The Rule Book

Leave a comment

by Sarah Adams
First sentence: “Sometimes life is like a box of chocolates, and sometimes life is like a box of chocolates left out in the sun all day.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: April 2, 2024
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, some on-screen sex, and instances of harassment in the workplace.

Nora Mackenzie loves sports and knows she can be a fantastic sports agent. The thing that’s been holding her back though, is that sports – and sports agencies – are Old Boys Clubs and it’s been hard for her to catch a break. She has found Nicole who has given her a break, and been impressed with her. So much, so that she’s given Nora a plum assignment: being the agent for star football player Derek Pender, who’s recovering from an ankle injury. The problem? Derek is her college boyfriend, who she broke up with quite heartlessly, eight years ago.

Thus starts a contentious relationship – especially since they’re trying to be professional even though they have feelings for each other – until they drunkenly get hitched in Vegas one weekend. Then, it morphs into a fake marriage to save their careers and reputations – until Derek and Nora give in to the chemistry between them.

Read this one for the characters. Seriously. Nora is an absolute delight, and the way she and Derek play off each other is just delightful. Outside of the characters, though, I think this book just tries to do too much. It’s a lot #wokefeminism, and it’s a lot of there needs to be more females in sports. There are some of dad issues (which Funny People does better) and some of the importance of friendships. But at its center are the characters and relationship between Derek and Nora and that’s absolutely worth reading this book for.

Lunar New Year Love Story

Leave a comment

by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is romance, talk of teenage pregnancy, and a kind of spooky ghost. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Valentina Tran’s favorite holiday was always Valentine’s Day. She loved making personalized cards for her classmates and her father, and one of her best friends is a projection of Saint Valentine – Cupid. Then, her freshman year of high school, things fall apart: her classmates don’t appreciate the valentines; one even goes so far as to tear it up and throw it away. And the worst news: her mother isn’t dead, like her father always told her, but had just left them when Val was a baby.

Then she meets Les and his cousin Jae, who are lion dancers. They convince her to join up, and she starts a relationship with Les, but it’s not everything she wants it to be. She’s torn: her father’s been nursing a broken heart her whole life and doesn’t believe in love; her best friend doesn’t want to commit to any relationship; Les is unwilling to call her his girlfriend. Is there anyone who actually believes in love?

I loved this graphic novel. It deals with cultural identity – kids trying to stay connected to their heritage and the disconnect that is often between generations. It deals with grief and loss, not just because of abandonment and heartbreak, but also from death. And it deals with the hope of love. I adored its humor and tenderness, and Pham’s illustrations are just delightful.

It’s practically perfect and a delight to read.

Monthly Round-up: January 2024

Leave a comment

I was back to my normal reading levels this month. I’ve also decided to try and read a Middle Grade book a week if only to work ahead on next year’s Cybils reading. We’ll see how long that lasts. My favorite this month:

Funny Story

It’s kind of a given that if there is a Emily Heny book read, it will be the favoriet that month. And for the rest:

Middle Grade (not quite one a week…)

The Misfits: A Royal Conundrum (audiobook)
The Apartment House on Poppy Hill

Non-Fiction

The Six (audiobook)
Leslie F**king Jones (audiobook)

Adult Fiction:

Hogfather
Witch King

Graphic Novel:

Heartstopper, volume 5

YA:

Blood Justice
Canto Contigo

What was your favorite this month?

Canto Contigo

Leave a comment

by Jonny Garza Villa
First sentence: “I want to grab this guitar by the neck and smash it on the floor.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: April 9, 2024
Review copy sent by the publisher.
Content: There is a lot of swearing, in both English and Spanish, and a number of f-bombs. There is also fade-to-black sex and some teenage drinking. It will be in the Teen (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Rafie was raised to be a Mariachi singer. His father was one, and his beloved grandfather was one. He’s been the star of the North Amistad High School’s award-winning Mariachi band for three years. And then his life fell apart: his abuelo died and his parents uprooted and moved to San Antonio. Rafie is upset and devastated, especially when the school he’s being sent to is the perpetual Number two to his Number one. He’s grieving, he’s alone, and then the absolute kicker: he’s no longer the lead singer of a Mariachi band.

This is the story of how Rafie finds his way, finds love, and learns to trust other people.

I really liked this one. I love the way Villa is writing about LGBTQ people inside of Mexican culture and challenging the hyper-masculinity of it. The perpetual Number two – Todos Colores – is a very gay Mariachi band: they have trans men and women and proudly gay people in the band, and they embrace it. They are pushing against the cultural stereotypes that Mariachi’s a man’s world. I also appreciated following Rafie’s grieving process. There was a bit of magical realism which was done incredibly well. I also appreciated that the conflict was all internal: Rafie’s parents were incredibly supportive and loving.

Villa is definitely quickly becoming one of those authors whose books I will read, no matter what.

The Apartment House on Poppy Hill

Leave a comment

by Nina La Cour
illustrated by Sonia Albert
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
First sentence: “1106 Wildflower Place was what many considered to be a perfect building, plunked right in the middle of Poppy Hill, a not entirely perfect hill but a good one all the same.”
Content: There are three sections of short chapters. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’m considering suggesting it move down to the Beginning Chapter (grades 1-2) section instead. I think it fits better there.

Ella has lived at the apartments at Poppy Hill her whole life, and she knows almost everything about her neighbors and the building. So, when newcomers Leo and Cleo move in, Ella is there to show them the ropes. The only thing she doesn’t know: much of anything about the Robinsons, the older couple who live in the topmost apartment.

Much like most beginning chapter books, this one is light on plot but leans heavily into charm and character. You meet all the neighbors through our very competent main character, Ella, and there is a very charming assortment of quirky neighbors. Eventually, in the third section, you meet the Robinsons, who are equally charming and delightful.

That’s all there is, which is fine when you’re 7. In fact, I think many seven-year-olds will really like this one.

Audiobook: Leslie F**king Jones

Leave a comment

by Leslie Jones
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: This is sweary. SO very sweary. Like, I don’t know how many sentences didn’t have the f-bomb. (Plus 10 uses of the n-word, but that’s her prerogative.) It’s in the humor section of the bookstore.

I tell so many people that the best way to read a celebrity memoir is to listen to it on audio. I’ve even gone as far as to say that I actively won’t read a memoir if the author doesn’t read it. (Case in point: I have yet to read Elton John’s memoir, even though I have a copy of it on my shelf downstairs. He doesn’t read the audiobook.) I don’t know why I put Leslie Jones’s memoir on hold at the library (it was a good two months between when I put the hold and when it came in; I no longer remember it), but I have to admit I was curious about the book.

Friends: this audiobook is NOT the book. Well, it’s loosely the book. But you will get an entirely different experience listening to it than reading it. See, Jones says “Chapter X” and then just takes off. Like pretty literally. It’s a 16-hour audiobook for a less-than-300-page book. This is not a criticism. Once I realized that she was riffing on the book, taking the chapters and just going with the flow, telling you her story, I got into the groove of the insanity and enjoyed myself. (At a certain point, when she said “Hey, I like what I wrote here, let me read it” I pretty much figured that if I wasn’t willing to change my expectations about this book, I needed to get off the train. Reader: I stayed on the whole way.)

She’s had a hard life, but she is one of the most positive people I’ve read about. She laughs at herself, her past mistakes, she has Thoughts about pretty much everything, she doesn’t take any crap from anyone, and she knows her worth. It’s pretty amazing. I appreciated her vulnerability, her laugh, her story. So, yeah: not at all what I expected from an audiobook, but definitely worth my time to finish it.

Witch King

Leave a comment

by Martha Wells
First sentence: “Waking was floating to the surface of a soft world of water, not what Kai had expected.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is violence, and some swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

If you read the jacket summary of the book, you don’t get a whole lot of information. Kai, a demon, has just woken up from being entombed, to find the government coalition he helped form falling apart. This is all true, but the plot is so much more than that. It’s part mystery: Kai and his friends have to figure out why he (and his witch friend, Ziede) was entombed and where Ziede’s wife, an Immortal Marshall is also missing. It’s partly a telling of colonial conquerors and how Kai helped (almost accidentally) overthrow them. It’s a friendship story, one of trust both made and broken. And it’s an adventure story, as you get to see more of the world that Wells has created.

I’ve only ever read the Murderbot series by Wells, but I trust her writing. She’s an excellent world-builder (I could see some of the same elements that I really enjoyed in the Murderbot books) and I liked the magic system she created. She’s got great characters – both main and secondary – and she knows how to make readers care for them. There are Stakes here, and people could die at any point (well, not Kai, since he’s a demon). It was a really great book, and I appreciated that it stood on its own, while leaving threads open to follow, if she chooses to write more.

I don’t know if I’ll go back and read some of her older books, but I quite enjoyed this one.

BookNut’s 20th Anniversary: The First Posts

3 Comments

I realized this past week that I’ve been blogging here at The Book Nut for 20 years come this November. I haven’t celebrated my blogiversary in years, and honestly I don’t know if anyone even reads blogs anymore, but I think 20 is something to celebrate.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to do to celebrate, but I thought it’d be interesting to go back and look at my first few posts and see what I thought about them, 20 years on.

My first post after the introductory post, was My 10 Most Favorite Youth Fiction Books. First thing thing I realize now is that I didn’t know the terms (or probably the difference between) Middle Grade and Young Adult. Making these lists now, I’d have three: one for MG, one for YA, and one for Graphic Novels (something else I didn’t read 20 years ago).

Let’s look at the books I put on there.
Solid picks, and they’d probably still make an all-time best of post:
The Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
The Dark is Rising Series, Susan Cooper
The Giver, Lois Lowry

The most interesting thing about this is, aside from Hero and the Crown, these are all arguably Middle Grade. Also: they have all stood up to rereading over the years, and are still excellent books/series.

Ones that are good, but probably not my absolute favorites anymore:
The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale – I still adore Shannon Hale, but I think she’s written better books than her first one.
Inkheart, Cornelia Funke – I have fond memories of this one, and I liked the movie (because I pretty much love anything with Brendan Frasier in it), but I haven’t read it in years, so I don’t know if it holds up. I should do a re-read and find out.
The BFG, Roald Dahl – I don’t know what I was thinking: Matilda is a much better book.
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine – a solid pick, but again: I haven’t read it in years, so I don’t know how it would hold up.

The one I can’t even remember:
Crispin, Avi – It must have bee something I had just finished.

The problematic entry:
The Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling – problematic because of the person Rowling has become, but also: I’m not sure these are excellent bastians of children’s literature, anymore. Genre-chaning, sure. Changed publishing, yes. But, excellent books? I’m not sure.

My next list was My 10 Most Favorite Fiction Books. What surprises me most about the list, though, is how balanced it is. Classics! Speculative! Literary Fiction! I was either trying harder to read “good” books and less willing to embrace my love of genre, or I was trying to come up with a balanced list. I wonder if I would do the same if I were doing one of these now. (probably not: I’d be more likely to split it into separate lists.) This list (and the net one tow) is more a portrait of who I was as a person (or who I was trying to be), which is never a bad thing.

Books that would still make a best-of list:
Persuasion, Jane Austen – Still one of Austen’s best, and my personal favorite of hers. (Still has the best love letter ever written.)
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith – I don’t know if I’ve reread it in a while, but I do remember really loving it, and I still think it’s an excellent book with one of the best first lines.

Good books, but not my favorite anymore:
A Canticle for Leibowiz, Walter Miller Jr. – An excellent speclative fiction/religious book, and one that I’ve reread, but not one that I would call a favorite anymore.
My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok – Same here. I think it’s an excellent book, but my tastes have changed.
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien – I’m not surprised this was on my list. I did read it, did enjoy it, love the movies, but I’m not sure my fantasy tates run in this direction anymore. Still a classic, though.
To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book, Connie Willis – To be honest, while I remember liking these two, I have no other memory. Maybe it’s time for a reread.
Life of Pi, Yann Martel – I have come to feel like this one is overrated. There are better books out there.

Ones I can’t remember anything about:
So Big, Edna Ferber
The Shepherd of the Hills, Harold Bell Wright

The problematic one:
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card – Problematic because of the person Card has become over the years, but honestly, I have come to think that Ender’s Game is the better book, and there are better science fiction books out there.

My last list was My 10 Most Favorite Non-Fiction books. The other day at work, we were talking about having classic sections for everything, and I remarked that it’s hard to have classic non-fiction, because information gets outdated so rapidly. Someone joked “how about calling it ‘outdated non-fiction’ then?” I kind of feel that way about putting together an all-time best-of non-fiction (so many hyphens!) list: the information in the books is probably outdated. I think this list is more a reflection of the types of non-fiction I like to read: memoirs, light pop history, foody books, some light science/self help books, travel books, and books about books. While the particular books have changed, my tastes in non-fiction hasn’t, really.

Solid picks, though I’m not sure how well they hold up:
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl
America’s Women, Gail Collins
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A No-Tolerance Guide to Punctuation, Lynne Truss

I have no memory of reading any of these:
The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness, Joel ben Izzy
The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job is Still the Least Valued, Ann Critteneden
A Trip to the Beach, Melinda and Robert Blanchard
Tales of a Female Nomad, Rita Golden Gelman
Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

It’s been an interseting trip down memory lane! I’ll probably come up wtih something else to highlight next month.

Funny Story

1 Comment

by Emily Henry
First sentence: “Some people are natural storytellers.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
ARC pilfered from the box our awesome Penguin rep sent the store.
Release date: April 23, 2024
Content: There is some swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and on-page sex. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Daphne has uprooted her life and moved to northern Michigan – a smallish town on Lake Michigan – because her fiance, Peter, wanted to move home. All is fine and good: she has a dream job as a children’s librarian and she’s planning their wedding. Until the night of Peter’s bachelor party, when he decides he can’t live without his best friend and love of his life, Petra. He calls off the wedding, and heartbroken, Daphne turns to the only person she can think of who can understand her heartbreak (and has an empty room): Petra’s ex-boyfriend, Miles.

Their stint as roommates is uneventful until they get invitations to Peter and Petra’s wedding. Then, when they drunkenly RSVP and Peter calls to ask why, Daphne lets out that she and Miles are “dating”. Thus begins the fake dating scheme to get back at Peter and Petra, which might just turn into something more.

Henry is a solid romance writer, and this one is right up there with the best of her work. I think she’s justifying her leap to hardcover: this one is as much about Daphne’s self-discovery and learning to make and cultivate friendships as it is about hitting all the romance tropes. I love that both Daphne and Miles are complicated characters, but that they learn, develop, and grow together in ways that are just delightful. Henry knows how to write banter with the best of them, and even though the characters aren’t enemies, there’s some pretty smart and fun banter going on. And there’s palpable tension coming off the page when they get together.

If Henry decides to publish her grocery list, I’ll read it. She’s just that good. And this one is no exception.

Heartstopper Volume 5

Leave a comment

by Alice Oseman
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4
Content: There is a handful of swearing, including a few f-bombs. There is also some fade-to-black sex. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

It’s the end of Nick’s year 12 and Charlie’s year 11, and they’re starting to think about the Future. Not just the future together – will they or won’t they have sex (spoiler: they do) – but the actual future, since Nick is looking at going away to college.

It’s just the next stage of Nick and Charlie’s relationship – learning how to be individuals in a partnership, and learning how to become their best selves. I liked that there was a lot of communication going on: between Nick and Charlie, yes, but also between the parents and the kids and all the friends. It helps to have a good support system, especially when you, like Charlie, have an eating disorder that you’re trying to manage.

I wish I had read these back to back; although I do love being back with Nick and Charlie, I also find myself a bit disconnected from it all. I’ve had this one sitting on my TBR pile for weeks since it came out, and I wasn’t overeager to read it, like I was when it first came out. From what Oseman said, volume 6 will be the last one, and I can sense the story coming to an end. I have liked these, though, and I appreciate that they exist in the world.