Welcome to the first Friday Reads of 2015! I'm kicking it off on a very high note, with a fabulous debut from my fellow Fearless Fifteener, Lee Kelly. Technically, I finished this book at the very end of 2014, but since I didn't blog last Friday, here we are. (And this book is *too good* not to mention at all!)
Lee Kelly's CITY OF SAVAGES takes place about 16 years after World War III destroyed New York City—and the rest of the world. Manhattan is a P.O.W. camp where teenaged sisters Sky and Phee live with their mother. During the summers, they fend for themselves in what's left of downtown. In winter, they join the other refugees in Central Park, where the vicious warlord Rolladin rules with an iron fist. Phee, the strong, outgoing younger sister, feels at home in this violent, every-man-for-himself city. Sky, who was a baby when the world fell apart, is quiet and bookish and wants nothing more than to leave the island and see what else is out there. When strangers arrive from England, a sequence of events gets set into motion that forces both Sky and Phee to question everything they've ever known—including their own history. This book is a thrill ride, from the brutality of the refugee camps to the horrors that await in the subway tunnels, and beyond. But it's also a beautiful story about sisterhood, as Sky and Phee alternate narrating chapters and discover a lot about each other, and about themselves. I can't recommend this one enough!
I'm currently reading ALTHEA & OLIVER by Cristina Moracho, and loving it. It's about best friends (you guessed it…) Althea and Oliver, who find themselves and their friendship suddenly falling apart. She's developed feelings for him that she's not sure he reciprocates. (He's not sure, either.) He's developed a sleep disorder that leaves him feverish and bedridden for weeks at a time. When she makes a big, horrible mistake, he leaves town for a sleep study without saying goodbye. And…that's as far as I've gotten! I'm hoping to finish it later today, so no spoilers! :)
What are you reading right now? Any recommendations as I kick off the year's reading?
~Kathryn