If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period

This middle grades book has been on my want to read list for awhile, so I’m glad i finally found the time to read it!  This middle grade novel is all about changing friendships and finding your place to belong, which are both very important to tweens and teens.

Kirsten cannot wait for seventh grade to start, if only to get away from her parents constant fighting and her mother’s concerns over her weight gain.  But she’s not prepared for her best friend to leave her for the popular crowd, leaving Kirsten feel like she doesn’t fit anywhere.  Walk is nervous for his first day of school, especially since he’s one of the few Black kids at his new private school.  He feels confident academically, but socially he feels like he’s a little out of his element.  He’s surprised that popular Brianna can get away with anything while people look at him with suspicion.  When an extra credit assignment brings Walk and Kirsten together, they find that maybe having a few nice, loyal friends is all you need to survive middle school.

This book pulled at my teacher heart-strings because I see many kids come into middle school trying to navigate the social minefields.  What happens when your friends outgrow you?  What happens when you’re the new kid?  How do you know who to befriend and trust?  What happens when your parents start fighting all the time?  Emotions in middle schoolers run high (remember, hormones), but they cannot be dismissed as trivial.  This story highlights the trials of middle school and all the mixed emotions that go along with it.  I was pleasantly surprised at this quick read.

All is Fair

This WWI YA spy novel was a pleasant surprise!  Most of the historical war stories seem to be about WWII, which is fine, but I’ve found myself burned out by the overexposure. But with this book revolving around WWI, it reminded me of early Downton Abbey.

Lady Thomasina—Mina—is called back home by her father to help with the war effort.  Her family estate, one of the only large estates that have not been turned into a convalescence home, seems empty with her mother away caring for family, her father’s secretive job in London, her brother Crispin missing in action, and her sister Margaret’s nervous temperament.  But Mina never expected “helping” would involve her hosting a play for the local airmen, stumbling upon a spy in the household, and a secretive American soldier named Lucas.  When secret plans start to go wrong, Mina must prove that she isn’t just a spoiled rich girl…she’s a girl with spunk and many hidden strengths.

I liked that this book had a strong female lead.  Mina is a very well-developed character that you can identify with, especially her need to be of use when everyone sees her as a silly girl. I also liked how it showed the old ways of life for England’s rich versus the changing landscape because of war.  Like I said previously, the forced decorum and social structure that is then challenged by the war reminds me of Downton Abbey, so maybe that helped color my perspective of this novel.  It’s very YA appropriate, especially for people who like spies and intrigues.  I found it to be a very well-done novel!

**Thank you Net Galley for this free read in exchange for an honest review.**

The Everlasting Rose

I read The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton earlier this year because she was coming to ReadUp Greenville (the local YA author’s conference).  The book definitely took some getting used to since it’s fantasy world takes a little getting used to (read the review here).  However, as the story goes along, you do get sucked into Camille’s tale.

The Everlasting Rose continues the story where the last story left off.  On the run and hiding from beauty-obsessed Princess Sophia, Camille and her friends must find a way to try and stop Sophia’s reign of terror.  Camille is determined to find all her Belle sisters (girls who grew up with special talents—arcana—to change people looks and personalities) before they are abused by Sophia, who wants to control all beauty changes in the country.  But Camille cannot do it alone and reluctantly accepts help from the Spiders, an underground web of women who reject beauty treatments and want to purge the empire of it’s beauty obsession.

I think I liked this one more than the first only because it had more espionage and spying with the first book focusing more on setting up the fantasy world and it’s infatuation with beauty.  Camille, her sisters Amber and Edel, and her guard Remy are all wanted criminals, so their plotting and scheming to get away from Princess Sophia—who has eyes and ears everywhere—was interesting to see.  The one part that was a little bit of a let down was the ending.  It seemed rushed and hasty.  I still had many unanswered questions, but it feels like it could be the end of the series…maybe?

Overall, it was an enjoyable YA fantasy read.

**Thank you Net Galley for this free copy in exchange for an honest review.**

The Kiss Quotient

I had high hopes for this book going into it since I’d seen many, many reviews and hype for this book…and it didn’t disappoint!

This contemporary love story is about Stella, a thirty-year-old  with Asperger’s.  Her ability to be singularly focused, scheduled, and driven is wonderful at her job in econometrics (predicting buying trends by using data and coding) but not so great when trying to find a compatible boyfriend.  With her mother’s bluntness about wanting her to get married soon and her empty social calendar, she decides she needs some help.  So she did what any girl would do:  hire a male escort to teach her how to improve her romantic life.  She finds Michael (who has emotional baggage of his own), proposes a deal to meet up weekly to work out her romantic deficiencies, and soon finds herself invested in her fake relationship more than she ever thought she could be.

I guess what I really loved about this novel was the fact that she acknowledges her quirkiness but it’s not her only defining trait.  She’s still kind and trusting and inquisitive and just like most women who want to find someone to connect with.  It shows that everyone feels self-conscious about some part of themselves, even people who seem perfect from the outside like Michael.  I also liked how the point of view changes in each chapter between her and Michael.  It makes it feel like a fuller story knowing that her infatuation turned love isn’t just a one-sided affair.

Disclaimer:  This is an adult novel.  An adult romance novel.  With sex (regular and consensual, but still a little graphic in nature).  I mean, the whole premise of the novel is her trying to hook up with a male prostitute, so you’re not going into this one with false pretenses.

The Matchmaker's List

I’d seen this book all around, and with part of my new year’s reading resolution being to read more diverse books, I thought this would fit right into my February rom-com reads.  However, it fell a little flat for me.

Raina is almost thirty, her best friend is engaged, and she’s still secretly pining for her ex-boyfriend who’s been out of her life for years.  She reluctantly agrees to let her Indian grandma play matchmaker.  Hence, the matchmaker’s list of pre-approved eligible bachelors.  As Raina goes on one bad date after another, she finds out that her ex is moving back to town, her best friend is trying to push a groomsman at her, and Raina is at her wits end.  Even in Canada, her Indian culture of marrying to find fulfillment rubs her the wrong way, but how do you tell the ones who love you the most that they’re making you miserable?

I guess with the name like the Matchmaker’s List, I thought most of the story would be Raina going through her grandmother’s list, when in actuality that lasts the first fifty or so pages.  After that, it starts to get a little off track…like her grandmother signing her up for an IndianSingles.com profile without telling her or her not correcting her grandmother when she asks if she’s a lesbian (which leads to another whole drama in itself).  By the end, it does all come back together in a very predictable “I know that was going to happen” way, but some of the choices in the middle seemed a little off from the original story premise.

I did enjoy learning about another culture and their expectations around marriage.  I also liked how the problems Raina created in the story forced her traditional, close-knit community to shed some of its biased nature.  There were redeemable qualities about the book, however, it wasn’t a must-read, in my opinion.

Comics Will Break Your Heart

When I saw this advanced reader’s copy on Net Galley, I knew I had to snag it!  I was already familiar with the author, Faith Erin Hicks, through some of her graphic novels, Friends With Boys and Brain Camp.  Even though this one was not a graphic novel, I was excited to see her take on a modern-day Romeo & Juliet story revolving around…comic books.

Miriam lives in the small Canadian town of Sandford, a place that feels small yet familiar to Miriam.  She dreams of leaving to go off to college but is afraid because all her friends will be staying behind.  On top of her college worries, her best friend Raleigh is becoming more distant the more she spends with her hard-edged boyfriend.  One comfort is working at the Emporium of Wonders, a book and comics shop.  Not only can she save money for college, but she can also feel connected to her grandfather, the illustrator of the original TomorrowMen comic books who signed away his half of the TomorrowMen fortune to his business partner.

Weldon is new to Sandford and is living with his aunt and uncle for the summer because of his poor decisions that keep getting him suspended from school.  His father, the owner of the TomorrowMen comic characters, is also busy overseeing the new TomorrowMen action movie and has no time to control his out-of-control son.  Weldon, bored, finds the Emporium of Wonders and by chance meets Miriam.  His interest is peaked, however, once hearing his name Miriam visibly goes cold towards him.  Time and time again, the two find themselves thrown together, but can they get over generations of hostilities between the two families?

I loved just about everything about this YA novel.  Miriam’s uncertainty about leaving her hometown, family, and friends to pursue her college dreams and her troubles navigating her changing friendships.  Weldon’s complicated family relationships (divorced parents who both won’t take him in for the summer or find the time to stop his rebellious antics) and his public facade that many people can’t—or are unwilling—to see through.  They all felt very real and applicable to students today.  Then there’s the who idea of putting aside prejudices against people just because of who their family is.

Yes, it’s Romeo & Juliet, star-crossed lovers, but it also has heart and strength and vulnerability.

Unmarriageable

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

This famous first line by Jane Austen is the launching point for Sonia Kamal’s novel, Unmarriageable, a Pride and Prejudice retelling in Pakistan.  In a modern-day 2000’s culture, many Pakistani girls marry young or find love through family connections and arranged marriages.  This is no different for the five Binat daughters.  Jena and Alys, the oldest two daughters, are in their early thirties and seen as closing in on their marriage expiration dates, until the day the Binat family receives a coveted invitation to a blow-out wedding in their small Pakistani town.  Mrs. Binat believes this is a gift to launch her daughters into the arms of eligible bachelors.  Enter Fahad “Bungles” Bingla and his best friend Valentine Darsee.  As Bungles falls head over heels for Jena, Valentine’s stand-offish manner rubs Alys the wrong way, but she finds herself thrown into situations with him again and again.  With Bungles’ interfering sisters—Hammy and Sammy—and Valentine’s disapproval, Alys can see that Jena has a hard road to climb if she wants to keep her demur reputation.

This book is very much in the same vein as the original—the conniving mother, the love-at-first-sight, the misinterpretations, the family dynamics—just set in Pakistani culture.  Having never been to Pakistan and not read much literature from there, it was nice to read it from a Pakistani author’s perspective.  She did a wonderful job showing how themes bridge cultures and how classics can be reimagined with the same essence as the original.  Kamal says it best in her acknowledgements at the end:

“In reading literature through a Pakistani lens, it seemed to me that all cultures were concerned with the same eternal questions and that people were more similar to one another than they were different.  As Alys Binat says in Unmarriageable, ‘Reading widely can lead to an appreciation of the universalities across cultures.’”