#Kayla Whaley

[the-final-sentence]

And we went home.

Kayla Whaley, from "The Leap and the Fall"

[katesharmasheart]

books i read in 2022♡ Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite by Zoraida Córdova, Natalie C. Parker, Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Mark Oshiro, Julie Murphy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, V.E. Schwab, Kayla Whaley

“Vampires may not be real, but the stories make them something we share.”

[theobviousparadox]

Review: Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Review: Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman

Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and SunriseEdited by Laura SilvermanAlgonquin Young ReadersPublished July 13, 2021 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About Up All Night When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a…

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Grimoire of Grave Fates edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

goodreads

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party. Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect. A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . . Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez.

Mod opinion: I've heard of this anthology before and while it does sound interesting, I don't think I'll read it myself, since interconnected anthologies like that rarely work for me.

[badassbutterfly1987]

Unbroken: Stories Starring Disabled Teens (individual stories reviewed)

I picked up this book on a whim at the library. I started reading and had some thoughts about both the stories and the representation. For some personal context: I have diagnoses for both epilepsy and autism, as well as some form of chronic pain/fatigue; while I can offer perspective on that, I'll have less to say about other disability representation.

'The Long Road' by Heidi Heilig:

story: Lihua is a teen girl in historical China traveling to Persia with her family. She has a unnamed disability that they are hoping to recieve a cure for. She meets a girl with a similar experience that tells her there is no cure, only lifelong treatment.

disability: implied to be some kind of mood disorder, possibly bipolar. The treatment is described as 'clean living' as well as finding connections and keeping hope.

'Britt and the Bike God' by Kody Keplinger

story: Britt is a tandem biker. She is paired up with Andre, a boy she crushes on but worries that he only views her as a burden slowing him down. They clear up the misunderstanding mid race.

disability: progressive blindness, specifically retinitis pigmentosa. Detail is given about how Britt had to adjust from traditional biking to tandem biking after she started to lose her vision. She struggles with feeling like a burden on her biking partners.

'Leap and Fall' by Kayla Whaley

story: Gemma guides Eloise to a abandoned carnival hidden in the woods. They explore and find a place for a tarot card reading. Gemma is revealed to be possessed by a ghost who lured Eloise in to share the same fate.

disability: Eloise uses a wheelchair. While it affects how she interacts with her surroundings, it's very much secondary to the rest of the story. Not much to say for this one.

I enjoyed this one less overall. It may be just because I couldn't tell what genre it was supposed to be until the third act. Was it a romance? A toxic friendship? No, it was a ghost/possession story.

'Per Aspera Ad Astra' by Katherine Locke

story: Lizzie is a teen on a sci-fi world who due to health issues stays at home. When the planet is attacked, she needs to reset the defense shield that she designed.

disability: Lizzie has severe anxiety attacks. It has caused her to stay at home and only take online classes, though even the anxiety of turning in a paper and waiting for results gets to her. At least one caretaker is dismissive of her anxiety, treating it like unreasonable fear over nothing.

'Found Objects' by William Alexander

story: Unnamed narrator is a high school theatre kid. He has a magical gift that tends to pop up when he's acting. When he gets a bit too into his Richard III role during rehearsal, it creates a Richard doppleganger that he needs to dispel.

disability: Narrator is a cane user with chronic pain. He is notably more bitter than most of the other story leads, having angry thoughts about the casual ableism he encounters. He recalls a time when a friend admitted they were glad that their recently dead aunt was at least no longer in pain, while narrator can't expect an end to his pain and is bothered by the implication that being dead is better than being in pain.

This is one of my favorites, both for the creative magic and the meditation on handling pain. It's neat to see a character use their pain to power their magic.

'Plus One' by Karuna Riazi

story: Hafsah is a Muslim teen on a pilgrimage to Mecca with her family. She hopes it will get rid of her 'monster'.

disability: the exact disability is unnamed but symptoms sound like anxiety and mention is made of night terrors.

'The Day the Dragon Came' by Marieke Nijkamp

story: Alix and Delfin live in a medieval-ish city that is building a tower that will have an important dragon figure set at the top; messenger Alix dismisses it as just a fancy weather vane while carpenter Delfin thinks it's both symbolically and magically powerful. They develop a bond but conflict when Alix wants to run away while Delfin wants to stay.

disability: Alix is a cane user with chronic pain, specifically back and leg pain. She is used to being pushed away and is unsure how to handle Delfin's friendship and possible romantic feelings. She buys mediocre canes at the market because she can't afford better; Delfin carves her a better cane as a gift.

Notes: not sure if this is historical or fantasy, as the references to the dragon and plague-causing sprites are vague enough to be either. I also appreciate the trans representation with Delfin.

'Captain, My Captain' by Francisco X. Stork

story: Alberto is a Mexican immigrant who lives with his sister Lupe, her garbage boyfriend, and their toddler son. He struggles with deciding to stay with them or strike out on his own.

disability: Alberto has a developmental disability. He struggles with what I think is intrusive thoughts he has labeled as Captain America, who encourages him to run away and live on his own.

'Dear Nora James, You Know Nothing About Love' by Dhonielle Clayton

story: Nora writes dating advice for her school newspaper despite not dating herself. She is still dealing with her parents' divorce.

disability: Nora has a stomach disorder as well as related anxiety.

didn't like this one as much, partly because my interpretation of the setup didn't match the conclusion. Nora is uninterested in dating, something I thought might be because she's aro or ace, but it's then implied to be because she's hurt by the divorce and might start dating at the end. There's a teen boy that's been crushing on her for years, a character I thought was meant to be a loser creep, but nope guess he's a sweetie that she should give a try.

[transbookoftheday]

The Grimoire of Grave Fates by Hanna Alkaf & Margaret Owen

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. 

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party. Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect. A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . . Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

Review:

A professor has been murdered and everyone at the magical academy known as the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect. Eighteen students, 20 hours, and a murderer to catch. Told from 18 different students, along with evidence, interviews, and notes, the mystery and events unfold all leading up to who killed the despised professor Septimius Dropwart and how each of the students could be involved. This was such a fun and magical read, especially when you get to see the events fold bit by bit from each student’s perspective all leading up to the events of the professor’s death and who could be involved. The mystery is revealed in tidbits and overall, it was a fun mystery read told in a unique format that definitely was an undertaking. i would highly recommend this for fans of mystery and fantasy reads! The students all had possible motives and all of them had some connection to the event. With so many unique perspectives and personalities, all the students were interesting to get to know and the overall villain was a fun one to figure out. Seriously, what a fun read!

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Children's, Delacorte Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[lgbtqreads]

Know of any ya romances where one of the characters is a wheelchair user or otherwise has a mobility disability? Prefer girls or NB MCs.

Not in full-length novels (yet - Melissa See has one coming in 2023 called Love Letters to Joy about a panromantic asexual girl with CP), but Kayla Whaley's written a couple in short stories - check out her work in Up All Night and Unbroken, and keep Out of Our League on your radar.

[signal-failure]

Up All Night

Up All Night is a collection of late-night YA adventures, edited by Laura Silverman, with short stories by Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters and Francesca Zappia. Even though (almost) all the stories are great, Up All Night is hard to read in one sitting. There…

[literary-lion]

Up All Night | Can't-Wait Wednesday

Up All Night | Can’t-Wait Wednesday

Why am I waiting on this title? I can never have enough anthologies! I always want more. I love the bite sized stories all centring around some sort of theme. For me that’s one of the best reading experiences. This book was immediately up my alley when it was announced. The theme is loose enough that a variety of stories can be told without going too far off base, but it also makes sure there’s…

[the-final-sentence]

She gives the slightest of nods and LOTTE’s relived exhale whooshes through the mic and across the whole tennis court like a clean winner on match point.

Kayla Whaley, from “No Love Lost”

[dramyhsturgis]

Halloween 2020, Day 22

If you’re looking for a contemporary vampire read, Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite is brand new, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker with stories by an all-star lineup of authors including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.   

If you’d like to sample a taste from the collection, Tor.com has a spooky excerpt from Rebecca Roanhorse’s story “The Boys From Blood River” here.

Enjoy a couple of eerie snippets.

Now let’s go old school...

But first, on earth as vampire sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent: Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race; There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life; Yet loathe the banquet which perforce Must feed thy livid living corse: Thy victims ere they yet expire Shall know the demon for their sire, As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

From “The Giaour” by Lord Byron (1813).

(Art is “Vampire” by akelataka.)

[metaforia]

Anticipated September Releases

So this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, partly to help myself keep tracks of new releases I’m interested in and partly because I honestly just want an excuse to talk more about books.

September is a pretty hectic month for publishing apparently, because there’s a lot of releases this month and so I’m pretty much 100% certain that I’ve missed some. I might do a follow-up post to…

[luartemisfowl]

VAMPIRES NEVER GET OLD: TALES WITH FRESH BITE

VAMPIRES NEVER GET OLD: TALES WITH FRESH BITE

HEAR OUR VOICES BOOK TOUR

Welcome to my stop for the Hear our voices book tour of this amazing collection of stories!

Thank you so much, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, for the chance to read and review this book!

Vampires never get old is a wonderful collection of short stories and I really loved reading how each author talked about lore and traditions surrounding vampires, from…

[2020ya]

VAMPIRES NEVER GET OLD

edited by Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C Parker

(Imprint, 9/22/20)

9781250230010

Add to Goodreads

Purchase from Indiebound

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices!

In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.

Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

Vampires Never Get Old

includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

[cbcdiversity]

WE ARE UNBROKEN: YA Authors Get Honest about Disability

By Marieke Nijkamp

In the new YA anthology UNBROKEN, #1 New York Times–bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp teams up with fellow disabled authors to create a collection of fictional stories that dispatch with the tired, broken stereotypes—and reclaim narratives and identities.

Below, Marieke and fellow contributors share what disability means to them and what they hope readers take away from their stories. You can view the full list of contributors here.

Marieke Nijkamp: Some days, I use a cane to walk. Some days, I use a cane to keep standing. I wear braces to keep my joints together, a back brace to keep my back straight. Some days, I’m more support than own strength. And on those days, I’ve found, people stare a lot. (When I’m lucky, staring is the worst thing they do. Staring, and quickly turning away when you try to meet their gaze.) I do not fit with their preconceived notions of disability. I’m too young. Too seemingly able-bodied. Too blue-haired and sharp-tongued.

I began to decorate my cane the moment I realized people stared. I used insulation tape and wound it around the length of the cane in different colors, obnoxiously, wonderfully rainbow. I figured, if people stared anyway, I would give them something to stare at.

Next were multicolor braces and slings. A cane with an eagle’s head. One decorated with leaves and birds. Colors and shapes and pieces of me.

It began as a means to challenge unwanted attention, but it soon turned into something more. A way to personalize assistive devices, extend my style, and to reclaim myself. Another step on the path from internalized ableism to disability pride. It was the moment I realized a thousand stares couldn’t define me, but how I chose to handle them, did.

Every disabled person I know has experienced moments like that, of (continuously) discovering what it means to be disabled, personally and in the context of the world around us, for better or worse. It’s certainly true for the contributors to UNBROKEN: 13 STORIES STARRING DISABLED TEENS. Which is why I brought them all together. Because those moments deserve to be shared. In their stories. In these blogposts. And in doing so, hopefully showing other disabled readers they’re not alone and we’re all in this together.

I’ll let some of my fantastic contributors share with you their moments, and what they hope readers will take way from UNBROKEN:

“I remember once upon a time, when I was young and freshly diagnosed, thinking that I had to find a solution to my bipolar. A cure or a medication or some kind of fix to the way I was. It took a while and a lot of ups and downs (ha), but these days I realize that I don’t need a solution, because my bipolar is not a problem. It creates problems, for sure, and those need handling. But the illness itself is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just a part of who I am. I wish I’d known that sooner, but I’m happy to know now. That’s what I hope readers will take away from this collection. Honestly, the stories are beautiful, but if there is one thing for any disabled teen to remember about the book, it is the title.”

-Heidi Heilig

“Being a wheelchair user in elementary school sometimes made socializing tricky. Sleepovers, field trips, Girl Scout camping trips—all logistically difficult. But sometimes my disability made me queen. Like at Sparkles, the local roller skating rink, where I would lead a chain of my peers, the first holding onto my power chair's handlebars, the rest holding onto each other and whooping as I sped around the rink full-speed. The slick floor offered no resistance, no drag. When the chain behind me was long enough and my speed great enough, I'd turn, sharp and sudden, to see how many people I could send flying off, their joyous screams echoing back to me at the head of the party.

What I most hope people get from my horror story is a thrill, a tension, and the unique pleasure of something's not right here. But what I most hope people get from the book as a whole is a beautiful glimpse of all the many stories we have to tell. I hope people leave the book hungry for more.”

-Kayla Whaley

“My kid's first steps were suitably adorable, but that's not what we're here for. Try not to infantilize her efforts, even though she was a literal infant at the time. Her legs wobbled. She held the edge of an oval-shaped coffee table and taught herself new ways to negotiate with gravity. I used a walker and a cane rather than a coffee table when I relearned how to walk, so I knew exactly what my kid was doing, and how it felt, when she launched herself away from that table.

This is not a story about overcoming adversity with pluck and grit. I still use a cane. In all likelihood I always will. I've also written a cane sword into every single one of my novels so far, and I’m particularly fond of the one in my contribution to UNBROKEN. This memory is a moment of kinship and recognition. A small human taught herself how to walk. I bore witness to those first steps while remembering my own.”

-William Alexander

“When my doctors started trying to figure out what sudden pain and sleep-all-day exhaustion were about, I was sent to a specialist clinic. Their advice was that ‘pacing myself’ meant doing no more than 5 minutes of activity (including personal care/ cooking etc) in any given day, for weeks, and maybe gradually build it up to ten if I could cope. Along with ‘you should get used to the idea that you might only ever manage an hour’. I sat through one session and I quit.

It wasn’t going to work for me. My first book had just come out, there was promo and another book to write. I had a day job. Bills to pay. A home to maintain, a body to feed and care for. Friends whose lives I wanted to be part of. All the usual life stuff.

I…probably see-sawed back and forth between having energy and spending too much of it more than was wise, in those early days. I definitely tried ignoring advice from friends who’d been there. But I’ve got better at knowing limits and when and how to push them. Generally there’s still a trade-off somewhere – a bargaining for the next (or biggest) curtain call. We all do it, I think, disabled or otherwise: some of us just have to haggle better. Which is where A Play In Many Parts comes in.

With UNBROKEN, disabled readers have a collection which could very well hold several iterations of themselves (I know there are several separate pieces of me I can see in here). That feeling – the feeling of being seen – is huge. And abled folks might catch their first glimpse of us all as (messy, human) heroes instead of cautionary tales.”

-Fox Benwell

“I live with cerebral palsy and I didn’t always like or love myself because of it. In fact, I hated myself. I thought I was ugly and unlovable for most of my life (I’m 27). UNBROKEN is an anthology of stories starring teens and I spent all of my teenage years being terrible to myself. I think this experience is worth talking about because I know firsthand that it’s not easy to see our worth sometimes. We question why we don’t see ourselves in mainstream media in a positive light and why we aren’t good enough. The thing is, we are good enough. I was good enough back when I didn’t like myself and now, that I do. The only difference is that I didn’t know it then. I believed I had to hate myself because I was different. We shouldn’t hate our differences, we should celebrate them! They’re beautiful, messy, & complicated.

My story, Mother Nature’s Youngest Daughter, is about a young girl named Millie who is being bullied. She is also trying to find her place in the world and in her family. Millie fights back. That was important to me, she’s a young girl who loves herself in a way I did not. I wanted to let readers know they didn’t have to wait until adulthood to love & fight for themselves. I wanted them to see a black girl with a disability be loved, be strong, be angry, be happy, and bold without apology.

In the collection as a whole, I know that readers will get to see themselves in a vast amount of characters who share experiences they don’t often get to see in other literary circles or mainstream media. These kids are heroes WITH disabilities and not despite them. I hope that encourages them as much as it has me.”

-Keah Brown

Marieke Nijkamp is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends and Before I Let Go. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, and geek. She currently resides in her home country, the Netherlands.