Gender Queer

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by Maia Kobabe
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are frank discussions of bodies, of sexuality, and of sex. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

It was Banned Books Week last week, and I figured why not see what all the buzz is about, and read the most banned book in America.

It’s Kobabe’s memoir of the evolution of eir gender. (Eir prefers the Spivak pronouns; I’m not entirely sure how to use them, so forgive me for any mistakes.) Kobabe recounts the dissonance eir felt between what society saw and what eir felt on the inside, and the process of making those two match up. It’s only one person’s story, which means it’s not representative of the journey of all non-binary people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fascinating or worthwhile to read Kobabe’s story.

I get why people would be made uncomfortable by Kobabe’s book: eir are very open about not wanting to fit into the gender norms that society has decreed, and open about wanting a body that is different from the one eir was born with. But that said, just because it makes a reader uncomfortable, doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s good to be challenged, to read the stories of people who have vastly different experiences than you, whether that be a different race, religion, or gender expression. I enjoyed learning about Kobabe’s journey to eir current gender expression, and I hope eir writes more. I will definitely read it!

Hooky Volumes 2 and 3

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by Mariam Boastre Tur
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! (Volume 2, Volume 3)
Others in the series: Hooky, Volume 1
Content: There is some violence, most of it fantasy, and some awful parenting. There’s also some romance and kissing. it’s in the middle-grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Twins Dani and Dorian Wytte are still out to stop the witches from usurping the non-witch king (and Monica’s dad); rescue their friend Monica’s fiance, Will; and make their parents (and maybe their older brother, Damian) see sense: witches and non-witches can live together in harmony. Of course, things don’t go well – they wake up Will (sorry: spoiler), but Dani is kidnapped by the witches and forced to be their queen, though she’s Different, and doesn’t remember any of her old friends. There’s a time skip between volumes 2 and 3, in which Dorian is asleep for three years, and everything goes south, until they find him, wake him up, and can put things to rights again. There are some romances, some fights – a pretty good dragon one at the end of book 2, and a lot of trying to figure out what to do next.

It’s a fun series, and I’m glad I waited to read Volume 2 until Volume 3 came out. (I didn’t remember anything from volume 1, but I managed.) I liked that Bonstre Tur created some interesting characters and world. I really liked the way she color-coded the speech bubbles; it made it easier to follow who was speaking. And I liked the way the story ended on a hopeful note.

A fun series!

Godkiller

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by Hannah Kaner
First sentence: “Her father fell in love with a god of the sea.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is a lot of violence, a lot of swearing (including f-bombs), and some off-screen sex. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Kissen has spent the past 15 years, since her family was sacrificed to the fire god Hestra and she alone survived, learning how, and actually killing gods. It helps that the king of the country she lives in has banned all worship of gods; it makes her business as a veiga is lucrative. And then one day, a 12-year-old girl, Inara, finds Kissen, asking her to help find a way to split her from the god (of white lies) that she is bonded to. Which means a journey to Blendaren, the home of the Gods. Along the way, they meet a baker-knight, who is on his own quest, and the three of them will face the city of the gods together.

Except this book is a lot more than “a godkiller, a girl, and an errant knight” go on a quest. There’s an exploration of trauma, of duty, of loyalty and honor. But there is also some bad-ass demon kicking and god fighting. I adored the characters, I loved the way they interacted, and the world Kaner built. We’re just beginning to explore the mythology of all the gods and the politics of the world, and I am here for it.

Absolutely worth the hype.

Audiobook: Stars in Your Eyes

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by Kacen Callender
Read by a full cast
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Release date: October 10, 2023
Content: There is a lot of swearing, drinking, and some off-screen drug use. There is also a couple of on-page sex scenes. The book also deals frankly with sexual abuse and trauma. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Mattie Cole is Hollywood’s Golden Boy, an up-and-coming actor who can’t do any wrong. Logan Gray is a pariah in Hollywood, a child actor with a reputation for being difficult, and a playboy. It’s one thing that they’re cast as romantic leads in a new rom-com, but it becomes more complicated when the are told to pretend to be in a relationship for publicity’s sake.

It sounds like a delightful romance, yes? Except this is Kacen Callender we’re talking about. They don’t write fluff. No, Callender has taken the grumpy/sunshine fake-dating tropes and layered on individuals dealing with their own trauma, which makes things so much more complicated. There are issues of sexual abuse, neglect, shame, accepting one’s true self, consent… and the list goes on.

What you will get in this book is a gut-punch of emotions, and characters you genuinely care about. I also ended up thinking a lot about the way society treats celebrities, and the things that are expected from them to “satisfy” their “fans”. it’s a complex, profound book, that is only masquerading as a romance.

And I loved it so much.

Monthly Round-up: September 2023

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I know the calnedar says fall, bt it was 95 degrees here today and I was drenched in sweat while I started the long proess of winterizing the yard. I even made chilid for dinner, which was a mistake, because 95 degrees on September 30th! I would like fall weather to go with the fall calendar, please.

In other news, the nominations for the Cybils open up tomorrow! I’m the Middle Grade Ficition chair (yay!), so make sure my panel and I have some bood books to read, pelase! (The link to the nominations will be here!)

As for reading, my favorite this month was:

Things in the Basement

I adore Ben Hatke’s work, ad this is no different.

And the rest:

Adult Fiction:

The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle
Fourth Wing (audio book)
Playing the Witch Card
Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up (audio book)
When in Rome (audio book)

YA:

Midnight at the Houdini (audio book)
Thieves’ Gambit

Middle Grade:

Hazel Hill is Gonna Win This One

What was your favorite this month?

Audiobook: When in Rome

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by Sarah Adams
Read by Karissa Vacker & Andrew Eiden
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, but mostly mild (I don’t remember any f-bombs), and while there is talk of sex, it happens off-screen. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Amelia Rose is a famous pop star (stage name: Rae Rose) who has fallen out of love with her career. Her relationship with her mom is shot, she’s being overworked, and so on the precipice of a world tour, she takes a page from Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday” and takes off for Rome. Rome, Kentucky that is. She breaks down on the lawn of local baker Noah Walker, who’s recovering from his own heartbreak – his fiance, who dragged him to New York and cheated on him – and doesn’t want anything to do with women ever again.

Of course, there’s chemistry. But there’s also a quirky small town, Noah’s delightful sisters, and Amelia finding herself again.

It’s a delightful take on the grumpy-sunshine trope, one that is done especially well on audio. Both narrators are fantastic, and capture the essence of the characters as well as making the people in the town around them come alive. It’s charming and fun, and I just had a smile on my face the whole time.

So, of course, I’m going to listen to the next in the series.

Thieves’ Gambit

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by Kayvion Lewis
First sentence: “A Quest can’t trust anyone in this world – except for a Quest.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC piles at work.
Content: There is thievery, kidnapping, talk of killing, and some
mild swearing. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Ross Quest is not only a member of one of the most notorious crime families, she’s a master thief. The problem is that after 17 years of doing this (she’s only 17 after all), she wants out. She’s got an escape plan, but then her mom gets kidnapped in a job gone wrong and the ransom is a lot more than Ross is able to pay. Enter the Thieves’ Gambit – a game for the best of the upcoming best, run by an international syndicate of thieves. Win, and you get a wish – anything you need. Lose – and you might be dead.

So, Ross decides to play the Gambit, out to win. What she didn’t expect was for her whole world to be turned upside down.

I have a soft spot for heist books and ones featuring teenage super-thieves, and this one scratched that itch. Add in that the main character is a Black girl and that the cast is super diverse, and you’ve got an excellent, fun book here. It made me anxious to read – which is really what you need from a heist book – and the twists and turns kept me on my toes. I really didn’t see the ending coming (though, admittedly, I’m not the closest reader, so maybe it was more obvious than I thought). At any rate, i liked Ross, I liked the way all the participants – there were eight that we followed, and while some got more screen time than others, I don’t feel like it was unbalanced – interacted and worked to go through the challenges. And even though the ending was left a bit open, I was satisfied with where it stopped.

So yeah: super fun, super intense, and a great read.

Audiobook: Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up

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by Alexandra Potter
Read by Sally Phillips
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: If you can’t tell from the title, it is a very sweary book. Like, super sweary. There is some off-screen sex as well. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

Nell’s just moved back to London after years in America because her five-year relationship with her American fiance fell apart. She’s forty-something, unmarried, without children, and by all measures, failing at life. All her friends are married with kids, have husbands who have successful jobs, and homes, and… Nell just moved into a flatshare and is writing obituaries and trying to get a podcast off the ground. But, over the course of the book, as she examines her life and her expectations, she finds that maybe she’s not such a hot mess after all.

I have this work friend (her name is Melissa, too; we call ourselves The Melissas) who has excellent taste in books. If she says it’s good, I know I’ll probably like it. She listened to this one a month back, and I finally got around to listening to it myself. And (of course) she’s right: it’s not only a lot of fun and quite funny to listen to, but it’s also sweet and touching and a good reminder that yes, every woman feels like an eff-up, and like everyone else has everything together. That, and social media really has warped our sense of what is real. It’s a lovely story of friendship and starting over and making peace with where you are in life. The narrator is just delightful (and does an amazing American accent), which made the book that much more enjoyable.

So, yeah, listen to Melissa: this is a good one.

Playing the Witch Card

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by KJ Dell’Antonia
First sentence: “Other people, when forced to start over, do so in appropriate places.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s some swearing, including multiple f-bombs and talk of witchcraft. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Flair finally has left her no-good, cheating husband to move herself and her daughter back to small-town Kansas to run her late grandmother’s bakery. The thing Flair refuses to do, though, is participate in the other family business: magic. Sure, reading tarot cards for her is more like tempting fate – things seem to Happen after Flair does a reading – but she’s steadfastly refused to take part of thing. That is, until she bakes magic cookies and accidentally curses her no-good, cheating husband. And then when her mother suddenly shows up on Flair’s doorstep with Flair’s cursed not-quite-ex in tow, things get complicated. Throw in an old high-school romance that gets rekindled, and suddenly things get more complicated than Flair bargained for.

This was… fine. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but it’s not going to stay with me. Dell’Antonia writes some good characters, and some fun scenes, and I did like the light magic system that she created. But… I got annoyed with Flair’s trying to control everything (though I understood it), and wanted to shake her: you can’t micromanage a 13-year-old! It never ends well (and it didn’t). The villans of the story were more talked about as villans rather than being actually villan-y, and the romance was just kind of there. These aren’t really criticisms; it was fun while I was reading it, and I did finish it. It’s just, in the end, it’s… just fine.

Audiobook: Fourth Wing

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by Rebecca Yarros
Read by Rebecca Soler & Teddy Hamilton
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s super sweary, super violent, and lots of on-screen sexytimes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Violet Sorrengail was supposed to be a scribe. But then her father passed away and her mother – who is the general in charge of the flight battle school – has different plans for her. Violet – frail, sickly Violet – is given no choice: she has to join the battle school. The place where you either graduate or die. The book takes place over the first year, as Violet learns to navigate the cruelties of the school, makes – and loses – friends, and finds an unreasonable attraction to the son of an executed rebel leader, Xaden Riorson.

My first reaction when listening to this? It’s not objectively a good book. Like, the writing is not great. But, it’s a lot of fun. I think it helped that Soler was slightly unhinged reading the book. She was chewing through scenery, which honestly, is what this book needed. It’s not a book to be taken seriously at all. That said, Yarros is a good storyteller. There was a lot of action, the battle scenes were pretty intense, and there were some nice surprises as well. I will probably read the second book in the series, just to see where it goes.

So, do I respect this book? No. Will I recommend it? Depends on the person. Do I understand why it’s the Big Thing that it is? Oh yeah. I get it now.