Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon

One of the prompts in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge this year is a book of interconnected short stories. Blackout is a book like that! Yay! It's written by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon. I listened to the audiobook narrated by  Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Dion Graham, Imani Parks, Jordan Cobb, Shayna Small, A.J. Beckles, and Bahni Turpin. 

During the pandemic in 2020, six of the best YA novelists, all women of color, got together and created this lovely anthology about what could happen to young people in a blackout in New York City. Tiffany D. Jackson writes a story called "The Long Walk" that tells the story of Tammi and Kareem as they try to make it from Harlem to Bed-Stuy without the benefit of money or public transit. Meanwhile, the other writers write stories about characters who we are introduced to in "The Long Walk." 

As with other anthologies, some of these stories are stronger than others. "Mask Off" by Nic Stone was a particular favorite of mine, about a basketball player who runs into a boy from his school on the same subway train as the darkness falls. I was kind of disappointed in the end of "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn" by Angie Thomas, but I will let you make your own call about that if you read it.

Look, I am absolutely not the right audience for teen angst anymore. I have mostly sworn off YA because being a teen in 2025 is different in a million ways from being a teen in the 1990s and I just do not understand it and it makes me feel ancient. It also makes me feel ancient when I think about how all the drama from this night will not matter to those kids in a decade, but it does matter to them, quite a bit, on that night, and the fact that they have no perspective is super frustrating for me. BUT. I was a teen once I do remember how everything seemed So Big and So Important and how I could not control my hormones at all. 

But, despite this, I really enjoyed this audiobook. I felt like the narrators did an excellent job and I was super excited to be in New York on a boiling summer day with no electricity. Thumbs up. 4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

...sitting between a giant tower of toilet paper rolls and one of those big yellow rolling mop buckets full of water the color of gargoyle snot. (Mask Off)

Gargoyle snot!! This description made me howl. 

Finding love is as rare as finding identical snowflakes. (All the Great Love Stories...And Dust)

To be young again. 

When I was a little girl, Gran would take me here and we'd greet each one and she'd whisper that the pair of lions, Patience and Fortitude, protected all the library books from harm. I'd stare up at my smug grandmother always asking her why anyone would want to hurt books and she'd wink and then remind me that the stories we tell can be dangerous. (All the Great Love Stories...And Dust)

To all of us in the United States who rely on libraries, please consider calling your Congressional reps and telling them how important your public and/or university library is to your life. 

I miss the days when all it took was an ice cream cone to fix everything. There's not enough ice cream in the world for all I'm dealing with. (No Sleep 'til Brooklyn)

Right? Our local ice cream place opened last month and I did go there for an ice cream cone on a day when it was pouring rain in the 40s. It did make me feel a little bit better. 

Kareem always made up little games for our long walks. One day we were spotting all the brownstones that had red doors. The next we were playing Count the Gentrifiers. (The Long Walk, Act 5)

I just wrote about how much I liked red doors and then I felt incredibly called out by this book! #obviouslyawhitelady

Hat mentions (why hats?):

...wearing a hat pulled down low over his forehead...took his hat off...(Mask Off)

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy

 

I had just DNFed two books (one rather forcefully with an actual slam of the pages) and had decided that maybe I just didn't like reading. Maybe books are not my thing anymore. Maybe I should just scroll reddit while pseudo watching television like other people in the world. Maybe my entire identity as a bookworm is false and I need to get a new hobby. Thankfully Side Effects May Vary by July Murphy was the next book in my stack or who knows what I would be doing right now. Possibly nothing good. 

Alice is a teenager. She discovers her mom is cheating on her dad and then she finds out she has cancer. The cancer goes into remission and then Alice is terrible, terrible to everyone in her life.

I recently learned the phrase "dirtying the nest" in a blog post about someone whose child was going off to college and was a real pill in the days leading up to dorm drop off. And that's what it seems like was going on with Alice in this book. She had a way she thought things were going to go (she would die) and then when that never  happened, she was just pushing everyone away. It makes sense and was an interesting look at that psychological impact of actually surviving a serious illness.

Also, my husband and I also have decided that asshat (page 204) does not count as a hat mention. This has come up before and I've never actually written about an intense discussion we had about it once. We concluded that it doesn't meet the spirit of the hat scavenger hunt. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

Our conversation ratio was a solid 10:1. Debora ten, me one. (page 191)

LOLOLOLOL. I think it's more like 25:1 in our house. 

I'm going to give thinks, I swear. But first, I want to tell you - whoever you are - that I barely graduated high school and completely bombed the SAT. I am telling you this be cause I want you to know that the path to dreams is flawed, and it is the beauty of flaws that makes you. (page 331, from the author's acknowledgements)

I thought this was a beautiful thing to write in a YA novel. Happenstance is life, right?

Hat mentions:

"Hey, guy!" I yelled through my still-open window. "The hat!" I said, motioning to my head. "Hand it over." Alice punched me in the thigh. "Now." He took his time walking to the car, trying to make a sad display of James Dean cool, and tossed the hat into my lap. (page 86)

I heard Eric moving behind me, and a minute later he appeared in front of me with his hat on and my hoodie in his hand. (page 142-3)

The four of us got out of the car, all bundled up in winter coats, hats, and scarves. (page 146)

...tugging down on her purple knit hat...(page 146)

True Biz by Sara Nović

One of the prompts for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge this year was to read a book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author. I chose True Biz by Sara Nović as my entry for this prompt and I was immediately blown away.

Charlie is a teenage girl who was born deaf, but had a cochlear implant that didn't help much. She struggled in a traditional high school setting before she transferred to the River Valley School for the Deaf. The headmistress of the school, February, realizes that Charlie has basically been language-less for her entire life because she couldn't really hear English and she never learned ASL until arriving at River Valley. Meanwhile, Charlie starts dating Austin, the son from a legacy Deaf family. 

I mean, this book had its typical YA tropes - absent parents, kids getting drunk and smoking, kids just wandering around and not coming home at night - that really irritate me. BUT. I learned so much about Deaf culture and ASL as a language. There were mini-history lessons in the book so we could see the sorts of things Charlie was learning at school, and those history lessons covered how Alexander Graham Bell was an early opponent of ASL and about a student rebellion at Gallaudet University over hiring a hearing president. 

I learned about the differences between BASL, spoken mostly by black people, and ASL. I learned about how dangerous it is to be deaf in these modern times. I learned about the threat to Deaf education. I learned about the danger of cochlear implants and why they are controversial in the Deaf community.  I learned so much and it was done gracefully. If, like me, you know very little about Deaf culture, this is a great place to start. 

4/5 stars - It is a YA book, after all.

Lines of note:

Mel arrived with coffee and two bags of hot Cheetos, their preferred snack for stress eating. (page 224)

What's your stress snack?

...Charlie liked sex. And why shouldn't she? She strong-armed her body into countless unpleasant tasks each week: waking up when the morning was still blue, listening and lip-reading, circuit training in gym class, flossing. Shouldn't she be allowed to do something fun without being hamstrung by heirloom shame? (page 248)

Ugh. I'm such a prude. I want to scream at teens having sex. I mean, I know they do it. But! Why shouldn't she? Pregnancy, STIs, and heartbreak all come to mind. I want to be all sex-positive like the cool people, but I am an old fuddy duddy.

Hearing people turned aggressive so quickly, at even a momentary failure to respond, so sometimes Austin gave them the kind of answer they wanted, albeit loud and slurred. "Deaf" was a mercifully easy word to say, and he pointed to his ear and said it now. The driver reddened, handed Austin back the five, and motioned for him and Charlie to sit.

It was hard to imagine what the world might be like if deaf people had as short a fuse about hearing people's inability to sign, their neglect or refusal to caption TV, or, hell, the announcements on this bus. (page 288)

This was a powerful passage, I thought.

Hat mentions:

Charlie hung her grandmother's coat - a burgundy fur she really hoped was fake - on the hat rack and followed her in. (page 215)

Out on the street, Slash unzipped his backpack, pulled out a fistful of wooly hats, put one on his own head...

He pulled the fold of his hat down over his face to reveal a full ski mask. Charlie unrolled the hat in her hands... (page 231)

...scrolled through the Instagram deluge of his classmates' pets coerced into wearing Santa hats. (page 273)

She found him beside the ghost light, fussing with the feather in his hat. (page 318)

Nice hat, her father said, motioning to the headlamp. (page 319)

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez came on my radar because of the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and then Stephany reviewed it and said it was okay. 

Julia is the youngest daughter in a Mexican family living in Chicago. Her parents came over from Mexico under pretty bad circumstances and just as the book is beginning, her older sister dies in a tragic accident. Julia is struggling. She can't wait to move out, away from her stifling family and their expectations that she behave more like Olga, her "perfect" dead sister. She learns that maybe Olga wasn't so perfect, though, and soon Julia is questioning everything in her life.

Look, I'm just the audience for YA anymore. I just kept wanting to shake Julia, tell her that she needed to get her head out of her ass and stop being an insufferable brat, and remind her that having two loving parents is infinitely better than the alternative. Julia does have a lot on her plate and her sister dying is really terrible, but Julia is also an entitled jerk. And she's mean. And maybe she's just a teenager being a teenager, but I did not enjoy the time I spent with her. 

I know I'm old because I honestly wanted the book to be told from her parents' points of view. 

I regret finishing this one. 2/5 stars

Lines of note:

I know I should clean, but whenever I look at the mess, I think, what’s the point? Nothing feels like it has a point anymore. (location 195)

I mean, doesn't everyone think this when they clean? It's a viscious cycle - the cleaning is never done and as soon as you stop, you have to do it all over again.

...skinny, little guy who looked like an aardvark...(location 323)

I like to note animal/human metaphors. To be honest, I don't know what an aardvark looks like, so this meant nothing to me at the time.  Okay, I looked it up. Aardvark below. It's pretty cute, but I can see how this is a mean thing to say about someone. 

Kelly Abram - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/175359469

I seriously don’t know what she saw in him, because not only was he ugly, he had the personality of a boiled potato. (location 323)
More meanness from our main character.

Everyone is desperately trying to hang on to the sunshine, enjoying the unexpected warmth before winter takes a cold gray crap on the city and makes us all miserable again. (location 552)
I feel this in my very soul. It was lovely for the last two days and today I left the house without a coat and now it's cold and rainy and I regret not having a coat with me. 

If I end up being an office lady who wears slacks and changes into white sneakers to walk home from the train, I’ll just jump off a skyscraper. (location 589)
Were we all this mean and judgmental as teens? (I may feel attacked because I have to switch out shoes to walk the dog.)

There are hundreds of spam emails from many different companies. I guess the spam bots don’t know when someone has died. It seems so disrespectful to advertise to the dead. 50% OFF STOREWIDE!! BUY ONE GET ONE FREE SHOE SALE!!! VITAMINS FOR THE PERFECT BIKINI BODY. (location 2705)
This is an interesting observation. One time Bestest Friend told me that she had put me in charge of her Facebook account in case of her death. Apparently that's a thing you can do. I remember laughing, but it's not really funny, is it? I suppose our electronic estates will need to be settled when we die, just as our physical assets will. (I've written about my angst about the state of my blog when I die. How will my readers find out? Will I just stop updating and no one will ever know what happened?)

“Julia, sometimes in life you don’t get to do what you want to do. Sometimes you have to deal with what’s given to you, shut up, and keep working. That’s it.” (location 3613)

This is from Julia's father. It's no wonder I wanted to read a book centered on him.

Things I looked up:
Cepillín, that scary Mexican clown who looks like a rapist but everyone loves for some reason. (location 125)

Ricardo González Gutiérrez was a Mexican clown as well as a singer, TV host, and actor. He died in 2021. 

Cepillín in 2018

The House of Bernarda Alba (location 355) - A play written by the Spanish dramatist Federico García, completed in 1936, two months before García was assassinated during the Civil War

chambelan (location 1606) - A male member of the court of honor at a quinceañera 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

...usually walk around the apartment wrapped in a blanket and wearing a hat, looking like a fool. (location 2106)

He’s not even wearing a hat or scarf, so his face is bright red. (location 2129)

His face is flushed from the cold, and he looks cute in his big, puffy jacket and purple stocking hat. (location 2142)

Their husbands, tío Raul and tío Leonel, stand next to them, both wearing cowboy hats. (location 2818)

After Los Tigres score their first goal, a dark guy in a cowboy hat comes toward us with bottles of Coke and plastic bags of pork skins slathered in red salsa.  (location 3046)

“Buenos días,” he says, and tips his hat. (location 3119)

Today Esteban is wearing jeans, a faded Beatles T-shirt, and a straw cowboy hat. (location 3168)

Esteban takes off his cowboy hat and looks toward the mountains. (location 3220)

“Is he wearing a hat?” (location 3401)

Valdemar: Family of Spies by Mercedes Lackey

 Valdemar saga (in chronological order of the world, not order of publication):

The Mage Wars
The Last Herald-Mage
Collegium Chronicles

The Herald Spy

We are back in Valdemar! I took a break after The Herald Spy series because I am over Perfect Mags and his wife, Perfect Amily, but time has moved forward, they have three children, and the oldest, Perry, is a young teen who has the gift of Mindspeech with Animals. 

There have been reports from the borderlands that people from Valdemar have gone missing and Mags decides its time to take his young son with him to investigate? WTF, Mags? Dangerous things are happening here. Anyway, Perry bonds with a dog-like creature with human-level intelligence named Larral. Eventually Perry and Larral separate from Mags and they end up trapped in a city run by a crazypants cannibal and Perry runs the dog kennel. My summary makes this sound boring. It wasn't boring at all. Perry is so much more interesting of a character than Mags. I'm so happy to be spending time with him and Larral.  4/5 stars

Lines of note:

It would be nice to be a cat, he thought. Everything is simple for them. Food or not-food. Thing to play with or thing to ignore. Favored human or not-favored human. (page 52)

Preach it. In my next life, I want to come back as a pampered housecat.

:I cannot smell any spirits,: Larral objected.

:...Wait. You can smell spirits?:

:Of course I can. So can dogs and wolves and foxes. Cats see them.: (page 191)

I feel like Lackey must have been living with the platonic ideal of a cat when she wrote this book. If you are a cat owner, you know how cats just randomly stare at spots on the wall/ceiling. What are they even looking at? Obviously it's spirits. 

Thing I looked up:

hackamore - a type of animal headgear that doesn't have a bit

Hat mentions (why hats?):

None

Up next in the Family of Spies is the middle child, a daughter named Abi. Her book is Eye Spy. I mean, it's actually Abidela, but that's a dumb name, right? Anyway, at the beginning of the book, Abi doesn't seem to have any magic like everyone else. She's seemingly cool with this because no one in these book series ever has feelings of jealousy or anxiety. In general, I like Valdemar, but Lackey's perfectly rational and perfectly behaving teenage characters annoy me to no end. 

ANYWAY.

Abi and Princess Kat are running an errand for the queen and Abi senses that a bridge they are about to cross is going to collapse and she and Kat manage to get everyone off the bridge to save their lives. That's how we learn that Abi has a Gift for sensing structural weakness?  I dunno. In my head I called it Architecture Magic.  

(Also, yo. A bridge collapse on page four? Ugh. I was in Minneapolis when the I-35W bridge collapsed and I was sweating reading about a fictional bridge collapse. Maybe I should deal with my trauma from an event from more than fifteen years ago.)

Just like her brother Perry in The Hills Have Spies, Abi is soon sent out to the borderlands to help folks with infrastructure projects. Of course there are bad guys and Abi has to deal with them. Also, Abi is asexual? Maybe? 

I dunno. Abi's kind of boring and as much as I love to talk about crumbling infrastructure, there was a lot of talk about bridges, dams, and roads failing and this girl here does not need that in her life. 3.5/5 stars

Line of note:

...she reckoned that for every one happy marriage there were a dozen that ranged from "distantly friendly" to "armed truce." (page 2)

What a terrible thing to think about the institution of marriage. But now that I think about it, maybe it's true. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"So you didn't know that Bardic Trainees have leave to set up with a hat and play at the Fair?"

"Set up . . . with a hat?" the girl replied, bewildered. 

So Abi explained how all the Bardic Trainees had permission to come down to the Fair during the day that they were given off from class, and after classes were finished for the day, set themselves up with a collection basket - or hat - and play for whatever money people would throw into it. (page 89) 

"...Most people don't bother with a hat..." (page 90)

By the nice layer of coppers in the straw hat she had put out, Lee had found a very receptive audience. (page 97)

Up next is Spy, Spy Again where Mags and Amily's youngest child, Tory, must go save a kidnapped distant cousin. Tory has the gift of Farsight, but only when he's in conjunction with the King's middle child, Kee. Together the two of them head off to save the distant cousin. 

Do you mean to tell me that in each of these three books Mags and Amily end up sending their children off to foreign countries? Yes, yes, they do. Do you mean to tell me that in each of these books their children learn about magical powers they possess that they didn't know they possessed? Yes, yes, they do. 

What I'm saying is that this trilogy got repetitive, yo. BUT! Guess what? They introduced some cool magical creatures in this book and I was down with that. Eh. I'm glad that we're moving away from Mags and his family in the next Valdemar trilogy. 

Once again I'll note that Lackey's teenage boy is remarkably emotional aware in this book. When his best friend, who he relies on to do magic, suddenly gets his own magic and falls in love and can never return to their shared native country, Tory is aware of his own jealousy and anger, but does absolutely nothing about it because he's so rational in his interrogation of his feelings. I just want someone in this saga to make a dumb mistake at some point. I would not have handled this very well when I was a teenager.  3.5/5 stars

Line of note:

"Love. That's fine for fancy songs and theater and the nobly born, but people like us need to be practical." 

...

"I'd marry an older woman," Derdan said. "Long as she's brisk enough to work the shop and the house and brings some money of her own to the arrangement. She's bound to be grateful, see, especially if she's an old maid, and if she's too old for children, like Birk said, I can always adopt a couple useful foundlings to take my name and work the shop just like blood-born. I'd marry an ugly woman, too, if she's nice-tempered, smart, and good to be around a good cook," he continued stoutly. "Same reason. Bound to be grateful, and no worry about her canoodling either. Man eats a lot more than he beds a woman. And it ain't a face I'm thinking about in bed, anyway..." (page 211)

Boy, if this is the the tone of young adult literature in modern times, no wonder kids these days aren't getting married.

What I looked up:

apport (page 114 for the first of many, many times) - Our distant cousin apports a lot of food in this book and I learned it means "paranormal transference of an article from one place to another." 

Hat mentions: 

As for "free" entertainment that relied on coins dropped in a hat. . . there was none of that. (page 56)

"Don't think to have it stitched together so you can take it on and off like a hat." (page 163)

...Tory found that the headwrap kept his head a lot cooler than even a hat. (page 214)

Have any of you ever found a hat cooling? I've only found them to be sweltering, particularly in the summer. I have a wide-brimmed straw hat to wear during the summer and my hair is always plastered with sweat when I take it off. It's more for keeping the sun off than cooling. I did not understand this sentence. 

*******************

Overall, I haven't enjoyed the Mags books as much as I did the first couple of trilogies of this world, but I do like being in Valdemar.  

Accountable by Dashka Slater

 

Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed is Dashka Slater's follow-up to The 57 Bus, which I thought was a lucid look at a complicated, hard issue. Accountable follows the same pattern of examining the intersection of teens and hatred. At a school in the Bay area of California, a student creates an Instagram account in which he posts racist photos and memes of his classmates. What follows is an examination of the fallout of this account for the victims, the people who engaged with the account, and the entire community. 

This is a field that is so ripe for this type of deep dive examination. Cybercrime and cyberbullying is such a huge issue. Even if students move schools, their online reputation may follow them. What is the role of a school in preventing and/or punishing cyberbullying? Why are teens even engaging in this type of behavior?

I feel like one of the things I say about the students at the university where I work is that they are unmotivated and many of them are not smart, but they are nice. And I have thought this about most teens I have worked with in my life. 

I was teaching a class once about racial politics in the U.S. when a student raised his hand and said, "Why are we even talking about this? Once everyone in your generation dies, all the racists will die, too." (Let's ignore the "your generation" like I am billion years old.) It was hard to defend against this logic because no one in the room considered themselves a racist, just like none of the teens who were part of this racist Instagram account would have said that they were racist. 

Anyway, I half sort of bought into that student's argument because it did seem to me that the young people I met were more accepting of differences than when I was their age. It seemed like we were on a trajectory of more inclusivity. And then Trump was elected. And all those differences in acceptance levels disappeared. 

This is an important book, particularly for teens and parents of teens.  It's not perfect (there are too many characters, too many endless scenes about sad teen girls), but it's definitely worth your time. Don't be intimidated by the huge page count, either - there's a lot of white space and the chapters move by quickly. 4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

The cops interviewed the girls as well, asking if they'd ever been physically harmed or threatened. Had they ever felt like their lives were in danger?

No, of course they hadn't. For many of them, it was just the opposite. These boys had been their friends, or the friends of their friends. They'd slept over at one another's houses, chatted with one another's parents, hung out together at school. And all the while those boys had been thinking of them as monkeys and imagining them being lynched. (page 78)

I'm going to skip right over boys and girls have sleepovers (am an old fogey, I guess) and talk about how this is really important for young people to learn early. The people most likely to commit violence against you are the people closest to you, so be careful who you pick as your friends. 

Education researcher Dr. Brian Donovan has looked at the beliefs of high school students in schools very much like Albany High School: affluent, majority white, but still relatively diverse. About a fifth of the students at these school believe ... that there are differences between the races that determine people's intelligence and other abilities. That belief is shared by about the same percentage of U.S. adults. 

Ugh. Just ugh. 

Hat mention (why hats?):

He had a full white beard and was wearing a black Stetson hat. 

Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner

I read Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner to fulfill the penultimate prompt for my 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. One more to go! Can I do it before the end of December? 

On Friday nights, best friends Josie and Delia host a public access show featuring campy horror movies. But things are going to change soon because they're graduating from high school and soon their paths will diverge and who knows if they can keep that show going. Delia wants this to be her life, but Josie has bigger aspirations and is thinking about college out of town. 

And there's a basset hound name Beauford and a beagle named Tater, just in case dog appearances make a difference to you.

I don't know. Most teens I know refuse to make eye contact, can barely string together a sentence, and only communicate through gifs and emojis. The girls in this book are witty, clever with words, and confident in themselves to the max. It just seems like an unrealistic portrayal of adolescence. On the other hand, I like that this book deals with a really hard time in life - that transition right out of high school is not dealt with enough in literature. There are people who stay and people who go and there's no way to square that. You can never have a friendship like you had in high school ever again. 

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

I sleep like a rock skipping across a pond. That shallow sleep where your mind still screams at you so loudly it keeps waking you up. Where you're never quite certain whether you've been sleeping. (page 102)

Oh, man, do I know this feeling. 

There aren't enough good places to scream in this world. You can't do it in public. You can't really do it at your house, if you live anywhere near other people. Can't do it at school. It's strange that we provide so few places to do something that you really need to do sometimes. There should be padded, soundproof rooms, like restrooms for screaming. (page 330)

This is such a good observation. I am a lady who screams when frustrated and this has been an ongoing challenge in my life. Sometimes I just laugh manically instead of screaming. That seems more socially acceptable. 

Some things last longer than others, but everything ends. Childhood feels like it takes forever when you're in the midst of it, but one day you wake up and you're eighteen and going to college. That basset hound puppy with the bow around his neck? You're going to see his whole life pass. You may find someone and get married. And it might last a long time, but it ends one way or another. Maybe you'll be together for fifty or sixty years, but one of you is going to get left behind. I'm glad things end, though. It forces you to love them ferociously while you have them.

There's nothing worth having that doesn't die. (page 369)

Is this what young adult literature is like these days? Morbid. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"Don't you dare say that my hat ain't fancy," I sing in my best bro country singer voice. (page 87)

He raises a gloved hand and points in my direction before bounding up into the ring, handing his hat to his coach (?), and whipping off his shirt. (page 164)

"We will, at no time, be listening to any music that sounds like a sentient John Deere hat trying to have sex with a duck call, sir," I say. 

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

 

Ask the Passengers is A.S. King's 2012 tale of a young woman struggling with her sexual identity in small town America. Astrid has a secret relationship with a girl at work, is watching two of her best friends hide their own sexuality, and has a complicated relationship with her family. She spends hours laying on a picnic table, watching planes, and sending her love to passengers on those planes.

I like that the characters in this book are complex. There's no person here who isn't just doing what they can to get through life. I like that Astrid's relationships with her friends and family members ebb and flow as different events unfold. I like it all.

But I have got to learn that YA is not my thing. It's just not. Teenage problems are so small and they are so big in the minds of teenagers. Yes, I was like this, too! I'm not saying that at all. I think this is perfect for a teen audience. But it's not perfect for An Old audience. 3/5 stars

Line of note:

I'm exhausted by them. I'm exhausted by me. I'm exhausted by having to be me, with them. (page 204)

Ha ha ha for DAYS. Don't we all feel this way a lot of the time?

Hat mentions: 
I put on a sweatshirt and my coat and my gloves, a hat and a scarf, and I got to my table and lie down. (page 132-133)

I decide I need to have a chat with my passengers because everything is different now, so I put on my coat and scarf and hat and grab the wool blanket off the back of the couch. (page 280)

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1) by Robin LaFevers

I started listening to a new book podcast called Books Unbound. It's two friends talking about the books they are reading and giving recommendations to listeners who write in with questions like "what book should I read that my plant would like to listen to?" Well, one of the friends talks about books she's reading, the other buys a lot of books, but doesn't actually read many of them, but we've all been there, right?  I like this podcast because these two are friends and you can tell that they have a relationship outside of the podcast and I also like that, while there is a structure to each episode, you do also get to know each of their personalities.  Anyway, the other thing? These two are YOUNG. I'm listening to early episodes right now and they're in their mid-twenties and it's crazy to hear them talk about life in general because they are so much younger than me. But that age gap is important because they read such different things than I generally do and recommend books I've never even heard of a lot. 

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin) by Robin LaFevers is one of the recommendations I got from this podcast. Listen to the selling point. This is a fantasy book in which a girl is recruited by a convent of assassin nuns.  

Look, if you can hear that premise and not immediately want to read it, you are an altogether different person than I am!!

Seventeen-year-old Ismae was trapped into an abusive marriage when she escapes to the convent of the sisters of St. Mortain, the God of Death. She is immune to poisons and trains as an assassin. We follow her on her first mission.

The Good: I like a heroine who can save her own life and makes decisions for herself. Ismae is a badass.

The Bad: The rest of the book? Why was there not more assassination? Why was there so much romance? Why so much talk about clothing? Why couldn't we actually follow the other two trainees the book spent so much time talking about in the first few chapters? 

I don't know. The premise was great. The execution fell flat for me. 3/5 stars

Lines of note (I listened to the audiobook, so all of these are the timestamps):

People hear and see what they expect to hear and see, but just because we've been trained to use that to our advantage doesn't mean I like it. (timestamp 01:19:59)

I thought this was a smart observation about people, fifteenth century Brittany or twenty-first century North America.

I don't know where these seamstresses have found this gown or whose it was supposed to be, but it's mine now and I must remind myself that assassins should take no pleasure in their finery and frippery. But surely even a knight can admire his armor. (timestamp 04:59:27)

I think this is a true statement, for sure. But then! Then! So much talk of clothes! I didn't love that. 

It's Duval who sets my heart to racing, who addles my wits, who makes me short of breath. For even when he's angry, he's kind, and not the mere surface kindness of good manners, but a true caring. Or at least the appearance of true caring, for I'm well aware it could all be an act, an act designed to earn my trust. And just like some poor dumb rabbit I've stumbled into his snare. (timestamp 07:45:20)

I always like a good animal metaphor.

Things I looked up:

There's also braised rabbit and roast goose, pork pie, pastries, and frumenty. (timestamp 10:17:29)

Frumenty was a popular dish in western European medieval cuisine. It's a thick boiled grain dish made with cracked wheat boiled with either milk or broth. You could add things to it like eggs, currants, sugar, and spices to make it more special, but it was mostly a peasant's food. 

The blare of a sackbut heralds the arrival of the evening's entertainment. (timestamp 10:21:47)

A sackbut is an early trombone. 

Hat mentions: 

His hood is drawn close around his head, shadowing his face, and his straw hat hangs down his back, marking him as one who toils in the fields. (timestamp 01:16:56)

Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children #7) by Seanan McGuire

Wayward Children series
Every Heart a Doorway
Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Beneath the Sugar Sky
Come Tumbling Down
Across the Green Grass Fields

In an Absent Dream

Once again, I listened to this as an audiobook, but unlike other books, this one was narrated by Whitney Johnson, not the author.  

In this book, we return to Cora the Mermaid who is haunted by dreams after her excursion in the Moors in Come Tumbling Down. So she asks to be transferred from Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children to a different school called Whitethorn, a school where the headmaster has a very different theory than Eleanor West on how to handle children who have come back from doors. Here we see Regan from the previous book and hear all kinds of ways parents mess up their kids.

I was really excited to be in a different school and it was really fun to read about different pedagogical differences. The thing is, the YAness of it all was challenging for me. The villain was too villainous. I think there it's important to recognize that Eleanor West's teaching style isn't for everyone and that's okay. There should be a place for kids to go who need something different. They should be villainized. 

But it's such a unique world and McGuire writes such interesting, diverse characters that I can't stop reading. The next two books in the series have great Goodreads reviews, so I guess I'll be reading on, even though it's not really the perfect series for me. Unfortunately, my library doesn't have the audiobook, so I put a hold on it as an ebook and we'll see how long that takes.  

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

"Heroism is addictive. Maybe that's why it sounds so much like heroin." (timestamp 2:16:21)

I laughed very hard at this line.

"I don't kill innocent people. That's not what a hero does. but I don't stand back and let people endanger my friends. That's not what a hero does, either." (timestamp 3:50:38)

I feel like it doesn't take a hero to try and protect your friends, though. Right?  That's just standard good-person fare?

Hat mentions:

None!

Valdemar: The Herald Spy by Mercedes Lackey

Valdemar saga (in chronological order of the world, not order of publication)
The Mage Wars
The Last Herald-Mage
Collegium Chronicles

Okay, I'm well and truly entrenched in the world of Valdemar now. So, this is the world where there are these super smart horse-type creatures named Companions who choose people, called Heralds, who then become the law-enforcement arm of Valdemar. In The Collegium Chronicles, we meet Mags, a poor orphan boy who was abused in gemstone mines until he was Chosen by his Companion Dallon. At school, he meets friends, but he is soon recruited to be a spy for the King.  In The Herald Spy, Mags is back at spying. 

Whew. 

That's the backstory of where we where are.

Closer to Home is the first in this trilogy. Amily has an interesting Gift in which she can see through the eyes of non-human animals. The King's Own Herald Nikolas is in an accident and briefly dies and his Companion Chooses Amily in those brief moments, making her the King's Own Herald. Meanwhile, Mags resuscitates Nikolas and a new Companion Chooses him. While Nikolas is laid up, Mags takes over all his duties of recruiting spies, Amily settles into her role advising the King, and the Court is all in a tizzy because two feuding families are coming to Haven at the same time. Hijinks ensure.

I wish...I wish Mags and Amily made mistakes once in a while. Lackey is more than willing to point out everyone else's mistakes (poor naive Violetta gets treated horribly in this book), but Mags and Amily never do anything wrong and always end up coming out like heroes. So when Mags and Amily have conversations like "I'd never do that," it's kind of frustrating because of course they wouldn't do that - they're both essentially political and social experts who work hard and never err.  It's actually a really frustrating reading experience.

That being said, I like the world of Valdemar and I'm just hanging out with these two annoying suck-ups because the setting is so interesting. I like to see how Lackey will make use of particular gifts and I really like to check in with the Companions. I'm in for the rest of this trilogy.

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

But a boy that knew how to read and write - well, he could get himself another respectable sort of job when he outgrew being a messenger. He could work at a shop, or in a tavern. He could work for a stall-keeper who was himself illiterate. There were scores of things he could do as long as he was literate. A boy that knew how to read and write would never go hungry again. (page 104-105)

I like the peeks into the non-royal, non-Heraldic world.

:You always have to do things before you think you are ready.: Rolan observed. :That's just life.: (page 212)

Sometimes Lackey gets accused of preachiness and I'll be honest, this was the first time I was really taken aback by it. 

Thing I looked up:

virago (page 345) - a domineering, violent, or bad-tempered woman

Hat mention: 

"And tell your foolish masters that if they want any more tending for you idiots, they had better come hat in hand and prepared to grovel for it." (page 208)

****************

Closer to the Heart is the next book in the series. Let's see how it shakes out. 

Huh. Mags and Amily get married. It seems like someone is trying to set up Valdemar to go to war with their neighbor, so Mags sets off to make sure it happens. There's more dumb kirball. Look, here's the thing. These two characters, Mags and Amily? They're boring. They never do anything wrong. They make a plan and the plan comes to fruition. This is the same author who was willy-nilly killing off main characters in The Last Herald-Mage and here these two can do no wrong. I am continuing on because I know Lackey can do better. Oh, well. One more book in this trilogy and then the next trilogy is about the children Mags and Amily have, so at least it won't be all about the dynamic duo.

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. (page 26)

This is part of Mags and Amily's wedding vows. I thought it was super sweet.

Amily's odd form of Animal Mindspeech allowed her to see and hear through the eyes and ears of any animal and most birds. (page 158)

Wait...aren't birds animals? What is this nonsense?

Thing I looked up:

ramie (page 242) - Fiber yielding plant native to China. The fiber it produces is pure white in color, lustrous, moisture-absorbent, and readily dyed. It's also stronger than cotton, wool, or flax. 

Hat mentions:

None

****************

We finish with Closer to the Chest. 

Now we are talking! Someone is sending very mean notes to women in power, vandalizing stores owned by women, and destroying churches of female-dominated religious denominations. Mags and Amily have got to figure out what's going on and put a stop to it. 

Look, I liked this book way more than the other two in this trilogy. It seems so prophetic to be reading about incels in a book written in 2015. Yes, it's heteronormative, Mags and Amily continue to be perfect and never make mistakes, the writing is occasionally preachy, and we knew as readers who the bad guy was long before anyone else did, which ruined the pacing. But, still. How did Lackey know that this would be the state of these United States in just a few short years? Also, there are Companions and lots of pocket pies and a takedown of Christianity and I just really like being in Valdemar.

Lines of note:

Women, it seemed, should "know their place," and that place was to be told what to do by men. Evidently, some god had created men in his image, and women were an afterthought, created to serve men. Women should be pretty, serve, and provide sex, and not be heard, or think for themselves. A women's duty was to make sure she was always attractive and pliant, and do everything a man told her...She must get a man as soon as she was able - "the younger, the better," growled one. (page 6)

Fanatics only held firmer to their beliefs, the more they were proven wrong. (page 375)

Thing I looked up:

gnomon (page 304) - the part of a sundial that casts a shadow (this seems like very niche vocabulary to me!)

Hat mentions:

...wearing an enormous hat to keep the exposed parts of her from getting sunburned. (page 223)

Same hat, on the next page:

Unless it's lust for my cooler clothing and my hat. (page 224)

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

 

The Poet X is a novel in verse told from the perspective of an Afro Latina teenager living in New York City Xiomara. She and her twin brother were long-awaited babies for older parents and their religious views mean that Xiomara has limited freedom and choices. She puts her thoughts and feelings out on the page as poetry.

Someone on Goodreads talked about this book as a survival guide for teenage girls and I think that's a really accurate assessment. It does talk about her experience as a child of immigrants, but also just regular harassment, embarrassment, young love, body image issues, and general teenage angst that many young women might feel. 

I'm not huge into poetry, but this format really worked for this topic and did a lot of work in terms of character development. I'm docking it half a star because the ending was not great, but what an impressive debut! 4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:
I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips
so that the boys who called me a whale in middle school
now ask me to send them pictures of myself in a thong. (page 5)

Heartbreaking. 

What if I like a boy too much and he breaks my heart,

and I wind up angry and bitter like Mami,

walking around always exclaiming how men ain't shit,

even when my father and brother are in the same room? (page 32)

My mom did this. LOL. All men are bastards was a very common refrain in our household growing up. It is no wonder that I find most men terrifying.

It happens when I'm at bodegas

It happens when I'm at school.

It happens when I'm on the train.

It happens when I'm standing on the platform.

It happens when I'm sitting on the stoop.

It happens when I'm turning the corner.

It happens when I forget to be on guard.

It happens all the time.

    I should be used to it.

    I shouldn't get so angry

    when boys - and sometimes

    grown-ass men - 

    talk to me however they want,

    think they can grab themselves

    or rub agaisnt me

    or make all kinds of offers.

    But I'm never used to it.

    And it always makes my hands shake. (page 52)

This was long, but I couldn't help but type it all out because it was so powerful to me. The ubiquity of sexual harassment for young women is so troubling.

The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it. (page 223)

Is it?

I can't remember the last time people were silent while I spoke, actually listening. (page 259)

I can't imagine how powerful this line would have been if I'd read it when I was a teenager.

Thing I looked up:
chancletas (page 3) - Flip-flops! (or flippity-flops, as I call them)

Hat mentions:

None

Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

Last year, I read Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley and I loved it. So when one of my friends told me that Boulley had a new book out called Warrior Girl Unearthed, I was so excited. Let's dive in.

Perry Firekeeper-Birch was eager for a summer with nothing to do, but she got into a car accident and has to spend the summer working to pay for the repairs. At first Perry is bored with her work, but soon she learns that there are remains of her ancestors and their funerary objects stored in museum archives and they should legally be returned to her people. 

Look, I didn't love this book as much as I did Firekeeper's Daughter. This one feels like YA, it feels like morality is just dripping off the page, and it has a main character who never really faces consequences* for her actions. However, the topic is important and I found the setting to be really wonderful. 

3.5/5 stars

*I mean, yes, she does and I don't mean to belittle the trauma she suffers in the last part of the book, but even that she manages to weasel her way out of when, in real life, she would not. That's great. This is fiction. It just felt off and like that would not happen in non-YA fiction.

***************

Line of note:
"Mean mad or disappointed mad or annoyed mad or --"
"Holaay. How many types of mad do you know?" I ask. (page 122)

This made me laugh and reminded me of the scene when Hermione said Ron had the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Appearances of the word hat:

All that's missing is his top hat and cane. (page 49)

"I'm a white hat," he clarifies. "I put my infiltration skills to work for the greater good."

"Are black hats the bad hackers?" I click my seat belt. "Don't you think those terms are racist? White, good; black, bad?" (page 92)

Each team will draw a room assignment from a hat and start at the same time. (page 120)

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

One of my nephews recommended Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan to me recently. I always try to read what they recommend because it seems like the only way to really figure out what they're interested in these days!

This book is structured like No Two Persons. In the prologue, a harmonica is introduced. Then, in each of four sections, the harmonica ends up in the hands of a child for whom it is life-altering. I read a Goodreads review that said you should listen to this as an audiobook and I wish I had because music is such an integral part of the story.  Anyway, in terms of the No Two Persons comparison, this could be read as four short novellas, each connected by a common thread, just as the book was the common thread in No Two Persons. 

I liked this book. I was always sad when we switched POVs because I grew to love each child, but then I grew to love the next child, too. I didn't want to say good-bye to any of the characters and I was delighted by the ending of the book to see how all the storylines came together. 

I'm taking half a star off of it because the intro material was unexciting to me, but I do appreciate the breadth and scope of this book for young readers. 

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

"I always say the instrument chooses the musician instead of the other way around." (page 290)

This is very "the wand chooses the wizard" and I appreciate that the person who taught the character this instrument was named Mr. Potter. It all felt like a nice nod to the world of Harry Potter.

"With all the windows boarded, the house looks embarrassed and sad, Papa. Like a dog when it has been shamed."

"Yes," said Papa. "The house is very sad." (page 423)

Personification of things and places is very much my jam.  

Appearances of the word hat: 

Araceli rushed toward her, wearing a purple crocheted hat pulled down over her ears. (page 378, this same hat appears on page 380, 433, and 439 as well)

The woman wore a Sunday dress, even though it was Thursday, a hat that looked like an upside-down rowboat, and a tweed coat. (page 408)

In An Absent Dream (Wayward Children #4) by Seanan McGuire

Wayward Children
Every Heart a Doorway
Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Beneath the Sugar Sky

I listened to the audiobook of In an Absent Dream, narrated by Cynthia Hopkins. It's the fourth book in the Wayward Children series (nine books strong and a tenth on the way). In the past, I've deemed these books as atmospheric, with McGuire developing a sense of dread in a very creepy way. I didn't care for the previous entry in this series, so let's see if McGuire can turn this ship around.

Katherine Lundy is a serious girl, but she's very lonely. The other kids avoid her because her father's the principal at her school, her brother's got boy things to attend to, and her baby sister's a lot younger than her. So when a mysterious door opens to the Goblin Market, she takes it. She learns the rules there, makes friends, but there's always a pull towards the life she once knew. Will she stay in the Goblin Market when she gets older or will she go back to her lonely life?

What a wonderful book. Lundy is so well-written. The setting is, as always, exquisitely detailed. The ending, as usual in this series, is bittersweet and unexpected (at least, I wasn't expecting it). Within five minutes of finishing this book, I borrowed the next audiobook in the series from the library.  5/5 stars

(You could absolutely read this book as a standalone if you don't want to read the rest of the books. There are a couple of Easter eggs you'd miss, but those are very minor.)

Lines of note: 

Home always shrinks in times of absence, always bleeds away some of its majesty because, what is home, after all, apart from the place one returns to when the adventure is over. (timestamp 2:39:53)

So evocative.

Everything was so different now and so much of it looked the same which somehow made the differences even worse. (timestamp 4:28:04)

This was what it was like when I went back to the area where I grew up recently. Some of things were the same, but the changes made it all seem like it was my hometown dressed up for Halloween. The Mobil station was there, but it's a Burger King instead of a Subway. The Hardware store isn't an Ace, it's a True Value. I don't know why these things hit so hard, to be honest. Everything just felt off. 

We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez

 

We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez is a Pura Belpré Honor book published in 2020. I heard about this book on podcast, but I can't remember which one and then Stephany recommended it and I did the thing and added it to my library hold list.

(I am ashamed of myself that I've never heard of the Pura Belpré awards. Every year it awards a Latino author and a Latino illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth (age 0-14).  I honestly haven't even heard of most of these books or authors. It's possible that's because children's literature is not my jam, but that's not really an excuse. I'm glad I stumbled upon this award because I'm going to probably make this my next list to go through once I'm finished with the Women's Prize for Fiction.)

(Additional footnote. Because I had to go to the website for the Women's Prize for Fiction to get that hyperlink, I realized they just released the 2023 winner, which is Demon Copperhead and that's exciting because I've already read it! And liked it!)

If you haven't noticed, I'm procrastinating here. I'm procrastinating in the same way that I procrastinated actually reading the book. 

It's not that this wasn't a good book. It certainly was.
It's not that this book doesn't have delicious writing. It certainly does.
It's not that this isn't a book about something important, something we should all be paying attention to and thinking about every day. It certainly was.
It's not that this book doesn't have a powerful message. It certain does. 

The thing is that this book is purposefully hard to read. Three young people are forced to flee their home in Guatemala and try to get to the United States. This is the story of their journey. 

It's really a good book.  But it's challenging to read because with every page turn, you expect terrible things to happen. And sometimes they do.  And why should we expect that terrible things will happen to CHILDREN (or frankly, adults) who are trying to come to the United States as refugees? 

This is a great book for children of immigrants who might need to hear what their parents have been through. This is a great book for people who want to close borders and want to punish people who break immigration laws. This is a great book for people who think we could open borders a bit more, but question how much. This is a great book for everyone to read.

But, look, everybody. I didn't want to read it. I'd reach for another book before I'd reach to this one.

It was like the vegetables of my fiction reading.  Delicious, good for me vegetables that were roasted perfectly and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and Parmesan, but vegetables nonetheless. 

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

Maybe in other places, terrible news is unexpected. But here, it is not. Here we wait for it always. And it always comes. (page 34)

Reading about how these kids loved their families, loved their hometown, loved their home country, but how unsafe it was for them and their loved ones was heartbreaking. It was just heartbreaking.

You have to walk with your head down, Pequeña. Don't look around, she'd told me ever since my breasts started to develop and my hips started to fill out. And be more aware. Of everything and everyone.

She never explained how it was possible to be more aware of everything, take notice of everything, while keeping my gaze down. (page 113)

This is the distillation of the book. Everyone in this book was caught between a rock and a hard place. There were no easy answers or easy ways out. More heartbreak on every page. 

The One True Me and You by Remi K. England

 

The One True Me and You by Remi K. England is a YA romance novel. Kay is a fanfic writer who is attending a convention with their online friends. This is a real treat for them, since they go to a straightlaced private school with conservative parents. They have a list of three things to accomplish over the course of the weekend, though, including to ask someone to use they/them pronouns for the first time, to dress in a way that's more gender-comfortable, and to kiss a girl for the first time. Meanwhile, the same hotel is also hosting the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant and Teagan Miller is there to win the scholarship money so that she can go to university and finally come out as gay.  Oh, what's going to happen with these kids?

I just...didn't care for this. That's all. 

She says lesbian in a stage whisper, like it's a swear word and she's in a public place. I close my eyes and start counting, though all I want to do is chant they, they, they for every misgendered she on Kay's behalf. If I let myself get tense now, I'll blow the interview, but panic sinks into my heart and starts to squeeze anyway. If she saw Kay, does that me she saw me with her? (page 108)

I'm going to spend some time dissecting the above paragraph. 

1. The overblown "panic sinks into my heart and starts to squeeze anyway" is not prose I want to read, to be honest. What happens to the person? What physical manifestation happens to them? What do they see, hear? What does panic look like to this person? We'll never know because England just wants to use metaphor, despite the fact that this person, Teagan, is in a pageant where she's literally being judged on her looks. What would the impact of this panic be on the interview? If this were a one-time deal, I might let it pass, but the whole book is written like this.

2. Does anyone else note how Teagan herself misgenders Kay by using "her" as the last word in the paragraph? The whole paragraph was how upset Teagan was about someone else misgendering Kay, but then Teagan does the same thing. It was things like this that made the characters in this book insufferable. Sure, we can all be judgy and our internal thoughts can be unkind, but the hypocrisy of calling someone out for something you are also doing is not lost on me. Using wrong pronouns purposefully is mean, but accidental slipups should be forgiven and if someone hasn't been told, then how should they even know? I don't know. I thought this was...not well-considered.

3. The YA-ness of this whole thing. What if someone saw me living my life and hanging out with my friends? Who cares? I mean, I guess it does matter in high school and it matters in the context of this particular beauty pageant and I remember how fraught everything was when I was that age, but I am in my mid-40s now and I honestly just can't be bothered to get myself hepped up about any of this. 

I am not part of the LGBTQ+ community and don't feel qualified to talk about the representation of the spectrum of identities and how it was written. I will say that there are some thoughtful reviews that suggest it might be a tad bit outdated. Furthermore, the fanfic community was really irate about how outdated it was. *shrug* It didn't bother me, but it's likely I don't know what to look for. 

I will say that I am so happy there's enough LGBTQ+ literature out there that there is bad literature. I actually feel like that's a good sign for the acceptance of media portrayals of people with a variety of backgrounds that some publisher thought this schlock was good enough to publish. Not every book with themes about gay or trans youth has to be high literature and that's the most optimistic thing I can say about this book.

2/5 stars

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

 

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a series of lyrical vignettes about the life of Esperanza Cordero, a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. She tells stories about the people and events in her neighborhood, the good, the bad, and the ones where people end up with broken bones or going to jail. It hasn't been such I read Heating & Cooling that the sheer brilliance of the writing of a book forced me to realize that I'll never write any prose half as good. 

I would categorize this as young adult in that the book is divided into short one- to four-page snapshots and the whole thing is just over one hundred pages. I read it all in one sitting and found it absorbing and beautiful. I mean, it's a tough read at times, with abuse, rape, death, and all the hard topics that would be found in any city neighborhood, but I understand why this is considered a modern classic. In very few words and pages, Cisneros writes brilliant character studies and makes incisive observations that will stick with you long after you close the book.

Huge thumbs up. 5/5 stars

Lines of note:

Nenny is too young to be my friend. She's just my sister and that was not my fault. You don't pick your sisters, you just get them and sometimes they come out like Nenny.  (page 8)

You really don't get to choose your family. I like when authors take this on.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. (page 11)

Syllables made out of tin. The poetic nature of the writing just makes this whole book sing.

The dog is big, like a man dressed in a dog suit, and runs the same way its owner does, clumsy and wild and with the limbs flopping all over the place like untied shoes. (page 21)

Has Cisneros seen my dog run?

She takes Bobo for a walk and laughs all by herself, that Ruthie. She doesn't need anybody to laugh with, she just laughs. (page 67)

I mean, who here hasn't just laughed while walking their dog? There are REASONS.  Probably.

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bit the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep...

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be. (page 74-75)

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the imagery in this book. 

The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance #3) by Naomi Novik

A Deadly Education
The Last Graduate

The Golden Enclaves is the third book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. I liked the first book a lot (4.5 stars!), but the second book left me feeling less than impressed (2.5 stars). What is this book going to bring us?

In the first book, we meet El at an evil magical school where she meets some fellow misfits. In the second book, she and her allies manage to defeat the school, but at a huge price for El. In this book, El is wallowing in grief at home when she suddenly becomes aware that enclaves around the world are falling and people are dying. Off she goes to save the day.

There were some bright spots in this book. I liked seeing how wizards live outside of the school. I like spending more time with El's mom. I really like El's pet mouse.

But boy was the rest of this boring. I just kept falling asleep after reading ten pages. So much teenage angst, which is appropriate for the YAness of it all, but not appropriate for me, a grown ass woman. (There was also a point where a character is mourning the death of someone she had just said "I love you" to, but immediately jumps into bed with another character. Fine. I get rebound sex. Then, it turn out the original someone isn't dead, so she sleeps with him, as you would. BUT THEN she sleeps with the rebound sex person AGAIN. Not a mention about protection from STIs, either.)

Plus, the ending was unsatisfying. I don't want to spoil anything, but I don't feel like anyone is happy and there's legitimately no confrontation between El and the Evil Villain of the thing. *heavy sigh* The first book in this series was very promising.

2/5 stars