Fireblooms (by Alexandra Villasante)

This was my Read Harder Choice for a YA book by a Latine author, although for some reason I kept bouncing off the title and the cover. (Turns out I definitely do judge books by their covers.)  But I am so glad I had the little nudge to read it because not only is it a great YA, it's also speculative fiction!

Both characters are Latine and Spanish is interwoven beautifully in the book in a completely organic way. You have enough context clues to understand, and at least a tiny bit of familiarity with Spanish helps, but it is done incredibly well.  It's a dual-perspective novel from two kids who live in a Tech Utopia/Dystopia type of town - one is there to help his mom, who was abusive and has cancer, and wants nothing to do with the surveillance state - the other is nonbinary and appreciates the Big Brother aspects of the Utopia/Dystopia to help save him from harm. 

One of the characters is nonbinary and it's a better example of a novel with a main character who uses they/them pronouns than the one I actually read for this category; it feels way more organic here for some reason and was very easy to adjust to. I think it's just really, really well written all around, and if you enjoy YA speculative fiction, deserves a read! 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold (by Toshikazu Kawaguchi)

The RHC category for this was "a work of magical realism or fabulism" - it's the first book in a popular Japanese series about a cafe where sitting in a particular seat can send you back or forward in time - for just long enough until the coffee gets cold.

This was made up of four vignettes of different people using the time travel seat, and the community within the cafe itself. 

I was curious as to why Goodreads average was so low and it was pointed out that the book is mainly about women who end up sacrificing themselves - over and over again. Really all four stories kind of qualify here.  (I looked it up and yes, the author is a man.)  I don't know if this continues for the rest of the series but it is a bit striking!) 

That said, I love Japanese literature anyway and its cozy vibes, even if it stressed me out how vague "before the coffee gets cold" is. (Only to find out they have an alarm they can use in special cases... just always use the alarm!)  If you've read beyond this first book, let me know if it's worth continuing! 

Parade of Horribles (by Matt Dinniman)

Officially caught up with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series with book eight.  (I must say I'm in the subreddit and whenever the books are discussed, based on the titles, I can barely remember which book is which. But this one is the one about the various heats.) 

The beginning with the heats was a little too frenetic for me and I wished for some slower pacing in those parts. But the ending of this was just so good, I loved it. Would have loved a bit of a slower buildup to it but damn, the ending, and all of Carl's insane plans... incredible. 

I'd love to rank all the books to date but it's all a blur. Excited for the next part of the blur, though!

Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? (by Roz Chast)

A graphic memoir by a New Yorker cartoonist about the final years of her aging parents. This was for the Read Harder Challenge category of "nonfiction comic" so I bought it on paper, which I prefer to trying to read a graphic novel on my phone. 

As a person with aging parents (who are getting increasingly frail) this was so relatable and honestly probably arrived at the right time in my life. It handles the topic with sensitivity and humor, and painted such a vivid picture of her parents, and that mix of frustration, guilt, avoidance, more guilt, and everything else that comes up towards the end of life. But again, it's not a depressing read either, it's just very real.

I know this is one I'll continue to think about in the coming years.  

The Baby-sitters Club Fan Edition: Baby-Sitter Summer (by Ann M. Martin et. al.)

Well, my nostalgia would not allow me to pass this one by - a new Baby-sitters Club book, formatted like a Super Special, with authors like Becky Albertalli and Emma Straub each writing a different BSC character. And I have thoughts.

My hope was, of course, that this would finally cover the summer after eighth grade. But no, they are still in the same time warp they have always been, and this takes place during the original series (although no actual timeline makes sense if you think about events that are referenced, but I got mostly used to that when reading the original series.  I did think mentioning Hamilton was pretty egregious, though, if you're still not going to let cell phones exist.  Like either Hamilton exists and so does texting, or it's still the 90s. You can't have it both ways.)

Speaking of Hamilton, Dawn's storyline is the worst - for once, not because I hate Dawn, but because it makes absolutely no sense. Dawn is at a theater camp directing a musical featuring songs she has apparently written? If anyone is going to be a secret random Broadway fan shouldn't it be Stacey? But it turns out there is a character who is a songwriter, from the California Diaries series... but it's not Dawn. So the going theory is the author of this section (a longtime BSC ghostwriter) just got Dawn confused with Maggie. And then somehow nobody pointed out that Dawn being into musicals and songwriting makes no sense. 

The absolute best storyline is Kristy's because they let her be gay and kiss a girl. Like yes, finally queerness exists in the BSC world! This is why it needs to be the summer after eighth grade, because we can actually explore this and they can just be in a time warp at age 15 and they can do a new series of specials and the characters can actually evolve and it will be totally fine!  

As for the other stories.... Mary Anne's and Stacey's were basically retreads of half of their books. Mary Anne is shy and Stacey ditches her friends for a boy (although the story was a retread, the writing on this one was particularly well-executed).  I loved that they had a Japanese-American author write Claudia and a Black author write Jessi - and have Jessi visiting an HCBU with her mom.  Their racial identities felt a lot more authentic and it was handled more naturally.  Again, I'd love for this to continue. 

(Total sidebar that the title of this sucks. Try to find it by googling "Baby-Sitter Summer" and you'll see what I mean.  I love to go find reviews on Goodreads and it took me forever to find a Goodreads link.  Like, sloppy work from the team there.) 

I just realized I forgot Mallory. She's very in character, she goes to Ireland and rides horses, it's fine. I never really loved the Super Specials even though I read every other book in the series.  I never enjoyed the format of all the club members being split up and it felt disjointed because you only get short snippets from each of them. This book has the same issue.  But a series reboot set after graduation but not told in depressing Friends Forever style and keeping this writing team would be awesome.  Oh sorry, I mean, it would be totally dibble. 

Smash or Pass (by Birdie Schae)

Just some good ol' queer YA, with excellent autism representation from our main character, Ellie, who is spending the summer at beach volleyball camp and learning to be herself.

The writing from debut author Birdie Schae is a bit tell-dont-show at poits, but the main character (and the fact that it is a sapphic romance) helped keep me engaged.  Enjoyable representation of diversity and queer joy and falls in the "cute YA, would definitely read this author again, for fans of the genre" category. 

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (by Emma Southon)

This cleverly titled book is by an historian who writes in an accessible style - including a lot of humor and pop-culture references - about the history of murder (and what was and was not seen as "murder," and the entire concept of "murder") in ancient Rome. 

I could have done with a bit less cutesy and a bit more academic rigor but I love a dense nonfiction read with lots of footnotes so that might just be a preference. As far as pop history goes, this really was very informative. Since this is a deep dive specifically about murder, I counted it as "a microhistory" for Read Harder Challenge purposes. 

And look, it's not Dungeon Crawler Carl!