Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2019
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In this hilarious and thought-provoking contemporary teen standalone that's perfect for fans of Moxie, a bookworm finds a way to fight back when her school bans dozens of classic and meaningful books.
Clara Evans is horrified when she discovers her principal's "prohibited media" hit list. The iconic books on the list have been pulled from the library and aren't allowed anywhere on the school's premises. Students caught with the contraband will be sternly punished.
Many of these stories have changed Clara's life, so she's not going to sit back and watch while her draconian principal abuses his power. She's going to strike back.
So Clara starts an underground library in her locker, doing a shady trade in titles like Speak and The Chocolate War. But when one of the books she loves most is connected to a tragedy she never saw coming, Clara's forced to face her role in it.
Will she be able to make peace with her conflicting feelings, or is fighting for this noble cause too tough for her to bear?
"A high school senior takes censorship to task in this engrossing literary love letter...An absence of clear physical descriptions makes race difficult to determine." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Wry, thought-provoking, rebellious, and predicated on the belief that the right book changes everything. This book is a school librarians' dream, and the well-told story of a frustrated teen fighting for social justice will be a hit with young people, too." - School Library Journal
"Suggested Reading is a beautiful reminder that there is nothing simple about loving a book." - David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland
"Audiences will fall in love with this genuine and funny exploration of reading as an act of resistance." - Randy Ribay, author of After the Shot Drops and Patron Saints of Nothing
This information about Suggested Reading was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dave Connis writes words you can sing and words you can read. He lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his wife, Clara; two kids (a son and a daughter); and a dog that barks at nonexistent threats. When he's not writing YA or MG, he interprets software-developer-speak as a technical writer at Skuid, a startup based out of Chattanooga. He is a member of the Jedi Council, facilities manager at the Sanctum Sanctorum, and a guy with a propensity to daydream whenever he attempts to be an adult.
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