A shot at Olympic gold in ski jumping. It’s a dream that has been the exclusive property of male athletes. Until now.
For seventeen-year-old Ellie Engebretsen, the 2011 decision to include women’s ski jumping in the Olympics is a game changer. She’d love to bring home the gold for her father, a former Olympic competitor whose dreams were blown along with his knees on an ill-timed landing. But can she defy the pull of gravity that draws her to Kate Moreau, her biggest competition and the girl of her dreams?
How can Ellie soar through the air when all she feels like doing is falling hard?
There's a time for justice. Then there's a time for action. And Jonathan Cooper knows exactly what time it is.
It is time to lie. To his parents, who think he's on a ski trip with Pete Mitchell when he's really gone to Madison to search for one person willing to testify for his boyfriend, Ian McGuire, who is facing the charge of assault and battery. To Ian's parents, who have erased him from their lives. Even to himself. Because admitting his feelings for Mason Kellerman isn't an option.
It is also time to face the truth. That Jonathan may have lied for nothing. That he may be powerless to save Ian from a guilty verdict. That whether he likes it or not, it is time for taking the stand.
Camp is over and Jonathan Cooper returns hometo life with his mother whose silence is worse than anything she could say, to his varsity soccer teammates at East Bay Christian Academy, to the growing rumors about what he did with a boy last summer at Bible camp.
All the important lines blur. Between truth and lies. Between friends and enemies. Between reality and illusion.
Just when Jonathan feels the most alone, help arrives from the unlikeliest of sources: Frances "Sketch" Mallory, the weird girl from his art class, and her equally eccentric friend, Mason. For a short while, thanks to Sketch and Mason, life is almost survivable. Then Ian McGuire comes to town on the night of the homecoming dance and tensions explode. Fists fly, blood flows, and Jonathanpowerless to stop itdoes the only thing he believes might save them all: he prays for God's grace.
That is the dilemma sixteen-year-old Jonathan Cooper faces when he goes away to Spirit Lake Bible Camp, an oasis for teen believers situated along Minnesota's rugged north shore. He is expecting a summer of mosquito bites, bonfires with S'mores, and photography classes with Simon, his favorite counselor, who always helps Jonathan see his life in perfect focus.
What he isn't expecting is Ian McGuire, a new camper who openly argues against phrases like pray the gay away. Ian is certain of many things, including what could happen between them if only Jonathan could surrender to his feelings. Jonathan, however, tosses in a storm of indecision between his belief in God and his inability to stay away from Ian. When a real storm hits and Ian is lost in it, Jonathan is forced to make a public decision that changes his life.
Seventeen-year-old Ella Gatz is alone when the thief enters her father’s mansion on Halloween night. Ella fights the intruder but fails to stop the theft of Her Heart, her mother’s favorite painting. Ella mourns the loss of the only remaining piece of the mother she lost, and when her father, CEO of a security firm, refuses to report the crime for fear of the humiliation he will face at having his security system fail in his own home, Ella determines to hunt down the culprit and reclaim Her Heart.
The only hint to who the thief may be is a long, pink-and-blond hair. Finding her thief will become Ella’s first move in a dangerous game of wits that exposes family secrets and could lead to her family’s financial ruin.
Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.
To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.
As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.
"This is an accessible story with an interesting premise: The fantasy metaphor for Ashly’s adolescent alienation and despair works well and livens up the plot, especially when a revelation draws Ashly into the throes of a faerie war as well as a rewarding queer romance. A relatable fantasy weaving in real-life issues." –Kirkus Reviews, 08/15/2023
Evelyne, born into nobility, and Annika, a peasant girl with a deadly secret, struggle to change their destinies in Valmora, a medieval world controlled by religion, magic, and men.
If only she’d been born a boy, Evelyne could fight with her brothers and fulfill her dreams of glory. Instead, her father has arranged her marriage. Annika knows she’s different. She has gifts the Valmorans call talents, and she’s waited too long to turn herself over to the Temple for training. If she tells anyone now, she will burn as a heretic.
Their blossoming love changes everything.
Both are forced to confront who they are when saving an innocent life exposes Annika’s talent and she’s held prisoner by the unforgiving Temple Paladin. Saving Annika will cost Evelyne all she’s ever known, but her sacrifice may lead them on a path to love and a destiny that will change Valmora forever.
Gravity was such a fun read. I loved the ski jumping aspect, I had never read a book about ski jumping and it was like you were watching it clear in front of you. I know the author asked a former ski jumping athlete for things and accuracy. I loved the winter-y feeling of the book, of course, and it made me want to watch the Winter Olympics already!
The characters, Ellie and Kate, were so great to meet and get to know. Ellie wants to go to the 2018 Olympics and all she has done is train, train train. Then she meets Kate one cold day in the snow and they hit it off. Soon enough they find themselves as competitors in the next competition. I adored Kate, she's so fierce and sassy as heck. She is a cute ball of sunshine and her smile could light up the world to be honest.
This is for the ones who have always wanted an f/f ski jumping YA novel.
Reviewed by Silvana Reyes
Approachable
By Netgalley.com on Oct 20, 2016 06:10
While the target audience for this volume was a younger set, I was particularly intrigued by the synoptic description of two adolescents competing in such a difficult sport, who develop affection for each other. The writing was approachable, the romance innocent but capturing and the insight that was offered into the grueling experience of engaging in such athletic training was useful....
Reviewed by Adrian Amador
What a great YA story.
By Netgalley.com on Oct 20, 2016 05:10
What a great YA story.
This book manages to be many things at once and does it so in quite a concise and accomplished way. It's short, sweet and intense. Is a coming of age story. It's a romance. Of a sorts. Because it's also a thrilling story about 2 young women who are also in love with a sport.
Now, my favorite thing about this book was the characters. Such rich, well-developed, believable characters.
Ellie is a great protagonist. She's this smart, talented, dedicated and funny (on the sarcastic spectrum of humor) girl who is at a point of her young life where she is standing on that strange territory of trying to find the sweet spot between where being cool ends and where being a selfish dick starts.
Yet, to me she is very relatable and endearing because, by being in her head, we know she is actually a sweet kid, even if most of her actions, throughout the novel, shows us how absolutely confused she is about most things that are happening to her. She is overwhelmed by life. Which is actually a very realistic depiction of the state of mind of most teenagers out there. Her heart seems to be in the right place, but most of her actions seems to be guided by a strange and combustible combination of hormones and lack of life experience. She is trying though. Trying as best as she can to figure herself out with as minimum colateral damage as possible to the people around her. Not that she's doing very well on that department... but then again, most teenagers fail at that too.
Then there is Kate. It's interesting to me how well balanced I felt Ellie and Kate were as characters, and even though I really liked Ellie, every time Kate showed up in the book she immediately seemed to become the center of the story, even if she actually wasn't. Their relationship might be the center of the story, sure, but only because their relationship actually ends up being the beginning as well as the end of Ellie's journey.
And as much as Ellie is reserved, Kate is unguarded. As readers we don't seem to need much time to figure her out. Kate is Kate. There is not much subtext to her personality, yet that is precisely what makes her so interesting as a character. In terms of emotional maturity, at the beginning of the book, she seems to be in a place that Ellie is not even aware yet she will also eventually need to be in order to grow up.
Yet, their personality contrast is what makes their interactions and their whole relationship dynamic so interesting to me.
I actually could go on and on talking about the all the other supporting characters as well. There aren't that many, but what is there is incredibly well done, specially Kate's mom, Maggie. I really loved Maggie.
And the backdrop to Ellie and Kate story is many other quite meaningful subplots that adds a lot of substance to the story itself. There is the delicate relationship (or lack thereof) between Ellie and her mother or Kate and her father, as well as the consequences of that relationship with the parents that remained with them. There is also their passion for a sport and their dreams of competing in that sport.
Just trust me when I say there is a lot going on this story. And most of it, is really, really good. One of the major complains I have about this book though is that it's just too short for what is trying to accomplish. Don't get me wrong, it's great as it is, but I think that with a bit extra room to further develop all those other subplots could have made it even better.
I also loved how unlike many other books out there, there isn't really a 'villain' in this story. Much like in real life, there are just perceptions of who the 'bad guy' might actually be, but only because reading the story from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, you only get to see her own, very limited and biased, point of view.
And that's about it. I really did enjoy this book, will be looking for other books from this author and will definitely keep an eye on her future releases.
