March Mystery Book review - Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

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

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to her, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt - enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus's livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb's Gauntlet.

Melinoe is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs -  the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she's had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoe, this is a game she can't afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there's more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she's capable of more than killing. And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love."

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Ohhhh, I hate Inesa's mom so much. She straight up sucks so bad, there's no nuance to it at all. Beyond my hatred for her, my feelings about this book are thoroughly middle of the road. The idea behind the world is intriguing, but from the jump I had questions - like, people can rack up a bunch of debt and then nominate seemingly anyone to take their place in a gauntlet? Unless I missed something, it seemed like that was the case, although maybe it's just people you're related to. Either way, though, it seems a little too free-for-all to be like yeah, you get into huge debt and then you can just pick a name to nominate. I know this premise is so that Inesa will end up in the Gauntlet, but it just doesn't feel justified. Give me like...her mom somehow tricked her and got her to cosign as an account holder or something, you know?

Beyond that, everything just feels one-dimensional. They drip information about the creation of the Angels program, but I don't think it's enough. Inesa, Luka, their mom, and the few people we're introduced to in town all fall flat and, in Inesa's case, it didn't seem like she was fully developed and things about her sort of flip flop depending on what the scene calls for. I'm a little more forgiving of the inconsistencies with Melinoe, since part of her whole thing is that Caerus wipes the Angels' memories and does all kinds of shit to them, but with her as well it was like...the Angels are augmented super killing machines, but then Luka hits her with a glancing shot and she has to stop for hours to regroup, and then she takes a stimulant, gets hit in the head, and is completely destroyed after. Unstoppable killing machine, unless she's in a Gauntlet for more than an hour, I guess, or she gets bonked on the head extra hard.

Next, let's talk about the romance. It was forced, and that's an understatement. Inesa is on the run from the Angel that she knows murdered a CHILD in her village. This Angel is actively trying to murder her. Yet in her first encounter with Melinoe she's so frozen by her gaze that she wonders if she was hypnotized and then when she and Luka are regrouping afterward she's reflecting on how she just doesn't have it in her to hate the Angel. It doesn't take long for her to be thinking about how beautiful she is. Same with Melinoe - her whole existence as she knows it depends on her murdering this stranger, it's her job, she's not only been conditioned to think this is okay, she knows that if she fails she's going to be turned into a mindless sex slave for some rich asshole, and yet the entire chase she's like "wow, she's so pretty." Just...really doesn't work for me, man. It's a steep mountain to climb already, but there was just zero effort to even try to make it plausible.

And finally, the Gauntlet itself...so little actually happens, and there's a bunch of stuff with the cameras that is so weird and, again, unearned and contrived, and it doesn't make sense. I'm really trying to not post open spoilers, but it's like fake out after fake out after nonsense fakeout, and then at the end of the book I was like wow, there is ZERO payoff to any of this. Deeply unsatisfying. I gave the book three stars because a. I didn't DNF and b. I did find the first probably third or so of it okay enough, but overall it was a frustrating reading experience.

Strays - Gia Gordon

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

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Campbell Cole has a big heart for all living things, especially strays. It might be because her father, the director of the local animal control, is as aloof as they come, so Campbell knows what it's like to feel alone. 

When she spots an adorable dog being dumped on the street, the last thing Campbell can do is tell her dad. He might take the pup straight to the shelter, where new rescues have just three days to be adopted. The only person she can trust with the truth is her best friend, Luz.

The more time Campbell spends trying to catch the dog, the more he starts to trust her, which is both great and terrible because Campbell knows she can't keep him. But perhaps she doesn't have to. With the help of Luz's father, an army vet grappling with PTSD, she just may find a solution that benefits not only the dog, but everyone else, too."

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Another ARC, already?! I must be on a roll...or it took me a really long time to finish my last one and then I read this one right after and finished it in a couple of days. Could be either, really.

Anyhow, as a card-carrying animal-obsessed person who works at a school full of kids who equally love animals and staff who regularly help rescue lost pups in the neighborhood (I keep an extra leash and harness in my bottom desk drawer just in case and so does our school secretary, that's how often we end up taking in wandering doggos to help track down their owners), I was sold on the idea immediately. 

The thing about it is, though, it is SO SAD, in such a hopeless-feeling way, for MOST of the book. I did end up enjoying it overall, and I'll still give it a shot for my school library, but I'm not sure students will stick with it for the entire almost 300 pages when the bulk of it is such a downer. Up until the last couple of chapters, I had to take periodic breaks to just sit there and feel sad, and my husband even asked me if I was okay a couple of times. That's how sad it was.

I enjoyed Campbell, Luz, and their friendship, and I loved the array of school staff we got to meet. It felt very true to life to have such a blend of staff, teaching styles, and attitudes, and I have to give a shout out to Gordon for having a NICE LIBRARIAN! She was lovely and the kind of librarian that I strive to be. I also enjoyed the dynamic of Luz's family, their interactions with each other and the different types of back-and-forth depending on who was there. Again, very true to life. I thought the characters were one of the highlights of the book. 

Where I struggled was that after creating all these gorgeous, lifelike characters, the plot developed too slowly. Everything that happens in the book is included in the synopsis, and that should not be the case. I think if Campbell had caught the abandoned puppy and come up with the plan for Luz's dad to help them earlier in the book, we could have seen more of what came next and the whole book would have felt more hopeful. Instead, we got like 260 pages of pure sadness and then a fast forward through a solution and next steps. As noted, overall I still think it's a decent read, but I thought it had so much more potential. 

The Strange Disappearance of Imogen Good - Kirsty Applebaum

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

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Fran doesn't want to stay with her aunt and uncle and her annoying cousin, Imogen. Imogen is rude and unfriendly and, it turns out, she's missing. Stranger still, no one seems to know where Imogen is, or even remember that she existed. Not even her own parents. 

It's up to Fran to convince Imogen's best friend, Bex, to help her find out what happened to the girl nobody, including Bex, can remember. All Fran knows is that it's got something to do with the hidden garden at Stillness Hall and the twelve statues that belong there..."

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Fran is on her way to stay with family while her mom goes on a business trip and dreading spending so much time with her awful cousin Imogen, so imagine her confusion when she asks her aunt and uncle where Imogen is and they don't seem to know who that is. At first, she thinks they're playing a prank on her, but after multiple other people in town seem equally confused she realizes that something strange is going on. But what?

After meeting the new owner of Stillness Hall, Fran is pretty sure she has something to do with it. But how would someone make an entire town forget that someone existed? And how is Fran supposed to undo whatever Stillness Hall's owner did to make that happen? As she pulls at the thread of what happened to Imogen, the story is interspersed with flashbacks from "The Storyteller," who shares the story of what happened to the original owners of Stillness Hall and gradually reveals what may have happened to Imogen.

The explanation is impossible, but when Imogen suddenly reappears and Bex vanishes, it's clear that it's true. Can Fran team up with her cousin to find a way to free Bex and thwart whatever magic is causing children in town to disappear from memory? They don't know, but they have to try. And whatever they do, they need to do it soon, because Bex's family is moving away, and if Bex isn't back by the time they do, they'll be leaving her behind.

I found the mystery of what happened and the gradual Storyteller reveals intriguing, and while I thought the ultimate solve was a little simple after the magic of the statues was made into such a complicated, impossible knot, I think the pace of the story was good and the overall storytelling was engaging and interesting. I'll be adding a copy to my school library when this comes out for sure!

February Read Harder

I tell you what, do you know what really makes a month fly by? Being sick a bunch. Feels like February just started, but it's already March! I think this is going to be the year of DNFs, because I got about three hours into Midnight's Children and decided I just didn't care and didn't want to force myself to keep listening. Maybe it would be different if I read the physical book instead of listening to the audio, but I just was like "what is even happening? What is this book about?" I DID finish The Secret History, and my thoughts on literary fiction are basically that they are books that make you ask "was this a good book, or was it just really, really weird?" Definitely applies to this book, it was very strange, but overall I think I enjoyed it, even though it all felt like a strange fever dream.

Know what else I started reading in February? One of my April challenge books! Oops. For the record, it's for challenge #7, read a sports book by someone who is not a cis man, and the book is Take the Lead by Sasha DiGiulian. It's an autobiography about a climber, and it was calling to me, so. Eh. Going out of order, baby! I do have two other books picked out for that challenge, so I think it's okay that I'm getting an early start.

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My March challenges will be #1, read a microhistory, and #13, read a non-fiction comic. I really am getting an early start to things, because I already read one of the comics, I Am Stan by Tom Scioli, about Stan Lee. It was...good? Interesting glimpse into his life, although I found the storytelling style a bit abrupt. I'll also be reading Guardian of Fukushimaby Fabien Grolleau for this challenge, but I had to buy it because none of my libraries had it, so I'm still waiting for it to get here.

For challenge one, I'm reading Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young and Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergast. Bunk is waaay longer than I expected it to be, so we'll see how fast I get through it, but I'm looking forward to it. I also had to order The History of Coffee, but hopefully it gets here soon so I can get started on it!

February Mystery Book review - Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: n/a 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man at peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past - memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.

Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, Black and white, this work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture."

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February book reveal, baby! My book this month was one I've been waiting to read for a minute, and it was great to finally get into it. As far as ratings go, not sure how you rate a book that is literally a human being sharing their story...it always feels a little weird giving a biography or an autobiography a rating, but just not including anything also feels weird, so here we are.  

Anyhow, rating conundrum aside, I found the book very enlightening, and I really appreciated that Zora Neale Hurston kept the story the way that Cudjo shared it with her instead of trying to rearrange it or editorialize, beyond some minor clarifications. It was a relatively short book, and it was so human and so emotional. If life had a "required reading" list the way college classes and such do, this would be on it, for sure.

The Chismosas Only Book Club - Laekan Zea Kemp

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

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Cat, Sofia, Ana, and Mari are best friends. Nothing, nada, can break the special bond they share. And after Cat's mom chides the girls to quit their loud cackling at the bookstore as they carry on like a bunch of chismosas, the name sticks - Cat creates The Chismosas Only Book Club, so the girls can stay connected throughout their first year of high school, even when their class schedules and club activities rip them apart.

But ninth grade is harder than any of the girls predicted, and it seems that no amount of conchas y libros y riendo at Milagro's Books, founded generations ago by Cat's great-great-grandmother, can repair the ever-growing cracks in their friendship. But maybe the spirit of Milagro herself can."

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I'm working on getting back into reading and reviewing ARCs (advanced reader copies) from NetGalley so I better keep up with new releases for school, so here we are, the return of the ARC reviews!

For my first review, The Chismosas Only Book Club by Laekan Zea Kemp caught my eye. I've read some of her books before, have a bunch of them already in our school library, and this book seems like one that many of my older students would be drawn to. Preparing for a big change like high school and worrying about what will change is super relatable - it definitely called to me, and I know many of my sixth graders, preparing to go to a new school for middle school next year, will see themselves in Cat, Sofia, Ana, and Cat.

Outside of this initial appeal (and a huge bonus for my school population), I really appreciated that not only were the characters centered in the book all Latina, their culture also features pretty heavily in the story. I loved this inclusion of traditions big and small, and I know my students will be thrilled to see themselves and some of their own traditions reflected in the characters of this book. I thought the character development, particularly with some of the secondary characters, was one of the strongest parts of the story. I loved the interactions between the four Chismosas, and obviously the story revolves around them so it makes sense that they were featured most heavily, but I would have taken sooooo much more of Cat's sister, Sofia's dad, and Ana's grandma in particular.

My one big gripe with this book was the pace. This is a four-star review, so obviously I enjoyed the book, but I wish things had progressed more quickly so we could have had more of a sense of conclusion at the end. It's possible that this was intentional, but instead of your typical rising action, climax, resolution, the end structure, this story was rising action, more of the same drama, more of the same drama, more of the same drama, climaxtheend. The things that happened with each of the quartet in the last couple of chapters felt like things that should have been happening maybe three quarters of the way through the book so then we could see where those actions ultimately took them, but instead it was like "YES, Ana is finally standing up for herself and Sofia is speaking up about how her mom makes her feel! Good for h--oh, it's over?" Like I said, maybe this was a deliberate choice, but it was the one thing about this otherwise wonderful book that felt dissatisfying to me. Otherwise, love it, it's a 100% have to buy for my school's collection.

Now, what shall I pick for my NEXT ARC review?!

Oh my god, I'm out of puzzles

But this last one was a real doozy! Tell me, if you heard the words "all edge pieces" puzzle, what would your reaction be? Mine was "ooh, fun!"

And it was. Mostly.

It was also, believe it or not, incredibly difficult. The pieces were very unique shapes, and with all of them looking so similar you really had to scrutinize for the most minor differences. Shout out to Yetch, though, because the differences were there! This had so many unique little details, it was a blast spotting them all. Overall, this is a solid, time-consuming perfect ten for me. And now the question is...where do I go from here?