Ana of California, by Andi Teran; and The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall, by Katie Alender

Ana of California, by Andi Teran

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall, by Katie Alender

Recently, at Kirkus, I wrote about Ana of California, a modern retelling of Anne of Green Gables by Andi Teran:

Teran does a nice job of updating and tweaking some of Anne’s most famous moments—the hair-dying incident becomes a hair-straightening incident, the raspberry cordial incident involves psilocybin mushrooms—and she does an even nicer job of allowing the moments to be recognizable nods to the originals while not recreating them shot-for-shot. The secondary characters, similarly, are recognizable-yet-different, and while some of Ana’s adversaries are entirely two-dimensional, well, so was Josie Pye.

And I also wrote about The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall, a ghost story by Katie Alender:

Maybe even more importantly, I’d argue that making her characters knowledgeable makes for a way scarier story—if the characters make smart choices, the reader doesn’t spend all of her time rolling her eyes at all of their boneheaded decisions. (Like, for example, GOING DOWN TO THE BASEMENT SOLO, or saying things like, “LET’S SPLIT UP.”)