A First Time for Everything

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by Dan Santat
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some smoking by European teenagers, as well as beer drinking (the legal age is different in Germany!). There is also some kissing. It’s in the Middle Grade graphic novel section of the bookstore.

In the summer of 1989, right after 8th grade, Santat had the opportunity to go with classmates to Europe and spend three weeks there. They spent a couple of days in Paris, and then in Austria, Germany, and finally to London. This is the story of his experiences. There’s more to it than that: it’s about Santat finding his voice again after being bullied in Middle School. it’s how he figures out how to be in a relationship and make friends. But mostly, it’s about having great experiences and making great memories.

The art, obviously, is fantastic – I love the way Santat captures not only the grandness of European towns but also the silliness of being a 13/14-year-old IN Europe, mostly unsupervised. It’s a charming book, because Santat is a charming guy, and it’s a great travel book; he made me feel like I was there in Europe. It’s a good story, it’s one of growth and learning and having experiences. It’s one that I think kids will really like, but one that I could apreciate as an adult, too.

Audiobook: Ander & Santi Were Here

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by Jonny Garza Villa
Read by: Avi Roque
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is a lot of swearing, including many f-bombs, marijuana use, and mention of sex (it’s not quite on-screen, but not entirely off- either)

Ander is taking a gap year after they graduated high school to figure things out. They’ve been accepted into a prestigious art school in Chicago, but for right now, they’re doing an internship with a non-profit in their hometown of San Antonio. But then their parents and grandmother hire Santi at their taquira, and Ander’s world turns upside down. But it’s not just first love: Santi is an undocumented immigrant, which poses all kinds of complications for their relationship.

I really enjoyed this one, especially on audio. The narrator was fantastic, and kept me interested the whole way through. But, it was also about art and finding one’s voice (can you find a voice in art?) and expressing the true version of oneself. It’s about this country’s messed-up immigration system. But it was also about family, and being there for and supporting each other.

I loved how effortless that Latinx elements were, and how much Villa just sprinkled it with Spanish. it felt very authentic and real, and I could just imagine Ander and Santi at different places around San Antonio. An excellent read.

Mrs. Nash’s Ashes

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by Sarah Adler
First sentence: “Rose McIntyre Nash died peacefully in her sleep at age ninety-eight, and now I carry part of her with me wherever I go.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: May 23, 2023
ARC pilfered from the shelves at the bookstore.
Content: There swearing, including a few f-bombs, talk of sex, and some very on-screen sex scenes. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

The plot: Millicent Watts-Cohen has a mission: she is going to reunite some of her dead neighbor’s/friend’s ashes – the Mrs. Nash of the title – with the woman that she fell in love with in the 1940s, who is currently living in an assisted living center in Key West.

She’s at the airport, all set to fly down there, when the flights all get grounded (the reason doesn’t matter). She ends up pairing with Hollis Hollenbeck, a former classmate of Millicent’s terrible, arrogant, back-stabbing ex-boyfriend, and they end up driving from DC to Key West. The way is not smooth – oil spills, suicidal deer, broccoli fests, and lots of paint-by-number Jesus portraits stand in Millie’s way. But, also, along the way she might just learn how to love again.

Oh, this one was delightful in so many ways. I adored the push-and-pull between the ever-optimistic, and slightly weird, Millie and the grumpy, pessimistic Hollis. I loved their banter – and laughed out loud more than once. I’ve often said that I don’t mind sexytimes in a book (and they were very good in this book), but I need to have a plot and some characters that I can enjoy to actually enjoy a romance book. And while this fits the formula of a romance, it was excellent in its execution. It was so very funny, and yet tender and heartbreaking at times. I enjoyed having Rose’s story interspersed with Millie’s adventures, and it made the ending bittersweet and that much more fulfilling. This is Adler’s debut novel, and I’m excited to see where she goes from here.

Monthly Round-Up: March 2023

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My reaading habis have changed a LOT. I read 11 books this month, and the majority (most of them!) were audiobooks. I don’t know what has changed that I can plow through them so fast, but I’m not sure I care. Reading is reading no matter what form! That said, my fabvoire this month was one I actually read.

Warrior Girl Unearthed

What do you do when it’s only March and you know you’ve read at least three books that will make your top 10 for the year?

As for the rest:

YA:

The Black Flamingo (audiobook)
Pet (audiobook)

Middle Grade:

Amari and the Night Brothers
Amari and the Great Game

Adult Fiction:

Daisy Jones and the Six (audiobook)
Nora Goes Off Script (audiobook)

Graphic Novel:

The Moth Keeper

Non-Fiction

The Sum of Us (audiobook)
B.F. F. (audiobook)
Poverty, by America (audiobook)

What was your favorite this month?

Amari and the Great Game

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by B. B. Alston
First sentence: “I sprint down the sidewalk, flying past designer boutiques, luxury shops, and a fancy art gallery.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Amari and the Night Brothers
Content: There is some bullying by other kids (and some adults) and some intense moments. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

Spoilers for the first book, obviously.

It’s the start of her first full summer as Junior Agent and Amari Peters is excited. Sure, her brother is still in a magically-induced coma that no one can figure out. and, sure the under-Prime Minister (or something like that) is making a stink about having magicians in the Bureau. But Amari’s going to have a great summer. That is until a time-freeze happens and it doesn’t affect her. It’s so powerful, though, that it has to be a magician’s doing, and it’s left the entire Magical council frozen. Suddenly, what was going to be a great summer turns into one full of suspicion and increasingly hostile circumstances at camp. On top of which, Amari has been challenged to a Great Game with none other than Dylan, for the Crown of the League of Magicians.

Is Amari up to all the challenges?

I love a good series, and this is quite a good series. Alston keeps up the level of action and suspense while having Amari do something that’s familiar – investigate a problem that’s leading to discrimination against magicians – while also making it new and fresh. There are some of the same faces as well as new ones, a lot of the same challenges which Amari handles better – or just differently, and some new faces mixed in as well. It’s familiar without being stale, which is nice.

And Alston knows how to spin a good tale: he keeps up the pace while still allowing Amari and her friends to become fully fleshed-out people. I haven’t liked a series this much since Percy Jackson, and I’m looking forward to the next one!

Audio book: Pet

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by Akwaeke Emezi
Read by Christopher Meyer
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is a lot of mild swearing and one f-bomb, and illusions to sexual assault. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Jam lives in a world free of monsters. The citizens of the city of Lucille defeated the monsters and created a just and equitable world. But one night, Jam’s mother, Bitter, paints a monstrous-looking creature, and Jam accidentally brings it through the canvas into the real world. Initially, Jam thinks the creature is a monster, but it – Pet – is out to Hunt monsters, which it says is in the home of Jam’s best friend, Redemption. Hunting monsters is not an easy task, and it is one that Jam resists at first, but eventually, they recruit Redemption’s help to find and defeat the monster.

The thing is: the monsters aren’t “monsters”. They’re people who do monstrous things. Which is what I thought at the beginning, but then an actual non-human being showed up, and I was confused: is monster literal? Is it metaphorical? Is it both? I don’t know.

That’s not saying that I wasn’t intriged by this one. Myers was a fabulous narrator, and he kept me engaged in the story when I was confused about what was going on. I loved the representation: Jam is trans and Black, and the matter-of-fact-ness of Jam’s personhood was refreshing.

And in the end, the book is probably more about complacency than anything else: Lucille thought that they had defeated the monsters, which meant there were not going to be any more monsters, ever. This turned out to be untrue, so maybe we just have to keep fighting the monsters even if it’s hard and we don’t want to?

Anyway, that’s what I got out of it.

Audio book: The Black Flamingo

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by Dean Atta
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, talk of gay sex, and (older) teen drinking and drug use. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Michael has spent his life feeling different from everyone else. A mixed-race kid (half-Black, half-Greek-Cypriate) in a mostly white London neighborhood, and as a boy who likes more traditionally “girly” things. He tries to find a place for himself in a religious school, with a female best friend, and in the drama department, though some of his crushes on boys don’t go over well (he gets the “you’re going to hell” speech more than once). But it’s not until he gets to university, and finds the Drag club, that he truly begins to Find Himself.

I read this as part of Trans Awareness Readathon week, mostly because I thought there would be more about gender fluidity and drag. There wasn’t. However, there was a lot about identity in general, both as a Black man in a majority white society and as a gay man in a conservative school. It was good – though listening to it on audio means I missed out on the novel as verse aspect. And because it was read by the author (who did well with it), I mistakenly thought it was a memoir for a while (there are some striking similarities between Michael the character and Atta the author). Even with all of that, it was a short, good listen, and I’m glad I got to experience Michael and his story.

Warrior Girl Unearthed

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by Angeline Boulley
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: May 2, 2023
Content: It addresses r*pe, sexual assault, predatory behaviors, and missing Indigenous women. There is some swearing and talk of drug use. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

What Perry Firekeeper-Birch wanted for the summer: to be lazy, to go fishing, to enjoy the sunshine. What she got: a job with the Ojibwe summer intern program, working at the Tribal museum. What she expected: the summer to be Boring. What she got: a fascinating education in her Tribal history, and in the repatriation (or not) of the items stolen by museums and colleges, including the local Mackinac State University.

That’s just where the summer starts, though. It’s 2014, and there is unrest in the country, with the shooting of Michael Brown, and that hits close to home because Perry’s dad is half Black. Additionally, Indigenous women in the community have gone missing, and her sister, who is working with the Tribal police, is helping look for them. But it all comes to a head when Perry discovers unearthed graves in the yard of a local “businessman” who was going to donate artifacts back to the tribe, but instead gives them to Mackinac State.

It sounds like a lot – and this is just scratching the surface – but Boulley is a talented enough storyteller to weave these seemingly disparate story threads together into a very satisfying whole. The story is less about missing Indigenous women and repatriating lost/stolen artifacts than it is about Perry learning how to take responsibility and be a leader in her community. It’s her growth arc – though the characters of her friends and twin sister (and yes, Daunis from Firekeeper’s Daughter shows up) are fully fleshed out and not simple caricatures. I love how Boulley is able to weave in the Ojibwe language and traditions in a way that feels respectful but is also informative for those of us who are not Ojibwe. It’s a feat to be able to put so much into a book and have it flow seamlessly.

In short: I loved it.

Audiobook: Nora Goes Off Script

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by Annabel Monaghan
Read by Hillary Huber
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: Oh, well, it’s a romance book. Infer what you will. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore.

Nora is fine. She has a fairly successful career writing scripts for romance movies for the Romance Channel. When her husband left, she was sad, but he was also an asshole, so it wasn’t that bad. And then she wrote a script about their story and sold it to an actual movie studio and it got made into a movie. The studio spent a couple of days filming at her actual house – and the star, Leo Vance, is charmed by her home. After the filming is done, he sticks around, wanting to experience normal life for a bit (in order to process his mother’s recent death). He helps Nora with the shopping and cooking and with her kids… and eventually, they fall in love.

But things are not perfect; when Leo has to jet away to deal with a film contract, he promises he will come back. But he doesn’t. Nora’s heart breaks, and life goes on, and suddenly those romance movie scripts with predictable outcomes seem trite. Will Nora be able to get her life back on track after the second man in as many years has walked out on her?

Oh, I liked this one. It was delightful on audio – Huber does a fantastic job, keeping me engaged in the story. Which was a lot of fun as well. It seems that the current trend in romance books is to be the thing while critiquing the thing, so while I knew the beats of the story, there was some depth to it. I liked how the focus was more on Nora’s ability to be resilient and vulnerable to others, as well as making her children her priority. I liked the relationship between her and Leo, and even the conflict felt real. It was a solid romance book, and I’ll be happy to read whatever Monaghan writes next.

The Moth Keeper

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by K. O’Neill
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s not much to be concerned about. It’s in the Middle Grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Let’s see if I can sum this one up: in this world, there is a group of people (personified animals?) who are all awake at night (they’re called the “night village”). The moon has blessed them with moon moths to help pollinate the moonflowers; it’s magic the people use to survive in the desert. The catch for all this is: one person from the community needs to hold a lantern all night and keep an eye on the moths. The current moth keeper is getting ready to retire, and Anya has chosen to take it over.

The problem is that Anya is afraid of the dark. She lost her mother in the dark and she has always wanted to be with the day people in their village. So, one day, she gives in and visits. That, unfortunately (i think?) leads to her falling asleep on her job and losing the moths. This is especially bad because the moonflowers are about to bloom, and without the moths, they will die and the night village will suffer.

I wanted to like this one. I really did. The art is lovely, and I have liked O’Neill’s other books. But, I just couldn’t get into this one. I didn’t connect with the story, and there were panels where I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. I think there’s a good story in here, I’m just not the one to find it. This is too bad because the art is lovely.