Category: Riot Rundown

Sponsored by Gilded by Marissa Meyer, with Fierce Reads

In Gilded, #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer returns to the fairytale world with this haunting retelling of Rumpelstiltskin.

Sponsored by The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Bibliophilia

Journals, scrapbooks, water bottles, laptops, bookmarks, stationary—what can’t you improve with a few gorgeous stickers? And with over 1,000 exquisite stickers of bookish-themed art and author quotes, you will truly find something for everyone and everything.

Sponsored by Remixed Classics with Fierce Reads

In the Remixed Classics series, authors from diverse backgrounds take different literary classics from centuries past and reinterpret them through their own unique cultural lens. This collection will serve YA readers as both a series of fun, engaging reads as well as a subversive overall look at what our society has deemed “classic”—works that are overwhelmingly cishet, white, and male.

In A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix, two intrepid girls hunt for a legendary treasure on the deadly high seas. In So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix, you’ll meet four young Black sisters—Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy—as they come of age during the American Civil War.

Sponsored by St. Martin's Press

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Nevernight Chronicle, Jay Kristoff, comes the first book of an astonishing dark fantasy saga

For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.

Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: The Holy Grail.

Sponsored by Other Boys by Damian Alexander

In Other Boys, debut author Damian Alexander delivers a moving middle grade graphic memoir about his struggles with bullying, the death of his mother, and coming out.

“It’s hard to describe Damian Alexander’s particular mix of earnest sweetness and searing honesty without experiencing this book for yourself. Other Boys shoots straight for the heart in every single panel, and I’m both grateful and moved.”
—Becky Albertalli, bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Sponsored by Mariner Books

Celebrate Hobbit Day on September 22 by reading this great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings.
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

Sponsored by The Robber Girl by Franny Billingsley

Part literary mystery, part magical tour de force—an incantatory novel of fierce beauty, lyricism, and originality. The Robber Girl has a good dagger. Its voice in her head is as sharp as its two edges that taper down to a point. She and her dagger will ride with Gentleman Jack into the Indigo Heart to claim the gold that’s rightfully his. But instead of gold, she finds a dollhouse cottage with doorknobs the size of apple seeds. She finds two dolls who give her three tasks, even though she knows that three is too many tasks.

Sponsored by Sourcebooks

It is 1913, revolution rages in Mexico. Twelve-year-old Petra’s mama has died and before her papa is dragged away by soldiers, Petra vows to care for her abuelita, little sister Amelia, and baby brother Luisito, until they can be reunited. They flee north through the unforgiving desert as their town burns, searching for safe harbor in a world that offers none.

Through battlefields and deserts, hunger and fear, Petra stops at nothing to keep her family safe and lead them to a better life across the U.S. border – a life where her barefoot dreams could finally become reality.

Sponsored by Simon & Schuster, publishers of The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman.

Readers first fell in love with the Owens family over twenty-five years ago in Alice Hoffman’s beloved novel Practical Magic. Now in Magic Lessons, travel back three hundred years to meet their ancestor, the formidable Maria Owens, whose fierce independence is tested when she falls for the wrong man and sparks the curse which will affect generations of her family to come. Don’t miss this “enchanting” (Esquire) prequel celebrating family, magic, and fierce women who will do anything for love.

Sponsored by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Alice meets Felix and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.

While still young, life is catching up with them. They desire each other, delude each other, get together, and break apart. They have sex, worry about sex, worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?