Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

Sweep

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sweepby Jonathan Auxier
First sentence: “There were all sorts of wonderful things a person might see very early in the morning.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some scary moments, and some talk of death. Plus the prose just feels “older”. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but it could easily go older as well.

Nan Sparrow has been a chimney sweep her whole life. She started out with a man she called Sweep, until one day he just didn’t come back, and so she took up with her current master, Crudd. He, if you can’t tell from his name, isn’t terribly nice.

Then one day, the worst thing that can happen to a sweep happens to Nan: she gets stuck. They try to get her out, but nothing works, and so they try the Final Option: burning her out. She blacks out, and when she wakes up… she’s rescued. And there’s a creature there. She ends up calling him Charlie — he was made from a small piece of char that the Sweep left her — and it turns out he’s a golem.

It has a tough beginning, but after Charlie comes into the story, it settles down into small adventures: Nan tries to keep from getting caught — she is supposed to be dead, after all — and tires to find out more about Charlie and his purpose as Charlie himself learns more about the world. It’s very atmospheric (in all the best ways), as Nan and Charlie end up relying on each other. There is a couple of small sub-plots, dealing with the horrid conditions of chimney sweeps in Victorian England (and they are horrid) and with Crudd’s vengeance for Nan “escaping” her indenture. But, mostly it’s a charming little tale of Nan and Charlie and their friendship.

Auxier, when he was here for school visits, said that he considers himself more of a storyteller than a writer, and that shows: although his writing is elegant, it’s the storytelling that comes through. He knows how to tell a story to keep a reader reading, and to make the characters come to life. It’s a strange, sweet story and I adored every moment of this one (even the ending, which made me cry).

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Amulet: Supernova

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supernovaby Kazu Kibuishi
First sentence: “Mind if I join you, Traveler?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council, Prince of the Elves, Escape from Lucien, Firelight

First: I would highly suggest you read (or re-read) the other seven books in the series before tackling this one. It’s been more than two years since the last book came out, and if you’re anything like me, you won’t remember what’s going on. Also: it’s a fantastic experience reading one right after the other, seeing how Kibuishi has fit everything together and foreshadowed events throughout the series.

That said, there really isn’t much to say.  The resistance is fighting an Incredible Battle Against Impossible Odds. Emily is fighting for control with the Voice of the Amulet. Everything seems dire. And, no, it doesn’t quite end here. There’s one more (it does say “to be concluded in book nine” at the end). But, Kibuishi’s art is still amazing, and the story telling still spot-on. And the characters still worth adventuring with.

I will be incredibly sad to see this come to an end after so many years, but I’m sure it will be completely worth it.

Audio book: Give Me Some Truth

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by Eric Gansworth
Read by the author and Brittany LeBorgne
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content:  There is a lot of swearing, including some f-bombs, a very very awkward almost sex scene, plus some underage drinking. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore. 

Set in 1980, this follows two members of the Tuscarora Nation in Northern New York: Carson, whose sole goal is to win the Battle of the Bands and a trip to New York City, and Maggi, whose family has just moved back to the reservation and is trying to figure out where she fits in. There are other things going on: there’s a diner off the reservation called Custer’s Last Stand that is (literally) The Worst, and Carson (and his brother) are mixed up in it. There’s an incident with making turkey in home ec class. There’s Maggi’s (and Carson’s friend Lewis’s) job at the garage. There’s selling traditional beadwork outside of Niagra Falls set against Maggi’s desire to be an artist, rather than just a traditional beadworker.  

Two things: 1) white people are HORRIBLE. And 2) I almost gave this up because of the pedophile. Maggi’s involved with a 31-year-old white guy (she’s 15!) and he was giving her presents and telling her he loved her, and pressuring her to have sex with him, and yet wanted to keep her secret from everyone (“if we don’t tell, it’s not illegal”). I was (literally) screaming at the car radio because of this. But, after talking to A and C about it, I came to realize that the pedophile was part of the larger theme which was my first point. White people (even though this was set in 1980, I’m not sure much has changed) are. the. worst. 

In the end, this was a really good exploration of the way native peoples are treated, and what life on the reservation was like. And, while I thought that Brittany was a much better reader than Eric, I still enjoyed listening to the book. Oh. And finish it. It all does come out right in the end. 

The Collector’s Apprentice

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by B. A. Shapiro
First sentence: “This isn’t how it was supposed to be, Edwin.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are a couple of f-bombs, and a couple of tasteful sex scenes. It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

It’s 1922 and Pauliene Mertens is in Paris, abandoned by her ex-fiance (he took the money and ran, ruining her family’s fortune and name) and disowned by her family. So she changes her name to Vivienne Gregsby and reinvents herself, as a secretary to an American, Edwin Bradley, who is in Paris looking to collect art and start a museum. Knowledgeable about Impressionism and post-Impressionism, Bradley soon discovers that Vivienne is indispensable, and brings her to America to help him set up his (private) museum. From there, it’s a lot of drawing-room drama: alleged and actual affairs, money issues, ex-fiance popping up with another scheme, Matisse and Gertrude Stein, and the whole undercurrent of whether or not anyone will figure out who Vivienne really is.

It’s a little bit of a mystery — who killed Edwin? It’s a little bit 1920s art history. It’s a little bit romance (Vivienne takes up with Matisse, not to mention her relationship with George that starts the whole book off). It’s a little bit of a lot of things, which maybe is what kept me from loving it. I enjoyed the art history part the best; the way Shapiro writes Matisse is fabulous; he (and Gertrude Stein) was my favorite character. Vivienne was kind of a bland character to spend most of the book with, and it made the ending kind of surprising. (In fact, the only thing I wanted out of the book was George to get his comeuppance. Seriously.)

It’s (really) loosely based on history, and I found myself wondering what was true (answer: not much, really) and what wasn’t. And while I enjoyed it well enough, it wasn’t my favorite novel this year by a long shot.

Sanity & Tallulah

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by Molly Brooks
First sentence: “Wow you’re so wrong right now that I don’t understand how we’re even friends.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: October 23, 2018
Content:  There’s a couple of scary moments. It will be in the  Middle Grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Sanity and Tallulah are best friends living in a space station at the edge of space. They go to school — where Tallulah excels at science and Sanity is basically comic relief — they hang out — a lot, since Tallulah’s dad is the station director and her mom is off doing border patrol — and sometimes get into trouble. But nothing major. That is until Tallulah’s illegal science experiment — a three-headed cat named Princess Sparkle Destroyer of Worlds — gets out and starts wreaking havoc on the station.

Or so they think. As Sanity & Talullah investigate further, in search of their pet, they discover that there may be something more wrong than just an escaped cat.

A super-fun adventure/mystery in which girls take the lead, this one is great for fans of Zita the Spacegirl and Amulet. It’s got an action-packed and science-filled (well, futuristic science-filled) storyline, and it’s funny as well! Brooks is definitely a graphic novelist I’d like to see more work from.

State of the TBR Pile: October 2018

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Cybils nominations close tomorrow! And you know I need more books to read, right?

Here’s what’s on my pile now:

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The Good Demon by Jimmy Cajoles
A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos
Furyborn, by Claire Legend
5 Worlds: The Cobalt Prince by Marc Siegel, etc.
Archenemies by Marissa Meyer
What if It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
Onyx & Ivory by Mindee Arnett
A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma

What’s on your TBR pile this month?

 

The

Allegedly

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by Tiffany D. Jackson
First sentence: “Some children are just born bad, plain and simple.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a lot going on here: drug use, (tasteful) sex, lots and lots of swearing, not to mention more mature themes. It’s in the teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Mary Beth Addison was convicted at 9 years old for the murder of a baby, Alyssa. She never said a word in her interviews with detectives, and was convicted in the court of public opinion: some children, Mary being one of them, was just Bad. It didn’t help that the baby was white, and Mary is black.

Six years later, she’s out from “baby jail” (her words) on good behavior, and in a group house with five other teenage girls, convicted of crimes, some more major than others. She was just trying to survive until she met Ted and got pregnant. When she realizes that the state could take her baby away from her, she decides to take action: she wants to go to college, so she attempts to take the SATs. But, mostly, she finds her voice and decides to tell people what really happened the night Alyssa died.

This books was… a lot. Seriously. A LOT. So much to take in: a critique on parenting and poverty and the justice system and white privilege and teenage pregnancy and and and… It’s SO well written and so compelling, that even in its worst moments, when I, as a white woman, had to look at it and realize just how far from my lived experience this book was, and realize that there are people — KIDS — out there LIVING this experience, I could NOT put it down. It has a good mystery element to it as well — what really happened the night Alyssa was killed, and how can we really believe anyone’s testimony — but, as social critique, it’s superb. And it’s a great story as well. Jackson had me totally won over to Mary’s side, and yet left questions and doubts and open ends all the way to the very end.

Incredible.

West

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by Edith Pattou
First sentence: “I had placed the box, the one etched with the runes that contained the story of Rose and her white bear, in a quiet corner of my library.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: East
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: October 23, 2018
Content: There are some intense moments, and the main character is married with a baby, so it may not interest younger readers much. It will be in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

When I finished this — and don’t get me wrong: I loved it — I thought, “Well, that’s the best unnecessary sequel I’ve ever read.”  See: East (which I also loved) ended satisfyingly. Rose and the White Bear (spoilers, if you haven’t read it or don’t know the fairy tale) got their happily ever after. There was, really, no need for there to ever be a sequel.

And yet, here we are.

It’s two years after the end of East, and Rose and Charles are happy. They have an adopted daughter, Estelle, and a baby, temporarily named Winn. They have a good life in Fransk. Then they decide to go visit Rose’s parents, traveling separately, and Charles never makes it. Word comes that he died in a huge storm. But Rose determines that, no, he’s still alive, and her old arch-enemies, the Trolls, are behind it. So she takes off — leaving Estelle and Winn in the care of her family — to rescue her White Bear. Again.

It really was an enjoyable read, but I just couldn’t shake the whole unnecessary side of it. Why did Rose need to go again? I understand wanting to revisit this world that Pattou created, but I really didn’t need a rehashing of Rose’s story. It it, instead, had followed Neddy (which it did, for a bit, and I really liked those parts) or Estelle (and made it a really young adult book, rather than this weird feels-like-a-young-adult-but-the-main-character-is-an-adult book) I might have liked it more. Pattou couldn’t have even come up with a new antagonist; she had to resurrect the Troll Queen again. So, yeah, while Pattou’s writing is lovely, and the story is nice enough, it’s really all… unnecessary.

Though I suppose there will be fans who are grateful for it.

Hey Kiddo

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by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
First sentence: “C’mon, get behind the wheel.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content:  This is not a light graphic novel. There’s swearing, talk of drug use and abuse, and bullying. It’s in the graphic novel section of the bookstore, but it might appeal to younger teens as well.

I was told by my publisher rep that this one was incredibly powerful. I trust her judgement and opinion, but I didn’t fully appreciate what she meant.

In this graphic novel that was initially inspired by his TED Talk , illustrator and author Krosoczka puts down into pictures — grays and browns with a splash of orange — what his childhood was like. He was the grandson of  Polish immigrants — Joe and Shirley, the hardworking types who mostly showed tough love more than actual love. He was born to their second daughter (they had five children in all), and went to live with them  when he wa about three because his mother couldn’t take care of them. He writes about how this effected his life: the not knowing nothing about his father — not even his name — or much about his mother, where she was, or whether or not she’d show up. He talks about addiction and how it played a role in his life — not as a user, but as someone who loved a user. But, for me, it wasn’t just about his mother, it was about his grandparents as well. How they struggled to raise him (and their other children; Jarrett’s mom wasn’t the only teenage pregnancy in their family) and how they tried to make it day-to-day. Krosoczka doesn’t hold anything back, and I appreciated that. The through line was his art. And one of the things his grandparents did right was support his passion and talent for drawing. Even though they weren’t always the kindest to him, and even though it was weird being raised by his grandparents (it was the 1980s/1990s after all), it came through how much they loved him.

It also was nice that he didn’t pass judgement on his mom in the book. He could have railed on her for abandoning him, for never being there, for not being able to conquer her addiction to heroin. But he didn’t. He was honest about his feelings towards her — the times in his life that he craved her attention as well as the times when he was angry with her — but he didn’t pass judgement on her. I found that refreshing. It’s good to have stories of kids who are living with their grandparents because their parents can’t handle it. It’s good to have stories of forgiveness (because he does, eventually forgive his family for not being perfect). And it’s good to have stories about kids of drug addicts where the kids turn out okay.

It’s definitely worth reading.

 

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: October 2018

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It’s Halloween month, and… none of us are really reading Halloween-y books. That’s okay.

K has picked up this (in between Tiffany Aching books):

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She’s enjoying it. She’s seen the movies a bunch, and so she can’t help but compare to the book to the movies… and she likes both. She has criticisms (like it took too long for Aragorn to show up and for them to get to Rivendell, and Tolkien is a bit sexist for not including women in his stories), but she’s enjoying it.

A is reading this for school:

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She’s supposed to read something for a biology class project, and because she has an interest in forensic science, I thought she might enjoy this. I was right: she’s loving it. She’s not loving the project that goes with it, but that’s another story.

What are you reading and enjoying this month?