sees in the future. But one day, coming home from a hunt, Willo sees his family taken away, and for the first time he truly is on his own.

After the Snow is a beautifully written novel about the kind of life that might await us if winter never ended, but more than that, it’s a book about a teenager discovering the world and his place in it. While Willo’s father fears he’s been hardened by the harsh realities of his childhood, Willo is actually full of innocence, shown in his pure desire to help a girl he finds along his path, and even more so by the constant guilt that haunts him over a baby bunny that died after he killed its mother. He’s tough when battling the elements or any other cruelties nature throws at him, but having been raised by kind people, he is completely unprepared for the cruelty of men.

Author S.D. Crockett’s only misstep is her desire to make the novel into something it’s not: a mystery. The setup of the mystery comes too late, the reveal comes too quickly, and all the questions that surround it are overshadowed by the book’s brilliantly drawn characters: Willo; Mary, the girl he rescues who seems so breakable in the wild yet taps into a strength that astounds him in the city; the strangers he encounters who are willing to share what little they have; and those he thought were friends who are ready to use untold brutality against him.

Set in a sparse, cold landscape, with hardships befalling its protagonist at every turn, After the Snow is surprisingly hopeful, and sure to keep you engrossed through the final page.

Molly Horan is a grad student at The New School getting her MFA in writing for children and young adults.