Pick an Anime, Get a Book Rec

<section><h2><h2><strong>Pick an Anime, get a book rec</strong></h2></h2><p>Y'all know the drill. We're all nerds here, and if we're not geeking out over fictional book characters, we're geeking out over fictional animated characters. So, why not combine both your (my) obsessions? You like anime? Well pick your fave, and we'll give you a book rec!</p></section><section><h2><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/fence">Fence: Striking Distance</a> by Sarah Rees Brennan</strong></h2></h2><p><p>Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is the illegitimate son of a retired fencing champion who dreams of getting the proper training he could never afford. After earning a place on the elite Kings Row fencing team, Nicholas must prove himself to his rival, Seiji Katayma, and navigate the clashes, friendships, and relationships between his teammates on the road to state championships&ndash;where Nicholas might finally have the chance to spar with his golden-boy half-brother.</p><p>Coach Williams decides to take advantage of the boys&rsquo; morale after a recent victory and assigns them a course of team building exercises to further deepen their bonds. It takes a shoplifting scandal, a couple of moonlit forest strolls, several hilariously bad dates, and a whole lot of introspection for the team to realize they are stronger together than they could ever be apart.</p><p>The first installment of this enticing original YA novel series by Sarah Rees Brennan, rich with casual diversity and queer self-discovery, explores never-before-seen drama inspired by C.S. Pacat&rsquo;s critically acclaimed&nbsp;<em>Fence&nbsp;</em>comic series and boasts original cover and interior art by Johanna The Mad.</p><p>Text and Illustration copyright: &copy; 2020 BOOM! Studios</p><p>Fence(TM) and &copy; 2020 C.S. Pacat</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/wolfbywolf">Wolf by Wolf</a> by Ryan Graudin</strong></h2></h3><p><p>The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their combined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor&rsquo;s ball in Tokyo.</p><p>Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year&rsquo;s only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele&rsquo;s twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael&rsquo;s every move.</p><p>But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and stay true to her mission?</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/witchesofashandruin">Witches of Ash and Ruin</a>&nbsp;by E. Latimer</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope with her somatic OCD; the aftermath of being outed as bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the return of her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really matters to her is ascending and finally,&nbsp;<em>finally</em>&nbsp;becoming a full witch-plans that are complicated when another coven, rumored to have a sordid history with black magic, arrives in town with premonitions of death. Dayna immediately finds herself at odds with the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the granddaughter of their coven leader.</p><p>And then a witch turns up murdered at a local sacred site, along with the blood symbol of the Butcher of Manchester-an infamous serial killer whose trail has long gone cold. The killer&rsquo;s motives are enmeshed in a complex web of witches and gods, and Dayna and Meiner soon find themselves at the center of it all. If they don&rsquo;t stop the Butcher, one of them will be next.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/thewarriorheir">The Warrior Heir</a> by Cinda Williams Chima</strong></h2></h3><p>Before he knew about the Roses, 16-year-old Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take daily and the thick scar above his heart set him apart from the other high-schoolers. Then one day Jack skips his medicine. Suddenly, he is stronger, fiercer, and more confident than ever before. And it feels great-until he loses control of his own strength and nearly kills another player during soccer team tryouts.<br /><br />Soon, Jack learns the startling truth about himself: He is Weirlind; part of an underground society of magical people who live among us. At the head of this magical society sit the feuding houses of the Red Rose and the White Rose, whose power is determined by playing The Game-a magical tournament in which each house sponsors a warrior to fight to the death. The winning house rules the Weir.<br /><br />As if his bizarre magical heritage isn&rsquo;t enough, Jack finds out that he&rsquo;s not just another member of Weirlind-he&rsquo;s one of the last of the warriors-at a time when both houses are scouting for a player.</p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/youmustnotmiss">You Must Not Miss</a> by Katrina Leno</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Magpie Lewis started writing in her yellow notebook the day she walked in on her father having sex with her aunt on her parents' bed. That was the night her mom started down a spiral of self-destruction. That was the night Eryn, Magpie's sister, skipped town and left her to fend for herself. That was the night of Brandon Phipp's party.&nbsp;</p><p>Now, Magpie is called a slut whenever she walks down the hallways of her high school, her former best friend won't speak to her, and she spends her lunch period with a group of misfits who've all been socially exiled like she has. And so, feeling trapped and forgotten, Magpie retreats to her notebook, dreaming up a place called Near.</p><p>Near is perfect&mdash;somewhere where her father never cheated, her mother never drank, and Magpie's own life never derailed so suddenly. She writes Near so completely, so fully, that she dreams it into existence, right in her own backyard. It's a place where she can have anything she wants...even revenge.</p><p>Acclaimed author Katrina Leno spins a twisted and suspenseful tale of friendship, revenge, and the monsters that live inside us all.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/morethanjustaprettyface">More Than Just a Pretty Face</a> by Syed M. Masood</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Danyal Jilani has no lack of confidence. He may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he's funny, gorgeous, and going to make a great chef one day. His father doesn't approve of his career choice, but that hardly matters. What <em>does</em> matter is the opinion of Danyal's longtime crush, the perfect-in-all-ways Kaval, and her family, who consider him a less than ideal arranged-marriage prospect.</p><p>Then Danyal gets selected for the Renaissance Man, a school-wide academic championship and the perfect opportunity to show everyone he's smarter than they think. He recruits the brilliant, totally-uninterested-in-him Bisma to help with the competition, but the more time Danyal spends with her...the more he learns from her...the more he cooks for her...the more he realizes that happiness may be staring him right in his pretty face.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/werulethenight">We Rule the Night</a>&nbsp;by Claire Eliza Bartlett</strong></h2></h3><p>Seventeen-year-old Revna is a factory worker, manufacturing war machines for the Union of the North. When she's caught using illegal magic, she fears being branded a traitor and imprisoned. Meanwhile, on the front lines, Linn&eacute; defied her father, a Union general, and disguised herself as a boy to join the army. They're both offered a reprieve from punishment if they use their magic in a special women's military flight unit and undertake terrifying, deadly missions under cover of darkness. Revna and Linn&eacute; can hardly stand to be in the same cockpit, but if they can't fly together, and if they can't find a way to fly <em>well</em>, the enemy's superior firepower will destroy them&mdash;if they don't destroy each other first.<br /><br /><em>We Rule the Night</em>&nbsp;is a powerful alternate-history fantasy about sacrifice, complicated friendships, and survival despite impossible odds.</p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/wecontainmultitudes">We Contain Multitudes</a>&nbsp;by Sarah Henstra</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Jonathan Hopkirk, a Walt Whitman fan, and Adam "Kurl" Kurlansky, a football player, are partnered in English class, writing letters to one another in a weekly pen pal assignment.</p><p>With each letter, the two begin to develop a friendship that eventually grows into love. But with homophobia, bullying, and familial strife, Jonathan and Kurl must struggle to hold onto their relationship&mdash;and each other.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/amatchmadeinmehendi">A Match Made in Mehendi</a>&nbsp;by Nandini Bajpai</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Fifteen-year-old Simran &ldquo;Simi&rdquo; Sangha comes from a long line of Indian vichole-matchmakers-with a rich history for helping parents find good matches for their grown children. When Simi accidentally sets up her cousin and a soon-to-be lawyer, her family is thrilled that she has the &ldquo;gift.&rdquo;</p><p>But Simi is an&nbsp;<em>artist</em>, and she doesn&rsquo;t want to have anything to do with relationships, helicopter parents, and family drama. That is, until she realizes this might be just the thing to improve her and her best friend Noah&rsquo;s social status. Armed with her family&rsquo;s ancient guide to finding love, Simi starts a matchmaking service-via an app, of course.</p><p>But when she helps connect a wallflower of a girl with the star of the boys&rsquo; soccer team, she turns the high school hierarchy topsy-turvy, soon making herself public enemy number one.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/theinbetween">The In Between</a> by Marc Klein</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Told in dual narratives set before and after a tragic car accident,&nbsp;<em>The In Between&nbsp;</em>follows 16-year-old Tessa, an introverted, rising junior in high school with a keen eye for photography.</p><p>As she's escaping a snow day, a chance encounter in a movie theater with Skylar, a green-eyed senior from a neighboring town, leads quickly to the kind of passionate love you only see in the movies.But when tragedy strikes, Tessa wakes up alone with no memory of what happened. So begins her relentless search for answers -- one that might lead&nbsp; into the afterlife itself.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/cruelprince">The Cruel Prince</a> by Holly Black</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.</p><p>To win a place at the Court, she must defy him&mdash;and face the consequences.</p><p>In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/teethinthemist">Teeth in the Mist</a> by Dawn Kurtagich</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Seventeen-year-old Zoey has been fascinated by the haunted, burnt-out ruins of Medwyn Mill House for as long as she can remember&mdash;so she and her best friend Poulton decide to explore the ruins. But are they really alone in the house?</p><p>In 1851, sixteen-year-old Roan arrives at the Mill House as a ward&mdash;one of three, all with their own secrets. When Roan learns that she is connected to an ancient secret, she must escape the house before she is trapped forever.</p><p>This haunting horror and captivating mystery redefines the horror and fantasy space.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/beyondtherubyveil">Beyond the Ruby Veil</a> by Mara Fitzgerald</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Emanuela Ragno always gets what she wants. With her daring mind and socialite schemes, she refuses to be the demure young lady everyone wants her to be. In her most ambitious move yet, she&rsquo;s about to marry Alessandro Morandi, her childhood best friend and the heir to the wealthiest house in Occhia. Emanuela doesn&rsquo;t care that she and her groom are both gay, because she doesn&rsquo;t want a love match. She wants power, and through Ale, she&rsquo;ll have it all. But Emanuela has a secret that could shatter her plans. </p><p>In the city of Occhia, the only source of water is the watercrea, a mysterious being who uses magic to make water from blood. When their first bruise-like omen appears on their skin, all Occhians must surrender themselves to the watercrea to be drained of life. Everyone throughout history has given themselves up for the greater good. Everyone except Emanuela. She&rsquo;s kept the tiny omen on her hip out of sight for years.</p><p>When the watercrea exposes Emanuela during her wedding ceremony and takes her to be sacrificed, Emanuela fights back&hellip;and kills her. Now Occhia has no one to make their water and no idea how to get more. In a race against time, Emanuela and Ale must travel through the mysterious, blood-red veil that surrounds their city to uncover the secrets of the watercrea&rsquo;s magic and find a way to save their people-no matter what it takes.</p><br /></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/twilight">The Twilight Saga</a> by Stephenie Meyer</strong></h2></h3><p><p>About three things I was absolutely positive.</p><p>First, Edward was a vampire.<br /><br />Second, there was a part of him&mdash;and I didn't know how dominant that part might be&mdash;that thirsted for my blood.<br /><br />And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.</p><p>In the first book of the Twilight Saga, internationally bestselling author Stephenie Meyer introduces Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, a pair of star-crossed lovers whose forbidden relationship ripens against the backdrop of small-town suspicion and a mysterious coven of vampires. This is a love story with bite.</p></p></section><section><h3><h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/whereiendandyoubegin">Where I End &amp; You Begin</a> by Preston Norton</strong></h2></h3><p><p>Ezra Slevin is an anxious, neurotic insomniac who spends his nights questioning his place in the universe and his days obsessing over Imogen, a nerdy girl with gigantic eyebrows and a heart of gold. For weeks, Ezra has been working up the courage to invite Imogen to prom. The only problem is Imogen&rsquo;s protective best friend, Wynonna Jones. Wynonna has blue hair, jams to &rsquo;80s rock, and has made a career out of tormenting Ezra for as long as he can remember.</p><p>Then, on the night of a total solar eclipse, something strange happens to Ezra and Wynonna, and they wake up in each other&rsquo;s bodies. Not only that, they begin randomly swapping back and forth every day! Ezra soon discovers Wynonna&rsquo;s huge crush on his best friend, Holden, a five-foot-nothing girl magnet with anger management problems. With no end to their curse in sight, Ezra makes Wynonna a proposition: While swapping bodies, he will help her win Holden&rsquo;s heart, but only if she helps him woo Imogen.</p><p>Forming an uneasy alliance, Ezra and Wynonna embark on a collision course of mistaken identity, hurt feaelings, embarrassing bodily functions, and a positively byzantine production of&nbsp;<em>Twelfth Night</em>. Ezra wishes he could be more like Wynonna&rsquo;s badass version of Ezra &mdash; but he also realizes he feels more like himself while being Wynonna than he has in a long time.</p></p></section><section><h2><h2><strong>Choose an Anime!</strong></h2></h2></section>