Monday, November 30, 2020

My Dark Vanessa (by Kate Elizabeth Russell)

 A book full of Nabokov references (its title comes from Pale Fire and it is full of references to Lolita) and a dark but compelling plot about a woman in 2017 looking back at her "affair" with a schoolteacher, when she was 15 and he was 43.

There is some controversy about this book due to the similarity with a memoir by a Latinx author, although I don't think that this story is that unique, sadly enough. In fact, my high school geometry teacher was well known for "dating" students right after they graduated and turned 18, and even married a former student. Our friend group was friendly with him and with his wife back in the day, but in hindsight he was a super creep!

This book is potentially triggering if you had an older adult predatory male in your life when you were a teenager and, let's be honest, which of us women didn't? To a greater or lesser extent, this story is familiar, and unflinching, and raw. A compelling read.

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Sunday, November 29, 2020

Thanksgiving Reads

I read a bunch of books on our Thanksgiving staycation, and here now are those books.

By the Book (by Amanda Sellet)

A YA romance about a bookish narrator named Mary, who is delightfully awkward and literary.  Very light, but enjoyable. As you know I’ve read a lot of YA recently and it definitely stuck out that the characters here were for the most part very white. These days, most YA novels have a more diverse cast of characters.  Just an observation.

Rogue Patrol (by Martha Wells)

The next book in the Murderbot series and another enjoyable installment. I must confess I don’t quite understand the big picture conspiracy (probably because it takes a while for me to read each book in the series since the library hold list is long) but I loved the story here, especially the arc of Miki, another bot who Murderbot semi-befriends. How do you not love Miki?

Long Bright River (by Liz Moore)

The 2021 Tournament of Books longlist is out, so let the reading begin! This is an atmospheric, litficcy thriller about a police officer named Mickey who is trying to find her sister, an addict who has disappeared. There are twists and turns, and a compelling plot. A page-turner.

Full Disclosure (by Camryn Garrett)

Love the premise: a girl who is HIV-positive navigating first-time romance and figuring out how to disclose to her friends and new love interest that she is positive. There was something off about this though; many weird moments that didn’t feel quite real (starting with the opening scene, Simone being all sex-positive and asking questions of her gynecologist while one of her dads is in the room being controlling, except he’s a doctor and of all people should know better).  There are numerous jarring moments like this, or where what people say or do doesn’t quite work with what has been established about them previously.  A bit rough.

Her Royal Highness
(by Rachel Hawkins)

Very witty writing and a fun plotline (Millie goes off to school in Scotland and falls in love with her roommate, a princess) but torpedoed by godawful pacing. There are three long chapters before she even goes to Scotland (like, come on, we know she ends up there, we don’t need a full journey) but then the climax and denouement happen so fast it seems like the author was on some kind of deadline at the end.  And it doesn’t even quite make sense how it unfolds. Not in a rush to read the other books in this series.

I Wish You All the Best (by Mason Deaver)

Another strikeout in the world of YA. (I keep checking them out thinking something is going to live up to the amazing YA I’ve read this year, like More Happy Than Not or Stay Gold or Amelia Westlake Was Never Here). This is about a nonbinary character named Ben, great! But they are so angsty and unlikeable from beginning to end that it makes the romance part not work. (What does Nathan see in Ben? Why are they even friends?) Ben is described towards the end as “kind” and I honestly can’t recall a single instance in this book of where they were kind to someone else or even had a particularly kind thought. I also can’t help but compare it to Stay Gold, where I emerged with a visceral understanding of the main character as trans, but here I didn’t learn much about what it means for Ben to be nonbinary, and I really wanted to! Disappointing.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2020

More YA Books

What's this, am I still reading LGBTQ YA books? Why yes, yes I am.

Love, Creekwood (by Becky Albertalli)

This is a fun little epistolary novella set in the same universe as Love, Simon and Leah on the Offbeat. Our main couples (Simon and Bram, Leah and Abby) are in college and navigating their relationships. The biggest tension here is that Simon and Bram are bad at long distance relationships. It's funny and fun and breezy and fast. Worth a read for Creekwood fans.

Only Mostly Devastated (by Sophie Gonzales) 

A young adult version of Grease, basically. Gay Grease. Ollie and Will have a romantic summer at the lake, then Ollie transfers to Will's school and finds out that popular, jock, closeted Will is not the Will he remembers. Extra points for a sensitive handling of a relative's illness and for bisexual representation! Negative points for being too on-the-nose with Grease references. Yes we get it, we don't need the words "hopelessly devoted" to tell us this is about Grease. But mostly super cute.

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

You Should See Me in a Crown (by Leah Johnson)

I love this book! Our protagonist, Liz, is a young Black lady from Indiana who has social anxiety but needs a scholarship, so decides to run for prom queen.  (An undertaking that is taken to absurd levels of seriousness by her small town.)

She learns a ton about herself along the way, her relationships with friends and former friends evolve, and she falls for another girl running for prom queen. (I enjoyed that “coming out to my family” was a non-issue in this one whereas coming out at school was a problem, a nice twist on the usual formula).

I can nitpick (for example her main prom queen rival is probably a smidge too cartoony; she should definitely not have ever forgiven the betrayal she finds out about towards the end) but otherwise, it’s a great addition to the YA canon.

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Monday, November 09, 2020

The Rosie Result (by Graeme Stinson)

It’s not Graeme Simsion’s fault that this book has the wrong title. I almost guarantee this book (the third book in the series that started with The Rosie Project) was called The Hudson Project, and then his editor was like “but you need Rosie in the title, it’ll sell better and people will be less confused.”

It bugs me anyway. Rosie is not in this book that much, and her impact on the plot is minimal. This is about Don (our main character) and his relationship with his 10-year-old son, Hudson. I loved it. Had all the fun and charm of The Rosie Project, I adore the characters, and Hudson himself is just perfect.

Just has the wrong title, is all.

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More Happy Than Not (by Adam Silvera)

This has everything I love in a young adult novel: LGBTQ content, an unreliable narrator, all the feels.  I don't want to give too much away, but the main character is Aaron Soto, a Puerto Rican American from a poor neighbhorhood in the Bronx, dealing with the death of his father and his own recent suicide attempt. He has an amazing girlfriend, but when he makes a new best friend named Thomas, he starts to question things about himself.

It is not in any way light and fluffy. It vividly depicts life in the projects, homophobia (internalized and otherwise), and it is not wrapped up neatly in a bow. All of that creates a huge impact, and the ending is amazing. Oh, and you may have noticed the scifi tag: this takes place in a world where there's a place you can go to have memories erased, which one of Aaron's friends has done too.

I'm excited to see there's an updated edition with an epilogue, which I have not yet read (on hold at the library of course). But even without it, this novel is well worth your time.

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