I read three books while on a staycation with our seven-person social bubble. These are those books!
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (by Suzanne Collins)
A Hunger Games prequel about Coriolanus Snow. I wasn't going to read this (was very disappointed in how the trilogy turned out) but my bestie David highly recommended it, and I stuffed the hardback into my suitcase and then of course devoured it. What Collins does here is so subtle and interesting, taking you from sympathizing with Snow to, well, seeing what he will become.
Oona Out of Order (by Margarita Montimore)
This is a novel with a fun conceit: on her 19th birthday, Oona begins to live her life out of order. That is, she is still mentally 19 but has jumped into her 51-year-old self. Every year, she jumps somewhere else in her life. This results in some fun twists and turns and of course some infuriating moments. (If she can warn herself about the future, why are her warnings never actually helpful?) But I cried through the final quarter of this book anyway. (Not because it is tragic but because it is moving.) Perfect vacation read.
Such a Fun Age (by Kiley Reid)
Read for
Camp ToB (side note: why is their website so poorly designed; you can never just go to a homepage and find a list of recent posts; it's dumb) but it strikes me as too light to actually win the summer. There's something about it that's too entertaining and easy to read for a book about race (the premise is that a black babysitter is confronted while sitting for a white child in a grocery store). I loved the main character, Emira, and loved the skewering of well-meaning, liberal whiteness by way of the character of Alix. Thoroughly entertaining litfic with a highly satisfying ending.
Labels: kindle, library, litfic, vacation, women's contemporary fiction, young adult
