Kate Mester
After 2 books, I will continue to listen to anything with the Ben Philippe/James Fouhey combo. SO funny & Fouhey captures Philippe's intent & humor so well. You can see direct lines from Norris to Henri, both likely with little bits of Ben imbued in them. I really enjoyed Norris's arc and the meta-commentary on what life is supposed to be like (the idealized movie versions sold to us) vs what's actually real. Madison & Liam & Aarti are great characters as well.
4.5 Perfect on Paper is a sweet and smart romance with a nuanced bi main character and an awesome focus on consent culture and healthy relationship advice that feels organic and not preachy. Supporting characters are in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and a Queer and Questioning club is part of the plot, helping to answer questions for readers like aro/ace distinctions, etc. Parents are included in the story and are also given nuance and teens make realistic decisions. Strong recommend, this has wide appeal.
The audiobook was excellent, as the different readers made sense when the narrators shifted, and heightened my appreciation for Mbue's structure that I don't think I would have liked if reading it on the page. This is a departure from Behold the Dreamers and shows real range. I prefer a more linear story, but in audio form I liked hearing more details from each narrator and didn't mind that that took away from the pacing and meandered around in time. The subject is really emotional but I didn't feel emotionally connected, even by the tragedies building to the end, and part of that is the structure forced the reader to be at a remove. I think I appreciated this book more than I enjoyed it, but I'll definitely continue to read what Mbue publishes.
4.5 so rounding up. Tess Sharpe read her own book and it worked. TW: this is about surviving some really severe (though not graphically detailed) physical and sexual abuse. You will be strapped in to this rollercoaster right until the end, which fell a tiny bit flat, but still felt earned. I very much appreciated Sharpe's notes at the end about endometrisis and crisis help references and that therapy is normalized. This book will be a quick sell to teens, especially with a movie/show already planned for it.
Thomas, already a bar setter, gets better with every book. I loved every second of this book, read perfectly by Dion Graham. Maverick is one of the realest male-identifying YA characters I've ever read. I KNOW this kid. She's imbued Mav with such depth, heart, and soul that you feel and understand every decision he makes. A knockout.
I'm not sure why this was in verse. The poems didn't stand on their own and it's like he was telling the story in a choppier way, rather than actually writing verse that told a story. And speaking of story, it was pretty slight. I read great reviews and the ideas were there but the execution was shallow. I'd hand this to strong novel0in-verse readers but I'm not sure who else.
This one was a bit all over the place but does lay out some good groundwork info on the rapid consequences of climate change.
Pocket Change Collective -an activism series by Penguin Workshop - is serving up great reads!Adult readers can also find a quick way to learn about weighty topics - strong recommend to this whole series
This volume is excellent, personal but universal. The organizing principle is “Queer people anywhere are responsible for queer people everywhere,” Eli gives simple rules and explanations on how to follow this principle, with ample resources at the end. Hope this one gets passed around!
Pocket Change Collective -an activism series by Penguin Workshop - is serving up great reads!Adult readers can also find a quick way to learn about weighty topics - strong recommend to this whole series
This volume is free verse and absolutely mesmerizing. Leon is moving, funny, current, wide reaching but intimate and personal at the same time. Definitely need a display of this whole series - they'll be snapped up!
Pocket Change Collective -an activism series by Penguin Workshop - is serving up great reads!Adult readers can also find a quick way to learn about weighty topics - strong recommend to this whole series
All the stars. I loved every single second of this audiobook.14 hours that I truly savored and didn't want to end. I laughed and smiled and shook my head and cathartic cried. James McBride & Dominic Hoffman - this writing, this humanity, this story weaving and performance - thank you, this is a masterpiece.
I was so excited for this book and it delivered, but could definitely have used some editing/tightening up. Excited to see what the Obama's will do for the TV adaptation. I appreciated how immersive the reading experience was, and that's credit to Boulley's world building and cultural teachings and sharing, but this book tried to do too much at once and didn't truly move until the last quarter. Daunis is such a fully realized character and there's so much of this book that I'll keep thinking about. Would recommend for upper high school - college - adult.
Really well done and incredibly well-researched. The end notes explaining his research and choices were so additive. I knew some of this story but not all, so Backderf's research helped to fill in my knowledge gaps, making it easier to draw continued modern parallels to how this massacre happened. I appreciated that he spent a lot of time giving voice to Bill, Sandy, Allison, & Jeff and also included information about the other students who were shot. As a warning, the scenes of the shooting are very realistically graphic. This would be good for upper highschool to adult and would pair well with Deborah Wiles' audiobook of her novel-in-verse, Kent State.
Author-performed audiobook. Thanks to LibroFM for the eALC! Really strong novel-in-verse about a dissolution of a friendship and a teen girl coming into her own self of positive self-worth and independence. Explores themes of gender experience (the main character can't say what the boys say on the basketball court, for example), colorism, featurism, body-image, consent, and self-value. This felt very authentic and so many teen readers will connect to this. Will definitely be booktalking.
3.5 Park Hong narrates the book herself. The first essay is the standout, I'd reread that again and it definitely should have a place in high school and college classes. I liked her more personal essays, especially the essay about her college friends and their relationships. In the second half where she deviated from the personal didn't feel as strong, but her exploration of the concept of minor feelings was memorable. I need to seek out her poetry next.
I will listen to these audiobooks for as long as Bailey Carr & cast narrate them. There's something so soothing yet compelling about Carr's voice and the interview formast for the rest of the cast really works. As for writing, Jackson really elevated her world and character building this time. I wonder if she either wrote out this series all together or mapped out all of the characters/plots for each book before completely writing, because some minor characters from book 1 now feature prominently and have important callbacks to the central mystery. Jackson also really grows Pip up in this book and she'll have to work through some real trauma, which feels right to the series. A well baked layer cake, I look forward to reading the 3rd book!
Glad this was a duology. Audio was well done, but ran it at 1.4 speed for slow talking and pretty glacial pacing. In this book the zumra works to bring magic back but really it's a showcase for the slow burn of the Zafira/Nasir romance. I wasn't heavily invested in any characters in this set but I appreciated the world building and storytelling and fantasy readers who are good with slow moving stories will be all over them.
I listened to this (thanks for the ALC, LibroFM!) narrated by Elhillo herself, and she performs it so becautifully, but it's one that I'll likely read physically as well to see how the poems play out on the page. I talked to a class about this as I was mid-way through, and they were all really interested in the premise. Nima, a Sudanese-American girl, doesn't feel like she fits in anywhere/into anything and thinks she is the problem, that if she was born as a twin/sister that doesen't exist, Yasmeen, everything would be better, SHE would be better. Through some magical realism, she is able to see the possiblities of the other life she imagines, and how it plays out for her family. She learns some complicated lessons and sees some truths about her family and herself. I just got the Breakbeak poetry series for the library, and Elhillo is featured, so I'll certianly be looking out for more of her writng beyond this. An important story and an inecredibly well done book debut.