Read this book about family and fitting in

even when it's tough

What to Read This Week

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis

What It’s About

Tiffany, in most ways, is like any other sixteen-year-old, dealing with tough classes, touch choices about the future, and managing a stressful workload. But when her mom dies of cancer, it all crumbles, and she’s sent to live with the dad she’s never known. When she arrives to a brand-new city and a brand-new family, she meets Anthony Stone, her father, and discovers he has four other daughters and lives his life by an incredibly strict set of rules—and he expects Tiffany to follow them too.

Adjusting to this new normal is difficult, but to make matters worse, another man comes out of the woodwork, claiming he’s Tiffany’s real real father. Now, she doesn’t know where to turn, and the only stability and rock she’s ever known, her mom, isn’t there to help her.

This is a book about family and grief and tragedy and complicated emotions and feeling lots of feelings all at once. I loved the flawed and complex characters (and even some characters who were downright horrible) that felt so real and true to life.

Who Will Like It

This is one of those YA books that feels like it crosses borders and that it missed a lot of readers because they didn’t want to read a YA or thought that it was not actually YA. It sits squarely between, following a character who is in their second half of high school, thinking about the future, but that deals with very difficult and tough topics that everyone can relate to, no matter their age. Fans of With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo or books by Nina LaCour will like this one.

And you may not know the name Dana L. Davis off-hand, but you’ll certainly recognize her when you see photos, as she’s not only an amazing author and advocate and activist for Los Angeles–area (and worldwide) nonprofits, but she’s also a well-known actress who has appeared in everything from Heroes to the TV reboot of Ten Things I Hate about You, just to name a couple.

Next Up

I was lucky enough to be sent an early review copy of Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose, the second in a series, which was the push I needed to pick up the first one, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder, and it deserves all the hype it’s been getting. And if you haven’t heard anything about it, you may just see it in an upcoming newsletter, but for now, it’s got a secret, underground detective agency in the 1950s, a locked-room murder mystery, and everyone in the organization has something to hide. Sounds good, right?

It’s the absolute perfect book for this miserable, single-digit-degree weather we’re having here in Chicago, and I’ll be right here under my blankets reading it until it’s warm again!

What did you read over the holidays? Any book recommendations for me? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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