Kelly Jensen's Blog, page 19

This Week at Book Riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

 

Bee bookish with these bookish bee gifts.

 

Quarantine brain is funny. I made a quiz asking you to identify which of these lines are from Boy Band Ballads and which are Lines From Romantic Poets.

 

You can also tune into a new episode of Hey YA, wherein we talk about the changes in our reading lives right now, as well as some debut YA titles out now or coming soon that we cannot wait to read.

Kimberly’s First Quarter of 2020

The first quarter of 2020 ended yesterday, despite how many years it feels like it’s actually been. I’m in my third week of working exclusively from home, and my household seems to be holding up OK. I’m thankful I live with a person I love and enjoy spending time with; being alone without another human or a pet in the house would be a lot tougher (though that time with him is still limited as he is keeping his normal long hours – just closed up in the home office now).

I’ve seen an uptick in my reading these past few weeks, in part to escape from the news and in part because I’m not doing much else outside of work. Here’s a brief rundown of my Q1 reading in order, a total of 16 books.

Weather by Jenny Offill

Offill’s writing is spare in this story about a woman named Lizzie who answers fan mail for a friend’s podcast called Hell and High Water. This is certainly not a plot-driven book, though; I feel like giving any sort of plot synopsis is misleading. It’s more about Lizzie’s family, her day to day work as a librarian, and her musings on the state of America in the 21st century. This is a much-lauded book that wasn’t quite to my taste, though it was an interesting way to kick off the year.

 

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

I re-read this for probably the tenth time after watching the BBC/HBO tv series (which I liked but didn’t love). I still love the book just as much.

 

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

This modern classic of nonfiction writing is just the kind of nonfiction I love, a mix of history and science that’s fascinating from beginning to end. It tracks the rise of human civilizations all over the world, elegantly and convincingly arguing that geographical and environmental factors shaped humanity (and all its differences) much more than did any innate qualities of race or DNA, which were racist arguments being made by others at the time the book was published.

 

Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses by Jen Diamond

I purchased this book at the Texas Book Festival and picked it up again in January when I decided I’d actually read the books I purchased this time. To my delight, I loved it. These are bizarre, creative, profound and often funny stories that all have a tinge of science fiction, fantasy, or the weird. The one that most people who have read the collection talk about is the angler fish romance, possibly the weirdest of all the stories (and great because of its weirdness). My favorite is a tie between the story about old women and sex dolls and the story about social media accounts of dead people being co-opted by A.I. (something we are seeing the beginnings of in the here and now).

 

The Heavens by Sandra Newman

This is another book I purchased at the book festival, and it was another hit. Good job, me! It’s about a woman who dreams that she’s a woman in Elizabethan England when she’s sleeping – only she doesn’t think they’re dreams. They feel real, and as time goes on, they feel realer than her waking life in present day. Newman manages this concept really well, showing shifts in the world we thought was ours over time and how such a condition (or reality) would genuinely affect a person and her relationships. It’s fascinating to try to put the pieces together. While this is definitely a literary novel, it balances its literary aspects with the science fiction plot well. This is a great readalike for Version Control by Dexter Palmer, which I also loved.

 

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

This is a huge bestseller recommended by Stephen King, and I think my expectations were too high as a result. It’s about Yale secret societies, their use of black magic, and a young woman named Alex Stern who can see ghosts. I was enjoying it well enough until a certain scene involving a child, a ghost, and an act that the book had established ghosts could not do – yet the ghost did it in this scene. It was effectively written, but this type of scene is hard for me to read, and since I was listening to it on audio, it was all the more jarring and upsetting. Still, it was an enjoyable read overall, one I’d recommend to fans of supernatural stories with a hint of horror.

 

The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead

I checked out this book because it was recommended as a readalike for Recursion by Blake Crouch. I’m trying to recall it now and it’s difficult for me to remember the plot without looking it up, so I suppose it didn’t make much of an impact. Like Recursion, it’s about time travel and trying to change things in the past, only to mess things up even more as a result. I enjoyed it well enough while I was reading it, but it’s no Recursion. (Sadly, nothing is!)

 

Vessel by Lisa Nichols

I really wanted to read a great space book and this seemed like it might fit the bill. It’s about an astronaut, Catherine, who was on a years-long mission to another planet. But something goes wrong, the whole crew – except Catherine – dies, and Catherine makes it back to Earth years behind schedule with no memory of what happened to the rest of the crew or how she got back home. She had been assumed dead for years. The mystery of what happened in deep space is teased out over the course of the book, making way for a big reveal that I unfortunately saw coming from page 1. I finished the book hoping that my initial assumption was wrong, thinking it was too obvious and too overdone – but no. Too familiar for my tastes, but may suit others who only occasionally dip into sci fi.

 

 

Conviction by Denise Mina

This is a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and seemed like a great, trashy psychological mystery/thriller from the synopsis: a woman outrunning her past investigates a true crime from a podcast she’d been listening to, learning how her own past intersects with it. Unfortunately, the execution was subpar. She’s running from place to place with a friend (ish) of hers, and they mostly make decisions that are not only just stupid but make no sense. For a lot of the book, the plot doesn’t really go anywhere, even though the mystery really should be quite interesting. I got tired of it and skipped to the end.

 

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Oh my goodness, I loved this book. Every single story was a knockout. I didn’t realize I could love short stories until 2020, and now I don’t think I can get enough of them. Chiang really thinks through his ideas, carefully creating worlds and characters that follow the set of fictional rules he’s established for his SF premises. My favorite story is the first one, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, about a man who finds a gate that allows him to travel back in time 20 years. It’s reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights in that it involves a storyteller telling a series of interconnected stories that also connect to the frame story about the storyteller himself. It’s so fascinating and well-executed. Runners up are Omphalos, about a world that really was created by a Creator a few thousand years ago (and what that would look like when it comes to scientific research, including “primordial” trees without rings) and the novella Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, a very fresh take on parallel worlds that I’ll be thinking about for months. Be sure to read Chiang’s notes on each of the stories at the end of the book.

 

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Do you want to read a trashy psychological thriller, something like Gone Girl or Girl on a Train, but with even more pathological behavior and guaranteed unbelievable twists? Here you go. Not quite as good as The Wife Between Us but better than An Anonymous Girl, Greer and Pekkanen know how to entertain.

 

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

A bookstore owner specializing in mysteries finds himself caught up in the hunt for a serial killer that’s using one of his old blog posts – about eight perfect murders from classic crime novels – as a blueprint for murder. It’s a clever idea, and the execution is terrific. Malcolm, the protagonist, is an unreliable narrator, something the reader learns slowly over the course of the book. Teasing out what’s true and what’s not is great fun, as is trying to piece together various facts (or lies) to figure out the identity of the serial killer. Incorporating such classic reads as Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders, this is a great book for mystery fans, both an homage to old favorites and a modern crime novel.

 

The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian

I checked this one out because I wanted something popular, mystery-like, and available. It was fine; nothing really special. The main plotline involved the threat of the release of a biological agent that would cause a pandemic, so perhaps a bit too close to home right now.

 

One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus

McManus is writing fantastic mysteries for teens, and this one might be my favorite of hers. Like this book’s predecessor, One of Us is Lying, I thought the book trafficked too much in teen stereotypes at first, but the characters quickly deepened, and the plot took satisfying twists that kept me guessing until the end. Never one to let the last few pages go to waste with unnecessary resolution, McManus throws one final twist at us that is perhaps too implausible, but great fun nonetheless.

 

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

I like McGinnis’ books, but they never quite rise to the level of love. Her latest is a solid YA survival story, gripping, well-written, with a complicated protagonist that I appreciated reading about in a teen novel. The descriptions of how Ashley survives in the woods after getting lost on a camping trip were visceral and not for the faint of heart (and I mean this in a good way), interspersed with tidbits from Ashley’s past that give us insight into why she is the way she is. I liked it well enough; I wasn’t blown away.

 

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

Mary Kubica is known for writing well-received psychological thrillers, a genre I can’t get enough of right now. This one is about a woman, Sadie, who moves to a new town on an island off the coast of Maine with her family. She’s hiding at least one secret from her own past, and when a woman on the island is murdered, Sadie finds herself connected and suspected. I’ve only read one other book by Mary Kubica, her first, The Good Girl, which I thought was just OK. I liked this one a lot more, despite the fact that it used a tired trope as one of its major twists, something I picked up on almost from the get-go. But then she got me with another big twist after that, and my mind was blown. Well done, Mary Kubica.

 

 

2020 YA Books in Verse

April is right around the corner, and even if we find ourselves still quarantined for the next month, one thing is for certain: we’re going to see a lot of creative poetry popping up. Whether it’ll be on Instagram, via book spines on Twitter, or even in the books that will be highlighted around the book world, poetry will be celebrated in honor of the season.

Every year, I love rounding up the year’s upcoming YA verse novels, and this year, we’re in for a treat. There are a ton, and they range from novels to non-fiction, digging into topics like racism, to fictional biographies, to the Donner Party, and so much more.

 

I’ve done the best I can to make this as comprehensive as possible. But getting every 2020 YA verse novel on this list isn’t possible, given that not all book descriptions for the year are out and also because not every description makes it clear. If you know of a traditionally published YA book — fiction or nonfiction, despite my continued use of “novel” here, which we know means fiction — hitting shelves that’s in verse this year, drop it in the comments.

Descriptions and publication dates come from Amazon. Know that because of the daily changes going on in publishing with the pandemic, some publication dates might not be accurate. Preorder them anyway if they appeal to you and be surprised when it arrives.

2020 YA Verse Novels

 

Apple (Skin To The Core) by Eric Gansworth (October 6)

How about a book that makes you barge into your boss’s office to read a page of poetry from? That you dream of? That every movie, song, book, moment that follows continues to evoke in some way?

The term “Apple” is a slur in Native communities across the country. It’s for someone supposedly “red on the outside, white on the inside.”

Eric Gansworth is telling his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

 

Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe by Carole Boston Weatherford (September 8)

From the day she was born into a troubled home to her reigning days as a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe (née Norma Jeane Mortenson) lived a life that was often defined by others. Here, in a luminous poetic narrative, acclaimed author Carole Boston Weatherford tells Marilyn’s story in a way that restores her voice to its rightful place: center stage. Revisiting Marilyn’s often traumatic early life—foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage—through a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and depression, the lyrical narrative continues through Marilyn’s famous performance at JFK’s birthday party, three months before her death. In a story at once riveting, moving, and unflinching, Carole Boston Weatherford tells a tale of extraordinary pain and moments of unexpected grace, gumption, and perseverance, as well as the inexorable power of pursuing one’s dreams. A beautifully designed volume.

 

Being Toffee by Sarah Crossen (July 14)

I am not who I say I am, 

and Marla isn’t who she thinks she is.



I am a girl trying to forget. 

She is a woman trying to remember.

Allison has run away from home and with nowhere to live finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn’t empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there – and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past named Toffee.

Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.

But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself – where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who is she, really?

 

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta (May 26)

A fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the power of drag, from acclaimed UK poet and performer Dean Atta. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jason Reynolds, and Kacen Callender.

Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he’s navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican—but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough.

As he gets older, Michael’s coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs—and the Black Flamingo is born.

Told with raw honesty, insight, and lyricism, this debut explores the layers of identity that make us who we are—and allow us to shine.

 

 

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (May 5)

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.

 

 

 

Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh (September 22)

Candice Iloh weaves the key moments of Ada’s young life—her mother’s descent into addiction, her father’s attempts to create a home for his American daughter more like the one he knew in Nigeria, her first year at a historically black college—into a luminous and inspiring verse novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Here Now by Barbara Bottner (August 4)

Set in the 1960s, Barbara Bottner’s I Am Here Now is a beautiful novel in verse about one artist’s coming of age. It’s a heartbreaking, powerful and inspiring depiction of what it’s like to shatter your life―and piece it all back together.



You can’t trust Life to give you decent parents, or beautiful eyes, a fine French accent or an outstanding flair for fashion. No, Life does what it wants. It’s sneaky as a thief.

Maisie’s first day of High school should be exciting, but all she wants is to escape.

Her world is lonely and chaotic, with an abusive mother and a father who’s rarely there to help.

So when Maisie, who finds refuge in her art, meets the spirited Rachel and her mother, a painter, she catches a glimpse of a very different world―one full of life, creativity, and love―and latches on.

But as she discovers her strengths through Rachel’s family, Maisie, increasingly desperate, finds herself risking new friendships, and the very future she’s searching for.

 

 

Junk Boy by Tony Abbott (October 13)

Junk. That’s what the kids at school call Bobby Lang, mostly because his rundown house looks like a junkyard, but also because they want to put him down. Trying desperately to live under the radar at school―and at the home he shares with his angry, neglectful father―Bobby develops a sort of proud loneliness. The only buffer between him and the uncaring world is his love of the long, wooded trail between school and home.

Life grinds along quietly and hopelessly for Bobby until he meets Rachel. Rachel is an artist who sees him in a way no one ever has. Maybe it’s because she has her own kind of junk, and a parent who hates what Rachel is: gay. Together the two embark on journeys to clean up the messes that fill their lives, searching against all odds for hope and redemption.

Narrated in Bobby’s unique voice in arresting free verse, this novel will captivate readers right from its opening lines, urging them on page after page, all the way to its explosive conclusion.

 

Kent State by Deborah Wiles (April 21)

May 4, 1970.

Kent State University.

As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.

Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points — protestor, Guardsman, townie, student — Deborah Wiles’s Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio . . . an event that, even 50 years later, still resonates deeply.

 

 

 

The Language of Cherries by Jen Marie Hawkins (Available now)

When Evie Perez is cut off from everything she loves and forced to move to Iceland for the summer, she takes her canvas and paintbrushes into the picturesque cherry orchard behind her guesthouse. She stains her lips with stolen cherries in the midnight sun and paints a boy she’s never met. Oskar is startled to discover Evie in his family’s orchard, and even more surprised to see himself on her canvas. Too ashamed to reveal his stutter, he remains quiet as Evie returns day after day to paint, spilling confessions she wouldn’t even tell her priest.When the magic intensifies and their connection deepens, everything they share is at stake, forcing Oskar to decide how long to maintain his silence.

 

 

 

 

Punching The Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam (September 1)

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo. 

The story that I thought

was my life

didn’t start on the day

I was born 

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life 

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann (Available now — this appears to be a UK title)

When Amber runs, it’s the only time she feels completely free – far away from her claustrophobic home life. Her father wants her to be a dutiful daughter, waiting for an arranged marriage like her sister Ruby.

Running is a quiet rebellion. But Amber wants so much more – and she’s ready to fight for it.

It’s time for a revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep by Alan Wolf (September 8)

In 1846, a group of emigrants bound for California face a choice: continue on their planned route or take a shortcut into the wilderness. Eighty-nine of them opt for the untested trail, a decision that plunges them into danger and desperation and, finally, the unthinkable. From extraordinary poet and novelist Allan Wolf comes a riveting retelling of the ill-fated journey of the Donner party across the Sierra Nevadas during the winter of 1846–1847. Brilliantly narrated by multiple voices, including world-weary, taunting, and all-knowing Hunger itself, this novel-in-verse examines a notorious chapter in history from various perspectives, among them caravan leaders George Donner and James Reed, Donner’s scholarly wife, two Miwok Indian guides, the Reed children, a sixteen-year-old orphan, and even a pair of oxen. Comprehensive back matter includes an author’s note, select character biographies, statistics, a time line of events, and more. Unprecedented in its detail and sweep, this haunting epic raises stirring questions about moral ambiguity, hope and resilience, and hunger of all kinds.

 

Three Things I Know Are True by Betty Culley (Available now)

Life changes forever for Liv when her older brother, Jonah, accidentally shoots himself with his best friend Clay’s father’s gun. Now Jonah needs round-the-clock care just to stay alive, and Liv feels like she’s the only person who can see that her brother is still there inside his broken body.

With Liv’s mom suing Clay’s family, there are divisions in the community that Liv knows she’s not supposed to cross. But Clay is her friend, too, and she refuses to turn away from him—just like she refuses to give up on Jonah.

This powerful novel is a stunning exploration of tragedy, grief, compassion, and forgiveness.

 

 

 

 

Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario (Available now)

Rowena feels like her family is a frayed string of lights that someone needs to fix with electrical tape. After her mother died a few years ago, she and her sister, Ariana, drifted into their own corners of the world, each figuring out in their own separate ways how to exist in a world in which their mother is no longer alive.

But then Ariana disappears under the cover of night in the middle of a snowstorm, leaving no trace or tracks. When Row wakes up to a world of snow and her sister’s empty bedroom, she is left to piece together the mystery behind where Ariana went and why, realizing along the way that she might be part of the reason Ariana is gone.

Haunting and evocative—and told in dual perspectives—Turtle Under Ice examines two sisters frozen by grief as they search for a way to unthaw.

 

 

What Goes Up by Christine Heppermann (August 18)

When Jorie wakes up in the loft bed of a college boy she doesn’t recognize, she’s instantly filled with regret. What happened the night before? What led her to this place? Was it her father’s infidelity? Her mother’s seemingly weak acceptance? Her recent breakup with Ian, the boy who loved her art and supported her through the hardest time of her life?

As Jorie tries to reconstruct the events that led her to this point, free verse poems lead the reader through the current morning, as well as flashbacks to her relationships with her parents, her friends, her boyfriend, and the previous night.

With Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty and Ask Me How I Got Here, Christine Heppermann established herself as a vital voice in thought-provoking and powerful feminist writing for teens. Her poetry is surprising, wry, emotional, and searing. What Goes Up is by turns a scorchingly funny and a deeply emotional story that asks whether it’s possible to support and love someone despite the risk of being hurt. Readers of Laura Ruby, E. K. Johnston, Elana K. Arnold, and Laurie Halse Anderson will find a complicated heroine they won’t soon forget.

 

With a Star in My Hand by Margarita Engle (Available now)

As a little boy, Rubén Darío loved to listen to his great uncle, a man who told tall tales in a booming, larger-than-life voice. Rubén quickly learned the magic of storytelling, and discovered the rapture and beauty of verse.

A restless and romantic soul, Rubén traveled across Central and South America seeking adventure and connection. As he discovered new places and new loves, he wrote poems to express his wild storm of feelings. But the traditional forms felt too restrictive. He began to improvise his own poetic forms so he could capture the entire world in his words. At the age of twenty-one, he published his first book Azul, which heralded a vibrant new literary movement called Modernismo that blended poetry and prose into something magical.

In gorgeous poems of her own, Margarita Engle tells the story of this passionate young man who revolutionized world literature.

 

This Week at Book Riot and Beyond

 

A lot of things I want to round up and share here this week, not all book related. First, at Book Riot:

Reading YA books might increase empathy and integrity.

 

Cat notebooks for all your note-taking and journaling needs.

 

One of my goals this year is publishing in a few new-to-me outlets, and I’m thrilled to share the first one this week. I got the chance to talk with two excellent folks behind a couple of Instagram accounts which feature old homes (I’m an old home lover and dweller). I took those conversations and my own observations to dig into why it is we’re all obsessed with Old House Instagram.

 

Since the studio where I teach yoga is currently closed (as are all other yoga studios locally and, I hope, throughout the country), the incredible team I work with has been putting together a range of classes and resources to allow anyone to get some much-needed movement and breathing in while quarantined at home. Here’s what I’ve been offering, if you’d like to try something out. All are free to access!

 

I taught a 60-minute yoga class for beginners you can access via Facebook.

 

If you’re looking for a challenging class — it will make you sweat! — I taught a 90 minute mindful flow you can try via Facebook.

 

Looking for a really powerful meditation that will leave you more relaxed and refreshed than you can imagine? Try your hand at this yoga nidra (plan for 30 minutes).

 

You might love this yin yoga class, too. I made it into a visual, since sitting in long silences while you hold a pose could make for a less-than-thrilling video. Infographic via Facebook.

 

One more yoga-related thing: I pulled together, with the help of some amazing yoga teachers I know, a half-day digital retreat for Sunday. Details in the images below. I’d love if you wanted to join for one part or the whole thing (and yes, feel free to share this information! We’re offering this for a sense of togetherness during such fraught times).

 

Coping Strategies During Social Distancing

I’m writing this a few hours after our city and county leaders mandated a shelter in place order, effective beginning Wednesday, when this post publishes. While the library here has been closed to the public for over a week, most staff have still been reporting to their workplaces. This new order means that we’re all working from home now, which is a huge challenge for many library workers whose jobs are focused on people and physical materials. I feel fortunate that I can do my job remotely, and those of us who are able to do so are working hard to come up with projects other staff, whose normal job functions are now impossible, can assist us with from their homes. Turns out – there’s actually a lot of useful stuff we can do together.

While I’ve worked from home before, it’s usually only been once or twice a week, and I’ve always gone outside my house and done something afterward. This is more than just an unusual situation – the combination of working from home and not allowing myself (or being allowed by others at this point) to go spend time with other people is a strain. I anticipate it will be difficult for many of us. But I’ve been working from home and social distancing for over a week now, and it’s given me some time to figure out the things that help me the most when it comes to my mental, emotional, and physical health. Let me know what’s been working for you.

Get outside the house at least twice per day. I had been training for a 10k run in April, and while that’s been cancelled, I want to maintain the progress I’ve made. Exercise is one of the essential functions that we can do outside the house, so I usually go for a short run in the morning before work. It gives me a burst of energy for the work day, and I always feel better generally after exercise. March and April are possibly the best weather months here in Texas, so I’ve also been going out for a walk in the late afternoon/early evening, effectively bookending my day with sunshine (usually) and the outdoors. It’s helped me more than I thought it would. There are several other people who are also out and about, and while we don’t have face to face interaction, we do wave, nod at each other, make eye contact, and kindly move out of each other’s way to maintain six feet of separation. It’s a small connection, but it’s there.

 

Play games virtually with friends and family. I started playing Words With Friends on my phone, but it doesn’t give the face to face connection and camaraderie that in-person games do. The next best thing to actual in person board game nights are videochats where people at 2 or 3 (or more) different locations can play the same game together and see each other’s faces and carry on a conversation. There are board games out there that can be played in such a way with minor modifications. The first I tried was Roll for the Galaxy. Since both my friend and I own a copy, and it doesn’t require one player’s pieces to interact with the other player’s pieces, this actually worked really well. Plus it’s just a super fun game. There are plenty of other games, especially party games, that are suited to this kind of format, as long as each player has a camera and can see the game setup, wherever it is. Both and Just One can be played this way – and only one person needs to have the game to make it work. Even if you have no board games you feel you can adapt, you can always do charades.

 

Find a home project to do. This hasn’t been anything big for me. The first one I planned was simply finishing unpacking my suitcase from PLA and putting the suitcase away, something I had been putting off but took almost no time to accomplish. Accomplishing something concrete and physical helps me to feel like I’m not just sitting around the house, and it’s a bit of exercise, too.

 

Ensure my work space at home is tidy. For me, this has meant making the bed each morning, washing all the dishes before I go to bed at night, and putting away all the stuff I normally let gather on tables and countertops. A less cluttered space makes me feel less confined indoors.

 

If it’s nice weather out, open the windows. Heck, even if it’s not that nice, I’ll open them. I love to hear the birds chirping and the sounds of my neighbors out walking their dogs. It makes me feel less isolated to hear the sounds of life going on outside. Plus, the way my house smells when it’s had fresh air blowing through it for a couple of hours is amazing.

 

Put on a nice shirt and earrings. When I work from home in normal situations, I do usually just wear shorts and a t-shirt and forego any jewelry. But this week I’ve made sure to wear my normal work clothes, and it has made me feel more like I’ve done something during the day – again, helping me avoid that “all I’ve done all day is sit around on the couch” feeling.

 

Read murder mysteries. I thought I’d want to read lightweight stuff, but turns out I am in a murder mystery groove and can’t get enough of them right now. Perhaps it’s because these characters’ situations are so much more dire than mine. I can’t see my friends or family face to face and am worried about my job and the people I love, but I’m not navigating a loved one’s murder (or being murdered myself). These also fully occupy my mind while I’m reading them, since I’m focusing on putting all the pieces together and trying to figure out whodunnit before the sleuth does. In the past week, I’ve read two adult mysteries (You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen and Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson) and one YA mystery (One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus). All have been very satisfying.

 

Debut YA Novels: March 2020

While you’re stuck inside, why not add some books to your TBR? Let’s take a peek at the debut YA novels of March 2020.

 

This round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts that came out in March from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. List is arranged alphabetically by title. Starred titles are the beginning of a new series.

Note: for some reason, the 2020 debut groups that have been so helpful for me in the past in compiling these lists seem to be scant this year. Likewise, those groups which do exist don’t have book titles or publication dates readily accessible. Here’s my plea for making that easily located, not just for me but for literally any reader, librarian, and teacher who wants the essential information without having to click a ton of links.

 

March 2020 Debut YA Novels

 

All Your Twisted Secrets by San Francisco. New Year’s Eve. A tragic accident after the party of the year. Cara survives. Her best friend, G, doesn’t.

Nine months later, Cara is still struggling, consumed by guilt and grief. In the hopes of giving Cara a fresh start, her mother sends her to boarding school in Switzerland, a place where no one knows what happened–and where they never will, if Cara can help it.

But her new classmates Ren and Hector won’t let her close herself off. They are determined to break down the walls she has so carefully built up. And maybe Cara wants them to . . . especially Hector, who seems to understand her like no one else does.

The problem is that the closer Cara gets to Hector, the more G slips away. If moving on means letting go of the past–and admitting what she did that night–Cara’s not sure she can.

She’s not sure she deserves a second chance.

This Week at Book Riot

 

What a year this week has been, huh? Here’s what I’ve been writing about over on Book Riot:

 

Chicago Public Libraries need to close now to save lives.

 

Check out these incredible book sculptures that you can own.

 

Go around the world with these nearly 80 books set across the globe.

Light Reads for Trying Times

This is a hard time for our communities. I’ve been on this earth 34 years, came of age during 9/11 and the war in Iraq, and this might end up being the most trying time I’ve lived through so far, mostly because the immediate future seems so uncertain, and the parts that are certain are pretty scary. We are fighting an enemy we cannot see, which I think adds to the fear and anxiety that almost everyone is feeling right now.

At times like these, it’s helpful to turn away from the news sometimes and focus on lighter things. I’ve seen a lot of requests for fun, lightweight things to watch and read, to take our minds to happier places and provide some occasional relief from reality. This list is my contribution to the effort. All of the books below are ones that make me smile every time I think of them. They’re fun, funny, exciting, escapist, and have happy endings. I hope you find something that makes you smile, too.

 

Heist Society series by Ally Carter

Who doesn’t love a good heist story? This series is like if you took the tv show Leverage, changed all of the characters to teenagers, and set them loose on the art world. The ensemble cast is great, and you’ll love them just as much as they (eventually) love each other. Full of witty banter and exciting twists, this series is great fun for teens and adults alike. You can read my reviews of the second book here and the third book here. | Goodreads

 

 

 

Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters

I’ve loved this historical mystery series ever since I was a kid and my family listened to it on the many cross-country road trips we took during the summer. Its protagonist is Amelia Peabody, a not-so-proper Victorian-era Englishwoman who comes into a rather good-sized inheritance after her father passes away that enables her to travel the world. She develops a love for Egyptology, which goes hand-in-hand with her love for her husband, an Egyptologist of some renown whom Amelia meets in the first book. This initial volume serves as a romance novel, too, but Amelia and Emerson’s relationship throughout the entire series, as they age from young to old, is one of the primary joys of these books; the romance does not end with the marriage. Funny, more than a little silly, with a good mystery in each volume and lots of ancient Egyptian history, this series is a treat for fans of mysteries, historical fiction, feminist protagonists, humor, and romance. These are best read via audio, narrated by the truly outstanding Barbara Rosenblat, who for me will always be the voice of Amelia.

Author Elizabeth Peters (pen name of Barbara Mertz) was a great Egyptologist like her character, though she went what we could consider the more traditional route, earning a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1952 (certainly nontraditional at the time for women!) and authoring two works of nonfiction on ancient Egypt. Her life, while not full of catching murderers and breaking ancient curses, is pretty interesting in its own right. | Goodreads

 

The Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan

Courtney Milan writes great historical romances, and this series is my favorite of hers. Set in Victorian England, all of Milan’s protagonists are smart (smarter than their male counterparts, usually), many of them are employed or, if that’s not allowed, do research on their own (my favorite in the series is a scientist based on a real-life woman), and all the books are pretty explicitly feminist. The heat level is high, too, but never exploitative, and always completely consensual. If you’re looking for historical romance that feels really rooted in its time period, with accurate and interesting historical details and fun, unusual characters not often seen in romance novels, this series is for you. You can read my full review of the series from 2015 here. | Goodreads

 

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

If you’re looking for a book that will make you laugh out loud, you can’t go wrong with this one, which was the basis for the 2015 Dreamworks movie Home (but is much better, of course). The story begins when an alien race named the Boov invade Earth and decide to relocate all humans to Florida. Twelve year old Gratuity “Tip” Tucci finds herself in an unlikely alliance with a renegade Boov named J.Lo, and they team up to find her missing mother. This is a road trip book crossed with a buddy book set against the backdrop of an alien invasion. The pure silliness of the Boov undercuts the seriousness of the plot, reassuring the reader that everything will be OK in the end (and it is).

Crafted in the format of an essay that Tip has been forced to write by the new Boov rulers, the book also includes plenty of doodles, comics, photographs, and other visual treats, all of them funny. I hadn’t laughed this hard while reading a book before, and I haven’t since. This is a great pick for tweens on up. You can read my full review from 2010 here. | Goodreads

 

The Devil’s Intern by Donna Hosie

Mitchell was hit by a bus and now he’s dead. As luck would have it, he’s ended up in Hell, and he’s landed the prestigious position of intern to the Devil with a capital D (not to be confused with the lower-case devils as all other denizens of Hell are called). He spends his time hanging out with his three best friends – all teenagers who died in different eras of history, including a Viking warrior – and trying his best to please his immediate boss, Septimus, and avoid the Big Boss, the Devil. Things really get going when Mitchell learns that Septimus has a device that will take the user out of Hell and fling him – plus any tagalongs – to any point in history. Naturally, Mitchell decides to use the device to prevent his death. He initially tries to do it alone, but his friends insist on coming along. This is a really enjoyable, funny, and often moving read – just don’t think about the premise too hard. | Goodreads

 

The Klaatu Diskos series by Pete Hautman

This series is for readers who like their science fiction a little (or a lot) weird. When both of Tucker’s parents disappear, gone through the strange shimmery orb above their home, Tucker vows to find them. This sets him on a journey both backward and forward in time, including such times/places as the death of Christ, a ritual sacrifice at the top of a futuristic pyramid, and his own town thousands of years in the future, unrecognizable and strange. He meets benevolent people who try to help him, murderous people who try to kill him, and strange people/non-people who may be trying to help and harm him at the same time.

This series is wild, and I mean that in a good way. It’s full of time travel and aliens (maybe?) and robots (maybe?) and new religions and cultures and futuristic technology, and it presents the reader with all of this in such a way that every page is a new discovery of something bizarrely fascinating. It’s so solidly science fiction that it makes other “science fiction” books seem like impostors. What’s more, Hautman refuses to hold your hand as you read it, so you’ll be lost a good portion of the time (but in a good way!). Every time I turned the page, I read something that made me exclaim “What?!” (and I do mean audibly). You’ll be so engrossed trying to figure out what the hell is going on that you won’t have time to think about anything else. You can read my full review from 2012 here. | Goodreads

 

Giveaway: Support Upcoming Books and Win Money to Buy More

This wasn’t my originally-intended post for today, but given that we’re in some pretty extraordinary times, I wanted to do something that felt like it could make even a tiny impact.

I was scheduled to attend the Texas Library Association Conference next week, with ARCs of Body Talk being available for the first time. As a former Texan who has a lovely network of librarians across the state, I was so looking forward to it. The cancelation is, of course, logical. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a real impact on a personal level — let alone on a bigger level.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with the owner of my local indie about the potential impact on Independent Bookstores were covid-19 to become a pandemic. Unfortunately, the time is here.

Every ripple branches out, and I can only hope this ripple does the same. Here’s what I’m doing:

 

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This Week at Book Riot

 

I’m back from my week-long training and have a big ‘ole pile of links to share. First, at Book Riot:

 

Minnesota wants to defund public libraries that host Drag Queen Story Time events.

 

Crystal bookmarks to help save your page.

 

From farm to table: how a Folio Society edition is created.

 

Beautiful book wall art for every blank spot in your home or office.

 

Over 70 YA books hitting shelves in paperback this spring.

 

The live episode of Hey YA is also up and available for your listening pleasure! You can also tune into the March 3 episode of All The Books for my picks of new books worth reading.

 

I’ve also got a piece on School Library Journal about how schools and libraries can find and connect with local authors.