Love & Romance

From Twinkle, With Love

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by Sandhya Menon
First sentence: “Hello, namaste, buenos dias, and bonjour, Mira Nair!
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some mild swearing, and lots of kissing. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Twinkle is a budding filmmaker. She loves looking at the world through the eye of her camera lens, and it’s what she wants to do with her life. She has a YouTube channel (though not many subscribers), and a dream. The rest of her life isn’t so hopeful: she’s not really high up on the popularity totem pole at her prep school, her best friend has begun to ditch her for other girls (who are higher up in popularity), and her parents are often gone. Thankfully, she has her grandmother and her crush on the most popular kid in school, Neil.

Then comes the Midsummer Festival. Popular guy’s twin brother, Sahil, talks Twinkle into making a film — they decide a gender-swapped Dracula — and that fact sets a whole lot in motion.

I wanted to like this. It’s got everything that should hit for me in a summer romance: a cute guy, some conflict, a lot of swoony situations… it feels like a Bollywood film with kissing. I should have loved it.

But, I didn’t. I was talking to a co-worker about it, and she said that Twinkle was annoying — and she was, being so obsessed with being popular and getting her friend “back” that she didn’t realize what was right in front of her — and because of that, she couldn’t get into the book. I think that’s a lot of it. Twinkle was very human, and very much a teenage girl, and I appreciated that. I thought the relationships, at least between the girls, were very realistic. Maybe what didn’t sit well with me was the juxtaposition between the friendship arc and the romance arc. The romance was all very “true love”-y; Sahil’s had a thing for Twinkle since they were 11 and he’s finally on it (that’s what came off as unrealistic to me!) and he’s all “you’re my One True Love”, and I think that’s (for a high school book) what didn’t work for me. I understood the friendships, and Twinkle’s desire not to have things change, but when you put that in the same book as a meet-cute, fluffy summer romance that you’r trying to make weightier with declarations of True Love. Maybe that’s also what didn’t quite sit well with me. If Menon had just kept it fluffy, Bollywood-like (with kissing!), then maybe I would have liked it better.

Legendary

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by Stephanie Garber
First sentence: “While some rooms on the estate had monsters hiding beneath the beds, Tella swore her mother’s suite concealed enchantment.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Others in the series: Caraval
Content: There’s some violence and intense moments. It will be in the Teen section (Grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Spoilers for the first one, obviously.

I had high hopes for this one, even though it’s been a long time since I’ve read Caraval and admittedly I don’t remember much. And while Legendary was good, I don’t know if it lived up to my high hopes.

It’s shortly after the Caraval that Scarlett won, and Legend has already set up another one. This one is  in the capital city, and it’s Tella’s turn to play. The prize? Legend’s name. The cost? Tella’s mother’s life. She’s made a bargain with a criminal: the location of her mother in exchange for Legend’s name. She has to win, but at what cost?

I did find this one engrossing; Graber has created a very unique world, full of magic and deception. But, maybe because it wasn’t new like it was in Caraval, I just wasn’t that thrilled by it. It could be that Tella’s journey wasn’t as interesting as Scarlett’s or that I just didn’t find the villain of the book that enticing, or even the final reveal all that shocking. I definitely found the ending unsatisfying. I probably just wanted… more.

It’s not that it’s a bad book; it’s not. And maybe if you read it right after Caraval, it would come off as better. Whatever the reason, I was a little disappointed.

Love & Luck

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by Jenna Evans Welch
First sentence: “Dear Heartbroken, What do you picture when you imagine traveling through Ireland?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some sexual harassment and mild swearing. It is in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Addie has been looking forward to the end-of-summer trip to her aunt’s wedding in Ireland. Mostly because she’s going to pop over to Italy afterward (to see Lina from Love & Gelato) but also because it will get her away from the boy who dumped her after their secret summer relationship. She is planning on sitting in the sun and eating gelato and forgetting.

Except, her other brother, Ian (who was supposed to go with Addie to Italy) has other plans: he’s hooked up with an internet friend, Rowan, and they’re going to go on a band-themed road trip in Ireland ending up at the last concert of their favorite band. Addie’s WAY against this (since their parents don’t know), but is convinced to let them drop her off at the airport. But… the car breaks down, the traffic is bad, and she misses her flight. And suddenly, she’s on a road trip with a boy she barely knows and a brother she’s barely speaking to.

I expected this to be a light, fluffy romance, but Welch delivered something… different. Sure there was a small bit of romance, but mostly the book was about bad decisions and healing and forgiveness. It’s a bit much to go into here, but I liked Welch’s descriptions of the sibling relationships, and how hard it is to find out who you are in the middle of a big, boisterous (and loving) family. (It was nice that the parents were actually good parents, too!) I liked the cheesy “travel guide” that is quoted throughout the book, as well; even though it was often corny, there were some good thoughts in it, and yes, it did make me want to go see Ireland.

It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I really liked it.

Module 15: Flashcards of My Life

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Harper, C. M. (2006). Flashcards of my life. New York, N. Y.: Little, Brown, and Company.

Genre: Realistic fiction.

Book Summary: Through a series of flashcards and “diary” entries, Emily tells the story of a couple weeks in a middle school (she’s in 7th grade? I’m not entirely sure). She navigates friendships — her two sets of friends don’t quite get along with each other — and first crushes — does Andrew like her? Does she like Andrew or someone else? — as well as dealing with her parents’ up and down relationship

Impressions: I’ve often said that the reason there are so many bad parents in middle grade is because conflict makes for a good story. This book lacked that in a major way. The stakes — will her friends talk to her? Will the boy like her back? — are really low, and while they are important in many middle school girls’ lives (I do remember 7/8th grade, and yes, those were important questions), they just don’t make for compelling reading. This book lacked any compelling conflict, and any character arc. It really is a slice of life story, and while I don’t want to insinuate that middle school girls lives aren’t worth putting into book form, this just didn’t work for me. Plus, the font drove me nuts. It was meant to reflect handwriting because of the diary-like feel of the book, but it kept pulling me out of the story.

Review: I was able to find a Kirkus review of the book, which was kinder to the book than my reaction. The reviewer wrote “With humor and insight, she focuses on such topics as kissing, embarrassing moments, regrets, talent and dreams. ” However, the final sentence was dismissive: “Emily’s search for the truth about friendship, romance and identity will appeal to ’tween fans of conversational chick-lit.” I dislike the term “chick-lit” because the designation is dismissive, insinuating that a book isn’t “real” literature, but rather something that girls like, which makes it less, somehow. However, it really does fit this book.

Staff. (2006, Jan 1). Flashcards of my life.  Kirkus Reviews, (1). Retrieved from: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/charise-mericle-harper/flashcards-of-my-life/.

Uses: My first reaction was “Please don’t”. If you must, it would work on a display of diary-type books or other middle school relationship books.

Readalikes:

  • Dork Diaries by Renee Russell – The most obvious read-alike, if only because it’s also told in diary format, and details the every-day life of a middle school girl. I’ve never read these, but they seem to be more compelling because there’s 12 (I think?) of them now, and people keep buying them. (Which kind of proves the point that it’s not that middle school girls’ lives are uninteresting, but rather the book.)
  • Invisible Emmie by Terrie Liebensen – This tells a similar story to Flashcards: Emmie is a quiet, unassuming girl who drops a note she had written to her crush, and finds herself less invisible. It’s told in graphic novel form, which helps the story, as does the secondary plotline as Emmie imagines what it must be like to be popular, like Katie.
  • The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez – Another book about a 7th grader trying to figure out how to fit in, but add Mexican culture and punk rock, and you have a much more compelling book.

Audio book: Back Home at Firefly Lake

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by Jen Gilroy
Read by: Karissa Vacker
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Listen to it through Libro.fm
Content: There’s mild swearing and one pretty graphic (but not distasteful) sex scene. It would be in the fiction section, if we had it in the store.

I needed a fluffy book, and when this one showed up, I jumped at it. It’s exactly what it looks like: Cat, a single mother, and adjunct history professor moves back to her hometown of Firefly Lake, Vermont. There she meets her high school crush, Luke, a former Olympic and NHL hockey player, who is still recovering from the sudden death of his wife, the love of their life.

Of course Cat and Luke have a thing for each other. Of course things — Luke’s dead wife, Cat’s daughter Amy — get in the way. Of course the sex was hot. And, of course, there’s a happily ever after. I didn’t listen to this because the plot was fantastic or the character development was amazing, though there was some growth in the characters, which was nice. No, I wanted pure fluff, and this delivered. Which was nice.

 

Daughter of the Siren Queen

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by Tricia Levenseller
First sentence: “The sound of my knife slitting across a throat feels much too loud in the darkness.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: February 27, 2018
Others in the series: Daughter of the Pirate King
Content: There is violence, obviously, and a LOT of sexual tension and kissing, but nothing ever happens. It’ll be in the the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Spoilers for Daughter of the Pirate King, obviously.

Picking up where we left off, Alosa has a copy of the map to the secret Isla del Canta, where the legendary treasure of the sirens lay. Initially, she plans to help her father find it, and then help rule the seas with him. Except, when she and her crew show up at the keep, Alosa discovers a secret that turns everything upside down. Suddenly, Alosa and her crew are no longer working with her father, they’re racing against him. And it will take everything that Alosa has to beat him to the island, and ultimately, defeat him.

Again: So. Much. Fun. There really isn’t a whole lot more to these (except for a very woke love interest), but man, female pirates are fun. Alosa is a great character, and I loved her relationship with Riden and with her crew. I loved that Levenseller was ruthless; she killed characters I thought were safe, which upped the ante and made the tension that much greater. I have a slight quibble with the end, but I’m going to let it go because it really was just fun to read.

And… it’s only a duology! So the story wrapped up. YAY! That said, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with Alosa and her crew again.

Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

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by Becky Albertalli
First sentence: “It’s a weirdly subtle conversation.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s quite a bit of swearing, including a lot of f-bombs, and some teenage drinking. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

This one is a difficult one to sum up plot-wise. Simon is gay, but he’s not out. He’s being blackkmailed by another student who found out (accidentally) about Simon’s gayness, because Simon is emailing and flirting with a boy, Blue, online. Their relationship is entirely online, even though Simon knows that Blue is a student at his high school… Blue is just more comfortable with the anonymity.

As the book goes on, Simon juggles being blackmailed, and making and keeping friends, and high school drama, as he falls in love with Blue, and tries to figure everything out.

It’s not a deep or complex plot, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved Simon and his loveable awkwardness as he tries to figure everything out. (Being a high school junior is hard.) I loved his relationship with Blue, and once he figured it out, their in-person relationship. I liked Simon’s  family — it’s always nice to see a good, functional family in a YA novel — and his friends, and liked that there was conflict between them, but not of the sort that went against their fundamental relationship. It was sweet and wonderful and just happy-making. Which is what I would call this book. Maybe not perfect, but definitely very very wonderful.

Turtles all the Way Down

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by John Green
First sentence: “At the time I first realized I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time — between 12:37 p.m. and 1:14 p.m. — by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn’t even begin to identify them.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content:  Lots and lots of swearing, including f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

This is a book about OCD and anxiety. This is also a book, I think (having followed John Green for at least 7 years or so on YouTube/Podcasts/Social Media), that channels John Green the best out of all of them. The plot, really, is almost incidental: it’s about a girl, Aza, and her friend, Daisy, who decide that they’re going to find out what happened to this developer who was on the lamb. The catch: Aza knew the developer’s son, Davis, when they were eleven. Mostly, though, it’s a chance to be inside Aza’s head, to experience first-hand what it’s like to be someone with OCD, with anxiety, and how crippling it can sometimes be.

I’m not sure if it’s “good” or not; it made me cry at the end, and I think that it’s probably a more mature book than his other ones. (There really aren’t any pretentious, super-smart teenagers here; everyone, even Davis, seemed relatable and not annoying.) But there was also a disconnect to it that I hadn’t felt in his other books. That’s not to say it wasn’t enjoyable; it was. Green knows how to craft a story, and throw in asides that don’t really feel like asides. But, I didn’t feel totally immersed in it (which may be me more than anything). Still, worth a read.

Daughter of the Pirate King

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by Tricia Levenseller
First sentence: “I hate having to dress like a man.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s some violence, some mild swearing, and references to torture. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Pirate captain, and daughter of the pirate king, Alosa is on a secret mission to retrieve a part of a map from one of her father’s enemies. Which means, she is deliberately captured in order to search the ship. This is not a pleasant experience for her; Alosa is used to 1) commanding her own ship and 2) besting everyone around her. She knows her father is placing his trust in her, though, and she’s determined to succeed. At whatever cost.

Oh heavens, this was fun. Maybe I was just in the mood for a good pirate book (and this IS a good pirate book) where the girl gets to be awesome (and gets to do it mostly on her own terms; the ship Alosa captains is made up mostly of women, and it’s just amazing. She’s just amazing!) AND gets to have the guy (oh the banter was delightful). It was well-written, well-paced, and just OH so much fun.

And the bonus? The sequel’s coming out soon. (In fact, that’s entirely why I picked this one up: I got an ARC of the sequel at work.)  I can’t wait to dive into that!

All the Crooked Saints

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by Maggie Stiefvater
First sentence: “You can hear a miracle a long way after dark.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 10, 2017
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some swearing, including a couple of f-bombs. It will be in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore, but younger kids might be interested in it.

The problem with this book is that the plot is really hard to describe. There’s a family in the southern Colorado desert, the Sorias, that have basically made a living performing miracles for pilgrims who come to their homestead looking for help. But, it’s much more than about the miracles. There’s a boy who comes looking for help (but not a miracle) and a few pairs of lovers, some who are new and some who have lost their way. In fact, a lot of the plot is about how to find one’s way back from being, well, lost.

It’s historical, set sometime in the 1960s (I had it initially pegged for contemporary, then set in the 1970s… so I was close), but it feels, well, set out of time.

Mostly, though, the best thing about this is, like many Stiefvater novels, the words. She just has a way of telling a story that sucks you in and won’t let you go. And this was no exception. The magic here was less “magic” and more magical realism; it felt like it really could happen, that it was a natural outgrowth of the story, and it made perfect sense.

I’m sure Stiefvater will get some push back for writing a story with Latin@ main characters, but honestly, I don’t think she used stereotypes at all. (Or at least, that’s the way I felt; I’m not a great judge of this.)  I loved all the characters, from the Soria family to the pilgrims, and I loved the way Stiefvater told the story. Everything just seemed to fit.

It’s really a wonderful story.