August Read Harder update

August books, here we go! Y'all, I love graphic novel challenges, I tell you what. I read both El Deafo and Just Roll With It (all of Just Roll With It on vacation when I couldn't sleep!), and they were both excellent. I also got to read a bit about how the artwork for Just Roll With It got put together, which was fascinating. Graphic novels, so cool! Woe betide anyone who besmirches graphic novels to me.

As noted, A Broken Blade was doubled up as my book club's August book, so it was basically guaranteed that I was going to finish it on time, although I will admit to cutting it close. It was a great read, though, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!

I'm still working away at The 1619 Project, too. We'll get there!

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September challenges, already? Maybe this quarter of school will fly by as fast as summer did!

#19: Read a non-fiction book about intersectional feminism - well good golly, how specific. The top result when I was searching for options was We Should All Be Feminists, which I've read...but which also is not super intersectional, given that Ngozi Adichie is anti trans and has spouted some gross TERFy stuff. There are a lot of actually good options, though, and narrowing down to one was harder than I expected! I ended up going with Hood Feminism, since it's been on my TBR for a bit, but this is going to be a topic I need to explore and read about more.

#20: Read a book of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author - I meaaaaaan, in the spirit of the last challenge, why not both? Again, hard to narrow this down to one! Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz immediately caught my eye, but so did Butcher by Natasha T. Miller, Black Queer Hoe by Britteney Black Rose Kapri, and Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans. And Nothing is Okay by Rachel Wiley has roller skates on the cover! How do you say no to that? Honestly, I had to just stop looking at options after a bit or the list of options would have gotten too long to narrow down. Help! I'm just going to start with the first one and try to read as many as I can. Problem avoided.

Peek at my bookshelf!

New school year starting, lots going on, and I've recently acquired some new books that I'm excited about, so I figured as a break from book reviews, why not take a little peek at some of the additions to my TBR shelf? Who doesn't love a shelfie? (Rhetorical question. If you don't love shelfies, sorry. It's still shelfie time.)

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston - The story of Cudjo Lewis, Clotilda survivor and the last living person enslaved in the United States. I haven't read Zora Neale Hurston since college, and I don't know if "looking forward to it" is the right descriptor for this book, exactly, but I do look forward to learning more about the actual history of the United States and unlearning the whitewashed BS I learned in high school.

Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith - I'm currently reading How to Raise an Intuitive Eater, which was recommended to me by a friend, and a family member recommended this one, so...looking forward to reading it next! Fuck diet culture!

The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury - Aladdin retelling? HELL YEAH. I'm still holding out for a queer retelling, but this will do nicely in the meantime.

The Dream Runners by Shveta Thakrar - Oh hey, I didn't even realize when I picked this out that I had read another of Shveta Thakrar's books, Star Daughter. I reviewed it on here and gave it three stars, which I was a little surprised at when I went back to see if I had. That was before I started rating based on multiple factors, though - I think if I had been using my new system it would have been higher. Anyway, that book had a gorgeous cover, this book's cover is equally beautiful, and it's a fantasy about dream runners, who harvest mortal dreams for the naga court. Can't wait!

The Davenports by Krystal Marquis - Oooooooooh, I'm thinking this is going to end up a book club book. It's set in the US during the Progressive Era and follows a wealthy Black family in the United States, based on the true story of a man named C. R. Patterson. I don't think I've ever come across a book like this before, particularly set in this time period? Also, the cover is just...so good.

I love it like this, but in person it's even better - shiny and gold and just beautiful.

The Lost Dreamer by Lizz Huerta - Fantasy about a dreamer named Indir who has prophetic dreams and a seer named Saya who hasn't been formally trained as a Dreamer but is used by her mother to make money and is, seemingly, on the run from something. This was a runner-up for Read Harder challenge #17, read a YA book by an Indigenous author, and it might also need to be a book club book! (Also, another entry to the beautiful book cover club!)

Cafe con Lychee by Emery Lee - You already know what I'm going to say. I love the cover of this book! Honestly, it's a truth universally acknowledged that if there's a book I've fallen head-over-heels in love with, that love affair started with its cover. Two high school boys whose family own feuding food establishments join forces when a new fusion restaurant threatens both shops. (This author also wrote Meet Cute Diary, which has been on my TBR for.ev.er. so shame on me for getting this one before I read that one, but here we are. The book heart wants what it wants.)

Now...anyone want to take bets on how long it will take me to actually read all of these? 🤣

Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means..."

I don't even know what to say about this book. It popped up on my radar and I ordered it, and then I kept seeing people talking about it, so I was like okay, need to read this right away. We decided to read it for our book club in July, I took it with me on vacation, and vacation basically became "how much time can I spend reading without garnering complaints" time until I finished it. At which point I traded reading time for thinking about what I just read time, because I can't get it out of my head. 

I read this shortly after Rust in the Root, and while they are totally different stories, both books blend fiction and reality in incredible and compelling ways. CAPE is fictional, but the underlying truths that led to its creation and acceptance in the book are very much a reality, and Adjei-Brenyah also includes footnotes throughout the book sharing facts about the prison industrial complex in the United States, which were very enlightening about the reality of our penal system. I also thought he did a brilliant job of humanizing the characters who were forced into the CAPE program and highlighting the way our "justice" system actively works to dehumanize people.

And speaking of humanizing the characters...THE CHARACTERS. They were so good. Love them or hate them, they were all so well-developed and realistic. I mean...Staxxx is officially on my list of favorite characters of all time. I read a lot of books, usually like nine or ten of them at a time, and there's always a new one waiting in the wings to rotate in after I finish something, so while it's not like I finish a book and then am like "deleted from my brain, I will never think of you again," it is pretty unusual for me to actively and regularly continue thinking about something for days after I read it. I'm a week out from finishing this one, and at least a couple of times a day I catch myself thinking about Staxxx's story and her ending or remembering key moments from the book and reflecting on them. There are still five months left in 2023, so I suppose something could come along and unseat it, but as of right now, this is the best book I've read this year. Incredible. Thought-provoking. Important. Go read it.

When You Wish Upon a Star - Elizabeth Lim

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight...so begins the wish that changes everything - for Geppetto, for the Blue Fairy, and for a little puppet named Pinocchio. The Blue Fairy isn't supposed to grant wishes in the small village of Pariva, but something about this one awakens some long-buried flicker within. Perhaps it's the hope she senses beneath the old man's loneliness.

Or maybe it's the fact that long ago, before she was the Blue Fairy, she was a young woman named Chiara from this very village, one with a simple wish: to help others find happiness. Her sister Ilaria always teased her for this, for she had big dreams to leave their sleepy village and become a world-renowned opera singer. The two were close, despite their differences. While Ilaria would give anything to have a fairy grant her wish, Chiara didn't believe in the lore for which their village was famous.

Forty years later, Chiara, now the Blue Fairy, defies the rules of magic to help an old friend. But she's discovered by the Scarlet Fairy, formerly Ilaria, who, amid a decades-long grudge, holds the transgression against her sister. They decide to settle things through a good old-fashioned bet, with Pinocchio and Geppetto's fate hanging in the balance.

Will the sisters find a way back to one another? Or is this, like many matters of the heart, a gamble that comes with strings?"

Well, you've read the synopsis. Which means you've basically read the whole book. Chiara (sorry, the Blue Fairy) grants Geppetto's wish, makes the deal with Ilaria, and then we spend way too long learning the way too simple backstory of how Chiara became the good Blue Fairy and Ilaria became the big bad Scarlet Fairy. Like 90% of the book follows Chiara's decision to join the fairies and Ilaria resenting her for it and being a child about it, until she ultimately gives up her heart and becomes the Scarlet Fairy to spite her sister. Fine, but also...kind of weak as far as reasons to literally remove your heart from your chest with the intention to destroy it go.

Even when we eventually get to the action, things are kind of inconsistent and lackluster. Maybe if you're super into Pinocchio this book would be up your alley. I am not, and I found it to be solidly middle of the road. I finished it. There's that.