Bookcase Bizarro: MG/YA Book Reviews, July 2025

MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Writer

Welcome to the July edition of Bookcase Bizarro!

In author news, I’ve completed the first draft of Shadow Chaser (new working title), the sequel to Shadow Apprentice. My mind needs a break before I start revisions, so I plan to enjoy some serious down time. After that, I’ll start revising Rogue Wizard, the Garrison Creek novella I wrote last spring, based on the developmental feedback I got, and I’ll book my copy/stylistic editor as soon as I’ve got a rough idea of timelines.

I’m also looking into opening a Payhip store for direct, digital-only sales to Canada, the UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand. (Selling paperbacks is too expensive, given shipping costs. I wouldn’t be able to compete with third-party sellers, like Amazon. A notable exception would be selling special editions through Kickstarter.)

Why restrict the sale of my books to those places, you may wonder? Why not embrace the whole world?

In a word (okay, two): sales taxes.

These days, sales taxes are triggered by the location of a customer, not the seller. I may be a citizen of Canada, a resident of Canada and pay taxes in Canada, but if I sell my books to customers outside Canada, I am responsible for collecting and remitting sales taxes to those customers’ states or countries once the number of sales crosses specific thresholds. The US is particularly complex, as each state has a different tax threshold. Compliance wouldn’t be hard to monitor by using a plugin, but the cost of registering my company to stay compliant in various states could cost tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention all the accountant’s fees to handle this hot mess. Oh, and did I mention that I’d have to register as a non-resident business in the US and file a US income tax return with the IRS EVERY SINGLE YEAR even though I owe them no actual income tax?

Yeah… no.

Payhip operates as a Merchant of Record (much like Amazon), so if I set up a store on their site, they will handle the taxes and take care of online security and payment processing for me. They charge me either a monthly fee or a percentage of sales. Payhip handles taxes for the UK and the EU, but not anywhere else. Australia and New Zealand tax thresholds are so high that I won’t ever reach them, and I’ll only pay Canadian sales tax when I earn $30,000/year—not an immediate problem. So that’s my rationale for restricting my sales to these countries. And for those of you who wonder why I don’t simply sell on Shopify, the answer is: they don’t operate as a Merchant of Record so they don’t handle taxes; they have a history of sharply increasing the prices on their subscription plans, and a monthly subscription costs substantially more unless you’re paying annually.

I suspect that most indie authors simply fly below the radar and don’t worry about sales tax. They’re not the worrying type. That is not me. The mere threat of non-compliance and liability hanging over my head is enough to destroy my sleep forever. I think this stuff will get a lot easier in the near future. Direct sales have exploded. More and more companies are popping up to take care of sales taxes for independent sellers. Shopify and Payhip may have to expand their offerings in order to remain competitive.

Direct sales will not replace other forms of selling for me—it’s an add-on. Everyone will always be able to buy my book(s) through online retailers. My book(s) will always be available to order through local bookstores and libraries. Every library checkout is just as supportive to me as an author as a sale. I’m grateful for all of it!

Now, it’s time for some Bookcase Bizarro book talk.

This month, we set off for Grade 7 with a 12-year-old who wants to be the best at something—anything—to fit in, impress his crush and to offset the growing anxiety he feels as a gay South Asian middle-schooler. (Eek! I remember those days, and not with any fondness.)

A quick note to new readers: books that are available from the Toronto Public Library will be marked #TPL, because books don’t have to be new or owned in order to be loved.

YA Book Review

Rahul Kapoor isn’t looking forward to Grade 7. As his anxiety over starting school builds, his grandfather, Bhai, advises him to find something he’s really good at, then become the best at it.

The only problem is, Rahul has no idea what he’s good at. He decides to try everything, whether he’s good at it or not. Luckily, he can count on his best friend, Chelsea, for support. School bully, Brent Mason, has singled Rahul out for special torture this year. Worse, Rahul can’t stop himself from staring at his classmate, Jason Emery. What if Brent notices? Then there’s his family. They’re always on the verge of embarrassing him. If only they wouldn’t stick out so much! What will Bhai say if Rahul ends up being the worst at everything he tries, and the best at nothing at all?

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Maulik Pancholy’s acting chops certainly show up in his writing, so much so that I wonder if he wrote up in-depth character motivations for each one in order to get into their heads. Because he really does. His characters are richly realized and engaging, and he excels at creating situations for them to interact with each other in interesting and humorous ways to advance the plot, while exploring serious issues like anxiety, perfectionism, neurodivergence, coming out, racism and bullying.

Rahul’s anxiety manifests in a number of ways, including OCD and internalized racism. He checks the front door repeatedly to make sure it’s locked, and positions his bed at a certain distance from the wall to keep his sheets from touching the electrical outlet and catching fire. At school, he tries his best to fit in with the largely white student body, eager not to draw attention to himself while he seeks to blend in. Anything vaguely South Asian makes him cringe with embarrassment, and he copes by distancing himself from other South Asian students, and obsessing over a white classmate to such an extent that it’s unclear if Rahul’s crushing on him, or is monitoring him to find out how he, Rahul, should act. By trying out all the socially acceptable things he thinks he should be good at, Rahul overlooks the one thing he’s absolutely brilliant at, because it makes him look like too much of a nerd.

Rahul’s anxiety means he’s on overload most days and is self-absorbed as a result. I have no problem with this, except for one thing: he never has to confront the full impact of his hurtful behavior on his friends. In one case, an arrogant comment he makes to his teammates at a Mathletes competition gets noticed, but is not resolved either with an apology from Rahul or a further challenge by his teammates.

In another instance, he screams at his best friend, Chelsea. After not talking to each other for a while, they both apologize while the reasons for the explosion get swept under the carpet. This surprises even Rahul, but he thinks that being best friends means that nothing more needs to be said. I found it unbelievable that 12-year-old Chelsea, whose hormones are probably going haywire and is very much learning how to be a good friend, wouldn’t struggle with this. Instead, she forgives Rahul with the acuity of a seasoned therapist. Rahul can’t explain to Chelsea why he yelled at her, because that would mean admitting something that he’s not quite ready to say out loud. However, Chelsea’s refusal to accept his apology might have made Rahul experience and absorb the damage his behavior had caused, providing him with a new understanding of himself.

This runs parallel to his obsession with Jason, which is something he barely understands, even though there are plenty of hints. The collective weight of those hints should have pierced Rahul’s consciousness enough for him to make the connections for himself. Instead, a favorite adult in Rahul’s life drills home the central realization that Rahul—and readers—should already know.

Rahul’s family is quite wonderful, although one of his uncles is homophobic. As Rahul struggles with his discomfort over being gay, South Asian and neurodivergent, his family takes an active role in helping him coalesce his intersecting identities into a more integrated whole. If only everyone had a family like the Kapoors!

For 5th and 6th grade readers, who appreciate realistic fiction with some humour mixed in with the angst. (#TPL)

In the Garden

Like most of Canada and the US, Toronto was caught in the grip of a ferocious heat wave from June 22-25, where temperatures reached 46C (115 F). I really thought my backyard garden would die. I’d mulched each pot thickly with straw a couple of weeks before as the weather warmed up and was astonished by how much the straw cooled the soil and held in moisture. For the first time in my 27 year gardening career, I did not have to water my pots every day… including during the heat wave!

Here are shots of some of my plants after the heat wave:

Two of my red chard plants bolted, along with some lettuces. (See the second picture, above.) I trialed several bolt-resistant lettuce varieties this year: Red Sails leaf, Cimarron romaine and various Batavian lettuces. The Batavian lettuces were the only ones that didn’t bolt. I’ll plant them again next spring, and try out Buttercrunch bib lettuce and Australian Yellow leaf lettuce, both varieties that can supposedly withstand extreme heat. (I trialed these both in a very hot field last summer and they didn’t bolt, but I haven’t tried them in pots yet.) The peas came through, but I’ve noticed that they’re no longer producing as well.

The basil said: ‘Bring it on!’ So did the sage and oregano. They all LOVED the heat.

I mulched all of my pots with straw. People build houses with straw bales because of straw’s insulating qualities, but I never imagined it would insulate the soil from the scorching heat so well. Because my patio gets so hot, I under-plant my pots so that each plant can draw on extra resources when the heat cranks up, and cover my greens with shade cloth to protect them against the harshest rays of the sun. Each of these made a real difference to the health of the plants.

I’m going to put in a pot irrigation system next week. This will allow me to water my plants very early in the morning and give them a boost before the sun hits. I’ll also be able to grow a full summer garden next year, with fruiting crops like tomatoes, zucchini and peppers, even while we’re away.

For now, I’m just grateful that I still have a garden.

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Thirteen-year-old Ermin is a gifted mechanic and the worst student at St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. She’s just failed her exams for the third time—something nobody’s ever done. Worse, Ermin’s been running her own repair business for money—something that’s expressly forbidden. If the headmistress finds out, Ermin will go to prison. Her future will be over before it’s even begun.

But that’s not her only secret.

Her best friends, Colin and Georgie, are wizards in a world where magic is strictly controlled. Ermin worries that her friends will be captured, drained of their power, then banished. When Georgie’s caught aiding the Wizard’s Resistance, Ermin repairs a broken flying carpet so all three of them can escape.

Hesitant to join the Resistance because of her lack of magical power, Ermin steals an experimental device from a wizard hunter that could destroy every wizard in the Creek. She’s faced with a choice: either smash the device or convert it into a different kind of weapon—one that not only helps wizards but just might get her an apprenticeship at the prestigious Guild Academy.

Ermin’s got one chance to get it right. If she fails, she risks losing her two best friends… and her dreams.

Find Shadow Apprentice at your local library, bookstore, or favourite online retailer.

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Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’m taking next month off as part of my regular summer break, but I’ll be back in September with more author news, and more MG and YA book reviews. See you then!

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