Unlike the majority of Logan County’s residents, Missus Nedraw of the Rorrim Mirror Emporium remembers the time freeze from The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, and how Otto and Sheed took her mirrors without permission to fix their mess. Usually, that’s an unforgivable offense, punishable by a million-year sentence. However, she’s willing to overlook the cousins’ misdeeds if they help her with a problem of her own. One of her worst prisoners has escaped, and only the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County can help bring the fugitive to justice. (From lamargiles.com)

The Alston boys are back with a new adventure that you can read without having read Book One (although you’ll for sure be wanting to spend more time with these characters). In the first story they helped get their entire town unstuck from a time freeze in THE LAST LAST-DAY-OF-SUMMER, which I reviewed here. Readers also learned one of the boys will get sick in the near future and not survive.

Let’s hope this turns out well for both in THE LAST MIRROR ON THE LEFT. Here they get caught in one mirror after another, sending them to an alternate Warped World that sort of looks like home but with some major differences, and now they’re stuck.

Crazy looking animal-human like characters greet them at every turn. Most are versions of people they know from the real world. Otto and Sheed also change depending on what mirror they go through. It’s a wildly inventive story line sure to please and these two cousins will win your heart.

BOOK BIRTHDAY: October 20, 2020 PAGE COUNT: 272

FIVE MORE THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT: THE LAST MIRROR ON THE LEFT by Lamar Giles

1. You’ll be rooting for Otto and Sheed as they mend their relationship and find a new way to bring justice to wrongdoers.
2. Many of the comeback lines from the the Alston boys were laugh out loud. Young readers will be laughing, too.
3. Even if you don’t like spiders you may grow to like the ArchnaBRObia gang. They aren’t left out from having an engaging character arc.
4. Despite the magical fantasy backdrop, many themes relate to our lives in the present world.
5. Will there be a third adventure? It sure seems so with the bright reveal in the closing chapter. Crossing my fingers for one!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lamar is a two-time Edgar Award finalist in the YA category, for his debut YA thriller FAKE ID (HarperCollins, 2014), and his second YA thriller, ENDANGERED (HarperCollins, 2015). His third and fourth YA thrillers, OVERTURNED (Scholastic, 2017) and SPIN (Scholastic, 2019), as well as his middle-grade debut THE LAST LAST-DAY-OF-SUMMER received glowing New York Times reviews, and was named to multiple Best Of lists, including Time Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and Amazon. FAKE ID has been optioned by Sony Pictures.

Lamar is the editor of the We Need Diverse Books YA short story anthology FRESH INK (Random House, 2018), and a contributor to many YA and middle-grade anthologies including THREE SIDES OF A HEART (HarperCollins, 2017), BLACK ENOUGH: STORIES OF BEING YOUNG & BLACK IN AMERICA (HarperCollins / Balzer & Bray, 2019), THE HERO NEXT DOOR (Random House, 2019), HIS HIDEOUS HEART (Flatiron Books, 2019) and SUPER PUZZLETASTIC MYSTERIES (HarperCollins, 2020). He has published several short stories for adults.  You can see tv interviews with Lamar here, and here, and here, and in a truly fun “Fun Facts” short interview, created by HarperCollins.

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I received an ARC from NETGALLEY in return for my honest review.

Be sure to come back for the rest of my posts this week: On Wednesday I’ll have a Giveaway of:

And on Friday you get to hear about my CYBILS nomination for best Non-Fiction:

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