5 Thriller Recommendations!

As the cooler and spookier months are right around the corner, I thought it'd be fun to share some spookier books that folks might like to put on their TBRs! I really love horror/thrillers. I think they're so much fun to read and always leave me wanting to continue to flip the pages to find out what will happen next. I've compiled a list of 5 thrillers, all of which are unique and bring different strengths to the table, that you might want to try out for yourself. Let me know in the comments if you might pick up any of these titles this season!

1. The Long Walk by Stephen King

2. Intensity by Dean Koontz

3. The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

4. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

5. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Harry Potter Re-Read and Re-Watch Reviews #4: Goblet of Fire

I've finally gotten my act together and managed to edit and upload our review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! This is one of my very favorite stories in the series so I really loved revisiting it both in the book and movie versions. I've seen the adaptation dozens of times but it was so nice to reread the book for the first time! I can't wait to continue on with the series because the action is about to REALLY kick off!

Harry Potter Re-Read and Re-Watch Reviews #3: Prisoner of Azkaban

After a busy few weeks, Brett and I were finally able to sit down and review our experiences re-reading and re-watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! This was the first time I've read Azkaban since I was a kid, and the first time watching the adaptation EVER, so this was really a new experience for me which I loved. Brett also had some interesting observations about the plot holes of this story in particular which was great to discuss with him. We have such a fantastic time doing these reviews and I'm really looking forward to reviewing Goblet of Fire, one of my favorite stories in the series, very soon!

Harry Potter Re-Read & Re-Watch Reviews #2: Chamber of Secrets

Hooray! I'm finally here with the second installment of our Harry Potter Re-Read & Review Series! This month we're reviewing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - one of my least favorite stories in the series. :P We did have a blast revisiting the story, though, and talking it out in detail! Find out who we think is the secret villain and hero of the series, how this series probably should have ended at the second movie, and finding first evidence that J.K. Rowling is in fact Captain Hindsight. I hope you enjoy the second episode of this series and we will be back next month with our review of Prisoner of Azkaban!

Book Review: With Malice

It's been a while since I've done a written book review here on my blog! I don't have a set system on how I decide which books to review. It's usually a gut feeling on when I feel like I have more to say about a book than I could fit into a monthly reading wrap up. I got this feeling when I read With Malice by Eileen Cook last weekend, so it's time for my first written book review since September!

With Malice is a young adult mystery thriller about Jill who goes on a trip to Italy but wakes up in the hospital back in the United States without any memory of the trip and is accused of murdering her best friend, Simone, by intentionally causing a car accident. Jill, who is the narrator of this story, has severe memory loss, making her extremely unreliable. She has no idea what actually happened, and when she starts to regain memory, she's unsure if they are her actual memories or if they are images of what people are telling her could have happened. A lot of readers really dislike the trope of the unreliable narrator, but I personally love it and thought it really worked for this story.

You can really tell that Eileen Cook was extremely inspired by the Amanda Knox case for this story. I'm fairly familiar with the ins and outs of Amanda Knox's story and the parallels between that case and With Malice are glaringly obvious. With Malice features a media frenzy around the case, a story line of Jill falling in love with an Italian local, the criticism of how the police in the story are mishandling evidence.... There's even a reference to the international school in Perugia that Knox attended at the time of the murder of her roommate. If you're familiar with the Knox case, the parallels are extremely hard to ignore. While these parallels did bring me out of the story a bit, they did not annoy me as much as I thought they might. I can see how if I didn't know Amanda Knox's story I would be much more invested in the story. I think that's my only major criticism of this book.

I really enjoyed how throughout the book the reader is in the shoes of Jill and you don't really know what's the truth and what is fabricated. Every other chapter contains police interviews, testimonies from people who were around Jill and Simone on their trip to Italy, television reports of the accident, and excerpts from a blog called "Justice for Simone". There is quite a bit of he said/she said throughout the story which really keeps the reader guessing throughout which I really enjoyed. Even though I guessed about every possible theory, I don't think I was ever sure what the answer was until it was finally revealed to us.

AND THAT ENDING THOUGH. Eileen Cook did something really interesting with the ending that is really hard to describe. It really did take me by surprise even though the ending turned out to be something that isn't totally shocking and the reader would probably guess the correct outcome at some point during their reading experience. I guess I was just impressed by the fact that I was never actually what the outcome would actually be until the very last second. Cook keeps you on the hook the entire time and because of that, the outcome just kind of turns your stomach. I really appreciated that Cook was able to do that to me as a reader because that's fairly difficult to pull off in a thriller.

Overall, I've rated With Malice...

4/5 Stars!

Have you read With Malice? If so, what did you think?

Let me know in the comments!

Harry Potter Re-Read & Re-Watch Reviews #1: Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone

I'm SUPER excited to kick off this new video series Brett and I are working on - Harry Potter Re-Read and Re-Watch Reviews! As you might know, I'm rereading the Harry Potter series all the way through in 2018, the first time I've done this since the books were released. I'm reading one book a month until I get through them, and Brett and I are re-watching the movies after I finish each book!

In the month of January I re-read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Brett and I re-watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We talk about our reactions to the book and the movie and also chat a bit about our excitement to continue this project of ours. We're both looking forward to revisiting the story of Harry Potter in it's entirety, and we will be back next month with a review of Chamber of Secrets for you all! :)

Book Talk: The Lunar Chronicles

I've been wanting to make this book talk for a while (and I'm thinking I'm going to continue making book talks for series that I finish), but I'm finally sharing my spoiler-free thoughts on The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer! This YA sci-fi series that is based on fairy tale retellings is an extremely enjoyable and entertaining read and I really had fun during my time reading through each of these books! Click play on my video to find out about my thoughts on the series as a whole.

Books Discussed:

Cinder

Scarlet

Cress

Fairest

Winter

 All by Marissa Meyer

Book Review: Throne of Glass

I finally got around to trying out my first Sarah J. Maas book last week and read Throne of Glass, the first book in the Throne of Glass series. This book counted toward one of my #TheReadingQuest challenges and I was actually really excited to get into this series after hearing it receive so much praise in the BookTube community. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy my experience reading this book and felt the need to tell y'all why. 

*WARNING: This review will contain spoilers! Proceed at your own risk*

Throne of Glass follows a notorious assassin, Celaena, after she is released from a life sentence in prison in order to compete in a tournament in order to become the King's Champion (or the assassin that will do the King's bidding). As Celaena competes in this tournament, there are a slew of murders against her competition that cannot be explained. ....that's really the gist of the plot. And I think that speaks volumes to the quality of this story - there really isn't that much to it. It's a really basic fantasy assassin story (at least that's how it's marketed) and I was actually pretty excited to get to it based on the fact there was a badass female lead and the fact that people seemed to freaking LOVE this series. Unfortunately, the way it is marketed is not what I got from this story.

Celaena is supposed to be the world's greatest assassin, but unfortunately she got caught and thrown in prison with a life sentence. We don't know too much else about her backstory other than the fact that someone in her life was killed. There's really no basis or proof that she is the world's greatest assassin other than the fact the narrator tells you she's the worlds greatest assassin. If you're going to make a big claim like that, you need to back it up with proof. That's persuasive writing 101, and SJM failed in that department.

Not only do we not see proof from her past that shows us that she's the world's greatest assassin, we see on *multiple* occasions Celaena making mistakes, messing up, and all around being a kind of awful assassin. In the assassin's competition, her "handler" Chaol*, tells her to not use all of the skill that she possesses so people don't find out who she is (she's trying to hide her identity for really no obvious reason), which is the way SJM covers up for Celaena for being terrible, but I just didn't buy it.

Speaking of Celaena trying to cover up her identity, there's a point in the book where her identity gets out to the other competitors, but no one seems phased about it. Characters were just like "Oh, I guess that's that Calaena girl. Huh." and Celaena and Khaol were all like "Well I guess they all know now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"... Like... WHY COVER UP THE IDENTITY OF A CHARACTER IF NO ONE IS GOING TO CARE ONCE IT'S REVEALED?! Such a waste of time.

Meanwhile, during this assassin's competition, all the competitors keep getting brutally murdered in the castle they're all staying in by this ~mysterious~ monster, but basically no one is really that concerned and all activities continue as normal. Literally dozens of competitiors are torn to shreds by this unknown creature and everyone's like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. (Basically everyone is like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the entire book and there's no real stakes in this story it seems.) THAT'S NOT HOW PEOPLE WOULD REACT IF PEOPLE KEPT GETTING MURDERED IN THE SAME DAMN BUILDING YOU'RE SLEEPING IN EVERY NIGHT. Like... really?! C'mon SJM. Give these characters some range of feeling.

This book is under disguise of being a really awesome badass assassin story and if you really boil it down, it just mainly focuses on a really dumb love triangle between Celaena, Khaol, and Prince Dorian. It seems like Khaol and Dorian are both really vaguely intrigued by Celaena but again, there's no real stakes in this love triangle and it doesn't seem like there's any actual emotion from any of the three characters. The biggest connection that any of the characters have within the triangle is the fact that Celaena and Dorian both like reading books and they're both excited that the other one reads books. Like... that's it. Probably one of the dumbest attempted love triangles I've ever read and again, a total wast of time.

While I really disliked everything stated above, I really did enjoy the scenes of the assassin's competition. I really wish that the book focused more on these and raised the intensity of the scenes as well. This had the potential to be very Hunger Games-esque and could have been really fun and gripping to read, but we barely got anything from the assassins competition and that was a huge disappointment. Really the assassins competition was the only thing saving this book from a 1-star rating from me, and if there was more of that kind of content in this book I really would have had a great time reading it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Overall, I gave this book...

2/5 Stars!

Have you read any of the Throne of Glass series? If so, what do you think of it?

Let me know in the comments!

*Why the fuck is his name spelled this way, yet pronounced "Kale"?! Fantasy names are so frustrating.

August 2017 Reading Wrap Up!

August was another excellent month of reading for me! Like I was saying, I really wanted to take advantage of the last month before the craziness of the academic year came around, and I definitely did! I managed to get 17 books read again and I found a handful that I really enjoyed! I also participated in (and still am participating in) one of the *coolest* readathons - #TheReadingQuest. I'm having such a blast with this readathon and really hope Read at Midnight does something like this again really soon!

READING STATS FOR AUGUST

Participated in 3 readathons (#TheReadingQuest, 24 Hour Readathon, & #BoutofBooks 20)

Completed 1 reading challenges

Started 1 series

Completed diverse, TBR jar, classic, and nonfiction reads

5,549 pages read

17 books completed

BOOKS COMPLETED

Mooncop by Tom Gauld
Library book, 4/5

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Physical copy, 2/5
Reading challenge fulfilled: A book with an indigo cover

Barefoot Gen, volume 1 by Keiji Nakazawa
Library book, 5/5

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Physical copy, 3/5
Buddy read with Andie

The Unseen World by Liz Moore
Audiobook, 4/5

Geekerella by Ashley Poston
Physical copy, 5/5
Buddy read with Becky

Barefoot Gen, volume 2 by Keiji Nakazawa
Library book, 5/5

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Physical copy, 4/5
Buddy read with Michael

The Way We Bared Our Souls by Willa Strayhdorn
Physical copy, 2/5
Buddy read with Shannon

Fairest by Marissa Meyer
Physical copy, 4/5

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Physical copy, 5/5
Diverse pick for August

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Audiobook, 2/5
TBR jar pick for August

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (Review)
Physical copy, 2/5
Star 3 new series (fulfilled 3 of 3)

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice & Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Audiobook, 3/5

Release by Patrick Ness
Physical copy, 4.5/5

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Physical copy, 3/5
Classic pick for August

Mad Women: the Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond by Jane Maas
Physical copy, 3.5/5
Nonfiction pick for August

Book Review: When Dimple Met Rishi

Last week my Booktube buddy Anita and I read When Dimple Me Rishi by Sandhya Menon, a YA contemporary romance novel that has been receiving A TON of hype on the bookish side of the internet. I had extremely high hopes for this book, as did Anita, and we were very excited to read this novel together. Unfortunately, this book really fell flat for the both of us and we both wound up feeling very disappointed. I wanted to talk in more detail about why it fell flat for me, because this book hasn't been getting a lot of criticism quite yet (SO MANY 5-star reviews for this book at the moment!) and I want folks out there to be able to make an informed decision about this book before rushing out to buy it.

***While this review doesn't exactly contain spoilers, it does contain a few details of the story that are not in the book's synopsis. If you do not want to know those details before reading, I would say skip this review for now. Otherwise, proceed reading!***

When Dimple Met Rishi is about two Indian-American teens who have just graduated high school and are in the summer before heading off to college. Dimple is a fierce lady who is heading to Stanford in the fall and determined to find her way into the tech field and code apps for a living, despite her parents hoping she will find an "IIH" (ideal Indian husband) and take on the role of a wife and mother as soon as possible. Rishi, who is bound for MIT at the end of the summer and values his connection to his family and culture very much. Dimple and Rishi's parents have been friends for years and think it would be a great idea to arrange a marriage between the two teens (unbeknownst to Dimple). When Dimple heads off to a summer camp where she will have the opportunity to build her own app, she meets Rishi, who is there to propose, even though Dimple has no idea who he is. The story then takes off from there.

As I was saying at the beginning of this review, I was super excited to get into this story! The premise seemed lovely. An own voices peak into what it is like to grow up Indian-American in the United States, a plot line dedicated to arranged marriage (something I am very unfamiliar with), AND badass ladies pursuing the STEM fields? SIGN ME UP. However, even though the above premise was what was sold to me, it wasn't what I got out of this book. Yeah, those things are all mentioned in this book, but they are no where near the focus and I was VERY disappointed about that.

This book has a strong start. I loved the beginning scenes of learning more about Dimple and Rishi's families, of Dimple and Rishi meeting for the first time, and the first few scenes of Insomnia Con (the tech camp where the majority of the book took place). Dimple and Rishi had a really cute friendship blossoming at the beginning of their time at the camp, and I was loving reading about them getting to know one another. After about page 150, however, the book slowed waaaaaaay down which was a total bummer. The beginning of the book was on such a great pace to be a fun summer contemporary with a unique setting and focus for its characters, but it soon became boring and I felt myself searching for the spark we had at the beginning of the book to come back and grip my attention once again.

Once Dimple and Rishi got over their initial awkwardness that all YA contemporary romances go through, the book really fizzled for me. Their relationship quickly became boring to me and was extremely predictable for two teens in love. This very well could be the fact that I'm not in the YA age group and perhaps I've outgrown reading about intense, teen first-love stories, but it just seemed super predictable and boring in my eyes. Dimple and Rishi both kind of lost what was interesting about them as individuals (Dimple with her interest in tech, and Rishi his love of art) and while they discussed both of these things a great deal, us seeing them be involved in their supposed beloved activities rarely happened throughout the book. Menon did a LOT of telling, but not a lot of showing, which is a shame because they both would totally have been interesting activities to get more of!

Which brings me to my next point: this book is set at a tech camp. One of our main characters is allegedly super passionate about developing apps and pursuing a career in tech. We have an entire plot line set up of a contest of who can develop the best app where the winner received the opportunity to get their app funded and developed. Ummmm... WHY DO WE NEVER SEE ANY OF THAT?! This, I think, is the biggest missed opportunity of the entire novel. This plot line would have been sooooo interesting to read about. You don't ever see characters, especially FEMALE characters, pursuing STEM in YA literature. You're telling me you're going to set an entire novel at a tech camp with a strong young female lead who wants to pursue a tech career attending said camp and then not show us her kicking ass at what she loves to do? Really? 

Can you imagine how many young readers would see Dimple kicking ass in tech development and then want to go out and pursue STEM just like her? Do you understand how inspiring that would have been? I think this is definitely what annoyed me the most about this book. There was so much potential in that one plot line (it was the setting for the majority of the novel for crying out loud!) and Sandhya Menon did nothing with it. I am super disappointed in that, and I can only hope that some author out there will pick up where Menon dropped the ball. :/ :/ :/

I really think that Menon also missed out on a really cool friendship between Celia and Dimple. I think it would have been really awesome for Dimple to have a solid friendship outside of her relationship with Rishi, and it also would have been great for Rishi to have a buddy he could talk to throughout the book. There were many bumps in Dimple and Rishi's young relationship, and having some sort of confidant would have been so wonderful for each of them to have. Celia was right there for Dimple to have a good friendship with, but instead their relationship seemed really judgmental and bitchy most of the time, and ultimately felt really fake and tense. I really wish that their relationship was stronger.

There were a lot of pieces that really didn't need to be in this story and would have provided more opportunity for a stronger plot if it wasn't there. One example that sticks right out is the talent show. Yep, there was a freaking talent show plot line in this book when they were already supposed to be competing to develop the best app. Why couldn't Menon have just focused on the app competition instead? It would have been far more interesting AND far more relevant to the story she was trying to tell. The talent show plot line really bothered me and I felt it was a total waste of the 100 or so pages they it was being discussed. While I think it was cool that Dimple and Rishi did a Bollywood dance for their entry as it was a cool glimpse into their culture, the entire plot line of the talent show could have been cut and the book would have been perfectly fine (probably better, if I'm being honest).

Of course, this book wasn't all bad. I really loved the fact that we had two Indian-American main characters which gave us a wonderful insight into what it is like to grow up as a first-generation citizen in an immigrant family. I loved that they discussed Indian-American culture at length as well as the pressures they face from their families, the inner-conflicts they have regarding pleasing their parents vs. pursuing their dreams, and the challenges they face as PoC and children of immigrants in the United States. Discussion of other cultures, races, and experiences in YA are SO IMPORTANT and I will always support that. 

And, as I said, the book had a really promising start in terms of the relationship Dimple and Rishi were developing. The first third of this book was really fun and rom-com-y which I had such a fun time reading! I really wish that vibe has stuck through the entirety of the book and was evident throughout Dimpe and Rishi's relationship.

However, with the amount of potential that this novel had to be GREAT, it really fell flat. Menon had so much she could have worked off of to make this an extremely impactful novel on top of it being a love story. This was intended to be a contemporary romance and it definitely was, but there was so much more that could have happened to enhance the story, and I'm ultimately just frustrated that Menon didn't take advantage of the opportunities that were very clearly in front of her.

Overall, I'm going to give this book...

3/5 Stars.

I'm hoping that Menon's next novel (which releases in 2018) will be an improvement from this one. So many people seem to ADORE this book and I just am not seeing why, so maybe there is something I missed with this book that I might pick up from her next one.

Have you read When Dimple Met Rishi? What did you think?

Let me know in the comments!

Book Talk: Infinite Jest

Here it is y'all!  My thoughts on my experience while reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. 
I decided I didn't want to do a full blown book review because I honestly feel like there is so much more I can get out of this book and so much more I learn from this work of literature. I didn't feel quite ready to boil it all down in a book review. So, I decided to do a video "book talk" instead, so you can hear about my thoughts from my first complete read through. It is my hope that over time I will have many discussions with others about this book and be able to sift through the many layers of this work and continue to learn through discussion! If you've read or are reading this book, I would love to hear your thoughts and have a conversation with you!

Click play on the above video to hear my thoughts on Infinite Jest and let me know in the comments of this post or this video what your thoughts are! I would love to chat with you! :)

Book Review: Born a Crime

I recently listened to Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah on audio and you guys.... I loved it so much. I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. I was just in search of a fun celebrity memoir, narrated by the author, to listen to on my commutes and long runs throughout the week. Something easy to pass the time while I took on the more boring parts of my day. This book really blew me away and I'm so happy I decided to download this book this month. I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this book with you all, so keep reading for a non-spoiler review!

While Born a Crime is a memoir and is written by a celebrity, this book is so different than what I was expecting. Most of the celebrity memoirs I've read follow somewhat the same formula. We learn a bit about the celebrity's childhood, their ~awkward teen years~, how they discovered their passion for whatever made them famous, and then we usually get a behind the scenes look at what their career is/was. It's usually pretty run-of-the-mill, and they're usually a delightful 3.5-4 star read for me. A little slice of what my favorite celebrities are like beyond what I see on the screen. This book wasn't like that at all.

Born a Crime is a memoir entirely about Noah's life growing up in South Africa. Noah was born during apartheid to a white, Swiss father and a black, South African mother. Interracial relations were extremely illegal during apartheid, making Noah's mere existence a crime. Noah talks extensively about what it was like growing up "colored" (the South African term for biracial people) in this time and relates many of his experience to things that were happening on a grander scale within his home country during his childhood and adolescence, before and after democracy was introduced.

The stories Noah tells about his family, his friends, his school life, and his young adulthood are extremely endearing. He invites you into his life in a way that feels extremely kind and genuine, aware that his audience for this book may not fully understand his experiences but makes it easy for them to go along with him on his journey. He gives you a full sense of not only who he is as a person, but also gives you a clear picture of what life was and is like living in South Africa. Noah never seems defensive of his upbringing, but rather shows his audience his roots in a way that makes you feel fortunate for being let in. He almost makes you feel a part of his life with his mother (he talks about his relationship with her extensively - it's clear he loves her and that she is a huge part of who he is!) which is such a wonderful gift when you're learning about someone's life.

As mentioned above, I listened to this book on audio, which was narrated by Noah himself. If you haven't listened to him talk, I highly recommend doing so. (He's the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, so it's fairly easy to experience!) He has a very distinct voice that is so perfect for telling his own story and it totally enhances the book as a whole. There are also parts of this audiobook where you can hear different sounds outside of the narrative - a shifting of the papers he is reading off of, a creak in his voice, the running together of words here and there. It just is a really lovely experience listening to this book and I would totally recommend trying the audiobook out if you have the opportunity.

Overall, I gave this book...

5/5 Stars!

It's very clear that I loved this book and enjoyed my experience of reading it. I loved it so much that I actually ordered a physical copy! There are a lot of sections of this book I would love to go back and highlight and tab, and I would also love to reread and revisit Trevor and his mother in South Africa again. Highly recommend this read if you're looking for a memoir. I loved it!

Have you read Born a Crime? What did you think?

Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: Flawed

Last week I read Flawed by Cecelia Ahern. This is Ahern's YA debut. She is an extremely successful adult contemporary novelist, and with the premise of this book I had really high hopes for liking this story. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I had a lot of feelings about this book while reading it. I had to stop reading every few pages to jot down my thoughts! I knew I had to review this book when I was about 10 chapters in, which can sometimes be a good thing, but in this situation was not. So, without further adieu, here's what I thought about Flawed.

***THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! Proceed at your own risk.***

Flawed is a young adult dystopian novel that is actually the start of a duology. It takes place in a world where there is an organization (referred to as "the Guild") that monitors the behavior of the people and if they act in any sort of "immoral" way, they are brought to a trial and usually found to be "Flawed". Once someone is found to be Flawed, they are branded and now have to live life by a different set of rules. The Flawed are seen as second-class citizens and are basically the scum of the earth. Our main character, Celestine North, is seen as the "perfect" young woman. She gets amazing grades, is a mathematician, and is even dating the leader of the Guild's son. We follow the story from her perspective.

****SPOILERS AHEAD!!! It's pretty impossible for me to give you my full thoughts without spoiling major plot points, so if you do not want to be spoiled, stop reading here!***

Book Review: Swing Time

Last week I read and completed Swing Time by Zadie Smith. This was my first Zadie Smith novel and I think this was a wonderful introduction to her work. Based on reviews I've read, it seems like this isn't the book for everyone, and for readers who have read more of Smith's work, it may not be her best. I really enjoyed my time reading this novel, though, and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to let you know what I liked it so much!

Swing Time chronicles the life of our narrator, whose name is not revealed throughout the duration of the novel, from early childhood all the way through adulthood. Our narrator lives her life extremely interested in dance and performing and aspires to dance professionally, but her mother who is more of an advocate for a traditional education path and hopes that our narrator pursues a life of advocacy and politics, thinking that is how our narrator will make a positive impact on this world, does not approve of our narrator's dreams. Our narrator's childhood friend, Tracey, however, is encouraged to pursue the dance and performance path by her family, and eventually the two go their separate ways as they grow older and find new directions in life.

Later in life, our narrator finds herself working in the entertainment industry as the assistant to an Australian pop star, Aimee, who is someone our narrator admired while growing up. Aimee wants to open a school for girls in West Africa, and our narrator finds herself flying between London, New York, and the site of the new school to help not only with the establishment of the "Illuminated Academy for Girls", but with every aspect of Aimee's life, while totally neglecting her own. The novel switches between our narrator's childhood and her adult life as Aimee's assistant, until the story eventually meets in the middle, creating a full chronological story.

This is a story I really enjoyed reading. While the pacing of this book is fairly slow (this is definitely a novel you need to take your time with in order to fully appreciate it), I really enjoyed returning to it time after time and reading about how our narrator's life progressed while connecting the dots of the storyline. I can definitely see why people would not like this book - it is an extremely slow burn, and many have criticized it for being a bit too wordy, not really saying too much with the massive amount of writing within the pages. I would have to say I disagree with that. I feel like every word of this book played an important role in the telling of the overall story, whether that role was small or large. This is a book that I think you need to have a lot of patience to read, and something that you need to dive into while ignoring the rest of the world for a while. I don't think you can really appreciate it any other way.

As I said at the beginning of this review, this was my first Zadie Smith read, so I don't have a lot to go off of to judge her writing as a whole. However, what I really appreciated about Swing Time was that it felt like Smith really trusted me as a reader to figure things out without her having to point out in great detail what was going out. When writers are able to make me feel this way when I am reading their books, it is always something that I admire. In many parts of this book, Smith showed the reader what was going on instead of telling us. (Isn't that something they always teach in writing class? Show not tell? Or is that theatre?) This is one of the few books that I noticed that was what was happening and I loved that about Swing Time. Smith trusts the intelligence of her readers with this work and I truly appreciated that while reading this novel.

In addition to enjoying Smith's writing in this work, I really enjoyed spending time with the characters. Each character, I think, was fairly believable. Everyone had their own complex and unique flaws, personalities, opinions, motivations, and aspirations. The way each character intertwined in one another's lives seemed very realistic to me. The way Smith presented each person really worked in my mind which is so important in such a character driven story like this. Having characters that seemed like they could be people in anyone's life really made the story as rich and layered as it was and that was something that needed to happen in order for this story to work for me.

While this story is very much so the story of our narrators life, there are so many important themes woven throughout the pages. You'll get themes of love and marriage, money and status, fame and success, race and cultural appropriation, family and friendship, and all of these these are framed in a juxtaposition of wealth and poverty and what that means in different cultures. Smith presented these themes in a really interesting way that you can't really sum up in a matter of a few words (it's really something you have to read yourself to see), but each theme is prominent in almost every chapter of this book which made for a really rich reading experience.

I don't think this book is for everyone and I definitely understand the criticism of Swing Time. As I've said a few times in this review, you really need to be in a place where you're ready for a slower read and have the patience to let the story unfold before you instead of trying to rush through it. If you can put yourself in that place, I think you can really enjoy this book and appreciate it for what it is.

Overall, I gave this book...

4/5 Stars!

I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of Zadie Smith's work in the future. 

If you have any suggestions of something you've enjoyed of hers, let me know in the comments! :)

Book Review: Am I Normal Yet?

During #ReadORama last week, I picked up Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne! I really enjoyed it and I don't see too many people talking about this book, so I thought I'd write up a full spoiler-free blog review for this title to hopefully help folks decide whether or not they would like to pick it up. Keep reading for more details on what this book is about and my thoughts on this read!

Am I Normal Yet? follows our protagonist, Evie, who is living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. At sixteen, Evie is recovering from a severe OCD episode that put her in the hospital in her early teens and working toward coming off her medication and living as a "normal" teenager. When she begins college (this is the UK, so college = the last two years before univeristy), she's hoping to have a new start to her life - making new friends, dating boys, and being over all what Evie feels is "normal". Because she is striving so hard to be normal, she hides her mental illness from everyone - her friends, her crushes, her parents, and even her therapist - even though she is noticing her old behaviors are creeping back in. This is the story of Evie navigating living with her mental illness while still trying to live her life.

I really enjoyed this book. As someone who also lives with anxiety, I related to Evie on a lot of levels. There are times in this story where Evie would feel frustrated with herself and her mental illness and would question why she couldn't just be "normal" like everyone else is, and I would just be thinking, "GIRRRL I FEEL YOU". When I was a teenager, I was first starting to feel my anxiety for the first time, yet I did not have the language to identify what was happening to me and why I would feel the ways that I felt. I'm sure if I picked this book up as an 18 year old, I would have LOVED it.

This book is an extremely honest look into what it is like to live with mental illness. It puts you right into the mind of Evie, who often feels confused, frustrated, and lost through her recovery journey. It does not hold anything back. This book is sometimes exhausting and extremely difficult to read because you're often questioning along with Evie why some things that should be easy are so much more difficult for her, but I love that Bourne wrote Evie's point of view in this way because that is what it is like to live with mental illness. You are constantly exhausted and are constantly wondering why things have to be so hard when they are seemingly so difficult for everyone else. I'm not sure if Bourne herself lives with mental illness, but it is clear she did her research for this book.

This book is also a great introduction to feminism, especially for teen girls. Evie and her two friends, Lottie and Amber, discuss feminist issues in depth in several scenes which I think is absolutely brilliant. Bourne presents it in a way that doesn't detract from the central story, either, but enhances it which was so important to make it effective. You can see Evie interweave these new ideas into her life throughout the book which I thought was so great to see. Not only is the book a great read to understand mental health, but it's also a great read to understand what it means to be a woman in our society. A+!

As I said above, I think I would have really enjoyed this book as a teenager, and that's because it's written in a really accessible teen voice. There were times when I would get frustrated with Evie and her friends because of the way they would speak to each other, but then I realized that is probably how I spoke with my friends when I was a teenager - constantly ragging on and poking fun at one another, while acting extremely proud and "cool" to save face*. I had to constantly transport myself back to high school and remember how I would act when I was at that age, and then I had a better understanding of Evie and her friends. That's what made me realize I might be just out of the right age range to really appreciate this book. I know 18-year-old Riley would have loved it, though!

I really love that this book is geared toward a YA audience. I think if I picked this up when I was first experience anxiety without knowing what was going on, it would have been a total saving grace when I felt like I was drowning and no one was understanding what I was going through. I hope that teenagers today who are going through what I went through when I was that age are able to get their hands on this book and are able to feel comforted in the fact that there are people out there who get it, that they are not alone, and that there are people out there that will love and support them regardless of what they might be going through.

Overall, I gave this book...

4/5 Stars!

I think this is a really important read for the YA age group and would definitely recommend giving it a read, especially if you're interesting in learning more about what it's like to live with mental illness. This book is the first in The Spinster Club series, and I definitely think I'll be continuing on!

Have you read Am I Normal Yet? What did you think? 

Let me know in the comments!

*I'm definitely not saying that all teenagers act this way, but I can say for myself that I and many of the people at my high school acted this way!

May 2017 Reading Wrap Up!

Despite yet another busy month (this time in my personal life!), I managed to read quite a bit this month! I read a lot of books that I liked this month. Only one book I read this month was below 4 stars which of course I am thrilled about! I'm really happy with my reading for May and I'm looking forward to a more low-key summer to read much, much more!

READING STATS FOR MAY

Participated in 1 readathon (#BookBuddyAThon)

Completed 3 reading challenges

Completed non-fiction, classic, diverse, and TBR jar reads

Read 109 pages of Infinite Jest

2,226 pages read

7 books completed

BOOKS COMPLETED

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Physical copy, 1/5

TBR Jar pick for May

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Physical copy, 4/5

Reading challenge fulfilled: A book with a title that starts with "the"

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

Physical copy, 4/5

Classic pick for May

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Review)

Physical copy, 5/5

Reading challenge fulfilled: A 2017 release
Buddy read with Michael

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Physical copy, 4/5

Diverse pick for May

A Dog's Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

Physical copy, 4/5

Reading challenge fulfilled: A book with an animal on the cover

Hamilton: the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McArter

Physical copy, 5/5

Non-fiction pick for May

Book Review: The Hate U Give

During the #BookBuddyAThon last week, my book buddy Michael and I chose to read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas as our buddy read. This book absolutely blew me away and I am so glad that we picked this book to read together. I knew I had to take time to write a full review on this book to encourage folks to pick up this book because I truly believe everyone needs to read it, especially if you live in the United States.

Angie Thomas has written one of the most, if not THE most, important YA contemporary novels of the last decade. Many people are marketing this book as being inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, and while that may be true, I would say that that is an extremely reductive description of this book. The Hate U Give is honestly so much more than that. This book captures the many struggles of people of color, especially black people, in the United States, specifically focused around police brutality, the killing of unarmed black people by American police officers, and the lack of justice that is brought to this community a regular basis though our justice system. Thomas has done sure a huge service to the world and especially the United States by writing this book and has written about this very delicate topic in a way that is accessible to anyone to get a glimpse into what it means to be black in the United States today. White folks need to read this book and understand what the people in our country are going through every. single. day.

The Hate U Give is narrated by our protagonist, Starr Carter, a black teenager in modern day America who lives two different lives - her life at home in Garden Heights, a low-income, gang ridden city, and her life at school in Williamson, an extremely affluent, upper class, predominantly black town. Starr struggles on a regular basis with what version of herself she should be in these two environments, fearing that being too much of herself would label her as a "thug" in Williamson and label her as "snobby" or "white" in Garden Heights. Starr is often exhausted by constantly putting on a front for her peers - something PoC struggle with regularly in the US. After fleeing a fight that breaks out at a party Starr attends in Garden Heights, she and her friend Khalil are pulled over by a white police officer on an empty street. Starr witnesses Khalil get shot and killed by this officer, and her story takes off from there.

I see Starr in so many of the students that I work with. I work at a predominantly white institution (PWI) and the majority of our students come from very affluent backgrounds. A lot of our students of color feel this same identity struggle that Starr goes through on a daily basis. Many of the students I work with have witnessed instances of police brutality first-hand. Many of the students I work with have lost friends or family members in their home towns and have had to deal with the same level of grief Starr deals with in this story. This book hits so close to the stories I hear from my students on far too regular of a basis and my heart broke over and over again for them while I was reading Starr's journey. Books never make me cry, but while I was reading this story I definitely felt a lump in my throat, a knot in my stomach, and burning in my eyes. It was all just so real and appalling that things like this happen every day in the US.

Not only did Thomas write Starr's story in a way that the reader could really connect with her, but she wrote her supporting characters in a way that really painted a whole picture. The details of each characters' back story is so rich and detailed that you could tell that Thomas really took her time with this novel and did not take the responsibility of telling this extremely important story lightly. I could feel the pain of Seven's need to take care of her sisters that live in an abusive household. I could feel the struggle of Maverick trying to take care of his family by breaking ties with his gang and taking responsibility for the time he missed while in prison. I could feel the bond between Maya and Starr strengthen when they finally became fed up with Hailey's ignorance. I identified so much with Chris who strived to understand Starr and her life in Garden Heights and his willingness to use his white privilege to go to bat for her and her family. Every character's story painted a full picture and I really appreciate the care Thomas took when telling this story.

I also greatly appreciate Thomas being completely unapologetic in telling Starr's story. As the reader, you felt the anger and frustration and pain Starr felt. You were there right along with her and the only way you were able to do that was because Thomas was 100% honest with her own experience as a woman of color living in the United States. Though this is a work of fiction, you can tell that 99% of this story is true. The situations are true. The feelings are true. I truly appreciate Thomas's vulnerability in telling this story because it would not have had the same impact if she held anything back.

Of course, I gave this book a...

5/5 Stars

It would feel so wrong to give this book any other rating. The Hate U Give is so timely and so important. It creates discussion in the YA community about this topic and honest dialogue on racism and police brutality at the YA age is so essential. It is part of our nation's history and it is part of our nation's present, and if we don't continue to speak honestly about it, it will continue to exist. The more we talk about it on every age level, the more we can work together as a society to fight it. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.

Book Review: You in Five Acts

This week I read You in Five Acts by Una La Marche. This is a book that was gifted to me by Brett at Christmas and a book I had never heard of before opening it up on Christmas morning. I picked it up this week during the Read-O-Rama readathon and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am pretty shocked that this book isn't getting more hype in the YA literature community because it seems like the perfect mixture of drama, romance, and self-discovery that every YA lover would fall head over heels for. I was very pleasantly surprised by this book and because it hasn't gotten that much attention I thought I would write a non-spoiler review for other readers to learn more!

You in Five Acts chronicles the final semester of five students at a prestigious New York performing arts high school - Joy, Diego, Ethan, Dave, and Liv. The story is told in each character's perspective and each character has a "you" - a love interest that is one of the other main characters. Each character is trying to figure out what they will be doing after they graduate (college or company?) and of course there are many challenges along the way such as unrequited love, racial identity struggles, familial issues, potential career-ending injuries, and a spiraling drug addiction, among others. Every character has their own issues to overcome and we get a sneak peak into the things that they are hiding from one another.

I thought that the setting of the performing arts high school was done very well - not saying that it was necessarily accurate to the life inside a performing arts high school, but I enjoyed the fact that it wasn't the sole focus of the book. This is an extremely character driven story and each character has so much more to them than their education or careers that it was very important that those things didn't take away from who the character was as a person. I think La Marche did a really wonderful job of not distracting the reader from the character with the setting of the school.

La Marche wrote the five main characters so well that it was really hard not to grow attached to them. Throughout this book I felt the nerves Joy was feeling through her audition. I felt the longing Diego had for his "you". I felt Ethan's frustrated for a love not reciprocated. It was so easy to connect with these characters on more than a surface level because La March wrote their experiences in a way that you could very easily put yourself into their shoes. Their triumphs were my triumphs and their tragedies were my tragedies. I absolutely LOVE when an author can make me feel that way about the characters that I spend time with while I'm reading.

There were only two things holding me back from giving this book the full five stars. The first was that while I could relate to these characters and their experiences, it really felt that what these characters were going through and how they were processing each situation was more realistic for college students than high school seniors. Not to say that high school seniors can't act/think/talk the way the main characters did in this book, but its a lot less likely that they would vs. a college senior. I kept picturing 22 year olds going through these experiences (maybe it's because I work with college students on a daily basis?) and kept needing to remind myself that they were in high school. This definitely was something that bothered me and distracted me throughout the book.

The second thing holding me back from a five-star rating was that there were references to current events sprinkled throughout the book that kept pulling me out of the story. When I'm reading about a fictional world and current events are woven into the plot line, it takes a lot for an author to execute this in a way where I won't be taken out of the story. Unfortunately, La Marche was not successful at this. There were references to events of police brutality to PoC, the Charleston shooter, and Donald Trump's wall along the Mexican border, all of which completely took me out of the story and had me thinking about the actual current events. I think that is more about me as a reader, though, as these are things that I feel emotionally connected to and things that I do think about on a regular basis. I'm not sure if a reader who doesn't feel connected to those events would have the same experience, but unfortunately I had to take time to refocus on the plot when jumping back into the story.

Other than those two things, I thought You in Five Acts was a solid YA novel that I really think deserves a lot more attention. I am really happy Brett picked this book out for me because I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to a lover of YA literature and the performing arts.

Overall I gave this book...

4.5/5 Stars!

Have you read You in Five Acts? If so, what did you think?

Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: We Gon' Be Alright

This month I chose to read We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang for my non-fiction read and you guys - this book needs to be required reading for Americans in this day and age. This book doesn't have a ton of reviews on GoodReads which is a total shame and because of that I thought I'd do a review here on my blog so you all can get a better sense of what you would be walking into when you pick up with book. As it's non-fiction, there aren't really "spoilers" in this review, so read ahead to find out a bit more.

We Gon' Be Alright was published in September of 2016 so the topics discussed in the essays within this book are extremely relevant. Jeff Chang takes an extremely raw approach to these essays, combining personal accounts of activists, people and communities of color, and personal stories of his own relationship with race with hard data and statistics regarding the oppression of people in the United States. Each essay focuses on race in a different contexts, from student protests on university campuses, to the erasure of black and lantinx culture in society, to an absolutely gripping essay on Ferguson and the killing of Mike Brown.

This book had me gasping, bulging my eyes wide, and holding my stomach from how much it ached while reading this book. I had these reactions because these things are REAL. They happen every day to people in our country and it's be happening for hundred of years. It makes me sick to my stomach to read these stories but they are so necessary to hear and learn from.

In the essay Hands Up, there is a quote that reflects what I often think about as a white woman in our country. Regarding teaching her children about what the definition of justice following the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO, a mother shared the following thought:

"These are not the kinds of things that white people in the country would ever had to talk to their children about."

This is constantly in the back of my mind. As a white woman, I do not have to worry about being discriminated against because of the color of my skin, especially not from government officials or law enforcement. And the woman in the quote above is absolutely right - my parents never had to explain the idea of justice to me as a child. They never had to tell me to act a certain way around law enforcement. They never had to teach me how to not get arrested or even killed by a police officer simply by walking down the street. That in itself is the definition of white privilege.

That is just one of MANY thoughts I had while reading this book. This is an extremely thought provoking and emotional read, made all the more so by the fact that it is a non-fiction piece of literature that is backed up with statistics, data, and research. While I thoroughly enjoyed this book (it had me gripped the entire time), I know a book like this would be much more beneficial to so many other individuals. Folks who do not have the opportunity to hold social justice dialogue in their everyday life like I do. Folks who do not have the opportunity to interact with people different then them on a regular basis than I do. Folks that are altogether less familiar with the subject of race than I am. If I could hand this out to everyone in the United States I would do so without blinking an eye because the concepts and events discussed in this book are such vital knowledge in today's world.

Of course, I rated this book 

5/5 stars

and would 100% recommend you go and pick it up. As it's a newer release it's still a bit pricey, but I think it is totally worth the money. I read a library copy personally, but would love to own this book and will likely add it to my collection with my next haul.

Have you read this book? What did you think? 

Do you have a book that you would consider required reading for folks in your community? 

Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: The Wrath & the Dawn

Over the course of #AYearAThon I read The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Adieh. I had such high hopes for this book when I bought it and with the literally THOUSANDS of 5-star ratings on GoodReads I thought I was going to be in for a wonderful reading experience. I. Was. Wrong. So, of course, I needed to do a full-fledged review of this book. This review WILL contain spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk.

The Wrath & the Dawn is a retelling of Tales from 1,001 Nights by Anonymous. Our main character, Shahrzad, elects to marry the boy-king Khalid after he takes the lives of dozens of his brides that dawn following their wedding, including her best friend Shiva. Her motivation? To avenge her best friend and murder the king. The trick is to survive long enough to figure out how to pull off this murder. Seems like an interesting enough premise, right? I thought so, too.

The only thing I enjoyed about this story is the romance between Shahrzad and Khalid. The way Adieh wrote their relationship was very sweet to me, and they seemed like two individuals who could realistically fall for one another. Shahrzad is a fiery and outspoken woman while Khalid is more subdued and closed off. Khalid falling for Shahrzad, someone who speaks the truth no matter how dangerous it might be, made sense to me after the string of brides who would do anything, whether it is in their character or not, to stay alive. Khalid saw Shahrzad as a breath of fresh air in this way, which is extremely believable to me. I did not, however, understand why Shahrzad, who supposedly wanted to seek revenge for her best friend, so easily fell for Khalid (literally days after they married), the man who MURDERED the person she describes as her "light". If someone murdered my best friend I don't think I'd be falling in love with them.... that's just me though.

One of the main things that really bothered me while reading this book was all of the side-characters and their stories. Side-characters usually enhance a story and creates a more dynamic background for the main story line. That was not the case at all for me with this book. While it made a lot of sense for Shahrzad's family to be involved in the story and be concerned for her, their integration into the plot was done so poorly. Their involvement in the story was so infrequent and scattered, there was virtually no relationship building between Shahrzad and her family members (such as giving us background of Shahrzad growing up with her family, stories from the past, etc.), and the author just ultimately did a really poor job of making me care for these family members and their relationship to Shahrzad. If you are going to give a main character a family, you really need to spend more time an enriching their relationship in some way so the reader cares about those characters almost as much as the main character. Honestly, the story could have been much better without them.

Shahrzad's relationship with her handmaiden, Despina, was very strange to me. I really liked what Adieh was trying to do with their relationship (making them more friends and confidants more than a servant/Queen relationship), but their relationship just didn't read the way a friendship should read. Despina and Shahrzad were rude to each other but still told each other secrets, would call each other names but still confide in one another.... it just didn't make sense to me. There's also a Despina story arc where she's sleeping with the head of the guard and she's now pregnant.... really didn't need that aspect of the story. There was zero reason to care about her pregnancy or her side relationship with the guard and reading it was a big waste of time.

There was also a magical realism aspect of this book that really went nowhere. Apparently there is some magic in Shahrzad's blood that turns a carpet this random vagrant gives to her as a gift into a magic carpet and it was literally only talked about in one scene. Like... what the hell? Wouldn't you want to know more about that if you were Shahrzad? It just seems like she wrote it off way too easily. I have no idea if it's explored further in the sequel (and I really don't care) but it really just seemed like "What the carpet can move when I step on it? Lol oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ". I think the story could have taken a really interesting turn if it focused more on the magic in this world, but it really just got tossed to the side which made it seem pointless.

Ultimately, this book was all over the place. It seemed like Adieh wanted to do 400 different things with the story and couldn't commit to any of those things, was adding in stories that were really unnecessary, and just ultimately made me lose interest. I really had to push myself to continue to read this book and I think if I wasn't participating in a readathon it would have taken me weeks to get this book read. I wouldn't recommend this book personally, but it seems like a lot of people really enjoyed it (which I don't think I'll ever understand) so maybe give it a try if anything I said sounded interesting to you.

Overall I gave this book...

2/5 Stars!

Have you read The Wrath & the Dawn? If so, what did you think?

Let me know in the comments!