Southwest Vacation Reads

Between airports, planes, and staying in Zion without any internet, I read five books on vacation last week, and I'm here to catch you up on them. 

Glimpsed (by G.F. Miller) 

A young adult take on the "fairy godmother" and the first of two Cinderella-themed YAs on this list.  (Also Mina and Ian are reading Cinder so we're all in the alterna-Cinderella canon these days). Really cute romcom with especially charming chapter titles.  Though our main character's family suuuuuuuucks.  This one was cute.

Cinderella Is Dead (by Kalynn Bayron) 

Super good, and notably well-written (which I rarely ever notice in YAs unless the writing is actively bad).  The premise here is that Cinderella has been dead for 200 years and her story has been used as an excuse to form a society that oppresses young women. Our protagonist, Sophia, fights back.  Good twists and high stakes makes this a satisfying read.

Beautiful World, Where Are You? (by Sally Rooney) 

Read for the Tournament of Books, I was pretty annoyed by Normal People and was not looking forward to this but I have to admit, I enjoyed it a lot, about 100 times more than Normal People, specially the Alice-Eileen letters and the less-than-omniscient narrative voice.  Some incredible insights on what it means to be human that I'm still pondering. Would never have taken the chance here without the Tournament of Books so as ever, I owe you one, ToB!

Not Here to Be Liked (by Michelle Quach) 

Another YA, and this one manages to explore both Asian-American life/diaspora and unabashed feminism in a romcom wrapper. Cute and a worthwhile read! This is one I'd recommend to teens especially highly.

Our Country Friends (by Gary Shteyngart)

My first Shteyngart.  I thought this sagged a bit in the last section but overall found it witty and otherwise delightful. I can't see it beating The Sentence in the play-ins but the Tournament can be a fickle mistress so you never know. A great vacation read, despite its premise of people in Covid lockdown during 2020.