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Adventure Time
Adventure Time, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in the Land of Ooo, is about a teen boy named Finn and his brother, a stretchy magical dog named Jake, who love fighting evil and hanging with their group of quirky friends. I’ve been quite nervous to review this show for a while because I was afraid I wouldn’t do it justice, as it is definitely one of the best cartoons ever! It has great animation that looks even more beautiful each season and some great characters who I’m going to introduce right now. We have Finn, a funny and brave teenager who is the last human on Earth (or…
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Fangirl
TW/CW: parental abandonment and theme of mental illness (specifically social anxiety, bipolar disorder and alcoholism) Fangirl is about an 18-year old, Cath, who is going off to college and is quite nervous since it’s the first time she’s going to be all on her own without her twin sister Wren at her side. Cath is also worried about her dad, who struggles with bipolar and is not very good at being alone. Cath finds comfort in writing fan fiction for her favorite book series of all time, the Simon Snow series, and she’s one of the most well-known fan-fiction writers online. When she meets her tough-love new roommate and her…
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Night in the Woods
Designers: Alec Holowka, Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry TW/CW: theme of mental illness, violence, cults, d*aths of characters Night in the Woods, set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, is about a cat named Mae Borowski who, after dropping out of college due to a mental health crisis, moves back in with her parents in her dying hometown of Possum Springs. When a creepy incident happens after Mae reunites with her high school friends (Bea, Gregg and Angus), Mae realizes something disturbing is going on in town and works to figure out what it is while battling her own mental health crisis. This video game is so good! The graphics…
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The Mysterious Benedict Society
Author: Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society is about four gifted children—Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance—who, after seeing an ad in the newspaper and taking multiple weird tests, are recruited by Mr. Benedict to go undercover at the Institution for the Very Enlightened to observe an odd man, Mr. Curtain, who may be hypnotizing people all over the world into believing very strange things. This book is the first in a series of four books (and there’s a prequel about Mr. Benedict’s childhood which is separated from these four books for some reason). This book was very interesting, I thought the characters were amusing and I was curious to…
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Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman TW/CW: kidnapping; implied d*aths of children Coraline is about a girl, Coraline, who moves into a mysterious house with her clueless parents. While exploring the house, Coraline finds a mysterious door that leads to another world, a world where she has a new set of parents who actually seem to care about her. But the more Coraline goes to this other place, the harder it is leave. When Coraline discovers some disturbing things in this alternate reality called the Other World, it’s up to her and a moody cat to find their way out. While I’m not usually one to go for the horror genre, this book…
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Radio Silence
TW/CW: abusive parent; theme of mental illness Radio Silence is about a teen girl, Frances, who is very studious and acts like school is all she cares about when in reality she’s hiding her true personality. Then, Frances meets Aled, who’s a lot like her, and who is also secretly the host of her favorite podcast Radio Silence; for the first time ever, Frances finally has someone she feels like she can be herself around. When their friendship hits a rough spot, both Frances and Aled are forced to confront parts of their life they wish to forget. This book is literally one of the best YA books I’ve ever…
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A Court of Thorns and Roses
TW/CW: lots of violence some s*x scenes and abusive relationships A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), which is a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast, is about 19-year-old Feyre who lives with her father and two sisters who don’t treat her very well and make Feyre do everything for them. One day when Feyre is hunting in the woods, she kills a wolf which happens to be a Fae who had morphed into his animal form. As punishment for her actions, Feyre is taken by a faerie, Tamlin, to the faerie realm of Prythian, the Fae world she has feared her entire life, only to learn that most…
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An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir TW/CW: Some violence, and mentions of creepy empire guys taking advantage of girls (it doesn’t show this happening in the book though) An Ember in the Ashes, the first in a series of four books, is about two characters, a girl named Laia who is a Scholar in the Martial Empire; after most of her family is murdered by the empire, she goes to try to save her only living relative, her brother Darren, by joining the Resistance (a rebel group that secretly works against the empire) and working for them as a spy. The other character is Elias, a solider who works for the empire and…
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The Summer I Turned Pretty
Author: Jenny Han [TW/CW: some language; c*ncer and use of “gay” as an insult (the character may have been called out on that but I can’t remember)] So, I technically read this first book of the series last summer but I didn’t finish the series until January. The Summer I Turned Pretty is about a teenage girl, Belly (yes weird name I know), who has vacationed at Cousins Beach every summer since she was little with her mom and brother Steven, her mom’s best friend Susannah, and Susannah’s two sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. But all of the teens are growing up and they start to realize that summer may not…
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Show Us Who You Are
Author: Elle McNicoll Show Us Who You are is about an autistic teen, Cora, who is dealing with a newer autism diagnosis and grieving the loss of her mother, along with her father and brother, at the same time. After being forced to go to a party by her family, Cora meets a boy, Adrian, who is also neurodivergent, and two end up becoming best friends. Adrian’s dad is the CEO of a company called Pomegranate Technologies, which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to re-create people who have passed away. However, Cora starts to notice a dark side to the company and it’s up to her to stop its plans before…