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?

Where We Come From

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by Oscar Cásares
First sentence: “No kicking the ball against the side of the house.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

Nina is an older woman who has grown up in Brownsville, TX, which is right along the US-Mexican border. Having never married, she’s spent her whole life in service of her family, ending up being the one to take care of her mother while her brothers all married and moved away (and they all treat her like absolute crap). She is a kind woman, and so when her housekeeper asks for a favor in helping get family across the border illegally, Nina says yes. It almost turned into something awful, but the traffickers were caught. Except one boy, Daniel, got away in the raid, and made his way back to Nina’s and she’s been trying to help him find his father in Chicago.

All this is complicated by the visit of Orly, her godson. She doesn’t want word to get back to her brothers or Orly’s father (Nina’s nephew). She doesn’t want her mother to know. So, Orly is given a strict set of rules to follow. Of course, he is made curious about the pink house behind the main house, and discovers Daniel’s presence, which just complicates things.

If this were a middle grade or YA novel, there would be adventure or intrigue and Orly and Daniel’s relationship would be at the center of the book. And to be honest, I almost wish it was. As it was, I didn’t dislike it, but I did feel like there was too much adult book getting in the way. I felt bad for Nina, but I wanted her to grow a backbone. I wanted *something* to happen, but mostly it was a lot of everyday stuff. Which wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t really engaging either.

It’s not a bad book, I’m just not sure it was quite what I wanted out of it.

Audio book: Three Sides of a Heart

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Stories about Love Triangles
Edited by Natalie C. Parker
Read by Almarie Guerra, Bahni Turpin, James Fouhey, and Lulu Lam
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are some stories with f-bombs, and some talk of sex and drinking. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

The idea behind this short story collection was “love triangles”, but as Natalie Parker mentions in her introduction, that was interpreted in many different ways. Many of the stories were standard two boys one girl or two girls one boy, but I think I liked the unusual ones best. I only skipped two: “Work in Progress” by E. K. Johnston and “The Historian, the Garrison, and the Cantankerous Cat Woman” by Lamar Giles. I don’t know if it was the story or the audio narration, but I found myself tuning out and so I just skipped them. As for the rest, my favorites were Parker’s story “Cass, An, and Dra” which not only played with Cassandra as as seer, but had a lesbian couple and a gender fluid person as the love triangle. I also really enjoyed Brandy Colbert’s “Hurdles” because the character is making a difficult choice between two good things and Colbert ends the story with the choice unmade. I also thought Brenna Yovanoff’s story, “Vega” was clever: it was between a girl, a boy, and the city of Las Vegas, which is an interesting look at a love triangle.

The collection was uneven, but to be honest, that’s the way I often feel about short story collections. I thought the idea behind the collection was an interesting one — definitely good for summer! — and I enjoyed where some of the authors went with it.

Evvie Drake Starts Over

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by Linda Holmes
First sentence: “Go now, or you’ll never go, Evvie warned herself.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: June 25, 2019
Content: There is some talk of sex, and a handful of f-bombs. It will be in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

Evvvie (as in Chevy) Drake was unhappy in her marriage. She’d been with her high school sweetheart for nearly half her life, and it had gotten to the point where she couldn’t take his emotional abuse anymore. Except on the day that she decided to leave, he was killed in a car accident. No one ever knew about her decision.

Fast forward two years, and she hasn’t been able to get out from under her dead husband’s shadow. He was a beloved doctor in town, and since no one ever knew about the abuse, his memory is perfect. Which leaves Evvie wondering what that made her for wanting to get away. Enter Dean, a friend of Evvie’s best friend, Andy, who’s suffering from the “yips”: once a major league pitcher, he can’t throw a game anymore. He moves into the apartment in Evvie’s huge house, and the two of them set about figuring out each other. And maybe — just maybe — healing in the process.

Oh this was a delight. Seriously. Even if you don’t listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour (why don’t you?), there is reason to pick this up. It’s sweet and charming, with just enough depth to keep it grounded and from being too saccharine. I adored all the characters, from Evvie’s and Andy’s relationship (they’re really Just Friends, yay!) to the way Evvie and Dean developed. And the fact that Evvie got some female friends along the way, too. It was so incredibly satisfying watching Evvie blossom through the course of the book. And the love story was charming and sweet and oh-so-satisfying as well. I’ve always thought that Holmes knows her stuff when it comes to romance, and this just proves that she knows how to write is as well as she knows how to write about it.

An absolutely perfect summer book.

Love from A to Z

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by S. K. Ali
First sentence: “On the morning of Saturday, March 14, fourteen-year-old Adam Chen went to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some mild swearing, including a couple of f-bombs. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Zayneb is a senior in high school in Indiana, and she’s dealing with an Islamophobic teacher. He’s constantly bringing up ways in which Muslims are backward and how the religion is repressive, even though he’s white and doesn’t know nearly as much as Zayneb, who is actually a practicing, hijab-wearing, Muslim. Which makes her a target. So, one day, right before spring break, she’s had enough: and starts passing notes with a friend about the teacher and needing to take him down. He intercepts the note and reports her to the principal, and gets her suspended.

Which leads her to spending time with her aunt, who is a teacher at an international school in Doha. And that’s where Adam comes in. His father is the director of that school, and Adam’s home from spring break at college in London. Except he’s dropped out: he just got a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, which his mother had and died from complications connected to, and he’s determined to make as much art as he can, while he still can. He’s also Muslim: his father, who is a Chinese-Canadian, converted to Islam after the death of his wife, and Adam and his younger sister Hanna soon followed.

Adam and Zayneb have an instant connection, and while this book is dealing with heavier stuff like racism, people’s perceptions of Islam, and dealing with a diagnosis of MS, it is, at its heart, a rom-com. There’s a meet-cute in the airport, there are several meetings, a setback or two, and eventually, they fall in love and are super happy together. It’s a good Muslim story: they don’t actually hold hands or stay out all night, or even have sex in the back of a car. They enjoy talking and connecting and do everything properly and by the book. And the physical stuff doesn’t happen until the Epilogue, after Zayneb graduates from college and they get married. It’s really quite sweet.

I loved seeing a really religious rom-com, because there isn’t many of those out there. And because I’m an outsider to Islam, I appreciated the glimpse into that religion. There’s this one scene where Zayneb is face-timing with a friend, who has another friend (who is a white girl) with her. Zayneb says something to the effect how white feminists want to free Muslim women from wearing the hijab, because it will free them from oppression, and that’s not what it means. I have to admit that I was one of those white feminists for a very long time, but I’m coming to realize that it’s just an expression of their religion, and just because it’s different from me, doesn’t mean it’s oppressive or wrong. I appreciated that reminder.

In short: it was a unique YA romance, and I really enjoyed reading it.

#NotYourPrincess

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edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s tough content, talking about abuse and rape. It’s in the Teen Issues (Non-Fiction) section of the bookstore.

This is not the sort of thing I usually pick up: a book of art and poetry and essays. But, my biggest take-away from the Multicultural Literature class I just finished was that 1) there isn’t a whole lot of Native literature out there and 2) I don’t read any of it. So, I decided that I need to try and fix that. At least to some extent. I remembered that this one had recently come out (I had ordered it in for the store), but didn’t know anything about it. So I checked it out.

It’s a compilation from Native women artists, all from different nations, who are expressing themselves. From connections to their past and future, and what their heritage means to to them; to the challenges of being a Native woman today. It covers all of North America, so there are voices from Canadian indigenous women as well as those here in the U. S. It’s sometimes harsh reading, especially for an outsider looking in, but it’s ultimately uplifting and empowering. I’m incredibly glad a collection like this exists, and I’m glad I was compelled into picking it up.

State of the TBR Pile: June 2016

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Class is over (it was fascinating) and I can go back to reading what I want. The problem? I’m kind of at odds trying to figure out what I want to read. This is currently what’s sitting on the nightstand. Not sure if I’ll read these though.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
Maggie the Mechanic by Jamie Hernandez

What are you looking forward to reading?

5 Worlds: The Red Maze

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by Mark Siegel, Alexis Siegel, Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeler, and Boya Sun
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Others in the series: The Sand Warrior, The Cobalt Prince
Content: There is some fantasy violence. It’s in the middle grade graphic novel section at the bookstore.

Oona failed to light the blue beacon, mostly because there’s an order they need to be lit, and red comes before blue. So, it’s off to Moon Yatta, where the red beacon has been harness to power the world. It’s the most technologically advanced of the five worlds, but harnessing the power of the beacon is also draining the world faster. Ooona, Jax, and An Tzu need to find their way through the maze of pipes and machines surrounding the beacon in order to light it, but the Nanotex corporation — who basically run Moon Yatta — is against them.

There’s a nice subplot, too, about the shapeshifters who have been collared so they can’t shapeshift or else they’re banished to the desert to live in isolation and Jax’s role as a starball superstar comes into play as well. The authors are dealing with a lot here: capitalism, and the hero worship of celebrities, as well as the prevalence of misinformation through the media. But, mostly, it’s still an engrossing story that kept me entertained and captivated as Oona and her friends figured out the next step in their overall goal to light the five beacons and save the universe.

It’s a smart, fun series, one that readers of Amulet and Zita are sure to love.


Hearts Unbroken

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by Cynthia Leitich Smith
First sentence: “Half past nine a.m. in the residual haze of my junior prom, I ducked into a powder room off the kitchen at the swanky lake house where the after-party took place.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are multiple f-bombs and a tasteful sex scene. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Louise is a senior at a small(ish)-town Kansas high school, and has decided this year to be on the newspaper. She mostly wants to try out something new, but it’s also because her last boyfriend, Cam, turned out to be racist towards Native Peoples. And since Louise is a member of the Muscogee Nation, that really sat wrong. She’s decided that she’s going to make a stand against all the little micro-aggressions toward Native Peoples that she sees.

It doesn’t help that her family is being targeted by racists: her younger brother Hughie has been cast as the Tin Man in a color-blind casting of The Wizard of Oz (a black girl was cast as Dorothy) and the white people in town — especially the wife of the pastor of the big evangelical church — are Up In Arms. They think this is Ruining Their Values. And so, Louise, and her potential-love-interest Joey, tackle the story through the high school paper.

I wanted to like this one more than I actually did. On the one hand, I appreciated all the ways that Leitich Smith pointed out that we, as a culture, have adopted stereotypes of Native Peoples, and how that’s affecting them, whether directly or indirectly. But, I feel like there wasn’t much of a story there. Sure, there was a plot: Louise is dealing with her own issues, working on a relationship with Joey, and trying to balance friendships and family and school. But, I never really connected with it. I just felt like is was “here’s a situation, let me explain why this is racist”. Maybe that’s my problem: I felt like white people were the audience for this book, and while it’s an Own Voices title, I’m not sure how much a Native teen would relate to this book. I felt like Leitich Smith was Explaining Things to me, when I just really wanted a story about a Muscogee girl in Kansas who is dealing with high school and issues.

But maybe it’s just me.

Queen of the Sea

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by Dylan Meconis
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: June 25, 2019
Content: It’s a historical graphic novel, so it’s a bit long. It will be in the graphic novel section of the bookstore, though I’m sure a younger reader, interested in English history, would be interested in this one.

On the one hand, I finished this. And didn’t dislike it. I liked the art, I liked the humor, and I liked that the main character wasn’t the queen or a courtier, but rather an orphan girl, Margaret, stranded on an island with a bunch of nuns. It was an interesting story — of the exile of Queen Eleanor of Albion (read: England) after her sister takes over the crown. Eleanor befriends Margaret, or rather, Margaret befriends Eleanor, and they figure out a way to escape and take back Eleanor’s crown. Kind of. It’s mostly about Margaret’s relationships she has with both the island and those on it.

On the other hand, who is the audience for this? Really? A graphic novel loosely based on the childhood of Queen Elizabeth I, no matter how excellently done, is really really niche.

Hopefully, it will find its audience — whoever they are — and there will be people to enjoy this well-done, but really rather odd book.

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: May 2019

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School is out, and the girls have enjoyed a whole week of being lazy. But, they’re still reading this year (instead of falling headfirst into YouTube). So, yay!

A decided to re-read Harry Potter after K did, and is up to this one:

She’s enjoying it. But then, it’s Harry Potter.

K is on a re-reading kick, working her way through Rick Riordan’s books. She just finished this one:

I think she’s waiting for inspiration to strike to start something new.

What are your kids reading this summer?