TBR - Strong Female Characters

We're getting ready to close out National Women's History month, and I couldn't let March pass without sharing some of my favorite badass characters. It was super challenging to put together a short list, and I know there are a bunch missing because...well, we all know there are more than eight books with rad women in them. Which eight characters would you include on your list?

1. Camellia Beauregard - The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Camellia is a Belle, favored by her kingdom. When she discovers the darker side to Orleans, she has the choice to go along with things and remain in a privileged position or rebel against the only world she has ever known. I guess you could call her...a Rebel Belle. (I'll see myself out.)

2. Laia of Serra and Helene Aquilla - An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

I could keep going, honestly, there are lots of great women to choose from in this series! Laia is a scholar, enslaved by the leader of the Martials, and Helene is in training to become a Mask, part of the elite Martial military force. So much happens in this quartet that it's hard to sum up, especially without spoiling anything, so just...read it, y'all. Read it!

3. Tierney James - The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

This book has been pretty thoroughly reviewed on here, both by me and in a guest review of my sister's, so if we haven't convinced you to read it yet, I'm not sure what you're waiting for. Tierney isn't the only courageous woman featured in The Grace Year, either - read and cheer the rebellion on!  

4. Starr Carter - The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

After witnessing the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Starr has a choice - she can stay quiet, which is what both the cops involved and a powerful local gang leader want her to do, or she can use her voice to try and get justice for Khalil. If you've somehow missed hearing about this phenomenal book, I reviewed it a few years back...you should read it. (The book, not my review. Although you can read that too, if you really want to.)

5. Layla Amin - Internment by Samira Ahmed

In a version of the present day United States that doesn't feel terribly impossible, Layla and her family are taken to an internment camp for Muslim Americans. Not willing to duck her head to avoid the violence and watch in silence as more and more of her fellow internees disappear from the camp after clashes with guards, Layla and her friends form a resistance to fight back.

6. Mila - Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

This one is a little bit of a departure from the types of books I've included so far, but I wanted to specifically include it because sometimes standing up for yourself can be one of the hardest things to do, especially when you're as young as Mila and a lot of the voices around you are telling you that you're making a big deal out of nothing. Mila recognizes that the way boys at school have been treating her is wrong, though, and doesn't let anyone talk her out of speaking up about it. (Also, let us never forget that Barbara Dee commented on my review of this book, and I about died.)

7. Elizabeth Bennett - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Honestly, having grown up incredibly Mormon, I can empathize with Elizabeth and the immense pressure she is under to find a man, get married, and pop some babies out. Make haste, lady! What else are you going to do with your life?! When you grow up being taught that marriage + motherhood is all you're cut out for, it can be tough to push back against that, but Elizabeth does...twice, no less. Go Lizzie, go!

8. Emoni Santiago - With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Emoni is a senior in high school, and she spends most of her time raising a toddler and struggling to scrape together enough money to help support her little family. Her plate is stuffed pretty full, but when her school adds a culinary arts class, she can't pass up the opportunity to learn more about cooking and working in a real restaurant. Can Emoni find a way to balance the needs of her family with her desire to become a professional chef?

Top Ten April New Releases

April is almost here, and with it comes lots of exciting new books! With so many to choose from, it's hard to narrow it down to just ten titles, but I gave it my best shot.

1. Sunburnt Veils by Sara Haghdoosti - April 1st (paperback release)

2. Go the Distance by Jen Calonita - April 6th

3. The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman - April 6th

4. Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet by Laekan Zea Kemp - April 6th

5. Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan - April 6th

6. Zoe Rosenthal is Not Lawful Good by Nancy Werlin - April 6th

7. Between Perfect & Real by Ray Stoeve - April 13th

8. Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli - April 20th

9. The Key to You and Me by Jaye Robin Brown - April 20th

10. Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart - April 20th

Also, because I'm a cheater, I had to give an honorable mention to Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal, which comes out on April 27th. In case you missed my review, I read an advanced copy from Netgalley, and I highly recommend checking it out!

Grown - Tiffany D. Jackson

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰✰

Character development: ✰✰✰✰

Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Content warning: Abuse, sexual violence, references to suicide

From the cover:

"When Enchanted Jones wakes with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night, no one - the police and Korey's fans included - has more questions than she does. All she really knows is that this isn't how things are supposed to be. Korey was Enchanted's ticket to stardom.

Before there was a dead body, Enchanted was an aspiring singer, struggling with her tight-knit family's recent move to the suburbs while trying to find her place as one of the few black girls in high school. But then legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots her at an audition, and suddenly her dream of being a professional singer takes flight.

Enchanted is dazzled by Korey's luxurious life, but soon her dream turns into a nightmare. Behind Korey's charm and star power lurks a dark side, one that wants to control her every move with rage and consequences. Except now he's dead and the police are at the door. Who killed Korey Fields? All signs point to Enchanted."

Enchanted Jones' story starts off in the eye of the storm, a hotel room splashed with beet juice - or is that blood? - and the unresponsive body of superstar Korey Fields lying in their bed. Then it backs up, taking you to where everything started and, if you're anything like me, filling you with dread knowing what's in store. Enchanted is single-minded, focused so intently on her goal of making it as a singer that she can't hear the warnings from her friends and family or see the red flags that are waving in front of her. All she knows is that recording an album could be life-changing for her family and that working with Korey provides her with an obvious path to success. Then, of course, there's the added bonus that he - a multi-platinum artist - seems to be falling in love with her. When the opportunity to tour with him (and date him in secret) comes up, how could her parents possibly expect her to pass that up?

But of course, we know from the first page that all that glitters is not gold, and it isn't long into their tour before Enchanted is confronted head-on with the darkness within Korey that until then she had only caught glimpses of. Trapped in his world, all she can do is cower and try her best to follow his rules while he cuts her off from her family, restricts her freedom, and brings her fully under his control. Before she can even fully grasp what is happening, the tour she had so looked forward to goes from a dream to a nightmare, and Enchanted is swept along, at the mercy of Korey's whims and rages. At first she blames herself for making mistakes, not being able to make him happy. Eventually she realizes that this isn't the life she wants...but would she really have murdered him to get away? 

This book is gripping and intense, and it's difficult to read because I'm pretty sure we can all name more than a few people who have had experiences similar to Enchanted's. As hard as it is, though, it confronts so many important issues. Key among those issues, of course, is the importance of believing victims and not giving predators a pass. I want to stop reading stories like this and seeing real people in the struggles of the main character, but that's impossible while, like in Korey's case, there are no consequences for powerful people who prey on others. Thank you, Tiffany Jackson, for reminding us to stop giving abusers and predators a platform. I don't care how much we like their art, their music, their whatever...our enjoyment of the things they produce doesn't matter more than the well-being of their victims.

TBR - Puppies and Caffeine!

Guess what! Today is National Puppy Day, and March is Caffeine Awareness Month. I was pondering what topic to do for today's Tuesday Book Recs, and I thought puppies and caffeine? 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 These are a few of my faaaavorite things! 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 Why not combine them? So, for your reading pleasure, I give you...books featuring adorable pups and/or delicious caffeine.

1. American Panda by Gloria Chao

Ok, so Mei actually drinks hot chocolate, which teeechnically isn't caffeinated, but still. I love the cover art for this book, and the book itself is even better. (I reviewed it way back when...I almost said a little over a year ago, because it was January 2019, but then I realized...2019 was two years ago. Gulp. Time is a construct.) Mei is seventeen, in her first year at MIT, and on track to become a doctor, but ultimately she has to decide if she wants to follow her parents' plan for her life or choose her own identity. This book is beautiful and was even more wonderful than I expected it to be.

2. City of Bones, et al. by Cassandra Clare

Yes, this is a series about demon hunters, werewolves, vampires, and such, but it also features a shocking number of references to coffee, and I lowkey love how specific Cassandra Clare gets with the characters' coffee preferences. (Black with lots of sugar? Seems weird to me, but to each their own.) Also, Luke makes a joke to Clary about being a werewolf, not a golden retriever, and you know...hell hounds and stuff. So you could even consider this a two-fer.

3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Yeah, I've included this in multiple book lists at this point, so it's pretty well-documented that I love this book about Cath's experience her freshman year of college, trying to acclimate to college life, make friends, and balance real-world expectations with her fan fiction obligations. Levi, love interest and perfect man, works at Starbucks and keeps Cath in the coffee throughout her first year at school - and I want to try his pumpkin mocha breve concoction.

4. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Another well-documented favorite! Simon has been exchanging anonymous emails with a fellow student, and he's pretty sure he's falling in love with him...which is a little tricky, since he doesn't actually know who Blue is IRL. To make things even more complicated, another student read Simon's emails with Blue, because their school library clearly does not take student privacy seriously enough, and is now blackmailing him. Ew. Dick move. Fortunately, Simon has an adorable doggo, Bieber, to keep him company and brighten his days during what is otherwise a challenging, frustrating time.

5. This Book Just Ate My Dog by Richard Byrne

That's right, it's a picture book! Look, I may not be working right now, but I'm a children's librarian to my core, I can't turn it off. As the title suggests, the story starts off with the book eating our main character's dog...and things only escalate from there. This book is adorable, funny, and super interactive, so it's a lot of fun to read with littles (or to yourself, picture books aren't just enjoyable for little kids!) Give it a try, what have you got to lose?

6. The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas

It's spring break ten years after Veronica Mars has graduated from high school, and she's back in Neptune, working at Mars Investigations and trying to solve the mystery of a young woman's disappearance from a party. While I'm sure Veronica drinks coffee on at least one of her many stake-outs, any Marshmallow out there will know that this book is obviously included on the list because of the inimitable Backup.

7. Throne of Glass, et al. by Sarah J Maas

I'm going for a record with titles that start with "Th" here. This series is difficult to summarize because...it's a lot. But to get you started, notorious assassin Celaena Sardothien has just been released from enslavement in the salt mines of Endovier by the Crown Prince in exchange for serving as his champion in a competition to appoint a new royal assassin. Along her journey, Adarlan's Assassin will acquire a very adorable puppy, Fleetfoot, who I worried about constantly throughout Celaena's adventures. (Spoiler alert: She's totally fine.)

8. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

Dimple has just graduated and is ready for a break from her somewhat overbearing mother, which is coming in the form of a summer program for aspiring web developers. Rishi, romantic to the core, has been accepted to the same program, and when his parents break the news that Dimple, his future wife, will be in attendance, he is ready to turn on the charm. But with Dimple dead set against their arranged marriage, wooing her may not be as straightforward as he expects it to be. Fun fact: I originally chose to read this book solely based off the cover. Also, the iced coffee Dimple is enjoying on said cover may or may not feature heavily in her first meeting with Rishi.

9. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

YEAH, I'M GOING THERE. Is this book the first that ever made me sob over fictional characters? Yes, it is. Did I cry in front of my entire fourth grade class when we read it together? Of course I did, have you met me? Do I to this day not understand how the entire class wasn't in tears? Yes, duh. Was I in a classroom full of 9-year-old sociopaths?! I don't understand. I'll be honest, I haven't read this book in...a number of years...so I'm not 100% sure it stands the test of time, especially having been written in 1961. 😬 But I couldn't put together a booklist about dogs and not include Little Ann and Old Dan.

10. You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman

Ariel Stone is under a lot of pressure to be the perfect student so he'll get accepted into Harvard, and when he fails a Calc quiz, he starts to see his precarious Ivy League dream slipping away. I was by no means considering going Ivy League for college (ASU, baby, this nerd went full party school and never once attended a party), but this book brought me back to the stress of trying to be at the top of your high school academic world. Honestly, people who say that high school was the best years of their life...what? Anyway, while it did end up being a stressor by virtue of being yet another commitment on Ariel's never-ending to do list, one of his few reprieves from academic pressure was his time volunteering at a rescue, where he and his little sister got to spend time with their favorite puppy. Dogs make life better, even when you're shitting your pants about getting into a good school and figuring out what to do with your life.

Weekend library loot

When I left my job in January, I posted to Facebook about how I had roughly 450 books on my To Be Read list on Goodreads and was going to try to read as many of them as I could before I went back to work. Last week, I posted an update...that I was up to 606 books on my TBR list.

I...may have a problem?

On a related note, every time I request a new book from the library (support your local library, y'all!), I tell myself that I need to return at least one book for every book I put on hold. And then I come home with this:

Pictured:

Tristan Strong Destroys the World by Kwame Mbalia

Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake

Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation by Clarence B Jones

My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King

Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M Randolph

The Colored Waiting Room: Empowering the Original and the New Civil Rights Movements by Kevin Shird

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi

More Than Enough: Claiming Space For Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas

Spoiler alert: I did not return ten books when I picked these up...and I've got eighteen more books on hold already. 😬 On the plus side, I am already about a quarter of the way through Tristan Strong Destroys the World (SUCH A GREAT SERIES!) and over 200 pages into Five Dark Fates. So only eight books left to go! Plus a few other books that aren't pictured because they were scattered around the house in my various reading places. Good thing my library has a limit of 35 books!

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art - James Nestor

Initial draw: ✰✰✰

Writing style: ✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly.

There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.

Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.

Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again."

Oof, I have issues with this book. The tl;dr version is that it is heavy on the anecdotal evidence and pseudoscience and incredibly light on any actual evidence. Even the description is misleading...for example, by "Journalist James Nestor travels the world" what they actually mean is that he goes to Stockholm to talk to a fellow self-proclaimed expert on "proper" breathing and later travels to Paris to visit some catacombs and talk to an orthodontist. He does finally at the end of the book talk about a visit to Brazil to talk to a Pranayama expert, but he never visits India, China, Japan, etc to speak with any Buddhists or other practitioners of the ancient breath practices he spends the entire book talking about. No thanks, bud.

Also, bypassing the more passive fatphobia included in his writing, the first thing he brings up when he gets to the topic of proper breathing helping with weight loss is BMI, which...is bullshit? So yeah, going to need more than some anecdotes about the miraculous power of breath and reliance on a "healthy weight" measurement that has been pretty thoroughly proved useless to get me on board there. Add to that that there's no reason a person has to be thin to be healthy and...yeah...

Next up, while I do believe our breath is a powerful tool and that there are techniques we can use to benefit our physical and mental health, all of the miraculous claims of breath seemingly curing incurable chronic illnesses rubbed me the wrong way. He starts off the book saying that there hasn't been much research into how breath can impact our health, but then every anecdotal story he shares is presented as though it is proven medical fact and as though people experiencing these chronic issues are fools for not just breathing better. At the very end of the book, there's like a sentence disclaimer, saying that breathing isn't a cure-all for chronic illnesses, but after an entire book extolling the virtues of "proper" breathing over medication, that seems like way too little too late. The ableism throughout this book didn't sit well with me.

And finally, while this isn't any fault of the author (aside from his decision to include them, I guess), there were a number of studies shared that included some seriously fucked up animal experimentation. As if I needed one more reason to dislike this...hard pass on that shit. I was pretty excited to read this, but it was a letdown for me.

TBR - Pi Day

I know I'm a couple days late, but I couldn't let Pi Day pass without some kind of fanfare. To celebrate, today's Tuesday Book Recs are all in some way math-related (and excellent reads). 

(Descriptions adapted from Goodreads)

1. Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

This historical fiction honors the invaluable role the Navajo Code Talkers played in World War II and  highlights the danger these brave individuals put themselves in and the sacrifices they made even after the brutal and cruel treatment their people had received at the hands of US colonizers.

2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone thrives on patterns and rules, so the murder of his neighbor's dog, Wellington, disrupts his world in such a way that he can't help but investigate the murder, following in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, his favorite detective.

3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

In this trilogy, Lyra discovers that the world (or worlds, as the case may be) is much larger than she had previously imagined and finds herself a central player in a fierce battle between multiple sides. (Fun fact: my dog is named after this Lyra!)

4. The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Of course the day Kady decides to break up with her boyfriend is the day their remote planet, Kerenza, is attacked by BeiTech Industries. Now she, Ezra, and the rest of the survivors are on the run in a trio of ships, desperate to reach the Heimdall Waypoint and the help of the United Terran Authority before BeiTech's remaining ship, the Lincoln, catches up with them and kills them all. But with resources in short supply, a damaged AI system, and a mysterious illness making its way through the crew of the Copernicus, the Lincoln may be the least of the refugees' worries...

5. Little Gods by Meng Jin

This book pieces together the mysterious life of Liya's mother, Su Lan, through Liya's memories and experiences, the reflections of the father Liya never met, and the reminiscence of Su Lan's former neighbor, Zhu Wen. I wish I could say more about it, because I feel like that might not sound the most enticing, but it's so strange and fascinating. Trust - it's a great read.

6. The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty

Since being struck by lightning as a child, Lucy Callahan has had synesthesia, seeing numbers as colors, and has a genius-level affinity for math. She has been homeschooled since it happened and is perfectly content with her life, but her grandma keeps pushing for her to try just one year at the local middle school. Lucy isn't sure what middle school is going to be able to teach her that homeschooling and her online math friends have not, but she agrees to give it a try...maybe she'll learn more than she bargained for. 

And, as a bonus, a couple of pie books!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows

From Goodreads: "January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb..." This book has been on my list for quite some time, and I was almost tempted to watch the Netflix movie a couple days ago, but I feel like I have to read the book first so the movie can properly ruin it. 😉 If any of you decide to read it, let me know and we can read it together!

Llama Destroys the World by Jonathan Stutzman

Ok, yes, this is a picture book. Don't scoff! It is amazing and hilarious and one of my favorites. On Monday, Llama comes across a pile of cake. Now, Llama loves cake, so of course, he eats it all. Little does he know that by Friday this innocent action will result in the destruction of the world...but what will happen when he comes across a mountain of pie? (Spoiler alert: NOT the alpacalypse...that comes later.)

B&B - Three Dark Crowns with a side of biscotti

My book club has been reading the Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake since December. In this series, the island of Fennbirn is ruled by one queen, chosen from a set of triplets born to the previous queen. Typically, each triplet is born with special abilities - one is a poisoner, able to consume poisons without ill effects and wield them against others with expertise; another is a naturalist, gifted with a familiar and able to grow plants and influence animals; and the third is an elemental, able to control wind, water, fire, etc. Their sixteenth birthday begins what is known as the Ascension, a year in which each sister fights for the throne...to the death. Last triplet standing gets the crown.

If you're thinking, "wow, this sounds dark and intense!" Well...you're not wrong. It's also gripping and keeps you on the edge of your seat. And while Pietyr, the unofficial consort to poisoner Queen Katharine, is partial to hemlock biscuits, I can't snack on poison while I read, so for this first Books & Bites post, I decided to go for some chocolate almond biscotti instead.

I modified the chocolate biscotti recipe from Kristine's Kitchen, omitting the chocolate chips and nuts and subbing two teaspoons of almond extract for the one teaspoon of vanilla. They're no hemlock biscuit, but for a non-poisoner like me, I find a couple pieces of these biscotti and a mug of hot chocolate to be the perfect accompaniment to the final book of this series. 

Front Desk - Kelly Yang

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰✰

Character development: ✰✰✰✰✰

Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Mia Tang has a lot of secrets.

Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. 

Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed.

Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

It will take all of Mia's courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?"

This book has been on my TBR list for a long while, and even knowing roughly what it was about and hearing glowing things about it for so long, I was unprepared for the heaviness in the book. 

For those who dismiss middle grade books and assume they don't tackle heavy issues, don't be fooled. The cover may look cheerful and light, but this book is not fluff. It gets real right away, with Mia and her parents living out of their car until her dad finally lands a job at a Chinese restaurant. Mia's mom works there too, and Mia is pressed into becoming a waitress as well, until she accidentally drops a full tray of food on some customers and she and her mom both get fired. Her parents decide to take a job as the managers of a motel near Disneyland. On paper, the opportunity sounds like a dream - room and board plus their pay for managing the motel? What more could they ask for? As it turns out...a lot. A lot more. 

The motel owner, Mr. Yao is stingy, dishonest, and pretty transparently taking advantage of poor, desperate immigrants with few other job opportunities. In spite of his almost constant docking of their pay, nearly impossible expectations, and open cruelty, though, Mia and her family are still in a better position than many other Chinese immigrants. After hearing the stories of a few immigrants who visit the motel, they decide to do what they can do help immigrants fleeing horrible situations on their way to better opportunities. It's a risk, given how callous Mr. Yao is, but they can't let these people struggle when they could at least offer them a shower, a good night's sleep, and a hot meal with friendly faces.

Of course, in addition to helping to run the motel, sheltering immigrants and keeping it a secret from Mr. Yao, and worrying about money with her parents, Mia is also going to school...and Mr. Yao's son is in her class. This means on top of everything else, she gets to deal with bullies at school. In spite of it all, though, Mia is always looking for ways to make the world a brighter place, and she works hard to use her words and her writing to do just that. She and her family experience setbacks along the way, and there are some truly terrible moments along the way, but she doesn't let any of those bad experiences break her spirit. Her indominable will and courage become even more impressive when you read the author's note and realize that many of the stories included in this work of fiction actually happened and that Mia's story is true for countless immigrants. 

This book has been on my list for a long time, and even hearing from multiple sources how good it was, somehow it still managed to surpass my expectations. It's an excellent middle grade novel, and I can't recommend it enough!

TBR - Polyamorous Reads

Joel and I were talking a little while back about my least favorite plot devices, and at first I couldn't think of anything that I really disliked. Then it came to me...love triangles. I mean, I get it that sometimes you like two people and you're like I don't know, which do I like more? But it gets tricky because every time I read a love triangle, it goes one of two ways. 

Way the first: One of the people is trash, and the other is obviously the one the author wants the main character to end up with. In these situations, why even have a love triangle? It's 2021, y'all, we don't need to waste our valuable time, energy, and emotions on garbage humans. 

Way the second: Both of the people are amazing, the main character clearly has strong feelings for both, and it feels like an impossible decision to choose between the two. Examples: Tessa, Will, and Jem in The Infernal Devices; Lara Jean's feelings for both Peter and John Ambrose in To All the Boys I've Loved Before. In these situations (particularly the first, because SPOILER ALERT, all three were pretty obviously in love with each other), it seems clear that the answer is not forcing a character to choose between love interests at all but actually going with secret option number three: polyamory.

Talking about all this with Joel, I realized that while I read a lot of queer fiction, I have never read a book with (openly) polyamorous characters in it! This is a travesty and something that I need to remedy immediately, so for my inaugural Tuesday Book Recs post, I invite you to join me in checking out some of these polyamorous reads. 

(Descriptions adapted from Goodreads)

1. An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

Saffron Coulter is an accidental worldwalker who finds herself trapped in Kena, a magic realm on the brink of civil war, after unwittingly traveling through a hole in reality. Once there, her life becomes entwined with those of three local women, and she finds herself tied to the women and to the fate of Kena in ways she never could have imagined.

2. Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

When Alana Quick, struggling sky surgeon, stows away aboard the Tangled Axon, she quickly discovers that the cargo vessel is more than meets the eye. With her sister, Nova, being pursued by someone who will stop at nothing to capture her, Alana must find a way to make it work with the...unconventional...crew, establish her place on the ship, and protect her sister at all costs.

3. The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton

Captain Kallista Varyl, like the rest of her people, believes the Godstruck are mere legends. Until, that is, she calls upon the One for aid and is imbued with abilities that haven't been seen in centuries. Now she must master her new Godstruck power, learn how to unlock the secrets of the Compass Rose, and protect her nation from powerful enemies - alone.

4. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

On the day the world ended, Essun returned home to find her son brutally murdered at the hands of her husband and her daughter kidnapped. What's more, the Sanze, a world-spanning empire, has collapsed, and a great rift has torn across the heart of the continent, spewing ash that darkens the sky. Now Essun will stop at nothing, even as the world crumbles around her, to rescue her daughter.

5. Inda by Sherwood Smith

Indevan is the second son born to a powerful prince who grows up believing his role will be to remain at home and defend his family's castle. Then war threatens and Inda is sent to the Royal Academy, where he learns not only about the arts of war but discovers that danger doesn't always come from the outside.

6. Love You Two by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

While Pina's friends envy her life with her free-spirited parents, sometimes Pina has to wonder who is raising whom, her or her mother? When she discovers some devastating information about her family, everything she thought she knew about life and love falls apart. Will her family survive her discovery?

7. Luster by Raven Leilani

Edie is an artist trying to find her place in the art world. When she finds herself unemployed and living with Eric, a digital archivist, and his family, she must learn how to navigate not only the complexity of relationships but also a tentative friendship with his wife and becoming a role model for his daughter.

Bonus books:

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Reese and her crush/debate partner are driving home from Arizona to San Francisco when they are in an accident. They wake up in a military hospital almost a month later, and the doctors won't tell them what happened or where they are. After returning home, only one thing is clear to Reese: she's different. Note: This is a duology, and the polyamory is introduced in the second book.

Kynship by Daniel Heath Justice (3rd book)

The Everland is a world of ancient mystery and shadow inhabited by the Kyn and other Folk. After a thousand years since the last clash between the world of Men and the world of the Folk, the Everland is under siege once more. As the leaders of the Folk strategize how to protect their land against attack, Kyn warrior Tarsa'deshae, exiled after an act of courage goes awry, grapples with her new calling as a Wielder and finds herself swept up in the world of political and spiritual intrigue and the debate between continuing to embrace the old ways or surrendering to the new ways of Men. Can Tarsa'deshae help the council heal her ravaged, wounded world? Note: This is a trilogy, and the polyamory is introduced in the third book.

Dress Coded - Carrie Firestone

Initial draw: ✰✰✰

Character development: ✰

Plot/Writing style: ✰
My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Molly Frost is FED UP...

Because Olivia was yelled at for wearing a tank top when she had to keep her sweatshirt wrapped around her waist.

Because Liza got dress coded and Molly didn't, even though they were wearing the exact same outfit.

Because when Jessica was pulled over by the principal and missed a math quiz, her teacher gave her an F.

Because it's impossible to find shorts that are longer than her fingertips.

Because girls' bodies are not a distraction.

Because middle school is hard enough.

And so Molly starts a podcast where girls can tell their stories, and soon her small rebellion swells into a revolution. Because now the girls are standing up for what's right, and they're not backing down."

Look, I finished it, so I gave it two stars and not one, but honestly...it's a letdown. I have been eager to read this book since it first popped up on my radar a long while back, but after an ok start it went downhill pretty quickly. Right off the bat I was not a fan of the structure, but that alone I could have lived with. Sadly, the characters were not believable (sorry, but I'm a youth services librarian, and I have never encountered an 8th grader who spoke like a grown-ass adult the way these students do), there were lots of weird tangential things brought in that made no sense, and more than anything, for a book LITERALLY CALLED Dress Coded, after the first few pages the policing of young female bodies at the main character's middle school started to feel like more of a side plot.

If I could recommend a more descriptive title, perhaps Carrie Firestone could have gone with Vaped to Death or Tales of a High School Vaper. Because holy gods. She obviously has a vendetta against vaping, which...ok, that's fine. I don't think anyone wants teenagers to start vaping. But the level of hysteria surrounding the vaping plotline throughout the book was so extreme that it veered into comical. I read this book out loud with my husband, and it literally became a joke we would make to each other - before we started reading, one of us would look at the other and say, "are you ready to hear about the horrors of vaping?" The melodrama was so ridiculous that toward the end of the book I couldn't get through the passages that talked about vaping without laughing.

Also, since the vaping storyline centered around the main character's older brother, can I just say that if you're going to build a storyline around an older sibling being so terrible that their younger sibling gets to go to a special group for kids dealing with traumatic events like a parent with cancer or a divorce and their mom has to quit their job to stay home and contain said sibling, you can't just tell me that they're terrible. You have to convince me. Like, he calls Molly and her friend Frog and Toad...oh nooooooooo! That just seemed like a Frog and Toad are Friends reference to me? She blackmails him into ordering pizza for her and her friends and he texts her to come get it? Wow, what an older sibling thing to do unrepentant dick! 

I mean, I have several siblings, and a lot of his interactions with her seemed like fairly normal older/younger sibling stuff. If anything, she seemed to be much meaner to him than he ever was to her, and when at the end all their sibling problems are solved by Molly writing him a douchey note, I was like yeah...no. If he was that terrible he would have read the note, been like "lolol fuck you, sis," and thrown it away. Plus, for all the bemoaning middle schoolers vaping, there was never any acknowledgment that he was also a teenager who was addicted to vaping, so if we're having sympathy for the other kids struggling with addiction, perhaps we could spare a little of that sympathy for him too, instead of painting him as the irredeemable villain of a story about vap - oh, sorry, I mean dress coding.

At the end of the day, there was a lot of potential with this book, but it fell very short for me. The final nail in what was already a firmly sealed coffin was definitely that after spending 90% of the book crying about vaping and talking about girls getting dress coded for having their period or being tall, toward the end a Black student gets dress coded because a boy in her class touched her hair without her permission and then a trans girl reveals that she is being forced to follow the male dress code for their graduation ceremony. The first situation gets one more casual reference before the book is over, but they're both pretty much throwaway "oh yeah, and this happened also" dress coding examples, which was pretty frustrating after all of the still crappy but much less horrible examples. There was an opportunity to address some of the more fucked up examples of how dress codes are discriminatory, but instead we spent the bulk of the book hearing about vaping and how one girl got dress coded for having her period. 😐 

Seriously, you can pass on this one. It missed the mark. I wish I knew of a good middle grade example of a book like this, but Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu is a great YA option in this same vein, and bonus! It's a Netflix movie now, which I watched today and can confirm is excellent (although it has been a while since I read the book, so I can't vouch for how closely it follows the book!)

Throwback Thursday - March 2019

I love reading (I don't know if you could tell), but one of the downsides to reading in high quantities is that sometimes I forget about some of the books I've read. Of course, that means that when a book pops back up on my radar I get to go "ohh yeah, that one was excellent!" and reminisce, so I guess it isn't all bad. My sister suggested I do some flashback posts to highlight older books I've read, so I thought I would start off with some 2019 nostalgia!

So...what was I reading the first week of March two years ago?

Half Lost is the final book in the Half Bad trilogy, which follows seventeen-year-old witch Nathan Byrn and a group of rebels trying to overthrow England's corrupt Council of White Witches. I thought it was a worthy ending for an amazing series. I gave it five stars, with a warning not to read it right before you have to attend a party (although that shouldn't be a problem right now!)

Ignite the Stars follows criminal mastermind Ia Cocha, scourge of the the Olympus Commonwealth, whom everyone assumes is a man (thanks, patriarchy). What will happen when seventeen-year-old female Ia is captured and her identity revealed? I gave this one three stars overall - it was really captivating for about the first half, then took a bit of a dip before the action picked back up. If I recall correctly, I read this one out loud with my husband, so in fairness if I had read it on my own and been able to read faster, I probably would have bumped it up to four stars.

It kind of tickles me that both books follow seventeen-year-olds at the head of a revolution. Somehow I did not put those pieces together when I was reading them!