Monday, February 27, 2017

Book Review of The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera

The cover of The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera is magnificent. It reminds me of the sketches my high school classmates used to do in their notebooks during math lectures. It portrays a girl who looks confident, is full of chutzpah, and is ready to tell it like it is. Even from the cover, it feels like she is staring me down.

Unfortunately, Margot Sanchez is no such girl. She is selfish, entitled, short-sighted, and hypocritical. She pawns a truly original sense of personal style, her natural hair texture (and endless hours of her free time forsaking her natural hair texture), the music she truly loves, and many other vestiges of her actual personality in an attempt to fit in with a couple of popular girls at her private school where diversity means blonde or redhead. Rivera missed some golden opportunities for characterization of Serena and Camille (Somerset Prep's watered-down answer to The Plastics), basically giving them both flat rich mean girl personalities with no soft spots or motivations behind popularity and selfish indulgence. *Spoiler alert.* And, though Margot eventually has the predictable moment where she shows them at least a little of her true self and reclaims a bit of her old independence, it is far from the fully satisfying, completely honest, tell-it-like-it-is call out session their fair-weather friendship deserved, which was a real letdown. The firework of that storyline's resolution had a loud bang and a very tiny spark.

Margot is stuck working over the summer in her family's grocery store to pay her parents back for the $600 worth of preppy clothing she charged without their permission. (And yet, even though this is a book about a teenage girl in which clothing is discussed several times, the details of her purchases during this shopping spree are barely mentioned.) Also? She is inexplicably required to labor and earn an additional $2000 (for school fees?) which is somehow supposed to make sense. This explanation is randomly dropped into the story too late. Her family having trouble paying to send her to private school is never mentioned. It just seems like a strange addendum to her punishment, as if added to draw out the time she spends at the store for plot reasons. One minute, the confused narrative makes it seem like the Sanchez family is well-off, or at least upper middle-class. Mere pages later, the reader is told that the Sanchez family grocery stores are struggling. Which is it? In a family where issues are never brought to light, discussed honestly, and resolved (thus allowing for character development and an understandable resolution), the real financial situation of the Sanchez family--a major factor in this book--is never clearly defined. It just bounces back and forth between "very comfortable but not rich" and "struggling" depending on what is most convenient for the plot point happening at that moment. We as readers are supposed to believe that Margot's parents aren't upset that she spent $600 on clothing, but that they care only because she took it without asking. However, when she wants a $1 bag of M&Ms in her family's store, she is expected to pay for them herself? None of this adds up.

Another issue is that the book just contains too many subplots, and none of them are resolved in a complete or satisfying way. I understand that it is an important aspect of the book to show how Margot (like many girls her age) is experiencing pressure from all sides: parents, old (real) friend, new (fake) friends, new school and trying to fit in, the prospect of relating to guys, her family's finances, cultural stereotypes (from the outside and from within her own culture), and judgments going and coming. But so many sideplots are opened up and seem like they are going to be well-developed, only to be swiftly swept under the rug at the close of the narrative as Margot's story resolves itself. 

But my main complaint about what The Education of Margot Sanchez lacks is that so many of her bad decisions feel random. Margot's interior monologue is poorly developed, and the reader is left out of thought processes crucial understanding and empathizing with Margot's character. When she is in the midst of making an important choice, the narrative simply seems to flit from her knowing or thinking that she shouldn't do whatever it is she is about to do right to her doing that thing, without her stopping to consider the consequences or the feelings of guilt, shame, or regret her actions might cause her later. She has forsaken who she actually is, but no thoughts of how much she actually does enjoy the things she used to be honest and open about liking are shared with the reader. 

For example, when Margot reluctantly attends a concert featuring music she and her old (read--actual) friend really loved, she talks about how she only listens to the music Serena and Camille's tastes dictate now, but the book never catches her singing along to the lyrics, stopping herself from dancing, or even tapping her toe surreptitiously. Margot looks through an old Instagram account, recalling how freely she used to indulge her personal sense of style, but we never see her pull out one of those old outfits and try it on, even in the privacy of her own room. With more serious choices that could (and do) have more serious consequences, Margot seems to know that she doesn't or shouldn't want to do the wrong thing, but then she follows along the path of making that bad choice without any further reflection, making even her rebellion feel passive and the book's resolution feel just as passive, and like it glossed over issues addressed in the plot. Rivera periodically includes short snarky lists compiled by Margot, such as things she hates, things she'd rather wear than a hairnet, or things that are really hard, but this convention isn't ubiquitous enough throughout the book for it to become a running joke, so it feels jarring when one is included, and out of place when another character mentions it like this is something Margot is known for doing. If these are supposed to stand in for the in-depth look into Margot's interior world that the book so badly wanted, they failed.

However, The Education of Margot Sanchez did one thing quite well: the way Rivera explained the concept of gentrification to her YA audience (who might not have been familiar with the term) was artful, and never condescending or boring. Twining it with a scene where flirty tension filled the page made it feel less like a civics lecture and more like the prelude to a date. Also, showing both sides of the story when real estate developers want to purchase an old apartment building full of low-income residents and turn it into a shiny new block of condos meant that Rivera gave her readers a deeper context for the struggles of the Sanchez family as owners of the main grocery store in that neighborhood. By unpacking the potential positives and negatives for all of the players involved and allowing Margot to take the roll of cool customer, unready to subscribe to a specific point of view on the issue, Rivera used a relevant issue I've never seen explained well in YA to heighten the stakes for all parties involved.

Ultimately, this book was a letdown. It was hyped so much on Twitter and Book Riot and after reading it, I'm perplexed as to why. I'm all for fun, light reads at times, but this wasn't that. It was a book that swept most of the serious issues it brought up under the rug in favor of more superficial details, which made for a frustrating reading experience. It used real problems as plot points and then discarded them as soon as a new one was added to the mix, instead of truly working through them to bolster the dynamic character arc Margot could have had. 


Friday, February 24, 2017

Book Review of Disaster Falls: A Family Story by Stephane Gerson


Disaster Falls: A Family Story by Stephane Gerson both is and isn't the horror story its title and cover design seem to portend. (One wonders if that was the reason for the subtitle in the first place.) Though there is no murderer rampant in the woods, which was the first mental image conjured up by those two elements, there is death in the form of Gerson's eight-year-old son Owen drowning in a tragic rafting accident. Disaster Falls is a memoir of Gerson's grief, and of how his family (himself, his wife Alison, and their older son Julian) deal with this traumatic event--both together and separately.

What makes Disaster Falls so different from countless other memoirs written by parents whose children have died young? Surely, each one is tragic. Each story is incomprehensible. Each is terrible to behold, even from the far-removed perspective of a reader who has never met the author and never knew the child. But it is Gerson's precision of language and utter thoughtfulness about how he describes his family's experiences with grief and loss that set him apart.

Perhaps one of the most helpful sections of the book for those readers not seeking solace in a tale to which we can relate is the one in which Gerson lists quotations from condolence messages his family received in the aftermath. He breaks them down into categories of what made him feel better, what made him feel worse... what bothered him, what was offensive. Even if there is no takeaway value in any of the ensuing pages (and there is actually much), hearing an honest reaction firsthand from someone who heard such condolence messages about what thoughts and feelings they inspired is helpful. After all, there is nothing so difficult to write as a condolence message, and wouldn't we all like to know how to be truly comforting, as opposed to ineffectual or, worse, hurtful?

Another aspect of Disaster Falls that sets it apart from other books of its type is the way Gerson has uncovered heretofore unpublicized information about the type of rafting trips (marketed to families, even with children as young as eight, which was Owen's age at the time of the fatal accident) that killed Owen. Gerson has done more than reflect on his feelings--he has done enough due diligence for any parent who might be reading Disaster Falls. Gerson uncovers the unpalatable truth about such tourist enterprises, speaking from a position of painful personal regret. If someone had only been honest and upfront with him and his wife about the risks associated with these trips, then maybe Owen would still be inching his way toward adulthood as part of the Gerson family, alive and well.

Gerson deftly illustrates the differences in how individuals grieve. Even three people as close as he, his wife, and his surviving son are experienced the sudden absence of the same cherished boy in starkly different ways. Alison was comforted by a house full of people, while Julian expressed no greater desire than for the interlopers to leave. Gerson found himself frozen into inaction while he watched his wife run circles around him, barely eating, and losing pounds by the dozens.

Ultimately, Disaster Falls does many things well, at what I assume was great personal cost to the author. It tells the story of how the Gerson family responded to a horrible event. It takes unscrupulous tourist rafting companies to task for their role in Owen's demise. It alerts other parents to the often unspoken dangers of rafting trips marketed for families. It highlights how differently grief for the same person can manifest itself, even among members of the same immediate family. It presents (poetically, eloquently) the terrible reality of what it feels like to a parent when his or her child dies.

Highly recommended.

A free copy of this book was provided through Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Book Review of We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

I was curious about We Are Okay by Nina Lacour from the moment I saw the cover. Something about the way the realistic messy bedroom (or, I later learned, dorm room) juxtaposed with the beachscape while they both blended together kept calling my eyes back. The peachy pink and almost electric shadow blue clashed in one light and coordinated beautifully in another. The more I looked, the more I wanted to look. Well, you see what I mean:

After reading the book, one of the things that most impressed me is how aptly the cover design prepared me for the experience within. I walked the beach with Marin and Mabel. I pressed onward through Marin's feelings of isolation, grief, regret, and confusion. I journeyed through the pages to where reality became surreal.

And, it was a beautiful journey. Lacour's description of the start of college for someone who didn't fit in was eerily accurate, and surprisingly comforting. Her portrayal of well-meaning people who give such expensive gifts as second changes at first impressions was steeped in emotional honesty. The beautiful portrait she painted of Marin's life with her Gramps was so vivid, so homey, so refreshing that I didn't notice what was beneath it. But, once Lacour artfully revealed everything, I had a moment I so rarely get to have as a reader: not indignation that the author didn't play fair, but astonishment at how deftly she distracted me from the deeper truths of her characters' lives.

Well played, Nina Lacour. Well played.

This is a gorgeous book for anyone dealing with grief, isolation, or betrayal. It is one of the ultimate stories about not knowing how to fit in when everyone else is floating up in the clouds and you are slogging through the trenches. It is a gift.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Book Review of I See You by Clare Mackintosh

I See You by Clare Mackintosh brings some of the worst fears of any woman to life on the page in such a disturbingly realistic way that I was left wondering if she channeled her own nightmares as inspiration for this book. Fittingly, the cover manages to be lovely and creepy all at once.

There isn't too much I can say about this book without giving everything away, but I will say that the characters feel real and interesting, and there are plenty of different directions in which to cast suspicion when things start to go awry. I did guess the culprit for the classified ad (mentioned on the back of the book), and I had about half of the conclusion predicted before it struck. Since I have a knack for predicting endings, this told me that Mackintosh engaged in enough fair play to make playing along at home possible, but that she also threw in a sufficient number of red herrings and twists to make having solved at least part of it satisfying. To me, this is the perfect balance.

I See You may keep you up for a few late nights, and will definitely have you looking over your shoulder if you are a commuter. It comes out today.

I received a free review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Book Review of The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon is a beautiful book with a beautiful cover that showcases two intricately-written characters in an artful way. You can't merely look at the cover. When you are holding it in your hands (...and, I insist that you do this because, if you like YA at all and you haven't read this book already, you are missing out.), you will realize that the way it looks is only one facet of the design, and the smooth, debossed texture of the title lettering creates a gorgeous contrast with the intensely colorful design in the background, which looks like it is made of thread. But, I can't spend the whole review geeking out about the cover, because what's inside is even better.

I love the restraint with which Nicola Yoon tells this story. It would be so easy to withhold real estate on the page from Natasha and Daniel in order to develop side characters or explain incidental plot points more than the story required. But, that would have been a mistake, and when reading this book, I realized Yoon took every possible opportunity to build her two main characters as much as possible. She made them so three-dimensional, I'm waiting to run into them at the airport. Everything from the ticking clock of Natasha's family scheduled to be deported in twelve hours from the beginning of the story to Daniel's upcoming interview brings the tension of this well-crafted narrative as tight as the strings on its cover without distracting from the goal of the story. By the time you are done reading The Sun Is Also A Star, you will know Natasha and Daniel, and you will love them.

The other amazing thing about this book is the feeling of timelessness. It came out in November, but with current events here in the US., the story of one family about to be deported and another aching to build up on a foundation of its immigrant past feels like it was written for readers of today. It feels like this book, if tucked into suitcases and placed into shaking palms, might pause the stress of xenophobic bans and ease the tension about wrong assumptions of other cultures just a little. ...maybe just enough to make readers know that Nicola Yoon understands, and give them hope that there are other people out there who do, as well.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Book Review of Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan has earned is place on my bookshelf, right next to The View From Saturday and The Mozart Season. It makes me wish I was working as a children's librarian or a teacher, so I could put this book into dozens of young hands. (Instead, I told several teachers and librarians about it, which works just as well for me.) The cover concept is simple, but breathtakingly beautiful, and it represents the story wonderfully.

In a time when so many readers are clamoring for diverse books, and books that portray characters with differing abilities, Counting By 7s isn't just a great book, it is also a very needed one. It will speak to kids dealing with loss, social anxiety, questions of belonging, adoption, and identity. (On some level, isn't that pretty much every kid?)

Willow Chance is an endearing protagonist, but her prioritization of logic over all else leaves many people scratching their heads after interacting with her. When tragedy strikes, Willow doesn't process it the same way most kids would. She also doesn't have the tight social bonds to fall back on that most kids would have. However, she does have an extraordinary body of knowledge about scientific topics that interest her. As Willow learns to apply this knowledge in a way that can help those who are in a position to help her, she is able to forge her own bonds. Holly Goldberg Sloan captures Willow's dynamic journey in a refreshingly forthright way, not glossing over the fact that Willow won't be making new friends by fishtail braiding their hair or giggling together over boy bands, but highlighting that Willow's knowledge of disinfectants and understanding of fungus and insect infestation can also be worthy social currency, and shouldn't be discounted. What Counting By 7s says most of all is that Willow shouldn't be discounted simply because she is different, and it does so eloquently.

This book is truly a must-read.


Friday, February 10, 2017

Book Review of The Girl Before by JP Delaney

The Girl Before by JP Delaney is supposed to build suspense by unspooling the story of what happened to Emma before, when she moved into a strange house with even more bizarre rules for occupancy, and what is happening to Jane now, as she puts herself in the same position. It is supposed to contrast a hazy portrait of the house's enigmatic architect with stark, seemingly never-ending descriptions of the house itself.

Instead, it includes more description of this imaginary house than if it were a real one featured in latest issue of Minimalissimo magazine, echoing the psychological torture experienced by Emma and Jane with the very real torture experienced by Delaney's readers, as they are treated to yet another page about the technological features of the house, the imposing exterior of the house, the neighbors' objections to the house, and the interior of the house. One wonders why Delaney didn't just include a blueprint of One Folgate Street and get it over with. Not only does this counteract the suspense the dual narratives are obviously trying to build, it pours the cold water of boredom over any smoldering concern readers may feel for either Jane or Emma, and the vicarious panic they might otherwise experience.

Ultimately, The Girl Before doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a suspense novel written by someone obsessed with minimalist architecture? Is it wordy ad for One Folgate Street, with two threads of unneeded prose woven in? Either way, it fails at both.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Book Review of Caraval by Stephanie Garber



Caraval by Stephanie Garber has taken the YA world by storm, but it is the most disappointing book I have read so far this year. It was possibly one of the most hyped releases of 2017, and every person I've talked to keeps saying how epic it is. So, as much as it might make me unpopular to disagree with the masses, I thought posting my more critical/less "OMG, squee!" style review of Caraval might be helpful to two camps of readers: the first camp, who are the potential readers trying to decide if reading a specific book is a good investment of their time and or money (these are the readers I usually write my reviews for), and the second camp, who are the, "Does not liking Caraval make me a monster/philistine?" readers. So, please go into reading this review with the understanding that it is basically a list of the problems I had with Caraval, and that I am not recommending this book under any circumstances. Because some of the issues I had with the book had to do with the ending, this is a spolier-y review. I feel that, for everything Caraval tries to do, there are several other titles doing it better. If you want my advice, go read those, instead. At the end of the review, I will include a list of recommendations for: if you wanted to read Caraval for _____ element, I'd recommend _____ title instead.

Caraval is such a blatant attempt to be The Night Circus, I actually kept finding myself wondering how it could've gotten published without some kind of legal action for copyright infringement as I was reading it. Both feature a hard-to-access setting that contains part reality and part magic. Both settings play host to people who are part of the show, and people who are there to observe or participate. Both are only open at night. Both have a purpose beyond simply magic for pleasure and spectacle. Both are supposed to feel simultaneously wondrous and dangerous. Both contain a fair bit of correspondence about the magical setting, and, in both books, some of the correspondence takes place between a person who is on the "inside" of the setting and not entirely forthcoming, and one who is on the "outside" and is fairly transparent. Both feature a young woman who is wearing an ever-changing enchanted gown, and is poised to risk it all in a dangerous romantic entanglement. There's even a very important male character in Caraval who appears dressed as a Reveur. Seriously?

But, wait: what is supposed to make Caraval different? Oh, yeah... the Night Circus is only black and white, and Stephanie Garber seems to reference nothing more than Caraval's vibrant hues. In fact, they are ubiquitous. There was no convention of Garber's writing more tired and grating than her constant insertion of color words into her description of feelings, or her use of color as metaphor for what the character was currently experiencing. Not only was this lazy writing (and a confusing stretch, because sometimes the colors mentioned seemed to have no relation to the feeling Garber had slapped them onto), but it also smacked of desperation. It was like somebody read an earlier draft of Caraval that lacked these tired pigment-based references and called Garber out on (what probably seemed even more at that point like) her tired Night Circus fanfic with a half twist, and suggested that what she could do to really differentiate the two wasn't to write a wholly original book, but to keep pounding the idea of vibrant colors into the reader's mind. This was ineffective. It was annoying. And, it was an obvious fail for surface-level originality where so many other elements of Caraval were clearly lifted from The Night Circus and plunked down on Garber's colorful island.

Aside from that, Caraval purports to be a book about sisterly bonds, but the relationship between the two sisters is given almost no page space. Instead of showing her readers any actual development of this dynamic, Garber settles for the lazy trick of constantly repeating that Tella is Scarlett's number one priority, but since she has merely told me this dozens of times, instead of shown it to me once, I really wasn't buying it. And, when you don't buy what is supposed to be the protagonist's main motivation, the book becomes boring. It also starts to fall apart under closer scrutiny. If this special bond between Scarlett and Tella was supposed to be Scarlett's driving motivation, why didn't Garber illustrate that on the page? Slogging through Caraval's 402 pages leaves me inclined to believe it's because she didn't have the writing chops to do so. (It also made me wonder how many pages could've been cut from Caraval if those tired color/feeling references had simply been removed.) Adding to this lack of showing and glut of telling about the importance of the Scarlett/Tella sisterhood is the fact that every time Scarlett has a chance to make a choice which would underscore this relationship as her main priority, she seems to choose the opposite thing. For me, that changes the story from something with the prospect of having an interestingly unreliable narrator to something where the telling is supposed to stand in for the showing, even when what little is shown contradicts what I've been told as the reader, and the author doesn't take the time to explain why.

Moving on to what is supposed to be a compelling potential romance between Scarlett and Julian, I wasn't feeling the chemistry. If the basis of your "I can't stand you/I can't get enough of you" romance is that the guy refers to the girl whose name is Scarlett as "Crimson" constantly, that doesn't feel like an inside joke, a flirtatious jab, or relationship building... it feels like a desperate attempt to produce chemistry where there isn't any, and a manufactured bond where the author (once again) hasn't done the work on the page to make me believe it. And, this seems to be the only instance of that, so Garber uses it ad nauseum, without any variation. It is supposed to be a relationship built upon one teasingly annoying nickname. Also, Garber seems to have no clue what Scarlett actually wants from Julian, without bothering to acknowledge that she might (understandably) have confusion and use it to build her character or add tension to scenes they share. She is constantly saying that Scarlett wants something different from Julian than protection, but also saying she felt protected by him and that she liked the feeling. So... which is it supposed to be? Interactions between Scarlett and Julian couldn't feel any more fake and predictable to me, so instead of distracting me from Caraval's many other serious writing problems, they drew more attention to the flaws I felt the relationship was designed to cover.

...like, for example, the mystery plot. Scarlett is supposed to be inside Caraval solving the mystery using manufactured clues provided by Caraval's organizer Legend to find her sister Tella (kind of like how Triwizard Tournament competitors were supposed to locate their abducted loved ones in HP 4). Scarlett is given no character development before the mystery begins that supports any level of deductive reasoning. In fact, readers are shown her overall cluelessness and willingness to buy whatever she's told, rather than looking at what is actually going on at the outset of the book, when she has no inkling that Tella has arranged for Scarlett to be kidnapped and taken to Caraval to participate in the game Scarlett has always wanted to play.

The clues, which Scarlett doesn't even have to work for, are bothersome because they don't rhyme (though, they are presented in such a way that it seems like they are supposed to), and they are so generalized that they could fit any conclusion Scarlett forces onto them. So, even after Scarlett uses the absurd clue to reach the wrong deduction, the reader isn't left with the ability to shout, "No, that's wrong, do this instead!" in the style of horror movie watchers who have seen the teenage girl run up the stairs when she could've gone out the door. Rather, they are left to sit, frustrated, and go, "Well, that could fit, I guess...? Though, it seems like that isn't the answer." Because a clear answer after successfully parsing the clue would just be too much to ask for from such a poorly thought-out plot.

I also have trouble with Garber's treatment of magic, using it as a Band-aid to fix whatever she doesn't want to explain, or accept as permanent, while not consistently and clearly communicating the rules of magic within Caraval. Any time Garber didn't want to do the heavy lifting to think through how something might actually work, it felt like she slapped the label of "magic" on it and went on her merry way to label another emotion as a color or have Julian call Scarlett "Crimson" again.

And, finally, here's my issue with the ending. Tella's character is almost completely undeveloped. Through the whole book, Garber constantly repeats that Tella is impetuous and selfish, constantly indulging in her own desires, rather than thinking through the consequences and acting accordingly. So, as the reader, I'm supposed to believe that Tella wrote to Legend on her sister's behalf, cooked up a whole Abominable Bride-meets-The-Truman-Show-style scheme with him, planned every painstaking detail to make it happen in terms of faking their kidnapping, getting Scarlett to Caraval, and putting the ticktets in their father's hands? (And that is all assuming everything that happens once inside Caraval falls on Legend's shoulder to orchestrate.) ...all without any sort of incident that would change her character into a more dynamic one and explain her sudden personality shift? If she really is a selfless planner, how am I supposed to believe, as a reader, that she is also Scarlett's first priority, when it's clear from the contrast between her behavior and Scarlett's characterization of her sister that they don't add up? Wouldn't Scarlett have to know her sister well in order to put her first? For someone as flighty as Garber keeps saying Tella is, I'm not buying that she would've had a hand in masterminding and carrying out such a grand plan.

So, since Caraval failed on basically every level for me as a reader, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, here's a list of books I would recommend, depending on what element(s) you were seeking from Caraval:

  • For a moving depiction of sisterly love with much more of that type of relationship actually developed on the page, read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
  • To be swept off of your feet and transported into the magical setting Caraval so desperately wanted to be, read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
  • For a more general sense of historical adventure with a female protagonist, with an equally feminist look at how women and girls were treated in other times and places, read The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig.
  • For a thoughtful portrayal of an intelligent girl character who is trying to relate to a guy, but whose trust has been affected by trauma, read A Study In Charlotte (book one) and The Last Of August (book two) by Brittany Cavallaro.
  • To be thrown back on your heels by multiple unreliable (female) narrators of a powerful story, read The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma.
  • For a complicated and intense YA relationship unfolding against a supernatural/magical-type of backdrop, read the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin or Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.



Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Book Review of Born a Crime by Trevor Noah



I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with Trevor Noah. Born a Crime is his humorous memoir of growing up with a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother in South Africa during apartheid, when a relationship with someone of another race was punishable by prison sentence. Needless to say, Noah has an engaging story to tell. And, with his trademark wit and sharply sardonic cultural observation, he tells it well.

Born a Crime doesn't feel like a book, so much as it feels like a collection of essays, each chapter independently delving into a different facet of Noah's childhood, which is of stark contrast the young experiences of many of his readers. In addition to his honest portrayal of his upbringing and the political climate in which it happened, Noah also brings the personality of a lovable rascal--so different from that of the typical memoirist, which is refreshing and helps the book come alive. Many people who grow up to write their memoirs were quiet readers, social outcasts, nerds, or dealt with abusive situations at home. Noah's bent toward juvenile delinquency and his uniquely honest way of relating to his mom help make his portrayal of his childhood self a triumph.
Ultimately, when one picks up Born a Crime, one is signing on for many things: a small, but painless, civics lesson in apartheid, a carefully-curated selection of Noah's most meaningful or entertaining boyhood memories, and all of it served up with the treatment of Noah's personal humorous style, which will bring audiences back to his narrative again and again. This book fills all of the promises it has made, and more. 

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Book Review of The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom

The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom comes out today, and there are lots of reasons why you should buy it. Answering "yes" to any of these questions, for example. Do you always want to know where the kick ass protagonist of a story you otherwise enjoyed got the skill that saved her life, and feel like it is a cop-out if she just suddenly seems to have the right bit of information at the crucial moment? Do you like books that deal with complex problems of society in thoughtful and non-dismissive ways? Do you appreciate characters with more to them than meets the eye, and stories where you aren't sure who can be trusted? That said, I hate the two cover designs I've seen.


Anyhow, Gwendolyn Bloom is a complicated protagonist who comes by all of her skills and knowledge honestly, which I really appreciate. She and her story both have plenty of grit... much more than the publisher's publicity team seemed to think when they chose to market this title by including a "discover your own spy name" meme sheet with my ARC. Because, this isn't a "discover your own spy name" kind of story. This is an "if Gwendolyn Bloom can think nine steps ahead of all of the adult players in the very dicey international situation in which she becomes embroiled when her father suddenly disappears, then maybe she will get out alive" book, cutesy spy names nonwithstanding.

The most apt description I can come up with is: a YA version of Alias, but even that falls short, as the stakes feel so much higher, and Gwendolyn Bloom is much more of a solo agent than Syndey Bristow ever seemed. Ignore the bad cover design and the silly marketing plan, and look forward to meeting a polyglot protagonist who is as well-read as Hermione Granger and as snarky as Veronica Mars. The Cruelty comes out today.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Book Review of Father's Road, Written by Ji-yun Jang, Illustrated by Tan Jun


Father's Road, Written by Ji-yun Jang and Illustrated by Tan Jun is a picture book about the Silk Road. It is presented with a glossary of terms, a map, and a timeline of events in the back because it is part of the Trade Winds series, self-described as "an educational series featuring stories set in key periods in the history of economy and culture." The cover, featuring drab colors and a less than lush illustration begins to depict one of my problems with the book, which tells the story of young Wong Chung and his journey on the Silk Road with his father, who works as a trader.

As an adult, I enjoy picture books because I like looking at different styles of illustrations. I see picture books as a way to explore the work of various illustrators, and experience their personal ways of putting me into the story the author is trying to tell. Unfortunately, in the case of Father's Road, Tan Jun failed at this. I didn't feel I was enmeshed in the story at all, because I kept marveling at how drab the colors were and how bleak and unfinished the illustrations looked (as if concept sketches, rather than completed pieces of art, were used in the final book). I wondered how the most exciting scenes in the story (a skirmish with bandits, a wind storm in the dessert) were depicted in such a boring, washed-out way. There are many colorful items being trade on the Silk Road, but readers of this book never get to enjoy them fully because of the bleak color choices Tan Jun used.

Obviously, the other main component of a picture book is the narrative, and Ji-yun Jang's narrative had some glaring flaws. For one thing, Wong Chung's father never seems to give any kind of clear or helpful direction to his son until it is too late, or Wong Chung is going to ignore it for plot purposes. For another, when Wong Chung does finally get clear direction from his father (...after not being told to do things like ration his water or keep his mouth closed so sand won't get in it--really? I'm supposed to buy that?), he immediately ignores it to provide medical assistance to a child of the bandits who have just attacked him, his father, and their crew. Instead of any negative consequences for disobeying the one clear instruction from his Dad, Wong Chung is rewarded for this choice. Such a narrative thread for a picture book intended for young children is bizarre and will probably just confuse them about ideas like listening to their parents, especially because Wong Chung is then praised for his bravery (he was brave for ignoring his Dad?).

Ultimately, Father's Road completely missed the mark. I'm all for historical picture books, but picture books should put the reader into the story and not be confusing to young readers. This one failed on both counts.

I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing in exchange for my honest review.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Book Review of Mexico: Stories by Josh Barkan


Mexico, by Josh Barkan, is a collection of short stories, each about a character who is trying to lead his or her life until crime intervenes. I received a review copy from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. The cover, a design which would be beautiful, if a bit twee for the subject material, has large, distracting ink blots obscuring much of the illustration. I wonder if the intent was to contrast the potential beauty of Mexico with the ugliness of the crime depicted in Barkan's stories contained herein, showing how it detracts from the otherwise pretty setting and culture. If so, it wholly fails, leaving me as the reader with the impression that the goal was a cover design reflecting an American tourist's conceit of Mexico, rather than the gritty reality Barkan seems so desperate to convey.

Flipping inward, my experience as a reader did not improve. The first story features a chef running his own restaurant in Mexico City who is caught unawares when El Chapo appears at his restaurant, demanding the finest meal he has ever eaten, but prepared with only two ingredients, and threatening to kill him if it doesn't meet that standard. As El Chapo's security detail and attendant thugs take over the restaurant and terrify its staff and diners, the chef indulges in dull reflections about his wife and young son, not seeming to experience the kind of panic for one second that would've lent even a small amount of verisimilitude to this situation, which is improbable, at best. From there, my doubt mounted when the chef settled on Wagyu beef garnished with human blood. After tasting his own and determining it too bitter and salty, Barkan then presumes I will buy that the mother of a young girl in the dining room will allow her daughter to be mutilated for the chef's purposes, without any threats or explanation beforehand? At that point, a spaceship landing in the kitchen would've been more realistic, and less disturbing.

However, my biggest issue with Mexico: stories is that it feels like it was written by an outsider. The author of this book might have observed the land, the people, and the culture, but I get the feeling that he does not understand them. It feels much more like this book was written by someone who lives part time in Roanoke, Virginia than by one who lives part time in Mexico City, though his author bio says he divides his time among the two. It showcases the simplistic view of Mexico that it's a nice country which could be great if there were no crime. Gee, you think? I'm pretty sure there's a little more to it than that. Ultimately, my problem with Mexico: stories is that it wasn't written by somebody from Mexico... and that's how it reads.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Book Review of Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love

Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love is far from my normal fare. It is grittier than some of my favorite YA "issue books," set an an ultra realistic (and ultra depressing) place, and it deals with experiences to which I thought I would never be able to relate. But, I like to stretch myself as a reader because, occasionally, those stretches outside of my comfort zone pay off more than I could've ever predicted, teaching me about the world and myself, and introducing me to a book so wonderful that it almost defies description. So, that notion, combined with the intriguing jacket copy calling Lola the protagonist "an unforgettable woman who combines the genius and ferocity of Lisbeth Salander with the ruthless ambition of Walter White" and the description that, while Lola appears to be the submissive girlfriend of gang leader Garcia, she is actually the one pulling the strings, I was interested enough to give it a try. Also, the cover is just brilliant, and features gorgeous texturing and debossing which isn't evident from the picture, but feels great in your hands.

It is marketed as a thriller, but it doesn't feel like one. Instead, it is a study in character, a tour through the landscape of a South Central LA neighborhood where a new washer and dryer might breed suspicion or envy, a look at how gang turf warfare isn't simply the endless string of gunfights Hollywood has made it out to be, but can be as strategic as a chess match, a constant examination of personal ethics as the ideal versus a practical situational response, and a breakdown of what it is like to exist as a woman who has the power so often reserved only for a man... just as long as her power is kept a secret. I didn't read Lola (all in one sitting, staying up several hours past when I'm normally in bed) because I wanted to know how it ended, I kept reading Lola because I wanted to spend every last page I could inside her head.

So, don't read Lola because you enjoy gunfights, because you are always on the lookout for the next incarnation of West Side Story, or because you hope it will get your adrenaline pumping. Read Lola because Melissa Scrivner Love has crafted a character so strong, so strategic, so astute, and so compellingly realistic that you wouldn't be surprised if you ran into her at the grocery store. Read Lola because this is a book about what living in a man's world costs a woman, and what she stands to gain by embracing the invisibility that status confers upon her and using it to her advantage. Read Lola because this is a book about a woman who scrubs floors on her hands and knees for people who have treated her worse than an animal, a woman who pretends to defer as she serves coffee and cookies to men who think they call the shots, but a who is actually just pretending to be meek and servile until the time is right. Lola might just be the most unconventionally feminist character I have ever encountered, and she is unforgettable.

Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love comes out on March 21.

(P.S. As a sidenote for all of my fellow Kiki Strike fans out there, I'm pretty sure Lola was who Kiki Strike wanted to be when she grew up. You know, when she said, "Dangerous.")

I received a copy of Lola from the publisher via Shelf Awareness in exchange for my honest review.