bad parents

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!

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.

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.

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: 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.

The First Magnificent Summer

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by R. L. Toalson
First sentence: “Period (noun): a length or segment of time.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There is mention of swearing, and maybe a couple of mild ones. There is talk of a girl getting her period, and of their father having an affair. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but this one really skews to the older end.

Victoria – please don’t call me Tori anymore – and her two siblings are off to Ohio to see their father, whom they haven’t seen since he left their mom two years ago, for a whole month. Victoria is – rightly – worried about it: her dad has a new family, a new wife, and two new children, whom she calls The Replacements. She hopes it will go well, but is anxious she won’t.

And – no surprise – it doesn’t. Her dad is emotionally abusive to her, calling her fat and making her do chores that her older brother gets out of simply by being male. In fact, when she vents into a journal about her experiences – camping in a tent while The Replacements sleep in a trailer, getting her period and her father forcing her to swim anyway, her stepmother complaining that Victoria doesn’t dry the dishes correctly, or even the fact that her dad won’t use the name she prefers – her father reads her journal without her permission then proceeds to yell and slap her for it. Victoria is supremely happy to go home.

The cover and title suggest something happy, something about discovery (well, Victoria discovers she doesn’t need her father), but this was a dark, terrible book. Victoria’s dad was – to put it mildly – a piece of work. I didn’t quite get why the book needed to be set in the 90s (there was a mention of the Waco Branch Davidians raid happening a couple months before, which is a really odd way of setting a book in a time. Are kids going to know that reference?), except to maybe make it so Victoria couldn’t call home? (Or to give her dad something else to yell at her about.) It was very much about shattered dreams and shattered illusions and picking oneself up after that. Which, sure, I appreciate that.

But honestly? I really disliked this one.

102 Days of Lying About Lauren

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by Maura Jortner
First sentence: “Every morning, the skeleton-rooster lets out a cock-a-doodle-do that could shake a person to their very core.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s abandonment and some parental emotional abuse. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’d be wary about handing it to the younger end of that age group.

For 102 days, Mouse has been living in the attic of the Haunted House ride at the theme park. For 102 days she has been pretending with her “borrowed” shirt to be an employee, sweeping up guests’ messes. For 102 days she has been left alone after her mother left her in the park. She doesn’t know if her mother is going to come back, but just in case, she doesn’t want to leave. For 102 days, Mouse has been just fine. But then a strange girl comes to the park and starts asking questions about Lauren, which Mouse doesn’t want to think about. And hasn’t – not really – for 102 days.

Oh, this one is heartbreaking. Abandonment – Mouse’s mother just hit the end of her rope, but you don’t leave your kid at an amusement park! And parental abuse – Mouse’s friend Tanner is the son of the park boss, and he’s a piece of work. It takes a tornado and his son almost dying to bring him around (sorry, that’s a bit of a spoiler). And yet, there’s a bit of Boxcar Children in this one: a 12-year-old girl figuring out how to “survive” on her own, making things work for her. It’s sad, but it’s also engaging, especially since the book takes place over one day, that 102nd day when Mouse’s life changes again.

I’m not sure it’s for really young kids, but it’s a good book for someone who wants a bit of adventure and doesn’t mind the abandonment part.

Audiobook: Kiss Her Once for Me

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by Alison Cochrun
Read by: Natalie Naudus
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s a romance, so there are sexytimes. And lots and lots of kissing. Plus swearing, including f-bombs. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore.

Ellie Oliver had one perfect day. It was Christmas Eve, and she was sad that her mother (again) wouldn’t visit her in Portland. She was about to start her dream job. Then, during a snowstorm, she met the perfect woman and spent the perfect day. A year later, though, Ellie’s life is a mess: she was fired from the perfect job, she’s working as a barista in a dive of a coffee shop, and worst of all: she had her heart broken by the perfect woman. So when the landlord of the coffee shop suggests a fake engagement so he can inherit $2 million (and give her 10%) she jumps at the chance. The catch? His sister is said perfect woman who broke Ellie’s heart. In a crazy, event-filled week at the family’s winter cabin, Ellie has to make a choice: the safe, fake marriage and money for true love.

(You can guess which one she chooses.)

The thing about romance books is that it’s the characters that pull you in and keep you interested. Readers basically know how the plot is going to go. And this one, my friends, has some excellent characters. From Ellie herself to the fantastic love interest, Jack, to the high and/or stoned grandmothers. It’s all a lot of fun. And the narrator is just sublime. So, even though I read a Christmas book in July, it was totally worth it. Such fun, such delight, such adorableness.

Audiobook: Unnecessary Drama

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by Nina Kenwood
Read by: Maddy Withington
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs, teenage drinking (though it’s legal in Australia), and some off-screen sex. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Brooke is off to her first year of uni, and she just wants a fresh start. Sure, she’s overly anxious and prone to making lists and cleaning when she’s stressed, but now that she’s in Melbourne and away from everything, she’s going to be a New Person. That all falls apart when she discovers that one of the roommates in her shared house is Jesse, the boy from high school who completely dumped on her when she was 14 and has been her nemisis ever since.

You know where this is going, right?

Not only is it a very cute, solid, enemies-to-lovers trope – of course Jesse and Brooke start out hating each other, but slowly become friends. BUT there’s ALSO fake dating! When out at a bar to celebrate their other roommate, Harper’s, birthday, they run into Brooke’s ex-boyfriend, and because she doesn’t want to look like a pathetic fool, she ropes Jesse into being her boyfriend for the night. Except that lights a fire….

There’s also the “no dating roommates” rule at the house…

It’s a lot of cute, silly, fun. Fun that made me laugh out loud and shake my head at the pure anxiousness and need-to-be-in-control that Brooke has. Jesse is a good foil for everything, and he turns out to be really sweet. I love that it’s set during the first year of uni, and talks about the transition from high school to college. And the narrator with her Australian accent was a delight too.

So, yeah, I really liked this one.

Audiobook: Family Lore

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by Elizabeth Acevedo
Read by the author, Sixta Morel & Danyeli Rodriguez del Orbe
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Release date: August 1, 2023
Content: There was a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs, talk of sex and p0rn, and abuse by adults towards children. It will be in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

I have a tumultuous history with magic realism. A lot of the time, it doesn’t sit well; if there’s going to be magic, my brain reasons, then why don’t we have it be magic. Give me someone pulling cars out of their dreams, if you want to set it in the real world. But the idea that someone’s “magic” can predict death, or tell if you were lying, or – heaven help me – have a magical vagina, you lose me. 

On the one hand: I have really loved Acevedo’s books in the past. I think she’s a brilliant writer and I’ve really enjoyed the tales she’s had to tell. I was excited by this one: the stories of sisters who have immigrated from the Dominican Republic, and their reflections on their lives and loves as they lead up to the living wake of the oldest sister. Sounds good, right? 

But, the narrator is Ona, an anthropologist, and the book’s framework is her collecting and telling these stories. I was fine when it was the stories, but Ona? Ona – she of the magic vagina – I intensely disliked. That’s an understatement. I loathed it when she was around when she interrupted the story with her own observations and her own narrative. I wished I could have skipped it – I was listening to it on audio; I suppose I could have, but it’s not the same as skipping pages in a book – and moved on with the part of the story I was interested in. 

I finished it. But, in the end, my dislike of Ona and magical realism trumped whatever good the book had.