Currently Reading

This past week was curriculum inventory week at work, which basically means I'm walking back and forth across campus moving huge boxes of curriculum nonstop the entire week. It's exhausting, and it meant that I was too tired to focus on much when I got home from work, which means...very little reading progress. So, here we are, a list of the books I'm currently (very slowly) reading and my thoughts on them so far.

1. The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton - This is a reread, and I know things end up being pretty dire, but I have to say the aesthetic at the beginning of the book...so pleasing. So delightful.

2. Champions of the Galaxy by Tola Okogwu - With any luck, I'll finish reading this ARC over the next week and be able to post a review! So far, I'm kind of on the fence about it, but it has potential.

3. A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann - I'm reading this to Joel at bedtime, so it's going to be a while before I finish it, but I'm thirsty for answers to some of the things that have been presented so far. This is sort of a dystopian Greek mythology setting, and...it's good.

4. The Light We Lost by Kyla Stone - Mystery book reveal! I really can't decide if I like this book or not. Like...it's intriguing, but also it's slooooooow. I'm still holding out hope, but I'll just say this - it's a "dystopian thriller" but I'm more than 100 pages in and so far we're still gearing up to the dystopia. Not very thrilling, not very dystopia.

5. The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters - I have to read this book in chunks because it's giving me so many feelings. Oksana's resilience and determination are incredible, and I'm loving learning more about her.

Being Mary Bennett - JC Peterson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆

Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that every bookworm secretly wishes to be Lizzie Bennet.

A less acknowledged truth is that Mary Bennet might be a better fit.

For seventeen-year-old Marnie Barnes, who's convinced she is the long-suffering protagonist of her life, this revelation comes at the end of a series of self-induced disasters that force her to confront a devastating truth: Marnie has more in common with Mary Bennet - the utterly forgettable middle sister - than the effervescent Lizzie. 

Determined to reinvent herself, she enlists the help of her bubbly roommate and opens herself up to the world - leading lady style. And between new friends, a very cute boy, and a rescue pup named Sir Pat, Marnie realizes that being the main character doesn't mean rewriting your life entirely. It's about finding the right cast of characters, the love interest of your dreams, and, most important, embracing your story, flaws and all."

April was a slow month for reading

April is only thirty days long, and yet it feels so much longer. Not in a nice way, like wow, I got so much done this month! In a "this will never end" way, like I hurt myself and couldn't do any of the things I liked but still had to do all the things I don't like. In the "my aide quit during book fair week because she got some negative feedback for openly not doing her job and didn't like it" way. In the "it's so cruel that there are lots of holiday breaks stacked in the first half of the school year and then none at the end of it" way.

Anyway, in case you aren't picking up what I'm throwing down, I didn't make much Read Harder progress this month. I did START Underground Railroad and The Hard Parts, which are my last April books...but I am nowhere near finished with them. I'll keep working on them this month, though, and at the same time, I'll be working on these challenges:

#9: Read a romantasy with a queer and/or BIPOC main character - For this, I picked Deadly Ever After by Brittany Johnson, which I picked up from the library this past week, and Peter Darling by Austin Chant, which I had to buy and in a very deja vu moment I am once again still waiting on any word re: shipment. I bought it from a different bookstore, who said it was shipping directly from their warehouse, which is actually what the other bookstore told me when they finally answered my email about my other purchased and delayed book, which now has me wondering...do all these local bookstores use the same "warehouse"? And why are their deliveries so slow? I just want my books without supporting Temu Lex Luther, man.

$20: Read a book set in space - You now, this prompt may have helped me realize that I don't particularly love sci fi as a genre. Are there books set in space that I enjoy? For sure. Illuminae, for instance, one of my favorite series of all time. But when I read this prompt, there was no joy in my heart for it. It is not a prompt that excites me. Maybe I'll change my tune when I read my chosen books, Beyond the Red by Gabe Cole Novoa and Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh. But space...books set in it...just doesn't do it for me the way other genres and settings do.

Well, there you have it. Bring on the May.

April Mystery Book review - Witchshadow by Susan Dennard

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I'm omitting the cover synopsis for this one, because Witchshadow is the fifth book in the Witchlands series, so I don't want to give spoilers from the jump to anyone who wants to read the series and hasn't yet. Instead, I'm including the synopsis from the cover of the first book, so anyone interested knows what the series is about, and then I'll talk a bit about the series as a whole.

From the cover of Truthwitch:

"Young witches Safiya and Iseult have a habit of finding trouble. After clashing with a powerful Guildmaster and his ruthless Bloodwitch bodyguard, the friends are forced to flee their home.

Safi must avoid capture at all costs, as she is a rare Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lies. Many would kill for her magic, so Safi must keep it hidden, lest she be used in the struggle between empires. And Iseult's true powers are hidden even from herself.

In a chance encounter at Court, Safi meets Prince Merik and makes him a reluctant ally. However, his help may not slow down the Bloodwitch now hot on the girls' heels. All Safi and Iseult want is their freedom, but danger lies ahead. With war coming, treaties breaking, and a magical contagion sweeping the land, the friends will have to fight emperors and mercenaries alike, for some will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch."

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So, the story centers around Safi and Iseult but involves a whole cast of characters, and the first book starts just as the Twenty Year Truce, which has kept several warring empires from destroying each other for nearly two decades, is about to end. Politically, tensions are high because this collapse of already tenuous peace is looming, and with the end drawing near anyway there's every chance that one of the signers will choose to violate the truce and end it early just to get a jump on the war that will inevitably come soon anyway. Personally, tensions are also high for Safi and Iseult because a Bloodwitch has discovered Safi's magic and begun to track them, so now they have to sneak out of Venaza City without being discovered, something made extra tricky because Iseult is Nomatsi and prejudices against the Nomatsi run high in the city, drawing her added attention. 

Of course, things immediately go wrong when they try to escape Venaza City, and things continue to go wrong from there, but along the way, we meet several fascinating characters, like Merik Nihar, his threadbrother Cullen, and Cullen's heart thread Ryber. We learn more about Aeduan, the Bloodwitch, and his complicated past, delve into the stories of Paladins and the Cahr Awen, and discover long-forgotten Cartorran history. Things get impossibly complicated, and I have to say, I wish I kept a notebook with me while I read to take notes. There's SO much backstory, and it's incredible, but it's a lot to keep track of! Fortunately, losing track of things just means getting rocked by huge reveals instead of seeing them coming. 

Just Ask Elsie - Ari Koontz

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Elsie Parker is having a totally normal fifth grade year. Fractions and conjunctions - check. Stressing about middle school - check. Body-positive puberty class at church that also covers feelings and identities - check.

Okay, maybe that last one isn't so normal. It's a little weird (and awkward) to spend her Sundays talking periods, B.O., and pimples. But Elsie's also learning a lot more than she's heard in her public-school health class - like the difference between sex and gender, and what consent is, and what it might mean that she can't stop blushing around a certain cute girl at her school.

When her puberty lessons become the school's latest gossip, Elsie's totally humiliated...until she finds an anonymous note in her locker from a classmate who wants to know more, and realizes that other kids might have embarrassing questions of their own.

Starting an underground advice board wasn't exactly in her plans, but Elsie won't pass up a chance to turn her reputation around - or to share words and labels that have not-so-accidentally been left off their curriculum. But when the principal tries to shut down the unauthorized puberty talk, Elsie has to decide what she's willing to risk to tell the truth to kids who really need to hear it."

📚📚📚 

So Elsie is one of only a few students in her school who has access to real, helpful education about what to expect from puberty, and while at first it's embarrassing when people find out, she ultimately realizes that her classmates need the information she's learning as much as she does, and what's more she is passionate about trying to share it. Her principal doesn't like that she's sharing said information on a whiteboard on her locker (particularly information about what the letters in LGBTQ stand for), so she and her crush/new friend team up to put the information in a zine instead. The objection to her whiteboard was that it was too public, so younger students who weren't ready for puberty information might encounter it - a zine shared only with fifth graders solves that problem, right?

Wrong. When a copy is found in a restroom and shared with the principal, Elsie finds herself in hot water with a week of detention. With her future at Pathways, a specialized middle school that would allow her to focus on her passion for art, at risk, Elsie has to consider whether to drop her quest for improved puberty education for her fellow classmates or keep pushing. Dropping it would be the safer path, but with a little encouragement from her friends, Elsie knows she can't just let this go. Together, they hatch a plan to show their principal why actual puberty education is important...but will their message get across? Or will Elsie find herself suspended and, worse, lose her spot at Pathways?

I liked this book (the first two thirds got me through my iron infusion this week), so I'm going to get my gripes out of the way first so then we can focus on the good stuff. I've only got two, but let's say one and a half because one isn't exclusive to this book, it's more of a general peeve. So, gripe the first: all the Pathways stuff. Elsie has two parents and a DNA donor who have the means and capacity to advocate for inclusive policies and positive change in public schools, so OF COURSE they're going to send their kid to a specialized school instead of continuing with the public school system! Why try to make public schools better for everyone when you could just use your means to make sure your kid is taken care of? Like I said, this isn't specifically a complaint with this book, but it's something that really irks my nerves. If we want public schools to be better, then the families like Elsie's need to support the public school system. That's all I'll say about that.

Gripe the second: the lack of dimension with the principal. Are there teachers and admin out there like this principal, complete tools who clearly became teachers to exert control over kids in attempt to feel powerful and in control? FOR SURE. But in my experience, admin who mean well but are quick to crumple to perceived possible pressure from narrowminded parents at the expense of student well-being are much more common, and it would have been more satisfying to see this type of more nuanced take, instead of just having it be "principal bad guy, must take him down!"

Anyhow, all that said, overall I thought this was a very strong story, and I appreciated that Elsie found ways to push back where needed in a way that felt true to life and not contrived. I loved the character development and how well multiple different students were brought in without it feeling overwhelming or like people were being shoehorned in. I really appreciated Mara and Elsie's friendship, and I especially loved that while they did get in a big fight, the way it was resolved demonstrated healthy communication in a very realistic way. I also loved Elsie's relationship with her parents, and I thought her dad's interactions with her were so sweet and understanding. Finally, I thought the development of Elsie's crush was a great way to showcase a little bit of romance without it feeling unrealistic or too mature for her age. The characters were the strongest part of this book, and I loved them all.

Reading Hard in March...was hard.

Well, I finished Take the Lead, and that's something! I was not able to read Guardian of Fukushima or Uncommon Grounds because I guess I missed my hold coming in for the first and the bookstore I bought the second from still hasn't sent them, nor did they respond to my multiple emails asking for a status update until I said if they didn't answer me I would have to cancel the order (at which point they responded IMMEDIATELY, so that's very cool). Bunk is far longer than I expected and, it turns out, incredibly dry, so it took me some time but I finished just in the nick of time! Parts of it were interesting, but it was a lot.

For April's first challenge, #7: read a sports book by someone other than a cis man, I've already read TWO, I started Off Balance and read it in a couple of days - my god, if you want insight into how absolutely fucked competitive gymnastics was at that time, read this. It broke my heart to learn about everything Dominique went through, especially remembering my perspective of her around the time of the 1996 Olympics and realizing how far off that was from reality. I'll also be reading The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters, hopefully that one is as good as the other two! 

For challenge #24, pick a previous year's challenge, I chose 2019's challenge to read an alternative history novel, and for that I'm going with Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It's been on my radar for so long, I figure it's about time that I read it!

Bonus Sunday = Bonus Reviews

Five Sundays this month means an extra blog post for me! I recently finished a handful of middle grade books that are potential nominees for our state book award list, so I figured why not give a little rundown of each of them? Here we go!

Seeds of Discovery: How Barbara McClintock Used Corn and Curiosity to Solve a Science Mystery and Win a Nobel Prize by Lori Alexander - This biography of Barbara McClintock was so informative and interesting! I loved how it broke down the scientific process, and I found Barbara's determination to be herself no matter what inspiring. Did I expect a biography about a scientist to make me cry? I did not, but it did!

Psychic Investigators, Evil Exterminators by K.T. Healey - I liked this story overall, it was very touching and a great book about the different ways people navigate grief. I especially appreciated the way our main character went to bat for his friend when one of their teachers were trying to tell his mom that she was a "bad influence" because she was flamboyant and a bit of a class clown. I am going to level with you, though, sometimes graphic novels are a bit overstimulating for me, and this one was no exception. A LOT going on, and I didn't always know what order panel dialogue was supposed to go in. Still a solid read!

Global by Andrew Donkin and Eoin Colfer - Another graphic novel, but this one was much less dialogue-heavy and relied a lot more on the illustrations to tell the story. This book was very haunting and tense, two kids in difficult situations as a result of climate change (and, let's be real, their own questionable choices). I thought it was beautifully told, inspirational, and touching.

So anyway, I'm a few books into this list of choices for our final top ten list of nominees, and I've already enjoyed all of them? It's going to be fun trying to narrow these down to my favorites.