Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldanado

January 19, 2021 ~ Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense ~ 18 Comments

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings where bloggers share which upcoming releases they’re most looking forward to. Join us every Wednesday and watch your TBR list multiply.

There are so many amazing sounding debuts by Latinx authors that are happening this year. Next month Crystal Maldonado’s Fat Chance, Charlie Vega comes out. The cover instantly brings a smile to my face. Cover is linked to Goodreads.

Title: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
Author: Crystal Maldonado
Series: N/A
Pages: 352
Publisher: Holiday House
Release Date: February 2, 2021

“Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.
Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.
People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.
But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS
A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.”

Are you participating in Can’t-Wait Wednesday or Waiting on Wednesday? Is this book on your TBR? Be sure to leave a link to your post in the comments and I’ll visit!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson

September 8, 2020 ~ Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense ~ 9 Comments

Tiffany D. Jackson has a talent for leaving me speechless with her books. Grown, her upcoming novel, sounds like it is full of twists and turns and I just know no matter how good a guesser I think I am, Jackson is going surprise me. This one comes out next week and I am eagerly awaiting my preorder. Cover is linked to Goodreads.

Title: Grown
Author: Tiffany D. Jackson
Series: N/A
Pages: 384
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: September 15, 2020

“Korey Fields is dead.
When Enchanted Jones wakes with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night, no one—the police and Korey’s fans included—has more questions than she does. All she really knows is that this isn’t how things are supposed to be. Korey was Enchanted’s ticket to stardom.
Before there was a dead body, Enchanted was an aspiring singer, struggling with her tight knit family’s recent move to the suburbs while trying to find her place as the lone Black girl in high school. But then legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots her at an audition. And suddenly her dream of being a professional singer takes flight.
Enchanted is dazzled by Korey’s luxurious life but soon her dream turns into a nightmare. Behind Korey’s charm and star power hides a dark side, one that wants to control her every move, with rage and consequences. Except now he’s dead and the police are at the door. Who killed Korey Fields?
All signs point to Enchanted.”

Are you participating in Can’t-Wait Wednesday or Waiting on Wednesday? Is this book on your TBR? Be sure to leave a link to your post in the comments and I’ll visit!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

August 25, 2020 ~ Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense ~ 12 Comments

While I am on the lookout for more YA horror and adult horror novels by authors of color, I came across this middle grade horror book by Daka Hermon. Hide and Seeker sounds oh so creepy and reading the synopsis takes me back to when I was a kid who loved reading Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Cover is linked to Goodreads.

Title: Hide and Seeker
Author: Daka Hermon
Series: N/A
Pages: 320
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: September 15, 2020

“One of our most iconic childhood games receives a creepy twist as it becomes the gateway to a nightmare world.
I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it?
Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong.
One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.”

Are you participating in Can’t-Wait Wednesday or Waiting on Wednesday? Is this book on your TBR? Be sure to leave a link to your post in the comments and I’ll visit!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

August 18, 2020August 20, 2020 ~ Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense ~ 8 Comments

I am so excited for Darcie Little Badger’s debut Elatsoe. I am always on the lookout for new fantasy books that are influenced by an author’s culture, so this one is high on my TBR. And doesn’t this cover make you want to be whisked away by the story? This one is out next week! Cover is linked to Goodreads.

Title: Elatsoe
Author: Darcie Little Badger
Series: N/A
Pages: 368
Publisher: Levine Querido
Release Date: August 25, 2020

“Imagine an America very similar to our own. It’s got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream.
There are some differences. This America been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.
Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.”

Are you participating in Can’t-Wait Wednesday or Waiting on Wednesday? Is this book on your TBR? Be sure to leave a link to your post in the comments and I’ll visit!