#FirstPageFriday - Crown of Feathers

Welcome to my first #FirstPageFriday blog post! The goal is to start a new book every Friday and then later post a review for that book. This week will be funky, since I'm just getting started, but the plan (hopefully, maybe?) is to post a new first page on Friday, then a review of the previous first page book on Wednesday. We'll see how long it takes me to read this first one!

Anyway, without further ado, I give you Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto!

Exit, Pursued by a Bear - E.K. Johnston

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of… she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.

In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale."

I'm going to pretend this book description doesn't exist, because it doesn't do the book justice. I feel like on paper, yes, it describes what happens, but there's something nuanced and emotional that is missing, and I just...read the book, ok?

Exit, Pursued by a Bear starts off with Hermione and the rest of her cheerleading team pulling in to summer training camp for her last year at Palermo Heights High School. She and her best friend, Polly, have been voted co-captains, and they have high hopes and big plans for their squad. Then some asshole drugs and rapes her during a camp party, and she wakes up in the hospital with no memory of what happened beyond stumbling away from the party looking for a trash can to throw her empty cup away in. This moment marks a strange shift in her life. Hermione was raped, yes, and she has to deal with the fallout--finding out she's pregnant, getting an abortion, the way everyone walks on eggshells around her--but with the gap in her memory, the assault also doesn't feel like something that happened to her, and she has to work through that as well.

This is not how Hermione planned on starting her senior year, but it's where she is, and with a virtual army of support at her side in Polly, her parents, and her cheerleading team, she begins to work her way through what happened and learn how to navigate her altered life. There are ups and downs, stumbling blocks and moments of clarity, and through it all that support is a lifeline that keeps her going and makes her strong. That support is also what makes this book what it is: an emotional, powerful handbook for what should happen anytime someone comes forward about sexual assault. 

While the nature of this book made it tough to read at times and I definitely cried plenty, I found myself thinking often as I read of the experience I had with Asking for It by Louise O'Neill and juxtaposing Hermione's experience with Emma's. The sad truth is that people who come forward about assault tend to have experiences closer to Emma's (horrible, for those who have not read Asking for It) than to Hermione's. It gave me hope seeing Polly fiercely defend her friend, seeing her squad unite in looking out for her, and watching as Hermione found people in her corner whom she never expected to be there. Was it neater and less realistic than this experience would probably actually be? Sure. But that's what makes it such an excellent road map for how to be supportive to loved ones after an assault. Read this book. Share it with the people in your life, especially the men. Let's all learn how to be allies.

Permanent Record - Mary H.K. Choi

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"After a year of college, Pablo is working at his local twenty-four-hour deli, selling overpriced snacks to brownstone yuppies. He’s dodging calls from the student loan office and he has no idea what his next move is.

Leanna Smart’s life so far has been nothing but success. Age eight: Disney Mouseketeer; Age fifteen: first #1 single on the US pop chart; Age seventeen, *tenth* #1 single; and now, at age nineteen…life is a queasy blur of private planes, weird hotel rooms, and strangers asking for selfies on the street.

When Leanna and Pab randomly meet at 4:00 a.m. in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, they both know they can’t be together forever. So, they keep things on the down-low and off Instagram for as long as they can. But it takes about three seconds before the world finds out…"

Pre-read thoughts: I loved Emergency Contact so much that, although after I read it I promised a review would come after a second read, I have no read it four times and still can't find the words to explain how beautiful and perfect it is, so I never delivered on that review promise. All of this to say...I was pretty thrilled to get an ARC of Mary H.K. Choi's second book. My fingers are crossed that I love it as much as even more than I loved Emergency Contact.

Alright. I loved this book, but I do have to clarify one thing before we get into things. If you read Emergency Contact and were expecting another dual-narrator story, delete that preconceived notion from your head. Kinda seems from the description like we'll be rotating back and forth between Pablo and Leanna, but nope. It's all Pab. Nothing wrong with that, just putting it out there for anyone who shared my expectations.

Now, on to actual review-y things! The cover blurb makes it sound like Pablo and Leanna start dating, their spot gets blown, and then the book is about them navigating the fallout. Not the case, and honestly I think what actually happens is so much better than what I expected based on the description. Pablo is working nights at a bodega health food store after taking out a bunch of student loans, signing up for multiple credit cards, and then flunking out of NYU. In the middle of what promised to be an uneventful shift, Leanna stumbles in, severely under-dressed for the sub-zero weather and looking for a middle-of-the-night snowstorm snack. The two fall into an easy exchange, and shortly after realizing that he kind of has a thing for this mysterious, clearly half-frozen stranger, he also realizes that holy shit...she's a super famous pop star. And there goes that starry-eyed dream.

Until she comes back. It's obvious that they have a connection, but it's also immediately apparent that the two lead very different lives. Leanna jets from place to place, chauffeured in private cars, flying in private plans, to manage her vast media empire. Pablo is actively dodging calls from collection agencies and refuses to open his mail to avoid confronting the massive mountain of debt he is being buried under. Leanna knows exactly what she wants from life and is hustling to get it. Pablo hesitates to make firm plans with his little brother, let alone come up with a longterm plan for his life. Can their burgeoning relationship survive their differences? And is this new relationship even what Pablo should focus on when, if it isn't to answer a phone call or respond to a text from Lee, he can't even find a reason to get out of bed most mornings?

At first blush, this seems like a sweet doomed-romance novel about an A-lister and a kid just scraping by, which I was into because in case it wasn't clear, I love Mary H.K. Choi. If she hadn't written this, though, being honest? I probably would have passed this up. Been there, done that. Nothing new. And that's why I had to point out earlier that this book is so much better than the description makes it sound! There's so much happening here. It isn't just Pablo falling in deep with Lee and trying to avoid public scrutiny, it's Pablo struggling to manage his relationships with his roommates, his parents, and his younger brother. Drowning in the expectations of others while feeling too frozen and buried to do anything or even begin to evaluate his own expectations. It's such a frank look at the weight and expectations put on young people, on the massive hole you can wake up one day and find yourself dug into because you were expected to make all these huge decisions and you didn't know what to do. This review is getting wordy as hell, but I swear it isn't enough to convey my love of this book and the perfection Mary Choi has created. I honestly don't know how she managed to build so many vibrant characters up in so short a time, but if you don't immediately fall in love with Rain, Tice, the Kims, and everyone else I don't know what's wrong with you. Permanent Record is perfection, from the first page to the last.

The Girl the Sea Gave Back - Adrienne Young

My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"For as long as she can remember, Tova has lived among the Svell, the people who found her washed ashore as a child and use her for her gift as a Truthtongue. Her own home and clan are long-faded memories, but the sacred symbols and staves inked over every inch of her skin mark her as one who can cast the rune stones and see into the future. She has found a fragile place among those who fear her, but when two clans to the east bury their age-old blood feud and join together as one, her world is dangerously close to collapse.

For the first time in generations, the leaders of the Svell are divided. Should they maintain peace or go to war with the allied clans to protect their newfound power? And when their chieftain looks to Tova to cast the stones, she sets into motion a series of events that will not only change the landscape of the mainland forever but will give her something she believed she could never have again—a home. "

This is a companion novel to Sky in the Deep, which I loved, so when I saw that there would be a second novel set in Eelyn's world, I was instantly on board. Give me all the Viking stuff, the fierce women, the intricate characters. Where could you go wrong?

This cover gives me heart eyes.

Tova, a Truthtongue and member of the mysterious Kyrr clan, dies as a child and her people set her adrift on a funeral boat. The boat drifts, half-burned, to the shores of the Svell, where their Tala, the interpreter of their God's will, finds Tova...alive. The Svell, believing her presence to be an ill omen, nevertheless unwillingly agree to let her stay in the village as their Truthtongue, casting the stones and predicting the future for them. Everyone in the village fears her, though, and she lives among them, but apart, always treated as Other, with some members of the clan even making attempts to kill her. Years later, pressed to cast the stones after an attack by the Svell on a rival clan, Tova unwittingly sets in motion a bloody series of events that, despite her gift to see the path of fate, she may be powerless to stop.

Halvard, a young member of the Nadhir clan who is being groomed as the future village leader, doesn't know what he is getting his people into when he talks their current leader into meeting with the Svell after a brutal attack by the rival clan on one of their villages. Bekan, the Svell leader, promises reparations, but what happens instead is a bloodbath, with only Halvard left alive. He escapes, but barely, and with their village leader dead he must make it back to his village in time to take on the mantle of leadership, warn his people that a massive army of Svell is coming to destroy them all, and find a way to save his clan. The mysterious Kyrr woman he spotted at the ill-fated meeting with the Svell keeps appearing to him in visions, but what does her presence mean? Is she, along with her clan, working with the Svell? Or will she be an ally in the coming war?

As noted, this book had me pumped. Everything about it sounds awesome, and in fairness, a couple parts of it were! Adrienne Young can write a great battle scene. The majority, unfortunately, was a struggle to get through. The writing is incredibly repetitive: Tova cast the stones and the Svell reacted in a way she didn't expect! She wishes she could take it back, but now there is blood on her hands. Halvard isn't sure if he can lead his people, but now he has to or his entire clan will be wiped out, their blood on his hands. Wait, did you forget? Tova cast the stones and the Svell reacted in a way she didn't expect! She wishes she could take it back, but now there is blood on her hands. Halvard isn't sure if he can lead his people, but now he has to or his entire clan will be wiped out, their blood on his hands. Hold on, I'm not sure it was clear enough. Tova cast the stones and the Svell reacted in a way she didn't expect! She wishes she could take it back, but now there is blood on her hands. Halvard isn't sure if he can lead his people, but now he has to or his entire clan will be wiped out, their blood on his hands.

I persevered, because it was obvious from pretty early on that Tova and Halvard will end up together, and I am always here for a good romance. Sadly, the fated-ness of their relationship is incredibly heavy-handed, and although for 90% of the book they are apart, they are still, inexplicably, drawn to each other. Even after they join forces, you wouldn't need more than ten fingers to count the number of sentences they exchange. Literally, it goes from Halvard trying to kill her in their first interaction to, like three conversations later, him kissing her and the two being destined for each other? I wish their relationship had been developed in a better way than their eyes meeting across a soon-to-be-bloodsoaked forest and both of them feeling an undeniable connection. That's not exciting for anyone.

Ultimately, it felt like there wasn't enough to this story and instead of developing more, what little there was ended up rehashed again and again. It breaks my heart to say this, but The Girl the Sea Gave Back is best skipped. If you want some rad viking action with badass lady warriors, go back and read Sky in the Deep again. Maybe catch this one when they make it into a movie.

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager - Ben Philippe

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don’t bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas. Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it’s time to go back to Canada, where he belongs.

Yet, against all odds, those labels soon become actual people to Norris. Be it loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris, or Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. Not to mention Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who might, in fact, be a real love interest in the making. He even starts playing actual hockey with these Texans.

But the night of the prom, Norris screws everything up royally. As he tries to pick up the pieces, he realizes it might be time to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions and start living his life—along with the people who have found their way into his heart."

I picked this book up after a friend recommended it, and I'm glad she suggested I read it, both because it's a great book and because I might have given up on it otherwise. Weird dichotomy, right? Yeah, well...I'm a weird person. In fairness, I wouldn't say I considered giving up on it because of any true flaws on the book's part. It was more because it's summer, I'm a children's librarian, and as such I have been S O B U S Y S O T I R E D O M G FUCK. 

When I have time I like to treat reading like bingewatching a show on Netflix...coffee, snacks, cozy spot on the couch, read all day. That's my jam. When you don't have a full day to devote to reading, you have to resort to stealing moments to read a chapter here and a chapter there, and when that happens...sometimes it's harder to get into a new book. Like this one. Because look...let's just say it...

Norris Kaplan is not a likable character! He's hella snarky, judgmental, and he bases way more of his first impressions of people on high school movie stereotypes than he should. Perhaps in his head he is the misunderstood new kid loner, but in real life...dude is kind of a bully. BUT! This is why for certain books having the time for a binge read is important. Because...

Much like IRL teenagers, Norris grows and changes! It has been a while since I graduated high school, but this book felt so true to my teenage experience. I've been there, Norris. I too spent a lot of my high school years feeling like a misunderstood outsider, being so overly prepared for how other people might react to me that I was too ready with the snarky quips and ended up coming off as a dick because I was so afraid that people were going to be horrible to me that I was horrible to them first. It isn't easy being the new person, the different person, the person who doesn't already have a friend group, and while it was tough at first adjusting to Norris's inner (and often outer) critiques, he learns a lot of lessons throughout the course of the book and comes out of it a better person. As a bonus, the closer I got to the end the more nervous I was that it would wrap up superduper neatly and end too perfectly, but I was pleasantly surprised. This might be one of my favorite endings to a book ever.

I do have one question after finishing reading this book, and it is this: Do the teens of today watch movies like The Mighty Ducks? Don't get me wrong, they should. It may just be nostalgia speaking, but the movies of my childhood were wonderful. That said...do they?

Amber & Dusk - Lyra Selene

My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Sylvie has always known she deserves more. Out in the permanent twilight of the Dusklands, her guardians called her power to create illusions a curse. But Sylvie knows it gives her a place in Coeur d'Or, the palais of the Amber Empress and her highborn legacies. 

So Sylvie sets off toward the Amber City, a glittering jewel under a sun that never sets, to take what is hers.

But her hope for a better life is quickly dimmed. The empress invites her in only as part of a wicked wager among her powerful courtiers. Sylvie must assume a new name, Mirage, and begin to navigate secretive social circles and deadly games of intrigue in order to claim her spot. Soon it becomes apparent that nothing is as it appears and no one, including her cruel yet captivating sponsor, Sunder, will answer her questions. As Mirage strives to assume what should be her rightful place, she'll have to consider whether it is worth the price she must pay."

Amber & Dusk reads like an outline of major plot points - lots of THINGS happen, but there isn't much in between to develop characters, build up to actions, or connect the reader to what is going on. Sylvie's journey starts off in a caravan, traveling from the Dusklands to Coeur d'Or because she deserves to be there! But...why? She has a legacy, whatever that means, but why does that lead to such a strong sense of entitlement? 

After Sylvie makes it to Coeur d'Or, learns that life at the palais is nothing like she expected, and becomes Mirage her sense of entitlement holds strong. We get sporadic scenes of her training with her sponsors, which basically consists of her getting angry at them and not actually putting in the work she needs to to strengthen her legacy, interspersed with weird attempted-witty repartee between her and Sunder, and every couple of chapters something new and major happens out of nowhere, keeping the reader ping-ponging back and forth between weird, apropos of nothing, new developments. 

Ultimately, the Big Revelation toward the end of the book was obvious from the first couple of chapters, the final showdown was lackluster, and at the end of the day while there are some great individual scenes in this book, as a whole it didn't work for me. Like Mirage's power, this book was mostly flash, not a lot of substance. 

I'm Not Dying with You Tonight - Gilly Segal and Kimberly Jones

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the Cover:

"Lena and Campbell aren't friends.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school.

When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together.

They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they're going to survive the night."

💭💭💭

This book clocks in at 272 of some of the fastest pages I have ever read. It alternates between two voices. Campbell is new to McPherson High School, doesn't know anyone, and still isn't sure what she's doing here or how she got roped into helping run the concession stand at this weekend's football game. Lena, stylish and assertive, grew up here and knows how to handle herself when shit goes down...or at least, she thinks she does. Neither are expecting to find themselves in the middle of the fight that breaks out at halftime, but the riot that ensues forces them to band together to escape the school unscathed, and escaping the school is only the beginning. Their night is about to take a turn from bad to much, much worse. These two young women may live in the same city, but it's clear from their first interaction that they come from different worlds. With only each other to rely on, will they be able to work together and keep the silent promise they've made each other? 

The pace of this book pulls the reader in from the first chapter, taking you along as Lena and Campbell escape the concession stand, trying to find their way home, and it will have you on the edge of your seat until the last pages. The characters all felt like people I could have gone to school with in high school, and the emotions Lena and Campbell experience leap off the page. The differences in Lena and Campbell's experiences also provide a frank look at racism in the United States. This book is a conversation starter, and it's a conversation that needs to be had.