I know everyone gets into reading slumps on occasion, and I'm no stranger to a slump. But 2024 is giving me an existential crisis. I mean...peep my 2023 stats from The Storygraph (sidenote, if you're still using Goodreads and not Storygraph, what are you even doing with your life?)
And now peep my 2024 stats so far.
Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Avery Hart lives for the thrill and speed of her dirt bike and the pounding thump of her drum kit. But after she's diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disease that affects her joints, Avery splits her time between endless physical therapy and worrying that her fun and independence are over for good.
Sarah Bell is familiar with worry, too. For months, she's been having intense panic attacks. No matter how much she pours her anxiety into making art, she can't seem to get a grip on it, and she's starting to wonder if she'll be this way forever.
Just as both girls are reaching peak fear about what their futures hold, their present takes a terrifying turn when their school is seemingly attacked by gunmen. Though they later learn it was an active shooter drill, the traumatic experience bonds the girls together in a friendship that will change the way they view their perceived weaknesses - and help them find strength, and more, in each other."
📚📚📚
The five-star MGMASFMRS review streak continues! (It's two reviews. Counts as a streak. Don't @ me.) I bought Fight + Flight in January of last year, along with Both Can Be True by the same author, which I chose for a Read Harder Challenge and which was also a five-star review. Guess Jules Machias is a pretty good author! This book in particular hit close to home for me in a multitude of ways. For starters, that active shooter drill. I pretty frequently skip synopses, which yields mixed results at times, and for this one, that drill fucking got me.
I mean...I work at a school. I've seen firsthand the anxiety and fear some kids go through during lockdown drills, I've had conversations with students about how I'll do everything I can to keep them safe if anything bad happens. It's some real shit, and if my school district instituted drills like this, I would be flooding the governing board members' inboxes with emails. Even just reading about it, I was SO. MAD. Like, I had to take a break from reading. I messaged my best friends to rant about it. I was furious for these kids. I know they're made-up characters, so maybe I shouldn't be so upset, but real kids deal with that shit, and I fucking hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Gahhhh just writing about it is making me mad all over again.
Moving on to other things that resonated strongly with me. First, Avery's worry about losing control after being diagnosed with hEDS and dealing with progressing issues. Disclaimer, I have not been diagnosed with EDS and don't plan on seeking a diagnosis, but my cousin has it and, in talking and reading about it with her, I'm fairly sure I have it too. If I do, I'm very fortunate that mine is much more mild than either my cousin's or Avery's, but it still really sucks, and it's incredibly frustrating dealing with seemingly random digestive issues, pretty constant injuries, etc. So, yeah, I felt for Avery and her worries about basically being perma-injured and unable to do the things she loves.
Then there's Sarah, her anxiety, and in particular her parents' insistence that she needed to lean on God to fix it. I mean, if that wasn't ripped straight from my lived experience with my parents...oof. I just wanted to hug her and sneak her to talk to a therapist about how she was feeling. Also, Sarah's brother and his struggles with his anger and clashes with their parents...my sweet, darling children, you deserve parents who give you what you need and don't just pressure you to fall in line and believe a certain way in order to feel the way you're "supposed" to feel.
Deep breaths.
Look...in fairness to Sarah's parents, I feel like toward the end of the book they got slightly more nuanced, but even so, they were my least favorite characters, and I think they kind of suck as people. Their presence and attitudes lent some additional realism to the book, I suppose, since there are people like that, who suck just as much as Sarah's parents, and who need a serious reality check. Avery's moms were infinitely better characters and people, though. Much prefer them, just like I much prefer people like them in real life.
Anyhow, this review is getting pretty off the rails. As you can probably tell, this book made me feel a lot of emotions. Some of them were bad, but many of them were good, and I really loved how the characters grew as the book carried on. Not just Avery and Sarah, but Mason, Avery's best friend, and Sarah's brother. Honestly, it was not a main storyline, and I haven't gotten into it because I really don't want to get too deep into story details and spoil anything, but Mason's arc was probably one of my favorite parts of the story, and he and Avery's moms were my three favorite characters. Only semi-story related, I also enjoyed how Sarah's art was incorporated into the book. I thought it was very unique and really helped to develop her character.
So...yeah. This book is very good, and you should read it. Go ahead and do that.
Did I make that same joke last year? Probably. Definitely. Maybe.
Anyway, I have not had a strong reading start this year. I don't really know why, but I've just been really slumpy and reading so little and so slowly. Add to this that my book order and library holds are not lining up with my reading timeline plans and I'm really inching along on these challenge prompts. I've been getting my challenge orders toward the end of the month I chose them for, and I don't even want to talk about how long the wait is on my hold for Parable of the Sower. Slow progress is still progress, though, so inch along I shall.
Continuing with the theme of book orders not lining up with my reading timeline, though...I just preordered my choice for challenge #7, read an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author, which isn't released until a few days into April. It's called A Fate Worse Than Death, by Nisha Patel, and while I might have to wait a bit to get it, I'm really looking forward to reading it.
Now, a question. For challenge #9, read a book recommended by a librarian...can I recommend a book to myself?🤣Is this a loophole? I asked Joel, and he said yes, so I can go with that and pick something for myself to read, or I could go with a book I'm already reading, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, which was recommended to me by my friend Anna, who is a former coworker, wonderful human, and fabulous librarian. I think I'm going to do that. Tiny Humans, Big Emotions it is!
Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Maggie Stephen's stutter makes school especially hard. She will do almost anything to avoid speaking in class or calling attention to herself. So when her unsympathetic father threatens to send her away for so-called "treatment," she reluctantly agrees to her mother's intervention plan: a few weeks in the fresh air of Wildoak Forest, visiting a grandfather she hardly knows. It is there, in an extraordinary twist of fate, that she encounters an abandoned snow leopard cub, an exotic gift to a wealthy Londoner that proved too wild to domesticate. But once the cub's presence is discovered by others, danger follows, and Maggie soon realizes that time is running out, not only for the leopard, but for herself and the forest as well. Told in alternating voices, Wildoak shimmers with beauty, compassion, and unforgettable storytelling as it explores the delicate interconnectedness of the human, animal, and natural worlds."
📚📚📚
I just had to go so far back to find what I was calling all my middle grade book reviews, because I hadn't actually included it in a middle grade post since mid-November. That's what I get for picking such a mouthful, which I fully did on purpose...but it's really coming back to bite me. Anyway, I've been making an effort to work my way through the huge stack of books I've accumulated and actually get them read and added to my school library, and I feel like I'm making solid progress with Operation Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree, or MGMASFMRS for short. Magmas of Mars? No, Magma-Safe Mars. Or Mug Ma's Foamers.
We're getting off topic here. Come on, y'all, focus, please.
A lot of the middle grade books I have in my TBR pile came from random book subscriptions, but this is one I specifically bought with the plan to read and then add to my school library. It ticks multiple boxes - engaging historical fiction, excellent disability representation, addresses issues relevant to my students, AND one of the alternating perspectives is the abandoned snow leopard cub. My kids are huge animal lovers, so I think they'll adore being able to read a story like this, with alternating human and animal points of view. I know I did.
Overall, this story is a pretty simple one - it centers around one main conflict and takes place over the course of just a couple weeks, so there's not a lot to it. The way it's told is so good though, and I loved the way the characters developed, even Maggie's parents, who were really only in the book for the very beginning and the very end. We got to read a lot about Maggie, who is brave, resourceful, and intelligent, and see in interactions with him that her grandpa was gentle, kind, and firm in his convictions, but with what little we saw of her parents initially I was worried they, especially her father, would fall flatter. Happy to report that was not the case.
I do think some of the other people who lived in Cornwall with her grandpa were kind of caricature-y, but I also think it would have been hard to create a whole village of well-rounded, realistic people within the confines of this story, so it's understandable that people who barely featured weren't as fully developed. Also, frankly, I live in an area with people who, if I were reading about them in a book like this, I would absolutely think were flat, caricature-y characters...some people are just ignorant assholes, I suppose, and perhaps that's the case here.
As noted, this story takes place over a fairly short span of time and focuses primarily on one conflict. I wondered if the simplicity would hurt the story, but I don't think it did. I found the pace to be pretty solid and engaging, and I thought the swaps between Maggie's and Rumpus's perspectives were perfectly timed. Also, many of the POV swaps during more tense moments included very short chapters, which really ramped up the intensity and sense of anxiety around what was happening. So well done. Those moments in particular made it hard to put the book down, and while it clocks in at a pretty robust 336 pages, I found it to be a very quick read. I'm looking forward to adding it to my library and recommending it to students!
If you've followed this blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I am not much of a non-fiction reader. Middle grade? Sure thing. YA? Absolutely. Non-fiction, though? Every once in a while. So will someone please explain to me how I ended up reading nothing but non-fiction? Because with the exception of the book I'm reading out loud to Joel (and the book club book that I just finished), that's what I've got going on.
I mean, I know how it happened. It's me. I'm the problem. I did it to myself. But it does mean progress is slooooooooooooooow. I'm still working on Not a Nation of Immigrants and, as you might be able to tell, am very behind on my Read Harder challenges. I'm also reading Tiny Humans, Big Emotions: How to Navigate Tantrums, Meltdowns, and Defiance to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Children, which is an excessively long title and also a book that I really have to read slowly to let everything sink in. And finally, a friend recommended and lent to me The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History, which is very fascinating but another slow read.
So, anyway...all this to say that I haven't actually FINISHED very many books recently, and here's hoping now that spring break is here I can make some reading progress and perhaps get some new fiction cooking.
Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.
But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more—until an anonymous gossip columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible."
I should start a series where I review books that are not YA but get classified that way because they're fantasy novels written by women with female main characters. Owlcrate, take note! Do your due diligence and put actual YA books in your YA subscription boxes instead of adult fantasy masquerading as YA.
Anyway, having gotten that off my chest...this book was fine. Strong "inspired by Bridgerton" vibes, but maybe having a mysterious, anonymous gossip who publishes scandalous things and seems to know everything that happens is a common conceit in regency era novels and I just haven't read enough to know that. That being said, the anonymous gossip columnist in this book honestly features more heavily in the synopsis than in the actual book. "Buzzing about their chemistry," no. "Publishes one vague rumor that was basically a non-issue and in no way connected Niamh to Kit," yes.
This was a common theme in the book and probably the main reason I rated it as low as I did - there were a lot of threads (ha, because she's a seamstress) that were picked up and dropped in a very random way, almost like there were too many moving pieces and Allison Saft kept forgetting about things and then realizing fifty pages later that they hadn't come up in a while and shoving them in again. Which is weird, because frankly...there weren't a lot of moving pieces. And at the end of the day, the central drama to the story didn't really feel all that dramatic. It was very manufactured.
Manufactured drama aside, the book was fine. I didn't love Niamh, and Kit was eh. But some of the side characters were very intriguing (Kit's best friend, the princess and her...advisor? Lady's maid? And Kit's sister-in-law, loved them). If they had featured more heavily, I might have bumped this up a star. It was just too much of Niamh in her own head and very mercurial interactions between her and Kit, that was fine at first, but a whole book of it, yeesh, give me some variety.
Well...it's late, and I've been sick all weekend. So that's about all I've got to say about this book. As mentioned, I got this in an Owlcrate box, and it has a very gorgeous cover and sprayed edges. If you go into it not expecting a masterpiece, it's an enjoyable dessert read.
Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Meet Resilience, a Mars rover determined to live up to his name.
Res was built to explore Mars. He was not built to have human emotions. But as he learns new things from the NASA scientists who assemble him, he begins to develop human-like feelings. Maybe there's a problem with his programming...
Human emotions or not, launch day comes, and Res blasts off to Mars, accompanied by a friendly drone helicopter named Fly. But Res quickly discovers that Mars is a dangerous place filled with dust storms and giant cliffs. As he navigates Mars's difficult landscape, Res is tested in ways that go beyond space exploration.
As millions of people back on Earth follow his progress, will Res have the determination, courage - and resilience - to succeed...and survive?"
🚀🚀🚀
If you had asked me if I thought a book about a Mars rover would make me cry, I would probably have scoffed, but cry at this book I did! It's a fairly quick read, mainly chapters from Resilience's point of view, but interspersed with letters written to Resilience from the daughter of one of the scientists working on Res's programming. And it is just so, so good. Seeing Resilience learn and gradually start to make their own choices, Fly's enthusiasm and determination...it was so sweet and inspiring. And the daughter's letters were so heartwarming and sometimes so sad. Gah. Never in a million years would I have predicted this book making me feel so many things.
