Finish the Year with these books!

As our year comes to a close, bookend 2022 with these reads! 

1. The Crusader by Nicholas Chimera (2018)

In The Crusader, high school student Patrick Knight struggles against his primal need to fight and his obligation towards helping the people of Chicago after he gains supernatural abilities. When all sorts of people come out of the woodwork to be his mentor, the lines between hero and villain start to blurr, and Patrick must decide who he can really trust. 

1. Suitcase of Dreams by Hazell McKenzie (2019)

The “American Dream” isn’t as easy to reach as some would like you to believe. Food Network star and mother, Hazell McKenzie, learned this first hand. This memoir tells McKenzie’s tale of coming to the U.S. as a teen from St. Vincent Island and finding an unfamiliar city and a treacherous path ahead of illness, poverty, anxiety, and fear. However, every time she gets knocked down, McKenzie rises again to find her success. Even when faced with the worst, she moves through the trials and tribulations of this new land with unrelenting determination and a Suitcase of Dreams.

1. The Facts and Legends of Callie Catwell by Sophia DeRise (2021)

Callie Catwell has many things that occupy her mind at all times in The Facts and Legends of Callie Catwell. Her father’s struggle with anorexia, her ex-boyfriend’s insistence on the past, and her new feelings for her female best friend are just a few. But now there’s a new obsession clouding her mind: the monster she saw in the Lost Lake. The monster consumes her thoughts and Callie welcomes the distraction. However, Callie cannot run from her problems forever, and even the magic of a monster can only shield her for so long.  

1. It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later by Richard Lawrence Belford (2017)

This collection of inspiration parables by Belford focuses on life, love, and loss. As a parable is a symbolic short story that teaches a truth, so too do the stories and illustrations in It’s Not Goodby, It’s See You Later strive to teach a lesson: sometimes saying “I’ll see you soon” is easier than saying goodbye.