Eclipse Books

We traveled to and from Dallas for the solar eclipse, and we know what that means: airplane reads! We also ended up with massive delays coming home, which meant I finished two books I already had in progress and read a bunch more, and knocked off three Read Harder Challenge categories.  Here's the wrapup:

This Day Changes Everything (by Edward Underhill) 

Young adult romance between two queer kids in marching bands, both in New York to march in the Macy's parade. Cute, although the characters saying "I love you" after one day just did not work for me. The author lampshaded it, but it was still extremely silly.  But otherwise very Dash & Lily vibes,  charming. RHC category: YA book by a trans author.

Just Another Epic Love Poem (by Parisa Akhbari) 

A bildungsroman about a girl in love with her best friend, with whom she has been writing an epic poem for years. The pacing is a bit off at the beginning but then plays out beautifully. There's a lot of poetry that's supposed to be good, and thank god it is good (and the book features a lot of wonderful world poetry as well, especially from the narrator's Persian culture). It goes beyond the YA romance into a beautiful ode to sisterhood and family and I wept on the plane for the entire conclusion. If your YA standards are high, this will meet them. 

Also introduced me to this piece by Kahlil Gibran:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful. How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic (by Jack Lowery) 

RHC category: a book about drag or queer artistry. After considering various books by and about drag queens, I went another direction and decided to read about Gran Fury, the artistic collective associated with ACT UP.  Lowery brings lessons from the height of the AIDS pandemic into today by focusing on the importance of art, collective action, and propaganda. I enjoyed the epilogue, where he traced a line  from Silence = Death to Black Lives Matter, showing that activism through art continues to be urgent and important.

The Core of the Sun (by Johanna Sinisalo) 

I'm guessing Goodreads somehow recommended this for the RHC category of "a work in translation from a country you haven't visited." This is translated from the Finnish and is referred to as "Finnish weird," which explains why it's about a dystopia where there's a black market for chili peppers, and our main character tests the spice level of one by sticking it in her vagina in the first paragraph of the book.  But the main thee of the book is the Finnish society presented here, which has undergone scarily plausible "domestication" of women.  A fascinating page-turner; the only issue was a rather abrupt ending that I wish had been a bit more fleshed out. But Finnish weird, who knew? I'm into it.

Daniel, Deconstructed (by James Ramos) 

Another young adult read (they're good for airplanes). This one is a celebration of all the spectrums: gender, sexual, romantic, neurodiverse, and I enjoyed the autistic MC and his hyper-empathetic lens on the world. The plot is a  bit meandering, but ultimately an enjoyable book, just sweet and hopeful. 

All the Lovers in the Night (by Mieko Kawakami) 

A Japanese novel in translation, by the author of Breasts and Eggs. Although I didn't enjoy it quite as much (a shame, since the narrator is a proofreader) I enjoyed the moody, meditative, slice of life exploration of memory and connection. (The "work in translation" category would have been so easy if I hadn't been to Japan; I love Japanese novels.) 

Phew! I also got halfway through a mystery (a conspicuously absent genre from this list) but that's definitely enough for now. Oh, and I saw totality!

ETA: Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (by Benjamin Stevenson)

Already finished it and not worth a separate post. I like the concept of this one, the breaking of the fourth wall, and the ultimate resolution to the plotline was really good. The way it played out was just a bit too convoluted for me, and Ernest isn't really likeable nor does he seem smart enough to pull off all the deductions at the end. Plus everyone is really mean to him for no reason! Idk, as the kids say these days, it was mid.