Kelly Jensen's Blog, page 85

What I'm Reading Now

 

Strange Skies by Kristi Helvig

Helvig's first book, Burn Out , was super fun despite its glaring plot hole. Strange Skies opens with Tora coming to in a hospital run by the Consulate, a shady organization that controls Caelia, the new planet humans have relocated to since the old one is now uninhabitable (what with the sun going red giant and all). Right off the bat, we learn secrets about Tora's companions from the first book. I love a book chock full of shocking secrets. This is a fast-paced ride just like Burn Out was, and that's just what I'm looking for right now. This is such a fun SF read and I'm so glad that it's being published despite Egmont USA's demise.



Rivals in the City by Y. S. Lee

This is the final installment in Lee's truly excellent series of Victorian-era YA mysteries featuring private detective Mary Quinn. I love this series for so many reasons, not the least of which is the way it handles Mary's Chinese ancestry. This last volume speaks to my heart in a really strong way since it involves Mary struggling with what it means to get married to someone in a fundamentally patriarchal society. Mary's engaged to someone she loves, but they both know that getting married would remove a lot of Mary's hard-won independence. Each book is also a terrifically good mystery, and this one brings back an old foe for some shenanigans. It feels like a final book in a series, and I expect a satisfying ending.



Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I really loved Illusive , the first book in Lloyd-Jones' series about a group of teens with superpowers who carry out heists. It checked so many of my boxes: teens sticking it to The Man, magic, stealing from bad guys, double-crosses, a little espionage, a shady government organization. The sequel promises more of the same, but with a bit more sleuthing thrown in as the characters investigate a series of disappearances. I wish there were more books like these (that mixed mystery/heist elements with SFF elements) when I was a teen because I would have devoured them all.
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Comfort Reads

Comfort reads are, I think, different from favorite reads. Sometimes they overlap with each other, but often my favorite reads aren't comforting at all - they're painful and tear my heart into tiny little pieces. There's a certain amount of emotional preparation I have to do before diving into some of my favorite reads.



Comfort reads, on the other hand, are those books I return to again and again simply because they make me happy. Rather than breaking my heart into tiny little pieces, they heal it. Protagonists in danger can be relied upon to make it safely out, along with all of their beloved companions. People who fall in love stay in love. The characters are fundamentally good. They make missteps, but they make it right in the end, too.



I've been on a big comfort read kick lately, perhaps because a lot of what's going on in my own life is pretty chaotic and uncertain right now. Below are a few that I've been dipping into again and again the past few months.



Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (and its sequels)

This is the first in an historical mystery series featuring amateur sleuth and Egyptologist Amelia Peabody. Crocodile was first published in 1975 and it spawned several sequels, the final of which is being published in 2016. It was in editing stages when Peters died in 2013 (I'm still sad about this. Go read about Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz and be in awSorceree). I love that this series is about archaeology and excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, and I love that it's also about Victorian era customs and mores, as both of these time periods have always fascinated me. I love Amelia even more: she's outspoken, a loyal friend, an ardent feminist, whip-smart, funny, believes completely in herself and her family, and loves passionately. She has some foibles (some of which she acknowledges, some of which she doesn't), which add to the humor of the series. Her voice is among the strongest I've ever read in adult fiction. And of course, these are mysteries at heart, though the combination of excavation and sleuthing is still rather unique I think. Amelia and her husband Emerson age throughout the series (they're in their 60s in the last book), but they still go on adventures, and the next generation gets to have a few of their own too. These books are just lovely, and I highly recommend you get a hold of the audiobooks narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, who voices Amelia and Emerson to perfection.



When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn

Romances are my go-to comfort reads. They guarantee a happily ever after and the ones I pick usually have a good dose of humor. Julia Quinn's books were my entry into romance and her books remain the ones that can best soothe my heart when it's troubled. When He Was Wicked is actually one of her more angst-ridden books, but I think it's the best (and you won't find that many who agree with me, sadly). The hero and heroine grow to love each other over time, and it feels like a true, lasting love because of something that happens early in the novel that they both then have to come to terms with. The conflict is entirely internal, which often seems less exciting at the outset but is usually more fulfilling in the end. There's a particular scene near the end of the book that I go back and read over and over again because it's so emotionally satisfying.



Harry Potter books 1-3 by J. K. Rowling

The first line of the first Harry Potter book is as perfect a first line as you can get: "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." Sorcerer's Stone is a practically perfect children's book that never ceases to make me feel happy. Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban are equally wonderful in their own ways, with Azkaban probably my favorite among the first three (time travel!). But it's only the first three books that really count as comfort reads for me, as things get quite dark starting with book 4. Goblet is where you begin to realize that maybe things aren't going to work out for the best after all. My favorite Harry Potter isn't one of the first three, actually, but these are the ones I've probably listened to most anyway. Jim Dale is wonderful and these first three books are safe and funny and heartwarming.
             

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Samantha -- Sam in the summer, when she's away from her year-round school responsibilities and is instead focusing on her swimming -- is part of a tight-knit group of girls called the Crazy 8s. For the most part, the girls are hard to tease apart and delineate as individuals. They've been tight for a long time, and they've done what seems like everything together.



But this year, after a refreshing, invigorating summer, Samantha is feeling anxious about beginning another year of high school with her best girls. In many ways, they're not really friends. They're together because it's part of their reputation and because it's been part of the routine since kindergarten. Samantha, though, isn't all in.



It's not just that she's feeling distanced from them. It's that her mental illness -- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, of the Pure-O variety --  has gotten bad. Really, really bad. She's unable to remove the distressing thoughts from her mind in a healthy way, even though she's taking medication for it and seeking regularly weekly therapy with a therapist who she trusts and who cares about her deeply.



Fortunately, on that first day of school, things seem different. Samantha meets Caroline, a girl she'd never noticed before at school. It's Caroline who introduces Samantha to an underground poetry club at school called Poet's Corner, which meets in a hidden space at the school. It's Caroline who helps Samantha to more embrace her "Sam" -- the girl she is when she's swimming in the summer and the girl who is most like who she is. It's Caroline who helps Sam discover a passion for writing, for performing, and who ultimately introduces her to AJ, a boy who Sam had tormented years earlier with her fellow Crazy 8s. When Sam apologizes and begins to see AJ for more than the guy he used to be, they begin a really powerful, well-developed, and satisfyingly dynamic relationship with one another.



I went into Tamara Ireland Stone's Every Last Word with some hesitance. I've read more than one OCD book in the last few years, and while they've all explored the illness in some unique way, I always worry that it'll be manifested in a way that feels more like a television representation than authentic to the illness. But it was pleasing to see Stone didn't do this in the least. Sam's OCD in this book is rendered incredibly, authentically, and might be one of the best mental illness books I've ever read.



YA loves mental illness, and this isn't a bad thing. The problem I've found, though, is so many of these books read like check lists in some capacity. You can see the research the author put into the book because the character and his/her behaviors feel like the research itself. She/he does this, then this, then this, and then there's the diagnosis of the illness.



But Ireland Stone subverts this trap through the research.



Samantha has a type of OCD that is less about the compulsions and more about the obsessive and distressing thoughts. That doesn't mean, though, she completely lacks any compulsions. She has to do things in threes. She can't, for example, park her car if the mileage isn't ending on a multiple of three. But this isn't about those things; the real misery for Sam is how she cannot stop thinking horrific things. Not only do we see those horrific things, but we experience them along with her. She's fearful of what will happen in every single act she undertakes, and she tells readers how miserable it is to have these thoughts. She's anxious all of the time, and while many readers may not understand that anxiety as it creeps in -- so many of the things that shouldn't cause it are -- I couldn't help but completely, utterly relate to Sam in many of these manners. I have anxiety issues, and though it is not to this extreme, I felt those feelings and fears with Sam because I completely empathized and sympathized with her. It's difficult reading, but it's a window into a mental illness that's well-done.



That's not where it stops though. From here on, you have spoilers, so jump down to the last two paragraphs if you don't want them (that starts with "The romance").



One of the things Ireland Stone does is offer a piece of Sam's illness that isn't "on the books." Caroline, the girl she meets and who introduces her to Poet's Corner and AJ, isn't real. She's a figment of Sam's overactive, illed brain. Sam talks about Caroline at numerous therapy sessions, and through those sessions, we learn what Caroline is to her: she's a force that pushes Sam outside of her comfort zone. Caroline is the way Sam allows herself to push boundaries, as well as the way Sam is able to overcome her anxiety about doing new and different things, including reading and writing poetry, apologizing to AJ and pursuing a relationship with him, and pushing outside the security and comfort of the Crazy 8s, even though they've been her long-time friends.



Caroline's not being real doesn't particularly trip up Sam's therapist. Rather, her therapist talks about how everyone's brains are really special and unique, and those who struggle with mental illnesses don't all struggle in the same way. Rather, brains are so interesting that even diagnosable illnesses can take on different forms, different coping mechanisms, and create these rich stories that don't make sense to anyone. Caroline is part of Sam's coping, her brain's means of pushing her forward and through her day-to-day. Ireland Stone's subversion here -- the assurance she offers Sam through the narrative, through Sue and more, the assurance she offers any readers struggling with mental illness -- is noteworthy and commendable. We are "off the book" here in terms of what we understand about diseases like OCD and yet, it's not treated as if it's a boogeyman or a malfunction. It's part of a brain that's firing strangely on a chemical level and...that's all.



That is a radical, powerful moment.



Therapy and medication in this book are not big deals. Rather, they're tools in combatting mental illness and becoming a functional, healthy human being. The medication discussion here is about how it can sometimes take work and how sometimes, there is an adjustment period and adjustments necessary to make them work the best way that they can. Ireland renders Sue, Sam's therapist, as a full and functional human beyond the "role" she plays as a therapist. In fact, the book does a great job depicting all of the major adults in this book; they're all there, and even if they can't all be helpful, it's nice to see them as fully-realized characters, rather than secondary and less important.



The romance in this story is really rewarding, and for many readers, this will be the highlight of the story, not the treatment of mental illness. AJ and Sam do not have an easy romance at all. AJ is really not all-in with Sam, and he doesn't welcome her immediately. Even after she apologizes for how she used to treat him, AJ is tentative. He doesn't want to give her all of his trust immediately, and there's pushing and pulling that's authentic, challenging, and true to how romantic relationships in teenagers work but that we don't get to see in fiction quite enough. There are no fireworks here, no quick resolutions. This relationship takes work. It's earned, not expected.



Every Last Word comes out June 16, so the review is a little early, but it's a book worth putting on your radar now. Ireland Stone's writing is fluid and absorbing, and her treatment of such an terrible, painful, and frequently mischaracterized illness is outstanding. Sam's story is engaging. Readers who like the writing and story telling of Sara Zarr or Siobhan Vivian will find much to enjoy here, and readers who like the romantic arcs of Jenny Han a la her "Summer" series will find that here with AJ and Sam. Highly recommended, with great appeal to those who are curious about mental health, as well as those who may not know they are.







Review copy received from the publisher. We'll be doing a giveaway later this week of this book, too, courtesy of the publisher. 
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Weekend Flash Giveaway: Hold Me Like A Breath by Tiffany Schmidt

I talked briefly about Tiffany Schmidt's Hold Me Like A Breath last week and in honor of the book's release next week, I wanted to hold a giveaway. Up for grabs is one copy of the book, to anyone who can get a book from Book Depository, and I'll pull a winner on Monday.













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This Week at Book Riot

Over at Book Riot this week:


3 On a YA Theme was all about asexual characters in YA books. 
In the spirit of graduation season, here are 16 great literary/bookish mortar boards.


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Color Me Purple: YA Covers Featuring Shades of Plum

One of the fun types of displays I enjoyed doing at the library was the most simple: books by color. "Have you RED these books?" "C'mon get happy" (books with yellow covers). "I don't remember the title but the cover was blue." They're straightforward and an easy way to get some books out that might otherwise not see display time regularly.



As I was perusing books coming out this year, I noticed something I haven't noticed in a while, which is purple book covers. I don't think it's a not thing nor do I necessarily think we have a new trend, but the array of purple-infused colors caught my eye. I couldn't not do a big round-up of them.



I'm not going to include descriptions because I think there's something really appealing about the visual effect alone. All of these are 2015 YA releases -- some paperback rereleases of books that had different covers before -- and if you can think of other purple or mostly purple 2015 covers, I'd love to see them in the comments.



Of course, if you do a display like this, I'd love to see that, too.













































 


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Circuses Redux (plus giveaway!)

Around this time last year, I posted about a mini-trend of circuses in YA and middle grade. This trend appears to be going strong. There were at least two circus books nominated for the Cybils last year, and one of the most hyped middle grade titles I've seen recently, Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley, also revolves around a circus. Most of the circuses featured in the novels are magical in some way, or surrounded by magical people. I wasn't ever much of a circus kid (I'm not an animal person and clowns are creepy), but I expect that circuses are magical for a lot of children, so it makes sense that they would hold real magic on the page.



Penguin was kind enough to invite me to meet Cassie Beasley, debut author of Circus Mirandus, at a dinner several weeks ago. She has a charming Southern accent and talked about her writing and path to publication with a group of librarians and booksellers. Her book is a middle grade story about a boy, Micah, whose grandfather is dying. He had always told Micah fantastic stories about a magical circus he had visited as a boy, and now Micah intends to find that circus and claim the miracle that his grandfather said was owed to him by a man called the Lightbender. Beasley incorporates not only Micah's quest (as he teams up with a girl his age, Jenny, who very firmly does not believe in magic), but also flashbacks to his grandfather's visit to the circus and the people he met there. It makes the story seem bigger, and kids should enjoy putting the pieces together and seeing how Micah's grandfather's adventures mirror his own.



Circus Mirandus is perfectly suited for a middle grade audience, encouraging kids to believe in magic while also not shying away from the hard realities of life (adult readers will know that no matter what Micah does, he will not be able to stop his grandfather from dying). There's great friendship between Micah and Jenny, who each have their own strengths. A few of the ancillary characters are underdeveloped or flat, particularly the more villainous ones. I wanted to know more about the bird woman, Victoria, who caused such destruction; Beasley did hint at the dinner that there might be more on her in a future book.



I'm giving away a signed review copy of Circus Mirandus, which will be published on June 2. I think it will be a real winner with middle grade readers who dig light fantasy. Enter to win in the form at the end of the post; I'll choose a winner May 20. I've also rounded up a few other circus books that have been published since I last wrote about them. I don't think this is a trend that's going away (a lot of them feature high-wire walkers, which I think is interesting). Descriptions are from Worldcat unless otherwise indicated.





Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond

Sixteen-year-old Jules Maroni's dream is to follow in her father's footsteps as a high-wire walker. When her family is offered a prestigious role in the new Cirque American, it seems that Jules and the Amazing Maronis will finally get the spotlight they deserve. But the presence of the Flying Garcias may derail her plans. For decades, the two rival families have avoided each other as sworn enemies.



Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling

By day Rémy Brunel is a daring circus acrobat, by night she is an equally talented jewel thief currently assigned to steal a famous diamond in Victorian London--but when the theft goes wrong she finds herself allied with a young policeman as they try to find the elusive gem.



Shadowplay by Laura Lam

The circus lies behind Micah Grey in dust and ashes. He and the white clown, Drystan, take refuge with the once-great magician, Jasper Maske. When Maske agrees to teach them his trade, his embittered rival challenges them to a duel which could decide all of their fates. People also hunt both Micah and the person he was before the circus the runaway daughter of a noble family. And Micah discovers there is magic and power in the world, far beyond the card tricks and illusions he is perfecting. A tale of phantom wings, a clockwork hand, and the delicate unfurling of new love, Shadowplay continues Micah Grey's extraordinary journey.





Carnival of Secrets by Melissa Marr

A centuries-long war between daimons and witches sets the stage for three teens caught up in a deadly struggle for power and autonomy in the exotic and otherworldly Carnival of Souls, the mercantile center of the daimon dimension.



Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore (forthcoming September 15)

For twenty years, the Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows—the Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find. Lace Paloma may be new to her family’s show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she's been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small town where both families are performing, it’s a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace’s life. And his touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees. [description from Goodreads]



The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble

Clara discovers that her sister is becoming a mermaid, and realizes that no mermaid can survive on land. Desperate to save her, she and her friend load the girl in a gypsy wagon and begin a journey to the sea. But no road is straight, and the trio encounters trouble around every bend. And always, Clara wonders if she herself will become a mermaid.



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A Memoir, a Novel, and a Graphic Novel

Triumph by Carolyn Jessop

My interest in religious cults continues, apparently. This is Carolyn Jessop’s continuation of the story she began in Escape. It focuses largely on her involvement with the raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas in 2008. While the children taken in the raid were eventually all returned to their families (which Jessop believes was the wrong move to make), the raid did result in several prosecutions and convictions of FLDS men for allowing underage marriages to occur. Jessop testified at some of these trials/hearings and talks a lot about how trying it was for her and her family, but that she also found courage and power in it. The second part of the book goes into how she found the strength to succeed as a single mother with eight children in a world that didn’t understand her (and vice versa). She writes about what she learned from her grandmothers and how she leaned on the welfare system as well as how she drew from her own well of strength and believes others can learn from her example. She prefaces this by stating that at her speaking engagements, many people asked her about these things and she thought it was worth exploring. I agree, but the number of Goodreads reviewers who lambast her for being full of herself or "inserting too many of her own opinions" are alarming. She believes she is strong and extraordinary, and she is. It reminds me a lot of that social experiment that went around the internet a few weeks ago where women accept compliments and then get hate for it. People tell Carolyn Jessop she is extraordinary but then expect her to declaim it. I’m glad she doesn’t.



Audiobook borrowed from my library.



Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

I read Hellisen’s YA book, When the Sea is Rising Red , a few years ago and was impressed by the lovely writing but let down by the story. The blurb for her middle grade, Beastkeeper, was intriguing and the book was short enough that I felt like I wouldn’t be wasting too much of my time if I ended up not enjoying it. It’s about a girl, Sarah, whose mother leaves her one day, and whose father slowly starts turning into a beast. He leaves her at her grandmother’s house and she learns of a curse going back two generations in her family that causes a person to turn into a beast when they fall in love – or something like that. The mythology is interesting but it just never really came together. I’m still a little puzzled by it. Moreover, the characters always felt like they existed at a remove from the reader, something that may just be characteristic of Hellisen’s writing, as I felt this way about her other book as well. Promising, but ultimately just OK.



Review copy received from the publisher. Beastkeeper is available now.



Dragons Beware by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado

The first book in this graphic novel series for kids, Giants Beware , was a favorite of mine in 2012, and I was part of the judging panel that chose it as a Cybils winner that year. Dragons Beware brings back all of the delightful characters – fierce fighter Claudette, her little brother Gaston who has a fondness for baking (but has resolved to give it up until he too can learn to fight), and her friend princess Marie. This time, they take on the dragon that maimed her father in order to reclaim his sword. This book chronicles yet another funny, exciting adventure with full-color, expressive artwork. The characters genuinely care about each other, they’re all brave in their own way, and Aguirre and Rosado clearly respect their individual strengths. While Claudette is a tomboy, the book handily dismisses the notion that a girl who want to be a princess and loves frilly dresses (Marie) can’t also fight and be brave and save her friends. And Gaston is precious as ever as he learns to accept his own uniqueness rather than trying to emulate others. Another home run.



Finished copy received from the publisher. Dragons Beware is available today!


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This Week at Book Riot

Over at Book Riot this week.....I was on a bit of a writing spree:





I talked about the problem with "free" ebooks for poor kids, the new government initiative with publishing. It's not about the books; it's about access. I took over the "Literary Tourism" series over the weekend, with tons of bookish places to stop and visit if you're in the great state of Iowa. Three on a YA theme covers characters who are blind, as well as realistic takes on fairy tales. I found a pile of fun, useful, and off-the-wall (...and on-the-wall) ampersand fetish. After an email conversation where I noted I didn't know where a book was because it could be in my car or a bag or donated....I had to do a "Shit Book Nerds Do" post with contributions from fellow Book Rioters. 
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Uncollected Reading and Book Buying Thoughts

Nothing really connects these ideas or pieces of my reading life together, but they're things I've been thinking about and doing and couldn't not put them into some sort of place. They're uncollected. But they're probably all really connected, too.





1. The weather here has really changed. It's gotten so nice. After a long, cold winter inside, all I want to do is spend time outside. I'm not an outdoors person, so my speed of spending time outdoors is sitting on my front porch or in the backyard hammock with a book. Often the view looks something like this:







Sometimes it looks like this:







The bookmark in Hold Me Like A Breath is my all-time favorite bookmark. I've had it since 2008, when a professor I worked for at UT went to Tasmania. She knew how much I have a love for that place -- because of a book, The Ghost With Trembling Wings by Scott Weidensaul, about lost species of animals and travel and nature and tasmanian devils -- and she picked up the bookmark for me because it's made of Tasmanian wood. It's a Huon Pine, and to this day, many years later, it still smells good. 



2. I've been buying books by the bucket loads. I went to three bookstores in three weekends. For someone who is quite a ways from any bookstore, this is a lot of driving to visit bookstores. It hasn't just been purchases in store, though. I've done some online ordering, too. Mostly things that have been sitting on my "to read" list for a while that I don't have access to via the library and can't find in store.





I haven't read any of these books. I haven't started any of them yet, either. Most were from recommendations of others. It's a mix of non-fiction and fiction. I'm really looking forward to digging into each of them, and I plan on getting to The Diary of a Teenager Girl soonest, probably. It's an older backlist title, a mix of prose and graphic elements. It's being rereleased this summer, as a movie's being made from it. The preview in EW is where I heard about it and then I became determined to track down reviews before putting money down for it. 

Headstrong, a book of short biographies of women in science, looks like it'll be great research for my anthology. 







I bought all of these books, too. Again, some were from a to-read list. Others were things people told me about or I had connections to somehow -- I bought two romance novels, my first ever, because Kimberly has raved about Sarah MacLean. I really think she's a neat person (and I'll tell you more about why in the near future, I think), and I'm excited to dig into them. 

The Last Life came to my awareness from this wonderful Reading Lives podcast with Nova Ren Suma. I picked up Astonish Me after talking in the Book Riot backchannel about my love for dance themed novels, and The Bluest Eye will be my first Morrison read, on deck for next month. 

I adored Amy Spalding's funny, feminist Kissing Ted Callahan when I read it earlier this year, and so I had to pick up a finished copy. The librarian in the story has a familiar name, too. 

Selfish is a small literary magazine. Jenn Northington, who is the Director of Events and Programming, has a piece in it. This is the first issue, and it sounds fantastic.  



3. It's not just books I've been buying. I went on a bit of a comics binge buy, too. 





After I heard there was going to be an Archie vs. Sharknado issue this summer, I decided it was high time to catch up on Archie I never read. I consulted a friend who is an Archie expert and decided on three mega collections. I then bought Afterlife with Archie because zombies.

Everywhere Antennas is one of the most beautifully drawn graphic novels I've ever read. It's a story about a girl who never feels well and attributes it to living in a city, where there's a lot of electricity. The wires and buzzing are hurting her and she chooses to move to rural Canada, where she can connect with the Earth, go off grid, and create. It's a comic in translation -- a thing I've really come to enjoy lately -- and I can't wait to revisit it. This is definitely the kind of comic you could consider "new adult," if that were a thing comics could be. The main character is post-college, but she's not entirely sure yet where her life will take her.

Both Ms. Marvel and Sex Criminals just released their second trade issues. I loved their respective first trades, so I had to pick them up.

Not pictured: Black Widow, Volume 1. You cannot find it anywhere. It's backordered. I hope I get it some day. I'm waiting, still. 



4. Of course, there have been review copies coming to my house, too. Fortunately, it's been in lesser quantities than the purchased books. I think. I can't always tell since books get put places around the house and I have become bad about knowing what is where. It's somewhere. But not always easily accessible.







The covers of these are so great. There's the new Blythe Woolston. The new Sarah Darer Littman. A horror novel -- We'll Never Be Apart -- which has almost the same exact cover as After the Snow. 

Todd Strasser's The Beast of Cretacea was compared to Moby Dick, which is a dangerous catnip for me. I love Moby Dick. I'm tentative and a little hesitant about picking up Sugar because it's about a fat girl. This could either go very well or very poorly. I want it to be great. I worry I might be let down. Reviews haven't told me much either way. I'll be getting to it sooner, probably, rather than later. 



5. I've not been in the mood to write reviews lately. I've been in the mood to read and really think about my reading in a private, personal way. A lot of those thoughts end up coming out in bigger, more developed pieces, outside of reviews. I've found a short review on Goodreads works, along with talking up a great book on Twitter, is about my energy level for reviews. 

But here's a peek at recent reads, with a quick pitch/comparison.





Hold Me Like A Breath by Tiffany Schmidt comes out on the 19th. It's a retelling of "The Princess and the Pea" with organ trafficking. It is as thrilling as it sounds. And there's romance. And also, there's a sequel forthcoming that I can't wait to get my hands on. Satisfying, well-paced, and unique. 



Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham comes out later this month, too. It's about a Muslim American girl who is, without question, as snarky, quick-witted, and smart as Veronica Mars. Very little romance in this one, though it is hovering in the background. Teens who want teen sleuths and who want a story where a Muslim girl's identity plays a role in the story and in her character development will eat this up. I know I did.

Invincible by Amy Reed came out last week. Like all of Reed's books, we have a broken main character and she's broken because she has to be. This isn't at all like TFIOS, which is the unfortunate comp it's gotten from the publisher. It's about a girl who learns she's not on the death sentence with cancer she thought, and coming back into real life after that means she's grieving everything: her entire life is now different. And so, she seeks out comfort with a boy who is not good for her, not even a little. If anything, maybe this is the kind of book you hand to readers who are over TFIOS. It's not sentimental, and it's not at all emotionally manipulative. 







Kissing in America by Margo Rabb hits shelves later this month and if ever you wanted a Trish Doller read alike or a read alike to the also forthcoming, also outstanding A Sense of the Infinite by Hilary T. Smith, here you go. The title is, I think, unfortunate. There's very little kissing in this book at all. It's about friendship, about Eva seeking out some sort of life after the unexpected death of her father in a plane crash. It's one of the most well-done grief books I've read, and it features a road trip and a series of realistic bad decisions at the hands of a 16-year-old girl. The writing is outstanding. I blew through this, as well as the Smith title, in no time. 

I didn't get a picture of A Sense of the Infinite, but it is without question one of my favorite reads this year. When it comes out later this month, pick it up. It's about friendship, about family, about grief, about girls growing up. It's a true coming-of-age story. I talked more in depth about why this book is so phenomenal over at Book Riot in our Best of the Month round-up. 

Also not pictured -- well, it is, at the very top of this post -- is my reading of Jesmyn Ward's outstanding, poignant, painful memoir Men We Reaped. It's Ward's reflection on losing five young black men in her life and where and how their stories and their deaths are connected. Read this. Especially if you care about black lives and stories. It's not easy. It's not pretty. But it's important and powerful and so damn humanizing. 



6. This isn't a writing blog, nor will it turn into one. But I wanted to round this post out by talking briefly about my anthology. 

It's weird. I feel two things about it at once: I feel like I know exactly what I'm doing, in part because I feel like the work in putting together blog series, especially the "About the Girls" one, has taught me that giving other people freedom to explore the things they're passionate about within a theme allows them to be at their best. On the other hand, I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I've not told anyone who else is involved, so it's a big secret. Contributors know what they're writing or creating (I have people creating things for my book -- that feeling is unreal) but I don't know how it'll look in the end. 

In thinking about the things I want to put in myself, I get a little overwhelmed. Then I get excited. But I float back and forth on the knowing/not knowing line. 

The very last class I took in college for my English major was meant to be a capstone experience. The final project was about anthologies. We explored how they were put together. Why they were crafted as they were. What the editors' choices meant in terms of their work and in terms of having an impact on those who read those anthologies. Our project for the course was to create a mock anthology and talk about why we made the choices we made. What those choices said about our biases and our knowledge.

My group made an anthology about censored children's literature. It's still online in bits and pieces, but since some of the copyright choices are questionable (we were young and so was the internet, honestly), I don't link to it. 

I've been thinking a lot about that project, about the choices and conversations that went on, and I have definitely been influenced by that class in working on this project. I spend a lot of time thinking about each contributor I reach out to. About what I ask of them. About where their work will land in the greater conversation. 

And I've been asked really good questions back. Some of them have led me to reconsider visions I had, but not in bad ways. While it's my work in the editing, I cannot wait to see where my invisible work -- those conversations, those decisions -- ends up taking the creators. 

I'm looking forward to when I can begin sharing who is a part of this project. 

It's a treat to work with some of my feminist heroes and heroines. 


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