She annihilates standardized tests and the bad guys. Genie Lo is one among droves of Ivy-hopeful overachievers in her sleepy Bay Area suburb. You know, the type who wins. When she’s not crushing it at volleyball or hitting the books, Genie is typically working on how to crack the elusive Harvard entry code. But when her hometown comes under siege from Hellspawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are dramatically rearranged. Enter Quentin Sun, a mysterious new kid in class who becomes Genie’s self-appointed guide to battling demons. While Genie knows Quentin only as an attractive transfer student with an oddly formal command of the English language, in another reality he is Sun Wukong, the mythological Monkey King incarnate—right down to the furry tail and penchant for peaches. Suddenly, acing the SATs is the least of Genie’s worries. The fates of her friends, family, and the entire Bay Area all depend on her summoning an inner power that Quentin assures her is strong enough to level the very gates of Heaven. But every second Genie spends tapping into the secret of her true nature is a second in which the lives of her loved ones hang in the balance.
Outside of writing, F.C. Yee practices capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial arts, and has a day job mostly involving spreadsheets. In addition to the New York Times bestselling Chronicles of the Avatar series, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Genie Lo novels.
Today on the blog, we welcome back the amazing Heidi Heilig—author of the acclaimed The Girl From Everywhere—who returns with her sophomore series, For a Muse of Fire. The book is about Southeast Asian–inspired shadow puppets, necromancy, colonialism, and rebellion and is just as complex and delicious as that sounds. Heilig has been very outspoken […]
Let’s talk about everyone’s favorite phrase: “reluctant readers.” I’m firmly of the opinion that readers are only reluctant because they haven’t yet found a book that suits them, or are simply tired of only being handed books about thin, white, cishet protagonists. Whatever the reason may be, this list seeks to provide recommendations for many […]
Meet the Young Adults, the B&N Teen Blog’s swat team of awesome teenaged bloggers. YA literature is a strange and wonderful landscape of books that should be read by everybody, but each month we highlight the perspective of teens reading the best of the best books written for and about them. Check back monthly to see what they’re recommending […]
