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.

Things in the Basement

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by Ben Hatke
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some mildly scary things, and it has a dark color palate. It’s in the Middle-Grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Milo’s family has just moved to a new house, and his mom has sent him to the basement to find one of his younger sibling’s lost socks. But once down there, Milo discovers that there’s a LOT more to the basement, as he goes on an epic adventure to find the sock.

Sure, that sounds simple. But with Hatke’s imagination and art, this adventure takes on a life of its own. There are some things that are scary at first, but Milo learns the importance of friendship and helping each other.

Like everything Hatke does, it’s charmingly drawn (I love the character that speaks entirely in emojis!), and is a heartfelt, sweet story. I picked it up on a whim and I’m so glad I did. It’s a great story and a fantastic graphic novel.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle

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by Matt Cain
First sentence: “Albert Entwistle was a postman.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is bullying of a gay man, blatant homophobia, and violence by the police towards gay men. It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

Albert Entwistle has been a postman since he was 16 years old. It’s basically been his whole life, especially since his (overbearing and critical) mother died 18 years ago. Now that he’s almost 65, the Royal Mail has decided that it’s time for Albert to retire. This sends Albert into a bit a of a tailspin: what is he supposed to do with his life without the routine of carrying the mail?

The answer comes when he finds an old picture: he’s going to go looking for the boy he fell in love with when he was sixteen. On the way, he opens up to his coworkers, makes several friends, and learns to accept and be open about his sexuality.

I think I picked this up becuase a bookseller (at a different bookstore) told me it was very heart-warming and affirming, and I have to agree. It’s a sweet story about the importance of belonging and the way being open to other people can your enrich your life. It’s charming and sweet, and very English. It’s very cis, though it does talk about drag culture some, and there’s no on-page sex (it’s all implied). Perhaps it’s one of those gay books for non-gay people, but I liked it for the emphasis on friendships and community. It’s charming and sweet and a feel-good read. And I enjoyed it a lot.

Hazel Hill is Gonna Win This One

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by Maggie Horne
First sentence: “I’ve been told that it’s impossible to know everything, but I think I’ve found a loophole.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: This talks about sexual harassment and bullying, and has adults who don’t listen to/believe children. That might be triggering for some. It’s in the Middle-Grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore but might be more appropriate for the older end.

The only thing Hazel Hill has looked forward to the whole of her seventh-grade year was the speech competition. She lost out in sixth grade to Ella Quinn, but this year Hazel knows she will win. However, she is thrown off her objective one day when Tyler – a dude in her homeroom class – tells her that Ella Quinn, whom he has just broken up with (again), told him that she had a crush on Hazel. Which sends Hazel into a panic: she hasn’t told anyone she was gay! Is this real? What’s going on with Ella?

The answer is that Tyler has been sexually harassing Ella, and she’s trying to deal with it. As Hazel becomes friends with Ella (and her best friend Riley), she decides that Something Needs to Be Done about Tyler. The problem is that no adults are listening to or believing them.

It’s a bit more complex than that, and it has more to do with Hazel learning to have friends again, but that’s the gist. A boy is making girls’ lives difficult and adults don’t believe the girls, because they’re “just kids.”

I really loved this one. I’m always here for books about fierce girls, and this one is a good one. I liked the tone that the book took, and the focus on Hazel learning to be a friend helps ease the hardness of the subject matter. I loved Hazel’s relationship with her parents, as well as her acceptance of her own sexuality (even if she’s not ready to be out, yet). There are funny bits and happy bits, and it’s just an affirming book. Such a good read.

Audiobook: Midnight at the Houdini

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by Delilah S. Dawson
Read by Saskia Maarleveld
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Release date: September 5, 2023
Content: There are some precarious situations and a creepy guy who wants to hurt a teen girl. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Anna has had a perfect life: her dad owns hotels in Las Vegas, so she hasn’t wanted anything. And her best friend, her sister Emily, has always been there for her. But on the night of Emily’s wedding, Anna is trapped in a storm and ends up in the Houdini – a mysterious, magical hotel that she has until midnight to get out of. Or she’ll be stuck there forever.

There’s more to the story, of course: There’s Max, the love interest who has been trapped in the hotel his whole life because his mother, Phoebe trapped them there. Anna’s dad and his friends are trapped there as well and have their own separate plot as we learn about Phoebe and the background of the Houdini.

I read in some promotional material that this was a loose retelling of The Tempest, and once I read that (about a quarter of the way into the book), I could see the similarities. And it made the book much better. I also really liked Maarleveld as a narrator; she kept the book engaging and I delighted in the way she did some of the voices. It was a lot of fun to listen to, and I’m glad I did.