Group Read #3: What should we read?

[Tessa, Founder + Curator]

Hi guys!

We're a couple weeks into August now, so we can start thinking about our September read. What would you guys be interested in reading and discussing together?

We could continue Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis series (don't forget to join our discussion on Dawn, by the way!) or choose something else entirely. We have some good suggestions already in our Book Suggestions folder, so we could start there. Let us know if any of those sound like a good pick!

Leave your suggestions below and I'll create a poll for us to vote on!

Happy reading!
Tessa

[Deborah]

I'll definitely be reading all of the Xenogenesis series, so I'm happy to read the next book (Adulthood Rites) in September.

I've also just started reading Elizabeth Costello by JM Coetzee (I mentioned it already in the Book Suggestions folder) and I already know that I'm going to love it, so either way I'll be reading that one too! :)

[Tessa, Founder + Curator]

Just created a poll for our September read!

We have three options to choose from:

- Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler
- Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
- Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

I'll include a synopsis for each book in the following comments.

The poll ends at the end of the month, so get your votes in! Looking forward to discussing whatever is chosen with you all!

[Tessa, Founder + Curator]

Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis #2):

(note: potential spoilers in synopsis if you have not read Dawn)

In this sequel to Dawn, Lilith Iyapo has given birth to what looks like a normal human boy named Akin. But Akin actually has five parents: a male and female human, a male and female Oankali, and a sexless Ooloi. The Oankali and Ooloi are part of an alien race that rescued humanity from a devastating nuclear war, but the price they exact is a high one the aliens are compelled to genetically merge their species with other races, drastically altering both in the process.

On a rehabilitated Earth, this "new" race is emerging through human/Oankali/Ooloi mating, but there are also "pure" humans who choose to resist the aliens and the salvation they offer.These resisters are sterilized by the Ooloi so that they cannot reproduce the genetic defect that drives humanity to destroy itself, but otherwise they are left alone (unless they become violent).

When the resisters kidnap young Akin, the Oankali choose to leave the child with his captors, for he the most "human" of the Oankali children will decide whether the resisters should be given back their fertility and freedom, even though they will only destroy themselves again.

[Tessa, Founder + Curator]

Like a Love Story:

It's 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He's terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he's gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media's images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy's best friend, their school's only out and proud teen. He'll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won't break Judy's heart--and destroy the most meaningful friendship he's ever known.

[Tessa, Founder + Curator]

Elizabeth Costello:

In this novel, Elizabeth Costello, a celebrated aging Australian writer, travels around the world and gives lectures on topics including the lives of animals and literary censorship. In her youth, Costello wrote The House on Eccles Street, a novel that re-tells James Joyce's Ulysses from the perspective of the protagonist's wife, Molly Bloom. Costello, becoming weary from old age, confronts her fame, which seems further and further removed from who she has become, and struggles with issues of belief, vegetarianism, sexuality, language and evil.