New year, new books, movies, and more! Here are a few titles our Youth Advisory Council teens and staff are looking forward to checking out in 2020.
BOOKS
Demon is a thrilling, horrifying, and disturbing conclusion to Shane Peacock’s Gothic YA trilogy, The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim. Featuring monsters from classic literary tales and secret societies, the fight between good and evil continues as Edgar Brim and his friends return to London. Edgar’s night terrors begin increasing in intensity, and soon the group becomes aware they are being stalked by an invisible assailant they are convinced is the Devil himself. When the group suffers a fatal attack and a long-dead ally makes an appearance, Edgar begins questioning if he and his friends can defeat the most powerful villain imaginable if they can’t even trust their own minds?
Displaying a knack for horror and dark fantasy in her The Girl from the Well and The Bone Witch series, respectively, Rin Chupeco brings us Book 1 of a new series, Wicked As You Wish.
Slated for publication in March 2020, Wicked As You Wish follows Tala Warnock. As a descendant of Maria Makiling, the legendary Filipina heroine, she negates spells, often by accident. But her family’s old ties to the country of Avalon (frozen, bespelled, and unreachable for almost 12 years) soon finds them guarding its last prince from those who would use his kingdom’s magic for insidious ends.
And with the rise of dangerous spelltech in the Royal States of America; the appearance of the firebird, Avalon’s deadliest weapon, at her doorstep; and the re-emergence of the Snow Queen, powerful but long thought dead, who wants nothing more than to take the firebird’s magic for her own – Tala’s life is about to get even more complicated….
MOVIES
In our Favourites of 2019 – Part 2 post, we mentioned The Grace Year by Kim Liggett. A dark and harrowing read often compared to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, word came out in January 2019 that Universal Studios has options the film rights, with Elizabeth Banks set to direct. No release date or further details yet, but definitely worth keeping on your radar.
It’s been a long time coming, but Black Widow fans rejoice! Natasha Romanoff is getting her own movie, set to be released in May 2020. Set between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, we’ll get a glimpse into Natasha’s past, and see the world and people that made her.
A few other book-to-movie adaptations to keep an eye out for are:
- Chaos Walking, based on The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness and starring Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland
- All the Bright Places, based on the novel of the same title and starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith. Set to be released on Netflix in February 2020, you won’t have to wait long for this one.
- Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, with Grace VanderWaal appearing as Susan ‘Stargirl’ Caraway.
What are you looking forward to reading/watching in 2020?
